Latest / Monero Talk / Monero's Place in Policy & Regulation in 2025 | EPI 339
Transcript
- Stoic.xmr No worries, man. Um, I'll take this time just to welcome the listeners. Um, what we're going to be talking about today is actually very big, something important, and as far as I know, something new, something that hasn't been done before. We're going to be talking about Monero policy in the year 2025. Can we, or even should we work towards a goal? What those goals can be and how we can implement a Monero friendly regulation. I want to welcome to the conversation Doug Tuman and John Bush. Welcome guys. Hey, thanks. So thanks for. Stoic.xmr Um, so we'll be asking questions to Doug and John listeners. A welcome to come up at the end, raise any, you know, ideas, any concerns that you'll have. Um, let's start off with where we are. Uh, we've got Donald Trump in charge. We've seen some pro crypto policy with, you know, cap gained exemptions. We've seen a potential particular reserve, even just pro freedom things like he's left all bricked out of prison, giving him a part of also from a global scale. We just saw when was that the other day, the Czech Republic eliminated the capital gains, uh, tax for BTC hold over three years. So with that said, can we, should we push for Monero friendly policy and have, I suppose, and have Monero and privacy coin political action groups and just an extension to the question, if not now, given all the positive cryptocurrency, then when, when is the better time? Doug Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll kick us off. How's my sound, by the way? You're coming in and out of my hands. Stoic.xmr I'm lumping, so yeah, I got you a lot of info. Doug Um, yeah, I don't know if it's a connection on your end. So, yeah, I mean, people have probably heard me talk about this before I'm I'm of the of the mind that now is the time to strike from from a political angle. Obviously, I'm first and foremost, a opt out guy, right? So I believe in the cypherpunk vision, I believe in the crypto anarchist vision, very much so, I think, perhaps more than anyone possibly can think I've proven that over the years, I've been in the Monero space for for many years been doing the narrow talk for like eight years. And I've always been passionate for the opt out reasons for building a digital cash economy outside of the state surveillance system. You can believe me or not, you know, I don't really know what my motive would be. You could you could go go and see all the work I've done. Currently, I'm working on XMR Bazaar. It's a project I'm most passionate about. And the vision there is to build out a Monero circular economy outside the state's surveillance system. All that being said, I think we do need to fight this, this this war on a second front and that second front being the political front, I attempted to do it four years ago, five years ago now in 2020, when I ran for Congress as a pro Monero candidate, seeing where the puck was headed with regards to how governments were going to how I thought governments were going to treat Monero and projects like Monero and technologies like Monero, and try to squash them. And I thought maybe, maybe you'd be good to have somebody sitting in legislative office that was pro digital cash for all the right reasons. And now I think is perhaps an even better time to work along those lines, given the fact that Trump is in office, and he has proven that he's willing to take actions that seemingly would align with Monero and digital cash. There's people in his administration that appears like they would they would align with these values. RFK Jr. is somebody that comes to mind. I've heard him talking very eloquently and passionately about the need for cash and all the free speech reasons that come along with that. And so, while I am very much a crypto anarchist and a cypherpunk and think that we need to keep our heads down and building and working on those things, I think it would be silly for us to not take advantage of the political atmosphere and try to use the powers that be to our advantage politically and get them to do things like create essentially a safe space for Monero. I do think Monero aligns with the ideals that this country was founded upon America. And I think there's arguments to be made as to why America should be pro Monero. And we should lobby. I'm not saying kiss the asses of politicians. I'm not saying bend the knee. I'm not saying change the code. I'm not saying we alter Monero in any way. But we should lobby the politicians and get them to understand our viewpoint and why we think Monero aligns with them politically and get them to create an atmosphere that is welcoming of Monero. Doug And perhaps even beyond that, that would be willing to bolster Monero for its liberty preserving reasons. So that's my overall thesis. And I do think now is the time to strike. And the only way we really get this done is if we unite and work together. And it's not just Doug Truman out there and everybody's giving me the cold shoulder and turning their back the other way and being like, no, we're cypherpunks. It would be a lot more productive if we had a group of people behind us and resources behind us. At the end of the day, Monero is very much an open source project, which is a fantastic thing. And it's not controlled by any centralized entity. There's no Monero corporation, which is fantastic. But that's also a detriment in some ways. We lack the ability to organize because of that in some ways. We haven't really seen Monero do any marketing efforts. There's arguments to be made as why that's a good thing. But I do also see it as a detriment. And I think that could be overcome by us organizing on a grassroots level and coming up with a plan and figuring out how to approach the powers that be and get them to create a regulatory environment that's friendly to Monero, not asking for new regulations. If anything, we're asking them to get rid of regulations. And we're asking them to clearly announce that there's absolutely nothing wrong with using Monero, that people shouldn't feel threatened by governments or the US government if they're using Monero. Businesses shouldn't feel like they're under threat when they're accepting Monero. Exchanges shouldn't have to think twice about listing Monero. And yeah, that's my overall thesis. Stoic.xmr Just before I move over to you, John, I just want to welcome Borty up on the stage. I did actually ask Borty before we started to come up from Speak, so we'll add him up as a late speaker edition. And for the rest of everyone who's wanting to come up, we'll just add you guys up at the end or towards the end. John, what's your thoughts on the question? Do you have anything unique to add necessarily? John Bush Oh yeah, quite the dichotomy with Mr. Doug's position, and I actually have a dinner reservation like 20 minutes. My wife's trying to push it back right now, much to her dismay, but okay, so the perspective that I have on this comes from doing conspiracy, freedom activism, politics lobbying for 22 years, being in the crypto space for over 10 years, and just coming to the realization that the government is operating exactly as it was intended to operate. That is to enrich and empower the ruling class at the expense of everyone else. That's like traditional tyranny, taxation, police state, licenses, controlling markets, and it's been like that since the beginning. And I like the Americana heritage, maybe we got to go back to the confederation, Articles of Confederation, but the central government has been attempting to control markets and commerce since the get-go, and that's always been furthered in usurped through mission creep. But nonetheless, we have the way that government works, and then we also have this dastardly technocracy, which could be summed up through the great reset. A huge piece is to control, to financially surveil and control commerce and transactions. The central bank digital currencies are still being implemented. Trump isn't a fan of Monero or crypto-anarchism or peer-to-peer electronic cash. They're leveraging Bitcoin as a means of shoring up dollar hegemony. They're pushing forward central bank digital currencies now in the form of stablecoins. So when it comes to, should we get Monero regulated or have it be somehow legitimized by the state, I'm a firm and resounding no. The purpose of Monero and its unique selling proposition compared to other cryptocurrencies is it is very much rebel money. It very much ought to exist outside of the state, and in all reality, we don't need Monero to be legitimized. In fact, it's better that Monero has been pulled from decentralized exchanges because it creates greater market demand for innovative crypto-anarchists to seek on and off-ramps through peer-to-peer exchanges, through Heveno and