{ "episodeId": "SLP587", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "stephan_livera": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "guest", "tag": "STEPHAN" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:00", "start": 0.06, "text": "Bitcoin is something that the people that get it, they get it, and they know that it, it could just, completely transform the way we do business and the way economies could be run in such a phenomenally powerful way, and that's sort of a no-brainer once you get it" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "00:26", "start": 26.03, "text": "Hi everyone, and welcome back to Stephan Livera podcast, brought to you by Swan dot com, the best place to buy Bitcoin. Now today we're talking about setting up free private cities, and, joining me today is Art Finch. He's a South African American entrepreneur, has spent a lot of time in South Asia, and, is- Is gonna join us to talk a little bit about free private cities and this kind of, you know, what's the process of actually trying to set them up, what are some of the prospects, what are some of the benefits of this. So, first of all, welcome to the show, Art." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:56", "start": 55.85, "text": "Thanks so much for having me on, Stephan. It's really a pleasure to be here. looking forward to sharing what I can." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "01:01", "start": 60.9, "text": "Great. And so, yeah, as, you probably know, I'm a, I'm a fan of free private cities. I, I'm one of the ambassadors for the Free Cities Foundation. and, I've done a couple interviews. You know, reg-regular listeners might have seen my earlier shows. I did a recent one with Luke, the CFO of Prospera, but, yeah, interested to hear" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:27", "start": 86.75, "text": "Yeah, sure. so, as you mentioned, I'm, I'm a South African American entrepreneur, although I don't really identify with any one particular country anymore. so I started off my career in sort of vanilla distribution business, and, did pretty well with that. I was a, a university dropout, but then ended up going back, and, I basically wasn't satisfied with, just sort of making money. I, I, I wanted to try and work on something, bigger than that. and, from my experience, prior, in academics, I'd been quite, quite successful academically. I'd been in one of the top ranked colleges. I realized there were some big problems in education, and I wanted to work on that particularly, and, I started designing sort of a, a knowledge city that was focused primarily on, on reforming education and model education And in the process of that, I kind of came to the realization that, it really was a free private city or a charter city, in the sense that it had to have unique laws. Yeah. So on that basis, I, I sort of thought, okay, where can we do this? and, I did a kind of analysis of different countries that sort of had a degree of open space in a regulatory sense as well as cultural sense, and Bhutan, in, in South Asia, in the Himalayas, came up on top as a sort of more It's late, it's my opportunity. and, two years later, I, I relocated to Bhutan. I actually studied formally there for a year. While I was doing that, I kind of lobbied the government and talked to the government and explored the possibility of setting up, this knowledge city in Bhutan. And it turned out that they were actually working on a major education city project. It was the government's sort of keystone project at the time. That was the first democratically elected government of Bhutan. and so, that dov I was invited back into Bhutan by the first democratically elected prime minister at the time, Tshering Waytenle, and I was there for a year basically trying to see if there was some synergy between my project and what they were doing and trying to sort of make those, those, work together. Gotcha. unfortunately, that, that government was voted out and, the new government shelved the project as political opposition tends to do, and so it was just sort of stuck on the shelf for five years. then, subsequent to that I did sort of still, I was still based in South Asia, I was still moving around, but a lot of time in Bhutan. subsequent to that, a new government came in, the third democratically elected government, and I happened to know a couple of the, the ministers, including the prime minister. and so, I worked with them to explore whether we could, you know, boot up a, a, a version of the project actually in a different location at that time. So, the first Education City was already a huge leveled area set up between Thim And, we were looking at more of a southern flat, there's more flat land in the southern part of Bhutan in the foothills, so we're looking more around there. and, they were sort of open to the idea and they were supportive, and we ended up, actually talking to Prenomos Capital Who are a dedicated VC just for charter cities, or free private cities, and we were fortunate enough that in twenty twenty, they decided to, give us our, our first anchor check. and Pronomos, is run by Patrick Freedman, the grandson of Milton Freedman. just for your audience, I know you know all of this. and, at the same time, the Pronomos is backed by some really great, you know, names, Peter Thiel, Mark Andreessen, Larg You know, that was really a, a major boost for us, and we continued for the next three years. Unfortunately, COVID came up, and Bhutan took a very extreme view on COVID, they did a massive lockdown. I share your views on these issues, and, wasn't too happy about that, but basically the, the economy just was dead after two years. when they did reopen, it's about two percent A year of the population that's now leaving on average, which is, it's just, it's" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "05:39", "start": 339.44, "text": "just, it's" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:40", "start": 339.92, "text": "crazy. yeah, just, yeah, the airport's just, it's crazy. so, so this project actually became like quite a big deal, for us, of course, we already saw that it needed to be, we always, that's our, that's our whole thesis, but the government itself became pretty excited, I think, about the idea, and we started being able to move quite quickly, so we were licensed within months after they ended" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:05", "start": 364.6, "text": "Our license, and that was for sort of a multi-sector special economic zone project, as the sort of zone that the city could then be established within. our model was to start with primary industry and then go into tertiary sector stuff, but, obviously we were proposing the whole bunch, as, as one does for these types of projects. and then, we kept pushing it, we kept working, we did fe-feasibility work, we had people flying in and out, and as I say, the project Even on social media, we had, a good chunk of the Bhutanese population following us on social media. we weren't really emphasizing the free private city, charter city angle at that stage so much as a special economic zone and opportunity zone, but it was very popular. and, you know, That move forward. In 2023, things took a different turn, you know, just to make the story quite, brief. the, the leadership of the country, not exactly the prime minister, but, the leadership with a group of consultants, a, a sort of consultant group that Function almost like a shadow government, Singaporean group, but, this group basically collectively said, \"Okay, we want this project.\" They kind of pushed us out. the biggest risk for free private charter city projects really over the long term is something like expropriation slash just being shut down as a political statement. you know, and there's like amazing examples like Prospera of how to potentially avoid that with international treaties. but in our case, we didn't have anything like that. We had very little in a formal sense apart from our license. and all of the meetings and things that we had, notes on. So we were really working in good faith. So it wasn't very difficult for them to do what they did. but basically in twenty twenty-three, we lost control of the project, and, it was taken over fully by the king, and he sort of shaped it more towards his vision as well. and, we came to know that they were planning to do a huge sixty thousand acre area, which, we originally had suggested a slightly small area just because we It's a great project, you know, we're really happy that our idea transformed into what it is, but also, you know, have to give credit to the king for, for taking leadership on it. That's always been what was required to ever make something like this happen in the town." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:28", "start": 507.94, "text": "and also, you know, it's a great model for the region. So, South Asia, obviously has nothing like that. It's not a, a region that's known for giving a lot of autonomy, even in special economic zones, they're typically And run and pretty restricted, I mean, there's, there's all sorts of restrictions usually, so I, I think with Bangladesh is maybe the exception. and so, in, in Bhutan, they, they move forward with the project, and now, the proposal is, sixty thousand acres, independent immigration system, independent currency, which is a digital currency, we'd love it if that turns out to be Bitcoin, it could be, but at this stage, just slated as a digital currency that's, that's, that's rest of the country, and obviously the ability to make their own laws, certainly on the commercial, civil side, but very likely on the criminal side as well, so completely unique, they're calling it a special administrative region, in Buteb. So very proud for the part, the role that we've played in that. we did spend a year trying to get back, i-into a position where we could really lead it and, and help it manifest in the way that we'd like it to. you know, there are some concerns You see, it's free because it can make its own laws, it's private because it's run by the private sector, and it's a city because it's not just a manufacturing hub, it's multi-sector, you can do anything there, it's not just a special economic zone in the traditional sense, and in fact, you typically would have, you know, zero to low taxes, you would have a lot more innovation going on, and that's just the, the trend if you look at the, the space. and happy to go into more" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "10:06", "start": 605.86, "text": "on, on" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "10:11", "start": 610.74, "text": "Like the idea of a free private city, like what, like even just excluding Bhutan and kind of, like, why is the idea interesting to you, right? Like as an example, if you talk to maybe Eric Bremmer, he might say, \"Look, you could, we could massively grow the GDP of the world, like, because there are all these people who have like, are in a poor governance situation, and you could take them into a higher quality governance situation.\" Or if you talk to maybe Tito Sclavos, and you listen to some of his talks, he" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "10:41", "start": 640.74, "text": "That there's not much hope for liberty in, let's say, the big governments of the world, and that really there's more chance to sort of do something new by setting up, you know, a free private city. So for you, what's the why?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:53", "start": 653.21, "text": "Sure. so I would say there's a, a multi-like a, a multi-part answer to that. There's sort of a global tendency, I think, towards centralization. you know, we see that, you know, in terms of globalism, you basically have two options now. You have This global West bloc of countries that are led by the US, the EU, Australia as like option A, with obviously a bunch of kind of coattail riding countries, and then you have like the China bloc that heavily overlaps, especially of late, with the Russian bloc, almost the same thing. Those are kind of like the two primary axisies. Obviously you have still like Africa, and you have South America, and you have South Asia, and South Asia, like India, plays a role there, but it's a regional role, I would say, and similarly Brazil Brazil, in, in, in South Afr-- South America and, and maybe South Africa, in, in, in Africa. but typically you really have these sort of consolidating hegemonies, and I think that is a huge risk, in terms of, I mean, if you look at the geopolitical tr-- trajectory now, I think it's pretty obvious that like things aren't cooling down. And so if you can create these spaces, let's say of decentralization, in terms of governance, where you've really got, the option And to craft new laws, and even, of course, unlock different cultures, because that's another, to kind of answer your original question, that's another key component. You've got the unique laws and, and having the ability to have that autonomy with, with the laws is, is central to kind of, let's say, soft, soft exit the geopolitical context as much as possible, and instead of focusing on regional politics, geopolit- geo-geopolitics, focusing on trying to drive opportunity and growth, which really should be like the human- Priority, and the innovation that comes with that and, and, and technology, you know, you've also got the cultural aspect. And so I think for people that have gone to even the traditional, you know, examples of free private cities or charter cities, which everyone points to, such as, you know, DIFC, Dubai International Financial Center, or Shenzhen, I think Shenzhen is an excellent example. so, do you want me to go into the history a little bit of that? yeah, sure. Going on. Okay. Yeah, so, so I mean, in 1950 you had Shannon Island, which was like the first special economic zone, it was a free zone, they had tax incentives, customs incentives, and, and, and, they kind of set the stage, globally for what free special economic zones could become. China, in Chinese fashion, was really good at copying the, the Shannon model, and they applied it initially to four cities, effectively, which were at that time just plots of open land, with nothing built, including Sh Just a big agricultural area. and, Shenzhen now, obviously, as everyone knows, is, is a phenomenal place where, they've unlocked, you know, a new m-model of innovation. So they didn't just, they didn't just say, \"Okay, let's do manufacturing or something,\" they particularly focused on tech and enabling the, the, the legislation to do that. and so these, these models, you know, have already been proven in the traditional sense. And then you've got, and, and I've met who've spent a lot of time in Shenzhen, some, some Western expats that've gone there from places like Germany and so on. They've just been blown away by the innovation and the ability to get things done. I mean, there's so many documentaries on that anyway, how you can just prototype an idea and get a real, highly technically advanced hardware product out in like weeks, which would be, you know, everyone's pipe dream, we wish we could do it in, in other cases. and that's enabled because of the, the, the lawsuit and that I think like there was a, a, an event not so long ago in Prospera, and what I, what I heard from all the people that were there was just, you know, wow, it's, it just feels like this is so alive. Everyone's got these ideas, things are happening, it's concrete, you know, there's this sense of, of optimism, that I think is lacking in a lot of the developed world, that is enabled just because freedom does that. and, you know, seeing that culture unlock is" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:10", "start": 910.4, "text": "City Value Edition. For me personally, I see that as super important, but then you can package that with, reforming, reforming such a terrible word, with, with, with, with recreating and redesigning like a whole system redesign around a living learning kind of system. So, you know, I think that schools that are based on sort of mass industry processes, that's, that's what schools were, they were like to train people how to work in factories originally. that, that system, anyone can point to and say, okay, we- We need to, we need to improve on that. I think there's a lot of room for improvement there, and as well as in, in universities that have become, well, I think their priorities and the incentives are pretty messed up in terms of g-generating real research and real development, and they're also really distracted by all the political issues. So getting a seed culture that's sort of oriented towards doing the best we can in education first, and second, having a better model, is something that you can only really do, as I, as I told you in the beginning In a, in a chartered city, free private city, or special economic zone, it gives you that level of autonomy. and so I think, yeah, need- So can" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "16:18", "start": 978.31, "text": "we just dig into that a little bit? Like, so you were saying, as, as I'm reading from you, it sounds like it's this cultural aspect of it, as in an entrepreneurial innovation culture, I guess is one way to put it. But you were mentioning this also, this idea of having the freedom to do things a certain way in an educational context. So what specific freedoms are you looking for Freedom or the way the building is set up, the way the school is set up, like what, what exactly is the freedom that you're looking for for in an educational context?