The Most Bullish Thing About Bitcoin | Alex Thorn

Summary

What Bitcoin Did – The Most Bullish Thing About Bitcoin | Alex Thorn
Host: Danny Knowles | Guest: Alex Thorn
Date: August 5, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the current state of Bitcoin in 2026, focusing on the “summer doldrums” of the market, Bitcoin’s long-term resilience, demand and supply dynamics, links between AI and Bitcoin investing trends, and the impact of regulatory clarity. Danny and Alex unpack whether recent buyers like Michael Saylor or high-profile endorsements have materially altered Bitcoin’s trajectory, why cycles seem less parabolic, and how ongoing legal, policy, and technology shifts could re-catalyze adoption.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Current Market Sentiment & Cycle Analysis

• The market is in a “bottom of the bear market,” with energy centered on regulatory clarity and summer trading malaise. Both equities and Bitcoin feel “not particularly bullish” but still exciting due to ongoing narratives.
  (00:27–01:39)
• Alex shares he trusts “vibes” and on-chain metrics derived from Bitcoin history to gauge market bottoms—indicators suggest a bottom is forming, with dormant coin movements diminishing, reducing sell pressure.
  (02:14–03:56)

2. Why This Cycle Feels 'Different'

• Danny notes previous cycles “ran early” with ETF launches, but price peaks came “too soon.” The classic parabolic post-halving run hasn’t materialized as spectacularly as before, flattening expectations.
  (04:08–04:45)
• Metrics like supply exhaustion and repeated bounces from the 58–65k price range create an ambiguous, sideways mood.
  (04:45–05:41)

3. The Supply and Demand Equation

• Dormant coins have been waking up in record numbers in 2024–2025, but this is now abating. Fewer previously unmoved coins are re-entering circulation, a classic sign of a market bottom.
  (05:41–07:54)
• Alex: “Who is left now that wants to sell at 65? I think it’s materially diminished seller at this point.” (07:54)
• The demand side is complicated by competing narratives, especially the AI investment boom siphoning capital from Bitcoin.
  (08:33–09:00; 21:17–22:30)

4. Did Saylor & High-Profile Buyers Change Bitcoin’s Path?

• Alex poses: “Would the bitcoin price be higher if Saylor had never bought bitcoin?”
  Neither host nor guest decisively answers—the consensus is Saylor and ETFs may have replaced, not added, demand that would have materialized anyway.
  • Alex: “Maybe it hasn’t actually made a huge increment.” (15:02)
  • Danny: “The people that are buying the treasury companies … probably could just buy bitcoin.” (15:29)
• Michael Saylor’s approach now mixes permanent treasury buying with digital credit products, shifting his influence—“he is structurally practically incapable of not buying the top… he needs the exuberance because that’s what creates the premium on his stock.” (20:35)
• “It’s not like you’ll see headlines that are like bitcoin rises on strategy’s big buy. It’s actually the opposite.” (21:16)

5. AI, Frontier Models, and Macro Backdrop

• AI’s explosive capital demand has impacted Bitcoin flows, but as AI investment cools, Bitcoin could benefit from rotation.
  (21:17–22:31)
• The hosts riff on the geopolitical “AI arms race,” government restrictions, and the inevitability of AI models being “capped” due to safety or national security.
  • Danny: “I think it’s almost certainly inevitable at some point… there is absolutely a model too smart to let everyone use.” (29:32)
  • Alex: “They [governments] could start saying which models each person can use … coming.” (33:40)

6. The Evolving Political and Regulatory Arena

• Legal Case: “Noah Doe” targets nearly 39,000 dormant Bitcoin addresses for “abandonment” under New York law—potentially including Satoshi’s coins. The case is as much about legal theory as it is about the practical impossibility of seizing Bitcoin keys.
  • Alex: “If they have this case, they could send it to the bitcoin developers and harass them about it.” (61:16)
  • Danny: “I don’t think that dormancy of coins on chain is indicia of lostness.” (62:18)
• Regulatory Clarity (“Clarity Act”): Provides certainty, especially for institutional players, and is designed to insulate Bitcoin and crypto law from regulatory whiplash.
  • Danny: “If what you want is greater access by capital to bitcoin… you need regulation. You need something that businesses can feel comfortable, the rules won’t change.” (65:10)
  • Alex: Inclusion of protections for software devs (esp. non-custodial wallets), self-custody, and a legal stance that coin dormancy ≠ abandonment. (67:41; 68:28)
  • But congressional timing means passage is a “coin flip”—crunch time is late July/early August: “We’re in the last minute of stoppage time at this point as well.” (74:41)

7. The Narrative of Bitcoin as 'Self-Sovereign Money’

• The core bullish case is Bitcoin as uncensorable, self-custodied money:
  • “If you have assets that you like to possess yourself, you should have bitcoin because … it is money that they can’t take from you.” (00:02; revisited at 47:41)
  • “I just like it as money that I can control myself… it can’t be taken away... storing value over time … nothing anyone can do to get it.” (47:11)

8. The Nature of Bitcoin Cycles & Social Perception

• Discussion of why current cycles haven’t produced explosive growth like 2017, and how growing mainstream awareness could blunt parabolic moves (“diminishing returns”).
  • Alex: “Who in 2026 is going to be googling the word bitcoin?” (42:13)
  • Cycles require not just price pain, but “time pain”—people get angry, bored, walk away, and eventually rediscover excitement when narratives shift. (24:30)

9. Energy, Mining, and Sustainability Debates

• The shift in public perception of Bitcoin mining’s energy use—now recognized as supporting grid stability and energy innovation, especially as clean/renewable sources scale.
  • Alex: “We can’t grow and be prosperous with capping our energy use. Energy abundance is the way.” (37:06)
  • Nuclear energy lauded as underused, misunderstood, and a crucial baseload source. (38:43–39:56)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On potential for renewed bullishness:
  “You’re going to hear about like, the debasement story is going to come back and all of a sudden, you’re going to look at bitcoin. It’s going to be at like 90k and everyone’s going to be like, oh no, I need bitcoin because of the storm. And all of a sudden, it’s just everybody remembers why they liked bitcoin in the first place.” — Danny (00:02, 23:14)
• On Saylor’s impact:
  “He is structurally, practically incapable of not buying the top … that’s when he gets the leverage to buy.” — Danny (20:35) “Maybe it hasn’t actually made a huge increment…could be replacement for demand, not substantially more demand.” — Alex (15:02)
• On the court battle for ‘abandoned’ coins:
  “They’re trying to get legal title over Satoshi’s coins as well… it is a very clever and interesting and annoying issue.” — Danny (54:43) “What a mess.” — Alex (57:02)
• On regulatory clarity:
  “I like to say … you have the chance for pretty substantial upside if it happens. But downside should be relatively capped, certainly for bitcoin.” — Danny (65:10)
• On energy innovation:
  “We can’t grow and be prosperous with capping our energy use. Energy abundance is the way.” — Alex (37:06)
• On cycles:
  “People just need time to be angry, like sell or whatever. Then get so bored, go away for a while, forget about it. Then, like, get their interest piqued again. Like that just takes time.” — Alex (24:30)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:02–04:45: Current bear market, ETF influences, cycle comparison
• 05:41–08:33: Dormant coins, supply abating, signs of bottom
• 08:33–17:16: Demand side, Saylor’s buying, digital credit, high-profile buyer impact
• 21:17–22:30: AI’s investment boom and effects on bitcoin
• 29:27–33:40: AI arms race, regulatory capping, global balance
• 47:11–49:41: Why self-custody matters, quantum-readiness funding efforts
• 52:17–63:42: Noah Doe legal case and the threat to dormant coins
• 64:06–74:41: What the Clarity Act would do, odds and timeline for passage
• 76:02–78:24: Political landscape, regulatory influence toward/against bitcoin
• 78:20–79:22: Closing thoughts on long-term fundamentals and cyclical nature

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Tone & Final Reflections

The conversation is vibrant but philosophical: both speakers blend personal anecdotes, inside baseball from the bitcoin community, and big-picture macro commentary. Technical, legal, and cultural analysis coalesce to portray Bitcoin as both deeply resilient and perennially under threat from unpredictable actors—be they big personalities, governments, or legal oddities.

Closing Perspective

Danny: “Bitcoin is what we’ll call it. Is it four and a half times above its prior low? The impulses that have driven people to fall in love with bitcoin … [are] accelerating and they’re not going away… TikTok next block.” (78:20–79:14)

Alex: “The thing works, like learn about self custody. … While you wait for the bitcoin bull run, like, practice and get good at your coding.” (79:22–79:45)

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For listeners in the bear market, the bullish case remains: Bitcoin’s resilience, structural changes, and recurring human dramas will, in time, ‘remind everyone why they liked bitcoin in the first place.’

Transcript

[Danny]

If you have assets that you like to possess yourself, you should have bitcoin because, like, it is money that they can't take from you. It is money that you can send anywhere in the world at any time. Really what's likely to happen, there will be an AI that's too powerful to be public. And if China is going to give it to their people and we're not going to give it to ours, of course that disadvantages us. And I bet you would see the US force China to close theirs off too. So much debt being issued to pay for all the data centers, not just here but worldwide. I think you're going to see substantial, like the fiscal, fiscal impulse is going to become substantial. You're going to hear about like, the debasement story is going to come back like, and all of a sudden you're going to look at bitcoin. It's going to be at like 90k and everyone's going to be like, oh no, I need bitcoin because of the storm. And all of a sudden it's just everybody remembers why they liked bitcoin in the first place. And then like, bam, it's no longer in like a bear market. It's sort of just like chugging along.

