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Watch This Episode On YouTubeListen To The Episode Here:In this episode of “Bitcoin Bottom Line,” hosts C.J. Wilson and Josh Olszewicz are joined by special guest Mike Hobart. He is an author at Bitcoin Magazine, a seed oil disrespecter and a former member of the United States military. Wilson, Olszewicz and Hobart open the episode by talking about what is currently happening in the investing space. Olszewicz states that there is currently no good news and we are seeing how rate hikes don’t work effectively. Wilson has observed people starting to question inflation and interest rates while seeing that there is a person responsible for them. He believes the solution is the Bitcoin mantra: rules without rulers. Hobart remarks that energy companies have the potential to have a significant impact on the acceptance of bitcoin as well. “I believe that we will get a lot closer after energy companies like Exxon[Mobil], Chevron and ConocoPhillips become vocal about how they are using bitcoin mining to help with their production numbers and revenue. I have noticed that everyone wants to treat Bitcoin like a stock and equity or as a heavy rock like gold. It is both of these things and neither at the same time. The more information that is put out about Bitcoin, the more understanding people will have, and the adoption rate will begin to grow even more exponentially.”Hobart closes the episode by sharing the threat medical debt has to our economy. “With the rest of the macroeconomic situation, the whole market is looking at housing because of 2008; oil, energy and gas because of Ukraine; as well as supply and shipping rates due to covid. I think the markets are going to have the black swan come from the health sector. In regard to diabetes, 10% of the population has diabetes, and 97 million people are prediabetic. About 40% of the population is or will be taking insulin. This does not account for all of the other metabolic diseases prevalent in society. There are trillions of dollars worth of medical debt in the United States, and nobody is talking about how this debt is going to affect the economy.”

This is an opinion editorial by Aleks Svetski, author of “The UnCommunist Manifesto,” founder of The Bitcoin Times and Host of the “Wake Up Podcast with Svetski.”Bitcoin is the perfect money. It embodies all of the properties and functions of money:Store of value (SoV)Medium of exchange (MoE) Unit of account (UoA) …and does so in a way that any person or participant, from anywhere in the world can:Save without having their wealth invisibly stolenSpend without some Big Brother type of institution telling them what or with whom they’re allowed to do soAccount, audit and verify what they have, when they received it and how much it is in relation to the whole.Furthermore, this is all possible without any form of trusted intermediary, government regulation, prudential oversight or “decree by the anointed.”Money is arguably the most important invention of mankind because it is a social technology, and we are by definition the social species. Money is the mechanism by which we measure or attempt to quantify complex things in both the material realm, such as time, energy and material resources, alongside things that are more metaphysical in nature, such as “value,” “reputation” and “quality.” As a result, money is not just a “measuring stick,” but is also a communication network. It is a medium through which higher order collaboration is made possible. Money is critical for the formation of any society more complex than a few hundred people and without it we simply cannot scale civilization up. There’d be no division of labor nor any form of production beyond self subsistence.Now, here we are in 2022. Roughly 14 years since Satoshi Nakamoto released the white paper for what has emerged as the apex money (at least on this planet).So, what does this have to do with Bitcoin’s circularity?Well, if bitcoin is the next and final global money, then by definition (and by design) it is already circular. It’s a monetary unit and a financial network which already embodies all of the elements required for a global economic system.So, it’s not a question of “if,” or even “when,” but more a question of progress, magnitude and necessity.In 2020 I wrote an article entitled “Bitcoin & Lockdowns,” in which I put forward a model of understanding Bitcoin’s long-term adoption curve, through the lens of necessity. And this is the answer to the circularity question:When circularity? — > “As it becomes more of a necessity.””Necessity is not only the mother of all invention, but is the grandmother of all change.”Major transformations like Bitcoin are progressions which diffuse through society in memetic fashion.They start imperceptibly slowly, but as they gain momentum due to both their own development and the deterioration of the old guard, they begin to accelerate exponentially.And this is what we’re in the midst of today:The fiat experiment spiraling out of control, and the necessity of using Bitcoin as a savings vehicle, payments mechanism and at some point an accounting system, all rapidly accelerating and converging.When you look at modern economics and the fiat money they’re dependent upon, you realize you can no longer:Accurately measure the product of your labor or value generated in the marketplaceStore or preserve the product of your labor or value generated in the marketplaceFreely or voluntarily exchange the product of your labor or value generated in the marketplaceMoney is no longer “money” in the true sense of the term. It’s become, as Stephanie Kelton would put it; just “points.”SourceIt has become meaningless, virtual, arbitrary, pointless points which one group can make up at the expense of all other players in the game. And who are those players in the game? Well — it’s the rest of us, our livelihoods and of our scarce natural resources.This is a model of the world that cannot last, in much the same way as the fool who jumps off a cliff attempting to fly thinks he’s beaten gravity for the first few seconds as he’s moving upwards.When we extend the timescale a bit, we’ll find that gravity