{ "episodeId": "SLP627", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "opnstate": { "name": "OpnState", "role": "guest", "tag": "OPNSTATE" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:03", "start": 2.6, "text": "Hi" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:12", "start": 11.73, "text": "everyone, welcome back to Stephan Livera podcast brought to you by Bold. That's over at getbold.io. That is for American listeners who wanna buy Bitcoin. Now, getting into it today, my guest is a nim called OpenState, and we're gonna be getting into a range of things, but, yeah, first off, welcome to the show, and maybe give us a little bit of a background. Background on yourself, obviously whatever you're comfortable to share." }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "00:34", "start": 33.72, "text": "Thanks, Stefan. Thank you for allowing me to speak to your audience. I'm a, policy and legislation advisor at one of the top ten global financial centers in the world. Before that, I was a, a banker for about fourteen years. I managed, commercial accounts for big, large companies who had over a million dollars in lending, so I- I've been kind of a, a student of, you know, the financial markets for a long time, and, working for a bank, sadly for me, I, I had standards and values that I wanted to abide by. So I got disillusioned by the job that I was doing, and while working at this big bank, you know, I quickly saw the, the, the misaligned incentive structures that exist in those big banks. it's all about money, money, money. It's not really about improving the economy. I quickly saw the corruption in the 20 The crash and the bailouts that came after that, I just, I got disillusioned. I wanted to make a difference. At that point, I also had children, and it's just, I didn't want to facilitate the, the kind of world that I was seeing working in this big bank. So I asked myself, what can I do to make a difference in the world? And then I saw a, a job ad in a government For a policy role, and I said, \"Sure, you know, I'll just apply for that.\" And I don't know how, but I got it. The first thing that happened when I joined, of course, was they asked me Do you know what the FATF is? That's literally the first thing that they ask, and, I, I had no idea at the time, and I think everybody needs to know what the FATF is, and I'll explain a little bit more about that as we talk today. So I've been in this position for about five or six years, and throughout those five or six years, all I've been doing essentially is legislation which facilitates and propagates the compliance AML framework in my country. that means, you know, when you go to a bank and they ask you for ID, right? All the way to when you receive a wire transfer and it gets held and they ask for source of funds All of those things, those are the things that people see. There are lots of things that people don't see and don't realize that are happening. Yeah. We're forcing people to understand that. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:43", "start": 162.97, "text": "Like, I think you're right. Like, I think just to explain a little bit, as well, I think- People have this interaction with, let's say, the fiat system, with fiat banking, and maybe that teller at the bank, the front, you know, the front line of the bank is saying, \"Hey, what's your source of funds?\" or \"This, that, and the other,\" or they're filling out a form online, or they get an email from the compliance department, and they're sort of like, \"Why are these banks making my life so difficult? I just wanna set up an account or I wanna do a transfer. Why are they making it so difficult?\" And part of that country said, \"Hey, you need to do this AML or this sanctions compliance,\" and then kind of above that is sort of FATF, Financial Action Task Force, kind of pushing a lot of these things. And so I think that's, that's kind of people, sometimes when they blame banking officers, it's almost like they're shooting the messenger, isn't it?" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "03:35", "start": 215.18, "text": "What my role has allowed me to see is how deep the rabbit hole really goes, and there's a lot more than just a teller at the bank asking you a couple questions. I actually have been, like I told you, drafting legislation. I've- Probably been responsible for drafting about eighteen pieces of legislation in my five years, and that's from beginning to end. So as project lead, and my role essentially is to implement global standards And what I've realized through this, which is the worst part of it, it's not that there's compliance requirements at the bank. The worst part is that governments are losing sovereignty, the global standard-setting bodies. That's the really alarming thing, and we can get into that a bit later. So in my five years in my current role, I wanted to make a difference, and I'd left banking to make the world a better place. And my five years in my current role, basically I've just been in another cog in some deeply corrupt, disgusting, freedom-eroding infrastructure, and eventually I've just had enough. I had enough, and so I want to kind of address why I'm wearing this mask. I really don't want to wear masks. I mean, COVID was enough for me. It's not, it's not pleasurable, but unfortunately I got to Bitcoin too late in life with too little money, and so I still depend on my role. And, there's- Also, kind of a dictum that the, you know, I'm not a, I'm not a superhero or anything like that, but the dimmest candle shines brightest in the darkest room. And so I see myself as having a crucial role where I am doing what I'm doing, those around me who really aren't, really not, you know, red pilled whatsoever or orange pilled or any, any kind of pill. and so I see, I see, yes, yes, I'm doing something that I, you know, kind of disgusts me, and my outlet for that is this kind of anonymous identity that I've created It allows me to speak up, it allows me to say what I'm seeing, it allows me to speak up without holding back, and that's what I plan on doing today." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:44", "start": 344.27, "text": "Yeah, great. So and a-as listeners know, I've long, long been critical of AML laws, sanctions laws, the FATF, all of these things, because from a strictly libertarian private property rights perspective, it impedes on private businesses being able to conduct their business. And so in practice, what we end up seeing is this kind of regulatory capture, we see this kind of- Government control and even, even on their own terms, right? I've hosted people in the past, people like, Ron Paul, not Ron Paul, Ron Paul, P O L, who has spoken about how ineffective these AML laws have even been. Now, some people would know these laws as BSA, Bank Secrecy Act, in the US, but I think kind of colloquially, I've heard people just say, you know, AML sanctions, FATF, and so on. Okay, that said, let me ask you this way. The normal person on the street who Hang on, don't we need some of these laws to stop the criminals, to stop the, the drug laundering, whatever, you know, money laundering, drug terrorists, whatever? Don't we need it? Don't we need these laws?" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "06:46", "start": 405.79, "text": "I, I would say that countries do need laws to catch criminals. I think that's one of the fundamental functions of a government. If there is to be a government, it has to provide a strong foundation for the effective operation of, of markets, right? And trade. And so you have to make sure that there's a way that people can transact in a way that's safe, and you need to make sure that people can walk on the streets without being assaulted and kidnapped and robbed. You know, I'm not, I'm not a hundred percent libertarian. I do believe there's some kind of basic value to government, not in its current form, but in a different form, and I think that making sure that criminals are caught is one of those functions. Now, that being said Do you have to whip every single citizen into submission? Do you have to remove every single citizen's right to privacy and to transact in a free- Manner, sovereign manner, in order to catch criminals. No. And what's happening is that the regulations and requirements that you're seeing, they might piss some, off some of your viewers But if only they knew what was under there, if they knew the information that's being shared freely, automatically, without due process, without a warrant If only they knew what was happening behind the scenes, right? I think they would be a little bit more skeptical of the way things are being done right now. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:13", "start": 493.48, "text": "And so let's just click into that, a little bit in terms of exactly what information is being shared with who? Are we talking about, let's say, law enforcement of a particular country going to the banking, let's say, a banking company saying, \"Hey, we know person A B C has an account with you, give us all his transactions.