Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Mark Moa
Speaker 1: Show where we talk about the decentralized revolution. We're talking
Speaker 1: about the way the world is changing right before our
Speaker 1: very eyes, going from the pendulum as it swings from
Speaker 1: centralization to decentralization. We look at it through the lens
Speaker 1: of politics, finance, and technology each and every week, and
Speaker 1: of course it's the technology that changes the world. When
Speaker 1: we look through thousands of years of history, it's always technology,
Speaker 1: and of course that technology is bitcoin. It's changing the
Speaker 1: world as we know it, and we're looking at it
Speaker 1: through those lens. And today we have, uh, we got
Speaker 1: something big and something serious to talk about, um, something
Speaker 1: that is uh reshaping the world right before our very eyes.
Speaker 1: And I don't think most people are seeing what's going on.
Speaker 1: And so I'm gonna take this chance to take a
Speaker 1: situation that developed this week that was all over the news,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna peel this thing back so you can
Speaker 1: understand what's really going on. Um. It's something that everybody
Speaker 1: should learn how to do. And we would we would
Speaker 1: call it like past first order thinking, so you needn't
Speaker 1: look into like second order and third order thinking consequences.
Speaker 1: Things like that So I'm gonna take this issue that's
Speaker 1: blown up this week, um, and then we're gonna break
Speaker 1: it down. And what am I talking about? While I'm
Speaker 1: talking about in the cryptocurrency space, Um, there was a
Speaker 1: protocol called Tornado Cash and it was sanctioned by the
Speaker 1: US Treasury. So this is about politics, this is about finance,
Speaker 1: and it's about technology. It's all three as I talked
Speaker 1: about each and every week. So in the cryptocurrency market,
Speaker 1: Tornado Cash is a protocol that was sanctioned by the
Speaker 1: US Treasury Department. And this is big, big news. Like
Speaker 1: I said, it's gonna change It's going to change the
Speaker 1: United States. Um, either way, this is a big deal
Speaker 1: and we're gonna we're gonna cover that, all right, So
Speaker 1: let's break this down a little bit for you. So
Speaker 1: what happened. So there's a protocol. First of all, what
Speaker 1: do I mean? What's the protocol? So a protocol as
Speaker 1: a piece of code, and a piece of code just
Speaker 1: sets rules for how things happen. So in the Internet,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of protocols. So the Internet, Um, you've
Speaker 1: probably heard of like an IP address, like if you
Speaker 1: set up a route at your house. So there's like
Speaker 1: something called the t C P I P and that's
Speaker 1: like your address on the Internet. That's a protocol, and
Speaker 1: that protocol tells the Internet technology how to route packets
Speaker 1: of data. UM. Then we have an email protocol that's
Speaker 1: called s M t B. I'm sure you've probably come
Speaker 1: across that before setting up your Gmail or whatever, and
Speaker 1: so s M t P is a protocol that helps
Speaker 1: that computer code route email. UM. Then we have like
Speaker 1: let's say security on websites. If you go to your
Speaker 1: website and your browser, it's always starts with h T
Speaker 1: t P S. It doesn't always have the S but
Speaker 1: almost always. Most of the time it always has the
Speaker 1: s NOW. And that's a new protocol that helps the
Speaker 1: code know how to secure the website. So these are
Speaker 1: protocols now. Nobody owns the SMTP protocol for email. Nobody
Speaker 1: owns it. But if I wanted to start an email
Speaker 1: company like mail Chimp or Active Campaign or Claudio or Gmail,
Speaker 1: then I would I run Gmail or I run mail Chimp,
Speaker 1: but I build it on the SMTP protocol. That protocol
Speaker 1: that isn't owned by anybody. It's just a piece of code.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a generally agreed to code that everybody uses.
Speaker 1: It's a standard. Okay, It's not owned by anybody. There's
Speaker 1: no company, there's no business, there's no president of the
Speaker 1: kind of the protocol, there's no marketing department. It's just
Speaker 1: a protocol. Does that make sense? All right? So I
Speaker 1: wanted to define that first. Okay. So in the cryptocurrency space, Um,
Speaker 1: we have lots of protocols. Bitcoin is a protocol. Bitcoin
Speaker 1: is a piece of software. It's a piece of code
Speaker 1: that was developed and it's a it's a public good.
Speaker 1: Anybody could use it. It's permissionless. It's just it's just
Speaker 1: a piece of just like SMTP. Anybody could use SMTP.
Speaker 1: It's permissionless. Um. It's not owned by anybody. There's no president,
Speaker 1: there's no corporation, there's there's it's just a piece of code.
Speaker 1: It's a piece of software. Now, um, it's it uses
Speaker 1: a lot of different things Bitcoin does, um, one of
Speaker 1: which is a blockchain. People say, oh, it's not bitcoin,
Speaker 1: that's revolutionary, it's the blockchain. Well that's not true. Bitcoin
Speaker 1: uses lots of things to make it revolutionary, one of
Speaker 1: which is a blockchain. As a matter of fact, in
Speaker 1: the Bitcoin white paper. They never used the word blockchain.
Speaker 1: They use the word time chain. That's a whole different conversation.
Speaker 1: Hit me up on social media and let me know
Speaker 1: if you'd like me to do a video on that.