catches up. It always catches up.Another example is the entire KYC/AML edifice, and the ridiculous new mandates like the “Travel Rule.”Money exists so that two parties who do not know each other can exchange the product of their time and labor, for things each subjectively values more or less. “Knowing your customer” is fundamentally antithetical to the entire raison d’être of money and the scale it’s supposed to enable in society via efficient trade.Imagine all of the wasted resources that go into:Unnecessary complianceKnowing all of your customersReporting meaningless statistics for AMLLicensing and regulationsBureaucratic negotiations and lobbyingImagine how much more effective we could all be and how many resources we could save and allocate toward productive means if we were not forced to play this game. And to add insult to injury, think about how much privacy this entire “performance” compromises on the part of all “customers” involved. See these two idiot companies in Australia, within a week of each other recently:SourceSource: Author’s emailIt’s crazy.Payments and financial privacy will not get better under the existing system. They’re only going to get worse.Savings will not be protected under the existing regime. They will only continue to evaporate.This is all why Bitcoin’s necessity as the foundation of a new monetary and payments network is only going to increase, as will the magnitude of its circularity.There Is No Alternative.It will be driven just as much by the decline of the existing fiat system, as the zero to one evolution of money that Bitcoin represents.IncompatibilityOne of Bitcoin’s most important and, for many, compelling features is incompatibility, specifically with the status quo or legacy money and payments.Bitcoin is fundamentally unlike anything that currently exists and it is therefore by definition circular. Bitcoin can really only move over the Bitcoin Network. Any bitcoin that looks as if it interacts with the legacy system or perhaps even other “crypto networks” is just paper bitcoin.Bitcoin is only truly recognized on the Bitcoin network, and vice versa: the Bitcoin network is only useful insofar as bitcoin can be moved on it. Bitcoin can only live on the Bitcoin network.What more circularity can you ask for? This is not some interoperable shitcoin, or an exchange à la FTX or BlockFi, or some digital database with points. This is an entirely different beast that few understand, especially those who are arrogant or stupid enough to think they’re somehow larger or more significant than Bitcoin itself.Bitcoin is as different to every other form of payments and money as the internet is to the flag communication system created by Genghis Khan almost 1,000 years ago.It is a complete paradigm shift. It is a zero-to-one discovery and invention.Zero To OneIt’s worth noting that zero to one transformations are not always seen as “improvements” in the beginning, especially with respect to networks. They’re fundamentally different and require input and energy from the participant, much like the activation energy in a chemical reaction. But as new “catalysts” emerge, and different participants find themselves “energized” enough to change (as the necessity arises), the movement cascades, achieving both mass and scale, and we look back to wonder how we ever lived without it.This is how we’ll all look back on Bitcoin decades from now.Future generations that are free to transact globally, instantly and securely with a money that’s always on and incorruptible will look back on this period of fiat history and wonder how some could’ve ever been stupid enough to think Stephanie Kelton economics, where 2 + 2 = 435, would last.In much the same way that we now take things like electricity for granted, or the internet, or Uber or social media, for that matter, we too will take Bitcoin for granted. People laughed at the early electricity pioneers, whether it was Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse or even Thomas Edison. They couldn’t fathom what we’d need to use this mysterious power from God for, other than, perhaps, lights.The internet was the same. The “greatest minds” of the time couldn’t imagine far beyond a fancy video and conferencing call medium. Some saw the potential for online shopping, but that was it until about two decades in. Now it forms the backbone of almost every major industry and artery of modern civilization.I could go on, but I think you get the point.In closing, to understand Bitcoin’s circularity, you need to look at Bitcoin’s holistic functionality, through a lens of necessity and time, and you need to get a feel for the incompatibility or paradigmatic shifts that occur with a zero-to-one types of discoveries or innovations (Bitcoin being a blend of both).Bitcoin wins in the end because it has time on its side. Bitcoin is where the puck is going.The legacy system loses because it is fighting a losing battle against entropy, and every move it tries to make to save itself is actually a move toward killing itself. The legacy system is where the puck was.It’s over for fiat. It’s just going to take what seems like a long time to any one individual, but what’s really a very, very, verrrrry short time on a civilizational timescale.What a time to be alive.This is a guest post by Aleks Svetski, author “The UnCommunist Manifesto” and founder of The Bitcoin Times. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