\" Is that the kind of thing that- That the kind of information sharing that goes on?" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "08:37", "start": 517.09, "text": "Well, countries have different information sharing systems. So, for example, a country might have a tax information sharing FATCA, CRS, these kinds of things, yeah. Right, and, you know, I can speak to kind of some of the countries that I've seen. Yes, a government or another tax information authority can request any information on anybody, quite literally. So a jurisdiction will have provisions in their laws saying that if a tax information authority comes and says, \"We want to know every single account and every single transaction,\" Where, you know, does this person-- how much do they spend on booze? Where have they gone lately? Right? All the details of the transactions that can be provided under the tax information sharing provisions, right? And it's done in the background without people actually knowing that it's happening. and then the worst part is, is it's not just being shared with local police, it's being shared with foreign governments. You know, how, how fair is that? how is that, is that, is that justified in terms of, you know, what the value that it provides to society? So maybe it allows a government to collect a little bit more taxes, a little bit, know a little bit more about their government, but The figures that I've seen, and, and there's very little research being done on this, but the figures that I've seen is that the, the actual tax benefits are, are minuscule. They're not that big. So The sharing of information, and if I put my conspiracy hat on, I think is more about knowing everything about or having perfect information on a society and on its citizens and how they transact and how they think And building vast databases of information, I think it's more about that than it is about getting slightly more tax revenue for a jurisdiction." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:35", "start": 635.26, "text": "And so I guess my question at that point, I'm curious, do you believe, as I said, I'm against these laws in principle, but hypothetically, do you believe it actually makes people more safe or not?" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "10:45", "start": 645.12, "text": "Well, you know, I don't know. I know a lot of people, and I, I came to you because you interviewed Ron Paul. And because you interviewed Simon Livelot, I, I can't pronounce it. Livelot," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:55", "start": 655.09, "text": "yeah, from, Amsterdam, from" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "10:56", "start": 656.49, "text": "the Netherlands, yeah. Right. So, and you've written in Bitcoin Magazine about the FATF. So the answer I don't know is I don't know. So even though Ron Paul said, R O N P O L said that there was- Very little concrete measured effectiveness of these kind of regulations. Just put it this way, if there's a lot of crime, there's a lot of people breaking into homes in a neighborhood, right? So these people come in with a van, they break into a house, take all the valuables, leave in a neighborhood, and it's happening regularly, right? If you just post, you put a police car on one of the corners in that neighborhood, and you just leave the lights on and you literally have nobody in the car, right? Just for the fact of having a police car in that neighborhood, and it's likely to reduce, they're just gonna go to a different neighborhood." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:43", "start": 703.21, "text": "The deterrent effect" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "11:45", "start": 704.87, "text": "Right. And there's, and there's no way to measure the kind of the tangible-- Well, there is a way, but it's, it's difficult, right? And so when you put these laws in place, does it deter criminals from laundering money? Maybe. I, I really don't know, but the fact is, is I don't care. I don't think society should have to forego their freedoms and their human rights in order to catch a very small fraction of a society. What harm, you know, the harm that they do those criminals, I think those risks and harms could be dealt with in different ways, adequately funding the police, giving them the, the required tools, the required expertise There are other ways to pursue criminals, and it's not by removing the rights and freedoms of every citizen." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:31", "start": 750.69, "text": "Right. And I think this comes to an interesting point, and I believe you had this in, one of the papers or in a talk you gave, where, I mean, in, let's say, in the quote-unquote Western world, the so-called free world, we believe in this idea of innocent until proven guilty, and it seems to me that FATF AML laws, sanctions laws, they flip this whole concept, concept on its head, and now we're all guilty until proven" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "12:55", "start": 775.29, "text": "Well, that's, that's exactly right. I-- and, yes, I, I did, that was my speech that I gave at the Adopting Bitcoin. Now, when you go to a bank and you receive a wire transfer and they hold your money you know, I, I, I know of many people, it happened to me, you know, when, when you receive a certain amount of money, you know, the bank will ask you, \"Well, what's the source of funds?\" Right? They will hold the funds until you provide them the information they want. Personally, I'm building a house and the bank wanted my house plans, quite literally, wanted the contract with my builder, like everything. Is, is that warranted? I don't think so. It's annoying and it's unjust and it's quite literally is, is something that I, I really don't think is justified. So when, when you look at the presumption of guilt, right? A bank holding your money Means they presume that money is the proceeds of a crime. There's some kind, there's some level of presumption of guilt around you and your money, and that applies to every single client of that bank. So that bank presumes that every single one of their clients is a money launderer. And that, that presumption of guilt is applied broadly without any kind of justification whatsoever. It's not about an algorithm, some big massive AI in the background choosing who they're gonna hold funds for and who they're not. No, it's done automatically broadly, regardless of who you are. You've been a loyal client, you've been completely honest with them for thirty, forty years, your funds are gonna be held, doesn't matter. And so this, this presumption of guilt applies as well to sanction, and most importantly, it's not just a presumption of guilt, it's the erosion of due process Now our ancestors have fought for hundreds of years against oppression, going all the way back to the Magna Carta, right? When certain individuals, lords, wanted to kind of erode the power of the king, right, who was taking advantage of his power. So our ancestors have literally fought wars and died In order for us to have due process, due process is-- it means that in order for some kind of authority to erode your rights or to possess something, something that belongs to you They need to have, they need to go through steps. Those steps are there for our protection to make sure that the government does what it's supposed to do only when it's supposed to do it. That's what due process does, and it limits what a government can do, right? That That ability of a bank to freeze your funds just like that, that's really scary to me. But sanction regimes are even worse. Governments around the world have lists of individuals who they wanna deny from participating in society. Now, if your name is on one of those lists You know, you can be Tulsi Gabbard and have yourself removed, but not everybody has her kind of pull. Once your name is put on a list like that, you can't have accounts Your assets are frozen, maybe possessed, you can't travel, you're limited in, in how you can function in society without having been found guilty in a court. Now, let's, like, to me, this is an absolute If you don't mind, I'd like to go in a little rant. I, I'm, you know, it's, it's a brand new rant. D- sure, go for it. The, the cypherpunks saw what was happening in the financial markets, right? They, they saw the government printing money to go to wars, they saw the bailouts in two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine. They wanted to create a system that fought back against that, right? We went as cypherpunks, if you consider one, to be, you know, if you consider yourself to be one, we went from being rebel cypherpunks who fought back aga- against unjust oppression that took risks to preserve our freedom and human rights, and now we've all become beta males whose goal is just to comply. And compliance has truly kind of, it's an ill, it's a virus that's taken over society. You, you work for companies. Every single one of the companies that you work for has a compliance officer. Every single one of them. And this compliance officer has taken training courses, certifications. That compliance officer is essentially brainwashed into being compliant, and they're present in every single financial services business to keep the operations of that business in line. Right? We've been molested by regulators, we've been raped by fines, we've been betrayed by the legal and judicial system, we've been subjugated by a false king that's called compliance, a king that promises riches but only to the slaves that bend over and do what the king says should be done. What kind of society do we wanna live in? Do we wanna live-- Do we wanna give a society to our children? You have kids, Stefan. Do you want your kids to grow up thinking they have to be compliant, that they can't question, that they can't fight back, that they have no rights, that they have no privacy? This is absolutely something that I can't tolerate, and that's why I'm speaking up today. I'm risking my job coming on here." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "18:14", "start": 1093.83, "text": "And I appreciate that. I think there's a lot of-- It's, it's a very-- It's a difficult thing to explain some of these problems because- People have low patience to sort of understand kind of the layers of how this works, that okay, there's this AML laws, there's these sanctions laws, there's kind of the FATF that's kind of pushing this down, and, you know, I think there's all of these components of it, and a, to your point about compliance officers and, all the, you know, what drives a lot of that is banks aren't allowed to operate just freely, you know, it's not a free market for banks, obviously, right? You need to be licensed, and the way these banks operate, it's basically life and death for a bank, right? If they-- if their banking license is cut, sayonara, goodbye, you don't have a business and you're not allowed to operate. Now of course, there's Bitcoin, and so people can use Bitcoin, but" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "19:06", "start": 1145.66, "text": "Bitcoin is, at least today, it's, it's sort of more appropriately thought of like a settlement layer, and it's not necessarily the low-value peer-to-peer layer. Now, and okay, fees, fees are low today, but over time, it's gonna rise, and so I think that's where some of the, the challenge comes, because as I'm sure you're well aware, banks in most of the developed world are very much reliant on maintaining that, you know, good standing compliance-wise, because otherwise they'll be cut off, right?" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "19:37", "start": 1177.06, "text": "That's exactly right. And the worst part is that people have no say in what regulations the bank have to follow. And that goes to my earlier point about the loss of sovereignty by jurisdictions. So when I was asked to implement Financial Action Task Force requirements and, and standards, that's what I was asked. I was like, \"Well, alright, here you go, OpenState, implement this standard by the FATF.\" Now the FATF is a global body. It meets in Paris, it has these plenaries, right? Over two hundred countries, I know that's more than the amount of countries in the world, but people can listen to Ron Paul, your episode, it's great, and explains that further. Two hundred countries have committed to implementing the Financial Action Task Force standards. Now only forty countries have any direct say in what the standards actually say, what is in the standards. So imagine a country, the VAT- The vast majority of countries around the world don't even have the opportunity to say, \"Hey, we want this to be in the standards.\" They have no voice. They're granted the amazing boon of being able to observe plenary meetings. They can go and observe. That's literally all they can do. Now, if you look at a centralized standard-setting body like the FATF that only grants a voice to forty countries, and believe me, only about ten of those countries actually have any kind of material voice So you have ten countries around the world determining standards that are applied globally. Now, think about yourself Right? Think about the average resident. They can't go to their elected official and say, \"Well, I don't like this regulation that the banks have to comply with. I want it changed.\" That elected official has zero ability, zero impact, zero voice on what is in the global standards. Quite literally because most of the countries don't even have a say. In what is in the FATF standards. Now, yes, the FATF is benevolent and the FATF sends questionnaires to member countries to say, \"Well, what do you think should be in there?\" Those questionnaires, though, they're not really about caring about the member's opinion. I'll give you an example. The FATF right now is focused on self-hosted wallets. This is a huge- Huge issue, and it's coming. We don't see it yet, but it's coming. Unhosted wallets is like you using your ledger and whatever wallet you use that is self-hosted to send money to somebody else without using an exchange. That's what a self-hosted wallet allows you to do. Well, the FATF, the standards in there don't address self-hosted wallets. I've seen the Bitcoin community and the crypto community at large kind of rave about how this is wonderful, it gives them opportunities to do things, et cetera. They don't have to be licensed if they're just, you know, a treasure or a ledger. That being said, it's coming. Now, these-- this is how the FATF operates, right? It'll send a questionnaire to a country that isn't one of the top ten or top forty countries So a country that doesn't have any kind of sale, send a questionnaire. They'll say, \"Well, we've identified self-hosted wallets as an area of potential risk. Is your country addressing those risks?\" Now, this is an actual question that I saw in a questionnaire that was sent to my country. Now, what the FATF is actually doing here Is it saying you better address self-- the issue of self-hosted wallets, and if you answer saying that you're not addressing it, that will appear negatively on Your ratings. And so it's not an official requirement for countries to regulate unhosted wallets, but countries can read between the lines, they know it's coming, and they'll start putting forward requirements for unhosted wallets. So somebody I know tried to transfer money from Revolut to an unhosted wallet. Well, now Revolut won't allow you to send to wallets that are outside of a certain list, Ledger and Trezor are in there, so are other software wallets. But it's a very limited list. You can't just send it to your Bitcoin node. You can't just send it to, you know, your program, your wallet program that you coded yourself. It's not in the list. So already we're starting to see this happen, and believe me, from what I'm seeing from the inside, the crypto community at large and Bitcoin community Will not be spared and will be slowly enveloped in this tradfi web of control. Now, it hasn't happened fully, but it will, and things like this take time" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "24:40", "start": 1479.52, "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. Now, we use Bitcoin 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 the, 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 Becto 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, 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. The lead sponsor of this show is BOLD, the best place to buy, sell, and save Bitcoin. For listeners in the US, BOLD lets you secure your financial future with complete peace of mind by integrating a low fee Bitcoin o- Only brokerage with next-gen multisig vaults. With Bold, you can smash buy Bitcoin or set a DCA plan for only zero point nine nine percent fees and seamlessly deposit the Bitcoin direct to your Bold Vault. The Bold Vault is a two or three collaborative multisig where you hold two keys and Bold holds one as a redundant backup protecting against loss or theft. You can use Trezor, Ledger or Coldcard hardware wallets to spin up a Bold Vault in just a few minutes and the Bold Vault is the only collaborative custody vault available with zero monthly fees. They're also offering zero fees on your first ten thousand dollars of Bitcoin buys and twenty five dollars of free Bitcoin when you buy a hundred dollars of Bitcoin or more. Try Bold today and upgrade your stacking experience over at getbold dot io. And now back to the show. so I, as I understand, what you're referring to there is, could be called the travel rule, right? That's kind of one of the things that the FATF is sort of pushing this idea that if you're an, if you're an exchange or a, what's a VASP, I think is the term people have been using, that, you have to kind of certify or at least self-certify that, yes, this is my address that I'm withdrawing to, and slowly over time, it's like they're, they're slowly, you know, pulling And as you said, it's kind of like this, it's a questionnaire, but then also there's kind of this gray zone of what you're allowed to answer and what will look good and what will look bad. And over time, they sort of leverage, as I understand, this pressure aspect, right? Like as an example, the FATF will put a country on the gray list or the blacklist, and then once you're on there, it's like, \"Oh, you need to do more AML and do more sanctions compliance, otherwise, you're not gonna get off that list.