 Great welcome visual asset news to get top stories and crypto bring them down to bite-sized pieces So today just the thumbnail the title suggests Russia is moving along swiftly as they look to regulate crypto And what they're going to do is they're going to classify crypto as a currency So that is a stark contrast what we do here in the United States and pretty much across the world So we'll take a look at that story. Also, we'll take a look at there is a major app called line It's set to launch its crypto payments and they haven't done that for over a year now So things are moving forward in the apps department Also, we'll take a look at this as I call it clown news since that's one of the people's favorites these days the Biffen X hack and how I can't believe that they To pull it off these two people and where they hid the private keys And then lastly we'll go over your Q&A and then we'll talk about the meet-up tonight here in Puerto Rico If you're around why don't you stop by so we'll take a look at all those things But first let's do a quick market recap and just so you know that if you're watching the live stream There's no time stamps, but you're watching the recording There'll be time stamps below so you can skip ahead and do whatever you want to and then also just you know that the news We'll take around 10 or 15 minutes and the Q&A takes a bit longer So so you can stay or you can go it's okay people are busy and then we'll do the Q&A at the end All right, so let's take a look at today's market and first Let me just take a look here. Make sure Good morning. Good morning. Thanks take a look at the market and I'm using a new tool today. It's from Santiment Not sentiment Santiment and it's a pretty cool platform because they have the ability to look at sentiment data On-chain analysis and also this thing that you're gonna see right here called developer activity And if you've knew the channel you've heard me talk about before but I believe that's where the developers go So goes The brain power and the ability to scale these crypto products So I want to follow this developer activity a little bit closer than what I have been in the past So that is what we have a little quick explanation. So let's take a look at what's going on here So just so you know market cap is up. We're almost at 2.2 trillion. That's pretty good. I mean Things are moving along swimmingly. I'm pretty happy about that Bitcoin is upset man 40 yeah, 44,000. It's pretty good And one day it's up a percentage point seven days 14 and a half three days Whatever else a theorem is up looking at $3200 which is pretty good BnB finance coin four by two three and we got USD coin of course the stable coin polygon USD coin Sure Ripple is in that seventh place right now, and it's up 41 percent I have heard rumors and rumblings of different things going on with the cases but just so everybody knows those are rumors and I won't say what they specifically are but it seems positive But only time will tell so if you believe that the SEC case is winding down Might be a good idea to get into a little XRP not a vestment of ice just investment opinion And I don't even know if it's that's actually the truth Cardano up 12% Solana up 4% hex that's right hex up 14% and This is a shocking difference right here for today. So you'll notice that if I ever use coin market cap Our coin get go hexes left out and Whatever you think about it. It's up to you to do the research I don't know any hex, but it's here and I talked to the development team I said, why do you guys have hex in here and the other people don't they say well That's what the market cap states and that's where the that's where we're gonna put it I will just say this About this this is probably the last things I talk about it If you want to take a look at projects look at the volume what's going on a lot of things are in billions ones and Millions look at the the developer activity. So like for Bitcoin This is all based on on numbers in the amount and there's a metric that they use But how they use they is they go into into github and different different segments of the internet take a look at what's going on They filter out as much as they can the bots that are needlessly reposting and reposting they come up with a developer activity for 30 days and For Bitcoin, it's looking pretty active. Ethereum is very active Stable coins not so much ripple not so much Cardano is pretty damn act 42 Solana is pretty darn active at 519 hex is zero terrace 40 avalanches 70 388 So again, if you're taking a look at what's going on in them in the marketplace take a look at the developers and where they're going and Take a look at the activity you can see some of like cosmos solid 233 What else 293 for chainlink makes sense? Holy smokes 961 for Uniswap and Yeah, that's what we got. So that's the data as we see fit now. Let's take a look at today's top story and this one if you've been following along in this one It's amazing because first and we've already talked about at length in the beginning There was a band Russia says we're gonna ban crypto, but it wasn't Russia saying they're gonna ban it It was a central bank that said they're gonna ban it and then Parliament came out and said no, no, that's our job our job is to ban or let things go or