The Bitcoin Group, the American original. For over the last 10 seconds, the sharpest Satoshi's, the best Bitcoin's, the hardest cryptocurrency talk. We'd like to welcome our panelists, Blake Anderson, cryptographic economist. Hi everybody, thanks for having me on the show. Jawskigala from Valtoro. Good afternoon, good morning and good night. J.W. Weatherman from mathbot.com. Hey ladies, thanks for having me. Now I'm Thomas Hunt from the World Crypto Network, moving on to issue one. Bitcoin price bottoms. On July 17th, the price of Bitcoin spiked more than 10% in around 45 minutes, settling in at around 7479. This led Barry Silver, the digital currency group, to claim that the downtrend is over and that the bottom has been found. Silver claims that a combination of inpatient institutional money bears running out of Bitcoin to sell and technical analysis led him to his decision. Additionally, Bitcoin is no longer reacting to negative criticism by famous faces from the world of economics. Blake Anderson, I ask you, has Bitcoin truly bottomed? Well, these types of predictions are really hard to make because Bitcoin is an emerging market. It's not hyper-massive in terms of being unable to be swayed by certain big hotlers. I think it's funny in this article, on June 16th, BlackRock said that there was zero institutional investment interest. And then on July 18th, GrayScale said that 56% of a 250 million raise-round came from institutional investors. So it's very interesting to look at these kind of pivots and or flip flops. I can't decide if this flip-flop-flash pivot is somebody flip-flopping or if they're trying to be consistent in what they're saying, even though what they said previously may not have aligned with what they're saying now. So is it at the bottom? I don't know, but over a long time, Horizon, it should continually trend up. So I think that we should look forward to that as opposed to trying to read the T-leaves on a short-term basis because that can get people wrecked. Just like to ask everyone to give us a thumbs up and a share so that more people can find the show. Josh Gagala. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a, I really feel that we could start seeing an upward trend. It was a weird pop of this bubble. It wasn't like a direct, mock-gock-style pop or the pops before them where it literally went down, you know, straight vertical. It's kind of deflated over the last four months, which, you know, I mean, people in the normal world were going, what? It fully popped, but actually in the Bitcoin world, it deflated. And I don't know, you know, have we seen the bottom? I think we'll see a sidewoods trend for a long time still because what will happen is even if it goes up, we'll get people going, well, well, I'm not going to miss out on these games again and they'll pull out. And it's sad because they're using Bitcoin to pull out into filthy fiat again, you know, just stick to stay in there, guys. For me, it was a really big deal and we finally broke 6,800. We've been trying to get over that for a long time and that was a big signal of a potential turnaround. We could see it. It could be a retracement, but I don't know. There was a CNBC poll that said, is it going to go above 7K and everybody voted no? So I thought that was pretty funny to be able to post now. That's always good whenever they say that. Remember they said to buy a ripple at $3 a coin. JW weatherman. I think it's good to like take a step back and think about what the price means, right? The price is not like this thing that has momentum or velocity or anything like that. It's a line that represents the past decisions that people made about buying and selling Bitcoin, right? And they bought and sold at different ratios and in different volumes, but they didn't do it for any other reason than to benefit themselves, right? And so why would they buy or sell? If they're smart, they're buying or selling because I think it's going to go up in the future. How are we going to predict what they're going to do over the next three months? When we don't even know why they did that over the last three months, right? I don't even know if you really put the screws to me like why I bought the color of shoes that I bought, let alone a lot of this other stuff that's that's far harder to really support and articulate. Big picture though, I can tell you what I do know. What I do know is that it's a new technology. It works better than all of the competitors, the competitors suck. There's like, there's nothing that looks even anything less than full on stupid. And it's a huge, huge problem that it's going to solve. And if it does solve that problem, it'll be worth 5 million plus. Those are all facts that I can articulate. It's my investment thesis. That's why I'm very happy that I bought it at 18,000 and we're sitting around 7,000 because my investment thesis remains completely untouched by everything that happens in the near term. I'm a technologist. I see tools that work. I buy them and I don't expect the whole world to adopt those tools in six or nine months. I know that this is a five plus year game. Excellent points, Mr. Weatherman. And as you know, the coin has no memory. In the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenster and are dead, they flipped a coin 50 times in a row and 50 times it came up heads. And you say to yourself, gosh, what are the odds of it coming up? It's going to be a five plus year game. I'm going to say to myself, what are the odds of it coming up heads the next time, given that it's come up 50 times in a row. And the answer is still the same, 50, 50, 50. Let's move on to the exit question. What is the price of Bitcoin this time next week? Higher or lower? Blake Anderson. Well, it's a good question. I think that Barry Silvert is great, but I think that when Barry and Alan Silvert, both agree on certain things, the institutional investment money is something that they agree on that's coming in, so that's a strong data point. As far as next week will it be higher or lower? I think that it could creep higher. We've just come out of a pretty long lateral consolidation, so it would make sense if it were a little bit higher, but again, with the coin flip, 50, 50. It's funny all the Bitcoin brothers we have in this industry, Alan and Barry Silvert. Charlie Lee and Bobby Lee. Congratulations to Bobby Lee. He went all the way to, I think it was day four of the World Series of Poker. Very cool. Congratulations, Bobby. Josh Gagala. I'm saying your name wrong today. Yeah, and it's me, my brother as well, running Voltor is. Hey, I mean, I would say there's a very different, big difference between price and value. And the price next week, I think might be a