Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Mark Moss Show,
Speaker 1: where we're talking about the intersection of politics, finance, and technology.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the decentralized revolution, the way that the
Speaker 1: world is changing as the pendulum swings from my centrally
Speaker 1: planned controlled world back to a world of more freedom,
Speaker 1: giving you more liberty and more options, of course, being
Speaker 1: spearheaded by bitcoin and the decentralized technology. And I like
Speaker 1: to cover a couple of things. We cover some information,
Speaker 1: some education so you can change the way that you
Speaker 1: see this, the way that you navigate this. I have
Speaker 1: to go through the latest breaking news and then I'd
Speaker 1: like to bring on some interesting people to talk to.
Speaker 1: And we're doing all of that. And right now we
Speaker 1: have some big news that's been happening all around the world,
Speaker 1: breaking stuff. I mean, it's been busy. I want to
Speaker 1: talk about that now. You know, with this inflation, with
Speaker 1: food and energy spice prices spiking, Um, we got a
Speaker 1: serious problem on our hands. I saw just today, Um,
Speaker 1: I think it was the largest grain warehouse in the
Speaker 1: UK Ukraine just got hit. Now that now Russia and
Speaker 1: Ukraine are already responsible for like of the global wheat
Speaker 1: supply and the largest storehouse just got hit and that
Speaker 1: got taken out, so that means even less supply. It's
Speaker 1: not good. And so we're going into a year where
Speaker 1: the un is expecting lots of people to die of hunger,
Speaker 1: which is just complete catastrophe in a world where we
Speaker 1: have so much technology and so much wealth and influence.
Speaker 1: It's it's crazy to think that that can still happen.
Speaker 1: But we have this from the AP News. World Bank
Speaker 1: says they have a dim outlook for the global economy, which, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course anyone could have told you. That says the
Speaker 1: World Bank is sharply downgraded its outlook for the global
Speaker 1: economy the prospect of widespread food shortages and concerns about
Speaker 1: the potential return of stagflation, a toxic mix of high
Speaker 1: inflation and sluggish growth unseen for more than four decades.
Speaker 1: So the World Bank sees this. I've been talking about it,
Speaker 1: Everyone's been talking about it. If you haven't seen it,
Speaker 1: I don't know where you've been watching. But you need
Speaker 1: to be paying attention to this stag place in the
Speaker 1: return of stagflation, something we haven't seen in four decades
Speaker 1: since the seventies. Again, it's a toxic a toxic mix
Speaker 1: of high inflation and no growth sluggish growth. So um,
Speaker 1: so far q Q one quarter one of two we
Speaker 1: posted negative growth, not just sluggist growth. Sluggist growth would
Speaker 1: be one or two percent. No, No, we saw negative
Speaker 1: one and a half percent. That's not good. And at
Speaker 1: time we're seeing record high inflation. So not only is
Speaker 1: it it's not sluggish growth, it's negative growth. So that's extreme.
Speaker 1: Na's really just high inflation. It's the highest it's been
Speaker 1: in forty years. It's extreme. So we have extremes of
Speaker 1: both ends, which is not good, which, of course the
Speaker 1: prospect of widespread food shortages. That's what it leads to. Now,
Speaker 1: Like I said in today's day and age, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is just ridiculous that anybody should have this problem.
Speaker 1: We know how to create electricity, we know how to
Speaker 1: get oil, we know how to grow food. But for
Speaker 1: some reason, the world leaders can't stop meddling. And uh.
Speaker 1: It says here for many countries recession will be hard
Speaker 1: to avoid, which is which is pretty difficult for the
Speaker 1: United States alone. It says the World Bank has slashed
Speaker 1: its growth forecast from two point five percent this year.
Speaker 1: Uh oh, I'm sorry, slashed it to two point five
Speaker 1: percent from five point seven percent last year in one,
Speaker 1: so sluggish growth would be going from five point seven
Speaker 1: to the two point five they project. But we didn't
Speaker 1: have two point five. We had negative one point four,
Speaker 1: negative one point four UM, so quite the opposite. So
Speaker 1: a good job on your forecast, your way off. That
Speaker 1: says that for the nineteen European countries that share their
Speaker 1: euro currency, it downgraded the growth outlook to two point
Speaker 1: five percent as well this year from five point four
Speaker 1: percent last year. So US was five point seven, the
Speaker 1: European unions five point four, and so they're downgrading both
Speaker 1: of them to two point five. In China, the world's
Speaker 1: second biggest economy after the United States, the World Bank
Speaker 1: expects growth to slow to four point three from eight
Speaker 1: point one last year. The government's can't cause things to grow.
Speaker 1: The World Bank can't get things to grow. The central
Speaker 1: banks can't get things to grow. Central planners can't get
Speaker 1: the economies to grow. The Economies that grow when things
Speaker 1: become more efficient, when more goods and services are created.
Speaker 1: I was reading an article yesterday and I was talking
Speaker 1: about UM. They were hoping that it would encourage more innovation.
Speaker 1: I was listening to some other economists talking, and they
Speaker 1: were talking about how um, if you had something like
Speaker 1: bitcoin that doesn't have inflation, so the monetary supply is
Speaker 1: not increasing, how um, then it would cause the purchasing
Speaker 1: power of that money, that money supply like bitcoin, to increase.
