Former World Bank President Sounds the Alarm! | Bitcoin Banter

I told you guys this is coming to the US. Even though it's the World Reserve right now, it's not immune to this. I mean, the whole system is falling apart. I'm just surprised that we've come another four years and the interest doesn't remain somewhat level and then spike up during bull markets. So many people have said, you're not going to buy a copy with your Bitcoin. And I would say, do you like apples? We got a billion dollars a month on Lightning. How do you like them apples?

So the fact that you've got three top level people scrambling for the exits, that's a major alarm bell. And so if you have money on this exchange, my suggestion would be to get it out like ASAP. and counting, of course. Anyway, he claims that the Fed is borrowing money from banks at 5.4% interest and pouring it into government bonds, creating the illusion that the government's financial situation is better than it actually is. And he warns that this isn't just a U.S.

scheme. It's happening across central banks worldwide. Unsurprising, they would be trying to prop up numbers to make it look like everything's fine. And unsurprising to me, of course, is that

everyone's sort of buying it. I think people are beginning to notice things are maybe a little bit worse but tony take it away man i want to hear your thoughts on this this is the exact script that happened in beirut like copy paste almost you know uh where before things completely fell apart so i told you guys this is coming to the u.s and even though it's you know the world reserve right now it's uh it's not immune to this i mean the whole the whole system is is falling apart

and all this bad news that we keep hearing about is just you know backing up that theme so every day you're going to read about 50 or 100 new like wow explosive stories about things going so so bad but that's expected you know when the mothership is crashing down it's going to take you know everything along along with it um the fact that so many people are still non-reactive to this or perhaps think that somehow it can be saved that is the same delusion we had including me um uh

Back in 2019, when I was reading about this bad news, you know, part of me didn't really understand it. So I'm assuming that's the same case, you know, with a lot of people out there as well. And thinking that, okay, well, they've got it under control until one day you wake up and no, there's no control. There's absolutely nothing left. So brace yourself.

I don't think most people realize the lengths to which government and quasi-government organizations, politicians just very generally, will go to to make to give you the illusion that everything is OK. They've got so many interests at stake and they want the midterms to go well for them. And it doesn't surprise me at all that this would be happening. Greer, what do you think? A trillion dollars? That's that's nothing.

I remember on September 10th, you know, 2001, when Donald Rumsfeld said the Pentagon lost over two trillion dollars. And then we remember what happened the next day. You know, governments aren't losing money.

They know exactly where they're putting it. And it's and it's not in your pocket. It's in the pocket of their friends. So, you know, this is par for the course. You know, for me, I think what we're going to see is people realizing that the dollar is a Ponzi scheme. The only thing keeping it afloat is this magic spell that we're under, where everybody believes that you need more money to survive when Bitcoin is the alternative.

So I think it's time to break the spell. We need to move away from the dollar. You need to transact in Bitcoin, earn in Bitcoin, save in Bitcoin. That's the future. You know, let them have their collapsing fiat paper and let's move on to something better. Sound money. Amen. And for anyone listening, you can go to shopbirdflip.com to get your tinfoil lined hats. It's actually birdflip.xyz. Sorry. Oh, if you changed it? New URL. Had to make it shorter.

Okay. Birdflip.xyz. There you go. Okay. Up next, we've got Mayor Mamdani of New York City. He's a socialist. He's considering a property tax hike to help close a $5.4 billion budget gap. Guys, what do you think happens when they hike property taxes? Do you think people stay or do you think they leave and they lose all of that tax revenue? Greer, F around, find out. This is sad for New York City, but it was completely predictable.

You don't elect a communist and then expect things to improve. There aren't going to be any government funded grocery stores. And in fact, in order to close the budget shortfall, he's taking away money from public sector services. And that's really the shame. You know, this is the the communist playbook is the same wherever it's tried. It always leads to famine and in the worst cases, death. So I don't wish that for anyone in New York.

