Speaker 1: So the big question is this, how do investors like
Speaker 1: us get access to the ideas, information, and most importantly,
Speaker 1: the right people that give us the tools and information
Speaker 1: we need to make informed and educated decisions to have success.
Speaker 1: That is the question, and this podcast will give us
Speaker 1: the answers. This is Mark Moss, your host. Let's get
Speaker 1: this started. Bitcoin is many things too many people. One
Speaker 1: reason why it's so hard to understand is because there's
Speaker 1: so many different things that you have to understand to
Speaker 1: really get it. There's a lot of things that excite
Speaker 1: me and other people about bitcoin, including making money, of course,
Speaker 1: which attracts the most people, the ability to have a
Speaker 1: new money outside of the fed UM, the ability to
Speaker 1: take away trust from major institutions, and so many other things.
Speaker 1: But one of the unintended consequences of bitcoin that I
Speaker 1: really am excited about is it's got people to start
Speaker 1: paying attention. It's got people to pay attention and learn.
Speaker 1: It's got people interested in things economics, Austrian economics, freedom,
Speaker 1: human violations and things like that. And it's it's it's
Speaker 1: opened up people's minds. It's it's increased their enthusiasm to learn,
Speaker 1: their curiosity um and you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: that I've really put a lot of attention into over
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, as I've gone further and
Speaker 1: further into the bitcoin rabbit hole, is um the oppression
Speaker 1: that that's happening around the world, the human rights violations.
Speaker 1: We're seeing it pop up more than ever right now.
Speaker 1: You know, there's half a dozen countries with one to
Speaker 1: two million people marching and protesting, and it's only getting worse.
Speaker 1: And today I am sitting down with Alex Gladstein, he's
Speaker 1: the chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation, and
Speaker 1: we get into talking um a little bit of the
Speaker 1: talk that he gave about how bitcoin is going against
Speaker 1: helping us fight back against Big Brother and the financial
Speaker 1: rights and how they're human rights and so a really
Speaker 1: interesting conversation. We dive into into those topics um different
Speaker 1: countries around the world, what they're facing. We talk about
Speaker 1: something he likes to call privacy capitalism, which is a
Speaker 1: really interesting topic and UH, anyway, it was a great conversation.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about bitcoin, uh, financial privacy, privacy,
Speaker 1: financial sovereignty, and how we can fight back against Big Brother,
Speaker 1: then UH definitely recommend you listen to let's jump right in. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to another episode of the Market Disruptors podcast. Today,
Speaker 1: I'm joined by Alex Gladstein. He is the chief Strategy
Speaker 1: Officer at the Human Rights Foundation as well as faculty
Speaker 1: at the Singularity University. He's been doing a lot of
Speaker 1: work in human rights and specifically technology, bitcoin, et cetera
Speaker 1: that can free us, and so I've been looking forward
Speaker 1: to this conversation. Alex, Welcome to the show. Hey, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me on. Yeah, so, uh, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: we've had a couple of conversations. I've seen some of
Speaker 1: your videos that you're doing. I love the work that
Speaker 1: you're doing in the in the space that you're doing,
Speaker 1: and I think it's super important for the revolution that
Speaker 1: we're kind of seeing. But for those that don't know
Speaker 1: what you've been doing, want you give us a little
Speaker 1: background on yourself and what you're doing. Sure, So, since
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, I've been working for a nonprofit called
Speaker 1: the Human Rights Foundation, which focuses on promoting civil liberties
Speaker 1: and human rights for people who live under authoritarian regimes. So,
Speaker 1: by our account, that's about uh ninety three countries, four
Speaker 1: billion people who live under a government that's either a
Speaker 1: one party state or a kingdom or a dictatorship of
Speaker 1: some kind where there's no real separation of powers, or
Speaker 1: free and fair elections, or free expression or ability to
Speaker 1: really hold your government accountable or even write an opted
Speaker 1: in a newspaper. These are places where independent media is
Speaker 1: either persecuted or non existent. UM. This ranges from the
Speaker 1: the extremely oppressive like North Korea or Eritrea, all the
Speaker 1: way through countries like China, Vietnam, Venezuela, Russia, Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it really runs the gamut. So we specialize in helping
Speaker 1: people who live under these very difficult political environments. And
Speaker 1: technology has always been a huge part of this. Whether
Speaker 1: it's by when I first started sending in DVDs to
Speaker 1: the Cuban Underground Library movement so that Cubans could access
Speaker 1: stories and narratives that were forbidden, to our work with
Speaker 1: North Korea, where we've smuggled in tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: flash drives and USB sticks and SD cards packed with
Speaker 1: movies and films about the outside world. UM to work
Speaker 1: with people who are doing everything from uh mesh networks
Speaker 1: to encrypted communications to you know, using satellites, even to
Speaker 1: expose human rights violations. So technology has always been an
Speaker 1: interesting tool for good. But then of course we're also
Speaker 1: seeing how uh you know, governments like China are using
Speaker 1: technology to perfect social engineering, and other governments are using
Speaker 1: technology to shut off the Internet and keep their people isolated.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a two sides of the narrative.
