The Bitcoin Group #340 - Price Predictions - $3.6M

The Bitcoin Group, the American original, for over the last 10 seconds, the sharpest Satoshi's, the best Bitcoin's, the hardest cryptocurrency talk. We'd like to welcome our panelists, Ben Ark from LN Bits. Hello, all. Victoria Jones from Satoshi's page. How do you do, D. Dan Eve, the crypto raptor. Happy 2023. And I'm Thomas Hunt from the World Crypto Network, moving on to issue one, issue one, the

boldest Bitcoin calls for 2023 are out and a 1400% rally, or a 70% plunge, maybe on the cards. Yes, they say that Bitcoin could go up or down in 2023. Ben, Ark, what do you think of their predictions? Will Bitcoin go up or down in 2023? I think they're very possible. They could go one way or the other, as always, up or down. So, I mean,

I like Tim Draper and his constant enthusiasm, because he's got so many coins, obviously, of the 250K target, which I still think is to play, you know, but how far we go down before we get to that 250 grand. I'm not sure. And it will definitely be a rally up to the harvining. It's funny because when we started hitting going down in this bare market, the

harvining felt so far away. And I would just put a year in a bit away. So, yeah, I think probably a bit of sideline action. But there's some interesting capitulation, but they buy miners at the moment, selling the Bitcoin is usually a good sign, that we've truly bottomed out. And there is blood in the streets, there's no denying that. So, yeah, I'm not sure how much

further down we can go, but it's possible. You know, it's possible that we might end 2023 at 5K, but shortly afterwards with the rally for the harvining, I'm sure we will start to Tim Draper. But that could also happen mid-year or the beginning of this year, who knows, you know, the economic climate out there is very unpredictable in all realms. And Bitcoin's not excluded from that.

So. If you can't trust a guy with hundreds or perhaps thousands of Bitcoin, who can you trust? Victoria Jones, what do you think about the price of Bitcoin in 2023? The moment with the Federal Reserve, you know, increasing interest rates until they're given a very good reason to capitulate, that's not going to change any time soon. And of course, their policies are sucking liquidity out of

the market, which affects everything, not just Bitcoin, it's affecting stock market. It's affecting housing. So the only thing that's doing well at the moment is energy, which is also placing a squeeze on the miners. So it's hardly surprising there having to sell at the moment. So, you know, if you want to put your tin foil hat on, you know, if you wanted to do everything you

could to bring down the price of Bitcoin, this would be the way to do it. So, you know, you know, if you, if you believe the world has been everland and everyone wants Bitcoin to take off, forget it, you know, we've got some powerful enemies. And a long way to go. So I think we could go a lot further lower. And then, yeah, I think we'll

definitely rally into the harving, but I think a lot, how high we go will depend on how low we've been before that. So that's that's my analysis of the situation. The Fed will reverse course, the war in Ukraine will end peacefully. And monkeys will fly out of my butt. Dan Eve, the price of Bitcoin in 2023. I definitely think that Tim Draper's is his 250k is

a bit optimistic, right? Cause it's like, it's before the harving. And you don't really get, we've never had historically an all time high, like just before a harving. And actually yesterday was almost 15 months to the day before the next harving, which is historically apparently, you can't remember who's at this, but 15 months before the before the harvings, when the kind of the bottom generally is.

I don't know, I've got a feeling it could go creep a bit low in in January. I think it just seems like we haven't, there's been blood in the streets. There's been chaos. There's been disorder. There's been arrests. There's been all the drama that you'd expect. But there's still hasn't been like, I don't think we're at desperation levels. Yeah. As sad as it sounds like there's

been all this bad stuff happening. But it's really, you know, I haven't had had anyone say, oh man, you know, this is, this is getting crazy. You know, it's almost like, we have just, I don't know, we haven't kind of reached that stage yet. But the, I like the way the article said, the next harvings slated to happen sometime in 2024, but it doesn't take much

to Google it and find out, you know, I know almost a predicted date at least, which is currently the 30th of March. And also the way they, they use the term phenomenon to describe the harving, which is a, it says, you know, just because I have curiosity to see the precision of this, it says, the dictionary says terms most, you see, you know, most commonly used

to refer to occurrences that defy explanation or baffle the observer. So, but it's got a very good reasoning to it. So it's not really something that's, that's baffling or defies much explanation. It's a very logical reason that you're harving the supply instead of increasing the supply because that's, but you know, part of the reason why we've got a fixed schedule. But it's, it's, it's strange for

someone like Draper who knows so much about Bitcoin and has been in for so long. So it's, it kind of, most people refer to the, the harving cycle in the public that happens after it. Standard charted just reference. You said the 5K, the, the most, the most sad prediction that they send it. So 70% plug from here just reference. Standard charted 63% from their all time

high in 2010, as a share price. And actually 80% down from there from the, from the market. And yet, the 20 years low. So, so they're not doing too good really. Maybe the last four years they've done okay in getting picking their share price up from like $336 to $686, but they're not doing so good at themselves. So they should be more optimistic about Bitcoin and

buying because it might share their, might increase their share price eventually. But it's sad to see that Macafee's predictions not on here because you know, he would have been excited to be extending his 500k in his own dick prediction if he was here. So that is sad that we don't have his, you know, he's insane cool to talk about as well. So, you know, I tip

my hat to you sir. But on a, on a positive note with all the destruction of FTX and everything, I was thinking about this earlier. So the more business, see, I don't like these businesses to fail, I'd rather they just weren't scammers, right, and they didn't stitch people up. But the most important thing is that you know, if you're going to buy the, if you're going

to buy the new one, you're going to buy the new one. The more that fail, the less of them there are to hold onto your Bitcoin instead of you. And therefore reducing third party risk. So that's a positive to come out of all these collapses. That's what they all said. They said, if only John Macafee was alive to eat his own dick. And they've also said

we'd go to 3000. We haven't seen that. They'd said we go to 1300. They said we have to retrace all the way back before we see a rise. But we didn't see a rise. We didn't see a rise. We didn't trace all the way back. We've got one more question, the exit question predicting against the greatest predictor in all of Bitcoin history. Ben Arck will the

price of Bitcoin be higher or lower this time next week. Let's go higher. Why not? Victoria Jones, do you share Ben's optimism? Well, I said a little bit high last week. And I was right. Very little bit. I don't know whether or not that will continue there. There's lots of rumors on the street. I think we could be lower next week. No, not more crises. Ben,

