Latest / Monero Talk / Where Bitcoin fails as censorship resistant digital cash, Monero thrives w/ Ragnar Lifthrasir | EPI #293
Transcript
- yeah I think if you know hypothetically there's had a guess it would probably be functional code that can't be taken down that's doing something displaying something so my guess is it's not like one PDF or something my guess is it have to be some sort of you know functional code website something and if and if they're motivated enough if it's awful enough my guess is then it will be come down to mining right because like Banning wallets doesn't do anything like kyc doesn't do anything mixers doesn't do anything so maybe that is when they'll try to control the mining and maybe they will come out for every minor and say hey you need to keep an eye out you know for these types of ordinal inscriptions and you can't mine anything that includes this sort of thing even though hey once it's there it's there you can't double spend Monero talk is sponsored by Cake wallet a trustless open source wallet that gives you the keys to your crypto invoice donate and trade your Monera with peace of mind piece of cake and by stealthy X an instant exchange where privacy is a top concern go to stealthy x. to instantly exchange between Monero and 450 plus assets without having to create an account or register and with no limits making stealthy x a simple way to purchase Monero with crypto anonymously Monero talk is also made possible from contributions by viewers and listeners like you and supporting us is easier than ever by typing in Monero talk. crypto in your mono.com or cak wallet send address field to send us a tip this week on Monero talk Douglas tuman intrview Ragnar LIF rier an OG bitcoiner who has increasingly become a staunch supporter of Monero in light of bitcoin's lack of privacy and fungibility he is launching a new conference this upcoming year called the finny Forum which focuses on bitcoin privacy Tech and Monero together they discuss how Ragnar realized through the gun Community some of the flaws of Bitcoin that Monera could fix what will happen to bitcoin if the state seizes control what effect would a ban on Monero have and could it take Monero adoption to the next level the drama in the Bitcoin community in contrast to the Monero community's cohesion doubts about Bitcoin censorship resistance in regards to Ocean mining censoring Samurai wallet and ordinals and much more Monero Talk starts [Music] now all right Ragnar what's going on man hey how are you thanks for having me on the show I gotta say I love the name I love I love I love the name that's uh a beautiful name are are you named after somebody in your family is that uh well I do I do have Scandinavian Heritage but mostly what I get is people ask me if I've seen the show the Vikings uh that's the most common response but uh yeah it works H how much of your heritage is it is it is it like a large portion of your background or yeah I mean you know it's all northern European you know people who don't know too much about like the history of Europe I mean it's basically the northern Germanic tribes so pretty much anything in Germany Scandinavia know a lot parts of the UK it's all kind of the same people right just kind of formerly violent people um who also some of them have a brain uh so that's basically yeah my Heritage might you might have some Neanderthal mix in there you never know I think I got some Neanderthal oh yeah no absolutely I mean the highest concentration of Neanderthal DNA is I think Northern Europeans or least obviously Europeans and I certainly act that way sometimes so yeah who who are the Neanderthals in crypto is it is it is it the bitcoiners is the is it the moneros people oh boy that's a good question well let's see you know uh we killed the Neanderthals they went out of they were extinct what 30,000 years ago which isn't that long and you know a thought experiment is I always think what if they were still around yeah you know like what would the world be like I think that's an interesting question so applying that to like Bitcoin mon I don't know uh but it's a cool thought experiment yeah and we don't really know what they were like obviously right like we you know for all we know they they were the I don't know the the more ethical spiritual uh tribes right we we don't we don't even we don't really know what the what the dynamic was but but that that that's a whole whole another whole another thread right there yeah um listen man uh I never had you on I I gotta be honest I don't know a lot about you uh so I think this is going to be a good conversation and if you don't mind can we kind of start from the basics because I really don't I really don't know much um I know you got a large you have a large following on Twitter uh I think you're you're an OG bitcoiner but not not to uh not to push pull uh strings here but I I have been blocked by you for quite some time so because of that I honestly I've been cut off from that whole realm of of the Twitter space the uh kind of the the samurai Ragnar realm so which I think is going to make for for a good interview because we'll be talking about a lot of this will be the first for me so who is Ragnar what is your what is your crypto story sure well in terms of Twitter you know that's just typical you stay in Bitcoin Monero long enough you're going to get blocked be blocked sometimes you deserve it sometimes you don't I've been on both sides of that equation but you know over over time I think we we learned that generally people were on the same side generally we want the same goals you and I I'm sure so sometimes you go about it differently or there's a miscommunication or just sometimes people are having a bad day so in terms of like me yeah I got into Bitcoin uh 2011 and since then gosh I've done a whole bunch of different things in Bitcoin uh two different startups my first Bitcoin startup was 201 no actually 2013 was my first Bitcoin start up okay um didn't really go anywhere but it was an escrow service that was also kind of uh eBay type of thing and the idea was to use um Bitcoin escrow and then have a little Marketplace we sold a few things but it quickly didn't go very far we were a little too early what was that called um it was called anarch oh cool man anarch yeah yeah it like it was a peer-to-peer Bitcoin Market Marketplace yeah yeah like you could list stuff I think someone sold an old Apple computer um I think some hats just kind of random knickknacks and what was interesting about that is we didn't use multisig for the escrow we used um a split private Keys which nowadays you would never do that but at the time we thought we were smart so that's how we did it and there's a video out there somewhere of an LA Bitcoin Meetup where I I pitch anarch uh for five minutes I'll have to search the archives and find that so that was yeah I think 2013 2016 I had a startup for real estate and I used Bitcoin colored coins to represent the ownership of uh property real estate and did that yeah did that with a um with Cook County in Chicago which is the second largest county in the US we legally transfer a piece of property on the Bitcoin blockchain but again we were way too early that didn't go go anywhere um and then in between just doing different Bitcoin stuff put on the conferences guns and Bitcoin as you know barms and Bitcoin and this year we're doing finy Forum actually 2024 finny forum and we're happy to have you know the podcast as a partner you know at finny Forum so thank you very much for showing the support and looking forward to actually meeting you in person yeah thank you for inviting us as well we're we're excited about that looks like you got a good group coming together for that yeah it's it's a diverse group you know we've got some Monero folks like you and some others we got some Bitcoin people privacy people um cyber security people so it's March 15th 16th in Dallas websites F form.com but we just announced today that our um keynote speaker is actually Tor eand so if you know Tor eand he is the attorney yeah who's who's defending you know Roman in the Bitcoin fog case so yeah I think uh I think we were one of the first to to interview him we had him on Monero talk back in the day and then yeah they ended up being a speaker at at Monero Topia in Mexico City um and they're doing big things as you know um it's I think think it's very important what they're working on I haven't really been I don't really know where they're currently at with that um do do you know where that that's currently at that um what I do know is I think they have a court date in March and T said they think they're going to be done you know in time for the conference he said there's a chance it goes longer than he can't make it if he's in court obviously but I think it's March um so I think that's where it stands you know Justice moves slow or Injustice moves slow so we'll see how that that turn turned out I I could be wrong but I thought that the Court ruled that chainalysis you know which is the company that's working for the federal government did that you know quote unquote research um that they basically said that their algorithm couldn't be sort of examined in detail they basically said no we can't allow that which seems like a violation of the Constitution to be able to face your accuser and and have the evidence against you but supposedly that's the last I heard so the whole the whole thing is just dirty so we're really you know yeah it's quite interesting it's it's like chain analysis is what's on trial right um yeah it's it's one of the things that may come out of this how how chain analysis is then viewed in court viewed in court in future cases actually Artic mine from the Monero Monero Community he he was working on that case as well I think he's one of their expert Witnesses um so so continuing though with with the story so all right so you got it you got it to bitcoin ear obviously if you're if you're working on these startups back in 2015 2014 approximately when did you like get into get get into Bitcoin and was it um you know what was the story there was it one of these you know I read the Satoshi white paper and I realized they solved the Byzantine generals problem and I was all in like what what was your kind of your eure moment with Bitcoin yeah for me it was actually Reddit of all places uh Reddit on a political philosophical form that I came across it and um that's how I found it and then just kind of looked into it um got my first wall my first Bitcoins were actually from a faucet uh you know back in the day they had these faucets where you do certain things and you get these you know small amounts of Bitcoin and I think my first purchase using Bitcoin was I think 2013 from Roger Veer store I