TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast - #196: Cynthia Lummis

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

Join Marty as he sits down with Cynthia Lummis, the Rebulican Nominee for the U.S. Senate out of Wyoming, to discuss: - Cynthia's platform of fiscal responsibility - Cynthia's experience Wyoming's state Treasurer - How Bitcoin can help with fiscal responsibility - How Bitcoin can help pensions - How Bitcoin can help the energy sector - How Bitcoin embodies the ideals America was founded on - The work Wyoming has done to welcome Bitcoin innovators - There are good people in Washington - much more Follow Cynthia on Twitter Check out Cynthia's campaign website Shoutout to this week's sponsors. Cash App. Start #stackingsats today. Use the promo code: "stackingsats" to receive $10 and contribute $10 to OWLS Lacrosse when you download the app.

What's up, freaks? It is your boy, Marty Bent here. That was a weird one. Do I keep going with this one, honey? She said yes. I'm going to keep going with it. This episode of Tales from the Crypt, I sat down with Republican nominee out of Wyoming for the Senate, Cynthia Lummis. We had a great conversation. quick rip here for you freaks who are used to longer episodes but i think this is a very uh information packed dense episode that you guys are going to like we talked about cynthia's platform why she decided to uh hop back into politics particularly uh running for the senate

out of wyoming uh her view of fiscal policy the federal debt deficit and a bunch of other things including bitcoin how she believes bitcoin complained to a fiscal responsible united states i think you guys are really gonna like this i got the baby screaming in the background am i still going am i still going she says yes we're gonna keep it going we're gonna roll it right into the ad have you guys heard about the cash app yet by chance if you listen to this podcast ever well if you have listened to this podcast you may have heard about the cash app And if you haven't heard about the Cash App, let me tell you about the Cash App. They're helping us stack sats, send sats, receive sats, and sell sats.

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there's no four- to five-day waiting periods. you can start stacking sacks and slivers of stonks today as always remember that cash app investing is a subsidiary square remember sipc and then when you download the app if you haven't downloaded it already make sure you use the code stacking sacks it's s-t-a-c-k-i-n-g-s-a-t-s s-t-a-c-k-i-n-g-s-a-t-s you're gonna get ten dollars and ten dollars gonna go to our good friends at Owl's Lacrosse. That's Owl's Lacrosse. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode with Cynthia. I know I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and especially after last night's presidential debate, it is at least a bit comforting to

know that there are individuals like cynthia within our government grown adults who can actually articulate thoughts and put a optimistic path forward which last night did not do for me i was forced to watch the debate to be on the live stream after i sort of regret uh putting myself through that but i think you guys are really gonna like this episode uh if you're liking the podcast please subscribe rate review send to your friends everything goes a long way really appreciate you freaks you've had a dynamic where money's become freer than free when you talk about a fed just gone nuts all all the central banks going nuts so it's all acting

like safe haven i believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency bitcoin wins in the world of fiat currencies bitcoin is the victor i mean That's part of the bull case for Bitcoin. If you're not paying attention, you probably should be. What is up, freaks? Welcome back to Tales from the Crypt. We're here for a very, very special episode. Actually, I don't think I've been this nervous for an episode in quite some time.

I'm sitting across in a video conference chat from the Republican nominee for the Senate out of Wyoming, Cynthia Lomas. Cynthia, welcome to the podcast. no it's great to be on your podcast i've listened to your podcast so to be one of your guests it's really an honor uh it's uh it's an honor for me to hear that uh from you it's crazy that uh u.s senators uh potential u.s senators have uh listened to my stupid thoughts about bitcoin but we're here to learn about you and your thoughts on bitcoin today uh i know i know uh your son-in-law will call very well uh he's he's building out an incredible product at unchained capital um and he he said hey my my mother-in-law loves bitcoin too and so i

said hey let's make this happen i need to learn more about your views on bitcoin but before we get into that uh i just like to learn more about your general platform uh as a nominee this year what has forced you into this race. I know you were a representative from Wyoming from 2009 to 2017. It seems like you've been on a bit of a hiatus, but are ready to get back in the public service light, particularly in the Senate this time around. Well, that's right, Marty. I served in the U.S. House for eight years. I came home and got my business life in order. And when U.S. Senator Mike Enzi decided to retire, I looked at this Senate race and decided to get in it. The reason is that while I was out of the U.S. House,

I served on something called the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which sounds like an oxymoron, and it is. The problem is the federal budget is out of control. There are two parties, one that wants to spend and the other one that wants to tax. And the consequence is that they're both getting their way. And so we have now nearly $26 trillion in debt with no end in sight, and it's unsustainable. So that is the real reason that I decided to jump back in to run for the Senate. Well, thank you for jumping in. I think there needs to be more individuals like yourself standing up for fiscal responsibility and less debt.

