We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC029: Jack Dorsey's Involvement in Bitcoin & Jack Maller's El Salvador Announcement W/ Alex Gladstein (Bitcoin Podcast)

Episode Date: June 9, 2021

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN: Learn why Jack Dorsey is so bullish on Bitcoin What surprised Alex the most in his interview with Jack Jack's thoughts on other crypto tokens Alex's thoughts on the PetroDollar system El Salvador's announcement on Bitcoin being legal tender Sovereign game theory BOOKS AND RESOURCES Join the exclusive TIP Mastermind Community to engage in meaningful stock investing discussions with Stig, Clay, and the other community members. Alex Gladstein on Twitter Alex's nonprofit the Human Rights Foundation Alex's article on the PetroDollar Alex interviewing Jack Dorsey in Miami Jack Maller's Strike App Browse through all our episodes (complete with transcripts) here. SPONSORS Support our free podcast by supporting our sponsors: Bluehost Fintool PrizePicks Vanta Onramp SimpleMining Fundrise TurboTax Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm

You're listening to TIP. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Wednesday release of the podcast where I'm talking about Bitcoin. And more specifically, I'm talking with humanitarian Alex Gladstein about the Miami Bitcoin 2021 conference. At the conference, Alex was asked to interview billionaire Jack Dorsey about his opinions and interest in Bitcoin. So during this conversation, Alex and I rehash what that experience was like. Additionally, we talk about the petro dollar system, the big El Salvador announcement where they're officially making Bitcoin legal tender within their country and much, much more. So with that, here's my discussion with Alex Gladstein.

You're listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Investors Podcast Network. Now for your host, Preston Pish. All right. So here I am with Alex Gladstein. Alex, you and I had dinner just a couple nights ago, which was really neat. And it wasn't just, it wasn't just, it wasn't, just you. We had some other visitors there as well. We had some other people joining us for dinner. It was pretty amazing. It was a very special evening in a very, very humid Miami gathering, organized by our friend Vijay. It was a wonderful night. But yeah, I was kind of standing next to Jeff Booth, our friend in line, got some food, and we're chatting. And I hadn't gotten a chance to meet Jeff in person before. And he's like, oh, come sit with me. And I'm like, great. And I was following him.

and he's sitting at a table with you and Lynn Alden. So I was like, oh, this is going to be a lot of fun. So we sat there and talked, but mainly about long-term game theory around Bitcoin adoption. And, you know, you all had some very interesting thoughts on that, right? But then, you know, lo and behold, a lot of the things we were talking about transpired about 36 hours later. So it's really, it's just been a crazy few days, man. That's all I've got to say. That's been crazy.

Yeah, so let's talk about that. So we're down in Miami. and the first thing, so we're sitting there having dinner and you're just like, oh, yeah, so I'm interviewing Jack Dorsey tomorrow. And I was like, I didn't know that you were the one interviewing him. So how did that happen? Did he like reach out to you? Did Bitcoin magazine, like reach out to you? How did that transpire?

So it's been a long road for that event, as we all know, supposed to be Bitcoin 2020. I was going to be a speaker at that event. I was very excited about that event. And then obviously the world shut down. And we followed David and his team as they, you know, look, as an event producer myself, I know what they went through. And I'm really proud of the way they did things and really impressed and really, really just happy for them because so many things can go wrong.

I mean, they were doing it in L.A. And as you know, about a year ago, they were like, no, we're pulling the report on L.A. we're going to Miami. And I think most of us thought that it was going to be a really good idea. We didn't know what exactly would look like. But it turns out that a lot of the speakers would remain, obviously. I think most of us were excited. So I think it was like, I don't know, about six months ago, I got this message from them saying that, hey, you know, we're excited about you speaking.

But there's this opportunity that popped up. And basically, I guess Jack's team was interested in having someone like me interview him. So I was like, absolutely. I mean, what a once in a lifetime opportunity. So I've just been kind of mentally preparing for a long time. And I didn't know whether he was going to be there. You know, there was like this, honestly, until pretty last second, I thought he was going to be coming in virtually. So maybe he got some FOMO or something.

But it was really exciting when I got the news. he was going to be there in person. And it was really fun to spend a few minutes, you know, connecting backstage with him before we, before we came out. I mean, also just what a packed morning of programming. Truly epic with Max and Michael and, you know, the mayor and Dr. Paul and all the others. I mean, it was just a, the energy was really off the charts. So I'll never forget that day for sure.

You know, I thought it was really interesting. So I'm curious for you, were there any answers that surprised you when you were talking with him? Yeah. It was, I was, I put a lot of time into thinking about the arc of what I wanted to do with him. And he, you know, pretty much wanted to do it cold. You know, even when we were talking backstage, he wasn't like, it's not like he was asking me what I was going to ask him, you know. I think he had an idea, but it was cool that he was just ready for anything, basically. And I know that the organizers, you know, really wanted us to focus on the global impact, right, and on banking the unbanked.

So I tried to start with asking him about, you know, why was he on stage of the human rights activist? Because, you know, that event is very mainstream. I mean, there are a lot of people there from traditional industries, traditional media. And they were probably like, why is, you know, why is this guy on stage of the human rights activist? what's going on here. And his answer really kind of blew me away. I mean, he basically said, I'll just read you a quote from it. You know, when I asked him, again, you know, is this related to empowerment?

Like, how do you see this? He said, for me, Bitcoin changes absolutely everything. What I'm drawn to the most about it is the ethos is what it represents. Are the conditions that created it, which are so rare and so special and so precious. I don't think there's anything more important in my lifetime to work on. And I don't think there's anything more enabling for people around the world. Whatever I can do, whatever my companies can do to make Bitcoin accessible to everyone is how I'm going to spend the rest of my life. If I were not at Square or Twitter, I'd do working on Bitcoin.

If it needed more help than Square and Twitter, I would leave them for Bitcoin. But I believe both companies have a role to play. And then he basically went on to saying that, like, we don't need the banks anymore. We don't need the financial institutions that we have today. We have one that's thriving, that's sound, that's owned by the community. that's driven by the community that has this incredible and amazing consensus that always manages to do the right thing over time. It's noble.

It's so rare and unique. So anything we can do to build and protect Bitcoin, we're down to do. And that's what he opened the interview with. And I was just kind of really taking it back. I mean, that says a lot, don't you think? I mean, it's out of control. Like, it's just coming from a guy like that, it's totally crazy to hear somebody say something like that.

And you and I, you know, have our own paths to Bitcoin. and we appreciate that. But look, look, there's signal and there's noise. And that's signal. Like, that's coming from one of the most influential people in the world who could really be doing anything. And he's basically telling us, this is the most important thing in my lifetime. And he's seen a lot, right?