Speaker 1: So if my right now, if I hold dollars, they're
Speaker 1: losing value, and so I don't want to hold onto
Speaker 1: dollars very long. I want to spend it as fast
Speaker 1: as possible because they're losing value. They're gonna buy me
Speaker 1: less tomorrow than they do today, So that makes me
Speaker 1: want to spend them. If we have something like bitcoin
Speaker 1: that goes up in value, it buys me more in
Speaker 1: the future than I don't want to spend them. And
Speaker 1: they said, but isn't that a problem? Um, don't, don't
Speaker 1: the leaders, don't the central planners need to encourage people
Speaker 1: to spend. I thought, that's the most ridiculous thing in
Speaker 1: the world. People always want to spend. People always want
Speaker 1: to spend. People want to spend more than they make,
Speaker 1: people want to spend more than make. They want to
Speaker 1: live on credit cards. Right, we don't need to encourage
Speaker 1: anyone to spend. Why, Well, you need food. You need clothes,
Speaker 1: you need a car, you need a house, You want
Speaker 1: some entertainment. That and those shiny, flashy things, the new purses,
Speaker 1: the new electronics, the new phones, the new watches. You
Speaker 1: want to buy those things. We want new things. We
Speaker 1: like to play with things. You don't need any encouragement,
Speaker 1: And entrepreneurs also don't need any encouragement to run a
Speaker 1: business to make profit, that's the whole point. And how
Speaker 1: do we get profits by being very efficient, by us
Speaker 1: consuming less resources than we can produce, by working to
Speaker 1: gain efficiencies so I can make more profit. We don't
Speaker 1: need to encourage. What we need to do is take
Speaker 1: the boot off of their neck. And so back to
Speaker 1: this outlook for growth for the global economy, what we
Speaker 1: are seeing is more and more dragged being put on
Speaker 1: the economy by debt and by regulations. So for example,
Speaker 1: um the energy industry has not been growing well for
Speaker 1: the last decade and really the last four or five years.
Speaker 1: The leaders, the powers that be, the Davos Group, the
Speaker 1: EU Group, even in the United States, even Biden coming
Speaker 1: into the White House was talking about putting energy providers
Speaker 1: out of business, making them go bankrupt. So when you
Speaker 1: put regulations in place, and you tell them that your
Speaker 1: is to make them go bankrupt. And what happens. They
Speaker 1: don't invest into their business, they don't grow their business.
Speaker 1: And when that happens, guess what happens with GDP growth?
Speaker 1: It slows down, it goes negative. This is not rocket
Speaker 1: science here, right, This is isn't rocket science. Houses works. So, um,
Speaker 1: we think about inflation as far as price inflation, so
Speaker 1: the cost of goods and services going up, and per
Speaker 1: the Austrian lens of that, we would say that when
Speaker 1: we increase the money supply, then it increases the price
Speaker 1: of goods and services, which it does, but there's lots
Speaker 1: of other reasons why prices of goods and services can
Speaker 1: go up as well without increasing the money supply. So
Speaker 1: we have cost push. So when the price of things
Speaker 1: go up, it pushes prices up. It goes without saying
Speaker 1: so when the government imposes a bunch of new regulations
Speaker 1: like E S G for example, and now I have
Speaker 1: to hire a six person consulting team to come into
Speaker 1: my business and charge me hundreds of thousands of dollars
Speaker 1: to give me an E S G score, and then
Speaker 1: I have to go spend all this money to meet
Speaker 1: all these E s G requirements. What does that do?
Speaker 1: That increases my costs cost push, which then means I
Speaker 1: have to raise my prices, which is inflationary. So without
Speaker 1: increasing the money supply at all. Government regulations are inflationary.
Speaker 1: They caused price to go up, but they also cause
Speaker 1: growth to come down because that money that I could
Speaker 1: be spending to go into research and development to come
Speaker 1: up with new products, better prices, um past those savings
Speaker 1: onto consumers, come up with new products, more efficient ways
Speaker 1: to make those products. That is, having that money to
Speaker 1: spend that way, Now I have to give it to
Speaker 1: the government. I have to use it to go for
Speaker 1: these regulations that are basically worthless. And so the World
Speaker 1: Bank is projecting uh stagflation, declined growth in the face
Speaker 1: of rising prices, a deadly combination we haven't seen since
Speaker 1: the seventies, when we had fuel rations, when we had wars,
Speaker 1: when we had things like that. And that's about where
Speaker 1: we're headed. Back to um you listening to the Markets show,
Speaker 1: we're talking about the d centralized revolution, talking about the
Speaker 1: way that the world is changing from a centralized, centrally
Speaker 1: planned world to a decentralized world. Being led by bitcoin
Speaker 1: and decentralized technology, looking at through the lens of politics, finance,
Speaker 1: and technology. Hopefully that makes sense to you. UM, let
Speaker 1: me know what you think. Are you following me on Twitter?
Speaker 1: Hit me up at one Mark Moss at it's just
Speaker 1: the number one Mark Moss. I'm on their way too often.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear questions and comments on there. Let
Speaker 1: me know you hear me on this show. And I
Speaker 1: got more to come back to talking about some big,
Speaker 1: big topics human rights, elicit activity, um, some lawsuits against
Speaker 1: the Fed and more. Don't go away, all right, welcome back.
