#680: Fighting for Bitcoin Policy in Washington DC with Conner Brown

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Connor Brown, you got me to wear slacks and penny loafers, put on a sweater, button down.
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Welcome to Washington, Marty. It's good to have you.
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It's good to be here. Here we're looks maxing.
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You've got to be looks maxing. That's a key point here in D.C.
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Everyone is focused on appearance, whether you like it or not.
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So you've got to look the part. You've got to play the game a bit.
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And you did a great job. I've got to say, the loafers look great. The socks are good.
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This is good.
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Yeah, I did go to a prep school, so I have it deep ingrained in my memory, my DNA now.
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Yeah, you fit right in.
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Yeah, I would have never suspected.
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But it's been six, almost six and a half years since you were last on the show.
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You're on episode 87 in July of 2019.
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I think we're 600 episodes past that now at this point, which is crazy to think.
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Yeah, it is crazy.
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Freaks, I missed you.
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It's been good.
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it's been a long time
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it's crazy I think
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all these years later here we are
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still the same people
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man the world has changed so much
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but Bitcoin is still
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what we're focused on
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I think that's important
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the price when you first came on
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was $11,500 right around there
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we're currently dumping as we speak
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to around $105,000
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people are scared
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it's funny to imagine
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if ourselves then could see this and we'd be like, oh yeah, we're down. It's down only over
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a hundred K now. Yeah. But I mean, thinking of how much has changed since then, obviously we've
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had COVID, uh, micro strategy went on their sort of strategy of putting Bitcoin on, uh, their
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corporate treasury. Yeah. Bitcoin has entered the zeitgeist. It is a, a brand name in homes around
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the world. And just last night we were talking over coffee. Before we came over here, Donald
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Trump was on 60 Minutes saying that this is a race. Bitcoin and crypto is a race that we need
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to win. And just starting there, how profound do you think that is that we're at this point right
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now? Well, it's crazy because when we had recorded the podcast back in, what, 2019,
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he had just put out the tweet that said something like, I don't like Bitcoin. I don't trust it.
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It's not nearly as good as the dollar. And to think in just a few short years, how far he's come
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to say, not only is this something that is positive, but it's something that America has
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to be the leader in. I just, it would be crazy to tell us that, you know, in the past and be like,
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oh yeah and only just uh let's say five years he's going to have completely shifted his view on it
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and is actually going to be seeing this as a competitive aspect of staying as the world leader
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in technology so yeah it is it is good but i don't think that we've necessarily won i don't think that
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um our i i don't think that america is quite there yet and i think there's still a lot more
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that we can do to solidify our position.
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And I think that is what we're working on every day here in D.C.
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is that we are off to a great start.
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We've shifted from Bitcoin being seen as sort of a nuisance by both parties.
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And suddenly more and more people are understanding how important this is.
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But there's still a lot of education that has to happen.
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Well, for anybody listening who may not be aware of you, Connor, and the work that you've been doing, particularly on the Hill over the last four or five years, if there's anybody who can say what was just said with confidence, it is you.
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and I think this is a good opportunity to basically let the audience know what you've been up to,
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what you were doing under Senator Lummis,
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the work that was going on behind the scenes as it pertains to the strategic
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Bitcoin Reserve and the Bitcoin Act.
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What have you seen, sir?
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Yeah, well, freaks, I've missed you.
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It's been a long time.
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I have not completely left the Bitcoin scene.
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I've just been sort of, you know, working behind the scenes a bit.
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But yeah, I think to sort of go over a quick timeline of where I've been, I ended up working for Senator Lummis as her Bitcoin advisor and saw a lot firsthand of how Washington thinks about Bitcoin, what the state of Bitcoin policy is.
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and I guess what ultimately led me there is I was working in the private sector after a few years
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after I graduated law school I worked for a few years at different corporate law firms
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and I was working at a firm in New York I tried to get them interested in Bitcoin treasury companies
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back in 2020 actually hilariously Michael Saylor had just announced his first Bitcoin acquisition
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and tried to get him to pitch Bitcoin to our partnership at the law firm.
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He came and spoke and they didn't take it seriously.
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So, you know, that was maybe a bit too early.
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Then I worked at another firm here in D.C. on sort of fintech and blockchain practice
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and saw firsthand the attacks by the SEC on different companies.
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and I was working on enforcement actions.
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But ultimately, I still really cared about Bitcoin.
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And I had been in touch with Senator Lummis' staff for a few years
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and a spot opened up to be her Bitcoin and AI advisor.
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And I was going back and forth, but decided that at the time,
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there were still a lot of attacks on Bitcoin.
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This was late 23, early 24. And it seemed very obvious that we needed someone to really
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defend Bitcoin, to bring knowledge to the Hill. And Senator Lummis was really one of the only
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people that was talking about this. And I decided to go see what it was like. And it was just the
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most fascinating experience of my life truly it changed um you know what how i view myself and and
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how important i see the political system now and it was just a fantastic experience um but
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yeah so that started in 24 and learned a lot through that about how the hill works how you can
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take an idea and really with just a good idea, you could have incredible amounts of change. So
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yeah, it's been a crazy past five years. Well, let's dive into this. How was the sausage made?
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What was your expectation going in? How was the sausage made? I actually didn't know what to
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expect going in. So I'd met Senator Lummis one time in passing at a, at just like a conference,
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basically. And I had been told, you know, she's a great Bitcoiner. You've got to meet her
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and decided to take the job without really knowing what to expect. I walk in the first day,
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I'm walking through the office, I'm seeing Bitcoin signs on some desk. I'm like, okay,
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this is good. This is good. And then I noticed everyone has a copy of gradually then suddenly
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sitting on their desk. And there were copies of the Bitcoin standard. And then I was like, okay,
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this is real. This is the real deal. And got to know her. And sure enough, you know, we hit it off
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pretty quickly because she really is a Bitcoin. She really is, you know, someone who's read all
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the same things we've read. She's read the same Parker Lewis books and listened to a lot of the
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same content. And so I didn't know what to expect, but I came into an environment that was just the
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perfect place for me. And it was also a way for me to start to educate others on the Hill
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about Bitcoin because our office was understanding Bitcoin, but none of the other offices,
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you know, they didn't really understand Bitcoin deeply. So it was a great opportunity to just
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go around and start teaching people and spreading the good word about Bitcoin.
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What's that process like?
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What's it like saying, hey, we're Senator Lummis, her office, we're the Bitcoin experts.
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Is a lot of outreach or people coming to you?
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What is that like?
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It's very self-driven.
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And a lot of people might not even know this.
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It's sort of a black box how the legislative system works.
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So to give you sort of a rough sense of it, each office has different functions.
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So you have the communications team, you have the scheduling team, you have the legislative team.
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And I was part of the legislative team.
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And each office has basically, let's say, between, depending on the size of the office,
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a Senate versus House office, between five to ten people, sometimes more,
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that are working on legislative issues.
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And each member has a staffer who's responsible for, let's say, financial services
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or Bitcoin and digital assets.
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And so my job was to reach out to all of the staffers in the other offices.
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I was on the legislative team and I was responsible for reaching out and saying,
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hey, you are Senator Cruz's staffer, you know, or you're Senator Blackburn's staffer.
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Hey, let's talk about Bitcoin.
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And going out and just figuring out who's interested in this and who cares about it.
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And also explaining to people, you know, Bitcoin touches many policy areas in ways people don't understand or don't anticipate.
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And so spreading, you know, the good word about Bitcoin and explaining here's what Bitcoin is.
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Bitcoin 101 fundamentals, how the network works, why it's trustworthy.
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You know, it's a lot of just self-motivated getting to know people and teaching them about Bitcoin.
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And a lot of people are very interested, but they've heard a lot about it. It's talked a lot about in politics, but they've never had someone who can really explain it to them in a way that makes sense to them. So it's a lot of meeting people where they're at and just sort of hitting the pavement and knocking on doors.
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considering the scope of all the policy decisions that are being made in this city not only as it
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pertains to bitcoin health care energy whatever maybe how hard is it to get an individual staff
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or to focus on something very specific like bitcoin it depends on how you pitch it i mean
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i found that people were actually really receptive surprisingly receptive i had no clue
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what it was going to be like going in um how close off people would be but the reality is
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that the Hill is a very social place. And everyone is wanting to get to know everyone. And for me,
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it was sort of like, wow, it's rare for someone to come from outside the Hill and really cares
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about a specific policy issue and to explain why it's important. So I was surprised at how receptive
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people were. I mean, you have to be creative, right? So we had Bitcoin pizza day. We had Bitcoin
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and bagels. We had all sorts of different, you know, whenever there's just some sort of random
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event we could come up with that's Bitcoin related, we would do it. But I found that people
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were actually very receptive. And that comes down to meeting people where they're at and explaining
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to them in a way that is palatable to them. But across the political spectrum, it was not a
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partisan thing. And I don't think that Bitcoin is a partisan thing. Across the aisle, you can
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think about what Bitcoin represents and what they care about and explain how powerful a tool Bitcoin
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is. And I think people were actually hungry for that. It was surprising. But yeah, it was, I think,
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made a lot of very positive inroads to people who otherwise probably would not have thought about
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this, wouldn't have been on the radar. Well, there's been an obvious evolution in a positive
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sense in terms of the posturing from DC towards Bitcoin, particularly on the right, but even on
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the left. You've got providers like Ro Khanna, Richie Torres, and many others who understand
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that this is something that they should care about and lean into.
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What, in your observation, were some of the events or framings
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of how you were pitching Bitcoin that made people wake up and say,
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hey, this is something we need to care about, focus on?
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Yeah, I think that focusing on Bitcoin, not in a partisan sense,
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but just in a broad historical sense,
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that fundamentally this is a historical event
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that we've seen play out many times in the past.
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That Bitcoin, like other monetary paradigm shifts, it simply is better money.
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It simply is better savings technology.
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And just like we've seen play out, whether it be the shift from seashells and cowry beads or salts to precious metals, from silver to gold, that the uptake of Bitcoin is just another technological shift.
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and that we should be thinking about how we can capitalize on that,
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just like America was the home of the internet and all the benefits that brought.
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And talking about it in these broad historical paradigm shift ways,
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rather than it's on this incremental partisan issue, going to win points or lose points.
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I think that is what people are very receptive to.
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And ultimately, I think the concept of Bitcoin's unique circumstances,
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It came out of the financial crisis.
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No one is happy with how the financial crisis was handled.
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I don't think there's anyone that thought, you know what, they did a good job, that the
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system was set up right.
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I mean, you might have a different story for why it happened or how it was solved, but
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no one came away from that thinking, yeah, that was a good thing that happened.
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And so having Bitcoin as something that came out of that environment and that is something
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that can be a savings tool for anyone, for the individual, for the corporation, and even for the
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state, I think is something that people are very receptive to. And they just haven't thought about
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Bitcoin like that. I think a lot of it is, you know, there's not even, for some people,
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an understanding between Bitcoin and the long tail of crypto schemes that we've seen blow up.
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You know, we've seen they know and are constantly reading articles about different rug pulls or, you know, a lot of them knew Sam Bankman freed before FTX fell apart.
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And so delineating Bitcoin from the unsavory parts of the crypto ecosystem is also very important.
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And once you peel that back, then I think that you can really explain Bitcoin in terms that is, you know, interesting to people.
