The Wolf Of All Streets - Isaiah Jackson, Author of “Bitcoin and Black America” on the Intersection of Race, Cryptocurrency and Government

Episode Date: July 9, 2020

Isaiah Jackson, a popular author, bitcoin evangelist and community servant, wrote the well known book ‘Bitcoin and Black America.’ With a new money system in mind, his solution based account of how to repair black communities through the adoption of bitcoin has had a ripple effect across the country. Scott Melker and Isaiah Jackson further discuss the 3 step plan for bitcoin adoption in the black community, Nipsey Hustle’s contributions to society, implementing bitcoin into churches, discovering bitcoin from a banker in 2013, the banking house of cards, a 2nd edition of his book coming this year and more. --- CHOICE IRA by KINGDOM TRUST Don’t be part of the 7.1M Bitcoiners who have bitcoin and a retirement account but don’t have bitcoin in their retirement account. With Choice IRA by Kingdom Trust you can hold bitcoin in your retirement account. The first 1,000 users to open a Choice IRA will receive $62.50 in free BTC - visit RetireWithChoice.com/WOLF to join the waitlist and secure free BTC. --- VOYAGER This episode is brought to you by Voyager, your new favorite crypto broker. Trade crypto fast and commission-free the easy way. Earn up to 6% interest on top coins with no lockups and no limits. Download the Voyager app and use code “SCOTT25” to get $25 in free Bitcoin when you create your account --- 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, everybody? This is your host, Scott Melker, and you're listening to the Wolf of All Streets podcast. Every week, I'm talking to your favorite personalities from the worlds of Bitcoin, finance, trading, art, music, sports, politics, and basically anyone else with an interesting story to tell. So sit down, strap in, and get ready, because we're going deep. Let's go. Today's episode is brought to you by Choice, by Kingdom Trust, and Voyager. We'll learn more about them later on in the episode.

This podcast is powered by BlockWorks Group, the only events and podcast production company I trust. For access to the premier digital asset conferences and in-depth podcast content, visit them at blockworksgroup.io. I promise you will not be disappointed. Today's guest is the author of the book, Bitcoin and Black America. His work explores the synergy between black economics, Bitcoin and blockchain technology. And his story stands as a wake up call to a less explored facet of the space. And his book focuses on solutions rather than speculation. I'm really excited to have Isaiah Jackson here.

Thank you, man, for coming on the show. Oh, yeah. Thank you for having me. Glad to be here, man. So your book man, for coming on the show. Oh, yeah. Thank you for having me. Glad to be here, man. So your book opens with a tribute to Nipsey Hussle. Can you talk about who he is for the people in this community that might not know and what he means to you? Oh, yeah.

So Nipsey Hussle, he was a rapper and entrepreneur from the L.A. area who I've been following for about 10 years now before his untimely death last year. And he was a big inspiration as an entrepreneur, being able to be self-made, doing it independent. That was a big, big inspiration there. And then, of course, he was big into cryptocurrency and Bitcoin. Once he started talking about it, he had got a lot of people in the black community to think about using and learning about Bitcoin. So. He was a big inspiration. And like I said, his untimely death. And then the book came out later and wanted to make sure I shouted him out so people don't forget him.

Man, it always blew my mind. Like whenever I hear his verses, I always think I'm listening to Snoop at first. For at least the first like 10 seconds, I'm like, oh, that's Nipsey. It's incredible how much their voices sound alike. I know sure so i mean we can get into like the topics of your book specifically but more generally what is the issue with banks and why shouldn't people trust banks in your opinion yeah so banks uh they have affected us all. You know, I write about the black community, but truthfully, banks and the Federal Reserve have they fucked us all over. They was all basically slaves to their debt system. And because of inflation, can't really make any more money because it's constantly being pushed down. So the reason why I think banks need to, at the very least, change their policies, maybe not go away forever, but at least be a little bit better is because the forced consensus they have with forced use banks. So they don't really have to change what they're doing. And then they get bailed out when they make bad bets. So unfortunately,

their bad practices have affected all of us. So yeah, we got to do something about the banking industry. Yeah. And it's interesting because obviously we saw them all bailed out in 2008 with subprime mortgages. And a lot of people like to point to the fact that, quote unquote, this time it's different, which obviously it never is. You know what I mean? Because banks are solvent, you know, they're liquid. But we're seeing now these reports of like huge percentages of Americans defaulting on their mortgages and their payments with no real understanding of how that, you know, is going to have an effect in the future. Do you think that they learned anything through the last crash or that the government learned anything? Or do you think we're about to see another just massive bailout? Yeah, we'll see another massive bailout. I don't think they learned anything. And the only

reason they didn't is because last time this happened, Bitcoin wasn't created. There was no option B. There was no other decentralized way of finance. So they basically went the last 10 years doing what they did before. And we'll start to see them pay for it. The house of cards is going to come down at some point. You can't just keep pumping trillions of dollars into the economy, giving it to the same people and, you know, expecting everything to be the same. Like you said, stock market's going up. Somehow we got 40 million unemployed. It doesn't even, none of it makes any sense. And I think we'll see the banks pay for that. Yeah. I mean, the stock market is utterly detached from reality. It's, I mean, it's really crazy.