[Alex]

If I had to ask you, would the bitcoin price be higher if Saylor had never bought bitcoin, what do you think the answer would be? How's it going, man?

[Danny]

I'm really good, man. Good to see you in New York.

[Alex]

Good to see you. I got in 23 hours late, but I'm here.

[Danny]

I can't believe it. I was, I was shocked. What was this, like a 23 hour flight delay?

[Alex]

Was there a, like I saw there was a hurricane in New Jersey.

[Danny]

Oh yeah, I guess there was yesterday. I only caught a glimpse of it from the office, but I guess there was a tornado warning. There was like a thunderstorm that rolled through.

[Alex]

To be fair, I'd rather not be in a plane in the hurricane.

[Danny]

That's true.

[Alex]

What's going on?

[Danny]

I mean it's all, it's all like AI and clarity, clarity act. And just right now in this, this the summer doldrums market that we're in,

[Alex]

bottom of the bear market, we're begging

[Danny]

folks in Washington to bust their butts on our behalf. And it's like a 97 degree swamp down there and we're like, please get it done in the last minute. So it's just a, I would say it's a, it's been an exciting summer. Even though the market has been quite boring, I would say overall. Yeah, I think it's true in both equity. Maybe boring is not the right word, but you know, it's not a particularly bullish moment we find ourselves in. No for bitcoin or for equities really. You know, it's like ebbs and flows. It's always exciting. It's the never ending saga.

[Alex]

So I spend no time in the data I. But all I have is vibes. And when you've been in bitcoin a bit, you kind of vibes kind of work.

[Danny]

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[Alex]

And I do feel like we must be close to a bott.

[Danny]

Yeah, I do too. I put out a report in June that said I looked at the metrics that consistently topped, peaked, spiked at other prior tops and consistently bottomed at other prior bottoms. So I have all these metrics. I basically set Claude code to say go look like in my own database. Which by the way, is what I would recommend. You don't get a lot of hallucinations when you buy put binding constraints on the AI to only use the data you give it.

[Alex]

Right, but what data is that?

[Danny]

So in this case it's like all derived bitcoin metrics. So like everything. If you think of like coin metrics and glass node. Right. Like MVRV and soper and noople and HODL wave data and seller data. Right. And like on chain movements, this is thorn on chain. Yes, literally. And mayor multiple and like moving averages, like all that type of stuff. Right. And I just. And so I created a catalog of which ones reliably mark tops and bottoms. And then of course we go and we look at what. Which of those did. Did the topping indicators hit in October or in and around that top? Have the botting bottoming indicators hit now? And interestingly, of course we didn't. A lot of the topping indicators didn't hit. Some of them hit well before, like after the election and never recovered again. In a way almost like a. So a dampening of the amplitude of the top. And part of my thesis is like that may also cap the downside because the prior bear market bottoms are all like 75 to 85% down. We've not gotten that far and I really don't think we will.

[Alex]

I mean, touch wood, me neither. But that's actually interesting because this ran early with the ETFs in start 24. Right. ETFs like Bitcoin ran then it ran really hard into the Trump election. Do you think we just had everything

[Danny]

a bit too soon, yeah, in a way. Some of the topping indicators hit in the post ETF all time high and never hit again. And so I agree. I mean look, we remember this. I know James Check called it chopsolidation, that old 24, right? New all time high like in February 24th halving I think in April. So first time the new all time high in a cycle came before the having, which is what had everyone asking is this end of the cycle or whatever. Then we chopped for 237 days until the sort of Trump election run up got, I mean we got to like 100 right after that and then we only got to 125 after all of 2025. Right. I mean it just feels like it should have gone higher and frankly this is, people have talked about this too. 2021 felt like it should have gotten higher 100%. So it's kind of like you're in obviously, you know, like whether it's those power law people or whatever, like the, the, the growth is slowing, like the curve is bending towards flatter. But again like if you look at the bottom at the start of 2023 it was like 15 7. Is that where we opened that year, you know, following FTX's collapse? We're at 60. I'm looking at my watch like it's a block clock. We're at six and this one isn't working. Thomas, get this block clock working. Actually it's not even plugged in. That's probably why. So it's purely an art piece. You know, we're, we're at 65k right now. That's materially higher bottom right. And yeah, 58 is held a couple times now. To me it's, I ran a poll at Galaxy among the trading team and the risk and research teams, basically the markets team at galaxy about like two nights ago and I put it in the WhatsApp, our group chat and I was like, is this price action, is it grinding higher, ultimately grinding higher, or is it bear market noise? Like is 58 to 65 like the start of something? And literally like 30 people voted in the poll and it was evenly split, 15, 15 between those two options. So people don't know is it time to be. Is 58 the bottom where we've tested like four times. Personally I like to see it bounce harder off 58 and I'm kind of like in maybe the bear market, you know, maybe set 70, I say okay, call it a clean bounce there now 58. But you know, know 65 is close to 63, which is practically 60, which is 58 in my mind. It's just too close. So I think part of the thesis is that. But a big reason why, you know, I think I can go into the 50s, it could even see a 40, I think is possible. What I wrote, it's not necessarily likely. But every day that it doesn't like go down, it starts to. I mean, who is left to sell? That's the other big part. One of the big things I looked at in that report and I tweet about a lot is like dormant coins moving on chain. Which of course does not always mean a sale, but it often does. I can tell you I haven't moved coins out of my cold storage like setup ever. Yeah, so like we had two of the biggest years ever of like you know, 3, 5, 7, 10 plus year dormant coins waking up in 24 and 25, only rivaled by 2017. But of course 2017 didn't have the volume of like 10 plus year coins. We had a fairly large amount of those last year. As of halfway through this year, we're looking at if it's like the first half, second half mirrors the first half, it'll be less than half the coins at the end of this year. So like it's abating. Right. And I think that supply side dynamic makes it much, much more likely that we've bottomed. And then you just like think through that story. You're talking about ETFs in January 24th and this whole story that we've lived through the last two years. Like if you bought like the ETF build up at the end of 23 or like the ETF launch is in like the 40s or if you bought during chop solidation, you know, which is like 40 to 60 is like you, you're, you're held from a 60k buy in like 2024 till now. You're flat. You've had so many chances to sell even when you, if you didn't like the all time high and you decided to sell once you thought it was going down, we rallied back a bunch of times. We were just at 82.5 just in April of this year, like two months ago, three months ago, like so if you people who felt like when it went to 60, oh crap, I should have sold. They were giving them 30% into like who is left now that wants to sell at 65? I think it's materially diminished seller at this point. That's my guess. So then you asked about the demand side though. Then. Then we have to think about the demand side. And that's.

[Alex]

It's also tricky that like, the demand side is an interesting one because. So I've had this conversation with a few people privately, I don't think I've

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

talked about on the podcast.

[Alex]

If I had to ask you, would the bitcoin price be higher if Saylor had never bought bitcoin, what do you think the answer would be?

[Danny]

That is such a good question. I've not ever asked myself that question. Well, because, I mean, he, he was what, he started buying in summer 2020.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Danny]

And he didn't buy that much in the beginning. And we got to basically this price without him having bought any of that.

[Alex]

Yeah. The big, the big pump last time it got to this price was really Elon Musk buying.

[Danny]

Yeah. I mean, 40k or something. Yeah. And like this is when Michael Rouhani worked at Tesla. Right. And like built out their bitcoin payments thing. And then Elon Rugged by selling some and saying he was testing liquidity in the market. Those are great times. I don't know. I don't know the answer.

[Alex]

Still own bitcoin, though.

[Danny]

Yeah, they. No, no, they own a bunch of bitcoin. I think SpaceX specifically. I don't know. Does Tesla.

[Alex]

Tesla still owns bitcoin.

[Danny]

Well, there you go. I mean, sell it all or anything. But then he, he remember, he said the thing about like that the bitcoin miners need to like become more energy efficient for him to. And of course they remember him having

[Alex]

a debate with Marty about that.

[Danny]

Yeah. And this is like obviously a pretty old debate. I think people that understand energy now, like, it's not really very credible critique of bitcoin mining. They're very supportive to grids and like, you need a lot of electricity.

[Alex]

As soon as I turned up.

[Danny]

Well, yeah, now it's kind of like the target has turned a little bit. It's not quite all the way there, but it's probably about equal to the amount that was. I mean, it wasn't like that mainstream of a criticism for bitcoin mining. I don't know, I got. Because it got kind of mainstream.

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[Alex]

is the facts were always on our side with that. I feel like people like Daniel Batten, Troy Cross did amazing work at dispelling that fud.

[Danny]

Right. And I think, but for Saylor, I mean I think he's done a lot for bitcoin adoption and I think, I also think by the way on the, on the supply side of this current moment, like they've, they've substantially raised cash now I think to mostly like settle any fears that like there'd be like a recursive spiral which I think is

[Alex]

a really good idea from them. I think that's a good move.

[Danny]

Yeah, I mean I think, look, it was so funny though, is a big pivot for them like to, to basically say we're going to actively manage this book.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Danny]

Because he had been, he had designed the entire thing as just a pure like money in the door insta buy. Bitcoin money in the door insta buy. No, like that's what we do. Yeah. And that's why you should own a bitcoin treasury company by the way, because they are like predictable permanent buyers. But he isn't really a bitcoin treasury company by his own admission now he's a digital credit purveyor. Right. So it's a, it's different, has different needs. I mean he didn't have to do the preferred issuances that add this complexity with liabilities before, you know, initially he was just selling MSTR stock when it was trading above the value of his bitcoin and then buying bitcoin with it. But he was able to stack quite a lot using the hell of a lot. Yeah. Using these new vehicles. So I mean look, I really respect strategy and Michael Saylor and one of the things that I am so fascinated by is the creativity they have on the financing side. So he should be thought as one of the world's premier financial engineers.