I mean, this year alone, considering how much has been printed by the Fed in response to COVID-19, it seems like it's getting a little out of hand. And as somebody who's been following Fed policy for almost a decade now, which is weird to say, it seems like things are getting out of control and there is no balance on the other side. And so it's great to see that you're doing this and that you are interested in Bitcoin too. So just to jump into the Bitcoin conversation, like, do you see Bitcoin providing a way to curb this ability in any way? I do, Marty. I was for eight years Wyoming state treasurer and I invested Wyoming's permanent funds, which is basically a sovereign wealth fund. It is money that had previously only been invested in bonds and while I was state treasurer, I was able to move that portfolio into a completely diversified asset allocation but of course at that time there was no such thing as bitcoin what we know about federal policy of course is that uh the fed has a built-in goal

of two percent inflation uh every year uh and so they're intending naturally uh to reduce the value or debase the u.s dollar for me when i was investing the state's permanent funds i was looking for investments uh that would not debase the u.s dollar and that would allow us to convert our mineral assets into cash assets that we could invest so that we could spend the interest off those assets and yet retain at least a base value or a growing base value of our investments. Now, Bitcoin comes along and there's no inflation built into it because it has the advantage of scarcity. There's only going to be 21 million Bitcoin ever mined. And so we know that it has inherent stability so when I look at investing investing minerals taking

minerals from the ground and then investing the proceeds of that so you're still keeping a very stable investment it's a little bit like mining Bitcoin and I that's part of the attraction to Bitcoin and then for me I became comfortable with Bitcoin through, as you mentioned, my son-in-law, Will Cole, and my grandson's godfather is Parker Lewis, who has also been on your program. Two really smart guys, know a lot about Bitcoin. And so they have educated me about Bitcoin and the merits of it. And because I had been state treasurer and been investing funds, it resonated with me. And then when I went to Congress, and we were just spending money like there was no tomorrow, and didn't have a plan

for retiring that debt, I became even more interested in Bitcoin. Yeah, I love that you mentioned the Fed stated goal of 2% inflation there, because when you And juxtapose that with the scarcity and built-in hard cap that Bitcoin has, it is pretty funny to compare this to. And another interesting thing about the Fed's policy, too, is they'll say, hey, we want to hit 2%, and then they'll say, hey, we're not hitting this target. But it feels like, at least for your everyday American, your blue-collar American that's working nine to five, potentially two jobs, that just isn't the case. The Fed's undershooting of their inflation target doesn't really seem to be an earnest explanation of what's going on. It seems that more and more people are struggling. And one thing that frustrates me personally with the political climate across America today is that I think people have a lot of, they're swiping at branches.

They're not really getting to the core of the problem, which is, hey, this inflation that's being underreported, in my opinion, is actually the cause for a lot of the inequality and struggle that's going on across our country. And this is just being exacerbated with the lockdowns of the last five, six months. Well, then also, Marty, you throw in the international picture. You've got China that has digitized the yuan, and the U.S. dollar is not yet digitized. We want to be the world's reserve currency. We want to stay the world's reserve currency. But our policies are not keeping up with an international appetite for a digitized platform for fiat currency, whereas Bitcoin is the sort of standard platform for non-fiat currency that has all of the benefits that fiat currencies don't. So Bitcoin seems really decoupled in a positive way from some of the traps of fiat currency.

