Speaker 1: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
Speaker 1: But that is the primary argument for well, we need
Speaker 1: to know everything about everybody so that if something does
Speaker 1: go wrong, we can find out who did it. Like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: there's a thing called police.
Speaker 2: Work, do it.
Speaker 3: I thought that we the people, were supposed to be
Speaker 3: private citizens and the government was supposed to be public.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's not how it works. Now if you
Speaker 1: tell the truth, you get thrown in jail. They have
Speaker 1: their assets here in this state, and the Fed doesn't
Speaker 1: need to know about that. There's no functional legal nexus
Speaker 1: other than where you live. So if you live in
Speaker 1: New York, new York's going to say that asset is
Speaker 1: in New York. If you then moved to Virginia, now
Speaker 1: New York can say, well, it was in New York,
Speaker 1: so we have we can control it. In Virginia to
Speaker 1: say well, you're here so we can control it. That
Speaker 1: gets to be a problem. And the governments of the
Speaker 1: world want to have absolute visibility into the assets of
Speaker 1: their citizen. Right if you look at the results, I
Speaker 1: believe they're there to allow them to collect massive taxes
Speaker 1: from people when the inflation does start to get out
Speaker 1: of control.
Speaker 3: It's not really that bitcoin's on the ballot. It's that
Speaker 3: freedom's on the ballot. The freedom to choose how we
Speaker 3: want to store value, how we want to transact. That's
Speaker 3: what's really at state sovereignty is on the ballot, right,
Speaker 3: the ability for us to remain a private citizen, as
Speaker 3: I said, a government trying to take away our ability
Speaker 3: to be that private individual. Is that how you see it,
Speaker 3: all right, Colin. So we were talking about the inner
Speaker 3: workings and the belly of the beast and the political
Speaker 3: fighting that's happening. Specifically, there's a power struggle between states
Speaker 3: rights and fed rights. I want to get into that.
Speaker 3: I want to talk about, you know, what's happening on
Speaker 3: the political field in terms of those those fights, as
Speaker 3: well as what's happening obviously with bitcoin, the right to mind, bitcoin,
Speaker 3: those types of things, Bitcoin of the balance sheet of
Speaker 3: the United States. A lot of stuff to talk about,
Speaker 3: but we were talking about just before we start recording,
Speaker 3: I want to jump back into So you're in you
Speaker 3: work for the Secretary of State State of Wyoming, and
Speaker 3: I was saying how I've registered corporations in the State
Speaker 3: of Wyoming because of the privacy that it allows and
Speaker 3: some of the that's been lost, and you were saying
Speaker 3: that it's not it wasn't Wyoming's fault. It's the Feds
Speaker 3: that are putting this in. And now it's going to
Speaker 3: this Alabama. I think you said suing, go ahead and
Speaker 3: fillis jump back in on that.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So there's a small a business coalition called I Believe
Speaker 1: It's National Small Business United sued the federal government and
Speaker 1: Treasury Secretary Yellen about the finn centrule called the Corporate
Speaker 1: Transparency Act, and based on the burden that it creates
Speaker 1: for small businesses, as well as the fact that it's
Speaker 1: potentially or allegedly unconstitutional.
Speaker 3: The addition it's unconstitutional because well.
Speaker 1: There's a whole bunch of reasons why they've alleged, but
Speaker 1: the primary ones are the Feds are intruding on an
Speaker 1: area that is traditionally regulated by the states, as well
Speaker 1: as the fact that so the Feds don't have general
Speaker 1: or police powers, so when they do regulate inside states,
Speaker 1: they have to tack it to one of their actual powers.
Speaker 1: One of them, and the most broad spectrum one is
Speaker 1: historically the commerce clause. Their argument is that corporations implicitly
Speaker 1: impact commerce. Well, the alternate argument is interstate commerce. Specifically,
Speaker 1: when a corporation is formed a it might not be
Speaker 1: engaging in commerce at all, and there is no guarantee
Speaker 1: that it will ever engage in interstate commerce. So their
Speaker 1: power to demand all of these corporations register at the
Speaker 1: moment they're formed is that by that argument would be
Speaker 1: unconstitutional because you're forcing them to do something that they
Speaker 1: that defends don't have the power to force them to
Speaker 1: do yet. So those are the two primary arguments in
Speaker 1: that case. The District court found that the fin Sen
Speaker 1: rule was unconstitutional limited it to the parties in the lawsuit,
Speaker 1: So if you were a member of this group, you
Speaker 1: don't have to comply with the fin Cen rule right now.
Speaker 1: Everyone else does. It immediately got appealed to the Eleventh
Speaker 1: Circuit and it is pending expedited review right now. Hopefully
Speaker 1: that decision will come down before the end of the year,
Speaker 1: because there is a deadline for all existing corporations to
Speaker 1: register by January one of next year, and the fines
Speaker 1: are substantial, something like five thousand dollars a day. I'm
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent sure that's the exact number, but
Speaker 1: it's it's a very large number, and the cost of
Speaker 1: compliance is very high. But of course they've exempted large companies,
Speaker 1: so it's and ones that can afford.
Speaker 2: It don't have to do it.
Speaker 1: If you are a publicly traded company, if you have
Speaker 1: more than twenty five or fifty employees, if you're a bank,
Speaker 1: if you are a CPA not a lawyer.
