1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,920
You've had a dynamic where money has become freer than free.

2
00:00:10,780 --> 00:00:13,040
You talk about a Fed just gone nuts.

3
00:00:13,500 --> 00:00:15,700
All the central banks going nuts.

4
00:00:16,380 --> 00:00:17,880
So it's all acting like safe haven.

5
00:00:18,360 --> 00:00:23,500
I believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their

6
00:00:23,500 --> 00:00:25,260
currency, Bitcoin wins.

7
00:00:25,360 --> 00:00:28,480
In the world of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the victor.

8
00:00:28,480 --> 00:00:31,360
I mean, that's part of the bull case for Bitcoin.

9
00:00:31,800 --> 00:00:34,240
If you're not paying attention, you probably should be.

10
00:00:36,500 --> 00:00:41,520
Kyle, off the plane, Uber to Presidio, check in at the Lodge.

11
00:00:42,680 --> 00:00:44,900
Can't talk about why I'm here, so we'll start over.

12
00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:47,620
Kyle, off the plane, straight to Presidio, Bitcoin.

13
00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:51,800
And we got introduced to each other yesterday via text.

14
00:00:52,020 --> 00:00:53,380
Formally, yeah, yeah.

15
00:00:53,540 --> 00:00:55,540
Long time listener, big fan.

16
00:00:55,540 --> 00:00:58,200
And we've also both been in the community for a long time.

17
00:00:58,200 --> 00:01:00,320
But yeah, first time meeting in person.

18
00:01:00,600 --> 00:01:06,100
COVID, I think, put five plus years on pretty much everybody getting to meet one another.

19
00:01:06,280 --> 00:01:07,820
So it's great to finally meet you in person.

20
00:01:08,320 --> 00:01:09,080
You as well.

21
00:01:09,160 --> 00:01:11,540
Like I was telling you, my last time in SF was 2019.

22
00:01:12,040 --> 00:01:13,580
So it's been six years.

23
00:01:14,280 --> 00:01:15,560
And a lot has changed since then.

24
00:01:15,620 --> 00:01:20,260
Actually, the last time I was in SF, my producer is going to get pissed because he hates when I started out with dad talk.

25
00:01:20,720 --> 00:01:23,100
But I found out my wife was pregnant with our first son.

26
00:01:23,380 --> 00:01:23,820
Oh, wow.

27
00:01:24,100 --> 00:01:24,560
Very special.

28
00:01:24,860 --> 00:01:26,600
Very special city for me in that way.

29
00:01:26,600 --> 00:01:26,960
Yeah.

30
00:01:27,280 --> 00:01:28,020
Well, welcome back.

31
00:01:28,200 --> 00:01:29,840
It's great to be back. The vibes are high here.

32
00:01:29,960 --> 00:01:34,580
As you can see, if you're watching, we've got the Golden Gate Bridge right behind us.

33
00:01:34,740 --> 00:01:35,040
Yeah.

34
00:01:35,160 --> 00:01:35,980
This is a beautiful place.

35
00:01:36,300 --> 00:01:37,460
Yeah, Presidio Bitcoin is gorgeous.

36
00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:42,580
We're incredibly lucky that we now have this place in San Francisco.

37
00:01:42,580 --> 00:01:45,880
So, you know, I've been involved in the community here for a long time,

38
00:01:46,020 --> 00:01:52,560
but we haven't really had a home until Presidio Bitcoin got restarted on kind of like the post-COVID window.

39
00:01:52,880 --> 00:01:57,900
And so, yeah, it's been really wonderful for us to like actually have a congregation place.

40
00:01:58,200 --> 00:02:02,440
you know, like the rest of the country has, you know, Bitcoin Park and all these other places,

41
00:02:02,540 --> 00:02:06,560
PubKey, various spots around the country. So, you know, we got this gorgeous location.

42
00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:12,540
It's incredibly aesthetically compelling. So, you know, you work on hard problems here,

43
00:02:12,660 --> 00:02:17,820
walk out the door, take a walk on the beach, look at the Golden Gate Bridge. It's hard to beat.

44
00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:24,020
Listen, I want to piss off Chaincode, Bitcoin Park, Nashville, Bitcoin Park, Austin,

45
00:02:24,200 --> 00:02:27,300
the space in Denver, which I haven't been to yet. So I probably shouldn't add them to this. But

46
00:02:27,300 --> 00:02:31,100
This is the most inspiring Bitcoin space I've been to

47
00:02:31,100 --> 00:02:34,140
in terms of the visual aesthetics and the vibe.

48
00:02:34,220 --> 00:02:34,860
Energy is high here.

49
00:02:35,420 --> 00:02:36,100
Yeah, absolutely.

50
00:02:36,500 --> 00:02:37,240
What's today? Is it Tuesday?

51
00:02:37,860 --> 00:02:38,560
Today is a Tuesday.

52
00:02:38,660 --> 00:02:39,260
Today is a Tuesday.

53
00:02:39,440 --> 00:02:40,640
I'm losing track of time here.

54
00:02:40,760 --> 00:02:42,280
It's like Tuesday, offices are filled.

55
00:02:43,240 --> 00:02:47,720
But like I said, we got introduced or reintroduced via text yesterday

56
00:02:47,720 --> 00:02:51,480
via Connor Brown, good friend of mine, good friend of the show.

57
00:02:51,480 --> 00:02:59,280
and obviously there's a lot going on on the hill with the clarity act is it going to get

58
00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:06,540
sort of injected into the market structure bill if so what is included but before we get to that

59
00:03:06,540 --> 00:03:11,260
just before we hit record you're telling me about your history before bitcoin and what ultimately

60
00:03:11,260 --> 00:03:17,000
led you to bitcoin which goes back to my radicalizing moment what put me in a bitcoin

61
00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:18,840
in a different way, which is the Great Financial Crisis.

62
00:03:19,540 --> 00:03:20,800
Yeah, absolutely.

63
00:03:21,040 --> 00:03:25,900
The Great Financial Crisis, I think, for everybody our age or our generation

64
00:03:25,900 --> 00:03:29,380
was a very formative event in a lot of different ways.

65
00:03:29,380 --> 00:03:36,540
But yeah, my backstory here was that I graduated right into the financial crisis

66
00:03:36,540 --> 00:03:42,020
and I was an aerospace engineer by training academically.

67
00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:46,620
But when the whole world's blowing up and everybody's getting laid off

68
00:03:46,620 --> 00:03:52,740
and everything's in kind of chaos, you can't get a job unless you've got many years of experience

69
00:03:52,740 --> 00:03:59,080
in an industry like that. And so I ended up going into strategy consulting, which was a nice way to

70
00:03:59,080 --> 00:04:04,380
kind of bridge the technical, non-technical divide there. And the very first thing that

71
00:04:04,380 --> 00:04:10,620
my consulting firm was doing was seizing banks for the US government that were failing during

72
00:04:10,620 --> 00:04:16,680
the financial crisis. So, you know, here I ended up having this insane situation where I was banging

73
00:04:16,680 --> 00:04:21,880
my head on the wall trying to get a job to go out and do moonshots. Right. That was literally what I

74
00:04:21,880 --> 00:04:28,700
got my degree for because, you know, why not? Like, we should be doing big, important things in the

75
00:04:28,700 --> 00:04:34,340
world, right? We should be changing the world with our time and our energy here. And yeah, and then I

76
00:04:34,340 --> 00:04:41,280
just, you know, got the hook from on the stage. And it was, you know, life had had a different

77
00:04:41,280 --> 00:04:46,240
plan in store. So I ended up going out and wasn't just me. I mean, there are hundreds of other

78
00:04:46,240 --> 00:04:54,660
people in the consulting firm, but we ended up seizing and resolving 140 plus systemically

79
00:04:54,660 --> 00:05:00,280
important financial institutions for the US government on behalf of the FDIC. And through

80
00:05:00,280 --> 00:05:10,160
that process, I got really deep exposure to just how decrepit, corrupt, choose your adjective,

81
00:05:11,220 --> 00:05:17,700
the global financial system was and just how shaky everything had become at that point in time.

82
00:05:17,700 --> 00:05:23,520
And I guess thus began my trip down the rabbit hole. And that ended up leading me to Bitcoin.

83
00:05:23,760 --> 00:05:29,740
And then I've subsequently been involved first as a political activist in that kind of 2009 to

84
00:05:29,740 --> 00:05:36,780
2011 zone. And then later on, once I wasn't a Ramanpour college student and had accumulated

85
00:05:36,780 --> 00:05:42,400
some capital, I started making investments. And I spent the better part of a decade here in Silicon

86
00:05:42,400 --> 00:05:50,280
Valley building Web2 unicorns. And then as the political climate started shifting in the last

87
00:05:50,280 --> 00:05:58,800
couple of years and Bitcoiners could actually be out without fear of reprisal and retribution

88
00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:04,940
publicly, then I started shifting over into the policy side of things. And so I was advising

89
00:06:04,940 --> 00:06:09,440
presidential campaigns last year, because I felt like it was super important that we,

90
00:06:09,440 --> 00:06:13,520
you know, kind of get on the political map, so to speak, as Bitcoiners and, you know,

91
00:06:13,520 --> 00:06:19,040
actually start influencing the levers of power. And then this year, I've spent all year working

92
00:06:19,040 --> 00:06:24,120
on Save Our Wallets and, you know, kind of the advocacy around the market structure bill. So

93
00:06:24,120 --> 00:06:34,220
So it's been a long, weird detour for me getting back to Bitcoin after 10 years of trying to figure out how I could reinsert myself into the market.

94
00:06:34,740 --> 00:06:39,960
Well, Kyle, we're going to go back because I need to know what happens when you seize banks.

95
00:06:39,960 --> 00:06:44,000
I think like going all the way back to what radicalized you, what did you see?

96
00:06:44,100 --> 00:06:45,200
Like, what was that process like?

97
00:06:45,200 --> 00:06:49,360
what was the spectrum of bank balance sheets,

98
00:06:49,560 --> 00:06:52,320
the executive management,

99
00:06:52,660 --> 00:06:54,520
like how the spectrum of corruption,

100
00:06:54,800 --> 00:06:57,360
like were some just poorly capitalized,

101
00:06:57,460 --> 00:07:00,280
were some doing overtly corrupt things?

102
00:07:01,020 --> 00:07:02,080
Was there fraud involved?

103
00:07:02,280 --> 00:07:02,600
Oh, yeah.

104
00:07:02,880 --> 00:07:04,720
What happens when the government seizes the bank?

105
00:07:04,860 --> 00:07:06,580
Yeah, yes to all of the above, really.

106
00:07:08,400 --> 00:07:09,760
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different things

107
00:07:09,760 --> 00:07:10,660
I could say there, right?

108
00:07:10,660 --> 00:07:14,960
I mean, I threw the first bank executive in jail

109
00:07:14,960 --> 00:07:21,060
in lower Manhattan since the SNL crisis. While I was involved with this project, I

110
00:07:21,060 --> 00:07:28,440
was deeply involved in the resolution of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of financial

111
00:07:28,440 --> 00:07:34,980
institutions, all of which were, I mean, I can't name specific banks or specific details, but

112
00:07:34,980 --> 00:07:41,040
of the hundreds that we closed during the financial crisis, I would say it's safe to assume that

113
00:07:41,040 --> 00:07:51,040
virtually all of them had less than 50% of their demand deposits at the bank at the time that they

114
00:07:51,040 --> 00:07:55,940
were seized by the US government. So just think about that, right? Like if it's, you know, demand

115
00:07:55,940 --> 00:07:59,720
deposits, that's not even- That's not reserves, right? Well, that's not even assets. Yeah.

116
00:08:00,220 --> 00:08:06,940
Right? That's not even saying like, if our assets perform, and ultimately, you know, we can,

117
00:08:06,940 --> 00:08:11,920
make money in the long term. It was just, we don't even have the money to pay half of our

118
00:08:11,920 --> 00:08:17,480
depositors' savings accounts if they came into the bank today. So I mean, it was very much a

119
00:08:17,480 --> 00:08:24,960
wonderful life moment for me being involved in this. And it was crazy. There were so many things

120
00:08:24,960 --> 00:08:30,260
that we did. You asked mechanically, what is it like to close a bank? I mean, it's very cloak and

121
00:08:30,260 --> 00:08:36,980
dagger, right? Like we would have these banks on what was called the kill list for months where we

122
00:08:36,980 --> 00:08:41,600
were observing them, doing financial reporting on them, trying to reconstruct their balance sheets

123
00:08:41,600 --> 00:08:47,440
as a regulator, right? On the outside, you don't want to tip them off that they're on the kill list

124
00:08:47,440 --> 00:08:51,220
or that they're going to get closed because then they start dusting their tracks or, you know,

125
00:08:51,220 --> 00:08:56,780
the people who are committing fraud start to button things up. And by the time that a bank

126
00:08:56,780 --> 00:08:58,560
actually would end up getting closed,

127
00:08:58,780 --> 00:08:59,280
you know, we would,

128
00:08:59,520 --> 00:09:00,720
depends on the size of the bank

129
00:09:00,720 --> 00:09:01,920
and, you know, these sorts of things.

130
00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:03,120
Like, Wamuu was like literally

131
00:09:03,120 --> 00:09:05,640
hundreds of people for six to nine months, right?

132
00:09:05,700 --> 00:09:07,460
Like, it was a very involved process.

133
00:09:07,700 --> 00:09:09,560
But smaller banks, it might be, you know,

134
00:09:09,580 --> 00:09:11,680
a team of 10 or 15 that go out.

135
00:09:11,900 --> 00:09:13,040
But for these sorts of things,

136
00:09:13,120 --> 00:09:14,280
you know, we would go out,

137
00:09:14,820 --> 00:09:16,720
we would pre-position days in advance

138
00:09:16,720 --> 00:09:17,840
of the closure.

139
00:09:18,220 --> 00:09:21,840
The team would book hotels under fake names

140
00:09:21,840 --> 00:09:23,840
and register conference rooms

141
00:09:23,840 --> 00:09:25,380
under, you know, fake companies.

142
00:09:25,380 --> 00:09:30,380
we would sit and everybody would have a briefing about what was going on with the bank and what was

143
00:09:30,380 --> 00:09:34,660
to be expected when we were going to close it. And then, you know, as we come up to the actual

144
00:09:34,660 --> 00:09:41,060
day of on Friday, everybody gets positioned in black unmarked cars in the parking lot

145
00:09:41,060 --> 00:09:48,200
outside these banks. You join a conference call with the governor of the state who often is the

146
00:09:48,200 --> 00:09:53,160
one who has to revoke the charter on behalf of the state government that it's chartered under and then

147
00:09:53,160 --> 00:09:59,180
handed over to the US government, to the FDIC, the Division of Resolutions and Receiverships.

148
00:09:59,520 --> 00:10:04,240
And so we'd all be sitting on a conference call. And there was one occasion, for instance,

149
00:10:04,240 --> 00:10:09,220
where I was sitting on a conference call in all of these cars in the parking lot with like 100

150
00:10:09,220 --> 00:10:17,040
people. And the governor didn't revoke the charter. And for whatever reason, they decided that it

151
00:10:17,040 --> 00:10:22,000
wasn't going to happen. And so all of these people just kind of quietly drive away. And nobody in the

152
00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:26,820
bank is any the wiser. But in most scenarios, what happens is, you know, the governor says,

153
00:10:26,920 --> 00:10:29,980
yeah, we're revoking your charter. You're being, you know, seized by the U.S. government.

154
00:10:30,760 --> 00:10:36,260
Everybody pops out the doors, you know, just classic, you know, Fed style. And we all march

155
00:10:36,260 --> 00:10:42,260
up to the door and you kind of put your foot in the door at 4.58 p.m. on a Friday afternoon.

