The Mining Disrupt News Surge for September 22, 2025 ran unedited. The host said he usually records the show and cuts it down to about 10 minutes, but this time he went live and left the mistakes in, because he had what he called a bone-deep feeling about where Bitcoin was heading. He opened with his usual reminder that the show is entertainment and education, not financial advice.
we are about to witness something really historic for Bitcoin
Mining Disrupt News Surge host · 0:23
His screen showed a price just shy of $116,000. Fees were at one sat, which he called basically free, even with more than 120,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting in the mempool. He counted 23,000 nodes online and said hashrate had moved into what he called the zettahash zone.
He also promoted the second Mining Disrupt expo of the year, at the Irving Convention Center in Dallas, Texas, a short ride from Dallas Fort Worth airport. With about two months to go, he said more speakers and sponsors kept signing on and that he expected a bigger show than Fort Lauderdale. Part of the reason, he said, was what was happening in Bitcoin.
Saylor on Third-Order Changes
The first segment was a clip of Strategy's Michael Saylor on the fight over OP_RETURN limits, the dispute between Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots supporters. Saylor said protocol proposals, however well intentioned, can go horribly wrong. He ranked changes by order: changing the amount of bitcoin is a zero-order change, changing the block size is first order, and the OP_RETURN change sits somewhere between second and third order.
He called the community's inflammatory rejection of the proposal a healthy response. A third-order change might turn into a second-order one, he said, and the biggest danger to Bitcoin is a talented, well-funded, well-intentioned developer who wants to make it better. From his business career, he said he never regretted his bad ideas, only the good ideas that diluted the product.
the good idea for Bitcoin will destroy Bitcoin
Michael Saylor · 4:55
A Divorce, Separate Bank Accounts and a Ford
The host turned Saylor's ranking into a marriage. A change to the base layer, such as raising the 21 million coin limit, is a spouse coming home and saying they want a divorce. A second-order change is a spouse who suddenly wants separate bank accounts after years of a joint one: it does not end the marriage, but it makes the other partner ask where the idea came from and what else is going on.
The Core and Knots debate, in his telling, is a third-order change, like a couple disagreeing over whether to buy a Toyota or a Ford. One partner wants the Ford because of family near Detroit; the other wants to talk about repair costs and track record. It does not put the marriage in question, but it raises questions about shared values. That, he said, is why people who see Bitcoin as money first want to stop and talk before anything changes.
can we just have an open honest talk about this
Mining Disrupt News Surge host · 9:39
He then gave what he called his personal opinion: many, though not all, of the people on the Core side had not acted well, with a lot of misrepresentation, and he did not feel good about them having any sway over Bitcoin.
Legally, Physically and Spiritually
The next item was a post from British HODL asking everyone with at least one bitcoin to spend 30 days in the final quarter of the year thinking about how to protect it legally, physically and spiritually, because someone will come for it. The host widened the advice to any amount a viewer cannot afford to lose. He said he did not know who the post meant by they: it could be the government, $5 wrench attackers or family members who learn about the coins.
On the physical side, he asked where viewers keep their seed phrase: on paper, stamped in metal, or hidden somewhere they might forget. For a two of three multisig setup, he asked who holds the other keys and whether they are trusted. On the legal side, he asked how a viewer's state, city or country treats bitcoin compared with gold or a stock, what capital gains a sale would bring, and when a sale might be needed, for example at retirement. He suggested at least a week of serious conversations rather than a full 30 days.
The spiritual side tied back to how he wants people to think about money.
you need to start thinking about it as time and energy
Mining Disrupt News Surge host · 12:25
Toilet Paper and the Black Lotus
To explain why a small amount of trading can set the price of a large supply, he read a post from Josh Mandel. Just before COVID-19, the post said, anyone could buy all the toilet paper they wanted.
Bitcoin is the toilet paper of the financial crisis
Josh Mandel · 16:33
The host recalled buying Costco toilet paper through a coworker during the shortage and used it to explain prices set at the margin: when supply dries up, the little that does come to market sets the price for everything else. He then turned to Magic: The Gathering, the card game he plays. Most Black Lotus cards never change hands, and an alpha Underground Sea, which he put at about $15,000, rarely trades. The cheaper unlimited and revised printings trade more often, and their prices move the value of the rare versions.
Bitcoin works the same way, he said. Millions of coins sit in cold storage, and the coins that move each day set the price for all of them. He estimated that about 450 new bitcoin are mined each day and absorbed at the current price, and argued that once money locked in traditional places can flow, demand like Strategy's will show up in the price.
Set It and Forget It
He played an infomercial clip built around the line set it and forget it, and said that is how he buys bitcoin. Part of his direct deposit goes into Cash App and is used to buy bitcoin automatically. When he set it up, purchases carried no fee as long as $300 went in. Some weeks he lowers the amount when bills are due, such as his car insurance; otherwise the maximum goes to bitcoin.
He said Strike now offers no-fee purchases on direct deposit as well. He likes much of what Strike does but said its lending is not for him, while noting a customer Jack Mallers had described who bought a home for his family. His own rule is no debt: the most he has owed was $1,500, and he said it was unpleasant.
A clip of Mallers comparing ordinary buyers with BlackRock's Larry Fink led into the host's point that bitcoin is open to everyone at the same price. Nobody sells beachfront property a few rocks and leaves at a time, he said, but anyone can buy 10 sats or a million sats as they can afford it.
Asymmetric Information and the Cycle Top
The bullish section opened with Arthur Hayes, who wrote that with Fed board member Stephen Miran confirmed, the media was preparing the world for yield curve control, which Hayes tied to a $1 million bitcoin. The host said $1 million is a matter of time: not this year, but possibly before 2030.
He then read a post noting that Michael Saylor was in Washington, D.C., reportedly to help advance the strategic bitcoin reserve bill. The host's point was that Saylor has information ordinary holders do not, and that he, Metaplanet and other treasury companies would not keep buying unless they believed in it. Rational Aussie wrote that the last time he felt this way, the price tripled within months, and that the world faced geopolitical and macro armageddon. A post from Bitquant, written in August, said Bitcoin would not go below 100K this cycle and told readers to write down their emotions about the market.
He closed the Core and Knots segment with a post from Kutes Van Holm saying anyone who earned from ordinals, inscriptions, runes or other non-monetary uses of Bitcoin had shown themselves to be a bad actor. The host was gentler: people can use their bitcoin how they like, but should not tell him Bitcoin has to be something else.
It just needs to be money.
Mining Disrupt News Surge host · 37:46
The last chart was Julien Bittel's cycle-top finder, which compares the current cycle with earlier tops going back to 2011. His reading: not even close.
What Happened Next
The host predicted that within 12 months viewers would look back at a date like September 22, 2025 and see how cheap Bitcoin had been, and he invited them to the Dallas expo on November 11 to 13. The year did not go his way. Bitcoin closed that day at $112,959. On October 26, 2026, it traded at $80,011, below both the price on the day of the show and the 100K floor in the Bitquant post. His $1 million call has a 2030 horizon and is still open.