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This addresses the issues of people who are being spied on and politically debanked and censored.

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And it addresses the issues of people who are being debased, rugged, and devalued.

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The things that affect the most people, billions of people.

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Taking that big red button away from authoritarians and government officials where they can just say,

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Oh, we're going to make your time and labor worth less.

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How do we rebel?

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How do we resist with Bitcoin?

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You don't see the bigger picture, which is a global revolution happening with tens, if not hundreds of millions of people where we are taking power back.

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That's a life or death scenario for a lot of people.

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We are pushing the freedom virus forward and it's spreading and there's no stopping it.

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Mr. Gladstein, how are you doing?

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I'm great. How are you?

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I'm very good.

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We're here in Nashville.

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I know.

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We've got the HRF Global Bitcoin Summit coming up.

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Yeah, last time I saw you, we were in Indonesia.

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We were in Bali.

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So I was in your part of the world.

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Roughly.

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It's still like a five-hour flight, but it's as close as you get.

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Closer than the USA.

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That's for sure.

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We did a lot of surfing.

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Yeah, we did some surfing and saw a lot of local Bitcoin adoption, which we can get into.

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I want to know, because I was with you there for a week or so, and then you went off and

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did a bit of a tour around Southeast Asia.

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What was that like?

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Yeah. So one of the things we've been doing at the Human Rights Foundation is taking an alliance of some of our stakeholders, some of the world's leading human rights activists, some of the world's leading Bitcoin developers and builders, and traveling together in a particular part of the world for, let's call it a week or two to just see what global Bitcoin adoption is up to.

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and in this particular case,

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we were doing Southeast Asia.

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So we started in Indonesia.

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We got to see the Bitcoin Indonesia conference,

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which was really interesting

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and kind of more importantly,

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saw the center that they have there,

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which is this very cool

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like three to four story learning center

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with an outdoor amphitheater

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and really impressive, consistent programming.

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It's a really cool space.

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And they're doing programming all the time,

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both in Indonesian and in English

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and other languages.

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and they are pumping out Bitcoiners there.

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So that was quite something to see.

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And from there, we went up to Malaysia

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and we had some meetings with people in the government there,

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which was really interesting

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just to get a sense of kind of where they are on Bitcoin.

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And some of us in the group were very interested

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in the whole thesis that Harris Irfan and Alan Farrington

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are kind of spearheading in terms of Bitcoin

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as Islamic money or halal money.

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And that's very relevant in Malaysia.

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We also met with Malaysian Bitcoin community.

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we got to meet the folks building the Frostnaps, which is a Malaysian creation, or at least partly

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made in Malaysia. He's an Aussie, isn't he? Lloyd. Yes, but one of his co-founders in Malaysian.

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And they're doing some of the work there, some of the manufacturing there. And it was quite

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interesting to see that live. We were able to obtain them and start using them. And I think

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that's a really clever way to do multisig. So that was neat. From there, we went up to Chiang Mai,

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where we got to visit Jimmy Castro's Bitcoin Learning Center,

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which was fantastic.

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I think it's probably one of the most well-made

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and thoughtful Bitcoin hubs, community spaces in the world.

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I mean, it's almost the same quality as Bitcoin Park,

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but it's in Chiang Mai.

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And it's like three floors, and you enter down a street,

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and it has a street sign.

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It's like, Bitcoin Learning Center, this way.

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and there's this really cool street mural

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of all kinds of sort of Thai culture

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mashed up with Bitcoin.

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And you get there and there's a gigantic flag

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20 feet high that just has freedom on it.

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And you go in and it's got a Bitcoin ATM

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that accepts eCash.

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It's got giant like white paper poster.

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It's got a beautiful podcast studio.

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It has an event space, super high end.

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And they're really positioned well

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because they're right in the middle of China,

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Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand.

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So right in the heart of Southeast Asia.

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So, so many people from those countries

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come there to learn more.

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So that was very impressive.

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I was speaking to Jimmy a little bit when we were in Bali.

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You were saying they get a lot of people come across from Laos.

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And Burma.

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So they have classes in both of those languages.

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And I think the way they basically do it is because there's a lot of expats there too.

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I met a bunch of people who founded Bitcoin companies who live there.

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But basically, they'll do classes in Thai.

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They'll do classes in English, and they just rotate.

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From there, we went down to Bangkok and we visited Bob Space, founded by Piccolo and friends, which is really quite cool.

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Because there, they're focusing more on the sort of deep tech and privacy tech and self-sovereignty tech.

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We got to see some of the presentations from some of their grantees.

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It's basically an incubator.

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And we've been supporting that.

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So that's been a lot of fun.

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And so when you were in, was it Malaysia you spoke to the government?

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We spoke to someone who is in the ruling party at a very high level.

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Okay.

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But is someone who is a friend of ours from a long time ago.

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The background is that the leader of Malaysia today used to be a political prisoner.

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Oh, I didn't know.

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And was put in prison by his predecessor.

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And his name is Anwar Ibrahim, and he's now prime minister.

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And we helped work on Anwar's case when Anwar was a political prisoner.

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And he spoke at the Oslo Freedom Forum, the event we do in Norway.

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in 2010. And we helped on his case when he was put in prison after that. And now he got out and now

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he's leading the country. So they're trying to figure out their digital asset strategy. And,

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you know, CZ is being very aggressive there. But it's good to know that there's some people who

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are thinking, you know, very clearly about Bitcoin. But, you know, it's a tough situation

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for most of these folks because there's so many competing interests coming to them, right?

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Everybody wants a piece, you know?

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But it was good to go and provide some straightforward talk on why Bitcoin.

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And I imagine there's a lot of people trying to throw money at them to do things that are in their interest.

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Oh, CZ, yeah, of course.

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But he must get the necessity for freedom money with his background, you would imagine.

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I think we're going to get there.

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You know, I think it's just a tough road, but I think we get there.

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And in any event, to kind of marry that point to Thailand,

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And after we visited Bob's base, we did an event at the Thai parliament, which is a spectacular building and very storied history in Thailand of democracy and then no democracy and military coup and democracy again and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

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And we were there at the behest of a guy named Thanatorn, who is one of the opposition leaders of the country.

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And he actually won his party sort of won an election during COVID time, like 2020, 2021.

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and he was one of the leaders of that new government

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and he walked into parliament

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and was only a formal leader for a few minutes.

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And then the sort of military government

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and the royals and some other sort of regime forces

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kind of dissolved his party.

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So they also sort of tried to ban him for life

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from running for political office.

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And they do this to like anyone

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who really threatens the system.

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But now he's still working away.

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And even though he can't personally be

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you know, a contender, his colleagues are,

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and they look like they're gonna be very competitive

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in the election in February.

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And do they have free and fair elections?

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No, but the question is,

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at what point will they respect the will of the people?

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And it's not this sort of North Korea type thing.

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Like it is very possible that in February

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they win so overwhelmingly

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that the old guard has to negotiate.

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So it's gonna be very interesting.

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But that person, you know,

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is very interested in Bitcoin

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And that group of people is very interested in Bitcoin.

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So we got to do an event in front of media, human rights groups, all sorts of people from across Thai society.

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And we talked about Bitcoin and we talked about Noster.

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And instead of the usual, well, you know, that you encounter in the United States or in Australia or in the UK, isn't it criminal money?

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Or what about the, no, none of that.

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Just, I want to know more.

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Tell me more.

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Can we use it for fundraising?

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You know, can we use it to raise money for political parties?

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Can we use it to get money to sister countries?

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Can protesters use it?

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It was fascinating.

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They just didn't have any of the financial privilege that blinds, I think, Western politicians and Western civil society people and Western NGOs.

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They were much more like, we are hearing what you're saying and we want to know more.

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And it was fascinating.

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And I think that country is going to be one of the leaders, I think, in the next decade in terms of Bitcoin adoption by just different parts of the country there.

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in Bitcoin adoption.

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What kind of form?

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Because like,

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are they thinking of

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a strategic Bitcoin reserve

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in a way of like...

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No, no, no.

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Operationally.

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Okay.

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Remember, they're not in government.

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Now, once they come into government,

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we don't know what that looks like.

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But right now,

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they're an opposition movement.

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So they need to fund

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political parties

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and election monitoring

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and, you know,

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civil movements

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all across the country.

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They need to fund lawyers.

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They need to fund

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people who've been debanked.

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They need to work

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with sister groups

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in other countries

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that are even more

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hardcore dictatorships.

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like Cambodia and Burma.

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So for them, it's an operational tool.

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They're not thinking about it as like a financial asset for their economy.

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So you weren't talking to them about the IMF book you wrote

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and ways that they can get out of those kind of perpetual debts and things like that?

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No, I mean, I think that that's a conversation for once they're in power, right?

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So this is about Bitcoin is Freedom Money

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for people who are critics of the current government and who are opponents.

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Once you're in power, then those are different factors and different considerations.

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I mean, I think there's no way you could have segued that better into your latest piece,

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Why Bitcoin is Freedom Money.

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I needed this piece.

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Like we've spoken about this on the podcast before, but with like the growing just constant

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talk of sort of the financialization of Bitcoin as being used in different power structures,

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it's nice to hear a piece about freedom money again.

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Because when I was first getting interested in Bitcoin, that was the narrative.

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And it seems to have fallen back a little bit to this, you know, how it's infiltrating

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Wall Street or those kinds of conversations.

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I mean, up through 2018, 19, it really was.

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And then we've had, you know, the sailorization and the Wall Streetization and the BlackRockization

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and the ETFization of Bitcoin.

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And I listened to the show you did with Pete Rizzo and it was interesting because he was

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talking about the different narratives and who holds power in each cycle.

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And I think in that case, he's reading it correctly.

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There's a current narrative that is very dominant now that Bitcoin is a financial asset alone and that people don't really like to talk about the freedom properties.

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And that's so different from the early, the first decade, you know, essentially.

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But the original use case for Bitcoin remains the use case.