Heveno-Ritu, and what I always encourage folks in my audience to do is to build personal relationships with other freedom lovers and to trade amongst ourselves. So I think it's – and no disrespect to Doug because I'm like in awe of the activism. I can't really think of many people that have put in more Monero activism than Doug over the years, and I know Doug's coming from a position of integrity, but I strongly believe that it's a naive position to think that the United States government would even welcome Monero and legitimize it in some way or – so that's one piece, practically speaking. I've done years and years and years of political activism, and that's what – because it was basically me banging my head against the wall, I came to realize that it's not the best use of my time because my number one purpose on this earth is to create political autonomy and self-governance for our freedom community, and I came to realize that in order to pull that off, we're not going to go beg our masters to give us greater freedom. John Bush The political system is built in a way that it shuts out this type of stuff. It's impractical to think that the government would even welcome Monero. We see things going in the opposite direction with the European Union and other countries already banning privacy coins and like literally shutting off the on and off ramps through legitimized exchanges. So, I think it's by time that we just accept that the role of Monero is to help facilitate countereconomics, trade outside the system, and then one more thing I want to note, I know the dream of digital cash. It was the dream that I had early on, digital cash for the masses, I should say. That was the big dream of Bitcoin, and there was a time when it had the momentum to potentially become a reality, but of course, we're all familiar with the hijacking Bitcoin narrative and those small blocks versus big blocks and on and on, and there was a market opportunity that got taken away and replaced with the Venmos and the cash apps of the world, and frankly, the masses, I don't think they're interested in Monero or interested in learning to use some new tool. I think that we should just accept things the way that they are, and one last piece I want to share, there's this fracturing taking place within society at large. There's those that go along to get along and just want to be comfortable. They want convenience. They don't want to take risks. They're so overwhelmed from the challenges of trying to work and earn a living and raise a family in these crazy economic conditions with inflation and the Federal Reserve and taxation, and they're just going along to get along, and when there's these government programs that roll out, when COVID comes out with hardcore propaganda, they're going to follow the herd. There's that work, what's it called, mass formation psychosis. That's just how the masses work, so there's a fracturing with them, the masses, normies as a pejorative, I don't like that term because we're all normies at one point, and then there's us. I assume everyone on this call or most people on this call, we care deeply about freedom. We recognize that if we are to be able to create an environment where we can trade freely amongst ourselves, where we don't have to check in with big mama and big daddy government, where our transactions aren't surveilled, where we're able to continue to do business, even as they try to shut us out of the economy for not being up to date on our shots, for not complying with a certain carbon emission cap or whatever the hell they have planned, then we've got to do that ourselves. We have to take responsibility for creating the financial environment where we can do that. Again, I just really want to reiterate, I know that we feel like Trump is friendly to crypto. It's not friendly to crypto in a crypto anarchist sense. In fact, it's much the opposite. There with Fink and Lutnik, Fink of course with BlackRock, Lutnik the Secretary of Commerce, also the guy behind Cantor Fitzgerald, which is custody in the securities that back up in Tether, for example, they're not friendly to our type of crypto. John Bush They're trying to securitize and tokenize every single bit of biodiversity on the planet to further this great reset, total planopticon society agenda. We all have limited time. I'll finish with this. We all have limited time and energy and resources. If we truly care about freedom and privacy and building a world where our children or our grandchildren or future generations are not born into a slave surveillance society with CBDCs, digital IDs, social credit scores, vaccine passports controlling our movement, then it's up to each and every one of us to choose how we spend our time wisely. To that end, I believe our time is best utilized building the counter economy and supporting those innovators, developers, and activists that are doing just that. Speaker 2 Do you love coffee and Monero as much as we do? Consider making gratuitous.org your daily cup. Pay with Monero for premium fresh beans and if you like what you taste, send a digital cash tip directly to the farmers that made it possible. Proceeds help us grow this channel, gratuitous and Monero. Doug I mean, why not do both? I do both. I've done more for opting out and building a Monero, peer-to-peer economy than arguably anybody in terms of getting the word out and spreading that message and building tech for people to do it. Obviously, a lot of other people, but I'm at least in the top 10 of people that are out there, not just advocating for these things, but actually living it. I run all my businesses on Monero. Like I said, we built XMR Bazaar, which has become the number one clear net marketplace for peer-to-peer Monero transactions. My dream is to completely be able to live off Monero, like not even buy a piece of land or a house until I can buy it peer-to-peer with Monero and actually in the works with doing that right now. But why not, at the same time as doing that, advocating the US government to create regulatory clarity? Not saying create new regulations around Monero, but to clarify that Monero is cash. Cash is dying. People are going to need a substitute for cash. Clarify that Monero is cash. Just like cash is legal and there's nothing wrong with cash, Monero is equally legal. And just make that statement, right? Have Trump clearly make that statement so that everybody in the US knows that they could use Monero just as legally as they can use cash. And effectively, this isn't just about getting normies in, but this is how we win and this is how we succeed. We need the camp of people that opt out and live off Monero to be much larger than it already is. And the only way to grow that is to access the quote unquote normies. John, I'm sure you even have an exchange account or had one at some point and that you used it to obtain Bitcoin or whatever it is. We're cutting off all of, you know, thankfully, Monero is still listed on Kraken, but more than on any other crypto, we are cut off from the normies. I live in New York. Monero was never listed on a centralized exchange throughout the entire history of crypto. Think of all the millions of people, additionally, I'm upset when it says millions, but millions of people that missed out on it. But I would say tens of thousands, I would say tens of thousands of people, more people would own Monero today. I think that's a very fair thing to say, you know, during 2017, where people were buying Litecoin and all this crap, Monero wasn't even there as an option. And to suggest that we want to continue to go down this path where we, you know, just build our own little economy outside of theirs without accessing the rest of the economy, I think is just going to hurt the project. And as more people get into Monero, the network effect grows, the stronger the system becomes. And the thing about Monero, it's built where it can't be co-opted. And it's built in such a way that it can integrate with the fiat system and still not be co-opted because of its cash like nature. You could go on to a centralized exchange and you can't do this with any other crypto. You can go to a centralized exchange with your bank account connected to it. You could buy, let's say $100,000 worth of it, and you can pull it off. Doug And it's like you roll up to your bank and you showed up with a briefcase and they put $100,000 and then you walked out the door. They don't know what you do with it thereafter. So if anything, noobs and normies should be, everybody that buys crypto, everybody should be buying Monero first, pulling that off and then using that Monero to get into whatever other crypto or shitcoin they want to get into and decentralized way outside of the system. But Monero should be the on and off ramp for all of crypto if you want to ultimately maximize the liberty preserving potential of it by getting as many people as possible to access it, pull out and opt out. John Bush Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a middle path and I can appreciate that. And ultimately one thing I realized is like anybody taking action towards greater freedom, promoting solid crypto projects like Monero, that's a positive thing. But my perspective is like, I really view the state as the enemy. Um, and I believe that giving the state any credence or encouraging people to engage with the state or to lobby the state, it's, it's a step in the wrong direction. And like I said, I mean, ultimately this may be pie in the sky. It may take generations. It may never even be accomplished. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Our children, our grandchildren and beyond will inherit the struggle between freedom and tyranny. But I'm, I believe that we should try as much as possible to not engage with the state and to create those very alternatives. So that's one piece, just like philosophically as an anarchist, as an agorist. Um, and I caught a lot of flack. Like I ran a vote for nobody campaign during the height of the Trump Biden election and got all sorts of flack by the, from the lesser of two evils camp. But the essence of the campaign was to encourage people to not fall back into lesser two evils and rely on the government to solve our problems or fulfill our desires by controlling markets and regulating and coming up with rules. And then secondly, um, I just like practically, so you're like, why can't we do both? I know that you're a family man, right? And we only have limited time on this planet and we can do it. We can try to go 10 X and go above and beyond, but ultimately it's a, uh, uh, caught me, I think that we all have to do cost benefit analysis constantly with our activism, with our time, with how we spend our money. And I, like I said, I used the word naive deliberately. Let's be real with where we're at. I think it's a false assumption that the Trump administration is now friendly to cryptocurrencies like Monero. Doug I think that's something that we would quickly find out, right? So that's part of it, right? Pushing the administration. And like we always say... It's been at the door. We've already seen this. Miniscule is the litmus test of where people really stand on liberty. So I mean, it's just really, as people who've known and follow me throughout the years, I'm just the type of guy, you know, that wants to run into the fire. You know, like you said, it is a war, right? So there's one way to fight it is doing what we're doing, which is ignoring them and building our tech, right? But we want to slowly pull more people into that tent as we go. And I think we can fight this war on two fronts. And we could approach the powers that be politically. It's not so monolithic thing that's perfectly controlled, right? Trump can be swayed. We've seen how it's worked out with Bitcoin. And at the end of the day, if nothing other comes of it, at least we know where that administration really stands. We hear RFK Jr. say no. You know, I'm cool with crypto. I said I like the cash thing, but honestly, we got to prevent terrorism. So I don't want people. I want to hear RFK Jr. say that. I want to hear Trump say that. I want to hear them tell us that they're not okay with digital cash. And then, yeah, go fuck them and then we'll continue to do what we're doing. But why not answer us with the I would say very reasonable chance, very reasonable chance, given the climate. I understand what you're saying. You know, Palantir, I get it. They're sitting there in the White House. But, you know, the fact of the matter is, Monero is on crack here right now. There is no law against Monero in the United States. Europe is moving against it. Right. But, you know, that politically, that's the game that's being played right now. You know, the Trump is pointing out that America is the most liberated, you know, he wants to be the melee, right? He wants to send the message out that America is back. America, whether you believe this or not, right, whether anyone believes this, but this is the brand, this is what they're putting out there to trying to be as extreme as possible in the libertarian direction. So there's nothing more libertarian than giving people access to untraceable digital cash. Stoic.xmr Can I just back for a second, um, body, can you, before we move on to the next question, body, can you just give us a brief introduction to where you stand on? Could we, should we, um, and how, or how not. Speaker 5 Yeah, sure. I kind of take a middle position between John Stance and Doug Stance. If I understand correctly, it seems like John is a little bit more prescriptively, like just don't engage the government, absolutely minimize every interaction. And I'm kind of in agreement with him that I'm really doubtful whether or not the Trump administration is actually crypto-friendly. Of course they are, to some degree, but which cryptos, right? That's a point out an interesting fact that kind of is in Doug's camp here. I believe it was 2019 or maybe it was 2020. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which is the lead regulator for all US banks, put out a memo stating for all banks that all cryptocurrencies, or they call them independently verifiable node networks, which I thought was actually quite good descriptive language. They said that all cryptocurrencies or all IVNNs are permissible for all financial institutions, including ones with enhanced anonymity characteristics. So that was kind of that positive statement back then saying, hey, basically they didn't say Monero specifically, but effectively all of these cryptos, including anonymity privacy coins, are legal. And they said that they believe that banks already had good regulations for cash and so that they thought they could handle that. That was walked back by the Biden administration. Doug The executive order that Trump just put out with language that talks about essentially that the right for people to transact peer-to-peer. Speaker 5 Laughing Lee, I don't know Yeah, I mean we'd have to we'd have to review it I guess if you don't want to pull it up I don't have a computer in front of me But if one of you guys well I'm finishing off my point here wants to pull that up that would you know You know could go ahead and do that and then cover that in a minute So one thing I do want to say is that as the world let like hypothetically as the world progresses towards a more freedom oriented Mindset you're gonna see more libertarians and anarchists getting elected to office You're gonna see more malaise able to just completely reject Well, at least verbally completely reject the authority of government and or you know They wanted to dismantle it or at least are very practical real libertarians. I don't think malaise an anarchist. I think he's a libertarian Okay to the extent that Political campaigns like these and political activism like this gets the education out gets the word out I think that can do good things right as people as the population Progresses towards a mentality of freedom these kinds of things are gonna continue happen You're gonna get a Monero president in there You're gonna get you know, a truly pro crypto president in there right now My take on Trump is they basically had to offer someone to give concessions and that's basically what Trump is doing So, you know, I mean we have shown political activism can accomplish certain things Um, I believe that politicians when they're not truly about freedom will do the most token things that they can the ones that are the least Consequential for their power and struggle their power dynamics their dominance, etc So for example releasing Ross was not a major deal for them in terms of their power dynamic They can afford to release one guy And then give the libertarian community a big win and everyone's, you know behind Trump now, right? So I just want to point out that again as the world moves towards freedom You're gonna see more and more of these like you're gonna see more and more effectiveness of political action To actually change the government But you should never let that fool you into thinking that that is the mechanism of change because it never is in fact I posted about this just two days ago something to the effect of Governments can never withstand a population that just outright disobeys them. The government always caves, right? So it's it's about it's about the mentality of the people Politics is downstream of culture. So to the extent that a political campaign like this would change the culture. I think it's useful I would also my question was I would be curious thug You said you just want Trump to get to make a statement or you want to you want like an executive order you want like