What Bitcoin Did - DEBATE: CAN BITCOIN RESIST THE STATE? w/ Alex Gladstein & Fictitious Capital

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Alex Gladstein is the Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation and Fictitious Capital is a writer and researcher. In this episode, Alex and Fictitious Capital discuss Bitcoin's potential to challenge the current global financial order. They debate the feasibility of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, the implications for U.S. financial dominance, and whether Bitcoin adoption can truly constrain state power. MASSIVE THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS: IREN: https://www.iren.com/ RIVER: https://river.com/wbd CASA: https://casa.io/ LEDGER: https://www.ledger.com/

This is how the adoption mechanism drives. It's NGU first. The only way it works is that this thing out competes every other asset. Otherwise, we're back in 2010 playing around the message boards. No, no, no. Now it's like a $2 trillion asset, right? So it has to be NGU first. That's where 21 million comes in.

And then we get freedom go up. Like I think a lot of people are blackpilled, right? They're like, okay, fuck. Like Marxism didn't really work. You know, we couldn't take power from the capitalists. capitalists are like, man, it's hard to fight the public state, this ever-growing, life-sucking socialist monster. Like, you know, there's a lot of black pilling on both sides, right?

So I don't know whether I'm right, but it's great to believe in something that, I don't know, just fills me the like complete, unstoppable optimism about how we can have a better future. We're back, round two. So we've tried to record this show back in December. had a few technical issues. But it was a really great conversation. So I'm glad we can do it again.

So we've got to try and recapture some of the magic. So I think probably the best place to start, Fictitious, you're new to this show. You've not been on before. Do you want to give a bit of a background about who you are and what you do? And we'll go from there. Yeah, for sure. Thank you for having me on. I'm going to be here and been following the show for a long time.

So I think basically I have a sub-skyic that I've been very for the past school years. the premise behind this is that I think, you know, the decade that were in the years that are weighing, are years of big historical change. It's happening very fast. Both the speed and the intensity and the scale of change is much larger than people know of. And so my news is a way of like getting people down to the bare bones of like, you know, it's hard to talk about what's happening and what will happen. Let's first try and understand the basics of like the word that we live in. And I take that. from three perspectives, one of energy, raw materials, and then, you know, finance, economics, money,

or whatever. So I think these three are the intersection of, you know, the system we live in. So I try to, like, explainers about that, I try to get people on the same page about, like, if we have a shared understanding at least of how things work, which should be based in facts and, you know, objective reality, then we can have debates about how we should change the word, what should come after, etc. I think too many people, end up talking past each other because they don't have a shared basic understanding of the status quo and that's sort of being my my mission to say okay we can disagree about how we think the word should change

and what should look like but the word works in a very specific way and we should be able to be on the same page about how that works so that's what I do yeah I have a sub-star it's been going on for a couple of years now and I try to write pieces from all three perspectives try to dissect global issues and current affairs from either the energy or the raw materials or the Fang-Aons econ perspective. Okay, great. And Alex, the audience obviously knows and loves you. But just in case we do have any new listeners and also to help kind of lay out the context

for this conversation, do you want to just do a brief introduction about who you are and what you do at HR? Sure. So I've been working at the Human Rights Foundation since 2007. We help promote civil liberties under authoritarian regimes around the world. I also developed separately an interest in technology and how it's. can both repress but also liberate people. I come at Bitcoin from a very, I guess, unique perspective,

from a humanitarian human rights perspective, not a computer science or Wall Street perspective. So I tend to think of myself in some ways as a progressive person. And Bitcoin's been dominated, obviously, by a lot of libertarian and, you know, even sort of conservative thinking. So I've been interested in dialoguing, with and engaging with people who are addressing Bitcoin from an educated, more progressive perspective.

And fictitious is definitely one of those people. I think we agree on quite a bit. We're probably not going to talk too much about that here. But generally speaking, we agree that the world financial system is extremely exploitative, especially towards essentially what do you want to call them, poorer countries or global majority countries where most of the people and resources are.

We very much agree on that. agree that Bitcoin is very interesting and that it's, you know, probably a very good savings technology. So he's not like some no-coiner. And he's got a lot of interesting things I agree on in terms of his dynamic perspective on how energy systems work and how labor works and things like that. We have some disagreements about how Bitcoin will be adopted moving forward and also about, you know, whether it's good or bad that Wall Street and nation states are starting to get into the game here. So I think that's where we should sort of focus is on our disagreements, but, you know, it's nice, I think, to have a conversation with someone who has extremely

different perspectives than probably like, you know, 90% of the bitcoins you hear on the circuit, right? But hey, you know, he is a bitconer and, you know, in that. the lowest common denominator sense of the word. I mean, he uses the technology. But he's thought a lot about the technology. He's written some things for Bitcoin Magazine. And it'll be fun to go back and forth a little bit here. Yeah, I think that's probably the right place to start, because fictitious, you're going to disagree with Alex a lot today. But so the audience knows you're not just a salty no-coiner. Do you want to give a quick introduction on how you see Bitcoin fitting into the world? Yeah, I think that's helpful. I often say that in the real world,

outside Twitter when I talk about Bitcoin, people calling me crazy, you're a Bitcoin or whatever. In the Bitcoin space, people think I'm a no-corner. So I also in between the two spaces. So look, I think, as I said, I'm pro-Bitcoin in two ways, right? One, as an asset, I own Bitcoin. I've been in the space as an investor for two or three years.

That's where I found out about Bitcoin. So I definitely think the great asset to own. I have it. I'm going to Bitcoin, all of that's good stuff. I also think it has very good use cases. So, you know, over the past two, three years, one of the first ways I got into Bitcoin actually was through the Bitcoin mining. This is at the peak of, like, oil uses too much energy, this is a big problem, whatever,

over. So giving my energy electricity background, that's how I actually got more interested in the technology. And I think I wrote a piece, my first piece on Bitcoin was about, you know, dispelling the usual myths about, like, too much. energy use, you know, talking about how distributor energy systems can benefit from Bitcoin, the microgrid system. I work with actually a couple

of startups who are trying to do this both in the U.S. and in Africa as well, trying to use Bitcoin mining for, like, micro and mini-grids for electricity proliferation. So in all of those things, I think it's great. And then over the past year or so, I've talked more about Bitcoin at the

super macro reserve asset level, and at that part also, I think, you know, it has space there. I think it has a use there, has space there. And then the last thing, which I think Alex obviously works mostly on, is about people who don't have access to financial services, who don't have access to payment systems, etc., especially in global South countries.

On the war-torn areas, obviously Bitcoin is like a wonderful piece of technology for them to transfer value, store value, and access a global network. So all of those things, I think, are very good use cases, very pro-Bitcoin from all those perspectives. I think what I disagree is not with Bitcoin as a technology, it's exciting how Bitcoiners frame, you know, what you can call the Bitcoin standard. And then increasingly, and sort of more recently being about,

like, who are the champions in the space, right? We've seen so much adoption from, as Alex was saying, from banks, from nation-skirts, from rich people in general. And my big critique of not Bitcoin, but Bitcoin, has been championing some of that form of adoption in those forms of people that's like figureheads of the movement. I think that for me does a disservice to the promise that the technology posed, you know, even up until a few years ago. So that's why I disagree. But otherwise, I obviously think if it would be around for a long time, it has tons of use cases, ever-growing

use cases, ever-grown adoption. So this is more about the fight for what Bitcoin should be rather than, oh, is Bitcoin in of itself a good thing or not? And if I may, and I just add to that, I think basically the idea here is what we're debating is we both think Bitcoin is super useful as a tool for different applications, whether it be accessing stranded energy and turning that into something useful or being a tool for someone who's not connected to the financial system, which being censored or just doesn't have paperwork. And I think we also agree that it's good savings technology in the long term. Where we would disagree here is that I think fictitious is essentially saying it's going to have that role,

but the broader kind of credit and fiat system is essentially going to continue, whereas I think that we are going to go to a Bitcoin standard. I think that fiat currency will die and be replaced by this new technology. And I think everything we've seen so far is like milestones along the way to that transit. transformation. So again, like, we have some great things we agree on. I think we disagree on, like the big picture. Like, where are we going? Right. Yeah. I think I would just, just before you asking this question, Danny, I think I would say, actually, the week, what I was saying, I don't think, for me, it's not about whether the fear system will exist or whatever. For me,

it's like, we don't know. And I think the difference between Alex and me is we have a different perspective of causeality, basically, but how change happens. For me, we don't know what the monetary system will look like. That's the feature. I think there's, as Alice was saying, we both agree that the system makes could change. And I think as we change the fundamentals of basis of society, which we think, you know, causes oppression and exploitation. As that changes, there will be a new monetary system.

I just don't know what that will be. And I don't think anyone should be saying what that will be. that is, you know, as I keep saying on grid a lot, that is an outcome. That's not the import. The monetary system is an outcome of a new socioeconomic paradigm, rather than having the monetary system come first and the socio-economic paradigm change afterwards. So that's my thing.