\" And then" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "27:53", "start": 1673.32, "text": "Going on, at least that's my understanding of it, right?" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "27:56", "start": 1675.92, "text": "That's exactly it. I was in El Salvador recently, and you look at a country like El Salvador, now it's just recently liberated itself from all those gang members, right? And now it's able to open itself to the world. It's beautiful to see. I absolutely love that country. I also look at a president like Bukele. Now, Bukele has two choices, right? On the one hand, he wants to attract foreign investment. He wants Google and Elon Musk and whatever other company to go to El Salvador and spend billions of dollars doing whatever it is those companies do and invest those funds in his country, set up offices, do business there, et cetera. Those companies won't invest a single dime if a country is placed on a kind of a negative list by the FATF or any other organization like the OECD or whatnot. So Bukele has a choice Choice. He can say, \"Well, the Financial Action Task Force, in its wisdom, has all these requirements that say that we have to implement this, this, this, this, this.\" We can either comply or not comply. If we comply, we're gonna get a really good rating, which will attract foreign investment. These big companies will be able to send money to the country. There's great jobs, jobs are gonna multiply. It's, it's wonderful. It's a golden road of prosperity that kind of lies in front of you if you comply. If you don't comply, you're put on the list and your correspondent banking relationships are shut off, they're limited, rates go up The ability for your citizens to send money overseas is limited. It's not a good place to be when you're on one of those lists. It's exactly the same as a citizen being on a sanctions list, except for governments. Right? So your, your, your ability to transact and operate in the world is severely curtailed. So when you look at El Salvador and Bukele, which choice do you think he's gonna take? He's gonna comply I've looked at the ratings for, by the FATF, the CFATF for El Salvador, right? And by looking at those ratings, you can see exactly what kind of laws the country's gonna pass in the next six months. Because those countries are incentivized to comply to standards that they have no input in. I'll give you another example, and I'm, I'm sorry if I'm kind of diverting, but there's certain things I wanna kind of let out of my chest, right? When I was putting, implementing the standards by the FATF, I had to create definitions in the legislation Now, for any coders out, coders out there, a definition is like you're setting the variable, right? You're saying that this variable, this kind of container, will contain this kind of information, right? And those variables in the code kind of They, they, they interact with each other, they interact with the code, and at the end, they contain the information that you want them to contain. Well, in law, a definition is the most important aspect of the law because it defines who is in and outside of scope of that law. So who is subject to the requirements of that law? That's what definitions do. It's really, really important. So when I was creating definitions for the laws that I was working on Right? I looked at what the FATF said because I was told to implement the FATF standards. Now the FATF, in, in its wisdom, doesn't define a lot of terms. It leaves that up to the countries, but the countries have to implement the standards exactly to the letter. So what they do is once one country puts a definition that implements a standard and then it gets rated positively, all other countries will adopt that definition That definition for a term, right? Because countries know it passed the FATF rating. So my country Wanted to do the same thing. We wanted to get a good rating. I couldn't change the definition by a single iota if I changed where a comma was located in there. Right? If I just changed one word, here's what would happen to my country. The FATF, in its rating process when one country rates another country, they would look at the change of the definition. They say, \"Well, why did you change that definition? What is it that you wanted to achieve by changing that one particular word in the definition?\" Because you know that these other definitions are accepted and this one isn't accepted yet, why did you change that word? An entire process would then take place for my country to justify the change in the definition. It's a huge, painstaking process To be able to change the definitions in my country's laws. My country's supposed to be sovereign. My country's supposed to be able to define terms and to put People or businesses in and out of scope as it sees fit. That's a country's sovereignty. It's completely gone. Countries now have to implement definitions exactly to the letter. And so when I was creating those definitions, I was told to get a high rating, and I knew that if I changed anything, the banhammer would come and hit us hard. So this is pretty helpful. We just did exactly the same definitions. That's what's happening to countries. They're losing the ability to legislate. Now, they can legislate for things that aren't important. They can legislate, you know, how the traffic laws work. It doesn't matter. But anything that has any kind of global international significance is subject to a global standard of some kind. You look at the OECD, you look at the IMF, the IIMF, you look at all of the global standard-setting organizations creating global standards that countries have to implement or face the consequences. It's a huge web of control and it's a centralization of policy making, and that removes your ability as a citizen to have any kind of say And it also removes accountability by those central bodies to the people who are actually impacted by those laws. So in some cases, it's" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:05", "start": 2045.13, "text": "almost like people inside some nation states or regulators can even just put their hands up and say, \"Oh, look, I can't actually do anything. Look, it's, it's this other entity outside of us, therefore shut up and take it, you little plebs, right?\" Like that's kind of, that's one way. And then the other way, the genuine people who actually want to fight it back, they actually have less power to do so because of this And, and believe me, people" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "34:27", "start": 2066.99, "text": "in government are happy with that, because as a society, we've lost the ability to be responsible for our own actions. And this applies as an, on an individual level. We want big government to be there to protect us, to keep keep us safe. And I'm not talking about the small percentage of people who want freedom. I'm talking about the vast majority of people who just wanna go about their lives and not have to worry, not have to spend any kind of mental energy on trying to be self-sovereign and to be responsible for their own actions. It's a lot easier to say, \"Well, look, there's a set of standards here, and it seems to work, and people who implement them don't get in trouble. Let's just do that.\" It's the easy way out. It's simple. It's attractive If you have civil servants in a jurisdiction doing any kind of policy, they're gonna look at the global standards first because they know if they implement those, there won't be any issues. That is lazy, it's wrong, and it erodes countries' sovereignty. This is a huge problem, and I know most of the people around the world just won't care. It doesn't matter. Let there be a global standard-setting body Deciding everything that countries do, let countries just be kind of little lapdog implementing entities. Yeah, I see. And a lot of people don't see that. So look, I, I would" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "35:45", "start": 2145.33, "text": "say it's probably fair to say this is-- We've seen, I, I guess, in the, in the COVID tyranny years, we've seen some level of pushback in terms of things like-- And I guess I would frame this like, we're sort of seeing this like the, the nationalists are sort of fighting back against some of the globalist interests in some ways, right? So we're seeing Countries as an example in the US, people like Trump who are sort of saying, \"Oh, we're gonna-- we've had enough of the World Health Organization,\" as an example. and so I wonder, do you think there, there could be a potential for this kind of thing, let's say? Nationalist or other interests who want to push back