Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Rigged From the Start: The Government’s Hidden Role in Crypto Scam

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode is brought to you by Tellus Online Security. Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what? Yeah, cybercriminals love tax forms. But I've got Tellus Online Security. It helps protect against identity theft and financial fraud so I can stress less during tax season or any season.
Starting point is 00:00:20 Plan started just $12 a month. Learn more at tellus.com slash online security. No one can prevent all cybercrime or identity theft. Conditions apply. The two most prominent Chinese corporate lawyers end up at the SEC. Both their law firms are very involved in the Ethereum project. And this guy will not apply the securities laws to Ethereum. And then a year and a half later, they turn around in the SEC sued ripple,
Starting point is 00:00:48 claiming that XRP was a security. There was like a massive coordinated effort to delay that information coming out. Crypto is born with the Bitcoin white paper, which is public. on Halloween of 2009 by a unknown person or group of people known as Satoshi Nakamoto. Okay. But nobody really knows who it is. No one, well, somebody knows who it is. But you got a lot of people projecting a narrative into the market that no one knows who it is.
Starting point is 00:01:21 Oh, okay. That's what I don't know. So it's just the, that's the mainstream thing. We don't know who Satoshi is. So he publishes this white paper. Now it's coming out of the financial crisis of 2008, 2008, 2009, which I think you're very familiar with the mortgage crisis and the things that occur. Madoff ends up becoming discovered, who was in line to be chairman of the SEC at the time, right? So we have Dodd-Frank come out, but effectively, the highest levels of finance pretty much knew that the Fiat game was coming to a conclusion as a result.
Starting point is 00:01:58 as a result of that, right? So they turned the money printer on, they tried to come up with some regs, they bailed out the banks, the two big to fail banks, all that stuff, the big short and all these movies. What Satoshi,
Starting point is 00:02:13 the essence of what they get at is that by having the banks, the central banks, if you will, control the money supply. So it's basically having a centralized place where they get to decide, you know, the winners and losers, the balls and strikes, all that kind of stuff, having a centralized umpire is a bad thing. And we need to figure
Starting point is 00:02:40 out a way to basically have our monetary system be decentralized and basically owned by the people. And if you read the white paper, he came up, there was a big problem, a couple of big problems with trying to do it digitally. One of them was called the double spin problem, which is that, you it's the issue you referenced before about being able to fraud, right, and just copy and pay. If it's digital, think about it being a digital picture. You can just copy it and paste it, right? Well, that was a concern. So how do you make sure that this unit of value that's in digital code is the actual unit of value?
Starting point is 00:03:18 It can't be counterfeited. Exactly. So the protocol that he came up with, which was expressed in the white papers, called proof of work. and it was basically that you had a bunch of computers solving computer problems. And once they all agreed that that was the answer, it basically printed a block. So it was a point in history. It was a block. And then it would do it again.
Starting point is 00:03:45 And basically says all the transactions that occurred in that are the correct transactions. By doing this system, he solved that double spend problem. that we actually know that the blocks that are being recorded on the Bitcoin blockchain. So just sequentially, one after another after another, are the actual transactions that are occurring on the network. So you know that it can't be counterfeited. Correct. Each one of these cannot be counterfeited. Correct.
Starting point is 00:04:17 That makes it secure. Yeah. The problem with the Bitcoin is that it takes an enormous amount of computer. computing power to basically solve all these problems. And we've now moved into an industrial level of that process of solving the problems. They call that mining. Right. And so, and they have these little.
Starting point is 00:04:41 I know the guys that have like 10 or 12 and 20 of them lined up. Those are called miners, right? Through little small, single purpose computers that all they're doing is cranking away on hashing out the, you know, the problem or what? whatever that they're trying to solve. And once they do it, blocks printed yields them some rewards. Now they all participate in pools. So it's kind of like the more power you're putting into doing it collectively, the more yield you get out of the pool. And now we have public companies that their sole focus is just doing these mining operations. The largest Bitcoin mining operation is a company
Starting point is 00:05:20 called BitDeer. It's a spinoff of the largest Bitcoin miner manufacturer. So the manufacturer of the actual computers, which was a company called BitMey and out of China, they spun off their mining operations. And it's located in Texas, where I live. And it is something to behold, right? I mean, it's those little computers are six, like six inch squares, maybe, you know, foot long type of thing. Imagine that stacked on top of each other, 30 feet in the air. and then going down 100 yards in a tunnel, and then about 20 of those,
Starting point is 00:06:01 what they call trains, these different tunnels. And it's operated by a team of maybe 12 people. You know, a Bitcoin miner, they sit in a trailer, and they've got computer screens that are monitoring, how the computers are operating.
Starting point is 00:06:19 If one goes out, gets an alert, a guy jumps into a golf cart, drives down, pulls that one out, unplugs it, puts a new one in, plugs it back in, and it's right back to doing it. Takes that one back to the shop, reverbs it, right? Okay. Any idea how much revenue or Bitcoin that facility is producing?
Starting point is 00:06:38 Yes. That one, based on, so they did a SPAC merger deal to go public in the United States. Are you guys familiar with that even means? No. SPAC is a special purpose acquisition company. It's a company that goes public before it has any assets. So it raises the money on the promise that that group of people is going to go out and basically do a deal, do a merger or something with another company. The company that went public was called Blue Safari Acquisition Corp, and they did a merger with this company BitDeer that I'm telling you about.
Starting point is 00:07:17 they were doing in the first half of 21. They had done something like $230 million in revenue. This one company far and away dwarfed all the other Bitcoin mining companies. Okay. So if we actually use Bitcoin for day-to-day transactions, buying coffee, buying groceries, all that type of stuff, this proof of work protocol requires too much. it would melt the world down, right? It would take all of the electricity that is produced,
Starting point is 00:07:53 like it would require more electricity than it's even being produced. And this is occurring at the same time that AI is starting to manifest and become so data center capacity and stuff for artificial intelligence is competing with the Bitcoin-type stuff. So then basically there was another version of how, to do it that was developed by this company, really it precedes the company. It was developed by a group of people that formed what is now Ripple Labs. Okay. And the XRP ledger. So the Bitcoin, what was expressed in Satoshi's white paper, that protocol is called proof of work. You know,
Starting point is 00:08:37 it's like, remember taking algebra? Like proof up your work. It's that concept that all these computers have to basically solve the problem, prove that they actually worked it out, and then they get Bitcoin for that. So that's how that whole protocol proof of work works. The XRP ledger, the XRPL, uses a different protocol that doesn't require mining. All of the XRP, there was 100 billion XRP that was created as part of its Genesis block, it's an initial start of the network, was created then. So there is no need to mine it. It already exists. You only need to basically do the transaction proofing part of it. And they do that by something called a consensus mechanism. And same thing. It's a decentralized network of
Starting point is 00:09:33 computers that are basically looking at the transactions on the ledger and then going through a series of of coming to a consensus, which I think is greater than 80%, that it is that group of transactions, that's the actual transactions. And so that prints a block and same type of thing as the Bitcoin. Okay. Okay.
Starting point is 00:09:56 So it's super energy efficient. It's super fast. A XRP transit. I don't know if you've ever pushed a Bitcoin transaction before, but it takes sometimes now, three to five hours to settle. When I was first getting into this stuff, you would buy some Bitcoin or send it to somebody,
Starting point is 00:10:19 and sometimes you wouldn't know until the next day if they'd got their money or not. So that was one of the things that got me looking. There's like, there's got to be another solution, right? XRP transactions settle in three to five seconds. It's like faster than you can talk. Like if I were to send you some money right now, you'd be like, holy shit, I can't believe that happened.
Starting point is 00:10:40 like that fast. So it's super fast, super energy efficient because there's no mining involved. And it is super scalable, right? Already the ledger can do like 1,500 transaction per second, but it can be scaled into the millions of transactions per second for global transactions. So where we're evolving now is that, we're starting to put assets on chain and we're using networks like the XRPL to do what's called the tokenization of assets, which is effectively putting the ownership, the indicia of ownership on chain. That's what tokenization means. So if you think about this home, right, a real estate type thing, you'd want to basically take the, the, the,
Starting point is 00:11:40 title level documentation of what it means to actually have. So the deed, any mortgage encumbrance, lien, all that stuff, all that data you'd want to put into effectively an NFT and put that in and print that NFT to the ledger. And that's that process of doing that is called tokenization. Okay. So we're going to tokenize everything. We're going to tokenize every security, you know, every stock, every bond. That's where it's going to start because those are super easy to do. We're going to tokenize every mortgage, all this stuff.
Starting point is 00:12:19 So 20 years from now, everything that kind of happens in paper world will happen via the blockchain. We're in a process right now where they're tokenizing all the fiat money. And that's what's called stable coins. We've been hearing kind of that, like there's USDC, which is done by a company called Circle, USDT, which is Tether's stablecoin. That's the most prominent. It's the number, it battles with XRP between number three and number four, cryptocurrency by market cap.
Starting point is 00:13:00 But that is, you know, allegedly Tether acquires U.S. treasuries and that they are pegged, you know, each unit of tether, each coin is pegged one to one with the U.S. dollar. Ripple is about to launch. They just got approval yesterday to launch their own stable coin, which is going to be called the RLUSD for Ripple USD, but they call it the real USD. And every other currency, the British pound, who is Swiss franc, you know, Chinese yuan, the Russian ruble, the rupee, everything is going to be, all Fiat money will be put into a tokenized form so it can run on blockchain.
Starting point is 00:13:47 Okay. So, and you're saying that this is a, I mean, you're saying this is happening now. I'm saying, is this like, is there a legislation that says no, no, this has going, this has to be done by 2030 or? Yeah. So, yeah, what you're saying is, is there, is there a hammer that's like, that's coming down? So, yes, there's, the Fed had already committed to move to, basically, it's FedNow program and have what they're calling the Big Bang switch over to digital by March 2025. Well, I understand. And so this has been killed.
Starting point is 00:14:33 Cash will ultimately be phased out. You won't need it. How long? And you're, okay. And you're saying that that's law, that's Congress has passed. Well, we're going to have to get into the Fed's relationship with our government, which is, you know, the Fed is not actually our government. Yeah. So they don't have to follow the law, right?
Starting point is 00:15:00 They're a private corporation that's a third party that the federal government. The Fed is determined this is what's going to happen. The Fed is moving, but all the central banks are moving into this. The Fed is just a central bank. It's the head of the central banking system globally. I'm sorry. There is legislation. There are a few handful of bills that are in Congress right now to basically make this stable.
Starting point is 00:15:28 there's one of them. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and sit. Play. Post. Taste. View and enjoy.