Speaker 1: But UM, it uses the blockchain or time chain. It
Speaker 1: also uses something called cryptography. We're gonna talk about that
Speaker 1: because that's a big deal for what we're talking about today.
Speaker 1: That uses other things like peer to peer. UM game
Speaker 1: theory uses the Internet, right, uses lots of different things.
Speaker 1: All right, So we have a protocol like SMTP or
Speaker 1: HTTPS or t c P, i P or bitcoin owned
Speaker 1: by nobody, a public good right and this specific protocol,
Speaker 1: tornado cash UM is a protocol for the Ethereum network.
Speaker 1: And what it does is it um It allows people
Speaker 1: to um selectively spend money. So UM, I have a
Speaker 1: hundred dollars, You have a hundred dollars. That's both put
Speaker 1: it in the pot and we'll pay out fifty bucks
Speaker 1: to that person und fifty bucks back to that person. Now,
Speaker 1: what they argue it's used for, and I would agree
Speaker 1: it typically is used for is to mix transactions. So
Speaker 1: I have a stack up huntre dollar bills. You have
Speaker 1: a stack of hunted dollar bills. Let's put both stacks
Speaker 1: in the in the pot, let's put them in the
Speaker 1: dryer to fumble them all around, and let's just divide
Speaker 1: up the hundred dollars each. But we now walk away
Speaker 1: different bills than we had before. And so that's kind
Speaker 1: of how it works. And people use it to put
Speaker 1: ethereum in or they also have them for bitcoin. This
Speaker 1: one specifically was for ethereum Tornado cash, and it it
Speaker 1: mixes them. It it it's a joined spend, is what
Speaker 1: it is. But it's it's a protocol. It's the piece
Speaker 1: of coat. You can use it if you want, you
Speaker 1: can use it if you don't. And so what happened
Speaker 1: this week is the US Treasury sanctioned a protocol called
Speaker 1: Tornado Cash. But what's big about this is that this
Speaker 1: has never happened before. Sanctions go against people, people who
Speaker 1: do bad things, or maybe businesses or governments, so like
Speaker 1: Russia is under sanctions right now. For example, Iran has
Speaker 1: been sanctioned, right So governments, regimes, people are sanctioned, but
Speaker 1: not tools, not not public goods. And I'm gonna explain
Speaker 1: to you why that is in a minute, But before
Speaker 1: we dig into what really happened here. Well, let's finish.
Speaker 1: Let's let's finish what happened, and then we're gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna expand it out, and then I'm gonna bring it
Speaker 1: all the way back down to why it matters to
Speaker 1: you right now today, no matter where you live and why,
Speaker 1: this is going to change your life and probably not
Speaker 1: for the better, probably not for the better. But you
Speaker 1: need to be aware of what's going on. So I'm
Speaker 1: always gonna tell you what I wish I would hear
Speaker 1: if I was on the other side of table someone.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to hold back on you to day right, So,
Speaker 1: um Tornado cash Um. The second the U. S. Treasury
Speaker 1: moved into sanction it, and um they said that anybody
Speaker 1: that interacts with this will be guilty of avoiding sanctions. Now, um,
Speaker 1: sanctions is a very serious charge. Of a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: if you evade or go around sanctions, you're you're potentially
Speaker 1: facing thirty years in prison, even if even if there
Speaker 1: was no intent and it happened without your knowledge. Now
Speaker 1: that's a key piece to hit on. Why well, because
Speaker 1: in order to prove a crime, there has to be
Speaker 1: criminal intent. That that intent word is a big thing
Speaker 1: that means I have to I have to have intended to,
Speaker 1: to have to cause it, to do a crime, I've
Speaker 1: do intended to. If it was an accident, um, then
Speaker 1: you could charge me with like manslaughter, right if it
Speaker 1: was a vehicle, for example, But manslaughter as an accident,
Speaker 1: I killed somebody, but it wasn't criminal intent. I didn't.
Speaker 1: It wasn't premeditated where I went and drove over that person.
Speaker 1: Right now, if I'm a trained professional, there is something
Speaker 1: called criminally negligent, and that means that you should have
Speaker 1: known better, but you did it anyway, So then you're
Speaker 1: criminally negligent. Otherwise you have to have criminal intent. But
Speaker 1: what this says with this um, with with the sanctions,
Speaker 1: is that you're facing thirty years in prison even without
Speaker 1: intent and without your knowledge. So if, um, if you
Speaker 1: happen to use this by accident, even without your knowing,
Speaker 1: you didn't intend to use it, you didn't even know
Speaker 1: you used it, it doesn't matter. You're still facing thirty years,
Speaker 1: which sounds pretty strict, doesn't And if you agree with me,
Speaker 1: then that's part of the problem. And we're gonna dig
Speaker 1: into this a little bit. And so what happens is
Speaker 1: um this protocol um. When you use cryptocurrency Ethereum, Bitcoin, etcetera,
Speaker 1: it leaves a trail because it's open source, and so
Speaker 1: we can always see the network. And so maybe I
Speaker 1: didn't use the protocol. But let's say that somebody paid
Speaker 1: me with ethereum, and somebody had paid them with ethereums.
Speaker 1: Want to pay them, and I'm gonna pay them. Six
Speaker 1: people ago had used it, but the six people in
Speaker 1: between that person and to me, none of us knew.