Speaker 1: You are listening to another episode of The Mark Moss
Speaker 1: Show talking about the decentralized revolution, navigating you as the
Speaker 1: world changes. The pendulum swings from centralization to decentralization led
Speaker 1: by bitcoin and the decentralized revolution technology. Now we're talking
Speaker 1: about the way the world is changing, forecasting things to
Speaker 1: slow down because of the onerous, burdensome regulations that are
Speaker 1: be imposed on and but don't worry. Bitcoin can fix that.
Speaker 1: Now we say bitcoin can fix that. Bitcoin can fix
Speaker 1: pretty much anything. Um, which is a way to say
Speaker 1: that if we can fix the money, we can fix
Speaker 1: the world. Um. I saw this article this week was
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. Now, if you've been listening to this show
Speaker 1: since I first started, the very first guests I had
Speaker 1: on this show was a friend Alex um Alex Gladstein,
Speaker 1: and I had him on the show because he is
Speaker 1: the head of the Human Rights Foundation. He's a human
Speaker 1: rights advocate, and I had him on the show because
Speaker 1: I said, look, I want to establish the show as
Speaker 1: something that's here to preserve human rights. I want to
Speaker 1: champion human flourishment. I want a champion freedom and liberty,
Speaker 1: those types of things. We're not here to get rich.
Speaker 1: Is not to get rich quick scheme or get rich
Speaker 1: quick show. It's about human rights. And so I saw
Speaker 1: this article this week, I thought it was great, and
Speaker 1: it's a human rights advocates tell Congress that bitcoin is
Speaker 1: essential in countries with collapsing currencies. Now collapsing currencies. Currencies
Speaker 1: have been collapsing from the beginning of time. If we
Speaker 1: look at the last hundred years, I believe out of
Speaker 1: the hundreds and hundred, I think maybe five hundred currencies
Speaker 1: in the last one hundred years. Out of all of those,
Speaker 1: only two are still around. Only two. That's the US
Speaker 1: dollar and the British pounds sterling. They're the only two. Now,
Speaker 1: the British pounds sterling has lost like eight percent of
Speaker 1: its value in the dollar has done much better, and
Speaker 1: it's only lost I think of its value. All the
Speaker 1: other currencies have died. And we're seeing it happen all
Speaker 1: the time. So we're seeing in you know, Venezuela twenty
Speaker 1: five hundred percent inflation, which is insane. We're seeing Argentina
Speaker 1: their currency has failed four times. They in just the
Speaker 1: last you know, a couple of decades. I think they
Speaker 1: haven't seen any of their thirty year bonds ever pay out. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we're seeing it in Lebanon, We're seeing in Turkey.
Speaker 1: We're seeing it all over the world. These currencies are lapsing.
Speaker 1: And so what they're saying is human rights advocates tell
Speaker 1: Congress that bitcoin is essential in these countries with collapsing currencies. Now,
Speaker 1: as I said, the US dollar in the British consterlier
Speaker 1: the only two that are left standing. But they're they're
Speaker 1: collapsing too. They've collapped. As a matter of fact, the
Speaker 1: US dollar collapsed against homes in the last two years.
Speaker 1: The US dollar collapsed against used cars in the last
Speaker 1: two years, the US dollar is collapsing. It's just not
Speaker 1: collapsing nearest bad As, Venezuela, Argentina, Lebanon, Turkey, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But it says here that a week after prominent technologists
Speaker 1: publicly slammed crypto for being too risky and unproven in
Speaker 1: a letter to Congress, now human rights advocates from around
Speaker 1: the world have sent a rebuttal to US lawmakers, defending
Speaker 1: digital assets for the access they provide to people in
Speaker 1: countries where quote, local currencies are collapsing, broken, or cut
Speaker 1: off from the outside world. All right now, um, Some
Speaker 1: twenty one human rights supporters from twenty different countries said
Speaker 1: in the letter that they've relied on bitcoin and stable coins,
Speaker 1: which allow the trading in and out of crypto without
Speaker 1: having to go through a bank, as quote, as have
Speaker 1: tens of millions of others living under authoritarian regimes or
Speaker 1: unstable economies. A couple of things unpack here. So, first
Speaker 1: of all, a week after prominent technologists publicly slammed crypto,
Speaker 1: so we um, I like to be very clear about this.
Speaker 1: We like to say bitcoin, not crypto. So um, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that in a minute. But if we look
Speaker 1: at bitcoins specifically, we can see that these human rights
Speaker 1: advocates to say that tens of millions are living under
Speaker 1: authority term regimes and unstable economies are using bitcoin. So
Speaker 1: what what are they slamming it for? Right? What are
Speaker 1: they slamming it for? Like? What what's so wrong with it?
Speaker 1: What's so wrong with you being able to decide what
Speaker 1: you want to store your wealth in and how you
Speaker 1: want to transact? What's so wrong with that? Um, we're
Speaker 1: gonna look at with us here, but it says uh.
Speaker 1: Bitcoin has seen increased utility in recent months as people
Speaker 1: from numerous different countries sent tens of millions of dollars
Speaker 1: to Ukraine via crypto payment raility. If I remember that
Speaker 1: all this support for Ukraine when when Russia invaded and
Speaker 1: they raised tens of millions of dollars through cryptocurrency donations,
Speaker 1: how else could you have got that money there? Right?