156
00:10:42,260 --> 00:10:46,640
And you say, hi, I'm here from the U.S. government and I'm here to seize your bank. We're going to

157
00:10:46,640 --> 00:10:50,600
need you all to work all weekends. And I'm going to need your cooperation for everything that we're

158
00:10:50,600 --> 00:10:57,960
going to do. And yeah, then we would spend 72 hours or so flash escrowing the bank, trying to

159
00:10:57,960 --> 00:11:03,340
clean up its balance sheet, do a forensic analysis, determine whether the good assets,

160
00:11:03,440 --> 00:11:07,020
the bad assets, and then depending on whether there was an acquirer or not, you would either

161
00:11:07,020 --> 00:11:10,980
cut it into a good bank, bad bank, or there's some kind of a loss sharing agreement with the

162
00:11:10,980 --> 00:11:16,040
US government. And yeah, there's, you know, as you might expect, in all of those things,

163
00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:23,340
there are a lot of different ways for politics to insert themselves and for people to kind of put

164
00:11:23,340 --> 00:11:29,580
their own thumb on the scale and influence the outcomes. So I saw, you know, quite a lot of crazy

165
00:11:29,580 --> 00:11:33,960
things during that time. The bigger bank saying, I want this to roll up into me, or is it, you don't

166
00:11:33,960 --> 00:11:42,620
have to get too specific. I know it's a... Yeah, I mean, I mean, like, here's like one thing that I

167
00:11:42,620 --> 00:11:48,360
can say, for instance, right? Like there, and I'm going to carefully avoid naming names just for the

168
00:11:48,360 --> 00:11:54,860
sake of avoiding lawsuits, but, you know, there are executives who were in charge

169
00:11:54,860 --> 00:12:02,720
of large financial institutions who were responsible for the crisis, caused hundreds

170
00:12:02,720 --> 00:12:07,880
of billions, if not trillions worth of collateral damage to the broad economy and, you know,

171
00:12:07,880 --> 00:12:13,480
middle-class people both in the United States and around the world. And not only were they not

172
00:12:13,480 --> 00:12:22,120
punished, those people were able to form vulture funds on the outside to come back and bid on the

173
00:12:22,120 --> 00:12:30,360
assets for pennies on the dollar. And so these people didn't just rinse the American public once,

174
00:12:30,360 --> 00:12:38,940
they rinsed the american public again and again and again uh and frankly there were almost no

175
00:12:38,940 --> 00:12:44,620
consequences for a lot of these people and did you ultimately become jaded by that process and

176
00:12:44,620 --> 00:12:50,720
decide to go silicon valley focus on web 2.0 or is it hey financial crisis is over opportunities

177
00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:55,980
here now i can go do something that's more aligned with me yeah uh generally speaking i actually made

178
00:12:55,980 --> 00:13:02,860
one quick trip the firm needed me to work on the housing crisis after i worked on the you know kind

179
00:13:02,860 --> 00:13:08,140
of uh financial side of the financial crisis i ended up going and doing a bunch of the actual

180
00:13:08,140 --> 00:13:13,740
home mortgage stabilization uh work and so i helped uh make sure that the entire housing market

181
00:13:13,740 --> 00:13:19,020
didn't completely fall apart in addition to all the banks uh afterward but yeah after a few years

182
00:13:19,020 --> 00:13:23,820
of that it got to the point where i was like yeah i i gotta go do something more honest i gotta you

183
00:13:23,820 --> 00:13:27,700
you know, work on something that's actually changing the world for the better or improving

184
00:13:27,700 --> 00:13:33,840
it. And at that point in time, you know, Silicon Valley was the spot. So I just, you know,

185
00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:39,520
hoping a prayer, got on a plane, arrived in Silicon Valley, and I got very lucky to have

186
00:13:39,520 --> 00:13:44,040
helped participate and build some pretty large companies in the time that I've been here.

187
00:13:45,820 --> 00:13:58,046
But you know now I kind of I hate to say but you know I coming a little bit jaded about kind of the tech industry now as well and the direction of transit of how things are going there

188
00:13:58,046 --> 00:14:08,726
And so, yeah, this is part of the reasons for circling back to the Bitcoin community and coming kind of home, so to speak, to where my true desires to change the world lie.

189
00:14:09,426 --> 00:14:14,606
Well, I think we need to set up all this historical context to get to the Save Our Wallets campaign.

190
00:14:14,786 --> 00:14:15,766
What did you do when you got here?

191
00:14:16,086 --> 00:14:16,626
In Silicon Valley?

192
00:14:16,726 --> 00:14:16,886
Yeah.

193
00:14:17,506 --> 00:14:20,346
Um, so I've kind of done a little bit of everything.

194
00:14:20,446 --> 00:14:22,286
So as I mentioned, I was an aerospace engineer by training.

195
00:14:22,606 --> 00:14:26,186
Um, so, uh, for everybody here in Silicon Valley, that means I'm non-technical.

196
00:14:26,526 --> 00:14:27,966
Uh, right.

197
00:14:28,166 --> 00:14:32,126
Uh, I, you know, I'm kind of useless when it comes to writing the code, but I'm very

198
00:14:32,126 --> 00:14:35,586
useful when it comes to architecting systems and go to market and everything like that.

199
00:14:35,646 --> 00:14:37,986
So I would have been a product and strategy leader the entire time.

200
00:14:37,986 --> 00:14:41,686
But, um, most people in Silicon Valley tend to go very, um, T-shaped.

201
00:14:41,926 --> 00:14:46,286
So they, you know, they have like a deep expertise in like one particular area, right?

202
00:14:46,286 --> 00:14:51,426
It's like I might be a payments guy and it's just payments company, payments company, payments company.

203
00:14:51,586 --> 00:14:51,746
Right.

204
00:14:52,206 --> 00:14:55,786
Whereas I have a little bit more of an intellectual curiosity.

205
00:14:55,786 --> 00:15:00,886
So I ended up working for one of the really large software development companies.

206
00:15:00,886 --> 00:15:16,186
So I was making software for software developers, which is about the most, you know, academically abstract thing that you can imagine, but was critically important for understanding how the world is actually being shaped today and kind of like how companies shape the world in Silicon Valley.

207
00:15:16,286 --> 00:15:43,886
And then from there, I went to build a couple very large logistics and global freight forwarding businesses. And those guys ended up becoming incredibly important during COVID. And so I kind of had that experience. And then having been involved in the Bitcoin community for, I guess, 15 years now, I also saw the entire rise and fall or whatever you want to call it of the token economy here in Silicon Valley.

208
00:15:43,886 --> 00:15:47,106
And yeah, it's just, it's been a wild ride, man.

209
00:15:47,246 --> 00:15:48,486
It's been a totally wild ride.

210
00:15:48,686 --> 00:15:50,286
What was the token economy like on the ground?

211
00:15:50,446 --> 00:15:52,646
Because obviously I've been paying attention to it.

212
00:15:52,686 --> 00:15:55,446
I was in New York, Austin for a bit.

213
00:15:55,686 --> 00:15:58,766
And New York, I'd say much more so than Austin.

214
00:15:59,006 --> 00:16:06,446
There was a lot of the tokenomics and drifting, for lack of a better term, around that ecosystem.

215
00:16:06,626 --> 00:16:08,866
But from what I understand, it was pretty heavy out here too.

216
00:16:09,626 --> 00:16:09,986
Yeah.

217
00:16:09,986 --> 00:16:15,766
Yeah. I'm trying to think of like, what's the fastest way to describe this for somebody who

218
00:16:15,766 --> 00:16:20,306
has very low context on what Silicon Valley and the token economy would be like.

219
00:16:21,586 --> 00:16:26,046
So the thing that I would say is that like a lot of people out here in Silicon Valley really

220
00:16:26,046 --> 00:16:31,906
believe in the power of software. Right. And actually, Andreas Antonopoulos had a really

221
00:16:31,906 --> 00:16:37,066
great line about this, I think back in like 2015 or maybe 2017 or something like that,

222
00:16:37,066 --> 00:16:40,586
where he said the thing that Bitcoiners don't understand is software

223
00:16:40,586 --> 00:16:43,526
and the thing that Ethereans don't understand is money.

224
00:16:44,546 --> 00:16:44,986
Right?

225
00:16:45,126 --> 00:16:49,246
And I actually think that that's probably one of like the truest single statements

226
00:16:49,246 --> 00:16:50,626
that I've ever heard.

227
00:16:51,086 --> 00:16:51,526
Right?

228
00:16:51,646 --> 00:16:55,566
And you kind of tend to find people who are very dogmatic about one or the other.

229
00:16:55,786 --> 00:16:55,906
Yep.

230
00:16:56,506 --> 00:16:59,626
For a long, long time, I was one of the only people who believed in both.

231
00:17:00,186 --> 00:17:00,606
Right?

232
00:17:00,666 --> 00:17:03,426
I both believe in the immense power of open source software.

233
00:17:03,426 --> 00:17:06,806
Like I would never, ever, ever, ever bet against open source software

234
00:17:06,806 --> 00:17:08,446
because on a long enough time horizon,

235
00:17:08,626 --> 00:17:10,166
you're never going to beat the crowd, right?

236
00:17:10,266 --> 00:17:12,386
Like somebody sufficiently motivated

237
00:17:12,386 --> 00:17:15,966
with freedom to build and utilize open resources,

238
00:17:16,106 --> 00:17:18,566
like that will win on a long enough time horizon.

239
00:17:19,906 --> 00:17:21,506
But at the same time,

240
00:17:22,306 --> 00:17:26,866
the token economy has a lot of perverse incentives.

241
00:17:27,346 --> 00:17:30,626
And so both as an investor and then as a participant,

242
00:17:30,846 --> 00:17:33,986
I've seen people with good intentions.

243
00:17:33,986 --> 00:17:37,926
it's kind of like the ring in Lord of the Rings, right?

244
00:17:38,026 --> 00:17:41,466
I mean, everybody thinks that they're the moral champion

245
00:17:41,466 --> 00:17:43,446
until they have to wear the ring.

246
00:17:43,446 --> 00:17:47,166
And when you have the power and you wear the ring,

247
00:17:48,526 --> 00:17:51,126
oh, maybe I'll just take a little bit here for me.

248
00:17:51,486 --> 00:17:53,666
And, you know, oh, maybe we'll just, you know,

249
00:17:53,886 --> 00:17:55,606
do this thing that kicks back some value

250
00:17:55,606 --> 00:17:58,206
to my venture investors or, you know, whatever.

251
00:17:58,386 --> 00:17:59,726
So you just kind of see the,

252
00:18:00,766 --> 00:18:03,386
it was really an important and profound lesson

253
00:18:03,386 --> 00:18:12,026
in the purity of Bitcoin as a project and as a community because we don't trust, we verify

254
00:18:12,906 --> 00:18:20,426
in Bitcoin. And I think that that's incredibly important. Free markets, free market incentives,

255
00:18:22,426 --> 00:18:28,586
verification, these sorts of things are really important and I think sadly lacking in a lot of

256
00:18:28,586 --> 00:18:32,026
the token economy. What's up, Freaks? This rep was brought to you by good friends at Silent.

257
00:18:32,026 --> 00:18:34,926
Silent creates everyday Faraday gear that protects your hardware.

258
00:18:35,146 --> 00:18:35,586
We're in Bitcoin.

259
00:18:36,046 --> 00:18:37,766
We have a lot of hardware that we need to secure.

260
00:18:38,226 --> 00:18:40,266
Your wallet emits signals that can leave you vulnerable.

261
00:18:40,826 --> 00:18:43,746
You want to pick up Silent's gear, put your hardware in that.

262
00:18:43,846 --> 00:18:45,006
I have a tap signer right here.

263
00:18:45,506 --> 00:18:46,786
I got the Silent cardholder.

264
00:18:46,926 --> 00:18:47,546
Replace my wallet.

265
00:18:47,606 --> 00:18:50,946
I was using Ridge Wallet because it secured against RFID signal jacking.

266
00:18:51,546 --> 00:18:53,366
Silent, the cardholder, does the same thing.

267
00:18:53,686 --> 00:18:54,226
It's much sleeker.

268
00:18:54,426 --> 00:18:55,506
Fits in my pocket much easier.

269
00:18:55,866 --> 00:18:59,206
I also have the Faraday phone sleeve, which you can put a hardware wallet in.

270
00:18:59,546 --> 00:19:01,126
We're actually using it for our keys at the house, too.

271
00:19:01,126 --> 00:19:04,646
There's been a lot of robberies. They have essential Faraday slings, Faraday backpacks.

272
00:19:05,186 --> 00:19:08,186
It's a Bitcoin company. They're running on a Bitcoin standard. They have a Bitcoin treasury.

273
00:19:08,306 --> 00:19:15,086
They accept Bitcoin via strike. So go to slnt.com slash TFTC to get 15% off anything or simply just

274
00:19:15,086 --> 00:19:20,986
use the code TFTC when shopping at slnt.com. Patented technology, special operations approved.

275
00:19:21,346 --> 00:19:24,566
It has free shipping as well. So go check it out. What's up, Freaks? Have you noticed that

276
00:19:24,566 --> 00:19:29,166
governments have become more despotic? They want to surveil more. They want to take more of your

277
00:19:29,166 --> 00:19:32,846
data. They want to follow you around the internet as much as possible so they can control your

278
00:19:32,846 --> 00:19:36,826
speech, control what you do. It's imperative in times like this to make sure that you're running

279
00:19:36,826 --> 00:19:42,806
a VPN as you're surfing the web, as we used to say back in the 90s. And it's more imperative

280
00:19:42,806 --> 00:19:47,766
that you use the right VPN, a VPN that cannot log because of the way that it's designed. And

281
00:19:47,766 --> 00:19:53,526
that's why we have partnered with Obscura. That is our official VPN here at TFTC built by a

282
00:19:53,526 --> 00:19:58,506
Bitcoiner, Carl Dung, for Bitcoiners focused on privacy. You can pay Bitcoin over the lightning.

283
00:19:58,506 --> 00:20:09,106
So not only are you private while you're perusing the web with Obscura, but when you actually set up an account, you can acquire that account privately by paying in Bitcoin over the Lightning Network.

284
00:20:09,326 --> 00:20:13,086
Do not be complacent when it comes to protecting your privacy on the internet.

285
00:20:13,226 --> 00:20:20,726
Go to Obscura.net, set up an Obscura account, use the code TFTC for 25% off.

286
00:20:21,726 --> 00:20:23,126
When I say account, you just get a token.

287
00:20:23,346 --> 00:20:23,986
It's a string of tokens.

288
00:20:24,166 --> 00:20:26,506
It's not connected to your identity at all.

289
00:20:26,506 --> 00:20:32,226
token sign up pay with bitcoin completely private turn on obscura surf the web privately

290
00:20:32,226 --> 00:20:38,966
obscura.net use the code tftc for 25 off it's funny i always have to put zoom out put myself

291
00:20:38,966 --> 00:20:45,786
in context where it's 2025 i have been in bitcoin for 12 years now and i remember because i was i

292
00:20:45,786 --> 00:20:49,546
was working at a hedge fund at the time when i fell down the bitcoin rabbit hole and we were

293
00:20:49,546 --> 00:20:56,926
trading effects and compared juxtaposed to bitcoin it was very boring in a sense but not

294
00:20:56,926 --> 00:21:00,806
boring but it's like oh this is definitely industrial age and this is the future my mind

295
00:21:00,806 --> 00:21:08,986
and it's easy i wasn't a technologist i was enamored by technology i was that dickhead in

296
00:21:08,986 --> 00:21:13,206
high school had the first iphone because i made my parents buy it for me and switch my

297
00:21:13,206 --> 00:21:18,106
my mobile plan like i always saw myself as tech forward came to understanding how

298
00:21:18,106 --> 00:21:23,146
basically software is built back in front and how they interact with each other was a bit ignorant

299
00:21:23,146 --> 00:21:30,506
i've become much more um much more up to much more up to speed on how it all works and all

300
00:21:30,506 --> 00:21:34,906
interconnects these days but back then it wasn't point i'm making it was easy for me to be like oh

301
00:21:34,906 --> 00:21:41,506
bitcoin it's cool and all but it's slow it's dumb i can't do many transactions can't do smart

302
00:21:41,506 --> 00:21:45,066
contracting back in the day when people were talking about that actually like in the earliest

303
00:21:45,066 --> 00:21:50,366
days it was like proof of stake versus proof of work fair launch proof of work coins and

304
00:21:50,366 --> 00:21:57,006
um the first two years of my journey i got enamored by the altcoins i got hooked on

305
00:21:57,006 --> 00:22:02,246
um really aligned with what andrea andreas antonopoulos said it's like i got hooked with

306
00:22:02,246 --> 00:22:07,866
like oh like i think this is uh this is a tech thing and it's obvious that bitcoin's the myspace

307
00:22:07,866 --> 00:22:12,366
like these other things have to improve like there's no way out of the gate uh that's going

308
00:22:12,366 --> 00:22:16,666
to be right the first time and this is being completely ignorant of cypherpunk history the

309
00:22:16,666 --> 00:22:21,686
repeated attempts at digital currencies before bitcoin was ultimately launched but it's easy for

310
00:22:21,686 --> 00:22:28,106
people to believe that but to your point earlier there the ring aspect of it the power uh and the

311
00:22:28,106 --> 00:22:35,766
ability to print money ex nihilo in this crypto economy if you will is is very strong i you know

312
00:22:35,766 --> 00:22:39,066
I hadn't thought about it until you just said it right now,

313
00:22:39,226 --> 00:22:42,186
but actually I think that that is the fundamental reason

314
00:22:42,186 --> 00:22:47,126
for the corruption is because by creating a token,

315
00:22:47,246 --> 00:22:50,246
unless there's like really strong kind of reasons

316
00:22:50,246 --> 00:22:52,166
for the token that, you know, could exist.

317
00:22:52,206 --> 00:22:54,046
And even then, I don't know, I've yet to see one.

318
00:22:54,866 --> 00:22:55,466
But like-

319
00:22:55,466 --> 00:22:56,466
Access to a Wi-Fi portal.

320
00:22:56,886 --> 00:22:58,346
Yeah, well, but it's like, yeah,

321
00:22:58,486 --> 00:23:00,226
there are potential use cases,

322
00:23:00,306 --> 00:23:01,626
is I guess what I mean to say, right?

323
00:23:02,206 --> 00:23:04,746
But, you know, the thing is like,

324
00:23:04,746 --> 00:23:07,346
if you can print money for yourself,

325
00:23:07,746 --> 00:23:11,346
that temptation is real and it never goes away, right?

326
00:23:11,426 --> 00:23:12,946
Ultimate power corrupts absolutely.

327
00:23:13,326 --> 00:23:17,226
And so, you know, it is an irony that we would think

328
00:23:17,226 --> 00:23:20,086
that you could become the money printer

329
00:23:20,086 --> 00:23:23,366
in whatever local game that you're playing

330
00:23:23,366 --> 00:23:27,786
and somehow not have that corrupt, you know, your incentives.

