Latest / Simply Bitcoin / $507B Middle Eastern Giant Adopts Bitcoin? | EP 1091

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$507B Middle Eastern Giant Adopts Bitcoin? | EP 1091 · Simply Bitcoin

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  Yeah, we're going to submit Bitcoin.
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  The country with a $570 billion GDP made their next move into
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  Bitcoin. However, this is not the first
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  time the Middle Eastern giant has made a Bitcoin play.
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  And the country we're going to be talking about today isn't the
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  only Miss Middle Eastern country making Bitcoin plays.
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  In fact, it's happening around across that entire area.
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  Area. Is this a sign that these Middle
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  Eastern oil giants are losing faith in the Petro dollar
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  system? Perhaps and they think Bitcoin
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  is a hedge or even the next global currency.
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  Let's see let's find out today. Anyways, we have a hell of a
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  panel with us. David Branskin.
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  He's a coin energy consultant and of course, our Co host here
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  at simply Bitcoin. The one and only crystal lame
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  out. Anyways, ladies and gentlemen,
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  no more delay. Let's jump straight into it.
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  Here is the coin desk article UAE.
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  UAE exempts crypto transactions from Value Added Tax That goes
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  on to say the United Arab Emirates has exempted crypto
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  transactions from paying the VAT, bringing the industry into
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  line with several traditional financial services.
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  The change, which takes effect November 15th, applies retro
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  retrospectively to transactions from as far back as June 1st,
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  2018. You never see that from
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  governments, right? The Arabic version of the
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  Federal Tax Authority update was made public on October 2nd,
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  2024. The English translation was made
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  public on October 4th, 2024. The exemption makes clear for
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  the first time that the tax doesn't apply to digital assets.
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  It covers the exchange of and transfer of ownership of those
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  assets, which means all cryptocurrency transit transfers
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  and conversions will now be exempt from paying the 5% levy.
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  This is absolutely massive. And the reason for that is
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  that's in stark contrast with how the it's in stark contrast
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  with how it works here in the United States or in Europe,
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  where you're actually, even if you're sending Bitcoin to
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  someone else, you actually have to pay the capital gain on that
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  transaction, on that transfer, which which is absolutely nuts.
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  But this is kind of like the theory from the sovereign
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  individual playing out, right, where you have different
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  jurisdictions all over the world kind of competing in in a way.
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  And they're basically trying to attract entrepreneurs.
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  They're trying to attract people to move to the city or the
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  country. This is why you have so many
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  people moving to Dubai because of their favorable tax laws.
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  And I think this is just another step in the right direction.
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  And when governments compete for your business as an individual,
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  you as an individual. When?
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  Anyways, more data to back up this point.
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  The UAE being one of the fastest growing digital asset markets in
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  the world. Research suggests that year on
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  year, the number of daily crypto traders has risen by 166%,
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  reflective of an overall climb in regional adoption.
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  It's estimated between 27 to 31% of UAE residents have invested
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  into digital assets. Among this active pool of crypto
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  investors, nearly 3/4 are thought to have invested in
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  Bitcoin. But it's not just UAUA citizens
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  and long standing residents who are driving the state of the
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  crypto economy. It includes new expats who have
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  flocked to the UAE for its safety and protection in the
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  midst of political and economic upheaval in other parts of the
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  world. Not to mention the fact of its
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  favorable tax codes. Isn't it crazy like a small
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  little city, right, where they don't have income tax, but they
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  provide more safety and they protect not only the rule of
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  law, they enforce the rule of law, but also they protect
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  private property rights more than countries that have higher
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  income taxes. What's the value add there,
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  right? I think it's a very interesting
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  question anyways, but it's not also the tax situation.
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  The UAE investment entities to monetize flared gas to power AI,
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  blockchain and Bitcoin data centers.
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  It goes on to say Hodler Investments, a Dubai based firm
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  with a portfolio and energy, AI and digital asset mining, has
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  signed a strategic partnership with Abu Dhabi's EHC Investment.
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  Together they will launch Next Gen., a product aimed at
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  monetizing wasted energy like flared gas to power data centers
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  in the UAEKSA and Egypt. And also last but not least as
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  well, of course, you have the Bitcoin conference.
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  They're most well known for the Bitcoin conference that they
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  throw in the United States. They're about to want, they're
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  about to have one in Amsterdam, which I'll be at.
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  Hopefully I get to see some of you guys there.
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  They're actually doing one in the Middle East, as I believe
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  this is going to be the biggest Bitcoin conference in the Middle
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  East ever. Of course, there's been crypto
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  conference, but not Bitcoin only conferences.
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  It's going to be called Bitcoin MENA.
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  It's going to be hosted in Abu Dhabi December 9th through the
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  10th. So I'm very, very bullish about
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  Bitcoin in the Middle East and for a couple of reasons.
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  Obviously the Middle East is known for having a vast amount
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  of energy, the favorable tax laws and also the respect for
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  private property rights and the the law and order specifically
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  in the smaller countries like like guitar in the UAE, Abu
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  Dhabi, Dubai. So very bullish on the Middle
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  East. Anyways, David, your background
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  is energy. Your background is mining.
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  Is this. Are these just journalists
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  writing puff pieces? What's actually going on there?
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  Are you optimistic about Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining in the Middle
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  East? Well, I think, yeah, it's,
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  there's plenty of evidence, you know, out there.
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  I mean, you've got the marathon project, a pretty large
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  immersion project that they're working with the sovereign
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  wealth fund over there. There's I'm working on a couple
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  projects that would be working with different, you know,
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  countries directly with the government, right, to take
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  advantage of that flare gas. If if you zoom out, if you zoom
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  way out, right. And we're looking at
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  civilization as a whole for the most part.
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  You know, we've always had to basically set up our lives
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  around, you know, where there was water, food, vegetation, you
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  know, for shelter, things like that, right?
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  And you're seeing this really interesting shift now through
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  Bitcoin now that we have that attachment to the energy and we
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  can immediately convert it into a store of value.
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  You know, whether whatever, you know, you believe as far as
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  argument, if it's money, if it's not money, whatever digital
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  gold, you can immediately change that power directly into a store
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  of value or a medium of exchange.
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  And so we're seeing this huge shift to places like we're
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  seeing it in West TX. So I'm in Texas, we're seeing it
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  in West TX as well, right? Like so West TX is kind of like
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  that. It's barren, it's kind of a
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  desert for a lot of the part of the country, right?
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  So it takes a lot of resources to to make anything grow there
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  or to make people move out there.
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  But you see this shift now we're going to congregate around
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  power, right? The businesses are going to move
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  to power. They're going to move towards
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  the energy source because it is now such an integral part of our
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  lives, whether it be Bitcoin, whether it be AI, whether it be
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  just general, you know, traditional data centers,
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  whatever the case may be, mission critical data centers,
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  everybody's moving closer and closer to the power, right?
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  So it'll start with the Cowboys that are mining Bitcoin and then
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  it'll move to the more traditional, you know, kind of
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  business focus, publicly traded miners, things like that, right?
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  And then the data centers will come in, you see, you know,
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  companies like what was it? HUD 8, right?
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  They start to kind of push more towards the AI focused, they're
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  trying to kind of hedge their bets, go different multiple
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  directions, right? So you're still, you're seeing
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  that happen and a place like Dubai is perfect for it because
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  it's all about order, it's all about control, It's all about
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  you're still free, right? But it's like they don't put up
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  with shenanigans, right? They don't deal with that.
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  And they are also super, they've always been, I say always,
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  right, Since they really started rebuilding the city about 1520
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  years ago, right? I actually sold a crane to a
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  company in Dubai back when they had like 80% of all of the
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  cranes in the world, right? So this was like 20 years ago.
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  But ever since they started that, they have been so focused
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  on technology and innovation. And they've got the money,
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  they've got oil, they've got this, this energy available.
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  It's nice to see them start really, really pushing and using
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  it, and it's great to see that part of the world is
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  consolidating to those core values, right?
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  All these people are coming in because they want that order.
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  We're seeing a really good swing and countries like that are
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  just, they're gonna lead the way.
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  A. 100% and you're seeing this kind of regulatory arbitrage
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  kind of play out in the United States where people are leaving
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  California and New York, they're going to Texas and Florida, of
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  course, freedom country, tremendous amount of people
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  immigrating to El Salvador in the Middle East.
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  But you buried the lead there in the very beginning.
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  You mentioned the fact that some of these countries sovereign
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  wealth funds are actively mining Bitcoin.
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  That is not a well known fact. Of course, we know the Kingdom
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  of Bhutan, We know Salvador is mining Bitcoin.
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  Of course we know Texas, huge amount of Bitcoin miners there.
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  But David, I don't know if you could say any of the specifics,
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  but that's absolutely masses. You just confirm that some
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  countries in the Middle East, their governments themselves are
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  mining Bitcoin. Is that correct?
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  Yeah. I mean, so it's a it's, it's
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  interesting, right, because of this shift.
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  You think about the Petro dollar you mentioned earlier, right in
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  the opening, right? You, you're talking about you've
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  got bricks, you've got all these things happening, right?
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  There's this kind of struggle to move off the dollar and
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  realistically, you know, right now a barrel of oil, right,
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  There's a billion barrels of oil used a day.
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  And that's not even counting like all of the natural gas that
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  comes from that for power generation and stuff and heat
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  and stuff like that. So that is a massive, massive
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  industry that just dwarfs, you know, the the Bitcoin market cap
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  right now, right? So as cool and innovative and as
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  amazing as Bitcoin is and as revolutionary as it is, it's
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  still in its infancy compared to the energy market, right?
