The Bitcoin Group, the American original. For over the last ten years, the sharpest Satoshi's, the best Bitcoin's, the hardest crypto currency talk. We'd like to welcome our panelists, Ben Arck from LNBITS. Ben... Vlad Kostet from Bitcoin Takeover Magazine. Greetings, my friends. I have been expecting you. Kyle Forky from Amentum. Steven Mackie, also from Amentum. Hey guys, good morning. Scott, I hope everyone had a productive week. And you're Mackie from Amentum, say hello. Hey guys, how you doing? Looks like we lost Ben, but hopefully he'll be back with us. Soon, moving on to issue one. Issue one, BlackRock says clients are buying Bitcoin to hedge against the US debt crisis. They say that Bitcoin is certainly risky, but it's not a risk asset. The company says that clients may flock to Bitcoin during a crisis and that some of Bitcoin's defining attributes are its limited supply, global nature, and ease of transfers across borders, which is what I've been saying for years. Ben, Arck, what do you think about BlackRock suddenly saying that Bitcoin is a hedge against the US debt crisis? I mean, I think there's a couple of things that play as well, they are selling their products, so they're going to sell that product. But this guy think guy, he just seems like a legitimate... Someone who gets the Bitcoin thesis and the property is a Bitcoin, and he's spoken quite publicly about it. He said that it's a legitimate financial tool that allows you to have maybe uncorrelated, non-correlated types of returns. So he sounds like someone who understands what Bitcoin is, but then he could just be playing stick-rowed, and they could... They could just be selling a product to their customers, but this is a fund which has like $10 trillion worth of assets, which is a huge amount of money. It's very significant for Bitcoin that there's an entity like BlackRock, which is so invested in it, and is speaking so publicly about it, and then writing this paper about it as well. So it's a very interesting article, really, to see... But I mean, they are, as we've had happened so many times when we review these articles in the show, they're basically we go to saying things we've been saying for a decade. But they caught up, and that's okay. It's okay to be late to the party, and to be fair, they're not even late to the party, they're still pretty early. It's good, it will be good for the Bitcoin price. It's quite incredible that the price hasn't shifted more. I think it's just... There's a delay in people realising just how limited the amount of Bitcoins are out there in the ecosystem, but as soon as people catch up to that concept, I think the price is going to go pretty catastrophically high. Not catastrophically high, it's going to shoot up. Yeah, good news, big fund. It might be talking about it, it's just selling a product, but I actually think this light pink guy and BlackRock more generally do understand the Bitcoin proposal. Glad Kaster, what do you think? They sound like a bunch of Bitcoiners. Well, first of all, I got to ask you Thomas, did you ever have a guest open a bottle of wine in the middle of the intro of the episode and plan to drink it by the end of it? I think Theo is at a bar one time, but that was a different story. Well, I'm at home right now, and I'm going to get what Ben called sazzle, but regardless of that, I think that BlackRock is not being honest about the product that they're selling. Because their ETF does not have the global distribution of Bitcoin does not have the peer to peer, you know, permissionless qualities. And they're just advertising their own product, which is the ETF as if it's the real thing, which is not so I don't know it's catchy. But I don't think they said directly by Bitcoin from whatever exchange or peer to peer from ATM's or whatever. They said that they do believe that Bitcoin is good for investments to hedge against inflation in US. So I'm pretty sure that means that you're supposed to buy their ETF and their ETF is not Bitcoin. There's a very important distinction to be made between the two products. I think it's an excellent point. Vlad, you'd have the difficulty getting access to your Bitcoin, especially on the weekends when the bank is closed. Imagine during a crisis. Let's go to Kyle for key. What do you think about BlackRock writing this epic white paper supporting Bitcoin? I, you know, I, well, I guess one, you can't trust anything. BlackRock says doesn't mean it's not true, but you have to approach them with it. You know, an inherent grain of salt, whatever. But on top of that, I'm sure a lot of people in crypto can relate with me when, like I say, I cannot imagine a more generic statement than, you know, acknowledging what Bitcoin is saying something about regulatory concerns. And then saying some, you know, nebulous giving some kind of nebulous foresight is to where it could go. It is like, that's just whatever everybody says. It's like there's a, AI probably wrote it. I probably wrote that line for wrote when his statement was. So that's my thoughts. It does, it does seem like they're, they're belling up to the Bitcoiners pretty good. It could be any other ETF. And they'd be saying that the diamond ETF is a great hedge against the US debt crisis. Let's go to Steven Mackey. What do you think about the new paper from BlackRock? Well, I guess coming off the popularity of the ETF and the media and the coverage from it's thus far, I mean, it makes sense that, you know, these larger institutions will eventually have made some types of statements that would be positive towards, you know, the products that they're selling. And, you know, like the Elejellman stated as well, you know, I kind of, I agree, like it's the same stuff regurgitated that we've heard from them, like the past 10 years just basically like remixed and, you know, said it slightly different ways. No one ever says anything to inherently like risky. They just say, oh, Bitcoin could be worth more money in the future. Like, and we're trying to be here for that. Like, well, that's been going on for like quite some time. So, I think even though I think that means like the general like community, like even when they hear these things when it comes to like price speculation, that doesn't really draw a big speculative interest, you know, I'm out of me or I don't think anyone really anymore. I've heard it so many times. So it's like, I don't think adoption and like a name that coincide with that are really going to play too large into like price. I think it just it's going to matter with like actual money coming into the space and conservatively over, you know, a long period of time. But, you know, time will tell. It looks like everyone but me is not excited and thinks it's mainly a press release from BlackRock. Let's move on to the exit question as Mackie was saying this might cause the price of Bitcoin to rise. So we're going to ask the magic eight ball the source of all truth and knowledge in this universe. Will the price of Bitcoin be higher this time next week. Let's start with Ben Ark. Will the price be higher or lower next