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That's been the biggest uphill battle of the last three years,
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specifically post-TX blowup.
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We made a concerted effort at TFTC and I think many others in the industry to drive that demarcation Like there Bitcoin and then there crypto And going back to like the scope of what people have to focus on here in the Hill it makes
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me wonder like how easy or hard is it to make that delineation clear and how many people
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are just throwing the baby out with the bathwater because they don't understand that you shouldn't
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conflate FTX blow up with the Bitcoin protocol itself.
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Yeah, I would say it is easier than you would expect.
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The people on the Hill are people that care about policy.
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They care about America's future.
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They care about getting things right.
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They are often there because they are interested in policy.
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And so you have someone who is typically much more engaged than your average person.
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You know, talking to someone about Bitcoin that's just a random friend,
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they might just say, you know, I'm not really sure how much I want to think about this.
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But the people on the Hill genuinely do want to think about what good policy is, what the future looks like. So you have an audience that's interested, and then it just becomes a numbers game. At the end of the day, there just aren't that many Bitcoiners on the Hill, truly. And there are so many staff that are responsible for understanding Bitcoin policy and understanding what the right and wrong answers are.
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And so it becomes a numbers game pretty quickly is at the end of the day, there's only so many people you can meet with individually.
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And so I think that was really the bottleneck for the daily.
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It was just how much time you have to explain Bitcoin to people and meet people where they're at.
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Speaking to this lack of, for lack of a better term, Bitcoin talent on the Hill that can be here to educate staffers and individual representatives and senators about this.
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how much do you think that is driven by the historical aversion of the wider Bitcoin community towards government specifically?
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So this is something this is something that's very common, I think.
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And I'm very sympathetic to it.
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You know, I've read all the cypherpunk readings that a lot of us have.
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Right. I've listened to my 10,000 hours of Bitcoin podcast.
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I think there is a common thread in the Bitcoin community that is basically the state exists, but we want to avoid it at all costs.
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And I'm very sympathetic to that.
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I think privacy is extremely important, that limiting the state's power over individuals.
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These are important considerations.
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But I don't think that the solution is let's stop engaging with the state altogether, because at the end of the day, the state does have a monopoly on violence.
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The state does have the ability to do all sorts of things to Bitcoiners here in the U.S.
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and I think that it is on us to engage with the state and explain that Bitcoin is not adverse to
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its interest but is actually an important tool that everyone should be using, that individuals
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should be using. I mean, this is just like the internet, right? If the state perceived the
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internet as a threat and said, you know what, we're going to crack down on it, freedom of expression
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in the digital age is a bad thing,
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then we'd be in a very different country.
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And it took smart policymakers
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to recognize the value the internet had.
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Well, and there was an attack on the internet, right?
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Then they would have put chips in the back of the computers
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and make sure we were tracking everybody,
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but that ultimately got stomped out
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and the free and open internet was able to thrive.
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Exactly.
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I mean, it took smart cypherpunks
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to really make the case that code is free speech,
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that encryption is not a weapon.
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and that it is good for a free and open society to have these technologies.
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And I think that we are in a similar position with Bitcoin,
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which is we need to take the responsibility on ourselves to educate the state
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and to explain why, like many technologies in America's past,
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that it is on us to embrace this technology first.
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It is an American technology fundamentally of private property rights,
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of ownership, of freedom of expression and transaction, and that if we don't really take
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up the mantle and educate the state, then I do worry where that could go. And I think that that
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is just a testament to how powerful really working through policy can be. In 2024, in early 2024,
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there was legislation that had multiple different co-sponsors about really regulating the node layer
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of the network there was attempts to have these reports on mining energy consumption
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which could have led to all sorts of different regulations down the line
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and we've sort of went past that paradigm at least for now of trying to clamp down on bitcoin
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but I don't think it is something that we can take lightly.
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And it's something we have to really be on guard for
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because Bitcoin is going to continue to mature,
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but the state is still going to be there.
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It's still going to exist.
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And it's important that we navigate that carefully.
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It's like our good friend Bitstein said,
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the only winning move is to play.
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And I think this is something we've been having
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ongoing discussion over the last three days.
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We had a nice catch-up call on Saturday afternoon in preparation for this and really anchoring this back to the historical version of Bitcoiners who, I mean, Bitcoin is a sly roundabout way to take control of money out of the hands of the state.
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It does not, but with that being said, it does not mean that the state is not going to exist.
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And I think one thing that's really stuck out to me based off of our conversations since Saturday is incentive alignment and how do we make it so we educate the state, they implement the correct policy, and then you have sort of an aversion to what has existed for the last five decades, which is the state is working in an incentive framework that aligns with citizens broadly across the spectrum.
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because their incentive is to make sure that Bitcoin succeeds too.
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Totally. And this is the justification behind the SBR.
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This is why a strategic Bitcoin reserve, this is one of the main reasons,
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which is one of the easiest and most straightforward ways
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to align the interest of Bitcoiners and the U.S. government
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is to have the U.S. own some Bitcoin.
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And that seems like a pretty straightforward way to remove or at least start to have the state on the same terms of individual Bitcoiners and see Bitcoin as a tool that individuals and states can use.
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So that was actually part of it.
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I know there's a lot of people that love to throw bombs on X and say, look, this is a number go up play or something like that.
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But the reason that we put that out there, I think, was really because we saw this as an important way to avoid what happened with gold, avoid what happened with the Gold Reserve Act of 1934.
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and sort of what we've seen in historical terms
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of whenever there is a new monetary standard
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and the state finds itself without enough of it,
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then it just seizes what the private individuals have.
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And I think that's a very, very important historical takeaway
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is that the terms change,
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but the incentives are structurally the same.
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And so we need to recognize that and think about ways to align the interest of America and Bitcoin for the betterment of both Bitcoiners and Americans generally.
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It is in America's interest to get there first.
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So that was actually, I think, one of the driving reasons behind it is thinking about what it can offer the United States and what it can also do in terms of helping Bitcoiners.
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Can you walk us through the history of the Bitcoin Act, the SBR?
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Yeah.
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What was that journey like?
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Obviously, it came out of Senator Lummis' office.
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You were working on a legislative team there,
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so I'm sure you had your hands pretty immersed in that process.
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What was it like up until you recently left Senator Lummis' office
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to join the Bitcoin Policy Institute as the head of strategy?
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We'll get to that, but let's focus on the SBR first.
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Yeah, the history of the SBR.
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such a privilege to have been sitting in the room. I always wanted to be in the room where
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it happened. And sure enough, I was in the room when it happened. It was crazy.
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So I guess the condensed version of the story is roughly that at the time in 2024, like I said,
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the sentiment around Bitcoin was very reactive. From a policymaking perspective, we were trying
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to think, how do we fight off proposed attacks on the Bitcoin network? And we hear, you know,
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through the grapevine, essentially, that there are some new policy suggestions being made,
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that potentially President Trump, you know, then candidate Trump was considering a strategic reserve.
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and it was funny because sort of separate from that we had been talking about bitcoin in our
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office and senator lummis many people don't know this was actually treasurer of wyoming and during
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her tenure as treasurer she diversified wyoming's balance sheet so wyoming has a sovereign wealth
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fund one of the only states to have one and she by diversifying the balance sheet really
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dramatically improved Wyoming's financial outlook and allowed them to not even have a state income
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tax because of good financial management. And so that was sort of an idea that we had been kicking
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around, which was if Bitcoin can be this potential similar scenario for America, where Senator
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Lummis saw firsthand what being smart and forward thinking and finances can do for a state. What does
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that mean at the national level? And so she said, Connor, can you look into this? Can you guys think
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about what this would look like to have a Fort Satoshi? And at the same time, we hear that
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President Trump might be considering something similar. But we weren't sure how credible that was.
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and they were looking at it and we knew that he was going to speak at the Bitcoin conference.
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And so, you know, what we were trying to do was think about if this is going to be a policy
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suggestion and we're Bitcoiners and we understand the principles that are important to the network
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and how to do this correctly, what does good policy look like on this?
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you can do it in good ways or bad ways we wanted to really provide a bitcoiner forward version
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of what a bitcoin reserve could look like if we were to have a parallel to fort knox
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so it was a wild time and we were super excited leading up to the conference and
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And until the very moment that President Trump went on stage, we weren't sure if he was going to talk about this, support this.
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And it was just wild being backstage, got escorted in by Secret Service to the front row of the conference.
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conference. Me and people from my team, we're sitting in the audience, not sure what's going
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to happen. We know that Cynthia is going to announce the bill right after. And so we're just
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hoping, fingers crossed. And sure enough, he says that America needs a national Bitcoin stockpile.
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And we're like, oh my gosh, here it is. The moment has arrived that we have really, hopefully,
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shifted from a paradigm of seeing Bitcoin as a nuisance to seeing Bitcoin as a tool
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to something that is a positive for America and Americans to embrace. And then right after that,
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Senator Lummis goes and announces the bill publicly, and we're sitting there in the crowd.
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And it was just really one of the highlights of my time in the Senate of seeing that moment happen.
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and then seeing the domino effect, seeing states take this up,
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countries around the world start considering this.
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Legislation is, within a few months, proposed all over the world
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in these different legislative bodies.
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It was crazy to see in real time the impact of just a good idea.
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and it was incredible that Senator Lummis was really willing to go there and say,
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you know what, this is what I truly believe.
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And, you know, she was okay with being the first
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and the only one to say this is a good idea in the beginning.
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And then, you know, seeing how that sort of matured over time has been really cool.
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It's been incredibly cool.
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I forget, I had Cynthia on the show.
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It was during COVID.
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It had to be 2020.
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2021 and that was when she first came out publicly as as a bitcoin senator and was really championing
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it and to see how far it's come since then is i i think people take for granted again going back to
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the point that we're dumping to 105 000 whether it's where price is at any given point in time or
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where bitcoin sits in the zeitgeist i think people get caught up in the day-to-day price movements
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headlines, whatever it may be, and really forget to take a step back and appreciate how far we've
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come both from a market structure, liquidity profile perspective, and policy public perception
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of Bitcoin perspective. It's changed wildly since you were last on, but you mentioned one thing
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when you're explaining sort of the story of the SBR and it's that we want to craft a bill that
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that really respects individual rights and is a bill that Bitcoiners would be proud of.
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And so in your mind, what are a few of the key points that need to be executed
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to make sure that the SBR is done right?
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Yeah, great question.
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It funny because we got a lot of pushback from people saying is this going to give the government control of Bitcoin Is this going to in some ways create a bad set of incentives And our goal really was let take the lessons
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learned from when the government passed the Gold Reserve Act and seized everyone's gold.
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You know, you had the Gold Reserve Act, you had Executive Order 6102.