This is an opinion editorial by Kane McGukin, who has 13 years of wealth management experience spanning brokerage and institutional equity sales. He is an independent registered investment advisor.“This gamble came undone due to the dumping of millions of dollars in copper into the market to stop a hostile takeover in an unrelated organization.”–Knickerbocker Trust Company, WikipediaSourceThe history of money and high finance is long and storied. It’s a world of economic systems and corporations built to frothy heights only to come crashing down at rather obvious but “unexpected” moments.If you dig in, if you follow the money trail over hundreds of years and across various similar but different economic schemes and monetary systems, you will find that money leads to greed, greed leads to leverage, and leverage leads to an eventual liquidity crisis. These are the events that bring financial systems crashing down.You might be surprised at first. But, after a deeper review, you’ll begin to notice a pattern. While dates change, names change, and asset bubbles change, liquidity crises are always much the same.There’s nothing new under the sun.The opening quote is about the Knickerbocker Trust Company, which was the match that ignited the fire causing the Panic Of 1907.The Problem With Man Is Money And The Problem With Money Is ManIn light of the collapse of Voyager, Celsius, Three Arrows Capital, BlockFi and now their savior FTX, the opening quote says it all. Over the last few days, as collateral has unwound, no asset, firm or protocol has been left unscathed. Not even Bitcoin.This is because a liquidity crisis is a liquidity crisis and they all rhyme, they all march to a similar beat. If we change just a word here or there, the tune is quite clear. For instance, in the opening quote, if we change “copper” to “FTT tokens” we move from 1907 to 2022.This gamble came undone due to the dumping of millions of dollars of FTT tokens into the market to stop a hostile takeover in an unrelated organization.“Just ten years before the crisis, the bank grew from $10 million in deposits to $61 million. The failure of such a prestigious financial institution inevitably caused the jitters to spread throughout the banking system.” –FinNotesIn a nutshell, this is the battle we’ve seen between Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX and Changpeng Zhao of Binance, a battle that brought down the house and sent fear throughout the crypto market and brought likely large losses to a number of traditional finance backers.In crisis moments liquidity seizes until the dust settles and new players step in. It is crisis moments that usually reset the rules. They redefine the players, move the stacks and start the game board anew. That’s why the characteristics of a liquidity crunch are repetitive in nature. In a roundabout way, once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.SourceFinancial calamity is nothing new. At many different points in history, man has developed new monetary technologies that drive society forward, with one caveat: we’ve been unable to do so without avoiding greed, liquidity crunches and panics.Whether it’s Alexander Hamilton’s construction of the U.S. financial system following the Revolutionary War, wildcat banking, The Panic Of 1907, The Great Depression, the savings and loan crisis, the asian currency crisis, the 2000 crash or The Great Recession in 2008, all of these panics and crises look much the same.You can change the names of the people and the times of the events, but the playbook for orchestration is well documented.It starts with an area that is lightly regulated to completely unregulated. The market gets cornered by knowledgeable players who pump growth in an exponential manner. The grifters make handsome profits, an attraction that brings more. Greed gets out of control just as collateral dries up and buyers are margined beyond a point of no return. Once the last buyer buys, the music stops and a collapse begins to feed on itself.It’s a story told many times over the last few hundred years in financial markets, one that has played out again with the collapse of FTX and others in crypto in 2022.SourceNew Rails, New Rules. Mockery Turns To Battle.There’s euphoria in the air. A new financial system means creating a new set of financial rails, bringing on a new set of elites who will challenge the old political guard. As a new monetary medium flows through the system, we see a girth of new interest and bubbles begin to form. There’s an encouragement of leverage, a yearning for greed that ultimately leads to challenging the old guard and its rules. Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency ecosystem are no different as we’ve seen these characteristics rear their ugly head over the last couple of years.SourceWhat starts as a mockery quickly becomes a battle. The unlikely becomes a formidable challenger as incubation happens in unregulated markets. Often, this new upstart musters a challenge by providing for those who have been left to the wayside by staunch, unhelpful policies that are antiquated in their ability to fill the needs of the people of the new day and age.Shades Of Panic“The failure of the Knickerbocker Trust Company was but the beginning, not the end, of a panic that would engulf a turbulent and rapidly growing nation as it entered the twentieth century.” –“The Panic Of 1907”“Given the fundamental factors in place that should support the demand for housing, we believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will likely be limited.”–Ben Bernanke, 2007“When the tape falls behind for ten minutes or half an hour the exchange and its doings drop, as it were, behind a cloud. As a result the humble ticker — which everyone has taken for granted up to now — has suddenly become the big problem of the stock market.”–Collier’s, 1928These panics, while monetary in nature, were man made and handcrafted underneath the surface, as laid out in “Tragedy And Hope” and a vast array of other historical books and officially-documented accounts.Experience is all you need. To become well versed in one, in a roundabout way, makes you well versed in all.Whether it’s the behind-closed-doors meetings of 2008 to decide the winners (JPMorgan) and losers (Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers) in order to reshape Wall Street, or it’s the iron-fisted and locked-door meetings of 1907 held by John Pierpont Morgan himself, they’re not too dissimilar to an SBF/CZ Twitter agreement of 2022.In each crisis, the goals are clear and the same. Shuffle the deck. Maintain power. Restart the music. But, leave the control in the hands of an inner circle.