So if you look at that in terms of a global plan, you've got China that is just slowly embedding itself into global markets, into global infrastructure, now into digital currency. it's embedding itself into the South China Sea, it is growing its military, it has improved and updated and upgraded many of its military infrastructures while the United States has been very much less expansive. The goal of China in doing this really is to become the global dominant culture from an economic standpoint from a fiscal standpoint from a financial standpoint and the United States has been I think complacent about its role in the world and the benefits of capitalism the benefits of personal initiative and and the kind of freedoms

that we take for granted they really are up for grabs if we concede to the Chinese Communist Party this kind of global presence so that's yet another reason that I think that digitizing the US dollar as well as opening our arms to Bitcoin and it's things that are on the blockchain perhaps other crypto currencies although I think that Bitcoin is showing that it is withstanding the test of time and I expect it to advance as the the cryptocurrency of choice and so I think it's it's important going into the US Senate that we recognize that we really are in competition with China for our global presence which is a

a superior presence. I really believe morally we're a superior presence globally to the Chinese Communist Party. And I separate the Chinese Communist Party from the Chinese people because I have no beef with the Chinese people, but I do with the Chinese Communist Party. So I think we need to be aware, as we've seen in COVID, that when we surrender our supply chain for active ingredients in pharmaceuticals or for rare earth minerals or for manufacturing to China. We're actually surrendering them to the Chinese Communist Party. And in doing so, we're subjugating free enterprise and capitalism in a way that's really harmful globally. I completely co-sign everything you just said there. It is astonishing how much of our supply

chain we've shifted overseas and how uh we we got caught with our pants down this year and when you think about uh take it a bit further not just talk about medicine but talking about the chips uh that run all of our military technology and a lot of our communications technology and our energy grids are developed uh outside of u.s borders too i think this year hopefully will be the wake-up call needed to implement policies like you're describing to to bring uh some production back to the United States, and then bringing it back to Bitcoin, I think Bitcoin is the greatest extension of natural rights since the Constitution, the way the protocol is able to protect private property in the form of a private key that is a very intimate piece of information that can be

protected by the individual. I've been saying this for some time on this podcast. I think Bitcoin, The network aligns beautifully with the ideals that this country was founded on. And I just think it would be a shame if Bitcoin's ability to grow here in the United States would be hindered by anything going on in Washington. So I'm happy to see that you are going to be fighting for Bitcoin in D.C. well as a libertarian leaning conservative uh i and and as an older person admittedly marty i look at some of the businesses that are able to uh for example de-platform conservatives from social media from fundraising type platforms like gofundme uh from various media you know that's a scary thing for a libertarian leaning conservative and so now you've

got businesses also getting into the act and trying to censor conservative thought on these various platforms one of the things that I like about Bitcoin is it's it's so different from that that it is censorship resistance resistant and it just really doesn't care about that a transaction is a transaction so just the properties of Bitcoin ownership make it difficult for people to use it in a coercive way and so when you talk about the civil liberties characteristics of Bitcoin you know I think that just resonates with me as as someone who sees these platforms being used to silence conservatives or libertarian

leading conservatives. It's Bitcoin is free speech money and it does make people angry. But again, I think it aligns with American values and then beyond the property assurances of the protocol alone, particularly around private property rights and censorship resistance. I was describing to you before we hit record, the company I work on outside of the podcast, Great American Mining, we use waste gas that would have otherwise been flared or vented on oil fields to mine Bitcoin. And we actually think that Bitcoin mining particularly can help the United States become more energy independent and protect us from OPEC supply and production changes as we were earlier in March of this year. And then on top of that, obviously, make us more efficient with waste gas as the discussion around climate change and the Green New Deal begins to heat up. I think Bitcoin provides a great opportunity to be as efficient as possible with the energy we're producing on U.S. soil and to help fight back against the narrative of fossil fuels being terrible.

Well, you're absolutely speaking my language, Marty. I just love it that that's what you're doing out in oil and natural gas fields. We need to make sure that the energy that we consume is as carbon neutral as possible, but we need to do it without worrying about whether it's solar or wind or oil or gas or coal, because to the extent that we can either capture those emissions and reuse them or find other uses for coal and other hydrocarbons, we're doing the world a favor. It's just ludicrous to think that you could leave coal as a stranded asset in the ground. These people that are talking about keep it in the ground are cutting off their nose despite their face. We need to continue researching

how to make better batteries so we can store the power that we produce longer. And certainly in the Bitcoin world, where the more Bitcoin that are mined, the more energy it takes to mine Bitcoin, Bitcoin is going to become an energy consumer. And the price of energy is going to be one of the limiting factors for mining Bitcoin. And so it's important that we do it inexpensively, that we have abundant energy, and that we do it in a way that's carbon neutral because we're never going to win the debate that adding carbon to the atmosphere doesn't matter. But we will win the debate by saying there are ways to continue to use hydrocarbon energy in ways that prevent carbon buildup in the atmosphere and you've just named one of

