Bankless - Why Trump is Pro-Crypto | David Bailey

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

How in the world did Trump pivot to Pro-Crypto? David Bailey is the CEO and Cofounder of Bitcoin Media, which you might also know as Bitcoin Magazine He has just finished throwing the Bitcoin 2024 Conference, he’s been in Bitcoin since it’s inception and he’s now at the forefront of the world of politics where Bitcoin has been meaningfully intersecting with the Trump Administration. We talk mostly about Trump and his crypto policies. We then contrast it with Kamala Harris and the Democrats. And we finish with why David is so bullish on Bitcoin and why he has fallen in love with the idea of Bitcoin. ------ 🐡 PUFFER | CHECK OUT PUFFER UNIFI https://bankless.cc/PufferUnifi  ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://k.xyz/bankless-pod-q2    ⁠  🦄UNISWAP | BROWSER EXTENSION https://bankless.cc/uniswap  ⚖️ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM ⁠https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum  🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle    🌐 OBOL | STAKE ON DVs, SCALE ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/obol  🗣️TOKU | CRYPTO EMPLOYMENT  https://bankless.cc/toku  ------ ✨ Mint the episode on Zora ✨ https://zora.co/collect/zora:0x0c294913a7596b427add7dcbd6d7bbfc7338d53f/51?referrer=0x077Fe9e96Aa9b20Bd36F1C6290f54F8717C5674E  ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 6:51 Bitcoin 2024 10:43 Donald Trump 31:42 Trump’s Crypto Policies 47:44 Kamala Harris 54:26 Trump vs Kamala 1:01:15 The Bitcoin Idea 1:06:14 Closing & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES David Bailey https://x.com/DavidFBailey   Bitcoin Media https://b.tc/   ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures ⁠ 

I thought politics is where you go up and you figure out what the voters want and then you make promises to the voters that if you elect me, I'm going to achieve these things for you. And if you talk to the right part of the population and they make up a large enough percentage of the voter base, then you get elected. I thought that was like the whole point of an election. I don't know what else is it supposed to be. Welcome to Bankless. We explore the frontier of internet money and internet finance. Today on the show, we are hosting David Bailey of Bitcoin Media, Bitcoin Magazine fame. This is the organization that just finished throwing the Bitcoin 2024 conference. David has been with Bitcoin Media since its inception, so he knows a thing or two about everything in the world of Bitcoin. And he's also been at the forefront of the world of politics, where Bitcoin has been

meaningfully intersecting with the Trump administration. I think David Bailey is one of the closest individuals to the Trump administration and watch that relationship blossom into Donald Trump speaking at the Bitcoin Conference 24 for a solid 45 minutes. Before we get into the episode with David Bailey, a moment to talk about our friends and sponsors over at Puffer, who are introducing Puffer Unify. Unify is Puffer's based roll-up design that is tackling Ethereum's fragmentation and enhances user experience with synchronous composability and unified liquidity with the Ethereum. Puffer's Unify is unified with Ethereum. It's got fast transaction confirmations thanks to 100 millisecond pre-confirmations, and it's got native yield on the network, on your ETH powered by restaking. Restaking is where Puffer built their first platform using T-EEs for security. And now Puffer's Unify is scaling that security via its based roll-up architecture.

So if you are peaked by any of this, you can go to bankless. dot CC slash Puffer Unify. That's P-U-F-F-E-R, U-N-I-F-I. And if you're a developer, there is a form in the show notes, bankless. dot-ccccc-slachrbuffer builders so you can get started building on Puffer's Unify. Ryan, what did you think of this episode? Yeah, I thought it was interesting. I think my main objective for this episode was trying to figure out, like, how in the world Trump pivoted to pro-crypto, pro-crypto position very publicly, and how he found himself at a Bitcoin conference, spending 45 minutes, really saying all of the things that the crypto community, particularly the Bitcoin community, but just in general, the crypto community wanted to hear. Like, how did that happen? Because that's a massive transformation. That's like nothing that has ever happened in crypto before. And then, like, I wanted to hear if David thought, thought he was genuine in that.

Like he would keep these campaign promises if elected. And then also just like any takes on, okay, are you a single issue of voter? Like, what's the case for that? Do you think Kamala and the Democrats will pivot at some point? Or is that ship already sailed? Is it over? Like, how do you think about the game theory of all of this? So I feel like I got all of those questions answered in the body of this podcast.

Yeah, and I should be no surprise to the listener. But David Bailey is a very big Trump supporter. If you are watching this on YouTube, you'll notice his very big red hat. as make Bitcoin great again, which I think is just the perfect intersection between somebody who is very bullish on Bitcoin and also very bullish on Donald Trump. So this is also a peek into the brain of somebody who's bullish in both camps. So let's go ahead and get right into the episode with David Bailey from Bitcoin Media. But first, a moment to talk about some of these fantastic sponsors that make the show possible like Cracken, where at the end of this episode,

you are as equally bullish on Bitcoin as David is. You should buy it on Crackett. There's a link in the show notes to get started with Cracken today. If you want a crypto trading experience backed by world-class security and award-winning support teams, then head over to Cracken, one of the longest standing and most secure crypto platforms in the world. Cracken is on a journey to build a more accessible, inclusive, and fair financial system, making it simple and secure for everyone, everywhere to trade crypto. Cracken's intuitive trading tools are designed to grow with you, empowering you to make your first or your hundredth trade in just a few clicks. And there's an award-winning client support team available 24-7 to help you along the way, along with a whole

range of educational guides, articles, and videos. With products and features like Cracken Pro and Cracken NFT Marketplace and a seamless app to bring it all together, it's really the perfect place to get your complete crypto experience. So check out the simple, secure, and powerful way for everyone to trade crypto, whether you're a complete beginner or a seasoned pro. Go to crackin.com slash bank lists to see what crypto can be. Not investment advice, crypto trading involves risk of loss. The Uniswap extension is here. The self-custody wallet created by the most trusted team in DeFi Uniswap Labs, designed to make swapping feel This extension lives in your browser's sidebar, letting you swap, sign transactions, and send or receive crypto without ever losing your place on the internet.

Plus, with human readable transaction messages, you'll always know exactly what you're signing. Navigate a multi-chain world effortlessly with support for 11 chains like Ethereum mainnet, base, arbitrum, and optimism. No more chain switching or token importing. All your assets are right where you need them to be. The Uniswap extension is designed to level up your swapping experience with other Uniswap Labs products as well. Easily on board to the extension using the Uniswap mobile wallet to begin managing your assets across platforms and take advantage of smooth, seamless synergies with the Uniswap web app. So go and download the Uniswap extension today by clicking the link in the show notes. Just another way Uniswap is helping you swap smarter.

