Yaël, good to see you. Welcome. Thank you so so much, Sean.
Absolutely. So before we got going,
I I have to put you on stage for a moment and and ask about
the last time you picked up that guitar and what you played.
Oh, the last time I picked it up, so I I play basically some French Canadian songs, Elvis songs, and then,
probably the show that my daughters are watching, whatever the theme song is, I'll I'll try to find the tab or the chords and play it for them. So it's it's probably one of these, and it'd probably be fairly embarrassing to admit here. So would there be no live streams or rather, live live performances today? Not here. I mean, if we wanna do something later, you know, there's that's why I love podcasting two point o. There's all kinds of musical shows now streaming. Yeah. Might be an idea. Absolutely. And I'm a drummer. I, you know, I I don't have a kit in the back, but,
there does seem to be a fantastic overlap between those broadly in tech, and we'll talk about your background a bit,
and musicians. Well well, speaking of background,
and certainly, yeah, I'll I'll include relevant links in the show notes. I mean, what I found interesting
I believe you're Canadian?
French Canadian. Yes. French Canadian, most specifically. I know you got your career start in Montreal.
Indeed. Yes. Fantastic. I I lived in Toronto for ten years and had a lot of really great times. Totally different country if you ask me, but yes. Yes.
I know. I know. And it and it and it feels that way in a great way.
But you've got what to me is a quite interesting perspective for a number of reasons, one of which is,
Canadian citizen
living in Europe.
And
with Consumer Choice Center, certainly, I know you are,
you take a global lens,
but in in
the work that I followed with,
or from you in the last, say, six or so months since we've been connecting on Noster
has been understandably
US focused. And so,
you know, with that,
given given that interesting background,
and, actually, I'll I'll refer to a couple of quotes that I that I plucked that I thought were quite interesting.
In 2022,
let's just dive straight into a hotbed.
Quote, if the pandemic taught us anything about public perceptions of risk,
it is that we must empower individuals to improve their own situation
rather than making it for them.
I thought that was quite powerful. And and then in December of the same year, you know, you're arguing in a different
category of of risk post FTX collapse.
The statement was the answer to preventing the next FTX lies less in creating convoluted regulatory environments
and more in applying
existing laws while promoting a pathway for legitimate entrepreneurship. So I call those out and I set that stage to say,
you have, as I as I noted,
a broad perspective
on
consumer choice and what that means.
Could you give us sort of a state of the union
on the balance of power
and the position or place of trust on a continuum between institutions and individuals? What is I think it's,
very interesting in that we have organized our societies, obviously, to live under different
types and systems of of governments.
And I have, as you mentioned,
have had the, privilege or unfortunate circumstance of having grown up under many different governments. I was born in Canada, grew up in The US, and I've been living in Austria for the past decade or so. So I've been able to see how
different institutions in these countries
trust their citizens, enshrining the rights of their citizens, and just generally the approach and the freedom that they allow the citizens. And what I've kind of noticed, and it's just a general trend, is we have probably for the last
two decades or so seen that our institutions are much more involved in our lives,
much more so than they ever were for our parents or grandparents or even before.
And there's this moralization
that has come up, and everyone has morals. Everyone has personal morals. Everyone has personal ethics.
But a lot of that has sort of been extrapolated and given to governments
who, unlike private companies,
actually have power over us in that we have to pay taxes. They kinda set the rules for how we're able to invest or where we have to send our kids to school. And we've kinda seen this, sort of a morph
into each of our lives, and it depends on the government. I think the pandemic,
that example that you mentioned, was really an example for everyone to notice. How is my state or my county or my country dealing with this, and are they allowing me as an individual, as a citizen, or as a consumer enough trust to deal with the situation?
And that's where, you know, in my native,
province of Quebec,
it was a terrible idea if you wanted to be an individual and go outside and try to enjoy a little bit of life even on your own. They made it very difficult. There were all kinds of different penalties. There was a curfew.
You know, a lot of times, I was in North Carolina or in Florida, and there was very different, and it was much more open.
Austria,
much worse.
The masks were obligated basically from March of twenty twenty. Very early on, you needed to have your vaccination pass in order to go to the equivalent of, like, the Best Buy, the electronic store. So there just was not a lot of trust. It was just a lot of power that was given to government. And I think over time, we've just kind of allowed this to happen. And there are communities and people that will go against it. I think I'm I'm always very fascinated by communities like the Amish or the, Orthodox Jewish, the Hasidic
community that's either in New York or Montreal. These are communities that are self self sustaining. They kind of exist outside or parallel to the normal government structures,
and they still thrive. And they exist as communities, and it's voluntary.
And I think that's
where really, that's how we've so many different groups around the world have been able to flourish. And one thing that I'm very passionate about, and I hope we can continue to build on that, we can reverse the trend of sort of growing government power over our decisions
because I think we, as individuals, know best exactly what's what's perfect for us, for our families,
and for those in our community. So, obviously,
bit of a convoluted way around it. But, yeah, I think it comes down to trusting the individual.
Absolutely. And I think
were you at times during lockdowns, were you in Quebec?
No. I was only in Austria. Yeah.
So I was because I'm also an American citizen and Canadian citizen, I was able to travel.
Canada was very bad just because they had this, entire system where you have to stay in a hotel for, I don't know, up to two or three weeks. Recall.