He's built world-changing technology. I mean, seriously, I mean, people could argue about it, but I can tell you from my perspective as someone who is in human rights activism. I mean, Twitter, you know, certainly in my view for the better in many ways, certainly has some had some downsides. but fundamentally has changed the way that a lot of people interact with each other, communicate, express each with each other, connect to each other. And honestly, you know, has changed a lot of the way that a lot of people consume information.

So for him, who's also been behind Square and a bunch of other things to say that, I was like, wow, this is going to be a lot of fun. And then, you know, look, we got, we went through a lot of the stuff about his travels around the world and how they opened his eyes to what I've seen, you know, through my work and through my networks. through the people that I talked to. And we kind of came to some conclusions around that. And, you know, he talked about Jay-Z, and that was very interesting. And I love this idea that he said that that Jay said that if we're going to create a money for the world,

it has to be developed around the world. I loved that. You know, and that's why they're making that fun to get African and Indian developers to get involved. I really love that. And then, you know, we got to this point where he started to get into why it was Bitcoin and not the other stuff. because basically said that we are focused on this idea of the internet having a native currency that everybody can contract contract can transact it every day and at that point again things are

going really well and then all of a sudden you know this woman comes up to this stage and I knew who it was immediately okay I was like oh wow it's Laura Lumer and she's going off about how Jack's the king of censorship and I'm a human rights activist how could I and all this stuff. And meanwhile, there's no real like security. So how do you know her, Alex? Because I was going to ask you about this. Well, I just have read about, I mean, she's pretty famous. Like she, she, she, look, she got, I don't know exactly what she got banned from Twitter for. But I know she's very provocative. She said a lot of like anti-Muslim stuff. I don't, I really, I don't like her at all. But, but the irony is that, you know, she's coming up to attack Jack,

which I understand, like she got kicked off Twitter. She's angry. But the irony is like we were about to, we were right about to get in the fact that like Bitcoin is for basically the platformed people. And for people, you know, again, people say Bitcoin's the money of enemies. I wouldn't say I'm their enemy, but I really don't like her. But I mean, hey, you know, she can use the internet. She can use email. She's going to be able to use Bitcoin.

So it's just kind of funny that like I'm sitting next to the guy who's probably in a combination of effort and ability and opportunity. going to do the most to push us in the direction of censorship resistant systems in the next five years. And she just doesn't grasp that. But I thought it was just kind of this perfect transition into how Bitcoin and Lightning, you know, Bitcoin, the asset and Lightning, the network are going to bring us to this world where already have brought us to this world where we can connect to each other in a way that's unstoppable. Well, you know what I loved about the reaction was Jack didn't even flinch. Like he was just like, oh, you know what? Let's talk about it, right?

He was like all about it. He's like, hey, let's stop the conversation. Let's address her concern here because, you know, he has blue sky that he's working on, right? And I think he was excited to go down that path because I think from his vantage point, he's like, oh, yeah, I'm already working on that. So talk to us about what that is. Yeah, no, and I just, you just can tell he does an enormous amount of meditation. I mean, the man is so centered and just unflinching, you know. And, you know, after that, he went into it.

And he said, yeah, look, he says, I know you aren't going to believe me. I know you're saying I'm a liar, but I'm going to prove it to you, you know, that we're going to basically take Twitter and turn it into this kind of public utility. And, you know, we're going to decamp to Twitter.com. Dot, Inc. essentially, and run our own version. But anyone can run their own version on this thing. I think that's their vision, right? They want to kind of turn it into that sort of instance-based model. And we'll see.

You know, I'm not like 100% sure that's going to work. But obviously, I'm really happy that he's trying to do. do that. And look, I'm not going to short him. Do you know what do you think the concerns are? From your vantage point, what are the concerns of being able to do it then? Well, I just, no, I just purely technical. Like, I don't know how it's going to work. You know, we haven't seen much detail. Again, I'm not going to shorten him on this one. It would be awesome if it, if it works. But, you know, everything's a lot of speculation with kind of decentralized systems beyond Bitcoin, right? Like, you have to have the incentive structure really down really well.

And I've used social media that's like similar. Like Mastodon is popular with some Bitcoiners, but it just kind of lacks the same feel and you don't go to it. You know, so they're really going to have to pull off something incredible there. But hey, if anyone can do it, it's probably him and his team. So I think, but from there we went into thinking about how I'm talking about basically lightning powered apps, you know, are already here. And we're using stuff like Spinks, right? you guys are on there and you're just sending unstoppable messages and payments, right? And we're

streaming your shows and we're tipping creators in this peer to peer way, you know, in a way that no government can stop. And, you know, those early videos of Andreas Antonopoulos way back when saying, oh, we're going to stream money. Hey, you know, we're here. It's pretty exciting. So, so I think some of the, some of the infrastructure is, is, is there for that. You know, this is neat. So when we were down there, I set up a Sphinx tribe and this is just like Messenger, but everyone's in the group chat and everyone's doing this over the Lightning Network. And so while we were in Miami, there was 200 plus people all in this chat, people who were synchronizing their plans while they were down there like, hey, this group of five is going to go over to the conference. Hey, we're going to go to the pool. And I'm seeing it all happen on Sphinx, which was all riding on top of the Lightning Network, completely decentralized.

permissionless. Incredible man. Kind of crazy. So like. No, and two years ago, it didn't, a year ago, like, you know, it didn't really exist. Like, so we're at the cutting edge here. I mean, people, you look, if you've been tuned out of Bitcoin for a few years in terms of, look, I'm sure a lot of your listeners, like, you know, maybe have it as an asset.

But if you've been tuned out of like using it, you're going to be really impressed. I mean, and that's, that's about the time in the presentation where I did something quite risky and I decided to try and send a lightning transaction on stage. Yeah, talk about this. This is awesome. Well, I was thinking to myself, I did it. Trust me, the only reason I'd say it was risky is because the, the Wi-Fi was really bad and the service was really bad.

So I was just worried that it wasn't going to work from like a data point of view. I mean, it works perfectly. Don't get me wrong. I mean, when I generate a lightning receiver and I try to do a send from my moon wallet, it works all the time. But backstage, look, do that. There were like 5,000 people in that building plus 5,000 other people roaming around. And, you know, I tried it a few times backstage.

And like one time it didn't work. And I'm thinking to myself, is the entire lightning community just going to hate me so much if this screws up in front of everybody? And I went over to the organizers and I said, look, I'm going to do this. I need you to like zoom in on my phone. I want people to see what's going on. And they said, okay. And we worked it out. And I was going to do it right before, right like basically before Laura.