Starting point is 00:15:42 Via rail. Love the way. It's a stable coin act that may occur by the end of this year. Or very early next year, much Trump is sworn in. And then, and then. So that'll. That'll make that they will phase out cash, paper cash.
Starting point is 00:16:04 And you'll use your phone, just like you're using tap to pay credit cards now. And Apple pay on your cell phone, you'll, you'll spend digital, digital money. Will it still be USD or it'll be titled like. It'll be USD. Yeah. It'll be whatever currency you want to use. And that kind of gets into globally what's happening. Are you familiar with like the BRICS nations?
Starting point is 00:16:35 Yeah. Okay. So that's Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, right? The BRICS has exploded. All of our buddies. Yeah. Well, you know, maybe after this conversation, you'll think of buddies and enemies in a different way. Okay.
Starting point is 00:16:52 So they've gone off in a certain direction because they've had to, because the U.S. federal government has sanctioned them out of the monetary system. So the United States and the Fed controls what's called the Swift system, okay, which was kind of, it's built on like 1970s messaging technology, hasn't been updated. you know, you send basically a swift message, and then they have to settle in paper through something called these nostro vostro accounts and correspondent banking system. So all these banks in different countries, they basically get the message. They say, okay, Matthew wants to pay Jimmy in India, okay, and Jimmy wants to receive the rupee in India. or and Matthew wants to send a dollar, right? So they send the message that that's occurred.
Starting point is 00:17:53 Then the bank in India basically has to say, okay, I'm going to take some dollars and set them over here from, not from Matthew. Matthew, like, dealt with J.P. Morgan or somebody over here in the United States, right? But I'm going to take J.P. Morgan's account of dollars and take some money out there and then take out of my rupee account and put it into Jimmy's account.
Starting point is 00:18:16 So that kind of accounting function and moving the money around between the banks is called correspondent banking, massive fees, super slow. I mean, it can take days, weeks sometimes to basically to settle money that way. Fiat money. And so in this new digital world, right, and then there's all the costs of that, right? Every one of those middlemen banks, you know, is getting a fee. And so when you start thinking about the people who come in the United States and they're working and they're sending money back home to Mexico or Central America or India, wherever, China, they, those are called remittances, right? And that's where your money grams and Western unions and all these companies, you know, you think about the people who like get their check and then they're going to,
Starting point is 00:19:13 like the get cash now and then they're sending, and they're getting charged like 10% to send money back home, you know, to mom or grandmom, whoever they're sending it to. This new digital world will allow those cross-border remittances to occur. Oh, and then, you know,
Starting point is 00:19:32 there's a time issue, it will allow those to occur in three to five seconds at virtually no cost, like fractions of a penny, and it'll be direct. And the way that occurs, is instead of doing the no stro vostro, where we have to keep all this liquidity locked up at these different banks
Starting point is 00:19:50 in the different currencies, you don't need to do that anymore. You'll have a digital dollar, a digital rupee, and then you need a bridge asset, and that's what an XRP is. So J.P. Morgan, you'll say, okay, send Jimmy, and he wants to give these rupees.
Starting point is 00:20:09 He wants $10,000, you know, equivalent in rupees, right? So you'll tell JPMorgan that. They'll take the dollars by XRP, send it digitally to the bank in India. They'll take the XRP and convert it into digital rupee. I've got it. And the whole thing will occur in seconds. And it costs less than a penny to do that transaction. And when I say less than a penny, we're talking like 0.000,000, 0.05 or something like that of a penny.
Starting point is 00:20:39 Okay. Yeah. Because it's just an automated system. of the requirements. This is digital system. So we've had to, you know, there's been a whole, you know, thing that's had to occur over many, many years of plumbing that digital system and creating these digital rails to move, you know,
Starting point is 00:20:57 to have the networks be able to talk in all these different countries. And, you know, you kind of need to bring everybody onto the system at the same time because if you're not on the system, you will instantly just be kind of not competitive. in that market. You know, you'll never, if you're a, you know, a small country, you know, in Africa or something like that, and you don't kind of come on to this system, you will be forever outside the system and having to rely on, you know, trying to get your Fiat money, gets somebody to take it in a system that's already gone digital.
Starting point is 00:21:35 But you're saying that everybody has already signed up and agreed to be on the system. Yes. At this point. Yes. And we're in the final innings of making the switchover. Which for the Fed, they're going to, I think it's like March the 10th, 2025. They're going to move over to digital. It's been discussed that there's going to be like a year, 18 months.
Starting point is 00:22:01 It could take five years until they, you know, take cash out of the system. Now, your concern about. the control over that. And like governments or, you know, some party being able to take money out of your accounts, I mean, that's really kind of what's fueling the geopolitical unrest that we're going through right now in the world
Starting point is 00:22:32 as we move to this new system. That is, you know, humanity, you know, is is looking to have a digital bill of rights. We're looking for decentralized system where there is no Fed or Central Bank that's completely in charge of doing that for these exact reasons, right? And so that that's what this movement towards decentralization is so important because otherwise if we just allow them to switch over and it's the same. you know, bank monopolists that kind of run everything, then they'll absolutely be able to make us do whatever, right? So we kind of have to reject that system. That's what these populist movements are all about politically,
Starting point is 00:23:24 because it's already kind of happening through the large corporations, everything, them forcing, you know, whether it be diversity, equity, inclusion type stuff, or, you know, BLM or whatever, you know, whatever the political theme to juror climate change, all this kind of stuff, right? Or if you don't get vaccinated, then we'll shut your account down.
Starting point is 00:23:49 If you don't get vaccinated, right, exactly. Exactly. Or we've got a shortage on gas. So for every household can now only spend $150 a month on gas. Right. You know, because there's a shortage. Right. You know, whatever the reason is. So we absolutely, and I believe, you know, I believe Trump's rise to power and the people he's putting in place are very much, you know, freedom-loving American people, right? back to constitutional type principles. And I believe you're going to see more of that manifest, you know, when he's in office. I think you're going to see a major dismantling of the centralized governmental systems across the world.
Starting point is 00:24:34 It's what's happening here is happening everywhere. The unrest in humanity and all that. I mean, people are tired of having, tired of being debt slaves to, to, to, to the system. Right. And, you know, people are rising up. And it's getting kind of, you know, getting a little crazy out there. So what happened with the regulation of the SEC that... Yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:07 So far none of this. So far all these different crypto coins, which, yeah, I know, assuming plays into this, has been unregulated. So there is no regulations. The SEC in particular has tried to take the existing securities laws and wrap them around this new technology. And it really doesn't work in some cases.
Starting point is 00:25:43 It could work in other cases. The subject of the movie, rigged from the start, which was done by fruition Fruition Films. You can go to fruitionproductions.com and see the movie. Basically, this movement has been going on in the government
Starting point is 00:26:05 and in the regulatory agencies for a while. They knew this was coming. And what should have occurred was they should have started adopting regulation. and kind of having rules of the world for the digital asset companies to follow and comply with. Instead, what they did was they colluded with kind of the legacy banking system
Starting point is 00:26:32 and people outside of the United States to front run the system and try to maintain the monopoly for the centralized banking parties and the political institutions that, rely on this centralized banking system. Something I call that the deep state. Right. So they basically picked one that they could control. That one became Ethereum. And they basically bought up the Ethereum supply.
Starting point is 00:27:09 Ethereum was initially a proof of work chain as well, like Bitcoin. All right. They went through something called The Merge, I think that was in 22 or 23, where they turned it into a proof of stake protocol. So remember we talked about we had proof of work is Bitcoin, consensus is XRP. Now you've got this other thing, which is proof of stake. So proof of stake doesn't require the computers to do all that hashing and mining stuff, right? It basically says, okay, the people who have the most Ethereum get to basically vote on the transactions that they think are real and that they are incentivized to basically elect or select the right transactions. And they do that by basically pushing their stake in and saying that's the one.
Starting point is 00:28:08 So effectively all these institutions got together. They bought up all the Ethereum. And now that it's effectively a centralized system, right? The SEC then back in 2018 had one of their very senior people, a guy named Bill Henman, who was the head of the division of corporation finance. he went out and gave a speech that said Ethereum was decentralized. And that they didn't see anybody like there was no promoter behind Ethereum. And since it was decentralized, they wouldn't have to apply the securities laws to Ethereum.
Starting point is 00:28:54 Okay. So what ends up, what that means, you're like, break it down for me. So if the security laws apply to one of these, like, if the security laws apply to one of these, layer one chains. That means they can't just, you know, for you and me to send value back and forth like we've talked about doing
Starting point is 00:29:13 and those remittance transactions. We can't do that. We have to do a registration statement. Give that to the Securities and Exchange Commission. We're talking about lawyers and time and money and all this stuff because we're engaging in an offer or sale of securities.
Starting point is 00:29:35 Okay, so we have to comply with the entire securities law regime. Right. Or find some exemption that works like a private placement type exemption, which can only be their credited investors like, you know, you and me may not be able to even engage in that transaction, right? So basically completely decapitates the use case of what I'll call these layer one blue chip cryptocurrencies, which is basically for peer to peer to send value to each other. Okay. But if it's not regulated. We're not talking about necessarily being regulated, regulated by the securities law. Okay.
Starting point is 00:30:14 So with Ethereum, they basically said not regulated by the securities law, and they got clever. And they came up with, they basically said since there's a consumption at that time of Ethereum, just like there is, to do an XRP transaction, there's like a fraction of an XRP that's burned. to move the money. That's basically the compensation into the network. Okay. It's not a yield. It doesn't like go to the value. Local news is in decline across Canada. And this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void. And it gets harder to separate truth from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting more journalists in more places across Canada, reporting on the ground from where you live.
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Starting point is 00:32:08 Habaniero? More like Habinier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. The inflators of the network, it's just, the network is consuming itself, and it's basically turning XRP into a deflationary asset as opposed to like fiat currency being a inflationary asset or inflationary currency. Because the Ethereum was being consumed as fees, they called them. gas fees.
Starting point is 00:32:36 They basically said Ethereum is like oil in the network, or it's like natural gas in the network. It's being consumed to push the value on the network, and therefore it's a commodity. Okay. And the commodities rules,
Starting point is 00:32:55 which apply to, you know, natural resources and gold and rice and soybean and all that stuff, don't require all this registration and filing statements with the SEC and holding periods and all the things that apply to securities. So you can just trade, you know, in a more. So by doing that, basically all of the Web3 development talent, all of the software engineers
Starting point is 00:33:23 and people who had the capability to start building what they call digital applications, DAPs on top of a blockchain, basically went to Ethereum, okay, and started building off of that, off of that, because it had this, we call it the free pass, that speech that he gave, this guy Bill Hittman called that the regulatory free pass. That in and of itself would have been probably fine that they did that. That's in 2018, the summer of 2018, a year and a half go by, and they decide. So at this point, you know, Bitcoin is far and away because it's like the Kleenex. It's the Coca-Cola.