“Brokerage firms, which handled stock market transactions, were also in danger of failing. They were paying skyrocketing interest rates on loans to meet their obligations. Morgan put together a $25 million ‘money pool’ for making lower interest loans to them, avoiding an almost certain stock market crash. But the largest brokerage firm on Wall Street, Moore & Schley, was $25 million in debt. The bankruptcy of this key firm could still set off a stock market crash. Morgan called a meeting at the Morgan Library. He assembled the city’s commercial and trust company bankers, put them in separate rooms, locked the front door, and kept the key in his pocket until he could negotiate a deal. The meeting went well into the night. Trust company bankers resisted pooling their reserves to stop the panic, but negotiations wore on. At 4:30 a.m., Morgan finally bullied them into signing an agreement. It called for the trust company bankers to bail out their brother bankers who were struggling with runs on their deposits. For his part, Morgan promised to save the Moore & Schley brokerage.”–“JP Morgan, The Panic Of 1907 & The Federal Reserve Act”Source: The Secrets Of The Federal ReservePanics do happen because of frothy and lax financial interest.However, if you go down the rabbit hole, you’ll find they are less about the banks and more intentional snares to push or maintain power and control. As in the case of 1907, a panic was created as a means to justify a federal reserve bank (1913) that otherwise would not be accepted by the people.Source: The Secrets Of The Federal ReserveWhile the U.S. was set up as a free country, Alexander Hamilton adopted the banking practices of England and over the first hundred or so years, we gave back the power through an interconnected web of J.P. Morgan, Paul Warburg’s federal reserve, Kuhn, Loeb & Co. (Lehman Brothers) and the building out of an industrial society and media conglomerates who served propaganda for those who were near but controlled from afar. In that regard, we broke free but maintained a direct tie to the hand of the Rothschild’s who have been said to control a global banking cartel since the mid-to-late 1700s.Panic Is The Way Of Maintaining PowerSourceToday, on the time chain of history, we find ourselves sitting on a dot rife with chaos and conflict, whether it’s broken money, crises, political bickering or geopolitical monetary and cyber battles. We find ourselves in a world of eroding values and one of broken money.The propaganda blares from both sides and hops from one country to the next, distorting the focus of not one, but all. This is not by accident. It’s the classic story of good versus evil, a story that started with Adam and Eve and morphed into the Rothschildian formula for banking success. Articulate ways, not by accident but by design. Created to muster chaos… on all sides, so that those in the middle stand ready to profit regardless of the outcome.SourceThe Rothschild formula is nothing more than market making, making markets on a global scale. Markets that create war, markets that create chaos, markets devoid of peace. Because one takes no allegiance, it funds both sides to create demand that drives a liquidity crunch such that capital centralizes itself back into their hands, into the hands of the cartel.After much gathering, it’s my opinion that at the top sits the Rothschild formula, pushed out to the world by policies and practices set by the Bank For International Settlements (BIS).Policy is then carried out by the IMF, World Bank and World Economic Forum. Those orders are passed to the Federal Reserve whose New York desk executes the orders into the markets, causing all other global central banks to react, either in unison or against the grain. It all depends on their individual tolerance for their peoples’ pain.That’s what we’ve seen throughout man’s monetary history. The last few years are no different. Geopolitical clashes have formed and are spilling over into financial markets at the same time as a new financial system and rails are being constructed. The battle is on many fronts, both political and financial. New rules are being set.Rules that bring success and give power because that’s what liquidity crises do. They shuffle the deckchairs, consolidate power and centralized control into the hands of a few.Control the money, control the people. Break the money, break the people.Fix the money… fix the world.This is a guest post by Kane McGukin. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

FTX has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.The move includes FTX US, the group’s American subsidiary, which up to yesterday was believed to be solvent and able to keep running despite the international arm’s issues.The company’s official Twitter account posted a press release on Friday morning detailing the decision, which also includes a resignation by CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.SBF had been on the spotlight for a couple of years, amassing great media coverage as he led what became known as the FTX Empire. The name alluded to the many companies under the FTX umbrella, including Alameda Research, a quantitative trading firm founded by SBF.Alameda is actually on the center of the issues that led to FTX’s downfall. A leaked balance sheet of the trading firm sparked doubts in the industry, culminating in one of the largest holders of FTX’s native crypto token, FTT, announcing they’d be offloading their position.Binance CEO CZ’s tweet sparked a feud with SBF, who said, in a since-deleted tweet, that FTX was fine and assets held by the company were as well. Soon after, however, an acquisition deal between Binance and FTX came to light, with SBF then conceding to a “liquidity crunch.”The bailout sparked optimism in the industry. However, CZ made it clear from the start that Binance could walk away from the deal “at any time.” Notably, the company had yet to perform due diligence by analyzing FTX’s financial books in order to decide whether to move forward with the acquisition.After reviewing the financial condition of FTX, Binance officially decided to not purchase the non-U.S. business operations of FTX.In addition to the liquidity issues, the revelations made this week led to several U.S. regulators opening investigations into FTX, while others broadened their probes.It’s uncertain how long FTX customers will have to wait to get their bitcoin funds back, or whether that will ever fully happen.