little bit lower because we've seen an over buying it on a technical basis. There's been a lot of buying. So I think the price will be lower, but the value will be higher. J.W. Weatherman. I'm going to say higher. And I'm going to say higher because of the fact that it started at zero and it's headed to five million. So on average, I've got to be right slightly more often if I say it's going to go up. Unless I've completely misunderstood the technology or what people are going to do with it. And let's stick with higher 8200 easy. Moving on to issue two congressional Bitcoin. In a pair of hearings this week, the Agriculture Committee and the Financial Services Committee met to discuss Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. The highlights include the girl with the purple hair declaring forcefully that Satoshi is indeed a woman and Congressman Brad Sherman, the banking representative from California declaring that we should prohibit US persons from buying or mining cryptocurrencies, adding that cryptocurrencies accomplished nothing except facilitating narcotics trafficking, terrorism and tax evasion. Jasky Gala is Mr. Sherman correct should Bitcoin be banned. I mean, the thing is this guy is so ludicrously stupid. I mean, honestly, we should should my should my left back wheel shock absorber go out there and get a bank account so it can sell its little minuscule Pits of data that it's going to sell to the rest, you know, it should everything on the Internet of things go out there and get a bank account. No, I mean, it needs money for this stuff to work. This guy is living in the past. What is he a Mormon? I'm not sure. But really, I think it's it's it's a really ridiculously hang on as a Mormon. Who are the guys that I think I'm moron moron moron moron. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's so strange to me to hear these sort of these politicians who, hey, I think I saw a little bit covered on him that he actually got a large contribution to his campaign out of crypto anyway. But really the notion that everything's money laundering and all this nonsense is so ludicrous in terms of the potential and the times that we're living in. We've used a 1950s technology called the credit card debit card system or the credit card system and mangled and mashed it and crushed it into this hole to try and make it work for the Internet. Dude, every time you use your credit card, you're handing over someone your private keys, some random person, your private keys basically because you have to give them everything they need to do to take to take apart from that little number in the back. I mean, is that a joke? Yeah, I could imagine the boardroom meeting when they came up with that. They'd be like, oh, guys, we're getting a lot of scams, a lot of people stealing credit cards. What can we do in the one person would go, I've got an idea. We shall turn the card around and add three more numbers on the back. I mean, what kind of ludicrous world do we live in where these politicians think that we can live with this sort of technology? You can't stick the rabbit back in the hat. And if he's going to ban every American, I would be furious as an American to say, what are you doing, mate? Are you seriously going to ban the future of money or the future of digital assets in this entire country? What are you retard? I mean, that's really... I prefer the term subtarded. It's something to retarded people to compare. No, I didn't. As soon as it came out, I thought that's really easy to talk to. And they are saying in the chat, Josh might have meant Luddite, people that are against technology or maybe Amish, not exactly... Amish, that's what I mean. I'm sorry. I meant the Amish, of course. Yeah, and nothing to do against the Amish, actually. I like the fact that they choose not to use technology cool, but... They shouldn't be in Congress deciding for the rest of us. Just to throw some cover, let's... I'll make fun of the Mormons and their special underpants for a minute. And that way, if there was any misdirected outrage, it'll be where it is welcome. Now, I think all this Congress stuff is funny because these guys are... They're not the sharpest knives in the drawer. They don't know what's going on. They're not technologists. I mean, if you ever get bored and you need some laughs, go back and look at the congressional hearings they had around the internet. On any topic around the internet, you're going to hear some of the most absurd statements. And these guys will say it with the straight face, with absolute confidence and bluster. But that's what they do. They're politicians, right? So they're professional liars and their job is to try to convince you of falsehoods so that you allow them to take your money with less resistance. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if they would like to get rid of Bitcoin. But I don't think that any of them have taken more than 10 minutes before they got in front of the camera to understand what Bitcoin is or why it would be hard to... Why it would be hard to do anything to it. So I'm not really worried about those guys. If they did do something like try to ban Bitcoin, it would have some positive side effects that might not be very obvious. And one of them is that all of the people that have a tendency to grovel and submit and lick the boot of the state would end up becoming impoverished as a percentage compared to the people that are willing to take some risks and in reasonable ways fight for freedom. So bring it on if that's what you jokers are going to do. But I don't even think that you've put 15 minutes into it. So I doubt you're doing anything. It was funny, JW, to see how totally unprepared the congressman were for this hearing. It's almost as though they attempted to learn merely from the hearing, not from doing any pre-researcher. Reminded me back in college, some people would do the research and read the books and prepare. And other people would just come in and try to learn from the class and speak by. And that'll get by in college, but not in congress, right? Yeah, yeah, totally. You would think, but I'm not so sure. I think no matter how dumb we think the average congressperson is, we're overestimating them. Oh, I saw it. Now I was like, I could do that. I could do that better. So interesting stuff, interesting stuff. Let's move on to the exit question. Hold on, I've got to weigh in. Oh, yeah, we've got to go to play. Go ahead, Blake. Sorry. No, don't worry. Yeah, Brad Truman. I think that we've kind of kicked that horse. He set the bar really, really, really low. Colin Peterson of the Democratic Farm and Labor in Minnesota. It was in the agriculture hearing. So he's in Minnesota. I live in