Launching a token? Don't let complex legal and tax issues slow you down. Toku provides specialized support to optimize your launch and ensure that you as a founder and your team and your investors get the most tax-efficient outcomes. The Toku team understands the crypto space inside and out and will ensure. your token launch is fully compliant while maximizing tax efficiency. Toku can connect you with the best attorneys if you need them to make sure that you have the best advice and Toku can help to optimize your taxes so you pay the least possible amount of taxes while still maintaining legal compliance. With Toku's guidance, you can concentrate on building

your company while Toku handles the logistics. Token launches don't have to be complicated. Talk to Toku today to get a free initial token valuation. Bankless Nation, I'm super stoked to introduce you to David Bailey, the CEO and co-founder of Bitcoin Media, which you might also know as Bitcoin Magazine, Bitcoin Media hosts the annual Bitcoin Conference every year, starting in 2019 in San Francisco, moving to Miami in the post-COVID era, and now this last year's Bitcoin Conference just concluded in Nashville. After being perhaps one of the most significant in real-life crypto events to have ever been held, especially with Donald Trump's 45-minute speech, about all the ways that he wants

to promote the Bitcoin industry. David, welcome to Bankless. Hey, thank you for having me on the show. Really excited to have this conversation. And I think we're just two weeks after Bitcoin, 2024, maybe three. I know that that's got to be probably the most busiest time in your life every single year whenever that comes around. But now that that's well in the rearview mirror, just thoughts, reflections, now that you've processed everything, like, give us your reflections upon the events that were. Yeah, I mean, I think generally speaking, it's the most successful show we've done.

It reminds me of Bitcoin 2021, which was where Bukaley announced Bitcoin legal tender. And so, like, the energy coming off of that event was just, like, through the roof and the ticket sales for the 2022 were huge. And it's pretty similar for this event. So the energy levels have been high. The momentum coming out of the conference has been all-time highs. I mean, we've heard from all sorts of interesting people and different nations and all sorts of stuff. I think the Trump momentum is just, like, love them or hate them, it's really hard to quantify how much it takes. he generates. And then, yeah, the ticket sales for 2025 are the highest, you know, we've ever had a year out from an event. So the feedback, survey feedback from attendees was that this is the best conference we've ever done. So I don't know. It felt new. But like, you know, when we did 2021, it was like our second conference we'd ever done. So it was like kind of a little bit of a shit show at the same time. This one, it had the scale and it had like the excitement, but also like our team knows what we're doing now. So anyway, we're very pleased with the conference overall.

And, you know, trying to kind of scope what the future of that event looks like. I think we can grow that conference into one of the biggest conferences in the world. And so that's the vision of where we want to take it, like a CES of money, you know, of Bitcoin. I mean, Bitcoin, it deserves to have the biggest conference in the world, you know? I mean, it's the biggest idea in the world. So next year in Vegas, I hope we can get to like 40,000, 50,000 people. and then, you know, we'll see where we can go from there. But, yeah, we want to just keep going bigger every year. Anyone who pays attention to the conference industry knows that the time to start planning

the next conference is right after the previous conference ends. So you're already alluding to like 2025 being planned. For 2024, when was it obvious that like politics was going to become such a big pillar of the actual content? Like how quickly, when did that happen? Do you remember? You know, I'd probably say the start of the year. And we jokingly have called the conference like the Bitcoin National Convention.

And then the timing of it, we got the timing just right. So where the conference landed in between the RNC and we have the DNC coming up in August. So like we had like fit right in between the two. And I think, you know, the Orange Party, as we're like, you know, colloquially calling it, like really is the embodiment of what I would say is like the idea is a libertarian party. except with money and a focus on winning and achieving like the goals that the libertarians had. So I kind of feel like in some ways Bitcoin killed the Libertarian Party because it just sucked all of the energy and enthusiasm out of it and kind of channeled it into this new community that got formed and created.

And so, yeah, I know the Bitcoin conference is like the home of the Orange Party. And, you know, it's very symbolic that we had the Orange Man himself, you know, crown it. we talk about that? So how did that come about, by the way? So how did you get Trump to speak at Bitcoin 2024? And it's like, by the way, it's just some context here too. What's crazy about this is how many weeks after the assassination attempt was this? It was two weeks. Two weeks after. Yeah. So I just can't imagine the logistics behind just like security of pulling this off. Anyway, just like, tell us about this. How did you get Donald Trump there and like, how did all this happen? So I have a friend who has a mutual relationship with someone who's in the Trump orbit.

I won't docks them here, but she was able to kind of open up the initial conversation. And then, you know, it was really a six-month process or maybe a four-month process of back and forth where, like, basically it started with us trying to get them for the conference. And then it was, like, very clear they didn't really know a lot about the topic or the industry or, you know, It was just a very rudimentary understanding. So you say they, you talk to, like, campaign people, just the people behind Trump sort of thing? Yeah. He has a core team, and his core team is a very small team.

And it's like they run that campaign like a startup. So, like, where, like, there might be, you know, hundreds of decision makers at, like, the Harris campaign. And there might be thousands of people that work there. At, like, you know, the Trump campaign, it is, like, 10 people that are, like, the core team. And then, like, the total app. Radis might be like it's less than 100 people. You know, maybe that's wrong, but it feels like it's less than 100 people at the Trump campaign. So yeah, so he runs a pretty lean operation, but yeah, we got connected into the campaign managers for Trump and kind of policy advisors. And, you know,

there's a variety of people around the Trump orbit that are pro-Bitcoin. The Trump family owns Bitcoin. So it wasn't like singularly our effort. You know, there was a lot of kind of people in the mix. But, you know, we kind of had to take charge of educating the campaign on the topic, educating the campaign on the political opportunity that existed, both in, like, votes and in dollars that could be raised. And then, you know, working with the campaign to highlight, like, what is the policy platform that they could take on that would excite the base and, like, turn out votes, but also was consistent and aligned with the president's political platform, which is really, you know, an American first conservative platform.

And so, you know, the cool thing about Bitcoin is that, you know, it's a technology, and you can explain it in a lot of different ways. And, you know, if somebody wanted to take what's the conservative case for the Internet and what's like, you know, the progressive case for the Internet, you could make both cases. And so Bitcoin's kind of the same way. And we were able to kind of put together a variety of policy items that we pitched them on and some of them they liked, some of them they didn't like, but they kind of picked what worked for them. So as we're kind of like making this incremental progress, it resulted in a meeting of Trump at Trump Tower.

And then from there, we put together a mining roundtable with all the Bitcoin miners in Mar-Lago. That went really well. And the president got pretty hyped about Bitcoin mining and how it fits into his energy platform, which he's going, he's like an energy diehard. He's an energy maxi, you could say. And so then from there, we were able to go through a very intense process of getting him signed on to the conference, which was a roller coaster in the itself. And then right when we got him signed on to the conference, there was the assassination attempt. So, you know, we were like, oh, shit, he's out. Like, this is over. And I was watching the video stream, like, live while it happened.