Starting point is 00:34:03 You know, it's the first one. the one everybody knows, right? So it's still to this day. The standards. Well, let's don't say it's the standard. Okay. I would, I would say it's not the standard. It's the Kleenex.
Starting point is 00:34:16 It's the Coca-Cola. It's the way a normal, regular person, when you start talking about digital assets, as we call them or crypto, they're naturally going to think Bitcoin because it was the first. And right now, today, it's got the most value on the network.
Starting point is 00:34:33 There's almost $2 trillion, I think, right? XRP and Ethereum continue to battle for kind of the number two. My prediction, our firm's thesis and prediction, and a lot of people in our community believe XRP will ultimately overtake both of those because it's more efficient, faster, more environmentally and friendly. It's just a better thing. At the time, he makes the speech. Ethereum basically overtakes XRP as being the number two
Starting point is 00:35:08 Crypto by Market Cap. All the developers flow there. And then a year and a half later, they turned around in the SEC sued Ripple claiming that XRP was a security. The guy that said it wasn't, well, he was the head of the... He was the head of the Division of Corporation Finance.
Starting point is 00:35:27 Okay. Okay. So this... For the SEC. For the SEC. Right. guy named Bill Hinman. When they decide to sue Ripple, and this gets into, this is what the movie's about, this is the regulatory capture, this is the corruption.
Starting point is 00:35:47 Brad Garlinghouse, who's the CEO of Ripple, who's the primary steward of XRP, announced on December 21st. So it's like right before Christmas that they've just been informed that they're going to be sued by the SEC. The SEC sues them the next day on December 22nd, three days before Christmas. $15 billion left the market cap of XRP in an instant.
Starting point is 00:36:15 It went from where I was trading 30, 40 cents, went like to 15 cents, like in a heartbeat. Hundreds of thousands of people devastated financially, right? The vote, so there's five, commissioners at the SEC there's a chairman and four other commissioners that's how the
Starting point is 00:36:36 SEC kind of its upper ranks that's how it works and there's kind of divisions of enforcement trading corporation finance all this different stuff the vote to bring the lawsuit against Ripple was a three to two vote of those five commissioners okay so there were three that voted for it and two that voted against it okay And it was pretty much, except for this one exception, I'm about to tell you about, it was pretty much down party lines, as in the more left-leaning people voted to sue, and the more right-leaning people on the commission voted we shouldn't sue. The tie-breaking vote was the chairman of the SEC, a guy named Jay Clayton.
Starting point is 00:37:25 And he basically breaks the tie, says, we're going to bring the lawsuit. They bring the lawsuit, and then he leaves the SEC. the next day. And as well as like most of the top people who were arguing to bring the enforcement action, including this guy Bill Hinman, who had nothing to do with enforcement, allegedly, but he had come back and was like very adamant that this lawsuit needed to be filed. They all leave the SEC. Was there a reason why?
Starting point is 00:37:54 Well, the mainstream reason why that Clayton was leaving was. because Biden had been elected and he had been appointed by Trump, right? He assumed he's going to be fired. Well, it's, it, at the SEC, it's been normal protocol for the past several chairman, going back a while, that they just resign and allow the new president, the new administration, to appoint it. So from a surface level, that's all that was happening. He was just rolling off.
Starting point is 00:38:29 Biden was going to be sworn in, you know, a week later or whatever, a couple weeks later, and appoint his own SEC chairman, which in fact occurred. So Bill Hinman leaves the SEC. They all leave at the same time. He goes back to his law firm Simpson, Thatcher, which is one of these white shoe securities, capital markets law firms.
Starting point is 00:38:55 Jay Clayton, same thing, goes back to his law firm Sullivan and Cromwell. for like, you know, so I think they're still technically partners there. They're still kind of in their law firms. Shortly after, like, within a few months, Jay Clayton ends up on the board of a company called One River, a hedge fund called One River. And as you started to look into One River,
Starting point is 00:39:23 in October of 2020, before they dropped the lawsuit on Ripple, they made a billion dollar investment in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Okay. Bill Hinman, he's left, he's gone to Simpson Thatcher. He ends up becoming the head of regulatory affairs for Andreson Horowitz, which is really their crypto fund. They were the largest crypto hedge fund in the world. at this point in time, right? They had just raised, I think it was a $2 billion fund
Starting point is 00:40:02 to invest solely in crypto. So he goes and becomes the head of regulatory affairs there, okay? And all of us were just kind of watching this at the time. So this is very early 2021 and kind of scratching our heads like, it didn't really mean that much to us at the time. It's like, okay, they're just, this is the revolving door of government and Wall Street's been happening for, eons, right? So we start, we start doing some digging. And it turns out that, that Jay Clayton
Starting point is 00:40:35 and Bill Hinman have been kind of together for a while. They actually go back, they were the lead attorneys on the IPO of Alibaba in 2014. All right. Okay. Alibaba is the largest IPO in history. Oh, okay. Okay. It was, uh, it was a Chinese company that they, they basically listed in the, in the U.S. at a 200, I think it's $230 billion total valuation.
Starting point is 00:41:06 Um, it's kind of like Amazon, right? It's like it. It's the Chinese version of Amazon. Um, we're going to dig into it a little more, uh, because this is kind of where it starts to, you start to kind of see how they're all connected. Um, but yes, they're like the. Chinese version of Amazon, they sell a bunch of different products. They're also the largest distributor of Bitcoin miners in the world.
Starting point is 00:41:32 So BitMain, who I referred to that was manufacturing those miners that spun off Bit Deer that has the Texas operations now, they're distributing most of their computers through Alibaba. Right after they go public, I mean, like the month after they go public, they do a joint venture with a company called Ant Financial, okay, and basically start to have their own financial arm. Alibaba does. The, there was a guy who was Bill Hemmins partner at the law firm named Leaming Chen.
Starting point is 00:42:16 They were both featured after the Alibaba IPO, like, dealmakers of the year. he becomes the general counsel of financial. And so we're like, okay, so all these guys are basically, they're all working together on these mega corporate deals and everything. I wonder if Henman, when he gave that speech back in 2018, like was there an involvement, like with the law firm or something with? And it turns out there had been this foundation called the Ethereum Alliance, which was formed by J.P. Morgan, handful of law firms. Microsoft was involved and all this stuff.
Starting point is 00:43:05 And they formed right back in this 2017, you know, time frame leading up to the speech. Simpson Thatcher, Bill Hymond's law firm, is a major contributor to the Ethereum Alliance. Okay, their sole purpose is to promote Ethereum. All right. So let me just kind of recap what we've, so you've had the two most prominent Chinese corporate lawyers, if you will, end up at the SEC. Both their law firms, and I'll talk about Jay Clayton's firm here in a second,
Starting point is 00:43:46 both their law firms are very involved in the Ethereum project. so much so that they're part of the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance. And this guy, Bill Hinman, goes and gives a freaking speech saying they will not apply the securities laws to Ethereum, effectively giving them a free pass. And then didn't stop there, a year and a half later, they sued the primary competitor of Ethereum. Okay. All right.
Starting point is 00:44:12 All right. So that was like smoke all over the place. So we start, you know, it wasn't us. but people in the community, notably, there was a watchdog in D.C. called Empower Oversight. They start seeing all this timeline being put together by people in the XRV community. Like, holy shit, there's like corruption here, right? Something's going on. So they start doing FOIA requests on the Securities and Exchange commissions.
Starting point is 00:44:42 FOIA is Freedom of Information Act. Yeah. So basically. Super familiar with it. Yeah. Okay. They're asking for Hemmonds calendars, the emails. Like, we want to see, like, what was the deliberative process before he gave this speech,
Starting point is 00:44:59 giving Ethereum a free pass? Right. Right. Want to see if there's any connection. Was he talking to Simpson, Thatcher people? All this kind of stuff, right? And the SEC. National security.
Starting point is 00:45:09 Yeah. The SEC basically starts freaking high in the ball. So initially, they send one request asking for this stuff. and the SEC says, yeah, we'll respond, but we're breaking it up into 12 different requests. And the result being, it takes years and years. At the same time in the Ripple lawsuit, Ripples Council is asking for the same stuff because they're like, we're the same. We're being sued. We're being sued.
Starting point is 00:45:40 You gave these guys a free pass. We're basically the same type of stuff. for digital networks and, like, what is different from what they did? And you walked on stage and told the world that they're not, they're not, you're not going to apply the securities law of them, but you sue us for an unregistered securities offering. Right.
Starting point is 00:45:59 Right. And the SEC's like not wanting to give the information. It took seven, I think, court orders in the Ripple lawsuit to finally start getting some of this stuff. They finally got, they did a deposition with, with hen men. And then when they start disclosing these emails and different things, they're like 90% redacted.
Starting point is 00:46:22 Just pages blacked out. They're like not giving or they're just deleted. Empower Oversight ended up getting a series of the emails that were kind of that Hymann had circulated the speech internally, kind of in early, what would have been late May, early June. I think he gave the speech June 14th of 2018. So there was a whole, I mean, lawyers looking at it, writing it, all that kind of stuff. You can't go back to the judge and say they redacted this. We need to be able to see what's like, unless. Well, this is a different matter.
Starting point is 00:46:57 So this is coming out because of the FOIA request that the oversight group, that's not, it's not coming out necessarily in the lawsuit. Okay. They were just refusing. No, they were just refusing the court orders. They just weren't compliant. But their court orders. A judge ordered that. I can go back to the judge and say, they.
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Starting point is 00:48:19 Like, or judge would order them to do it again. And then they do it again. They just knock out. No, no. In the lawsuit, they didn't even comply with the order for like seven different orders. That's what I'm telling you. There was like a massive, massive coordinated effort to delay that information coming out. So what starts, you know, in 21, I don't think we end up getting that stuff until like the spring of spring early summer of 23 and we almost had what i mean the the summary judgment order in the case came out in july of 23 yeah that's well like i don't see how you don't go to how a judge doesn't say you're going to do this for people we're going to start issuing um arrest warrants like you can't you can't oh the judge was telling them that they all
Starting point is 00:49:12 saying all kinds of stuff in the in the orders like you were showing you were showing a, you're not having a faithful allegiance to the law. You're basically, I mean, the judge was very, you know, you just can't ignore a judge. They did. A federal judge. No, they can. And you know why they can? Because they're a federal agency.