week? As soon as I'm back in rodent in my shed is freaking me out. So if I if I jump up and start flying around and that's because of rodent in it. Yeah, people are going to know. Lava, I fucking Lava. I want to say, I have to. Flat cost higher or lower. The last time I was on the show, I was the bear and I turned out to be right. So I'm going to say lower. Stick in with lower Kyle forkey higher or lower. This time next week Bitcoin is going to be 64 933.14 or a little higher. Finally, an exact prediction on this show. Exactly. Let's go to Mackie. What would you say higher or low? I would say, I would say for Kyle. I hope you're not you better not be a penny off. But for me, I would just say I'm asking for the tried and through old generic higher. You know, we're breaking into the holiday season. So there was going to be any time for any type of like, you know, break away action and there was some sort of build up or some like media attempt by which to like do so. It would make sense that they're trying to do this for like the end of the quarter. To like solidify the product for the for the first year, right, you would want the first year that these ETFs have been like made available to like be like successful on paper, right to like, you know, have that trend there. And then they would put in as much effort as they could right now. So more than likely, I would imagine that you know, it will be higher. But you know, we'll see hopefully is exactly what Kyle says. So most of the panel is saying higher, but we'll say what the magic eight ball says now, of course, shaking the ball can cause bubbles. Watch out for that. Well, the price of Bitcoin be higher this time next week. And it says really difficult to read. Reply hazy try again. Reply hazy try again. So there you go. Check back next week. Moving on to issue two. Trump becomes the first president to pay in Bitcoin says it's very easy. Former president Donald Trump was in a New York City bar called pub key on Wednesday, where he quote unquote became the first former US president to ever use Bitcoin to complete a transaction. Trump used the cryptocurrency to pay for burgers and beers he bought for pub key allegedly using the lightning network. It looked like a lot of people stood next to him. So we'll have to see and watch more videos. But let's go to Vlad Koster. What do you think about Donald Trump being the first former president to use Bitcoin that we know of? Well, he hasn't really made that payment, right? He tried it first to scan the QR code, which is what you should do. But I think there's an issue with these lightning wallets that sometimes they don't focus on the QR code on the other screen. So you need to take it. So if you watch the footage once again, you're going to see that his assistant or whatever took the phone and tried to pull it back a bit just to help the camera focus. And he realized it's not that easy. It was probably still blurry on the screen. So it took them like 30 seconds to be able to just scan that and then they pressed pay. And after they did press pay, they were concerned the payment was going to fail, right? Because sometimes that happens on the lightning network. The irony of the situation is that they were paying from basically a bank, a custodian, which is strike. And they're paying to I guess the terminal gene trophies on the terminal was BTC pay server. So they were paying to possibly another node. And it took them another 30 seconds. And I don't think it was the proudest moment for Bitcoin. Because first of all, it wasn't Trump who did that. It wasn't that easy. And the person paying was a bit concerned that the payment was going to fail. And he actually celebrated the moment that he saw that it's going through. But I think the winner of the whole situation or at least in his soul is David Bailey. Because if you watch him from this footage, he's behind them. And he's having the time of his life. He's so happy. He's smiling. He's thrilled. He's taking pictures. It's almost like this has been his kindergarten dream, you know, to grow up and become this person who stands behind Trump and takes pictures. And he's still. He's finally actually living the dream. This is exactly what he wanted to accomplish with his life. And he is finally at it. This is the moment. This is his time to shine. He's very proud. I love David Bailey for this. What an incredible moment for David Bailey. I'm also drunk. So don't take me seriously. You don't have one or two Kyle forky. What do you think Donald Trump allegedly paid for some burgers in a Bitcoin bar? You know, I guess just just to play devil's advocate for the last response like, man, you guys know how difficult it is. I'm older people interacting with any kind of anything. I'm surprised. I'd be surprised if Trump was able to get the scanner up on his phone. That by itself would be very impressive. My father could. He couldn't do it. Doesn't matter how many times I showed him. And then I think we all have that. That like, you know, thing in the back where I had whenever we sent any kind of crypto transaction. I put in the right address, whatever. There's just like this, this thing in the back your head. You're just a, you're just a little bit nervous. And, you know, I can imagine being that assistant or whoever sent the transaction. You get the former president. All these people all eyes on you and you, you're scanning this thing. You're sweating. Like I'd be nervous. I'd celebrate who went through. You know, regardless, but all that aside, it seems like. Seems like one of those overly specific headlines like, you know, is the, this the longest eight guys have, you know, marched in a circle for five days, like it's a world record, but it's so overly specific like the first president, the first, you know, trash man to pay with Bitcoin. Whatever, it's neat, I guess, but, um, yeah, it's just a, uh, it's just a headline. I suppose I don't think it, it really means anything by itself. It is a tough situation for the assistant. It's difficult to scan the QR code. I could have at least had Trump push the send button. That would have helped. I would have liked that some kind of connection to it where it really seems like he's standing next to a guy who's paying for Bitcoin. Let's go to Steven Mackey. What do you think the former president uses Bitcoin? Maybe we should all buy his world Liberty financial product. I do not back any world Liberty financial products, but I will say, um, for the longest time, we've been waiting for some either a presidential candidate or some like some hopeful to like eventually say Bitcoin and then like it happened. And then we had like, you know, the whole Andrew Yang running for president thing and then like, you know, the topic of crypto and using like using cryptos. I mean, to like raise money for election like that became a, like a thing. Until like now, and the M8 sense eventually gets a point where like, oh, the president is using Bitcoin, but at the even at that, like at this point, like, you know, crypto has been around for like 10 plus years. So it's almost like saying like Trump finally figured out how to use an iPhone. You know, it's like, it's like, okay, there's this basic functionality and thing. Like I don't think it's even like, I don't even think it even solidifies Bitcoin as it makes it any more legitimate. I think it's just a thing that somebody like did like again, like we can't we can't continue to be amazed by people doing the smallest things anymore. It's almost like it just doesn't scratch that edge. They'll likely have a similar story of Trump orders his own Uber president order orders first Uber ever ordered by president. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, great. Yeah, great example. It's just like it's just I feel like I feel like tech competency has gotten so blanketed and common in just the average normal everyday person's life that it's just like, oh, you figured out how to use it to nap. Like, I don't think that's a headline. It is true what Kyle said older people do have trouble. I know I gave my parents a like an ordering food app and they had hard time ordering lunch. So it is a different accomplishment though. Let's go to Ben Ark. What do you think about the former president paying in Bitcoin? I mean, I don't think he has problems using his phone clearly by the amount of shit posting the dude does. He knows how to notice where on the phone. It was a bit of a yeah, bit of a payment terminal fail should use Dalin bits. I was watching the little video and I was thinking should use Dalin bits to QR codes a bit clearer, a bit easier to scan. But yeah, it's it's not real bake coin transactions. We all know and you're really using you wasn't really using the lightning network to pay for something because someone else is holding the belief phone for him. And pressing the button so somebody else made a payment on his behalf is also not the first president of course to make a Bitcoin transaction. We got on make the Kelly down in our Salvador there and he knows how to use a lightning wallet. So good PR there is a moment like with the lightning network which I quite like when you when you do it a payment and it's instant in the. The penny kind of drops like wow that was it you know I just sent some Bitcoin usually hopefully from yourself to somebody else but if you're using a custodial service maybe not. And it's it is very fast you know it's it's the transaction settles quicker than a I mean if it's done properly then it's for settles quicker than a visa transaction. So hopefully that he had that experience afterwards when the cameras weren't rolling and he paid again and it happened and it went through quicker but there is something quite profound when you make a Bitcoin transaction of lightning network and it's so quick. It's so usable and there's no use a day to attach to it and the experience does kind of stay with you anything okay well this this is really has some likes to it. So it's good that he's you know I played devil's advocate I think it's a good thing they had that experience and you know it's a gimmick it's a gimmick well done Andrew Bailey you know I'm with Vlad you know well I can't you Bailey a lot and this clearly means a lot to him so for the brief period in the. Andrew Bailey but that's the author of the book resistance money or something like that which you received and it uses your logo with the fist and the Bitcoin but we're speaking of David Bailey. Oh sorry David Bailey that's what I mean David Bitcoin conference David Bailey yeah yeah what is that I don't know why said Andrew Bailey David Bailey yeah yeah he's he's always been good to me he's always been good to fly he's always been good to a bunch of us and it does a lot of work behind the scenes supporting free and open source people which people don't really give him credit for. So I've got a lot of time for the dude and this is very important to him and I'm glad he had his little moment what you which you got to enjoy like Vlad said he was giddy with excitement and I'm sure that experience personally cost him a lot of money to get to that point so yeah it's a good thing it's a good thing I just wish they'd used. Alan bits what do we quicker and oh on that note we have a last week I think I did a 20 minute tutorial where I spun up in Alan bits with Phoenix back by. Phoenix D so self custodial managed lightning node by async on a server with its own domain and it took like 15 minutes and that's me moving quite slow as well so 15 minutes to end up with a self custodial lightning node which works very well and works well for payments and things they should have used that solution maybe I'll send them a DM the bar but yeah so check that out it's on the Alan bits YouTube if anyone's interested in watching that tutorial. Spinning up in Alan bits but it's good it's good it's good press you know and David Bailey had his moment and Trump had that experience of paying for something over lightning which I think is very important for people so yeah good. Take I'll try I'll try not to get too political but it is kind of a Schrodinger's cat situation where on one hand they could have just taken a picture with the next president the next leader of the free world or they could have taken the picture with someone who will be in jail or house arrest soon so it is very interesting to see how the election turns out which one of those he'll become but let's keep moving check out world crypto network at world crypto network dot com we've got 3,988 videos you could check out. If you watch them consecutively it would take you three months 20 days and three hours without any sleep at all at world crypto network dot com moving on to issue three Louisiana says yes to using bitcoin to pay for utility bills the adoption of cryptocurrencies reach a historic milestone in the United States with the state of Louisiana announcing that officially accepts bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a means of payment for public services this could lead to. Other governments and other states and countries adopting bitcoin to pay taxes and utility bills etc let's go to Kyle for key what do you think about Louisiana accepting bitcoin. I actually was I think in like a 2007 or 18 I can't remember but the the mayor of law yeah the mayor of Lafayette and his right hand man they flew me down in the interest of doing an ICO for one of their. Like like townships like a smaller area within Lafayette and you know they had this very very elaborate outline of how they wanted to do everything and I. I was very interested but you know it was it was beyond it was beyond me was beyond my means I was like you guys i'm just some guy I don't you know I can't I can't put all this together you need you need some more heavy hitters on board and so I guess. I always wondered how that how that turned out for them because I know the project didn't take off and it looks like it looks like they've been making making moves this this whole time for some reason Louisiana is just for the past for the past almost 10 years they've been very very interested in crypto adoption and. I mean I could see them. Taking some kind of a leading role