We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC189: Prince Philip of Serbia on Bitcoin (Bitcoin Podcast)

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

In this episode of the Bitcoin Fundamentals Podcast, Prince Philip of Serbia joins us to discuss his advocacy for Bitcoin and its potential to offer financial sovereignty. We delve into his journey from a background in finance to becoming a passionate Bitcoin proponent. Prince Philip shares his thoughts on the synergies between Bitcoin and monarchy, the environmental impact of traditional banking systems, and the challenges and opportunities for Bitcoin adoption in Serbia. We also explore his vision for a Bitcoin nation-state and the future of global finance. IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN: 00:00 - Intro 01:56 - Prince Philip's journey from finance to Bitcoin advocacy. 13:38 - The benefits of Bitcoin for financial sovereignty and inclusion. 15:41 - The synergies between Bitcoin and monarchy. 21:14 - The environmental impact of traditional banking systems versus Bitcoin. 32:08 - The steps Serbia needs to take for Bitcoin adoption. 34:23 - Prince Philip's vision for a Bitcoin nation-state. 36:08 - The role of merchants in driving Bitcoin adoption. 39:51 - Personal anecdotes from Prince Philip's life as a prince and a Bitcoin advocate. Disclaimer: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences. BOOKS AND RESOURCES Prince Philip’s X (Twitter) account. Check out all the books mentioned and discussed in our podcast episodes here. Enjoy ad-free episodes when you subscribe to our Premium Feed. NEW TO THE SHOW? Join the exclusive TIP Mastermind Community to engage in meaningful stock investing discussions with Stig, Clay, Kyle, and the other community members. Follow our official social media accounts: X (Twitter) | LinkedIn | | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok. Check out our Bitcoin Fundamentals Starter Packs. Browse through all our episodes (complete with transcripts) here. Try our tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: TIP Finance Tool. Enjoy exclusive perks from our favorite Apps and Services. Stay up-to-date on financial markets and investing strategies through our daily newsletter, We Study Markets. Learn how to better start, manage, and grow your business with the best business podcasts. SPONSORS Support our free podcast by supporting our sponsors: River Toyota Fundrise 7-Eleven The Bitcoin Way Onramp Public Vanta ReMarkable Connect Invest SimpleMining Miro Shopify 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 this Wednesday's release of the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast. On today's show, we have a special guest, Prince Philip of Serbia. Prince Philip is a passionate advocate for Bitcoin and has a rich background in finance. We dive into his journey into the world of Bitcoin, his thoughts on its potential for financial sovereignty, and the unique synergies between Bitcoin and monarchy. We also explore his vision for Bitcoin adoption inside of Serbia and beyond. So with all of that said, let's go ahead and jump right into this interview with the insightful and knowledgeable Prince Philip of Serbia.

Celebrating 10 years. You are listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Investors Podcast Network. Now for your host, Preston Pish. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the show. I am really pumped to have Prince Philip here with me to talk all things Bitcoin and who knows what else we're going to get into. But welcome to the show. Thanks, Preston.

good to be here. Thanks for having me. It's great to connect with you. I know we've talked a little bit in passing here and there and this is wonderful to be able to sit down with you and have a good thorough conversation, sir. Yeah, likewise. I keep on bumping you and these amazing conferences, but we never have enough time to sit down and have a good chat. We have little talks, good talks, power talks, but then we're busy. We're going to get back to our duties. We're getting torn in different directions. Exactly. I think for anybody that would look at you and see all of, I couldn't even imagine the time constraints and directions you're being pulled in a given day. And I think for somebody that would look at a person like yourself and say there's so many

things that you could be looking at or focusing upon, and here you are talking about Bitcoin and are very passionate about Bitcoin, how in the world did that come on your radar when there's so many other things that could be distracting or pulling you in a different direction? That's a lovely way putting that question. How did I get into Bitcoin? Yeah, it was first started. I mean, the story goes that I first heard about Bitcoin in 2011 when I think, I believe the first time I heard about it was when they pulled it off when Visa MasterCard was pulled off the donation page for WikiLeaks. And Julian Assange said that we are except Bitcoin. And I just looked at it and I was like, well, that's funny. That's interesting. But

I brushed it off as magic internet money. And speaking to some other people, they were like, oh, yes, you're going to go to 100 or whatever. I just didn't take any notice of it at all. It's just that, you know, something that you find online, one of those funny things online. Then years went by, sadly, and 2017 came along. And I was on Reddit. I know, I know Reddit, yeah. But I was on Reddit scrolling through the homepage of Reddit.

And then every now and then the Bitcoin home subreddit would pop up. And that little meme of the roller coaster guy with his hands up in the air would be going up all the time. I was like, what's going on there? I saw this a few times over a few weeks in like early 2017. And then they get a call for my best friend. This is when I was living in London, by the way, in 2017. And my friend is like, hey, Philip, have you heard a big one? I was like, yeah.

Well, what's up? It's something you should get into. You should buy some. It's like a great investment. It's a great inflation hedge. There's only going to be 21 million ever invested. I was like, oh, that's, I mean, produced. That's interesting.

Didn't really take much notice for that, but he was really into it and passionate, but he had some passion, he's my best friend that kind of take his advice. So I was like, okay, show me how. So he got me onto Coinbase, I bought some Bitcoin, then he got me on, got me a wallet,

I stored it on my wallet. And then I saw some other things on Coinbase. I saw Ethereum and Lycoin. I was like, what are those? Oh, they have, you know, other cryptos or whatever. They have a chance to. I was like, okay, interesting. Can I buy it?

Should I buy them? Yeah, why not? And then that year was full of myself and him. Yeah, we, And we got some other friends into it as well. We go into the ICO craze and stuff. So basically I joined for greed purposes. I was working in traditional finance at the time.

And I thought I kind of knew how things work, you know, how the financial system works and stuff. But when Bitcoin came about, that's kind of novel, something novel. I had no idea what it was going to turn out to be. But obviously, got distracted by the other things that were on offer by all those other ICOs and other cryptos that were being shoved down your throat if you were in that crypto space in 2017 and you weren't really well read in Bitcoin. I was easily distracted. We were easily distracted. So we threw our money at this and that project, but nothing ever stuck, obviously. Then it all crashed and 2018, 19 came about and I was like still into Bitcoin,

but not really passionately. I was still stacking here and there when I got a good paycheck or when I got like a bonus, I would buy some Bitcoin and stuff and just mind my own business and stuff. Then I think it was 2020 when the whole COVID thing happened. That's when I started to pay attention. My job went online. We all worked from our homes. We all were told to move and work remotely from our homes. And then I was sat at my desk at home. I say desk. It was a makeshift desk next to my bed. And we had a flat up in Swiss cottage like near Primos Hill, London. And my wife was with our son in the other bedroom, the living room. And I remember just thinking to myself, what the hell is going on over here? What's all this money printing? That's all this

thing is happening. And I told to myself, almost working from this computer. future. I could be doing this anywhere in the world. So then I had the Bing, the light bulb by a moment. And I was like, I could be doing this from Belgrade. So I decided, I got up, walked over to the living room. I was like, Dana, her name is Dana. Dana, we're moving to Belgrade. And she's like, okay, when? When? As soon as possible. We don't know when things are going to get rough or rough or something like that. So that was already by April. So by June, by June, we end of June. So V-Dov-Dan, which is June 28th, 2020, we moved to Belgrade. Vido Vand is a big day in our history.

