{ "episodeId": "SLP471", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "erik_cason": { "name": "Erik Cason", "role": "guest", "tag": "ERIK" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:08", "start": 8.49, "text": "Hi, you're listening to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics brought to you by Swan Bitcoin. With Swan dot com or the Swan app, you can buy Bitcoin in a safe and easy way. Swan makes it easy for you to buy Bitcoin using a recurring purchase plan. It's a really good way to automate your purchases, and this way you can help deal with the Volatility of Bitcoin over the longer term. Now, with Swan, you can also do a one time buy, known as a smash buy. Swan offers free custody in your own legally owned trust account, and of course, not your keys, not your coins. Free automated withdrawals to self custody. With Swan, you can easily learn about Bitcoin with various resources and free books and articles and podcasts, and also the support team is phenomenal. You can easily get support when you need it. So if you want Stack Sats, go to swan dot com slash livera and get ten dollars of Bitcoin dropped in your account when you start stacking with Swan. Now, as you know, in Bitcoin, it's not your keys, not your coins. CoinKart dot com are making a range of Bitcoin hardware that you can use to self-custody your coins. They have a range of devices. At the cheaper side of that, they have the TapSigner, which is about forty dollars. This is an NFC tap card that you can use with your phone with wallets such as Nunchuk. Then, if you If you didn't get a full secure element or two secure elements, the Coldcard Mark IV is a great choice. It has NFC support, but you can turn it off. You can use microSD card, or you can directly plug it to your computer and use wallets such as Electrum or Specter or Sparrow. So to get your gear, go to coinkite dot com, use code Livera for a discount on your cold cards. Mempool dot space is my favorite Bitcoin and blockchain visualizer. You can use it to view the multiple layers of the ecosystem, and it is continually improving, and it's open source. Version two point five has a range of new features, such as the ability to switch the direction of the blocks, Lightning Explorer, you can see mined block visualization, you can see historical fiat prices, and a new difficulty adjustment widget. So there's a range of features there. Now, if you're with an enterprise, mempool dot space offers customized instances with your company's branding. Increased API limits and you can have access to the team for feature requests and more. Go to mempool dot space slash enterprise. For today's episode, Erik Cason joins me to talk about Bitcoin and crypto sovereignty. He's got a book coming out and he is also talking a little bit about his journey as a Bitcoiner and the world today living inside a digital panopticon and the hopes for improvement and what Bitcoin can do to assist people who wanna become more sovereign." }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "02:54", "start": 173.92, "text": "Eric, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. It was a bit of a trial on, both our sides getting here, but we did it." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:00", "start": 179.99, "text": "We made it in the end. So, Eric, I've had a chance to read your book, Crypto Sovereignty, and I know you've been saying some interesting things in the space as well, and I think you have an interesting perspective. So, and I know you've been around for a while also, so do you wanna just tell us a little bit of your journey in the Bitcoin world?" }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "03:17", "start": 197.3, "text": "Yeah, brief synopsis is first learned about Bitcoin At an Occupy Wall Street event, and that really perked my interest, and I slowly started to drink the Kool-Aid until I joined Coinbase in late twenty thirteen. And then that was sort of my bachelor's degree, and then, when there was strong disagreement about how kind of the block size wars played out, I took off. did a stint at Unchained Capital for about a year, kind of helping them do their growth and, but really what I'm known for is, is more of, this whole journey kind of raised a question for me, you know, it was really about like what What is Bitcoin doing? Like, what, what is its, its being and like, what is its importance? 'Cause it seems to be able to maintain an oath, not only to the supply schedule, but to, to the individual and the promise of what it means to secure self-sovereign wealth, beat up and beyond any way that any current nation state or government can currently prove. And to me, that question really intrigued me, so that's pretty much what the book follows a series of questions about." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:20", "start": 260.48, "text": "I like that idea of the promise of Bitcoin, and part of how I often explain it is I say Bitcoin gives us assurances that the fiat banking system could never give us, and the gold, obviously, the gold, you know, standard for what it was, could never provide the same kind of assurances. How would you explain that? What is the promise that, that Bitcoin provides us?" }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "04:43", "start": 282.7, "text": "Yeah, and I think thinking about gold is a great one because, we can only understand fiat through the failure of gold as a true security and storage of wealth and essentially the state's ability to be able to seize and take that from other people and the inability for the promise of, an actual stable- Price unit and currency to be able to exude itself in the world, whereas Bitcoin, it doesn't even know that we're human, and to, to it, all that it cares about is the private key, which if you know a little bit about cryptography, essentially this is like trying to guess a random atom in the universe. Like you're not, you're not going to randomly guess that. And so that secures crypti-- that secures Bitcoin through its cryptography in a very particular way that I think essentially means that there's no way that it's- protocol can ever violate itself, which, you know, seeing how governments are giving themselves permission to print out money for really freely for any cause, that's a very, very important feature to have. And even more importantly, I think, is the direct seizure of people's wealth. We're, we're seeing incidences more and more, if the government just doesn't agree with you, it's not even something illegal, that they seem to be making moves towards not only cutting you off from a banking system, but it seems to be that the next step is just seizing your assets directly, and that's pretty terrifying" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:04", "start": 364.24, "text": "You're right to point that out, and there are lots of examples there, whether that's the Canadian truckers, whether that is, people on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, whether that is- Governments seizing assets of other governments or even governments cutting off other governments from the payment networks, Swift payment network, as an example. and so I think you're right to point that out. I'm I think one area that might be interesting to focus on is this idea of institutions, right? Because a lot of people in, let's say, the, the mainstream world, they might see it Like, oh, well, the government, I can trust the government, that the, it has these institutions, and, you know, there's these three branches, right? There's an executive and a judiciary and a legislative, and that they, they all act to counteract each other, and therefore