in the coming decades in this in this space is unlikely as it seems now their mindset is extraordinarily progressive for I think how you know most people probably would think they were off off the cuff just doesn't seem like it would be a crypto haven but maybe. I do think that when you look from the outside you think more California New York or one of the larger states would be the crypto state but maybe Louisiana maybe Katrina knocked them off and made them think differently about the world change their their outlook. It's possible it was a major disaster it would certainly affect you if you live there let's go to Stephen Mackey what do you think about Louisiana accepting Bitcoin for utility bills taxes other things yeah so. So to pick you back on the thing that Kyle was talking about I remember talking to that gentleman from Lafayette Louisiana he reached I think he reached out and I may be I connected him to Kyle. Because Kyle was living in Florida so much closer Louisiana and I was like hey there's these people that are. Planning this thing for their centennial and they wanted to like be like the first like digital first city to like use like crypto payments all this stuff but again this was like 2017 2018 so it was still like very early as far as doing something on that level but they're their head was in the right space so. You know that anecdotally so it would make sense that they've made some pretty solid progress as far as like making partnerships and like at least having conversations with people because like they were very nice you know to reach out to have conversation with. So yeah I think that we'll probably see a lot more of that from more of these seemingly more conservative places where there are intelligent people with money that have been investing in Bitcoin you know for. Say like 10 plus like odd years you know you'll see it like you know not just for like state tax purposes and stuff like that but you know for other interesting use cases like this that are actually like make sense long term and even with countries like El Salvador like kind of like leading the pack of you know like being my very Bitcoin progressive and how they present themselves and how that's like kind of a very good like PR you know like method for like getting interested in a country. It would make sense that on a state level by a city basis that other people would sort of like replicate that you know that type of like you know idealism and so that they can get like you know new crypto wealth or younger people into the into an area so I think I think yeah I think it's not surprising and I'm would hope there be more that sooner rather than later. Well it sounds like an exciting project hopefully sets an example for the other states and it's neat that you and Kyle had a personal involvement that's very interesting stuff let's go to Ben arc what do you think Louisiana state in the United States for the international crowd is accepting Bitcoin what do you think. Yeah it's going to be now I would say that you know for a merchant use the one of the best ways to accumulate some Bitcoin is just to accept Bitcoin and then you get a few payments here and there in Bitcoin. And then you stick that in your in your stack in your treasury and this is probably part of the play where they're going to try and accumulate some Bitcoin full Louisiana as a you know speculative asset or something it's an easy play for them because there will be some Bitcoin is out there who be giddy at the fact that they can pay their bills in Bitcoin and then they get internally. They get to you know, handle the Bitcoin they'll whether they'll use the lightning network or not I'm not sure they should and if they do then they'll have to loop out on chains put into cold storage using a great service like bolts doing the atomic swaps or something so they get to play around with the stack the Bitcoin stack and the software solutions which we've made. Which are profoundly good so when they experience that you know that these are public sector figures who will then be on Bitcoin side because it works well the great sample from our Salvador is you know in our Salvador when you get utility bill you just get a few our code and you just scan it pay it and in a country like our Salvador where they have 90 plus percent of their GDP is remissances from the US you know you get a text from your mom and you know she's in our Salvador and she says all I need to post bill I'm going to money. Boom you send her some sats from your wallet to her wallet and then boom she pays the bill and that whole process takes you know 20 seconds over the phone and that's that's incredible you know it's an incredible experience and when I first saw that in our Salvador that somebody paying utility bills by scanning the QR code and paying it I thought you know that they they can leapfrog the you know it's much better than my system for utility bills. I'm a phone to fit a room over bank account and self direct debit so whatever else so a good thing it's a good thing more exposure for people playing with the Bitcoin stack and learning all the great tools which are being built for Bitcoin. It sounds fantastic I just hope they keep everything secure while they're playing with that stack it can be a very easy thing for one person in the department to run off with so I hope they do a good job of that. A Vlad Costa what do you think about Louisiana accepting Bitcoin. Well of course it was going to happen deep down in Louisiana across the new Orleans way back up in the woods across the ever Greens. They're lived a boy or something they still to log cabin made of earth and wood. We're a little country boy named Johnny be good we'll never learn to read or writes a well but he could play guitar just like ringing a bell so of course Louisiana is a good place to start adopting Bitcoin because obviously the purpose of Bitcoin is to give it to your government right. I think that's what all the hard core bit corners they said if only I could pay my taxes with this non government non bank diverse you know cryptocurrency. No but I do recall at one point there was no real rubini god blesses all he's such a nice guy and he blocked me because I call him a Bitcoin maximalist when he started calling out to coins. And he did say that Bitcoin is not money because you cannot pay taxes with it and I'm pretty sure that Paul Krugman and guys like what's the other one. Stigleets or something they would very much agree that Bitcoin is not legit money because you cannot pay taxes with it so now what's the next excuse right why is it not money anymore they're going to say oh it's not fungible because it doesn't have any privacy I don't know. But it's fun it's fun we got to this point because the fudsters have fewer arguments and they're getting weaker over time. So I don't care much about paying taxes with Bitcoin I think actually it's it's anti Bitcoin in some regard because this was started as anti governmental money or non governmental money. But I guess this is part of what they call hyperbidcoinization and we're all along for the