And yet again, that's another thing that disproportionately affects poor people versus wealthy. The stock market going up doesn't really help your average person who doesn't have a job or who got a stimulus check. And then you have the notion that the stimulus checks were supposed to last you three months, which is just getting here now and whatever. So, I mean, it's obviously a crazy time. So we've talked about obviously how banks can't be trusted, but specifically with the black community, you know, how banks had a negative impact. Oh, yeah. So I write about it in the book. I discuss it a lot as well, that banks in the 40s, when they were giving out massive amounts of housing loans, and the GI Bill was out so people could get these housing loans, which is the source

of most people's wealth in America, black people were shut out on purpose, whether it was because of redlining, where they literally drew red lines around certain zip codes and wouldn't allow you to live somewhere or discriminatory practices with loans where two people have the same qualifications. One was white, one was black. White person got it every time black person wouldn't. And it was very blatant. And a lot of people like to point to, you know, that was in the past. That was long ago. But one thing I focused on in the book is every example is from 2012 up to now. So these are very recent things. I did that on purpose because everybody thinks this is so old. It's like, no, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, JP Morgan,

they've had to settle discriminatory lawsuits for the past 10 years. They still have to. Hundreds of millions of dollars based on that. And it's sort of them admitting to the fact, yeah, we did it, but so what? I mean, what was a few hundred million if we were making billions every year? So yes, those are some of the things specifically in the Black community that has happened. And then, of course, going into today's time with businesses having trouble getting funding, all of that is being practiced by banks against the Black community, unfortunately. So basically, nothing's changed. And people love to point to the 1940s and say it's pre-segregation. That's an old policy. So, you know, kick the can down the road that doesn't even exist anymore and pretend it's nothing. So I guess to get to the meat of the conversation, how does Bitcoin

solve this problem? Oh, yeah. So it gives black people a plan B. It gives all people a plan B. It gives you the chance to look at what is in front of you right now, which is the banking practices that have affected us all. And then say to yourself, what if we move our money out of that system into what I think is a better money system? And that's what Bitcoin can solve. It can't solve racism. It's not a one thing, you know, all in one solver, but it will make people realize that we have leverage, that we do make people realize that we have leverage, that we do realize the system that we live in, and that if we need to exit the system, hey, that is, to me, the best form of peaceful protest.

Are you seeing a greater awareness of how terrible the system is as a result of, you know, this financial crisis and COVID? Or do you think you were kind of seeing that in the black community as a result of the book already? Because you wrote it before, right? I mean, this isn't these aren't new problems. I mean, do you think that we're reaching any sort of mainstream adoption or awareness? Absolutely. I think the awakening is starting. And I think it has a lot to do with the fact that once again, uh, the last time we had a recession and we had these problems, uh, with banks and with, uh, the economy, there was no Twitter wasn't popular. Um, you know, Instagram wasn't out, I don't think in 2008. Uh, so a lot of the awareness that's coming about is a lot faster and a lot more frequent. And the good

part about that is yes, people are more aware. And of course, I think Bitcoin is part of that conversation. The one thing I want to basically warn people against is not to FOMO into it and not to think, oh, I'm just going to buy it and get rich. Think about why you're getting it. And once you figure out the why, that'll answer every question you have about why you need it, why we need a plan B. Right. I mean, obviously, you're not a financial advisor or maybe you are, I don't know, but I always have to give the, I'm not a financial advisor, but how do you like, you made a good point. Like just cause you should own Bitcoin doesn't mean

you should put all your money into it right now, right at this price. I mean, do you, I've always been a proponent of dollar cost averaging, just slowing, slowly getting your money into the market, the amount you can afford to lose. But at this point, there are communities that probably need to be overexposed or at least have greater exposure to it. So how do you recommend that people enter the market if they've never bought any Bitcoin or cryptocurrency before? Yeah. So if you've never bought Bitcoin, one thing I would suggest is to figure out how to earn it. If you're a business owner or if you sell anything, you can accept Bitcoin as payment and you can start by once you receive it, you can go from there. You can also do things, you can use services like Lolly, which gives you cashback

rewards in Bitcoin. So you can buy the things you already buy and then get Bitcoin for it. Of course, buying it itself from a person or from an exchange is sort of complicated for some people. If they can't do KYC, if they don't have ID, they can go to Bitcoin ATMs. And then LibertyX just announced that you can go to over 20,000 different places, including CVS and 7-Eleven to buy Bitcoin. So if you're new and you just want to jump into the space, those are probably the easiest ways to get Bitcoin right off the bat. And then the best platform I would say to buy it right now, Cash App, because you can just, most people already have it.

You can get it right on there. Even though I wish the custodial services will let you move it off into your own wallet, I think that'll change at a certain point. I think right now it's good for their books to show, you know, to keep a custod own wallet. I think that'll change at a certain point. I think right now, it's good for their books to keep a custodial wallet. It's interesting because Cash App, obviously, has shown incredible, incredible benefit of selling Bitcoin. It's basically their largest moneymaker is selling Bitcoin. It's the highest volume that they do. And interestingly, we just saw the news, at least conjecture that PayPal and Venmo are going to

start allowing the buying and selling of Bitcoin, which to me is like the most bullish thing that's ever happened to Bitcoin. I'm prone to hyperbole, but I really believe that's 325 million people who will have access through a platform that they already trust to purchase Bitcoin. Do you, I mean, do you, am I nuts to think that this is so huge or do you, do you see it that way as well? I'm with you too. If we were joking before that, if this is 2015, the price would have doubled overnight. We would have woke up to a massive bull run if PayPal had said this in 2015. So I think we're seeing market maturity. And I think it's really just PayPal coming out with that news.

Are people waiting? Because the market is more mature. You know, usually big news, people have, you know, kind of rushed into it. But they're starting to see whenever these big news stories come out, there's always a big push down. People over leverage. Margin traders get crushed. So I think you actually are seeing smarter Bitcoiners. They're like, no, I'm just going to still hold. And I'm just going to keep, I mean, news doesn't affect me. And PayPal having that wallet is great. 300 million people is nothing to sniff at.