Dan Eve, higher or lower? Well, fortunately, I copied Victoria's prediction last week and went higher as well. So I'm also slightly correct. But now I think just a bit lower. That's not copying. And now we'll ask the ball. Remember, shake it could cause bubbles. Will the price of Bitcoin be higher this time next week? Says it is certain. It is certain. So the ball has spoken.

Very confident. Magic Bitcoin ball. Moving on to issue two key Bitcoin developer calls on the FBI to recover $3.6 million in stolen Bitcoin. Luke Dash Jr. A popular Bitcoin developer allegedly got hit by the hack this week saying that his PGP key was violated his cold storage, which is supposed to be offline. Seems like it was online. And of course, the thieves took not just one,

not just some, but all of his Bitcoin, which he seemed like he had all in one stack. I think it was like 200 Bitcoin or something like that allegedly stolen from Luke Dash Jr. Of course, this narrative fits really well into Binance and others attacks on Bitcoin, saying that average. Bitcoin users are too stupid to hold their own cold storage. Victoria Jones, what do you think

about this Bitcoin developer and this libertarian calling on the FBI to get back his money? Well, there's a lot of irony in this story, isn't there? I mean, I have to say everywhere that I've seen anything written about it. Everyone's kind of going, what the hell is he doing in order to try and store his private keys? I mean, it's so convoluted. I mean, if the

average person read that and go, that's what I'm going to say. I have to do to store my private keys. I mean, it's just so overwhelming. It's like, why? Why do I have to say? So, you know, it's, yeah, it's, it's everyone's very puzzled as to exactly how he was, he was storing his Bitcoin. I think that has a lot to answer for before everyone gets

really whipped up about it. And then yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, the concept of calling on the FBI to help you. I mean, even in the past, often it's been other members of the community. Who've kind of looked at the blockchain and tried to chase down who the hackers might be. That's normally been where the best solutions have come from. So yeah, for a libertarian

to be running to the FBI, I mean, there's huge iron. And they say that right at the end of the article, don't they? It's just like, you know, the, what is it? The, the decentralized platforms cutting out centralized authorities is a pipe dream. And it's just like, well, yeah. It seems like that. But the reality is, you know, with a new monetary system, a lot of

these authorities need to be recreated. So, so yeah. So there are lots of anomalies and in that story. And I think there's still a lot to be unraveled before we all get whipped up about it. Well, if we look at the story just basically, he's violating all of the basic cold storage, personal storage usage rules that we try to tell you about here. Number one, he

has all of his Bitcoins in one stack. This is really easy for math calculations. How much is my stack worth? You know, you just multiply the stack number by the Bitcoin price. But it's very bad for hacking situations because the hackers always take it all. They always take it all. So if he'd even had two PGP keys, maybe the second one wouldn't have been compromised. It

does seem like he has a very complicated way of holding his Bitcoins. I heard about another guy who held his Bitcoins in last pass. Yes, he put the key in there. And then he put the lock in there too. So when the hackers decrypted his last pass, they got the lock. They got the key. Don't store the lock with the key. It sounds like Luke Dash

Jr. had all of his Bitcoins online, not in cold storage. Didn't have multiple treasurers or ledgers, multiple stacks. And it seems like he lost them all. Dan Eve, what do you think about Luke Dash Jr. And his appeals to the FBI, although it does seem sarcastic. He's like, oh, I knew you wouldn't help. He helped me anyway, FBI. But he's also just complaining about the service

he wants his pizza in 30 minutes or less. It's free. Yeah. God damn it, you FBI. My text is you, God damn scammers. I thought that was quite quite me. I mean, obviously it's really sad. He's a core developer. He's been doing so since 2011. He's contributed lots of humanity, including obviously not just code, but also crazy, crazy tweets. But he's a very interesting character. And

do you think that someone who's so embedded in Bitcoin would follow the kind of the storage principles? Right. The I call Deep Point out that he said, you know, one was from a hot wallet and one was from a cold wallet. But the cold wallet was connected to the internet. So it's not like a cold storage. That's by the very definition of cold storage. It's kind

of not cold storage. But it does sound, you know, as Victorias, it sounds very kind of complicated the way he's done it. And maybe he thought, you know, if I'm storing it like this, that and the other, it's going to confuse people. And they won't ever try to hack me or, well, maybe it's that kind of principle that it's like not the bicycle helmet fallacy, but

like the, if he's such a, um, a shrewd coder and knows everything, so well, no, we'll leave him, but they're trying to hack him. So he can kind of be lax in his security processes because people will think, I'm not going to try and hack him because he'll, you know, he's probably so secure that it's just going to waste my time. It sounds like it was

maybe linked to this server issue that he had in, I think November, they said. So that could potentially be a awesome software, BTC or something, knots, what was it called? Something knots, some sort of software that had a back door in that he's recommending that people. Well, Dan with a, with the server issue in November, it sounds like he had some warning of this. And at

the very least, he could have taken his Bitcoin, moved him to another account. It wouldn't have cost him that much. He could have gotten a treasurer ledger. He could have split up the pile. It seems like you have to, if you have a warning, you get one of those little messages, someone's trying to log into your Google at the very least, change your password. Right. I