Speaker 1: With bitcoin? Instant nearly instant and free. You can just
Speaker 1: send it right there. You don't need a bank, you
Speaker 1: don't need Western Union, you don't have any of that,
Speaker 1: especially in a world worn country that's fallen apart. You
Speaker 1: don't have the ability to get on a bus and
Speaker 1: go to a bank and get the cash out. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Ukrainians that were fleeing the country were able to take
Speaker 1: their money with them in the form of cryptocurrency stored
Speaker 1: on a USB drive. A similar narrative played out in
Speaker 1: Afghanistan in August when the Tally band took over the
Speaker 1: country and all the banks were closed down. So, uh,
Speaker 1: these technologists that wrote Congress from their very privileged place
Speaker 1: sitting in the United States, who have never dealt with
Speaker 1: a crashing economy or I said, say currency although the
Speaker 1: dollars crashing um and have never had to run for
Speaker 1: their lives. I have no idea, and they don't even
Speaker 1: bother to think what other people could be going through. Now,
Speaker 1: I've traveled around the world and I've seen this firsthand.
Speaker 1: I haven't had to live it, thank God, but I
Speaker 1: have seen it firsthand. Now in this Ukraine situation, Ukrainians
Speaker 1: fleeing the country able to take their money with them
Speaker 1: in the form of cryptocurrency. Now, I know people who
Speaker 1: fled Russia, and when they fled Russia, they were only
Speaker 1: allowed I forget, but I think it was like a
Speaker 1: hundred dollars or two dollars per person. So like a
Speaker 1: family of four could bring like four hundred bucks or
Speaker 1: a hundred bucks. That was it all. The rest of
Speaker 1: their money had to stay in Russia. I had friends
Speaker 1: that have come from Afghanistan. I've had friends that came
Speaker 1: from South Africa, and when they came to America, they
Speaker 1: could not bring their money with them. They had to
Speaker 1: come broke. But with bitcoin, they're able to take all
Speaker 1: their money with them, all right, Um, And it says
Speaker 1: here and when in Afghanistan, when the Taliban took over
Speaker 1: the country and the banks were closed down, the banks
Speaker 1: were closed, how could people get your money? Now? From
Speaker 1: these technologists standpoint, they're technologists who know nothing about economics
Speaker 1: or human rights apparently or freedom. Um. They're saying that
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a waste, but it's it's not valuable
Speaker 1: to them, but it's very valuable to the tens of
Speaker 1: millions of people that have been displaced in Ukraine. It
Speaker 1: says bitcoin provides financial inclusion and empowerment because it's open
Speaker 1: and permissionless. We are not they said, We're not industry
Speaker 1: financiers or professional lobbyists. Were humanitarians and democracy advocates who
Speaker 1: use bitcoin to assist people at risk when other options
Speaker 1: have failed, when other options have failed. Um, so this
Speaker 1: is great. You know. One thing is these technologists, they say,
Speaker 1: is that it's too risky. It's too risky. Um, we
Speaker 1: we we need to we need to regulate it because
Speaker 1: it's too risky. Well, too risky compared to what Because
Speaker 1: if if I'm gonna Afghanistan, I'm guaranteed to lose all
Speaker 1: of my purchasing power in six months, is it more
Speaker 1: risky than that if I'm in Lebanon, or if I'm
Speaker 1: in Turn I'm gonna lose seventy of my purchasing powers,
Speaker 1: it more risky than that? I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: the cryptocurrencies are down sixty in US dollar terms right now.
Speaker 1: They are, but they're gonna lose sixty in their own
Speaker 1: currency anyway. So what's their alternative? What's their risk? It's
Speaker 1: very easy from your Ivory tower sitting in America going oh,
Speaker 1: as a technologist, Uh, you know, it's risky. But when
Speaker 1: you're facing certain death, when you're facing certain loss of
Speaker 1: all your wealth, you have to try something different. You
Speaker 1: can't get dollars. So what options do you have in
Speaker 1: in in Afghanistan after America pulled out, the Taliban overran
Speaker 1: the banks, took everyone's money. You couldn't send them money
Speaker 1: through Western Union. What options do they have? And bitcoin
Speaker 1: is solving these humanitarian problems and this is what it's
Speaker 1: going to change the landscape of the world, from these
Speaker 1: centrally controlled entities into this decentralized world. You're listening to
Speaker 1: the Markmall Show. We're talking about, of course Bitcoin, the
Speaker 1: decentralized reveel lution. We are talking about the way that
Speaker 1: the pendulum is swinging back and forth. We're discovering how
Speaker 1: it's solving human rights issues, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: just don't understand that, and they have some gripes which
Speaker 1: we're gonna come back and talk about in a minute,
Speaker 1: So do not go away. I'll be right back. All right,
Speaker 1: Welcome back. You are listening to the Mark ma Show.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the decentralized revolution. Is the world changes
Speaker 1: as the pendulum shifts from a world of centrally planned,
Speaker 1: centrally controlled systems and back to a place of more
Speaker 1: freedom and liberty in a decentralized world. Of course, talking
Speaker 1: about bitcoin, talking about politics, finance, technology and all of that.