don't know if you remember you know he had a store called memory dealers and Roger verer sold like electronics and computer cables and all sorts of stuff so my first purchase with Bitcoin was a USB cable and uh at flash drive that's what it was and I bought that uh my first um purchase with Bitcoin and that was my Eureka moment I would say um to answer your question because I remember when I sent the Bitcoin it was amazing I just you know you put in the address and the amount there wasn't like credit card number and address and phone and email and all this kind of crazy stuff and just kind of the light bulb went off like hey this is this is money that doesn't have an identity with you know no intermediary I know it's a cliche but that's that's really what it was I was sending money directly to Roger's Store no one was in between us so that was like the the Eureka moment for me now interesting because that that's kind of like when I first started thinking about I mean Monero I guess existed but I didn't really know much about it it was when I first started using Bitcoin and then going to check on the Block chain right to go check a block Explorer to see if a transaction went through and as I was doing that I was thinking wait a minute this isn't really as Anonymous as I thought it was did you did you also have that realization obviously you had it at some point but did you have that uh early on as well I think it's a process I mean I I knew I never thought that it was completely Anonymous you know a lot of people did right with with like the Silk Road a lot of people using that thinking it was Anonymous that's how they got got in trouble um so I always knew it wasn't completely Anonymous but I didn't know like the intricate details of exactly why that that was and how you can be tracked I just knew it wasn't quite Anonymous um but over time you learn that you learn the inner details right um there's a great book I don't know if you've read it um by Andy Greenberg where he talks about you know all these dark you know drug markets and a couple other ones and how they were taken down and it's interesting that yes like Bitcoins you know lack of fungibility and and things like that contributed to to tracing things for sure but how a lot of these guys got caught actually had nothing to do with Bitcoin it was like using an email address that they used somewhere else it was linking it to like some other social media identity so thought that was interesting yeah yeah yeah um yeah we we tried getting him on the show because he he made some interesting statements about Monero in there in that well um so then what was your turning point where you started to get interested in moneros like did at what point were you did it become a problem for you in Bitcoin where you're like wait a minute it's not only pseudo Anonymous but it actually is perhaps more deeply flawed I don't have his exact date but I think it was just you know I remember when Monero came out I thought it was really interesting but I was you know deep in Bitcoin and I you know I was always very Pro Bitcoin and kind of anti everything else um I don't think I ever called myself a maxi maybe I did but I never just thought anything was good and it wasn't because like it was a self-righteous religious thing I just thought objectively everything is mostly crap and so Monero came out I thought it was cool but I just didn't have the time to like want to look into it and I thought maybe this will just go away like zcash and we there there's been other quote unquote privacy coins and I just thought no this is just another one it's never going to get adoption um um but when did I actually start using Monero and really take a deep dive I think it was a um several years ago when I started to kind of get involved and understand uh more what gun owners face and the 3D gun printing Community what they face their financial discrimination uh despite having constitutional rights um and and seeing kind of some of the problems they faced and I think it was someone in that Community they ultimately said hey Ragnar like really take a look at this and that's when I did and so um yeah I think the only time I I haven't used Bitcoin was Monero was I think my first non-bitcoin coin that I've I've ever used after Bitcoin I think and then Stacks I've used a little bit because they have some cool smart Contracting stuff but that's it I never never used any other coin besides that so it was the it was the gun stuff that really kind of open your eyes to it what what what were the detail what was going on there it was like explain that a little a little bit more yeah well it's just kind of General stuff I mean basic things like PayPal and a lot of these uh type of companies simply won't allow legal you know businesses to conduct business you know basic things even selling like you know Parts they're not guns they're not anything like that they're just parts and so I saw that happening and so you know these these people you know were using Bitcoin again they're not selling guns right they're just like parts and t-shirts and stickers and and whatever might be so not guns they weren't selling guns you can't do that um but just seeing that they're their problem with Bitcoin and then they said well I might as well use Monero if I'm gonna be have to go all in on crypto so it was sort of like those guys who were really into that world was also the digital world because I don't know how much you know you're into like the gun culture but there's kind of like a tiny overlap between gun owners gun people and like Bitcoin cryp crypto people it's kind of strange you would think there' be a big overlap but there's not yeah yeah yeah you think there'd be a larger overlap right is what you're saying yeah yeah there's not I mean that it's they're both tools for fighting tyranny that that's for sure um yes so that I guess that's how the guns and Bitcoin thing then came about right obviously that was yeah sort of so guns and Bitcoin started out as just sort of like this attitude that I had which is just kind of a personal philosophy where I thought you know you have to protect the physical world and the G digital world and you know guns and Bitcoin help you with both of those so it it's more just like a Twitter account I started just to kind of share random thoughts about that and then okay turned and turned into like yeah let still sell some T-shirts and hey let's put on a conference because I started to meet other once I started the Twitter account you know I met some other people who kind of thought like I did and in the middle of covid 2020 we launched our our first conference which was interesting we were going to have in Portland and Co they wouldn't allow us to do it so we had to move it to Texas and then yeah that's how it got started in middle of Co awesome yeah then you had it in uh in Miami right you had you had your I guess that was the second one in Miami so is guns in Bitcoin is that done or are you still doing or has it has it turned into finny form uh it's kind of on the back burner um I guess you could say it's turned into finny form in the sense that I wanted to focus more on Monero and cyber security and I thought to do that I should just kind of launch a new conference that is more consistent with that and just focus on cryptocurrency and cyber security as well I wanted to add that and actually even we're gonna have one or two ordinal speakers which sounds incongruent it doesn't sound like it would fit um but actually ordinals really offers you a way to exercise free speech and publish things that are uncensorable so to me it's not about like the monkey jpegs and the Ugly art I think most most of that is Superfluous I don't like almost any of it but there's some really cool things you can do with ordinals in terms of publishing um you know PDFs but even audio video uh you could actually publish websites believe it or not you could publish websites as ordinal inscriptions yeah no I yeah no I that totally makes sense to me right that's essentially that's it's it's free spee right we say it's free speech money right money money is speech but then this is just another obviously form of it um using this protocol to essentially say things out there in the without being censored and in a way where it can never be erased you know it's it can it will last forever uh in theory um so I'm right there with you so give us some deeper insight into that then in terms of what your overall kind of viewpoint of what Bitcoin is or or what you see as the true value proposition to crypto or do you see it as having multiple value propositions obviously you're interested in the you know the digital cash use case like we're talking about people should be able to have a tool where if they want to buy gun parts they could do it without without surveillance or censorship uh but now you're talking about just this this concept of of being able to publish things freely so what do you see as the value proposition or propositions of cryptocurrency yeah um well I think I see it in terms of like three areas I think I think of Bitcoin I think of Monero and then I think of like stacks and I think they all kind of have their their Niche so starting with Bitcoin I see that primarily as a publishing space um as sort of a you know publishing ordinals or or even transactions um and obviously as as money but I don't think that's what Bitcoin does best I think what it does best is store data that's what I think as uh like property right like digital property yeah is that that that you agree with that yeah I agree with you it's it's like digital property and one of the earliest I think uh I ideas people came up with this Bitcoin is like real estate that block space is so valuable um because of what you could put in there so because of the security and everything else I think bitcoin's biggest strength is is that block space it's uncensorable block space I don't think it's the best peer-to-peer money obviously I use it as that but I don't think it that's what it's best and that's where Monero comes in which I think is the best peer-to-peer digital money and then Stacks is good for smart contracts and some some scaling stuff for Bitcoin smart contracts so it's like I guess you to sum it up it's three things I'd say it's like free speech private money and then kind of you know uh decentralize smart contracts and quote unquote defi okay okay um yeah I'd say I'm pretty much right there with you obviously I think the digital cash use case is the most compelling um or maybe the the the one that's the one that I think will will gain will provides the most utility um the digital digital property for Bitcoin uh you use the word censorship uh resistance to censorship but but is it resistance to censorship