that's why we should trust Governmental institutions. What would you say to that?" }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "07:05", "start": 425.39, "text": "I, I think first I'd say like your, your naivety is, is cute. Like, I really appreciate and, and I wish that this is the world that we lived in. Like, I really wish that I could like trust government and that it was like the good guys in there and they were really thinking hard and they weren't motivated by money or anything, but that's- That's just not the case, and like, we, we don't just have the, you know, the last century of human history, but like, we pretty much have all of human history to prove that, corruption is almost always going to find its way into that network and to present itself. And, and in all honesty, like, I don't wanna blame the individuals there, like, that's sort of what the institution creates incentives towards, you know? Like, this is, this is why Nancy Pelosi ten-- happens to be like the greatest stock trader ever in the United States. Is that Using her political clout to manipulate and create changes in the system that are gonna benefit her financially, and like, is that okay? Absolutely not. Is it ethical? No. Can we vote about how to change this? People are, sure, go, go vote to, to get Nancy Pelosi kicked out. Like, is that, is that actually true? 'Cause like, we've seen the way that she's solidified and cemented her ability to keep her political position for so long. I think we really need to observe, isn't that we need to trust these people? People, or is it that we need to actually verify what they're saying is true? And the wonderful thing about Bitcoin is, is I'm not asking you to trust me or to, to trust Bitcoin. I'm asking you to look at what the code specifies and what it's actually capable of. And one of the most important things there is that Bitcoin can only ever have twenty-one million units ever. There isn't any way to change that. It's hard coded in at this point in time. And when you look at what happened during the pandemic, they created the same amount of- amount of debt that it took two hundred and twenty years for the United States to create, and, and, you know, I think it was a two year period that they created the same amount of debt. And, this is alarming and shocking and destructive to, to not only our general purchasing power, but to the actual institutions and government itself. And it's sort of ironic here to sit-- be sitting here talking to you about trusting in governments when not only can we not trust them, but we need to trust in each other and trust in the fact that not trusting them is the one thing We can trust about them." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "09:22", "start": 562.09, "text": "I'm curious what it is about the government. Is it some kind of Stockholm syndrome aspect of it, where people have this mindset that it can be reformed, right? That there's, you know, even, even though all these horrible things have happened, somehow this next election is the important one or this new regulation or here's the other one you always hear. You get this idea of, \"Oh, let's get money out of politics,\" right, as though that would be the answer, right? Why is it that people seem so unwilling to just let the scales fall from their eyes and just question the very notion of how governments? exist in most governments exist around the world today. Why are they so unwilling to actually just consider this parallel alternative of Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "10:09", "start": 609.07, "text": "I think there's a lot of things that play into it. I think one is the, just the familiarity of the system, the embarrassment of admitting that we don't really understand how it functions or why it functions that way, and I found this to be, be one of the more intriguing things is, is I find that entrepreneurs can kind of get Bitcoin a lot quicker, particularly when you provide them with ample ex- Evidence of how it seems to be creating new activity in, in different markets. but, but folks that aren't entrepreneurs, they, they seem to really kind of take the propaganda a lot more, and I think that's because they don't have to have-- they're not at stake in the same sort of entrepreneurial spirit that they need to exude out into the world and the flexibility and the need to change with that. And that sort of paired just with the general propaganda, and, I also think one of the ones that's the most important is that when we start actually saying, \"Hey, this isn't working, we can't vote for a change,\" there, there is no way that we can go through the political party systems to create this change. That introduces something really, really scary, because like now you start admitting to yourself, like, not only do I not live under this wonderful liberal dictator or this wonderful liberal democracy that's trying really hard to create change, but it starts- It's become a much more menacing and maniacal thing, and it's really scary because if you can't take responsibility for that, like now there's the very real angst of saying, \"You know?\" I'm an American, and my government purports to be this great liberal democracy, and yet at the same time, I know that it, it's not only openly killed women and children, but it's openly killed American citizens that have disagreed with it. And these are all very scary things that it feels impossible to deal with, particularly if you don't understand what Bitcoin is. And to me, like that's what, that's what was so radical for my understanding of Bitcoin when I finally understood it was that I was like, \"Here, here's a real powerful tool.\" In a way that I can actually fight against governments in a way that isn't only non-violent, but that it's actually gonna hurt them a lot more than any violent action I could take. It's striking at their purse, and it's doing it in a way that they can't say is illegal or menacing or hurtful to other people. It is just the simple and basic thing of, \"I'm going to keep what's mine, and you can't steal it from me, even if you try to bring violence to me.\"" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:25", "start": 744.88, "text": "That's a very powerful idea, because fundamentally, there are reasons that we We could be optimistic. One reason we could be pessimistic is to look at, oh, look how powerful the three-letter agencies are, how much surveillance they can do because of their massive budgets, because they are government debt funded, of course, fiat financing, and they can massively spy on just about any individual on Earth. Basically nobody is safe. And at the same time, there's this promise of Bitcoin, right? We can secure our wealth, and maybe it's not gonna happen tomorrow. But the medium or long term impact of that, I believe, is that we will downsize the state. We will lower the size of the budget that's available to these big spy entities and to these big, human rights abusing entities. And I think that's how I'm seeing, let's say, the promise of Bitcoin maybe over the long term. How are you seeing that?" }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "13:26", "start": 805.95, "text": "Yeah, I'd say that my, my vision for that lines up pretty well. I'm curious to see how this sort of brinkmanship between the state and bitcoiners play out, and I'm not sure how extreme that that goes, but more and more I'm starting to see that I think there's gonna be a much more moderate approach that's probably gonna take several generations, and I think that that's much more powerful because it's gonna be baked into a culture and that it's gonna start creating itself as this