Would Mao Hold Bitcoin with Roger Huang | Bitcoin Infinity Show #157

In this episode, we welcome Roger Huang to the Bitcoin Infinity Show to discuss his insights on Bitcoin's role in China. We explore Roger's background, the intricacies of the Chinese economy, cultural and political nuances, and the potential impact of Bitcoin on Chinese society. Roger also delves into the country's history, its current geopolitical stance, and his perspective on the future of China.

Connect with Roger: https://x.com/Rogerh1991 https://bit.ly/chinabtcbook 

Connect with Us: https://www.bitcoininfinityshow.com/ https://bitcoininfinitystore.com https://primal.net/infinity https://primal.net/knut https://primal.net/luke https://twitter.com/BtcInfinityShow https://twitter.com/knutsvanholm https://twitter.com/lukedewolf

Join the Bitcoin Infinity Academy at our Geyser page: https://geyser.fund/project/infinity

You can also support us by sending some sats to our Alby Hub at [e-mail]

Thanks to our sponsors - check out their websites for info: BitBox: https://bitbox.swiss/infinity StampSeed: https://www.stampseed.com/shop/21m-titanium-seed-plate.html - Use code INFINITY for 15% off!  Bitcoin Adviser: https://content.thebitcoinadviser.com/freedom ShopInBit: https://shopinbit.com/bitcoininfinity - Use code INFINITY for a €5 discount! 

The Bitcoin Infinity Show is a Bitcoin podcast hosted by Knut Svanholm and Luke de Wolf.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Roger, welcome to theBitcoin Infinity Show.
thanks so much for inviting me.
I love, uh, love the show.
I've been watching some of yourrecent episodes, you know, saw
the episode with Francis and, uh,Madex, both Canadian Bitcoiners.
So yeah, much love and,uh, love to be on here.
Yes.
So, uh, Roger, you area fellow Bitcoin author.
We always love having those on.

(00:21):
Uh, and you are also a fellow Canadian,uh, even though I'm not a Canadian,
but, uh, this is Roger's book.
Would ma hold bitcoin?
And so, uh, uh, before we get intothat, I'd like to have a, a little
bit of background on you for thoseof our listeners who don't know who

(00:41):
you are or why you wrote this book.
So, so can you give usthe TLDR on Roger Huang?
Yeah, yeah, no, for sure.
So I was born in China but moved,uh, fairly early to North America.
But I would go kind of like back andforth between China and uh, Canada.
And uh, it was kinda likea very unique upbringing.
Now I realize, 'cause I was kind of,uh, in between both worlds a little bit.

(01:05):
and so I was really plugged into kindof different communities, whether that's
diaspora communities or just, communitieslike within China and things like that.
so I never quite lost my, uh,Chinese roots, but then I also
really had to clate to, you know,a new culture in, in Canada and.
And, um, yeah, uh, I startedgetting interested in Bitcoin,

(01:29):
I think in like 2012 or 2013.
So, uh, some of the, I mean, youhad Francis on, um, and he was
much more involved than I was onthis, but they had this like old
Bitcoin embassy in, uh, Montreal.
That was like a, that was a thing.
And I realized after the fact that Iactually met Adam back, um, 'cause he came
over to our, uh, there's like a coworkingstartup house called Notman House.

(01:53):
And one day I come in and there'sall these people like putting
aluminum on the walls and like,who the hell are these people?
Like, there's like scanningfor bugs and stuff like that.
And then, yeah, someone told meit was like the Blockstream team.
I was like, the Blockstreamteam, what is that?
And uh, yeah, like one of the originalco-founders of Blockstream is this
guy who ran like A ISB outta Montreal.
So, you know, Montreal actually hadsome, I. So pretty, that's where I

(02:16):
grew up and Montreal had some prettygood, uh, Bitcoin kind of bonafides
and I started writing about it in 2014.
Um, that was kind of Bitcoin, uh, for me.
And, uh, yeah, I've just been lookingto, I think you had mentioned something
about when you write, you know, youwere writing all these books and you
were writing all these articles anywaysand you decide to put them in a book.
And I feel like my progressionis like very similar.

(02:40):
I basically, was putting together thesearticles because I was trying to just
understand why I was so fascinated by it,you know, and um, then it got to the point
where I was just writing about it, uh,2018, I think I started with Forbes and
they gave me like a really broad latitudeand using the Forbes name, I was able
to interview a whole bunch of people.
and yeah, and then I wrote thebook, uh, would Mouth Hold Bitcoin?

(03:03):
I started writing that in 2022, I think,and I was doing some research for it.
I had went to Hong Kong actually duringthe protest and things like that,
to, to research for the book and alsojust to see what was happening with
the protests and things like that.
so yeah, that's the TLDR, maybe a littlebit too much tl DR, but that is the TL DR
So fantastic.
Would it be appropriate to say you wereping ponging between the two countries?

(03:24):
Yeah, no, of course.
And uh, I'm pretty goodat ping pong actually.
Uh, I hope
we can, I hope we can see this live.
But I was playing during, uh,adopting Bitcoin in El Salvador.
They had like a little, they hadlike the perfect setup for me.
They had a little ping pong table andthey had a poker table right next to each
other, so I would switch back and forth.
Oh, fantastic.
So, uh, as, as I hold, would ma hold,like, uh, the, the obvious question

(03:49):
is, would, would Mao hold Bitcoin?
What?
Do you have a yes or no answer to this?
I, I'm gonna hit youwith like a roundabout.
Uh, you know what's funny?
I gave Jack Dorsey a copy of the bookand he was like, that was his first,
yeah, everyone's first question islike, well, wouldn't mouth hold Bitcoin?
I'm like, well, I guess that'skind of like my fault for
choosing that as a title.
Um, originally, uh, so to give youa little bit of context to back up a

(04:12):
little bit, um, originally the bookwas called One Country Two Blockchains,
which no one would've understood, no onewould've understood, and also had the
word blockchain, which I actually hate.
and, uh, so the, to, to be fairto the Bitcoin magazine team,
they had a really good decision.
They were like, Hey, like, youshould probably change the title.
And I was like, okay, wellhere's like a couple of ideas.
And they really like thewood mouth hold Bitcoin.

(04:34):
Um, I think in hindsight I might'veactually chosen what she hold Bitcoin
'cause that's actually much more relevant.
but there is some cool things about heMao being on the cover, which is namely
that Mao is actually on all the paperbills in the, uh, Chinese state, right?
So if you look at the un, uh, it's Mao'sface, um, also, super cipher punk, at

(04:56):
least in my opinion, defacing Mao's,uh, face is kind of a crime in China.
Um, so my book is, I don't think aloud.
Yeah, I've had that comment several times.
Like, uh, people have been liketrying to read it in the mainland.
Um, and they will notbring it across the border.
I. it's like a little bit tooobvious, like the Chinese sensors.
Yeah.
It's got, well 'cause it'sgot 'em with the laser eyes

(05:17):
Yeah, I just saw the laser.
mouse face, which was kind of like a, itwas kinda like a cheeky little reference.
But anyways, um, so the actual questionitself would mouth hold Bitcoin?
I don't really actually address it thatmuch in the book, but, um, thinking
through it, I mean obviously the onething I was trying to go with, with
the title to really get across was howmuch China has, um, changed and still

(05:41):
remained the same in some ways, like howthe party has, uh, always had the power.
Um, it's just replacing the figureheads,but the figureheads actually do have some
substantive differences with each other.
So unlike Mao, uh, she reigns over a Chinathat is in position now that has some
level of markets, uh, per se, althoughunder the complete control of the party.

(06:05):
Ways.
Um, and so, you know the question, wouldshe hold Bitcoin is much more ambiguous
and would ma hold Bitcoin is a littlebit more like hearkening back to the old
times where, you know, killed a lot oflandlords, killed millions of people.
There was famine andeverything related to that.
there's also an interesting kindof thing where I think Mao would
hold Bitcoin when he was a rebel.