Speaker 2: Lawyers have to do it, but CPAs don't. It's it's
Speaker 2: it's a bizarre set of exclusions. Even nonprofits, though, have
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 1: So all of these companies have to register immediate, and
Speaker 1: companies that have pre existed have until the end of
Speaker 1: this year to do it. If this case comes down
Speaker 1: in the way that I hope it does, which is
Speaker 1: this law is declared not a constitutional, then it ideally would
Speaker 1: go away or at least have to be refactored and fixed,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the problems would be removed, But
Speaker 1: the cost of compliance are extremely high. Into the extent
Speaker 1: of they want to know not just who all the
Speaker 1: beneficial owners are, which is anybody who has an economic
Speaker 1: interest or controlling interest doesn't necessarily have to be the
Speaker 1: same thing. At the same time, they also apparently want
Speaker 1: your succession plan so if you have, if it's a
Speaker 1: husband and wife that own like a corner store, they
Speaker 1: want to know all the personal information about your kids.
Speaker 1: Which why do they need to know that today? It's
Speaker 1: a ky see all the things mentality.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now you said this is sort of the States
Speaker 3: rights versus FED rights, but specifically it's more not the FED.
Speaker 3: It's fence and which is part of the Treasury that's
Speaker 3: doing this. Is FinCEN one of the three and four
Speaker 3: letter administrative state agencies? Or are they part of the FED?
Speaker 1: They are I believe they are, well, it's the Financial
Speaker 1: Crimes Enforcement Network, Vincent. I believe they're qualsiti governmental. I'm
Speaker 1: not entirely sure precisely how they fit in, but effectively
Speaker 1: they're granted regulatory.
Speaker 3: The reason why I asked that is because of what
Speaker 3: just happened with Supreme Court overturning the Chevron Chevron is
Speaker 3: so they have just basically neutered a lot of these
Speaker 3: three and four letter agencies, including the EPA and you know,
Speaker 3: SEC and all these agencies. And so I'm just curious
Speaker 3: if maybe that has them to do with fence in.
Speaker 1: For the purposes of Chevron and it's removal and lower Bright,
Speaker 1: I believe that that aspect would apply here. It would
Speaker 1: it would so I to the ex So if Fincent
Speaker 1: is analyzing their rules in a way that they should
Speaker 1: not be granted Chevron difference. Now that the Chevron cases
Speaker 1: come down, that doesn't necessarily mean that will change anything.
Speaker 1: That is an argument that I don't believe was made
Speaker 1: in the district court. So that could be a new
Speaker 1: argument that's made the problem in this case. And I
Speaker 1: have not done this analysis yet, but one of the
Speaker 1: problems that I see is that Congress very specifically ask
Speaker 1: them to collect a lot of this information. So there
Speaker 1: is unlike say Lope or Bright, where the enforcement agency
Speaker 1: just randomly created this rule that they could collect seven
Speaker 1: hundred dollars from fishermen. The Finn said, the Corporate Transparency
Speaker 1: Actor CTA has a lot more specificity from Congress. So
Speaker 1: while the removal of Chevron would apply, I don't know
Speaker 1: how valuable that is in this case. That said, it
Speaker 1: is a definite argument that can be made if the
Speaker 1: Eleventh Circuit doesn't find it unconstitution under the arguments that
Speaker 1: are already before it.
Speaker 3: So we could if this fails, then potentially there's a
Speaker 3: tried again yes, a different.
Speaker 1: And there's a there's at least there's a couple of
Speaker 1: other angles that could be tried even if the Chevron
Speaker 1: one isn't brought to bear. So there's there's several avenues
Speaker 1: that can be brought. Still, the problem is.
Speaker 2: The decision.
Speaker 1: If everything goes into effect on January one for the
Speaker 1: existing businesses, and of course every business that's been formed
Speaker 1: since January one of this year, they have to comply
Speaker 1: within ninety days of formation. So to some extent, you know,
Speaker 1: the horses are out of the barn now in the
Speaker 1: e In the ei A case, the judge in that
Speaker 1: case forced the E i A to destroy all the
Speaker 1: data that they had collected. I don't know or if
Speaker 1: that is the kind of thing that a judge would
Speaker 1: demand in this case if it was found that they
Speaker 1: the fincent had violated some rule. It's it's on a table.
Speaker 3: But now why that's the question I want to ask.
Speaker 3: We just saw this week the EU put out a
Speaker 3: thing They want an asset registration list, and they want
Speaker 3: everybody in the EU now to register. I don't know
Speaker 3: if you saw that register every asset they own, including
Speaker 3: watches and bank accounts and cars and the whole thing
Speaker 3: you mentioned. This is sort of like a KYC power grab,
Speaker 3: so to speak. Elaborate on that.
Speaker 1: I believe that part of this is just based on
Speaker 1: the fact that they want to the governments of the
Speaker 1: world want to have absolute visibility into the assets of
Speaker 1: their citizenry. Partly they'll claim anti money laundering, they'll claim
Speaker 1: all of these things. But as we as bitcoiners know,
Speaker 1: these laws do not collect or solve the problems that
Speaker 1: they're passed to attempt to solve. They fall on normal people,
Speaker 1: and they fall on the costs of enforcement fall on
Speaker 1: people who aren't otherwise problematic if you look at the results.
Speaker 1: I believe they're there to allow them to collect massive
Speaker 1: taxes from people. When the inflation does start to get
Speaker 1: out of control, they need to they need to pull
Speaker 1: money out of the system that they've printed. The only
Speaker 1: way to do that is taxation. So they need to
Speaker 1: know where all these assets are. If you're going to
Speaker 1: implement a wealth tax, you need to know where the
Speaker 1: wealth is and how how much is out there. So
Speaker 1: similarly to the concept of should we have a registry
Speaker 1: of everyone's firearms in this country, we see that A
Speaker 1: lot of us see that as a front to the
Speaker 1: Second Amendment, because as soon as they know where they
Speaker 1: all are, they can come and get them. Well, if
Speaker 1: they know where all the wealth is, they can come
Speaker 1: and get it.