I just, I don't know what the future will be. And I think that's, for me, it's the wrong question to ask, basically. That's the difference. What Bitcoin did is brought to you by our lead sponsor and Massive Legends, Iran. the largest NASDAQ listed Bitcoin miner using 100% renewable energy. Iron are not just powering the Bitcoin network. They're also providing cutting-edge computing resources for AI, all backed by renewable energy.

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that wasn't withdrawn to self-custody. Open an account for yourself or your business at river.com forward slash WBD, which is r-I-V-E-R-com forward-slash WB-D. Okay, so on your point that you raised about like Bitcoiners cheerleading the state, this is something that I'm quite sympathetic with your opinion on that fictitious, so we definitely want to get into that. But I think we should go right back to the start. This debate first arrived after Alex put a tweet out,

which included an Alan Farrington essay, Bitcoinstein's money. Now, in that essay, Alan lays out basically an argument that the critics of Bitcoin, who may argue that Bitcoin is not really a store of value in medium exchange or a unit account, are really concentrating on the semantics rather than reality. And in reality, Bitcoin is being adopted as money by people all over the world. Do you think that's a fair summary of that article, Alex? Yeah, I think it is. And so in that, you obviously found a few flaws fictitious. What are your arguments against that? I think there. I think there's a fair summary of there were two things.

One was more about the content and one was more about the framing. So maybe I start with the framing first. I actually think I actually read the article a couple of times after our previous recording. My main reflection was, I think a lot of what Bitcoiners do also is what Alan calls like semantics there for reality.

Because a lot of Bitcoiners will say, oh, it's this like neutral reserve asset. it's an inflation hedge. Those are semantics. Like, I've been saying this, sharing evidence about this for a few years. There's no evidence. It is an inflation hedge. It is very much, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

I think that's, it just is what it is, right? It's a risk on asset. It is, at best, a measure of liquidity, of, you know, how the market is feeling. It has a very strong correlation to the equity market, etc. That's what it is. Just by saying repeatedly that it's an inflation. hedge doesn't make it one. Of course, people will say, well, you know, in global south countries, with the devaluing currency, with the U.S. purchasing power, yes, but that's like any global

north asset you could buy, you know, the U.S. stocks, and you would be very protected from inflation in Egypt or on Nigeria or whatever, right? So that I think is a core thing. I do want to, you know, over this conversation, get more into that because I think that's a fundamental, I want to say it's an issue, but it's one of those things where it becomes very hard to actually have a meaningful conversation because most kind of people are talking past each other. They're like, oh no, but it is this. And the other side is like it is like, it is not this. And like I said, the start, that's just the wrong conversation to have.

It doesn't matter what we think it is. It's more about what role is it playing from a impact action-oriented perspective. is it a reserve asset thus far? You know, it could be with the Bitcoin reserve or whatever. Is an inflation hedge? No, you know, scutfi back. So that's one. Reflection.

And then two, I think, I don't think the, the, the explanation of the status quo was correct. I think, you know, it's very much about like, oh, we have this system, this fear system, credit-based system, deck-based system, whatever, and that system then leads to all these bad things happening, right? Versus for me, it's not that. It's the other way around, right? All these tendencies,

these are philosophical, ideological, socio-economic tendencies for capital accumulation, exploitation, exploitation of labor, you know, setting up an unfair trade system globally. All those things were desires people in power had, and then the monitor system, was a way to implement those desires or achieve those desires.

So I think just from that perspective, like, his argument of why Bitcoin is, you know, becoming more popular, so it doesn't make sense because it is, again, those same people with the same desires who are also driving Bitcoin adoption. I don't see the sort of shift in outcomes or desires for those people, right? It's not that those people have lesser power in the United Society. I would say actually they have more power into their society. It's not that they have changed their desires for capital accumulation or whatever. So I just go and see how replacing Fiat with Bitcoin leads to the type of changes that I think talks about.

Right. So the first one I think is I'll address both points. Slightly as smaller. And I think we can address it and move on to the second point, which I think is way more interesting. Look, inflation hedge, I mean, sure, you could say it isn't or you could say it is. I mean, the fact is, you know, we don't have data from Bitcoin being born into and growing in a world where there's monetary deflation. Like, we don't have that data point because we've never seen it.

You know, Bitcoin was born into the most inflationary era ever. in history, just in terms of just things like base money, amount of credit available, astronomically more so than 40 years ago, 80 years ago, 100 years ago. And it's obviously gone from almost zero to $100,000. So, you know, if you're hedging against that, it seems like it's a really smart thing to do. Now, I appreciate that, you know, Nvidia stock has also done well and a bunch of other things. So I see your point. Our point is that, like, if there were to be this thing that would be like,

a really good hedge against monetary devaluation. This is what it would look like, and this is what would happen, and this is where it would go. And that's why I think his essay is useful. But anyway, obviously we could, you know, we can disagree on that. It's more of like a perspective issue.

The other one is more interesting, actually, is like, so you're kind of like society and politics will drive money. And I think Alan and I are more on like money is going to drive society and politics. Like the technology of money is going to change the world as opposed to the world's going to change and we're going to settle on this other thing. No, no, no, no.

We think Bitcoin is going to change the world because of what it is from a technology perspective. And, you know, what I would say there is that, and we discussed this last time we talked, but basically monetary tech matters. Like it matters that there's money, virtual, digital. You know, we could debate the terms. A Gigi prefers digital. He wrote a great essay on this, that it's the only digital money that's not virtual, Bitcoin because it's tied to the real world, then it's scarce and no one can make more of it.

But that will have tremendous impact on society and on how people interact with each other if there is a scarce reserve asset as opposed to one that could just be created politically. We and I just use the Royal We for, you know, obviously people like Al and other Bitcoiners. And we think that's going to have a tremendous impact on the world. And, you know, Ethereum wouldn't have the same impact or Euros won't have the same impact. or euros won't have the same impact. Like this thing is going to actually drive people to change their behavior.

It's going to drive states to change their behavior and it's going to change the whole trade system. So I think that's the interesting part of the conversation. And the way that it folds into, I think the really other important area that we're going to cover is how that plays out. And to me, I'm going to call my thesis the big bad adoption thesis.

And I basically, my point is that, to all these nefarious actors you point to, which I agree, nation states, big banks, Wall Street, people are like, to Danny's point, why are you guys getting excited about this? And I think there's a difference between getting excited and just sort of acknowledging that that's the way it's going to go, right? So the big bad adoption thesis is basically like Bitcoin's never going to succeed if it's like a niche money for cypherpunks on the internet. You know, that would be like PGP where, you know, maybe it's used by a few million people at most. It's really good at what it does, but it never achieved popular mass adoption.

And that I think that's just not going to happen with Bitcoin. It's not going to just remain like this dustpull. It's either going to completely become adopted in a really wide-scale way or it's going to burn out and go to zero. And I think if you look at technologies like Signal, they took the promise of what Bitcoin did and they delivered it to the masses, right, because there are certain tradeoffs. And I think you're going to start to see that with Bitcoin. But the thing is, Bitcoin's money for enemies.

It's neutral. Everybody will use it. And like any other technology, like email, like any other open source protocol, like email or FTP, everybody can use it and everybody will use it because it's just really useful for something. It's like email, okay, I don't want to like mail something to somebody. Do you know, I want to just have it now, right? Like this is not political. This is just like it's more useful, right? There's no politics to that.

It's just like, boom, it's easy. Bitcoin's the same way in many ways. So I think you're going to have people adopt this thing. And some of them are going to hate freedom. Some of them are going to love freedom. It doesn't really matter. So you're going to have people on Wall Street adopt it. You're going to have nation-stage adopt it.

Dictators adopt it. Everybody's going to adopt it. But I guess what Alan is pointing out, what I and others are pointing out is that that's going to have major impact on the world. In fact, we were dialoguing with Adam back today, one of the original cypherpunks. And he was saying that Bitcoin's qualities will actually have this massive impact.

It's characteristics. It's scientific characteristics will actually change the way governments can operate, change the way wars can be fought, things like that. So I think that's really where we disagree is like, you know, is Bitcoin an outcome

or is it a thing that's going to drive change, right? Yeah. So I think there are two ways that I would sort of disagree. agree with that. I think the first one is, and this is what the back and forth that I've had with Bitcoiners for years now, which is I think there is this conflation of the technological features Bitcoin has with the value proposition that it has. So for example, yes, Bitcoin is an open source network, and even if access it. There's a fixed supply, etc., etc. But the jump from those

features to those being, you know, value proposition for all use cases, all contexts, for all societies, that is unclear to me, right? So yes, Bitcoin has features. Yes, adopting them will change behavior in certain ways. No question about that. Is that necessarily a good thing? That depends on the context in which the adoption happens, right? It's not, to me, it's unclear how this argument is made that fixed money supply leads to better social economic outcomes. That to me is unclear, right? So there's this conflation

between features and values. I think that the value of something, this is, you know, I was making the same point to Adam again on Twitter as well, that value comes from the socio-economic context. It comes from the social economic paradigm in which something is adopted. I think for the internet, it's the same way.