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  So, so those guys over there are doing that, but it's still a
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  rounding error for them, right? I mean, they could be making,
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  they could be making, you know, a couple billion dollars mining
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  or a value, right? Mining Bitcoin right now, the
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  country could, and it's still a rounding error for most of those
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  countries where oil and gas is their primary export.
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  Right there. We're talking about, you know, a
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  few trillion dollars worth of, you know, a few trillion dollars
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  worth of energy. Bitcoin's just a rounding error.
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  So are they doing it? Yeah.
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  Absolutely. I think they'd be silly not to.
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  And I, I mean, I can't tell you a specific about the project I'm
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  working on, you know that conversation, but it'll, it'll
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  start slowly. It'll start with someone
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  basically a Bitcoin miner, you know, Marathon went in there and
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  partnered. That's all public information
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  that, that, that was big. And then other countries will be
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  like, OK, well, we've got all this excess, you know, gas that
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  we are either flaring or we try to send it to.
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  But you you talk about there's a lot of geopolitical issues there
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  that kind of make it make it advantageous for Bitcoiners,
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  right? You talk about consolidating
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  from one state in the US to another based on, you know,
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  regulations. That happens all over the world
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  every day, right? All over Europe.
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  People like, well, I don't, you know, like what's going on in
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  Germany. So I'm gonna move to Switzerland
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  or I don't like what's happening here.
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  So I'm gonna, you know, it's like, it's not that big a deal
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  because it's basically the size or even a little smaller,
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  whatever of the US, right? So it's like you're really just
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  moving from state to state. It's happening in the Middle
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  East too. People will get, you know,
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  displaced for, you know, geopolitical reasons for
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  religious persecution, whatever. And it moves and and they will
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  naturally gravitate to these places.
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  Well, the ones that are early adopting Bitcoin, you mentioned
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  El Salvador, Bhutan, right? They are ahead of the game.
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  And so the rest of the world outside of those countries start
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  to see that. You know, it's that old story of
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  what was it? I can't remember.
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  It was Spain or France or whatever where they started
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  taxing everybody and then the boats left, right.
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  Yeah, it's, it's, it's the sovereign individual thesis
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  playing out. And because of the Internet, you
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  can now work from anywhere. And I'm just connecting the dots
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  here, right. You have Exxon Mobil mine using
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  flared gas to mine Bitcoin in the United States.
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  You just confirmed that Marathon signed a deal with a Middle
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  Eastern country. And of course, we have bit deer
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  that signed a deal with the Kingdom of Bhutan in Asia.
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  Right. To think that trend is not going
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  to continue is just naive. Yeah.
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  And this is just going to continue to make the hash rate
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  go through the roof like it has been, which means that Bitcoin
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  theoretically is more computationally secure, which
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  means that its value proposition continues to go up.
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  Yeah. I mean, all things are good for
• 14:01
  Bitcoin starting the week off strong.
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  Chris Alamo, what are your thoughts before we get on to the
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  numbers? Yeah.
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  So David, I would kind of want to touch on what you're saying.
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  Obviously in 1971, France requested their gold out of Fort
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  Knox and then England followed suit shortly afterwards.
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  Do you guys remember when the Nixon shock was obviously in 71
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  mid? 71, yeah. 1971 Do you know when
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  UAE was founded? 197123.
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  Correct. Four months after the Nixon
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  shock. Yep.
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  So August 15th, 19, let's go. So 1971, August 15th of 1971,
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  the Nixon shock occurred. December 2nd of 1971.
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  The UAE was founded as a nation. Obviously, if you can see,
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  obviously we became on the petrodollar system.
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  So a big part of this system was obviously, you know, backing
• 14:47
  dollars by gold that was nixed. And then basically the the
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  secretary curious state at the time went over to the Middle
• 14:53
  East, mainly Saudi Arabia and its proxies and basically said,
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  hey, we're going to support you with weapons and protection, but
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  you have to sell dollar or sell oil and gas or energy in U.S.
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  dollars. And that's kind of the system
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  that we've had ever since then. Obviously we've seen, and I
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  think a lot of those countries in the Middle East have had a
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  first hand witness or you know, they've seen obviously since
• 15:13
  9/11 right after that and when basically the US government was
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  confiscating reserves. So the deal was basically we're
• 15:20
  going to send you dollars and or we're going to send you like
• 15:24
  protection basically, or the military in order to protect
• 15:26
  yourself. And then you're going to use
• 15:28
  those and you're only going to sell in U.S. dollars.
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  And then with your excess U.S. dollar reserves, aside from
• 15:33
  pumping more wells or, you know, running your businesses, you're
• 15:35
  going to plow them into U.S. Treasuries.
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  That's kind of been the game or that that we've been playing for
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  the last 50 years or so. But the issues started to rise
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  in 2001 when the US started confiscating assets of a lot of
• 15:46
  of, you know, whether they're in the right or wrong, but they
• 15:48
  were confiscating assets of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden.
• 15:52
  Then we saw even as recently as 2022, we sanctioned Russia.
• 15:55
  Russia had about a trillion outstanding in Treasuries.
• 15:58
  China in 2008 was pissed when we bailed out the bankers, but we
• 16:02
  didn't bail out bondholders. So China was holding well over a
• 16:05
  trillion dollars in reserves. So there's been the cracking of
• 16:07
  the financial system and people are looking for a different
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  asset and a political asset such as Bitcoin in order to pump
• 16:12
  their money into Saudi Arabia has been at the forefront of
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  they're receiving dollars and they're like, these can be taken
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  from us. So we need to find a better,
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  more suitable asset that we can hold on.
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  We have our oil reserves and obviously we have, you know, you
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  know, they've really been pumping up the economy through
• 16:25
  tourism and, you know, welcoming businesses there.
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  But they're like, hey, we need a reserve asset in the case that
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  our banks are shut down. So I'll just leave you guys
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  there with that. I hope that's.
• 16:32
  Good 100. That's an amazing take and we
• 16:34
  see it in the comments too. Dumbest move is confiscating
• 16:37
  assets in Russia, of course, because the moment they, and to
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  add to Chris's points, the moment that they politicize the
• 16:43
  money, all of a sudden other countries that are using and
• 16:48
  holding U.S. dollars are saying wait a second, you know what's
• 16:51
  stopping one administration from doing the same thing to me?
• 16:55
  And then they start looking for alternatives.
• 16:57
  And of course the best alternative as we all know is
• 17:01
  the only truly non decentralized non sovereign money, which is
• 17:06
  Bitcoin that can't be politicized.
• 17:09
  You know you could transact. You're going to have to be OK
• 17:11
  with your even your worst enemies using it, but I would
• 17:13
  say that's a feature and not a bug.
• 17:15
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  Money supply 19,764,000. 230 BTC percentage issued 94.11%.
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  Anyways, ladies and gentlemen, this is simply Bitcoin and we
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  cover not only the separation of money in state, but also the
• 20:12
  separation of information in state and they go hand in hand.
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  What the Internet has enabled people to do is not only choose
• 20:21
  what money they want to use, but it's also allowed them to talk
• 20:26
  amongst themselves at a massive scale, mass scale, peer-to-peer
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  communications. And unfortunately for
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  governments that have been used to controlling the narrative
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  through a handful of legacy media outlets, it becomes very,
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  very uncomfortable when you have people building massive
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  followings, not going through the traditional gatekeepers of
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  information like The New York Times, like the Wall Street
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  Journal, like CNN, like Fox News, right?
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  You have the rise of independent content creators that are now
• 20:59
  becoming more popular than the legacy media itself.
• 21:03
  And of course, you have people the likes of which of Hillary
• 21:06
  Clinton and of course, former Secretary of State John Kerry,
• 21:12
  who ran for president, basically saying things like, yeah, social
• 21:16
  media is a problem, The First Amendment is a problem, right?
• 21:22
  So I'm going to play you guys this clip of Hillary Clinton
• 21:25
  talking about social media. Let's check it out.
• 21:29
  There should be a lot of things done.
• 21:31
  We should be, in my view, repealing something called
• 21:35
  section 2:30, which gave, you know, platforms on the Internet
• 21:39
  to immunity because they were thought to be just pass throughs
• 21:42
  that they shouldn't be judged for the content that is posted.
• 21:46
  But we now know that that was an overly simple view, that if the
• 21:50
  platforms, whether it's Facebook or Twitter X or Instagram or
• 21:56
  TikTok, whatever they are, if they don't moderate and monitor
• 22:00
  the content, we lose total control.
• 22:04
  There should be a lot of things. If we if we don't censor or
• 22:10
  control the content, we lose total control.
• 22:13
  I mean like, wait a second. So that has me asking so many
• 22:18
  questions, right? Like, what do you mean control?
• 22:24
  Is that the role of government to control the narrative and
• 22:27
  control the content? Isn't that specifically what the
• 22:30
  1st Amendment is all about? Well, there's a breakdown.
• 22:33
  Mike Benz, who originally kind of revealed this, he did an
• 22:38
  amazing interview on Tucker Carlson and here are his, here's
• 22:45
  his response to this Hillary Clinton interview.
• 22:48
  I have been put here on God's green earth, sent here from the
• 22:51
  future to tell you that this is the current consensus policy
• 22:55
  pivot of every major organ of the US State Department and
• 22:59
  state's programming is specifically designed to achieve
• 23:03
  total control. I don't think that was the
• 23:06
  original vision of what the United States was built upon,
• 23:09
  right? And Gigi has a really good
• 23:12
  point. And you can find this on Noster,
• 23:14
  of course. And This is why protocols like
• 23:17
  Noster are so important, because there is no centralized
• 23:21
  platform. So even if they pass whatever
• 23:23
  law they want, they couldn't take the information down, which
• 23:27
  inevitably becomes a forcing function to instead of censoring
• 23:32
  what your political opponent is saying, you have to address it.