Speaker 1: Now I was talking about before the break, how bitcoin
Speaker 1: is solving humanitarian crisis happening all over the world, and
Speaker 1: how a group of technologists got together and said that
Speaker 1: they shouldn't be using it because quote, it has problems,
Speaker 1: the technology isn't very good, and it's it's a culture
Speaker 1: of Slee's rug polls, n f T s in pond
Speaker 1: z s Okay. So they're throwing out every every every
Speaker 1: trick in the book, every excuse in the book why
Speaker 1: it's bad. It's it's not very good. So as a technologist,
Speaker 1: that's that's how they describe it, not very good. Um.
Speaker 1: Of course we hear other things. Right, bitcoin is gonna
Speaker 1: boil the ocean. Bitcoin uses more energy than a small country. Um,
Speaker 1: Bitcoin is going to destroy the climate. Right, Bitcoin at
Speaker 1: its at its current rate, will take all the energy
Speaker 1: of the entire world. You hear all kinds of things
Speaker 1: like this. Um. One of the things that we've heard
Speaker 1: from Christine Leguard from the I m F. She says
Speaker 1: that it will it's a threat to our financial stability supposedly,
Speaker 1: which I guess it is, because it is disrupting that industry.
Speaker 1: That's what that's what new technologies do. New technologies disrupt
Speaker 1: old technologies. It's something called creative destruction. When you create
Speaker 1: something new, it destroys the old way. Digital cameras destroyed
Speaker 1: the need for film cameras. Now that was really bad.
Speaker 1: If you were Kodak, you're around for over a hundred
Speaker 1: years and now you're out of business. It was really
Speaker 1: bad for Kodak, but it was really good for all
Speaker 1: of us. It was bad for photographers because when you
Speaker 1: had film, it really took skill. It really took a
Speaker 1: lot to be good photographer. Today you have digital cameras
Speaker 1: and they're way easier. So it was bad for some people,
Speaker 1: but it was net gain for other people. So that's
Speaker 1: what that's what new technologies do. And so the big
Speaker 1: point is disrupting the existing financial system. So to Christine
Speaker 1: Leguard from the I m F point, where I'm sorry
Speaker 1: she's previously i MF now she's with the ECB. But
Speaker 1: to her point, it is disrupting the financial system financial
Speaker 1: stability as it disrupts that. But that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be disrupting if it disrupting it. If it
Speaker 1: was worse, people wouldn't have gone to digital cameras instead
Speaker 1: of film cameras if they were worse. They went because
Speaker 1: they were better. Now, typically a new idea needs to
Speaker 1: be you know, not one percent to five percent, not
Speaker 1: even increase in tempts better. It needs to be like
Speaker 1: a hundred needs to be a thousand times better. And
Speaker 1: digital cameras, of course were, and bitcoins a thousand times better.
Speaker 1: Now they can talk about these things. They can talk
Speaker 1: about how it's gonna boil the oceans, usual the energy
Speaker 1: of the world. They can talk about One of their
Speaker 1: favorite things is they like to talk about it's used
Speaker 1: for illicit activities. It's only it's only used by by
Speaker 1: drug dealers and criminals. That's it. Okay, So a couple
Speaker 1: of things on that. So first of all, I would say, okay,
Speaker 1: well that kind of proves the use case a little bit.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of use cases to bitcoin. One of
Speaker 1: them is that their permission lists, so you don't need
Speaker 1: to fill out an application to use it. Anyone could
Speaker 1: use it as permission list. But the other thing is
Speaker 1: that it's censorship resistant. Nobody can seize my money and
Speaker 1: nobody can stop or block of transaction. Now that's great
Speaker 1: for criminals because they don't want their money sees and
Speaker 1: they don't want someone to stop her block of transaction.
Speaker 1: That's great for criminals. So by saying that, you're just
Speaker 1: kind of proving the use case. But there's other reasons
Speaker 1: why you want to do that maybe aren't criminal. So
Speaker 1: for example, if you live in Afghanistan when the United
Speaker 1: States just bailed on you, and now the Taliband is
Speaker 1: trying to seize your money, wouldn't you like to have
Speaker 1: money that couldn't be seized by the Taliband? And if
Speaker 1: I wanted to send somebody money from the United States
Speaker 1: to Afghanistan to help them out because they're starving to
Speaker 1: death and I wanted to send them money, wouldn't I
Speaker 1: want to be able to get the money that couldn't
Speaker 1: be seized. So one man is a criminal, another man
Speaker 1: is saving his life. It's a tool, right tools can
Speaker 1: be used for good and bad. Screw driver in the
Speaker 1: right hands, could you know, fix a car. In the
Speaker 1: wrong hands, they could do some serious harm to somebody.
Speaker 1: And so it's a tool. But how much of this
Speaker 1: tool is really being used to harm people? That's the
Speaker 1: question because they love to throw the stat out. Now
Speaker 1: there's a company called Chain Analysis, and what she Analysis
Speaker 1: does is they have the software you know, artificial intelligence,
Speaker 1: and they look at all the on Chaine data. So
Speaker 1: one of the things with bitcoin is an open source network,
Speaker 1: and so we can see all the on Chaine data.