That's when the Serbs won the Battle of Kosovo in the 12th century. And it was the St. Prince La Zos, the Nemenich Saint-day. That's a big day in our calendar. And the fact that I bought tickets on that day without realizing there was Vido Dan and we moved that on that day, it was kind of spooky. Then, sorry, how is this linked to my Bitcoin story? All this was happening. I was like, what's going on with the world? What is all this money printing going on?

Why are we getting all this quantitative easing? Why is the markets acting irrationally? And I was like, you know, I have this Bitcoin thing. I'm going to study it more. So I joined Bitcoin Twitter. I bought the Bitcoin standard. And I got studying in Bitcoin Twitter. He came across Michael Saylor later on that year.

I was like, whoa, who the hell is that? That's quite eloquence and quite the spokesman for Bitcoin. He was delivering those amazing, amazing speech, well, messages. Safety's book was a hard digest, but I realized, okay, this is it. I get it now. And Bitcoin Twitter, with all the memes and everything, I mean, some of the Bitcoin Twitter is just incredibly funny, but some of it's really serious. And there's a lot of intelligent individuals there.

I joined Bitcoin Twitter thinking, you know, I'll maybe find something else about other crypto stuff. And next thing I know, I'm like, oh my God, this is it. I have the keys of the future in my pockets. And everything else doesn't really make much sense. And that's when I realized that Bitcoin's will be a big part of my life. So I studied more. I stacked more.

And I sold up all the other crypto, whatever you call them that I had. And by 2021, I was a full-fledged maxi, I guess. And there was moments like in 2021 when China ban mining within their borders, they had about, as you know, the 60% of the hash rate. And I saw this and I saw the difficulty adjustment of Bitcoin playing out beautifully and how Bitcoin just decentralized further. It was like cutting off the head of a snake and 20 other heads grew. And I was like, that's amazing.

That adjustment, I kind of linked it towards the interest rates of the traditional financial finance world. When the economy grows, they rise interest rates to kind of cool down the economy. Well, when the economy is slowing down, they obviously interest rates at a zero negative, which obviously doesn't make that much sense, but that's the way to spur the growth of the economy. That all didn't make sense. But the adjustment of Bitcoin's difficulty adjustment, when there's more mine is coming on, I mean, when there's more hash power coming on and how every two weeks that's readjusted, I thought that was, for me, was one of those big sort of awakening moment. Obviously, it was a gradual process becoming a Bitcoin Maximus, but that was one of the big ones.

On that one was fascinating for me. It was like, I was just thinking about like if Google lost half of their data centers, like they went down for whatever, right? It would be catastrophic because of the way that they handle resourcing. So the resourcing would get loaded over to some other data center. And like, I mean, they couldn't handle it if they lost half of them. Exactly. What if Amazon, AWS? What if they would have, what if they lost half their data center? It would be catastrophic. Everyone there trying to buy it. I was a big Amazon buyer, by the way, before I moved to Belgrade because we don't have Amazon here.

So I was a big consumer, kind of instant gratification, saw stuff on Amazon, buying stuff. It was easy. Get delivered to my desk at work. Bam, bam, bam. So easy. When I came here, realized that Amazon's not available. Oh, I got to find stuff. Be happy with what I have.

But going back to what you say, yeah, if Amazon, if Google, if Facebook, if any of those big guys lost half their service, there'll be mass panic. Right. Yeah. Yeah, Rex. Rex. And I mean, there wasn't, not, not with Bitcoin. Bitcoin makes it stronger and fragile at its best.

You know, thank you, Naip Taleb, you know, who has wrote the forward to Bitcoin standard. But we know the story there with, we're Safedin. So turns out he wasn't very anti-fidil herself. For people that are maybe listening to this that aren't intimately dialed into the Bitcoin space, there was a little bit of a dust up between Safedina Moose and. And, oh, Black Swan author, help me out. But 11. The Seam Thiela.

Oh, my goodness. Yeah. But anyway, you know, you made this comment about COVID. When I'm getting to the root, I'm curious what you think the root is. But to me, it seems like it was the whole world just had the blinder pulled up on the quote unquote experts through all of that. And it just made people question kind of everything. Is that what it was or was it was something? That was it for me as well.

It was so strange living in London. Then you see drips of it happening coming through the news. Like this was in January, like COVID in China. Some cases here and there, you're not really worrying about it. Then of a sudden it starts coming to Europe or something. You're like, okay, that's strange. And you're like, okay, you don't think much of it. And then people are talking about, oh, things are going to be locked down.

We're going to have to go home and stuff. It's like, this thing only kills people of like above 82 years old. It's like it's an 80. It kills people. average age of 82, so it's higher than the life expensiveity of people and it only kills people who have one or two, two more co-mobivities. So it didn't make much sense. And we're going to lock down the economies. We're going to close schools because of this. I questioned that at the beginning, but then because of the force of the propaganda, I obviously kind of got along with it. But still,

it was doing my head in and I was at home. I remember lying down the floor like after work with my wife in the living room holding my head and saying, what's going home with his work? well, basically. Something's not right. Something's not right. And we were sort of, we were half bored into it, basically. Then moving to Serbia was quite the, I say red pill moment, as well as orange pill for myself, but red pill's my wife, because I mean, she's a big coin because she's my wife. But I think there's a lot of wives like that. Yeah, exactly. But moving to Serbia and then we saw how life could be completely open and how life was completely open. People did want to, okay, mask wearing in London, I got to say that people weren't wearing masks in London. That was great. But the way

they shut down schools or the way they did shut down everything in London and all their social distancing and stuff, they weren't paying attention to that in Serbia. Even though they had very strict lockdowns in April 2020 in Serbia, Chinese cell, they tried to repeat them in July after the government got two-thirds of the seats in parliament, so they had a majority. So they tried to enforce those lockdowns again. Power grab, whatever it was, tried to impose tyranny. Anything.

I have no idea. But the Serbs, being Serbs, were like, uh-uh, we're not having that. and went to the street, took to the streets. A revolution was about to happen. And the government realized they over set their mark. Obviously, those lockdown Chinese-tel Darwinians, I think, Or William-style lockdowns were not imposed on us. And instead they had some curfews, but like some businesses,

social business can't be open and after eight or nine or something like that. But life actually continued. And we were loving it because we could actually get on with our lives. Our son was able to go to, he just turned two just before COVID. So he was able to join a kindergarten in September 2020 and didn't have to wear a mask or anything. And it was great. I mean, schools are open. Things were happening.