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What does the antithesis of that look like? What does getting it right ahead of time look like,
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so that that is never necessary. So that was really at the heart of what we were thinking
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when we're drafting this of how do we set up the right set of incentives and how do we set up the
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right set of incentives for Bitcoin the network. So, you know, obviously the first thing is we're
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looking to acquire Bitcoin. And we also are very cognizant of how do we make sure that while we're
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using Bitcoin as a tool. We think it's prudent for the US government to use Bitcoin as a savings
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technology to prepare for the age of Bitcoin that is to come. At the same time, we want to protect
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the network and ensure that that does not create a perverse set of incentives for network development
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and that it doesn't allow the US government to put their thumb on the scale. And I've seen a lot
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of smart Bitcoiners, people that I've listened to on plenty of podcasts, you know, read a bunch of
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their articles. They're critical of the SBR actually. Um, and for various different reasons,
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but one that I've heard a lot is we don't want the government involved with this. And I understand
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that conceptually, I understand that from a philosophical point of view, but I do think
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that the way we drafted it, we really tried to think through how could this create a perverse
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set of incentives and how do we make sure that doesn't happen? So one example is if America is
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acquiring a large sum of Bitcoin, then it might not have control over the network development,
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but it would be a large market participant. And we know that network forks are sometimes based on
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how the market perceives one side of the fork or the other. We learned from the block wars,
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lots of lessons to be learned there. But part of it is people can sort of signal to the market
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what they believe and what they think the right fork is just by selling one fork and buying the
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other or vice versa. And so we wanted to set the incentives in place so that the U.S. government
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does not get involved in any sort of network discussion. So that was one of the key provisions
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is we wanted to hodl all forks.
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Basically say, if the network does fork
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and there are multiple coins that come out of it,
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you can't express an opinion one way or the other.
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You can't sell one and buy the other
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because that would be a way to actually influence the network.
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Even if they're not on GitHub
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or they're not actually proposing software updates,
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just by expressing a preference could be significant.
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So we wanted to cut that off.
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We also put in the bottom of it a protection for self-custody and wanted to clarify that while we think it's prudent for America to acquire Bitcoin, that does not mean that you should go and take Bitcoiners.
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Bitcoin, that would be the wrong way to go about this.
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So we wanted to put that protection in there as well.
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And then we also had some transparency requirements that I think are very important.
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we've seen that the gold in Fort Knox is notoriously difficult to audit.
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The last I heard is that Elon Musk said we need to audit it.
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And then crickets.
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It's been nine months and nothing's happened.
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Don't know where that went.
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Someone should look into that.
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But yeah, so that is, that's ultimately where we landed
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is we wanted to put in strong protections
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so that the U.S. government can be onboarded as a user,
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but it does not impact the network operations.
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Yeah.
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And let's go further into the importance
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of not only doing this but getting it right.
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And we were just having coffee
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and discussing the concept of Bitcoin
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helping to manufacture the soft landing
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that was a big meme in 2022, 2023, 2024
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as the Fed was unwinding its accommodative policy
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post-COVID and beginning to tighten and Janet Yellen was pounding the front end of the yield
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curve. I think knowing you and knowing many other Bitcoiners and how they think, it seems like
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the government with the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve working together
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or independently, it doesn't really matter, independent of each other, you're not going to
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fix the structural issues that exist in the monetary and financial system, depending on
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the same tools, policy tools specifically, that got us into the problem in the first
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place.
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And I think really framing Bitcoin as a free market solution and tool that could be used
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to actually manufacture a soft landing over a multi-decade time horizon.
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That's another thing I think we really need to hammer from the Bitcoin perspective.
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when we're interfacing with Capitol Hill is like,
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hey, this isn't a quick fix solution.
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We need to begin strategically, methodically,
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and intentionally implementing Bitcoin into what we do
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at the national level as well as at the individual
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and business level, but it's going to take some time.
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And so really framing Bitcoin as this tool
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that can be used to set up the United States,
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both at the government level, the business layer,
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and the individual layer to succeed
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as we continue to transition into the digital age.
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Yeah, I think that's where we're at at a national level.
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And this has been another criticism
423
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:24,020
of the concept of a Bitcoin reserve,
424
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:27,340
which is, oh, we're going to revalue our gold
425
00:37:27,340 --> 00:37:29,380
and we're going to use that revaluation
426
00:37:29,380 --> 00:37:30,860
to acquire more Bitcoin.
427
00:37:30,860 --> 00:37:33,080
Is that aligned with the Bitcoin ethos
428
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:34,300
of limited government,
429
00:37:34,580 --> 00:37:38,060
of taking the power of money printing
430
00:37:38,060 --> 00:37:38,900
away from the state?
431
00:37:38,900 --> 00:37:46,960
fundamentally the situation is such that drastic times call for drastic measures.
432
00:37:47,620 --> 00:37:54,200
And every smart person that I know, that I respect in their forecast, whether it be
433
00:37:54,200 --> 00:37:58,440
Lynn Alden, who's saying nothing stops this train, whether it be Ray Dalio, who's saying
434
00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:03,520
we're at the end of a long-term debt cycle, there's plenty of different analysts that
435
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:04,780
are all saying the same thing.
436
00:38:04,780 --> 00:38:16,520
And it's the same thing that I saw working on the Hill, which is we are locked into a structural set of problems that we will not be able to diffuse using standard measures.
437
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:40,200
Right now, the incentives are such that given the time horizon of members, they're on short cycles. And these problems of increasing spending are on very long time horizons that we need to think outside the box on what is a really radical solution to this.
438
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:56,220
And I think there's been lots of great modeling that shows one of the only ways to defuse this bomb, one of the only ways to truly solve this is you take an outsized bet on an emerging paradigm, right?
439
00:38:56,220 --> 00:39:05,460
This is a tale that America has seen over and over with either the Louisiana Purchase or the acquisition of California or the acquisition of Alaska.
440
00:39:06,420 --> 00:39:20,880
And this is a time, a tale as old as time, that America is the type of country that sees the future before it happens, recognizes resources that will be important, and gets a huge windfall off of them.
441
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:42,480
And the reality is that our finances, our structural set of incentives have us in a bad position, a really bad position. And there is not an obvious solution. Except for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is literally the only thing that I can think of that can diffuse this bomb.
442
00:39:42,480 --> 00:40:02,920
Now, maybe artificial intelligence will have an impact unclear, but Bitcoin is, I believe, through just the economic physics of it, going to continue to outcompete other stores of value, other capital assets, and will obsolete many other types of money.
443
00:40:03,420 --> 00:40:08,040
And in that process, it will become this new global store of value.
444
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:13,100
and one way America can get out of this is by getting there first.
445
00:40:14,260 --> 00:40:22,040
And so I think that that is the decision that we ultimately landed on is we can't just do nothing.
446
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:26,700
If we do nothing and we just hope that someone down the line is going to fix it,
447
00:40:26,700 --> 00:40:31,460
then the problem is going to continue to compound and no one is going to actually have a solution.
448
00:40:32,860 --> 00:40:36,040
And this is something that's been talked about a lot,
449
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:42,060
But I think that that's an important part of the Bitcoin conversation is we need to do it sooner rather than later.
450
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:47,140
When we proposed the Bitcoin reserve, the price was, what, $50,000?
451
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:50,220
It's gotten twice as expensive in a couple of months.
452
00:40:51,900 --> 00:40:53,980
So time is of the essence here.
453
00:40:53,980 --> 00:41:01,940
and I think it's really the only option we have on the table
454
00:41:01,940 --> 00:41:06,360
is to recognize this and think about how we start incorporating it
455
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:11,880
as a release valve for a lot of the problems and mismanagement
456
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:15,700
that both sides of the aisle, you know, this is not a partisan thing.
457
00:41:15,700 --> 00:41:23,240
This is mismanagement that has happened just structurally since 1971, right?
458
00:41:23,980 --> 00:41:29,020
Yeah. And it's, as an American too, it would be incredibly encouraging, especially as we approach
459
00:41:29,020 --> 00:41:34,980
the 250th birthday of this great nation. If we were to act bold, think out of the box, be creative,
460
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:41,820
really reinvigorate that American spirit that I still truly believe lives in the bellies of many
461
00:41:41,820 --> 00:41:46,600
individual Americans out there, myself included. Let's act bold. Let's do it. And you mentioned
462
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:53,000
AI, maybe we get this productivity explosion that really helps us figure out things economically,
463
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:55,180
but then you're going to have some job issues
464
00:41:55,180 --> 00:41:56,220
that that does manifest.
465
00:41:56,320 --> 00:41:58,320
You have to deal with those with money printing.
466
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:01,580
But even if you believe that AI is the Hail Mary,
467
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:04,280
considering the energy part of that equation,
468
00:42:04,420 --> 00:42:05,460
Bitcoin has to play a part
469
00:42:05,460 --> 00:42:07,220
because you're going to need to expand generation.
470
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:12,200
The AI data centers need constant consumption
471
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:13,980
of the electricity that's being produced
472
00:42:13,980 --> 00:42:16,820
and you're going to need some demand response there.
473
00:42:17,060 --> 00:42:21,180
And I believe we're beginning to see this become recognized,
474
00:42:21,180 --> 00:42:25,980
actually particularly from this administration chris wright i think he's talked about this ferk
475
00:42:25,980 --> 00:42:32,540
came out with uh i believe a bulletin a couple weeks ago really leaning into demand response and
476
00:42:32,540 --> 00:42:39,980
loosely alluding to the fact that bitcoin miners have a role to play here um and i think that's
477
00:42:39,980 --> 00:42:45,260
just bringing this back to the debt situation nothing stops the strain the structural
478
00:42:45,260 --> 00:42:48,540
issues that exist this is something that should invigorate and
479
00:42:48,540 --> 00:42:54,420
i would hope engender a lot of optimism on the hill it's like oh we've been talking about
480
00:42:54,420 --> 00:43:00,840
the whether social security the debt issue um the bailout to the banks whatever it may be my whole
481
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:10,640
life and there really hasn't been many solutions other than feigning um or wanting to balance the
482
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:14,460
budget, which is never going to happen just due to the structural issues to raise the
483
00:43:14,460 --> 00:43:17,060
social security retirement age limit.
484
00:43:17,060 --> 00:43:24,420
It's all been sort of dinks and dunks trying to minutely change different inputs into a
485
00:43:24,420 --> 00:43:25,900
function that is not working.
486
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:31,120
And here you have this external variable that can enter the equation and really add some
487
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:33,420
positive momentum towards a solution.
488
00:43:34,240 --> 00:43:37,840
Yeah, I think that it will definitely be a forcing function for change.
489
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:45,460
In terms of how AI interacts with the structural fiscal problems we have, still unclear.
490
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:50,180
You know, the vast majority of our mandatory spending comes from payroll taxes.
491
00:43:50,940 --> 00:43:58,520
You know, a lot of money that comes from Social Security is ultimately paid into by how many people are employed.
492
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:04,140
And if there is some sort of job displacement, that could actually speed up some of the timelines here.
493
00:44:04,140 --> 00:44:10,100
I think there will be massive productivity gains, but hard to know how that plays into it.
494
00:44:10,660 --> 00:44:19,860
And if that moves the timeline up for how quickly some of these longer term picking time bombs have to go.
495
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:26,560
Does that mean that corporate real estate will be impacted more because more sort of digital workers are working?
496
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:33,800
Does that mean less people are paying into the payroll system and that means Social Security, you know, goes bust sooner rather than later?
497
00:44:34,140 --> 00:45:02,480
And just this year, they moved up the timeline on when they expect that Social Security will start to run out, which got moved up by a year. And it's already less than 10 years away. Right. So really hard to know what the impact will be. I do think that Bitcoin will be a part of it, part of the AI revolution, however you want to frame it, which is digitally native agents, digitally native economics is going to look to digital money.