renewed idea of what individual liberalism used to be to represent and the accountants that it used to represent sort of in the world of that were actually going to honor and respect the idea of the total rule of law so much so that even if, you know, I'm American, you're-- you could be Australian or Canadian or South African, and we're all gonna have the same monetary system and we're not gonna be at a disadvantage because of that And furthermore, the sort of ethical praxis of, you know, I, I want you to use Bitcoin because I respect you and I love you and I want you to have access to fair money. And all of our children will know and tell the stories of, you know, the great, COVID pandemic and how they printed out trillions of dollars and they told everybody inflation would be transitory, and, you know, that was right before hyperinflation hit everywhere. And I think these cultural components getting baked in, it's going to actually start raising the flag of solidarity across the board where people are Bitcoin is the most political thing, and not because it is actually representing one ideology or another, but it actually solidifies and returns us back to the rule of law and the respect of the individual as the unit of the entirety of society, and that them being respected is a sacrosanct, and that we can now do that through cryptography in a new way that people understand is so powerful, there's not even a purpose to struggle against it, and that's when the real new society will come. About is when, you know, all these people in three lettered agencies and other sort of nefarious organizations go, \"Oh, like we, we can't fight this. Like it's just math.\"" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:27", "start": 926.72, "text": "And another point to add there is also just a growth of bureaucracy, bureaucrats, administrators. I think many people have been speaking about this and writing about this, but if you look at, let's say, in the Western world, universities, how many administrators are there versus how many actual teaching staff are there or research staff are there, or in, even in the healthcare system, how many bureaucrats are there in some healthcare system versus how many actual doctors and nurses are there delivering care for the patients? Patients, and what we've seen is just this massive bureaucracy and government regulation that has really, in some ways, pushed us backwards. There are people who are Going backwards in living standards, and we are seeing life expectancies go down, sadly, in certain countries. And, you know, it's really sad to see that, you know, for most of our lives, we've seen this sort of mostly upwards trajectory in terms of life expectancy, in terms of income, GDP, we've seen improvements in things, you know, less infant mortality, things like this. And now, sadly, it's getting to a point where the state is so big, or certain states are becoming so big, so- powerful that they are actually lowering people's standard of living." }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "16:45", "start": 1004.82, "text": "Yeah, it's terrifying, particularly here in the United States. And what we learned in the Soviet Union was when we saw the same sort of collapse in life expectancy, particularly among the, amongst the young. Like it's a sign of a deep sickness in the society and that the system fundamentally isn't functioning anymore. and, you know, looking out into that darkness, it is intimidating to go, \"Whoa, like we're about to see some pretty cataclysmic change.\" But I think the refreshing part is, is to know that, you know, this education system that hasn't been working well for a long time, it's finally going to go to its grave. Same thing with all of these bloated bureaucracies. There, there's gonna be a huge opportunity of renewal as we move away from a fiat standard. And I think one of the most exciting things is, is to think about the That are gonna present themselves to the entirety of the world as we convert ourselves back to a sound money standard that's gonna allow for people to have long-term visions that they're gonna have the, the economic possibilities of knowing that there isn't some government contract out there that's gonna smash them just because they know people in the government as opposed to others. So While it's dark, I think it's important that we keep our eyes on that. This going through this cycle is-- it's gonna be rough, but we have a real answer at this point in time, and at this-- and, and really just education is sort of the biggest thing we can do to help get as many people away from this fiat system that's gonna destroy people's wealth and into the Bitcoin system that's gonna at least help people protect what they have." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "18:18", "start": 1097.87, "text": "When it comes to building an alternative, of course, Bitcoin is like this parallel financial system that we can, we can join, right? You can sell your dollars and buy Bitcoin or earn Bitcoin. What other parallel institutions do you see us needing, right? I mean, as an example, maybe family, maybe having more children, like maybe that's kind of a stark difference that we might even start to see. We may start to see Bitcoin communities that are more focused on having children compared to fiat world where The birth rate is cratering." }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "18:50", "start": 1129.75, "text": "Yeah, I, I actually think this is one of the best things a-about sort of Bitcoin culture, which, which I really wouldn't attribute so much to Bitcoin as much as it's that shift from short term to long term thinking and really being able to have that low time preference that has you go, \"Oh, like actually having a family is the greatest thing that I can do for myself, and not because it's gonna be an easy and fun thing today or next year or maybe even in a decade, but because when I'm done- I know that there'll be somebody there who's actually gonna be there for me, who will care for me, and that's one of the things I find sort of the most, absurdist in normie world when people are like, \"Oh, I don't wanna have children,\" it, it's, it's just such a short term mindset. But we're seeing this in other areas with Bitcoiners as well, with more Bitcoiners, sort of being more back to the land movement with knowing their rancher, getting their meat directly from somebody who's actually taking care of the slaughter themselves. And so I think that these new institutions are gonna start creating themselves, and, and seeing the digital institutions create themselves is one of the most exciting, you know, like I, I know that both you and I are both on Nostr, and seeing all the people that are starting to come to it. And the most exciting thing is, like, this isn't a company, it's not like Instagram or like TikTok. It is literally a protocol, just like Bitcoin, but it's a protocol for social media. And this pairing of Lightning and Nostr together, there's a synergy that's extremely powerful, To see it to grow faster than almost anything else. And I think that these sort of powers are gonna be the things that truly do give us new forms of sovereignty, same way that AI and having customized private algorithms that you'll be able to use for yourself will give you a totally new and different form of sovereignty that I think is, is really the end of education on a whole. You know, I think we're really gonna transform what it means to go to school School and to get an education." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:42", "start": 1241.91, "text": "that's interesting as well, because many libertarians, and myself included, are fans of homeschooling, right? Like we, rather than having kids go to this sort of regimented government schooling system where they learn from a government curriculum, instead the approach is, I see it more like the approach is to Engender curiosity or to have them, want to go and learn something for themselves, and maybe there's a skill, a meaningful skill that they learn out of it. So I think that that's another example of these parallel institutions, and as you said, Nostra, I think, is going to be big in terms of people being able to really speak their own mind, and we're seeing this because even though Elon is coming out trying to say, right, he was trying to argue, \"Oh, look, I'm gonna fix Twitter and I'm gonna make it better, I'm gonna Going to be a free speech platform. And then just recently, he was at the same time deboosting or down ranking people linking out to a Substack, which is kind of ironic in a way because as part of his Twitter files, many of the journalists that he enlisted as part of that have a Substack and would link to the Substack as part of their Twitter files reporting. So it's just kind of very ironic in a way, and, I think it sort of proves out the, the point. W-why are we bothering with all this Bitcoin and not- extra stuff, you know, in some ways it can seem like the hard path, but in another way it can seem like the sustainable long way, long term pathway." }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "22:10", "start": 1330.44, "text": "Yeah, and I, I think it's really important that people understand, you know, like, it, it- We're not choosing this pathway because this, you know, number go up and we're all gonna get rich or that no star is gonna be this new venture capital shitcoin investment vehicle that we can utilize for ourselves to, to- You know, make a bunch of money, and I think that's actually the most important part that, you know, some people even laugh at when they first hear that, you know, Bitcoin's not actually about money, it's about the care of money, which is something that's totally separate and unique from actually trying to make money itself. You know what I'm saying? With social media, like this is, this is caring about social media, not because we wanna post pictures of awesome memes and fast cars, but because we actually think people having something to say is very important, and that relates pretty well to An ancient Greek idea called parrhesia, which means to have the courage to speak courageously, even if it means that physical harm will come to yourself. And so I think we're starting to enter into that stage where, particularly with some of the dialogue we're hearing from the United States, that they could come after Bitcoiners, they could come after, you know, protocol platforms like Nostr. And the real question is, is how are we gonna respond to people to that?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "23:21", "start": 1400.96, "text": "And as you say, there may be some governments who make moves against Bitcoin. We've seen this in different parts of the To the world, for example, the China mining ban, we've seen it in examples where, let's say, the Indian central bank is notoriously anti Bitcoin. We've seen examples where, let's say, Pakistan tries to make moves against Bitcoin, but at the same time, we've seen peer-to-peer markets grow massively in those same countries. So that's a quick example. I also believe we will see more of a sovereign individual thesis where people move countries, whether that's El Salvador or UAE or- Or somewhere else, I think, or, you know, for, for you Americans, somewhere inside, into a different state in, in America. So I think we're going to see that, I'm curious how you're seeing that, do, do you- See that as, you know, people are going to, people will shift, people will move for better Bitcoin or better laws." }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "24:19", "start": 1458.82, "text": "It's funny 'cause originally I was like, like the-- I'm, I'm not sure if that could really play out, but like as we're, as we're watching it actually play out, I'm starting to go like, oh yeah, actually, because it, it, it very much is sort of seeing it grow louder and louder and the moves against it happen. And, and like this is perhaps an unfair comparison, but like I have to imagine that Roma This starting to see some regulation come out against them, they're like, \"Okay, yeah, like we'll deal with that, sure, we'll wear the armband,\" and it just continues to escalate, you know? And, and I, I have the question, particularly with sort of the draconian stuff that we're seeing come, come through US Congress, like- I get that this is an extreme idea to think that your government would hunt you down to try to take your Bitcoin, but I need to point at the past of particularly Executive Order sixty-one-O-two that the government has literally hunted people down for their, for assets that they directly own, that they have declared illegal through a state of emergency in this way. And so it's very important to not just relegate this out and say that that's not possible, and to actually include it. And so I think here in the United States, it's really great that there's- It seems to be a number of states that are starting to pass pro legislation that is really going to see to protect people's individual Bitcoin, and also seeing, you know, really friendly regulation that's happening out in the world, whether it's somewhere like El Salvador or Madeira or the UAE. And I think all of this actually, pretty much plays into Bitcoin's game theory on a nation state level that marries up perfectly with the sovereign individual thesis, is that essentially as we're gonna go into economic turmoil and we're gonna shift away from the Bretton Woods system system, there's gonna be a massive opportunity for countries to choose to have friendly Bitcoin regulations similar to El Salvador, and I think that that's gonna be a really positive move that I'm even starting to explore now as well, and I didn't think that that was gonna be something in my lifetime that I would be exploring, but I'm really scared from a lot of the insane dialogue that I'm hearing here in the United States, and I wanna find somewhere reasonable." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:22", "start": 1581.66, "text": "Yeah, and I think that's-- I think it's totally natural to start thinking about these things, especially once you've been in Bitcoin for a little while, it becomes a significant portion of your- You know, net worth and kind of how you're viewing the world, it's only natural to then start thinking, \"Well, what jurisdictions are favorable for me and for my family?