(06:25):
People forget that he was fightingthe caves for a very long time
against the nationalist government.
And one thing I do cover in thebook is that part of the reason
why the nationalist governmentlost was because of inflation.
I have this presentation where, youknow, there's this, uh, girl holding the
equivalent of 10 USD and Chinese currencyat the time when the nationalists ruled.

(06:46):
And that 10 USD was worth, like, I thinkit was like three, like 444,000, the, uh,
the Chinese monetary unit at the time.
And so that helped Mao and, andone of the first things he did.
Kind of strange for a communist,or maybe not, maybe this aligns
perfectly, is he actually createdthe People's Bank of China.
That was actually one of the firstthings he did was he unified all

(07:06):
the, uh, regional kind of centralbanks into the, uh, people's
Bank of China that we know today.
And that prints currencyunder his kind of face.
So would Mal hold Bitcoin?
The answer I usually give is yes.
As a rebel, no, as a blood thirsty.
Yeah, that clears things up.

(07:27):
I, I think it also depends on when inbitcoin's, not only in Mao's personal
history, but when in Bitcoin's history,like the likelihood that he would hold
Bitcoin if he was allowed, uh, alive inthe year 2100, for instance, instance, is
way higher than if he was alive in 2015.
I mean, some other people havegiven me some pretty interesting

(07:48):
answers to that, um, which shout outto people like, other than me for
thinking about this much more deeply.
Um, but yeah, like, you know, uh, Ithink there's this idea of like, some of
this is like she's dilemma route, right?
Like Bitcoin is like a part of, andit's this weird intersect between like
state power and also like free freedomtechnology right now at this point, right?

(08:11):
With what's happening in thestates and everything like that.
So you almost have China, China'sstill holding some amount of
Bitcoin, by the way, from theseizures they had of, uh, plus token.
We'll get into thatmaybe a little bit later.
But, now you see that Bitcoin has likekind of gone into the game of global
geopolitics to a certain extent.
And so I certainly don't think Maocould have ignored Bitcoin even

(08:33):
now, and I nevermind Bitcoin in2,100 at the point where like, you
know, I think a lot of current fiatcurrencies today may not exist, right?
And then Bitcoin still persists.
So certainly not a force to be
ignored.
No.
Uh, okay.
Uh, the, so I want you to educate me abit about how much, how total the total

(08:55):
control in China actually is, becauseI've heard different, uh, voices,
describing China from the inside.
And one, uh, view I've heard, uh, quitea bit is that if you are small enough
of an entrepreneur, so if you're sellinglike, fruit on the street or something,
then the government leaves you alone.
It's, it's when you're above acertain threshold, they come and

(09:16):
instantly like, take over and it'sstate run from then on, basically.
So, so what's you, your view on that?
Can you gimme like the, the, um, uh,one-on-one on, on the Chinese economy
and how totalitarian it actually is?
Yeah, no, um, no.
Happy to.
Uh, I think first, like I have toadmit, like, so I visited China and

(09:38):
I would go quite frequently, right?
But I've never workedfor a Chinese company.
So I've always worked remotely forAmerican or Canadian companies,
even when I was in China.
So I don't like have as much,you know, direct interface with
like government restrictions.
I've never tried torun a company in China.
I know a lot of people who do havelike their stories and stuff like that.

(09:59):
But just something to keep in mind,uh, as I'm going into this perspective.
'cause everyone's perspective willkind of be a little bit different
because a Chinese state is verymultifaceted and different people
have different experiences in general.
What I've seen is that if youare, um, there is a level, I
think this would surprise people.
There is a level of, I wouldsay like badassery to a certain

(10:21):
extent among like Chinese.
People that, uh, would, youwould think would be surprising?
Like, just to give you a quickexample, like there's tons of different
videos of like shop owners, whenthe cops come in, shop owners are
like, get the fuck outta my store.
Like, what are you doing here?
So like there, it isn't as a cleanof a story as like, oh my God, we
live in a totally Orwellian society.
The police has all power over everyone.

(10:43):
Like you can quite easily see videoclips of like small shop owners, right?
Like coming, like beratingcops, like telling them to leave
and like all this other stuff.
And it's like there's a little bit oflike a rule breaking, like rebel spirit
among I think some entrepreneurs.
but I will say that at the upperlevels or like if you're trying to

(11:04):
do any serious level of business, itusually has to go through the party.
and that means any number of things.
It means like, you know, dinners,uh, which are effectively kind
of, in my opinion, bribes.
Right where you are.
You know, like one of the mostvaluable companies in China by
market Cap still might be the same.
One is are the producers of mata,which are sort of like this, like, uh,

(11:29):
it's like this white, uh, uh, wine,alcohol, uh, it smells like tire gas.
It's like 88% alcoholcontent or something.
I don't know.
Like if y'all, one of the favorite thingsI've seen people do is like, Chinese
people will try to trick foreigners tothink it's water and they drink like a
few, and then they're just, they're gone.
But, um, it's also kind of likean informal index for bribery or

(11:50):
corruption because they're kindof like the favorite gift to give.
You have these like, extravagant bottlesthat are worth like tens of thousands
of, um, well un and like, I guess tensof thousands of like USD or Euro if we're
thinking about it with other currencies.
so like, yeah, like when you havea successful business, you're
either, you know, part of thepart, uh, you know, there's about

(12:12):
a hundred, about like 10% I think.
Of Chinese people are in the party itself,and you kind of have to be, uh, when
you're like at a certain tier, right?
Um, like if you're trying to run likea pretty sophisticated, like if you're
running like a mom and pop shop,honestly the restrictions on you are not
necessarily that strict as we described.

(12:33):
I mean, there stillare, don't get me wrong.
if you do something that kind of makespeople like that punches above your
weight, so like for example, I'vebeen reading a lot about how recently,
like China has been cracking down oninfluence per se, like people who run
small businesses, but they might havelarge social media followings and,
you know, they get kicked out of theirsocial media followings and banned

(12:56):
because they've been talking about topicsthat the Chinese state doesn't want.
Like the Chinese state kind of wantsthis very clean and positive internet.
And, um, what's been really funny to me isseeing how that vision is propagating into
like the quote unquote Western internet.
Like through ING and TikTok and howeverything is basically just like a
short video that people that sells peoplestuff like that is actually kind of the

(13:21):
Chinese internet, but it's another topic.
But um, you know, uh, once you get to alarge enough level like you're a Jack Ma
or ma or any number of like these techtitans, like you do have to work with
the Chinese state, the Chinese statewill destroy you if you go against it.
We did see, you know, Jack Maand we've seen titans like get

(13:44):
kidnapped from Hong Kong and cometo China and things like that.
So, uh, certainly the party keeps areally strict hold, uh, not only through
kind of what I just described, whichis like in order to build a business,
you probably need to have people inthe party enforce kind of what you're
doing and support what you're doing andprovide you with government contracts and
government financing, but also throughlike at the very highest levels like you,

(14:07):
if you accumulate enough economic power,you become a target and you can become.
Destroyed.
So that's kinda what happened with JackMa. That's like a famous example, right?
Like he gave a speech and he basicallysaid, um, you know, I think that the
loan sectors for small businessesin China are totally broken.
It's actually like a fairly benign,you know, statement, you know.
and then he disappeared forlike a few months, right?

(14:30):
And recently he seems to have beenrehabilitated, like he's shown up with
meetings with she and stuff like that.
Um, this also happened actuallyto the founder of TikTok.
Uh, well, the founder of doin, which thenacquired TikTok, who founded by dance,
he had to apologize to the party becauseone of the apps he created actually, uh,
had too much free-spirited discussionof politics and stuff like that.