regulate your job is set policy Our job is to regulate and that's exactly they did and of course Putin came out and say, you know what? we've got some pretty good advantages here and I don't think we really want to stay on the US dollar as a reserve currency So maybe we could take a look at crypto and digital assets Maybe we could regulate it Maybe we could start to strengthen our ties with China different places around the world Maybe we'll just use crypto and let's fast-track this because you know what what I say goes and that's exactly what happened So here we've got a story Moving forward today Russia moves to recognize crypto as a form of Cryptocurrency this is interesting the Russian government and the country's central bank have reached an agreement to draft legislation or Amend existing laws recognizing crypto as a form of currency cryptos ought to be classified as an analog of currencies and not as financial digital assets Legislation will reportedly be drawn up no later than February 18th. Let me tell you when they were talking about banning these things From the that day, which was in mid-January and in January No, no mid-January to them pumping out legislation to moving it through Parliament to actually go on This is what we're gonna do to get them in together Totally efficient Communist countries you can do that you can make just wasn't that's how it's gonna be done and that's exactly what happened So the quote here the establishment of rules for the circulation of cryptocurrencies and control measures Will minimize the threat to the stability of the financial system. This is from a leaked document Staying what they want to do and to reduce the use of crypto for illegal purposes Since a complete ban on the segment of operations Regulate related to this to their circulation is impossible. Let me read that to you one more time for crypto Since a complete ban on the segment of operations Related to their circulation is impossible. It is impossible. I always I always thought this Let me know what you think about the comment section But I always believed in like how can a country just shut down Crypto digital assets you can't really do it and then if you try to shut it down then it becomes underground and illegal and then of course You have a lot of different problems. That's exactly what happened with marijuana here in the United States marijuana was illegal and Cartels took a big power grab especially in Mexico. Believe me and El Paso where I still live now and again Right across the ways war is and war is Mexico They make El Paso a super safe place because they want to pass through marijuana when it was Illegal because there's a lot of money to be made but then when it became illegal just toy legal It's not legal in Texas yet. All of a sudden things started to work out Then all of a sudden government sort of tax it then all of a sudden other states like hey We should probably do this so when you try to shut down something it just makes people want it even more try to use it Even more so Russia gets Russia knows the game like you know what let's just regulate it Let's just tax it because in another article that we talked about Russia knows that there's a there's a number between 24 and a half billion dollars Worth of crypto is being used by Russian citizens right now and that's in the low end on the high end I think it's around 215 billion so when they talk about taxing things between 6 and 15 percent. Why wouldn't they do that? It only makes sense. So they get it. They understand. Hopefully us can get on board, but It'll be different because it's a little bit different society all right, so crypto's use as Currency will only be possible following proper identity checks via the country's banking system or licensed intermediaries While operations exceeding I guess this is rubles 600,000 rubles or $8,000 must be declared Well, it's kind of the same thing here over $10,000 the IRS kind of looks at you a bit more closely and Then official state the complete absence of regulation of this industry as well As the establishment of a ban will lead to an increase in the share of the shadow economy It's what we're just talking about underground stuff and an increase in fraud cases and de-stabilization of the industry as a whole That's what the document states the ministry and this is what was this is what blew my mind But I mean not really because it's it's a different country The Ministry of Finance the federal security service the Ministry of Internal Affairs the federal tax service and others Were involved in the decision-making process and they all got together and said this is what we want to do amazing so Other countries can't do it like that because Just not that kind of country and it's gonna take a little bit more time but it was amazing that that the speed of which things happened and Hopefully it'll you know Kick us in the pants to get moving. It's the same thing happened with the space race Russia beat us with Sputnik and then we came out roaring back and said oh, yeah Hold my beer and we'll try to beat you and then of course one to the moon Allegedly I'm just kidding. So anyhow, let me know what you think about that in the comments section Let's move on to our next piece and actually before we do that I have another question