And life was kind of going on like usual. But there was still some restrictions, but nothing like the West. Nothing like in UK, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, in those places. So that was really an awakening moment for me. You look at what happening in the West and compared to what's happening in that part of the East and what people were saying. And it was, it was troubling, actually. I found it unsettling, but that's what also drove me closer becoming a Bitcoiner. 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've 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 Forum 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 lines of history. This is where you hear

firsthand stories from people using Bitcoin to survive currency collapse, using AI to expose human rights abuses, and building technology under censorship and authoritarian pressures. These aren't abstract ideas. These are tools real people are using right now. You'll be in the room with about 2,000 extraordinary individuals, dissidents, founders, philanthropists, policymakers, the kind of people you don't just listen to but end up having dinner with. Over three days, you'll experience powerful mainstage talks, hands-on workshops on freedom tech, and financial sovereignty, immersive art installations, and conversations that continue long after the sessions end. And it's all happening in Oslo in June. If this sounds like your kind of room, well, you're in luck because you can

attend in person. Standard and patron passes are available at Osloof Freedom Forum.com with patron passes offering deep access, private events, and small group time with the speakers. The Oslo Freedom Forum isn't just a conference. It's a place where ideas meet reality and where the future is being built by people living it. If you run a business, you've probably had the same thought lately. How do we make AI useful in the real world? Because the upside is huge, but guessing your way into it is a risky move. With NetSuite by Oracle, you can put AI to work today. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP, trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It pulls your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into one unified system. And that connected data is what makes your AI smarter.

It can automate routine work, surface actionable insights, and help you cut costs while making fast AI-powered decisions with confidence. And now with the Netsuite AI connector, you can use the AI of your choice to connect directly to your real business data. This isn't some add-on, it's AI built into the system that runs your business. And whether your company does millions or even hundreds of millions, Netsuite helps you stay ahead. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get their free business guide, demystifying AI at Netsuite.com slash study. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash study. NetSuite.com slash study. When I started my own side business, it suddenly felt like I had to become 10 different people overnight wearing many different hats.

Starting something from scratch can feel exciting, but also incredibly overwhelming and lonely. That's why having the right tools matters. For millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. and 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. from brands just getting started to household names. It gives you everything you need in one place, from inventory to payments to analytics. So you're not juggling a bunch of different platforms. You can build a beautiful online store with hundreds of ready-to-use templates, and Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions

and even enhance your product photography. Plus, if you ever get stuck, they've got award-winning 24-7 customer support. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash WSB. Go to Shopify.com slash WSB. That's Shopify.com slash WSB. All right. Back to the show.

So you have a lot of conversations with world leaders and people in promise. in places, this conversation that you and I are having right now. Is everybody in the world at the highest levels having these conversations in your opinion? No. Maybe they are in close circles, but so I joined Jan 3. That's a company that Samson Mao started for those listeners who don't know with Samson Mao is he's an established Bitcoin Maximist who was the executive for Blockstream. Blockstream is one of the biggest Bitcoin-only companies out there.

And he then in 2022, decided to start his own startup called Jan 3. January 3 was a reference to the first block mine in January 3rd, 2009. And Jan 3 is a company dedicated to hyper-bitconization or basically nation-state adoption and spreading the word of Bitcoin to nation-states and trying to speed up Bitcoin adoption all over the world. And we have our technologies. We have our wallet, aqua wallets, and we do buy and sell Bitcoin. And we work on some other projects for revenue. Otherwise, we're known as a nation state adoption Bitcoin company.

Okay, so how did I get in there? Sorry, when I became a public Bitcoin in 2022, after going on a talk show here with my wife, the biggest talk show in Serbia, the host figured out, because we met with him three days before to have a chat just to get to know each other. And he figured out I was into Bitcoin. And when we did the recording three days later, he interrupted me while I was talking about my current traditional finance job. I wasn't very, well, not showing much passion about that.

is now a good time to talk about crypto. And that obviously was a good time for me to talk about, yeah, not crypto, it's all about Bitcoin. And then that then went viral because I talked three minutes afterwards. I kind of went on a monologue about Bitcoin. Yeah. And next thing I know, I'm on podcast. My first podcast was Daniel Prince,

his once-bed-in-podcast. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm then on Safety in the Moose's podcast, which was like, for me, a proper surreal moment, having listened to his podcast. He's, like, reaching out to me in my DMs. And like, oh, my God, safety is reaching out to me in my DMs. This is insane.

He's telling me how Bitcoin can bring back monarchies and stuff. I was like, yes, yes, that's true. And then I'm on his podcast talking about democracy versus monarchy and stuff. And Bitcoin, it was great. Then I get invited to Miami. And then Miami I met Samson. And he instantly just like, oh, I want to hire you. I'm looking forward to people for my company.

Do you want to join? I was like, yes, I didn't really think twice because I was looking to get an exit out of my traditional finance job. Because at that point, two years of being a Bitcoiner and working traditional finance, I didn't really feel that I was in the right place. So that goes back to your question about meeting presidents and other people. So we do meet, we try to make conversations with leaders around the world and people around the world, but obviously to talk about Bitcoin.

And number one, trying to start a conversation with a leader around the world, if we try to initiate, if I try to initiate a conversation by maybe initiating a, starting a diplomatic line with a leader or somewhere within an embassy, and I say, I want to talk to that leader about Bitcoin. That doesn't go anywhere. Really? We, no, it doesn't go anywhere. People want, especially in the European Union, other parts of the world, maybe.

What we rely on mainly is connections that I have already. And the other thing is, I would say is other Bitcoiners around the world. Other Bitcoiners around the world are passionate, hardworking, good souls who once obviously spread the meaning and the love and the utility of Bitcoin. And they have really gone to speak to their local elected official and stuff about Bitcoin. And so they've obviously identified somebody that's open to talk about it and then they need some help. So quite a lot of times we get a lot of messages, emails coming from random people, random Bitcoiners all over the world.

And then we start a group with them. You know, Bitcoin, I would say Jan 3 with a certain country. And then from there, we can get some meetings because we have some Bitcoiners around the world if I've identified a politician, a minister, or even a president that's open to talk about it. And I'm afraid that unless it's very private conversation, in COVID doesn't really come up. So it's really truly ground roots, people on the ground that are then kind of initiating that maybe have a slight bit of access to whoever the elected body is in whatever country.

And then it's kind of from the bottom up. Yeah, obviously, it's because we totally understand that Bitcoin is a bottom up strategy. It's a grassroots effort. It's what I talked about. Well, as we know, it's decentralization. It's fine. You can't stop it from growing on the ground. But top down, there's not much help happening there.

So we believe that there is a need for maybe some individuals or some companies or people to work with some leaders around the world and to basically understand Bitcoin because they can reach a bigger audience. They can able to market Bitcoin. They can understand that it's good for, not just for them, because I know leaders are very, you know, they look after themselves, but also they can have to look after their futures and they have to look after their people. If they want people to vote for them,

then we tell them that Bitcoin's good for them. Bitcoin's good for their people. Bitcoin's good for society. Bitcoin fixes a lot of issues. It doesn't just fix money, but it fixes energy. It fixes politics. It fixes so many parts of our lives. And we need to sell this to them.

It's ways of like strategies that we can engage with these, with jurisdictions, I say, or local authorities around the world. We see the bouqueti examples is a very rare one. I mean, I think that's not going to happen for a while. But never say never. After Bull Run, you never know what's going to happen. For viewers who don't know what Buckele is the president of El Salvador, he adopted Bitcoin

in 2021 alongside the dollar as their legal tender. So El Salvadorans are free to use the dollar and Bitcoin as their currency. And they were given a wallet to buy the president with $30 in that wallet in Bitcoin. And they're able to buy and sell Bitcoin freely. And this was beautiful. But what he did right, Bucalia, was given them the option, use either fiat dollars or Bitcoin. Yeah, the Cheever wallet has some teething problems in the beginning and stuff. There were some problems.