those ways and so I'm delighted to hear you say that we have to find ways to push back on the keep it in the ground crowd because this is a resource that we can remind mine responsibly produce responsibly and use responsibly and you just named a way to do it yeah i mean it's uh we think it's going to be very big and the amount of waste gas out there is is insane it's actually unfathomable when you when you begin to try to conceptualize it in your brain and it's like you just mentioned we're just wasting a lot of this energy we're not getting the most value that we can out of it um it is run through generators it will be carbon created but it will help lower the energy intensity index we believe at great

american mining and we talked to producers in wyoming uh at least a couple times a month and they're just looking at their flares like hey we are literally just burning up a resource how can we work with you guys to fix this so uh i think bitcoin fits very well into your narrative of hey we need to be as efficient as possible with this uh we need to help curb the federal budget and And then bringing it back to the Green New Deal particularly, I think that's especially scary because the way that would have to be implemented would be from a monolithic top-down distribution from the federal government, which in my opinion up to date has proven never to be too wise, having individuals in D.C. try to micromanage a complex system like the United States. Well, I want to throw something else at you. I just learned that the savings, the retirement fund for postal workers is separate and apart from the retirement funds of other federal workers and that their funds can only be invested in bonds.

Think about how that is destroying the value of their retirement funds. think about how much additional value could be added to the retirement funds of postal workers if they could invest a portion of that money in Bitcoin and other diversified asset allocations, including stocks. I'm an advocate for adding Bitcoin to investment portfolios, particularly for large retirement pools, because again, it's a diversifier. It is not inflationary. It is limited. And so it's a good store of value. And I really think some of these large retirement funds, especially the ones that are government run or investing retirement monies from government uh employees uh should have the opportunity to invest in a fully diversified asset

allocation including bitcoin we have non-dollar denominated investments in wyoming's permanent mineral trust fund which is a sovereign wealth fund run by a government based on kind of an endowment model as opposed to a retirement model but all of these funds should have the opportunity to have some non-dollar denominated investments as a diversifier and bitcoin is certainly a non-dollar denominated investment that is a great store of value yeah limiting these pension funds to bonds seems like a prison sentence almost what's the intent absolutely is the intent to align incentives essentially at the government workers uh make government services more valuable to drive the yeah

i'm sorry i was thinking yeah i'm sorry i i have no idea what the reason is that postal workers specifically have a separate retirement fund and that their monies are only invested in bonds that is investment malpractice an absolutely deleterious way to invest people's money and so those are things that I think about going to the US Senate that hopefully I can point out and begin to help garner relationships in the senate that can help change some of these policies yeah are you uh are you at all nervous to head to the senate it seems like a pretty vicious place i uh you're talking to somebody who doesn't vote i don't i've i've lost i've lost faith in uh the political system here and that's

why i focus on bitcoin but uh people like you do encourage me that like hey there are some good people fighting the good fight, but it seems like a very hard uphill battle for people fighting for the ideals that you and I believe in, at least during this conversation. Well, Marty, there are some really good libertarian-leaning conservatives in the Senate, people with whom I served in the House, people that I look forward to serving with in the Senate. I'm lucky that I got to serve in the House for eight years because quite a number, dozens of the people that I served within the House are now in the Senate and they're they're really good people and so it's a it's a great group

I'm not saying I'm gonna get along with everybody but I have some really good working relationships there already and i look forward to joining them i've had very few conversations with members of congress or the senate about bitcoin specifically but i look forward to changing that i think that this is an important addition to sound fiscal practice and that it's time to acknowledge uh in the 21st century that uh at the end of 2029 the millennial generation is going to be the largest generation that has ever lived on the face of the earth and they are used to

digital platforms for everything in their lives and if the united states States doesn't acknowledge that and remains behind the eight ball with regard to digitizing its currency, acknowledging the virtues of Bitcoin and perhaps other cryptocurrencies, and recognizing that there are stores of value that are non-fiat currency related. In fact, it's good to have those types of characteristics in a diversified asset allocation that can help protect us from some of the global threats like the Chinese Communist Party that we discussed earlier. And bringing it back now, zeroing back in from the big picture, the international picture,

the congressional picture to the state's picture Wyoming as it turns out has become an absolute leader in welcoming Bitcoin businesses and it creating a framework a legislative framework to create crypto exchanges and in fact earlier this month Kraken became the first crypto exchange to charter a bank and it happened right here in Wyoming it happened because the Wyoming legislature of all the unlikely places created a legislative framework to allow that to happen and it has been a game changer in less than three years Wyoming passed a series of laws to create a really comprehensive legal framework where