for you as a viewer the taxes was we're supposed to be between 6 and 15% 15% was the upper threshold, especially for Bitcoin mining as It moves into a currency like here We don't tax currencies the way that we taxed here in the United States is Crypto is a commodity or almost like property so we tax it in that way If we move that over to a currency, we wouldn't even tax it all in Russia They're saying it's gonna be a currency, but we're still gonna tax it So I wonder how things will work if they're gonna transfer everything over and go, you know what this Currency like rubles and year was and things like that. We're not gonna tax But for this one is special currency as legislation. We are gonna tax even though we're gonna have it as a currency So let me know what you think about that and how that will work out because that'll be an interesting case Now let's move on to our next piece line so line I'm not from Japan surprise and But apparently and it doesn't matter that a lot of people use this app throughout the globe I should say but the Japan's messaging giant line to trial crypto payments for online merchants I think this is good news because the more people we can get in the better off. We are only blow this up so you can see it There we go Line pay the operator of the company's digital wallet and fintech services will be tasked With connecting lines link token and I like how they said this here not to be confused with chain link With its payment solution two different things So don't get confused that link is not being integrated in a line. Link is this a separate token created by line Line the app said it is aiming to expand users payment options increase convenience and grow the real life usages for link It's the first time since 2020 But the giant has made significant efforts to push ahead with its crypto And I think if they're gonna start with this then how far away are we from them saying, you know what? We're gonna accept line also. We're gonna roll into some other cryptos I don't know what those could be for cross-border payments I will let you decide what that is But I think it's a step in the right direction and then when I took a look at I'm like Well, how big is the line because I don't even know I don't know line and this is what it is Just you know lines in Japan based cross-platform old messaging app created in response to 2011 Japan earthquake line was originally designed as an internet based method to communication that did not rely on the Then damaged telecommunications infrastructure. That's funny because that's how Bitcoin was created It didn't want to rely on the old finance Regulations and things like that for the housing crisis in 2008. That's why I was created 2009, but The whole thing about this is that the number of monthly active users is a hundred and sixty seven million. That's pretty good Number of monthly active line users 86 million the annual revenue is 227 billion. How does that compare to other apps? So just so you know Most popular apps of 2021. These are the downloaded app not the average monthly users, but the most downloaded I thought I found this interesting tick-tock tick-tock 656 million it's pretty good Instagram 545 Facebook 416 So now when you see these things and you're and you're wondering why does Mark Zuckerberg is he so scared about tick-tock? Well, it's because he's losing ground and Facebook is going down and our meta as it's called now And you can just see it in the wall. There was also another article where Facebook's using 1 million users per day of active monthly users So maybe the things that we think are on top now will not be on top in a little bit of time Because it happened to my space Looks like it's gonna happen to Facebook and who knows what could happen as far as the crypto Let me know what you think about that in the comments and let's move on to What I like to call Clown news and this isn't This isn't clown news because of what happened. I feel sorry for the people that this happened to that it's clown news because of What happened? And how this was actually done and how these people were actually able To store the private keys and how they got caught unlike if you're that mastermind to steal billions of dollars How could you not how you do this? But it's a This is what's going on. And I know you've heard about this. I'm gonna do this really quick So the United States seizes 94,000 Bitcoin from 2016 bit the next hack in largest crypto seizure so people were very concerned about this because they thought that I guess the Department of Justice was able to I Don't know hack into Bitcoin or something. That's not what happened here. So this is what happened DOJ's largest crypto seizure date valued at more than three point six billion dollars two people Ilja Lichtenstein 34 and his wife Heather Morgan 31 have been arrested for alleged conspiracy to launder four and a half billion and stolen crypto 2016 bit the next hack stole Bitcoin were transferred in more than 2,000 transactions to a crypto wallet controlled by Lichtenstein over the last five years Approximately 25,000 stolen Bitcoin were transferred out of the crypto wallet via complicated money laundering process After the execution of core authorized search warrants, they were able to access These files those files