What Happens If They Close All Bitcoin Exchanges?

What Happens If They Close All Bitcoin Exchanges?

this is Matthew crder from Bitcoin University today I want to answer the question what happens if they close all Bitcoin exchanges this is a response to a lot of the questions I got yesterday from my video about Bitcoin and how the exits are closing in Nigeria and how the Nigerian government and Central Bank have increasingly sought to prevent Nigerians from escaping out of their local fiat currency into Bitcoin and I use this as an example of why it’s very important to take your own coins into sell custody even in the US because I think we’re progressing on a similar path the questions I got as a result of this were questions like this what good will self- custody be if there’s no way to use your Bitcoin to pay bills or buy things in other words if the exchanges are closed how do you exchange your Bitcoin for Fiat for US dollars or Euros or Yen and then buy things with it scary no way out with no off-ramps but if it’s in self custody how can you sell it without an exchange so I want to talk today about what would happen if all the Bitcoin exchanges were closed globally like any other kind of money you can use Bitcoin directly to buy goods and services or receive payment for providing goods and services so it really is like any other kind of money unlike any other kind of money though Bitcoin is censorship resistant you don’t need permission to use it to receive it or send it and no one can stop you from downloading some software and using it to send or receive Bitcoin in a dire situation you could even flip a coin 256 times s generate a private key and use that to generate some Bitcoin addresses and receive Bitcoin so Bitcoin is really just math and as a reso Bitcoin is censorship resistant it’s Unstoppable money it’s Fu money you might say you can send it to anyone you want and there’s no need to First convert it to Fiat money US Dollars Euros pounds or whatever you don’t need an off-ramp for your Bitcoin any more than you need an offramp for your US Dollars you can just spend them eventually the Bitcoin circular economy will bypass the Fiat economy in many parts of the world so in the future in a decade or so from now I imagine you won’t buy Bitcoin instead you’ll earn it you won’t sell Bitcoin instead you will spend it and this is what the Bitcoin circular economy looks like I’m already doing this at very small scale if you go to my website for example for my paid courses and the Bitcoin private Forum you can click here where it says pay with Bitcoin and people do pay with Bitcoin still a very small percentage of people and some of that Bitcoin I’ve been exper experimenting with spending it you can buy very nice wine from Ben you can buy very nice beef from Jason and I’ll link to both these in the description notes below and in fact you can buy many many things with Bitcoin I’m going to link to BTC map in the description notes below you can take a look near where you live and I wouldn’t be surprised if you could find Merchants that are accepting Bitcoin as well if you’re finding this video helpful so far I just ask you to hit the Subscribe button leave this video a like leave a comment also share this video with a friend or family member the other question when they talk about they quote unquote they closing all the Bitcoin exchanges who really is this they that’s going to go globally and close all of them is it the US government is it all 195 countries in the world colluding together if so if the latter that’s quite a bit of global coordination could even Russia the US and China get on the same page when it comes to this or would one of them leave in Exchange open or some loophole that’d be available to reach online even if you didn’t live in the country and if they were successful if all 195 countries were successful in Banning Bitcoin you could always just move to the jungle as Francis from bull Bitcoin talks about here buying vegetables and fruits and eggs and coffee and honey using Bitcoin in the jungle of Costa Rica so the future is already here the Bitcoin circular economy already exists in small form it’s just not evenly distributed another version of this question having to do with 6102 attacks in the US 6102 refers to when the executive order when FDR president Roosevelt confiscated all Americans gold and put it in Fort Knox so 6102 would be a government attack on bitcoin where the US government makes or tries to force all us residents and citizens to turn over their Bitcoin so that’s what Fred’s talking about here 6102 you have until May 30th to turn your Bitcoin into coinbase you’ll be paid $20,000 per Bitcoin this is assuming obviously that Bitcoin is trading much much higher than 20,000 if you do not turn it in by then it will be illegal for coinbase and all exchanges and all businesses to accept Bitcoin from private unhost wallets again this idea of private unhost wallets is a little bit silly because it’s all math but this is a government term that’s been used especially in Europe so what are you going to do in this situation my response is I fli the question around you are the US government and you have 30 million people who are sitting on bitcoin and refusing to hand it over what are you going to do Second Amendment probably relevant as well here which makes the US situation a bit more interesting I thought this was a great comment from Eric as well the raises on as they begin to close the exits one obvious move everyone should be making is is to get as much Bitcoin into self- custody as possible while still relatively easily but do not forget the second race bitcoiners now hold significant wealth and knowledge of how Finance Works translate some of that energy into influence and pressure on government your opponents are certainly lobbying to get their way and there’s evidence of this working to certain degrees in places like Texas some politicians can certainly trans SL sound Economic Policy into votes just as others can convert bad policy into campaign contributions and here’s a great comment Bitcoin should become a political third rail that none dare to trifle with so we still have this political Avenue I’m a little bit more skeptical that we can make this work but one thing that could make this work is an increasing number of politicians themselves holding Bitcoin and thus having alignment of interests with bitcoiners and not wanting to attack something that’s becoming a larger and larger part of of their personal or family portfolios now all this talk about spending Bitcoin I’m sure someone’s going to say in the comments but I thought you said you should never sell your Bitcoin and that you should spend only your dirty Fiat money instead and yes this is my primary message and as such primary messages need to be simple and without Nuance so you just want to say never sell your Bitcoin but there is actually some Nuance here once you’re past the beginner stage so if you’re keeping some money set aside in US dollars for example for spending you are not more vir ous than someone who has 100% of their Savings in Bitcoin but needs to sell some Bitcoin