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "16:49", "start": 1008.89, "text": "Sure. So to answer this, I'm, I'm gonna actually, use Bitcoin a little bit as an analogy. so, and you were talking about the cultural sense. so, Bitcoin is something that for people that get it, they get it and they know that it, it could just, completely transform the way we do business and, and the way economies could be run And that's sort of a no-brainer once you get it, but then there's this starting issue of, of actually getting enough people to, to start utilizing it in a day-to-day way. And, there's some, you know, in, in my space where we talk about charter cities, we talk about path dependency. Path dependency is like people just do what they're used to doing, and they keep doing it, and it's really hard to change that, particularly when it's integrated at a system level. And so, if you want to sort of change the way education happens It, it, it doesn't really work. you actually have to get people that are aligned with the idea, and then you also have to, as you mentioned, enable, the, the legal side, which is things like curriculum, things like, building regulations, because You're wanting to actually in, in our model, you're wanting to create infrastructure that is purpose built, for specific educational, processes, and not-- The other thing is that we wanna kind of integrate living and learning. We don't really see them as, as like non-continuous separate things, and I think that's the way the world's going. I mean, I think a lot of the real learning now is just happening When people push themselves to go and self-study and, and, and look things up and do things themselves, and, it's not really happening in schools. some schools manage to guide people in the right direction and some maybe don't. but, so there's no point in really like creating this firm delineation. And in order to work on that, you kind of need to start from scratch. you need to have the enabling legislation, and you need to say to everyone like, \"Look, this is what we wanna do,\" and they Aligned. You can't start at a very complex level of multiple complex systems and just, change it. You actually have to start with like one node and then grow from there. you know, and again, I think the same thing would be necessary, and this is why I think free private cities and charter cities are so important for Bitcoin. The same thing would be necessary if you really wanted to see Bitcoin applied in a way that everyone can point to and say, \"Look, that city's running on Bitcoin. yes, they use Lightning and things like that, of course, It can do, you know, if you can set that up in, in a big country's backyard or in a big, the region of a big country, it's very hard for them to look at that and say, okay, well, we're just gonna pretend that's not happening and we're gonna keep pretending because, you know, that's not the way these things work. but the thing about Bitcoin and even model education is it has to happen at a certain scale, and this has been the thesis of Free Private Cities all along, that you're not gonna really," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "19:48", "start": 1188.12, "text": "get certain level of autonomy, and that's why everyone like the, the starting, turning the key is the hardest part in many ways on these projects, but, you know, the trajectory is pretty clear once they start. even Prospero, it's been a bit slow in the beginning, but it's really speeding up, and I think that exponential trend will continue." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "20:09", "start": 1208.98, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. This show brought to you by CoinKite dot com, the creators of the best Bitcoin hardware security devices, such as the Coldcard Mark IV and the new Coldcard Q. Hardware security devices to keep our keys offline, our private keys offline. Now, the way these work is you can do that setup, write down your twelve or twenty-four words on those, the seed word cards, and keep that secure. Now, you can use this device to interact with the Bitcoin network using software such as Sparrow Wallet, Electrum, or Specter Desktop or Nunchuk, as a few examples. Now, you have a range of security features that you can use with these devices, such as passphrase Devices, you can use Seed X or, or my favorite is Multi-Signature. Now, if you're starting in a basic way, just start with the device and the USB-C cable, plug it directly to the computer and use it that way, and then later improve your setup. But I believe these devices are great at helping secure your coins, especially as you start to migrate up into Multi-Signature security. But don't be disheartened or don't be, scared away, they are accessible, and I think you actually do learn about Bitcoin in the process. So to get- Yours, go to coinkite dot com, use code livera to get a discount on your cold card. This show also brought to you by mempool dot space, the leading Bitcoin and blockchain visualizer. I use it all the time when I'm checking transaction fees and trying to understand what is the state of Bitcoin's mempool. You can search transactions, historical as well as unconfirmed ones, and also see a great way to visualize things across the Lightning Network, Liquid, mining, and so much more. Also, for those of you with an enterprise- They offer a mempool dot space enterprise program, so for those of you as part of that enterprise program, you might wanna get increased API limits, and you might wanna have increased access to the team in terms of feature requests. You might wanna have special branding in terms of how your custom instance of mempool dot space looks. So to sign up for that, go to mempool dot space slash enterprise. And now, back to the show. Yeah. And so in terms of education Wise, what kinds of, like, are we talking about different ways that private schooling could operate? Are we talking about something more like self-learning, people are learning themselves, and it's not as much of a formalized university style or, you know, or and also, I guess, also, what kind of age group, age group are we talking about here? Are we talking about like for kids, or are we talking about young adults, or are we just, or you do mean more in the, let's say, you're already a professional adult? Already in your career and it's more like continual learning." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:55", "start": 1374.51, "text": "Yeah, so it's all of the above, in terms of age, you know, I think, it's a different system, so there's no point in saying, okay, well, middle school, high school, whatever, it's gonna be different to university. I think, and you're asking us for some secret sauce and that's fine. It's definitely stuff we're open about, we want to spread the idea. but there's some core components, that we Things up online, it's people researching themselves, they're not, there's not a two way or, or multiple party interaction, and that's because the school system you've got like a one to thirty teacher ratio, and that's a really easy thing, but it's not happening, it's, it's just not being done that you've got this ratio which we would say is, needs to be one to three. but then of course that's not sustainable, if you want to really hire that many teachers, what's that gonna cost?