Obviously, government doesn't do tech well, but it got there and it works. And now El Salvador is, thanks to his other policies of taking down the gangs and now turning into the safest country in the world and opening up tourism, but also his technology laws, less taxable on most industries there, that it's become a very competitive country. So it's not only safe, but it's a very competitive state. And as a result, people are moving back. El Salvadorans are moving back. And people around the world are like, I would live in El Salvador because they're offering me X, Y, and Z.

And that's what my country is not offering. So anyway, I think El Salvador as an example, I think hopefully that will be picked up. And we see the ripple effects of Salvador happening in other Central American countries. But it's still tough because they don't have a Buckele moment. The Buckele moment was that he was uncorruptible. He was rich. And when he came to power, he could easily do what he wanted, what was needed. Luckily, he was a good player, a Bitcoiner and a Bitcoin maximist and did the right things.

But that happening in other countries is difficult, especially with all these elaborate democratic or tyrannical or whatever systems are happening around the world. So the other two strategies that we try to focus on as well is just as a store of value. I mean, that's what Bitcoin is technically right now. I mean, as a means as a currency, yeah, it's going to be there one day. But I think right now, I mean, this is the sale argument that Bitcoin is a store of value. you, it doesn't want to, you know, he doesn't want to, I say he, many people think it's happy the way it is right now, you know, ossification and all that. And so we've trying and

advise governments or people to, not just governments, but also companies and stuff to, to hold it on their balance sheet as on their treasury, because it's better than holding cash. Just what Michael Saylor says. If you, any, basically, Michael Say is much better talking to people about this and I am. So store of values and I think, the other thing is energy. Bitcoin fixes energy. Bitcoin is an energy back money. So Bitcoin miners are looking for the cheapest form of energy. That is good for civilization.

When you're looking, when you have the incentives of something that makes money that's looking for the cheapest form of energy, that's going to bring you good energy and then how to put it. Basically, the cheapest forms of energy out there are stranded or wasted energy. And these are in places where in electrical grids that have inefficiencies where Bitcoin miners can then plug themselves into those stranded, wasted inefficient areas and you can start some power purchasement agreement with the electrical grid with the state or so forth, and they can start mining Bitcoin. When that grid then has some stress through hot weather like it is today

in Belgrade, it's 37 degrees. That's going to cause a lot of people to turn on their air conditioning. That's going to cut a stress on the grid. That can lead to some blackouts. Or when it's freezing, it can be minus 20 or 30 here, degrees centigrade that is. And that's going to put some stress on the grid as well. Then Bitcoin miners can then sell the electricity back or just turn off their minus, depending on the agreement they have, back to the electrical grid. It stops rolling blackouts altogether. You have fortified to strengthen that grid completely. Also for renewables, whether you're into it or not, I'm not into obviously wind and solar, but other renewables like hydro and geothermal, it's pushing people to find clever sources of ways of finding or using hydro when it's not being used,

to convert that energy into money, and then that money is then used as in Bitcoin. And when I say money, I think Bitcoin, that Bitcoin is used as for infrastructure projects. And so basically, so what we're doing is we try to create joint ventures with other states, with other local authorities out there. And being in a joint venture with local authorities, some government, when they're involved in Bitcoin, then they will tend to be kind of to Bitcoin. And then they will tend to understand what the values of Bitcoin is. And then they will then be better and regulating Bitcoin.

Yes, Bitcoin doesn't need regulation. the rest of crypto does. And maybe they will stop, you know, create better regulations and differentiate Bitcoin from the rest. Take away capital gains tax from Bitcoin, allow it to flow free. On the energy front, I think in like five to ten years, it's going to become abundantly clear to the rest of the world how demanding AI is for energy consumption. And I think when we look at the existing energy grid, there's so little nuclear kind

of in the mix as a percentage. And for where I think we're going with respect to AI and the energy demands, you're in this unique situation where you almost have like a chicken and egg scenario where you're going to have a lot of countries around the world that don't want to like build out like this really intense infrastructure, call it nuclear, because there's just not enough of a demand signal locally there at the moment based off of the population's demand to build it. And then hopefully the AI data centers come or whatever, right? And I think when you look at what Bitcoin really offers, it's offering a turnkey. If you build it, you can stick these things here and immediately have somebody that's willing to buy all that excess energy. And then you can bring in the artificial intelligence data centers. And now your country that might not have been real competitive on the AI front for running all these models locally and whatever jurisdiction we're talking about, now has a pathway to be competitive on the global landscape with respect to AI. And I don't think people are talking about this today.

No, that's a good point. Yeah. I think in Europe, that could be now, right now. Maybe in the States, I'm not too familiar with the States, but Europe is suffering energy-wise, especially in the EU, we have these terrible laws coming into effect, these directives coming from the EU Commission to try and move us to renewable energy sources. And a lot of subsidies being pumped into solar and wind. And as we know, solar wind are not good for base load energy.

Completely terrible. So there's an abundance of now of solar and wind, but these types of energy are not good. So this is destroying our energy capacity. Plus, with the conflict with Ukraine and Russia, where a lot of Europe got it, especially Germany, got it energy from Russia. And now it does not get its energy from Russia. We know the story about Nord Stream 2 and who blew that up. Anyway, let's not go into that.

But we know how it's, Europe is shooting itself in the foot right now with energy. We are paying sky high prices for energy right now. And that shouldn't be the case. We could have so much abundant energy here. We have so many good hydro sources, geothermal sources in Serbia alone. I want to get Serbia to be an energy autonomous, independent, sovereign, thanks to its ability for its geothermal. We are sitting in so much geothermal activity. But obviously it costs too much.

You need to lower your time preference to access it. But if you hook it up, if you side by side it with, let's say, bootstrap it with Bitcoin mining. Yes. Then we're talking. But that's something for the future. So do all these people and the elected officials in the European Union, do they just have to experience more pain in order to come to this realization? It's a crazy one because right now nuclear has been shunned, completely shunned, especially in Germany. It seems like the coal lobbyist in Germany are the ones who are pushing.

the left lip tires to say that coal is a better option than nuclear. Because coal has come back with a vengeance in Germany. Look, I don't have much against coal, but it's a dirty source of energy. It does pollute the air. You can obviously stick some filters on it and clean it up, but Germany has great potential for nuclear. So there's anywhere in the world, really, but especially Germany. But what happened in Germany, instead of them going nuclear, which is much cleaner, they've gone to coal. And this has been driven by a lot of the Germany power. structure is that the Greens have some of that are in the coalition. And you would expect that with Greens of the coalition that they wouldn't go for coal, but apparently that's the case.

So apparently coal is not as bad for the environment as nuclear. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. No, it's not your imagination. Risk and regulation are ramping up and customers now expect proof of security just to do business. That's why VANTA is a game changer. VANTA automates your compliance process and brings compliance, risk, and customer trust together on one AI-powered platform. So whether you're prepping for a SOC 2 or running an enterprise GRC program, VANTA keeps you secure and keeps your deals moving. Instead of chasing spreadsheets and screenshots, VANTA gives you continuous automation across more than 35 security and privacy frameworks. Companies like Ramp and Riders spend 82% less time on audits with Vantta. That's not just faster compliance, it's more time for growth.