against organizations like the FATF, and maybe we're just early on the curve here, and if more people were to sort of understand the threat, they would kind of put FATF in the same bucket as, as some of these organizations like World Health Organization or others." }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "36:40", "start": 2200.16, "text": "I think I'm gonna take a kind of roundabout answer to your question. I think to my earlier point about us becoming lazy and becoming kind of delegating our, our responsibilities to other governments, to government entities, or to banks, or to police, or to wha- whoever. We're also delegating our ability to be self-sovereign to kind of superhero politicians, whether that's Kamala for you, or whether that's Trump, or whether that's even Elon Musk, right? We're kind of idolizing these individuals, and that's just doing the same thing. It's taking away our self-sovereignty, and you're just delegating it to Elon Musk or Trump instead of taking responsibility and taking action in your own lives. It's the same thing. Now, to your question whether this nationalistic influence can actually make a difference, my goodness, Stephan, I hope so, but I doubt it. I completely doubt it. When you look at the FATF, right? Even the country like the US, a country like the US that was instrumental in its creation in 1989. I mean, it's, it's the reason-- the US is the reason the FATF exists. It's grown too big and Not just its size, but the level of brainwashing that civil servants and compliance officers and businesses and industry have had to go through over the years, the whipping they've had to take, has completely made them compliant. They wanna be compliant. I go around, I listen to people talk, businesses talk, the first thing they say is, \"Oh, we wanna be compliant. Oh, we, we're one of the best, most compliant organizations out there. We're, we're very compliant. We're full- Fully regulated. That mentality, the, the mentality that you just have to bend over and comply, has taken hold of governments, certainly my government, I can tell you straight up. It's taken hold in businesses, it's taken hold in individuals, and that is kind of the virus that has to be removed. Now, whether Trump or Musk can wake people up And get them to take about accountability for themselves? I really don't think so, because people are just de-delegating to Trump, delegating to Musk. And I'm, I'm with" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "39:01", "start": 2341.09, "text": "you on the kind of aspect of not just kind of Nobody's coming to save you, right? It's not about like, you gotta, we gotta get-- It's, to me, it's more like, are there people who are less bad on a particular issue? That's kind of really what it is. Now, of course, there's Bitcoin, and we wanna see more software development and more, you know, et cetera, advancement on that pathway. We're gonna get to that also, but I think it's-- Look, put it this way, it's fair to say A-as an example, I'm sure you've seen, Zuckerberg from, Meta or Facebook has kind of come out saying, \"Oh, okay, yeah, what we did was wrong. we're gonna undo some of the DEI, some of the ESG garbage.\" Now, of course, Zuckerberg is a political actor. He's not-- it's not like he genuinely believes this. If he had some balls, he would have said this in twenty twenty, not just recently. But, nevertheless, we've seen some companies walk back some of their \"quote-unquote\" back this kind of ESG DEI. So I wonder, is there an element of if we could create some cultural change on that front, that they could be sort of pushed into, you know, winding back some of this FATF influence? of course, that's a bit of a long shot for now, but I'm sure, look, if, if we had spoken in- 2016, and we were saying, \"Hey, this, this DEI woke stuff is getting too powerful.\" You would've been laughed out of the room, right? Like you, you would've had no chance, right? In the \"quote-unquote\" respectable, corporate or banking circles, nobody would've believed you, and yet- Cultural change did happen over the, let's say, seven or eight years since then, right?" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "40:40", "start": 2440.44, "text": "I see your point. And look, I don't have all the answers, right? I have a couple, I, I certainly have a pathway to fixing the FATF that I'm kind of working on. But looking at your point, just what you said about Zuckerberg. Are people not allowed to change? Now, I, I don't know what Zuckerberg, what pushed him to, to do free and open source LLMs or AI models. Why is he suddenly changing on DEI? I don't know. And that's the thing. But we have to consider that people are allowed to change, and it's only by allowing them to change that change is gonna happen. If we push back and point the finger at twenty twenty during COVID and say Zuckerberg, you're always gonna be a, a dickhead in my, in my mind, well, you know, what kind of incentive are we giving him to change?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:27", "start": 2486.74, "text": "let me, let me, I mean, let me put it this way. I would say I wanna see some genuine, you know, he needs to really genuinely start pushing for actual freedom of speech and actual private property respecting aspects before he's sort of believed. Is how, is how I would say it. Yeah, okay, like there's some of these small things that he's done to slowly unwind. To me, it's like he's just kissing the ring, right? He's kissing Trump's ring and he's saying, \"Okay, I'm gonna fall in line with the new regime," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:57", "start": 2516.54, "text": "Libertarian, free speech, you know, anti, you know, et cetera, right? So I, that's, that's all I would say there. I think it's, it's, it's, it's- I wouldn't know," }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "42:05", "start": 2524.99, "text": "Stefan. I, I wouldn't know, and, and the thing is, it's better to have seventy percent than zero percent." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:12", "start": 2531.54, "text": "Oh, no question there. No" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "42:12", "start": 2532.46, "text": "question." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:14", "start": 2533.64, "text": "but anyway, look, I think the point is, can we, I think cultural change and social change, like put it this way, it should be uncool to be really gung ho about increasing FATF mandates and compliance and requirements and standards, and it should be seen as like, \"You're a loser,\" you know? We need to, we need to make that cultural shift over time, right? You're," }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "42:33", "start": 2553.4, "text": "you're a better male or female if you wanna be compliant. That's the message that has to come out there. You're not Willing to take accountability for your own actions, and you're not willing to take positive steps, you'd rather bend over and comply. That's what you are if you wanna be compliant. That's what compliance means. You are a beta individual bending over Giving away your self-sovereignty and just taking the easy path and letting someone else decide your own life. I think that's the message that society has to ad-adopt. I don't know how society gets there. It's just my personal opinion. Maybe I'm wrong." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:11", "start": 2591.14, "text": "Yeah. Right, so look, let's, let's put that to the side then. So that's kind of the cultural, let's say, social angle of it, and look, I think that, that matters. but maybe, is there another angle? Is there a legal angle? Is there a political angle that can be taken to sort of, push back against the FATF and, you know, this kind of increasing stranglehold they have on all of us from an AML and sanctions and, you know, BSA perspective?" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "43:35", "start": 2614.65, "text": "Well, look, Simon, from your, your prior podcast, he tried to fight the travel rule in the EU, right? Now, he, I, I don't know if he actually went to court with it, but he was starting some kind of action. Now, I haven't heard whether that was successful or not, but the travel rule in the EU st-commenced, you know, this year, or was it last year? December 30th, 2024, I think was the date when it commenced. So I'm assuming he was unsuccessful, We were kind of betrayed by our judicial and legal system earlier. That's what I mean, is that this culture of compliance has infected all aspects and layers of our society. And so is there a legal path? To changing the FATF, well, first of all, you have to be one of the very few countries that actually has any kind of direct say in the FATF, right? So you have to be one of the top ten jurisdictions that I was talking about. Those are the only actors that can actually affect any kind of change. So that's the first barrier. If you're I don't know, Uzbekistan. You, you-- There's nothing you can do. You've got no chance, yeah. You've got no chance. So I don't think that the legal route or changing the FATF from within is the answer. Personally, I look at Bitcoin and what Bitcoin did and how it did it as some kind of inspiration for this particular instance. So instead of changing the financial system from within, instead of going inside of banks and funds and the SWIFT system system and changing everything from within. It just created an alternative system that was better and more efficient, and that people were attracted to because it gave them what they were seeking, what they wanted, right? Freedom, the ability to transact, to hold money, something that can't be inflated away. That's what Bitcoin did. Let's apply that to the FATF. The FATF has standards and requirements that are Strangling society in more ways than none. And so the best way to change it, in my opinion, is just to create something different, something that tackles the question of criminality that allows for criminals to be caught within due process. So look at it this way, if I had a magic wand and I were to just wave it tomorrow, what would my ideal FATF standard body be? Well First of all, the standards would have to be set by every single member jurisdiction. Even more than that, I think that the standards, those are the requirements that countries have to implement, those standards should be open to input from anybody who's impacted by the standards. That means you, that means me. We should have the ability to just stand up and say, \"Hey, you know, this thing that you're doing here, I don't like it. I don't think it's right. Let's look at something different.\" We can't do that now. So that's what the FATF needs to do. We need to create a new system where, like, put it on GitHub, put the FATF standards on GitHub, let people opine on what they think the standards should be. That's the first step. And, and only by doing that will you actually begin to corrode This kind of gargantuan entity that's strangling all of us. So decentralizing the standard setting process is the first step. I've got other steps if you wanna hear them." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:06", "start": 2825.71, "text": "This show brought to you by mempool.space, the world's leading Bitcoin visualizer, and now they've got an accelerator program. So if you have a transaction that you sent at a fee that was too low to get confirmed, now you can fix this with the mempool accelerator. The way it works, you can go and search your transaction, scroll down, click accelerator, and you don't need an account. You can pay with Lightning, and then it'll show you it's now in the process of being accelerated, and then after a few minutes, it's confirmed. And so this is a great way" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:35", "start": 2855.45, "text": "And this can happen where maybe your wallet doesn't have RBF or CPFP, or it might help you in situations where it's impractical to go and re-sign, so for example, multisig with keys in different locations. And thirdly, even in some Lightning scenarios, perhaps a forced close, you might not be able to use RBF, and so in this case, the mempool accelerator can help you out. So keep it in mind, and you can find out more over at mempool dot space slash accelerator. Right, and so here's the thing, are they, are they, they're not willingly going to reduce their own power, they need to sort of be forced into that, right? So as an example, this step that you say, FATF should put their standards on an open source thing so that we can see it in GitHub Why would they reduce their own power though? And now, and obviously, like I said, as far as I'm concerned, we should abolish them, but, you know, I, I just don't know that, that pathway is realistically gonna happen, like, of their own volition. It's sort of, it's, it's more like they would need to be forced into that" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "48:39", "start": 2919.01, "text": "Well, the-- and the only way to force them, just like Bitcoin, is to create that system to have a country that has nothing to lose. I know you had Maia from Suriname recently Right. That was a great episode. Thanks for, thanks for hosting here. You look at a country like Suriname. Suriname is compliant or largely compliant with fourteen of the forty recommendations. They're at rock bottom They aren't compliant with the FATF standards, right? You have a country like that, and you have a presidential candidate like Maya, and you say, \"Look, we have this alternative system,\" yes? There's gonna be some requirements, yes. It will allow for some requirements from, you know, financial institutions, but it's gonna do so following due process, and it's gonna do so in a manner that's open for input from all of your citizens. Now, if a country like that were to adopt that kind of a system, and a system that also requires the standards to have a measurable impact, so what's the point of putting a standard if there's no-- none of that criminal activity in your, in your jurisdiction? There's no point. But currently, the FATF forces every single country to implement all the standards, regardless of the activity, activities taking place in their country or not. That's stupid. It's a waste of time. It's a waste of resources. So if a country were to target actively observable criminal activity in the country, something that has a measurable, tangible impact, and then create some kind of requirement, maybe based off the FATF or not, and they were able to say, \"Look, every four years, we're gonna measure the effect- Effectiveness of this requirement, we're gonna say, has it actually caught criminals? Has it prevented crime? Yes or no? We're not even asking that right now, the FATF. The standards that are being put in place, they're not measured in any way whatsoever. So measure it. Is it-- and if it's not, if there's no observable impact to the requirement, remove it. If you had a country like Suriname, for example, perhaps implement a system like that, a system that allows companies to feel secure and to think, \"Yeah, you know, I can operate here, I can trust other parties because there's some basic kind of- Disclosure, contract law, there's a, there's a respect for the rule of law here that we like, 'cause that's, you need that for any kind of financial industry. So in a country like that, where to implement it, they would be shunned By the world, they would lose all their correspondent banking relationships. Now Maya said she has one, so they would lose their only correspondent banking relationship. They would be completely hammered in mainstream media. Oh, Suriname is a den for money laundering. What the changes that they're making, they would be absolutely thrown to the curb, right? But if the system is done properly and businesses are attracted to it because the country's doing what businesses want and the- The, the country is actually catching criminals because it's, it's forced to measure the impact of the requirements that it's implementing. If that country's successful and it's done in a proper way Other countries will take notice, and you need that first kind of guinea pig, yeah? Kind of like El Salvador or the- Right. That guinea pig is gonna be completely slaughtered, right? And so that guinea pig has to have a tough skin. But that's how you change the FATF, is you create an alternative system, you have one country, one guinea pig, implement it, and it's not, it's, it, it's a guinea pig that can grow into a bull Right? This is, this has potential to change financial markets over the long run for the better and to give us the kind of world that I personally wanna see my children inherit. So would I be interested? Would I go working for any kind of agency in Suriname if they were to do something like that? Yes, and I would do so for half of my pay that I'm getting right now because I believe in the cause, and I'm not alone. There are people who want to see change, they just don't see an outlet for it. They don't see an avenue for it. So let Suriname or any other country implement an alternative FATF standard system And let's see what happens." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "52:56", "start": 3175.85, "text": "Well, yeah, I'm all for that. I think it's great to, yeah, more competition against FATF would be great. Now, I suspect, I have an idea what you're probably gonna answer, but just for the argument's sake, if somebody listening is like, \"Just, you know, do Bitcoin peer-to-peer, don't even touch the fiat system,\" do you have an answer to that? Or is, is your answer, is your, let me, let me, let me put it that way, yeah, do you have an answer to that A listener might be listening and thinking, \"Well, why even bother with Bitcoin?\" Why Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "53:26", "start": 3205.99, "text": "Use Monero, right? Like, you know, go, go all in. If, if you're gonna go all in, use Monero, you know, sure. Right? Like, like somebody like that just says, \"I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna escape and bypass the system. Good for you.