498
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:07,240
and they're obviously going to want something that's like Bitcoin.
499
00:45:07,540 --> 00:45:09,140
They're going to want something that's programmable,
500
00:45:09,280 --> 00:45:11,840
something that they can transact in freely.
501
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:13,240
It's a bearer instrument.
502
00:45:13,980 --> 00:45:15,320
It's a bearer instrument.
503
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:20,560
Nick Szabo talks a lot about the mental transaction cost,
504
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:23,660
that Bitcoin might be programmable,
505
00:45:23,780 --> 00:45:25,840
we might be able to send millions of transactions
506
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:27,700
per minute over the Lightning Network,
507
00:45:27,700 --> 00:45:30,920
but you and I mentally, we don't have that capacity.
508
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:39,860
Right. Paying 10 cents for a piece of data or something is just it has its own mental costs that are separate from the cost of the transaction.
509
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:47,560
AIs do not have that problem. They can make a million transactions per second for a million years and not think twice about it.
510
00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:57,220
Right. So that's a really interesting thought to imagine in an economy where the mental transaction cost part of it are no longer there.
511
00:45:57,220 --> 00:46:00,780
And we're going to see something like Bitcoin become a lot more attractive.
512
00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:01,800
in that scenario too.
513
00:46:02,340 --> 00:46:02,460
Yeah.
514
00:46:03,180 --> 00:46:06,200
And so shifting toward,
515
00:46:06,300 --> 00:46:08,940
I mean, we've been really discussing
516
00:46:08,940 --> 00:46:10,340
solutions-oriented things,
517
00:46:10,380 --> 00:46:12,400
but getting more granular with it
518
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:14,020
in terms of acquiring the Bitcoin.
519
00:46:14,240 --> 00:46:17,400
One of the proposals that came out
520
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:19,360
of the Bitcoin Policy Institute earlier this year
521
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:21,640
was the idea of BitBonds.
522
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:25,680
And this is something that I think
523
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:27,360
is a good way to do it.
524
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:28,380
There are many people who say,
525
00:46:28,540 --> 00:46:29,840
BitBonds won't work.
526
00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:32,700
why would you buy a BitBond? We could just buy Bitcoin.
527
00:46:32,700 --> 00:46:36,640
Why would you leave potential upside returns on the table
528
00:46:36,640 --> 00:46:42,340
and feed the government monies so that they can expand their debt?
529
00:46:42,340 --> 00:46:43,840
But as we were discussing over coffee,
530
00:46:43,840 --> 00:47:00,400
we beginning to see products like a BitBond emerge in the private sector particularly via MicroStrategy and its preferred offerings that really give me the confidence that BitBonds could be a solution and a way to accumulate
531
00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:03,080
a strategic reserve at the federal level.
532
00:47:03,660 --> 00:47:07,880
Yeah, I think that this is something that we're going to see mature over time, certainly.
533
00:47:08,420 --> 00:47:11,580
But the innovation always starts in the private sector, right?
534
00:47:11,980 --> 00:47:15,960
And we are seeing the emergence of these digital credit instruments.
535
00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:26,640
We're seeing the emergence of building out what the risk curve looks like when you have Bitcoin as the driving monetary asset, and then you're layering financial products on top of that.
536
00:47:27,080 --> 00:47:40,900
And strategy, I think, is doing a fantastic job of illustrating that once you realize Bitcoin is this monetary asset at the base of it, that you can build all of these really interesting products on top of that.
537
00:47:40,900 --> 00:47:48,240
and the US government is in a very similar economic position, right? They have all of this
538
00:47:48,240 --> 00:47:53,300
credit that they have all this debt that they have to offer to the public, right? So they're
539
00:47:53,300 --> 00:48:02,160
looking for how do they keep interest rates down? How do we sell these large offerings to the public
540
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:08,980
and finance our deficits? And I think that the private sector is demonstrating that by blending
541
00:48:08,980 --> 00:48:15,660
Bitcoin into existing instruments, you can actually create novel products that benefit
542
00:48:15,660 --> 00:48:21,640
both the borrower and the purchaser, right?
543
00:48:21,860 --> 00:48:27,100
Because ultimately you're able to offer a better product to the market.
544
00:48:27,820 --> 00:48:34,420
And I don't know exactly what the terms of those instruments could look like, but I think
545
00:48:34,420 --> 00:48:41,880
the BitBond's proposal is one example of saying, look, if you were to blend Bitcoin into a standard
546
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:49,240
treasury offering, then you could have the purchaser become interested by this Bitcoin upside.
547
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:56,720
And they're able to offer the borrower much better terms because they're more interested in this
548
00:48:56,720 --> 00:49:05,040
upside. Right. And so you can sort of align the interest of both the borrower and the purchaser
549
00:49:05,040 --> 00:49:11,340
through Bitcoin. And I think that that is an example of of how the U.S. government should be
550
00:49:11,340 --> 00:49:16,480
thinking. It's great that we're tweeting about Bitcoin, tweeting about the resilience of the
551
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:24,060
network. But where we're at now is we need to think creatively about how do we align and how
552
00:49:24,060 --> 00:49:29,760
do we put Bitcoin into these existing tools that we have and build that into the toolbox
553
00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:34,380
and sort of take some of those private sector innovations and think about it at a federal
554
00:49:34,380 --> 00:49:40,420
level? I think that is something that would be a very, very worthwhile endeavor. It's,
555
00:49:40,420 --> 00:49:46,040
you know, part of what we're working on at Bitcoin Policy Institute is helping those in
556
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:49,580
government think through how do you blend Bitcoin into your tool set?
557
00:49:49,580 --> 00:50:01,460
All right, let's steel man this. Considering the polarized nature of politics in the United States right now, how practical is it to get any of this implemented, do you think?
558
00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:16,440
Well, I think that goes back to the educational piece. So I guess it probably would be best to keep going through the history of the SBR, right? Because it's a great case of showing how you can start to build momentum for a concept.
559
00:50:16,440 --> 00:50:33,760
So we put it out there in 24 and there were no co-sponsors. There was no house companion. There was no one that wanted to get on board with this idea. And it was really just us saying, hey, we think this is important.
560
00:50:33,760 --> 00:50:36,800
and over that period of time
561
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:39,420
Senator Lummis is talking to her colleagues
562
00:50:39,420 --> 00:50:42,340
on the staff level I'm meeting with people
563
00:50:42,340 --> 00:50:46,200
explaining Bitcoin to them, explaining why Bitcoin is going to be this important
564
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:47,260
savings technology
565
00:50:47,260 --> 00:50:51,940
and over the course of 6-7 months
566
00:50:51,940 --> 00:50:54,540
we roll around to 2025
567
00:50:54,540 --> 00:50:55,840
to the new Congress
568
00:50:55,840 --> 00:51:00,940
and by just talking to people and meeting with them several times
569
00:51:00,940 --> 00:51:03,340
getting them familiar with the concept of Bitcoin
570
00:51:03,340 --> 00:51:11,080
and what we're proposing, then we were able to, in just six months, reintroduce the bill in the
571
00:51:11,080 --> 00:51:17,260
new Congress. And this time we had five additional co-sponsors, a House companion, and the House
572
00:51:17,260 --> 00:51:24,360
companion had additional co-sponsors. And so it just kind of goes to show what the impact of
573
00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:32,840
education can have. So I think that where we're at now is something like the SBR, politically
574
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:41,820
palatable enough to happen tomorrow? No, it's not there. But I think that there's a very clear
575
00:51:41,820 --> 00:51:47,700
proof of concept that as Bitcoin continues to gain momentum, as institutional credibility
576
00:51:47,700 --> 00:51:53,620
continues to build, as people keep learning about it, and as Bitcoiners continue to show up to DC
577
00:51:53,620 --> 00:52:00,200
and talk about it and explain how important this is for our future, for our children's future,
578
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:04,460
then there is a very clear path to victory there, in my opinion.
579
00:52:05,100 --> 00:52:09,940
Well, on that note, in your mind, what's a reasonable timeline to expect an SBR to pass?
580
00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:15,380
So I think, you know, this was another sort of criticism that came about, right?
581
00:52:15,740 --> 00:52:18,620
Which was people said, well, this is never going to happen.
582
00:52:19,260 --> 00:52:21,040
It's never going to be politically palatable.
583
00:52:21,380 --> 00:52:24,980
And I think that those criticisms were probably accurate.
584
00:52:24,980 --> 00:52:32,260
You know, it is sort of a way to plant the flag in the ground to say, look, this is where we think good policy is.
585
00:52:33,080 --> 00:52:36,740
But realistically, it's not there politically.
586
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:42,700
But I do think that it is a way of getting the idea out there.
587
00:52:42,700 --> 00:53:11,140
And I would hope that in 2026, we could see something like a codification of the reserve, a bill that really tries to start thinking through and mandating that the administration come up with a plan, start mapping out the game theory, start planning contingency scenarios of what do we do if China acquires 2 million Bitcoin?
588
00:53:11,140 --> 00:53:35,020
What do we do if we're caught off guard? Right. We don't have any break glass plans right now. We don't have the right people that are coming up with strategic plans thinking about this. So my hope is that in 2026, and I think there probably is political will for this, is that we start formalizing things and that we start getting our plan together.
589
00:53:35,020 --> 00:53:38,380
and I think that
590
00:53:38,380 --> 00:53:40,680
the more Bitcoiners that come to the Hill
591
00:53:40,680 --> 00:53:42,200
the more people that are interested in this
592
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:43,200
and want to work on this
593
00:53:43,200 --> 00:53:45,120
the faster it'll happen
594
00:53:45,120 --> 00:53:46,700
I was telling you
595
00:53:46,700 --> 00:53:50,980
I came here in 2009
596
00:53:50,980 --> 00:53:52,620
it was the first time I came
597
00:53:52,620 --> 00:53:54,220
or second time I came for a field trip
598
00:53:54,220 --> 00:53:54,680
when I was younger
599
00:53:54,680 --> 00:53:55,880
2009 I was 18
600
00:53:55,880 --> 00:53:58,360
and I hadn't been back to the Hill
601
00:53:58,360 --> 00:54:00,240
until earlier this year
602
00:54:00,240 --> 00:54:03,100
when you guys had the BPI event
603
00:54:03,100 --> 00:54:05,120
and I've been here three times since.
604
00:54:05,240 --> 00:54:07,880
Just this year, I've been here four times.
605
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:08,500
It's important.
606
00:54:08,640 --> 00:54:10,500
We need to dramatically increase
607
00:54:10,500 --> 00:54:12,720
the Bitcoin or density of Washington, D.C.
608
00:54:13,460 --> 00:54:16,040
I think it is very, very important
609
00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:18,720
that if we want to be on the good timeline
610
00:54:18,720 --> 00:54:22,080
where Bitcoin wins and America wins,
611
00:54:22,580 --> 00:54:24,620
then that's going to mean a lot of Bitcoiners
612
00:54:24,620 --> 00:54:27,280
have to come to D.C. and do the rounds
613
00:54:27,280 --> 00:54:30,460
and talk and educate and make the pitch
614
00:54:30,460 --> 00:54:33,420
and explain how important this technology is.
615
00:54:33,700 --> 00:54:37,560
I completely agree that homesteading is awesome
616
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:40,940
and it would be great to be on a ranch in Montana somewhere
617
00:54:40,940 --> 00:54:42,940
and not have to think about any of this.