Minnesota. It's in the farm belt. And I was actually impressed that he did a little bit of research on his own and said that I'm not 80% of ICOs or scams. Seemed like he was a little bit more warm on Bitcoin than some of the other stuff that surrounds it and tried to make a little bit of a differentiation. The DFL isn't the worst party ever. I'm definitely a classical liberal, but Paul Wellstone in the tradition of people coming out of the DFL from Minnesota. Him being so controversial in terms of trying to get stuff done that he died in a plane crash and people wonder what happened there. And I don't know. The bar was set so low by Brad that I was almost kind of impressed with Colin, which is bizarre because, again, leading towards libertarianism, I'm not all about this representative policy. Handling here with people that are so far away from the situation. So it was an interesting hearing. It was interesting to say to hear people insist that Satoshi was female without a lot of evidence. Like I don't insist that Satoshi was male and for those same reasons, I think that insisting that she female or a space alien or anything is just kind of a bizarre thing to talk about on the floor to the extent that people started there after referring to Satoshi as female. It was just kind of a very, very circus-esque in terms of let's let's remain a little bit more empirical and a little bit less, you know, making assumptions that make us feel good and then going out and getting a lot of attention doing that. So I thought it was a very, very interesting, you know, bread and circus that might be a little bit more advanced than football bread and circus and stuff like that, but at least that has competitive value. I struggled to see the value coming out of those hearings. It was a very unimpressive hearing. It was sad to see Paul Wellstone pass in the plane crash. It kind of reminds you of Bobbie Kennedy of what could have been somebody just getting started trying to make some change. Let's move on to the exit question. Exit question. If Congress wanted to ban Bitcoin, would they be successful? Josh? No. J. W. Weatherman. They would be successful at impoverishing people that listen to them, but not at their goal. Blake Anderson. It's pretty tough to ban something that has a network effect that's global. So I mean, it's like, it's like, you know, what was it? Michelle Bachman? It was like, we're going to scrub pornography from the internet. It's like, well, even if you were able to make a dent in that, we all have bodies and cameras that can upload new information. It seems like a pretty foolish goal. So I think I would put it on a par with the foolishness of something like that. It can't be done. Just look at China. China has banned Bitcoin. Yet they're still trading it. They're still learning about it. It's still spreading. Bitcoin is the ultimate computer virus. Did you know the World Crypto Network has its own audio podcast? And it's got more than just the World Crypto Network YouTube on there. It's got Andy Hoffman, Adam Meister, J. W. Weatherman, and much, much more. Please subscribe to the World Crypto Network podcast on iTunes today. Issue 3. BlackRock. The American Global Investment Company, BlackRock, took a good look at Bitcoin this week. The group with more than $6.3 trillion in assets under management and 70 offices in 30 countries formed a working group to examine the fledgling cryptocurrency, perhaps causing the Bitcoin price to spike. Previously, the CEO rallied against Bitcoin, calling it an index of money laundering. But now he seems to have changed his tune. J. W. Weatherman is BlackRock's entry into the Bitcoin market? Good for Bitcoin? Yeah, absolutely. Adoption is good for Bitcoin. And it doesn't matter whether their motives are good or bad. I'm sure that they're probably not. They're not thinking about the children. When they're making their investment decisions, but that's the great thing about Bitcoin is that it is the right thing to do for the most corrupt, evil, greasy politician, whatever. If there is an evil guy pulling all the strings behind Illuminati or something, that guy right now needs to turn on all of the people he's aligned with and buy the hell out of Bitcoin. And then eventually say nice things about it. So I think it's absolutely a good thing. If they adopt it, if they don't, I think it's a good thing that they're talking about it. Because a lot of these guys that have a lot of money made their money doing things that don't require that they really know what's happening with technology, at least in the present time. And so as they're, as they're talking about it, as they're more aware of it, they're certainly going to have more of a tendency to buy it. And I think that trend is just going to continue because it's really just an education game at this point. And we're making really good progress on that. So excellent point, JW, no matter what happens with Bitcoin because of its shadowy creation and the mysterious inventor, it's very much non government and non corporation. So whoever you think's running things, illuminati, central bankers, normal bankers, eventually one of them in their group is going to betray all the other ones and go to Bitcoin causing the other ones to follow like dominoes. And they just can't be trusted and they can't trust each other. So they're eventually going to fail and Bitcoin's going to help Blake Anderson. I think it's funny that Fink called it the index of money laundering whenever I hear Fink, I think of rat Fink when I was younger in the early 90s. There was all this cool rat Fink stuff and the eight ball shifters and stuff. And it's interesting. I kind of touched on this in the first topic in terms of Black Rock saying there's zero institutional investment interest and now they're kind of flip flop and changing their tune. And it's like, who bono? Who benefits? How do people benefit from this type of a flip flop? Ideological and consistency and honesty that they say something wrong before and now they're going to say something else that's correct even though they were wrong before but they don't care because it's you know it's part of being honest. I wish that were the case, but I don't really think so. I think it's more likely that they maybe did get some interest from either their investors or some of their managers. They thought that they had enough sway and influence to say something negative and push the price down creating an opportunity for people to buy lower because they did want some exposure. I think from the who benefits, Quibono type of framing of things, that makes a lot more sense than they're just trying to be super honest even though they just said something that was the opposite not that