Doug I mean, I guess ideally, it would be an executive order or a bill that's passed, the digital cash, whatever, the Digital Cash Freedom Act. But essentially, what it would be, it would be a sentence that's mandating that, you know, Monero is cash, cash is Monero, they should be treated equivalent in the eyes of the law. Speaker 5 One thing I should, one thing you should keep in mind with that is that remember that memo by the, um, office of the comptroller of the currency that got instituted under Trump's administration and walked back by Biden. So hypothetically, you're just one election away from a statement like that, getting rolled back. Doug Yeah, sure. And you know, I don't disagree with anything you said, obviously, as I'm sure you know. But then the question really, you know, I think we basically stand in the same place here. It's just I'm more, I'm willing to go, you know, test this out and give it a go, even though it may not, you know, yield the desired results. So like, at the end of the day, I mean, you're a good analysis, is it worth, is it worth for me to put about time and effort towards that, and to try to rally, you know, rally others? I mean, it's not like there's things that can be done behind the scenes, I think a lot of it would be behind the scenes work talking to the right people. And yeah, just working things politically, it's not doesn't have to be a major time sink, I do think it would be something perhaps worthy of raising raising money for from the community, to, you know, get the job done. But yeah, I don't see it being a, you know, it's something that the entire community needs to focus on. They just need to be behind it politically, so that we have more political power, right? So that when somebody's out there saying, you know, Monero is cash, cash is Monero, we shouldn't be ignoring that, because like, oh, we're trying to, you know, convince the government that of that, I think people should should, you know, be willing to hit the like button and a retweet on things like that. But other than that, I don't see a major time sink for the general Monero community. But would you agree or do you assess it differently, Bonnie? Speaker 5 I would actually be curious to hear a more specific plan. So if you want to do a campaign like this, what are the kind of practical things that you plan on doing, the kinds of people you intend on contacting? Are you going to hold conferences or events? What's your strategy there? Doug I mean, my strategy would be to work things politically here in New York, try to get rid of the bit license. That would be kind of the first thing I would work on. And I do have connections here locally, politically. You know, I ran for office in 2020 as a Republican. We got closer than anybody ever imagined. It was a primarily Democratic district, and we almost took it. So I know a lot of the Republican politicians locally have access to them. People are saying, well, how would you ever... You know, Trump? Yeah, sure. Maybe he's a couple of steps away. But locally here, politically, I could get active and try to force the banning of the bit license. It would basically be a stroke of the pen by the governor. There's going to be a governor's race coming up here in New York. I think we could get the Republican candidate that's running for governor to make it part of his platform that he would eliminate the bit license. And hopefully even sooner, we could just put pressure on the current administration here and then maybe get the Trump administration to also call out, hey, New York, you should get rid of the bit license. So practically speaking, it would be behind the scenes work, contacting the power players, basically lobbying, right? Of contacting the state, the state, the state house and the state Senate, getting in touch with the right people, trying to lobby them and get them behind this idea of eliminating the bit license. I think a lot of Republicans in New York would be down to eliminate, to say they want to eliminate the bit license because the messaging they got from Trump, which is crypto. He wants crypto to be the United States to be the crypto capital of the world. And I'm sure even better yet, he'd be down with New York being the crypto capital of the world. He is a New Yorker after all. He wants to fix New York. So I think the Republicans locally, politically would be aligned with that message of, oh, yeah, is this something Trump would want to do? Like hell yeah. Trump would, have you seen what Elon's doing? Yeah, he would love to eliminate the bit license in New York. And so I would start with working locally. And then obviously with the goal of on a federal level, trying to log as well. John Bush Hey guys, I actually got to run, but just to share some final words, at the end of the day, I appreciate everybody, and I love these little strategic discussions. We need to be having more of these strategic discussions. I just want to end with, I am in the camp that believes Bitcoin was neutered as peer-to-peer electronic cash as a psyop, basically. Hijacking Bitcoin, it's all been laid out, and the purpose of that was to clear the way for central bank digital currencies. And again, if folks join late, like, let's be super crystal clear, the Trump administration is still moving forward with central bank digital currencies, just a different style. This is what we predicted even before he got an office. So of course, the executive order says no government central bank digital currencies, but it does open the door for bank central bank digital currencies, and it most definitely, especially when you think about Howard Lutnick and that connection there, pushes forward the stablecoin central bank digital currency, which is just as transparent, just as sensible, and just as programmable. Tether, maybe US dollar coin. So in order for that to succeed in mass, there can't be alternatives that are just as easy, just as fast, just as doable from our phones, right? So that's one piece. And then the second piece, just like the essence of Monero is such that we don't need government's permission in order to use it in order to do business. And if the goal is to onboard more people into the Monero space, let's go out and find those people that get it, that are fed up, that recognize the state intrinsically is antithetical to freedom, privacy, property ownership, and every libertarian value out there. It's our enemy, and it's up to us. And we should do it not just for ourselves, but for our children and future generations, we have to build this alternative system, and any energy, any credence, any legitimacy, any permission, any begging, any lobbying that we're doing with the state, I believe, is pushing it in the wrong direction. Doug end of the day when you're out there telling people about Monero, complete noobs, right? And they're in, they're in, they love it. They love what you're saying, yes, I want to use untraceable digital cash. You wouldn't like to have the option of telling them, you know, obviously, yes, use Havana, you could go on and try to buy it for cash. Maybe I'm John, I have some, I could sell you some, but you would want to be able to tell them you could go on to an exchange. You could... And do the AYP. John Bush Klyc Doug Yeah, you get K Y. John Bush Scan your identity, that's even an active submission in itself and getting people used to that. Doug your Monero off to your own wallet, you're holding the private keys. So you never bought Trypto in exchange? John Bush I did, but again, I'm unique because my strategy for many years now has been to empower those that already get it as opposed to trying to wake up the normies and the joshmo on the street. I would rather spend my energy making sure and encouraging and teaching and training people to actually use Monero in commerce because you're one of the rare ones, Doug, even in the Monero community. There's more in the Monero community per capita than other cryptocurrencies, I believe, but I think that there's enough of us that get it already if we simply switched our strategy away from trying to compete within the system and we wholeheartedly competed with the system. I think we could carve out our own little portion. It doesn't even, not even going to be small over time because this is appealing to not have to even engage the beast system in the first place, but that's my piece. But Doug, if you start lobbying and getting stuff done and some bill gets introduced or anything, you know, I'll be there cheering you on and like you said, I'll like to post and I'll retweet it all day long. Doug That's all I'm saying, man, at the end of the day. I don't know. I've lived in, I've been in Monero from the early days and I'm a New Yorker every year. I want my fellow New Yorkers to be able to obtain Monero, bottom line. I wanted to obtain Monero as