um I think maybe what what Bitcoin does right if we we're treating it like digital property maybe maybe really what it offers is uh this ability to always prove that you have title right and really kind of in a very public way and it's stored on this it's stored on this blockchain for all to see like this is my property now we we're trying to aisc it because we want to use this blockchain for for making digital cash transactions but it seems like its nature is more transparent and if that is the case does that work against its ability to be censorship resistant do you think it is censorship resistant uh a censorship resistant Network I think I think it's it's not binary right I think it's all in a scale of what censorship resistant and you know moner obviously falls on that um Spectrum as well but to answer your question I think it is pretty censorship resistant I think it's the fungibility and privacy is hard but not impossible you know today we had that Twitter space I thought I saw you were on there which you know thanks for for joining that um so yeah so using like like Whirlpool with Samurai and then and then also like Sparrow wallet that obviously really helps to get a lot better privacy uh for for Bitcoin so you definitely can get privacy on bitcoin it's just harder it's extra steps it costs more because you got to you know you got to do certain things uh and there's other issues but yeah I mean Bitcoin is the most uh has the most liquidity the most users the most you know Merchants accepted and so there's no reason to say I against Bitcoin like you just have to take extra steps and so for me Bitcoin and Monero go together peanut butter and jelly right I yeah yeah yeah I'm not saying I'm just trying to figure out you know uh like actual use cases and if Bitcoin is uh are if it if it is built to be truly censorship resistant right um we're seeing we're seeing kinks in the armor right right now right we saw you know now you have um right ocean ocean is is censoring is censoring Samurai Whirlpool transactions not obviously their intent is to censor these BRC 20 tokens or right the basically they want to censor the the nfts on bitcoin but what they're but they're also censoring other types of transactions one of them being Samurai uh world pool transactions which are are there to add add fungibility and privacy but just the fact that they can do that is that showing that Bitcoin is is failing as a censorship resistant Network and then there's other examples too we saw uh miners that have attempted to be ofac compliant we saw that recently we saw that happen again and now we have I think over 50% of all mining pools are kyc miners do you see kinks in the Army there in regards to bitcoin's censorship resistant oh yeah yeah I mean I mean it's it's OB effectively has issues with with the mining right I mean you have to have a lot of money and a lot of technical knowledge to really mine Bitcoin you could do it home mining still works but uh realistically it's kind of dominated by kind of people with a lot more capital and full-time expertise and like you said you know the big miners they're often publicly traded companies they're required to do kyc AML they're required to do all that and so crazy it's it's just the reality now people can point their hash power elsewhere if they don't like the pull they're in and so far you know when they're having attempts to censor like there was like I think a year ago that ofac pool they didn't get very far they stopped doing that uh ocean I think they're they're but now there was another there was another recent ofat what was the pool that recently did I think it like F2 pool I think is who did that so it's always lurking there right it's like there's always that possibility that these miners can censor that seems to be the trend I don't know if you do you know urri bedar um are you familiar with him URI uh sounds familiar but Parnelli Parnelli polus he's one yeah yeah he he wrote I mean year it's been years ago now but he kind of laid it all out there um the trajectory of of of what censorship resistance might look like in Bitcoin given the fact that uh miners can can be co-opted by governments through regulation and basically be forced to start doing doing what they say in terms of uh how they the transactions that they're allowed to verify um do you think these little things we're seeing are just the beginning of what will ultimately be the end and that man like Bitcoin can effectively be co-opted by governments uh and miners can be forced to to be OAC compliant or do you think it just something that we're seeing bits and pieces of but they're never going to be able to get get a grapple over Bitcoin yeah that's a good question I I I if I had to predict and put money on it I don't think that the state is really going to be able to really prevent Bitcoin through miners I think they're going to keep adding more pressure and I think you will see more the larger mining companies start to like pre comply with things actually kind of don't need to maybe or or ultimately you know with Elizabeth Warren Senator Warren you know she's she's just like doing everything she can to kill Bitcoin everything crypto everything so do I think they're going to keep going after it yes I don't think the mining will ultimately stop Bitcoin just simply because people could Point their hashing elsewhere you know it's not hard to like in China right like China kind of outlawed Bitcoin and the miners went to the US and the miners could go other places um but it it it is a reality that they can kind of make a dent in it but I think they have other means to do that um yeah in a scenario where 95% of all miners are part of one of these large companies that are essentially in bed with The Regulators uh where where do you go to get your transaction validated if if all the mining is effectively being done by these large corporations that are now doing ofac compliant Mining and they don't mind doing it because they benefit Ben from working with The Regulators right and keeping outside and having essentially an advantage over over other miners that aren't ined with The Regulators how does that scenario not come to pass yeah we'll see I mean like you said um they've done that but then they stopped I think it was what a year or two ago now Michael sailor he was um uh associated with one of these and they did it for I think maybe a couple weeks I mean but they stopped and if pull did it once so I just think based on what they've done so far it hasn't been an issue doesn't mean it won't be but it's something to kind of keep an eye on again people could Point their hash power elsewhere it could you know it could move but it's something to keep an eye on absolutely um you know it's an attack Vector it's it's to me not their best way of going after Bitcoin or any crypto but they're going to look into that um I mean look at they're trying to say that a non-custodial wallet is illegal right I mean it doesn't matter who you are Monero Bitcoin like you can't even like hold your own crypto that's that's what I think Elizabeth Warren's bill is is trying to do I think or something like that that's c yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean she she and she is totally Dead Set against privacy coins and like that whole concept like she sees that as like literally you know the devil right which is ironic considering she she is the devil I mean she she does not make any sense right if you go back and look at how she started as a political figure and what she was supposed to stand for and here she is fighting against Liberty Freedom Tech right that that's that's built to disrupt the Fiat system and built to disrupt the banking system uh and and it's built to create a a beautiful permissionless system that anybody can use and she's managed to politically somehow be on the other side on the wrong side of that one like in in such such a passionate way too do you think she's ultimately like you know controlled controlled by the bankers or something is it is it just a she has that incentive to do what she does you know and and why why do politicians do what they do it's either money or power usually both so I guess for her that's her way I mean it's kind of surprising that I mean she lied about her ethnicity she said she was Native American and so you would think she would be cancelled I mean that's a pretty shameful thing to do lie about your ethnicity but I mean I guess if you make the right people happy then you can get away with with everything but you know it's interesting you brought up about um like privacy coins so she doesn't doesn't like those and so it's interesting what happens if they try to completely ban using any privacy coin Monero zcast like effective will that be and you know what's interesting how does that compare to bitcoin because let's think of a scenario where they say okay we're fine with Bitcoin we won't like make it illegal just the usual kyc stuff yeah what if they say Monero any privacy coin is if you use it like it's a fence you get six months in prison like I wonder if they're going to try to do that and then at that point do you say well which is more censorship resistant well narrow at the protocol level but then functionally is it I don't know we'll see we'll see yeah yeah it's it's all interesting game what's interesting about that too is it's definitely going to create a strian effect right we were talking about the suon aatopia the other day and uh I I totally agree with that theory I think it's going to end up being what takes Monero to the next level right um in terms of user adoption and really at the just name recognition right at the end of the day all the these things are are really memes right the more people that know what Bitcoin is the more value it has right it's like the US dollar itself so I think if we see the government actually Target Monero specifically you know and it becomes something that Senator Warren starts saying by name right uh you're GNA get a lot of people that are On The Fringe of Bitcoin privacy move into Bitcoin privacy or realize even more so the importance of privacy in crypto I think right I think I think that camp might grow in in response to it we're already in that camp right uh but you have a lot of these like BTC Maxis and all these PE and just crypto users in general who haven't really stopped to think about these things and if they see that Senator Warren is trying to ban a particular protocol I think it might get them to question and start to go down that rabbit hole do you think it it could have that potential effect yeah I think it could have that effect right strien effect is a perfect example of that yeah absolutely people say oh wow what's this Monera I heard about it but now they're