618
00:54:44,700 --> 00:54:48,680
But I do think that there is a lot of merit
619
00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:50,020
in actually coming and engaging.
620
00:54:50,800 --> 00:54:54,220
And the stakes are too high, truly.
621
00:54:54,480 --> 00:54:55,660
We've got to get this right.
622
00:54:56,280 --> 00:54:59,880
And if we just completely opt out of the political system,
623
00:55:00,460 --> 00:55:01,480
Power still exists.
624
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:04,920
And if we are not engaging with that,
625
00:55:05,040 --> 00:55:08,380
then we don't want that power used
626
00:55:08,380 --> 00:55:11,480
against Bitcoin or against us.
627
00:55:12,300 --> 00:55:16,240
So I do think it is important to work
628
00:55:16,240 --> 00:55:19,320
and understand how the system operates.
629
00:55:20,040 --> 00:55:21,560
You may not care about politics,
630
00:55:21,660 --> 00:55:23,020
but politics cares about you.
631
00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:23,500
So true.
632
00:55:23,640 --> 00:55:24,520
This is where we look into the camera.
633
00:55:24,520 --> 00:55:26,360
Yeah, it's so true.
634
00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:29,280
You have to play the game, I really think,
635
00:55:29,280 --> 00:55:32,140
because other people are always playing the game, right?
636
00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:33,980
Well, that's the point I want to bring up.
637
00:55:34,020 --> 00:55:36,260
It's very clear that the broader crypto industry
638
00:55:36,260 --> 00:55:37,580
is certainly playing the game
639
00:55:37,580 --> 00:55:39,760
and they have significant financial backing.
640
00:55:40,200 --> 00:55:41,540
And I think that's,
641
00:55:42,020 --> 00:55:43,920
it hasn't really been disconcerting or disheartening,
642
00:55:44,020 --> 00:55:46,580
but it's, you're outside looking into DC
643
00:55:46,580 --> 00:55:49,960
and you're seeing the crypto lobby really taking space.
644
00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:53,620
And when you had the sort of crypto brief press conference,
645
00:55:53,800 --> 00:55:59,260
you had to be, to not come off as uncouth yet,
646
00:55:59,280 --> 00:56:04,200
people who I don't think were putting the best foot forward for Bitcoin,
647
00:56:04,560 --> 00:56:09,340
but maybe they have some personal interest with the projects that they're
648
00:56:09,340 --> 00:56:13,800
involved with really getting the ear of this administration and many people on
649
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:17,160
the Hill. And it's because I think if we're being objective,
650
00:56:17,540 --> 00:56:21,220
the crypto industry has definitely been better at recognizing like, Hey,
651
00:56:21,220 --> 00:56:27,220
we need to put resources and capital behind lobbying and policy discussions on
652
00:56:27,220 --> 00:56:32,520
on the Hill where as Bitcoin until the Bitcoin Policy Institute really emerged was lacking in
653
00:56:32,520 --> 00:56:40,200
that department. Yeah, I think it is a demonstration that the political system is open to people coming
654
00:56:40,200 --> 00:56:47,180
in and engaging with it. And, you know, they've been able to get a lot of wins. We got the Genius
655
00:56:47,180 --> 00:56:53,780
Act passed. They're working on market structure now. It demonstrates proof of concept, again,
656
00:56:53,780 --> 00:57:02,720
that with time and resources and patience and just willingness to engage, that you can actually get
657
00:57:02,720 --> 00:57:10,980
wins for yourself, for your industry, out of the political process. But it takes a lot of time and
658
00:57:10,980 --> 00:57:17,320
effort. And that is what we're trying to do at BPI. And I guess like that might be a natural segue
659
00:57:17,320 --> 00:57:26,820
to sort of explain why I ended up leaving the Senate. So after working in the Senate for two
660
00:57:26,820 --> 00:57:33,800
years, it sort of became apparent to me that these outside groups are very effective at getting things
661
00:57:33,800 --> 00:57:42,520
done. And that as a single staffer, there's only so much impact you can have because it's sort of,
662
00:57:42,520 --> 00:57:47,860
this idealistic one guy versus the government,
663
00:57:48,060 --> 00:57:50,140
one guy trying to explain Bitcoin
664
00:57:50,140 --> 00:57:51,620
to the entire federal government.
665
00:57:54,220 --> 00:57:57,920
That was the reason I decided to make the change
666
00:57:57,920 --> 00:58:02,140
was we need a real organization, real heft.
667
00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:05,400
Bitcoin Policy Institute was the one that
668
00:58:05,400 --> 00:58:09,080
has been aligned and principles driven
669
00:58:09,080 --> 00:58:14,960
and sort of right from a forecasting perspective for my view.
670
00:58:17,220 --> 00:58:22,100
With that in mind, you guys, from my perspective,
671
00:58:22,240 --> 00:58:24,620
have really outpunched your weight class
672
00:58:24,620 --> 00:58:27,320
in terms of what VPI has been able to get done.
673
00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:30,660
Shout out to David, Grant, Matthew Pines,
674
00:58:30,660 --> 00:58:33,880
who is the position that you're sliding into,
675
00:58:33,960 --> 00:58:37,820
and everybody else, Zach, both Zach, Zach Shapiro, Zach Cohen,
676
00:58:37,820 --> 00:58:47,360
and many others at BPI, considering how small and it's a bit punk rock you guys have made a big
677
00:58:47,360 --> 00:58:54,720
impact. But now with you at the helm of strategy, what do we need to do from here on out? Or what
678
00:58:54,720 --> 00:59:03,020
does BPI need to do? Yeah, I had the same view, which was BPI is basically the honey badger of DC.
679
00:59:03,020 --> 00:59:09,160
You know, I said this, I think about this all the time, which is that Bitcoin is the superpower, right?
680
00:59:09,300 --> 00:59:18,980
That we might not have the resources or the organizational size that a lot of the traditional securities groups have or banking groups have.
681
00:59:19,840 --> 00:59:25,120
You know, there's all sorts of major, major organizations here in D.C.
682
00:59:25,120 --> 00:59:33,960
but BPI is uniquely positioned to be this sort of underdog that does punch well above its weight
683
00:59:33,960 --> 00:59:41,220
class because Bitcoin is such a powerful idea and that we know what's going to happen. And the more
684
00:59:41,220 --> 00:59:48,100
you talk about it, the more you're proven right. So we have an immense amount of credibility that's
685
00:59:48,100 --> 00:59:55,760
gained by just explaining Bitcoin patiently and then being proven right as the tides continue to
686
00:59:55,760 --> 01:00:01,020
shift, as Bitcoin continues to mature, as it continues to itself punch above its weight class.
687
01:00:02,240 --> 01:00:07,660
That is a superpower for BPI is that we can sort of see the future and explain it before it happens.
688
01:00:08,580 --> 01:00:16,020
So ultimately, the reason I decided to join was I was just really impressed. I met David by
689
01:00:16,020 --> 01:00:22,320
sort of accident, I was looking, I was trying to do an educational event for Hill staff.
690
01:00:22,660 --> 01:00:30,320
And I thought a good event could be, let's explain Bitcoin versus CBDCs and just sort of
691
01:00:30,320 --> 01:00:36,760
have one side explain Bitcoin and one side explain CBDCs and what they're trying to get at.
692
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:41,800
And David got recommended to me as someone to explain the Bitcoin side.
693
01:00:41,800 --> 01:00:49,400
so don't know what to expect I meet him and it turns out he's actually a very similar background
694
01:00:49,400 --> 01:00:58,780
to mine we were both debaters in high school and in the really crazy small world had the same debate
695
01:00:58,780 --> 01:01:03,520
coach he coached me at Wake Forest when I was in college and then he went to Alabama and coached
696
01:01:03,520 --> 01:01:09,300
David for high school so we had this like crazy crazy small world moment and that became the
697
01:01:09,300 --> 01:01:17,680
beginning of a great friendship. And I was consistently just impressed by how serious they
698
01:01:17,680 --> 01:01:23,740
were, that they understood the stakes. They had a very similar view that Bitcoin is important,
699
01:01:23,740 --> 01:01:30,580
that the ideals behind the network are so important. The promise of a free and open
700
01:01:30,580 --> 01:01:39,280
monetary system is just critical. But in order to achieve that, we have to make sure that smart
701
01:01:39,280 --> 01:01:44,540
smart aligned policymakers have tools at their disposal they're educated they understand the
702
01:01:44,540 --> 01:01:51,780
issues and um you know that was ultimately why i decided that bpi was sort of the right place to go
703
01:01:51,780 --> 01:01:58,320
they had the the depth of bench and the same outlook that i think is exactly what we need
704
01:01:58,320 --> 01:02:03,580
in bitcoin right now is that we're sort of going to the next phase we're going to the next phase
705
01:02:03,580 --> 01:02:08,680
We're going to the phase where Bitcoin really is seen as a world asset.
706
01:02:09,620 --> 01:02:11,300
And it's much more serious.
707
01:02:11,460 --> 01:02:14,180
We are not just a joke on the internet anymore.
708
01:02:14,600 --> 01:02:16,400
We mean serious business.
709
01:02:16,760 --> 01:02:24,860
And that means that we have to be prepared for serious threats and have to be able to
710
01:02:24,860 --> 01:02:29,240
professionalize and explain Bitcoin to the most important people in the world.
711
01:02:29,280 --> 01:02:34,620
and explain it to them in a way that they can understand it easily.
712
01:02:35,400 --> 01:02:38,940
Because, you know, everyone's very busy as well.
713
01:02:39,240 --> 01:02:41,060
So you've got to be quick and concise.
714
01:02:41,740 --> 01:02:44,700
But that's sort of where we landed,
715
01:02:44,700 --> 01:02:49,600
is that BPI is really the only organization positioned
716
01:02:49,600 --> 01:02:52,540
to set America up for success
717
01:02:52,540 --> 01:02:55,960
and guide America through the rise of Bitcoin.
718
01:02:57,080 --> 01:02:58,960
Well, moving forward, what does that look like mechanically?
719
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:14,760
Yeah. Well, mechanically, this is something that we're actively trying to figure out, right, is how can we take sort of what we've learned from working around the hill?
720
01:03:14,760 --> 01:03:25,980
I was on the hill for two years. How can we take those lessons and think about what are the major asymmetric moves we can make to have a big impact?
721
01:03:25,980 --> 01:03:31,320
I think huge lesson learned in just having people on the hill.
722
01:03:32,160 --> 01:03:34,280
So Senator Lummis is a Bitcoiner.
723
01:03:34,760 --> 01:03:35,560
I was a Bitcoiner.
724
01:03:36,100 --> 01:03:39,720
There's like a handful of other people on the hill that were interested in Bitcoin.
725
01:03:40,440 --> 01:03:54,480
And just those handful of people were able to have a major, I would say, paradigm shifting win from thinking about Bitcoin defensively to thinking about it offensively.
