What would happen if the US government tried to ban Bitcoin outright?

What are the biggest risks that could derail Bitcoin's long-term

success? How do Bitcoin's halvings impact its

price cycles and will this trend continue indefinitely?

Now, could quantum computing pose a real threat to

Bitcoin security in the future? Will Bitcoin mining ever become completely

sustainable or is energy consumption always going to be a

challenge? Will nation states eventually adopt Bitcoin as

their primary reserve asset? Yes is the

answer. I think they will. I'm Matthew Fraser and this is

Crypto Collective. After making millions with Amazon and e-commerce,

I realized that if I was starting again today, crypto would

be my first choice. I'm here to help you take your first

steps and build real wealth. Ready to set yourself up

for life? Let's go! Hey, guys, welcome to this

episode of Crypto Collective. In today's episode, we're

going to be doing Q&As from the members, and that includes from

you. Let's get into it. All right, guys, the first question up is,

what are the biggest risks that could derail Bitcoin's

long-term success? This is an interesting question,

because you know what? I've got this book right here in front of me. It's called

The Bitcoin Standard. They cover things just

like this. And I highly recommend the book, by the

way. Absolutely essential reading for anyone getting into the

Bitcoin space. Whether you've been in it for a long time, you've never read it, or

you're just getting into it, you must read. This is like the Bible of Bitcoin. But

essentially, The things that could have derailed Bitcoin

probably have surpassed. And the reason why

is because of the network. There was a time in the very beginning when

Bitcoin was just starting out where there

was minimal network. So let's just say, for example, there was

10 computers in the network. Now, you

taking over 10 computers would be quite easy because

there's only 10. fast forward to today where

there's I don't know the number but there would be hundreds of thousands if

not millions of computers within the Bitcoin network so

you trying to take over individually or even

as a as a company as a as

an attack network to try and take over a million plus type

of computers is basically impossible. And

that said, all you would have to do is actually take over 51% of

the network. So if I go back into the earlier scenario of the

beginning of maybe being only 10, you would only have to take over 6 of the 10. Now,

that way, you can manipulate the Bitcoin network and

alter the blockchain. And so now, that's

been and gone. So therefore, what is the biggest risk to

Bitcoin would be things that are really just one of the biggest risks

to humanity, a meteorite hitting the globe and

just wiping out the whole planet. I mean, but of course,

if that happens, Bitcoin is the least of your problems. Next

question, how do Bitcoin's halvings impact its price

cycles? And will this trend continue indefinitely?

Now, the previous Bitcoin halving was

in about April of 2024 from memory.

Now, what happens at that time is the amount of Bitcoin that

can be mined out of the Bitcoin network reduces

by half. So Back before

2024, it was 900 Bitcoin per day. Today,

it's 450 Bitcoin per day. And

in approximately another two years time, you'll

be able to mine only 225 Bitcoin per

day. Now, what we saw out of the previous halving, well,

I can remember the time, actually. As we were leading up to the previous halving, there

was a lot of speculation that, hey, this halving is coming out. The

amount of Bitcoin that you can mine is going to be reduced. So therefore, reduced supply

into the marketplace. And therefore, the price is going to

increase overnight. And that just didn't happen. The

price didn't spike the day after the Bitcoin halving.

Now, I think in history, the price has

continued to rise, OK? But you can't say it's because exactly

of the Bitcoin halving date. Does the halving contribute

towards the increase in value of Bitcoin over time? I

would say yes. It's to do with the supply is decreasing

and also the demand for Bitcoin from retail, nation

states now, and companies. is

also increasing. So it helps with keeping

the price up because of the reduced supply over time.

There's so much pressure now on the Bitcoin supply

shock, meaning there's going to

be so much buying pressure from all

over the globe, and I think mainly from, can I

say, nation states. Because as we've just

seen, In recent days, Trump and his

administration have just announced the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve,

commonly called now SBR. And what that

means is they are going to be accumulating Bitcoin into

their own strategic reserve, just like they do with things

like oil. They'll have an oil reserve. Now,

What's interesting, though, with this particular reserve is

that they're not allowed to sell the Bitcoin. That's actually going

to be codified into the orders. I'm not sure if it's

going to law yet. So they will be accumulating

and never selling. There's actually no point in selling Bitcoin because

the government doesn't actually even need to sell it. The first thing

they're going to do, though, by accumulating the Bitcoin is

grab all of the repossessed Bitcoin

from criminals. They've got it in their own stockpile right now, and they're going

to take that into their reserve. going to be doing

other things that don't require the printing of

money and using taxpayers funds to buy Bitcoin. What

they're going to do is find other ways to accumulate Bitcoin.

