{ "episodeId": "SLP248", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "godfrey_bloom": { "name": "Godfrey Bloom", "role": "guest", "tag": "GODFREY" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:09", "start": 9.19, "text": "Hi, you're listening to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics. Today for episode two hundred and forty-eight, my guest is Godfrey Bloom, who re-joins me on the show. He is an Austrian economist, former politician and libertarian author, and we talk a little bit about his thoughts on what government will do to Bitcoin, as well as his experiences learning about Bitcoin. This show brought to you by swanbitcoin dot com. Bitcoin has emerged as a major player on the global stage, it has been significantly de-risked over the past year, and at this point, everyone should probably own at least a little. 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For years, we have all heard that mining is only profitable if you're investing tons of money, but now Now with CompuS, everyone is able to tap into economies of scale and access reasonably priced hardware and cheap industrial power rates, and if you're unsure about how to get started with mining Bitcoin, CompuS offers hardware and hosting bundles which eliminates the need for advanced technical knowledge and allows you to quickly get started mining Bitcoin with hardware you own. Visit them at minewithcompuS dot com and start mining Bitcoin today. Godfrey, welcome back to the show. It's great to speak with you again. pleasure, and thank you very much for inviting me again. So Godfrey, let's get an update from you. How are things and how has your Bitcoin ride been so far since we last spoke?" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "03:09", "start": 188.94, "text": "It's been fruitful. it's been fruitful. I bought in October, I think it was, and I got out on top of the spike, rolled it back into gold, which was for technical reasons down, artificial reasons down, and I'm back into Bitcoin Point again. So it's been an exciting ride, and I've learnt a whole heap more about the whole concept, than when we last spoke. So yeah, it's been fun, it's been exciting." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:38", "start": 217.98, "text": "That's great to hear. Now, I guess I would, I guess I would caution though, I, I, I g-- I mean, for me personally, I'm a hodler, and I would be very, very careful about selling out Bitcoin because I, I would be so careful that I wouldn't be able to accumulate back at the same, you know, to get But I think it's more, it'll be more interesting for the listeners to hear a little bit more about what have you learned in that interim period from what is it, October 2020 to now early February 2021?" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "04:08", "start": 248.28, "text": "Well, I've always, obviously understood Bitcoin and know about Bitcoin, I just haven't been an investor. So although I was green to investing in Bitcoin, I, I wasn't green to the concept of Bitcoin, and of course, I'm a huge supporter of not just Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, but I'm a huge supporter of anything which isn't fiat currency. And that's where, and that's where I, I start from. If it isn't fiat currency, it's good, of course. And that, and that, and that is my view. But I haven't changed my view when I first spoke to you, that, and some stuff I've, other stuff I've done with, with other hosts across the globe, I haven't changed My view, I still don't see gold, and I'm a gold bug, I'm a well known gold bug, I don't see golden Bitcoin as not being compatible. I just see that it's a diversion of your investment portfolio. And of course, I am a boring, or retired boring investment manager for thirty five years in the city, and even more boring than that, I manage fixed interest. It doesn't get more boring than that. Although, I was, I have to say, with all due, The humility, I was quite good at it and I won prizes for it. So I know that, and I know about investment, and I know about diversification. and Bitcoin, I believe, takes a, takes a big, a big part of that. Cryptocurrency takes a big, a big part of that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:35", "start": 334.75, "text": "Yeah. So I guess for you then, what is it that you see are the key differences then in how we have to think about when we're buying Bitcoin or, you know, investing in Bitcoin, as, as compared to, investing in and holding gold?" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "05:49", "start": 349.28, "text": "Well, gold and Bitcoin share a lot of the same characteristics. They do diverge as you go further down the path. But first of all, I'd just like to make clear, my point of view leaving Bitcoin and gold aside just for a moment, we must understand, and I know Bitcoiners understand this, and it's the same as gold bugs. We're, we're not different beasts here. We, we're all on the same-- the goal is the same. We might be taking slightly different paths, but the goal is the same. And that is to get out of the clutches of state money. Now, what we must bear in mind, and I think a lot of people don't fully understand this because they haven't been involved in politics, I came into politics very late in life. I'm a, an investment banker, a fund manager, and that was thirty-five years. I came in obviously to fight for Brexit. I wanted self-government again for the United Kingdom, and that's why I came into it. It wasn't party politics with a small p, I just wanted my country back. it was as simple as that Belly of the beast for ten years. I spent ten years in the European Parliament and five of them on the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee. So if you will, I understand how the political thinking, the regulatory thinking is, and the bureaucracy thinks, and you must accept, and everybody must accept, but of course, most people watching your channel here will already accept this, because otherwise they wouldn't be in Bitcoin, they wouldn't even be tuned into you, that the role of the state, and it doesn't matter whether it's America, doesn't matter whether it's Europe, Britain, or China China, it doesn't matter. The state sees itself, and its goal is complete and total control of the citizen. That is its aim. Now, the only difference between medieval, kings who stole your money and stole your cattle and maybe even stole your wives, but so the medieval kings did it for your own benefit. but the medieval kings did it because their benefit. They wanted to bring a castle, better food, better everything. They stole it. What they didn't wear on their sleeve is this appalling Fakery that we have with modern governments who steal our money because it's for our benefit. They steal our money because it's gonna save the planet or it's gonna save us from some sort of pandemic. there's always a wonderful reason with modern governments how much better. It's a bit like being mugged in the street, bashed over the head and have your money taken, and then the, the robber whispers in your ear, but it, the money's going in a good cause. And that's what, that's what happens, at the- Moment, it's all in the good cause, it's for your benefit at the moment. We are living under martial law in the United Kingdom. We're locked in our houses. We have to explain to policemen if our journey's necessary. We didn't have this in the war. We didn't have this in the war. We have never been-- So this is about total iron control by the state. And the sad thing is, we are all like sheep. This-- We are in the Great Britain now as a nation of sheep. We walk along with masks over our faces. Places when even the World Health Organization, every, every medical body will tell you that cloth masks over your face will do nothing to stop you either transmitting or getting a virus. It's about state control. We must wear them because it's about state control, and that is how we flag up we are servants of the state by wearing this mask, which everybody knows, every single doctor knows, is useless, but we have to wear them, we have to wear this mask. So this is the sort of problem We've got. It's all about control. Now, if you buy gold, and I'm a gold bug, and I always have been, what you've done if you buy gold, you have stepped outside that part of control. You've stepped outside the government controlling money. And of course, if the government control doesn't control money, they can't control you. Not really. It's all about money, and of course, we know that from Rothschild, I think it was in the, nearly