Bitcoin & Markets

Full show notes for links and charts: Telegram In all PODCAST apps, search "bitcoin and markets" Twitter for Spaces! FREE weekly newsletter This is the live stream from Wednesday prior to the live broadcast of Fed Watch on Bitcoin Magazine's video channels. I cover a wide range of topics around bitcoin and macro, including a war/peace cycle, ETH as the big daddy Ponzi to blow up, speculative attack on stETH from Lido, Q&A about globalization and China. #bitcoin #macro #geopolitics ---- Disclaimer: The content for Bitcoin & Markets shall not be construed as tax, legal or financial advice. Do you own research.

Full show notes with links and charts: Telegram In all PODCAST apps, search "bitcoin and markets" Twitter  for Spaces! FREE weekly newsletter Today's show is about macro topics. Of course, I discuss bitcoin's price and chart, and then discuss major developments missed by, and misinterpreted by, the mainstream financial press. Even alternative macro commentators get this wrong stuff wrong. Big topics are OPEC is cutting its global demand forecast for the 5th time since April and Ukraine softening its position on negotiations. I tie these things into describing and forecasting bitcoin. #bitcoin #macro #geopolitics ---- Disclaimer: The content for Bitcoin & Markets shall not be construed as tax, legal or financial advice. Do you own research.

Full show notes with links and charts: https://bitcoinandmarkets.com/e262/ Telegram https://t.me/bitcoinandmarkets FREE weekly newsletter https://tinyurl.com/2chhbnff Twitter https://twitter.com/AnselLindner for Spaces! I was lucky to get today's live stream recorded. Human error on Telegram kept it from recording properly, but Twitter Spaces recorded it. The audio quality is worse, which is one of the reasons Telegram is primary for me, but at least I have it and able to release it to you. Topics include a brief FTX big picture, bitcoin fundamentals discussion, macro charts, outline of my general geopolitical and monetary theory, US chip embargo, and Italy and French fight over illegal immigration. #bitcoin #macro #geopolitics ---- Disclaimer: The content for Bitcoin & Markets shall not be construed as tax, legal or financial advice. Do you own research. https://bitcoinandmarkets.com/disclaimer/

Full show notes: https://bitcoinandmarkets.com/e261/ Telegram https://t.me/bitcoinandmarkets FREE weekly newsletter https://tinyurl.com/2chhbnff Twitter https://twitter.com/AnselLindner for Spaces! Daily Live stream with FTX exhaustion. In this episode, I look into FTX regulatory repercussions, the next bitcoin narrative battle, stocks and dollar analysis, and Q&A. #bitcoin #macro #geopolitics ---- Disclaimer: The content for Bitcoin & Markets shall not be construed as tax, legal or financial advice. Do you own research. https://bitcoinandmarkets.com/disclaimer/

Full show notes with charts and links: https://bitcoinandmarkets.com/e260 Telegram https://t.me/bitcoinandmarkets FREE weekly newsletter https://tinyurl.com/2chhbnff Twitter https://twitter.com/AnselLindner for Spaces! Double live stream day! Initial live CPI reaction, then we discuss Powell's seeming Dilemma, frontrunning a pivot, Bitcoin price reaction, FTX drama and possible SEC collusion, and finally, regulation that is coming to the space. #bitcoin #macro #geopolitics ---- Disclaimer: The content for Bitcoin & Markets shall not be construed as tax, legal or financial advice. Do you own research. https://bitcoinandmarkets.com/disclaimer/

FTX Fallout, Elections, and China - 11.9.22 | E259 by Ansel Lindner

Full show notes: https://bitcoinandmarkets.com/e258 Telegram https://t.me/bitcoinandmarkets FREE weekly newsletter https://tinyurl.com/2chhbnff Twitter https://twitter.com/AnselLindner for Spaces! In this daily stream, I discuss the Red Wave briefly as a referendum against the disastrous global Marxist plans. Next, I get into the FTX and CZ drama as well as bitcoin's price reaction. Then I cover some basic currency charts of the Yen, Euro and DXY, as well as a couple Treasury yield charts. Lastly, I talk China import/export numbers the hype about ending zero-covid. #bitcoin #macro #geopolitics ---- Disclaimer: The content for Bitcoin & Markets shall not be construed as tax, legal or financial advice. Do you own research. https://bitcoinandmarkets.com/disclaimer/

Full show notes: https://bitcoinandmarkets.com/e257 Telegram https://t.me/bitcoinandmarkets FREE weekly newsletter https://tinyurl.com/2chhbnff Twitter https://twitter.com/AnselLindner On today's daily live stream, I discuss my weekly newsletter topics, including Bitcoin news and current events. Specific topics are the FTX and Alameda solvency issue, Replace-by-fee controversy in Bitcoin, price analysis including headwinds and tailwinds, mining news, and lightning networks bugs. #bitcoin #macro #geopolitics ---- Disclaimer: The content for Bitcoin & Markets shall not be construed as tax, legal or financial advice. Do you own research. https://bitcoinandmarkets.com/disclaimer/

