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Hello, everybody. My name is Daniel Prince, and I'm the host of the Once Bitten podcast.

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This is a podcast focused on Bitcoin. It's my mission to interview as many people as I can

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around the different aspects of Bitcoin and help people understand exactly what Bitcoin could mean

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for them and for their families and for their future. I hope you enjoy the show. Thank you so

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much for listening. Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of the Once Bitten podcast.

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Apologies once more because the audio in this little segment just of my intro and my outro

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is going to be slightly less of a slightly less quality to the actual body of the interview just

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because I'm away from my recording equipment at the moment. This one is with Daniel

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If you're not familiar with Daniel's work, don't worry, you're about to get up to speed.

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We go into all of the details as to how he found Bitcoin.

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More importantly, how the Bitcoiners found him, because that's a truly interesting story.

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There's a reason that the Bitcoiners were attracted to Daniel, Daniel's work, and he just came out of nowhere.

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And it's tied to the climate change narrative.

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and Daniel's take on that as a businessman in that space and an investor.

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So yeah, I hope you enjoy it and I hope you reach out to Daniel after this

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and it inspires you and not only actually inspire you

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to start talking about Bitcoin and the environment in a positive way,

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but it's going to give you the tools to do that

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and it's going to give you real life examples of what is going on

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and how businesses are being built around mitigating waste

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in either whether it be landfills or oil and gas, drilling operations and fields.

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Yeah, you're going to be up to speed.

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So thank you for coming on, Daniel.

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Before we get into this one, please make sure you are checking out the show sponsors.

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The first thing I want to say first and foremost is please self-custody your Bitcoin.

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yes you should be stacking and you can stack with bitcoin uh with with companies that are

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bitcoin only relay for example across europe r-e-l-a-i dot ch forward slash bitten you can

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check out swan bitcoin if you are in the u.s these links are in the show notes but i want to drill

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down on the importance of self-custody and not getting trapped into leaving your funds on an

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exchange not taking complete ownership of them or giving your bitcoin up maybe you've held bitcoin

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for a long time now and you're thinking i just want to chase some yield or i just need to get

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some fiat giving it up to one of these long products or yield chasing products this is a bad

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idea just sit on your hands as long as you can do not trade your bitcoin do not swap it for fiat

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to buy Bitcoin treasury company stocks.

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Just sit with Bitcoin in cold storage.

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Use it.

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Use it via the Lightning Network.

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Use it to pay for things when you can

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and support those businesses that are coming online

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and asking for the support of the Bitcoin community.

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Now, Fountain App is one of those.

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If you're listening to this podcast right now on Apple or Spotify,

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what are you doing?

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If not you, then who?

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We need to help the builders.

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And Fountain have been around a long time now,

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providing services for Bitcoiners built by Bitcoiners.

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So get over to Fountain app and start listening to the show there.

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But please self-custody your Bitcoin.

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Now, there's plenty of different wallets out there at this stage,

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but long-standing show sponsor have been the Bitbox team.

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They've been around for a very long time.

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They know what they're doing when it comes to security.

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They've built the Bitbox O2 and the Bitbox Nova,

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which are Bitcoin-only hardware wallets.

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And you can go and get yourself a 5% discount

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if you just get to the link in the show notes,

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bitbox.swiss forward slash bitten.

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They also have steel plates on there.

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If you don't want a steel plate,

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we have the C-door guys have given you a discount as well,

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or the crypto steel guys.

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There's a lot of links in the show notes

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that I don't shill all the time

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because I don't have the time,

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but because these companies do want to offer you discounts, it's all there.

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Go and check them out.

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Get to a conference.

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We just had the one in Bulgaria.

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We've now got the one coming up next.

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BitFest in Manchester, 21st to the 23rd of November.

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At the same kind of time, if you're over in Asia,

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get yourself 23rd of November over to Tokyo for BTC Japan.

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You can use the code BITTON for a discount at checkout for both of those conferences.

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paywithflash.com

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have you gone over to paywithflash.com

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and checked out how easy it is now

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for you to start accepting bitcoin

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for your goods and services

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if not why not go and check it out

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and orange pill app

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is the place for you to go

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and start meeting your local bitcoiners

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getting out to events

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getting over to the conferences

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or just meeting your nearest bitcoiner

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for a coffee

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use it when you're out traveling

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find the local places that are accepting Bitcoin.

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There's 19,000 members there now, so come and join us.

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Yeah, we're looking forward to hosting you over on Orange Pill app

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and getting to know everybody.

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And finally, quick shout out for Basalto Fund.

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Go back and listen to my episode with Andre Olojar

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if you are interested in flag theory second passports.

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Now, sit back and relax.

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Enjoy this one with Daniel Batten.

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All right, we've got Daniel Batten on the show.

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After many years, Daniel, nice to have you.

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Great to be here.

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All right, Lauren, I told you before we come on this call what Daniel does,

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how he writes about Bitcoin and the environment.

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And we did a little experiment here.

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So just tell Daniel what you Googled in your browser there.

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So I Googled is Bitcoin bad for the environment.

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and it has come up with many many articles about saying like the large environmental

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consequences of bitcoin mining and that that what that is by the london school of economics

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must be true yeah and that was 8th of november 2024 thank you yep right okay what else do we have

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line.

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UN.

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Yep.

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Diversity.

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Study reveals the hidden environmental impacts of Bitcoin.

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Yeah.

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October 2023.

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And then there's the Harvard.

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Yeah.

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Bitcoin mining increases levels of air pollution harmful to,

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I actually don't know what that says again.

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Harmful to the environment.

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Yeah.

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Yep.

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Wow.

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Then.

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When was that released?

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24.

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2025.

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April 2025 from Harvard.

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So Britannica, is Bitcoin bad for the environment?

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Crypto and ESG investing.

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What else do we have here?

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David at Top hits.

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And then it just goes on and on and on.

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It's also tiresome.

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Yeah, that's what we have to contend with.

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So Lauren, what's your question?

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So this might be a bit of a silly question,

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but is Bitcoin bad for the environment?

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In a word, no, not at all. If you were to look at the photovoltaic industry, for the first 57 years, it had a tremendous carbon footprint. In other words, it was creating vastly more emissions than it was evading.

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And the reason for that was that it required these big coal furnaces to melt silicon to 1,414 degrees.

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And the efficiency of solar panels was such that it was nowhere near efficient enough to offset those very high emissions.

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And there were actually debates in the environmental movement as late as the 1990s about whether solar technology was good for the environment or not.

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That was 40 years after it was created.

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So these debates raged.

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But it's the wrong question. The right question is, does it have the potential to be net emission reducing?

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Can it reach that point fast?

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And if you look at it through that lens, the same lens that you would have judged solar by,

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Bitcoin is actually trending extremely well.

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Emissions are, there's a lot of emission negative sources every year.

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The emissions are static over four years, despite rising hash rate, that's computational power.

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and also despite price going up about eight times over that period,

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there's no other industry in the world which, as it's scaled,

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has managed to keep emissions the same.

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And what those articles don't say is that there's the vast bulk

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of scientific literature, in fact, there's about five

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in the last two and a half years that have been negative.

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They're the ones that get picked up by the press.

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But there's been 22 that have not been picked up by the press

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that have showed very strong environmental positive externalities,

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such as mitigating methane, stabilizing the grid, accelerating the renewable energy transition, obviating gas pica plants, heat recycling.

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Heat is one of the biggest sources of carbon emissions in the world, and recycled heat from Bitcoin and mining rigs can abate that.

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So those are the stories that you don't hear so much.

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There's a truism in the media, which is that negative events, shock, tends to sell headlines much better.

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So in case in point, there were in 2018, that's when all the reporting on Bitcoin is bad for the environment really started in earnest.

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And it was based on one article.

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There were 400 papers, 400 articles the very next year, just citing that one bit of research, which has now been debunked, by the way.

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then later on cambridge this is just this year published a report which which didn't appear

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in your search engine the reason it didn't appear is again it didn't get picked up by the media

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which showed that bitcoin is now 52 percent sustainable energy backed only 8.9 percent of

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it is backed by coal so that's that's a quarter of what the grid is there's not an industry in the

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world, which is predominantly sustainably powered, a global industry. So Bitcoin's the only one and

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it's getting more sustainably powered every year. They also found that Bitcoin had a tremendously

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important role in terms of stabilizing the grid and also in accelerating the renewable energy

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transition. Crickets in the media. One media outlet picked it up. So 400 picked up a non-peer

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reviewed commentary back in 2018 that had a negative claimed effect of Bitcoin mining,

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which has now been debunked. One news outlet picked up the positive story. So what you're

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seeing in those results is reflective of what gets reported, not what the scientific community

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actually believe Okay we get into all of that in a second I just want to make sure Lauren do you have any further questions about Bitcoin mining and its impact on the environment

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Why do you think this thing is bad for the environment if it's not?

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Well, the first thing is that negative stories tend to sell much better, right?

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So that's what gets reported.

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So that's true of anything. It's not unique to Bitcoin.

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Second thing is that if you look through history, if you look at how any disruptive technology, and by disruptive I mean something that will disrupt another industry.

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So Bitcoin disrupts central banks. It disrupts the banking system.

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But it's not the first disruptive technology we've ever had.

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Radio, for example, disrupted live entertainment, disrupted print media, disrupted the record industry.

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Bicycles before that disrupted public transit, disrupted the horse and buggy industry, disrupted

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the riding apparel industry.

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And you can see exactly the same trends in the media, where if you read some of the articles

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on the radio or on the bicycle, a bicycle was said to be responsible for insanity.

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It was held by physicians that it made women cruel.

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Radio was blamed for snowstorms, for jailbreaks, for poor behavior in public, for declining

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educational standards.

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So it's a very strong trend and it's not unique to Bitcoin.

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So you will always see, whenever you have a disruptive technology, you'll always have

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that'll be attacked, at least for the first 10 or 15 years.

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So Bitcoin is part of that tradition.

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But the other reason is that people just don't have good energy literacy.

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And so most people believe that more energy consumption is bad and less energy consumption is good.

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But it's not as straightforward as that.

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It's a little bit like in the 1990s and 80s.

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You probably remember this, Daniel.

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We were all told eat less fat because it'll give you cholesterol.

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Everyone believed that.

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Doctors would tell you that.

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And then they realized, actually, well, it's not as simple as that, actually.

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It depends on the type of fat.

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If you eat trans fats, then, yeah, that's really bad.

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That'll give you not only high cholesterol, but a whole lot of other things, including cardiovascular disease.

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If you're eating saturated fats, they're kind of a little bit bad, a little bit good, depending on the concentration of what you're having.

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But they're a bit of a mix.

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But if you're having unsaturated fats, such as salmon or avocado, for example, those are net cholesterol reducing.

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So it's very similar with energy.

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Not all energy consumption is bad.

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Not all energy consumption will contribute to emissions.

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In fact, some energy consumption reduces emissions.

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If you use landfill gas, for example, as your source of energy, you're taking pollution and you're turning it into energy.

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In other words, you're taking something that would have gone into the atmosphere in the form of methane, which is 84 times more warming than carbon dioxide, and you're stopping it from going to the atmosphere.

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You're putting it into a generator, turning it into electricity, using that for Bitcoin mining.

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that energy is doing environmental good.

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It's literally stopping emissions going into the atmosphere.

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If you're using solar or wind or hydro,

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which most Bitcoin is using some form of sustainable energy,

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that's going to have no direct impact on emissions.

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And in fact, it's net supportive of the energy transition

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because you're net supportive of moving away from fossil fuels.

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So part of the problem is, yeah, we don't have good energy literacy.

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We were probably all brought up, as we should have been, by our parents saying, turn off the light, turn off the stove when you're not using it, conserve electricity, which is true on a household level.

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Absolutely, you should conserve electricity.

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Don't be wasteful with it.

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But the nuance is that not all forms of electricity consumption are necessarily bad.

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And with Bitcoin, not only can it reduce emissions, but some of that electricity consumption, because it's flexible, has a lot of really useful uses, such as stabilizing grids, which we can get into a bit later on.

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Yeah. So one quick example that I think you could probably leave Lauren with, I think it'd probably make quite a big impression.

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we've seen i mean how many times have you seen the the windmills uh around either france or

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england or spain wherever we go right there's always a windmill farm somewhere and sometimes

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you know the wind's blowing but they're not moving right so do you want to ask daniel what's going on

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there like why why is that yeah well i think i was gonna say he's got the question i'm not sure

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Yeah, why are the winds blowing? Are the windmills not moving? Why are they not producing electricity? Or why is that electricity not being used? It's a great question. We live in a wired world when it comes to electricity. Now, when it comes to communication, we live in a wireless world. Whereabouts are you today?

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In the UK.

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You're in the UK?

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I'm in Costa Rica.

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So we don't need a wire connecting us.

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This communication is happening wirelessly.

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If I pick up my phone and call someone, there's no wires attached to it.

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I communicate wirelessly.

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That's not the case with energy.

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I can't say to you, hey, I've got a gift for you.

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I want to give you 500 kilowatt hours of energy.

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I'm going to send it to you.

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I can't do that.

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I need wires to transmit it.

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And so for a long time, a lot of these renewable energy projects, they were given money by the government to just build a renewable energy project.

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And so if you get a lot of money from the government and you're told, hey, go build a wind farm, where do you think you're going to build it?

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Where would you say?

255
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I would say the sea or near the end of the sea.

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Yeah, and why would you, a lot of them are,

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why would you build it there?

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Because a lot of wind comes off from the sea.

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Absolutely.

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Do you think you'd build it right near a city?

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I wouldn't say so.

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One, because it's going to be ugly,

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and two, I don't know, it's just not much wind.

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Depends how inland the city is.

265
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Land's going to be pretty expensive there too, isn't it,

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if it's near a city?

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So, yeah, you're absolutely right.