\" And so, you know, I think that's an interesting thing. I think multisig, honestly, like multisig is such a big game changer That I think it really makes it a lot harder to seize your coins, so, you know, I'm a big fan of multi-sig, I use multi-sig, I often, talk about it and promote it because I think If it were more mainstream, it would make it even harder to run any kind of sixty-one o-two, you know, custody attack, right? Because if people aren't, you-- especially if they're playing the game with multiple jurisdictions, right? Let's say you have multisig and you have keys in different jurisdictions, it just ma-- it just takes it to another whole level of difficulty. Now, we have some time to go before we get there, because I think right now it's probably, you know, it's enough of a, it's enough of a battle to get- Get people to take their coins off an exchange or off a custodian, just full stop, right? To even, y-y, just use single signature, right? That's, that's, that's even a big win. but I think maybe that's kind of the longer term is if this technology and the techniques around it can be mainstreamed, normalized, made easy for the masses, I see that as being protective in some small way, right? Or maybe even a big way. What do you think?" }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "27:57", "start": 1677.26, "text": "Oh, absolutely. I mean, this, this is one- One of the reasons why I chose to work with Unchained early on when I saw the model that they had for multisig, and this was also one of the things I told them pretty early on in the company, it was like, I was like, \"I think you guys need to get key signers in all sorts of different jurisdictions and have people plug and play whatever they want depending on works, what works best for them, because I think multi-jurisdictional play is the best. and even past that, like the, we're only scratching the surface with some of the stuff that multisig can do, and, and I think it's really interesting to consider that, like, Bitcoin's extremely rudimentary and brittle right now, you know, like it hasn't really been fleshed out to its fullest extent in terms of both UI and usability, smart contracts, all, all sorts of different things, particularly with what Taproot has enabled. So I think that this is one of the places I, I'm the most excited about, and, funny enough, I was actually speaking An individual earlier this week about methods of doing multisig that, that essentially it's not even a business anymore, but it's sort of some strange- Collective model where like you, you're just going to do key signings based off of your reputation and being able to, to extract various keys from an xPub in such a way to be able to do various signatures. But it was a really fun idea, but it was just an example of sort of some of the, the new things that are gonna be premiering, and I ultimately think that this is how large collectives of individuals are going to be able to stand up to the state, because when they do come, they'll say, \"Hey, look, we only have a few keys, we can Other jurisdictions, and they know we're in danger now. They're gonna take that money and they're gonna use it to start a legal battle against you here, because we actually secured our wealth in a way that means that you can't just come here and steal it from us." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:42", "start": 1781.92, "text": "And on the whole topic, you know, obviously we're talking about crypto Sovereignty and this new form of political power. I know this is also something you've been writing and speaking about in terms of, quote unquote, you know, crypto, right? And, I guess, being- Skeptical of, let's say, fake decentralization, right? Or of coins that are, let's say, they have a very paper-thin justification or rationalization for, you know, these altcoins to exist and things like this. How, how are you thinking about that? Because I understand at the same time in your book you sort of spell out that, you know, it's not that there could be-- there's nothing else that could have value, it's just that you need to, I guess, have-- impose a very high bar before you- Let's say take this idea, take that idea on board. So can you elaborate a little bit on your thinking there?" }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "30:34", "start": 1833.79, "text": "Yeah, pretty much in that, particularly with the amount of shitcoinery and ICOs and just absolute garbage projects that we've seen from NFTs to everything in between. I, I, it's really tempting to throw the baby out with the bath-bathwater and just say Bitcoin is the only thing that we need. It's the, Bitcoin is, can change everything all by itself. And as much as I want that to be true, I think Nostr is a great example showing, no, there are all these adjacent projects, specifically vis a vis cryptography, that can help empower us and give us new forms of sovereignty that are very important in this sort of upcoming battle. And, and I, and with that being included, there are possibly other blockchains or other crypto projects, and we've also seen the advancement of cryptography through some of these other projects out there. But is there something that's going to act as a monetary asset in the same way as Bitcoin? No. Is it possible that- Something else could probably come along that could serve the same sort of monetary basis. I'm of the opinion, no. I think Satoshi did something Promethean in his production of Bitcoin and the way that he displayed this to the world and that he literally discovered the only thing in the world that has fundamental uniqueness about that. It, are other projects free to come along and try to take on that mantle? Absolutely. But if you come at the king, you better not miss. And, and that's one of the things I tell to all the other proof-of-work lars out there is, go, go ahead. If you guys can suck up as much energy as Bitcoin, maybe it's true. But at this point in time, you guys are a drop in the bucket comparatively to everything else. So, am I gonna bother with your project? No. Am I gonna wish you luck? Sure, because I want those same things out in the world. I just don't believe you and your team have what it has. So, so to me, that's my perspective about it, and, I specifically kind of wrote that because I don't wanna close the door on some great projects out there, stuff just like Nostr, where people are interacting with cryptography in fun, new, novel ways, and thank God they didn't add some stupid shitcoin onto it, like, you know, with the various Ethereum projects that are trying to do something similar." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:41", "start": 1960.67, "text": "Yeah, that's a great way to put it, and I know perhaps Adam Back has made a similar comment as well, because he was saying when he was getting into Bitcoin It's in this sort of specific place from a design perspective, and he was saying that even little changes would sort of make it less optimal. And he was saying that, that, there were just kind of only certain combinations that really made sense for Bitcoin. And so I think it also aligns similarly with comments by our friend Gigi, who has also spoken about this idea, and he kind of explains it like, \"Look, you don't improve on the wheel by like slightly changing the angle of the-- No, no, like it's, it's kind of, this is the technology, this is how You're not going to meaningfully improve Bitcoin by just, you know, tinkering on little parameters here and there. And of course, in years gone by with various shitcoins, as I'm sure you've seen in the past, there are, you know, there are examples like, you know, Litecoin with, you know, faster confirmation, you know, \"quote unquote\" faster confirmations and things like this. Of course, th-these have been, roundly criticized, for not really offering meaningful innovation. And as you said, it is possible to innovate without tokens. So And Keat is another example, right? Keat is an example where you can have peer-to-peer calls and there's no token required. They're just using, you know, if you want, you can connect a Bitcoin and Lightning node to your Keat, and the, you know, kind of in a similar way with Nostr, there's this idea that you-- Well, with Nostr, you can have zaps, and you can zap each other, Lightning, and it's just a protocol that people are using without bringing in a new crypto token, like a free-floating monetary token. Of course Tokens in the kind of cryptographic and security sense, but here we're talking about tokens that have a monetary value, because I think, you know, coming back to what