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You know, the first actual documented probably real life use case for Bitcoin outside of people experimenting with it in a small scale was probably WikiLeaks.

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Fundraising in Bitcoin when their fiat rails were shuttered.

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And that continues to be the use case for Bitcoin in my view.

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So for background, I didn't choose the title, which is really quite nice that they chose one that I like.

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I think another contender was, why do dictators detest Bitcoin?

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Which also would have been good.

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But this one, this is a classic.

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So happy they chose why Bitcoin is freedom money.

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Just for background, the Journal of Democracy is a top 10 global academic journal in political science.

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When I was a political science student 20 years ago, it was one of the things we read all the time in our classes.

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And we would use these chapters and essays in this journal, which is a quarterly, as core texts in our work.

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So this essay is going to be read by a lot of students and a lot of teachers, which I was very excited to see.

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It's also a top academic journal.

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It is also very establishment.

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It's not some sort of radical thing. It's actually something that is funded by the U.S. Congress, not the White House or, let's say, the State Department or something like that.

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But essentially when the idea of America as a – and obviously we can differ about the effectiveness or the, let's say, the honesty of it.

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But, you know, a lot of American bodies were set up to promote democracy during – especially during the Cold War, right?

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And one of them was the National Endowment for Democracy, which has a budget of $200-$300 million a year.

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And one of the things that it works on is this project, which is a journal.

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And they publish debates and discourse about, you know, the evolution or the regression of democracy.

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So it was actually here last year that the editor in Nashville at the Global Bitcoin Summit, I brought him here as a guest, a friend of ours, Sergei Popovich, who's an activist.

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to help to bring down the Milosevic regime in Serbia in the 90s peacefully without a shot fired Serge introduced me to this person and this person came here and started to get very interested in Bitcoin and Bitcoin related stuff

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And in the time since they published about a year and a half ago, like a small blog type

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post for me on their website that was very popular.

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And this spring, they invited me to do a full essay in their print edition, which I was

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super excited about. It's long. It's like 8,500 words, but it gave me the space to run in terms of

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I wanted to go deep into essentially the historic backdrop. How did money move from an instrument

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of freedom to a tool of control, which, you know, is I think hinted at a lot in Lin Alden's essay.

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Why is there a banking crisis in human rights work today? Case studies. Let's look at Afghanistan.

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Let's look at Togo. Let's look at Cuba. Let's look at Hong Kong. Let's look at Belarus. Let's

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at some of these other places. I wanted to look at FUD and I wanted to kind of tackle some of the

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biggest FUD that I thought academics and students and NGOs would be facing, which largely revolved

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around things like volatility, lack of adoption by merchants, the environment piece, and the

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criminality piece. So I tackle all of that in the essay. A very important thing that a lot of

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academics asked me to put in here is why Bitcoin and not crypto or blockchain. So I have a whole

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section on why Bitcoin and not crypto or blockchain. And in fact, if someone says they're

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doing something with crypto or blockchain, but can't be specific, huge red flag, huge red flag

287
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right away. In fact, anyone who really uses the word blockchain outside of a highly technical

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discourse about Bitcoin, a massive red flag, obviously, if someone has like a, you know,

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the word blockchain in their X profile or LinkedIn, just immediately dismiss this person.

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I mean, I literally recently brought on an assistant to help me with just running things.

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And one of the things that I gave them advice on in terms of like monitoring inbox and stuff is if it says defile blockchain, just-

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No, just immediate.

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Discard it.

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But I had to say that, right?

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And then a little bit about the fact that this is not some experiment.

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This is a huge global movement where I was relying on some of the data from the recent Cornell study, global Bitcoin adoption, 25,000 respondents in dozens of countries.

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And, you know, looking at sales of hardware wallets, which is way past 10 million.

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and then looking at downloads of self-custodial phone wallets, tens of millions, and looking at just exchange filings.

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And even Coinbase alone has more than 100 million users.

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And, you know, obviously a majority of them use Bitcoin.

301
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So we're talking about tens, if not hundreds of millions of people here at one stop or another on their Bitcoin journey.

302
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Yeah. Now, most of them are at the beginning where they don't really quite understand it and they maybe view it as something to trade.

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but still they've begun the journey and then the journey goes from there and if you've got more than

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10 million people buying you know the top couple uh hardware wallet manufacturers that actually

305
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release numbers I mean the real numbers are bigger than that but you know we're talking about

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serious numbers of people around the world who are self self-custodial Bitcoin users in a true

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sense. And this thing is revolutionizing human rights work. And I really just wanted to put that

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in a very straightforward way with tons of documentation so that it can no longer be

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denied. And I'm really grateful to the folks at JOD for helping me put that in there in a

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platform and format that can't just be dismissed. Because I love writing for places like Bitcoin

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Magazine or whatever. But obviously, if I try to show up to a fight with Bitcoin Magazine article,

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I get immediately dismissed

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because it's biased

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you know is what they would say

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now if it's in the Journal of Democracy

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print edition

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okay

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now we're doing something

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a little different right

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and you can see

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like the way you approach the article

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is different

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because it was in the Journal of Democracy

324
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not in Bitcoin

325
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you gotta know your audience

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you kind of started from the ground up

327
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and then built the entire picture

328
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throughout the

329
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yeah I mean the thing I tried to work on

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at the beginning

331
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was trying to lay out how

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like Bitcoin

333
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like financial repression itself is so widespread and affects so many people way more than political

334
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repression if you think about it like not that many people are professional politicians or human

335
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rights workers but everybody uses money right and yet financial repression is just never talked

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about in the human rights industry outside of the work we're doing really to be honest and a few other

337
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people but it's it's getting there but like five to ten years ago nobody talked about it and and yet

338
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it is so important and it never gets the airtime that election rigging or political prisoners or

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censorship in the media gets. And it should be right there. I mean, financial repression should

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be right there with censorship of the media, sacking of justices, you know, rigging constitutions,

341
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fabricating elections, debanking and financial censorship is right there. I mean, if not

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more widespread. So I think people are finally waking up to it. And it's time that hopefully,

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any group that's pursuing a liberty-minded cause, a freedom-minded cause to empower the people in

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their country, starts using this as a tool. And I hope this can be a nice little helpful

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conversation starter, if not a blueprint. What was nice is they gave me a little space in the essay

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to do like a 101 of like, well, how do I begin? And it's like, great, use these tools,

347
00:21:08,287 --> 00:21:13,327
consider collaborative custody. Maybe you want to do self-custody. Don't use KYC exchanges. It

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allowed me a little bit of space to point to like, how do you get started? And then of course, we

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have, Ahrefs has a webinar we do every quarter that brings you zero to one at least in a couple

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of days with BTC Sessions and our friend Anna Chekovich, and they lead that. So they allowed

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me to mention that in there, which was pretty cool. That's very cool. I'm actually recording

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with sessions straight after this. So this is a perfect segue. But let's start with the money

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being a tool that used to be used in a relatively free and fair and open way when things were just

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cash to the progression to basically everything now being digital and what the problems are for

355
00:21:50,927 --> 00:21:56,527
sort of people that you're helping around the world. Yeah. And I think Linaldin in her book

356
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traces this extremely well in Broken Money that scientifically, technologically, this was kind

357
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of going to happen 100 times out of 100. The fiat credit control system just advanced faster

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than the hard money system. Like hard money, we had gold, and then we just didn't really have an

359
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innovation for a very long time until Bitcoin. Whereas fiat money, with the invention of the

360
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telegraph and the invention of wireless communication and computers and credit cards,

361
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It just had a tsunami of innovation.

362
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So it was always going to sort of outpace hard money in her view.

363
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I hope I'm not misquoting her, but basically that's sort of the idea part of the book is she's looking at the scientific evolution of money.

364
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And she's basically pointing out that like money had been on a almost like inevitable evolution due to technological advancements of becoming more and more a tool of credit and more and more a tool of control.

365
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and then we forked finally with Bitcoin.

366
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And now we have a way of evolving money

367
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in a way that makes it more and more a tool of freedom.

368
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And in the paper, what I describe is how,

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look, 50 years ago,

370
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it was very hard to micro track the economy.

371
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If most people are using cash or even check,

372
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it's just hard to like run models

373
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and understand what people are gonna do next

374
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or try to locate people's behavior or preferences.

375
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But today, when everything is done digitally with chips and Bluetooth tracking devices and stores and every payment is linked to your ID, it's trivial for governments to understand what's going on and start to model and control and sensor.

376
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And obviously, AI tooling and big data has made that even easier and more scary.

377
00:23:43,827 --> 00:23:51,047
So in a way, you know, financial repression like we have today just wasn't really possible 40, 50 years ago.

378
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But over the last 20 years, it's become pretty much the first and foremost tactic used by authoritarians to censor and stop their critics.

379
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And it's high time that it's recognized as such in the literature, in the academic collegiate establishment literature, that financial repression is a first tool of autocrats.

380
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And how do we rebel?

381
00:24:16,027 --> 00:24:17,967
How do we resist with Bitcoin?

382
00:24:18,827 --> 00:24:20,607
There's a line that you wrote in this,

383
00:24:20,707 --> 00:24:23,047
which was what you spend says more about you

384
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than what you say.

385
00:24:24,787 --> 00:24:26,787
And I thought that was super interesting.

386
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And I do remember hearing that Amazon

387
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will know that you're pregnant before you do

388
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based on your buying habits.

389
00:24:33,107 --> 00:24:33,787
Yeah, I remember that.

390
00:24:34,127 --> 00:24:36,187
And these are the things that are terrifying

391
00:24:36,187 --> 00:24:37,447
about moving to a,

392
00:24:38,447 --> 00:24:40,027
even if it's not full-blown CBDC,

393
00:24:40,147 --> 00:24:41,487
which I think we are seeing, like you say,

394
00:24:41,567 --> 00:24:43,427
there's over a hundred countries now looking into this.

395
00:24:43,627 --> 00:24:45,087
Like we're moving to a more surveilled,

396
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more tracked system.