It was very bad. I missed, you know, two funerals for my grandparents because of that reason. And, you know, that was the kind of thing that really made you aware that this is the stuff that restricts your movements. You know, there's a great Austrian writer, that many people might know, Stefan Zweig.
He's sort of,
his works for the Grand Budapest Hotel is what the, Wes Anderson movie is. It's based on his writings.
And and he wrote about in the the first World War, that was really the first time that we had passports,
and we had the ability to stop people from going over borders and traveling.
And it was really there that he became very depressed with how society was going, how liberalism was going, because all of these countries were erecting barriers.
It wasn't wartime,
but those barriers never came down. And it led to what was before this flourishing human experience. If you had the means, you could travel.
But, really, since then, we've put a lock on that. And then during the pandemic, you know, those walls became iron gates very high, you know, stopping people from traveling fully. And,
yeah. Now we're in 2025. Things are a bit different, but I think many of us still have that in our collective memory because it was only a few years ago. Absolutely. And I I was in Morocco. My wife is Morocco, and we without, you know, going to too much detail, we were effectively stuck there for about a year. And as an American citizen, for example, couldn't even pop over to Spain. I spent
ten wonderful years living in Toronto.
Had I have dear very dear friends there that that, it just became impossible
practically to visit, and so we all have those stories. And I think, you know, from that,
whether it is your work or or broadly,
at the Consumer Choice Center,
did that affect has that affected
the focus of the organization in your work as deputy director? Like, what did that inject into the mission,
or or were you were already on that path?
Yeah. I mean, our organization when we founded it, you know, we were just a couple of, I would say, liberty minded individuals who were upset at the status quo and wanted to defend the rights of consumers who want cool stuff, who like technology, who like to travel, who like cheap things, who like to experiment, and, yes, take some risk as it were. Yeah. And I think it it it didn't necessarily change our mission, but it it it definitely made it much more important. And
I thought it was a perfect opportunity to also argue for liberalization, and we did see that. You know, there are a lot of US states that,
you have,
state controlled liquor boards. You know, you have all this kind of thing. And many of those different rules were relaxed
throughout the pandemic because they realized,
oh my. This is actually not helping our citizenry. It's actually much more expensive and makes things much more difficult. So we did see a lot of relaxation there. We saw a little bit of relaxation when it came to
investing and money, and people were throwing their stimulus checks into things like Bitcoin and different meme coins and all the rest. So some things were kind of liberalized, and that's what we were kind of working on behind the scenes as much as possible is creating frameworks, model policies,
you know, putting together press statements, meeting with politicians,
giving examples of how look. Right now, there's this pandemic. Things are going on. We're not gonna be able to control all of this, but you do have at your control as a policymaker, let's say, the ability to make x and y product cheaper and more accessible,
and that will improve the lives of consumers. So we we did that a little bit. There's all kinds of categories of certain things. Some things obviously got worse, but I think overall,
we're much better for it. And once again, with that collective memory in mind, I hope we'll remain vigilant if this ever happens again.
Great great point. And I I, among other things, noted on the consumer choice center's website that one of
the areas of focus was fun police.
And, I take your point that,
you know, there's been a lot of fun policing. And I found it interesting,
and this is, I think, a segue into
the next point I'd like to to discuss with you.
I appreciate the fact that if I understand correctly,
you and the organization are advocating
for, say, things like
vaping.
The and I I I won't make the statement that bluntly or simply, and I'll ask you to add some nuance. But the point being
risk, I'm not a smoker. You know? As as with most, I've I've seen that
wreak havoc on my on my
on my family,
and so we all have our position on that. But, ultimately,
I I stand with, you know, the the position that it's the individual's choice. And so
talk to me a little bit about
where
that sweet spot is. Yeah. I think, you bring up the example of vaping, and I think that's one that's very important. We're talking about vaping nicotine, not necessarily THC.
But this is an industry and a device, and and we sort of see it now as this huge conglomerate industry. You know, but this was started by a couple of hackers.
There was originally a a Chinese pharmacist who had created this kind of prototype, and then
you had a lot of of more tech focused guys who figured out how to
have aerosols
kind of being pushing through nicotine with flavor. This was created as an experiment. It's something that came up out of the market to give people an alternative
to smoking cigarettes,
to actually having to burn tobacco leaves on fire, inhale it, and feel the nicotine that they're addicted to. And the market and these tinkerers and these entrepreneurs
created an alternative, and it actually has, as we know from all the studies now, improved people's lives, and it's removed that element of harm that existed.
So most of our activism related to that is just just let people access this. You know, there are entire countries where vaping is banned, and I can tell you about the influence of Michael Bloomberg and all of his different philanthropies
kind of doing that and
how harmful that's been. But in many jurisdictions,
The US, Canada, many parts of Europe, you know, we're more open to these technologies, and people are using them. There's consumer
uptake,
and people are balancing that risk. You have a place like Sweden where, you know, you had tobacco use, which was very high many, many decades ago.
They tend to use more snus and some of these other products. They found ways to use nicotine,
which people like or people are addicted to, and they were able to consume it in a less harmful way. And that's something the market delivered. Right? It was not a public health institution organization and antiplate
type character centrally planning this in some government bureau. It was the market that delivered it, and now consumers are choosing that. So I think, look, as an individual, you have the absolute right to go out and buy,
a pack of cigars or cigarettes just as you can buy a lottery ticket, just as you can buy, you know, a liter of whiskey.