contain the private keys Required to access the digital wallet that directly received the funds stolen from bit the next and allowed special agents to lawfully Seize and recover more than 94,000 Bitcoin that had been stolen from bit the next. So how do they do that? What was their master plan? How does the DOJ? How do they hack Bitcoin? They didn't hack anything Lichtenstein kept the private keys on his emails cloud storage genius Law enforcement said I was able to seize the 94,000 Bitcoin left the wall because Lichtenstein uploaded a list to a cold storage and email provider salad That contained addresses for the wallet that bit the next response were dumped into Along with the private keys to access them. So the thing that we're always harping on about how to you know Be safe and controlled and don't give them away This guy uploaded to the internet on a cloud device and of course The department justice could just either go to the server or they could I mean they can hack the service not hard Maybe I mean I could do it But I just thought it was very clownish of them to do these things and this is and that is of course The clown news for the day. Alright, so that concludes the news that is going on right now I will just say there's just one thing I will make mention of and that is we're going to have meet up tonight We do this every two weeks over at here in Puerto Rico at Dunbar's look at this place beautiful me and my wife are just there on Sunday, and it's a nice big open patio place in Guainabu and I will here is the this is the logo so you can see it, but I will link the Address in the description if you're in Puerto Rico stop by and that Is it for today as far as the news? So this will conclude if you like the news give it a thumbs up consider subscribing It's time-sensitive all that great stuff and now we'll get into the Q&A and that's it So if you have to go thanks for stopping I appreciate it, and that's it. So let's look over this banner, huh? banner Q&A comments Hi, how you doing sweet? This is pretty good. Now they could find my Mt. Gox money. That would be awesome Every time there's a Mt. Gox story. It seems like the price just craters cradles Craters, excuse me. So yeah, let's do it. Oh shoot. What time I done bars? Yeah, Lucas. That's 5 p.m. To 7 p.m. Sorry karaoke night The karaoke, but it's all about you Here's a good question how much crypto do you think the US government owns that we know about shouldn't be that much because They there's been various seizures along the way for years that the big that the US government has done but they've always sold it at auction and A lot of people have picked it up for quite cheap prices because they sell it at At market prices right there. So the only thing that would have a concern about this one Is that if they have 3.6 billion dollars worth of Bitcoin? It's a lot of Bitcoin and if they put it on the open market and they well see They're going to sell it. So they'll be a little bit of of Variants there as people just you know, they're not going to they're not going to buy it up in small pieces And really interesting is who buys all that crypto? And I wonder if big institutions like a micro strategy is like when is that public auction because we'll be there in a heartbeat I think that could actually decrease the price Temporarily depends on what hands it goes into but in all honesty in the long run doesn't really matter And but hey, Rob, does this mean Russians pay no taxes on crypto games? No, it's not what I'm saying because it's it's in currency in in America We can't tax currency per se, right? You just you do an exchange and that's pretty much it for extrators correct me where I'm wrong here but as a currency it's pretty hard to to Tax it as that because it's it's it's an actual currency that you use for goods and services Russia's doing that right now. So but they did put out a Memorandum a couple days ago that said that we're gonna tax between six and fifteen percent So what I'm thinking is even though it's going to be a currency They will probably still tax it and there will still be a special provision for crypto trust me There is I'm 99% sure not a hundred percent But 99% sure and if a government finds a way to tax you they will tax you and this is a prime opportunity Remember on the low end 25 billion worth of crypto is in Russian's hands Russia Russian citizens hands and up to a high point of around 214 point five billion. So Trust me. They want 15% of that at least. We'll see 50k incoming swimming Put will help you has to reach 100 gates out man. I hope so that'd be great This is Rob out of all the projects you follow who has the head haunch or leader you respect the most? I'm gonna say his name wrong McCarty McCarty from Algorand This guy's been doing crypto since the 80s. He's also won the Turing award for mathematics He's been around for quite some time sent to the pretty good team and Algorand looks like a pretty good pretty good bet Well, it's a scale not much I mean, I mean, I don't know but a lot of bit a lot of good businesses don't make it That's just the truth. Look at go down to any strip mall In your town and look at how many businesses are moving out just didn't make it Do I think it could be top 10? Sure. The only time will tell that's it Dan's got a