Latest / Simply Bitcoin / David Bailey | Bitcoin's Political Playbook | Simply Bitcoin IRL

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David Bailey | Bitcoin's Political Playbook | Simply Bitcoin IRL · Simply Bitcoin

0:00
Yeah, welcome to another episode of Simply Bitcoin IRL.
0:02
Today we have a very special guest.
0:04
We have the CEO of BTC Inc, the owner of Bitcoin Magazine and
0:09
the legendary Bitcoin conference.
0:11
Really excited to have him on the show, especially after a
0:14
legendary Bitcoin conference, absolute milestone in Bitcoin's
0:18
history. We had an ex president,
0:20
potentially future president, and of course we have RFK Junior
0:24
speaking at the Bitcoin conference and it was historic
0:28
definitely in in terms of Bitcoin Bitcoin history.
0:30
But before we jump into the show, I do want to give a very
0:33
special shout out to the Bitcoin company that powers the show.
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Bitcoin on ramp. So head over to bitcoinwell.com
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today. Anyways, for delay, I want to
0:52
bring up David. Onto onto the stage, bro.
0:56
I mean dude, that was a gnarly conference my friend.
1:01
Yeah, dude, it was. And, and I like the warm up that
1:04
you had there. You got me hyped.
1:05
It's giving me a taste of what Nashville is like.
1:07
I've been on vacation since. So it was.
1:10
It was. A little intense, wasn't it?
1:13
It was. It was in a lot of ways.
1:16
Oh, man. But historic.
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I mean, did you, did you ever think I, I had AI had a pretty
1:22
good idea that it was gonna be OK?
1:24
I'll put it to you this way, I kind of knew that Trump was
1:27
going to go, not because anyone told me anything, just because
1:31
of exactly what what what the Biden administration did where
1:35
they just they made it political when they started locking up the
1:38
samurai wallet guys in in jail, the whole attack on self
1:42
custody, the attack on the Bitcoin mining industry.
1:45
And that just created an obvious and obvious opportunity for the
1:49
other guys to step in and say, hey, you know, if you vote me
1:52
into office, we'll protect your industry.
1:55
So of course, you had a little bit more of the, you know, you,
1:59
you definitely saw a little things, a lot more things than I
2:01
did. From your vantage point, what's
2:04
your take on Bitcoin becoming political in a sense?
2:08
Yeah, well, I mean, I guess it always was political, you know,
2:12
separating money in the state. That seems like a political,
2:16
political topic. But yeah, it's been interesting
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to watch the, the speed at which this has gone from, you know,
2:22
neither party really having a, a point of view other than that
2:25
Bitcoin is for criminals to, you know, at least the Republican
2:29
Party going hardcore into supporting our our industry and
2:34
vying for our constituency. So it's it's been interesting to
2:39
watch watch happen. 100% and what was your?
2:44
We had a There is an article that you posted a couple days
2:49
ago from the legacy media, which is it's a propaganda machine at
2:53
this point and the name of the article is MAGA Hats, Panties,
2:58
the Carnivore Diet, My bizarre day at Trump's Bitcoin 2024.
3:04
To my surprise, they quoted me in that article.
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As well. Which is, I find hysterical.
3:12
Which one was this? There's a few hit pieces.
3:14
I can tell this is one of the hit pieces, but.
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It was it was definitely one of the hit pieces.
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Let me let me share it up on screen.
3:19
The one that was talking about the crowd size.
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Yeah, the one I think it about it.
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There we go. Thanks Opti.
3:25
MAGA hats, panties and the carnivore diet.
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My bizarre day at Trump's Bitcoin 2024 speech.
3:32
I'm sorry, but fuck this lady, dude, he said, she said there
3:36
was, I said there was 8000 people in the room.
3:39
There was more than 8000 people in the room, by the way.
3:41
But I just said 8000. And then she's like, oh, in my
3:44
estimation, there was 2000. It's like, fuck your estimation.
3:48
What are you doing? You're just like, oh, you know,
3:51
they said that this, this car costs, you know, $50,000, but in
3:54
my estimation it costs $10,000. It's like what, who is this
3:59
person to to, to negate like what we're saying like we know
4:03
what the capacity of the room is.
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This is actually a public fact. You can go look it up online to
4:06
figure out what the capacity of the room is.
4:08
The room was maxed out. There's people like standing in
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like standing only space and she has the gall to come in and just
4:17
make up a number and she just made that number up.
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I mean, there's just like, like, I understand why Trump gets
4:23
pissed about people doing that with his crowd sizes.
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It's just like she's trying to delegitimize the moment and fuck
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her. That's all I got to say.
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Yeah, dude, she, she lied. There's something else too.
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Like she completely misrepresented completely.
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Like, I don't know if that's the, I don't know what the
4:40
correct terminology is, but she basically claimed that said
4:47
bitcoiners have to engage in a war.
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Like, I don't even know what that means, bro.
4:54
I never said that. But yeah, man, they're not.
4:58
Sending their best, man, they're not sending their best.
5:00
No, but it it's clearly an attack.
5:02
Now my question to you is like, brother, Like what?
5:05
What? Like I have my own personal
5:07
opinions, but why do you believe that the current Democratic
5:12
Party and Harris are just, you know, there it's obviously not a
5:16
monolith, right? There's elements of the
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Democratic Party that, you know, like ROH Khanna, I think he made
5:21
an appearance at the Bitcoin conference that are super pro
5:24
industry. But there's definitely, I would
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say the the ones that are in charge of the Democratic Party
5:29
have still, how do I say this very nicely and correctly?
5:36
Hijacked the party. They haven't.
5:39
They haven't warmed up to it, I'll say that.
5:42
Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's like Elizabeth Warren who is
5:46
like leading the financial, financial issues for the party.
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She's like LED them on this like goose chase into the forest
5:55
against Bitcoin. And yeah, I think that it's it's
5:59
completely non viable. I think they will pivot on this,
6:02
on this topic. I also think there's a there's
6:05
the socialist that that, you know, are part of the Democratic
6:08
constituency are are not pro Bitcoin, which I guess is not a
6:12
surprise to anyone. But yeah, like broadly speaking
6:17
there, you know, like Joe Biden, he doesn't even know what what
6:22
Bitcoin or crypto is like. He doesn't have an opinion on
6:24
this. It's not a strong opinion.
6:25
So it's like who has the strong opinion?
6:27
And it the only person who's really championing the anti
6:33
Bitcoin position is is Warren. And so when what, like what
6:37
votes is she getting? What donors is she getting from
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that position? It doesn't even make sense.
6:41
And I, I think she was just quoted the other day and as
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saying like people were asking her if the Democratic Party was
6:47
going to pivot on, on Bitcoin and she was like, why would we
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pivot? Like I don't see us pivoting to
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embrace criminals and ransomware scammers.
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So, you know, shout out to her for knowing what a ransomware
7:00
scammer is. I feel like that's shows a
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little bit of sophistication maybe.
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But yeah, like, fuck her too. I mean, it's like the MSM and
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they're like woke journalist and and like these like woke
7:13
politicians is like they all got to go.
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They all got to go. And I see someone saying in the
7:17
chat, Dean will have a Liz's seat.
7:20
You know, I hope so at the at the bare minimum, like we're
7:23
gonna pump so much money into Dean's campaign that he's gonna
7:27
be a massive drag on her. And, you know, someone told me
7:31
that the reason Elizabeth Warren has so much power in the
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Democratic Party is because she's a big fundraiser.