Speaker 2: If you have to.
Speaker 3: Register it, don't they already know that they.
Speaker 2: Know it in your bank account. Certainly you have to file.
Speaker 3: You have to claim all your assets every year when
Speaker 3: you file your taxes.
Speaker 2: You have to claim all of your income.
Speaker 1: But you don't necessarily have to claim like you don't
Speaker 1: have to claim your rolex you have real estate.
Speaker 3: If you have monetary assets that are over certain denominations.
Speaker 1: But certain types of things, you don't have to But
Speaker 1: if they're actually going and you don't, you have to
Speaker 1: file a tax return on your company, you do have to.
Speaker 2: Report that.
Speaker 1: But the if your company isn't generating a ton of income,
Speaker 1: if it's basically a relatively balanced company, like a lot
Speaker 1: of small LLCs are mom and pop things where you
Speaker 1: know may be the income.
Speaker 3: Or hold income or even holding company.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of that you know may not provide
Speaker 1: much detail on the tax return. Now you're going to
Speaker 1: get not just who owns it, but potentially all possible
Speaker 1: future owners. If they're getting all of this all of
Speaker 1: this succession information, so they'll know now if you're going
Speaker 1: to inherit, so they could use that information to jack
Speaker 1: up the inheritance taxes. Which that's that is a policy argument.
Speaker 1: That's fine, we can have that argument. But should we
Speaker 1: do we need to destroy the last vestiges of whatever
Speaker 1: we feel as privacy just to get that, and I
Speaker 1: don't think we.
Speaker 2: Should do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you think it puts? Do you think it
Speaker 3: creates more harm than it does good?
Speaker 1: Yes, in the long run. Well, first of all, you've
Speaker 1: now created a massive database. It's a honeypot honey if
Speaker 1: you first have to trust that the government is going
Speaker 1: to handle the data properly, that's an open question. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't necessarily want to go there. But let's
Speaker 1: assume that the government itself is going to handle the
Speaker 1: data in a in a totally ethical way.
Speaker 3: Big assumption, do you I mean, before we move on
Speaker 3: past that point, do you think they can handle the
Speaker 3: data in the best possible way? Oh?
Speaker 2: No, not even close.
Speaker 1: But that's for the sake of let's say they can. Okay,
Speaker 1: the Office of Personal Management was hacked. All of the
Speaker 1: personal records are huge numbers, millions of personal records of
Speaker 1: government employees, including social security numbers, pensions, All of that
Speaker 1: information was taken. You've just created a database now of
Speaker 1: all of the business information and valuation for the entire country.
Speaker 1: You think that's not going to get hacked. So, even
Speaker 1: assuming the government is going to do its best job,
Speaker 1: they are not necessarily going to prevent that information from
Speaker 1: getting out. And while some people will argue you, you know,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't have you shouldn't hide from the government.
Speaker 2: I don't agree with that argument, but some people make
Speaker 2: that argument.
Speaker 1: That doesn't necessarily mean your neighbors need to know everything
Speaker 1: about you. If you have an LLC that owns a business,
Speaker 1: you're if you're in your neighbor can find it now
Speaker 1: that now they know what or it can get a
Speaker 1: really good idea of what your net.
Speaker 2: Worth might be.
Speaker 1: They don't need to know that. They don't need to
Speaker 1: know that I have a house that I rent. They
Speaker 1: don't need to know that, you know, somebody might own
Speaker 1: a rivate jet or precisely how so all of this stuff, Sure,
Speaker 1: the government can get it, but now there's going to
Speaker 1: be a push once the state is out there, to
Speaker 1: just make it public.
Speaker 3: I thought that we the people were supposed to be
Speaker 3: private citizens and the government was supposed to be public.
Speaker 3: So I thought we were supposed to know everything about
Speaker 3: them and they don't know everything about us.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's not how it works. Now they want
Speaker 1: you know, you get as we as we saw.
Speaker 2: With Julian Osange and others. If you tell the truth,
Speaker 2: you get thrown in jail.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So the KYC power grab is a honeypot.
Speaker 3: Who knows what they could do when they get that information.
Speaker 3: But it's one of those things where it's like almost
Speaker 3: like nobody should concentrate that much knowledge and power. There's
Speaker 3: just no there's no upside. The upside almost seems nefarious
Speaker 3: in any way that you look at that in a
Speaker 3: sense where the upside is, well, now they know or
Speaker 3: anybody could find out who has it, so they could
Speaker 3: go get it. That's the upside.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: And I suppose back if you're you know, super pro government,
Speaker 3: in pro tax then you might think that's a good thing.
Speaker 3: But it also puts everybody into this. Uh, everyone is
Speaker 3: guilty until proven innocent.
Speaker 2: Ye taxing.
Speaker 1: Uh, they have it for the ability to if they
Speaker 1: can seize your bank account, they can seize your real estate.
Speaker 1: They clearly can do that easily. They can't necessarily easily
Speaker 1: seize your rolex, especially they don't know it's there now.
Speaker 1: If they know it, they can you have rolex, you
Speaker 1: registered it, bring us the role ax.
Speaker 3: Yeah, although that's not on the docket right now.
Speaker 2: Not here. It is an EU it's a yeah.
Speaker 1: But once you once you have all of these these
Speaker 1: connections on the business side, you can start to look
Speaker 1: into that.
Speaker 2: And it's just it's a one way ratchet, right.