Speaker 1: We can see when bitcoin moves from crypto, moves from
Speaker 1: one wallet to the next, and then through AI they
Speaker 1: kind of put all these wallets together and they can
Speaker 1: kind of monitor all this. It's not perfect, but but
Speaker 1: it works okay. And so they monitor this and they've
Speaker 1: been measuring bitcoins at legal activity and uh what they've
Speaker 1: said now they just put out this new report, which
Speaker 1: I have the report, and a lot of people are
Speaker 1: going to try to twist this around because the illegal
Speaker 1: activity with bitcoin has gone up. Sounds really bad, right.
Speaker 1: I could write that headline, Um, bitcoin's use of illicit
Speaker 1: activity goes higher, more people are using bitcoin for elicit
Speaker 1: activity than ever before. We could write the headlines that way,
Speaker 1: because that's somewhat true, factually true, but it's misleading a
Speaker 1: matter of fact. If I read this here, it says
Speaker 1: a legal activity in cybergrime are a shrinking part of
Speaker 1: the crypto economy. According to research from blockchain and analytics
Speaker 1: firm Chain Analysis, the percentage of a legal activity fell
Speaker 1: to just zero point one point five percent of the
Speaker 1: total transaction volume in two thousand one, even as the
Speaker 1: total value rose to a new high. So the amount
Speaker 1: of activity that was used for a list of activities
Speaker 1: actually did rise to a new high, but as a
Speaker 1: percentage of all activity, it actually dropped to a new load.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? So if if if there was
Speaker 1: only one use case of bitcoin, only only one transaction ever,
Speaker 1: and it was used for something to listed, then a
Speaker 1: hundred percent of the transactions, were you right? So it's
Speaker 1: a very small sample size. So what we're seeing is
Speaker 1: that more volumes being used, more transactions are being done. Um,
Speaker 1: so of course the percentage I'm sorry, the number of
Speaker 1: illegal transactions would also go up. However, as a as
Speaker 1: a whole, the percentage has actually gone down, And I
Speaker 1: think that's a big important part. And so now you
Speaker 1: know when they started trying to twist this around. You
Speaker 1: have to look through this because I could easily write
Speaker 1: this headline to tell you whatever story I want. But
Speaker 1: the fact is the amount of legal activity is an
Speaker 1: increasingly smaller part of the crypto economy. Although the popularity
Speaker 1: of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies increased sharply in the proportion
Speaker 1: of transactions to address related to legal activity increased significantly.
Speaker 1: All right, so it's going down. Now that's uh, that's bitcoin.
Speaker 1: They want to tell you that it's only used to
Speaker 1: do wrong, that it's only used by criminals, um, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Now do fiet. What about the banking system? Right, so
Speaker 1: the banking system is heavily regulated. Obviously they can control that.
Speaker 1: And the banking system. They have something called a m
Speaker 1: L it's anti money laundering. They have something called k
Speaker 1: y C no your customer, and so banks have to
Speaker 1: adhere to these a m L Anti money laundering UM regulations.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things they do so, like if
Speaker 1: you go to the bank and try to withdraw you know,
Speaker 1: more than ten thousand dollars, you have to fill out
Speaker 1: forms that's a star's reports, Suspicious Activity Report. There's lots
Speaker 1: of things they have to do. Well, if we look
Speaker 1: at that, we can see that financial institutions that lack
Speaker 1: compliance and due diligence, who were already find a staggering
Speaker 1: two point seven billion dollars in two thousand twenty one
Speaker 1: according to an a mL fins one report. Who were
Speaker 1: some of these big people that paid out big fines
Speaker 1: will Capital One. Capital One paid out almost four hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars in fines because the U. S. Department of Treasuries,
Speaker 1: FINS and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network carried out actions against
Speaker 1: them for violating the Bank Secrecy Act. Check Cashier's failed
Speaker 1: to report suspicious activity despite knowing of criminal charges against
Speaker 1: specific customers, including organized crime syndicate. So they paid out
Speaker 1: almost four hundred million dollars in fines for helping what
Speaker 1: they already knew as an organized crime syndicate. But it's
Speaker 1: all bitcoin that's bad, right or deut Deutsche Bank hundred
Speaker 1: thirty million the Internet turned into a three year deferred
Speaker 1: prosecution agreement with US Attorney's Office find A hundred thirty
Speaker 1: millions for violations UM involved in commodities fraud scheme. The
Speaker 1: scheme to conceal bribes and manipulate commodities trading involving publicly
Speaker 1: traded precious metals included senior executives who knowingly and willingly
Speaker 1: conspired in falsifying payments to the balance books. So the
Speaker 1: banking system is complicit. They know what they're doing. Bitcoin
Speaker 1: is just a protocol. Nobody knows it's a tool, right.
Speaker 1: These are banks that are actively helping people. It's insane.
Speaker 1: You listen to the Mark Moa show. We're talking about
Speaker 1: the Decentralized Revolution, talking about how bitcoin is changing the
Speaker 1: world and how they're throwing a lot of food at
Speaker 1: it like it's used for list activities, but it's really
Speaker 1: the banks. I'll be back with that and more in
Speaker 1: a minute, So do not go away, all right, welcome back.
