TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast - #504: Bitcoin Is More American Than The Dollar with Parker Lewis

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

Marty sits down with Parker Lewis to discuss how fiat money corrupts the structure of the US government and how bitcoin fixes this. Parker on Twitter: https://twitter.com/parkeralewis 0:00 - Intro 0:50 - Welcome back to Tales From The Fridge 1:49 - US/Japan swap line 7:32 - Dollar is undermining the US 10:14 - Sponsors 1 11:30 - Framing bitcoin and the dollar correctly 17:37 - Importance of America’s government structure 26:59 - Hamilton describing the slippery slope 34:46 - Self-funding uniparty 41:44 - Sponsors 2 43:21 - Owning the frame 52:43 - How bitcoin decentralizes power 1:03:07 - Sticking to truth 1:14:00 - Final message Shoutout to our sponsors: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠River⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Zaprite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Gradually, Then Suddenly⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TFTC Merch is Available: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Shop Now⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the TFTC Movement: Main ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YT Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Clips ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YT Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Marty Bent: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

this rip of tftc was brought to you by river it's the best place to buy bitcoin go to river.com tftc and enjoy this episode you've had a dynamic where money's become freer than free If you talk about a Fed just gone nuts, 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. I don't know. Are we good, Parker? It's really cold in the studio. can we get can we we've been complaining about this for how long now logan a month two months i think it's probably more like five days but it has it's taking a toll they're freezing us out it's literally this studio it's three degrees colder than every other room in this floor i know they're freezing us out this is a smart thermometer not that smart are they targeting me particularly i mean it's you're more on your game when it's colder i'd be worried if they were you know putting the temp up to 80 degrees apparently that's what they did in soviet

russia dropped the temp or turned up i don't know if it was intentional or they just didn't have a functioning economy to have sufficient heating but apparently the kids when they were in school they would put them in colder rooms and it would be more uh is a better learning environment apparently yeah so let's have a really sharp conversation today yeah a lot of new i mean And we're here to talk about the fact that Bitcoin is more American than the dollar. And we were just provided with like a layup segue conversation into the broader conversation, which is the fact that the U.S. and the Bank of Japan, I believe the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan, have agreed to a swap line, I believe, to intervene in the yen markets as they lose control of their currency.

and it seems like it's a bailout of a central bank but it may be a bailout of the treasury market where the u.s doesn't want the bank of japan selling all those treasuries that they hold they're certainly intertwined and it's like an auro barrel dependent on each other that the fed doesn't want fed and the treasury doesn't want the bank of japan or japanese government unloading treasuries as a way to protect the yen and this isn't the first time i couldn't quote on the multiple times that's happened before but it certainly happened before i don't know i don't think they actually broadcast that they're doing it it's more up you find out years after the fact but that uh this isn't unprecedented basically in in prior

crises i'm trying to recall i'm almost positive they did it around the financial crisis there were other times around like the european debt crisis in 2011 2012 where the fed has done this to other central banks where there's a seriously weak currency as a way to to relieve pressure from that essentially opening a swap line which creates a lending vehicle to say hey here are some dollars so that you can either defend your currency in the market or not have to take some other action to dump dollar denominated assets as a means to do that is this another form of qe anything that's in my book anything that supplies dollars to the market uh increases the supply of dollars and is a form of qe yeah now in their minds this might

hopefully be something that's quote temporary it never is because of the massive imbalance in the us dollar system yeah fun times crazy times it is great the social conditions here in the united states so i wonder how this will be received i wonder if the public will look at this and pin it to something like all the war funding that's been going on recently um people are some people not all but some are angry and we had that spending bill passed sending all this money to ukraine conversations going around about sending money israel right now and like do they see this fx intervention with the bank of japan and say hey wait why are we helping the bank of japan out as well we're struggling here in america inflation's

high why are we printing dollars and giving it to japan i think that people who are paying attention with you know the bitcoin world the dollar world the problems with central banking generally everyone will be standing on the table and shouting very loud about this i don't think I don't think that the general populace or the American people will be as an up in arms about something like this. I think no one really understands how the Fed operates. I don't think they will associate the two. um i don't think that you know podcasts like this we can talk about it a bit kind of to understand but when someone hears that the fed opens up a swap line to the bank in japan it's not the same signal as they're not securing the texas border but they're sending 100 billion dollars to fund unpopular wars yeah you know so i think that things that hit closer

to home are those things that just have this disconnect that make it more clear what interests are you actually protecting? Are you protecting the interests of the American people or some other interests? So I doubt that anything about the Fed operations will raise to the same level as something that hits closer to home, just naturally. Yeah, people worried about us spreading democracy not so much about us spreading the u.s dollar into other markets yeah and i think mostly because it's it's just not understood it sounds like some financial jargon that um that just isn't as relatable as sending dollars to somebody else when particularly at a time even though it is functioning the same thing it just sounds different the headline reads different

fed open swap line what the does that mean yeah versus congress funds 95 billion dollars or congress actively prevents the state of texas from defending its border or congress passes a warrantless fisa bill you know congress has a two trillion dollar deficit or two or three trillion dollar deficit those things are much more relatable to the average american than fed open swap line to bank of japan yeah with that being said they are contributing to the same problem that we have here which is what we're here to talk about is the fact that the u.s dollar is arguably undermining the structural integrity of the governance structure of the united states you gave this presentation at block boom last month

there's nothing more american than bitcoin i wrote a newsletter about it yesterday parker may or may not have been sitting right next to me and helping me write the newsletter as i was i was typing it out around 5 p.m i was just helping clarify points but now we're on the podcast to be able to talk about it in greater detail yeah and i think it's an important topic to because when we talk about i mean you framed it as there's nothing more american than bitcoin i framed it as the u.s dollars anti-america in the newsletter it's two sides of the same coin and i think it's important to have both frames and the frame that i decided to run with is just to highlight that when people talk about the u.s dollar the global reserve currency being anti-american they typically