But I think if you're staying there hoping things are going to happen, you're in for a big surprise. The writing is on the wall. Tony, what was the government in Lebanon like? Was it a fairly free market? Was it very totalitarian prior to the collapse? I'm curious, when we see these endgame sort of things, what was happening before 2019 for you? There was no government, really. I mean, everybody was stealing at their own pace from wherever the opportunity came up for them, right?

And so it's the people who paid the price. But, you know, and this is exactly what you're starting to see here. I mean, these parasites, you know, are just stealing now because that's the only activity that they have available to them. But like you said, like, who's going to pay these prices? Who still has the funds to pay them? And those who do, I don't know if they're dumb enough to stay there and pay it rather than pack up and leave.

I mean, this is very similar to what we're seeing in Europe and in the Netherlands with their 36% unrealized capital gains tax that they want to impose. But what retired is going to willingly stay there and pay these losers all that money? This is the reality of a crumbling system. Again, it all ties back to that same theme. People don't have money, and those that have money are going to find ways to protect it.

And those that are paying attention are going to protect it by leaving the dollar or the euro or that other worthless paper and shifting into sound money.

And those that don have money well there only two options as far as I can see with them Either revolt which know a very scary outcome or get stuck in what i think a lot of people are going to embrace as the next best thing are these stupid stable coins which is literally signing away your life to the devil but you know initially most people won't see that because they're so desperate for anything to uh to continue living, which is, you know, a sans reality in and of itself.

I think the net effect of this is something like rent control, where property owners would love to liquidate, but no one wants to buy their now less or unprofitable buildings. And we just see deterioration because they can't afford to upkeep. And then you end up with basically modern day slums. So the government, the mom, Donnie's government wants to purchase those properties once they become derelict, as you describe, the government wants to have the right, the right of refusal.

So, I mean, you're looking at government funded housing on blighted properties. And, you know, that's not a good thing for the community in New York either. Yeah. Don't play around with communists, kids. All righty. Up next, the search interest for Bitcoin going to zero is now higher than it was in 2022. That's when I got into Bitcoin. Everything was collapsing. That was quite a fun year for everyone who had, we'd reached almost 70,000 dumped almost 15.

Greer, do you think it's interesting? I'm not surprised. I mean, our price is low, like in a bull market, obviously people get excited and start looking for this stuff, but I'm just surprised that, you know, we've come another four years and the interest doesn't remain somewhat level and then spike up during bull markets? Like, is everyone just are we just in such an echo chamber that we can't even fathom? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think that's right.

We're in an echo chamber. And yeah, Bitcoin's not going to zero. But even if it let's imagine that it went to ten dollars or a dollar, you know, I mean, that would be a miracle. I would definitely reduce my overall cost basis for purchasing Bitcoin, which would be welcome. But yeah, You'd have a small select group of people that scoop it all up. I think even if we went down to 40, the same thing would happen. You know, the lower prices.

Yeah, they might be kind of a bummer if you're FOMOing in at 96 or over 100. But just wait. You know, you have to have a longer viewpoint on Bitcoin. Give it 10 years from the day that you first buy it. And I think, yeah, we're going to be a lot higher. I think this year I could be wrong, but I think this year we're going to be higher. And even if we range around at this level, it's still a gift. this is your opportunity. Forget getting to one Bitcoin, get to two Bitcoin.

Absolutely. I would buy so many bid axes because I know hash rate would plummet if that was our price point. The public miners would be in, they'd just go extinct. Tony. You guys don't, you're not bearish enough on human IQ, man. I mean, you would think more people would have gotten a clue by now. But clearly that's not the case. Retail is God knows what doing God knows where. But it's a sad reality, man.

I mean, when I see these things happen, it just tells me that the prices that we saw going up earlier were just fake prices. It's like it's not real.