ride. Excellent stuff I definitely agree with that I'll have to see how it turns out I think the main positive in this could be them convincing other states to do it as far as for people paying their taxes or utilities with bills with Bitcoin. I'm not sure about that and I'm especially not sure how it's going to work out when someone comes banging on the tax door saying I paid a point one Bitcoin a year ago and now it's worth $5,000 and I want this and that. So they might have a problem with that whereas I'm with the dollar it moves so slowly I don't think people notice. But let's keep moving let's go on to issue four the crypto bros who dream of crowdfunding a new country of very very long article in the BBC that I don't think anybody read and even I skimmed says that Bellagy and others from andreas and Horowitz and other silicon Valley backers want to make their own governments they want to live in their own country. They have big pockets but seem to be so far trusting most of their work to a man in a hoodie who suggests that you photocopy pages from his manifesto and posted around town. It's a very long article but they're spending lots of money to chase this idea. A new country we're going to Stephen Mackey on this first what do you think they're going to make their own country would we even want to live there does anyone really want to live in a corporate controlled country but he is the libertarian crypto bros are here for you Mackey. I'm not one to gossip but I will. I've last heard when he was coming up with his network state book which by the way I did buy and skim through it and then I ended up buying like a shortened version of it and just like the kind of placing through that much more quickly but. It really just was him just me and ring on and on about how like you need digital money need to build like influence and you know kind of get enough people congregated here and then you organize and these such manners and eventually you make your way back to you know down to the physical world like. You jump start a new you know country or something like that and for me it just sounded like like a playbook for like digital narcissism. So I would just like this doesn't really seem like a very good thing to do for me like personally but you know this kind of leads into the whole like meta governance governance folks and you know the the Dow people. And the region solar punk that sort of whole idealism and so it's I'm sure it's all in good faith you know any me and you know just you know his with his own sparkle of you know Bellagy idealism in there. But you know otherwise like it's just another one of those things just like it's a good headline it's a good topic it's a good thing to talk about and also to like make fun of. But at the end of the day you know we're nerds we don't always elucidate on our like you know grand visions of what the future can be like you know very well and inside that you see no age very well so you know this might end up being one of those cases. It does it does seem like a good idea until you remember everything that you know about countries about now about languages about tradition about the individuals who live there. And for me it goes back to this basic idea where we already have the internet the internet is the place where we can be who we want to be or be anonymous or be a name or whatever you want to be. But it's not a real place it's not a physical place and the things that make the internet the internet don't transfer well to physical places you can't digitally replicate an endless supply of things like you can on the internet. So I think it's very interesting they keep trying this thing but they definitely have a lot of ideas and a lot of money so it might go through Ben or what do you think about the businessmen starting their own country somewhere it doesn't say where. I mean historically within our space we've had lots of these projects which would be in a lot of flop. I was lucky enough actually over the summer to be hosted in prosper in Honduras in rowartan which is a private city project and I was very skeptical going there because the I thought that you know perhaps they would be taking advantage of the locals and there won't be a great employer but I did quite an extensive bit of research like quizzing the local people. So I think it's very difficult to call outside of the project and then the people who work within the project as well and that they were good employers. They paid more than other places in rowartan and the place actually had a pretty good vibe like there was there was a bunch of you know very enthusiastic. Like people like building projects sharing ideas there is something about when you get a bunch of like minded people in a meat space I think we have this in Bitcoin. We have had these important meat spaces like room 77 in Berlin or powerfully poll us in Prague where just getting people in the same room like get some share ideas think big great projects which have and those spaces have put out a lot of good projects. When I was in in prosper I kind of got that vibe and I was thinking although like personally I'm a bit more on the left side when it comes to the anarchist doctrine. But if I was a younger guy and you know I didn't have a family and I was a digital nomad it was a nice spot in the Caribbean safe fun beach parties like minor people you can share ideas with pretty cheap as well to get a condo there. They haven't been shilling their project as much as so like quite often with these free cities they'll like these guys they'll make a big who hard and show the project before it's even become a thing. And then usually they flop whereas I found with prosper they were it was a bit more low key they hadn't really been talking about it so publicly and I think they wanted to kind of build it up first build a trashary which they have done they got big back is no peteal. I don't know if people are behind this reason of them. No I think I intend to sell my. No. Looks like we're losing Ben's internet connection there but of course I always thought with the digital nomad thing the point of it was to be digital and to be in nomad. I never thought the digital nomads all wanted to hang out together in one place that sounds like a terrible bad smelling idea. I'm reminded of the movie Gross Point Blank where Dan Acroid is trying to get John Kusak to join a union of assassins and John Kusak says no I'm alone assassin a lone government I work by myself that's kind of the whole point of the assassin thing which I also thought was the point of the nomad and the Bitcoin thing. Flat cost or what do you think would you like to live in a government run by corporations. Well don't you already live in a government run by corporations that's one interesting question to ask but at the same time this reminds me of first of all there was the citadel meme that was circulating around the Bitcoin space at one point. I'm just showing my stickers don't mind me and video so people were saying we have read all of these fancy books by these smart people and we figured out everything and the