Luma interrupted. So I had to wait a while, actually. But, you know, recollected myself and then pulled out the phone. And I just was very excited. And I practiced it to do it really fast, basically. And just to be like, here I'm on this strike tip jar page, which anybody can create, right? And I'm just like, up, $2, going to copy the address, going to paste to my moon wallet, going to hit, going to hit send.

And I just like teleported a bearer asset in front of all these people. I thought that was, that was pretty cool. I'm really happy it worked. So again, if you're not using this stuff, and again, it's just, you know, for now, it's just sort of fun. You're having fun, but we're catching a glimpse of what's coming and it's going to change the world. Were there any answers that he supplied that really kind of shocked you or surprised you or, you know, something that really sticks out in your mind beyond like his own, the opening comment there that you read, which is just mind blowing. A couple, couple things. I really am, I'm not surprised, but I'm like really impressed that they're really doubling down on non-custodial use of Bitcoin.

Like this is really what we need. I mean, people like are worried about capture, right? We saw gold get captured as, you know, as a monetary system. So it gets centralized and captured. So the big threat to Bitcoin has always been that it's just going to be sort of its ultimate utility would be marginalized because it would so much the infrastructure rate captured. And yet, you have this guy out here coming out with an announcement, minutes before we got on stage, saying that they're going to try and build a non-custodial hardware wallet, like open source working with the, you know, privacy-minded, sovereign-minded Bitcoin community. I mean, this is, this is impressive, man. So Square, a company that does a lot of fintech hardware, I mean, they've got years of Bitcoin hardware to look at to compare notes with.

They're already in touch. I know with people that I highly respect that are. making kind of freedom first Bitcoin technology. And this given Jack's mix of interest in terms of merging markets and how cash app itself is used by a lot of like kind of underbanked people in the United States, I just think this has massive potential. So that was surprising to me. I mean, one of his colleagues came up to me before he arrived and they were like, you might

want to check what he, because I was kind of just, you know, in his end, kind of just thinking about what I was going to say. And they came up to me and they said, you might want to look at Twitter. He just announced this thing. And I'm like, oh, my God, this is like a 16-part thread. I have to like that test this really quickly. But that was, oh, that's cool to see. So that was really surprising.

Another one was I brought up CBDCs and Central Bank digital currencies. And I brought up some of the things they might do. And he said, it was interesting for me to hear him say that he basically said, I think all the things you just mentioned in terms of what central banks are trying to do are just bumps in the road. We have a much better alternative in Bitcoin. Again, that's a very strong statement from a tech CEO. And then he kept saying, you know, in Bitcoin, we have designs for privacy and freedom.

The more that we and especially our governments, which I thought was interesting, can realize that and get in the boat sooner, the better we all are. So he was basically straight up saying that governments should be pursuing Bitcoin and not CBDCs. And that's cool. I mean, come on. I mean, again, we can criticize him for a lot of things, but like he could just easily. not be saying these things. So I think it's really neat. So that surprised me.

He threw in a little comment about when I asked him about, you know, we're getting the rent, you know, you have the fud dice, right? I'm sure maybe some of your listeners know there's fud dice that Nick Carter and his friends created that just have all the different criticisms that keep rotating about Bitcoin over the years. So right now we're flipping from environment. We're flipping back to criminals. We're going right to ransomware as we speak tonight.

It's like blazing hot. There's people calling for the banning of Bitcoin because criminals are using it. And again, we'll switch to, probably go back to Tether next week, but it's just a rotation. But, you know, he says that I asked him about it and he's like, he basically says it feels like there's probably something a little bit deeper when you're hearing these excuses. And he says he thinks it's about them losing their power. Again, wow, what a based comment. Like, yes, I mean, of course it is.

We talked about energy. And, you know, I wasn't, you know, it was no surprises. because I've read the ARC square paper, but again, I mean, he said, I think Bitcoin gives people more freedom to convert unused wasted power into something that provides value for billions of people around the world. I mean, again, I mean, cheers to that. I mean, but you don't hear tech CEOs saying that. That's cool.

You know, I heard you ask him about proof of work versus proof of stake. Oh, yeah, yeah. We talked about that. Yeah. So I didn't really hear him get into too much of the nuances of the different. between the two. No, I have the quote right here. Yeah.

No, I think it's very important because everybody, look, they're a Bitcoin only company and a lot of people ask why. Look, like you people have made so much money with Ethereum and all this other stuff. So I asked him and he said the conditions that created Bitcoin, everything that went into it from the proof of work model to the development model to no single points of failure, everything about it is why we're into it. There's nothing else that compares to it. And we have no interest other than making sure that we are building.

a native currency for the internet and helping in every way that we can. So all the other coins to me don't factor in at all. That's what he said. Yeah. So, I mean, that was interesting, certainly. I agree. But again, interesting to hear such a mainstream figure say that. I think that's, again, really some signal here amongst all the noise.

And then just the last thing I'll just say is that at the end, and I clipped this and I put this up, I can share it with you. but I just love this quote so much. I actually asked him, you know, because we're kind of getting to this area where people are starting to say that Bitcoin's going to be bad for the U.S. It's going to hurt like our monetary policy, whatever. So I kind of asked him about, you know, whether or not you could say Bitcoin's good for America. And he said, 100%, but I think it benefits the entire world.

That's what makes it incredible, is that every single person in the world will benefit and get value from utilizing this. That we finally have a currency that can be traded to any single point on the planet is pretty incredible and what that enables going forward is mind blowing and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that it happens. That's kind of how we ended the interview. And at the very end, I said that after that, that just look, things are really complicated out there. It's a tough political environment. But I basically said that I think the two of us agree that that Bitcoin is kind of the way forward. And he said, he said 100%, it's the only way out. And that that was a very

powerful, I think, way to end the interview. So I just was very, very impressed and surprised by that as well. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. All right. I want you guys to imagine spending three days in Oslo at the height of the summer. You got long days of daylight, incredible food, floating saunas on the Oslo Fjord, and every conversation you have is with people who are actually shaping the future. That's what the Oslo freedom form is. From June 1st through the 3rd, 2026, the Oslo Freedom Forum is entering its 18th year bringing together activists, technologists, journalists, investors, and builders from all over the world, many of them operating on the front

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Go to Shopify.com slash WSB. That's Shopify. com slash WSB. All right. Back to the show. So I want to transition to an article that you recently wrote Alex because when a guy like Jack Dorsey says, he thinks that it's the only way, quote, unquote, out. I think what he's talking about is this PetroDolar system that you went into a lot of detail writing this article.

