I believed it at the time, right?
And then more evidence comes out and you're like,
fuck, we've been fucked over, we've been lied to,
it was all bullshit.
And that's a hard thing to go through
because it's a system that you've spent decades
believing is an honorable correct system.
And now you've looked behind the veil
and it's all fucking bullshit.
And so, but the best thing,
best you can do is come out and say,
look, I was wrong.
This is what led me to this point.
This is why I got it wrong and I'm sorry
and I will do better.
Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs.
My name is Walker and this is The Bitcoin Podcast.
The Bitcoin block height is 815735
and the value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.
Today's episode is Bitcoin Talk,
where I talk with my guest about Bitcoin
and many other things as well.
Today, that guest is the one and only Peter McCormack.
He's the host of What Bitcoin Did,
an incredibly popular Bitcoin podcast.
And he's also the chairman
of the Ray Al Bedford Football Club,
who famously adopted Bitcoin.
I really enjoyed this conversation with Peter
and I think you will as well.
You can find all of Peter's links
and accounts that he mentions in the show notes
or by going to bitcoinpodcast.net slash words.
You can watch The Bitcoin Podcast on Rumble, YouTube or X
by searching at Walker America.
And of course, you can listen on Fountain
or wherever you get your podcasts
by searching for The Bitcoin Podcast.
If you listen to The Bitcoin Podcast on Fountain,
consider giving this show a boost
or creating a clip of something you found interesting.
For those that have boosted this show already
or zap me on Nostr, thank you.
And in case you missed it,
The Bitcoin Podcast has its first official sponsor,
Bitbox and the Bitbox O2 Bitcoin Only Hardware Wallet.
Head to bitbox.swiss slash walker
and use the promo code walker for 5% off.
I'm really excited to have Bitbox on board as a sponsor
and the Bitbox O2 has really exceeded my expectations.
It is Bitcoin only.
It is fully open source,
meaning you can check the firmware, the app code,
the schematics and the blueprints
for the device itself on GitHub.
You can even build one yourself
if you're feeling really ambitious
or you can head to bitbox.swiss slash walker
and use that promo code walker for 5% off.
Thank you to Bitbox and the Bitbox O2 Hardware Wallet
for sponsoring another fucking Bitcoin podcast.
Without further ado,
let's get into this Bitcoin talk with Peter McCormack.
I'm still new to this whole podcasting game.
Me and Danny have this rule now when we're making shows,
no one's allowed to talk until we're recording.
So we have this weird thing where if a guest turns up,
I just go and wait in the bedroom
because what happens is...
Oh my God.
All your hellos and your intros are your best bits.
Right.
You just said something really cool.
I want that on the podcast and now I can't do it.
And then you try and redo it and it doesn't work.
So I just hide until the mics and things on,
we just go straight in.
I'm gonna start just like popping up from below the desk,
like just waiting for the guests to come in and then,
yeah, hello.
Hello.
Are you whispering?
Are you whispering because your good wife is asleep?
Do I?
Well, okay.
People have been saying, they're like,
dude, you gotta quit forcing your voice or whatever.
And I'm like, guys, I swear,
this is actually how my voice just normally sounds.
You're just used to hearing me as a character
in playing Fiat High on cocaine or something like that.
I swear my voice is normally like this.
It's also like, it'll warm up
once I get a few more cups of coffee in my system.
In fairness, it's very early for you.
I've been up for six hours.
God, you lucky people across the pond
just getting to start that day a whole half a day ahead of us.
How are we supposed to catch up?
I know.
You're sounding great to me.
Do I sound okay on your end?
You sound amazing.
Okay, okay, excellent.
So just to run through a couple of things
before we get going,
because I just wanna make sure
you're good with everything.
I'll do everything.
Well, I mean, look, if I can't, I'll say I can't.
No, no, no.
There's one topic I can't get into
and I'll get into why, but.
Okay, well, so my goal with this, Peter,
is really to, not to toot your horn too much,
but you were the first Bitcoin podcast I listened to.
You were still my go-to Bitcoin podcast.
And I think that's the case for quite a lot of people.
And so you're always on,
well, I guess now we're on the same side of the mic.
We're both on a mic, but you know what I mean?
You're always on one side of the mic.
And I thought, I myself am curious.
I've heard a little bit through our personal discussions
and whatnot, but I wanna know a little bit more
about your story kind of getting started with all of this.
And I think we can go through some of that,
but then also it's like you've built this now
into this incredible podcasting empire, so to speak.
And you're doing the docs now,
and which I think are super important.
I was just watching again, the one that you did in Argentina
and it's just, it's fantastic.
And so I wanna talk about some of that,
like the actual work that you're doing.
As you saw, I took some questions on Twitter and on Noster.
There were a couple that were like,
I figured somebody was gonna throw some of these out there.
Things about, yeah.
Things about, you're like, okay, block five.
Things that have been asked and answered before.
So if you would rather-
No, I'd do it all, man.
Yeah, you're good with it?
Okay, cool.
Yeah, because I just wanted to make sure,
the last thing I wanted was for this to feel like
any sort of a, ooh, gotcha, Peter.
I just wanna hear your story.
We'll throw in some other stuff.
I think we'll find some good ways to weave things in.
And yeah, besides that, I mean,
we'll just kind of flow with it and see how it goes.
Man, I'm okay with gotchas.
Okay, well damn, I should have prepared
some more gotchas then, shit.
I might censor myself sometimes.
My dad's actually in the room over here.
Okay, okay, well-
He's come over for a few months.
He's basically the kit man for my football team.
Nice.
We're in my lounge in front of a bit of artwork my son did.
I don't know if you can-
Wait, that's fantastic.
Yeah.
Dude, that's amazing.
So if I censor myself,
I won't talk about the drugs and hookers
because I don't want my dad to know about that.
Yeah, Peter, you just talked about the drugs and hookers.
Shit.
Yeah, I said no to them.
It's okay, we'll cut that part from the show
so that way he won't know when he's hearing it later.
What would happen, yeah.
Okay, well, sweet.
So well, with that then, let's just dive right into this.
I'm still figuring this thing out.
So I'm just gonna do my 10 second intro
and give a intro to you
and then we'll just pop this thing off and start talking.
Not that we haven't been talking.
I like this pre-roll.
This feels much better.
Otherwise I'm usually like,
okay, now let me press record and we'll wait.
This is the pre-roll.
This is just the roll.
Okay, we're going.
Well, in that case, greetings and salutations,
my fellow plebs.
My name is Walker and this is The Bitcoin Podcast.
Today's episode is Bitcoin Talk
and I am joined by The Bitcoin Talker
and The Bitcoin Podcaster, Peter McCormack.
McCormack, right?
I always get confused with the McCormick's
versus the McCormacks.
I'm saying that right.
The mix of the Scottish with the Irish.
Okay, okay, there we go.
See, my American is showing here.
Well, Peter, it's great to have you on the show.
You started in 2017, I believe.
I just checked you.
You did episode 732 yesterday,
which is insane of what Bitcoin did.
I think about a month ago,
you said you had over 40 million downloads,
which is just insanity.
So thank you for coming on another fucking Bitcoin podcast
as this one is colloquially called,
but it's great to have you on the show.
Welcome.
Well, man, it's great to talk to you.
Obviously, we've bumped into each other
a few times at conferences.
I can't remember the first one.
Was it Lugano?
I think it was Lugano.
You were sitting outside the hotel
with entertaining a crew.
There was wine involved.
It was a nice time.
And there's a great conference.
Yeah, I saw you in Prague a couple of times.
You and your wife are the absolute professionals at this.
I'm kind of retiring from that now
because people like you and also Joe Hall,
you actually prepare and do a proper job,
whereas I just turn up and go,
yeah, so-and-so's coming on and I sound like an idiot.
But yeah, we've met a few times.
I think you're great.
I think you and your wife are great.
Well, soon to be three.
Right back at you.
Soon to be three.
I can say that because you've been tweeting out her bump.
Yeah, yeah, it's public knowledge now.
When we were emceeing Miami,
she was actually pregnant at that point,
but it was still very early on.
It was hush-hush.
So usually at conferences, we like to imbibe.
There's alcohol involved.
And so this one was the first one
where people are offering us drinks
or we're around whatever open bar
and Carla's just looking at it like,
ah, I can't have myself a drink.
And people are like, what, are you sick?
What's wrong?
Well, taking a sober month, just a sober month.
Well, it's like a sober nine, 10 months,
but that was at least a nice little experience.
The baby has already been to his first Bitcoin conference.
He just doesn't even know it yet.
That's it.
Well, I think you told me secretly in Prague.
We did.
Yeah, she was still pregnant in Prague.
Yeah, I was like, by the way, Carla, she's knocked up.
Yeah, she's not getting fat.
She's just pregnant.
Please don't say anything about her weight.
It's totally natural.
But yeah, well, and I appreciate,
you told me in Prague, you were like,
I got something for you.
I got something that I need to send you to all fathers.
And honestly, I was like, what is Peter about to send me?
And then I just received this baby manual,
which is pretty amazing.
I thought that was, it's a nice way for my male brain
to be able to understand this whole being a father thing.
Dude, when my son was born, which is coming up to 20 years
ago now, which is insane, because we obviously
look a similar age, someone sent me that book, right?
Because my ex-wife, she had all the books,
like a stack of these books, and they were so fucking boring,
like pictures of women about to give birth, like awful stuff.