Speaker 1: We're just because of things like the First Amendment, we
Speaker 1: are a little bit and the way our government is
Speaker 1: constructed in general, some of these stuff that Europe is
Speaker 1: doing takes longer to do here and you have to
Speaker 1: move more slowly. But if you don't put your foot
Speaker 1: down on this, then you will get to the next step.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And I know Wyoming, which you work in,
Speaker 3: the State of Wyoming has been with Caitlin long and
Speaker 3: has been really sort of trying to be at the
Speaker 3: forefront of protecting asset rights, right, so like the state
Speaker 3: has sort of tried to reinforce their right to control assets,
Speaker 3: specifically around Bickquinen cryptocurrencies with like UCC filings and saying
Speaker 3: wait hang on, these are assets. These are protected by
Speaker 3: the state. So I guess that's sort of this power
Speaker 3: struggle that you're talking about. Then, So the states are like, hey,
Speaker 3: these are our citizens in our state and they have
Speaker 3: their assets here in this state, and the FED doesn't
Speaker 3: need to know about that.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a couple of different things specifically with digital
Speaker 1: assets at the moment, with the exception of Wyoming, if
Speaker 1: you have a digital asset, it exists everywhere and nowhere,
Speaker 1: so there's no functional legal nexus other than where you live.
Speaker 1: So if you live in New York, New York's going
Speaker 1: to say that asset is in New York. If you
Speaker 1: then move to Virginia, now New York can say, well,
Speaker 1: it was in New York, so we have we can
Speaker 1: control it in Virginia and say well, you're here, so
Speaker 1: we can control it. That gets to be a problem,
Speaker 1: like with a car once if you move and you
Speaker 1: register it in Virginia, now it's in Virginia. Obviously, you
Speaker 1: can't physically move real estate, so that's always under the
Speaker 1: purview of whatever location it's in. With digital assets, it
Speaker 1: could be anywhere. California, for instance, could say you've never
Speaker 1: been to California. But since it's on the Internet and
Speaker 1: the Internet runs through California, it's here. What Wyoming has
Speaker 1: done is said, if you want to, you can register
Speaker 1: the asset in Wyoming, and that will It's not been
Speaker 1: tested in court, but under Wyoming law that will mean
Speaker 1: that because you have elected that asset to be domesticated
Speaker 1: in Wyoming. Now that asset is in Wyoming, which means
Speaker 1: you can then take advantage of the Wyoming laws, one
Speaker 1: of which is you cannot be compelled to release your
Speaker 1: private key. So a court can issue you a charging
Speaker 1: order and say you must you must give us the
Speaker 1: money in the account, right, but they can't force you
Speaker 1: to disclose the private key under Wyoming law. And that's
Speaker 1: that is very important because if you disclose the private
Speaker 1: key under Bitcoin, of course, if the master private key,
Speaker 1: now you know every single account that's in there, not
Speaker 1: just the ones that they're doing a charging order for,
Speaker 1: and that also means that you know you've now burnt
Speaker 1: that account in every sub account forever, so you get
Speaker 1: that key is now in the public record, so you
Speaker 1: can't if you ever receive anything to that out in
Speaker 1: the future, it's just gonna get stolen. So Wyoming does
Speaker 1: have that protection. We also have some lean washing rules
Speaker 1: where if you if you receive something that has a
Speaker 1: lean on it and it's in good faith, the same
Speaker 1: way you would say if you received a physical good
Speaker 1: under the UCC. Well, we've basically read that into digital
Speaker 1: assets in some ways, and of course we're pushing the
Speaker 1: envelope on that as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how is that going?
Speaker 2: It's going pretty well.
Speaker 1: The Digital Asset Registration went online officially first of December,
Speaker 1: and we've had a few do it. If you're a
Speaker 1: citizen of Wyoming, obviously you live there. There's not much necessary,
Speaker 1: not a need necessarily to do it. If you have
Speaker 1: an LLC in Wyoming and the asset is under the LLC,
Speaker 1: well that LLC is a citizen of Wyoming. So the
Speaker 1: registration is really for people who don't live in Wyoming
Speaker 1: and don't have a business in Woming, but want to
Speaker 1: domesticate their asset into Wyoming and basically take advantage of
Speaker 1: Oiling's laws without necessarily going through the process of forming
Speaker 1: a business or moving to Ailing.
Speaker 3: Got it. So if you're a resident there or you
Speaker 3: have a business there, then you're sort of already just
Speaker 3: under that. If you're non resident or non registered business,
Speaker 3: then you would need to register the asset.
Speaker 2: If you want to take advantage of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, got it, which is then still a big registry,
Speaker 3: a big honeypot.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: But and so you wouldn't necessarily register these assets if
Speaker 1: you want them to be private, and there's no necessarily
Speaker 1: need to do that. But certain assets like the reason
Speaker 1: why you would do this intentionally, and that's really what
Speaker 1: it's about choice, right, you should be allowed to choose
Speaker 1: to disclose or not personal details. And what you own
Speaker 1: is a personal detail. So if you were to say,
Speaker 1: want to leverage an asset as collateral, then the bank
Speaker 1: is going to want to know a lot about that assets,
Speaker 1: such as do you really own it?
Speaker 2: Where is it domesticated?
Speaker 1: Well, if you take that asset, let's just say it's
Speaker 1: a bitcoin public key, You register that public key. Everything
Speaker 1: in that public key is now registered in Wyoming. We
Speaker 1: say that public key exists in Wyoming. The bank knows
Speaker 1: that that public key exists, you have registered it. You
Speaker 1: are on under oath or you're under penalty of perjury
Speaker 1: for filing the document saying that you own this, and
Speaker 1: now it's effectively a public record.
Speaker 2: The bank has a little bit more concern that that's there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I was working the news desk this morning
Speaker 3: and here at the at the Bigcoin conference, and we're
Speaker 3: talking about politics. Trump speaking here later this week. By
Speaker 3: the time people see this, he'll have already spoken RFK speaking.
Speaker 3: So it's not really partisan. We have people on both
Speaker 3: sides dial not kamalas you do climate invitation. But you know,
Speaker 3: one thing that I said on the news desk was
Speaker 3: that this is you know, it's not that bitcoin became political.
Speaker 3: It's political in a sense only because money is because weaponized,
Speaker 3: and the dollar has been weaponized against almost everyone in
Speaker 3: the world, I mean countries anyway. And I said, it's
Speaker 3: not really that bitcoin's on the ballot, it's that freedom's
Speaker 3: on the ballot. That's that's the way that I say it, Right,
Speaker 3: So it's like the freedom to choose how we want
Speaker 3: to store value, how we want to transact. That's what's
Speaker 3: really at stake, not bitcoin per se, right, but really
Speaker 3: sort of when I think about these types of things
Speaker 3: that you're we're talking about here, it's really like freedom's
Speaker 3: on the on the ballot. Sovereignty is on the ballot, right,
Speaker 3: The ability for us to remain a private citizen, as
Speaker 3: I said, and the state or I really actually in
Speaker 3: this case, like the government trying to take away our
Speaker 3: ability to be that private individual. Is that how you
Speaker 3: see it?
Speaker 2: Yes, And they.
Speaker 1: To participate in the modern economy, you have to live
Speaker 1: with some removal of privacy. Just you have ideas, you
Speaker 1: have like it, just it's just the way it is.
Speaker 1: The point is you should be able to choose how
Speaker 1: much you want to integrate with that if you don't,
Speaker 1: if you don't ever leave your state, you don't want
Speaker 1: why do we need to know everything about you? And
Speaker 1: there are certain times of your life that you may
Speaker 1: not want to be fully integrated, and other times you
Speaker 1: may want to. So people should be allowed to pick
Speaker 1: and choose how much integration that they have at any
Speaker 1: point in their life. In addition, there are certain legal
Speaker 1: activities that you may not want to have widely disclosed.
Speaker 3: Sure you know tons of them.
Speaker 1: Tons of them, Like I mean, that's just straight up
Speaker 1: operation choke point that kind of stuff, like why do
Speaker 1: we need to know all of this stuff about you
Speaker 1: when these are perfectly legal activities. One of the analogies
Speaker 1: that I use when people say, you know, if you
Speaker 1: have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, like, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: then you're okay if the New York Times comes into
Speaker 1: your bedroom and films you with your partner because you're
Speaker 1: not doing anything illegal, or I.
Speaker 3: Would say give me your phone, Yeah, let me go
Speaker 3: through your phone if you're gonna want that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so.
Speaker 1: That argument of you, if you're nothing to hide, you
Speaker 1: have aything interfere is crap. But that is the primary
Speaker 1: argument for Well, we need to know everything about everybody
Speaker 1: so that if something does go wrong, we can find
Speaker 1: out who did it. Well, okay, there's a thing called
Speaker 1: police work.
Speaker 2: Right do it?
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Speaker 3: thousands of small businesses that trust Just Works to take
Speaker 3: care of payroll, benefits, compliance and more. Again, that's Just
Speaker 3: Works dot Com slash podcast. It's the whole, it's the
Speaker 3: whole pre crime thing, and and really you know, it's
Speaker 3: it's constantly. We see it everywhere, inconveniencing everybody for potentially
Speaker 3: catching one or two percent of bad people.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right where I live down in southern California, we have
Speaker 3: like you know, immigration checkpoints, which I don't even know
Speaker 3: why we have them anymore. We used to have the
Speaker 3: border open, but like, uh, you know, very often there's
Speaker 3: massive lines on the freeway and you have to wait
Speaker 3: because they have like a checkpoint going. It's like, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna get inconvenience everybody for that, right or in this
Speaker 3: KYC situation, maybe there's one or two people that will
Speaker 3: do something bad, but let's inconvenience everybody put everybody at risk.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about another thing that's that was happening in
Speaker 3: Wyoming and with Caitlyn Long as well, which was Custodia
Speaker 3: Bank and so we've seen the dangers of the banks.
Speaker 3: We understand most people watching this understand that the banks
Speaker 3: are in great danger, partly because they were buying government
Speaker 3: bonds that are no longer holding their value. We saw
Speaker 3: banks collapsing, and custodia banks try to do something different,
Speaker 3: which would be like a full reserve banks. They wouldn't
Speaker 3: be subject to the ups and downs of the bond
Speaker 3: market like other banks are. Seems like a pretty good idea,
Speaker 3: like the bank actually holds my money so I can
Speaker 3: get it when I want. But yet the FED didn't
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 1: The FED has they have a lot of arguments as
Speaker 1: to why they don't want to grant custodia a master account.
Speaker 1: And of course the master account is the.
Speaker 2: First building block to having a real bank.
Speaker 1: You can have a bank with what's called a correspondent
Speaker 1: account and you can function, but it's a significantly more
Speaker 1: expensive and I'm sure Caitlin or other bankers could get
Speaker 1: into precisely how much more expensive and why that is.
Speaker 1: But without a master account, you're not a first classes
Speaker 1: and of the banking system. Similarly, if you're not running
Speaker 1: a node, you're not a first class is in the
Speaker 1: bitcoin system that is effectively.
Speaker 3: Your mastercount means you have your own account with the FED.
Speaker 1: Exactly so that you, if your bank effectively, can clear
Speaker 1: directly with a FED.
Speaker 2: The FED doesn't.
Speaker 1: Want to grant Caussodia a master account for a couple
Speaker 1: of different reasons. Their stated reason, I think one of
Speaker 1: the more later stated reasons was Cassodia doesn't have FDIC insurance. Well,
Speaker 1: we know that's not really that's a red herring because
Speaker 1: there's several hundred banks that have master accounts that don't
Speaker 1: have FDSC insurance, that are not fully reserved, so they're
Speaker 1: running there. There are other reasons why they've said this,
Speaker 1: but fundamentally they don't want to give Custodia a master
Speaker 1: account because Custodia is potentially a risk to them. If
Speaker 1: you have a fully reserved bank, you can't have a
Speaker 1: run on your bank because if you if you put
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars in the bank, the bank has a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, they haven't lent it out under in Custodia's case,
Speaker 1: it's a violation of state law for them to lend
Speaker 1: out that money, so they have it on their balance
Speaker 1: sheet and can immediately return it to you. The problem
Speaker 1: is like, look at Silicon Valley Bank. A whole bunch
Speaker 1: of businesses that never had a relationship with Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: Bank got into financial trouble when Silicon Valley Bank went
Speaker 1: down because a lot of the FinTechs were routing their
Speaker 1: payrolls through Silicon Valley Bank and so the moment they
Speaker 1: went down, some of these payrolls were in flight. Well
Speaker 1: you know little mom and pop that's running their payroll
Speaker 1: with a fintech company that happens to have their payroll
Speaker 1: in flight when the bank goes under and the payroll
Speaker 1: doesn't get to their employees, Well, they didn't have a
Speaker 1: relationship with.
Speaker 2: With SVB, so they suddenly got impacted.
Speaker 1: Well, if that mezzanine bank that was handling these payrolls
Speaker 1: with Custodia, and Custodia had a problem, all that money
Speaker 1: is still there, so it wouldn't have it couldn't have
Speaker 1: a run on the bank. So at that point, as
Speaker 1: a small business owner, what do you think do you
Speaker 1: think you want to have your payroll being run through
Speaker 1: a bank that could fail or a bank.
Speaker 2: That can't fail.
Speaker 3: I would like the can fail exactly.
Speaker 1: So fundamentally, the risk that they're not going to say
Speaker 1: out loud, but the risk to the system is that
Speaker 1: Custodia is too safe and it puts stress on the
Speaker 1: rest of the system, which, of course it remains to
Speaker 1: be seen if that will actually happen. Because Custodia as
Speaker 1: a the way they have to make money is they
Speaker 1: have to charge fees. So their fees are going to be,
Speaker 1: you know, significantly higher than someone who can basically give
Speaker 1: you a free checking account because they're making all their
Speaker 1: scratch on lending out the money.
Speaker 2: Of course, JP Morgan just they're getting rid of free checking.
Speaker 3: So even so, you're saying, the FED decline Custodia's bank,
Speaker 3: a full reserve bank that should be a lot less risky.
Speaker 3: They declined it because it is less risky.
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that played a role. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if that's the entire reason.
Speaker 3: Obviously to the listener, they're scratching their heads. So they're saying, well,
Speaker 3: why would they decline it because it's less.
Speaker 1: Risky because it damages the feds fractional reserve system.
Speaker 3: So what you're saying is it makes all the other
Speaker 3: banks look so bad that everybody might want to come
Speaker 3: to Custodia, which would then cause a massive run on
Speaker 3: all the other banks exactly.
Speaker 2: Potentially.
Speaker 3: Potentially. The flip side is is that the question is,
Speaker 3: we don't know will people accept less risk and pay
Speaker 3: higher for it monthly?
Speaker 2: Yep, we don't know that.
Speaker 3: We don't know.
Speaker 2: You can't know that.
Speaker 3: That's what the free market would figure out exactly.
Speaker 1: And another reason I think that the FED is going
Speaker 1: after or preventing Custodia from getting a master account is
Speaker 1: and this is the argument that a couple of individuals
Speaker 1: have made in the Custodia case, including the Wyoming Secretary
Speaker 1: of State, which is the Federal Reserve wants to pull
Speaker 1: back on the dual banking system, which is right now,
Speaker 1: the US has a dual banking system where there are
Speaker 1: federally charted banks and state chartered banks, and these banks
Speaker 1: are supposed to be on a completely level playing field with.
Speaker 2: Respect to access to the FED. I think they don't
Speaker 2: like this.
Speaker 1: I think they want to effectively remove this system from existence,
Speaker 1: and they want everything to become a federally chartered bank
Speaker 1: because they they don't have full visibility, they don't have
Speaker 1: full regulatory control over what some of the state banks
Speaker 1: can do the state of Wyoming, the state of Virginia,
Speaker 1: State of New York does have full regulatory control over
Speaker 1: the state chartered banks, but their bank regulators can't touch
Speaker 1: the federally chartered banks. So you basically are effectively having
Speaker 1: a battle of two regulatory visions fifty But yeah, no
Speaker 1: different than what we were just talking about is a
Speaker 1: state versus fed constantly.
Speaker 3: Let's talk the bigger political picture here. So again, here
Speaker 3: we are at bitcoin conference. Trump and RK are speaking
Speaker 3: little bipartisan Kamala was invited to attend. She didn't attend,
Speaker 3: and you know, we can expect it as to why.
Speaker 3: But I'm curious your take on this and what's on
Speaker 3: what's at stake here? The Biden regime has been openly
Speaker 3: hostile to bitcoin through you mentioned earlier choke point choke
Speaker 3: point two point zero Elizabeth Warren on the Biden regime
Speaker 3: has been openly running an anti crypto platform or campaign.