Wow. And so when he like drops, I'm like, oh shit. Like there's like, you know, I mean, it's a horrific situation, but I'm also the, from the business perspective of like, you know, oh, fuck. So yeah, yeah. So and then the guy's just a badass. He's an absolute badass. You know, when you spend time with him, he's extremely charismatic. It makes sense why he is like the presidential contender. He is very funny. And he is completely unrelenting. He would have it no other way. than to be able to tell an would-be assassin, fuck you, you're not going to affect me at all. And there's a lot of people in his orbit that after that happened, they're like, you need to go into a basement. Like, people coming to assassinate you from, like, they are trying to take you out. And, like, you know, in the polls at that moment, I mean, he was dominating. So it was like, okay, we just need to go into mode of, like, keep you alive all the way through the campaign. And he was like, no.

So, you know, he's the ultimate decision maker for his campaign. and, you know, he wanted to go on the path, not change a single thing about the schedule and just, like, fight. So a lot of respect for him on that. So as you and the Trump campaign were kind of like warming up to each other, you alluded to that meeting with North American Bitcoin miners. Maybe that was the moment where the campaign really got comfortable with speaking at the Bitcoin conference, just becoming Bitcoiner. Was that really the moment or were there other moments or well where there was a big inflection point where I would say it was like a domino effect of, like little wins that kept like leveling up to bigger wins. A Mar-a-Lago moment was a big moment of credibility just because it was like, okay, are these guys real? Is this industry real? And then

they're sitting down like the Bitcoin miners, like say what you want about mining. Like they're probably the most legit part of our industry. I mean, they're like running real facilities. They employ like lots of people doing like blue collar infrastructure jobs. Like it's like super impressive when you just hear the like the bare bone facts of how big these operations have done and how it's like truly affecting like American infrastructure, energy infrastructure. And the amount of dollars that we're talking about, I mean, they're doing billion dollar plus investments into American infrastructure. So it was probably the best part of the industry that could represent us just because it's a very real tangible part of the industry. And I mean, we're able to show

on chips and like bring some like show and tell type elements where we're like showing them how it works. And it was just very aligned with this platform. But we're doing more roundtables. I think right now we're working on putting together a roundtable with the president on the SEC. And, you know, we're not just, it's not a Bitcoin-only campaign here is Bitcoin and crypto. So we're working with our crypto counterparts. Like, we're aligned on 90% of the issues. And so, like, it's one team that's trying to, like, drive Trump to a successful presidency. And, yeah, we're working with everyone that we can who's aligned with us on that. So it's a Bitcoin and Crypto policy then. And, like, what are the wins for Trump. So you mentioned kind of energy infrastructure. That's kind of a win. Like what else? Right? Because

this is sort of a pivot for Trump from his 2020 campaign where crypto really didn't come up. You know, some would make the argument that there was some hostility towards crypto in the previous administration. Certainly secretary that treasury Steve Munnuchin on his way out, like did some nefarious things it seemed like. And Trump has some tweets in the past, which you could interpret as being like not pro-crypto, let's say, maybe anti-crypto. So I think to a lot of people, this seemed like a pivot in the direction of crypto, but also a very clear pivot. Like, Trump really is trying to be and wants to become the pro-crypto president and use it

as a, what do they call a wedge issue, right, in political parlance against now Harris, then Biden. So, like, what are the wins on the Trump campaign side for being pro-crypto? Yeah. Well, first on the pivot question, I would push back on that and just that that's kind of just the natural progression that anyone has when they get into Bitcoin or crypto. I mean, Michael Saylor's first tweet on the topic was shitting on Bitcoin. So, you know, the bigger, the cynic, like, you know, the harder they fall in love, so to speak. So, you know, we all start skeptical.

And then as we learn more, as we see it come back from the death time and time and time again, eventually you start to appreciate it from a different perspective. You know, Donald Trump also, So, you know, he created NFTs and ordinals, you know, that have sold amazingly well. He's sold real estate for Bitcoin. So the man has, like, issued his own NFT collection. He has, you know, accepted Bitcoin for payment, owns Bitcoin, you know, like in so many ways he was like set up to be the Bitcoin and crypto president. To your question about the wins that are out there.

So, you know, it is perfectly aligned with his energy policy. He very much has an American first. position, and he sees other countries like the Middle East, like China, who are approving their own ETFs, who have a large percentage of the mining infrastructure, who are maybe in secret, accumulating large positions of Bitcoin. And, you know, he is not a fan of chasing offshore American innovation into the hands of what he considers our adversaries. And so, or frenemies, maybe, I don't know what the right political term is. So he sees an opportunity here to, ensure that the next Silicon Valley is built in America. And, you know, he looks at Bitcoin and,

you know, his campaign looks at Bitcoin as, you know, initially there was like, okay, is this something that could negatively affect the dollar? Now, you know, as they've come to appreciate it more, it's like if anything, Bitcoin gives longevity to the dollar. It's like, you know, gold didn't disrupt the U.S. dollar. In fact, the best thing that ever happened for the American dollar was for gold, all the central banks of the world, to custody their gold in the United States. So I think the imagery of a digital Fort Knox that is custodying Bitcoin and digital assets in the United States resonated, I guess, with the president. And then, you know, I think he's also, he's an entrepreneur. And so he's very shrewd about seeing opportunity where others

don't. And so I think he came to appreciate how big of a constituency Bitcoin and crypto now represent, which it's huge in the United States. Even if you take, like, you know, let's take the numbers that are out there and we give them a 50% haircut because they're, you know, we're giving the most favorable numbers. It's still a huge number. And so, you know, Trump is someone who bases his political priorities also off of the crowd, like off of like what he gets feedback on, which I think is like a very natural kind of old school political. Like it's not, he doesn't go out and do polling per se. It's like he brings up an idea. He mentions a topic, and if a lot of people respond really positively to it, then he, like, says it more.

And he kind of faces it off of like, okay, I have 100 conversations in a day. You know, if 30 of them are about this, then this is something that a lot of people care about. And so when he started talking about Bitcoin and crypto, a lot of people started approaching him about it. And so he was, like, kind of taken back by how popular this had gotten as a topic. It's the same maybe with, like, you know, no tax on tips. You know, he says that. Maybe you just like throwing that out there as an idea. People respond really positively to it.

It's like, okay, no tags up tips. That's the policy. So I think it's the same for, you know, crypto and Bitcoin. And, you know, in his own words, like, he thinks that like our voting constituency is as big or bigger than gun owners or evangelical Christians. And he thinks we're, you know, as passion or more passionate than those constituencies. So when you think about how big of a topic is guns in the United States, how big of a topic is, you know, abortion in the United States, those are like two of the defining

political battle lines between the parties. And so, you know, if he sees our constituency of a similar size and scale, then our issues should consume as much oxygen as those other issues, which I think is like a pretty staggering view to take on our industry. I mean, we're so far away from, you know, what your view on Bitcoin mining is being like at the same level of, like, what the nation thinks about, you know, gun rights in America. So, yeah. One line that popped out to me during the Trump speech at Bitcoin 20204 was the high IQ crowd quip.

