What Bitcoin Did - Saving Bedford with Bitcoin | Peter McCormack

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

In this episode, Peter breaks down his five-year legal battle with Craig Wright, how UK libel laws were weaponised against him, and the moment the case finally turned in his favour. We also get into his fight to save Bedford, and why running businesses there changed his political view, how government policy makes entrepreneurship harder, and turning to private solutions because of the failure of the state. In this episode: - Craig Wright’s lawsuits and the UK libel system - The real impact of government policy - The mission to save Bedford THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS: IREN RIVER ANCHORWATCH BLOCKWARE LEDN BITKEY Follow: Danny Knowles: https://x.com/\\\_DannyKnowles or https://primal.net/danny Peter McCormack: https://x.com/PeterMcCormack

Everything I owned would have been sold off. It was horrific. The bigger government is, the more people are there will grift it, and the more it will destroy society. I just think I'm doing what we said we were going to do. Like, we were meant to go out and fix the world. We've got a communist government at a time when there's no money where they're increasing regulation, increasing taxes.

Joblessness is going up, the inflation is up, growth is stagnant. The only sensible path is peaceful reverend. parallel institutions, privately funded, doing the job of the state within the law and proven we don't need you. I want somebody who's going to dismantle the state, the apparatus of the state, the power of the state and put it into the hands of the people. He says, I've had enough, I'm fixing this.

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So it's not muted? Are we going to tell the story? Because we've been... Together, we did, what, 700 podcasts? 800 podcasts? I mean, I hosted seven... I didn't produce 700 podcasts. I wasn't the sound engineer for 700 podcasts.

Correct. And I don't... Actually, I was. You were at first. Yeah, and I... I don't remember ever recording a show and muting... That is absolutely bullshit.

Muting some... Muting the whole conversation. I never lost a whole conversation. I think that's bullshit. No, I once lost my audio. Oh, and you had to re-report. Yeah, I had to like sit there and literally... That was before the video days, though.

Before the video days. But yeah, I've never lost a whole audio of a podcast. Well, I am... I've done it twice already. All right, Jeremy. I never did it once. God, Jeremy. I never did it once on what Bitcoin did old version, but I've done it twice already here.

So tell the story. We took a photo in Manchester in a studio saying, we've just recorded a... Dropping next week. Dropping next week. What happened? I did press record. I technically did press record, but I had the channels muted and we got no audio.

But I just want to spend more time with you, Pete. We're back. We're so back. What are we talking about today? You being the Bedford Batman. You being the host of what Bitcoin did. Yeah. Is it weird?

Is it weird? How much do you miss this? I've just been in Riga for three days. I had a ball. I saw all our friends. God, there's a lot to answer with that one question alone. I miss the ritual.

Like, I've swapped out meeting you every six weeks, picking a city, picking Austin, Vegas, wherever, meeting you. And we'd always go straight down the pub. We'd get some dirty fries, drink beer all night.

And we'd spend two weeks. Good times, man. We'd spend two weeks with our friends. I miss Matt O'Dell, I miss Harry, I miss the fact that I would see each of these people three to four times a year, genuine friends, Hoddle, I miss the fuck out of Hoddle. Harry I've messaged, but in the new drift, it's a bit like when you drift from school friends like life moves on, people live in other countries. So I miss that.

I mainly miss you. I miss hanging out with you, but you're like one of my best friends in the world. I love you dearly. And I miss that. I miss, we just got to do really interesting things. Like that time we went to Vegas and we got to bowl. it in that ridiculous pad. That was one of the coolest things I've ever done.

The coolest things. And we went to an amazing restaurant. Darren Feinstein looked after us. And I don't get to do that stuff anymore. And... You're in the slums of Bedford instead. It was a good life. It was a really, really good life.

I don't miss doing the show. I was cooked on the show. As you know, I think we... The original plan was to stop it in January. And then I think I'm probably... When did we stop? stop. I think it was the very end of August was the last trip. It's whenever the Nash, was it around the Nashville conference? Maybe. But we, we, and then I said,

you, I can't do January. I think I said that there was like a trip in November and then that last trip, I got on the plane and I think I, as soon as I land, I said you, I'm done. Yeah. Last trip. It was the first thing you said to me when I walked through the door. I still remember it. Yeah, look. Um, no, so many reasons, man. Um, Craig Wright lawsuit took a lot out of me. That was brutal. That was five years of fucking hell, and you went through all that with me. You know the depths that we can get into the depths of that crap. But mainly, I mean, when after my divorce, I went on holiday to see my mate Justin in LA,

and I was feeling low, and I was great there, and I really enjoyed going out there. And when I was flying back, I felt like crap. And so I booked another trip, and I started to realize, like, actually, if I had a trip booked, it would be great. And I just think life led me to needing to do a podcast, to travel. And the whole thing flipped. by the end of it, I started to, like, not look forward to the trips. It's like, got to get on the plane.

By the way, this is everyone you talk to about who travels for work, external people think it's brilliant. They're like, oh, my God, this is amazing, because it is at first. You sound so spoiled, saying it's tough. Yeah, and it is at first because you go down to the airport, and you sit there and you do a bit of work. You get on the plane, watch a film, and then you land in a city. And it's amazing.

But then it just becomes the job, and you'll get this at some point. And it becomes a drag. You're away from your family, away from kids, you're tired. And I just, I'd done enough on Bitcoin. I'd made 800, you know. I mean, I just, I was cooked on Bitcoin. I was cooked on the show. So I don't miss making that show.

I still get to make a podcast, which I'm happy with. I miss our friends. I miss you. I miss that ritual. There was no part of being in an Airbnb with you for two weeks and making podcasts I didn't enjoy. It was so much fun. It's cool.

So that's what I miss. I miss that. Like now I'm doing the traveling. I'm doing it solo. I mean, hotel rooms or IBMs on my own. I've actually been roping Eric Yakeson to stay with me just so I have someone to talk to.

You need a Danny. I need a Danny. You need a Danny. You need a Danny. Eric was kind of my Danny on the Riga trip. You enjoying it. I mean, I'm loving it. But it's funny.

Like, when you talk about the travel, I know I've not been doing this long as you. I think I first did the trip with you in 20, 20 or 21. It was after COVID. New York. Yeah. We were like two kids, like little kids and seen each other ages.

But we'd never seen each other. Because we've been working. Like I started with the podcast. I could never actually remember what it was. I think it was early 2019. It was when I properly started. But we went through a phase there where, like, it starts off like anything where you talk every now and again

and you just, I was just doing the work. But then after a while, we were talking every day. And then every day for like two hours every day. I'd go for a walk around the park and I'd call you. Yeah, that's right. That was the COVID walk. It's good talk a lot. Yeah, but not like we used to.

No, I'd say, I would say we speak every two, three, four days. Occasionally it's an hour. Occasionally it's, you know, and it's like, how's your show going? Or I've done this. What do you think? Occasionally it's like five, I can't talk now, chatty late at five minutes. And it's different.

But that travel is, like, I think I've got a really nice balance where the travel's rough, being away from the family sucks. But when I'm there, it's amazing. Six foot three and economy's rough. Yeah, exactly. Six four. Come on. But the trade-off's great because when I'm home,

I can actually be home. It's not like I'm going and doing a 9 to 5 in an office and not ever see my daughter. Like, I'm away for a while, but when I'm back, I can actually be dad, which is the cool thing. It's so funny, you should say that, right? So one of the things for stopping it was traveling,

making 20 shows and coming back, I was like, get a studio in London, it'll be a lot easier. This has actually been harder because rather than just locking ourselves away for two weeks and making 15 shows, 20 shows, because then I would get back, you would just edit them, get them ready,

or Benwood, we'd talk about the title, and off it would go. I think that was literally it. The call would be, what's the title? And then, but with this, we're coming in sometimes three days a week, sometimes two days a week, and we're just all over the place. In some ways, I'll say in a con, maybe we should come down for three days. Stack them. Yeah, stack six shows, and then I can go off and do work for two weeks.

Because you've got lots of stuff to do in Bedford. Lozma. Which, before we talk about that, though, it's funny. When I was in Riga, someone was asking me, like, how did the conversation go when you and Pete decided to essentially bring up. break up. And I was like, it was like a breakup. Like, do you remember in Sydney? When we, when you came into Sydney for cheat code and it was, I'd been thinking about it and I was like, I'm basically couldn't move back to the UK to do this podcast. It was clear that that wasn't going to work and

something else was going to have to happen. And you came into the hotel we were staying at in Sydney. It was like 11 a.m. You were straight off a 24 hour fly and you're like, old fashioned. And when we spoke in that bar for like seven hours, it was emotional. And we felt like breaking up with a girl. Well, do you know what we did? We kind of did that thing where you go on a break and still shagged. That's what we did. That's essentially what we did, because it was like, let's do this new show.

And how many did we make with you on the... It would have been less than 10, I think. Less than 10. It wasn't the same. It didn't work. Actually, I remember we were doing one interview and I knew myself. And I think I said to you after the interview, I was like, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't work because Bitcoin was my thing that became our thing.

And we were on the same page. What I'm making now is definitely it's my thing. It's a different page. Totally. And it's, and it didn't work. And I didn't know it didn't work. I would have made it work.

I would have carried on with you forever. Was it you said to me first, I want to bring what Bitcoin did back? Yeah. Yeah. That was in Sydney. I was in some ways relieved. Like when you told me,

I was like, because I knew it wasn't working. I knew you had to do you anything. Look, in hindsight, So I think as a breakup, it was a good one. That's true. We've got friends or whatever. But, I mean, what's it like being a host?

Do you join it? I mean, I... What's the challenge? What's the difference being that foil to the host? I mean, I think the main difference is like finding out what my show is. Okay. And I feel like I've found my feet with it now. But at first, it was like, I don't just want to be Pete McCormack, too.

Do you know what I mean? I'm taking the brand, but I want it to be different in some way. Yeah. And I think that was probably the biggest challenge at first. And like the first few interviews, I was super nervous, like felt a little bit awkward doing it. But I'm feeling pretty comfortable now. You're nervous now? Do you know what?

I'm not at all. But when... Could you already done it once? Yeah, exactly. That's what I was going to say. When we did it in Manchester, I said to Lynn actually after interview I did with her, not the most recent one, but before that, I was like, Lynn, you're the only person I get nervous talking to because I think Lynn's so amazing.

And she's so smart. I want to make sure I can give her questions that she actually finds interesting. But then before Manchester, I was a little bit nervous because this feels like a special show. Look, it won't be because it won't be one of your highest numbers. Like, people want to hear from Jeff Booth and Lynn and stuff. And maybe people want to a little bit here for me. But look,

um, I, the fact, it's a, it's a weird one because like, some people are like, do you regret giving up what Bitcoin did or, like,

I absolutely don't. There couldn't have been a better scenario than you taking it on and Karen on and having you, look, being the full's great. We had a lot of fun, but obviously being the own host, it's like so much better.