mean, that's a normal person thing to do. This is a, you know, grand lever of programmer. He had this warning. Seems like he did nothing. He left the money where it was. Yeah, it's sad, isn't it? And the thing is though, when I've had a kind of scale like that before, I thought, what if my, what if my, my, my devices compromised. And then you go

through the, like, right, okay, right, I'm going to generate a new keys and I even bought a new laptop just to, just to, you know, to create the new, the new seed from the brand new laptop that was not connected to the internet and all that. And then, and then I was like, I then took about a year to actually send the, like the crypto, the

other, because I was, I kept on fretting about in thinking, well, you know, what if I've compromised it by, by doing the very action of, you know, and you kind of maybe get yourself into a bit of an anxious loop over how to secure your own funds. And, and I think what's sad about this is that, like, CZ Binance saying, like it was saying a while

back that self custody will never catch on and kind of this is a, unfortunately, not proves him right, but is a, is a, you know, a lot of people are trying to fight the case for that, right, that you've got someone who's so well known in the, in the Bitcoin industry who then gets hacked because of key, you know, compromised keys. And but he even tweaked

about it, CZ Binance and said sad to see even an OG Bitcoin core developer lost 200 Bitcoin self custody has a different set of risks. So if ever, you know, it's a fair, it's a fair point, right, it's got a different set of risks. But there's definitely needs to be more emphasis on how to allow, you know, securely that that, yeah, obviously the most cool you

can be is like, I don't know, split, split the words, the 12 word seed into, into 12 different security deposit boxes, but in 24 different banks, you've got two versions of the, the, well, something crazy like that. I don't know. You can go down to all sorts of levels of security. But as you're saying about last pass, I don't know if you remember when, in 2017,

when he and Belina, a very, another very sad case where live doing an ice SEO shilling session, someone had hacked into his evernote and just basically wiped his funds from before his very eyes. So all of it's very, and that's the same thing where he stored the key and the lock in his evernote. And so if you got control of the evernote, you got the key,

you got the lock, you're ready to go. Yeah. And it's, and it's sad, you know, no, it's not, it's not nice to see anyone losing funds, but it is one of the, you know, the risks of Bitcoin. Unfortunately, so we just need to kind of support each other more. And in terms of information on how to secure your Bitcoin, use code storage, you know, all that

sort of thing and make sure that your seed isn't, isn't compromised, especially can. I'm just, of course, reminded of Philip K Dick, the famous sci-fi author, who worried in the 70s about, if someone had blown up his safe and his safe was full of writings and alternate drafts and things. And he eventually got down to it and he realized that it was quite possible that he

had blown up his own safe. And that was a far greater problem to him than the government. And in many ways, Luke Dash Jr. with his overcomplicated solution here blew up his own safe. Well, one other thing that's interesting about the whole thing is that is how many people kicked off knowing that he had, when they found out he had 200 Bitcoin, but was asking for

donations. And like, yeah, just, just because you have money, it doesn't mean you can't be supported for your, your efforts in writing code for Bitcoin, right? You know, this is quite a, it's so quite a big, not on the orchestra attack, but a lot of attacks and different people going, hey, you've got loads of Bitcoin, you shouldn't have more money. Like, come on guys, like, you

know, if you're, if you're doing something that's worth value, then then like, why not be rewarded for it? Yeah. Very, very stressful. It feels horrible right now. Ben, Arck, what do you think did Luke Dash Jr. blow up his own safe? Do you think he got paid by CZ from Binance to serve as a good example that no one can handle their own keys? I think,

I think the, the disappointment which people felt towards donating towards Leopards, Leopards, Leopards, is, and it's this years or not, Dash Jr. is, many times over the years, he's almost, not said exactly, but implied poverty. So Luke Dash Jr. was always the, the core developer who can have any Bitcoin. And then he would tweet about how he needs, you know, dental care for his children. Many

can't continue to work on Bitcoin because he has got any money. And then people donated towards Leopards, because they wanted to continue all his great work, which he does. And then it turns out he's got a bigger stack than most of us who, you know, so I can see why there isn't some animal honesty from the community of people who have contributed towards Leopards, Leopards, or

maybe how honesty was on, on, on his financial situation. So that's this, I think that is disappointing. And it just by the amount of people, you have to listen to the kickback when it comes from such a large amount of people, and not just sort of father offers, you know, people just don't know, kicking the dude while he's down. When it comes to, yeah, I mean,

it's a hot wallet if he's got these funds online. And Luke's, this is, it's like an old school, you know, computer scientist who runs his own servers and probably has those servers in his house as a server rack. About five years ago, I did a little bit of sleeping around on one of his servers and got a whole bunch of family photos, which he probably didn't

want the world to see. So there's a, they weren't the most secure servers. And there were things on there, which probably didn't want people to have access to it. I remember raising an eyebrow back then, when I was able to find those, it wasn't particularly hard. So, yeah. But I mean, it's sad, you know, he's lost that money. Hopefully, and I hope I'm crossing my fingers,

that it's just a massive obsec flag. And like a lot of the Bitcoin core developers who, you know, well, I won't mention them, but a lot of Bitcoin core developers who, you know, publicly stepped back from the project, but then, you know, said to people, look, you know, it's less of a safe project to be working on now. It has all this outside eyes on it.