The internet obviously changed everything. about how we live in both good ways and bad. But I would find very hard to say, oh, the Ingram has somehow led to a decrease in exploitation or oppression or whatever. Yes, obviously it's improved the ways in which people can resist oppression. But there's also increased ways in which people can oppress or exploit or so many other things. Right. So for me, technology is an advocate.

of how things happen, not what is happening, right? The work part is socioeconomic. It's about social drivers. It's about, you know, who owns resources, you know, the power people have, et cetera, et cetera. And then following along from that, I think the second piece is money is a sort of unique concept, even this philosophically, right?

It's not exactly comparable to the internet or to email or whatever, because money is this representation of value or of social relations. like money is a representation of trust in society it's a representation of power in society things that you know email internet and you know cars whatever are not right money

money as a concept is more similar to like the particular system right the pretty system that you have the good ones they're bad ones but those are you know expressions of trust expressions of power etc etc money is the same way and so for me it's kind of hard to think about someone making the argument that oh there's this one

political system that is better for all societies across all the time I just don't think that's the case I think obviously liberals have tried to make that point about democracy for a couple of centuries but it's actually very hard to define

what democracy is how it works how it works in different contexts right like people in different parts of the world in different societies have different means of connection they are geographic African differences, there are, you know, ecological differences. Everything just changes the way society is shaped.

So for, you know, for you girls who say, oh, this is one form of democracy, we perfect it, now you take it, has obviously been a failure, right? And so I think just conceptually, money is the same way to say that there is this one form of money, Bitcoin or otherwise, right? It's not about Bitcoin. It's just philosophically the point that, say, you know, money has to be XYZ and that's good for all people. people for all times, I find that hard to come to terms with. And I think that is why

goes back to my initial point about it depends on the social relations and the paradigm of that specific society. And in many ways or in many contexts or many situations, yes, Bitcoin as a medium of exchange would be great. In others, it might be great as a reserve asset. In others, it might be just great as a savings asset. It's just very hard to say, you know, a priori, what that would look like. And so for me, it is more about like, you know,

acknowledging the fact that we live in this vast, extremely complex, extremely dynamic world, where it's really hard to sort of make these sorts of, like, descriptive or deterministic predictions. I'm more interested in thinking about, like, the process that gets us there.

And the reason I'm saying this is because that's why I think I'm more critical of the means of adoption than maybe Alex is. Because for me, the process matters a lot. The process does change the end. Whereas for Alex, it might be that, you know, the ends justify the means. And that is obviously perfectly reasonable. It's just a philosophical difference. But that's the philosophical difference. I think that we are trying to wrestle between.

Okay. Before you jump in there, Alex, I just want to go back. a little bit. Fictitious, you talk about how a fixed supply money may not be good in all situations. Can you give an example of when that would not be a good thing? So I think, let me go back to, I try to answer that first in a more conceptual way, which is to say money is, what is money, right? It's just an abstract concept that people have invented to engage in commerce, right? If I want to buy something from you and you want to buy something from Alex and he must have buy something from me, money just means.

extract those three transactions easier, right? That's it, right? Money did not exist before humans. It's a human creation. And so for that reason, a fixed money supply to me just doesn't even make sense from a possibility perspective because if you have a situation with money supplies fixed, that means that there will be some aging in society who have less of it or don't have access to it in that moment or whatever. That will not stop them from engaging in that transaction. If I'm going to buy something from you and you want to sell you that thing to me, but both of us don't have access to money in that moment,

we will find another way to do it, right? That's how money has, that's how monetary innovation has always happened. That's how the euro dollar system got created. No one centrally planned the euro dollar system, right? It got created in this way where, like, you know, there are people across the iron curtain who want to invest in U.S. dollar assets, but outside the US and whatever, whatever.

So money is very much this like bottom, not exactly bottom up, but you know this like independent entities doing what's best for them in that moment, right? And so in that way, sure, a fixed money supply could be good, but what is, how will people stop different economic agents from who maybe don't have access to that fixed money in that time

or it's very expensive or whatever, coming up with a better or cheaper or just more accessible alternative. That has always happened with money, right? So to have a fixed money supply, you actually need a very authoritarian, bureaucratic system to stop anyone from having innovation, right? That's how, you know, with gold coins, the paper money, whatever, that's the thing, right?

There's this very bureaucratic, authoritarian system that says, you cannot create, you know, the US dollar, or you cannot mint your own gold coin or whatever, right? that is what a fixed money supply is and it's just never been the case you can always have fixed money supply as the base asset i totally agree with that there has been times that has been the case with you know with the gold scanner with the silver scanner throughout history etc but that was always you know to to settle transactions across societies in low trust situations you know where you don't have repeat transactions but within society you have deck based transactions if i'm going to transact with

you every day and you would contract with Alex every day, there's no need for us to have this fixed money system, right? We will just do what we need to do because we know we like settled on some ledger, right? And so that's the reason for me, like I said, I never make claims about a fixed money supply is better or not. Like I said, for a society, it could be. That's for that society's specific context to figure out. I just think, and history tells us this, fixed money supply, is impossible to achieve because there will always be people who will innovate their way out of it. And so the question is, how do we stop the proliferation of like, of cheap money going to the wrong people, right? So like, if money is going to be created, what are the incentives and players to make sure that's being created for productive use?

It's not being funner to people at the top, etc., etc. and that's where obviously Alex and I totally agree that the current system does do all of those things. Just by fact of like paying interest on US treasuries, you are giving like a basic income to rich people, right? People who have investing in US treasuries receive trillions of dollars a year for nothing, right? So that, for example, is a very bad form of money creation.

So that's, I think, the argument we need to have it. What are the guardrails? How are you incentivized the right types of money creation, investment, etc. not about like, oh, you know, there should be a fixed supply and that's it. And then, you know, everything else will just figure it's out of. Yeah. So, no, this is the critical point. It's the fixed supply.

Like what is Bitcoin in the end? It's $21 million. It's the removal of the ability of humans to change the monetary supply. It's fuck you money. It's money that no one else can fuck with. It's your money and no one else can take it. No one else can change it. And that is ultimately what we are saying is good.

And I understand that people don't think that's good. That's fine. We're going to have these dialogues. But, you know, we're unapologetic about this. This isn't some like wishy-washy, oh, well, maybe it's good, maybe it's bad. No, we're like it's very good. And I think the way that manifests is if we look at it through the lens of something called the hierarchy of money, which is taught by most students around the world to study money and banking, you know, traditionally,

it's either at the very top of the hierarchy is something like gold or U.S. treasuries, depending on what era you live in, like, last couple hundred years, right? Then you would go down to, like, quote-unquote money, which might be deposits or time deposits or whatever. Then you would go down further to credit, and then you'd go down further to, like, sketchy derivatives, etc. So, like, essentially you have this, like, risk curve going down of money-like instruments that get sketchier and sketchier and sketchier.

And in times of peace and prosperity, people go wild on that risk curve. And in times of scarcity and war, all that stuff gets wiped out and people flock to safety at the top. So this is something that is commonly taught, I think, by both left and right-leaning economists and students is this hierarchy of money concept. So what we're getting at is like the new peak, the new zenith of the hierarchy of money is not going to be government debt or a rock that you dig out of the ground. It's going to be Bitcoin.

And Bitcoin cannot be, even in the same. the way gold can be manipulated and sort of pulled and created and created faster or created slower or, you know, we discover a new deposit, whatever. You know, Bitcoin is just wholly different. Like, it's completely predictable. We know exactly how much it's going to enter a system at any one time. We know how much exists now. And that inflexibility at the root, we think is a good thing. Now, I'm not one of these bitcoiners who thinks there's not going to be debt or credit in the Bitcoin standard. I think that's crazy. There's going to be all kinds of debts and credits. To your point, if two people don't have on-chain Bitcoin in 200 years,

they're going to do a monetary transaction. It's just that the money, quote-unquote, that they use is going to be less valuable than Bitcoin in terms of it'll be sketchier. It won't have the security of on-chain Bitcoin in the same way that euro dollars, offshore dollars, don't have the same security today as dollars inside the United States that are backed by the Federal Reserve, U.S. Treasury, U.S. law, et cetera. So you're right that money has always filled the gaps, and I think it will continue to in the future. What we think is just unapologetically better

is that the bottom, bottom-based layer should be something that's neutral and open and the same rules for everybody, as opposed to the creation of an empire, essentially, which is what it is today. And I know that you're not super happy with, like, what it is today. But, you know, to us, it's like what could be better than the base thing?

At the very bottom, you know, we're not talking about the credit instruments and promises and debt arrangements that'll be created on top. We're talking about at the very, very bottom, what could possibly be better than something that is accessible to anybody? Same rules for everybody. Can't be changed by anybody. I mean, that really feels like the only way out of empire for me. So anyway, I'll turn it back to you.

