Speaker 1: All right, you are back with the Mark Moss Show,
Speaker 1: where each week I bring to you the latest information
Speaker 1: on bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and the decentralized revolution. As I've been
Speaker 1: talking about, it's probably the biggest opportunity that you'll ever
Speaker 1: see in your lifetime. It's literally changing the way humanity works.
Speaker 1: It is that big. Now I am joined with my
Speaker 1: good friend Alex Gladstein with the Human Rights Foundation and
Speaker 1: the reason why I wanted to have him in today
Speaker 1: because to establish the foundation of what I think really
Speaker 1: the importance of bitcoin is. And I know that a
Speaker 1: lot of people are chasing cryptocurrencies and bitcoin to try
Speaker 1: to get rich, and they're trying to increase their U
Speaker 1: S dollars supply the value of those U S dollars
Speaker 1: or whatever they're trying to do there. And of course
Speaker 1: we all want to make money, and that's great, we
Speaker 1: want that opportunity, but really it's so much more. Bitcoin
Speaker 1: is fixing the world. We say, fixed the money, fix
Speaker 1: the world, and Alex is really at the forefront of that.
Speaker 1: And so Alex, thanks so much for taking the time
Speaker 1: to sit down with me today. Um, good to have you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me on Mark. Yeah, so, um, you
Speaker 1: wrote a paper recently, um, talking about how you know,
Speaker 1: the Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency revolution, And there was a
Speaker 1: piece in there specifically that I looked at, and um,
Speaker 1: you quoted a piece from Greg Barker that he had written, Um,
Speaker 1: And it was a criticism of bitcoin, saying, rather than
Speaker 1: producing a more open, more liberating, more financially free society,
Speaker 1: the crypto movement has empowered not just another cabal of
Speaker 1: crypt financiers, but a hidden cartel of criminals Wall Street rejects,
Speaker 1: and what Senator Senator Elizabeth Warren has described as shadowy supercoders.
Speaker 1: And so I guess that's the criticism about bitcoin. And
Speaker 1: I think maybe that quote there kind of summarizes what
Speaker 1: your response was in that paper. UM, So give us
Speaker 1: your response to that. I mean, that's a kind of
Speaker 1: a damning criticism bitcoin, right. Look, I used Greg's piece
Speaker 1: and I quoted from it in my writing because I
Speaker 1: thought out it was a good summary of existing criticism
Speaker 1: of of bitcoin and and the end of cryptocurrencies or
Speaker 1: let's let's call it crypto as as the cool kids say. UM.
Speaker 1: And my point is that his criticism is accurate of
Speaker 1: crypto or of cryptocurrencies It's true. They all are insider
Speaker 1: projects where people decided to make money, you know, with
Speaker 1: the click of a button, and they got their friends rich,
Speaker 1: and they still control everything, and the state has influence
Speaker 1: and can shut people down. And it's really just like,
Speaker 1: you know, an unregulated extension of Wall Street or Las
Speaker 1: Vegas um and it's it's not revolutionary in my view.
Speaker 1: What's revolutionaries bitcoin? And I think that's what I want
Speaker 1: to get across in this interview to folks is from
Speaker 1: a human rights perspective, not not from a financial perspective
Speaker 1: where obviously you made a lot more money in dogecoin
Speaker 1: in the last twelve months than a bitcoin um, but
Speaker 1: over time, and the fact that bitcoin is changing the world,
Speaker 1: whereas crypto is like an extension of the existing system.
Speaker 1: And the difference is that in bitcoin it is powered
Speaker 1: by users and there is no central point of failure,
Speaker 1: and there was no one who can control the monetary policy,
Speaker 1: who can decide to print more bitcoin, who can arbitrarily
Speaker 1: change the bitcoin software without your consent, or who can
Speaker 1: even process transactions without your consent. Um. In bitcoin, if
Speaker 1: you run a personal server and you're you're running a
Speaker 1: note and you're part of the network as as a
Speaker 1: full bitcoin citizen, let's say, as many many thousands of
Speaker 1: people across the world are you decide what transactions are valid. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you have control over the miners, and you
Speaker 1: decide what software updates to accept, so you have control
Speaker 1: over the developers. And in this way, bitcoin is truly
Speaker 1: like money of the people. And I view, like the
Speaker 1: other cryptocurrency projects regard this of their utility as more
Speaker 1: like fintech or you know, perhaps more unregulated stocks or
Speaker 1: tech startups, like they may deliver enormous value, but that
Speaker 1: they don't kind of reshape the paradigm. And I think
Speaker 1: that's that's quite important for people to understand because because
Speaker 1: bitcoin is unregulatable and decentralized, it can help people in
Speaker 1: the toughest of environments. It can help people inside China
Speaker 1: and inside dictatorships, whereas crypto can get censored and blacklisted
Speaker 1: and pressured. And in the end, at the in the end,
Speaker 1: over the coming century, as we battle like digital authoritarianism
Speaker 1: and as we battle big brother um, bitcoin is a
Speaker 1: tool to fight back where I just don't think crypto is. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good point. You're they're listening to the Mark
Speaker 1: Maas show on the Heart Radio Network. I'm with Alex
Speaker 1: Gladstein from the Human Rights Foundation. You can find them
Speaker 1: on Twitter at at Gladstein, so send him a tweet
Speaker 1: follow them. But we're talking about using it as a
Speaker 1: as a human rights tool. I know, you know, pretty
Speaker 1: much everyone listening probably right now, is in the United States,
Speaker 1: and they don't feel that right, they don't feel that
Speaker 1: authorityis um you just mentioned China, right, and so oh,