Speaker 1: But all of a sudden, I'm in trouble even without
Speaker 1: cry I didn't intend to do it, but that's exactly
Speaker 1: what it did. And so a lot of um, a
Speaker 1: lot of companies, a lot of businesses, all of a
Speaker 1: sudden started sanctioning or blocking all these types of transactions.
Speaker 1: Big exchanges started blocking it. Anyway, I'm gonna break this
Speaker 1: down for you. Want to show you what the government's
Speaker 1: really doing, what their real motivation is with this, and
Speaker 1: what this means for you. You're listening to the Markma
Speaker 1: Show talking about the decentralized Revolution, talking about a very
Speaker 1: big subject today. You don't want to miss what I
Speaker 1: have to say about this. I'll be back with more
Speaker 1: in a minute. Don't go away. I'll be right back,
Speaker 1: all right. Welcome back. You're listening to the Markma Show.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the decentralized Revolution each and every week,
Speaker 1: of course, same thing, talking about the way the world
Speaker 1: is swinging from centralization back to decentralization. Looking at always
Speaker 1: to the lens of politics, finance, and technology. Typically we're
Speaker 1: looking at a political issue or a financial issue or
Speaker 1: technology issue. Today this is all three. We're talking about
Speaker 1: the U. S. Treasury Department UH moving against the financial
Speaker 1: institutions UH and and technology. I mean, it's all three
Speaker 1: repped in together and one. This is the type of
Speaker 1: issues we like to talk about. So um, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna go back and rehash everything we've already talked about.
Speaker 1: If you missed it, check it out on the podcast,
Speaker 1: your search MARKETMA podcast on your favorite player. You'll find
Speaker 1: it all right. So, Um, the Treasury Department went to
Speaker 1: sanction a protocol never happened before in history. Um, and
Speaker 1: most likely it's not gonna work. But I'm gonna come
Speaker 1: back to that, all right, but they did it. Um.
Speaker 1: What happens is the government tries to do all kinds
Speaker 1: of things that we would consider unconstitutional. The government wents
Speaker 1: to lock you down. The government must to force you
Speaker 1: to put something in your body. The government wentst to
Speaker 1: force you to put something on your face. The governments
Speaker 1: to do all these things that are unconstitutional. The problem
Speaker 1: is somebody has to challenge them. So now I have
Speaker 1: to go to court and has to go up to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. And as we've seen over the last
Speaker 1: two years, over and over and over again, all these
Speaker 1: mandates that the president, the Biden administration, local governments put
Speaker 1: into place, we're all found unconstitutional. They've all been not
Speaker 1: well not all. Lots of them have been um found
Speaker 1: on costution. Lots of them have been overturned. But it
Speaker 1: took two years. It took two years to get there.
Speaker 1: And so this I believe will eventually probably be overturned.
Speaker 1: But this is gonna stand for years, Okay, but let's
Speaker 1: keep going, all right. So UM, the U. S. Treasury
Speaker 1: moved against this protocol, which has never been done before.
Speaker 1: I don't think it works. I don't think it stands
Speaker 1: as unconstitutional UM. And they said, anybody who interacts with
Speaker 1: this UM is gonna be in trouble. And so then
Speaker 1: now all these cryptocurrency exchanges and stuff have begun blocking transactions.
Speaker 1: One big exchange d y d x that it blocked
Speaker 1: user accounts with even a token link to Tornado Cash.
Speaker 1: So even any kind of a link, any type of
Speaker 1: an attachment to Tornado Cash, you're instantly sanctioned. Boom, you're
Speaker 1: instantly shut off. UM. A lot of people using stable coins,
Speaker 1: these are dollar back stable coins like u S d
Speaker 1: C for example, UM had their accounts frozen, seized, blocked
Speaker 1: just because they think maybe you might have engaged with this,
Speaker 1: and they don't want anything to do with that because again,
Speaker 1: your face in thirty years, even if you didn't intend
Speaker 1: to engage, and it was done without your knowledge. So
Speaker 1: they're just completely just blocking all this out. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: what happened. Now, before we dig through that, I want
Speaker 1: to just back up a bit. I'm gonna frame this up.
Speaker 1: We're gonna jump into a little bit of a political
Speaker 1: side for a second. Because you, you, you, whoever you
Speaker 1: are listening to this right now, you are under attack.
Speaker 1: When I say you're under attack, I mean your freedoms.
Speaker 1: Now I get it all of a sudden. Now freedom
Speaker 1: is supposedly a dirty word. They've been able to reframe
Speaker 1: that somehow. UM this country that I grew up in,
Speaker 1: that my grandfather and my father went to war to
Speaker 1: protect for our freedoms. Um, Supposedly, now freedom is a
Speaker 1: bad word. So I guess all those deaths, my grandfather's
Speaker 1: death and my father's war efforts, those were in vain
Speaker 1: because they fought for our freedom. But now freedom is
Speaker 1: a bad words. So anyway, I reject that notion. But
Speaker 1: your freedom is under attack. And what we're seeing is, um,
Speaker 1: it's a full it's a full fledged attack from every angle.
Speaker 1: And what they're trying to do is they're trying to
Speaker 1: corner us in from every single angle. And I'm not
Speaker 1: going to dig into all these issues, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: frame up a couple all right, Um, this week, Alex
Speaker 1: Jones is the most hated man in the world, all
Speaker 1: over the news, Sandy Hook and all this. Okay, what
Speaker 1: they're doing with this, um, with this trial is they're
Speaker 1: trying to set court precedence on what he said and
Speaker 1: saying that what he said was illegal. So they're trying
Speaker 1: to box in freedom of speech. Right under the under
Speaker 1: the Constitution, we're guaranteed freedom of speech. But they want
Speaker 1: to they want to box that in, and they want
Speaker 1: to say, no, well, this type of speech is harmful
Speaker 1: or hurtful or hateful, this type of speech doesn't qualify
Speaker 1: under that. And so it's it's one direction. It's one
Speaker 1: way you box it in. All right, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: dig super deep into that exact topic. We could if
Speaker 1: you wanted. All right, then we have, um, we have
Speaker 1: like the Trump January six situations going on. All right.
Speaker 1: So um, we had Trump on stage saying well, first
Speaker 1: of all, before January six, he requested them to add
Speaker 1: more police. Nancy Peloson denied it. Then from stage he said,
Speaker 1: do not go there. Everybody go home. So they have
Speaker 1: all the evidence to show that he didn't but they're
Speaker 1: trying to say that he didn't say violence. But then
Speaker 1: with the Supreme Court when they overturned Roe v. Wade,
Speaker 1: you actually had Schumer and AOC call for violence literally
Speaker 1: against Supreme Court justice, and people actually went to Supreme
Speaker 1: Court Justice's house and tried to kill them. They went
Speaker 1: to state capitals with the people with the public servants
Speaker 1: in the building and banged on the windows. Incided from
Speaker 1: the words that were said. But yet they're trying to
Speaker 1: frame this January six thing as again it's not about Trump,
Speaker 1: and I'm not trying to trans conversation about Trump. It's
Speaker 1: another way they're trying to box in the freedom. And
Speaker 1: then we have this treasury situation we're gonna dig into,
Speaker 1: and it's a lot. It's about a lot more than eyptocurrency. Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to break that down. And then we have
Speaker 1: the I R S news. I'm not gonna take super
Speaker 1: deeper in that today, but I'm sure you if you're
Speaker 1: you're halfway paying attention. You saw the i RS just
Speaker 1: got a big budget. They're gonna hire whatever, like any
Speaker 1: seven thousand new agents, seven thousand there have more agents.
Speaker 1: The IRS will have more agents than the Secretary of State,
Speaker 1: the FBI, and the Border Patrol all combined. And big
Speaker 1: news over the last week. I'll talk about it later
Speaker 1: in the show. Um, the I R S put out
Speaker 1: all these job ads and they say you must be
Speaker 1: willing to carry a gun, you must be willing to
Speaker 1: use lethal force. And then under the lethal force guideline,
Speaker 1: they said that you're allowed to use lethal force even
Speaker 1: if a sub subject is is a fleeing from you,
Speaker 1: So you they're allowed to shoot somebody even if the
Speaker 1: suspect is fleeing, so not in self defense. It's an
Speaker 1: attack from every angle. All right, I'm not gonna dig
Speaker 1: into each those topics were sitting. You're talking about the
Speaker 1: Treasury Department sanctioning Tornado cash. What does this mean? All right,
Speaker 1: let's break this down a little bit more. All right.
Speaker 1: So Tornado cashally sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Asset
Speaker 1: Controls the o FAK O f a C. All right.
Speaker 1: And it's the sd END list, which is a list
Speaker 1: especially designated nationals with whom Americans and American businesses are
Speaker 1: not allowed to transact. So it means no American consider
Speaker 1: to receive money to or from those addresses without dividing
Speaker 1: those sanctions laws or else. Like I said, face thirty
Speaker 1: years in prison. Pretty big deal. Now, what's different about
Speaker 1: this is, like I said, we've never seen software be
Speaker 1: put on the list before. Right, what we see is,
Speaker 1: like I said, people or governments or things like that,
Speaker 1: not a tool. All right. Now the problem with this
Speaker 1: is that any American who might have used Tornado cash, um,
Speaker 1: even if they reject this, could be pulled into is.
Speaker 1: So what's happened is we've seen this already happening. So UM,
Speaker 1: I put this on Twitter. What we can see is
Speaker 1: that somebody is out there quote unquote dusting a bunch
Speaker 1: of wallets from tornado. So what does that mean? So
Speaker 1: what you can do is you can get little fractions
Speaker 1: of ethereum that are worth just maybe a couple of dollars.
Speaker 1: It's called dust, right, a fraction of of of of
Speaker 1: an ethereum, and then you can dust them. You can
Speaker 1: just send them out. And what they did is they
Speaker 1: sent them to all these high level, high visibility accounts,
Speaker 1: and now all these accounts are now tainted with um
Speaker 1: dust or coins from this sanctioned address. So now everybody's
Speaker 1: in trouble. Now it's almost like a d D o
Speaker 1: S attack on what the Treasury sanctions is pretty big deal.
Speaker 1: So now all of these people are going to be
Speaker 1: potentially facing thirty years in prison because it was done
Speaker 1: without even their knowledge or or consent. They didn't even
Speaker 1: know about it, they had no intent, but it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: That's so this is so it's escalating really quickly. Um,
Speaker 1: you listen to the Mark Moa show, I'm breaking down
Speaker 1: one of the biggest stories this week and what it
Speaker 1: really means to It's pretty deep. It's pretty big, and
Speaker 1: it is super important. Do not go away. You need
Speaker 1: to hear what I have to say. When I come back,
Speaker 1: I'll be right back in a minute. All right, welcome
Speaker 1: back here, listening to the Mark Moa Show, and we're
Speaker 1: talking about one of the biggest stories this week. And really, UM,
Speaker 1: it's way bigger than that. I mean, this is going
Speaker 1: to be a key story for years to come. This
Speaker 1: is going to be a key story in history books
Speaker 1: in the future because this move that they're trying to
Speaker 1: do right here is going to and uh, when what
Speaker 1: Obama wanted when he ran on what he said quoteing
Speaker 1: him fundamentally transform America. This is fundamentally transforming America. It's
Speaker 1: fundamentally transforming the constitution and the law of the land,
Speaker 1: and they're using these little tricks to try to erode
Speaker 1: that as best they can. So let me finish talking
Speaker 1: about this. So we're seeing this cat and mouse game
Speaker 1: here where the governments are trying to crack down on UM,
Speaker 1: on this technology. UM, and it's not really working all right.
Speaker 1: But what we see is that, um, all these sanctions
Speaker 1: started happening, all these people started blocking. But here's here's why, UM,
Speaker 1: this is really messed up. So the Treasury added tornado cash,
Speaker 1: which is a piece of software. It's a protocol like
Speaker 1: SMTP or HTTPS. All right, uh, and they left against
Speaker 1: a faceless, nameless piece of software, not a person like
Speaker 1: it should be. But the problem is is that computer
Speaker 1: code is neither a person. They're not a legal entity, okay.
Speaker 1: And software is code, and code is speech, and speech
Speaker 1: is protected by the Constitution specifically, and as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, it's been challenged multiple times and it's been
Speaker 1: upheld multi of all times, so we know that code
Speaker 1: is speech. So they tried to outlaw cryptography. So cryptography
Speaker 1: is a way that I can cryptographically secure my message.
Speaker 1: If I want to use Signal as an app to
Speaker 1: message you, for example, it's encrypted. Bitcoin is encrypted. They
Speaker 1: the government said, no, you can't use encryption. It's illegal
Speaker 1: for you to encrypt things. And um, they said that
Speaker 1: at the time, it was considered munitions or weapons. And
Speaker 1: it went to the Supreme Court and um, the cipher
Speaker 1: punks as we called them at the time, they printed
Speaker 1: out the code on paper and they brought the paper
Speaker 1: and they put it up on the Supreme Court's desk
Speaker 1: and they said, look, it's it's speech. It's it's text,
Speaker 1: it's letters and numbers. And they said, you're right, code
Speaker 1: is speech, it's protected Bernstein versus the d o J.
Speaker 1: Look it up. Similarly, there was another one and then
Speaker 1: they determined that money is speech, or more precisely, what
Speaker 1: you do with your money is speech. And you can
Speaker 1: look it up. Check out Buckley versus Valuo Um. You
Speaker 1: can also look up citizens. You know, I died versus
Speaker 1: the f e C. So, look, this has happened, this
Speaker 1: has gone to the Supreme Court. We already know the
Speaker 1: Constitution guarantees free speech. Code is speech, what you do
Speaker 1: with your money speech, it's protected. Yeah, doesn't doesn't matter
Speaker 1: in Obama's America that it wants to fundamentally transform it
Speaker 1: by eroding the constitution. Now, the legal doctrine of prior
Speaker 1: restraint holds the pre emptive government censorship is almost always unconstitutional. Okay,
Speaker 1: the prior, the legal doctor and prior restraint. So that's
Speaker 1: the precedent that's been set. Shows that any time the
Speaker 1: government tries to get in front of censorship, it's always
Speaker 1: been found unconstitutional. And even government acts that have have
Speaker 1: a substantial chilling effect on speech are also I've also
Speaker 1: been found to be unconstitutional. Again, look up Americans for
Speaker 1: Prosperity versus Banta. All right, look it up, Americans for
Speaker 1: Prosperity versus Banta. Now back to sanctions. Now, sanctions law
Speaker 1: is a strict liability regime, meaning again, this is the
Speaker 1: punishment side did if American transaction with a sanctioned person,
Speaker 1: even without attent, even without knowledging, We're facing thirty years.
Speaker 1: It's pretty bad, all right. So this is what's considered
Speaker 1: a quintessential prior restraint or chilling effects. So what does
Speaker 1: this mean by them saying, hey, we're gonna kill you
Speaker 1: on site if you do this, even if you don't know,
Speaker 1: well what's going to happen. A lot of people are
Speaker 1: gonna chill. I think it's gonna have a chill effect.
Speaker 1: People are going to have a restraint. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: go anywhere near that because I could unknowingly even get
Speaker 1: caught up in that, and then I could be facing
Speaker 1: thirty years. So I'm not even gonna go anywhere near it.
Speaker 1: So it's a prior restraint or chilling effect. But as
Speaker 1: I just said, even government acts that have a chilling
Speaker 1: effect on speech have been found to be unconstitutional. So
Speaker 1: even them doing this that even causes us to act
Speaker 1: accordingly have been found to be unconstitutional. Americans for Prosperity
Speaker 1: in versus Banta, all right, So I'm just framing this
Speaker 1: up for you. But beyond beyond the very obvious First
Speaker 1: Amendment violations, very obvious, I just I decided for four
Speaker 1: court cases, and I am an attorney. All right, four
Speaker 1: court cases right there. Beyond the very obvious First Amendment violation,
Speaker 1: what they've done here also raises all types of other
Speaker 1: concerns that are unconstitutional, Like, um, let's see innocent until
Speaker 1: proven guilty or do process, you know, things like that. So, um,
Speaker 1: let's see it has do process concerns if the code
Speaker 1: wasn't afforded adequate notice or opportunity to appeal, and individuals
Speaker 1: may be implicated without any means to comply. That's not
Speaker 1: how our justice system works. UM. Now, Like I said, uh,
Speaker 1: this has been found to be unconstitutional. It's been tried
Speaker 1: multiple times. I give you multiple precedents. Um M. I
Speaker 1: hope I feel pretty sure based off of the way
Speaker 1: the law is today, not on how it's under attack.
Speaker 1: But I hope um, that this is not in the
Speaker 1: Treasuries favor. I believe as the law stance today, this
Speaker 1: would be overturned. But the problem is, as I said,
Speaker 1: but we've started going, is that litigation can take years
Speaker 1: to play out. Going back to the COVID restrictions, Biden's
Speaker 1: vaccine mandate, it was overturned. Judges found it to be unconstitutional,
Speaker 1: the mandatory mass on airplanes were overturned. All these things
Speaker 1: were restaurants here in southern California were shut down and
Speaker 1: judges found it unconstitutional. They reversed it, they opened the
Speaker 1: back up over and over, but it didn't mean all
Speaker 1: those people didn't lose their businesses. Didn't mean they didn't
Speaker 1: lose their jobs, lose their homes, whatever they lost. Two
Speaker 1: years went by before those things were reversed. So I
Speaker 1: think that this does not work out in the Treasury's favor.
Speaker 1: I think that the Supreme Court finds them to be
Speaker 1: unconstitutional and reverses this, but it could take years and
Speaker 1: there can be a lot of damage done in years now.
Speaker 1: This is also based off the Supreme Court that we have.
Speaker 1: Of course, the Biden administration is trying to change the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. After the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and
Speaker 1: and they they've come out and say that. Um, I
Speaker 1: think AOC and Maxine Waters have come out and said
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court is an enemy. Now they're they're
Speaker 1: they're a threat to the democracy. They said they need
Speaker 1: to uh, they need they needed now change the makeup,
Speaker 1: take away the power of the Supreme Court. So as
Speaker 1: it stands today, I think this doesn't end up in
Speaker 1: the Treasury favor if AOC and Maxine Waters and UM
Speaker 1: crew get their way. I mean, who knows. Now, let's
Speaker 1: dig in a little bit deeper. Okay, this is where
Speaker 1: it starts getting really serious. Okay, Now, UM, let's say
Speaker 1: that Tornado cash is used by criminals though, Mark, like
Speaker 1: people like like I heard North Korea. I heard North
Speaker 1: Korea laundered money through there. And you certainly don't want
Speaker 1: North Korea to launder money, now do you, Mark? I
Speaker 1: mean North Korea is an enemy. They could, you know,
Speaker 1: shoot a missile at US, And I would say, sure,
Speaker 1: I certainly don't want to help North Korea. Um. And
Speaker 1: I think any sensible person wouldn't want to help North
Speaker 1: Korea or any bad actor for that matter. I would agree,
Speaker 1: I agree, But let's play this out a little bit
Speaker 1: all right, because it was used by criminals, it deserves
Speaker 1: to be shut down. Right, Is that what we're gonna
Speaker 1: agree on. Okay, well, let me explain why that completely
Speaker 1: misses the point. And this is where it goes into.
Speaker 1: Remember I said, stop thinking about things in first order thinking.
Speaker 1: Now take them to second and third or fourth order.
Speaker 1: So let's thank do this. Um, if the Treasury had
Speaker 1: sanctioned the criminals or the hackers that had used this tool,
Speaker 1: this protocol, this public good, Hey, no problem. Um, Hey,
Speaker 1: North Korea, you're a bad actor. We're afraid you're gonna
Speaker 1: do a bunch of terrorism. You have nuclear weapons, whatever,
Speaker 1: we're going to sanction you, right or x y Z
Speaker 1: you're bad actor, used Tornado cash to do bad things.
Speaker 1: We're gonna sanction you. We're gonna arrest you, We're gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, indict you whatever. Okay, great, no big deal, right,
Speaker 1: but that's not what happened, all right, Um, And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna gonna turn this on his head and
Speaker 1: you're gonna see exactly what I'm talking about, and then
Speaker 1: we're gonna put it, put it, put a bow in it,
Speaker 1: so you can understand how big of a deal this
Speaker 1: is and you didn't know about it. Um, you're listening
Speaker 1: to the Mark Moa Show talking about the decentralized revolution.
Speaker 1: Each and every week, I talked about the way the
Speaker 1: world is swinging from centralization to decentralization to the lens
Speaker 1: of politics, finance, and technology. And the story we're talking
Speaker 1: about today is all three of these things. And I'm
Speaker 1: trying to show you pass the headlines, you can see
Speaker 1: just how big of a deal this is and why
Speaker 1: it doesn't make any sense. We're back with all of
Speaker 1: that and more in a minute. And like I said,
Speaker 1: this is gonna fundamentally transform America and not for the better.
Speaker 1: So I'll be back with all that and more in
Speaker 1: a minute. Do not go away. I'll be right back.
Speaker 1: All right, Welcome back. You are listening to the Mark
Speaker 1: ma Show. We're talking about, of course, each and every week,
Speaker 1: the decentralized revolution, looking at through the lens of politics, finance,
Speaker 1: and technology. Of course that technology is Bitcoin, the decentralized technology.
Speaker 1: And we're talking about a story today that is one
Speaker 1: of the most important topics I've talked about in a
Speaker 1: long time, if not ever, on this show. This is
Speaker 1: a big deal. Now. I talked about it from a
Speaker 1: bunch of different angles. We are we are seeing a
Speaker 1: full scale attack on our freedom UM from every agency,
Speaker 1: from the I r S, from the FBI, UM, the
Speaker 1: and now even the Treasury Department. And this Treasure Department
Speaker 1: deal isn't what it seems on the surface. You have
Speaker 1: to dig below second, third, fourth layers to understand this.
Speaker 1: That's where if you've missed what I've said, if you're
Speaker 1: just tuning in, you've missed a lot. I can't recap
Speaker 1: it all, but you can go check it out on
Speaker 1: the podcast um search Smart moss Um podcast on your
Speaker 1: favorite podcast player, or on the YouTube. Just search Mark
Speaker 1: Moss on YouTube and you'll find it on the Market
Speaker 1: Disruptors channel as well as you can watch me live
Speaker 1: if you want to see what I look like, or
Speaker 1: check it on the podcast. Okay, so jumping back in, So,
Speaker 1: if the Treasury had UM sanctioned to criminals, because of
Speaker 1: course we have laws against doing bad things, that would
Speaker 1: be okay. That's not what happened. They sanctioned a piece
Speaker 1: of open source code, which means it's not owned by anybody,
Speaker 1: just like SMTP for your email, just like HTTPS for
Speaker 1: your website, and just like h T, C, P, I
Speaker 1: P for your Internet or whatever. Al Right, it's not
Speaker 1: not owned by anybody. It's freely available for anyone to use,
Speaker 1: which makes it a public good. Okay, Now this is
Speaker 1: the crux of the argument right here. It's a public good.
Speaker 1: So look, we all me you. We enjoy the benefits
Speaker 1: of public goods all the time, every day in every
Speaker 1: area of your life. All right. Before I went on
Speaker 1: the radio, I had to go up to l A.
Speaker 1: I drove on the freeway, the five Freeway. That's a
Speaker 1: public good, all right, Um, right now I'm using the
Speaker 1: Internet to communicate with you, to record this. Um, that's
Speaker 1: a public good. Right. The banking system, the roads that
Speaker 1: we drive on, the highways, the transfer space, infrastructure of
Speaker 1: the airplanes, those are all public infrastructure. Those are all
Speaker 1: public goods as infrastructure that everybody uses all the day.
Speaker 1: And if I had to guess, I would imagine that
Speaker 1: criminals use those things. I bet you criminals drive on
Speaker 1: the highways. I bet you criminals use the internet. I
Speaker 1: bet you criminals use um dollars. Um. I bet you
Speaker 1: they use transportation infrastructure. I bet you they drink water
Speaker 1: and eat food too. I bet all right, I mean,
Speaker 1: how else would you stay alive. So we all enjoy
Speaker 1: the benefits of these public goods, we all use them
Speaker 1: every day. Criminals do too. Now again, I'm not advocating
Speaker 1: avocating for breaking laws. As a matter of fact, we
Speaker 1: have laws in place, and I believe that those should
Speaker 1: be enforced. I'm mad that we have attorney generals in
Speaker 1: this country that do not prosecute laws that are on
Speaker 1: the books. But that's a different topic. So I'm not
Speaker 1: advocating for not being hard and crime. I say we should.
Speaker 1: We have laws, and we should pursue criminals. We should
Speaker 1: pursue people who use public who misuse public goods. Right,
Speaker 1: we should do that. We have laws, but we don't
Speaker 1: sanction the tool. Right, I can use a screwdriver to
Speaker 1: fix my car, or I could really harm somebody with
Speaker 1: a screwdriver really bad. But we're not gonna We're not
Speaker 1: gonna sanction the screwdriver. Okay, nobody can use screw drivers now, No,
Speaker 1: A screwdrivers a tool. It can be used for good
Speaker 1: and bad. We don't sanction smt P for email because
Speaker 1: a hacker sent you a phishing email and then they
Speaker 1: hacked your computer. Right, we don't sanction the five free
Speaker 1: Way I drove on earlier because criminal drove, you know,
Speaker 1: with the whatever drove on it earlier. Drug dealers, you know,
Speaker 1: drug dealers use the highway. If it wasn't for highways,
Speaker 1: we'd have no drug dealers. So we should just ban
Speaker 1: all highways. You know, drug dealers they use self cell towers,
Speaker 1: so we should just ban all cell towers. Terrorists I mean,
Speaker 1: ter heaven forbid, I mean, terrorists use cell phones. No,
Speaker 1: so let's just ban all cell phones because terrorists use
Speaker 1: it in self. Terrorists they drink water. We should just
Speaker 1: ban water too. Do you see what I'm talking about?
