TARGET ACQUIRED: Iran vs Big Tech! | Bitcoin Banter

Like, what did you expect? You go poking at an unknown entity and this is what you get. Who knows how much worse this can escalate to. This is where the money printer shines, because when these guys get in trouble, we're going to see bailouts the likes of which we've never seen before, I think. This could potentially bring down the U.S. economy. So it's important to get this right. And you can see clearly that we haven't really gotten it right at any point of this, in my opinion.

At the end of the day, whether you believe it or not, it doesn't really matter because every individual can protect themselves by just going after the asset directly and holding it themselves and using it as money. And for anyone saying that Bitcoin isn't used as money, this is what I have for you.

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Bitcoin Banter. Greer and Tony are here with me. Guys, up first, we've got some crazy news. So breaking Iran declares that NVIDIA, Microsoft, Google, IBM, Oracle and Palantir offices and data centers are legitimate military targets.

And their reasoning, of course, is that their technology is being used for military applications. This is this is wild. I mean, I can't even imagine the far reaching impact of this. Tony, I'm going to let you take this one first. I would love to hear your thoughts on the likelihood of this unfolding and them being wrapped up into this war in a way that they maybe hadn't expected and what you think the implications are. Well, for starters, I am 100% sure this wasn't on anyone's bingo card, right?

But as much as I hate war and destruction and everything that comes with it, those that are somewhat, you know, anti-surveillance state, I don't think they're all too upset with this headline, right? As long as it's only hard drives that are being blown up here. But at the same time, man, like, what did you expect? you go poking at an unknown entity and this is what you get. I mean, who knows how much worse

this can escalate to. You can't bully someone forever. I've been saying this for the longest time. At some point, you're going to get someone that you didn't see coming push back in a way that you can't control. And I think we're starting to see the ramifications of this in this very, very retarded war that should have been avoided in the first place. So brace yourself. I mean,

one, I guess, protect your money, but two, protect yourself. I mean, if you can get out of any jurisdiction that is a potential, at least short to midterm target with all of this back and forth. Yeah, my so I need to be careful how I say this. I think anyone who's watched the show long enough to understand sort of where I stand on these things would would would come around to understand what I'm trying to get at.

So there there will be collateral damage in war. And I think it's tragic. I think that when you see some of the like, I think, what was it very early on? we saw a school in Iran that was bombed effectively by accident. From what I've seen, the investigation seems to suggest that it was a U.S. strike or an Israeli strike. And it was it was just a mistake. These are the sorts of things that are going to happen when you choose

war. You're going to choose messy in the messy goes both ways. And sometimes it's going to be messy and you're going to shrug your shoulders as a politician because you don't care about human life anyway. And it's the other guys, you know, civilians. And sometimes it's going to be your civilians. I hope to God nobody is killed in this and they have a chance to evacuate, that there's some sort of a warning provided. But this is the kind of thing that I would anticipate in a messy

war, which all war is messy. That was redundant. But Greer, what do you what do you think when you see headlines like this. Yeah. So you're telling me that Iran might target the, um, the upcoming surveillance state and take out some of the world's largest AI companies and perhaps even cause their stocks to drop. So maybe AI won't take everyone's jobs. I agree with you guys. I don't want this. Uh, I don't want war, especially this war. And I don't want the loss of human life on

either side. But this one, in my opinion, is a little bit interesting. Imagine what would happen to the economy if the largest stocks suddenly lose major infrastructure. Maybe we won't be replaced by Claudebot later this year, but we'll have to see what happens. Yeah. The Mag7, they have been propping up the stock market for a long time. I can't even imagine

the fallout from this. And we'll get to some of what's coming in the economy here. I'd love to hear anyone else's opinion in the comments on this one, because I know it's a touchy subject

to jump in on. Sort of related, Iran hit Dubai's financial center with a kamikaze drone, is what Mario Nafal is calling it. Dubai's financial district gained hit means every global market opens tomorrow and with a new variable nobody priced in. And that was, I think, yesterday he shared this. Man, Tony, I'll just take this one first again. I mean, this is sort of close to home for a lot of people who we know. And it's also, I mean, Dubai is a massive financial hub as well.