And I was like, I'm not reading this shit.
And then somebody sent me that book,
and I was like, oh, no, this is for me.
So now anyone I like, not anyone, just anyone I like,
who has got a baby, do I send that to the dude?
I mean, it's perfect.
It's like a little bit different than your typical,
what is it?
What's the classic one, the what to expect
when you're expecting, or something like that?
Do you have the Haynes car manuals?
Is that a thing in America?
I do not.
Yeah, so the book is based on the Haynes car manuals.
OK, OK.
I'll get you a link and send it to you.
But if anyone's listening, if you Google
the Haynes car manual and look on the images,
I'll just send you a link in the chat now so you can.
Perfect.
I've actually lost where we are.
Here we go.
Right, where's the chat?
Here we go.
So if you click on this link, so the Haynes car manuals,
back in the olden days, people used to fix their own cars.
Oh, wow, what a novel concept.
It's weird, isn't it?
And so we had these manuals.
My dad would use them, right?
And so you have these Haynes car manuals.
So the book is based on that.
It's like a car manual for babies.
I mean, honestly, it's perfect.
It's a sad thing that nowadays, the only way you can really
fix your car nowadays is if you're also
a computer engineer, because the majority of what's
going in your car.
I just saw Toyota is putting out a truck that's
completely bare bones again.
It's starting at 10k or something, something reasonable.
And there are basically no computers in there.
You can put a couple bells and whistles if you want,
but there aren't a lot of knobs and switches.
It's just a truck, which is kind of beautiful,
because I mean, not to be too doomsday,
but we get an EMP anywhere near a major city
and everyone's car, except for one dude who still
has an early 90s Chevy.
They're not moving ever again.
We're stuck.
Yeah, it's a scary thing, though.
I don't know.
Makes you crave, perhaps it's nostalgia,
perhaps it's just a little bit of doomsday prepper,
but you're like, I need a vehicle that runs without all
these modern contraptions.
I need a car that just runs on petrol.
I need tins of pineapple, and I need my guns.
Exactly, and preferably a couple of knives, maybe.
I'm a big axe guy myself.
I think that axes are just the perfect tool.
Use them as an axe, use them as a hammer,
use them as a thrown or held weapon.
They're just fun.
You have spoons and forks and stuff.
Yeah, a spatula like you, whatever you need.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, you can do some damage with a rolling pin, though.
That's for sure.
You can take down a tyrannical government with a rolling pin.
It's been done before.
Oh, man.
Well, I could talk about rolling pins and tyrannical governments
all day, but I want to talk about you a little bit, Peter,
because you are, I mean, I have to imagine the most prolific
Bitcoin podcaster out there right now.
There's a lot of Bitcoin podcasts.
This is why mine is called another fucking Bitcoin podcast.
But yours is the one that I started with.
I still listen to it consistently,
although sometimes it's honestly hard to keep up.
Now that I'm making my own podcast,
I'm like, I don't have as much time to listen to other podcasts.
This is a bit of a problem.
But I think it's been a huge, huge benefit to the Bitcoin space.
It's how so many people have started, I think, those dives down the rabbit hole,
finding a conversation on what Bitcoin did,
that they're like, OK, this is great.
You had a whole beginner series.
You've now done that whole broken money series with Lynn Alden, which was awesome.
Great, great book and great series there, I think,
makes it super approachable for people who maybe don't like reading the written
words on the page quite as much anymore.
But you started in, I was looking, November 2017.
Yeah.
So at this point, we know, I mean, it's been a number of years now.
And I think we're getting close to answering the question of what Bitcoin did.
I would love to kind of know, though, take a step back
and understand what Peter did.
How did Peter find himself here today from back then?
How did this all get started?
Well, I mean, look, I've told it a few times.
So somebody may have heard this before.
So I'll do the quick version.
But so about a decade ago, I was working in advertising.
Had quite a successful company.
Just doing well.
We had a central London office, 44-star, 3 million turnover UK pounds.
So it's probably about $4 million at the time.
It was going well.
I got married.
And then I got divorced very quickly.
It was like a very quick turnaround.
And I tried to do the whole co-parent whilst commuting to London.
It didn't work.
And I was falling out of love with advertising anyway
because it's just bullshit.
And so I just quit.
I just quit.
Took a year off.
And about that time, my mum was also sick.
My mum had cancer.
So I was traveling back and forth to Ireland.
And I was running a lot.
I was just doing a lot of like, you know, I went vegan with my mum.
I was just doing a lot of things, you know, stuff to just kind of distract
myself from the world.
And then we wanted to treat mum with cannabis oil.
And so I talked to my dad about that.
He's like, well, you can buy anything called the dark web.
But you need this thing called Bitcoin.
So we went on Coinbase, bought some Bitcoin, bought some cannabis oil.
Didn't work, sadly.
And then I had this bit of Bitcoin left.
I was going to go back on Coinbase and sell it.
I wasn't really that interested in Bitcoin.
I dabbled in it in 2013 for similar reasons.
And then there was this other thing on there, though, called Ethereum.
I was like, oh, what the hell is this?
So I just like Googled Ethereum.
I was like, oh, you know, I was really involved about this new blockchain
revolution is going to take over the planet.
It's like the internet 2.0.
So I was like, well, I'm not working.
And I've got loads of time on my hands.
And I've got some money left over from my agency.
So I just I bought everything.
I bought Bitcoin.
I bought Dash, Monero, every shit coin going.
Gnosis was one.
I thought probably there's probably like 100 I bought.
And like everything just went up.
It was like 2000.
I'm a genius.
Yeah, I am fucking genius here.
And so, yeah, it was brilliant.
I was having this amazing year where I turned 32,000 pounds
into about I think about one point to one point three million pounds in about eight.
Jesus.
I remember one day I went to bed.
I woke up.
I was like another 100 grand richer.
I was like, oh, my God, I'm so clever.
And so because I had all this money, I had a friend who was living on
Venice Beach in L.A.
So I kept going across to see him.
I'd go over for like a week or two and just hang out on the beach and just act
like the genius I was.
But also during this period, I met this guy called Rich Roll who runs a podcast.
He's like this vegan ultra athlete.
And I knew like the trading didn't have legs.
And I was just like, well, your job's cool.
You basically just get on planes, go and talk to people and get paid for it.
And I was like, this is amazing.
How would you do it?
And he was like, well, here's a course.
Here's the equipment.
And it just get on with it.
He did say to me, he said, so many people have come to me and said this
and everyone gives up.
Just don't give up.
So I was like, all right, cool.
So I went back to Justin's place in Venice.
I went on Amazon, I bought all the equipment.
And then I was like, who's in LA?
And there was a guy, Luke Martin, who's a bit of a trader.
So I messaged him.
I was like, yo, dude, I'm going to start a podcast.
You want to be the first guest?
He said, yeah.
So I Ubered around his, did that, went back to the UK,
interviewed this guy called Day Trader Nick.
That was episode two.
And then I saw this picture of this guy on Twitter who had like this long beard.
He had an AR-15 or whatever it is and a hat that said, make Bitcoin great again.
It was like Jameson Lobnall.
I was like, man, this guy's one cool motherfucker.
So I messaged him.
I was like, yeah, hi, man.
I've just started a podcast.
If I come out and see you, can I interview you?
And can you take me to shoot some guns?
He was like, yeah.
So weirdly enough, he was actually in Bedford a few weeks ago.
That was such a weird thing six years later to have him in my hometown.
But I did those first three.
And at the end of that, 17, then I didn't do any for a few weeks.
And then I did a few more.
And then what happened was I ended up, I think it was like eighth
or 10th interview, I interviewed Lynne Albrecht, Russell Briggs' mom in Austin.
And after she left, it was like that one really kind of like, that one really hit me.
I was like, actually, this is kind of important.
This isn't just about me and what I want to do.
It's about actually getting important stuff out there.
And so I just kind of made the decision, right, I'm going to have a go for this.
And I'm going to just try and make this come up in my career.
And here we are six years, yes.
But pretty much six years later, because I started the show in November 17,
six years later, and this is what I've done for six years.
Wow.
You changed the events.
Yeah, I mean, it all starts with vegans in LA, I guess.
You know, it's like many great tales, right?
Well, the funny thing was when I did that James some interview right after it,
he's like, right, we're going to go and get barbecue.
And I was like, oh, fuck.
So I went to this barbecue place.
I was like, hmm.
What's still vegan at this point?
Yeah.
So I was like, oh, boy.
What could I have here?
I think no, I think I'd gone.
I think I'd stopped the veganism, stayed vegetarian.
And they had like greens and whatever that weird potato stuff is.
They have barbecue places, scraps, scraps.
What do they call it?
You mean like like some just like chopped up potato?
Are you talking like a potato salad type thing?
No, no, whatever.
And it was like, this isn't going to work.
So I was like, so I just had a barbecue with him, stop being a vegan that day.
So that was Jameson Lopp ended your veganism.
Yeah, he meat, meat, peeled me.
Wow.
I mean, that's actually quite a nice claim to fame.
I mean, especially in in this space, I think the number of vegans that I've
heard of in Bitcoin, there's a couple there's, you know, yeah, absolutely.
But it's a tough thing to be, especially at Bitcoin conferences.
There's always steak dinners just like I feel like every night dripping
everywhere.
Yeah, like everybody's got pocket steaks.
And when they're on stage, it's like they're just taking a little bite of it
here and there.