• 23:36
  It's a lot easier to censor for for tyrants anyways, It goes on
• 23:41
  to say Gigi. Who defines hate?
• 23:43
  Who defines truth? All centralized platforms will
• 23:46
  inevitably be forced to be an arbiter, willingly or not.
• 23:50
  It's an impossible problem. The only solution is to remove
• 23:54
  central control and push it to the edges.
• 23:57
  It's messy, it's imperfect, but it's much more preferable to the
• 24:01
  alternative. And just a little bit of, of,
• 24:05
  of, of commentary in regards to how the 1st Amendment works here
• 24:09
  in the United States. I think the Founding fathers had
• 24:12
  the wisdom to understand this when they wrote the 1st
• 24:15
  Amendment the way they did because they realized, like, if
• 24:20
  we give the power to government to get to dictate what is truth
• 24:25
  and what is not truth, they are going to abuse that in order to
• 24:30
  protect their political MO. So we kind of have to leave this
• 24:33
  up to the free market of ideas. Is it perfect?
• 24:37
  No, but is it better than the alternative?
• 24:39
  And I think that's the point that Gigi's trying to make.
• 24:42
  That's the wisdom that the Founding fathers added in the
• 24:45
  first men in the US Constitution.
• 24:47
  And you know, the Internet that I think is exposing a lot of
• 24:51
  things that they didn't want exposed.
• 24:53
  I think that they were always they had this idea that they
• 24:56
  were always going to be able to control information through the
• 25:00
  legacy media outlets. I don't think in in a million
• 25:03
  years did they ever think that social media was going to become
• 25:06
  more popular than the original outlets.
• 25:09
  Anyways, David, what it What are your thoughts on this?
• 25:12
  Man, where do you start with this?
• 25:15
  Right? Like it's, I mean, we're, we're
• 25:19
  literally seeing, you know, commentary and narrative come
• 25:22
  out of the US government. Well, we see it all out of all
• 25:25
  governments across the the planet right now, most
• 25:28
  governments across the planet right now, right?
• 25:30
  It's just, it's straight out of, you know, Orwell's 1984, right?
• 25:34
  It's, it's Bitcoin ties into this in so many interesting
• 25:43
  ways. But I think the main point is it
• 25:47
  really does come down to freedom of speech, right?
• 25:49
  And because freedom of speech, the reason freedom of speech is
• 25:52
  so important is because it allows critical thinking.
• 25:56
  It allows you to make your own decisions.
• 26:00
  It allows you to create your own ideas and not follow, you know,
• 26:03
  just blindly follow orders, right?
• 26:05
  That was the whole point. We had just thrown off a tyrant.
• 26:10
  And if we had just basically taken a page out of that book
• 26:14
  and and copied it into, you know, what is now the United
• 26:17
  States of America, then you know, we would be no better off,
• 26:20
  right? It would have been just the same
• 26:21
  song, different verse. Freedom of speech is so
• 26:25
  important. The reason it works with ties
• 26:29
  into Bitcoin so well is because it is enabling us to make our
• 26:33
  own decisions and our own choices, not just say what we
• 26:35
  want to say, right, But actually saying I want to put my value
• 26:40
  here. This is where I see my value,
• 26:43
  not just from a money perspective and a finance
• 26:45
  perspective, but you know, I have value in my family.
• 26:49
  I have value in the way that I live.
• 26:50
  I have value in my personal beliefs.
• 26:52
  I have value in my, you know, my religion.
• 26:55
  All of this is freedom of speech, right?
• 26:57
  It's not just freedom of speech, it's freedom of think.
• 26:59
  It's your ability to actually decide on your own that is
• 27:04
  absolutely goes against the the ethos of a government, right?
• 27:10
  The government is we get involved and we begin putting
• 27:15
  regulations on things and messing with your life, but it's
• 27:19
  for the greater good. It's so you're not harming other
• 27:21
  people, right? The problem is giving it that
• 27:24
  inch, right? It just rolls and it rolls and
• 27:27
  it rolls and it rolls and it rolls.
• 27:29
  And so, and you see it in every single government that's ever
• 27:32
  existed eventually they always try to grab as much of that
• 27:36
  power as it possibly can. So things like the Internet,
• 27:40
  things like Bitcoin, the ability just even just peer-to-peer
• 27:47
  commerce, right? Me being able to go to a farmers
• 27:50
  market, right? That's all tied into freedom of
• 27:52
  speech, right? And what's so scary about that
• 27:56
  is if they can control the speech, that's what they're
• 27:58
  saying. That's what she's saying when
• 28:00
  she says we will lose control. The way she's talking about is
• 28:03
  an elite class that is so ingrained in the US government,
• 28:07
  they're now one in the same, right?
• 28:09
  They're not going to go away. We can't vote our way out of it,
• 28:13
  right? So something radically has to
• 28:14
  change. And that's the change she's
• 28:17
  talking about. If it keeps going, if it keeps
• 28:20
  going the way that it has been and people like Elon Musk don't
• 28:25
  fight back with, you know, X if the average person doesn't fight
• 28:29
  back. I, I, I wrote out a tweet today
• 28:32
  that I was about to post and I had just a split second where I
• 28:38
  wasn't sure if I wanted to put it up or not, right?
• 28:42
  That's, that's a dangerous place to be at when you're actually
• 28:45
  frightened of what the repercussions are going to be.
• 28:48
  Now, you should always be willing to take accountability
• 28:54
  for your words, right? But what I'm saying is what I
• 28:58
  was going to quote and tweet was not, you know, revolutionary.
• 29:01
  It was not crazy. It was not dangerous, but
• 29:06
  there's just enough people out there that might get upset about
• 29:09
  it, right? It made me think.
• 29:10
  And those when when I have those feelings, that's when it makes
• 29:14
  me realize that pendulum has swung way too far and that they
• 29:19
  are living rent free in my mind and trying to control my
• 29:22
  thoughts 100%. You have to push so super hard
• 29:26
  to swing back it just and the further you go, the harder it
• 29:30
  gets to to fight that back. 100% And by the way, David, you're
• 29:35
  not the only person that made the case that that Bitcoin is
• 29:40
  protected by the 1st Amendment where Bitcoin is speech.
• 29:43
  And here is Ross Stevens from NY Dig, and I think he's trying to
• 29:46
  get ahead of something from a, from a regulatory standpoint.
• 29:51
  You know, he has quotes from Benjamin, Benjamin Franklin.
• 29:54
  And I think the most important part here, and this is something
• 29:57
  that we've been making the case on simply Bitcoin for a long
• 30:00
  time actually, which is the fact that Bitcoin inherently is a
• 30:05
  political movement, right? And because it's a political
• 30:08
  movement, think about it, If you're not allowed to speak
• 30:12
  freely about certain ideas. There was a point in time that
• 30:15
  the legacy media was basically saying that when Bitcoiners were
• 30:20
  screaming on Bitcoin Twitter that inflation was coming
• 30:24
  because they printed a record amount of money, they called us
• 30:27
  psychopaths. That's their quote, not mine.
• 30:29
  And they said that that was disinformation.
• 30:32
  Two years later, they said, oh, no, we were wrong about
• 30:36
  inflation at the time. Those disinformation, this is
• 30:39
  this is the dangerous part, right?
• 30:41
  Is that at the time they'll just they'll just take it off the
• 30:45
  Internet. And I think this is where Ross
• 30:47
  Stevens is trying to get ahead from a regulatory perspective,
• 30:50
  saying, hey, Bitcoin is speech, you know, money is speech.
• 30:53
  And by the way, this is not just saying this.
• 30:56
  I love this article by Naimbu Kelly because they're basically
• 31:01
  saying exactly what David just said.
• 31:03
  And these are, these are Naimbu Kelly's words, not mine.
• 31:06
  They're willing to fight, lie, smear, destroy, censor,
• 31:10
  confiscate, print, and do whatever it takes to maintain
• 31:13
  and increase their control over the truth and everything and
• 31:17
  everyone. Right?
• 31:18
  And he also makes the case that their most important, their most
• 31:21
  powerful weapon is the control of the truth.
• 31:25
  So when you hear Hillary Clinton literally saying at very end.
• 31:31
  We lose total control. There should be a.
• 31:33
  She literally means that. She literally means that mass
• 31:36
  scale peer-to-peer communications enabled by the
• 31:39
  Internet is not allowing them to control the narrative the way
• 31:44
  that they have been controlling the narrative.
• 31:47
  I'm going to pass it on to Chris.
• 31:48
  One last bit. A very, very powerful tweet that
• 31:50
  I saw and I actually set it at the Bitcoin conference, Bitcoin
• 31:53
  2023. I think if social media existed
• 31:59
  back in the 2000s, we have, we would have not gone to war with
• 32:02
  Iraq. And it was such a powerful
• 32:06
  statement because the way that the American people would have
• 32:09
  convinced about that war was that The New York Times released
• 32:14
  an article that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
• 32:16
  It came out half a decade later that that information actually
• 32:20
  came from the intelligence agencies.
• 32:22
  So it was like, it's nuts. And guys, make no mistake, the
• 32:26
  fight for free speech is the front line for the fight for
• 32:30
  Bitcoin. If they're not OK with you
• 32:32
  speaking freely, they're not going to be OK with you
• 32:35
  transacting freely. Anyways.