It's not real growth because when people understand that this is not an investment, that's actually your savings, that you live on this new form of money then a lot more people gobble it up and it stabilizes the fact that you know individuals are selling a lot of their bitcoin to institutions well unless they're sitting on hundreds of thousands of coins because they got in very early well then they're just stupid they don't know what they have and you know they're just thinking of this as just

another tech stock and i think these decisions are going to end up becoming like a historical regret for a lot of folks very very soon because remember whenever every time somebody sells there's a buyer on the other end right and the bad news for all those that you know want bitcoin to be for the right people it's it's not only with the right people in fact it's all the worst kind of people that are absorbing all the coins that the clueless people are willingly giving up so

yeah so it's going to take time but bitcoin was never erased it's a it's a progressive uh it's a progressive savings and it's going to take time you know for simple minds to uh to understand this um you're part of yeah i guess you can call it an echo chamber and like i've said before man the masses don't listen to these messages they are so far away from anything logical that that's why nothing really changes for them and like it doesn't take much to sway them left and right

but often that's you know taking them out from one shithole into you know a newer shithole nothing really changes but over time you know there are leaks people that get tired of this bounce being bounced around and they eventually you know start asking the right questions and paying attention to this, you know, the proper way. People like you, me, and, you know, millions of others that, you know, are living on a Bitcoin standard. So it's not a ticket to riches, it's a

ticket to freedom. So that has to be understood before anyone can win at Bitcoin, because the process itself is extremely simple. Yeah, my thesis is that most of these searches came from Mike McGlone, that Bloomberg analyst crowd, they're all watching. Yeah, of course. And you've got these idiots out there that people, you know, reference as credible points of information and they follow them blindly, you know, without much thought.

So these, you know, these institutional prostitutes, that's their job is to, you know, to fight the mislead, to to separate people from the one asset that, you know, was created to set them free. Well said. All righty, guys, we got a Tony quote tweet here.

Still trusting third parties with your money, not your keys, not your coins. don't learn the hard way. And this is in response to the fact that Gemini basically sees all of their C-level executives leaving, their chief legal officer, COO, and their CFO. So all departed effective immediately. And according to the article that is being referenced, the executive departures are raising fears about the company's future. Tony, take it. If you have anything else to add to your tweet.

This is again is, you know, like the bomb diffuser. If you see him running, man, you better be right behind him because something going to blow very very soon Nobody leaves when a company is doing well That just common sense So the fact that you got three top people scrambling for the exits that's a major alarm bell. And so if you have money on this exchange, my suggestion would be to get it out like ASAP. And that's not just specific to this exchange.

Any third party holding your money is susceptible to the same result as this. And people will lose their funds repeatedly over and over until they finally learn that trusting third parties with money is a sign of a cuckoo head. So how long that takes, man, it depends on each person's tolerance for pain.

yeah if you're using Gemini I get started on withdrawing into self-custody very quickly because it might take six or eight weeks you never know with these exchanges Greer yeah that's the worst part when you try to withdraw your coins and they either make you upload a you know a facial um ID or your driver's license I mean the KYC on these things is ridiculous um but yeah I think when everyone starts running you know you want to be the first one out the door um I don't know

what the future looks like for Gemini. I wouldn't use it. I'm not into shit coins. If you've got crypto on there, just leave it because it's worthless anyway, but definitely get your Bitcoin out. Yeah, absolutely. Alrighty, guys, we this is sort of a we're going to go back over this because we went to we talked about Iran's currency collapsing a few, maybe a couple months ago, and it's now completely collapsed. I mean, if you have seven hundred and thirty five dollars today,

you're a billionaire in Iran. So basically, you just have zero purchasing power at this point.

Tony, I know we've talked about Lebanon already, but I imagine this is reminiscent of that. Come on, man. This is great news for the number go up, Dorks. For those that are in a hurry to become billionaires and trillionaires, just buy a different type of currency and you'll be that way

in 30 seconds. And I would recommend you diversify your portfolio. Get a bit of the Lebanese pound, get a bit of the Iranian real, get a bit of other failed currencies, and then brag to the world that you're a zillionaire. I honestly might take $735 and buy the Iranian real just so I can say I'm a billionaire. I think that'd be kind of a fun thing to get to do. Absolutely, man. Yeah, go shop for your timeshare in Tehran. I hear it's a beautiful place at least twice a year.