The implications of this, I think it's hard to price in, right? Like, what are the impacts going to be? What do people anticipate will be the fallout from something like this? What do you think? Well, in my opinion, Iran's reaction, like what it's doing now is something that they've been very

transparent about. I don't think they have anything against the countries, like the Middle eastern countries that they're bombing but they've made it very clear that any one of them supporting um any u.s or any of their proxies um in their countries are going to be attacked because you know that poses a direct threat to them and you know when you're in in war i mean you can expect you know one side to do whatever it can to protect itself and i think this is what

we're seeing so their message to dubai and all these other countries have been very clear you expel your American military bases and everything else that's a threat to us from your territory. And this ends instantly. And as long as that's not the case, you're going to continue seeing

headlines like this. And unfortunately, if this drags on long enough, you can very well see these five-star countries turn into your next Iran's, your next Lebanon's, your next whatever other country was suffered through many years of casualties and destruction. It's very upsetting to see, but this goes to show that the world is run by psychopaths. And I mean, it's time to end always having to be at the receiving end of these crazy people's decisions.

And so there is an option now available to the world to contribute to ending that. and that's to, you know, render the money that they use to fund all of this ups the lead. But you need people to pay attention to this. Like you need a lot of people to pay attention to this and to actually move in that direction for things to start to happen. Otherwise, you weren't going to see this.

And I don't know, man, maybe at some point, depending on how bad this gets, maybe there's nothing left to see, which is, you know, another conversation in and of itself.

all righty Greer what do you think the hardest thing about what we're going through right now is that we're not getting any information you know what we see are either a mix of deep fakes or sometimes they're videos from previous wars so yeah this looks like a strike on the financial center but it's hard to know how bad it was and that's not just true for Iran but it's true for all of the other countries too like we are not getting the news in the way that we need to see

I think that one of the biggest problems is not just the fog of war and being uncertain from a leadership perspective but from citizens And in America Congress is looking at passing a draft sending over our sons and daughters to join the fight. But the parents at home aren't seeing what's happening. And that has to change. I think that's one of the biggest problems right now. Yeah, completely agree. I've seen a lot of things that, and someone will say, Grok, is this true?

and it's like no this is a clip from 2023 right like it's so hard to verify so much of this stuff you have to go do your own research uh way more than you than you might have had to even a couple years ago all righty guys we've got um so luke martin shared a clip of luke groman talking about the geopolitical chess match which i i don't think this is chess i think this is just i mean

checkers at best uh but uh luke's groman comment luke groman's comment was you can take iran's oil offline and Russia has all the power. You can take Russia offline and control Iran. But if you pick a fight with either, you blow up the oil market. And we have seen a lot of tumult in the oil market. Greer, first of all, do you think this is a geopolitical chess match or do you think this is just a bunch of power hungry people? And second, what do you think is

going to happen to gasoline prices? Honestly, I think it's a shit show. It looks it's very clear that we are totally unprepared. You know, the U.S. had said we had months of planning, but Iran has been planning on this type of situation for, you know, 40 something years. You know, so what happens with the oil market is going to be vital to the American economy. You know, we depend on oil so much, even if we don't get oil from Iran. The rest of the world

does. China does. Russia does. India does. And the petrodollar, I think, is at the biggest risk here. Will the dollar be the reserve currency? If oil continues to increase in price, we're going to see a drop in equities and stocks. And I think that has a very negative effect for not just people who are retiring, but for companies to access the capital. This could

potentially bring down the U.S. economy. So it's important to get this right. And you can see clearly that we haven't really gotten it right at any point of this, in my opinion, and from what I can see. Yeah, I agree with that. Tony? I'm not bullish on this at all, man. I mean, no matter which way you look at this, it's bad news for all of us. And if the oil prices get too high, well, I mean, I guess the silver lining is people will start to walk and ride bicycles again,