Yeah.
That's that's that's kind of wild, though.
I think the probably the advice that you got of just a lot of people have come to
me with this, you know, everybody wants to to start something.
They see someone that's successful in a space.
It's like, OK, let me let me go try that, too.
But a lot of people just drop off with it.
And I think that's the case with a lot of stuff.
It's just it's like that graph of like, you know, you are here and it's all a
flat line. And then, you know, right after you you quit is when you would have hit
the exponential kind of growth.
When when was the when did it really like take off in terms and I don't even know
what in the context of how many downloads you have today, like 40 million.
I don't even know what takeoff felt to you like back then.
But was there a moment when you're like, no, it's weird.
Like, I mean, I've got a literally got a chart here in front of me.
I put all my downloads.
I so track it.
One thing I will say is I always treated it like a business pretty much from the
start. I was like, if this is going to work, it's going to be a business.
And so you've got to have a brand, you have to have good quality marketing.
You've got to have a focus on good quality content.
Like I studied interviewing for a good few months to try and understand
what what what did good interviews do.
But there's no real moment where you're like, oh, my God, this is taken off.
You know, you just every month you got a few more downloads than the previous one.
Yeah, there's certain things that happen.
You know, the first sponsor you get that phones you up and says,
oh, I'd like to give you some money.
Yeah. And I can't remember exactly when that was.
Speaking of sponsors, I was just sponsored by Bitbox and the Bitbox
O2 Bitcoin only hardware wallet.
Real talk, I wish I would have found this wallet sooner.
It is extremely easy to use.
It's fast to set up and it's fully open source.
Head to Bitbox.Swiss slash Walker and use promo code Walker for five percent off.
But I'm going to imagine I spent at least a year, year and a half
without making any money.
And, you know, I still do the interviews in person.
So it was expensive.
I think this is what some people don't realize.
They don't see the start where I would get on a plane to New York,
find the cheapest hotel I could get.
Book three or four interviews.
Once the interview is done, go back to my hotel room, edit it, publish it,
get up the next day, get on a plane, whatever the cheapest route
I could find to get to, I don't know, Ohio.
Get there and do one interview.
I mean, these trips I used to do seven, eight flights per trip.
And I would be like New York, Ohio, Portland, L.A., San Diego, New York,
home or something, some weird whatever trip to get all the interviews
I want to do and like carry my little case around with me.
And I did that for a good.
I did that all the way up until Covid.
Yeah, when Covid, it was just me in my case, going everywhere on my own
and going to people's offices or houses or whatever.
And it was, you know, so it was a lot of hard work and I was losing money.
I mean, it got to the point where, you know, I was about two.
I was about two months from having no money at all.
I think when my first sponsor came in,
I actually had to lie to the mortgage company to keep my house.
I was going to lose my house.
So, yeah, it was a real slog.
So there's no real moment.
It's just like downloads grow, go up.
And then, you know, certain things happen, like you get certain interviews,
like getting that Jameson lot one or Charlie Lee early on.
And that felt big.
Or maybe when I got the Nick Szabo interview, I was like, wow,
I've got an Xabo interview or, you know, so there's like moments like that.
And there was a moment after now you've interviewed a president.
Well, I was about to say, yeah, yeah, like Kaylee.
So the book Kaylee ones, like the whole thing was weird in itself, just weird.
And my back was busted.
I had sciatica. So I was like, oh, I couldn't sit down at the time.
So I had to as Michael Peterson from Bitcoin Beach, like raided his company
said, look, I've got all these different drugs.
Just try them. And I did.
So and that gave me the hour to say, oh, I'm going to do this.
It gave me the hour to sit down and do the interview.
And I remember after that interview, I got the next day, I got up
and I flew to New York to fly home.
And it was only when I got on the plane in New York, because, you know,
I was always flying economy, but because my back was so screwed,
I upgrade on that one.
I was like, I'm going to have a business class flight because I need to lay down.
You know, the drugs will get me through the I mean, there's there's
actually a photo from when I took the flight from El Salvador to Austin,
where I'm laying down on the floor between rows of seats because I cannot sit down.
It was such agony.
But anyway, I was like, this flight to London is too long.
So I upgraded to the business flight and and I just sat down after.
I was like, well, man, that's wild.
That's a sitting president and yeah, just from sitting there one day and going,
you know, I want to do a podcast and messaging somebody and then contacting
Luke to be wherever that was for four and a half years later,
interview the president. It was pretty wild.
I mean, that's I actually I just I just rewatched that interview with with Bukele,
because you've done now you've done two with him, right?
Yeah, two. And it was one before before the legal tender law and one after.
Right. Yeah.
I mean, it was it was actually I noticed because I was just, you know, of course,
I'm doing doing my my research on on you again.
I noticed Bukele was was pretty he seemed pretty comfortable with you
in that first interview.
You could tell by the second interview with you.
He was like he was just completely relaxed.
Like he looked like and I suppose he was also then after the legal tender law,
probably maybe a little bit less stress on his plate.
But I mean, how how was that interview?
How did you how did you find Bukele?
Because he I mean, people have a lot of opinions about him,
whether they think he's a a genius who is bringing in the, you know,
the hyper Bitcoinized era for nation states, or if he's a dictator
who is, you know, doing a heavy handed approach by locking up all these gangsters.
I mean, what was your read on him?
How did you how did you find that conversation?
Yeah, I mean, look, none of us have walked his shoes.
No, he's become the president of a third world country,
which has a huge gang problem.
At one point, the highest murder rate in the world.
It is a drugs corridor in Central America.
He has big issues to deal with influence from local
bordering countries, influence from America.
I mean, never walked those shoes, wouldn't have no idea how to deal with it.
What I would say about him is that he had a presence I've never felt
from anyone else when he came into a room
and the way sometimes you look through, you mean, he he looked through you.
It was it was a it's a hard thing to explain.
But what after I left that first because our first meeting, I just met with him.
I didn't actually do the interview at the first meeting.
And I just left thinking, OK, there's only a certain time
a person who can do this job and someone like that who who can carry
the weight of the world on them, because you have to make tough decisions.
It's like, do I know mass mass incarcerate people and, you know,
and all the kind of human rights issues that go with that, all the civil
liberties issues that go with that, but reduce the murder rate down to one
of the lowest, you know, in South America.
Or do I try and do this through legitimate, whatever we call legitimate
judicial systems, knowing that nothing fucking changes?
Yeah. And he's come into a country that has been plagued by dictators,
corrupt presidents who've robbed the country blind.
Now, you know, a corrupt political system.
And I've I've no water issues, man.
I know the country is definitely trajectory wise.
It's doing very well economically.
It's doing well to want to tourism.
He's been a great advert for the country.
I know there are questions around civil liberties with the incarceration
of gang members or anyone with a tattoo.
Alice Gladstein's talked about a lot, but man, it's a rock and a hard place, right?
What do you do? But he did have a presence that was
that was something I've never felt with anyone else.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's I did kind of shit myself when I asked him
if he was a dictator.
I remember that question. I was like, dang, OK, you went.
You just went right for it. Yeah, fuck it.
I had to. Why not?
I got told I softballed him on the first one.
OK. OK.
And then you get called a propagandist for the regime or something like that.
But that did happen.
You know, I was getting that first trip when I was making.
No, is it the second one when I was making the film?
I had people like attacking me on Instagram or Twitter.
Yeah. People in El Salvador who were saying I was doing
business with Bukhari. I was a businessman.
I was there to do business.
I'm there to rob the indigenous people of El Salvador.
I mean, it's obviously all bullshit, but, you know, I was like,
so this second interview, I've just got to be tough, but within
like within my lane.
Right. With with still all due respect to a sitting president.
Yes, exactly.
That's a that's a that's a tough spot to be in.
You know, I think it's a it's it's very easy.
Often times, you know, you're in a position where you're
easy, oftentimes for us.
And this is certainly not something I I think of Alex Gladstein
because he's actually, you know, doing doing the work.
So like when he brings a criticism, I take that very, very seriously.
But for a lot of people who do not do the work that Gladstein does
and who just kind of have a knee jerk reaction to someone like Bukele,
I think it's very easy to have a negative knee jerk reaction when we have this
semblance of legitimate legal action and law and order in the so-called developed
world. And as you said, you know, can you imagine being in his place
where it's like, OK, keep my country on the same path, keep trying
the broken things that don't work or do something that is really, really radical
and, you know, take maybe take the country in a different direction.
And, you know, it's a gamble, too, because maybe that doesn't work.
And it's a gamble he took.
And then bringing Bitcoin on kind of the the multiple middle fingers
he's given to the IMF, I have to just, you know, enjoy those when I see them,
because that's you love to see that.
Of course. Look, I mean, I think what he's done is amazing.
I just cannot opine on certain things, which I'm kind of out of my depth
or that I'm lost on.
It's like it's like most of these issues, most of these complicated issues
in the world that people discuss without nuance on Twitter,
if it's Gaza and Israel, Israel, you know, when people like take a
hard position on one side and I'm sat there thinking, well, I feel sorry
for Israelis who've been massacred and I feel sorry for people in Gaza
who are under a blockade and bombing.
And, you know, these these issues are so complicated.
And I think he's dealing with complicated issues.
And like I said, I'm not having to make those decisions.
I if I was put in the position, I'd crumble.
I wouldn't have the ability.
It takes a strong man to be able to sit in that seat and make those decisions.
