{ "episodeId": "SLP316", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin": { "name": "Why Libertarians Should Focus On Bitcoin", "role": "guest", "tag": "WHY" }, "guest_2": { "name": "Guest 2", "role": "guest", "tag": "GUEST" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:09", "start": 8.91, "text": "Hi and welcome to Stephan Livera podcast show about Bitcoin. Today we're talking about why libertarians should focus on Bitcoin and my guests today are Vake long time Bitcoiner and CEO of Students for Liberty Wolf von Laar. So they join me when we talk about liberty and why libertarians should focus on Bitcoin as their top priority. This show is brought to you by Swan Bitcoin, have you set up your Bitcoin savings plan? With Swan, it's really fast to set up, whether you are an individual or an entity looking to set up and start stacking Sats. 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Now, coinkite are a long time Bitcoin business, they've been around for about ten years, they used to do different things, but their focus now is on hardware security, and they are one of the leaders in the game here. They offer the Bitcoin private keys and it can sign messages in an airgapped way using a micro SD card, and you can use it easily with wallets like Specter, Sparrow, Electrum, BlueWallet, and others, so you can use it with all sorts of new features. It's got P2PBT natively, you can use it in a single signature or in a multi-signature context, you can use it on your own in a DIY capacity or alongside other service providers. The cold card is a really versatile and extremely highly advanced piece of equipment for securing your Your Bitcoin, it's an excellent tool and I recommend you take a look. Go and get yours at coinkite dot com and use the code livera for a discount on yours. On to the show with Veik and Wolf. Wolf and Vake, welcome to the show." }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "03:11", "start": 190.51, "text": "How you doing, Stefan? Big, big fan. Thank you so much for having us. Yep, listener since the first episode." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:16", "start": 195.71, "text": "Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, we've been, I've been speaking with you guys all for a while, and I think, it's, it's time to do the episode about libertarians and libertarianism and Bitcoin. So, you know, we, we need to get into this without, not to be mean to our fellow libertarians, but just to try to wake them" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:36", "start": 215.54, "text": "up Connection between libertarianism and Bitcoin for each of you." }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "03:41", "start": 221.39, "text": "Sure, I'll go and start. So, I mean, I was actually a libertarian before discovering Bitcoin, so the transition to becoming a Bitcoiner was very natural for me. I actually grew up in like a Democrat household. My senior year of high school, I campaigned for John Kerry, who was the two thousand and four Democratic presidential candidate. Then I would go off to college and I'd start studying economics, and all my views start to change overnight pretty much. In fact, I don't know, like one of the things that was very form Econ professors who explain the concept of a price floor, which maybe you're familiar with Stephan, basically it means that you can't sell a good or service below a certain price. And then he said, \"Okay, this is a reason why the minimum wage is a bad idea,\" and that was like totally shocking to me because, you know, when you grow up like basically left leaning or a Democrat, the minimum wage is basically gospel, right? You believe that it should be there, it serves a purpose, that should, you know, be perpetually raised. So that kind of set me down the journey" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "04:38", "start": 277.86, "text": "Ran for president, and I was a big fan of his, and he sort of introduced me to the whole concept of Austrian economics, the gold standard, some C-1 discovery, you know, Tom Woods' books, and then around April 2013, when Bitcoin crossed a hundred dollars, when I first heard about it, I saw a video of Jeffrey Tucker, who I'd known beforehand and was a big fan of beforehand, he had a video somewhere on YouTube that said, \"How Bitcoin Will End the Nation State,\" and that just like blew my mind, and, you Bitcoin, I was in love with it, but I was always kind of running into this problem about explaining Bitcoin to other people that were also very libertarian-ish, very pro, pro free market oriented. You know, I'd explain to them and they just wouldn't like believe it for whatever reason, or they'd say gold is better. And so I had to like, so I, what I assumed was that maybe I was like, okay, I'm a few years ahead, I just gotta give a little bit of time, they'll eventually get on board. And so a few years passed Still, same old story, right? Twen- twenty seventeen, the big boom came. Some of them got in, dabbled in, but they also, some of them went down the altcoin rabbit hole. None of them got it. And so, you know, I'm getting a little frustrated at this point. And now here we are in twenty twenty-one, the price is like above sixty K. It's like a hundred times bigger than it was. And I'm talking to some of these same people, libertarian people, and they're not-- they're still not on board like the Bitcoin train" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "06:03", "start": 363.1, "text": "Speaking. But it's just, it's kind of very frustrating to me, so, I think the larpertarian thing was a coin, a term that either I or maybe someone else on Twitter, like Tae Kowmoto or Guy Swan, coined, just to sort of describe like, like, why are these libertarians getting on board with what's clearly one of the best tools for shrinking the size and scope of the state?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:24", "start": 383.9, "text": "Exactly. and Wolf, let's hear from you. What's the, for you, what's the connection between libertarianism and Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "06:30", "start": 390.31, "text": "It's the, the best connection ever because Bitcoin is the single best shot at achieving liberty in our lifetime, full stop. I mean, people sometimes summarize it with \"fix the money, fix the world,\" but like, what does that actually mean? It means like without fiat money, and Bitcoin is a big threat to fiat money, you won't be able to rob billions of people, literally billions of people, and liquidate government debt. Without fiat money, you couldn't go into debt that much in the first place, personally, but also on a nation level. And without fiat money, the growth of government To pay for the services of government, right? And also without fiat money, wars would be prohibitively costly. So it doesn't matter if you, if you're not familiar with Bitcoin, but look at any kind of policy area that you care about Through Bitcoin, it's more likely that it will be on a transitionary, trajectory towards more liberty. So for me, it is, it's like, it's so clear that this is like the best shot that we have right now as humankind to achieve liberty in our lifetime, and, that makes me incredibly excited, and, I'm running a libertarian nonprofit right now, and I wouldn't mind if like the majority of our volunteers that we have in a hundred and fourteen countries would be like dealing with bi- Bitcoin and really understand that, like, how that can change the- World. And yes, I do see the problem because I'm part of the, the liberty movement, meaning like conservatives, libertarian think tanks, and I know all of these institutes and these guys. And yes, like some of them dabble with Bitcoin, but not many are really focused on that. And that is a very interesting question that, that I'm looking forward to exploring with both of you, how we can also like pitch Bitcoin as like freedom money to them and say like, hey, like if you wanna live in a, in a, in a free society, this is the best It's a bold claim, but, hopefully after this episode, everybody will say like, \"Hell yes, that's what it is.\"" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:20", "start": 499.92, "text": "You're right. And with Bitcoin, for many people, it can be like a raw shark test. We're looking in the water and we see our own reflection back, and we're like, \"Oh, this is it, this is...\" This is gonna be the thing, and whether you're a libertarian or a progressive or a conservative or a cypherpunk or whatever, oftentimes that can be the reaction. But I think, in fairness, the-- it is fair to say that it will have very libertarian outcomes, and it fundamentally just will drive society in more of a libertarian direction. But it just-- I, I agree with you both about that frustration that many of our fellow libertarians haven't gone down this Bitcoin rabbit hole with us, and so, and it might be for different reasons, right? So let's try to understand why. So a few ideas I've had on this is maybe some of them were stuck in Goldbug land, some of them thought it was crypto and they just kind of got stuck with all the old coins and b-cash, and then maybe some of them are more just like dilettantes, right? They're just sort of-- they kind of go shallow across lots of little topics, but they never really go deep. There are a few ideas I have. What do you guys have on that? Like, why, why are libertarians not going deep enough on Bitcoin? Veck, do you wanna start?" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "09:25", "start": 565.29, "text": "Well, sure. Actually, I wanna add so quickly to something Wolf was saying. You know, lib- Bitcoin is definitely the- Best tool we have to achieving a libertarian society, because it's not purely words, right? Libertarianism is a political movement, just like conservatism, progressivism, socialism, right? And political movements rely upon politicking, that means, you know, words, think tanks and papers and, and lobbying and stuff. But Bitcoin actually disrupts the Fed, basically, right? And a good example of this was Uber, right? So we had for decades libertarian organizations, think tanks and whatnot, producing Papers about why the taxi cartel, should essentially be opened up to competition, right? But none of it did any good, right? They did this for decades and decades, and then along comes Uber around two thousand and ten, and single handedly it eliminate, it basically disrupts that same taxi cartel because technology is always more powerful than words or political actions because it gives people the ability to opt out. I love Ludwig von Mises and Rothbard and Ron Paul, but Bitcoin has done more to end the Fed than basically a century Close to a century of them writing about central banking, because it actually gives people the ability to, to opt out. and besides Bitcoin, the only other thing I can think of that's really cutting into the state's power is stuff like 3D printed guns. But I think you were mentioning, why are they not getting on board? Part of it's, an inability to engage in adversarial thinking. Bitcoin is built upon the, the notion of, I mean, Bitcoiners are in a sense kind of paranoid about how could the government attack this and- What, how can we defend, create systems that are robust enough, robust enough against a state base attack? It sort of, this kind of goes back to exchange I had with Eric July, one of these guys I criticized as a libertarian. I think his content is great, I think he's definitely well intentioned, but about six months ago he tweeted that Libertarians, I, I don't, I don't wanna quote, don't quote me on this verbatim, but he said something along the lines of that we should own land like in a rural area and learn to defend it, and that's how we're gonna overthrow a state. And I basically engaged in a long argument with him about this, and eventually, you're, you're inviting me on a show, and we're gonna go into a debate on a show, about how this is a bad strategy. Based on what we've learned from Bitcoin, right? The advantage of Bitcoin is" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "11:52", "start": 711.5, "text": "That's developed, whereas land offers no such value, right? But explaining this to them, they didn't-- they're not, they're not used to thinking in adversarial manner, they're used to thinking in more of a political rights manner, and they have to change their mindset From, you know, why is the state, you know, an inefficient system or evil if you choose to believe, to how do we develop a system that they cannot undermine? It's a, it's a change in your mode of thinking" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:19", "start": 738.85, "text": "I'm wondering as well, is that a, a trust in the system factor, right? So like Chris is saying, sometimes you can get high int-highly intelligent people, but they have very high trust in the system, whereas libertarians obviously have low trust in the system. Do you think that's a distinguishing factor, Wolf? Do you wanna comment on that or what they could say?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "12:36", "start": 756.25, "text": "Yes, I mean that's, that's definitely part of it, and we all have our journeys to, to libertarian ideas, and I'm not sure if it's the case for you, Stephan, as well as it was for me. We were first libertarians and then bitcoiners, but now we-- it's a little bit different because like a lot of bitcoiners then they discover libertarianism, and it's, it's a unique thing. But also with libertarianism, it has to hit you at the right time, right? and not everybody who's reading, like, let's say," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "13:06", "start": 785.85, "text": "Long time in your career or because you have like some other dispositions. So there's, there's like, there's, there's different components at work here, and I do have a lot of sympathy for people who don't get it, because arguably I had like the best environment possible for getting Bitcoin. I got my, actually my first bitcoins or a fraction of a bitcoin from Michael Goldstein at the Mises Institute in Alabama after I've published a book ranting against the Federal Reserve. And yes, I took that, and I didn't go down the rabbit hole back then. And, if you know Michael Goldstein, he's one of the co-founders of the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute for the listeners here, and a, a great guy. And I said like, \"Why the hell did I not get it?\" And I could-- I can't for the life of me sympathize with the guy that I was back then, but like, finally I got it. It just took some time. But to answer your question, Stephan, I tried to categorize a little bit the Big deal. Another big deal is like people getting rich, that's an issue. Un-un-unequal distribution, big issue. They don't like that either. And there's all arguments against it, of course. And then, and I think this is one of the most important ones. The left often sees money as a tool of power and not of empowerment. They don't understand how useful it actually is for human rights or for empowering the poorest of the poor and the unbanked actually, because they don't deal with money and banking. So those are on the left, but we're talking more about like the libertarians, which are neither left or right, if you wanna argue about that, but also conservatives. but as a, as a juxtaposition, you can say They say, what you have said already, Stefan, gold is better, right? It has-- and that triggers me, like I can't still not get over it. It has intrinsic value, like it drives me mad. There's no such thing from an Austrian perspective, and we are all Austrians here, right? but furthermore, more complicated ones as it violates the regression theorem that Mises put forth. So Austrian said like a theory, they looked at the theory onto Bitcoin and said like, \"Mm, that doesn't work.\" Then you have the Chicago Nights, right? They say like, \"Oh, you need monetary policy because otherwise you have like another Great Depression because of the Fed-Worth, \" but some people say it's too slow, therefore altcoins. And then also, libertarians also understand like what money actually is, and there's like several criteria, I think like seven or so. But like, Bitcoin on the surface violates stability, portability to some extent. I mean, it's super portable, but like you can't really easily like pay for it, right? And accept-acceptability, which is" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "15:34", "start": 933.89, "text": "Like violated and said like, okay, we have our theory, Bitcoin doesn't map onto this, therefore, we might reject it and we don't like dive deep into it. So those are what say like, some of the obstacles that, that we need to overcome in addition to just psychological factors that it has to hit you at the right time, you have to have the bandwidth in your life. during my time, I was finishing my, my master thesis and pursuing my PhD proposal, and I was like very busy, but plus also you have to have it presented by people" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "16:04", "start": 964.0, "text": "And more importantly also that you can see that they're living these principles. To give you an example, I always tell this to our students as well. You wanna not necessarily go from an argument and, and have the other side like, \"Oh, they have the most rational argument, I'm completely convinced libertarian.\" That never happens. But if they say like, \"Hmm, I still disagree with this person, but I would love to have like a beer with that, with him or her,\" that should be your goal. And if they see like, \"You live a happy life, you're happy with your For Bitcoin and/or libertarianism. And if you're like grumpy and just like slapping people over the head with human action, that's not gonna go anywhere or with, like, I don't know, Amos, the Bitcoin standard. So that would be like also the strategic point." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "16:46", "start": 1006.39, "text": "Yeah, very good point. And I think it does align back to the whole Jonathan Haidt elephant and the rider idea that really we make decisions, decisions emotionally, and then we backwards rationalize with some kind of rationalization that, you know, and that touches into that point about how really people are convinced more by Their friends and family and people who they are close to and that they love and respect, and because they like this person, oh, let me take that more seriously or at least give him the time of day to hear him explain his thesis about Bitcoin or whatever. And I think it seems to me, and I think both of you probably agree, is here that a lot of libertarians just haven't gone deep enough on Bitcoin to understand why, and maybe that's, maybe that's why. What do you guys think?" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "17:28", "start": 1047.89, "text": "I mean, yeah, definitely, there's, there's definitely a learning curve to Bitcoin, and you have to fall down the right rabbit hole, right? They have to find content like yours to spawn and not, hopefully not some like, you know, Ethereum content that kind of diverts them the wrong way. but it's, it's, it's, Bitcoin is, it's a hard pill to swallow. If you're not used to, you know, there, there's a lot to it, right? Private key management, understanding the role of, like, you know, scalability and Lightning Network. There, there's a whole-- it's a very technical angle, and for someone that's used to talking in terms of, you know, what our, what our rights are, right? They're thinking more of like a political philosophy element. It's, it's a little bit, it's a completely new way of examining things." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "18:12", "start": 1091.5, "text": "Hundred percent agreed. You have to understand game theory to some extent and understand like why, why does it actually work? Like, how does the governance of Bitcoin really work? That was like one of the things that I didn't understand, like, how do we know that there will only be twenty-one million? Like, can we guarantee it? It's software, you can change software. Like, and, and thinking that through, then it has something to do with, with cryptography. You have to understand of that and like why it matters. And I would say that Most people who are very influential also within the libertarian movement or in any kind of movement, those are the people who are experienced, who have written, I don't know, like books or given presentations, so therefore they tend to be older. Like we are here, I guess all like millennials and Gen Zs right now, neither generation really remembers, I mean, Gen Zs, millennials a little bit, growing up without the internet, but those folks know that. And so Bitcoin is something so alien, and we have to understand that no framework, it doesn't matter what ideology you have, Maps onto it, because we haven't seen the birth of a money in over five thousand years, and we're living it through it right freaking now, and that is really a very unique condition that is just mind-boggling, and its implication is also not very clear. But I do believe that if the slogans that we already have and the memes like \"Fix the money, fix the world,\" I think that the more we're saying that, or Bitcoin is the single best shot at achieving liberty in our lifetime, as I like to put it, if, if libertarian- And see that, then maybe they say like, \"Okay, there, there might be something there, and trying to dig into this. why make-- why do these crazy people in this podcast here make these outrageous claims? \" in order to like pique their interest, and hopefully over time, I mean, it's growing already faster. I mean, we're complaining here right now, right? But Bitcoin is going faster than the internet. Which I believe is a technology that's grown the, the fastest in human history. So I think we're doing well. That being said, though, the reason why I want our students who are already good libertarians to understand Bitcoin is because I'm concerned that the faster Bitcoin grows, the more people with different ideologies will come on board, and those people will have influence on Bitcoin. Yes, you won't be able to stop it, like government can't shut it down, we know all of that. However, if you have the next generation of lawyers who aren't very, Open to Bitcoin or come from it from a different ideology or politicians, journalists, academics, if they don't have like the same kind of libertarian lens or, cypherpunk lens, then that could severely hamper Bitcoin adoption in the future. So it's very crucial that we have this conversation. I appreciate you, Stephan, making room for this on your podcast." }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "20:45", "start": 1245.2, "text": "Oh, one thing that was a little bit frustrating in my eyes, I wanted libertarians to front run the general population to stacking Sats, right? Because if we're gonna form- Form this future, right? I mean, like citadels or Anacapstan, Libertopia, whatever term you want to use to describe it, right? The people that are gonna shape that future are gonna be people who stacked that very early and, you know, basically have the resources to shape society in the future. I wanted them to be of a very libertarian, free market mindset. I don't know if the, the, the door is closed on that 'cause the cat is sort of out of the bag, you know, everybody knows about Bitcoin, but I wanted libertarians to front" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "21:24", "start": 1283.59, "text": "Getting Bitcoin because, you know, who wants the same oligarchy running things in the future as, you know, running things in the past? So" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "21:30", "start": 1289.75, "text": "may I make a small point here, because you make an interesting point, Vake, because your vision is very clear of like what Bitcoin will accomplish, but now people have to swallow two things, right? One being Bitcoin and its complexity, and you're selling them also like a society without a government. And if people encounter both at the same time and haven't seen that before, it's unlikely that they will like take that huge bite out of it." }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "21:51", "start": 1310.65, "text": "But if They might be more amenable to that." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "21:56", "start": 1315.87, "text": "That's a good point. Yeah, you have to, yeah, you have to really tailor to your audience." }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "22:00", "start": 1320.45, "text": "Yeah, I don't expect a socialist to, to believe in that or, or, but it's ironic, I mean, some people that are very, left leaning politically, you know, very socialist, you could say, got Bitcoin faster than people that were libertarian, so it's bizarre, totally unexpected." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:16", "start": 1335.6, "text": "Yeah," }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "22:16", "start": 1336.14, "text": "and I mean, you're right" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:17", "start": 1337.0, "text": "that, I mean, I agree with you, Veik and Wolf, that it would have" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:24", "start": 1344.41, "text": "But also the difference in the understanding in those days was more like, \"Oh, just spend it around\" or \"Oh, just use altcoins.\" Like some of them were more dilletant and hadn't gone down this sort of, \"No, like huddle your stack so that you will have more influence in the future and you can potentially use that stack and wealth to influence things in a more liberty-respecting direction, even if it's not perfect, at least you're, you're pushing it in that direction.\" Let's back up, like probably two or three percent of the world Hold some Bitcoin today. So it is still extremely early, and a lot of those people who hold Bitcoin even now are more like toe-dipping, they're not necessarily going all in Bitcoin, right? Like a fully orange-pilled person. So I would say there is still a chance there, but it's more just about, are libertarians going to stop being larparians? So do you wanna talk a little bit about that, Veik? What's this term larparian and how would you distinguish that from, you know, a Bitcoiner, a libertarian, and a larparian?" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "23:21", "start": 1401.36, "text": "Well, a LARParian, right? It's LARP, L-A-R-P, is a acronym that stands for live action role playing, and it's just sort of like a, a way of kind of, I guess you could say, teasing people who talk a lot about something but don't really take action, right? And so, I mean, as we've kind of been talking about this episode, Bitcoin is a way of putting Libertarian philosophy and beliefs into action, right? So if you're a libertarian that's not actually, you know, engaged in Bitcoin anyway, promoting it, holding it, then you're, you're kind of larping, right? I mean, to me, it's like, it's like being an oncologist that's never heard of chemotherapy. Like, it's, it's like, what are you doing? Like, you can talk about free markets and, and, you know, shrinking the state all day, if you're not doing the things that have tangible impact. Everything, everything you" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "24:11", "start": 1451.11, "text": "put in, and Bitcoin, at least in my opinion, has one of the highest impact to effort ratios of any, any activity that you engage in to, to reduce the size and scope of the state, right? I mean, creating podcasts and, and articles and stuff criticizing the state is great and all, but government politics works on very, you know, there's power structures that are very hard to, to reform, you know, no matter how much you effort you put into it. So you kinda have to strike at the root. Cause, which, you know, as you've delved into many times, is fiat money. So you got, you got, you got to do things that actually have impact. There should have been, there should have been a bidirectional funnel from libertarianism into Bitcoin, as well as in Bitcoiners becoming more libertarian, right? And I mean, you've done a great job amongst all the other Bitcoin content producers that, you know, people that discover your show and learn more about Bitcoin eventually discover Austrian economics through your show and become more libertarian over time. But I just, my frustration was that- I didn't feel the reverse was happening. There should have been a pipeline from somebody watching, I don't know, Dave Smith's show, and then over time, you know, maybe Dave Smith mentions Bitcoin here and there, and then they kind of get into the Bitcoin side of things. There should have been-- it should have gone both ways, but it seemed to have only gone one direction. But, you know, that's, I guess, the way things worked out." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:32", "start": 1532.07, "text": "Yeah," }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "25:32", "start": 1532.33, "text": "Wolf, anything to add there?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "25:34", "start": 1533.89, "text": "Yeah, I mean, I'm in the business of changing that. so we 18 and I just raised, and it's not enough, but I've raised like, three weeks ago, fifty thousand dollars for Bitcoin related activism, and I'm, I've, I have a multi-million dollar proposal that I'm thinking of, so I hope that to find somebody that is interested in that at some point because I'm already training staff about like seeing this and then influencing the volunteers that we have, but there's so much more work to be done. But we're already seeing this, like Reason had like great videos recently produced with Alex Gladstein as well. I mean, Alex just and the Human Rights Foundation does fantastic work, even though they are more focused on human rights, but Liberty being part of that of course. and we see this like a, a little bit more, more happening, and I hope, at some point maybe also, Peter, like somebody at Cato will also," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "26:25", "start": 1584.74, "text": "Twitter away from Steve Hanke, which by the way I admire, I've, I've quoted his work, he's does great academic work, but of course, unfortunately, he doesn't understand Bitcoin, which then reflects poorly on some other of the great aspect of the work that they're doing. So in, in my opinion, I think at some point it will be like a necessity and more nonprofits will be focusing on that, but as you can imagine, like the incentives frameworks aren't conducive to that, because like, who are the affluent people that donate their money to libertarian? Causes, those are normally tend to be demographically like sixty, seventy year old, white males, generally speaking. That's, that's the-- And they, they are unlikely to, to understand Bitcoin or get Bitcoin, or they're running institutions that are prohibit to even putting their, their, their toes in there because predominantly like donors from that movement come from the financial sector. And so they are actually by law discouraged to digging into that, so they don't have an incentive to that. But, I mean, change, change is occurring fairly fast and- And us here in this conversation through different means are trying to change that, and I see more and more interest from young people, and I'm trying to give them the tools and resources so that they can, like take on the banner and find different ways to spread this, because not everybody has to just focus on, on Bitcoin solely, but they can use Bitcoin as a part of the solution. So because what I enjoy about classical liberalism specifically, and what I really admire about our ideology is that we don't say like, \"This is society,\" It should look like. This is the perfect, right? Because we know it requires trial and error, and it requires like competing entities, like coming up with different solutions. Like, like your Uber example was perfect in that regard. Like, we know all of that. And at the same time, we can't say like, \"Hey, we know like this is the, this is the only way that we can achieve liberty.\" Maybe somebody starts like a free city project and then it shows to the, the rest of the world that, like, governance, like more, like, decentralized governance will be helpful. I don't know what will lead there, but I know that Bitcoin will be part of that. And, yeah, and, and I'm glad that more and more people, Seemingly having interest in that and hopefully understand then also Austrian economics and like money, because I, I believe it's a litmus test for libertarian. If you understand money and what the problem is with fiat money, then I think you, you are not gonna turn back and become like a socialist two weeks later." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:42", "start": 1721.98, "text": "Right. And it might also be that people disagree on the best strategy to achieve liberty. Now, obviously, all three of us believe Bitcoin is the best strategy, essentially, like that everyone is stacking sats and essentially making it very expensive for the government to take everyone's resources. Resource extraction via taxation or otherwise, or inflation otherwise. And so maybe their view is more like, \"Oh no, we're just gonna politically campaign, we're gonna try and do like Ron Paul, right? Like maybe a Deb Smith might say that.\" What would you say to those strategies? Or maybe they might say, \"We're gonna do seceding, or we're gonna do, you know, free private cities, but not like a bit-- Now, maybe the free private city isn't a good example because they are very pro Bitcoin as well, but you get the idea. What if from that" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "29:29", "start": 1768.77, "text": "Well, whatever strategy you choose has to be government hard, for lack of a better term, right? So Bitcoin's government hard, there's no, there's no person you can coerce to shut it down, right? Unfortunately, most of the strategies libertarians have engaged in has been basically trying to, I don't know, push for a new candidate, the Ron Pauls, Rand Pauls of the world. But even, even if you get them into office, they can't really change much because there's such an entrenched bureaucracy and power structure that it can't be reformed. I mean, besides- Bitcoin, like I said, 3D printed gun is, is a guns is a great thing because, you know, they can't, there's no central authority that they can shut down. I mean, stuff like Impervious dot AI may be, if that takes off, that could be an interesting thing, you know, building a, a more censorship resistant internet. There's a few projects out there kind of working on similar things. There's a few promising projects, but Bitcoin is number one amongst them. And just try and engage in political action, it's, it's, it's Wolf, I, I interned at Cato a long time ago, ten plus years ago. so I know the, I know those circles. I lived in DC, and, you know, they're about producing policy papers, and then, you know, you go to Capitol Hill and you, and you do briefings for congressmen, and, you know, maybe they listen to you, maybe they don't, but it's-- I'm trying, I'm really struggling to think of examples where a libertarian or free market organization was able to make a substantive impact on a piece of legislation or regulation And so it feels like a not, not a very good use of resources, whereas Bitcoin, I mean, it's a trillion dollar asset in, in about a little over a decade, right? And if it keeps going as it is, then it'll be the global reserve currency relatively soon. So one strategy seems to be winning quite well and another strategy seems to, to not really produce fruitful results. Yeah. Wolf?