Do you know where that, how that got into his brain? What was this for people who didn't see that part? He called everyone in the audience, high IQ. It was a high IQ, like, an audience or something like this. He just called everyone, like, listening high IQ. Do you know where he got that idea from? No, I don't. I think it's just because, like, the people in his orbit that are talking about.

talking to him about this topic. Like, we're so passionate and we know so much about this topic. And it's such a, what's the word? Esoteric. It's just, oh, it's just, oh, yeah. Yeah, it's esoteric. It's like, okay, let's, like, explain Bitcoin. And it's like, okay, let's start with, like, the invention of, like, gold, you know,

and, like, t-shell. You know, and it's just like, what the fuck? So, yeah, it's an esoteric topic. And we're so passionate about it that lets you engage you, like, won't let you disengage. You were like locked in, you know? So, yeah, yeah. I think that's where it came from.

I actually haven't heard the speech. I need to go listen to the speech because, like, I was backstage listening to it. And the tension backstage was so like, like, like, Secret Service, I'm sure, like looking at you. Oh, no, you know, there was an hour-long delay before it started because somebody, like snuck through security. And they're having, I don't know if you all know this story. No, I don't. We don't know the story. I can tell those stories.

It's pretty funny. this guy named Jordi Montez, who's a lightning developer, was caught on camera sneaking past Secret Service. And, you know, of course, as soon as he sneaks past, they have, like, the photo of them and everything. What do you mean? What does that look like? He's just, like, dodged the metal detector going in or something?

Yeah, he was able to, like, whisk in through the, you know how the exit? Were you at the conference? No, I can make it. Guys. Dude. Damn. I'm sorry. Ryan never ever goes to any conference ever, so it's actually only my bad.

Yeah, it's actually David Hoffman. It's got to give me a... No big deal, ground. You're only trying to make history there. So there was like an exit-only area that you could come out. And after we did a roundtable downstairs with some people from the industry with the president, and they got like whisked up to the, you know, it was like a pretty far walk. And so we like had them escorted up into the facilities because basically like to get into the room,

there was a max capacity. And then when they closed the doors, like they were closed. And so they're coming in through like the exit effectively. And somebody just saw the opportunity to jump in the crowd with them. There's like 30 of them and just go in with them. And so that's how it happened. And once they found out. So this one guy delayed the speech by now.

Yeah. So once he got in and they were trying to find him in the crowd when we were like, Jordi Montez, like, please come to the exit. They're like pulling up like a camera footage from the facility of like what this guy has been doing. And evidently he had like a lighter with them that he didn't want. confiscated from security, and so he hit it in the building. And so they see him, like, hiding something small in the building, like, okay, you know, like, obviously this guy's got a bomb or something. And then they, like, identify, they detain them. They were able to get them. And then they, like,

go and check his room, his hotel room. And he has, like, a backpack full, like, one change of clothes in a backpack and, like, like, a bunch of cash or something. And so it's like, okay, every, like, this guy's a terrorist, like, read a lot, like, flag is being, like, going off right now. And backstage, the security is like so tense that like, I'm pretty sure, like, if you just, like, jumped, like, too, like, suddenly, you just be fucking shot. Like, right there. Backstage. Like, it was very intense. So, yeah, the tension was pretty strong backstage. And so, like, I only heard, like, part of it. And I'm, like, dealing with different, like, things that are unfolding. But then every time the crowd is, like, roars with some, like,

massive applause. And I'm like, okay, well, what just happened? And people are telling me the soundbite. So I haven't heard the whole speech yet, but I've heard the highlights of the speech, you could say. It's funny. One of the big parts of the speech was the Gary Gensler comment. I think that was probably the loudest one. And this conversation actually went around in some Ethereum circles where some of the most hardcore bitcoins don't really care about any of the SEC shenanigans as it relates to anything below Bitcoin because like, what do they care? But then seeing like the very loud. We definitely care. There's a lot of issues that Gary Ginsler screwing the Bitcoin community

over on. Like what? Like he's blocked the, I mean. IPOs of a bunch of different companies. He's blocked, you know, if you are a public company, you want to buy Bitcoin and you need issue some sort of disclosures, they wait out the disclosure period for the maximum amount of time, 90 days. Like, they low down all sorts of public market activity for our industry. They've blocked M&A activity. They've blocked all the SPACs that were supposed to happen. You know, we had to sue them over the ETF approval. So, you know, all sorts of stuff. What did you say about Gensler? for again,

he's going to fire him. He's just basically, I'm going to fire Gensler and the crowd goes wild. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was one of those things

where you watched him have like a learning moment in real time where he was actually taken aback about like how loud the crowd got. And so he just like stopped and like set it. Exactly.

He just stopped and like set it a second time. No, I was hoping he was just going to be like, Gary Ginsler, you're fired, but he didn't go like, well, apprentice on him.

But, you know, it was like, yeah, Like, there was all sorts of things that he walked away from the conference, like, really surprised by. That was definitely one of them. He walked away, I think, being kind of blown away by how many people were there and how much energy there was in the room. I mean, this was like electric.

I mean, that's really the only way to describe it. And there were so many people. I mean, it was the overflow rooms were packed. I mean, literally every stage was packed out people listening to this. We had 22,000 people there. And when he got there and we did the roundtable, it's not like it was just like, you're Joe Schmoe. Yeah, there was like, we had lots of Joe Schmo's, but it was like lots of billionaires, lots of billionaires and billionaires that he knew. We had this roundtable, I won't

say any of the participants' names, but like, he was surprised by multiple people who had joined the roundtable. And he's like, oh, you're into this. And he's like, yeah, I'm into this really big, Mr. President. It's like, wow, you're into this. It was like, yeah, I'm into a huge. And he was like, just kind of bewildered. So he walked away from the conference. just like, I think very impressed with the industry as a whole that this is something that, you know, people that he trusts really believe in. It's filled full of young people, very passionate people, and that it's gotten quite large and successful. And, you know, he wants to be a part of it. Yeah, I got to imagine as he's like looking out at the crowd, it's like a different

type of crowd than come to like his regular political events. Right. I mean, you probably don't have a lightning developer, you know, of the type that get busted by the Secret Service, you know, come to a typical Trump campaign rally. So you look out and it's like, just different faces than you typically see. I imagine it skews younger. I imagine it skews, like, I don't know, I don't know if you can delineate who's kind of like nerdy tech person, but I'm sure it skews in that direction as well. So I'm sure his spidey senses are just like tingling. Like, oh, wow, this is new. I didn't know about this cohort that I can go reach. Like one of the other things he said during his speech, David, was about building out a strategic reserve of Bitcoin,

actually. And I don't know, I mean, there was a Lumas speech given, Senator Lumas, who also talked about this in an actual legislative bill. And then there was RFK Jr. who talked, and he had an actual amount of Bitcoin that he planned to buy. It was like... DCA plan. Escalated to as much as 5% of total supply or something. So I don't know, you know, Michael Saylor might need to beat the U.S. government to that if that comes to fruition. But Trump had to take two. I think it was mainly around at least keeping the Bitcoin that... It was 20%. It was 20%. Okay. So... which is how much of the gold we have, which is a good intellectual basis for how much Bitcoin we should own. But it's also kind of shocking that America has 20% of the gold.