a hundred years ago, and he said, it doesn't matter Life. So, so, so we know that to be. And both gold and Bitcoin are a way of getting out of that trap. But I know with gold, and it has similarities with Bitcoin, it isn't as simple as that. Just buying gold or buying Bitcoin doesn't take you out of their control. And my experience so far, not only with gold bugs, but also with, Bitcoin, bugs, is that they think it does, and it doesn't. And I know how The government manipulates and can steal gold, potentially steal gold. I also know they can use exactly the same triggers to steal Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:27", "start": 626.51, "text": "Interesting. So I guess one way to consider this is in what way will the government attempt to control this thing? So, it, it, the common ones, so up to now have been things like, oh, we need to stop the terrorists, so we need to stop the money laundering, therefore we need X, Y, and Z. If you are a bank or a financial institution, you must do X, Y, and Z. That's probably the main vector for control that I see currently, though that could change. What do you see as the main, I guess, ostensible reasons for a government to, levy additional controls onto Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "11:06", "start": 665.55, "text": "Well, that's, a wonderful, Stephan, that's an absolutely marvelous oxymoron. A sensible government? There isn't such a thing as a sensible government. They're all sociopaths and crooks, which is why we need gold and we need Bitcoin to get out. So you won't have a rational, excuse for s-trying to steal our gold or Bitcoin any more than there's a rational excuse for martial law with a virus which killed, has killed in, Great Britain Great Britain, fewer people than the nineteen fifty seven, nineteen fifty eight, nineteen sixty eight, and two thousand and ten virus. That, this isn't to do with science or pandemic. This is because they're crunching up control, they need to control, and it is my suspicion, perhaps hypothesis, that they are seeing how far they can go, and it's not just Great Britain, by controlling the population physically when the collapse of fiat currencies comes about. Now, this is where I think they're doing And they've been trying to do this, of course, for many years in, when it comes to gold. Forget Bitcoin, let's park Bitcoin for just a minute and talk about gold. How do they do this with gold? Well, we know that when Nixon came off the gold standard in nineteen seventy-one and went onto the petrodollar, he printed money. He just printed dollars. Everybody watching your show knows that. They know that, otherwise it wouldn't be on your channel. So they know that. So what's actually happening here is, of course, we know that the purchasing power of the dollar Fallen now, the dollar in 1971 today is worth eight cents. We also know that just this century alone, which is only twenty years, we know that fiat currency against gold, a basket of fiat currencies against gold, has fallen by eighty percent. Now, this is, this is gold, and this is why central banks and their political, associates, partners in crime, if you prefer, they want to control gold. So how do they do this? Now, let's look at my gold holdings. I have gold coins Coins in a security vault in London. So don't come and rob me, anybody, 'cause they're not here. You know, they're just security vault in London, and that's where they are. And it's not a bank, incidentally. It's not a bank, which, which the state owned. no, it's a, it's a, it's a private security vault. So my gold coins in there, when I bought them, mainly gold was at a thousand dollars an ounce, and now they're, it's eighteen hundred and fifty dollars an ounce, what It would buy ten years ago, it will buy today, and that's what gold's all about. And that gold coin will buy you bed, breakfast, and evening meal. A gold sovereign, a hundred years old, would have bought you bed, breakfast, and an evening meal in any capital city in the world. It will do the same today, no more, no less. So it doesn't make money, it protects your money, and gold has been doing that for five thousand years, which is why I'm a gold bug. But this is how the crafty bit, the state, does. The It would be purchase and sale of bullion that actually, drove the price of gold bullion, but of course it isn't. It's paper gold. So we know, that paper gold, there's eight hundred pieces of paper for every piece of gold, or round about that, as I explained in my book. But the-- This is how it's worked, and they therefore can gamble on the price of gold, suppress the, the price of gold. Who allows this to happen? Which in any other field would be illegal, and that's the SEC. That is Regulators allow this to happen, allow people to sell forward gold that they don't have, and that's because it suits the central banks for people not to run to gold. They don't want gold to be at the price it should be, which today should be at least three thousand pa-- three thousand dollars an ounce. it's so that they can manipulate and suppress the price of gold. And JP Morgan and people like that made massive amounts of money doing that. And every now and again, SEC put a token fine on, they fine them, but JP Morgan just laugh and, and, and make For seven weeks in, in, in their trading and manipulating the price, so they can, they can do this. Now, when we have this big collapse in fiat currency in, in Great Britain, I'm not sure what it's like in Australia or, or America, but I suspect it's probably the same. If I buy fifty thousand pounds worth of gold coins from, a gold coin dealer, bullion dealer in London, I use Baird, but it could be anybody else, they buy that, I buy that, they register that, they register that, that is registered, with They're trying to save everybody from drug dealers, you know? So they're not doing it 'cause they're nosy or greedy or nasty, they're doing it to save us all. They're gonna save us all for the nasty drug dealers, but they're not, of course. What they're doing is they wanna make absolutely sure they know I've got that gold, so like the French in seventeen twenty, the Americans, Roosevelt in, in the nineteen thirties, can come and steal it when they run out of their own gold, which I suspect has already happened. So what they need" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "16:06", "start": 965.63, "text": "my vault in London. They can't have that. But here's the rub, and this is where it comes in line with Bitcoin, alright? And it's no different. They can come along and say, \"Give me your gold. We know you've got the gold, or tell us where it is. \" If I don't tell them, they then lock me up and suspend the rules of habeas corpus. Now, you may f- be familiar, I'm sure you are familiar down there, with the situation with Julian Assange, 'cause he's one of your countrymen. He's" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "16:35", "start": 995.35, "text": "I mean, locked up in embassies or, et cetera, et cetera. Because they've suspended the writ of habeas corpus. He's just, he's just got off on one charge. There's, you know, there's, the, the judge, very junior judge, said, \"No, the Americans can't have him, 'cause there's a stitch up between the Americans, and the British, the CIA and the MI5, of course, who are all in bed together. so they won't, but they won't release him." }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "17:05", "start": 1025.33, "text": "They will say, \"Oh, we'll buy it from you for two thousand dollars an ounce,\" but we'll all know on the world real markets it's five thousand dollars an ounce. This is what Roosevelt did. Oh, what a great man Roosevelt was, what a, what a wonderful president he was. He was the biggest thief in American history. But anyway, there we are. They can do that. They can lock me up without the writ of habeas corpus, and eventually I will give up the key to my gold. So the price of gold isn't the trading of gold, it's not me Pay for wonderful, electronic vaults in London and all the rest of it, because all the state need to do is come and knock on my door and lock me up without a bit of habeas corpus until I give it up. Bitcoin is no different. See, all I need to do, but go on, go on, finish your point and then I'll" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "17:48", "start": 1067.8, "text": "respond. Okay. And," }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "17:50", "start": 1070.16, "text": "and, and, and by all means, I'm open to persuasion that this isn't the case. Let's say they bring in a law, the