Yeah. It's your gig. You get some control. it, you are a massive part of what it was and like all power to you, man. Good crush it. It's been pretty fun. But you're different to me though. Like you, you were, it was a bit like, do you remember Sok A.m. When, what's his name, he's come on with his one question. Tim Lovejoy? No, it was, um, the side gig person. Oh, they'd like the guy who was an alcoholic. Yeah, yeah, he would come and do what, like, you, you would always do like the best question of the

episode, like the intelligent one. And now you've just made that a show. Like, you know, like, you'd just made that a show. Yours is more to the point, more accurate, more intelligent. I have to now occasionally read people saying, this is a much better show without Pete. Well, I see the other ones, too. Don't worry. And I mean, I don't talk about Bedford as much. No, I should do. But I do talk about a little bit.

It has come up. But before we do the Bedford thing, do you want to talk about Craig Wright? Because, like, I think the story, everyone knows the story now. Well, they don't know everything. But that's the point. I think the more interesting stuff is basically that month we spent in Austin. Well, that was horrific. I mean, look, we all know who Craig Wright is.

We all know who he said he was. None of us believed him. Strategically, him and Calvin made the decision to start suing people. Somehow they concocted an idea in their head. If they could win legitimacy through the courts that you can't call him Craig Wright, you could then sue the developers to get them to fork the code to give him the Satoshi coins. Like it was so far-fetched.

Even if they, by the way, it would have been fascinating much. Even if they got to that point, there would have been another fork and everyone would have been. It still would have worked. But it was just the fact that what went through their heads, I have no idea. But they went after our brother, Hodlernaut. And Hoddle-a-naut messaged me and said, I'm being sued. They're trying to do.

What should I do? And he showed me the legal documents. I was like, well, fuck it. I host a podcast. It's quite big. and I think if I get them to come after me, everyone will back me and we'll sort this out. So I was like, out there, you're a fraud and you're a moron.

Fuck you, bum beard. And so then I got served papers, and I was very naive to what this all meant. And then that put me into this five and a half year vortex. And actually the two people who lived it the most with me are in this room, it's you and Connor. And the combination was that was, I didn't realize what a libel lawsuit in the UK meant.

it meant you can weaponise the courts. If you've got money, you could basically, you could strategically try and bankrupt somebody because if they pull out, they admit defeat and you lose. I got to the point where I ran out money. I had some people, thankfully, backed me one person specifically. You know who you are, if you're listening, thank you very much. But I also spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of my own money.

I got to a point where had no money and represented myself for one hearing, which I fucked up. Why did you fuck it up? Because I don't understand how the court's work and I'm not a QC. Well, KC at the time. now Casey. Like we went through a... But what mistakes did you make? We're not the queen during that person. I just didn't know what the fuck I was doing.

Like I didn't understand the court procedure. I couldn't prepare. I couldn't make arguments. You cannot represent yourself in these situations. It's very hard. Then my, at the time, QC, Casey now, said, look, we'll go, we've got an idea. We'll represent you at the next hearing, no win, no fee, just on this. We'll try and get it to this point. Anyway, we got... It went on and on and on and on. Now, I don't know, say six months before trial, I'll probably have the timeline wrong. You and I are in Austin. I think there's a little before that.

No, maybe. I'd made an offer to Craig Wright to settle. I looked at everything I could scrap together and it was about $230,000 pound. And I just went to them and said, I can't carry this on. I'll offer to settle. Here's $230,000. We'll walk away. They turned it down.

Can we actually take a step back first? Yeah. Because I think earlier in the lawsuit, maybe very, very early in the first month, of it. They offered to settle with you, didn't that? Oh, yeah, but I mean, they said, we'll drop the case, all the fees. I think they even said they'll pay my fees, but I could be wrong about that. All we need you to do is sign a statement of truth saying that you believe Craig Wright's Satoche. I was obviously like,

if you can fucking suck my dick, I'm not fucking doing that. Probably should have in the end, because it was very painful that whole process. But yeah, no, fuck off. There's not happening. But so then you offered, you went back to them and said, we'll settle for this. They said no. And that's not long after that I took that phone call in Austin with my lawyers preparing me for bankruptcy, which I, again, naive, I wasn't prepared for. But in the UK, maybe the same elsewhere. If you lose, you have to pay whatever the judgment is from the lawyer,

and you also have to pay your own legal fees, and then you have to pay their legal fees. his legal fees were millions, three and a half million, mine were one and a half million. I'd paid some through it, but I still owed them 750 grand. I do not have, I didn't have a net wealth of six million pound to cover all that. So they walked me through the process and the process was this. Immediate sale of all your assets, you know, cars. House. Well, not house.

Businesses. Podcasts would have been sold to the highest bidder, which I guess would have been then. By shares in the football club, everything. Everything I owned would have been sold off. You keep your house for a year because you've got kids. They give you a year to find new accommodation. Then your house gets sold and they get that. And then you're bankrupted, which means seven years you can't be a company director.

So basically, I would be fucked. My kids come out of school, cannot afford to pay for anything, no job, no money. I mean, I'm sure I could have got a job. And I don't know if that meant during the job, I would constantly have a debt to them or whatever. But essentially they would have destroyed my ability to earn a living and all my wealth. It was horrific. and I went through it. You were there.

I did the call and then we were trying to think what is there ways can I sell? And any way we tried to think of hiding the asset and moving the asset, there could have been a clawback. So, no, it was fucked. And my lawyer said, look, you're going to lose the libel.

And then that's that. I talked about a Naprinel show, the whole weird thing with that Twitter account, track bender, which is a real dull, fake doll with massive tits, who always posts

Bitcoin staff, anti-Kraig Wright stuff, although I've seen some weird messages about that account recently, but anyway, and occasionally it's like the cleavage with a Bitcoin B in it or something, it's just the weirdest account. You've been messaging me about Craig Wright for a while, or whatever, came to me and said, look through the evidence, go and double-check the conferences, it's false. And what happens is in a libel lawsuit in the UK, you have to prove that, something called serious harm. It's like I can say, Danny's a shit podcaster. You can sue me for liable, but if there's no harm to you, there's no compensation. There's no point. So you would have to say,

after Pete said that, people were tweeting that I'm a shit podcast and people stop listening and blah, blah, blah. It's a crap example. But that's what. So on his serious harm, he put three things. He said he was too scared to drop his kids off at school because of reputational damage, like any of those parents have seen my tweets, but whatever. He said he couldn't be a pastor anymore. and that he was disinvited from 10 conferences. So I was like, well, what have I got to lose? So I got the list of conferences because they're in his evidence. And I phoned up the first one, no answer, second one, no answer.

Third one, a guy picks up. And I just said, look, I need to talk to you about something. I'm in a lawsuit in the UK, a man called Craig Wright Sue and me for libel. In his claim is that because of my tweets, you disinvited him from the conference. What I didn't know is a lot of these conferences keep all these records of who was invited, how they're invited, how they're applied, and what the decisions were, because there's a board sometimes makes decisions. I can't remember the exact example, but it was something along the lines of,

because he went away and called me back and he said, no, he wasn't disappointed because your tweets. I haven't even seen your tweets. He wasn't invited because he's, he applied, he sent his paper, and it was rejected for being such low quality. And I managed to speak to three or four of them, I mean, one was like, because his paper was fraudulent, it was like a plagiarization, but not a single one was. And the way the court process works in the UK is they're trying to stop the final court hearing to make a decision.

They want you to get to a point where you agree. And so you have to submit, the minute we know, we have to send to them to say, we know factually you've lied here. And then they have to come back and say whether they did lie or not. Because he's been caught, he has to come back and say, yes, I lied. On my witness of truth, I put that, it's not true. But there was, and then you put this other one, but there was this other conference. So we found the person,

that we were going to fly them over for the hearing, and then he came out and said, that was another lie. So he's been caught twice signing the witness of truth. And this is one thing that's really good about the UK courts. The judges hate lying. The minute you've been caught lying, you lose all credibility. And what was brilliant is that we still went to trial. And my Casey, Katrin Evans from Matrix,

big love to you, Katrin. made him go through everyone. She went, this conference X, you said, X, is that true? And he had to go, no, it isn't true. And she said,

so you signed a witness of truth against serious harm that all these conferences, you were disinvited because of Pete's tweet, not true. And he had to admit that wasn't true. And strategically,

what we went for in the end was, I libeled him. In that, I said he's not Satocian, he's a liar. I cannot prove he isn't. So under UK law, I've libeled him. As ridiculous that is...

Because the burden of truth is on you to find who Satoshi actually is. Yeah. It's hard to prove a negative. Yeah. So I have libelled him. It's dumb, but I've libelled him. And they said, what we will do for... We will go for a one-pound judgment. Say, yes, Peter's liableed him,

but his conduct is so bad, wasted time and money in the courts. He only deserves a one-pound judgment. And that's what we got. Which is essentially a win for you, even though technically it's not. I mean, I remember we were in Hawaii on holiday, like at the end of all this, relieved, but like, it's over, but not knowing what the judgment was being. And I remember I got a call from Rupert my lawyer. Do you know the funny thing about that just quickly?

There's certain things that happen where you remember where you are. I remember where I was when you called me. Yeah. It was outside a bar in Manchester that was called Pedro's. Yeah. I remember where I was when you found out you'd won and 9-11. But yeah, so at this point he called me and I went outside, left the kids, got in the elevator, and he told me that we've been successful as a one pound judgment.

I actually cried, I did. I don't, do you remember it at all come? Yeah, I'm surprised. It was total relief because the one pound judgment isn't in itself like vindication. It's the fact that I didn't have to pay his legal fees and he had to pay mine back. And I got 85% of my legal fees back. So I still lost a bit, but I got 85% back. But from going from thinking you may be bankrupt to get an 85% of your legal fees.

Game changer. And look, now we know everything that's happened. Since, you know, there is a probability that I would have got everything back somehow in a different way. But what damage would have been done in the – would I have lost my house in that process? And how would I get another house? Like, it would have been savage. So, yeah, I'm – I'm so intrigued by him as a human, though.

The question that I always sits with me is, did he convince himself he was him? Or, like, would he go back at the end of a day of saying he's a to-go, I'm not getting away with this, or today went well? Or did he just assume the character and become that person? Now I don't know. I'd love to ask him about it. I would happily do this.

Sit down with him and say, bygones, be bygones. We've been through it. I'm just fascinated. I've got so many questions. I'd love to do that. One of the things that keeps me up at night is the idea of a critical error with my Bitcoin cold storage.

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But I used to text him. We should talk about that. But I remember when we were in Austin, when this was really bleak, and you were like fucking depressed. And I remember even you saying then, while I think at that point you regretted it, I'm sure you don't regret the lawsuit now.

But you said then I want to speak to him. Yeah, just, I would have just said to Calvonair, look, you're a very, very wealthy man. You're never going to have to worry about money again. you are actively destroying my life on a lie. I want to know, because I want to know at what point did Calvin realize the game's up? Because I believe, Calvin believed that Craig Wright was Satoshi.