Full show notes: https://bitcoinandmarkets.com/e Telegram https://t.me/bitcoinandmarkets FREE weekly newsletter https://tinyurl.com/2chhbnff Twitter https://twitter.com/AnselLindner Another daily live stream. Today, I talk dicuss the bitcoin price action, along with stocks, the dollar, and oil. Find the the chart on the full show notes. After that, I read throug two articles, one about coming oil price acceleration and the Fed's choices, the other about the omnipotent is losing power. They offer me an opportunity to discuss why the typical bitcoin and "alternative macro" conception about the central bank and money are wrong. Lastly, I take a question from one of my listeners. He asks if bitcoin will benefit most from a tight dollar situation or a loose dollar situation. This is because I was talking about credit cycles and the business cycle, and that what we see today is simply a global credit/business cycle that cannot be allowed to collapse, because there is nothing backing any of the money. A collapse would mean liquidating all debt not just the bad debts. Therefore, it will be kicked down the road until we change the money. #bitcoin #macro #geopolitics ---- Disclaimer: The content for Bitcoin & Markets shall not be construed as tax, legal or financial advice. Do you own research. https://bitcoinandmarkets.com/disclaimer/

Full show notes: Join Telegram Another daily live stream. Today, I debrief Fed Watch from yesterday, the current chart situation, I give a quick review of Jason Lowery's recent appearance on Preston Pysh's podcast about PoW vs PoS, I discuss an article about Saudi Arabia getting closer to China than the US, and answer a question from Twitter about my views of the future.  Find all the links and charts on the full show notes page linked above.  

Full notes: This episode of Bitcoin & Markets marks a new beginning. Yesterday YouTube terminated my channel out of the blue after a live stream. I've since appealed, but this incident has made be question the direction of my show. This is a raw and unedited version of my live stream. I will be posting every live stream I do on Telegram and Twitter to my podcast feed as well. Where paid supporters were the only ones getting my live stream recordings, I want to open them up to everyone and try to broaden my reach. I also started a Rumble channel to check out. On this episode I talk about the ban, the upcoming Fed policy decision later today, the bitcoin price and technical analysis, and a few other topics from my Telegram channel, like the Foxconn issues over in China.

Join the ! Support the show as a member on ! This episode is dedicated to education. I select a few terms from the Bitcoin Dictionary and go through them. You can find the Bitcoin Dictionary on Amazon, or by going to . The terms I selected are very important to understanding bitcoin, economics, and money. They are convergence, consensus, credit commitment, money and economic medium. Full show notes #bitcoin #btc #money #crypto #economics

This episode is adapted from a live stream from Oct 12, 2022, where I discuss some arguments put forth by ethereum proponents about issuance of ethereum vs bitcoin. Join the telegram Full Show notes Subscribe and share!

Join the ! Support the show as a member on ! This episode is a short clip of my Telegram live stream (also doing them as Twitter spaces) on 8 Sept 2022. The topic was a by Mark Moss. This is clip I detail why it is important for people to define inflation and deflation properly as changes to the money supply, and not falsely label all price level changes to "inflation". It is extremely misleading. Mark tells us that the price decreases we've seen over the last several decades are a result of "deflation". That is wrong. Globalization was enabled by massive amounts of credit creation, and since money is credit (we have credit-based money), this was massive inflation. The reason it is important to get the definitions right, is because price changes directly resulting from changes to the money supply (inflation or deflation) is the evil we are trying to avoid. In this case, money printing of the last 50 years led to globalization, economies of scale, artificial division of labor, and price declines. The evils of inflation was the lower prices and globalization. Now, in the reflexive deflationary environment, birth rates to go down, mental health deteriorates, and cultures degenerate. The evils of inflation didn't look like evils, prices went down, but be other side of the coin, deflation, exposes the damage done. Deglobalization is driven by deflation (shrinking of global credit) yet will lead to rising prices from losing efficiencies of globalization. The natural state of things is likely higher prices, but also higher birth rates, better mental health, and flourishing cultures. Initially, the deflationary environment exposes the evils of changing the money supply, but that forces a change in the form of money back to sound money, because the limitations of credit-based money have been reached, and the only way out is to change to a commodity money (I believe bitcoin).

This episode is a recording of my telegram live stream today. In it I discuss a recent video sent to me by a member on bitcoinandmarkets.com. I took the opportunity to describe how power difference appear in the geopolitical chess board. We get into the history of power, the geopolitics of Athens and Sparta, Britain vs France, why some areas have different cultures and economics versus other places, and finally, where is it all going. Original video: (give it a watch and a like) Full show notes:  

This episode is a read through and reaction to Arthur Hayes' about Ethereum's merge from a reflexivity perspective. A summary of my major gripes can be found in full show notes:

Full write up here: In this episode, I react to another Jeff Snider interview, this time on the Mark Moss podcast. In the interview, Jeff response to Mark's questions about why QE doesn't work and is not money printing. I expand on Jeff's points by describing how QE actually handicaps future growth, and in a credit-based system, it also effects growth. I wanted to tackle the specific arguments Jeff makes about elasticity next. Jeff claims that the problem with the current system is the lack of elasticity in economic slowdowns. I think he'd also argue that the response to these slowdowns has an effect of ever getting back to a good economy, where credit is expanding, and where elasticity is high. He claims that lack of elasticity is the main problems we face today. My analysis is nearly opposite.