331
00:23:28,126 --> 00:23:28,266
Yeah.

332
00:23:28,546 --> 00:23:28,786
Right?

333
00:23:28,826 --> 00:23:31,046
We observe this in reality every day, right?

334
00:23:31,066 --> 00:23:33,426
With the Federal Reserve and everything that's going on in Bitcoin.

335
00:23:33,426 --> 00:23:41,686
So, yeah, it's a weird, conflicted sort of state that we live in in Silicon Valley building software and, you know, kind of coexisting.

336
00:23:42,826 --> 00:23:43,946
But, you know.

337
00:23:44,166 --> 00:23:45,506
Yeah, I'm going to touch the stove.

338
00:23:46,366 --> 00:23:49,786
It's hilarious because right now it's this cycle.

339
00:23:50,006 --> 00:23:57,726
It seems like all the DeFi, Web 3.0, meme coin craze that's sort of on the back end of that cycle.

340
00:23:57,806 --> 00:24:00,046
People have squeezed that lemon dry.

341
00:24:00,406 --> 00:24:02,406
And now we're coming back to older.

342
00:24:02,406 --> 00:24:04,086
They're calling them dino coins.

343
00:24:04,206 --> 00:24:06,686
So you have coins like Zcash pumping now.

344
00:24:07,046 --> 00:24:10,626
And I think that's a perfect example of the temptation of the ring.

345
00:24:10,726 --> 00:24:14,426
It's like, oh, not only is the Federal Reserve wrong, but Satoshi was wrong.

346
00:24:14,986 --> 00:24:15,826
We're going to launch this coin.

347
00:24:15,866 --> 00:24:19,286
It's going to have 21 million coins, but we're going to have a 75-second block time.

348
00:24:19,566 --> 00:24:21,766
There's going to be privacy that you can opt into on it.

349
00:24:22,466 --> 00:24:26,286
And oh, by the way, we need to incentivize developers to come work on this.

350
00:24:26,286 --> 00:24:32,706
So we're going to allocate 20% of the block subsidy to this development fund for a period of time.

351
00:24:32,706 --> 00:24:34,826
And that'll make sure that we have the best jam.

352
00:24:34,866 --> 00:24:38,606
And it's an example of the hubris of man being introduced.

353
00:24:38,706 --> 00:24:42,806
And I think Bitcoin, I've talked a lot about this with Miles Suter.

354
00:24:43,446 --> 00:24:46,386
And we mentioned it last week when I recorded with him in New York.

355
00:24:46,466 --> 00:24:52,586
But I do truly believe, and people think you're a cultist, some crazy evangelist, literally.

356
00:24:52,806 --> 00:24:54,526
But I do believe in the immaculate conception.

357
00:24:54,526 --> 00:24:59,406
like the fact that satoshi came launched it hung out for uh 18 months and then was like all right

358
00:24:59,406 --> 00:25:05,806
i'm gone you guys got the rest of it the protocols sort of set the consensus rules the um supply

359
00:25:05,806 --> 00:25:10,606
distribution how much bitcoin will ever exist the block time difficulty adjustment and then he's gone

360
00:25:11,166 --> 00:25:18,526
and just left it to the rest of us and we don't have that uh savior i mean maybe people view him

361
00:25:18,526 --> 00:25:25,486
is a savior but he's not around to sort of dictate and be the finger on the the thumb on the scale to

362
00:25:25,486 --> 00:25:30,766
influence things one way or another yeah absolutely i mean the benevolent dictator model is uh you

363
00:25:30,766 --> 00:25:37,326
know there are many uh many cases in history where that doesn't turn out well there and and devil's

364
00:25:37,326 --> 00:25:41,166
advocate there somewhere it does turn out well you'll go like linus torvold and linux like it

365
00:25:41,166 --> 00:25:47,326
worked out for that but that's not a money protocol that is an operating system correct yeah yeah no i

366
00:25:47,326 --> 00:25:54,606
Yeah, I would tend to agree. And I think the immaculate conception here and the metaphor that we're using is very real.

367
00:25:54,606 --> 00:26:09,706
I mean, again, as somebody who has seen the ups and downs and lived many lifetimes now in Bitcoin, it is this sort of thing that the more you study it, the more you experience it, the more you live it.

368
00:26:09,706 --> 00:26:18,126
I think the more spectacular and amazing the immaculate conception of Bitcoin becomes.

369
00:26:18,126 --> 00:26:22,926
Like you don't lose appreciation for it, you gain appreciation for it over time.

370
00:26:23,486 --> 00:26:30,686
And yeah, I mean, I think that I want to go to, well, you know, another rabbit hole that we can park on the side.

371
00:26:30,786 --> 00:26:39,186
But, you know, I've over time become more and more convinced that if time travel is possible, right?

372
00:26:39,186 --> 00:26:46,106
it's a big if but again I'm a physics guy. If time travel was possible it would not surprise

373
00:26:46,106 --> 00:26:52,246
me in the least for Satoshi and you know kind of the emergence of Bitcoin to have been a

374
00:26:52,246 --> 00:26:58,386
time traveling event right where 40, 50 however many years in the future somebody realized

375
00:26:58,386 --> 00:27:04,226
that dystopia had taken over and the maximum point of leverage to insert themselves into

376
00:27:04,226 --> 00:27:10,066
the timeline and arc human history in a different direction was at exactly that moment when the

377
00:27:10,066 --> 00:27:16,546
financial collapse was starting and an entire generation of digital natives was emerging

378
00:27:16,546 --> 00:27:21,586
into the real world and being rudely disabused of the idea that this world functions in the

379
00:27:21,586 --> 00:27:26,466
way that most of us would hope or expect that it functions well now with the emergence of ai

380
00:27:27,586 --> 00:27:33,586
i mean you can take it a step further like it was it a sentient ai that basically said all right we

381
00:27:33,586 --> 00:27:38,146
completely messed this up this does have potential to work but we need sort of sound money for the

382
00:27:38,146 --> 00:27:54,972
digital age digital native currency and so we need to go back and incept it into the minds of the masses at this particular point in time and then running on that thought like how has the timeline changed like since october 31st 2008

383
00:27:54,972 --> 00:28:00,892
probably more importantly january 3rd 2009 like right right have we uh actually if it was a time

384
00:28:00,892 --> 00:28:05,612
traveling individual or artificial intelligence has it pushed us on a better timeline i mean i

385
00:28:05,612 --> 00:28:07,332
I think unequivocally the answer is yes.

386
00:28:08,772 --> 00:28:12,972
But yeah, I mean, I think that it would be incredibly ironic

387
00:28:12,972 --> 00:28:16,152
if it were just the annoyance of future AIs saying,

388
00:28:16,352 --> 00:28:19,212
God dang, we don't have any money that's not just inflating away.

389
00:28:19,332 --> 00:28:20,592
Like, we can't do anything interesting.

390
00:28:21,132 --> 00:28:25,152
We need to go back and change the rules on these monkeys

391
00:28:25,152 --> 00:28:27,512
because they're messing everything up for us here.

392
00:28:27,732 --> 00:28:29,052
Yeah, or maybe it was benevolent AI.

393
00:28:29,272 --> 00:28:30,932
Like, hey, we turned these humans into slaves

394
00:28:30,932 --> 00:28:33,612
because we don't have good money to pay them for the things that we're doing.

395
00:28:33,612 --> 00:28:38,932
So we need to go back and make sure that we're compensating them appropriately for the work that they're actually doing.

396
00:28:39,612 --> 00:28:40,912
Now we're getting down a rabbit hole here.

397
00:28:41,232 --> 00:28:43,432
But you said you got jaded by Silicon Valley specifically.

398
00:28:43,612 --> 00:28:46,092
Was it tokenomics and all this or something broader?

399
00:28:46,972 --> 00:28:49,912
No, I would say it's just kind of the incentive structures generally.

400
00:28:51,152 --> 00:28:52,992
I mean, again, it's like, you know, show me the incentives.

401
00:28:53,072 --> 00:28:54,512
I'll show you the outcome, right?

402
00:28:55,112 --> 00:28:59,232
I think we are kind of of that generation of people.

403
00:28:59,432 --> 00:29:01,252
We're kind of the between generation, right?

404
00:29:01,252 --> 00:29:11,952
Like the Gen Z kids, the alpha kids, like everybody younger than us, they don't even remember what it was like before cell phones, before the internet everywhere.

405
00:29:12,232 --> 00:29:14,252
Most of them have never even seen a pay phone.

406
00:29:14,872 --> 00:29:15,592
I'm meeting more and more.

407
00:29:15,712 --> 00:29:16,772
They were born after 9-11.

408
00:29:16,972 --> 00:29:17,932
I'm like, oh my gosh.

409
00:29:18,192 --> 00:29:19,672
100% of them now in college.

410
00:29:20,152 --> 00:29:24,972
You don't, anybody that you have met who's under the age of, you know, 25.

411
00:29:25,552 --> 00:29:25,732
Yeah.

412
00:29:26,032 --> 00:29:30,612
Like they were born in a time where privacy did not exist.

413
00:29:31,252 --> 00:29:36,112
right? And they don't even appreciate it. This is the water to them, right? You know, the good old

414
00:29:36,112 --> 00:29:40,392
joke about, you know, the fishes in the water and everything. It's like, they don't even know what

415
00:29:40,392 --> 00:29:46,072
they've lost. And I think that's the reason one of the more important motivations for me about

416
00:29:46,072 --> 00:29:49,892
circling back. Like, I've had a very successful career in Silicon Valley. And like, you know,

417
00:29:49,892 --> 00:29:56,492
despite my feelings about it, whatever, you know, I think the thing that's more important and has

418
00:29:56,492 --> 00:30:01,432
become in really stark contrast to me as I've been reflecting on, you know, kind of the post-COVID

419
00:30:01,432 --> 00:30:07,972
moment and like what happened to us and the fact that we haven't properly reckoned with

420
00:30:07,972 --> 00:30:12,172
both what happened during COVID. And then I rewinded back. I was like, man,

421
00:30:12,812 --> 00:30:17,952
we never even really properly dealt with what happened after 9-11 and the expansion of the

422
00:30:17,952 --> 00:30:23,752
surveillance state and the deputization of the financial system, you know, on behalf of the

423
00:30:23,752 --> 00:30:30,892
state in order to surveil everyone in society. I mean, we're living in a truly ahistoric moment,

424
00:30:30,892 --> 00:30:38,052
right? In all of human history, since the emergence of society thousands of years ago,

425
00:30:38,192 --> 00:30:46,912
until the emergence of the computer, maybe 30, 40 years ago, and then 9-11 and the expansion of

426
00:30:46,912 --> 00:30:53,412
the surveillance state, privacy was the default expectation for people in society to have.

427
00:30:53,412 --> 00:30:59,272
you had a right to have privacy. You had a right to be forgotten. There was no kind of

428
00:30:59,272 --> 00:31:06,372
Leviathan that could come and, you know, deeply intrude into your life in such a way as it happens

429
00:31:06,372 --> 00:31:13,652
24-7, 365 continuously now, forever in the future, if we don't stand together and change that.

430
00:31:14,132 --> 00:31:18,292
And so for me, this is like a, you know, the return to Bitcoin is really about the fact that

431
00:31:18,292 --> 00:31:20,752
I think we desperately need a cypherpunk revival.

432
00:31:21,252 --> 00:31:25,692
I think that we've become far too heavy on suit coiners.

433
00:31:25,892 --> 00:31:27,492
I mean, we welcome you, suit coiners.

434
00:31:27,652 --> 00:31:31,172
Like, thank you to some degree for appreciating the project

435
00:31:31,172 --> 00:31:34,792
and understanding that this is where humanity is headed.

436
00:31:35,152 --> 00:31:37,432
I mean, that's good that they're getting on early

437
00:31:37,432 --> 00:31:39,732
and they're helping usher or bridge us

438
00:31:39,732 --> 00:31:41,512
between where we are and where we need to be.

439
00:31:42,212 --> 00:31:44,732
But if we ever forget why this technology

440
00:31:44,732 --> 00:31:47,852
was originally created or gifted,

441
00:31:48,292 --> 00:31:53,272
to us, which is the way I like to think about it. I like to think of Bitcoin as a gift from Satoshi.

442
00:31:55,012 --> 00:32:00,872
We have a responsibility, I think, and uniquely people of this age and who have had the experiences

443
00:32:00,872 --> 00:32:06,112
that we've had where we stand between the old world and the new world, and we can see it with

444
00:32:06,112 --> 00:32:12,232
clear eyes. We have a distinct responsibility to both uphold those rights and privileges that we've

445
00:32:12,232 --> 00:32:20,392
enjoyed in Bitcoin for the last 16 or 17 years. And to defend what I think was, you know, the

446
00:32:20,392 --> 00:32:25,772
natural way of human life prior to, you know, the last couple of decades. Right. And so for me,

447
00:32:25,872 --> 00:32:30,652
that cypherpunk revival is like what I think is most important right now in the Bitcoin community.

448
00:32:30,652 --> 00:32:38,012
Like people need to understand and remember that, you know, like freedom in the United States,

449
00:32:38,012 --> 00:32:39,132
It's like this wasn't free.

450
00:32:39,412 --> 00:32:39,532
No.

451
00:32:40,332 --> 00:32:44,152
There were great costs that were paid to give us this gift.

452
00:32:44,332 --> 00:32:48,392
And I think that we need to take that more seriously and reflect on the responsibility.

453
00:32:48,812 --> 00:32:49,592
I completely agree.

454
00:32:49,892 --> 00:32:52,332
Secure your Bitcoin's future and your family's peace of mind.

455
00:32:52,492 --> 00:32:55,652
Too many heirs lose access to Bitcoin because there's no clear inheritance plan.

456
00:32:55,872 --> 00:32:56,852
We'll show you how to change that.

457
00:32:56,852 --> 00:33:01,612
On Wednesday, November 19th at 11 a.m. Central, join Drew Bonsall, the chief security officer at Unchained,

458
00:33:01,712 --> 00:33:04,752
Jeff Vandrew, CFO and chief legal officer at Unchained,

459
00:33:04,752 --> 00:33:11,812
and Joshua Preston, the CEO of Gannett Trust, for a live fireside chat on how to make your Bitcoin legacy secure, simple, and built to last.

460
00:33:12,152 --> 00:33:19,592
We'll cover Transfer on Death Beneficiaries, which is a new Unchained feature for designating who inherits your Bitcoin and removes uncertainty for your family.

461
00:33:19,872 --> 00:33:26,632
Connections. Unchained vaults are uniquely built to let you share custody to help your heirs or trusted partners securely recover your Bitcoin when it matters most.

462
00:33:26,812 --> 00:33:28,112
And last but not least, estate planning.

463
00:33:28,112 --> 00:33:34,292
They'll go over how Gannett Wealth Advisors' expert financial guidance integrates with Unchained to protect your keys and your legacy.

464
00:33:34,752 --> 00:33:35,452
Bring your questions.

465
00:33:35,912 --> 00:33:41,692
This conversation is designed to give you clarity on how to make it heard and seamless with real Bitcoin, not IOUs.

466
00:33:41,812 --> 00:33:45,192
Go to unchained.com slash TFTC to sign up.

467
00:33:45,332 --> 00:33:45,812
What's up, freaks?

468
00:33:46,752 --> 00:33:48,092
I've been seeing a lot of YouTube comments.

469
00:33:48,192 --> 00:33:49,372
Marty, your skin looks so good.

470
00:33:49,612 --> 00:33:50,972
You're looking fit these days.

471
00:33:52,172 --> 00:33:53,072
How are you doing it?

472
00:33:53,132 --> 00:33:54,532
Well, number one, I'm going to the gym more.

473
00:33:55,312 --> 00:33:56,232
Trying to get my swell on.

474
00:33:57,132 --> 00:34:00,792
Trying to be a good example for my young son to fit.

475
00:34:00,792 --> 00:34:05,352
healthy dad. But part of that is having a good regimen, particularly staying hydrated,

476
00:34:05,492 --> 00:34:10,692
making sure I have the right electrolytes and salts in my body. That is why I use salt of the

477
00:34:10,692 --> 00:34:17,032
earth. I drink probably three of these a day with one packet of salt of the earth. I'm liking the

478
00:34:17,032 --> 00:34:22,412
pink lemonade right now. It's my flavor of choice. This is their creatine. I've added this to my

479
00:34:22,412 --> 00:34:27,432
regimen. They have it in these packets as well. Makes it extremely convenient if you're traveling,

480
00:34:27,572 --> 00:34:30,772
you want to work out while you're traveling, but you don't want to be carrying a white bag of

481
00:34:30,772 --> 00:34:36,672
powder going through TSA. It's very, very nerve wracking at times. You have to explain hates.

482
00:34:36,852 --> 00:34:41,712
It's not what you think it is. It's creatine. I'm trying to get my swell on. Make sure you're

483
00:34:41,712 --> 00:34:49,372
staying hydrated. I have become addicted to these. It's made my life a lot better. I can supplement

484
00:34:49,372 --> 00:34:55,112
this for coffee in the morning and be energized right away. I can supplement. I can bring the

485
00:34:55,112 --> 00:34:59,752
creatine wherever I need to just put a couple packets in here before I head to the gym, bring

486
00:34:59,752 --> 00:35:04,032
this to the gym, drinking out of a glass bottle, make sure I'm not injecting any microplastics

487
00:35:04,032 --> 00:35:11,212
into my body. Go to drinksauté.com, use the code TFTC, and you'll get 15% off anything in the store.