Speaker 1: it's it's over there in China, um, or it's it's
Speaker 1: happening in in the Lebanon or whatever. But maybe it's
Speaker 1: not in the United States. But but one, if it's happening,
Speaker 1: then there could potentially come here. But two, we saw
Speaker 1: and you probably know better than me, a month or
Speaker 1: a month ago, two months ago. We're even PayPal teamed
Speaker 1: up with UM the Anti Defamation League to like make
Speaker 1: a list of people that should be blacklisted from being
Speaker 1: able to send payments to each other, right, literally censoring
Speaker 1: the ability to send money to who I want, and
Speaker 1: then and then and then sharing that list with even
Speaker 1: more financial institutions. Yeah, so let's take a philosophical view
Speaker 1: and then a global view. So philosophically, when we talk
Speaker 1: about money, what is money? Um, we're in an in
Speaker 1: a transition where the money that you use on a
Speaker 1: daily basis is going from a bearer asset that protects
Speaker 1: your privacy to want of surveillance and control. So like
Speaker 1: the money that you used maybe ten twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: it was paper money cash. When you make a cash transaction,
Speaker 1: the merchant doesn't know anything about you. They just know
Speaker 1: that you've paid. When you pay with your credit card
Speaker 1: or your swipe or your phone or your mobile money
Speaker 1: or whatever. You know, the merchant and an enormous number
Speaker 1: of third parties, and ultimately the government knows a ton
Speaker 1: about you. They know exactly what you bought, They know
Speaker 1: what you bought last time. They can build algorithms to
Speaker 1: figure out what you're gonna buy next. And this can
Speaker 1: be used for censorship and surveillance and social engineering, and
Speaker 1: it is it is being used for that, not just
Speaker 1: in China but all over the world, including right here
Speaker 1: in the United States. I mean when you go into markets,
Speaker 1: I mean they're like bluetooth like surveillance mechanisms that pick
Speaker 1: up on your shopping habits, and you know, they can
Speaker 1: read this off your phone and your transaction history, and
Speaker 1: this is a direction we're heading in and we need
Speaker 1: a different way, um to preserve our digital freedoms in
Speaker 1: the future because the government is not going to give
Speaker 1: them to us. Um if you think that the government
Speaker 1: is going to phase out paper cash, which Hill Dren
Speaker 1: today won't use regardless, like we know that children today
Speaker 1: when they're twenty years old, won't use paper money. Everything's
Speaker 1: gonna be digital. So the question is how are we
Speaker 1: going to keep the freedoms and privacy that cash afforded
Speaker 1: us in the digital space. There's two camps. One says
Speaker 1: the government's going to give it to us. Okay, I mean,
Speaker 1: did you see the Snowden revelations, Like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like what planet you're living on, but there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people who believe that, like we can like petition
Speaker 1: in the US government and we can get them to
Speaker 1: give us digital cash and we'll give you free I'm
Speaker 1: just jaded on that one as a human rights activists,
Speaker 1: like I just don't think that's gonna happen. And maybe
Speaker 1: maybe in the tiniest of scenarios in the U s
Speaker 1: Or Switzerland or Japan, but definitely not in China or
Speaker 1: saut of your a BI or Cuba, like you know,
Speaker 1: a four point three billion people live under dictatorships in
Speaker 1: the throwd chain regimes. They're never gonna get you know,
Speaker 1: fiat government money that protects freedoms in the future. And
Speaker 1: this is why bitcoin is so important. Is it gives
Speaker 1: us this like Plan B that anybody can access without
Speaker 1: any particular nationality or wealth level, or gender or belief system.
Speaker 1: Like anyone can access this open, nondiscriminatory network and both
Speaker 1: use it as digital cash and make payments seamlessly instantly
Speaker 1: around the world to the Lightning network, which is remarkable,
Speaker 1: but also invest their time and energy and digital gold
Speaker 1: in a in an asset that cannot be debased by
Speaker 1: government and and bitcoin is the only digital asset that
Speaker 1: cannot be arbitrarely debased. Every single other cryptocurrency and every
Speaker 1: single other central bank digital currency or just a general
Speaker 1: digital currency like your deposit at the bank can be confiscated,
Speaker 1: can be debased by monetary policy. And that what that's
Speaker 1: what makes bitcoin so special. Yeah, and you mentioned, um,
Speaker 1: you know how cash we have. Cash gives us that
Speaker 1: that that privacy that not a minute amity there um.
Speaker 1: And in nineteen seventy when they put the Bank Secrecy
Speaker 1: Act in they said all transactions under over ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollars had to be reported. But at the time ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in nineteen seventy is worth about seventy thousand
Speaker 1: dollars today, but they've kept that number ten thousand. But
Speaker 1: now today they are saying now for this new infrastructure bill,
Speaker 1: they want to monitor every single bank account with more
Speaker 1: than six dollars, every single transaction, including including Venmo, Crypto, PayPal, etcetera.
Speaker 1: I want to talk more about human rights stuff around
Speaker 1: the world and even real world use cases of how
Speaker 1: um that's being fixed when we get back in a second.
Speaker 1: But everyone, you're listening to the Mark Moss Show with
Speaker 1: Alex Gladstein talking about bitcoin and human rights and we'll
Speaker 1: be right back. All right, you are back with the
Speaker 1: Mark Moss Show talking about bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, the decentralized revolutions,
Speaker 1: and I'm with Alex Gladstein from the Human Rights Foundation.
