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the 2020 election just kind of validated that this mystery and confusion and anger and all

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these things that came out for people that claim the votes weren't accurate, that can all end

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easily with true vote. There should be no ambiguity into who won and who lost. That needs to be as

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clear as a Bitcoin transaction where it's just it is what it is. Greetings and salutations my

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fellow plebs. My name is Walker and this is the Bitcoin podcast. The Bitcoin block height is 819450

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and the value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin. Today's episode is Bitcoin talk where I talk with

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my guest about Bitcoin and many other things as well. Today that guest is Brett Morrison. Brett

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is a computer scientist and tech entrepreneur who recently launched truevote.org. Truevote is an

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open source solution for tamper proof ballot data built on Bitcoin, No-ster and open timestamps.

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Brett and I talk through a ton of questions about truevote in terms of how it works,

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but we also focus the conversation on why a solution like this is needed in the first place

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and get all of Brett's links and truevote info in the show notes. As always you can watch the

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video version of this episode on rumble, youtube, or x by searching at walkeramerica or listen on

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fountain.fm or wherever you get your podcasts by searching for the Bitcoin podcast. If you listen

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to the Bitcoin podcast on fountain, consider giving this show a boost or creating a clip of

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something you found interesting. If you haven't checked out fountain yet, I highly recommend it.

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You can send Bitcoin to your favorite podcasters and earn Bitcoin just for listening to this show.

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Without further ado, let's get into this Bitcoin talk with Brett Morrison.

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Thank you for coming on here and congrats on the launch because I've been seeing

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just like a lot more buzz about it first of all and your timing I think could not have been better

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with the election. Well, many elections coming up. There are always elections, right? But specifically

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in the US, I think this next year we're going to see a lot of focus on election integrity.

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One would hope that would always be a focus, but I think after the shenanigans last time around,

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people are definitely going to be a little bit more on high alert. So yeah, for sure. Yeah, but

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I want to keep this pretty, pretty free Roman and easy. I've got some questions for you just to kind

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of things I think people definitely want to know. I got some submitted on NoSter and on Twitter,

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but anything you want to talk about as well. This is an open forum. I'll just give us a little intro

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and then we'll dive right in if that sounds good. Yeah, sounds good. It'll be a conversation, right?

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That's how it's going to be. Exactly. We'll keep it casual and have a good time with it.

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All right. So with that said, greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs. My name is Walker

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and this is the Bitcoin podcast. Today I am doing a Bitcoin talk episode and I am joined by Brett

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Morrison. Brett is a computer scientist, tech entrepreneur, and he recently launched Truevote.org.

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It's an open source solution for tamper proof ballot data built on Bitcoin utilizing open

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timestamps and also using NoSter. So you published this on November 20th, Brett, and I'm glad to

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get you or you made it go live on the 20th. Glad to have you on the show. Welcome. And thanks for

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coming. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, I was happy to hit the publish button on that.

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It's a working demo. So that's the app in action, the platform in action, and

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was happy to show it to the world. I'd written the white paper two years prior, so it was good to

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really build out all the promises in the white paper. NoSter wasn't around at the time that the

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white paper was written, but I had always thought about how I'm going to do authentication. And

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I used LastPass as a model as the kind of right way to do it. And then when NoSter came along,

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I thought, okay, I can use OAuth. I can use traditional email password or NoSter. So I

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chose NoSter as our primary form of authentication. I love it. I remember, I think you and I met in

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Jackson Hole and got to talking and sharing stories. And I think that was around the time you

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joined NoSter and you started messing around with it. And Lightbulbs clearly started going off for

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you because I think it's this beautiful thing that you're able to take this real world process and

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very currently very manual and labor intensive process, both voting itself and the counting of

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said votes and utilize the best and newest tech that's out there to be able to verify and authenticate

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in a very secure but also very open way. And I want to dig into true vote, but I'd love to just

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start first just for people who may not be familiar with you with your past work. Let's just start

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with who are you, Brett? And how did you get here today? I'm a computer scientist, grew up in the

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East Coast. I went to school at University of Arizona. And I like to say at the time I was a

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computer science student there. It was a top 10 program in the nation. Computer science wasn't as

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sexy as it is today back then, but it's become quite the way to go for careers. And I strongly

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encourage young ones out there that are considering that are going to college and have an interest

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in programming that the computer science degree is definitely something that you'll have value

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your whole life to offer somebody. And as someone who's interviewed hundreds of engineers over my

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career, I definitely can spot the difference between self taught and computer science taught.

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And there's pros and cons to both, not dissing either, but there's definitely a difference to

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both. So yeah, I had a computer science degree and I've always just had a passion for programming.

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And I've had various tech jobs throughout my life and tech entrepreneur ventures. I had an

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e-commerce company that was super successful in Los Angeles. We had 250 employees. I wrote all the

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e-commerce software for a lot of apparel brands like John Verveto's True Religion, Lululemon,

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all the back end and the front end and the warehouse shipping, photography, returns, customer

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service, all that fell under our e-commerce platform prior to the invention of Shopify or

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Magento or Squarespace. Those things didn't exist back in the early 2000s. So Von Dutch was our

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first client and they had this meteoric rise of adoption with, you know, celeb culture. You

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didn't call it influencers back then, but you know, people like Gaston Kutcher and

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Paris Hilton and Britney Spears are wearing the Von Dutch hat and all of a sudden, okay,

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Brett, I hope your e-commerce system works because we're getting a lot of orders and

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that was the beginning of a great business. So I've had some really, really interesting and

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successful entrepreneur efforts in my life and I did take a break in the mid 2010s and I joined

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SpaceX as a director of engineering there. I really saw Elon's mission to make us a multi-planetary

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species and get to Mars as something I was super passionate about too. So I worked there as a

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director of engineering and helped the software that helps design all the rockets and in the

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manufacturing process. So that was an interesting experience to be there, but really my heart is

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being an entrepreneur or so. And I knew voting was something that we've all voted. We all can

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relate to voting. We all are used to doing everything on our phones and I was online. I

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think it was probably 2012, 2013. I was online at a polling station just frustrated that I was

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standing here online. I had a lot of work to do. I had two kids at home and I was a busy guy and

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I'm like, what am I doing online here? This is a waste of time. So that's where the seed was

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first planted. And then I figured in a few years later, I decided, okay, I'm going to make a company

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out of this. And so I started it and then I thought, well, what's my strategy to build this?

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And you look at all voting systems today, they're all kind of this nebulous black box

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mystery. You don't really know what's behind anything and that's not acceptable. And as a

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Bitcoiner since 2013, I was early, I saw Bitcoin early. So my Bitcoin origin story is real quick.

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I read this article from Wired magazine in the fall of 2011 called the rise and fall of Bitcoin,

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which was basically declaring Bitcoin dead. And I read it thinking, wow, that's so sad,

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Bitcoin's dead. But then I went online and I saw, wait, Bitcoin's not dead. There was no

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fall of Bitcoin. There was an active vibrant community. So I was really interested and I

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did recognize it as freedom tech. I never thought of it as, oh, this is an investment number go up

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technology. I never ever thought of it that way. And I still don't today. One Bitcoin is one Bitcoin.

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I've stayed true to that. And so yeah, I've been interested in Bitcoin for a long time.

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I was around the early days when it was Roger Ver and Eric Voorhees and some of the original guys

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that was actively attending meetups and Andrea Santinopoulos, all that kind of stuff. So

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I've been happy to be part of the Bitcoin community and it's been great to watch it grow,

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especially since 2017, where the first real bull run happened and all the people that have come

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into Bitcoin since then, it's been great. And you'll find me at Bitcoin conferences usually.

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My wife and I love going in. We just love being part of the community. But then back to true vote.

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It's not acceptable that we have these systems that nobody understands. So the only way in my

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opinion is to build one that's open source. And then, okay, it's open source. How do you prove

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the data isn't altered? So because anyone can backdoor into a database, people don't really think

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of these things. They think, okay, if I post a tweet, that's my tweet. But they don't realize

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someone at Twitter can edit that tweet and change it. And you will have no way of knowing who,

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when, or why. You can complain and you hope they listen, but you really don't know.

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Nostra is a little different that way because you're signing with your private key and that

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can't be altered. So that's something I really admire about Nostra. But anyway, so ballot data

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needs to be as thought of as equally as important as like a Nostra note where you are submitting

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something. It's from you and it needs to be immutable and you need to know that it can't be

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tampered with. So I'm using Open Time Stamps, which was written by a core developer named Peter Todd,

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I think in 2014, 2015. And the really elegant thing about Open Time Stamps is that you do not

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have to post a transaction to the Bitcoin blockchain to use it. It just runs kind of alongside its

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anchor to the Bitcoin blockchain and you can take any data and hash it and then use Open Time Stamps

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to their calendar service. And it marks it as this was the hash compared to the Bitcoin blockchain

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at this block height. So your ballot data is hashed and you can see if it was altered, the hash

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wouldn't work anymore. And I make that very transparent on the ballot. So we're all used to,

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all us Bitcoiners are used to using blockchain explorers. With Truevo, you have a ballot explorer

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where you can see everyone's ballots, you can see the ballot ID, you can see the time it was

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submitted, you can see the hash, you can see the ballot choices. But you can't see is the user ID,

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just like Bitcoin, there is no user ID for a Bitcoin transaction. Same with the block,

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the ballot explorer, there's no voter ID, it's just that that is decoupled from your ballot. So

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you as a voter know that it's your ballot, but the rest of the world does not see that connection.