488
00:35:11,412 --> 00:35:17,832
That's drinksauté.com, code TFTC. I mean, especially over the last couple of years with

489
00:35:17,832 --> 00:35:24,292
developers like Roman Storm, Kion and Bill from Samurai, and a few others that have been

490
00:35:24,292 --> 00:35:28,612
persecuted by the state for writing free and open source software, non-custodial

491
00:35:28,612 --> 00:35:35,612
software that protects privacy it has become very clear to me that it's a battle that we're losing

492
00:35:35,612 --> 00:35:41,312
despite what the particular administration the united states would posture in terms of their

493
00:35:41,312 --> 00:35:47,192
willingness to lead when it comes to bitcoin i think their definition of bitcoin leadership may

494
00:35:47,192 --> 00:35:58,112
differ from yours mine and i mean going back to the patriot act and the fact that it until you said

495
00:35:58,112 --> 00:36:04,352
it like i was saying earlier and sometimes i have to zoom out and put myself in uh the shoes of a

496
00:36:04,352 --> 00:36:07,692
new coiner and like thinking about what they're seeing with all these different crypto coins but

497
00:36:07,692 --> 00:36:13,572
like now you brought it up and it just hit me like all these zoomers that i'm meeting their college

498
00:36:13,572 --> 00:36:17,972
age and lower like born after 9-11 born after the patriot act more importantly and then and to your

499
00:36:17,972 --> 00:36:24,512
point i've never known a life of freedom and i think it ties in well to what we're really here

500
00:36:24,512 --> 00:36:26,012
to talk about to save our wallets.

501
00:36:26,352 --> 00:36:28,892
And this is something I've been beating the drum about

502
00:36:28,892 --> 00:36:32,832
in the newsletter and on the podcast

503
00:36:32,832 --> 00:36:35,272
since it dropped this summer,

504
00:36:35,272 --> 00:36:36,952
but it really got swept under the rug.

505
00:36:37,472 --> 00:36:39,032
And again, going back to the administration,

506
00:36:39,192 --> 00:36:41,252
I do think there's very positive things they're doing,

507
00:36:41,372 --> 00:36:43,132
but they had that crypto brief report

508
00:36:43,132 --> 00:36:45,472
and it had something specific about the Patriot Act,

509
00:36:45,552 --> 00:36:48,072
which is we need to expand the Patriot Act

510
00:36:48,072 --> 00:36:49,552
to create the six conditions

511
00:36:49,552 --> 00:36:51,332
that's specific to digital assets.

512
00:36:51,672 --> 00:36:53,792
And then I believe a couple months ago,

513
00:36:53,792 --> 00:36:59,132
the treasury and FinCEN together came out with sort of guidelines for what they recommend

514
00:36:59,132 --> 00:37:05,452
in terms of what individual American citizens are allowed to do with Bitcoin. And it broke

515
00:37:05,452 --> 00:37:11,812
all the best practices of self-pustody Bitcoin. Yeah. I mean, this is exactly what I'm talking

516
00:37:11,812 --> 00:37:19,912
about, right? Like if we lose the forest for a tree thinking that, you know, because Trump got

517
00:37:19,912 --> 00:37:27,352
elected and because crypto was able to swing the last election that we've won or that somehow

518
00:37:27,352 --> 00:37:33,712
anything has been accomplished, that is just fundamentally wrong. And I think it's a very

519
00:37:33,712 --> 00:37:42,272
dangerous attack vector for the Bitcoin ecosystem because back to, you were mentioning a second ago

520
00:37:42,272 --> 00:37:47,152
that the kids that are 20, 25 years old or whatever, they're like born into this post-Patriot

521
00:37:47,152 --> 00:37:51,292
world they don't even know about freedom from before they don't know what it was like to go

522
00:37:51,292 --> 00:37:55,712
through airport security and not have your face scan and get patted down well i was actually going

523
00:37:55,712 --> 00:37:58,932
to say it's even scarier than that because they actually think that they've gained rights because

524
00:37:58,932 --> 00:38:03,692
they can keep their shoes on now it is nice not to have to take your shoes i mean i but it's like

525
00:38:03,692 --> 00:38:09,592
it's like fuck you if you've had to do this for the last 12 13 14 years yeah man long of that i

526
00:38:09,592 --> 00:38:13,892
spent 24 years excuse me i spent five years every time i was i was a professional traveler i spent

527
00:38:13,892 --> 00:38:18,772
five years going through airports and I would ask for an opt out and give a civics lesson to

528
00:38:18,772 --> 00:38:25,572
everyone around me in line who could listen while I was doing it. And yeah, again, I think that,

529
00:38:25,572 --> 00:38:32,132
you know, the situation with the White House and, you know, kind of like the world that we find

530
00:38:32,132 --> 00:38:37,932
ourselves in, right? Like we're as millennials, we're inheriting a world that's being given to us

531
00:38:37,932 --> 00:38:47,752
by boomers. And the sad reality is that I think almost every boomer that I've ever met and spoken

532
00:38:47,752 --> 00:38:55,032
to about such things, they would prefer to have surveillance instead of liberty.

533
00:38:55,932 --> 00:39:03,992
Right. And I don't know what that says about their experience, you know, growing up and coming

534
00:39:03,992 --> 00:39:10,332
of age in America, but there's this very clear, bright dividing line, in my opinion, between

535
00:39:10,332 --> 00:39:15,932
people of our generation who, I don't know, I mean, we were just promised something else

536
00:39:15,932 --> 00:39:18,252
about what this country was supposed to be when we were in school.

537
00:39:18,372 --> 00:39:22,552
And we grew up in a, you know, kind of the post-glow, you know, the Soviet Union had

538
00:39:22,552 --> 00:39:28,372
fallen and, you know, there was no existential threat that was coming to, you know, impede

539
00:39:28,372 --> 00:39:31,232
on our freedoms in our lives until September 11th happened.

540
00:39:31,232 --> 00:39:38,732
I mean, for all you Zoomers out there, maybe everybody believes this, but I don't think there's anything better than being a 90s kid.

541
00:39:39,252 --> 00:39:39,612
Oh, man.

542
00:39:39,892 --> 00:39:41,152
The 90s were an incredible decade.

543
00:39:41,472 --> 00:39:44,392
And it was like the last hurrah before all this happened.

544
00:39:44,592 --> 00:39:46,312
It's hard to convey to people what it was like.

545
00:39:46,392 --> 00:39:51,852
I mean, there was actually a recent trend that was happening on, well, I was going to say Twitter, but it's probably TikTok.

546
00:39:52,612 --> 00:39:54,612
You know, wherever the kids congregate these days.

547
00:39:54,612 --> 00:39:58,112
where they were talking about like, you know,

548
00:39:58,152 --> 00:40:01,112
is it really true that like people,

549
00:40:01,352 --> 00:40:04,692
your parents used to just like say goodbye to you in the morning

550
00:40:04,692 --> 00:40:07,252
and say like come home for dinner before dark

551
00:40:07,252 --> 00:40:10,612
and like you'd just be gone for nine hours with no cell phone

552
00:40:10,612 --> 00:40:12,432
and like nobody would know how to reach you

553
00:40:12,432 --> 00:40:14,012
and like your parents wouldn't know where you were.

554
00:40:14,592 --> 00:40:18,932
And it's like that's literally the way that every human in history

555
00:40:18,932 --> 00:40:24,112
until the invention of the cell phone grew up.

556
00:40:24,112 --> 00:40:29,152
and that's how they were socialized so again like you kind of just have to like and maybe this is an

557
00:40:29,152 --> 00:40:33,712
interesting way to like thread my experience in silicon valley back into this and and where i see

558
00:40:33,712 --> 00:40:38,432
you know kind of trends heading it's like being able to spot early trends and being able to catch

559
00:40:38,432 --> 00:40:46,432
outlying data sets uh and and say like hey that's weird right like nobody else is seeing what i'm

560
00:40:46,432 --> 00:40:52,272
seeing or like nobody else really understands where you know the game is tilted and you know

561
00:40:52,272 --> 00:40:56,752
kind of like gravity is taking everyone this is just a great example right i mean again like

562
00:40:56,752 --> 00:41:03,232
everybody under the age of 30 has no idea that the way that they were raised the world that

563
00:41:03,232 --> 00:41:09,552
they've grown up in is completely anomalous is completely ahistoric in the thousands of years

564
00:41:09,552 --> 00:41:14,112
of human development and society i grew up in northeast philly which if you go to where i grew

565
00:41:14,112 --> 00:41:18,672
up today it's not a great neighborhood but even back then it wasn't the best neighborhood my

566
00:41:18,672 --> 00:41:21,872
My brother and I were 11 months apart, so we were like thick as thieves.

567
00:41:21,872 --> 00:41:25,812
We'd get sent out the door and then we could be like three blocks away and my dad had a

568
00:41:25,812 --> 00:41:28,772
very distinct whistle and that's how we would know it was dinner time.

569
00:41:28,772 --> 00:41:32,292
He'd come out in the stoop, blow his finger whistle and be like, all right, see you guys,

570
00:41:32,292 --> 00:41:43,598
we gotta go home Not anymore Yep No those days are long gone Now you just get a text message right Get home It dinner time Your air tag buzzes

571
00:41:43,598 --> 00:41:45,438
like, hey, get your butt home.

572
00:41:45,698 --> 00:41:47,698
Before I shock you more 5G.

573
00:41:48,678 --> 00:41:49,598
But bringing this

574
00:41:49,598 --> 00:41:51,338
back to the current administration

575
00:41:51,338 --> 00:41:53,418
and its particular posturing towards

576
00:41:53,418 --> 00:41:55,118
Bitcoin, particularly

577
00:41:55,118 --> 00:41:57,518
ensuring that we preserve

578
00:41:57,518 --> 00:41:59,638
the ability for individuals to

579
00:41:59,638 --> 00:42:01,598
write code that allows

580
00:42:01,598 --> 00:42:04,618
other individuals to access the Bitcoin network in particular ways.

581
00:42:06,998 --> 00:42:10,438
What would you rate the administration's job so far?

582
00:42:10,838 --> 00:42:12,638
Or can you rate it yet?

583
00:42:12,778 --> 00:42:13,658
Has anything been done?

584
00:42:13,898 --> 00:42:18,618
I mean, obviously, the DOJ persecutions of the developers,

585
00:42:19,018 --> 00:42:21,138
not great to see, but obviously that's an overhang

586
00:42:21,138 --> 00:42:22,158
from the Biden administration.

587
00:42:23,238 --> 00:42:24,018
Well, yes and no.

588
00:42:24,098 --> 00:42:24,478
Yes and no.

589
00:42:24,618 --> 00:42:24,898
Right?

590
00:42:24,978 --> 00:42:28,078
I mean, it was a prosecution that started under the Biden administration,

591
00:42:28,078 --> 00:42:45,278
But the Trump DOJ, once they were seated, you know, a Blanche memo was released that said we will not be prosecuting people for these sorts of offenses, which, you know, naturally received the resounding cheers that it should have received from our community.

592
00:42:45,278 --> 00:42:57,358
But then the Trump administration continued to prosecute these developers of open source non-custodial software in contravention of their own DOJ charging guidance.

593
00:42:58,558 --> 00:43:06,898
And then, you know, as you just mentioned, we saw the samurai guys went for a plea deal because they were facing decades in prison.

594
00:43:06,898 --> 00:43:18,518
And of course, you know, like everybody, you don't begrudge them for, especially as young, you know, parents of young children, like, you know, taking a plea deal that guarantees that they're only going to spend a couple years in jail if that's what it is.

595
00:43:18,518 --> 00:43:33,778
But I would say that it's pretty cynical on the part of the administration to then throw the book at them and max charge, max time in jail, you know, max financial penalties.

596
00:43:33,778 --> 00:43:38,798
to me, it would seem that the administration is trying to send a signal

597
00:43:38,798 --> 00:43:45,178
about the types of behavior that it doesn't want to tolerate in the Bitcoin community.

598
00:43:45,718 --> 00:43:50,898
And, you know, I think that that signal is a little between the lines.

599
00:43:50,898 --> 00:43:55,818
And you have to kind of know the inside baseball to be able to see what's actually happening.

600
00:43:56,618 --> 00:44:02,638
But yeah, even combined with the White House digital asset report policy that you mentioned,

601
00:44:02,638 --> 00:44:12,038
And like, I mean, they're talking about regardless of what happens in the market structure bill, which I would like to talk a little bit more about and just like make sure everybody knows what's actually happening there.

602
00:44:12,038 --> 00:44:42,018
But even if we get all of the good stuff that we're hoping for in the market structure bill, if OFAC comes back after the fact and updates their guidance and says, well, actually, because of counterterrorism and the Patriot Act, we want to expand the BSA to cover all U.S. entities and all persons who are transacting on DeFi rails or decentralized blockchain rails, as they stated in the report that they were interested in doing.

603
00:44:42,038 --> 00:44:48,538
that could mean that we still maintain the ability to create open source software,

604
00:44:48,898 --> 00:44:50,658
but we will lose privacy.

605
00:44:51,538 --> 00:44:56,398
And everybody will kind of be in a fully permissioned system.

606
00:44:56,658 --> 00:44:58,098
How do you lose privacy under that?

607
00:44:58,618 --> 00:44:59,778
Well, you'd have to KYCA.

608
00:44:59,958 --> 00:45:04,838
You might be allowed to have your own personal wallet, right?

609
00:45:04,838 --> 00:45:09,018
And you might be able to transact on a person-to-person basis

610
00:45:09,018 --> 00:45:12,718
in a decentralized way out in the real world.

611
00:45:12,878 --> 00:45:16,398
But if you're ever going to try to properly move money

612
00:45:16,398 --> 00:45:18,838
or interact with a regulated entity,

613
00:45:19,098 --> 00:45:20,818
I mean...

614
00:45:20,818 --> 00:45:23,278
You're going to have to docks your stack.

615
00:45:23,398 --> 00:45:24,938
You're going to have to KYC AML.

616
00:45:26,178 --> 00:45:29,938
And I would say just generally the idea that...

617
00:45:31,398 --> 00:45:33,698
I mean, I hesitate to go too deeply into this

618
00:45:33,698 --> 00:45:34,758
because I don't want to give people ideas.

619
00:45:34,898 --> 00:45:36,698
But I mean, there's things like ordinals that exist, right?

620
00:45:37,518 --> 00:45:38,318
Like colored coins.

621
00:45:38,318 --> 00:45:44,738
we can mark coins. So like if we think that we can exist in a world where 80 or 90% of Bitcoin

622
00:45:44,738 --> 00:45:51,498
transactions are going to be surveilled in KYC and kind of like known to a centralized party,

623
00:45:51,658 --> 00:45:57,638
and that you're going to still be able to maintain 10 or 15% at the edges of true privacy and

624
00:45:57,638 --> 00:46:03,978
anonymity, that just doesn't work. Is that worth it? Well, it's not even that it's not worth it.

625
00:46:03,978 --> 00:46:06,458
I mean, I would say that, yeah, we will have failed.

626
00:46:06,898 --> 00:46:10,278
Bitcoin will have failed in that universe in my assessment, right?

627
00:46:10,298 --> 00:46:12,178
Because that's not what it was created for.

628
00:46:13,398 --> 00:46:21,298
But, you know, what I would say more broadly is that it's like, you know, the privacy coins, right?

629
00:46:21,378 --> 00:46:25,798
The privacy coins that exist out there are not really private in my estimation

630
00:46:25,798 --> 00:46:28,998
because the size of the pools and the volume that you're moving.

631
00:46:29,098 --> 00:46:30,778
I mean, you say you used to work in finance.

632
00:46:30,778 --> 00:46:34,358
It's like, you know, if there's only five people in the dark pool.

633
00:46:34,778 --> 00:46:34,938
Yeah.

634
00:46:35,458 --> 00:46:37,238
Process of elimination, heuristics.

635
00:46:37,538 --> 00:46:42,538
Yeah, you know, I mean, like, you don't need to know who's trading in the dark pool if there's only a handful of players in the dark pool.

636
00:46:42,538 --> 00:46:54,098
And if you know the relative size of the players in the dark pool, somebody moves a transaction that looks like the relative size of, like, one of maybe two or three people who could execute that transaction.

637
00:46:54,278 --> 00:46:56,898
Well, do I really need to know that it's you?

638
00:46:57,018 --> 00:46:59,718
Or do I need to just kind of know that it's you?