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "23:48", "start": 1428.5, "text": "so, really and this again is, is age-agnostic. Even what the student or, you know, let's call them mentee gets taught is age-agnostic. It's not about like, okay, you're grade nine, you need to learn this, you're, you know, sophomore level university, you need to learn this. It's, it's more the case that, okay, what do you need to learn in terms of identifying like your unique strengths and, and abilities? well, we've got, you know, there's a couple of mentors available. What do you need They're trying to build or something they're actually trying to write or some research they're actually doing, and thereby essentially contribute labor, just like a graduate student would with a PhD professor, and actually do something productive. Of course, this can also work with entrepreneurs. So, it's also about bridging the kind of generational gap and this kind of isolation where people are kept in this echo chamber, especially students, and then they have to come into the real world, and that's, that's ideal, it doesn't work. they need to actually start, you know Well, you know, it's not like, and, and obviously there's no connection, it's just good ideas can, can come from different places at the same time. and so, it needs to be project oriented or task oriented. it needs to be ideally a real domain expert, preferably a proven one, trying to get something done. So we're really operating a space, like almost like an incubation space to say, hey, you're a domain expert, you need like brilliant young people that can help you get your work done." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:20", "start": 1520.32, "text": "you know, not You won't need to pay them at all. It really depends on the specifics, but that should be the model of education and that, that should be age-agnostic as well, you know, so a young person who wants to study advanced biochemistry, absolutely please, you know, do your best. And I think if we look at history, the real prodigies in history were the ones who were fortunate enough to, at a young age, access mentors, often their parents or like an uncle or something that had a specific skill set that they happened to be interested in, and Human potential. So it's my con-my sort of firm belief that if we, if we enabled that for people in a slightly systematic way, but more organic, you know, you'd actually unlock like people's potential from young, and obviously it would just grow massively as they got older. That's, that's one aspect." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "26:08", "start": 1567.7, "text": "Yeah. Yeah. And so then when it comes to the idea with Bhutan and what you were attempting to, you know, set up, is the, I guess the-- Is the aim, or was your aim to sort of set up a whole new- City or is it more like you kind of find an area that already has some development and then you sort of say, \"Well, let's make that the site for the city,\" and then that's where this education city and projects can come?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:32", "start": 1592.11, "text": "Sure. so it was definitely our original focus, like even before I came to Bhutan, to focus on a greenfield location, and there's a lot of economic reasons for that, but there's also very pragmatic reasons for that, such as avoiding land expropriation, which unfortunately isn't necessarily gonna be avoided. Now in the way that the Bhutan project is manifesting, and this is a big concern, for the space really, not, not like, it's, it's, it's a concern for the space that we have expropriation that isn't handled correctly. so hopefully that will be handled correctly. But, yeah, to answer your question, prefer greenfield, but I'm not against the model in Bhutan if they, if they manage to incentivize and, and make it essentially voluntary for the land expropriation process because it's so much upside, and" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "27:21", "start": 1641.18, "text": "At least a portion of equity to the landholders and lock it in for a period of time, they can become millionaires, you know, from that. They can be very happy they did that in the Philippines with the Special Economic Zone, and the farmers were very, very happy ten years later. so it can be done without costing the country, and I hope that's the model they follow. but yeah, they're now looking at doing it in Gelephu, which is a existing small town, and, the goal is to, you know and that's like, so most special economic zones start around a port, you know, Bhutan being landlocked, that's gonna be a s-- an a-- an airport, international airport. So that's gonna take some time, and we'll see where things go from there. I, I have my views, but" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "28:05", "start": 1685.15, "text": "so I guess one other challenge with trying to do something g-- you know, greenfield, totally new, is you're trying to start a whole network effect from zero, right? Like there's not already any existing businesses, there's not already, you know, people Not something totally new, unless there's like a really good draw of like, okay, like really low tax or low regulation or something like this. how do you overcome that?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:31", "start": 1710.71, "text": "Yeah, so even a brilliant draw isn't enough, right? Even if you have zero taxes across the board, which is like our upcoming project literally has zero taxes across the board, don't tell the new global order that wants to make every, but, you know, so, even with that, you're absolutely right, and, my view, our view, I should say my company Is, you need to unlock an economic engine as soon as possible. You can't just go into like expensive tertiary infrastructure from day one because you, you run the risk of, of a so-called white elephant, this huge infrastructure that no one-- You know, you can't just literally build Rome and, and everyone will come. It's not, it doesn't work like that, a-at all. Unfortunately, no matter how beautiful Rome is. so yeah, we wanna build an economic engine, and that's about talking to companies that know exactly what they want, saying, you know, okay Tax incentives, you need financing, you want a little bit of equity locked in on your land ownership because you know the upside is pretty phenomenal, over the long term, and, you see the low-hanging free economic opportunity in the region, whatever that is, you know, or in the, in the country, and there's a lot of those, particularly in developing countries that have really bureaucratic regulations and bad taxes and no capital repatriation, so it's quite easy to be attractive to these companies who do know what they want and are looking already. And then of course, we, we focus more on like tech oriented companies. I don't mean tech in a service sense, I mean they, they're applying new tech even in manufacturing or something like that. We also focus on non polluting technology companies. So that's our first call of action. And then in parallel to that, we, but with slightly delayed, we, we start to work on the residential in a, in a more organic context. And it's really about in the beginning getting that seed population right, so inviting people that really are aligned with the values you know, obviously you, you're familiar with the network state concept of getting a bunch of people together around shared values or a shared value, and, for us, you know, we've identified, education, let's say, or, being productive in a different way or integrating that is, is a big one for us. But there's a couple of, of different areas that we're focused on, and that's, you know, neo-ruralism, people that, that, that wanna have have the modern facilities of a, of a, a, a comfortable home, but they also want like beautiful natural environment. These things, are, I think, big draws, but, yeah, to answer your question, it's a big challenge, you know, it's the zero to one of Peter Thiel's book, for, for charter cities, and, Prospero's done really good well at that, but I mean, you can see it can work, it's been proven really well in places like Shenzhen and so so, it can be done, and, it is a big challenge, but, we certainly have our, our ideas, to, to get it done." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "31:30", "start": 1890.05, "text": "Yeah. And so it also reminds me as well, like as you said, the kind of on this same theme of how do you draw people to that country? one thing, and again, it depends who you're trying to draw, of course, but as an example, one reason I see a lot of, you know, I see and hear these stories of these millionaires and billionaires Services and restaurants and whatever, you know, good flight connectivity, all these things, and it's not easy to build that up, right, just from zero, right? So it's sort of like you have to sort of find a, a group of people who are really interested in what you have to offer because they might have to kind of tolerate not having the same services that, that they're used to in some of the other, let's say, Western, world, creature comforts that they're, used to." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:18", "start": 1937.79, "text": "Yeah, definitely. I mean, do they need a grocery store? It's a basic question, you know, but unfortunately it comes up, it's still coming up in some of the leading projects. So, you know, it's, it's definitely there, and, and getting the amenities and the facilities is, is super important, but you also don't wanna overshoot and make it a liability. So it's a balancing act. that's why, you know, you have to focus on the right, people at different stages. and you know, as a example of such a rapidly developed, city. you know, I think there, there, you know, there's a way to do that, and you're gonna have to attract the capital, which is again why we focused kind of on the economic model in the beginning, and, you know, this is true of all of these big cities, they, they had a core economic model. It, Dubai, you know, the pearl trade was a big factor, and, that, that, that like There's basic stuff that needs to get done, but, we also, one of the things we do, you know, we try and look for industry and stuff that, even though they're export oriented probably, they can also supplement us, our stuff and lower the cost of living and provide goods and services, you know, in, in, in our zone or our city. In our case, we, we sometimes have separate to separate zones or things that focused on different areas like, you know, residential versus, industry, obviously. and these can even" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "33:48", "start": 2027.97, "text": "So I guess, yeah, bringing it back to the Bhutan example and sort of then we can go further onto what's coming next after, this. But, with the Bhutan experience, is you say that just sort of comes down to you were promoting this idea and it eventually was kind of picked up and like the government and the state kind of took that idea and ran with it instead of yourself and your team. Is that kind of the probable what happened" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:16", "start": 2056.01, "text": "there? Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit more, Specific than that, of course, it always is. you know, I would say that the country leadership, saw this as an opportunity to really take something on. The king of Bhutan is very entrepreneurial, so this is quite an aligned project, and it's not a coincidence. I mean, we'll probably talk about later about the Bitcoin approach, but, you know, they, I think that he himself felt this would be a, a really powerful project to lead forward, and, that played a, a massive role, you know, in, in, in really getting things done because he, he kind of has the factor last vote on, on things in, in the government of Bhutan. and then on top of that, there was- These groups are very large consultants, very large consultancies that came in and obviously very well financed, very big networks. in Bhutan's case, it was a Singaporean group, they mostly operate under Systre, and then they, they bought in so many others, McKinsey, Arup, even another one recently. and so, there's a big lobby group that's convincing expert, convincing, you know, let us do it, let us run it, who know the financial upside, and originally- We're looking at really prioritizing the financial upside at the risk of the long term with the project in terms of things like land expropriation. when we heard about that, we, we put out the word and, and they, they recanted. So, you know, this financial incentive is a big concern, and then of course, in Bhutan's case, it was very specific, the king himself really You know, wanted this project to be his project and did make it his own and took ownership of it, as one would as a head of state. and so, you know, that's, that's what happened there. I, I don't necessarily see that happening in many other countries where there's a political cycle involved with the leadership. Obviously, the king's not elected, but he's very popular and a good king. But, the, the leadership in, in other countries in the region, obviously democratic, I don't think they Looking to expropriate in the same way, certainly not at the nascent stage. and so one does have to de-risk for the long term as it becomes more attractive, and we have ideas on how we wanna do that, we have a specific approach for the region, but, you know, that expropriation risk is always there, and whatever you can do to mitigate it is super important for investors in particular, but, you know, just for your hopes and dreams." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "36:41", "start": 2201.2, "text": "Yeah, I mean, that, that is, I think that's definitely one of the higher Just to kind of get, give you a chance to respond basically. So as, as I, shared with you offline, there was this article from, I don't know how to pronounce that, Kewensilonline dot com, which I was looking online, it looks like this entity is a fifty-one percent owned government owned, media organization. Yeah. And so they've, they've got a quote here saying, you know, and let me just get the date from, I think this is in twenty twenty-three, this one? Yeah. So April twenty twenty-three Satan does not endorse and has no formal association or legal relationship with the companies or with, with Art Finch or with any of their associates, et cetera. And it's saying, you know, here, oh, it was learned in 2015, he was expelled from the country by the Department of Immigration for inappropriate conduct and activity. So I'm curious, do you have a, you know, what, how would you respond to that? And, yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "37:41", "start": 2261.17, "text": "So, there is a backstory there. basically the government, I don't, I don I have Bhutanese family, and so it's, it's a, it's a tough one, but I'll, I'll give you an answer. in 2015, we were pushing for a telecom for the country, and, I, I essentially proposed an FDI telecom as the third, telecom that would come into the country and the only one that would be FDI backed. and, another government owned entity was quite a lot of them in Bhutan, called, Bhutan and so, the, the rate, the cost of internet at the time was ten times more than it needed to be, just simple. and, we, we proposed to, you know, come in and, and disrupt and, and, and, and say, \"Well, look, we can provide internet at ten-- one tenth of the cost that would be good for the country.\" and, this was in the middle, 'cause there were, there were three democratic elected governments that I was sort of working with. This was the, the middle one" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:47", "start": 2326.73, "text": "Unfortunately, this was something that wasn't well received, and I didn't really back down on that. I kept pushing for it because I just thought it was the right thing to do, you know, and, burn some bridges in Bhutan. so they used this as a, a kind of a trump up to say a couple of things. So Bhutan goes into things like character assassination, it's a conservative society, so that works really well, but, really the, the ultimate motive was that, it was gonna- Cut into the, the main source of revenue, the government's main source of revenue, and they weren't ready for that, and so they blocked OFDR, and, they didn't tell me to leave. and I did leave, voluntarily. and so, that happened. but, you know, that wasn't the end of my time in Bhutan by any stretch, as you know. so, you know, that, that's there. in terms of the current situation" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "39:46", "start": 2386.35, "text": "We, so we, we had a license, a, a, a, as Special Economic Zone. We, you know, had been pushing it for three years, leading the project, met with all the, the relevant people, our investors, did due diligence call with the top leadership of the country. this was a very real project which we worked on for three years. And, when they decided, when maybe one person, and a group of consultants decided that they wanted to do what they wanted to do in terms of taking it over, they" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "40:16", "start": 2416.29, "text": "And us via email, and, they did, issue that statement, and I think the statement is kind of quite telling, right? Because there's no need to issue a statement like that unless you want to kind of put out a narrative. and so we kept quiet, we did nothing, you know, we struggled, to try and build bridges and say, \"Well, look, this isn't gonna work. Actually, your consultants aren't gonna do the job,\" and this is a very real concern I'm gonna have soon. consultants People to run these projects in mind. you know, and I think a lot of people agree on that. So we, we kept trying to build bridges and, and fix things. We had groups flying to B'Tan, we had things happen, but, unfortunately at the end of the day, they stuck to their guns, and we wrote off the project, but, just before the king put out his announcement on National Day, we did in terms of protecting our reputation, you know, collaborate with Forbes to put out an article that basically, you know, tells the story at least the, the, the beginning of the project so that it covers our bases and lets people know, \"Yes, we did actually bring the project to Bhutan. No, that statement's not true.