BITCOIN OR SLAVERY | Nico Moran from Simply Bitcoin - THE Bitcoin Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I still think that there's enormous upside left, right?

(00:03):
I truly believe we're going to hit, you know, 10, $20 million per coin.
And if you're in your 20s or your 30s, like Walker and I, like by the time we're in our
50s, right, 40s or late 40s, like you're going to be good.
You're going to be more than good, right?
So like that's an enormous opportunity.
And it's an ego thing.
Like I get it.
Like I understand.

(00:24):
Like I felt the same thing.
Like when I started stacking Bitcoin, like it's like, no, man, like I missed the boat.
I know this person that bought, you know, at $50, like I'm buying at 500 or I'm buying at a thousand
or I'm buying at 10,000. Like, I'm not going to do that. Like, fuck that, bro. Because you know,
this person bought whatever, that's 100% your ego talking. But if you like, look at it from like

(00:45):
first principles. And if you look at it from like, just a pure non-emotional logical perspective,
like what is that? $100,000 to $10 million. And then $100,000 to what? $20 million. What is that?
like a 100x, a 200x,
like that will fundamentally fucking change your life.
And I don't think that there's any other asset

(01:05):
that's going to give you that type of return
with so much certainty.
And I think that's like the really difficult thing to swallow
because from a risk-adjusted return,
right now is the best time ever to invest in Bitcoin.
I don't think we're late at all.
I still think we're early.
and even when Bitcoin's at a million dollars per coin,

(01:28):
where else are you going to put your savings?
Are you going to put it like what?
You're going to give it to a guy, Goldman Sachs,
that charges you a percent
and he's going to beat the return
that Bitcoin's going to give you on a yearly basis
where you don't have to pay anyone else
and you don't have to give up your custody of it?
No, of course not.
I'm going to be buying Bitcoin at $10 million per coin
because where else are you going to park your wealth?
Like there is nothing else.
Nothing's going to give you what Bitcoin can give you.

(01:49):
What is the role of the state in society?
As Bitcoiners, we inherently know that money can exist without the state.
If money can exist without the state, what is the role of the state?
And I think what Bitcoin has shown is that the state is going to try to justify its role as the gatekeeper of money, the guardian of money, even though it's no longer necessary.

(02:16):
We've found a superior system.
We found a system that has rules without rulers.
We found a system that is completely transparent. We found a system that basically forces a fiscal discipline. That question, I think, in the next decade is going to be it's going to be massive. Humanity is going to have two choices in front of it.

(02:36):
It's going to have the choice of Bitcoin, which is peace, prosperity, opportunity, hope for the future, optimism.
And then the other side, which I call slavery, which is central bank digital currencies, which is just a continuation of the fiat system on effing steroids.
Right. But those are the two choices ahead of humanity.

(02:57):
There is no in between. Stay humble, stack sats, make sure you have more Bitcoin than the day before.
And life is going to be OK.
One of the things that you hear in the United States is like, you always hear this.
It's like a narrative, like the American dream is dead.
Yeah, if you're denominating in fiat, if you're denominating in Bitcoin, the American dream is thriving.

(03:20):
Not only is it the American dream, it's the worldwide dream now.
Anyone could have the American dream, live the American dream if they use Bitcoin as their unit of account.
Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs. My name is Walker and this is the Bitcoin Podcast.

(03:41):
Bitcoin continues to make new blocks every 10 minutes and the value of one Bitcoin is still
one Bitcoin. If you are listening to this right now, remember, you're still early.
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(04:07):
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Head to the show notes for links to find the show on centralized social media platforms and

(04:29):
on Noster or just go directly to BitcoinPodcast.net. You'll find it all there. And kind reminder
that you can support this show by becoming a paid subscriber on Fountain. Or don't,
Bitcoin doesn't care, but I sure do appreciate it. Without further ado,
let's get into this Bitcoin talk. I'm stoked for Plan B El Salvador. I mean,

(04:55):
the plan B crew, like they put on just a, they do a very nice job. Like it's, it's very well done.
The programming is always good. The, uh, just the general vibe like is, is great. I don't know.
It's, it's nice. Like I enjoy all Bitcoin conferences I go to, but it's, there's something
about, I think like Lugano specifically that just that city is so magical where you're like, this

(05:17):
doesn't seem like a real place. Like what is this? Where are we right now?
Yeah, they put together such a great conference,
and I feel the same vibe.
It's very special.
It's very unique.
I look forward to it every year.
And, yeah, they put together a great job.

(05:38):
It's effing Switzerland, man.
But the one in El Salvador is just the same vibes.
You know, it's just in El Salvador, right?
So, yeah, they put together a great event for sure.
You've been to El Salvador a few times, right?
Yeah, man. I've been a couple, yeah, a few to say the least. But yeah, it's great. It's cool. Like I've lived in Latin America. I'm originally from Venezuela. So to see a country like a Hispanic country with that level of safety and security on the ground is like, I can't, like everyone is like basically calling Naim Bukele a dictator and like a fascist and like, oh, this and that.

(06:20):
and I'm just like in my mind I'm thinking I'm like first of all you guys don't understand the
political situation on the ground over here second of all I find it like patronizing that
you as a foreigner are like basically giving us your opinion on how Latin American politics should
be and third of all what he's done is a miracle like what Naim Bukele has achieved is a miracle

(06:42):
like he has achieved and El Salvador I felt safer in El Salvador than I felt in some American cities
and no one's like talking about that it's always like oh he's a dangerous democracy which is like
the the i always hear that but i'm from venezuela venezuela is a failed state why is venezuela not
being talked about like why are you talking about this tiny country that like went through 40 years

(07:07):
of civil war and then venezuela is left out of the equation and somehow naim bukele is the danger
to democracy, but forget about Maduro, who literally cheated in the last election and
has seized power.
Let's completely leave him out of the car.
Let's not even talk about Cuba either, right?
Let's forget about those examples and let's talk about how Naim Bukele is a dictator and

(07:29):
dangerous, even though he has a 97% approval rating.
Like, oh man.
This is the insane thing to me.
Of all the things that are threats to democracy, you would think you could find some better
examples. But I think the reason that they go after Bukele so much is because he is, it's not
that it's a threat to democracy. It's just like, it's a threat to the status quo. Cause like things

(07:53):
are working really well, right? We're keeping, you know, like Europe's got these, the African
countries on lock, you know, just keeping them subjugated. We got the French just taking care
of everything with the CFA Frank across 13 different countries. And then, you know, in,
in Latin America, it's like, it's okay. You know, big daddy USA will take care of things down there,
keep just enough political unrest that they never really are able to get ahead.

(08:13):
If we need to, we send in our three letter agencies to, you know, stir up a little bit of trouble.
And when we have a strong man that gets into power, that's totally okay.
Just as long as he's our, as long as he's our guy, like, but if he's not our guy, that's a problem.
That's when we need to start, you know, pushing the narratives a little bit.
I think that's what it comes down to.
It's like, he's not their guy.

(08:33):
You know, he's, he's something else.
Maybe they tried to make him their guy and it didn't work.
and now it's like no can't have that because you need to be able to exert control but it's like
we went there for the first time in 2022 and i remember people asking us like if you know if
anyone had like knew about el salvador at all which most just didn't really besides it's a
country they'd be like oh like that's really dangerous are you sure it's going to be safe

(08:57):
for you guys going down there and we're like yeah like it's it's it's going to be it's going to be
safe it's already gotten so much safer like since this new president has been in power we we didn't
know a ton about it back then except you know he had just started those reforms but remember
walking around the streets and being like this feels a lot safer than chicago like we're like
a hell of a lot safer than chicago and since being back there we were there twice in 2022

(09:20):
and then went back there this past uh this past january for plan b el salvador and it was just
like just even better it had improved even better and this is not to say that any leader is beyond
of reproach. I think you should justly criticize things when a leader does them poorly. But you
should also say that if she does something good, you should say that that's a good thing. It's a

(09:42):
good thing that people aren't getting murdered on the street, that women aren't getting dragged by
their hair out of buses and had horrible things done to them by these gangs that just ran everything.
Like that's not a bad thing. That's a really good thing. And I'm sorry if it offends your
delicate sensibilities that these people tatted from, you know, from top to bottom, uh, are,
are now sitting in like a maximum security prison. But like, I think that's a good thing. And the

(10:06):
people of El Salvador seem to think so too. Yeah. I think that was beautifully said. Um,
and I think it's a projection of, you know, cause Naim Bukele, what he does, you know,
and again, it's not perfect, right? But it basically shows that a government can actually

(10:27):
fulfill its basic function, which is protecting citizens and protecting private property from
crime. Like that's the whole point of paying taxes, right? And I think that the money printer
has just like kind of dwarfed or like the dwarf is not a good word, but it's, it's kind of like,

(10:48):
it's changed the incentives of politicians.
Like it's misaligned the incentives of politicians completely.
And all of a sudden, like their main priority is keeping power
and making sure that the money printer keeps flowing.
And the whole idea of, you know,

(11:11):
providing the basic roles of government to a society
just goes out the window.
And I think that once you have Naim Bukele coming in, popularity of 90% plus stops crime completely.
It proves that there is another way.
It proves that it doesn't matter that this is a country with a GDP of $32 billion.

(11:35):
It proves the fact that if you get your act together, you can actually get rid of crime.
You can actually propel your people forward.
Your people will actually feel proud to be from the country they're from.
Like I'm from Miami, dude.
And Miami is like the Mecca of like Latin America.
Like if you're from Latin America and you make it to Miami, it's like you can't go higher than that.

(11:59):
I have people from El Salvador that I've heard are going back to El Salvador.
So they're leaving Miami and they're going back to El Salvador.
That's unheard of.
You don't hear that.
That doesn't happen, right?
But it's happening in El Salvador because of the situation that Nayibu Kele has created on the ground.

(12:21):
Now, I get his critics now how he's saying, okay, but like, Nico, you understand he has too much power.
He grew the state to stop crime.
And, you know, all of that was democratic, right?
And the same people that are arguing that he's a threat to democracy are completely leaving out the fact that he's done all of this democratically with an overwhelming majority because people are tired, sick and tired.

(12:47):
Can I curse on this?
Yeah, dude, you can say whatever the fuck you want.
People are sick and tired of the bullshit.
So, you know, they like they look at Naim Bukele and they're like, oh, this is the name of his party.
If you translate it to English is new ideas.
Right.
So he came in there with new ideas, the old left-wing party and the old right-wing party.

(13:09):
And he's like, look, I'm going to do this differently.
I'm going to protect private property rights.
I'm going to make Bitcoin legal tender.
All this Bitcoin tourism came.
All this tethers setting up their headquarters there.
All this benefits for the El Salvadorian people.
And the people are thriving.
You compare El Salvador with every other country in Central America.