Member access to the shared Drive with all live streams can be . Website show notes: This is day #10 in my 30 in 30 live streams on . If you aren't in there, you should be. In this episode, I discuss the bitcoin price, stocks, the catalyst for a bullish rally, Ukraine situation, Taiwan and China threat or not?, and Richard Werner on credit-based money. I do expect the bitcoin price to rally along with stocks over the next 6 month back to ATHs. I walk through the below chart for the immediate term. Then I say we need a catalyst to really explode higher, and what could that be? Ukraine update The situation in Ukraine is coming to a head. Back on July 16th in Telegram I wrote about Ukraine developments, in part I said: So, what we have is a coalescing of factors on around a date roughly 3 weeks from now. 1) completion of Special Military Operation goals in Donbas, 2) failure of major Ukrainian southern offensive, 3) diplomatic contact through proxies, 4) energy crisis and civil unrest in Europe, already toppling governments in the UK and Italy, maybe more soon.If there is going to be a ceasefire/conclusion to this conflict it will take place then in my estimation.Wildcard: US deep state has promised to fight in Ukraine until the last Ukrainian. They won't give up easily. This map was floated by Medvedev this week. Taiwan threat? Next, I talk about the Taiwan threat. My basic understanding on Taiwan and China remains the same. China is in a credit crisis and is facing the end of the US-led liberal order that enabled them to grow in the first place. They do not have the ability to project power, period. They can perhaps stop Pelosi from landing on Taiwan, but will not respond. In an unusually aggressive warning from Beijing, the CCP told the US to not let Pelosi visit Taiwan, even as equal EU politicians have recently visited with no problem. I say this is the Art of War, looking strong where they are weak. Why am I confident that China will not invade Taiwan or start a war? They have only a handful of amphibious vehicles, and it would take them 5 hours to reach Taiwan over the open ocean of the Taiwan Strait, with hundreds of precision guided missiles trained on them. Once they land, they'd be alone as the vehicles went back to pick up another group. They'd have to assault a fortified beach defended by people fighting for the home. Last but not least, all the US would have to do to choke out China would be to close the Strait of Malacca to their trade. Bottom line, China does not have the tactical or strategic ability to take Taiwan by force, or take on the US militarily directly. Richard Werner The last segment of this live stream is me discussion Richard Werner's credit-based money theories. I agree with him on a couple things, 1) money is created in the process of making a loan, and 2) a healthy banking system will have more small banks than large banks. Where I disagree with Werner is that he is a Chartalist, meaning he thinks money is created by the State. His prescription for the financial system is to have more centrally directed credit creation. It's as simple as telling the banks to lend to production uses instead of financialization. What he doesn't understand is the financialization is a direct consequence of not having a commodity backing. It is a way of simulating a commodity backing by interconnecting counterparty risk throughout the system. He also doesn't accept that credit-based money does not allow for creative destruction, so the monster continues to grow and runs into diminishing marginal returns on debt. The monster must keep swimming or it will suffocate, but where it can swim becomes more and more restricted. Like a game of snake, where eating the dots makes your body grow. As you get toward the end of the game, there is little choice of where to turn. Your freedom of movement is restricted, you must continue down a now predetermined path. This is credit-based money.

Member video  Full show notes  Article read from This is a discussion and read through of a recent article that I adapted from last week's rant on the Fundamentals Report newsletter. The main ideas are that we should not abide catastrophism. Cries about the end of Western Civilization are overblown to sell books, get clicks and sell subscriptions for more alarmist macro content. It's not different this time. Economic fundamentals keep the world from spiraling out of control.

Member video Full show notes As listeners to this podcast know, I've been pretty well convinced of the Eurodollar system framework. Jeff Snider is the primary expert on this field today, and his popularity has started to spread rapidly. Though Jeff is an expert in the current system, his critique of bitcoin leaves room for improvement. In this episode, I breakdown part of a recent podcast he was on where he tried to summarize his opposition to a bitcoin-based system as a replacement for our current credit-based system. Here is the original video. The interesting bit starts around the 54:00 mark.

