0:02

What's probably the most

0:04

transformational policy that's been

0:06

announced is the establishment

0:08

of the digital

0:10

Fort Knox for the United States

0:13

and for the United States to begin

0:15

building a Bitcoin treasury. To have the

0:18

conversation around the idea is

0:20

transformational for the

0:22

global geopolitical position of Bitcoin.

0:25

We're listening to Because of Bitcoin, a podcast

0:28

that shares the personal stories of how Bitcoin

0:30

is having a real impact in people's lives,

0:32

including mine. I'm your host

0:35

Mauricio Diharto Lomeo, the co-founder and CSO

0:37

of Lettin. And without further ado,

0:39

let's get started with today's story. Hello

0:44

everybody and welcome back to season three

0:46

of Because of Bitcoin. We

0:48

have an amazing lineup of guests for you

0:50

this season as we dive into the

0:52

critical questions facing our industry and explore

0:54

how Bitcoin is shaping the global economy.

0:58

When I began my Bitcoin journey almost 10 years

1:00

ago, I could see its potential. But

1:03

I never imagined would be

1:05

here in 2024 with US

1:08

presidential candidates speaking at Bitcoin

1:10

conferences. This year's

1:12

Bitcoin conference in Nashville featured two

1:14

presidential candidates and eight US senators,

1:16

a clear sign that Bitcoin is

1:18

front and center in the upcoming

1:21

US election. With

1:23

the US at the epicenter of

1:25

global financial markets, the policies shaped

1:27

during this election will have far

1:29

reaching implications and consequences for Bitcoin

1:31

and crypto worldwide. To

1:34

kick off this season, we're talking to guests

1:36

who are helping shape these policies on both

1:38

sides. And today I'm thrilled

1:40

to welcome David Bailey, CEO of

1:42

Bitcoin Media and the driving force

1:45

behind the Bitcoin conference in

1:47

Nashville, where Republican nominee and

1:49

former president Donald Trump made

1:51

a landmark appearance. David

1:54

hasn't worked closely with the Trump campaign

1:56

to influence the policies being crafted

1:58

around Bitcoin. episode, it

2:00

gives us an inside look at how Donald

2:02

Trump operates and how the industry is working

2:05

with his party. Without

2:07

further ado, here's my conversation with

2:09

David Bailey. All right. Mr.

2:15

David Bailey, thank you so much for joining us today.

2:18

Thank you for having me on the show. There's so

2:20

many things I want to talk to you today

2:22

about, but I want to start, as I usually

2:24

do in the show, with a little bit of

2:26

the origin story and getting into the weeds

2:29

of what it was like to grow up

2:31

as David Bailey. And can

2:33

you tell us what it was like to...

2:35

What all your childhood was like and what

2:37

the Bailey household was like and anything that

2:40

sticks out to you? So

2:42

I've done a lot of podcasts over the past 10

2:44

years, and this is the first time anyone has ever

2:46

asked me about my upbringing. So

2:48

thank you for the original question. Yeah,

2:51

I guess, you know, I... Ever

2:55

since I was a child, I had an

2:58

infatuation with the

3:00

concept of money, not necessarily having money, but

3:02

the concept of money. I

3:05

grew up in my parents' small business

3:07

after school, and I would take green

3:10

paper and I would photo print different

3:12

denominations of fake currency.

3:15

I had a little truck as

3:18

like a small child that was also a bank,

3:20

and I would collect pennies in the bank and

3:23

I'd play dank. So

3:25

just from a small... from childhood,

3:27

I enjoyed money, investing, and

3:30

how money was the

3:33

mechanism by which the world ordered

3:36

and organized itself in

3:39

a very, let's say, infantile way

3:41

of understanding that. And

3:44

I also... I mentioned my parents

3:46

had a small business. They published a magazine called

3:48

Homes and Land Magazine, which is like a magazine

3:50

you find outside of gas stations. That's like

3:52

in a box. You know, that kind of looks like

3:54

a real estate. So they did

3:56

that for the city of Huntsville, Alabama. So

3:58

Huntsville is a town... of 200,000 people.

4:01

So it was just a small business. I think

4:03

they had at their peak,

4:06

maybe three people working for them. And

4:08

so I grew up in that environment

4:10

after school. I would bag the magazines

4:12

for my dad who would go

4:15

out and distribute them. And

4:19

I saw my dad build the business, the

4:21

things that he cared about, his ethics

4:24

and ideals about

4:26

how to run a small business. And

4:29

then likewise, my mom, she's

4:31

an extremely... She's a

4:33

force of nature in her own, but

4:35

she's extremely charismatic. She

4:38

wouldn't call it sales, but

4:40

she's great at sales. She's

4:42

also just an amazing woman.

4:44

So I grew up around them, getting

4:46

to just see them build a business. And I feel

4:48

like that had a pretty big influence on me. And

4:51

then probably other

4:54

formative event that occurred. So I

4:56

got into investing the summer before

4:59

my freshman year of high school. And

5:02

so I had saved up $4,000. And

5:07

my dad matched the $4,000 I had

5:09

saved. And so I had $8,000. And so I started investing

5:15

into stocks when I was...

5:17

Shoot, I mean, that would have made me 13 years old or something like

5:21

that with $8,000. And so

5:25

my first run with investing into stocks, I

5:27

invested into the companies I knew, which was

5:29

Apple, Google, and once

5:32

Google IPO'd, and things

5:34

that just the kid would know. And

5:36

those stocks did extremely well. So

5:39

I was buying... I bought Apple before the first iPhone

5:43

came out. And I

5:45

turned the $8,000 into a fair chunk

5:48

of change. While I

5:50

was in high school, over $100,000 investing

5:52

into stocks. And I thought I was

5:54

amazing. Then I started investing into bank

5:56

stocks. And this was like $2,000. 2007-2008,

6:00

banks had started coming down in the price a

6:02

little bit, but they were down like

6:07

maybe 20% or 30% from their all-time highs. And

6:11

at this point in time in my

6:13

childhood, I was watching a bunch of

6:15

CNBC and mainstream news. And this

6:17

was before I realized that the

6:20

world is designed to lie to you. So

6:22

I'm still like, I believe things that face value.

6:24

Like when a CEO goes on CNBC

6:27

and says, buy our stock, it's super

6:29

safe. I'm like, oh, wow,

6:31

I listened to an interview with the CEO. And

6:38

so this was my first

6:40

lesson in life that, I guess,

6:43

going from a boy to a man where I proceeded

6:47

to lose huge sums of

6:49

money in the 08, 09

6:52

financial crisis. And

6:54

when you lose $100,000 as a 16, 17-year-old, that has

6:56

a pretty formative impression on your

7:03

perspective. And so that led me

7:05

down a path of trying to

7:08

understand why this

7:10

happened. How is it that no one saw

7:12

the financial crisis coming? How is it that

7:14

no one knew subprime mortgages would blow up?