That is shocking. So to be clear, though, Trump in his speech, what did you say? 20% of Bitcoin supply? Trump didn't say that. I'm saying RFK. RFK did. Okay. Trump said basically we should keep what we have in the least, right? And build out a Bitcoin strategic reserve. I don't know if he gave more specific numbers. And I expect him to expand upon that topic at some point in time down the road with how much America should have and what it should look like, but he was relatively broad strokes in his beach in Nashville. New projects are coming online to the Mantle Layer 2 every single week.

Why is this happening? Maybe it's because Mantle has been on the frontier of Layer 2 design architecture since it first started building Mantle DA, powered by technology from EigenDA. Maybe it's because users are coming onto the Mantle Layer 2 to capture some of the highest yields available in Defi and to automatically receive the points and tokens being accrued by the $3 billion

Mantle Treasury in the Mantle Reward Station. Maybe it's because the Mantle team is one of the most helpful teams to build with giving you grants, liquidity support,

and venture partners to help bootstrap your Mantle application. Maybe it's all of these reasons all put together. So if you're a dev and you want to build on one of the best foundations

in crypto, or you're a user looking to claim some ownership on Mantle's Defi apps, click the link in the show notes to getting started with Mantle. The Obol Collective

is up and running and is maybe one of the most important collectives that you've never heard of. OBLE is bringing distributed validators, or DVs, to the Ethereum staking stack. Distributed validators allow multiple parties of people running multiple nodes to create a single virtual Ethereum validator. Together, this makes participating in Ethereum consensus more accessible, more affordable, and more inclusive. It is a strict improvement to the Ethereum staking tech stack.

With collaboration from Lido, Etherfi, EigenLayer, and 50 other entities, and thousands of individuals, the Obal Collective is working to scale and decentralize Ethereum using DECD. And now you can get involved, introducing the OBLE contributions program. Visit obel.org slash bankless to stake on DVs, either through a partner staking protocol or at home. Earn access to future governance and ownership in OBLE while contributing to retroactive funding for projects that are actively decentralizing Ethereum. This is your opportunity to secure inclusion in one of the most important projects working to scale Ethereum's foundation for future growth.

Visit obel.org slash bankless to get started. That's obo-b-o-l.org slash bankless. Arbitrum is the leading Ethereum scaling solution that is home to hundreds of decentralized applications. Arbitrum's technology allows you to interact with Ethereum at scale with low fees and faster transactions. Arbitrum has the leading defy ecosystem, strong infrastructure options, flourishing NFTs, and is quickly becoming the web-free gaming hub. Explore the ecosystem at portal.arbitrum.com. Are you looking to permissionlessly launch your own Arbitrum orbit chain? Arbitrum orbit allows anyone to utilize Arbitrum's secure scaling technology to build your own orbit chain, giving you access to interoperable, customizable permissions with dedicated throughput.

Whether you are a developer, an enterprise, or a user, Arbitrum orbit lets you take your project to new heights. All of these technologies leverage the security and decentralization of Ethereum. Experience Web3 development the way it was always meant to be. Secure, fast, cheap, and friction-free. Visit arbitram.com.io and get your journey started in one of the largest Ethereum communities. So this goes to the question, David, like, so we're crypto people, right? Bitcoin people. like we don't trust authority. We don't traditionally trust politicians. Like I think famously crypto is kind of stayed out of politics maybe to our detriment for a long time. You can't trust them,

right? I don't know how many crypto people even participate in elections or vote, but like sort of jaded about the whole topic. You definitely can't trust politicians. So I fully agree with that. Okay. So let's talk about this. How likely is Trump to keep these campaign promises or like some portion of these campaign promises? How do you think about that? It's proportional to the amount of impact that we as voters, as we as a constituency make in the election. So the bigger of an impact we make, the bigger of a deciding factor we are, the greater the likelihood of the scope of promises are kept and expanded upon. So, you know, it's like some of the stuff that's easy, I think he's definitely going to do, like commuting Ross Ulbric's sentence, I think that happens

day one. I have no doubt. I'll be shocked if it doesn't happen, like, right away. And he's got an amazing feedback from donors, from voters on that topic. That was a huge win for him, and very surprising that it took him to say that. I don't know who the constituency, who's on the other side, be like, no, we want Ross kept in jail for the rest of his life. I don't know who voting block is. You know, the bigger stuff that's more complicated, it's not that he doesn't intend to make those things happen, is that the more complicated the thing is, the more participants that come into the equation, and then it's all about priorities. Like, not everything can be done.

So what are you prioritizing? And so to prioritize one thing over another thing, you have to weigh the political scale of, like, what matters more. And so, you know, an example of this is like, you know, he made a big promise to evangelical Christians that he was going to put in judges that would, as Supreme Court judges, that would return abortion issues to the state level. Okay, like, that was a big promise. That's not an easy thing to do.

But the evangelical Christian contingency is so large and so significant and important for any political coalition to be formed that he delivered on that promise for them. So likewise, like, you know, it's not like we're asking for him to put in Supreme Court justices that are going to guarantee, you know, your right to run your own node, you know, like, asking for a strategic reserve is actually much smaller. ask than that. It's something more commensurate with maybe like establishing Space Force, which was a signature policy item that he got done. I think at Digital Fort Knox, you know, in time, people will look back on that and be like, wow, that was an obvious thing that needed to happen.

And when you look at the cost of what he was suggesting doing, even buying a million Bitcoins, if you look at the cost of buying a million bitcoins, I think a million bitcoins today would cost you 70 billion? No, 60 billion. It'd be a steal at 60 billion. So, you know, when you look at like Space Force, I think Space Force's annual budget is like 40 billion a year, a year. And that's like money spent. That's not like, you know, whereas when you're buying Bitcoin, you're like just putting it into a different asset. So I think it's a very plausible thing to get done. But like, where we rank in the priority stack totally depends on like how many votes we turn out in November and how many dollars we raise as an industry into, you know, a political lobby.