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You're going to go where it's obviously there's some wind or there's some sun, but it's solar.

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But you're also going to go where the land is cheap and you're also going to go where

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fewest people will complain.

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So that's typically where there's not many people, which is great if your goal is to

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build something which has energy.

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But here's the problem.

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There's not many people.

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So how do you get it to where the people are?

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And well, the answer is, well, you just hook it up to the grid and the grid will deliver

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that electricity.

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Yes, it will to a point, but a grid's a little bit like a highway.

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Now, it doesn't have literal lanes which get congested, but it does have wires that get congested.

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It can only transmit so much electricity.

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So if you have a really windy day or maybe three days or four days in the north of Scotland,

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where in the UK you've got a lot of wind energy and it gets pretty windy sometimes, you get gale force wind.

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That's fantastic.

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But you cannot transport that wind through the existing wires to people who are using it.

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It gets congested in the same way that a highway gets congested.

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So what happens to it?

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Well, nothing.

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It just gets wasted.

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So you get tremendous amounts of wasted energy around the world.

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And part of the reason for that is that governments never incentivize the use of electricity, the use of renewable electricity.

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They subsidized the building of these wind farms and solar farms.

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So the incentive was on to build it, not to have it used.

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So people built them where land was cheap, where there was wind, but often not with consideration

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about how much would get wasted.

295
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And they didn't have to, because here's the other wonderful thing.

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The government will pay them to what's called curtail that energy.

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So in other words, if the grid can't take that energy, you as a wind farm operator actually

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get paid for the wind that the grid operator cannot use. So you win both ways. You win because

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you get a subsidy, and then you win again because even if you can't use that electricity, you still

300
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get paid for it. But who picks up the burden? Well, it's the person who's paying the taxes

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through the tremendous subsidies. And then again, the second time where there's more money paid to

302
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use that electricity. And then the third time, which is you have to fire up often a fossil fuel

303
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station to deliver that power, which also costs money. So there's waste throughout the entire

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system. So wind farms and solar farms are great. We need more of them. That's not the issue. The

305
00:20:45,392 --> 00:20:49,932
issue has been how we've built them, where we've built them, how we've incentivized them.

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And so now you have the situation, we have tremendous wasted energy. And so what do people

307
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say? They say, well, we just need more batteries. Okay, so we need batteries, so we can store that

308
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energy. Well, that's a great idea. The problem is that batteries cost a lot of money. And so often

309
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the price you pay for those batteries is more than the energy you can store. But if you have a

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combination where you're not using it all to store, but you're using some of that for Bitcoin mining.

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So I'll give an example. So say you have a wind farm and it has 15 megawatts of energy. So that's

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enough to power about 15,000 households. So a small town. So pretty big wind farm. And like a

313
00:21:33,532 --> 00:21:37,432
lot of wind farms, you can't always transport all the power. Well, what are your choices? You could

314
00:21:37,432 --> 00:21:45,252
pay about $15 million for a whole bunch of batteries to store that power. Okay. Now that

315
00:21:45,252 --> 00:21:50,092
would have a problem because even if you have a big wind event, so maybe you have three days of

316
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really strong wind. Now, batteries have limited storage. They can only store about four hours

317
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worth. So once you pass that first four hours, a lot of that will still get wasted.

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If instead of spending 15 million on batteries, you say, well, we'll get 3 million in batteries,

319
00:22:10,072 --> 00:22:16,112
but we'll spend 2 million on Bitcoin mining. Number one, it's only going to cost you a third

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as much. But number two, if you have some really windy period for a long time, you're not wasting

321
00:22:21,232 --> 00:22:24,932
that energy. You can use it for Bitcoin mining. And now you've got choices. It's like, okay,

322
00:22:25,032 --> 00:22:30,372
do we use this energy for storing in batteries? Do we use it to mine Bitcoin? And then when you

323
00:22:30,372 --> 00:22:34,492
want to mine Bitcoin, you've got a choice. Do we use the grid power or do we use the stored energy

324
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from a battery? So you've just got a lot more options. And so it's cheaper, it's less wasteful,

325
00:22:41,092 --> 00:22:47,712
and you're going to end up as a renewable operator more profitable as well.

326
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And what do you do with that profit?

327
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You do what any good business owner will do.

328
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You pour that profit into growing your business,

329
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which means you put up more wind turbines.

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So now you've actually incentivized building out renewable energy

331
00:23:00,232 --> 00:23:03,432
because you had Bitcoin mining as part of the solution.

332
00:23:05,412 --> 00:23:09,732
And I noticed, I think it was one of your recent tweets or recent articles

333
00:23:09,732 --> 00:23:11,952
that you had some stats on the UK,

334
00:23:12,212 --> 00:23:16,812
how much money they missed in one day.

335
00:23:17,112 --> 00:23:17,892
Was that right?

336
00:23:18,672 --> 00:23:20,452
It's like 13 million rings a bell or something.

337
00:23:20,472 --> 00:23:33,244
Yeah 13 million pounds recently It not always quite that high We can actually check the site right now tell you what it got up to for the year It called wasted So we have a little look

338
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It's a really good site. Okay, what is it up to now? It's wastedwind.energy. So far in 2025,

339
00:23:45,384 --> 00:23:57,344
Britain has wasted £976,000,73,461 pounds.

340
00:23:57,464 --> 00:23:58,924
So that's almost a billion dollars.

341
00:23:59,144 --> 00:24:03,244
Switching off wind turbines and paying gas plants to switch on.

342
00:24:04,484 --> 00:24:05,004
There we go.

343
00:24:05,424 --> 00:24:06,604
So it's fairly large.

344
00:24:06,664 --> 00:24:10,904
Almost a billion dollars this year has been wasted in energy.

345
00:24:11,804 --> 00:24:12,704
Yeah, total cost.

346
00:24:13,184 --> 00:24:26,264
Now, as I say, batteries and Bitcoin can't solve all of that because the fundamental issue is that, well, they were built in the wrong place with the wrong incentives and you would need to upgrade the grid infrastructure to take it so you could use it all.

347
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But that's just going to be prohibitively expensive.

348
00:24:29,784 --> 00:24:32,424
So the next best option is combination of batteries and Bitcoin.

349
00:24:32,424 --> 00:24:37,884
So that can't stop all that money because you've still got to pay the fossil fuel plants to come online when you can't use the wind.

350
00:24:38,244 --> 00:24:41,344
But it could take away about a third of that cost, which is still significant.

351
00:24:41,344 --> 00:24:45,124
And it means that that wind energy is no longer getting wasted.

352
00:24:46,424 --> 00:24:50,444
And you have no idea on the upside if it's mining Bitcoin.

353
00:24:51,524 --> 00:24:52,264
Yeah, exactly.

354
00:24:52,484 --> 00:24:55,004
And it also means that it's going to be saving taxpayers money.

355
00:24:55,144 --> 00:24:58,024
It's going to be bringing the cost of energy down because the government doesn't have to pay.

356
00:24:58,104 --> 00:25:02,804
The grid operator doesn't have to pay money to the renewable operators to switch off that energy.

357
00:25:03,564 --> 00:25:05,764
But I think another important thing is it's going to stop.

358
00:25:05,984 --> 00:25:10,584
There's a lot of backlash against a lot of these projects at the moment because people are starting to say,

359
00:25:10,584 --> 00:25:15,184
hey, why are we subsidizing all these projects that aren't delivering energy to people?

360
00:25:15,964 --> 00:25:16,404
Number one.

361
00:25:16,484 --> 00:25:21,264
And number two, why are we paying all this money for them not to be delivering energy?

362
00:25:22,624 --> 00:25:25,004
And people are rightly asking questions.

363
00:25:25,284 --> 00:25:29,024
And unfortunately, what's happening now is there's been a bit of a backlash against renewable

364
00:25:29,024 --> 00:25:29,864
energy generally.

365
00:25:29,984 --> 00:25:33,184
As I say, renewable energy isn't the problem, but how we've deployed it has been.

366
00:25:33,604 --> 00:25:39,784
But if we're able to better use renewable energy and we take that circumstance where

367
00:25:39,784 --> 00:25:43,364
a lot of it is getting wasted and it's not wasted because we're using it to mine Bitcoin,

368
00:25:44,244 --> 00:25:46,984
then you actually prevent a lot of that backlash as well.

369
00:25:47,124 --> 00:25:50,504
So there's a lot of really good reasons to start doing it.

370
00:25:51,404 --> 00:25:51,844
Right.

371
00:25:52,164 --> 00:25:52,604
Okay.

372
00:25:52,964 --> 00:25:53,804
Any further questions?

373
00:25:54,124 --> 00:25:54,424
No.

374
00:25:54,524 --> 00:25:54,684
No?

375
00:25:54,844 --> 00:25:55,344
All right.

376
00:25:55,464 --> 00:25:55,684
Cool.

377
00:25:56,244 --> 00:25:56,744
Was that useful?

378
00:25:56,924 --> 00:25:57,864
Did that make sense?

379
00:25:58,104 --> 00:25:59,484
Did I do a good job explaining it?

380
00:25:59,704 --> 00:26:05,484
Yeah, it's a bit complicated to get in my head, but I think I do understand most of it.

381
00:26:05,844 --> 00:26:07,064
You have some good questions.

382
00:26:07,484 --> 00:26:07,944
Thank you.

383
00:26:08,044 --> 00:26:08,984
Thank you so much.

384
00:26:08,984 --> 00:26:09,404
All right.

385
00:26:09,404 --> 00:26:10,124
Thank you so much.

386
00:26:10,524 --> 00:26:11,224
Have a good day.

387
00:26:11,464 --> 00:26:11,824
Bye-bye.

388
00:26:11,844 --> 00:26:12,544
Thank you.

389
00:26:14,184 --> 00:26:17,504
Yeah, there's plenty more to get into, actually, Daniel.

390
00:26:17,804 --> 00:26:23,044
But I'd like to take it back to kind of like your personal journey

391
00:26:23,044 --> 00:26:24,624
and your personal story into Bitcoin.

392
00:26:24,744 --> 00:26:29,424
For those people that aren't exactly aware of where you came from,

393
00:26:29,504 --> 00:26:32,524
how you first come to look at Bitcoin

394
00:26:32,524 --> 00:26:35,624
and how it kind of started shaping your thoughts.

395
00:26:35,824 --> 00:26:38,364
So do you want to take us back to what you were doing

396
00:26:38,364 --> 00:26:41,224
in the fiat world, in New Zealand?

397
00:26:41,664 --> 00:26:42,864
Where were you in New Zealand?

398
00:26:43,304 --> 00:26:44,564
I was in New Zealand in Auckland.

399
00:26:44,564 --> 00:26:49,844
And I'd run a technology company

400
00:26:49,844 --> 00:26:53,524
and then I'd started investing in other technology companies.

401
00:26:53,884 --> 00:26:56,004
So I'd been through that whole phase of running a startup,

402
00:26:56,404 --> 00:27:00,444
which had an exit, investing in other technology companies,

403
00:27:01,224 --> 00:27:03,024
coaching other technology company founders,

404
00:27:03,524 --> 00:27:08,084
and then formed two different investment funds.

405
00:27:08,084 --> 00:27:13,784
And I thought, well, let's make them impact investment funds so I can invest in technologies that I think the world needs more of.

406
00:27:13,904 --> 00:27:16,584
So things which had environmental or social benefits.

407
00:27:17,004 --> 00:27:20,644
And so we invested in a few companies which were called climate tech companies.

408
00:27:20,644 --> 00:27:25,484
So we had to learn a lot about how you measure the impact of climate tech.

409
00:27:25,624 --> 00:27:30,944
So one company was taking the zinc recycling process and making it carbon neutral.

410
00:27:31,144 --> 00:27:33,204
It's traditionally very carbon intensive.

411
00:27:33,344 --> 00:27:35,184
You use big coal furnaces to smelt zinc.

412
00:27:35,184 --> 00:27:42,664
and another company we invested in was turning the global greenhouse industry so these are the

413
00:27:42,664 --> 00:27:48,004
big industrial scale greenhouses like the ones you have in holland which grow tomatoes for example

414
00:27:48,004 --> 00:27:54,964
which use a lot of gas and replacing that with a carbon neutral source so using biomass to burn

415
00:27:54,964 --> 00:28:00,104
so it's part of the natural carbon cycle so we invested in those companies and then i asked a

416
00:28:00,104 --> 00:28:05,144
dangerous question, which was how much impact are we having? And the honest answer was, well,

417
00:28:05,164 --> 00:28:10,524
not nearly as much as we would like to think we did. And there was a few reasons for that. Number

418
00:28:10,524 --> 00:28:15,684
one, we're investing in high-risk technologies. So technologies, when you're investing in startups,

419
00:28:16,464 --> 00:28:23,704
the traditional metric is about one out of five might succeed. That's if you're lucky as a fund.

420
00:28:24,524 --> 00:28:27,724
Actually, it's not to do with luck, but that's another whole conversation.