talk about things that we just discussed you're spreading democracy you're going into debt and you're going to engage in wars that arguably are not beneficial in the long run and people say these wars are to defend the u.s dollar as a reserve currency they talk about the petrodollar system and how forcing other countries to convert their local currencies to dollars to buy oil on the international markets can piss some of those countries off who are saying why do I need to buy dollars to do this why can't I just use my own currency and obviously the printing of money leading to inflation which undermines the social cohesion of American citizens throughout the country as they struggle to pay their bills and put food on the table because

prices are going up but i think what you've honed in on in your presentation is unique and something i haven't heard to date why i love having parker lewis as a good friend uh is you teach me you're always bringing new perspectives to the world and i think what you've honed in on is a very potent um angle in terms of uh juxtaposing why bitcoin is really aligned with american ideals and why the dollar is actually eroding the ideals of this country was found on all revolves around how the dollar plays into the balance of power between the three branches of governments. This episode was presented by River. River is the best, most secure place to buy Bitcoin in the United States. Go to river.com slash TFTC, set up an account today. You'll be able to DCA

into Bitcoin without paying any fees. You'll be able to give people Bitcoin via River links. you'll be able to send and receive bitcoin over the lightning network and you'll be able to set limit orders if you want to buy bitcoin at a particular price below or above where it is now you can set orders to buy bitcoin when it hits that price go to river.com slash tftc and set up your account today this trip was also brought to you by our good friends at unchained unchained is building a financial services platform for a bitcoin standard they have over 7,000 clients that are securing over 90,000 Bitcoin with 12,000 keys on their platform. Their platform leverages Bitcoin's native multi-sig properties. Their cornerstone product

is their Volt product, a two or three multi-sig Volt, which allows you to hold two of three keys in a multi-sig quorum. That gives you full control over your Bitcoin. They also have an IRA product, a lending desk, and they're rolling out a bunch of other products, including an inheritance protocol and sound advisory so go to unchained.com set up a call with our concierge onboarding team today tell them that tftc sent you and use the promo code tftc at checkout unchained.com one of the things i guess is framing to the presentation that i gave at bitblock boom and one of the reasons why i gave that talk was because as bitcoin advances I am a realist, both being able to observe how different stakeholders have reacted to Bitcoin, public, private, across the board, that as Bitcoin advances, Bitcoin will inevitably become in the crosshairs and increasingly in certain corners become controversial.

I'm also working on a company to help facilitate Bitcoin payments because I think that Bitcoin payments is the other side of the same coin of people storing their value in Bitcoin and that more people need to start to think about Bitcoin not just as a niche store of value but start to depend on it as an active rail because the legacy rail is incredibly fragile. And I think that the framing, not just of Bitcoin as a form of payment, but also as a store of value, the framing is very important because there are different stakeholders who might send a message about how Bitcoin's important, but the dollar is also important. Or Bitcoin is not controversial as a store of value, but the second it starts to be used to facilitate exchange, it becomes more controversial. and realizing the appropriate frame and leaning into it because Bitcoin, whether you're an individual using it to save or you're a business using it for payments, is an incredible story that is perfectly aligned with not just American ideals but the American structure of government.

And the dollar is actually, in my view, the single greatest force that's undermining the American structure of governance, which is the foundation of American stability and prosperity. and that rather than shying away from the fact that bitcoin is in the process of replacing the dollar not having to be in a position of apologizing for that fact and saying well the bitcoin the dollar will coexist that is not logical in my opinion if you think about bitcoin and money from first principles that you can't store the same unit of value the same exact unit of value both in the dollar and bitcoin at the same time and if bitcoin is a better storehold of value then each individual each company each country is going to make the transition to the better store of value but it also only stores value because it's so easily easily exchangeable

And so the kind of coming back to the presentation of why kind of framing it as nothing's more American than Bitcoin, the other side of that coin is that there's nothing less American than the dollar. And that I think the subject is important because now with Bitcoin at a trillion dollars with recent regulatory actions, with the samurai case, but really the chilling effect that's happening more broadly, recognizing that Bitcoin at a trillion, 10x adoption from here, Bitcoin at 10 trillion, it starts to become more apparent to more people that these two things are related and that you can either take one path, apologizing for Bitcoin and I think ultimately

advancing something that's going to prove out to be false, which is the two cannot coexist. that's perfectly fine and lean into the fact the reality that bitcoin really does align and i think in my view will help restore the separation of powers and make the structure of government in the u.s far more functional and at the same time it's actually the dollar that has undermined the separation of power so we can kind of go into either side i think pierre richard had a great quote that was something along the lines of you know patriotic allegiance to the dollar is very strange because it's just debt issued by a private entity that's not actually the us government and i think that's one place to start which is there's this very weird

like false dilemma that somehow the us dollar is patriotic and that somehow the us dollar advances the, quote, national security interests of the United States. My view, and I think anybody that gets beyond the surface level will agree, there's nothing patriotic about the dollar. You know, I would point to things like our national debt, the ability to print dollars ad infinitum without any costs associated is what enables that drug, and it funds endless wars. Um, but at the core level, the non-topical level is the fact that the ability to print money

detaches the consent of the governed from the representative form of government. The, the U S Congress in concert with the president of the United States that signs any funding bill, they no longer have to come to the American people for funding, whether it is via taxation or via going to the private sector and asking for funds, they can just go to the Fed and get them to print more money. And that itself is at its core what undermines the U.S. structure of government. Yeah, and I think to take a step back and better understand what is the structure of the U.S. government

and why it is that structure that makes America as free or made it as free as it was at one time and arguably the erosion of that structure has made it less free today. And going back to Antonin Scalia and how he would describe it in the rhetorical question he would ask students. I want to recommend that everybody go watch this seven to,

I think it's seven or eight minutes before Congress. It's kind of like an opening statement before testimony that Antonin Scalia, the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice, gave probably seven or eight years ago. And he explained that when he would go around and talk to law students around the country, he would ask the question, what differentiates America?

What makes America exceptional? What makes us different? And that the most common or practically Practically, what everyone would say is they would point to the Bill of Rights. They would point to a free press, freedom of speech, no unreasonable search and seizure, enumerates a few others of the Bill of Rights. But what Antonin Scalia points out is that he said something along the lines of every banana republic has a Bill of Rights. Every president for life has a Bill of Rights. He actually even pointed to the Soviet USSR as objectively having a better Bill of Rights than the U.S.

But he also explained that it would be what the founding fathers of the United States would have referred to as a parchment guarantee, that it's just words on paper, and that if you go through the exercise, If you pull up the U.S. Constitution, there's a very short preamble that talks about how to put forward a better form of government, but it then gets into directly the structure of government. It enumerates the separation of powers. It enumerates what the federal government has as its powers, what within their Congress has the power to do, what the executive branch has to do, and what the judicial branch has to do.

It doesn't talk about the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights came later. And when you start to think about what makes America's structure of government different, it is, and this is paraphrasing Antonin Scalia, it is that it was designed to be gridlock, that the balance of powers in the Constitution were designed to do one principal thing, which was prevent the centralization of power. and that once power centralizes, everything else is lost. And so when you think about it in that context, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights are secondary without a structure of government to create contradicting powers. And in Scalia's view words, it was that gridlock by design

and those contradicting powers that the framers believed would be the primary protection of minority rights, not minorities, but people that are in the minority to say, hey, you can't pass any law that contradicts these foundational principles. Well, why can you not? Because these contradicting powers exist. This gridlock exists by design. There would have to be overwhelming support for something to change. And that when you think about in that context it is the structure of government is what affords rights without that structure the rights don't mean anything because they can't actually be enforced and for a number of reasons that's not only does the centralization of the money supply cause the centralization of

industry it also actually undermines the that very important separation of powers that design yes let's dive into how it does that right because you have this set up via the constitution this way where you have these three branches and it's designed in a way to make it extremely hard to get things through to protect the rights of the individual the minority um so you make it very hard to pass new laws or spending bills whatever it may be the emergence of the fiat system and the dollar is reserve currency is beginning to erode this and i think let's dive into how it does that and what parts of this triumvirate at the federal level does it undermine So think about, you know, one of the things that Scalia points out is the bicameral nature of Congress itself.

So both a House and a Senate, and that both must approve laws that then have to get signed off on by a president that can veto it, and then there's mechanisms to overwrite the veto. and so kind of start with that kind of part of the structure and that also recognizing that congress has what most people are familiar with the power of the purse well the primary mechanism that existed then to fund the government was via taxes the levying of taxes So a key part of this representative form of government was if Congress wants to pass a law that requires funding, they have to go to the American people via taxes to fund it. And if that were the case, every time the government wanted to create a spending bill that was $6 trillion, as an example today, and they had to actually either go tax the American people and for whatever they couldn't tax, they had to go out to the same private

sector and say, buy our war bonds or buy bonds to fund this program, that that was this very important it's like congress did have the ability go ahead buy our lockdown bonds like imagine if they didn't have the power of unfettered fiat monetary um levers that going back to covid like if they wanted to do lockdowns they wanted to do that six trillion they'd have to go to the american people say hey you need to buy our lockdown bonds we're gonna lock down and distribute this money and we'll pay you back in the future yeah and so now in the world where the fed exists In a way, too, to emphasize, in a way that, in my view, the founding fathers could have never imagined, right? And there's this—maybe we could pull it up now, but there's this great quote by Alexander Hamilton where he certainly warned of the risk of the emissions of unbacked paper money.

like warner the risks predicted what would happen but while i would say he perfectly predicted what would happen also recognize that when the founding fathers and the framers of the constitution were getting together to figure out the right way to essentially create gridlock and to ensure that the constitution is honored and that can't be undermined that while they could have conceived of a reserved back currency like a gold back currency they couldn't have envisioned the internet and the modern central bank and the ability to create a trillion dollars with simply a click on the computer screen and so i also i talk about that in this framing of saying like people have this flawed idea that somehow the dollar is important to national security somehow

the dollar is patriotic when in reality it would be anathema to the founding fathers even setting aside this other reality that entirely undermines the the structure and so i like to read the quote So I had you pull it up because when you hear in the actual words of one of the founding fathers, it makes it far more difficult for an average person when they hear this idea that the dollar is patriotic or that somehow the current construction of the dollar would align with founding principles of America harder to believe. It kind of cuts out anyone who would parrot that line kind of at the knees. So the quotes from Alexander Hamilton, he's issuing a report to the U.S. Congress from himself as the treasurer. If you just unlock that, so it says, and this is 1790, report to Congress. The emitting of paper money by the authority of government is widely prohibited to the individual states by the national constitution. Again, so this is enumerated in the Constitution that the federal government can coin money, the state governments can't, and Alexander Hamilton is making the case for why they should never allow the emission of paper money that is unbacked.

And so he says, Never trusting with the use of so seducing and dangerous and expedient. So recognizing it's like the printing of money is almost akin to trying to play God. And if you could do that and nobody else could, and you just did it a little bit, he's basically saying maybe that could result in good if no one knew about it and you just fix the problem over here. Problem is, it's so liable to abuse that you should never start down that path. Very prescient for this, you know, where we've ended up today.

And he goes on to say, In times of tranquility, it might have no ill consequence. It might even perhaps be managed in a way to be productive of good. But in great and trying emergencies, there is almost a moral certainty of its becoming mischievous. The stamping of paper is an operation so much easier than the laying of taxes that a government in the practice of paper emissions would rarely fail in any such emergency to indulge itself too far in the employment of that resource to avoid as much as possible one less auspicious to present popularity. So that's where I say he perfectly predicted. If you take this out of Pandora's box, you're not just going to do it a little. You're going to inevitably do it a lot.

There might be some benefit in times of tranquility, but in times of emergency, it will certainly be abused. So when you think about this, and it was certainly abused before QE, But once they started down that path of slowly feeding more dollars, it set the table and would then be impossible not to abuse in a great and trying emergency, financial crisis. Oh, we were doing this in small ways in times of tranquility. We now have an emergency. We have this ability to do it. How about we print $3.6 trillion over four years and see what happens?

And he goes on, and this is the end, he says, if it should not even be carried so far as to be rendered an absolute bubble, it would at least be likely to be extended to a degree which would occasion an inflated and artificial state of things incompatible with the regular and prosperous course of the political economy. And in that prior sentence, he kind of connects this idea that the stamping of papers in operation is so much easier than the laying of taxes that a government would never fail to do it

because they would, applying taxes is unpopular. If you have to go to the American people to ask for consent to all of the operations that you're funding via the government, that in those great and trying emergencies, the government would never go to the American people to tax them if they had the ability to print because they'd choose present popularity. And that's this very key thing coming back to the structure, which is if they don't have to tax the American people

to fund a $2 trillion deficit or a growing $34 trillion debt, they can just horse trade with each other. And that's where the separation of power gets out of balance. The structure that was very important to this prevention of centralization of power, that people in the US Congress can just go back and forth with each other and horse trade and say, I'll give you that $100 billion if you give me this $100 billion. They're trading against themselves and they just keep stacking more and more amounts up because they don't have to sacrifice present popularity,

which would be going to the American people. There's no accountability. There's no accountability, but they have this mechanism that didn't exist when the framing of this constitution was there to just say, oh, and you know what? We don't really have to go to the American people. We can just print the money. We can go to our friends down at the Fed,

which we helped charter and create, so even though it's a private entity. and also it gives them the money to fund the private interests that then fund their campaigns right so you could say well if the american public was so opposed to this they could just vote them out of office but it's that no this creature not only functionally controls the money but that can also buy them offices and so when people start to realize that um this this dollar again in its current construction at the time where someone like alexander hamilton might have and the other not irony but just fact

is that hamilton has a really bad rap in many circles right and reasonably so he was one that advance the first bank of the United States. He was essentially the primary proponent of the need for at least the prior version of the central bank. At the same time, he still was vehemently opposed to this idea that you could have a central bank that had unfettered money printing. Again, just recognizing that you couldn't conceive of what the digital world would bring and that whatever he was warning about would be that on steroids in the qe version of the dollar yeah they would sit here their mouths agape in all and how much money is being printed yeah and and also that they couldn't then put a protection in place in the constitution in that world where

it was true because even in the world where the government the federal government had the power coin money which they do it was still tied to some physical metal you couldn't just print you know like in that world if they tried to print paper money people like hamilton would be there to you know or other founders to say absolutely not but but but in the world where there was physical currency someone would at least have to take gold to the united states treasury deposit to get dollars back that that connection no longer exists which now puts them in a world of click a button and you get your trillion dollars and that has dire consequences to the aggregate structure of the constitution and why it can be so easily undermined yeah yeah there's no

accountability it functionally puts far more power in congress than the framers had clearly intended yeah if you have i mean it's crazy it's come to a point where even now you have a democratic president in the republican majority congress but it seems like the uniparty is winning out like that's what it's it is the uniparty right like it's the creature that's funding itself and they put out appearances to be at odds, but then why does it always happen time and time again? Some funding bill gets passed. There's always some theater about shutting down the government.

It never happens. They know they can go to the Fed to fund it. They know they don't actually have to go to the American people to tax them. and, you know, connecting this idea of, like, think about, you know, not only how un-American is it to not pay your debts functionally, to go to put future generations massively in debt to a degree that can only happen in this world of QE where the dollar is entirely detached from the consent of the governed

and reality, it's not patriotic. Like, just start with that idea. It's the complete opposite. And if you think that it is, if you think that there's other reasons why then it undermines our national security, but if you think somehow the dollar is patriotic or that there's some reason to put this collective entity that is the dollar above the American people and you think that somehow that's American, go back and read your history because it isn't. It's completely at odds with the interests of individual Americans. Yes, it helps the uniparty. It helps the interest funding the uniparty, but it does not help the American citizen at the end of the day,

as is evident by rampant inflation, rampant debt. Yeah, really at two levels. And I would say to this conversation, it's clearly not in the interest of the American individual, the person, because their savings are being destroyed. The food at the grocery store is getting more expensive. But I think more consequentially to the discussion of how American or not the current construction of the dollar is, it is that it undermines the structure. and if you think about this faux idea of national security that's always used as like whose security

it it purposely puts the collective of the quote american people above the individual and i think that's another idea both that's consistent with the intended framing of the constitution as well as the the preamble that the rights of the individual are what are enshrined they only exist because the structure is there to protect it and that if the rights of the individual are compromised then the security of the nation it's derived from the strong individual the protection of the individual is what makes the the whole worth protecting if that doesn't exist then what are we talking about and so when you think about it in the framing of well if that structure is so important to the rights and if you don't have rights as an individual or those

rights are being infringed both from a legislative perspective as well as from a monetary debasement perspective then you have no national security and if the dollar both from the economic standpoint is causing centralization of power but it's also the single greatest thing that's causing central power in the actual structure of government then you're looking at the primary problem being the u.s dollar many ways you know not just one yeah yeah it's uh there's so many people stuck in that mindset though i mean trump even i mean that he's changed his tune a little bit from when he was president till uh his campaign running up to this election but when steve mnuchin was his treasury secretary and i imagined it was him feeding

trump comments on bitcoin but he said it's uh it undermines the u.s dollar which give us gives us our strength and that is the assumption that yeah i mean even i don't do you think the politicians recognize the undermining nature of the u.s dollar or do you think they're psyoped into believing that it is what gives us our strength uh i would say almost certainly there if you just listen to any politician speak it's certainly the latter that the dollar is important to national security and one way i One way I would frame it is if you don't look at the inputs, then you're certainly going to get the output wrong. And the output is the dollar.

The output is the fact that we have a military that they view protects us. They fund that military with the dollar. They fund the military industrial complex with the dollar. Take the dollar away. How do we fund that? and the reality of it is well what created the thing that was so worth protecting right like if you're if you're not looking to the individual and what protects the individual then you can't add up a bunch of weak individuals and

get a strong country and i think that that is what they miss that's why i also think that this framing is so important because even people that are very supportive and sympathetic to bitcoin fall victim to this idea partly i believe for appearances but also because there there is a you know they do it is easy to look at the u.s navy and the function that it does and protecting waterways and saying how would you do that well there's a reality that you can fund certain things with bitcoin too right it's just that if you want to fund your operations as the government in the future you're just going to have to come back to the american people and ask them either via taxes or bonds that are funded with real money whether

that activity is actually something that the american people want to support not what the uniparty that just horse trades back and forward or back and forth and doesn't actually have to go back to the people for consent quick break here freaks this rip is brought to you by gradually then suddenly a framework for understanding bitcoin is money by parker lewis i wrote the forward to the book i'm honored to have done so because it's the best zero to one primer if you're looking for a logical explanation of why bitcoin obsoletes all other money buy one for yourself and maybe a few for your friends go to the safehouse.com gradually. That's the safe house.com safe spelled S A I F the safe house.com slash gradually use

the promo code TFTC for $5 off at checkout. Buy it now freaks. The price of Bitcoin is going up. You need to understand it. This is the best zero to one primer. This rip was also brought to you by good friends at zap rate. If you're a Bitcoiner and run a business or an independent contractor, you should be accepting Bitcoin as payment. If not you, then who, if we believe that Fiat is systemically fragile and is a risk the rails that that currency runs on are risk as well you need to begin accepting bitcoin as soon as possible invest in the future of your business create a redundant rail by accepting bitcoin as payment using zap right and reduce risk for your business i've done this for my business here at tftc we use zap right it allows you to easily create invoices payment

links or connect e-commerce stores connect your wallets or custodial accounts and be set up in minutes. We can also connect our bank accounts, our Stripe accounts, our Square accounts to accept fiat as well. The time is now, freaks. The fiat system is fragile. Invest in the infrastructure that de-risks the future. Invest in yourself. Bitcoin payments with ZapRite. Go to zaprite.com slash TFTC to get $40 off their annual subscription. Zaprite.com slash TFTC, $40 off. yeah the won't name names but the people that i guess they beat around the bush maybe pussyfoot maybe it's because they've been psyops maybe they understand the gravity of bitcoin success um that's one thing i'm proud and happy that you're doing is getting out there saying no own

it i mean you um referenced michael goldstein's 2019 bit block boom presentation in your presentation and i think that was actually powerful i was there in person we were both there in person when he gave that speech like owning the frame and really owning what bitcoin is like no like it's okay to acknowledge that bitcoin is the best money ever and it will eventually replace the dollar and that's a good thing for americans because bitcoin there's Nothing more American than Bitcoin, which is the next argument we have to put forth is if the U.S. dollar is working against the interest of the American people, how does Bitcoin work for their interests? So first shout out to Michael Goldstein, Nakamoto Institute. For anybody who hasn't seen that presentation, I think it was 2019.

2019. BitBlockBoom. he basically gave a presentation about uh how to meme bitcoin the art of bitcoin rhetoric and in part of that talk you know it's a very funny talk uh worth certainly watching but a lot of truth to it you know there's always a lot of truth in memes he talked about how it's important that while everything is good for Bitcoin, there's no bad news for Bitcoin. And that the right position is to be maximally bullish

and then address nuance from there. And so in this context, when someone talks about how, and he also talks about how to reframe. If someone's framing Bitcoin in a bad light, you have to grab their framing and reframe it. When you think about that in this context, When people raise this idea that the dollar is patriotic and that if Bitcoin is competing with the dollar, that's bad for America, two things applying the logic from the art of Bittstein's rhetoric is, and these are my words, not his, but applying that logic, it's first reframe, no, the dollar is not patriotic. Let's debunk that.

It's not in the interest of national security. Let's debunk that. and oh also by the way maximally bullish Bitcoin is threatening the dollar that's how great Bitcoin is the government has had a monopoly on money and six years ago Steve Mnuchin was saying six years from now I'm not going to be having to talk about Bitcoin

now he's not treasury secretary anymore but somebody is and they're having to talk about Bitcoin that that's very bullish that that's how great Bitcoin is that it's so great that we're even having this discussion That powerful interests are starting to pay attention to Bitcoin, and we're not going to let those powerful interests frame it. We're going to provide the correct frame, which is the dollar is not patriotic, by the way, and Bitcoin is the thing that most aligns with both the individual as a result, add enough of those individuals up, the American people, and certainly the structure of government. And so kind of rejecting that first frame and reframing and then leaning into it and addressing that it's only relevant because Bitcoin's winning, this is what winning looks like, are both important. And so then when you go to that other side of the argument about why Bitcoin's winning and start to compare it, because one of the things I talked about in the BitBlockBoom presentation from about a month ago was that this isn't just a beat your chest, animal spirits, yay, Bitcoin's American. because it's a free market.

It is a free market. But also when you start to actually understand what makes America different and that it really originates from that structure of governance and government as well as having people there willing to protect it, right? And then you translate that to Bitcoin And this idea that the framers created a constitution, a set of rules by which everyone would agree to live, rule of law, that was gridlocked by the design, difficult to change by design, that those were what would actually protect the rights of the individual, go to Bitcoin.

What makes Bitcoin valuable? I will go out and I will talk about the fact that there will only ever be 21 million and if Bitcoin can credibly enforce its fixed supply, it's going to emerge as a global reserve currency and it's going to replace the dollar. But the properties that exist in Bitcoin, the valuable things,

the fact that there is a fixed supply that can't be undermined, the fact that it is censorship resistant, and I oftentimes will gloss over these things, but it's not to be confused. Bitcoin can only enforce its fixed supply because it is resistant to censorship. So those two things are two sides of the same coin. Those properties that are so valuable about Bitcoin,

its fixed supply, the fact that it can't be printed, that it's money that can't be printed, that's solving the problem of printing money, exists because the structure of governance in Bitcoin. And that there is this intentional by design structure to prevent the centralization of power to ensure decentralization and in my world when i look at that and we can talk about it but i look at it as private key holders first and foremost the the control of economic ownership bitcoin's

consensus rules which have two powers which are miners writing new history validating blocks But then also nodes of validating the work that the Bitcoin miners do, such that if invalid work is proposed, it gets immediately rejected at de minimis cost. But also these nodes provide permissionless access to the network that have a relationship, but a different relationship than private keys that control the economic ownership. And that those and there might be other people that have slightly different triumvirates, but those three core stakeholders have contradicting powers and that as Bitcoin grows, as Bitcoin becomes more decentralized because that structure exists, then the output of that is the thing that creates the valuable properties, the fixed supply, the censorship resistance. And it's also that design that protects the right of the minorities in Bitcoin, such that if you buy Bitcoin, you can opt in knowing that it's not a simple vote. 51% of people don't get to vote to change the rules. The person that has 1,000 Bitcoin does not get to change the rules and that they can enforce rules that disadvantage people that have less money than them, which is functionally the current form of the U.S. government. So when you think about these ideas that the structure of governance in both the U.S. Constitution as well as Bitcoin are what create the properties that are actually of value and that protect the individual, that, in my view, is what creates this, I'd say, such beautiful parallel between the two.

and that at the end when we could talk about the individual arguments there but it's also i just want to make this point that a lot of people as it seems like the social fabric is fracturing they want to point to the structure of government they want to cast it aside reality it was this beautiful system that provided this prosperity that had never previously existed and rather than throw that out, recognize the parallels in the system, recognize how the dollar has undermined the US structure of government, and start with, let's take the fly out of the ointment, let the dust settle, and if there are other things that need to change from there, then change it. But the most important problem in that structure, in my view, is the dollar. But yeah, we can go

into kind of the sides of Bitcoin, but I think having that parallel view that it's not just a you know animal spirit this thing is american so let's just say it's american but decentralization by design gridlock by design equal rights within bitcoin prioritizing the individual ensuring that the system can't change it's only valuable because it's difficult to change and that's what protects anybody who opts in to know that their money's not going to get debased if they do because it's not up to a vote yeah it's almost shocking how similar structures of the governance of the constitution set forth in the constitution and the governance of the bitcoin network are um temperatures from like a simple design where you

create this gridlock that enables this incredible system when did you first realize that there were these parallels well the first time that i read that hamilton quote was before i understood bitcoin um i think but having that in my mind and then uh shout out to buck pearly he wrote a great article about u.s governance structure trying to i mean it was very much focused on the u.s governance structure and then hearing uh antonin scalia kind of piecing all those things together with my deeper understanding of bitcoin as money and recognizing the importance of it so It was kind of an idea that had started to come to the forefront in my mind of kind of combining those three or four data points

and then having Bitstein's talk, but then also saying, okay, wait, I need to actually think about this at a more first principle level because people like Brad Sherman in California are talking about how we should ban Bitcoin because, yes, we have the ability to print money, but we don't want anybody else to. and that it's also just very logical and natural that bitcoin will become controversial as it becomes larger as it becomes more apparent and that as government entities start to lash out like that or as a result of that that having the proper framing of this to help other bitcoiners

kind of realize that to push back and not accept it and be like oh well the two can coexist like no just reject it entirely reframe it it's important it's getting important now whether we're at the then they fight stage or this is just kind of a one-off or two-off there's no avoiding the fact that as bitcoin gets larger and one of the beautiful things is it gets larger it gets harder to stop and everything is good for bitcoin but there's still a rhetoric fight to be had that can in my view lessen the pain by having the proper framing yeah letting individual bitcoiners individual americans really understand that you have a good argument against the dollar and the fact that it is undermining the sovereignty the quality of life of individual americans

at the end of the day and it really corrupts the structure of governance that made us free in the first place and that's why i even said it in the article last night which was like like antonin scalia is like why do you think we are as free as we are it's like i would even argue like why do you think we america at one point was as free as it was because the dollar has acted as this parasitic uh cancer within the structure of government that we have here in the united states and i would argue we're not as free as we once were because of this problem completely agree think about because it's hard for people to really conceive of what is what a six trillion dollar budget is and i don't know if i think the budget is something like six trillion logan could fact

check me but that that number of six trillion even one trillion it's too hard for someone to possibly grasp you know what the number is one of the ways i related qe for people in the 2020 2022 timeframe when the fed created about 3 trillion new dollars over the course of six weeks or so no no it was 13 weeks it was three months so three trillion dollars to help someone to still what that is and then you got to double it for to get to the US budget cost Jerry world about a the Dallas Cowboys football stadium which still is one of the nicest that exists certainly at the time was nice eagles fans might disagree i've never been in jerry world i've heard great