We'll have a link to it in the show notes. So talk to us about the Petro dollar system, how it kind of came into place. And we can kind of go from there. like really kind of start like from from your conceptual understanding right at the beginning and and don't hold back. Yeah. So I think it's two things. First, the dollar system, which I'll get into in a second, but also just this global

monetary system, which is being pushed more towards surveillance and control, whether by corporations or governments, you know, Big Brother or surveillance capitalism. And I think that's kind of what he was getting at a little bit there because we it just covered CBDCs. And I think that that's part of it is just that like all the, all the nations of the world, regardless of political leaders, regardless of what they use for money, there's this like, you know, this like slippery slope towards kind of totalitarian control when you, when you go digital.

Like it's just very hard to resist that temptation, even if you're, you're a really good person in power. And I think that that's part of it. The other part is the American dominance of the, world financial system. So and that I think sets us up nicely also to to get to the big news of the week. But yeah, so look, the U.S. has been monetarily hegemonic for a long time. I mean, after World War I, we just emerged in such better shape than the other nations, especially in Europe. We became the world's largest creditor nation. Britain began its imperial decline. That put us in a

really good position in World War II. We had a lot of the gold. We were able to get our way at Bretton Woods in 44. We were able to basically veto the British idea of a bank or which would be like an internationally managed unit of account, like kind of what the SDR is today. And we were able to get everybody to agree to use dollars as a reserve currency. So like dollars around the world, which would be pegged to our currency at a rate of $35. per ounce of gold. So we, like, accumulated all the gold, and we were the custodian of the system. And look, things went pretty well for a while as we climbed out of World War II.

But in the, you know, especially after JFK got assassinated in the late 60s, the world started to become really concerned about, like, the U.S. monetary system and our ability to hold that peg. So the French especially were, like, very vocal about this. I mean, de Gaulle and his ministers, you know, they called the dollar the exorbitant privilege, and, look, Britain, I think at 67 or 68, they defaulted essentially on their, on their currency. And I think France, some of these other countries looked around and said, you know, I'm very concerned that the U.S. is going to do that as well.

And they did, actually. But Nixon was able to kind of, you know, to sort of hold them over for a little while. But in the summer of 71, things just had gotten too much like the Vietnam War and the social spending from Johnson. had had pushed our basically debt to GDP ratio, you know, higher and higher. And, you know, our, you know, basically gold versus our outstanding commitments had gotten really extreme. You know, this guns and butter approach was very expensive. And the French actually sent like a battleship to New York City in August of 71 to get,

or at the end of, you know, end of August, early September 71 to get the gold, to get their gold back to redeem their gold. And the British asked for like a huge transfer of several billion pounds as well from Fort Knox to New York in preparation for withdrawal. So a couple of days later, Nixon went on TV, gave the Nixon shock speech, ended the gold window and put us into the fiat world, right, where we've been for 50 years. So just the important thing to remember there is that like the rest of the world is basically calling our bluff on being able to hold that, hold that peg. And what's interesting is that already before this, both Keynes and this guy named so both Keynes and this guy named Triffin economist, they realized there was going to be this issue

if the U.S. became the reserve currency kind of hegemonically. And Triffon, it's called the Triffon dilemma. And it's basically this idea that like in order to satisfy everybody else's needs around the world, you have to run like just an increasingly large deficit. And that's what ended up happening. And it was kind of like fueled and sustained by this thing called the petrodollar system, which came into play in 70, really in 74. After Nixon closed the gold window, the dollar depreciated by 20% against other national currencies, the major ones at least.

So between 71 when he ended it in September 71 to summer 73, We, we, we, we, we appreciated 20%. So, so those, those concerns were founded by the other countries that we would not be able to hold things together. Um, and, and that was a very inflationary decade. There was a lot of, uh, unrest. There was a lot of, uh, inflationary activity, obviously, as, as, as you all know, um, and Kissinger, uh, and Nixon had to figure out, uh, you know, a solution, basically. So they hired this guy. I say hired because it's kind of funny, because it's, you know, you're not, you don't like hire someone in, uh, uh, in the government, you sort of appoint them. But they literally hired a bond salesman named William Simon from Solomon Brothers. He came into the government. And they upgraded him to the Treasury Secretary. And they basically said, dude, you need to sell some bonds. You know, how are we going to finance all this stuff?

Let's sell bonds. We can't raise taxes because Nixon was about to get impeached. He couldn't do it. So we had to get other countries to fund our stuff. It's as simple as that. And there's a really good book. Very, well, I mean, yes, it's very good, but it's very detailed and technical. but it describes this whole process.

And it's called the Hidden Hand of American Hedemone by David Spiro. And it's kind of a niche thing, but you can get it on Amazon. And basically this guy dedicated his life to writing about this, because it was so buried after the 80s. People barely wrote about the petrodollary anymore, but it really was really like set the whole world up for what was to come. And Simon and Kissinger and Nixon basically said, look, we got to sell bonds.

Are we going to sell it to? And they looked around and they looked at the Saudis. And what had happened is that essentially because of the shift in power and oil production from Western companies to sovereign states, it used to be these things called the Seven Sisters. There was like these European and American corporate energy companies that basically colonized in many ways these other, these sort of other countries. They lost their power in the 60s. And by the 70s, OPEC existed in it. And it was on the rise.

And Saudi Arabia had just come into its own as like the swing producer for this, for the systems. They were really important. And they decided in 73 in reaction to both American agricultural policy and our involvement in the Yom Kippur War where we supported Israel. They basically jacked the price up of oil from like $2 a barrel to over $10 a barrel. And they set in a bargo on the United States, right? So after this happened, you know, that's when Nixon and Kissinger and Simon were like, okay, we got to sell the bonds. So they actually tried to make peace with the Saudis kind of quietly.

There was a bunch of conversations earlier in 74. By June of 74, Crown Prince Fod came to D.C. Nixon went to Saudi Arabia. Simon went to Jedda. And by the end of the year, they had this like pact. And basically, it's basically, the idea is called petrodoller recycling, is this, is the idea. And again, a petrodollar is a dollar earned by an energy exporter. And the idea of petrodel recycling is that they take.

take that dollar and they invest it back into U.S. debt, to U.S. treasuries. And that allows us to basically print money to finance our operations. And it allowed us to print money into oil, whereas the Soviets during the Cold War had to dig it out of the ground or buy it. I mean, it was a huge advantage. So with this system, we got that advantage. All the Saudis had to do was price their oil in dollars, which made everybody in the world to pay them in dollars, create this huge artificial demand for dollars. and they had to recycle some of it back into debt. Okay, they also did this through the euro dollar system, which was, I wouldn't say small,

but definitely got massive as a result to this and has created all kinds of other interesting effects on the world. But essentially, in return, they got protection, right? They got our promise to defend them, which is why they're still around today. That's why Trump and Biden won't go after, you know, they won't go after MBS, even though we know, killed Kishoggi and torturous female political prisoners and is, you know, destroying Yemen. We won't, we won't do it. All we'll do is sell Raytheon stuff to him.