And as far as you said, they trust it already. And Cash App's putting the pressure on people. Shout out to Jack Dorsey. They're putting the pressure on people. They almost made them have to do it. You can't say you can't do it already. And Cash App's putting the pressure on people. Shout out to Jack Dorsey. They're putting the pressure on people. They almost made them have to do it. You can't say you can't do it now. Not only did they make them have to do it, I mean, rationally, Bitcoin and crypto in general are a direct competitor to PayPal and Venmo, right? I read somebody, it was in a newsletter from BlockWorks,

that they basically were like, this is like Blockbuster funding Netflix 10 years ago. It's like they're basically capitulating to the future of money. It's a more efficient way to send money. It's a better store of value. I mean, it really is a pretty incredible thing. I think this touches on, in my opinion, one of the biggest barriers to entry for Bitcoin in general, and you touched on it earlier, is that people don't know how to get an exchange account. They're afraid to store it. They don't understand a wallet. They don't even understand how Bitcoin works or that it's really your private keys and you're

not putting physical Bitcoin, all these confusing things. I think those are eliminated by something like this, a platform where you can actually do it. I mean, what do you see as the other big barriers to entry for people who may have considered it and were kind of like, nah, I'm really not interested. It's too complicated. Oh, yeah. Well, most people in the US, they need a reason why. Me and some of our business partners have discussed this, that when we talk to people internationally in different countries where their governments have failed them already, or their dollar or their fiat has been undervalued over the years already, they get it instantly. As soon as you say Bitcoin is a plan B or it's a hedge against the government system, they get it just like that. In the US, in my opinion, people need it a lot. That's sort of the biggest barrier because

a lot of times people say, well, the price this and I understand people say it's a great technology, but why would I need it? My money works fine. Our government works fine to me. And in the US, it's like it could not be that way in a few years, just like other countries have seen. So the why. And I think that's what we're getting with this time period between the economic unrest,

between the protests, between people awakening to the economic system, the why of Bitcoin is becoming very apparent. So that's why I said the awakening is starting, in my opinion. Yeah, I mean, I have to agree. And you just touched on what I guess could happen in the United States. And people kind of think hyperinflation could just never happen here because the dollar is the reserve currency. And they point to places like Lebanon and Venezuela and other Argentina, places where Bitcoin really has a legitimate use case is being used every day because of hyperinflation. They say that can't happen to the dollar. But do you really believe that hyperinflation is a legitimate concern? I don't think it's immediate, but that that that that is coming down the road with all this, you know, infinite QE and money printing.

Absolutely. In the next decade or so, I think we will see some sort of hyperinflation event where it will, in my opinion, catch a lot of things, and if they put the pressure on that, hey, we we rather use Bitcoin. Like what exactly would happen to the U.S. dollar? Like overnight, you know, they could do it in 10 years from now. Wouldn't be very good for the U.S. and we're kind of hanging on by a thread by printing money. So, yes, hyperinflation is a possibility. Yeah. So go ahead. It's definitely a possibility. And I don't want to seem like everything bad is about to happen, but you just want to protect yourself and have a money system that works no matter what. Right. I mean, there's a lot of people with Chamath and others who are like, at least have 1% of your money in Bitcoin just in case,

right? Cause like if that goes up a hundred times and everything else goes to zero, you're in the same spot and you're better off than everyone else. I mean, that's a legitimate case where like, you don't have to go crazy and you don't have to be overexposed, but you can make sure that you're good to go if we do see that sort of thing in the future. It kind of all that obviously. So, I mean, as I touched on before, you wrote this book before we we've had uh the mass protests and george floyd and all these things and i think that you really started considering it from what i read at ferguson is that is that true like yeah yeah so that yeah can you talk about i guess you know why that affected you and why it really gave you the idea to write this book? Oh, yeah. Well, after the Ferguson protest, I forget, it was probably about five years ago,

or four or five years ago, I just remember thinking to myself, you know, why are we still doing this? Like, why is this still a thing? Police violence is terrible. But when the smoke cleared and the protests were over, there was no economic solution to take back their neighborhood in order to basically have an economic base so that you wouldn't have outside sources come in and mess up whatever you have as far as police. We've seen that in other communities, in Korean community, Koreatown out here, Chinatown.

We have Jewish communities. We have Italian communities where they're close-knit and the police don't come into their neighborhoods and do this type of things to them because economically it would cost them money and, you know, it would sort of put them in a bad light. So that is one thing that I think I wanted to get across and I wanted to be solution-based because every time we have these protests, I'm 31. I've already seen enough, man. Like, I couldn't imagine being like 60, 70 and seeing this like, well, shit, we were doing this in the 60s. We were doing it. My parents talk about that all the time because they were, you know, they were like super hippies. They marched on Washington. They were part of the civil rights, all of it. You know what I mean? And they're like,

it's worse now. Yeah. Like, what are we? Yeah. While we were still having this discussion, I think it's because a lot of the problems come out of the money system that we use, the very root of it. Now, of course, there are a lot of factors that come into play, but the root of it is the money system. You pay taxes to a government who pays police, who terrorize your neighborhoods, and it's an ongoing cycle. And if you don't own the buildings around there, if you don't have the businesses that are in the community, if you don't have politicians on your side that are local politicians, you don't have the money to fund them, you don't really have anything. You're just living in an area and you're going to continue to have the same problems. So I think economically, if we use something like Bitcoin to create a circular economy, at the very least, just as a threat, like, all right, well, we'll

exit this economy totally. You know, we have over $2 billion worth of, $2 trillion worth of spending power yearly. What if we just started exiting the system? I think that would be a much better protest, much more effective. So we won't have these same problems, in my opinion. It's interesting. I mean, wasn't there a time,

my history is a little hazy, but I remember, you know, the greenback being printed, civil war, post-civil war. And then there was a time when basically currencies emerged all over the country that were sort of insular and used within certain communities. Um, I mean, it's a long time ago, but Bitcoin could effectively do that within small communities that could basically opt out of the dollar completely outside of taxes and the obvious things. But like, you could transact within your community with cryptocurrency and basically opt

out of the system, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. And I'm glad you brought that time period up because people forget, you know, Federal Reserve has been around 107 years, but there was a whole 300 years before that of how, you know, America was run, where, like you said, there was sort of the wild west, there were different currencies. And I want to remind people that the number one time for business for black owned businesses is now number two time for black owned businesses was the late 1800s, right after the Civil War. Nobody would think that. Nobody would, nobody realizes that the, one of the highest, the biggest boom for black owned businesses outside outside of now was in the late 1800s, right after the Civil War, because of two things. They had, of course, the ability to create their own communities like Rosewood, like Wall Street, those things.