7:17

And it turns out that there were people that knew. There

7:20

were people who talked about this way

7:23

before it happened. And when

7:25

I found those people's videos on YouTube and people

7:27

talking about it on the internet, it's like, this

7:30

person knew. How

7:33

did they know and no one else knew? That

7:36

led me to Austrian economics. That led

7:38

me to the path that ultimately brought

7:41

me to Bitcoin. And so

7:43

there's actually a very formative video I

7:45

watched from Ron Paul, where he's on

7:47

the floor of the house

7:50

giving a speech about the subprime prices. And I think it's 2001

7:52

or 2002, he's giving a speech about how this is going to

7:54

cause a

7:57

mortgage bubble. The mortgage bubble is going to pop.

8:00

and bring down the financial institutions. And he like lays it

8:02

out. And it's like, oh, okay. So

8:04

people did understand that this was gonna happen, but

8:06

these people just had a certain worldview. And so

8:08

then I started to try to understand what their

8:10

worldview was. And there

8:13

was other things that happened in my life, but that

8:15

is ultimately how I came to Bitcoin. So my

8:17

journey to Bitcoin is really a journey

8:20

that started really, I

8:22

guess, like summer after the eighth grade, you

8:24

know, and maybe even earlier than that. And

8:27

it built to me getting into Bitcoin,

8:30

my senior year of college,

8:33

I bought my first Bitcoins in November

8:36

of 2012 and

8:39

have been along on the ride ever since. Wow,

8:42

man, what an answer. For all

8:45

the Bitcoin parents out there, what

8:48

you do today is so important for the future of

8:50

your child. And I think you just embody that. I've

8:52

had similar, you know, experiences with my parents growing up.

8:54

I grew up around an entrepreneurial household, which eventually led

8:56

us to, you know, led me to have the guts

8:59

really to start my own business and to build lead

9:01

into what it is today with Adam and everyone else

9:04

that's kind of been on this journey. But it's so

9:06

important what you see in those early

9:08

days and how you want to meme and

9:10

mimic your parents. So to all the Bitcoin

9:12

parents out there, they're watching you. So act

9:14

as a Bitcoiner would. I mean, I think

9:17

you have to be kind of a psychopath

9:19

to start a business or you have to

9:21

not know anything else, you know, and it's

9:24

like, you know, and when I started

9:26

the business, like I, so

9:28

I was in college, I actually, I went

9:30

to the first, you know, I bought Bitcoin in November of

9:33

2012, roughly

9:36

$10 of Bitcoin. Bitcoin

9:38

runs all the way to $266. That

9:42

was April of 2013. So

9:45

it's like my second semester of my senior year,

9:47

and I've 25 X

9:50

my money in four months. And

9:53

so I just don't care about

9:55

school anymore. I don't care about, it's

9:57

just like nothing else matters. And.

9:59

And then the price of Bitcoin crashes from like

10:01

$2.60 to like $50 in a day. And

10:06

so people think these bear markets are bad. They have

10:08

no idea what came before. So

10:12

I get wrecked on Bitcoin, or not wrecked, but

10:14

I mean, I'm down a lot. And I'm like,

10:16

oh, wow, am I an idiot? Did

10:19

I buy into a bubble? And

10:23

so I went to the first Bitcoin conference that

10:25

was in San Jose, 2013. This

10:28

was May. I

10:30

tried to get a job or find if somebody was hiring for a

10:32

job. No one was hiring because no one had any money. But

10:35

I actually interviewed to be employee number one at

10:37

Coinbase. They didn't have enough money to hire

10:39

me. So

10:42

I was like, OK,

10:44

well, I guess I'll do my own thing. And

10:47

the people I met at this conference,

10:50

they were the smartest people I had ever met. And I

10:52

felt like I had met really smart people in my

10:54

career. I had interned at hedge

10:57

funds. I had interned at venture capital shops.

11:00

So I felt like I knew smart people. And

11:03

the people at the Bitcoin conference were an

11:06

order of magnitude smarter. And

11:08

it wasn't even people that were there for work. It

11:10

was people that had called in sick to their work

11:13

and made up some excuse. Because at this point

11:15

in time, it was still not OK to tell

11:17

people that you were into Bitcoin. They're like,

11:19

you know, drug money? So

11:22

they all would make up excuses. And these were like Google

11:25

engineers and Adobe engineers

11:27

and people who had real jobs.

11:31

And like Bitcoin is their total passion. And

11:33

they're working on it at nights. They're working on

11:35

weekends. They're lying to their boss to come to

11:37

the Bitcoin conference. And it's like,

11:40

wow, there's a thousand of the

11:42

smartest people I've ever met. In

11:45

this room, the energy

11:47

and the excitement of the

11:49

moment was like, I actually

11:52

remember coming back from we all

11:54

went and watched the new Star Trek movie together, which

11:56

is like so nerdy. But that was part of the

11:58

conference. to do. Yeah.

12:02

And so I come back into the lobby and it's

12:04

like, let's say like 1am in the morning and

12:06

the lobby is packed with people

12:09

in groups of like three or

12:11

four or five people huddled together

12:13

in little circles that are like

12:15

brainstorming businesses that they're going

12:17

to start, like startups. And

12:19

there's like 20 or 30 little groups of

12:21

like three to five people that are coming

12:23

up with ideas. And it was like the energy

12:26

of anything is possible. We

12:28

can build anything with this. This

12:30

is the start of a whole new system. It

12:33

was so exciting that I was like, if

12:36

I don't focus on this full time,

12:38

if I don't go all in on this, I

12:41

will live for the rest of my life with the regret

12:43

that I was there at that moment and I didn't do

12:45

it. And worst case scenario is this

12:47

goes to zero. And

12:49

then I'm just like every other college student

12:52

who has no life experience or skills or

12:54

whatever. And I just go back to school.

12:56

So I jumped full time into it from May

12:58

2013 as my total focus. And

13:02

I started with a magazine called

13:04

Why Bitcoin? Because

13:06

I didn't know what else to do. So I was

13:09

just like, okay, I grew up, my parents did magazines,

13:11

like maybe I can do a magazine. And so the

13:13

magazine was just like, what is Bitcoin?

13:16

How does it work? What is Bitcoin mining? Where

13:18

can I spend it? Why should I accept it? What's

13:21

the potential value of it? Just

13:24

the basics, but in a magazine format.

13:27

And so that was like my... It was the

13:29

worst idea ever. Like I mean, honestly, if I

13:31

could go back, if I could go back,

13:33

I'd start the business you started. Okay. But

13:36

I wasn't smart enough to do that. So I

13:38

got into print magazines, but I quickly

13:40

learned that print magazines are not the

13:42

best business and I diversified into other

13:44

businesses. But yeah, so that's like my,

13:46

I guess my journey into Bitcoin, my

13:48

path. And what was interesting

13:51

about it, I'd say is like a

13:54

magazine, a print magazine,

13:56

first off in our industry, like nothing.

14:00

isn't print anymore. So it's really weird

14:02

to have a print magazine. So

14:04

it almost helped me stick out.

14:08

Everyone in Bitcoin can build a domain. Everyone

14:10

in Bitcoin can... Very few

14:12

people have magazines. So it did help

14:15

me. And what it also gave

14:17

me was a reason to talk to every

14:19

single person in the industry. So I talked

14:21

to every company. I talked to

14:23

every author.