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So like, she has these like grassroots people, these
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socialist people who donate their parents money and they and
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they donate it to Elizabeth Warren.
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And then she's able to give that to other Democratic parties that
7:45
are, that are competitive races. And so like whenever you're the
7:50
one who has the money inside the party, you know her, her goon
7:55
squad has the money that gets you political capital and
7:59
political power. And as soon as like she goes
8:02
from a net fundraiser to actually, she needs other people
8:04
to donate to her campaign to keep her from losing, all of her
8:08
political capital disappears. And I think that that's actually
8:10
the the dynamic that's unfolding right now.
8:12
So even if she survives the race, I think her political
8:15
power is going to be like dramatically reduced.
8:17
And that's because she went toe to toe with our industry.
8:20
So, you know, I'm hopeful that this will be the last election
8:25
where Bitcoin is like a, a partisan issue.
8:27
I think after this this election, once we really like
8:31
spank the Dems in the in November, it'll return to a
8:34
bipartisan issue, just like the Internet is bipartisan.
8:38
What happens if, and I, I completely agree and that's
8:41
something that we've been advocating for as well, because
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I don't think it is a partisan issue in that sense.
8:46
I think what regardless of whether you are on the political
8:50
aisle, like you're going to benefit from Bitcoin.
8:53
So regardless of, you know, whether it's about inclusivity
8:57
or you know, protecting yourself from, you know, currency debase
9:01
man or whatever, like bitcoins going to benefit you.
9:03
Now my question to you is, and this is something that you know,
9:07
we've seen and whether it's fake, but you know, there's
9:12
there happens to be a Kamala mania right now since the Dems
9:16
selected a new candidate. You know, the party that cares
9:21
about democracy is that trouble you at all that now because so
9:27
much of our industry has stood behind two candidates RFK.
9:31
But truly, it's really Trump that has a chance at winning.
9:34
Does it worry you at all If, if you know, God forbid, you know,
9:38
Trump loses the election in November?
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And if you look at the betting odds and the polls and, you
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know, like, I don't want to go down that path, but let's just
9:46
say that they can be finagled with.
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Does that concern you a little bit that, you know, all of a
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sudden, for whatever reason, you know, the most unpopular vice
9:56
president ever has just become this extremely popular
10:00
candidate? Yeah.
10:01
Well, I mean, I'm a value investor.
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And so, you know, I've always, I, I've, I've backed Trump
10:07
because I see, I, I see the value.
10:11
And, you know, I think like, what's best for us as an
10:15
industry is we want a close race.
10:17
We want to win, but we want a close race because the closer
10:20
the race, the more leverage we have in the dynamic, the more
10:24
meaningful our constituency is. Every vote matters more.
10:28
Every dollar raised matters more.
10:30
And it was just a runaway for Trump.
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It's like, OK, our industry is big, but like, we're not as big
10:35
as like the energy industry or like the, the, you know,
10:41
entertainment industry, hospitality industry.
10:44
I mean, these are like the biggest categories of industry
10:47
and trade that you can possibly have.
10:48
So it's, it's good for us to have this come down to like a
10:51
razor thin margin. But we do need to win.
10:54
We, we have chosen a side here. And, you know, while the
10:58
Democratic Party was already fucking us, you know, and they
11:01
were like the Biden administration's been fucking us
11:03
for four years. You know, we've definitely
11:06
raised our, let's say, our profile, I think in the
11:10
Democratic establishment, the political establishment.
11:14
And like, you know, there's a lot of people that the Dems want
11:18
to put the screws to, but like maybe they want to put the
11:21
screws to us a little harder than they did previously.
11:24
The good news is, is that like the price of Bitcoin is going to
11:26
hit new all time highs no matter what.
11:30
You know, if it hit, if we hit all time highs when Trump's
11:32
elected, we need to make sure that everyone knows it happened
11:35
because of Trump. That's the Trump pump.
11:38
And and we wanted to give him full credit for for that event.
11:41
But if he doesn't win, we're still going to hit all time
11:43
highs. And so, you know, as we hit all
11:47
time highs, our constituencies only grows like we're already a
11:51
massive voter bloc. I mean we, we say we're 50 to 50
11:55
to 70 million people own Bitcoin or crypto in the United States.
11:59
Maybe that's a high number, maybe it's not that high, maybe
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it's half that number and it's, you know, 25 to 35,000,000 that
12:05
own it in the United States. Regardless, it's a huge number.
12:09
And that number is growing at triple digit annualized growth
12:13
rates year over year. So if you're like a betting man
12:16
and you look at a 35,000,000 person constituency and then you
12:22
see that constituency doubling and then doubling again and then
12:25
doubling one more time, it's like very quickly the vast
12:28
majority of Americans will own digital assets.
12:31
And so like, even if we lose, I think our political capital and
12:35
our political power is going to be dramatically greater in the
12:38
midterms than it is right now. And like, they're going to want
12:41
our votes for the midterms. So as what we need to do a
12:45
really good job of is, is documenting how big of an impact
12:49
we're having in the election. So that way we can use that data
12:53
to tell a story about why you don't want to fuck with our
12:56
industry. And so that's really what this
12:58
is all about. We're we're telling a story to
13:00
Trump about how big of an impact we're making for his campaign
13:03
and why he needs to support us. We're telling a story to the
13:06
Democrats. Look how much you're fucking
13:07
yourself by going against us. You know, you need to stop doing
13:10
that. And so as long as the story is
13:12
heard, then ultimately we're being successful. 100% Now I
13:16
kind of want to focus on and, and I agree with you 100% very
13:20
good points and kind of want to focus on something that you said
13:22
earlier, which is their elements of the Democratic Party that are
13:26
socialists. They obviously despise Bitcoin.
13:28
They want a monopoly for their for their central bank digital
13:31
currencies to bring in a utopia. And you know, we have Kamala
13:37
Harris, who you can call her socialist and you have the
13:41
walls. I think believe his name is who
13:43
You could also make a good argument that he's a socialist
13:46
as well. And then I'm sure because you're
13:49
on Bitcoin Twitter, I'm sure you've seen, you know, the same
13:53
day that they, they held the quote UN quote round table to
13:58
get figures of the industry in there.
14:00
One of the questions that they asked everybody was, do you feel
14:03
like your industry has been attacked?
14:04
And every single person rose their hand basically.
14:08
And the same day the Fed and the FDIC actually sued customers
14:14
bank. Customers bank is like one of
14:16
the only remaining pro Bitcoin banks in the US like.
14:22
Are. What happens if Kamala gets
14:24
elected? Are we just going to see more of
14:26
what we're seeing now? But times 10, it could that
14:30
potentially threaten the industry in the United States?
14:34
What's your take on that? You know, it definitely could.
14:37
I mean, we probably should make some blue hats and put something
14:40
like make Bitcoin social together or something like that,
14:42
just in case backup, backup hats that we can wear.
14:46
I I already got permission from the guards.
14:48
I I will be able to live stream with BTC sessions from the
14:52
gulag, so that's already confirmed.
14:54
Good. That's good real estate, No.
14:56
And you know, I'm in Puerto Rico, so if they if they raise
14:59
the tax rate like absurdly on, you know, Bitcoin, that's gonna
15:01
be really good for Puerto Rican real estate.
15:03
So you know, I'm I'm hedged from that position, but I do think
15:08
it's going to be bad for us. You know it, but it's already
15:12
like I said, it's already been bad for us.
15:13
Like you know, what are they going to do?