Starting point is 00:49:34 And there's whole separation of powers. And they were absolutely ignoring a federal judge. I mean, I thought you would say that they came, they came forward and they said, well, national security. because, you know, that's, that's the catch-all. Yeah. It's even when you're like, how was this? You know, they can't, or we can't explain it. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:49:52 So anyway, still to this day, there's a ton of that information that's been disclosed that's still substantially redacted. We don't know everything. And so the cases, the ripple case is pretty much over this thing that we call Eithgate, the free pass, and then the suing ripple, all that is known as Eithgate now, is really just. bubbling up and that's really the subject matter of the movie rig from the start that um and so it probably what the price of ethereum skyrocketed and then ripple price of ethereum after the speech went up 11 percent like in two minutes and then after i mean ripple ethereum grab yeah yeah and then a ripple just ripple crash right and ripple has been suppressed well and what happened all the all the major exchanges, Coinbase, cracking, on and on and on, delisted XRP.
Starting point is 00:50:49 So it wasn't even available for trading for a year and a half? Yeah. Well, no, it was until one exchange cut uphold, which is based out of the UK, actually maintained trading in XRP. Yeah, they interviewed the president or CEO of the company. Simon, yeah. And when do they de-list? When do they D-list, uh, ripple?
Starting point is 00:51:14 It was in, uh, January of 21. Okay. Yeah. So the lawsuit was filed late December, like right before Christmas. And I want to say it was like January 19th that Coinbase took, uh, XRP off. And, and what has, what happened in the last month that made it go up 300%? Because right now it's at, well, like $2 and something. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:51:36 Uh, you know, um, I'm, uh, I can speculate. I don't know for sure. So, you know, there's a few things that have happened, call it over the past year. So in July of 23, I think it was July 13th, the judge in the Ripple case came out with her order on summary judgment and basically determined that after all this time and all this money, Ripple spent, I think, $150 million in legal fees battling this lawsuit against the SEC, that XRP in and of itself is not. of security. Okay. So the SEC devastated a company? Devastated a market.
Starting point is 00:52:18 Okay. Devastated. Yes, devastated a company, but not really because Ripple continued to be very successful overseas. They just really couldn't operate full tilt in the United States during this time. Are they back on board? So when that ruling came out, I want to say, I mean, it shot up, shot up a lot and then traded back down. since the summer 23. And so now you've actually got to.
Starting point is 00:52:50 So in the order, there were three buckets of transactions that the SEC had put forth saying were securities transactions. One bucket was the sale by Ripple to institutions pursuant to a contract, where they sold XRP to institutions. The second bucket was called programmatic sales. These were sales that they would just kind of put out based on an algorithm into the market and different people were buying and selling it.
Starting point is 00:53:26 They didn't know who was buying and selling it. Programmatic sales. The third was they compensated certain contractors and employees in XRP. The judge ruled that the programmatic sales and the payments to employees and contractors were not securities transactions. She ruled the institutional sales were securities transactions because there was a contract and that the institutions were sophisticated and the type of people who would have experienced. expected Ripple to go out and do things to increase the value of the XRP that they were they were acquiring in that contract. So that's why it wasn't like over over in July of 2023. Then we had to go through a whole penalties phase.
Starting point is 00:54:24 The SEC initially came out and asked for $2 billion in penalties from Ripple. Ripple argued for less than $10 million. Right. The judge, I think, ended up ordering it's somewhere like $120 million that Ripple had to pay based on that one thing. Also, it's noteworthy that the initial lawsuit not only sued Ripple, but they sued the chairman, guy named Chris Larson and the CEO, a guy named Brad Garlinghouse. No fraud allegations, by the way. They were basically just trying to put pressure on them to capitulate early by suing them, you know, person. Personally, yeah.
Starting point is 00:55:08 After the court order in July of 2023, within a couple of months, the SEC agreed to dismiss the lawsuits against the individuals. So the case is kind of over, except the SEC has appealed the ruling. And because the SEC appealed, ripple appealed. So we're still, even after all this time, and it's almost been before. years, right? Well, it's been, yeah. And December will have been four years. If we, well, it is December.
Starting point is 00:55:44 It is December. Yeah. So if we get to the 22nd, it'll be four full years this shit show has been going on. But effectively, what is happening is we're coming to a conclusion of the case. You're having institutions clearly see where the digital markets are going and that XRP is going to play a major role in this new system that we kind of started the show talking about. So they're starting to try to acquire as much of that XRP as possible because it's going to be, we believe it's going to be the primary layer one blockchain for all digital assets.
Starting point is 00:56:27 Ripple announced that they're launching their stable coin, the real, the RLUSD, which is going to be able to be interoperable cross-chain. So we can go on the Ethereum chain, go on Tron. Cardano has been, which is kind of one of the players that's up there, has been talking about having the RLUSD be available on Cardano. You're going to see other currencies, fiat currencies, be put on the XRPL tokenized, And this will be the RL British Pound and the RL Euro and all that kind of stuff will be put on the XRPL as well.
Starting point is 00:57:11 So all that's really starting to happen. You also, Larry Fink, BlackRock came out in January or February of this year, basically saying on mainstream financial media that, so Bloomberg and CNBC and all these places that they're going to be. tokenizing every financial asset. And, you know, from an asset manager, this is like Nirvana, right? Because they make their money on trading these assets. They're already using AI to do it. But this would, once we're fully digital in securities world, they'll be able to trade 24 hours, seven days a week.
Starting point is 00:57:56 There'll be no holiday, no bank holidays or anything like that. So just the number of trading hours alone when we're on a tokenized market is going to 5x the number of available hours to trade. Think about that's an exponential increase in trading hours. And then because it moves so fast in this three to five second settlement thing, we're going to have an instantaneous settlement of transactions. So each hour is going to be exponentially more efficient internally. So what is causing the increase in price of XRP is people realize that they're going to have to have XRP to be able to participate in at a big kid level, at an enterprise level, and they're starting to buy it up. And that's working against, you know, the suppression that's basically been in the market from the delisting and the, you know, The SEC lawsuit, very calculated what they did.
Starting point is 00:59:03 You know, it was pretty much just, they knew they ultimately wouldn't succeed on, like, keeping it completely out of the market. They just needed to delay it about four years and let some of the legacy institutions kind of get, situated and caught up because this technology just kind of flew right behind them. And you had a lot of retail people kind of buying the stuff up, which was, kind of the first time in history that's ever. There's been a completely new asset class that you, me and, you know, the common man could go out and get a hold of.
Starting point is 00:59:40 So that's what's happening. We think that's, we're just in the very early innings of seeing the appreciation and the value of XRP and the value that's going to come on to the ledger. The projects that Valhill, that's my firm, that we've been involved in for basically this whole time that the lawsuits. been going on is to tokenize various assets, real estate commodities and bring them to the XRPL. And that's been tough. The development talent was pretty much all with Ethereum projects.
Starting point is 01:00:16 But it's getting better. And there's Ripple just announced a deal with a, I can't remember the company's name, but they have like, they have like a million developers. or something like that that are now starting to develop projects solely for the XRPL. So that's going to, that's going to,
Starting point is 01:00:35 that could be driving some of the value into the network. But this is a real utility network. And what I mean by that is that speculation can't really drive the value of it that much. This will segue us into meme coins and the Hocua,
Starting point is 01:00:57 Hoc2a girl. I know you want to talk about that. But the whole meme coin thing has just been one big speculative, like, like thing, right? It's baseball cards. It's Pokemon. You know, it's that type of a thing. Beanie babies.
Starting point is 01:01:19 Yeah, they don't seem to have any. Yeah. There is no. I would say beanie babies, you know, at least you have something that has some value. And we had a wave. Remember the NFT wave of 21? Yeah, that was huge. And board apes and all that.
Starting point is 01:01:35 Most of those were printed on Ethereum, right? Published to Ethereum like almost several times crashed the entire Ethereum network. Cryptozoom. Cryptozoo OpenC. Remember OpenC? So if I'm trading, let's just say a digital asset or an Ft with Ripple, I'm not going to have those large transaction fees. Correct.
Starting point is 01:01:54 And I'm not going to have the extremely long way times. It's going to be less than a. list to move it's going to be uh it's going to be less less than a penny okay yeah because that was yeah that was and and there is there's a uh so there's a there's a meme coin uh community that's now developed on the the xrPL it's called first ledger and they're coming out with all these you know NFT meme type things that you know kind of really this has been such a fascinating journey uh for me because, you know, you got to, I was like a stiff buttoned-down corporate lawyer five years ago. Right.
Starting point is 01:02:36 Right. And, like, I got into this community and start, you know, I'm coming in from a business standpoint. Like, this is, this is about money and building businesses and all this stuff. And I end up finding there's all these riddles and riddlers and esoteric stuff going on. and all. I mean, it was like, it's crazy. So the XRP community, people are writing songs. A wild wild west, right? It was, what impressed people writing songs.
Starting point is 01:03:08 There's an artist out of Vegas. I'm friends with this guy's names XRP bags, but check him out on YouTube. He does these rap songs. Everything is about the age. He's been doing this for years, like five years, on XRP. And these incredible rap songs on XRP.
Starting point is 01:03:26 XRP, but there were more. There was this guy XRP Chis. He seemed to have disappeared, but he had some cool XRP songs and stuff. But as in, we're talking 21, you know, 22, as I was seeing this stuff, I was like, there's something about this technology, which is hitting people so deeply, uh, that they're creating things about it, you know, um, and that that was significant. to me. This was this was not purely transactional. There was something deeper about what was going on in this movement that really appealed to people. It definitely I have had many people contact me and want me to do like
Starting point is 01:04:17 paintings, you know, about like Dogecoin and can you do? Was it Shiba? Sheba, you know? Yeah, I had a couple of engagements with artists. Can you send that to me? Yeah, I was going to say, I'll send you all of them. Yeah. One of the, and we've done some kick-ass stuff.
Starting point is 01:04:38 One of the things that Val Hill did was we underwrote the first NFT that was offered as a security. So we were like, why is everyone trying to not have the securities laws apply, just do one and create some economic rights? Like, that's what these NFTs are really valuable for is having smart contracts, economic rights, embedded in the token. So, anyway. Yeah, we're talking about artists and, uh, yeah. Well, I can ask one more question real quick. Is that so the problem with the crypto to me is that it, of the, is the volatility. Like, I would hate the idea of, you know, of, you know, of, you know, you're,
Starting point is 01:05:25 go to the grocery store, you go to buy something and then, you know, you're, you're, it's not, you know, you go to buy something for whatever, $10 or 10, you know, um, uh, Ethereum. I forget how whatever the unit is, you know, units of Ethereum or whatever, an eight, yeah, I go to buy something and I think it's, it's, you know, it's, it's whatever. And, and then it's, it's completely changed. Yeah. And then the next day, I could have bought it. I could have saved 50% because, I mean, these things don't subtly change. Yeah. They seem like they, they, they really, And then sometimes they really drop. Yep.