And you have to practice, if I can go back to Plato and Aristotle, practice your own version of of sort of moderation
and figuring out the balance and understanding risk. And we can have as many educational programs and schools about it, but we have to trust people at the end of the day. Because if we don't allow adults to make their own decisions,
then essentially, it's just some centrally controlled machine or computer nowadays
that will decide for us. And we lose our free will, we lose our autonomy,
and we basically lose the ability to live flourishing lives. And I think that's that's one thing that at least the vaping debate or nicotine pouch debate, it kind of personifies to me. This is just one small area, and many people won't care about this. Most people, you know, who've never smoked or never, touched any tobacco in their lives, it's not a big deal.
But for people who are addicted and are packing, you know, two, three packs of cigarettes for a week or whatever it might be, this is life changing. And to show that there is an alternative path, that some kind of free enterprise system has delivered this, it's something to celebrate. And, far too often, we see too many people who denigrate
technology and all the great things that it brings for us.
Believe me, I'm skeptical of many technologies as well. Sometimes they do go too far, but here, we've actually seen dividends for people's health and people's choices, and I think that's great. That is great. And I I I raised that, and and,
not surprisingly, you've illustrated that wonderfully
that it is
for many perhaps an edge case. You know? Well, why would we? Why would we provide that opportunity, that choice? It's harmful, etcetera, etcetera. But I think it does
characterize
or personify
that individual choice. And I think that that takes me to
a question of,
you know, your your work is all about handing the reins to the individuals as we've just discussed.
On balance, who do today's consumers trust
and why? Take peers, you know, peers, their own peers, people in their networks, people they know.
We're much more likely to try something new, if it's in our social circle.
We're much more inclined to
get interested into something like Bitcoin if somebody we know and we trust talks about it or,
has Bitcoin on them or perhaps it's some new technology,
new type of computer. I mean, we see it as well sociologically with people who have iPhones versus Androids. Right? It'll depend on your social network. It'll depend on who you're in contact with. So I think there's a lot there.
I think for the younger generation, there's a lot of trust that's placed into
what we, unfortunately, would dub influencers and people online. And we can have all types of different
people who are discussing topics or technologies,
and we can learn from their experiences. I mean, I definitely have, particularly in, let's say, the the Bitcoin or the privacy space, I've learned a lot from people who do content and do reviews and show how technologies work and how one thing might be an advantage.
And I think that sort of peer
system
is really what gives me, as an individual,
most of my recommendations and what I follow.
And I think that's one great beautiful thing about the Internet is that it is global, and you can be connected with these people. They don't have to be right there in your neighborhood. It could be just a certain corner of the Internet,
and that I think has provided so much wealth and so much value
for everyone and and really has improved our lives. So it's,
we we have to keep protecting the free and open Internet always.
Always. Always. Well, you know, I I did not hear you name institutions or brands.
Are are is is that out the window in terms of consumer trust? And I presume the older the age bracket, the more perhaps it shifts.
What what's your take on
where institutions
or or brands fall in that spectrum?
Well, we definitely see it with social media. Right? We're much more drawn to individuals than institutions. We're much more likely to read the words of someone who,
let's say, is a a top opinion writer at The Wall Street Journal, let's say. Right? Whatever whatever outlet you prefer.
We're much more attuned to what they say as an individual,
knowing that they have likes and dislikes, and they have a bias, and they're human characters,
much more so than just what The Wall Street Journal says, for instance.
And it's the same with many different companies. You know, we just are
as human beings, we're just much more likely to follow people
knowing all of their flaws, knowing that they also have to deal with the same
logic and the the balance of risk. You know? I think we're just much more as human beings apt to follow that.
And, yeah, it is not institutions. And that that was something that we've learned through the pandemic, and we learned through all types of different financial crises is, do you trust institutions
only? Do you trust people?
Do you trust, you know, those who are in your peer network?
I think we we can learn a lot from particularly how
we're put in those situations and who to follow. And so I don't I think there's still room,
obviously, to trust institutions,
but they have to have
values.
They have to have people who are smart and intelligent
and that we can identify with as human beings to ultimately gain that trust. It's very hard to trust a faceless organization.
Always better to have good, smart people there working there too.
You you took the words right out of my mouth.
And I think in
in that vein, let's talk about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the CFPB,
which, you know, you have spoken out, with regard to and certainly
it is
correct me in the process of being largely or wholly dismantled
in the current,
US administration. What does
the public or otherwise visible tug of war between
rules and innovation,
and you've called out technology specifically,
what does that do to the public's faith
in the sort of scaffolding
that typically we have all leaned on, watching that play out? What does that what does that do
to a consumer's perspective?
I didn't know you were going there, but that's a great question.
I think, overall,
what what a lot of government institutions do is they attach a name to it, and, you know, this goes back to Fritz Lake Bastia. You know? Just because the the state says it does a certain thing and that it's its intention,
it doesn't mean that that's the result. So it's called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the idea is that we protect consumers.
And I think most people take that at face value. Certainly, I would say with the the social media hate that I got after writing and speaking about CFPB and why we're probably right to defang it, I I think people just see that as institution and take it for granted. It's like, okay. Yeah. They're there to protect consumers. It's right. It's it's does what it says on the tin. But as always, you have to look at how is this set up, how does it get its funding, what kind of cases does it do, what's the process.
Let's say I I were screwed as a consumer and something happened. You know, what's the process? What do I have to do? And then it's just also going back to Bastille.