(13:33):
whether it comes to the economy, whether it comes to crime,
whether it comes to any of those things, you don't see an equivalent.
And it's so crazy that the Western media is hyper-focused on the only country
that is thriving and succeeding in the region and has figured out how to stop crime.
Which, again, if you think about first principles and just basic common sense,

(13:57):
you just lock up the criminals.
Who would have known?
Crime stops.
Oh, my God.
Like that rocket science, right?
So I think that the reason that the so-called mainstream media, I don't call them that anymore.
It's more the legacy media and the politicians and the Western world have such a problem with Naim Bukele is because they're projecting onto him what it is they are guilty of themselves.

(14:23):
They're projecting onto him their own failures.
It embarrasses them that he could do what they cannot with less.
that's what it's about dude that is extremely well said i i want to pause for a second because uh
we're because i don't have an opti uh some for some reason the nostor stream isn't working and

(14:44):
i want this with you to be on nostor so i'm going to cut this real quick we're going to restart it
well not restart it i'm just going to cut it together for the end like published episode
but i'm going to cut this and redo the stream because you need to be ranting on nostor right
now. Deal? Sounds good. And I'm going to get myself an opt-in one of these days. And for those
listening at home, you will have no idea that this even happened because it will be super smoothly

(15:06):
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(16:11):
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I-O forward slash walker. Man, I'm sorry about that. This is why I need my Opti. You know,

(17:22):
I mean, it doesn't have to be like, well, you know, have you thought about like,
you saw those new, uh, those new, like robot, those Neo robots or whatever,
maybe opti can like can like tell a whatever in you know like i'll get a neo here opti can be the
uh the guy the guy wearing the suit and running it yeah i i troll opti all the time because like

(17:43):
elon the tesla robot is called optimus yeah so i'm like i'm like dude like i'm gonna get like
two of them and they're gonna be like different personalities like one's gonna be like a super
submissive opti um and then one's gonna be like a super like you but times 10 so it's like opti
make me a sandwich one says fuck you and then the other one's like okay nico no problem i'll go make

(18:04):
you a sandwich right sure that sounds great sir so and then have the same voice as opti um so have
like a bunch of different robot optis uh it'd be cool but yeah i don't know maybe maybe it's crazy
it's kind of the the robotics thing is nuts bro like i know that in 10 years everyone's gonna have
a robot it's gonna be pretty cool dude it is i think it oh i mean i think so too i think these

(18:28):
ones right now like you're kind of like beta testing for these companies and like the whole
thing with like the you're basically like remote viewing in and doing the controls on these things
like that's a little that gets a little bit weird this feels like a very concerning thing for one's
privacy like you just got some dude in another country who's like you know remote viewing in
to control this robot in your home like i don't know seems kind of strange to me but like what do

(18:53):
i know you know by the way how's my is my audio okay still because yeah you sound as sexy as
buttery and smooth silky smooth buttery amazing amazing we're back we'll pretend we'll pretend
the first part never happened for anybody that's just tuning in now which is all of you because
we're live only on no stir and i screwed up something with the live stream i'm not going

(19:14):
to blame the devs for this i'm gonna blame myself i screwed it up it's on me but uh nico was was
getting into some great rants and we were talking about el salvador you'll have to hear about it
when we do the when i publish this everywhere after the fact but nico we'll just pretend this
is for real this time because it is but i appreciate you joining we realized we were
talking about this in ugano and you called me out because you were like dude i had you on my show

(19:35):
like super early you never had me on yours and i was like i am such a dick and i i realized i was
like, wow, that is, that is on me. So I'm stoked that you're finally here, man. Well, dude, I'm
stoked that you're having me, man, because like, you're not a Bitcoin podcaster until you've been
on the Bitcoin podcast. So I felt like I haven't made it, you know, like I felt like I've,

(19:58):
I've checked all the boxes, I've done the conferences, I've done the thing.
And I call myself a Bitcoin podcaster, but how could you be a Bitcoin podcaster if you've never
been on the Bitcoin podcast. Right. So I'm honored to be here. It's a fair question. But I mean,
technically, so do you consider yourself, do you consider your show a podcast or do you consider
like a talk show? Like what, what, what's the genre there? I don't know, man. I don't know.

(20:23):
It's like, it was really weird, man. Cause so when I started simply like there was, it's like,
people have to understand this. Like there was no Bitcoin content, right? Like Bitcoin content
like did not exist. Like there was Marty, there was Stefan Levera, there was Andreas, there was
Max and Stacey, but like, forget about all the production, the cameras and the microphones.

(20:47):
And it was like, it was webcam and like Yeti mics and, you know, like the basics. And, you know,
it was like the infancy of Bitcoin only media. So like, you know, it kind of evolved from like
this like 10 minute show to this 30 minute show to this 45 minute show to this like hour show.
And then we figured out how to like break it into segments and stuff like that. But it all

(21:12):
happened super organically. Like it was not planned at all and it just kind of patched together. And
then when I started it, it was just a hobby. Like I genuinely felt passionate about talking about
Bitcoin. And back then you have to understand like the idea that you can make a living or,
you know much less build a company out of making content about a specific niche like about bitcoin

(21:35):
on the internet was just like it was considered in pot like it was there was nothing that you can
refer to and say oh look this person did it right so um it was kind of uncharted territory man and
it just kind of like one thing led to another and that kind of led to the live show and then
the live show just kind of picked up a life of its own. Um, and we're just like super blessed to

(22:00):
just be able to like literally talk about Bitcoin. Like it's super strange, man. Like if, if, if you
would have, if, if someone would have told me like Nico, like, like this is all the stuff that you
would go through to like do it. I don't know if I would do it again, to be honest with you, bro.
It was a lot of pain and a lot of uncertainty.

(22:22):
Like for the first two years, like you were making content and maybe like 100 people would watch your video.
Right. Now we get like, you know, like over a thousand people watching live.
Right. So it's a much different type of conversation.
Right. But back then it was just it was very uncertain.
But that uncertainty was obviously an opportunity.

(22:44):
what what year did you like actually start making bitcoin content 20 so i started making
a youtube content in general like 2017 2016 but those channels you will never see but it's just
playing like video games and like stuff like that so i've always wanted to see him though

(23:05):
i've always loved youtube um and then i i did like this equation in my math where in my math
I did this equation in my head where I was basically thinking, I'm like, okay, it takes about four years to really pick up momentum on YouTube, right? Like that's the rule of thumb. So, and I was like 24, 24, 25 at the time. And I was like, okay, so if I keep making content about video games, first of all, it's very saturated.

(23:33):
number one number two um by the time like i get any inkling of momentum i'm gonna be 28 29 years
old and it's like do i really want to be that guy fucking making content about video games
heading into his 30s right so i was like no like let me just start making content about bitcoin

(23:54):
And I had no like professional training about media or, you know, journalism or content creation or any of the things.
I had like no professional training whatsoever.
I didn't go to school for it.
But I just did it.
I iterated every single day and I did it for like, at the beginning the live show was six days a week.

(24:18):
So I did that for like, and I edited the videos myself and it took me like three hours.
like each video to edit. But I did that for like two and a half years. And then on like the third
year is really when like things compounded enough for it to take off. And we were lucky enough to

(24:39):
get some sponsors that supported us. And then, you know, a year after that, we started hiring
people. We picked up Rustin, we picked up Dante, Sophie's making content for us now, Oceans,
of course opti joined um so we picked up like this like this team of content creators

(24:59):
and yeah we've just been dropping content man it's it's been a extremely surreal experience
but it's been very painful i'm not gonna lie to you dude it's it's wild to think we're so were you
already like had you been into bitcoin for a little bit prior to that like you and then like
that was kind of just a thing in the background like whatever but then you were like okay no i

(25:20):
this is this other thing I care about, I'm passionate about, let me start putting out
content. Because like, it's true, there was not like, I was not a Bitcoiner at that time.
I heard about Bitcoin for the first time in 2014. That was the first time I ignored it.
Silk Road days, buddy tells me, hey, you know, I got to get these Bitcoins things to
buy certain things on this certain website. And I was like, whatever nerd, like, you know,

(25:41):
I don't care about your nerd money. And you know, ignored. And then 2017, like went and,
you know, bought a couple Litecoin on Coinbase because I didn't realize you could buy a fraction
of a Bitcoin. And I was like, I don't have the, I don't have the cash to just throw a bunch of
money at this, these Bitcoins. Again, they're just like, you know, it didn't do any actual
research into it. Didn't actually look into it. It wasn't until 2020. And so like, it's amazing,

(26:03):
even just to see from 2020 until now, how much this like content ecosystem has blossomed,
but you've been doing this and been in Bitcoin since like, I mean, you were one of your, you're
an OG when it comes to Bitcoin content creation. That's fair to say. Like you've been in the
game of Bitcoin podcasting, Bitcoin shows, whatever for a long time.

(26:24):
Yeah So I so it was 2020 So 2020 we started simply again we didn know And yeah it was it was just Walker It was a totally different it was a totally different environment dude Like the idea that you can make money it was like you know I think

(26:46):
Peter McCormack was the only one that was like able to do it. Um, but like the idea that you can
just like, you can just do things, um, was just like unheard of. Like now, you know, now it's like
It comes with a lot more certainty, but obviously there's a little bit more saturation.
But yeah, man, it was just a totally different ballgame.

(27:08):
And getting involved with different creators and helping their channels grow as well,
like the Swan channel, I blew it the F up.
BTC Sessions worked with him for a while, helped him grow his channel.
So just kind of seeing, you know, these channels that are like enormous, watching the process.

(27:33):
And then, of course, doing it for myself, doing it simply was just crazy, man.
It was just like the infancy.
I always say the infancy of Bitcoin only media, you know.
I don't know if it, I don't know what the future is going to be, you know, five years from now of Bitcoin only media.
Like, cause like the way that Mark Moss was talking to what was talking about, it was like, basically like, do you see any podcasts about the internet these days? Like, you know, like, you know, it's just the internet. Like everyone just uses it. So I think a bit, I think about it a little bit differently because I think that Bitcoin itself is like a movement. Like it's like, it's a group of people. Like it's, if you're a Bitcoiner, like you're part of like your own country, it's just own nation on the internet that lives.

(28:21):
Like you think differently, you have a different culture, you have a different ethos.
So I think it's a little bit different than the internet in that sense.
I might be wrong here.
Mark has obviously been making content for much longer than I have and much more on a
much more successful level.
But yeah, it's a roller coaster ride, man.
And I just take one month at a time.