Starting point is 01:05:57 And that tip means when they go the other way too. Right. Yeah. It's, it's uber volatile. And it's because so little amount of money in any individual network can really hit the market cap pretty hard. Certainly when you start talking about millions and billions of dollars being invested into something at one time, it can really have big impact on the market. on the market cap because the supply and demand dynamics are just, that's just the way it is. Now, you basically have just described, that's the stable coin use case, though, right?
Starting point is 01:06:35 Is that you would peg it one to one with something. So either gold or dollars, right? I mean, the stable coin or, you know, fiat, it looks like where the stable coin industry is going to develop as it matures is to peg it to a fee. current currency. Hasn't there been stable coins that have like crashed or like they're supposed to be a dollar
Starting point is 01:07:01 state, even a dollar and then something happens. Yeah. There is, I want to say that some of the coins that FTX had were lost,
Starting point is 01:07:15 they call that losing the peg. Yeah. But the FTAX was a whole different. It is. And we can talk about that because that ties into this Heathgate story too.
Starting point is 01:07:25 All right. The OG stable coins now have pretty much, you know, they've, Tether has kept its peg for, you know, a long time. It's lost it a couple of times. It'll go to, you know, 99.99 or 0.98. But then they,
Starting point is 01:07:42 they do something and get it to be stable again. Now, the problem with Tether is they keep refusing to be audited. So, you know, they claim that they have U.S. Treasuries and, you know, the support to maintain the peg. But a couple of issues. They won't do the audit. And the other thing is that, you know, their bank is the same bank that FTX was using in the Bahamas, Deltec Bank.
Starting point is 01:08:11 I think so it's what it's called. Yeah. And you're saying that over the next, you know, five years, like most of the transactions will be done with the digital currency with, like, the different, I guess, states. Yeah, so that's a whole, that gets into some other issues. So there is a broad movement. I'd be shocked if you guys aren't generally aware of people wanting to return back to the constitutional republic. And this is like your patriot movement, your Q movement. Some people call them the truth or community.
Starting point is 01:08:46 We've done a, we've done a couple of videos on like this was prior to the election, was, you know, kind of looking into a civil war, you know, which, of course, you just want me just having to watch all the videos about a new civil war. Right. Immediately, you know, started bringing up the whole, you know, Texas, you know, breaking off, California breaking all these, you know, Alaska, you know, so I ended up getting a little educated into the possibility, you know. the what was it the uh forget what you know so every state if it was its own country like where it would rank in the in the world you know as far as being right well in fact that is what we are right we are our own country each state is its own country um but in after the civil the civil war that occurred yes um we we basically incorporated so the federal government became a corporation
Starting point is 01:09:47 and the states ended up becoming subsidiary corporations of the federal government. So now state of Florida, state of Texas, those are corporate manifestations to be able to be contract and do, you know, do deals, right? There are movements, and, you know, it's deep stuff. It's fascinating stuff, you know. A lot of this, if people read the book, a creature from Jekyll Island. Yeah, who's read that over, like, I'll bet you he's read it 40 times is, um, Chris Marrero.
Starting point is 01:10:26 I was going to sell. He's a guy who's a sovereign citizen. Yep. So sovereign, yeah, this is your sovereign citizen type movement. So sovereign citizen, they'll fuss at you for that because citizen, if you go back to the epidemiology of what the word citizen means, it's like employee. So when we say U.S. citizen, you're actually saying employee of this corporation. Right.
Starting point is 01:10:49 And so the sovereign movement would say is that all the statutes and ordinance and regulations and stuff only apply to the citizens. So the people who are employees of the corporation, they don't apply actually to you. Like the living person walking around, breathing, you know, bleeding. Right. They don't apply to us. We're sovereign to the forms of government. Like if you go back to the founding documents of the United States of America, and what I'm talking about, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution,
Starting point is 01:11:26 those are kind of the three key governing documents. Those were implemented by the people and restricting government from what they could do to the people. Right, right. I mean, we had just fought a revolution to basically do that. for our revolution not pay taxes. Right. And here we are. Tax tax out of our brains, right?
Starting point is 01:11:50 The Boston Tea Party, we're having to pay like a 2% tax and now we're paying like 35% or whatever the tax. And that's just if you're thinking. We don't even want to think about it. I mean, like, if you, every sales tax. Oh, yeah. If you start adding it up, it's like 50, 60% of everything that you get, you know. I've already been taxed on this money.
Starting point is 01:12:10 Well, now I'm going to buy this and that they're going to tax me on that. And then I'm going to buy this and they're going to tax me. me on that. It just goes, it's just never stopped. It's never ending. So in a house that I'm being taxed on. Right.
Starting point is 01:12:19 And the house you're being taxed on. For the, that you thought you owned. Yeah, exactly. But try try paying, try not paying your tax. Try to not pay your tax.
Starting point is 01:12:26 Try to stay here. That's right. That's right. But that is, I mean, this is cool stuff. But there is a, there's a big,
Starting point is 01:12:35 big movement. That sovereign movement, which is manifesting as Q and truthers and all that. It is a large movement now. You want to say probably had a big part of getting Trump reelected. And there is a belief that Trump is going to bring back the Republic of the federal republic, if you will, and that all the states will then have more power.
Starting point is 01:13:05 Yeah, basically go back to being countries. So that is, that's what's leading. I think we talked about this at the first, but like Texas, I'm pretty sure. Florida, they already have passed legislation to have gold-backed money. And that's permitted under the Constitution. I think it's Article, Section 10 article. You have to check me on this, Colby. I was just saying, every sovereign citizen I've ever met has been in prison or is headed
Starting point is 01:13:39 there, you know? Like I would, I'd love talking to a book because, boy, they are knowledgeable. They manage to tweak it in just to such a way that you're like, I'm not positive. That's what it means. And that may be what it's mean. So back to the sovereign citizen, I kind of went off on this rabbit hole of what it says.
Starting point is 01:13:56 So that's an oxymoron, right? Right. If you're sovereign, you're not a citizen. Right. Well, did you find that? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:14:05 So it says, let's see. I mean, I just typed in, I literally just typed in gold back money constitution. It says article or section 10, C1.2. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:14:13 coining money by states. Yep. That's it. So the Constitution permits states to have their own money, but it has to be denominated in gold or silver. I had no idea. I didn't know. So the states are, they're basically, I mean,
Starting point is 01:14:29 so what do you think? What is the civil war anyway, right? I mean, how would it occur in 2024 or in 2020? We got a hole. We got a hole. And you know, here's what's funny about this. This is what's really interesting. And this is also probably.
Starting point is 01:14:43 plays into, I'm sure, your whole thing, is that we did Rudrick... Rudyard. Yeah, Rudyard. It's a difficult name. He's actually from... He's actually lives in Texas, doesn't he? Does he? I think so.
Starting point is 01:14:57 Super smart. Guys, he's clearly on the spectrum. Very smart guy, right? Brilliant, really. And I had watched a video on... The video he'd done 10 years ago when he was in high school and started his channel about what would a civil war look like in the United States. Now, of course, 10 years later with Trump and everything else, what would it look like? So he had redid the whole
Starting point is 01:15:25 redone. I think he just republished it. It would change a few things. Republish it. Anyway, it was big again. Comes on here. We had a very, very tame, respectful conversation. Didn't go crazy. We're not saying anything that's overtly political. We're We're staying kind of neutral in everything. And he told us exactly what was going to happen. He said, look, he said, here's what's going to happen. He said, you were going to get 100,000 or so views. He said YouTube's going to demonetize the video.
Starting point is 01:15:55 And we were like, why would that happen? Like we didn't sit, we're not cussing. We're not talking about drugs. We're not talking about. We're not talking about anything that should be demonetized. That they could even elude to it. We're not even being extremely political. And everything we were talking about was he's like, well, you know, this book is what, you know, is where I got this.
Starting point is 01:16:18 Or in the 1800s when this happened, this happened. Yeah. Historic events. So he's like, you know, that, you know, this argument is rooted in these different things that happened in history. And so that's possible that it would happen again. And I was more of a nuts and bolts guy where I was saying like, you know, he's thinking more philosophically. saying, listen, every state has a national guard. You know, we've got, whatever, something like 19,000.
Starting point is 01:16:47 Texas has 26. So, I mean, I think Texas has like 22,000 in there. You know, you got California. You've got, you've got to, of course, the military, overall military. So I'm saying, how would they, if each state had its own, the National Guard went with that state. You know, like, I'm breaking it apart. He's like, yeah, I didn't even thought about that. You're thinking about, like, what would a real battle be?
Starting point is 01:17:07 Like, of course, the movie Civil War had just come out. I don't know if you saw that. Super interesting. Yeah, I want to see that. It was A24 is the production company. Okay. So you could tell, I think they had a budget of like $40 million. I can tell you right now, they spent $30 million of it in the last 15 minutes.
Starting point is 01:17:26 Like, that's the best part. The first part is they're just driving around more of a drama. Oh, so it's a civil war that occurs in today. Okay, got you. Yeah. Anyway, we had this whole thing, and he was right. Like, what did we get to when it suddenly got, boom, demonetized? He said his videos will get to like $200,000 and they get demonetized.
Starting point is 01:17:45 It kind of flattened out, and that's almost identical to what our video did. Because he said that's what happens with all of his videos. Now, I hope talking about this isn't going to. It shouldn't, because we've mentioned it before. And we're pretty far in the, and we're pretty far gone. I want you to send me his. You still have it. Oh, of course.
Starting point is 01:18:02 Send that to me. It's so good. And what's even better about his? It's better because it's upsetting to me. Because, you know, I'm not somebody who wants to hear what I want to hear. Yeah. You know, like, you know, it's like, I only want to get information that helps support my delusion or my belief of what would happen. He has a whole video on had the South won the Civil War.
Starting point is 01:18:26 This is, you know, the original Civil War. What would have happened to the South? How would have progressed? And it's not good, bro. Like it's like I'm sitting there. And he explains why. He's like, you don't understand. We didn't industrialize.
Starting point is 01:18:39 We weren't industrialized. We were relying on slaves. The North had. And during the Civil War, the North industrialized even more during that period of time. So they were so- Is that a way to say that humanity or society benefits from technological progress? Oh, yeah. Of course.
Starting point is 01:18:59 Absolutely. So if we are technologically progressing in our, monetary system, won't that be good for humanity when it all plays out? Yeah, I mean, I would. As long as it's done in a way that doesn't oppress, right? Right. It doesn't do this type of stuff like we're, like the fears of, you know, going digital that you expressed earlier.