And so, okay, that's kind of the input. How much crypto kind of shows up for this particular political candidate, which is Trump, right? It gives him political capital in the bank account to spend during his presidency. He has to pick which issues to do it. And there are very cost-effective issues like freeing Ross would be one. I'd imagine firing Gary Gensler would be like pretty freaking free. It costs like nothing, right? I think that was already on the agenda before he realized we liked it.

Yeah, okay. So that probably gets done, right? Just calling off the dogs in the administrative state and their attack on crypto. I'm sure that gets done. And maybe it's a little harder to get something like, you know, Bitcoin as a reserve for the dollar or something like this or for StryG reserves. Why do you need Bitcoin on DJT, the truth socials balance sheet? Because that will really help align everyone. But yeah, no, I think you're describing it perfectly well.

Like, that's exactly right. So, David, at times during the weekly roll-up, which is our. Friday news episode topics like we've been talking about have come up. And I've described you as like an advisor to the Trump campaigns and their crypto policy. I don't even know if that's actually accurate. Like, I think the vibe is right. Is there like maybe you just had a relationship with the Trump campaign post Bitcoin 2024? Is there like a formal engagement? Are you like a formal advisor or is it just like a vibe? Like what's the deal here? I don't know. I'm like a what do you call it a token advisor where you know, you just get an allocation but you don't actually, you know, sign it.

I would say advisor is the appropriate term at this point. I think we're figuring out where we go from here with the Trump campaign. You know, the president's establishing a working group for the industry. We really want to see him be elected and fulfill on his campaign promises. And we also think that there's a lot more to come. There's a lot more that can be achieved with Trump. And so if we can deliver for him, I think he'll deliver for us. And so, yeah, I think informal advisor is an appropriate.

title. David, what do you think of people who kind of dismiss this? So they see, you know, Trump's pro-crypto reactions, like the quotes are real, him showing up at crypto conferences. No presidential nominee has ever done that. No one of that rank in U.S. politics has ever done that. Not only did he do that, he did that two weeks after an assassination attempt where, like, it took, it was higher stakes for him to show up in person anywhere. People see all of this. Some people see all of this and say, it's a politician. He's just pandering. What do you do? with that take, that all of this is just like pandering. I guess I'm getting to use what politics is supposed to be. I mean, I thought politics is

where you go up and you figure out what the voters want and then you make promises to the voters that if you elect me, I'm going to achieve these things for you. And if you talk to the right part of the population and they make up a large enough percentage of the voter base, then you get elected. I thought that was like the whole point of an election. I don't know what else it's supposed to be. I've said there. That makes sense. Basically, the entire political project is pandering in order to. solicit coalitions of voters. Well, there's illegitimate and legitimate pandering, I guess.

Yeah, legitimate pandering is they say what you like and illegitimate pandering and they say what you don't like, you know? I mean, I think, you know, people who would accuse him of pandering, I think are people who are probably of a different political affiliation and are probably upset to see someone that they dislike winning so much support from our industry, and they're trying to work through, you know, cognitive dissidents around that topic.

And so they kind of explain away his participation in working with us is like, oh, it's all fake, when they don't sit there and put any sort of self-reflection on maybe all the things that the politician you do like, you know, tells you, is also all fake. And maybe the whole political system is all fake. And it's just a process of, you know, different constituencies expressing themselves. And those that have the most influence and voice ultimately rise to the top. I mean, I think that's the dynamics of what politics is. It's a messy thing. And, you know, I think what you want in a politician is a politician that makes promises and then delivers on the promises. And I think, you know, Donald Trump, like,

people say all sorts of things about Donald Trump. I actually think if you look at his track record, he has a great track record of delivering on campaign promises, way better than the average politician. And, you know, things where people are like, you're never going to deliver on Space Force. You're never going to deliver on building the wall or you're never going to deliver on rewriting NAFTA. You're never going to deliver on tearing up, like, you know, the, I mean, he did so many things that people thought once he did them, like, were insane to do. But like, he said he was going to do them and he did them. So you were asking a question earlier that I think is, you hit on in a little bit, but we didn't talk about it, which was like, as Bitcoin people,

as crypto people, like, you know, we don't trust the political system. Like, we got into creating money, separating money in state. And is this like a sacrifice of that idea? Absolutely not. It's not any compromising of that idea. In fact, like Donald's, Trump saying that he likes Bitcoin has zero effect on Bitcoin the technology whatsoever. Like, zero effect. Like, the only thing that it does is it changes the political environment in which a subset of users of that technology exist and it accelerates the timeline for that technology to be adopted in that jurisdiction.

That's it. And everything else is meaningless. Like, it has zero effect on the technology. So, like, I actually don't understand. and why we would not play this game, why we would not engage in the political process, because it's like, what do we have to lose? Oh, we like, maybe promises get made that don't get delivered to us, boo-hoo. You know, like, so what if that happens? Like, it's better for us to try through a political process to achieve our ends and fail than it is to not participate

at all and definitely fail. That's definitely been the take that we've had in general about, like, encouragement of bankless listeners in the crypto community to get involved in politics. And because, like, if the U.S. is anti-crypto, crypto will be totally fine. Bitcoin will be fine. Theorem will be fine. But the U.S. might not be. Right? We might not. So it's like, it's kind of like if you're in a country and you live in, you actually care about that country, you're sort of voting to help the U.S., right? Is the technology just going to be a big deal? And do you want your country missing out on this? And also, it's not just a technology. It's about values that are written in our Constitution as well. It's about like free speech and property. rights, and that's being eroded in the digital realm, too. And so basically, if you care about America, you should be pro-crypto, is a take we've had. Even if you don't care about America, it's even bigger than America. Because whatever America does, it creates a reaction. Yep. So, you know, if American presidential candidates are talking about endorsing Bitcoin as a

strategic asset in the United States, then every country in the world hears that. You know, like if America's making a move into a certain industry, every other country is evaluating their own domestic priorities and saying, well, what are we doing about Bitcoin? What are we doing about crypto? Because the United States is going to run away with this if we don't do something. So it actually creates, even if you don't care about American domestic reality or what it's like for American bitcoins and crypto holders, what happens here reverberates throughout the entire global market.

One last story out of Bitcoin 2024 that I want to bring up was how close was Kamala actually coming to speaking at Bitcoin 2024? How real was that? Real? but I can't describe it as close because, you know, we never talked to her directly ourselves. And there was a lot of, let's say, there's a lot of different people, I think, in her orbit. And the power structure of that orbit is not clear. Like, it's not clear who's the shot caller and who's not.

And so one person can say something, and that doesn't mean that someone else agrees with it. And it's not clear which of those people actually is, like, calling the shots or whatever. So I think it was maybe, I won't say to her credit, but like there was a lot of, let's say, chaos in the week of her kind of taking over from Biden. And so, you know, I can't say that she got on the phone with us and told us no, she wasn't going to do it. But I can say that there are people in her core team who said that and stopped it. Would she have been welcome, David? You know, I haven't spent a lot of time on that question because it never came to be. Would she have been welcomed?