15:14
Operation Choke .4 point O you know, I mean, where do they go
15:18
from here? So give give Ross another life
15:21
sentence or something. So, you know, I do I do worry
15:25
about more US industry being forced out of the United States.
15:28
I do worry about a crackdown on proof of work.
15:30
But the The thing is, is like Bitcoin is resilient.
15:33
The Bitcoin system will be fine and, and the worst case scenario
15:36
is that American industry is driven overseas and then we just
15:39
service American customers from, you know, somewhere for it.
15:42
So it's, it's regulatory arbitrage one O 1 and you know
15:47
it if, if, if crypto has done it, Bitcoin can do it too.
15:53
So, but I hope that's not the case.
15:55
I, I hope it doesn't get there. And, and it seems like firmly,
15:59
you know, the, the Republican Party has embraced Bitcoin and,
16:04
and even if we lose this election to Harris, by the time
16:09
the midterms come, like history shows that the, the, the party
16:12
that's voted in, you know, there's typically a counter to
16:16
that party during the midterms. And so I would imagine, like,
16:18
once there's a, you know, House or Senate that's Republican,
16:22
even if there was a Democrat president, we'd be pretty safe
16:24
from any, like, major legislation coming against us.
16:29
Gotcha. Yeah.
16:30
You know, it doesn't kill the honey badger makes it stronger
16:32
and you know, I think it. To be to be truthful, I'm like,
16:36
I'm not really that zoomed in on what's going on, on the the
16:39
Harris campaign or like the inner workings of the politics.
16:42
Like I'm looking at this really from a very simple perspective.
16:45
It's like, how do we mobilize as many votes as possible for
16:48
Trump? And how do we raise as much
16:49
money as possible for Trump and then tell him about it?
16:51
Like it's very important that the work we do, we're not trying
16:54
to do work in secret and like have him get elected and him not
16:57
know that like we did it. Like we're trying to tell the
17:00
story. Like, look how important our
17:03
constituency is. This is why our constituency
17:06
needs to be prioritized above gun owners, above evangelical
17:10
Christians. Like we're, we're your top
17:12
constituency. And so, you know, I'm not even
17:15
getting into the like Mackinac, like day-to-day political
17:19
dynamics. It's just how do we execute on
17:21
turning out votes and raising dollars?
17:24
Yeah, and and, and I also, it's incredibly important because
17:27
that's how you win elections right now.
17:30
What I would say to that, David, is, and this is something that,
17:33
you know, we've we've kind of come to terms to on our show, we
17:36
get a bunch of shit from Bitcoiners saying, you know,
17:39
Bitcoin isn't political. Like whatever.
17:41
I'm like, dude, OK, fact. It is not political.
17:43
It's an apolitical technology. But if we do pull this off and
17:47
you know, we see a Bitcoin standard all around the world,
17:50
that is one of the most political things that's ever
17:52
happened. Like the separation of money and
17:53
state by definition is political, right?
17:56
So, but right now we're getting to a point where our industry is
18:00
no longer in the shadows. It's it's starting to
18:03
essentially answer the mainstream.
18:06
It was inevitable that this clash happened and we're
18:08
witnessing it. And it's very difficult for me,
18:12
like, and I see it with people because they're just so hell
18:15
bent on it. Like, fuck politics.
18:16
I'm like, whatever. I'm like, OK, so would you
18:18
rather vote the guy in that? Perhaps he doesn't understand it
18:22
fully, but you know, at the end, what is it was the last thing
18:25
that Trump said. It was so epic.
18:26
He was like, have fun with your Bitcoin.
18:28
Like it was so fucking funny. Whatever else you're playing
18:31
with, yeah. Exactly.
18:33
And then he's like, Bitcoin to the moon.
18:35
I'm going to make you rich. Or would you rather vote in the
18:38
person that is actively persecuting the industry?
18:41
Like for me, it's black and white, right?
18:43
And it will have an effect, in my opinion, if you're a Bitcoin
18:49
entrepreneur in the United States, not on Bitcoin and the
18:51
Bitcoin price, but if you're actively developing a Bitcoin
18:54
business in the US, it will have an impact on you.
18:57
So like, what can we do as Bitcoiners to really get the
19:00
message out there and say, look, the Bitcoin the the the 2024
19:04
election is a Bitcoin election. Yeah.
19:08
Well, I think first and foremost, like, for this to have
19:12
a meaningful effect on on Bitcoin adoption, Trump doesn't
19:15
even need to win. You know, all we need is for
19:19
President Trump to go out there and say things about Bitcoin,
19:23
treating Bitcoin like a strategic asset of the United
19:27
States. And that in and of itself has an
19:29
impact on the global dynamic. Every other country in the world
19:33
hears Trump say these things, and it impacts how they view
19:36
their own domestic policy locally.
19:38
And so, you know, if Trump says we're going to get a bunch of
19:41
Bitcoin and we're going to put in the strategic reserve, other
19:44
nations hear that and they say, OK, well, we need to establish a
19:47
strategic reserve first before Trump gets elected.
19:49
And so I think the impact of, of Trump's activity has like it's
19:54
already, it's already happening globally and there's already a
19:57
response that we were hearing from people like I expect there
20:01
to be other countries to make announcements before November.
20:04
And yeah, so I I think he doesn't have to win for this to
20:08
accelerate global adoption. You know, for those that are
20:10
like, like Bitcoin is a rejection of politics and money,
20:16
Trump being elected, Harris being elected, whatever, none of
20:20
these things matter. As it relates to Bitcoin, it
20:22
doesn't change Bitcoin in any way whatsoever.
20:25
If Trump likes Bitcoin, if Trump hates Bitcoin, Bitcoin is the
20:28
exact same thing. It has no effect on the
20:31
technology. The only thing it affects is
20:33
Bitcoin users that live in the United States.
20:35
That's it. So you know, Bitcoin can be made
20:38
illegal in the United States and it had no effect on Bitcoin.
20:42
So I people don't need to be so worked up like why are you
20:45
introducing politics in the Bitcoin?
20:47
It's like, yo, we're not introducing it into Bitcoin.
20:49
It has zero effect on Bitcoin. We're just introducing it into
20:52
how people use Bitcoin in the United States because we live in
20:54
a political system and therefore are are are subject to political
20:58
laws. So in terms of like, how do we
21:01
turn people out? You know, First off, it's like
21:05
you should, you should vote, you should register to vote and you
21:09
should vote. If you live in a swing state,
21:11
you have to vote like it's, you know, Georgia, I think came down
21:16
to like 12,000 votes, if I'm remembering correctly between
21:20
the, the two parties. So every vote in a swing state
21:24
is like worth its weight in gold.
21:27
You should show up to any rallies that happened in your
21:30
state. You should wear Bitcoin
21:32
paraphernalia, Bitcoin propaganda, hand out Bitcoin
21:36
magazines. If you reach out to us, we'll
21:37
send you some to hand out at the at, at a rally.
21:40
But anything that can leave an impression that shows like how
21:44
how active our grass roots is. And then you should donate to
21:47
the Trump campaign that accepts Bitcoin.
21:49
Send them one dollar $5.00 of Bitcoin.
21:51
It doesn't, it doesn't matter, just some very tiny amount.
21:55
They see that donation, that donation counts in their
21:57
statistics when they're adding up, like how many people
21:59
supported this via this mechanism.
22:00
So those are like really easy ways to make yourself heard.