\" Gotcha. Yeah. And I, and for the listeners, I will" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "41:30", "start": 2489.64, "text": "include that in the show notes. It's a Forbes article, a theo backed startup pitched a futuristic city in Bhutan, its dragon king is building it without them. So yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:38", "start": 2498.06, "text": "Yeah. Yeah. But, you know" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "41:43", "start": 2502.87, "text": "The show in a moment. The lead sponsor of this show is Swan Dot Com, and Swan has a mission to onboard millions of people into Bitcoin. I also work at Swan, helping on some educational content for the team. Now, the team have also put out a new version of the Swan Bitcoin application, which is available on your smartphone, whether it's Apple or Android. Now, this app has a really fast onboarding experience. It's now just a few minutes to go from zero to Bitcoin. So if you are standing there with your Family or friends, and you might have been having trouble trying to get them onboarded. Well, try this now. Recommend Swan Bitcoin, and you can do this while you're standing next to them. They can click through, and most of them will be able to set up and do this in just a few minutes. Also, the team at Swan have rolled out a new promotion. There are zero fees on your first ten thousand dollars of Bitcoin buys. So this is a great way to go from zero to Bitcoin and in a guided and managed way. So reminder, go to your app store or Play Store. Search Swan Bitcoin to get onboarded with Bitcoin today. This show also brought to you by Nomad Capitalist. Nomad Capitalist is a leading provider in terms of offshore tax and lifestyle strategy planning and implementation. They can help you go overseas and legally lower your taxes. As many of you know, I grew up in Australia, but I left. I was sick of it in terms of the taxes and the COVID tyranny and all these other things. And so that's why I left, and now I live in Dubai, but that's not necessarily the place for you. You have to think Think exactly what works for you, for your family, for your business, and Nomad Capitalist have worked across dozens of different countries. They've helped people get passports, residences, bank accounts, and all kinds of other things. And importantly, it's not just about choosing one place, it may be multiple places, and it may be also about making the pieces fit together in terms of how your business fits with your family and you as an individual. Nomad Capitalist have helped many, many people in terms of going overseas, and if you're interested, go to nomadcapitalist dot co com/slash-apply. This is applicable for people with a net worth above one million US dollars. That's nomadcapitalist dot com slash apply. And now, back to the show. So, I mean, not great, obviously, but, you know, that's, that's life, unfortunately. I guess if you have any insights for listeners on Bhutan and, you know, Bitcoin mining and a little bit of that story, that might be interesting for people." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:08", "start": 2647.78, "text": "Yeah, sure. so Bhutan's definitely done something great for the Bitcoin space. They're now the top sovereign, or one of the top sovereign Bitcoin mining operations in the world, you know, and it's all run on hydropower, which is Bhutan's white gold, they have a lot of hydropower potential. actually in twenty twenty, myself and a Nasdaq backed mining company did propose it to the Royal Monetary Authority, we did suggest it, it turns out Bhutan was already doing a very small scale pilot test, And, in twenty twenty, they, you know, subsequently ramped that up and they built their first proper, like, dedicated pilot facility in, very cold Assi Pass, nearby to the capital city called Dhulbahante. and so that's where they sort of started with the pilot. and then they also, I told you about the education city project, in the beginning of the, the call, sorry, the podcast. and, that's a big area of land in, in sort of the western part Converted that into a huge Bitcoin mining center at the end of the day, and so that's what's happening there. They also have invited, Bitdeer, last year, to collaborate with them. I think, by the end of last year, they'd already set up a hundred megawatts and they're on track for six hundred megawatts total, which is more than the entire country's electricity con-consumption. So it's a, it's a pretty big scale Bitcoin mining project," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "45:40", "start": 2740.37, "text": "and, it's do-it's At least during the summer, in the winter, sometimes they have to import electricity, but, that's temporary. And so, yeah, the, the king is really the one to be-- take the credit for that. I think that was something he really pushed and took a big bet on, and, yeah, they're leading in terms of Bitcoin in that sense, in, in many ways, certainly for the region." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "46:00", "start": 2759.84, "text": "Yeah, look, six hundred megawatts is, definitely nothing to, sneeze at, right? It's a, it's" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "46:11", "start": 2770.65, "text": "a Potential free private cities or charter cities, and, yeah, yeah, if you could elaborate a little bit on that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:20", "start": 2780.09, "text": "Yeah, sure. so we, obviously, we've been, you know, I've been in the region in South Asia. South Asia, for the record, is not Southeast Asia. Just for your viewers, I know you're very familiar with this, of course. but, it's, it's India, it's Bangladesh, it's Sri Lanka, it's Nepal, it's Bhutan, and it's also Afghanistan and Pakistan, less" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:43", "start": 2802.85, "text": "The big region, it's a quarter of the world's population, it's two billion people, and it's also a neglected region. It's particularly neglected in terms of FDI, foreign direct investment, like in terms of what they should be getting and what they are getting, with India being a sort of exception, but even so, they're still not getting what they, they should be getting really, if you look at it in a statistical sense globally. but particularly other countries, Bhutan, dismal FDI. as someone who's been trying to bring FDI into the country" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:13", "start": 2832.87, "text": "Fully unlock FDI for the country. but, yeah, so, it's a huge opportunity, and what we've been doing, for the last few years, we always had a vision, a model. So Bhutan is a landlocked country, doesn't have an ocean port, so the logical thing to do is say, okay, where are we gonna, you know, be exporting things and connecting to the maritime network? That was Bangladesh, and, we did, you know, go to Bangladesh and then explore setting up, special Is they have de facto charter cities, already run by mostly nation states, which isn't well known, you know, where they kind of do what they want, but it's, you know, not, not, not, not legally, not formally. that's interesting, but they also have a really good formal special economic zone program that really unlocked like- It, it's what drove the growth of Bangladesh and made them an exemplar in terms of GDP growth for the, the last decade and, and a half. so they're a really good success story for especially Bangladesh. So for them, it was a really natural fit to say, \"What's the next level of growth?