If I were running a startup or scaling a team today, this is exactly the type of platform I'd want in place. Get started at vanta.com slash billionaires. That's vanta.com slash billionaires. Ever wanted to explore the world of online trading, but haven't dared try? The futures market is more active now than ever before, and plus 500 futures is the perfect place to start. Plus 500 gives you access to a wide range of instruments, the S&P 500, NASDAQ, Bitcoin, gas, and much more. Explore equity indices, energy, metals, 4X, crypto, and beyond. With a simple and

intuitive platform, you can trade from anywhere, right from your phone. Deposit with a minimum of $100 and experience the fast, accessible futures trading you've been waiting for. See a trading opportunity, you'll be able to trade it in just two clicks once your account is open. Not sure if you're ready, not a problem. Plus 500 gives you an unlimited, risk-free demo account with charts and analytic tools for you to practice on. With over 20 years of experience, Plus 500 is your gateway to the markets. Visit Plus500.com to learn more. Trading in futures involves risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. Not all applicants will qualify. 500, it's trading with a plus. Billion dollar investors don't typically park their cash in

high-yield savings accounts. Instead, they often use one of the premier passive income strategies for institutional investors, private credit. Now, the same passive income strategy is available to investors of all sizes thanks to the Fundrise income fund, which has more than $600 million invested in a 7.97% distribution rate. With traditional savings, you'll, it's falling, it's no wonder private credit has grown to be a trillion dollar asset class in the last few years. Visit fundrise.com slash WSB to invest in the Fundrise income fund in just minutes. The fund's total return in 2025 was 8%, and the average annual total return since inception is 7.8%. Past performance does not guarantee future results, current distribution rate as of

1231, 2025. Carefully consider the investment material before investing, including objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. 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. But Philip, anybody who's done even the smallest bit of research, you know, two or three

layers deep on nuclear, they understand that there are tremendous safety changes that have happened over the last, call it 20 or 30 years on nuclear. But I think it's such a divisive word. And the public is so superficial in their knowledge and understanding. And there's no type of campaign that's being pushed out there to properly educate the populace as to the risks and the benefits of nuclear that it's such an easy political smashing of the hammer of like, oh, yeah, we're not even considering this, right? As you said, that war nuclear triggers a lot of people. It's the same thing as like, I put up there with abortion, basically. basically, you would get the similar divisions on that.

But I guess, I don't know what it is. I don't know. I'm thinking that they know that and think someone knows that nuclear could save us completely. And it's almost like a free energy source. Yes, it requires investment. Well, once it gets going, it's beautiful. And you do it properly.

But look at that, I think people look, maybe people looking back in Japan in 2010 when Fukushima was a Fukushima, yeah, that was quite a horrible incident. But that was their fault for putting a plant. right on the water, like right on top of the Pacific ring. Yeah, right in front of where tidalways can hit it and stuff. We're talking Germany, man. We're talking like almost landlocked country, right in the center. The only thing that they get is the occasional, I don't know, hailstorm.

And I think nuclear power plants can withstand a hailstorm and, you know, where this isn't, I know, I think it's ridiculous that we haven't gone nuclear. I can understand that countries like Serbia that don't have the resources will not go for nuclear because it requires a lot of investments and stuff. That's why I'm going for geothermal. We have the geothermal activity over here. We just need the investment and the Bitcoin miners to boost track. Yeah, nuclear nuclear was the biggest energy source in France.

They started to try and shut that down. But France was a leader in nuclear energy. And it's like that's not being studied or looked at or appreciated enough. I wish that the model for France could have been replicated out of the country. We wouldn't mean the problem today because our energy bills all over Europe are sky high. When I heard you say about it not happening in Serbia, I'm just thinking about if you could get a group of politicians that could lay down some type of public partnership with one of these large mining companies to work together in building the infrastructure for the power, call it nuclear, and then they get some type of fixed rate energy or percentage wise or whatever based off of the, you know, let's say they guarantee. a price of four cents per kilowatt hour and then maybe it goes within a five cent after a certain time frame after that. But there's something that's like put in place with the miner. The build out

is enormous from an energy perspective. And then the miners are then cooperating with the state to say we will soak up at least 30 or 40 percent of this excess within a certain time frame. And there's this relationship that is set in place that gives the state this incredible, resource with the power. And they're also able to set up, and from the miners perspective, like one of their biggest risks is the political risk of being thrown out of a certain region after they spent all this money building the infrastructure and putting it all in place. And so there's this opportunity for this win-win relationship between the state and miners that they get the duration of guaranteed, we will not kick you out for 20 years or whatever it is, right?

That requires having to go against the short-termness of the democratic rules, not just in Serbia, but to most parts of Europe. And they don't think about the long term. A nuclear power plant is not something that you built in four years, five years, in a one election cycle. So that's where the issue is. I think it will acquire some private ventures maybe, or it will require a good state actor for that to happen. But it can happen. It will happen. There was talk about nuclear here before, but this kind of fizzled.

I don't know what the latest is, basically, but nothing can happen. Yeah, but I think you bring up an interesting point. It seems like politics all over the planet are heavily biased towards this short-term thinking or this time preference, right? Does Bitcoin change this with time? You know, are we talking 20 years? Are we calling it multiple decades before the impact of Bitcoin's time preference starts rubbing off into even politics? Because it's something that never penetrates that. I think it will penetrate at some point.

First is the sentiment of Bitcoin, as you see, Bitcoin is it goes after its harbing site. After it's harbing, it becomes scarcer. It's stock to flow the ratio goes up. The price goes up and people get phoma and stuff. And it taps into the human psyche of sentiment, you know, fear of missing out and all that. And that's part of what drives adoption, right? So that's always going to be a player. But we have seen recently in the same.

states that Trump, for example, an old former president and hopefully could be the next president, saying things like, oh, I'm going to protect your self-custody, which is huge. Like the fact that he said self-custody and I'm going to protect your ability to self-custody, and I'm going to stop Elizabeth Warren and her goons from touching your Bitcoins, plural. I like the way he said, Bitcoin's plural. That is huge. So obviously they're realizing that there's a lot of crypto guys. I have to say it, but that's because a lot of them, a lot of people, there's, I don't know how many

Americans, 70, 70 million Americans that own crypto, voters. So if you're not kind to these guys, you're going to lose a lot of votes. So this is what the Biden administration, they've got to wake up to. Obviously, they were not kind to Bitcoin in the last four years. They did the bare, bare minimum. And if anything, they were actually trying to destroy the mining industry in the US and impose those heavy 30, 20 or 30 percent taxes on all mining activity. Just follow Pierre Rochard. on that. It's fantastic. He's great at updating us on that whole shenanigans of what they're doing. But now with Trump saying, no, I'm going to protect your bitcoins. Now, mining is actually good for the country. Now we should be the best Bitcoin miners. We're going to mine all the Bitcoin in

the world. We are going to be number one of the Bitcoin. That's fantastic. That's what it should be like. That's what every country should be like. Because it's the first countries who adopted, so El Salvador is way ahead of everyone. They're going to be miles ahead of civilization. They're going to be like, you know, like in that film, June and something like that. They're going be those guys running the whole place. I think this next cycle is really going to highlight how progressive and forward-thinking B. Cayley is in another couple. Exactly.

And so he's lowered his time preference. So he benefits and he's played the game theory way before anyone. He's cool. He's awesome. But now with other, when I'm talking about other nations, I think, so America now, we've had Trump. We even had R.FK Jr. We have a lot of other senators.