Starting point is 01:19:25 I think it could be a really good thing. Imagine if we could be a good thing. You know what I'm saying? Technology is neutral, right? It's how are we going to use it? Are we going to use it for good things? We're going to use it for bad things. AIs the same thing.
Starting point is 01:19:40 We're dealing with the same issues. What would you say? Because I feel like most people on their stance on kind of crypto currencies. It's either they're passionate or they're, it's pretty polarizing. Like they're passionate one way or the other. Like what would you say like the people that are like, I'm not touching that thing with a 10-foot pole? Like all the things, all the scandals of things that have gone on over the last few years with it. Will they have a choice?
Starting point is 01:20:02 like will there not, will there not be a choice in five to ten years where they're going to have to be using some type of crypto or? There's no alternative. I think. Or will it even be? I don't think they're going to notice. I think the people who are so just like, you know, I am never going to get into that. You know, they won't notice. It'll be such a subtle.
Starting point is 01:20:27 It's a boiling the frog type of scenario that, you know, they'll be using their visa card. Visa will end up running on digital, and they just still never know, right? And so, unfortunately, I think there's going to, certainly if they're entrepreneurs, if they don't adopt into this technology, they're going to get beat out by entrepreneurs that do adopt the technology. And that's just even from a P&L standpoint of being able to receive your money. money pay your vendors or whatever quicker more efficiently. That's just going to happen. And is it to the point now where that is more efficient?
Starting point is 01:21:12 Like with ripple, it's more efficient than just using. It is. It's substantially more efficient. Had we not, if, I mean, we were already, we started or invested in a media brand in 21 called Astrolite. And we had a crypto-influenced. named James Rule, who's out of Texas, who's an XRP guy.
Starting point is 01:21:37 And we were paying him in XRP. We were basically funding as many. The issue at that time, which is becoming less of an issue now, and will continue to become less and less, is that not every vendor would take a cryptocurrency or a digital asset. But now, you know, gosh, I think I read Chase Banks now taking XRP for mortgage payments and credit card payments and all that stuff.
Starting point is 01:22:05 There's Travala, which is one of the big travel apps. They're taking XRP for all kinds of different travel things. So it'll just end up being another thing on the various abilities to pay. You'll be able to pull some out of your digital wallet and pay, or you can put it on your credit card or whatever. So I think we're kind of, we're at that point in time. We've been traveling on two trains. You've got the people who are never going to do it, right?
Starting point is 01:22:41 Fuck that. I'm never going to do it. And you got the people who are like, I'm leaning in. I'm going to like learn this stuff. And we've been kind of able to look at each other in the other train. And we've started this process now. And the people on the train that I'm jumping on. on we're kind of going to the future and the people who aren't or, you know, you're going to,
Starting point is 01:23:06 you're going to live over enough period of time, which is, I don't know, 20, 30 years, we will, we will live dramatically different lives. You know, the people who stuck with wanting cash and to live in the physical world are going to live a more 3D, you know, manual life. and the people who go digital and they incorporate AI and digital currencies and digital securities are going to be completely liquid, able to be anywhere in the world, doing anything they want to do, and maybe even outside of this world, right? So if Elon continues to...
Starting point is 01:23:48 I was just thinking, I was like, if Jess was here right now, my wife, she would be pacing back and forth, go upstairs, walk her, come back down. she'd be so irritated right now at the idea of you know a cashless society and you know and and and just you know so she's such a distrust of the government um and uh i'm with her yeah i mean i'm with yeah well and it's funny because when you were talking earlier i was going to bring up boziac and i thought i don't know how i can how can i enter boziac's whole thing which is funny because you would think as much of it i have a buddy named john boziac he's in thailand right now but he moved to Thailand.
Starting point is 01:24:29 Oh, two weeks ago? No, not even two weeks. We can have? Yeah, we can have. Wow. And, but it's funny because every time we would, you would think he was so, he's so like anti-establishment, but yet he loves technology. So when you talk about things like, you know, the Tesla bot, right, or robots in general.
Starting point is 01:24:51 Yep. And I'm, you know, of course, I'm like, yeah, they're going to release. I'm going to take 10 years to work out the bugs. And then eventually they will be amazing. It will be I-Robot, you know. And for him, he's like, yeah, they'll do all the jobs. They'll do all this. And then we'll have a universal income and we won't have to work.
Starting point is 01:25:06 And I'm like, that's not going to happen. Like, that's not possible. Like, you don't want to understand how the economy works. You can't just keep having babies and have robots do everything. Right. And you get paid this much money. You have to contribute. And he's, you know, fuck that.
Starting point is 01:25:18 That's bull. And it's just you want to believe they're going to give you $100,000 a year to just run with it. And the robots will do it. But, you know, it doesn't. It's not going to work like that. So, but I was wondering, you know, as we were talking, I was thinking to myself, like, what happens when this is great? But what happens when you can buy a robot for $25,000 to do everything? Or even now with Tesla, I think it's this year you buy a Tesla.
Starting point is 01:25:44 You can put it on an app. And while you're at work, it's driving or it's doing Uber basically. It's a Tesla version of Uber picking up people dropping them off, charging them. And so it's making its own payment. Like what happens when I can finance a robot for $25,000 and it can do, it can get a job making, doing $40,000 or $50,000? Like some people are going to be like, that's amazing. Oh my God. I bought six of them and I did.
Starting point is 01:26:09 And I'm making this much money. Yeah. But what about the people that have bad credit can't finance them can't get them? They get even more poor. You know, it's like suddenly that, which is already happening. Obviously, the middle class is shrinking and shrinking, shrinking. But that would be such a major shrinkage. What do you think about that?
Starting point is 01:26:26 Because I'm sure you have a lot more understanding than I do. Have you at least probably had more time to think about it. Well, you know, I think to do what we're doing here today, 20 years ago, you would have to be CBS. And so here's your own network with your own media distribution, your own branding, all this stuff. I think you probably, if you were to compare, I don't know how old you are, but you know, 25 year old Matthew. It's over. Okay.
Starting point is 01:27:02 You're 55. So I'm 50. So we're like to say, man. I'm 54. It's over. It's not over. It's just beginning. I'm positive.
Starting point is 01:27:12 Don't even give me started on the med beds and all the stuff that we got coming around. The brass on the Titanic right now. It feels that way sometimes. Listen, I can tell you how many pills I'm taking. I counted out my whole weeks of pills. I was like, this is getting insane. Sorry, I got, sorry, my wife will come up to me and she's like, hey, what's going on and give me a kiss and hug me and hug me a little bit too long. And I'm like, do I need to go take a pill?
Starting point is 01:27:41 Like, what's this? No, you're good. You're good. She's in my stomach. I'm like, let me know. I need 25 minutes dissolved. Go ahead. I mean, I get a kick out of technology.
Starting point is 01:27:54 and technological development. And, you know, it's worked, that had always been great. Like the first thing, you know, I was part of that group of lawyers that we came out of law school, my first day at the law firm, they handed me a BlackBerry.
Starting point is 01:28:07 And I was thinking, oh, this is really cool. I don't have to be at my desk to get an email and do, I didn't realize that they basically just captured my entire, like, that meant I was available. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:28:20 They just added 10 more hours onto your work week. They did. And that was the Blackberry. I mean, don't even talk about these supercomputers that we're walking around with now, right? They can stream video and, oh, what was that one thing we did? And you're able to pull that up just the amount of like content and stuff available. It's been amazing, though, right?
Starting point is 01:28:41 Do you think it's amazing? I do. Imagine me walking out of prison five years ago. I'd never seen an iPhone. I'd never been on YouTube. Yeah. You're drinking from a fire hose for sure. It's insane.
Starting point is 01:28:51 I mean, and people are, and it's funny because I was, I, and I think I feel like it took me a little bit of time because I initially, I resisted for maybe six months, but I had to make myself, you know, force myself to sit out and, listen, I was watching five or six YouTube videos a day to do anything. But very quickly, I realized that I could watch YouTube. I was lucky. I have, I have a tutor in my pocket to tell me how to use the phone. that's telling me how to use, that I can't use, it's telling me how to use itself, like I'm, and I'm looking at multiple videos. Anyway,
Starting point is 01:29:27 what's so funny about that is that, um, I would still sit there with people like Colby and, and, and, and, you know, other people that are, guys that are sitting here that have had this technology
Starting point is 01:29:39 the entire time and they're, they're having five minute conversations about, well, was that so and so, what was that in the movie and said, and they're going back and I'm like, you're the most powerful device ever created. You just spent five minutes,
Starting point is 01:29:51 discussing something that what's the name of the movie you know the cast of such and such I'll be like okay is it this guy this guy oh yeah that's the guy okay you spent five minutes yeah I mean so I've taken to it pretty quickly yeah um but it's only getting it's only getting more and more amazing every single day I agree okay but also more and more scary my wife and I have a discussion about something you know cookers or some kind of pressure cooker or something or something then and she's like, oh, we gotta get a pressure. Yeah. And, you know, and sure enough, five minutes later, you pick up your phone and you go to look
Starting point is 01:30:28 up something, man, I've never talked about pressure cookers in my life. I've never looked one up. And there's four ads for pressure cookers. Yeah, that's creepy. You're all of you bastards. I mean, we'll have a conversation. Sometimes I feel like saying, like, let's walk in the other room. That, those two snitches.
Starting point is 01:30:44 And those, they're listening to us. What are we talking about here? Yeah. You want to buy a bow and arrow? Are we allowed to buy Boeing arrows? Yeah, the privacy issue and the release of our privacy as technology-based or like, I mean, you know the phones are taking rapid pictures of you all the time, and they're absolutely listening and stuff. They're saying it's just, you know, just to get you what you want, right?
Starting point is 01:31:12 We're just trying to help you. I had a guy come give me a quote to paint my house like two years ago. and manual labor guy so he does for a living and he's at first I thought he's just trying to build a poor with me standing in my porch she's like telling me about his family or something okay and then he's like I got a ring camera on my door
Starting point is 01:31:32 he's like look see the re-camera like oh come here come here bro and he walked away from the ring camera walked around in my carport and then he started telling me about all his issues with his wife but he didn't want to tell me in front of the ring camera and five minutes later this guy's crying in my carport and I'm like yeah I'm definitely not gonna
Starting point is 01:31:48 he didn't want to see him himself on Twitter, you know, like man confesses, you know, about poor relationship with his life, right? Yeah, you never go with him. Well, look, life, humanity, you know, it just propels itself forward, right? And we're going to continue to tinker and develop tools. We've been doing this since we've been on this planet with the wheel and fire and ultimately. We went digital, but now we're, you know, we're going to that next state of digital. I think of a lot of times I think about space travel is not like out there.