[Alex]

Everyone thinks I don't like Saylor, which is just not true. And I don't think he's been a negative to bitcoin. But the question I would have is, has his buy side been that instrumental in the sense that without him, obviously he's been a huge buyer over the last few years. As of ETFs, they've been like the two main buyers. Would the bitcoin price be higher or low without the whole treasury company thing ever existing? I think it's a really interesting conversation because if you ask, if I had to just completely guess, obviously no one knows the answer to this, I would say maybe it's the same, maybe it hasn't actually made a huge increment because

[Danny]

also the demand that powered those could have just bought the etf, just bought bitcoin. I think it's. Yeah, I think that's a fair way to think of it, that it could be replacement for demand, not substantially more demand.

[Alex]

Especially when you look at, like, the. The people that are buying the treasury companies is generally like retail investors who probably could just buy bitcoin.

[Danny]

Right? I think so. I think. I think that's a. It's a fascinating counterfactual to think about, I think. Look, your interview with Michael. I think you interviewed him, what, right after. I did, like a month after, yeah. I have to admit, I struggled to get my questions in. He was doing his filibuster routine and I was really proud of your questions to him and I. I frankly thought his reactions were really telling to people and was not taken well. And frankly, as a person who does a show, myself looking at a person who does a show like you, like, we have obviously different shows and you did a service, I think, to the community by asking him that question.

[Alex]

But, like, and.

[Danny]

And frankly, it was an incredible clip. Like, yeah, that was great media. How? Well, clip.

[Alex]

It's funny. I saw him in Vegas and he did a show with Pete and I was in the room with Pete when he was setting up and Pete just made like a very offhand joke, being like, you're not going to shout at me like you did Danny do? He's like, hey, I made Danny go viral.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Yeah, you did. Thank you, sir.

[Danny]

Yeah, I mean, I. I think it was a great interview, honestly. And I. I love interviewing Michael because he's just like a cr. Like, Like a crazy mind that has all these, like, really fascinating ideas and his story has Evolved so much. I mean, he talks about this all the time. Like, I mean, he hated bitcoin. Now he's well beyond just loving bitcoin. He's got this whole new bigger idea. It's really interesting.

[Alex]

I like him.

[Danny]

Yeah, me too.

[Alex]

The thing that I think I miss is the 20, 20, 2021 sailor just being truthful and he can do whatever the hell he wants and who am I to say what he can do? But that's the sailor I miss because I thought he was really on it back then and I feel like the digital credit thing has kind of strayed a little bit.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And I don't. One of the things I really don't particularly like is talking about making bitcoin better money through these digital credit products. Like, that's something that kind of just rubs me up the wrong way.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Alex]

But like it's kind of by the by. It doesn't really matter, but.

[Danny]

Right.

[Alex]

I just. I think it is interesting to think about what the demand side would be like without the treasury companies ever having existed.

[Danny]

It is very interesting. And I do not. I do not know. And look, there are a lot of them are not having existed at this point.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

I know.

[Alex]

You see, Satsuma's gone now.

[Danny]

Satsuma. And I mean, I don't know what 21 is going to do, but obviously with Jack, what do you think? Announcing. I don't know. I literally do not know. I mean, I was, I. Jack didn't. He wasn't that forthcoming about exactly what the underlying issue was. Right. He said he has a disagreement with the board. I don't know what that means.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Me neither.

[Alex]

And I always find it very hard because like, Jack is a friend of both of ours. It's hard talking about a friend in this kind of way without him being here. But like, I feel like some of the hints that he was giving were that obviously he was saying the direction was different between what the company wanted and what he wanted. I think it's the right move for him to step down if that's the case. And I am also super psyched that Jack's going to be unleash Jack again. Like, one of the things I don't like about the public company stuff is that no one can say what they think. Like, everyone has to be so careful.

[Danny]

I mean, especially if you're the CEO of a publicly listed company. Right. Because you. You have to file 8Ks when your peer places. Like, you really can't say. And of course this is true for really any company. But even More so for a publicly listed one. Like, you've got this fiduciary duty to your shareholders. Yeah. You gotta. If it can possibly contradicts with the, you know, value of the stock, you have to be careful. And then. Yeah, there's lawyers and there's like. I mean, private company is a lot different.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Danny]

I also like. I mean, we've. I've just always enjoyed Strike. I think it's a good app. It's been a great app. It's, it's. Jack and his team are cool. Jack is one of the coolest people in my view, in Bitcoin.

[Alex]

100%.

[Danny]

I mean, his whole bit with the closet. I die laughing every time I see Jack and Dylan.

[Alex]

They crush you, man.

[Danny]

I know they do.

[Alex]

But Sasuma is small relative to the other treasury companies, but like 650 Bitcoin or something. It's not insignificant.

[Danny]

Yeah. There's others, though. I've stopped, I mean, kind of partly to the point. Like, I don't really follow the treasury companies much anymore.

[Alex]

But the reason I bring it up is these are the things that feel like bottom signals to me.

[Danny]

Yeah. I think there's some truth to that. I think. And there was a whole, like, rage quit of like all these people, like Jeremy Grantham, all these, like, all the old jokers came out to like dunk on bitcoin. That always happens at the bottom. You remember like Peter Zehan, this always

[Alex]

happens when he was saying Bitcoin17000, he's gonna go negative.

[Danny]

Like, dude. Well, you were literally exactly wrong. In fact, you basically painted the bottom.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Danny]

I mean, look like it's a long history of bitcoin making critics look stupid. I'm. I think the demand side going forward, though. I think you're not right. Like sailors. I don't. You're not going to see them buying a ton probably for the rest of the year. Maybe some, depending on what happens. You know, if it, you know, he said that he'll be buying the top forever to Laura Shin that time. Right.

[Alex]

Which is a banger.

[Danny]

I love it. And it has multiple meanings, but one of them, I mean, I like the meaning that like, he's a buyer at all prices. So it's like, you know, if you buy the real estate market in the U.S. like the last 30 years, you've been buying the top forever.

[Alex]

And it's also like, he's one of us. Like, I buy the top every time. Exactly.

[Danny]

But it's also that, like, he is structurally practically incapable of not buying the top. That's when he gets the leverage to buy. Yeah, right. He needs the, the exuberance because that's what creates the premium on his stock. Right. So actually like I haven't released this yet, but I've been working on like an academic study like the ETFs and Saylor both are structural price followers. Like mathematically speaking they're lagging into chaos. It makes total sense For Saylor, the ETFs can be a little bit more surprising to think about. But again, Saylor, he needs the momentum to exist already. So it's not like you'll see headlines that are like bitcoin rises on like strategies, big buy. And it's like it's the opposite. It's actually the opposite.

[Alex]

Almost always the opposite.

[Danny]

Yeah. So like he'll be buying the top forever because that's when he's structurally able to buy. Right. And so, and you can see, I mean now the digital credit like thing engine as he calls it, like that did create like a counterfactual. Like Bitcoin's going down, demand is declining. While he was still, I mean the beginning of this year, I forget the numbers, but he bought tons of bitcoin with that. It was very effective. So. But I, I think about it sort of more generally going for this year. Like if you go and ask somebody like what do you think you don't own enough of Bitcoin or like Nvidia stock. Right. For most of this year I think most people, even bitcoiners would say I'm definitely underweight AI And I wish I was longer AI. And so bitcoin's been competing with that whole trend and then there's like a, you know, the whole like derivative and you know, supply chain trends around that, data centers, Neo clouds, memory chips, the metals that go into them, whatever. Right. Like all that stuff has just ripped this year. But all of it right now at this moment, it's all kind of like eh, it's probably a local top. I have no idea. Not like the top but like I think frankly like that if you call it a pullback or flattening, a little bit of that AI trade is help. Is being supportive of bitcoin a little bit.

[Alex]

Right, I agree with that.

[Danny]

There were a lot of people who definitely called up their broker and they were like, because they bought the ETF and they're like not deep into bitcoin and they're like, hey, that bitcoin thing's not doing well. Sell it and buy Nvidia. There's definitely a Lot of that. Right. So I think a lot of that has probably abated temporarily too. And then like, you know, clarity can be a catalyst. Although probably bitcoin's not the primary beneficiary of it. I mean even Gensler said bitcoin was a commodity. Right. So like. But it couldn't be. I think it will be if it, if it passes and can become law, that'll be a demand catalyst. But then it's like the age old story. Like bitcoin's momentum reflexive assets. One of the most reflexive assets in the world. It's like a veblen good. People want to buy it when it starts going up. So like you'll have people if we go, if we just like if the hodlers that are owning it down here at 60k we're still DCAing and buying. I, you know, disclaimer like I own bitcoin, I buy bitcoin regularly on a programmatic basis and have for a long time. We just bleed this thing higher because the sellers are exhausted. Then at some point it all starts to kick in, the narrative reemerges. I think there's a chance that you're going to see like, you know, the stuff that's happening in debt. There's so much debt, the corporate debt, there's so much debt being issued to pay for all the data centers, not just here but worldwide. I think you're going to see substantial, like the fiscal impulse is going to become substantial. You're going to hear about like the debasement story is going to come back and all of a sudden you're going to look at bitcoin. It's going to be at like 90k and everyone's going to be like oh no, I need bitcoin because of the store. And all of a sudden it's just everybody remembers why they liked bitcoin in the first place and then like bam, it's no longer in like a bear market. It's sort of just like chugging along like that. It's. I think James has talked about this James check. And I totally agree with it. Like it's not just the price bottoming price pain that has to happen, it's the time pain. People just need time to like be angry, like sell or whatever. Then get so bored, go away for a while, forget about it. Then like get their interest piqued again. Like that just takes time.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Danny]

And yeah, it's going to happen.