• 32:37
  Passing it on to Chris. Yeah, no, I think that was a
• 32:39
  great clip. I mean, they're, you know, the
• 32:41
  saying is always they're the carbon you want to reduce.
• 32:44
  You know, they're the speech you want to censor.
• 32:46
  And obviously we're building tools to fight that.
• 32:48
  Bitcoin being the the number one example or the obvious example,
• 32:51
  the freedom to transact with peers in a peer-to-peer manner.
• 32:55
  And then I think platforms like Noster, like, well, I am really
• 32:57
  happy there's platforms like, you know, Parlor, Rumble X now
• 33:02
  that Elon has it, like fighting to be more free speech
• 33:04
  platforms. I do think as you can see, like
• 33:07
  with Telegram, what is it? The CEO of Telegram when they
• 33:11
  arrested him and they're trying to either force back doors, you
• 33:14
  know, things are being leaked that the program has leaked, not
• 33:17
  encrypted communication since 2018.
• 33:20
  It's really sad to see. But I definitely think things
• 33:22
  like Noster and Bitcoin are going to be things that fight
• 33:24
  back that like once the total amount of pressure is applied to
• 33:27
  centralized platforms, it's going to be the decentralized
• 33:29
  platforms that went out in the long run.
• 33:31
  So that's all I got to add there. 100% no, that's a really
• 33:34
  good point. I'm bullish on protocols and I
• 33:38
  still gotta give credit to Elon because what he's doing is
• 33:41
  courageous with the Rumble CEO is courageous doing it was
• 33:44
  courageous with the telegrams CEO was doing was courageous.
• 33:49
  But as you can see, it's their centralized platform.
• 33:52
  So there is someone to go after. And this is the this is how they
• 33:56
  contrast with nostril and Bitcoin where it's essential.
• 34:01
  There is no one to go after like you can you can, you know,
• 34:05
  martyr some of the people involved with Bitcoin and I
• 34:09
  think that has already happened in the past.
• 34:11
  Free Ross, but you can't make the thing go away, which makes
• 34:17
  it a forcing function. And when it comes to
• 34:20
  information, it's like, okay, the governments can't no longer
• 34:23
  sell you on a narrative when it comes to Bitcoin, it's a forcing
• 34:27
  function on the failure of Fiat money.
• 34:30
  It it literally puts up a mirror and it says money can exist
• 34:33
  without inflation. How do you explain that away?
• 34:36
  You can't, right? Anyways, Chris, what what are
• 34:39
  your thoughts on this? Yeah, I guess one thing I wanted
• 34:41
  to say like, like I commend, you know, the CEO of Telegram and
• 34:45
  Elon for like fighting back. And I do think that, you know,
• 34:48
  it takes courageous and brave men in order to set things
• 34:50
  straight. But I think at the end of the
• 34:52
  day, even they are susceptible things.
• 34:54
  Like imagine if Elon's kid had a gun to his head.
• 34:57
  It's like he would be metaphorically, metaphorically,
• 35:00
  metaphorically, metaphorically. That was just an example, no
• 35:03
  calls for. Violence if if, if, if they were
• 35:07
  threatened or there was threats in order to one of Elon's loved
• 35:10
  ones, I think you're more likely to get someone like that to
• 35:12
  cave. Like even if you were to
• 35:14
  metaphorically torture them or, you know, confiscate their
• 35:17
  wealth or do things to prevent them.
• 35:18
  I do think that there are ways to get to powerful people
• 35:21
  through their loved ones. And I do think that protocols,
• 35:24
  not platforms is a way to to defeat that.
• 35:25
  If you're like, hey, like I don't have Bitcoin that I can
• 35:27
  send because it's in multi sig and it's across three different
• 35:30
  jurisdictions. Or it's like, hey, you know, I
• 35:32
  want you to delete this user off your platform, off Nostra.
• 35:35
  It's like, I can't because, you know, I don't run the relays.
• 35:38
  I think those are ways to fight back of like there's no longer a
• 35:41
  central entity or head to metaphorically chop off.
• 35:44
  Yeah, this is all metaphorical. This is all metaphorical.
• 35:47
  These are examples. We we don't.
• 35:49
  And none of this is a call to violence.
• 35:51
  YouTube. All right, everybody, let's get
• 35:53
  to the news. We have lots to cover.
• 35:55
  Let's check it out. Here we go.
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  Bitcoin, but it also gives you the convenience of being able to
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  spend cold storage Bitcoin without needing this tremendous
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  amount of technical know how. Anyways, everybody, I do want to
• 38:30
  bring this up and I think the central theme here and I'm
• 38:33
  really curious to hear what David's thoughts are on this.
• 38:39
  And it's a very simple idea. OK, The idea is you shouldn't
• 38:44
  have to become a part time investor just to maintain your
• 38:47
  purchasing power. The idea the the fact that
• 38:53
  somehow, right, that somehow if you make a certain amount of
• 38:57
  money, you have some savings. You.
• 39:00
  Are forced to invest that money just to maintain not to increase
• 39:05
  right Your the size of investment just to maintain your
• 39:09
  your purchasing power is not normal.
• 39:12
  This is insane this is crazy I I there's so many different
• 39:17
  descriptions that I have for this and what the secondary
• 39:21
  effects of that is is that it it overly balloons the financial
• 39:27
  industry right and I think what we're going to see as hyper
• 39:32
  bitcoinization accelerates is you're going to see what Parker
• 39:37
  Lewis actually calls the great D financialization so I'm excited
• 39:43
  to talk about that I'm going to read a little bit from the
• 39:45
  article but first I'm also not the only one to worry about this
• 39:49
  apparently this is Bitcoin is a great YouTube channel by the way
• 39:54
  BlackRock worried about people with digital Bitcoin wealth not
• 39:58
  using financial advisors. Let's check it out.
• 40:00
  Hundreds of millions of people that are investing in these
• 40:03
  digital assets, but they're holding it away from their
• 40:05
  financial professionals that these individuals are buying
• 40:09
  assets, holding it onto the onto it themselves, and they're not
• 40:12
  allowing financial professionals to help manage it alongside
• 40:16
  stocks and bonds to help them understand the tax consequences
• 40:19
  of these assets. Over 80%, four out of five
• 40:24
  millennial millionaires in the United States own crypto.
• 40:28
  So if you're a financial advisor and you're trying to get that
• 40:31
  next client of the future, you want to be able to offer your
• 40:34
  services to a millennial, a high earning millennial, and you
• 40:38
  don't know how to talk about digital assets or talk about the
• 40:40
  value that you can provide as a financial professional with
• 40:43
  respect to crypto. It's going to be very hard to
• 40:46
  earn that trust and to earn that client hundreds of.
• 40:49
  OK, so let me just breakdown the conversation that just happened,
• 40:53
  all right? What were you just saying?
• 40:56
  I'm a cab driver and I dislike Uber.
• 40:58
  I really dislike Uber, right? Or I'm a horse and buggy person
• 41:03
  and I really dislike cars. Like that's really what
• 41:06
  happened. And the other, I'll put it to
• 41:09
  you simply right, Bitcoin has, people are anticipating that
• 41:15
  it's going to have a 40 to 30% annual rate of return for the
• 41:20
  next 10 years, right? Conservatively, all you gotta do
• 41:24
  is buy Bitcoin, earn Bitcoin, mine Bitcoin, put that Bitcoin
• 41:27
  into self custody and you're gonna get that rate of return
• 41:30
  without having to pay a fee and all the benefits of custodying
• 41:35
  your own wealth. Why would I have to pay?
• 41:40
  Is someone going to beat that return, a good return?
• 41:45
  Just to kind of give you guys a perspective, a good return would
• 41:48
  be from a financial professional, Financial advisor
• 41:51
  would be 12%. If you take a little bit more
• 41:55
  risk, 20%. But they can't guarantee that
• 41:58
  year after year. That's like impossible, right?
• 42:01
  Bitcoin is doubling that and you take self custody and you don't
• 42:06
  have to pay a fee for it. That's the problem that they
• 42:09
  have, But that's that sounds like a personal problem.
• 42:12
  That doesn't sound like a problem for the individuals.
• 42:17
  Here is a piece by Parker Lewis and he explains it a lot more
• 42:22
  eloquently than I did. He goes on to say, have you ever
• 42:25
  heard of a have you ever had a financial advisor tell you that
• 42:29
  you need to make your money grow?
• 42:31
  This idea has been so hard wild in the minds of hard working
• 42:34
  people all over the world that has become practically second
• 42:37
  nature to the very idea of work. The line has been repeated so
• 42:42
  many times it is now a de facto part of working culture.
• 42:46
  Get a salary position, Max out your 4O1K contribution, select a
• 42:50
  few mutual funds with catchy marketing names, and watch your
• 42:53
  money grow. Most folks navigate this pack
• 42:56
  half every two weeks on autopilot, never questioning the
• 42:59
  wisdom nor being conscious of the risks.
• 43:02
  It's just what smart people do. Many now associate this activity
• 43:05
  with savings, but in reality, financialization has turned
• 43:08
  retirement savers into perpetual risk takers and the consequence
• 43:13
  is that financial investment has become a second full time job
• 43:17
  for many, if not most. Financialization has been so
• 43:20
  radically normalized that the lines between saving and
• 43:23
  investing have become blurred to the extent that most people
• 43:27
  think of the two activities as being one in the same.
• 43:31
  Believing that financial engineering is Ness is a
• 43:33
  necessary path to a happy retirement might lack common
• 43:37
  sense, but it is the conventional wisdom.