We have Cynthia Loomis. We have Ron Paul. kind of, you know, advocating for it, but especially Cynthia Loomis, we have some big players, big political players in America are advocating for Bitcoin. And that is huge. And especially coming from Trump, who was all anti-crypto, so all US dollar, which I understood his position because he's just American number one, which is a good position to have, because actually it led to a better foreign policy, but let's not go there. That's, yes, so now we have American presidents talking about Bitcoin. And that's fantastic. So I think that Bitcoin is going to be.

on candidates platforms, in the next 10 years, you're going to have, on average, about two election cycles across the world, and you'll see by the second election cycle, I think Bitcoin is going to appear in a lot of their platforms, because they realize that people are becoming aware of the farce, that is the current global financial system, of what they will start to learn about fractional reserve lending and banking. They will start to understand what Fiat is all about and how it's created. And they will start to think maybe I should take sovereignty of my own money and stuff. So they will start to look at people will start to look at gold and property and stuff

like that. A lot of people will actually wake up and start to study Bitcoin and realize that that's the best option. So that's happening at an incredible race. I think, right, it's plateaued a little bit as in it's still increasing over the bear market and stuff. But now we haven't even haven't seen retail hit the market yet in this run. But we've seen institutional money hit the market big time.

That was thanks to obviously, as everyone, well, most viewers, the listings here should know that in January, early January, I think it's January 11th, about 12 or so, Bitcoin's spot ETFs were approved in the United States. And that's huge. When gold spot TTS were approved in 2004, that 5x the price of gold, the years afterwards, with Bitcoin approved spot TTF, that hasn't shown, we haven't had a three, we've had like a three X now. I think it was a... I want to say it was like around 25 or 35 on the approval. About 35. It's about 35. So it's definitely two X,

but we're still in the beginning. You know, we're still right at the beginning of that right now. And we still are, yeah, I think, well, basically that institutional adoption,

that was a big part of institutional adoption is spot ETSs coming, coming in. I don't agree with it. It's not Bitcoin. It's obviously you're not getting, you're just getting exposure to the thing, but not actually buying the thing, which is something that I don't,

support, but in terms of gaining traction and people becoming aware and also institutions that weren't able to buy the thing before can now do it because they're able to buy ECF, our financial products in the old traditional financial world, then that's actually bringing a lot of money into Bitcoin. It's going to drive the price up. Yeah, I think that's going to, that's going to then lead to a huge supply constraint shock soon because we all know that Bitcoin had a harbing on the 20th of April, I hope it was. I don't think it was 2040, it was a 2140, depending what times when you're in. But that led to being, from 900 coins being produced every day to 450.

And now these ETS are sucking up about two, three or four thousand coins a day. So the math is suggesting that there's going to be a huge supply shock soon. And as Samson says it, we're going to get the Omega candle. Omega candle. Or as Adam back, you know, the Godzilla candle or something. Or as Max Kaiser says the God candle or something like that. And that's when retail comes. and stuff. But yeah, it's going to be interesting that we're going to see going back to time preference

as I think where people will start to, I have now load my time preference after learning and studying about Bitcoin and actually that I'm able to put my wealth away in something that is indestructible that has all the properties of money. It's durable. It's portable. It's portable. It's fungible. It's most importantly scarce, I think. And it's their acceptability now is something that it's had 14, 15 years of a track record. Now you can say that it's actually, it's viable. It's there. So it ticks all those boxes,

whereas gold only ticks a few of those boxes because obviously gold is not very divisible, very, very, very durable. But portability is a huge issue with gold. And that's what led gold standards ultimately lead to a Fiat standard. So Fiat, obviously not scarce, obviously, but obviously very durable. I don't think very durable, but very, very portable and very divisible.

but when it comes to scarcity, terrible. And that's what's killing us all. You know, that's what's creating the cost of living crisis because they can't stop printing that. So I think people are going to wake up to this and I've working up to it. And I think it's something that we can store our wealth in something that they can't take away from.

They can look at it. They can see it because it's there. Your pseudonymus. Your keys are kind of open to the public, right? But they can't do anything. Yeah, they've got to come and take it away from me with a bloody big wrench. But you have ways of mitigating that

and you have ways of doing, what's it called? Sorry, I'm drawing a blank. when two more signatures, multi-sick. That's the word multi-sig and stuff like that. But just so everyone's aware, I kind of lost my Bitcoin the other day. I was out on a boat and I've lost it all. So I got to start from scratch.

But I know very well that I'm stacking again. I have very little, but I know very well that even if I stack now, we are still super, super early. So, yeah. I love it. Okay, this question is going to change gears a little bit. But this was when I'm coming up with questions, this was my favorite one to ask you.

What is the best part and the, worst part of being a prince. For people that are not seeing the YouTube feed, Princeville of Space was like, do I have the answer to this? Start off with the best part. Start off with the best part. The best part is, who, you know, it's not easy being a prince. People think it's easy, but hey, look, I'm going to try.

I'm going to play a victim over here. This is not a very Bitcoin thing to do. But look, this is also why we all should be Bitcoin is. The best thing about being a prince can also be the worst thing about being a prince. Okay, my family is that I'm from the Kara-Georgievich dynasty. Our dynasty was born from Karadjordja, who led the first revolution uprising, I should say. I don't like the word revolution. That's a communist word, I think.

Who started an uprising against the Ottoman Empire in 1804. And Serbia was on the Ottoman Empire tyrannical rule. We were slaves to them, essentially, for centuries for about three, 400 years. Karajjorda in 1804 was an affluent pig farmer, like a woman. livestock merchant. And in the Shumadia region, which is very close to Belgrade, he gathered, him and some other Serbs got together in a meeting in Svetinia, which is 15th, 14th. They had the meeting on 14th of February 1804, where they decided that they would start the uprising in the Ottoman Empire. He was actually chosen. He wasn't the first or third or second elected. He was a third

elected, but they went for him because the first elected and the second elected said they had some conflicting interests and that. I'm not going to get into the details, but it was chosen that Cara Georgia would lead the army to uprising against the Ottomans because of his, let's say he was quite a base individual. He was over two meters tall. Karajorgia means black George in Turkish. He was a good decision maker. He would make harsh decision and stuff. So he had the right makeup for a good general in this situation where the odds were stacked up against us. But he might, he might, managed to lead an uprising and gather enough strength that it liberated Serbia out of Ottoman rule. And then you could see in the map and the old maps of Europe that the Ottoman Empire

with big like blob over most of southeastern Europe. Then in 1804, in the middle of that sea of Ottoman Empire, this little, boop, Serbia just appears out of there. That's Karajorje and leading the uprising. Then that kind of failed after a while. And then there was a second night of uprising by the Obrinovich dynasty. and then that properly secured Serbia's independence from the Ottoman Empire. We were a principality under the Ottoman Empire,

but what led after that is that there was two competing dynasties, which was the Obrinovich and the Karajorjevich dynasty. The Brenevich were, by the end of the century, by 1902, there was a regoside. They were killed off because they weren't playing well. People blamed that on the Karajovych's, but that's not true. But King Peter I first was then put to power again. again, he was put the power in 1903 and he was, anyway, this is going to history.