[Alex]

And truthfully I don't think most people's interest gets peaked until the price starts going up.

[Danny]

That's what I'm saying.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Danny]

So you need the sort of like, you know, but the price can't really go up until all those people have already sold. Basically, by the way, we debate like the supply. The. There's not. I just don't think there's nearly as much supply looking to sell at these levels as there was.

[Alex]

Yeah, no, I agree with that. One of the interesting things I think you can tell me if you think this is stupid, but with the AI trade, obviously that took so much of the wind out of bitcoin sales last year and the companies that have done really well are the data centers and the chip manufacturers, that kind of thing. Do you think that they could almost be like what the bitcoin miners used to be to bitcoin to AI in that they're almost like a proxy vehicle to get exposure to AI. And when we see like obviously SpaceX has now gone live, anthropic, are going to IPO. OpenAI are going to IPO. Do you think they're all going to get crushed when there's like a real vehicle that is actually like explicitly AI exposure?

[Danny]

It's an interesting question, I think. I don't think so. I'll tell you why. One, the Frontier Labs, right, they are purveyors of models. Right. They don't own primarily. Maybe they have some, but they're not the purveyors of energy and compute typically. Right. Most of them are using data center neo cloud hyperscaler contracts and they're creating the models. The open source models are getting substantially better. I mean all models are getting better. But it feels, at least right now like the gap between the Frontier and the open source is declining.

[Alex]

Well, Kimike 3 beat everything pretty much, didn't it?

[Danny]

Well, on like a couple benchmarks. Yeah. Not necessarily all of them.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Okay.

[Danny]

But.

[Alex]

Yeah, but it's close.

[Danny]

Yeah. I mean even like six months ago, I think the conventional wisdom was that the open sources were like a year behind the frontier. And wherever, whether they're behind or bding or even everyone agrees that's collapsed substantially. Yeah. Now it could expand again. Like, I don't know if the Frontier Labs get access to like troves of proprietary data sets that make them able to train better or if, you know, like they can hoard the better new chips and train the models on the better new chips that the open source purveyors can't like, okay, it could expand, but those open source models still need data centers. They just cut out the Paying the middleman, the tokens. So like I actually think you could see the frontier labs need to move more into the application space and, and not rely on selling tokens. That's what they do. They are token merchants. Right. And so I think there's, I mean there's so many angles to these parts, these stories. But I think it's possible that your theory that the, you know, like a public anthropic IPO could take the wind out of sails of like what a Microsoft or you know, cloud.

[Alex]

The irons of the world.

[Danny]

Yeah. Or the galaxies. Right. We have, we have our own data centers as well, big ones. And but I, but I think the real, I think more likely what's going to happen is that those models are disrupted by open source models which by the way have, are really big and need, need, they need them. So instead of maybe paying anthropic bigger companies first, but then maybe depending on how easy this gets, bigger enterprises start getting their own compute and running the open source models on them, thereby bypassing the spending on anthropic and OpenAI. It's possible. I think this is a. But again there's no one knows because

[Alex]

there's also the added variable that no one knows about which is what the US government are going to do. Like they've clearly been holding back these frontier models and I feel like their hands are getting forced and they're going to have to just unleash them.

[Danny]

I agree. But yes, the questions of alignment and safety and regulation and the geopolitics of it are very substantial.

[Alex]

Does safety matter though if like they're holding back these US companies because of safety concerns, which might be totally valid but like the Chinese models don't care. Do they just be like, okay, have at it?

[Danny]

Well, yeah, I mean that's the AI arms race. I mean there's a couple, I mean you could imagine there's great essays. AI 2027. Have you read this? Or AI 2040. So they've game theory doubt like so many different possible outcomes. It's really, really fun. I recommend people check that out. And no, you can end up with a massive accord between China and the US to stop the arms race. Just like during the Cold War. It's totally possible, right, to like, I mean, I mean, I don't know how much better do you think it can really get? Like, I mean I'm doing stuff with like 5.6 and fable that is like just literally mind bending versus just like four months ago. So like, yeah, I mean, I guess it can probably always get better. It can get cheaper. I think this is like, really what's likely to happen. There will be an AI that's too powerful to be public. And if China is going to give it to their people and we're not going to give it to ours, of course that disadvantages us. And I bet you would see the US force China to close theirs off too. And so then the evolution would become making it cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and more accessible. Right. And we're in that spot now. That's starting to be what happens.

[Alex]

Wait, so you think that they might end up capping intelligence being like, this is as smart as we're going to allow this to get?

[Danny]

I. I think it's almost certainly inevitable at some point. I mean, if. If the, the truth is that we simply can't make it smarter, like, let's say we hit the wall. That's the only other thing that's going to stop it from growing. Otherwise, wouldn't it just get smarter forever? Yeah, like, but what, like, that's dangerous. It's. It's absolutely dangerous.

[Alex]

Sure. Like, no, it's definitely dangerous.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I agree with.

[Danny]

Governments are going to. And themselves. I think it's very obvious.

[Alex]

But is that not almost like bitcoin, where it's like, yes, this can be used for bad things, but it can also be used for great things.

[Danny]

Yeah, but bitcoin can't literally destroy the Earth. Like, it can't create like, Terminator robots. Right. It can't itself train robots to build a factory, to build more robots and then invade your city like in, you know, like in minority report or iRobot. Irobot.

[Alex]

But is this like a holding a balloon underwater where you, like, you hold it down as long as you can at some point.

[Danny]

And to be clear, I'm like an optical optimist about AI I just think, like, the. There's no world where, like, everyone's gonna get like, literally, like, extraterrestrial superhuman intelligence that can crack any lock. Like, that's not gonna be allowed. And so I, I think. I don't know where that is. I certainly don't want to. I don't think it's here like it's now, but I think at some point, like, there. I think conceptually there is absolutely a model too smart to let everyone use. Like, yeah, and the question, I think what we need.

[Alex]

But the problem is, like, I. So I think you're so right. I think there is probably a model that's too smart to let everyone use, but they'll still use it. That's my problem with it.

[Danny]

Well, this is like one of the theses in this AI 2040 is that like they literally set up where like all of the US is training is in like Mongolia right next to China, and all of China's is in Canada. So we can both easily just bomb it like in a literal like, like, you know, mutual assured destruction.

[Alex]

Yeah, I think, but that's like that, that seems to me like you're accepting the permanent underclass. You're like you're giving the government control to use this AI that's way too powerful for the public.

[Danny]

Well, it's not clear. They, I mean, I think one of the. I think they'd probably both ban as well. I mean, it's just like the government didn't also use the nukes like when we had.

[Alex]

But they could.

[Danny]

Well, they could, but they didn't.

[Alex]

And they. Well, they did twice.

[Danny]

Well, that's true, but that was before. I mean the, the treaties is what I'm saying.

[Alex]

Yes.

[Danny]

So I don't know. Yeah, it's, it's totally possible. It's not clear which way also, I mean, look, if you can't stop the distillation, then the models can't. I mean, it looks pretty clear now that you can basically reverse engineer a frontier model into an open source model. And so like, if it's available anywhere, it's basically going to be available everywhere right away. So like, you know, and then that, you know, you. What I hope is that if we start capping or segregating or regulating that, we do it in a transparent way. Like what? I wrote a piece last month about this Mythos thing where Commerce Department effectively called Anthropic on the phone and said kill it. Under this authority. They never wrote a letter, they never published anything in the Federal Register. That was completely inappropriate way to do it, in my opinion. Yeah, and it's not. It needs to be done under statute. There's got to be a process or whatever. If they're going to start doing this, then it's got to at least be done through law. Right. It can't be like you get a call at night and says, cut off these users from your model. Like that's crazy.

[Alex]

But then again, I totally agree. Just like to get into the semantics of it. Like, the hard thing about that is that they almost like the anthropics and the open AIs of the world almost have to submit their model to the government first. Be like, is this okay?

[Danny]

I don't like that. I Agree. But like I, I'm saying there's a decent probability that ends up happening. I mean, I honestly.

[Alex]

But is this not just where China wins then?

[Danny]

Well, the meat. Well, I mean, if they can catch up. I mean, I mean, no, I mean, I don't, I'm not sure, maybe. I mean, China's giving it away. I think the strategy is so interesting here that they are. Are they, they're not trying to make their own frontier models or frontier labs for profit at the moment. I guess. I'm sure they've doing some private, you know, government type training somewhere. But like their strategy is just like flood the zone, like at least have everyone use ours. It reminds me of like this time, I think Bill Gates was asked once if he was upset that there was all these people pirating windows in China. And he was like, I'm happy they're pirating ours and not the others. I'd rather have him use ours than the others. And I was like, I think that's kind of what China's saying here. Like, well, if we can't control it, we may as well have everyone use the one we're using. Right? And like, and also simultaneously. And then degrade the U.S. like advantage. Right?

[Alex]

It degrades the U.S. advantage. It hits U.S. markets. And at any point when they've got enough users, they can just make it close source anyway.

[Danny]

They could, they could or stop releasing new open source ones. Right? I mean, so I don't know where that goes. I don't think. I hope it doesn't happen soon because I want to keep getting better intelligence and yeah, I don't want you to be walking around. And by the way, there's way other more dystopian they could start saying which models each person can use. So you'd be like, well, Danny, you know, you've only been in the United States for two weeks, so you only get access to like 4.0. You don't get access to 5, 6, what they could do that might be coming. Like, which is another reason I like open source, by the way, because. And I run some open source models at home. Just not like huge ones because like I don't have a data center, but so I don't know. That's going to get really, really exciting.