Initially. Initially, because Roger Veer did. Roger Veer told me in Japan he did, told me he had the keys. And I think a number of people at certain times believed he was. And I think other people might have been, well, maybe he isn't. And so I believe Calvin did believe it. And I believe he got sold on this idea. Look, we should get my coins back.

But I think there probably came a time where Calvin was like, firstly, things didn't add up. And then eventually, like, yeah, fuck, he's not. And I would just want to say to him, look, you're destroying my life. You're going to destroy my kids' life all on a lie. Why are you doing this? I tried to. I got somebody gave me his phone number. I used to text.

What did you use a text? What did he? What did he first? So weirdly, I got given the, I used to text him and go, forgive you. Like every single day. No, every few days. I don't know.

See if I've got it here. Because what happened, I was with a guy, coincidentally, he came to Bedford. He was making one of those endless Satoshi films that we see. So, yeah, still got it here. Fuck, there's loads. And somebody gave me his number, and so we've called him, and we've got it on film, but he didn't pick up.

And so then I texted him, I said, hi, Calvin, it's Peter. So listen, I don't hold any grudges. It is what it is. I also believe that you may have been wrong. Either way, I think it's time for you and I to talk. I'd like to explain to you how tough the last five years have been for me, the impact on my health and my family. I believe all of this can be put behind us and we can make it good. So shall we speak?

No reply. Hi, Calvin. Disappointed that you didn't reply to me. Either way, it's pretty clear how the next few months are going to play out. I remain open and willing to discuss this all with you. Just let me know. So go on and on. And then it would be like, hi, Calvin.

Just so you know, I forgive you and Craig. Life happens, but I don't hold grudges. I'm not a religious person, but I thought I shared this with you. and then I sent him John 832. Then you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. And then it was like, your boy is getting a kick in the court this week.

I hope it's costing you too much money and you're coping okay with it all. Should all be over soon. Ready to have a chat when you want Calvin. Just read the settlement offer. Oh, yeah, here we go. Just read the settlement offer. Understand the strategy,

but obviously won't work. Hard pass. Like, it's over, Calvin. You can save your soul. You can go public. Say sorry to everyone. you attack, compensate them and promise to be better. You can afford this and it will make the world a better plays.

Remember, I forgive you. Like, I just, but I, I meant it all. Because it's like, look, if Calvin had come out and said, oh, I got this totally fucking wrong, I believed him, I fucked up, I'm part of the problem. Pete, here's the money you lost. I'll make you whole. Hoddle or not, here's the money lost, I'll make you whole.

I mean, I would just go fair play. Like, why not go and be the good person and make whole for the problems you're. cause. And eventually, what happened was the message is stopped going blue and they went to green. And that means, you know, he's an Android guy now. He changed phone and disappeared. And it is what it is. I'm intrigued by it all. I'm intrigued by them as people. And yeah, I wonder what will be now for them. But it was a brutal savage process. I felt at times a little bit left hung out to dry. There were a couple of times people offered to help when I

I couldn't afford it. Do you know one of the things that's cool about that, and I know you don't want to say, and you can't say who helped you with lawsuit. There are a couple of people that did. Some of them were not people you would expect. No. And the people that did reach out,

it's a bit hard because I can't say who, but the people that did reach out and help you, are people that maybe I wouldn't have had a huge amount of respect for. Roger Veer did. I'll put that out there. I don't know, because I think I've mentioned that publicly. And there's no, look, the US government are trying to fuck him at the moment.

And we all have an opinion, Roger, for certain things. But I spoke to Roger Veer, I called him and said, look, I am fucked here. And he said, I'll give you the money. He offered to write me a six-figure check straight away. And then I didn't need it. And that was fine. And I didn't want a crowd fund because I wasn't broke. I had money coming in.

I wasn't going to crowd fund people. I was trying to push you to do that. Not because you were nervous about doing that because you didn't want people who maybe had less Bitcoin than you giving you money that you didn't necessarily want to take from them. But my perspective on it was, like, people wanted to contribute. Sure. But look, I had a house and I had money and had an income coming in. And what I didn't want to do is crowd fund the money, pay for the lawsuit.

And then, all right. And then be okay. And those people were down. They might have less Bitcoin, less money than me. I just, it was of just, what would happen is I had this debt with the lawyers and they would come to me and say, look, you've got to pay something soon. And I would like, we'd have a good month. on the podcast, so I'd write my check for 50 grand, and that would buy me another month or so.

And as it looked like we might get the money back, they got a bit of patience from them. And, yeah, I didn't pay my tax bill, for example. That was like, I don't know, 150 grand tax bill. I didn't pay that. And I delayed the tax man so I could pay them. So I just moved money from Peter to Paul to get through it and made it work. It just worked. Somehow we got there in the end.

My lawyers didn't raise their fees, which was good. But I couldn't justify taking money off it. But there were people who could have literally just written a check and covered the lawsuit who didn't, who made shitty offers. But like, what was his name? Was it CZ? No, CZ. Was it CZ who did it?

Somebody, I think it was CZ, said, I will do it for. Oh, I think you're right. And then he disappeared. And it's like, okay, fine, whatever. Look, it is what it. I got so much support. A couple of people wrote me big checks, and they got their money back. Another person wrote me a check.

at a really, really tough time and was really good about it and patient and blah, blah, blah. And I've helped other people as well at times. But what really annoyed me were the lawyers for

the COPA. They phoned me up and they said, can we do a podcast about the COPA trial? We want to raise awareness. And I was like, that's where you're funding the developer's legal fees. They said, yeah. I said, well, you're not funding mine. and I know the developers are important,

the most important people in Bitcoin. But I think I've done a lot to bring people into Bitcoin. Whether you agree with me or disagree, whether you think I fucking hate all Pete's opinions and what Bitcoin did brought a shit ton of people into Bitcoin and educated them, put on a journey. I think I did an important job, and I would like to think if someone got in a similar situation,

I'll help. But look, it is what it is. Everyone has to make decisions at the right time. The truth is we got through it, we got our money back, and everyone's okay. And it's funny how in the past it is now. Like we're talking about it, but really, do we really talk about Craig Wright anymore?

No. It's gone. But, I mean, that's thanks to these lawsuits. Yeah. And if there's eventually an anthology of covering the history of Bitcoin, hopefully there's a little bit where Pete helped with lawsuits, and I'll be proud of that. I think there will be.

We should talk about Bedford, but just quickly on this, last thing on the lawsuit. Yeah. When this all wrapped up, you had the, you potentially could have gone after Calvin Air. Yes. I know you said you're forgiven, but maybe you should explain how you could have gone after him and why you didn't.

Well, I don't know the exist. So there would have been certain, I don't know, malicious prosecution. I could have probably done him for liable at some point. But malicious prosecution, there's a few different things, torts. Is it torts?

We could have used. And I wanted to. I said to my lawyers, I think we should because I think he should make us whole. And I think damages should be paid. And the reason I think damages should be paid is I don't know the comments compounded effect that's had on my health.

But it was bad. Stress is bad for the body. And I went through a bad time. Connor went through a bad time. My dad also, my dad didn't take this well. My dad was probably the person who worried the most. It was a rough time. Like when you are facing bankruptcy

and being kicked out of your house and losing all your businesses and you don't know what you do, it's rough. I don't know what loss of earnings I had. But I think there's a counter argument maybe because of the exposure. I got more earnings. So that one's a bit weak.

But I just think, If you are actively destroying someone's life through the courts, using your money based on a lie, you should face a penalty. I think it should be criminal, and I think you should go to jail. And if not, you should pay a large compensation to the person that you've ruined, you've fucked five years of their life, and you've made them, like, it made me physically unwell. I mean, Conner's here.

He'll know. I think there's at least three occasions you drove me to hospital during that. Yep. you remember him? I took you twice. Once in Miami. And once in Bedford, I think. Yeah, where my SVT thing

would just go haywire. But it seemed worse at the bad time. That could have just been, maybe the SVT on its own, but look, if you're going to be a cunt using the courts, you've got to fucking pay your way. I just think, I think Craig Wright should have gone to prison for this. And that is what is.

But in the end, my lawyers are like, look, you were a hair's breadth away from losing everything. take a win? Yeah, why start again? And I was like, because it's the right thing to do. Pay your dues, pay your penalty. But look, we didn't do it.

If for some random weird reason, Calvin is as this, I do forgive you. And if you'd like to have a chat, I'm happy to have a chat. I'd come out to Antigua and see you. But I think you're worth bazillions or whatever you're worth. Pay your dues.

Just pay people the compensate. It won't touch the sides for you. You're never going to spend all your money. But especially like, or not pay back what people have lost and pay for damages, it's the right thing to do. They won't. Whatever. But I think they should.

It is the right thing to do. Hey, Tom, would you mind getting me a bit? Sorry, mate. We're not cutting that out. That's fine. Can you check the audios. You want one. Please, we'll check the audio's recording.

I'll have another beer. Yeah, look, it's done. It's good. You were a huge support during that period. I think you knew I was in a bad way. Oh, you definitely were. Yeah, I don't want to say that, actually. No, you were definitely in a bad way.

You could say that. You could say that. It's the truth. No, no, I was going to say something else. I was going to say there's two times. Were you worried about me at any point? Yes. But the time that I was most worried about you, this is like a relationship.

When I was being reckless, said I'm going to burn everything down. No, it was before that. I think it was before we'd even met. I remember you being in, you won't want to talk about this, Pete. It was when you were in central South America somewhere. I think it was the first time you went to El Salvador.

door. And like, the toxicity on Twitter was really getting to you. And that was the time, and like the entire time we worked together where I was most worried about you. Oh, like when you were being my therapist. Yeah. Isn't it funny? I've got to be a little bit of therapist you sometimes. What the fuck is it? That's not a joint topic. Yeah. Yeah. Um, no, that's got nothing to do with the Craig Wright thing. Oh, no, I know. You just said, when was I worried about? Yeah. Look, sometimes, you know, look, when the internet comes after you, it can be a bit brood. I mean, I can fuck anymore. Yeah. I'm on thick skin now. I've been through it enough.

It's like, I've been, I've watched my mum die, I've been through a vivier law, so if you call me fat or thick or rubbish at podcast or whatever. Okay, but there are times the internet comes after you. And I think I say, I just don't know if I can deal with this anymore. It's rough, it's rough. But no, I mean, you're, I mean, I think I've been your therapist a little bit sometimes. Yeah, I've not had the internet come after me in the same way yet,

but we'll work on it. You've got to work hard. We'll get that. You've got to do more. You've got to say something controversial. Do you know what next pub is? I do. What's the next pub?

An extended public kid. What does it mean there? It's where you derive all your other public use from. You're such a nerd. You know it now, though. You fucking know that and you can't press record. Yeah, but this was always a sire op. You always knew what it was.

I didn't in the first time. And I still stand by. I actually don't care. And I don't think, come on, what's the next pub? There you go. Most people don't know what next pub is. No, that's for sure. I was right on that.