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So, yeah, to wrap up your question about who am I, I'm someone who's super passionate about

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tech and open source technologies and programming. And I really love doing it, like it's something,

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I liken it to a writer who loves to write, I love to write code. That's my passion, that's what I do.

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And I've been working on this Truevo platform for a while, and we're, we'll be releasing it in 2024.

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And I was happy to just show beyond marketing materials what Truevo is beyond the white paper,

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and that's why I published that demo a week and a half ago. So, yeah, and it's gotten some great

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feedback so far and a lot of optimism and some skepticism. And there's always skepticism with

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new tech and especially, you know, people who don't trust, the community we're in is very

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suspicious of everything. And that's why statement. Yeah, yeah, so that's fine. They should be.

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So, you know, I'm, it's going to be a process. This is going to take years of

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refinement, just like the Lightning Network, you know, has taken years to get it right.

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You know, look at look at the Lightning protocol. It's evolved. Look at the Bitcoin protocol.

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It didn't work the first, it didn't work perfectly the first, well, it did, but it's been

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it's been iterated on since then it's been improved. But same thing with that Truevo,

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we will release it and it will continue to improve as the years go by.

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Well, you know, this is the beauty of open source too, because you're putting this out in the open.

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You're freely saying, look, you want to you want to come, you know, submit a poll request for this,

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like, go ahead, like, please come in here, hack on this, see what you can do, see if you can make

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it better, like you're welcoming ideas. And I think that for a process like voting,

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that ethos of open source is actually just the, it's the perfect marriage. And it's like the only

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one that actually makes sense. Because I think maybe a good place to kind of kick off from

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what you just said, great, great intro, by the way, I love asking that question, because it

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tends to, you never know what you're going to get from it. And I think it's always helpful to

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know where somebody's coming from to understand what their motivations are. So I appreciate

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that answer. You've had quite a career, and it's pretty incredible that this is what you're focusing

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on now. But what I'd like to talk about to start us off is just, I want to go through the

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how of Truevote in terms of how it works and also, you know, maybe pick it apart a little bit,

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we can talk about some of the criticisms. But I think a good place to jump off is the why.

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Why is this so important right now? We talked about this a little bit earlier, and you touched

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on it as well, this black box of voter data, not to mention just the incredibly manual and tedious

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process of needing to take a day and go down to wherever you're supposed to vote locally and cast

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your paper ballot and stick that in a box and then wait until maybe that night, maybe the next day,

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maybe after a recount for you to actually know how things went and to have absolutely no idea

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where your vote, your specific vote went. Did it get counted? Because I think that that's a huge

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thing that's having people lose faith in democratic elections in general is I don't think my vote

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matters because I don't actually see where my vote goes. So I'm just not going to vote instead.

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It's because of the obscure nature of the system, it breeds a lot of apathy. And that's an unfortunate

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thing. So maybe we can talk through a little bit just what do you see as the biggest problems

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in need of fixing? Why did you say, you know what true vote needs to happen? What made you think

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this system is so broken? Yeah, exactly. You touched on it. It was my moment waiting online.

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So the convenience part of it where whether you're in person or mail in ballot, it is tedious to

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wait online, take a day or for mail in ballots, use a pen and paper with which I don't know about

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you, but I don't ever use a pen anymore. And fill it in, put it in an envelope and then drop that

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envelope either in a ballot box or in the mail and hope it gets counted. So this is a good

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thing. So there's two problems. One is the convenience. We do everything else on our phone.

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And that's a good thing. I mean, we have really become much more productive because of that.

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We don't have to wait online for things that we shouldn't have to anymore. And that's great.

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We love using our phones. We love automation. We love freeing up our time. And as you know,

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time is our most scarce resource. We have from the moment we're born, we're dying. Our life is

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getting shorter. So we're one day closer to death that I think was a song, a Pink Floyd song. I

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don't know if they're originally, but so I value my time and my time on this earth and I want to

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do good things with it. So I don't like wasting my time and I don't think anybody does. And taking

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a day to vote is absurd. And we should be doing it on our phone for automation. So that's one

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problem is the convenience. The second is exactly what you said, what happened to your ballot after

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you submit it, you really, really truly have no idea in today's current voting system what happened.

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You think they counted it, you hope they do. You hear a story on the news, oh, they lost 30,000

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ballots. Was my ballot in there? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. You have no idea what's going on

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behind the scenes. That to me is laughably absurd. And if that applied to other segments of our

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life, then we wouldn't accept it. So why do we accept it with voting? And because of some of the

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political gaslighting that's gone on, especially with the last 2020 election, by the way, I started

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True Vote before the 2020 election, the 2020 election just kind of validated that this mystery and

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confusion and anger and all these things that came out for people that claim the votes weren't

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accurate, that can all end easily with True Vote. There should be no ambiguity into who won and who

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lost. That needs to be as clear as a Bitcoin transaction where it's just, it is what it is.

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And I want to make voting boring. I want you to get a notification on your phone saying it's time

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to vote. Good morning. Good morning, Brett. It's time to vote. You tap on it. Okay, submit my ballot.

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Done. And I know my vote was counted. Why don't we have that today? We don't have it today because

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no one's built it. No one's built it because I don't know. They just haven't tried. So I'm

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building it. How long has it been since you tried a new hardware wallet? Or maybe you need to get

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one for the first time ever or just need some Christmas presents for friends and family. Either

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way, head to bitbox.swiss.com and use promo code Walker for 5% off the Bitcoin only bitbox

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02 hardware wallet. It's easy as hell to use Bitcoin only and fully open source. So you can see

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the firmware on the bitbox 02. Check out the bitbox app, even x-rays of the hardware and other

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schematics. Just go to their GitHub and verify for yourself. Help build one for yourself if you feel

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like it or just go to bitbox.swiss.com and use promo code Walker for 5% off. It's really up to you.

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Oh, I love it. I mean, it's the builder mentality, right? You're like, this is a problem. This is

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annoying to me and guaranteed to a lot of other people. Why is no one fixing this? Okay, fuck it.

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Let me fix it. Let me build it. Exactly. You know, I'm glad that you are and I've seen

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some pushback against the idea, which is natural again, especially Bitcoiners are by nature dubious

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of certain things. And I think specifically, there's a lot of Bitcoiners that are saying,

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you know, like, I'm never voting, for example, like, I'm, I'm just not going to vote. It's a,

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I'm not going to vote into this flawed system, not going to participate in this, the charade.

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But at the same time, even if that is your opinion of the current system, and I am no

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lover of the state by any means, that being said, right now, these are the rules of the game.

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These are the rules that we're playing by what I don't see a ton of downsides to at least making

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that system more radically transparent. And also just more efficient. If you think about just the

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collective productivity lost for during each election, whether that's federal, local, state,

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even at your, you know, if it's a union or something like that, it's absolutely massive.

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And at a national scale, it's like, Oh my God, the amount of time that was wasted. I mean,

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the media loves it, right? Because they sell a bunch of new ad space, because everybody's

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following along to see did they find a new briefcase of votes in Pennsylvania or wherever it might be.

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But it's just a time suck. It's a money suck. And with each of these elections, it feels like

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there's just less and less trust in the system, because people know that this,

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rightly so that the system is broken. And so I think it's a good thing to at least introduce

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an option for people to do it more efficiently. I'd love to talk through, if you can walk us

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through that, you know, kind of in layman's terms, how does it work? You know, at which

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points in the process, are you using open time stamps? And then noster, as I understand it,

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using the noster for the identification, basically to validate as you're signing your login mechanism.

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But it's also paired with some elements of the traditional system, right? I believe it's the

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election access code. Is that the correct term? Can you walk us through how that works and also

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how True Vote will interface with the existing system and kind of quote,

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safeguards that are in place on the side of elections as they exist today?

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Yeah. Yeah. First, I'll touch on what you said about, you know, people being disincentivized

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to vote. I totally understand that. And True Vote is not attempting to solve democracy. There's an

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old adage like what do two wolves and a chicken vote on for what's for dinner? The minority

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obviously gets destroyed in that situation. So democracy is flawed, but it is what we have now.

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And so it might as well work properly at least until some other system replaces it. But I mean,

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yeah, I don't see democracy, at least in this country going away anytime soon. So we might as

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well have accurate voting integrity. I don't. So the skepticism around that I get, you know,

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the system is broken a lot of ways. You know, I'm not trying to solve everything with True

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Vote. I'm just trying to have election integrity. And I think that that can be a launching point

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for people being more civil to each other and accepting results. And I think there's so much

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upside to having an accuracy in election where, like you said, the productivity drain won't be

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there. And I think the energy drain won't be there either. I just, you know, you vote, here's the

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results. Let's move on and work as far as how it works. So yes, noster is how you authenticate

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in a True Vote. Now, to, as you know, anyone can create a no stride and you can create one on the

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True Vote site. I did not put that in the demo video because I cut it for time. But there's a

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there's a register button where you can click and it will generate a no stride for you.