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[Alex]

That's where. Another place that Europe and the rest of the world are kind of messing up is what good models come out of Europe. I think there's one. I don't even know what it's called.

[Danny]

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. But also we have so much energy, like right. We. I think this one of the good things. And I know there's, you know, the beginnings of backlash on the populist front, both left and the right against data centers.

[Alex]

100%.

[Danny]

But I also think partly through the bitcoin, bitcoiners work. Right. Like Troy and Daniel, like you talked about and others. There's a bit bigger realization now that like we can't grow and be prosperous with capping our energy use. And actually energy abundance is the way. And, and by the way, things like wind and solar are naturally good, important parts of the grid and have grown a lot as well. Right. But like you kind of need everything and you, you really need to run a growing and balanced energy grid. That's what it is. Electrical grid.

[Alex]

I think people like flip flop too hard on either side of that where it's like either wind and solar is the only way you can do things or it's like evil to do it that way. It should just be like the truth is everything.

[Danny]

Yeah, you need, you need a bit of everything. They all have different platform like platform use cases, I think. I wish we had more nuclear energy in this country. I hope we get some like deregulation because I've been. Apparently it takes like a decade to even get a license and like no one's gotten one in like 40 years or something. But nuclear is green and huge and on baseload. Yeah. And Right. And it just goes forever. And also, I don't know, I wasn't alive then, but I'm presuming the. The use of nuclear weapons. But then also like the partial thing at Three Mile island and then Fukushima and Ukraine and Chernobyl, like. But if you really look at those, you know, caused all this negativity about them. But if you actually look at those, like none of the. Well, I mean the nuclear weapons are actually totally unrelated. Although I get they both have the word nuclear in them. But. But Three Mile island didn't melt down.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Danny]

Fukushima was. Well, I guess the lesson is don't build it right next to where a tidal wave could come.

[Alex]

And I think only one person died.

[Danny]

Right.

[Alex]

The Most amazing show I think we ever did on what bitcoin did when it was still doing it with Pete was a guy called Anthony Jared. I don't know if you ever listened to that episode.

[Danny]

I don't think so.

[Alex]

We recorded it in Nashville. He was absolutely awesome. He used to work on nuclear submarines, like looking after the nuclear reactors. And we basically did an entire show on why nuclear is the safest form of energy. And this all like, anyone listening after this show, don't turn off now. After this show, go and listen to that. Because he lays out all the stats and it is. Is this. I think the only safer form of energy was wind.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Like by a very small amount. Like nuclear is incredibly safe, incredibly powerful. Baseload energy. Like we need.

[Danny]

We need all the wind is intermittent. And like also the. Have you seen the pictures, excuse me, of the like graveyards of dead blades. Like it creates a lot of like e waste, if we call it that or whatever you want to call it. And then I was going to just say like, you know, Fukushima was hit by a tidal wave. It wasn't actually the cause of the reactor. And Chernobyl is just obviously Soviet mismanagement. So there's actually no example of a nuclear plant just like being dangerous. Right. Like, yeah. So I hope we have more of that too soon.

[Alex]

You know, I think they're building a new one in the uk. It's meant to open next year. Like, we need more.

[Danny]

That's good.

[Alex]

More.

[Danny]

I know. Well, New York closed one and now they're like, you know, Mayor Mamdani is like, please keep it at 78. Like, yeah, that's not abundance. Like that's.

[Alex]

Yeah. You shouldn't be living in the biggest city in the world. Like the world's greatest city.

[Danny]

You should have the accessibility to electricity.

[Alex]

Have it as cold as you want.

[Danny]

That's what I think. That's what I think. Cheers to that.

[Alex]

Can we go way back because you said something before that I've been mean to come back to. We talk about bitcoin cycles. You said like last cycle. Kind of disappointing. Like 20, 21. Everyone was talking about 300k Bitcoin. Yeah, we got 60k Bitcoin, Bitcoin. Right. This time everyone's talking about a million dollar bitcoin or at least like 300k bitcoin.

[Danny]

Like Samson was talking about a million dollar bitcoin.

[Alex]

But like, I think even if you sort of polled most bitcoiners, 126 was not going to be the top.

[Danny]

No, that was a that was lower.

[Alex]

But the interesting thing was in 2017 I was much newer to bitcoin, so I could have some of my, my history wrong here. 20k, I think surprised everyone.

[Danny]

Yeah. Why?

[Alex]

Like, obviously diminishing returns. But why, like, do you think we'll ever get those, like those increases that people aren't necessarily expecting?

[Danny]

There's like, some people say that there could be like an S where it's like it yet levels off here and then it goes like that again one day.

[Alex]

The euphoria when it got to 20k, I remember being absolutely insane.

[Danny]

Well, it 10 bagged and like it went from 2k to 20k in about four or five months, six months. So that was one thing. In fact, actually, if I recall, on labor day weekend in 2021, it crashed below 2K. I think if it might be below 3.

[Alex]

Wait, 2020?

[Danny]

Sorry, sorry. 2017.

[Alex]

Yeah. Okay.

[Danny]

2017. And yes, thank you. So Labor Day 2021, I think it crashed like over. I remember I was on a ferry somewhere and we're like, oh my God, it's tanking. Right? And then just like December 17th I think is the top at 20,000. It's just that like it was so classically parabolic.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Danny]

Right. And it had been, you know, 300 just a year prior. Three to six hundred and twenty sixteen, like, and, and also it was the first time that like it truly ran to a level that made it like a genuine relevant asset globally.

[Alex]

And I always think of 2017 as that was the, the era where bitcoin became a household name.

[Danny]

Right.

[Alex]

Like, everyone didn't understand bitcoin, but everyone had heard of it.

[Danny]

That's why I don't like when people use the Google trends for bitcoin. Like looking up big term bitcoin, like, who is in 2026? I'm looking at you camera. Who in 2026 is be gonna googling the word bitcoin? Just like Google bitcoin. Right. Like everybody already knows what it is. You're more likely to type in bitcoin in your brokerage account and see what the price is or a trading app or type in Michael Sailor. Like some. There's still other stuff to learn about. Right. But I don't know who, so. I know. I agree. I think, look, I think the diminishing returns, I think it's a bigger. There's a lot of debate about this. I know, like Jeff park totally disagrees with this idea that like the bigger the asset, the more it takes to, you know, move it.

[Alex]

But it's all marginal, isn't it?

[Danny]

Yeah, I think it's just all marginal. I think like, look, you just had a lot of look, it got, we got the support from the Trump administration and the candidate Trump. That also means like half the people didn't like it, right? Like, yeah, it hasn't. I did see a video of Stephen Miller talking about debanking, like certain types of. I don't know if I didn't, I don't want to mischaracterize legal aliens or whatever. And I was like, you know, you could, I think bitcoin is definitely a political tech and you could see the other side one day decide they need the censorship resistant store of value features, you know, and maybe the resumption of higher growth rates in price is correlated to when both sides say they need it. So there's definitely been like a stratification of the ownership, I think. I mean, I had people tell me that they older investors, they didn't want to buy it till they, till they heard Trump say he liked it. That's what made them look at it. I mean, so it's like, you can imagine it was the reverse for other people. Right. So I think, you know, when people truly need it, it still really. We know people all over the world who need it, truly need it. Right. But you know, in America, I have pretty good access to financial services and assets that can be used for store of value or hedging or, or risk. Right. But that may not always be true. And I think you'll see more people decide they actually need and want it.

[Alex]

Yeah, I think like the idea of financial privacy is definitely not just a left wing idea, but it feels like a pretty left wing idea.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Like these are the people that should care about it. And I do worry that like the Trump administration have put off that whole part of the.

[Danny]

Yeah, but it's all, it's all, you know, it's all cyclical. It's all ebbs and flows. Right. Like bitcoin. None of this is bitcoin's fault. Right. Like, bitcoin's just chugging.

[Alex]

Bitcoin's just bitcoin.

[Danny]

It's a cryptographic signature machine decentralized with hashing. Right. Like, and that's just does it thing.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Danny]

It's all just narratives that we put on it and those narratives have evolved and pivoted so many times. Not by design, like just in culture and like by markets. And so like, I think you'll get, I think you'll, I think there probably will be a left Wing bitcoin movement one day for all we know, people useful.

[Alex]

I mean, people have definitely tried like the progressive bitcoin.

[Danny]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Trey second, I've forgotten.

[Danny]

I don't know.

[Alex]

Yeah, but, but like there's Trey, there's Jason Meyer. Like these people have been pushing it. Like one of the problems I've always had with the idea is that stop putting like either side on it.

[Danny]

Yeah, I mean, I absolutely agree. I don't think the. I haven't thought that the Trump administration or, or Republicans frankly have genuinely made the case that bitcoin is a conservatives asset. They've mostly made the case that it's a good asset and American dominance is good. And we do a lot of bitcoin in America, so that's why we like it. And I think that's true. No matter. That's not really that political to me. I think it's more just the fact that they like it that has turned off some of the left.

[Alex]

So same question with Saylor. With Trump, do you think bitcoin would be higher or lower without Trump ever having endorsed it?

[Danny]

Oh my. That is a tough one. I think it would probably be lower.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Do you think?

[Danny]

I don't know if it'd be lower at this exact moment, but I don't think it. Yeah, I do. It's tough. It's. That's also tough.