every month to pay Fiat bills or to buy things directly with Bitcoin and I think here’s one way to keep track of it mentally if you want to move more and more to a Bitcoin standard where you’re earning Bitcoin and you’re spending Bitcoin or at least you are trying to think in terms of Bitcoin when it comes to all of your finances here’s one way to keep track of it mentally you can keep your long-term Bitcoin Savings in Cold Storage Hardware wallet like cold card or blockstream Jade collect connected to spare wallet is a great way of doing this and then you never ever ever touch this money this long-term Bitcoin savings unless you really need to so in other words this would be something you would touch for an extreme Family Medical Emergency not to buy a Lambo or go on a vacation to the tropics so that’d be the side of your long-term Bitcoin savings and then you can create a separate wallet or a separate storage solution maybe a hot wallet on your phone that you can use for spending Bitcoin and just learning how this works you can practice spending and replace so maybe you have $100 on this hot wallet once it’s gone you buy some more Bitcoin and add it to this hot wallet it’s very important though to make sure to never do transactions directly between this hot wallet and your cold storage directly if you’re not going to do a coin join in the middle and that’s become very difficult to do at this point at least in the US so one thing you can do is you can just buy some more Bitcoin from an exchange and use that to keep your hot wallet full and to top it off when it gets down rather than sending any Bitcoin from your cold storage also another thing you can do to help to jump the Bitcoin circular economy globally so you can talk to business owners and tell them about the advantages of accepting Bitcoin for example being able to avoid that 3% roughly 3% credit card transaction fees that Merchants always play pay at least in the US you can also show Merchants the BTC map that I just linked to before you can help them download a mobile wallet maybe something like blue wallet send them a few SATs as a tip to get them started and basically onboard them to bitcoin and on onboard them to bitcoin with new customers so for example as well you could join or start a local Bitcoin Meetup and then you could go as a group or contact various Merchants as a group tell them that you want to all want to buy something from the store from the website but you would like them to accept Bitcoin first obviously do this in a friendly not in intimidating or threatening manner but I think this is something that any Merchant would love to see thousands and thousands of dollars walk walking in the door and I’m sure they’d be easy they’d be happy to open up a hardware wallet or a uh a mobile wallet on their phone or something like this in order to receive Bitcoin the other thing they could do you could onboard them to zap right which is what I use for my website as well and I’m not being paid to advertise them so even if you’re not a developer or a designer this is a really easy way to contribute to the growth of Bitcoin spreading the word to Merchants you could also donate to BTC map the website or you could volunteer to help them add businesses to their map I’ll link in the description notes below to Blue wallet which used to be my go-to until Phoenix wallet came along unfortunately Phoenix has pulled out of the US so if you’re outside the US you can still use it if you’re inside the US you can use blue wallet which has uh both lightning and onchain payments or you could use Zite if you’re a merchant now at least in the US there’s still this very annoying rule when you spend Bitcoin you need to pay capital gains tax on it basically what you do is you calculate your your cost basis or your purchase price and then if the amount uh the value of that Bitcoin is worth more when you go to spend it or send it to a merchant then you’d owe capital gains taxes on the difference either long-term capital gains taxes if it’s been a year and a day or if it’s been less than a year uh you would owe short-term capital gains taxes so this is something definitely to keep track of I’m certainly not advocating for anyone to break the law but I I don’t think the IRS is going to come after you for a $5 cost coffee purchase done every once in a while but if you want to be a stickler you should definitely keep track of this and eventually this sort of law is going to be abolished and Bitcoin will just appear to be money in the situation that we’re talking about of course where all the Bitcoin exchanges close and there’s a a major attack by the government on individuals keeping track of your cost basis and your Bitcoin spending will probably become a very low priority this would be a more life and death situation where you wouldn’t be worrying about taxes you’d be more worrying more about service survival and living off of your Bitcoin so Bitcoin ultimately can be used and is meant to be used as peer-to-peer money without a custodian without converting it to Fiat first on an exchange it’s permissionless it’s open to everyone as we said and there’s a lot of free and open source software F software that anyone can download and use to send or receive Bitcoin so if the authorities in one country ban a particular wallet you can still use things like Mutiny wallet for example in your browser on your phone as a progressive web app so this would be accessible even if it was no longer available in one of the app stores we also obviously have Sparrow wallet which I really like for laptop or desktop and uh I’ll link to this in the description notes below you can’t stop free and open source software ultimately all these things will end up on GitHub or even privately hosted instances in the form of git and so it’s very very difficult to stop something like software there always going to be backup copies on the hardware wallet side of things of course we have the seed signer as well which is enables you to build your own Hardware wallet from easily available parts so this is something it’s very very going to be very very difficult for governments to stop because the software is very flexible the hardware is very flexible and when you have people who want to use Bitcoin as they’re using it now in Nigeria to escape out of their out of the Nigerian naira when you have people really wanting something and it’s peer-to-peer and it’s decentralized and it’s widely available it’s ultimately impossible for governments to stop it and so I think this is where we’re headed in Bitcoin certainly in many places I’m sure Fiat will continue to exist but there will be many many places where you can spend your Bitcoin and especially in sort of underground way that cannot be stopped by government especially in the context of some sort of global Crackdown on bitcoin exchanges if you enjoyed this video be sure to hit the Subscribe and like buttons hit the notification Bell if you want to be notified when I publish my next video and let me know your questions and comments in the comment section below thanks all for watching and I’ll see you in the next video