Speaker 1: You can find them on Twitter at Gladstein is definitely
Speaker 1: worth a follow, so go check them out there. And
Speaker 1: we were in the middle of talking about how bitcoin
Speaker 1: has a real world use case, how it's solving human
Speaker 1: rights issues. We talked about, you know, having the freedom
Speaker 1: and the privacy of using digital cash. UM. But Alex
Speaker 1: I really wanted to jump into maybe some um, maybe
Speaker 1: more practical applications. I know you've published many times on
Speaker 1: Twitter UM where people say that bitcoin has no use.
Speaker 1: Case these people that say this, I feel like, how
Speaker 1: much privilege you have been in the United States. You
Speaker 1: must have never traveled anywhere else in the world. UM,
Speaker 1: But maybe you could give us some practical applications of
Speaker 1: things that are going on in the world where it's
Speaker 1: really making a big impact. Yeah. I wrote a piece
Speaker 1: called check your Financial Privilege for the Coin magazine about
Speaker 1: six months ago, and you know that's something up in
Speaker 1: a nutshell like Bitcoin critics today who say that it's
Speaker 1: useless are hugely financial privileged. They were born into a
Speaker 1: system where the unit of account is the dollar, where
Speaker 1: they don't have to deal with significant inflation at least
Speaker 1: yet UM, where they can easily use stuff like Vemo
Speaker 1: and PayPal to connect with their family and friends. It's
Speaker 1: easy for them to travel abroad, like their money basically works.
Speaker 1: They can invest long term very easily in a four
Speaker 1: oh one K or maybe even into real estate. UM.
Speaker 1: Easy for them to get stocks, etcetera, etcetera, even bonds. Um,
Speaker 1: they can build like a diversified portfolio for their future.
Speaker 1: The vast majority of humans on this planet cannot do that. UM.
Speaker 1: One point three bill million people on our planet live
Speaker 1: under double or triple or quadruple digit inflation. So that
Speaker 1: means the money that they earn every week, every two weeks,
Speaker 1: every month, UM, is literally disappearing before their eyes. Uh.
Speaker 1: Most of these people do not have access to the
Speaker 1: SMP five hundred. They do not enough capital to buy
Speaker 1: a home like so real quick, real real quick. On that,
Speaker 1: I mean, give us some example. So like Lebanon, I
Speaker 1: think saw like almost eighty or nine percent inflation in
Speaker 1: the last year, So that means like literally like they
Speaker 1: lost the majority of the purchasing power like that quickly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I'll give you a couple of examples from each
Speaker 1: part of the world of that one point three billion
Speaker 1: people who live under severe extreme inflation. And by the way,
Speaker 1: that number is more than the number of people who
Speaker 1: don't have access to a toilet or clean water. Like
Speaker 1: this is one of the biggest humanitarian issues in the world. UM.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Lebanon. Yeah, Lebanon and Syria, both home to
Speaker 1: millions of people, are seeing a historic currency collapse. Lebanon
Speaker 1: in particular, now I believe has the highest rate of
Speaker 1: inflation in the world, surpassing Venezuela, which had its own
Speaker 1: absolutely catastrophic hyper inflation over the last decade, where you know,
Speaker 1: a cup of coffee in Caracas, you know, would cost
Speaker 1: you know, a few hundred bolivars, and then the next
Speaker 1: year would cost a few thousand, and the next year
Speaker 1: would cost a few million. Like that actually happened. Um,
Speaker 1: you have fifty percent inflation in Argentina, you have uh,
Speaker 1: it's a country people. You have um fifteen percent inflation
Speaker 1: in Nigeria and higher food higher food inflation country of
Speaker 1: two hundred million people. You have fifteen percent inflation. In Turkey,
Speaker 1: the country another country close to a hundred million people.
Speaker 1: You have a country of a hundred twenty million people
Speaker 1: in Ethiopia where you have inflation. So these are vast,
Speaker 1: very large, very important countries where I want to I
Speaker 1: wanted this. I want to sorry. Because in the United States,
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve printed about twenty of the dollars supply
Speaker 1: in the last year and of course, we saw prices
Speaker 1: go up by about so in the US, the median
Speaker 1: home price went up by two percent. Use cars are
Speaker 1: up thirty percent. Uh, gasoline is up forty seven per
Speaker 1: cent um. And so it's not just those far away countries,
Speaker 1: it's in the United States as well. So go ahead, sorry, yeah, so,
Speaker 1: but thinking about it this way, yes, you're correct, there
Speaker 1: is currency debasement and inflation the United States. It's not
Speaker 1: usually quite as noticeable for a variety of reasons that
Speaker 1: I won't get into here. But what you just need
Speaker 1: to know is that the dollar is like the foundation
Speaker 1: for the world's currencies, and any anything, any bad effects
Speaker 1: you see in the dollar get amplified elsewhere. So you know,
Speaker 1: price inflation United States, if we're seeing it, oh my god,
Speaker 1: that means things are like catastrophic for people in the
Speaker 1: countries I just mentioned, right, so all around the world.
Speaker 1: Burma in Southeast Asia just saw a massive loss of
Speaker 1: purchasing power in in the citizens over the last few months. Um,
Speaker 1: they lost sixty their purchasing power. Cuba, an island country
Speaker 1: just off the coast of Florida, very close to us,
Speaker 1: very close to maybe a lot of the hearts of
Speaker 1: our listeners. Um, the Cuban people have lost two thirds
Speaker 1: of their purchasing power in the last year as the
Speaker 1: government has basically failed to to run properly and is
Speaker 1: running a scheme where they're paying the pensioners. That a
Speaker 1: communist nation, right, so most public most workers are public
Speaker 1: sector workers and pensioners they're paying out pay soose which
Speaker 1: are collapsing. And then they have all these stores where
Speaker 1: you can buy what you need, and they're forcing you
Speaker 1: to use hard foreign currency to buy stuff in those stores.
