The Mining Disrupt News Surge for Monday, April 15, 2024 opened with a plug for the Mining Disrupt Expo in Miami, June 24 to 26, and then the numbers. The host said the price had dropped to $63,600 per Bitcoin, or over 1,500 sats per dollar, a move he admitted he had not expected the week before. Blocks were coming in fast at 9 minutes and 49 seconds, so he said the halving would land not on the 20th but around 8:00 on Friday, give or take a couple of hours, just five days away. He also corrected a slip from the previous week: the big earthquake he mentioned happened in Taiwan, not Thailand.
The news began with allocation talk. The host said Deutsche Bank had suggested a 14% Bitcoin allocation, and that a recent BlackRock event had floated something like 20 or 23%. That led into a post doing what he called moon math: if the average future portfolio holds 70% Bitcoin and total world wealth is about $900 trillion, then 70% of that is $630 trillion, which works out to a price of $30 million per Bitcoin. The host said he had absolutely no idea whether anyone would see that in their lifetime. His advice to doubters was to do the research, read books like The Bitcoin Standard and watch podcasts on what money is, because, he said, it is possible, and whether it is plausible is in the eye of the beholder.
you get to a prediction of $30 million per Bitcoin and you thought you were bullish
Host · 2:47
The bullish news kept coming. The host said South Korea's Bitcoin friendly opposition party had won its election and was committed to letting domestic investors buy Bitcoin ETFs, that a Hong Kong Bitcoin ETF could be approved as soon as Monday, and that UBS and Morgan Stanley were reported to be racing to offer Bitcoin ETFs to all of their clients. He asked viewers how anyone could be bearish. He added Tim Draper's call for $250,000 by the end of that year. Then the episode changed direction.
When the Mastercard Slogan Meets Crypto Culture
The host turned to a message he said he kept seeing online: that you are not stacking hard enough unless you have four jobs, are living in a basement or out of the back of a car, or are picking through recycling. He read a post from Luke Mit saying that in 2019 he took bags to recycling every weekend for $35 to buy more Bitcoin, and urged others to do everything they could to reach a tenth of a Bitcoin. The host said he did not agree with that sentiment at all, and he reached for an old MasterCard ad to explain why. The ads showed people with their children, on vacation, old couples hugging, memories being made.
there are some things that money can't buy for everything else there's MasterCard
Host · 6:45
He said he thinks that rings true of money in general, whatever form it takes: Bitcoin, MasterCard, the dollar. If you have family and friends and people you want to spend time with, he argued, picking up cans and living out of a van may not be the best way to live, especially with children.
there's some things that money can't buy for everything else there's money in some form
Host · 6:57
The Cost of the 'Stack Hard' Mentality
He made it personal. The host said he has played card games since he was a little kid, with his siblings and parents, and later got into collectible games like Pokemon, Magic the Gathering and Flesh and Blood. He said he has a modest collection, maybe a grand worth of Magic cards, and had considered that weekend selling it all for perhaps $750, or about a million sats. Maybe in 20 years, he said, he would look back and wish he had sold them. But if he sells them, he cannot play Magic the Gathering. Set against that, he said, are the posts telling people they are not stacking hard enough unless they are suffering for it.
if your fingernails aren't bleeding if you're not living on the foundation of your basement apartment
Host · 4:34
He then imagined a child looking back on a parent who spent 20 years picking cans out of the road for another few hundred sats every weekend: the parent stacked harder than anyone, the child said, but they had no memories together, no games of catch, no card games, and ate beans and rice. Think about how you are actually spending your time, the host said. If you want to pick up cans, have at it, but if it comes at the expense of time with your loved ones, you might want to reconsider your priorities.
What Money Can't Buy
It does not matter how much Bitcoin you have, the host argued, if your health is in the dumper, or if you have nobody there to support you and hold your hand. Money might buy the best medical care, he said, but it cannot buy true love, true care and true compassion, someone actually looking you in the eye and saying they hope you get better and that they are there for you. That, he said, is earned over years.
He was clear that he was not against adventure or frugality. If living out of a van is an adventure you share with family, he said, that is great. His objection was to stacking at the cost of the relationships that matter.
Stack Less, Spend Time
He summed up the message of the episode in one question: do you want to grind yourself down just to stack another few hundred sats, or would you rather spend time with the people you love, or go out and meet them? One of those, he said, seems likely to have a far more lasting impact. His closing advice was direct: if your stacking is costing you your relationships, stack less and spend more time with the people you love.
do you want to go and grind yourself to the quick of the bone
Host · 8:10
When this episode aired on April 15, 2024, the host read the price as $63,600; our reference price for that day is $65,928, and on October 12, 2026 it was $84,041. The point of the episode was not the price, though. It was the trade between sats and time. The conversation continues at Mining Disrupt 2027, March 22 to 24 in Irving, Texas.