Like, we welcome all political groups. We had Democrats at the conference that spoke. We had independents at the conference that spoke. Like, we hope one day to have the leading Democratic presidential nominee speak. But at the same time, you know, what we don't want to do is have someone come and deceive our industry about their support and, you know, be actively fucking over. over our industry and then pretend that that's not the case and Mia Coppa and use that as a platform to take away momentum from her political competitor when, you know, what we need is like, we need this to be a decisive election for this issue to become a bipartisan. And if we allow it to

get muddied with someone making kind of false claims of support when they're like actively running the administration, I mean, she's like in charge. I don't know. I don't think that's really a positive thing. Now, if she wanted to have like a political, master class. What she should have done is like, you know, she should have showed up to the conference with like Ross Ulbricht with her and like he should have like, you know, had Biden call Gary Gensler to Washington to let him know that he's being dismissed. Live stream, the firing of Gary Gensler. And like if she had shown up to Nashville like that, everybody would have been like, oh shit, like you have like our full and undivided attention. This is interesting. So it's not that,

you know, like I want Bitcoin. Bitcoin will be. bipartisan issue. Crypto will be a bipartisan issue in time. But we can't let someone who's actively in charge, like, just, like, do a Zoom call. And it's like, okay, you know, it's all Gucci now. Everything is equal between the two parties. Sorry. Yeah. But as conference organizers, you would have had her is what you're saying, David. I can imagine unless she came to the table with, like, something incredibly audacious by the standards of, like, politicians, like, I'm firing Gary Gensler, or here's, you know, like, we're going to free Ross under, you know, like the Biden administration or something today. Yeah.

I would imagine that the reception from the crowd would have been, it would have been tough. It would have been booze. It would have been friendly territory. Fire, Gensler. Like, I can imagine chance like this going on. All of this, though, culminates in a discussion, I think we've seen you play out because I think there's probably some listeners who are, you know, like maybe never Trumpers who are listening to this or skew, like Democrat or something like this, not single issue voters on crypto. let's say, and they're really uncomfortable with this idea in crypto that we have to kind of, quote unquote, pick a side. What's your take on that, David? Do you think we have to pick a side?

No, we're not picking aside. We're single issue voters. I mean, that's the thing. We're single issue voters. That's what we care about. And if one side wants to cater to our single issue, then they're going to win our votes. It's that simple. And it's like, if you want to win our votes, you need to also, like if the other side wants to win our votes, it's super simple. The formula is super simple, just cater to the things we care about. That's it. So, you know, they can't be like, hey, well, we shouldn't have to cater to the things we care about and we expect you to also vote for us anyway. It's like, what is that? Like, I don't know if you understand how that's a defensible argument. So, you know, I think, like my personal opinion is like Trump wins this

election. Like, we spank the Democrats. Our industry shows up with millions of votes for one party and tens and tens of millions of dollars for that party. There is fresh leadership that comes into the Democratic Party to pick up the pieces after losing this election. And that fresh leadership looks at this issue, and they're saying, what are we doing on this issue? Like, this is a voter base that is actually skews liberal. It's a voter base that's young and tech savvy

and in general is progressive on a lot of issues. Like, this should be a clean, clear win for us. Let's change the political positioning of our party, just like the Republicans change their political positioning on the topic. And this issue no longer is a partisan issue. And then it'll be like, okay, well, whoever wins our single issue votes is who's the best candidate, who promises the most stuff. And so, you know, I think, like Democrats as a whole, the Democratic Party is not anti-evangelical Christians. You know, the Democratic Party is not anti-guns.

Like, you know, like there might be parts of it that are anti-guns. But, you know, Bernie Sanders last night checked, well, like, she's. show you his shotgun that he uses to go and hunt with. So I think that this as a topic will become bipartisan only when it's made clear that being anti-Bitcoin and anti-crypto is just not a viable political position. And, you know, I tweeted some of the other day. It's like, like, there's not an anti-internet, like political party. You know, it's just not viable. Maybe there was, like, one election. And then, like, once that just became clear, like, that's just not a winning solution. The internet's bipartisan. So I think Bitcoin and crypto will be the same. I think that,

I mean, the Democrats have certainly pivoted from the 90s where they were very pro-internet, pro-innovation. So were the Republicans. It was just bipartisan, non-partisan issue to be like internet supportive. Of course you were. Like, do you not care about the U.S. economy? Any politician who didn't care about those issues, it was suicide. What about for some people who hear you make that case and say, yeah, but David, what if he loses, man? You're putting all your eggs in that basket. So if Trump loses, now have we burned the bridges with the Democrat Party, with all of the rhetoric up into the election, kind of all of the political donations and investments. And now we're Fubar, man, because we've got,

you know, Kamala Harris as president, and we've just allied with her enemy. Yeah, well, you know, first off, we need to win. Okay. It's like, we need to win. And now we, like, we need to win as an industry. But, you know, my generally answer to that would be we were already Fubar. We were already fucked. You know, They were already coming at us hard. And, you know, are they going to come at us harder now if she wins after Trump speaking at the conference and us raising a little bit of money for them? Maybe a little bit harder.

But, I mean, there's not a lot more that they can do over what they were already doing. I mean, take Operation Choke Point up another notch, you know? I mean, so, you know, it's a possibility that there are things that maybe they wouldn't have prioritized coming after us and maybe they prioritize it a little bit more. more. But I think that we were already on a very bad path with the political establishment, specifically on the Democratic Party side. And we needed to change the dynamic. And we've changed it. And so now, like, we have, like, we could sue for peace, you know, now. And we could probably get some consolation prizes or something like that. Like, we could probably get some, like,

you know, pity stuff from the Democratic Party. I don't think that that's the play. And I think we need to go all in on making the biggest possible impact in the election dynamic. And then we need to capture the data as much as possible around how big of an impact we made. And then we need to sell that impact for every future election that happens. This is how much of an impact we made. This is how many people we turned out. This is how many dollars that we raised. And if you want this unlocked for your political campaign, you need to align yourself with us. And it doesn't matter if you're Democrat or Republican. I do think that there's also a lot of work that needs to be done on developing the progressive talking coins for Bitcoin, which there is a strong

progressive case, but like it's not told enough. And I think that those talking points need to be made because a Democrat is not going to support Bitcoin in the same way that Donald Trump supports Bitcoin. And so, like, we need to make it brand safe for them, if that makes sense. It does make sense. Yeah, you know, bankless our podcast. We're just open to conversations with any pro-cropro-Crypto Canada. We're having Rokana on the episode. we've had a number of Republicans on the podcast here lately. We're having Rokana on the episode. Rose done an amazing job. Yeah. I mean, yeah. All right, so here's the thing, David. I'm a little bit surprised about, and I want to know if you're kind of equally surprised. Biden, of course,