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https://www.bitcoinuniversity.com/bitcoin-forum

In this video, I discuss how one could continue to use Bitcoin in a p2p manner to buy or sell goods and services– even if all of the fiat off-ramps had been closed.

Bitcoin is censorship-resistant freedom money, that anyone can use without needing a license or permission. It’s impossible to stop Bitcoin, or any other free and open source software (FOSS).

Eventually, the Bitcoin circular economy will bypass the fiat economy in many parts of the world:

You won’t buy BTC.
Instead, you’ll earn it.

You won’t sell BTC.
Instead, you’ll spend it.

Not investment advice! Consult a financial advisor.

Bitcoin: The Exits Are Closing:

An easy way for merchants to accept Bitcoin:
https://zaprite.com/

Buy wine with BTC:
Tweets by BenJustman

Buy beef with BTC:
Tweets by JasonWrich

Buying food in Bitcoin Jungle:

Just bought local fruits, vegetables, eggs, coffee and honey at a little stand on the side of the highway in @BitcoinJungleCR

My first time spending Bitcoin here! Tico-owned shop with low prices from local farms.

Pura vida Mae 🇨🇷 pic.twitter.com/U5Dyn6MQrw

— FRANCIS – BULLBITCOIN.COM (@francispouliot_) May 6, 2024

Find BTC merchants everywhere:
https://btcmap.org/

BlueWallet:
https://bluewallet.io/

Phoenix Wallet:
https://phoenix.acinq.co/

Mutiny Wallet:
https://www.mutinywallet.com/

Sparrow Wallet:
https://sparrowwallet.com/download/
https://github.com/sparrowwallet/sparrow

SeedSigner:

Home

Bitcoin 6102 attack:

6102 : you have until May 30th to turn in your BTC to Coinbase. You will be paid $20,000 per Bitcoin. If you do not turn it in by then, it will be illegal for Coinbase & all exchanges and all businesses to accept Bitcoin from private unhosted wallets.
What you gonna do?

— Fred (@Fredvs79) May 6, 2024

Bitcoin should become a political third rail:

Gustav: The race is on as they begin to close the exits.

One obvious move everyone should be making is to get as much Bitcoin into self custody as possible while it's relatively easy.

But do not forget the second race! Bitcoiners now hold significant wealth and knowledge of…

— Eric Gens (@Ragnorosis) May 6, 2024

I am not being paid or otherwise compensated by any company or cryptocurrency project that I mention in my videos. My opinion is not for sale. Please do not contact me with any affiliate or advertising deals.

#Bitcoin
#crypto

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