Starting point is 01:32:29 I think about it is into the computer, right? And with virtual reality and all that kind of stuff, you guys seen Ready Player 1, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, being able to come up with these avatars and do different things like that. I just heard, and I was thinking this would have been a great idea like five years ago. one of my favorite bands growing up was Kiss. Like, loved Kiss. You didn't even know about, Kobe didn't even know.
Starting point is 01:32:55 I don't even know what they looked like. That's about it. Detroit Rock City, Beth. Yeah. So the Destroyer record I had on 8 track. I know you don't know what the hell that is. I had, those my first two records was Kiss Destroyer and John Denver that had country roads on it. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:33:13 And I wore those freaking 8 tracks out. But anyway, 4.4. five years ago, I was thinking, these guys, I mean, they're getting up there. They're too old to tour. You know, they're bringing in the young, like, cat man guy and spaceman guy, right? They need to come up with, like, some avatars, like virtual reality stuff, and then they can always be forever young. I mean, you think about what Gene's fire could do and all that stuff. It's, like, digital, you know? Turns out they're having a freaking avatar tour. Like 2025 or 2026, they're coming out with, with like digital avatars of Kiss.
Starting point is 01:33:51 That's data point number one. What I did on a Saturday, my family and I, well, my wife and youngest daughter went to Las Vegas to see the Eagles at the sphere. Have you been to the sphere yet? I have.
Starting point is 01:34:06 About a couple months ago, a few months ago. Who'd you see? No, we just saw the, they were planet earth thing. Planet Earth. Yeah. Would you think about that?
Starting point is 01:34:16 You know, I've been to, IMAX. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a much, much bigger, much, much more clear IMAX. I thought it was amazing. I was kind of disappointed only because I do editing. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:34:28 Right? With the Final Cut Pro, so we do a lot of editing. So when you're, if you're kind of into editing, I was disappointed with some of the edits. Some of the transitions. I thought you did poorly on some of the edits. But was it phenomenal? I mean, absolutely. Like the giraffe and the, like, you know, you can see the skin like you've never
Starting point is 01:34:48 seen it before. You wanted to, you wanted to touch the giraffe. I mean, it is. It's phenomenal. It's completely immersive. And it's,
Starting point is 01:34:54 and it's, you have to look over here to, yeah. So we set up, you must have set kind of like at level two or level three. I'm thinking, we were up in level four. So most of it was in front of us.
Starting point is 01:35:07 We were down, kind of in the middle, kind of like it dropped straight off. It's crazy. Right. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:35:13 Yeah. So, so my wife and daughter got vertigo because of that. Like they couldn't, They couldn't sit in there. Really? To get out of there. Oh, you're definitely leaning.
Starting point is 01:35:23 You're definitely like you're, you feel like you're, you know, I see how you could get sick. Hotel California and freaking, they did lying eyes and the lyrics start freaking cascading from the top of the ceiling and stuff. And they're like,
Starting point is 01:35:40 like the lines that are written sideways are kind of flowing around. I mean, it was mind blowing. Super cool. I'll tell you What about the Amy, the robot?
Starting point is 01:35:53 Isn't that what they were called Amy? Is this like the robot girlfriend type of thing? No, no, the robots, when you first walk into the main lobby, you can talk to them. They have robots that you can go up and say, hi, how are you? And it's a robot that it's interactive.
Starting point is 01:36:11 You ask it questions. It's like, oh, I love humans. And they may have just had that. because it was that show. I don't recall seeing any robots. Oh, you know, why? Because you went to a, they went to a concert. Yeah, this was an Eagles concert.
Starting point is 01:36:25 Okay. Yeah. Now, this is just the regular every day. You can pay for a ticket, go into where the lobby is. And they have all these robots that you've, I'm sure you've seen some TikTok. Yeah, I've seen them. It's a woman that talks to you. And it's, yeah, I've seen also some, the Tesla ones being like a bartender and doing stuff like that.
Starting point is 01:36:43 It's kind of crazy. Yeah. It's funny, too, because it's, it's funny too, because. these things probably were put in, I guess, whenever the sphere came on board because they were like amazing then. But Tesla robots are probably more advanced than what these things are. And they're stuck. You know, they're, I want to say stay, they're locked in.
Starting point is 01:37:06 They're not walking around. They're talking to you. But they're, obviously, there's cords running down their legs. I think I've seen it. And you can now see their backs, the other heads open? But the face is there. The face is cool because the face kind of moves and it talks to you. So it's cool.
Starting point is 01:37:21 It's like the next evolution of like the Disney animatronic type stuff. Yeah. 10 years from, listen, 10 years from now. Yeah, it's going to be insane. Insane. But, you know, when I, it's funny, because I watch a ton of stuff on, on, on SpaceX and going to mallors and all the projects and, you know, Elon Musk. And so I watch a lot of that. And I mean, and you'll see every once in a while I'll get some thing that'll come up,
Starting point is 01:37:54 some TikTok or some short or something or a video, some jerk off who's like, you know, one, I always love it when they're like, Elon Musk could do so much more with that money. Let him do what he wants to do with his money, the son of your business. You want to, you think he should do better? Go out and make trillion. Do what you want to do it. Give it away the poor. Right.
Starting point is 01:38:13 And of course, the other thing is, which I highly believe in, is that if you took all the money and you divided it equally in five years from now, it'd be back in the upper 5% of society anyway because they know how to manage money and you don't. Yep. I believe that too. So it'd be a waste. But the other thing is, is that, you know, the robots, you can send to, you know, five or 10 years from now, you can send them to Mars. You know, and I think what he's doing is whether you like his politics or not, that's irrelevant. It's phenomenally, it's over the top amazing what he's doing because if you gave me trillions of dollars, I'd just be a rock star.
Starting point is 01:38:59 I'd have 40 Lamborghinis and I'd be a jerk off and I'd be living in some penthouse and I'd be a complete asshole. And this is a guy who said, you know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking we go to Mars and set up another society for human. manity in case something goes wrong because guess what we're due it happens every once in a while so like what an amazing individual so that's amazing to me um and the other thing is what people don't realize is you think that NASA and going to the moves and move going to the moon and all those things that they've done are wasteful spending those things have moved our society forward by leaps and bounds because so much technology had to be created to get those things to happen,
Starting point is 01:39:49 things that you take for granted right now that make your life so much better than it ever could have been had those programs not been developed. So that money that was pissed away wasn't pissed away because it's the microchips in your computer and all of the devices that you use and everything from rubbers and plastics and, you know, content. contact lenses and phones and cameras and all these things had to be advanced dramatically to get those programs to actually work. And people don't realize that. They think, oh, they spent this much money and what a waste. And well, you have no idea how much that benefited you. Because people are just in general, you know, the bulk of people are just selfish and stupid.
Starting point is 01:40:34 And they're not really thinking, you know, on what those things have done. So I think that Elon Musk and, you know, robots and going to them to Mars is going to dramatically increase everybody's life, or at least their quality of life. You know, if not yours, at least your children, but I don't think most people are probably thinking along those lines. We have a good friend in the community's guy named Patrick Riley. He runs a company called Reaper Financial. He's a next level.
Starting point is 01:41:03 Yeah, Patrick's like a next level genius. Love him to pieces. He's got this next level propulsion technology that he's working on. to do space travel and stuff. But one of the things that we talk about a lot, this kind of ties more back to, you know, I'm like a financial guy, right,
Starting point is 01:41:21 is being able to, like, mine precious metals and stuff off of asteroids. Oh, yeah. That'll be the first trillionaire or billionaires? Yeah, right? Yeah. First trillioner would be the guy that figures out how to do that. And, oh, the resources in, like, one asteroid is more than all the money, potentially, that we know of in the world.
Starting point is 01:41:39 So, that, I mean, I'm agreeing with you a thousand percent. We don't even know the big quantum leaps in humanity that we can take by continuing to kind of go down this technological development road that we're on. Did you see, I'm going to get the name wrong? It's by Apple. It's called... What does it do?
Starting point is 01:42:06 It's called for the... I want to say, for all-man. is what it's called. It's a series, and on Apple, it's called, and I'm almost positive. I got the, yeah, for all mankind. Nice.
Starting point is 01:42:21 Way to go. Apple needs to send you a check, by the way. Well, I think it's two, might have been three series where I'm waiting for the next series to come off. And you know what it is? And I used to love these comic books when I was a kid, by the way. I did. What if?
Starting point is 01:42:33 Okay. Yeah. And it's, what if this Soviet Union and the United States, what if the space race has, hadn't been, or didn't stop. So what if, instead of we got to the point where the Soviets basically said, all right, we're throwing in the towel.
Starting point is 01:42:50 Yeah. What if they did go to the moon? Then we would have gone to Mars. So it's got these things. It's like what, and it's so funny because the technology that is, so they're in the late 80s, early 90s by the time they actually get to Mars. But the technology that's you, you start to realize, like, what do you mean it's 1990? But they've got cell phones.
Starting point is 01:43:14 And they've got like there's there's a everything is shifted forward. And they've done it and blended it with, I think some things are the same and some things aren't. You know, you're like the clothes are okay, but, but they're using this. Or they're driving electric vehicles, but, you know, there's all these things that are happening. And they do. They end up, they're using, they do end up developing, uh, um,
Starting point is 01:43:39 nuclear propulsion for, uh, the vehicle. that are taking them to Mars. Listen, it's an, you know, Apple does amazing series. Everything they put in, they put in, they're just willing to blow a ton of money. They've got to be losing their ass on that whole channel because they're dumping so much money into the series. They're quite the cash cow, though, so they got it.
Starting point is 01:44:01 It's amazing, though. And I'm waiting for the next series because the last series, they got to Mars, and they're kind of setting up. Steve Jobs was one of those guys, right? It really pushed the boundary. Yeah. Yeah. What a, what a, I know, sorry.
Starting point is 01:44:16 I'm too, but it's so funny about him. It makes me think of Trump. It's like you say, hey, in some ways, and we're going to lose some subscribers here, Colby. So in some ways. Is that his department? Yeah, he's going to be like, you know, what's, you know, we're staying away from politics. So, but I think this is how, this is true. In some ways, it's like, this is the guy that I.
Starting point is 01:44:40 want leading this country because he only gives a shit about this country. Like your country, you know, oh, Canada, oh, well, if you do these tariffs, it's going to destroy us. That's your fucking problem. I'm concerned about my citizens. I was elected by this country. And I'm sorry if things are going wrong for your country. You should probably fix that.