It's the seen and the unseen.
What we see is these kind of record. We say we have $30,000,000,000,
you know, we've returned to consumers, you know, who've been scammed or screwed in some way. Well, that's the scene, but the unseen is that
most of these instances, you know, did not really
level up to that amount. We see that generally with the general litigiousness of The US lawsuit system.
You know, there's all types of lawsuits that are filed against
Apple or Microsoft or Google or
Marriott hotels
every single day.
Many of them don't have merit, and it's somebody who, you know, whatever slipped by the pool because they were running
or, you know, they messed up their device in some way.
And in the at least US society, we've just kind of allowed, alright. We'll let these things happen. We'll settle a few, and that'll just get rid of the annoyance. We don't wanna go to court. We don't wanna battle. That's what CFPB was kind of doing is that it would look at certain players in the financial
markets,
those who offer financial products to consumers, and it would just launch a lawsuit and then hope they would settle.
And you you didn't really have too many actual settled,
lawsuits that were you had a ruling by a judge. Most of it was just settlements. So that's how they got a bunch of money, built up a war chest,
and many of the new innovators, guys who are working with fintech, people who are working with cryptocurrencies, who would like to offer some type of banking system or some ability to use different layers like lightning or liquid.
If they wanted to bring their product to market, they knew they would be right
in the crosshairs
of an agency like CFPB.
So you have documented instances of innovators
holding back their products or their vision
because they're scared of how the government will intervene and regulate them. I think that's what CFPB represents. There are already mechanisms
in society
to crack down on fraud,
on abuse, on, you know, deception when it comes to consumers. We already have agencies. We already have laws. This was a particular agency created just a decade ago
that became this bonafide,
sort of hero of post financial crisis, but really was just an extraction machine.
And, you know, it's it's hard in the world of public policy sometimes to
explain that, because you're dealing with
an organization that has a good reputation at least online. They bring money, but we have to look at the institutional, the structural things, and, like, Bastia, the seen and the unseen, which, unfortunately, in public policy,
most people are very happy, and you just casually put that away.
And and I'm
guessing this goes to the to the core, to the heart of the work that that that you and the team do.
How important is it to raise consciousness awareness of, in this case, CFPB and its
arguable
pointlessness, if not if not harm? Is it worthwhile work
to
direct consumers, to to direct individuals
to,
those organizations, those institutions perhaps that that are on mission and do deserve trust,
or
maybe cynically is it a lost cause because everyone's tuned out? Well, I think it is worth it only because
not everybody is motivated to do that type of work, and not everybody is willing to question the status quo. And I think that's what most people need more of is they need a healthy skepticism
of centralized power.
Notice I said centralized power. I did not say just government power or private power. We just need to have skepticism of people who have power and
those institutions and how they're created. And I think that's kind of what has always motivated me and definitely motivates my colleagues,
and we just need to have that awareness. I think that's why I started out my career as a journalist. I was very passionate about it. You know, it's one of the only jobs
that exist in the constitution.
Freedom of the press, first amendment.
And the ability to have a check on centralized power is, I think, one of the best things that we've been able to, at least in Western liberal democracies,
been able to protect because it means that we have an alternative narrative from that just to power.
And if you have organizations such as mine or many others that do great work, I think we need to have that. We need to be able to keep people in check. You know, the pricing mechanism is one way that you keep things in check on the private market.
How do you judge institutions?
How do you judge governments? You know, that's why you need logical arguments. You need to have political debates. You need to have
analysis about what they're affecting, how much they cost. I think you do need to have that. And I think a lot of the work that I do, again, I view it as an extension of just
journalism
and uncovering the truth and being sure to practice that freedom of the press
that, at least in The US constitution
for now,
is protected
and recognized. There's a lot there. I, there's a hundred questions I could ask you, but
let's let's shift a bit
to Bitcoin Policy Institute. You are a visiting fellow and have been, I believe, since '22, '20 '3?
'20 '3. But I'm now a fellow. I'm no longer physicist. I'm brilliant.
Excellent. Well, I I just have to I have the great pleasure of counting Steven Pollock as a dear friend.
Big big fan of his, big fan of the organization,
have been delighted to support them.
You know, we we've talked so far quite a bit about how policy
lags or stumbles behind tech,
especially with things like Bitcoin.
At least half
of the political apparatus in The US
had been hoping to kill it.
And we've we've mentioned CFPB.
How does that lag between policy and technology innovation
sort of shape the
street cred
of the relevant institutions?
That is a, I think, a pinnacle question.
And, just on Nostra the other day, I published an article,
something about meme coins and, you know, Bitcoin policies, and I had some anons who were not too happy. You know, there are policies. What are you talking about? Policies with cryptocurrencies
and Bitcoin. Yeah. What are you talking about? Protocol. What's policy going on? What are you talking about?
And I think this is where,
you know, most people who are not in the political process, you know, kinda just view Bitcoin policies like, okay. This is what we want government to do.
That's not it. It's the complete opposite.
What people are trying to do who are advocates of a technology like Bitcoin, let's say,
our
role, our goal is to limit the actions of what the government can do.
And that is so different. What we're talking about is not rules to govern individuals' behavior. It's rules to govern the behavior of governmental institutions which restrict our liberties.
And that is for so many people difficult to understand.