But because they had the options of different currencies, because they unite together and do that, they were able to do it. Now, unfortunately, they were burned to the ground by people who felt threatened by their presence. But yes, that is very possible at a time where people think black people could barely read. They were just getting started getting out of a lot of slavery. So if black people left to their own vices, a lot of times we'll build it ourselves. Just don't burn it to the ground. And this time can't burn down Bitcoin.

You can't burn down a digital economy. So that's what I'm aiming for, for the future. I actually grew up in Gainesville, Florida, which is right by Rosewood. So that was very much a part of our, uh, like local history and, and what we learned about when I was, when I was a kid, ironically, because I think even in the movie Rosewood, like they continually say, you know, get on the train to Gainesville. It was like the big city, which was a tiny town even back then. But something I remember being very poignant and learning about, you know, from a very young age. So, I mean, are those the ideas

of what happened in the late 1800s? Is that partially the inspiration for what you're proposing in your book? Absolutely, because we have the means to do it now, but digitally, you know, you don't have, you can't have brick and mortar stores and houses in the same area, but you can actually create a digital economy amongst yourselves online and live wherever you want anywhere around the world and communicate with even more people. So back then, they could only communicate within that sector, and people would hear about it maybe in the newspaper and come from miles. Now, you can stay where you're at, and we can still have a strong circular economy using Bitcoin amongst Black-owned business owners and retailers. So yes, I think that was a big inspiration. I think it is possible. And I think it only helped because Bitcoin is for everybody.

So it won't just be us trying to do it ourselves. Everybody will be using Bitcoin at a certain point. We'll just have to have a strategy as well. Bitcoin is for everybody, but it's interesting because I mean, maybe it's just, you know, my echo chamber or whatever, but it seems like the, at least like the Twitter community and stuff is still not particularly diverse. I mean, do you see a lack of diversity? Right. Do you see a lack of diversity? I mean,

I'm sure you've been to meetups and done all of these things. Did you notice a lack of diversity? And why do you think that that is when this is such a amazing solution for people all over the world? Oh yeah. Very, very much a lack of diversity in the crypto world. I come from a tech background, lack of diversity there as well. No women at any conferences I went to the first like three years. I think I saw the first other, you know, people even since then, it still dominates. So at a certain point, you have to say where they get the information from and why is it not being relayed correctly? And I think you have to go to where black people get their information from. A lot of it, HBCUs, historically black colleges, universities, they're not told about Bitcoin and blockchain, even though MIT, Stanford, Harvard, they all have it as a part of their endowment. So the information is not getting there. Also, black churches, they, 80% of black people attend a religious service. And I rarely meet a black church that's even thought about taking Bitcoin as a donation. That's interesting. I never thought about that. Yeah. So you have to go to where black people are, give them the information and the trusted news sources that a lot of people get their news from

black people don't trust them. So if you look at the nobody trusts them anymore. But really, really in our community, I mean, the way black people are portraying the news, you're like, yeah, this is total bullshit. And then when they start talking about Bitcoin, you know, you kind of just look at it like, well, I guess it's okay, but I don't believe them either. I don't know who to listen to. And unfortunately, it was a lot of scams,

BitConnect, and then you had, you know, a lot of confusing things. So the information just wasn't being relayed. That's why I took it upon myself to make sure I at least had a book that you can grab really quick and get that information and then explore from there. Because it's a whole world to explore. Nobody knows everything. And, you know, in the black community, we just got to educate each other. Don't be a part of the 7.1 million Bitcoiners

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start trading today. So what are the main, I guess, solutions to the problem that you propose in the book, you know, the quick overview? So first things first is to have skin in the game. So learning about it is the first thing, but buy Bitcoin, accept Bitcoin. Anything dealing with accepting a cryptocurrency or Bitcoin, do that. That's the first step. You got to have some skin in the game. Second thing is make sure that everyone around you at least knows or has said the word Bitcoin. You know what I mean? It's not enough to just mention it once and then just kind of go on.

You should be a little annoying. I mean, sometimes people are like, ah, keep talking to me about it. Everybody finds the Bitcoin community annoying. That's our thing. Exactly. And then, of course, I have people who come back years later and say, why didn't you force me to buy Bitcoin when you first told me? And I was like, why would I force you?

I just constantly say it. So stay on it. Talk to your parents, friends, family. If you can't explain it, you know, all the way, point them to somebody who can. So, yeah, have skin in the game and talk about it with other people. And then last but not least, of course, network. Going out to conferences, meeting people through webinars, those types of things. You get more of an inside scoop of the industry and not as much the media mainstream version of it.

Because you can follow the news stories. You can kind of look at what they're tweeting out. But if you don't look at events or webinars or interviews like ours, you won't really get the inside what people in the industry are doing. So do those three things. And yes, I think that those are the three top solutions to getting into Bitcoin for Black America. And from there, we can talk about how the circular economy can work amongst business owners and others. So those three things are the main ones. Are you finding that there are actually enough solutions for people to reliably receive, you know, transact in Bitcoin? Are there good companies for actually allowing a company to get paid in Bitcoin? I know that that's been kind of clunky and sort of a barrier to entry in the past, but it does seem that there's

been a lot of innovation in that space. Are there like certain ones that you're really excited about that you've used that you would recommend to businesses? Well, much like PayPal has a lot of people on their platform already, Shopify, when they added Bitcoin payments was very, very exciting for me because I've talked to a lot of business owners and having to explain BTC pay server is a lot harder than, you know, with Shopify. They already have a Shopify usually. It's like, oh, you just add Bitcoin payments through GoCoin, through coinpayments.net, Coinbase Commerce, whoever you want to use. So yes, those innovations have made it a lot easier to show people to accept Bitcoin. And the volatility is taken out of it.