banning it by name specifically you know what interesting is how much actually the state hasn't gone after Monero or even even zcash it's kind of interesting I think because when you hear them talk it's always about Bitcoin Bitcoin mixtures but then also ethereum right like whirl um tornado cash so they talk a lot about that but you would think they would really go after Monero and I think there's a reason why they don't talk about it now some people might say well it's pretty small the percentage like elicit uses as they call it right like North Korea uh Dark Net markets like most of them do use Bitcoin um because of the liquidity and so maybe it's just well not not not enough crime quote unquote crime is being used you know with Monero and maybe that's why but it could be what you said which is like kind of don't want to bring that up yeah it's going to end up hurting them more than helping them there's there's really no way for them to go after it out in the open where they don't end up empowering it more I I don't see how they can do it um and it's also you you know it's it's it's going to be a Supreme Court case at that point right there's no there's no way you ban Monero you ban an open-source protocol you don't ow people to use an open source system to transfer digits over the internet without having some Supreme Court case over it and at that point it becomes well how do you just how how do you justify allowing citizens of the United of the US to use Bitcoin but to not use Monera what is what is the difference between the two protocols at that point what is the difference between the two technologies well I think how they're going after it is just saying any sort of I think maybe I I should have read Elizabeth Warren's bill before this but um you know I think they're actually going after kind of any open source protocol anything that can in any way enable people to have privacy I mean they they're they're not like trying to be subtle about it and so Monero just falls into that Bitcoin everything else and so I I agree with you it could go to the Supreme Court you know could be 10 years before they find the right case and who knows who's going to be on the bench by then but yeah AB absolutely I mean how can they do this well they're they're doing it and today on Twitter I saw this video it was from a conference I think it was a it was a conference basically with law enforcement talking about the sanctions right and there were someone from the FBI ofac and I think the treasury and they were talking about these Bitcoin mixers and they did not want to talk about tornado cash at all there was it was like a really sore spot and someone said oh you know someone's like ah don't put me on the spot for that one so I think they've gotten so much push back from from trying to ban tornado cash that they they know that there's a line there it's just strange because usually they're so like confident they can you know they're the state to have a lot of power it was interesting that they didn't really want to go into that do you love coffee and Monera as much as we do consider making gratuitous dorg your daily cup pay with Monera for premium fresh beans and if you like what you taste send a digital cash tip directly to the farmers that made it possible use Monera to buy gifts this year everyone has coffee drinkers on their list for a limited time only get 10% off of 3 6 and 12month gratuit us.org coffee subscriptions proceeds help us grow this channel gratuitous and [Music] Monero so what do you think man you think it's it's likely to happen you think we'll see some kind of uh privacy coin ban I think it's not I think a privacy coin ban would just be part of a larger bill that just says any sort of opsource software and and that won include coins it'll include mixers it'll include you know anything you could think of uh you know unhost wallets self-hosted wallets I mean they're going to they're going to name it all as a ban as a ban you think that could be really I think Elizabeth Warren's already trying to do that but then including Bitcoin no I think they won't ban Bitcoin but what they'll say is you know any sort of it's they wallets you can't have your own wallet um they're already saying that if you send or they're trying to say that if you send someone Bitcoin you have to basically kyc them basically right right they're saying it needs to be treated like the same as the banking like it's unfair to the bankers because they have to follow these regulations so why doesn't the Bitcoin Network have to follow it it's basically what the is what the the argument that they're making uh which is absurd crazy yeah yeah but that you know crazy crazy doesn't matter right logic doesn't matter like justice Constitution none of that matters so it's just a matter of how do we still continue to try to do what we can in extra exercise our rights despite them being trampled so you know it's going to be interesting I I think I think Monero hasn't truly been tested yet I think Bitcoin is being tested but I don't think monero's quite been like Enemy Number One maybe behind the scenes it is I don't know you know but well Bitcoin I mean bitcoin's never really been it's it's always had the green light right it was never you there's never been an attempt by the government to shut down Bitcoin as far as we know unless there was something done behind the scenes but there was China did right China basically right right and it just moved to the U right and it moved to the US right so um I like to think or I don't know do you think Monero is potentially more Unstoppable than Bitcoin right because that's what we're getting at right so we're saying all right there's there's a potential that government's going to try to try toop this thing and that's what the whole you know Cypher Punk ideology crypto Anarchist ideology is right it's like well well them we don't care what they're going to try to do we're trying to build something that they can't stop anyway do you think Monero is potentially more Unstoppable than Bitcoin because of its privacy uh its fungibility um it's mining Network that isn't Asic based and all all these other things we're talking about that's a great question so do you think Monero I mean Bitcoin has the advantage because of its transparency and because of that it's almost embraced by governments to the point where they'll never try to like that's its strong point is that governments it's Unstoppable because governments aren't going to stop it they're not going to try to stop it yeah so to your to your point I think a really good thought experiment has been if Satoshi had you know released Monero instead of Bitcoin or maybe Monero and Bitcoin at the same time as a thought experiment like what would have been the trajectory and would let's say it was Monero instead of Bitcoin that Satoshi created like back in 2009 well would the state have just crushed back then when it was small and it could because it truly was you know Anonymous and private and and fungible would they have done that and when Bitcoin came out where they kind of like well it's really not Anonymous so it's not a priority we can still track people down we you know so they weren't as worried so that's sort of like the broad thought experiment and a lot of people have said well Bitcoin is less likely to be censored because it's just transparent enough to where people feel comfortable the state feels comfortable being able to track it when they need to um so they'll kind of allow that now that is kind of held up until recently now with mixers and tornado cash these other Bitcoin mixers so we're starting to see that tested we're starting to see if they're going to say okay before you are getting your Bitcoin privacy through different coin joint implementations uh so far they haven't ruled against it like it's perfectly legal to use whirlpool and you know other things like that totally not a problem but you can see why they would kind of are looking at that now so we'll see so that's that's Bitcoin in terms of Monero um you know again I think it's strange they haven't really like come out and like put on like red alert about Bitcoin so that either means that they don't see it as a threat maybe because liquidity like so few crimes are actually with Monero or they kind of purposely aren't and they're kind of building things behind the scenes uh most of the cyber crime again is Bitcoin and then all the hacks are smart contracts because ethereum is riddled with holes right and so most of the crime has been that so maybe if you see something agrees with Monero some terrible terrorism incident or right something awful like that or north Korea maybe then that's when you're going to see it hit but it's kind of it's kind of strange and when you read certain reports and certain articles and PDFs on you know um it's it is interesting that that Monero really isn't isn't brought up yeah it's pretty it's pretty pretty wild um I have seen it though in like Rand reports and stuff um obviously it gets it does get mentioned I mean they they they have their eye on it for sure it's like it's right I mean we had the IRS put out a bounty to try to right to try to demystify Monero um and the lightning Network as well oh yeah um so much to talk about I realized as I'm saying like oh my God we got so many things to talk about um yeah I mean I just want I just want to pull in this thread a a little more though so I I see thing you know I see Bitcoin a high probability that Bitcoin isent gets defanged right I like I said I think we're seeing hints of it now but I think ultimately it becomes this defanged Beast that is globally adopted it almost becomes fzed right just like just like uh gold right it's like people aren't even buying gold anymore they're buying paper gold right uh bit Bitcoin almost becomes ftiz and that it exists it's this network you can use it to to to hold property on and transfer it but it's all completely it becomes effectively completely transparent and in lock step with the government and the Regulators in a way that ultimately perhaps even benefits them right it becomes this perfectly taxable uh you know Ledger right Global Ledger that governments can peer into they know how much of this digital property you have they could see you when you're moving it um do you see that are you as EXT Extreme as me in that thinking or you have more hope for Bitcoin I think I probably have a little more hope uh for for Bitcoin um simply looking at what they're what they're doing I don't think they'll ever completely you know like ban everything although it seems like some people are trying to do that um what I'm looking at actually is I'm really curious what happens when someone publishes something as as an ordinal you know maybe it's it's