Speaker 1: So it's like they're turning this crap money into better
Speaker 1: money at the expense of the people. And this is
Speaker 1: a game that a lot of governments play around the world, right, So,
Speaker 1: whether it's in Cuba, whether it's in Palestine, whether it's
Speaker 1: in Nigeria, Ethiopia. Yes, I've been like studying and interviewing
Speaker 1: people in these countries and just trying to learn about
Speaker 1: like how the government exploits money, how it uses it
Speaker 1: as a weapon against the people, and how people are
Speaker 1: turning to bitcoin to fight back. Yeah. So, um, you
Speaker 1: know the government in that scheme, I mean, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: So they're literally paying them in a currency that's losing value.
Speaker 1: But making them pay them back in a currency that's
Speaker 1: that's stronger UM and UH. And it's all over the world.
Speaker 1: In in the previ A segment when I had Alex
Speaker 1: Fetzki and Jessica and we were talking about UM the
Speaker 1: China band bitcoin again again and I think the ninth
Speaker 1: time or whatever, and UM they said it um it
Speaker 1: uh put at risk the financial and social system and
Speaker 1: so kind of what they're saying is that um, they
Speaker 1: need to manipulate their currency UM. But by allowing people
Speaker 1: and exit UM, that disrupts the system. So it's all
Speaker 1: over the place. That's a big problem. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's millions of bitcoin users in China, There's more than
Speaker 1: ten million in India. There's millions in Turkey, there's millions
Speaker 1: in Nigeria, there's millions in Argentina. I mean, anyone on
Speaker 1: Wall Street or in the New York Times who says
Speaker 1: that it's some sort of costplay or some sort of
Speaker 1: you know, online libertarian nonsense is just ignorant. I mean,
Speaker 1: and I partly I almost feel bad for them and
Speaker 1: how wrong they are. Like the literally the most prestigious
Speaker 1: newspapers and talk show hosts in our country are completely
Speaker 1: clueless about one of the most important revolution revolutions in history.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're separating money from state. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is on par with the printing press and democracy in
Speaker 1: ancient Greece. I mean, we're living through a similarly important
Speaker 1: time right now, and they're just completely out to lunch.
Speaker 1: And the cool part is, Um, regardless of what they say,
Speaker 1: these professional bitcoin critics, regardless of how they've tried to
Speaker 1: gaslight you, the American people over the last ten years,
Speaker 1: saying Bitcoin is too dangerous, it's too risky, Um, regardless
Speaker 1: of what they say, Bitcoin is right now as we speak,
Speaker 1: empowering tens of millions of people around the world who
Speaker 1: don't have a better money and it's doing more for
Speaker 1: people for empowerment and for justice and for freedom than
Speaker 1: any of those critics will ever do in their entire lifetime.
Speaker 1: It's doing in the next sixty minutes. So I mean
Speaker 1: Bitcoin is saying basically screw you all, um. And the
Speaker 1: crazy part is that this is a gas lighting operation.
Speaker 1: Like over the last decade, Americans and Brits and Chileans
Speaker 1: and Chinese, we've been told by our governments that bitcoin
Speaker 1: is First of all, they said it was a joke.
Speaker 1: Then they said it was risky now, and then they
Speaker 1: said it was dangerous. Okay, guess what's been dangerous not
Speaker 1: buying bitcoin? Okay, what I mean Now, let's just look
Speaker 1: at the dollar. Okay, the dollar has had a hyper
Speaker 1: inflationary collapse against bitcoin over the last ten years. Okay,
Speaker 1: So they've forced you to stay away from that. They've
Speaker 1: convinced you that it's a bad idea, and you've ended
Speaker 1: up losing purchasing power, you know, unless unless you've been
Speaker 1: lucky enough to really like do well with you know,
Speaker 1: equities and real estate. But like most people don't write.
Speaker 1: Most people just are just getting by and the money
Speaker 1: they're using to just get by has been depreciating and
Speaker 1: purchasing power and they have more debt than ever. So
Speaker 1: I mean, they think it just depends on your perspective.
Speaker 1: But what's been crazy to me is to watch like
Speaker 1: the academic political media elite continue to say this thing
Speaker 1: is dangerous when it is saving so many people around
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, I love what you said. They're they're
Speaker 1: gas lighting or really there these professional critics, as you say,
Speaker 1: they're telling you stuff that's holding you back, which is
Speaker 1: why I want to bring this information to you. You're
Speaker 1: listening to the Mark mo Show from with Alex Claudstein
Speaker 1: and will be right back. All right, Welcome back here
Speaker 1: with the Mark mos Show on the Heart Radio Network.
Speaker 1: Each week I'm bringing you the information you need to
Speaker 1: navigate the Bitcoin, cryptocurrency decentralized revolution. And make no mistake,
Speaker 1: it is a revolution that will fix the world, fix
Speaker 1: the money, fix the world. I'm with Alex Gladstein from
Speaker 1: the Human Rights Foundation. UM. He is a big proponent
Speaker 1: of bitcoin around the world. You can follow him on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Gladstein and you definitely should give him a follow.