long ago. So it's interesting to think of motivations in terms of who benefits instead of trying to think from some other type of angle. It's one of the oldest questions that we have in terms of trying to solve crime or trying to you know place intent. So I think it's always important to ask Quibono who benefits? And also follow the money and I am the walrus. Just jasagala. You know, I mean Jamie Diamond isn't an idiot when he came out with Fard or just you know bad mouthing Bitcoin. I just knew he's stacking. When Blackrock came out and started fighting it and you know really he came out with the flute fin came out with the same crap. And I think that's the same nonsense that's rolled out all the time. Yeah well, blockchains really interesting. I think blockchains fascinating but Bitcoin. No, I really find it kind of. I don't think it's as a big future and you just think. What do you talk? How many times a day do you really need an immutable database dude? And also how many times a day do you reach into your pocket and pull out this thing called currency? I'm pretty sure it's far more than you need an immutable database. But even if you do think that that that that that blockchain is better, you know really honestly it's it's kind of like saying that poker's poker is really interesting but playing cards are stupid. It's it's so dumb because they need both things. In the future we'll see every company have some sort of tokenization is here you can have digital assets that have things you can you can do things with it's an amazing technology it's not going away the token is it's not stupid and these guys aren't stupid they're going to be buying it's it's a no brainer and Bitcoin is the biggest most steady. The the the the ridiculous amount of hash power and I think people forget about how powerful Bitcoin is the network I mean I think someone calculated it I think it was even a year ago or a year and a half ago that if Google turned on in the entire hardware spectrum that they've got and pointed it all at the Bitcoin network it wouldn't even add 1% hashing power and that's how much how big this beast has become so of course I mean this is this is the one of the biggest companies that nobody's heard of. And I'm and of course they they're they're going to go in and jump in on this of course. They're definitely getting an institutional money is on its way moving on to the exit question what will happen with black rocks working group. Will they say yeah it's first on my bed will they suggest to accept Bitcoin within six weeks six months or never JW weatherman. She's within I'm feeling like two years that's kind of and it's just a gut feel I don't I don't have a lot to support it it's just I know that I know that technology takes time and even I mean like I remember when the first iPhone came out and I was more pissed off than I was relieved because it was like did I really have to wait seven years for somebody to build a touchscreen that actually has enough fidelity to. I can use my finger and not this stupid stylus that I've been carrying around you know trying to click on the windows freaking start menu with a with a phone right. It just it takes a painfully long time and anybody that's been in technology for a long time knows that it's it's it's this weird dichotomy between seeing the future and then just painfully waiting for it to be adopted by everybody else but that's where the opportunity is and but yeah I'm going to say. I'm going to say a couple years word on the street is black rocks buying now Blake Anderson I think that it's a good question what I think is that given their very very recent history of kind of doing things which seem to be advantageous for them more than other people I think that they going to tell their institutional investors privately a common or accumulate buy buy buy buy and then the next time we see a big bull run they're going to say hey not only are we in support of this we've been telling people about it. Now we're going to take credit during this bull run and previously we were telling people to to accumulate and so I think that it's going to be about six or seven months until that happens. So I think that the six month a guest in it is probably right on because I think we're going to have a couple of ups wings and when we get a really visceral one I think we'll say hey we've actually been advising this for a while not publicly but privately. Josh Shagalla two years six months break the tie. So do you mean they accept it as an investment custodial investment. Sure pretty much like everyone else yeah yeah yeah so yeah I mean it's it's not an easy thing to do. Bitcoin crypto in general is extremely slippery you know it's it's something that takes a lot of very specialized people and a very small group because the bigger the group is the more easily an inside job can hack with me. So it's you know it's a giant corporation faceless it would be hard for them I think unless I had a crack team of specialists but which of course they could muster but yeah maybe I mean I don't know I think maybe they'll buy Coinbase or something like that but it could be yeah could be to yeah I think JW is right maybe two years. The answer is six months far sooner than you think moving on to issue for code act coin for reasons unknown Forbes magazine believes that the failure. Forbes magazine believes that the company that purchased the code act brand not code act the camera company similar to way that Polaroid has also been sold as a brand. Here regardless the company behind code acts mining scheme and has been labeled a scam by critics and blocked by the SEC their ICO is now on plans and their goals to have a network allowing people to license their photographs has been put on hold but the real question remains why did Forbes believe the code act coin ever mattered and that it's death and decline would have any effect on Bitcoin Blake Anderson. That's a good question Forbes really kind of talked out of both sides of their mouth on this one because early on they were like yay we're going to basically just publish their press release and then later on they were like this is pretty bad for the Bitcoin community needs more regulation I think it was Janine that was on Twitter and was posting Syphidine said this was a bad idea a long time ago you guys are being kind of hypocritical you know trying to call other people out when it was your same publication previously that was talking about how this was going to be good and didn't really. Good and didn't really temper it with any type of risk and it's interesting that code act thinks that they have the wherewithal to be able to vet these operations when they've used like horse glue to. I touch silver