a website that can't be taken down right because cot is there I that's what I'm keeping my eye out for because eventually you know a really bad actor is gonna put something really awful out there that I think everyone disagrees with hey this is not like we're privacy Advocates but this is not okay and when I think when that starts coming out that's when I think things will get interesting because now that's that's not an issue of like k y see right that's not an issue of sending funds to we're going to you know we're going to ban this address because it's a it's a sanctioned person or entity now it's just like a one-time thing like you can't like once you create that inscription like that's it you're not trying to send it around usually for that type of thing and so now that isn't with mixers it's not with KC that that's like more like a protocol level thing and so that's when I think it could get really interesting uh which I think is sort of inevitable that's that's we'll see that that to me will be the ultimate test if they're going to go after truly the protocol yeah people people are going to do that just for the for the hell of it even if they're not inten like have intent behind it uh just to test the the network right and see what see what reaction they will get out of governments I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet to be honest yeah I think the reason why it hasn't I mean obviously people have made ordinals of all sorts of you know pornographic stuff and other things and I think generally why hasn't been an issue is because you know all the main block explorers and the wallets you know they filter that stuff out and so because most people don't want to see any of that and so that's why maybe it hasn't been an issue because all the while you know they just filter that out it's not like there's some big service that's publishing those things that people do but eventually I think there'll be something that um can't be denied that will have a stri on effect well be something pretty big and everyone's going to look into it find it and then that's that's when I that that's to me to answer your question is what I'm really looking at in terms of like existential for Bitcoin and I I could be wrong but that's what I'm keeping my eye on and then so what happens out of that what's the result of that existential moment so you're saying then at that point there's a pro potentially a protocol change or something big that what then takes away Bitcoin censorship resistance or yeah I think if you know hypothetically there's had a guess it would probably be functional code that can't be taken down that's doing something displaying something so my guess is it's not like one PDF or something my guess is it have to be some sort of you know functional code website something and if and if they're motivated enough if it's awful enough my guess is then it will be come down to mining right because like Banning wallets doesn't do anything like kyc doesn't do anything mixers doesn't do anything so maybe that is when they'll try to control the mining and maybe they will come after for every Miner and say hey you need to keep an eye out you know for these types of ordinal inscriptions and you can't mine anything that includes this sort of thing even though hey once it's there it's there you can't double spend you really can't double spend once or twice but so that that's what I think and then so is that then my doomsday scenario at that point isn't that isn't it a co-opted network at that point well that's the question I mean this this was an early question right like Andreas Antonopoulos used to talk about this back in like 2011 or 12 and people would ask them what happens if you know the government runs the miners what happens if they buy the miners what happens if they go after the major you know mining pools and he said well they might be able to control the network but people will just Fork it and it'll be a new fork and it'll be one ones that people believe who aren't going to be compliant with this stuff and maybe it's the major chain or maybe it's the minor chain but I think if it truly comes to that point where truly the state is really controlling enough hash power either directly or indirectly they truly are controlling the network 51% or 70% you can Fork the network and say well this is our Bitcoin now we're calling it Bitcoin Freedom or something and it'll be a hard fork and then maybe that that's kind of what Andrea said you know 10 years ago that would be the scenario I would see how what is the current temperament in Bitcoin I think you have a you have your on the pulse of that better than I do right now I mean I on Twitter I I see you know I think I see issues with you know ocean the ocean minor censoring Samurai that that that got a lot of uh that got a lot of play and people talking about the ordinals and the factions that want to censor that versus the ones that want to allow it are we potentially entering kind of another Bitcoin Civil War error here like we saw with the block size I don't think we are I mean that's a good parallels the BL size Wars but I I don't think we are and actually I'm very optimistic about Bitcoin I mean this has kind of been the best time to be in Bitcoin since I mean the very early days um and the reason why I say that is now there are more wallets that are going to be doing whirl poool so obviously Samurai wallet is the original implementer of it but then you have Sparrow and on the Twitter space today they talked about a couple other wallets that we're going to do it so that's good we're seeing more of the whirlpool coin joint implementation um I think the Maxis the lasery the priests are being slowly like discarded I think their Bitcoin only church cult that they were in I think that's has seen its its best days and I think those people are are kind of giving up on that or or they're just not they're no longer the dominant voice and I think you know that whole concept those guys are going away I think orinal is bringing in a whole new group of people new money new developers new use case not just like dumb art but actually some really cool things you can do um so I think Bitcoin is actually in a in a really good place in terms of protocol and the people because Bitcoin has been stagnant for so many years so many years and and even from the beginning like the core devs a lot of them to core have really focused not on privacy at all it's always been about let's scripting and time locks and like more of a financial instrument they really shot themselves in the foot we can't come back to that but um in terms of Bitcoin the the I think to answer your question um it's a it's a change of the Guard that's what I would say it's a change of the Guard I think it's a new era with with more people in it now that being said the state is coming down harder in general but Bitcoin itself has has some of the best people now yeah yeah yeah yeah that's okay that's that's so you like you you're okay with ordinals on bitcoin are you were you okay with mnal on Monero what was your what was your take on that uh I wasn't deep into it enough to to to care um I know that there was a hot minute it was there um what was sort of you know what was the case there that happened with morals I mean PE people were using Monero to publish uh ordinals um but then basically some changes changes were made right there's the uh the transa TX extra field of Monero is effectively is what allowed this to happen um and there's always been this idea of deprecating that at some point so that hasn't been deprecated yet but without getting to technicalities basically it's not as easy to use it for those purposes anymore um but overall like what was your thinking there with that was was was like well it is what it is if people wanted do uh ordinal Zano let him do ordinal Zano or or would did you view it a little differently because of the fact that it potentially affected fungibility yeah yeah that's a good question you know to me it was sort of like I don't want to stop people from doing things right but there was definitely a Parton was like uh why don't we just leave ordinals out of Monero like let's just let's just not I I don't want to stop someone from doing it but like personally my opinion was I hope this doesn't really take off like let's just use let's use Bitcoin let's use Stacks let's use other things you know and just the way the Monero Community is I never thought it would get far simply because it's not the culture and there's if if you're like an artist you want to go where the liquidity is and you're not going to be publishing a lot of art on Monera there's just not there's just not enough users for it to be worth your while and so that's sort of my take but it's interesting like hard Forks um in terms of like censorship resistance it's interesting how so far hard Forks seem to have worked well from Monaro but that's something to keep an eye on I think is maybe my my concern there is could there be a hard Fork that isn't isn't a good thing so far it seems like it's worked pretty well like Bitcoin has struggled in a sense because of its soft forks and there's good reasons for soft fors but yeah I think I think I think it's because Monero has a very cohesive value proposition right uh that the the Comm the community by and far for the most part all agrees what the purpose of this tool is which is digital cash transactions whereas in Bitcoin uh that PE not everybody thinks not everybody's thinking along those lines right even even you and are saying well it's not even digital cash it's it's property uh so I think that's fundamentally the difference between the two in terms of why perhaps Monero is able to kind of do these forks with no with no issue uh do you agree with that or do you you see things differ yeah I agree I think you're right that it's sort of the culture of Monero and I think if you don't like that you have other options right like if you think story value you just go to bitcoin if you want to publish ordinals because you're an artist you go to bitcoin so sort of like self- selecting out like those kind of people simply just don't get into Monero because it's not a good place for it and so they naturally don't go there you know which is which has been nice I think it's complimentary you know like like if any form that's why we're talking about both and we're going to talk about like the pros and cons and where things break down between the two um you know because they do go well together but yeah so far it's been cohesive um which is strange because when you come from Bitcoin world right it's like so much just stupid drama and so many factions and so much like laring and not just that but like soap opera stuff and you would think that'd