14:26

I was basically

14:28

traveling the world for two

14:30

or three years in a row, going

14:32

to every single Bitcoin conference that happened

14:34

in the world. And every

14:37

Bitcoin meetup and just... I went

14:39

to hundreds of conferences. I

14:41

mean, not hundreds, at least 800 conferences,

14:43

back to back to back, back to back,

14:45

back to back. And

14:48

you don't really have a reason to do that unless you

14:50

have a job in media. I

14:53

mean, maybe some companies do,

14:55

but mostly people have a couple of conferences that

14:57

matter and then they don't go to the rest.

15:00

And I was trying to just meet people. So

15:02

I just went to every single one. And

15:05

so that's where my path

15:07

started once I got into Bitcoin. It's such

15:09

an amazing story, man. And I find myself

15:11

nodding because I find a lot of similarities

15:13

between how your journey was and

15:15

how my journey was in terms of mimicking what

15:17

my parents did. I grew up watching my dad

15:19

short the Oliyaa using dollars. And when

15:21

I found Bitcoin, to me, the natural thing was to

15:23

short a dollar using Bitcoin. It was instant. I just

15:25

knew that that's what

15:28

I wanted to mimic. And how do I do that? I need to set

15:30

up a loan. And this is what I end up doing. And it's

15:32

fascinating how you saw... You

15:34

found Bitcoin, you know you want to be a part of

15:36

it. The natural inclination for you was to

15:38

do what your dad had done, which is to start a magazine.

15:41

And I find this... It's

15:43

such an interesting path. And similarly, I

15:46

commend and applaud anyone that lives or

15:49

grows up around stable currency and finds

15:51

Bitcoin as early as you did. Typically,

15:53

it's because something happened where money was

15:55

weaponized or property rights failed you or

15:58

fairness of markets failed you. And

16:00

there it is. You explain the situation with

16:02

your bank investment and how you kind of

16:04

found that, came to Jesus or came

16:06

to Ron and found the answers.

16:11

It's such a... History rhymes.

16:14

It doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. It's

16:16

so fascinating. So, now

16:18

we're here. You started the magazine. You've done

16:20

all these conferences. How

16:23

does the opportunity to buy Bitcoin magazine

16:25

come up? Did

16:28

you have to interact at any point with

16:30

Vitalik as part of that negotiation? Could

16:33

you tell us a little bit about how that went down? Yeah.

16:36

So, Vitalik's now too big of a cheese to

16:38

spend time hanging out with me, but in

16:40

the early days I knew Vitalik well. I

16:43

met Vitalik through a gentleman

16:45

named Mihai. Mihai asks...

16:48

Can't pronounce his last name. Romanian guy,

16:51

one of the original co-founders of Bitcoin magazine.

16:55

Mihai had hired Vitalik

16:57

to write content for Bitcoin

17:00

magazine. So I met

17:02

them at an Amsterdam conference in 2013.

17:06

I remember Mihai introducing me to

17:08

Vitalik and was like, you're never

17:10

going to believe how smart this

17:12

nerd is. And just

17:15

like, Mihai and

17:17

I were not like the developer

17:19

types and Vitalik was just pure

17:22

autistic brilliant. And

17:24

so we're hanging out. And

17:27

that was my first interaction with Vitalik. And

17:29

they were already kind of talking about wanting

17:31

to do something. I think

17:34

Vitalik was one of the co-authors on the color

17:36

coin white paper. And at this point in time,

17:38

color coins were a big topic in Bitcoin. A

17:41

lot of people were talking about

17:44

Bitcoin 2.0, meta layers on Bitcoin.

17:47

There was something called Omni, which at

17:49

that time was called Mastercoin. So people

17:51

were already thinking about how do we

17:53

build smart contracts for Bitcoin. And

17:57

so that's where the relationship started. The

17:59

relationship. grew over time, just

18:01

because we're both doing magazines. I

18:04

was kind of smoking them

18:06

in terms of commercialization. And

18:08

I had some innovative tactics. We had a phone number

18:11

that you could call and I would pick up the

18:13

phone. Whereas Bitcoin

18:15

Magazine, you could email

18:17

them a thousand times. They'd never respond to you. They're

18:22

running as a passion business. One

18:24

formative event happened in December of

18:26

2013. There

18:29

was a conference in Las Vegas, inside

18:31

Bitcoin's Las Vegas. And I was

18:34

situated... There was three kind of

18:36

booths back to back. Bitcoin

18:38

Magazine was on the right. I was in the

18:40

middle. And then to my left

18:42

was a booth called Crypto Kit. And

18:44

Crypto Kit was run by a guy

18:47

named Anthony DiOrio. And so Anthony

18:49

and I became friends,

18:52

very close friends right away. I

18:54

ended up connecting Anthony and Vitalik

18:56

together at that event, which

18:59

is where Vitalik explained to Anthony

19:01

the concept of Ethereum.

19:03

Anthony had just sold his

19:06

company called Satoshi

19:08

Circle or something like that. It was

19:11

a betting platform. And so Anthony

19:13

just committed to investing right there. That

19:16

was the start of really

19:18

Ethereum's beginning. The group

19:20

of people that came together to build Ethereum

19:24

were a lot of people that I knew well. I hung

19:26

out with at these conferences. Some of them are well

19:28

known. A few of them like

19:30

to stay out of podcasts and

19:32

rather not have their names said out loud.

19:35

So I would hang out with all of these

19:37

people and just as friends. And

19:40

at some point in time during this

19:42

process, my girlfriend at the time from

19:45

college, who's now my wife, started

19:47

working at a company called Bitpay. I think that happened in 2014.

19:49

And Bitpay was

19:53

floating Bitcoin magazine's expenses

19:56

as part of some deal that Tony Gallipi

19:58

had put together. And so

20:00

when Vitalik and Mihai decided, hey, we're

20:02

going to go do this Ethereum thing,

20:04

we need to get out of our

20:07

Bitcoin Magazine commitments, BitPay is

20:09

like, what the fuck? We've been floating you all

20:11

this money to do Bitcoin Magazine. Like,

20:14

what are we supposed to do? So

20:18

BitPay is trying to think of a solution.

20:20

And my wife is just walking by, or

20:22

at that time, my girlfriend, walking by the

20:25

CFO's office. And

20:27

the CFO is like, hey, Emily, do you

20:29

think your boyfriend would buy Bitcoin Magazine? And

20:32

she was like, probably. And

20:35

so that was the beginning of

20:37

that process. And

20:43

I negotiated a deal with Vitalik and

20:45

Mihai. It was a little

20:47

bit of a tense situation because they weren't on

20:49

the best terms with BitPay. And BitPay was the

20:51

ultimate kind of decider of what happened. And

20:54

I didn't have the money to pay for

20:56

Bitcoin Magazine. So I had to figure

20:58

out a way to get the money before

21:01

I had to deliver the money. So I

21:04

negotiated a deal where I paid, I

21:07

got them out of all of their liabilities that

21:10

they had. They owed all these magazines and these

21:12

advertising credits that they had pre-sold. So

21:15

I took on all those liabilities and I paid them

21:17

$50,000 for Bitcoin Magazine, but

21:20

I didn't have 50 grand. So I split

21:22

it into three payments of $16,000 that

21:25

were due every six weeks or

21:27

something like that, every four weeks. And

21:30

I pre-sold 20 grand

21:33

worth of advertising to

21:35

cover my first payment on

21:37

Bitcoin Magazine. And

21:40

so I hustled

21:42

the whole thing together and actually

21:44

had to promise, it's in the contract, I think

21:46

that after two

21:48

years, I

21:51

had to also agree to

21:53

pay Vitalik and Mihai $10,000 a piece. I

21:59

actually reread it. I read the contract a couple of years ago and I

22:01

forgot that I was supposed to pay them. So I reached out to

22:03

both of them. Both of them were like mega

22:05

rich now. But I'm like, hey, by the way, I need

22:08

to pay $10,000. Can

22:10

I pay you in Bitcoin? Either

22:12

responded to me. So I still owe them that money.