IRS bring in a law, HMRC bring in a law" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "18:05", "start": 1085.33, "text": "Non-state cryptocurrency, non-state cryptocurrency is now illegal, which isn't no flight of fancy, is it really? But they, when, when things get as bad as they're gonna get, and then they can say, then they can easily, because they've got access to your bank accounts, and your regulators have to hold the bank accounts for the last six years in this country, I can't believe it's only here in Australia, and they can say, there's a transaction here, where did it go? And if we think it went to Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, so you then suspend, here's Another major thing that's happened, in many other aspects, in the principles of English law, which is the same in Australia and the same in America, the presumption of innocence has gone. The tax and regulatory authorities don't presume innocence, and I've run financial service companies, they come in and I have to prove that I'm not guilty of any misdemeanor under their laws. So you lose the presumption of innocence, they have access to your bank accounts, and they can do exactly the same thing under suspicion as they have done with Julia Resnais With different reasons and say, \"We think you hold Bitcoin. If you don't tell us where your Bitcoin is, we won't release you.\" So look," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "19:13", "start": 1152.87, "text": "I certainly, Godfrey, I think some of these things are, maybe longer term, they are potentially possible. I just think we are a long way from this kind of like straight up Bitcoin being banned conversation, at least in the Western countries, the USA, the UK, Australia, I think we are a long, long way from that kind of scenario occurring, and I think it is, it's just Just like from the conversations that I'm having with people who are a little bit, you know, connected into the scene in terms of the US or Australia, I'm not as familiar with the UK, but the conversation that I'm hearing from people, and of course, it could change, these things could change, but currently, the situation is more about, I think governments are more concerned with things like KYC/AML laws and K, you know, KYCing the customers and so on, than they are about some kind of serious monetary threat. And I think in many ways, it The kinds of people who, have to understand it, they're often the last to understand it, right? The central bankers are the last people to understand how you can have this money that's evolving and forming from the bottom up. And so I think that's one important point. I think it's also important to recognize that people can more easily transfer their Bitcoin than their gold internationally without using a custodian. And I think that is a really key important point that we have to recognize here, because ultimately, if you sense that things- Things are going the wrong way in your country. Bitcoin holders can literally send their Bitcoin and store them in some other jurisdiction, and so it just-- there's this competitive pressure between the jurisdictions. So I, I think it will be more like capital will flow in the direction of those countries with less restrictions over time. And so here's the other thing as well, that-- this became a bit of a meme in, a prior cycle, but essentially this whole idea of, \"Oh, China is banning Bitcoin,\" and it just- It kind of, it just, it, it happened so many times that China was banning or unbanning Bitcoin that it just didn't really matter at the, at the end of the day. So ultimately, there will still be the ability for people to earn Bitcoin in a peer-to-peer fashion or to purchase it, in a peer-to-peer f-fashion or to be a home miner to mine it in that way. So I, I just think there's too many sort of, ways that people can slip through the cracks and there's too many ways that governments essentially are incompetent position with each other, because they have to compete, even today, if we look at something like the whole, digital nomad thing, that we're seeing more and more people, who are trying to take on that idea, and we're seeing governments who are trying to say, \"Hey, come here, we want you here. Let's have a virtual workers program visa, or let's have a digital nomad visa.\" And so I think in a similar sense, we're seeing some parts of the world that are very supportive of Bitcoin. So a recent example is the Miami, Some Bitcoin and have it on our books, and we'll try and encourage people to come here. we're seeing, regulation and, you know, legislation rather in Wyoming of the USA, which is very sort of promising in that regard in terms of full reserve banking and so on. so I just think while it's possible that some countries or some states or some towns will be very anti-bitcoin, there'll also be those that are very pro-bitcoin, and any Bitcoin holder will have an incentive to just- Take to just pick up and leave. So I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that idea." }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "22:39", "start": 1358.87, "text": "Well, I think Stephan, five years ago, I would have agreed with you on all that. But of course, as I say again, I'm talking to you from a country, the United Kingdom of all countries, under martial law. Moreover, we're seeing the coming together now, whether it's at Davos or, or Doha, the World Economic Forum, we're seeing every senior world leader, a retired leader, saying, \"Build- Back better, the new normal. And I think we-- This, I think when we see a collapse of fiat currency, I think all previous games are off the board. It isn't gonna be, oh, this place has, you know, is more welcoming, so, you know, this Singapore, for example, is more liberal in these matters or whatever it is. I would have agreed with you up until a few years ago, but I wouldn't have understood that in a democracy, that they can take away the const-- deconstruct the constitution, drive a coach and horses through the principles of English law law and hold you without a writ of habeas corpus. So the whole game plan has changed. So it means if you have the, obviously if there's a collapse of fiat currency and they want to replace it with state cryptocurrency, which defeats the entire object, as we would both agree. And it's stunning. Let me just say, I'm a big-- I'm not saying this is gonna happen tomorrow morning or even next year. What I am saying is that we must not be naive about these dangers when we see a totality, totality Austrian system of government. So we have the Fed, we have the ECB, we have the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, everybody getting together to then say, \"We will agree that we must, we must control Bitcoin, whether that means that they, they facilitate as the SEC do, running a book on gold which controls the price to a very large extent, not a total extent.\" And I would also, Stephan, and I take your point, and Goldbugs know this You can't do that forever. You, you can't cheat the system forever. But in all fairness, they've been cheating the gold system now for over, over twenty-five years. they've been faking the gold system for-- You can go quite a long time with this. So there's lots of tools that the central banks, if they get together, can do. And yes, you're quite right, you can transfer it. It's easy to transfer, relatively easy, if you don't have counter-party risk, in Bitcoin, which I accept and I take. And I, Bitcoin, I understand this. So you can do this, but the thing that makes me uneasy is, yes, they, they can't get Bitcoin any more than they can get my gold coins, but they can get me, and they can get it on the flimsiest of excuses. And I have to say, Stephan, you and, you and people, and Max Kaiser, the first guy's gonna be banged up in solitary confinement without a writ of habeas corpus until they tell the state where the Bitcoin is. They can't get at the Bitcoin. And then the other thing is, and I- And here I'm still on the learning curve a little bit, Stephan. is, let's say that there is a jurisdiction which is Bitcoin friendly, very Bitcoin friendly, how are they gonna stand up to the rest of the world's central banking system? what is gonna happen if there's central banking agreement, a UN agreement or something, which is already happening, these agreements already taking place, they don't get much publicity, but, but, you know, they're taking place. What happens if these people say, \"The ultimate problem, of course, that Bitcoin It is, to be a store of wealth, okay, but it has to be, to be money, it