Speaker 1: You are listening to the Mark mo Show talking about
Speaker 1: the Decentralized Revolution. Of course we're talking about bitcoin, and
Speaker 1: we're looking at politics, finance, and technologies to see as
Speaker 1: the world is changing right before our very eyes. And
Speaker 1: of course this is a it's a transition, and it's
Speaker 1: not a smooth transition. As we go from the essentially
Speaker 1: planned economies to more free, fair, liberty focused, freedom loving,
Speaker 1: decentralized world. The old system doesn't want to give up power,
Speaker 1: and of course it's fighting a new system, and so
Speaker 1: we see this all over the place. We are talking
Speaker 1: about how they're trying to say that bitcoin is used
Speaker 1: for illicit transactions, but really it's the banking system that's
Speaker 1: used for ellicit transactions, knowingly and willingly um enabling organized
Speaker 1: crime and fraud and these banks have paid out big finds.
Speaker 1: A matter of fact, Bank of America has paid out
Speaker 1: seven since the great financial crash. Bank of America has
Speaker 1: paid out seventy six billion, the b seventy six billion
Speaker 1: dollars in fines, seventy six billion, JP Morgan's forty three
Speaker 1: billion dollars in fines. I mean, that's just in sane now.
Speaker 1: Actually this is an old article, so it's probably paid
Speaker 1: out even way more since then. But it goes even
Speaker 1: deeper than this. There's an article that just broke this week.
Speaker 1: Bitcoin Bank Custody Custodia sued the Federal Reserve, the central
Speaker 1: banking the United States. They sue the Follower Reserve demanding
Speaker 1: decision on a master account. So all the banks of
Speaker 1: the world have to have a charter with the Federal Reserve.
Speaker 1: So I was at a conference UM in the beginning
Speaker 1: this year in January, and I was on a panel
Speaker 1: with UM. One of the leading professor, Richard Werner, one
Speaker 1: of the leading voices, talking about central banks, and he
Speaker 1: was saying how there's a big problem of all the
Speaker 1: centralization of banks, and what we need is we need
Speaker 1: to keep the banks decentralized, which of course I agree
Speaker 1: with And I said great, you know, um, so how
Speaker 1: do we achieve that? I asked him that question and
Speaker 1: they said, well, easy, just more people need to go
Speaker 1: open up banks. If only it was that easy. And
Speaker 1: this is a story to tell you that it's not
Speaker 1: that easy, be because you have to get permission from
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve to open a bank. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: what's happening. So we see Bitcoin Bank Custodia today sued
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Federal Reserve
Speaker 1: Bank of Kansas City, charging they have unlawfully broken the law.
Speaker 1: They're saying they broke the law unlawfully delayed for nineteen
Speaker 1: months acting on its application for a master account with
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve. So the bank, let's follow all the paperwork.
Speaker 1: They've done everything proper and they're supposed to get a
Speaker 1: response from the Foedo Reserve about their application for this
Speaker 1: master account to have a bank. Now they're charging they've
Speaker 1: been unlawfully delayed for nineteen months. The Bank Custodia is
Speaker 1: charted in Wyoming under a crypto friendly statute passed in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen allowing for quote special purpose depository institutions, and
Speaker 1: they say, the master account would reduce its costs and
Speaker 1: it's vital to its core mission of providing a bridge
Speaker 1: between digital assets in the US dollar. Now, according to
Speaker 1: the suit, the Federal Reserve has a legal obligation to
Speaker 1: act within a year and states on its own paperwork
Speaker 1: that ordinarily takes just five to seven days to act
Speaker 1: on a master account application. So there it says in
Speaker 1: their own words, it typically takes a couple of days,
Speaker 1: but legally they have an obligation to act within a year.
Speaker 1: But they've been sitting on this for over nineteen months.
Speaker 1: It's a big problem. So, uh, this old system does
Speaker 1: not want to go willingly, and they're going to continue
Speaker 1: to throw up roadblocks every chance they get. But of
Speaker 1: course Custodia is not going to sit back and take this,
Speaker 1: so they filed the lawsuit. They led to the Kansas
Speaker 1: citys FED. Processing of its application was moving along until
Speaker 1: the spring of when the main Federal Reserve got involved.
Speaker 1: So Kansas City feder was actually processing that things were
Speaker 1: going along good, but then the main Federal Reserve got
Speaker 1: involved and then something happened. What was that, Well, the
Speaker 1: seat The suit seeks to force the Federal Reserve and
Speaker 1: the Kansas City Branch to act on its applic cation
Speaker 1: and ultimately to approve it. Should Custodia win, which I'm
Speaker 1: rooting for them. I think you are too right. We're
Speaker 1: all rooting for them against the small guy, against the
Speaker 1: big guy, the United States. We love the we love
Speaker 1: the underdog, we love the David and Glass story here,
Speaker 1: and ultimately we want to stick it to the central banks. Uh.
Speaker 1: Should Custodia win a suit or otherwise we granted a
Speaker 1: master account, it would be the first bitcoin bank to
Speaker 1: gain one. Custodia Bank was founded by Morgan Stanley, veteran Caton,
Speaker 1: and Caitlin long In under the name Avante Financial Group.
Speaker 1: Um and uh, she is a beast. She came onto
Speaker 1: the bitcoin scene. She's you know, been in the financial
Speaker 1: space for a really long time. Really started talking about
Speaker 1: something that really brought a front and center, at least
Speaker 1: to me and a lot of other people, which was
Speaker 1: something called re hypothecation. Is something that these financial institutions do.
Speaker 1: And so what is rehypothecation? So what does that mean
Speaker 1: is that let me, let me, let me make it simple.