be the case in Monero like I would think Monero would be like the most difficult costic negative you know hostile ranker coin but it's kind of not it's it's kind of surprising because so much is on the line and it's privacy so you would think I don't know maybe just way off but I I'm kind of surprised how it's actually kind of cohesive and relatively Pleasant kind of surprising yeah I mean don't get me wrong we have we have our moments yeah we blocked each other so we we know that things happen but overall me out of guns and Bitcoin Ragnar you kicked me out yeah but you know compared to bitcoin with the drama there so it's kind of it's kind of surprising and like not to be like conspiratorial but you know the state always infiltrates any group that that they you know disagree with and that's always like okay who and Monero right because you know there's the state is in Monero but they're there I'm sure obviously but so far it doesn't seem like they've made a dent doesn't mean they can't in the future but so far like doesn't seem like there's any powerful State actors that are really like rank rankling things up and really trying to pull their Reigns in a certain direction as far as I know right unless it's it's unless it's so nefarious and diabolical that it's happening on some some level we're not aware of yet um hey which is which is possible um but so what do you then see Bitcoin as designing towards so like like we're saying right there's that cohesion there in Monero on what the value proposition is all design decisions are towards that end of censorship resistant untraceable Unstoppable digital cash what are what motivates the design decisions in Bitcoin and is there even a shared belief on what motivates the design decisions in Bitcoin I think Bitcoin is obviously more there it's more variety in terms of how people see it I'll say that I think the lightning Network now is a lot of people realizing it's just not gonna it just doesn't deliver what it was promised to deliver in terms of payments um I think we're in a permanent High fee environment now with Bitcoin so fees are just going to be high probably permanently which really can hinder the peer-to-peer cash because it's more expensive to do so I think that digital cash is going to suffer a little bit just because of the fees I think are going to be high and lightning actually isn't a solution to that I think people love nfts they love art they love ordinals so I think that's really going to go far in the long term um like Tapo Wizards raised millions of dollars they're like kind of the biggest ordinal collection in terms of money rais I think um so in terms of Bitcoin what's its sort of message I think it's going to be a combination of like um you know ordinals art and think also as like an asset there's going to be ETFs will be approved just a matter of time I know people have been saying ETFs for 10 years but there will be approved ETFs and when that hits Bitcoin is going to be digital gold uh maybe it'll be even neutered and censored like you alluded to but so kind of those two those kind of two or three things I I would say definitely more are definitely more defi with layers different layers you're going to be able to defi type things smart contract type things um but so yeah that peer-to-peer cash I think is going to be it'll always be there there's so much liquidity but it's it's you're not going to think Bitcoin and payments right like that's not what people are gonna like first thing comes to their mind yeah yeah yeah and do you see the the number go up thing as helping to propel the the movement away from from cash utility right feeding into that because I do I I feel like you know that's the number go up it's great it's a great way to bootstrap right it it was a genius genius thing that that Satoshi Came Upon here that the system would would bootstrap Itself by becoming more valuable over time and with every new user but it also seems to be it's ailles heel in terms of now designing towards number go up instead of Designing towards censorship resistant you know digital cash Network yeah yeah the number go up thing you know you can make the argument has has actually hindered Bitcoin as a peer-to-peer payment system because people don't want to spend it right I mean that's the whole thing we've heard for so many years is why would you spend your Bitcoin you know why would you possibly do that because people just want to make money and that's really you know it's kind of hindered Bitcoin and I think yes that will probably continue to further hinder Bitcoin in terms of like wanting it to be a payment system simply because when the ETFs are approved I think that's really going to increase the price and once those big institutions are on board like Bitcoin has a new floor in terms of the low price that it will hit because of those major institutions and at that point all you know the money the the headlines the talent is going to be more on that Asset Management side and it's going to be sort of the more of the Paradigm for Bitcoin Bitcoin you can anyone can do anything with it but you will I think see even more of a transition emphasis on the number go up uh once once that happens and including ordinals like the cost of the value of ordinals you know number go up on those as well the speculation just like we saw in ethereum with all the nfts it's it's a g to be a casino um that's what I see what do you think of the the meme of uh you know hold hold Bitcoin but spend Monero yeah I get it I don't it's not something I would propagate because I really think that Bitcoin is is a peer-to-peer payment system and I think because so many more companies and individuals accept that as a payment method that we need to grow that Bitcoin economy and so it's I I get that um but I just kind of don't like it because I think Bitcoin should be used for payments and I think we should encourage that but if people say well you know I think bitcoin's price will go up more than Monero so I'm just gonna kind of use that as my investment and spend Monero that's fine I guess as long as people are using Monero but H you know I don't I don't like that dialectric I I don't like that splitting it into the you know yeah and it's it also takes away you know from monero's uh value proposition as being a scarce digital asset as well right it's like yeah like why can Bitcoin be digital gold but Monero can't there like anybody who understands the economics of these things there's absolutely no reason why Monero can't be as digital gold like if not more because of its ibility uh and it's arguably perhaps arguably it's it's more predictable Supply I I make that argument as well right we don't know one day one day the 21 million may have to be ra a tail emission may have to be added to bitcoin at some point to continue to maintain the network do you where do you fall on that I mean we've even hear bitcoiners talk like Peter Todd has even talked about perhaps the potential need to add a tail emission to bitcoin uh yeah what do you think about all those things that just threw at you there yeah no I I really think a tail emission makes sense for Bitcoin I I thought I think it should have it I think that was something I understand why SOI did why Satoshi didn't do that but I think it was a mistake looking back and I think a t mission is important um why Monero does it and in terms of like digital gold and Monero absolutely can be digital gold like it is right bitcoiners will say Well it has infinite Supply right because it never stops being produced there's always that tail Mission but that's stupid um it's tiny um but yeah and the other thing about people who want to say oh only use Monero to spend it's like no let's say you're sort of a paranoid person and you think okay we're gonna have more control more surveillance more of a Crackdown well don't you want to be hoarding Monero I mean you want to hoard Monero like you want to spend it but you really want to hoard Monero I I think right it's like only use a gun if you need it but you need to have to use it yeah that's what I was that's actually how I think about it it's funny you say that because I was thinking in my mind it's like it's like a gun and it's like ammo yeah if if you truly think you need it you want more ammo and you want more guns because you don't want to say oh only you know only like use bullets that are inexpensive and only shoot those it's like no you got to practice with it like to get good at it like you don't want to be too late on it so that's why I don't like the dichotomy of like spend this but save that it's like you want to do both be good at both have as much as both as possible all right yeah I I like that what's the deal G give me some insight into into samurai because I haven't spoken to those guys in a while as well why aren't they all in on Monero like I I I that that's the you know kind of a gripe I've had had with them I don't because they get they understand this better than anybody right they understand the need for censorship resistant digital cach that's why they're working tirelessly on trying to create things that allow you to use Bitcoin in that way uh unfortunately it's it's not easy to do in Bitcoin but here you here you have on the other hand you have something Monero that works beautifully for that purpose uh I respect the fact that they're building all these things but why don't they like accept Monero or maybe they do is there a plan to accept Monero natively on their app I've heard them talk about in terms of atomic swaps and the same idea of you know ultimately Monero is is worthless against Bitcoin but you can use it if you want to um wash essentially as a mixer right you could essentially use it as a mixer for Bitcoin but they never take the next step of saying on its own it's a good technology and it works as digital cash and we're you know we're promoting it we're using it we're building things for that just give me the insights there on on Samurai yeah well you know obviously I can't I can't speak for for Samurai uh they're they're a team but I what I can say is they do like Monero a lot uh they fully appreciate they like it they're friendly to it I thought they were working on the swaps I don't know what the status of that is yeah um so they they've come out and said that um I can't speak for them but I think they they just have so much on their plate right like they're so busy with WHL poool and I just saw the other day like they I think reached like an all-time high again of world pool so I think they're just so busy with what they are doing that they just like well I don't even know maybe they want to but they don't have the bandwidth I don't know but I know they're just so busy as as it is and yeah that's the case then yeah I