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "31:24", "start": 1883.69, "text": "Yeah. So I, I do agree that I think the relative efforts that are being- been expounded within the political sphere are relatively, too high, especially when it comes to like developed countries. I do have examples where some of our alumni, for instance, in Burundi, they have a GDP per capita of three hundred and twenty dollars annually. That's like what we spend on, like, on a month on Amazon, right? They have that annually. Like one of our alumni, like, he went through our programs, then he started a think tank, and he was able to reduce the filing fee for a new business from seventy-four dollars to twenty-four dollars. Like that now means like thousands of people can start a business now and sustain like their family and, and, and serve their community. That's, that's real change there. I'm sure that on the margin that also happens here in the United States, but it's like you have to invest like so much more energy, and because like it's such a more, sclerotic environment where like it's so bureaucratic, it's hard to get anything done. But yeah, I mean, my, my answer to that would be like let thousand blossoms bloom. The more people are trying different approaches," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "32:26", "start": 1945.92, "text": "Sharing economy stuff, Airbnb, produce like so much more value. I don't wanna even think about like how much less stuff I could get done in with my budget if I wasn't able to use Uber and I had to use taxis all the time. Like I don't even wanna think about that, that's just like a nightmare for me. So there are just like pockets of freedom that are being created by technology, sometimes by politics, sometimes by people, starting businesses or pushing out ideas that influence others. And but I do believe Bitcoin should be part of all of that and that people that are serious about making a dent in the universe, that those people should grapple with Bitcoin because it should be part of their journey in order to accomplish, those gal goals faster, in any way, that's what I would say on that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "33:09", "start": 1988.82, "text": "back to the show in a moment if you're interested to get involved with bitcoin mining compassmining.io are making it easy for everyone to start mining so you go to the website you select an asic mining rig and you can purchase that asic and have it shipped to a vetted hosting facility which again you can select that on the website and then you join a mining pool and you will pay the hosting for that hosting facility and asic obviously but then you'll receive bitcoin you'll receive sats straight to your wallet so this is a great Easy way to get started. Not everybody has cheap power rates at their home address and they would rather use a hosting facility. But for those of you who are in the US, you can order the mining device to your home and use the Compass at Home Mining Guide as well. So there's lots of options there for people who are interested to get involved with mining. So if you're interested to get started, go to compassmining.io. And when we're dealing with Bitcoin and security, we need to also think about backups. CipherGrid is a product from CipherSafe dot io. This is the best value metal backup in the industry. You get everything you need for fifty nine dollars. It's got two plates for all twenty four seed words, and you've got privacy by default as those two plates are facing each other. You get a tamper evidence seal provided and an automatic center punch provided, which is what you use to stamp in the words. You can lock it with a padlock and- And it's fireproof, rustproof, and waterproof, so make sure you or your loved ones can access your coins if something happens. Imagine if your house went up on fire and you were just trusting that piece of paper. You don't want to be in that situation to get a metal backup. Go to ciphersafe dot io and use the code livera for a discount. As we proceed through this Bitcoin bull run and number is going up, it's time to think about your Bitcoin security and upgrading. Unchain Capital are helping you do this with multi-signature vaults where you can hold two keys in Applications and Unchained can hold that third key and be the counter-signer for you. Now, if you're not sure how to do this, they've got a concierge onboarding program, so they will ship you two hardware wallets, they'll do a call with you to teach you how to use it, even if you've never held your own private keys before, and deposits in Bitcoin in your vault. So this is a great way to get started with multi-signature. You are now removing single points of failure, which is an important security concern in Bitcoin, and you'll just feel a lot better If you're interested to do this, go to Unchained dot com, select the concierge onboarding package at the top, there's a personal and a business one, and you can use the code Livera to get a discount on yours. Back to the show. And in your view, what should libertarians be doing? Like, what should they be doing to not be a libertarian? Should they be stacking sats, you know, sign up and get their Bitcoin savings plan going, or should they be promoting it on their shows and podcasts? What kinds of actions do you think they could be doing?" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "36:03", "start": 2163.2, "text": "They need to be more like you, Stefan. I mean, I think, I think what you've done is heroic work. I wouldn't expect, you know, Dave Smith or Eric Joly or any of those guys to, to turn their Focus entirely towards Bitcoin, I mean, it's not like that's not reasonable. They have their niches like comic books for Eric July, but, and, and you know, politics. But I think that Bitcoin should be like some non-negligible portion of their content, right? I mean, it's, it's an effective tool at, in a s-in essence, you know, evading inflation and, and in-improving your financial sovereignty. So they, you know, stacking Sats, securing private keys, all that stuff. It's, it's more effective than, than a lot of things they're doing right now, just getting invol-involved in Bitcoin any way they can." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "36:50", "start": 2210.49, "text": "Yes, I, I do agree on, on that. And there's like a strategic component to, to that question. So on the one hand, like we do have the incentive framework of Bitcoin. So every Bitcoiner has the absolute incentive to create more Bitcoiners because that will affect the price and everybody's better off. I mean, that's not how we think, but that's how it works. It's like the ultimate network good. Like Facebook" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "37:15", "start": 2234.56, "text": "Into that. That being said, I do believe that we just have to make the case very strongly and pique people's interest and say like, \"Hey, Bitcoin is freedom money. It's, it's something that we, that we can use to achieve liberty in our lifetime, and you should be learning with this.\" I tell to in, in many audiences, and I think I did this when, when we were, were on a panel, Stephan, I said like, \"The single best thing that you can do with your time right now is studying Bitcoin,\" and if they hear that from people that are I do think that there is, a strategic component to that though, which means that we should be careful how we're approaching these things, and we should be open-minded to their criticism and not say like, \"Oh, you, you're stupid for thinking it's too volatile\" or whatever it is, or being too toxic. I know toxic, some people put it as like, as, as a, as a badge of honor, and I do understand why, but we also understand like, if there's like some innocent bystander just like sees how people behave, they might be just off-put" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "38:14", "start": 2294.4, "text": "Then just reject Bitcoin. I mean, it's, it's their own fault then of course, but I think those things matter, how we're communicating to people and Dale Carnegie, how to win friends and influence folks, like that, if that's on, on, on the table of every Bitcoiner, I think we would be even more effective than we are right now." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:28", "start": 2308.11, "text": "Yeah, and I think at the end of the day, the number go up is honestly what pulls a lot of people in, but from our perspective, if you are thinking to try to preferentially target or try to educate libertarian-minded people it kind of also related to this idea of the remnant, right? It's like this idea that you're focusing your efforts on a certain group of people who you think are more primed to accept this idea or more able to help this project see fruition. So what do you think about that? Should we be targeting our efforts?" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "39:00", "start": 2340.13, "text": "I've only, I've only recently heard a little bit about this remnant concept. I know Alex Zvetsky is kind of one of the big promoters of it. yeah, it makes perfect sense. You, you definitely wanna focus your efforts on the," }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "39:14", "start": 2354.38, "text": "Bitcoin succeed, eventually you have to go from one percent to two percent, to ten, to hundred percent, right? And, you know, we're about twelve years in now, twelve and a half years into the Bitcoin project, and I think we're ready to go from like, I think you were saying two to three percent of the world population owns Bitcoin, Stephan, right? So if that's correct, then, yeah, then, I mean, I think we're ready to take that leap from" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "39:38", "start": 2377.8, "text": "two to three percent to ten percent, and I was, you know, I wanted libertarians to be the Get it quicker and not, you know, not put it off much longer." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "39:50", "start": 2390.19, "text": "And there's so many things that you can do. I mean, it depends what audience you're talking about. If you talk about libertarians, it's pretty clear, but we first always have to identify like, what do these people want? And how can we use Bitcoin as an explanatory tool so that they can get what they want? And that might be for somebody that comes from, from a more left-wing environment, different than from a libertarian, than from, from, from your grandmother. And but that means that we can all do something about it. It doesn't have to be like as complicated that we have to like start another podcast and, and compete with Stephan Livera. That's not gonna happen, right? It's, that, that's gonna be very difficult. It doesn't have to be like that threatening, but it can I'm, I love Bitcoin. If you're interested, like on Saturday, come over, have some beers, so we do it digitally, and I will just, as-answer all of your questions. I did it with some of my friends to just like practice my arguments early on, and, one of them bought and he's very happy now, and so far he hasn't gone down the altcoin road either. but you can't always prevent that. But there's other things that we can all do that we don't have to like apply our whole life to it because" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "41:00", "start": 2460.3, "text": "Family, and their bandwidth is very low, but maybe they can just like on the weekend do something. And, if we all see that, then we can see like more applications of that. So for instance, I will have like, mandatory staff training on Bitcoin, because I don't want everyone to buy Bitcoin. I don't care about that if they wanna do that, fine. however, I want them to understand what the opportunity is for students for liberty and, and for our students and for the world. And maybe they, they don't agree with these arguments, but at least I can do within my sphere, and, I already had like some alliances built with amongst my staff, and many of them are, like, some of them are in Nigeria, right? And they get it, like, all of them, they need to have Bitcoin if we want to survive. Some of them worked with our students in Afghanistan. Like those students sometimes only escaped like absolute poverty because they had like their, their, their seat written down on a piece of paper. You know, if, if you are in these environments, it's, it's so much more obvious. I mean, I have three staffers coming from Venezuela. Some of them have lost like ninety percent, probably more than ninety percent, they've actually told me about the wealth in their family. They get it immediately. And those are also the sort of stories that are really powerful. Yours is very powerful, but like us as like pretty rich Westerners, right? It As convincing as if you have somebody said like, \"Hey, this tool, this technology saved my family and saved our lives because we were able to, to flee with a seed instead of like trying to carry like gold bars, which they probably wouldn't have had, or, you know?\" And, and those are like the sort of storytelling and making it really about like, \"How is it good for humankind and not only for you, if you do it both for them, and but also how it benefits others?\" I think that could be the winning formula. Right." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:39", "start": 2558.74, "text": "Yeah, I think that makes" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:45", "start": 2564.52, "text": "I mean, with Students for Liberty, Wolf, it sounds like people within the organization are already using Bitcoin, some of the-- some of them are getting paid in Bitcoin. That's also an important aspect because now you're using it day to day, you're really gonna learn your competence, you're gonna have to learn how to use Lightning, you're gonna have to learn how to have your hardware wallet to secure your, your stack and things. Wolf, do you wanna comment a little bit on the use of Bitcoin inside Students for Liberty?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "43:09", "start": 2588.54, "text": "Absolutely, yeah, no, that's, that's perfect, and we Death in, I don't know how many countries, but on every inhabited continent. So to send like a wire via Bank of America costs like fifty dollars if you wanna send it to Brazil. Like how insane is that? And it'll take like good five days. And so then we just using Bitcoin, which is like infinitely cheaper. And so it was just like a necessity that, that we saw. And then people, as you said, like start to use a hardware wallet and like maybe save a little bit in Bitcoin and then just cash out some of the money in fiat money. And that is very good. We just set up like a month ago our BTC Pay server, and we, we take lightning donations and on-chain donations. But like the next step is also, we have right now, I think like two thousand five hundred volunteers worldwide that dedicate like five hours each week towards libertarian activism. Like, I want all of them to be reimbursed in that, but that will take a little bit of time, but that will be like the next step. And maybe I incentivize them because sometimes we have to reimburse them because they organized like a event, and I get like fifty dollars for like pizza or whatever they had. Different tools to do this. They get like a lightning donation and then they get like a little bonus when they, when they take it in Bitcoin because it's cheaper to do it than with Stratis or what have you. And that could, like, because of self-interest, could get them on board and say like, \"Ah, maybe I just like let it sit there and see what happens in the next three, three, three, three years. NGU numbers go up, they, they, they might have like another incentive to dig into this.\" So those are some of the things that we're working" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "44:42", "start": 2682.36, "text": "on And I wouldn't mind if the majority of those events would be focused on, and money and econ and Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:52", "start": 2691.53, "text": "Yeah, excellent. So one other aspect I'm thinking as well is that some libertarians might be thinking, \"I don't wanna risk my reputation on this thing, right? I've spent all this time, maybe years or decades in some cases, whether they are a libertarian academic or a libertarian podcaster or, you know, pop-popular person, maybe that's one of their fears that they feel, I, you know, if I do this, I'm gonna-- I, I don't wanna go full hard on Bitcoin and be like, \"Yeah, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin,\" because what if it all crashes and then I look like an idiot in front of everyone? What do you guys think about that idea?" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "45:24", "start": 2724.15, "text": "I mean, being a Bitcoiner ten years ago was a reputational risk, right? Because it was a brand new project, the price was whatever, under hun- under hundred dollars, but by now, I mean, I feel like the, the risk has-- it's been thoroughly de-risked. You know, it's on CNBC every day, Donald Trump" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "45:45", "start": 2745.3, "text": "So I don't think it's, it's not a niche thing anymore. So it's time for people to get on board, especially if you have that liberty mindset. Like, there's not much of an excuse anymore, in my opinion. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "45:56", "start": 2756.28, "text": "Agreed on a personal level, but still it's, it's pretty scary. It's just in the last six months it dropped by fifty percent, and I have talked with people about Bitcoin very passionately and they run up to that. And then they bought merely on the top, and then it went down. and I'm sure that some of them might not thought so kindly about me at, at, at these times, you know, because they haven't ever been to these cycles. I mean, we have, we have seen some of these cycles, we have survived a few of them, but if you haven't, it's still pretty gut-wrenching. And so if you do that with your grandmother's, inheritance or something along those lines, it's, it's still, it can be, it could Hundred percent agree with you. I'm, I'm just, the emotional factor that sometimes comes with the volatility that it still has. And yes, it's to the upside still, but it's there. I's, i's that something is real, especially also for institutions. Because like theoretically, like every non-profit or for-profit should put, be Bitcoin on your balance sheet, but you have to deal with governance, you have to deal with boards, you have to deal with other stakeholders that potentially could attack you very well. And really for a non-profit, like if you do like some investments I don't think anybody cares, but if the money goes down and you're wasting, like, wasting donor money, for instance, you will hear from your donors and from your board. So the incentives are still so that people are more likely to be cautious, they're not, but over time, maybe everybody turns to be a Michael Cato. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:24", "start": 2844.04, "text": "And I'll tell you one thing that's very interesting there, that maybe one way around that is if, say, a donor, let's say there's a whale out there listening and they wanna focus on education for young libertarians, they could sort of And sort of mandate, okay, you've gotta hold it in Bitcoin or something like that. Maybe that's a way that kind of thing could happen, just as an idea, right?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "47:44", "start": 2864.29, "text": "I'd love to have that conversation. Anybody who wants to have that conversation, I'm, I'm all ears. All right, well there you go," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:48", "start": 2868.22, "text": "that's one example. Force me to hold Bitcoin, then I bring that to" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "47:51", "start": 2870.86, "text": "my board, and I'd, I'd love that. Yeah. But I think" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:53", "start": 2872.84, "text": "part of it is also just the, the broader global conversation around inflation. I mean, even for" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:03", "start": 2882.51, "text": "me" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:07", "start": 2886.53, "text": "I'm trying to learn, so obviously I start teaching them about Bitcoin, but the conversation is shifting as well, that more and more people are becoming aware of the risk, whereas previously it would have been seen like, \"Oh, that's too risky to go into Bitcoin.\" Now, it's starting to turn to be the other side, like it's too risky to leave too much money in your fiat bank account." }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "48:24", "start": 2903.56, "text": "Two years ago, most people had never heard the term fiat, and now it's like everywhere. You know, \"Money printer go ber\" is a, is a popular meme. It's amazing" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "48:37", "start": 2916.55, "text": "About the money printing, you know, I mean, think about Ron Paul in two thousand eight, two thousand twelve, talking about the gold standard and the Fed, and it was just like crickets in response, and now everybody gets it, you know, you'll see even like pod-- comedy podcasts talk about inflation, I've seen that happen before, it's insane, you know, you'll, you'll hear Joe Rogan or someone talk about it, it's no longer a niche concept understanding that fiat money doesn't really have any, intrinsic value or- Skepticism, inherent scarcity." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "49:06", "start": 2945.92, "text": "Yeah, and I think, is it Parker Lewis who has like this great article on, on this, like the financialization of everything, and people are looking like, \"Where, where do I start to save?\" Right? And then they have to become like more and more focused on These very volatile instruments and like meme stocks and all that kind of stuff, and some people make money, and like now, like the Gen Zs are all trading in stocks and probably burning a lot of money. And I think just by learning through very painful experiences, people will then discover, like, hey, maybe I should just like buy and hold Bitcoin and not engage with like all of these other very volatile things. And this is an important message. Yes, it's freedom money, but also if you just buy and hold, you will sleep much better at night. I, I so- Certainly do, and I think promising that to people and showing that, that that is actually something that you can do, might be also enticing." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "49:58", "start": 2998.26, "text": "Now, one other area I wanted to talk to you guys about is this idea that as Bitcoin grows, there will be more of a political and lobbying effort around it, right? And we saw the beginnings of this really, or at least it started to get a lot more prominent, is around this whole infrastructure bill in the US. So at that time, a lot of the Bitcoin lobbying and policy advocacy Privacy groups were scrambling to try to stop this crazy amendment going through, stop this crazy, you know, section going into the infrastructure bill in the US, but it seems to me like this is only going to get more and more. Now, does that mean there is a need for a Bitcoin political party, like a single issue Bitcoin political party, or do you think it really, more in practice, is going to mean each side will have different politicians who are trying to become more Bitcoin friendly? And what's the implication going to be then? What's it going to look like?" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "50:54", "start": 3053.82, "text": "Well, you're 100% right, Stephane, that as Bitcoin gets bigger and bigger in the crypto sphere in general, the government's gonna focus on us like the IRS on. But this is really what's gonna distinguish Bitcoin from the altcoins, right? Because Bitcoin, I mean, there's, there's no way they're gonna be able to change the underlying source code that we all run on our nodes, you know, millions of us across the globe. Whereas the altcoins like Ethereum, what's To go to the Ethereum Foundation and Consensus thing and say, \"Uh, you need to like take this out of the code base, and you need to add this, and you need to change this monetary policy, and you need to tweak this, and you also need to censor this transaction.\" It's gonna be slowly undermined by a death by a thousand cuts, slowly basically regulated into oblivion, where it's no longer distinguishable from something like Amazon Web Services. But Bitcoin has that robustness. But as far as whether or not Bitcoiners should engage in lobbying, perhaps with respect to things like capital gains taxes is, we don't need to really worry about the core protocol, but because, you know, if we did have to worry about the pro-core protocol, then our system's not robust. But taxes, other ancillary things, you know, KYC on exchanges, that related stuff, I think there is a role for organizations like Coin Center, but, ultimately the underlying protocol and the consensus that we have around Bitcoin and what it, what it means and what it is has to be robust and not necessarily defended by lobbying." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "52:20", "start": 3139.74, "text": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "52:21", "start": 3140.72, "text": "Yeah, I mean, the most important thing is of course always giving our thanks to Bitcoin core developers, because it's a very unthankful job for, for keeping Bitcoin, as strong as it is, because it's not like you're just programming something and you can just change it over tomorrow. You have to deal with all of these different interest groups, and it's a very unthankful job, but they're making sure that Bitcoin stays robust and, and within like the division that, that Satoshi and other, cypherpunks said early on. Now, that being said That's, that's, that needs to happen. But I, I said earlier, we need like all of these libertarian bitcoiners in all aspects of society, right? We need people in, in law, we need people in politics, and I believe, yes, we do need lobbyists because if all of these bureaucrats like create like laws that don't make sense, that hamper, hamper really, adoption, make it like harder making on ramping on, onto Bitcoin like much harder. Sure, you can still use Bisc and like other decentralized exchanges and stuff, but, not- Many people will be using that at the end of the day and it will slow it down. So I actually talked just recently with Jerry Brito, who's the guy in charge of Coin Center, and he's doing a phenomenal job. I mean, he's focusing on, on crypto generally, not only Bitcoin, and I think as freedom-loving people, we said like, \"Hey, sure, like, go for it.