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Now, as far as being able to submit a ballot, you need to be an authorized voter. And so today,

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everywhere, US and elsewhere, we have voter registration, you have to prove that you are

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a citizen of whatever jurisdiction you're voting in. And usually that's a driver's license in the

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US. And you have to not be a felon. I think I think I don't know if that's federal, but it may be

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where you can't vote if you're a convicted felon. I don't know. But if you have a valid voting

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registration, then you can submit a ballot through the traditional system. So you will be able to

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submit a ballot through True Vote. And the way it works is through the election access code EAC,

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you are issued True Vote creates a block of those EACs. And then we connect them to your voter

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registration with the local registrar. So for Los Angeles County, for example, the Secretary of

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State maintains that voting record. And everyone who is eligible to vote that they would have sent

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a mail in ballot had the voter opted into that. They just get an EAC instead. And then they take

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that EAC, they type it in or QR scan it in to True Vote, they submit their ballot, and the ballot

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submitted. And the EAC is decoupled from there's no binding of the EAC to the voter's user ID at

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that point. They just that allows them to vote to that allows the ballot to be submitted, but then

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it the connection is gone. All that's noted is that they did vote, not what their ballot is.

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And that's because and that's the way that thing. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the way the voting system

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works today. Like you can go on, for example, LA County dot gov or whatever and type in last name

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and birthday. And you can see someone's party registration and what elections they voted in.

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That is public information today. So True Vote is going to abide by all of those laws that have

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been fought over for decades, the way those work. That's outside the scope of what I'm building a

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True Vote. I'm building a ballot submission system that's that's accurate. Right. So the voting

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registration itself is still handled by whatever jurisdiction there is. And if they want to do

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strict KYC that they can do that if they don't they don't. I think, you know, there's a lot of

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discontent into polling places that anyone could just walk in and say, yeah, I live on the street

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and they hand them a ballot. That is a problem with True Vote. I think

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that will be more kind of you will have to provide some sort of real voter registration for you to

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be issued an election access code. So you will not be able to just state that you live somewhere

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and expect to get a ballot doesn't it needs to be more robust than that. It's not scalable that way.

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Right. And the the election access codes that's still that's not going to be something again

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that True Vote is handling that's still handled through the traditional means. So again, you're

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not trying to fix the system as it stands today in terms of how you decide who is eligible to vote.

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It's just saying for eligible voters, we want to make sure that the ballots are counted,

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that they're done efficiently and that people have a more convenient way of casting that ballot.

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Is that fair? Yeah, exactly. No, that's it. Yeah, because I think that's I know one of the

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comments I saw a couple times from people is, oh, you're, you know, somehow contributing to KYC

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people. And it's like, well, that's, you know, again, outside of the scope of what this project

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is aiming to do. Yeah. You know, you need to have a valid ID of some form to vote most places.

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That's probably, you know, I'm sure there are pluses and minuses to that. Maybe there are better

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ways to do it. I'd rather have that be the case than to need to give my thumbprint or an iris scan

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in order to vote, for example. So I think that this is a really nice step in the right direction.

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And again, you can't solve it all at once, right? You're not going to fix everything that is that

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is broken, but at least you can fix one of the most contentious parts, which is, does my vote

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matter? And are the results of this election accurate and fair? Because that's what, you know,

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that's what people hate. That's what makes them mad. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, the KYC thing is

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definitely something I'm sensitive to. And I don't want people to get discouraged by that, that line

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of thinking. I do think voter ID has become a political issue for some reason. I don't know

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why some parties are against it. Some parties are for it. True vote is apolitical. In fact,

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I purposely designed the logo. It's purple and green. There's no red and blue. There's no affiliation.

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We are just software company building ballot submission election integrity software. And I

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did make it multilingual out of the gate because it's not just about the US. There are other places

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around the world and I already have interests outside the world where there's emerging democracies

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that want to be able to vote online. And maybe they'll adopt it even faster than the US will.

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It just depends on the size of the bureaucracy and the resistance to it.

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Now, we certainly have a large bureaucracy here in the US to contend with. Do you foresee a lot

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of pushback from, let's say, it's called the, well, from the US bureaucracy, if we're talking about

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an American centric view here, do you think you'll see a lot of pushback against this that ends up

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somehow getting politicized? Is true vote going to get cast incorrectly so as partisan one way

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or another, do you think? Or I mean, there's no way to stop that from happening per se.

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But hopefully with enough education, some of those risks can be mitigated.

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Yeah, I mean, I think the ethos is very clear. It's not about that. It's about whoever you vote

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for, your vote should count. And I really wish both parties would just start to also have that

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message and realize not everyone's going to agree. And why do we even have a two-party system? I mean,

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personally, I think it's severely limiting. And so we also have ranked choice voting as part of

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the true vote platform. So if your election supports that, you can do ranked choice voting

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online. So all sorts of combinations can be added to the true vote platform. Also propositions for

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against some sort of infrastructure bill or something like that. Those show up on ballots

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quite often. Yeah, it will be politicized at some point. Again, it's just like,

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Bitcoin doesn't care what you spend your money on. It's kind of like, true vote doesn't care what

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the ballot choices are. They're just ballot choices. And so that's how I'm staying kind of

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agnostic to the entire politic is politicalization. That's a different. Yeah. So I'm just saying

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agnostic to it. It's just about writing good software that works and is auditable and verifiable.

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Well, I think that it's something that hopefully both parties would find, at least in the U.S.,

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find a reason to get behind. Because on the Democratic side, they're always accusing the

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Republicans of voter suppression. And the fact that when the vote is for a presidential election

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is on a weekday and there's no public holiday for the election, well, a lot of people can't take

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time off work. And on the other side, the Republicans are saying, well, we need to make sure that

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this isn't some dead person who's voting or someone who is illegally in the country. And we need to

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make sure that the Democrats aren't spinning up all these all these fake votes. And so to me,

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this addresses both of those problems in a very elegant way because it says, look,

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now you can vote whether you're at work, whether you're at home, you know, whether you're in the

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bathroom, like you're good to go from wherever you are. And we're traveling. Yeah, exactly. Which

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is another huge thing because most people, if they're traveling, they're not taking the time to do

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an absentee ballot mail in. Like it's just not happening. And on the other side, you're making

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sure, okay, if you have an election access code, you can vote. And if you don't, you can't. So I

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think that it has something for both sides to like there. Probably things for both sides to

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dislike as well, but say la vie. And you're working with, is it global election services? Is that the

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like a, is it a partnership with them? And can you maybe walk us through that a little bit? What

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do they do? How are they kind of going to help get the word out there and start utilizing this?

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Yeah, global election services has been around. It's a family business. It's been around

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over 30 years. They've run thousands of elections nationwide, mostly association and private

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elections, but some public sector. And so they're a strategic partner of ours. And they are just

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waiting for me to deliver them be one of the product where they can use it immediately. So

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they're ready to use it for smaller elections. And the idea is, they grow with us. So we grow

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together and we prove, Hey, you know, here's some case studies of some elections that were successful

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using Truvo. And those elections just get bigger and bigger and bigger. And so we'll start with

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that as a proving ground and build off that. Yeah. As far as you mentioned, you know, whether you're

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Democrat or Republican, it shouldn't matter. Absolutely. That's the way I look at it too.

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And it's like, if you don't want transparent election integrity, you really have an

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unindefensible position. Like why? And I love the question. I love asking someone a question. So

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why don't you want Truvo? There's really no good answer. So and I love that I

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in building a business where it seems like such a win-win and I don't know why you wouldn't want it.

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So I think that will make itself known as we gain momentum and prove that we can succeed in this.

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And whether it's, you know, a large election outside the US or within the US,

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once we have a few elections kind of done and shown, I don't see how there should be any reason to not use us.

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So to those critics, because I'm inclined to agree with you, I think that transparency,

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you know, light is always better than darkness, especially when it comes to something as integral

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to our current apparatus of government as voting is. And the less trust we have in that,

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the less trust people have in the government. Now, that is not to say to clarify that I believe

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people should implicitly trust the government. But I would hope that people would see the benefit

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of at least having the knowledge that their vote counted and that the election was fair,

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at least within the bounds of ballot counting and valid ballots being cast. I would hope that

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people would think that that is at least a good thing. Because again, I am not one to be an advocate

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for the state or for the state to have more power. And in my mind, true vote seems to be a way to

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remove some of the power from the state, whether that be at a local level at a state state level,

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or at a national level. Because again, it's taking out the potential failure points,

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where things can go awry, where people can tweak the system. Some still exist, sure,

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in the existing voter registration system. But at least it's a step in the right direction.

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If we want to be fair to the critics, what is your potential failure case for true vote? Or

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if you were to steal man true vote, what's the biggest thing you could say that is a downside

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of it or that may cause it to not be successful or maybe to have unintended consequences that are,

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wow, didn't think that would happen, but it did. What's your take on that? Just to give the critics

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something to chew on and to look at all sides of this thing. Yeah, I do spell out some attack

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factors in the white paper. I think the biggest threat to true vote would be a massive DDoS attack

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at an inopportune time. We're using Microsoft Azure and CloudFront, but they're not impenetrable.