Full show notes: In this reaction video, I listen to a Chris Martenson from Peak Prosperity in a recent video titled . I have the utmost respect for Chris due to his sound money views and priceless expert opinion during the early days of the Corona Virus, but his economic claims about energy and the economy required a response. I cover a lot of ground in this episode, including basic economics of complex systems, the central planning fallacy, US oil production, the peak oil fallacy, and contrast a pessimistic macro outlook and an optimistic outlook. Where, How, and By How Much? A problem with most people's macro analysis is the lack of specificity. They use oversimplified terms and claims that would fall apart upon deeper examination. They would find out the affects of a coming recession on different areas of the world will be different, and they'd have to determine that the US is not in that bad of shape relative to other major economies and blocks. However, they have already determined the US is on the road to massive social upheaval and the end of some perceived unusual period of unfairness. Examining relative economic conditions, and the reasons behind those deep historical differences in economic advancement by geographic region, will not support their predetermined outcome. We must ask anyone preaching a coming global manmade catastrophe, some simple questions. 1) Where exactly will the economic stress by most acute? 2) How will that country or region deal with these acute economic conditions? 3) How bad will it get for them relative to other places? Independent Variables To reach a catastrophic conclusion, one must start by introducing an independent variable into the economic mix. Of course, this is impossible, there are no independent variables in nature or economics. When we compare nature with the market, let us compare individuals to species and the market to the larger ecological system. There are certainly cases where individual species may become endangered or even extinct. And in a market, individuals will rise or fall, even die. However, the entire system is not so fragile to begin a downward feedback loop to zero. So, economic variables will change, but that will have been induced by previous changes, and in turn cause future changes. There are no independent variables in the market. This is important when evaluating Chris' arguments about energy. He claims the energy supply will independently be reduced. He uses charts showing a very close relationship to energy usage and GDP. But instead of inferring that GDP causes energy usage, he concludes that energy usage causes GDP. I hope you see the backward inference. One way supposes energy usage is an independent variable, while the other way views it as a dependent variable. US Shale Oil One of the premises that Chris uses for his argument is a belief in . The theory is carefully crafted to exclude new sources of oil. It claims that we are running out of easily accessible oil, and production from that easily accessible oil will slowly taper for the next 50 years until we are out of it. As I said though, this theory excludes new sources of oil, like oil sands and very importantly oil shale. In the last 15 years, new technology has come around that has enabled US shale oil producers to economically extract shale oil. This is a very big deal because shale oil reserves dwarf conventional reserves by at least 3.5:1 as of current estimates. The US is home to 80% of extractible shale, estimated to be roughly 4-5 trillion barrels, compared to all of the world's conventional reserves of 1.6 trillion barrels. The problem is also, not nearly as bad as peak oil promoters will have you believe, because conventional oil reserves still tend to increase every year, despite extracting approximately 75 million barrels a day. The above chart stops in 2015, so I'll add the last data point from another source. In 2020, global conventional oil reserves were 1.732 trillion...

Full show notes: Member video version: In this reaction video I listen to a segment of a Lance Roberts morning show . It's a radio show out of Texas that discusses investing and personal finance. I'm a fan of the show, and think they usually do a good job evaluating the stock market and basic market sentiment. However, in this particular segment, Lance attacks Bitcoin from a very naïve angle and I had to set the record straight. Cryptocurrency or Bitcoin? First, I take on his use of the term "cryptocurrency" right out of the gate. I don't think he could define it other than to say, bitcoin and things like bitcoin. But, Bitcoin is not crypto, and crypto is not Bitcoin. Almost all criticism leveled at Bitcoin is intended for crypto scams, not Bitcoin. Lance is guilty of that here. Next, I discuss one of my pet peeves that Lance propagates here. He calls the dollar and bitcoin "fiat" currency. Fiat is very specific thing, it is a currency that is not backed by anything making its supply completely dependent on a ruler/government. The dollar is not a fiat currency. For one, the dollar is backed by credit and low, stable counterparty risk. Secondly, its supply is not dictated by the government (or the Fed). Reserves printed by the Federal Reserve are not a medium of exchange like a dollar bill. Fiscal spending is not printing money either, it is simply borrowing, or pulling demand forward to stimulate the economy today at the expensive of the economy tomorrow. Therefore, the dollar is not pure fiat, and neither is bitcoin. Bitcoin is the thing that is the money. These perverted definitions of fiat can be used to twist gold into being a fiat currency. They'll argue that only gold backs gold, and hence its value is "unbacked". Total lunacy. Bitcoin backs bitcoin, like gold backs gold. Nothing can back the value of money, even the government. They don't back the purchasing power of the dollar. When someone says that, "the dollar is backed by the full faith and credit of the US government", I say, "Okay, what does that mean? What are they backing? Are they backing the purchasing power of the dollars?" The truth is they only back the nominal value of the dollar. $1 = $1. Lance makes an interesting comment that money in your money market fund doesn't just disappear, while bitcoin can just disappear from your coinbase account. Okay, well, coinbase is more like a bank, and dollars disappear and get seized everyday from bank accounts. Dollar bills aren't even safe from civil asset forfeiture. Explaining Stablecoins Next, Lance's associate Michael Lebowitz, whom I have interviewed for Fed Watch and is a sharp guy, explains stablecoins in a pretty good summary. However, he ends by saying that the algorithmic stablecoins have crashed for the first time, making the market volatile. That is not the case, of course. All algorithmic stablecoins have had major issues with their pegs, and most have ceased to function. This particular episode recently with Terra, was such a big deal because it owned a lot of bitcoin and was heavily entwined in the multi-layered scam space. Conclusion Lance Roberts concludes that "cryptocurrency" has not delivered on its promises due to a mistaken analysis by crypto bros. He says "crypto" has promised to be like gold, and be money, when it's not. This is common misdirection, because only bitcoin claims to be digital gold, yet because altcoins fail, bitcoin has not lived up to its promises. Very cringe. Links Original Video (segment starts at 43:15)