(14:53):
So, and hopefully that paintslike kind of an accurate picture.
I'm trying to convey that like, you know,at smaller levels it's like you, you
know, you have some Chinese base peoplethat people don't really know about.
Um, but you know, as soon as you getsome, any significant amount of power,
Chinese party state can step in.
Yeah.
So if there's one positiveabout totalitarianism, it is

(15:16):
that it's not sustainable.
And, um, socialism and communismare sort of self-defeating in a way
because the economic system doesn'tallow for, for growth the same, the
same way a capitalist system would.
So having said that, like, uh, howmuch of China, how, how big is this

(15:37):
the Chinese, uh, economy really?
Like how much of a bubble is it?
Like how, how, how fragile is it?
Uh, you see these, uh, what, what do theycall ever grande, uh, and, and all of that
stuff, uh, the housing bubble, it's, itseems like enormous and that it's just a
house of cards ready to go at any point.
Is that true, or, or do you thinkChina is like a, a real superpower?

(16:02):
How much of it is, is, uh, is like
blowfish economics?
No, I mean, um, well, so I kindof wanna approach it there.
There's the Chinese economy is kindof like an elephant and we're all
feeling different parts of it, right?
And maybe, perhaps even the partyitself does not know the whole elephant.

(16:26):
you know, where I kind of approachedthe elephant is my thesis is that
China's economic growth during theeighties and nineties was very real,
but I don't think it was becauseof what the party thinks it is.
The party thinks it's because, youknow, they tried to underemphasize this.
But basically what happened waswhen Mao died, um, you know, Mao's

(16:48):
economic policies were like totally.
Very coordinated state court.
They, they were like very Marxist,Leninist and, uh, led to disaster, right?
Like, so for example, he told peopleto build pig iron in their backyards.
He, uh, told people to kill the sparrows.
And that led to famine.
And that led to, you know, likemisappropriation of resources and,

(17:10):
you know, millions died possibly.
You know, I, I, you can make anargument that Mao killed the most
people in human history potentially.
Yeah.
so certainly the China after thatis different in the sense of like,
they reluctantly embraced markets.
Um, and so one of the first things thatstarted happening in the 1980s is you

(17:32):
had the beginnings of private enterprise.
So at the beginning with Mao, you couldnot actually start a private company
and you could not have private profit.
But, after d Xiaoping and kind of hiseconomic advisors came in after Mao's
death, that actually became the change.
This is called the reform andopening up period, uh, which I do
cover in some of the book chapter.
and I think during that phase, to me whatit was is that the Chinese people, so like

(17:56):
long suffering under like bad economicsand things like that, they did have, I
mean, I, I want to be very clear thatI think Mao was a blood thirsty tyrant.
But one thing he did do was he implementeda unified language and the education
system was like, relatively okay.
So like literacy rates were up.
He did this thing where he simplifiedMandarin to this day, that's the,

(18:17):
the distinction that kind of persist.
And so it's kind of like, um.
You know, because the reason why I bringthis up is there's a lot of interesting
debates between why India and Chinahave grown, like at different rates.
And one reason that's been cited is'cause India has like so many languages
in all the different places, right?
And in China there was kind of thisbaseline of like a, a unified language

(18:40):
that was kind of simplified and likeyou were able to easily like write it
out and type a traditional Mandarin.
Very beautiful by the way.
Um, I have a deep appreciation for it.
Like, uh, actually some of my familywas like a calligrapher and if you've
ever seen like the ink and everythinglike that, that's like the beauty
of traditional Mandarin Chinese.
Um, but you know, simplifiedmakes it a lot easier, removes

(19:02):
all these like different strokes.
It's a lot less poetic, butit's a lot easier to read and
it's a lot easier to understand.
And there was like more literacy.
And so there was that kind of,that foundation that was growing.
And then, d Xiaopingallowed private enterprise.
So you have like this likepopulation that was growing.
There was about seven childrenper woman in like the 1960s.

(19:24):
And you know, they were alllooking for opportunity.
And then oping goes and says,it's glorious to get rich.
You know, it doesn't matterif it's a black cat or a white
cat, as long as it hunts mice.
Well, um, you know, it's a good cat.
And so people started getting the grooveof like, oh, we can become entrepreneurs.
And you have all thesecrazy stories in China.
Like you have like, you know, likeeveryone is the king of something,

(19:47):
but or the queen of something.
Like there's the trash queen and there'sthe paper king, the PaperClick queen.
You think like, these arevery small things, right?
But China has so many peoplethat like being the trash queen
or whatever is like a multi.
Million dollar business, multi-billiondollar business, you know, um, like
if you are producing a very smallwidget, but you're producing it for

(20:11):
1 billion people, like that is a veryprofitable business in of itself.
Um, so I think the eighties and ninetieswere really like the unleashing of
kind of like the Chinese people.
They became like entrepreneurs.
And one thing I'll say is, you know,I talk quite a bit with Chinese
entrepreneurs and they still havethat like hardnosed kind of mentality.

(20:31):
They're building businessesand stuff like that.
And in Bitcoin, I mean, you know,we can go into it, but you see
some of the results of that, right?
Like, I mean, we all talk about howlike Bitmain is a centralizing force,
but it's also kind of impressive thatthey like built this like business
out of like basically nothing.
And they were also like the Chinesegovernment was like kind of against
Bitmain at the very beginning, right?

(20:53):
Um, so anyways, I. But there'salso some links between, but we can
talk about that a little bit more.
But the point I'm trying to makehere is that that part feels real.
I think, uh, ever since she has cometo power, um, it's become more and
more bubble like, in my opinion.
And they kind of do this game where, uh,I've heard anecdotes where she is like,

(21:16):
Hey, why are there not more unicorns, uh,being built today to like a group of VCs?
And people are like,well, who should tell him?
Because he's also playing this gameof like, Hey, like markets are bad.
And like, you know, real estate shouldbe for, uh, the common person should
be for living and not for speculation.

(21:37):
Okay, but now ever grand is failingbecause it's a real estate developer and
you've suddenly made clear that like you,it can't benefit from the loan financing.
Um, and that has a lot ofdramatic consequences for,
you know, the Chinese economy.
So then now what they're doing isbecause of the tariffs and everything
like that, she is sitting down andhe's sitting down with all these
industry titans, and now they've comeup with a plan to increase consumption.

(22:01):
So now it's like, well, let's go.
Markets are good.
And also, like everything we saidabout speculation, like we're gonna
reign that in a little bit, right?
Um, so that's kinda like thetension of the party today.
Um, I do think that government statsare at least at best, directionally
correct, and they censor people.

(22:21):
They've arrested economists who likequestion figures and things like that.
So, you know, again, who knows really.
I do think that growth has sloweddown, and I think growth will
continue to be quite stagnant.
That the China that we see now isgonna be very different from the
China of the eighties and nineties,thousands, where, um, you know, that
was where the majority of Chineseeconomic growth really happened.

(22:44):
Um, and I think part of that isbecause Xi Jinping is kind of, unlike
previous leaders really trying to eathis cake right now and, and trying
to remember, like, it's almost thiswhole thing where there's a lot of,
uh, interesting podcast interviews withlike early party figures where they're
like, we're lucky embracing markets.
And they see it as kinda like a weaponto, to consolidate the party's rule.

(23:08):
But it is a double-edged sword becausethey're fundamentally, the party
is kind of like the ideology of theparty is against markets, right.
Yeah, this is so funny because like, itreminds me a lot of, of what I've read
about the Soviet Union, uh, like when,when, uh, the, the, the last days of
Stalin, for instance, when no doctor daredto tell him that something was wrong.

(23:30):
Because like, no one, no one isincentivized to be the bearer of bad
news in that kinda society, whichincentivizes everyone to be a liar.
Same thing with a Chernobyl accident.
It's just basically a chain of peoplenot addressing the problem because
they have no one, uh, no incentiveto do so because they will be
punished like it, and it's horrible.
Like, and of course it isn't sustainable.

(23:53):
So in your mind, what, what would ittake for China to like end like the
Soviet Union did in a way like, uh,for, for, for the ccp CP to, to just.
Disintegrate and go away.
Like is, uh, and the firewall istorn down, like, uh, with, uh, you

(24:13):
know, what was it, what's his name?
Uh, the guy who played on theBerlin Wall when that fell.
Yeah.
David Hasselhoff.
Davidoff played
really well.
David David Hasselhoff had a concert onthe Berlin Wall with a blinking jacket.
Uh, it was glorious.
Uh, anyway, so, so is that, is thateven possible within our lifetimes?