(28:42):
Walker, to me, it's like this, bro.
If I make payroll that month, I am super effing happy and I'm just taking it one month at
a time and you know it's it's it's great to be able to do this for a living i mean you're you're
damn good at it too like you probably didn't know this you have no way of knowing these things when
you're starting but it's i mean unless you're like really really super confident in you that

(29:05):
ability at that moment but like you have a gift for this right like you are very good at it and
that's obviously something that's also you've i'm you know i haven't seen your gamer videos from back
in the day obviously but like this is something that is practiced right like you you get better
I like I see this in myself I watch like older you know interviews that I've done or whatever and
it's like that's a little awkward you know but uh you you evolve you change you try to grow or at

(29:30):
least you should like you shouldn't stay stagnant but like you've grown this channel I think it's
super impressive like just I mean you're over 100k now just on YouTube alone you guys have also
started taking more of a focus on rumble and maybe something we can talk about is because like we were
just a rumble was, they obviously work closely with the plan B guys.
And you've had some interesting run-ins with YouTube to put it very gently,

(29:54):
but like, let's talk about that a little bit. Maybe that's,
it's probably a good time to do so because, and we're also,
we're live streaming this on Noster right now.
Shout out to everyone who is there.
You have a massive YouTube channel.
You have built a business around this YouTube channel. Yes.
You stream other places. Yes. And you stream to rumble X, whatever.
and you also stream on Noster for people who want to watch it there.

(30:17):
But YouTube is your bread and butter, right?
That's where you have the biggest audience.
That's where you're getting the most exposure.
I mean, given that you guys have been temporarily
or accidentally deplatformed a couple of times,
does that freak you out at all?
That's got to just not be cool.
Of course.
And the advice that I would give any Bitcoin YouTuber content creator

(30:40):
is that it will happen to you.
like it's inevitable that it happens to you um i don't think it's malicious i think it's
algorithmic like the you will say uh some key words in a certain amount of time and it will
trigger the algorithm and it will automatically default to banning you um and then if you have

(31:04):
enough clout on x and you make enough of a ruckus um someone from youtube support will notice
and they'll have a human actually review the algorithmic ban
and they'll reinstate your channel.
And I'm pretty sure, like there's no way to know this for sure,
but I'm pretty certain that they white label,

(31:25):
they put a little label next to your channel after that
and the parameters are a little bit wider algorithmically.
So it's not an auto ban, right?
But I think it's a rite of passage for every Bitcoin content creator
if you're on YouTube, you're going to go through that. It's happened to Bitcoin Magazine. It's
happened to Swan. It's happened to BTC Sessions. It's happened to Luke Mikich. At one point or the

(31:51):
other, if you make Bitcoin content on YouTube, you will get banned. And it is scary. But once you
survive the first one, it gives you a little bit more confidence. And again, there's no way of me
saying this for certain it's just my instinct and just my interpretation of it I'm pretty sure they

(32:13):
put a little label next to your channel after that but with all that being said it is kind of
scary man because like let's say you have a thousand followers on Twitter and let's say you
have 500 followers on YouTube or 2,000 followers on YouTube like there is absolutely no way you're

(32:35):
going to get your channel back. And I've seen that happen a lot, right? Like the people that
have gotten their channels back have been people that have sufficiently sized X accounts that
they're able to make enough of a ruckus where YouTube support on X actually gets a human to
look at the channel so they can reinstate it. But if you don't have enough, if you don't have a big

(32:59):
enough platform on X to make enough of a ruckus, you're not going to get that channel back.
It's gone.
Like they're going to default to the algorithmic ban and they say the algorithm was right.
So, yeah, man, it's scary.
Now, it's a little bit better with the Trump administration, right?
You know, with the previous administration, like there's, I'm not going to be very specific,

(33:25):
but like there's a lot of things that have come out so far that has shown that there was a lot of pressure put on social media companies to censor certain type of content.
and we know that the previous administration didn't appreciate Bitcoin very much, right?
So, yeah, I mean, it's not rocket science to put two and two together.
Now, I do want to give a shout out to Noster and to Rumble.

(33:48):
Rumble's a lifesaver.
The two days that we were banned and we weren't able to stream on YouTube,
our audience actually followed us on Rumble.
And that was like crazy to see.
Like, you know, like we, we, maybe we get like a hundred live viewers on a regular day on Rumble and on YouTube, we average between five to 500 to a thousand.

(34:12):
And those days on Rumble where we were live streaming on Rumble, we were getting like six, 700 live viewers on Rumble.
So that means that our YouTube audience, at least 75 to 80% of them were actually following us to the Rumble platform to watch the show.
and that to me like meant the world to me and those two days were like some of the best effing

(34:34):
shows because as you could see like i'm i you you self-censor a little bit you know once you get on
youtube like you start saying less curse words there's certain topics that you can't talk about
that we talked about on the train in lugano um but you know those were supposed to stay hidden
on the train we were supposed to leave them on the train so yeah it's just the nature of the it's

(34:57):
just the nature of the beast but unfortunately like if you're a content creator and you're trying
to build an audience you have to go on youtube like you there's no other platform where you're
gonna get that type of volume that type of searchability that type of potential to be

(35:18):
discovered with the other platforms like rumble you could do it it's just significantly harder
and Noster is just freaking awesome because it's like our doomsday bunker, bro. Like,
you know, like if one day for whatever reason, you know, governments start cracking down,
it's more unlikely now than it was two or three years ago. We know that we can just go here,

(35:40):
stream and no one's going to be able to take this down. But if you want to get your content out to
the normies and you want to be discovered and you want to build a business around creating content
and media, you have no choice but to post on YouTube.
Like you do not have a choice.
It's nearly impossible to do it on any other platform or protocol.

(36:01):
I think it is a fair point.
It's one that I've had to kind of come around to
because initially when I started this show,
I wasn't even going to do video.
I was just going to do audio.
Like I was like a podcast is a true podcast is just audio, right?
And I want this to be a true another fucking Bitcoin podcast.
And then I was like, well, but shit.
like it's hard to grow it like hard to grow an RSS feed like it's hard to get people you know to

(36:24):
to actually go there and sign up on their podcast platform of choice which people may as well use
fountain because it is at least run by bitcoiners who use Noster they're not paying me to say this
actually pay them to host with them so like you know that I really mean it when I say that it's
it's an awesome awesome product but I realized I was like if I want to actually reach outside of

(36:47):
the echo chamber because otherwise it's just going to be the people that find my rss feed are
going to be the people that saw it on nostr and people that saw it on x which is already limiting
myself to an echo chamber my goal with having this podcast is to try and educate as many people as
possible about bitcoin right that's why that's why you have your channels because you want to bring
bitcoin to as many people as possible so that you can also be signal amidst the noise of shit coins

(37:09):
because that's the other thing like i recently started an instagram account for uh for the
podcast and it's like you like you search bitcoin on there and it's just mostly just shit coin
shills it's just a bunch of like xrp shills and whatever else like they are inundating
instagram there if you go on youtube it's like it's mostly you know oh face like uh selfies of uh

(37:31):
or you know thumbnails of a lot of shit coin shills and crypto bros and everything and it's
like we need more bitcoin only content and you have to meet the people where they are
not where you want them to be. Yes, it would be great if everybody only watched this show on
Noster and only listened to it on Fountain or some other podcasting 2.0 solution. But that's
just not the reality because such a tiny, tiny fraction of people even own Bitcoin yet. Like

(37:56):
we're so damn early. And I feel like, let's talk about that a little bit because you've been in
this space longer than I have. It's still at every point in my journey. Like when I was first getting
started with Bitcoin, I felt that I was way too late. I was like, well, I've already, you know,
like, you know, 2020 is here. They're sending out checks to people, you know, stimmy checks.

(38:17):
I'm, you know, it's taking whatever I can, you know, from the money I'm earning, I'm putting
in Bitcoin, but like, I'm, I'm so late. Bitcoin's been around for so long already. Then we get here
to 2025 and I'm like, we're so early. Like the longer I've been in Bitcoin, the more early I feel,
not just because like you know i'm not some like og right like but eventually anyone who's if you're

(38:39):
buy bitcoin for the first time today you will be an og to the people 20 years from now they'll be
like i can't believe you bought bitcoin in 2025 wow that's amazing do you still have that feeling
does that that's when you share where it's like the longer you're in this the earlier you feel
just like and it becomes clear if you just talk to random people about this you just talk to the

(38:59):
normies like we're early yeah it's uh you know it's really interesting because so when i got in
um i knew people that got bitcoin when it was at a hundred dollars um a sub a hundred dollars i knew
people that were literally mining bitcoin with a cpu you know and um you know they were just

(39:24):
mining like you know the block reward at the time was 50 bitcoin and then it was 25 bitcoin and they
were just doing this at home right like none of them like sophisticated expensive mining equipment
that you have now and the block subsidy is like what like three three and something through 3.125
um and you know i knew people that were just like they had their laptop and they were just getting

(39:48):
50 Bitcoin rewards for finding a block. Right. Um, so when I got in, like, I thought it was late,
you know, I got in, you know, this, uh, the third quarter of, of 2016. Um, and I thought I was late.
I was like, I'm buying this thing for, you know, like five, six, $700. I'm like, what am I doing?

(40:10):
um and if i can go back to my previous self and say nico like what like you're not doing enough
um like shaking that person i totally would um and i did a lot by the way like i i i hyper
obsessed for like four years like i would i would wake up in sweats like what can i do to

(40:34):
accumulate more Bitcoin. Um, and, but I, but if I knew what I knew now, which was, you know,
Bitcoin would be sitting at 107,000 peaked at 126,000. If I could tell my younger self,
you know, many, many years ago, Hey, Nico, like, this is where it's going. Like,

(40:55):
you know, I, I think I, you know, maybe I, perhaps I would have done more. Right.
and I think that's the experience that a lot of people are going to feel like
we're sitting at 107,000.
Bitcoin's been a little bit of a stable coin this year,
but you know,
I think in five,
10 years from now when our kids are up more,

(41:19):
our kids are,
are older and you know,
they're,
they're making full sentences and they're talking and you know,
they're going to school and they're having personalities and we're getting
gray hairs and, you know, Bitcoin's at, uh, you know, a couple million dollars per coin.
Um, you're going to be having the same thoughts. You're going to be like, dude, like I remember

(41:41):
when the bottom of the bear market in 2022, Bitcoin was at $16,000, like whole, like,
oh my God, like, I can't believe, like I had the opportunity to buy it then. Or,
or Bitcoin was at $107,000. Like, I can't believe I had the opportunity to buy that.
you're going to be thinking that when Bitcoin's at, you know, a million dollars per coin,

(42:02):
two million dollars per coin, three million dollars per coin, five million dollars per coin,
10 million dollars per coin, you're going to be thinking about the times that you were able to get
at a hundred thousand dollars per coin. That's no doubt in my mind that's going to be the case. So
to kind of add to your point, you know, are you early in the sense that you're going to,

(42:22):
this is a lottery ticket and you're going to become super wealthy in a very short amount of
time. No, I think that train has definitely passed. Are you late in the sense that Bitcoin isn't going
to dramatically change your life financially compared to where you are now? Absolutely not.