Speaker 1: But I very much believe in technologies that are empowering
Speaker 1: and decentralizing as as pretty essential to the to the
Speaker 1: future of human rights. Now, when you talk about human rights,
Speaker 1: uh as a whole, categorically, I guess, first of all,
Speaker 1: you talk about ninety three countries, four billion people. I
Speaker 1: guess even the freest country, America, the Land of the Free,
Speaker 1: is still maybe you know, not totally free. So I
Speaker 1: guess it's like a sliding scale, right, there's no black
Speaker 1: and white. There's like Norway. It's like Norway to North Korea. Right,
Speaker 1: so you've got Norway where like it's pretty much the
Speaker 1: most open and arguably free country by most metrics, um,
Speaker 1: all the way down to North Korea, which is the
Speaker 1: least open and free. So that, yeah, there's no black
Speaker 1: and white, but but there is actually um something called
Speaker 1: a town square test that the Soviet discident and the
Speaker 1: Tom Sharansky invented where you know, think about it. Can
Speaker 1: you go to the center of your town or or
Speaker 1: city or village or wherever you live and and and
Speaker 1: criticize the government openly? And you know, for about ninety
Speaker 1: three countries you can't do that, Like, you can't do
Speaker 1: that without risk of getting fired or um, you know,
Speaker 1: without risk of getting kidnapped, killed, etcetera. Here in America,
Speaker 1: while I agree that we have many problems, like people
Speaker 1: make a living off making fun of the president, they
Speaker 1: make actually quite a healthy living doing so on many
Speaker 1: different networks. So you know, we have a really vibrant
Speaker 1: tradition of free expression here which is really really important.
Speaker 1: And this this is the same in many other countries
Speaker 1: around the world, um to different extents, but generally speaking,
Speaker 1: you do need to apply some sort of political science
Speaker 1: rigor to this and actually differentiate. I mean, the sort
Speaker 1: of people on the internet who compare America to North
Speaker 1: Korea are are wrong, I believe, um. And there is
Speaker 1: a real difference in terms of how the American government
Speaker 1: is essentially built by the people in many ways, where
Speaker 1: we can hold our government accountable and the people who
Speaker 1: make all the decisions rotate through based on voting um.
Speaker 1: And we have free expression, and we have like close
Speaker 1: to a hundred thousand nonprofits, and we have the A
Speaker 1: C l U and the e f F, and we
Speaker 1: can sue our government, and you know, there's like a
Speaker 1: lot of investigating journalism. This is like super super different
Speaker 1: from like Belarus or Gabon, where like they don't have
Speaker 1: any of that. So again, I think it's really important
Speaker 1: to draw that distinction. Yeah, definitely, Yeah, definitely. I guess
Speaker 1: I was just saying it's it's it's like the sliding scale.
Speaker 1: There's no black and white defining like line that that
Speaker 1: separates well you know that you know there is, but
Speaker 1: there isn't but there is maybe. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: look at the Korean Peninsula, there's a very clear demarcation.
Speaker 1: It's very clear line that you can look at from
Speaker 1: at nighttime satellite image which shows literally the difference between
Speaker 1: freedom and dictatorship. On one side, you have a free
Speaker 1: country that has a democracy and incredible economic innovation where
Speaker 1: they make all the stuff in your pockets and on
Speaker 1: the roads, etcetera. And on the other side you just
Speaker 1: have darkness. So I mean, there are some more of
Speaker 1: these lines around the world. I mean, you could argue
Speaker 1: Belarus and Estonia, right and and and there are a
Speaker 1: few others, but you know, arguably, um, it can be,
Speaker 1: it can be. It can be pretty stark. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: seen the satellite images of that act what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: and it is it is pretty pretty amazing to see it.
Speaker 1: It amazes me when you look back through time and
Speaker 1: you look at you know, from the time we were
Speaker 1: kind of owned as by kings or whatnot, you know,
Speaker 1: in dictatorships and not in all the way today. How
Speaker 1: with the age of information that we have, it just
Speaker 1: seems strange that even today you could be owned by
Speaker 1: a country, right like you you don't have the freedom
Speaker 1: to do what you want or move move as you want. Um.