Yeah, please go on that fictitious. because I'm curious, do you think that the credit on top of Bitcoin can fill that gap that you're talking about? Yeah, so I think that's what in my initials is recognized. I wrote in Bitcoin magazine a couple of years ago. I think Bitcoin is a reserve asset is going to be one of the key driving use cases going forward. I think where I disagree with Alex is, is that even going to happen, especially in a way that is beneficial? So I was just talking about, you know, doing that is a way to undermine this sort of imperialistic system that we have today. Potentially, yes, I could see how that works.

But now this is going to the point about the process, right? Is that going to happen by the same entities and the same forces who have created and managed and profited of the system that both of us or all three of us are against? Is adopting Bitcoin somehow going to change that in and of itself? You know, and there are two ways that could happen, right? One would be that, oh, these people don't, that's the Trojan horse theory, right? They don't understand what they're adopting, and they're adopting for their self-interest or whatever, and then somewhere down the line, I don't know what, but something is going to happen that they will realize that, oh, we've adopted this, and now we have all these constraints

and we have to change, whatever. You know, something will take that, both their desire and the ability to act on their desire away from them. That's step number one. That's possibility number one. Possibility number two is that they are adopting Bitcoin because they've already changed their ways

and they're like, oh, we need to move past this imperial system and here's the way to do that. I find both of those impossible. to believe. I just cannot come to terms with how either of those could be true. I think, I mean, even before getting to Bitcoin, I've spent a lot of time studying, you know, the history of social movements and whatever, especially from a leftist perspective. And I just really haven't come across

social movements in history, whether they're anti-colonial or labor movements or women's rights or civil rights or whatever, where the people who, again, create and manage and benefit of a system somehow just give up that power or somehow that power will just keep going to work for them. Can I, on this point, just to just keep things moving. So dollarization, obviously we've studied this.

You're aware of this. It happens. It's happened top down and bottom up, but also top down in some cases. So in your view, why would a government, and there are governments who've done this, why would a government give up its monetary sovereignty and its ability to create base money,

by dollarizing. Like, it's basically becoming dependent on the empire. It is losing its ability to hyperinflated, you know, its people and to steal from them,

which governments love to do. Why, if not, that is just better money, you know, technologically speaking, you know, why would they dollarize?

You know, tell me. I think the reason, there are two reasons. One is obviously this, Washington consensus-driven propaganda, the economic education, which I have been through myself,

has been for the past 50 years, which teaches absolutely the wrong things about exchange rates and inflation and, you know, what countries need to do together out of this extremely debt trap, etc., etc. You know, the country that I'm from and, you know, basically,

every country in their region suffers from this, this false notions of, you know, austerity-driven economic policies because they think it would somehow get them out of this debt crisis, but it hasn't for the past 70 years. That's one. And two, it's because those countries that do that, they get to a point where there's actually nothing else they can do to stabilize their currency and mostly because they need critical imports, food, medicine, energy to survive, which they need to pay for in dollars.

is a way for them to survive. So it's not because they think the dollar is a better currency and by a doctrine of work they will be prosperous. It is very much a back against the wall a measure of desperation. It's always been, it's always a shorter measure. It never lasts because it's completely unsustainable. And countries realize that they can't do it, right? Or they can't sustain it.

And as you said, because societies need to have, like money, my issue point here, money comes out of society, so that I just need to have some form of control of flexibility on their money so they can adapt it to their specific context. And so dollarization actually is, I think a great example for what I'm trying to say, which is to say that having this external, externally managed form of currency is actually quite bad

if it's your everyday currency. Obviously, the reserve asset we can talk about, it's a different situation, but yeah, dollarization is an example of how, how it's only in desperation when you're really neat. Right. All right. Well, no, it's great.

No, I'm really happy you said that. So two things I want to pull out of that. One is there is nothing else they can do, is what you said. And, you know, if we look at someone like Safedine or whatever, like, and I agree with him on this, I think that's what's going to happen. And obviously, he's looking historically at, oh, you went on the silver standard. Well, we went on the gold standard and you kind of got wrecked. Like, oh, well, you used glass beads. well, we had gold and you got wrecked.

So for us, again, Royal Wee, like people that you're critiquing essentially, we don't think there's anything else you're going to be able to do. It's just the cold steel of a better monetary technology, and you're going to be forced to submit. The second thing that's interesting is externally managed. I love that phrase. Yes, at some point in the Fiat system, everything's externally managed. Like you as a, whether you'd be a company, an individual, a family, a community, a government,

like sort of maybe one entity, you know, the dollar hegemon, like, you know, you are, you're being externally managed, meaning you have no control. You have no sovereignty. So I wouldn't apply the same phrase to Bitcoin, like to a country adopting Bitcoin. It's not externally managed. It's managed by the public. It's managed by the people. It's managed by the global public.

group of people who voluntarily adopt this thing. So I think it's just such a different paradigm shift. It is indeed not externally managed. It won't be like, hey, yeah, that country over there is going to decide the interest rates for us.

No, it'll be not that at all. It will be something quite different. So I would be excited to leave this world where everybody's externally managed. I think that would be pretty great. Yeah. I think that my comfortable both those points is that

this sort of analysis and narrative, I think, doesn't really take into account the embedded power structures that we necessarily living, right? So for example, when you do a first point about how different societies

wing over each other, that's because of the power imbalances that exist for many other reasons, which is, you know, access to resources and social norms and whatever. And then obviously their money wins and becomes the dominant form of money. But that's not because, if the U.S. dollar, for example, right,

the U.S. is the global reserve currency because the U.S. is the, and, you know, coming out of the Second World War, even the first World War, was one of the most powerful countries in the world for, for non-monetary reasons, right? For not because their currency was managed a particularly better way. So money is a representation of that power difference. And so to your second point about it's going to be managed, the two sub points are,

whatever you can have any form of money, it doesn't necessarily, even if that gets adopted, which I don't think it will, because people will not want to give up those power differences and those power structures. But even if it was, in and of itself,

that doesn't resolve the power imbalances, right? And the extremely managed mark, I think scale is true because it's not managed by a third party, it may be managed, it's not managed by the people, right? Because it's fixed. It's fixed money supply. So some of people vote on like, hey, it's $21 million, this person should get more

or less of it or whatever. So it's fixed, right? And that does take away the flexibility that countries and economies need to adapt to their specific contexts. So again, it's not managed by a hegemon, which is great. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it puts everyone on an equal footing because the power imbalances remain entrenched. And I think the power imbalances,

which manifest or not manifest, but are driven by vast things. But do you, I mean, how can you, but, you know, so you have people who are essentially alchemists of monetary policy. Some of them are in purest form, like a king, we'll just like say stuff. But more likely it's like a group of people

reporting to a military government or some kind of oligarchy or corpocracy globally. That's kind of where we are today, right? Where is your trust in those people to do the right thing? I guess I'm really searching for that. There's what I'm trusting those people,

which is why I'm saying that to make... So why would flexibility be a good thing if those people are always going to be in charge? They're always going to be trying to self-serve and be corrupt. That's the thing, right? So the first step is to make sure those people are not in charge, right? That's why I think that's easier said than done. No, I mean, that's the point of like social movements.

Sure. So like the point is the, the working move past the current system. I think there are people who obviously have access to resources and access to capital. How are we getting that away from them? That's sort of the one line summary of one discriminatory. So, so can we just, just to be specific, so like, you're looking at Syria and that's like, that's a way to do it. We don't know which way it's going to flow, but hey, people like fought the dictator. They got rid of them and now they're installing some kind of vaguely religious technocracy,

meritocracy type system. And maybe it'll be great. We don't know. I mean, clearly, I think it's better than what was before. But you're basically saying people have to do that to win. I guess my counter would be Bitcoin's a peaceful revolution and it's the one thing we can do where we don't have to rely on violent revolutions. Like this is something where people can meaningfully upgrade their personal life, their community life, their family life

without needing to topple somebody because not everybody wants to do that. I mean, the Syrians had to, that's a tough stretch, man. But how are we to do that? What example is there? They fought and they sacrificed their lives, you know? No, I mean the big far example.

Like, what is, apart from the fact that, okay, the price goes up, you have more money. Apart from that, what is the way where a country or society or whatever, whatever skill you want to talk at? Simply by adopting Bitcoin, having able to undo the power structures that existed in that place, where they've been able to change how resources are managed, etc., etc. This episode is brought to you by CASA. For those of you out there who want to protect your Bitcoin, I want to tell you, about CASA, the leading Bitcoin self-custody solution. If you're serious by protecting your Bitcoin, then you need a rock-solid security plan, and CASA gives you just that. With their

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With Ledger's easy-to-use devices and the Ledger Live app, managing your Bitcoin has never been more convenient. Whether you're a long-time holder or new to the world of Bitcoin, Ledger makes it simple to keep your assets protected. If you're a lot of money, want to find out more, visit ledger.com and secure your Bitcoin today. That is L-E-D-G-R.com. I think the crux of this is kind of coming down to the question of whether Bitcoin will co-op the state or the state will co-op Bitcoin. And so, Alex, I think it would be good for you to explain why you think Bitcoin will actually co-op the state. And just to conclude the last piece, like, the answer is in the human rights applications. You know, there are people who

whose lives are meaningfully better today because they have neutral open money that can't be censored, they can't be frozen, they can't be stopped, and they can't be devalued. And whether you're in West Africa or Southeast Asia or in Detroit,

it doesn't really matter where you are. Like, those are really important properties and those are meaningfully making individuals' lives better. Like there are people I know who have family in a particular place, whether it be Venezuela or Palestine or Cuba or whatever. Like the Cuban government today and the American government working together

have created a situation where, Western Union was just like shuttered again, right? Because if there's new Trump sanctioned stuff. Well, that's insane. That means like all these people can't send value to their family. Well, we don't have to live in that world anymore. So we can just have a world where we can be peer to peer and we can have a peer to peer economy. And we can be unstoppable.