Speaker 1: None of those things, cell towers, the freeway, SMTP for email,
Speaker 1: None of those things are people. And neither is Tornado Cash.
Speaker 1: It's a software protocol now, like email, like highways, like um,
Speaker 1: you know whatever. Tornado Cash has maybe potentially been misused
Speaker 1: by criminals for criminal ins. So for example, if I
Speaker 1: misused the mail system, the U S Mail to defraud
Speaker 1: people in other states, then I'm guilty of and I'm
Speaker 1: found guilty obviously innocentil proven guilty, and then I have
Speaker 1: to be convicted. But then I could be convicted of
Speaker 1: interstate crimes or whatever whatever, federal crimes. I'm not sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm not attorney there, but they'd say, hey, now you've
Speaker 1: used this public good and now you've gone over over
Speaker 1: the out of your state. So now you're even more
Speaker 1: guilty of even bigger things. So if I've used one
Speaker 1: of these tools like the U S Mail to do
Speaker 1: a crime, then I'm guilty of even bigger problems. If
Speaker 1: I've used email, maybe I'm guilty of bigger problems. But
Speaker 1: it's the crime that I committed. It's not banning the U.
Speaker 1: S Mail. That's the whole point that I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: all right. Tornado Cash is a tool that enables law
Speaker 1: abiding citizens to maintain their privacy on the blockchain for
Speaker 1: a whole host of legal purposes, including political speech, which is,
Speaker 1: as I've said, has been protected multiple times, not only
Speaker 1: by the Constitution but upheld by the Supreme Court. So
Speaker 1: it's a tool. Law bodies use it for things that
Speaker 1: are explicitly protected, and yes, some bad people use it too,
Speaker 1: but bad people use all types of things, and they
Speaker 1: should be prosecuted for the bad things they've done, not
Speaker 1: for the tools they use. Now, if we take this
Speaker 1: to its log dot logical conclusion. This is where it
Speaker 1: starts getting scary. If the U. S. Treasury can sanction
Speaker 1: Tornado cash, then they can sanction any piece of code.
Speaker 1: No software is safe. So now shoot, you know, um,
Speaker 1: people are using the T C P I P Internet
Speaker 1: to spread disinformation. That's dangerous. So those people are criminals.
Speaker 1: They so anybody who's the Internet now is just instantly criminal.
Speaker 1: No mark, You're you're being you're being uh, you're you're
Speaker 1: being crazy. There's just no way that will ever happen.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Things don't always started as extreme. It's a
Speaker 1: slippery slope. You start small. If they can, if they
Speaker 1: can sanction any if they can, if they can sanction this,
Speaker 1: they can sanction any code. No software is safe, No
Speaker 1: encryption on your phone, no encryption on your no VPNs
Speaker 1: on your computer, no signal or What's app um or
Speaker 1: Telegram on your phone. If sanctions are no longer limited
Speaker 1: to people like they're supposed to. If being uh, if
Speaker 1: if being wrong, if doing something wrong criminally wrong isn't
Speaker 1: isn't attributed to people but instead tools, that's a big deal. Now.
Speaker 1: Privacy and free speech are the bedrock of free and
Speaker 1: open societies. This is the key piece here. Stop and
Speaker 1: think about what I'm saying. Privacy and free speech are
Speaker 1: the bedrock of free and open societies. Without the freedom
Speaker 1: of speech, without the freedom to communicate with each other,
Speaker 1: we have no communication. We have no innovation, we have
Speaker 1: no discussion. There's no way to find truth, there's no
Speaker 1: way to have progress, there's no way to have a
Speaker 1: free and open society without privacy and freedom of speech.
Speaker 1: And this is what's under attack. This is exactly what
Speaker 1: the Treasury sanctioned this week. It's not going after some cryptocurrency,
Speaker 1: it's not going after some financial transaction. It's not even
Speaker 1: going after some bad guy who maybe use this protocol.
Speaker 1: Go after the bad guy. If what he did is bad,
Speaker 1: go after him. What they're going after is your privacy
Speaker 1: and your freedom of speech. And if this stands, then
Speaker 1: no piece of software is safe, and your freedom and
Speaker 1: your privacy are not safe. It's under attack from every angle.
Speaker 1: I broke him down to the bend of the show.
Speaker 1: If you missed it, go check out on the podcast
Speaker 1: and just search Mark Moss on your favorite podcast player
Speaker 1: or on YouTube. Um. But this is what's going on,
Speaker 1: and you need to know about it. You need to
Speaker 1: stand up against it. You need to say something, to
Speaker 1: do something. Spread the word, tell your friends, tell your family.
Speaker 1: More importantly, talk to your local sheriff's, talk to your
Speaker 1: local representatives, council members, etcetera. If you're listening to the
Speaker 1: Markmas Show, trying to help you navigate the decentralized revolution
Speaker 1: the world is going through right now. Hopefully that made sense.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you listening today. That's what I got, all right,
Speaker 1: until next time,