reason why societies have failed before is that they had fiat money right. So now that we have sound money we can establish our own flavor of feudalism basically where if you have this amount of Bitcoin you're going to automatically be part of the social class and if you have less than one Bitcoin you're going to clean our toilets. But we're going to be peaceful and we're going to be organized and blah blah blah and there are a lot of these memes like which place are going to have in a Bitcoin citadel and my point was always I hope you guys realize that a very effective way for any adversary of Bitcoin which is also a nation state and has an army to take you down is to just send one nuke and basically all of these guys are extinct and nobody's going to be using this network or not as much as before. It's just a silly utopia which does not rely on the realities of geopolitics. There's also a government or a state or I don't know how I should call it it's called Liberland and it's between Serbia and Croatia if I'm not mistaken. It's just this tiny piece of land and their business basically is selling citizenship to a bunch of people and the value proposition of it is that you can buy your passport and then use that to register to crack in or a bunch of KYC exchanges that enable you to do that and you pay zero tax. You don't you don't have to report anything so some people do that for whatever reason but they don't actually live there they just buy the passport and it reminds me of a book which I read when I was a teenager by Joel Verne I'm not sure if that's a popular author in the United States but here in Europe they make you read that in school but it's called the island with what you call it. Dr. Moro. No, no, no, no, it's the one with an island that's called standard island and it's floating in international waters and all the richest people are living there and the roads are paved with gold and everything is of the highest quality. And it tells the story of this island from the perspective of this quartet of musicians were playing on the island in the fanciest salons and with the richest people in the world and it just shows you this utopia. Yeah, I read that in school thank you girlfriend for interrupting me so it basically presents this utopia and it shows you exactly how it falls apart in Romanian it's called insula koelicha which means the island that has. A propeller which is the part of the helicopter that propels the vehicle the island with a propeller or something I think it might be the fantastic island but I haven't read it so I'm not familiar. Anyway, it's pretty much like that you you have to read that to understand that you're not going to change human nature just because you have a different type of government or different politicians you're going to see that in every type of political regime. You're going to find the same kinds of people in the same problems regardless of how fair or how corrupt it is or how liberal or how authoritarian. The best part is when you get to choose where you're going to live and that's the most beautiful side of life when you can decide that you're going to move somewhere else where everyone around you shares the same values or makes you feel safe or gives you the kind of incentives or rewards or benefits that you seek. So yeah, that's why I had to say. I got off that where did I get up to my little rant. I don't know what was I talking about prospering in Honduras in row. Talk about prospering Honduras. There we are. Okay, and I was pleasantly surprised and the free. So there is an element of the free sea movement where the idea is that they buy a plot of land in somewhere which is quite economically poor. And then there is a little bit of Welsh with hands spills over into the into the region and then and then creates jobs and opportunities now in. And then there is a row of tan in pro in on the island of a row of tan. There is a bunch of of startups and businesses and people who've gone to prosper and then they live in prosper and then they've set up businesses and they're training and employing local people so there is an element of some economic stimulus which is happening. In the area in which they're located so I had to kind of revisit some of my own assumptions on how horribly ridiculous these projects are when I went there and I thought there was actually some good practice there and it seemed to be doing doing good, you know, I mean. I'm off for people experimenting with different ways of of living that's better think freedom of movement freedom of association is very important and you definitely don't want that wealth disparity dystopia. And then there was a lot of poor people who live outside and they come and work in the fancy place. But there was definitely a back and forth with the locals to help bring up the locals and the Bitcoin centering road. If anyone goes out again, there's a great video on the elements YouTube on this, the Bitcoin centering road tan. It's so much outreach with schools and businesses and communities, they've onboarded like 75 shops to accept Bitcoin on the island of the road tan. So it's it's you know it's it's not all about hoarding wealth and being the master's of mankind, the rich elite locked up in year, fancy, dual, dual, dual cloud palace. Because there is an element of it benefiting the locals if I don't think they will, but if this project, which were the article is talking about does the same, then I'm not sure it's necessarily a bad thing because I'm prospering in row at hand seems to be a good thing for for row at hand. I'm glad that they're helping people and I'm glad they're helping the local people, but it's just hard to imagine like to take the example of Puerto Rico, you have all these people that don't want to pay taxes who don't want to share their wealth. And all of a sudden they're going to get to Puerto Rico and decide to share their wealth. So it just seems very hard for me to take. And I just don't trust these businessmen to run our governments as much as I really don't do that. That's a very good point. So I like personally, I'm a massive fan. Well, Ben needs to get better internet. Well, let's go on to Kyle for key Kyle. What do you think about these crypto bros who want to start their own countries? They're thinking kind of aligns with my thinking from like maybe the like 2020ish, you know, I had had these ideas around smart contracts and you know forming governance structures around them and I won't expound on this heart right here too. Because all roads just lead back to the efficient market hypothesis doesn't work. It just does not work and you can extrapolate from there, but basically, you know, if you try to form a government around smart contracts or whatever they're thinking that's what that was my interpretation. I have my chat GPT assistant asked chat GPT to summarize it and then I got to summarize version. So I might have, you know, lack of granularity here, but that's that was going to take away. But either, you know, if you want to make decisions, it has to be market driven. If it's not market driven and