(24:34):
What, what do you, what do you see,like, uh, can, can Bitcoin like, can
the Chinese people start using Bitcoinand just get around all of this?
Is the, is this even possible?
Is there a second revolution coming?
Yeah.
This is like a really vast question.
Um,
I, you know, I, I, I, Iwanna, I wanna start by, okay.
So I'll, I'll kind ofbreak down a few things.

(24:55):
Um, so actually continuefrom the previous discussion.
So when we talked about like the Chineseeconomy being like a bubble, one thing
China does have going for it rightnow at this point is that it is the
manufacturing superpower of the world.
That is unquestionable.
And whether the Chinese state isgoing to, they also produce the most
electricity in the world, et cetera.
So whether the Chinese state is gonnause that for war or use that for, you

(25:18):
know, consolidated economic advantage,that's certainly something they have.
Um, and one thing I would point out,'cause I think right now there's this
big like, tariff war and the idea islike, well we wanna bring those, uh,
manufacturing jobs back to the west.
But, um, actually China is the mostadvanced country in using robotics.
So really, um, if you look at the figures,the United States is vastly underusing

(25:42):
robotics and China's vastly overusing.
Um, so there are actually entire factoriesin China, they call them like one
person, you know, one person factories.
It was one personmanaging the whole thing.
And it produces about like onephone a second or something.
I, I, I heard somewhere thatthe cost of an iPhone is, is
10 bucks the production cost?

(26:05):
Yeah, it's, it, it's crazy how,you know, Foxconn and, and that
has come at a lot of human costs.
I don't wanna, you know, Foxconnhad a lot of worker suicides and
things like that, so I, I do want to
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
But, um, it, it is,
pays to the factory.
I mean, like, that's their production
I also, apple has made, I actuallywrote this specifically in the book,
so I wanted to make that point.

(26:25):
Apple has made a deal with the devil'cause they, uh, you know, 'cause
Foxconn and they also censor apps onbehalf of, uh, the Chinese government.
A big no-no in my books.
Um, but yeah, so the Chinese economyhas that advantage going for it, like,
you know, and I think if it goes to war,that will be a very unique advantage.

(26:46):
Example, you know, a lot of peoplehave talked about it, like, uh,
shit building and stuff like that.
So, um, drones, drones are allmanufactured in China through
DGI, uh, a lot of like, hardwareand software components, uh, are
at this point are made in China.
Um, so there, that is an advantage theChinese state has, and this gives it a
unique power and position in geopolitics.

(27:08):
Now, I'm gonna say two things, um, thatwill kind of run our perspective here.
The first is, when I'm asked thisquestion, I always tell people like,
I, I'm kind of the same with Bitcoin.
I never, I know directionallyit's gonna go up.
I never, I am way, I wouldn't qualifyto specify exactly when it will

(27:29):
happen or what will happen when,so that is kind of like my take.
And um, I guess like China, there'sbeen a lot of books written by people
like Jordan Chang and stuff like thatwhere they're like, this is the year
the Chinese Communist Party fails.
Right.
And if you track it, it's like20 12, 20 15, 20 18, 20 22.
Like it just keeps on theday, keeps on changing, right.

(27:51):
So I'm not one of those people.
And uh, so I'll give kind oflike a bull case and a bear, a
bear case kind of for the party.
So the bull case of the party is actually,uh, I've been reading a lot about
Iran and if you think about it, Iran,the modern iteration of Iran, pretty
similar age to de Xiaoping's China.

(28:14):
They both kind of in the lateseventies, actually, 1979, you
know, kind of emerged and Iran.
Has a lot of reasons as a state thatI think make it very, very weak.
Like it doesn't have control overits own manufacturing capability.
It has multiple sanctions.
It has many enemies, many capableenemies in the region, right?

(28:34):
It has tried to, uh, you know,be participate in wars, uh,
across different frontiers.
It has been unsuccessfulto a certain degree.
And you would think that based off of thatand the treatment of, you know, Iranian
woman and all this and, and everything,that the Iranian government might fall
anytime soon, but it's still persisted.

(28:54):
And so there's a little bit of a, like,you know, generally I think that, um,
for your generation, sorry, I'm just,I, I know from your podcast that you're
a little bit older, um, that, uh, youknow, I think that's when you all saw
like the fall of the Soviet Union.
So it was like all those dictatorshipswere coming down at once.

(29:17):
And since then, I don'tthink we've really seen.
Like movement in that way.
Like I haven't actually, what happenedin Syria is like kind of a really
big exception to that rule, I think.
Well, there was the Congo, but no,no one covered that in the West.
Well, yeah.
I mean there's, there's been other
governments too and you know, like there'sbeen, yeah, there's been other, like

(29:38):
Sudan has split into two andall this other stuff, but,
um.
Anyway.
No, but, but I still remember when theBerlin War fell, fell on Soviet Union.
Just, just didn't exist anymorefrom one day to the other.
It was, uh, like I, I was, uh,young at the time, of course, in my
like preteens, uh, or early teens.

(30:00):
And, uh, uh, it was just bizarre becausewe grew up in the Cold War and we're
told that this is the way things are.
And, uh, the, like Sweden, uh, uh,advertised itself as being neutral
in, in like in cheering for thewest or the east because there
were a lot of social socialism.

(30:21):
Socialist propaganda in Sweden as well.
Uh, so, so we were sort of taughtthat this is the way things are
and we'll just have to wait andsee which system, uh, becomes the,
the dominant one in the world.
And then all of a sudden, oneof the powers just disappeared.
And it turns out it was way worsethan ever anyone had that very
imagined, especially a journalist.

(30:42):
Yeah, no, I, and I mean, like, I, Ijust think that we live in a different
era now where if you have expectationslike that from before, like you saw
the fall of so many different communistdictatorships and then, uh, you know,
you live in our era where, you know,change of government is very gradual.
So I, you know, China isso much stronger than Iran.
So, you know, I, I, I see there beingsome natural inertia or like, we

(31:06):
used to think that time was on ourside in the sense of like liberty
and democracy and freedom, right?
Like the idea was China would embracecapitalism to a certain degree and
markets and therefore its, people wouldinevitably kind of, you know, uh, revolt.
And I almost turn that around now.
It's like the inertia of state controlhas actually helped participate that.

(31:28):
But now having said that, and allthat bloom and doomy, I will say
one thing, um, China is the epitomeof, uh, gradually then suddenly.
Um, and so this is actuallyalso what makes really
difficult to predictable happen.
Um, because for example, you know, one ofthe, one of the things I I criticize Marx

(31:50):
the most for, um, Marx is quite racist.
Um, I think people forget that,but um, he actually, um, I'm, I'm
fine with having that highlightedin a short or something, but,
was very, very racist.
anti-Semitic as well,which is very ironic.
Um, and um, so he, uh, you know,one of the things was he called

(32:12):
China, like an ossified societythat would like never change.
And, um, ironically generationafter China produced the most
explosive change and it happenedin the, like span of a few months.
and basically there was all, thedynastic rule came to an end in 1911
in the first revolution that be,that, uh, made China into a republic.

(32:36):
And it was so fast that Sonen, whoactually led the, some considered
to be the father of the Republic ofChina, like he was teaching in Japan
in exile or something, had to likerush him back to, to like lead the, uh,
lead the troops and stuff like that.
Um, so, you know, that's one thing Iwould say, like, don't underestimate

(32:57):
the Chinese people's potentialfor change and explosive change.
Um, you know, China probablyoversaw the most something that
no one predicted, you know?
Um, you know, very few people predicted,you know, when Marx was calling the
typing revolution like backwards andall this other stuff, like, well,

(33:17):
within 50 years, like the Chinesepeople in the span of a few months
were able to get rid of thousands ofyears of imperial rule and in a, in a
fairly peaceful revolution actually.
I mean, there was blood and,and everything like that.
There were warlords, but it was.
Like a, a pretty, um, impressive feat.