So, you know,
I think you have to say, are the people in El Salvador happy?
Yes. OK.
How do you deal with the civil liberty issues then?
How do you deal with the fact that he has essentially broken the Constitution?
He says he has to be kind of has.
OK, what is the long term plan?
Is it a third term, fourth term?
You know, what happens when things go bad?
Are you a benevolent dictator?
You know, it's all those kind of issues that bring it with them.
But look, there are more experienced journalists now
who will be ready to take that hot seat with them.
My position was really the Bitcoin one.
You don't think you'll do a number three interview?
No, I think so. I think at the right time.
You know, I would like to do it.
I think complete the trilogy.
I think the time to do so, I know when the time to do it is it's after a ball run,
because after a ball run, everything he's stacked, everything he's done,
he will be proven right.
You know, if he's stacked, I don't know what he's stacked.
If he's stacked 50 million a Bitcoin for El Salvador,
he might have 250 million or if he's stacked 200 million,
he might have a billion. Who knows? Right.
And that's the time to sit down and go like, well done.
Your conviction was strong and you've been proven right.
Yeah, that's the time to have that conversation.
And if you'll have it, I'd absolutely love to go back and do it.
Yes. I mean, you've you've interviewed
some well, like sailor, for instance, who has recently
he is very obviously being proven right with his strategy.
I I love that sailor interview because your son was able to ask him,
you know, just I loved it because, you know, you're listening to it.
And he's like, do you have any advice?
You know, just a very honest and and simple question.
And sailor just rattles off that list of, you know, his basically 10 rules per life.
And I'm like, you like it just so flawless.
And I'm like, wow, that would you do you have an interview?
I mean, obviously, the Bukele one is kind of like in its own league.
Like that's a sitting president.
Is there another interview that where you've just walked away
like one of your recent ones, maybe that you've been like, wow, this was
this was so much more than I could have expected.
Like this was really blew you away from an expectation standpoint.
Yeah, but there's been a few like that.
Yeah. Like Lynn Albrook, the first time I interviewed her,
I just had a profound effect on me.
It's like whatever you class this job in that moment in time,
there's certainly part of it was journalism
because it was asking important questions and getting information out to people.
Of course, the Bukele one was super important.
Nick Szabo, just because of the pressure of that interview,
he's done one into kind of kind of one interview ever.
And that was with
Tim, what's his name for our work?
We forget the name Tim. Oh, Tim Ferriss, Tim Ferriss.
But but it wasn't like a one on one interview.
He had Naval with him and the vault did most of the answers.
So it was kind of like the first one on one interview.
Everyone wants to know about him.
And so, you know, I felt a profound sense of responsibility in that one.
And it's a tough one because I'm not a techie.
The one I did recently with Hal Finney's wife, Fran Finney, I mean,
it was a tough interview.
You know, that's a woman who's still deeply in love with her husband.
You know, what are we nearly a decade on from when he passed away?
Yeah. And, you know, she's been when that interview comes out,
you wait until you hear what she's been through, because it's horrific.
That's that one's really stuck with me.
I mean, most a lot of Bitcoin interviews, they just tell me about UTXO.
Tell me about 21 million. Right. Tell me about bonds.
It's just like the same. They're not my favorite interviews.
And like and they'll come a time where I will stop doing Bitcoin stuff
because it's I'd rather do personal stories.
That's why I like making the films.
But yeah, it's the personal stories.
Therefore, Fran Finney really stuck with me.
But Kayleigh stuck with me because it's about his whole country,
the future of his country.
Is it like in his hands?
Lin Albrook, because Ross got double life sentence for 40 years.
He he was tried on the Kingpin charge, which is just obscene.
And so I mean, I'd have to go back through my back catalogue,
but they're all the ones that really, really stuck out with me.
Another one that just stuck out with me strangely in a different way
was the Ted Cruz one, which I did on stage at the Texas Blockchain Summit,
because I was obviously honored to be interviewing a senator.
And, you know, he he goes in.
He's a very different person on stage and off stage.
He goes into full character.
But what really stuck with me is that I think I asked possibly
my best question ever in that interview.
I said to him about polarization in the US, as it's not good.
I said, can you can you name me one thing that you think
the progressives do well?
And he fluffed the answer in some ways.
And I said that there wasn't an answer and he couldn't.
And he he refused to give and he refused to give an answer.
I think he couldn't turn around and give that answer.
And so that really stuck with me because I was like,
that's the kind of interview I want to do.
I'm going to do tough questions like Sonnenschein.
Did you listen to my interview with Michael Sonnenschein?
No, I didn't.
Oh, you should go and check that one out.
The guy from Grayscale.
Yeah, I pushed him hard in that one, you know, and but I reeled him in.
I, you know, I laid it up.
I set everything out and then I just went after him hard.
And that's those are all those interviews I've listed are important.
Most of the other ones aren't that important.
They're useful, right?
You say, oh, you want to learn about Bitcoin?
Listen to what Bitcoin did.
Listen to the beginner's guide. They're useful.
But I think all of those ones were important interviews and
I'd much rather be doing important interviews.
Yeah. Now, I think that that's such a good point, especially, you know,
not just for you what you want to do, but I think that people
honestly crave those personal stories, those stories that, you know, yes,
there, you know, you have a lot of Bitcoiners who want to hear about nothing but Bitcoin,
but those personal stories, I mean, those are still about Bitcoin as well.
It's just telling the story through a lens that actually
has a little more meaning in depth than just, you know, technical jargon or macro jargon.
It's talking about the people behind it.
And I think people crave that.
Like they want the human side of things.
Yeah. So it's an interesting thing.
Some of our podcasts, the first 10, 20 minutes, we might not even be talking about Bitcoin.
Like Freddie knew we talked about 80s films for 10, 15, 20 minutes.
I talked about music with Mark Goodwin for quite a bit.
And it's really interesting because you'll go in the comments and like some nerd will be like,
I'm here too. I'm only here for about Bitcoin.
I don't hear about your bullshit life.
And I don't want to I don't care about football or they'll put interview starts here and they'll
timestamp like 20 minutes in.
But actually, that's just them looking at the interview from a perspective of what they want
out of the world.
But when I was studying interviews when I first started, one of the things that said is that
you have to be part of it.
Your personality has to be part of it because that's what people come back for.
You know, even if they say they hate your show, all the guests that are on my show on other shows,
right?
Little does everyone show.
Michael Saylor does.
Even if they say they don't like you, they're really coming back because they like the way
you're structuring it or your personality or your accent or the way you do things.
And so you have to be part of it's like Rogan Rogan's guests appear everywhere else.
But I like listen to Rogan because of the way he does his interviews.
I don't like listen to Lex Friedman's guests because I don't like listen to the way he does
interviews.
And that that just comes down to personal taste.
So you have to build some personality into it.
Yeah, no, I feel the same about Rogan and Lex.
Lex has a really impressive repertoire of interviews.
And he's a very impressive guy.
But I just something I cannot stand listening to his voice, to be honest.
Like it's just.
Yeah, look, his guests are very, very good and undoubtedly.
And I do when I do listen to it, I do end up leaving an interview thinking I should love
people in the world more.
But like I listened to his Jared Kushner interview recently.
And, you know, the two things stood out to me.
One, it's almost like he doesn't listen to their answers and then respond to them.
He he he just goes from question to question.
But also he he let Jared Kushner off on a lot of things where he should have been really,
you know, you can't push every guest right.
If I interview everyone like sunshine, no one's going to come on my show because they're
like, yeah, he's going to fucking go for me.
You can do it occasionally.
But Jared Kushner has got questions to answer.
Yeah, yeah.
Things that he has things that he has pushed for in Middle East, especially in the United
States, specifically in Jerusalem.
And also there's a certain amount of nepotism to the role he's got in life.
And he's made a lot of money off the back of some of the things he's done.
I mean, the these things topics should be explored.
And I think Lex interviewed him like a friend.
Yeah.
I mean, maybe that's that's part of that Lex Friedman charm.
Just I'm going to ask you this list of questions.
Maybe most of them are pre approved already.
And we're just going to run through run through the list.
And I know they know like when we did the sunshine interview, which by the way, I was
amazed they asked to come on.
They asked for the question.
He asked you.
He asked you to come on.
Well, his PR team did.
So I think they fucked up.
But they asked for questions in advance.
I was like, you're not getting the questions in advance.
That's not how I'll give you some topics.
Yeah.
But you're not having the questions.
No one has the questions.
And if someone turns around to me and says, well, I want to ask.
Okay.
See you later.
Yeah.
You know, the questions.
It's just not how this works.
This isn't a PR tool for you.
This is an interview.
And if I'm pushing you hard, you've got to suck it up and get some good answers.
Yeah.
Try to be prepared for anything.
And I mean, you should be ready to answer those kind of questions.
And I mean, well, I guess, you know, Peter, perhaps that's a that's a nice transition.
Because speaking of just answering tough questions and not being prepared in advance.
Yeah.
But you know, I appreciate you taking this because you're always on one side of the mic.
And now I think people want to hear about you.
And there's also you.
I don't know.
I think they wouldn't be surprised.
Well, you know what, there's a lot of people that just they want to see you.
They want to see you take an L.
You know, you disingenuous, cuck you like, oh, you know, how could you?
Yeah.
Government, Lovin Big Pharma, Lovin, just die.
You know, I love I love that that meme you post.