Speaker 1: And uh, a lot of that, I guess a lot
Speaker 1: of that then is the countries want that they just
Speaker 1: want to control and that's why they're trying to utilize
Speaker 1: this technology. Yeah, I mean, look, it's evolutionary path. Governments
Speaker 1: have always wanted to have more control over their people,
Speaker 1: whether in the name of national security, stability, prosperity, you
Speaker 1: name it. Um, it's always been a game of uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, we need, we need to have
Speaker 1: more power and control to protect you write with dating
Speaker 1: back all the way um to to early societies, right,
Speaker 1: so today it's just it's done with a different kind
Speaker 1: of clothing. Let's put it that way. Um. But even
Speaker 1: as you're saying, even in advanced democracies, we have serious
Speaker 1: concerns over you know, you know, is encryption going to
Speaker 1: be legal? You know, can we have private communications? Um?
Speaker 1: And you've got even governments is advanced democratically is England
Speaker 1: in Australia trying to outlaw encryption. So this is a
Speaker 1: struggle that's UM. Struggle for freedom is something that that's
Speaker 1: that's present everywhere. UM. But you know, over hundreds and
Speaker 1: thousands of years, like there has been a pretty amazing
Speaker 1: progress made whereby um, compared to a thousand years ago
Speaker 1: when everybody lives under dictatorship, you know, today you can
Speaker 1: you can clearly say like approximately half the world approximately
Speaker 1: you know, you know, three and a half or so
Speaker 1: billion people live under a government that they can sort
Speaker 1: of collectively control, right And that's that's a big difference. UM.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of inspiring. So that kind of keeps
Speaker 1: us moving forward. So these big decentralizing progressive trends like um,
Speaker 1: like like democracy versus dictatorship, or like the open Internet
Speaker 1: versus uh, you know what we used to have, which
Speaker 1: was like state and elite control of information. These are
Speaker 1: like really really positive trends and and they're pretty undeniable.
Speaker 1: And that third one that we want to talk about
Speaker 1: is his money, right, So it is bitcoin. So you know,
Speaker 1: bitcoin is like the culmination of many different kinds of
Speaker 1: technologies and methods and mechanisms, but essentially it's given us
Speaker 1: a way to separate money from state and really decentralized
Speaker 1: the means of production of money and access to money
Speaker 1: in a way where anyone can have permission in permissionless
Speaker 1: access to this sort of really intriguing asset. So I
Speaker 1: would like to think of like the political science backdrop
Speaker 1: that we just kind of covered, and like how mankind
Speaker 1: has made progress in areas of like decentralized political power
Speaker 1: or what we would call probably democracy, and also in
Speaker 1: other areas where we've made progress in terms of like
Speaker 1: you know, having the average person have access to almost
Speaker 1: all the information in the world's pretty amazing in the
Speaker 1: form of a smartphone. Um. And then and then we're
Speaker 1: just on the cusp of this third one, which is
Speaker 1: like having everyone having access essentially um to bitcoin, which
Speaker 1: is something we've never seen before. Yeah. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: what I wanted to jump in and talk about. A
Speaker 1: recent talk that you gave which I watched, was Bitcoin
Speaker 1: versus Big Brother, and um, you know, we're looking at
Speaker 1: bitcoin as a technology and how they say, how it
Speaker 1: fixes this? Right? It fixes everything? And I had mentioned
Speaker 1: before we started recording, UM, how I see this race
Speaker 1: of technology where technology working to enslave us versus technology
Speaker 1: that could potentially free us. Um, you kind of talked
Speaker 1: about privacy capitalism and whatnot, and where does bitcoin fit
Speaker 1: into that technology to free us versus the technology to
Speaker 1: slave us? Yeah? Yeah, I was. I was pointing out
Speaker 1: a interesting idea to play with, which is, of course,
Speaker 1: we've heard of big brother, which is like, you know,
Speaker 1: technologically enabled government that can have omission surveillance, right, and
Speaker 1: then we've heard of surveillance capitalism, which is this uh
Speaker 1: swiftly growing industry of companies that want to know as
Speaker 1: much about you as possible so that they can make
Speaker 1: more money. So why not privacy capitalism? Right? So you
Speaker 1: know what could we see? Have we already seen the
Speaker 1: beginning of and will we see more of this idea
Speaker 1: of like companies who's who's like product or service is
Speaker 1: to help people protect themselves. So you've already seen a
Speaker 1: lot of this with regard to like encrypted messaging, Like
Speaker 1: the folks who created a signal obviously did well, you know,
Speaker 1: selling selling their tech two you know, different companies. Um,
Speaker 1: you've already seen this of course with like you know
Speaker 1: obviously bitcoin and bitcoin related technologies and companies regard people
Speaker 1: who want control and privacy over over their financial transactions,
Speaker 1: you have like a v VPN companies maybe for example, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, tunnel Bear was sold for four million
Speaker 1: dollars to McAfee. So I mean I just think, like
Speaker 1: if we just fast forward ten twenty years, like, especially
Speaker 1: more wealthy people, I think they're gonna want privacy like right,
Speaker 1: So historically that's why Swiss banks were so appealing. I mean,
Speaker 1: for you know, we could argue about the moral reasons,
Speaker 1: but like clearly, like there was a business model to
Speaker 1: give financial privacy to wealthy people, like Swiss banks made
Speaker 1: a lot of money, right, So you know, now we're
Speaker 1: we're seeing maybe like the ability for perhaps like a
Speaker 1: lot more people than just the ultra high net worth
Speaker 1: and dictators or whatever to be able to protect and
Speaker 1: their communications and privacy. Like we're basically getting like love
Speaker 1: this open source, powerful defensive technology that's spreading around the world.