And then they've publicly stepped back, but continue to contribute through super names and an ominous, as an ominous users, rather than having their personal identity attached to the Bitcoin core project. So I'm kind of hoping that that's got this part of that. And it's part of a larger play where he'll say, oh, no, I'm going to step back from the project. And then it will continue

to contribute Bitcoin knots as well. This is an important note. It's Bitcoin knots is loop dishes, own implementation of Bitcoin, which he signed. The versions are using his PGP key, which by the sounds of it was compromised. You don't need to worry about Bitcoin core because it's like multi-sig things. It's like, I think it's like three or five. In order to be able to like push

updates and things. There's so many pides on that code base that it'd be pretty hard to like put in a back door. But yeah, I feel, I mean, some people are really Bitcoin knots because it's good code. On their back ends. And then to hear that this software could have been compromised for perhaps months. And maybe that's the reason that he lost these coins. Must be

very disconcerting, particularly if you're running some sort of software stack on top of it. But yeah, it doesn't impact Bitcoin core. It's a shame, man. I'm sorry for him, but at the same time, I do share some of that disappointment, which other people in the community have. When over the years, he's kind of pleaded, not pleaded, but he's implied poverty. And then people have like, you

know, pop out of the dude because he's such an important guy. And you know, why isn't this guy being supported by the Bitcoin community? And they've donated Bitcoin to help him continue to develop. I mean, if he was a little bit more forthright. And just asked for an income to work on Bitcoin core. I'm sure people were still would have donated, but it's just the nature

of those tweets and public messages. We should put out there asking for donations. I think, yeah, wasn't wasn't wasn't particularly, you know, it was a bit of a whack move on the shares. But yeah, he does good work. I hope he continues to work on the private jet. He's into disappointed by it all. And people saying, you know, this is how can people normal people be

expected to use Bitcoin and hold it in the self-custodial way. It's nonsense. Like his security model clearly wasn't very good. If he had those funds on a hardware wallet, then they would still be secure now. And if they're actually in cold storage on a hardware wallet, then they would, he would still have this ones now. Yeah, using some like a trisor or something. So yeah, he's

just clearly his security model wasn't. And again, he needs to be a little bit more public about. How lame his security model was in order for people to access to those funds in the first place. It does seem still as though it's this disease of the forever holders where he's got $3 million. Maybe at the height of this thing, he's got $9 million. How much could

his house of cost? Maybe he should have sold a third and paid off his house. I know it's hard for people. They're like, Bitcoin's going to a million dollars. Everyone that I sell is a disaster. But on the other side, you look at this guy, all the stress he's under, he's keeping them all in one stack. He's clearly, you know, he's got the multiplication thing down.

But other than that is security's terrible. It's just a bad idea. I remember back in the day, I won't say his name, but a friend of mine would always talk about taking his paper wallets and making them smaller. And then at first they were five and 10 Bitcoin paper wallets. And then this was too much. And two or three Bitcoin wallets. And you just keep making

them smaller and smaller because it expands the targets. If you lose one or two of your paper wallets, if you lose a treasurer, maybe your ledger's still OK. Maybe your crypto steel capsule thing you buried under the house is OK. You have to have these multiple things, even having multiple safe deposit boxes as much as we're all like, oh, we hate the banks and all that

as Andreas has said many times, they're great at physical security. They're great at doors and locks and keys. And you know, your stuff's probably going to be fine in there. Plus like Dan is saying, you could split up your code into multiple codes, put it in multiple safe deposit boxes. All of these are available to anyone. You don't have to be crazy technical to apply for

a safe deposit box. But in this case, it would have helped. Let's see, let's move on to the next issue. Check out worldcrypto network.com where we've got the world crypto network audio podcast. Yes, it's ad free. Just like this shows ad free. There's no donation links. Isn't that strange. Anyway, check out the worldcrypto network podcast at worldcrypto network.com. Issue three, why Bitcoin supporters organized a bank

run on crypto exchanges. Yes, Yahoo is finally talking about proof, proof of Keyes day started by trace mayor in 2019. Proof of Keyes days ask Bitcoiners to take their money off of exchanges. As I'm sure the article could have said, if they had asked FTX to prove their keys, maybe more people would have their money. But if they had asked for a key today and less

of it would have gone to FTX, Dan, what do you think about proof of Keyes day? It's sad that we've just talked about the story of, you know, prominent Bitcoin figure, you know, losing his Bitcoin because he was hacked because of the way he stored his keys, but still there's still so much so much more upside to having your own keys than to giving it to

a company like FTX or Celsius like Bitcoin. The magazine just did had an article about how the judge ruled that the Celsius users gave up their legal rights to their Bitcoin by using the platform, which means that $4.2 billion of now of deposits and now property of Celsius. So that's insane. So you even trust the company to not basically, you know, be dicked with your funds.

And then even the laws on their side that they can keep they can keep your your money. So that's just in. And that can't actually happen if you're holding your own private keys, but obviously you've got to you've got to do it securely. You've got to do it very securely. So yeah, so it's it's in the backlight of Luke dash. Dash here. I always thought it

was Luke Dash Jr. So thanks for correction. So Luke to share it in like him using his keys at the same time. It is best to keep your you know to hold your keys and what happened to correct trace mayor right because his last tweet was fair. I think we said this is not good. Last year actually last tweet was February 24 2020. So after like

was it grim grim grim grim grim, which was it grim. Yeah, then you just disappeared into the into there. There was an incident at the tone. Vase con where trace mayor was allegedly walking around promoting mingle Wimble or grin. Coin with a weird piece of paper and a weird website. And people thought maybe he bought too much of the coin and he was trying to sell

it. And it seemed kind of desperate. Everybody. So I thought trace was really well off. He was the lawyer had all these investments. He had this beautiful seven network effects of Bitcoin. He did great podcast. And then I suppose over the embarrassment of this one small issue and the natural over reaction of the Bitcoin community. He completely disappeared. Oh yeah, because because I the first I

think it was either trace mayor's run run to gold, which then turned into a Bitcoin podcast. It was either that or watching you on YouTube as mad Bitcoins that were the two definitely the two first shows I can't remember which was the first. But what was cool was when you interviewed him at the uncomforticable conference. And and he's the first thing he said was like I've