(35:42):
Yeah, this is, this is very positivebecause like, I think people
underestimate how damn big this thing is.
Like, uh, what, what is like 1.4 billionpeople is the official number, right?
Uh, I guess that that numbercomes from the government, so
it might be slightly inflated.
But if it's true, that means there,there are 144 Chinese people per swed and

(36:06):
like probably 200 per fin in the world.
Uh, which makes it so vast.
It's so big.
And that must mean like if you havea normal bell curve distribution of
brains, you have, uh, 144 times moregeniuses in China than in Sweden.
So, so the, and this is, uh, from,just from statistics and, and even if,

(36:31):
uh, China's internet is very shieldedfrom the rest of the world, it's
still one and a half billion people.
That's, that's huge.
It's like, so, so if, and even withsomewhat suppressed and, and censored
free freedom of speech there, like ifthese people just talk to one another
long enough, they will start to breakfree from, from, uh, their shackles.

(36:54):
There, there, there's like, uh.
I, I, I, I happen to be an optimist.
Uh, and I think these powers are just as,as, uh, they're, they're rarely mentioned,
especially by these doom porn, black pill,uh, salesman, FUD salesman as I call them,
uh, which are popular on the internet too.
But the, the internet is first andforemost a force for good because it

(37:17):
makes people talk and makes peoplehave conversations like, like this one.
And, uh, these, this stuff likethis must happen all over China
all the time, regardless of whatthe, the government thinks of it.
Right.
Uh, am I right about that or What
What do you
Yeah.
Well, you, you also asked beforelike how, and we'll, we'll
finally get to Bitcoin at minute.
you know, I have a lot of hope becauseI've navigated Chinese internet.

(37:40):
Um, and there are a lot of differentpockets that gimme a lot of hope.
First, there are, uh, somecipher punks in China, which
is really, really cool to see.
Um, and there are also Bitcoinonly Cipher punks cool to see.
Um, so people who are embracingencryption and who are actually
building tools to help.
Defray against the state's power.

(38:01):
So that certainly exists.
Uh, I have, I've written aboutit a few times, but there's a few
Chinese people who post on Nostri.
There's like kind of like a boostat a certain period of time.
Like some of 'em have kind of tailedoff, but people still post, uh, stuff
on Nostri and there's a lot of Bitcointechnical resources and things like
that that get translated into Mandarin.
So that's very much alive.
and one thing before I get intothe specifics of Bitcoin, um,

(38:24):
I kind of wanna share like acouple stories that give me hope.
Like one is, um, you know, I was talkingto someone who they were telling me like,
Hey, like, you know, ever since I'veactually learned more about Bitcoin,
not only have I decided like maybe thedigital yen is like a terrible idea,
but also I've deleted my WeChat pay andmy Alipay because I see them as like
parts of like, you know, state control.

(38:44):
And, um, you see these stories whereI. You know, I had another story I
had, this is less Bitcoin related,but, um, I went to a Tannin Square
event where there were, uh, a lot ofthe tannin square leaders at the time.
and, uh, you know, this one woman who wasa student, uh, who was attending Harvard.

(39:05):
Uh, at the time, you know, theycame up, and actually went to the
panel speakers and they were like,oh, I had no idea this happened.
And this makes me rethink like whathappened with the government and this
makes me rethink my perception of thegovernment and everything like that.
So there's certainly these storiesthat are like cracks in the veil.
And, uh, what I would say aboutthe Chinese internet is actually

(39:26):
that it's very alive and dynamic.
I know that.
And we can talk about thespecifics of like how censorship
happens and things like that.
And don't get me wrong, peopleget arrested for saying things and
sometimes it's like really ridiculous.
Like you, you've had people getarrested for like tweeting glory to
Hong Kong for like 150 people, right?
Like that, you know, it's like, likeI I, in talking with a few friends

(39:46):
about it, what we find kind of scaryabout the Chinese security state,
it's like a little bit random.
They almost like chaos monkey.
It's almost the opposite of what Idescribed to you of like, if you're
small enough, they don't, they leaveyou alone if you're a physical business.
But if you're online and you're talkingshop and they're like, you can be
really small and they will go after you.
So that's kind of alittle bit weird to me.

(40:07):
Whereas I think like other governmentsare a little bit more like, oh, well
let's wait until this person has likemore influence and reach or whatever.
Like the Chinese state has goneafter really small people to
like make examples, I think.
but having said that, even though thereare a lot of dramatic consequences
and maybe because there are dramaticconsequences, the Chinese Internet's
like very alive and very sarcastic andvery ironic and you know, like I, uh, and

(40:32):
you see people who are like subvertingthe party like all the time on there.
Different things.
Like, so for example, like,um, I'll give you an example.
Like there's uh, a sensitive date.
So Mao's uh, eldest son died supposedly'cause he was cooking like egg fried rice.
Like, and then theAmericans bombed the site.
They found it.

(40:52):
I mean, who knows which story istrue or not true, but there's a,
there is a date where you're notsupposed to talk about egg fried rice.
and then everybody justtalks about egg fried rice.
So it's like, you know, like there's alot of that kind of level of, of stuff.
So the Chinese internet's like alot more alive than people realize.
Like Chinese people are not like, toyour earlier point, you like, I mean just

(41:14):
based off the distribution of people.
Like Chinese people aren't dumb.
Like there are a lot ofreally smart Chinese people.
And yeah, they have consequencesattached to their online identities
and actions, but some of them,you know, choose to build.
It's not that many of them,but some of them choose to use
privacy and build privacy tools.
I mean, one thing about the Chineseinternet that's really interesting about
the censorship and that makes it morealive is that a lot more people are used

(41:35):
to VPNs, simply because you need to usethe VPN to access stuff versus here in the
west it's kind of a little bit more likeyou use VPNs 'cause you're kind of like.
You know about cybersecurity?
That's like a muchsmaller amount of people,
right?
we're not forced to use it.
We use it to be, to be the cooltwo cool for schools sort of.

(41:56):
yeah.
I mean, yeah.
Like, yeah, like, I mean, it's notnecessary, but in China it's like
if you don't have it, you there goesyour access to like, everything.
Right?
And they have gotten more andmore strict about banning things.
Like one of the latest things is theyban LinkedIn, which I found really
interesting 'cause I was like, I don'treally know how, like it's become
really hard to communicate with peoplein China, um, because they banned like
basically all the ways of doing thatother than like WeChat or like everything

(42:21):
You, you mentioned sarcasm.
I've, I've heard somewhere that there arelike code words for all of this stuff.
So I guess there's a code word for thedate where you can't talk about egg
fried rice, whatever they call that.
And, and, uh, like code wordsfor win of the poo, which
you of course can't mention.
Oh, I said that.
Damn.
I mean,

(42:41):
we'll have to cut that out,
That's if you all plan to go to China,which having me on the show is a
great
Did I say win of the poh?
I meant Mickey Mouse.
No, I meant, I meant something else.
I.
Yeah, yeah, no, there, there are likecode words and there's like, you know,
like you, you kind of like to giveyou a really, like, this is probably
like the most like popular or dramaticexample is they censor any variant of

(43:05):
the tenement square dates June 4th.
Right?
So they'll censor that date.
So people on the Chinese internetstarted calling it May 35th.
And then like all these other things andthere's different ways to refer to it.
And then, you know, but sometimessome of it's gotten so ridiculous
that like, for example, you can getarrested for like posting nothing.
Like you can post like a black square andthey're just like, oh, well on this date.

(43:26):
You know?
So it is a little, itis a little dramatic.
But people haven'tforgotten Tianmen Square.
I, I, I, I assume like that is a, Iremember that even more clearly than
when the wall came down as like as, asa, as a moment of triumph for freedom.
Even if it wasn't a moment oftriumph, it was very, very iconic.