Like, we continue to arm him. So the deal was, you denominate the oil sales and dollars and you, you reinvest that, you recycle that back into treasury so we can keep our guns and butter going. In return, we'll protect you and we'll arm you. So as Greenspan said, actually, Greenspan at the end of the 70s was actually in the Ford administration, he was quoted as saying, essentially, essentially that like, you know, the Saudis became, then OPEC by 75, both the Saudis and OPEC were all doing this. That the, essentially the OPEC had become, you know, non-market purchasers of U.S. Treasuries,

and we became non-market sellers of weapons, right? So this was not, Spiro's book is all about how this was not a free market outcome. This was very much a political outcome driven by the U.S. government. And it did very well for the U.S. in the fight against the Soviets. And for people in our country that are of particular classes, like in defense, technology, services, basically coastal elites. But over time, it was really, really bad for people lower and middle classes, really hollowed out over time.

Our export base, Rust Belt stuff, obviously, also very bad for a lot of the developing countries who all of a sudden were saddled with a lot of this, like, dollars denominated that that was really hard for them to pay back and it forced them to focus on that instead of investing in their own countries. So that's kind of the setup and we didn't like after we defeated the Soviets, we didn't change the system. We didn't have like another Bretton Woods. We just kept it going and we continued to protect the Saudis. Obviously the first Gulf War was like much more clearly about that, right? The second Gulf War though was interesting too. And and you know, Lynn Alden has written about this a little bit and Nick Carter talks about this. But, you know,

know, like, we needed to protect this petrodollars system. And guess what? Saddam was a threat. I mean, he started the petro euro, October 2000. He said he was going to sell 5% of the world's oil in euros by 2002 through the oil for food program. He was selling 5% of the world's oil in euros to France and Germany. And six months later, we went in there and we took them out. And, you know, by June of 2003, that new regime was selling oil and dollars again.

And this was not like Howard Feynman and Newsweek wrote about that. this at the time. After we went in there, he said that, you know, the big debate afterwards in May of 2003 wasn't whether to keep looking for the WMDs, which didn't exist. It was, it was, what were we going to price the oil in? And the dollar won out. So, I mean, there's a couple other reasons. I think that that's interesting because we were at such a hyperpower moment in our history. Like, we're not anymore. And I think that's important to note that the petrol system is, is unraveled. I think Luke Roman has done a really good job explaining that, you know, basically after the OPEC nations, you know, became less powerful economically when the price of oil fell in 82,

all through the 90s. Other countries stepped in and started doing the recycling, like Germany, Japan, eventually China. But in 2003, we could really throw our weight around. We were like the hyperpower. And none of these special explanations for that war made any sense. I mean, there was no connection to al-Qaeda. It wasn't about Iraqi freedom or human rights. And it certainly wasn't about WMDs.

There weren't any. And it wasn't about countering Iran either. I mean, we had we had, we had back Saddam in the 80s in Iran-Iraq War to literally to counter Iran. So I don't know, man. It's really interesting to think about, but I guess the conclusion is that the U.S., I think some people have put this well, even if economically people want to debate the value of the petrodollar, you know, and the pricing of oil as it relates to the whole global economy. And some people say it's not that important. And U.S. policymakers have, have, think it's very important. And they've acted on that.

And I think that's the important takeaway there. David Graber says that in his book, debt, which probably most people here wouldn't agree with, but the ending is very good. There's about 20 pages at the end of debt where he goes into this and talks about why Nixon floated the dollar and all this stuff. So, I mean, look, here we are today. Nobody's really buying our treasuries anymore. We're the biggest buyer of our own treasuries.

You know, that system's kind of collapsed. We're not even going to sanction the Russian head of Nord Stream who's going to be helping Russia and Europe start to trade energy in their own currencies more and more and more. There's not a whole lot we can do to China and Russia in that regard. And then, you know, here we are with Bitcoin, right? So, I mean, look, if it was if it was the 70s or 80s, I think you'd see very aggressive action from the U.S. against countries that are that are trying to change the petrodolar system, which, which pins together this huge artificial demand for dollars and the fact that there's still 90% of the world's trade, 60% of the world's reserve currency held in dollars, 40% of the world's

debt still held in dollars. So I think that we would have, we would be very aggressive about this back then, but we're just so overstretched and we just are so thin at home that I I didn't think we can do it. And that, I guess, leads us to the final piece of this conversation, which is what's happening geopolitically today with Bitcoin, right? Yeah, so let's talk about Jack's big announcement. And now we're talking about Jack Mahler's, not Jack Dorsey. Yeah.

So, yeah, laid on. So for folks that weren't there, just to kind of explain Jack's background, because I know he's been down in El Salvador for, I think, a few months now. like really kind of making things happen on the ground, right? Sure. Yeah, but just to just to connect that very long monologue I just went on. I mean, the result of that still is that like the world's very dependent on the dollar. El Salvador's dollarized country, you know, and and there are pros there, but there's also cons.

And again, you know, they're entirely reliant on U.S. monetary policy. They don't make their own currency. and they are, as Jack, Jack Mahler said on stage, they're very much recipients of any sort of, you know, monetary expansion that we do. They are recipients of that negative externality in a big, big way, especially because, you know, most people in El Salvador are very, very poor.

70% don't even have bank accounts. 22% of the whole economy of that country runs on remittances from the U.S. So a fifth of the economy. So, again, Like we're in this world where the, where the U.S. really exerts, like, really outsized power. And, you know, that, that, again, has some negative externalities in different places around the world. And I think Jack, when he went down there, Jack Muller probably saw this. And, you know, he saw how people are struggling.

And what a, what a tough time for El Salvadorans. I mean, they have the highest, you know, until recently the highest murder rate in the world. I mean, it's really tough to attract foreign investment. there's not a lot of hope or opportunity. All of a sudden, a couple years ago, this guy Michael Peterson, who I met, outstanding gentleman, would be doing some stuff with him, really cool guy. He and some other people decided to create this thing, Bitcoin Beach, right? And I think even I at first was like pretty skeptical.