because, you know, driving a car is just not doable. But the end of the petrodollar, I think this is it i don't see how that can be saved i mean when you get to a point in the world where you've got all these calamities happening you know simultaneously like how do you expect to have any form of uh of order and logic and you know uh like an organized plan to this they called this attack epic fury thinking it's some sort like a video game thing they're in and

out and, you know, the glory days are upon us. This is not what this is, man. You poked a very dangerous bear that has been preparing for this poke for over 30 years. And now you have no idea what to do or what to expect. But in the meantime, you've got millions of folks that are either being killed or are going to get, you know, killed economically because of these stupid decisions.

so again you know if people are complaining about high prices and difficult life situations this is definitely not going to make it easier yeah that's well said and if we were to sort of make light of an obviously serious situation uh this was a funny tweet from gwart why don't they just tokenize the oil in the middle east and transport it across permissionless financial rails thereby avoiding the straight of hormuz altogether uh greer i think uh we all recognize

this, I think is a joke. A lot of crypto bros probably see it and think that this is a real option because this is sort of what they've been arguing for. Yeah, let's let's hope not. I think this is a funny way to highlight all the enthusiasm behind crypto and blockchains and tokenization. Ultimately, those things coming about means that you don't own the real thing. You know, in my opinion, there's only one thing you can really own in this world. And while this is sort

of a humorous, you know, dig at some of the latest technology. You know, there is a push to make stocks tokenized, to make all assets tokenized. This earns a ton of fees on behalf of the asset managers. So, you know, we're kind of looking at two scenarios here. You can have things that are permissioned that someone else owns and controls your access, or you can have Bitcoin, which you control, which you own, that no one can steal from you. So even though we find this to be funny,

it's really a great highlight on the way the world is moving. And you have to be ready for it. And you have to prepare and see what the options are. And at this point, there are two. And those two are? Tokenized, anything, or Bitcoin. That's it. Those are your two choices. I agree. Well, I'll tell you what, though, if there's an oil NFT project, I think I might get in and see if I can make some money that way. Tony, what do you think? Oil NFT, man. You're on your own with that one.

Dude, I think it should be a project from the Bitcoin way. We offer people on-chain rights. Tony, what's your take on the... The thing is, man, I'm pretty sure, at least I sure hope this guy was kidding. But the scary reality is that I'm sure there's tons of folks out there that actually thinks this is a serious statement and actually contemplate this being a thing. Yes, I think that's the concern. So I wasn't sure if they were kidding because I don't know anything about this account.

But obviously, it is a joke of a concept. the question then becomes who are the people who are buying it and the answer is the nft bros i think so uh okay guys this is uh very very scary uh hopefully no one ever uses or buys this product

uh nvidia and palantir have partnered to create a new ai operating system and of course the operating system is the eye uh tony i i know you have been in the open source uh software space cybersecurity space for a long time. Have you ever seen a more frightening proposal for a bit of software? Well, the thing is, our first story kind of fixes it, right? Like Iran fixes this. Because maybe they read this headline and they're like, we're not having it, right? And so maybe

they might do the world a favor by preventing it from becoming a thing. But yeah, this is absolutely a disaster in the making, at least for those who think it's a good idea in the first place. So much power should never be centralized in the hands of lunatics. And thankfully, this code, AI in general, is a free learning algorithm. It's open source. And it's going to be available to anyone who is willing to spend the time to learn it and develop new solutions to the world with it.