Now that could be, this is just speculation now, perhaps

they sell part of their gold reserve because they have

Fort Knox which holds a whole stack of gold. Maybe they sell

off A portion of the gold, maybe they sell off all

of the gold. Wouldn't that be something? Could you imagine? Because

what's interesting about that is China has been accumulating gold

for decades and decades. If America was

to dump all of their gold onto the market, it

would completely tank the price of gold. Okay, so

that would ruin now other nation-states that hold

gold especially China now this has happened

to China in the past because China used to accumulate silver

and then the world moved to gold so their silver reserve

became Pro is worthless, but it wasn't as sought-after

Okay, it wasn't seen as like the the ultimate hedge

so This could happen with, of course, gold.

Now, other things that they could do, of course, would be the

tariffs, right? There's a lot of things happening right now with Trump

and tariffs. Tariff money is now an extra source of income

for the government that's not impeding on taxpayers. They

could use the tariff money. And from a political point

of view, it makes sense, because Trump can come out and say, we're

simply having other people, other nation states pay

to buy the Bitcoin, right? Perfect from a political standpoint. So

I went off a bit off track there, but that was about the Bitcoin halvings. Okay, next

question is, could quantum computing pose a real threat

to Bitcoin security in the future? And I was just listening to one

of the experts on this just the other day to do with quantum

computing. And The reason why there's

a threat of quantum computing is the power in which

it could solve puzzles, meaning passwords,

your keys into your Bitcoin. The point that was made

was that quantum computing probably doesn't have an impact on

the Bitcoin network, right? It doesn't get hacked. What could

be hacked though is individual wallets. Okay.

Now, if you knew, though, that quantum computers

could hack your personal wallet or could hack other people's

personal wallets, you may then think about dumping

your Bitcoin. Now, if you think about dumping your Bitcoin, then probably

somebody else is thinking about the same thing. That could create a

cascade of a sell-off. So people are now going to get

out of the Bitcoin space thinking that their personal

or cold wallet storage is now compromised. I think that That

could happen, though I haven't heard anyone talking about that

specifically. But that said, I think there's

a bigger threat, though, than to Bitcoin. People talk about quantum computing and

Bitcoin. What about quantum computing and the

defense force? What about the nuclear codes? What

about just the traditional banking sector? Why wouldn't a

hacker use quantum computing to hack into just

the banking system and siphon cash because

at the end of the day it's really just digits on a screen you

know why wouldn't they just put digits from the central bank computer or any

bank computer onto your own personal computer and then you liquidate you

cash out the um the actual cash itself maybe that's

an option the other things would be electricity, nuclear

stations, gas, I mean all these major type of

infrastructure that could really upset nations by

simply turning a switch. So I think that's a

bigger problem than just Bitcoin because the

other thing to think about is why would a hacker steal

everyone's Bitcoin only to see the price of Bitcoin go

down? wouldn't make sense. And I'm told that

in order to do a major hack in the Bitcoin network would

cost billions of dollars. So therefore, you'd actually

be better off to buy Bitcoin with your

billions of dollars to push the price up, to

take more Bitcoin out of the market. So that's

my two cents on quantum computing. Next question, will nation states

eventually adopt Bitcoin as their primary reserve asset?

Yes is the answer. I think they will. Now, as I

just touched on before, is the strategic Bitcoin reserve. You've

got other nations, though, that's just America, but other nations like

El Salvador, Bhutan, they already

accumulating Bitcoin like there's no tomorrow. And I'm sure

now that El Salvador is going to have that

as a reserve for their own country. So the

short answer is yes. And I think a lot of countries will follow into the future.