And that's, I guess, what I'm most excited about. About the state co-opting or Bitcoin co-opting the state. I had a conversation with Ben from Epsilon Theory, Ben Hunt, about this a few years ago. And, you know, it's interesting to watch what has happened since because, you know, he was transfixed by this idea that Wall Street would sort of roll Bitcoin and then use it for its ends.

And I was always like, well, what do you mean, man? Like, are they going to prevent me from being able to send Bitcoin to you? Like, I don't understand. And he couldn't really answer me. And my point is that big bad adoption theory, like the worst Wall Street banks and the worst odious regimes and capitalists or imperialists

or Marxists or whatever your you know, your kind of boogeyman is depending on your political position. They're all going to use this thing because of its incredible rise in value over time and because of the way it works scientifically, that's just going to continue

to happen over time is what we think because it's scarce and there's nothing digital on the planet that. That's digital, that's scarce. It's the only thing. So this is something we believe quite deeply in. It's just that simple, $21 million. And because of that, all these bad guys, quote unquote, are going to adopt this thing.

But that doesn't impact me from paying Danny Danny and Bitcoin or from, you know, Danny Pang's family or from the three of us creating some sort of app where we can create a community bank with Bitcoin or Bitcoin derivatives or whatever. Like, they can do whatever they want to do. And I agree, like, it won't be always. um, kumbaya. Like, it's going to empower some really bad people

along the way, just like the internet did and just like mobile phones did. And it's like any technology does. But, you know, I think you're missing the force for the trees if we only focus on that.

Like, yes, it's, it's meaningful that Putin can now, like, do trade. If he,

if he, if he wanted to, um, and accept payments and, and, and, and, and,

and, government can freeze. I mean, that's pretty important. I mean, even even doing trade with India, it's like he's got to deal with rupees and it's like the Indian government can freeze those. And it's not that great. He's got to deal with China. That's not fun. So, you know, yes, it's true that a dictator can do trade or save in a way that the other countries can't take. But the real, the real revolution is the fact that 140 million Russians can interact and do commerce and save in a way that he can't stop, right? So it's asymmetric.

It's true that, yes, bad guys will adopt this thing. But the bigger picture is that anybody can adopt this thing. And that's never been the case for fiat currency. They've medals and gold, which just don't work in a 21st century system. Like every other fiat currency is political. It can be turned on and off by the people who control it. And we're here to say that that's bad. And we have something that's better.

And society will improve, like, you know, as a direct downstream, like, phenomenon from using that and from that growing around the world. And the only way it can grow on the world is if it out-competes every other asset. If it's going to, as it has done, it is literally out-competed every other asset in the world since it was created, right? So that's how it gains adoption. And then from there, this is the Trojan Horse theory. like they know that it could take their power away from them. Just like the Trojans were sitting there looking at this thing in the field that the Greeks

had left. And they're like, I don't know about that thing out there. Well, but it looks so great. Let's bring it in. And then, of course, they get sacked. So that's kind of the idea. And I've talked to a lot of people at the highest levels of some of these organizations. And you can tell that they're not, they don't really, you know, it's hard for me.

Like, do they really believe what they're saying? Do they really believe that Bitcoin's going to like reinforce the dollar system? Like I can't imagine that behind closed doors they actually agree on that or they actually believe in that. They're saying that to preserve their business or to do whatever they need to do to protect themselves. They can't actually believe that Bitcoin is not a threat to the dollar. Like that's crazy talk to me. But they can't say that because that would be bad.

So they have to do their thing. So what you're watching is a collective kind of almost like a psychosis in a way where It's like they can't, they can only say that Bitcoin's good for the system. And because if they said otherwise, it would raise questions. But like, it's pretty freaking obvious that like the United States adopting a strategic Bitcoin reserve is really bad for the dollar. Like, there's no, there's no world where that's good for the dollar. Like, that's insane.

But they're all out there, all these people from Wall Street and government have to go out and say it. It's insane. It's amazing to watch. It's going to be really fun to look back on in 20, 30 years. But my point is that. that this is how the adoption mechanism drives. It's NGU first.

The only way it works is that this thing out competes every other asset. Otherwise, we're back in 2010 playing around the message boards. No, no, no. Now it's like a $2 trillion asset, right? So it has to be NGU first. That's where 21 million comes in.

And then we get freedom go up, right? Because everybody's pouring into it. We get new people involved. We get new designers, new UX. We get new programmers, new coders. all the geniuses. Like, I'm so confident that in 2050, the top 10 list of people who've contributed to Bitcoin, we only know two or three of those people now.

Yeah, of course, it's going to be Satoshi Hal, maybe Dorsey, maybe one other person. But the other five, six, seven people aren't in Bitcoin yet. And they're going to come because, like, 98, 99% of the world hasn't used Bitcoin yet. And we're just getting started. So it's like, it fills me with a lot of hope, which is something that I think. think we can maybe, you know, talk about a little is hope in a better future. Like, I think a lot of people are blackpilled, right? They're like, okay, fuck. Like Marxism didn't really work. You know, we couldn't take power from the capitalists. Capitalists are like, man, it's hard to fight the

public state, this ever-growing, life-sucking socialist monster. Like, you know, there's a lot of blackpilling on both sides, right? So I don't know whether I'm I'm right, but it's great to believe in something that, I don't know, it just feels me the like complete unstoppable optimism about how we can have a better future. And don't underestimate that. Like, that's a movement of people. It's a religion, basically, but it's like a movement of people globally who believe in

this. And it's not like something where it's, you know, you go to church or you have some monotheistic religion or other religion and they're saying the stuff that clearly didn't happen and make sense. No, Bitcoin happened. It's a thing. You can have a Satoshi. It's not like, you know, you're drinking the blood of Christ or something here. No, this is a thing that you can actually send to somebody else and they value it. And yes, it's religious, but it's more than that, right? It's like it's, to your point, it's power, it's society, it's all these things. So, you know, I'm excited about the way it's going to happen. And I've just been sitting back

and watching. It's incredible to see all these bad acts. adopts this thing. Of course they're going to adopt it, right? So anyway, thanks for letting me go on my rant. That was a good rant. And one that I agree with a lot of that. I'm really curious to hear your response to that fictitious. But one of the things that I wanted to raise before you get into it is I've seen you say

that you think, like, quote unquote, status quo adoption of Bitcoin is not a good thing. But I'll let you go on that. Yeah, there were numerous points where I want to intervene by Alex's eyes. but it's so bad. He was so in the zone that I was like, people should be able to watch this. Yeah, so let me actually, try to think of how he'll,

maybe I'll respond in three ways. Oh, with three points. And the first one was, yes, I think a Cuba example in Syria will be or other examples you give. Totally applicable. But I think those are the, those are the extreme cases, right?

the edge cases, and I don't think, you know, of course for Cuba, it's a good thing to be able to try to sell value through Bitcoin, but I can't really have a philosophical case for a global market system based on very extreme edge cases. So I would just be, I'm still sort of curious to hear more mainstream examples of this because, and this is my second point, because I think when you were explaining the sort of causal mechanism of how that change happens, you were talking about, you know, by having Bitcoin, nothing would be able to stop us, the three of us, for example,

from transacting and you can't, like, you know, devalue it or whatever. But actually, when you were talking, I was thinking about the same phrase you used. I was going to say to you that I think you're missing the forest for the trees. And I think the way that is is because I think, you know, oppression is so much more complicated. Like, how does Bitcoin adoption stop people from,

from, like, capitalists, from underpaying, laborers, how will they stop them from extracting natural resources or exploring communities to do that or, you know, tons of other stuff that happens. Just by having a currency or a monetary asset that you can use for transactions, etc., is good. It solves a very specific problem in society, but it doesn't solve everything, right? And the core drivers of socioeconomic inequality and all those things are people having the power to explore, you know, the natural resources and labor and all the other stuff. Right. So I'm still curious to hear of, for example, either conceptual or otherwise.