I was like, okay, like this seems kind of like a, I would say gimmick. But I was like, hmm, I don't know if it's going to work, right? I was a little like, I'm not sure. I was so wrong. So they built this community. they started a circular economy all on Bitcoin, all in these different wallets in this kind of like community probably with a lot of, you know, expats. I spent a lot of time in a place in Mexico called Zipolite, which is probably very similar

to Elzante, so I kind of know what it's probably like. But, you know, very international mix. But then, you know, it starts to really connect to the local community. And I think, you know, Jack Mahler spent time there, you know, in those months leading up to when he made that announcement on your show back in January. strike global. And I, you know, obviously on stage, he said that's what made him think about making his company in a different way, not focusing on Europe as much as maybe a place like El Salvador. I think he saw what kind of power Bitcoin could have. And I, I thought that actually Ross Stevens

explained this really well in this interview he did recently in a very powerful way, just to think about the fact that like all these people, like 22% of the whole economy comes from remittances, is there's only a handful of like Western unions in the whole country and 70% of people don't have bank accounts. That means they're like, they're going on a bus for like three hours to like go to Western unions, like get their money and cash and like very dangerous place, a lot of murder theft. Like they're risking everything for that. But a lot of people have phones, right? So all of a sudden, now we have a revolution, right? It's very powerful.

Like now like anyone can just like have their sort of bank account on their phone. They don't have to go on that bus. They don't have to risk themselves. don't have to carry cash on them. They can have their like strike bank account basically, which is like USDT usually kind of like denominated to protect against risk. And then the cool part is they can just withdraw to their non-KYC sovereign savings account in Bitcoin, right? And apparently that's what's happening. So Jack makes that announcement in January, off the fumes of living at Bitcoin Beach for a while. And he launches, I think, in March down

there and by the end of the month, it's like the most downloaded app in the country. Right. So, all right, apparently at some point, the president of the country, obviously is like what is going on here, right? And just briefly, look, look, I'm a human rights activist. I work for a human rights group. We should not celebrate this guy. I think we should be open-minded about what happens. I mean, look, like, A, bad rulers can do good things. Like, look at the Magna Carta. Do you know what I mean? They could be forced to doing good things. also people can change, right? So we'll see. But as of now, we should be very skeptical. The guy

has, like, you know, sacked judges. He has, and imagine, like, you know, Biden doing this today. It'd be like if Biden just went and just got rid of two Supreme Court justice because he didn't like him, okay, so that's essentially what happened. He also went into the assembly last year with his troops to force them to pass a bill that he wanted. So imagine Biden doing that today to the Congress. So you can start to see this guy as we need to reserve some judgment here. He's he's let's not place any crown on this guy yet i mean i would not do that um i would be very skeptical about him at least but the policy man the action so i'm sitting there in an audience jack goes on stage this big announcement everybody's like oh it's going to be lame and i was like

i don't think it's going to be lame um and he announces that this you know he goes to this whole thing that i just kind of went through about what a rough spot al salvador is in and and and how we could make a difference maybe with Bitcoin. And then he plays the video of the president saying they're going to pass a law, making it legal tender, and, you know, that they're going to, you know, that they're adding it to the reserve. And man, the place goes wild. I'll never forget that moment.

It was really amazing. And now we've just been living in this new world where I just don't think anybody in Bitcoin was realistically expecting us to go from, you know, really no inflation hedge narrative on the main street at all to Michael Saylor. doing his thing to Elon doing his thing with Tesla to a nation state doing it in about a year. I mean, I just, that's just such blinding pace. I mean, I think people, people like me maybe thought that would take several more halvings to happen.

And I was just apparently extremely bearish. So here we are. This guy, Buckele, he's the Michael Saler of nation states. Is he just narcissistic? And did he just realize that this would make him famous? because it's made him really freaking famous, right? So maybe that's just it. And that's fine.

Or does he get it? Does he get like the deeper geopolitical thing here where his country can be this geopolitical first mover? He can attract foreign investment. He can lure people in to this country that's had such a hard time. And he can connect people to banking services and have them own their own money in a way that can't be debased or remotely confiscated. I don't know.

It may not matter. Like, it may just, Bitcoin may work in its incentive structure enough so that it's okay that he's just narcissistic and just selfish. It's kind of like he's taking the genie out of the bottle. And the last thing I'll just say on that is the last three days in El Salvador, this is like anybody's talking about. I mean, I was talking to Salvadoran today, and he's showing me all these articles in all the major newspapers.

And it's just like, everybody's like, what is Bitcoin? What is our president talking about? It's what people are talking about in barbershops, in taxis, like on the street. This is not going away. You can't put this genie back in the bottle. So, I mean, that's the network effects that you're not really seeing. And this is spreading man. I met some people in Miami.

They're trying to move this to Guatemala, you know, and there's other people trying to move it to other countries. And just in the last like two hours, you and I've seen people on Twitter from what, like Brazil, like other congressmen in El Salvador, Paraguay. like they're all talking about it, right? And I don't know if they have the power that Buckele has to do it. But the genie's out of the bottle here. And it's a new era. So it's really exciting, honestly. And again, don't celebrate the guy, celebrate the action. It's going to be so good for El Salvadorans. And it just brings a lot of hope to a country that's had a lot of darkness.

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This and other information can be found in the income funds prospectus at fundrise.com slash income. This is a paid advertisement. All right. Back to the show. Now, down there, are they pretty much using lightning for all their peer-to-peer transactions, lightning wallets on smartphones? Yeah, so I think there's two things going on here. There's like the circular economy, Bitcoin Beach, and all of the second order effects of that,

where people are using like actual Bitcoin wallets and they're just doing the Bitcoin economy. And then there's strike, which again, it's kind of like, you know, as Jack calls it, it's like a NeoBank where like the beauty of it obviously is that like anyone can just pay directly to someone in El Salvador like instantly, essentially, having having, having their account number or whatever. But, you know, usually it's that that's kept in a like a, again, like a stable coin kind of USD denominated amount of money. And again, I think people basically use that as like their checking account.

But, you know, the real kicker, of course, is they can just immediately move it into their into their own control of Bitcoin. So as far as like what, you know, lightning is really operating on the back end there. But I do think from what I've heard from Michael and other people and talking to Salvadorans, like, yeah, there's more merchants who are like going to get involved here. And I think I was talking with somebody about this. I was someone who really thought that like globally Gresham's law would be really in effect for this whole decade that, you know, bad money would drive out the good and you just want to spend your fiat and you'd hold your, hold your Bitcoin. But and then there's this other law, though, that, that, was lurking in the distance.