can't fault them for that if it's just a bandwidth issue and it's like we would do it but we you know we don't have the time or is it more of like a philosophical where bitcoiners no no they yeah not that way yeah they're like privacy first and then they're definitely like like me in terms of like it's just a tool right like Bitcoin mono just tools they're not like the point of it they're just a tool and they were privacy guys before Bitcoin and they'll be after it goes away if it ever does so no they they like Monero I think they're just have their hands full with Bitcoin and I think it's good because it's kind of amazing in a bad way just how little emphasis privacy has had in Bitcoin you think of all the talent all the money all the VCS all the podcasts all the conferences all the stuff and like Samurai has kind of been really the only ones who have had like usable practical privacy things like it's kind of amazing for how much money is in Bitcoin they're kind of the only ones like there's some other stuff but it's like not good it's it's it's just a blows my mind and I can't wrap my head around why there's not more competitors to samurai or why people just just haven't so maybe that's also they're in a good position in that sense right right they're the they're the specialist for that for that purpose very true very true yeah I think I think the atomic swaps that they're adding uh is really for purposes of getting rid of the toxic change I think is like how how you're currently thinking about it so like yeah get again like so why why not just like add Atomic swaps to Samurai and you could hold your Bitcoin there you could hold your Monero there that will they will they be a fin Fest because if they are then then I'll be able to to ask him that question I'm sure yeah there there's a couple of guys from Samurai that'll be at finny Forum uh AR Go a speaker sorry turn that's the after party that's the after party yeah no I like that that's a good good one U yeah but um Aro will be there a go he's on their oxt block Explorer uh software that they have um so he'll be a speaker BTC zel will be a speaker although he doesn't work for Samurai while he you know they have the node Ron and Dojo node which does world poool and it's a Bitcoin note so he'll be there and maybe some of the actual Samari guys will be there as well we're still trying to figure out their schedule and stuff like that so definitely uh there'll be guys for you to speak with uh from the samurai World definitely there so definitely uh you know raise some eyebrows and start a conversation I won't be that annoying I promise I promise um I'm just I'm so inquisitive when it when it comes to understand like some people I you know I try to understand their their their true motivations in crypto like like Andreas soplos you brought up right like I never understood why that guy never spoke about Monero more right like he seemed to that's what he's he's what brought me into Bitcoin right he's he's really what gave me the initial deep understanding of the value prop of what crypto is supposed to be and yet you never really hear him talking about Monero and all the all the good things it's doing towards towards that end of being digital cash right yeah I don't know I mean where where is he I haven't heard from Andreas in years true generally haven't heard much from him lately maybe he's just retired I mean he certainly has enough well actually remember uh right at some point he he revealed that he didn't have any Bitcoin and then people donated to him that that was that was incredible yeah well there was that one thing with uh what I think it was a Roger ve thing it was something where like he got this big donation or one a bet or something but I I thought there was something with Roger ve and then um Andreas like kept it and it was like a big big payday um but I know beond the scenes Andre has been like um an advisor to lots of companies behind the scenes so you know maybe maybe stuff there but yeah it's kind of disappointing he was he was very um inspirational although he started to I think upset some people because he's on the left side of politics um and I I would say probably more people in Bitcoin are on the right side there's people on both sides but I think some of his left is views um people didn't like so maybe that or maybe he's retired you know I don't know but for fortunately you know the world has grown since Andreas and those those small groups so there's plenty of good people now in general though like people of that of that nature right that are are in Bitcoin for its censorship resistant purposes any thinking there as to why more of them aren't talking about Monero is it just as simple as they're invested in Bitcoin number go up they got their bags or yeah that's probably that I I think especially if they've been in it for a while I just think if kind of most of their you know their wealth or whatever that word means to people is in Bitcoin they're kind of set that way and so you know people only have so much energy and attention span to do more than one thing um but there also is the social stigma you know it's stupid but there's lots of bitcoiners who love Monero you know public people like I can think of one person who is a Bitcoin whale who is very well known in Bitcoin very private Centric but doesn't talk about Monero but he loves Monero like he is Aid fan I'm sure he's contributed probably lots of code I'm sure he's made some big donations in Monero I'm pretty darn sure of that but just doesn't talk about it because the stupid culture and he's kind of you know he just decides that his he's better he time better spent talking about Bitcoin rather than having to fight some other battle publicly about Monero and he can just contribute to nrow uh without saying much so I guess you just have to pick your battles that's the only thing I can think of do you see that changing I mean obviously right even I feel like you represent that that realm right so you're you're in a group your tent is is the bitcoiners the Privacy the privacy bitcoiners and now they're they're getting into Monero do you see that tent growing I see it yeah I see it's becoming more acceptable to talk about Monero I think this is probably a good thing in Bitcoin we're starting to see as new people come in because of ordinals I think you're having a more diverse crowd I think as a number go up people sort of uh they've been uh shown to be wrong about so many things so I do think it will be more socially acceptable for these you know Bitcoin privacy people to get into Monero um yeah I think I think that's going to be more acceptable but not to be too negative but a lot of there's you know some big Bitcoin privacy people who actually turns out really don't care about privacy as much as they thought they did or say they do and you've seen that with Samurai now Samurai likes they're funny guys they like to make people upset like they they're thick skin and they they have no problem right mixing it up with people um that's why I like them but uh you've seen a lot of people fight Samurai and you're like what is this and these are like quote unquote the Privacy guys Bitcoin is censorship resistant like a lot of them and they hate Samurai and they and some of that is because they invested in wasabi which is supposedly another you know coin drin implementation that's broken it's terrible but I think a lot of people simply invested in in that um and so to answer your questioni vers Samurai thing right right so go ahead go ahead though to answer my question yeah yeah so to answer your question yes I think it's becoming more acceptable for for you know bitcoiners to get into to Monero and talk about it um that's one thing but then there's also just the fact that uh people who said they were about privacy ultimately aren't they're more about their investment in different in alternatives to Samurai and they're more invested in kind of their their you know their image um yeah people people are just people at the end of the day right yeah yeah we all fall short of our own expectations I mean we're all human right all this all this coming down the line for sure he's playing into all this all all this greed all this greed that everybody has yeah you know it's it's it's uh you know is Bitcoin you know has it has it suffered from its own success I would say yes um you know it's hard to care about you at a certain point I think a lot of you know Bitcoin Wells at a certain point it's kind of like they sort of it's hard for them to have privacy because you get to a certain point it becomes hard in a sense um unless you've been very careful with things along the way I think it just becomes very hard and and you don't want to make yourself a Target and so they're just kind of like H I'm not getting engage in this and like we said before the the number go up thing it's like people people essentially sell out right it's like they they cared about privacy but when they see their dollar value keep going up in Bitcoin terms they don't longer really care about it as much right because they're like well I'm getting my freedom through my wealth uh I don't need it to be private uh which I think is short-term thinking right it's it's not adversarial thinking either because ultimately the real value comes from people not being able to to take your wealth right yeah I I agree I think you know when you get comfortable like anything like if you're comfortable you become less of a of a warrior less of an advocate less of a fighter because you have a good life and you just you don't want to risk your good Pleasant life and so why get into this big fight and and put yourself out there because your life is so great and you have your boat and your house and you know all the stuff that you have that could be it too I don't know yeah um what some who was it that somebody posted some good questions oh was on untraceable right posted some good questions you had asked I think we actually kind of covered most of them uh what is bitcoin's value uh about you know the issues with the censorship resistance we definitely covered that um I he's asking yeah what do you think what would you say is is your greatest criticism or criticisms of banero I think it's you know lack of Greater adoption I I think is it is its weakness I mean ultimately you got to have adoption as a as a method of payment um that that's the Practical thing I think of Monero is is is that okay it's liquidity essentially yeah yeah it's liquidity it's getting better right um with you know BTC pay server and it's becoming easier to do that but um yeah that that's what I would like to see and this is where you know bitcoiners you know they don't like it like finny form like I've talked to a couple different like