Speaker 1: Like we're kind of being able to democratize the ability
Speaker 1: for people to keep keep things to themselves, which when
Speaker 1: which I think is really really important in the age
Speaker 1: of big brother and surveillance capitalism. So maybe we're we're
Speaker 1: at the beginning of something where we're going to see
Speaker 1: really healthy, profitable industries pop up where we're by products
Speaker 1: and services are are are actually defending people's privacy and
Speaker 1: civil liberties. That would be really neat because I hope.
Speaker 1: I don't think the change is going to come altruistically unfortunately,
Speaker 1: Like I think people are gonna want to, you know,
Speaker 1: make money, but maybe maybe maybe they can make money
Speaker 1: and help make the word world more private at the
Speaker 1: same time. Yeah, I hope So, I you know, I
Speaker 1: as you said, right like right now, it's a surveillance
Speaker 1: tech and that's something that you know, I've seen people
Speaker 1: talk out about. Kyle Bass is a well known investor,
Speaker 1: and he's been talking about how the US and Wall Street.
Speaker 1: Corporate greed is like helping fuel China for the surveillance state,
Speaker 1: um and, so like the fact that they're putting their
Speaker 1: money in and bowing down to China only empowers them more,
Speaker 1: um and And it's motivated by greed. So hopefully, I
Speaker 1: guess greed could swing to the other side, right, that's
Speaker 1: what you're saying. But those guys know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: I mean, they know exactly what they're doing. And I'm
Speaker 1: willing to bet that they don't want to see what
Speaker 1: they're building in China, uh, you know, in their own
Speaker 1: homes and in their own communities. Right. So at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, all these investors and you know,
Speaker 1: corporate titans who are helping build you know, the next
Speaker 1: version of the Great Firewall, they don't want that at home.
Speaker 1: So I think they're quite aware and cognizant of what
Speaker 1: they're doing, and and that's unfortunate, shame on them. But
Speaker 1: there's going to be a thirst and a desire for
Speaker 1: protection mechanisms against the very things that they build. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't even see this in the like when you
Speaker 1: listen to interviews or talked to you know, the famous
Speaker 1: creators of things like you know, the iPhone or Facebook
Speaker 1: or whatever. Oftentimes these people don't even want their kids
Speaker 1: using technology, right. So, I think there's a very powerful
Speaker 1: mechanism here where I think a lot of these people
Speaker 1: know more than they let on, and they know exactly
Speaker 1: what's happening in China. They know what's happening even in
Speaker 1: parts of the free world, and they don't want that
Speaker 1: to happen, like on a personal level, right with their family.
Speaker 1: Right So, I think there is going to be this
Speaker 1: desire to protect us against the oncoming on slat of surveillance,
Speaker 1: both from companies and governments, and I think that market
Speaker 1: will only grow. I mean, look, we've got what is it,
Speaker 1: eighty million daily active users of Signal. I mean, could
Speaker 1: it be five million and five years maybe? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I I like, for example, none of my friends using
Speaker 1: cryptic messaging five years ago. And every day I see
Speaker 1: more people up. This person joined Signal, this person and Signal.
Speaker 1: You know you get that little message. Yeah, I've been
Speaker 1: getting a lot of them. And Signals just one of
Speaker 1: of many many messengers that that purport to have encryption.
Speaker 1: But um, I think it's coming, man, I think it's coming.