22:15

Either of them hear this podcast. You

22:18

know, would love to follow through on the deal. Wow,

22:22

man. What a story. I

22:25

like to talk to you because people

22:28

tend to forget how closely linked

22:31

Ethereum and Bitcoin and crypto. We

22:33

were all one and the same in the early days,

22:35

in the early enough days. There was

22:37

no them versus us. This

22:40

was all one tent. And

22:43

I think having that context

22:46

is why you do so well what you

22:48

do, which I find you act as a

22:50

bridge among crypto as

22:53

a whole, even though you run Bitcoin magazine. And

22:55

we'll get into that in a second because I

22:57

think that that is a very

22:59

mature thing. That's a very forward thinking way

23:01

of being in this very much very much

23:04

aligned with how I feel and I view

23:06

things. Damn, you've kind of run

23:08

through so many things that I wanted to ask

23:10

you, but in a great way. That's

23:13

exactly right. The reason that we have the

23:15

cultural values that we have at Bitcoin Magazine

23:17

for the Bitcoin Conference, it

23:19

dates back to the early culture

23:21

of Bitcoin. We've always tried to

23:24

basically bring back the OG Bitcoin

23:26

culture. And before

23:28

everything was trying to compete with Bitcoin, because the early

23:30

stuff was even trying to compete with Bitcoin. It

23:34

wasn't Bitcoin. Bitcoin was

23:36

the mothership. Everything else was just like a

23:38

child of Bitcoin. And so

23:40

we've always tried to bring back that culture. We

23:44

also tried to bring back the vibe

23:46

of the Bitcoin Conference, which was

23:49

very positive

23:51

and optimistic about the future.

23:54

And we can build it. We can do

23:56

it. Nothing's impossible. If Bitcoin can scale,

23:58

we'll figure out how to scale it. Bitcoin can't

24:00

do smart contracts, we'll figure out how to do

24:02

smart contracts." It was very

24:04

much a, we'll fucking do it. That's

24:07

what I think the culture needs to be rather than

24:09

this, oh, Bitcoin can't do smart contracts,

24:14

so therefore, big smart contracts are dumb

24:16

and not worth pursuing and forget even

24:19

trying to do smart contracts on Bitcoin.

24:24

Yeah, we borrow the

24:27

cultural values from our

24:30

upbringing in Bitcoin, I guess. And

24:34

if we did it any other way, it'd kind of

24:36

be just fake because it's not even what we

24:38

know. We don't even know how to do it

24:40

this other way where it's like Bitcoin

24:42

is the holy coin and

24:46

everything else is going straight to hell. That's

24:48

not to say that I, over

24:50

this past 10 years, 13 years

24:52

in Bitcoin, I've

24:55

grown to respect and appreciate

24:57

Bitcoin in so many new ways that

25:01

I didn't understand it at first in

25:03

that same light. And so,

25:05

for us, why we're Bitcoin only

25:07

is because

25:10

we think Bitcoin deserves

25:13

that focus and attention. It can be

25:15

so much, but we're not

25:17

Bitcoin maxis in the sense

25:19

of, it's not that we don't want

25:21

these other things to be successful, and

25:24

it's not that we don't think that there's features or

25:28

things that could be approved upon. We definitely

25:31

think there are. We

25:33

just think that Bitcoin deserves

25:35

our utmost prioritization. Thank

25:38

you for sharing that, and it's so

25:40

eye-opening and refreshing to hear that from an

25:42

OG and a Bitcoiner like yourself in terms

25:44

of this sort of big 10 Bitcoin review,

25:46

which I like to subscribe. I don't really

25:48

know if that's the right name for it,

25:50

but here, if you wind back the clock

25:52

far enough, all of us have something to

25:54

do with Ethereum eventually. That's

25:57

a picture of me going to the University of

25:59

Toronto. information sessions on Ethereum

26:01

mining. And again, I was back then, I was

26:03

a Bitcoin, I was new to the space. I

26:06

learned a lot through those sessions and we shouldn't be... I

26:10

think we're all rowing towards... We have a lot more in

26:12

common than we do in differences,

26:14

right? And so I think that's what you try to

26:16

bring to the table and I love that about you

26:18

and your conferences. Now, let's talk

26:20

about the conferences for a second because thinking about...

26:23

On the topic of, we'll fucking do it

26:25

regardless. If you had asked me two

26:27

years ago that two presidential

26:30

candidates and eight senators are

26:32

going to be at a Bitcoin conference in

26:34

a presidential year, I would have told you

26:36

that you are out of your mind. Yet

26:39

somehow you brought on two

26:41

presidential candidates to speak at

26:44

a Bitcoin conference, the biggest Bitcoin conference

26:46

in the world. And I do...

26:48

I can't... I would be remiss if I didn't ask

26:50

you at least one question about this. So do

26:54

you think that Donald

26:57

Trump and his advisors genuinely get

26:59

Bitcoin and are excited about it?

27:02

Or is he a smart politician?

27:05

And maybe I would love to get your take on that

27:07

because you've spent a lot of time interacting with him in

27:09

the campaign. Well, first off,

27:11

thank you for the shout out.

27:14

You know, what's cool about it is that we

27:16

didn't set out to get two presidents to

27:18

the conference. We

27:20

set out to just do our

27:23

utmost to push Bitcoin and

27:25

the opportunity developed and then we

27:27

just seize the opportunity. And RFK

27:30

was a byproduct of... Do

27:33

you remember the trucker protest in Canada? Very

27:36

well. So we were one of

27:39

the driving forces behind raising money for

27:41

the truckers and we helped

27:43

raise 10 Bitcoins for

27:46

Hong Kong. I think it was called Hong

27:48

Kong Bitcoin or something like that. And so

27:50

RFK saw that. And

27:52

RFK, of course, the COVID,

27:55

the vaccine is near and dear to his heart. And

27:57

so that was the eye-opening moment. moment

28:00

for him of, you can't have

28:02

freedom if you can't control your own

28:04

money. And that's

28:06

ultimately what brought him to our

28:09

conference in 2023, and we built

28:11

the relationship. And

28:13

the Trump campaign saw that

28:16

activity. And that was actually one of the big things

28:18

that really helped us in terms of

28:20

closing the deal for getting Trump engaged for

28:22

2024, just

28:24

that we were a platform where presidential

28:27

candidates spoke. And so,

28:30

the process with Trump has been

28:32

very interesting because I'm

28:34

a pretty anti-government, anti-politics.