• 43:39
  Over the course of the past several decades, economies
• 43:43
  everywhere but but but particularly those in the
• 43:45
  developed world, have become increasingly financialized.
• 43:48
  Increased financialization has become the the necessary
• 43:52
  companion of the idea that you must make your money grow.
• 43:56
  But the idea itself that you must make your money grow only
• 44:00
  really emerged in the mainstream consciousness as everyone
• 44:03
  similarly became conditioned to the unfortunate reality that
• 44:07
  money loses its value over time. So I'm gonna leave it at that,
• 44:12
  and I'm gonna circle back to my original question or theme.
• 44:17
  You shouldn't have to become a part time investor just to
• 44:20
  maintain your purchasing power. All you have to do buy Bitcoin,
• 44:24
  mine Bitcoin, earn Bitcoin, put that Bitcoin into self custody
• 44:30
  and to use their words, let your watch your money maybe not grow,
• 44:34
  but watch your purchasing power grow over time without having to
• 44:38
  jump through all these, you know, all these hurdles.
• 44:42
  So I just find it interesting and that seeing that video and
• 44:48
  then reading that article explains to me why I have seven
• 44:52
  friends from high school. One of them works at Goldman,
• 44:56
  right? Wealth management division, and
• 44:58
  he's been the only one out of those seven that I have not been
• 45:02
  able to orange pill. Now I know why, right?
• 45:07
  So not trying to shit on that, that industry or whatever, but I
• 45:11
  mean, coming from a bitcoiner, been doing this for eight years.
• 45:18
  Next year's going to be our 9th year, right?
• 45:21
  Someone comes to me and they're offering me financial services.
• 45:26
  I'm going to look at you with my eyes like that and say, why
• 45:29
  would I do that? Why would I give you my money
• 45:33
  and then not only give you my money and then pay you a fee for
• 45:37
  giving you my money. And then, and I've seen this
• 45:40
  with high net worth individuals trying to liquidate their
• 45:43
  positions and put it into Bitcoin.
• 45:45
  The way they question you and guilt trip you, how you're
• 45:49
  trying to get out of these things, which is nuts.
• 45:51
  If you think about it, It's like, wait a second, isn't that
• 45:53
  my money? Why are you questioning me about
• 45:56
  getting my money back? Well, it's simple.
• 45:58
  Everyone, no one's better than their incentives.
• 46:00
  They're Oh my God, I want to be nice.
• 46:03
  They're collecting rent, bro. They're collecting rent.
• 46:06
  Their, their their incentive is for you.
• 46:09
  It's like the Matthew McConaughey from, from, from
• 46:14
  Wolf of Wall Street, Right? Which is like, no, so they make
• 46:19
  your clients make money. It's like, no, that would make
• 46:21
  it real. What you got to do is you got to
• 46:23
  come up with another great idea, right?
• 46:25
  And you got to keep them, you know, in the system.
• 46:28
  Well, anyways, I think I made my point, David, I was seeing some
• 46:34
  of your facial expressions. You have some thoughts on this
• 46:38
  because like, in all seriousness, like it's not a,
• 46:42
  it's not a it like it's not a jab or, or, or trying to shit on
• 46:50
  someone's career. It's just the reality of the
• 46:53
  fact that there are a lot of people like me that I'm, I'm for
• 46:59
  what is a four? I don't have any 401K, right?
• 47:02
  I don't have any of these things.
• 47:04
  I've built my wealth outside of that system I'm not interested
• 47:09
  in. I don't need a financial advisor
• 47:12
  if I'm getting 40% year over year returns, right.
• 47:15
  And even with sailors base case, it's gonna you know kind of he's
• 47:21
  making taste that Bitcoin will still out compete the S&P 20
• 47:27
  years from now and instead of it getting a 30 to 40% return, it
• 47:32
  will get a 20% return. Where is the necessity for me to
• 47:37
  take that risk to give up custody of my wealth to someone
• 47:42
  else and then they charge me a fee for that.
• 47:45
  Like from a my perspective, I don't see the value proposition
• 47:50
  there, right. So what are your thoughts,
• 47:52
  David? Then we'll push it on.
• 47:53
  We'll push it on to Chris. There are there are two things
• 47:57
  that prepared me for Bitcoin. I just wish they had prepared me
• 48:02
  earlier or I had seen Bitcoin earlier, right?
• 48:05
  I, I'm, I have not been in it as long as you guys have, but as
• 48:11
  you're talking about this, I remember back to my 20s and have
• 48:15
  this like almost like PTSD of these conversations with these
• 48:18
  guys from like different, you know, wealth advisor, you know,
• 48:23
  companies with, they're like, well, you know, you just do this
• 48:28
  and you get this and, you know, you get 8% and just trust me,
• 48:31
  bro, everything's fine, right? It is.
• 48:33
  We'll manage it all for you. And I just remember being in my
• 48:38
  20s, I've got two boys that are both in high school now, but I
• 48:41
  remember when they were little thinking, you get this advice,
• 48:44
  you get these people that tell you like in Parker's, which by
• 48:48
  the way, one of my first ever Bitcoin events was actually
• 48:51
  seeing Parker Lewis speak. I had no idea how lucky I was to
• 48:55
  be introduced to him at that point, right?
• 48:58
  Being in Austin, he was with Unchained, you know, all that
• 49:01
  kind of stuff. He's a genius.
• 49:02
  This book is incredible, but I just remember being told all
• 49:07
  those things and trying to do those things and follow the
• 49:09
  rules and they're like, OK, you need six months of cash to pay
• 49:13
  bills in case something happens or whatever.
• 49:15
  I'm like, OK, so I would do that.
• 49:16
  And then like two years later I would be like, oh, I just
• 49:21
  recalculated my bills and I guess my boys are getting
• 49:24
  bigger. You know, life is costing more.
• 49:26
  Whatever. So you just, OK, I need to put
• 49:29
  more. So I had to put more money in,
• 49:30
  right? So I, I worked hard and I put
• 49:32
  more money in and I stopped spending money on other things.
• 49:35
  And then another year later, like, oh, it's, it's the same
• 49:38
  thing, right? And it just, it gradually
• 49:40
  happened to quote his book, right?
• 49:42
  Gradually then all of a sudden, and then I woke up one day and
• 49:45
  I'm like, why in the last, you know, 4-5, six years have I had
• 49:50
  to double the amount of liquid cash I have to manage to cover
• 49:55
  six months of expenses. My, we're not doing anything
• 49:58
  extravagant. The bills have not really gone
• 50:01
  up. You know, really like we're not
• 50:03
  adding anything. I don't understand what's
• 50:05
  happening, right. So that was, that was the first
• 50:08
  thing. That was the first thing that
• 50:10
  happened. And then the second one was when
• 50:12
  I, as a effect of that, right from that, 'cause I started
• 50:19
  reading books on investing and everything that you, most of
• 50:24
  what you read is just regurgitating the same stuff
• 50:28
  that is sort of worked about 25% of the time over the last 80
• 50:31
  years, right? And we are so ingrained in this.
• 50:36
  It's ingrained in us, this idea that, well, you got to put your
• 50:39
  money to work. You got to put your money to
• 50:40
  work. No one ever stops and asks,
• 50:42
  well, why? Why doesn't the money hold
• 50:44
  value, right? That sort of thing.
• 50:45
  You don't think about it. So I literally killed myself.
• 50:50
  Metaphorically, that's an expression.
• 50:53
  That is an expression. Thank you for keeping me real on
• 50:57
  that one. I was just working another 30
• 51:01
  hours a week in addition to my nine to five job, reading books,
• 51:07
  learning, watching YouTube videos, trying to learn about,
• 51:10
  you know, how to trade options, you know, cash secured puts,
• 51:14
  covered calls, all this, you know, and looking and, and you
• 51:18
  know, due diligence, you know, all this stuff.
• 51:21
  And it, it was brutal for me because I just, I don't think
• 51:25
  that way, right? I'm just not, I'm fine with
• 51:28
  numbers. I love a good spreadsheet, but
• 51:30
  it was so convoluted and so difficult.
• 51:33
  It's just a Fiat game. And so these guys came along and
• 51:37
  they're trying to help you play that Fiat game.
• 51:40
  It's literally just because people are, they don't want to
• 51:43
  put in the time and it's not well, it's not just because they
• 51:45
  don't want to put, they don't want to put in the time and
• 51:47
  effort. They just want to live their
• 51:48
  lives. But even if they do put in the
• 51:51
  time, most people can't really grasp and get this.
• 51:54
  And even if you do play it right, you're still only right
• 51:56
  about 40% of the time, right? And that's not always enough to
• 52:00
  keep you ahead of the game. So when these guys say, you
• 52:04
  know, Oh, well, you know, it's poor us, you know, we're not
• 52:10
  getting a chance to help these people manage it.
• 52:12
  We're like, well, you're not getting a chance to help these
• 52:15
  people manage it because it's not necessary anymore, right?
• 52:18
  This is what happens when you actually bring a this is what
• 52:22
  happens when you actually have a hard cap money that's not
• 52:26
  manipulated. You can get this return, right.
• 52:29
  People don't understand deflation.
• 52:32
  And while I was trying to learn all that stuff, I read Robert
• 52:38
  Kiyosaki's book, right? And rich Dad, poor dad.
• 52:41
  He's a crazy character, right? He's got a lot of good and bad
• 52:44
  about him, Stuff I like, stuff I don't.