But like all things, It always takes a

big player, like the biggest player in the market, like America, to

lead the way. And I think there will be an arms race now

on for Bitcoin, particularly between the major

superpowers, USA, China, Russia,

and potentially parts of Europe, probably the UK, Australia.

Forget about it. They're asleep at the wheel. They don't even know what's going on. They

are so far behind when it comes to Bitcoin. Anyway,

we'll see what happens. Hey, just quickly, if you're ready to dive deeper into

crypto and Bitcoin and build real wealth, join my free

crypto collective community. It's where I share exclusive insights

and strategies and live discussions to help you succeed, whether

you're a beginner or scaling your portfolio. Click on the

link in the description and join us today. Now back to the episode. Next

question is, how will Bitcoin adoption

impact traditional banking and financial institutions over

the next decade? Wow, this is

a great question. So thank you for putting this one forward. And

there's so much to it. Because what we've seen as

of today is, you know, and I just did an interview with Dave

Haslop, who's the founder of the

Australian Crypto Convention. He's a big player in

the crypto space. He was even disappointed as

to what's going on in the banking sector, meaning like, how

can you as a investor, as a retail investor,

get your cash into an exchange,

okay? Because the normal way of doing it is you go into your

Commonwealth Bank account, for example, online, you transfer it over to an

exchange like SWIFTX. Now, the bank's really

clamping down and making it very, very difficult to

transfer money over. So that's the first thing

that's a total pain in the ass. Now, I

wonder if it's because The

banks ultimately will start to custody Bitcoin

and I think they will. All right. I know that the word on

the street is a couple of the major banks in Australia are

already putting in the frameworks to custody Bitcoin. You've

already got banks, major banks. in the USA who

have already come out and said, we will now start to

custody Bitcoin. I saw another bank today, I think it

was a bank in Spain, I think it was, who have

just said they're now going to custody Bitcoin. So it's already

happening amongst banks around the world. Australia doesn't have it as of

today. But my conspiracy hat on is

that they're making it very difficult for you to transfer money

into an exchange. They will then bring out a policy that

says, We will let you purchase Bitcoin through

our bank. And then we will hold the Bitcoin for

you. So it's

a shame on the banks because what they're doing is they're removing control of

your own money about where you can spend it, which I think is a

travesty because we want freedom of speech.

We also want freedom of money and where we can

spend it and who we give it to and who we don't give it to. I think

the bank's going to make it so difficult that you're going to have to buy the

Bitcoin through the bank and the Bitcoin will hold it for you. Now, for a

lot of people, I think in Australia, they'll think that's great.

They'll love it. Okay, because banks

in Australia are well trusted. We don't put

our money in the bank and think, Commonwealth Bank is going to steal

it, right? There's no way we think that. We think we put the money in

the bank, and it's safe. And for all intents and purposes, it

is safe, OK? The bank's not stealing your money. And I think that

same mindset is going to roll over into

Bitcoin. If the bank says, hey, we'll hold the Bitcoin for

you. You don't even have to worry about it, OK? We'll protect it for you. It's

here with us, OK? You're going to think, Great. I

don't have to hold it now. I don't have to worry about self-custody or cold storage. The

bank's looking after it for me. So I think

there's two ways to look at that. One is there's more control now with

the banks. Two is it's now easy for consumers. And

they do that through ease. It's like when there was talk

about the central bank digital currency. We'll make it easy for

you. You don't even have to worry about it. We'll just make everything digital. You don't want

to have to walk around carrying cash, that old clunky thing. So

there's that. On top of that, let's

say the banks are now holding your Bitcoin. You'll now want to go

and get a loan to buy a house. And what they will do

is they'll say, look, we've already got your Bitcoin. What we'll do is we'll lend

you some money secured against the Bitcoin. So

there's a whole raft of lending measures that will come

into place, too. And maybe they'll give you a return on it. Maybe they'll say, look, we'll hold

your Bitcoin. We'll give you 5% per annum, for example. That might be something as well.