I think it's pinned on your profile now, like how people in the US see me versus how Brits see you.
And, you know, one is basically the the super leftist.
No.
And the other one is Alex Jones.
And I think that that's pretty perfect because, you know, you like early on the pandemic,
you know, people have gone back and they've, you know,
you've you've got millions of screenshot receipts from people.
And I don't think you delete anything either.
You've kind of left up your your record of all all the things you've said, which is which is a good thing.
Archival of stupidity.
Yeah.
But you know what?
That's like I think an archive of stupidity also is a way to show growth, right?
Because our feelings, our opinions change.
Hopefully our principles, the way we approach things stays the same or is enhanced.
But I'd love for you to talk through a little bit to to give something to the the Peter McCormack haters,
McCormack, excuse me, I almost called you Scott, the McCormack haters out there who think,
you know, you were pro lockdown.
You were you were pro vaccine.
You were calling people conspiracy theorists.
And I think that's kind of where the state that it is true.
But I also know because I've I've listened to you a good amount.
You do not you do not feel that way.
Your opinions have changed on the matter.
Can you can you walk me through that that cycle a little bit of let's say status cock to you know,
what whatever rage against the machine that as I see on the shirt there that you are now who I believe.
I was going to say, didn't they have require Vax like Vax cards at one of their shows or something?
Yeah, they've raised for the machine now.
I was somebody was saying it the other day to me and I was like, yeah, but look, the thing is,
when I listen to the songs, they still crush that first.
It was no crushes.
I cannot stop listen to that.
The regime's machine.
Yeah, they were a bit.
Oh, look, I mean, look, should we deal with the status cut thing?
Because I feel with the status cut, it's an elephant in the rub.
That's so.
So my my view on government is it's like quite simple.
I think it's a natural monopoly.
Right.
So I have historically and traditionally been pro democracy because the places that don't have democracy have tyranny.
Right.
There is only one country close, close to libertarian, which is Somalia.
And I haven't seen many libertarian Bitcoiners moving there recently.
And so the democracy we have and the freedoms we have, whether it's in the US or the UK,
they've been fought for over years.
You know, you kicked us out of your country for more freedom.
And, you know, they've been fought for.
Democracy has been fought for.
And so I've always been a supporter of that pro democracy.
Does it mean I think government's good?
No, I don't trust anything that comes out their fucking mouths.
I think they're complete liars.
Most of them, I think they're career grifters and they're full of shit.
And I've learned more and more of that over the years.
But if you wipe out democracy, you may have tyranny, which could be worse.
Some people argue in other places it might be better.
Maybe in Singapore is better.
But generally speaking, I'm pro democracy.
It doesn't mean I am pro the current government.
It doesn't mean I'm pro high taxation.
But I just have to walk through the steps logically.
Let's just say big red button tomorrow.
Big red button.
Government goes away.
We've got no taxation, no borders.
We've got that libertarian world.
What is going to happen?
Well, what is going to happen is groups of people are going to have to get together
to organize defense, security, protection, because we know the world is full of very
dangerous, violent people who will take shit from you if they want to.
I've been to very scary, I've been to some of the scariest places.
I've been to the barrios in Caracas, which was once the murder capital of the world.
I've been to places where people don't give a shit.
They will literally shoot you for fucking five bucks.
Right?
So you're going to have to have some form of security.
Well, how does that work?
Well, is it a community?
We get together and we build a security.
Do we put up a fence and build a citadel?
How does that work?
And what happens if the place next door attacks us?
Well, we have to build bigger security.
How are we going to govern that security?
Well, we'll have to elect someone.
Like you will rebuild government.
However localized it is to begin with, you will rebuild government and it will.
So I just believe government's a natural monopoly, which is why you have 200 states in the world
and you don't have any really libertarian places that exist at all.
Because the problem I see, Nic Carta put it to me, he said the problem with libertarianism is that
you, for a libertarian reality to exist, you have to accumulate power to put in place,
which is antithetical to the ideas of libertarianism.
And I kind of that kind of resonate.
I thought through that a lot.
I thought, yeah, but it doesn't mean I'm anti-libertarian.
I actually, I fundamentally agree with every libertarian,
more so than I agree with anyone's pro-democracy on their view on how the world should be.
But that's how it should be.
It's not how it is.
And so I just think it's, they're all well, they're nice theories, good ideas.
They make me think of, you ever seen Good Will Hunting?
You know the guy in the bar when he's chatting up Mini Driver and there's the guy there with the
long hair and he throws the apples up at the wind.
It makes me think of that guy.
Like the theoretically great ideas that in practice doesn't work.
And when he said, well, where does it work?
They go, well, there was an island off the coast of Gambia in 1722, which was, it's like, come on,
we've got countries here with hundreds of millions of people.
How is, how, just practically talk me through how this is going to work.
That doesn't mean government's good.
I think government's shit.
Should we make government smaller?
Yes.
Should we pay less tax?
Yes.
Should we focus on localism?
Yes.
But let's not burn down the freedoms we fought wars for because, you know, because some guy in
Sweden thinks that it's coercive to have taxation.
You've got to be practical about these things.
Also, when you have a breakdown, go into any region where there's a breakdown of government,
see what happens first.
Women get raped and killed, right?
People get stolen from and anarchy exists.
And so we just have to be realistic about this.
But what I do think, I actually, I thought this for a long time.
I think a strong libertarian political party would be good because the problem we have with the left
and the right, we have this swing back and forth, but government just gets bigger and bigger.
I think a strong libertarian party could fight the big V small and reduce the size of government.
And so, yes, I'm a status cut because I think government is a natural monopoly.
I think it would exist anyway.
And I think if you try and burn it down, you'll probably end up replacing it with something worse.
And so, yes, I'm a status cut.
But I also think it's just not a naive approach.
It's like a rational approach.
OK, so that's fair.
One thing I would say, I remember you were talking about your time in Lebanon recently and the fact
that obviously a rule of law and any sort of most government has pretty much broken down there.
And yet you were talking about all of the kind of local, the little mini grids that they were setting
up in Lebanon and in downtown Beirut.
And the fact that people were making it work, they were getting absolutely no help of any kind.
Oh, yeah, you're good.
Yeah, sorry, Karen.
You're good.
So people in Lebanon were getting no help of any kind.
Obviously, they have been literally stolen from by the government and through the banks.
But they were making it work.
And that as an example of, OK, people do have the ability to organize.
Now, I see your point also about, let's say, the naivete of libertarian ideals if we take them
at a completely theoretical value.
Right?
But I also see, at least from my perspective, I don't know what I would call myself.
I dislike labels for my politics because...
Reluctant status, I call myself.
OK, well, so reluctant status.
So that's the parentheses outside of the status cock part.
But I think that ultimately government should be, and I think you and I probably, as you said
earlier, we agree on this, government should be as small as possible.
Yes.
Like the ultimate purpose of the state is to provide for collective defense.
Right?
It's supposed to the purpose of the state and of the law is to provide for collective defense
against the plunder of your private property.
Like at its core, that is the state, that is the law, that is what it is supposed to be.
Obviously, it has been perverted from that.
The law has been perverted, the state has been perverted.
And we can, of course, go deep philosophically into how the broken money has led to that
expansion of the state, which I think it is very much true.
Like the state is left unchecked when the money is left unchecked.
And so I wonder how much we're going to see a shrinkage of governments as they just become
completely insolvent.
Like the sad thing is that when these states...
I think...
Yeah.
But the terribly sad thing is that power loves a vacuum, right?
And we will see, I think a lot of nation states fail in the coming years as they just run out
of money and you know what, people just...
Like just about every revolution is a monetary revolution.
Like why did the French Revolution happen?
It wasn't because they just all of a sudden, they magically didn't have food.
No, it's because the French, Asignat, was completely devalued over and over and over again.
And then they bring out the guillotine and then the ones who brought up the guillotine
to start ended up finding themselves in the chopping block at the end anyway.
And so I think that revolutions are usually kicked off because people are pissed off about
their economic conditions.
They're pissed off because their money breaks and they say, I'm not dealing with this anymore.
And so I think there's a natural cleansing that happens of the state.
But then the thing is what fills that vacuum.
A lot of time...
Lebanon has that cleansing right now.
And so, and that's really interesting to see.
It was really interesting to see.
You still got soldiers with guns, man in checkpoints and man in borders.
You still got Hezbollah on the Israeli border, protecting that region.
You still have police and security forces.
But there's no one functionally to deal with interfering.
There's no one functionally able to create the bureaucracy that stops business happen.
And that's the really interesting part.
That's the mini-grizz.
They're doing business.
They're using whatever currency they want.
And it's super interesting here because I see it where I am.
I own multiple businesses, whether it's the podcast, the bar, the football club.
There's a building that's just become available in Bedford that I really want to buy.
It's a block of flats with a shopfront underneath.
And the reason I want to buy it is I wanted a shopfront.
They're trying to turn it into like a Vegas slots thing on Bedford High Street,
which would look shit.
And I want to put a nice cafe in there.
And so the lease is expensive, but the building's up for sale.
So I've looked into it and it's a tough buy.
It's a lot of money.
But it's made even worse by that I've got to pay the stamp duty, which is taxes.
There's all these like bureaucratic things that get in the way of me buying it
that makes it harder to do business.
But same with my bar.
There's so much bureaucracy and so much tax I pay.
And I've been lucky that I have the excess funds.