726
01:03:54,480 --> 01:04:02,280
right to seeing it as a good for America. Um, so with that, one of the first things that we're
727
01:04:02,280 --> 01:04:10,020
doing is a congressional fellowship program and, um, BPI will be able to fund subject matter expert
728
01:04:10,020 --> 01:04:17,400
Bitcoiners to go and work on Capitol Hill. So our first cohort will be in January. It'll be small,
729
01:04:17,400 --> 01:04:23,340
um, as we're just getting started, but, um, it's been crazy actually. I've just put out like a few
730
01:04:23,340 --> 01:04:28,840
tweets about it and my inbox is just flooded with super smart, talented Bitcoiners. They're
731
01:04:28,840 --> 01:04:35,420
working all over the country in different jobs, working in sales or marketing or on Wall Street
732
01:04:35,420 --> 01:04:41,380
or some of them are developers. I think it's really important that we get them here on the
733
01:04:41,380 --> 01:04:48,160
Hill and they can help explain what Bitcoin is, how it works, what good and bad policy looks like.
734
01:04:48,160 --> 01:04:50,760
We just need subject matter experts here.
735
01:04:51,360 --> 01:04:52,580
So that's one thing.
736
01:04:53,680 --> 01:05:02,720
Another thing is it is very common for senior staff to go through more rigorous explainers on policy.
737
01:05:03,680 --> 01:05:12,700
The key thing is there are committee staff that are responsible for determining a specific policy area.
738
01:05:12,840 --> 01:05:17,080
And those committee staff have a lot of say in what Congress takes up.
739
01:05:17,080 --> 01:05:19,280
and how issues are resolved.
740
01:05:20,100 --> 01:05:22,440
And so one of the other programs
741
01:05:22,440 --> 01:05:23,400
that we're going to be starting
742
01:05:23,400 --> 01:05:25,320
is a Satoshi Scholars program.
743
01:05:26,440 --> 01:05:28,720
This is basically a program
744
01:05:28,720 --> 01:05:32,780
that will educate senior members of committees,
745
01:05:33,480 --> 01:05:35,180
senior staff on committees
746
01:05:35,180 --> 01:05:37,060
on the basics of Bitcoin
747
01:05:37,060 --> 01:05:39,560
and basically be like an eight-week crash course
748
01:05:39,560 --> 01:05:42,340
to really get people up to speed
749
01:05:42,340 --> 01:05:44,820
because you can't learn Bitcoin in a 30-minute
750
01:05:44,820 --> 01:05:46,180
or even an hour-long setting.
751
01:05:46,180 --> 01:05:50,520
You know, you really to grok it deeply, it needs to be a multi-week session.
752
01:05:50,520 --> 01:06:01,760
And we want to really provide the resources to help the staff that want to learn, but just haven't made the time for it to really make it easy and accessible for them.
753
01:06:02,600 --> 01:06:07,160
You mentioned you had a flood of people reaching out after you announced it originally.
754
01:06:07,540 --> 01:06:13,620
But in your mind, what is the archetypal individual for this position?
755
01:06:13,620 --> 01:06:21,400
the archetypal well okay well um good question honestly they come in many shapes and sizes like
756
01:06:21,400 --> 01:06:26,220
i've i've there's lots of different types of bitcoiners uh there's people that are much more
757
01:06:26,220 --> 01:06:34,380
um on the developer side right they have spent time working on different bitcoin related projects
758
01:06:34,380 --> 01:06:39,760
they might have even made some submissions trying to work on core or something related maybe they've
759
01:06:39,760 --> 01:06:45,240
worked on wallet software. Or it could be someone who's not as technical like myself. I've never
760
01:06:45,240 --> 01:06:50,800
programmed, but I've done my 10,000 hours of Bitcoin podcast like everyone else. I've been
761
01:06:50,800 --> 01:06:58,420
in the trenches on X. I've been reading what all the plebs have to say. You can get a really good
762
01:06:58,420 --> 01:07:07,640
understanding of Bitcoin even without the technical side. So I think there is no one true
763
01:07:07,640 --> 01:07:13,180
perfect fit for this, but there are certain things that we look for, right?
764
01:07:14,460 --> 01:07:18,660
One of my favorite interview questions is, can you explain the difference between
765
01:07:18,660 --> 01:07:26,440
what a node does and what a Bitcoin miner does? That's a pretty straightforward answer. I think
766
01:07:26,440 --> 01:07:34,540
that probably there might be like three or four people in all of Capitol Hill that could answer
767
01:07:34,540 --> 01:07:41,140
that question like realistically um and it's a relatively simple question so you know that's the
768
01:07:41,140 --> 01:07:46,180
type of thing we're looking for is like do you understand what the network does how it operates
769
01:07:46,180 --> 01:07:53,860
why it's important um and there's a lot of different people that do so yeah you're out there
770
01:07:53,860 --> 01:07:58,060
you're interested we need you on the hill i never thought i'd be saying stuff like this
771
01:07:58,060 --> 01:08:03,720
yeah we were recording in my in my apartment in brooklyn six years ago you would have told me we'd
772
01:08:03,720 --> 01:08:10,020
be sitting in DC at the Rumble Studios talking about how we're going to affect Bitcoin related
773
01:08:10,020 --> 01:08:15,260
policy. I would have said you're nuts. Yeah. Even the concept of Bitcoin related policy was like,
774
01:08:15,320 --> 01:08:21,020
is there a Bitcoin related policy? I don't know. But it is true. If you're out there, freaks,
775
01:08:21,500 --> 01:08:28,080
we need more freaks in DC. We need more Bitcoiners here. Please come out. We're a great community
776
01:08:28,080 --> 01:08:32,540
here. We're opening up. There's the new PubKey. PubKey DC is going to be opening up.
777
01:08:33,720 --> 01:08:35,560
So we're going to have a Bitcoin embassy.
778
01:08:36,700 --> 01:08:39,680
And I do think it's very important to get involved
779
01:08:39,680 --> 01:08:46,820
and to sort of help DC see the beautiful orange light
780
01:08:46,820 --> 01:08:47,900
at the end of the tunnel.
781
01:08:50,520 --> 01:08:53,240
We've been talking a lot about how we get this right.
782
01:08:53,380 --> 01:08:56,160
In your mind, how does the US government get this wrong
783
01:08:56,160 --> 01:08:57,280
moving forward?
784
01:08:57,280 --> 01:09:01,540
What sort of foot guns are there on the horizon
785
01:09:01,540 --> 01:09:04,080
that the government could wander into.
786
01:09:04,600 --> 01:09:05,720
Yeah, getting it wrong.
787
01:09:08,280 --> 01:09:22,384
You know Bitcoin is inevitably going to win in my mind That just by its nature it will continue to outcompete How quickly that happens the exact path it takes hard to say
788
01:09:22,744 --> 01:09:26,024
But I think just by its nature, it's simply better money, right?
789
01:09:26,464 --> 01:09:33,504
So I think that getting it wrong would look like what other jurisdictions are considering, right?
790
01:09:34,664 --> 01:09:38,184
Something like an unrealized gains tax on Bitcoin
791
01:09:38,184 --> 01:09:42,244
or something where you are being adverse to Bitcoiners.
792
01:09:43,844 --> 01:09:47,444
At the end of the day, Bitcoiners are smart.
793
01:09:47,744 --> 01:09:49,664
They understand world events.
794
01:09:49,764 --> 01:09:51,484
They understand where they fit into things.
795
01:09:51,784 --> 01:09:53,984
They are very mobile, right?
796
01:09:54,524 --> 01:09:56,524
Capital flight is a major risk.
797
01:09:57,144 --> 01:10:01,104
And that if you're not passing pro-Bitcoin policy,
798
01:10:01,104 --> 01:10:04,764
if you're not treating Bitcoiners well,
799
01:10:04,764 --> 01:10:09,624
I do think there's a risk that they just up and leave to Dubai or, you know, somewhere else in the
800
01:10:09,624 --> 01:10:19,684
Middle East or a friendlier jurisdiction. Um, so that is, that would be my, my, uh, my worst case
801
01:10:19,684 --> 01:10:25,884
is just that, uh, people don't appreciate that Bitcoin is inevitable and they think that it is
802
01:10:25,884 --> 01:10:34,644
just something that you can sort of brush off. And, um, you know, we sort of accidentally make
803
01:10:34,644 --> 01:10:41,524
already a bad financial situation just that much worse as large portions of your capital base decide,
804
01:10:41,664 --> 01:10:45,444
you know what, we're going to just go to another jurisdiction. That would be worst case.
805
01:10:46,444 --> 01:10:56,444
I also think there is risk in trying to, you know, anything on the network side, trying to
806
01:10:56,444 --> 01:11:07,024
restrict, you know, mining or trying to see energy as a zero sum game. I mean, this goes back to what
807
01:11:07,024 --> 01:11:12,624
you were saying about AI, right? If we don't understand Bitcoin as a buyer of last resort
808
01:11:12,624 --> 01:11:19,604
for energy and instead see it as a zero sum game where if the Bitcoiners are using energy,
809
01:11:19,604 --> 01:11:25,164
then someone else is not, then I think that's also going to be bad. It will make our energy
810
01:11:25,164 --> 01:11:31,144
systems more fragile. It will prevent us from having the most cost competitive, probably AI
811
01:11:31,144 --> 01:11:37,004
systems. There's a lot of secondary consequences of that too. So, I mean, this is what we're
812
01:11:37,004 --> 01:11:43,924
constantly looking out for at BPI is making sure we're passing good pro Bitcoin policy
813
01:11:43,924 --> 01:11:50,844
and making the right decisions, but also it's a game of defense too. You can't lose sight of the
814
01:11:50,844 --> 01:11:58,604
fact that people that are adverse to Bitcoin are trying to think about, you know, how they want to,
815
01:11:58,604 --> 01:12:04,184
I don't know if they even want to harm the network, but, you know, there could easily be
816
01:12:04,184 --> 01:12:08,144
something that slips in where they think they're doing something good for, let's say, illicit
817
01:12:08,144 --> 01:12:16,844
finance, right? And they sort of accidentally, as collateral damage, hurt the network. So that's
818
01:12:16,844 --> 01:12:22,944
something that we're thinking about too yeah i think recently there was a memo or bulletin from
819
01:12:22,944 --> 01:12:29,064
the treasury department a lot of people looked at a lot of bitcoiners looked at like whoa what is
820
01:12:29,064 --> 01:12:37,124
this it was i think it was based out of the crypto brief which said we need to expand the patriot act
821
01:12:37,124 --> 01:12:44,764
to include this sixth condition that incorporates uh digital assets uh tokens or whatever they're
822
01:12:44,764 --> 01:12:47,304
being referred to these days.
823
01:12:47,684 --> 01:12:55,724
And from what I can tell, it was just some staffer at Treasury or somebody put out guidelines
824
01:12:55,724 --> 01:12:57,664
like, hey, maybe this is what we should do.
825
01:12:57,704 --> 01:13:02,344
And it was like, you can't use collaborative transactions, coin joins.
826
01:13:03,624 --> 01:13:07,304
If you're using multiple addresses, we're going to assume you're doing something nefarious.
827
01:13:07,304 --> 01:13:11,584
And many things about wallet software, particularly in any Bitcoiner.