421
00:28:27,724 --> 00:28:35,224
but most will not see the light of day as technologies statistically second issue is

422
00:28:35,224 --> 00:28:40,944
even the ones that would would take a long time because these processes like how you scale up

423
00:28:40,944 --> 00:28:47,764
something which is a new way to smelt zinc and recycle it it goes through a number of phases and

424
00:28:47,764 --> 00:28:54,184
it takes about a decade to go from the lab right through to industrial scale so you're talking about

425
00:28:54,184 --> 00:29:01,244
like early 2030s. And the third thing is we were only reducing CO2 emissions and we learned

426
00:29:01,244 --> 00:29:06,444
that methane emissions are, according to the United Nations, even more urgent. And we were

427
00:29:06,444 --> 00:29:12,684
doing nothing. So we said, OK, what if we started to look at methane? What if we looked at technologies

428
00:29:12,684 --> 00:29:17,524
which already exist so they're not high risk about whether they succeed? And what if we do something

429
00:29:17,524 --> 00:29:23,804
that has an impact before 2030 or 2035? Made a whole lot of sense. The only problem was

430
00:29:23,804 --> 00:29:28,304
that was taking me away from venture capital into the world of infrastructure finance,

431
00:29:28,404 --> 00:29:32,084
which I didn't know a lot about. In fact, I knew nothing about. So I thought, okay, well,

432
00:29:32,104 --> 00:29:35,224
I'm going to go into this area if I'm serious about it. We need to have a team. So then the

433
00:29:35,224 --> 00:29:40,304
process of getting a team together started. I started to research what are the best ways to

434
00:29:40,304 --> 00:29:47,204
mitigate methane. We found that there are three big sources. Farms is one, oil and gas is another,

435
00:29:47,204 --> 00:29:53,904
and waste, particularly landfills is the third. And it's often thought to be a distant third,

436
00:29:54,024 --> 00:30:00,624
but we found that some recent studies of actual satellite emissions, satellite readings from

437
00:30:00,624 --> 00:30:06,604
landfills showed that it was about twice what anyone had thought. So it was almost as large

438
00:30:06,604 --> 00:30:12,924
as each of agricultural oil and gas. It was a massive source. And I asked the question, well,

439
00:30:12,924 --> 00:30:15,504
why aren't we doing something about it? And there was a whole bunch of reasons.

440
00:30:15,504 --> 00:30:17,704
landfills are never in the right place.

441
00:30:17,804 --> 00:30:21,144
So that same issue of transporting energy applies.

442
00:30:22,184 --> 00:30:26,784
So transitioning it into natural gas is really expensive,

443
00:30:26,904 --> 00:30:28,724
involves a lot of energy, a lot of purification.

444
00:30:28,904 --> 00:30:30,524
You've got to compress it, purify it.

445
00:30:31,384 --> 00:30:34,444
Very strong environmental permitting, often not economical.

446
00:30:35,004 --> 00:30:36,844
Sometimes it is, but you need a really big landfill.

447
00:30:37,824 --> 00:30:41,724
What generally is a better idea is you turn that landfall gas,

448
00:30:41,724 --> 00:30:50,324
You purify it, and it becomes methane, a combination of methane and carbon dioxide, and you send that into a generator and turn that into electricity.

449
00:30:51,624 --> 00:30:53,504
And this has been done a lot throughout the world.

450
00:30:54,164 --> 00:31:07,944
But again, it's only been done where the landfill was either near the grid or where the grid could handle that power without a big substation upgrade and where the government permitted the sale of energy.

451
00:31:07,944 --> 00:31:09,064
I live in Costa Rica now.

452
00:31:09,064 --> 00:31:17,924
the government doesn't let you sell electricity to the grid same in mexico it's almost impossible

453
00:31:17,924 --> 00:31:23,324
so what do you do for those sites well the answer is for the most part well if it's in europe you'll

454
00:31:23,324 --> 00:31:28,504
just flare it which means it just gets wasted okay it destroys 90 percent of the methane 91

455
00:31:28,504 --> 00:31:35,064
so that's most of the problem kind of dealt with but very wastefully but in the rest of the world

456
00:31:35,064 --> 00:31:39,024
which doesn't have the money for flare stacks that have no business case for them,

457
00:31:39,104 --> 00:31:40,824
and there's no government incentives or regulations,

458
00:31:41,144 --> 00:31:42,784
the answer is it just goes into the air.

459
00:31:43,324 --> 00:31:44,584
So that's what's happening in Africa.

460
00:31:44,724 --> 00:31:48,164
That's what's happening in India, in Pakistan, Southeast Asia,

461
00:31:49,044 --> 00:31:50,224
in most of Latin America.

462
00:31:50,344 --> 00:31:52,364
So in other words, most of the landfills in the world,

463
00:31:52,964 --> 00:31:54,624
the landfill gas just goes into the air.

464
00:31:56,484 --> 00:31:58,544
And in vast quantities.

465
00:31:59,064 --> 00:32:03,344
And it's not just 84 times more warming to the planet than carbon dioxide.

466
00:32:03,344 --> 00:32:09,864
methane is also responsible for a million premature deaths every year because it's

467
00:32:10,464 --> 00:32:16,544
it's a toxin which you will know if you've ever been next to a gas stove which has been unlit it's

468
00:32:16,544 --> 00:32:22,204
not something you want going into the atmosphere it's something you want to use as fuel so i looked

469
00:32:22,204 --> 00:32:27,764
into different sources for what we could do with that and was asking the question well who could

470
00:32:27,764 --> 00:32:32,864
use that power well they'd have to actually be located on the landfill and who could that possibly

471
00:32:32,864 --> 00:32:38,104
be. And pretty soon we realized no one in their right minds, for the most part, would want to set

472
00:32:38,104 --> 00:32:41,964
up a business on a landfill. You're not going to set up a hospital there or a retail storefront on

473
00:32:41,964 --> 00:32:46,344
a landfill. We thought, what about edge data centers? We looked into them. It was like, nah,

474
00:32:46,344 --> 00:32:54,404
even them, not really, because whilst they don't need the same, have the same latency requirements as

475
00:32:54,404 --> 00:33:02,284
some of the other data centers, they still, there wasn't enough incentive, like cost money to

476
00:33:02,284 --> 00:33:07,564
do the projects to, you've got to buy generators, you've got to buy pipes, you've got to buy

477
00:33:07,564 --> 00:33:12,964
purification equipment. And it really wasn't worth their while because only about 30% of their

478
00:33:12,964 --> 00:33:19,604
budget tops was electricity. And then we thought, okay, what about someone suggested Bitcoin mining?

479
00:33:20,904 --> 00:33:27,564
And I looked at that and I realized that 80% of their operational costs were electricity.

480
00:33:28,424 --> 00:33:32,244
And suddenly this light bulb went off and I went, hang on, that changes the equation completely.

481
00:33:32,284 --> 00:33:38,644
and ran some spreadsheets, did some calculations and realized this actually makes a lot of sense

482
00:33:38,644 --> 00:33:42,484
to Bitcoin mining companies because, yes, whilst they've got the added cost of the generator and

483
00:33:42,484 --> 00:33:49,264
the gas purification, the payoff is they get electricity at one cent per kilowatt hour rather

484
00:33:49,264 --> 00:33:54,484
than four cents per kilowatt hour. So that's worth their while. Now you've actually got,

485
00:33:54,484 --> 00:33:59,624
for the first time ever, a business which is economically incentivized to set up on a landfill

486
00:33:59,624 --> 00:34:04,404
in the middle of nowhere, pay that extra capital cost because it's worth it to get that cheap

487
00:34:04,404 --> 00:34:08,504
power because cheap power is everything as a Bitcoin mining company.

488
00:34:09,604 --> 00:34:12,704
So it's not because Bitcoin mining companies are particularly environmentally minded.

489
00:34:13,204 --> 00:34:15,144
They're not environmentally minded.

490
00:34:15,244 --> 00:34:16,584
They're just the same as any other business.

491
00:34:16,704 --> 00:34:19,224
They want to source electricity cheaply.

492
00:34:19,304 --> 00:34:24,024
It just so happens that because of these unique quirks of Bitcoin mining, it makes sense to

493
00:34:24,024 --> 00:34:27,644
them to set up on these out of the way places.

494
00:34:27,644 --> 00:34:31,104
It could be a solar farm or a wind farm taking stranded wasted energy.

495
00:34:31,264 --> 00:34:38,383
But in our case, we were particularly interested in landfills because it's solving that chronic methane emission issue.

496
00:34:40,344 --> 00:34:44,924
So where were the landfills that you were looking?

497
00:34:45,244 --> 00:34:47,244
Actually, more of a basic question.

498
00:34:47,584 --> 00:34:48,584
How big are these things?

499
00:34:48,584 --> 00:34:50,424
How do you even create a landfill?

500
00:34:51,404 --> 00:34:53,344
How deep is that hole?

501
00:34:53,704 --> 00:34:55,264
How vast of an area?

502
00:34:55,264 --> 00:35:15,456
Obviously I know it going to be different wherever you are but the ones that you been working with I mean for a dummy like me you get a bunch of diggers in or an old quarry or something and that the site And you just tip all the city waste But there must be more regulations and it got to be But what are we dealing with here

503
00:35:15,555 --> 00:35:16,356
What is exactly the land?

504
00:35:16,356 --> 00:35:17,735
Well, it depends what part of the world you're in.

505
00:35:18,315 --> 00:35:20,635
If you're in a lot of the world, that's exactly what you do.

506
00:35:21,035 --> 00:35:22,916
You just clear a site, you dump it all,

507
00:35:22,916 --> 00:35:26,115
and it leaches into the groundwater and into the soil

508
00:35:26,115 --> 00:35:28,155
and all sorts of horrible things.

509
00:35:28,416 --> 00:35:28,815
That's wild.

510
00:35:29,436 --> 00:35:31,155
In the West, that doesn't happen anymore.

511
00:35:31,155 --> 00:35:47,215
So in Europe, in the States, in South Africa, in Australia and New Zealand, you have since the 1970s, you've had these modern sanitary landfills where they have to be lined so you don't get leakage into the soil.

512
00:35:48,315 --> 00:35:49,416
So they're very well contained.

513
00:35:49,916 --> 00:35:50,215
Lined?

514
00:35:50,495 --> 00:35:52,535
How on earth do they line these things?

515
00:35:52,815 --> 00:35:53,115
Wow.

516
00:35:53,115 --> 00:35:59,356
yeah just just material which is going to withstand uh you know vast amounts of

517
00:35:59,356 --> 00:36:04,896
leachate which is the waste which gets created from landfills so they line the entire area so

518
00:36:04,896 --> 00:36:09,856
they cannot leach into the groundwater into the soil uh and then a modern landfill rather than

519
00:36:09,856 --> 00:36:16,416
being a sprawling mass which goes a long way like football fields they'll be relatively more compact

520
00:36:16,416 --> 00:36:20,095
in terms of the area but they'll be much deeper so they dig much deeper holes they might go

521
00:36:20,095 --> 00:36:24,436
So it depends, 30 meters, even 60 meters in some cases, deep in the earth.

522
00:36:25,635 --> 00:36:29,396
And so for the local environment, they're a lot better than the old tips.

523
00:36:29,615 --> 00:36:31,035
And everyone's like, this is progress.

524
00:36:31,095 --> 00:36:31,555
We're winning.

525
00:36:31,675 --> 00:36:32,396
We're doing well.

526
00:36:33,055 --> 00:36:34,896
And it doesn't take up so much land mass.

527
00:36:34,995 --> 00:36:36,055
It's a smaller land footprint.

528
00:36:36,215 --> 00:36:37,436
You get better compacting.

529
00:36:37,755 --> 00:36:41,155
But here's a problem that no one realized back in the 1970s at the time.

530
00:36:41,495 --> 00:36:46,956
Because it's so well compacted, you get rotting of organic waste without air.

531
00:36:47,515 --> 00:36:51,595
And when you get stuff that rots without air, you don't get carbon dioxide, you get methane.

532
00:36:52,315 --> 00:37:09,055
And so what we'd actually created in tidying up the local environment, we'd introduced a massive problem for the global environment, which was huge spikes in methane emissions coming from landfills compared to what we'd done in the past, which still would get some methane, but not quite as much.

533
00:37:09,535 --> 00:37:12,896
So we've actually worsened the methane emissions problem.

534
00:37:13,896 --> 00:37:15,896
And these landfills are typically located.

535
00:37:15,896 --> 00:37:24,615
You have these transfer stations where your garbage will get delivered to one of them and then they go from there into the landfill and most people never set foot on them in their life.

536
00:37:24,696 --> 00:37:28,795
It's just some big mystery, a little bit like you flick a switch, electricity comes on.

537
00:37:28,856 --> 00:37:34,975
It's like you put some waste in the garbage and someone picks it up and then it's out of mind, out of sight.

538
00:37:37,775 --> 00:37:39,896
I'm trying to find some information on...

539
00:37:39,896 --> 00:37:44,555
I've never really, I always could picture in my mind

540
00:37:44,555 --> 00:37:45,856
what a landfill might look like.

541
00:37:45,916 --> 00:37:48,815
But the fact you just said they might be 30 to 60 metres deep

542
00:37:48,815 --> 00:37:50,055
and they've got to line it.

543
00:37:50,275 --> 00:37:52,436
It's like the biggest, deepest swimming pool.

544
00:37:53,815 --> 00:37:54,876
Swimming pool of trash.

545
00:37:55,376 --> 00:37:55,515
Yeah.

546
00:37:55,936 --> 00:37:56,175
Yeah.

547
00:37:57,936 --> 00:38:00,055
That can't be cheap in the first place.

548
00:38:00,555 --> 00:38:02,295
No, they're incredibly expensive.

549
00:38:02,936 --> 00:38:03,495
If you look at the...

550
00:38:03,495 --> 00:38:04,376
Who pays for that?

551
00:38:04,936 --> 00:38:05,715
Well, you do.

552
00:38:06,555 --> 00:38:08,456
Comes out of your rates.