(42:43):
What I tell people is like, look, if you buy Bitcoin and you do it in a disciplined fashion
and you do it for four years.
So you take a percentage of your paycheck
and you put it into Bitcoin
and you do it every single month
and you do that for four years straight.
Add that together and multiply it by 10, right?

(43:07):
And it will blow your mind.
And it doesn't even need to be a big amount, right?
It could be like, you know, $100 a month.
That's $1,200 a year, right?
$1,200 multiplied by four.
I'm terrible at math.
You know, whatever it is.
like what? $4,800, right? Multiply that by 10. That's $48,000. Like where else are you going to

(43:28):
get that? And then let's say you wait eight years, right? Multiply that by 20, right? Now you're
talking about half a million just because you put a thousand dollars away or sorry, a hundred dollars
away, you know, every month and you saved $1,200 a year and you did that for four years and then

(43:51):
you did that for eight years and then you know you have half a million dollars right like that's
that's what and then there's nothing on the face of the planet that can give you that type of at
this point in bitcoin's history that type of opportunity there's nothing else like the s&p
is not going to do it for you um like unless you're putting it in nvidia or something and like

(44:14):
again but it's highly speculative right so like nvidia is doing good what if the ai bubble pops
like you never know. I could tell you that it's infinity divided by 21 million.
So that was a very long-winded
answer to your question, but no, I don't think we're late at all.
I still think we're early. And even when Bitcoin's

(44:36):
at a million dollars per coin, where else are you going to put your savings?
Are you going to put it like what? You're going to give it to a guy, Goldman Sachs, that charges you a percent
and he's going to beat the return that Bitcoin's going to give you on a yearly basis where you don't have
to pay anyone else and you don't have to give up your custody of it? No, of course not. So like,
it's like, I'm going to be buying Bitcoin at $10 million per coin because we're also,

(44:57):
you're going to park your wealth. Like there is nothing else. Like you're going to put it in real
estate. Okay, fine. You put it in real estate. You have to pay the property tax. You have to pay
maintenance, right? Something like, it's like, if you use that real estate as a rental property,
you have to deal with tenants, right? Okay. So you have to deal with that. Then, okay. You put it in
the, um, you put it in the stock market. Let's say you put it in the NASDAQ, you put it at S&P
500. Okay. It gives you what, you know, a good year, five to 10% return. If you adjust that for

(45:24):
inflation, you're treading water, right? You're literally treading water in terms of your
purchasing power, right? So nothing's going to give you what Bitcoin can give you. So yeah,
that's my answer to that question. That's a great rant. I mean, it's also like all of that said,
plus you can take it across any border in the world in your head and no one can take it away

(45:46):
from you. Like all, all of that price appreciation, all of that, but you can send it around the world
24, seven, three 65, and no one can stop you from doing it. Like that's incredible. And I,
on the, the price piece, I think it's interesting because it's like with each order of magnitude
in Bitcoin's price growth, the prior all time high becomes a rounding error. So when you,

(46:11):
when you go from a dollar to $10, a dollar is, is, you know,
doesn't move the needle anymore. And like, by the way,
that is increasing like exponentially too. Right.
So then you go from $10 to a hundred dollars.
It's like $10 doesn't mean so much anymore.
A hundred to a thousand, same thing, a hundred. And then you go, you know,
start really getting up there.
It's like the difference between a hundred thousand dollar Bitcoin and a

(46:33):
million dollar Bitcoin moving an order of magnitude.
It's like a hundred thousand dollars, whether it's, you know,
0.9 million or 1.1 million or 1.0 million. It's like a hundred thousand dollars isn't a very big
deal anymore, you know? And so it's like our perspective shifts constantly and we'll continue
to shift. And I think you're right. And that's something that people as like to shift focus to

(46:55):
like the, you know, the current market sentiment, it's like, everybody is seeming super weirdly
bearish or whatever, because Bitcoin has been kind of just like a stable coin, like you said.
And I think that's because people still, they expect Bitcoin to just like, to just make them instantly rich.
Like, especially if you just got in, you're expecting this to just snap your fingers.

(47:16):
You bought Bitcoin.
All right, where's my ticket?
You know, ticket to the, to fancy town or I don't know, wherever you go when you, when you get super rich.
But the reality is that it's like, if you miss those couple of days in the year where Bitcoin does make those violent moves, you miss out on all its gains.
And there's only like a dozen or something of those in the whole year.

(47:36):
And so your advice is like, look, just stack sats consistently.
Try to create value.
Try to bring in as much fiat as you can and pump that into Bitcoin.
Because you will look back and think, fuck, I should have been stacking harder.
Like I should have been stacking harder.
I don't know.
What are you seeing right now in the broader market?

(47:59):
And I hate asking questions like this.
But like, I'm genuinely curious from the perspective of like, what's your vibe on everything right now?
To me, I'm insanely bullish right now.
And everybody seems to be just like, like Bitcoiners are fighting amongst themselves, which I've come to realize that's a symptom of Bitcoin's being boring or Bitcoin's not doing well.
Then Bitcoiners start fighting themselves instead of fighting the central bankers.

(48:20):
Like, what's your vibe check right now?
I love vibe check questions.
Yes.
So what's the, so the vibe is this, right?
um bitcoin has a way of of or at least my vibe um bitcoin has a way of like taking your
expectations and grounding and pulverizing them into very fine particles um and this year

(48:42):
is the year after the having so historically what tends to happen to bitcoin the year after the
having is it tends to have its most uh parabolic year or parabolic yeah parabolic performance
that has not happened this year so a lot of people right now are getting bored to death

(49:03):
because essentially when trump was inaugurated the price of bitcoin was 109 000 today when we're
recording this right now price of bitcoin is 106 887 that means in 10 months they were 10 months
older bitcoin has literally gone sideways and you know there's some been some valleys and peaks along
the way. But in the grand scheme of things, it's just been a stable coin, right? So that's very

(49:29):
strange for Bitcoiners. Bitcoiners have not been used to those types of markets. We've been used to
markets where you've had retail-driven mania phases, right? The first one that I remember,
of course, being 2017, where the January, the price was around $1,000 and December said $20,000.

(49:51):
That's 20x. And then the 2020-2021 bull market, you know, it went from, I think it was like 3,500, which was the bottom, to 69,000, which is insanity, right?
And this year, this cycle, it's been very strange because 2023 was fantastic.

(50:14):
2020-24 was pretty good as well.
But we've gone from 16K to 126K over a span of three years.
But the third year, nothing's really happened, right?
So I tend to look at markets where the exact opposite happens to what everyone is expecting.

(50:38):
And what I saw this year, and I was guilty of that myself, of course,
I was very excited when Trump was inaugurated.
What I saw this year was the expectation that Bitcoin was going to go bananas.
And everyone thought it.
It reminded me of like 2020 where everyone thought that Bitcoin was going to hit 100,000 because Plan B was posting these videos on Twitter and on YouTube and 100,000 was guaranteed and we peaked at 69K and then we went down to 16K, right?

(51:16):
Like that's what happened in 2021.
This cycle, what is happening in 2025?
the exact opposite of what everyone was anticipating,
which was everyone was anticipating a run-up.
We never got a run-up.
It just went sideways.
And now what I'm seeing is that everyone is basically,

(51:36):
everyone and their mother, the sentiment right now is horrible.
It's very, very bad.
And it's very, very bad because everyone's,
if you've been in Bitcoin for a while, you're a dopamine addict.
Those parabolas are very, very addicting.
and no one's got a dopamine hit since 2021.
So people have been fiending for this for four years

(51:57):
and nothing's really happened in terms of that final parabola,
that final blow-off movement.
Now people are basically calling for the end of the cycle,
saying like, look, we peaked in October, it was 2026,
and now it's over, now it's done because of the cycles,
the cycles, the cycles, the cycles, the cycles.
You know, Bitcoin's a four-year cycle, it's set in stone.

(52:19):
But there's only three data points for that, right?
Like what would happen if it's January or February of 2026 and the Bitcoin price keeps going up, right?
Like that would catch everybody off guard.
No one would expect it.
Everyone would be like, no, but that's impossible because of the Bitcoin cycles, right?

(52:42):
But, you know, for you to have this 60 to 70 to 80% correction, you need to have a mania phase. And we haven't had it. Like if you look at the infamous Wall Street cheat sheet, right, that we talk about all the time on Simply, which is, you know, it's like disbelief, hope, euphoria, you get this kind of euphoric, like euphoric run up.

(53:04):
and I don't want to hear it from people that say,
no,
Nico,
that not going to happen because Bitcoin is a trillion market cap And it not going to happen Nico it it too large of a market cap And I like dude shut the fuck up Look at what happened to gold Gold literally went parabolic and it as a it a trillion market cap So shut up Like I don want to hear that Like that bullshit

(53:26):
right? That's cope. So we, we haven't, we haven't been in a bull market in 2025.
That's a very tough pill for people to swallow, but it's a fact. Bitcoin's gone sideways
and potentially in 2026, you might have a continuation of this bull market movement.

(53:48):
You might have a continuation of the price continuing to go up,
and that might end up in some type of parabola.
But we haven't experienced that yet.
We haven't been in a bull market since 2023 and 2024.
2025 was not a bull market.
I don't care what anybody says.
I know that people try to spin it and the people that send newsletters and they're like, it's been performing amazingly.

(54:12):
And again, these people are my friends, so I'm not trying to point anyone out.
But it's like if you just look at the data, Trump, the inauguration day, Bitcoin price was $109K.
Today, 10 months later, almost 11 months later, Bitcoin is at $106,755.
That's not a bull market, bro.
That's not a bull market.

(54:33):
If anything, we've gone down.
Just a little bit, but we've gone down, right?
So yeah, man, that's kind of like the vibe check right now that I'm feeling on X.
Just people are bored out of their minds.
I think it's on purpose.
I think since the institutions and Wall Street got involved, I think they're trying to shake
people out of their bags.
I think they're trying to get your Bitcoin.

(54:55):
And I think they're trying to get your Bitcoin the way that Wall Street knows how to get
people's stuff, which is bore you to death and get you to sell your Bitcoin for more
speculative assets because you think it's going to outperform Bitcoin. And then before you know it,
you end up with less Bitcoin. I think that's what's happening, not financial advice.