salts to film that doesn't really set you up for you know taking the reins of cutting edge financial technology especially if you look at the history of the mining space people like doctor Timil hanky and I'll rather be I'm going to work for a Samsung is a chip architect before that work at call calm is a chip architect that made massive massive strike. And the fundamental technologies of being able to add huge improvements before tape out for for new stuff coming so it kind of just makes me wonder how far down the ladder of the Dunning Kruger effect you can be to think that you are going to be confident and able to compete in this area I think that they said that they were going to rent these for 34 35 hundred dollars for X amount of time and that you should make 300 plus dollars per month. And so I did the math and said that Bitcoin would have to be at 28 thousand dollars over the next two years to be able to do that I don't think that's impossible but I think that if you're trying to make those guarantees or even referencing those numbers when nobody knows if Bitcoin is going to go up down or around in circles. It doesn't vote well and so I can understand what the SEC was like whoa whoa whoa whoa pump the brakes on this it looks like what you're promising is very very very open to all kinds of factors that can influence it. And one way or the other so I think that the Bitcoin community did an actual better job of self regulating and talking about you know don't buy into this it's a scam then that then Forbes did so I thought it was funny that Forbes kind of came out later on it was like this is bad for Bitcoin I think maybe it was more bad for Forbes and there's a little bit of projection there. Josh Josh could go all out the question goes to you was Forbes ignorant or intentionally ignorant. Wow yeah I mean every time I think quoted throughout my life by any sort of press it's always being completely wrong like that it's so I don't give the mainstream media too much you know hope but you know the codec thing has always been hilarious. It was kind of at first glance it was like well cool you know codec codec you know trying to make it come back but then you realize hang on a minute you know these chip manufacturers getting down to seven nanometers now what I mean some company that buys up the random bits of scrap from codec what have they got any idea no and of course you know it failed and and it was you know I mean really when you think about it was kind of nearly as stupid as the first most stupid. The first most stupid idea in crypto and that's a mining light bulb that bit fury wanted to release or something like that someone wanted to release a mine I mean mining the biggest part of mining is heat problems guys you don't want a light bulb doing it anyway yeah. I was great when they brought the light bulb forward in a special briefcase at Richard Branson's fancy island I was there but I watched videos and such and they opened the briefcase this light bulb will mine Bitcoin. So dumb so dumb. Now never made it to consumers I'm still waiting. It's got a JW weatherman are you excited about codec coin so the major disappointment you're not going to be able to get your hands on any. Yeah yeah I'm super disappointed actually this story is one of those things it's like a Russian doll like you could just keep taking layers off of it and it's just one layer of stupid after another so codec the company doesn't even exist anymore. Codec has been bankrupt for a long time they missed the boat they weren't a well managed company they thought that you know digital cameras were not going to be a threat you know they're the beta max tapes of the past right there's they don't exist but the brand lives on because we all have associations with it so the brand gets licensed and as the brand becomes less valuable I guess license for less and less to shade your and shade your companies and it's just the normal sort of the death rattle of any company right it's going away but it's going to be a lot of things. It's going away but we still recognize the name so it's got something in there so the guys that put this together not even codec which just makes it even more apparent how stupid forbs is like this was a non story under a non story and the thing that I the thing that I think of with forbs is just like you know the I don't know who the author is but I can almost guarantee you he wrote his little scooter bike to a coffee shop he just left his smelly little apartment. He cranked out 15 minutes of work and then he went back to his Xbox and that's what forbs is right and then some editor was like hmm I wonder how many clicks this this is going to get and the answer was more than that stupid story we did let yesterday so publish and if that's where you're getting all your investment advice you know you got to expect stuff like this but I do like the codec story just because it so it's so highlights how low quality the publication is. Excellent points excellent points J. W. Let's move on to the questions. No exit question will the mainstream media learn from their incredible foolishness over codec point or will this happen again and again and again Blake Anderson. They seemed pretty defensive at the corrections and having anybody imply that they had any responsibility to have said anything except for just basically publishing a press release and then you know adding some glittery language to it so I don't I don't think they've learned a goddamn thing if I have to put my subjective opinion forward but hopefully they have. Yeah, I mean, of course I haven't learned anything it's you know long island iced tea block chain iced tea you know they they put the word blockchain in their company name because it's you know sky rock it's the the share price in fact when we got investment from. They are a floating company a they stock price also right went up so anything to do with blockchain at the moment it's causing hype so and that goes the same for press as soon as they write a piece of puff piece that with no with no research I mean obvious no research exactly what the J. W. said it's you know it's going to get some clicks so I think they're just going to do it over and over again it's typical I mean the mainstream media you really got to feel sorry for them in this day and age. They really have to write ridiculous articles clickbait articles to get anything and they're going to basically steer people astray because they're not going to do with the research and it's it's really it's a terrible terrible thing because journalism is so incredibly important but I think we're seeing a new era of journalism where the the amount of weight that people put on the importance of these big