(43:50):
Like, uh.
So, so, so how do peoplesee that in China now?
Well, um, yeah, I mean, it's hardto get like a hundred percent.
Um, so I'll, I'll, I'll tell a littlebit like some of the stories that I have
about that, um, and then we can talkabout how Bitcoin actually benefits.
But, um,
sorry if we're not getting into Bitcoinyet, but that this is too interesting,

(44:12):
we're, we're refusing to do that.
We're, we're trying to, we'retrying to last a minute, 65 without
actually talking about Bitcoin once.
Um, yeah, I, uh, I actuallyused to host, uh, clubhouse
rooms on like tenement square.
Um, so we actually had, uh,like, uh, someone who was there.
talk about like his experience and, um,you know, the Tannin Square kind of, uh,

(44:34):
censorship is very, very heavy and thereare movements like the tannin mothers.
So for example, the T motherswere, uh, moms who had lost
their children during T Square.
and they are basically placed underhouse arrest during the dates.
Uh, now you've seen that, uh, the tenementsquare commemorations have extended,
the bands have extended into Hong Kong.

(44:55):
So as soon as the CCP takes over, likean area, you know, there used to be these
pretty big rallies in Victoria Park, butthey've started arresting the organizers
of that every time the date rolls by.
And so.
Yeah.
What I would say is like, I mean, there'sbeen efforts in the diaspora, I think
among the diaspora still remembered, likethere are still physical commemoration.
So if you go to any of your local Chineseconsulates or embassies, during that

(45:18):
date, you'll more than likely see likeat least 300, 400 people, you know, kind
of post up and they have their signs.
And, um, that's beenaugmented actually recently.
'cause one thing that's happened is,uh, I think Hong Kongers or the Hong
Kong young people who protested,a lot of them are now in exile.
And they've actually, this is actuallyquite interesting because in the
past, what I've heard from someHong Kong protestors is like, they

(45:42):
didn't really see Tanamen Squareas like part of their struggle or
they, they, they didn't really, yeah.
But, uh, the Hong Kongprotestors now kind of see.
That whole movement.
And there's been a littlebit of a linking of that.
So that's injected some young energy.
So if you go to like these physicalcommemorations I'm talking about, you'll
see some young people because of that.
But generally speaking, uh, thepeople who are of that tanamen

(46:04):
generation are getting older.
And there are museumsthat are being built.
There's one that, uh,was built in Los Angeles.
They actually raisedfunds through Coinbase.
Um, some of the gentleman squareleaders are into cryptocurrency.
I mean, I'm trying, I tried to getthem to accept donations on Lightning.
Um, but he was like, a little bitlike, uh, it's, it's cool man.

(46:26):
So I tried to connect him to, to someof the, but you know, it is what it is.
It's a slow, it's a slow burn.
But they actually raised fundsthrough Coinbase for their museum.
Um, so they were certainly open toat least like crypto in general.
Right.
Um, and one of them in particularis actually Joe F is, uh, he was
like number five most wanted.
So we used to talk during theclubhouse days and stuff, and

(46:48):
he's like super into crypto time.
So there's some connections there.
But, um, yeah.
Uh, but they are getting older andso the older they get, I mean the
more, um, none of the significantones have like passed away yet.
'cause I think they're stilllike in their sixties kind of.
But you know, there, there's a feelingthat the conventional democracy
movement from mainland China, likethose people have been either exiled

(47:11):
for like so long at this point,it's like 30 or 40 years, right?
That like, you know, their connectionto the actual Chinese people,
it's kind of hard to, to see.
Um, I do think that there are certain,anybody who comes out in from the
mainland to, China, uh, to, sorry, to likeanywhere outside of China these days has

(47:31):
I think a working understanding of Emin.
And one of the things that theChinese state has been trying to do
is kind of like almost soft reveal it.
Because they know, like if you'reoutside of the country, you can look up
information and all this if you want to.
And um, I've talked with some membersthat like, I mean, there's obviously
stories like the one I told youwhere people did not know at all.

(47:54):
Right.
But among some of the people who havemoved out, I think they, they are aware.
But, one thing I will say, um, thatgives me a little bit of pessimism
is like the younger generation,China is very nationalist in ways
that is, is hard to really graspuntil you like really confront it.
They really believe that like Chinais this growing power that like is

(48:17):
being held down by the United States.
Um, and, you know, um, I mean that'snot a hundred percent inaccurate, but
at the same time, like I think they,like, they take that to like an extreme
of extreme pride and like, you know,in the nation and stuff like that.
And I. Obviously, I'm not sayingeveryone is like that, but there
are quite a few people who arevery, very, very nationalist,

(48:37):
especially younger generation.
And I have the story, one of my,uh, I was talking to someone who's a
professor China, and they were sayingthat when, uh, Pelosi, uh, was flying
to Taiwan, their students were sayinglike, why aren't we shooting that?
Like, why aren't weshooting her plane down?
You know?
It's, it is like, it's like super.
Yeah.
There have been like anti-Japan protestsand some of you might have heard of

(48:59):
like, you know, stabbings of Japanesepeople in China and stuff like that.
Like there is a very like,nationalistic sentiment.
And it is, it is quite, I think,ugly and, and in many respects.
Um, and I think that with this youngergeneration, they're more inclined to,
like, if you were to tell them aboutTanamen, they'd be like, so what?
Like, they're more inclined tobe like, you know, like Yeah.

(49:21):
That's just like what we hadto do, like as a country to
like be where we are right now.
so this nationalism, I guess that'sconnected to the racism, which is
also quite prevalent in China asI understand it, like especially
against Africans and stuff.
Do you think that's connected to like thisnarrative that the, the, the communist
party has been spreading for so long that,that this is, uh, that China's better

(49:45):
than everywhere else and this is the onlysystem that works and blah, blah, blah.
And, uh, is, is theracism a product of that?
Or was, was that there before?
Like what do you think?
Yeah.
I mean, I think there's, uh,it's an ethno-nationalism, right?
Um, and within that there's a littlebit of a conflict because China,
uh, has a lot of ethnic groups.
It's not just the Han Majority.

(50:05):
And so that's a struggle that, youknow, see in Xinjiang we see with the
Uyghurs, see with Tibetans, right?
And so that's like a, abig conflict in of itself.
Uh, and one of the things, Imean, harkening back a little bit.
You were asking me like, you know,if the party falls apart, I think
the party's really worried aboutis they will have taken a lot of
lessons from the Soviet Union.
I think what they're trying to preventis, uh, when the Soviet Union fractured,

(50:29):
there was a lot of ethnic strife.
Same thing with Yugoslavia.
Like basically the different countriesand groups started killing each other.
And, um, in China that, um, youknow, there are, there is enough
ethnic diversity within, there isa kind of like hand chauvinism.
So hand Chinese, of which I am a part,um, uh, is, uh, are the majority group.

(50:50):
They, they're probably the mostpopulous ethnic group in the world,
I'm guessing because diasporaare the largest, uh, group.
Uh, and they're thelargest group within China.
and so there are other ethnic groupswithin that, but there's kind of
like this favoritism to the handmajority that or also plays out.
Uh, and then there's some,especially recently, a lot
of anti-Japanese sentiment.

(51:13):
I think partially because Japanis always aligned with the states.
Um, after World War ii, but also becauseof, you know, the old grievances of,
I think some of 'em are legitimate.
Like obviously there were Chinese, uh,Japanese war crimes committed during
World War II against Chinese peopleand, and everything related to that.
And that's being packaged into, I thinkat the beginning, 10 years ago, it was

(51:33):
about burning Japanese cars, but nowyou're seeing like stabbings of Japanese
people and things like that in China.
So definitely, um, seemsto have progressed.
And you mentioned specificallylike racism against Africans.
I mean, I, okay, this is, do withthis what you will, but I've been in
China and I've seen Chinese peopleat their like most because, okay.

(51:57):
One thing I will say is, um, there's alot of like, like there's like a lot of
white people who go to China and thereare suddenly like huge experts on China.
'cause they're like, oh, like
con.
Yeah.
All the information I have is from socialmedia, so like take it with a grain of
No, no, no, no.
I'm not saying you, I'm saying likespecifically, there are some people
who go and like the thing I almostwant to tell them is like, Chinese

(52:19):
people act differently around you.
They think you're one ofthem or not one of them.
And I've seen Chinese people at likethe most like blunt, like the most
blunt possible, like looking at the TVand being like, why are there monkeys?
Why are there so many monkeys on, they'retalking about black people, right?
Like,
like there, that is a very real thing.