This is an opinion editorial by Mickey Koss, a West Point graduate with a degree in economics. He spent four years in the infantry before transitioning to the Finance Corps.In the spirit of Veterans Day, I would like to take the time to talk about the Veteran community and how it can serve as a strategic asset in our quest for hyperbitcoinization. I hear jokes all the time about what people want to be when they grow up and get a real job. I’ve heard it from 19 year old privates and 45 year old colonels alike with decades of service under their belts. Nobody can stay forever. So what to do when a service member inevitably decides it’s their time to go?Bitcoin. Community And CultureOne of the hardest things about leaving the military is leaving the community and culture. I think it’s perhaps one of the driving factors for the epidemic of veteran suicide. One problem is that many veterans are not looking for a new job or a new career. They’re looking for a new mission, a new community, a new sense of purpose and belonging. Something that so many places seem to lack as evidenced by the prevalence of suicide. It’s hard to feel like a member of a team when you and your former coworkers would voluntarily risk their lives for each other; sometimes as a routine part of the job. Bitcoin fixes this. I think Bitcoin companies can fill that gap, forming a symbiotic relationship with an already driven and freedom loving subsection of the population. Narratives like Aleksandar Svetski’s recent “Responsibility Go Up” article are incredibly appealing to most service members I know. The culture and community I have found in the Bitcoin space is the perfect fit for a transitioning veteran. The radical responsibility, laser-like focus on the mission, the values of freedom and self-sovereignty all align perfectly. Veterans might just be one of the largest, untapped resources for many companies in the space. Here’s how you can start building relationships with them for up to six months risk free. Department Of Defense SkillbridgeEvery year more than 200,000 service members leave the military according to the Department of Defense’s Skillbridge website. As a perk of service, members are allowed up to 180 days of full paid administrative leave during their last six months on active duty in order to participate in special internships and training programs. A pretty good overview has already been written here. Though employers are required to actually intend to hire these individuals, it affords companies not only a long, risk free trial run, but an opportunity to train a new employee without having to foot the bill. With employee turnover being one of the most expensive costs for a company, why not take the chance to hand select and groom a prospective veteran on someone else’s dime? DOD Skillbridge has a few different rules and caveats with every service branch. Companies can register to receive cohorts or work one on one selective internships. For companies and individuals interested, official information can be found here. Hiring Our Heroes OrganizationHiring Our Heroes is a DOD and Department of Commerce partnership that works hand-in-hand with the Skillbridge Program. In addition to fellowship programs, they also help facilitate recruiting events and job fairs in areas around military installations. For companies, Hiring Our Heroes helps to navigate the DOD Skillbridge process and helps recruit talent that the companies are seeking. For individuals, Hiring Our Heroes helps veterans navigate the DOD Skillbridge process and helps them find a company that aligns with their future career goals. Think of them as a useful marketplace.They also have a lot of resources on the site to help guide you through processes like the Veteran Employer Roadmap which explains the lengthy process and opportunities service members go through on their way out the door. I’ve been told by a friend who recently did a Skillbridge with one of the large, publicly traded mining companies that companies who have existing relationships with Hiring Our Heroes are much more likely to be approved through official channels for Skillbridge internships. End Of MissionI know many Bitcoiners who do not agree with the United States’ role in global conflict over the past two decades. Know that soldiers don’t choose the fight they are placed into. Many volunteered in the wake of 9/11, out of a sense of patriotic duty. Others out of necessity for job training or citizenship. I’ve seen and served with all types. Obviously no service member is the same, but many were drawn to the military to support the values of freedom, liberty and individual responsibility. They swore oaths to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, which is a code based system. The transition to the Bitcoin code-based system that encourages the same values is very natural.Though many may not have formal education in the traditional sense, I would take a good, seasoned noncommissioned officer for an operations management role or something similar any day of the week. The disciple and ability to learn, adapt and lead is ingrained in them. Most already have the values and many of the skills that Bitcoin companies are looking for. The Skillbridge program is a low risk way for companies to realize this and grab that talent.Bear markets are for building. Reach out to Hiring Our Heroes and build your talent. This is a guest post by Mickey Koss. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