• 52:47
  But he's the one that actually planted that seed in my mind way
• 52:50
  back when that he said in a perfect society, money would
• 52:55
  actually be deflationary. He's the first one I ever read
• 52:59
  that line from. And I thought to myself, oh,
• 53:02
  but, but I thought I didn't even know a lot about economics, but
• 53:06
  but I thought we had to have at least 2% inflation to encourage
• 53:09
  everybody to, you know, So it's like all of these things, all of
• 53:12
  these mixed messages and this huge industry that's just been
• 53:16
  for been on top of us for so long we've been living in.
• 53:20
  It's not surprising that it's so difficult for us to step out and
• 53:24
  break free from that and take that risk.
• 53:27
  It seems it's counterintuitive to everything we've ever been
• 53:31
  told or ever learned at all. And the fact of the matter is
• 53:35
  you are better off winning or losing if you take control of it
• 53:40
  yourself, right? You're responsible yourself.
• 53:43
  But we are scared to death to. Metaphorically.
• 53:47
  Metaphorically scared to take that risk on ourselves, right?
• 53:51
  And most people, This is why most people will never get
• 53:53
  Bitcoin, because they'll never want to do that.
• 53:55
  They want the FDIC. They want the fake, you know,
• 54:00
  security, they want the false security and and they don't want
• 54:03
  to be held accountable for their own actions.
• 54:05
  So these guys are, these guys are worthless, not worthless,
• 54:08
  but they are. They're no longer necessary.
• 54:11
  And once that Fiat game dies, really dies, it's going to be,
• 54:16
  it's going to be tough, but they're going to have to bring
• 54:19
  real value or, you know, they'll go, they'll have to go find
• 54:23
  something else to do. Yeah, it, it's, it's, it's quite
• 54:26
  interesting, you know, and that is a, a big part of the US
• 54:30
  economy, right? And you ask like, what value do
• 54:35
  they provide? What do they create right?
• 54:40
  They just made super money around.
• 54:42
  And, and, and in the Fiat system, you could say, oh,
• 54:47
  they're necessary because that is how high net worth
• 54:50
  individuals outpace the debasement of currency, right?
• 54:58
  But. We see Michael Saylor breaking
• 55:02
  that rule. Yeah, in a, in a bit in a
• 55:04
  Bitcoin system, like, you know, I'm a millennial, right?
• 55:08
  And I'm like, dude, like I don't, I, I will never, I can
• 55:13
  never imagine in a world where I'm looking at a wealth advisor
• 55:17
  and saying maybe that would be a good idea.
• 55:20
  You know, like, and and I know, and it, he mentioned it, he, he
• 55:24
  brought up the statistics himself.
• 55:25
  He's like, yeah, you know, 4 out of five, you know, million
• 55:30
  millennial millionaires in the United States, like, you know,
• 55:33
  they're like they, they own this asset.
• 55:37
  Well, how do we convince them not to take self custody is
• 55:40
  basically what he's saying. Chris, what are your thoughts on
• 55:43
  this before we move on to the culture?
• 55:45
  Yeah, I mean, I I think kind of piggybacking off what David was
• 55:48
  saying, it's like the whole system, even when you look at
• 55:50
  like the billionaires, the Fiat billionaires, the Jeff Bezos,
• 55:52
  the Elon Musk, you name it, fill in the blank there.
• 55:55
  They're incentivized not to sell their stock.
• 55:58
  See, when you get to those upper echelons, what you're
• 56:00
  incentivized to do is put them up as collateral and borrow
• 56:03
  against them. Because the wealth advisors are
• 56:05
  saying if you sell the stock, you're obviously the largest
• 56:08
  shareholder or individual shareholder.
• 56:10
  If you sell it, you're going to put downward selling pressure.
• 56:12
  But in a way that we can avoid that is you pledge them as
• 56:15
  collateral will give you a 3% or 4% loan.
• 56:17
  And then, you know, you want a billion dollars, you pledge a
• 56:19
  billion, a billion and five worth of stock.
• 56:21
  You over collateralize over collateralize it in the Fiat
• 56:25
  sense. And then they'll give you the
• 56:27
  dollars in your bank account for whatever business you want to
• 56:29
  buy or yacht or mansion, what you name it, whatever you want.
• 56:32
  You pledge this the stock, but then you're at the beck and call
• 56:35
  of the markets and like, hey, like all of a sudden there's a
• 56:37
  drop. We need to pledge more
• 56:38
  collateral, but we can't. How do you sell the stock?
• 56:41
  Like we don't want you to liquidate it into liquid net
• 56:43
  worth. Well, one, they're slippage and
• 56:44
  they probably wouldn't be worth what they are on paper.
• 56:46
  That's a story for another day. But you know, in the event that
• 56:49
  like you have so much debt outstanding, they change the
• 56:52
  rules of the game. Obviously, look at the 2008
• 56:54
  financial crisis. It's like the banks messed up in
• 56:57
  all intents and purposes, they should go under out of business.
• 57:00
  You know, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, ADP, like all these
• 57:05
  AIAIG. They all should have went
• 57:07
  bankrupt, but we prop them up with a Fiat money printer and we
• 57:11
  basically are like, hey, but now you owe us like you're in debt
• 57:13
  and the the taxpayers bailed the app, but we didn't.
• 57:16
  We bailed out Wall Street, but not Main Street.
• 57:18
  And it's this whole Fiat incentive game where when you
• 57:20
  self custody your Bitcoin, you had the risk and onuses on you.
• 57:24
  But at the same time, it gives you that privilege and that
• 57:26
  power to like go wherever you want.
• 57:28
  You know, we see the jurisdictional arbitrage of
• 57:30
  people moving to UAE, to Puerto Rico, to El Salvador, to name a
• 57:35
  few. And if money goes where it's
• 57:36
  treated the best and when what they're trying to do is they're
• 57:39
  trying to lock their money into their system, into their
• 57:41
  governance. And Bitcoin gives you the
• 57:43
  freedom to go wherever you want. So that's just my too sad.
• 57:45
  It's not playing by their rules anymore.
• 57:47
  A. 100%. Rules A. 100% ladies and
• 57:50
  gentlemen, we are almost at 200 likes on YouTube and there's
• 57:53
  almost 500 people watching live. So if you guys are enjoying the
• 57:57
  show, make sure to smash that like button on YouTube, smash
• 58:00
  that like button on rumble, smash that like button on X, or
• 58:04
  give us a follow. And we topped out of 45 live
• 58:07
  viewers on the Nostril stream. So bullish on nostril, almost
• 58:10
  10,000 SAT's zapped to us. Really appreciate all the
• 58:14
  support over there on that protocol.
• 58:16
  Anyways, guys, stay tuned. We're going to talk to David
• 58:19
  about Bitcoin, energy mining, all that good stuff during the
• 58:23
  culture. So let's get to it.
• 58:25
  Here we go. All
• 58:39
  right everybody I want to tell you guys about the Orange app
• 58:41
  Stack friends who Stacks apps join the 12,233 bit corners that
• 58:46
  are currently on the app to get started, all you got to do is
• 58:49
  scan the QR code or check the link in the video description.
• 58:53
  It'll take you directly to your App Store of choice whether
• 58:55
  that's Android or iOS. I don't know if there's another
• 58:58
  App Store, but yes and you'll be able to download the orange pull
• 59:02
  app. The orange pull app is the
• 59:04
  number one resource for Bitcoin only events.
• 59:06
  It also has a really clever geographical feature.
• 59:08
  So if you're traveling, you go to a new city or perhaps you've
• 59:12
  been in your city for a while you don't know any bitcoiners
• 59:14
  around you. This is the orange pull app is
• 59:16
  for you. It will literally show you the
• 59:18
  bitcoiners around you and it will give you the capability to
• 59:21
  send them a message directly establishing a relationship.
• 59:25
  It's one of the best ways to reach me.
• 59:27
  Don't really answer random Twitter DMS these days or random
• 59:30
  emails. Do you want to contact me?
• 59:32
  You want to ask me a question? Send me a message on the orange
• 59:35
  pull up. Download the orange pull up
• 59:37
  today. Stack friends who stacks sats.
• 59:39
  Scan the QR code or check the link in the video description to
• 59:43
  get started. Anyways, I do want to open the
• 59:46
  conversation up and I want to take advantage of our guests.
• 59:49
  For today, we have David Branscomb.
• 59:52
  David Branscomb is an Bitcoin energy consultant.
• 59:56
  We just did a panel recently together over in Las Vegas at
• 59:59
  the Unconfiscatable conference is the last one, unfortunately,
• 1:00:02
  you know, very, very, very sad. I'm sure Tone's going to bring
• 1:00:05
  it back. I know Tone, I know Tone at this
• 1:00:07
  point he's going to bring, he's going to be a crazy bull market.
• 1:00:10
  He's going to, I'm going to bring that shit back.
• 1:00:12
  So but. Yeah, so, and we were, we were
• 1:00:15
  on this panel together and I, I believe the panel had to do with
• 1:00:18
  mining. And I, I didn't know a lot of
• 1:00:22
  David's background and he was just dropping hot fire on that
• 1:00:26
  panel. I was like, I have to meet this
• 1:00:28
  guy. I have to introduce myself.
• 1:00:31
  So David, welcome on, welcome to the show.
• 1:00:34
  Could you tell a little bit about what you do?
• 1:00:37
  Because you, you work with so many companies, right?
• 1:00:40
  What do you do? What do you do in the Bitcoin
• 1:00:43
  space? And a little bit about yourself.
• 1:00:46
  Sure. So I've kind of done I guess
• 1:00:51
  before Bitcoin done a bunch of different random kind of
• 1:00:54
  business development sales gigs. I bought and sold construction
• 1:00:58
  equipment. I worked for a nonprofit.