good question. How did you stake your meld? So I did a video yesterday and there was an error on it So I had to take it down and I will be reuploading right now It's very simple actually you just go to meld.com and the upper right-hand corner It says app you click on that and then you just take it right there But there's a walk-through that I completed and I'll have it up later today. Sorry about that That Dunbar restaurant is a little far from same same one round. Yes, it is I want to get away from the touristy areas I'm tired and I'm tired of that and I'm also tired of like those touristy areas They got a ton of money right the idea for these meet-ups is to go into the community and bring our cash in there and Spend it at these places. That's the whole point. I am not here in Puerto Rico to enrich double tree and Or any kind of like hotel global branch something like that. I'm trying to help out people that actually live here So sorry Let's see what else. Oh What's this? This is a good one Yeah, Rob the new ice regulation. Why does that keep going away? Rob the new ice regulation for reporting is 600 bucks Yeah, that's that's a bummer, but it is what it is I think it's over 10,000 though You have to have a special provision as things go about but correct. No, I'm wrong here Yeah, stay Mel's take I took it down because there was an error What will the government do with crypto? It's anybody's guess In my personal opinion humble opinion the government's not gonna let the golden goose out the out the gate there's a lot of money be made and They just did just print a boatload of money Did they not and they need that money back some way So if there's a lot of money that they can tax they'll find a way to tax it So when Biden says it's national security for crypto, he's right It's national security to get paid And then some other things around that I understand the digital you on digital rule and stuff like that sure Bitcoin spot ETF will be the next move by Gary. I'm not holding my breath, but maybe Rob, do you stick your mouth? Yes, I did I stick to half a million Or 500 roughly 500 491,000 Mel tokens as the military. I'm not a big fan of wars. I think the Russian thing is huge I think the Biden administration will Stand up and take sit up and take notice I think actually puts if you really think about it It puts the global community at notice like this is what we're doing Do you want to play ball? You want to catch up because we're Putin just made a visit over to sheshing. What's his name sheshing ping the I didn't say that right the Chinese president to strengthen relations. So probably on the agenda was them talking about how they could You know ace out some other superpowers Russia and the US should be allies. That'd be great. I'm not gonna hold my breath in that one either Look, I'm gonna go to the bottom What do you think about the rumors about IMX and Microsoft's rumors? I don't believe in any of them I think they're started by opportunistic people who want to pump things see light coin Walmart That was the most ridiculous story and it was totally false, but guess what it did pump up somebody's Light coin bags. That was like months and months ago Rob, do you see she being going here? Sure a lot of people believe in it That's all it really comes down to do you believe in it to people other people believe in it? My question is what is she being gonna do? What's the utility? I don't understand it Where to buy melt great question There's a couple of different centralized exchanges go to meld.com Yeah, meld.com the very top it says how to buy melt and it'll tell you Sunday swap mooseley swap. That's the decentralized exchange. I think it's on vibe. I think some by bit Something else there's like two other more essentially just go to that website and they'll tell you exactly where and it's the legit website So I like that one. That's a good point. Why won't the DOJ give back that crypto that was stolen original owners good point? That is one of those things where now you have look That was in 2016 That is a good one I wonder how far they're gonna have to go back and who's gonna actually have to prove it and how are they gonna prove it That they actually own it. That's why like I know people hate the KYC process, but hey This would be a pretty good day for you if you KYC Hey, Rob. I have ate in your staking bowl. Do I have anything to do to get the Sunday swap airdrop? Yes, there was just information put out a couple days ago about what you have to do with to gain your Sunday swap It won't be airdrop as I understand actually have to go to the Sunday swap website and some other processes I'll let you know, but that won't be released or that won't be done until the last epic, which I think is coming up actually Say Wednesday damn it missed it here Let me just do this you get in the same question me Okay, this is meld Go up here how to buy first of all if you want to stake it go to app You can wink your wallet and do that action right there like me. I'm already staked I Got 491,000 meld tokens in there bang right 161 meld today pretty good But that's but if you want to know how to buy it see up here. It says how to buy meld how to buy meld and Sunday swap mostly it'll take you to the websites bit true. That's how I'm trying to say FMFW be