[Alex]

This is like real fencing for me. But like with both cases, I almost think just the same, like, yeah, you

[Danny]

ask the question and then say unchanged. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's tough to know. I mean, look, the last year there was definitely some competition for interest in bitcoin from like altcoins. And of course the President's been involved in those. And I think. I don't know. I don't know. I genuinely don't know. But I, I have to say, like, you saw the rally. I mean, I would say no, it wouldn't be higher without. I mean, look at the rally that took us from 60 to 100 directly in response to him doing that. I mean, counterfactuals are impossible to know, but. But they are interesting.

[Alex]

And this is why I both respect the idea of the digital gold narrative. Also, I don't like it. I think it's too simplistic. But if you're trying to explain bitcoin to maybe an older generation who are less technically inclined, it is a really easy way of explaining it.

[Danny]

I just like it as money that I can control myself. That is substantially more private than say, the zcashers will admit. Right. If you use it properly, it's very private, like and also. And it can't be taken away. And it's like, what am I going to. It's. I mean that's why like one way to think about it, and I agree it's too simplistic. It is also a lot of other things and, and can be used a lot of other ways. But like if you're going to, if you have assets that you like to possess yourself, you should have bitcoin.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Danny]

Because like it is money that they can't take from you. It is money that you can send anywhere in the world at any time. Now can you do that with eth. Technically, yes, of course. But it doesn't have the same other monetary properties that Bitcoin has that you may want. Can you do that with stablecoins? No, you can't. Stablecoins are great for like paying vendors or sending money across the border.

[Alex]

You get debased at exactly the same rate.

[Danny]

Well, and first of all, you get debased at the same rate. So if you're trying to diversify away from like a dollar, then those offer you nothing. But also they're freezable. Right. It is not immutable. The way bitcoin is, is that's okay. I don't pay with the hardest money, immutable money. Every time we didn't buy this beer with bitcoin today, I could here shout out pubkey. Right. But like other things, I absolutely might. Certainly storing value over time for a long time is one where I don't want. I want to know that it's locked away and there's nothing anyone can do to get it right. This is one reason why we work on quantum a little bit as well. Like we just announced recently the Galaxy Quantum Readiness Initiative where we're pledging up to $5 million in grants to open source developers who work on post quantum cryptography review code, like write bips, you know, whatever, all that stuff. And if I think by the time this comes out it'll be public as well, that a consortium has formed, the Bitcoin Security Consortium with Anchorage, Ark, Blackrock, Coinbase, Galaxy Strategy, Blockstream and Block, I believe all of us pledging money to help fund development of bitcoin preparedness.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

That's awesome.

[Danny]

It's because though, if that were to emerge, it could threaten my ability to store my bitcoin. Right. And so we don't want to control bitcoin development at all. I mean we're doing classic. I think we're working with brink to help advise us on how to do grants properly. Right. And stuff like that. So like we are not trying to control Bitcoin at all.

[Alex]

We're trying to make sure it's funded.

[Danny]

Yeah, we want. I mean the other altcoin ecosystems are funding this. They have pre mines and IC from ICOs and whatever and foundations that are all funding this. And the President just signed two executive orders pulling forward. Like it's. Even if it's a low, you know, I did this. I hosted that debate at the in Vegas. It was like, you know, like James o' Burns, a big skeptic. And I love James.

[Alex]

I like James.

[Danny]

He's very smart and great guy. That's totally fine. But I actually think we reached a decent agreement that. Well, like even, you know what, even if it's bs, you know, there's no quantum computer that's ever publicly been shown to factor a number I think bigger than 21.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Danny]

Which is ironic.

[Alex]

Interesting. Do you know when that was? When 2012.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Alex]

So it's been a long time.

[Danny]

Well, they could be being built in secret and I think there was the Google paper from I think literally like March 31st or like March, April of this year. Right. They actually provided a ZK proof that they had proven the math. They did there.

[Alex]

That was, that was a ZK proof that they. For like an algorithm. Not necessarily. They could actually do.

[Danny]

Not hardware.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Danny]

There is no computer that can do it today. But they've proven that the math circuitry is actually a lot simple. The computer effectively can be a lot smaller than previously thought. And that keeps happening on the math and software side. And I think that panel though, even with the bitcoin, the very public skeptics, we did all kind of agree that listen, classical cryptography that works for decades can eventually be broken.

[Alex]

Totally.

[Danny]

Like funding and building cryptography. Yeah, exactly, exactly. With AI. So like. But funding and testing and battle testing new like secure cryptography is a good thing. And we've added new cryptography before to Bitcoin, like with Schnorr. Right. And so like that's that, you know, we're not trying to force anything. I think one of the things people are afraid of when people talk about quantum is that like, oh, we're going to like Rush and like squeeze something in and like then there's going to be a bug. We're all worried about that. The groups that I just told you, they all love bitcoin. They all own tons of bitcoin. We don't want it to fail. Like someone should be. And this is what Satoshi said. He wrote about how when development needs funding, he hopes that the business is built around it, that profit from it will fund it. Right.

[Alex]

And here we are. If all we get from this is more advanced cryptography, nothing ever happens.

[Danny]

That's great.

[Alex]

And Galaxy and Coinbase foot the bill. Awesome. Exactly.

[Danny]

That's what I'm saying. Honestly, it's what I absolutely think. And I think so. That one's another thing is this Noah Doe case in New York.

[Alex]

Oh, dude, we need to talk about this. So I heard about this in Oslo. I was talking to Thomas and he told me a little bit about it, but it was a very little bit. I don't know very much at all. So you should lay this out from the ground up.

[Danny]

So last year there were, last summer, basically all these addresses, I think about 39,000 Bitcoin addresses were sent a message, a dust message with like in an op return, basically in an op return saying like this address is abandoned. And if you don't like prove that it's not abandoned in a certain amount of time, then we're going to deem that we have found them or I think take constructive possession of them. We wrote a big report about that. And then in the report we speculated that it was possible. One possible reason these might be being scent is that whoever is behind the dusting might want to use this to lay the foundation for a legal case to try to claim legal title, legal ownership, not private key ownership, legal ownership over these addresses under abandoned property laws. That is what ended up happening. And this anonymous plaintiff, that's why we call him Noah Doe. That's what he's called in. They're called in the court documents. And we don't know who that. Who it is and certainly not trying to find out. Right? That's. That's the court's business. In New York State filed this case against the addresses as. And they're. And they're arguing that, you know, without going into like every little part of the argument. But I have a whole report explains everything that they're arguing. And I disagree with a lot of their facts and analysis. In that report, they're basically saying, we found these coins, like we should be given legal title over them. And now that's not a way that they can come in and get my keys. Everyone's like, oh my God. But they can't do the keys. That doesn't matter. I'm like, obviously they can't get the keys. No court can order an unnamed Anonymous person to give up their keys. It's not gonna. I mean, they can try, but it won't do anything. We all know that. But let's say that, like, anyone, regardless whether it's Noah Doe or whatever, is under this theory, is granted ownership legally over some dormant coins. And then let's say those are my coins and I go and send them to an exchange, they instantly, like, serve the exchange with the legal order, right? And now it's all a mumbo jumbo. And, like, I have to think, depending on the quality of their order, that if they're my coins, I'll. I'm going to have to have lawyers, you know, if I send them to Coinbase, Coinbase would probably have to, like, get a bunch of lawyers and stuff. It's like. It's lawfare, right? And it. And it could. It could be substantial. And by the way, substantively, all of the coins that are hypothesized to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto are in that case. So they're trying to get legal title over Satoshi's coins as well. So, like, this case, like, now, it's a. It is a very clever case. For one, they don't know who any of the holders are, so they're all named as John Doe 1 through, like, 39,000. And so who's going to defend it? And they did dust the addresses again with, like, a notice of service. But, like, I don't know if you've used OP return ever. Like, never. Or seen it. Have you ever seen it in a while?

[Alex]

I don't think I've ever.

[Danny]

Well, you probably haven't, because the default for bitcoin wallets is to just suppress dust and not even show you dust UTXOs that have op returns because it's spam. It happens all the time. I get it sometimes in my. In my cold storage. It'll be like. Like trade on the. Use this mining pool. Literally. People advertise an opera turn all the time, right? Yeah, exactly. No, no, let's not do that.

[Alex]

Let's not do that.

[Danny]

Come on, man. I know, I know. That's what everyone. It's like, all my bitcoin feed is still bip110.

[Alex]

We're not doing. We're not going there. So, like, the super interesting there is. So, for one, obviously, they've hit Sashi's coins, but then we know that there's like, 3 to 4 million coins that are basically presumed lost. Right. So I imagine they've hit all of those.

[Danny]

Yeah, I mean, they they hit coins that were like five years or more dormant or seven, I can't remember. I mean they had a lot of coins and many have moved since. Like, many, many are they. They hit.

[Alex]

So there's a chance that they could have like hit my coins.

[Danny]

I probably. I probably we could make it. I. We have all the addresses because we tracked both the. In the dusting and the case. We actually won an award. Our authors Will owens and Zach McCorney won like the best crypto research of the year from the association of Crypto Researchers and Journalists or journalists and researchers for their report about the dusting.

[Alex]

But the super interesting there is like obviously completely messed up. If anyone ever moves bitcoin to an exchange, like subpoenas might happen, whatever.

[Danny]

Exactly.

[Alex]

Also, if quantum ever is a real thing that becomes a real mess because like a quantum hacker steals the coins. Well, that now is a legal case.

[Danny]

100%.

[Alex]

What a mess.