If you want to transfer it to cash, you know, that's a lot of people's first thing as well. Immediate. If it's $30 a day, it might be $22 tomorrow. Like, how do I solve that? That solves that problem as well. And the fee that they take is cheaper than Visa and MasterCard. A lot of business owners, when I tell them that, they're like, hold up, wait, what? I was like, yes, like 1% or 1.5%.

Visa and MasterCard, 3.5%, 5%. So you're actually saving money. And you open yourself up to a whole Bitcoin market. So those solutions are great. I think Shopify is probably the best example of onboarding people who already have a certain degree of knowledge of a website online. It would be interesting if you convince business owners to, even if they're converting to cash, to keep that like 2% or 3% difference that they would have paid to MasterCard or Visa and start holding that and dollar cost averaging into it that way would be a really, really creative way

for people to buy small and consistently, but then eventually actually have Bitcoin themselves and have a stack. You touched earlier on churches not taking donations. I thought that was really poignant. It is something I never thought of. So how do you get the word out and how do you approach the word out? And how do you

approach the entire church community and say, listen, do this? Like, it's a layup, right? I mean, it really is an obvious, obvious thing. Is that something that you're like, actively trying to do? Is there, you know, a way to do that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So most of the solutions I have, I'm working on it myself. I want to be the change that I want to see in the world. So me and Russell Okung, who is a left tackle for the Panthers now, formerly the Chargers, we're planning a Bitcoin in a Black church tour. I got the opportunity to meet his pastor at the Bitcoin is event in LA last August. And I talked to his pastor for about 30 minutes and he was convinced. He was like, yeah, why haven't we done this before? And I was like, because you haven't heard of it. You don't know it. So if me

and somebody like Russell, who has a pretty high profile, if we can, you know, get around to some of the bigger black churches, I think that'll, you know, sprinkle down to some of the medium and smaller thousands that, yes, you can simply add a QR code on the flyer or on the donation envelope, and you can accept Bitcoin, just like that. Or you can change the QR code weekly and put it on your website. You know, it's a number of options you can do, but you have to make that an option. You have to hear about it. I think that is how we get the word out. Other than that, it's pretty hard to get into the black community and churches, really, unless their pastor tells them. So talking to pastors individually or in small groups,

teaching them about it and then having them go out to their churches and relay the message would be probably an efficient way as well. So we're working on that. We'll get, we'll get it done though. Seems like there's a good like business or not for profit there, like for somebody to build a platform that's specifically for churches that they can all like white label and, you know, use to take donations, something like that could be

really huge. Total pivot. Does Russell think there's going to be a football season? He thinks he thinks so. I agree that I agree. It probably will because, yeah, I don't think the football season is going to get canceled, even if it may be a delay or it's a little weird at first. I think everything will probably be back on before football season and school comes back at end August. So. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's going to be pretty crazy to see how all of these sports manage, manage it. So I'm a huge football fan, you know, and I'm a huge fan of him and of everything that he does.

It's great to hear that you're working with him. He's like, I mean, he really is a perfect spokesperson, I think, for Bitcoin. I think he really gets it and understands it on many levels. And as a wealthy person, it's interesting that he has so much skin in the game, as you kind of mentioned before. I want to go back to talking about, it's interesting and ironic to me, we mentioned the riots that are happening now and everything. And George Floyd was arrested for passing a counterfeit $20 bill, right? And you talk about how the money is sort of at the center of all the problems. So, I mean, how do you think that what happened with George Floyd is somewhat, I guess, proving all the points in your book.

And the very fact that it was about the $20 bill, which has Andrew Jackson, who's like one of the most racist human beings that ever walked the planet on the bill. I mean, you know, how has that sort of like pushed your agenda forward? Oh yeah. So yeah, Andrew Jackson, it's funny you bring him up. That's my last name came from him. My ancestors were in Northern Florida when he murdered a bunch of Seminoles and then they moved to Charleston from there and then on up from there. So my last name comes directly from him. But yes, counterfeit $20 bill, which became the middle of it in a perfect world.

There would be no counterfeit money with Bitcoin because every transaction is validated and or with any cryptocurrency at all in a perfect world. Now, there is a detachment between a lot of people who are lower class and then digitally, but it is possible because there are people right now who refused to use credit cards for a long time. Now they don't have a choice. Then there's people that refuse to or are now refusing. They don't want to use Bluetooth payments

or cashless payments, but they're not going to have a choice. So yes, I think this is sort of ironic that this is the center of this problem. And then, of course, after the protests, if we have an economic solution, maybe you won't have people as distressed to the point where they feel like

they may need to use a counterfeit or counterfeit dollars would even exist. So yes, I think this is very unfortunate, but it does sort of shed a light that our money system is broken. Yeah, absolutely. And talking about like what's happening with the protests and George Floyd, and we continue to see just these like outrageous instances of police violence. And it's obviously disproportionately towards the black community. Um, do you believe that police reform can or will happen? I mean, you know, it's,

this is like you, you, you touched on it before, like Ferguson was four or five years ago. We saw all this, right. We saw protesting, rioting, whatever, all these things and outrage and nothing really changed. I mean, you can draw a lot of parallels to that. And like, I thought that there would be gun reform after Sandy Hook, right? Like a whole bunch of kids just got murdered by a nut with a gun. And that didn't even move the needle with gun reform. And neither did like the Las Vegas massacre. So I don't want to be like pessimistic, but I just it's like we see it and it seems like a cycle and then people forget and nothing really changes. So, I mean, do you think that there will be change? I think police need a complete overhaul.