has to be relatively acceptable for goods and services. Now, if I wanna buy a new car, in a couple of years' time, I wanna go down to my dealer, and I want to buy a new car for, say, thirty thousand pounds. I got thirty thousand pounds worth of Bitcoin. He can't take it because it's illegal for him to take Bitcoin, and that just isn't in England, that's in America, and that's in, The, the state can't let me go and buy anything significant with Bitcoin because they've lost control. They've lost control. So they will have to put these blocks in place. Now, as, as you say, up until now they've been muttering about drug dealing and this, that, and the other, so on and so forth. But even Switzerland let information go to the authorities in the European Union, Switzerland, about Russian money. Even Switzerland. And of course, the, the Swiss, the Swiss Goldbugs say, \"Oh, Godfrey, \" We put your, but the same thing, put your gold in Switzerland, Godfrey, because they can't get it. You know, they can't get it. Well, they don't need to get it any more than London. They get me, or they get the holder, or a supposed holder, and we're not on our death certificates at the moment, on our death certificates for COVID, nineteen. The real number of deaths in the United Kingdom at the moment for people who aren't already old and ill is about six thousand, and we've had a massive publicity campaign saying it's a hundred So, and people believe it. People are gullible. and we've seen the behavior of our police, your police in Melbourne, which is shocking, shocking. we've seen all this. There is nothing the government won't do to save their own asses and their own bankers. We're dealing with gangsters here, not the, you know, oh, well, they need to make a reason or it would be sensible and coming back to your original oxymoron, sensible government. We're- Sensible governments are a thing of the past. And we're coming in now, even, even governments. Just to clarify, I didn't say sensible, I didn't say sensible." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:07", "start": 1687.05, "text": "Just to clarify, I didn't say sensible, I was saying ostensible. So that obviously I agree with you, they're not sensible. So they'll, they'll have to give some reason that to the, to the, you know, normies sounds like a good reason, right? And that's where the whole, oh, drug laundering, whatever, drug money laundering, whatever, you know, but certainly What happens in the future. So as we speak today, Bitcoin is, you know, call it what, six hundred and forty billion dollars, as a market. I think we aren't even in the serious ballpark of being, you know, of governments doing anything close to that until we get to, you know, five trillion or like ten trillion. Like, w- we're probably, we probably need another ten x from here before it even starts to be a serious consideration in that, in that kind of conversation. And I think it really depends on who you look at and who you listen to Because there are already some US politicians who actually are very positive, speak positively on Bitcoin, they see it as a, a store of value, and they see it as a way that perhaps, you know, because these tend to be conservative or libertarian politicians themselves, and they tend to see issues with how US government and obviously many governments around the world are in a very high level of debt, and so they see it like there is a need for this kind of neutral store of value And so I think it really does matter where the public conversation on Bitcoin goes. A-and I think the other point to think about as well is, let's say we hit a ten x, well, we're probably also gonna see a ten x in the number of people who hold Bitcoin. And at what point do they become a political voting bloc on which it wouldn't be feasible to do these kinds of, you know, Bitcoin bans or going after people for it, I think that is also part of the conversation, and I think it, it's sort of similar to the idea of, you know, once Uber got popular enough, it just wasn't politically feasible to ban it. Yes, they could regulate it, but they weren't able to ban it." }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "30:10", "start": 1810.25, "text": "All of which I take your point, and I certainly take your point on numbers, and I think it will get, it has to get to the ten trillion. It has to get much bigger than it is now to register. And interestingly enough, s- that's true of gold, because the average percentage of a portfolio, investment portfolio in gold, is probably averaging less than two percent. So the same arguments apply to gold, which is where they, they go along the same path, you know, just parallel paths in many, many ways. And all of- All of this, all of this, I understand, but it, even if they don't ban Bitcoin, there's many, many ways of making Bitcoin uncomfortable, so you have to turn it back into whatever is the state currency of the day in order to transact. so what most people want is-- and I'm a, and I wish it would come about, I'm a true believer, because I think Bitcoin will be fantastic. It's so sensible. You've got a Bitcoin, you've got The credit, credit card thingy with, with Bitcoin, you know, and you, you can buy shops, you go everywhere, and you buy Bitcoin, and which is not degradable, as a currency. It's wonderful, it's a brilliant concept, I think it's absolutely fantastic. But having worked for ten years in the belly of the beast, knowing what these people are, how evil they are, and how sociopathic they are, I wouldn't have believed even only two years ago, even knowing this in politics, that I could be locked in my house here for a fake Pandemic, and the police will lock me up or find me eight hundred pounds on the spot if they find anybody in my house who shouldn't be there having a cup of tea. This is where we're going, and I think the problem that we have with so many people is they don't fully understand. And this isn't even a real crisis, this is a fake crisis. When there's a real crisis, which is the collapse of our banks and the collapse of the-- All, all games are off. They will do whatever they think they have to do to preserve themselves, not the vote. Voting, voting here's sus-suspended. They've, they've cancelled all the elections, the London elections, the Welsh elections, they've all been cancelled. They cancel elections like that. No protest here, incidentally, because people are sheep. Everyone's turned into a sheep here. so they've actually got rid of the elections. Don't you have to worry about electoral popularity? And then when it comes to electoral popularity, of course, what happens to the voting system? Well, we just saw in America, you know, we've just seen some sh when it took the rest of the world, and it's the same here, incidentally, it's the same in England, when it comes to voting, there's no ID requirements, no nothing. They can fiddle elections, they can suspend elections, they can suspend habeas corpus, and if they make it, if they make it illegal for the acceptance in these main countries to accept Bitcoin in exchange for goods, you know, you have to transfer your Bitcoin into something else if you want to spend it. Now, you can preserve your wealth with it, but it, Notional. This is also true to an extent with gold. And please don't think I'm going down the gold versus Bitcoin road, 'cause I'm not. We're trying to have a conversation here to help everybody make the decisions, diversify portfolios. But if I put, a handful of gold sovereigns in my pocket, I know that they will be acceptable in Buenos Aires, Delhi, New York, Paris, they will accept them. and there's no electronic transfer once they're in my pocket. I fully understand that if I want to do a transfer, Action in Hong Kong to buy something in Hong Kong. gold, is very much more difficult, but Bitcoin would be if, if Bitcoin wasn't interfered with by the state. But I think what we need to do is think about what might be happening and looking at government behavior in the last year, all governments, in a year or two's time when a real catastrophe hits, we don't have a real catastrophe. This pandemic isn't real, you know? They, they, oh, it's fake, and they're-- but they're putting in the levers of power already. They The police, politicizing the police, giving police extra powers, all these things are happening. The regulator's powers over here have grown in the last twenty-five years. I mean, I was part of the, the city, negotiation committee or consultancy committee in nineteen eighty-six. I'm an old geezer here. I'm an old man. I've seen it all before, and