The second of two episodes this week is on Clown World topics like Ripple's Garlinghouse complaining that Bitcoin Maximalism is working in DC, and the implosion of the NFT delusion. You can see the original content in the newsletter, issue . Clown World Brad Garlinghouse of Ripple infamy, claimed that tribalism in crypto is muddying the messaging in DC. Well, good. He's making the argument that Bitcoin's expert technical and monetary arguments, and our insistence on showing empirical evidence of the past 10 years in the industry of scam after scam properly diagnosed by these arguments, is turning regulators against altcoins. Ukraine bans bitcoin 2 months after making it completely legal. Yet another example of Ukraine's government exposing its true nature. NFTs are Silly I use the recent event of the failed auction of Jack Dorsey's first tweet, the first tweet ever made, to demonstrate the delusion of NFTs. The owner of this NFT bought the token for $2.9 million last year and thought he'd be able to get $48 million now. LMAO you can't make this stuff up. NFTs are nothing more than a digital signature in pseudo-control of a token. A token that is not the object in question, in this case, Jack's tweet. That tweet lives on Twitter's database (and the database of many archive sites), it does not belong to the digital signature or the token. They are two completely separate things. What the token owner has is pseudo-control over a made up concept, a delusion if you will, that the token represents that outside object. I say "pseudo-control" because it can be revoked by the system admins, and has on many occasions in the history of NFTs. A

Discussed in this episode of #Bitcoin and Markets is the concept that the inflation-based investment thesis for bitcoin is dangerous and offering an alternative group of points that form a better more sustainable thesis. You can see the original version in issue , or the edited and more complete version at . Dangers of the Inflation Narrative There are a couple reasons that the inflation-based narrative is dangerous for bitcoin: 1) It doesn't respect recessions. We currently are experiencing high CPI but are heading headlong into lower CPI, recession and a credit crisis that threatens to be as big or bigger than 2009's GFC. A deflationary crisis, like any recession with credit-based money, destroys the inflation reason to hold bitcoin. 2) The CPI argument is empirically wrong. Bitcoin has not gone up as consumer prices are going up. In fact, it is quite the opposite. All you have to look at is the last two years. In April 2021, CPI broke 3% for the first time in 10 years, and that is exactly when bitcoin peaked at $65k. When CPI slowed to flat in July - September 2021 bitcoin's price began to rally again. Finally, most recently, as CPI has once again accelerated on its way up to 8.5% in March 2022, the bitcoin price fell or has been flat. 3) The end result of this wrong and simplistic investment thesis is that the new marginal investor on Wall St or in the upper-middle class or higher, has bought in with that inflation narrative in mind. Now, as the market tips into lower inflation and recession, they will likely sell. This won't harm bitcoin, but it can hurt investors and isn't a vote of confidence for the bitcoin space. Better Points to Stress My alternative is to stress 3 specific characteristics of bitcoin that will benefit in the real situation in which we find ourselves in. 1) Bitcoin has thrived in flat to falling CPI as a counterparty free safe haven. Bitcoin is better gold, and not a dollar denominated asset with 100% pure counterparty risk. 2) Bitcoin's ecosystem is relatively insulated from a credit crisis because it is based around a different currency. The ecosystem is booming and will likely continue to boom because it doesn't have pure dollar risk like all other industries. 3) Bitcoin is a technology with network effects in its early stages of adoption. This gives it extreme asymmetric risk/reward profile. It might be an accident of history that bitcoin is the technology at this point in its adoption at this perfectly suited moment. Stand by for Part 2 coming out later today!! Links Issue #188: Edited and complete version: A

Bretton Woods 3 is Silly, Here's Why! [Reaction] - E240 by Ansel Lindner

In this episode, I expand on my commentary in . The first segment is on the game theory that keeps bitcoin secure from hostile hard forks like the proposed by the Green Peace and the scammer Chris Larson of Ripple. The main point is that coordination to kill the PoW version of bitcoin is impossible because of Bitcoin's decentralization, so there is no future that doesn't involve incentives to defect from that coordination. Hark forks only create altcoins which people can dump to buy more bitcoin. The second segment of the podcast is on the reasons for Europe to be going after bitcoin repeatedly as we've seen recently. The Euro is in very bad shape and the whole globalist dream of a European super state is falling apart, and with it their currency. These are desperate attempts to protect the Euro from competition, but all it will do is shrink the Euro network, and make its demise more certain. More notes: Bitcoin Magazine Article: EU law

This is the second episode of the week, covering my personal model by which I evaluate the market and important geopolitical news. The main outline can be found on the . Complete show notes at https://bitcoinandmarkets.com/e238b/

This is the first part of two episodes that will cover my recent Bitcoin Fundamentals Report #183, specifically the Market Commentary section. Part A is much shorter than part B. Bitcoin has generally performed well when compared to gold and stocks since Russian military operations started in Ukraine on 24 Feb. I give a run down of that performance here. Every bitcoin bull should be happy with how stable bitcoin has been despite the massive geopolitical upheavals.