And I think in a lot of neighborhoods that have seen how bad police have been, they really want to see police reform happen from the inside. I mean, what can we really do to police? We yell at them, you know, try and we really do to police? Yell at them, you know, try and vote for a new police chief, a black police chief, that doesn't work either. Like, none of that matters. Black, white police themselves need to reform. And the way I always think of it is, no matter what job you have, if somebody is really bad at the job that you're doing, they make you look bad. That's just very simple. That's just how it is. So the police that

are trying to do good, that really in their heart are trying to help communities, you got to call out your so-called brothers, the people who are flagrant. I mean, you got cops who are so itchy with their trigger finger, they've shot other cops. I mean, like, it's ridiculous how quickly some people go to violence. And the fact that their training is less than a cosmetologist just points to the fact that you have a lot of untrained, scared people out there who are supposed to be protecting us when in reality, they're scared of the community that they're supposed to be protecting. Also, community policing. You can't have police from the suburbs coming to the inner city and they don't understand how people in the community walk, talk, think, and every little movement is like is like, oh, I got to do something.

And then you start taking your anger out on them. Because if you live there, you wouldn't you would care much more. So I think policing from the inside out, community policing, also some sort of some sort of punishment. Most I think ninety nine point two percent or something like that. Police get away with nothing. I mean, that would encourage anybody to rule in impunity and be judge and jury on the street. So it has to be some sort of change. I don't necessarily agree with getting rid of police, but defunding them is simply taking away like military style.

Why do you have 20 people in military style gear kicking in a door over drugs? It's drugs. It's not a terrorist in pollution. Like what do we these local military, local policemen and military gear and tanks. Like, what? I mean, even the military gave it to you because we don't even need this shit. So you obviously don't.

So that's all I think about defunding, taking it down a notch back to local policing. Like, this is not, you know, it should not be a terrorist state, which is what it's turning into, unfortunately. So I think those are a few things that could change it. I mean, when did the police become militarized? I mean, was it Daryl Gates in LA? Like, is that when that kind of started to happen? I remember, I mean, I remember,

it's such a ridiculous thing. But the first time I ever like, have a memory from a child of seeing that was Die Hard, when they like raid the building and the police have like a tank basically. Yeah. And so, but like, when did militarizing the police, because I think you're right, I think that like, there's only going to be confrontation when you're doing something peaceful and you're staring an armed force, right? And those people are empowered by having those weapons and having that protection. They feel invincible. I mean, when did that happen and how do we – I mean, you're talking about defunding the police, but how does that actually happen? Like, how do you take these things away from them?

Oh, well, just the budget. Just put more money in education and social stuff. That's it. I mean, literally just the people who have the power to do it just don't. That's why I think people need to really look at their politicians, see who they work for. They don't work for you obviously because they're not doing things that most people think would be in our best interest. The militarization of police

started out of slave patrols in the South. That's sort of the blueprint. In LA, like I said, there are those that brought that around. He brought all his police from the South because he knew that's how they operate in the South. There was no asking questions. They were killing black people for years in the South and getting away with it because they were police. In fact, the investigation into the KKK who said, hey, why are we still wearing hoods? Let's just join the police force. We killed

whoever we want. I mean, that was on their part was smart, but everybody knew this. Like where I grew up, we were like, they were definitely just racist white cops who just were racist for no reason. I've had my run-ins with cops twice been physically assaulted with no charge and nothing after that. It just happened. So, I mean, in the South, this is regular.

So I think that was the blueprint for LA. And then of course it kind of spread from there. Once police places started getting extra funding and more budget, more guns, because you can't just keep giving people more guns, more body armor, and then they're going to use it at some point, even if it's for nothing, they're going to just use it. So, you know, it's unfortunate. And I think that cycle has to stop at a certain point. So you talk about how they have less training than cosmic cosmetologists um and i i didn't even realize in the george floyd killing

it the that the that the cop was actually training the other three guys right and so like so so even so so a they were in a situation where like they would have had to tell their superior, obviously, to do something. And even when they mentioned it, the guy basically said, no, this is the correct practice. So, I mean, you literally had a situation. You couldn't have a more obvious situation. He was teaching them how to kill somebody. Yeah. And he was trying to show off with the knee in the back and stay in there for nine minutes,

almost nine minutes. And yeah, it was, it's a control thing. And he was arrested. Like how many people have been handcuffed and still shot? That, that is just flagrant to me.

And that's what he was showing them. He was like, be as flagrant as you want. You're not going to do anything about it. And of course that backfired on them and people starting to, to do stuff about it. Yeah. And it's interesting. You touched on the real change.

And I always talk about this too. I think real change comes when like the next five times this happens, all those dudes go to jail forever. Go to jail. Yep. I mean, isn't that the only way? And, and I think first of all, that's the only way that the police will change internally because they'll realize that there's a consequences to their actions. But I also think that that would pacify the populace to some degree to see that these guys are actually held accountable.

Exactly. And I don't I don't see why they have such a hard line against saying somebody was wrong. Like they don't want to say any. Exactly. They don't want to say any police officers did anything wrong ever. And I'm like, what what good does that do? Because like you said, it makes all of you look bad now. Now you have real honest police who are jaded because people are like, oh, police and you, too. And they're like, man, I really joined, but I thought I would make a difference. But you're not calling out the guy right beside you who is, you know, in some cases assaulted dozens of people, maybe not killed any yet. But they are there. every time somebody gets killed, you look at their history. It's like, yeah, they have a history of assaults.

Always have eight people complaining against them. And sometimes just to boot a lot of times they have domestic violence. Like I believe it was almost 40% of police that have domestic violence case. So it was like, they kind of had a history of violence. Then yeah, you need to call them out at work and be like, well, leave that shit at home. And when we come here, we have a job. It's a hard job. You have to think in the moment. But a lot of what I've seen are handcuffed civilians crying out to not kill me and still getting killed. These are not people who are attacking you or doing anything to you. So.