it was going to be light touch regulation, self-regulation. It's now in the United Kingdom, four million words in the regulator, there are four million words, it is impossible to survive The regulatory inspection without breaking the rules, it is simply impossible. You couldn't do it. and this is one of the problems, and there's millions of other regulations, rules and regulations. All I'm suggesting here, all I'm suggesting is I'm not saying gold's better than Bitcoin, 'cause it isn't, it's a similar kind of thing and has the same kind of problems. there is, if you will, there is a degree of complacency with both gold bugs and Bitcoin bugs who, 'cause they've made that step, they bought their gold or they bought their Bitcoin Gonna be okay, and I get a feeling that, it's not gonna be okay either for me, as a gold bug or a Bitcoin holder. and I think we need to start thinking about that, accepting that. I think if Bitcoin holders and gold bugs don't accept these, these coming dangers down the path, we are more likely to fall foul of them. Let's think about them and let's see how that we can circumnavigate them when they come. And when they do come, and they will come, not next year, not the year- Thereafter necessary, they will certainly come. We've got to be ready for that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "35:45", "start": 2144.67, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. Lend at HodlHodl is a global Bitcoin backed lending platform so you can lend and borrow anonymously on your own terms. This is a peer to peer lending solution with a unique multi signature escrow for each deal so you can grow your savings and earn return on your investment. So if you have stablecoins lying around such as USDT, you can create an offer and earn interest by lending. On the other hand, if you hold Bitcoin and you need liquidity, And you still wanna keep on hodling, well, you can borrow stablecoins and pay interest and then keep on hodling. So with HoddleHoddle's Lend platform, you set your own terms and you put up offers depending on how long you want to borrow or lend and the interest rate. Go and check it out at lend.hoddlehoddle.com. Unchain Capital is building Bitcoin native financial services on a foundation of multi-signature so you can create a multi-signature vault for ultra-secure long-term storage. So you can build that on your own or if you need white want help, they offer a vault concierge service where their team will ship you some hardware wallets, they'll teach you about multisig, they'll answer your questions, and deposit a thousand dollars of Bitcoin in your vault. So that's fifteen hundred dollars, but you get fifty dollars off if you use the code Livera. Unchained also offer an OTC desk, and they also offer advanced business accounts with all sorts of features that can help you in terms of moving your corporate treasury to Bitcoin, but where your team still holds the private keys. So go to Unchained. chaindashcapital dot com to find out more. And if you're thinking about securing your Bitcoin, don't forget metal seed backups like the Cypherwheel available at cyphersafe dot io. So don't just rely on that piece of paper that comes with your hardware wallet. Make sure you've got a product that is fireproof, waterproof, rustproof, petproof, and tamper evident. The Cypherwheel comes in a wheel shape, masks the words of your seed, and you slide in some tiles to relate to each of the words in your twelve or twenty-four word. Seed. You wanna make sure that you or your loved ones have access to your bitcoins if an accident occurs. You can go and get yours at cyphersafe dot io and use the code Livera. Back to the show. Okay, so Godfrey, let's talk a little bit about-- Okay, so you're saying this idea of merely purchasing Bitcoin isn't enough, and I, I think I can agree with you there. What would you suggest that Bitcoin people should be doing in addition, over and above merely buying Bitcoin, in your view?" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "38:09", "start": 2288.56, "text": "Well, I'm afraid I don't have a golden, I don't have a wonderful solution any more than I do with gold, and I'm an expert on gold, I'm not an expert on Bitcoin. I just think unless-- I think what we should be doing as it gets bigger, we should be forming a serious lobby group, all big business, and in, as you know, in Washington of course, and in Brussels where I work, there were ten thousand lobbyists in Brussels, and this is designed for big business. They don't like small businesses, they don't like the self employed, big governments, they can't control them, they hate what they can't control. Now, what governments want is big companies in line with, banks. They want it all big and the political government. Now, I don't use the term fascism in a pejorative term, I don't use it, that's, that's crass, that sort of thing that students do, you know, they mouth, \"Oh, fascist,\" you know, because they don't understand what fascism is. But I do. And you Understand it. It's a political system. It may be good, it may be bad. It depends on your point of view. But, but then all communism is, but fascism basically is a system where it's a, a, a joint of big business, politicians, and bureaucracy. The state controls the levers of power, the levers of industry, whereas communism has the ownership of them. They're the two subtle differences, if they're indeed subtle at all. So we've got to understand that. So lobbying and actually- This will help when it gets bigger and more people have Bitcoin, and we need perhaps one or two big companies who will accept Bitcoin across the, the counter, and people get used to buying stuff with Bitcoin. So if you go into a Mercedes dealer, the Mercedes, and I think this would be a monster step forward, I'm sure you'd agree with me on this, if Mercedes were to say, \"We will accept Bitcoin in all our showrooms all over the, all over the world,\" that would be a mon- and then BMW would have to do the same. I guess to ten trillion, Stephan, these big companies will have to do that. But we've already seen, let's take the flip side on the automobile companies, it's all gonna be electric in, we're talking in this country about electric cars by two thousand and thirty, I think it is. You couldn't on net zero carbon emissions, you couldn't conceive of a more ludicrous policy, an expensive policy that this, not being costed, nobody knows about it, but it's green, it's green. Well, isn't it fantastic? I think it's green, isn't it? And it's the same old story, the big guys can ride it out and the little guys get screwed. Look at the aviation industry. There will be no British aviation industry in a year's time. I work as a consultant, I'm a director of a company which services and training aviation companies. And I can tell you, governments hate aviation industries because they're not green and people can travel about. They don't like people traveling. Governments don't like people traveling about. They don't like people traveling about. I can't come to Australia. I can't Australia this very month. I can't come. We get turned away at the airport now. I don't know whether you know this down in Oz, I can't go to the airport and fly anywhere without a good reason. I've got to prove that I've got a good reason to fly anywhere. You see where I'm coming from from this? You can see where I'm coming from. Trying to think about, oh, how it might pan out now, and this is the situation now. Already we live in times unimaginable, unimaginable, and I think it's gonna get worse. But big business" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "41:38", "start": 2498.34, "text": "Decision that is made in the, in, on the planet follow the money trail. Now, if big business comes on board with Bitcoin, maybe the pressure to accept Bitcoin globally in exchange for goods, and don't forget money has to be readily available and understood and acceptable as, for goods and services, that is something that Bitcoin can't claim at the moment. I certainly hope that it will, and I'm a big supporter, and I hope it does. I don't hope it does just as Ma- about Max Kaiser does, who's got millions of- The stuff, which he can't spend, 'cause he's gotta, he's gotta take it back into dollars or, or, or, or he's gotta sell it for currency. He can't get out. And I saw him interviewed the other day, Max, who's probably the biggest, most popular, well-known supporter of Bitcoin for many years, and he was asked, \"What are you gonna do with it?