easy as they can obtain Trump coin, like it's ridiculous that any idiot to go ape into some worthless scam, but they don't have access to this beautiful utility called Monero. I mean, it's completely, it's completely ridiculous. John Bush Hey, I gotta run guys. Thanks for having me keep up the good work guys Speaker 6 Thanks for joining us, John. Doug Appreciate you, man. Thank you. Thank you for making all that role too and making it and making your argument up. Yeah anytime y'all take care Stoic.xmr I think it's a good time to start adding some people up on stage if you want to come up I mean body and Doug you guys spoke about one of the questions I had which is kind of what policy we should aim to implement like on an actual literal level so bring up a bit of a tech noob I'll bring up some people who want to speak in the meantime Doug is have you started a what I would call like a political action group so to say like an official grassroots movement. Doug I mean, I sent out a tweet, if that's official, a couple of weeks ago, saying I wanted to do this, but no, I haven't done anything beyond that. So obviously, I'd be looking to... People are interested in helping me work on this, you're an attorney, you could be... Whatever. You just have free time, you want to help with this effort, just email me, manarotopia at protonmail.com and tell me you're interested. And I think that's how we start, right? We just start with a group of people that want to work on this, and we'll start to pull in some resources. And like I said, I don't think it takes that much. I started talking to Nick Spanos, I don't know if you're familiar with him, I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago when I was in Miami, I don't know if you guys caught that. It was very casual, so I don't know if you guys would like the style of the interview, but the content, if you listen, is very exciting. I mean, Nick Spanos, he was the guy that opened up the Bitcoin Center in New York City, right? At a time when that was like balls, it'd be like opening up the Monero Center in New York City, on Wall Street, literally on Wall Street, right across from the New York Stock Exchange, like no joke. He rented out the property, rented out the building, and I don't know how he pulled it off, to be honest. And he just basically had people initially were in there trading Bitcoin for cash, right across from the New York Stock Exchange. Eventually, he kind of effectively got pushed out or shut down and whatnot. But he wants to basically do that now for Monero. He sees Monero, obviously he still, I'm sure, holds Bitcoin, but he talks about Bitcoin the way we talk about Bitcoin. He thinks it's been co-opted, and he sees Monero as what Bitcoin was supposed to be. And so working with somebody like that, with his connections, he's a New Yorker as well. He actually was big on the Ron Paul campaign. I think he was one of the higher up guys working on his campaign at the time. He comes from that camp, very intelligent guy, super early to Bitcoin, baby Satoshi Nakuba now. I mean, very, very, very like an amazing individual. I recommend people go check out that interview, actually, a very inspiring guy as well. He's a true cypherpunk. And so I would be looking to work with somebody like him. And he did express that he's like, yes, Doug, I'll work with you on this. I don't know. But that sounded extremely promising to me. I'm sure Vic would be interested in working on this, helping out, at least supplying resources and helping us get connections. I think he would be interested in doing this right now. I think he has the right time to strike as well. Stoic.xmr Pierre, welcome up on the stage. You've got some thoughts, you've come and joined us. Take it away. Speaker 7 Can you guys hear me? Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Um, first of all, um, I'm, I'm not from the U S though. I appreciate the talk. Um, I've, I'm a business owner and I've went against government many times. I've won against government just to have the next administration take our judgment and put it into, uh, what we have in Canada is the high court, uh, like the high court of appeals and have my judgment rolled around in my face. So I don't trust government. I'm a total on an arches. I do agree with dogs that, um, the U S is going to need some kind of money as the U S dollars going to shit in my own opinion. Uh, but I think that it is by design that the American people are not meant to have any kind of other means of transaction to, uh, to, to be saved. Um, uh, if I remember correctly, uh, I think it was the first Trump administration that pricked in their own terms, pricked the bubble of Bitcoin when it was a 20 K and, uh, dropped it to a down to three K. Uh, yeah, I'd had to check where I got that information, but it's pretty clear in my head that that that statement is true. Uh, but I got some hope for you guys. Cause I, I agree with, um, the guy that was here, uh, that was a pro, uh, an artist and didn't want to do anything with government, but I do appreciate Doug's effort. Um, and I would say nothing is stronger than an idea, which its time has come as so inevitably money row is going to be the first crypto, the only crypto, and, but I don't think it's going to be with the help of government in any way, shape or form. Stoic.xmr Amazing man, thank you. Baudy and Doug, any thoughts? Doug That was good stuff. I mean, I don't disagree with him, you know, I, there you go. He's, he's my spirit animal. I'm totally, I totally, I totally align with everything Pierre is saying. As those who follow me know, but there's this other side of me that just wants to. It's the same reason why I ran at 2020. I don't know. I, I guess I'm a sucker for it. I want to jump in the ring and, and try to also, also approach these guys head on. In addition to doing what we're doing, which is undermining the entire, in the entire system and essentially hacking it, right? And Bitcoin was a great hack and it did work. It was the first step. It, it, it's worked beautifully, right? It's bootstrapped itself out of greed. And because of this same desire for greed that everybody shares, even Trump himself, like it pulled in, pulled everybody in, um, and, uh, I think Monero is a great hack as well. And ultimately, like Pierre says, uh, it's, it's inevitable. Whether, whether we try to approach the powers that be or not and get them to, uh, expedite things, it will happen eventually. Um, I guess I just want to try to expedite. Speaker 7 If you only knew how much people I brought to Monero myself just by simply explaining how it's different and how it changes everything we understand from crypto and people when they get that they think they have Monero but they have Bitcoin instead, they jump ship like... Doug to tell, so everybody that you've told, they never obtain Monero through centralized exchanges, they're just doing it. Speaker 7 They try not to. I tell them about KYC and everything. I explain to them that they decentralized exchanges, and then I try to get them. Doug my point but point that I continue to make is though like what when you're doing this arm boarding when wouldn't it be nice that you could always at least say to the complete noob like yeah you could go on this exchange and you can buy as opposed to being you know Speaker 7 I totally agree with you on that, Doug. I wish it was the way, I wish it was... Totally. Doug Yes, that's really all I'm getting at is that now I think is the time where we could get Monero listed on Coinbase in New York, in Gemini, get rid of the bit license and give it a go. If it's a no, and I get point blank, I'm told, no, man, that's not going to work politically, whatever. I don't know what the underworkings are, the bit license, how obviously I know it was created by Bielowski, whatever, back in 2014. But I don't know really what's happening politically behind the scenes. Is it controlled by Goldman Sachs or something? I don't know who the ultimate decision maker is there on how they're benefiting from having the bit license. Obviously it creates some regulatory capture. So the exchanges that have the bit license, kind of now own the crypto market in New York, obviously, if they got rid of the bit license, Kraken now would be a competitor in New York because they would come into New York. So yeah, I don't know if the exchanges would be able to use their political sway in New York to kind of convince even the Republicans potentially to not eliminate the bit license because they would just funnel more money to their campaigns, but be looking to kind of push that. Speaker 5 So Doug, you're alluding to a point there that I want to make very clearly. I think everyone in Monero kind of knows that it's not just the government. There's sort of this corporate cabal that apparently doesn't want to list