Yeah. And they always talk about the argument, you know, but there's good police, too. And there are, of course, they're very good people. But can you be considered good if you're not pointing the figure at those who are bad? I guess it comes down to that fraternity and protecting your own no matter what. I mean, in my eyes, you can only be a good police officer if you're actively opposing that that behavior. Right. Exactly. Yes. And like you said, you can call yourself good all you want, but if you're really good, you would have called it out. Yeah. So total pivot. I'd love to hear, and I always love to hear people's Bitcoin story. Like when did you first hear about it? How did you get interested? When did you fall in love with it?

Oh yeah. So I found out about Bitcoin, ironically, from a banker in 2013. I had a roommate who was working for a banking institution and they discussed it in 2013. But to him, he basically made it seem like they just kind of looked at it and the very first video i saw was good old max kaiser uh max kaiser was yelling and cussing about in the fed and you need to make sure you get some bitcoin and that he had been buying bitcoin when it was a dollar uh when i when i first bought my first couple bitcoins it was like uh around 150 or so uh 200 so I will never see those prices again. Nah, I hope not. I know. But like I always tell people, when I first started, I thought I was late. I really, for like six months, I thought I was late to Bitcoin because when I got into it, it went to $1,000 in what?

What was that? December that year? Really quick. And it went down to 300 and went sideways really even quicker. I thought I was late. I was like, man, I missed out on price, but what kept me in it was why. The more I used it, the more it would be like a banking or PayPal issue.

I would just say, well, let me send you Bitcoin. I was like, man, this is really useful. I can send any time of day any amount that I want. Anywhere. The use case is amazing. That's how I got into it, but what kept me around was I can send any time of day, any amount that I want. Anywhere. Anywhere. The use case is amazing. So that's how I got into it.

But what kept me around was the why. Why I have Bitcoin. Why do you want sovereignty? Why do you want to be free? Those are all things I wanted. And Bitcoin is the money solution to that problem. You got to have other stuff, but the money has to be free as well. So were you trading?

Like, were you a trader? Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. I was in the Poloniex troll box. Shout out to all the Poloniex troll box. That's hilarious. Yeah, I was watching a lot of Chris Dunn videos back in the day. And as far as trading, really, like I usually say, I used to have a beautiful head of hair before I got into crypto.

And then over trading, very stressful. But once I learned about dollar cost averaging and how to just relax and just let the price do what it does around 2016 is when I do a more macro, just acquiring Bitcoin. And yeah, it was good times. I had a Litecoin mining machine back in the day from Butterfly Labs. Man, it was good times back then. It was very Wild West. But that's cool. I mean, you've experienced every side of it and come to arguably the most important. I have a very similar situation much later, though.

In 2016, I was trading in general, and I heard about this mythical land of 100x in a day coins and all this craziness. And I came to check it out. So for me, it was just all about money, right? Like all about price, whatever. And I kind of like a lot of people and clearly like you, I backed into the actual importance of it when I started to realize what I was trading and sort of the importance of it. And like you, I mean, I still trade, but I slowed down tremendously.

Dollar cost averaging became the core of my strategy. I traded with a smaller part of my portfolio. I really learned all those lessons, but all because I realized how important, you know, Bitcoin really was. I mean, if you had just started buying it and not traded at all, do you think you'd have more now? Well, I mean, I've lost a little bit bit but i think what helped was accumulating a lot of altcoins way back in 2013 and 14 when they were literally nothing i think that's helped a lot so i didn't actively trade you know like daily trades or whatnot i did trade them but i think that helped i didn't lose too much but i think most people are like yeah i would have i would have

had double the amount i had if I didn't get into trading. Yeah, if I never touched it at all. Or they like did a 2X and then they realized if they had done nothing, they'd have been up like 20X or something like that. Exactly. Yeah. Doing nothing is a powerful, powerful strategy. That's how people have acquired wealth since the beginning of time. Right. Just put away the money you don't need as early as possible and don't look at it. I mean, it will be the same in the Bitcoin market. So we've talked a lot about how Bitcoin can help and you just touched on it. What is the role of altcoins? Do you see them as having standalone value? Are there certain ones that you're passionate about? Or do you see them as a way to stack sats, as everyone says, and a way to accumulate more Bitcoin? Oh, yeah. I think most altcoins are purely speculative, just a way for certain people to gain more Bitcoin. And certain projects will be standalone. I think Ethereum is

moving that way to trying to be a standalone project. Unfortunately, DeFi and trying to have its own industry partnerships with Microsoft. And even though it doesn't have the, I guess, Bitcoin maximalist mindset where they're like, always Bitcoin because it's sensitive and resistant. It is a technical, technically, it's actually a great project if it was just Vitalik and C-Starter company without the cryptocurrency. So the smart contract aspect, I think they'll do well. I think Monero always has a place because privacy is paramount. I mean, there's almost no privacy coins that work as well as Monero in my opinion. So there are a few altcoins that I pay attention to, but Bitcoin is 90% of my portfolio. Yeah, that's how it should be,

I think. Bitcoin's like, it is the market and everything else is just... It all trickles down from there. If Bitcoin pumps, then other coins may. But I'm not really worried about them too much. So we touched a bit, I guess, on COVID, obviously, and helicopter money and all the crazy things that happen with the economy. How do you why do you think that COVID is disproportionately affecting the black community? I mean, the death rates are astronomical versus it's really crazy when you look at the stats. Absolutely. And we've been disregarded in the health care system as much as we have in other systems as well. So you have that issue. And then, of course, you have higher rates of obesity,

which has been found to be one reason why people from coronavirus die. Also, heart disease, higher rates of heart disease. These are all problems we had before coronavirus. So when it came, it was taking us out more, also less access to services to get testing and to get masks. All of that affects the communities that were already downtrodden. So in the Black community, if you have these areas that exist, you're going to have more deaths. Obviously, we're always hit hardest by a lot of the things that happen to everyone. If it happens to all of us, you can guarantee it happened even harder to the black community, even worse every time. So unfortunately, that is what's happening. And somehow we have to fix it. I'm not a health professional, but I do want to give a shout out to everybody on the front lines.