\" And to be brutally frank, you know, he didn't know. He" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:27", "start": 2547.13, "text": "didn't really know. Well, for him, it's a protest as well, you" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "42:32", "start": 2551.99, "text": "know, it's not agrees with that. We all hate big state, we hate governments, we hate government money. We're all exactly on the same side, but we really don't wanna have our head in the sand on this one." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:48", "start": 2568.1, "text": "Of course. And look, I think you make a lot of good points, Godfrey, and I, I think this is one of those points where there might be some disagreement even amongst the Bitcoin world. So I'll give you one view that is prominent in the, in the Bitcoin world, though it's not the only view. So in the Bitcoin world, as you might have seen" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:08", "start": 2588.34, "text": "The anarcho-capitalist version of a crypto person. And so these pe- these people would say something more like, they might say something more like, \"Look, we don't need the government, we just wanna build open-source software and we just build technology and we can just kinda get away without, you know, by advancing the technology, making it easy for people to maybe use it more privately or transact and secure their coins and things like that.\" Where my view is more like, \"We need a bit of that, but we actually need a multi-prong strategy.\" So I do agree There are a lot of Bitcoin holders to put some money into Bitcoin lobbying, right? To try to make sure that Bitcoin stays legal, that you can run your Bitcoin node, that you can hold your private keys, that mining is legal, all of these kinds of things, and I see it like a multi-prong strategy. So in one way, we're spending time out there teaching the public, \"Hey, guys, this is how you can take your financial sovereignty back with Bitcoin, and here's, let's develop the technology and let's make it easy for people to use it and hold it.\"" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:08", "start": 2648.34, "text": "This whole lobbying approach to keep it legal, keep it, you know, rational, and there are arguments that we can prosecute internally that are at least internally consistent to government. Right now, I'm, you know, obviously, I think you and I are libertarians and we want government to be either small or zero, and in the anarcho-capitalist camp, but even for them, we can say, \"Hey, look, if you don't support this, that you're gonna lose a lot of jobs, you're gonna lose a lot of overall, competitiveness, and it-- people will flow" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:38", "start": 2678.36, "text": "angle that people can try to push, and especially as you mentioned, if we hit a ten, say Bitcoin goes to ten trillion, we're talking, you know, a solid almost twenty times what the size is today. So there'll be twenty times, more people who are using it all over the world. So I think that's, an interesting angle that we might see, and I think it's also important to recognize that a lot of this technology has been built and is being used even in spite of bans. So for example- People in Pakistan, despite, you know, governments being anti Bitcoin, you're seeing daily trade volumes increasing, you're seeing people using home mining, we're seeing people using Bitcoin as a way to get around sanctions, and this is a thing that even in the Iranian situation, where, you know, there are, there are groups of, you know, Iranian listeners and some who have translated episodes of my podcast as ed-educational material, and they're talking about, oh, hey, let's use Bitcoin to get around sanctions, and, I guess it's a complex- Complicated story, because in some ways, government will, instead of necessarily banning it, they'll more try to control and regulate and say, \"Okay, you're allowed to hold this Bitcoin, but you need to hold it in this kind of government account or in this kind of certain kind of exchange or this kind of way, or we need to be able to see what you're doing.\" But at the same time, there's just so many cracks all over the world that, you know, we might have this kind of regulated world and, let's say, a more free market Bitcoin world or a black market" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:08", "start": 2768.48, "text": "In and out, and I think that will be the case for some time to come, what's your view?" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "46:15", "start": 2774.62, "text": "I agree with you, entirely, on all that. and when I said ban Bitcoin, I mean, let me just rephrase that a little bit. When I say ban, there's all sorts of things government can do without, without actually banning it. They just make it so difficult and awkward. And certainly, of course, it's the same. You mentioned Pakistan or it's the same with India, you know, where, which banned Coins into India, because if I could take my gold coins into India, I could live very well for quite a long time on just a handful. Of course. because there's a, there's a premium, because the banning means, a premium on it, as we all know. so yes, the ban, banning it isn't-- they'll never actually ban it, but they can make your life, or they can make the transactions or the life, then of course, you've got to say, what happens when you've got such powerful things" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "47:07", "start": 2827.14, "text": "as You've got your, a-and sponsor, we know that we're not quite sure where this is going, but we don't know the input from people like George Soros, Bill Gates, all these people who are, who have wealth beyond human imagination, who've bought the newspapers here, they've bought, mainstream TV here, and they are all supporting the lockdown. You aren't allowed to go on TV, even if you're supporting the World Trade Organization, which says lockdowns don't work, and we all know they don't work. We all know that That's painfully obvious. If they worked, we wouldn't be in lockdown three in the United Kingdom, would we? Really? I mean, you don't need the brains of an archbishop, but nobody's allowed to come on mainstream TV and say that, so they control the media, TV, they cut, they control everything, and, and people we don't even know, people we don't even know, and certain don't have the wellbeing of mankind. Haha, they're not right. Hey, you didn't get to be a multi-billionaire when, when, when the Oh, dear me, no. no, this is about, they're all sociopaths. They have to be. You have-- I used to, I've been just, share this with you, if I may, Stephan. when I was a young man, I used to be under the impression that somehow billionaires had something extra. They had an extra dyna-dyna-dynamic in their head, which made them a bit cleverer than the rest of us, which is why they are multi-billionaires. Of course, now I'm an old man," }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "48:38", "start": 2918.36, "text": "They have no compassion, they have no moral compass. That is how they got to be multi-billionaires. Look, I said good guys, they're not like the multi-billionaires of yesteryear, like Carnegie, and some of the great philanthropists of, of, of, of the nineteenth century who used all this, well, wealth pro bono publico, which they did, Knuffield, Lord Knuffield, and all these things. But now these guys, these guys produce foundations which make it a tax haven for them and then trying to mi-manipulate These are bad people." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "49:11", "start": 2950.66, "text": "And you're right that in many cases businessmen seek to use the state to beat down their competition, to entrench themselves against their competition. and so it's, I guess it's a complicated, situation because when you're trying to explain, well, hold on, there are some billionaires who, you know, maybe you could argue, okay, they've made their money honestly, and others who maybe have made their money using, using the government, using the guns or the threat of the government to- Beat down their competition or to sort of manipulate the scenario to their advantage at, in an unjust way, right? so I, I guess at the end of the day, it just comes down to how many people really value freedom and how many people will-- I, I guess you, you make a very good point that a couple years ago, it would have been, this all would have been unfathomable, right? This idea that people would just willingly accept the destruction of their livelihoods, their way of life, their businesses, all of these things. But I think that maybe the- There be- there's something different about this because we're talking about money, your stored wealth over your life, and I think in many countries around the world, not just the, you know, the Western, you know, US, UK, Australia, Canada, et cetera, a lot of other countries where they have a weaker currency, and for them, they have a very strong incentive to try to st-store some value if they can, and I think a lot of those countries around the world will- Just that fact of people all buying Bitcoin around the world, it, it just makes it very difficult to effectively control. So even as you're saying, okay, maybe it's not an outright ban, but even controlling it might just be very-- I think it will end up being very difficult, given the availability of the technology, the availability of smartphones, availability of cheap computers like Raspberry Pi machines and things that we can use to run Bitcoin full nodes and so on, that I think it, it just changes Which is the calculus around trying to stop people from doing it, because I think it's just one of those things where the-- it's like an asymmetry. It's, it's cheaper for you to store it and secure it and put it in multiple jurisdictions and, or do all those kinds of things than it is for people to sort of go around and stopping everyone. So I think, you're right that of course the governments of the world could go after Max Keiser or any other, you know, famous kind of Bitcoin people, but they're not gonna be able to stop everyone." }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "51:29", "start": 3089.38, "text": "Yes, I think, I think you, you have a valid point, and I think what's-- I knew something would come out of this conversation 'cause it always does, it did last time. And I think both of us have suddenly gone, \"That's a good point,\" and, and he's thinking about. My experience so far since October with people outside yourself, and, you know, the, the professionals, if you will, is that a lot of people haven't taken it as far in their heads as they should. But I think what's come out of this, is It gets bigger and it will get bigger, of that there's no doubt, I don't doubt that. The price of Bitcoin will go up, over, over, over a period of time. All that I think is a given, and it's a given with gold as well, you know, it's a given because it's, it's a question of destruction of fiat currencies. I think there was no one sponsor or organized sponsorship for gold to stop the cheating and facilitating of the SEC cheating the price and manipulating the price of gold, because the powers that be, the Politicians and the central bankers didn't want that. Very difficult thing to lobby against. So what with Bitcoin is, ha-- has to be, is there have to be, it has to turn into a mass movement, if you will, on your, on your, hypothesis, which, with which I don't dispute, it has to be a mass movement. The pressure has to be political to an extent, with a small p, but it also has to carry, it has to carry big business with it. The pressure has to mean big business. So somebody has to, and, you know, and I think the birth of big private against the, the first big international company, and it doesn't really matter who it is, but I would say automobiles are the natural, the natural thing, whether it's Volkswagen or whoever it is. But then of course, don't forget Volkswagen is heavily owned by the state as well, the German state. So these, these things are terribly in, in, and, and, and you mentioned earlier about how, how multi-billionaires get their money using the state, Tesla, of course," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "53:29", "start": 3209.1, "text": "'Cause funnily enough, now of course, I grant you that Tesla has arguably been a recipient of government subsidies in terms of loans and, you know, the whole renewable aspect of it. However, Elon Musk has come out in very much in favor of Bitcoin. He's been talking about it, he's been saying, \"I, I, you know, he's been saying, 'Oh, I wish I got, I was supporting it earlier, I'm late to the party.'\" he's, he's been saying some of these things, and I think it's, Now with this whole Wall Street bets GameStop phenomenon, I think many of those same kinds of people in, you know, a year or two, some of those people could come into the Bitcoin world, and that same kind of passion and movement might well come into the Bitcoin world, and that could potentially infuse, society with this idea of, hey, we want justice, we want monetary justice, Bitcoin is our way of seeking justice." }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "54:22", "start": 3262.08, "text": "I hope so, because that would really please me, because, because I'm a supporter of cryptocurrencies, Outside the state, a huge supporter, and that's what, what I'd like. One of the problems that I've noticed recently, in the last year in, in, in Britain, is that people don't value their liberty as much as I do, or much as I thought they would. this martial law that we have has gone virtually unprotested. Not in Eastern Europe, they're pushing back, in Italy they're pushing back, but in Britain, there's been virtually no pushback at all. People seem to be quite happy Happy to walk around with muscles on, do as I told, and all the rest of it. Admittedly, the government's giving them, a lot of people money to stay at home, and of course, the entire public sector on full pay staying at home. So we've got millions and millions of people who aren't affected. But the idea that people, I think people value freedom more when they've come out of a totalitarian system. So your Poles, and your East Germans, your Czechs, the people from Eastern Central- Europe, who have been in this, terrible Soviet, Soviet system, value it more than we do. But tell me with Great Britain, is we haven't been invaded since ten sixty-six. We have a tendency somehow, and I sometimes wonder how to win all our wars. I really don't know how we do that, 'cause the most disorganized organization in this country, I don't know. But we do all this. So people think it, it, it hasn't, it can't happen to them. And if they still, inconceivably, believe what they hear in mainstream media People actually listen to the BBC and believe it and pay a hundred and fifty pounds a year for it, although they moan. They, if they didn't send their money to the BBC, the BBC would have to either get advertising or subscriptions, like the hundred other channels that we have. But everybody sits down and writes a check and sends them a check. I mean, Great Britain is It's, it's simply inconceivable. It's a nation of sheep, docile sheep at that, not even killer sheep. so, yeah. And the other thing, and, and I just share this with you because another political, leader said it to me and it set me scratching my head a bit. He said, \"Yes, money, people wanna protect their money, and so on and so forth, and, and that's all understandable. But he said, we now live, and this is certainly true of America, most of the They don't have any investment portfolios. I mean, I'm worried about money and the degradation of money because, you know, I'm an old guy and I've got accumulated wealth, and I understand how many Bs make five, but most people don't. Most people think the state will go on sending them money, whether they're public sector, their public sector, pensioners or their social welfare benefits. There is no conception in this country that this money doesn't come from a magic tree, and we already have a Chancellor of the Exchequer who's personally a Very nice guy, I've met him, but he doesn't understand money at all, bless him. He hasn't a clue. He thinks he's already revving up to try and tax us, tax our way out of a recession. He actually believes you can tax- Your way out of a recession. And he's talking about a wealth tax of five percent, a wealth tax of five percent over and above five hundred thousand pounds. You can't buy a decent middle class house in anywhere, never mind London, in Great Britain for under five hundred grand. So if that's your benchca- that's your benchmark for wealth, anything else you've got is gonna be hit for five percent, but none of us have any money, you know, we're asset rich. What are we gonna sell to give the Chancellor five, five percent of our wealth, which isn Big guys never pay tax, small guys don't pay tax 'cause they haven't got any money. So it'll be the middle classes that pick up on this tax yet again, and he, and it stifles and tax stifles and all the rest of it. He doesn't have any concept of cutting