(52:40):
and yeah, I, I think that'sbeen around for a while.
Like one of the things that's alwaysbeen really ironic to me is that a lot of
people in China are very, uh, even thoughthey're being taught to hate the West in
some ways, like they've embraced a lotof Western brands and specifically like,
they, like, I think this is also an Asianphenomenon, like whitening their skin.

(53:03):
Like, it's actually very bi.
I'm a fairly tanned individual andthat has actually made me suffer in the
Chinese community to a certain extent.
Like people comment on that,they're like, whoa, your skin
tone's like very, very dark.
I'm like, you know, like, so it, it'snot just, I mean I think that cultural
part has been around, I think theChinese state is actually trying to

(53:24):
like, actually, I think the Chinesestate struggles with this 'cause
they're trying to tame it a little bit.
Like to me it's a littlebit like, you know, like.
How Trump and the state, I'mjust gonna use 'em as an example.
Like he has some people onsocial that he probably doesn't
wanna be associated with, right?
Like they're doing so much crazy stuff.
Um, I think the Chinesegovernment's kind of similar.
Like they want to perpetuatethis sentiment of like, we are a

(53:46):
strong nation and we have to fightagainst, uh, you know, the west
and their cronies and lackeys.
But I think some people actually theChinese state would probably prefer
that some young people didn't take thatas far, like they've gone against, uh,
even like Chinese mainstream authorsand stuff, like Moan, who's like the
head of the Chinese Writers Association.

(54:07):
Like they've attacked these figuresin the party for being like, not.
Inflammatory enough, right?
Like I was just talking about likestudents who were like talking
about shooting down Pelosi's plane,like absolutely crazy conclusions.
Like, you know, and it's like when you ask'em about like China and war, it's, it's
like a, it's like a cod game or something.
They're like, yeah, like, like,we'll, we'll beat the Taiwanese.

(54:29):
Like, we'll, you know, like we, wewill just send a bunch of drones
and, you know, it's, it is very,it's a very odd kind of thing.
And I, I don't wanna be too loose withthis comparison, but I suspect that,
um, you know, Japan, Imperial Japan andNazi Germany went through like similar
transformations and outlook, like inorder to prime their citizens for war.

(54:53):
Um, and actually specificallyImperial Japan, I think.
like went through a very similar thing.
I always find it really ironicbecause, uh, and I've written about
this, like in China there are so manyanti-Japan propaganda films from, you
know, like the old grievances, right?
So, uh, one of the ones that got popularin Western studies that, I don't know if
you guys know IP Man, the whole contextwas like, he was like taken prisoner

(55:17):
of war by the Japanese, but he wassuch a good kung fu fighter or, or not
kung fu, um, whatever that style is.
Anyways, the, the, uh, the, themartial arts that he could like
beat all the Japanese, even thoughthey had rifles, you know, and that
was, that was kind of its own thing.
But you know, there's also all these filmsabout, you know, and increasingly there's
a lot of things about the Korean War.
'cause that was the last time theChinese fought the Americans, right?

(55:40):
And so there's this idea oflike, okay, well we're rallying
people around fighting, uh, wars.
You know, uh, I, I think it'sprobably pretty similar to, to
how it, people were primed tofight wars, you know, in the past.
And I, I've always, that's likethe darkest side to me is like if
you get into the internet, Chineseinternet and some corners of it,

(56:02):
and you talk with some people, andespecially young, younger people,
they have some like crazy conclusions.
Like war is like a game to them kind of.
And I don't think that bodeswell to have, uh, to have many
people thinking like that.
I.
It's nasty.
It's nasty as hell.
And now we haven't even mentioned thehypocrisy of the media corporations

(56:24):
from the West that like play intothese narratives and like make them
even stronger by censoring stuff andmaking movies specifically for those
Chinese audience and stuff like I. Uh,

(57:40):
let's get into the Bitcoinside of stuff, shall we?
Like, uh, we're, we're closeto the hour now, so, so yeah.
What are view, what areyour views on Bitcoin?
Like what, what, where do you wanna start?
Well, I guess let's start with, uh,you had asked me a question initially
about like, you know, how you seeBitcoin playing with China, right?
Like in terms of that and um, yeah.

(58:02):
Um, I mean one thing is thatChina is a very tightly, like we
mentioned this like dramatic contrastbetween markets and party control.
And where I think that playsout very, very directly.
Uh, in many cases.
Uh, sorry, I'm just gonnaclose something right quick.
Um, is, uh, that, um, you know,in China you have the right

(58:23):
to earn money in many ways.
Like, I mean, that, that's beensomething that's, that's fairly new
as we discussed in the eighties andnineties, but, you know, within certain
limits, um, but quite generous limits.
You can make a ton, a ton of money inChina, there has been a generation of
people that have made a, a lot, a lotof money selling, as we mentioned,

(58:44):
trash or widgets or whatever it is.
but once you're have that money, youare not allowed to spend it or circulate
it in ways the party does not want youto do so in many ways, um, it's kind
of like, you know, the dystopia thatBitcoiners are always talking about,
like China's pretty close to that.
Like you're basically forcedto bank the domestic system.

(59:06):
CBDC is already there, like,uh, the social credit score
system and all of that.
It's the C BDCs, right?
yeah, yeah.
And we can talk a little bit bitmore about that, but it's not
even just about the cbdc, likeeven the default system in China.
It's like you, like, in order toaccess WeChat pay, you basically need
a domestic banking account, right?
So there, and there's capital controls.
So if you earn a ton of money,it's very hard for you to

(59:28):
get money outside the system.
That's deliberate.
So there's a 50,000 USD per person,uh, per year limit on how much
foreign currency you can buy.
And this in many ways, shapesa lot of the global economy
actually, uh, in weird ways.
Like, so for example, realestate markets and tourism and,
and everything related to that.
But, um, this is a very fundamental block.

(59:49):
What I'm trying to really say here isthat Chinese people have the freedom to
earn a ton of money, and they have, butthey have almost, uh, they have many
strict restrictions placed on them.
China at one point was thecountry with the most capital
controls in the world, right?
And so how do they spend orcirculate or invest that money?
and you're seeing that play out rightnow in China because, for example, if

(01:00:10):
there's a gold ETF or anything likethat, like anything with positive
return, people are piling into that.
So one of my favorite questions toask people who are, you know, in
mainland China, I'm just like, howare your share portfolios doing?
How's your real estate doing?
And they all gimme answers backlike, I'm 30% down, I'm 60% down.
I'm like, wow, that's likegreat depression levels, right?

(01:00:32):
So, you know, Bitcoin as a hedgeagainst that is a very, very strong
argument I think what we've seen inlike kind of the quantitative stats
is that Chinese people are buying moreand more Bitcoin despite the fact that
there are restrictions on exchanges.
So there is no public trading pair betweenthe UN and Bitcoin because, uh, as an

(01:00:54):
exchange you are banned from offeringBitcoin for Chinese dollar, uh, Chinese.
Like, and so, uh, really the tradehappens through like these informal
OTC desks and through exchanges.
Some Western journalists havewritten about like P two P and like
laundromats and stuff like that.

(01:01:14):
Like, I don't really knowhow much that happens.
Like I know there's some like old OGs thathave like different social media groups.
Um, but most of the, uh, buyinghappens through basically the old
Chinese exchanges, wbi, uh, Binance,and like all these others, they have
like, uh, kind of like OTC merchantsthat are willing to take the risk.