blockchain technology can develop and thrive and so we went from like zero to a hundred in terms of being a place where investors and innovators and companies and capital will want to be and it's it's working out for us so far nuts i was going to segue into that you have a perfect you have a perfect uh a sort of roadmap to roll into dc with like hey look what we've done at wyoming the work that caitlin long and tyler lindholm and others have done uh really hard work too to get through the the uh structure that allows bitcoin banks to to operate in the way they do and the cranky news is is massive and so i i think that's like another uh another arrow you have in the quiver going to dc in defense of bitcoin it's like hey look what we've done in

my home state it's setting the bar and there are a bunch of innovators looking to flock to Wyoming to build Bitcoin businesses which is which is hard to deny especially at a time when jobs and innovation seem to be lacking here in the United States well in our economy in Wyoming has always been so energy dependent that getting into some technology just by being ahead of the game is going to be a game changer for us. There's companies like IOHK and Avanti that are taking root here. The University of Wyoming launched this blockchain center of excellence and get this the Wyoming legislature now has a

select committee on blockchain financial technology and digital innovation technology now this is the wyoming legislature uh so it it it's just stunning that you you have this very rural place uh that has just leapfrogged other states uh and i gotta give tyler lindholm and ogden driscoll and caitlyn long uh all the credit in the world for this you know they they did it in record time and and one of the really smart things that tyler lindholm and chris rothfuss and some other really key legislators did is not only did they invent this special purpose depository institution that deals in fiat and cryptocurrencies

but they created a chancery court so it can have a legal framework and courts to create and interpret rules that they're gonna be operating under. So these are all just groundbreaking, game-changing things that Wyoming has done. And it has further allowed me as a neophyte to become a little bit more educated and familiar with how Bitcoin can become an enormous player,

not only in our state's economy, but in the U.S. economy and in the global economy, and provide the kind of stability and inflation-proof investing and the privacy that protects our civil liberties. I mean, I'm bought in, Marty, if you can't tell, I'm bought into this and I look forward to kind of being a disciple for learning more about this, telling other senators about it, see what we can do with this. It's one of the few things that is so new that we can actually take a spin, be innovative, advance free enterprise goals here in the 21st century. So I'm very excited about this.

Well, I'm very excited that you're very excited and very honored to have had you on the podcast to explain all this and go through all this because I completely agree. The opportunity that presents itself because Bitcoin now exists, you're out in Wyoming, it's a broad, open landscape

that we can take advantage of and innovate on And if the federal government is able to get out of the way of the innovators here in the United States, I think the compounding positive externalities that are going to come from allowing Bitcoin entrepreneurs to and individuals who use Bitcoin to flourish is going to pay off for the United States in the long run. So I'm happy that you were fighting the good fight for the Bitcoin team. well it's the wild west but it's also the very welcoming west so we invite people who are interested in bitcoin and helping advancing its future to come to wyoming get involved in our society our economy it's very libertarian and conservative friendly but it's also very innovative friendly so very progressive in terms of the way that it's viewing the future. And I got to compliment you, Marty, for your exploration on your podcasts and for

having guests on who can teach people like me, who's admittedly a neophyte, more about these issues. Well, Cynthia, if you ever have any questions, please feel free to reach out. I'd love to answer any of them you have, particularly around waste gas and how Bitcoin mining can help the, uh, the energy sector here in the United States. Uh, do you have any, any parting notes for the freaks out there? Any, any last messages that, uh, you'd like to leave with, uh, about your, uh, your nomination, your race, or just anything that's going on in the country in general? Yeah. If, you know, if you want to learn more about us, please visit our website at lummisforwyoming.com. We are going to be taking Bitcoin with BTC Payserver soon. And if you want

to follow us on Twitter at Cynthia Lummis, Cynthia M. Lummis, rather, we'd love to hear from you and learn from you. So, Marty, thanks for your time. I want to thank your audience for being among the people who have informed me about Bitcoin and continue to do so. Well, Cynthia, thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. I know you're probably very busy around this particular time in your life and honored to have had a few minutes to discuss this with you. I wish you well moving forward. And again, here to help in any of your efforts if you ever need it. Thanks, Marty. Appreciate your help, advice, counsel, and good wishes. that's all we got this week freaks

peace and love