In this episode, I discuss two articles on bitcoin's game theory by Jeremy Garcia, which appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine. I take a critical stance on many parts of his analysis, but I think it is important that there is more discussion on this topic. I thank Jeremy for writing them. I discuss bitcoin's game theory, cooperative games, infinite vs finite games, changing the rules, and the game theory of nation-state adoption. Article 1: Hypothesis link for my highlights and comments Article 2: My highlights and comments Full show notes:  

Part 2 this week is the rest of the news of the week, price analysis and Bitcoin mining news. Bitcoin is becoming a major player in the great game of international politics. I also get into the conflict in Ukraine a bit at the end. Follow along at Episode post  

This is part 1 of this week's episodes. I'm not going to rehash all that has gone on in the last week, since it is so fast paced. I'm going to concentrate on some takeaways and lessons learned by bitcoin from this situation. Follow along with the Bitcoin Fundamentals Report at Episode page

This short episode is the third part of the series examining the current news of the day in the bitcoin mining industry. Intel has announced it will be making bitcoin ASIC computer chips, Lansing Michigan is trying to crush bitcoin mining in their city, and the mempool is rising meaning there is an increase in the demand to receive bitcoin. Report:   for more links.

Part 2 of this week's report all about the price. I talk about CPI not being a measure of money printing, but of prices and the explanation for 7% CPI due to supply chain issues. Next I introduce the Bitcoin Dormancy Flow. I thought this chart was interesting and will be looking into more in the future. Lastly, I welcome Bloomberg to the bitcoin prediction party, finally. They all of a sudden have what they think is a good model for price based on volatility, but a week later and it's already proving to be wrong.

In this episode I walk through four big news items for the week, starting with Russia saying they will regulate bitcoin not ban it. I then move onto the Bitfinex hackers and the recent news about Blackrock opening up bitcoin investing to their clients. I finish off by discussing Binance's newest investment in Forbes for $200M and the precedence that it might set for the entire bitcoin industry. Follow along with the Bitcoin Fundamentals Report at This is part 1 of a series of episodes that will come out this week. Feedback is welcome.

This is a quick episode to address a question I received via Twitter DM from a reader of the weekly newsletter. He was wondering why I was labeling the market cycle timing as a 2-year cycle instead of the commonly understood 4-year cycle.

This is an early cut of the Evergrande podcast episode coming out next week on Fed Watch. I discuss the proper context in which to view Evergrande, and give details on what I see going on over there in China. Full notes:

In this episode I read through some of the ECB's Annual Report and comment on the current state of the Euro, as well as their efforts to create a digital Euro. This is applicable to bitcoin because the ECB is a major incumbent in the current system, and is trying to launch a bitcoin competitor, which they call a Central Bank Digital Currency. In the first part of the podcast I detail some of the inconsistencies in their Main Findings. Namely, they claim the Euro's currency status has remained "broadly stable" through 2020. Yet, when we read their stats, nearly everything is declining and at a fairly rapid pace. This is very notable, especially since the Euro is already at "historic lows" of importance in the financial system. Next, I read through the entire CBDC section and comment thoroughly about what they are getting right and wrong. Unfortunately, they are getting most things wrongs, but they are doing better than, say, two years ago. The main issues I see are: 1) Means of payment is not a function of money. Paypal or Visa are not functions of the dollar. They are separate features. We can easily and plainly draw a line between Paypal and the dollar. We don't consider Paypal as part of the dollar. Therefore, means of payment is not a function of money, it is a function of financial infrastructure around money. 2) Features are not additive. Throughout their report, they claim adding feature X will result in Y, and adding feature A will result in B, as if these features are added in isolation without any second order effects or trade-offs. Indeed, they claim there is a positive feedback loop to adding more and more features. In fact, every feature has a trade-off and adds to the complexity of the whole. This dynamic is actually a negative feedback loop. 3) Interoperability and anonymity - central banks can only give lipservice to these two things. They cannot truly be interoperable, because that opens them up to monetary competition and gives sanction to speculative attacks. One thing legal tender laws do is to close down monetary competition. Anonymity as well is an obvious plus, so they consider it here, but it fact central planners cannot offer anonymity else they'd lose control. 4) Many of these things are already possible and don't need a special new solution by the central bank. In the real world, these solutions are squashed by regulation, not some technical limitation. There is a reason those regulations where put in place (whether you agree with it or not), and providing a new solution effectively routes around those inefficiencies that are part of the regulation process. The central banks would be undermining their very own regulations in other words if they solved for these things in a CBDC. 5) Interoperability, anonymity, censorship resistance, and being a bearer instrument are products of decentralization. A CBDC is by definition centralized around the central bank, so cannot provide these things. Links ECB 2021 Annual Report Hypothesis link world Lagarde conviction A Get The Bitcoin Dictionary! Bitcoin jargon demystified. Over 180 Bitcoin terms, concepts, and idioms. The Best Free Bitcoin Newsletter! Don't miss another issue. Subscribe to the Pod!  |     |    |    |    |   The Show Needs Your Support We’re a small operation and producing quality content people find valuable. Check out our of ways to help the show Affiliates Chart Like A Pro With The Best WordPress Theme I’ve Ever Used! And Get 2 FREE Audio Books Have Feedback? Send it our way. **: This is not investment advice, do your own research.**