22:06
And then if you know, you're, you live in a non swing state
22:09
and your elections already decided, you should just go
22:11
online and pretend that you live in a swing state and, and, and
22:14
you know, really yam it up that you're you're going to vote in
22:18
the your swing state election. Yeah, and, and let's talk about
22:22
what those. So for, for example, if you live
22:24
in Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania or
22:29
Georgia, the man himself, David Bailey, just said get out and
22:33
vote, do your thing. Because yeah, you're absolutely
22:36
right. And all of the, I think if you
22:38
aggregate all the swing states from last election, Trump only
22:41
lost by 70,000 votes in the Electoral College thing, right?
22:46
So, yeah, I agree. Like it's a, it's a huge deal.
22:50
And and the reality is, and I can't emphasize your point
22:53
enough, because that's a really good point.
22:54
That's something for people to understand.
22:56
Bitcoin doesn't give a flying F, right?
22:58
Bitcoiners could move like, you know, you don't if you take self
23:01
custody and go anywhere around the world, you can go to
23:02
favorable jurisdiction, right? But you know, do you really want
23:07
all those lightning companies continuing to leave the US?
23:10
Do you, do you like let's free Ross?
23:12
Like we have it's, it's literally we can, we can almost
23:15
touch it. I was with Ross's mom, like I, I
23:19
was with her. I think it was a couple weeks
23:20
ago or so and I was, and it was after Trump made that
23:22
announcement. I remember like, isn't she?
23:25
She couldn't believe it. She like this is insane, right?
23:28
So that's what's on the line and.
23:31
He wins, he will free Ross. You know, some of these items
23:34
like it, it's they get more complicated.
23:36
And so it's all about like how much political capital has to be
23:39
spent and like, how much do we perform for Trump?
23:41
Because that's going to determine our political
23:43
prioritization. But things like, hey, commuting
23:46
Ross's sentence, that's an easy thing to do.
23:48
I expect that to be done day one as committed to.
23:51
So, you know, in my opinion, that's enough of a reason to
23:54
vote for Trump, just to see that to happen personally. 100% you
23:58
know, I, I, I completely agree. So man, listen, so you just
24:02
threw one of the most historical you know and shout out to, you
24:05
know, the rest of the team the best.
24:06
Of the the the. The conference team in the MAG
24:08
team, you have an extremely talented team.
24:10
Love those guys. So would you say that this
24:13
conference was more successful than 21?
24:16
Because 21 was that. That was like epic milestone.
24:21
You guys came to my hometown, You guys came to Miami, but I
24:24
mean the presidents, man, like I feel like every how are you
24:27
going to one up this next year is?
24:29
My question to you. So I mean, I think it was on the
24:32
21 level. I think things that were going
24:35
like better for it or like it was First off, it was twice as
24:37
big as 21 and it it was better executed by our team because we
24:42
were amateurs for 21. And we're kind of, I'm not going
24:44
to call us pros, but we're like at least not amateurs now on
24:47
events. So, but I would say it was like
24:50
it reminded me a lot of 21 is what like ever happened from
25:04
COVID in the world. And so like every place is like
25:10
masking and like vaccine passports or whatever they're,
25:13
they were called and we were like, no, none of that, no
25:15
masks, no vaccine passports. If you're afraid of dying,
25:18
don't. And then everyone came and it
25:21
was like it was a it was a sick environment.
25:26
But yeah, I think this caliber, you know, based on the ticket
25:31
sales for 25, this is, this is like our most popular event
25:35
we've ever done. Like 25 is going to be a
25:38
monstrosity in size. And I hope we can get to like
25:41
40,000 or 50,000 people. And you know, in terms of like
25:46
how we can one up this one, we already have ideas.
25:48
And there were several things that we were expecting to happen
25:51
at at 24 that ultimately at the last minute didn't happen.
25:58
And so like, yeah, there's. Put you on the spot and ask you
26:03
about that because I kind of have an idea.
26:04
Can I put you on the spot, David?
26:05
Am I allowed to talk about it? Sure, sure.
26:10
That that sure didn't sound very confident.
26:13
I haven't talked about it yet. So I mean, let's let's talk
26:16
about it. What do you want to know?
26:18
Were the Elon rumors true? Yeah, they were true.
26:22
So he. So yeah, there was supposed to
26:25
be a a fireside chat between Elon and Trump after Trump's
26:30
speech and we were left guessing like up to the very about
26:38
whether or not he was doing it so.
26:42
Dude, that would have been freaking insane.
26:45
Holy cow. But yeah, it's, it's Elon.
26:49
I mean, dude, So the next conference.
26:51
So is there a reason that you guys chose to go to Vegas
26:56
instead of going and staying in Nashville again?
26:59
Well, so we want to rotate the conferences because like we
27:02
don't want the events to get a stale.
27:06
And so like we like part of the reason we left Miami, not the
27:09
only reason, but the, the main reason was just like we had done
27:11
Miami three years in a row and it's like, OK, kind of becomes
27:15
like commodity. And you know, one of the ways
27:19
that like other events, it's the same.
27:24
And it just like like people oh, really just pissed me off when
27:30
people would call the event BTCBTC conference.
27:36
And so moving to a different city was like that.
27:40
Like the conference isn't like one cities or whatever.
27:42
Like this is a big it was the way to keep the event fresh
27:50
conference like the world. We would do the conference
27:55
back-to-back that way like we like we can do better job at
28:01
like adoption and like getting local places to accept Bitcoin.
28:05
Like Nashville basically had no idea, like what was coming with
28:09
our conference. And then like once it came
28:10
there, like, holy shit. Like they've never had a
28:12
conference like that before. So ideally we would have done it
28:16
one more time in Nashville, but there's a super woke mayor in
28:19
Nashville and basically kicked us out.
28:23
I mean, he, he wouldn't take any phone calls.
28:27
He didn't come to the conference.
28:28
Mayor Suarez flew to the conference from Miami to attend.
28:32
And the mayor of Nashville, who was four blocks away from the
28:36
conference, did not come, would not take a phone call.
28:39
Even though we are spending, you know, the conference generated
28:42
hundreds of millions of dollars in local spending and he would
28:46
not come. So again, they're not sending
28:49
their best. So we we wanted to go to a
28:53
different city. There's really only a handful of
28:55
cities that have the infrastructure to support, you
28:58
know, 10s of thousands of hotel rooms and, like, have a
29:03
Convention Center that big. And a lot of those places are
29:05
booked, you know, years out. Honestly, like the most
29:09
conferences other than ours plan like five years out.
29:12
So they have the next five years already locked down.
29:14
Like, we plan one year out, which is like, absolutely
29:16
insane. And I hope this year we can get
29:18
to, like, planning two years out at least.
29:19
But so. Yeah.
29:22
And we thought Las Vegas would just be a fun party place to go
29:25
for what we think next year will be Bitcoin prices all time high
29:29
north of 100K just seem like a good, a good vibe, especially
29:33
with the sphere getting built and all the activities that we
29:37
can play in the city. And then, you know, we have some
29:40
really great themes and some really great design ideas.
29:44
We're kind of leaning into area 51 some we're leaning into
29:48
embracing the game theory of Bitcoin, which, you know, we're
29:51
better to do that than the casino town.
29:53
So I think it'll be a really fun conference.
29:58
I think it'll be very convenient for our West Coast audience.
30:02
I, I, I promised after COVID we'd never go back to
30:04
California. So I feel like Nevada is the
30:07
next best. And then, you know, hopefully we
30:09
can deliver Nevada, the swing state to President Trump for
30:15
this election. And that's, you know, I told him
30:17
this is the main reason we moved the conference to Las Vegas was
30:19
to win him Nevada. So hell yeah, stacking that
30:24
credit. So you gave him, and please
30:28
forgive me for mispronouncing this, but a Caucasus coin was
30:31
it, how do you say it, Caucasus coin, right?