been waiting for to be interviewed by you for years. That was really cool. So that was that was just nice being in that involved in in film. And trace was a great guy. And I think the community should forgive him for whatever it was about grim and mingle Wimble coin. A lot of people fall for an altcoin. We don't have to throw them completely out. Obviously

though, I don't think you like the reaction of the community. Yeah. Yeah. So he's probably gone into into hiding, which is the same because you did so much to promote to promote Bitcoin. He was such a good force, you know, force for Bitcoin. But yeah, back on the proof of keys. Yes, we've had like Celsius block five voyage FTX, Alameda, like, you know, these companies are

just and that's just from from 22 2022 alone. You know, you really should hold your own keys. Because that's a hold your own Bitcoin. And therefore hold your own keys and therefore your own Bitcoin because you can succumb to these these exchanges that go down just by re-hypothicating your money. Because that's when I first heard re-hypothication as well. How trace may was talking about that. So

how one place led it to another, which led it to another, which led it to another, to another. And that's how you see such a cascade of these these companies falling down as one can't repay the person before them. It's like the UK sort of housing chain where someone's waiting for someone else to tell theirs to sell theirs to sell theirs to sell theirs. And if

one falls through that everyone falls through, you know, it's this cascade event. So it's terrible. Hold your own private keys very safely. And please don't get don't get robbed or lose your private keys. It's interesting to see the article describe it as a bank run, which is what I've always thought it was. And I've always thought it was a little radical and unsafe. But like Dan

said, after all of these self cuss or shared custody failures, why wouldn't you want to try a bank run? Why wouldn't you want to make sure they have the money in their account? And while I agree with Josh Chagalla from Voltaugh, who always reminds us what a horrible day January 3rd is to do this. Most everyone's on vacation. The engineers aren't there often. You're completely legit

exchange. You've got to take money from the cold wallet, put it in the hot wallet, put it in the warm wall, all these kind of things, which do take keys, which do take access to safe places and so forth, which sometimes you can't access on January 3rd. So I think it's poorly timed by the great holiday. And even more important now than before, sadly. And you

think things would get better. We'd have more adult exchanges. We have less adult exchanges. Ben, Ark, what do you think about proof of your keys day? Yeah, Tracemo, I mean, I love Tracemo. It's such a shame that he had that kick back from the community. His grip was in the curve of bank rims. It's cool. It's cool. And a number of Wimbled as well. So I

can see why his side about particularly is like these proper full on libertarian. And I think why Trace is needed is he was always a great advocate for just ultimate privacy on the base layer on chain for fungibility. This idea that verifying coins trumps fungibility is just in my mind wrong. The reality is he needs full, there's zero knowledge privacy on the base layer. So I

was very much retraced on that. So it was a real shame that that voice has gone. Because I think he was always kind of pushing that dialogue, which was great. And similarly, you know, just like Dan, you know, he's a big influence for me when I first reached out and looked at content to consume for Bitcoin. There wasn't much out there. There was Utah myth. There

were lots of myths. There were some of the smart bike Bitcoin guys. And I know it was Tracemo as well. And Max Max Kaiser as well, of course. So it was a shame that like he felt so betrayed by the community. I mean, he worked so hard and tirelessly for Bitcoin. I think that he felt the the cold hand of Bitcoin community against him. And I

think it just I think he felt betrayed. And that that was a real shame. But yeah, though, that the holding your own Bitcoin. I really liked what what Nick Chaneli has said on this was the the core developer or X core developer. One of those people I mentioned before. In the kiss kiss kiss kiss your keys. So keep it simple. Like the biggest risk time and

time again for people is having hearing scenes of tweets about multi-staging blah blah blah. And then they create this very convoluted security profile for the holding their Bitcoin. So then reality they should just go and get a hard one while it couple of hard one. While it's like say split the funds up. You know, have a wrench tax dash. You know, actual slash. Let's put maybe

against couple of treasors or couple of our wallets if you can. And then split those seeds up. That's great. That's fine. That'll do. You know, and have it simple enough that it's it's possible to restore. Rather than doing something too convoluted. So kiss your keys. I thought was a great, great quote from him. But yeah, it's terrible timing for the industry and for all these exchanges.

But maybe you know, that was trace trolling. This big exchanges. Knowing that it would be a pain for them. Because he wasn't such a fan of the big exchanges. But we'll see more and more ways of securing your Bitcoin. Coming out and developing over the next couple of years because clearly this is always always been a. Not issue, but it's always been one of the most

important parts of Bitcoin is how do you actually secure the stuff how do you actually keep it. Oh, by you. And then I have it taken off you by hackers or whoever else. So yeah, obviously always be custodian of your funds. It's like, I mean, with the Ftx stuff. I mean, I hadn't heard of Ftx was until it all kicked off and. Ftx went under and

everyone was all miserable and I think I think I've seen I've been not this thing is this exchange was this is just as the after I know that is stuff is, you know, I. How many gauge with these exchanges. So I think that's how I want you to really be when it comes to Bitcoin. But keep it simple. It is quite a shame that traces and

around in the. More I saw a video of Max Kaiser and Stacy at the Bitcoin 22 conference in Miami and they were just over the moon. They were just so happy Bitcoin was on the top. Max was burning $20 bills or what are his usual thing. And they're just so happy to get all the media attention and and to be so strident about it to because

they are just so strong in their Bitcoin haven't gone to so many of these ups and downs and presumably held on to their keys. Be great to see trace there with Max and Stacy and everyone else. Victoria Jones, what do you think about prove your keys day and the unfortunate disappearance of trace mayor. Oh yeah, I like trace as well. It sounds like he's a bit

of a hero really. I saw a number of his interviews. I mean, again, I was, you know, watching around the same time as I was watching you and a few others. So yeah, so it's a shame. He was very lucid in the things that he said and and very confident as well, which I think is is what helped to encourage a lot of people. And I