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There could be a situation where the amount of traffic is so severe that the true vote systems

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respond slowly and people get frustrated because their ballot submissions don't work.

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That's a concern. That's one that keeps me up at night, to be honest. I'm going to have to lean on

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Microsoft Azure and other edge providers to help with that. That's probably going to cost some

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amount of money to defend against. It's hard to defend against DDoS, but it's not impossible.

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That's one big concern. I guess the other would be some unauthorized usage of election access

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codes. Obviously, that's an obvious one. Those have to be accurate.

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But again, that's something out of the current system though still. If you get a mail-in ballot,

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you're supposed to have a witness there that watches you sign it. Only you are supposed to

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complete it, but you're doing that in the privacy of your own home. Nobody has any idea whether or

375
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not that was actually you that filled out that ballot and sent it in and who the hell signed

376
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:19,440
the witness signature. To me, again, that's a different problem than true vote is trying to

377
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:27,360
solve if I'm understanding correctly. Yes. I'm glad you brought that up. I'm an optimist and I am

378
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:40,400
hopeful that people act in, let's just say, a moral way. As far as committing election fraud,

379
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:52,400
why? If you want to commit an illegal act and commit election fraud, whether it's

380
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:57,040
having someone else fill out your ballot or whether it's a mail-in ballot or a true vote ballot,

381
00:39:57,040 --> 00:40:03,040
you are committing election fraud and you are violating the terms of the election. If you are

382
00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:08,640
okay with that and you don't really care about your own integrity, that's something you have to

383
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:16,080
reckon with at some point in your life. I would hope that most people would just be a little bit

384
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:23,040
be a little bit more ethical that way and know that, hey, this is my vote. It's no one else's

385
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:29,120
but mine and I will vote. That's that. I know that's wishful thinking and there's probably

386
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:35,440
people who will listen to that and just laugh me off. That's my starting point.

387
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:44,240
But unfortunately, the utopian world that I sometimes wish we had isn't really reality yet.

388
00:40:44,240 --> 00:40:53,520
Hopefully, someday it will be. But yeah, there's a lot of dishonesty in the world and bad actors.

389
00:40:55,520 --> 00:41:02,880
So again, it becomes a moral issue. A lot of this does. Like, okay, you want to launch a DDoS

390
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:14,400
attack a true vote. Why? Why? And I think, you know, I share your optimism. But I, of course,

391
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:23,120
I have a lot of doubt in general, because I think we've seen and often it's not at the individual

392
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:28,800
voter level, but it's at a higher up level. Maybe it's a super PAC who decides, you know what,

393
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:33,680
we're going to put out bounties on the dark web for election access codes and say, hey,

394
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:39,120
you know, we'll give you 100 bucks to send us a message with your election access code

395
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:44,160
that we can use and we're going to spin up a bunch of, you know, noster key pairs and use your access

396
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:49,520
codes and pretend to be you. Fair. You to be fair, you could also do that with paper ballots,

397
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:55,680
mail and balance as they exist today. Again, I'm trying to separate the problems with the current

398
00:41:55,680 --> 00:42:02,640
system that are not in scope for what true value is trying to accomplish. Because I think that's

399
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:07,120
where people get caught up. That's where you'll probably and probably have already faced the

400
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:14,640
biggest pushback is confusion between what problem it's trying to solve versus all of the problems

401
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:20,400
that exist that could be solved. It's like, you got to walk before you can run a little bit, like,

402
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:26,960
at least this is something that adds a shred of integrity to an incredibly archaic and,

403
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:33,760
well, lacking an integrity system. So, you know, just trying to think through this because again,

404
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:37,760
to touch on one of your earlier points about the DDoS attack,

405
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:43,440
I think that may be another big criticism that you'll face in terms of, okay, well,

406
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:52,240
if it can be DDoS, then it's too centralized. And is there any way for true vote to embrace,

407
00:42:52,240 --> 00:42:57,760
let's say, more of the Bitcoin no-ster ethos of decentralization? Is there any way to reduce

408
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:03,680
that attack factor by decentralizing or is a certain amount of centralization

409
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:10,880
inevitable and necessary when you're dealing with votes? Because then maybe true vote is even if

410
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:17,200
things are publicly verifiable, maybe true vote becomes the target of those

411
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:23,280
validity attacks where people say, well, what are these computer nerds doing behind the scenes?

412
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:28,640
They could be just putting ones in a computer, especially for folks who may not have much of

413
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:35,200
a handle on cryptography in general. So, is there any way to break that out more? Can you have an

414
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:42,720
instance of, for local elections, even of multiple community members running nodes for this sort

415
00:43:42,720 --> 00:43:48,800
of thing? Is there any way to utilize a relay-based model like no-ster uses to be able to break down

416
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:54,240
some of those attack vectors? Or is that just not really possible with this kind of system?

417
00:43:56,000 --> 00:44:00,480
That's something I've thought about as well. And by the way, if you Google blockchain voting,

418
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:09,680
you'll see 15 years worth of heavy, heavy noise and no signal and claims of decentralism and

419
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:18,400
closed source and tokens and blockchains. You'll see all sorts of claims that never would work or

420
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:24,960
never will work. I'm not trying to create a new token or a blockchain or claim to be decentralized.

421
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:33,600
Prior to open timestamps, my original design was going to be kind of enlightening like an app that

422
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:41,840
would run where you'd have to exchange some sort of, some SATs to validate ballots. And I realized

423
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:46,720
that it was a little bit over complicated. I think there's something to be said for

424
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:54,880
centralized systems as far as code deployment and control. And then, but being open source,

425
00:44:54,880 --> 00:45:00,640
and having something like open timestamps validate the hash of the data, that's where I think is the

426
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:08,480
sweet spot. As far as resisting a DDOS attack, Microsoft Azure and like AWS is one of the

427
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:16,080
biggest networks in the world. And they do have redundancy and geolocations all over the place

428
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:26,960
where they can handle the traffic and distribution of the load. I think at some point, maybe we'd

429
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:31,680
build like a true vote server that can run on a note or like as an umbral app or something like

430
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:36,160
that and they could be peer to peer. Probably like a future version, I could see us building out

431
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:43,520
something like that. For now though, it's, there's an API, we're using Cosmos DB, which is a no SQL

432
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:49,680
database, very much like MongoDB. And it scales very, very well. It can scale across

433
00:45:51,280 --> 00:46:00,320
geo regions of Azure. It has partition keys. It's super, super fast. And then the front end,

434
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:04,480
a lot of code runs in the front end, it's just a static React web app. So there's not like this

435
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:10,240
bottleneck of client server hand shaking all the time. It's very, very efficient.

436
00:46:10,240 --> 00:46:16,880
So yeah, I mean, the answer is not for V1 or probably V2, but at some point, yeah,

437
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:21,120
yeah, I'd probably want to look at that. And it's something that will always be, I will always be

438
00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:30,000
thinking about is how to make it more decentralized than beyond just being open source and having

439
00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:34,560
distributed load across Microsoft Azure. There are other ways like you mentioned. So

440
00:46:34,560 --> 00:46:39,920
yeah, it's in the future at some point, I'm sure. Yeah. You know, I think it's interesting.

441
00:46:40,720 --> 00:46:46,960
This is really one of those cases where the power of open source really shines through. Because as

442
00:46:46,960 --> 00:46:52,560
you said, like sometimes you don't need a blockchain for everything. First of all, I think

443
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:59,600
that's very clear. Blockchains are not an efficient way to do most things that you would want to do.

444
00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:08,320
They're very, very good for Bitcoin. But for most of the other shitcoin applications,

445
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:14,160
so-called applications of blockchain, it's completely superfluous. You don't need to have

446
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:20,320
a distributed ledger for most things. A centralized database is going to be faster. It's going to be

447
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:25,120
cheaper. It's going to work better. And in this case, that's, you know, a potential thing where

448
00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:29,680
people say, well, it's centralized. I don't know about that. But here's where the open source comes

449
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:35,040
in, because anyone can go ahead and audit that code, can see what exactly is happening behind

450
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:40,000
the scenes. Not anyone. Obviously, you have to have some capabilities. But there are enough

451
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:46,400
programmers in the world now that I'm sure people on all sides of the political spectrum will have

452
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:52,160
someone that they can bring in that can audit it for them. And so I think that that's a good

453
00:47:52,160 --> 00:47:59,520
thing. Because yes, it is centralized, but it's centralized because it doesn't make sense to

454
00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:05,120
decentralize it at this stage. But the development of it is out in the open. So at least people

455
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:10,480
can have the confidence that, okay, I know how the sausage is being made. And that's something

456
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:18,720
that we have no idea about in our current system. Another thing I wanted to talk about was just in

457
00:48:18,720 --> 00:48:25,040
terms of the pushback that you may get about, what about people that don't have phones? Is it safe to

458
00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:31,200
assume that this can be pretty easily run on an iPad or some sort of a kiosk that they could still,

459
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:38,000
so if you still want to go down to your, you know, your voting, voting location, that local

460
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:44,880
station can run true vote, you can go there and, you know, sign or create your key on the spot,

461
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:52,800
sign in, and this is not in any way exclusionary towards those who don't have phones.