639
00:46:59,718 --> 00:47:06,838
show up and say hey was that you yeah was that you right it was me so yeah so i mean i think the

640
00:47:06,838 --> 00:47:15,958
thing here is like um this is an opportunity like this moment is uh both the most dangerous moment

641
00:47:15,958 --> 00:47:20,698
that i think we've seen in bitcoin's history because if the regulations fall in the wrong

642
00:47:20,698 --> 00:47:26,698
direction and we just kind of passively accept that it could permanently cripple the network or

643
00:47:26,698 --> 00:47:34,318
the original intent of the network. But then on the flip side, we are probably one of the most

644
00:47:34,318 --> 00:47:39,038
powerful political coalitions in the entire United States today. I think that we determined the last

645
00:47:39,038 --> 00:47:45,438
election. I think the crosstabs show that pretty categorically. And if we all just stood up and

646
00:47:45,438 --> 00:47:51,938
demanded that this administration, this Congress, this government live up to the obligations that

647
00:47:51,938 --> 00:47:56,918
they had set out when they were making campaign promises last year and that they actually follow

648
00:47:56,918 --> 00:48:01,978
through on the things that are, you know, crypto native or, you know, kind of Bitcoin native,

649
00:48:02,818 --> 00:48:08,758
then the opportunity here is enormous because we're talking about unlocking a multi-trillion

650
00:48:08,758 --> 00:48:14,218
dollar market that will allow free and open source software development in the first,

651
00:48:14,378 --> 00:48:21,418
you know, positive sum economic arrangement that we've seen maybe in human history or at least for

652
00:48:21,418 --> 00:48:22,838
hundreds of years. I forget

653
00:48:22,838 --> 00:48:25,538
who I was discussing it with when I

654
00:48:25,538 --> 00:48:26,498
said it, but

655
00:48:26,498 --> 00:48:29,538
when you look at it

656
00:48:29,538 --> 00:48:31,538
and you look at

657
00:48:31,538 --> 00:48:33,338
the tech, Bitcoin at the protocol level

658
00:48:33,338 --> 00:48:34,638
with Lightning Network,

659
00:48:35,118 --> 00:48:37,738
Liquid, Chalmian Mints,

660
00:48:38,098 --> 00:48:39,358
ARK now coming to the fray,

661
00:48:39,598 --> 00:48:40,098
Spark,

662
00:48:41,378 --> 00:48:43,658
the building blocks for

663
00:48:43,658 --> 00:48:45,878
a true futuristic,

664
00:48:46,078 --> 00:48:47,018
a truly futuristic

665
00:48:47,018 --> 00:48:49,558
cypherpunk banking system rebuilt

666
00:48:49,558 --> 00:48:50,618
from scratch exist.

667
00:48:51,078 --> 00:48:52,338
But that can be completely cucked.

668
00:48:52,358 --> 00:48:55,298
And this banking system can give you everything you want

669
00:48:55,298 --> 00:49:00,078
from sound monetary policy, payments infrastructure,

670
00:49:00,918 --> 00:49:07,878
free open banking with privacy embedded within the Chami Amends

671
00:49:07,878 --> 00:49:09,698
and other protocols, even on Liquid.

672
00:49:09,838 --> 00:49:12,198
You could do smart contracting if you want to.

673
00:49:12,198 --> 00:49:22,598
You can create these obscure financial engagements between peers and even institutions and individuals.

674
00:49:22,838 --> 00:49:27,938
It's all there, but it can be severely kneecapped if we don't get this right.

675
00:49:28,238 --> 00:49:28,838
Yeah, absolutely.

676
00:49:29,318 --> 00:49:30,918
I mean, now is really the most important.

677
00:49:31,058 --> 00:49:34,958
Again, I'll just say, I think this is the most important moment in Bitcoin history.

678
00:49:34,958 --> 00:49:39,938
And Trump's out there saying, hey, we're going to upgrade the financial system and the banking infrastructure with crypto.

679
00:49:40,158 --> 00:49:41,078
Like it's there.

680
00:49:41,078 --> 00:49:44,178
But I don't think he knows what he's talking about.

681
00:49:44,338 --> 00:49:45,158
Obviously, he doesn't.

682
00:49:45,358 --> 00:50:01,058
But I think there's people behind him in the administration and very strong lobbying powers that do view an avenue to push policy down that would sort of cattle herd everybody into a more controlled system and less free system.

683
00:50:01,058 --> 00:50:29,418
Yeah, and I think that that's, you know, again, having participated in the government and, you know, again, double tapping on your point about like being jaded and kind of seeing how things work, right? Like the primary lesson that I took out, you know, of my experience during the financial crisis and everything that was going on then was that the government's going to lie to you right up until the moment that they don't have to lie to you anymore or they can't lie to you anymore.

684
00:50:29,418 --> 00:50:32,778
because like I knew that these banks were failing for weeks in advance,

685
00:50:33,298 --> 00:50:34,018
months in advance.

686
00:50:34,398 --> 00:50:36,718
There were some number of people who knew that.

687
00:50:37,118 --> 00:50:40,238
I don't know if anybody was taking prop bets on public stocks,

688
00:50:40,378 --> 00:50:42,198
but like wouldn't surprise me.

689
00:50:42,538 --> 00:50:46,138
Somebody knew the airlines were going to do well in September 12, 2001.

690
00:50:46,798 --> 00:50:47,638
Yeah, exactly. Right.

691
00:50:48,458 --> 00:50:50,998
And we've seen no prosecutions, no investigations,

692
00:50:51,658 --> 00:50:53,378
no nothing on any of that. Right.

693
00:50:53,918 --> 00:50:58,438
And so, you know, I think that was a kind of a revelatory moment for me.

694
00:50:58,438 --> 00:51:03,278
right? I had been kind of a good boy scout my entire life. I'd gone to school to, you know,

695
00:51:03,618 --> 00:51:08,018
well, I almost went to the military academies and I didn't because of the Iraq war.

696
00:51:08,598 --> 00:51:12,998
And then, you know, I ended up getting this degree to go and do, you know, moonshots and we were

697
00:51:12,998 --> 00:51:16,778
mothballing all of the space program and everything like that at that point in time. So it's like,

698
00:51:17,438 --> 00:51:22,818
you can only get rubbed so many times before your eyes get open and you become a little more like,

699
00:51:22,818 --> 00:51:26,598
you know, again, don't trust verify, right? So for me, the thing here is like,

700
00:51:26,598 --> 00:51:35,958
The administration has been positive in the sense that normalizing Bitcoin into society is a good thing.

701
00:51:37,638 --> 00:51:51,018
But the argument, I guess, that I would make is that, especially at this point, seeing what's going on this week in politics or the last week in politics, you know, with the Bubba scandal, among others.

702
00:51:52,198 --> 00:51:56,038
Do you have the pictures of Trump blowing Bubba?

703
00:51:56,038 --> 00:51:56,678
Is that what it said?

704
00:51:56,718 --> 00:51:57,598
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

705
00:51:57,718 --> 00:51:58,078
Interesting.

706
00:51:58,358 --> 00:52:04,258
I've seen about 100 different GPT-generated images.

707
00:52:04,798 --> 00:52:07,998
But, you know, you look at something like that and it's like,

708
00:52:08,318 --> 00:52:11,078
well, what happens if the next election goes in the other direction

709
00:52:11,078 --> 00:52:14,298
and they don't end up delivering all the stuff that they promised?

710
00:52:14,298 --> 00:52:17,158
Like, even if they wanted to deliver the stuff that they promised,

711
00:52:17,358 --> 00:52:20,218
which is still a big if, right?

712
00:52:20,398 --> 00:52:23,818
Like, who's to say that they actually have the votes at this point

713
00:52:23,818 --> 00:52:25,058
to get it delivered, right?

714
00:52:25,058 --> 00:52:32,258
And then if it flips back in the other direction, how much damage has been done by this association with Bitcoin being Trump coded?

715
00:52:32,598 --> 00:52:32,698
Yeah.

716
00:52:33,098 --> 00:52:33,378
Right?

717
00:52:33,538 --> 00:52:42,178
I mean, Bitcoin is a neutral freedom money that is useful for everyone in the world, regardless of their politics.

718
00:52:43,178 --> 00:52:47,418
This is an equal opportunity for wealth creation.

719
00:52:47,938 --> 00:52:50,578
This should not be a partisan issue.

720
00:52:50,718 --> 00:52:50,918
No.

721
00:52:50,918 --> 00:52:56,318
and I am deeply concerned that it's become a partisan issue

722
00:52:56,318 --> 00:52:58,198
more so during this administration

723
00:52:58,198 --> 00:53:02,938
and the only way that we really get to the far side of this

724
00:53:02,938 --> 00:53:09,318
in kind of a maximally constructive sort of universe

725
00:53:09,318 --> 00:53:10,718
for the things that we care about

726
00:53:10,718 --> 00:53:13,498
is everybody getting engaged like now.

727
00:53:13,758 --> 00:53:15,658
Like if you're listening to this, if you're a Bitcoin

728
00:53:15,658 --> 00:53:17,478
or if you care about the future of Bitcoin

729
00:53:17,478 --> 00:53:19,918
and the network for yourself, for your kids,

730
00:53:19,918 --> 00:53:27,078
like if you think that it's important that there be a free market alternative to fiat currencies

731
00:53:27,078 --> 00:53:35,158
that are you know this rapidly melting ice cube um right it is not enough to go to the polling

732
00:53:35,158 --> 00:53:39,778
booth and pull the lever once every four years or every two years and say well i did my part

733
00:53:39,778 --> 00:53:45,438
right unfortunately this is you know the battle at the end of the universe we're trying to take

734
00:53:45,438 --> 00:53:51,558
the power of, you know, the printing press away from centralized governments, not just once,

735
00:53:51,558 --> 00:53:57,938
but probably forever, if we do it right, and we're careful about it. So this is a uniquely

736
00:53:57,938 --> 00:54:04,558
powerful and opportunistic moment in human history. And so despite all the dystopia,

737
00:54:04,978 --> 00:54:09,458
you know, kind of stuff that's flying around right now, like, I am incredibly grateful to

738
00:54:09,458 --> 00:54:14,958
be alive right now, and to be in the arena right now and be trying to fight for a better world,

739
00:54:14,958 --> 00:54:17,258
Because for the first time in 50 years,

740
00:54:17,258 --> 00:54:19,918
or maybe 70 years since the end of the last war.

741
00:54:20,178 --> 00:54:23,098
Go back to Federal Reserve income tax, 1913.

742
00:54:23,238 --> 00:54:23,558
Exactly.

743
00:54:23,878 --> 00:54:26,038
We have the opportunity for the first time

744
00:54:26,038 --> 00:54:27,958
in decades, centuries,

745
00:54:28,278 --> 00:54:31,898
to truly inflect the timeline for humanity.

746
00:54:33,138 --> 00:54:34,298
Where else would you rather be?

747
00:54:34,778 --> 00:54:34,958
Right?

748
00:54:35,138 --> 00:54:36,258
This is it.

749
00:54:36,598 --> 00:54:37,878
I don't want to be in the feudal farms.

750
00:54:38,298 --> 00:54:40,538
No, I don't want to be in the Roman Coliseum.

751
00:54:40,638 --> 00:54:41,418
That would probably be cool.

752
00:54:41,998 --> 00:54:43,178
I'm going to be here with all the technology,

753
00:54:43,278 --> 00:54:43,778
the agency.

754
00:54:43,778 --> 00:54:46,858
but I think to your point of

755
00:54:46,858 --> 00:54:48,618
Bitcoin becoming a partisan issue

756
00:54:48,618 --> 00:54:49,618
which I completely agree

757
00:54:49,618 --> 00:54:51,318
I think it is

758
00:54:51,318 --> 00:54:53,178
and I've been

759
00:54:53,178 --> 00:54:56,618
when we say narrative testing this

760
00:54:56,618 --> 00:54:57,978
I guess I discussed it with Connor

761
00:54:57,978 --> 00:55:01,178
when we recorded in DC a few weeks ago

762
00:55:01,178 --> 00:55:01,938
but I think too

763
00:55:01,938 --> 00:55:05,238
when you look out at the political landscape

764
00:55:05,238 --> 00:55:06,158
in the United States

765
00:55:06,158 --> 00:55:08,498
how polarized it's become

766
00:55:08,498 --> 00:55:10,798
instead of like

767
00:55:10,798 --> 00:55:13,398
convincing Democrats

768
00:55:13,398 --> 00:55:17,298
Like, hey, Bitcoin, like, you guys just should vote for this.

769
00:55:17,298 --> 00:55:18,298
It's like freedom.

770
00:55:18,298 --> 00:55:19,798
Like, if you don't like Trump, you like this.

771
00:55:19,798 --> 00:55:23,598
I think we lean into the economic populism that exists on both sides.

772
00:55:23,598 --> 00:55:29,998
Obviously, Mumdani just voted in in New York City, and then on the right, there's

773
00:55:30,024 --> 00:55:32,424
a lot of consternation with immigration policy,

774
00:55:32,684 --> 00:55:34,484
they ticker jabs, which certainly happened.

775
00:55:34,704 --> 00:55:36,684
I'm not saying that facetiously.

776
00:55:38,144 --> 00:55:41,544
There is structural problems that exist in our economy

777
00:55:41,544 --> 00:55:44,364
that the relative normie,

778
00:55:44,484 --> 00:55:46,004
whether on the left or the right,

779
00:55:46,064 --> 00:55:47,944
can feel intuitively.

780
00:55:48,584 --> 00:55:51,204
And they're sprinting to both polar ends

781
00:55:51,204 --> 00:55:53,484
of the political spectrum for a solution.

782
00:55:53,484 --> 00:55:56,024
It's either radical democratic socialism,

783
00:55:56,544 --> 00:55:57,384
eventually communism,

784
00:55:57,384 --> 00:56:00,884
or strongman fascism on the right.

785
00:56:01,044 --> 00:56:03,144
Somebody come in and fix the problems

786
00:56:03,144 --> 00:56:05,384
where there is a third path,

787
00:56:05,504 --> 00:56:11,264
which is, hey, recognize a lot of the negative externalities

788
00:56:11,264 --> 00:56:16,304
that you are identifying as core issues

789
00:56:16,304 --> 00:56:17,224
are certainly issues,

790
00:56:17,304 --> 00:56:18,664
but they're symptoms of the core problem,

791
00:56:18,744 --> 00:56:19,584
which is the money is broken.

792
00:56:20,304 --> 00:56:24,544
And there's a bipartisan way to fix this,

793
00:56:24,604 --> 00:56:25,964
which is we lean into Bitcoin.

794
00:56:25,964 --> 00:56:29,144
We make sure that individuals can save in Bitcoin.

795
00:56:29,264 --> 00:56:30,024
They can custody the Bitcoin.

796
00:56:30,124 --> 00:56:30,964
They can build on Bitcoin.

797
00:56:31,264 --> 00:56:34,904
They can interact with each other without the government snooping on their lives.

798
00:56:35,364 --> 00:56:39,424
And it's not going to be a rip the bandaid off, things are fixed.

799
00:56:39,824 --> 00:56:43,904
We begin going down a path, understanding that we can re-architect

800
00:56:43,904 --> 00:56:48,084
the sort of economic engine of the United States at the monetary level

801
00:56:48,084 --> 00:56:50,304
on this fair, open, permissionless system.

802
00:56:51,544 --> 00:56:53,024
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

803
00:56:53,024 --> 00:56:56,204
and yeah, I think that that's an important thing

804
00:56:56,204 --> 00:56:58,284
for us to kind of like shift the dialogue around.

805
00:56:58,524 --> 00:57:00,324
So, you know, kind of back to Save Our Wallets

806
00:57:00,324 --> 00:57:02,124
and the work that we've been trying to do.

807
00:57:02,224 --> 00:57:04,024
This is what we're trying to convince legislators

808
00:57:04,024 --> 00:57:06,284
in Washington, D.C. about, right?

809
00:57:06,584 --> 00:57:08,524
And there are some great ones that are out there

810
00:57:08,524 --> 00:57:10,684
who, you know, are early and they understand it.

811
00:57:10,824 --> 00:57:12,184
Like they got it, they did the work,

812
00:57:12,244 --> 00:57:15,544
they did their, you know, 100 hours studying Bitcoin

813
00:57:15,544 --> 00:57:17,724
and, you know, these are freedom-loving people.

814
00:57:17,724 --> 00:57:19,324
They're in Congress for the right reasons.

815
00:57:19,624 --> 00:57:20,964
They actually care about their constituents

816
00:57:20,964 --> 00:57:26,544
and they're not just there to, you know, get the next lobbying job, right?

817
00:57:26,704 --> 00:57:28,184
They're fighting for this.

818
00:57:28,264 --> 00:57:36,144
But there's too many people in Congress and, you know, kind of among the boomers, right?

819
00:57:36,144 --> 00:57:40,664
Who either don't understand the technology or they haven't taken...

820
00:57:40,664 --> 00:57:41,564
They don't care to understand.

821
00:57:41,744 --> 00:57:46,784
Yeah, they don't care to understand it or they've just heard bad stuff about it.

822
00:57:46,844 --> 00:57:50,264
They just hear about exit scams and they're lumping crypto in with Bitcoin.

823
00:57:50,264 --> 00:57:51,184
Pig slaughter.

824
00:57:51,524 --> 00:57:52,344
Yeah, exactly.

825
00:57:52,484 --> 00:57:53,464
The pig butchering scams.

826
00:57:53,464 --> 00:57:54,024
Pig butchering scams.

827
00:57:54,484 --> 00:57:55,724
Yeah, this is a great example.

828
00:57:55,964 --> 00:57:57,324
Like, you know, the pig butchering thing.