Speaker 1: That's if the government allow it, right as you as
Speaker 1: you mentioned right like with Australia with their encryption laws,
Speaker 1: so you obviously China won't allow it. Now Australia won't
Speaker 1: allow it, and maybe it goes to the next you
Speaker 1: can you know, it's like the drug. It's like it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, marijuana, Like what are they going to do
Speaker 1: outlaw encryption? Uh, you know, guess what. People are still
Speaker 1: going to use it, like you know, but you know,
Speaker 1: like outlawing marijuana was like one of the dumbest policy
Speaker 1: decisions of the century in America and it led to
Speaker 1: just disastrous prison system, huge violations of human rights, etcetera.
Speaker 1: I don't know that, and it was not effective, Like
Speaker 1: it made marijuana more popular arguably and more expensive. So
Speaker 1: I don't know if banning things like encryption or bitcoin
Speaker 1: are going to lead to like favorable outcomes for governments. Um,
Speaker 1: it made the more expensive and more desirable. And because
Speaker 1: they are open source and decentralized and there's no single
Speaker 1: point of failure for this stuff, like you can't kill it.
Speaker 1: It's like basically an idea. So governments have to be
Speaker 1: very careful the way that they like approach these things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and with with marijuana, I mean it's a physical thing
Speaker 1: that has to be grown in the space and exactly,
Speaker 1: and that was impossible to eradicate. I mean, now we
Speaker 1: have stuff where you can you can memorize the private
Speaker 1: key to your messages or your bitcoin in your head
Speaker 1: and like around and not have it written down anywhere
Speaker 1: or even you know, on any piece of uh. You
Speaker 1: don't even have to have it on a USB stick
Speaker 1: or on your phone. It can be just in your mind.
Speaker 1: So I think it's you know, the confiscation resistant nature
Speaker 1: of bitcoin and the um. Yeah, the more sovereign element
Speaker 1: of some of these encrypted messaging apps is very intriguing.
Speaker 1: And and and and I think I think the other
Speaker 1: thing is that you know, there has to be a
Speaker 1: need for it. So a lot of times people are like, well,
Speaker 1: we need more option, but like you need you need
Speaker 1: a need for it. And then we're what you see
Speaker 1: in countries with with these problems, you know what's going
Speaker 1: on in Hong Kong or I Ran with the bank
Speaker 1: shutdown or Lebanon or whatever. Um, they're pushing the need
Speaker 1: for it. And so we're starting to see in those
Speaker 1: areas the rise of this new technology, like mesh networks,
Speaker 1: as you referenced before, right, So like it's almost like
Speaker 1: they're they're doing our marketing for us, Like hey, here,
Speaker 1: you know, here's a big problem. Go find a solution
Speaker 1: for it. Yeah maybe, yeah, maybe I'd like to think so.
Speaker 1: But um, back to that talk you talked about bitcoin
Speaker 1: versus Big Brother. Um, I mean do you think like
Speaker 1: that's like the ultimate tool that we have now because
Speaker 1: it relates to our money and maybe one money is
Speaker 1: our first thing we should control. Well, the point of
Speaker 1: the talk was just to underline how important and financial
Speaker 1: privacy is going to be as we become more digital
Speaker 1: in our lives. Like, um, you know, I still don't
Speaker 1: think people quite understand the importance of how we are
Speaker 1: moving from money being the money that we use every
Speaker 1: day being a bearer asset which is anonymous, like you know,
Speaker 1: forty years ago, thirty years ago, whatever, Like anytime you
Speaker 1: made a transaction, it was anonymous, Like the government did
Speaker 1: not know about you know, you you lot something with
Speaker 1: a five dollar bill, and like the merchant doesn't know
Speaker 1: your name, your address, your last transaction, your email address, whatever,
Speaker 1: Like they didn't have this big fat identity stack on
Speaker 1: you immediately, like like they do now when never use
Speaker 1: your credit card or touchless pay or whatever. And like
Speaker 1: the logical conclusion of that is something like we chat,
Speaker 1: where like they know like a massive amount of information
Speaker 1: about you. Um. And at the same time they've developed
Speaker 1: like big data analysis, like quote unquote AI technology to
Speaker 1: be able to actually analyze all that data. Like credit
Speaker 1: cards have been around for a long time, but we
Speaker 1: didn't have the AI big data analysis stuff for you know,
Speaker 1: companies and governments to really effectively sift through all that
Speaker 1: data and like do predictive analysis and things like that
Speaker 1: until until you know, the fifteen years. So we're in
Speaker 1: a new age and paper money obviously is on the
Speaker 1: way out. It's out single digit percentage of all all
Speaker 1: daily transactions in today's world, and in some places like Sweden,
Speaker 1: Urban China, whatever, it's like people don't use cash. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, people being born today will never use paper money. Um.