What I'm trying to say is that we as a family, we led, we were the leaders of the country, we established democracies, I hate to say, but we established a democracy that worked. It was actually more of a like constitutional monarchy, but with more rights to the monarchy than to the other side, to the constitution, to the democracy. So it was like a bit of an absolute monarchy and democratic rule at the same time. And this then led to the creation of Yugoslavia because Yugoslavia, King Alexander, King Peter's first son, created Yugoslavia as a way to protect the region against the growing threat of the Ottoman Hungarians. And basically, this was during the time when Yugoslavia, Serbia, the monarchies were creating a lot of wealth and it was a very good environment for asset creation. Money was backed by gold and people were making lives themselves and things were more less stable, apart from times in the first world.

World War and the Second World War. But this is pre First World War, post First World War, and now pre Second World War. We had, I say, accumulated. We had done a lot of business. We owned some gold mines. We did a lot of trade here and there, and we built a lot of properties. And we had palaces that my great grandfather built here in Belgrade, and we had the palace in downtown and stuff that he gifted to the state, to the people of Serbia and stuff like that. And this was all done through private money. But we had good, strong private property rights. That's what's important, is the monarchy. It's all about having strong private property rights. What then happened, Second World War is after Second World War, it was that socialism, communism came about

and they have very poor or little, well nothing, no property rights. And everything was taken away from us, confiscated, even until this day, it's still confiscated. So had I been born pre-Second World War, I would have had a lot. Now born post-second World War, I have nothing. So that's the thing. I think some princes out there or rural families are in better. I say not better off, but they obviously have a little bit more comfort, a bit more luxury. They are part of the system.

They have properties that they've been inherited because that's how good royal family monarchy is how descendants, how succession works is you look after your property for your sons and all that. And when it came to the Carre georgias family, there was nothing handed over to me. So I've got to fight for this again. But that's why maybe I became a bit coiner. And that's maybe a good and bad thing.

that turned me into someone who is a staunch supporter and advocate for private property rights. Yeah. A freedom fighter. And that's why Bitcoin resonated so much for me because, as you know very well, that Bitcoin is an example of property that it's almost impossible. It's that you can't take away with no dispute. When you buy Bitcoin, you're buying something that you can't, that is indisputably yours. When you're buying land, you can go back and you can argue with someone like two, three, centuries ago, this land used to belong to X or that nation used to be here and blah, blah, blah,

and you can bring all this sort of stuff up. But when it comes to Bitcoin, no, the definition of private property of rights and of what ownership, I should say, is much more clear when it comes to Bitcoin. So this is, and I think that will help with future arbitrary processes and law processes that I think that Bitcoin is going to wake up a lot of people to what the value is of of private property. And I think that's what the good thing and bad thing about being a prince is in my position. That's me in Philip as being a prince that I was born with. I essentially not that, okay, I was born in the United States.

I don't know people know this. My family, not too wealthy, but, you know, they had, you know, we went to decent schools and all that and they gave us a decent life. My parents separated. I went to live in Spain with my mother. She's a Brazilian princess. But then my father remarried to some random Greek and we had to move to London to be with him. went to a boarding school

and then went to university and then all of a sudden Serbia, we were allowed to go back to Yugosliva 2001 after Milosevic got ousted but we were allowed to then live in the palace but the palace is still owned by the state still confiscated by the state

now this is where it gets debatable where it's the palace, should they be owned by the people or should be owned by the family I mean I'm obviously for the on the camp that it should be owned by the family and we should be able to do what we pleased with it but no way am I going to sell it away

just to get money and leave the country. No, I'm fully invested in this country. I will find ways of monetizing that property or figuring out ways of restoring it and he has a lot of work that needs to be done. But doing so, I don't know, I'm going with this conversation, but yeah, basically what I'm trying to say is that in my position, it's great being a prince.

You get a lot of attention and you have a spotlight. And if I think I hope I have good intent, I have good morals. And if I have good morals and maybe I can use that to help other people. But then I guess if you're not, if you're a bad actor, if you're spoiled or whatever, and then I'm going to say that maybe there's disadvantages of being a prince is that you get attention and you obviously in a fiat, the fiat perverse incentives that can be that can actually go negative and you end up just being one of these instant gratification players and all that sort of stuff.

You know, I interview a lot of people and I've heard through the years from people that are just ultra successful. They say to me, Preston, it's not about the destination. It's about the journey. and it's about the trend of that journey. And when I hear your story and I hear what you're explaining, I'm thinking to myself, what an incredible place to be to be able to kind of point the attention. You're talking about the attention that naturally comes with the position, but also being so based, based on your background and what your family has experienced through all of this to be able to shine a light on property rights.

and to shine a light on what real money is and how it benefits humanity. And you wouldn't have that, you wouldn't have that opportunity without the hardship that the family has experienced through everything that was kind of taken away through the years in the past and going through socialism and all these things that, the hardships that were endured. And it's almost like if you were going to play a video game and you could start off with like all these skills and it was just kind of easy to go through the whole game and you just completed it. It's like you got to the end and it was like, well, there was no journey.

Because the journey was just like really simple when you could just play it and just win and it wasn't even hard, right? Games like Zelda did so well. Yeah. Super Mario, because they were proper journeys. They were proper journeys. The hero's journey, right? Like, the hero's journey, yeah, exactly. I don't know. I love it. Well, I'm not saying that I'm a hero, I'm saying that it's tough. We are all of us. Yeah. You, me, all those Bitcoin is, And even non-coran people who are just aware, non-coranans, or pre-corners are just aware of what's going on out there. But the number one issue that we are all facing over here is invasion.

And demolishment, I guess, is the word of private property rights. It seems to be happening at an accelerated rates over the last 70 years since the Second World War, some places more than other places. And I think even owning private property now in some places which you call free, comes with a lot of, what's the word? Well, it's not really yours if it's taxed inside out. Owning land, for example, even in the States, but I say owning land in places in Britain, I don't own land here, one day maybe, but it comes with all these taxes that you have to,

not just buying it or selling it, but maintaining it and all the duties and they have to do with that land is, they just, it just can't, it's a scheme. It can't just be yours. And this is where Bitcoin fixes that. And how can that help then with other forms of, of ownership. And I think it can because it shines of spotlight on how arbitrary ownership can actually be.

And I think that the loss process, it's something that's being destroyed. I mean, I would say ever since the first world, I think in the monarchical years, people would say, oh, yeah, okay, I would say that in the monarchical years of Europe, you would have better court systems. Cheaper, that's the most important thing,

is cheaper court systems in those countries that had kings that understood, that if they would want to hold on to their power for longer, they would make sure that their common man was able to defend themselves as well as the elite. And what we have now, so post- First World War,

that was what happened during the First World War, and afterwards is the destruction of monarchies and the introduction of democratic republicanism, is that a law system became much more complex. And when they become complex, they become more complex, they become more expensive. When they become more expensive than the common man

finds it hard to defend themselves. So when you then introduce a system of sort-terminism like of election cycles to these complex law systems, you're going to have systems where invested interests of those who have the elite will be able to pump money into maintaining their power

in those short election cycles and they will dominate the law process whereas those who don't have the common man will find it very difficult to have a say and defend his land, property, rights and all that. And this is what's been destroyed away. And I think part of this is what you see with land, with ownership, with rights and all that.