It's this kind of positive law
aspect that grew from the progressive era from FDR,
this kind of notion that we need to regulate society, provide the rules, and then people act rather
than the point of the rules is to govern the institutions,
and then the people are free to make their own decisions.
So for especially Bitcoin policy,
Bitcoin can exist and will exist and will be very strong without any government rule.
The problem now is not that there are not enough government rules, it's that the rules that are on the books are themselves restrictive of the technology.
I'll give you an example. It's just for taxation purposes.
If we finish this up and,
you know, I wanna pay you for a video project, and I wanna send you, you know, $2,000
worth of Bitcoin
and you receive that, you technically
have just received money that is a taxable transaction, and you'll have to put that in your IRS kind of tax statement at the end of the year. That is something that's governed by US tax law.
Now how do we change that? What do we do? What's the particular section
that we can do? How can we increase the amount
so that the threshold is much higher so that these kind of transactions are not taxable events, and we can use Bitcoin as intended as just sound money between people as money? And I think that's what a lot of the focus of of Bitcoin policy is.
Do we need positive laws?
You can probably think of some, but most of the time, we just need the government to be restrained and allow individuals and firms to come up with solutions.
I I mentioned the de minimis thing. There's also Mhmm. The ability for banks to hold Bitcoin, the ability for liquidity service providers
to be able to not have to KYC their users.
That is something that restrains them right now and also means that
many of the great lightning products that might exist in Europe don't exist in The United States.
So it's these kind of things to where
the goal is not to
try to craft policy and figure out ways, you know, that the individuals can be better governed to make better decisions about Bitcoin. It's just restraining the government and allowing the protocol
to exist and thrive,
and nobody be penalized for using it, including
developers of technologies like samurai wallet or things on other chains like Tornado Cash. These are just kind of the examples. And some key examples. And this is seen at the state level, by the way, a lot.
This is something that, the left and the right, politically have been very good at. It's called preemption laws. So examples on the right include,
no locality
is allowed to ban plastic bags, for instance.
So this is something that has been put in place in many Republican states. And then you have on the other side, let's say the left, it's okay. No locality is able to ban cannabis sales if we've legalized cannabis. So these are preemption laws instituted at the state level
that, you know, again, are not governing individual behavior.
They're governing the behavior of jurisdictions and institutions
beneath them. And I think that is just a beautiful
part of the American experiment and the way that the constitution is written and how law is structured,
and we've adhered much more to natural law and to restricting institutions,
particularly in sort of
US, Canada,
some parts of Europe, than many other countries. And I think that that is something that we don't talk about enough
is that the American constitution specifically
protects so much of Bitcoin
already. You know, it's not there's no new law needed.
We just take it and apply it to the twenty first century model, and we know that this code is speech, and it is protected. I think the idea it is interesting as I was listening to you to think about
how
foreign alien
the idea of restraint
with regard to the government has become at least in in I feel like my circles in The US,
and I think it's a really important point to to clarify
is that much of this work if not all of this work is is focused on restraint.
How much does
the lack of restraint historically
and,
perhaps that changes, how much has that lack of restraint and that
overt involvement, if not interference,
flowed the adoption of Bitcoin? Yeah. I think it's definitely been restricted, and, you know, I was an early local Bitcoins.com
user.
I was living in in Florida at the time in Saint Petersburg, beautiful city. I was there too much too soon in my life. But,
wonderful place.
When I was living there, that's when I got very interested into Bitcoin. You know, it was, like, late two thousand twelve, early '2 thousand '13,
and they had this website, LocalBitcoins.
And, you know, at the time, I think the only website that existed was Coinbase.
But if you wanted to, you could go log on to LocalBitcoins.
You could find
somebody at a cafe, and they'd be willing to exchange cash, Bitcoin, you know, either way. And I I use sites like that, you know, also in Europe, and I thought it was great. And and you talk about, you know, which laws have restricted Bitcoin. I think if we just go to the root of it all, it is the Bank Secrecy Act.
And this law that was passed in the nineteen seventies, why is this important? It has to do with banks.
Well, yes. But it also makes it much more difficult for you to create a type of Bitcoin or cryptocurrency
exchange
so that people can acquire it. Because that's the number one question someone who's never touched Bitcoin
has is, okay. How do I get this? What's the process?
Alright. Well, you go to this website, and you have to provide your ID. You need to provide your address.
Both have to match. You have to take a picture. That's all required
by the Bank Secrecy Act. Again, been around since the nineteen seventies. And each of these exchanges have limits on the amount that you're able to buy or transfer
without
sufficient documentation.
And the limits on banks, everyone knows this number is $10,000.
So you send over $10,000,
it triggers a suspicious activity report.
Well, most people don't know that for cryptocurrency exchanges, things like Coinbase, Binance,
Strike, Cash App. If you send over $2,500,
that also triggers a suspicious activity report because they are actually
targeted as money transmission
services.
So those are parts of the law that have been applied to Bitcoin
sort of after the fact,
and they kind of kept updating the law to say, okay. Well, now for
any digital assets service
in order to exchange fiat, you know, we need to put these restrictions on there. And that is where you've had a lot of people who haven't been able to get Bitcoin. And a lot of times, it was, you know, I'm a college student.
The address that's on my license is not where I live. I don't have, like, a lease.
I'm I'm just not able to prove my identity.