Speaker 1: But we were right in the middle of this uh
Speaker 1: of of one of his rans had to cut him off,
Speaker 1: and you want you jump back in, Yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: just look again, like professional economists and policymakers in the
Speaker 1: United States are bending over backwards to convince themselves that
Speaker 1: currency debasement and basically printing more money to solve our
Speaker 1: nations problems is going to be good. Um. And and
Speaker 1: at the same time they're attacking bitcoin, which is like
Speaker 1: the plan being that citizens can used to defend themselves. Right.
Speaker 1: So what you gotta know is that these people are
Speaker 1: self interested in the listing system. You should protect yourself
Speaker 1: with bitcoin. You should first learn about it, arm yourself
Speaker 1: with education and knowledge and learn about bitcoin. And then
Speaker 1: over time, yeah, obviously try to start earning it, you know,
Speaker 1: converting some of your fiat money into it, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: That fiat money is going to lose value over time,
Speaker 1: is going to lose a tremendous amount of value over
Speaker 1: the next decade. If you're listening from Ethiopia or Studan,
Speaker 1: it's gonna lose money a lot faster and value a
Speaker 1: lot faster. But still, I mean even the United States
Speaker 1: or EU, that money is going to lose a lot
Speaker 1: of value. Um, people are gonna seek to move elsewhere.
Speaker 1: And the interesting thing is we have this big debate
Speaker 1: now about minting the coin. Like the United States has
Speaker 1: a budget issue, We're gonna run out of money. And
Speaker 1: some people say, oh that, you know, the Treasury should
Speaker 1: just meant a trillion dollar uh, you know, platinum coin
Speaker 1: and sell it to the Fed, right as like a
Speaker 1: way to fix it. Well, what's cooler? What's cooler than
Speaker 1: a trillion dollar platinum coin? Trillion dollar freedom money? Which
Speaker 1: is which is you know bitcoin is is you know
Speaker 1: around nine hundred billion dollars and or you know, had
Speaker 1: had previously topped trillion dollars earlier this year, and we'll
Speaker 1: top it again soon. So this freedom money, this trillion
Speaker 1: dollar freedom money, is open to everybody on earth. You know.
Speaker 1: If here's the interesting part. If if the US government
Speaker 1: tries to save corporations and the and the financial sector
Speaker 1: and the stocks to all of our senators and congressman
Speaker 1: owned by minting the coin, okay, um, that doesn't help
Speaker 1: everybody on earth, right, that only helps some people. Bitcoin
Speaker 1: is like this level open playing field, that's that's literally
Speaker 1: open for business for anyone with an Internet connection anywhere
Speaker 1: in the world. Um. And you know that's why you
Speaker 1: might say the capital of bitcoin is not New York
Speaker 1: or Washington, but probably Lagos, Nigeria. You know, this is
Speaker 1: like a place, a country of two and a million
Speaker 1: people where you know, just a just a massive and
Speaker 1: growing number of millions of young Nigerians are turning to bitcoin, um,
Speaker 1: not just as a place to store their wealth over time,
Speaker 1: but as a place to connect with the world. And
Speaker 1: that's what I want to talk about now. A little
Speaker 1: bit is like bitcoin as a as a sort of
Speaker 1: digital cash, as a bridge between people as something that
Speaker 1: can connect us in a world that has way too
Speaker 1: many walls. Right. So again, anyone with the Internet, whether
Speaker 1: you're in China or Iran or wherever, you can access
Speaker 1: this thing and that there's no gate or barrier to
Speaker 1: prevent you from doing so. So I've I've interacted with
Speaker 1: all kinds of bitcoin users in the countries I just mentioned,
Speaker 1: I mean in Gaza in Cuba and in places that
Speaker 1: I'm usually not allowed to have connection with, Like I
Speaker 1: can transact bitcoin with these people. It's this really beautiful
Speaker 1: thing that brings us together, and what makes it possible
Speaker 1: is the Lightning network. Like and look, I know a
Speaker 1: lot of critics, especially in New York Times Lost Real Journal,
Speaker 1: there are always trashing bitcoin from being slow and expensive. Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: on chain bitcoin over time is going to be slow
Speaker 1: and expensive compared to visa. Yes, it's gonna take ten
Speaker 1: twenty minutes to settle. And the fees right now they're cheap,
Speaker 1: they're like fifty cents, But like, I think fees will
Speaker 1: be considerable on chain in the futures maybe more okay,
Speaker 1: maybe a lot more. Um. However, what people did is
Speaker 1: they heared out how to scale Bitcoin using a second
Speaker 1: layer called the Lighting network. And with Lightning Network, you
Speaker 1: can send bitcoin instantly and basically for free anywhere on Earth.
Speaker 1: And it's a little more privacy protecting even in Bitcoin
Speaker 1: because it's not happening on the chains. You can't have
Speaker 1: chain surveillance messing your stuff up, right. So the cool
Speaker 1: part about Lightning is it's really getting adopted massively around
Speaker 1: the world. So Twitter, the actual platform, Twitter has now
Speaker 1: partnered up with a company called Strike to allow creators
Speaker 1: to accept Lightning donations. So I just turned it on. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's awesome. I just turned it on a couple of
Speaker 1: days ago, connected my Strike account, and I've been receiving
Speaker 1: Lightning tips from god knows who all over the world,
Speaker 1: like they come in all the time, people who are
Speaker 1: happy about my articles or whatever. And it's just so beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's so cool to be connected to the community in
Speaker 1: that way. And it's it's nice to see Twitter connecting
Speaker 1: itself to an open monetary network, and that's what bitcoin is. Now.
Speaker 1: There's a country that just did it too, in El Salvador,
Speaker 1: like this small um relatively impoverished Central American country decided
Speaker 1: to add bitcoin as a legal tender about a month ago.