Monero either. Like Brian Armstrong, he was renowned. He was renowned for flaunting regulations and moving quickly and breaking things and asking for permission later. And he never listed Monero. And that's really weird because he listed Zcash. And we know that, you know, Kraken has effectively shown that Monero is legal in most states in the United States. Is Kraken not in New York at all? Or is it just that Monero aren't over? Doug New York created the bit license in 2014 2015 crack and said we're not going to do business in New York. Yes she's just badass but like you said with the Coinbase thing too I mean Fluffy Pony presented Monero at Coinbase and what was that that was like 2017 or something? Yes Speaker 5 So there's like a corporate cabal that like very much doesn't want to see Monero listed and you know They're probably connected with big finance and deep finance in other ways So in a lot of ways like the campaign I would you know If I was trying to help form a strategy around it I would I would try and think of ways that you might be able to get those corporations They maybe if not on board, but at least like be grudgingly on board like okay You got rid of the bit license and it's like well now you have no excuse for not listing Monero So why aren't you doing it and that PR like they wouldn't even be able to handle that kind of negative PR So it would basically be grudgingly have to list that I think but yeah I mean just know that like you're gonna be you're gonna be up against quite a larger cabal than than just the regulators Speaker 8 I Doug I do think, though, that obviously trying to talk to them and figure them out, but also just talking to the politicians and going that approach and basically saying, you know, this is going to help you win. Like, you'll more likely win the governorship here as a Republican candidate who's trying to overthrow a Democratic candidate in New York. We haven't had a Republican governor here since, I don't know, since Pataki. But now is the time, and if you're going to win, it's going to be close. And the only way you're going to win is if you're on board with eliminating the bid license because it's going to probably yield you this percentage of the vote, because people are pro-crypto now, you know, Trump has sent a strong message that he's pro-crypto. So, if you want to be pro-Trump, if you want to make America a great, again, governor, you should be pro-crypto, pro-minero, and eliminate the bid license. Stoic.xmr Just to make a quick point on what Bourdie said before, the people who I know who working in exchanges, people who actually work within centralized exchanges, people who I know in person who I've spoke to well and truly off the record, in my experience, they're not thinking about Monero, at least in Monero, duly sold to essentially regulatory pressures and what it looks like from the outside. I'm not convinced there's some sort of like financial industry collusion because from the people I know, the decision makers that I've met, they'd really come at it from a legal point of view how it's just not worth it from a liability point of view. So I think if you can get some regulatory clarity, that would also help up just natural adoption of the exchanges and like that make the natural exclusion of it disappear. I just want to put a question forward to the, I suppose to Bourdie and also Pierre, if you want to answer as well. If you put out like, imagine a scenario in your head where you have two adoption curves. You have one where it goes kind of, it's where Monero's kind of in the shadows and doing what it's doing, not disappearing, but it's just existing, so to say, and growing very slowly. And then you have a world, you have an adoption curve where even on any extent, Monero friendly relations implemented. If you imagine how those adoption curves play out over time, you can imagine that obviously with friendly regulation, at minimum, it's going to make it easier for people to access it. It's going to give it a better public image, for example. You say, I suppose that with regulation, because I think to say regulation is impossible. I think that's a very naive statement. I think John was saying the exact opposite before, but I would strongly disagree. I think it's very naive to think it is impossible. So wouldn't you say that it's at least worth trying now? Strike while the iron's hot, if that makes sense, Bourdie? Speaker 5 Yeah, I can understand the logic there, and I'm not opposed to political action. Speaker 8 I just want to jump in from what I've seen. I saw you were trying to come up. If you can try to come up again, we'd love to have you up here and. Doug Big Jedi, I don't know if you're down to come up, but we'd love to hear from you if you were on the talk. Go ahead, sorry buddy. Speaker 5 Yeah, so I'm not opposed to political action per se, like as a rule, I'm not, I generally am kind of opposed to rules almost like, almost as a rule, if you will. So I'm not opposed to political action. In terms of like strike while the iron is hot, you know, I wonder, is the iron really that hot for Monero right now? I really, you know, I see it growing. But is it really like, hot like Bitcoin, Ethereum, you know, like cryptocurrency, stablecoins? Is it hard like that? I wonder, what am I? Stoic.xmr The question is why, because they also, they are supposed to have these political action groups or, you know, in the case of Tether, where they have just political connections and that sort of bullshit. Speaker 7 But I have I have a quick thing I want to put is that imagine Monero is so perfect. It is so powerful that it is unimaginable that that the government would say, oh, yeah, bring on that crypto. It's going to destroy the entire fiat system and let's have a go at it. It would take like very pro libertarian politicians to get on with it. I don't see it happening because I don't know. It's too powerful. It would the idea itself is too powerful. I think that's a very. Stoic.xmr very bad way to tell it to politicians, for example. John Bush missiles. Speaker 5 that I didn't really get to address them, I'd kind of like to address them if I might. For more information visit www.fema.gov Stoic.xmr Boy, go ahead. Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah, that's fine. By the way, guys, I'm in the gym, so if I'm a little out of breath, you know, forgive me. Yeah, so you asked the question, like, if Monero grows slowly, you know, versus, I didn't hear sort of the contrary towards quickly, but I'm totally okay if Monero grows slowly. In fact, like, we need a period of time for some of the technology to catch up. We need the storage and bandwidth and CPU to catch up, right? We're about to get a lot bigger on the blocks or on transaction sizes here. So, you know, there's other things, cryptographically speaking, that could be on the horizon, and out of the entire world of Dauphin Monero, you know, in a quick fashion, I think maybe that's not the best thing, but if we grow slowly, steadily, unrelentingly, like lava, I'm totally okay with that. I think that's even perhaps the better scenario, because Bitcoin was almost a victim of its own success in a lot of ways. And then the other thing, the last thing I want to address is where you said that, you know, these exchanges, they're like, oh, well, the regulations and we're not sure, then why did they list all of these like shit coins that are like, some of which were really were securities. Now, it seems like they're getting a leg up in the, you know, in the SEC and the courts and all that, where, you know, it's gonna be harder to declare all of these things security, securities de facto, but, you know, there was a period of time where that was a big question, and yet they still listed all of these absolute shit coins that were securities and had all these regulatory problems, but they didn't list Monero. So I mean, it's hard for me to believe that it's, oh, it's just the regulators are bending our hand. It's like, no, no, no, no. I believe you guys have smoky back rooms at least at some levels, not everyone in the company, but at certain levels, I believe that is the case. Stoic.xmr I mean, if you bring some values into it, for example, um, like when you say you're okay for it to grow slowly, me too. I mean, that's not a bad thing per se. However, if you just take some value based judgements towards it, if you take, and you may disagree, but I'm sure you don't, if you take freedom and prosperity as the values that you want to achieve, and you can measure that through the adoption curve. Don't you think moving that adoption curve in a steeper fashion is going to be more beneficial? I mean, tech problems and stuff can be sorted out in the long run in a sense. Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, I guess you're right. That's true. If we can get the adoption curve a little bit faster than it currently is, I think that's a positive, that's a win. And certainly getting Monero onto exchanges is probably going to help that merely just because of the visibility, right? So to that extent, I do think, you know, maybe it's worth it. That's why I'm kind of like, you know, sort of, I'm a little bit ambivalent on the question. Like, I hope you guys succeed and I wish you all luck. It's difficult for me to go engage the government. You know, at the same time, it's like, if you have the opportunity to do something, then you should take it. I'm not convinced that this is exactly that opportunity for Monero, but maybe it is, you know, maybe. I mean, Doug You got to read this executive order though, because the way I interpret this is that Trump basically already did pass an executive order stating that, let it be known that people have the right to use Monero and nobody should be persecuted in any way for using it, nor should developers be prosecuted for developing. Let me just read it for a second here. The digital asset industry plays a crucial role in innovation and economic development in the United States, as well as our nation's international leadership. It is therefore the policy of my administration to support the responsible growth and usage of use of digital asset, blockchain technology and related technologies across all sectors of the economy, including by, number one, protecting and promoting the ability of individual citizens and private sector entities exchanges alike to access and use for lawful purpose open public blockchain networks without persecution, including the ability to develop and deploy software to participate in mining and validating and to transact with other persons without unlawful censorship and to maintain self custody of digital asset. So I mean, he's even saying he's even including in there the right to transact with other persons without unlawful censorship and clearly saying that citizens and private sector entities like exchanges should should lawfully be able to use these technologies. Speaker 5 Yeah, in a lot of ways, it almost sounds like he just said Monero is totally legit free and legal. Doug saying so you know are we just so defeatist then you should Speaker 8 to used to being you know the that the cypherpunk warriors that we don't even want it to us out of play Speaker 5 I mean, it's, it's right there and you know, there is kind of a, when they're associated with that, we need to see, it's like, that's a very broad statement. Does that have the effect and force of law, right? Does that eliminate the bit license? Does that get Monero listed on exchanges? I think the deeper question is regulator, right? The regulator. And then again, as I said earlier, some of these shady nefarious corporate insiders that are connected directly to the government, you know, you kind of like, I like your idea where you went with the bit license because once like, if you can get that to fall or at least if you can get it modified in such a way that makes it, you know, that makes Monero clearly able to be listed in New York, everything, every domino after that falls on its own. So I think that's a good place to target and it's a lot easier because you're just targeting within one state. Of course. Doug Yeah, to check out the lake, I put it in the nest or whatever. You guys can read it, read the whole executive order. I'm sure many of you have already done it, but I think we've kind of overlooked that initial paragraph. I mean, people initially were pointing out that it says open public blockchains. I think that is Monero, right? People are going, no, it's in public blockchains. No, I mean, the definition, the term of art thus far in crypto is not public in that you could view all the data, but it's publicly verifiable, right? And Monero does that just as well as Bitcoin. It is an open public blockchain. Anybody can run, anybody can access open source permission lists. Stoic.xmr verifiable. I think we've covered a lot of good topics today. We've kind of covered, you know, whether we can, whether we should, you know, we've had some proposed policies, we've had a roadmap for policies, we've had plenty of arguments to the contrary. Is there anything else you guys want to say? All the topics that I want to cover, at least for this first one that we do in a series of broader discussions have kind of been covered. It's given me plenty of food for thought to go away and think about. Is there anything you guys want to cover, you know, before we sort of finish it off, if we're going for about an hour or so? Speaker 8 If Zito wants to jump up, it's so I'm trying to come up. I know I know if he would uh, I see Liberty Is this the truck down? Nice one of the stages of the Doug community. What's the drug dial gonna say here? This might sway me. Uh oh, here we go. Speaker 6 impression of the price and the manipulation. I mean, bodies alluded to it, but I would support regulation maybe if it had a clause in there that basically said if the coin allows you to publish the proof of funds, then you have to do it. Otherwise, you are liable with no bankruptcy protections or something like that because we do have the central banks trends across the prices. We do have the insiders who are basically subsidiaries of the central bank. We do have the Speaker 8 I mean, that's a great point too. Doug because that's a kind of a unifying thing that all cryptos should be behind, right? Obviously it affects Monero more than any other, but there just should be a proof of funds. Decentralized exchanges should publicly be showing proof that they have the crypto that they claim to hold. Speaker 6 Yeah, the owners of these exchanges, if they didn't have bankruptcy protection of their private assets, if they were able to post proof of funds and they didn't, and that strips their protections, then it might be okay with that. But otherwise, I feel it might be a danger. We want a stable currency for actual adoption for commerce. And another thing is, I really don't care whether it's legal or not, or listed or not. I do have that paper, Monero Concern Manipulation. But the other thing is, I keep beating this drum, but if we could make Avino a standalone app for cash face-to-face purchases that could be self-hosted on a phone, that turns every cake wallet into a roaming ATM, which would actually be liquidity that would make all this moot. It wouldn't matter if they'd buy banned Monero or not, because it would just be so easy to get in and out of with cash, fungible cash into fungible Monero. One of them is sound money, one's not, and it would help adoption. There'd be no way to cap that, but put that toothpaste back in the bottle at that point. And I always bring up the example of marijuana dispensaries. Marijuana is still a Schedule I federally illegal drug, and we've got dispensaries popping up on Main Street USA, and most of the states are waving their middle finger at the feds, saying, fuck, you won't do as you tell us. Sorry, I just quoted a communist ban. But basically, if we could make it so it's so easy to get in and out of, it really wouldn't matter what they do. So I think if it's made clear we get that clarity on the law that Monero's finding trade on exchanges, well, that's fine, whatever. But really, if we could just make it as easy to flow in and out of, in the cash, in the physical world, who gives a shit what all these shit, shit going to see what others are doing. Speaker 8 Yeah, I mean, that's obviously the dream. And, you know, we're going to be, you know, from where we are right now. Doug right? We have decentralized exchanges coming up. We have Sarai DEX. Savino's already here, but it's growing in network effect. XMR Bazaar. I think people will start using that more for going in and out of Monero, right? They do it with goods and services. Some people were selling goldbacks for Monero. So yeah, all these things are happening. I think in a year from now, things are going to look drastically different than they are. Speaker 6 Um, I really don't know if that's anyone who trades in shit coins. If you're good at a good for you, most people just aren't and they'll lose their ass for me. I don't really want to capture any of the people who already have crypto. I don't, I don't give a shit about those people. If they cared about Monero, they'd already have some and they already know about it. I want the street vendor, the taco vendor. I want the barber. I want these people to be able to accept it and go in and out easy liquidity. And that's the, that's the dream. Like who gives a shit if a Vino is easy to trade shit coins on decentralized, better rated, whatever. Those aren't the people we should really be concerned with in my opinion. Ultimately, if it's, if it's, if it's, uh, if there's