Speaker 1: So we have to think very carefully about digital cash
Speaker 1: and why we need digital cash, And it's because we
Speaker 1: don't want to live in a world where all of
Speaker 1: our behaviors and transactions are spied on and exploited. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so powerful, you know, it's like not what I say,
Speaker 1: it's what I do. And what we're doing is spending
Speaker 1: our money. I've seen reports of like Target and their
Speaker 1: big data and how they can analyze purchases and they
Speaker 1: may know when someone's going to become pregnant before they
Speaker 1: even know it. And uh, that's the that's the kind
Speaker 1: of scary stuff that it leads to. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: I think that look, especially with the red to finance,
Speaker 1: like you're spend and says more about you than your words. Right,
Speaker 1: So if I want to find you, I want to
Speaker 1: know what your bank account is, not necessarily you know
Speaker 1: what you're going on social media. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: like the truth about you is your is your spending habits? Right,
Speaker 1: So yeah, we want to keep that stuff private. And look,
Speaker 1: I'm not like, I'm not actually anywhere close to being
Speaker 1: like an anarchist or anything. I believe in good governance.
Speaker 1: But I think we as a society to have like
Speaker 1: negotiations and compromises where like we compromise the people using
Speaker 1: technologies at their lever you know, we force a compromise
Speaker 1: whereby and and this is legal and moral precedent, where
Speaker 1: money under a certain amount of value um per day
Speaker 1: transactions could be anonymous and the government would just have
Speaker 1: to sort of be okay with that. So for example,
Speaker 1: like you can think of gift cards today as as
Speaker 1: a really good like precedent both technologically morally legally, I
Speaker 1: can walk into a store and by several hundred dollars
Speaker 1: of gift cards with cash, and then I can go
Speaker 1: buy stuff on the internet completely anonymously, right, um, if
Speaker 1: I want to, I mean, maybe I have to enter
Speaker 1: in you know, data and things like that to buy things,
Speaker 1: But generally speaking, you can pay for certain things without
Speaker 1: divulging your information using gift cards, which is which is
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. So the US government has no problem with that,
Speaker 1: like and that that's something we want to read sort
Speaker 1: of encourage them to continue to not have a problem
Speaker 1: with I mean, really like from a legal perspective, what
Speaker 1: we're talking about, like bitcoin transactions being as seamless as
Speaker 1: gift cards, like using stuff like lightning, perhaps if that
Speaker 1: becomes more mature and usable again legally and morally, wouldn't
Speaker 1: be very different from from using gift cards, right, And
Speaker 1: a huge, very large population of the US uses gift cards.
Speaker 1: I mean something of the US people are are underbanked right,
Speaker 1: So a lot of industic cards anyway, So I don't know,
Speaker 1: we need to like, you know, start having this debate,
Speaker 1: um and just I think this is why groups like
Speaker 1: coin Center are important. Um. You know, in addition to
Speaker 1: developing the technology, we we need to you know, have
Speaker 1: these conversations with politicians and try to encourage them to, um,
Speaker 1: to not take art rights and freedoms away. And sometimes
Speaker 1: it may work. Look, it may work in America. I mean,
Speaker 1: it certainly may not. It's certainly not going to work
Speaker 1: in China. But look, we have a system and a
Speaker 1: and a culture where we could incredibly say like cash
Speaker 1: is like an American value right in privacies and American value,
Speaker 1: and it's literally literally in our constitution. So um, I
Speaker 1: think that even though we've seen all this stuff being
Speaker 1: ben on earth to snowed in et cetera, lately, I
Speaker 1: think there's a chance that we can have some sort
Speaker 1: of like social compromise in a place like America. But
Speaker 1: you know what, like zero chances that happening in China, right,
Speaker 1: or in Saudi Arabia or in any other dictatorship. So
Speaker 1: that's why it's kind of like regardless of the legal
Speaker 1: moral situation, the tech is has just got to be
Speaker 1: built and you know what, it exists and it's not
Speaker 1: possible to stop. So at least that's exciting. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: problem that the United States has is that the United
Speaker 1: States has the benefit of being the world's reserve currency.
Speaker 1: So they really have everything to lose. And that's what
Speaker 1: we've seen in Congress, as you know, Red Brad Sherman's
Speaker 1: talked about many times, like we lose the ability to
Speaker 1: uh do sanctions and things like that. And so the US,
Speaker 1: while yeah, being built on free grounds or whatever, has
Speaker 1: the most Yeah, yeah, but that may not you don
Speaker 1: don't take that for granted. I just read this brilliant book.