What is that causal mechanism where you say, okay, by adopting Bitcoin, now these companies, for example, don't have the ability or their desire to underpay workers or to exploit ecological resources. or the kinds of public stuff. Okay. And the third point was, I mean, on this point, I think you would have to agree with me. I think you are saying that, oh, people who are saying this about the SBR or whatever,

they obviously don't believe that. And, you know, they know that the current option will be backed for the FIA system. But you will have to agree that is a, really a faith-based argument. Like, yes, that could be true, but this is no, I don't know, I find that hard to believe.

And again, obviously, I don't have proof of what I'm saying, and, you know, I'm guessing neither you are you. But it seems like a very important pillar in the argument. You have a face-based argument for, you know. Yes, these people, you know, maybe they don't, they, they're so walking into this and they're on the one hand, a doctorating, on the other hand, having to make all these public claims about how, yeah, we support the U.S. dollar or whatever. But maybe that's not true.

And, you know, there are ways where I can think of how it does support the current system. And I think, you know, the Bitcoin policy and screwed memo is that are very clearly about, you know, the specific ways and the specific mechanisms through which it will reinforce the U.S. dollar, frankly, it reinforced U.S. imperialism. Like, that's what that memo is talking about, right? There's no question about that. Right. And that could, so, you know, that could be true. And I think it's very hopeful. I'll give you that.

I think it's very hopeful and it's very optimistic to believe that so many of these people who, you know, governing our society and have all the resources are walking into this without knowing what they're walking into. But I would be skeptical of that. And I think I just haven't seen enough examples of communities. Again, I know major big countries haven't gotten there yet, but even communities or smaller economies adopting Bitcoin outside of an edge case or a extreme case, and there being some sort of transformation of the socio-economic relations of that place

where suddenly people are not exploiting anymore and they are no underpaid workers and stuff like. That to me is the crux of the argument. So I think, you know, I would sort of take one step towards you and say, in this fight and in this struggle, what you define is a very important facet, but it's a facet. And I think there's a bigger picture, there's a larger sort of mosaic here

that people need to get on board, and this can be one part of that mosaic, but it's definitely not, it's not the canvas. And I think that difference between being a part of the picture and being the canvas is a very important philosophical difference to me. Yeah, I mean,

Look, Bitcoin fixes this as a meme. Bitcoin fixes this is fun because clearly it doesn't fix everything, obviously. Like, just because the money's better doesn't mean to your point that, you know, all the rainforests are going to come back and be saved. Like, it's ridiculous to think that. However, when you actually sit down and look at it, it's kind of crazy how many things it improves. Right.

So, like, the list grows. So, you know, again, refrigeration. There are second order effects of the invention of refrigeration that the people who invented the refrigerator could never even thought of. The second, third, fourth order effects of Bitcoin creation is we're only starting to understand it. I mean, to your most sort of basic point, I'll just list a couple examples of what I'm thinking. Things like labor, like marginal theory labor, labor, labor disparity around the world as two examples of things. Well, I mean, one of the reasons why marginal theory of labor, why workers get so crude, essentially, it's hard for them to negotiate raises.

And the currency they earn is in a bad technology that depreciates. And the only real way you can grow is by transforming that wage currency into like a stock or equity or to invest it in a company. And most workers don't have access to those things. So it's like they're kind of stuck. So if all of a sudden they can just convert or just straight up earn their wages in a technology that out competes over time, stocks, bonds, Uber angel investment, things that were only available to the 1% of the 1% before. I mean, that's pretty amazing.

And I'm not just making this shit up. Like if you listen to the guy who probably made the greatest angel investment of all time, Gary Tan, he said that when he made that, and I can't remember it was Uber, or something like that. But it was like, let's say, the best one ever. He was like, if I had just bought Bitcoin with that amount, I would have, I should have just done that. Like, Bitcoin actually out competed, the greatest angel investment of all time. So it's giving

that access to everybody. So I think that when it comes to like how people are exploited through labor, like, A, it gives them a way out of just getting screwed over and over again, even if their employer doesn't want to give them a raise. But the other piece is the labor arbitrage thing. Like, you can be at this company and you can just pay people less in some other country and the justification for that and the ease of that is almost like coded over with the paperwork of the currency, the different currencies. It's 180 different currencies. It's way easier to pay someone less than Nigeria.

If it's in Naira and all this other stuff, no, but if it's all the same, okay, well, then why am I making less than that person over there? Like, I actually think this is quite significant. So if we're all using one open neutral currency standard, I think that's going to tighten up a little bit is one of my points. As far as like other seemingly ridiculous things that it could fix, I mean, we talk about foreign exploitation at war. Like, I mean, one of the ways that America, and there's a great book on this called Tacting Wars by Sarah Kraft, an unbelievable book, The History of American War Finance. I think it's fair to focus on America because the largest

warmaker ever, right, like in the last couple hundred years. The reason we've been able to fight all these wars is because the people are no longer involved in the war making, which is really bad and totally basically her thesis is that the way the money, the money, the way that war finance has evolved has disconnected the public from the war making. A hundred years ago in World War I, World War II in the Korean War, as the three big examples, the public was very involved in warmaking. There was a draft. There were taxes that said for war, and you, you know, you had you like read them and you like got taxed and you understood that that was happening and people bought what are in today's terms trillions of dollars of liberty bonds but we're you know

they were contributing directly the war effort they knew it it was like a patriotic thing to do um and then of course again blood like the draft so post lbj post 67 we've never had draft we've never had war bonds in any meaningful sense um and and we certainly haven't had hired like taxes for wars. In fact, the whole system is built in a way when people buy treasuries from the U.S. government, whether it be banks or foreign entities, et cetera, they have no idea what particular sector of the economy that's funding. Like, it doesn't say to bomb people in Yemen over here and, you know, this over here. Like, if it did do that, the war bonds would be worth way less, obviously. Like, I don't want to bomb people in Yemen. Like, I don't think the credit Suisse

guy wants to either. So, like, it would be less. But it's not a disguise. and it's all just debt. Like there's no specific you can't kind of specify. So my point is that the way this is all evolved is only possible with fiat currency. Like it's only possible with this hidden slate of hand thing that allows Obama to go wage this war in five countries that nobody knows about in America.

You had a Bitcoin standard? That's not happening. I'm not saying we're not going to fight wars. We're totally going to fight wars, especially ones that matter. If some country bombs New York City, yeah, we're going to go fight them. Yeah, because American public's going to be like,

yeah, we want to go do that. But these like totally unknown to the public sort of colonial wars abroad that are, the cost is just like inflation at home, but nobody can put together the pieces because nobody has any idea what's going on. Not happening. So that's like another one.

And the third one would be energy poverty. energy poverty is the most potent thing probably holding back civilization and people expanding and getting the same chances as other people and I know you've written about some of this who's going to do that in the same way that like nobody wants to improve the currency technology of people in Libya or in Ethiopia

like in fact the whole exploitative system is built on the burr in Ethiopia continuing to just get devalued Like no one from like the Red Cross or the IMF or the UN has ever come in and say, hey, we should give these people dollars. We should give them the best money. No, that's never ever been said. Like they would never do that. They're like, no, let's give them the worst money. Right.

In the same way, the energy poverty thing, like who's going to come in and electrify these countries? It's like it's only done out of altruism. It's not profitable really usually do it. And then it takes like 20 years because it's not capitalistic. It's like there's no actual skin in the game for many. anybody. And it's like, it's like this little project. I think Bitcoin's going to fix that too. I mean, I think Bitcoin mining will lead to within 20 to 30 years, essentially everybody in Malawi having electricity is a country I visited recently. Today, there's only 12%. So whether it be energy,

poverty, forever wars, labor exploitation, I mean, these are these are huge things that, you know, perhaps it won't have the same impact that I'm implying. But like Bitcoin's going to have, have impact there. This isn't just like changing the color of the note that you get from the bank. This is like, this thing's going to have a major, major impact. And I just, I look, I mean, we both thought about it long and hard. I just think it's going to have an overwhelmingly positive one as it shifts power back into the hands of the people and away from corporations, baseless corporations and governments. Well, Alex, we've seen that. Like a little over a year ago when we were Malawi, we saw a mini-grid that I think was originally a charity project.

from the Scottish government. And it had always been... It went nowhere. It went nowhere. And then income Bitcoin miners and all of a sudden that's like a profitable venture. And now Gridless have plans

to expand that all across Africa. So, but before we... And, but here's the crazy part that fictitious, you know, probably, you know, because he stared at this. The amazing thing is, the people don't get screwed in this.

Usually the people just get screwed when the capitalists come into these foreign countries. No, the people in that town are now paying less for their energy bill than they were before. And it's like, this is something different. This is like a new animal.

And I think I attribute it directly to the technology of Bitcoin, to the currency itself, the characteristics, and the scarcity. I mean, it all kind of boils from, it all comes from there. So I do have a question for you, Fictitious, but do you want to respond to that first?