28:37

I got into Bitcoin to

28:39

separate money and state. And

28:41

I truly believe in that vision. And

28:45

working with the political system in

28:47

some way has reinforced my worst

28:49

impressions of politics, but

28:52

has also opened my

28:54

mind to the fact that

28:58

individuals can achieve a lot within the

29:00

political system. Just like individuals

29:02

can achieve a lot within the Bitcoin system.

29:04

We act like they can't, but two

29:07

guys built Coinbase. CZ

29:09

built Binance. You can go build

29:12

products and services that onboard 100

29:15

million users. And

29:17

there's nothing stopping you. And

29:20

so, the political system is not

29:22

that dissimilar in the sense of,

29:25

you can have a big impression if

29:28

you attack it with

29:30

ideas that have product market fit. And

29:33

Bitcoin has product market fit. So

29:35

anyway, directly to your

29:37

question of does Trump understand it and

29:40

do his advisors understand it,

29:42

we pitched Bitcoin

29:45

to Trump and his team as

29:48

an opportunity. It's easy

29:50

to say that somebody is being opportunistic.

29:52

Oh, they're only doing this to benefit

29:54

themselves. The reality is is that almost

29:57

every person, I'd say every person who

29:59

gets Bitcoin. is doing it to benefit

30:01

themselves. It

30:04

takes a special type of person to see

30:06

the opportunity where others do not. And

30:09

so Donald Trump and his

30:11

team see the opportunity with Bitcoin.

30:14

Do they necessarily understand it

30:16

in full, the full

30:18

gravity of it? Every day,

30:20

they go further down the path. That's all

30:23

I can say. I mean, it's like, I

30:25

don't think any person who gets into Bitcoin

30:27

in their first three months understands the gravity

30:30

of what it can become. There's

30:32

also a lot of people in Trump's orbit. And

30:35

so different people in Trump's orbit have

30:37

different levels of understanding. And

30:40

there are people in his family that hone significant

30:44

amounts of Bitcoin who

30:46

have been trying to get their family

30:48

aligned on

30:51

Bitcoin for a while. So it's

30:53

not something that we did by ourselves.

30:55

There's a lot of kind of voices

30:57

there, but we created like,

31:00

let's say the specific catalyst

31:03

for like a forcing function of

31:05

Trump really saying, is this

31:07

something that is aligned

31:10

with my beliefs that I can get behind?

31:12

And is it a

31:15

big enough opportunity for me to bother

31:17

prioritizing it? And as he understood how

31:19

many people own this thing, the potential

31:21

of what Bitcoin can do for the United

31:26

States, the size of the

31:28

market, he really embraced it. And then

31:30

every time he embraced it, the market reinforced

31:36

that decision. Every time he said something

31:38

about it, everyone would ask him

31:40

about in his personal life, the media would go

31:42

wild. The crowds would cheer. He

31:44

loves that. That's how he feeds

31:47

off the crowd. He's a true entertainer

31:49

in that sense. And so when

31:53

Gary Gensler's death sentence was when Donald

31:55

Trump went and said on day one,

31:57

he'll fire Gary Gensler and the crowd

32:00

went wild, like that

32:02

was the end

32:05

for Gary Gissler right there. As soon as the crowd

32:07

went wild, if the crowd had not responded at all,

32:09

he'd be like, ah, they don't like that idea. Like

32:12

throw it in the back burner. But as soon as

32:14

the crowd went wild, it's like, okay, we're doing this.

32:16

So that's the type of guy that Trump is. He's

32:19

an entrepreneur. If the users like

32:21

something from the product, he'll double down.

32:23

If the users don't like it, he'll

32:25

incorporate the feedback. I

32:28

could not agree with you more. And I

32:30

think that's a really great analogy in terms

32:32

of politics and platforms having product market fit.

32:34

You see it with how you had to

32:37

be late. Like how you had to be

32:39

late in Argentina created a party out of

32:41

nothing in three years. And now he's the

32:43

president of Argentina and dethrone the two parties

32:45

that have been basically passing each other the

32:47

baton for decades. So politics, to your point,

32:49

as imperfect as it is, allows for change

32:51

if the right people get involved with the right sort

32:54

of platform. Now, just

32:56

to get a little bit specific on Trump,

32:59

because now I think we're talking, we

33:01

talked loosely about it, but there's a chance

33:03

that a US president for

33:05

the first time has, now has Bitcoin on

33:08

his political platform and is going to be

33:10

expected to take action should he get elected.

33:12

Right. And so can you, at a

33:15

very high level, talk about like, what

33:17

are some of his key policies around

33:19

Bitcoin? And is there one in particular

33:21

that excites you the most? I

33:25

don't want to share anything that's been shared

33:27

with me in confidence by the president or

33:29

his team. And I don't want to front run

33:31

any future announcements that they're

33:33

going to have. I can tell you

33:35

that, you know, when we

33:37

first started pitching

33:40

the campaign on Bitcoin

33:43

and what it could, what it means and what

33:45

it could do for them and why it's aligned

33:47

with their platform, they asked

33:49

us to like, you know, put

33:52

together potential policy items that

33:54

would excite the Bitcoin community

33:56

that would be aligned with their policy

33:58

platform that already existed. And

34:01

we put together just...

34:03

We threw the entire kitchen sink

34:05

at it. Every idea

34:08

that had been talked about from our

34:10

industry that you would think is totally

34:12

impractical and it's like, if we can

34:15

get one out of the kitchen sink,

34:17

people would be thrilled. And so we

34:20

sent over this list and they're like, yeah, these look great.

34:22

We like them. It's like,

34:24

which one do you like? They're like, we like all of them.

34:27

I think in terms

34:29

of what the platform is and

34:31

what it can be, I think

34:34

that anything is possible. I think

34:36

that as long as our industry

34:39

and our users show up for

34:41

Trump, everything is on the table. And

34:44

I mean that in there is

34:47

no idea that is too ambitious,

34:50

where Trump says, that's too ambitious.

34:53

I'm not interested. Trump loves ambitious

34:55

ideas. Trump loves the Louisiana Purchase.

34:58

Trump loves the transformational

35:00

deal. And so he also,

35:03

he wants to be remembered as

35:06

a president that changed

35:09

the course of history. And it

35:12

might sound cheesy, but there are

35:14

very few things that

35:16

can actually change the course of history. Rewriting

35:19

the global monetary standard is

35:23

one of those things. And

35:25

so I think what the platform is

35:27

today, it

35:30

will expand in scope dramatically over

35:33

time. What he's announced

35:35

today so far, first and

35:38

foremost, Free Ross Ulbricht on day one, which

35:40

he will 100% follow through on. If he

35:45

doesn't follow through on that, everyone deserves

35:47

to walk away and say, f this guy.

35:51

He will follow through on that promise.