Speaker 1: If I had, if I had, if I had a
Speaker 1: candy bar, and I gave it to this person. Now
Speaker 1: he would give me an IOU that he owed me
Speaker 1: that andy bar. So he's got one candy bar. I
Speaker 1: have an isoue that I'm owed a candy bar. But
Speaker 1: let's say that now he gives that candy bar to
Speaker 1: person number two and gets an ioue. So now there's
Speaker 1: still one candy bar. But now one person has a
Speaker 1: candy bar, and then there's an iou for person one,
Speaker 1: and I have an isue. So now there's basically three
Speaker 1: candy bars, but really only one candy bar. And then
Speaker 1: person number two gives it the person number three and
Speaker 1: then gives the person number four, Person number five, person
Speaker 1: number six. So now person number six has the candy bar,
Speaker 1: and five four three to one and myself only have
Speaker 1: an IOU. That means there's seven candy bars in the system,
Speaker 1: but there's only one physical candy bar. Now what's the
Speaker 1: problem with that. Well, all of us think we're wealthy,
Speaker 1: all of us think we have a candy bar. The
Speaker 1: reality is there's only one candy bar. Now what happens
Speaker 1: if person number six eats that candy bar, Well, now
Speaker 1: seven candy bars disappear. Seven candy bars are gone. Because
Speaker 1: one person ate a candy bar. That's rehypothecation. That's a
Speaker 1: big problem. It sounds like a problem, doesn't it. That's
Speaker 1: what they do with your financial assets. And so you
Speaker 1: put your money in the bank and then they give
Speaker 1: it to someone else, or your stock in your account.
Speaker 1: You don't own that stock. What you have is an
Speaker 1: IOU and then that's a rehypothecated to the next person,
Speaker 1: to the next person, the next person, the next person.
Speaker 1: So these assets grow exponentially through this debt process. The
Speaker 1: problem is the system gets over levered, so we don't
Speaker 1: really know exactly. It's it's a rumored to have about
Speaker 1: somewhere between three too maybe up to five hundred paper
Speaker 1: ounces of gold claims on announce of gold for everyone
Speaker 1: real physical ounce. So a lot of people, maybe five
Speaker 1: people or four d nine think they own ann ounce
Speaker 1: of gold, but they don't because it's really only one.
Speaker 1: That's a big process. That's re hypothication. She she kind
Speaker 1: of had really brought that front center to me, and
Speaker 1: it's a big problem in the system. Because stoo page
Speaker 1: suit lists eight claims for relief, so there's eight different
Speaker 1: way is that they would like to have relief here
Speaker 1: um or ways the FED could potentially resolve the case.
Speaker 1: The first claim raises they broader issue regarding the function
Speaker 1: of the individual federals or banks and whether they are
Speaker 1: subject to rules for federal agencies. So, um, what I
Speaker 1: love about this is it's taking it to the entire
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve banking system and changing the way it works.
Speaker 1: Everybody's watching to see what's going to happen. Of course,
Speaker 1: the Kansas City branch of the Fedower Reserve declined to comment.
Speaker 1: They don't even want to know anything about it, um,
Speaker 1: and they just don't really want to get involved. But
Speaker 1: kudos to Caitlin for taking this to taking this fight
Speaker 1: to them. I wouldn't want to be on the other
Speaker 1: side of it. And now this is coming from Wyoming,
Speaker 1: which is interesting because at the same time we saw
Speaker 1: Senator Cynthia loomas Um from Wyoming submitted bill just this
Speaker 1: week into the Senate for more clarity on bitcoin and cryptocurrency,
Speaker 1: which was pretty cool. So she introduced this bill um
Speaker 1: that basically would put some things into law that would
Speaker 1: prohibit the government from from encroaching on this. One of
Speaker 1: them would be to repeal some of the taxes that
Speaker 1: are levied against it. So she had a bill that
Speaker 1: would take away capital gains tax up to two hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: and that really help us get to a point where
Speaker 1: we could spend bitcoin more as a medium of exchange
Speaker 1: without having to pay tax and everything. So if you
Speaker 1: want to use it to get a cup of coffee,
Speaker 1: I think I talked about last week. You can go
Speaker 1: to Chipotle now and you could spend your bitcoin, but
Speaker 1: you don't want to do that because that's a taxable event.
Speaker 1: But if they could get reduced below two d threshold,
Speaker 1: you can go to Chippotle, you can buy your coffee,
Speaker 1: you can buy a burger, things like that. Um, And
Speaker 1: so we'll see. Wyoming is kind of at the forefront
Speaker 1: of this freedom movement, freedom to transact. Without the freedom
Speaker 1: to transact, there is no freedom at all. And so
Speaker 1: they're pioneering this ability to transact with whatever currency want
Speaker 1: and to store our wealth in whatever they want at
Speaker 1: the same time. So let's go Caitlin, and let's go
Speaker 1: Cynthia Loomis and Wyoming. With that, you listen to the
Speaker 1: Mark Ball Show, we're talking about the decentralized revolution, talking
Speaker 1: about the way the world UH is seeing the pendulum
Speaker 1: shift from centralization to decentralization. Of course, we're talking about
Speaker 1: bitcoin and we're looking at through the lens of politics, finance,
Speaker 1: and technology. Hopefully you got some value out of these
Speaker 1: breaking news stories. That's what I got for you today.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.