(55:16):
There's no way for me to know this. I'm not a fortune teller. Anyone who tells you otherwise
is lying. But that's the vibe I'm seeing right now. The main consensus is we're going to have
a blow off top at the end of the year and 2026 is going to be a bear market. But Bitcoin has shown
historically that the main consensus is always fucking wrong.

(55:39):
So I don't know, man, strap on. We'll see what happens.
I think you mean strap in, but strap on too. That's fine.
I said strap on cause I'm with you. So yeah, sure.
No, I think that's fair. I mean,
the other thing to point out is that like there you talked about people that you
knew coming up in Bitcoin, right? That had been,

(55:59):
We're mining Bitcoin on CPUs, right?
Insane.
We can't even conceptualize this now with the complexity of ASIC rigs and public Bitcoin mining operations now.
But if you think about this, there are still massive, massive whales out there.
So many of them.
It's hard for us to conceptualize.
We saw a couple of them liquidate a lot of coins at multiple points earlier this year.

(56:19):
What was that one cell?
Like 80,000 or something, 80,000 Bitcoin.
I can't even wrap my brain around that.
that that's that's mind-blowing and those coins have been sitting there for many many years so i
think there is a lot of that happening too like for you know a lot of people who held from a couple
dollars or mined it for free on a cpu or a gpu they're like yeah okay i'll sell some corn over

(56:45):
100 over 100 000 us dollars yeah like why not i've got thousands of them so i think you do see a lot
of that i think also yeah there's going to be wall street games that get played because this is uh
we're swimming in a different pool now, right?
There's different players here
and they are paying attention.
Like they are undoubtedly paying attention.
I love that I was watching your show.

(57:07):
You were live on Simply Bitcoin
right before you hopped on here.
You know, the life of a podcaster is a tiresome one.
But you guys were talking about that clip
that's going around of Jamie Dimon.
I don't even know what sort of summit it is or whatever,
but he basically does everything he can
not to say the word Bitcoin.
You know, he's talking about his JPM,
their JPM coin and, you know,
stable coins and blockchain technology, all of these kind of just buzzwordy type things.

(57:31):
And it's just funny because it's like, he knows, like he knows that Bitcoin is the one,
right? He's just doing everything he can not to say that because once a guy like that comes around
to it, it's like when, you know, BlackRock, Larry Fink came around to it. That's a big deal.

(57:51):
people pay attention to that in that fiat world in that wall street world and bitcoiners pay
attention to it we you know for different reasons but we pay attention to it and so it is interesting
i think we're going to see a lot of capitulation in the coming years from that trad fi world we're
already seeing it we're already seeing the more of an embrace of this and a lot of that i think

(58:14):
does come to the administration being more positive but then at the same time it's like man we've we've
been a stable coin this year, right? I'm still extremely bullish on what may happen the rest of
this year, but I'm also patient because it's like, I don't know, for me, I don't mind that Bitcoin
has been a stable coin. My DCA is hit. I've got DCA set up every hour of every day just for fun.

(58:36):
Why not? I'm trying to level that price out as much as possible. And so it's like, yeah,
this is great. My DCA keeps hitting. I keep stacking, keep trying to create value in this
world and bring in a little more fiat that I can use, try to earn in Bitcoin when I can.
And yeah, live a peaceful life and spend time with my family. And that's like, that's not so bad. So

(58:57):
we're going to get that mania again, I'm sure, but I don't mind a little bit of a break, you know?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, like you asked me a question about the vibes, right? And I think
what you've just described is something that I call Bitcoin Zen, which is I think what every
Bitcoiners should aspire to get to, which is this idea of, you know, stay humble, stack sats,

(59:25):
focus on your craft and, you know, don't play any games in terms of taking margin or,
you know, none of the shit coiner stuff, things to do. Just stay humble, stack sats,
make sure you have more Bitcoin than the day before and life is going to be okay. You know,
it really is um and like bitcoin has this way of like really um it really gives you this optimism

(59:53):
for the future that i think that the rest of the world is is just they don't even know this this
isn't even a even a possibility like one of the things that you hear in the united states is like
you always hear this it's like a like a narrative like the american dream is dead um yeah if you're
denominating in fiat, if you're denominating in Bitcoin, the American dream is thriving. Not only

(01:00:18):
is it the American dream, it's the worldwide dream now. Anyone could have the American dream,
live the American dream if they use Bitcoin as their unit of account. So yeah, man, I mean,
you know, one thing is the vibe on Bitcoin Twitter, on Bitcoin X, and for us content creators that
literally have to talk about Bitcoin every single day. And then the other thing is, you know,

(01:00:42):
reaching Bitcoin's end, which is, I think, you know, what, what, you know, I think what should
be the aspiration of, of, of a, of a Bitcoin, if you're, if you're just getting into this game,
everything's going to be fine. Just be fine. Don't play any games. Don't try to shit coin. Don't,
you know, buy things on margin, you know, like literally stay humble, stack sats,

(01:01:04):
do it for four years. You're going to realize it's a good idea and then do it for eight years.
and you're going to realize that you're in a much better financial position than you were
when you started, right? That's kind of like the rule of thumb that I get, tell everybody. And then
12 years, I don't know, I haven't been there yet. I'll let you know when I get there. But,
you know, again, it's reaching this Bitcoin's end where you literally don't care. And I've talked to,

(01:01:30):
you know, people that have gone into Bitcoin super early and we just hang out and we're just,
you know, drinking beer, smoking cigars. And I've talked to them and, you know, if the price gets
brought up, they're like, what's the price again? Like they don't even care. Right. Of course they
don't care because again, these are people that bought Bitcoin sub a hundred dollars. You know,

(01:01:51):
these are people that are buying Bitcoin, like 10, $20 per coin. Like do you think they give a shit
if Bitcoin goes from 120 K to 106 K to 80 K? Like they don't give a flying F. Right. So, you know,
try to reach Bitcoin's end, kids.
That's the goal.
Walker has reached Bitcoin's end.

(01:02:11):
Try to reach Bitcoin's end.
And I think your life will be much better for it.
It's good advice because it's a happier place to be
when you realize, I think that the switch that gets flipped
is when you're excited about the price going down
because it means you can buy a little bit more.
It means your fiat goes just a little bit farther

(01:02:31):
than it would have the day before.
and that's that's an exciting thing right because all of us again when you look back retrospectively
you're like i wish i would have bought more bitcoin when it was cheaper a dip is when it
is cheaper that that's literally like it's what you always beg for but then when it comes what do
you do you're oh you're bemoaning the fact that all bitcoin dipped and i just and i just bought

(01:02:52):
some yesterday when it was higher and if i would have just bought it today i would have had more
but it's like no this is your opportunity like this is your opportunity to buy at that time that
You said you would, you told yourself you would do it.
You promised yourself.
Yeah.
When Bitcoin dips, I'm going to, I'm going to buy more this time.
I'm not just going to, you know, sit on my hands or, you know, whatever, but it's like,
I don't know, but human beings were fickle creatures, right?

(01:03:14):
This is not me shaming anyone.
This is like a natural human response.
We want to buy when it's blowing off, when the top's blowing off, not when the bottom's
about to form.
Like that's what we do.
But if you can get past those human emotions, if you can find that Bitcoin Zen, like you
said, Nico, I think that that's like, that's what you should strive to get to be happy when the dip

(01:03:35):
presents itself because it's giving you an opportunity to save just a little bit more than
you would have to send your dirty fiat petrodollar cuck bucks, your, your, your war dollars just a
little bit farther or your Canadian monopoly money or your, you know, British monopoly money or any
of the monopoly monies around here. Uh, even the, you know, the, the Swiss monopoly money, it's,

(01:03:55):
it's still monopoly money it's just a little bit better monopoly money but you get to go a little
bit farther a hundred percent it's so interesting too about switzerland it's like if any country
could have perfected fiat it would have been them and they they almost got it right but they still
have like that one two percent inflation um even though they have like this crazy discipline and

(01:04:20):
stuff like that. And Bitcoin is still better, right? So yeah, man, it's really simple as that.
And Bitcoin really does give you this escape valve. It really gives you this opportunity to
live this life that you want to live. But again, it doesn't come free. You do have to pay your
price of tuition. It takes years of just disciplined stacking. And then eventually, like I said,

(01:04:46):
I think you're going to be in a much better financial position than where you were when you started.
And I will say this, like, you know, at $107,000, I still think that there's enormous upside, you know, left, right?
I truly believe we're going to hit, you know, $10, $20 million per coin.

(01:05:08):
And if you're in your 20s or your 30s, like Walker and I, like, you know, by the time we're in our 50s, right?
you know, or forties or late forties, like you're going to be good. You're going to be more than
good. Right. So like, that's an enormous opportunity that, you know, you might, and it's an ego thing.

(01:05:28):
Like I get it. Like, I understand, like I felt the same thing. Like, you know, when I started
stacking Bitcoin, like, it's like, no man, like I missed the boat. I know this person that bought,
you know, at $50, like I'm buying at 500 or I'm buying at a thousand or I'm buying at 10,000.
like I'm not going to do that like fuck that bro because you know this person bought whatever that's

(01:05:49):
100% your ego talking but if you like look at it from like first principles and if you look at it
from like just a pure non-emotional logical perspective like what is that a hundred thousand
dollars to ten million dollars and then a hundred thousand dollars to what twenty million dollars
what is that like a like a hundred x a 200 x like that will fundamentally fucking change your life

(01:06:14):
And I don't think that there's any other asset that's going to give you that type of return with so much certainty.
And I think that's the really difficult thing to swallow because from a risk-adjusted return, right now is the best time ever to invest in Bitcoin.

(01:06:37):
The early times, you've had to understand it was the wild fucking West.
This is what people don't understand, right?
Like a lot of the OGs, I would say about 50% of them lost the majority of their coins.
Because you have to understand they bought at a dollar, but they sold at 100 or they sold at 500.

(01:06:59):
And they thought they were making a fortune and they did.
They made like a 500X, right?
But they had no effing idea that it was going to go to, you know, 100,000.
And then you hear the stories. I've heard multiple stories. I've heard a story. I'm not going to name who he is, but I've heard a story of someone who got in super early. He had like 10, 20, 30,000 coins. He took 10,000 coins and he bought a one bedroom apartment.