This is an opinion editorial by Adam R. Gebner, a Green Beret and West Point graduate.The opinions expressed throughout this piece are mine alone, and in no way reflect official policy or opinions of the U.S. Army or the U.S. Department of Defense. Though I am by no means a writer, I hope that by publishing this, more service members consider working in the Bitcoin industry and Bitcoin companies consider expanding their efforts to hire Veterans. Additionally, I am always learning more about Bitcoin, how it works, and the potential value it may bring to our world. Please let me know where I am off base, thanks!Early in my life, I knew I wanted to be a Green Beret officer. Fighting to liberate oppressed people by working by, with, and through local populations was at the core of my motivations to choose this path. I saw the Special Forces’ mission as a cost and risk-efficient way to prevent large-scale conflict while enabling people to defend themselves and secure their own freedom. After graduating from West Point in 2014 and serving with the 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne) for three years, I ultimately earned my Green Beret and an opportunity to lead a detachment of America’s Chosen Soldiers. Now that I’ve accomplished what I set out to do with my military career by commanding an “A-team” for two years, I am looking forward to the next mission in my professional life: contributing to the adoption and integration of the best freedom-protecting innovation in modern history — Bitcoin.Like so many others, I had a few touch points with Bitcoin before seriously considering the validity of the technology. In 2010, during my first year at West Point, I overheard a few Computer Science majors discussing this “internet money” and I foolishly dismissed it without trying to learn anything else. Then in 2013, when I started learning about investing and economics, I stumbled across bitcoin again. I read a little bit more into it, but not enough to understand how it could replace gold as a sound money system (thanks Peter Schiff…). Finally, in the summer of 2017, when I was deployed to the Republic of Georgia, “number-go-up” piqued my curiosity and I made my first attempt at buying some bitcoin. Unfortunately for me, the exchange I used, Coinbase, didn’t accept my orders because even though I had an American driver’s license and a U.S. Passport, I had an Italian phone number and was in the Republic of Georgia which, apparently, was suspicious. I completely missed that bull run, but I finally started to learn more about bitcoin and the potential of this innovation. The concepts I learned reading about Austrian economics, personal investing and American history clicked shortly after. My perspective on some of the most persistent problems around the world shifted towards the realization that our global monetary system is corrupt, pricing signals are severely distorted, and the national and global debt is unsustainable. Since then, I have continued to learn about economics, bitcoin, and the growing industry around it, while stacking sats as often as possible. This year, I completed my time in command and I had to make a career decision: continue serving in the Army or transition out. Service members, especially those who choose to serve for the standard 20-year career, have my deepest respect. Military life isn’t easy, it requires giving up a wide swath of freedoms, volunteering your life in order to protect national interests and persisting through deep uncertainty. The military profession can provide an honorable career, but for a variety of personal and professional reasons, I am called to do something else. I am inspired and encouraged to find work that contributes to a free and prosperous world, work that creates value for others, work that fixes systemic problems. For me, this means taking my experience leading diverse, cross-functional teams to market with the goal of contributing to the continued success and expansion of Bitcoin. For any service member or Veteran who might be reading this, if you want to develop technical skills, take advantage of the Career Skillbridge Program. I am on my way to enrolling in a Vet Tec program, a Veterans Affairs program to train transitioning service members on a variety of in-demand technical skills, like computer programing and data processing. My experience creating models while studying mechanical engineering has helped with the learning curve, as has some experience working through classes on Code Academy. But anyone with an honest desire to learn will be successful. Not every Veteran or member of the Bitcoin industry needs to have these technical skills, however, for those who want to work in product development, or management, I believe having experience with software engineering, computer science or programming is next to essential and will make you much more marketable to bitcoin-focused companies.Other vets in the industry have been incredibly helpful. Oftentimes a cold-message over LinkedIn results in an enthusiastic response and a phone call. Veterans currently working with Bitcoin know that as service members leave, they want to continue serving in a principle-based organization, and Bitcoin is arguably the most freedom-preserving industry to work in. For service members on their way out, find people who have already made the switch. They are great sounding boards for your ideas and bump-steering potential career plans. You will only leave the military once (hopefully), talk to as many people as possible who have done it before you and are now working in your targeted industry.To me, and many other Veterans, serving in an industry with an inspiring, impactful mission is an essential requirement for a post-military career. Out of all the options, I believe that working in the Bitcoin industry and helping spread the adoption of bitcoin is an excellent fit for the dedicated, principled and team-oriented Veterans looking for their next opportunity to contribute to society. To Bitcoin companies, talk with and hire Veterans. There are many ways to provide transitioning Veterans with trial runs with your company, at no cost to you. I think you will find that Veterans are competent members of your team who will remain dedicated to your mission and their coworkers.I see the potential of a civilian career working with Bitcoin as an incredible opportunity to pursue following the end of a highly rewarding period of military service. I am excited to contribute to the growth of the network and adoption of the technology. Despite the FUD and recent global instability, I am optimistic for our future. As a Green Beret who was trained to foment revolutions in pursuit of the expansion of human freedoms, I have high hopes for what Bitcoiners can do for humanity. This is a guest post by Adam R. Gebner. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