462
00:48:53,920 --> 00:49:00,160
Yeah, absolutely. It will be, you can have a kiosk mode where the second you submit your ballot,

463
00:49:00,160 --> 00:49:05,280
it signs you out of your Nostra key and waits for the next person. So that's just like a toggle on

464
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:12,560
the election configurator or on the kiosk configurator. And then I've been asked before,

465
00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:19,200
so I'll answer even though you didn't ask, what about voting alongside the traditional systems?

466
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:23,920
And I think there will be a time where people will want to vote the current way and end true

467
00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:28,560
vote. It won't be all or nothing. And so we'll just add the totals up. So here's the true vote

468
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:32,320
voters. Here's the mail in voters. Here's the in person voters, add them up and there's your

469
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:39,280
results. Just like today, they add up mail in voting with in person voting. So now we have a

470
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:45,040
third one. Now we have a third one, true vote, mobile voting. So yeah, and then eventually,

471
00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:51,600
like most hybrid technologies, they go towards the best one, which would be online.

472
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:59,040
And so for people who don't have phones, they'll have that option to vote the old way or go and

473
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:07,280
find a kiosk. Okay, now that's good. And I'm curious if, obviously, old habits die hard.

474
00:50:07,280 --> 00:50:13,920
It may be a difficult uphill battle, as I'm sure you are full aware being engrossed in this, but

475
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:21,920
to get people, but also the folks running these elections to make a big change like this. Do you

476
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:26,720
think that at least is there going to be an interim period where maybe true vote is used not

477
00:50:26,720 --> 00:50:33,200
alongside but on top of existing election structures as a way to just validate to say, okay,

478
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:38,000
if you're going into, you know, place your ballot, they've got a little kiosk in there where you can

479
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:44,160
also go and place your true vote ballot to say, okay, I'm just trying to do a double check. And

480
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:49,600
then to compare the tallies at the end and see, okay, is this a way for us to double check the

481
00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:57,920
authenticity of the existing system? If the adoption isn't quite there yet to fully switch over,

482
00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:00,960
do you foresee that having a chance at happening at all? Or do you think it's going to be

483
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:07,680
either alongside or fully implemented? Yeah, like I said, I think there will be a time where there's

484
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:13,680
both at the same time and then eventually fully implemented. We do have a big national election

485
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:21,680
coming up in about 11 or so months. I think it would be helpful if we did a true vote mock

486
00:51:21,680 --> 00:51:27,760
election in time for that where if you want to vote with true vote, you can it won't count obviously

487
00:51:27,760 --> 00:51:34,640
because the secret, the states won't certify it yet, but they, but we can have it just as an exercise

488
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:40,240
of usage and a test case. So I think I'll build something like that where if you want to vote

489
00:51:40,240 --> 00:51:46,400
with true vote, you can just for fun, you know, just to just to do it alongside. Yeah.

490
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:53,200
Do you think there's a chance of this being implemented for either party in primary elections,

491
00:51:53,200 --> 00:51:59,200
at least at a state level? Have you been in any talks with that or is it getting too close already

492
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:04,640
where they're just they're not trying to rock the boat? Yeah, no, not yet. Not yet. It needs to be

493
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:13,040
proven out first. The primaries are just around the corner. So yeah, but, but there's always elections

494
00:52:13,040 --> 00:52:17,280
going on, like you said earlier, there is all they're all over the world. They're always going on.

495
00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:23,920
So we'll just, you know, once once we're ready, the yeah, once we're, once we're ready, you'll

496
00:52:23,920 --> 00:52:29,280
just start outing them. Yeah. And you touched on this earlier, but I think it's worth maybe going

497
00:52:29,280 --> 00:52:35,120
into a little deeper. This isn't just something that needs to be used for democratic elections

498
00:52:35,840 --> 00:52:42,160
in terms of political ones. This is something that can be used for across a lot of different

499
00:52:42,160 --> 00:52:50,400
sectors. I mean, even for any sort of corporate or union or heck, your local school board PTA,

500
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:57,280
meaning whatever it might be, because this is just an app on your phone, it's very accessible.

501
00:52:57,280 --> 00:53:04,000
So do you see more of a bottom up adoption of this happening where maybe it starts with a

502
00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:10,480
local union and they try it out and that's just, you know, words start spreading a little bit.

503
00:53:10,480 --> 00:53:15,680
Or do you think you'll get some like the political elections will start just rolling in at the same

504
00:53:15,680 --> 00:53:21,760
time too? Yeah, I think it will be bottom up. It's hard to predict the future at Walker, but you

505
00:53:21,760 --> 00:53:26,880
know, I think it starts with that with that and you listed some good examples, unions, association,

506
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:31,200
school boards, you know, little league commissioners, you know, there's all sorts of elections

507
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:35,360
always going on. And there's unfortunately, there's probably corruption, even at those levels too,

508
00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:42,640
like somebody wants to, you know, who has access like a cantilellic, cantaloupe effect of elections,

509
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:50,240
right? Those closest to it can control it. So true vote, true vote ends that you can't corrupt it.

510
00:53:50,240 --> 00:53:59,360
So yeah, no, that's that's the strategy for sure is bottom up and then just just grow the election

511
00:53:59,360 --> 00:54:09,040
base, the number of voters per election. Yeah. What are you most, let's say true vote is implemented,

512
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:14,240
starts being implemented at a really wide scale. What are you most looking forward to? What is,

513
00:54:14,240 --> 00:54:19,840
you know, what is kind of your, what's keeping you going to say, this is the future that I want to

514
00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:27,120
see. And I think that it's possible because of true vote. Yeah, I want, like I said, I want

515
00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:34,880
elections to be boring. In 2028, November, I want to wake up. I have an alert on my phone, Brett,

516
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:40,400
don't forget to vote. I tap it, I vote, I submit, and then I wait for the results to come in and I

517
00:54:40,400 --> 00:54:50,320
see and I know that they're accurate. Like that's my vision of what is possible. Yeah. So that's

518
00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:55,200
what I'm working towards is that moment. I like the sound of boring elections. Yeah. Although,

519
00:54:55,200 --> 00:55:00,480
you know, it is kind of fun sometimes to watch the really terrible takes as votes start rolling in.

520
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:06,160
So I may miss that a little bit, but I look forward to the process being boring because it

521
00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:13,840
should be something that isn't this massive amount of uncertainty and doubt and unnecessary

522
00:55:13,840 --> 00:55:19,680
fanfare. Yeah. Something that's part of our existing political structure. For now, as you said,

523
00:55:19,680 --> 00:55:25,840
maybe something else better comes along. But for now, we're working within the confines of the law

524
00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:33,280
as it exists in various jurisdictions, like it or not, participate in it or not. At least if you do

525
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:39,440
choose to participate, true vote does give you a way to know that your vote went somewhere and not

526
00:55:39,440 --> 00:55:44,400
just into somebody's back pocket, which I think is a pretty powerful thing. What about for folks who,

527
00:55:44,400 --> 00:55:49,680
because again, this is open source for folks who want to contribute, who want to, you know, kick the

528
00:55:49,680 --> 00:55:55,680
tires a little bit or write some code. What is the best way for them to help out with this and be

529
00:55:55,680 --> 00:56:03,760
able to contribute to true vote? Yeah. Like any opensource project, it's available. It's on github.com

530
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:10,160
slash true vote and the repos are all there and you can run it locally. You don't even need to

531
00:56:10,160 --> 00:56:17,600
publish it to Azure or AWS. You can run it on your own device, your own computer, and you can submit

532
00:56:17,600 --> 00:56:22,320
pull requests just like the Bitcoin community does. And that's how Bitcoin Core got built out.

533
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:33,040
I have an internal JIRA issue tracking system that is not public, but I will be publishing some of

534
00:56:33,040 --> 00:56:39,040
those issues on github so anyone can just take one. And if they want to get started, they could just

535
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:47,360
start working on one. So yeah, I would absolutely love to see any developer, whether anonymous or

536
00:56:47,360 --> 00:56:53,920
someone we know, start working on github. And it's such a beautiful thing to have pull requests

537
00:56:53,920 --> 00:57:02,960
and code reviews and exchange of ideas and a community. So yeah, it's going to, yeah, it all

538
00:57:02,960 --> 00:57:12,320
starts with that initial command and then we build off of that. Yeah. And do you have any message for

539
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:19,760
folks out there? Maybe they are elected officials. Maybe there are folks who are running local state

540
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:26,080
or national elections by some freak chance they're listening to this Bitcoin podcast. But for folks

541
00:57:26,080 --> 00:57:32,160
that are out there or maybe they're a member of a union who want to implement this, what do you

542
00:57:32,160 --> 00:57:38,480
want to implement this? What's your message to them? Why should they jump on this now? And

543
00:57:40,400 --> 00:57:43,600
basically, how's it going to help them and why should they do it?