So while these crazy people might have control over their own projects, rest assured that this tech is not isolated to them and them alone. At some point, depending how crazy they get, you're going to see a lot of very strong pushback from, there's 8.3 billion people out there, man. Not everybody is clueless and just sitting on the sidelines.

yeah i'm going to go out on a limb here and say this is going to be proprietary there's not going to be one bit of anything open source in this solution avoid that all costs man like anyone with half a brain should stay like within 100 kilometers away from this garbage but you know what tony you're right but they're going to sell it on on the on the marketing platform of convenience

and it going to do really cool things and most people are going to i think a lot of people are going to fall for it I would wonder is this really for the end user This technology will probably be used by the you know the security apparatus the enforcement state And I you know we probably wouldn even have a chance to use it. I think it would just be used against us. And to me, that's the double edged sword when it comes to AI. Yes, it can help you write blog posts and create images and funny

videos. But at the same time, it has this really unmatched power to track all of your location, all your history, identify who you are, what you're doing, and feed that information to people who could use it against you for whatever reason, at least at the minimum, just to limit your freedom, even in a chilling effect. So I think this is something that we won't get to play with. You know, we get to play with the toys, the things that amuse us while the people in power who have,

the excess of dollars. They get to create the digital cage that we are all put in. I think that's a good point. All righty, guys. Jeff Snyder said that he said,

holy shit, now it's Morgan Stanley. So Morgan Stanley's $8 billion New Haven fund got hit with massive redemption requests. They denied most of them. So first it was BlackRock and Blue Owl,

Blackstone before them. I mean, this is getting messy. Tony, you seem unsurprised and unfazed by of this could you explain left right left they all fall down like toy soldiers right i'm surprised he's surprised i mean how how much how many signs do you want over the last few years um that that indicate that this is exactly where we're headed it starts at the bottom of the ladder but guess what guys eventually it finds its way to the top right when the whole thing is a as a lie and a

Ponzi to begin with, it's only a matter of time before it all comes crumbling down. So if the big boys are starting to struggle now, we saw this with the BlackRock a few days ago, and now you hear about Morgan Stanley, this is it, man. I mean, I don't know how clear of a sign

you want to understand that the legacy system is done. And it's just going to take the dumbest little trigger now in order to completely blow it up and when that happens this is where you're gonna you're gonna start seeing that shit show ugly video game that i keep referring to because you're either gonna have your bank accounts frozen you're either going to see capital controls very strict capital controls and you're not going to be able to access any of your purchasing power

At least not without having to abide by the most absurd of extreme rules. And so those that are going to be stuck in this, well, they don't have many options other than to cause revolutions. When somebody's hungry and you've closed all doors, what do you expect them to do? Especially in a place with 500 million guns.

yeah so it's either this or those who are paying attention saving in money that is not susceptible to this collapse bitcoin and self-custody well the good news is now these folks are going to start to take it seriously they're going to understand that this is not an investment this is like they're going to stop believing the lie and the rubbish that the legacy system is trying to sell them on bitcoin and are finally going to understand what the conspiracy theorists

have been saying for, what, the last 17 years? That this is the exit. This is the ticket to freedom. But unfortunately, you know, only those who learn through common sense save themselves before they go through hell. Yeah, this is where the money printer shines because when these guys get in trouble, we're going to see bailouts, the likes of which we've never seen before, I think. And that is why you need hard assets that you control, can't be converted into paper IOUs.

I couldn't agree with you anymore, Tony. Greer. Yeah, I wonder if the private credit market would get a bailout like what we saw with TARP back in 2008. And I kind of think maybe they wouldn't. But what's interesting here is you can be a blue collar Canadian trucker and have your bank account frozen, or you can be a high net worth individual who's invested in BlackRock or any of these private credit funds. And you can both be frozen from your account or not able to withdraw your money.

And to me, that is really fascinating because it doesn't matter where you line up on the financial spectrum. There is a system of control all along that spectrum. And I think this is kind of what makes people who are ultra wealthy learn about Bitcoin for the first time. And you know me, I am a hyper bull when it comes to Bitcoin's price and adoption.