397
00:24:46,047 --> 00:24:49,207
And even look, we're concerned about CBDCs, but let's be clear.

398
00:24:49,727 --> 00:24:55,047
Governments with cooperation with private corporations can essentially approximate a CBDC already.

399
00:24:55,187 --> 00:24:55,307
Yeah.

400
00:24:55,907 --> 00:25:02,407
Like bank credits and fintech credits, you know, are freezable at will, are censorable.

401
00:25:03,907 --> 00:25:06,467
And ultimately, I think stable coins will follow that course.

402
00:25:06,867 --> 00:25:08,287
They don't give an escape from this either.

403
00:25:08,587 --> 00:25:14,367
And really what I wanted to do in the paper was hit like the different aspects of Bitcoin, you know, digital cash and its digital gold.

404
00:25:14,367 --> 00:25:23,067
So I opened with, you know, on the one hand, this addresses the issues of people who are being spied on and politically debanked and censored.

405
00:25:23,487 --> 00:25:34,207
And on the other hand, it addresses the issues of people who are being debased, rugged and devalued and have had their currency demonetized or confiscated.

406
00:25:34,887 --> 00:25:42,407
So these are the two ways in which authoritarians use money as a weapon and Bitcoin as a shield against both of them, which is so important.

407
00:25:43,047 --> 00:25:52,887
These other digital currency technologies that are privacy minded, you know, we can debate about which ones are honest and which ones are scams.

408
00:25:53,147 --> 00:25:55,207
But at the end of the day, none of them are hard money.

409
00:25:55,627 --> 00:25:58,067
So they can really only attack the privacy piece.

410
00:25:58,207 --> 00:26:01,167
Now, I think eCash is the best version of them personally.

411
00:26:01,527 --> 00:26:03,107
But again, eCash is just a credit.

412
00:26:03,247 --> 00:26:03,787
It's an IOU.

413
00:26:04,387 --> 00:26:06,127
You need the hard money piece.

414
00:26:06,127 --> 00:26:08,147
So the thing has to be built with Bitcoin.

415
00:26:08,147 --> 00:26:23,667
And if you can build a Bitcoin system where you have the 21 million protecting you against what is usually the biggest crime in, let's say, monetary repression globally, which is the devaluation overnight.

416
00:26:24,047 --> 00:26:36,887
And you and I saw this when we went to Malawi a few years ago, where we arrived a few weeks after the government had done a 44% overnight currency devaluation, which I consider a crime against humanity because nobody got to vote for that.

417
00:26:36,887 --> 00:26:37,927
Nobody got to weigh in on that.

418
00:26:38,027 --> 00:26:41,347
All of a sudden, just 44% of their wealth was gone.

419
00:26:41,727 --> 00:26:43,547
44% of their purchasing power was vanished.

420
00:26:44,627 --> 00:26:46,667
This removes that option from governments.

421
00:26:46,927 --> 00:26:49,347
If you're saving and using Bitcoin, they can't touch you.

422
00:26:49,807 --> 00:26:50,647
That's magical.

423
00:26:50,807 --> 00:26:51,927
I think that's so, so powerful.

424
00:26:52,367 --> 00:26:56,967
Now, at the same time, you can couple that with privacy technologies.

425
00:26:58,767 --> 00:27:03,027
It's not as straightforward as we'd like, but it's easy enough these days.

426
00:27:03,027 --> 00:27:03,627
And it's guessing better.

427
00:27:03,627 --> 00:27:26,587
And I think people sometimes misunderstand permissionlessness versus privacy. Yes, like full anonymous e-cash level privacy is very important. But oftentimes, just the fact that you can use Bitcoin without your ID is a huge upgrade over the current system.

428
00:27:26,587 --> 00:27:30,347
Like, yes, I understand that anyone can look at blockchain data.

429
00:27:30,347 --> 00:27:31,827
Sure.

430
00:27:31,827 --> 00:27:35,427
But if you've never attached your name to it, it's freaking useless.

431
00:27:35,427 --> 00:27:39,267
So it's like, I'm always arguing with Monero and Zcash people about this.

432
00:27:39,267 --> 00:27:42,787
Like you have to give something to the permissionless piece.

433
00:27:42,787 --> 00:27:47,267
It's not just the fact that there's, you know, whether or not it's shielded transactions or

434
00:27:47,267 --> 00:27:48,267
not.

435
00:27:48,267 --> 00:27:50,507
It's like, no, I bought this with cash or whatever.

436
00:27:50,507 --> 00:27:53,187
You've no idea who owns this.

437
00:27:53,187 --> 00:27:54,827
And then I moved it to someone else.

438
00:27:54,827 --> 00:28:02,827
And it's just, if you'd never attach your ID to the blockchain, it's, you know, provably harder to track and understand what's going on.

439
00:28:02,827 --> 00:28:22,867
And basically my point is that people face a lot of issues around the world in the world of democracy promotion, human rights promotion, you know, national movements of different kinds in different places, independent media, environmentalism, journalism.

440
00:28:22,867 --> 00:28:29,907
so many different, again, movements of people trying to change their country or society

441
00:28:29,907 --> 00:28:33,347
or trying to prevent radical change, one or the other.

442
00:28:34,387 --> 00:28:40,247
And money and banking and debanking and deplatforming is becoming like the front line.

443
00:28:40,747 --> 00:28:45,947
And that is finally being recognized in a prestigious journal,

444
00:28:46,147 --> 00:28:48,407
which I'm just super, super happy to have that opportunity.

445
00:28:48,407 --> 00:28:55,567
And the debanking thing, while I know it's happening in a lot of these sort of oppressive regimes, but it's happening in like the UK.

446
00:28:55,847 --> 00:29:02,127
This isn't even like, it's a really, really scary part of like the political world that we live in now.

447
00:29:02,747 --> 00:29:04,347
But can we get really basic?

448
00:29:04,447 --> 00:29:07,667
Because what I loved about this is that it's going to hit an entirely different audience.

449
00:29:08,867 --> 00:29:10,507
In fact, it's not even a narrative.

450
00:29:10,707 --> 00:29:12,027
Like this is just the story of Bitcoin.

451
00:29:12,167 --> 00:29:12,827
This is just truth.

452
00:29:12,947 --> 00:29:14,627
I think narrative almost minimizes it.

453
00:29:14,627 --> 00:29:18,367
And it's a really powerful way of getting people interested in Bitcoin.

454
00:29:18,407 --> 00:29:25,367
And what I think will be cool is I think this is the kind of show that people will want to share with friends and family who might be interested in Bitcoin but skeptical.

455
00:29:25,647 --> 00:29:27,267
And this shows them what it can actually do.

456
00:29:27,667 --> 00:29:31,887
So in the piece, you write about Roya Mahbub's story in Afghanistan.

457
00:29:32,067 --> 00:29:32,267
Yes.

458
00:29:32,407 --> 00:29:33,467
Can you tell that story?

459
00:29:33,847 --> 00:29:34,087
Sure.

460
00:29:35,227 --> 00:29:36,567
Look, it was 2013.

461
00:29:37,787 --> 00:29:39,927
Roya is a businesswoman in Afghanistan.

462
00:29:41,207 --> 00:29:44,687
And she's starting a company that employs a lot of women around the country.

463
00:29:44,687 --> 00:29:51,267
and there is no mobile money in Afghanistan at the time.

464
00:29:52,167 --> 00:29:53,687
Most Western financial products

465
00:29:53,687 --> 00:29:55,427
that we get to use in the United States or whatever,

466
00:29:55,567 --> 00:29:57,467
like Venmo, PayPal, aren't there.

467
00:29:57,747 --> 00:29:59,687
They're not available for Afghans for different reasons.

468
00:30:00,787 --> 00:30:03,547
And if she tries to pay them in cash

469
00:30:03,547 --> 00:30:04,987
or through like the Hawala system,

470
00:30:05,107 --> 00:30:06,967
which is the traditional way of moving money around,

471
00:30:07,487 --> 00:30:09,867
the male relatives of the women take the money

472
00:30:09,867 --> 00:30:11,187
so they don't have control over it.

473
00:30:11,487 --> 00:30:12,787
And they don't really, for different reasons,

474
00:30:12,847 --> 00:30:13,487
have bank accounts.

475
00:30:13,487 --> 00:30:16,207
So she's sitting there and trying to figure out, well, how can I pay them?

476
00:30:16,207 --> 00:30:21,127
And a friend of hers tells her about Bitcoin and it's Q1, Q2, 2013.

477
00:30:21,127 --> 00:30:23,487
Bitcoin is like 30, 40 bucks.

478
00:30:23,487 --> 00:30:25,127
And she's like, why not?

479
00:30:25,127 --> 00:30:29,127
And they figure it out and they start using basic wallets and things are just so different

480
00:30:29,127 --> 00:30:30,127
back then.

481
00:30:30,127 --> 00:30:33,847
But, you know, she goes on this rollercoaster ride where Bitcoin goes from 30 bucks to 100

482
00:30:33,847 --> 00:30:36,287
bucks to 500 bucks to 1200 bucks.

483
00:30:36,287 --> 00:30:42,567
And then through all the Gox stuff, you know, starts to crash and it cascades all the way

484
00:30:42,567 --> 00:30:48,007
down to 200 bucks basically something like that and all throughout this she feels all the emotions

485
00:30:48,007 --> 00:30:52,967
right she's like wow this is incredibly liberating but wow also very risky and she goes through this

486
00:30:52,967 --> 00:30:59,927
all and at the end of it she decides to pivot her business a little bit away from that but

487
00:30:59,927 --> 00:31:03,527
incorporate it into a charity that she has started to educate girls in afghanistan

488
00:31:04,087 --> 00:31:22,075
so one of the first things she does when she educating what ends up being tens of thousands of women when she educating just literacy science math And is this something that had been banned by the Taliban Well as you know any education of older girls is banned

489
00:31:22,335 --> 00:31:24,875
They haven't been to school in, I think, 13, 1400 days

490
00:31:24,875 --> 00:31:26,435
or something like that since the takeover.