\" And you need more people like that. I say, \"Go for it. Do whatever you think will achieve the world you wanna see.\" Right? I think individuals should be empowered to do what they believe will affect change in the world. I'm doing that right now. Let them do it their own way. I, I have nothing against that, and I don't have any retort. I don't wanna destroy their hopes and dreams. I don't want them to stop building parallel economies using Bitcoin or Monero or XRP or whatever other token. I have nothing against those people because they're trying to change the world with the, a, a foundation of values that I- My support that I share. So go ahead, do it. If you're successful, you know, and my, my method is unsuccessful, I'll join yours gladly. I'll support you mentally, I'll support, I'll give you a pat on the back, I'll participate in it. You know, I think, I think I'm just one person, you're just one person, Trump is one person, Elon Musk is one person. One thing I've seen in policy development is that if I create a policy document with three or four solutions, right? That's just from one brain. One brain is weak. One brain isn't smart. Ten thousand brains are smart. One million brains can do so much more Than one brain can do. And so I think everybody should just act according to their own conscience, and that includes the Kamala crowd, the people who think we should have DEI or whatever, go for it. I'm all about self-sovereignty, and I think we should have the freedom to choose which system We believe we want to live in. I should have the ability to choose if I wanna live in a DEI system or if I wanna live in a, you know, non-DEI system where it's merit based. I should have that freedom to choose. The worst part of our society is we're unable to choose. We're told, we're shoved something down our throats, and we're said, \"This is the way it's gotta be,\" and you're guilted and shamed into acting according to that system. That's what's wrong with society. Liberate people. liberate their ability to do what it is they want to do, and I have nothing, no problem against it. I think we should be free to act according to our own conscience." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "56:00", "start": 3360.12, "text": "Great, well, yeah, I, I think, I think people should, yeah, there's multiple, let's say, prongs or approaches, like there's kind of the legal kind of attack angle, there's the create an alternative at the foundation level, there's the, let's say, the cyberpunk software, let's build more ways for people to not be reliant on the fiat system. I think all of these are fruitful and we might see more people try to build out Let's say Bitcoin and other, let's say alternative banking system methods, and we'll see what exactly happens. But I think one of the concerns right now, and obviously you're well aware of this, is what you've been talking about, which is that Let's say you're a Bitcoin company today, and you wanna set up, and you wanna try to help onboard people, whether we like it or not, today a lot of Bitcoin companies have to interface with the fiat system, which means they have to get onboarded to a fiat bank, and if they want that fiat bank to be able to, you know, take fiat transfers from somebody else, they've gotta comply with, all of, so it's sort of, there's this- Look," }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "57:00", "start": 3420.27, "text": "yeah, if you, if you, you're a company right now, I get it, because I" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "57:08", "start": 3428.4, "text": "Right now, I'm applying lube every single day I go to work and I do what I'm doing. I'm applying lube, bending over. It's great, it's not great. But what I'm doing on the side is I'm fighting for a better world. And those companies think? Maybe it's true that they have to comply. It's probably true, they have to comply, they have to have that on-ramp, off-ramp in the traditional fiat and trad-fi. So let them comply on one hand and let them fight with the other hand. They have to balance their kind of value based services, the values that make them who they are. First of all, they have to define their values. What do they stand for? What do they wanna achieve? And then if they have to go one way, which is the compliance way, then they need to balance that out with, you know, funding some open source software from, you know, maybe kind of pushing the lid a little bit. You have to have an outlet because if you don't do that, if you're a value-based individual and you love freedom and you want freedom and you're bending over and complying, it's a shitty life. I've done it for five years now. You need to have an outlet and you need to contribute to society to be self-actualized, to be happier with yourself, to sleep at night. Companies should do the same thing, comply Do everything you need to do, have that compliance officer there, do all the KYC you need to do, everything you need to do to operate and thrive and fund some projects, right? Put on a mask, go out and talk anonymously. I don't know, do whatever it is you think you need to do. And that's the thing about society and people like us, people with values Who value freedom, we're gonna find a way to improve society. So find your way as a business to improve society the way you wanna see it and comply on the other hand. It's a balancing act." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "59:04", "start": 3544.43, "text": "Fair enough. One other topic area, and I'm sure you'll have thoughts on this, is the whole choke point two point oh conversation, right? Now, I'm, I'm sure you're very much aware of this, but the, you know, the, the gist of it for people who aren't familiar. There's this concern, and I believe it's true, I believe it, it actually did happen, that in the US case, there were, let's say, lawmakers and regulators who were basically going and killing businesses who- You know, they were using some of this AML and FATF and these kinds of concerns as a mechanism to either de-bank unfavored people or banks that they didn't like. They used it to sort of shut down banks they didn't like or to shut down \"Quote unquote crypto companies who wanted a bank account, and so a lot of them got de-banked, and individuals who were part of these companies got de-banked also. So where does the whole of, you know, OCP two point oh play into this? And hypothetically, in a Trump administration, do you believe that some of this may lighten or, you know, be not as much of a concern?\"" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "01:00:09", "start": 3609.73, "text": "The danger with alleviating the, the choke points, the danger with kind of lessening the, the, the stranglehold on a sector Is that it's gonna get compliant and then it's gonna be more comfortable and it's gonna say, \"All right, you know, I don't have to do as much anymore, I'm happy.\" Now, that's the one step forward. It's, it's a totalitarian tiptoe, whatever it is that it's called. It's putting a huge requirement forward that says, \"Look, we're gonna strangle this sector, it's horrible, everything's dark, everything's negative, people are depressed,\" and then you alleviate it halfway. Right? The net effect is you've moved halfway forward from before. Now, you look at the World Economic Forum, like two years ago, a year and a half ago, whatever, their top priority was rebuilding trust Now, isn't it funny how all of a sudden you have Musk, you have Trump, who come in and say what people actually wanna hear, right? Now, what does that do? It's gonna make people kind of take a breath and go, \"The last ten years have been so hard. Now, Trump is gonna come and he's gonna kinda make things a little bit better, maybe a lot better. It's still gonna be worse than it was before. There's no way Trump is going back to the early '00s in terms of- Regulation. I don't think he'd be able to, right? So when you look at change, yes, like I said, seventy percent's better than zero percent. Let Trump do it, let Musk do it. Personally, do I believe that it can change the system? No. I, I encourage them And yes, you're right, he's probably gonna alleviate the choke point pressure. He's gonna open that relief valve a little bit, maybe a lot, and that's gonna be great for the sector. But the sector's gonna be lulled into a sense of comfort and complacency, and I think that's the whole point People aren't gonna be pissed anymore, they're not gonna take action because they're gonna be comfortable. Well, I can, I can do this requirement that Trump says now I need to do. It's the bare basics, right? Now, he took away all these other things. I, I should be so thankful for Trump doing this for me. That's the kind of mentality that we're gonna see if he does what he says he's gonna do. Is it good change in the world? Yes. Am I happy for it? Yes. Will it enable companies to innovate and to do things that they weren't able to do before? Yes. So it's all good change However, beware the sense of complacency