we were saying, human institutions are Very fallible, and whoever can print money will, and so I think that's kind of how I'm seeing it, is that I'm a lot more inclined to get on board with the project if they don't have a token. Well, and because I think, you know," }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "34:46", "start": 2085.72, "text": "I, I just also wanted to point out like the, going back to the Promethean idea, what Satoshi did was so important, was because he also stood next to what he did. Like it's clear that he did this because he truly cared about money. He didn't care about making money. Every single other project that I've ran into that has founders, this is about them making money, and this is one of the things that pisses me off the most. Whether, you know, like the, the first one that comes to, to mind is Definity, like the Internet Computer. funny enough, I was high on acid and I debated him at Burning Man about this whole, whole topic. And, and what it really came down to is that, like, he believed he had some new innovation that he had a privilege that he should get rewarded for. And I pointed out that it, Something that's unique for humanity to have. This should be a gift that we freely give to people, you know, and, and particularly around money, this is the thing that is of the utmost importance that we can't- Solely with our own economic benefit, because this is about everyone. This isn't just about you or me or the United States or even our time right now. This is about the world and all of the future to come and what it means if we do have a free and open money that everyone everywhere could use and what that promise means and how it changes our actual experience of life and being as human beings. You know, like the world where everyone understands understands Bitcoin and that we're on a Bitcoin standard, while it is radically and fundamentally different from this world, it still has all the same people and features and matter in it. It's just gonna change in the way that we look at it and understand it and interact with it with each other in a much more meaningful way, in my opinion." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:29", "start": 2188.91, "text": "And when it comes to, I guess, profit, right? Because that's an area where we've seen in this space people sometimes hide behind a kind of f- faux libertarianism and saying, \"Oh, what, what do you mean you're not pro-free market? Like, why, why, what's wrong with people making money?\" kind of thing. Whereas I, you know, maybe the way I'm seeing that is, I think the Bitcoiners or let's say the, you know- Bitcoin Maxis, for want of a better term, just imposing a higher ethical bar, right? Like they're just saying, you know, really have an extremely high bar in terms of honesty about what that project is, what it's doing, as opposed to, I think, the sort of more Shitcoiner, quote unquote, libertarians who, maybe taking more of a caveat emptor sort of you, you play, you take whatever risk you want with it kind of thing, but maybe there's an element where there's a grey zone Zone where some of them are kind of exploiting that because they know, oh, look, I can, I can make this token where maybe I, as the founder, or me and, me and my friends, we get a little premine allocation of coins, that we can then dump on the retail and the, you know, the greater fools who are coming into the system, and maybe that's how I'm seeing a difference in the mindset. How are you seeing that difference in mindset?" }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "37:45", "start": 2265.32, "text": "I, I'm gonna go kinda hard on it here, and I'm, I'm actually gonna say Try to have a real conversation with them about, like, yo, like what you're doing is wrong, like dumping on these uninformed retail people, like that's wrong. They're like, no, you, like, you don't get it. Like, there's a-- And so like the entire conversation, we're never gonna get to a place where they're like, huh? Like, yeah, maybe you're right, like maybe that is wrong, because like they're, they're just not available to actually have that thought. And so what I think is so unique about Bitcoiners is that for them, it's a cut and dry thing at the start. It's just like, \"Oh, yeah, like if, if, if you have a token that you're issuing there, you're clearly trying to do this things about you making money as opposed to you caring for money. \" Because if you actually cared about money in the way that could go out and build on top of Bitcoin, there's literally the entire economic model for the whole of the future, and you can build almost anything on it at this point in time. You wanna That's one of the things that I find the most amazing about the Bitcoin ecosystem is like, pick up a rock and throw it. Like, you, you, you know, Ben Justin, like, he wanted to be the Bitcoin wine guy, became the Bitcoin wine guy, you know? Like, you wanna become the Bitcoin dog food guy? Like, go ahead, sell, sell your dog food for Bitcoin. Pe- Bitcoiners will rally around it because they understand and wanna support what you're doing is something ethical and you're making a great profit, providing a great service on top of a great monetary Trying to rebuild all that from the base, it's pretty clear to me like you're trying to actually take economic benefit from people and the idea of what the monetary system should be for yourself, and that's just playing fiat all over again." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "39:25", "start": 2365.19, "text": "And I think related to this, and I'm sure this is, perhaps going to the heart of some of your- Criticisms and disagreements of what went on at Coinbase in that twenty seventeen era when basically they were just, you know, they ninja launched B-Cash and people like, you know, maybe this may have been around your time, maybe just after, I know, yeah, B-Cash was" }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "39:46", "start": 2386.06, "text": "literally the incident where I was like, \"I'm fucking done,\" and I like put in my notice around that, and they're like, \"Please God, like, stay for two months or everything will burst into flames,\" and I was like, \"Well, we'll see.\" But, any-- I, I, sorry, I digress." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "39:59", "start": 2399.38, "text": "You know, no, I think that's right. I think it's, it's that you, as you were saying, that, there are some people in the, quote, unquote, broader crypto industry where they just saw it like, it's just new coins to launch, right? And we saw this even with people like Balaji, right? Like, it just seems, you know, at times Balaji seems to have some quite interesting things to say, but then other times he seems to just always- Have a new shitcoin to promote and seems to just never see a shitcoin idea that he didn't like, right? Because he sees some idea and thinks, \"Oh, let's create a shitcoin around this and have a shitcoin.