I was right on nodes. I was right on... What's the other thing I was right on? You're right on everything, Pete. No, just on those things. My favorite thing about this kind of, well, Batman of Bedford, your villain article you're on at the moment, is that it took you leaving Bitcoin to become libertarian.

Yep, true. Yeah, fact. Why? Tell us why. Oh, God. I'll give you the long answer because we've got time. I didn't know what libertarianism was when I started the podcast. Me neither, to be fair, I went like until I heard you talk about on the podcast.

Right. Okay. So it was new to me. It's not a thing in the UK. Not the same as it is in America at least. It's a little thing here. But yeah, so I start the podcast. I could have picked any subject.

I was just buying Bitcoin at the time and shit coins. Excuse me. You're going to cut my burps? Nope. It's the beer. So start the podcast about Bitcoin. When I start it, I'm not doing it because I think, this is the best money in the world ever.

And, you know, this is number go up. It was a number go up. And this was like the new internet revolution charts to make some money. Start making the show and then libertarian stuff comes up. And for me, government was always that thing that was always there. You picked aside and they voted every four years. You had democracy. And you needed government and government did a lot of good.

And then obviously over the arc of the podcast, I started to realize it was, government wasn't great, but I always had people going, you're a status cut, this. And I said obviously some ludicrous things sometimes, because I believe them at the time, right? You were learning in public. Learning in public. Learning in public. And I refuse to hold a position because people tell me I should. And yeah.

So I think when I, by the time I finished the podcast, I definitely had libertarian tendencies. Like, I agree, yes, we should have small government, central banks are pernicious. and we should have a free market for money, those kind of things. But like full libertarianism and fully understanding why government is a terrible idea comes from having a deep connection with government at a local level. In that, I'm trying to do cool things in my town.

I'm running up against the institutions, the police, and the local council. and then also just seeing the general collapse of the UK as well. I mean, and then all the, it just, it was like seeing into the Matrix. It's like, oh, I get it now. It's not that necessarily government itself is intrinsically evil. It's that it just doesn't work. Like the majority of government will not work as the incentives at play.

And somebody said to me this week, they said, because I'm arguing against, ideology, because I'm getting attacked in Bedford by a bunch of leftists at the moment. And I just said, step back from your ideology, and they say, well, isn't libertarianism an ideology? And I thought about it. And I was like, no, because libertarianism is essentially the natural state of man, right? It is life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. It's those natural rights we're born with.

The blueprint for how to organize society is an idea that collectivists have come up with, whether they're left or right wing, they've said, this is how we should organize society, which is a blueprint. But if that doesn't happen, we are in the natural state of man, which is libertarian. So I said to them, no, it's not. Libertarianism is a set of principles regarding the natural state of man. And it basically, to me, it means leave me the fuck alone. I don't care for you invented blueprint that tells me this is what I can and can't do. It's not an ideology.

It's a set of principles. And so, but I'm not like, I can't. I don't go for anarcho-capitalists. And the reason every time I go to that and come back is because I don't think you can get rid of government. If you, me, Connor, and 50 of our friends move to an island, we essentially start day one libertarian.

Or free. Maybe not even libertarian, because maybe libertarian is an idea that you only exist after the establishment of the state. You don't need to establish libertarian until the state exists because you want to dismantle it. But anyway, I disagree with what?

In my house I'm a dictator. Absolutely. Well, until he got thrown in the sea. No, come on. Oh, you weren't at the second civic meeting. I even let the leftist weirdo speak. But I think the point you're making is that some kind of hierarchy in the tribe would exist.

Yeah, so it would be like at some point, someone or some group of people will want to do something on that island. and they might disagree. And just say we split into two groups. One goes to one side of the island, one goes to this side of the island. And we start to build stuff on one side, maybe encroached, and they think, well, that's our hand.

It's like, well, we need to protect ourselves here. Well, I think we should, you might be like, Pete, I think we should do A. I might be, well, I think we should do B. It's like, well, we need a council to make decisions. Well, who's going to lead the council and decide it's? I just think you rebuild structure. Yes, in my house, I'm a dictator.

It's like I will listen to the opinions of the serfs, because they might cut my head off. But in the end, I'm going to do what I think's right. But on that island, we will rebuild government. And I think you always do. And I think you actually, if you can get to a Minicus government, you actually have a government which will defend your freedoms and your rights, which I think is a good thing. Especially like in the US where they literally have it enshrined in a document they refer to. We don't really refer to the Magna Carta here.

much because I don't think, I'm not sure how much of it's still enforceable. But I also think if you went on the street and asked people if they knew what the Magna Carta was, very few people would even know it. I can probably recite more of the US Constitution than they can, the Magna Carta. So, and also, I also think, like, do you remember that old Eric Vohorhe's interview where he said to me, it's like, there's no point arguing about the utopian anarcho-capitalist society because we're so far from that. Let's just make government 1% smaller or 5% smaller. And so where I've come to is we have government, okay?

We cannot switch it off tomorrow. Even if you elected a libertarian... Malay-style. And who is probably the best? Has he dismantled the entirety of the apparatus of the state in Argentina? No, he's doing it bit by bit, and he's doing it mainly through economic policies and changes to the law. But he's gradually dismantling the power and the size of the state.

And so I think of libertarianism as pointless debating perfect society. I think the most important thing libertarians can do is drive forward a trajectory of being more libertarian than less. So what Millet is doing, which is dismantling the state, dismantling the size, the power, the kind of pernicious rules. Is it a word? Israel, isn't it? Penicious rules on society. And that to me is how to be an effective libertarian, not having a libertarian conference and all arguing about why you shouldn't have a libertarian party because that's counterinture to be a libertarian.

I think it's just a waste of fucking time. And so I guess I think it's practical libertarianism, rational libertarianism. Let's actually get something done. And what happens is that I've gradually seen how much the state fails, itself, but it then fails society. It was the...

Have you ever read George Washington's farewell address? No. It's fucking brilliant, okay? Obviously, an important great man in American history. Could have become king. They offered him king and he turned it down. But he wrote this farewell address. And he warned of the idea of factionalism

in that you become more loyal to the party than the common good. And we see that now. Which has definitely happened. Totally. It's like Labor could come up with a good idea. and the conservatives will attack it. And the conservatives can come up with a bad idea and they'll support it.

This loyalty to the party over the common good is a terrible thing. He warned about this. And I see it now. I see it in media. I see it in individuals. Like there are a bunch of people in Bedford who fucking hate my guts now.

I've put in this private security and they hate me because it's ideologically wrong for them. And now as a group they're attacking me, and it doesn't matter what I say. I genuinely think, if I cured cancer, they would come back and say, well, what about the people who want to have cancer? No, I generally believe that.

I've argued with them, and there are people who would say they would rather have a crackhead on the street than a security guard. They think we should prioritize the addicts and the criminals on the street over the businesses. They're so ideologically lost.

And so therefore, the factionism thing isn't just a problem within the party. It's a problem within the party. It's a problem within the voters. And so I've just realized is that the bigger government is, the more people are that will grift it, the more the politicians themselves will use it for their end goals, and the more it will destroy society.

And it's really, you really start to see it when you just try and run a company. I told you this. NVK said, if you want to make somebody libertarian, get them to run a business. Because all we do is we get up every day and we try and make money. whether it's, well, a football club you never made money, but whether it's the coffee shop, the bar, whatever. And all we're fighting is everything the government puts in front of us in our way, whether it's employment laws, minimum wage requirements, licenses we need, tax we have to pay.

It's so hard to make money. Right now, this might be the first month our coffee shop makes a profit. It might make a profit. It still doesn't pay the 120 grand we spent to open it, and the 20 grand of losses in the first six month. But it might turn a monthly profit for the first time, right? And it's been so hard. But if you strip back, I mean, let's talk about VAT. If I sell you a coffee at £4,000, I pay ATP VAT to the VAT band. But I can't reclaim the VAT on the coffee I've bought

because it's a raw food ingredient, they don't charge me VAT. There's a real problem with the hospitality sector. Every time you make something, the food doesn't have VAT on it, but once you assemble it into a product, it is. So with a phone, all the ingredient products of a phone, you can reclaim the VAT. And so your VAT burdens lower. Which is just sales tax for any Americans.

Yeah. And so that's a problem. We have to pay a minimum wage, okay? Now, the minimum wage is costing jobs, because I have to pay, I don't know, say it's £11.23, whatever. it is, minimum wage now. That alone is stupid because there are people who are willing to take that job at nine pound. This is something that Ben Prentice, who's been working on the show forever, has been tried, he goes on about this all the time, the fact that the minimum wage is actually a massive net

negative. Well, it costs jobs. And every time you raise it, you just raise the prices of the product. Yeah. So you don't have a, you've got a price distortion in the market there. Fucking out, listen to me. But you've got a price distortion in the market there. But not only that, I have to offer a pension. I have to pay national insurance. I have to pay holiday. So even if it's some, even if it's an 18 year old and it's their weekend job, I have to pay holiday. And what we do, because I think it's something like 12.09% of your working time as holiday, we just up there wages by 12.09%. And so like so much from my cost is in wages or wage legislation or wage taxation. We would have made a profit every month without government. So what I'm doing is I'm working my balls off,

taking all this fucking risk to try and turn a profit. But while I'm doing that, I'm financing government who's making this harder. This is why I fundamentally hate these people in government. I fundamentally hate them all because either they know how difficult they're making it, which means they're evil, or they don't know, which means they're too stupid to be in the role. Now, I'm not asking for us to eradicate everything immediately. What I'm trying to say is let's be sensible about this. Business rates in a town centre make no sense because town centres are dying. Let's give an opportunity for business to open.

VAT and hospitality makes no sense because input products don't have it. Having to pay holiday to an 18-year-old already on a high minimum wage does not make sense. I mean, I'd go further. I don't think we should pay maternity pay. I think that should be optional. I should want to provide it. But why should I, why should you, why should Connor be paying tax for other people who choose and have children?

That's their lifestyle choice. You work hard and you pay for it yourself. So I hate all this collective is bollocks because it just makes it so hard. And it gets worse than that, Danny. I've got money on the side now. Thanks, Craig, right, get my money back, ready to open more businesses in the town. I think we've probably, what, discussed two or three con regularly. And I'm sat there going, I don't know if I can turn a profit here.

because of government. Now the stupid thing is, is I could take people out of the welfare system and give them jobs, but I can't because it's too hard to make the company work, and therefore those jobs don't exist, therefore those people are reliant upon the state.

And so someone like Rachel Reeves, who's already fucked it up over and over again in this country, over and over again, is talking about raising taxes even more, which is going to destroy even more jobs. I'm on one here. I'm loving this. Keep going. Let me tell you where it's, like, other examples where it's worse.

