Bankless - The RFK Interview

Starting point is 00:00:03 Bankless Nation, we are here at ETH, Denver, where 20,000 investors, builders, and users of crypto have descended every single year to mingle. And one of those individuals is RFK Jr. RFK. What brings you to Ethereum Denver? Why are you here? What interests you? My presidential campaign is, you know, one of the priorities for us is transactional freedom. And promoting America as a hub for cryptocurrency.

Starting point is 00:00:33 cryptocurrency innovation. And, you know, as an alternative to rebuild the middle class in our country to end the war economy, fiat currency is the product of a war economy. It's the way that wars are financed. When wars used to be financed by gold, they would end when the gold ran out. Now they never end because we can just print money all the time. if we had cryptocurrency as a central part of our monetized economy, it would inject discipline into that process

Starting point is 00:01:11 and it would decrease the chances for war. It's a way to rebuild the middle class to provide an off-ramp from this monopolistic, globalized banking system. And that's critical for us. Jamie Diamond actually made a statement this week in which he said that the plan was for the regulatory agencies to obliterate Bitcoin. And that, you know, is a method of controlling all of us. And that in the Central Bank digital currencies and the end of analog currencies,

Starting point is 00:01:48 we ought to be moving in the other direction. During the Great Depression, there were over 3,000 local currencies in our country. And that is where we need to be moving back toward more currencies to rebuild the American middle class, not make them the slaves to the Fed. If elected president, how would you engage with the crypto industry? Crypto is becoming increasingly partisan in Capitol Hill. What would our relationship look like if you were president? You know, I'm going to have, I'm already talking to the top people in the crypto industry and about how do you do this? How do you make America the hub of crypto innovation?

Starting point is 00:02:29 How do you end the SEC's war on crypto? How do you encourage individual Americans across the board to own crypto to protect themselves as a hedge against inflation? And how do we unravel the Wall Street control of Main Street of the local economy? And when I get into the White House, I plan to bring in those people as advisors to figure out how are we going to make this, how are we going to make crypto as part of the American experience and part of the commitment to American in America for freedom. As the crypto industry, what advice do you have for us as to how we can make it easier to advocate for us in the world of politics? What can we do to make your job easier? Get involved in the political process. I put out the word.

Starting point is 00:03:23 You know, there's only one candidate who is pro-crypto. And that's me. President Biden, I don't even know if he's conversant with it, but his administration has been extraordinary hostile to it. The SEC has been trying to destroy crypto. The pressure on the banks to not accept crypto, the banks that are accepting it have been punished for it. all of the tools that they're using to try to destroy crypto and drive it out of this country.

Starting point is 00:03:52 And it's not good for our country. President Trump said earlier this week that when he was asked about crypto, he said, I believe in one currency and it's the dollar. So I don't think either of these candidates is a friend to crypto. I understand the importance of crypto. I understand that transactional freedom is as important as freedom of expression. And I learned that during the Ottawa trucking strikes. Over the last two years or so,

Starting point is 00:04:22 some of the regulations coming out of the SEC and really just the Biden administration as a whole has pushed a lot of energy and excitement about the crypto space offshore. Really, the pendulum has shifted towards the east in Asia and that has been where a lot of United States companies have had to move in order to do what they want to do in the crypto space.

Starting point is 00:04:43 What is your plan to bring all of that, just economy and business and jobs back onshore? That innovation is migrating offshore because of the hostility in the United States government. There's countries like Switzerland, like Portugal, like Belgium, like Belgium, Singapore, that have no – that treat crypto as a currency, which it ought to be treated as. It shouldn't be treated as a security. It shouldn't be taxed at every transaction. And I'm going to change that rule.

Starting point is 00:05:13 and I'm going to make this country the most crypto-friendly country in the world. Well, RFK, I really appreciate you coming to the place that we all converge on every single year, Ethereum Denver being in the trenches with us. So I really appreciate you just being shoulder to shoulder with the cryptocurrency industry here. Thank you for having me. Cheers. David, thank you.

Bankless - The RFK Interview

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