553
00:38:08,456 --> 00:38:16,035
because that's what i was expecting you to say yeah of course it does wow do you have any idea

554
00:38:16,035 --> 00:38:21,795
on the cost that to to build a landfill because obviously if the government's paying there's going

555
00:38:21,795 --> 00:38:27,275
to be an incredible amount of slippage it's hundreds of millions absolutely and it's not

556
00:38:27,275 --> 00:38:31,635
even that it's it's the building of it is only part of the issue then you've got the maintenance

557
00:38:31,635 --> 00:38:37,515
of it you've got all the the garbage trucks which are going around almost 24 7 collecting trash

558
00:38:37,515 --> 00:38:44,735
if you look at your local government bill where their money goes waste management will

559
00:38:44,735 --> 00:38:48,956
always be one of the biggest single line items and typically it'll be in the billions

560
00:38:48,956 --> 00:38:56,495
for a reasonably sized city that's in the west so billions of dollars has been spent on the

561
00:38:56,495 --> 00:39:01,615
building of them of the maintaining of them then the closing of them and then of course you've got

562
00:39:01,615 --> 00:39:07,655
the permitting of them, then of course you've, and in the meantime, you're creating this massive

563
00:39:07,655 --> 00:39:14,975
issue for the environment at the same time. I can't imagine the shady deals that are going on

564
00:39:14,975 --> 00:39:21,275
as well in the council offices with the contractors to get the jobs.

565
00:39:22,575 --> 00:39:28,115
Yeah, that absolutely happens throughout the world. Yeah. And a lot of places in the world,

566
00:39:28,115 --> 00:39:33,515
they're actually run by either the mafia or some cartel because there's so much money in it yeah

567
00:39:33,515 --> 00:39:42,255
and they here's and they i mean do they care what happens to the trash did they like i mean

568
00:39:42,255 --> 00:39:47,715
obviously we can talk about unintended consequences like you mentioned in the 70s

569
00:39:47,715 --> 00:39:54,795
the unintended consequence was uh the methane uh well i think to be fair in europe the answer is

570
00:39:54,795 --> 00:39:59,376
yes. In some parts of the world, the answer is yes, because there have been, once the problem

571
00:39:59,376 --> 00:40:04,396
was recognized of methane, then it's like, hang on, we've got to do something about it. But again,

572
00:40:04,476 --> 00:40:10,416
the do something about it was, again, let's print more money, let's put more taxes onto people,

573
00:40:10,535 --> 00:40:17,436
let's create these, not how do we deal with this profitably, but how do we use government money in

574
00:40:17,436 --> 00:40:24,396
order to seemingly take this problem away so they would spend more money to destroy the problem by

575
00:40:24,396 --> 00:40:28,195
simply wasting it, which is burning it. So you put up these big flare stacks, which might cost

576
00:40:28,195 --> 00:40:34,976
a million dollars. So it's not too bad. You'll still get waste from it though, because they don't

577
00:40:34,976 --> 00:40:40,476
burn the whole time they go out. The latest study says they burn about 91% of the methane. So you

578
00:40:40,476 --> 00:40:45,856
still get a lot of residual waste as well from there. But it's a lot better than doing nothing,

579
00:40:45,856 --> 00:40:51,655
which is what happens in most of the world. So was that your first touch point then? Bitcoin

580
00:40:51,655 --> 00:40:54,175
mining as a solution to landfill.

581
00:40:54,476 --> 00:40:56,755
So that's your entrance to the rabbit hole.

582
00:40:57,035 --> 00:40:58,396
That was the entrance point.

583
00:40:58,976 --> 00:41:06,655
And then around the same time, Greenpeace USA launched a campaign about how terrible

584
00:41:06,655 --> 00:41:08,456
Bitcoin was supposedly for the environment.

585
00:41:09,095 --> 00:41:12,075
And of course, I've done some research on it.

586
00:41:12,515 --> 00:41:15,095
And we hadn't just done research on landfills.

587
00:41:15,275 --> 00:41:18,115
I'd also ask the question, well, where else could Bitcoin be used?

588
00:41:18,275 --> 00:41:20,396
Can it use stranded energy in other places?

589
00:41:20,396 --> 00:41:21,615
I knew a little bit about energy.

590
00:41:21,655 --> 00:41:24,936
I knew that solar and wind energy and hydro energy also gets wasted.

591
00:41:25,356 --> 00:41:26,275
And the answer was, yes, it could.

592
00:41:26,315 --> 00:41:27,416
It could absolutely use.

593
00:41:28,075 --> 00:41:33,175
In fact, it was what Troy Cross calls the dung beetle, where it's just really good at

594
00:41:33,175 --> 00:41:38,195
mopping up these little patches of energy that no one else can use, no one else wants,

595
00:41:38,396 --> 00:41:39,396
and it uses them.

596
00:41:40,275 --> 00:41:44,495
So a lot of this debate about Bitcoin uses a lot of energy, it's like, well, that's like

597
00:41:44,495 --> 00:41:46,055
saying ants eat a lot of food.

598
00:41:47,035 --> 00:41:48,175
It's like, yeah, they do.

599
00:41:48,396 --> 00:41:50,315
They eat all your crumbs, but were you going to eat them?

600
00:41:51,275 --> 00:41:52,936
Well, the answer is no, because they were too small.

601
00:41:53,055 --> 00:41:54,215
It was too inconvenient placed.

602
00:41:54,675 --> 00:41:58,775
And so in the same way, Bitcoin mining has been using all these pockets of energy that

603
00:41:58,775 --> 00:41:59,615
other people couldn't use.

604
00:41:59,675 --> 00:42:04,335
So I learned a lot about generally how it was just such a good dung beetle for stranded

605
00:42:04,335 --> 00:42:04,916
energy.

606
00:42:06,135 --> 00:42:10,535
And so then when Greenpeace USA launched their campaign and they said a lot of things that

607
00:42:10,535 --> 00:42:15,456
actually showed a lack of basic understanding of how energy worked and that Bitcoin mining

608
00:42:15,456 --> 00:42:18,275
and many times was not a rival for electricity,

609
00:42:19,416 --> 00:42:22,575
I said, hey, actually, you're saying some things that aren't quite true.

610
00:42:23,195 --> 00:42:27,615
And what happened then was I realized there was just this whole community

611
00:42:27,615 --> 00:42:31,936
of people in Bitcoin who I think had been really attacked

612
00:42:31,936 --> 00:42:35,755
and maligned for many years who just were like, thank you.

613
00:42:36,876 --> 00:42:39,815
Not to say, I mean, of course, there were other people saying the same thing,

614
00:42:39,815 --> 00:42:43,055
but really the uniqueness, I guess,

615
00:42:43,055 --> 00:42:46,275
was that I hadn't come to that conclusion as a Bitcoiner.

616
00:42:46,675 --> 00:42:49,575
I'd come to that conclusion as an environmentalist

617
00:42:49,575 --> 00:42:52,015
and as someone who was running a climate tech fund

618
00:42:52,015 --> 00:42:55,896
and who actually didn't know a lot about Bitcoin

619
00:42:55,896 --> 00:42:57,675
as an asset at that stage.

620
00:42:57,775 --> 00:42:59,315
I only knew about Bitcoin mining.

621
00:43:01,255 --> 00:43:02,995
And it's interesting because you find

622
00:43:02,995 --> 00:43:05,275
that there's a lot of people out there

623
00:43:05,275 --> 00:43:08,135
who are real proponents of the environmental benefits

624
00:43:08,135 --> 00:43:09,155
of Bitcoin mining,

625
00:43:09,255 --> 00:43:11,356
who actually don't know anything about Bitcoin

626
00:43:11,356 --> 00:43:12,595
or don't own Bitcoin.

627
00:43:13,055 --> 00:43:20,695
So Brad Jones, for example, who ran the ERCOT grid, didn't own Bitcoin, didn't know about Bitcoin.

628
00:43:21,015 --> 00:43:24,255
When someone suggested to him, said, I'm risk averse, I'm never going to touch it.

629
00:43:24,795 --> 00:43:30,295
But he said, but I love what Bitcoin mining can do for stabilizing the grid and incentivizing renewable energy.

630
00:43:31,575 --> 00:43:35,916
We've got a guy on our fund, his name is Nuno, doesn't own Bitcoin.

631
00:43:36,035 --> 00:43:37,575
He's a little bit curious about it.

632
00:43:37,575 --> 00:43:51,075
But he says, look, I just love the fact that now, for the first time, having been doing landfall gas to energy projects for 20 years and having seen firsthand all these landfills where you just couldn't do a project because you couldn't connect it to the grid.

633
00:43:51,175 --> 00:43:53,436
Now, suddenly, we solve that problem and he's excited.

634
00:43:53,436 --> 00:44:01,995
so i started to realize it had many many different applications as well as

635
00:44:01,995 --> 00:44:07,495
landfall gas as well and that got me writing more generally about how bitcoin mining is

636
00:44:07,495 --> 00:44:15,095
a net positive force for the environment not what we've been led to believe so what was the what was

637
00:44:15,095 --> 00:44:20,956
the first piece that you wrote that just kind of all of a sudden you're getting like the bitcoiners

638
00:44:20,956 --> 00:44:25,015
knocking at your door, putting their arm around you,

639
00:44:25,095 --> 00:44:27,436
thank you so much, we need more of this.

640
00:44:27,956 --> 00:44:28,995
And how did that feel?

641
00:44:30,456 --> 00:44:32,695
How it felt was just really surprising.

642
00:44:33,715 --> 00:44:37,095
The big piece was just after Greenpeace USA

643
00:44:37,095 --> 00:44:40,675
launched their campaign, changed the code in 2022.

644
00:44:41,335 --> 00:44:44,376
And I put out a tweet on Twitter, as it was then.

645
00:44:45,755 --> 00:44:47,995
It was the first ever tweet thread I'd written in my life.

646
00:44:47,995 --> 00:44:50,315
It was probably the first time I'd written anything

647
00:44:50,315 --> 00:44:52,376
and Twitter for about 10 years.

648
00:44:52,995 --> 00:44:55,396
I had a pretty stale, almost dead account.

649
00:44:56,055 --> 00:45:00,896
But I reached out to someone who was writing some things on it

650
00:45:00,896 --> 00:45:03,135
called Margot Paez, who was doing some great work.

651
00:45:03,195 --> 00:45:04,715
And I said, hey, you're doing some great work.

652
00:45:05,476 --> 00:45:07,655
I actually used to be a volunteer for Greenpeace,

653
00:45:07,835 --> 00:45:11,595
and I'm a little bit concerned about the tack they've taken.

654
00:45:12,155 --> 00:45:14,235
Can I quote some of the studies you've done?

655
00:45:14,275 --> 00:45:16,175
And I've got some other information as well.

656
00:45:16,376 --> 00:45:18,715
She said, very generously, she said, yeah, go for it.

657
00:45:18,715 --> 00:45:25,856
and so I put out a tweet about it tweet thread and just put it up there and must have gone and

658
00:45:25,856 --> 00:45:30,876
done something else come back half an hour later and then suddenly I had a hundred retweets and I

659
00:45:30,876 --> 00:45:35,075
was like that that had never happened in my life I thought I can't remember the last time I'd had

660
00:45:35,075 --> 00:45:41,995
any retweets um and then several hundred likes it was in New Zealand so I went to bed woke up the

661
00:45:41,995 --> 00:45:46,436
next morning by which stage the US had kind of got involved and then it had over a thousand

662
00:45:46,436 --> 00:45:49,295
or close to a thousand retweets.

663
00:45:49,476 --> 00:45:53,055
And suddenly I had about a thousand extra followers.

664
00:45:54,436 --> 00:45:55,775
And I was like, how did that happen?

665
00:45:55,856 --> 00:45:57,015
And just all these comments,

666
00:45:57,115 --> 00:45:58,615
the same thank you from the Bitcoin community.

667
00:45:58,715 --> 00:45:59,856
So it's just really surprising.

668
00:46:00,035 --> 00:46:01,215
I didn't do it for that reason.

669
00:46:01,215 --> 00:46:02,815
I did it just because I wanted to correct

670
00:46:02,815 --> 00:46:04,815
what I saw as some incorrect information.

671
00:46:05,755 --> 00:46:08,035
And then from there, people said,

672
00:46:08,235 --> 00:46:09,615
can I get you on my podcast?

673
00:46:10,456 --> 00:46:12,055
Can you write an article of this?

674
00:46:12,575 --> 00:46:14,515
Would you like to come and speak at this conference?

675
00:46:14,515 --> 00:46:21,416
and that kick-started me as well doing more research and putting out what I realized we

676
00:46:21,416 --> 00:46:25,135
didn't have a lot of at that point it's now being corrected was we didn't have a lot of data

677
00:46:25,135 --> 00:46:29,856
so we had a lot of people saying correctly that bitcoin mining can stabilize the grid

678
00:46:29,856 --> 00:46:33,675
incentivizes renewables but we didn't have a lot of data that had been quantified

679
00:46:33,675 --> 00:46:39,416
we didn't have data that told us how much of bitcoin came from sustainable energy sources so

680
00:46:39,416 --> 00:46:48,735
I started to compile that, publish that, and that also was greeted with a big thank you from the Bitcoin mining community and the Bitcoin community generally.

681
00:46:50,175 --> 00:46:52,376
And so it was a fascinating time.

682
00:46:52,447 --> 00:46:59,147
to be part of that history where you are seeing literally a lot of environmentalists and a lot of

683
00:46:59,147 --> 00:47:05,507
so-called energy experts saying negative things about Bitcoin and being challenged based on data

684
00:47:05,507 --> 00:47:12,647
and doing one of two things either in most cases they just stop writing but in some cases even

685
00:47:12,647 --> 00:47:21,267
changing their opinion. Then I'm assuming all of this leads to you looking at Bitcoin

686
00:47:21,267 --> 00:47:23,627
on the asset side of things.

687
00:47:23,787 --> 00:47:24,447
You can't not.

688
00:47:24,687 --> 00:47:25,367
You can't not.

689
00:47:25,847 --> 00:47:26,867
I'm glad to hear that.

690
00:47:27,727 --> 00:47:30,827
So once, and it was really about a year or so later

691
00:47:30,827 --> 00:47:34,567
and I was saying, what is this Bitcoin thing anyway?