30:35
How did what? How did he react when you gave
30:38
him that? What he?
30:39
Just looking. He loved it.
30:41
He loves it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:42
And I didn't give it to him. I I got to hand it to him.
30:45
But it's actually an OG Bitcoiner who came to the
30:49
fundraiser we put together for the president.
30:51
He, you know, like two months ago I put up a call like, does
30:55
anyone have a Cassatius coin for Trump?
30:56
And he reached out and he has a really cool story.
30:59
We like, we did a little recording so that people would
31:01
know the story and we're going to publish it at some point.
31:03
But he he has like a collection of Cassatius coins, one of the
31:08
best collections. And he like went through, he
31:11
took the collection, he flew to one of the main coin craters in
31:15
the country, had them select like the perfect Passatius coin
31:19
that was in like perfect condition.
31:22
Then he had them create like a special container to hold it.
31:25
That was for Donald Trump specifically.
31:28
So this is like a one of one like super special setup.
31:32
It had one full Bitcoin on there.
31:35
And then because Secret Service is like insane.
31:38
And they were like, there's no way that this guy can hand
31:41
anything to Donald Trump. No one can hand anything to
31:43
Donald Trump. I was able to like work it back
31:46
like a, like a, you know, loophole where I could hand it
31:50
to him as long as I handed it to him on stage or directly off
31:54
stage, like when he was coming on and off.
31:56
And even to do that, they had to take the Castatius coin and had
31:59
like laid on the floor. They brought in dogs.
32:01
Then they brought in like a Secret Service like bomb squad
32:03
to like look at it and make sure they're so explosives.
32:06
So it was like a whole thing just like get the Castatius coin
32:09
like backstage. And then, you know, when once he
32:14
got the, the coin, he loved it. So now like he's, he's going
32:19
around, he's showing it to people being like, you know, the
32:21
Bitcoiners gave me a Bitcoin. I'm a bitcoiner.
32:24
So he's a big fan and you know, I'll let you in on some some
32:29
some alpha, some. This is you know what, never
32:35
mind. I'm not going to say it.
32:36
I can't. Say it what you can't.
32:38
You can't drop it in hot and take it back, Bailey.
32:41
You can't. Do that all I'll.
32:43
Say, is that that like that Cassacea's coin?
32:48
Like there are, like there are on the, on the materials,
32:56
there's like a, the address to the Kasatius coin, the Bitcoin.
33:00
It's, it's public and you know, that's his, his address totally
33:06
private. I, I, if he wants to share that
33:09
with people, it's up to him to share it.
33:11
But you know, unfortunately I, I thought that like when I showed
33:15
the Kasatius coin on stage that it was far enough away from all
33:19
the cameras and everything that there was no way anyone could
33:22
see any of the identifiable information on the Kasatius
33:26
coin. And then I, the next day I wake
33:29
up and the New York Times has this super zoomed in photo of
33:33
the Kasatius coin where like perhaps like the details, the
33:38
address, the presidential address has been leaked.
33:41
But that would be on the New York Times for doing that.
33:43
That would not, I had nothing to do with that.
33:46
So in theory, someone could, you know, send the president some
33:52
corn if they wanted to directly or, you know, I don't know how
34:01
that all, all that jives, but that's yeah.
34:05
So anyway, that's cool. That is really, really cool,
34:07
man. So how did and you?
34:09
And it was a very successful fundraiser, which he mentioned
34:12
many, many times during his speech.
34:15
Yeah, it was, I believe it was. It was, it was you guys.
34:19
And then the the Winklevoss and you guys threw a fundraiser.
34:24
How did Trump react to that? Like was he appreciative?
34:28
Second biggest fundraiser he's ever had in in 3 presidential
34:31
campaigns. There's only one that was bigger
34:33
and that one was like that was kind of like concocted
34:37
fundraiser where like he raised 52,000,000 and one guy gave 50
34:40
million. So it's like, OK, come on.
34:42
Yeah, that's, you know, like that's like where you fake your
34:45
all time highs or whatever, you know.
34:47
So the second biggest fundraiser after that one was 18,000,000.
34:51
We put up 25,000,000 so. Yeah, he was impressed.
34:56
Yeah, he was very impressed. And it wasn't like it was from
34:58
like I think the biggest donor was was $1 million.
35:03
That was the biggest donor. So it was a, it was a team
35:06
effort and dude, we were and it, and it wasn't even that we
35:09
couldn't even put up a bigger number.
35:11
But the, because of how like, you know, this fundraiser, it
35:16
was being run by Trump 47. It's their fundraiser.
35:19
And Trump 47 has certain limitations about what type of
35:21
money they can bring in and the maximum amount that can be
35:23
contributed. And so it has to be given
35:26
personally, not be a corporate. So it's way harder to get
35:29
someone to give money personally because it's coming out of your
35:32
post tax pocketbook personally versus like having your
35:35
corporation you run that has bajillions of dollars, like
35:38
right. And it's like, OK, who cares?
35:40
1,000,000 bucks. Like, you know, so this was
35:43
people personally donating and it's very, very hard to get to
35:48
raise money like that. And so, yeah, they were, they
35:51
were blown away. They could, they really couldn't
35:53
believe it. Like they, they thought we
35:54
weren't going to be able to raise 5.
35:56
Like it was like, like, if you raise five, we're going to be
35:59
impressed. And then we raised 25.
36:01
That's freaking awesome. So and the room.
36:04
And the room, I'll, I'll, I'll share this too.
36:06
Like the room was supposed to be because I actually had to like,
36:09
I do a little bit of like post, post fundraiser, you know,
36:14
repair because we knew you were raising the money.
36:16
It was like, Hey, this is going to be tops, like 10 to 15 people
36:20
in this round table with the president.
36:22
And then as it got closer and the excitement was just
36:24
building, people just kept coming in.
36:26
Like more and more people just kept coming in.
36:29
And then all of a sudden like, like Trump's like, hey, I got to
36:31
bring some of my, my boys with me.
36:33
And so, you know, like Trump's got like a posse.
36:36
And the posse had like Bill it. Well, I'll, I already started
36:40
it. I'll, I'll share these names
36:41
because these names are public. Kid Rock, Billy Ray Cyrus, you
36:47
know, there are a couple other people that are just like
36:50
chilling with Trump, you know, and so like he flies in on his
36:53
plane, they come with them. And then it was like our crew
36:57
from our, our industry. And by, and then there were some
37:00
politicians, it was supposed to be limited about what
37:02
politicians could come in. And then once like it started
37:06
happening, like they're politicians that were like, I
37:07
have to be in that room. And so by the time it was all
37:10
said and done, there's like 50 people in the round table.
37:12
And the room was just like packed, like packed out.
37:16
And a couple people that came to the round table were like people
37:23
that you wouldn't recognize. They're not like industry
37:25
people. They're, they're successful
37:27
outside of our industry. Like people have made, you know,
37:30
billions of dollars in Tradfi or billions of dollars in real
37:33
estate. And Trump was like very
37:36
surprised to see them at the round round table.
37:39
He was like, you're into this, like, what do you think about
37:42
all of this? And they'd be like, oh, Mr.
37:44
President, like we're very into it.
37:45
We're like all in. And he'd be like, wow, wow.