I can do these things, but I think of the excess funds I would have with much lower tax,
say half tax, say I'm pay 50%, say it's 25%.
I could create double the business I have, employ double the people.
And I know I'm going to be a better allocator of capital than the government.
It doesn't mean I'm a zero tax person.
What I am is a stay the fuck out of business, stop interfering with my business,
stop telling me all these basic bullshit things I need to do that I don't.
I think I care about look, the things that I regulate the things that if I fuck up,
somebody dies or gets maimed, I'm with you on that.
Regulate that.
Fine.
Regulate building, you know, construction.
We've seen what happened in China without building regulations.
I way way did like a famous art installation based on the off the earthquake.
Look, I get all that bit right.
The state of fuck out business.
Let me just do business, you know, protect our borders, be as small as possible.
Stop interfering and stop stealing from me.
Look, I support all of that.
I'd love to get us to that.
But I would say to people, how are you going to get us there?
So otherwise, like, what's the point in reading all these libertarian books and
listen to these libertarian podcasts?
Like, what are you going to do to change it?
Because I don't believe Bitcoin is going to take us there alone.
But I do agree with you that these states are going to collapse under the weight of
their debt.
I mean, we've got we've got local councils in the UK going bankrupt.
Birmingham, I think, is going bankrupt.
They they are going to go bankrupt.
And you might have a currency collapse.
But if we don't change the system the way it works, all that will happen is we will
rebuild the same thing again.
So structurally, we have to rebuild things.
We have I don't know the answers.
But what I do know is that like a rule of law is important.
Law and order is important.
Base rules that we can agree on are important.
Like, like, don't don't hurt people and don't steal things.
Don't don't hurt people and don't steal their stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
Don't hurt people.
Don't steal their stuff.
But don't build shit that like will kill people.
And, you know, this base stuff we can do.
Government is too big.
It is weight.
I mean, here in the UK, it's too big.
Like I'm I'm like I said, just a reluctant status that wants it reformed into a better
way.
As a reluctant status to also admittedly wants it smaller because I think that that's
I mean, that's really the thing, right?
It's like the because the government builds a lot of stuff that kills people, too.
I mean, if you even look at the base layer of money itself, it's like, OK, for every,
you know, however many thousand people that are thrown into poverty each year because
the price of living cost of living has gone through the roof because they've inflated
the monetary base.
That literally leads to people dying.
That leads to suicides that lead, you know, like that is that is death at the cause by
the base layer.
But I do think you're going to interrupt you is that the same thing happens everywhere
all around the world.
And so that says to me that this is a this is a problem of the human organism.
It's the way we make decisions.
It's the greed within us, the way we structurally build things.
Look, Bitcoin can help with that.
Absolutely for sure.
I fundamentally believe that.
But even in the hyper Bitcoinized world, we're still going to require certain things, some
amount of law and order, some amount of structure.
And I believe that will be centralized.
I don't see a world where it's decentralized.
And I'm OK with that.
And maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I'm absolutely fucking wrong.
But I also don't know if we hyper Bitcoinized and get rid of sovereign currencies.
I don't know if Bitcoin just stays as an asset alongside it, like a check and balance
on those things.
I think that honestly, we're not going to see the end of all fiat currencies, certainly
not in our lifetimes.
My opinion on the matter is that we will likely see in the coming decades, governments start
to say, OK, we have our national currency and it is backed by Bitcoin and we will keep
it at this exchange rate.
You know, like it's you won't be able to do that with something like that's already an
established fiat currency because it's just it's too far in the hole.
Like you're not going to stop the flow at this point.
But I think that with the new there will be new fiat currencies that emerge after we see
collapses and those have a chance.
And I think that if you have a check on the creation of money again at that base layer,
you at least have a chance to keep the state small.
You have a big because then, you know, really, it's like you're you want to pay for something
you got to do with taxes and you're only raising taxes to a certain point before people say,
no, I'm I'm not doing that.
I'm you know, yeah, you're done.
And I think people are waking up to this, dude.
Oh, yeah.
You know, the funny thing about doing a podcast for six years is your learning in public,
your and if you're transparent, your evolution is there for everyone to see, like everything
you experience, every stupid question you ask, every stupid answer you give is there.
Yeah, people follow follow that.
And for me, you know, when I first discovered Bitcoin, I never even heard of libertarianism.
Like I was a indoctrinated status because that's all I knew.
Like this is how the world worked.
I didn't know any alternative.
And then I discovered Bitcoin and I was like, oh, there's some alternatives.
Well, that doesn't make sense.
Oh, but that's kind of cool.
And then you go through this journey.
I mean, Covid was a great one, right?
So when I think I was pro lockdown, but let's have the caveat, I was pro lockdown for about
two weeks.
OK.
And in the build up to that, I I'd interviewed a doctor.
One of my friends is a doctor who was working at one of the hospitals in London.
The interviews out there, anyone can listen to it.
And he talked about the fact that they had some people come in that became a trickle that
became an emergency.
He said they were just very quickly overrun with people who could not breathe and who were
dying.
And he was in tears in this interview.
And so when they announced the lockdown, I was like, yeah, that make total fucking sense.
Lock everyone down, shut everyone down for a couple of weeks.
Let's fix this shit.
Let's get some.
Yeah, let's understand what we're dealing with.
And by the way, that had followed what happened in Italy, which was the first country to be
hit really hard.
And then logic comes in and afterwards, you're like, oh, shit, but like you can never stop
this thing.
It's a virus.
At some point you open up and everyone's going to get it anyway.
And if you lock people down, you're going to affect their mental health issues.
And so like, you know, I kind of learned my lesson after the fact with that.
And I've apologized.
I said, look, I caught that wrong.
I don't think I started the lockdown.
I don't think I had any impact on it happened or not.
But maybe it's a collective thing.
A collective group of people like me who support it is the problem.
Yeah.
And that was an experience I went through.
Same with a little bit different with the vaccinations.
Well, people say they're not even a vaccination.
I didn't get my kids vaccinated.
There's no fucking chance they were having that when I got my first ones because I wanted
to go to Ireland and see my dad.
But I wasn't worried about them.
Like I had all kinds of vaccinations, dude.
You see some of the drugs I've taken in the places I've taken my old life, right?
I was not scared of a vaccine.
And look, I know there's been vaccine injuries and people have died.
And that's fucking awful.
And people were coerced into taking it.
And it was bad.
And, you know, again, I put out some stupid tweets with regards to that.
But it's learning in public.
You know, anything I've ever said publicly, I've honestly felt that's the right opinion
at the time.
I back myself and I always back myself to say, you know, I called that wrong.
And I challenge anyone to go through their life with every major situation that happens
in the world in their life to call everyone right if they do fair play to you because
it's fucking hard.
Yeah, I mean, it is.
I appreciate that you own what you now see as mistakes because everybody thinks they're
right in the time, right?
I mean, a lot of people who would probably criticize you for your lockdown stance forget
that those lockdowns and the initial trillions of dollars in the US of money printing started
under Trump.
Like, you know, then they, you know, then they're still like you ra ra magga, forgetting
that, you know, he is a part of that same swamp, even though he likes to pretend that
he's not.
And so I do think, you know, I am all for consenting adults doing whatever the fuck
they want with their own body and not being coerced into doing it.
So like, I'm not judging anyone for what they want to do.
The nuances missed on that, because, you know, whilst I was like, yeah, I'm getting
vaccinated.
I've got no fear.
I just don't want to be vaccinated.
I'm getting vaccinated. I've got no fear.
I did it with a Tim four hat on.
I got my vaccine.
Like, I wasn't worried.
And also, there was a period of time I put out this tweet saying it's now a pandemic
of the unvaccinated because at the time I know, but I'd read it.
It's OK.
You're owning it.
You know, I read the research and the research was saying the majority of the people coming
into the hospital that time, sick and dying were unvaccinated.
That's just what the evidence said.
And so, you know, again, in hindsight, probably jumped too in too deep, too quickly.
You know, I've learned that I try not jump in too deep too quickly sometimes now just
because of that.
But these aren't things where I'm like, huh, I'm going to craft this tweet and then
hopefully someone's going to have vaccine they didn't want.
Ha ha ha.
It's I believe it in time, right?
You know, and then more evidence comes out and you're like, fuck, we've been fucked
over.
We've been lied to is all bullshit.
And that's a hard thing to go through because it's a system that you've spent decades
believing is an honorable correct system.
And now you've you've looked behind the veil is all fucking bullshit.
And the best thing you can do is come out and say, look, I was wrong.
This is what led me to this point.
This is why I got it wrong.
And I'm sorry.
And I will do better.
I think that that humility is something that is desperately lacking from the discourse
in general.
Like people are so afraid to admit like, hey, I fucked up.
I was wrong.
Yeah, at the time I thought I was right.
Now I know that I'm wrong.
I have more people took that approach.
We would have a much more tolerable public discourse than we do.
But I mean, you see even like in the media, I think there's a people that are like,
I think there's a people I've seen kind of treat you like you're like you're a Jimmy
Fallon type of guy, like literally like a paid Pfizer shill, like sponsored by Peter,
you know, Peter McCuck Mack sponsored by Pfizer, like dude.
And so that guy, apparently that's a different level.
Apparently I was paid by Pfizer whilst also being a spook for the government.
Wait, wait, you cut out for a moment.
So I need you to repeat that one.