692
00:47:34,747 --> 00:47:39,587
It was like that after a year of Bitcoin mining knowledge,

693
00:47:39,727 --> 00:47:42,587
I started to get interested and people were very generous

694
00:47:42,587 --> 00:47:46,367
and would explain from first principles what it was,

695
00:47:46,447 --> 00:47:48,247
how it worked, why it solved problems.

696
00:47:48,387 --> 00:47:49,527
I didn't get it to start with.

697
00:47:50,407 --> 00:47:53,747
For a long time, my impression was still it's a speculative asset.

698
00:47:54,287 --> 00:47:55,667
It doesn't seem to have any other uses.

699
00:47:55,767 --> 00:48:00,787
But then I realized just Alex Gladstein and his work really reshaped my thinking there

700
00:48:00,787 --> 00:48:04,507
when I was like, wow, I really was financially privileged.

701
00:48:04,607 --> 00:48:08,487
I assumed because I don't see any immediate use for it for me.

702
00:48:09,227 --> 00:48:11,627
I do now, but at the time I didn't.

703
00:48:11,767 --> 00:48:13,227
Therefore, it has no use for anyone.

704
00:48:13,227 --> 00:48:18,067
It was a complete surprise to find that unlike any other technologies I'd ever invested in,

705
00:48:18,067 --> 00:48:24,487
where the West enjoys first and then it's kind of given to Africa and Latin America afterwards

706
00:48:24,487 --> 00:48:26,667
after we've got our return on investment from it.

707
00:48:26,847 --> 00:48:27,587
This is the opposite.

708
00:48:27,767 --> 00:48:31,907
It was actually benefiting Latin America and Africa and Southeast Asia.

709
00:48:33,407 --> 00:48:39,567
Almost always, countries in those areas are adopting Bitcoin much faster than the West.

710
00:48:39,567 --> 00:48:46,087
US and the Netherlands is a bit of an anomaly, but most of the West hasn't adopted Bitcoin that fast,

711
00:48:46,087 --> 00:49:05,887
But you've got like 20%, 30% adoption rates in places like Argentina or Nigeria because it solves these fundamental problems of hyperinflating currencies that erode your family's wealth or not having access to banking services at all or not being able to receive remittance payments.

712
00:49:05,887 --> 00:49:15,227
So then the social utility of Bitcoin really started to get me excited and thinking, wow, this is just as amazing as the environmental benefits.

713
00:49:16,087 --> 00:49:23,327
And then from there, I started to research more about what is sound money and what fundamental problems is it.

714
00:49:23,427 --> 00:49:25,787
But it took me a long time to get to that point.

715
00:49:25,907 --> 00:49:28,647
It wasn't my first foray into Bitcoin.

716
00:49:29,587 --> 00:49:30,007
I get it.

717
00:49:30,227 --> 00:49:30,887
It took a while.

718
00:49:31,807 --> 00:49:32,287
Yeah.

719
00:49:32,847 --> 00:49:34,147
It all takes us a little.

720
00:49:34,787 --> 00:49:35,007
Yeah.

721
00:49:35,247 --> 00:49:36,687
I mean, we all have the same story.

722
00:49:36,987 --> 00:49:40,647
You know, you have several touch points and then why didn't I buy it straight away?

723
00:49:40,807 --> 00:49:41,787
But yeah, whatever.

724
00:49:42,247 --> 00:49:43,047
Here we are today.

725
00:49:43,347 --> 00:49:44,167
Still so early.

726
00:49:44,647 --> 00:49:45,527
Nice segue.

727
00:49:46,087 --> 00:49:48,507
because you mentioned Gladstein and his work.

728
00:49:48,567 --> 00:49:50,287
And I wanted to talk about one of the articles

729
00:49:50,287 --> 00:49:52,427
that you've released recently about the IMF.

730
00:49:53,147 --> 00:49:56,427
And more fun, it looks like you were on stage

731
00:49:56,427 --> 00:49:57,487
with John Perkins.

732
00:49:58,267 --> 00:49:58,447
Yeah.

733
00:49:59,827 --> 00:50:02,187
Now, his book is incredible.

734
00:50:02,327 --> 00:50:04,427
If nobody's read it, I think he's released

735
00:50:04,427 --> 00:50:05,947
three or four iterations of it now.

736
00:50:06,547 --> 00:50:09,027
Confessions of an Economic Hitman or New Confessions

737
00:50:09,027 --> 00:50:10,587
or Updated Confessions.

738
00:50:11,307 --> 00:50:13,787
But his backstory is incredible as, you know,

739
00:50:13,787 --> 00:50:18,367
what being an economic hitman working within that industry and, you know,

740
00:50:19,367 --> 00:50:22,307
forcing countries basically into debt.

741
00:50:22,827 --> 00:50:25,647
So the IMF can come in,

742
00:50:25,807 --> 00:50:31,467
give them a loan and then put them into perpetual debt rather than the nice

743
00:50:31,467 --> 00:50:34,967
cozy story that we've been told about how, you know,

744
00:50:35,027 --> 00:50:39,027
the IMF and the World Bank were created to help the developing nations.

745
00:50:39,567 --> 00:50:42,787
Anybody that works in these places, I just can't,

746
00:50:42,787 --> 00:50:50,227
when when they realize what they've been part of what they've been used for what their skills

747
00:50:50,227 --> 00:50:56,567
and knowledge have been you know put towards i can't i can't imagine the darkness they're

748
00:50:56,567 --> 00:51:04,987
going to have to face because what this institution is doing is crazy but you've written an article

749
00:51:04,987 --> 00:51:11,967
do you want to uh talk us through that article like the links you make between imf and the loans

750
00:51:11,967 --> 00:51:17,067
and the GDP and the Bitcoin adoption or lack thereof.

751
00:51:18,167 --> 00:51:21,087
Yeah, it was fascinating meeting John Perkins

752
00:51:21,087 --> 00:51:23,607
and chatting to him and hearing his stories firsthand.

753
00:51:24,647 --> 00:51:27,007
And for those of you who aren't aware,

754
00:51:27,087 --> 00:51:29,847
so John Perkins basically went around selling the idea

755
00:51:29,847 --> 00:51:33,007
of taking on debt to third world countries for a long time,

756
00:51:33,087 --> 00:51:34,447
believing he was doing something good.

757
00:51:34,507 --> 00:51:38,647
Because if you look at the data, there's undeniable links

758
00:51:38,647 --> 00:51:41,107
that if you take on loans and you use it for infrastructure,

759
00:51:41,107 --> 00:51:48,087
deployments, then it raises your GDP, which is true. What those metrics don't tell you is that

760
00:51:48,087 --> 00:51:53,187
GDP is a really bad measure for a country's prosperity. So you can have a self-sufficient

761
00:51:53,187 --> 00:52:00,427
country, which is feeding its population really well, and then you take on some debt to build some

762
00:52:00,427 --> 00:52:09,047
highway, some airport, some dam, etc. And then what happens is that very fast, often,

763
00:52:09,047 --> 00:52:15,587
you have to change your economy to an export-driven economy in order to create the revenue to pay off

764
00:52:15,587 --> 00:52:20,147
your loan finance. So to do that, what happens? Well, you need to change what you're farming. You

765
00:52:20,147 --> 00:52:25,747
can't just farm for your population. You need to grow cash crops that you can export. So coffee,

766
00:52:26,567 --> 00:52:31,907
tobacco, cocoa, soybeans, et cetera, not stuff that your local people are going to be eating.

767
00:52:32,767 --> 00:52:36,687
Okay. So a lot of your arable land is now going into producing that. And you've got to produce it

768
00:52:36,687 --> 00:52:43,607
fast. So you then wheel in your pesticides, your herbicides, your chemical accelerants of growth,

769
00:52:44,007 --> 00:52:48,127
which has devastating impacts on the soil over the long term, but short term, it'll

770
00:52:48,127 --> 00:52:54,527
create an economic boon. And that'll help you to create the GDP. So it looks great on a chart.

771
00:52:55,587 --> 00:53:00,927
But the problem is that in the meantime, the economy is no longer self-sufficient. They've

772
00:53:00,927 --> 00:53:06,167
lost a lot of sovereignty. They've got into debt. For every dollar of aid, about $10 plus has gone

773
00:53:06,167 --> 00:53:10,247
into paying the West in some interest repayments.

774
00:53:10,987 --> 00:53:15,547
And then what will happen is if you default on your payment, then there will be all these

775
00:53:15,547 --> 00:53:15,987
clauses.

776
00:53:16,247 --> 00:53:20,607
So just like if you default on your bank mortgage, the bank has the ability to sell your property

777
00:53:20,607 --> 00:53:22,927
to make good its loan.

778
00:53:23,587 --> 00:53:29,207
The IMF has the ability to take certain remedies if you don't meet your obligations.

779
00:53:29,707 --> 00:53:35,187
So they would include we're able to extract minerals cheaply, copper, cobalt, magnesium,

780
00:53:35,667 --> 00:53:38,207
things used to build devices, smartphones, etc.

781
00:53:38,727 --> 00:53:40,187
We're able to take oil cheaply.

782
00:53:40,567 --> 00:53:43,787
Maybe it's to get a US military base installed.

783
00:53:43,907 --> 00:53:46,667
Maybe it's to support some certain resolutions at the UN.

784
00:53:47,547 --> 00:53:50,687
And they can also make adjustments to the economy.

785
00:53:50,847 --> 00:53:52,587
They can dictate terms at this point,

786
00:53:52,647 --> 00:53:53,767
because remember, they're the lender.

787
00:53:53,887 --> 00:53:54,707
And once you're the lender,

788
00:53:55,187 --> 00:53:58,287
you have any number of remedies to make yourself whole again.

789
00:53:58,947 --> 00:54:02,227
So they could dictate that you've got to lower corporate tax rates.

790
00:54:03,207 --> 00:54:10,267
You've got to reduce worker conditions so that they can work unlimited amounts.

791
00:54:11,387 --> 00:54:16,827
Basic amenities and human rights, maybe child labor laws have got to be softened so that,

792
00:54:16,947 --> 00:54:18,607
again, you can maximize the production.

793
00:54:18,947 --> 00:54:23,647
So this has happened not just once, but if you look at where the World Bank and the IMF

794
00:54:23,647 --> 00:54:26,347
have worked in concert, it's just time after time after time.

795
00:54:27,207 --> 00:54:31,007
This pattern of indebtedness, what's called structural adjustments,

796
00:54:31,747 --> 00:54:35,227
and large amounts of money being extracted repeats itself.

797
00:54:36,107 --> 00:54:42,407
But it's a great business model because you get incredible geopolitical influence.

798
00:54:43,407 --> 00:54:45,607
A lot of the money doesn't even go to the country.

799
00:54:45,607 --> 00:54:51,267
It goes to the corporations who build the dams from overseas, right?

800
00:54:51,387 --> 00:54:54,407
The big infrastructure projects, the airports, the highways, et cetera.

801
00:54:56,347 --> 00:54:59,667
And of course, the amount of money that comes out is huge.

802
00:55:00,227 --> 00:55:02,287
So then something like Bitcoin comes in.

803
00:55:02,627 --> 00:55:04,407
And let's use Bhutan as an example.

804
00:55:04,887 --> 00:55:08,307
So Bhutan doesn't produce a lot of its own food.

805
00:55:08,427 --> 00:55:10,547
It's very dependent, but it has a lot of energy.

806
00:55:11,367 --> 00:55:15,487
And a lot of that energy would get wasted or get sold to India very cheaply.

807
00:55:15,547 --> 00:55:18,367
It comes from the glacial melt from the Himalayas.

808
00:55:18,427 --> 00:55:19,547
So a lot of hydro energy.

809
00:55:19,887 --> 00:55:21,267
So it was self-sufficient in energy.

810
00:55:22,147 --> 00:55:23,787
Also, a lot of its money came from tourism.

811
00:55:23,787 --> 00:55:38,727
Now, during COVID, they lost all that tourism industry money, and they were very close to their foreign exchange reserves dwindled, and they were very close to not being able to meet their ability to pay for imports.

812
00:55:39,847 --> 00:55:43,007
They had a World Bank loan, and typically the World Bank comes in first.

813
00:55:43,087 --> 00:55:45,507
If a country gets into strife, then the IMF comes in.

814
00:55:45,507 --> 00:55:56,987
And so they were a few months away from having to get an IMF bailout, which would have had all of those, the slippery slope that you have to go down when you go down the IMF path.

815
00:55:58,327 --> 00:55:59,527
But they didn't do that.

816
00:56:00,947 --> 00:56:08,647
Someone there had the idea to utilize the wasted energy from those hydro dams and to use it to mine Bitcoin.

817
00:56:08,827 --> 00:56:09,687
And they did that instead.

818
00:56:09,687 --> 00:56:23,614
And because of that they were able to generate Bitcoin which created a source of revenue from an electricity source which was otherwise just getting wasted or as I say very cheaply sold to a neighboring country

819
00:56:24,094 --> 00:56:29,634
So they started to become profitable and that started to raise their currency reserves.

820
00:56:30,334 --> 00:56:32,014
They didn't need an IMF loan.

821
00:56:33,194 --> 00:56:39,134
If we skip forward to today, now Bitcoin mining is 40% of their entire GDP.

822
00:56:39,134 --> 00:56:47,734
they have also used that to so it would have been even higher but they've spent some of it would

823
00:56:47,734 --> 00:56:53,154
have been about 50 but they've used a little bit saved most of it they've used some of it to

824
00:56:53,154 --> 00:56:59,234
rebuild their airport they also put up the salaries of the government workers by 50 can you

825
00:56:59,234 --> 00:57:03,274
imagine as a government worker in the uk coming in and saying hey we've been mining some bitcoin

826
00:57:03,274 --> 00:57:07,594
on the side and we got some extra money, so you're going to give you a pay rise by 50%.

827
00:57:08,234 --> 00:57:15,194
Never happens, right? Do not need an IMF loan. Stabilize their economy.