anti-crypto agenda did not really, you know, say anything meaningfully different. He was kind of like asleep at the wheel or whatever. Harris had an opportunity to kind of rejuvenate the party. And there's this like free real estate here. So what Trump has demonstrated, I think, in the eyes of everyone being like kind of shifting to pro-crypto is that there's don't nation, there's donor money, and there's also energy, voter appetite, and energy on this issue of crypto. And there are, there's some number, which Trump believes is big, of, you know, single issue voters with respect to crypto. It's basically, like David and I have called it, it's free real estate, man. If you're a politician, you're trying to build a coalition,

you're trying to get elected, right? And the only thing that Democrats would actually have to do to nullify this wedge issue that the Republicans have helped, like, create and have exposed here is just to do some positive things for crypto. And it's not that political, do something, won't say something at least, right? And the crypto industry could be, but those are just words. They're not even speaking the words. I mean, ideally we want Gary Gensler, you're like out of office. We need a complete 180. We need this embedded in policy. Here's what I'm doing day one. We need all of the things. And they're doing nothing. It's been radio silent so far. And if you're just like game theorizing, aren't you trying to win? Like it feels like an

easy issue to just be pro-crypto. Why is this so difficult? You know, that's a great question. And I think the longer they go silent on the topic, the bigger the middle finger is that they're making to us. And, you know, like, Joe Biden does not have an opinion on crypto. Like, Joe Biden doesn't even know what this is. Yeah. It is really, like, Elizabeth Warren has monopolized the Democratic Party's position on financial topics. And she has led them completely astray. And I think that Kamala not saying anything is a signal that the Warren camp is still in control. And I think that that's a problem for us. And, you know, I think someone asked Warren about like a Democrat pivot.

And she was like, I don't see the Democratic Party pivoting to support. She brought up Sandbag been freed or something. I saw this quote, right? Yeah, like criminals and tax evaders and ransomware a scam. Yes. You know, like, yeah. So, and then, you know, this was a recent quote, by the way. Recent quote.

And I've actually, you know, I had a conversation with a huge Democrat donor. I won't docks who they are, but had been big donor, had played the game, let's say, and had been completely thrown under the bus by the SEC and was supporting Kamala under Biden and had gone to several events that she had hosted. And someone asked her, why was the Biden campaign not accepting Bitcoin or crypto for donations? she's like, we're not going to accept money from criminals. And so, you know, she hadn't said that publicly, but she said that privately. So, you know, I think it seems like such a simple win.

The fact that they won't even give, like, even an inch just tells you, like, we really need to win in November. Well, David, I think we all kind of share this opinion that all of this political fighting, all of this drostling for getting Bitcoin into the ballot box is inevitably the technology wins no matter what. and this is just bumps along the road to get there. At the very beginning of this podcast episode, you said that Bitcoin is the biggest idea. I've heard, through our mutual friend, CK, that you are one of the more bullish people on Bitcoin that's out there in existence.

There's a lot of bullish people, too. There's a lot of bullish people about Bitcoin. What is this big Bitcoin idea? Why so dedicated to Bitcoin? Why so convicted? For the podcast listeners out there, David here is wearing a Make Bitcoin Great Again hat. It's a red hat.

I'm getting a sense that there's a very big idea about Bitcoin behind. that hat. I'm hoping to get that out of you. Yeah, that's really the big idea, the bank on fire. Oh, is that what that is? So I think there's a lot of things that are going on that are bullish for Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin is in the process of becoming the most liquid asset in the world. And as it becomes the most liquid asset, it becomes a de facto reserve currency of the world. And I see the dynamic that's playing out with Trump right now. I see it actually playing out in other countries. And I think that within the next six months to 12 months, you're going to have multiple

countries embracing Bitcoin as a strategic asset announcing Bitcoin strategic reserves. And I think that once this space race kicks off for Bitcoin, the pace of acceleration is going to be insane. And I think once you have multiple central banks buying Bitcoin simultaneously, this thing is just going to rip. And it's just a magnet of liquidity, of attention, of political. capital, and the amount of Bitcoin on the balance sheet of Fortune 500 companies is only going to grow. I think right now it's under 0.1% of the S&P 500 is Bitcoin. I think, you know, within the next four years, five years, that number is going to be closer to 10% of the S&P 500 will be Bitcoin. And so, you know, I think that that in general is going to create a pretty unique situation.

And, you know, I'm bearish on the legacy system. I'm bearish on what the global environment is going to look like by 2030. And, you know, I'm personally someone who is like, maybe you could put me in the doom camp of, like, I see World War, like, on the horizon. You know, maybe when the history books are written, they would consider what's going on right now, the starts of it. And I think Bitcoin will shine in this environment of distrust. And I think I'm very bullish on Bitcoin's future.

You know, I have this at my Twitter bio right now. This is like the short term, like, you know, Bitcoin, the floor price. of Bitcoin. The floor price is $650,000 per Bitcoin. Like, there's no justifiable reason for Bitcoin to be less than that. And that's the market capitalization of gold. You know, if you divide it by $21 million, the $650,000. So, you know, Bitcoin at the very, like, minimum is gold, but it's gold that can be teleported anywhere in the world. It's gold that, you know, has a definite supply rather than, you know, the gold supply increases like 2% per year, which, you know, It means it's doubling every 35 years.

It's gold that you can verify instantly, whether it's real or not. It's gold that you can spend over the internet. So it's like better than gold, really in like every different parameter possible. It has cheaper to store than gold is. So it should be worth at least what gold is worth, at least. So that's $650,000. That's the floor price of Bitcoin. Anything below $650K.

It's just insanity. And you should just buy it. I remember getting into crypto in 2017, $20,000. The Bitcoin are believers back then would say that eventually Central Banks, Federal Reserves, would all be playing chicken with each other, which I thought back in 2018 was just nuts. And I was just like, it was crazy. Like Bitcoin, which is such a small industry. Yet here we are.

How many years later is that now? Six years, seven years later. It's happening. And now it does kind of feel like we're on the cusp of that actually, get that game of chicken kind of unfolding. I know of a central bank right now that's accumulating Bitcoin. That's a larger than El Salvador? Larger than El Salvador.

You know, larger than 50 El Salvador. So it's happening. It's in the very early stages of unfolding. Well, David, the Bangle Station, there you have it. One of the more bullish bitcoinsers out there. David, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it. Yeah, guys. Well, thank you for having me on. And, you know, whenever your ETH bags are getting too heavy and y'all coin, you let me know. We certainly will. We're just hoping you guys will pull our bags out. All right, David. Please help.

All right. Cool. Thank you round. Of course, thanks, David. Bankless station. You guys know the deal. Crypto is risky. Bitcoin is risky. You can lose what you put in. But we're headed west. It's not for everyone, but it's the frontier, and we are glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot.