The Pomp Podcast - Isaiah Jackson, Author of Bitcoin & Black America: The Synergy Between Black Economics, Bitcoin and Blockchain

Episode Date: July 24, 2019

Isaiah Jackson is the author of Bitcoin & Black America. In this conversation, Isaiah and Anthony Pompliano discuss why he wrote the book, how black America is treated differently by the financial system, and how Isaiah believes Bitcoin can help change. -----Curious about Cryptocurrency but don’t know where to begin? Storm Play is a free and fun way to start earning in exchange for you time. Simply download, register and discover microtasks that meet your interests and be rewarded with Storm Bolts. These Bolts can then be converted and withdrawn into your favorite cryptocurrency, including Storm Token, Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC.).  Earn cryptocurrency rewards by playing new games and trying out cool products! Download the app to start earning crypto here! https://bit.ly/30pSxh9 (Available for iOS and Android). -----If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

What's up, everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to Off The Chain, simply the best podcast in crypto. Let's kick this thing off. Isaiah Jackson is the author of Bitcoin in Black America. In this conversation, we discuss why he wrote the book, how Black America is treated differently by the financial system, and how Isaiah believes Bitcoin can help change. I really enjoyed this conversation and Isaiah's different perspective. I hope you enjoy it as well. Are you curious about cryptocurrency and you don't know where to begin? I've got a great way for you to try. You can use Stormplay, a free and fun way to start earning in exchange for your time. That's right.

You don't necessarily have to make a financial investment to begin. You can simply download, register, and then discover these micro tasks that they present you that meet your interest. And then you're rewarded with these Storm Bolts. The Bolts are then converted and can be withdrawn into your favorite cryptocurrency, including the Storm Token, Ethereum, or my favorite, Bitcoin. If you go and download the Storm Play app today, you can earn cryptocurrency rewards by playing new games and trying out cool new products. It's worth a try, and it's a great way to get started. Remember, go check out Storm Play in the App Store today. Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital.

All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got Isaiah here. Super excited about this, to talk about your background and the book that you recently wrote. So thanks so much for getting up and doing this so early. Oh, yeah. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. Glad to be here. For sure. Let's jump right into your background so we can get some context on

your perspective for the book you wrote. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, my name is Isaiah Jackson. I've been involved in the Bitcoin space since 2013. Heard about it like a lot of people from Max Keiser, who I love and respect. But Max Keiser, I actually learned from him. And from that point forward, I have a technical background. I did IT for a law firm and taught computer engineering. So it was sort of a learning curve to learn about Bitcoin on the financial side. But taught myself that, started doing consulting in 2016 and educational classes in my hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, which, you know, a lot of the pushback I got along with some of the clients I had, that gave me a good background knowledge on how Bitcoin is really

going to change the world and may be able to change my immediate community, the black community. So that was what gave me the inspiration for the book. And over the years, as I write in the first chapter about my story, a lot of things have happened that pushed me to write this book. So So I definitely have a lot of experience in this space and continue to push day to day. Got it. And maybe don't go into the entire chapter of the book, but maybe just give us one anecdote as to one of the things that pushed you towards Bitcoin and then eventually writing the book. Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, I will say, honestly, my clients that I've worked with, they push me to do it simply because demographically, going to a lot of meetups, I was literally the only black person there a lot of times. And I would hate it because I didn't want my community to miss the next big technological innovation like the Internet. We sort of missed that. And a lot of times I would go to meetups and I would be like a fly in milk.

Uh, it would be, I was the only person there and, uh, I would hate it because I would say, Hey, it's such a great opportunity. Why isn't my community more involved? And, uh, that is the main reason why I started writing about it. And when you read the book, you'll actually see my story. One of the biggest things that happened that got me to actually move forward was how I got hacked. You can read about how I got hacked and, uh, how that affected me mentally and the people around me and how it pushed me forward actually. So it actually made me more vigilant. So those are two of the big reasons why this book had to come out. Got it. And when you say miss it. Right. I think that, you know, people who are not in the black community, I don't think they really understand what that means.

So, you know, you said we kind of missed the Internet. Describe what that means from your perspective and kind of how you see the ramifications of that. Oh, yeah. Well, during the big boom of the Internet, usually two things prevented people from being able to participate. For one, a lot of people in the black community may not have had the education or means in order to learn a lot of the early tools, as well as going further into the future. A lot of a lot of times people who join in the tech community and learn about Internet, they are kind of consumers now. They weren't they were not the builders that have the big tech companies that we see now. So unfortunately, a lot of the wealth that was made during the Internet big boom wasn't in the black community, not as much as it should have been. And the next wave of innovation is, I believe, centered around blockchain technology and, of course, Bitcoin as a payment system. So when I say miss it, what I mean is economically, if you want to be viable as a community, you have to have some sort of technological expanse or expansion to ensure that survival.

And I think this is one way to do it, not just from a price standpoint, buying Bitcoin, but also, too, from a technological standpoint, building the products we'll use in the future. So that's what I mean by the black community not missing it this time around. got it and so as you start writing the book was there specific angles that you thought were more important than others obviously you know just describing what is bitcoin and why it's important is one of them but when you start talking about writing for a certain demographic or community what were some of the um those angles that you felt were you know just absolutely essential to include in the book oh yeah well i i realized that a lot of the problems in the black community have been written about a lot for the last year. So what I wanted to focus on was a solution-based

book. It's like 98% just solutions. It doesn't harp on a lot of the past issues, except when I speak about banks and some of the practices they've had against the Black community. But for the most part, it's solution-based. I wanted to absolutely make sure that I have a way for people to read and take it and actually apply it to their life, not just sit around and discuss what could be, what we could do. I'm tired of talking, so to say. Pretty straightforward person, and I definitely wanted to make this book like that. Straightforward, read it, and let's get to work. Got it. When you talk about the banks and the structural issues, do you feel like there's a different problem set for the African-American community? If so, maybe just illuminate a little

bit for those that either haven't experienced it or don't understand like what one or two those anecdotes would be as as to what's the difference between um a structural issue that's a that's a apparent in uh the financial system that gets exasperated uh you know in black community oh yeah well uh banks as a whole i think it affects us all no matter the color community i think that's what bitcoin has shown it doesn't matter what color race religion you are um just basically doing something different is is better than anything than the federal reserve in the black community though one thing that we've noticed uh historically one of the anecdotes i harp on is the fact that redlining which uh kept black people from purchasing real estate in

certain areas as well as loans um being denied even though you may have the exact same credit score better uh to black and latino applicants i use all those examples uh throughout the book and I use, specifically, I use examples from the last five years. So I think some people get it confused that, you know, when people say racist banking practices, this isn't some old Jim Crow 1962 stuff. No, no, we're talking about like 2015 up to now. So I wanted to make sure people realize this is very recent and these banks have gotten sued and kind of brushed it under the table, which they're pretty good at. I mean, hey, JP Morgan just got caught with 1.3 billion worth the cocaine and nobody's talking about it. So trust me, it's very easy to brush it under the

rug. And that's what's happened with our community. A lot of times people think, well, they're the banks, they run everything, but there is another option for us. And I think with our history, we don't really owe them anything more so than any other community. And I think it affects us all, but I had to direct it to black communities so they know we do have a problem with how we've been treated by banks. Got it. And describe redlining. That's a terminology I've never heard What exactly is that redlining? OK, well, redlining in the 50s and 60s, early 70s, banking practice that used to happen was in certain areas. And if you notice today, it still applies in certain areas. Black people were not allowed to move there or to get a loan from a bank to live in certain areas.

Those areas were known as suburbs back then. And that is one of the things that prevented a lot of black people from being able to live in the suburbs. So if you notice, a lot of the black community is close to certain areas. So the highways that were built, those highways are usually built right directly through black neighborhoods. If you notice when you drive on a lot of highways, when you get off of the highways, a lot of times it's right in black neighborhoods. That still goes on today, as well as a lot of the people who lived downtown or close to a lot of the downtowns and a lot of major cities. They were forced there because they were not allowed to live in the suburbs. And now you see the opposite happening with with people being able to come into those downtown areas and purchase housing, flip it and go from there. So redlining has a long history of keeping black people out of certain real estate areas, which is the foundation of most people's family wealth. So we're talking about a generational change in the way of how things happen.

Bitcoin doesn't discriminate at all. There's no human error. It's math instead of humans, which I much rather prefer. For sure. And part of I think what you're really describing is this idea that an algorithm is it's hard for me biased. Right. With that said, there is a human that writes the algorithm. Right. And so any thoughts on how individuals can expect or kind of anticipate bias when it comes to how those algorithms are written and maybe not even just Bitcoin, but more generally in social media companies, algorithms, etc. Any thoughts there? Mm hmm. Well, I think the open source technology aspect of Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies actually makes it so that that human bias is less and less. So what I mean by that is if if the type of people writing software all have the same experiences, all look the same, all talk, you know, do the same things, then you will have that bias.

However, when it's open source and anybody can join, anybody can actually use Bitcoin Network and develop on it, the products that are made will have human bias to an extent, but it'll be from so many different types of people, so many different types of experiences. You'll be able to find your niche within that market. And I think in the tech world it's happened, but it's taken a lot of time because demographically it hasn't been very diverse. I think with Bitcoin, it'll be a lot faster simply because everybody can participate and it's global. So I think that is what will change in open source technology is key for that. Got it. And so going back to the book real quick, what do you hope that people get out of the book? Like if they walk away, what's the one or two things where you're like, if they if they think this or if they get to this point, that's success? Oh, yeah. Well, the biggest thing I want people to take away after you read Bitcoin in black America, no matter what community you come from,

the first thing I want you to realize is that Bitcoin is not going away. I think there are a lot of people in my community as others. They were fooled by the media. I thought Bitcoin died so many times in the last year. It's ridiculous. And I think that's the biggest thing I want people to understand is Bitcoin is not going anywhere. It's not some fad. It's not a bubble. It's not a Ponzi scheme. This is something that is going to change everything. So do what you can to get a part of the industry and help build it. uh second biggest thing i think people would love to or will walk away with this book they'll love the fact that um a lot of the problems that are discussed in black community can be solved um so a lot of the back and forth is a waste of time i think people need to realize that because i kept the book short on purpose and a lot of the stuff i talk about is solution-based for a reason because i think we people talk too much in my opinion i mean we've done a lot of back and forth i've been on this earth 30 years and i'm already tired of it so i don't see how people twice my age

uh or more are still they're still able to sit down and just have these discussions over and over year after year oh what can we do to solve it what can we do different no no no this book is different i'm not that guy that's gonna sit there and discuss back and forth these are solutions let's get to it so those are two biggest things i think you'll get from this book and uh i hope people when they read it get to get both those things out of it for sure what um Where can people find the book if they're interested in reading it? Oh, yeah. If you're interested in finding the book, it is available on Amazon right now.

Once again, Bitcoin in Black America. It's available for Kindle and paperback. It will be available for audiobook soon. So check that out. And I actually do have an affiliate program available for anybody who actually wants to sell the book using the referral link. They can actually earn some money on it. So that's available as well. That's at BitcoinAndBlackAmerica.com.

So you can go to both of those sites, check out the book, earn some money, getting others to read it, because I definitely want it to spread around the community, around the world, really, to see our plight. For sure. And so I want to transition to talk about the Bitcoin and crypto industry more generally. One of the things that I don't think is very well understood is from a geographic standpoint, right? I think we talk a lot about various countries. And so, hey, is it China or is it India or is it somewhere in South America? What are people actually doing? What are they saying? What would the data say? there's also a lot of geographic diversity here in america right and i think that uh it's much less understood uh one the data is harder to get and two i think that uh bitcoin is so global that we just tend to focus on the idea of like oh there's people in a far land that that are different than us um maybe talk a little bit about you know when you look at the various aspects

whether it's the infrastructure, like the Coinbase's Gemini circles of the world, all the way down to who's starting these companies and who's excited about this. Like, just what's your perspective on the geographic differences here in America? Well, some of the geographic differences I see between here and other places. For one, China. Here in America, we haven't banned Bitcoin 20 times. So that's one geographical difference. I think they're they're more under the rule of thumb. And I think they're pushing towards I think China, because they're so involved in Bitcoin, they're pushing towards a different type of economy in the future that doesn't rely on the U.S.

In the U.S., I'm not exactly sure what the future plan is, but I know it involves military. And I think that's where our Bitcoin plan is starting to move towards, unfortunately. And in different places like in India, I was like you said, you stated earlier, they're trying they're looking to ban cryptocurrency. So they all have different viewpoints of how Bitcoin can be used. And I think a lot of it comes from the culture that's there. Within the U.S., one of the things I'll say geographically, that's a difference. Coming from Charlotte, North Carolina, that's the third biggest banking city. There's like no Bitcoin activity or there was none before I left. And here in Los Angeles, people are a lot more receptive. It's a lot more tech companies. They pretty much have been on Bitcoin for a few years. So those are some of the geographical differences I see in how people use it, how people operate it around the world. And I think that will change over time as some communities pop up, as we're seeing people pop up with Bitcoin embassies and Bitcoin communities. So that'll be interesting to see. For sure. And what do you find specifically in the black community? What are the pushbacks? So you were talking earlier about Bitcoin is a Ponzi, it's died. It's kind of all of these various things that I think have been perpetuated by the media. uh in your conversations with folks as you were writing the book and now that it's out like like

what what's the conversation or perspective that is it that people actually think that it's dead and it's worthless or is there some other viewpoint yes uh well the statement i heard i thought bitcoin was dead um i thought it went away that came from like you stated the media and that is one thing that i've had to push back against a lot and with a lot of the people in the black community, I try and relate it to them by telling them, hey, when you watch the media, do you think that black people are represented correctly? And it's almost an overwhelmingly note almost every time. So I asked them, I say, you know, if you believe that they will misrepresent a group of people they feel threatened by, why would you think the media

wouldn't misrepresent Bitcoin? Because it threatens the very people who actually the banks who support the media. So that's literally what they're doing. They're trying to condition you into thinking that something's wrong, as we call it, FUD, it should be a match made in heaven because as black people, we should realize the media does not care about us at all. So the message that's out there is not correct. And Bitcoin is pretty much the same. We know the media is fickle day to day. They can make up some story about Bitcoin and actually misrepresent how it looks. So a lot of times that is the chatter that I have with people. And I think long term that will change as the economy actually, if anything happens to the economy, I believe

that discussion will actually resonate a lot more because then people will say, yes, they've been lying to us for so long, we can't take this anymore. And I think we're getting to that point. Got it. And so I guess as part of this, where do you see the most reception when it comes to somebody finally, mentally it clicks over, right? So it goes from, hey, I thought the thing was dead to now i understand it's not dead what's that next action is it i want to buy some is it i want to uh get educational material like where do you see people kind of gravitate towards uh in the black community once they've understood that hey there is this asset out there um that may give us uh the ability to fight back against you know the banks and central banking etc oh yeah

Well, educational materials definitely come first. I think a lot of people, they jump head first into the space. And I talk about that in my book as well. Being really, really optimistic and thinking, hey, I can make a lot of money and focusing on that. I think a lot of people do jump right into the space. So the first thing I make sure I do is education. I've written three starter guides along with this book that I hand out for free, as well as tutorial videos online, dozens of hours of that. So that's the first thing I do. Make sure they're educated because there's no way at this point in the game you can basically just jump in, dive, dive here first and just go for it. You got to have that background. So I always provide that as well as resources that they can use down the line in the future. They may not, you know, use Bitcoin futures right now, but they may need that information later. They may not, you know, use blockchain technology now, but they'll understand why they may need it in the future. So, yes, education is very first, very first thing on the list. Got it. What from your personal perspective, what's kind of your outlook here in terms of what needs to happen in the macro economy to continue to drive Bitcoin adoption?

Well, the number one thing that has happened to drive adoption, I think, is there has to be a change in way of thinking. And I think that comes from some sort of event. Right. So I think a lot of the ways that the Facebook Senate hearings have started to change people's way of thinking. I think events like that will start to change the way people think about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, because if you notice, most of the Senate hearing was about Facebook. It wasn't about Bitcoin. And, you know, right before that, Jesse Powell or I'm sorry, Jerome Powell from Fed chair actually stated Bitcoin is digital gold. Statements like that, I think, change people's thinking about it and actually legitimize what Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is here to do. So I think that is the first big step in mass adoption. And the next step after that is having a seamless onboarding process. I think Cash App is doing a good job of that now. Coinbase has done it for a long time, even though they've gotten a lot of pushback because of some of the practices they've had.

But those are a few of the things that I think will make it mainstream, along with economies that keep banning it. If India keeps banning it or if somebody, if another great big country bans it, that is basically like prohibition. You just made the price skyrocket because it makes it more valuable, more scarce. So I think those are some of the things that will push mass adoption long term. For sure. I was laughing in the was the congressional hearing, I think, on most recent weeks. And I forget which of the congressional representatives said it, but they used the word prohibition. Right. They said just because it's new technology doesn't mean that we should, you know, essentially not pay attention to it and just ban it. Right. We should understand it before we can make a decision.

I thought that was a really kind of, you know, valuable perspective for someone to share, especially sitting in that seat in that, you know, you said it earlier. It felt like it was just a bash session of Facebook. Right. It was more about, hey, we don't like Facebook, the company, rather than we don't like this technology or we don't like this idea, which was unfortunate. Oh, yeah. And one of the funniest things I think that came out of it was I think a lot of the Congress members either own Bitcoin or have family members that have Bitcoin. because they didn't push back at all and they were almost to the point of protection uh the one guy from north carolina uh mckinney when he was discussing it he was basically saying hey digital currency is here it's not going anywhere neither is blockchain technology uh get used to it so it's we were joking that uh either they own bitcoin or their kids do and they don't want to

make any rules that would get their kids thrown in jail or prosecuted so uh they're basically defending bitcoin by going against facebook's libra which is a crazy turn of events if that's the case but yeah the senate hearings are uh a spectacle right now i love it i i was laughing i was like how in the world did it how did it flip like to the point where facebook's the bad guy and bitcoin's the good guy yeah and all you need really is a a bigger badder guy i guess and i think facebook posed that risk because bitcoin is what it's 10 years old it's maybe uh i think at $300 billion market cap total cryptocurrency. Facebook is

a billion-dollar business, already has a billion people onboarded. If they pull out something, they're a direct threat. Bitcoin's kind of in the corner chilling like, well, nobody's reinvented Bitcoin yet, so we're basically good over here. Yeah, and also

the lawmakers can't subpoena somebody, can't come out and testify. There's no CEO, there's no headquarters to visit, right? So there's some element. I don't know about that. Craig Wright, He makes a compelling case. Are you a believer in his claims? I said, are you a believer in his claims?

Oh, hell no. This conversation is going to be a fast turn. No, no. I was going to say, well, I don't know what kind of troll school he went to, but he is a master. I mean, he's right up there with Lil Nas X. They're some of the best trolls I've ever seen in my life. He's one of the best because, yeah, that's no waste. But, yeah, you're right.

They can't subpoena anybody. They can't, you know, you can't find the CEO of Bitcoin, as some people have been called. But, yeah, that that's the best part about this open source and definitely the most decentralized crypto there is. Absolutely. I think a lot about, you know, I think Paul Grant from Y Combinator has this startup advice to entrepreneurs that says, you know, don't worry about getting tens of thousands of people on your service. Just focus on finding the first 100 that love you. Right. And if they love you, then you can go find 101, 110, 200, right? But make sure that they absolutely love the product. And when you think of Bitcoin, the thing that to me is so powerful is you have a group of volunteers on the internet, right?

And they will defend this thing nonstop, 24-7, 365, and they defend it with a vengeance, right? And so when you see that, I think it really just speaks to how valuable, desirable and frankly, powerful Bitcoin itself can be when it comes to people trying to opt out of a legacy financial system. Oh, man, tell me about it. And I love the fact that you said, you know, it was started basically, you know, with people online talking on forums and, you know, it blew up to what it was now. uh i mean that that by itself is amazing i mean this whole process will definitely be in somebody's museum uh one day simply because the the fervor with which the people who love bitcoin came out that's one of the things that drew me to it like i said max kaiser was the first person i saw when max is on tv yelling you know uh f the fed and ripping up money that that passion kind of follows you uh and you realize it the more you i mean i do a daily news show the gentleman of

crypto so we've seen laws literally change overnight and we've we've seen things uh done that pushes the corruption so that it makes you even more uh you know adamant about using bitcoin and online we've definitely seen that i mean people have built bots that just reply to people forever like it won't ever go away so i love that and i think that's what's pushed it forward without any you know real mainstream adoption so to say absolutely um all right what's uh what's your one wish for uh for bitcoin right in terms of uh adoption in the black community what do you think is um if you could wave a magic wand what would it be oh yeah uh well the the number one thing i would say is 100 percent uh of black americans have some sort of bitcoin or blockchain

technology plan or investment. That is the goal. And as far as generationally, being able to build the products that people use in the future, as well as connecting with Black people in other countries, that should be the goal for the future and other communities as well. Because we're a lot stronger when everybody can stand on their own. And Bitcoin gives us financial sovereignty. And I want to see that in our community 100%. Got it. Before I end, I always do rapid fire questions. What do you think is the most important company in crypto? Binance. Why? Their failure would kill a lot of the market right now. The infrastructure would kind of break down a little bit if they went away. And CZ has a lot going on. So I think that's probably the most important

right now. Got it. What do you think is the most important or what's the one regulation that you would change or improve if you could? Definitely the... I don't know if people say ICOs or STOs anymore, uh, what people do it, but the fundraising, uh, laws definitely, uh, I know Blockstack is the first company to get a reg A, uh, raised with, with, uh, non-accredited investors. So I would have, I would change that law completely, um, and make it so that anybody can invest. And a lot of the times the protections people keep aren't really protecting you. They're just keeping you out. So definitely would, would speak with the SEC about that and, uh, kind of shore up exactly what is a security. Got it. What do you think your most

controversial thought in crypto is, right? If you shared it, a high degree of other people would disagree with you. My thought or just anybody's? Yours. I think Bitcoin won't get rid of banks. I think they'll change them. Okay. Explain what you mean by that. I think what will happen is Bitcoin will become a sort of reserve for certain nations and banks will basically get rid of brick and mortar going online and it'll change the way they do business because of fees and the ease of use of Bitcoin. So I think their practices, they won't go away completely. I think they will be broken down a lot and taken out, but I think they'll change

their practices enough where it'll actually improve. Bitcoin actually improved. They're already doing it, improving the financial system. What's the most important book you've ever read? uh malcolm x's autobiography tied that with a basic economics from thomas sold why the malcolm x book uh because his story is the american dream he started out one way changed his life uh for the better and helped his immediate community and his family as much as possible which is uh that should be the goal of every every uh american for sure before uh before i finish up and let you ask me question uh we gotta talk about aliens believer believer oh yeah definitely big believer uh i'm not storming area 51 uh we gotta talk about it man listen you're the first episode since area 51

that the plan i've not stormed it but if there was uh something i would pay big money to watch on pay-per-view i will pay to watch every streaming there is available to watch people storm it but listen that is a fantastic idea i am not going um yeah i'm not gonna be when i first saw the fact that people let's just go storm the place that's a pretty wild idea good luck with that and then i saw you know i think that's like a hundred thousand there's five hundred thousand i think they're now up to 1.5 million people have lined up to go do this and then uh i just saw a video uh going viral i can't remember if it's twitter or instagram but it's a bunch of u.s soldiers that are in um in like a briefing room and somebody basically like whipped out their

cell phone and kind of pans the room and uh it must have been recorded on snapchat because it's got kind of the gray bar of text across it and it says uh briefing on area one security thanks guys so you can imagine if uh it was actually you know folks at military police all that kind of stuff having to uh um prepare in case some of these idiots do show up is uh yeah i mean if there if there was anything out there to go get um the fact that you have these people the media is talking about it it's too late whatever was there was probably moved or not there anymore i mean it's it's just hilarious but i like the fact that the internet can take over and basically create movements uh like this and one and a half million people will take place what do you think that

there's stuff there uh well i think i think there definitely was if it is still there but i think it's sort of a misdirection like i think there is a lot of underground mountain type bunkers uh in fact i know they are because of some of the friends i have in the military but uh i think what they're looking for immediately like type of aliens and whatever i don't think that's there if they were there either moved or transported or something either way they're not getting close it's i feel like it's gonna be drone the drone army will defeat humans yeah the thing i always laugh is uh uh my girlfriend gives me a hard time about she goes all right i got it the whole alien thing whatever what are you gonna do to meet one right now i don't know probably go to a bar and

grab a drink or something like you're like can't communicate with it so you do like poke it with a stick right it's kind of exactly and our movie view of aliens is funny so i know we all think you know what if you meet it what would you do with it it's like what what what would you do if you met an alien they didn't want to talk to you like what what you're like there's a reason why we didn't associate with you that would be hilarious to me just to see how you know how we're big fans and they're like kind of off-putting like a hollywood star like i know you know i mean like uh that would be hilarious to me well uh yeah my favorite thing anyone said on the show about aliens other than uh josh brown who came up with an absurd comment that ghosts are more real

than aliens um so i'll never let him forget that stupid comment um but other than that is this idea you know look we may we may not want to come in contact with aliens right this whole idea if you think of you know christopher columbus and um kind of european settling north america right that didn't turn out so well for one side of the uh the population and so i think very similar to um you know our kind of earth species and the human species um interacting with something from not just another country right where we already see you know people who travel and you get sick for example right just because you're not used to the bacteria in the water and all that kind of stuff imagine if we were interacting with a species from another planet or another galaxy

right i mean you get kind of deep in these thought processes and uh and i don't think it's as straightforward as people uh wish that it was oh yeah and i think if we've had a lot of visits from aliens they either don't really want to see us or like you said we should not come in contact with them so yeah that that's an interesting perspective uh about aliens i i really just once i think if aliens show up the unity of humans would increase dramatically because we'll have all a common enemy be like independent state but uh but it would be hilarious to sort of see the the position of you know leadership versus if aliens show up because you know a lot of people talk about what's out there in the universe you know what's going to happen in the future and

then say alien shows up it's like no no none of that's gonna happen uh let me explain to you how the galaxy works so i i would love to see it for sure all right man you could ask me one question to uh to end this thing what you got for me do you think a terrorist attack will be blamed on bitcoin funding at some point in the future that is a fantastic question um i think that uh well one i would argue that um i think if i have this correct whoever's listening don't don't hold me just but if i believe um previously there was somebody who did a study or there's an article about trying to connect uh um hamas uh funding uh hamas um and they were saying that there was some funding that was done through bitcoin so i think that's one two is uh depending on what

country you're in um and who you're talking to uh there's some people um who would consider uh edward snowden right his act and uh and i believe that he paid for um whether i think it may be that are servers or something or some kind of infrastructure if i remember correctly with bitcoin so you know it's a long way of saying i don't know if there will be like this is bitcoin's fault type blank right so where it's like bitcoin is the culprit as much as it is bitcoin's narrative will get muddied um because people will you know pound the table and say you know bitcoin didn't exist, they wouldn't have done this, right? They wouldn't have gotten funding. I think what we're starting to realize as people just pay attention more to money in the financial system is people

have been laundering money regardless of the currency for a really, really long time. They've been funding criminal activities for a long time. And what we see with Bitcoin and the US dollar is people are simply going to use whatever's available to do what they want to do, right? So it's kind of the idea that the asset itself isn't good or bad. It's just an inanimate object. It's how it gets used, right? And by who? And so I think, you know, there will be people who will take a data point like, you know,

if Bitcoin was involved in funding a terrorist action and they will spin it positively, negatively and neutrally, right? Which is kind of the crazy part about this whole thing where it's so polarizing that people will always take that information and try to manipulate it in their favor yeah man i i see that definitely and the media is gonna have the media is gonna have a big impact i think on how people view it um but i think uh i think bitcoin's media team right now whoever involves himself in the media is doing a pretty good job because somehow you know we've basically undone the thought process that bitcoin is is a scam and evil you know whatever and we've gotten to the

point now where it's accepted but like you said if people associate it with a certain type of person snowden is considered a terrorist to some people so you're right um yeah that is that is definitely something i think about in the future man always all right listen i really appreciate you uh you taking the time to do this isaiah uh remind everyone one more time where they can go find the book absolutely uh you can find the book bitcoin and black america at amazon.com you can use affiliate program on Bitcoin and blackamerica.com as well to find the book. And I do want to remind people daily, the gentleman of crypto is on YouTube at 3 p.m. Pacific, 6 p.m. Eastern. So if you want news and updates, you can catch me there. And yeah, we always love to discuss the

industry and things going on day to day. So I'm glad to be on your platform. I appreciate the opportunity. And yes, more power to you guys, man. Awesome. I appreciate it so much. are you curious about cryptocurrency and you don't know where to begin i've got a great way for you to try you can use storm play a free and fun way to start earning in exchange for your time that's right you don't necessarily have to make a financial investment to begin you can simply download register and then discover these micro tasks that they present you that meet your interest and then you're rewarded with these storm bolts the bolts are then converted and can be withdrawn on into your favorite cryptocurrency, including the Storm Token, Ethereum, or my favorite,

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