828
00:57:17,634 --> 00:57:23,734
It's freed them from losing sovereignty. It's allowed them to take better care of their public

829
00:57:23,734 --> 00:57:29,714
servants to refurbish their airport. And their economy is, that's only going to grow and increase

830
00:57:29,714 --> 00:57:34,774
into the future. So that's a lot of countries are now realizing there are now 10 nation states that

831
00:57:34,774 --> 00:57:38,974
are mining Bitcoin. So a lot of the strategic reserves around the world, we thought it would

832
00:57:38,974 --> 00:57:44,294
be through purchasing Bitcoin. That hasn't been the predominant method. The predominant method

833
00:57:44,294 --> 00:57:49,594
has been to mine Bitcoin as a nation state and to acquire Bitcoin that way, because that way you

834
00:57:49,594 --> 00:57:56,074
don't have what sometimes can be hard to sell to your population, which is that you're going to use

835
00:57:56,074 --> 00:58:01,274
government funds to purchase Bitcoin. In fact, that's exactly what Bhutan said. The government

836
00:58:01,274 --> 00:58:06,914
said, we could not have done that politically, but we can absolutely use stranded energy and mine

837
00:58:06,914 --> 00:58:13,494
Bitcoin and create it that way. Everyone's on board with that. So to the IMF, that's a big risk

838
00:58:13,494 --> 00:58:17,614
because suddenly the IMF lost a customer. They would have had Bhutan as a customer.

839
00:58:18,254 --> 00:58:24,094
Other countries that are starting to do it, like Pakistan, that are looking at Bitcoin. So who are

840
00:58:24,094 --> 00:58:43,734
So El Salvador, Argentina, Pakistan, Central African Republic, all either made Bitcoin legal tender or were looking at making Bitcoin legal tender and were looking at very Bitcoin friendly rules and mining Bitcoin at a nation state level.

841
00:58:43,994 --> 00:58:49,774
All four of them, IMF came in and said, we have some concerns.

842
00:58:49,774 --> 00:58:58,974
and they would cite volatility, economic destabilization.

843
00:59:00,694 --> 00:59:02,994
In other words, exactly the opposite of what happened to Bhutan

844
00:59:02,994 --> 00:59:04,794
is their concerns had nothing to do with that.

845
00:59:05,054 --> 00:59:08,714
If they were genuine concerns, Bhutan's economy would have been destabilized.

846
00:59:08,814 --> 00:59:09,514
The opposite occurred.

847
00:59:10,354 --> 00:59:16,614
The real concern is that suddenly you don't need the IMF anymore

848
00:59:16,614 --> 00:59:18,854
and they could lose their customer base.

849
00:59:18,854 --> 00:59:21,054
they could lose their geopolitical significance

850
00:59:21,054 --> 00:59:25,694
because now you have a rival which can help that nation

851
00:59:25,694 --> 00:59:28,194
to regain sovereignty or to keep sovereignty.

852
00:59:29,694 --> 00:59:31,114
So that's the concern.

853
00:59:34,554 --> 00:59:36,254
Always follow the money.

854
00:59:37,594 --> 00:59:38,194
Always.

855
00:59:38,894 --> 00:59:40,474
And you'll get to the root of the problem.

856
00:59:41,214 --> 00:59:45,594
And yeah, that book really does lift the lid on it.

857
00:59:45,594 --> 00:59:50,174
And so does Gladstein's article about the IMF and the World Bank.

858
00:59:50,314 --> 00:59:55,594
And so does your article now about the stats on Argentina.

859
00:59:56,334 --> 00:59:57,714
Blew my mind.

860
00:59:57,854 --> 00:59:59,074
Did you have them at hand?

861
00:59:59,074 --> 01:00:01,494
Can you rattle those off?

862
01:00:01,814 --> 01:00:04,134
Like the amount that they owe?

863
01:00:04,454 --> 01:00:09,834
They have the largest IMF loan of any nation in the world.

864
01:00:10,314 --> 01:00:11,554
It's 50 billion, I think.

865
01:00:11,894 --> 01:00:13,254
It's over 50 billion.

866
01:00:13,374 --> 01:00:14,774
I think it's 58 billion now.

867
01:00:14,774 --> 01:00:22,294
that is why argentina has not adopted bitcoin you remember all the campaign rhetoric don't you

868
01:00:22,294 --> 01:00:27,574
i mean safety dean's been writing about mule and what a scam he's turned out to be

869
01:00:27,574 --> 01:00:33,414
well the problem is that he was probably quite sincere he wanted to do all those things but

870
01:00:33,414 --> 01:00:36,614
someone from the imf behind the scenes would have tapped him on the shoulder and said

871
01:00:36,614 --> 01:00:42,234
we need to have a chat and this is where john perkins takes you like this is where it gets dark

872
01:00:42,234 --> 01:00:44,314
and this is where people start talking about,

873
01:00:44,434 --> 01:00:46,714
oh, it's just a conspiracy theory and whatever else.

874
01:00:46,874 --> 01:00:49,774
But he talks about how you go through three stages.

875
01:00:49,894 --> 01:00:51,034
He'd be like stage one,

876
01:00:51,454 --> 01:00:58,494
and then stage two would be like the CIA would make a visit

877
01:00:58,494 --> 01:01:03,214
and gently persuade the person in charge.

878
01:01:03,614 --> 01:01:04,534
Steady escalation, yeah.

879
01:01:05,074 --> 01:01:10,294
And again, steady escalation of encouragement, let's say.

880
01:01:10,294 --> 01:01:24,654
And then the jackals would be the final piece of the puzzle where if somebody just needed to be removed or accidented in a plane, then it's just so vile, all of it.

881
01:01:24,654 --> 01:01:46,954
Yeah. If you trace the history of what happened to every president of every African country who proposed an alternative to the Central African Franc, which is a vestige of French colonial financial imperialism, basically the currency gets printed in France and is controlled by France.

882
01:01:46,954 --> 01:01:56,834
and the 14 African nations have been trying to get off it for decades but somehow just

883
01:01:56,834 --> 01:02:03,734
coincidentally there'll be some coup or some unforeseen accident within months of this being

884
01:02:03,734 --> 01:02:09,234
proposed and it's happened time and time and time again because such is the power of monetary

885
01:02:09,234 --> 01:02:15,234
colonialism and this is the new force you don't need military anymore coming in it all looks great

886
01:02:15,234 --> 01:02:17,534
on the surface that all these nations are independent.

887
01:02:17,754 --> 01:02:21,774
But you're not independent if your currency is being printed overseas in France.

888
01:02:21,854 --> 01:02:27,914
And France can devalue that currency 40% overnight so that it can extract uranium more cheaply

889
01:02:27,914 --> 01:02:28,914
from your nation state.

890
01:02:29,434 --> 01:02:30,714
That's not economic independence.

891
01:02:31,234 --> 01:02:32,854
And it's not economic independence.

892
01:02:33,014 --> 01:02:38,034
If the moment you try to create economic sovereignty by creating your own currency, then there'll

893
01:02:38,034 --> 01:02:38,614
be some coup.

894
01:02:38,794 --> 01:02:40,714
That's not economic independence either.

895
01:02:41,354 --> 01:02:44,814
So for a lot of these nations, that's why the Central African Republic was so keen to

896
01:02:44,814 --> 01:02:49,294
get on Bitcoin because it represented a way out. They didn't have to go and try to create their own

897
01:02:49,294 --> 01:02:52,594
currency. There's already currency that exists. It's called Bitcoin. It's the best currency in

898
01:02:52,594 --> 01:02:57,594
the world. It's international. It's borderless. It's instantaneous. It's sound money. There's no

899
01:02:57,594 --> 01:03:04,274
middlemen. There's no remittance payments, fees. You don't need a bank. You don't need traditional

900
01:03:04,274 --> 01:03:08,474
banking rails. You don't even need a smartphone. You can do it on a $6 feature phone in Africa.

901
01:03:09,434 --> 01:03:10,514
Refugees are using it.

902
01:03:11,594 --> 01:03:14,154
So it's by far and away the superior money,

903
01:03:14,494 --> 01:03:19,034
but that's not in the interests of a whole bunch of people.

904
01:03:19,754 --> 01:03:21,894
And again, it's not conspiracy theory.

905
01:03:22,034 --> 01:03:24,734
I mean, this plays out every single time you have a disruptive technology.

906
01:03:26,634 --> 01:03:30,474
The disrupted will not stand idly by.

907
01:03:32,014 --> 01:03:35,654
When the automobile came in, the horse and buggy industry

908
01:03:35,654 --> 01:03:37,994
spend a lot of time and a lot of money

909
01:03:37,994 --> 01:03:41,234
trying to create misinformation about the automobile

910
01:03:41,234 --> 01:03:44,014
and to create regulations against it

911
01:03:44,014 --> 01:03:44,994
and the bicycle too.

912
01:03:46,614 --> 01:03:48,274
You probably remember the same

913
01:03:48,274 --> 01:03:50,174
with telecommunication companies with the internet

914
01:03:50,174 --> 01:03:51,894
trying to ban voice over IP.

915
01:03:53,634 --> 01:03:56,234
So regulatory levers, the media,

916
01:03:56,394 --> 01:03:57,774
whatever levers you have,

917
01:03:57,814 --> 01:03:59,654
you don't have the superior technology anymore,

918
01:03:59,654 --> 01:04:01,294
but you do have the superior reach,

919
01:04:01,394 --> 01:04:02,554
you have the superior network

920
01:04:02,554 --> 01:04:04,574
and you will use the tools at your disposal

921
01:04:04,574 --> 01:04:08,694
to maintain your position of incumbency for as long as you possibly can.

922
01:04:09,574 --> 01:04:12,414
And so that'll be the nation states which print their own currency,

923
01:04:12,614 --> 01:04:15,634
which is used in former colonial regions.

924
01:04:16,034 --> 01:04:17,574
That'll be the IMF and World Bank.

925
01:04:17,654 --> 01:04:18,634
That'll be central banks.

926
01:04:19,314 --> 01:04:22,074
And that'll be a lot of banks as well who...

927
01:04:22,074 --> 01:04:24,794
Now, of course, the banks that are smart, they'll embrace it and they'll do well.

928
01:04:25,754 --> 01:04:29,034
But there'll be a whole bunch who see it as something to attack

929
01:04:29,034 --> 01:04:31,114
because it threatens the existing business model.

930
01:04:31,214 --> 01:04:34,294
And rather than innovate the business model, they will attack the threat.

931
01:04:34,574 --> 01:04:38,614
and we can pretty much predict how that'll turn out.

932
01:04:39,194 --> 01:04:41,494
We'll have our Fujifilms, we'll have our Kodaks.

933
01:04:42,014 --> 01:04:44,374
Kodak doesn't exist anymore for all intents and purposes.

934
01:04:44,574 --> 01:04:47,554
Fujifilm actually evolved and does still exist.

935
01:04:48,114 --> 01:04:50,614
So people have the opportunity to innovate.

936
01:04:51,114 --> 01:04:53,514
It's not necessary that they'll become dinosaurs,

937
01:04:53,514 --> 01:04:58,394
but if they try to attack it, then good luck.

938
01:04:59,974 --> 01:05:02,874
Yeah, it's the SDR as well, right?

939
01:05:02,874 --> 01:05:08,174
the special drawing rights, which is basically the currency which the IMF invented.

940
01:05:08,414 --> 01:05:11,894
I didn't even realize it was a currency, but I think it's backed by five or six,

941
01:05:12,214 --> 01:05:13,534
maybe seven other currencies.

942
01:05:13,534 --> 01:05:17,974
And that's the kind of floating price of the average of those put together.

943
01:05:18,694 --> 01:05:20,794
That's what people are literally borrowing.

944
01:05:22,374 --> 01:05:29,834
And then, again, if you follow the money, if the central bank can print money at will

945
01:05:29,834 --> 01:05:36,934
and to the government, say the government of New Zealand says we need 100 billion Kiwi

946
01:05:36,934 --> 01:05:51,641
dollars to make this highway bridge this bridge to the North and South Island right You know the most retarded thing you could imagine but they will come up with something ridiculous like that And we need how many hundreds of

947
01:05:51,641 --> 01:05:58,381
billions of Kiwi dollars can you give us? We'll give you 5% on government bonds if you and so the

948
01:05:58,381 --> 01:06:02,921
central bank is Yeah, no problem. Here you go. Here's the money. Thank you very much. Now,

949
01:06:03,301 --> 01:06:07,861
most people just consider well, of course, they do that because they can print the money and set

950
01:06:07,861 --> 01:06:12,721
the interest rates, which is complete usury, by the way, because the money didn't exist in the

951
01:06:12,721 --> 01:06:19,761
first place. Now, the people of New Zealand are on the hook to pay that back because the government

952
01:06:19,761 --> 01:06:27,521
can't. They're not a producing entity. They have to tax. So the taxes will go up. But the darker

953
01:06:27,521 --> 01:06:32,821
piece of this puzzle is if the government could, excuse me, if the central bank could just print

954
01:06:32,821 --> 01:06:39,881
that in the first place, why would they ever want it back? They don't even need it back,

955
01:06:40,241 --> 01:06:45,401
and certainly not with interest, if they can just print it. So what is it that they truly want? And

956
01:06:45,401 --> 01:06:52,661
this is what you've pointed out here. Mineral rich lands. That's what this is always all about.

957
01:06:53,221 --> 01:06:59,241
They want these countries to go into debt so they can be paid back with the copper, the tin,

958
01:06:59,241 --> 01:07:06,121
the zinc, the minerals, the whatever, it could be water, oil, gold, silver, you name it.

959
01:07:07,801 --> 01:07:09,961
It's just so bleak.

960
01:07:11,241 --> 01:07:17,341
Yep. So that's why Bitcoin is hope. It really is. Because again, this is not speculation now.