And I think those are things that I've really that did keep the Bitcoin network from growing, at least in terms of user adoption because people couldn't get it. And
I'll be frank. Not everybody is willing to go to a cafe and meet someone and exchange, you know, cash for Bitcoin or whatever it might be. A lot of people are just not that intellectually curious to dive into something. We want things to be easy, and we want things to to be
in the good model of consumer choice,
simple and easy, and we reduce as many barriers as possible. And I think
once
Bitcoin exchanges,
crypto exchanges, and now liquidity service providers, custodians generally, once the Bank Secrecy Act stuff was applied to this, it made it much more difficult.
So it's like the law caught up to the technology
but did so in a worse way. So I think that is one clear example, at least for me. Absolutely. I mean, a personal professional anecdote. I
began working in Bitcoin
in 2020,
was running business development for Bottlepay. You may may know out of The UK, we were acquired by NYDIG,
found myself,
leading business development for the Lightning Payments sort of group or function within the company.
And
the vast majority of my time was spent with banks as was our
larger teams.
And since the choke point two point o unredacted or semi redacted,
documents, you know, flowed into the public, you will see NYDIG. And I don't speak for them,
any longer. But you will see names of the banks that we were working with, that we had
fantastic, you know, beta programs and trials with. And ultimately, the whole thing came falling down because they just weren't given the explicit permission
despite the fact that every bit of research indicated and those who don't want banks to have anything to do with the bit you know, with Bitcoin at all, you know, close your ears.
But the reality is most consumers, and you can correct or back this up, I think, would prefer
to acquire it to buy, sell, hold
from their existing financial institutions. And so,
that is all to say that I saw firsthand, you know, the the
tremendous
slowdown or impact that that had on consumer adoption, at least in The US.
So with that, Yale,
let's talk about stablecoins. Let's let's dig a little more into the, into the controversial,
material. I mean, you have covered
senator Lummis and others'
proposed legislation about this.
There appears to be with the current administration
a big push into stablecoins.
To what degree
is that
necessary
on the path
perhaps to to broader
hard money adoption,
specifically Bitcoin,
or to what degree
does it just reclaim control,
to the usual parties? I I there is definitely an element of control, and, you know, the specific bill you're talking about is called the Genius Act,
sort of this past committee.
Will go to the senate floor probably any day now, maybe once this goes out.
And what I found troublesome about this bill
again, this is independent of any thoughts of stablecoins generally.
Essentially, it
it requires that all those k y c provisions that we mentioned before are applied to every stablecoin transaction.
Okay. That's a no go.
And then second, the Federal Reserve just has the power to basically veto
any attempt at launching or issuing a stablecoin, which,
again, what's the whole point of the Federal Reserve? I thought that it was this independent entity that had nothing to do with kind of the larger thing.
Those of us who were very much into Ron Paul, you know, in 02/2008 and 02/2009,
we we know differently. But I think what
the argument that we're kinda seeing, there are many people who are passionate about this as
purely an American dominance strategy.
You know, Tether, which is one of the large stablecoin,
sort of providers or protocols,
They're one of the largest purchasers of US treasuries. Those treasuries are bonds. It's US debt. They buy a lot of debt. A lot of US debt. All that debt that we talk about, $36,000,000,000,000
that DOGE is trying to kind of nibble at, you know, a lot of that is owned by
some of these stablecoin companies, things like Tether. Is the number two holder. Is that right? If I understand that. Well, amongst sovereigns,
if we include governments and stuff, it's like number 11. But probably in terms of an institution, likely. Yeah. But in terms of countries, I think Tether is, like, just behind Luxembourg, which is really interesting.
But I think they are
what what will be the relevancy
for Bitcoin and for sovereign money and for, you know, separation of money and state? I'm not quite sure. Right? It I think it's a lot about just technological
evolution of money.
One path that the European Union is following is, and I'll probably bring you reports in a couple of months, is there is a central bank digital currency, the digital euro, which is launching in the fall.
Now
private banks don't want this, right, because they're cut out of the equation. Cut out. Right. There's individual citizens, I think, don't want it either because they don't wanna be tracked and traced and everything else. And these are all other debates that you can have, But I I think it's at least interesting to see how we allow our existing
very heavily regulated institutions like banks to deal with the new digital age of cryptocurrencies.
If stablecoins are just the kind of onboarding,
and then they can also deal with Bitcoin, and they can also be an important node in the network,
fine. You know? They're they can run a node just like I can. And, you know, our nodes are equal. Theirs are not, you know, any more powerful than mine. You know? We're just there verifying the blocks, and that's it. Per node. Exactly. So, yeah, I don't, take any larger lessons from it. Obviously, my colleague, Matthew Pine, has done great writing on this and, has provided very good advice to the Trump administration.
I'm not a user necessarily of stablecoins.
I think for most people in the developed
world,
we don't really need stablecoins.
I think it is something for the developing world,
where they do have terribly inflationary currencies that are very bad and make their lives worse.
But, yeah, I'll be interested to see how this kind of evolves. But I do think it's just the
the launching pad for a lot of the traditional financial institutions to eventually get to Bitcoin. They will realize as much as we do, I think, its value.
Well, close to closer to your backyard
in in in the EU,
do you think there's an awareness
of
the tremendous risks, I would say, of central bank digital currencies, a,
and does that bleed over
into
consumers'
views, trust, or lack thereof
of Bitcoin
specifically and perhaps
stablecoins
more broadly?