Hopefully this episode helps you understand the monetary system and some of the arguments for a future outlook that is deflationary. Questions were sent in by long time supporter Rob. They are below. We cover the first three in this Part 1 and then tackle the last two here in Part 2, along with a general discussion on CPI and asset price inflation. I finish by explaining why bitcoin doesn't need hyperinflation or even inflation to get adopted. In fact, it is better to that it will be a deflationary grind, because that preserves as much capital as possible in a transition. Check out first. Jeff Booth talks about how we should have massive DEflation due to technology and productivity advances, yet we don’t, why not? Is it possible to have both inflation and deflation in different types of goods and commodities, is that what is happening? With the fed expanding supply of reserves dramatically, why don’t we see consumer inflation. Where do we look to measure it? How come there is no consensus on what is or is not inflation, and what is or is not likely to come in the next 12-18 months? Gold has a reputation of being a hedge of inflation, has that proven true or false over time? Bitcoin? A Get The Bitcoin Dictionary! Bitcoin jargon demystified. Over 180 Bitcoin terms, concepts, and idioms. The Best Free Bitcoin Newsletter! Don't miss another issue. Subscribe to the Pod!  |     |    |    |    |   The Show Needs Your Support We’re a small operation and producing quality content people find valuable. Check out our of ways to help the show Affiliates Chart Like A Pro With The Best WordPress Theme I’ve Ever Used! And Get 2 FREE Audio Books Have Feedback? Send it our way. **: This is not investment advice, do your own research.**

Hopefully this episode helps you understand the monetary system and some of the arguments for a future outlook that is deflationary. Questions were sent in by long time supporter Rob. They are below. We cover the first three in this Part 1 and then tackle the last two in Part 2, along with a general discussion on CPI and asset price inflation. I have Part 2 recorded, but have to edit it and upload it. So, you can expect that in a few days. Jeff Booth talks about how we should have massive DEflation due to technology and productivity advances, yet we don’t, why not? Is it possible to have both inflation and deflation in different types of goods and commodities, is that what is happening? With the fed expanding supply of reserves dramatically, why don’t we see consumer inflation. Where do we look to measure it? How come there is no consensus on what is or is not inflation, and what is or is not likely to come in the next 12-18 months? Gold has a reputation of being a hedge of inflation, has that proven true or false over time? Bitcoin? A Get The Bitcoin Dictionary! Bitcoin jargon demystified. Over 180 Bitcoin terms, concepts, and idioms. The Best Free Bitcoin Newsletter! Don't miss another issue. Subscribe to the Pod!  |     |    |    |    |   The Show Needs Your Support We’re a small operation and producing quality content people find valuable. Check out our of ways to help the show Affiliates Chart Like A Pro With The Best WordPress Theme I’ve Ever Used! And Get 2 FREE Audio Books Have Feedback? Send it our way. **: This is not investment advice, do your own research.**

Hopefully this episode helps you understand the criticisms of Ethereum's Ultra Sound Money (USM) thesis. In this episode I focus on answering the criticism present in the USM thesis from a bitcoin perspective. I start with introducing the listener to the idea of USM and economic engines. Then I dive into the ways to power the engine with issuance or fees, and some of the fallacies around that. Next, we look at Proof of Work (mining) versus Proof of Stake (what ethereum wants to go to). Lastly, is a quick discussion on EIP 1559, the proposal in Ethereum to burn transaction fees as a way to deflate supply.

Full show notes: I listen to and react to an interview Pompliano did with "the most famous digital artist in the world," Beeple, who recent sold a JPG for $69 million. Then I go through what fungibility is and why it applies to bitcoin. Pomp and Beeple - BTCM Research blog  

Full show notes and links: In this episode, I attempt to clear up why I think Lyn Alden is using a Triffin-style premise and my problem with the Triffin dilemma in general. I've noticed people using Triffin-style arguments even more in the past couple of weeks, and it is very important that we have the tools to evaluate if this is the proper framework from which to build an understanding of the financial system. I quote heavily from Lyn and the BIS in this episode, drilling down the essense of the problem with the premise of deficits being the basis for foreign reserves of the dollar. Short answer, they aren't. There's very little evidence that deficits matter to foreign reserves at all, or that they play more than a very small role. The single most important source of foreign reserves is the eurodollar market. If we clear our minds of the role of deficits, then what is the argument for the unsustainability of the USD system? Well, it boils down to the end of a gigantic global credit bubble enabled by the Pax Americana. Hope this helps clarify. Stay tuned for the next episode on NFTs and fungibility. It will be a satisfying episode. A Links - Lyn Alden - Lyn Alden - Triffin: Dilemma or Myth? BIS Report with