But yeah, this is, you know, this is the U.S. government weaponizing the currency against the Iranians. And I think there's still a lot of developments that we haven't seen yet. But this is this is part of isolating the regime and trying to get a new a new power source in Iran. So, you know, all bets are off the table. I feel for the Iranian people who are caught up in the mix. And and that's that's the real headline here is that regular people get hurt by government currencies.

Today, we have a neutral asset. It can be used by any person without permission. So why would you bother wanting to stay in a government issued token? You know, this is the lesson to me. Get out while you can get into Bitcoin. Right. Amen. All righty, guys, just for fun here, we've got billionaire Peter Thiel fully exits Ethereum treasury firm, ETHZilla. What a creative name. He sold his entire stake. Greer, we were talking offline. You're not a big Peter Thiel fan, right?

I just don't think there's a lot of signal in this story. Peter has famously sold either all of his Bitcoin or a huge portion of his Bitcoin. The guy was mentioned like over 2000 times in the Epstein files, which I know doesn't say he's guilty, but the fact that he was mentioned so often is kind of raises some eyebrows. Plus, there are lots of other things he's involved in that are questionable. You know, I think we know what's happening with Palantir and the future

they're planning for surveilling the world. But, you know, to me, this is more funny. Like, yeah, sell your ETH while you can. But I wouldn't take anything away from this as it relates to Bitcoin.

yeah you can be rich and stupid at the same time i think it's the peter deal story uh tony yeah i wouldn't trust this guy either man like to me this headline means absolutely nothing um but you know if you know anything about palantir um you want to stay away from this this guy anyone like him and not support any of the work that they're doing because these are you know unstable human beings unfortunately very smart unstable human beings and nothing they uh they are working on is for

you know the the best interest of anyone except for for themselves so uh again opt out of that chessboard um while you still can and i know most people don't believe this or think they have you know all the time in the world that somehow things will work themselves out i'm afraid this time around it's just not going to work out that way yeah anyway kudos to him for leaving in ethereum treasury company but uh yeah i agree with all your statements okay guys this is really

cool so bitcoin's lightning network uh the monthly volume uh has surpassed a billion dollars i think for the first time so this is to me a huge signal we're seeing more and more people use lightning use bitcoin as a an actual form of payment daily uh tony i mean this is very bullish very very bullish these are the signals that you should be focused on you know bitcoin as a medium of exchange is booming but you don't hear about it as much on the on the mainstream news and all these you know

these big outlets because you know it doesn't serve them at least not yet to talk about bitcoin as a medium of exchange but that's exactly why bitcoin has value in my opinion because it's the way it remains decentralized and secure and the fact that it's the uh the use of it has surged so uh so drastically is an extremely bullish sign i mean bitcoin as money is is thriving and if you want to hold on to a piece of good news this is it and the fact that the ecosystem all the all the

apps that are being built are coming onto it like in a very big way greer you uh you accept uh Bitcoin over lightning in your your little side gig. What's what's your take on this? Yeah, I mean, I think this is great. You know, so many people have said, you know, you're you're not going to buy a copy with your Bitcoin. And I would say, do you like apples?