Well, yeah. I mean, if you look at the heart of Europe, you know, the largest, most populous country, obviously, is Germany.
And Germany and where I am in Austria,
these are technically societies that are very skeptical
of digitized money. You know, if you look at, just the charts of people who invest, you know, Austria is one of the lowest investing countries in the world because people mostly buy gold.
They buy gold and they use cash.
So we have many different areas, you know, where I live. If I go around, I'm I have to have cash because they don't accept the bank cards. They don't wanna touch it. So there has always been this skepticism, and that's from, you know, Weimar Republic, hyperinflation, world wars. There's this kind of innate skepticism that exists when it comes to money. You know, if it's not something I can touch, not something hard,
that is not something that I trust.
So I think there's generally gonna be skepticism of a digital euro.
The problem in the European Union is you just don't have the mechanism necessarily to oppose it. I know it sounds weird, but
many scholars who study EU stuff know there's a term called democratic deficit.
It's not an actual full democracy. It's not necessarily a republic.
There's a commission
which is elected
based on the votes of who's in parliament. It's it's a very strange kind of supranational
government that's a bit removed from what people vote on. So even if we are very much against the digital euro and there I probably register there are tens of millions,
they're still gonna try to push it for
individuals, then it's just incumbent upon them to use the different technologies.
And I've been asked about this before. You know, there's a good friend of mine, Nikolaus Yesh, who's a great Bitcoin podcaster,
who's here in Austria.
Nico. He's dealt with that too. Yeah. Nico. He's great. Yeah. And he's been able to to kinda demystify that because he knows these financial types. He knows these regulators. He knows the guys at the big banks,
and he knows that the general public is skeptical of just digital money
numbers on a screen anyway.
And I think that's why learning about how nodes work, learning about how your public key and your private key works and seed phrases, you know, to understand that there's a bit more complexity just under that layer, I think that's just the next level of education. I think that's why educators are important.
It's why
podcasters are important. It's why, you know, talking about this stuff and informing
not just policymakers,
but users is really important. And with that,
what does good governance look like? If if, let's assume,
in the most charitable interpretation,
a regulatory body, a government
wishes to
earn
back the trust and earn back the right
to
regulate, to govern,
what are the tenets that that
you propose,
that you
espouse, that you would advise are?
I think the most important thing is it just if citizens don't have to think about it.
Right? There's no scandal. There's no way it's making our lives worse or more expensive.
It just kind of does its function
and
delivers
or somehow changes public goods, and that's it.
And there are no larger debates. I think this is a major problem that happens once you socialize,
public health systems, for instance, is that
normal ordinary things that would happen between,
doctors and patients, you know, are elevated to huge levels of the bureaucracy, and it becomes a political thing. It's things to vote on, and what's the government budget, and then my taxes are go you know, as as soon as you
increase
the kind of grasp of of the state into a particular activity,
it means that it renders all of that to a kind of democratic debate.
And, naturally,
just because of how things work once they get bigger,
a lot of dysfunction. So I think you wanna have effective institutions,
but those that we don't have to think about. And I think many Scandinavian countries are actually fairly good at this. They have fairly small governments.
They are able to deliver their services, and that's it. You know, great Baltic and Northern European states like Estonia
are just wonderful. Very small put, footprint,
technologically savvy.
People know what's what. There's no complicated bureaucracy that you have to deal with. Everything is online,
and nobody has to debate about that. You can actually just live your life. You can start your business. You can raise your family and make your own decisions. And I think that's ultimately the goal of what we should as advocates push for is the ability to take
more of those decisions ourselves
and not have it be this huge public thing, big institutions,
elections, all of all of the time.
Not everything has to be rendered to a huge nationwide vote.
And we as consumers make billions of decisions a day, and we should be empowered to do that more, not less. And I think that's why the health care example, I think, is so important and, one I know that, you're passionate about too.
Very poignant.
And I, you know, I'm an American, and in that I enjoy, as you are, a tremendous amount of
of
benefit.
But I hear you say things,
like not having to think about it and not having to worry about what some government agency may and it's it's fantastical to me. I found myself just struggling, like, drifting off into what would that be like?
But it is so common sense and yet challenging.
Hopefully, we're headed more in that direction.
So from
government orgs,
agencies, regulators,
to private markets, to businesses.
Yeah. If you were
advising
someone, let's say, in consumer products, perhaps they're they're heading up a product line, a brand if they're a a CXO, what have you,
how do they re earn trust? What are some of the tenants,
behaviors
that you see,
and maybe you have examples of of companies doing this well? What does good look like in that regard?
Yeah. I mean, if I if I knew fully, you know, I'd be a millionaire in having all my own companies.
Yeah. So you would definitely be here. You'd be out you'd be out building those products. Yeah. No. I'd I'd be on a boat somewhere. I think, generally, it just comes down to, you know, let people test and use it. I think that's why
keep coming back to Bitcoin, but you're able to run it yourself, test it. And increasingly with many of these LLMs and AI,
you know, for most people, it's just gonna be a click on chadgpt.com.
But for those who are just a little technically savvy, you can actually run this on your own computer. You know, if you have a NAS or if you have something else, you can actually see how this works. And I think that gives people a lot of trust. It allows them to tinker, allows them to change things.
So, yeah, just generally,
the advice is just to,
you know, allow people to be part of that story and to put some skin in the game. You know, I think it's obviously, it's it's great. People love things like Apple products or,
you know, let's say Tesla cars or whatever it might be, and they like it because it improves their life, and they're able to customize things how they want.
