Why Bitcoin May Not Run Until Saylor "Gets Blown Up": Bits + Bips

**Austin Campbell** (0:00)
I was talking with a friend at a hedge fund. He's a global macro trader, in my opinion, one of the better ones out there. And I was asking him about Bitcoin, and he was saying, it's really hard to see the next leg of adoption coming from very institutional people like pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, central banks. When Saylor is out there holding 5% of Bitcoin and is as big of a personality as he is, exact quote, it might be best for that guy to get blown up, and then this thing will go way, way up as other people pile in.
So to your point on digesting like strategy, it's this problem of whenever somebody becomes the main character in crypto, their demise is imminent. And strategy has been like the main character for a bit here.
But I also wonder if in a way that has made them a blocker to Bitcoin going up, and that itself has created their own problem. Hey, everyone, welcome to Bits and Bips, where we explore how crypto and macro collide one basis point at a time. We're here to discuss the latest stories in the worlds of crypto and macro. But before we begin, a quick commercial break.

**Laura Shin** (1:10)
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**Austin Campbell** (1:50)
Welcome back. I'm your host, Austin Campbell, High Scholar of Zero Knowledge Group, here with my usual two co-hosts, Ram Ahluwalia, Maester of Wealth, leader of Lumida, and Chris Perkins, the golden hand of Franklin Crypto.
Today, we have a very special guest, which probably Laura, you need no introduction to be totally honest, but Laura Shin, founder of Unchained, OG crypto journalist, in my opinion, one of the better people in the space, period, full stop. But if you're not following Laura, you need to be. Let me just start by saying that. But two, a reminder to everybody, we've also moved everything to our new dedicated channels. So subscribe on X, YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, importantly that are actual podcast channels. And why do I say it that way? So today we want to start with something contemporaneous that just happened with regard to Unchained to explain to people exactly how things are still working in crypto and how to keep yourself safe, which is somebody tried to spearfish Laura earlier today. So Laura, can I have you tell the story of what we were talking about before we went live and what happened?

**Laura Shin** (3:07)
Yeah, so it wasn't today. It was last week, but I had agreed to do a podcast with somebody. And when I logged in, the link wasn't working. And I was getting this notice saying that I had to download some software. And so it's so funny because they did actually convince me to download the software. And I even got to the point where I even executed a terminal command. And here's the crazy part. The whole time, like if you look at the screenshots of my conversation with this person, the whole time I kept saying, oh, this is how people get hacked. And because initially I kept refusing to do all the things. And I have covered hacks. I have covered phishing attempts. I have covered just all kinds of scams in crypto. I was, I think, the first person to write about sim swaps back in 2016 And even before crypto, I covered personal finance. I covered identity theft. I covered so much about scams and social engineering. Like I interviewed the main social engineering people well before I ever got into crypto.
So it's just so funny because I keep saying to this person, oh, but like I would refuse them and then I would be like, this is how people get hacked. So here's the thing, like now I realize, okay, here is how this person got me to override all of my internal alarm bells and all my learnings.
They said, oh, well, it's a special crypto podcasting platform. And they sent me the link to the X account. And I looked at this X account and 153 people that I follow are following this account. And I was like, oh, I guess it's a crypto podcasting platform I've never heard of. And so then the notion that like maybe I actually needed to download some special software was no longer so strange. But I also remembered that I had this moment where I was like, I feel like I should tweet to ask my followers if this is, you know, like I, but then because this person kept messaging me to do that. And so I just kind of like didn't do these things that floated through my head.