¶ Not your keys, not your coins
Not your keys, not your coins. Crypto on an exchange is no different than money in a bank. It's simply not yours. This to me is sort of a shocking revelation. At the same time, I understand the network effect of the dollar is massive, and it's kind of hard to evade that as a large nation. The cat's out of the bag. Everybody knows it. There's no hiding it anymore. When people tell you who they are, believe them. And this is one of those maybe oops moments. But yeah, monopoly money.
Where are these people going to go? Well, I mean, we're going to be in Panama soon. And Panama is one of the greatest destinations for anyone who values, you know, freedom, Bitcoin and building a life of abundance. So I suspect we're going to see an uptick in Dutch people here very, very soon.
¶ Coinbase freezes user accounts
Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of Bitcoin Banter. I have Greer and Tony here with me. Gents, let's jump right into the news. So we've got Coinbase, first of all, saying that many users currently are unable to buy, sell or transfer crypto. This was a couple of days ago. Around the same time, though, I saw this article. So Blockfills, it's a crypto lender that I had not heard of before, but they've got their U.S.-based 2,000 institutional clients.
They handle $60 billion in 2025 trading. Basically, they said, yeah, sorry, you can't withdraw. To me, it feels like paper Bitcoin is out in full force. There are always these games being played whenever there's a big dip or a big pump. Tony, what's your take? What's the message you send to the customer base of these companies and to anyone who's maybe been dabbling with exchanges a little too much?
¶ Not your keys, not your coins on exchanges
Yeah, man, this is a self-inflicted heart attack. And I hope it's a lesson that not your keys, not your coins. You know, crypto on an exchange is no different than money in a bank. It's simply not yours.
so whenever there's panic you know out there and people freak out and they want to withdraw their money well you know you have these unexpected events where all of a sudden the off button is pressed and you have no more access to what you thought you owned and that's a very very scary place to be especially if you've got you know a considerable amount of your savings or your wealth on these platforms thinking you know you're going to be okay well here's the news flash you are not
In some cases so far, you know, these platforms have reopened. But essentially what happens is that you have something similar to like a bank run on the platform where everybody wants to withdraw everything. And of course, some of these platforms don't necessarily have what they've sold. Right. And so when everybody withdraws, then they have a problem. And this is what historically has led to the collapse of previous platform.
Like if you recall FTX, something similar happened where people, you know, just went in and wanted to take everything out. And of course, they didn't have it. And then boom. So these are bad signs. And Binance was, you know, doing the same thing not that long ago either. So all of these centralized exchanges, these are not places to store your wealth. If you have a specific use case for them, you do it. But you're in and out.
These should be stepping stones, not final destinations by any stretch.
the only place you should be to sleep well at night is first of all in bitcoin the only money that is money and in full self-custody where you control the keys and are not dependent on anyone or any you know insane scenario that you can't control so obviously i i don't think of bitcoin as an investment i don't trade it but this is like one of these other there are a lot of people who do i mean in in reality this is one of those sort of risks that a lot of people forget about
they understand or maybe they've begun to understand okay there's a confiscation risk not your keys not your coins but in a worst case scenario like hey i want to liquidate before the price drops further or i want to sell at a top you know which i don't encourage um you just have that optionality like at least with bitcoin in self-custody you can go to a bitcoin only exchange someone like river who is operational all the time and they're not shutting down because of a pump or
a dip and you can go sell and trade there. When you rely on one of these unreliable exchanges, I mean, you're just completely at their mercy and they've proven time. I mean, how many times have we talked about this career? Like five times over the last six, six, eight months, like Coinbase has something happen. Yeah. You're just asking for pain. And I think, look at the reputation, look at, you know, Coinbase spent $20 million on a Superbowl ad that was
mocked relentlessly on social. And I think it's because their customer service isn't just bad, it's also the UX. There's nothing that makes someone a Bitcoin maximalist more than not being able to control your money. And when you use Coinbase or Robinhood or another exchange and they remove the buy button or keep you from accessing your account or the app is down, that forces you to understand what Bitcoin in self-custody is. So I think the silver lining here
is that these circumstances make people ask questions. Why can't I spend my money? Why can't I withdraw my coins? Why can I only withdraw a certain amount? And over time, I think this is how maximalists are made. You want your Bitcoin on an air-gapped cold wallet that doesn't touch the internet. And what we're seeing here, I think, are people slowly learning that fact. The other benefit of self-custody, AirGap hardware wallet, is that your tendency to go do things,
it's a little less convenient to go move your Bitcoin around. And that alone, I think, is a huge psychological advantage that if you're like, oh, I'm not at home, I can't go do this right now, I'm not sitting in my computer. The temptation to go play the markets, I think, goes away. And by the time you get back to your computer, you do have access to your hardware wallet.