All right, great question. Next question is, what are the most overlooked risks

of self-custodying Bitcoin? Good

question. At face value, we think, okay, we're

gonna just self-custody the Bitcoin, no problem. But I mean, even I've

gone through this thought process about how am I

going to protect my Bitcoin? Now, I'm just gonna throw in

something here right now. I'm partnered with the Bitcoin Way,

and the Bitcoin Way company has actually helped me get

over this exact problem, which is thinking about custodying

and protecting your Bitcoin. Okay, now you'll find

the links to that company in the show notes, make sure you reach out to

them for a free 30 minute call, and they can help you protect

your Bitcoin. But one of the things I've done is they helped me

set up a cold storage. And it wasn't just using uh

trezor it was a whole next level i'm using cold wallet

that has is wireless right doesn't even connect to the computer right

so i have that what they call air gapped i'm also using

my own node in my house right which is the blockchain is

running on my own node in my house which means

i i'm self i'm essentially a self-sovereign person i'm

like a bank yeah and I can verify the transactions

myself through my own wallet. Now

the next thing from that is you then need to set up your own password

account right and they've helped me set up that then you now have

to think about your your partner or your wife or or

leaving it so if something happens to myself or my wife do my children now

have access to the bitcoin so all these things can go through,

the Bitcoin way can go through with you to help you protect

your wealth. It's so important, right? Because even if you

think, oh, look, I've only got $20,000 worth of Bitcoin. It's not a big deal.

What is that going to be worth in 20 years' time, in

10 years' time? It could be worth millions and

millions and millions. I'm talking tens of millions in 20 years

time. So it now becomes worthwhile protecting today. So

get onto it. Okay, next question, will Bitcoin mining ever become completely sustainable?

Or is energy consumption always going to be a challenge? Okay,

well, I think there's a

lot of misconceptions about Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining.

I do know, for example, that there's a lot of sustainable practices being

taken place in Europe who do Bitcoin mining. And just

to give an exact example of that was there's a Bitcoin mining facility.

And the problem is, or one of the benefits, I guess, if

you're living in a cold area, is it produces a lot of heat. So what

this company has been able to do is to Take take

that heat and pump it back into a building, right?

So the Bitcoin might and they're actually selling the heating to

the building. So the building now doesn't have to pay for Gas

to heat the building or any any other type of heating elements And

so it's essentially now paying for itself. And it's

a sustainable way of using the heating. Now, some

countries and some companies who adopt solar

panels, for example, they're actually based out in the desert of

all places. So they might use wind technology. or

solar technology to help power some of these Bitcoin

mining facilities. What role will Bitcoin play in global geopolitics

as countries increasingly explore digital currencies?

Wow, this one is very, very deep. I think, fundamentally,

Bitcoin is a source of good. I

think that if everybody in all countries move

to a Bitcoin standard, I think it will start

wars, et cetera. Conflict will

start to diminish. Because you won't be able to go into a country,

for example, if Bitcoin is the thing. that

people want. You can't go and invade a country to

steal their Bitcoin. If they've got oil, you can. But

Bitcoin, you can't just walk in and steal the Bitcoin. And

so I think fundamentally, Bitcoin

is a reason for good. I think the more countries that hold it

will be for the best. And look, let's just see how

that plays out. But that's my sense on things. Next question is, could

Bitcoin's volatility ever stabilize enough to be a

true unit of account? There's vitality in

volatility. You need volatility in the market. And

I tell you what is volatile. is cash

you know the fiat standard it has i don't

don't quote me here but it's something like over the last hundred years the

the value of cash has diminished by something like 99 so

that's pretty bad yeah whereas bitcoin has

increased okay now just in the last year over 2024 increased

by 120 percent right so it's going up by cash value

is going down and so yes At

the moment, you do see volatile, so if you put it that,

spikes up and down. When people talk about volatility, they

normally think about it dropping. But volatility

also means it increases. So for example, if it increases in

a single day by 20%, that's volatile. But that's

a good thing, and that's why you've got to be in the market of Bitcoin, because

the numbers are that something like five times in the year that

the market increases. And if you're not in

it over those five particular things, five to 10 days of the year,

that actually goes up. But if you're waiting for that one day, you

know, one of five to 10 days of the year to get into the

market, you'll miss out because by the time you thought about it, it's over. So

you've got to be in it to win it. And the best thing to do with Bitcoin is

actually nothing. You just buy it and do nothing. I

know, seems simple, right? But when it's volatile to

the downside and it drops, let's say, 20%, I haven't

seen it drop 20% in a day. But I mean, I noticed in recent time, it's

dropped 28% over the last, say,

two months or so. So people are thinking they've got to get out. But

as I say, don't put money into the Bitcoin market that you

need to pay the rent with. Just put it in there. Forget about it.