liked his intellect and his logical arguments. They were very, they were very powerful. I think it was him who stated that Bitcoin was like an ever expanding blueberry that was just going to absorb the entire liquidity of the world. And I thought that was a great analogy. So yeah, so it's a shame, but I don't blame him. And he doesn't, you know, he doesn't, it's like

a lot of people out there. They don't need to, but they do it because, you know, they they feel like they they want to help out the others by understanding what they understand. And, you know, he did a great job, I think. So, so yeah, I think, I think that's a shame. But I, but again, you know, I think it was his initiative. Wasn't it the

proof of keys thing. And I think it is a good initiative. I mean, a lot of people don't remember that, you know, the Federal Reserve was set up in 23rd, any setup in 1913. And until that time throughout the second half of the 19th century, you had a lot of individual banks. And from time to time, they would fail. And this is where the whole, the

all freaked out about these cryptocurrency exchanges going down. And it wouldn't surprise me at all if this is part of the hidden agenda because it was people freaking out about banks closing and the bank runs that would cause knock on effect that led to the installation of the Federal Reserve in the first place. And so, you know, if people succumb to that kind of fear too

much and aren't able to take responsibility of their own assets, then this is what you're calling for a centralized authority to do. And there are people who are not going to be able to take the responsibility of their own assets. And so, I think that's the key to the fact that people who very well understand that that's the mechanism from history. So it's really important, I

think, that we're that we're mindful of that. It's important that we hold other people accountable for when they do things wrong, but be really, really careful about the solution that you end up with because it may be way worse than the problem you've got right now. So I think that's worth highlighting. There are so many ads with so many great celebrities as well as the sponsorship

of Major League Baseball, specifically the umpires, the people who decide they call balls and strikes literally. And they had FTX, this corrupt company on their on their shirts, all these ads with all these celebrities never saying at the end, FTX is a Bahamian exchange. If I had known that during the ads, I would have mocked them the whole time. I foolishly assume they were US. They

did have a US. They were in the US, all the pictures of him were with senators and congresspeople from the US. But at the same time, this one little fact is we're in the Bahamas. You can trust us with your money. Sounds ridiculous on its face. Obviously none of us. I don't think ever use the exchange other than the block folio app being taken over. But

even then the block folio app didn't pop up and say, welcome to the Bahamas man. You can trust us with your money. It's just such a bad. Not knowing that one fact changed the entire story. And obviously Sam wasn't from the Bahamas. His crew wasn't from the Bahamas. This wasn't a, you know, forward facing Bahamian exchange. These were US carpet baggers that went down. They did

whatever they want. And I think we're going to see more of that in other countries with weak laws. No exit question, but shout out to trace mayor. Hope he's watching. Hope he's doing well. Maybe a little umbrella drink in the hand. Something non-alcoholic probably, but a best of luck to trace mayor. Moving on to issue. Issue four Bitcoin will soar to $250,000 in 2023 says billionaire

Tim Draper. Tim Draper is moving his prediction for 2022 over to 2023. But now he's talking about the Bitcoin happening, which we're going to talk about pretty much every week from now on. The amount of Bitcoin's being produced will fall from, I don't know, six and a half to three and a quarter something like that. And it's going to keep getting smaller. And it happens automatically.

It's not a phenomenon. But Victoria, what do you think about Tim Draper's incredible prediction and kind of the need for someone like this in Bitcoin, someone like trace, someone maybe like Andreas, who's very respectful and trusted by the media who can go out there and say, crisis still going up. Like it's not over yet. The media loves to say when things are over, but someone like

Draper or Andreas could say it's not over yet. Well, I have to say I don't think I've put Tim Draper in the same category as trace mayor and Andreas Antonopolis at all. And in fact, if he keeps making predictions like this, he's not going to have much of a reputation left because I think it's definitely, he's definitely overreging the pudding. I mean, when you actually read

the article as well, or he might have to eat his own dick. There's always a possibility. At least he hasn't gone that far. I tend to think maybe McAfee had to get himself arrested just to give some of that predicament. But you know, if you actually read the article, you know, one of his main reason is the fact that only one in seven women hold Bitcoin,

one is right now, it's like, dude, just like what are you talking about? I mean, the thing is, we're going into the most predicted recession ever on the planet. I mean, almost every financial analyst that you listen to is predicting a recession. You know, and women, a lot of women rely on the men and their lives for the for not all of them, obviously, but rely

on the men and their lives for their income at all. You know, if the men are suffering, the women are going to be suffering more. I mean, where is all of the money to start buying into Bitcoin going to come from? I mean, it's completely unrealistic. You know, and if you still talk to people who know nothing about Bitcoin at all, you know, the way they're

suffering in their in their normal lives. I mean, they've they've got their their heating bills are going up. The electricity bills are going up. The values of the house are going down. Food bills are going up. You know, most people are just trying to manage their lives. Where are they going to get the extra money to invest into Bitcoin, especially right now? I think it'll be

right eventually, but right now, just the timing's completely off. I'm sorry. I think he also thinks that the women are going to take the money, make money on it, and then go shopping. And it's just it's a tough thing to say these days. It's it's partially true. I women do shop and they spend money. They're spending them by Bitcoin. That's for sure. Exactly. Exactly. And everything's

down now. Like physical goods are down. Dan, what do you think about Tim Draper and $250,000 coin? Well, I it I mean, I've read a few articles on this. And it does it does seem he kind of basically says to shorten it. He says it's going to be $250,000 because women, like because like that it that's the short version. Right. But I'm with Victoria about the