Starting point is 01:45:01 I'm worried about how these things affect us. This is who I was elected for. This is who I want the best for. I believe that. But like most CEOs, presidents of, you know, corporations and countries is that, unfortunately, the really strong, powerful good ones are narcissists. You know, they have narcissistic personalities. They're not fluffy. They're not giving out hugs.
Starting point is 01:45:25 They're jerks. They're, you know, they're tough, you know, narcissistic pricks, you know, and unfortunately, that's what he's, you know, that's. So you're right. He's not hugging people and telling them in, and college. modeling them and everything. He's a bully and he yells and screams and pushes people and tells him this is what you're doing. That's what you're not doing. Go fuck yourself if you don't like it. I want that guy. I don't need the guy to hug me and tell me. So I get that. It's and it's the same thing with like Elon Musk. And it's the same thing. I think those are the people that get things done. And I had I was going somewhere with that. I was going somewhere. Yeah. No, I think that was the statement. It was starting with that and was going somewhere else. I'm telling him.
Starting point is 01:46:13 We had mentioned Jobs. Oh, I know. Steve Jobs, thank you. Steve Jobs was the same way. Right. Listen, they couldn't. Did you ever read the, um, Isaacson book?
Starting point is 01:46:24 Yeah, oh my God. You couldn't find anybody to say anything really that Steve Jobs was a sweet person and a nice individual and a good guy to work with. It was he demanded the best of everybody. He drove you into the ground. He worked you to absolute death. He didn't give a fuck.
Starting point is 01:46:37 about your feelings. He was a horrific person to work for, but he was a visionary, and he's the one that got things done. He wasn't afraid to fail, just like Elon Musk. He doesn't mind failing. So I thought that was amazing. And been the same thing, he had the whole thing with medication. He had a condition or a disease, his, it was a kidney failure or something?
Starting point is 01:47:02 Yeah, pancreatic cancer. Yeah, yeah. that had about an 80% chance of being cured if he had gone with traditional medication. Right. No, no, I'm going to eat some berries and herbs. Yeah. I'm going to cure it naturally. And then you end up telling.
Starting point is 01:47:17 Like, what are you doing? You're amazing. That was his mindset, though. That was his mindset, yeah. You could, the guy could be alive right now. Yeah. But you had to go with eating berries. Maybe he had a different perspective.
Starting point is 01:47:30 Oh, I, yeah. And what if he was alive now? Let's do that. What if? What if his system or theory, eating the berries, would have worked. But it didn't.
Starting point is 01:47:43 Traditional medicine gave him an 80% chance of survival. I'm aware it didn't. I'm not going with the shaman. I mean, because he doesn't wear shoes and they both like each other and he makes him feel good or whatever the deal was. But yeah, just those are the kinds of things.
Starting point is 01:47:58 How are you phenomenal? Is that the problem with successful people? is that you become phenomenally successful in one area of your life. But then again, every relationship he had was a disaster. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because he couldn't, yeah. Yeah, it's horrible. I mean, it's, it's, it's, that's, listen, I'm extremely narcissistic.
Starting point is 01:48:16 I tell you right, I know you don't see that. You think, hey, what a great guy. You don't know. I do. Yeah. But I have always said this. I feel horrible for anybody that has a personal relationship with me. It's horrible because the whole time that person,
Starting point is 01:48:31 talking, I'm just waiting for an opportunity to talk about myself. That's good to know. You should have told me that before we started. You figured this out a little bit. At this point, you realize, you're like, this guy. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's funny. It's, uh, growing pains just in general are just horrible and like technology is horrible. And that and the whole, the whole crypto thing terrifies me.
Starting point is 01:48:56 Yeah. Well, I think that might be one of your blind spots, right? You need to be a, your Steve Jobs, not getting the chemo in radiation. I should have got the radiation. I want to eat the berries. I want to stick with cash. What would you say to maybe, let's just say, more blue-collar, unsophisticated person that has no idea or clue about crypto, what would you suggest to them to help set themselves up for the next 20, 30 years?
Starting point is 01:49:26 Like what should they should be doing as a concern is to? financial crypto and stuff like that's a that's a great question um it's not going to hurt anybody to watch some youtube videos and just learn a little bit about what's going on you might find that you have an interest in some things you know um the the the the the hot twas of the world isn't the worst thing ever in that it is getting people you know more mainstream more blue collar interested in these digital things that maybe otherwise they wouldn't have they wouldn't have looked at or gotten into I'm not a financial advisor so you know this is for entertainment purposes only and all that stuff all that disclaimer but you know we
Starting point is 01:50:17 very much believe that the XRPL and XRP is going to be a very important asset in the coming financial system and but there's several There's several of these tokens. So there's XRP, XLM, XTC's one. Cardano looks like it might be one. I think if you could just buy a little sack of these assets and stick them away, make sure you keep all your, you've got to have these seed phrases and stuff like that to access your wallet in case something happens to it.
Starting point is 01:50:52 So you want to keep that. But I think you'll be grateful you did, even if you don't think about it. about it every day like we do. Because you just, as these things increase in value and the networks become more utilized, you kind of have, you got access rights on the, you know, Internet of Value Super Highway. I was going to say, yeah, so invest in the more stable, not the, not the Hustle. Exactly. Stick with the blue chip ones, you know, yeah.
Starting point is 01:51:27 Even if they, you know, experience some type of a downfall or whatever, they're not going to go to zero because they're, they're so pervasive in different applications or whatever that they're going to be used for something. You know, they're also being run by conservative people that are business-minded. Real people. Yeah. Yeah, that aren't the Haktua coin that you think. Correct. I love the guy that did a video is like, I invested $20,000 and now it's worth, you know, it's worth like $110. or something on her coin.
Starting point is 01:51:59 Oh, my God. Yeah. But then I think, but you didn't buy it because you thought you were holding this long term. You thought this was a get rich scheme. That's why you put 20 grand into it. Correct. And you lost. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:52:09 You had to know, somebody was going to lose? Yeah. You know, so you weren't like, was it Warren Buffett? No. You know, he's like, I saw an interview with him where somebody said that people are constantly saying, why do you like give people your secrets and tell them? He's like, because people don't want to do what I'm telling them to do. That's right.
Starting point is 01:52:27 Nobody wants to get rich slowly. Right. And I love that phrase. And it's like, that's why this guy invested $20,000 into a girl that's famous for going Hocktuah and lost $20,000. He could have taken that $20,000 and put it in Ethereum or any of these, any of these coins that you're talking about. And would you have made a bunch of money right away? No, but you wouldn't have lost $20,000 either. That's right.
Starting point is 01:52:49 But in 10 years, it might be worth $30. It might be worth $60. It's not going to be worth $110. Yeah. You know, they just had the, there's a very famous video of a guy going to his computer monitor when Bitcoin hit $100. And I think it was in 2011. And they basically paid him when it hit $100,000, you know. So $1 would have been what?
Starting point is 01:53:15 That's like $10,000, X, you know, your money. So he could have taken that $20,000. I was going to say, is this the guy that bought the pizza? No, but it's a, it's a similar. Yeah, it's a similar story. It was later on. The guy who bought the pizza, I think that was like $10. He got it, got the pizza.
Starting point is 01:53:31 I think he got a few pizzas, right? Bitcoin pizza guy. It was now worth like, you know. Oh, it's billions. Yeah, because that was, that was like the first real transaction, I think, that anybody ever kind of did using the Bitcoin. And that was a long time ago. That's like 2010.
Starting point is 01:53:51 20, yeah, I think it's like 2010 that that happened. that's like the guy that the fourth investor and um apple the guy that put in like a thousand dollars something they used to know his name three days later he was like you know what I just want my my thousand dollars went back yeah yeah they're like okay it's 25% of their 20% of the company you know here's your thousand yeah well you know that takes it takes perseverance you know there's all that bumpy stuff that happens I'm kind of, you know, the past four or five years have been difficult, but still here. Still, you know, still heavily invested, still, you know, the people, the network that I have
Starting point is 01:54:37 and the people who are involved in this sector, absolutely amazing. You know, these are visionary people in and of themselves, and it's super fun. I mean, what opportunity would a guy have to, like, sit at the crossroads of, you know, Fiat going to digital, bringing the capital, the entire capital markets on chain. You know, that could be the legacy of our firm. And, I mean, that can be, Valley may be synonymous to J.B. Morgan a hundred years from now. Because that's the opportunity that we're at. But you've got to do the Warren Buffett thing.
Starting point is 01:55:14 You got to grind through and do it slow. How does the, you keep saying the movie that had the docket, it's a documentary, right? Doc, yeah. How do the dot come about? So it's produced by fruition films, and it's a husband and wife team, Chris and Maya, Maya Dodge. Did they approach you guys? Yeah. So they were crypto enthusiasts.
Starting point is 01:55:41 They had traded some crypto and stuff and did pretty well. Chris, up until recently, was also an executive at Google. So had a real interest in digital assets and all that stuff. They had some friends that were kind of tangentially around the XRP community. We're like, oh, you guys ought to look at doing something on XRP. That's how they end up talking to Val Hill. And I think, you know, they, I don't, in fact, I know, because I've sat and talked with Chris quite a bit about this.
Starting point is 01:56:18 But, you know, the movie they set out to make, they thought it was going to be more of a generalist, like, kind of stuff we were talking about, the first of the show. And when they learned about this Eiffgate thing, it just, they kept hearing it from all these different people. It became the story. So, you know, this one really peels back the layer on some of these corporate deals I was starting to get into and the corruption, the regulatory capture, all that stuff. If people want to, like, look into Valhill more, they can go to ValhillAdvisors.io. We have a thing called the vault, which you can sign up to.
Starting point is 01:56:52 Got our thought leadership. So if they want to start learning some stuff, we break this down in real simple infographic type stuff. We've got several papers. In fact, I've brought you a couple in your swag bag there. Is this on your website? Yeah. So Val Hill Advisors, V-A-L-H-I-L-Advisors.io. And what and you're going, is that with the documentary?
Starting point is 01:57:18 That's about what your. That's just my company. Okay. Hey, you guys, if you like the video, do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button. Hit the bell so get notified of videos like this. Also, we're going to leave all of the links for Jimmy's company and for the doc in the description box. So go there, click on it, check it out.
Starting point is 01:57:33 Really appreciate you guys watching. Once again, I know you've heard this before. Please consider joining our Patreon. It's $10 a month. There will be parts of this video that will be placed on Patreon. The whole video will be uncensored, although that's not really an anything. issue here. But also, there'll probably be sections of this that end up going on a Patreon exclusive whatever. All right. Anyway, I really appreciate you guys watching. Thank you very much. See ya.
Starting point is 01:58:05 Is that okay? Are you okay? Yeah.

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