it's just like a, you know, horizontal structure than the system will fail to accrue value. There's no point in in buying in basically. And so you either wind up with an oligarchy or it's just a failed model and then you have to you have to wrap all that up with the fact that the system itself needs to be secured in physical reality in some way, namely a military. And, you know, I tried to put together a thought exercise on how like a municipal garbage collection service would work with smart contracts and that by itself was tough. I cannot imagine anybody figuring out some kind of decentralized way of deploying military assets without it just being some guy, you know, old and the keys. So it's, yeah, it just, it does not seem, doesn't seem possible to me. But, you know, who knows. And so it's possible that the people who are in charge wouldn't mind it becoming an oligarchy. So they're okay with that to sit advantage. Let's move on to the exit question. Stephen Mackie, you get to decide where would you live forced prediction? You could live in sea setting where they make little fake islands or you live on connected boats. You could live in Lieberland, as Vlad said, a small strip of land in between Serbia and Croatia, or you could live in Belagievil, one of these new corporate funded blockchain based societies. Where would you live? I just have to open up and say a context that I, I loved United States of America. And I prefer to stay here. But if I had to choose, I would definitely not choose Lieberland or Lieberland. I don't want to live in Belagiev's commune. I guess if I have to, I live on a bunch of floating boats and I'd rather live on a floating Tiki artificial sand island self-suffering nation in the middle of the Pacific. Then to be a part of a commune or go to go to some random place where I'm just like some ghost digital citizen. All right, Mackie's going to take his chance in the ocean with the sharks. Where would you live? See, standing a small isthmus in between Serbia and Croatia or these new corporate digital states. Well, I don't know, just ask them to compete and see which one offers me the best bank for the buck because they all won my tax money, right? That's why they're doing this. It's not anyone performing any act of goodwill. So basically which one is going to offer me the best quality of life or the price that I pay in taxes. That's the question. Based on what I know and what I understand of the climate, I think I would be fine in Eastern Europe between Serbia and Croatia just because I'm not too far away from there. So it's a very similar climate. I think I can get by and survive in pretty good conditions. But otherwise, I don't know what does Belagiev offer me. Give me a call, Belagiev. I can't say that the sea stethers are offering free life jackets, but they are not shark proof. So it might all work out the end. Kyle for key. Where would you live? See, standing, Lieberland or Belagiev's digital states. Don't choose the Belagiev. Did he party? I guess I would know. I would know one of the people if I did the boat thing. I suppose Stephen would be there. I'd probably just take the boats and hang out with Stephen on the boats. I don't want to be in the cult or whatever the the commune has going on. We saw how that went with. What was the name? Whatever. There's, you know, that FBI shoot out from the 80s. That's what comes to mind. I don't want to be part of that. And Lieberland, I just don't like the name. I would take the boats. I would take the boats because the break. That's that's just what they said in the fantastic book quality land. They said the country was originally supposed to be called equality land, but who would buy a product from equality land when you could get a quality product from quality land. That is a very interesting answers. I don't I think Mac he's right the United States or wherever you are now is probably the best place to live, given these alternatives. See, standing sounds like the most independent of the ones. But once again, if you run out of food, if you run out of fresh water, if you run out of solar panels, whatever it is, complete disaster, better to be on land. A couple more issues on you. Ben's back about me. I know I can see you. But Ben, where would you want to live? See, standing Lieberland or Belaji's digital estates. I live in the greatest place in the world, which is South Wales in the woods in my little wooden house off grid, shitty into that brilliant. However, I'm going to chill this this prosper place in Honduras again, as I said, even though I'm like a lefty anarchist, I like decision making, extreme decision making from the bottom up, which is kind of what we have here. I would legitimately spend, I know a year or two in prosper, which is a free city. You had a good vibe and lots of interesting people there and it's pretty cheap to rent is in beautiful location and beautiful island with beautiful people. So yeah, like I would happily live in that free city, which is quite a thing for me to say I must admit considering. There are always islands these little places always islands. I think it's a beautiful place. Well, the other let me just say as well, the other cool thing about the prosper project and I'm like a Michelle now, but I'm really just it was interesting was that there's there's setting up multiple free cities around Central South American, like the idea would be that if you had a business which operated in one country like Honduras, then, and then if they had another one of these free cities in our Salvador, wherever else, then you could then just easily transfer your operation. There's different locations and there may be. Yeah, like you could operate you would instantly have access easy access to those are the jurisdictions. So there's some likes in it. There's some it's not all, you know, which people just trying to stash them on either is some good stuff, probably from these projects and like Vlad set. It's a competition to one of them will win out. I don't know that sounds like a European Union or a United States reminds me of when Tesla invented the bus. Now it's not so reminds people on this big car and it could stop in a place is a pattern, you know, like, no, it was actually an element of it which reminded me of the Rejav and democratic confederalism where the the Kurds had different. They were separate geographically but they wanted to have one kind of nation or following all the same rules. So they set up that idea of the democratic confederalism which was the and for a good time in northern Syria that was the thing which was pushing about the Taliban. And that was a real anarchist experiment which was had a lot of good things come out of it. So different different people to experiment in different ways of living like who we to stop that. So I agree this article these crypto bros are probably going to fail at least horribly. But they're going to burn a lot of money first probably hundreds of millions of dollars with nothing to show for it but they have to do it. They have to do it. We're running out of time. I just want to let you