491
00:31:26,895 --> 00:31:29,635
But at the time, it was the American occupation

492
00:31:29,635 --> 00:31:32,235
and there was a more secular government in power

493
00:31:32,235 --> 00:31:33,455
and they were okay with this.

494
00:31:33,455 --> 00:31:44,235
And Roya ends up again, like teaching tens of thousands of girls about everything from robotics to using computers to Bitcoin and how to use Bitcoin.

495
00:31:44,795 --> 00:31:51,575
And after the takeover in 2021, you couldn't use the U.S. dollar to get money in.

496
00:31:52,275 --> 00:31:53,635
The whole economy was collapsing.

497
00:31:53,775 --> 00:31:54,515
Everything was cut off.

498
00:31:54,575 --> 00:31:55,255
But you could use Bitcoin.

499
00:31:55,395 --> 00:31:55,995
Bitcoin doesn't care.

500
00:31:56,095 --> 00:31:56,855
Bitcoin works, right?

501
00:31:57,395 --> 00:31:58,675
And that's what she does today.

502
00:31:58,675 --> 00:32:11,615
So even though the Taliban officially prevents women in elementary, middle school, et cetera, from going to school and becoming educated, Roya runs underground schools and she pays the teachers in Bitcoin.

503
00:32:12,215 --> 00:32:12,795
And it's amazing.

504
00:32:13,415 --> 00:32:22,375
And it's a really great example for people listening of whenever they hear someone in the FT or the economist or in the broadsheets or on TV say, oh, Bitcoin has no use case.

505
00:32:22,875 --> 00:32:25,055
The dollar and the pound cannot do this.

506
00:32:25,055 --> 00:32:30,975
You cannot technologically use the dollar or pound to fund underground schools in Afghanistan, but you can use Bitcoin.

507
00:32:31,575 --> 00:32:32,295
So just remember that.

508
00:32:32,435 --> 00:32:35,515
That's a very powerful use case of what Bitcoin can do that fiat money cannot.

509
00:32:36,295 --> 00:32:41,575
So I wanted to include that story in here because it might be a surprising one for some people.

510
00:32:42,135 --> 00:32:45,515
I think it'll be a surprising one for a lot of people who haven't been paying close attention to Bitcoin.

511
00:32:45,635 --> 00:32:47,255
And it's not like this is a one-off story.

512
00:32:47,335 --> 00:32:49,435
This stuff is happening all over the world now.

513
00:32:49,435 --> 00:32:54,635
Yeah, and it's also an example of the duality of Bitcoin where that's kind of the digital cash side of it,

514
00:32:54,635 --> 00:32:56,715
where you don't use permission to use it.

515
00:32:56,975 --> 00:32:57,855
Anyone can use it.

516
00:32:58,795 --> 00:33:00,575
It's the same for the billionaire and the refugee.

517
00:33:01,515 --> 00:33:04,715
It doesn't care about your birth or ethnicity

518
00:33:04,715 --> 00:33:06,195
or gender or background,

519
00:33:06,315 --> 00:33:08,015
and that's just such a beautiful thing about Bitcoin.

520
00:33:09,515 --> 00:33:12,355
But also the digital gold part of it played a huge role

521
00:33:12,355 --> 00:33:16,355
in as much as the early adopters of this thing

522
00:33:16,355 --> 00:33:17,615
did very well.

523
00:33:17,615 --> 00:33:21,255
Like one of her sisters at that time

524
00:33:21,255 --> 00:33:23,395
in the 2013, 2014 period,

525
00:33:23,395 --> 00:33:31,075
And when women wanted to buy stuff with Bitcoin and the merchant wouldn't accept it, she would buy the Bitcoin from them, give them cash.

526
00:33:31,275 --> 00:33:32,515
And she saved that.

527
00:33:32,835 --> 00:33:37,575
And over three, four, five years, used it to pay for her education at Cornell University, which is amazing.

528
00:33:38,515 --> 00:33:42,015
There was another woman who worked for Roya named Leila.

529
00:33:42,015 --> 00:33:53,215
And she had to escape Afghanistan and was one of the countless Afghans who fled over through Iran dangerously, through Turkey, on a boat, got to Europe, made it to Germany, lives life there now.

530
00:33:53,395 --> 00:33:55,195
and was able to take her seed phrase with her,

531
00:33:56,135 --> 00:33:56,995
start a new life.

532
00:33:57,215 --> 00:33:58,495
And by the time she got there,

533
00:33:59,315 --> 00:34:01,075
Bitcoin had like quadrupled in value

534
00:34:01,075 --> 00:34:02,355
and she was able to start a new life.

535
00:34:02,495 --> 00:34:04,775
So, you know, refugees throughout history

536
00:34:04,775 --> 00:34:06,315
didn't have that ability.

537
00:34:06,655 --> 00:34:08,635
Like I have some ancestors who fled the Holocaust,

538
00:34:08,895 --> 00:34:09,415
for example.

539
00:34:10,355 --> 00:34:12,535
They just fled with what was on their back,

540
00:34:12,615 --> 00:34:13,855
you know, they had no way.

541
00:34:14,395 --> 00:34:16,195
But people today fleeing from Syria,

542
00:34:16,195 --> 00:34:17,655
you know, whether it was fleeing from Syria

543
00:34:17,655 --> 00:34:19,415
or Venezuela several years ago,

544
00:34:19,935 --> 00:34:22,515
fleeing from Gaza or Yemen or Sudan today,

545
00:34:22,515 --> 00:34:25,715
they can take their value with them.

546
00:34:25,855 --> 00:34:27,315
They can convert value to Bitcoin

547
00:34:27,315 --> 00:34:29,055
and they can take it with them.

548
00:34:29,255 --> 00:34:30,235
And that's amazing.

549
00:34:30,375 --> 00:34:31,655
And we're going to hear a story tomorrow

550
00:34:31,655 --> 00:34:33,695
about that at the Global Bitcoin Summit

551
00:34:33,695 --> 00:34:37,015
about someone whose life was saved by Bitcoin.

552
00:34:37,375 --> 00:34:39,495
And that's going to be a keynote speech.

553
00:34:39,615 --> 00:34:40,455
Someone from the Middle East

554
00:34:40,455 --> 00:34:44,835
who had to flee bombing and war

555
00:34:44,835 --> 00:34:45,975
and was able to do it

556
00:34:45,975 --> 00:34:47,855
and was able to do it because of Bitcoin.

557
00:34:48,295 --> 00:34:50,615
So it's a very powerful thing that people just,

558
00:34:50,615 --> 00:34:55,415
you'd never know when you just sit there and look at price and price charts and

559
00:34:55,415 --> 00:35:03,335
financialization and out-competing inflate just all this the rhetoric you see you don't see the

560
00:35:03,335 --> 00:35:09,415
bigger picture which is a global revolution happening with tens if not hundreds of millions

561
00:35:09,415 --> 00:35:14,995
of people where we are taking power back away from the powers that be if you're already self-custody

562
00:35:14,995 --> 00:35:20,295
of bitcoin you know the deal with hardware wallets complex setups clumsy interfaces and a seed phrase

563
00:35:20,295 --> 00:35:22,155
that can be lost, stolen or forgotten.

564
00:35:22,775 --> 00:35:23,915
Well, BitKey fixes that.

565
00:35:24,455 --> 00:35:25,995
BitKey is a multi-sig hardware wallet

566
00:35:25,995 --> 00:35:28,235
built by the team behind Square and Cash App.

567
00:35:28,615 --> 00:35:30,475
It packs a cryptographic recovery system

568
00:35:30,475 --> 00:35:31,975
and built-in inheritance feature

569
00:35:31,975 --> 00:35:34,155
into an intuitive, easy-to-use wallet

570
00:35:34,155 --> 00:35:35,875
with no seed phrase to sweat over.

571
00:35:36,535 --> 00:35:39,535
It's simple, secure self-custody without the stress.

572
00:35:40,095 --> 00:35:43,095
And Time named BitKey one of the best inventions of 2024.

573
00:35:44,055 --> 00:35:47,775
Get 20% off at bitkey.world when you use the code WBD.

574
00:35:47,775 --> 00:35:55,255
that's b-i-t-k-e-y dot world and use the code w-b-d. This episode is brought to you by Anchor

575
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578
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579
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581
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582
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583
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584
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585
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587
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589
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591
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592
00:37:22,635 --> 00:37:29,135
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593
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594
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leaden.io forward slash WBD.

595
00:37:34,415 --> 00:37:35,175
Last time

596
00:37:35,175 --> 00:37:35,855
we spoke,

597
00:37:36,115 --> 00:37:38,215
one of the things I said to you is

598
00:37:38,215 --> 00:37:40,675
a quote from Thomas Pacquiao who

599
00:37:40,675 --> 00:37:42,895
said that we're all going to be rich and depressed

600
00:37:42,895 --> 00:37:45,035
because the project failed. And that is the idea

601
00:37:45,035 --> 00:37:46,895
of freedom money dying along the way.

602
00:37:47,335 --> 00:37:48,375
But since then,

603
00:37:48,555 --> 00:37:50,815
I've thought a lot about that. And I actually think

604
00:37:50,815 --> 00:37:53,075
that as long as someone out there

605
00:37:53,075 --> 00:37:54,315
is using Bitcoin as freedom money,

606
00:37:54,695 --> 00:37:56,735
then it's all been worth it.

607
00:37:56,835 --> 00:37:58,855
These stories can't happen without Bitcoin.

608
00:37:59,135 --> 00:38:01,215
And it's pretty incredible.

609
00:38:01,315 --> 00:38:02,355
I don't know if you agree with that.

610
00:38:02,515 --> 00:38:07,055
I think the percentage of people using Bitcoin as freedom money as a whole will almost certainly shrink.

611
00:38:07,395 --> 00:38:15,095
But as long as people still have the ability to transact with Bitcoin in any way they see fit, then this project has been entirely worth it.