Speaker 3: President Biden himself vetoed a bill that would have allowed
Speaker 3: the banks to custody crypto assets. So it's like, not
Speaker 3: just the regime, but Biden even himself supposedly he did
Speaker 3: his office veto to Bill. I'm curious your take on
Speaker 3: sort of what's at stake for the digital asset, for
Speaker 3: bitcoin space. You know, on this election, the well clearly
Speaker 3: the the RFK, so the independent candidate, and the Republicans
Speaker 3: have decided think of RFK as an independent candidate. Obviously
Speaker 3: he's run independent, but he's a Democrat. Yes, Yeah, And
Speaker 3: I just want to reinforce that point because it's not
Speaker 3: about Trump or Republicans or Democrats. I mean RFK is
Speaker 3: a Democrat. He's a lifelong Democrat, his family's a long
Speaker 3: time in a Democrat. He's running on independent only because
Speaker 3: he has to because they wouldn't allow him.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so yeah, and that's a good point. But
Speaker 1: those candidates, they've seen the writing on the wall. They
Speaker 1: know that this is where we're going, and they don't.
Speaker 1: Neither one of them believe in CBDCs for probably very
Speaker 1: different philosophical reasons, but it gets them to the same place.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren is on record as saying she wants a CBDC, whether.
Speaker 2: We want or not.
Speaker 1: She literally said, I'm there, I'm ready, ready to go
Speaker 1: with a CBDC. And the only way you get to
Speaker 1: a CBDC in this country is if you consolidate the power,
Speaker 1: you will eliminate the state banks, you move everything to
Speaker 1: the federal chartered banks, and then you slowly remove those
Speaker 1: two and consolidate all the power into the federal reserve.
Speaker 1: So that's that's that's the that's how you end up
Speaker 1: getting one. So what that what that looks like for
Speaker 1: the country long term? The conflict divisions is if you
Speaker 1: have someone like Kamala who gets elected as president, basically
Speaker 1: the continuation of the of the Biden regime, you probably
Speaker 1: still have Elizabeth Warren, even though the Harris campaign has
Speaker 1: made a couple of half hearted overtures.
Speaker 2: I don't believe that.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think any any bitcoiner would believe
Speaker 1: that that's friendship. That's you know, we see that you
Speaker 1: all are a power broker. Now we have to play
Speaker 1: lip service. But I don't think that that goes anywhere.
Speaker 1: So if she were to be elected, I see that
Speaker 1: we're just going to get more of the same, possibly
Speaker 1: even more pedal to the metal on it, because they
Speaker 1: will they will have a limited time frame to do it.
Speaker 1: Does this mean that the Republicans and or r f
Speaker 1: K are good, No, it just means they're better. But
Speaker 1: on certain on certain things. Yeah, for this for the
Speaker 1: purposes a big way right for now, and you know
Speaker 1: that could change on the time.
Speaker 2: They could, but they they at least understand it.
Speaker 1: They they are currently philosophically opposed to what a what
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren's vision is, and that means that we are
Speaker 1: aligned for now on this issue. That it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: gonna last forever. I hope it does, and I hope
Speaker 1: that the that the Democrats who understand that the CBDC
Speaker 1: is a bad thing went out and that if Kamalad
Speaker 1: is some how elected president, that it goes you know
Speaker 1: that that she's moderated on some of these issues and
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren's faction is minimized. But if that were to happen,
Speaker 1: there's much I have a lot much less faith that
Speaker 1: that that's the way it will play out.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: I would also think or do you think that if
Speaker 3: Kamala were to win, that it would actually show that
Speaker 3: their side is more desirable, that their side has won
Speaker 3: the pro bitcoin candidates the RFK and Trump lost. So
Speaker 3: people must want more regulation and must want a CBDC.
Speaker 2: I think I think that that is a uh that
Speaker 2: is that will be used as a justification.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, do I people spoke.
Speaker 1: Look, but as you know, in any federal election, there
Speaker 1: are thousands of issues at play. Yes, the people spoke.
Speaker 1: But can you say that Harris won because of her
Speaker 1: and Trump lost and RFK lost because of their differential
Speaker 1: support on this issue. Probably not, but it will be
Speaker 1: useful as that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, history is written by the victors exactly.
Speaker 1: And you know there's there's there's you know, a dozen
Speaker 1: or more issues that could decide the election. But that
Speaker 1: just means that they're going to say we have a
Speaker 1: mandate on every single one of these issues, not oh wait,
Speaker 1: this is the one that mattered.
Speaker 3: What do you think will be the top issues that
Speaker 3: would decide election?
Speaker 1: Well, you have, yeah, the spending in Ukraine, the the
Speaker 1: the inflation that that well, I mean that that Biden
Speaker 1: has caused and others, but the the spending on that,
Speaker 1: the abortion decision at the Supreme Court, that's going to
Speaker 1: be used considerably. I think there's a lot of anger
Speaker 1: from how COVID turned out, and basically there's what was
Speaker 1: kind of exposed pretty plainly is a level of incompetence
Speaker 1: at the federal level, specifically with the Secret Service, and
Speaker 1: there and they're handling of the Trump rally a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago, and so things like that are I believe,
Speaker 1: going to play a large role. Will that tippet toward
Speaker 1: one or another, I don't know, but I think that
Speaker 1: the Democrats move to eliminate Biden from the ticket and
Speaker 1: put Harris up as their dominant candidate. I think that
Speaker 1: it was the only move they had left at the time.