You're like, ah, I don't, you know, the market's kind of settled a little bit because these things happen in, you know, over a couple of hours we see a crash and that kind of stabilizes. Like, that's just how it goes. I just pulled this up, by the way. Coinbase missed their Q4 estimates. I think this was yesterday.
reporting 667 million dollar losses revenue fell 20 percent so while i appreciate that coinbase is a publicly traded company so they have to report all of this stuff like this is who you're playing ball with like they and by the way i don't even know i don't know how you lose money when you're basically earning your revenue on people just trading shit coins all the time like to me that's what's worrisome yeah it's like just this feels like it could be the most passive business in
america like just you know have a couple of developers list new shit coins let people trade them and you just sit back and relax i don't know i know they've got their custodial coinbase prime and all that maybe there's more involvement there but this feels to me like a business ai could run
and you know brian armstrong just the spokesperson so they would have been so much better if they had just stayed with bitcoin they have a considerable amount less because they chose to you know dabble in and sell all these crypto shit coins yeah it's a shame short term brian armstrong's made a ton of fiat off of all i mean like the business model has worked for him personally over the next decade they're going to completely
fade to irrelevance because honestly like you know this is not someone i simp for but like the sailors of the world who have been like accumulating Bitcoin are going to be in a position to offer financial services. Not again, not that we're cheering this on, but they're going to be in a position to offer financial services actually matter that people want or need in Coinbase is just going to like, I don't know what he probably have a fart coin treasury is for all I know. I
mean, it's just, it's, it's insane. Stakes. I know me anyway. Uh, we could talk about that all day.
¶ Russia Considers Rejoining the U.S. Dollar System
Okay, guys. So just in Russia, I've seen this in a few places. So I assume that the rumors are true. I don't know if this will actually happen. But Russia is considering rejoining the US dollar settlement system. So we during the early days of the war with Ukraine, obviously, they had their US assets frozen, and basically said enough of that.
We've talked actually on and off the show about them accepting Bitcoin, I think maybe crypto, but probably mostly Bitcoin in exchange for their natural resources, the products that Russia creates. This to me is sort of a shocking revelation. At the same time, I understand the network effect of the dollar is massive and it's kind of hard to evade that as a large nation. But Tony, what do you think is going on here?
Man, this was really big news to me when I read it, because if it's true, it tells me several things. Either one, that this whole debacle about Russia wanting to exit the US dollar was just a show for entertainment purposes.
or if this is the case then this is a major sign of weakness considering um what russia went through when the u.s weaponized the dollar against them you know sanctioned them and you know they were seizing you know funds left right and center from all sorts of oligarchs and what have you like they literally put them through hell and for them to concede reconsidering going back to
the US dollar, like to me, it's just insane. If somebody has treated you this bad, you would go to all lengths to find ways to never put yourself back into that predicament, unless it was all for show, right? So I don't know how legit this thing is, but if it is, to me, it's just bad all around.
yeah i think it was i was looking for this i think peter saint-anj was uh i saw him say and just like that bricks was over or something to that effect i i think what putin does not trust the dollar right i mean no no one trusts the dollar anymore but they also don't trust each other which is the challenge like china and russia have this alliance and everything but like they both know that they're operating there in their own self-interest they can't trust the other
person's currency uh india south africa i mean they're all in the same boat the u.s dollar to me is like the path of least resistance in the short term but at the end of the day the fact that 0 they're flip-flopping looking for who they can trust how they can operate to me signals bitcoin 133 00:10:40,1000 --> 00:10:46,160 like over a long enough time horizon it just becomes inevitable it is the monetary gunpowder
that safedine describes and that's where we end up regardless greer yeah i think you might be right about that. My first thought also was, you know, what does this do to BRICS? You know, if Russia's not part of it, you're losing a major player. And I was also surprised. And yeah, we're trying to
0 parse out what this means. And I think what you highlight as countries not being able to trust 138 00:11:07,1000 --> 00:11:13,100 each other, you know, they've tried using their own foreign currencies for trade. And, you know, it's sort of silly examples here and there, but it doesn't really work well. And we know that Bitcoin and unfortunately stable coins are the future. And so perhaps, you know, these these types
of agreements happen without the plebs being privy to the information. We don't get invited into the back rooms, which is why we're surprised, you know, because we've been just drinking up all the narratives. But I think there's probably a lot of economic commonalities between the U.S. and Russia. There's trade deals, there's infrastructure, there's energy. You know,
the writing on the wall for Europe is that they're going to be completely broken. And I think Russia sees that as an opportunity for themselves. So, you know, maybe it's a temporary measure. But I think the key takeaway is, you know, everything is unexpected until it really materializes. So, you know, I think we'll just have to wait and see how this plays out. It sounds like it's a little bit questionable at the moment. And for the time being, this could be a temporary measure Russia's taking.