Website: Hopefully this episode helps you understand the arguments people often make and if they hold water next time the invoke the Triffin Dilemma. My interest in the Triffin Dilemma started several months ago. Little did I know then that I was trying to debunk an ahistorical extension of the original Triffin argument. I initially came to this conclusion: The problem with using Triffin in an argument about a dollar collapse is 1) it's ahistorical and 2) there doesn't need to be a capital account deficit in the US and surpluses in other countries for them to acquire dollar reserves. In this episode, I try to provide you with a basic understanding of the original Triffin Dilemma from Robert Triffin in 1958, and of why the modern extensions of this famous prediction are poor facsimiles. I provide tons of useful links below as part of the show notes. Balance of Payments It all comes down to the Balance of Payments for a country which issues the global reserve currency. The two main parts of the BoP are the current account and the capital account (including the financial account which we don't talk about). These two halves of the BoP must balance. The current account consists main of a balance of trade. Is the country running a trade surplus or a trade deficit. Other factors are things like foreign aid which we don't have to consider because it's very small compared to the trade balance. The capital account consists of flow of assets and liabilities for the country as a whole. When a foreigner buys a US asset (or a dollar denominated asset) this is a positive input for the capital account. In the reverse, when a US person or entity buys an asset in a foreign country it is a negative input for the capital account. Remember, the current account must be offset by the capital account. Therefore, if the US has a trade deficit of say $500 billion, they must have a capital account surplus of $500 billion. Triffin and Trade Surpluses When Triffin was writing the original Triffin Dilemma, in the 50's and 60's, the US ran massive trade surpluses. This means the capital account was negative - the US was losing assets abroad, or more accurately gaining liabilities abroad. Triffin was concerned that when the dollar denominated value of foreign liabilities surpassed that of the US's gold stock which backed the dollar at the time, there would be a run on the gold stock by those foreigners. They would sell their dollar denominated assets and take delivery of the gold, portending the doom of the US dollar peg. Current Account and Fiscal Triffin The US dollar did end up going off the gold standard in 1971, but not for the reasons Triffin predicted. Despite being accidently right, this form of argument became very popular in economics. Today, we can see two main extensions to the Triffin Dilemma, "current account Triffin" which is exactly the opposite of the original theory, and "fiscal Triffin" which is about global demand for US debt to cause the US to run unsustainable fiscal deficits. The current account Triffin is the most used by inflationists to support their dollar bear views, and, well, it's totally false. It reverses cause and effect, and lacks a clear systemic risk. The fiscal Triffin is more sound, but it is also false. It fails to consider other forms of safe assets like Mortgage Backed Securities and other derivatives. These are inferior to US Treasuries, but they are still widely used in their place (with an associated premium surely). Fiscal Triffin also lacks a clear systemic risk to the financial system, so is unlike the original. Hope this helps. A Links Wikipedia entry for   - Triffin: Dilemma or Myth? BIS Report with  via Hypothesis  - Investopedia FRED -  Khan Academy - 

Full show notes with images and links at At first glance, the Chinese miracle has survived the virus recession and returned to growth. There is no lack of articles proclaiming the inevitable dominance of the communists, sitting atop the list of largest economies in the world. An idea that a rising CCP will want to stretch its new found legs and exercise influence over international trade and diplomacy, and that will bring them into direct conflict with the declining power, the US. This idea was titled the Thucydides Trap by Graham Allison in 2012. Since then it has been a widely used and debated point. While it makes sense that the West is stuck in a debt trap cycle making them destined to stagnation (unless bitcoin), it does not follow in the least that the CCP will continue to rise. The pattern we have seen in China over the last 20 years, is nearly identical to the pattern we saw in Japan from 1970-1990. In this episode I read the original work by Graham Allison and then a great article debunking this work of ahistorical fiction. Hopefully it helps you next time you hear someone using the Thucydides Trap idea to support a decline of the West.

In this episode I listen and react to Doug French's recent Mises article Central Banks Put Wind at Bitcoin's Back. It's a short but wide ranging discussion touching on the current bitcoin rally, market manipulation, money, and central bank caused inflation. Suffice it to say, this article has a misplaced bias saying bitcoin's rally is "FOMO", "misallocation", and "human error". Austrians are missing a huge opportunity to champion bitcoin as free market money and become the most influence school of economics. They need to update their inflationist dogma. More show notes: Source:  

In this episode, I read through a blog post from ECB President Lagarde about central bank digital currencies. I tackle the strengths and weaknesses of her claims and draw conclusions about their plans, in particular the ECB. Website: The future of money – innovating while retaining trust

In this episode, I react to a Simon Dixon interview where he spells out his thinking on the future of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and bitcoin. I respect Simon but couldn't disagree more with his CBDC prediction. We do however agree on bitcoin. Original Video: Website:

In this episode, I listen and react to Michael Saylor's appearance on Hedgeye. Their conversation is pretty straightforward. Michael is a buy and hold guy and is trying to convince a trader of the benefits of picking and sticking to an exponential investment versus trading in and out of a position for a few percentage point gain. Show notes: Follow: @AnselLindner and @btcmrkts Blog: BTCM Research

Today, I listen along with you to Raoul Pal's recent video The Bitcoin Life Raft and react to it. He is a macro forecaster and concentrates on bitcoin and Central Bank Digital Currencies. I disagree to many nuanced points and I think it is a great learning experience for the audience to step through these ideas together. Original video: Full show notes: 5:15 - Introducing the problems faced by the USD system I agree there's problems, but not the things he lays out. I believe his arguments show he has not considered monetary convergence and has a relatively mainstream understanding of the current system. 9:50 - CBDC Raoul claims the CBDCs are a way to address the problems he has laid out. Again, I disagree that the problems are what he says, and I also disagree that CBDCs can do what he thinks. The three big problems he lays out: 16:25 - Cash, freedom, and an agreement of nations (Bretton Woods 2.0) 23:15 END

In this episode, I voice my support for Peter Schiff against the baseless allegations currently being leveled at him. Then I dig into a slightly older tweet from earlier this year, where Peter talks about gold and scarcity. I take it piece by piece and discuss all the economic ideas behind why he is wrong. Website: Twitter: Links Peter's response video Old tweet about scarcity