\" And they were actually really receptive to the charter city idea. and so we have an MOU with them and the, you know, we have an option there to potentially unlock the project. and then we have, been working in two other countries. One of them you know very well, and," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:38", "start": 2917.55, "text": "it's a big island country, and, yeah, it's, it's already, it has like an eleven year old project that's a really good precedent for the space, Chinese backed project called Lombok Port City. It's a small project, two hundred and sixty hectares, but, zero taxes, one stop shop for all the approvals, multi sector, you know, any business, not just, industry or anything like that, and it's called Right on top of Colombo, so no problems in terms of getting the people there. but that's, really state backed. it is actually run by a priv-- a sort of pseudo private entity that's also got a lot of government appointees, and so it has real autonomy to a decent degree, and it's a really promising project for the region. But, the existing legislation that supported that is an opportunity for charter cities, so putting that out there. and, we've been exploring that with the government, Down the line. you know, that's, that's, that's what I'm working on. We actually opened a raise for that, we took our first check last week. so it's quite concrete, and we're moving forward very quickly there in terms of what we'd like to do, you know, and, the other interesting thing about, the country where you were born," }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "49:52", "start": 2992.22, "text": "huh, huh, huh, huh, huh," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "49:54", "start": 2994.12, "text": "huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, More warm to the idea of, of Bitcoin, crypto, fintech, this is what we're hearing, you know, it's what we've substantiated, and, there's a good chance that they're gonna, you know, actually make some really progressive legislation on that, which is a big deal for Sri Lanka because, the capital repatriation is heavily controlled, and so it's not easy for them to, you know, finally come off that sort of dependency, that crutch really for the economy, and, It's gonna be a bit disruptive, but I think if they can do it, it'll really unlock, growth for the country in the long term, even if there's some short term inflation and things like that, which will make it difficult, especially for Sri Lanka that's already facing a lot of challenges. But, these have been negotiated pretty well by the current government and IMF bailouts and things like that are going very well for the country. It's stabilized so much in the last year and a half, so, excited about that and excited about playing a role And unlocking Bitcoin, crypto, fintech, in, in Sri Lanka, all going well. that's, we're part of the charter city that we'd like to unlock there in the long run, but really it's a opportunity zone, that, that we're starting with, that's, you know, focused on bringing in jobs, bringing in opportunity, bringing in- manufacturing and things like that that are non-polluting, and then, the residential and tertiary sector and sort of advanced amenities that we'd like to see in the first world come later in a phased approach, yeah. So that's the model we're working on right" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "51:37", "start": 3097.27, "text": "now. Yeah. so I guess obvious question, I guess, like, do you have any thoughts on how to, I guess, mitigate or reduce the risk of an expropriation in some of these other countries, whether it's Sri Lanka or elsewhere, you know?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "51:50", "start": 3109.9, "text": "Right. so, Prospera took, as you know, was to get an international treaty signed that had another nation state backing it, or, and, and as a result, it's very difficult in Honduras for the government to go after them without facing significant, you know, penalties of a financial nature. and that's a, a good model, and it's, it's one model. I think, the, the most obvious model, that everyone should be talking about is making sure that the country likes the project, and that's really hard. But it's really hard, primarily because the projects are usually an unknown, and it's the fear of the unknown that really drives these kinds of issues. So, That's one of the reasons why we really focus on, economic, you know, basis, industry, things that are non-controversial, to get started. And if we can build that and, you know, employ people and have skills, ups, ups, upscaling and things like that going on, i- there's gonna be massive community buy-in. And this is also even what we did in Bhutan at an early stage. We really talked to the community. We had a big center in the downtown Thimphu, that was, Bringing them there, meeting with them, talking to them, and, and helping advocate for the project. as I say, we had like a, a significant little percentage of the country that supported. and we, we aim to do the same thing in any country that we, we look at. So that's like get ahead of the potential problem there. that's really important. And I-- and obviously educate people that in terms of incentives, in terms of avoiding political cycles and disruption, you do need private management. You don't want it under the government. That's, that Outreach and community growth is really important and I think heavily neglected in the space, and that's our priority there. And then also the phase-wise aspect of saying, okay, we're not gonna build these like amazing, beautiful buildings that Are only affordable, at least they look like they're only gonna be affordable to really rich people, you know, right from the get-go. We're definitely gonna promote that vision, we definitely want that. It's definitely an optimistic, important vision to have. But, but the first thing that we're gonna focus on is like, these are the jobs, salaries are better, you know, opportunities are better, upskilling is there. We don't want you to come in and be a laborer or something, we want you to come an engineer, then a, you know, floor has become proud of, because there's no way that these projects can really ever exist without assuming and being part of the country that they're in. You know, Prospero is a Honduras project, it's a Honduran project. It's, it's Honduran, like, owned in many ways and, and, and operated in many ways. It's not separate from the country. Similarly, all of these projects need to be understood, but that, that from the get-go, and that's the reality. So if you can establish these, zones that are doing something constructive that You and say, \"Oh, look what they could do. They might do this, they might do that, \" because you're already, you know, you have a track record. So we're happy to delay like the really advanced stuff, you know, an extra year, two year, three year, whatever it is, and, and build that rapport, so that we can actually start immediately, you know, not wait three years or ten years, to, to get that approval and, and to be able to pull the trigger, but also, you know, make sure that we don't alienate people from the get-go, take a slightly more cautious approach. That's one aspect. Sorry to give you such a long answer. the other really important thing that I'd like to point out is, we've been working in the region, we have these projects in more than one country that we could unlock, and some would say that's the hardest part of a charter city or a free private city, is getting the concession from the government. that's sort of our forte as of now. so we've been We actually wanna unlock these opportunities. We're not in a position to develop multiple incredibly difficult projects all at once, but what we could do is unlock these for the-- there's a number of, companies that are working dedicated to unlocking and building free private cities. Some of them have great funding, and they haven't managed to, at least as of now, many of them actually go ahead and say, \"Look, we've got all the concessions, all-- everything's in black and white, and we can move forward.