Maybe it offers, I don't know, just sort of a lubricant for their economy in the short term. But it doesn't mean that they can't accept Bitcoin. It doesn't mean that they can't accept Yuan or anything else. So it does not necessarily mean that they're just going back to the dollar. And that's it. All righty. Am I getting feedback, guys? I think I'm hearing something. Okay. 0 Hopefully it stops.
¶ Cash App Declares War on the Banking System
Okay, guys, this is big news. And Greer, I want you to take this one first because you were talking offline about sort of the younger generation. So it says Cash App declares war on the banking system with zero fees. So just for context, I mean, 58 million users. I think I saw like 50 percent of Gen Z uses Cash App at least once a month, 2 million followers. And what they've introduced is basically zero fees, no fees on large Bitcoin purchases over 2K, no fees on recurring purchases.
So dollar cost averaging, no fees on payments over the Lightning Network, higher withdrawal limits. Every Bitcoin custody is one to one, no rehypothecation, no fractional reserve. Says read that last point again. I'm assuming that they're either showing proof of reserves or there's some reason that we should believe that. I don't, you know, I don't tend to assume that's the case, but big moves.
And if you look at, you know, Coinbase charging one to two percent fees, cracking Binance, everyone makes money on every transaction.
sort of what we were talking about like this is the business model for most of these exchanges to me and Greer I want you to give your thoughts as someone who's got kids sort of of age to use this kind of thing this is like how mainstream normie America is going to be onboarded into Bitcoin yeah I think that's right I think we're we're seeing a very macro battle happen between the asset managers and between banks and this is just downstream of that you know cash app
is an asset manager if they're holding people's Bitcoin. And yeah, teens use Cash App probably by a wide margin.
You know my two teens they don have bank accounts but they do have Cash App And they can use it to pay for anything wherever they go with friends and whatnot So you know this is the future The future is going to be how do the payment rails become native and especially in a mobile environment You know, yes, my kids learn how to write a check when they're in school, in junior high, but they're not writing checks.
They don't have bank accounts, and there are so many different apps where you can do your banking from your mobile device. So this is the future. I think 58 million customers is just a massive amount of people using the app. You can buy Bitcoin with it. You can buy stocks. You can have your savings. You know, this is mobile finance and it is for the future, for the digital age.
So, you know, I think when you look at what's happening here, like I said, this is a microcosm of what's happening at the highest scales. When you talk about the Clarity Act, who wins? It's going to be the asset managers. It's not going to be the banks. I wish it would be a more cypherpunk solution, but I understand that that's just not the reality of our world.
And so in the meantime, I'm going to cheer on the fact that your everyday person can start buying a few bucks of Bitcoin a week or having access to pay with no fees. I mean, to me, that is massive. It makes it seamless to go buy a burger at Steak and Shake and begin living something like a Bitcoin standard. Tony.
This is the signal that everybody should be focusing on, man. I mean, this is the type of news that, you know, should skyrocket Bitcoin into the millions, because this is where it proves that, you know, incorruptible, uncensorable money is going mainstream.
it's not the narratives about you know the price charts and the number go up that matter or you know assuming that bitcoin is a trade or a stock that you need to speculate and take leverage on this is where you know this this is the bad messaging that a lot of folks are still falling into but the real signal is you know are stories like this where you know regular folks now have like the easiest access to understanding that bitcoin is the future of money now sure this is
still via a third-party custodian, but, you know, that's part of the journey. It's a transition. It's baby steps into the final destination. At least it gets people aware that this is a viable option now. And, you know, as more people get accustomed to, you know, blindly using it, this is going to explode. I mean, this is, we're going to see a lot more of these solutions come into the market.