Bitcoin like meetup groups and just kind of just call it Bitcoin social groups I would say say Hey you know like do you want to be a sponsor do you want to be a partner you know speak or this or that and a lot of them say no because we have Monero there you go right you know we talk about Monero same thing with bars and Bitcoin we have Monero and so it just shows like the damage they can do because they don't want Monero to be a method of payment right like they don't like that we accept Monero for our ticket sales um and so to answer the question I think lack of Greater you know adoption is it biggest weak point right now there's nothing wrong with Monera itself the protocol right it's just the state of things yeah yeah yeah for sure which ties into untraceable other question which is what do you think of Monero being this idea of Monero being delisted from centralized exchanges is that a good thing or a bad thing uh that's a great question I generally think that it is a bad thing in the sense that most people use Central services at least for any large amounts you know it's easier to get smaller amounts without having to do the centralized services but for larger amounts it's it's harder and so I think in the short term it it keeps Monero out of the hands of more users plain and simple just the convenience the counterargument to that though is that it keeps the ethos of Monero uh with people who want to use it and it doesn't like get distracted people don't get in Monero for the wrong reasons um so I think it's kind of a mixed bag there I would prefer that it doesn't get delisted I know people say that's a strien effect but you know I'm I'm not so not so sure about that um yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean it it could definitely hurt liquidity initially right I mean I guess I guess the yeah the positive arguments are that you're you're using crypto the way you should be using it right uh there's definitely no kyc AML if you're if you can't go onto a centralized exchange to get it uh so then you know you're you're obtaining it in the best way possible and then just using it not necessarily um you know just using it as an investment so but but maybe you know more people are mining you know if they if they're like well it's harder to get centralized exchange and they're like I'll mine it just that's one more you know way to get it um yeah it'll be interesting to see how how it plays out uh because I just the state is gonna come after Monero eventually I mean there's a reason why they haven't been more aggressive and I think I think it's GNA come then we'll really see was delisting it uh good good or bad like did it prepare the community for something like did it Stave that off and so we're already prepared for it right right right and like we said there's these other Bridges being built Unstoppable like Atomic swaps uh decentralized exchanges uh is Sarai gonna be presenting at um fin Forum uh he's trying to yeah Luke Parker yeah thanks for bringing Luke up yeah really glad that Luke's gonna be a speaker um I'm I don't think he's decided if he's going to talk about it yet I'm kind of leaving that up to him based on on how far along it is he's got a lot to talk about he could also talk about full membership proofs right he's he's working on that as well yeah that that's why Luke Luke asked me what should I talk on I'm like whatever you want yeah exactly you're the boss man you tell us yeah you if you're gonna fly out to if you're gonna fly out to Dallas like the mic's yours just keep it at 20 minutes so he's a Phenom that kid he's he's amazing yeah big big brain um but yeah like deick Apollo he's going to be a speaker you know he's helped I think with with BTC pay server and yeah so he's gonna be on there and uh just scrolling through another one like if Jenny Poes can he's behind uh you know the the Privacy messaging app um and then we're trying to get some more Monero people out there so hopefully this podcast will track more of the Monero tribe you have a big following so hopefully more more of the Monero crazy people will come and get a few more of those speakers on board I think I think you'll see that happen for sure for sure we got to get you to in return to come to monot toia man we uh we need you to return the favor and yeah so when is the next one I know the last one was in Mexico what's the what's the plan you guys have a date I haven't been keeping up to date on things we are thinking yeah because we haven't officially announced anything yet we're thinking of doing it in buar Argentina a year from now essentially um and then that separates us from monocon because they do theirs in June we've been doing ours in like May which is right next to theirs so kind of moves us six months away from Monero con um and then it'll be somewhere down in Buenos syus during that time which should be nice and then we have Malay over there which I'm sure you're aware of and there's there's a lot of energy there right now there's a lot of natural organic Monero adoption that's taking place I think I had reached out to you right to try to get a uh a a alesandro perhaps is being a speaker at fin form the young kid who start who's starting Monero town and iberet in Argentina uh so yeah we're thinking of doing Monero Topia down there in in a year which would be cool that would be very interesting especially with yeah the new the new president there see where where things will go yeah that'll be interesting it's a far flight though that's the thing right it's pretty far people don't understand I feel like a lot of people just want to like who haven't been down there or or just just need that final like little push to go because they want to go they want to check it out so maybe this will will be their excuse to go check it out Bon have you ever been to bonasus no I've I've gone to Chile many times uh but never make it made it over Argentina I've had a few Argentine friends but just didn't make it there yeah want to yeah the food is amazing the the the steak the wine yeah just the uh the culture it's good good people and just and and the cash culture is amazing there I mean it is obviously things things are going to be changing now but the the current the current because of the the the Fiat being so dismal down there that people have basically live in a black market economy so it's it's kind of exciting to see because you're you're witnessing uh a true black market economy you know and yeah actually that that that might actually see that go away ironically even though Malay is Extreme libertarian but in his efforts to fix things it may become less necessary to have have the black market down there yeah it'll be interesting to see um because it's you know he's the new president but then you're always going against the bureaucrats and the banks and so you know we'll see El Salvador I mean he's he was the president there I mean he's been very influential was able to do a lot so maybe he will I mean Argentina seems like it's right for this kind of thing so hopefully I mean like you said it's a big cash economy seems like a natural fit for Monero um yeah it'd be a great excuse to go down there I mean the climate as well I mean there's so many good things it's just the flight I think if it was closer a lot more a lot more people who would normally go to Europe would go to Argentina instead like I would rather kind of go rather go to Argentina I've been to Europe plenty of times so we'll see yeah it's far New York is like 11 hours I don't know where you're coming from well you're Texas right yeah Texas right now okay cool all right man is there any other information you want to put out there with regards I guess let's set first say crypto in general any any any info you want to get out there no I mean I think this has been good I appreciate you guys you know being a partner at fin forum and um so finy for.com uh just throw out the date again so March 15th and 16th in Dallas so that'll be a good conversation there to talk about everything uh meet meet other folks there that I know only via you know Twitter um but yeah I I I appreciate uh having me on and you know spreading the word and um yeah I think overall I think my message would be that things are moving in the right direction in Monero the right direction in Bitcoin I think we're coming to a very interesting time where the state is really cracking down now and we're going to have these populist revolts and Argent Tina and some other places and I think the world is going to get really crazy next year with with the presidential election in the US so buckle up I think and be prepared hold those Monero hold hle Monero stack Monero you might want to go boating too right you might you might want to take up the the hobby of boating as well uh what would you say to to somebody who is in crypto maybe they're maybe they're like a a bitcoiner getting interested in Monero but they are concerned about the fact that it might be banned or they're concerned that it is a target what what would be your message to the to those people I would say if you're afraid of that that's a reason to use Monero and I would say as of today it's not illegal to own Monero or use it so like don't be a baby like I love it so true right like if if you're here and you're here for the right reasons then you should wantan to want to use Monero at that point right otherwise you're probably here for the wrong reasons right yeah it's like come on come on like think of our ancestors and what they they've done like talk about weak generation so yeah so people are afraid of Monero don't be that's ridiculous it's legal and if you think it's going to be banned that's more of a reason to have it cuz why would they if it was such a powerful tool right when like the government says ban this sometimes there's a good reason for it but sometimes it's not so know Monero is a friendly place it's not that hard to get it's easy to use great wallets you can mine at home like go for it don't overthink it all right Ragnar man thank you so much this is fantastic yeah dougas I'm glad we got to do this and uh we'll see you in March if we don't also see each other on Twitter before then cheers buddy and thanks thank you for joining us on this week's episode we release new episodes every week you can find And subscribe to our show on YouTube Odyssey iTunes Spotify Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcast go to monot talk. live to subscribe for a full list of places where you can watch and listen if you want to interact with us guests or other podcast listeners you can follow us on Twitter and please leave us a review on iTunes it helps people find the show and we are always happy to read them so thanks so much and we look forward to being back next [Music] week