So I spend 100 grand a year with my accountants across the business because of all the accountancy work we have to do to comply with government tax. Okay? Without that, all I need is a monthly P&L and then say this is how the business is doing. I'd probably spend 10 grand a year. I'm probably spending 90 grand a year on compliance with taxation. HR, this is basically a new industry that comes off the business. back of employment legislation. I 100 cent stand by the majority, not all, there are dicks out

there, but the majority of people, when they want to get rid of somebody from their company, it's two reasons. You shit at your job or I can't afford you. And both are valid, okay? It is so hard to get rid of somebody who's shit at their job because of employment legislation. But this becomes a bad thing. I know you're about to ask somebody, but the reason it's a bad thing is that there's a misallocation of capital now because you can get rid of them, but you have to bring in a HR consultant who, basically they help you architect a safe way of getting rid of somebody so you hopefully don't go to tribunal, which you will always lose, by the way. And so I'm misallocating capital to a HR advisor so I can try and architect get rid of somebody who should at their

job. And when you do get rid of somebody who should at their job, you're also like, have I done, right, did I give them a job discretion? Did I do all their reviews? Did I give them a warning? All those things. You know when someone's shit. Of course. You just know and you want to get rid of them. but you're also conning the person. I've had to get, there's two people I've had to get rid of in the last two years who have both been terrible at the jobs.

The best thing for them would be sit down and go, sorry, I'm getting rid of you. You're fucking shit at your job. You're whatever, I'll make up some reasons. You don't turn up on time. When you're here, you're disorganized,

you're a bit rude, and it's a customer-facing job. You're no good. I'm getting rid of you. Sort that shit out with your next job. That person has the opportunity then to go, oh fuck maybe I maybe I should get my shit together

but when they think oh I think I think this is unfair dismissal because they didn't give me a review and they didn't give me and I like give all these kind of like soppy reasons all the good staff do good staff do not need

reviews they just get on with it Jason who works for me fucking brilliant doesn't need it and if I had a problem Jason would be like cool I hear you I'll sort that out the shitty people always default to hiding behind legislation and never learn themselves. And they're just going to be losers their whole life because of that. And so, again, it's just a whole other misallocation of capital within a company.

That was a sailor style rant where I asked you a question. You talked for about 30 minutes there. Okay. When we make a podcast, we're in a bubble, right? Yeah. We get on the plane. We meet each other. We make a podcast.

Some Bitcoin company sponsors us and we go for a stake. And life's easy because the business model worked. So you can get a, you can get. annoyed because you get a tax bill. I was like, fucking out, that tax bill's annoying, but you get on with it. When you're trying to build a proper tough business, you know, a hospitality business, where the margins are fine, you've got lots of, there's hard businesses. You just realize how much government gets in the way for, and for what? What? Because they think they can steal your money, you can give to other people, and I'm going to go on another rant now, sorry. So this is another

point, right? What I really hate is like recently, some of the leftist weirdos in my town, I've got, oh, it's just a rich guy coming in doing this, think he can throw his money around. When they say it like that, they're using the word rich as a pejorative. Well, rich is becoming a majority. Oh, yeah. But like, you know, but they equally think, oh, but yeah, he should pay a wealth tax and he should pay higher income tax because that person over there needs it. I fucking work my balls off.

I've gone from broke. Like, I about to lose my house poor. and I've worked 60 to 80 hours a week. I've gotten planes. I've missed my kids, stayed in shitty hotels. And I've worked my absolute ass off. If I've made good money,

it's because I've worked hard. Now, look, in a fair society where I agree to a certain amount of taxation call, but don't demonize what I've done. Don't say with one hand, we want your tax money, and with the other hand, say you're evil, you're an evil capitalist.

Like, you're not allowed both. You're not allowed to have both of those because I've worked my fucking. off. And I think the point is, like, where is that tax money going? Because, I mean, I've been to Bedford. The town centre is not thriving. Nope. Not at all. And so this is why you've now brought in this private security force. Which has made national news. Like, it's been a really big deal here in the UK. Like, why do you think there's been such a backlash to this? Well, so let's not, let's not, there has been a backlash, but let's not give it. The credence. Yeah, too much.

because I don't think there's been a bigger champion of Bedford than me in recent years. And if there has, great, I don't have to be first, second, third, whatever. I'm up there. I've built businesses. I've brought people to the town. I've put it on the map with certain people. I clearly care about Bedford, right?

But I host the right-wing podcast, which is a problem. The Reform podcast. Well, I think it's more of a libertarian podcast. But anyway, I host a podcast and people think of certain political views. When we set up the coffee shop in the town, the first few weeks I based myself in the shop window, keeping on the place but doing my work. And I knew Bedford had problems. I just didn't realize the scale of them.

When you sit there all day and you just see people streaming out in the early morning, tweaking, shouting, and generally also, just by the way, looking in a terrible state. And some of these terrible states are like a really bad. There's one guy, I mean, I feel for him. His legs are, he doesn't wear any shoes anymore. His legs top to bottom are full of sores. They're all bloated. He clearly, he probably has Greg and Green.

He will probably get sepsis and die. Faircon? He knows what I'm talking about, right? We saw him the other day, bowling down the high street with a woman who had a bottle of alcohol on hand and a massive black eye. Give them all the empathy in the world you want. I'm cool with that. But don't tell me that is something that is good for somebody bringing their kids into town with. If you are a family, you come to town, that's a problem for you with your kids,

especially maybe kids are at seven, eight years old. It's like, what's going on there? Add to that, there's an area where all the alcoholics are fighting, puking. He saw a couple with their baby in a buggy pissed out of their face. You can have all the empathy in the world. That is not a good sight, and you might not want to bring your kids into the town because of that. So there is the social burden because it's not nice to see

then there's the economic burden because less people are coming in the town centre and so just the back the backstory is is like we went to see the PCC John Tissard piss weak bloke absolutely should resign told him about the problems he had no decent answers

crime is going up now perception of crime and data of crime are two different things all can be massaged and even if you can statistically proved to me crime isn't going up. I'm going to tell you the perception is. And even if you say, well, I don't think everyone's perception is, I'm going to say, well, it's still too much. So I was like, fuck this. I've had enough of this. I'm going to do a pilot. All of August, every Saturday,

I'm going to put 10 private security guards in the town from 18m until 6 p.m. There has been a backlash from the left, progressive. I've seen people call you vigilante. Yeah. Yeah. And to me, it is part ideological. And when I say ideological, it is a group who've now demonised me. They think I want to be mayor, and I think this is a ploy to be mayor. I've been very clear I don't want to be mayor. The job's too hard.

They probably think I will support reform. They basically see me as a different person from them. There's a group that see me as a different person with them. So it doesn't matter what I do, they're going to, they're going to, they're attack me. There's also a group who just, who just have suicidal empathy. They, and, and, and, uh, they're backlash. There's others who just don't like wordsby. They don't want crackhead use. It's, I don't know, drug afflicted person or something. Um, and so there is a backlash, but the backlash is a small group of loud people. And I'll, I'll just have it with them. I'll just,

I just, I'll just tell them. So when they like, oh, you're vigilantes. I say, they're not vigilantes, they're private security guards, they're licensed, they're trained, and they're the same people who provided private security of the town's part of the bid. I didn't hear you complain about that. So I can answer quite factual on some of them when they get it wrong, and then I will, and I'll just go to toe to toe if they're an idiot. See, what I can't understand about the people that are giving you shit about this is how they see you as the problem in this situation. Like, the problem is the underlying fact that Bedford High Street is dying and it's full of drug afflicted people. And you're the person who's offering a solution.

And they cannot like the solution, but they can't ignore the fact that the problem is not you, the problem is before you. Yeah, but they don't, it's how they see the, see the problem. I will see the problem as there's a drag addict there who's shoplifted in. They will say society has failed them. Mm. Okay? The society, you've got to remember that the lefts, the left lives on ideas of collectivism. Like, we are a collective unit.

We think and operate the same. If you don't think and operate the same, you're the outsider, you're the enemy. And everyone's a victim. So, and look, don't get everyone. There are victims out there. There are young women who were abused probably by their dad, sexually abused, ran away from home, ended up homeless, met the wrong people, and fell into drugs, and then now in prostitution maybe being raped.

Like terrible, terrible stories. I totally get it. But not everybody was that. Some people just made shitty bad decisions. Some people were like, I don't want to work, I'm going to live on the street or whatever. And they one day decided to put a needle in their arm and take heroin. We all know heroin's bad, but they made a decision. There are bad decisions in there as well.

Their view is society must fix that and government must fix that. And there is a lack of tolerance for people who come at this differently. And I see how difficult the left are to deal with. And this is, again, my point where I go back to becoming more libertarian, because if we're libertarian and we operate on just founding principles, life, liberty, property rights, and voluntarism, if we think like that, then we can coexist happily. I can identify a problem of security in the town, and I can put in a private security team. Okay, they are protecting the lives of people there, they are protecting the freedoms of people

there, and they're protecting property rights. and it's voluntary because I've paid for it with my own money and they're operating within a public space as a voluntary service. They are not infringing on anybody's rights. And if you as a leftist go, well, where are you moving these people to? Society has failed them. Great. You can set up your own private initiative

and you can fund addiction. Rehab center. Addiction support. You can do exactly what I'm doing and society wins because I protect the businesses in the town, you protect the individuals. And neither of us are infringed upon life, liberty, and the pieces of habitants.

Neither us are infringing on other people's rights. But it's a lot easier to go on Facebook and go, Pete McCormack's a meanie, he's a fascist, and then do fuck all and complain. It's really easy to do that. And this is, by the way, this is one of my complaints about Bitcoiners, if we really want to go for it, is that all these motherfuckers who shouted me on the podcast,

I just think I'm doing what we said we were going to do. Like, we were meant to go out and fix the world. We all got a bit lucky. Whatever you think, we definitely got lucky. There is a luck. I don't care if people say, well, no, it's not a strong diamond hands. We went through the up and down roller coaster. Yeah, we all came out of the other end richer.

So we were meant to go do this. We were meant to go and fix up, go back and fix our societies. Michael Peterson did it out in Elzonte. I'm doing it in Bedford. Other people did it. This is what we were meant to do. And yeah. Calling out the Bitcoiners.

I love it. Well, no, it's just, I'm going on different tangents here, just because I'm ranting. And we've already recorded. It's great. Dude, honestly, I'm so fucking proud of you. This is the coolest thing to see. No, but it's like we recorded the other day, and I want to make sure I didn't miss anything. We talked about, we talked about some good things in there.

But, like, the summary of it is, is that's why, again, going back to the libertarian ideas, if your foundation is life, liberty, property rights, you can left and right, opinions can coexist because the basic foundational framework we're working under is not infringing each other's rights. I'm not infringing on anyone's rights with a private security team. You're just going out and doing things. But if you're a collectivist, you want to say, well, who is that private security force accountable to? What rights do they have? And I will explain to them. They have the same rights as you. They have the same rights as you. They have. the power of arrest and indictable offense. They have the power to protect property. Okay.