publications has been diminishing for a long time. And people's filter on fake news and understanding what fake news I think is getting I mean maybe I'm being deluditional delusional but I think it's getting better because they understanding how to research stuff a lot more so if they hear stories straight out they'll go and check multiple sources and you know the old the old saying goes if the fastest way to get a correct answer on the internet is just blatantly say something wrong. And you get corrected straight away so of course I think yeah so so based on what you said would you agree that it's almost a race to the bottom and the age of information the scarce resources attention they're churning through all this effort to get attention and people can kind of start to see this race to the bottom people are becoming more and more wary of what they hear from these sources. Yeah and I think definitely but I feel that really what we're in now we're in an age where reputation does count for something but if you screw that reputation up by messing with people it's very easy to determine if that was a lie or something like that and reputation is extremely hard to get back and in the past a big newspaper publication had no barrier of had a big barrier. So if they could just lie straight out and it doesn't didn't matter because you couldn't just get another newspaper competing with you nowadays hey you're going to lie well I'm just going to not click on your stupid homepage anymore. I think the hallmark is comments sections being disabled for a publication. Just have to put it down the memory hall. J.W. Weatherman will the media learn from their mistakes. I think the media is getting replaced I think that are obsolete and what we're doing right now is far more valuable than anything you're going to see on mainstream media I mean you've got together a couple people a group of guys that have started businesses that are working in the industry that have actually contributed and know vaguely what we're talking about to sort of analyze what's going on in the world. They never do that right like this level this quality of content is so far above anything that you're seeing out there. Even with all of my you know Bellaco statements for entertainment the amount of content like the amount of actual bullet points that you could grab out of this episode and say this is some this is a clear articulated statement about how the world works would be probably a hundred times more than anything that you're going to get on 30 minutes of mainstream media. So I think they're just they're going the way of the long distance cell phone carrier and or the long distance phone call carriers and we won't have to worry about them and probably a year or two maybe three maybe four maybe maybe they've got six years before they're absolutely gone but the trend is definitely in the right direction and they're going away rapidly so who cares. Can I just wait on what you said really quick I think that we said it's very interesting you said you can clean out statements about reality that are true from this episode and it's very interesting that overlaps a lot with what Austrian economics actually is people like oh it's a field of economics when really it's a set or series of apodectic statements about reality that describe here's what we know about reality and here's what we can measure and it's a way of tempering other schools of economics and trying to clean out what is valuable and what maybe isn't as controlled for so I think it's a very interesting overlap. And also agree and I'd say what makes this channel different is that there are no commercials to stop the flow and while later there might be commercials added in on the podcast or something like that as we're talking here we can talk for the full half hour the full hour or two or three hours if we want to it's not shaped and structured into five minute bit three minute bit five minute bit like you see on TV it's more like what I think Joe Rogan or Howard Stern's doing where they do these incredibly important things like that. They're really long interviews and they really get their guests to relax because they're not having this 30 minute break every every 30 minutes where the agent could come in the manager could come in don't talk about this don't talk about hold on to that don't don't mention this oh you went a little too far here there's no coaching here I mean I don't nobody here has an agent or a manager to talk to anyway but you get what I'm saying it's I think that those formats and especially what Joe Rogan's doing similar to what Howard Stern has done in the past although he's on serious radio so it's pay it's a little harder to get to. But that long form internet long form interview that's what we're seeing on the internet now I think it's really exciting. It's good for attention spans to it really is. You can do it in a audio podcast you can do other stuff with your hands you can do work and things it's not fully encompassing so but let's move on to the exit question or prediction or do a great on time today Blake Anderson are you ready with an exit question or prediction. Yeah I actually I want to dedicate all every second that I can get for you guys listening to me to try to talk about Ross Albrecht and the fact that we need to free him and we need to get him out of prison. The absolute disgrace abortion of justice that what his was his trial was unacceptable it is an unacceptable slippery slope for us to allow that to have happened we don't want to go down that road. I think the judge that found him guilty in the face of all of the bad things that happened in the trial that should have made it a mistrial she's retiring we're going to get a new judge and I believe there are some petitions floating around right now that are getting some traction. I believe Charlie Lee and some other people have retweeted them if you can go ahead and do me a personal favor and retweet that and sign that petition I would really really appreciate it. I don't think I've ever asked you guys for anything while being on this show but it would really mean a lot to me if you guys would go ahead and research that trial research what happened research the fact that the agents that basically set him up are now in prison because they did so many things that were illegal that they're not even free anymore that alone should be enough for a mistrial. We need to do everything that we can as cipher punks as cryptographers as people involved in this space to make sure that the people that contributed so much early on at least have a chance at freedom it is not acceptable that Ross has been in prison for five years from making a website that government agents went