• 1:01:00
  I ran a consulting company for that nonprofit, you know,
• 1:01:05
  business to business collections kind of thing Dittled stint at
• 1:01:10
  Dell. I was a a technical sales Rep at
• 1:01:14
  Dell. So I kind of have that technical
• 1:01:17
  background experience. But after the pandemic, I wasn't
• 1:01:20
  doing a whole lot, not a lot really going on.
• 1:01:23
  And I was building AI have a koi pond in my backyard.
• 1:01:29
  If you follow me on Twitter, I post a lot of morning pictures
• 1:01:31
  out there. It's like my favorite place to
• 1:01:33
  have coffee and stuff. And I was building a raised grow
• 1:01:36
  bed just really because I was bored, I wanted to see if I
• 1:01:40
  could do it. And so I was building that.
• 1:01:43
  My neighbor across the street came in.
• 1:01:45
  This was maybe, I don't know, early 2021, something like that.
• 1:01:50
  And I was mining a little bit of Bitcoin, but really just kind of
• 1:01:53
  on the on the GPU side, right? I hadn't gotten into ASICS and
• 1:01:58
  stuff. And my neighbor across the
• 1:02:01
  street came in. Turns out he was asking me about
• 1:02:04
  my project. So what do you know about
• 1:02:07
  Hydrodynamics? So just just what I learned
• 1:02:09
  here, you know, went down some, watched some YouTube videos.
• 1:02:13
  Turns out he was the CEO of a company that was manufacturing
• 1:02:17
  immersion cooling in Austin, TX and I went to work for them as
• 1:02:23
  AVP of Business development. They had closed a couple 100
• 1:02:27
  megawatts worth of immersion cooling with Riot and I went on,
• 1:02:33
  worked for them for about a year, selling a few more, maybe
• 1:02:38
  about 40 megawatts total, something like that of immersion
• 1:02:40
  cooling. And that's kind of what brought
• 1:02:42
  me into the space. I was working it with these
• 1:02:45
  guys. I wasn't even really a Bitcoiner
• 1:02:47
  yet, but they just all assumed I was like, you know, all in it
• 1:02:51
  because I was working in the job, but I just thought I was
• 1:02:53
  going to sell the traditional data centers.
• 1:02:55
  So that's kind of what got me into it.
• 1:02:57
  And every day I would just learn more from them working with
• 1:03:00
  these guys, selling immersion, you know, helping deploy at
• 1:03:04
  sites, things like that. I left Midas and start and
• 1:03:09
  consulted with for independent clients building mines built
• 1:03:14
  like a, you know, 8 MW air cooled and eight MW immersion,
• 1:03:19
  16 MW mine. Some good, some nice guys from
• 1:03:22
  at Miami kind of gave me my first gig on that and I've just
• 1:03:25
  kind of been running ever since I can.
• 1:03:30
  Immersion is still kind of the focus, right?
• 1:03:33
  Basically vetting a project or just kind of making sure that
• 1:03:36
  you know, the flow is correct and, and tweaking it to optimize
• 1:03:39
  that system. But I worked with a company
• 1:03:45
  really just kind of tagging along really I didn't like
• 1:03:48
  designed it or anything like that.
• 1:03:49
  But I learned about off grid gas site mining where we're taking
• 1:03:52
  the gas directly out, turning it into electricity through
• 1:03:55
  generators. And that one really kind of got
• 1:03:58
  me into energy. And I've just kind of been
• 1:04:00
  slowly moving upstream ever since.
• 1:04:02
  So I can help out on all of the operation side, you know,
• 1:04:06
  sourcing sites, whether it's on grid, off grid, behind the
• 1:04:09
  meter, whatever. But now I'm really kind of more
• 1:04:12
  focused on, you know, sovereign energy, actually owning that
• 1:04:16
  power source. We were talking earlier about
• 1:04:18
  these countries that, you know, we're getting into Bitcoin even
• 1:04:22
  at the government level, they have so much energy, right?
• 1:04:25
  You've got Chevron and Exxon here in the US.
• 1:04:28
  It just, I mean, they have, they, they, they waste, you
• 1:04:31
  know, so much energy a day just because it's not possible to
• 1:04:34
  properly distribute it and things like that.
• 1:04:36
  So we're kind of at the forefront at this crossroads
• 1:04:40
  between money and energy. And it's a really exciting place
• 1:04:44
  to be. And I'm kind of living 1 foot in
• 1:04:48
  kind of both sides of that, right?
• 1:04:49
  I'm talking to the old school oil and gas, you know, energy
• 1:04:55
  distribution, transmission, and then on the other side, I'm
• 1:04:58
  talking these, you know, Cowboys.
• 1:05:01
  I know a lot of the different, you know, pub Co's personally
• 1:05:05
  and what they're trying to do. And so I just kind of, I just
• 1:05:08
  like to be a part of interesting projects and, and work on
• 1:05:12
  different things and just learn everything I can about energy
• 1:05:16
  and Bitcoin and how those two kind of kind of are intertwined.
• 1:05:20
  Yeah, beautiful. And I, I, I want to focus on the
• 1:05:24
  aspect because it fascinates me, right?
• 1:05:27
  And I think, I think Bitcoin mining is heading to this, to
• 1:05:34
  this new era where I think it peaked in these major data
• 1:05:38
  centers. And now it's all about fighting,
• 1:05:41
  finding isolated energy pockets because that's a major
• 1:05:47
  opportunity and what that's going to do for local
• 1:05:51
  communities that are around those energy pockets that
• 1:05:54
  perhaps those local communities didn't have jobs, they didn't
• 1:05:59
  have the opportunities. And Bitcoin miners just go in
• 1:06:02
  there and all of a sudden it's like this new gold rush, except
• 1:06:07
  the gold isn't going to run out. I mean, technically 202140
• 1:06:12
  eventually, right? But you know, but there's,
• 1:06:14
  there's still the fees. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:18
  Which are going to. Be enormous.
• 1:06:19
  So can you talk a little bit about that?
• 1:06:22
  Because that to me, you know, fascinates me.
• 1:06:25
  I, I originally got into the industry through mining back in
• 1:06:28
  20/16/2017. I pivot.
• 1:06:31
  I pivoted away from mining in 2018.
• 1:06:33
  Bane of my existence. Highly regret it.
• 1:06:36
  Pivoted to media. That's worked out so far, but
• 1:06:40
  holy shit, you know, mining since 2018.
• 1:06:43
  That would have been nice. But the point I'm trying to
• 1:06:47
  make, though, is that, you know, this is like a new era and it,
• 1:06:51
  it's so exciting to me because it's going to give so much
• 1:06:56
  opportunities to these relatively small countries.
• 1:07:01
  Yeah. That would otherwise be
• 1:07:04
  relatively poor. Yeah.
• 1:07:06
  They wouldn't have, you know, they wouldn't have opportunity.
• 1:07:09
  I, I, we just had the, the presidential candidate from
• 1:07:13
  Suriname and Suriname has a tremendous amount of energy
• 1:07:18
  potential off its coast, right. And you know, there like that is
• 1:07:25
  a country changing type of phenomenon here.
• 1:07:32
  So could you talk a little bit about that, David, when, when
• 1:07:35
  you said sovereign energy, what does that mean?
• 1:07:38
  What does that entail for the world?
• 1:07:40
  What is that going to bring the world?
• 1:07:43
  Is that was that going to make the world a better place, or are
• 1:07:45
  we going to boil the oceans in the process of mining all this
• 1:07:48
  Bitcoin? We're not going to boil the
• 1:07:50
  oceans at all. The oceans are going to be fine.
• 1:07:54
  You know, even depending on what you think about climate change,
• 1:07:57
  right? The oceans haven't really
• 1:07:58
  changed very much. So I I feel like we're good
• 1:08:00
  there. I actually had a chance to meet
• 1:08:02
  Maya briefly in El Salvador at an event.
• 1:08:07
  Anyone that meets her talks to her, right?
• 1:08:09
  It's got to be bullish on certain these countries have
• 1:08:16
  been a victim of the Fiat game, right?
• 1:08:19
  They may have had we, if you look at really just the universe
• 1:08:24
  as a whole, let alone just planet Earth, we don't have an
• 1:08:28
  energy production or energy supply issue.
• 1:08:32
  We have an energy distribution issue, right?
• 1:08:34
  Same way we do with, you know, food and and things like that.
• 1:08:39
  There's plenty of energy out there.
• 1:08:44
  The rules and the blockades set up by governments and that Fiat
• 1:08:48
  system wanting to control that energy source is what has caused
• 1:08:56
  the problem. So there's the you talk about
• 1:09:00
  Bhutan, you talk about El Salvador.
• 1:09:03
  El Salvador took a huge risk not just on Bitcoin, but energy in
• 1:09:09
  general, the geothermal energy that they use.
• 1:09:14
  So they, they literally create energy from a volcano, right?
• 1:09:18
  They pump water down and it's this giant steam engine and it's
• 1:09:21
  incredible what they're able to do.
• 1:09:23
  And it's almost perpetual. I mean, that volcano would
• 1:09:27
  basically have to go away for that to, to end, right?
• 1:09:31
  So there is plenty of energy out there.
• 1:09:34
  Bitcoin is the 1st technology that allows someone to take, go,
• 1:09:39
  find energy that would normally be completely lost and wasted
• 1:09:43
  and immediately transfer it into a store of value.