Speaker 3: It's all speculation, we don't know. Some people are saying
Speaker 3: that some of the inner rumblings from the DNC are
Speaker 3: that Biden threw that out of throwing Kamala on there
Speaker 3: and just messed up the whole program. And that's not
Speaker 3: what Obama wanted and it was not their hope, and
Speaker 3: now they're stuck with it, trying to figure out what
Speaker 3: to do with that. But yeah, I would say those
Speaker 3: are probably some of the issues. I think the inflation issue, specifically,
Speaker 3: just the cost of living issue, which is an inflation issue,
Speaker 3: I think is probably, I would guess, maybe most front
Speaker 3: and center of everybody's mind. The problem is that they've
Speaker 3: sort of, you know, they changed the definition of what
Speaker 3: inflation is. Now it's CPI consumer price inflation, and then
Speaker 3: we don't know what causes prices to go up and down,
Speaker 3: so it's probably hard to pinpoint that on somebody.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I think the.
Speaker 1: Public data is horribly manipulated. Everybody or most people understand
Speaker 1: that what people do get is I go to the store.
Speaker 2: It's costing me two.
Speaker 1: Three x what it used to That video that went
Speaker 1: around recently of the of the individual that had a
Speaker 1: like a pre order like Walmart or Amazon or whatever
Speaker 1: from years ago and then just hit reorder and it
Speaker 1: was four x. Wow, same items four x or three
Speaker 1: x so like.
Speaker 3: It, but a real basket of goods.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, the CPI is the CPI. They
Speaker 1: we know they manipulate. They've been manipulating it since it
Speaker 1: was formed to give the answer that they want it
Speaker 1: to give. But you can't manipulate the you know, the
Speaker 1: actual feeling of people at the grocery store. And fundamentally,
Speaker 1: I think that's that is the issue. In my mind,
Speaker 1: it's going to resolve this selection is the pain that
Speaker 1: people are feeling at the grocery store when they're trying
Speaker 1: to feed their families.
Speaker 2: And that a lot of the a lot of the talk.
Speaker 1: And education that bitcoin has done, even if you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of large chunks of society aren't ready to
Speaker 1: go as far as we did.
Speaker 2: Mainstream.
Speaker 1: They're talking about the dollar's fiat that was us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're talking about inflation. People understand that it's the printing
Speaker 1: that's doing it. They may not understand how it works out.
Speaker 1: But our education of people has been so successful that
Speaker 1: the MMT ers had to come out with their little movie, which,
Speaker 1: if you watched, was kind of hilariously opaque as to
Speaker 1: what's actually happening. But at some point in there they
Speaker 1: did basically admit that it's video game money, so we
Speaker 1: just make it up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you didn't mention border security.
Speaker 1: I didn't mention border security. I happen to live in
Speaker 1: an area where we're pretty far from it. But that
Speaker 1: is another big issue, and I don't know how much
Speaker 1: of an issue that'll play because that issue was already
Speaker 1: so heavily polarized between the two sides. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that issue is going to be the deciding issue,
Speaker 1: because I think that.
Speaker 2: Some people will change their mind.
Speaker 1: I just don't know if that's the dominant issue that
Speaker 1: will swing the election one way or the other, because
Speaker 1: I think people are already pretty set on that.
Speaker 2: I think the inflation you and I.
Speaker 3: Think even if you were a strong Democrat and you
Speaker 3: lived in let's say, in New York, where in Manhattan
Speaker 3: and not just Manhattan, the boroughs, Bronx, et cetera, rape
Speaker 3: for up three hundred percent, does that think even if
Speaker 3: you're a lifelong Democrat and you see you're not safe
Speaker 3: in your own neighborhood anymore, you probably want those borders closed.
Speaker 3: And if even if it's the other part of it's
Speaker 3: offering to close the borders, maybe that swings you.
Speaker 1: I agree that you will swing people, but will that
Speaker 1: swing the electoral college?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Are you going to move New York from blue to red? Now?
Speaker 2: What I what I could see happening is that.
Speaker 1: That issue and other issues like it swing it so
Speaker 1: that if say Kamala wins, it may be the first
Speaker 1: time that the Democratic candidate has won without the popular
Speaker 1: vote that I see is potentially possible. And then you
Speaker 1: have the inconvenient truth of them saying, well, the national
Speaker 1: popular vote shoul decide the president.
Speaker 3: But which is what Hillary trying to say?
Speaker 1: Yep, so is that on the table? I think that
Speaker 1: could be on the table for just that reason. I
Speaker 1: just don't see. I don't see the border issue as
Speaker 1: a strong enough issue to switch a uh maybe a
Speaker 1: state like North Carolina. Maybe a state uh that's that's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, fairly on the bubble, sure, but not like
Speaker 1: in New York, not like California. The states where they're
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're in Texas, of course, is already
Speaker 1: quite red. So I think that the the border issue,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's gonna if it's if it's strong, yeah, maybe,
Speaker 1: well Arizona and Nevada, those those are two states that
Speaker 1: that could they could flip flop because of that. But
Speaker 1: taken together, I think I think the Democrats have a
Speaker 1: fairly tough road to.
Speaker 3: Ho yeah row to sorry, yeah, okay, okay, all right, Well,
Speaker 3: I think we covered a lot of ground. I think
Speaker 3: I'm gonna continue to saying. I think freedom's on the
Speaker 3: on the on the docket here, the freedom to be sovereign,
Speaker 3: the freedom to choose, the freedom to open a bank.
Speaker 3: That doesn't cause any more risk. So I don't think
Speaker 3: people should be single issue voters, because I think you
Speaker 3: need to kind of look at the whole big picture.
Speaker 3: But you've laid out the risk. I think pretty well,
Speaker 3: so I think we'll wrap it up with that.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you very much, thanks for coming on. Cheers,