35:53

So next policy that he's spoken publicly

35:55

about is he will

35:57

defend a big Bitcoin

36:00

miners from regulation, he will

36:02

ensure that all companies in the United

36:04

States have equal access to energy that

36:07

they won't be discriminated against because of

36:09

how they choose to use energy. And

36:12

he wants Bitcoin to be mined

36:14

in America. So that's the second

36:16

policy that he's announced. He's

36:19

announced that he will

36:21

protect your right to run a node, your

36:24

right to mine, and your right to self-custody

36:26

Bitcoin. So what that looks like in policy

36:29

equivalents, he hasn't shared

36:32

any policy around that, but those

36:34

are high-level campaign promises. He's

36:37

promised to fire Gary Gensler on day

36:39

one. We already talked about that

36:42

one, but he's very excited about that. So

36:44

I was hoping he was going to

36:47

say in his speech, Gary Gensler, you're fired, but

36:49

then you go

36:51

full Monty. And then I think what's

36:54

probably the most transformational policy that's

36:56

been announced that also has the

36:58

most room for, let's say, scope

37:01

growth, scope creep, you could

37:04

say, is the

37:06

establishment of the

37:10

digital Fort Knox for the

37:12

United States and for the United

37:14

States to begin building a Bitcoin treasury. And

37:18

I think that that idea is

37:22

not only extremely exciting, but

37:24

I think that it's just to have the

37:28

conversation around the idea is

37:31

transformational for the

37:33

global geopolitical position of Bitcoin.

37:37

And to me shows the

37:39

fact that it so quickly became something

37:41

that was absurd

37:43

and then became plausible,

37:47

even if it's not certain, it's plausible, to

37:51

me says that it is an inevitability

37:53

that it will happen. I

37:55

think that is really where Bitcoin

37:58

enters the next level. of

38:00

adoption. The Overton

38:02

window has been open and now I just got a

38:04

bus through it. I think when it comes to Bitcoin

38:07

as a national preserve. So that's up. Thank

38:09

you for sharing that. And we, you

38:11

know, there's a lot

38:14

of anticipation to see what happens in this election and sort of

38:17

what the future holds for Bitcoin. I

38:19

want to talk to you or ask

38:21

you briefly about something you mentioned in

38:23

a previous interview, which was that the

38:25

Bitcoin political lobby has been working closely

38:27

with the crypto political lobby and

38:30

that this was key to advance

38:32

both groups' agendas. And we

38:35

had let in support both Bitcoin and

38:37

Ethereum and we've been members of both

38:39

Bitcoin industry associations and crypto industry associations

38:41

and I get the tension. There always

38:43

has been a tension and there's this

38:45

sort of false idea that we are

38:47

all rooting for different things. But

38:50

I think that in order for everyone

38:52

or anyone to advance our platforms or

38:54

advance our projects, we need to understand

38:57

the game theory of democracy and act

39:00

accordingly. And in the game

39:02

theory of democracy, power is in numbers.

39:04

So I think it's key to bring

39:06

these two lobbies together rather than to

39:08

fragment them because if they divide us,

39:10

it'll make everyone's lives much more difficult.

39:12

So can you speak to

39:14

what it's been like to work

39:16

or bridge those two lobbies together

39:18

to find common ground? And

39:20

do you foresee more unity or more of a

39:22

drift in the years to come? I

39:25

see much more unity happening and

39:27

really the only politically mobilized part

39:29

of the Bitcoin industry is

39:32

the Bitcoin miners. The vast

39:34

majority of the corporate political activity outside

39:36

of miners is from the crypto world.

39:39

The reality is that there are more

39:41

Bitcoin users than any other crypto. And

39:45

the reality is that every crypto

39:47

person loves Bitcoin. Almost every

39:49

crypto person loves Bitcoin. And

39:52

so while the Bitcoin maxis like to

39:54

pretend that's not the case, there

39:56

really just isn't that much divide. And

39:59

the Paul. policy issues that they care about

40:01

are roughly the same, absent

40:03

proof of work. So proof of

40:06

work is the one place where I think

40:08

they're unique, even though proof of stake does

40:10

have the same double taxation issue that proof

40:12

of work does. So there are some similarities

40:14

there on the consensus side. But

40:18

yeah, I think a couple things. I think

40:20

one is that the

40:22

gravitas and excitement and

40:25

the necessity around this moment

40:28

brought people together. When

40:31

you're doing big things to change the world,

40:34

it's like the little petty stuff, it just

40:36

comes off as so petty. Who cares? Who

40:39

fucking cares? And so that's

40:42

very, very quickly, it's unifying.

40:45

Then I think Trump nailed it right

40:47

off the bat by making his first

40:49

policy item freeing Ross Ulbrich because that's

40:52

a very unifying message that goes all

40:54

the way back, hearkens all the way

40:56

back to the early days of Bitcoin,

40:58

like this earlier ethos of Bitcoin. And

41:02

then Trump has

41:04

done a great job of recognizing

41:07

both Bitcoin and crypto, not necessarily

41:09

making them the exact same thing.

41:12

And I think what I see coming, which

41:14

I think will permanently change this toxicity

41:17

between the two groups, is

41:21

Bitcoin is digital money, it's

41:23

digital value, it's digital gold,

41:26

and crypto is digital

41:28

securities. And the whole crypto

41:31

industry shrieks to being called a security

41:33

because there's so much bullshit put

41:37

up to pretend you're not a security. People are

41:39

buying these things for reasons other than to speculate.

41:42

I think once we have the

41:45

clarity of regulations that

41:47

say it is perfectly fine for

41:50

a crypto to be a

41:52

security, it's perfectly fine to just

41:55

promise investors things and follow

41:57

through on those promises. to

42:00

have a team that runs the project and to

42:02

make a profit and all the things that the

42:04

Howie test says you can't go and do, it

42:07

will clarify the situation that these

42:09

things are not competitors to Bitcoin.

42:11

They're complements to Bitcoin. It's not

42:13

like people sit on Wall Street

42:15

and complain about the US dollar

42:17

being a competitor to the stock

42:19

market or that the Dow

42:21

and the US dollar are

42:24

in conflict. One is built

42:26

upon the other. The growth of one is the growth

42:28

of the other. The

42:32

issue is that because everyone has to

42:34

pretend that crypto isn't a security, then

42:36

it has to pretend it's something that

42:39

it's not. It gets interpreted by the

42:41

Bitcoin community as like, oh, you think

42:43

you're Bitcoin 2.0. You think

42:45

you're a better Bitcoin. That's not what they're trying

42:48

to be. It's not what they should be. I

42:50

think a lot of the scamming that happens in

42:52

crypto would just disappear if instead

42:54

of having to pretend you're something that you're

42:57

not, from the beginning, the

42:59

crypto could just be honest of like, yeah,

43:01

we're using this as a vehicle to

43:03

coordinate human activity so we can go

43:06

build something and incentivize something and incentivize

43:08

our users and incentivize our employees. Once

43:10

you clarify what it's supposed to be, the

43:14

most profitable action is to act honestly.