Speaker 1: Um it's called them Handibles M A N D I
Speaker 1: B L E. S highly recommended to all your listeners
Speaker 1: as a as a holiday gift. It has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with bitcoin, but it basically tells the story of
Speaker 1: a near futured US where um, the dollar basically fails,
Speaker 1: where like a nationalist government, um ronez is on on
Speaker 1: our on our debt and treasury, you know, crash and
Speaker 1: the rest of the world creates a currency called bancor
Speaker 1: inspired by what Keenes had come up with at the
Speaker 1: at the Bretton Wood Summit, right, And you know, I
Speaker 1: won't give away more than that, but it's so fascinating
Speaker 1: because it walks you through what a monetary crash and
Speaker 1: what hyper inflation would would look like in America where
Speaker 1: where by you know our friends and men as well,
Speaker 1: and they know exactly what it looks like. It's a
Speaker 1: total disaster. But I feel like a lot of Americans
Speaker 1: may struggle to connect with that because they're just assuming
Speaker 1: that the dollar will always be mighty, right, Well, it
Speaker 1: may not be right, you think, even it would not
Speaker 1: be crazy to say that, Like there could be a
Speaker 1: crazy fatal dollar event in the next decade, right, so
Speaker 1: this one happens to to take place in right, so
Speaker 1: this could happen, So you know, with that in mind,
Speaker 1: like people need to think about how assets work and
Speaker 1: how savings works, even just for their own families. Like
Speaker 1: a big theme of the Mandibles book is that even
Speaker 1: wealthy people, they all get wiped out because all their
Speaker 1: assets are like controlled by banks or like dollar denominated
Speaker 1: or like it's just not like and and when the
Speaker 1: news hits um if there's a big moment, like when
Speaker 1: when the news hits in Argentina, or Lebanon, there's going
Speaker 1: to be like bank controls or whatever. You don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of time, Like you know, you've got no time,
Speaker 1: so you're you're your toast, right, So maybe that money
Speaker 1: that's in that savings account or dollar denominated whatever savings
Speaker 1: account of some kind you have, or you have pension
Speaker 1: or whatever you have. You know, if that's going to
Speaker 1: continue to be denominated in a currency which is crashing,
Speaker 1: then you're screwed, right, So you need to think about
Speaker 1: other kinds of assets. And that's what makes bitcoin so
Speaker 1: compelling is because it's a permissionless asset that anyone can access.
Speaker 1: Anyone can buy whatever amount a dollar or five dollars
Speaker 1: fifty cents um. They don't need to be wealthy. Um.
Speaker 1: It's like the great equalizer. Anyone can access a small
Speaker 1: amount of bitcoin or a large amount, but they can
Speaker 1: like take their time and energy and turn it into
Speaker 1: an asset that cannot be devalued by government in any situation.
Speaker 1: And that's like really really incredible to me. So if
Speaker 1: you think about like the way that uh, poorer people
Speaker 1: save around the world, like they do things like they
Speaker 1: buy cows or sheet metal, and these things are very
Speaker 1: liquid and and they're hurt to trade. I mean, now,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is such an upgrade. I mean, all
Speaker 1: they need is a phone and internet access and they
Speaker 1: can activate. They can own an asset and own the
Speaker 1: private key to an asset that cannot be devalued. Now,
Speaker 1: of course it's going to be quite volatile for a
Speaker 1: long time, but it has to be volatile that vultility
Speaker 1: goes up. Man, I mean, this is a one way
Speaker 1: of altility. So over time, so you know, we've gone
Speaker 1: from dollars to tens of dollars, two hundreds of dollars
Speaker 1: to thousands of dollars. Rights it's going that way right now,
Speaker 1: up to tens of thousands of dollars. So I think, um,
Speaker 1: it's just kind of an exciting innovation and it comes
Speaker 1: to the right time. It's very ironic that it was
Speaker 1: born in two line, and I think bitcoin, both for
Speaker 1: privacy and also in the face of economic stability, will
Speaker 1: be a very very important phenomenon moving forward. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: that's kind of what I was saying. Where now, with
Speaker 1: with all these things we're seeing happening around the world,
Speaker 1: it's almost like they're just pushing people to this stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm curious though, to draw back to what you're mainly
Speaker 1: working on, which is, you know, working with people under
Speaker 1: human rights foundations or violations, I should say, And it
Speaker 1: seems like, you know what, today there's half a dozen
Speaker 1: countries kind of erupting and whatnot, and we're seeing starting
Speaker 1: to see human rights violation is happening more and more.