612
00:38:15,755 --> 00:38:17,515
Well, there's different levels there, right?

613
00:38:17,515 --> 00:38:29,275
So one level is Bitcoin slowly replacing fiat currency as a global money.

614
00:38:29,495 --> 00:38:34,255
And that might mean store of value, medium of exchange, unit of account.

615
00:38:35,335 --> 00:38:43,275
And that's the thing that prevents the biggest crimes, which are theft by inflation and currency devaluation.

616
00:38:43,275 --> 00:38:45,715
The things that affect the most people, billions of people.

617
00:38:45,715 --> 00:38:51,795
taking that big red button away from authoritarians and government officials where they can just say,

618
00:38:52,355 --> 00:38:56,575
oh, we're going to make your time and labor worth less.

619
00:38:57,335 --> 00:39:04,175
In a Bitcoin world, regardless of whether or not people are using it as freedom money or IOUs of Bitcoin or whatever,

620
00:39:05,155 --> 00:39:09,335
if Bitcoin gets to the point where it is the unit of account, we win there.

621
00:39:09,495 --> 00:39:10,935
That's a massive victory.

622
00:39:11,735 --> 00:39:13,355
Now, it could even be better.

623
00:39:13,855 --> 00:39:15,175
And we have a talk on that.

624
00:39:15,175 --> 00:39:18,355
by Jeremy Rubin here in the next few days.

625
00:39:18,415 --> 00:39:19,175
That's going to be very interesting

626
00:39:19,175 --> 00:39:22,095
because I think it's a massive victory,

627
00:39:22,175 --> 00:39:23,355
but it's a partial victory

628
00:39:23,355 --> 00:39:25,575
because ultimately what we'd like

629
00:39:25,575 --> 00:39:29,135
is for everybody to be able to be self-custodial,

630
00:39:29,975 --> 00:39:31,195
have control of their money

631
00:39:31,195 --> 00:39:34,815
and be able to spend it without paperwork

632
00:39:34,815 --> 00:39:37,075
and in a way that protects privacy.

633
00:39:37,795 --> 00:39:40,555
And I think that's a more challenging vision.

634
00:39:41,515 --> 00:39:49,415
I personally think that Bitcoin is really quite destined to become the unit of account of the

635
00:39:49,415 --> 00:39:53,655
world eventually. I just think everything is moving in that direction. It's relationship with

636
00:39:53,655 --> 00:39:58,895
energy markets, with global trade, with the way the rival world works, with the way that we

637
00:39:58,895 --> 00:40:05,295
gravitate towards a one currency, and with the way that nation states, which aren't going anywhere

638
00:40:05,295 --> 00:40:10,655
really, and empires, which last hundreds, if not thousands of years as they rise and fall,

639
00:40:11,655 --> 00:40:18,215
they don't want to be using someone else's money ultimately to save in. And they don't want to be

640
00:40:18,215 --> 00:40:23,095
subject to those people's rules. So the idea of one neutral currency, I think, is very powerful.

641
00:40:23,375 --> 00:40:28,615
It has a lot of gravity to it. But can the citizens use it with the same degree as freedom

642
00:40:28,615 --> 00:40:34,695
as the rulers is the question. We don't know that. There are going to be trade-offs and sacrifices,

643
00:40:34,695 --> 00:40:42,135
Right. Like can a day laborer in 100 years afford an on-chain Bitcoin transaction?

644
00:40:43,895 --> 00:41:04,575
Not today, meaning the sat value, the Satoshi value of transactions will likely, you know, maybe not increase that much or may even get cheaper in some ways due to like interesting ways we can do collaborative spending and things like that.

645
00:41:04,695 --> 00:41:22,675
But the sat itself is going to increase in value so much against the dollar and fiats that, you know, it very well could be a world where only a small percentage of people on earth can afford to just be on chain alongside corporations and governments.

646
00:41:24,435 --> 00:41:26,635
So the question is, well, what can we do about that?

647
00:41:27,355 --> 00:41:28,355
And there's a lot you can do.

648
00:41:28,655 --> 00:41:31,275
You can do side chains, key sharing things.

649
00:41:31,275 --> 00:41:35,815
I can trade a private key without having to spend anything on the blockchain.

650
00:41:36,295 --> 00:41:38,035
There's a lot of interesting stuff around that.

651
00:41:38,415 --> 00:41:42,335
There's stuff around, for example, cross-input signature aggregation, where you can reduce

652
00:41:42,335 --> 00:41:49,275
the Bitcoin-denominated cost of a transaction by collaboratively working together.

653
00:41:49,835 --> 00:41:51,475
And there's many other ideas in that area.

654
00:41:52,295 --> 00:41:57,815
There are reasonable trade-offs you can make with things coming up that are now starting

655
00:41:57,815 --> 00:42:06,075
to be unrolled like ARK or even Spark, where with a particular trade-off, people can kind

656
00:42:06,075 --> 00:42:08,115
of have self-custody Bitcoin in a way.

657
00:42:08,535 --> 00:42:13,655
I say kind of, I'm qualifying, not fully, but kind of, not as much as Bitcoin on chain

658
00:42:13,655 --> 00:42:20,215
or lightning, of course, but in a way they can have it and they don't have to pay a year's

659
00:42:20,215 --> 00:42:22,135
worth of wages, let's say, maybe in the future.

660
00:42:22,555 --> 00:42:24,235
So I'm very optimistic, actually.

661
00:42:25,195 --> 00:42:36,095
Basically, what I'm saying is I think it's a lock that Bitcoin eventually overthrows fiat as like the global dominant kind of currency and like the way we think about how much things are valued.

662
00:42:36,475 --> 00:42:40,555
But it remains unclear whether it actually is free to money for everybody.

663
00:42:41,215 --> 00:42:42,535
But I think we have a pretty good shot.

664
00:42:42,775 --> 00:42:44,195
And I think it continues to grow.

665
00:42:44,195 --> 00:42:59,555
I mean, if you think about what's available today, just all these different options of ways to use Bitcoin with lightning as a connective tissue between things rolling out like Spark and ARK and eCash and side chains and even just different liquids, liquid platforms and swaps.

666
00:42:59,795 --> 00:43:02,655
And I mean, it's pretty amazing compared to 10 years ago.

667
00:43:03,015 --> 00:43:11,575
Like you can vary like some of these wallets make it so easy to just spend some of your Bitcoin privately in a way that's not really possible to tie back to you.

668
00:43:11,575 --> 00:43:32,955
So I'm bullish on it, but like that's the big challenge. I don't really see a world where government controlled and abused money that's being inflated to infinity retains top dog status in the monetary hierarchy. I just don't see that. I see Bitcoin becoming that.

669
00:43:32,955 --> 00:43:40,315
I guess it's just a question of, can everybody use it equally, which is more or less the case today.

670
00:43:40,575 --> 00:43:46,515
Like when fees are so low, you can essentially, if you're not worried about the speed and you're

671
00:43:46,515 --> 00:43:50,175
receiving a remittance or you're making a payment and it doesn't need to arrive right away,

672
00:43:50,615 --> 00:43:56,515
like a salary or a wage or something, I mean, you can pay like a few cents and you can get it

673
00:43:56,515 --> 00:44:02,135
through. I don't think that's going to be the case in 20 to 50 years. So we have to think big

674
00:44:02,135 --> 00:44:02,635
about that.

675
00:44:03,315 --> 00:44:08,755
So I think it's really easy to often think that Bitcoin doesn't change because it doesn't.

676
00:44:08,855 --> 00:44:12,315
Like the actual underlying Bitcoin protocol does not change very quickly at all.

677
00:44:13,275 --> 00:44:14,795
But like all of those things.

678
00:44:15,155 --> 00:44:15,735
The layers change, dude.

679
00:44:15,855 --> 00:44:16,315
Exactly.

680
00:44:16,455 --> 00:44:17,015
That's what I'm saying.

681
00:44:17,115 --> 00:44:19,775
So like Spark, ARK, eCash, these didn't exist two years ago.

682
00:44:19,775 --> 00:44:20,375
Even just wallet UX.

683
00:44:20,575 --> 00:44:20,795
Yeah.

684
00:44:21,235 --> 00:44:23,955
Like we're moving at like I think a breakneck pace.

685
00:44:23,955 --> 00:44:24,335
It's crazy.

686
00:44:24,535 --> 00:44:26,075
People sometimes maybe miss that.

687
00:44:26,075 --> 00:44:27,955
And regulatory stuff matters a lot.

688
00:44:28,595 --> 00:44:30,315
And the US can lead the way there.

689
00:44:30,315 --> 00:44:32,435
That's why I applaud the work BPI is doing and stuff.

690
00:44:33,275 --> 00:44:48,095
Look, if the US passes a de minimis tax type law where you can use Bitcoin under, I don't know, whatever it is, $1,000 or $2,000 without worrying about taxes, that immediately has major ramifications for every tax authority on the planet.

691
00:44:48,775 --> 00:44:54,455
So I think that our government can set certain standards that can help in our quest to use Bitcoin as money.

692
00:44:54,455 --> 00:45:02,155
I think what Square or rather Block now is working on with the Square readers and that is slowly being activated.

693
00:45:02,375 --> 00:45:06,775
And I think by the end of the year, it sounds like will be an option for sure.

694
00:45:06,995 --> 00:45:07,495
That's very cool.

695
00:45:07,935 --> 00:45:17,715
For 4 million Square readers in the United States and beyond where merchants will be able to accept Bitcoin and they'll get money.

696
00:45:17,895 --> 00:45:18,935
They'll get fiat money.

697
00:45:19,075 --> 00:45:21,475
They'll get dollars that people could spend Bitcoin.

698
00:45:21,475 --> 00:45:23,095
and then they'll have the option

699
00:45:23,095 --> 00:45:24,675
of taking the Bitcoin if they want.

700
00:45:25,095 --> 00:45:26,675
And this is all done through their system

701
00:45:26,675 --> 00:45:29,495
where they have the reader and the cash app

702
00:45:29,495 --> 00:45:30,755
and the BitKey.