[Danny]

Yes. This is like the type of. I mean, this is the saga. It's a very clever and interesting and annoying issue. Right. I mean we, but like I would say in the case, like one of the other things, not only might you not even know you're named in the case and therefore not be able to appear as a defendant to defend yourself, and I will say they have removed some addresses during the case that have subsequently moved on chain. Right. So they're. They've been saying if these are definitively not lost, then we will remove them. But again, you would have to de. Anonymize yourself and. Right. And know about it now, one John Doe 33 has filed with the court. He has asked for anonymity. I haven't seen yet whether the court has answered this. He is answering and he substantively wrote and his like literal only identifying information he's providing at the moment. So it's not even technically clear to me that he does own the coins that John Doe 33 owns. Like, I didn't see that he submitted like a cryptographic proof or anything or signed message. But he is only identifying information is like John Doe 33 NY Proton, like privacymail.com right. Or whatever. So like some. But again, it's clever because there's nobody in the case to explain to the judge like why the case is flawed because the plaintiffs are. They were granted anonymity by the court because they're like we're big Horner, blah, blah, and like, you know, it's dangerous. They had a expert who explained, an expert witness who explained to the court, like how $5 wrench attacks are a problem and kidnappings or whatever. And so one of the efforts has been to get people that I've seen happen is people filing amicus briefs, trying to be admitted into the case as a friend of the court to help advise the court on the case. So one guy, they did an event here. It was by BTC lawyer guy, Ian Cohen. He filed one saying, I'm a bitcoiner and this harms me and this case is bad, and for these reasons. And he had a hearing a couple weeks ago in New York, and the judge denied him entry into the case as amicus. But the Digital Chamber, one of the big crypto trades, has filed also an amicus. And they're using substantially major white shoe lawyers, like, really good lawyers.

[Alex]

They've got legit team.

[Danny]

Oh, yeah. And part of what the denial said to Ian was that, like, it's not clear that you, like, substantively represent the public interest, but, like Digital Chamber, I don't know how many members they've got, but, like, you know, dozens and dozens. And they've got very prominent former prosecutor as their lawyer. Right? Like, and then also our friends at the Bitcoin Policy Institute have filed a different intervention. So not as an amicus. They. They are pleading to become an intervener defendant. Don't even know what that is. But it's different than just a friend of the court. Somehow they want to be made a defendant by the court so then they can directly challenge. I'm not sure, I'm not a lawyer. They also have a top tier law firm, and there'll be a hearing in the Noah Doe case, I think, on September 8th in New York to hear both of those, both from Digital Chamber and from bpi. So the bitcoin community, both, Ian, Digital Chamber, bpi, have stepped up to try to intervene in the case. And at a minimum, I think just put on the record the arguments against what Noah Doe's side is arguing.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

So what happens then?

[Alex]

So this, this goes to court properly in September? Is it the kind of thing where as soon as the judge has the relevant information from people like BPI and Digital Chamber that they'll presume, they'll hopefully see the light and just be like, this is nonsense, and throw it out?

[Danny]

Like, I genuinely have no idea, dude. I. This is such a strange area of law. They're using this like a relatively obscure abandoned property statute in New York state that's like, usually for like a lost wallet you find on the street. And like, I don't know what an intervener defendant is. I don't know if this guy John Doe 33 is going to actually materialize as a defendant in the case. I just have no idea. I think it just. If you read their documents, it's not clear that the amount of money at stake is $300 billion. And so we're trying to make sure that the judge is actually aware of how substantial this claim since they're using something that's normally for like something worth $10. Like are they aware? So I. The case is currently stayed until that hearing. Meaning like just paused. Right. So what a mess. People want to steal your bitcoin and this is a method to, you know, it's not clear. I think the quantum is an interesting point possibility. I think just straight up lawfare harass, you know, or like imagine if in the quantum mitigation debate. And I don't think I'm in favor of anything like this, but question about what to do with Satoshi's coins. I remember we were talking about this as long ago as like in Bedford two years ago. Like our views and what could be done. And like, let's say that the bitcoin community does decide to sequester them in some way. Well, now that they are under control of somebody, a group or found, I don't know who, right. If they have this case, they could send it to the bitcoin developers and harass them about it. Right. Like, it's just like, I don't think that dormancy of coins on chain is indicia of lostness.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Absolutely not.

[Alex]

Like if you have a gold bar sat in a vault, what am I supposed to take it out for 10 years? Yeah.

[Danny]

What if I have it under mys. If I have it under my bed? The theory of this case says that I have to basically go present it to a bank to prove that I still own it. Otherwise they're claiming it's lost.

[Alex]

It's insane. Is there any good precedent that could be set from this?

[Danny]

Yeah, well, if the, I think if they, if the judge rules substantially against them, especially if like it's, you know, with help from BPI or digital chamber, like that's pretty good. I don't know if it, I mean it's, it's, it's. I think it is good. I think if they go and try to do. Whoever these people are, if they go and try to do it in other jurisdictions having lost here, I think, you know, you'll see those people follow them around and try to enter that case and show the precedent of having lost here, you know, you know A low. This is a New York State Supreme Court, which I think is basically the lowest court. But like, is the court in the UK bound by that precedent? Absolutely not. But like they might look at it. Yeah, right. I remember in Pete's case, like, you know, with Craig Wright, like they looked at the, they, they read and looked about like Ira Kleiman and some of the other cases. It was relevant to the judge. So I think, yeah, that's the, I mean the best outcome for bitcoiners, I think, is that you get a strong rule ruling against. Why are people such dicks, man? People just, they scheme and plot.

[Alex]

They do scheme.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

I don't know.

[Danny]

We need like, you know. Yeah, it's true. Like, come on, go out there and do something more productive.

[Alex]

Yeah, exactly. We're in the winner world of productivity. Yeah, that's a mess.

[Danny]

Well, and if this comes out when I think it is like the last, I think major topic here is just the Clarity Act.

[Alex]

Yeah, I want to know about this because. So I, I've spoken to a few people recently who are very, very bearish now on the idea of clarity ever getting past. Is that kind of where you're at?

[Danny]

Well, I think publicly, actually.

[Alex]

Can we start differently?

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Alex]

What do we get as bitcoiners? Like not anything else. As bitcoiners, what do we get from clarity? What are the things that we'll be missing if we don't get it?

[Danny]

Well, you're getting. They called it clarity. It's kind of a brilliant name for this reason. Well, you're going to get clarity from all the institutional players, we'll all know for certain in statute that can't be rolled back by just like next chair of whichever agency. Right. So like again, spot markets, I mean, I think they're quite good today in the U.S. yeah. But there is a fulsome spot market regulatory regime here. So like, you know, there's going to be things about like disclosures and audits and like, you know, not harming your customers. So I think much less likely, for example, for like a new FTX to occur at a high level. I think it's substantially better regulated than today. Whereas mostly today, I mean, New York has the bit license and a couple other states have some frameworks that are more substantial but also like, you know, wholesome. But most, like bitcoin purchases today are being sold to you from just someone with like a state money transmission license.

[Alex]

But it's not great. Like the people don't like the bit license.

[Danny]

Well, I mean, I think the Bit license might not be the right framework, but it does provide safety. I think one of the big reasons that they don't like it is it's a bit too strict. It is expensive. It takes a long time to get the BIT license. And so I hear a lot of criticism from entrepreneurs. It's like, takes too long to get like, you know, now it's like a created emote. It's like so expensive. That's one of the things. And also I think they have to approve like every new product. Like, I think Cash App, for example, still doesn't offer lightning in New York, even though they have the BIT license. I don't know why. Obviously you'd have to ask them. But you know, I think still though, like, for example, the New York, the BIT license on stablecoins has been, I think, was really good. And it was. And it ended up being like materially similar to what ultimately became the Genius Act. And I will tell you that if what you want is greater access by capital to bitcoin, like, and longer term, more durable access, you need, you need regulation. You need something that businesses can feel comfortable, the rules won't change, so they'll actually build. Right? I mean, that's, that's the difference here. I mean, one thing I like to say is whether or not it happens. Like, I think you have the chance for pretty substantial upside if it happens literally in the market. But downside should be relatively capped because one, certainly for bitcoin, because again, this is much more beneficial and I think way many ways for the coins that Gary Gensler had said were securities. He didn't say that bitcoin was a security. And obviously that's not bitcoin. So. But generally, like the crypto industry, we are getting a lot of good regulation and innovation from the regulators that is likely to persist at least through the end of this presidency. So that's two and a half years, right? So like the real, I think one of the best arguments for clarity and it has a lot of good stuff in it, truly. And I'll tell you another thing that's good for bitcoiners particularly as well, but it helps prevent rollback. Like, you know, if we get an Elizabeth Warren presidency, like, you saw how fast like Paul Atkins has been able to pivot the sec because like interpretive guidance and memos, like, they have some weight, but they can be undone. Federal statute, however, is substantially more durable. So that's one of the best reasons

[Alex]

for it is the save our wallet stuff that Matt Crawley was doing still

[Danny]

in it, yes, absolutely. The Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act. It provides broad protections for software developers who don't control user funds. I think that's.

[Alex]

That's a huge one.

[Danny]

Yeah, that's a huge one. Of course that's many bitcoiners and many bitcoin development companies and many. Right. Like for talking about like a. Not effectively, we're talking about non custodial apps. Like, like a wallet. Right. Like that's like it makes sense. Right, like, like you know, if, if Osama Bin Laden writes his letter on Microsoft Word, they don't show up at Bill Gates his house. Right.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Danny]

Like I just saying like things that are truly tools and not like intermediaries should not be regulated as intermediaries. I think that, I believe that that's still in it. And also there is a protection. There is a protection I saw about protecting self custody, a whole section about it. And one of the things I believe it says is that coin dormancy is not sufficient to prove abandoned property.