spending. We have twelve billion pounds a year, thirteen billion, going in foreign aid. We send some money to China, yeah, we do, in our foreign aid program. We have a high speed rail system which is costing a hundred billion that gets businessmen home to Birmingham from London twenty minutes early So a Birmingham businessman can have an extra gin and tonic before dinner. so there is no concept of, we have quangos, we have, indexing pensions which cost billions, probably the course of a trillion pounds in the books, which is off record sheet with, the international accounting standards, which the Chancellor, neither did your Chancellor, present on international accounting standards. They're all crooks, every single one of them is a crook. and it's gonna be very-- It's just like trying to bust the mafia. It's a busting the mafia and institutionalized crime. Central banking is institutionalized crime, that's it. It's gonna be tough, and the only way we can beat it, you're quite right, we all need to rise up, and the more Bitcoin is the better, as you quite rightly say, the more of us there are, the better it is, which is why I understand the evangelism of Bitcoiners, I understand that, and I don't sneer at that, but evangelism can be a little bit dangerous if you're, it keeps you focused looking that direction when somebody" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "59:36", "start": 3576.02, "text": "Of all that. Now, I didn't know that Elon Musk had come out in favor of Bitcoin, so you just told me something I didn't know there. That is just the sort of level of individual that needs to come onside, you know? And if he does, and we-- and more people, do that. but at the moment, although that, let's have some more people. I tell you who else might be, we-- he's not big on the global stage. We have a guy called, the guy who run with us A, a radical. if he came forward, certainly, if every country produced a highly respected private sector enter- on- entrepreneur who said, \"I've got restaurants all over the country and pubs, I will accept Bitcoin,\" and accidentally knowing the guy, he's very, very likely to come down that road. If every- and people then see how that would grow us, if people were used to going to get a meal out with their Bitcoin and, and, and a drink, and couldn't then do that, but of course they're all closed now anyway, so the, the, the state It has to be a mass movement, and it has to be grassroots is a good thing. Brexit was grassroots. British, the British nation voted for Brexit because that was absolutely grassroots, it against the establishment, MSM, the political class, the bureaucratic class, all the crooks and gangsters and bankers. We actually got rid of that, for which I suspect we are now being punished with this martial law, 'cause we voted the wrong way. The, the deep state, or the establishment, call it what you will, so there is-- but it does need its, it needs its leaders To be business leaders, not political leaders. Political leaders aren't gonna be any use to us, in, in my view, in my view. It has to be business leaders, and there must be one in every free country. There must be one guy in every country who could run the flag of, up the mast for, or for independent cryptocurrency. You know, it doesn't have to necessarily be Bit- Bitcoin. I know it's a whole different game, and I'm not knowledgeable enough to even discuss that with you, but independent of state cryptocurrency, is" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "01:01:35", "start": 3695.96, "text": "Leaders, in my view, I, I, I think that's a point we could perhaps end on in, in full agreement, perhaps." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:01:40", "start": 3700.98, "text": "Yeah, I think so. I think it ultimately comes down to the question of how do you build a movement? And as you're saying, having leaders can help. I think Bitcoin, in some ways, issues having specific leaders, if you will, but in the sense that people are prominent and well-known advocates, certainly Bitcoin has those. And I think one point I would probably amend a little bit is not as much about day-to-day like receiving Bitcoin, but Of saving Bitcoin. And so I think this is where the, you know, the Michael Saylor or Jack Dorsey with Square, that kind of message about not necessarily having it for day-to-day spending, but thinking of it as, \"Hey, this is, I'm gonna use it for my corporate treasury, \" and as individuals, we can use it for our individual treasury, and we hold it. And so that is, I think, the other point around building the, the base. We're, we're, what we're trying to do here is we're trying to grow the base," }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "01:02:35", "start": 3755.98, "text": "It was a bit of an unusual situation when I, when I, when I, it had just spiked, and of course, being a professional investor, I'd just doubled my money, on Bitcoin, and I'm afraid I, I know what-- I, I walked away from it because there was also a fake transactional reason for gold to be down that week, which details of which I won't bore you, but it was technical, and you know all about that anyway. and there's still technical positions which might be coming out this very day we're talking" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "01:03:04", "start": 3784.19, "text": "out, That was a sort of window that I, I pounced on. I'm not a trader, incidentally, I'm a long term investor on everything I do, very boring. But that flipped the screen on me and I said, \"Make that trade now and come back.\" And I did. But it's not something I intend to do much of that kind of thing. No, it's, it's parking it, diversification and another thing that I have I have, experience, because I've got a lot of input from Bitcoiners from all over the world, on Twitter and stuff like that, for which I, I now thank everybody, 'cause that's been extremely helpful. is diversification. there must be, if, if, if you're-- I would argue that never have your entire life savings in one thing, in one place. it's a little bit do what I say, not do what I do, because I am very heavily involved, you know, in gold. It's, you know, Seventy percent gold, which so, but then I've got real estate and I've got, you know, other stuff, and I'm building my Bitcoin now, I'm building that diversification portfolio. but I do counsel, so when I look up the people that Twitter at me, Stephan, and I look, I look them up sometimes just to see if I can get a little bit of a feel who's coming back to me. I would say certainly eighty percent are free thinkers, as you would expect, people who understand the overall situation about money, but you Or all sorts of, but they're not in the professional sphere and therefore perhaps don't understand the need to diversify, if that's all they've got, and, and, and that would be a counsel, which is why I'm diversifying out of gold into Bitcoin, on a very small scale, but that will grow a bit, and I think people who are a hundred percent Bitcoin might like to go just a little bit the other track, but there we are, that's, that's a personal thing." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:04:47", "start": 3887.45, "text": "Yeah, for sure. I think, it's ultimately" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:04:55", "start": 3895.96, "text": "person to decide their own thing. but, look, I think that's, probably a good spot to finish up. So, Godfrey, where can, listeners, find you online?" }, { "speaker": "godfrey_bloom", "time": "01:05:05", "start": 3905.54, "text": "my website is best, which is simple, it's just godfreybloom small case dot uk, and all my stuffs on the articles, everything, not just about Bitcoin, but about the pandemic, fake pandemic, fake statistics, and all the, all the stuff that we all have to put up with all the time, being fed bullshit by the" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:05:22", "start": 3922.25, "text": "state Overreaction in terms of what's going on with, what's going on with all of this stuff. but nevertheless, I really enjoyed chatting with you. thank you for joining me, Godfrey. Great pleasure, thank you so much! So what's your view on building a movement and the more cyberpunk goal of using technology versus using some aspect of the political process and lobbying? I'm curious to know your thoughts. You can also find the show notes and the transcript for this episode, which will go up, on a slight delay, stephanelivera dot com slash two four eight for this episode. Thanks for listening, and I will see you in the citadels." } ] }