Yeah, I think, again, Alex makes this point very passionate reviews, so it's very high from your thing. You're passionate guy. Come on, you're very passionate. I think the, the crux of figures out,

think a lot of the examples you gave are localized. I think they're true. Obviously, energy one is one that I'm very familiar with, was working on something similar in Kenya as well. But the two responses I would have is, I think one, for the war example, but I'm sort of skeptical of that. I think war finance has always been a thing. Just in the American revolution itself, when, you know, America's going to affect that war, there was a shortage of, like, gold-silver coins that they had. And, war that it can stop them from being able to finance the war, right? They just create paper money for their soldiers to pay them.

Continentals. Yeah, yeah. And you keep pushing out the redemption, right, for that paper money. So, like, war financed, again, you know, my point about the transaction was whether it's like commerce or whether it's going to finance wars or whatever, people will always find a monetary innovation to make that happen. Of course, your point about there is a lot more opaqueness about how that happens today than even 50 years ago.

I think that's a reflection of sort of neoliberal society in where we are, not a reflection of like Fiat versus other forms of money, is just, you know, how society in general has gotten. So very sort of agamized, very sort of confusing, you know, sort of how can make sense of things. That part is true. But I think on this, like the energy power example, whatever, and sort of again, to make a conceptual,

like other examples as well, there is this, you know, for me, about why are these things problems today? The reason they problem today is because people want to make them problems today because it helps the rich become richer, energy poverty, or labor exploitation, whatever. These are not things that exist because, oh, we don't know where to fix it. These are intentional issues that are created because they serve this system. So my point number one would be, you know, again, why would people

who benefit of and create this issue, then suddenly be willing to adopt a technology that is undermining that system with the profit of. And then two, which is more, which is less political, it's just about, I think, it's a point around complexity, which I think at acts of local or smaller scale or micro levels,

things can work in a specific way. But as soon as you go, from the micro to macro, everything becomes different, right? Their emerging properties is a lot more, for the lack of a pair where complexity in that system. And so to assume that the feature, not the features, the value that those features will sort of transition from the micro to the macro doesn't necessarily have real true. And that's something, you know, societies and systems are not built bottom up.

They're very much a combination of top-down, bottom-up, and there's sort of, you know, emerging properties through that process. So I would be so just cautious. If nothing else, if not skeptical, then I would be very cautious of how are those values transition from the micro to the macro. Yes, again, like I said, the energy product example is very familiar with that,

and that is a great way with microgrids and Bitcoin mining to solve the electrification problem in South Asia and Africa and wherever. That doesn't necessarily mean that's a way to have this huge, like, grid or to be able to power and I think two billion people suffer from lack of electricity today or whatever. That's a very different scale of problem. And I would say it doesn't have to happen in this capitalist 20 years way. Like China is a great example of like how things can happen in a top down, very, very quick,

very, very accessible way. At least as far as infrastructure is involved, it's just about having the right incentives in place. So ignoring, I know you're very skeptical about Jiangai in general, which is perfectly fine, but just infrastructure example is when there is this push from the state, and I don't mean politicians,

I mean this skate as this conceptual platform where people get together. It's just an organizing entity, right? When there is that push, things do get done very efficiently and very quickly. So I would just think about that complexity part, more than anything, that, you know, things do look very different between the micro and macro levels. And I think, you know, democracy is actually a wonderful example of that, where in specific,

smaller circumstances, works really well. As soon as it becomes this big thing across, you know, a big context, multi-ethnic, multi-racial societies, etc., it becomes a different thing, right? And so there's some level of, again, if not skepticism, then, you know, caution, I would say, for people to think about, like, what does this actually look like? And I think, so much as I'm not just going to critique, but also think about a reframing that is helpful, is to say, what are going back to my original point about social drivers, what are the drivers that create these issues at the macro level of in and of itself? Ignore the micro, that's just this. an important but separate problem to solve

at the macro level with how the trade system is set up, how the oligarchic system as you were talking about is set up. What are the drivers of that system? And then how can we directly tackle that with the Bitcoin or without Bitcoin without going through or without relying

on this bottom up, you know, step by step way that works this way up? So I think if nothing else, people should think about these two things as parallel. Even if you don't want to say one is more important than the other, there are two parallel streams of analysis and thought.

I think too many people rely on saying, oh, the micro works really well, so by definition, once this scales up, if we work the same way. Right. Yeah. I mean, look, that's been my career, is like, I don't know, to your point, like I think I know, but clearly,

I agree with you, I don't know what's going to happen in 20 years with the global trade system. What I know today is that Bitcoin is an awesome human rights tool for individuals and dissidents in like micro situations. And that's why I do what I do. And that's why my organization is involved because it's kind of like encryption or signal.

Like it's just, yeah, it may help bad people too, but like it really helps activists, right? So, you know, it doesn't, it's really fun to engage in this. And I would say that like the work you're doing and the thought you're bringing to this can only sharpen our sword. Like it can only make what we're doing more realistic, more, like better, stronger, smarter, which is why I'd like engaging.

with you. But just two last things before, before, you know, turning to you, Danny, but why? Why would people do this, you say, like, if it's going to take their power away from them? Well, because of the incentive alignment. Like, what, like, well, why, why, right, so why would someone go and electrify a nation in Africa if that's going to end up being more competitive on labor markets and eventually taking power away from them? Because they're making money while they're doing it. Right. So, you know, traditionally when you have,

like, you're helping people out of energy poverty, it's completely altruistic. You don't make any money. And it creates this weird, like patriarchal patronizing kind of dependency thing. It's not great. But if we're just doing business and I want to come and do this, I don't care about the town over there. Don't really care at all.

I'm just going to make money because there's some energy here that's going wasted and I want to turn into capital for me and my business. The incentive alignment is amazing. And it's the same way. way with the Trojan Ors theory in Wall Street and adoption that I was mentioning before, like it doesn't require altruism to do its thing. And that is so powerful and so important because unfortunately, you know, most people just don't give a shit. I've learned that in the human rights field. Like most people just don't care. So this is quite, quite key. The other piece

is the point you made about like, you know, Bitcoin needing to say to people like, you can't create more or that it would have to have some sort of authoritarian construct. And my point is that's actually quite beautiful. It doesn't add any of that. You could go ahead and you can create your own bitcoins if you want. Like if someone wants to go fight a war and create some like Bitcoin cash or BSV to go do that, they're welcome to. I'm not going to want that money, right?

So we're living in a very different world in the Revolutionary War. We have the internet where like people are much more educated. Word's going to get around quick. We're in the like first second inning of Bitcoin. Once we're in like the sixth, seventh inning, and like most people understand what it is and how it functions and what it works and how it works, they're not going to want your like derivative. I mean, and if, and if, and if you make it, that's going to be, you're going to have to pay a very serious interest rate for me to be interested in parting with my Bitcoin. You want me to give some Bitcoin for Fool's Gold? Okay.

Yeah, you're going to have to pay me like 20% interest, you know, on that or something like that. Like it's going to be, it's going to really take a lot for me to part with the real thing. If you want to go fight a war with Continentals, you want to print a bunch of money. Go for it. Do it. It's not going to be worth much. So I just think it's like a very different world than before. And again, the beautiful thing is it doesn't require a monetary authority to prevent you from printing. It's just like you're going to suffer from your own consequences.

If you want to go ahead and print meme coins, it's like the Central African Republic. they should have just stayed humble and stacked sets. They'd be doing awesome right now. If they had just invested in mining and stacked Bitcoin two years ago, they'd have triple or quadruple or whatever the amount of money they invested in. Instead, they lost it all, and now they launched a meme coin, and it's down 90%. And it's just like, go ahead, make your other currency.

It's just like it's, and maybe you can exploit people in doing so. Clearly, like the people who, they made a couple million bucks, whatever, probably with this meme coin. But like, it's not sustainable. And people get pissed and fight you. And it's just like, this is a harmonious way where we can all get, whether it's we can get poor slower or we can get rich faster, whatever the way you want to look at it.

But we can do it in a way where there's, no one's getting stolen from, right? So in any event, it's been a lot of fun, but I've enjoyed going into these things. I just can't get a realization. I think the two things that we talked about in our previous conversation, which we can get to this time, which, you know, our responses to your point is,

A, about this concept of, like, money necessarily having this aspect of particular authority behind it and, you know, like, gang people choose this specific form of money or as money imposed drop down, etc., etc. And then that's an important part about, like, yeah, you know, you could choose that, or if you could say,

I don't want this confidential school finance as well, but again, in a situation where you have particular authority, that's, you know, money is an imposition of particular authority in many ways. And then, too, I think about, like, you know, how this works when it, like, scales up across different things. So, like, yeah, the Central African Republic being one sort of small example, but it would look very different if it was, like, a global system. and, you know, if it was money. Right now, you know, we talk about out-competing,

it's out-competing Fiat. Very magical word, but there is no Fiat, then, you know, the dynamics become totally different, right? Yeah. But those are probably topics and other conversations. But I don't think, because I don't think the part around like, money, and I know we're talking about money being a social creation and representation of social drivers.