I thought it would be way, way down the road. But Fears Law is the other way around. The good money drives out the bad. And it's interesting because, like, he may have, like, really accelerated this. In the same way that Sailor accelerated the inflation hedge narrative and an understanding globally of what Bitcoin is, like, you know, this idea that, like, as a merchant, you can demand Bitcoin or you can be Bitcoin preferred, right? I mean, you're obviously, you're already seeing this pop up in parts of El Salvador.

that's just going to accelerate, right? So then all of a sudden, then you got to spend your Bitcoin. Like if you're being offered a discount on it or if some places only take it, some people start selling their real estate for it, which I know you've talked about. I mean, all of a sudden, that's in play now as opposed to in three halvings or something. So I think that this guy, through this one announcement, he's really like moved the needle on that part of Bitcoin becoming unlocked for a lot more people, which is so good for Bitcoin because now we're going to really want to focus on privacy,

non-custodial stuff, wallet infrastructure. It's not just this digital gold asset that's going to sit in the custodian. And I think that it could have been for a while, but this announcement is like a shock to the system that is similar to the sailor shock. And there's obviously geopolitical stuff, which we can get into. But I think that's just so interesting that it's really going to wake. people up to Bitcoin as a network. You know, I don't know that I was really surprised by how just the price of Bitcoin reacted

following the announcement. Yeah, it's like dropped. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that? Because I think anybody who's hearing this is saying, then why is it down, Alex? Like, that just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I don't know, man. I mean, you guys are better at this to me, but there is no efficient market going on here.

no one knows anything. People thought the having was priced in. Obviously not. I mean, I just think that the market right now is not paying attention to this stuff. In terms of the volume, you know, and you're looking at the back end and you're looking at the metrics and the volumes that are happening every day are not people who are like geopolitical analysts. They're not like thinking seven steps ahead.

They're just like staring at short-term stuff. And there's other nonsense now coming in. and we don't even need to put on a tinfoil hat. There's always nonsense. But now there's the ransomware stuff and there's all kinds of crap. Oh, the feds broke Bitcoin. Like, no, they didn't. They just took it off somebody's freaking custodian or somebody left it on like their phone

and didn't put a password on or something like that. Like no one broke Bitcoin. But now all of a sudden, you know, it's funny, man, really aggressively. You get the first nation state to come out and say, we're going to make Bitcoin our money. then, oh man, the FUD goes into complete overdrive meltdown. So, and again, remember total volume, like very dominated by, by Americans and Europeans still today, right? Or at least providers based in those countries. So I think that just short term, it's just so much noise, man.

And what I really came out of the Bitcoin conference with was just a connection back to the foundational foundation of what we're here for. I mean, especially through that conversation of Jack. And just, I mean, I always care about the price because I know that it's connected with the incentive mechanism of Bitcoin. But I mean, I couldn't care less about the price right now. Like, just cheaper stats for everybody, I guess. Good for the Salvadorans. I don't know, man. It could move sideways for a long time.

But I think you saw the same thing in the summer of 17. There were like incredible things happening in the battle for the soul of Bitcoin. It took a while. It took to the end of the year for that to be reflected and really lifted after we were sure that the fork war was over. Right. So we've seen this before where like amazing stuff happens and nothing is reflected. I mean, again, one more thing. I mean, Taproot is about to get activated, basically. It's about to get locked in. It's going to be live late November. It's what, 99% of all the hash rate is signaling. And that's not priced in. Nobody cares about that. No one even knows what Taproot is outside of, like I would say that maybe 400 people at Bitcoin 2021 could have told you like in a detailed way what Taffir it is. It's not priced in. This isn't priced in. But I'm telling you, man, this is huge.

This is huge. You know, so we have a lot of investors that listen to the show. And so for your, your argument would be this is just like a company that their fundamentals just keep getting stronger and stronger. Yet maybe the price action just keeps going down for whatever, whatever market reasons there would be. And so your argument is stay focused on the fundamentals and the engineering and the building and those kind of things. Yeah. But again, like it could be this sort of one two steps forward, one step back thing where, okay, Saylor announces his thing, gets really exciting, Elon goes, and then all of a sudden,

Sailor has this conference, and then, you know, it's kind of quiet. Like, we don't really know who's market buying. We don't really know what companies are involved. Like, it's not quite as exciting as everybody thought it was. the price has dropped. Okay, it's wilted. It could happen here. Okay, we could have El Salvador and for a while we could have nobody else. It doesn't seem like that's the case right now. Looks like a bunch of other Latin American countries, especially you're looking at this carefully. Looks like this is triggering a lot of interest from really downtrodden nations. And I guess that's, I guess what I wanted to finish with is that there's the conversation about domestic policy in El Salvador and, you know, do we want to be standing this guy. No. But obviously, this policy is going to be great for Salvador. And so we should cheer this is awesome. I mean, he's already talking about working with Blockstream to get satellite internet going so that people can access the Bitcoin network. I mean, this is June 2021. I mean, this is stuff we thought was going to happen in the 23rds. I mean, this is crazy. We have a head of state talking about how he's going to get satellite Bitcoin access

to his country. I mean, what? So that's happened. And now you've got laserized in like four countries in Latin America. And again, like, this is an opportunity for these people. I mean, these people can't make their own monetary policy. They can't set their own financial destiny. They're totally tied to ours. In many other countries that aren't dollarized, their situation is even worse because their financial destiny is tied to a bunch of people who like literally just run the money

printing press so hot that the country has 30, 40, 50, 500, 3,000. percent inflation. I mean, if you just look at like countries like Argentina, Venezuela, et cetera, in the region. So situation goes bad, you know, anywhere from bad to worse in the region. Now people are going to get to own their own money and own it in a way that can't be debased or remotely confiscated and it can be just seamlessly, you know, networked and connected with anyone that we're in the world. And there's just nothing more bullish than that. And I just don't think it's priced in. People are confused. They don't understand what's happening. I don't think U.S. policymakers really know how to react. The markets obviously don't know how to react. So this is your signal. I mean, people have been talking about this for a decade. When is the first country going to adopt Bitcoin? Well, it just happened. So again, we're in open water Bitcoin.

We don't know. No one knows. No one could predict the next step. But how could you not see this as bullish? I mean, this is a wild fantasy that literally just happened. Do you know what I mean? So by declaring it legal tender within the country, a person's not going to pay capital games.

on Bitcoin. They can use it. That's what they've said. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So now, now what does that mean? What kind of incentives does that create for, for companies that maybe you want to move into that jurisdiction?