And that's why we live right now in a very divided world. But one way of explaining is also the contillion effect as well. I think that's why we're making it very, the cantyon effect, I should say, the cantilion, canteen, can'tio. He was a French economist, 1840s or 50s, And he noticed that this economic phenomena of that those who are closer to the money printer, that those elites who are closer to the wealth of creation, wealth creational money printing, favor better than those who are further away from it.

Of course, that makes sense. But what happens is that those who are close to the money printer get money when it's fresh at the lower interest rate and able to reinvest it. And they're told to use it to reinvest an economy and Keynes would say, trickle down in economics, you should practice that, but that doesn't work. Instead, what they do is they actually buy real assets. So they'll buy property, gold and now Bitcoin, maybe. So when that, when it goes down further down the food chain, where it gets to the common man, he can't borrow money at the same rate as those big elite. He has to borrow at credit card

rates, which is like 20% or something, which is ridiculous. Not only is money more expenses to borrow then, but it is also inflation has taken more of a hold since that money was, was first created from that when the elite actually was given that money. So basically, that actually leads to the inequalities that we have today. That added, I'd say, what's the word? Multiply, exacerbated by the destruction and not destruction, but the further complexity of our law systems has meant that the common man has really missed out over the last century and is suffering big time.

But, you know, apparently we're okay with all these distractions, Third World War, COVID, BT, bird flu, all that sort, all of the above, basically, conflicts here and there. And what the real issue is, is that the real economy, and this is what happened during COVID, is that the real economy. And I think you can be very eccentric, what happened over the last 100 years can be accentuated, what happened in COVID is that that hour grab was that the mom and dad shops, the brick and mortar shops, where the ones were told to shut down, whereas the big shops, the big, big companies, you're talking, your Facebooks, your Amazon's,

your Washington, Facebook's not a good example, because they will function no matter what. Your Amazon's, your Walmarts and things like that, and we're all able to function properly, continue. But whereas your mom and dad's shop, your brick and mortar were told to go home, close their shops, given some stimulus,

but that stimulus obviously was just a distraction. And those, that real economy, that brick and mortar economy absolutely got leveled, destroyed. So we had this case-shaped recovery. And this happens all the time. Destruction of wealth and then the elite wealth, the ones who have, the ones who are in control, the ones close to the money printer, the ones who actually have better rates, all that continued to grow higher. And we saw a huge expansion of wealth post-COVID. And it's only going to happen again. I don't know when, but it's going to happen again and it's kind of I mean now we're I don't know what the next thing is what

is the next thing right now world war three I don't know flu flu you said birth flu yeah I mean but they tried birth flu in 2002 or 2009 they tried bird flu I have no idea but it they need something to blame they need something to blame because financially the numbers that are brewing into the fall here are they're going to need something right I see the point they're going to need something this in America is that the labor markets there are absolutely nuts. What they're telling you is what is actually really happening. You follow people like, I don't know if you follow people like Edward Dowd. Edward Dowd, he's not a Bitcoin yet, but he should be. He is pointed out that there has been a increased number of disabilities ever since something was introduced in

2021. And so Biden comes into power, 20, okay, he voted in late 2020. He comes into power 17th or whatever, 19th January, 2021, and he inherits COVID economy where everyone's been told to go home. And unemployment is at record highs. Then obviously, he opens the markets up and he thinks he can take the, not to blame the, what's word, the credit for having all these jobs come back. But no, because he just inherited unemployment through lockdowns. Yeah, yeah. But then what has happened is that unemployment hasn't actually reached back to the peaks of pre-COVID to some margin. And not only that, the quality of employment is terrible. You have people on one or two or three jobs making absolutely nothing

and not being able to make ends meet also with costs of living crisis, thanks to all the quantitative easing money printing happening. But what I'm saying is that gap. Why is that gap? A lot of disabilities that have come about. And this was thanks to some things that were mandated in 2021, which is something that we should really look into and make some noise about. Prince Philip, thank you so much for making time and coming on.

And your response to the one question that I wanted to say this, I think what speaks volumes about you and what I've seen from interacting with you in person. And I just walk away from it every time. And I'm just saying he has so much humility for a person who just lives this really interesting life. And I just can't thank you enough for coming on, sharing your stories and just being just very candid with the audience and putting it all out there and just your contributions to the Bitcoin community.

you're just deeply appreciated by everybody who's ever interacted with you. And you're just like such an awesome person in this space. And I love calling you a friend. I also wanted to throw this out there. You and I had thrown around the idea of maybe doing something in Belgrade in Serbia at the end of August. I don't know if you're still inclined. I think we should do something. First, you thank you so much for those kind words.

Really, no, it means a lot to me. Just like to say that. Being a Bitcoin and Serbia is not easy. I think Serbia has a lot to offer Bitcoin and Bitcoin has a lot to offer to Serbia. Yeah. We have a lot of technical minds here, a lot of quantitative minds here, which is great. But the current sentiment here is that there's very cash orientated cash. Cash is king.

And when Bitcoin comes, when people are exposed to Bitcoin, they think, oh, yes, this is some digital thing created by the KGB or the MI6 or their NSA and stuff. But obviously they haven't done their homework yet. So that, you know, that physical, you don't have that physical ownership. And that's what Serbs like is that physical ownership. And that's, I like that. That's good. But that's one almost so there were one step away, a lot of Serbs for understanding Bitcoin. So whenever I tweet or share anything about Bitcoin, there's a lot of loud voices.

And you think Bitcoin Twitter can be harsh? Serbian Twitter. That's another, that's another level. Yeah. So going to what you were saying afterwards is, yeah, I think post-Riga, yeah, I think we should do something. Yeah, I think we should definitely do something. here in Belgrade.

If people are interested in they're hearing this, after the Riga, there's a Riga event, like I think the third week of August, and then maybe we'll do something. The last weekend of August, yeah. So then afterwards, maybe on the 27th, 20th, 29th of August, we can do something here in Belgrade. We have a hub in Belgrade, a Bitcoin only hub that was opened up a year and a half ago. So thanks to John Barry, I think that's what pronounces name, who works for Peak Shift. His company have paying for the rent of a space.

It's like an apartment location on two levels here in the center of Belgrade, top location. And it's called Hub 21. It's a co-working space that's also open for meetups, for lectures, for presentations, for also anything Bitcoin related, really. And we can meet there. And also, I think we're going to maybe make a meeting happen in the palace as well. Amazing.

At the moment, as you can see behind me, it doesn't look very palatial. still live in a flat downtown, but hopefully I am moving into the palace as soon. That's another story that we can talk about. Maybe, maybe in Belgrade. Yeah, maybe in Belgrade. But yes, let's make something happen here. I love it. Okay. So if people are hearing that, you're in the area of Serbia, Belgrade and you want to try to go to this. We're going to set something up end of August. Stay tuned. Also, yeah, sorry, one more thing is maybe we're talking about having a one-day conference, maybe in October 6th, in Serbia, in Serbia as well. Okay. Yeah. Awesome. So it's still very early stages. Stay tuned. Yeah. Stay tuned. Prince Philip. Thank you so much for your time. This was such a pleasure and really enjoyed the chat. Preston, the pleasure with mine too. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to follow Bitcoin Fundamentals on your favorite podcast app and never miss out on episodes. To access our show notes, transcripts or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes.

only before making any decision consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the Investors podcast network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.