guys know. I'm sure everyone knows we all watch the financial news that the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates by half a percentage point 0.5 or 50 basis points of everyone to say it. This will basically lower interest rates making money cheaper encouraging borrowing encouraging spending which usually leads to a rise in risk assets such as stocks and of course Bitcoin. This is a big deal a couple days ago but not so much now. And then finally as I continued to dance upon the political grave of RFK junior whom which the people who gave money to will get absolutely nothing they'll get nothing. RFK according to this tweet had to tell his wife Cheryl Heinz not only about his affair with Olivia and Newsy who used to work at New York magazine and was covering RFK junior for the campaign. He also asked to tell her that he's being investigated for cutting off a dead whales head with a chainsaw. So so much for the political career of RFK junior. We're running out of time let's go to predictions or story of the week. Ben arc the invisible man. Do you have a prediction or a story of the week go ahead. Yeah, I'm sorry about my ins and I've been pretty dark and I share screen Mr. Thomas. Help me up. All right, you can try. Oh yeah, get it. Get it. Get it. All right. So. So bridge too far your audio stop. Stop. Stop. I'm a little bit more. Alan bits. I know. I think your audio stopped working. You know, so you hear me just some up really quickly we can kind of hear you. All right, can you hear me now? Yes. Just a little. Go ahead. What about now? Where is the video on the the Bitcoin the Bitcoin space in Rotan with do sound from amity age. It's really very good. I made that video and very proud of it. Then the also check out the tutorials of Phoenix D tutorial with Alan bits. But yeah, check out that. That is a beautiful spot. Check out the Bitcoin center in Rotan. It's quite spectacular. I think it's two status. Ben's almost there. Check out the row and center on the Ellen bits YouTube. Sounds great. Vlad Costa, a prediction or a story of the week. Go ahead. I'm not very good with predictions. Even though I still believe that Monero is going to outperform Bitcoin over maybe the short to medium term until someone and Bitcoin wakes up and says, hey, we need privacy for this. We need to make it fungible. But I do have a story of the week a bunch of them actually the first one is that my girlfriend is making Pepe's and if you want to help her pay for tuition for medical school, you can DM her and she's going to turn you into a Pepe. And we did watch the Pepe documentary last night and I think we are on the team which is trying to save the reputation of Pepe and make him not offensive. And anyway, there is this YouTube, this series of YouTube videos launched on the YouTube channel that's called heavy and Bitcoin core developer Jeff Garzick is talking about various topics concerning Bitcoin and yearly days. And I think there are a couple of ones about Satoshi Nakamoto's identity and it's interesting to see the opinions of this guy who has been in the project since 2010 or something and he was also the first big blocker. He wrote the first proposal to increase the block size back in 2010 and Satoshi told everyone don't run this software because it's not going to be in consensus with the rest of it. But he has been around for a long time and he has some very interesting views about the creation of Bitcoin and the state of the project and I did watch everything gets very so you have about 20 30 minutes of content but spread across two minute videos and once you watch those you're you're going to feel like you've learned something today. After you're done watching this, check out this heavy YouTube channel with Jeff Garzick and also don't forget to subscribe to Bitcoin takeover podcast I still put out good stuff. Alright, thanks so much, Flann glad to see the Pepe it sounds like fun Kyle for key do you have a prediction or a story of the week go ahead. It was like a long term prediction I think most of us here and probably a lot of people in the crypto community have you know we think we think we're finally rid of we think we're finally rid of XRP and ripple and not really going to have to hear about it anymore as it slowly cascades down the ranks but I think two times for the past decade. It's just come out of nowhere and I think it's going to come come back one more time it's it's what is it it's death death rattle and it's going to surprise everybody and that's that's my predictions not say it's it's good or or anyone should care it's just going to be it's just like me guessing the exact price of Bitcoin next week it's going to happen and I'll be right and that's the only reason I'm saying this. It is very possible that we haven't seen the end of ripple although it is named after a great grateful dead song let's go to Stephen Mackie to have a prediction or a story of the week go ahead. Hmm prediction. I'm going to go with prediction here because that's always fun. I'm going to predict that the election don't really affect the price of Bitcoin too much the ETF stuff doesn't really affect Bitcoin's price too much and I think it's going to be some other random catalyst that will come out that will over the next like few months that will be the actual I cause of that. It seems like from a regulatory standpoint the people have gotten pretty good at like regulating like the greater like crypto markets so like big time scammers and stuff like that like coming down on the news to like ruin the markets and stuff like that I think that's I think it's pretty much no different than normal like financial you know regulatory crimes and stuff at this point at least as far as the US media goes. So I think overall as far on the US Western hemisphere I think most most things trend to be like bullish but no one particular thing while way the other so I just overall like net optimistic. That sounds great I've heard lots of people saying the political events will change the price and it'll be 20 K higher if this candidate wins or that candidate wins but I agree with you Mac I don't think Bitcoin's going to care it's a much larger thing to move around than people think it's not just ideas and momentum it's a lot more money. I just want to give a shout out to Adam Meister the Bitcoin Meister we had a really fun show yesterday about a prediction that he made 10 years ago he said that instead of buying a car for 50 thousand dollars you should take 10 thousand dollars put it in a Bitcoin see how it goes he was very fun on both sides he said it could go to zero it could go to 100 K it turned out it went to 1.5 million dollars so shout out to Adam Meister check it out right here on the world crypto network if you want to watch our conversation. About his prediction of Bitcoin price from 10 years ago he also make some great shows out there on the Bitcoin Meister channel and on Twitter and stuff like that so thanks so much for our guests thanks for everybody giving us a thumbs up down below subscribe if you haven't already and until next time bye bye.