But I, you know, didn't talk enough about how money, because it's a social creation gets created through political authority. Money is always something that you are either tax-paying or you have to pay your, you know, that's how you pay for public services or utilities or whatever, and that is a way. So unless you have your incentives aligned

with the people who control power in a sovereign entity, you know, the incentives around money will also not be aligned. So that was just another thing that I think people should just think more about. I think what you just described, describes history essentially up to this point. And then our royal we point would be until now. Like, you know, Bitcoin was not created by a political authority. And it was not created with an imposition of violence.

There's never been a violent threat behind it. No one's ever forced it. And when they have tried to force it, it doesn't really work. It's only a bottom up thing. that happens gradually, but then suddenly. So we'll see. But look, I really... But we become a reserve asset only through

a target. We're only becoming a reserve asset when the government of, you know, the U.S. government or some other government says, oh, now we have to... Yeah, but that's how it's going to happen. Like, it's not going to become the open, neutral currency for the whole world.

And no governments are involved? That's impossible. You won't... It's like, oh, the United States government has dollars and China has R&B and India has rupees or whatever but like everybody's using Bitcoin no that's not going to happen

like there has my point is there has to be nation state adoption it is it is essential to the success of the thing if it's going to get to the point where a lot of us wanted to get to where it's like I can go to any country I don't have to deal with the bank I can just go somewhere

I can pay for something in Bitcoin the person is happy to take it you know I can save in it you know without devaluing people can earn wages in it. If we want to get to that world, you're going to see J.P. Morgan and BlackRock and all the governments and the big bad agencies. They're going to adopt it along the way.

We can't get to the utopia without the bumpy parts. It's not possible. That's, I guess, my thesis. So anyway, so we'll see where we go. And very grateful to Danny, obviously, for hosting this chat. Well, I massively appreciate it. And I think we're obviously, we're not going to find, we're not all going to agree on this. And that's okay. Like, I still think these conversations really worthwhile. That's the fun part. Exactly. But before, I want to give you both a chance to kind of just give a takeaway from this debate. But before we do, fictitious, I've got one more question for you. At the start of this conversation, you framed yourself as you're a bitcoiner, you believe in Bitcoin. But what is it that you believe in if you don't think it's going to implement all this change that we as Bitcoin has talk about? Is this just number go up technology for you? No, no, I think I was saying, right, social change or the scale of social change we need is this complicated mosaic.

And Bitcoin addresses parts of that mosaic, which, you know, stuff that Alex works a lot on, which is giving access to this global payment system, you know, a savings technology for people who don't have access to U.S. equities, whatever. You know, the energy example, obviously. So in that big mosaic of like, you know, this big forest of change, they are. certain trees that Bitcoin will help grow further. I just don't think it's a facet, right? It's not, it's not sort of a totalitarian change, the scale at which, you know, we probably need is my point. I think Bitcoin should be a quiver,

it should be an arrow in a much broader quiver. I just feel this is not about, I excesses about most other bitcoins that I engage with. They don't think about the other. arrows in the river and that's the summary of here. Okay, that's fair. All right, so just before we close out, I think it would be good for you both to give

kind of a key takeaway from this debate. So, Alex, do you want to kick us off? Yeah. I mean, look, one thing I'm going to be focusing on moving forward is like, how could I be wrong? And I appreciate these critiques and these challenges coming from someone who has found utility in this technology. You know, one thing that I'm really focused on

and thinking about a lot lately is in 100 years, is Bitcoin going to be free to money for everybody or just some people? And, you know, I think that either way, it improved the state of the world in some way. But obviously, if it's only freedom money for corporations, nation states, and super rich people who can afford the on-chain fee

versus we find ways to do transaction collaboration and pools where people can, actually use Bitcoin in an affordable way, even if they have no savings in 100 years. Those are two very different worlds, and I really want to get to the latter world. I still think it's a victory, like if Bitcoin's around then,

even if only a handful people can use it in the most sovereign way. But I'd love to get to the point where it really fully blossoms. And I know the only way to get there is to look deeply at the difficult things and the hard things and contemplate those quite deeply.

Like, you know, we could be wrong about X, Y, and Z. So I'm always looking at that stuff because I want to get to the better place. I just continue to be surprised, I suppose, by like, the things that Bitcoin does. Like, it just kind of always outperforming what I would expect out of it. But at the end of the day,

Bitcoiners in general would really, it would behoove them to expand their political, you know, sort of diet, I think, and just talk to more people with different views. And to go back to the beginning, I think Alan Farrington does a great job of this. If anyone's ever read his book, Bitcoin is Venice, like you can tell, he really draws on all different kinds of thinkers. And that's really what I try to do in my work as well. I try to find people who I can at least agree partly with. I don't have to agree the full thing on.

I mean, there are some sensational academics where they did some awesome work on like the INAF, for example. But I would totally disagree with them on like the solution, you know, where mostly it was like, let's support some like leftist gorilla or whatever. Be like, nah. And then also they like, they don't understand Bitcoin at all. And I think it's like absurd that I didn't suggest it. So it's okay. Like we can disagree on those things, but we can agree on the fact that the IMF is like evil or whatever. That's fine.

So my goal is to try to really, you know, be friendly with and to engage with people who I can get kind of halfway on. And it really, really helps me. So I hope we can do more and more of this moving forward. Yeah, they don't get Bitcoin yet, but they will. Okay, fictitious. Yeah. Yeah, I think, let's make a great point. I think the three things I would say for people to help do that,

both engage with more people and just think about how they could be wrong. I think one, the point that I started with, people should really try and differentiate between features and value a lot more. They don't necessarily have to be the same thing, and there's this jump from features to value, and people should really think about, you know, in which context that jump applies and which it doesn't. I think the second thing is, because we live in, you know, agnostic of this whole conversation,

we do live in a very fast-changing worry, where lots of things are unraveling and the space for new things is emerging. So I think people really should think about the source of the ideas that they are either critiquing or adopting. I think a lot of people who think that they are against the system still deploy tools from that system. They still will think of politics or economics or whatever from this very liberal perspective, even though liberalism is what has shaped the system today. Again, it doesn't mean it's good a bad thing, but just recognizing that, you know, you might be critiquing the system, but you are still using the intellectual or conceptual tools from that system

and just being conscious of that and making sure you're doing that intentionally. I think a lot of conversations, particularly around inflation, are very much mainstream Econ 101, even though the same people are trying to critique mainstream economists, you know, on inflation. So that's two. And I think three is because we're given this very complex world, you know, this cork that I'd read somewhere on Twitter a few years ago,

is that it's much better to focus on the left-hand side of the equation, then the right hand side. The right hand side is like, you know, is equal to one number or one answer. A lot of us spent a lot of time arguing about that answer, you know, or that prediction, whatever. It's much, but it's, I think it's impossible for anyone to predict the outcome of a complex system. It's much better to spend your energy on the left-hand side of the equation. You know, what are the input variables? And do people have a very good grasp of those input variables?

but that's the only way you'll be able to know that you're wrong early and pivot. If you don't know why something is happening, you won't know why it's not happening and you can't pivot. So that's, you know, the premise behind, you know, my work and my newsletter is to really focus on the reference side of the equation. I guess how energy works. I understand how raw materials work. I understand how money works.

And then I don't know what the future will look like, but neither do you. And, you know, at least we'll be able to see the science. posts as they emerge, right? Rather than arguing about like, oh, this can happen or it's really happening tomorrow or whatever. That's just a waste of people's time, right? So I think, yeah, focus on the left-time side of the equation because there's no way anyone is predicting, you know, how things are going to unravel in any dimension of society. So I think people should be a lot more humble and a lot more willing to understand the left-kind injuries of the fundamentals. Because without that, there is no hope. If you're going to understand the

fundamentals of everything, there is no hope in so being able to analyze a predict the future. Just one quote to end it on, which I think helps because it's from someone who's a famous socialist in history and most Bitcoiners would be like, and it's fine. You don't have to agree with what else they say, but they have a lot of, a lot of these people have amazing insights. And I'm going to say something from Antonio Gramsci. And he has this. this quote that I just love, and I think it applies to the field that we've been playing on during this conversation, basically, in that, like, we have this old system, we both agree, it doesn't really work, and we'll see where we go from here.

And the quote is, the crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born in this interregnum, a great variety of morbid symptoms appear. And that's kind of where we are. Like Bitcoin just like can't what today serve everybody. And the old system's definitely broken. It's just going to take time. And in that time, a lot of bad shit's going to happen. But, you know, it's on us to see how best we can,

we can ameliorate some of those things and chart a better course. So with that said, Danny, thank you for resuscitating WBD, keeping it going. It feels such an important gap, I feel. in the ecosystem. And it's an honor and a pleasure always to be on. And super happy that we could have fictitious today. So thank you. Thank you both gentlemen. No, thank you. I think this has been a really important conversation. I think there's a lot of valuable takeaways from this. So yeah, thank you for both making the time again. I'm glad we could do this. And yeah,

appreciate you both. Cool. Thank you. Next time you should fly, I ask we're going to. Thank you, guys. Yeah, there you go. We'll do it in person.