Yeah. I mean, look, I think it's short to, I mean, right, like on the ground right now, I mean, I think a lot of the people using Bitcoin, like we're already probably not paying taxes or, you know, not in the formal economy or whatever. So I don't think it has like an immediate immediate like practical use case, but I mean for businesses, especially you do international business, that's huge. And then all of a sudden, it's like it's a foreign currency, right? It's it's the currency of El Salvador alongside, you know, their own currency has been kind of falling into disuse. They have the dollar. They're going to have Bitcoin now. So now all of a sudden you've got conversations going on and all these trading houses like, what do we do with this?

okay, all of a sudden it's a foreign currency. There's no rulebook here. No one ever saw this coming. They weren't ready for it. It's like a Y2K moment that no one saw coming. And now it's like short-circuiting a lot of things. So we'll have to see. But yeah, I mean, it's inside the country going to have a huge impact.

It is so legitimate, meaning like if this passes, like all of a sudden, Bitcoin activity just becomes completely normalized. And I just think that it's just, it's more than about the law or about the tech adoption. It's about the social dynamics of this thing entering into people's mindsets and conversations. And all of a sudden, there's going to be such a premium on learning about Bitcoin in a Spanish language, providing good quality education so that people don't go and do stuff like Tron. I mean, there's going to be so many scams moving in there too. So, I mean, there's going to be so much demand for like good education. educators, good product builders. Look, you were already seeing a lot of the Bitcoin community,

like go to El Salvador. I mean, this guy's going to get so, so many talented people coming into that country to help him rebuild it. And, you know, and that's completely regardless of his politics. So I just, again, would be very excited about this medium to long term, especially. And it's going to have major, major geopolitical implications, especially in a world where the system, again, which I've described, is weakening. Like, we don't have this hyperpower America anymore. We don't have the ability to control everybody else's money anymore. We are at our kind of like, let's say on the back nine of our career,

being able to just finance the guns and butter by other countries' demand for our debt. That is really, really declining. So it's kind of time. You know, you can't stop an idea of time has come. I think there's going to be a lot of like, we have to be careful here because there's going to be a lot of negative things said about this guy, some of which are true and some of which are not.

There's going to be just like, you know, whenever there's good stuff happening in Bitcoin, there's a lot of like, you know, counter kind of noise. That's just going to really test our sense making here because, oh, man, this guy, already there's articles about how the IMF isn't going to like this and there's going to be a risk premium on the bonds and there's going to be complications with this country,

getting the rest of its loan from the IMF, then Washington's not going to be happy. And yeah, I mean, there's going to be really serious consequences for this country that stuck its neck out, right? So we'll have to see. But you know what? If these other countries follow quickly enough, then, you know, there's not so much we can do.

But, man, it's going to be really interesting to watch geopolitically. I just hope people can understand that this is not some stunt, like, regardless of what happens in the capital, this thing's going to have massive, massive implications for the average Salvadoran. And I couldn't be more excited for them. I mean, they deserve it. They've been through such a brutal several decades. This is some serious hope that's coming here.

So let's stay tuned and let's keep our eyes open. Alex, final question for you. Was there any panel or topic or something that you heard during the conference that just kind of like really piqued your interest or that you found kind of fascinating? I've just been very interested in mining lately. I think mining is this really misunderstood thing that is going to totally transform our world. And touched on it briefly with Jack, but outside of panels, I got to talk to a lot of miners and got to learn a lot of things. And similar to Taproot, we've got this thing that's really interesting called Stratum B2, which is like a basically a way of putting power back in the hands of miners out of the hands of pool operators and making the whole thing a lot more decentralized and censorship resistant. And this thing's going to happen too.

And it's just going to help us, like, move into a situation where kind of, as Jack said, like, we can start taking advantage of all this, like, waste that happens around the world and all these stranded resources. You know, I learned from these people just about how, man, like, for example, like, you could power all the Bitcoin network just on the methane emissions from landfills alone. You could power the Bitcoin network just on. on pretty much the power of the nuclear plants

that the US is decommissioning this year alone. You could power the Bitcoin network just one with one nuke plant that's in Japan alone. Like this is just public conception of Bitcoin is a thing that's gonna destroy the environment. It's so off base, so wrong. And I think it's just all about the mining community telling, I don't know, being a better explainer of what they do

and how they work and what they're, doing. And some people are helping with that. But I would say in general, it's just just learning more about the really incredible transformative power of mining and, and what that's going to do the world. I mean, that was that was a real kind of eye-opener for me. All right, Alex, I hit you up last minute to do this and you were just so accommodative. If people want to learn more about you, They want to learn about your mission that you are doing. Please give them a handoff and let them know how they can help. Yeah.

So look, a lot of your listeners, maybe you came to Miami. You felt the vibes. Vives. Vives don't lie. It's a really strong. It's a really exciting city right now. I think it embodies a lot of the technical innovation, the freedom we want to feel, the openness. I think a lot of us want to go back. So I've got a reason for you to go back.

October 4 and 5, my organization, the Human Rights Foundation, is organizing the Oslo Freedom Forum. today event. First day will be a lot of TED talks, really inspiring performances, music, art from people fighting for freedom around the world. It'll blow your mind and really just make you reassess everything. I mean, this is an event I like to call a bubble buster because it completely just shatters your bubble about how you think the world works. The second day is very interactive. We're going to have a Bitcoin track where we're going to have Bitcoiners from all around the world come and mingle with activists who aren't Bitcoiners yet. These aren't no-coiners.

These are pre-cointers. And we're going to have sessions like the political history of Bitcoin. We're going to talk about, you know, multi-sig. We're going to talk about Lightning. We're going to talk about Bitcoin Beach and circular economies. We're just going to try to give as much content into the hands of the human rights community as possible to help them on board to this. And I'd love for people to be there.

I'd love for you all to help support it. You can check it out at Oslo Freedomform.com. You have to apply to attend, but write in why you want to come and we'll send you the registration link. Or again, you can support our general mission at href.org. I thought it was really cool right before Miami we gave away through the support of generous donors. Like people like you, we gave away $210,000 to Bitcoin devs from all over the world. They were from Nigeria, Korea, and India, as well as a guy who's taken all the great stuff from Parker and Safe and Breed Love and everybody and translating it all into Arabic. We gave him a bunch of money and he was very happy and I'm pretty happy too.

So we'll do that too. So you can either come to our events and party with us and celebrate freedom and meet cool Bitcoiners or you can help help the development and educational efforts that we need. So thanks for letting me put that out there, Preston. Absolutely. And love having you on Alex. This is always fun. And we'll have a bunch of this stuff in the show notes. So everyone, thanks for listening.

And Alex, thanks for joining us. Thank you. Hey, so thanks for everybody listening to the show. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to subscribe to the show on whatever podcast app you're using. We really appreciate that. And if you have time, leave us a review. So thanks for joining us this week. And we'll catch you next Wednesday.

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