Speaker 1: But you're talking about this all the time, Like, are
Speaker 1: you I guess, are you trying to get like regular
Speaker 1: people like in the United States to be aware of
Speaker 1: that so they can help you guys provide resources to that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, we're we're a charity, so we UM
Speaker 1: only can do what we do because of the generosity
Speaker 1: of our donors, and generally speaking, our supporters tend to
Speaker 1: be people who appreciate freedom, who either live in a
Speaker 1: free society or they've like escaped from a closed or
Speaker 1: closing society, right UM, and they want to through h RAF,
Speaker 1: help people who who aren't as fortunate, let's put it
Speaker 1: that way. And the reason why, the reason why I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask that is trying to get people involved
Speaker 1: to care about human rights violations, and I want to
Speaker 1: be involved, I would imagine, especially, Yes, it's hard because
Speaker 1: everything is so good here, I can't imagine it never
Speaker 1: being bad. They don't care, And maybe there's some correlation
Speaker 1: with that with talking to people about bitcoin the same way.
Speaker 1: We're like, well I don't see that problem. I don't care. Well,
Speaker 1: here's the thing, um, bitcoins and game changer. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: very difficult to get people to care about human rights.
Speaker 1: You're right, because there's no you know, you don't get
Speaker 1: anything in return. Right, it's um, you have to have
Speaker 1: like extremely like low time prefer is thinking generally to
Speaker 1: to want to support human rights because it's something that
Speaker 1: takes a long time to manifest the fruits. Um. But
Speaker 1: generally speaking, it was hard for me to talk about
Speaker 1: things like privacy and freedom, um pre bitcoin harder now
Speaker 1: now that like people are intrigued because everybody is interested
Speaker 1: in money right in price and all these things. It
Speaker 1: is really interesting because it does allow me to, for example,
Speaker 1: come on a show like yours, where like if bitcoin
Speaker 1: didn't exist, you, I mean, I'm just guessing probably less
Speaker 1: interested in talking about human rights. All of a sudden
Speaker 1: we've had this definitely half an hour conversation about freedom
Speaker 1: and human rights. Like it just it's a game changer
Speaker 1: from that respect, because it is the intersection of money
Speaker 1: and profit and value and freedom and human rights. Right.
Speaker 1: So that's why bitcoin is such a interesting game changer here.
Speaker 1: And I'm just trying to rely on it and use
Speaker 1: it and understand it in a way that can help
Speaker 1: protect and and and defend people's freedoms which are at risk.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a it's a real asset, not
Speaker 1: not just physically technically, you know, economically, but also educationally definitely.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. I've said that a lot of times.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest things about bitcoin, even if it
Speaker 1: didn't succeed, is that it's got people to want to
Speaker 1: learn more, ask questions and pay attention to these things,
Speaker 1: as you're saying, because yeah, you're right, I probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: be near as interested in human rights violations and and
Speaker 1: things like this if I wasn't paying attention to bitcoin. So, UM,
Speaker 1: I guess an unintended consequence, that's very good, all right, Well, UM,
Speaker 1: that's good stuff. UM. I think I think we can
Speaker 1: kind of wrap it up and wrap it up on that.
Speaker 1: Um Again, like I said, I know you're doing the
Speaker 1: work on human rights violation or violations right through the foundation.
Speaker 1: Um you said it's it's mainly through donors and whatnot.
Speaker 1: So where do people learn more about that? Yeah? They can.
Speaker 1: They can check out hr F dot org or follow
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at hr f UM contact me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Gladstein G L A D S T E
Speaker 1: I n UM. I. Also, if people are interested more
Speaker 1: about the sort of political, economic background and impact of bitcoin,
Speaker 1: I I wrote a book this summer with a few
Speaker 1: other really interesting co authors from around the world, called
Speaker 1: The Little Bitcoin Book, which is on Amazon. It's a
Speaker 1: short read, a hundred pages. Also probably makes for a
Speaker 1: fun holiday gift. Umi, was that was that with Jimmy Song? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Song and Elena ran Nova and Lily lou and
Speaker 1: a bunch of others. So um it's it's um Louis Bendventura,
Speaker 1: Timmy as You, Boullier, Alex Lloyd, um All hundred my shadow.
Speaker 1: It was fun. We we got together and and tried
Speaker 1: to put why we why we think bitcoin matters into
Speaker 1: a short kind of long I guess, like a short
Speaker 1: book or a very long essay. So people can check
Speaker 1: that out. It's got pretty good reviews, so UM check
Speaker 1: us out at HTRF. Check out the book. Um, and
Speaker 1: let's stay in touch. All right, Alex, thanks for taking
Speaker 1: the time. Appreciate all the hard work that you're putting
Speaker 1: into UH to bring awareness to this stuff. My pleasure.
Speaker 1: All right. Hey, if you like this episode of The
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Speaker 1: on The Market Disruptors Podcast.