\" So we'd be happy to work with them and do that, and Okay, well, we've been able to unlock these opportunities in, in South Asia, so let's set up a number of cities, let's make a network of cities, and if you're familiar with, I don't wanna like take too long on the answer, but there was a Hanseatic League in Europe which like drove economic growth, it was a league of cities that kind of banded together for very practical reasons, traded, and unlocked massive economic growth for the region, but they also collaborated, and they were also able to like ultimately face down big nation state threats, to, So what we'd like to do is, is have these folks that join with us and develop their own cities with our help in terms of getting the approvals, actually sort of come into some kind of a league or partnership, South Asian Hennsiatic League, where, there's some commonalities agreed, like mutual tolerance, like mutual support in the case of governments backsliding on legislation or trying to expropriate, in the worst case, and then that way you've got a lot of bets in terms of soft power growing, and once you've got enough soft yourself and, and especially if you're a network that can actually pull geopolitical by saying, you know, we'll get Bangladesh to put weight on, on Sri Lanka if we need to 'cause we have a really good relationship there or vice versa. So, it's, it's a case of working together Being more collaborative in a space that has massive growth potential but is still like so untapped, and, and saying that we can have this league that kind of collaborates to defend and help each other, at least in a lobbying and soft economic sense. And there can also be things like shared reserve terms, like the Bitcoin reserve and things like that that- It would be great, to, to have this" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "57:49", "start": 3469.37, "text": "kind of thing. And so in terms of, setting these up, I guess as you said, generally a draw card is, you know, low taxes or low regulation or less, you know, or no regulation, this kind of thing. But what are some of the, you know, but at the same time, there'll be the host nation, let's say, which already has maybe a high tax and high regulation. So then, is there gonna be like a pressure there? And how do you sort of navigate that to sort of say We really need low tax or low regulation to encourage people to actually make this work." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "58:22", "start": 3502.43, "text": "Yeah, so, so that is difficult, but then on the other hand, even in states which is pretty much across the board in South Asia, where that is the case, they have been pretty, progressive in terms of the policies they've implemented for special economic zones. So it's very easy for us to point to those and say, you know, in the case of Sri Lanka, they already-- Colombo Port City is zero percent tax across the board. twenty- 25 years for corporate tax, but the others are indefinite. you know, so they're, they're taking a play card from Dubai and they know that it works. Bangladesh similarly, you know, the-- I don't know exactly the figures, but I know it's incredibly progressive, depending on the industries and, and what the zones are focused on. and so that's, that's not necessarily so tough as, as saying, you know, where are you gonna get your revenue and your upside from approving the project, and, and I think that's," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "59:17", "start": 3556.94, "text": "We had to say, \"Well, look, these are our tenant companies that we already have letters of intent with, and, that allowed us to move much quicker in terms of government interest, but that's just one step. you know, we've got to actually get those companies on the ground, start generating, and see the land value appreciate, because the government, in our case, we make sure the government has a significant equity stake in the land. In fact, they ideally contribute the land for equity, and in that way, their value" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "59:47", "start": 3586.98, "text": "Anything as a guarantee, especially for US accredited investors. But, if you look at the land value in, say, like a rural part of Sri Lanka, it's like five thousand dollars an acre, which seems expensive maybe to Americans, but then if you go to Colombo, it's ten million dollars, so for one acre. So the difference is like completely ridic-ridiculous. And this is very common in South Asia. you know, Dhaka, the land in Dhaka is, in central Dhaka, is, you know, square footage Is more expensive than, than have-- Downtown Manhattan. so it's, it's, it's like, there's a huge demand for urbanization in the region, and, if you can have development on the land, there's enough people that wanna come. That's why they're flying out to all the other countries looking for opportunities. South Asia is like the biggest exporter of labor almost. So, you know, Best if they can, do that, locally and, and contribute to the country locally, and I think that's actually one of the biggest pulls right now is saying, \"Do you really wanna keep losing your population, because, it's not necessary?\" and, you know, you're not gonna have-- you've just got some greenfield land that's going to waste. so it's, it's, it's a process, but yeah, we have to kind of build trust, we have to work with them. the taxes aren That possibility, of course. but, as of now, they're not really the obstacle. I think it's more what you talked about is just getting things started in the beginning and making sure you have enough industries. For us, because we start with industry, it's, it's much easier than trying to bring in a bunch of residential and say there's gonna be a big financial upside. I think that's a much more difficult thing to do and it has to happen concurrent to the industry and the economic heart." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "01:01:32", "start": 3692.76, "text": "Yeah, interesting. So, yeah, I mean, look, we've covered a lot of different, areas today talking about free private cities, why, why are they a good thing, as well as your experience in Bhutan and what you're looking, to try and work on, going forward. So, look, I guess just any, any, you know, closing thoughts for listeners?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:01:51", "start": 3711.95, "text": "yeah, I think, you know, as you, you've got a huge audience of Bitcoin Maxies, I do think that free private cities are one of the best ways to showcase Bitcoin's potential to the world, and I think that, you know, supporting that and supporting this movement is, is just natural. It's like, natural allies. and, and so we'd love to, to-- and that's already been happening, you know? So we'd love to see that continue. and then, Bitcoin, I think across the board, having this decentralization, kind of exiting the geopolitical big lineup of conflict that seems to be looming in the long term, and saying, \"Look, we can build these zones of prosperity,\" is just really important, you know, if, if we wanna have- A secure place to be in future, in worst case scenarios. think of them as like sanctuary cities, but also as really wonderful places to live in the, the long term. and there's a great financial upside. but, it's also super important for the, the people in developing countries. It's really what can unlock, their potential in many ways by providing an example to the governments that can then be replicated, as happened in China. That is the Chinese growth story. so it should be replicated in, in developing countries. It's a super important priority if you care about humanity and welfare of people in the long term." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "01:03:12", "start": 3792.06, "text": "Right. Well, look, I think that's, a good spot to finish up there. So I'll, I'll include the links in the show notes and, Art, thank you for joining me today." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:03:20", "start": 3800.03, "text": "Thank you so much. Really a pleasure, a pleasure, Stephan. I really am honored to be with, with you on the chat, on the, on the show. So thanks so much for having me. Really appreciate it. And I hope we can do something" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "01:03:31", "start": 3811.89, "text": "with Sri Check out my website at stephanlivera dot com and I will see you in the citadels." } ] }