37:49
Like turns to. And I was like, you're into
37:50
this. It's like it was like this
37:52
really reinforcing kind of moment of like, wow, this is
37:55
like not just like a bunch of young people that are into
37:58
technology. Like, these are people I know
37:59
that I've done business with for many decades that are into this
38:02
and into it in like a really big way.
38:04
Yeah, no, it it, it's so watching him go down that rabbit
38:07
hole is hilarious. Like first he was like, it was
38:10
Vivec that told him about the CBDC's and then he dropped it at
38:13
a campaign speech. And then he was like, whoa, you
38:17
guys know what that is? If I get elected for president,
38:20
I'm going to be anti CBDC. And everyone's like, yeah, he
38:22
was like, all right. Then he doubled down the next
38:25
one. And then, then he did deliver
38:28
Terry him. Just doubling down and doubling
38:30
down and. It's so funny.
38:33
And then at the at the Bitcoin conference, when he says I'm
38:37
going to fire Gary Gensler and everyone's like, and he was
38:41
like, I want. To say it again, oh man,
38:46
because. He's not like a typical
38:48
politician, like he doesn't have like, you know, he's just, he's
38:51
authentic in that sense. So just.
38:54
For one way he makes his like he builds his positions, which I
38:57
feel like this is how it should be, is like he says things and
39:01
then he judges the reaction of the of the people around him
39:05
about how they feel about it. And if like people really like
39:07
it, he double s down. And if people don't like it,
39:10
then it kind of like fades into irrelevance and he doesn't say
39:13
it again. And so, you know, I think he's
39:15
found that, like when he brings up Bitcoin and crypto items, not
39:19
only do people really react like very strongly in the crowd, but
39:23
then when they see him at fundraisers or they see him
39:25
like, you know, just walking around at Mar a Lago, they go up
39:28
to him like, Oh, I saw what you said about Bitcoin or I saw what
39:31
you said about Bitcoin mining. Like, like, you know, I love it.
39:35
And, and he like then bases his priorities on like, Wow, I've
39:38
had 100 conversations today and in 30 of them people brought up
39:43
Bitcoin or crypto. Wow, this thing really is taking
39:46
off. So it's, it's it, you know,
39:49
that's kind of how he judges his positions and went to double
39:51
down on. And that's kind of perfect for
39:53
Bitcoin because Bitcoin is like money.
39:55
Like it, it's, it's it's populist, you know, it's like
39:57
truly money of the masses. And so of course that would be
40:00
the feedback that he got. But it takes someone like Trump
40:02
to base their opinions on the crowd rather than like polling
40:06
where I don't know if polling would have actually picked up.
40:08
Like do people support Bitcoin in the same way?
40:12
No, of course not. And it could be manipulated too.
40:14
Like, you know, you're not going to get that like authentic, you
40:19
know, you can't fake a crowd. You can't say that either
40:22
anymore these days. But you can't fake a crowd's
40:24
genuine. Like if you're there in person,
40:27
you can't fake a crowd's genuine response to it, right?
40:31
You can AI it and you can do all these things, but you can't fake
40:35
a real in life, you know, a reaction to it, man.
40:40
So yeah, dude, it was, it was pretty crazy.
40:44
Like I was doing, I was doing rounds on the news desk and
40:48
there was a point where I'd like, it's going to probably
40:50
take two hours to get into that thing.
40:53
So I literally left and I did the line and I got such an
40:56
awesome seat and just because I wanted to witness history
40:59
because it really was history. And if he wins, it's going to be
41:03
insane. So I'm really, really excited.
41:06
It was, it was surreal. He's not done like, like there's
41:10
a lot more coming between now and November.
41:12
Like he's like he's, he's hitting his stride right now
41:16
with our industry. He's loving the response that
41:18
he's getting. I imagine he's going to double
41:20
down multiple times between now and November with even bigger
41:23
announcements. And so like by the time he's
41:26
elected, the things that he's going to be saying and the
41:29
things that he's going to be promising, our industry is going
41:31
to be like, it's going to be like, dude, where do we even go
41:36
from here? So I'm very bullish.
41:39
Dude, I, I, I'm bullish too, man.
41:41
It's, it's, it's surreal to see this now.
41:43
David, I, I, I have a question for you because I think a lot of
41:46
people don't quite understand American politics in the way
41:49
that they work and donations and all that.
41:52
And perhaps it goes over a lot of people's head.
41:54
So could you explain that just to everyone in terms of, because
41:58
you were mentioning earlier, like political capital, you're
42:00
mentioning priorities, right? Like the energy industry, it's a
42:03
bigger donor base or let's say it's more influential, it's
42:05
whatever. So could you kind of explain
42:08
what it is that what it is that our industry is trying to
42:11
achieve getting into the, you know, kind of the political
42:15
sphere, the political discussion?
42:17
And the reason I'm asking you this question is again, either
42:21
from our chat or from our Telegram chat or any anywhere
42:24
else, you, I always get this message from this angry
42:26
bitcoiner like stop making this political.
42:29
And I'm like, dude, I'm not making this political.
42:31
What, what are we trying to achieve with getting into the
42:35
political discussion in the political sphere and how does it
42:37
work in terms of the donations, in terms of the priorities,
42:41
etcetera, etcetera? So the number one thing that
42:43
matters, and I'm a novice of all of this too.
42:45
So let me just like preface that like I have three months of
42:47
experience in this and four months of experience, but I'm a
42:51
fast learner. So what I've what I've learned
42:54
so far from the process, like first and foremost, the number
42:56
one thing that matters is votes. Like if you can turn out votes,
43:01
especially if you can turn out votes in the swing states, that
43:03
is the single most influential factor for determining what your
43:07
constituency is able to get in a political campaign, what type of
43:11
promises that you can get from from either of the parties.
43:16
And so it starts with votes, but votes don't really kick in until
43:20
like this quarter, like where it like starts becoming real and
43:23
people start filling in mail in ballots or showing up to vote.
43:26
So before this stage of the election, it's about how much
43:29
capital can a campaign raise? And there's a variety of
43:33
different vehicles that campaigns can raise capital
43:36
into. They look for basically two
43:38
different KP is the the amount of dollars that they can raise.
43:42
That's one big KPI and then the other KPI is like from how many
43:46
different unique donors are we raising it from?
43:49
Because that's a good tell of like how much grassroots support
43:51
there is for a candidate. So those are kind of like the
43:55
the three levers that that matter in terms of like a
44:00
campaign winning. Then like, you know, there are
44:04
like you have to have an issue that is compatible with the
44:07
platform of whoever that candidate is.
44:10
So, you know, for, for Donald Trump, when we were working with
44:15
him on, you know, what are the different things that would
44:17
excite the Bitcoin community, we, we positioned them in such a
44:20
way that they were aligned with what his political platform was.
44:23
So for example, Trump is like an energy maxi, like he is really
44:27
wants America to have the cheapest energy in the world.
44:30
He wants us to massively increase the amount of energy
44:32
we're producing. He wants us to export energy to
44:36
countries around the world. So, you know, Bitcoin is
44:41
perfectly aligned with that. Like Bitcoin mining is about
44:44
making massive investments into energy.
44:46
We want to make the cheapest energy and most abundant energy
44:49
possible. We want to we want to invest
44:51
into stranded energy sources that really there's we're the
44:54
only bidder for. So you know, when he learned all
44:58
about this, about Bitcoin mining is like, wow, like this is about
45:01
energy abundance. I'm about energy abundance.