544
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:52,480
I think like a lot of incentives, it comes down to budget. And there are organizations that have

545
00:57:52,480 --> 00:58:01,280
a budget to run an election. And that budget can be pretty much reduced by a gigantic amount

546
00:58:01,280 --> 00:58:06,640
if they just use true vote, right? The amount of effort that it takes to run an election all

547
00:58:06,640 --> 00:58:14,000
across the world is massive. And when you can just do it all online, it brings all those costs

548
00:58:14,000 --> 00:58:22,240
down. So that's the biggest carrot to show to say, hey, you want accuracy and decrease costs,

549
00:58:22,240 --> 00:58:29,040
why wouldn't you use true vote? So it seems like a no brainer really. Yeah.

550
00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:34,000
And now that's honestly, great answer, because I think money is something that

551
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:40,240
everyone can relate to. And especially for those of us who are Bitcoiners, we think about money a

552
00:58:40,240 --> 00:58:48,160
lot and what it is. And again, the time value of that money. And so the idea of saving money and

553
00:58:48,160 --> 00:58:54,240
saving your time and the value of that time by not fucking around with unnecessary elections,

554
00:58:54,240 --> 00:59:05,360
or I should say unnecessary election processes is very attractive. So anything else that you think

555
00:59:05,360 --> 00:59:14,240
people are missing about true vote, is there one last message to the skeptics? Is it to, hey,

556
00:59:14,240 --> 00:59:20,800
take a look at my code? Is it to just have fun not voting? Is there anything else out there

557
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:27,360
that you want to give one last plug for those that may still just be either on the fence or saying,

558
00:59:27,920 --> 00:59:31,840
you know what, this is just another way to support status regimes?

559
00:59:34,960 --> 00:59:38,960
Yeah, that's a good question. I would just say be patient and be optimistic.

560
00:59:40,880 --> 00:59:49,680
These problems won't be solved overnight. As far as the people's disenfranchisement with their

561
00:59:49,680 --> 01:00:00,560
government, that is a large problem. And we all are subjects to it. Term limits are an issue that

562
01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:10,160
I think are super important. True vote doesn't solve that problem. So yeah, I don't give up.

563
01:00:10,160 --> 01:00:14,720
I mean, I do think I do love the message. I was taught as a young age, your vote counts,

564
01:00:14,720 --> 01:00:22,000
and I still do believe that. So I guess I would say that. And one of the main reasons people

565
01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:26,880
don't vote today is because it is inconvenient. They really just don't want to hassle with it.

566
01:00:26,880 --> 01:00:33,600
So I'm giving you a lifeboat for that. It's as simple as launching an app on your phone and

567
01:00:33,600 --> 01:00:41,280
tapping a few choices and hitting submit. So the inconvenience part is over. The inconvenience

568
01:00:41,280 --> 01:00:49,360
part is over. It's solved. So yeah, I think we'd see a huge rise in number of voters once this is

569
01:00:49,360 --> 01:00:57,760
deployed. And again, if you are against that, you have to answer to why. Why wouldn't you want

570
01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:05,040
everyone who was able to vote to vote? Politicians always say, oh, if you don't like it, vote.

571
01:01:05,040 --> 01:01:10,800
Change this, change that. Use your vote. Use your vote. Okay. Here's a system where you can

572
01:01:10,800 --> 01:01:14,080
make it much easier to vote. Why wouldn't you want someone to use that?

573
01:01:15,040 --> 01:01:23,360
Yeah. And I think that's a very fair point. And I think for a lot of others to focus specifically

574
01:01:23,360 --> 01:01:27,840
on Bitcoiners here, because right now, Bitcoiners are probably some of the ones who are paying

575
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:32,880
attention to this the most or folks on Noster, because they're following anything that's being

576
01:01:32,880 --> 01:01:40,080
done in and around this technology, right? And as we stated before, and is very evident to anybody

577
01:01:40,080 --> 01:01:46,320
on Twitter or Noster, Bitcoiners are doubtful of things and doubting is good. It's good to be

578
01:01:46,320 --> 01:01:51,760
skeptical. It's good to check things out, to verify for yourself, not to trust. And luckily,

579
01:01:51,760 --> 01:01:54,960
that is something that's actually possible with this again, because it's open source.

580
01:01:55,520 --> 01:02:02,000
And so I think that fix the money, fix the world is not just a meme, but I think there's

581
01:02:02,000 --> 01:02:08,800
so much truth to that. But we also have to remember that we do still exist within the

582
01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:13,360
current paradigm. Now, I am all for building parallel systems. And I think that that is a lot

583
01:02:13,360 --> 01:02:19,680
of what's happening within the Bitcoin community, within the Noster ecosystem today. Parallel

584
01:02:19,680 --> 01:02:25,680
communities are being built, there's a move towards more localization versus globalization.

585
01:02:25,680 --> 01:02:31,840
And I think that that is a beautiful thing. That doesn't, however, negate the fact that

586
01:02:31,840 --> 01:02:37,280
within the system that sits alongside our new parallel system, within the existing system,

587
01:02:37,280 --> 01:02:43,280
I would personally like to see more transparency that is reflective of the ethos of open source

588
01:02:43,280 --> 01:02:49,120
software of Bitcoin and Noster. I would like to see as much of that ethos as possible permeate

589
01:02:49,120 --> 01:02:55,680
its way into the existing state apparatus. I see that as a good thing, even though I don't

590
01:02:55,680 --> 01:03:01,840
support the state itself. I still would like to see if it is going to be around for a little

591
01:03:01,840 --> 01:03:07,440
while longer. I'd still like to see it just be a hair more transparent. I'd like that.

592
01:03:07,440 --> 01:03:15,760
So maybe for that, I'll get called a statist cuck. But who can say these days just about anything,

593
01:03:15,760 --> 01:03:22,800
I'll get you called a statist cuck. Oh, geez. Yeah, I don't think that would be deserved at all.

594
01:03:22,800 --> 01:03:27,200
You're just living your life the best you can. And I'm setting a good example for others. So

595
01:03:27,200 --> 01:03:36,160
there's nothing statist cuck about that. Yeah, not everyone can be a rebel like at 24 seven.

596
01:03:36,160 --> 01:03:46,080
That's just not. Yeah. And honestly, for Bitcoiners, if I am going to vote for a politician,

597
01:03:46,080 --> 01:03:52,480
I would like them to be pro Bitcoin. That's a starting point for me. That's an immediate

598
01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:57,520
filter out. That's not to say that just by saying I'm pro Bitcoin, I'm going to vote for you. My

599
01:03:57,520 --> 01:04:03,920
vote is harder to win than that. But it's a starting point to say, I will at least look into you more

600
01:04:03,920 --> 01:04:10,400
if you are pro Bitcoin. And if I do find myself voting for a pro Bitcoin candidate, I would like

601
01:04:10,400 --> 01:04:14,880
to make sure that that vote is actually counted and not thrown in a suitcase somewhere. Like,

602
01:04:14,880 --> 01:04:19,760
I'd like to make sure it actually in my little drop in the bucket actually made it into that

603
01:04:19,760 --> 01:04:27,120
bucket and wasn't just sloshed away elsewhere. So yeah, we'll see. I've seen some politicians

604
01:04:27,120 --> 01:04:32,000
recently claim their pro Bitcoin, but it seems more a little bit more pandering like I'm sure

605
01:04:32,000 --> 01:04:38,560
you've noticed that as well. We'll see if who really is pro Bitcoin and who isn't once if they're

606
01:04:38,560 --> 01:04:45,920
elected. But I've seen some of that where, you know, I mean, to call someone out, but he deserves it

607
01:04:45,920 --> 01:04:50,080
as the mayor of New York, you know, he claimed to be pro Bitcoin, but he was just saying that he

608
01:04:50,080 --> 01:04:54,720
didn't he didn't really mean it. You know, those other examples, I won't say them. But you know,

609
01:04:54,720 --> 01:05:00,000
he's he that's a good one that we should be a little bit wary of candidates like that that

610
01:05:01,200 --> 01:05:06,400
really are just pandering. I agree. Because at the end of the day, even if they say they're

611
01:05:06,400 --> 01:05:11,520
pro Bitcoin, they are still politicians, they are trying to get your vote and also your donation

612
01:05:11,520 --> 01:05:18,640
dollars. Yeah, this is a fact. That being said, I am at least glad that the Overton window is

613
01:05:18,640 --> 01:05:24,000
shifting a bit, where we now see candidates on both sides of the aisle. If we look at the

614
01:05:24,000 --> 01:05:28,880
presidential election, you've got the back on one side, and now you've got RFK, like he's no longer

615
01:05:28,880 --> 01:05:33,600
on the left. Now he's in the middle of the aisle, running as an independent. I think that's ultimately

616
01:05:33,600 --> 01:05:39,520
a good thing. I'd like to see a legitimate independent challenger come in to the American

617
01:05:39,520 --> 01:05:46,800
political scene. That would be fantastic. But at least that conversation is shifting. You see,

618
01:05:46,800 --> 01:05:53,520
you know, Malay winning the election in Argentina, like him or not, believe him or not, when it comes