(01:07:26):
you know and this was like back in the early 2000s i mean early 2010s right you know looking
back on that you're like that was a really bad fucking idea right and then i've heard stories
of people again like buying houses or buying a car um you know they spent 100 coins or 200 coins
or 300 coins or a thousand coins on these things but again they had no idea that it was going to

(01:07:52):
reach 100,000. Now we know Bitcoin has value. Like we know this thing's going to $10 million
or $20 million. So you know that if you sell your Bitcoin right now, there's a high likelihood that
you're probably not going to get it back. And there's a high likelihood that it's probably
going to buy you a lot more tomorrow or 10 years from now than it is today. Back in those days,

(01:08:17):
there was complete uncertainty like it's so easy to say oh my god i wish i got into bitcoin
in 2013 and 2014 and 2011 look even if you did get into bitcoin in 2011 you probably wouldn't
have it today because you have no idea the things that they went through in the beginning

(01:08:39):
there was legal uncertainty there was just uncertainty in general like bitcoin wasn't
a proven thing. There was no institutional interest. There was no legitimacy that it has
today. So people, you know, they got a quick 10 X or 20 X or 30 X, 40 X. They cashed out. They
thought they were geniuses. And then they, you know, they wrote into the sunset. I remember the

(01:09:00):
first time I actually bought built Bitcoin to buy something on the internet. Wink, wink.
It was 2015. It's 2015. I bought Bitcoin to buy something on the internet.
did I ever think oh I'm gonna use this and I'm gonna save it because this is the best money ever
no I used it as like I literally used it to transact right it wasn't until the year after

(01:09:25):
where it was like I'm gonna buy Bitcoin and you can't even call it say in 2016 would you
the idea of even calling it savings was ludicrous it was like it wasn't even a concept yet remember
there was no Bitcoin standard. There was no Bitcoin podcast. There was no, you know,

(01:09:46):
the bullish case for Bitcoin. There was none of that existed, right? Like you were operating in a
black hole. The only person who was making any type of content about Bitcoin was Andreas
Antonopoulos. Andreas was the only person on the face of the planet that was actually talking about
this and was actually talking about how good it was, what made it different, you know, what, what,

(01:10:12):
what made it stand out, its properties and all that stuff. And then of course, Max and Stacey,
nobody else on the internet that was well known that had any type of following, it didn't exist.
So you have to understand, like you didn't know what it was today. You buy Bitcoin,
you know exactly what you're buying, right?
So from a risk-adjusted return basis,

(01:10:35):
today is the best time, in my opinion, to ever buy Bitcoin
because the downside is extremely limited,
but the upside, you still have 100 or 200x left in this thing.
It's just going to take a little bit longer this time.
That was a great rant, by the way.
It's almost like you've done this before.

(01:10:55):
But no, like real talk, I think that's such a good point
because everybody wants to think, well, if I had known about it way back when,
I would have put everything I had into this and I would now be a, you know, a deca billionaire.
It's like, no, you wouldn't have.
First of all, you wouldn't have put everything you had into it.
Second of all, you wouldn't have held on to the majority of those coins.

(01:11:15):
To the people that did, like, wow, seriously, like you are a rare, a very rare breed that you were able to do that.
Because also like the tools, like the actual like technical tooling was nothing.
there wasn't you know 10 15 different hardware wallet companies you know like that that wasn't
exist like you you might have gotten it before there were mnemonic seed phrases like people

(01:11:36):
don't realize that wasn't even a thing at the start like that's why there's you know hard drives
with tens of thousands of bitcoins sitting in you know landfills places and people are like
shit you know what what can i do it's like you couldn't even take it in your head with you at
that point and so i think for people that's it's it's really important for them to understand it
like, look, you can't teleport back.

(01:11:57):
I forget if I think it was maybe American Hodel Hodel who said like everybody wants to
teleport to being an OG.
Like you can't do that.
And everybody tries to do it.
They try to do it with leverage.
They try to do it with shit coins.
They try to do it maybe with Bitcoin treasury companies.
And you want to do whatever you want with your money, right?
But understand that you cannot teleport back to being an OG.

(01:12:18):
What you can do is you can take your time and your energy, right?
and use it to create value now and use that to stack sats right now.
Because four years from now, sats will be more expensive.
And four years from then, they will be even more expensive and so on and so forth.
You might just want to get some in case it catches on
because at this point it is catching on, but we are still so early.

(01:12:40):
One of the charts that I love from Jesse Myers' Crosis, BTC,
is that total addressable asset value market, basically,
where it's like Bitcoin is $2 trillion or 2.2.
Let's round it to two right now.
The total wealth of the world is $1,000 trillion.
0.2% is where we're at right now.
Gold is, you know, what, 2022 right now or 24, something like that.

(01:13:04):
I'm forgetting because gold's been so volatile lately.
I don't know.
It doesn't seem like a very good store of value if it's so volatile, Peter Schiff.
We've got so far to go.
That's why, you know, it's tough.
I'm curious with you just because I'm thinking about, like, orange-pilling people now.
and it it was easier uh easier for some people harder for others after trump was like yeah i

(01:13:27):
like bitcoin like some of my buddies were like oh okay i just bought some bitcoin walker i'm like
like now like none of the podcasts i sent you did anything like all trump had to say was like
bitcoin good and you're in it's like okay but cool like i'm glad i'm so happy to hear that
other people maybe that's not going to be as much of a selling point you know the followers of
Elizabeth Warren, but like, do you still try, I mean, are, are all of your close friends and

(01:13:52):
family pretty orange pilled? Like, do you still have a, or do you still have like a separation?
Do you have some crew, like, you know, friends that you run with that like still think like
you're into this like funny little like magic internet money hobby thing. Like as someone
who's been creating for so long, I'm just, I'm curious. Yeah. I mean, look like from,
I used to be very militant in terms of trying to get people to,

(01:14:15):
you know,
buy Bitcoin.
And then the realization I've come to is like,
you can show people the door,
but they have to open it themselves.
That it's as simple as that.
Like you can literally show someone the bridge,
but they have to cross the bridge themselves.
And what the most,

(01:14:36):
the most efficient way of orange peeling someone in my experience has been planting the seed
and then watching the seed do its thing. And then what do I mean by that? So you tell someone about
Bitcoin and then the price runs up, right? So you tell them, you know, let's say the price is at like,

(01:14:59):
you know, it's a $10,000, right? And you told them when it was a $10,000 and then the price
runs up to 50 or $60,000, they're going to start fucking listen to you when that price 5X on them.
Even though you told them at 10,000 and then they see it at 50,000, they're going to listen to you.

(01:15:22):
And the price goes up to 100,000. They're really, really going to listen to you. So for my friends
and family, the only one that I haven't been able to orange pill is my friend that works at Goldman.
but I think that there's a deeper meaning there.
But basically every single other one of my,
like my high school friends, my family,
my immediate family, my parents-in-law, anyone.

(01:15:47):
Every single person I've been able to orange pill
and it's been the same pattern every single time.
I told them about this when it was a whole lot cheaper.
They dismissed it.
They called me crazy.
They thought I was stupid, et cetera, et cetera.
and then number go up and then number go up, kept doing number go up. And they're like, oh,
you know what? Okay. This kid I've got, I've gotten to the point Walker. We're like,

(01:16:10):
I've literally had people take me out to lunch and apologize and say, I'm sorry. I should have
listened to you. Right. Because they kind of feel guilty. Cause they're like, wow, I've really made
him feel like shit. Or I may really made him feel bad. Or I called him crazy or called him whatever.
and then you know they finally realize it like you know he was right right and you keep hearing

(01:16:32):
that again it's like i should have listened to you you're right and then i think the most
satisfying thing to me is um the friends and family that you've brought on along the way
and they've you know been in bitcoin for a cycle like they've been in bitcoin for like four years
and you know that they've you've brought them along the way um you know they're like

(01:16:55):
Nico, this has changed my life. Like, this is crazy. Like, I cannot believe this. And it's
because they've held, right? Like they've just held, they're saying stuff like end the Fed.
They're saying stuff like fuck fiat. They have no idea what any of that means. They still call me
to like spend their Bitcoin. You know, like they'd still don't know how to use a hardware wallet,
but they're hodling that shit. Right. So, you know, like that to me is extremely satisfying,

(01:17:19):
but does I answer your question? The most efficient way and effective way of orange
pilling someone is planting the seed, telling them one time, they'll remember the price when
you told them. They'll all, they always remember the price. And then coming back a couple of years
later, seeing the price double, triple, quadruple, you know, five, six, seven X where, where, where

(01:17:43):
it was when you initially told them. And then that's when they like, they're like, okay, you
know what? All right. I'll get some, this is probably a good idea. You know, it never fails.
That's literally how it's happened to me every single time.
But you can't force someone.
You cannot force someone.
This is something that I wish I knew in the beginning because it would have saved me a ton of time and a ton of energy.

(01:18:06):
And it was actually fucking Satoshi who said this, right?
It's like, look, I don't have time to explain this to you, right?
Like, I don't have time to explain this to you.
You know, maybe it's a good idea to get some just in case it catches on.
Like, those quotes are so prophetic.
Like they were so deep. I didn't, I didn't even like, you know, there were so, there were simple phrases, man. But like, it was so on point because I spent so much time and energy trying to force people into taking the orange pill when they weren't ready to take the orange pill.

(01:18:42):
they just weren't ready for where they're where they were at in their lives as an individual
they were not ready to take the orange pill and understand the benefits of bitcoin and understand
what being a bitcoiner is right like they weren't ready for it as human beings right but as as time

(01:19:04):
goes by you know they start to question and bitcoin has this very interesting i've been on a tangent
But Bitcoin is this very interesting thing, Walker, where you hold Bitcoin, and just by the mere fact of you holding it, it changes who you are.
You start to ask questions about life, about money, about government, about the state, that you would have never have asked if you weren't holding Bitcoin.

(01:19:30):
Right?
So Max Keiser has the quote, you don't change Bitcoin, Bitcoin changes you.
Right?
That is extremely true.
so you know again some people have been living in the fiat matrix their entire lives
and here you are basically telling them like look like i have the solution for you and it not about voting for the guy on the left or voting for the guy on the right it not about the red party the blue party It literally about opting out of broken money I have the solution for you

(01:20:01):
It's super fucking easy. You don't even have to wait to vote for somebody.
And in my experience, the majority of people, they just don't want to wake up from the fiat
matrix. They're not ready for it. They will be. Eventually they wake up. But initially when you
tell them they're just not ready. First of all, this is always a safe space for tangents, rants,

(01:20:25):
digressions, anything, always a safe space for it. So they're always welcome.
You're spot on. And it's a, I think that's a realization, like, cause I've talked to a lot
of big winners about this who have been in longer than I have. And a lot of them, you know, when I
was kind of going through my like evangelism phase, when it like my IRL evangelism phase,
because obviously now I'm an internet evangelist.