• 1:09:47
  So when I said earlier, we're talking about in the past,
• 1:09:55
  company or not companies, but well, yeah, companies, but
• 1:09:58
  society as a whole, we had to go to where there was fresh water.
• 1:10:01
  We had to go to where there was, you know, food, whether it be
• 1:10:05
  hunting, gathering, livestock, farming, whatever, we needed all
• 1:10:09
  of this, right? Those locations are not always
• 1:10:12
  where the energy is, is readily available as far as like massive
• 1:10:16
  amounts of power, oil, gas, you know, even wind, solar, hydro,
• 1:10:22
  right? It's not always right there.
• 1:10:24
  We're at a interesting crossroads where that focus is
• 1:10:30
  being shifted away from that we can, we now have economies of
• 1:10:36
  scale that allow us to move further and further away from
• 1:10:39
  those sources and still be able to survive and provide for
• 1:10:43
  ourselves. And I see this migration now
• 1:10:47
  towards these areas that have been long overlooked, that have
• 1:10:51
  been ignored because of control or, you know, bad governments or
• 1:10:58
  terrible organizations that have, you know, loaned US money
• 1:11:02
  and then basically used it to bankrupt countries.
• 1:11:05
  Bitcoin is a way to solve all of those problems and allow these
• 1:11:10
  countries to take that energy that is readily available there
• 1:11:13
  and make Bitcoin their number one export because it's finite.
• 1:11:19
  I believe there is no risk in that, in that side.
• 1:11:23
  You just literally have to hold on long enough for everyone to
• 1:11:26
  realize that the best store of value we have is something that
• 1:11:32
  is literally backed by nothing but energy.
• 1:11:36
  It's not, and it's not even really backed by energy per SE,
• 1:11:39
  but the fact that it is a through mining, it's
• 1:11:43
  inextricably tied to that energy.
• 1:11:45
  So if I'm going to send you Bitcoin or I'm going to receive
• 1:11:49
  it, I have to have energy. And then on top of all that, the
• 1:11:51
  value of that Bitcoin transaction from one location to
• 1:11:54
  another is literally the amount of energy required to mine and
• 1:11:59
  or make that block, right. So I've used this analogy
• 1:12:03
  before. I think I used it with, with
• 1:12:06
  you, Nico. If I were to you were to an Uber
• 1:12:10
  driver and you were to give me a ride somewhere and it costs one
• 1:12:14
  gallon of gas to go from point A to point B.
• 1:12:16
  The best way for me to actually the most, the easiest way to
• 1:12:21
  measure and to pay you for that service is to actually give you
• 1:12:25
  1.1 gallons of gas right in exchange for it.
• 1:12:28
  That would be the perfect way to exchange to you, for you to know
• 1:12:32
  for sure that you are actually profiting.
• 1:12:35
  We created coins and dollars so we didn't have to carry around
• 1:12:40
  gallons of gas to pay for that, to make that exchange better and
• 1:12:44
  easier. And it was good for a while, but
• 1:12:47
  the problem is now we're using paper notes that can just be
• 1:12:51
  debased. So maybe go from going point A
• 1:12:53
  to point B. You may say, OK, that gallon of
• 1:12:56
  gas is $5 and I made 550 on it. But by the time I got to point
• 1:13:02
  B, that $5 will only buy, you know, $2.50 worth of stuff from
• 1:13:07
  where I started. Point A.
• 1:13:08
  That's the problem, right? Because Bitcoin is tied to this
• 1:13:12
  energy and because of that finite number, it's just it has
• 1:13:18
  the ability to change and shift the way we use energy, the way
• 1:13:23
  we view energy, the way we store our value, the way we use our
• 1:13:27
  time and save our time. So that time and that and that
• 1:13:33
  value together, Bitcoin is just because it's tied to that energy
• 1:13:38
  as a proof of war concept makes all the difference in the world.
• 1:13:42
  Without that proof of work, you have some other things, you
• 1:13:45
  know, that are proof of stake, things like that.
• 1:13:47
  The dollar is proof of stake. Right.
• 1:13:48
  It it it, it anchors. It anchors Bitcoin to reality.
• 1:13:52
  Yes. Because it's an energy based
• 1:13:55
  money. And I think that a lot of the
• 1:13:57
  insanity and a lot of the decadence that you see in
• 1:14:01
  today's world is because the money is no longer anchored to
• 1:14:06
  reality. It's been completely
• 1:14:08
  disconnected. I think that's the power of the
• 1:14:10
  money printer. I think it it makes people sick
• 1:14:13
  spiritually, financially, obviously, but I think it breaks
• 1:14:19
  some people. I think, I think no one deserves
• 1:14:21
  the power of the money printer and Bitcoin like it it, it's a
• 1:14:25
  check, right? Because it's it's a reality
• 1:14:28
  check. It's like you can't just print
• 1:14:30
  more of it, so you have to mine it, you have to buy it, or you
• 1:14:34
  have to earn it, right? It's just the reality.
• 1:14:37
  You can't fake it either, right? Like, well, this in, I mean it.
• 1:14:43
  If I go to the gym, you and I are at the gym, right?
• 1:14:47
  And I say, OK, we're going to put, you know, 225 lbs of weight
• 1:14:50
  on this bench press. You can either lift that or you
• 1:14:53
  can't, right? That's it.
• 1:14:55
  I have enough energy right and muscle power to move this bar
• 1:15:01
  down and back up or I don't, right?
• 1:15:04
  Bitcoin actually works on the same laws of physics, so you
• 1:15:07
  don't have a choice. You either agree the 2 + 2 = 4
• 1:15:13
  and that this many kilowatt hours are required to to move
• 1:15:19
  this transaction from one locate.
• 1:15:21
  You know the the keys from you know, from one location to the
• 1:15:25
  other, transfer the ownership of that from one key to another.
• 1:15:30
  Or you don't. And if you don't, well, you
• 1:15:32
  don't get to play in the sandbox.
• 1:15:34
  You just, you are literally, when you say I don't agree with
• 1:15:37
  this, you are literally turning your back and stepping out of
• 1:15:40
  the sandbox and you don't get to play.
• 1:15:42
  That is what Hillary Clinton doesn't like when she was
• 1:15:46
  commenting earlier, right? Because it's literally what it
• 1:15:48
  is. You have to play by the rules
• 1:15:50
  because it's the laws of physics, energy created or
• 1:15:54
  destroyed, you can use it or not.
• 1:15:56
  And what's great about Bitcoin is it is the perfect balance of
• 1:16:03
  that The value of a Bitcoin will only be worth whatever people
• 1:16:06
  are willing to use it for. And it will also only be worth
• 1:16:10
  whatever people are, whatever amount of energy people are
• 1:16:13
  willing to expend for it, Right. So you talk about these we
• 1:16:17
  earlier, you know, these these countries that are doing it.
• 1:16:19
  OK, Oh, hash rate's going to go through the roof.
• 1:16:22
  Hash rate will always increase to the necessary amount for
• 1:16:27
  security. And then when it's no longer
• 1:16:29
  profitable or valuable or someone tries to come in and
• 1:16:32
  play the Fiat game and, and they, and they, they realize
• 1:16:35
  they're not playing by the rules that hat their hat, they will
• 1:16:38
  lose. They will lose their they will,
• 1:16:40
  they will go underwater. They will spend way too much on
• 1:16:43
  energy or whatever. And they're trying to, you know,
• 1:16:45
  play that hedge. They will get wrecked.
• 1:16:48
  It will happen. So when that happens, when that
• 1:16:51
  happens, the bad actors, that's them turning away.
• 1:16:54
  They're turning away, they're kicked out of the sandbox.
• 1:16:56
  And everybody that is mining Bitcoin in the most efficient
• 1:16:59
  way possible always looking for ways to, you know, to be more
• 1:17:04
  efficient and tweak that process and just be, you know, as as
• 1:17:08
  real with those numbers and those physics as they can.
• 1:17:11
  They're the ones that are going to win.
• 1:17:13
  And if you have to have that incentive, otherwise it just
• 1:17:16
  didn't work. Absolutely.
• 1:17:18
  All right. Well, we are getting to the top
• 1:17:19
  of the hour. Chris, I do want to give you an
• 1:17:21
  opportunity, one or two minutes closing thoughts.
• 1:17:26
  I'll just keep it short and sweet.
• 1:17:27
  Stay humble Stacks acts. That's self custody your
• 1:17:30
  Bitcoin. Beautiful, beautiful David.
• 1:17:32
  Last words, last thoughts before we wrap up the show.
• 1:17:35
  Not your keys, not your coins. Get off the exchange.
• 1:17:38
  Love it, love it. All right everybody, thank you
• 1:17:41
  so much for tuning into some of the Bitcoin Live for October
• 1:17:43
  7th, 2024. I'm your host for today.
• 1:17:46
  This is my legendary Co host Chris Alamo and of course our
• 1:17:49
  special guest for today, David Branscomb.
• 1:17:51
  Go give him a follow. I'm going to put up his Twitter
• 1:17:54
  handle up on screen right now. Anyways guys, have an amazing
• 1:17:58
  rest of your day. Like the show Subscribe if you
• 1:18:01
  feel like we provided you value and Opti will be in the hot seat
• 1:18:04
  tomorrow I'll be traveling to Europe for Bitcoin Amsterdam.
• 1:18:08
  Hope to see some of you guys there and of course, we'll be
• 1:18:11
  doing the show. Show doesn't stop.
• 1:18:13
  Honey Badger Media don't stop. Anyways, love you all back
• 1:18:16
  tomorrow. Peace out, everybody.
• 1:18:19
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• 1:18:22
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