828
01:13:11,584 --> 01:13:17,784
it's been in Bitcoin for long enough and actually uses it and does UTXO management. It's like,
829
01:13:17,864 --> 01:13:23,064
hey, these are best practices to preserve privacy and security of your private keys over the long
830
01:13:23,064 --> 01:13:27,604
term. You don't want to be reusing addresses. And the reason I bring this up is I think there was
831
01:13:27,604 --> 01:13:31,264
some pushback and many people, I've got some texts from people on the hill like, don't worry,
832
01:13:31,264 --> 01:13:36,764
we'll make sure we get this right. It's when you notice that bad policy is potentially going to get
833
01:13:36,764 --> 01:13:42,624
incorporated into something, whether that's guidelines from a department in the federal
834
01:13:42,624 --> 01:13:47,424
government or into a bill itself. If you speak up, I think we've seen this pretty consistently
835
01:13:47,424 --> 01:13:53,584
over the last few years, the Hill will react. So true. So true. This is another question that
836
01:13:53,584 --> 01:13:59,604
I ask when we're interviewing for the congressional fellowship. What is a UTXO? You know, it's a
837
01:13:59,604 --> 01:14:06,544
relatively simple concept. A lot of people aren't quite clear on it, but I think that goes to
838
01:14:06,544 --> 01:14:14,084
a perfect example, right? That as Bitcoiners, we understand UTXO management, we understand how the
839
01:14:14,084 --> 01:14:20,464
network operates, and that a lot of the things that can by some people be seen as nefarious activity
840
01:14:20,464 --> 01:14:26,684
are actually just proper management of block space or actually just proper management of your UTXOs.
841
01:14:26,964 --> 01:14:34,124
And having people that are technically inclined that can explain that clearly of exactly why that
842
01:14:34,124 --> 01:14:40,864
is necessary, why it is not evidence that you're a criminal or that it is some reason to think this
843
01:14:40,864 --> 01:14:49,844
person's guilty, but it's actually just proper hygiene for maintaining your coins and using the
844
01:14:49,844 --> 01:14:57,184
blockchain in a thoughtful way. That is a discussion that is just non-existent, non-existent on the
845
01:14:57,184 --> 01:15:03,644
hill. And so important that someone is getting that right because it goes to the difference
846
01:15:03,644 --> 01:15:09,904
between at face value. I totally understand why someone who's concerned about illicit finance or
847
01:15:09,904 --> 01:15:16,804
national security, I understand why they might think using multiple addresses. They haven't
848
01:15:16,804 --> 01:15:22,184
done the 10,000 hours of Bitcoin podcast. They're not in the weeds like we are. And so they can
849
01:15:22,184 --> 01:15:27,104
plausibly come up with an argument for why that's true. And it's important that we have smart Bitcoin
850
01:15:27,104 --> 01:15:34,124
that say, no, no, no, that's not what's happening there. And you can basically refute the FUD with
851
01:15:34,124 --> 01:15:40,724
basic understanding of the network. And what I found is coming through and providing that subject
852
01:15:40,724 --> 01:15:45,524
matter expertise, people are extremely receptive to that. It's just, they're not getting the other
853
01:15:45,524 --> 01:15:51,724
side. They're not. And, um, that's why it's important to engage. It's important to be here
854
01:15:51,724 --> 01:15:55,744
because they're not listening to the plebs on Twitter. I love the plebs on Twitter.
855
01:15:55,744 --> 01:16:07,328
They great they important but at the end of the day you have to come and speak the language and be there in person and explain it to them And I think there just a lot of dividends there
856
01:16:08,948 --> 01:16:14,748
To further massage the pitch that you're giving to Bitcoiners to come working to see,
857
01:16:14,828 --> 01:16:18,848
what's good about the city? Is there good food? Great food. Good nightlife? What's going on?
858
01:16:18,848 --> 01:16:21,848
Why come to DC? Why come to the city? It seems like they're cleaning it up.
859
01:16:21,848 --> 01:16:27,248
it's getting very clean. It's getting very hospitable. Um, there's great food. There will
860
01:16:27,248 --> 01:16:33,368
be really good food at pub key again, just to plug that. But, um, I think it's a beautiful city.
861
01:16:33,448 --> 01:16:40,328
It's one of America's great cities. Truly. Um, the architecture here, top notch, great museums.
862
01:16:41,048 --> 01:16:47,128
Um, I think that we've really lost beautiful architecture and DC is one of the few places
863
01:16:47,128 --> 01:16:48,748
that has it. It's very walkable.
864
01:16:49,288 --> 01:16:50,528
It's got a great layout.
865
01:16:51,548 --> 01:16:52,608
The metro system's...
866
01:16:52,608 --> 01:16:54,348
Quality of life-wise,
867
01:16:54,968 --> 01:16:55,768
it's tough to beat.
868
01:16:57,248 --> 01:16:59,108
I think that architecture is actually...
869
01:16:59,108 --> 01:17:01,128
This is something else. Another rabbit
870
01:17:01,128 --> 01:17:02,028
hole I went down
871
01:17:02,028 --> 01:17:05,048
since we last spoke.
872
01:17:05,148 --> 01:17:06,848
I had a big architecture phase.
873
01:17:08,488 --> 01:17:09,128
I think
874
01:17:09,128 --> 01:17:10,268
we all do once you find Bitcoin.
875
01:17:10,428 --> 01:17:12,188
It messed up architecture?
876
01:17:12,728 --> 01:17:14,768
Fiat architecture? This is terrible.
877
01:17:14,768 --> 01:17:19,868
right so um dc does not have fiat architecture for the most part it's got a lot of really good
878
01:17:19,868 --> 01:17:26,488
stuff um and that has a real impact on like your psychology and like your your lived environment
879
01:17:26,488 --> 01:17:34,688
really impacts like how you think and how you you know behave um like i think you know uh chuck
880
01:17:34,688 --> 01:17:40,848
maroon like strong yes yes yes yeah yeah um so dc is great for that it's actually got very wide
881
01:17:40,848 --> 01:17:45,408
sidewalks the buildings aren't very tall so you don't feel like they're towering over you
882
01:17:45,408 --> 01:17:52,148
lots of sunlight um it's a it's overlooked i think you hear a lot about austin you hear a lot about
883
01:17:52,148 --> 01:17:59,048
miami dc sort of slept on yep so i was philadelphia came from philadelphia had beautiful
884
01:17:59,048 --> 01:18:04,608
train experiences today 30th street station in philly beautiful they have this incredible
885
01:18:04,608 --> 01:18:07,628
statue in
886
01:18:07,628 --> 01:18:10,008
remembrance of World War II
887
01:18:10,008 --> 01:18:12,048
veterans
888
01:18:12,048 --> 01:18:12,788
who passed.
889
01:18:13,868 --> 01:18:16,048
Michael the Archangel picking somebody up.
890
01:18:17,048 --> 01:18:18,068
I forget if it was World War II
891
01:18:18,068 --> 01:18:19,648
veterans or people who built the train tracks.
892
01:18:19,728 --> 01:18:22,128
Whatever it may be. Beautiful, all-inspiring
893
01:18:22,128 --> 01:18:23,988
building. And then you get here
894
01:18:23,988 --> 01:18:25,888
at Union Station. Similarly, statues
895
01:18:25,888 --> 01:18:27,888
all over the place. Beautiful environment.
896
01:18:28,028 --> 01:18:30,008
I walked here to Rumble Studio
897
01:18:30,008 --> 01:18:32,188
from Union Station. Beautiful walk.
898
01:18:33,088 --> 01:18:33,228
Yeah.
899
01:18:33,868 --> 01:18:34,528
Union Station.
900
01:18:34,608 --> 01:18:40,328
great building. Another one of those, you know, classically inspired, inspired by Roman architecture.
901
01:18:40,328 --> 01:18:47,388
It's inspired by some of the baths over, um, in ancient Rome and, uh, just absolutely gorgeous.
902
01:18:47,668 --> 01:18:53,568
And, uh, we need to look, this is why we have to win. Okay. Freaks look, this is why we have to
903
01:18:53,568 --> 01:18:59,988
win. Okay. Because we need to go back to building beautiful things. We need to go back to a sound
904
01:18:59,988 --> 01:19:04,528
monetary system where we can have beautiful architecture, uh, where we have beautiful art,
905
01:19:04,528 --> 01:19:10,188
where, um, I, you know, I'm a huge believer in all of this. DC is sort of, sometimes I feel like
906
01:19:10,188 --> 01:19:15,908
when I'm walking around DC, it's like, I'm walking through the ruins of like an old civilization.
907
01:19:16,308 --> 01:19:23,068
You know, they have these great paintings, um, some great like pastoral landscapes of, uh,
908
01:19:23,068 --> 01:19:29,748
you know, a farmer like leading some cattle through the, uh, the Roman forum. And you can
909
01:19:29,748 --> 01:19:35,788
see like, uh, these great arches and stuff like poking out of the tops of the dirt. And, uh, it
910
01:19:35,788 --> 01:19:40,548
just has such this, such an interesting feel of like, ah, there was a once a great civilization
911
01:19:40,548 --> 01:19:46,388
here. Um, that's how I feel walking around DC. It's like, oh, we used to be able to do awesome
912
01:19:46,388 --> 01:19:52,948
stuff. Like we used to have these great, beautiful buildings and, and, um, you know, we need to
913
01:19:52,948 --> 01:19:57,328
bring that back well it's funny we're sort of flippantly going through this subject but i think
914
01:19:57,328 --> 01:20:03,728
it highlights something very important which is that there is still this disconnect that people
915
01:20:03,728 --> 01:20:09,468
do not realize that the monetary system affects all this and like part of our job as bitcoiners
916
01:20:09,468 --> 01:20:14,968
more importantly part of your job at bpi is to really get this message to people on the hill
917
01:20:14,968 --> 01:20:20,968
and really paint a broad brush particularly over the political spectrum we were talking about this
918
01:20:20,968 --> 01:20:25,628
over coffee like if you're if we're being objective about the state of politics in the
919
01:20:25,628 --> 01:20:31,408
united states right now hyper polarized and i was telling you i was just on what bitcoin did with
920
01:20:31,408 --> 01:20:36,768
american hodl eric case and a lot of the conversation was it looks like the two
921
01:20:36,768 --> 01:20:41,748
paths that are predominantly being talked about the united states right now like hardcore
922
01:20:41,748 --> 01:20:49,748
socialism from the left and strong man for lack of a better term fascism on the right not saying
923
01:20:49,748 --> 01:20:54,368
that Trump is a fashier or anything, but that's at least the framing that people have accepted
924
01:20:54,368 --> 01:20:59,248
as the two pass. And I think what we're doing with Bitcoin and really highlighting like, hey,
925
01:21:00,048 --> 01:21:04,408
we acknowledge that these problems exist for everybody across the spectrum and people on
926
01:21:04,408 --> 01:21:11,068
both ends of the spectrum, on the polar ends of the spectrum have very radical ways of doing this.
927
01:21:11,068 --> 01:21:17,708
And if we can just focus in on the money being broken, having an effect across the spectrum and
928
01:21:17,708 --> 01:21:24,508
work on and focus on fixing that, there is a sort of happier middle path that can appease everybody.
929
01:21:25,088 --> 01:21:29,948
Yeah, it's something that concerns me a lot. I mean, right now we're in a government shutdown.