(01:20:46):
But when I was going through that phase,
a lot of the people I talked to that have been around for longer
were kind of like, yeah, you'll get over that.
And I'm like, no, I won't.
I need to make sure that I drill it into everyone's heads
at every possible chance, every party I go to.
There's a reason it's the meme, you know,
like your wife being like, don't talk about Bitcoin.
Except for me, it's also like my wife's doing it too, you know?
So like we're both, like there's no one to tell us to shut up about it.

(01:21:07):
We're both just going in.
But, and then you get to a point where you're like,
fuck this has worked a couple of times but it really hasn't worked that much and it goes back
to what you said where it's like you can get like you can give someone an orange pill right you can
say here you go here's this thing you can take this when you want to you cannot force them to
take it like you know yeah you wait long enough they'll be taking this appository but still like

(01:21:30):
you know whatever the turn of phrase you want but like you can't force them to take it they have to
want to do it because if they don't actually want to do it and they do buy then what's going to
happen is, and they're not, they're not ready for that yet. They're going to end up selling it the
first drawdown at a loss, blaming you for it and say, well, I'm not touching that thing again.
Like that, you know, thanks a lot, Nico. Thanks a lot, Walker. Like I just, I just lost some

(01:21:53):
fiat petrodollar cuck bucks on that advice. Like that was terrible. So it's like, you know,
you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it by Bitcoin. Like you just gotta,
you gotta let people know, Hey, I'm, I'm, I'm here. Like I'm, I'm into this thing.
if you want to talk about it, I'm super happy to do so and will answer any questions you have.
And that's what I found is one of the, once somebody starts really asking questions,

(01:22:15):
like let them do more of the talking. What do you know about this? What do you think?
What's your understanding of this? Cause like, I get it. It can be super confusing.
Nobody understands it at first. I sure didn't. But giving people that space to just ask questions,
I think reveals a lot and ultimately makes them a lot more comfortable with it. And like,
especially for like close friends and family like why are we shilling them bitcoin because we care

(01:22:39):
about them and we found this thing that we know can make their lives better because it made our
life better but like those are the people that you really want to make sure you know you want to go
with the foot in the door technique not the door in the face you know but it's tough because you're
stoked about this and you want to tell them how fucked everything is and how this is this solution
but turns out not everybody's ready to hear that yet and that's okay you know yeah just takes time

(01:23:00):
yeah it reminds me of the meme of you know the the guy with the grill and you know and he was
like that's cool did you see the game this weekend like that's the game last night yeah exactly it's
like that's literally what it reminds me of now i've gotten to the point where like you know i got

(01:23:22):
invited to a really good friend of mine his wedding and it was a beautiful wedding like italy and it's
just beautiful and I and I haven't seen them like you know and these are kids that I grew up with in
high school right I haven't seen them in a while and you know like you know I remember like four
years ago I would hang out with them and all I would do is just talk about Bitcoin and I would

(01:23:45):
like look back on that I'm like dude that must have been so fucking annoying so like now I hang
out with them and I literally just shoot the shit like I I'm just a normal human being like whatever
and they'll say, hey, you know, how's the Bitcoin thing going?
I literally force myself to pivot the conversation away from it.
And they'll be like, why don't you want to talk about it?

(01:24:06):
I was like, dude, this is all I talk about all day.
You know, like, I don't want to talk about this, you know,
and then I'll be like, business is doing good, you know,
but like I try my hardest to not be that guy in the party
that's like, you know, trying to force people, you know, force people into into taking the

(01:24:27):
orange pill.
I've showed it to them.
I think that's maybe maybe as a friend and as a family member, you could say that you
have a responsibility as a Bitcoiner to at least tell people what you know.
But again, man, like people are stubborn, dude.
Like people are just so used to the system like people.
It's just a convenience thing, man.

(01:24:49):
Like they've lived their entire system, their entire life with this perception of what money is and this perception of how society should be and how society runs and what the role of, I think this is the deepest question, Walker, by the way, in my opinion, because I think that we've already answered the question, what is money?

(01:25:10):
That question has been answered. I think that question was answered really in the last, you know, five years or so. Like so many good books like Lynn, Larry Lippard, Saif Adin, Michael Saylor, all his podcast. Like the question of what is money has been answered.
Now, the world has to wake up to the fact that that question has been answered.

(01:25:34):
But the question that I think is the most important, that has not yet to be answered, but I think is going to be answered, is what is the role of the state in society?
What is the role of the state in society?
As Bitcoiners, we inherently know that money can exist without the state.

(01:25:59):
If money can exist without the state, what is the role of the state?
And I think what Bitcoin has shown is that the state is going to try to justify its role as the gatekeeper of money, as the guardian of money, even though it's no longer necessary.

(01:26:20):
We've found a superior system.
We've found a system that has rules without rulers.
We found a system that is completely transparent.
We found a system that basically forces fiscal discipline, right?
And the state, you could see it.
It depends on the jurisdiction and whatever.

(01:26:41):
You see this by how Bitcoin's getting into politics, right?
Like this last election, Bitcoin played a huge role in it.
Like people don't realize this, right?
Massive.
So that question, I think in the next decade, it's going to be massive. And I think we're going to have two choices. Humanity is going to have two choices in front of it, right? It's going to have the choice of Bitcoin, which is peace, prosperity, opportunity, hope for the future, optimism.

(01:27:12):
and then the other side, which I call slavery,
which is central bank digital currencies,
which is just a continuation of the fiat system on effing steroids, right?
But those are the two choices ahead of humanity.
There is no in between.
They're trying to get rid of cash.
They're trying to get rid of cash.
Europe is force feeding the whole central bank digital currency thing.

(01:27:36):
So that's the fork in the road that we have.
So yeah, as a Bitcoiner, you have the responsibility
of telling people about Bitcoin.
You want to get as many people
on your side of the football as possible
before the game starts.
But, you know, that's really
the fork in the road for humanity.
Like, do we want our kid, Walker,
we just had kids, right?

(01:27:56):
Do we want our kids to grow up
in this dystopian fucking nightmare?
Because that's what central bank
digital currencies will enable.
Like, look, even in the United States,
Walker, you and I are both American.
despite the first amendment you know the previous administration was literally telling

(01:28:17):
social media companies to fucking censor the free speech of americans and then these are the same
people that are telling you oh listen trust me with central bank digital currencies bro we're
gonna respect your privacy go fuck yourself i don't trust you at all no fucking way in hell

(01:28:37):
right you don't deserve that trust you've abused that trust what you did in 2008 was a fucking
crime they destroyed the future the the opportunity that the millennial and the the gen z it was
completely stolen from us why do you think nobody can afford a house in our generations walker

(01:28:59):
it's because of the crime that happened in fucking 2008 and you know what i'm not buying the boomers
bags. I'm not fucking buying them. You want your overpriced homes? I'm going to rent that shit.
I'm not going to fucking buy it from you. Fuck that. I'm going to buy Bitcoin. My purchasing
power is going to increase over time. I'm going to be good. I'm just, you know, okay, let's say,

(01:29:21):
you know, my, my, you know, my net worth's gone up five X, whatever, because this Bitcoin's gone
up. I'll just upgrade to a new rental. I'll lock that in for, you know, two, three, four years,
whatever you know upgrade my lifestyle but do you think i'm gonna shill out you know like what
like what's the average home in america these days like 500,000 400 do you think i'm gonna shill out

(01:29:43):
four fucking bitcoin for that shit fuck you i'm not doing it right so anyways um i for completely
forgot what you asked me but it got me down this route i love it it must have been a good question
I forgot it too, man. I forgot it too. No, but okay. Fucking grade A rant. One of the things you

(01:30:04):
talked about that deep question, I think you're exactly right on that. The question of what is
the purpose of the state, right? What is the state's actual function? This is something I
think about a lot. I think about it very often because I, and I don't think most people,
most people don't think about this at all. And I'm very much of the view and that view has been

(01:30:25):
informed by the writings of people like Friedrich Bastiat, who I think summarizes this very well,
but this idea that the state has one purpose, one purpose, and that purpose is to enforce the law.
Okay, then what is the law? Well, the purpose of the law is to organize for the collective defense
of private property. That's what the law is there to do. The law is there to make sure

(01:30:47):
that when my neighbor Bob steals from me and he takes my cow, that I don't have to go over there
and beat the shit out of Bob and hang him from a tree and say, give me back my fucking cow, Bob.
Like, no, it's so that people who we have designated as, you know, enforcers of that law
can go to him and say, hey, Bob, you got to give that cow back. And by the way, we're going to,

(01:31:07):
you know, fine you, take you to jail, whatever, because you're a cow thief. And I don't have to
go there and get my hands dirty, right? I don't have to go there and enact violence on that person
because they violated my property.
So we are basically contracting out the ability to commit violence.
That's what it does.
Now, it sounds pretty bad.
It sounds like something that could really get out of hand if, you know,

(01:31:28):
the government, the body that is supposed to enforce that law,
that we're giving the blessing to commit violence on our behalf,
if they got too big, if their tentacles went too far,
if they got too bloated, that would be a really bad thing
because their only purpose is to enforce the law.
And the purpose of that law is to organize for the collective defense of private property, which means the government is supposed to protect us from people who would plunder our private property.

(01:31:53):
But the government has become the one who is plundering our private property.
They do it with taxation under threat of violence.
They do it with inflation without you having any say in it.
They are stealing your life.
They're stealing your life's work.
And there is nothing you can do about it.
There's nothing within the existing paradigm that you can do about it because the system feeds upon itself.

(01:32:16):
And it doesn't matter if it's Republicans or Democrats or red or blue or whatever color you are in your country.
They just make the government bigger.
Trump said he was going to shrink, you know, shrink things down, right, and cut all these things.
And like nothing was meaningfully cut, right, because as Lynn Alden says, nothing stops this train.
Fiscal dominance is here.
It's not going anywhere, right?
But the government's purpose has become completely perverted because the one thing that they're supposed to do,

(01:32:39):
which is protect us, protect our private property, they don't do.
They fail at.
And in fact, they take part in that plundering.
So like the state has failed in that respect.
Like that's all they're supposed to do.
Like this gets back to the beginning of the conversation with Bukali, right?