This is an opinion editorial by Luke Groom is a West Point graduate, Army Engineer Officer, JD-MBA Candidate at Northwestern and part-time strategy associate at Marathon Digital Holdings. His views do not represent any of his organizations.Within the Bitcoin community, U.S. military service members are sometimes viewed with suspicion. I don’t know where this suspicion comes from. Maybe the libertarian elements of the community are against things that remind them of Big Government. Maybe Left elements of the community are against things that remind them of guns and violence. Maybe people think we are infiltrating the Bitcoin ranks to secretly further the interests of the Military Industrial Complex. I can only speculate. For me, the transition from service member to Bitcoiner is obvious. I will outline three reasons: freedom, responsibility and code. Throughout, I will refer to “military service members” and “Veterans” interchangeably, because they are the same people, just at different periods of life.First, the key value which drives many young men and women to join the military is the same key value that Bitcoin promotes. If you ask someone why they chose to serve in the military, and continue to dig into their answer, somewhere in there is almost always a desire to promote liberty and freedom. At its core, Bitcoin is freedom money. It is free from debasement, free from political influence, free from seigniorage, free from centralization, free from manipulation and free from compulsion. Most people join the military because they value liberty. They value free markets. They want to fight for the “Land of the Free.” Sure, actual results may vary, but the desire is there.Consider that we have centrally controlled fiat money, capable of debasement, political influence, theft via seigniorage and manipulated pricing via fixing of interest rates. Consider that fiat money is at least half of essentially every transaction. That means that not only do we not have a free market of money; we don’t have a free market of anything! Imagine the disillusionment of a service member who has dedicated their life to fighting for freedom, only to realize that we live in this unfree, manipulated-market world. Then they learn about Bitcoin. Becoming a Bitcoiner means voting with your energy in favor of free markets and all the freedom that Bitcoin represents. They realize that if they put their energy into Bitcoin, whether their purchasing power goes up or goes down, they are fighting for freedom, just like their inspiration to join the military to begin with.Second, most Veterans crave increased personal responsibility. The military is great for teaching young people responsibility. Get up. Make your bed. Exercise. Go to work. Wear the right thing. Be on time. Be reliable. Be accountable. Lead. Follow. Take care of your buddies. The military has built in forcing functions to teach responsibility.There comes a time, however, when you want to take the training wheels off. You want to show your personal responsibility without someone looking over your shoulder to make sure you’re doing it right. You want more than five options for your retirement investments. You want to shout, “I’m a peacock, you gotta let me fly!” Bitcoin aligns with that desire. You have to do your own research. You have to take responsibility for custody (or responsibility for counterparty risk). You have to accept the volatility in its conversion rate to fiat. There’s no safety net in the Bitcoin market, and that increased personal responsibility is liberating for many Veterans.Last, every Veteran swears an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. As I’ve gone through law school, I’ve developed a greater appreciation for that document. We live in a polarized country. I’ve seen a lot of that country first-hand, living in Chicago, New York, Missouri, North Carolina and Washington. I’ve lived in the city, the suburbs and small towns. I’ve worked with millionaires and with people without a sat to their name. I’ve shared meals with people who have lost friends fighting overseas and with people who have protested at Army bases. Our citizens look different, sound different and have vastly different values. With citizens who are so dissimilar, what is holding this country together?I would argue that the Constitution holds this country together and defines who we are as a nation. The Constitution is less than 5,000 words of code that set-in motion the protocol that is the United States of America. We have since seen that code soft forked in the form of amendments to the Constitution. We have seen layer upon layer of government built on top of that code, in similar ways that layers are being built upon Bitcoin. Some could successfully argue that we have seen the code ignored or misinterpreted beyond recognition. However, this code is at the heart of our country. Every service member swears to support and defend, not a man, not a military industrial complex, but that Constitution. For Veterans who have already sworn to possibly give their lives for the sake of one code, the step to embrace code-based money is natural.Finally, my Veterans Day would not be complete without thanking a Veteran or two. Thank you, Anthony Pompliano and Preston Pysh. Without you two, I might still be thinking that Bitcoin was “probably nothing.” Happy Veterans Day.This is a guest post by Luke Groom. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