45:02
Like let's go. So it's about kind of aligning,
45:07
aligning your talking points and your kind of your position for
45:11
why Bitcoin matters for the campaign in a way that's like
45:14
cohesive with their policy platform.
45:16
So those are the different elements.
45:19
And then, like in terms of political priority or political
45:22
capital, you know, once you get elected, there is like, it's not
45:29
like, you know, Trump promised all these things to Bitcoin.
45:35
And so therefore, they're all guaranteed to happen.
45:37
Like the things that are easy to do, they happen quickly.
45:40
Like, you know, commuting a sentence, that's something that
45:41
he can do by just signing an executive order.
45:44
That's an easy promise for him to keep.
45:46
And Trump has a pretty solid track record, at least in terms
45:50
of, like presidential candidates of keeping his promises.
45:53
If you waited against any other like George Bush or Barack Obama
45:57
or, you know, Reagan or Clinton or whatever, he has a good track
46:02
record. So the easy ones, they've taken
46:06
care of the more complicated ones where you need like
46:09
legislative support, you need the Congress and the House or
46:12
the Senate of the House to support you.
46:16
It's not that he doesn't want to follow through on those
46:18
promises, but there's all sorts of of basically political
46:23
trading that's going on to get things included in bills and
46:26
legislation. And it requires you to spend
46:28
political capital to make them happen.
46:30
And often it just requires like, what are your priorities?
46:33
Like you're, you're, you know, you have five things that people
46:35
want you to achieve. You're only going to get to get
46:37
one of those things done. What's your highest priority
46:40
thing that you want to fulfill upon?
46:43
And so maybe, you know, we get left out of something because
46:46
we're not the highest priority or maybe we don't.
46:49
And like, what determines that is, like, how big of a
46:51
constituency do we turn out to be?
46:53
Are we his most important constituency?
46:56
Like, I don't think we're going to be that for this election.
46:58
But if we had turned out, you know, if we were able to turn
47:00
out 10s of millions of votes, we're like millions of votes in
47:04
the swing States and we raised hundreds of millions of dollars
47:07
for the campaign, we would be the most important constituency.
47:11
And so, you know, it's all about like how critical are we to his
47:16
re election or to his like future political goals that he's
47:19
trying to achieve in terms of where we fall in like political
47:23
prioritization. And so, you know, again, like
47:28
that's just that's, that's not really him thing.
47:31
That's just like him dealing with the dynamic of how like US
47:34
politics works. And, you know, what are the
47:36
different trade-offs that have to happen in order to advance
47:39
some of his legislative goals? And then your question was like,
47:42
well, what are the things that we're like fighting for?
47:46
There's a lot of stuff that we can fight for.
47:48
I, I think he mentioned a few things, but I think to kind of
47:52
reiterate some of them, you know, things that we would want
47:55
from a Bitcoin friendly presidency, especially if he had
48:00
the House and the Senate. We'd love a, a re evaluation of
48:04
tax policy on Bitcoin. We'd love for Bitcoin miners not
48:07
have to deal with a double taxation that occurs currently.
48:11
We'd love for there to be a tax exemption on de minimis
48:13
transactions that are $1200 so that when you spend, you know,
48:16
when you go buy a cup of coffee, you're not having to record a, a
48:19
capital gains event. We would love for there to be a,
48:24
a clarity on, on what regulatory bodies oversee Bitcoin.
48:28
Is it the SEC? Is it the CFTC?
48:31
How is it treated as a, as a, as an asset is an asset, Is it a
48:36
commodity? We want it to be a commodity
48:38
people. So hopefully it's that would be
48:40
the answer. You know, at the SEC, there's
48:43
issues like Bitcoin companies being able to go public, doing
48:47
mergers and acquisitions, getting companies to be able to,
48:50
to acquire Bitcoin onto their balance sheet.
48:52
Right now, if you want to acquire Bitcoin on your balance
48:55
sheet, you have to issue a public, do a public filing that
48:59
has to be reviewed by the SEC. They can drag out their comment
49:02
periods on, on some of these filings where it takes like up
49:05
to 90 days for you to actually be able to move forward with
49:08
things. So that there's all sorts of
49:10
capital markets activity that they're blocking or that they're
49:14
slowing down. From a business perspective or
49:17
from an individual perspective, it's hard to get a bank account
49:20
as an that connects to any Bitcoin exchange.
49:23
Your bank accounts get shut down all the time, especially as a,
49:26
as a corporation that get shut down all the time.
49:29
So we want there to be laws that that prevent discrimination by
49:34
banks against how people choose to use their bank accounts.
49:39
We want there to be laws against discrimination about how you
49:41
choose to use your energy if you want to mine or if you want to
49:44
run Christmas tree lights. No one should be able to tell
49:46
you how to use energy if you're paying for it.
49:49
We want to make sure that our right to run a node, to self
49:52
custody Bitcoin, to write open source software and publish it.
49:55
All those things are protected and that you're not going to go
49:57
to jail because you write open source software and someone
49:59
chooses to use it in the way that you didn't intend or that
50:03
you didn't condone. So there's like a huge number of
50:07
things. I mean, that also doesn't
50:08
include like, we want there to be a strategic reserve of
50:12
Bitcoin. We want the US government to be
50:14
acquiring Bitcoin in the open market.
50:17
We want it to not sell the Bitcoin it already holds.
50:20
So, like, there's a lot of stuff that we could make happen and,
50:27
you know, depending on what happens in November is on the
50:30
docket. Yeah, I, I 100% agree.
50:33
It it, it's on the docket and thank you for laying that out,
50:36
man. You, you, he said.
50:37
You've only been doing this for four months, but he got a very
50:40
thorough list of things that you want if you were to prioritize.
50:44
It's longer than that to be honest, but.
50:45
So if you said that there's things that get prioritized,
50:49
right, and that there's a good negotiation aspect, especially
50:52
like what it seems like, right? It's like Trump wins the
50:55
presidency, looks like the Dems might take the House and then
50:58
the Repubs get the Senate right. Out of all those things that you
51:03
listed, if you were to prioritize them, what would be
51:06
the top three things that are most?
51:07
Important thing I left. But, but let's, let's put free
51:10
Ross aside. Let's put free Ross as guys.
51:12
That's a given, right? And that's, by the way, that's
51:14
something that Kamala could do right now to show good faith.
51:18
I just want to emphasize that enough 'cause I I see her on the
51:20
campaign trail saying like, if you would elect me, I'm like,
51:23
you're already in power, what are you doing?
51:24
I'll. Stop doing the things I'm doing
51:28
if you elect me again. Like it's a what would be the?
51:31
Political master class from her is like if she had come to the
51:34
conference, it would not have gone well for her.
51:35
If she had come to the conference and, and I kind of,
51:38
you know, it would have been interesting to see what
51:41
happened. But what would have been
51:42
political master class is she had shown up to the conference
51:45
with Ross Holberg. Like, if she had, like, gone and
51:47
gotten Ross from jail and then showed up and then, like, walked
51:50
in and Ross is with her. And it'd be like, oh, like,
51:53
like, then she would have had everyone's attention, you know,
51:56
like, that would have been. But her just showing up so that
51:58
she could, like, talk to us about how she won't fuck us
52:00
again next time she promises. Yeah, like, I don't know.
52:07
So the question was like, what's on the list, the prioritization
52:12
list? Well, this is like where I would
52:13
consult with someone like Bitcoin Policy Institute or
52:15
someone who is really got their finger on like how do you
52:18
achieve these things legislatively?