Think of it like superannuation. Once your money goes into superannuation, you

never think about, oh, now I've got to take that money back out. And

your superannuation could actually go backwards. But you never

think, oh, I've got to go take the money out of superannuation. So

unless you've got a self-managed super, of course. So the

best thing to do is do nothing. If a major global recession hits,

how do you think Bitcoin will react compared to traditional assets?

And what we've seen even in just recent months is

that the Bitcoin price is correlated to

global macro conditions. So when There's

fear in the market with stocks. There's also fear in the market with

Bitcoin, with not just, I

guess, with institutions, but also retail investors. So

they're looking to take money out. And we did

hear recently that Warren Buffett, for example, actually sold

millions. I think it was hundreds of millions of dollars. I think he had about $300 million

of cash just sitting on the sideline. He sold out. And this was months ago. And

everyone was speculating, why is he doing that? Does

he know something that we don't know? So what we now know today,

though, is that the stock market has gone down a lot. It could

go down even more, maybe up to another 10% from

today's low. The Bitcoin price could go down

even more. As we record today, it's sitting at

$78,000. It could drop down to $72,000. That's definitely possible.

But if you're someone that's just hearing this now, and

that news is still current, Would you

not buy at 78 because you think it's going to drop to 72? Or

should you just buy at 78 today and know that you've got in the market at

28% discount from its all time high? Now, it's

very, very difficult for you to catch the exact

moment that it gets to the low of this particular dip.

It's almost impossible. So if it's close, great,

just take it. When the price gets back to $120,000, you're not gonna care whether you

paid $72,000 or $78,000 for the price. of

the Bitcoin. So get in while it's cheap. Back

to recession, though. So Bitcoin is impacted by macro

conditions. However, what generally happens during

a recession is the government starts to print money. Unemployment

goes up, they're giving out more money, they want to start stimulating the

economy to get more money flowing. And then

what happens is then risk on assets start

to increase because now more people have more money

and it goes up. I also just want to take you back to just even just recent

years. Because when we saw the scandemic

happen in 2020-odd, there

was a huge crash, like a major crash. Everything

plummeted, including Bitcoin. But what happened? The government came

out. They printed a shit ton of money. And Bitcoin

went up. Now, it wasn't just Bitcoin. House prices, et

cetera, all went through the roof. And we then saw all-time

highs. Michael

Saylor always says, Bitcoin loves chaos. A

recession is chaos. Bitcoin loves chaos. So guys,

this question is, what would happen if the US government tried to ban

Bitcoin outright? Well, I think that

question has been squashed right

because the U.S. currently is not looking to ban Bitcoin now

could the U.S. government ban Bitcoin in the future

hey anything could happen right we could get some crazy crazy

left-wing tyrannical leader and

you know, all bets are off, right? And by that time, you could even see

that the government has accumulated so much Bitcoin that they're

holding all the Bitcoin. But deep down, I don't think that's

ever going to happen. I think the cat's out of the bag now. The other thing to think about, too, is

that China banned Bitcoin. OK,

China's banned Bitcoin. I think it's about three times over the

past few years. And when China banned Bitcoin, there

was a drop in the market. But then it bounced back. And

the great thing about Bitcoin is it's decentralized, meaning not

one company, not one person, and not one nation

state controls Bitcoin. It's the freedom money

of the world. All right, guys, that's it for this episode. Thank you much for joining

me on this Q&A. Appreciate you sending in those questions. If you've got any more

questions, either put them in the chat, DM me, however it is,

get them to me, and I'll answer those in the next episode. Thanks so much. Take care.

Thanks for tuning in to Crypto Collective. If you've enjoyed this episode, the

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of me I'm Matthew Fraser on all