Speaker 1: And this is revolutionary for many reasons. I mean you
Speaker 1: could you could see it in the same historical lenses,
Speaker 1: you know, the Brits events in central banking, uh five
Speaker 1: plus years ago. Okay, well, i'll Salvador is the first
Speaker 1: country to add an open, decentralized currency for the population.
Speaker 1: Now the rollout is hotly contested. The leader doing it
Speaker 1: is is authoritarian in my view, and we need to
Speaker 1: be careful to separate and the acts of choosing bitcoin
Speaker 1: for the people as opposed to some China currency or
Speaker 1: some CBDC or some surveillance coin. Right. Um, they chose bitcoin,
Speaker 1: which is amazing. Um, we need to separate that from
Speaker 1: like cheering for that government, which is which is a
Speaker 1: dangerous government. I would say, So these are going to
Speaker 1: be nuanced things, and you're about to live, you listening,
Speaker 1: are about to look through a decade where dozens of
Speaker 1: other governments adopt bitcoin, and they're they're not all going
Speaker 1: to be ones you like, right, So, I mean I
Speaker 1: thought it was going to be like a rogue regime
Speaker 1: that would that would use this thing first, right. Um,
Speaker 1: It's sort of similar to the idea of the beginning
Speaker 1: of the Internet. Like when the Internet first came out,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of criticism, Oh, it's gonna like
Speaker 1: empower sketchy people. Like, yes, well, in the beginning, it
Speaker 1: was only used for it was used for porn, like
Speaker 1: that was its main use case. And actually when the
Speaker 1: well and when the VCR came out, the VCR was
Speaker 1: only used for porn before Disney used it, and then
Speaker 1: the Internet was only used for porn. And so usually
Speaker 1: technology seems to have like some sort of nefarious use
Speaker 1: case before it gets Yeah, there's always edge users at
Speaker 1: the beginning, Like even when bitcoin was first invented, like
Speaker 1: you know, the silk Road was one of its major
Speaker 1: first use cases, right, Okay, but we're way beyond that now,
Speaker 1: Like now we're at like governments adopting bitcoin, right, so,
Speaker 1: like we're so far much further along in bitcoin's history
Speaker 1: than at that point. And you know, governments of all
Speaker 1: shapes and sizes, corporations of all shapes and sizes are
Speaker 1: going to be forced to use it, not out of
Speaker 1: any any altruistic reason, but simply because it's the best money, okay,
Speaker 1: and it's the it's the best way for them to
Speaker 1: preserve their purchasing power over time. That is what is
Speaker 1: going to force them to use it that they don't.
Speaker 1: They're not gonna have to think about it much more
Speaker 1: than that, right, And and the cool part is that
Speaker 1: whether or whether they like it or not, these corporations,
Speaker 1: these governments, whether it's Tesla, whether it's Square, whether it's
Speaker 1: Um Paul Tutor Jones or other billionaires, whether it's governments
Speaker 1: like El Salvador, whether they like it or not, when
Speaker 1: they adopt the coin, they helped strengthen this like global
Speaker 1: freeding tool. And that's like this fascinating mechanism at work here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone's a freedom father, fright or whether they realize it
Speaker 1: or not. Um. The one thing that I just think about,
Speaker 1: and I know both of us have been down to
Speaker 1: El Salvador, and you've been at the forefront of this, Uh,
Speaker 1: definitely more than me. But I've traveled quite a bit.
Speaker 1: I'm a surfer, so I traveled to these very remote
Speaker 1: locations to chase remote waves. So I've witnessed this and
Speaker 1: I think more people, especially when I say, should travel
Speaker 1: to get that perspective. But even though I knew what
Speaker 1: was going on down there, it wasn't until I actually
Speaker 1: put boots on the ground that it really was like
Speaker 1: this epiphany where you actually see it and you realize,
Speaker 1: you know specifically there it's like kind of solving this
Speaker 1: remittance problem where that of having to ride a bus
Speaker 1: for two hours to to send Salvat already get my
Speaker 1: money and then write two hours back and then potentially
Speaker 1: get robbed with cash and then losing whatever fees. Now
Speaker 1: I can just get it instantly. And when you have
Speaker 1: something that's uh, not just a five or ten percent
Speaker 1: incremental improvement, but a hundred x or a thousand x
Speaker 1: improvement like this is, I mean, it just it just
Speaker 1: can't be stopped. So, UM, I want to talk about that.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about UM. I love the fact
Speaker 1: that you said we need to kind of separate the
Speaker 1: politics of what may be happening in El Salvador versus
Speaker 1: bitcoin the tool, and I think it's important to look
Speaker 1: at that. So I want to talk more about that,
Speaker 1: and then UM, when I get back, I want to
Speaker 1: also talk about some questions I had post from the
Speaker 1: audience that I want to ask you as well. UM,
Speaker 1: so we'll get into more of that as well. UM.
Speaker 1: I'm with Alex Gladstein from the Human Rights Foundation. UM.
Speaker 1: Follow him on Twitter at Gladstein. Of course. On Mark
Speaker 1: Moss is the Mark Mars Show. You can follow me
Speaker 1: number one, Mark Moss. And we're talking about bitcoin UM
Speaker 1: being you used as a human rights tool, UM, which
Speaker 1: I think is so important. And so we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: All right, you are back with the Mark Moss Show
Speaker 1: talking about bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, the decentralized revolutions, and I'm with
Speaker 1: Alex Cladstein from the Human Rights Foundation. Follow them on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Gladstein and look up the Human Rights Foundation
Speaker 1: online and find out what they're doing. But we were
Speaker 1: right in the middle of talking about, you know, how
Speaker 1: bitcoin can solve all these humans rights issues, and we
Speaker 1: are specifically talking about El Salvador UM. One thing. You know,
Speaker 1: we've seen a lot of news about UM the politics
Speaker 1: down there and is the president of dictator is he
Speaker 1: going to try to UM change it so he can
Speaker 1: stay in power? Is he using bitcoin to steal from
Speaker 1: the people and all these things? UM. I don't know
Speaker 1: enough about the politics, UM, but I think you made
Speaker 1: a great point, which is we need to separate UM.
Speaker 1: You know, bitcoin being UM a tool that could be
Speaker 1: used by anybody, and then what the politics are. But
Speaker 1: one other point I'd like to just get your opinion on.
Speaker 1: I know, like I said, we've both been down there
Speaker 1: and and witnessed this in real time. Is uh, and
Speaker 1: I think maybe you've you've kind of said that you
Speaker 1: weren't a big fan of it. But he basically forced
Speaker 1: in a law of making bitcoin legal tender, and so
Speaker 1: per the law, everyone uh you know, I guess as
Speaker 1: a as a merchant is required to accept it because
Speaker 1: it's legal tender, and so they have to allow someone
Speaker 1: to pay that way. Um, it seems like from the
Speaker 1: way I understand the law, they have to allow someone
Speaker 1: to pay that way, but they don't have to receive
Speaker 1: the bitcoin or hold bitcoin. And so I know some
Speaker 1: people have kind of been outspoken where well bitcoin should
Speaker 1: be free to adopt, it shouldn't be forced onto people. Um,
Speaker 1: where do you think of how do you see that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, like personally, I hope I wish they hadn't
Speaker 1: made it, you know, enforced in that way. I think
Speaker 1: it should be voluntary. However, as a bitcoin user and
Speaker 1: someone who thinks it will become more popular in the future,
Speaker 1: I knew this day was coming, Like I knew one
Speaker 1: day a government would do this, Like at some point
Speaker 1: I just didn't think it would happen. I think this
Speaker 1: was like way, um, but this the government of al
Speaker 1: Savador has like self interest in trying to like basically
Speaker 1: boost its nation into the future by like making them
Speaker 1: a bitcoin economy. Like it feels that it can gain fame,
Speaker 1: which it already has. I mean, is like easily the
Speaker 1: most famous Central American leader now and no one knew
Speaker 1: he was like a year ago. Um, it feels like
Speaker 1: it can gain foreign investment, which it's gaining for sure.
Speaker 1: It feels like it can gain notorid like like basically publicity,
Speaker 1: which which I mean Al Savador had never been on
Speaker 1: the cover or is a feature in any financial magazine ever.
Speaker 1: I mean, the only thing that this country led the
Speaker 1: world in as of four or five years ago was
Speaker 1: murder rate. Okay, And all of a sudden now like
Speaker 1: people are debating you know, it's it's it's it's like
Speaker 1: fintech innovation, which is really remarkable, and a lot of
Speaker 1: Salvadorans are happy about that. You know, some aren't, but
Speaker 1: a lot are. So I think it's interesting how um,
Speaker 1: you know, we can argue about the legal tender part um.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, like I mean,
Speaker 1: I think every citizen in the world should have the
Speaker 1: ability to have bitcoin is legal tender in their country. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: is that going to happen? No, no way, There's no
Speaker 1: way that governments right now will do that. However, I
Speaker 1: think some governments will start to and it's the beginning
Speaker 1: of a trend. And you know, some governments will simply
Speaker 1: adopt bitcoin as a reserve asset um for their national savings.
Speaker 1: Others will do more like El Salvador is doing. Others
Speaker 1: will try and incorporate it for remittances. Like there's every
Speaker 1: reason for countries like Tana which which are of the
Speaker 1: GDPs relying on remittances, or country Stickle Salvador relying on remittances,
Speaker 1: or even countries like Nigeria which are even like around five,
Speaker 1: you know, relying on remittances. If you're a gross domestic product,
Speaker 1: if you're revenue as a nation is significantly derived from remittances,
Speaker 1: then you have every reason to want to shift to
Speaker 1: a lightning network based system where these corporations and these
Speaker 1: middlemen don't suck value out of your citizenry and therefore
Speaker 1: out of your tax base. Right, Like you're self interested
Speaker 1: to attach yourself to this open monetary system. And when
Speaker 1: you think about what's happening now Salvadorans the United States.
Speaker 1: There's two million plus Salvadorans the United States, right, they
Speaker 1: can now go UM Like you know, there's a video
Speaker 1: of someone in Atlanta. They can just go to like
Speaker 1: the embassy UH if they wanted to and deposit cash,
Speaker 1: physical cash and to achieve a machine in Atlanta, and
Speaker 1: and and their family can like receive it immediately and
Speaker 1: then just like withdraw into bitcoin or cash in El
Speaker 1: Salvador without dealing with remittenance companies. Like that's kind of amazing.