930
01:21:30,848 --> 01:21:37,248
This will probably be one of the longest in history. And I think that we are still at the early
931
01:21:37,248 --> 01:21:45,068
stages of what's to come, right? You know, no one can predict the future, but we do know structurally
932
01:21:45,068 --> 01:21:52,068
we have this massive looming financial problems that are on the horizon. We know that Social
933
01:21:52,068 --> 01:21:59,728
Security is going to run out. We know that Medicare is going to run out. We know we're going to have
934
01:21:59,728 --> 01:22:08,408
these problems. And I do think that as the fiscal picture gets less bleak, as the sort of
935
01:22:08,408 --> 01:22:14,188
inequality picture gets worse, as affordability gets worse, as inflation continues to
936
01:22:14,188 --> 01:22:20,848
sort of slowly eat away at people's finances. They are increasingly turning to more radical
937
01:22:20,848 --> 01:22:28,428
political positions. And I do think that Bitcoin is, like I said, the one thing that can sort of,
938
01:22:28,668 --> 01:22:33,188
you can give it to them and be like, look, we can defuse the bomb, okay? You don't have to go
939
01:22:33,188 --> 01:22:38,308
down this path. We could just adopt a new monetary standard in a very peaceful manner.
940
01:22:38,888 --> 01:22:52,252
We can just be the first to embrace a new technology get a huge windfall off of that position ourselves well and hopefully we don have to tear each other apart I mean that is maybe I being naive or too optimistic
941
01:22:52,412 --> 01:22:57,012
but I think we have to try because I don't, you know,
942
01:22:57,132 --> 01:23:00,752
both sides are looking at the same thing.
943
01:23:00,912 --> 01:23:02,732
They're saying the system doesn't work for me.
944
01:23:03,312 --> 01:23:04,232
It's unaffordable.
945
01:23:04,632 --> 01:23:06,212
I'm getting nothing out of this.
946
01:23:06,212 --> 01:23:12,872
and what is for them is, you know,
947
01:23:12,952 --> 01:23:16,492
one side or the other going to be a more radical solution.
948
01:23:16,592 --> 01:23:17,872
That's where they're going to gravitate
949
01:23:17,872 --> 01:23:19,772
unless we do something.
950
01:23:20,152 --> 01:23:24,392
So, yeah, I think it ultimately is like on,
951
01:23:24,852 --> 01:23:27,832
like I think that we are responsible in some ways
952
01:23:27,832 --> 01:23:31,672
of being able to be the sane people in the room
953
01:23:31,672 --> 01:23:33,812
to say, look, there's a third path.
954
01:23:34,772 --> 01:23:35,712
Are you optimistic?
955
01:23:36,212 --> 01:23:47,452
I think you have to be. I think you have to be. Um, I am optimistic that, uh, there is a good chance
956
01:23:47,452 --> 01:23:57,152
that we like change the timeline. Right. Um, and you know, any risk of fixing the timeline is better
957
01:23:57,152 --> 01:24:05,292
than just resigning yourselves to, it's just going to get worse. Um, so I, I would say if I had
958
01:24:05,292 --> 01:24:11,932
thought about it before I went to the Senate, I was much more pessimistic. You know, I was wanting
959
01:24:11,932 --> 01:24:18,792
to go and learn how it worked. But it seemed like this overwhelming behemoth, you know, the federal
960
01:24:18,792 --> 01:24:26,812
government with millions of employees and all these people. I do think the white pill and all
961
01:24:26,812 --> 01:24:32,032
of it was you can actually have a much bigger impact than you expect, because the vast majority
962
01:24:32,032 --> 01:24:38,512
of people just don't know what they don't know. Maybe I'm repeating myself, but I do think that
963
01:24:38,512 --> 01:24:45,132
there is a lot, like if you are self-motivated, there's a lot of benefits to just agency,
964
01:24:45,472 --> 01:24:52,752
going out and doing stuff. You can just do things. And so I don't know, maybe I'm just,
965
01:24:52,852 --> 01:24:56,612
I am just sort of a relentless optimist. I will say that is just kind of in my nature
966
01:24:56,612 --> 01:24:58,712
is I'm not someone who gets down,
967
01:24:59,212 --> 01:25:03,032
but I see a pretty clear path to victory.
968
01:25:03,352 --> 01:25:05,032
We just have to have the resources
969
01:25:05,032 --> 01:25:07,272
and the people to make it happen.
970
01:25:08,692 --> 01:25:10,112
That's your call to action, Freaks.
971
01:25:12,612 --> 01:25:14,552
This has been an incredible catch-up.
972
01:25:14,652 --> 01:25:15,292
It's been six years,
973
01:25:15,432 --> 01:25:16,832
but maybe that was the perfect amount of time
974
01:25:16,832 --> 01:25:19,372
between the first episode and this conversation.
975
01:25:19,472 --> 01:25:20,092
A lot has happened.
976
01:25:20,092 --> 01:25:23,392
You've got some war stories to tell on the show.
977
01:25:23,652 --> 01:25:24,632
Some real war stories.
978
01:25:24,772 --> 01:25:26,232
Yeah, we'll catch up again in six years.
979
01:25:26,232 --> 01:25:34,132
How about that? I'll see you in 2031. No, but it's been long overdue. I've listened in
980
01:25:34,132 --> 01:25:41,192
routinely. I haven't, I haven't tuned out, but yeah, it was just, you know, undercover for a bit
981
01:25:41,192 --> 01:25:48,392
there. But, you know, we want to, you know, now that I'm at BPI, much more public, you know, want
982
01:25:48,392 --> 01:25:55,072
to be really talking a lot about the things we're doing and how we're seeing things on, on the Hill.
983
01:25:55,072 --> 01:26:00,972
and the executive and what we think the opportunities are.
984
01:26:01,452 --> 01:26:03,932
Well, thank you for your service.
985
01:26:04,072 --> 01:26:04,952
I mean that earnestly.
986
01:26:05,952 --> 01:26:07,832
Not only to this country, but as a Bitcoiner.
987
01:26:07,832 --> 01:26:11,512
I think there are many Bitcoiners out there
988
01:26:11,512 --> 01:26:13,852
who have sort of come to the space
989
01:26:13,852 --> 01:26:16,412
since you went behind the scenes
990
01:26:16,412 --> 01:26:19,212
and were completely unaware of who you were
991
01:26:19,212 --> 01:26:20,912
or the impact that you were having behind the scenes.
992
01:26:21,052 --> 01:26:22,972
And I just want to say I'm proud,
993
01:26:22,972 --> 01:26:25,872
having known you for almost 10 years now,
994
01:26:26,032 --> 01:26:31,152
seeing what you did while you were working for Senator Lomas
995
01:26:31,152 --> 01:26:33,012
and what you're doing now with BPI.
996
01:26:33,132 --> 01:26:35,012
I think it's very important work.
997
01:26:35,092 --> 01:26:36,592
And work, if I'm being honest with myself,
998
01:26:36,632 --> 01:26:40,852
that I thought was not worthwhile only a few years ago.
999
01:26:40,952 --> 01:26:43,132
But I think I've been wholly convinced,
1000
01:26:43,192 --> 01:26:45,472
and if you've been listening to the show for the last three years,
1001
01:26:45,472 --> 01:26:48,792
you know that I've had sort of a phase shift to recognizing
1002
01:26:48,792 --> 01:26:51,812
that even if you don't care about political power,
1003
01:26:51,912 --> 01:26:52,692
it cares about you.
1004
01:26:52,692 --> 01:26:53,972
and it's best to engage.
1005
01:26:54,252 --> 01:26:57,652
I think you're on the front lines of this very important engagement,
1006
01:26:57,792 --> 01:26:58,312
so thank you.
1007
01:26:58,752 --> 01:27:01,552
Thank you for putting out all the content.
1008
01:27:01,872 --> 01:27:05,512
I don't know how many hours of your content that I listened to
1009
01:27:05,512 --> 01:27:08,332
and helped charge me up as a Bitcoiner.
1010
01:27:09,812 --> 01:27:11,732
But no, it's really an honor.
1011
01:27:11,972 --> 01:27:13,552
I feel incredibly lucky.
1012
01:27:13,552 --> 01:27:16,212
It just was sort of circumstance of how it worked out.
1013
01:27:17,692 --> 01:27:22,412
But I see this as a dream job.
1014
01:27:22,692 --> 01:27:43,232
You know, my job is to pitch Bitcoin. That's really I can this is a job. Really, I can have this. So, you know, it's not like this, this awful, thankless work. It's really just like I get to be a Bitcoin or full time. I get to like I think that working for BPI is really the closest you can get to just working for Bitcoin.
1015
01:27:43,232 --> 01:27:48,792
obviously on the development side
1016
01:27:48,792 --> 01:27:50,852
that is certainly working for Bitcoin
1017
01:27:50,852 --> 01:27:54,912
but working for the network, working for the ideals
1018
01:27:54,912 --> 01:27:57,452
of what it represents, making sure that the promise
1019
01:27:57,452 --> 01:28:00,232
of what Bitcoin started as
1020
01:28:00,232 --> 01:28:04,692
is seen through, that it's fulfilled, that it doesn't stall out
1021
01:28:04,692 --> 01:28:07,272
or get co-opted. I do think that
1022
01:28:07,272 --> 01:28:11,032
working on policy is one of the
1023
01:28:11,032 --> 01:28:15,612
true ways that you can work for Bitcoin. So it's really an honor. Like I'm just so thankful every
1024
01:28:15,612 --> 01:28:23,092
day that I'm able to do it. And I was able to escape the fiat mines. You know, I was just,
1025
01:28:23,092 --> 01:28:29,052
I was just mining fiat for, for years on the corporate law side and just saw,
1026
01:28:30,132 --> 01:28:36,312
you know, it was like, you know, I mean, it wasn't, it was, it was fine. It wasn't awful,
1027
01:28:36,312 --> 01:28:38,572
but it wasn't deeply fulfilling.
1028
01:28:39,432 --> 01:28:40,272
You know, now I have,
1029
01:28:40,812 --> 01:28:42,532
and you probably feel the same way
1030
01:28:42,532 --> 01:28:45,252
with the stuff you put out and your content.
1031
01:28:45,252 --> 01:28:49,252
It's like, it is deeply, deeply satisfying
1032
01:28:49,812 --> 01:28:52,112
knowing that your work and energy
1033
01:28:52,112 --> 01:28:55,152
is going towards supporting Bitcoin
1034
01:28:55,152 --> 01:28:57,012
and supporting America, you know?
1035
01:28:57,152 --> 01:28:58,772
I think that's incredibly important.
1036
01:28:59,212 --> 01:29:01,492
So I just feel really lucky.
1037
01:29:01,992 --> 01:29:02,752
I really do.
1038
01:29:03,552 --> 01:29:05,992
I would not want to be doing anything else.
1039
01:29:06,312 --> 01:29:10,572
Yeah. And we're lucky to have you. And I do feel the same way. The fact that I was able to wake up
1040
01:29:10,572 --> 01:29:16,052
on a Monday morning, hop on a train, and this is my job sitting here with you talking about Bitcoin.
1041
01:29:16,052 --> 01:29:18,992
This is great. It's pretty sick. I'm not going to lie. Well, Connor,
1042
01:29:19,692 --> 01:29:25,132
we won't wait six years between this episode and the next one, but thank you. Thank you for your
1043
01:29:25,132 --> 01:29:29,792
time. Thank you for what you're doing. Yeah. Well, thank you, Marty. Let's go win. We're
1044
01:29:29,792 --> 01:29:31,492
going to win. Peace and love, freaks. We're going to win.