And eventually, you know, as more people adopt it, the fine-tuning of these apps, you know, will come about. I think we'll start seeing a lot more privacy focused apps on Bitcoin. But this is definitely bullish as far as I'm concerned. Completely agree. I think if there is a Trojan horse, it's this sort of application. Absolutely. You know, it just makes it so much easier for someone for you to go orange pill your friend and be like, you know what?
I could walk you through 50 things that you're not going to care about or maybe a little too technical. Like just download Cash App or you already have it. Go buy something. All your contacts are there, too.
Like think about your bank account. If you have to add someone as a bill pay option, it's I mean, it's a pain in the ass, you know, but with Cash App, all your friends are right there. So I agree with you guys. It's a baby step. I think if Cash App were ever to restrict your withdrawals from Bitcoin or, you know, and they do have KYC, but that's where the friction comes in and you start looking for more sovereign solutions.
we're very close to a like a sovereign style cash app and like a lot of the the hot wallets and everything are already easy to use in that um but just probably less accessible for like the everyday activities of many people so i think it's it's pretty cool all righty guys up next
¶ Larry Fink: The U.S. Dollar is Monopoly Money
so this is a larry fink quote okay larry cantillon fink okay he says that interest on the u.s debt is ultimately what's what's predicted to destroy the u.s economy that debt payments will eventually grow out of control, the dollar will be abandoned because it essentially turns into monopoly money. A fair amount of folks believe the U.S. debt is already out of control, which is why they're swapping to actual long-term assets like precious metals, nuclear goods, or refinement. And I would
add Bitcoin. He didn't say that, but I think he probably senses that. He has a very successful product in the Bitcoin ETFs. I mean, of all the people to call the U.S. dollar monopoly money, like the guy who's made the most US dollars of all, you know, like of the last 50 years. Tony, do you think he's trying to like send a signal? Is this his is this benevolence coming out in Larry Fink trying to warn the normies? This was not on my bingo card this morning,
man. I mean, for someone like that to say something like this, he must have been listening to Bitcoin banter, you know, at some point because we've been calling the US dollar monopoly money for three years now so if he reminds me of that bomb diffuser right like you know what if you see a bomb diffuser running you better be right behind him because because something's about the break and i really in a really bad way but yeah i completely echo his sentiment the dollar is done
um they know it everybody who's paying attention know it and you the only way to protect yourself is really to be completely off that chessboard. And as far as I'm concerned, there's only one option, thankfully, that exists because otherwise, you know, precious metals, I mean, okay, they're like, you know, an okay thing, but definitely not the way to go in a digital world. So to me, Bitcoin, the incorruptible, uncensorable monetary system is going to be the future of everybody's money.
And I think he sees it. He's just not, you know, labeling it specifically for whatever, you know, reasons he may have. But just read between the lines, man. It's crystal clear. Yeah. I don't think he fully wants to telegraph it. He's got a business to run, more money to make. But yeah, to me, it's, Greer, if you've seen the, there's like a, it's not a meme, but it's a picture that has gone around of like the instructions for Monopoly, like how the bank operates in Monopoly.
Yeah. And you're like, oh, that's like, that's our dollar system.
That's like real life today. Yeah. I mean, I blame our debt situation on Congress. It's the people who are spending the money and it's the Federal Reserve who's printing it. And I just, you know, what are we going to do about that? We have $38 trillion in debt that's never going to get repaid. And I think everyone watching this channel knows that it's just going to get inflated away. So yeah, it will be monopoly money. And if you hold assets, you know, your personal debt gets cheaper over time as that happens.