But you have to find a way to slow it down or stop it. And I don't know if anybody in politics has an answer. Everybody's just fighting back and forth. I mean, it's an election year. Most of this is just... How crazy is it that like a virus is so political and not even just the virus itself, whether it's real, it's a hoax, all the crazy things you hear, but like, even like whether you should wear a mask, everything about it, everything about the response is completely right or left. But like, even like whether you should wear a mask, everything about it, everything about the response is completely right or left. I mean, how do you even solve anything when that's the case?

We don't. That's the point. We never really- You just let everybody get sick. Yeah, nothing's really going to change because there's never, I mean, our president actively tweets against the other party

and other party tweets back. And it was just sitting there like, yeah, but a million and a half people just died like what are you even what are you arguing um so even if you don't think it's if you don't well that's on you but people that are dying or people that have issues you got to have a solution for that that's what uh good leadership should do and people on both sides who take a look in the mirror and figure out a solution and stop trying to get another spot in office for next year. Who cares? Yeah. I mean, it's crazy when you take New York out of the equation, basically like almost everywhere seems to be doing worse, but everybody is like,

it's like they overreacted tremendously in towns where there was no problem, right? Isolate everything. And now it's like actually a problem in those places. And they're all like, fuck it. I'm going back. It's so like, it just makes no sense to me. It makes no sense. And I think what you were talking about is a point that is important. I think, you know, self-isolation and the idea of being able to stay home is a privilege, you know, like, um, and that's not something, if you have a job, you need money,

like you got to support people. There's people who do not want to be at home, like problems at home, things like that. I mean, self-isolation and being able to sustain that is really something for wealthy people. Right. I mean, so we could we could kind of rail about it, but it is a privilege. It's something that I think most people can't do. So I would imagine that that also disproportionately affects, you know, people of color, not just the black community, poor people in general, you know, and then I guess they also live in closer quarters and that, you know, affects spread. It's just really, man,

I can't get over how sad it is and just how crazy of a few months it's been with the response. Yeah, it's a crazy time in American history. And yeah, the people who are on the wrong side of history this time, I hate it for them over the next few years. It's a lot of people that's not going to forget. A lot of people have family members who passed. And when they see the response, they're never going to forget this.

So hopefully we can figure it out. Do you think that will affect political change? I mean, do you think that this is going to affect the election? Or do you think? Not really, because it's still a pessimistic, too. Right. Yeah, it's the electoral college still. It's still the system itself is broken. It has to all be changed at a certain point, even if it's little by little. Just voting somebody in isn't. Look at our choices.

I mean, we know we know who won the popular vote last election. Right. So exactly. So I would say focus on local politics, your councilman, your alderman, your mayor, getting them to make where you live a great place because most people spend most of their life within five miles of where they live. If that area is taken care of, if you have what you need there,

don't worry so much about the national stage because that's mostly theater. Most of it is. There may be one or two big things that come out from a president or his staff. But most of it is theater. Focus on local and you should be fine. I think that's a great point. I mean, do you think that any national politicians, I mean, maybe it's a low percent, but are actually representing their constituents? I mean, do you think that any of them have their constituents in mind? Do you think that the whole system is set up as such that even if they believe they did when they

got elected, they get there and basically learn that it's not going to happen that way? Yeah, I think there's some that get constituent letters and just throw them in the trash. And then I think there's some that actually care. And then they realize, well, I can't really do anything. There's no bipartisan anything. Nobody's going across the aisle to help each other. It's just all bumping heads. So, yeah, I think they're in a tough position and the constituents that are supposedly, you know, looking up for them for help should just stop. I mean, I mean, just don't even I mean, you can if you want, but I haven't seen it in my 30 years. I don't see it happening. And my best friend from childhood, the state's attorney in Hillsborough County. And I mean,

when you see what can be done at a local level by someone who's actually passionate, I mean, his, you know, his whole platform was criminal justice reform and he's, you know, decriminalized marijuana offenses and getting people out of jail for, for, I mean, it's, it's just incredible. And that, as you touched on, I mean, that affects more people's lives than even probably a Senator can for an entire state. Even if you just help a thousand people in your local community, that's probably more than a national politician is doing for you. Oh yeah, absolutely. I definitely agree with that. So what's next for you, man? Like, uh, you know,

how do you continue to spread the message? How do we help and how do we make change? Oh yeah. So the second edition of the book will be coming this year. And the book tour is going to be back on hopefully in August. Uh, I believe there may be some leeway to get out and maybe do some books or stuff in August. So, uh, I'll be having the details for that. And yeah, that's the two biggest things this year coming. And of course, I still have the daily show, The Gentleman of Crypto, Monday through Friday

at 10 a.m. Pacific. So I'll be working on that through the rest of the year, just keeping getting the word out. And yes, speaking with some some big names about some solutions. So hopefully you can, I can reveal more later. Awesome. So what's the best way for people to follow you and make sure they keep up? Twitter at Bitcoin Zay, Z-A-Y is a great way.

And also on the website, Bitcoinandblackamerica.com. You can go to the calendar and we can chat for 15 minutes, meet the author on there. So those are two best ways to contact me. Awesome, man. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time. You definitely opened my eyes to a lot of things and I hope that people will listen and embrace it. It's great to hear like a real legitimate use case for this thing that we're all so passionate about because it's like people talk about it all the time, but there are very few people who are trying to put it into action. So I really appreciate you for that. And thank you. And really, man,

thank you very much for taking the time to come on the show. Yes, sir. Thank you as well. I appreciate it. All right, man. Let's go. Hey everyone. Thanks for listening. New episodes go live every Tuesday at 7am Eastern Standard Time. Links to our Apple and Spotify channels are in the show notes. You can also follow me on Twitter at Scott Melker to continue the conversation. See you next week.