things about it beautiful stadium yeah okay one billion dollars maybe it was 1.1 but let's use the round mouth one billion dollars that coordinated economic activity for six years to build paying all you know for design all the contractors building six years billion dollars there's 32 football stadiums in the united states jerry's is one of if not the nicest three trillion dollars over the course of three months is the equivalent of three thousand jerry worlds just flooding the market so connecting this idea that you that the average they're not the average person any person can't actually quantify what one trillion dollars means in terms of the value around them and then recognize that the us government is doling

out $6 trillion. So it's hard to do that in terms of related, just how much power comes from that. But accept that it couldn't exist if they didn't have their friends down the street at the Federal Reserve that are financing it out of thin air. Yes, it's coming at the cost of the American taxpayer inflation, but just think about the power, the centralization of power from that go to one unit of the government the irs imagine the u.s government wanted to fund 80 000 new other citizens to tax to go audit people and to extract more money from them if they had to go tax the american people and say hey do you want to fund these 80 000 incremental your colonoscopy irs agents would you do that no of course not that's a microcosm of how

the power gets centralized they fund a program that wouldn't otherwise be funded and then they control people combination through fear and actually making your life miserable same thing fundamentally with fbi or different you know justice department those people have have to get paid if they didn't have the money to continue to fund this what happens only the programs that the american people actually want to be fun to get funded and not in a way that has to go to a vote in a way where they actually have to hit your wallet um and so we've we've just gotten so far detached from reality that people just look at these horse traders in Washington, D.C. and think that they're, you know, Naeem Bokele did a great

job of this of like, why are they, why did they tax if they can print money? There was this other great video that just came out from the chair of the economic advisor to the president who was posed with a question, why do they issue debt if they can print money? And he certainly couldn't explain that, but it's for appearances. It's to be able to sell bonds to foreign and domestic interests and saying, oh, we have the cash flows to pay it. They don't really. They just fund it by going to the Federal Reserve.

So yeah, it's a total bastardized system. But when you strip away that ability, you insert Bitcoin to it. Now you come to the American people and say, we want to fund this program. The reality is they won't even come to the American people because they know in that world that they're not going to get funded. So they're not going to ask for a ridiculous thing. They become re-tethered to reality. And that when that happens, without even making any change,

the separation of powers and the balance of powers begins to be restored without anything else. I do personally believe, I didn't talk about it in the presentation, but I think that at some point we are actually going to have to pass the people in america are going to have to pass an amendment to the constitution that qualifies the government's ability to coin money and enshrines the right of bitcoin i thought about whether or not it would require actually enumerating bitcoin and i think that it actually has to enumerate bitcoin and can't you know define other things because just by enshrining a right

say you can use this thing if you want to it doesn't mean you have to but that you can and that the government cannot infringe on those rights doesn't mean you can't you can commit some other crime. But I think that that will be a change that the American people seriously have to consider. That's also one of these great parallels between Bitcoin and the US structure of government. It was gridlocked by design, but even in a world that existed pre the untethered dollar, the dollar infinitum that allowed power in Washington to centralize, it was difficult to change, but possible. You take that parallel to Bitcoin. Bitcoin is very difficult to change by design. The importance of why it's difficult to change is because they can't change the supply.

No one can. No one's in control. In theory, you could change the supply of Bitcoin or you can make other changes. It's just that it's very difficult to change. The only changes that could possibly happen in that world are ones that people overwhelmingly agree on. Certainly rational economic actors that have opted into Bitcoin for the purpose of its fixed supply will not unanimously or near unanimously decide to change that applied to the American government. Very difficult to believe that all of these funding programs continue to exist naturally if they had to go to the American people to say, hey, here's a 50% tax bill because you're paying it or really realistically here's a hundred percent tax bill if you know it would just never

happen so those my view of it is those things kind of naturally take care of themselves once money that's tethered to the real world bitcoin naturally replaces the fly in the ointment yeah yeah i mean it seems it makes again that's why i love having you as a friend because you're very thoughtful first principles logical thinker and like the logic as you just laid out makes and it's almost irrefutable but yeah also think about the dollar like if you if you don't if you're not convinced by that it's controlled by 12 people right i mean a few more but functionally so it's it's inherently a collectivist system versus an individual system it's created out of thin air versus bitcoin being issued by proof of work actual power being generated

to secure the bitcoin network value for value work for work um equal rights and when i talk about equal rights it's not equal outcomes in bitcoin it's that if you are a bitcoin holder there's consensus rules and they apply to everyone it's censorship resistant in the dollar world seniorage access matters that who's ever closest to the money printer um that that it is important as bitcoin advances for people to to recognize this to not apologize because also as an example if i was to say if i was to know this information if this was just the truth because i believe there's also truth and objectivity that exists in the world words matter words matter so if this is the truth and i knew it and i went around parroting that uh you know the dollar and bitcoin can

coexist well if the natural force of reality proves that to not be true and then someone comes and says whoa you said that bitcoin wasn't threatening the dollar now it's clearly threatening the either you're a liar or you're misinformed why should someone listen to what you have to say if you're just honest about the reality you explain why that's a good thing and lean into it it will be far harder for the creature itself to make criminals out of all of us and that now is the time to more to speak the truth to speak the truth and that the longer you wait to do that the harder it becomes so no it's funny these same people um who are pussyfooting around bitcoin competing with the dollar we're doing the same thing with esg five six years ago where it was

like no like bitcoin only uses renewable energy it's only going to use renewable energy in the future and i was almost out there on an island with a few others in 2019 2020 saying it's not the case bitcoin's going to use a lot more energy it's not all going to be renewable some of it will be coal, some of them would be natural gas. Uh, and we've seen actually called that one out too. And when, when it was like part of this, you know, um, the art of rhetoric, when people would say, you know, Bitcoin consumes as much energy as Denmark, you'd be like, wait, only Denmark.