This is a transcribed excerpt of the “Bitcoin Magazine Podcast,” hosted by P and Q. In this episode, they are joined by Jason Maier to talk about how Bitcoin is an even playing field for humanity to build on and why politics don’t apply to it.Watch This Episode On YouTube Or RumbleListen To The Episode Here:Q: I love that. And I feel like everyone has that, as you said, two moments. The first moment where you’re like, “No. What is this?” And then of course, the second moment, where someone that you probably have to spend the rest of your life thanking actually took the time to be like, “No. Stop. Just ignore everything you’ve ever learned about money, about everything and let’s relearn this together.”Jason Maier: And that, and that’s what it was like, right? You sort of have to relearn everything and you start asking really hard questions, if you can think back to the beginning of your journey. What is money? And not knowing the answer to that question. You’re like, “What? What are we doing?” And just like everyone else, I dove headfirst and the more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. The more I learned, the more I wanted to own it and to be a part of this. And of course, the more I learned, the more I wanted the people that I loved and cared about around me to just own it or understand it or learn about it.I think it’s hard to really understand Bitcoin and not want other people to be involved with it too. That’s where I come from.P: It’s like this moral imperative, this burning. I have to talk about Bitcoin!

Watch This Episode On YouTubeListen To The Episode Here:In this week’s episode of “Bitcoin Bottom Line,” hosts C.J. Wilson and Josh Olszewicz are joined by special guest Daniel Batten to discuss bitcoin mining using organic materials. Batten is an expert on methane and explains the benefits of bioavailable energy. “If you are taking your power source, such as natural gas that would otherwise stay in the ground, it is carbon positive when you take it out of the pipeline. This will contribute to carbon emissions and is absolutely the type of bitcoin mining we want to do.” Batten goes on to talk about how there is another form of methane that does not come from the ground and is freely emitted into the atmosphere. “This comes from farms or anywhere you have anaerobically decaying organic matter, which are things that rot without air. Global warming is about several different emissions that all have their global warming potential. If we compare methane to carbon dioxide, methane is more warming and breaks down faster than carbon dioxide and then turns into it.” The United Nations Environment Programme has stated that methane is the strongest lever to reduce climate change over the next twenty-five years. “This is because it increases at a parabolic rate and is 84-times more warming than carbon dioxide. If you can find a way to use it as a fuel source, you are removing it from the atmosphere.”Wilson, Olszewicz and Batten discuss the benefits to our environment of using these emissions and potential ways to do so. They wrap up the episode by talking about how this is not a single-solution problem and many preventative measures will need to be put in place to impact climate change. Batten states, “There is enough landfill gas around the world to power the Bitcoin network many times over. Bitcoin does not produce enough energy to solve this problem single-handedly.”

Watch This Episode On YouTubeListen To The Episode Here:In this week’s episode of “Bitcoin Bottom Line,” hosts C.J. Wilson and Josh Olszewicz are joined by special guest Daniel Batten to discuss bitcoin mining using organic materials. Batten is an expert on methane and explains the benefits of bioavailable energy. “If you are taking your power source, such as natural gas that would otherwise stay in the ground, it is carbon positive when you take it out of the pipeline. This will contribute to carbon emissions and is absolutely the type of bitcoin mining we want to do.” Batten goes on to talk about how there is another form of methane that does not come from the ground and is freely emitted into the atmosphere. “This comes from farms or anywhere you have anaerobically decaying organic matter, which are things that rot without air. Global warming is about several different emissions that all have their global warming potential. If we compare methane to carbon dioxide, methane is more warming and breaks down faster than carbon dioxide and then turns into it.” The United Nations Environment Programme has stated that methane is the strongest lever to reduce climate change over the next twenty-five years. “This is because it increases at a parabolic rate and is 84-times more warming than carbon dioxide. If you can find a way to use it as a fuel source, you are removing it from the atmosphere.”Wilson, Olszewicz and Batten discuss the benefits to our environment of using these emissions and potential ways to do so. They wrap up the episode by talking about how this is not a single-solution problem and many preventative measures will need to be put in place to impact climate change. Batten states, “There is enough landfill gas around the world to power the Bitcoin network many times over. Bitcoin does not produce enough energy to solve this problem single-handedly.”