We got a billion dollars a month on lightning How do you like them apples This is just fantastic You know I think this is probably mostly coming from Steak and Shake but you know a billion dollars in burgers a month But more seriously, you know, this is also Cash App and all the other enterprise that are using Lightning as the payment rail. So, yeah, this is the future. You know, get on board or get left behind. All righty, guys. Up next, we have a new solo Bitcoin block found on a self-hosted

umbral node so they earned two hundred twelve thousand dollars in block rewards and fees proof that even small independent operators can still win big hey greer i'm gonna let you take this one first because this is like a a hobby of yours at this point i think yeah i love it and people will tell you you know what you have a one in 13 000 year chance to find a block but it's been happening more often and i think we had a bunch last year and we've had i think maybe six

this year. So, you know, solo mining for the win. This is great. It decentralizes the network. You get more hash power from these affordable devices and you can run it through your nodes. So, you know, this is a win win. You know, I'm still waiting to hit my first block. My personal goal is to hit one of the first million blocks in Bitcoin. I think that would be a cool story to have for my grandkids. But, you know, I think you should be solo mining. If you

have any Bitcoin, you have a vested interest in mining yourself at home. I completely agree. It's so cool. A great way to learn. And yeah, you get to play the lottery every 10 minutes. Tony. It's the best lottery that you can have at home and running 24 seven. And you know, these devices are getting cheaper and cheaper every month and their hash rate is going up. And so even though

the chances are low, well, you know, clearly it's not that low. And so, you know, you get yourself a few of them right route them through your own nodes for full you know and proper decentralizations and hey you never know man this is clean virgin no kyc bitcoin straight to your wallet 3.125

all righty guys up last some number go up hoping for uh all the uh the boltards out there this one's for you man so this uh this is a user in 4chan um he's so supposedly this guy's made some insane predictions in the past that all came true and he's now predicting million dollar Bitcoin in 2026 this year. And what concerns me a little bit with the quality of this prediction is that he's also predicting ETH to 100,000. But basically said that Bitcoin's dominance can

probably fall to as low as 30%. That's when you'll know the cycles flip, the signal for the beginning of it all. Governments start printing again the moment quantitative easing returns. And that's the green light that's ignition. So I don't know, Greer, this one was made for you. So I'd be curious if you think we're going to a million in 2026. I don't know. I mean, I am a bull tard, but I love these kind of posts because the truth is Bitcoin's not going to stay low forever.

And the train kind of came back and let everybody come on board one more time. So this is a great opportunity. I don't know. You never fade things immediately that you see on sites like this on these forums because too many times people have been proven correct and you wonder how they know. I have no idea the math here on this. I don't know if there was a chart, but apparently this person has made some successful calls in the past. So, you know, hey,

it's music to my ears. Million dollar Bitcoin. It sounds great. 10 million sounds better. I like Jeff Booth's 43 million per Bitcoin call. So, you know, I'm you know, I don't really discriminate between anything once it's a million dollars. Yeah, I think that's probably fair. Yeah, be interested to see how it plays out. Tony, I know you don't care about the number go up, but it would be nice to see your purchasing power. Appreciate. Man, yeah.

I mean, if this happens next month, because it doesn't specify when in 26, then I guess, yeah, it's fantastic news. But it's only fantastic if you are holding real Bitcoin in your own self-custody.

Otherwise, this doesn't affect you in any way, shape or form and if it does go to a million dollars just know that your dollar is screwed because that's the only reason this thing would skyrocket this high so fast but i've always been of the belief that we're going to go from you know wherever we are like very early to full out holy shit late in under 24 hours and it's going to take you know some silly unsophisticated event

to take us there. And is 26 that year? I don't know, man. TikTok, we'll find out soon. I would say for humanity, it's better if Bitcoin rises slowly over time and allows people to adopt it. And I agree with you, Tony. I think if we see a million dollar Bitcoin this year, that means shit has really hit the fan. Yeah. And I would add that if we hit a million dollar

Bitcoin this year specifically, you can bet that governments are going to go after it. So if you don't have it in self custody, I would probably just plan on kissing it goodbye. A hundred percent. Yeah. All righty, guys. Thank you both for being here. For everyone who tuned in, really appreciate it. And we'll be back just a couple of days. So cheers, guys. Thanks, Michael. Thanks. Hey there. Thank you for tuning into Bitcoin Banter.

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