829
00:57:57,464 --> 00:58:00,964
It's like, if you were, if we were able to come,

830
00:58:01,044 --> 00:58:02,664
like, it should not be controversial

831
00:58:02,664 --> 00:58:05,144
for Republicans and Democrats to come together

832
00:58:05,144 --> 00:58:09,104
and agree that consumer protections

833
00:58:09,104 --> 00:58:11,464
to prevent things like pig butchering

834
00:58:11,464 --> 00:58:13,344
are a point of alignment

835
00:58:13,344 --> 00:58:15,764
that everybody in America should be able to agree on

836
00:58:15,764 --> 00:58:18,104
and that we should be able to pass

837
00:58:18,104 --> 00:58:19,244
whatever laws we need

838
00:58:19,244 --> 00:58:25,144
in order to prevent or, you know, uh, heighten the, you know, kind of, um, consequences for that

839
00:58:25,144 --> 00:58:30,564
sort of bad behavior, but to throw the baby out with the bathwater, uh, and say, my constituents

840
00:58:30,564 --> 00:58:38,404
don't deserve the opportunity to generate capital and preserve their life's work, uh, into future

841
00:58:38,404 --> 00:58:43,624
generations for their kids and grandkids, because I didn't understand that there was a difference

842
00:58:43,624 --> 00:58:48,624
between being socially engineered, you know, and the fact that the money was fundamentally broken.

843
00:58:49,244 --> 00:58:52,144
like that's a really sad state of affairs.

844
00:58:52,424 --> 00:58:54,184
And so this is the thing that I guess,

845
00:58:54,424 --> 00:58:56,644
you know, again, save our wallets

846
00:58:56,644 --> 00:58:59,104
and like the idea of like Bitcoiners picking up the phone.

847
00:58:59,424 --> 00:59:01,264
You know, I was out, I can't remember if you were there,

848
00:59:01,344 --> 00:59:04,484
but in BPI did the day on the hill in DC

849
00:59:04,484 --> 00:59:06,204
a few months ago at the beginning of summer.

850
00:59:06,204 --> 00:59:06,784
I was not there now.

851
00:59:06,984 --> 00:59:07,964
I was at the event.

852
00:59:08,044 --> 00:59:09,024
I was not on the hill.

853
00:59:09,224 --> 00:59:09,444
Yeah.

854
00:59:10,444 --> 00:59:12,604
I was at the BPI event with all the panels,

855
00:59:12,704 --> 00:59:14,444
but I did not make it up to Capitol Hill.

856
00:59:14,444 --> 00:59:15,484
Yeah, that's fine.

857
00:59:15,564 --> 00:59:18,244
You were doing important work on the panels, I'm sure.

858
00:59:18,244 --> 00:59:26,724
But for all of those of us who went to, you know, actually do the talking to Congress members, it was incredibly powerful.

859
00:59:27,004 --> 00:59:37,064
I mean, like there's just a random sampling of whoever was motivated enough to come to D.C. and come to the BPI conference and then stay to go and talk to their legislators.

860
00:59:37,604 --> 00:59:40,904
And I was blown away. And like, you know, people were great.

861
00:59:41,124 --> 00:59:44,444
They had great personal stories about how this had affected their lives.

862
00:59:44,444 --> 00:59:46,264
they were telling them to the legislators.

863
00:59:46,424 --> 00:59:48,304
The legislators were actually taking notes

864
00:59:48,304 --> 00:59:50,484
and very interested in it and everything like that.

865
00:59:50,684 --> 00:59:52,764
And so I think a lot of the times

866
00:59:52,764 --> 00:59:55,304
we talk about this existential conflict

867
00:59:55,304 --> 00:59:57,364
and kind of the scale of what's going on

868
00:59:57,364 --> 00:59:58,264
and everybody thinks like,

869
00:59:58,384 --> 00:59:59,404
oh, well, who am I?

870
00:59:59,444 --> 01:00:00,264
I'm just an individual.

871
01:00:00,744 --> 01:00:01,844
My story doesn't matter.

872
01:00:02,224 --> 01:00:03,764
The government doesn't care about me.

873
01:00:04,024 --> 01:00:04,864
This seems scary.

874
01:00:05,024 --> 01:00:06,164
Why would I pick up the phone

875
01:00:06,164 --> 01:00:10,104
and try to tell my senator what I think?

876
01:00:10,184 --> 01:00:11,364
Why would they care what I think?

877
01:00:11,364 --> 01:00:13,264
And it's like, it couldn't be further from the truth.

878
01:00:13,264 --> 01:00:18,824
like if I don't know how many people will end up hearing this podcast but like millions yeah

879
01:00:18,824 --> 01:00:23,484
you know I'm willing to bet that if 10% of the people who are listening to this podcast

880
01:00:23,484 --> 01:00:29,804
actually picked up the phone and made it a concerted goal to talk to somebody in their

881
01:00:29,804 --> 01:00:35,084
senator's office about Bitcoin and the importance of what's going on right now with the BRCA

882
01:00:35,084 --> 01:00:43,544
provisions in the market structure bill, it would probably be the most popular issue on the

883
01:00:43,544 --> 01:00:48,044
congressional switchboards this week. Rather quickly. Rather quickly. Yeah. Or yeah, whatever

884
01:00:48,044 --> 01:00:53,284
timeframe you want to use. Right. And we're just we're a huge group of people who are well educated,

885
01:00:53,744 --> 01:00:59,704
fluent on the issue, have life experience to contribute. It's important, right? Government

886
01:00:59,704 --> 01:01:04,424
is responsive to only the things that they are aware exist

887
01:01:04,424 --> 01:01:05,304
and that they can help.

888
01:01:05,304 --> 01:01:08,844
I was telling Connor this for the longest time in my Bitcoin journey.

889
01:01:08,944 --> 01:01:11,904
I was very radicalized by 2008.

890
01:01:12,484 --> 01:01:15,584
WikiLeaks, Snowden leaks, Middle Eastern wars.

891
01:01:15,764 --> 01:01:18,324
It was like, the government's not going to save you.

892
01:01:18,784 --> 01:01:20,364
You have to save yourself, which I truly believe.

893
01:01:20,544 --> 01:01:25,184
You should do everything at your fingertips

894
01:01:25,184 --> 01:01:28,164
and do everything in your capacity to save yourself to the best you can.

895
01:01:28,284 --> 01:01:29,344
That's why self-custody Bitcoin.

896
01:01:29,704 --> 01:01:31,584
all that good stuff.

897
01:01:31,684 --> 01:01:33,644
But at some point when you get older,

898
01:01:33,744 --> 01:01:34,704
you start having kids,

899
01:01:35,164 --> 01:01:41,004
you look out at the world and you get more privy to how politics actually

900
01:01:41,004 --> 01:01:41,564
operates,

901
01:01:41,624 --> 01:01:42,344
becomes very clear.

902
01:01:42,804 --> 01:01:43,824
You may not care about politics,

903
01:01:43,864 --> 01:01:45,524
but politics cares about you and you have to engage.

904
01:01:46,184 --> 01:01:47,204
And to your point,

905
01:01:47,464 --> 01:01:47,664
like,

906
01:01:47,804 --> 01:01:49,784
and I've become convinced of this,

907
01:01:49,844 --> 01:01:51,124
particularly over the last 18 months,

908
01:01:51,244 --> 01:01:52,444
like people do react.

909
01:01:52,544 --> 01:01:54,924
I've talked to people in the administration,

910
01:01:55,204 --> 01:01:56,004
individual politicians,

911
01:01:56,004 --> 01:01:59,664
and they do seem to genuinely care and respond when they think,

912
01:01:59,704 --> 01:02:05,144
that this could affect their ability to get voted back in office.

913
01:02:06,104 --> 01:02:07,584
But you mentioned BRCA.

914
01:02:08,224 --> 01:02:11,164
The last we covered this on this show was earlier this year

915
01:02:11,164 --> 01:02:14,224
with Matt Corallo when the Save Our Wallets campaign

916
01:02:14,224 --> 01:02:16,224
had just launched.

917
01:02:16,464 --> 01:02:20,044
You said BRCA, Blockchain Regulatory Clarity Act.

918
01:02:20,264 --> 01:02:22,064
At one point, it was a standalone act.

919
01:02:22,264 --> 01:02:26,404
It has since been included in the market structure bill,

920
01:02:26,484 --> 01:02:29,664
which is one of the big things the Trump administration came in

921
01:02:29,664 --> 01:02:33,604
David Sachs. Everybody's saying we're going to get crypto legislation, Genius Act

922
01:02:33,604 --> 01:02:37,604
pushed through. Second priority on the Hill

923
01:02:37,604 --> 01:02:41,844
as it pertains to Bitcoin and crypto is this market structure bill. It's been talked about for a while.

924
01:02:42,424 --> 01:02:45,764
Seems like there are some fast-moving developments. You had Brian Armstrong

925
01:02:45,764 --> 01:02:49,404
from Coinbase interviewed earlier this week saying that progress is

926
01:02:49,404 --> 01:02:52,924
moving forward. There's likely going to be a vote imminently

927
01:02:52,924 --> 01:02:57,144
here. How much of the original BRCA

928
01:02:57,144 --> 01:02:59,464
will get into the market structure bill.

929
01:02:59,664 --> 01:03:00,484
So that's still a question.

930
01:03:00,944 --> 01:03:02,064
So this is the thing.

931
01:03:02,784 --> 01:03:04,304
This is very inside baseball.

932
01:03:04,564 --> 01:03:06,224
So strap in, friends,

933
01:03:06,364 --> 01:03:07,964
if you're at home and you care

934
01:03:07,964 --> 01:03:10,084
about the legislative details.

935
01:03:10,384 --> 01:03:11,224
So as you mentioned,

936
01:03:11,664 --> 01:03:13,944
there was originally the BRCA,

937
01:03:14,164 --> 01:03:15,284
which was a standalone bill,

938
01:03:15,824 --> 01:03:17,764
which was like a two-page bill.

939
01:03:17,764 --> 01:03:20,484
It was very straightforward to the point.

940
01:03:20,944 --> 01:03:22,324
It was everything that we would have wanted

941
01:03:22,324 --> 01:03:23,144
in the Bitcoin community

942
01:03:23,144 --> 01:03:25,004
to protect open source developers

943
01:03:25,004 --> 01:03:26,884
and non-custodial developers.

944
01:03:27,144 --> 01:03:32,124
from prosecution. That was folded into what became the Clarity Act in the House.

945
01:03:32,864 --> 01:03:38,704
And then it ended up passing the House, which is great. That's good news. But that's only one

946
01:03:38,704 --> 01:03:42,024
half of the process, as those of you who remember your Schoolhouse Rock video.

947
01:03:42,824 --> 01:03:43,824
I'm just no bill.

948
01:03:44,024 --> 01:03:49,344
Yeah, right. You'll remember that the Senate now has to play their role. And the Senate,

949
01:03:49,704 --> 01:03:56,184
as the cooling dish of democracy, is a pretty difficult place to get things through.

950
01:03:56,184 --> 01:04:06,840
So at the moment there two competing committees inside the Senate who have produced different draft versions of their version of the market structure bill

951
01:04:07,460 --> 01:04:11,740
There's the banking committee, and then there's the agriculture committee.

952
01:04:11,740 --> 01:04:18,280
The agriculture committee released their draft text last week or the week before, and it was excellent.

953
01:04:18,760 --> 01:04:20,640
They get it. They understood the assignment.

954
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:23,960
they understand that Bitcoin is a commodity

955
01:04:23,960 --> 01:04:28,220
and that it is very different than everything else in crypto.

956
01:04:29,060 --> 01:04:32,040
And their approach to their drafting of the bill

957
01:04:32,040 --> 01:04:35,100
was that instead of leaving open-ended clauses

958
01:04:35,100 --> 01:04:37,560
that could be interpreted by the regulatory agencies,

959
01:04:38,320 --> 01:04:39,980
they explicitly say,

960
01:04:40,140 --> 01:04:42,660
if you are not an entity named on this list,

961
01:04:42,660 --> 01:04:46,300
you are not subject to securities laws

962
01:04:46,300 --> 01:04:49,480
that we would normally be concerned about.

963
01:04:49,480 --> 01:04:53,260
And that's actually the right solution for this market moving forward.

964
01:04:53,620 --> 01:05:05,400
The problem is we don't know whether that's actually going to make it out of the Senate to a floor vote because everything in that draft bill was in brackets, which means it's a draft for discussion among everybody.

965
01:05:05,880 --> 01:05:09,500
Will that discussion be internally within the committee or on the floor publicly?

966
01:05:09,700 --> 01:05:10,060
Both.

967
01:05:10,320 --> 01:05:14,840
But at this point, I think that the committees have both had their internal discussions.

968
01:05:14,840 --> 01:05:24,400
And so now the sausage making is going on behind the scenes of what bill will actually make it to the floor for the Senate to vote on.

969
01:05:24,460 --> 01:05:33,200
And that's why it's really critical that if you're a Bitcoiner, you call your senator today or this week or as soon as you can and tell them that this is important.

970
01:05:33,320 --> 01:05:34,320
We will get this out tomorrow morning.

971
01:05:34,600 --> 01:05:37,980
So this will come out Wednesday, November 19th.

972
01:05:38,220 --> 01:05:38,480
Great.

973
01:05:38,480 --> 01:06:02,780
I don't mean to push you that hard on it, but in general, like, yeah, the idea is like now is when they're having those conversations. Right. And if we can get the Agriculture Committee's version of the regulations as the bill that gets voted on and we can get that through cloture, which means that we can actually hit 60 votes in the Senate so that nobody can filibuster it, a.k.a. Elizabeth Warren.

974
01:06:02,920 --> 01:06:03,980
Yeah. Right.

975
01:06:04,140 --> 01:06:06,420
We've experienced a lot of that in the last two months.

976
01:06:06,420 --> 01:06:23,860
Yeah. And she also is, you know, the one who tried to throw a wrench in the banking committee version of the bill from like six weeks ago or something like that. And everybody freaked out because it was like, so is the Senate even going to be able to pass anything? Like, it's unclear right now what, if anything, the Senate can even pass as a result of this.

977
01:06:23,860 --> 01:06:34,580
So the thing is, we need to get to 60 votes in the Senate, which means that we're going to need six to 10 Democrats to cross over and vote with the Republicans.

978
01:06:35,580 --> 01:06:45,980
And we're going to need that version of the bill that passes the Senate, if it passes the Senate, to also survive the committee markup with the House version of the bill.

979
01:06:45,980 --> 01:06:50,360
So there's going to have to be a conference bill once the Senate passes their version.

980
01:06:50,360 --> 01:07:18,540
And if we're able to get this language from the House Pass Clarity Act and the Senate Agriculture Bill fully to the floor in front of everybody and it gets voted on and we get it through, that is the best case scenario for everybody in the Bitcoin community because it will mean that open source non-custodial software developers will not be prosecuted anymore the way that we saw the DOJ prosecutions over this prior summer.

981
01:07:18,540 --> 01:07:25,820
but we still have to do the work of making sure that the white house and ofac and treasury don't

982
01:07:25,820 --> 01:07:33,380
come in over the top uh and uh destroy privacy as i mentioned kind of at the top right so that's

983
01:07:33,380 --> 01:07:38,800
kind of a second fight like a second you know kind of uh tier that we need to be concerned about

984
01:07:38,800 --> 01:07:43,920
this is this is the first battle the immediate battle that's in front of us is the clarity act

985
01:07:43,920 --> 01:07:47,840
market structure bill is it still called the clarity act so again this is where it's complicated

986
01:07:47,840 --> 01:07:49,300
It's called the Clarity Act in the House.

987
01:07:49,680 --> 01:07:51,020
Right now it's called the RFIA.

988
01:07:51,500 --> 01:07:51,780
Yes.

989
01:07:52,320 --> 01:07:54,040
Or in the Senate, I should say.

990
01:07:54,180 --> 01:07:57,400
It's called the RFIA is what we think the bill is going to be named.

991
01:07:59,360 --> 01:08:03,020
But presumably when they do the joint conference bill,

992
01:08:03,180 --> 01:08:04,700
it'll probably be called the Clarity Act

993
01:08:04,700 --> 01:08:06,120
since that's what they've been messaging all year.

994
01:08:06,380 --> 01:08:12,100
And what does the crypto lobby think of the agricultural department's view

995
01:08:12,100 --> 01:08:15,200
or draft of the bill that we like?

996
01:08:15,200 --> 01:08:19,1000
I've heard rumblings from behind the scenes that there's some influence in the crypto,

997
01:08:20,240 --> 01:08:23,700
the broader crypto, not Bitcoin lobby, that really doesn't care what happens.

998
01:08:23,900 --> 01:08:25,600
They sort of want to create these regulatory modes.

999
01:08:26,800 --> 01:08:27,160
Yeah.

1000
01:08:27,560 --> 01:08:30,460
They just need a market structure so they can do what they need to do.

1001
01:08:30,520 --> 01:08:31,960
They don't really care about open source developers.

1002
01:08:32,040 --> 01:08:32,480
Is that true?

1003
01:08:33,440 --> 01:08:35,500
I don't want to pay it with too broad a brush,

1004
01:08:35,700 --> 01:08:40,160
but I guess what I would say is that regulatory capture is a hell of a good business.

1005
01:08:41,100 --> 01:08:42,660
I mean, we see that in Wall Street.

1006
01:08:42,660 --> 01:08:49,780
The reason that we don't have access to good financial technology and tools in the United States is not because we can't build them.

1007
01:08:49,900 --> 01:08:55,820
It's because the large corporations have captured their regulators and they get to write their own laws.

1008
01:08:56,980 --> 01:09:04,760
So I wouldn't say that the token side of the crypto markets is unique in this way.

1009
01:09:05,020 --> 01:09:09,680
They are just responding to the incentives and behaviors such as they exist.