legal clarity on whether centralized exchanges can trade it, great. I don't really care about one way or the other. I'm not, that's not my concern at all enough focused on that. Personally, I want the barber of the street taco. Speaker 8 When you talk to the barber and the shiitaku guy, Doug like we do you know I do too as well right and I get him to excite get my barber to accept Monero and he Speaker 8 but now he wants to go get more and he doesn't want to wait to the next guy Doug He sends it to I come in and get a haircut and I'm off he gets another $20 in Monero He wants to go buy at five thousand dollars worth of it because he believes that the idea is excited about it Speaker 6 That's exactly why the the cash physical cash face-to-face functionality of a vino is so important to be as convenient and idiot-proof as possible Doug And hopefully we get there and I think we will although you know that yeah, that's we will but that's that's tough Right. We've seen issues with that with local men Speaker 8 coin. Speaker 6 I don't think it is tough though. If it's a standalone app and it could just choose among all the federated havino instances like Rivo or Revo, however you say it, and whatever else is out there, and you have a list of people who are offering Monero for sale or cash for sale. You just look it up just like local Monero used to work, but let local Monero shut down specifically because they could be thrown in jail. If you've got a ton of people out there, you could make just like weed dealers basically made it impossible for the federal government to do shit about people with cannabis culture. We can capture the gray market culture, which I think is something like 20% of the economy, just in the United States. Something like 2 trillion, give or take, I think. If we can flow in and out of cash easily, anyone can do it. All they have to do is download an app. They don't have to post it on their laptop. And then like right now, havino just does not work like local Monero did for cash. I haven't been able to buy Monero for months since local Monero shut down because I refuse to deal with credit cards or banks. I only do cash. Speaker 8 How do we make XMR, you know, I've been trying to not push that Doug use case but if it happened to naturally evolve I'd see where it go what I would make I am and has anyone got anything else I always tell people to make clear is if you're doing that you can't be doing it as a business right you can't be on XMR Bazaar for example say Stoic.xmr All right. Um, I can't hear you guys if you are saying something, but I think otherwise that's probably a good place to end the space. Um, Doug Borty, Liberty maximalist, John Pierre. Thanks for coming up. Um, and that's all guys. I suppose we'll see you next time. Thanks for coming. Speaker 8 Yeah, we'll close it there. Thank you, man. Thank you guys for you. Thanks for having us your body Thanks, dog for all of this like Jay Pals. Give it a thumbs up I think he wants to keep it going guys wait before we close it out though before we close it out Well, you know let's let's kind of hear a vote here. Let me get Doug some feedback I mean would people like to see us or see me fight on this front a little bit while continue to do everything Speaker 8 thing I do, right? My passion and devotion is towards building you out in the narrow circular economy, doing everything that... Doug Let's get people to buy Monero directly with cash. Speaker 8 But while doing that, perhaps try to devote some time and energy. Doug to getting the bit license eliminated here in New York as a step one. I allow more people to be able to access New Yorkers centralizing changes. Speaker 6 Yeah, it might be worth you reaching out to the New York libertarian party the national party they they do they love coalition issues like this and they have a One-person two-person removed line directly to Trump's team or Trump himself. So they might be a really good resource for you. That's a great Speaker 8 That's a great idea, guys. So give me, give me thumbs up or thumbs down, thumbs up or thumbs down. Is it, is it worth me putting in some time and energy here working with Nick Spano? Doug and trying to get the bit license eliminated in New York. Wow, I'm not seeing any thumbs ups or thumbs down. Come on, what the fuck? Speaker 8 All right, we got some positive feedback here, right? Oh, we got one thumbs down. Relevance, Relevance. If you don't record, he's a hardcore anarchist. So I can see it. Doug We get a lot of thumbs up here. A lot of thumbs up. Speaker 5 We'll give you a thumbs up here, Vroly, as well as I think that if you've got some connections, if you can make some inroads to the Libertarian Party, if you can show politicians that there's a grassroots desire for this, that only helps overall, right? The politician will do, in most cases, what they think people want them to do. Speaker 8 Awesome. Speaker 6 And thank you, Baldy. But I would try to get ahead of that Papermannero issue somehow. Maybe there's better ways than what I mentioned, but I would say that. Speaker 8 the Doug body. Yeah, one last because what is your take on that? I mean, you watched that very close. So you were kind of one of the first guys to really sound the alarm on the potential. Speaker 8 that exchanges were doing this it's probably quite obvious I guess Doug They were, I don't know, retrospect. I mean, what. Speaker 8 is it is it a given like do will Monero be manipulated more if it's on coin base obviously we all seem to be fine with it on Kraken but Doug Is there legitimate arguments to be made there that we like it's gonna do Speaker 8 perhaps do more harm than good in terms of Monero's price. Speaker 5 Yeah, there's a possibility for sure that a lot of the plebs that would otherwise onboard to Monero end up just onboarding to Coinbase, and Coinbase plays some fractional reserve game. They're not supposed to, but that doesn't mean that they don't do it, obviously. I think that that's still a positive price pressure from Monero overall, because you just get more people into it, right, to get more eyes and more focus on it. Hypothetically, you would say, you know, make a regulation to make sure that they don't fractional reserve, but, you know, I mean, that's kind of silly from an anarchist perspective, and I definitely wouldn't advocate that. Speaker 6 Um, well, that's why I was saying strip their life there. Uh, that's why I was saying strip their protections, their bankruptcy protections, if they're caught doing that, if, if they, uh, if the coin has a proof of funds capability and they don't do it, they lose all their bankruptcy, personal bankruptcy protections of their corporation. That's an anarchist way of approaching it. I think. Speaker 5 I mean, realistically speaking, so anarchists aren't against courts, of course, and you should be personally liable for committing crimes against people, like selling them an asset that you don't actually have. In the real world, in the real government, they'll give you one thing, but then they'll kind of do some fuckery on the other side on the back end. So it's like, okay, okay, we'll allow Monero on the bit license, but we're not going to enforce the fractional reserve. Like hypothetically, you could say make a regulation, but I just don't think that that's right. Speaker 8 It's all right. Thank you, Bodhi. Thank you, Drunk Dial. Stoic, thank you. If you could hear us, thanks for running this. Yeah, guys, I'm actually leaving this more motivated than ever to try to pursue this. So, you know, this is valuable in my respect. I hope it was valuable for everybody else to tune in. Doug in. Maybe we could do another space like this in the coming days or whatever coming weeks. I know we always do. Speaker 8 The regular the regular show where I'm just interviewing one person, but maybe we could do this a little bit more often But yeah, if you're if you're craving even more Minero Minero more than ever more of an arrow content Don't worry tomorrow at 11 a.m. Will be Minero topia body is always is always on I see tuxedo An audience he's obviously always on so join us tomorrow 11 a.m. Saturday morning Minero topia. See you Doug you guys then. Adios. Peace out. Thanks, everybody. Speaker 5 Peace. Speaker 2 Hi, Monero Land. 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, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Go to MoneroTalk.live 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, Mastodon, or any of our social media platforms. MoneroTalk is also made possible from contributions by viewers and listeners like you. And supporting us is easier than ever by typing in MoneroTalk.crypto in your Monero.com or cake wallet send address field to send us a tip. Once again, thanks so much for listening, and we look forward to being back next week. Speaker 9 you you