Speaker 1: The more amazing thing is that any Salvador in the
Speaker 1: United States or anywhere in the world can send a
Speaker 1: lightning network instant payment to anyone with a state run
Speaker 1: achiev a wallet or anyone with a non custodial open
Speaker 1: source wallet in El Salvador instantly, and the value just
Speaker 1: goes peer to peer and there's no blood sucking middleman
Speaker 1: in the middle. Right. So this is like we are
Speaker 1: moving forward in terms of UH financial technology, like legacy
Speaker 1: stuff like Western Union. These are like blockbusters and this
Speaker 1: is like dinosaur tech and we are like obliterating it
Speaker 1: with like this open source wave of technology. That's that's
Speaker 1: really going to help connect us all again in a
Speaker 1: world with a lot of bridges and a lot of barriers.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's to me, it's a quite beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: One thing that you know, you've talked about four billion,
Speaker 1: four and a half billion people living under authoritarian regimes,
Speaker 1: and I think it's pretty easy to see that the
Speaker 1: world is trending towards authority ternism, and technology is given
Speaker 1: a more and more tools they need to even you know,
Speaker 1: continue to build that at the authoriternism. I've often been
Speaker 1: saying that I think the only thing that breaks that
Speaker 1: trend of of us moving towards oor aternism is really
Speaker 1: competition and so um when we're able to leave, like
Speaker 1: a sovereign individual says, like a cow grows wings and
Speaker 1: flies away, if enough people leave, the nations will be
Speaker 1: forced to kind of change. And uh, like China did.
Speaker 1: They were called I mean us, they were trailing the world.
Speaker 1: They had open up to a little bit of freeports
Speaker 1: and capitalism to compete. Um, and we're seeing this playout
Speaker 1: in real time now with El Salvador as you were
Speaker 1: making the case just by a simple act of making
Speaker 1: bitcoin legal tender, Like you said, all of a sudden there, uh,
Speaker 1: now you know who the president is. They're making news headlines,
Speaker 1: but even more important, they're attracting massive amounts of capital
Speaker 1: coming into the country just by one small thing. And
Speaker 1: I think that that competition loop that will see more
Speaker 1: countries want to jump in. You already named a couple
Speaker 1: of countries that are thinking about it, and I think
Speaker 1: that could really start to accelerate this trend um and
Speaker 1: eventually maybe hopefully force those authority countries that will continue
Speaker 1: to have this downward decline because of that grip. Uh,
Speaker 1: get them to kind of force or change their perspective.
Speaker 1: I mean, what do you think about that? Yeah, look,
Speaker 1: it's inevitable. Look, this is a people's revolution. It's being
Speaker 1: led by the people. I mean, they're of all bitcoin users,
Speaker 1: plus are not in El Salvador. Like, there's more Indian
Speaker 1: bitcoin users than there are Salvadoran's. Okay, so let's not
Speaker 1: lose sight of the fact that this is a global
Speaker 1: phenomena where El Salvador has played it. Yes, an important,
Speaker 1: but relatively very small role um. This is an individual
Speaker 1: citizen led thing where people are peacefully opting out into
Speaker 1: a new system, and if the thing grows big enough,
Speaker 1: it's gonna snowball and it's gonna start, you know, bringing
Speaker 1: governments with it. One thing that I would be remiss
Speaker 1: to not mention, um, would be bitcoin mining. I just
Speaker 1: think real quick that this is going to have a
Speaker 1: huge impact on the world. And what's interesting is you're
Speaker 1: seeing the Salvadoran government now start to use its volcanic
Speaker 1: energy to mind bitcoin. Like they're just geothermal heat, carbon neutral,
Speaker 1: kind of green volcanic energy. Um, that's just sort of stranded.
Speaker 1: They're turning that into money through through bitcoin mining, which
Speaker 1: converts electricity into money. UM. So you're seeing that happen
Speaker 1: all over the world. So in Bruna Park and the
Speaker 1: DRC in Central Africa, they're turning flowing water into bitcoin
Speaker 1: through hydro dams. Um. You're seeing people turned sunlight and
Speaker 1: too too money through solar farms, wind farms turning air
Speaker 1: into money. Like this is going to happen all across
Speaker 1: the emerging markets and like basically countries are gonna start
Speaker 1: realizing that they can like actually raise money, raise bonds,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Through stranded renewable energy resources. And in my view,
Speaker 1: it's going to help sort of like green the planet
Speaker 1: as like we have new incentives to use stranded renewable
Speaker 1: energy resources. And to me, this is really important because currently,
Speaker 1: like fossil fuel companies have like such a stranglehold over
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the energy market and a
Speaker 1: lot of our a lot of our lives. I mean,
Speaker 1: they undergird the petro dollar, which is what the U. S.
Speaker 1: Dollar really is, and you know, I think that's bad
Speaker 1: for human rights. Look at leads to our relationship with
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia and now, like to back these thugs for decades,
Speaker 1: leads to wars, it leads to conflicts. UM and we
Speaker 1: have a new we have a new option now, like
Speaker 1: people can opt into a new currency that's not backed
Speaker 1: by violence or thugs or warships or the U. S.
Speaker 1: Military or by oil. Like we have a new current.
Speaker 1: And see that's that can be backed entirely by clean
Speaker 1: energy and he can be run by the people themselves.
Speaker 1: And I just think that's a beautiful vision for the future. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is, and it's going to reshape the world. You know,
Speaker 1: typically a country would be UM typically was by the
Speaker 1: natural resources where they had gold or oil, and now
Speaker 1: nations that had no natural resources but they have energy
Speaker 1: could have bitcoin. Um. This is the Mark Maas Show
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio Network with Alex Gladstein from
Speaker 1: the Human Rights Foundation. Check them out at h r
Speaker 1: F dot org. Follow Alex at Gladstein on Twitter, and
Speaker 1: of course I am one Mark Moss on Twitter. With that,
Speaker 1: I gotta wrap it up. Thanks for listening to The
Speaker 1: Mark mos Show.