09-11-2025 
|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
CoinGeek’s Kurt Wuckert Jr. recently joined podcasting legend Hotep Jesus to talk about Bitcoin, blockchain, and the current goings on in the world. Check out a summary of the conversation below or watch via the live video link.
Rate cuts and the Federal Reserve
Hotep kicks things off with a roundup of what’s going on in politics, focusing on how United States President Donald Trump is trying to fire Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook. There’s speculation he’s trying to replace her so he can get rate cuts faster; Trump has been saying Jerome Powell is too late on rate cuts and should have done them a year ago.
Wuckert says the Federal Reserve shouldn’t have the authority to set rates or play such a significant economic role. Banks and lenders should set rates, and the government should stay out of it. He believes the Federal Reserve only exists to enhance American power by manipulating the reserve currency, and they conduct a turbo-charged version of what the British Empire did under John Maynard Keynes’ advice.
That said, Hotep believes Powell has done the right thing by holding out and not slashing interest rates as Trump demands. Wuckert says it has certainly helped harden the dollar, but inflation is way worse than people admit. In the end, we just have to listen to what the Fed says and does, because when they do cut rates, assets tend to rip.
Regulations on blockchain and Bitcoin
Hotep says he is wary of the sudden pro-Bitcoin attitude the Trump administration has taken. He’s unsure whether we can trust it.
Wuckert feels the same way. Many of the people in Trump’s ear are the old PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) Mafia guys, including Peter Thiel, who backed JD Vance’s political career. Many of these guys became venture capitalists in Silicon Valley and later invested heavily in ‘crypto’ companies and funds.
Aside from the PayPal Mafia, Tether has a direct route into Trump’s ear. His trade secretary, Howard Lutnick, founded the firm Cantor Fitzgerald (NASDAQ: CFIKX), which owns a 5% stake in Tether and checks its attestations. (Note: Tether has still never submitted to a full audit).While many of these guys are in it to make money, they’re also in it for the power, Hotep says. They already have plenty of money, but power beats money every time, and that’s what they’re hungry for.
AI and the potential for 10x productivity
Hotep asks Wuckert for his views on artificial intelligence (AI), saying he’s a big fan.
Wuckert says the key is training AI models to be educated like humans. This way, there’s less chance they will become sociopathic and harm humanity. However, the guys training it in Silicon Valley are not the ones you want to run things; in many cases, they’re not good people.
That said, the technology itself is amazing, and we could see massive productivity gains because of it. Wuckert’s own business has had a great year and has dramatically increased output, thanks to AI. It has saved a lot of time, sped up processes, and allowed them to achieve more without going through lengthy processes.
“Nobody is bullish enough,” he says, predicting AI will cause massive gains across the economy.
Ethereum at all-time highs
Hotep reflects that he has always been a big advocate for Ethereum, but he openly admits he doesn’t know why. It recently hit an all-time high, which was good for his bags if nothing else.
Wuckert tells it like he always does: Ethereum has great marketing, but the tech leaves a lot to be desired. It can only ever be as fast as the slowest node on the network. He likens it to a great paint job on a car with no engine.
“If it succeeds, it fails,” he says, pointing out how Ethereum can’t scale and always hits a brick wall when people try to use it in large numbers.
To hear more about Wuckert’s views on XRP, the U.S. government taking a stake in Intel, and what Wuckert is working on in blockchain, check out the stream via the link at the top!
Watch: Revisiting the history of Bitcoin with ‘Untangling Web3’ podcast
Recommended for you