\" Now he won't call it a shitcoin, but you know, he just, you know, he just seems to--" }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "40:34", "start": 2434.41, "text": "Sure, it's a wonderful innovation that you need to" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "40:37", "start": 2436.55, "text": "invest in. Right, exactly, right. And the-- And it comes back to this kind of ethical question that I think maybe the, Bitcoin purists are just imposing a higher ethical" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "40:50", "start": 2450.46, "text": "Monetary token for that, just sell a service, charge in Bitcoin for it, and just be done with it that way. You don't need to-- And I think there are all these kinds of people coming out with all kinds of justifications, and it just doesn't really end that well, and it's, it's unfortunate to see with what's happening with places like Coinbase, where, you know, they just seem to launch all these shit coins and- Don't seem to support the real ethos of Bitcoin and Lightning and all these things that, you know, we would like to see." }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "41:22", "start": 2482.17, "text": "I mean, I, I, I find it sort of comical in a very poetic way because like they-- and I remember I actually had a conversation with Alex Leishman about this, like they, they like had the golden goose and it was like laying golden eggs, and they're like, \"Wow! \" And then instead they're like, \"Can we get like other golden gooses? \" And I'm like, \"Hey, there's like a retarded blackbird And they're like, kinda. Like, try another one. We'll, we'll sell 'em anyways. And they got so lost in that, that they ignored the golden goose. And now the golden goose has wandered off, you know, and it's hanging out at places like River and other Bitcoin-only companies, where like it's actually going to be treated and respected in the way that it should. and, and I guess I would dub these people as sort of Bitcoin nihilists, 'cause like I don't- I think they understand Bitcoin and they understand why Bitcoin's so important, but to them, like every other coin that comes along, like, sure, like it could do the same thing, and, and it's, and I actually think it mostly has to do with that, like, they don't actually understand the political philosophy at the bottom of that, like, this has nothing to do with money. Like, this is-- like, what's going on is something very, very important, and it's about reestablishing the social contract in the internet and putting a money on top of that as the very first contract that is available to it. You know, and that's why I call it crypto sovereignty, is to me that's what Bitcoin represents. It is the first true digital social contract of the rule of law around what Bitcoin units are and how they function. And we've never seen or experienced something like that before, and the possibility of building a collective law for all of humanity to freely use for themselves is possible on top of Bitcoin. I don't see that possibility on top of any other shitcoin, and I actually see a very extreme danger on things like Ethereum that can now work with states directly in order to steal people's money, and that's a terrifying prospect that I think most people People in crypto never took seriously, and that the Bitcoin nihilists specifically can't really even consider, because the state sort of is their god in many ways. And, I think it's important that people really consider those political dynamics when understanding why Bitcoin's unique." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:39", "start": 2619.46, "text": "When it comes to corruption, I think this is an area where, of course, we can be quite critical of shitcoins and their ability to be corrupted or centralized and- taken over. We do have to also ask the question about Bitcoin as well, right? I think that's, you know, to be fair, we should ask that question. Can Bitcoin be corrupted, and what, you know, if it could, what could be done about it?" }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "44:05", "start": 2644.66, "text": "Sure, you know, and, and again, holding that higher standard, it's totally possible with Bitcoin, and like this is one of the reasons why proof of work is so important, is that like comparatively to, you know, two thousand eleven, like you'd need a single Bitcoin mining server farm that exists today to be able to take over the network, roll back the chain to, you know, pretty much the genesis block if you wanted to, and it's a, it was a real danger. Today, that opportunity to play itself out, there's too many people watching all of it, you know? And, and Dreis is in his, lecture where he gave, where he pointed out that even if some huge entity came online, started a fifty-one percent attack, started to roll back the chain, a patch would be out immediately to slice them out of the network, and now this entity has just wasted billions of dollars they can't get back in, and what was the point? So from, I don't see any place that there is a flaw. This doesn't mean that there isn't a flaw, and we shouldn't continue to be vigilant and to look for various security issues, but as far as I can tell, we've been kicking the tires pretty hard for more than a decade now, and all of the issues that have came up have been addressed, with the exception of the one overflow bug that needs to, to be addressed before I think it's like twenty ninety-six or something like that, which will require a hard fork. But the great thing is- And as you know, we, we got about seventy years to figure out how we can take care of something like that, which I, I actually think it's sort of a good thing ultimately, because it means we can't just sit back and relax, we still gotta be on our toes. So yes, while Bitcoin still is under all the exact same threats of those other projects, it just has a higher bar it's been held to, and it ha-- and it got a running start. You know, to me, that's the most important thing, is that with how Bitcoin was developed and the running start Time Satoshi left, that this was on the radar of three lettered agencies. So that means to me, any project that came after that has been surveilled to the extent that, it, it's compromised." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:03", "start": 2763.06, "text": "It's a fair position to hold, and in some ways, it's, it's just difficult to go back to recreate Bitcoin because of the environment that it came from and the, the way things were at the time, right? Because obviously, here we are, April twenty twenty-three. If someone starts a coin today, that's very, very different to somebody starting a coin in January two thousand and nine with the white paper out in two thousand and eight, in an era where there was no such thing as, you know, cryptocurrency coins, right? Like, it, you know, so it's It's just a different thing. One other area that I think is an interesting discussion is this idea of, well, it's kind of like, is it a religion, right? Is, is crypto a religion and is, is statism a religion? Is it like the, you know, you're trying to get people to change their religion in a way?" }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "46:49", "start": 2809.39, "text": "I mean, this is a fair question, and I think, first of all, like the words religion are an extremely loaded word, 'cause like we're actually talking about people's belief systems. and like when it comes down to a belief system, like, yeah, Bitcoin's absolutely augmenting people's belief systems, and it's a belief system that's moving from being in a fiat world mindset to one that's much more truth-oriented. And a lot of my book is based upon-- around this idea of the Hobbesian notion of what sovereignty is. And Thomas Hobbes says that the state's sovereignty is based a-- around essentially what fiat is, which is that authority, not truth, is the finer purveyor of legitimacy. And that's what we have today with the US dollar. You know, the central bankers decide what a dollar is worth and valued and how many of them there are, and you must accept that as legal tender. Is it true? Like, does the actual accounting of how these units work and function at the bottom truly account for themselves? No. There's no-- there's no fundamental way way that you can actually do that accounting. And so I think what is really happening to Bitcoiners is that they're making a choice to reject the generalized authoritarianism, wh-which, when I say that, I, I really want to loosen it beyond just political authoritarianism, but think about Stopping at traffic lights, listening to, you know, what the doctors are telling you as being the truth, what the news is telling you as being the truth, all of these various things, and instead of us operating from a proof of stake system where we're taking what the authority says to us to be true and moving forward from that, we're saying, \"Hey, do, do proof of work. If this thing is actually worthwhile, we should be able to follow the chain of logic to understand what it is.\" And so I think what a lot-- what's happening for a lot of Bitcoiners is as they understand the ruse that is fiat and they understand the promise that Bitcoin offers and the way it can't violate those things, there are true spiritual transformations that are happening in people because-- and this is what I believe, you know, happened to myself and, and with my work is, is that it rescued me from this very deep, bitter nihilism where I thought there was no way that we could transform the world and return to A happy, great world where people are self-sovereign and freedom and liberty is reigning for most people. No, that was defeated because of how dark and, and nihilistic this whole system was. And what Bitcoin offered me was, no, like truth is actually a meaningful thing in this world, and people value it and they see it and they understand it. And most importantly, if you offer that to people that are ready for it, they will pursue it. And so for me, I'm at my point in my Bitcoin journey that I am meeting more and more people almost every week who are telling me, \"Hey, like, Bitcoin has radically changed my life for the better because now I can see that truth is something that matters in the world.\" And it's very interesting how it transforms for people in different ways, whether they choose to go start a whole new life or whether they're just eating better and choosing to have a more long-term perspective. Yeah, I, I think that this is really substantially affecting people's belief systems, and I ultimately do think that it will probably create itself as-- I don't wanna use the word religion, 'cause it's such a loaded word, but I do think that communities of people who this will be a sacrosanct for them will become something that we'll see in the world, and it'll be pretty great." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "50:14", "start": 3013.79, "text": "I do wonder, I mean, I, I think I agree with you about the belief system point, but it maybe it eventually reaches a point where it won't be meaningful to be a bit Bitcoiner, right? In the same sense that today, I'm not an-- we don't call ourselves interneters, right? Like we just, we just use, we just use the internet, right? Yeah. There's not really communities of US dollar where they get together and, you know, maybe, maybe you could argue like, I don't know, personal finance or maybe like macro bros talking about the dollar milkshake theory or something, you know? But you get what I'm saying, right? Like eventually, it won't make sense to have Bitcoin podcasts and Bitcoin books, it'll just" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "50:54", "start": 3053.89, "text": "And, I, I think I agree with you that, in, in a way, it's a competing belief system with statism, and I think that's maybe that's where the, let's say, in the short and medium term, that's where, it is. so, yeah, I think, I, I think, You've spelled it out pretty well. Maybe if you could summarize, I guess, in a way, this idea of crypto sovereignty as a new form of political power, could you just spell out a little bit about what you mean? There and, then we can sort of wrap up there." }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "51:30", "start": 3089.73, "text": "Sure. and so like my book is pretty esoteric and philosophical in a number of ways, so it is rather difficult to just kind of summarize it shortly. But I think sort of some of the most substantial portions are is that- we now live in like a technologically global world where everybody's connected to the internet, and more importantly, governments are as well, and they're becoming more and more maniacal with the sort of technological powers that they have. And so what I foresee is that they're going to use a state of emergency explicitly to be able to essentially launch CBDCs, go after Bitcoin and call it illegal, and that, that could work out really well if it wasn't for the very real fact that Bitcoin is sovereign in and of itself. threw its cryptography. And essentially, as this sort of battle continues to play itself out, we're going to continue to see ourselves not only having Bitcoin gain more in monetary value, but we're actually gonna see that manifest itself in a political way. And we're already seeing sort of the beginning steps of that, you know, just with the New York Times this last weekend running a disastrous hit piece on Bitcoin. And even though most of the stuff in there were lies and garbage, that is one of the main propaganda outlets for normies. So I think we're going to start seeing this battle heat up more and more. And I think as we watch what happens to Bitcoiners and individuals that are using cryptography to protect themselves, we're going to realize that this is actually a very real political power, and that as we start using it more and more, we're gonna find that, the crypto war has kind of went into being a crypto cold war that's now becoming a hot war once again. And so we're really kind of connected in a way to- So that war that happened in the nineteen nineties today, and we're also seeing with some individuals in the space trying to push this idea of that Bitcoin is a kinetic weapon again, which is moronic considering specifically that, you know, that's what we countered against in the nineteen nineties. We went away from classifying cryptography as munitions, specifically because we could see it was speech. People put on t-shirts and walked through airport security with entire private keys printed out on their t-shirt to show that very point. And I think it's really important for anybody who's trying to play up this idea that they understand, even as much kinetic power as there might be available to it, it doesn't break the fundamental functions of cryptography and the protection that your private key offers, and that in and of itself puts that theory to bed, in my opinion. So I think that was a, a brief ramble about some of my work." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "54:03", "start": 3243.29, "text": "So I guess, finishing off, where can people find, find a book?" }, { "speaker": "erik_cason", "time": "54:07", "start": 3246.9, "text": "Sure, the book is gonna be published by Bitcoin Media. we're still in the editorial Today. But if you'd like to check out most of the essays preliminary, I have most of them on my blog at cryptosovereignty dot org. and if you just wanna listen to my kind of crazy rants that I like to go on, you can find me on Twitter just at my name, which is eric cason." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "54:27", "start": 3266.79, "text": "Fantastic. Well, enjoyed chatting with you, Eric. Thank you for joining me today. Thanks, Stefan. Show notes are available over at stephanlivera dot com slash four seven one. As always, I appreciate if you share the show so your family and friends can also learn about Bitcoin. Thanks for listening and thank you for helping me out. I'll see you in the citadels." } ] }