619
01:05:53,520 --> 01:06:00,080
to his Bitcoin support, at least it's changing the conversation. You know, and I think that

620
01:06:00,720 --> 01:06:05,360
that conversation doesn't change overnight. It has to happen in stages. It happens one

621
01:06:05,360 --> 01:06:12,800
election at a time, you know, one debate at a time. Like I look forward to a cable TV, not that I

622
01:06:12,800 --> 01:06:18,320
watch cable TV, but I'll watch it on YouTube afterwards, debate where we see candidates

623
01:06:18,320 --> 01:06:23,760
talking about how broken the money is, talking about, you know, Austrian economics, talking about

624
01:06:23,760 --> 01:06:30,000
Bitcoin as part of that conversation, and how people need to have something that can help them

625
01:06:30,000 --> 01:06:36,640
in this world of broken money. And again, even if they don't get my vote, I'm glad to see

626
01:06:36,640 --> 01:06:41,600
they're talking about it because each of those mainstream quote unquote conversations that

627
01:06:41,600 --> 01:06:46,640
happens about Bitcoin is just one more little shift of that over to window. It's just opening up

628
01:06:46,640 --> 01:06:52,880
that discourse a little bit more. And that's that's what I like to see. Again, maybe I don't,

629
01:06:52,880 --> 01:06:58,160
I don't know who I'm gonna vote for, or if I'm going to vote, or if I think that everyone who's

630
01:06:58,160 --> 01:07:03,360
a pro Bitcoin politician is essentially full of shit, but I like that they're talking about it.

631
01:07:03,360 --> 01:07:08,000
Like that's at least a step in the right direction. So we'll see, it's gonna be a,

632
01:07:08,000 --> 01:07:15,200
it's gonna be an interesting year, like a very interesting year. I don't know. I really hope

633
01:07:15,200 --> 01:07:21,520
it doesn't end up as Trump versus Biden again. Like that's just, that'll just be sad. Like I

634
01:07:21,520 --> 01:07:28,960
think America can do better than that. I agree. I hope so. Yeah, it's a, but hey, hopefully we'll

635
01:07:28,960 --> 01:07:33,840
at least maybe even Trump and Biden will talk about Bitcoin. We know that Trump loves his NFT

636
01:07:33,840 --> 01:07:40,080
collection. So at least there's that I still think that's one of the most absurd things I've seen.

637
01:07:40,080 --> 01:07:46,240
If you saw his NFT collection, yeah, I did. I did probably wish you hadn't seen it, but yeah,

638
01:07:46,240 --> 01:07:53,440
I can't unsee it. Oh, dear Lord, that, that's just, that's just absurd. I have trouble understanding

639
01:07:53,440 --> 01:07:59,600
how a lot of Bitcoiners seemingly support him, but hey, Bitcoiners are a very diverse bunch. So

640
01:07:59,600 --> 01:08:06,160
you're, you know, whatever you want. I think they don't quite understand who he is if they

641
01:08:06,160 --> 01:08:13,760
support him. That's my contention. Yeah. Something I say probably far too much is just,

642
01:08:13,760 --> 01:08:20,480
there is no red, there is no blue, there is the state and there is you. And to me, Trump and Biden

643
01:08:20,480 --> 01:08:27,840
are two sides of the same coin, a very, very old weathered coin. And, you know, they may have

644
01:08:28,720 --> 01:08:33,440
advantages over each other in some particular little nitpicky ways, but ultimately I just view

645
01:08:33,440 --> 01:08:38,000
them as pretty much more of the same. I'd like to see something a little bit different. I'd like to

646
01:08:38,000 --> 01:08:45,040
see a change that isn't just a slogan, you know, but one step at a time, I suppose.

647
01:08:45,600 --> 01:08:51,280
Well, well, to, to finish that thought, if, if I may, a lot of it comes down to the money

648
01:08:51,280 --> 01:08:58,320
printer and both Biden and Trump would print money as long as possible if it's politically

649
01:08:58,320 --> 01:09:03,920
advantageous for them to do so. So if you hate Biden with everything you've got, like some people

650
01:09:03,920 --> 01:09:09,680
do or hate Trump with everything you've got, like some people do, you are, you don't realize they

651
01:09:09,680 --> 01:09:14,720
will both print money and they will both devalue your currency and they don't care if you hate them

652
01:09:14,720 --> 01:09:20,640
or not. If it's politically advantageous to them to bail out something by printing more money,

653
01:09:20,640 --> 01:09:27,200
they will do so. They do not care about causing inflation because inflation is latent. It doesn't

654
01:09:27,200 --> 01:09:31,760
happen. There's a delay in inflation. So when they print money, the inflation doesn't happen the next

655
01:09:31,760 --> 01:09:38,720
day. It happens months or years later. That's the biggest problem. And there was a lot of money

656
01:09:38,720 --> 01:09:44,000
printing under the Trump administration, especially in his last year, and a lot of money printing in

657
01:09:44,000 --> 01:09:48,560
the Biden administration. I don't know the exact numbers, but I, they're, they're both massive.

658
01:09:49,360 --> 01:09:55,760
Yeah. So that's the cause of it. That is something I think about a lot. I just wish they would stop

659
01:09:55,760 --> 01:10:02,640
printing money. Yeah, it's just, it's just that, that is the cause of almost every problem.

660
01:10:03,520 --> 01:10:08,400
Print money, money is what funds war money is what funds violence money is what funds

661
01:10:08,400 --> 01:10:14,400
oppression. And when you can print it, it doesn't matter what your spending is or what your tax

662
01:10:14,400 --> 01:10:20,800
collection policies are, they can just make more. So, you know, these tax the rich and tax billionaires,

663
01:10:20,800 --> 01:10:26,480
that ideology, it doesn't work. Even if they taxed every billionaire, the max, the maximum

664
01:10:26,480 --> 01:10:32,000
amount that they think they could or want to, it wouldn't change a thing. They would just print

665
01:10:32,000 --> 01:10:41,920
more money if they were short anyway. So, yeah, no, I, yeah, I, I agree. And it's, it's sad to see,

666
01:10:42,320 --> 01:10:48,880
you know, I'm all for railing on Biden, because he just makes it so easy. But if you're going to rail

667
01:10:48,880 --> 01:10:54,240
on Biden, you should also rail on Trump. Like I think, yes, rail on Biden and rail on Trump, Trump,

668
01:10:54,240 --> 01:11:01,920
I think under his admin, it was at least four trillion, if not five in M2 expansion. And I mean,

669
01:11:01,920 --> 01:11:08,320
they are, they were both responsible for having Jerome Powell in there, right? I mean, I like

670
01:11:08,320 --> 01:11:13,760
Jerome Powell a little bit more actually after his close the fucking door, little gaff that he had

671
01:11:13,760 --> 01:11:20,800
on stage. I was like, that somehow makes you more likable. But that's just a smidgen of like, but

672
01:11:21,440 --> 01:11:29,040
again, when nothing changes at the base layer and the base layer of everything is money, it's half

673
01:11:29,040 --> 01:11:35,920
of every, you know, every exchange. And when that is so broken, it doesn't matter if you've got,

674
01:11:35,920 --> 01:11:44,640
you know, an old guy with borderline dementia or an old clownish guy with tiny hands and strange

675
01:11:44,640 --> 01:11:50,720
orange hair in an NFT collection, they're both expanding the money supply. They're both pretending

676
01:11:50,720 --> 01:11:56,400
like it's the other guy's fault that bad things happen. And nobody is willing to make the hard

677
01:11:56,400 --> 01:12:02,400
choices because turning off that money spigot is not going to be a popular choice, because it's

678
01:12:02,400 --> 01:12:06,960
going to in the very short term result in a lot of pain. And that's why they don't do it. That's

679
01:12:06,960 --> 01:12:11,600
why it expands at an exponential rate, because they know that's not a good way to get reelected

680
01:12:12,480 --> 01:12:17,280
if you cause that much pain. But at a certain point, I hope we have somebody brave enough to

681
01:12:17,280 --> 01:12:22,080
bite the bullet to try and fix the system, at least a little bit, because that's what it's

682
01:12:22,080 --> 01:12:25,920
going to take is somebody who says, you know what, maybe I don't get reelected, but hopefully,

683
01:12:25,920 --> 01:12:33,520
you know, after I'm gone, people will be able to say, Oh, wow, okay, maybe he was on to something,

684
01:12:33,520 --> 01:12:38,000
because now things are starting to at least get better. Now we're starting to actually take advantage

685
01:12:38,000 --> 01:12:43,920
of all the gains that technology brings us that are just being stolen by our inflated currencies.

686
01:12:43,920 --> 01:12:51,360
That's one of the saddest things to me is just people have to spend more and more and more

687
01:12:51,360 --> 01:12:57,680
and get less and less and less at a time where technology has never been better at delivering

688
01:12:57,680 --> 01:13:04,480
productivity and efficiency gains. And that's just so backwards. And I hope that we have somebody

689
01:13:04,480 --> 01:13:10,160
who comes in that realizes that and says, let's actually let the people keep the fruits of their

690
01:13:10,160 --> 01:13:17,200
labor, not by centralizing the means of production. Let's make that point clear, but just through

691
01:13:17,200 --> 01:13:29,040
good old fashioned capitalism. Yeah. Yeah, we can get there. It will take some technology,

692
01:13:29,040 --> 01:13:37,360
some leadership, some integrity, some pain, but this country is still savable. I believe so.