it will bring, because these-- you're still depending on government for your company to operate. You're still depending on a single centralized Point of failure, which can go either way in, you know, four, eight, twelve years, right? It can swing back again, and it will! We both know that red and blue are the same, the two wings of the same bird. So right now what's happening is the pendulums going one way. Look at the COVID Requirements, right? They're alleviated now. People aren't complaining. People are happy they can travel, they don't need masks anymore. I need a mask, but that's for another reason. So people are really happy, but all the laws, all the requirements, all the legislation that was put in place during COVID still there. Right? So that's the totalitarian tiptoe. During COVID, they put all these draconian laws that we were all against, and they implemented them, and we hated it? And then they took the implementation away because COVID's not a big threat anymore, I don't know. But the laws remain. That's the totalitarian tilt, and I think that's what we're gonna see from Trump and Musk and whatnot. Musk is trying to centralize social media, he's trying to centralize internet service providers with his Starlink That's, that's the biggest danger. I, I can't believe people aren't concerned about that. We have thousands of internet service, services providers right now around the world providing internet, allowing people to access the internet. Musk wants to centralize that He wants to be the big one that controls all these satellites. Look, we need decentralized internet services providers, so, you know, go for Musk if you want, but don't allow him to monopolize that service. Same thing for social media, use Noster. I'm not on X, I've never been on X, I'm never going on X. I disagree with Delegating my kind of freedom to some kind of centralized entity. So I'm on Noster. If anybody wants to reach out to me, I'm on Noster. That's where you get a hold of me. I check it, I don't know, ten, twenty times a day." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:04:51", "start": 3891.94, "text": "Fantastic. Well, yeah, I mean, of course, we'll make sure, you know, the nostra is, in the show notes and that. And I, I agree with you that, you have to be realistic when you look at some of these people, that, you know, yes, Elon might be innovating in certain ways, and I guess Starlink is, obviously, it's hard to deny the use of that innovation, but as you say, especially in the early days of that, i-it's kind of a monopoly and it's kind of centralized. Maybe" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:05:21", "start": 3921.6, "text": "Starlink has other competitors and so on, and I guess on the Nostr question, I mean, I think for me it's more just like I try to use multiple, platforms, I use Nostr as well as X, as well as other things, but, it's certainly worthwhile. I guess one other question I have for you, now we touched on this a little bit around how much it can be built out from a software perspective and the cypherpunks and the whatever, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on whether, you know, from a fiat perspective? How much of this is alleviated by the likes of, let's say, stablecoins, stable SATs, like, like a Blink style, or stable channels, like a Tony Klauseng's approach? How much do you think, you know, things can be mitigated on that side, like using some kind of stablecoin, stable SAT, stable channels, DLCs, something like that?" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "01:06:12", "start": 3972.35, "text": "you know, I, I think society will produce whatever solutions it needs if allowed to, if people want Tether or Circle or whatever other kind of solution that's being promoted out there and it's being used and it thrives, then it has value to society. But I'm, I- How much-- I think I didn't get your question, because what's the ill that you're trying to mitigate with those stablecoins? What is it that you're-- No, no, so what I'm trying to say" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:06:38", "start": 3998.45, "text": "is, as an example, is it possible for people to set up- \"Quote unquote cypherpunk banking that never touches the fiat system, right? Because it's using stablecoin, stable sat, stable channel, some, some kind of means that isn't reliant on FATF, right? Because like what we were saying is FATF is this kind of globalist concern that is stopping, you know, sovereignty at the nation state level and pushing everyone into this kind of- Controlled AML system, yep, and stablecoins and stable sats and stable channels and, you know, cypherpunk, whatever, eCash even. Is that a, a realistic alternative or do you, do you think it's just too early for that or do you have any thoughts on whether that also represents a challenge, an alternative to the FATF controlled system?" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "01:07:28", "start": 4048.39, "text": "so thank you for the question. I appreciate it and I understand it now, I think. I'll, I'll answer by saying that I'll, I'll go back to my earlier comment that, you know, you should do what What your values dictate. And if there's people who feel like those kind of solutions will help, please do it and do it because your intentions are correct. Your intentions are right, they're founded on a foundation, they're based on a foundation of values that are strong and that have, you know, freedom as a basis. Go for it, do it. Find out if it's gonna work. I don't have that answer, but I'll give you a warning. That's one thing that I can give, given my experience working for a government and doing compliance legislation, is that they are currently working on ways to come for you. If you're doing cypherpunk type solutions, wallets, you're probably very small, right? And, and, and you're off the radar. But don't let that kind of lull you into thinking that they're not gonna come. The FATF has unhosted wallets strongly in its sights, and it has the power of two hundred jurisdictions behind it. It's a huge cannon, and believe me, if your project gets big enough, that cannon's gonna blow your way. So don't be lulled into thinking that because you have a cipherpunk project, you're immune. Really have great opsec. Right? Do things the right way. Don't dox yourself. Don't be kind of incentivized by fame for your name or reputation. Do things anonymously. Create ten different names, you know, and submit code with those ten different names. Do things properly. I, I, I'm not a noobsec person, so I, I really don't know how to do it properly. What I'd like to tell those people is just a warning right now. It's the totalitarian tiptoe, and Trump will kind of step back a little bit, but believe me, there will come a point in time Where the FATF will come for your project if it gets big enough, so be ready." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:09:35", "start": 4175.0, "text": "Yeah, and look, I will point out as well, stablecoins, especially, you know, whether people use them or not, you should be aware that the large stablecoins have integrated surveillance, right? They do. Let's say cooperate or collaborate with three-letter agencies, so people should be aware of that. But, I guess I was asking just for the sake of completeness, and people might be interested about, you know, are there approaches down that pathway, something in that direction, maybe not exactly a stablecoin or something like that, that might help as an alternative. Anyway, we've covered that. Any final closing thought or if there's one, let's say one takeaway for people, what's the final takeaway that you want people to come away from this with?" }, { "speaker": "opnstate", "time": "01:10:18", "start": 4218.8, "text": "Society's been infected by a virus of compliance, and this virus has affected our testosterone levels as a society. We've become better individuals, like I've said many times here, and that's a virus that we have to shed. We need to get a strong dose of vitamin C, vitamin D, and that vitamin C and vitamin D is taking responsibility for the world around you You can't change the entire world right away, but you can certainly educate and change the world around you, your direct, immediate circle of people who you associate with, where you spend your money, where you spend your time Are you addicted to X? Are you scrolling X whenever you have five minutes free? You might be addicted to X. Take accountability for yourself and stop Donating and giving your personal freedom and accountability to individuals, governments, compliance organizations Just live according to your own values, you're gonna be so much better for doing so." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:11:28", "start": 4288.92, "text": "Perfect. Well, listeners, I will link, OpenState's Nostra Pub key in, in the show notes. And, OpenState, thank you for sharing, I think it's been a really valuable, a lot of valuable insights that you've shared for listeners. So thanks for joining me today." } ] }