Yeah. Like until Bitcoin is consuming as much power as the United States. Like, yeah. What are we doing? What are we doing here? Um, but I agree that like that ESG narrative is a, is a, is a great parallel that there were a lot of people in the energy industry that knew that ESG was a fraud, but they had to bend the knee to wall street because wall street was who funded their operations.

Well, they cut off, I don't know, maybe it's not the equivalent of cutting off their nose by their face, but they, they made a compromise on their principles that was against something that was fundamental to their businesses and somehow they thought they would stop there if they would go along with it and then the rules just keep changing and the goalposts keep moving and if you had actually just been honest and stood your ground and not bent the knee you don't end up in the situation where a lot of people are like in california or you know increasingly more unreliable energy coming to texas too it's everywhere it's again broken incentive of again the monetary system if you can't if you didn't have unfunded tax credits for made up

carbon credits and carbon offsets then you know maybe our energy infrastructure would be a lot more stable and our power grids would be more stable and people would have cheaper energy but we don't you know and so i agree with you had people spoken up more about the truth and not bent the knee then they would be in they would continue to be in a position of a lot more economic power than they are today and they're gonna have to get that ground back but they gave they ceded a lot and in the parallel here i say is don't wait to have this conversation if it's the true one if it's the principal one which i believe it is have that conversation now reframe that argument the dollar is not patriotic the dollar is not in the interest of national security

it weakens the individual both on the economic level as well as from a structure of governance of the united states and bitcoin fixes that not in a in a detached unlinear way in a way that is very linear and very direct and also the underlying structure of it maps so perfectly to the u.s exactly it's almost like i don't want to say it mimics i don't know if satoshi was mimicking the structure of the u.s government and so forth in the constitution but maybe i don't think he was mimicking that at least never explicitly said it but maybe it's just like how these natural robust decentralized systems need to work like you need this balance of power with embedded gridlock to enable these structures to be successful in the long run i guess maybe it's some sort of

My view is that that was, whether he modeled it after the U.S. government, recognizing the importance of separation of power being critical and balance of power being critical to contradicting power and robustness to the actual design, not being susceptible to arbitrary change and to prevent centralization of power, had to have been thinking about the same principles and not say I would be shocked, but it would be surprising if that principle wasn't there. One of the things I do like to qualify, though, or I qualified it in the presentation, I just want to say now, is that when I talk about how there's nothing more American than Bitcoin,

it doesn't mean that America has some claim on Bitcoin and that there aren't values in other outside systems that are also embedded in Bitcoin. It's just that for people in this country thinking about this dilemma that the right framing of Bitcoin is that Bitcoin is a lot of things to a lot of people. The American people certainly have no more claim to Bitcoin than others. It's an open source project and it only works because of that way or because of that reason. but with our dilemma specifically carrying that message of pointing out these parallels is the right way in my mind an effective way to provide the proper narrative and reframe the false narrative yeah yeah reframe own the narrative own the narrative and that is how

great bitcoin is it's replacing the dollar yeah like it's not a pet rock it's not for criminals something that's just for criminals can't replace the dollar yeah and i don't want to belabor the esg thing but i think we should take that lesson to heart because again the reason why i was taking the position i did years ago and continue to take that position is because this is objectively false like some of the companies i'm involved in are building mining operations behind the meter at coal plants like by going out five six years ago and saying don't worry bitcoin's only going to use renewable energy like it's objectively not true and you know this because there's varying energy sources that in different parts of the world are lower cost than sources in other parts

of the world and sometimes they just so happen to be what the esg zealots would label as dirty energy and you can't fall into that trap because you get to the future at least and you get elizabeth warren saying five years ago you told me you were never going to use coal it's like that's exactly right that that is that is the exact point so it's not just great parallel but also on this idea of rhetoric it is if you go around parroting that bitcoin is good for renewable energy and that bitcoin is going to promote renewable energy and there's just a fundamental problem with whatever energy source you're talking about that's not actually renewable and not actually sustainable, then you go out there and you tell a politician that

and that's how you get that politician comfortable with it. Well, then when a coal plant returns up because Bitcoin doesn't actually incentivize renewable energy, it just incentivizes anyone who can go get the cheapest power to turn on and supply the Bitcoin network. And if that is a natural gas combined cycle turbine, a nuclear plant, or a coal plant, that is what Bitcoin is going to incentivize. Cheap power at scale that's reliable. The cheapest power. If suddenly that happens and someone comes to you and says, well, hey, you told me X would happen and Y is happening, well, then what position does that put you in?

either you're not a credible person because you didn't understand the actual incentives or you were a liar so then when they come to take some other action to say oh well now we need to ban this what leg do you have to stand on if you were the person carrying the true message the accurate message then if that fight is inevitable you never ceded either the truth or the moral high ground and that there are enough people out there that do care about the truth that put enough of those people together those are the people who create loss just make people understand why bitcoin is important and why it's valuable and then there won't be this dilemma of the government taking negative actions against bitcoin because they just become bitcoinized

and also the government's going to need to be funded too the government needs money that works They just are going to have to be funded with actual money and tax people to fund the operations and ask for the consent of the government, which is what our system was designed to do. Own it. Bitcoin is money. It's going to replace the dollar.

We're going to use a lot more energy. Some of that energy may not be wind and solar or hydroelectric or geothermal. This is the truth. Live not by lies. the dollar's not patriotic think about the founding fathers what they would think about

today whenever somebody says that reject the narrative reframe it and help them understand why Bitcoin aligns with the American individual

the structure of governance and why when you add enough of that up the collective interest yeah we're gonna win we're gonna win white pills

white pills I told Parker earlier only white pills Random Acts of Kindness yes White Pills yeah world's chaotic out there

but hold the door write handwritten letters say thank you say thank you White Pills we're gonna do this we have the truth on our side

yeah and that's why we're gonna win yeah live not by lies peace and love freaks okay