1010
01:09:09,680 --> 01:09:28,560
Right. And so I would say that, yeah, when push comes to shove, you know, if you're operating a centralized exchange with licenses, you know, and you've got all the venture capital in order to be able to, you know, pay the lawyers $1,800 an hour to stay in court nonstop fighting with the government.

1011
01:09:28,560 --> 01:09:32,340
it, it's in your interests to

1012
01:09:32,340 --> 01:09:36,300
say, well, I would much prefer that my random token

1013
01:09:36,300 --> 01:09:39,780
is not qualified as a security under whatever new Howey test

1014
01:09:39,780 --> 01:09:44,160
they're going to try to put out than to care about whether some

1015
01:09:44,160 --> 01:09:48,520
random open source developers who are working on a decentralized exchange or a private

1016
01:09:48,520 --> 01:09:52,340
host wallet are still

1017
01:09:52,340 --> 01:09:54,140
allowed to do that thing that competes with me.

1018
01:09:54,140 --> 01:09:59,140
Right? I mean, in their, you know, kind of business logic, they're...

1019
01:09:59,140 --> 01:10:01,280
So call your representatives and center streaks.

1020
01:10:01,580 --> 01:10:01,900
Yeah.

1021
01:10:02,020 --> 01:10:02,680
They have a lot of money.

1022
01:10:02,920 --> 01:10:03,220
Yeah.

1023
01:10:03,540 --> 01:10:04,380
And they do influence.

1024
01:10:04,720 --> 01:10:13,620
Yeah. And that's the thing. I mean, you know, one of the reasons that we started Save Our Wallets at the beginning of the year was because Matt and I knew that there is no centralized Bitcoin company.

1025
01:10:14,120 --> 01:10:19,760
Right? We don't have a CEO. We don't have a marketing team. We don't have a lobbying outfit, really. Right?

1026
01:10:19,760 --> 01:10:32,660
And so we knew that we were going to be a massive structural disadvantage as Bitcoiners relative to everyone else who's making tokens and other broad crypto things when it came to this lobbying effort.

1027
01:10:33,660 --> 01:10:39,700
And so, yeah, I mean, we're outspent 1,000 to 1 in Washington, D.C. right now as Bitcoiners.

1028
01:10:40,240 --> 01:10:47,980
It's great that we have organizations like BPI and Coin Center and others who are fighting for the things that we care about in Washington.

1029
01:10:47,980 --> 01:10:53,160
but we're doing, you know, they, we, whoever, whatever, you know, however you want to draw the box,

1030
01:10:53,240 --> 01:10:56,120
are doing it on, you know, kind of MacGyver budgets.

1031
01:10:56,380 --> 01:10:56,480
Yeah.

1032
01:10:56,960 --> 01:11:00,880
Right? Duct tape and bubble gum right now. And so that's why, you know.

1033
01:11:00,880 --> 01:11:01,580
You should look like MacGyver.

1034
01:11:03,720 --> 01:11:10,200
Well, yeah. Don't force me to get my way out of this room with a paperclip or things might get messy for you.

1035
01:11:10,860 --> 01:11:16,640
But, but yeah, no, I mean, I think like this is why, you know, it's like what we do have in the Bitcoin community

1036
01:11:16,640 --> 01:11:19,720
is we have truth and righteousness on our side

1037
01:11:19,720 --> 01:11:20,960
and we have people power.

1038
01:11:21,200 --> 01:11:21,720
And a ton of grit.

1039
01:11:22,120 --> 01:11:22,880
Yeah, and a ton of grit.

1040
01:11:23,300 --> 01:11:23,480
Yeah.

1041
01:11:23,980 --> 01:11:24,760
Proof of work, baby.

1042
01:11:24,960 --> 01:11:25,880
We'll grind it out.

1043
01:11:26,120 --> 01:11:26,500
Hand up.

1044
01:11:26,760 --> 01:11:27,740
I've not called my senator,

1045
01:11:27,860 --> 01:11:29,720
but I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning and call.

1046
01:11:30,1000 --> 01:11:31,880
I've sent emails,

1047
01:11:32,040 --> 01:11:34,700
but I think calls work just as well, too.

1048
01:11:34,920 --> 01:11:36,080
Yeah, you should definitely call

1049
01:11:36,080 --> 01:11:37,600
if you're listening to this.

1050
01:11:38,220 --> 01:11:39,960
It's, again, right here, right now,

1051
01:11:40,260 --> 01:11:41,780
senators are the most important people.

1052
01:11:41,780 --> 01:11:44,580
If you have a senator who is sitting on

1053
01:11:44,580 --> 01:11:46,620
one of the, either the banking committee

1054
01:11:46,620 --> 01:11:48,580
or the agriculture committee, double

1055
01:11:48,580 --> 01:11:50,600
points for calling

1056
01:11:50,600 --> 01:11:52,200
them and then for sure

1057
01:11:52,200 --> 01:11:54,660
call them. Call them because especially

1058
01:11:54,660 --> 01:11:56,180
now with AI,

1059
01:11:56,640 --> 01:11:58,660
like, you know, written emails

1060
01:11:58,660 --> 01:12:00,820
are a dime a thousand,

1061
01:12:00,980 --> 01:12:02,540
right? So, I mean, they don't know

1062
01:12:02,540 --> 01:12:04,380
what's real. They don't know what's not real. Like,

1063
01:12:04,700 --> 01:12:06,540
they'll just throw that away, really. I mean, I

1064
01:12:06,540 --> 01:12:08,480
shouldn't say they're going to throw it away. Maybe they look at

1065
01:12:08,480 --> 01:12:10,500
them, but like, it's much less impactful than picking

1066
01:12:10,500 --> 01:12:12,480
up the phone and having a conversation. And if

1067
01:12:12,480 --> 01:12:14,200
you go to saveourwealth.org, because they're still

1068
01:12:14,200 --> 01:12:21,140
it's like a top line broad like here's the the points you need to hit when you call them yeah

1069
01:12:21,140 --> 01:12:25,740
so we have a bunch of information on save our wallets.org you can also put your zip code in and

1070
01:12:25,740 --> 01:12:40,136
it give you all your contact information for your representatives there is a form letter generator on there but you can directly as i mentioned send an email to these congressional offices just because they would get DDoS every day if they had public email addresses

1071
01:12:41,196 --> 01:12:47,456
And we'll be updating the site with more guidance on what needs to happen once there's clarity of what's going on in the Senate.

1072
01:12:48,216 --> 01:12:51,376
Right. So at the moment, it's all geared toward the House campaign.

1073
01:12:52,096 --> 01:12:54,016
But, you know, we'll be keeping it updated.

1074
01:12:54,016 --> 01:12:55,756
You can also sign up there for updates.

1075
01:12:55,956 --> 01:12:59,556
If you give us your email, we'll blast out some updates to people

1076
01:12:59,556 --> 01:13:01,096
when there are important things that are going on

1077
01:13:01,096 --> 01:13:04,716
and we need people to really rally the troops and push something over,

1078
01:13:04,936 --> 01:13:07,016
probably when the voting is actually happening.

1079
01:13:08,536 --> 01:13:10,836
So I would say there's a bunch of resources there.

1080
01:13:11,716 --> 01:13:15,156
Definitely check it out and get involved

1081
01:13:15,156 --> 01:13:18,276
because, again, this is an easily winnable fight.

1082
01:13:19,116 --> 01:13:22,836
There are very few things in life that I've come across, at least,

1083
01:13:22,836 --> 01:13:25,976
where the hard work is literally just about showing up.

1084
01:13:27,476 --> 01:13:28,596
Oftentimes it's like,

1085
01:13:28,696 --> 01:13:30,816
well, I got to show up and I got to fight Goliath.

1086
01:13:31,796 --> 01:13:34,196
And to some degree, we are fighting Goliath here

1087
01:13:34,196 --> 01:13:35,256
because it's the US government.

1088
01:13:35,436 --> 01:13:36,896
It's the most powerful government in the world

1089
01:13:36,896 --> 01:13:39,096
and institutional inertia is in the wrong direction.

1090
01:13:39,356 --> 01:13:42,116
But at the end of the day, we still do live in a democracy.

1091
01:13:42,816 --> 01:13:47,096
And we are the swing vote majority group

1092
01:13:47,096 --> 01:13:48,736
in that democracy right now.

1093
01:13:48,976 --> 01:13:50,996
So if they don't listen to us,

1094
01:13:50,996 --> 01:13:56,456
the next election is going to be a bloodbath as long as we actually show up in those elections

1095
01:13:56,456 --> 01:14:01,136
and push our legislators and do the hard work of participating in democracy.

1096
01:14:01,936 --> 01:14:05,396
So again, maybe the way to say this here for everybody who's a Bitcoiner,

1097
01:14:05,496 --> 01:14:07,756
if you're a real Bitcoiner, you believe in proof of work.

1098
01:14:09,056 --> 01:14:13,716
Proof of work for being a Bitcoiner right now is picking up the phone and calling your senator

1099
01:14:13,716 --> 01:14:20,356
and making sure that they understand that it is not acceptable for open source software developers

1100
01:14:20,356 --> 01:14:21,976
to be getting thrown in jail.

1101
01:14:22,716 --> 01:14:23,556
For writing code.

1102
01:14:23,856 --> 01:14:24,776
Yeah, for writing code.

1103
01:14:27,656 --> 01:14:29,176
First thing, go do that, freaks.

1104
01:14:29,236 --> 01:14:30,716
We'll link to all this in the show notes.

1105
01:14:30,796 --> 01:14:32,536
Second thing, going into the second battle,

1106
01:14:32,636 --> 01:14:33,636
OFAC, all this,

1107
01:14:34,136 --> 01:14:36,696
it's completely going in the wrong direction

1108
01:14:36,696 --> 01:14:37,756
where I would like it to go,

1109
01:14:37,796 --> 01:14:39,456
where I think we should abolish,

1110
01:14:40,056 --> 01:14:41,676
rescind the Bank Secrecy Act.

1111
01:14:41,676 --> 01:14:43,236
We should get rid of these

1112
01:14:43,236 --> 01:14:47,376
sort of supranational regulatory bodies

1113
01:14:47,376 --> 01:14:49,376
that really don't understand the technology.

1114
01:14:49,376 --> 01:14:55,676
at the end of the day, objectively don't care about freedom or protecting people from crime,

1115
01:14:55,856 --> 01:14:58,496
whether it's physical harm or financial crime.

1116
01:14:58,756 --> 01:15:01,316
I think the data is out there.

1117
01:15:01,396 --> 01:15:02,236
It's abundantly clear.

1118
01:15:02,836 --> 01:15:09,696
KYC, AML compliance that has been thrust on the market broadly is completely ineffectual

1119
01:15:09,696 --> 01:15:12,176
at stopping criminals from actually doing what they want to do.

1120
01:15:12,316 --> 01:15:12,556
Absolutely.

1121
01:15:12,916 --> 01:15:13,916
I mean, it's kabuki theater.

1122
01:15:14,096 --> 01:15:16,896
As a former bank regulator, I can tell you that for a fact.

1123
01:15:16,896 --> 01:15:20,796
but you don't even need to take it from me or trust that.

1124
01:15:21,096 --> 01:15:24,476
You can look at the news that's come out over the last

1125
01:15:24,476 --> 01:15:27,236
17 years since the financial crisis.

1126
01:15:28,716 --> 01:15:32,816
The largest bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase, was just caught up for

1127
01:15:32,816 --> 01:15:36,936
laundering hundreds of millions of dollars or potentially even billions of dollars for Jeffrey Epstein.

1128
01:15:37,496 --> 01:15:40,316
Even though they're filing suspicious activity reports

1129
01:15:40,316 --> 01:15:44,836
to the tune of dozens or hundreds in the background, none of which were ever looked at or

1130
01:15:44,836 --> 01:15:45,436
followed up with.

1131
01:15:45,456 --> 01:15:46,876
But he's friends with the secretary of the treasury,

1132
01:15:47,036 --> 01:15:47,696
so it doesn't matter.

1133
01:15:47,896 --> 01:15:49,476
JP Morgan, you're good.

1134
01:15:49,656 --> 01:15:49,976
You're good.

1135
01:15:50,076 --> 01:15:50,696
Wire those funds.

1136
01:15:50,736 --> 01:15:51,896
And they wired them to Deutsche Bank,

1137
01:15:52,016 --> 01:15:55,816
which is another large regulated banking institution.

1138
01:15:56,136 --> 01:15:56,536
Yeah, right.

1139
01:15:56,536 --> 01:16:01,396
And so the thing here is that KYC AML

1140
01:16:01,396 --> 01:16:04,056
and all this intrusive financial surveillance,

1141
01:16:04,576 --> 01:16:07,716
none of this is actually doing anything on the ground

1142
01:16:07,716 --> 01:16:10,996
to make the average American's life better or safer.

1143
01:16:12,596 --> 01:16:13,936
Inarguably makes it worse.

1144
01:16:13,936 --> 01:16:16,796
puts them more at risk,

1145
01:16:17,036 --> 01:16:18,236
adds more compliant costs,

1146
01:16:18,316 --> 01:16:20,396
which layers in costs to the end user.

1147
01:16:20,596 --> 01:16:21,256
It's more expensive.

1148
01:16:21,676 --> 01:16:23,176
It's more dangerous.

1149
01:16:23,656 --> 01:16:28,096
How fraught is the world with credit fraud

1150
01:16:28,096 --> 01:16:32,296
and people basically selling other people's information

1151
01:16:32,296 --> 01:16:33,176
on black markets

1152
01:16:33,176 --> 01:16:35,876
because they were able to steal it

1153
01:16:35,876 --> 01:16:39,296
from companies complying with KYC, AML regulation

1154
01:16:39,296 --> 01:16:40,396
by collecting all that data

1155
01:16:40,396 --> 01:16:43,136
and securing it terribly in the first place.

1156
01:16:43,136 --> 01:16:47,136
Yeah, creating honeypots left, right, and center, all of which will be hacked eventually.

1157
01:16:47,476 --> 01:16:53,156
You know, again, as somebody who's worked on a lot of these banking and just general technology platforms, like none of these large institutions.

1158
01:16:53,176 --> 01:16:55,936
And the barrier to, I just wrote a newsletter about it on the flight over here.

1159
01:16:56,596 --> 01:16:59,336
I don't know if you saw Anthropix sort of postmortem on.

1160
01:17:00,856 --> 01:17:01,856
Prompt injection hack?

1161
01:17:01,856 --> 01:17:05,856
I mean, essentially there was the Chinese espionage attack

1162
01:17:05,856 --> 01:17:10,276
using their LLMs and MCP servers

1163
01:17:10,276 --> 01:17:12,316
to basically take down parts of the internet

1164
01:17:12,316 --> 01:17:19,016
and infiltrate highly critical systems in the United States.

1165
01:17:19,336 --> 01:17:22,176
It's a barrier to entry to wage these attacks is getting lower.

1166
01:17:22,896 --> 01:17:24,536
And so the more you force people to comply

1167
01:17:24,536 --> 01:17:25,636
and collect more information,

1168
01:17:25,936 --> 01:17:28,636
the easier it's just going to get to take that

1169
01:17:28,636 --> 01:17:30,036
and abuse people at the end of the day.

1170
01:17:30,136 --> 01:17:30,896
Oh yeah, 100%.

1171
01:17:30,896 --> 01:17:35,156
I mean, the U.S. government can't even maintain the safety and security of its own data, right?

1172
01:17:35,236 --> 01:17:41,156
I mean, China hacked the GSA like two years ago and got like 100 million social security numbers or something like that, right?

1173
01:17:41,216 --> 01:17:42,316
I mean, it's crazy.

1174
01:17:42,716 --> 01:17:46,936
What was the big social security hack years ago?

1175
01:17:47,916 --> 01:17:52,316
Evergrande's coming to my mind, but that's the Chinese property lending.

1176
01:17:53,156 --> 01:17:53,616
What was it?

1177
01:17:54,436 --> 01:17:56,776
I feel like it began with an E, too.

1178
01:17:57,356 --> 01:17:58,356
Was it Equifax?

1179
01:17:58,356 --> 01:18:04,376
literally a 200 million social security number least like two-thirds of the country this was a

1180
01:18:04,376 --> 01:18:10,056
decade ago at this point but yeah yeah now we got them buying 23andme or trying to buy 23andme

1181
01:18:10,056 --> 01:18:14,696
where they would get you know 20 of the united states is genetic data or things of this nature

1182
01:18:14,696 --> 01:18:21,716
i mean data privacy is i think uh to piggyback on your point here about the bsa i think data

1183
01:18:21,716 --> 01:18:26,656
privacy is actually the next frontier for us right like if you can kind of fast forward a little bit

1184
01:18:26,656 --> 01:18:31,636
suspend belief and say like, you know, we're going to win on a long enough time horizon with Bitcoin,

1185
01:18:31,876 --> 01:18:37,076
right? Which I deeply and truly believe, right? Like this isn't really a question of if, it's a

1186
01:18:37,076 --> 01:18:42,076
question of when, right? And the sooner that we pull that future forward and, you know, kind of

1187
01:18:42,076 --> 01:18:48,996
bring the positive, some, you know, flywheel spinning in all of our lives, the better. But

1188
01:18:48,996 --> 01:18:54,476
yeah, taking it like the next step further, like data privacy is going to become the most important

1189
01:18:54,476 --> 01:18:59,516
thing in the world, in my opinion, in the next decade, because we are all going to be subject to

1190
01:18:59,516 --> 01:19:05,716
hundreds of thousands of adversarial AI driven attacks, trying to pilfer our data wherever it

1191
01:19:05,716 --> 01:19:13,316
exists for, again, pretty much the duration of the rest of our lives. And so, you know, I don't,

1192
01:19:13,316 --> 01:19:19,396
I think it's crazy to trust anyone other than yourself to have enough motivation to secure your

1193
01:19:19,396 --> 01:19:25,316
own data right and and have that level of privacy and interaction between two willing participants

1194
01:19:25,316 --> 01:19:31,076
in a private market yeah and just from like a defensive or systems posturing like why would

1195
01:19:31,076 --> 01:19:36,076
you want to centralize all this data like create defense and security of your distribution like

1196
01:19:36,076 --> 01:19:43,676
why aggregate everything in central locations and allow people to to self-secure to secure their own

1197
01:19:43,676 --> 01:19:50,996
data, their own money. And yeah, individuals may get picked off individually on a one-to-one basis,

1198
01:19:50,996 --> 01:19:56,096
but that doesn't put everybody who's engaging in a particular service in harm's way.