I think that we're going to see some people wise up to this and they're going to look for a solution to where they can put their money where it can't be controlled by someone else. Imagine depositing millions of dollars into one of these private credit funds and only being told you can withdraw 5%. And we've seen lots of people try to withdraw and they've been capped. So to me, this is, you know, the next step is the bank run on all of these investments.

if that can even happen. And when people start rushing for the exits, we've seen what happened with Silicon Valley Bank and some others. It can be instantaneous. So I think the world is going to wake up to Bitcoin very fast. And I think this particular crisis could cause the crash that everyone has been anticipating for years that hasn't quite materialized. I hear you. I think

if I were a betting man, I would head on over to Polymarket and I would bet on bailouts. That's That's got to be my base case. But anyway, guys, this is an interesting one.

So Rational Aussie, it's a pretty long tweet, but he basically says this is the year everyone realizes the entire global economy is going to collapse. No, it's not doom or speak. It's a structural certainty. If you understand how the system works, he talks about the oil shock, the energy crisis, AGI, the deflationary bomb that's going to kill jobs and aggregate demand. It's truly over. Unemployed people cannot repay mortgages.

governments cannot repay debt in real terms when tax receipts from employment and consumption are in the drain. He goes on and on. He said, I've maintained for several years now, there are only two ways out of this inevitable endgame. And Tony, this is what I want your thought on, social revolution or an economic revolution, austerity or currency debasement. I would love to hear, he said, they're going to choose to be currency debasement and it will spark number one,

a social revolution. That's kind of where I've tended to fall is that we're going to see, And that's why I would bet on a bailout of these private credit funds. Tony, I think we would probably agree with that. Yeah, of course, man. We've been saying this forever now. It's just like now the world is starting to believe it. And he's spot on. It's going to be two, which is going to spark one. Because, I mean, there's no other play when you're in such dire situations.

When all the doors are closed, what are you going to do?

you're going to act based on instinct and then think and worry about your um your actions later because you know that's all that's all that's all that's available to you and that's a very scary position to be in man so uh the fact that you know a lot more people are starting to post about this um to me it's like it's it's a bit scary because you're not going to need one money printer to prevent this you're going to need like a million of them and of course you know the more that go

off well you know the faster you accelerate to this type of conclusion so it's a lose-lose scenario for everyone or anyone who's still stuck in that world um and unfortunately most people are and i don't know how this ends man like i mean this is this is this is what you know bothers me at night sometimes because it's it brings back trauma of what i lived through except now it's fuck it's like on a global level and so i can't i just like my brain like sometimes i choose not to

go there just to avoid you know uh even even more you know but bad thoughts but this is definitely bad news and i urge anyone still sitting on the sidelines to protect themselves even if you don't fully understand why you need to look at bitcoin i mean i suggest you do it and then figure out why later at least you would have been protected to some degree right so brace yourselves yeah Greer one of the things I didn get to in his tweet because it was a

pretty long one he said all those years spent arguing over pronouns wokeism etc has been a total joke unserious people in unserious times because in serious times everyone suddenly realizes what's important energy sound money relationships things that matter so maybe if you want to give us a more optimistic take on what you can do to protect yourself. Yeah. Here's the optimistic take. I think this ends in hyperinflation where you have $20 gallon of gas and $100 hamburgers at

the fast food joint. There's no way to be optimistic here because look at it. We have to roll over $9 trillion in debt. We just started a new war that could cost $850 billion a year. I mean, they've already spent billions of dollars just in like the last 10 days. We have 100 trillion at least in unfunded liabilities where Social Security dries up in just the next four years. So how are they going to print that much without influencing the purchasing power of the dollar? You know,

rolling over 9 trillion in debt is bad enough. And look at all the money that is wasted on different entitlement programs, on the illegal immigrants. I mean, Americans are being scammed left, right, and center. And at the same time, they're dealing with high employment, AI replacing their work, or at least that's the blame, companies laying off people through attrition or just cuts. So I don't think there's anything that's a silver lining here. I think it's

all going to hell. And I think there's only one way to protect yourself from any of this. And we need that to become adopted as quickly as possible. If you can use your Bitcoin as money, which you can do today at some retailers, we need to see more of that happen. Because if you can transact in Bitcoin easily, then I think you have a way out of this. But it really requires more people to understand that there is an exit. Jeez, Greer, I'm sorry I asked you.