And I I couldn't tell you a grand strategy as to reach out to all the consumers because I'm still looking to do that myself with my public policy research. Absolutely.
But but surely,
allowing people to have some skin in the game to, you know, modify, customize.
I mean, that's one great thing about the Internet is that everything can be so tailored and targeted,
and we really like that. You know? Would you have a right to repair in that? I mean, to what degree when you mentioned Apple and Tesla, brilliant
products,
but largely sealed black boxes, how much does the ability to open that box, open that lid,
and see inside and tinker, does that matter these days? Does anyone care? I'm so I'm asked about right to repair more than anything.
I it's interesting,
sort of as,
you know, I I grew up my my dad was a NASCAR mechanic, so, obviously, I'm big into cars and secondary parts. And, you know, if you have something breakdown, you wanna be able to just order a part, and it's fine. You don't have to go to the dealership.
But, you know, if you're an entrepreneur making a product, you know, are you having to render every part of your process to some open tender system
so that anybody can offer the I mean, you have your vision if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a business owner, your vision of doing things and you're hoping to sell it.
What part of it do you need to cut open so that other people can also offer products?
At the same time as a consumer, yes. I'd love to be able to use third party things with Apple devices. There's so I think
there's not a clear cut answer.
I there are many bills in Congress that where this has been debated and people figuring out. And there are egregious examples,
John Deere tractors and things like this. Certainly.
Yeah. I I don't know the right answer. On the tractor was not on my bingo card.
Yeah. Especially that. And, you know, intellectual property is something that is actually fairly important. And, you know,
if you look at the difference between
China and, Western Europe and The United States, you know, we have a kind of intellectual
property system that
protects many profits and benefits for innovators,
and that is actually carried down to consumers.
How is it so different in China? What are they doing? You know, what kind of intellectual property theft is there? Whole complicated thing. I know many of the Randians and the Ayn Rand crowd might agree or disagree with that. There's Yes. Indeed. You you different ways to think about it. Read my mind on that one. I mean, you know, I think about Disney and what I would argue, I have a background as well in media entertainment music,
and
the ability to lobby to continue to extend
those protections. And that's another
example right there, and you bring it up perfectly, is that too much of lobbying is just in getting protections
for your business and for carving out part of the market just for you and rent seeking.
Yeah. And I hope that's what Bitcoin allows us to go around
because it is an open network and an open protocol.
And I I hopefully, we can take more of that attitude with other sectors of the economy and other parts of our society and render everything to competition. But I guess it's just one step at a time.
Indeed. Well, on that, I'd I'd love to close,
yeah, with maybe some examples, your thoughts on
what what gives you hope? What,
what examples beyond perhaps Bitcoin do you see
as heading in the right direction, as promising with regard to engendering trust among consumers and doing the right thing, however you would define that?
Yeah. I think, I've been, you know, living and working in in different countries and settings and being able to travel. And,
I think just generally technological prod progress the way that is going is just so beneficial for humanity. And we do get always locked in these kind of struggles of things are so hard or this isn't working.
But, you know, the amount that you as an individual are able to travel and see the world as compared to two generations ago,
you just can't compare it. And the things that you're able to learn, the things that you're able to access, the value you're able to transfer,
and the type of work that you're going to have now and in the future, and the ability to act on your ideas or your entrepreneurial
projects or wishes.
It's just infinite.
And I think that's something that we don't often sit back and realize. You know, it was not more than two generations ago that we would have been stuck in factories. Most of us just kind of plugging away our nine to five and not have many other options. But
now because of the Internet, because of technology, because of innovations,
we're able to live these lives. You know, there are people who roam around the globe living on Bitcoin, being able to transfer value,
not having to go through strange KYC processes, able to run their businesses from an Asian beach
or some interesting place in Colombia. I think this this is something that is not just for certain people who are well-to-do.
It's for everyone.
And that's what I'm very hopeful about is that technology is getting better
as long as we remain principled,
as long as we,
you know, hold back some of the institutions
that will make our lives worse and try to take control and take decisions away from us. We can remain free as individuals.
We can actually benefit from that flourishing and that progress,
and it's something that I know I benefit from each and every day.
I'm able to learn about things. I'm able to travel. I'm able to meet people,
and I think that just makes me much better as a human being and
makes me makes me realize that,
my daughters and everyone that comes after me, they're gonna have great lives too. So it always gives me a a lot of motivation.
Well, cheers to that. Absolutely. It's a great great way and a great place to wrap it up. I will, of course, I'll have your relevant links in the show notes.
With regard to your work,
BPI, consumer choice center, your individual writing,
where is the best place to to follow you specifically?
Yeah. I just have it all over there on yael.ca.
You can just follow there as my main website and
Bitcoin writing. On Nostril, I'm pretty easy to find as well. Yael, I'll go over to you. Yeah.
Please do. It's a very interesting network of people there, some haters, some lovers,
and you as well. It's great. Yeah. We we've got it all.
Well, it's been a pleasure, Kyle. I appreciate it. Thanks so much for taking the time, and I will look forward to following,
particularly
some of these pressing Bitcoin and stablecoin issues that you're tracking and, your work in general. Thanks again. Thank you very much, Sean. You do give me a little bit of a trust revolution, so thank you. Cheers to that. Bye bye.