43:17

I see this coming together. I actually

43:19

think Trump

43:22

could be the champion who

43:24

pushes for and

43:27

forces through with the baseball

43:29

bat truly transformational regulatory change

43:32

on securities laws. That's

43:34

really well said, man. I really

43:36

appreciate you bringing up those analogies because I think it's

43:39

really helpful for people to clarify. It's not that we're all

43:41

trying to compete and eat from the same cake. We're trying

43:43

to grow the cake together. There are different slices of the

43:45

cake, I guess, and we just all have to grow the

43:48

pie together. I think

43:50

that's really well said. One of the

43:52

most powerful ideas of Bitcoin, I've always

43:54

loved the idea of the ICO. It's

43:58

an IPO. It's a public offering. anywhere

44:00

in the world, you could be a farmer in the

44:03

middle of Africa, and you can have a business idea,

44:05

and you can go on the internet, and you can

44:07

pitch strangers, and you could have 10,000 or 100,000 people

44:09

around the world pitch in $10. And

44:15

it's like, that is such a superpower

44:18

of Bitcoin. Fiat

44:20

can't do that, credit cards can't do

44:23

that, nothing can do that. And it's

44:25

like, once we unlock the Bitcoin capital

44:27

markets, once we embrace that

44:29

Bitcoin is

44:32

this tool for transferring

44:35

value, for all the same use

44:37

cases that the capital markets compete

44:39

for today, dude, we unlock the

44:41

next level in the economy, in

44:43

human potential. We

44:46

can't let these amazing ideas get

44:48

sacrificed at the feet of some

44:51

fucking fake purity. That's not even

44:53

real. Thank

44:55

you, man. Honestly, as a founder that was

44:57

born and raised outside of the United States,

45:00

I grew up looking at starting a business and

45:02

taking it public as a kid would look as

45:04

window shopping through FAO Schwartz in New York. There's

45:06

just looking through the window, things that you will

45:09

never be able to buy, never be able to

45:11

do just because you weren't born in the right

45:13

place or the right parents. And

45:15

to see that people from where I grew

45:17

up, people from Asia now everywhere, it used

45:20

to be... It's so funny because I'm seeing...

45:22

I was writing about this for something else, but 10 years

45:25

ago, it was like you're either in the US or you

45:27

have no access to financial opportunity. Right now,

45:29

because so much innovation has been pushed abroad, Americans

45:31

are actually aching to say Americans are being the

45:34

ones getting kicked out of financial innovation because you're

45:36

not allowing that innovation to happen here. And this

45:38

is why we're also intensely discussing

45:40

politics here so that we can fix that because

45:42

Americans have always been used to having access to

45:44

everything. And right now, there

45:46

is a substantially in a situation where there's

45:49

things that they cannot touch. And that's where

45:51

the financial opportunity is. So it's fascinating to

45:53

point how Bitcoin has really shifted things and

45:56

making us have to kind of re-think how

45:58

financial... What is fair in financial... systems.

46:01

Man, that was great. That really got me

46:03

going. Through this process, you

46:05

also spoke to the Blues, to the

46:07

Democrat campaign. Can you

46:10

tell us a little bit about

46:12

what that experience was like? Because

46:14

it seems that Bitcoin embodies or

46:16

espouses the values that they should

46:18

be championing in terms of democratizing

46:20

access to capital and freedom money.

46:23

What is it that they don't get? Or what is

46:25

it that's missing? Or how have

46:27

those interactions been? Are we misunderstanding their posture? Is there

46:33

a chance that they're actually thinking about this the right

46:35

way, but maybe their actions don't reflect that yet? Is

46:37

there anything you can share on that side? They're

46:41

not thinking about it. The right people are

46:44

not thinking about it the right way. There

46:47

absolutely is a progressive case for Bitcoin.

46:50

In fact, we published a book at

46:52

Bitcoin Magazine. I am the

46:54

actual publisher of the

46:56

progressive case for Bitcoin.

47:00

Don't let anybody accuse me

47:02

of being just a partisan

47:04

hack. No, the progressives have

47:06

an incredible case for how

47:08

Bitcoin champions their causes. There

47:11

are some brilliant progressive and

47:13

liberal thinkers that have

47:15

really articulated the case well.

47:19

I think what's happened is a couple fold.

47:24

One is the libertarians were

47:26

the first group and

47:28

party to Bitcoin, and

47:30

libertarians are disproportionately in

47:32

the conservative camps. I

47:35

think that the infiltration

47:37

of Bitcoin to conservative

47:39

ideology, to conservative institutions,

47:42

it started earlier and in

47:44

a bigger way. It's just

47:46

had a head start, let's say, with the

47:48

conservatives. I think what

47:51

also happened is that the democrats, in

47:53

the same way that, let's say, the

47:55

Republican Party of the past was not

47:57

really conservative, the democrats were not

47:59

conservative. Democratic Party today is not really liberal. And

48:03

there is going to become

48:06

a political... Let's

48:08

put it like this. The

48:11

roots of Bitcoin are the Tea Party and

48:14

Occupy Wall Street. That's

48:16

the roots of Bitcoin. And the

48:18

Tea Party has taken over the Republican

48:20

Party, and Occupy Wall

48:22

Street has not taken over the Democratic

48:24

Party yet. The

48:27

populist calling for a money system

48:29

that works for all people, that

48:32

all people have access to, it

48:35

will ultimately take root and win

48:37

out the Democratic Party. In

48:39

my opinion, it's an inevitability because the status

48:41

quo isn't sustainable. And so while

48:44

the current Democratic Party has, let's

48:47

say, delegated its financial

48:50

policy to Elizabeth Warren, who

48:52

hates Bitcoin on environmental grounds and

48:54

whatever other grounds, I don't even

48:56

know. I think now that

48:59

they've seen how much traction the Trump

49:01

has gotten, the Republican Party has gotten,

49:03

they've realized the stakes have risen dramatically

49:06

and that it matters having an opinion on this.

49:09

And an uninformed opinion that's

49:11

anti-Bitcoin, anti-crypto, doesn't win you

49:13

votes, doesn't get you donations. It's

49:16

really counterproductive. And

49:19

so if Elizabeth Warren hadn't

49:21

already anchored the party

49:23

to such an anti-Bitcoin view, I think they

49:25

already would have pivoted on their perspective. And

49:28

I think the next political leader

49:30

that comes outside of the... Kamala

49:33

Harris is the VP for Joe Biden. So

49:35

it was like, she is the

49:38

Joe Biden ticket, the Joe Biden platform.

49:40

The next Democrat that runs that's not

49:42

part of the Joe

49:44

Biden platform and is a

49:46

fresh voice or a fresh face, they're

49:49

going to be aligned with Bitcoin

49:51

from the progressive perspective. And

49:53

so I think it's very important that progressive

49:55

Bitcoiners who are listening to this or just

49:58

in general are interested in this topic. they

50:00

need to be articulating the

50:02

progressive talking points over

50:04

and over and over and over again

50:07

so that they can give the intellectual

50:09

foundation for the next

50:11

Democrat to embrace Bitcoin. But if they don't

50:14

have the intellectual foundation, it's not like they're

50:16

going to adopt the Republican

50:18

talking points on Bitcoin. So we just have

50:20

to develop them and talk about them. And

50:23

it's really, well, I did publish,

50:25

you know, I am the publisher

50:27

of a progressive case for Bitcoin.