80% of retail spending, you know, is is is apparently is women, but they've got bills that are going up like everyone like retail. And that's retail spending. It's not investments. Right. So what percentage of male and female actually put money in investments and especially high risk investments. You know, look at gambling, for example. And that is dominated, you know, for gamblers and mostly men, obviously, you

know, there is some equality happening where more women are gambling as the days go by as well. But it's mostly men, like, especially if you go even now you're going to look at the bookies, you don't see like a 50 50 in there, you see like mainly old dudes just gambling their money away. And that's how a lot of people see Bitcoin right now, especially when

again, as Victoria surprises rising, like, fuels going up, everything, housing's going up, everything's going up, it's just, you know, bread, all the the basics applies. So there's not that luxury of excess money to be to be throwing into a high risk asset. And then there's that kind of I don't know if this is kind of. I know this is all always trading on eggshells, like like

like Humpty Dumpty, the horseman of Humpty Dumpty and just smashing them all and said, because they got no dexterity is a wreckage of ace point. But, but aren't women apparently meant to be written a bit slightly more risk of us. So in times where the costs are so insane for for living to be putting your money in it in this crazy, this crazy Bitcoin internet money

seems, it seems a bit, yeah, it seems a bit out of kind of character almost for a moment. So dare I say not desperate. But like a it's just like a maybe he's thinking, oh, I just need to show Bitcoin a bit more to pump it. But what I do agrees is in general principle, you know, the number of women in Bitcoin is increasing. Certainly, and

that's really positive for the ecosystem is not a lot this one sided thing where you go to a conference and just see your dudes there. So that's ultimately good. But whether that's going to be the driver and especially for 2023. It just doesn't seem to realistic and yeah, but because it's prior to the halving as well. So as the 1490 percent, it would mean as an

upside from where we are now, which is huge. It's 14x from where we are now. You know, I think you even said buy mid 2023. So that's a very steep hike. And I don't know, it just seems like nowadays with Bitcoin becoming more ubiquitous that these, these rises may be a bit slower than we've seen in previous cycles because there's a lot more money. There's not

a lot more money. In it to both short it more avenues to short it than than the way years ago as well that have an impact on the overall price. So yeah, I don't know. 250K be great if it did reach 250K. Like everyone's going to be happy with that. But I don't think it's in 2023. I think we've almost got a money Python sketch going

here where it's the middle of a economic crisis. And you go to your wife and you're like, wife, what did you buy at the store? And she's like, I got magic beans. I got Bitcoin. And you're like, they're on a paper wallets. See, they're safe. They can't be so what if they're on a paper wallets? I'll be happier with a can of beans or some food.

So yes, it is very hard for to think of women wanting to buy Bitcoin at this time. But I do like this. And Craig and Craig write pretending to be the Messiah is not Satoshi is a very naughty boy. He's fake Satoshi is not real. But I like his 250K. And I like talking about the happening when the amount of Bitcoin being produced will reduce by

half. I agree with Dan it might go up slightly less. But at the same time, I wonder how many businessmen have heard about the happening and are looking for that down point. They're looking for when do I enter I want to get in before the rest of the guys, but not too early because it could dip. And I think that that that calculation is going to

go earlier and earlier. I think people are going to learn about the happening earlier. They're going to invest earlier to be the one that beats the other guys. Not to be the one that's entering too late. And that that might spike the price before the happening or after the happening. Or we just wait for a supply and demand to take care of itself as it always

does. Ben Arck, what do you think of draper's prediction of 250K keeping in mind that he's the one that bought the Silk Road Bitcoin that the US government should have spent on more Smithsonian museums. I think he's correct. So there's plenty of money out there. It's just and there's a lack of places to put that money currently. It's just the money. It isn't in the hands

of everyday people. So everyday people are feeling the squeeze. But there's plenty of liquidity out there in asset markets. It's just literally no way to put it. So all these people with all this liquidity are and they're aware of Bitcoin now. Bitcoin is this little puddle. You know, mom and pop investors, average people investing money in Bitcoin, buying Bitcoin because they're interested in technology. They hope

about Bitcoin. The friend gets rich. So they buy some Bitcoin. I mean, soon, general investors haven't been anywhere near Bitcoin. There's a few billionaires who've got interested in Bitcoin over the years. But there's this huge ocean of liquidity, which as soon as the Bitcoin price goes up, and it does the usual predictable rise, which is done in the past, where we went for $300 to $20K.

And then we went for $3K. And then we got to $50, $60,000. And then we dropped down to what we are now. 13K or 10K. We land up a bench in this bear. We're going to the market and then boom, it'll go back up to, I think if you just transpose those bull cycles onto the price as we currently are, it's 240K. Is the, is the,

is the, where we're aiming and like that's the thing. There's just, there isn't the money in Bitcoin. The institutional investors. People with all this liquidity and all this money are putting it in Bitcoin. The squeeze, which most people are feeling is whilst disparity. You have some people in the planet who have had a lot of money. They have a lot of resources and liquidity. And then

you have a few and a few people on the other side who have, you know, a lot less money. And they're really feeling this squeeze. And that's very sad. But it's not normal people. Normal, you know, Bitcoin is as perhaps the, the people who historically have bought Bitcoin, we've got the price to where it is now, with the help of a few billionaires along the way.

It's all this institutional investment and that huge ocean of liquidity, which is just going to flood into this little puddle. And the reason the price is going to be so volatile, the reason it can drop so much is because there isn't enough liquidity in Bitcoin, which means that they can be a lot of, we need more liquidity. And, and just as the price can be pushed

down so heavily, it can go up. No, just as quick. So yeah, I think 240K, 250K, I think should send traders on it. You know, as we're talking about this crack. We need more liquidity, Ben Arck. And just think about it. If the United States, Smithsonian, museum accomplished their goal of creating a Smithsonian museum in all 50 states, there'd be a free Smithsonian Museum in Iowa.