961
01:07:18,021 --> 01:07:27,261
And this is why we've seen the IMF become more public in their concerns about Bitcoin. Because

962
01:07:27,261 --> 01:07:29,521
Bhutan has showed what's possible.

963
01:07:30,821 --> 01:07:34,581
And it's provided a beacon of hope for other nations.

964
01:07:34,801 --> 01:07:35,761
And other nations are going,

965
01:07:36,961 --> 01:07:39,641
IMF debt, mine Bitcoin.

966
01:07:39,641 --> 01:07:40,201
Hmm.

967
01:07:43,501 --> 01:07:45,181
Pretty simple choice, really.

968
01:07:45,981 --> 01:07:50,201
But it's not so simple when you already have an IMF loan.

969
01:07:50,701 --> 01:07:51,241
Yes.

970
01:07:51,481 --> 01:07:52,961
As Pakistan has found out.

971
01:07:53,361 --> 01:07:55,001
That's why things have gone very quiet there.

972
01:07:55,001 --> 01:07:59,241
because when you have an IMF loan, you've lost a lot of sovereignty

973
01:07:59,241 --> 01:08:04,301
and the IMF have a lot of leverage, as El Salvador has found out.

974
01:08:04,381 --> 01:08:10,721
Well, this is the case right now because they were plain sailing.

975
01:08:10,921 --> 01:08:12,641
Bukele was saying all the right things.

976
01:08:12,781 --> 01:08:15,101
He was sticking up the finger at the IMF.

977
01:08:15,361 --> 01:08:17,461
He was smash buying from the toilet,

978
01:08:17,661 --> 01:08:22,601
all of this kind of great fun stuff that was happening from 2021 onwards.

979
01:08:22,601 --> 01:08:30,461
So then all of a sudden, IMF getting involved and, well, he took the loan.

980
01:08:31,001 --> 01:08:32,541
Well, he knew what he was getting himself in for.

981
01:08:32,741 --> 01:08:34,321
He knew what he was getting in for.

982
01:08:34,461 --> 01:08:36,081
He took the loan, $1.4 billion.

983
01:08:38,261 --> 01:08:41,381
He didn't have to because that was the interesting thing.

984
01:08:41,461 --> 01:08:43,481
They were already in a pretty good state.

985
01:08:44,041 --> 01:08:47,201
They had built up substantial Bitcoin reserves.

986
01:08:47,861 --> 01:08:51,521
All of the things the IMF had predicted would happen did not happen.

987
01:08:51,521 --> 01:08:53,281
They didn't destabilize the economy.

988
01:08:53,541 --> 01:08:54,941
They stabilized it.

989
01:08:55,101 --> 01:08:57,021
They bolstered their foreign exchange reserves.

990
01:08:57,261 --> 01:09:02,681
They brought new industry to the country, more tourism, more prosperity generally.

991
01:09:03,921 --> 01:09:09,881
But we took the loan, and in that IMF loan agreement, Bitcoin was mentioned 222 times.

992
01:09:11,121 --> 01:09:17,041
So it's pretty obvious where their concern was, and that became the leverage for them to say, okay, we have some conditions.

993
01:09:17,041 --> 01:09:22,441
Number one, no more new Bitcoin mining projects.

994
01:09:22,561 --> 01:09:25,681
Number two, no longer compulsory legal tender.

995
01:09:26,101 --> 01:09:30,381
Number three, stop Bitcoin purchases and a whole bunch of other ones as well.

996
01:09:30,381 --> 01:09:36,881
So what you've seen is a direct result of what he accepted when he took on that loan,

997
01:09:37,081 --> 01:09:40,941
knowing that those were the conditions which would be attached.

998
01:09:44,461 --> 01:09:46,961
How closely are you following what's going on there?

999
01:09:47,041 --> 01:09:49,541
because it's all going to be quiet.

1000
01:09:49,701 --> 01:09:51,761
Then we had the IMF talking about,

1001
01:09:51,841 --> 01:09:52,501
what did they say?

1002
01:09:52,681 --> 01:09:53,881
That they've only been,

1003
01:09:53,981 --> 01:09:55,601
they've been moving funds internally.

1004
01:09:55,781 --> 01:09:56,641
There's no buying.

1005
01:09:57,101 --> 01:09:59,561
So here's what I found out is that

1006
01:09:59,561 --> 01:10:03,121
it looks as though Bucali was still buying Bitcoin

1007
01:10:03,121 --> 01:10:03,941
every single day.

1008
01:10:05,861 --> 01:10:09,901
If you look at what the on-chain data suggests strongly,

1009
01:10:10,521 --> 01:10:12,881
it's that it is moving from one wallet to another

1010
01:10:12,881 --> 01:10:14,821
so that he can present the impression

1011
01:10:14,821 --> 01:10:16,661
that he is still sticking it to the IMF.

1012
01:10:17,041 --> 01:10:20,581
but he has not been purchasing new Bitcoin.

1013
01:10:20,901 --> 01:10:23,301
There is no evidence he's been purchasing new Bitcoin.

1014
01:10:23,841 --> 01:10:26,061
The IMF says he hasn't, which of course we can discount,

1015
01:10:26,561 --> 01:10:27,761
but put them to one side.

1016
01:10:28,261 --> 01:10:29,881
Two more reputable sources though,

1017
01:10:29,981 --> 01:10:32,741
his own finance minister and the own head of the central bank

1018
01:10:32,741 --> 01:10:35,441
has also said, we are no longer buying Bitcoin

1019
01:10:35,441 --> 01:10:38,061
and we have not bought Bitcoin since we've ever seen.

1020
01:10:38,061 --> 01:10:41,041
So you've got on-chain data, the minister of finance,

1021
01:10:41,201 --> 01:10:43,341
the head of the central bank and the IMF,

1022
01:10:43,581 --> 01:10:46,541
all saying, no, Bitcoin purchases have stopped.

1023
01:10:47,041 --> 01:10:51,341
Are they still mining? Because obviously we had the volcano mining bombs.

1024
01:10:51,561 --> 01:10:56,781
Yeah, the mining that they started is still going, but they're not doing any new mining, is my understanding.

1025
01:10:57,741 --> 01:11:06,821
Yeah. So look, the recipe here, what it really shows us is if you want to see Bitcoin adoption occur at a nation state, you better not have an IMF loan.

1026
01:11:06,821 --> 01:11:16,021
And fortunately, there's a whole lot of nation states around that don't have IMF loans who could become the next haven for Bitcoin mining.

1027
01:11:16,021 --> 01:11:18,501
So Kyrgyzstan, for example.

1028
01:11:19,661 --> 01:11:21,961
Ethiopia, I don't think, has an IMF loan.

1029
01:11:22,021 --> 01:11:23,361
I think they have a World Bank loan.

1030
01:11:23,581 --> 01:11:30,921
So there's a number of countries who really could start to take this to the next level and start to form strategic Bitcoin reserves.

1031
01:11:32,301 --> 01:11:35,521
I heard, I think I heard Kazakhstan just announced.

1032
01:11:36,621 --> 01:11:38,161
Kazakhstan is looking at it as well.

1033
01:11:38,361 --> 01:11:40,401
Yes, Kazakhstan is another one.

1034
01:11:42,461 --> 01:11:43,421
Let's just see.

1035
01:11:43,621 --> 01:11:44,701
Just doing a quick search.

1036
01:11:44,941 --> 01:11:45,341
News.

1037
01:11:46,021 --> 01:11:52,021
yeah 15 days ago joins global crypto race how significant are emerging market crypto reserves

1038
01:11:52,021 --> 01:11:55,741
um that's crypto stuff hmm

1039
01:11:55,741 --> 01:12:04,601
well a space to watch for sure and uh yeah be interesting to to see an infographic of

1040
01:12:04,601 --> 01:12:11,861
all those countries that do not have these loans um where should we be building our citadels

1041
01:12:11,861 --> 01:12:13,741
Daniel that's the question

1042
01:12:13,741 --> 01:12:16,301
basically it's anywhere that has

1043
01:12:16,301 --> 01:12:18,561
stranded hydro

1044
01:12:18,561 --> 01:12:20,641
in particular because that's often the best

1045
01:12:20,641 --> 01:12:22,281
source for Bitcoin mining because

1046
01:12:22,281 --> 01:12:24,601
you've got it all year round and it's baseload

1047
01:12:24,601 --> 01:12:26,681
it's not intermittent like

1048
01:12:26,681 --> 01:12:28,441
solar or wind so hydro is

1049
01:12:28,441 --> 01:12:29,861
a fantastic source

1050
01:12:29,861 --> 01:12:32,701
for Bitcoin and a lot

1051
01:12:32,701 --> 01:12:34,681
of the world has huge amounts of

1052
01:12:34,681 --> 01:12:36,661
hydro that's

1053
01:12:36,661 --> 01:12:38,481
number one and number two does not have an

1054
01:12:38,481 --> 01:12:40,561
IMF loan and fortunately

1055
01:12:40,561 --> 01:12:44,601
there's dozens of countries, maybe even over 100 countries

1056
01:12:44,601 --> 01:12:45,461
in that category.

1057
01:12:45,941 --> 01:12:46,261
All right.

1058
01:12:46,661 --> 01:12:47,381
There is hope.

1059
01:12:47,841 --> 01:12:48,641
There is a lot of hope.

1060
01:12:48,901 --> 01:12:49,041
Absolutely.

1061
01:12:50,801 --> 01:12:56,541
Are you okay to share where you live now and reasons for that?

1062
01:12:56,941 --> 01:12:59,681
Yeah, I'm in Costa Rica now, and the reasons for that is

1063
01:12:59,681 --> 01:13:02,161
there's a lot of landfills.

1064
01:13:02,161 --> 01:13:03,281
So I didn't move for the beaches.

1065
01:13:03,461 --> 01:13:04,441
I moved for the trash sheeps.

1066
01:13:06,321 --> 01:13:07,761
Don't put that in the magazine.

1067
01:13:07,761 --> 01:13:10,921
there's a lot of trash

1068
01:13:10,921 --> 01:13:12,801
that are going to be straight

1069
01:13:12,801 --> 01:13:13,821
on your door

1070
01:13:13,821 --> 01:13:18,341
there's two beautiful landfills

1071
01:13:18,341 --> 01:13:20,061
within about an hour of where I live

1072
01:13:20,061 --> 01:13:22,741
but there's a lot of landfills

1073
01:13:22,741 --> 01:13:24,501
all through Latin America

1074
01:13:24,501 --> 01:13:25,801
that fit our profile

1075
01:13:25,801 --> 01:13:27,201
in that they're big

1076
01:13:27,201 --> 01:13:29,761
they are modern landfills

1077
01:13:29,761 --> 01:13:32,001
and they are venting their emissions

1078
01:13:32,001 --> 01:13:34,181
straight into the air

1079
01:13:34,181 --> 01:13:36,621
so it was just a good place to locate

1080
01:13:36,621 --> 01:13:38,001
Costa Rica is a beautiful country.

1081
01:13:38,901 --> 01:13:43,301
It's a safer country than a lot of places that we could have moved to in Latin America.

1082
01:13:43,461 --> 01:13:44,761
It's a good place to raise a family.

1083
01:13:46,241 --> 01:13:46,641
Wonderful.

1084
01:13:46,861 --> 01:13:51,361
So have you got projects on the go or is this a work in process?

1085
01:13:51,741 --> 01:13:53,001
It's a work in progress.

1086
01:13:53,221 --> 01:13:55,321
We're looking at a couple of different options.

1087
01:13:55,721 --> 01:13:57,101
I can't say which country they're in.

1088
01:13:57,221 --> 01:13:58,341
They are in Latin America.

1089
01:13:58,921 --> 01:14:00,181
They're looking very promising.

1090
01:14:01,461 --> 01:14:04,041
And we just can't wait to get our first one underway.

1091
01:14:04,041 --> 01:14:11,541
But it's like a lot of things because whilst it's been done before on flared sites, it's never been done on venting sites before.

1092
01:14:12,241 --> 01:14:20,181
And when you're doing it on a venting site, there's a bit of additional complexity because you don't have as much of the infrastructure already in place.

1093
01:14:21,761 --> 01:14:24,681
So it's about an extra 25% complexity, I'd say.

1094
01:14:25,841 --> 01:14:30,541
So whenever you're doing something for the first time, it takes a little bit longer to start with, as we've found.

1095
01:14:30,541 --> 01:14:33,261
So it's taken a long time even to find the right sites.

1096
01:14:33,261 --> 01:14:35,961
So we're at a stage now we have the capital and the fund.

1097
01:14:36,381 --> 01:14:37,161
We have the commitments.

1098
01:14:37,381 --> 01:14:38,181
That wasn't the issue.

1099
01:14:38,701 --> 01:14:44,041
There were plenty of Bitcoiners who were keen not only to support the project, but could

1100
01:14:44,041 --> 01:14:48,721
see that it was actually in some pretty good returns because you don't only get the infrastructure

1101
01:14:48,721 --> 01:14:51,561
financing revenue, but you also earn carbon credits on the top.

1102
01:14:51,681 --> 01:14:54,341
So you have this, it juices your returns.

1103
01:14:54,581 --> 01:14:57,961
And it also means that you get this uncorrelated return as well.

1104
01:14:58,821 --> 01:15:00,761
So that worked out pretty well.

1105
01:15:00,761 --> 01:15:02,281
Works out well for the landfill owner.

1106
01:15:02,741 --> 01:15:04,541
Works out well for the Bitcoin mining company.

1107
01:15:05,081 --> 01:15:19,488
But finding the sites that a big challenge for Bitcoin mining companies no matter what the energy source Finding the right sites is actually the most important thing Same in the gold or silver mining industry right You send the geologists out and they could be gone for years

1108
01:15:19,588 --> 01:15:20,428
It's really like that.