703
00:45:30,975 --> 00:45:32,435
It's a really interesting little ecosystem

704
00:45:32,435 --> 00:45:33,275
they have set up.

705
00:45:33,675 --> 00:45:34,955
And I think that's going to be very exciting.

706
00:45:35,215 --> 00:45:37,335
And then you've seen this happening

707
00:45:37,335 --> 00:45:39,015
in an even more kind of permissionless

708
00:45:39,015 --> 00:45:42,035
Wild West kind of setting around the world

709
00:45:42,035 --> 00:45:44,975
where you have apps like Tando and Bitcoin Jungle

710
00:45:44,975 --> 00:45:49,775
and ones being built in Brazil and Ghana and Thailand

711
00:45:49,775 --> 00:45:51,195
where there's different ways for you

712
00:45:51,195 --> 00:45:58,075
to spend your Bitcoin to the merchant. And I think the PayMeInBitcoin thing is really how we're going

713
00:45:58,075 --> 00:46:03,595
to win if we want Bitcoin to become more than just kind of like the monetary standard, but we're still

714
00:46:03,595 --> 00:46:08,875
trapped by a lot of the current constraints. I mean, that is a half victory, but I think the full

715
00:46:08,875 --> 00:46:13,595
victory is PayMeInBitcoin becomes standard. And some of the ways we're getting there now are

716
00:46:13,595 --> 00:46:21,115
really interesting. Like in Thailand, there's this thing where you can pay a mobile Fiat QR code,

717
00:46:21,195 --> 00:46:27,855
code thing. And what's happening is you pay it via an app and you send lightning and someone

718
00:46:27,855 --> 00:46:33,015
manually pays the fiat right there, but they're sitting at their computer waiting because they

719
00:46:33,015 --> 00:46:38,955
make a fee, they take a fee and they just pay it and you walk out of the store. Like

720
00:46:38,955 --> 00:46:54,662
it fast enough that you buy a beer and within 30 seconds it paid and you on your way And what happened there is like on the back end someone got an alert to pay this thing and they pay it using their Thai bot and they get the Bitcoin That awesome

721
00:46:54,662 --> 00:46:58,422
It's fascinating. So there's some like that are kind of hacks. And then there are others

722
00:46:58,422 --> 00:47:03,962
that are more elegant where like Tando in Kenya, like you get into the cab, I talk about

723
00:47:03,962 --> 00:47:11,462
this in the essay, and the cab driver accepts M-Pesa and they whip out the app or the QR

724
00:47:11,462 --> 00:47:13,642
for you to pay them at the end of the ride.

725
00:47:13,642 --> 00:47:17,282
And you use the Tando app and the cab driver gets there

726
00:47:17,282 --> 00:47:18,922
in Pesa and you spend your Bitcoin.

727
00:47:18,922 --> 00:47:21,462
And you didn't have to tell anybody that you went to Kenya.

728
00:47:21,462 --> 00:47:23,662
You didn't have to like call your credit card company.

729
00:47:23,662 --> 00:47:26,422
You just used permissionless Bitcoin and it works.

730
00:47:26,422 --> 00:47:28,542
And there's a lot of places where that's coming alive.

731
00:47:28,542 --> 00:47:31,182
So I think the PayMeInBitcoin thing,

732
00:47:31,182 --> 00:47:34,102
the more service providers we can use that accept Bitcoin,

733
00:47:35,042 --> 00:47:40,042
the more graphic designers, AV technicians, architects,

734
00:47:40,042 --> 00:47:43,142
you know, goods and services providers,

735
00:47:43,142 --> 00:47:48,002
tourism operators, event companies, restaurants.

736
00:47:48,002 --> 00:47:49,542
I mean, you're seeing it happen.

737
00:47:49,542 --> 00:47:51,902
It's slowly but surely.

738
00:47:51,902 --> 00:47:54,802
And it's not gonna happen in the like hardcore evangelical way

739
00:47:54,802 --> 00:47:57,982
that the B cashers tried to do it a long time ago,

740
00:47:57,982 --> 00:47:59,042
where they would sort of force people

741
00:47:59,042 --> 00:48:00,382
to do something they don't understand.

742
00:48:00,382 --> 00:48:01,462
It has to be organic.

743
00:48:01,462 --> 00:48:03,662
Like the merchant has to really like want it, right?

744
00:48:03,662 --> 00:48:05,602
Or else they're just, it's not gonna work.

745
00:48:05,602 --> 00:48:06,702
You can't go door to door being like,

746
00:48:06,702 --> 00:48:08,882
yo, accept Bitcoin, put the sticker here.

747
00:48:08,882 --> 00:48:10,782
You're seeing in El Salvador, that doesn't work.

748
00:48:11,042 --> 00:48:12,102
You can't brute force it.

749
00:48:12,422 --> 00:48:18,162
But slowly but surely, like through some of these Bitcoin educational hubs, people come, they drop in on a class.

750
00:48:18,322 --> 00:48:19,102
They think it's interesting.

751
00:48:19,282 --> 00:48:20,062
They read a little more.

752
00:48:20,162 --> 00:48:21,002
They pick up a book.

753
00:48:21,402 --> 00:48:22,882
They decide to download the software.

754
00:48:23,042 --> 00:48:24,622
They watch one of BTC Sessions' videos.

755
00:48:25,382 --> 00:48:29,362
And all of a sudden, they're accepting tips in Bitcoin or they're doing some work in Bitcoin.

756
00:48:29,722 --> 00:48:30,622
And it's happening.

757
00:48:30,722 --> 00:48:31,822
And it's very exciting to see.

758
00:48:31,822 --> 00:48:37,782
And I talk about that in this essay that, you know, Bitcoin is free to money because of that aspect of it.

759
00:48:37,782 --> 00:48:43,662
Why do you, what part of the pay me in Bitcoin sort of circular economy thing do you like the most?

760
00:48:43,742 --> 00:48:51,682
Is it the fact that this allows people to, you know, if there's someone there selling Bitcoin for cash, you get non-KYC Bitcoin and then you keep that within a certain community?

761
00:48:51,882 --> 00:48:59,742
Or is it just the sort of the mindset change of instead of people taking their local currencies, they're demanding to be paid in a hard money?

762
00:48:59,742 --> 00:49:07,722
Well, let's look at Thailand. So Thailand's trying to set something up where like you enter Thailand as a tourist and you can actually convert your Bitcoin into what is essentially a CBDC.

763
00:49:07,782 --> 00:49:09,462
upon entry.

764
00:49:09,742 --> 00:49:11,342
And like all merchants will accept it

765
00:49:11,342 --> 00:49:12,522
via fiat government order.

766
00:49:13,102 --> 00:49:14,202
Well, you know what?

767
00:49:14,382 --> 00:49:15,902
If the merchants decide to accept Bitcoin,

768
00:49:15,982 --> 00:49:17,762
we can sidestep that whole control process.

769
00:49:18,142 --> 00:49:18,782
You can enter,

770
00:49:19,282 --> 00:49:20,362
you can just go wherever

771
00:49:20,362 --> 00:49:22,322
and you can be on your merry way,

772
00:49:22,422 --> 00:49:23,482
peer to peer without the government

773
00:49:23,482 --> 00:49:24,522
having rent or control.

774
00:49:25,122 --> 00:49:26,422
I think that's a simple way to think about it.

775
00:49:26,462 --> 00:49:27,502
Like if we want to sidestep

776
00:49:27,502 --> 00:49:29,422
and get away from the increasing

777
00:49:29,422 --> 00:49:30,942
kind of whether it be privately run

778
00:49:30,942 --> 00:49:33,842
or publicly run CBDC stablecoin stuff,

779
00:49:34,122 --> 00:49:35,082
it's pay me in Bitcoin.

780
00:49:35,642 --> 00:49:37,622
And like, I think eventually

781
00:49:37,622 --> 00:49:39,182
people are going to

782
00:49:39,182 --> 00:49:41,982
wisen up. Do you really want to be paid

783
00:49:41,982 --> 00:49:43,882
in stable coins? I know that

784
00:49:43,882 --> 00:49:46,022
a lot of people do today because their currency

785
00:49:46,022 --> 00:49:47,262
sucks compared to the dollar.

786
00:49:47,662 --> 00:49:49,962
But eventually, as Bitcoin continues

787
00:49:49,962 --> 00:49:51,762
to grow in value and the dollar

788
00:49:51,762 --> 00:49:52,842
continues to collapse,

789
00:49:54,122 --> 00:49:55,382
people are going to want Bitcoin, dude.

790
00:49:55,942 --> 00:49:57,282
We've seen this at HRF.

791
00:49:58,302 --> 00:49:59,202
Four or five years ago,

792
00:50:00,022 --> 00:50:02,042
a lot of NGOs and activists did want

793
00:50:02,042 --> 00:50:03,802
stable coins. They actually wanted it.

794
00:50:04,642 --> 00:50:06,062
But now, we haven't

795
00:50:06,062 --> 00:50:10,302
hurt a single group. We do hundreds and hundreds of grants around the world. No one's asking us

796
00:50:10,302 --> 00:50:15,702
for Tether or Circle. They want Bitcoin. And they're in a particular use case, like they're

797
00:50:15,702 --> 00:50:21,122
activists. But still, I think that's kind of an interesting tell. I can understand why you would

798
00:50:21,122 --> 00:50:25,282
want access to stable coins if you live in a country with- Totally. I know. And I talk about it. That is a

799
00:50:25,282 --> 00:50:31,902
very valid use case for, if you want to talk about cryptocurrency beyond Bitcoin. I mean,

800
00:50:31,902 --> 00:50:39,422
stable coins are really the other main use case that's not an obvious scam. But I do think, as I

801
00:50:39,422 --> 00:50:45,262
wrote about recently in an essay in Reason, they do extend state power and they help the US address

802
00:50:45,262 --> 00:50:50,062
its debt concerns and they kind of keep the Ponzi scheme going. So I understand why people use them,

803
00:50:50,062 --> 00:50:55,262
I empathize, but we have to understand they are not freedom money at all. And they are not what

804
00:50:55,262 --> 00:51:01,422
Satoshi was trying to do. And they are not in any way cypherpunk or, you know, I mean, look,

805
00:51:01,422 --> 00:51:05,182
that they, again, they extend fiat network effect globally,

806
00:51:05,182 --> 00:51:07,382
and they kind of keep the system alive

807
00:51:07,382 --> 00:51:09,262
and growing in a new way.