But you know I think you be protected So you know the cat out of the bag Everybody knows it There no hiding it anymore You know I think when people tell you to tell you who they are believe them And this is one of those maybe oops moments But yeah monopoly money What are we going to do about it You know probably probably just start over Start over with some kind of stable coin that backed by the United States And then you have Bitcoin as the alternative So I just I don what I can piece together with the stable coin thing though like we
talked about this a lot. And I agree with you guys like it is the CBDC. And part of the reason it's the CBDC is because the U.S. government is completely incompetent, like they don't have the chops to build technology that's going to actually work for people to pay. it's going to be much more expedient for them to use tether, for example, and say like, okay, this is the thing we're going to co-op. This is the dollar. You still have the situation though,
where you have $38 trillion worth of debt and you know, one USDT represents $1. Like it's not like the problem goes away. I'm not clear how they make that transition and, and reduce the pain. Like all it does is increase the pain because now there's more surveillance, but we still have the that problem. You know, I don't know if either of you have a comment on that. I think what they do is they force the rest of the world to use, let's just say it's Tether. I mean, the rest of the
world's already using Tether. So Tether now has to purchase, and every stable coin, they all purchase a treasury. So now you have infinite demand for US treasuries. So you can use that to pay down the debt. And, you know, I think that that's how they do it. It's not that they are actually paying it back. They're just shifting the burden onto the rest of the world.
¶ Netherlands Passes 36% Tax on Unrealized Gains
That sounds about right. All righty, guys. Last up, this is here's your the compelling case for your plan B if you've been holding out on this or anything. Netherlands passes a 36 percent tax on unrealized gains.
they were expected to do this but basically I've seen a lot of folks in the Netherlands who are like hey guys where should I go you know like I've got Bitcoin I've got property I've got you know all this stuff that basically they're going to take over a third of it in terms of value each year and I haven't liquidated like it's unrealized I don't even know I'm going to pay this so I see a huge millionaire billionaire exodus from from the Netherlands Tony let's get the kick this around
for a few minutes because i know you're going to be onboarding some folks soon into uh plan b's in panama yeah man when you have desperate parasites that run out of money you know what's their snack what's the next move is find ways to steal more money um except this is going to alienate all the intelligent people in the netherlands and it's going to get them to pack their bags you know in the next few days and give these worthless people the middle finger um it's happened in many other
countries, Norway was one of them, you know, a few years ago where the high net worth individuals, they left because of something stupid like this and they never came back. And so the end result was the other country ended up making less tax income that they had, you know, because of this foolish decision. And where are these people going to go? Well, I mean, we're going to be in Panama
soon. And Panama is one of the greatest destinations for anyone who values, you know, freedom, Bitcoin, and building a life of abundance. So I suspect we're going to see an uptick in Dutch people here very, very soon.
Tony, cut me off if you don't want me saying this, but if you were a dollar cost, one way to avoid this, I guess, to some degree in the short term is if you were dollar cost averaging at 125 and now we're down at, I don't even know what we're at, 60 something, take your losses, circle that into non-KYC Bitcoin, because most people are probably buying on an exchange.
And then there's no verifiable way to prove that you have the Bitcoin. And it could be a short-term solution for people saying, I don't want to pay a third of my wealth that I haven't liquidated to the government each year. But Greer, I don't know if you have any comments on the Netherlands. I do. I have a very shiny tinfoil hat for this one, if you want to hear it.
I think what's interesting is that the Netherlands is home to a company called ASML, and they have a near 90% monopoly over the advanced chip industry. And so while we're focused on, you know, the Bitcoiners who are going to have to sell or move or relocate, I think this is really about going after one of the largest companies who's providing, you know, this essential technology for the future.
And so what does it force them to do? They either have to pay debt to pay to pay back the taxes or they can sell the company. And I think that we will see some of these large companies get broken up and sold off and purchased by private equity or other interests that are extremely large.
and i think this is kind of uh the opposite of what china has been trying to do in taiwan where they want to go in and get the taiwanese semiconductor companies i think this is this is uh and i again there's my tinfoil hat but i think it's going after um that the chip market in this country and yes everyone else is getting caught up in this but they don't care that's not the target the target is the most valuable company in the world that has monopoly right now
so you're saying this is all about control that's i am amazing this is fascinating i wouldn't have predicted that from politicians but all righty guys i think that's a good place to wrap up thank you guys both for uh hopping on for everyone who tuned in really appreciate you joining leave a comment by the way i want to hear if you agree with greer that this is like some sort of conspiracy because that would be a an interesting they they're always conspiracies there's always something
all righty thank you guys again we'll be back stick around if you're listening for another minute. You can hear a bit about the Bitcoin way, how we can help you with some of these things and look forward to being back with you guys next week. Thanks, guys. Thanks. Cheers. Hey there. Thank you for tuning into Bitcoin banter. Wanted to take a quick minute to remind you to head on over to the Bitcoin way dot com slash podcast to schedule a free 30 minute
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