Well, look, look, look, they're already starting to finance fast food, right? That's true. So when this, you know, becomes a thing, where do you think the financing is going to deteriorate to? Then they're going to finance how many bites of a burger you can have, right? Yeah, it could get as extreme as that, as ludicrous as it sounds, right? Because, you know, what else are you going to do? If you can only afford two bites, well, then, you know, that's what you're going to pay for, right?

so I think Bitcoiners are going to become like the saviors of the future world because they're they're going to be the only ones in in a position to actually do something useful and the sense of community especially you know those circular economies are going to become extremely important and you know like life-saving to some degree so it's too bad not more people men are in this. Yeah, I agree. And Greer, I hadn't heard the $850 billion a year number.

I was under the impression it was two weeks to flatten the enemy and we'd be in and out. So, yeah, I don't know. We'll see how long it lasts. Alrighty, up last, Marty Bent. So there's been a

back and forth between Marty and some other folks and the Coinbase people. So just to be clear, this is not like the entirety of the conversation that's been had. He said, hearing that despite all the efforts in lobbying for Bitcoin to minimize tax exemption. It's none other than Coinbase trying to nuke it behind the scenes to push stable coins only. Apparently they're telling legislators no one's using Bitcoin as money. A de minimis exemption for Bitcoin is a handout

that will be DOA. So I don't know what to make of it. I don't trust Brian Armstrong. I don't trust Coinbase. He operates a crypto casino. His money is not to be made in a Bitcoin de minimis exemption. Like, I don't think his life materially improves, but they're denying it. They're saying, nope, that's not what's happening behind closed doors. I would love to hear, Tony, what you think

is the likely situation here. I don't know what to believe, man, but I wouldn't be surprised if you have people pushing against this because they're only looking out for their own interests. Like, no matter how revolutionary a solution is, you always have scumbags that, you know, are only looking at their own pockets with no regards to how, you know, the long-term benefits to themselves included come about.

And so whether it's true or not, I don't know, man, but nothing surprises me anymore from people living and benefiting and profiting from, you know, the legacy system. This is like the scummiest of individuals support this broken system because, you know, they're the ones at the winning end of it.

So at the end of the day, whether you believe it or not, it doesn't really matter because every individual can protect themselves by just going after the asset directly and holding it themselves and using it as money. And for anyone saying that Bitcoin isn't used as money. This is what I have for you. Well said. Greer, what do you think?

Yeah, it makes me wonder why, you know, we have the crypto president and he wants to make America the crypto capital of the world. And maybe that's what he really meant. Maybe we just assumed he meant Bitcoin. But maybe the priority is really just about crypto and stable coins and controlling the, you know, the money through this digital rail, which I think is a shame. You know, I think a lot of people who were excited about a Trump presidency have been really discouraged at every turn.

And perhaps this is just another this is just another turn, another situation where you were sold something and, you know, we got the rug pulled. So it doesn't surprise me. I think it's very likely that this is true. I saw that it looked like Marty and his team were not walking back. They're reporting and they stand by it, even though they were confronted by Coinbase directly.

so you know i goodness where do we go from here i don't know i i just think that over time people will see the differences between the two things between bitcoin and crypto where crypto is controlled and permissioned and bitcoin is freedom yeah and by the way not financial advice but there is already a de minimis exemption uh at any level of spending if you take tony's approach and you just you know so keep that in mind everyone uh guys i think that's a good place to wrap up thank

you for being here. Everyone who joined really appreciate it. Stick around for another minute. You can learn a bit about the Bitcoin way, how we can help you on your self-sovereignty journey, not just Bitcoin self-custody, but protecting your privacy, advising against things like a Palantir operating system and a plan B residency option, which we can offer you as well. Tony Greer, good chatting. We'll catch up again early next week. Thanks, guys. Thanks. Cheers.

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