52:21
Anything that can be done via executive action is, is like the
52:27
highest priority. So like probably things like
52:30
cabinet positions, which for the first time ever, we could have
52:34
some say on cabinet positions in the next administration, which
52:37
would be insane. Like like a Bitcoiner could be
52:40
at the head of the Department of Energy.
52:42
You know, a Bitcoiner could be at the head of the CFTC or the
52:46
SEC or the Treasury. You know, in fact, there's
52:49
actually a pretty good chance that a Bitcoiner is going to be
52:51
put in charge of the Treasury. So, you know, these are things
52:55
that like, you know, we can influence outside of the
52:58
legislative process, you know, like they're they still have to
53:01
be legislatively confirmed. But like, you know, us saying,
53:04
Hey, we really like this senator, you know, Senator
53:07
Haggerty, he'd make an amazing secretary of treasury.
53:09
Like as a hypothetical like that would be things that would be
53:16
very needle moving force. Having a a, a Secretary of State
53:20
who's a bitcoiner who's out there advocating for Bitcoin
53:23
positions and a pro Bitcoin foreign policy agenda.
53:27
Can you imagine how insane it would be if US foreign policy
53:31
was to promote Bitcoin adoption to other states?
53:34
How quickly everything would accelerate?
53:37
I mean, it'd be just like a 90 day, 90 day difference.
53:41
I think anything where we can undo prior administrative
53:46
action, that's also pretty fast. Like operation choke point.
53:50
Like Trump got rid of operation choke .1 point O.
53:53
So we have operational choke .2 point O right now.
53:56
Is it 2 point O or three-point O?
53:58
I? I lose, I lose count on which
54:00
one we're on. But he already got rid of this
54:01
one time, you know, some of the IRS decisions, like the double
54:05
taxation decision that was administrative action by the by
54:11
the Biden camp, he could undo that.
54:14
There's some legislation coming or some some laws that got
54:17
passed around self custody and basically like having to report
54:21
every transaction that an exchange does that goes to a
54:24
self self hosted wallet. He could undo that.
54:29
So these are all things that he could quickly, quickly affect.
54:33
And then, you know, he also promised to put together a
54:35
working group, an industry working group that we're going
54:39
to be able to get, you know, top industry experts and, and
54:44
entrepreneurs on where we're going to be able to give, you
54:47
know, direct feedback to the administration about what items
54:51
matter in any legislation that's proposed, we're going to have
54:54
input on to make sure that it's not, you know, negatively
54:58
adversely affecting our industry or the Bitcoin users.
55:01
So there's all sorts of stuff. There's all sorts of stuff.
55:05
And, and even the strategic reserve of Bitcoin, I've seen
55:10
some draft executive orders about how it could be done from
55:14
an executive perspective outside of doing it through the, the
55:18
Senate, which is going to be anything that has to go through
55:20
the Senate or the House is like very complicated.
55:23
It gets, you know, there's a lot of political horse trading that
55:26
goes on. Yeah, yeah, especially if the
55:28
house is divided, like it's it's almost impossible.
55:31
So I kind of get something that you want.
55:35
Yeah, man. Well dude, this this has this
55:37
episode has me incredibly hyped and we have to go.
55:40
Especially if you live in a swing state, you have to get out
55:43
and vote. And if you vote like let me give
55:46
you a call to action. I'm actually we're like this
55:50
week starting on raising money for Get Out the Vote activity.
55:53
And our goal is to raise 10 million, $20 million, and we'll
55:57
see how much we need and based around that, but a sizable
56:00
amount of money. And we are going to pump money
56:04
into the Bitcoin meetups in these swing states, are going to
56:08
pump money into, I think hosting rallies in these swing states.
56:12
If you're a Bitcoiner in a swing state and you're engaged in some
56:16
grassroots activity evangelizing Bitcoin and and building the
56:20
Bitcoin community, reach out to us and let us know what
56:24
resources you need to take it to the next level.
56:27
We want to mobilize and activate as many Bitcoiners as possible
56:32
and crypto users as possible in these swing states.
56:34
And it like I'm telling you, it will be noticed.
56:37
It will have a long lasting effect on the political dynamic
56:40
around Bitcoin in the United States, regardless of who wins.
56:43
So please reach out and if there's a way that we can help
56:46
you, we will. When you say reach out, where is
56:49
that at? Send.
56:50
Send to a message. The best place to reach out at
56:53
this point, 'cause we have no official anything set up for
56:55
this, is just DM me on Twitter. My DMS are open and I will
56:59
screenshot your DM and pass it to someone at our organization.
57:03
But on Twitter, you can find me at David F Bailey and just shoot
57:08
me Adm with what you're doing and and what resources and
57:11
support you need. And no promises that we can
57:14
deliver on it, but it would'll at least get sent to our team
57:17
who will kind of put it in the packet of, of things that we're
57:19
trying to raise money for. Absolutely, absolutely.
57:23
So David, we are getting to the top of the hour and I do want to
57:25
be respectful of your time. So one last thing, if you have
57:28
any parting messages, final parting thoughts to our
57:32
audience, what would they be? If we can win in November, and
57:37
even if we don't win in November, but if we can win in
57:40
November, the speed at which Bitcoin will be adopted globally
57:44
will accelerate by a decade. And if we can get two nations,
57:50
two nations in the world to be competing over Bitcoin and over
57:54
Bitcoin dominance, it will induce every nation on the
57:58
planet to compete in the Bitcoin space race.
58:01
And so if you want to see the price of Bitcoin sent to the
58:05
literal moon, what are we? Talking about here, You're
58:08
teasing again, David. What are we talking about here
58:11
when you say moon? I, I, I'm saying, I'm saying if
58:13
you want to see Bitcoin sent to the moon, what we need to do is
58:16
have nation state is. That half a million dollars,
58:18
100,200 thousand. $1,000,000 plus.
58:21
OK, there we go. $1,000,000 plus Bitcoin prices.
58:25
We need nation states competing over Bitcoin and you know, you
58:29
can't have competition if you only have one person doing it.
58:33
So if we can, if we can accelerate what's happening
58:36
here, we can accelerate hyper bitcoinization dramatically and
58:41
I think everybody will be happy with the outcome.
58:43
So let's make it happen, folks. Hell yeah.
58:46
One dream. Hell yeah.
58:48
All right, everybody. Well, this was your Assembly
58:51
Bitcoin Arrow for August 12th, 2024.
58:53
I'm your host, Nico, my special guest for today, the CEO of the
58:57
Bitcoin Magazine and the Bitcoin Conference.
59:00
It's happening in Vegas. I think you guys are doing it in
59:03
in the UAE, is that correct? Yeah, we're, we're doing it in
59:07
Las Vegas for 25. We're doing it in in Amsterdam
59:10
for all our our European socialist friends.
59:14
We're doing it in Abu Dhabi for all of our based Sheikh friends.
59:21
And then we're going to be doing it in Hong Kong for the Asia
59:25
community. So we're we got one in every
59:27
major continent but South America and Africa, so.
59:31
Awesome, man. Well, dude, it's been an honor
59:34
to have you on the show. I really, really enjoyed this
59:36
conversation. And yeah, guys, tune into the
59:38
live show tomorrow at 12:15 PM Eastern Standard Time for
59:41
another episode of Simply Bitcoin Live.
59:43
Until then, take care, everybody.
59:44
Peace out. Thank you, man.
59:45
Ciao. Episode was brought to you by
59:49
bitcoinwell.com on a mission to enable independence.