And you could go there if you lived in Iowa and learn all about Iowa. There'd be one in Illinois, there'd be one in Milwaukee in Wisconsin, all over the place. There could be these amazing Smithsonian museums. But instead, we sold the Silk Road Bitcoins for nothing to Tim Draper and other venture, Vulture capitalists. Now, time, quick exit question, predict the future. Will the price of Bitcoin

rise to $250,000 in 2023 as Tim Draper has predicted? Dan Eve. I don't think it will. It would be lovely. But I don't think it, I don't think it will. Maybe 2024 or 2025. But it would be great. I'd love to see it. But I just think it's just a bit too early. It's before the halfening. And it's not, you know, not in line with previous

kind of side. I need a special button to push for more optimism. Victoria Jones, more optimism, 250K. Well, I could say yes, but I would be lying. You know, I was listening to Twitter Spaces earlier today with Simon Dixon. And there were some very angry traditional investors on there, talking about the Gemini exchange, really getting freaked out by the fact that there seems to be a

hole in the DGB balance sheet. I don't think institutional investors going anywhere near this in the immediate future. I think they won't eventually. But this year, no, I don't think so. Well, that's one of the best ones for me, because I got to go on a special DCG Napa wine tour eight pizza with Barry Silver. And now I'm more successful than them. I'm the one that

didn't loan out any of my Bitcoin for any kind of earned program. So take anybody else's money allegedly and loaned out to other earning programs, which eventually went to FTX and lost all their money. The return on Bitcoin was fine. Why did these guys want so much more? Ben, Ark exit question 250K. Show me some positivity. Yeah, 100% we could get that countries, biggest social investors,

stop flooding into Bitcoin. So this starts to trace up. And they just aware of it. This is not really a big deal. We've had Bitcoin. Everyone's going to join the bandwagon. All these people who have all this money, but they've no way to put it, which is currently where we are. They're not all flooding to Bitcoin. And that price just was so volatile. We have so

little liquidity in Bitcoin, it can push the price up there. So hold on to your toes, Bitcoin's trying to sell as little as you can. And it's hard because you've got, you know, obviously bills to pay and everything. So I'm going to go back to the market. I'm going to go back to the market and buy Bitcoin. And I'm going to go back to the market.

I'm going to go back and buy Bitcoin. I'm going to go back to the market. I'm going to plan a good premise. Can that. To Uber is say, here, I am going to try to give you an update. Right kids? And that's, you know, what is the energy personality? . How is there its energy personality power shift in Tokyo? Which is the energy level? So I

can go back to that stories. I'm going to go back to my, not to say that, but, quote, frankly, the peoples left white for some time, right? Tell me, if Wes, you're just going to Calm this down. Have Ra, actually, I was for $171 million that I had that famous Mar psy and in 5192. But you can see this couple, and I'm going to hand it

over to nothing I've seen in this conversation for real. I would like to give a shout out to Dan. I he's one of the developers on Alan Bass, one of the developers on Alan Bass. And he's been on this utter rampage, my pying, the Alan Bass co-base. So basically just cleaning up all the Python code. And I, I, I've merged like 20 of his PRs this

week. And the guy's just on fire. I don't always, I don't always take it. I don't always do it. But, yeah, big shout to that dude. And that's my story of the week. It's just the, yeah, just the amount of energy being poured into clearing up the Alan Bass co-base. Also, I, I switched the icons for extensions for nice little tiles as well. So it looks

a bit wordpressy now. We have all these nice pictures while I look extensions. But yeah, thank you, DNA. And be sure to check out the Bitcoin year ends, spectacular where we celebrate Ben and Ellen bits and Noster and all the open source contributors to those exciting projects. Victoria, Jones, do you have a prediction or a story of the week? Go ahead. Well, my story of the

week is that I spent New Year's Eve with Bitcoiners down in London. It was very nice. And then we saw the fireworks from London Bridge. In fact, we didn't see all the proper fireworks. We saw some lame fireworks from Tower Bridge. No one told us that wasn't the best place to stop and see them. But even so, you know, that was a great way to spend

New Year. So shout out to them. That was sponsored by a bit tree fill. And there were quite a few people there from the Bitcoinology meetup in London. So, yeah, that was, that was pretty cool. Very cool. And I got to go to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. And I was maybe more interested in the bridge. Dan Eve, a prediction or a story

of the week. Go ahead. Um, prediction prediction. Hmm. Well, okay. So, so I think that what, okay, I think there's going to be, okay, I'm going to have a happy prediction here. Yeah. And my happy prediction is that there's going to be some, some, some breaking news on where Luke, dishes, coins are, and there'll be some progress in getting them back. So I, yeah, that's, that's

my prediction. It's a wild one. But I think someone in the FBI has gone. He's complaining about us. Let's prove him wrong. And, and then which would also maybe be a bad thing, but they'll end up taking someone's Bitcoin, even though they hold the wrong private keys. And then there'll be that contradiction of having your own private keys isn't, isn't safe in the government because the

FBI is going to get it somehow. I don't know. It's a little bit crazy. It's 2023. And if it's anything like 2022, 2021 and 2020, anything could happen. Well, to follow up on what Dan said, and I agree with Ben, I don't know about this Luke dash year thing. That seems harder to say. But maybe he could just show some respect to the hackers, right? Maybe

say, Hey, guys, good job. You got me, but I'm a Bitcoin developer. And I'm broke now and I could use some help. And maybe they'd send him some of the money back. You know, I'm not saying it's guaranteed, but you know, hackers like hackers, he's obviously a great coder and he understands Bitcoin and so forth. Maybe just ask for it back nicely. You know, it's it's

better than going to the FBI, right? So thanks to everybody for giving us a thumbs up down below for saying hello in the chat or in the comments. We appreciate you. And we keep doing the show every week to entertain you and give you the news about Bitcoin. So thanks so much for joining us. Until next time. Bye. Bye.