in and did illegal things on and then put him into prison for two life sentences that is absolutely an abortion of justice it's absolutely terrible. There's a poem that is that first they came for the socialists and I said nothing because I'm not a socialist and then it goes on to list the trade unionists and everyone else and by the end of it it says I said nothing because I was not a part of any of these groups and when they finally came to me when they finally came after me there was nobody left to speak on my behalf and I think that we all need to take that to heart and do everything that we possibly can to free Ross so if you have any questions and want to contact me I would be more than happy to talk to you about what you can do to help out and I think that this is something that no matter what camp you're in that we can all agree that having somebody thrown in jail for two life sentences for some IT work is absolutely unacceptable in a very dangerous precedent and we need to get that overturned. Here I Blake there's many things wrong with that trial such as when the government kept the site running but at the same time talked about the extreme harms of running the site it seems when they captured it they should have shut it down immediately instead they kept it running to try to capture more people. Additionally they tried him on murder in the trial but he was never charged with murder they used all that evidence from the fake murders that were set up by the same FBI agents that were stealing his money hundreds and thousands of dollars of his money the same people that set him up for the non real murder. I have to offer a correction they actually they were they said that they were charging him from murder tainted the jury pool and then did not formally charge him which is again another hyper massive literal abortion of justice we cannot tolerate that. And that's that seems like malpractice by the prosecution that they're attempting to paint the jury as something and then actually trying something else that doesn't seem the law is supposed to be straightforward and when it acts not straightforward you know something's wrong. Additionally it was denied his Supreme Court appeal some people thought that the recent carpenter case which helps you on evidence that incriminates yourself self evidence would have helped him out and would have made the appeal especially interesting for the Supreme Court but they denied it anyway so very unfortunate very fishy there as well because clearly Ross his own evidence was used against him over and over again. Let's go to Josh Josh Kegall for a prediction or a story of the week and you can also talk about Ross. Yeah, no I really want to chime in on that I also actually at the start of the show was thinking I wanted to bring up that Ross ball break is actually on Twitter now through his mother so that's real Ross. Yeah, at real Ross you. It's his Twitter handle and you can go to free Ross dot org to find out where that petition is and you can go to at free Ross to retweet because it is really important. I remember reading his articles well reading dread pirate Robert's articles and always being like very impressed with this person's writing were amazing and then when these murder for higher charges came up I just straight away knew what a load of nonsense these are these people are trying to turn the make his giant massive followers because he. You know the dread pirate Roberts whether that's Ross or not had a massive following of really really dedicated like because the his writings were so amazing they're they're got spacking they're really really well written beautiful really beautifully written better than I can speak that was a it was an unfortunate decision that they chose not to go political in the trial. They had the protesters there they were ready to go and then the judge basically threatened Ross's mom said that he was going to sequester the jury and that the jury would vote against them because they were sequestered because the protesters were arguing for jury notification. jury notification is something you should know about more it says if you don't believe in the law you don't have to vote to convict so if you don't believe in the drug war and you think it's stupid and they bring somebody for two joints and try to give them six years in jail you can say no that's stupid we we verify nullify this and if the jury had known that they might have been able to say about Ross's thing that all he really did was help people change large amounts of cannabis for large amounts of money with no violence that's really what the marketplace did. Yeah and you know the I really watched everyone turn I mean not everyone but a lot of people turn their back on him because of these notifier charges which would then dropped. But I still see that get rolled out on Reddit by random people like I'm not going to move her murder guy you know and it's like you know it's really really sad but yeah definitely you know I don't sign anything on change dot org but when I do I signed something for Ross I'll break. Very good thank you Josh J.W. Weatherman prediction or a story of the week. Actually yeah I just want to talk about the Ross thing too he he has definitely been screwed over there's no question about that but I think the most important thing to understand is that this is not an exception when I interviewed Tim may a couple months ago and I wish I had the title of the book if you hit me up on Twitter I'll give you the link he recommended a book that completely blew my mind because it it just goes into excruciating detail and it's excruciating because it's just constantly a reddit. And yet recently red pill. chapter after chapter on how the legal system works and that it is actually perfectly designed for these outcomes that it's the purpose of the legal system to re allocate property from its proper owners to the improper owners right that's that's a state monopoly legal system that's the purpose of it and it's not flouring when it does these things it is doing exactly what like I'm going to retweet for Blake and I'm going to sign the petition. I'm going to continue to donate to Ross and his cause. But I also want to just emphasize that this is why Bitcoin matters. And I think, and I know this might be a little bit controversial, but I think if you buy $10 worth of Bitcoin and hold it rather than put $10 of effort into politics or even trying to get other people passionate about it, that that is going to step Ross towards those gates a lot faster and a lot further than anything else. Because we have to defund this war machine. We have to defund this corrupt political system and we have to defund the corrupt legal system, which is