Have they arrested anyone yet? No. And how's the first two weeks gone? Really well. Like almost universally well. And look, people say, we'll expect you to say that. No, no, look, this is a free market. If it hasn't gone well, I'm not going to carry on spending 10 grand a month on this because it's a waste of fucking money. Have they moved people on? Like, what's happened? So they don't. Again, there's a myth. You just want to move on homeless people. No, we don't. We want to enforce the law and the PSPO order. The law. is, you know, you can't go up and punch someone in the head. Okay, if we saw, so for example, if we saw, I don't know, down one of the alleys,

two guys beating up a woman, our security guys are going to go in there, sit on them, call the place and say, come and get them, and our police are going to be grateful because we spoke to them, they said, do that. If they see somebody, maybe, I don't know, just annoying somebody, they're not going to do anything, they'll just go on and say, leave them alone. They're scarecrow. They wear them high-vis jackets and they've got body cams. if they see a homeless person,

they're not going to go and say, you're homeless, you have to move on. If they see them breaking the PSPO order, which is aggressive begging or taking drugs or drinking in open space, they will go up to them and say, look, there's a PSPO order,

you're not allowed to drink here, do you mind moving on? Almost all scenarios, these people have said, yeah, fine, we'll move on. And they do. The green, where all the Pisseds are, it's been empty each Saturday.

And you see families there now. And so it's gone really well. I've had endless emails and private messages of people saying thank you, this has been great I mean listen to put this one by the mic this is a great example

so a lady she's got a shop on the high street in Bedford she's always having to deal with problems right where is she hold on have you spoken to the woman who owns the vegan cafe no I haven't actually I'd be curious to know what she thinks of this

yeah that might be an interesting one so here's a good example instant relief seeing your guys out today They've just seen a group of them at the car park, which is reassuring coming in. I saw people as well. So I know it's going to be a good day, or at least a safe day, which makes all the difference. Do you know what? That's amazing, but it's also depressing that she has to rely on you to have a safe day in Bedford in the UK.

Well, it's that weird kind of paradox in that it's good that we've got security guards in the town, and it's bad that we've got security guards in the town. How much of it is a Bedford issue rather than a UK issue? And so... It's a UK issue. So I obviously don't live here now. I probably spend three weeks a year in the UK, something like that. And when I'm like away and I'll see things on Twitter,

it looks like the UK is on a serious decline. Yeah, we're fucked. But when I walk around, like, I don't feel that. And maybe there's an interesting thing in here because last week you came up to my hometown where I grew up. And I always considered McElspield and Bedford as being relatively similar. They're probably a similar-ish size,

relatively similar demographic. And you were really impressed with how nice Macclesfield was comparatively to Bedford. Well, it's clean. Yeah. And we didn't see any homeless or drug addicts. But there could be a day I take you to Bedford, you don't see them. So that happens.

Somebody did message me and said, what do you mean you didn't see any homeless or drug addict? So maybe it does exist. And Mcclesfield is half the sides of Bedford. It's 50 or 1,000. But I definitely saw more bustling economy in McElfield, and it seemed cleaner and bed up. But it is an amazing.

Look, look, this is a nationwide issue. This is reflective of the state can't too big. It's got all this bullshit has got to pay for. Taxes are up because of that. Crime is up. They're not punishing crime. Police forces have got smaller. Like every single direction, the bloat of the state has

like eroded the services that the state should, would normally provide and has led to this kind of decline. And if I post something about this on Facebook, on Twitter, and it gets, you know, it's a bit viral, you'll see all these comments coming in saying, I'm going to pick towns. If I've got a town, it's wrong, apologies. But it might be like, oh, it's the same here in Bournemouth,

or it's the same here in Bournemouth, but the same here in Hull. By the way, there's now a, Connor can probably find this, a more of a vigilante, private, 200 people in Bournemouth who've come together to protect the town. Do you mean vigilante there?

Well, I say vigilante there because it's not private train security or security farm. This is a local group of people. But the thing about, we can argue, is my group vigilante or not? What I will say is we probably already have them and we're going to get vigilante groups. If you feel that your town is unsafe and you feel that there are threats to your children or threats to women in the town and you push us enough to the edge, groups of people are going to come together and say, fuck this, I'm not having this. And they will become vigilantes.

And they are the risk. We're low risk because we are using a trained licensed. security firm, if it's a group of lads coming again and say, fuck this, they might just clout someone. Yeah. And that's the scary thing about this, because like, no matter, I don't, here we go. More than 200 residents, including ex-military personnel, security professionals of first-aiders, have signed up to patrol the streets of Bournemouth. I mean, it just depresses me that it got to this. But it also excites me. Not that it exists. I think it's terrible. But there's a movement trying to change it. Yes, it shows how far, how far gone we are. How, how fucked

I mean, look, you've seen the Coinbase ad, right? Everything's fine. It is so... The furthest thing from fine. Well, it's so ironically beautiful. But we've been trolled by America about the state of our country to sell products to us. But it's so right.

We're like, all this... Everything's fine. I mean, it's not. The UK is... We've got a communist government at a time when there's no money where they're increasing regulation, increasing taxes. Joblessness is going up, the inflation is up, growth is stagnant, I think GDP per capita is down, investment is down,

investor confidence is down, like every single economic measure is shit. Then you get into other things like health outcomes, shit. Everything is going to shit in this country. And there's a large part of the population that sees it, and there was nobody with a backbone within, nobody's unfair. There's hardly anyone with a backbone in Whitehall who's saying, let's fix this. Someone with a pair of bollocks like Malay or a Bucalion says, I've had enough, I'm fixing this. I'm not taking this shit anymore.

And the risk with the like growing vigilante groups is that something happens and they're directs in the wrong way. Like I'm not even giving an opinion on the immigrant. I mean, the immigration thing is getting out of control in the UK. And I'm not saying we should have no immigration, but it's at a crazy fucking point. But when you see these group of people like grouping up outside the migrant

hotels, like all that's going to take. is one tiny thing and then something bad happens. And you know what the truth of it is? It's not really the migrants' fault. No, it's not. Like if I was from... The West bombs their countries constantly for the last 30 years. If I was from Eritrea, I mean, look, okay, let's put it a different way.

Look at all the people leaving the UK to go to other countries. Why are they leaving? Because they think they can get a better life elsewhere. And yes, they'll say it's legal migration. Well, lots of the migration to the country is legal. But if I was from Eritrea, and I thought, if I can get into the UK, create a good life for my family. I'm doing it.

I'm doing it. I'm on that boat. Our problem is, is we are a welfare state who offers so much. If you look across Europe, where to go, well, the UK,

I get a hotel room for the night. I get three meals. I get private health care. I get massages. I get mobile phone. That's fucking great. Put me on that boat. I'll go over there.

It's not their fault. If we didn't incentivize coming here, less people come here. The economic migrants were coming and create jobs. And I've got no issue with economic migration. If it's net beneficial to the country, and them. I've got no issue with that at all, but it's not that.

And people are getting so pissed off. And to the point, it's so mad. People are talking about civil war. Well, that's what I was going to say, because you were telling me this last week, and I'd never heard anyone talk about this in the UK. And you were saying that you think it's closer than we may like to admit. Yes. Or we might have, be on the tip and point and be there. But that's the things that a little, like, I'm not saying these vigilante groups

or these group of people collecting to try and make their town better are a bad thing. But the risk there is that something happens, It's kind of like an inocular small thing, and then it escalates and escalates and escalates and what happens next. Well, it becomes counterproductive and allows a state to grow. You have to be smart.

The pen is mighty and the sword is so true in the situation. So when I first started seeing these talks about Civil War, it's a bit like when Iran was bombed, they say World War III's coming. I think, oh, as a podcaster, it's an inflammatory title, YouTube incentivized.

Yeah, well, it incentivized inflammatory titles, right? Yeah, because you get... And that's what I thought it was. But the trigonometry guys, Connell get his name up, they got this guy and this expert. He works at King's College, London. And he said there are seven conditions for civil war of which the UK meets six of them. If you read them, he's absolutely true. And also you think, well, what does civil war mean?

Well, I'm the only civil war I know really, like was the main one is the one in the US. Yeah, it's guns. It's guns. And it was the North or the South. And it was open warfare. But he talks about it more like insurgency. And I haven't finished that interview, but what I suspect he's saying is, what's that? Yeah, David Betts.

See if you can find those seven conditions. It may be a group of lads who are so fucked off with the UK. Inflation, can't afford a house, can't afford to fill their car, working their bollocks off, got no money left and said, I've had enough of this. All these migrants are coming over, getting the hotel rooms, and I'm working my ass off. I've got no money left. I'm paying tax. You know, who are just angry. And what if they say we need to fight back?

Now, my way of fighting back is action. Parallel institution in Bedford. Civic duty. Civic duty, proven we don't need them and to do with action. But I totally can see a world where somebody goes, we might need to burn down a police station or we might need to, I don't know, some crazy shit. The problem is the minute they do that,

they will be classed as domestic terrorists, arrested, rightly so, because you should not be violent. And then we'll see a further clamp down on our freedoms, on our civil rights, and it will be, it'll be squashed. There is no path, there's no sensible path to a violent civil war in this country. The only sensible path is peaceful revolution, which is dependence, mighty in the sword, which is parallel institutions, privately funded, doing the job of the state within the law and prove them we don't need you, and then on the back of that political action

to remove parts of the state which aren't performing. And start the beast with Bitcoin. Yes, well, but you can't because you have to pay your taxation. So look, I'm of this belief. We will always have government, but we will get the government we deserve. This country voted for a Labour government, and so we've got the country we deserve.

I can't see us return into a monarchy here. Yes, there are monarchies around the world. you can go and live in them. I don't see that. I don't see democracy going anywhere in this country. So what we need to do as an electorate is ensure that we let the politicians know our demands. These are our demands for, this is what we want from government. I mean, I want a melee-style character. I want somebody who's going to dismantle the state, the apparatus of the state, the power of the state, and put it into the hands of the people. I want a massive reduction in all the fucking stupid laws we have. I want all the freedoms and liberty restored. I want taxation reduced.

And I'm not talking for anarcho-capitalists. Just make the country work. And I would vote for that person. Does that person exist? I don't think it's Nigel Farage. I can't think of a... I don't know of a real libertarian within Whitehall. Like a real libertarian, who is Millet-style.

What about Rupert-Lohm? I don't think he's a full libertarian. I think he's a strong conservative. I think he's a small government conservative. And there's some of those, Thatcherites types. Andrew Griffith is one. But I don't think there is a full Malay libertarian, you know, who will absolutely tear the left apart and destroy all of their arguments.

And this is one of the difficult parts is like, as a libertarian, if I was a libertarian, some people say I'm not, fair point. But the left are the easiest ones to argue against because they're the most communist, they are the most collectivist of the lot. Their ideas are the worst. There is an uncomfortable alliance between conservatives and libertarians because conservatives should be taking more to smaller government. But they're still not the end goal. And so the people who are ideologically against me in Bedford see me as the enemy because I speak some of the similar language. as say the conservative or the reform people,

but I'm not... A conservator or reform? I guess I'm a small C. Thatcherite conservative over a Blairite. But even under a small state, even under a small, like a Thatcherite government, I'd be like making the state smaller. And so it's this...