quant hit BTC Changely changely pro. So that's how you can buy meld. Okay, how beautiful is Puerto Rico? Great. Look at this great place Can't beat it people are awesome I mean the ones that don't hate me the ones that don't call me a colonizer pretty nice place And he regrets about leaving the states. Yeah, you know There is some that's because you know you have to understand that when you pick up and go you leave everything behind and If you want to get for the x60 if you're if you're just coming to live here and just like I don't care about x60 It's great But if you're coming for x60, there's things you got to know now and I've done a video about Puerto Rican that works One of those you have to be here 183 days minimum. You also there's like three criteria that you have to pass one is The amount of time that you spent here the time frame the second one is is how you are actually perceived as the transfer Like did you buy property? Did you get a driver's license? Did you get health insurance here and didn't keep it over the United States and also? Did you cut ties? This is kind of weird one. Did you cut ties with family? So like if you are living here, but your wife or husband a sniffing other or married partner is in the United States That that doesn't work. They have to everything has to be transferred over here. So That's how that works, but do I regret it now don't regret it. I Think I would have I'm glad I figured out some things because I screwed up a couple things here And I'll tell you about that in the video If I could do it again. There are some things I would definitely not do. All right What will inflation be? I don't know any place looks finance. Thanks should go pretty well. I did not stop talking about it. I guess I did But hey meld is based meld is built on Cardano. So come on So hey Rob new here love your stuff I stake meld on my cc vault that works for it. I believe so I always just use Daedalus Yulbroy or a delight, but people all have been talking about cc vault as long as it says that you're delegating to a specific Steakful sure And let's go to the very last one. I'll finish this up. Oh This is a good one. Which is a statement just discovered the ability of dollar cost average through Gemini app fees So cheap. What do you feel is a good DCA for Bitcoin and we're going to do a 20 minute. That's great I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you what I do. It's like a hundred bucks a day All right dollar cost average through Voyager and what I like about is because I just set it and forget it I don't have to like go in there every day and go hundred bucks hundred bucks hundred bucks because at some point you get weak. I Get weak and I'm looking at this and like man It's a lot of money. I'm putting into crypto and well and before I know I'm like, wow My whole bank account is drained. It's all crypto So like I like the whole process of just setting and forgetting it and then giving it like a notification because it just Does it automatically and it kind of keeps you in check. So if you're looking for like and actually look at this There's a link in the description below It's talks about all wallet exchange and wallet fees And there's a spreadsheet I put together and I talk about all the different ones that I use voyager Celsius FTX Q coin Kraken Swift X Gemini and I even talk about like I laid all out like For the background when it was established You know these are affiliate links So if you cannot stand affiliate links and you don't want to get $25 of Bitcoin and have me $25 of Bitcoin Don't use this just go right to Voyager you can sign up But down here it'll talk about can you dollar cost average or not and I'll say yes or no so that's what I use and Yeah Never get a chance never miss a chance to shill, huh? All right, so let's see here And one more question This is a good question Hey, Rob. I staked last week on meld for the 12 months and I tried to add more but I couldn't so I staked in the six months Is that the right you can only do it once so with the meld staking you got two options? You can do six months for one bar or 12 months six months to get 12% APY which is really 6% APY because you're only over six months And then the next one is one year for 15% plus bonuses if you Stick around which you're locked so you're locked. You can't add you can't take out It's not like dead list or it's not like card on where you can take out when you want to you were locked in So if you're gonna stake You're gonna want to really believe in that company. I believe in meld. I talked to Ken like three times the CEO And hi, which is his main developer is like a rock star. So I believe in that I Will invest in that and I will hold stipe. All right, so that's it So look that's it for today I'm going to if of course if you're watching the recording you've already my gone past this But I'm gonna put two more videos right here So you can continue watching at your leisure and I will upload that meld staking one also I did a Gensokishi staking Video as well if you know about Gensokishi is one that we talked about on this channel. I think it's gonna be big It's doing pretty good. So that's it. So thanks so much. I appreciate it Thumbs up subscribe all the good stuff and I'll see you on the next one. Adios everybody Bye