50:29

I've tied my anchor to the

50:31

Trump ship and the

50:34

Republican Party for this election. And so

50:37

it's up to some other Bitcoiner out

50:39

there to take

50:41

up the mantle and take

50:43

the talking points and make the case

50:45

for the progressive case. That's

50:49

well said. And thank you for sharing

50:51

that. We're coming up

50:53

on time and I have so many questions that I still want to

50:55

run you, but I'll grab you on for another episode. Moving

50:58

away from politics for a second and

51:00

back into Bitcoin culture, you may not

51:03

know this, but Bitcoin Magazine and the

51:05

Bitcoin Conference was one of the

51:07

few media outlets that gave us a lead in a

51:09

voice when we were getting started. And it was on

51:11

the merit of our work, not on the merit of

51:13

our marketing dollars, which back then we didn't have that

51:15

much, which is six guys that raised a small seed

51:18

round, one and a half million bucks and just trying

51:20

to build a business and always under the shadow of

51:22

some of the bigger guys. And I keep this as

51:24

a memoir because I wanted to show

51:26

you at this conference. I wanted to show you this during

51:28

the podcast. So do you remember this? Yes, of course. This

51:31

is your industry map for 2019. Yes, of course. And

51:35

back then in the lending division of

51:37

the city, all you had was BlockFi,

51:40

who ironically we made an offer to purchase

51:42

when they were going under. But

51:45

they ended up taking the FDX bit. But

51:47

it's funny that five years later, and we

51:50

are going to be in Vegas and we are

51:52

going to be the epicenter of the lending map

51:54

in Vegas. And it's beautiful

51:56

to see what five years does to

51:58

an industry. And I thank

52:01

you guys immensely for all the support. You've

52:03

got some great Bitcoiners in your shop going

52:05

through CK and now Frank Corvo and a

52:07

bunch of others. There's too

52:09

many to name. You guys have brought on... You're

52:12

like the farm team of the

52:14

Barcelona. You just pump out Bitcoin superstars and just

52:16

release them into the wild. And

52:19

it's been really, really awesome to see.

52:21

So I, for one, want to thank

52:23

you on behalf of the Bitcoin community

52:25

and myself. And my question to you

52:27

is, you guys always do bigger and better. What

52:30

can we expect from Vegas in 2025? Well,

52:33

so we have ideas

52:35

of how to go bigger and

52:37

better. There was at least one

52:40

major surprise for Bitcoin 2024 that

52:43

didn't happen, that was supposed to happen.

52:45

And so we're hoping that it happens

52:47

for 2025. And I do

52:50

think that if Trump wins,

52:54

it's going to be one hell of a show.

52:56

And if Kamala wins, it's

52:58

going to be one hell of

53:00

a show with a slightly different flavor to

53:02

it, let's say. So yeah,

53:04

I think we're ready for the

53:07

next chapter of Bitcoin to begin.

53:10

And we're ready to see

53:12

things go to the next level. And

53:15

I hope that next year's conference can be

53:18

a celebration of Bitcoin, of Bitcoin 250K. And

53:21

I think that, you know, there's been a very interesting

53:28

people that have reached out after our

53:31

work with Trump from around the world.

53:34

And I think that what you've seen

53:36

from Trump is just a taste of

53:38

what's to come. And I hope 2025

53:43

is twice as big in

53:45

every single way. Media,

53:47

attendees, sponsors, announcements,

53:51

impact in the world. I will

53:53

say this year's conference for Nashville,

53:55

we had, I think

53:58

it's 18 billion. impressions

54:01

for the conference. So it's going

54:03

to be hard to 2X that. That

54:05

would be six impressions per person

54:07

on the planet, but we're going to try.

54:10

So I'm very

54:12

excited for Las Vegas. The team is

54:14

just like going on all cylinders right

54:16

now. The momentum is through the roof

54:18

and we feel like the avalanche has

54:20

just begun and we got to just

54:22

keep riding it. There you go, man. I'm

54:25

really excited for it. The last one's an easy one.

54:27

What's next for Bitcoin Media and where can people

54:29

learn more about your company and your work? Yeah,

54:33

well, you can follow us

54:35

at bitcoinmagazine.com or on Twitter at

54:37

Bitcoin Magazine or the Bitcoin Conference.

54:40

You can follow me on Twitter, David F. Bailey. And

54:43

what's next? You said that's an

54:45

easy one. It's not an easy one, man. Our

54:47

biggest challenge is figuring out what we're going to

54:49

say no to. But

54:52

it's all things Bitcoin.

54:56

We have some cool stuff cooking before

54:58

the conference comes, some

55:01

cool announcements, some cool launches. And

55:04

I think the next 18 months are

55:08

going to be the most exciting 18 months in

55:11

Bitcoin's history. And I hope we all

55:13

get to ride it together, live it

55:15

together, experience it together, and remember it

55:17

together. So thank you for having me

55:19

on the show. I enjoyed it. Hey,

55:22

thank you so much, David. It's been a pleasure. And

55:25

I'm sure our listeners are going to really, really enjoy this

55:27

one. So thanks again. How

55:31

great was that? David is an amazing person,

55:33

and I'm already looking forward to Bitcoin 2025

55:35

in Vegas. In

55:39

our modern society, many feel disconnected from

55:41

politics. They feel as though their voices

55:43

aren't heard or their votes don't count.

55:46

But David's story is a powerful reminder that

55:48

this could not be further from the truth.

55:51

The growing support for Bitcoin in US politics

55:55

shows just how much influence voters

55:57

and donors actually have. As

56:00

a lobby for Bitcoin and crypto has

56:02

gotten larger and more organized, politicians can

56:04

no longer ignore it. Trump's

56:07

campaign was quick to recognize this shift,

56:09

taking the opportunity to engage with the

56:11

industry and position themselves as allies. The

56:15

strategy has also prompted the Democratic

56:17

camp to rethink its stance. The

56:20

goal now is to push for Bitcoin

56:22

to become a nonpartisan issue. And

56:24

that's a conversation we're starting to see emerge. Wherever

56:28

you stand politically, it's crucial

56:30

to acknowledge that these efforts

56:32

are driving important discussions around

56:34

Bitcoin and sensible regulation, which

56:36

I believe will eventually gain

56:38

bipartisan support. I

56:40

want to give a huge thank you to

56:42

David for his tireless work in advancing our

56:44

industry and for putting together the largest annual

56:47

Bitcoin conference year after year. Be

56:49

sure to give him and Bitcoin Magazine a

56:51

follow on social media. The links to

56:53

that will be in our show notes. And

56:55

I will be seeing you at Bitcoin 2025 in Vegas. As

57:00

a preview of our next episode, you'll

57:02

hear from one of the top voices

57:04

in Kamala Harris' camp who is helping

57:06

stage the Democratic platform on Bitcoin and

57:08

digital assets. Thanks again

57:10

for listening and see you soon. If

57:20

you enjoyed this because of Bitcoin episode, I would

57:22

be very grateful for the five seconds it would

57:24

take you to drop us a review and give

57:26

us a rating on your favorite podcasting platform. This

57:29

will really help us reach even more listeners. And

57:32

if you'd like to learn more about Bitcoin,

57:34

be sure to check out our newsletter by

57:36

subscribing at ledn.io. That's ledn.io. Again, this was

57:39

Mauricio Diharto Lomeo. Stay tuned for our next

57:41

episode. And until then, muchas gracias y los

57:43

quiero muchos.