That's, yeah, that's the difficult part of this. So at like a national level, there's little hope, maybe some small glimpses, but at a local level, do you think you can actually make a difference in Bedford? I can try. Long term. Because how long can you realistically fund these programs that you're doing

where it's just cash out of your pocket into the town? If it's not really making any change, when you just go, you know what, fuck it, I'm going to go. Well, look, if the podcast stayed as it is now and it made the same money as it does now, I can do the $10,000 a month in perpetuity. And I would. Like, it's more important to have money.

Even if no other change was happening in the town, if everything was staying the same, apart from on a Saturday every month you had. If it made no difference, then there's no point doing it. But I think it is making a difference. And it's not just me. I'm not going to stand here and say,

I'm going to take all the credit. There's loads of fucking great people in Bedford that put on markets who put an artwork in empty buildings, who do pop-up shops, try and do things in the town. So for me to say, I'm just a loudmouth who can get some things done by being a loud mouth. There are loads of good people. But I think things are improving.

I went into town on the Sunday and it was different. This is a day. after one of my security days. It was bustling. There were people ever around. I've got this kind of concept that I talk about called consciously local, whereby... I love this, by the way. You make an effort to go into town and spend money once a week. If everyone in the town spent 10 pound a week, that's $50 million a year into the local economy, our high street will become a market town. But consciously local goes further than that. We, as a business, are we buying all our services locally? Are we using a local accountant rather than a London account? And again, that's

important because if we fund the local accountant, they've got more money, they can create more jobs and they spend money in the coffee shops and the restaurants. Is the council, whenever the council buys anything and their budget is 170 million, how much of that has been spent in other towns, other counties when it could be spent in Bedford? Are there services, they're outsourcing to other towns that could be put into Bedford? And if everyone, and when you're on Deliveroo, are you buying from Domino's or are you buying from Etna? Are you buying from Wagammer's or Rice Thai? Are you buying your coffee from coffee with art or rail coffee or you buy them from Starbucks?

Are you leaking money into shareholders' pockets or you're sending it to a mum who wants to buy ballet lessons? And if everybody is consciously local, and the reason I say consciously local, it gives me reasons to say to people over and over again. Have you been into the town? Stop. Don't sit there and go, I want the town to be better. The town's not working and not contribute because you're part of the problem. Stop waiting for other people to fix it. Go fucking fix it yourself. If you go moot around the shops today and you spend £50 in the shops

and then book yourself into the restaurant, you've put £100 in the local economy, which will circulate four times. But it's got to, I always say consciously local because you've got to wake up on a Saturday morning and go, I'm going into town and I wasn't going to. And I'm going to phone three friends and we're going to meet for lunch,

and then we're going to wander the shops. And if they do that, I'll open the second business and the third business and so on. And we're also, I mean, we're probably going to take a new lease tomorrow on a place that we're going to put in a pizza place. and we're going to look into how we make it more like John Lewis. So if you're local and you work in the business, you get shares,

we're share of the profit. Because what I think will happen with that is if you've got an 18-year-old in there, got share of the profit, their parents are going to come there. And they're going to work harder. They're incentivised to work harder. And they're going to work harder. And when you order online, you maybe will order from there.

And it's like, how many of these businesses can we build in the town? My view is that if enough people say, I agree. We can make better better. And I'm going to put more money in and I'm going to support local programs. We will turn the town around. And I won't have to provide the private security

because I have the argument to go to the police and council say, I've proved it works. You fucking do it. You pay for it. And there will be enough revenue coming in to support that. But it's almost like, it's like the towns on life support

and you've got the, what's it called? The defibrillator. The defibrillator. And we're getting it going again. And once it's going again, hopefully I won't have to do it more. But look, I could be wrong. It could all go to shit and we could be fine.

Like, I could do a great job and central government so bad that the statutory demands on the local council so hard that we can't do anything about this. But I've got a feeling. My gut instinct is that I am one of many in the UK who are sick of this, who have different levels of resources to go and try things. And if we can do, make Bedford work, that can become a blueprint for other places or other places will do something,

and they'll become a blueprint for us. And we will collectively and civically restore our towns and our country. And that's my plan. And if it doesn't work, you've tried. Like you've done more than everyone who's just complaining online about the state of the UK. You're making meaningful difference. And again, I go back, this is what we were meant to do as Bitcoiners. We were meant to fucking do this.

And I'm, look, free choice. If you've bought a bunch of Bitcoin made a bunch of money, you want to go and become Mountain Man or, Go to the Cayman Islands and Barbados and sip and drink cocktails. I get it. It's tempting for me, right? Like, what we're doing now is not as fun as what you and I used to do. This is hard work.

We wake up every day. Me and Connor work our balls off to just try and make it better. But if not, us who? Like, if not us who? And this is what I thought we would see loads of Bitcoin as doing. Getting up and going, fuck me, I've made, I mean, there's people who've probably made tens of millions. and I thought we were meant to go out there and do this. We've seen the problems.

We got lucky. We made a bunch of money. Let's go and invest that and make it work. I would love one of the super rich Bitcoiners go, Pete, what do you need to fix your town? I'll be like, give me $50 million, and I can literally change Bedford to the extent where it becomes a blueprint for the country.

I know all the anchor businesses to create. I know how to set them up. I know how to sort out the security. I know how to sort out an investment. And for $50 million, I can make Bedford the blueprint for the entirety of the UK. If I could, say reform would win the next election, I'll sit Nigel Farage down and say, give Bedford autonomy, give the mayor autonomy on tax and spend, and I will prove to you how

we create a blueprint for the rest of the country. Because I don't think it's hard, right? It's really fucking easy, Danny. It's tax people less, put more money in their pocket, make it easier to invest and create businesses. you will have more people working, less people reliant upon the state, and you will be able to use those increase in tax revenues to fix the social issues that exist.

And those social issues exist, which are a cost to the society at the moment, which means when you go into a test goes, you're paying high prices to cover the theft. That doesn't exist anymore. That market distortion has gone, and that money is going into creating wealth and opportunity. To me, it's so obvious and easy. It's...

And I think I'm right. I think you're right. I mean, it almost feels like the perfect place to end, but... But when Mayor Pete to McCormack? No, never. I don't want to do it. We should talk about football as well. We should talk about football.

Yeah. I'm going to pay my debts to you, and this can be my... Oh, you've got it ready now. My donation to Bedford. I haven't written down the news. It's not a donation to me. I'm going to spend this on crack. Where will we at?

I think it's 400K sets. Yeah, 400K sets. Okay, let me do this one set. It's very fucking cool what you're doing. Let me ask you something. So based on your knowledge of the UK and your friendship circle here and the people you know, what are people telling you? Like, is it hard out there for people?

For sure. I think people are feeling the pinch in a massive way. Cost of living. But a lot of the people I speak to are kind of like MPCs in this. Right. Like I think there's a lot of just this is the way it is now. Get on with life. Everything's fine.

Everything's fine. I do think that's true. So I don't know if they're the best example. Like, I don't know very many people that think the way that Bitcoiners do in the UK. Yeah, and look, there is a potential. I mean, Connor talked about this to me and that because we're in this, we maybe see it worse than it is. I think that's true as well. I'm not sure it is.

I think it's the opposite. I think it's because we're in this, we see how bad it is. I think a lot of people don't realize how bad it is. But that's what I meant when I said, like, when I walked down the street here today in London, like, I mean, it's a nice day. And a nice day in London is nice, because everyone's outside enjoying themselves. But things don't seem as bad as they do on Twitter. But if you were walking down here and you're on your phone and someone went past on an e-bike and snatched it,

your entire view would change in that moment. Oh, of course. One incident. And the other thing is, like, I'm not wearing my watch because I'm in London. Well, it's the survey of one problem. Like, I've got this in bed for people going, well, I work into town and I don't feel unsafe when somebody begs for me. I'm like, you're a survey of one. That's true.

For everybody who says that, I can find you an example of somebody who says, I've got this woman. She messaged me the other day. She said, we're a cash business. Locking up is a scary time for us. We feel good that your security are in town. That's a different survey of one. But the survey of one who has a lived experience, which is negative and scary,

is more important the survey of one who's had no experience. That's definitely true. And then at the same time, like, I don't have a very good perspective on it. Because compared to, like, this isn't me being big. myself up, but like I have quite a privileged life where, like, where my family live here and I don't go to the places that are really struggling. Well, Connor, if you said to me, Dad, I'm going to town, what do I say? All right, if Scarlett says she's going to town, what do we say? We're not happy about it. Conner's six foot three. Yeah. You'd take two or three we would have

taken down. The daughter's a different scenario and they face different risks. And that's a problem. But yeah, by the way, so back to May I know, absolutely not doing it. You can't do a good job. I can be more effective as an unelected pseudo-mare just getting shit done. I can say what I want. I don't have to worry about party politics. I haven't got to manage an unmanageable budget with endless statute of demands from central government on all kinds of shit that we can't afford. It's an impossible job to do.

I don't want the job. Everyone who says I'm trying to become met, I do not want the job. Well, I think everyone thinks you're going to be mayor because you said you were going to be mayor. Yeah. You've been blackpilled on the mayor idea. I went down the rabbit hole of the, budget, the statutory demands, and then spent time with the mayor. I mean, look, if I thought I could

go in and be an effective mayor, it's like, can I be more effective as mayor or just as Pete as a resident doing what I'm doing now? I can be way more effective doing what I'm doing now with no pressures of being a mayor. So why become a mayor? I don't need to be mayor. My ego doesn't say, I need to be, I need to wear the robe and the chains. I don't get a fuck about that. You look good in the robe and the chains. But we should talk about football. Yeah, we'll just let me finish on that is that I actually think the end goal is what's the important thing. The end goal is making Bedford better. I can do that more effectively not as mayor. Fair. And I don't want to be an MP. So there's no office for me to take. I'm not interested in office. You're just going to be the

change you want to see in the world. Love it, man. Rail Bedford played the first game on Saturday. Yes. Against a good side. Yes. Yeah, this is an interesting season for us. It's, it feels different. It's the first division we've gone into where it feels like there's actually big clubs. It's the first where we definitely don't have the biggest budget. I don't think we had the biggest budget last year, but we definitely don't. There's a couple of teams, harbour and sporting,

definitely spending more than us. Teams are experienced at this level. It's semi-pro to the level where some of the players will have played pro and will be getting paid very well. What is very well? I mean, if you're getting over a thousand pound a week in step three, you're a very, very well-paid player. That exists in this division.

And we were first game of season, Spalding, who were originally second favorites. I think we're second favorites now. I mean, it was just different. It was a different level of football. Good, good players, tough players. They knew what they were doing. We won. Back against the wall, most of the first half, managed to equalize just before halftime.

And then Joey stepped up, got his brace second half. We won. But it reminded us a lot of the first season in step five. We played this team, MK.I. We were the better sign. And we won. We grew into the league. and then dominated the league.