just another branch of this, this monster that consumes and destroys and is funded through inflating dollars. And if I could really just weigh in really quickly one more time, I've met Lynn Albrecht in person. I've spent some time talking with her. It was in 2014. So it was years, years ago at this point. But she is one of the nicest people ever. When you meet somebody's parents, you can tell how they were reared, how they were raised. And they were raised with the same values. And she did non-violent parenting. She raised him in a way that he understood markets. He understood the value of cryptography almost before anybody else. The value of that level of decency of an individual being in jail in and of itself alone is absolutely heartbreaking to me. Somebody that has that much value and that much prophetic foresight into where these things are going to go and tries to invent a free market by the way, which is a cornerstone of both conservative and liberal politics, free markets. That's something that should not be punished in the West. And again, if we let that slippery slope continue from where it already has, that's absolutely heartbreaking from a humanitarian level, from a legal level and even from a self-interest level. No matter what level you're operating on, I cannot see any good reason for anybody to be apathetic about this situation. It's very, very important. Well, when Yahoo and Craigslist and Google had this problem, they used the common carrier defense. They said, whatever you put on our websites, you put it there. Just in that way, Ross Olbrek set up the Silk Road and whatever people sold on there, they put it there. This defense worked for Yahoo and Google and Craigslist, but it didn't work for Ross. John. I would just also like to say, you know, I'm also lucky enough to spend some time with Lenin. Really, you're so right, Blake, what an amazing person, an endless boundless amount of energy and passion, not only for freedom, not only for Ross, but for freedom of itself. We really owe it as a community of someone that when we look at, and we would talk about freedom of money, and freedom of money, and movement of money, also the ridiculous notion of this drug war, she is a person that's going around the world and promoting freedom through her son's story, and fighting so, so hard to have some sort of justice for her son. They're not a rich family. So one thing that you can do, we all shop on Amazon, and if you go to freeross.org, if you click through, if you want to buy something on Amazon, just click through their link, it doesn't cost you anything more, and they earn a little bit of commission to help free Ross. So I think that's also a really good thing to do. I want to just go ahead and chime in and say that, yeah, I've also met Ross Oldbrecht's mother. It was probably four years ago when Blake met her, and it's a very nice lady. Ross was a boy scout. This is a big surprise to her. I think of myself, for a lot of my other friends, a lot of people get into computer trouble in their youth. A lot of people do things on the internet they shouldn't do, but Ross really got punished for consecutive life sentences. It's way out of line for a computer crime. So hopefully we can get something on this petition, or really, sadly, I think the only thing that's really going to help him is a presidential pardon. And the populace is very anti-drug war. Marijuana is being legaled all over the place, or legalized all over the place, but we're still not there for a president to pardon someone like Ross yet. I have a lot of questions. I have a lot of questions. I have a lot of questions. Philip Kay Dick, quote, in memoriam, for my friends that were punished far too harshly for the things that they did. Yep, from the skiner darkly. And he talks about his friends and the both the drugs and the system punish those people. It was both. Wow. Yeah, I mean, you know, I read a really great article once, and I wish I could find it again. I've tried to find it, but it talked about the researcher, talked about how much violence is generally across the board in the drug industry because in the legal drug industry, because you do not have an arbitration system to deal with conflicts. So the usually gangs will head towards violence to settle conflict, which is horrific. And what the, and the whole time the Silk Road was running, and actually any market running on tour, the amount of violence is so small, and it's the first time that consumers actually have a voice to say, hey, your stuff is crap. I tested it in a lab, and it's like a heaps of weird crap cut into it or whatever. And so, you know, when are you going to do that? You're going to stand on this corner, we're telling the, telling all the people coming to buy that his stuff's crap. No, you're going to get shot in the head, you do that. But, you know, so the market got extremely good and pure. And no violence happened the whole time it was live in terms of consumer violence. No one was ever killed and it was running for a few years. So there really is a non-violent case in terms of what he did. And, or, you know, yeah. So. That reminds me of when Hunter S. Thompson ran for Sheriff of Aspen, Colorado. He decreed that if he was elected, bad drug dealers, ones that ripped you off or had bad product would be put into stocks on the courthouse lawn and punished. What a great thing. He ran under the Freak Power campaign. I think it was round 72 or something like that. But I think we're going to go ahead to end to go to the end of the show here. I just wanted to say tonight in Las Vegas, if you're in the Las Vegas area, join us on Fremont Street near the heart attack grill around 7 p.m. We're going to be handing out some flyers to the people of Las Vegas, really to the tourists, I guess. And we're going to try filming it. Mad bit coins will be there. And hopefully we'll have a video for you in the next couple of days after I bring all the footage home and edit it. So you can check that out. As always, if you'd like to donate Bitcoin or any of the alt coins accepted by Trezor, we've got the QR codes right here on the screen. And be sure to check out the rest of the shows on the World Crypto Network. Max has been doing a lot of broadcasts from the Mises Institute. That might not be up your alley, but you should check it out. And then there's other people who just love that and think it's the greatest thing ever. But it's only going to be this week. Next week we'll be back to the normal Bitcoin shows and that kind of thing. But it's fun to have a conference on here sometimes, I think. So thanks so much for watching. Be sure to subscribe down below, give us a thumbs up and a share. And until next time, bye, bye. Bye, bye.