808
00:51:09,262 --> 00:51:11,862
How do we make sure that they don't become

809
00:51:11,862 --> 00:51:13,022
just another arm of the government

810
00:51:13,022 --> 00:51:16,302
and essentially like a CBDC type instrument?

811
00:51:16,302 --> 00:51:17,622
Or is it the fact- Meaning stablecoins?

812
00:51:17,622 --> 00:51:20,302
Yeah. Or is it the fact that because you just

813
00:51:20,302 --> 00:51:22,942
can always opt out into Bitcoin, that's not a real concern?

814
00:51:22,942 --> 00:51:25,702
There are interesting experiments with doing stablecoins

815
00:51:25,702 --> 00:51:28,742
in a way that are not like tied to a reserve

816
00:51:28,742 --> 00:51:30,302
and tied to a banking system

817
00:51:30,302 --> 00:51:31,702
and tied to buying US debt.

818
00:51:32,062 --> 00:51:36,502
But ultimately, anything dollar denominated is pro-dollar.

819
00:51:37,002 --> 00:51:40,142
I don't care how you do it, how you get your stablecoin,

820
00:51:40,962 --> 00:51:42,322
or whether it's on the Lightning Network,

821
00:51:42,322 --> 00:51:46,302
or whether it's a stable channel on Lightning,

822
00:51:46,502 --> 00:51:48,382
or whether it's Tether on Lightning, or whatever.

823
00:51:49,522 --> 00:51:52,562
Some of that stuff may be on a scale better

824
00:51:52,562 --> 00:51:54,842
than Tether on Tron or whatever.

825
00:51:55,102 --> 00:51:55,662
I get it.

826
00:51:55,662 --> 00:52:02,522
But if it's USD denominated, it supports the dollar hegemony fiat system.

827
00:52:03,182 --> 00:52:09,022
That's why it needs to be Bitcoin denominated to create a resistance, to create an alternative.

828
00:52:09,502 --> 00:52:10,762
It's all about the unit of account.

829
00:52:11,582 --> 00:52:11,722
Okay.

830
00:52:12,082 --> 00:52:15,342
Again, thinking about who at least I'm going to send this conversation to.

831
00:52:15,422 --> 00:52:17,382
There's people that I know should be interested in Bitcoin.

832
00:52:17,562 --> 00:52:18,082
They're not quite there.

833
00:52:18,262 --> 00:52:21,842
I want to send them a show that can lay out what Bitcoin actually does.

834
00:52:22,862 --> 00:52:24,362
Why Bitcoin, not crypto?

835
00:52:24,362 --> 00:52:48,702
Well, I mean, think about it this way. There's 20,000 some odd cryptos. They range from obvious jokes like Shiba Inu or Dogecoin to politician coins like Trump coin or Melania coin to NFTs that have gone to zero to obvious scams. So many obvious scams where people have gone to prison for launching them.

836
00:52:48,702 --> 00:52:54,242
they are all, and I write about this,

837
00:52:54,502 --> 00:52:57,502
like their sole existence is to enrich the creators

838
00:52:57,502 --> 00:52:59,742
at the expense of you, the retail person.

839
00:53:00,242 --> 00:53:01,822
Unless you have insider information,

840
00:53:02,062 --> 00:53:03,962
you're going to lose money on these things over time.

841
00:53:04,422 --> 00:53:06,542
And they all go to zero in Bitcoin terms.

842
00:53:07,482 --> 00:53:10,302
There was something interesting the other day about Zcash.

843
00:53:11,202 --> 00:53:12,102
And people are going crazy

844
00:53:12,102 --> 00:53:16,082
because Zcash went up like 45, 50% in dollar terms in a day.

845
00:53:16,082 --> 00:53:19,302
And you look at, but you look at the Zcash Bitcoin chart.

846
00:53:19,542 --> 00:53:20,502
You can't even see it.

847
00:53:20,502 --> 00:53:21,382
You can't even see it.

848
00:53:21,662 --> 00:53:25,842
It's collapsed so badly against Bitcoin over the last decade.

849
00:53:27,162 --> 00:53:29,822
So these are rugs, you know, and be careful.

850
00:53:30,242 --> 00:53:41,042
If you want something that is going to retain purchasing power over a long period of time and has a global network effect and is trusted by all kinds of people in adversarial scenarios.

851
00:53:41,042 --> 00:53:48,382
and has, again, increased in value over time in a consistent manner, it's Bitcoin.

852
00:53:49,162 --> 00:53:54,522
I mean, even Ethereum is nowhere close to its high in Bitcoin terms.

853
00:53:55,222 --> 00:53:56,722
Like, again, don't look at dollar terms.

854
00:53:56,822 --> 00:53:57,742
Look at Bitcoin terms.

855
00:53:58,362 --> 00:54:02,342
At one point, one ETH could get you 0.15 Bitcoin.

856
00:54:03,302 --> 00:54:06,502
Today, it's 0.03 or something like that.

857
00:54:06,902 --> 00:54:09,182
So you have to think about it in Bitcoin terms.

858
00:54:09,182 --> 00:54:13,182
How much Bitcoin can these altcoins get you?

859
00:54:13,182 --> 00:54:15,182
And over time, it goes to zero.

860
00:54:15,182 --> 00:54:17,182
It goes to zero.

861
00:54:17,182 --> 00:54:20,182
They may in a vacuum be going up against the dollar,

862
00:54:20,182 --> 00:54:22,182
because everything's going up against the dollar.

863
00:54:22,182 --> 00:54:26,182
Gold today, as we record, just hit $4,000.

864
00:54:26,182 --> 00:54:31,182
So the dollar is losing its place.

865
00:54:31,182 --> 00:54:34,182
I mean, it's still by far the king of fiats,

866
00:54:34,182 --> 00:54:44,102
of fiats, but it's slowly losing its place as the only way to do store of value, medium

867
00:54:44,102 --> 00:54:45,122
exchange unit of account.

868
00:54:45,542 --> 00:54:47,322
And Bitcoin is slowly rising.

869
00:54:47,582 --> 00:54:49,322
I mean, this should be obvious to anyone who's looking.

870
00:54:49,782 --> 00:54:53,242
I don't think there's ever been a more clear signal than JP Morgan coming out with their

871
00:54:53,242 --> 00:54:55,162
debasement trade about gold and Bitcoin.

872
00:54:55,402 --> 00:54:55,562
Yeah.

873
00:54:55,662 --> 00:54:57,262
Like everyone is waking up to this.

874
00:54:57,262 --> 00:54:57,442
Yeah.

875
00:54:57,522 --> 00:55:01,822
And then eventually people wake up to the fact that Bitcoin does what gold does, but better.

876
00:55:02,122 --> 00:55:02,242
Yeah.

877
00:55:02,362 --> 00:55:03,342
But people aren't there yet.

878
00:55:04,182 --> 00:55:11,502
And, you know, but look, as we're speaking, less than 24 hours ago, Bitcoin was at 126, which is just crazy to think about.

879
00:55:11,782 --> 00:55:16,602
Like, again, that is a real thing that saves people's lives.

880
00:55:16,602 --> 00:55:23,062
Like these Cubans I was interviewing that I talked about in the essay five years ago, Bitcoin was trading around $5,000.

881
00:55:24,282 --> 00:55:26,402
And they were faced with a choice.

882
00:55:26,522 --> 00:55:32,102
Their currency was being changed by the Cuban government, you know, essentially used to trade at like 24 to $1.

883
00:55:32,102 --> 00:55:34,942
and the government would struggle to keep that peg.

884
00:55:34,942 --> 00:55:38,282
And the real market value would usually be lower.

885
00:55:38,282 --> 00:55:42,102
But once they basically stopped protecting that peg,

886
00:55:42,102 --> 00:55:43,022
it hyperinflated.

887
00:55:43,022 --> 00:55:44,582
And in the last five years,

888
00:55:44,582 --> 00:55:48,262
now it's more than 400 pesos per dollar on the black market.

889
00:55:48,262 --> 00:55:51,202
So it's lost more than 95% of its value.

890
00:55:52,602 --> 00:55:56,162
Or like the dozens of Cubans I interviewed,

891
00:55:56,162 --> 00:55:58,162
you could have started stacking sats

892
00:55:58,162 --> 00:56:00,702
and converting into Bitcoin at the time.

893
00:56:00,702 --> 00:56:02,022
And think about that.

894
00:56:02,022 --> 00:56:07,022
Now you're up 25, 30 X, okay?

895
00:56:08,382 --> 00:56:11,182
Versus being down 95%.

896
00:56:11,182 --> 00:56:13,062
That's a life or death scenario for a lot of people.

897
00:56:13,062 --> 00:56:13,902
100%.

898
00:56:13,902 --> 00:56:15,062
And that's just five years.

899
00:56:15,062 --> 00:56:17,722
This is not, we don't have, we're not going back to,

900
00:56:17,722 --> 00:56:20,402
you know, throwing your Bitcoin in a dump

901
00:56:20,402 --> 00:56:23,282
and not finding a 2010 era Bitcoin.

902
00:56:23,282 --> 00:56:24,982
We're talking about five years ago,

903
00:56:24,982 --> 00:56:29,322
talking about pandemic era and we're up 20 to 30 X.

904
00:56:29,322 --> 00:56:34,242
So, you know, this is not something that like you missed the boat on.

905
00:56:34,542 --> 00:56:38,702
It's going to continue to do this and it's going to continue to be really valuable for people.