1109
01:15:20,548 --> 01:15:21,688
Yeah, this is what it feels like.

1110
01:15:21,728 --> 01:15:22,848
It's like you're prospecting.

1111
01:15:22,968 --> 01:15:28,148
It's like it looks like they're all there, but there's so many conditions that have to be met, particularly to do the first one.

1112
01:15:28,688 --> 01:15:32,588
Once we do the first one, because of the way that all landfill owners talk to each other,

1113
01:15:34,028 --> 01:15:36,988
there's going to be a lot of landfill owners wanting to do this.

1114
01:15:37,608 --> 01:15:41,448
So if anyone's actually interested in investing in the fund, what does that look like?

1115
01:15:42,568 --> 01:15:45,788
Well, basically, so we have a company, CH4 Capital.

1116
01:15:45,788 --> 01:15:55,368
and how we operate is that it's going to be a vehicle

1117
01:15:55,368 --> 01:15:59,048
where people can get a non-exceptional return, right?

1118
01:15:59,368 --> 01:16:04,088
So we're forecasting it'll be in the vicinity of 15% to 20%.

1119
01:16:04,088 --> 01:16:07,248
So non-exceptional relative to Bitcoin, but steady

1120
01:16:07,248 --> 01:16:11,628
and relatively much lower risk and much lower volatility

1121
01:16:11,628 --> 01:16:15,648
because you do get that combination of the money coming in

1122
01:16:15,648 --> 01:16:18,768
through the loan repayments, but also through the carbon credits.

1123
01:16:20,388 --> 01:16:24,628
Without the conditions that the IMF have attached.

1124
01:16:25,548 --> 01:16:29,628
So next time you open a fund, is there a minimum amount?

1125
01:16:29,768 --> 01:16:32,968
Can people invest in Bitcoin directly or has it got to be...

1126
01:16:32,968 --> 01:16:34,968
We would love to have taken Bitcoin directly.

1127
01:16:36,248 --> 01:16:39,988
Unfortunately, the amount of additional complexity it would have taken was huge.

1128
01:16:40,268 --> 01:16:43,868
So yeah, some people, they'll just have to put it into fiat first and then put in the fund.

1129
01:16:43,868 --> 01:16:46,988
so basically it's like a lot of funds

1130
01:16:46,988 --> 01:16:49,728
you have to be a sophisticated investor

1131
01:16:49,728 --> 01:16:51,728
meet the requirements of what that is

1132
01:16:51,728 --> 01:16:54,988
$100,000 minimum at best level into the fund

1133
01:16:54,988 --> 01:16:56,328
Right

1134
01:16:56,328 --> 01:16:58,728
Alright, people could be interested

1135
01:16:58,728 --> 01:17:02,228
so where should they reach out if they want to learn more?

1136
01:17:02,328 --> 01:17:04,428
Where can they go and learn more about these projects?

1137
01:17:05,288 --> 01:17:07,628
Oh, they can have a look at ch4capital.com

1138
01:17:07,628 --> 01:17:09,728
or just get in touch with me

1139
01:17:09,728 --> 01:17:11,888
and I can send our deck through

1140
01:17:11,888 --> 01:17:14,468
which talks about how the projects work

1141
01:17:14,468 --> 01:17:16,368
and how the return structure works as well.

1142
01:17:17,268 --> 01:17:17,408
Excellent.

1143
01:17:17,848 --> 01:17:18,188
All right.

1144
01:17:18,348 --> 01:17:21,088
Well, Daniel, I always end off on the same question.

1145
01:17:21,688 --> 01:17:24,808
So if you had one last orange pill left to give to somebody,

1146
01:17:25,168 --> 01:17:26,728
who would you give it to and why?

1147
01:17:31,628 --> 01:17:32,748
It's a great question.

1148
01:17:32,748 --> 01:17:43,228
I think I'd give it to the head of the United Nations

1149
01:17:43,228 --> 01:17:47,008
and the reason for that is that

1150
01:17:47,008 --> 01:17:54,328
the story of Bitcoin's social utility is so untold

1151
01:17:54,328 --> 01:17:56,948
it's not like the environmental story

1152
01:17:56,948 --> 01:17:58,468
where the wrong story's been told

1153
01:17:58,468 --> 01:18:01,568
the story hasn't been told at all

1154
01:18:01,568 --> 01:18:02,548
so no one knows it

1155
01:18:02,548 --> 01:18:06,228
and you get someone who's supposedly charged

1156
01:18:06,228 --> 01:18:08,988
with doing great humanitarian work around the world

1157
01:18:08,988 --> 01:18:10,548
and suddenly they can see its utility

1158
01:18:10,548 --> 01:18:12,128
and that flows through the organization,

1159
01:18:12,668 --> 01:18:15,608
then you start building some very, very different narratives.

1160
01:18:16,808 --> 01:18:18,428
There, as we know this now,

1161
01:18:18,508 --> 01:18:21,148
because the Digital Assets Research Institute

1162
01:18:21,148 --> 01:18:22,948
has done the report on it,

1163
01:18:23,188 --> 01:18:25,728
backed by the Human Rights Foundation, thank you,

1164
01:18:26,468 --> 01:18:29,068
which showed that there are over 300,000 refugees

1165
01:18:29,068 --> 01:18:31,608
who have used Bitcoin to be able to flee their homeland

1166
01:18:31,608 --> 01:18:33,888
and set up from scratch,

1167
01:18:34,688 --> 01:18:35,948
fiat currency got frozen,

1168
01:18:36,108 --> 01:18:36,628
but the Bitcoin,

1169
01:18:36,768 --> 01:18:37,628
they've been able to use it

1170
01:18:37,628 --> 01:18:38,968
to reestablish life

1171
01:18:38,968 --> 01:18:39,808
in a different country.

1172
01:18:40,568 --> 01:18:42,168
If the head of the UN knew that,

1173
01:18:42,288 --> 01:18:43,588
then those sorts of stories

1174
01:18:43,588 --> 01:18:44,928
would just find their way

1175
01:18:44,928 --> 01:18:47,108
through into popular consciousness

1176
01:18:47,108 --> 01:18:47,868
much more.

1177
01:18:47,968 --> 01:18:49,208
And I think a lot more people

1178
01:18:49,208 --> 01:18:50,288
would start to see,

1179
01:18:50,648 --> 01:18:51,528
particularly in the West,

1180
01:18:51,608 --> 01:18:53,428
that Bitcoin is way more

1181
01:18:53,428 --> 01:18:54,648
than just a speculative asset.

1182
01:18:56,088 --> 01:18:57,368
Yeah, love it.

1183
01:18:58,308 --> 01:19:00,188
Well, thank you for coming on.

1184
01:19:00,188 --> 01:19:10,168
Thank you for everything that you've done to educate as many people as you possibly can about Bitcoin in your own unique way, traveling around, doing the conferences, writing the articles.

1185
01:19:10,728 --> 01:19:11,848
Look forward to more of them.

1186
01:19:11,928 --> 01:19:14,448
Look forward to meeting you actually in person one day.

1187
01:19:14,448 --> 01:19:15,688
That'll be fun.

1188
01:19:16,688 --> 01:19:19,868
And yeah, congrats with the move.

1189
01:19:20,368 --> 01:19:28,588
And fingers crossed that you find that site and you can get up and running and that cascade, you know, the domino effect throughout Latin America.

1190
01:19:28,588 --> 01:19:32,548
and yeah, just like pulling methane out the air

1191
01:19:32,548 --> 01:19:33,328
to mine Bitcoin.

1192
01:19:34,728 --> 01:19:35,648
What a winner.

1193
01:19:36,268 --> 01:19:37,968
We're turning trash into digital gold.

1194
01:19:38,568 --> 01:19:39,108
Love it.

1195
01:19:39,408 --> 01:19:40,188
Well, well done.

1196
01:19:40,448 --> 01:19:41,448
Thank you again.

1197
01:19:41,688 --> 01:19:44,908
And yeah, I look forward to chatting again soon.

1198
01:19:45,328 --> 01:19:45,808
Been a pleasure.

1199
01:19:46,068 --> 01:19:46,448
Thank you.

1200
01:19:47,068 --> 01:19:47,568
See you, mate.

1201
01:19:49,628 --> 01:19:51,608
Well, there you go, everybody.

1202
01:19:51,888 --> 01:19:54,368
Thank you so much for listening and tuning in.

1203
01:19:54,448 --> 01:19:55,868
And like I said at the beginning here,

1204
01:19:55,868 --> 01:20:15,768
I truly hope this gives you now a lot of ammunition to just fight the FUD when you are faced down with it from your colleagues, your friends in the pub, your family, new people you might meet.

1205
01:20:15,768 --> 01:20:24,848
because it is all so tiresome like it here we are now in 2025 and you've still got these huge

1206
01:20:24,848 --> 01:20:32,028
university studies going on and just coming out with this absolute complete and utter total nonsense

1207
01:20:32,028 --> 01:20:41,008
and meanwhile you have all of this ai compute like ridiculous masses of energy and water being

1208
01:20:41,008 --> 01:20:46,148
used and that's all just fine bro because like that's you know technological advancement you know

1209
01:20:46,148 --> 01:20:53,848
we need that no like no one's pointing the fingers that way it's still all coming to the bitcoin way

1210
01:20:53,848 --> 01:21:02,808
now ask yourself why who is conducting this research not only that who is funding the research

1211
01:21:02,808 --> 01:21:10,928
always follow the money and in the case of universities it's always big lobby interest

1212
01:21:10,928 --> 01:21:21,748
groups or secret agencies or government funding always and they pay but they only release what

1213
01:21:21,748 --> 01:21:27,588
they want to release they and they are paying the wages of those people that are doing that

1214
01:21:27,588 --> 01:21:33,208
research now in the form of Daniel here he's completely private entity and he

1215
01:21:33,208 --> 01:21:39,708
goes out he looks at these sites he sees and you know the entrepreneurial spirit

1216
01:21:39,708 --> 01:21:45,168
he sees an absolute glaring opportunity here and blows the whole thing out the

1217
01:21:45,168 --> 01:21:48,448
water and we need more people like him obviously there are many out there

1218
01:21:48,448 --> 01:21:55,068
doing lots of this kind of work as well in in Bitcoin mining we have companies

1219
01:21:55,068 --> 01:21:57,508
that are trapping gas in oil fields.

1220
01:21:57,668 --> 01:22:02,908
We have companies that are trapping gas in farms.

1221
01:22:02,908 --> 01:22:09,848
And they're turning affluent waste into methane, into Bitcoin mining.

1222
01:22:10,268 --> 01:22:11,308
This is all going on.

1223
01:22:12,408 --> 01:22:16,068
And if you work in that area, if you work in the energy sector,

1224
01:22:16,988 --> 01:22:19,388
this is the next frontier.

1225
01:22:19,668 --> 01:22:20,908
This is where everything...

1226
01:22:21,448 --> 01:22:23,328
Skate to where the puck is going to be.

1227
01:22:23,408 --> 01:22:24,388
This is where it's going.

1228
01:22:25,068 --> 01:22:31,728
all energy or it's gonna go to where you Bitcoin mining is gonna go to that

1229
01:22:31,728 --> 01:22:38,208
source of energy stranded energy where they can make the the most impact the

1230
01:22:38,208 --> 01:22:43,668
most profit and they can stabilize the grids go back and listen I'd know about

1231
01:22:43,668 --> 01:22:49,008
10 shows ago I had a guy on the show talking about mining Bitcoin in space

1232
01:22:49,008 --> 01:22:54,948
this is crazy but they're gonna do it it's viable is a completely

1233
01:22:54,948 --> 01:23:01,168
it's completely possible uh so anyway enough rambling i hope you enjoyed this one if you've

1234
01:23:01,168 --> 01:23:07,748
got anything that uh you want to you know reach out to daniel for find him on twitter or come

1235
01:23:07,748 --> 01:23:13,008
through me whatever way you want to get in touch with him um make sure you're stacking your stats

1236
01:23:13,008 --> 01:23:18,348
like i said at the beginning please take self-custody very very seriously you are always

1237
01:23:18,348 --> 01:23:22,988
able to up your self-custody game don't do it just for the sake of it if you're comfortable

1238
01:23:22,988 --> 01:23:29,348
that's fine but if you've not done it you have to start get yourself a cold get yourself some

1239
01:23:29,348 --> 01:23:34,328
hardware wallets get your bitcoin into cold storage learn how to do all of that it's not

1240
01:23:34,328 --> 01:23:41,148
that hard there's so many tutorials out there now go and watch a btc sessions tutorial on one of the

1241
01:23:41,148 --> 01:23:47,248
wallets many out there you know where to go for the link in the show notes bitbox.swiss forward

1242
01:23:47,248 --> 01:23:54,988
slash bitten you'll get five percent discount off the bitbox o2 or off the bitbox nova both

1243
01:23:54,988 --> 01:24:00,908
excellent hardware wallets you can stack your sats across europe with relay and as i said at the

1244
01:24:00,908 --> 01:24:09,148
beginning with swan in the us paywithflash.com get over to the website go check it out if there's

1245
01:24:09,148 --> 01:24:14,968
if you want to start using your sats which you should get over to plebeian.market check out what's

1246
01:24:14,968 --> 01:24:21,008
for sale because that is a marketplace being built out by people that are happy to accept

1247
01:24:21,008 --> 01:24:23,088
Bitcoin for their goods and services.

1248
01:24:23,608 --> 01:24:25,488
And finally, come join us on Orange Pill App.

1249
01:24:25,828 --> 01:24:30,108
We are looking forward to interacting with as many more Bitcoiners as possible over there.

1250
01:24:30,348 --> 01:24:31,808
Already 19,000 members.

1251
01:24:32,468 --> 01:24:33,688
Catch you on the next show, guys.

1252
01:24:33,908 --> 01:24:35,148
Thank you so much for listening.