So I've been accused of being a government spook and I've been accused of being a paid
shill from Pfizer.
I always said, look, anyone can go through my bank accounts.
I don't give a fuck.
I've got nothing to hide.
No, I just thought I thought it was right at the time.
It's just is what it is.
Yeah, it's just these are mistakes.
So to the to the Peter McCormick is a status cock critics.
You just heard him say these are mistakes and he is owning them.
So I will make more of them and there you go.
You know, but you know, I can't imagine that you would be pro lockdown again.
He has a tricky one.
It's a tricky one.
Then let me again, because nuance is super important.
If a bowler, if there was an outbreak of a bowler in my kid's school,
am I going to send my daughter school?
Am I fucked?
She's coming home.
And if there's an outbreak of a bowler in my village, am I locking down my family?
Fuck.
Yeah, I'm rocking down my family.
And there you have a personal choice about what you're going to do with your family versus a
state level decision.
Yeah.
Well, I'm coming to that.
Listen, look, if there is an outbreak of an Ebola, if you go and look at the outbreaks
they've had of Ebola in the various parts of Africa, they have to have very strict quarantine
and lockdown procedures because this shit moves quick and it moves fast.
So what I'm saying is like, I am anti lockdown, but I can see a scenario where certain things
in certain parts of the world, they make total sense and Ebola outbreak makes sense because
when somebody, when somebody, we've had it when a nurse, I think, came back from Africa
and they realized on the flight she was sick and they took her into hospital, they lock her down.
That is a decision.
They lock her down because you do not want an outbreak of Ebola in the country, right?
Because what is it?
90% fatality rate or something.
Yeah.
Bleed through your eyes.
That's a reality.
And now I'm not doing a Sam Harris here saying if the circumstances are, I'm just saying,
yeah, right.
I can see the circumstances where they might happen and I'm like, yeah, that makes total
fucking sense.
And yes, in an ideal voluntary world, we all voluntary, but I'm just saying you got to be
realistic.
No.
If you have an outbreak of Ebola in London, they're fucking locking that shit down.
Yes.
But the difference between you and what Sam Harris was saying is Sam Harris is using a
hypothetical to justify his prior stance versus you saying, no, my prior stance was wrong.
Yeah.
But in the future, I can see that if something like Ebola was to break loose at a large scale,
then that could perhaps justify that.
So I think those are two very different things.
Sam Harris is just like, well, imagine if COVID would have been this.
See, I was basically right still.
And it's like, oh, buddy, I think you lost the plot there.
And that's the problem.
A guy like that refusing to admit that he's wrong, being part of that established, the
anointed thought leaders that say, no, well, we did what we had to do.
And I think that's a dangerous path when the anointed can't be wrong.
I think what it is is what's come out is that the people who are making the decisions were
incompetent with the data they had and also actually had false data as well.
Yeah.
And led a lot of us to believe things which weren't particularly true.
So I look at it.
Look, I think it was a tough time for a lot of people.
I don't envy the people in government having to make the decisions they had to make because
I have no doubt, even if, say, the UK government hadn't a lockdown and more people to go to
hospital, we can't avoid the fact like people died.
People got sick from this.
Oh, yeah.
And if more people had died because they had a lockdown, they would have been hammered
it anyway.
And so governments always tend to take the safest option right.
Even if it's the wrong one, unless they're bombing people in the Middle East.
Right.
That's just always the option for at least Western governments is like, well, what do
we do here?
I guess more bombs.
And then they're like, well, give this guy a Nobel Prize.
He deserves it.
Exactly.
I mean, I just I'm glad I'm not the person who actually has to make the decision because
I'm not very good at those.
Well, I hope that neither of us ever have to make that sort of decision.
But yeah, it's a I appreciate your your perspective on this, because again, I think that
it most people have difficulty admitting when they are wrong about even little things.
And when it comes to something big that they've made, as let's say, I think the problem
is that people make their choices too much a part of their identity.
And they say that, you know, now I'm like, I was pro locked out at the beginning and
I was pro mask and now I am a masker for life.
And like there's this weird subsection of Twitter that like I'll occasionally the algo
throw me something and it'll be like these people that are still like testing all the
different masks.
And like I have my kid in a I don't even know XYZ 425, you know, automatic respirator.
And he says it doesn't even hurt that much.
It's like some four year old kid with like this giant gas mask on.
And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is this is genuinely broken.
Some people you can be broken them.
Some people also don't know what it's like to have the Internet come after them, right?
It's not a great experience.
So so before even all this shit happened.
So when when Covid first started to happen, I was still traveling with work, right?
And I remember when I hit South America, Bolivia, and you just started to see the
occasional person in airports wearing masks, right?
Got back to the UK and the lockdown was about to get announced and Erdogan in Turkey
suddenly announced that he was trying to get rid of they've got immigration issue in
the country because they have access to Europe.
So he was basically started busing immigrants to the border with Greece.
He wanted people to leave and I was like, shit, I've got to go and film this.
So, you know, we knew lockdown was coming.
It's like if I don't get on the flight today, I might miss it.
So I did jumped on the plane, went out to a refugee camp, felt like followed
everything that happened.
Then when I came back, I came back to the lockdown, right?
And I went into London because I was like, well, what are all the homeless people going
to do?
Like if they're locking down.
So I went out with a camera and my mic, me and my son, which went outside and
interview people.
And I put up like a photo and a video up on Twitter.
People go fucking crazy.
I mean, what are you doing?
Why are you not wearing a mask?
Why are you out in the street?
And I was like, shit, well, maybe I've misjudged this then.
So I got I got kind of hit on both sides.
I got hit for not taking it serious enough and then I got hit for taking it too
seriously. And that's the problem in the world.
It's like what whatever position you take part of the world of the internet is going
to disagree with you and come after you.
And so in the end, you might as well just be honest.
Like this is what I think now.
And if you see think the same in the future, great.
And if you if you don't, then just say, well, I've changed my mind and this is why.
And even if that means you've got people like Dick Whitman coming after you all the
fucking time, I had to block that guy fucking annoying.
But if even if you got those people come after you all the time, you say, well,
look, at least I'm honest. This is who I am.
You know, I think that it's it's also good personal experience.
I've never met Dick, but I like him and he's granted.
I've also never had people come after me.
So, you know, I what I will say is we do need people who are going to always perhaps
be be a little bit antagonistic.
I think that some antagonism is actually very good and healthy because it's a
good and healthy because it makes you check yourself a little bit.
Yeah, hopefully. I mean, the sad reality is that the people who really need to check
themselves rarely do.
Few people who are in power are so introspective as you're being here, which is
just the sad state of the world.
So I will argue for a little bit of antagonism, you know, that being good.
I mean, antagonism is is the same characterization that, you know, the toxic maximalists
get for, you know, saying, listen, your shit coins a scam.
You should you should get out of that.
And so, you know, there there is a place and also a benefit to antagonism.
Now antagonism just for the sake of antagonism.
Well, that's a different story. That's a different story.
Yeah, look, I don't mind if someone's like comes at me occasionally or even then
jumps into my DMs and go look, I think you got this wrong.
This is bullshit. Like if Dick was like that, but what he is, he's one of many.
There's like the clones. It's just like everything I do say or put out there.
They fucking hate and then make some furious and they just like it's just all attack.
And look, if I feel like I can have a conversation with somebody and get somewhere
with it, even if it's me apologizing, call, but if it's just like I just have to
block it because I'm at my plate is full.
I've got a lot on.
I don't have time to sit there all day.
They're on Twitter fighting and argue with people and and I can't I don't have
the time for someone who's only antagonistic because it's like what do you want out of
this? Well, you know, what do you get out of this and what am I getting out of this?
But if it's if it's a conversation was like look, I disagree with you on this and
I can go. Yeah, I disagree.
We can get somewhere if it's productive.
I'll have that conversation all the time, but I just don't have the time for it, man.
I like I get up at six in the morning and most days I'm working till like 11 o'clock
at night with like some gaps in the middle.
I'm busy.
I don't have time for it.
It will you you you have you have quite a bit on the plane of besides the podcast.
Obviously you have you're now doing multiple of your follow the money series that you're
expanding on you had just a few weeks ago published the one from Argentina.
You're working on one from Lebanon to editing Lebanon hoping that to be our early December
and then early December.
I'm in Africa making one and then January I'm going to be in Canada making one.
Wow, Canada is so interesting. So we've got some interesting locations and now Canada
has made the list.
It's a things are weird there right now.
Yes, I'm a mental at me.
Someone's I mean like a really aggressive email the other day.
So everything you're saying about Canada is wrong and you'll sound ignorant.
I was like, dude, I'm pretty sure I can see exactly what's happening in Canada right now.
Yeah, like I mean and and you can hear about it from actual Canadians to say, yeah, like
Canada used to just be kind of like this this quiet upstairs, you know upstairs neighbor
and now all of a sudden it's just it's it's very strange and and Fidel Castro's son up
there is I know he he's a weird one man.
Yeah, that's a whole different rabbit hole.
Yeah, that is a whole rabbit hole.
We could do an hour and a half on that one.
But yeah, listen, I'm going to go out there.
I'm going to I'm going to revisit the trucker story.
I'm going to go back and nice to people in Ottawa people who protested but people anti-protest.
I'm just going to say like how do you reflect on this house?
What was the impact on Canada House Canada change since what happens if this happens
in the future because there was certainly an authoritarian bent to the attack on the
right like the right to protest is a fundamental pillar of democracy.