906
00:56:41,342 --> 00:56:42,382
It's an amazing piece.

907
00:56:42,522 --> 00:56:43,922
I'm going to make sure I link it in the show.

908
00:56:44,202 --> 00:56:46,862
Are the talks that are happening here going to be recorded?

909
00:56:48,222 --> 00:56:48,702
Yeah, yeah.

910
00:56:48,742 --> 00:56:53,042
So basically, this is the third year that the Human Rights Foundation has run the Global Bitcoin Summit.

911
00:56:53,882 --> 00:56:59,042
We do it like off the record and privately because we really want to make sure that the activists who come,

912
00:56:59,042 --> 00:57:00,162
and the human rights activists,

913
00:57:00,162 --> 00:57:02,662
and the folks working in opposition movements

914
00:57:02,662 --> 00:57:07,042
have peace of mind when they're talking about these issues

915
00:57:07,042 --> 00:57:09,222
because they're A, they're-

916
00:57:09,222 --> 00:57:10,062
Sensitive.

917
00:57:10,062 --> 00:57:11,502
Well, they're nervous about talking about money.

918
00:57:11,502 --> 00:57:12,862
They're a little embarrassed

919
00:57:12,862 --> 00:57:14,822
because they don't know a huge amount about Bitcoins.

920
00:57:14,822 --> 00:57:16,782
We want to create a safe space for that.

921
00:57:16,782 --> 00:57:19,002
And we bring in just a totally badass crew

922
00:57:19,002 --> 00:57:24,002
of elite Bitcoin developers, builders, investors, donors,

923
00:57:24,802 --> 00:57:28,182
miners, educators, community builders.

924
00:57:28,182 --> 00:57:30,162
And we spend three days together trading notes

925
00:57:30,162 --> 00:57:32,242
and learning from each other.

926
00:57:32,242 --> 00:57:34,622
And some of the content we'll put up online, yeah.

927
00:57:36,042 --> 00:57:38,402
But really it's just our effort

928
00:57:38,402 --> 00:57:40,522
at just continuing to move that needle forward

929
00:57:40,522 --> 00:57:42,842
of operationalizing what's in the essay.

930
00:57:43,982 --> 00:57:46,622
We are pushing forward Bitcoin as freedom money here.

931
00:57:46,622 --> 00:57:48,362
We're not like pushing it forward

932
00:57:48,362 --> 00:57:53,362
as something that you can make a copy of and trade,

933
00:57:53,642 --> 00:57:55,802
or that you can make a copy of a copy of a copy,

934
00:57:55,802 --> 00:57:58,222
like the Nine Inch Nails song, copy of a,

935
00:57:58,222 --> 00:58:00,902
yeah, it's just a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.

936
00:58:00,902 --> 00:58:03,102
We're not interested in, you know,

937
00:58:05,162 --> 00:58:06,862
cascading derivatives.

938
00:58:08,442 --> 00:58:10,982
We are interested in teaching people

939
00:58:10,982 --> 00:58:12,982
about how to be self sovereign

940
00:58:12,982 --> 00:58:17,182
and how that can amplify and strengthen their work,

941
00:58:17,182 --> 00:58:20,242
opposing tyranny around the world

942
00:58:20,242 --> 00:58:23,082
and how it can make them more unstoppable.

943
00:58:23,082 --> 00:58:25,542
That's the name of our webinar that we do

944
00:58:25,542 --> 00:58:26,642
has become unstoppable.

945
00:58:26,642 --> 00:58:31,462
Like we want you to be able to fund the investigation

946
00:58:31,462 --> 00:58:33,942
or the protest or the movement

947
00:58:33,942 --> 00:58:35,542
in a particular place in the world

948
00:58:36,482 --> 00:58:39,502
and not be stopped because of monetary technology.

949
00:58:39,502 --> 00:58:42,022
And now we can do that with Satoshi's invention,

950
00:58:42,022 --> 00:58:43,702
which is quite remarkable.

951
00:58:43,702 --> 00:58:45,322
It is literally magic.

952
00:58:45,322 --> 00:58:46,162
It's amazing.

953
00:58:46,162 --> 00:58:48,202
And that's what I end the piece with is,

954
00:58:48,202 --> 00:58:50,062
you know, Satoshi probably didn't know

955
00:58:50,062 --> 00:58:51,062
what was gonna happen.

956
00:58:51,062 --> 00:58:52,482
They speculated quite a bit,

957
00:58:52,482 --> 00:58:55,542
but I think it's fair to say that it's earned that name.

958
00:58:55,542 --> 00:59:00,642
freedom money for sure by now, regardless of what happens with its price in the future,

959
00:59:01,182 --> 00:59:08,682
regardless of the price. I mean, Bitcoin at 3K versus 10K versus 100K versus 4K versus 80K.

960
00:59:08,722 --> 00:59:13,082
It doesn't really matter. It's all freedom money. It's always been freedom money and it always can

961
00:59:13,082 --> 00:59:17,942
move value from A to B without permission, regardless of your gender or your ethnicity,

962
00:59:18,282 --> 00:59:23,842
or regardless of what your colonial occupier or your dictator or the corporation that exerts

963
00:59:23,842 --> 00:59:29,342
power and your structure in your region thinks. It doesn't matter what they all think. Bitcoin

964
00:59:29,342 --> 00:59:36,282
can make money move regardless of what they think and how they feel. And that's really what makes

965
00:59:36,282 --> 00:59:39,362
Bitcoin free to money. And it continues to be that for people around the world.

966
00:59:39,742 --> 00:59:43,182
I love it, man. This has obviously gone out to a load of people that aren't Bitcoiners.

967
00:59:43,322 --> 00:59:46,002
Yes. Have you had any interesting feedback from it so far?

968
00:59:47,242 --> 00:59:53,582
Yes. So as a result, I've been invited to speak at numerous groups that do this kind of work.

969
00:59:53,842 --> 00:59:58,162
you know, where they're like, wow, this is really interesting. Will you come in and speak to our

970
00:59:58,162 --> 01:00:04,322
teams, you know, working on in this field? And I'm happy to do it. And look, a lot of them are going

971
01:00:04,322 --> 01:00:09,602
to be a little nervous about it. They may want to start with stable coins. That's fine. You know,

972
01:00:09,602 --> 01:00:13,442
if that's where they want to be, that's okay. But eventually they're going to realize Bitcoin's

973
01:00:13,442 --> 01:00:16,962
better. I mean, stable coins are really tricky. Like, let's not forget, they're not compatible

974
01:00:16,962 --> 01:00:23,682
with each other. You need a broker. So Tether on Tron doesn't like pay, you know, Tether on ETH or

975
01:00:23,682 --> 01:00:28,722
whatever. They're not natively like that. It's a much more complicated ball game. And

976
01:00:29,762 --> 01:00:37,682
ultimately, they get frozen and they can go to zero as we saw with Terra Luna. So I think that

977
01:00:38,802 --> 01:00:44,402
ultimately, the ease of Bitcoin being like one global monetary language will win over even the

978
01:00:44,402 --> 01:00:48,562
most hardened skeptics, but it's just going to take time. And I think even though this might be

979
01:00:48,562 --> 01:00:51,682
the very first touch point, it might be more interesting stable coins for now, Bitcoin gets

980
01:00:51,682 --> 01:00:55,122
it's hooks in you. Since the first day I learned about Bitcoin, I bet there's not been a single day

981
01:00:55,122 --> 01:00:58,322
since I've not thought about it. And I think that happens to a lot of people.

982
01:00:58,322 --> 01:01:04,962
We are pushing the freedom virus forward and it's spreading and there's no stopping it. So again,

983
01:01:04,962 --> 01:01:12,162
we can debate all day about the crisis in Bitcoin du jour, you know, going back through the years,

984
01:01:12,882 --> 01:01:19,762
but it's continues to spread and it continues to work. And it's something that's really inspiring.

985
01:01:19,762 --> 01:01:24,162
I'd feel a lot more depressed about the world if we didn't have this thing out there,

986
01:01:24,882 --> 01:01:28,202
you know, which is capable of helping people in the darkest corners of the planet

987
01:01:28,202 --> 01:01:29,782
where no one else wants to help.

988
01:01:29,922 --> 01:01:30,482
It's there.

989
01:01:30,702 --> 01:01:31,822
And that's so cool.

990
01:01:32,242 --> 01:01:32,822
A hundred percent.

991
01:01:33,082 --> 01:01:33,362
Okay.

992
01:01:33,502 --> 01:01:35,622
I'm going to make sure that the links for this are in the show.

993
01:01:35,822 --> 01:01:37,482
I'm going to put some videos in the show.

994
01:01:37,762 --> 01:01:40,482
But where do you want to send anyone if you want to find out more about you and the Human

995
01:01:40,482 --> 01:01:41,002
Rights Foundation?

996
01:01:41,462 --> 01:01:45,222
Yeah, well, check out the essay and check out our work at href.org slash financial freedom

997
01:01:45,222 --> 01:01:47,302
if you want to look at all the initiatives we're running.

998
01:01:47,302 --> 01:01:49,782
and follow me on X at Gladstein.

999
01:01:49,942 --> 01:01:51,962
I have my Nostra NPUB there as well.

1000
01:01:52,702 --> 01:01:56,342
Follow me on the Unstoppable Social Network.

1001
01:01:57,422 --> 01:01:59,042
Unique content over there as always.

1002
01:01:59,882 --> 01:02:01,942
And let's stay in touch.

1003
01:02:02,022 --> 01:02:04,142
It's always a pleasure and an honor to be on the show, Danny.

1004
01:02:04,222 --> 01:02:05,002
So thank you so much.

1005
01:02:05,162 --> 01:02:05,682
No, I love it.

1006
01:02:05,742 --> 01:02:06,402
Thanks for coming on, man.

1007
01:02:06,462 --> 01:02:07,002
I appreciate it.

1008
01:02:07,022 --> 01:02:07,442
My pleasure.

1009
01:02:17,302 --> 01:02:47,282
Thank you.