(01:33:00):
What has he done?
He has protected the private property of his citizens.
What is the most basic form of private property you have?
Well, it's your own body.
it's not getting killed right that's that's like before anything else before you worry about your
house or anything else you don't want you and your family to be killed by plunderers and el
salvador was full of plunderers you remove those plunderers that that's that's a good thing and

(01:33:24):
like i am very glad that bitcoin exists because bitcoin gives us some money that is not subject
the whims of the plunderers.
And it's especially like the random thief
can't take those words out of your head, right?
And neither can the government.
And they are the biggest plunderer of all.
And so when I said, you know,

(01:33:44):
there's nothing we can do from inside this system,
I mean that.
I don't think the system fixes itself from within.
If it could have fixed itself from within,
it would have fixed itself from within.
But it's a self-perpetuating, bloated, kleptocratic beast
that just devours everything in its path to grow larger.
the only way to fix it is to fix it from the outside to fix it from the parallel system that

(01:34:06):
we're building and that gives me a lot of hope because i see people like yourself like so many
bitcoiners we just saw in lugano we're actively building these tools that we need to exist in this
parallel system to be strong we have cryptography we have you know strong encryption we have bitcoin
we have peer-to-peer messaging that can't can't be censored we have no stir where we can live
stream and say, fuck you, YouTube, and they can't shut us down. That's a beautiful thing. That gives

(01:34:30):
me so much hope. There are many reasons to be despairing in this world. And if you didn't know
about all these other incredible, uh, these incredible tools of hope, like Bitcoin, like
Noster, like all these other incredible freedom technologies, you would be nihilistic. But when
you do know about them, yeah, you're realistic. You know how bad things are, but you're so optimistic

(01:34:50):
about how good they can be. And the fact that, yeah, it may get, it's going to get messy in the
short term undoubtedly but in the long run i think our kids are going to grow up in a better world
uh and a fairer more just world hopefully with much smaller governments that's the if i could
leave our kids one thing it'd be governments that are as small as is humanly fucking possible

(01:35:12):
we'll see yeah we'll see how far we get i think that's the utopian dream of what what bitcoiners
want and i think it comes down to you know again like the the issue the original founding
vision of the united states which was limited government and they did and they did everything

(01:35:35):
in their power by the way to set up a system where they realized that and they're they're
geniuses and again i'm this is coming from a first generation american like the american system
was set up in a way to protect the people from the government. It literally has been built that

(01:35:55):
way, structured that way. That's why the states have so much sovereignty. That's why the First
Amendment is what it is. That's why the Second Amendment is literally the right to have effing
guns, right? Like they did that on purpose. They did that because they knew that the state could
potentially become tyrannical, right? And then you put into the mix the state's ability to

(01:36:21):
literally fund itself through money printing, and you have what you have today in all of the
Western world, right? This is what you have today. And politicians don't feel like they have,
they don't feel like they don't need to, why would you feel accountable if all of a sudden,

(01:36:42):
And why would you feel like you're accountable to someone if your form, how do I say this?
Under a Bitcoin standard, your way of raising revenue, the only way would be through direct taxation.

(01:37:03):
Under a fiat standard, your way of raising revenue is hitting the money, like hitting the P button on the keyboard.
Boom, print, bomb, bing, bomb, boom.
This is where, because that's true.
Look, the United States, this year, this last year,
it spent $2 trillion more than it collected in tax revenue.

(01:37:26):
The GDP of El Salvador is $32 billion.
The United States spent $2 trillion, right?
That's more than the GDP of most countries on planet Earth,
just to kind of give you guys an idea of how big the deficit was.
How did they spend the, how did they do that?
They printed the difference.

(01:37:46):
So if politicians don't feel like they have any constraint whatsoever,
they can spend the money on God knows whatever they want.
People don't believe that they're getting taxed because the money in their
checking account looks, it's like, Oh, it's, I have a hundred dollars.
They don't realize it's,
it's now $80 because of the amount of money they printed.
So it's this very insidious form of taxation that they use to fund themselves, pay themselves.

(01:38:17):
And then the secondary effect of that is the government gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
Now, here's the thing about the government.
The government isn't productive.
It doesn't make anything.
It doesn't produce anything.
The only way the government generates revenue, if you'd like to call it that, to kind of allude to what you were talking about earlier, Walker, is through what?

(01:38:40):
Plunder, taxation.
They're literally grabbing stuff from you to keep themselves alive, right?
So it becomes this like endless loop, man.
And this is where we are today.
And this is the thing that Bitcoin fixes because it allows you to opt out of that and say, listen, I just don't want to participate in this anymore.
Like, I'm not saying elections aren't important.

(01:39:02):
I think elections are extremely important during this transitionary period that we're living through.
But the most important vote you can make as an individual is not voting for Team Blue or Team Red.
it's literally voting what you're going to do with your money, your time, your energy,
and where you're going to put that into.

(01:39:23):
Is it going to be Bitcoin or is it going to be the monopoly money?
Because if it's the monopoly money, you're funding that said system that is stealing from you.
And it's failing in the most basic responsibility that it has.
That's the whole point.
We pay taxes.
We literally pay taxes for these basic fucking services.

(01:39:45):
And they can't even do that.
I mean, again, I love the U.S. because it's so diversified with each state.
Some states are run better than the others.
So there's competition, and that's fantastic.
But, you know, there's some states in the United States that they literally fail on the most basic fundamental thing,

(01:40:07):
which is just protect exactly what you said.
Protect just your body, just yourself.
They fail in that.
So then you got to ask yourself,
why the fuck am I paying all these taxes?
What are all these taxes for?
This is fucking crazy.
And the reason they literally hate Naim Bukele
and they call him a danger to democracy

(01:40:28):
is literally because he's showing to the world,
which is very dangerous for them,
that, hey, look, you can have a functional government
that fulfills the basic needs of the people.
Look at that.
How crazy is that?
Look, it is actually possible.
That's why they hate him.
That's why they fear this tiny country

(01:40:49):
with a $32 billion GDP.
That's why they tried to pass a bill
in the House of Representatives
that was going to look into El Salvador
and how El Salvador was a danger to democracy.
Completely ignoring the fact that you have Guatemala
that's on top of El Salvador.
That's a tyrannical country.
It's gone down the collectivist route.

(01:41:10):
You have Cuba.
You have Venezuela.
Let's completely fucking ignore these countries.
Let's completely ignore North Korea.
Let's completely whatever.
Let's focus on one of the most brilliant success stories that the Americas has ever seen in a country that shouldn't have that because it's a very small country.

(01:41:31):
It's a very poor country like El Salvador is still developing.
I love El Salvador.
I love what they're doing. That country is going to be like, it's, you know, like the meme that you see, like what your city would look like on a Bitcoin standard. It's all futuristic, right? Like that's what El Salvador is going to be in a decade. I have no doubt in my mind.

(01:41:51):
But you got to ask yourself, you know, why are they so hyper focused on this tiny little country? And the answer for that is simple, because they're doing it right. They're actually fulfilling the role of government. And for all these LARPing politicians that are not doing that, despite collecting the taxes, it makes them look bad.

(01:42:13):
And rather than, you know, adjusting their behavior, it's much easier to call Naim Bukele a fascist dictator.
That was maybe one of the best bring it full circle opportunities I've ever had in the show, Nico.
And you're exactly right.

(01:42:33):
Like they are scared.
Like power loves the status quo.
Ultimately, power needs the status quo.
It's what gives them their power.
They need to maintain that monopoly on violence.
They need to maintain that monopoly on the printing press.
We've separated money and state like Satoshi did that for us, which is amazing.
And we've kept it separate.
As long as Bitcoin stays decentralized and secure, money and state are separated, right?

(01:42:58):
That doesn't mean the state's not going to try and get its greedy little paws on your Bitcoin.
That doesn't mean they're not going to try and stack as much as they can.
Of course they will because Bitcoin's winning.
That's why every nation state, every corporation will eventually hold Bitcoin.
It's why every individual will want to hold Bitcoin.
But the great thing is that it doesn't matter how much, like they still can't control it.
And then that beautiful, beautiful Bitcoin game theory sets in where it's like, well, you don't want to screw up this thing that you hold a lot of.

(01:43:24):
And then that's a beautiful virtuous cycle.
And it's going to be really interesting to see what El Salvador looks like in the next 5, 10, 15 years.
It's already transformed.
if they can keep it that way, if they can keep our own CIA over here from getting in there and
trying to interfere, which I'm sure they, there's no way that they're not doing. You know, I think

(01:43:48):
that they're going to be, they already are a country that's on the up and up, but I think
that trajectory, uh, you know, they're going parabolic over there, but Nico want to be conscious
of your time. You've been, you've been streaming all day already. Uh, you know, a podcaster's work
is never done. I'm so glad we got a chance to do this, dude. This was a treat. People probably
if they're listening to the show already know where to find you,
but where do you want to send them anyway?

(01:44:09):
Just to,
just to make sure they get and check out your channels if they haven't
already.
Yeah.
You can find me just,
you could search simply Bitcoin and know whether on your podcast or your,
you know,
your platform of choice and you'll find us there.
And I'm super happy because I wasn't a Bitcoin podcaster and now I'm a
Bitcoin podcaster because I've been on the Bitcoin podcast.

(01:44:31):
So,
you know,
I'm glad to have you here.
You're welcome.
Open doors open anytime now,
now that we've gotten the ball rolling.
We need to have a podcaster's summit, I think.
You know, like a Bitcoin,
you can only go to this summit
if you're a Bitcoin podcaster.
We need to see your RSS feed, you know,
like let's make it happen.
Yeah.
Well, Walker, it's been an honor.
Thank you so much for having me
and I had a great time.

(01:44:51):
Really appreciate it.
The honor was mine, sir.
And thank you to everybody who tuned in on Noster.
Thank you for the folks that sent zaps.
It is very much appreciated.
This show live streams just on Noster
and the rest will be published afterwards.
And you guys didn't even hear the initial rant that actually allowed Nico to bring it full circle back to El Salvador.
So I guess you're just going to have to listen to it on Fountain as well.

(01:45:12):
And maybe even YouTube if you want to give those guys your eyeballs.
But Nico, thanks so much, dude.
Great seeing you.
And look forward to doing it again soon.
I know we'll see each other in El Salvador next.
So, yeah, looking forward to that.
Likewise, man.
Talk to you soon.

(01:45:34):
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin Talk episode of The Bitcoin Podcast.
Remember to subscribe to this podcast wherever you're watching or listening
and share it with your friends, family, and strangers on the internet.
Find me on Noster at primal.net slash walker and this podcast at primal.net slash titcoin.

(01:45:55):
On X, YouTube, and Rumble, just search at Walker America.
And find this podcast on X and Instagram at titcoinpodcast.
Head to the show notes to grab sponsor links, head to substack.com slash at Walker America to get episodes emailed to you and head to Bitcoin podcast dot net for everything else.

(01:46:15):
Bitcoin is scarce, but podcasts are abundant.
So thank you for spending your scarce time listening to the Bitcoin podcast.
Until next time, stay free.
Thank you.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}BITCOIN OR SLAVERY | Nico Moran from Simply Bitcoin