If you cannot protest you cannot you cannot tell the government that you disagree with
them and to me that wasn't a really authoritarian attack on democracy and I disliked it a lot.
So I want to go out there and I want to revisit the story.
So that's what I'm hoping to do in January.
So people are going to January so fucking cold.
I was like because that's when the fucking protest was I want to go there when it was
cold as it was for them.
I'll get a big coat but I was one that's where I want to go.
Nice.
Well, I look forward to that and I mean you and you've got in addition to all that you
are also obviously you have real but no I'm not a rail.
I'm not a it's real.
Okay, so so everybody takes the rail.
You know what the question was again.
You know I still think of it as so I'm going to Madrid.
Got it.
Okay.
So everybody just adopts this the Spanish way.
Yeah.
Okay, sure.
You know I won't ask too many questions about it.
You know I've actually I've got so we're the only team else.
My best.
Yeah.
Well, we're the only team outside of Spain who are rare or something.
It's all Spanish teams.
There's Real Madrid Real Betis.
Yeah.
Okay.
So well it's it's interesting.
Now I just saw I think in the past week or in the past two weeks like Bulgaria's oldest
club and then one in Austria as well have like very publicly is there enough.
Oh, I didn't know they're amazing.
I mean this so did did you talk with any of those like the people working with those teams
and did they reach out to you and say hey we're looking at doing this you know.
Yeah they all of them did.
I spoke to them all amazing and obviously I think great idea rising tide.
It's all boats.
It was important to me to be the first once I had the idea and I had to be the first but
like I want I want everyone to do it.
Of course I do.
It makes total sense even if it's even if eventually it's anti-competitive for us like
if a massive team like we're this advantage now because we're probably the only team in
the UK with a Bitcoin treasury but it's not much we've got like five and a half Bitcoin
in it right.
Yeah it's not bad.
It's not but you know a man you could come in and buy five thousand Bitcoin right.
So I obviously want to outlast I want to I want to be the first competitively but realistically
if a big team wants to do I support it because I believe everyone should do it.
I think it's the right thing to do.
So yeah I mean all four of those all three of those teams to me is I call it the cheat
code.
I mean I constantly say this is a cheat code.
It gives you access to a bigger audience bigger sponsors new revenue models it protects you
it protects your income long term.
And so I think it's a good thing to do.
I have a slight advantage over them in that I have a podcast which lots of people listen
to so and we were the first so we have first mover advantage because we're I think unfortunately
for them we are the Bitcoin team.
They are also Bitcoin teams and I don't mean that disrespectfully and maybe one of them
will take the crown because we were the first right.
And then secondly just having the podcast doing all the events you know I can harass
all the Bitcoiners to follow my team as well.
I think we've got the conference now cheat code conference it's coming up this spring
right.
April.
I like the approach to that of okay we'll have a conference day and then the next day
let's not pretend let's just let's go have a good time.
But you know because that's what it's what ends up happening anyway.
And a lot of these things.
Last year Walker last year we had 150 people come in with Jeff Booth James Lavish Lawrence
LeBard Ben Ark right.
They all came in on a Friday night.
Well Friday afternoon we had like six hour live podcast and then we all went down went
to my bar and got drunk and then we woke up the next day and went to watch the football
match.
Everyone had a great time and no one gives a shit about the second day of the conference.
No one really really cares about watching conference speakers that much.
It's a it's a big hangout right.
And so I was like well fuck it.
Let's do the same again.
But this time let's try and get five six hundred people into Bedford.
Let's have the day of talks.
Let's make it around the cheat code.
We'll probably do a workshop around what a cheat code is how you use it.
And then the next day let's all go down to the football football ground.
Let's have a barbecue drink beer and watch a game of football.
I mean everyone will have a great time.
Yeah that's a that's a recipe for success there.
You know one of the questions that I got on on Noster was you know do you have any like
what is the advice that you gave to these teams that they were getting wanted to you
know be also Bitcoin teams.
Like obviously there's a lot of details but like if there was is there something that
you've learned where you're like man I wish I would have realized this when we were starting
out on this journey.
The main things I've learned are non Bitcoin things.
Yeah how to handle merchandise how to manage stock how to manage deliveries all things
like operational things and things I've not done before.
No I mean look my main advice to them is like if you're if you're doing this because you
see me doing it and you're like inspired by it that's cool but just be aware I have first
mover advantage and I'm not saying that to say don't do it I'm just saying you know you
may not get the same kind of awareness that I did and I also have a large platform where
every week I can tell people the scores and the results and tweet it out so I've got a
visit of you might not be able to do exactly what I've done but that's not a reason not
to do it.
I said if you're going to do it embrace it and do it properly.
Okay just embrace it and do it properly and have your meetups before the games allow people
to pay with Bitcoin but but my main advice is just it's a bit like doing a podcast you
got to go with it and stick with it.
That's what it is you got to go with it and stick with it and yet look maybe mine is the
Bitcoin team but you can be the Austrian Bitcoin team or the Austrian Bitcoin that support
and love and you'll still get other nutters around the world who just buy your t-shirt
just because there's a little Bitcoin logo on the side they want it and that's cool for
you as well.
Will everyone make a pilgrimage to Austria to watch them like they're going to come to
Bedford or Israel but I don't know but I wish them all the success and I think it'd be great
to get the chairman of all those clubs on the stage to get that cheat code and talk
about it.
There's a lot of cool stuff we can do with it.
My advice to them is just like you have to find your own path and it's going to be very
different from Real Bedford's.
And I mean the nice thing is that now there are probably even just because things move
so fast in this space there's so many more tools that are propping up like all the time.
Who do you guys use for your POS system like at the stadium?
So we have two we use Zettel as our fiat one and then we use Open Node as our Bitcoin.
I haven't found someone who's integrated the two very well yet and to be honest there's
probably things we can do but it works for us at the moment and even changing.
It's like well if we change what do we change it to but hopefully we're going to get the
two integrated.
I want to get a Ticket Tailor who we do online tickets to accept Bitcoin because they don't
at the moment.
With our conference we're doing fiat through Ticket Tailor and Bitcoin through Coin Corner.
Eventually Coin Corner probably not this season but next season might do our Bitcoin payments
for tickets.
So like we're trying to get there.
Some of this stuff though like this is like it takes time there's a trade-off like my
bar I don't accept Bitcoin in my bar.
I will do come the conference next year.
Haven't done it yet because I'll be the only one probably buying beer with Bitcoin in there
right.
I've got all the accounting logistics and whatever and I don't have time to waste my
staff they're busy.
So these I want the tools to be right not me to fudge tools into it.
I want a peer system that just says you're paying cash card or Bitcoin and just taps
does it all.
So we'll get there.
We're getting there.
Yeah.
Well I mean you know you could of course make your circular economy of one just feeding
back in.
Well Peter you know I want to be conscious of your time too because I know it's afternoon
there for you and I know you're a busy man.
I have really enjoyed this conversation and I appreciate you taking the time.
Is there where I mean me listening to your podcast you always ask where do you want to
send people.
So I'll ask you where would you like to send people.
What do you what do you want them to check out from your work.
Obviously what Bitcoin did your podcast your YouTube channel all of that.
But is there anywhere else you want people to check out.
Just the football team.
I just want people to back the football team because if we win the league again this year
and next year if we keep going up this thing's going to get big.
Look we've already seen multiple other football teams now.
I don't think it's a coincidence.
And there's like some people they're like oh I don't care about football shut the fuck
about football.
It's like did you care about El Salvador before.
Like you care because they're Bitcoin country don't care.
It's not that we're a football team we're a Bitcoin project and if this works and continues
to be successful it's a great flag is a signal for everyone.
And so back it because it's a Bitcoin project.
Come and see us come to a game come and have a beer come to the conference come.
Yeah so check out Rail Bedford Rail Bedford dot com.
And if you want to come to our conference which will be super it's gonna be so much
fun next year April in the UK in Bedford.
Cheat code dot code UK would love to see people there.
And dude if I know it's gonna be difficult for you but we would love to have you over
as well and make sure when Kyla wakes you give her a big high five for me and say I
say hello.
I certainly will.
We'll see what we can do.
You know maybe maybe it'll be time for the little guys first trip across the pond who
can say.
And you know for me I don't I don't have a football team that I support so I guess now
I'm you know I'm officially now I have one you know.
Yeah.
It's a that's a nice feeling.
It's nice to nice to belong there.
Well Peter thank you so much.
Really appreciate this and to everybody out there just remember Bitcoin is scarce but
Bitcoin podcasts are abundant.
So thank you for listening to this one.
And of course to Peters as well.
Peter thank you so much.
Appreciate your time.
And thank you.
I'll talk to you soon.
Appreciate it.
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin talk episode of the Bitcoin podcast.
If you are a Bitcoin only company interested in sponsoring another fucking Bitcoin podcast
head to Bitcoin podcast dot net or hit me up on social media on Noster head to primal
dot net slash Walker and on Twitter search for at Walker America or at TIT coin podcast.
You can also watch the video version of this show on X or on YouTube by going to YouTube
dot com slash at Walker America or rumble by searching for at Walker America.
It coin is scarce.
There will only ever be 21 million but Bitcoin podcasts are abundant.
So thank you for spending your scarce time to listen to another fucking Bitcoin podcast.
Until next time.
Stay free.