[Alex]

Okay. We need it.

[Danny]

So. Yeah, so I think. Yeah, brca. Yeah. I mean I think it's good. But your question at first was about the odds.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Danny]

And I mean I think here's the issue, like there are a couple issues. Everyone's talking about the ethics issue, which is about how to prohibit executive officials from doing crypto type stuff. And I think that probably is the blocker. If it's primary blocker, the Republicans and Democrats can get on the same page. And when this comes out, like knock on wood, they might have. That's like, you know, we're recording on Thursday, July 22, like they just today released the new combined text of that bill of the Clarity act. And it for the first time has an ethics provision in it. And I think it is the first ethics provision ever for a specific asset class. It's also pretty good. Dems want a little bit more. And like I'm not saying that's unreasonable in my view, but whether they can get there is not clear. I think if they can get there, then the odds are pretty good. The problem is the calendar.

[Alex]

Everyone goes.

[Danny]

No time. We have almost no time.

[Alex]

So is that because midterms are going to be crucial and then everyone goes away for the summer.

[Danny]

Yeah. So they all go. The Senate, the House I think is scheduled to go away next week. Like that's their last week next week. So July 30th or 31st. Right. The Senate has one more week before they go on recess as well. Then they come back and it's like race to the midterms. Right. And we could be facing a government shutdown. I believe there's. That's a possibility in like September and October. And just historically, like if you look very few substantial pieces of legislation, let alone possibly controversial ones ever get passed in the fall of a midterm election year. Right. And then after the midterms, like a lot, I don't know how, however many members lose their seats are now in what is a lame ducks duck session, they call it. And again, like do we think they're going to like, you know, come in to vote for crypto on the way out? Like, it's doubtful. I mean, yeah, it's not impossible. It is possible. It's just much less likely. We and others have been saying this for months. So it's not like something that we. That is new. Like you just in Senate floor. It takes a long time to vote in the Senate. It's not like the House is like much more, much faster. The Senate's like they gotta do one whole vote first just to make a motion to consider voting on it. That needs 60 plus votes. Like then you need another one. And so like I wrote in June that like we wanted to see text by like July 4th, but like that was two weeks ago from when we finally got it. Like it's just like taking a lot of time and they're about to split. Right. And just like that, I think that is. Has been. I'd been lowering it consistently from like 60, you know, 75 to 65 to 5050 like basically on calendar alone. And so now we're sort of at, I will say one, one sort of thing here is that like timing, urgency, the lack of time can force compromises. Right? So like you could get a rabbit out of a hat. People forget the genius act failed. The first vote actually literally failed on the floor. And, and, and, and then, and then succeeded. Right. Like so it is possible. And that's why I'm not, I'm not like, I'm nowhere close to zero. You know, I don't know. It's, it's, it feels like a coin flip at best to me right now. But you know, your viewers and listeners should. I mean next week in the like the last week of July and the first week of August is like that's literally crunch time. So like, you know, I'd like to see, hopefully by the time this comes out, Majority Leader th been some compromises on whatever is outstanding and Majority Leader Thune will have called a vote. Like we'll have said that a Vote will be on a day and after

[Alex]

the midterms though there's no shot.

[Danny]

I. I mean I don't think so technically there is, you know like they could do whatever they want. Like there is their Senate will go into session. Just typically nothing huge gets done then and then look, I mean just then the balance of power in D.C. changes after the midterm. So like it potentially. Yeah, well, yeah, right, potentially. I mean, well it'll change at least by one every time maybe. Does it flip? Like does the House flip to the Dems? Does the.

[Alex]

But is the idea it's going to flip there?

[Danny]

Right. Well, I mean I haven't followed the campaigns at all but Polymarket I think says more likely than not. Like it's like 55, 45 that Republicans hold the Senate and like basically the reverse that they take the House.

[Alex]

Still kind of a coin.

[Danny]

Yeah, I know but American politics, you know like and that's ten point delta is like pretty high and I think those markets actually have decent volume so. But I haven't looked at polls or anything but yes, I mean I think it is also quite common for the president's party to lose in the midterm.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Danny]

Like just because like you know, it's not the presidential like a lot of the success of his party or the President's party in the non midterm is because the President who won the presidency is carrying the ticket. Right. So I mean I'm not going to predict that but I do think it's true that like you know, this is a pretty strong shot on goal. Right. President's supportive, his agencies are supportive, a lot of his cabinet is supportive and his party is supportive and his party controls both houses. Like unlikely to repeat that level of, you know, serendipity. I think so you know we want to see it. I think, I think it's a great bill. I think it's a lot of people have worked very hard on the bill. I think it has really appropriate and thoughtful tests for when things are decentralized and when they're not and responses for when they are and are not either. If they're not decentralized enough then certain registration and disclosure requirements and things like that and if they are too decentralized to plausibly comply. Like I mean people spent a long time staffers are know all like people writing this bill know a lot about it now. It's not like they're new like so it's even a lot of this has been being worked on for like three or four years.

[Alex]

Like, do you consider that even a win if. If this never passes, that at least people have got up to speed with what's going on?

[Danny]

Yeah. And look, look, I gotta say, a lot of Democrats voted for this in the House, so, like, a lot of Democrats also are supportive. So it's not like fait accompli that, like, if the Democrats are in charge, nothing can happen. Right. So, yeah, I mean, I. Look, I think we've done great work in bringing regulators and policymakers and administration officials and industry up to speed on this technology, the legal issues, the things that are truly important for investor protection, innovation, American capital markets growth and dominance. I think a lot of good work has been done.

[Alex]

So as someone who's got no skin in the game in terms of. I obviously don't live in America, but America still drives the world. People follow what America do. If the Democrats do win the next full election, do you think we're in trouble in.

[Danny]

In bitcoin and, like, crypto markets? Yeah, I mean, it honestly really depends. There are some Democrats who love bitcoin.

[Alex]

Who. Who's the most likely kind of g.

[Danny]

AOC I have no idea, dude. Gavin Newsom, maybe? I have no idea. I. I think if you. Again, I would literally, to answer that question, I would literally just look. Where are they ranked? I think Kamala is somewhere in there as well.

[Alex]

Sure.

[Danny]

I have no idea. But I will say, I mean, there's some great Democrats that love bitcoin a lot. Ruben Diego, Richie Torres, Kirsten Gillibrand has been a big, longtime supporter.

[Alex]

She's been also on bitcoin and Aliens.

[Danny]

Angela, also Brooks, like Mark Warner has been supportive in the past, and there's some really good ones. Right. So Hakeem Jeffries has been supportive. And I think it was like 70 Democrats voted for fit 21 in the House, which is clarity act and clarity and later clarity, even during the. I mean, fit 21 passed in the Biden administration, in the House, of course, not in the Senate. So, like, I don't think the game's over and that we're. But it matters, you know, if we get, you know, an AOC Warren Gensler presidency, I think that'd be quite bad for. For us. So it. But again, we've. It's not just Republicans that like bitcoin, even in D.C. so, you know, you live to fight another day. Some big. If it doesn't happen, some big legislation takes years and multiple attempts. This is one such one. But like, you know, Scott Besson said, we're at the one yard Line. And he's right. Like, there's. Yeah, they're still debating. Like, I talk about ethics. I think some Democrats still want changes to the BRCA a little bit. That's just a couple words though, that we're down to. It's like a 310 page law. And like, we are. He's right. That like, the number of issues has gotten very small. I would just say, to use the World cup analogy, that in addition to being very close, we're also running out of time. We're in like the last minute of stoppage time at this point as well. So, like, it's time for Messi to find the back of that net or they're gonna end up losing.

[Alex]

I mean, the Argentinians.

[Danny]

Oh, I'm not, you know, I'm just saying. So I don't know. It's gonna. It's been a long, long road. I will tell you though, this has been. I've been working, you know, helping everyone that does anything in like, the policy space in bitcoin, in crypto, our friends at bpi, like, everyone's been working on this for a long time and it's pretty, pretty good. It's pretty good how it never passes.

[Alex]

Oh, well. Well, you know, we will live to fight another day.

[Danny]

Yeah, that's what I think.

[Alex]

Alex, this has been awesome. Thank you, Danny, for everyone that's in the depths of the bear market, feeling a bit down, parting words.

[Danny]

Well, bitcoin is what we'll call it. Is it four and a half times above its prior low. I mean, the floor is rising. I would tell you. I would also just say that, like the impulses that have driven people to fall in love with bitcoin in the world, right? Never ending debasement of, you know, fiat currency. I mean, that's, that's not a feature. That's, that's, that's like inherent feature of how fiat currency works. Government debt. Lyn Alden says this, right? Nothing stops that train. Those things that drew people to fall in love with bitcoin, truly, not just buy it in an ETF or whatever. They're accelerating and they're not going away. And so everything in life is cyclical and ebbs and flows, and bitcoin is just continuing to do its thing. I hate to just use tropes here, but they all carry important meaning. TikTok next block.

[Alex]

Absolutely.

[Danny]

You know, even if Thomas can't get the battery working here on the block clock, I assure you the blocks are talking.

[Alex]

They are talking.

[Danny]

And so, I mean, the thing works, like learn about self custody. And by the way, we are entering an age of abundance. I mean, the tools that you can now access with AI. I've built a lot of stuff for bitcoin for my own analysis of bitcoin. So, you know, while you wait for, you know, the bitcoin bull run, like, practice and get good at your coding.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

I love it, man.

[Alex]

Thank you. This has been awesome.

[Danny]

Thanks, Danny.

[Alex]

Appreciate you, man.

[Danny]

Absolutely.

[Alex]

Let's.