\" But like, of course, the only thing that will be able to compete with the dollar and fiat money is Bitcoin. But he mentioned like a few good things, and he and I discussed that, and, and we basically said like, yeah, that there is room for like a fun-functional trade association, like representing like a lot of the Bitcoin businesses. There's also room for an organization that represents Bitcoin and/or crypto users, but it's very hard to do that right, and especially with so much infighting. So I don't wanna take that on, but if somebody in the audience, listens, It's like an organization that represents like all of these other like exchanges and so forth, so that there could be like a united front presented to the lawmakers to say like, \"Hey, if you regulate it in X fashion,\" Then that will lead to like a lot of unintended consequences that will be problematic. Will we be able to stop that? The machinery in, in, in DC is very powerful, but they, they do get their insights from, from lobbyists. And so if we give up that on that entirely, that could have ramifications that would slow down adoption. I mean, in, in the US, we're pretty well off because we have the SEC and like Gensler and people that know that, but also out of the SEC comes like a bunch of regulation that we don't like either. So more people on the forefront That the, the Bitcoin community has, some sharp teeth in this regard, and that was helpful." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "54:51", "start": 3290.64, "text": "Yeah. From a political point of view as well. So obviously that's around lobbying and industry groups and associations and things. Also from a political point of view, which is related. Do you believe Bitcoin will end up being supported more by the right wing parties versus the left wing parties, or do you see it like it might just actually be supported by both sides?" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "55:13", "start": 3312.86, "text": "I mean, I think in the, definitely the, the right conservative parties are gonna adopt it first. I mean, you're, you're already seeing it. I mean, let's take like your typical Tim Pool, someone like that, is way, is already into Bitcoin, but you rarely see it on the left, right? You know, mostly left leaning individuals like Paul Krugman are anti Bitcoin, and right leaning individuals are either neutral or favorable towards it, and that makes sense because, you know, at least with the current big tech censorship environment, it's affecting conservatives a lot more. They're Bank accounts revoked, they're kicked off Twitter, et cetera, so they have a greater need for it, 'cause, you know, Bitcoin is, is fundamentally censorship resistant." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "55:50", "start": 3349.93, "text": "It's a fascinating question, I like it a lot. I would love to hear Alex Gladstein's opinion on that as well, what, what he thinks. but I generally think probably mostly on the right, because fiscal conservatism is at least a talking point. It's not a principle that's being held, but it's a talking point. And, and so, then Bitcoin could fit into that, and" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "56:12", "start": 3372.5, "text": "Three weeks from now, I mean, who knows? But, that's politicians for you. But it all depends not only on the politicians, because what comes first is the ideas in society, right? And that Hayek has so eloquently laid that out in his, article, \"The Intellectuals and Socialism,\" like how ideas really come, and it can starts with the ideas, and then a second hand deal of ideas, and you, Stefan, you are one of them by being a podcaster and journalist and so forth. And once that trickles down, then, and yet" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "56:44", "start": 3404.21, "text": "The more they see that they can get votes from that, and what you said, Stefan, maybe like a party, I'm not sure if I don't know the history of like single issue parties is like that's successful. I mean, we have like the Pirate Party in, in several countries around the world, but they're like marginal. But Bitcoin is a bigger deal, arguably. So, but yeah, the more the constituency will call them up and say like, \"Hey, don't do stupid stuff on Bitcoin, because like I have more, a lot of my wealth in that, politicians actually being more on board of that, but it would most likely start on the right wing and not the left wing because of the arguments that I've mentioned, like why the left wing might not be like that open to it, because we also have to understand that redistribution and fighting inequality is a very important value of the left, and if you take away the money printing press, it will become like much harder. And so if people realize that, then they said like, \"Yeah, that might be not like the, the best way of going about it.\" However, if like more from human rights angle The poorest of the poor, that could be really helpful, then maybe more of the left will be open minded to it. But I think the right generally will be first." }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "57:51", "start": 3471.05, "text": "It didn't have to be this way. I mean, if you-- I mean, right now, I would say the, the right wing is under more censorship pressure than the left wing, but if you go back a few decades, like the 1980s, I mean, you know, back then it was like Reagan's America, conservatives were dominant. I'm sure if you were on the left side of things, then" }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "58:12", "start": 3492.46, "text": "The pendulum swung the other direction. but the other thing that really keeps the left from onboarding is probably gonna be the ESG stuff. you know, if, if the media continues to tie Bitcoin to global warming, then that's gonna-- then somebody who's on the left side of political spectrum is gonna be more hesitant to adopt it naturally. So the right wing's gonna beat them to it." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "58:32", "start": 3511.8, "text": "Yeah, interesting stuff. So, yeah, at the end of the day, it just-- I think the message really is, if you're a libertarian, you need to get into" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "58:43", "start": 3522.98, "text": "Stack some sats and teach your libertarian friends that they need to also stack sats and try to use Bitcoin in your organization in some way. So let's throw it to you guys for just a final closing comment on, you know, bitcoiners and libertarians, and of course, where can people find you? So, Veik, let's go with you first." }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "59:02", "start": 3541.84, "text": "Yeah, I mean, totally agree. Stack sats, set up a account of swan Bitcoin and, and start dcaing right now, learn to hold your own private keys, run a full node, Of, of self-sovereignty there. And that does a lot more good than simply talking about politics, right? You're actually bringing the, the dream of, you know, Anca, Ancapistan, Libertopia, you're actually bringing it to reality, or citadels as we describe them now. And you can find me on Twitter at v a k e r a j" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "59:32", "start": 3571.94, "text": "Very good, yeah. Everything that Vake said, plus just start learning. Say like, if you believe like only one tenth of what we've said in this podcast here, and this, this, we piqued your interest in some way, just dedicate like one hour a week and start learning. Start with like the, the Gradually Then Suddenly series by Parker Lewis, or listen to more Stephan's podcast, or, watch the, the Michael Saylor series with, with Breedlove, or read the Bitcoin Standard. All of those are great, great first resources that you can start learning. And" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "01:00:01", "start": 3601.52, "text": "About it, you will get like an excitement and a passion for it that will not make you stop, and that's what happened to all of us, and I think it might happen also with you. So I think that's, that, that would be the way of going about it. So if you're curious, just dig into it. And, you can find me on, Twitter as at at wolff von laer, V O N L A E R, and I'm running, CEO of studentsforliberty dot org, and I'm trying to orange pill," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "01:00:31", "start": 3631.54, "text": "Email me at wolff, just the n m l, w o f at studentsforliberty dot org." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00:36", "start": 3636.07, "text": "Fantastic. Well, thank you guys. I really enjoyed chatting with you. It was a really good, I think, a fair discussion about liberty and Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "01:00:42", "start": 3642.79, "text": "Thanks, Stefan." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00:43", "start": 3643.11, "text": "Thank" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "01:00:43", "start": 3643.25, "text": "you so much, Stefan." }, { "speaker": "why_libertarians_should_focus_on_bitcoin", "time": "01:00:44", "start": 3644.07, "text": "Anytime." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00:45", "start": 3645.29, "text": "So finally, do you know any libertarians who need to get the message about Bitcoin? Share this episode with them so that they can learn and start stacking. Get the show notes at stephanelivera dot com slash three one six, and I'll see you in the citadels." } ] }