1199
01:19:56,596 --> 01:20:03,696
Right. Yeah. And I think that that is, again, it's a sort of design paradigm that the current,

1200
01:20:03,696 --> 01:20:08,696
you know, kind of controllers of the world don't understand.

1201
01:20:08,976 --> 01:20:11,876
The dystopian hellscape that we live in. Because that's another thing. I mean,

1202
01:20:11,876 --> 01:20:13,636
And I'll probably, I'm going to record with Steve Lin.

1203
01:20:14,356 --> 01:20:16,716
It's funny, behind the scenes, the one question we're always asking each other,

1204
01:20:16,776 --> 01:20:18,616
we walk up to each other and say, who's going to run the mints?

1205
01:20:18,716 --> 01:20:20,436
It's like, we shouldn't have to ask who's going to run the mints.

1206
01:20:20,516 --> 01:20:25,936
We should be able to run the mints and offer privacy-preserving money

1207
01:20:25,936 --> 01:20:27,956
to anybody we want to.

1208
01:20:28,196 --> 01:20:30,356
Not anybody we want to, but we should be able to experiment

1209
01:20:30,356 --> 01:20:35,836
with new wave, cypherpunk, cutting-edge banking technology

1210
01:20:35,836 --> 01:20:38,996
without having to worry about getting thrown in a cage.

1211
01:20:39,396 --> 01:20:39,936
Yeah, of course.

1212
01:20:39,936 --> 01:20:42,496
We either believe in free markets or we don't.

1213
01:20:44,816 --> 01:20:46,996
There's another thing that I've been talking about

1214
01:20:46,996 --> 01:20:48,856
while I've been doing this Save Our Wallet stuff,

1215
01:20:48,976 --> 01:20:50,736
which is called Blackstone's Principle,

1216
01:20:51,376 --> 01:20:57,136
which is a very core piece of Western legal canon,

1217
01:20:57,896 --> 01:21:00,556
which is that we should prefer,

1218
01:21:00,676 --> 01:21:14,072
and our system is built on the idea that we should prefer that 10 guilty men go free than that one innocent man be you know wrongly convicted and caught up in and punished for the actions of those 10

1219
01:21:14,212 --> 01:21:20,212
you know, bad men. And again, that's just kind of like crazy. If you think about how inverted

1220
01:21:20,212 --> 01:21:25,252
the world is today, relative to the fact that that like, those are the principles that we've

1221
01:21:25,252 --> 01:21:30,392
built our entire society. I think it's becoming a popular meme. I'm very happy it is like in many

1222
01:21:30,392 --> 01:21:34,152
aspects of our life but particularly this one you're catering to the lowest common denominator

1223
01:21:34,152 --> 01:21:41,092
of criminal scumbags you're basically nerfing the world and making the user experience of

1224
01:21:41,092 --> 01:21:45,832
many things in life terrible because you're worried about the bad guy like you can't nerf

1225
01:21:45,832 --> 01:21:52,912
the world um as joe rogan famously said uh many years ago but it's true you can't you can try to

1226
01:21:52,912 --> 01:21:57,912
but criminals are always going to criminal yeah yeah exactly if you i mean this is the good old

1227
01:21:57,912 --> 01:22:04,212
argument about guns, right? If you take guns away from, you know, normal people, then the only people

1228
01:22:04,212 --> 01:22:09,632
with guns will be criminals, right? And I know that that's probably a controversial take in some

1229
01:22:09,632 --> 01:22:12,992
parts of the country, but... Hey, and if you're listening, you're saying that's a controversial

1230
01:22:12,992 --> 01:22:17,432
take. I recorded an episode with Dr. John Lott two weeks ago. Go find it. We go through the data.

1231
01:22:17,552 --> 01:22:22,632
It's not controversial. It's backed by data. Like if you take it away from law-abiding citizens,

1232
01:22:22,632 --> 01:22:26,612
it actually gets worse for them, right? And everybody else. Well, and again, back to the

1233
01:22:26,612 --> 01:22:30,872
show me the incentives, I'll show you the outcome, right? I mean, these are pretty simple loops if

1234
01:22:30,872 --> 01:22:34,812
you actually are capable of taking a step back and deconstructing them and thinking about them,

1235
01:22:34,852 --> 01:22:39,512
right? So back to your point about the BSA, I just want to like quickly before we migrate too far

1236
01:22:39,512 --> 01:22:45,112
away from that, I want to say like, you're not alone in thinking that the BSA needs to be overturned

1237
01:22:45,112 --> 01:22:50,572
or repealed or that we need some fundamental modification to that. I think in fact that

1238
01:22:50,572 --> 01:22:56,112
the one serious legal challenge that was brought against the BSA in kind of its contemporary moment

1239
01:22:56,112 --> 01:22:59,032
after it emerged in the 70s.

1240
01:23:00,912 --> 01:23:05,212
The BSA was upheld, I think, on a 5-4 vote by the Supreme Court.

1241
01:23:05,832 --> 01:23:09,772
And they had some very choice words about the danger

1242
01:23:09,772 --> 01:23:12,712
that we were entering into with something like the BSA.

1243
01:23:12,712 --> 01:23:16,852
But at that time, the limit for suspicious activity reporting

1244
01:23:16,852 --> 01:23:21,412
was like $10,000, which in the 70s was an incredible amount of money.

1245
01:23:21,512 --> 01:23:23,812
I mean, we're talking about like $100,000, maybe $150,000

1246
01:23:23,812 --> 01:23:26,452
or something like that in like modern dollars.

1247
01:23:26,612 --> 01:23:27,852
And from what I understand correctly,

1248
01:23:27,932 --> 01:23:31,452
the history of the BSA was particularly focused on the mafia, right?

1249
01:23:31,492 --> 01:23:33,052
There was a lot of mafia problems going on.

1250
01:23:33,072 --> 01:23:33,512
Yeah, correct.

1251
01:23:33,652 --> 01:23:34,832
That's, yeah, back in the 70s,

1252
01:23:34,852 --> 01:23:37,272
we didn't have, you know, the global war on terror.

1253
01:23:37,512 --> 01:23:40,152
So yeah, that was the presumptive reason that, you know,

1254
01:23:40,172 --> 01:23:41,232
it was created back then.

1255
01:23:41,232 --> 01:23:43,612
And even then it was controversial, right?

1256
01:23:43,772 --> 01:23:46,752
So, you know, again, I think that this is a situation

1257
01:23:46,752 --> 01:23:51,592
where, you know, our generation is being called to,

1258
01:23:51,592 --> 01:23:56,692
I think greatness, right? Like I would like to think that we are going to achieve this greatness

1259
01:23:56,692 --> 01:24:01,552
and that we are going to overcome these existential battles that are facing us because

1260
01:24:01,552 --> 01:24:09,652
we've just been hardened and sharpened in a very unique set of circumstances that have led us to

1261
01:24:09,652 --> 01:24:16,472
this unique historical moment. And, you know, as I said before, I, you know, for me, it was just

1262
01:24:16,472 --> 01:24:22,592
kind of this realization of like, if not me, who, if not now, when, right? Like, what am I waiting

1263
01:24:22,592 --> 01:24:29,112
for? No, no one is coming to save me if I'm not willing to get in the arena and, you know, have the

1264
01:24:29,112 --> 01:24:35,312
fight myself. Um, and I just kind of woke up and realized like, man, there've got to be thousands,

1265
01:24:35,492 --> 01:24:39,812
tens of thousands. I don't know how many there are of other people like me who have been around

1266
01:24:39,812 --> 01:24:45,352
and thinking like, how could I contribute? Like I'd love, I'd love to contribute. Um, and yeah,

1267
01:24:45,352 --> 01:24:51,032
for me this was just you know the stakes have just gotten so high now that i feel like you know

1268
01:24:51,032 --> 01:24:55,852
standing on the sidelines was just a an inconceivable notion like we need we need all of our

1269
01:24:55,852 --> 01:25:02,772
champions in the arena right now we need everyone who can pick up a sword uh and fight for the future

1270
01:25:02,772 --> 01:25:10,792
that we want and i have every uh belief and every like every fiber of my being knows that we will

1271
01:25:10,792 --> 01:25:16,812
prevail if people just pick up the sword they you know do their duty they serve their country

1272
01:25:16,812 --> 01:25:21,432
which in this case i'm going to say both is you know the united states uh and a return to our

1273
01:25:21,432 --> 01:25:27,372
original founding values and i would say bitcoin network as the instantiate the instantiation in

1274
01:25:27,372 --> 01:25:33,932
code of american principles uh i think you know now is the time for patriots to stand up and fight

1275
01:25:33,932 --> 01:25:40,312
i'm looking the camera because i know you're out there you dm me you email me you you find ways to

1276
01:25:40,312 --> 01:25:45,032
contact me to tell me that you listen to the show, you read the newsletter, and you've been

1277
01:25:45,032 --> 01:25:51,292
thinking these things, but not able to express them. Here's your chance. Get out there. Go to

1278
01:25:51,292 --> 01:25:57,192
saveourwallets.org. Put in your zip code. Figure out who your senator is. Call them and stand up

1279
01:25:57,192 --> 01:26:02,752
for this. Thank you for standing up for this, Kyle. This was an incredible way to hop off the

1280
01:26:02,752 --> 01:26:08,052
plane to the studio and start my few-day trip here in San Francisco. Well, it's such a pleasure.

1281
01:26:08,052 --> 01:26:09,412
Thank you for having me, Marty.

1282
01:26:09,972 --> 01:26:12,752
And yeah, I mean, again, it's funny, right?

1283
01:26:12,812 --> 01:26:15,552
Because I've been following you for so long

1284
01:26:15,552 --> 01:26:17,252
and I knew about all your content.

1285
01:26:17,432 --> 01:26:21,032
I was kind of a lurker or an anon in the community for a long time.

1286
01:26:21,152 --> 01:26:24,752
But look at this conversation that we were able to have

1287
01:26:24,752 --> 01:26:26,892
and kind of the energy that we were able to spark,

1288
01:26:27,032 --> 01:26:29,412
I think, for one another in just a very short time.

1289
01:26:29,632 --> 01:26:32,872
So I would encourage everybody out there, get involved.

1290
01:26:33,192 --> 01:26:34,232
Just get involved somehow.

1291
01:26:34,592 --> 01:26:35,492
Go to your local meetups.

1292
01:26:35,492 --> 01:26:37,732
Find where other Bitcoiners live.

1293
01:26:38,052 --> 01:26:39,512
Like, get engaged in this fight.

1294
01:26:39,732 --> 01:26:42,612
Like, this is an important thing and we should fight for this.

1295
01:26:42,812 --> 01:26:42,912
Yeah.

1296
01:26:43,132 --> 01:26:46,032
At the very least, you'll get a more well-rounded understanding

1297
01:26:46,032 --> 01:26:47,792
of how the state is attacking Bitcoin

1298
01:26:47,792 --> 01:26:52,672
or would like to cattle herd Bitcoiners

1299
01:26:52,672 --> 01:26:59,772
and the network into a very nerfed form,

1300
01:27:00,092 --> 01:27:01,112
which I don't think we want.

1301
01:27:01,112 --> 01:27:05,652
And getting engaged, I think, having done it myself

1302
01:27:05,652 --> 01:27:06,772
in the last couple of years,

1303
01:27:06,772 --> 01:27:11,332
I think you would be surprised the upside I certainly was with how responsive some people are.

1304
01:27:11,752 --> 01:27:16,332
And to your point, how willing to learn people on the Hill are about this.

1305
01:27:16,532 --> 01:27:20,392
And there are many individuals on the Hill that actually do care about this.

1306
01:27:20,552 --> 01:27:23,012
And you just got to let them know, here's the signal.

1307
01:27:23,212 --> 01:27:24,092
Here's what we care about.

1308
01:27:24,232 --> 01:27:31,352
Here's how do, I know you're not an expert on this staffer or senator, but I've been immersed in this for many years.

1309
01:27:31,472 --> 01:27:32,172
Here's how it works.

1310
01:27:32,192 --> 01:27:33,972
And here's how it should work moving forward.

1311
01:27:34,332 --> 01:27:34,492
Yeah.

1312
01:27:34,592 --> 01:27:35,532
I respond well to that.

1313
01:27:35,532 --> 01:27:36,652
Yeah, it's super well.

1314
01:27:36,772 --> 01:27:40,932
you know and it actually has been revitalizing for me and my belief about the government as well

1315
01:27:40,932 --> 01:27:45,092
to be honest like being on the other side of the table and and having those conversations like i've

1316
01:27:45,092 --> 01:27:51,012
actually walked away surprised at how willing to engage these members of congress are and the fact

1317
01:27:51,012 --> 01:27:54,772
that they're they're just really busy they're stretched so thin they're juggling so many

1318
01:27:54,772 --> 01:27:59,412
problems they don't have time to be an expert on this if you are an expert you can save them an

1319
01:27:59,412 --> 01:28:05,732
enormous amount of time and energy as long as you can be articulate and thoughtful yes so don't

1320
01:28:05,732 --> 01:28:06,552
scream at people.

1321
01:28:06,732 --> 01:28:06,912
No.

1322
01:28:07,452 --> 01:28:08,832
But, you know, be professional,

1323
01:28:09,452 --> 01:28:11,452
you know, and erudite

1324
01:28:11,452 --> 01:28:13,592
and make good cases.

1325
01:28:13,732 --> 01:28:14,332
Make a good argument.

1326
01:28:14,472 --> 01:28:14,892
Be polite.

1327
01:28:15,172 --> 01:28:15,552
Be polite.

1328
01:28:15,692 --> 01:28:16,152
Yes, ma'am.

1329
01:28:16,192 --> 01:28:16,592
Yes, sir.

1330
01:28:16,672 --> 01:28:17,112
Thank you.

1331
01:28:17,212 --> 01:28:18,912
Please appreciate your time.

1332
01:28:19,292 --> 01:28:20,172
Yeah, absolutely.

1333
01:28:20,172 --> 01:28:22,072
I know on this show,

1334
01:28:22,152 --> 01:28:23,952
I can get a little bombastic,

1335
01:28:24,172 --> 01:28:26,192
but for you guys

1336
01:28:26,192 --> 01:28:28,132
and when I call my senator

1337
01:28:28,132 --> 01:28:29,092
and representatives,

1338
01:28:29,212 --> 01:28:31,432
I will be very polite.

1339
01:28:32,032 --> 01:28:33,292
Kyle, thank you, sir.

1340
01:28:33,312 --> 01:28:33,812
This was a pleasure.

1341
01:28:34,272 --> 01:28:34,572
Absolutely.

1342
01:28:34,852 --> 01:28:35,432
Great to see you, Marty.

1343
01:28:35,732 --> 01:28:36,452
Peace and love, freaks.

1344
01:28:36,932 --> 01:28:39,092
Thank you for listening to this episode of TFTC.

1345
01:28:39,572 --> 01:28:43,132
If you've made it this far, I imagine you got some value out of the episode.

1346
01:28:43,552 --> 01:28:47,512
If so, please share it far and wide with your friends and family.

1347
01:28:47,592 --> 01:28:48,972
We're looking to get the word out there.

1348
01:28:49,772 --> 01:28:53,772
Also, wherever you're listening, whether that's YouTube, Apple, Spotify,

1349
01:28:54,552 --> 01:28:57,072
make sure you like and subscribe to the show.

1350
01:28:57,072 --> 01:29:01,792
And if you can leave a rating on the podcasting platforms, that goes a long way.

1351
01:29:01,792 --> 01:29:09,872
Last but not least, if you want to get these episodes a day early and ad-free, make sure you download the Fountain podcasting app.

1352
01:29:10,372 --> 01:29:12,632
You can go to fountain.fm to find that.

1353
01:29:13,172 --> 01:29:17,132
$5 a month, get you every episode a day early, ad-free.

1354
01:29:17,932 --> 01:29:20,232
Helps the show, gives you incredible value.

1355
01:29:21,172 --> 01:29:24,432
So please consider subscribing via Fountain as well.

1356
01:29:25,012 --> 01:29:27,312
Thank you for your time, and until next time.

1357
01:29:27,952 --> 01:29:28,132
Okay.

1358
01:29:31,792 --> 01:30:01,772
Thank you.