693
01:13:38,480 --> 01:13:45,120
And, and yeah, a Bitcoin standard would be would be awesome at some point. So hopefully,

694
01:13:45,120 --> 01:13:52,960
we'll see that in our lifetime. And we can at least dream if not then in our children's lifetimes,

695
01:13:52,960 --> 01:13:56,720
that would be acceptable as well. Yeah, as long as it can happen sometime. But

696
01:13:57,280 --> 01:14:02,240
Brett, I want to thank you for your time before we close out here. I was curious,

697
01:14:02,240 --> 01:14:07,360
are you reading anything right now that you'd recommend? I always like to find out is there's

698
01:14:07,360 --> 01:14:11,520
something good that's on your bookshelf that you would recommend for others to check out.

699
01:14:11,520 --> 01:14:15,440
Yeah, there's two books that come to mind. I'm reading right now. One is text and the other's

700
01:14:15,440 --> 01:14:20,480
audible and they're both very familiar with it to Bitcoiners. I'm listening to mandibles,

701
01:14:21,200 --> 01:14:26,560
which Matt O'Dell has plugged endlessly over the last year. It's a story about a

702
01:14:28,960 --> 01:14:34,320
civilization that inflates their money so high and they it's pretty much like a modern version

703
01:14:34,320 --> 01:14:43,360
of 1984. It's it's it's it's pretty sad and dystopian. And I'm reading Fiat ruins everything

704
01:14:43,360 --> 01:14:51,680
by Jimmy Song. I'm about halfway through that. So I I do love those those types of books. And

705
01:14:51,680 --> 01:14:57,840
the most impactful book for me was the creature from Jekyll Island, which you learn about how

706
01:14:57,840 --> 01:15:05,360
the central bank was formed. And I that really changed my worldview about everything. So I highly

707
01:15:05,360 --> 01:15:11,440
recommend that. Yeah, I read it every couple years, just as a refresher. Well, and they also in

708
01:15:11,440 --> 01:15:15,920
creature from Jekyll Island, they've got the nice like summaries too. So if you want to just,

709
01:15:15,920 --> 01:15:20,240
you know, flip through to get a little bit of a spark notes version, a little refresher,

710
01:15:20,240 --> 01:15:25,680
you're good to go. But those are some I still have yet to read the mandibles or Fiat ruins

711
01:15:25,680 --> 01:15:32,880
everything there on my list. I've been going back through some older Austrian texts to try and set

712
01:15:33,840 --> 01:15:39,760
a better baseline for myself. So I need to need to jump back up to the present a little bit. But

713
01:15:40,400 --> 01:15:45,760
thank you so much for sharing your scarce time with us today. I'll put all of the links so that

714
01:15:45,760 --> 01:15:51,680
you're at the GitHub, the website, Twitter and Noster. I'll stick that all in the show notes.

715
01:15:51,680 --> 01:15:56,000
Is there anywhere else people should should check out or is the website the GitHub,

716
01:15:56,720 --> 01:16:02,000
Twitter, Noster accounts, those good to go? Yeah, the website links to everything. Perfect.org. And

717
01:16:03,360 --> 01:16:07,600
I'm pretty active on my Twitter and and Noster and

718
01:16:10,080 --> 01:16:17,520
yeah, that's it. And then yeah, the GitHub. Yeah, I thank you for being such an advocate for Noster

719
01:16:17,520 --> 01:16:23,360
too. You're really helping move it along. And I'm super excited to see like other Noster adoptions

720
01:16:23,360 --> 01:16:28,800
of Noster in new nascent ways like the way the way I'm using it, you know, I think people first

721
01:16:28,800 --> 01:16:37,120
think of Noster as like a Twitter clone. And it's so much more than that. So I've your your your

722
01:16:37,120 --> 01:16:42,320
like at the forefront of all that you're plugged in all the new projects going on. I need to catch

723
01:16:42,320 --> 01:16:47,680
up myself and see what else is going on out there and check out some of the podcasts and and keep

724
01:16:47,680 --> 01:16:53,360
up. Yeah, because I'm super, I'm super excited about Noster too. It's like, I can see why it's

725
01:16:53,360 --> 01:16:58,480
mostly Bitcoiners. But hopefully there's people that are not Bitcoiners that are interested in

726
01:16:58,480 --> 01:17:06,240
Noster, you know, as well as Bitcoin. But yeah, yeah, they came in maybe not through Bitcoin.

727
01:17:06,240 --> 01:17:10,640
Well, that's a cool thing that I think we're seeing on Noster. And because I can't code,

728
01:17:10,640 --> 01:17:16,400
at least I can use it and talk about it and try to share it with others because I think it's,

729
01:17:17,040 --> 01:17:23,120
it's incredibly important. We need that free and open communication, like we need free and open

730
01:17:23,120 --> 01:17:30,000
and sound money. And the difficulty about keeping up with things on Noster is the pace of progress

731
01:17:30,000 --> 01:17:40,720
is just so fast. Like just just between Will Kasserin and Pablo F7Z. I mean, they're each just

732
01:17:40,720 --> 01:17:45,840
throwing out new things every day. And it's like you take one day away and you're like, okay, I

733
01:17:45,840 --> 01:17:51,520
missed like three new apps that dropped just in the last 24 hours, which is an amazing thing to

734
01:17:51,520 --> 01:17:57,360
just see that. And now true vote utilizing it to which I think is a wonderful use case because

735
01:17:57,360 --> 01:18:05,200
at the end of the day, Noster is just, it's just messages, right? It's just messages. And that

736
01:18:05,200 --> 01:18:10,240
can apply to quite literally everything. It starts with social media because that's what's

737
01:18:10,240 --> 01:18:15,200
familiar. And that's what gets people in the door and using it because people want something that's

738
01:18:15,200 --> 01:18:23,040
fun, doesn't censor them, hopefully. And with Noster, they have that. And I think we'll see

739
01:18:23,040 --> 01:18:28,720
a lot of people will find Noster like with Bitcoin, they find Noster. Once the pain is enough, where

740
01:18:28,720 --> 01:18:33,760
they finally get maybe they get shadow band, maybe they get deep platform and they realize, oh,

741
01:18:33,760 --> 01:18:41,280
shit, okay, I need to look for alternatives. And then they come googling around and find their way to

742
01:18:41,280 --> 01:18:49,280
Noster, hopefully. And actually, I just did a session with with Will yesterday. And we'll probably

743
01:18:49,280 --> 01:18:56,080
try to publish it tonight if I can. I'll see. But yeah, he goes through a bunch of stuff just that

744
01:18:56,640 --> 01:19:02,320
he's working on kind of what he sees as the future. And it makes me very hopeful to talk to folks like

745
01:19:02,320 --> 01:19:07,680
you to talk to Will, to talk to the real builders, because that's what gives me some hope for the

746
01:19:07,680 --> 01:19:12,800
future. Like it's what makes me think, you know what, yeah, there's a lot of doom and gloom right

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now. There's a lot of just shit out there and shitty people. But then you meet folks like yourself

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01:19:20,640 --> 01:19:23,680
and Will and so many of the amazing people I've met through Bitcoin and Noster. And it's like,

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you know what, the world's not so bad. I have a lot of hope. We're going to be okay as long as we've

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got builders who don't ask for permission and just keep building. That's what's going to make the

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world a better place. 100% agree. Thank you for everything, Walker. Yeah. Thank you so much, Brett.

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01:19:42,000 --> 01:19:48,240
And thank you to everyone who is watching this a little later than we've talked. Bitcoin is scarce,

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01:19:48,240 --> 01:19:52,640
but Bitcoin podcasts are abundant. So thank you for sharing your scarce time to listen to

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01:19:52,640 --> 01:19:57,120
another fucking Bitcoin podcast. And thank you, Brett, so much. This was awesome.

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01:20:02,400 --> 01:20:09,040
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin talk episode of the Bitcoin podcast. If you are a Bitcoin

756
01:20:09,040 --> 01:20:14,880
only company interested in sponsoring another fucking Bitcoin podcast, head to Bitcoinpodcast.net

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01:20:14,880 --> 01:20:21,440
or hit me up on social media. On Noster, head to primal.net slash Walker. And on Twitter,

758
01:20:21,440 --> 01:20:28,160
search for at Walker America or at TIT coin podcast. You can also watch the video version of this show

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01:20:28,160 --> 01:20:35,040
on X or on YouTube by going to youtube.com slash at Walker America or rumble by searching for at

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01:20:35,040 --> 01:20:43,440
Walker America. Bitcoin is scarce. There will only ever be 21 million, but Bitcoin podcasts are abundant.

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01:20:43,440 --> 01:20:48,800
So thank you for spending your scarce time to listen to another fucking Bitcoin podcast.

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Until next time, stay free.