I don't know if the same will be this season. We will give a good count of ourselves, and playoffs would be a hell of an achievement. Winning it would be very tough. But if you do win it, you'll be the first team to ever do four back-to-back. It's only three teams I've ever done three championships in a row.

No one's done four. I'd love to do it. And look, I mean, you were there when I, came up with this idea. And I thought you were back shit crazy then. Well, no one got it. I didn't get it. No one understood it.

I thought this was peat blowing money. Yeah. But I kind of like, I, it's like that first mover advantage. I don't know if you listen to my Belarge interview. He talks about when you leave a broken country, you've got the first mover advantage.

I think that resonated with Connor a lot. It's like you get to move first. You get the lower house prices where you go. And you get away from the shit. Whoever did the first Bitcoin team created the Bitcoin team, There are other Bitcoin teams. We've tried it, and no one talks about them.

Rail Bedford is the Bitcoin team, which means we have the Bitcoiners of fans and the companies of sponsors and the Winklevoss as co-owners. And we use the power of Bitcoin and the community of Bitcoin and the principles of Bitcoin to power a sports team, hopefully to go from the bottom of the English pyramid to the top, which is nine promotions. Three is in. We've done three. We're a third of the way there, which when you think about it's quite mad.

It's insane. If we did the same again, in three years, we'd be two-thirds of the way there. I don't think we will. I think these are going to be very hard. But it's all doable, and it's been a hell of a journey. I mean, I'm actually in my fifth season. Because you took over halfway through the first season. Yeah, then we did the three promotions, and now we start this one.

So actually in my fifth season, so it's gone super quick. The funniest thing to me is, and there's some kind of, like, imagery in this. But the first time I came to a game. So I watched some of the streams at first, but I don't think I came to a game until your second season. Okay. And it was like a rainy day. Fibs were like pretty good, but there was maybe,

if there were 50 people there, that would have been a push. That would have been the first half of the season we had them. Oh, really? Yeah, because we used to get 40, 50 around that time. Maybe it was the first season. The first full season,

because you must have been to England. Yeah. The first full season, we used to get 180. Unless it was a Tuesday night. Occasional Tuesday night, we would have like 80. But it's like, it was so funny seeing it go from that to them what it was at Cheatko,

which was the last time I saw a game here. $1,400. 1400 people, sun was shining, vibes were high, Bedford won the league. And it felt different. Once you get a thousand people, once there's people on every side and it's full up, it feels like you're at a football club, a real active football club. You are. And there's music.

It's music. But when you can hear a crowd, it feels different. I love the little ultras you've got that stand behind the goal banging the drum. They're brilliant. We wanted to put masks on them. The powers at B said no. Who said no? Neil.

Rightly so, look, there's an intimidating atmosphere. We still want to do it. But yeah, look, we're building a thing, and I think it's a real Bitcoin project. There are, like Pub Key. I think the best Bitcoin businesses are the ones that work without Bitcoin and Bitcoin becomes an accelerant. In that if Bitcoin fails or it has a bear market, whatever, the business still operates and does its thing.

But it becomes, for us, it's accelerant. If you don't like Bitcoin, you come to Rail Bedford, you can pay to get in, you can have a burger, a pint, watch a game of football and leave. But if you're a bitcoiner, you get to talk to Bitcoiners. I talk to you, and you get to pay for everything with your Bitcoin. And you accelerate what we're doing because we have Bitcoin. And all the Bitcoin we have, we've always sold Bitcoin, it's always into profit. When we raised the money from the Winklevoss, I think Bitcoin is about 70K.

It's like 110K now. I mean, that investment is that 40%? 50%? 60? I'm not doing mass live. I mean, it's going up faster than we can spend it, which is the model for how we got through the leagues quicker with a lower investment. And so, yeah, look, it's worked.

It's been, God, I love it. I love it so much. Tomorrow night, we are off to Needham Market, away game. Is it the thing you're most excited for now in your life, game day? Oh, that's a good question. I mean, yeah, kind of. yes I love match day I love getting in the car with Conno

unless I was talking on the way or on the way back but is it the most exciting thing no it's not I am excited about retirement don't go yet no I just you're a few more years of Pete I'm really starting to enjoy the occasional time I have off like we're going on holiday on Wednesday and we've rented a villa

and just going to be there with a family and relax and I'm really looking forward to that although Conno I have been looking at how we can fly to the Hells Owen game. Can we get a flight on Saturday morning and a flight back Saturday night? Private jet. Cameron, Tyler, can I hear you? Yeah, no, I mean, I just love it. It's because it's a results-based business, not a profit-based business. You're trying to be successful and not lose money. And that's a fucking challenge. But you are, it's like so, building a podcast is interesting, but they're just numbers on the screen. Building a business,

where people turn up. It feels tangible. It feels real. And it feels like something the community can get behind. No, I love it. I mean, I really wanted us to make a bet on the podcast for all time's sake,

but we did them all on the show that we never recorded. What did we bet? I can't remember. You write them down. I don't have, I never have a copy. I just trust you. I didn't think I wrote them down this time.

Okay. We can do it again. All right. So we're settled. So the current position is zero. Even. Back to even. Right.

New bets. This is deposit only for me when we bet. I've made so much money bet on Bitcoin. Yeah, you really have. I've made a Bitcoin off American Hoddle, and we've got a live Bitcoin bet. 700K by... End of 27? Yeah, I think we're going to win that.

Right, United. How many points? What was last season? 17. No, no, no. What was the actual difference last season? 38. No, because we double quit to 34, and it was 38.

Okay. Are you sure is that close? I don't think 38. Points is that close? I want, no, I mean, yeah, true. I want United top half of the season. Okay, United top half. I'll tell you that 100K sets.

Yeah. United not to get relegated. I'm taking that one just for the beams. And then you come up with a points one. It was 42 last season, 42 point difference. I don't, I don't think you're going to have a good season, but I don't think it's going to be as big a disaster. No, it's not. But I want it to be one that's close.

I think 20 points is a good one. I mean, because you gave me the relegated, I'll give it you, but I think I'm going to lose that one. 20 points. Can we talk about my favorite bet with you? Which was that? When United played Liverpool, we had 100K sets and you went to bed. No, no, it's the one where you went to bed. And you woke up.

It was 7.1. And the ref ended the game early because he felt sorry for you. Yeah, that was one of my least favorite mornings. I woke up to thousands of notifications on Twitter. I was dying. We absolutely bet. Did you? All right.

Before we finish. Oh, sorry, it's your show. No, go on. You take over. Tell me what's going on. What's going on in the world of Bitcoin that I should be aware of? I know treasury companies. It's paper Bitcoin summer, bro.

Is that what it's called? It's, uh, there's a lot of stuff happening that's not what I thought winning would look like. I think like there's a, and I've been skeptical of a lot of treasury companies. I could say over and over again, I think Sayler's different. I think Matt Planet are different. I think probably 21 and Annabax one will be different, just out of shit. size but i am nervous about these companies just scooping up coins to eventually spit them out again um but at the same time as all this is happening samurai devs you've seen what's happened here

it's fucking disgrace so i've spoken to a few people who are actual lawyers and it sounds like so they've pled guilty sounds like they're going to get the higher end of the sentence so probably both going to have five years in prison um the libertarian party needs to do another deal with trump i think honestly i think the the best chance they have is now a pardon and there's people working on that. There's someone from the Libertarian Party working on that. And Roman Storm also convicted. He actually went through trial and got convicted of conspiracy to run a money laundering business. I think it was the charge. So he's going to get five years or up to five years. So lots of good things. That sounds like a black pill. There's lots of good things, but there's

definitely stuff that's not what Bitcoin should. That's not Bitcoin winning. Yeah, I mean, it feels feels like it's got, I think it's got a bit boring for me as an external. I think you've got bored of it. I find, I'm not finding it boring. Well, weirdly though, I, I had a long chat in Lafoten, Norway, with somebody, and they talked about how we've kind of gone so far away from peer-to-peer money.

And I'm kind of with them. Because if it's only digital gold, oh, I totally agree. We'll be rich and depressed, like Thomas says. My favorite quote in Bitcoin. Yeah. There's stuff that's happening, though, that is genuinely cool. Like, I think that everything Callie's building is insane.

Yeah, Callie's amazing. I love him. Have you said, have you used BitChat yet? No, but I've seen stuff. Have you got it? No. Oh, I was going to send you a first message on BitChat. It's really cool.

Yeah. Don't get me wrong. It's, like, obviously limited in scope because not many people have it yet. Yeah. So, like, finding people on there is impossible. The first time I found anyone was in Riga, and we were on a boat. So Mills organized this boat. trip for us on the last day.

She came to Bedford. She's the best. And we were all just, like, sat there talking and BitChack came up. And so we get our phone out. And honestly, 10 minutes later, no one had talked for 10 minutes. We're all just talking on BitChat. So when I see BitChap, very cool. I think pretty much everything Jack Dorsey does is cool.

I love everything Kelly's doing. But it all feels really niche. Yeah. And it doesn't feel like there are enough people working on peer-to-peer money. at a narrative level, like out there talking about it and making it happen. I think that's fair, but I do think that's changing too. So have you heard that Arc Labs have now launched? Nope.

So I think Riga was the first time it had ever been actually used. So all the merchants that were set up in Riga weren't using Lightning, they were using Arc. Okay. And I know that someone at the conference, I forget who, sorry, did a transaction from Kassu to Arc using the Lightning Network as like the interoperable middleman. And like, and this stuff's happening. And from what I've heard,

Arc is going to be pretty fucking powerful because it's basically lightning without ever having to worry about liquidity and things like that. Right. Well, I just think it needs to get a bit more punk rock. Yeah, I agree.

Like, I think the punk rock, fuck you. That was the different vibe in Riga compared to being in somewhere like Vegas. Right. Because Riga has all, like, I think the German group are fucking cool.

Like, the German Bitcoiners are like, the hyper-Punks now. Whereas in America, it's all like the financialization side of things. Well, it's like all the financialization side of things. And maybe they're the cyphibunks because they need to be because of stuff like the online safety act and all this stuff that's going through Europe. Like America don't have those problems. But there is a lot of cool products being built. But I agree that the narrative probably

needs to shift a little bit. And look, I'm away from it. So I'm not really seeing it. But I don't know. There's just like that punk rock edge. I think, you know, like Lopso, what's the point to have a fuck you money if you don't say fuck you? And I just think it's, look, if we're moving into world where the institution of the governments are going to start accumulating Bitcoin, then we need Bitcoiners to take over the institutions. and the governments and doing it in the right way. So there's this massive growth in socialism in the UK. 53% of young people think it's a right model.

So look, I think we need to go and dismantle the socialist states of Europe and the world and the socialist growth and we need to get back to being like punks and a bit more fuck-you attitude. I could have ran it for out. Let's fucking go. Danny, love you, man. Thank you for having me. This has been great.

Thank you.