(01:01:35):
So what happens is they pay a,uh, boun, like they pay, uh,
escrow to be listed, like, let'sjust use Binance as an example.
So Binance will have a page that just haslike these merchants, the OTC merchants
and those OTC merchants are willing tosend you, they pay a fee to get listed
in Binance, but they're not Binance.
And this is very important because ifthey were Binance, the Chinese government

(01:01:56):
will go after Binance, but instead.
The Chinese government will onlyreally go after any of these OTC
merchants who could be like anybody.
I don't really know who.
Right?
And so the OTC merchantscharge whatever spread.
Uh, the spread is a little bit higheron Bitcoin than it is on tether.
So what we've actually seen is alot of Chinese people buying Tether.
but there are some merchantsthat do sell Bitcoin.

(01:02:19):
I think that overall though, uh,bitcoin can immediately help a
lot of Chinese people by justescaping that system, right?
Like what we described, becausethey're, they're getting
pounded in terms of return.
Like they're making negative return,like negative nominal and negative
real, um, and like really significantnegative return because of how
badly the Chinese economy's doing.

(01:02:41):
Um, so, uh, you know, even to get out,I, I think the mental block with Chinese
people, uh, from what I've observed isthat there's very few bitcoin maxis.
There are some in touch with some of them.
The ones who are Bitcoin maxi super paced.
I think the big mental block ismost Chinese people are still
thinking in terms of US dollars.

(01:03:03):
And also, uh, from what I heard, this isa westerner, uh, listening to too many
rumors, but the, the Chinese are hap, are,are happy gamblers, like really addicted.
There's a lot of gambling addicts andthat's why shit coins, uh, are so popular.
Like, you like the gamble factor?
Like, is is, is there a truth to that?

(01:03:25):
Well, I mean, I play pokerevery Sunday at, uh, no.
Yeah.
Um, actually poker's
probably the least dj,
like
well, poker and ping pong.
Yeah.
Catch me at, uh, at adopting, uh,you know, adopting Bitcoin next time.
We'll, we'll, we'll do both.
no.
Um, yeah, so, uh, your,the rumors are correct.
I wish you could both understandMandarin because they actually run these

(01:03:47):
like X rooms where they live stream.
The picks that they're making and they,they're talking about a Mandarin and it's,
it's so fucking hilarious because peoplewill come in and they'll be like, uh, and
they like, almost like the one I was in,I was just like, this is so hilarious.
Like, people would come in and justbe like, this is my pick of the day.
Like, look at this token.
But you know, what was so funny was theywould actually come in and they would get

(01:04:09):
respect for what scams they were taken by.
Like, one guy would come in and be like,oh, I lost so much money on plus token.
And they're like, oh, wow,this guy's like an og.
Like he was losing money in like 2018.
Like what?
Like, um, yeah, there'sa lot of degeneracy.
Um, and the, and the Tether kind of playsinto that a little bit because basically
what happens is they, they buy likelower spreads, um, with Tether, and then

(01:04:32):
they use the tether to, to trade pairs.
And then, um, they actually go tolike lower and lower exchanges.
'cause there's like, apparently,I, I don't really know all this
too much, but like, apparentlythere's tokens and things that even
Binance refuses to, or, or whatever.
Um, yeah, I just don't know what thatline would be 'cause like, but um,

(01:04:53):
yeah, like people will go all the waydown and there's a lot of degeneracy
and that is part of the problem.
I mean, if any of you go to Asia orany of the Asian Bitcoin conferences,
sad to say this, but that, thatmentality does infect there.
So, so, uh, there's not a, uh,there's not a lot of maxes.
There's not a, so, so thefollow up question to that, to.

(01:05:15):
Is there any conversationabout Austrian economics?
Like if, if, if, uh, for instance,if, if you're allowed to earn,
uh, as much money as you want, butyou're not allowed to use it for
whatever you want, I would instantlylike argue that that is not money.
It's just a fancy gift card fromyour captor and your suffering

(01:05:36):
from Stockholm Syndrome.
Like, uh, are people thinkingthat along those lines at all?
Like, is, is that, is that conversationgoing on that, government money
isn't money really, like this WeChatthing is, is just a tool for control?
Like, uh, do people see that?
yeah, I mean, uh, I think one of theinteresting places has been Hong Kong.

(01:05:57):
Um, Hong Kong was actually like a, afree port city and like had multiple
like, uh, so one guy I actually hadan interview with was Simon Lee.
Really interesting guy.
'cause he built a, like a think tank thatwas dedicated to like, uh, libertarian
economics, like in, in, uh, Hong Kong.
No.
Hong Kong is a great example ofhow powerful free markets are

(01:06:17):
that that's like one of the mostshining examples in the world.
Yeah.
And unfortunately what happenedwas, um, and this has happened to a
lot of, uh, because I used to knowquite a few Bitcoiners who lived in
Hong Kong and they've, uh, all leftunfortunately because, you know,
like there was a lot of benefits.
Of course, uh, there was 0% tax.
Um, and there was a lot of,uh, you know, it was a free,

(01:06:39):
free port as we just discussed.
And, uh, there was a lot of,um, you know, markets and, uh,
it was a good way to invest.
And it was a bridge between west andeast, kinda like the, the C is kind
of like a bridge financial flowsthe west into the e, into China.
but I think the CCP realized that,uh, they couldn't maintain political

(01:07:00):
control over that 'cause of the protest.
And so they stepped inand they kind of rewrote.
The whole governing document.
Um, and you implementeda national security law.
It's very draconian.
And so yeah, Hong Kong has,has slowly drifted away.
There are, um, um, so I will say thatBitcoiners that uh, do become Bitcoiners,

(01:07:22):
uh, in China, I see them as likethe roses that grow outta concrete.
Right.
Like you have to really, uh, yeah.
So they tend to be like, for lackof a better word, like very based.
Yeah.
'cause they, they get, becauselike in order to be who they are,
it's actually pretty dangerous tolike have even that level of view.

(01:07:43):
Right.
It's like government money should,like, it's very, very anti what
the Chinese government thinks.
You know?
I don't know if you remember thatbroadcast or the Chinese government,
the, one of the economists, Ithink he was working with the
Chinese government or something.
He's just like, if we adopt Bitcoin,like literally everyone will die.
Like, I don't know if you see
Yeah, I saw that it's
like, uh, uh, I have never seen, uh, amore Ian, Ian if, if like, uh, uh, I've

(01:08:11):
never seen a person fall for the falsenarrative of inflation is necessary.
Otherwise people would die than that guy.
Like it was hilarious.
yeah, yeah.
And now China has, well, according toits stats, which again, going back to
the elephant, we don't really know,but, uh, has deflation, regardless.
Um, yeah, like with, uh, that, youknow, if you're, it's almost like

(01:08:33):
the, I think it was that said it likelive your life so that, like your very
existence is like an act of freedom.
Like I, I, I see that in.
Yeah, co che, um, uh, you know,he, uh, you know, I see that in
a, in, in quite a few Chinesebitcoiners or dissidents, right?
Like they, they are living in a contextwhere like it is pretty dangerous to have

(01:08:57):
those views and to practice the things.
Like I actually saw, not to snitchor anything, but I saw a few people
using nos or zap each other who areprobably Chinese, like in the mainland.
And I was thinking about howlike, that's probably illegal,
Yeah, but it, but it is changingthe world from the inside.
It's beautiful.
Like, uh, maybe, uh, that'sthe way to, to, to go.

(01:09:18):
Maybe that you don't have to become aTinman Square guy with the shopping bags.
You can, you can be anonymousmaster VPN person instead,
and, and just live your life.
yeah.
That's what I've been tryingto tell people too, is that
Bitcoin is a really unique thing.
'cause it's like, kind of likeHT TPS, um, because a lot of, you
know, a lot of people come to myevents, they're like Monero people.

(01:09:39):
They're always like, why is Moneronot overthrowing the Chinese state?
Or.
Or buys Monero.
But the, the thing is, is
like, And the reason why is 'causeMonero has like no return profile.
It's like obviously branded to be, youknow, but Bitcoin is like, you need
some Normies to be using it becausethen otherwise you're just like,

(01:09:59):
literally, like, you're just bait.
Like, I mean, if you use Monero,you're, you're just using Monero, right?
Like, it's like a, it's likethat, uh, a narrow chat.
It's like that like line of phonenumbers that was only sold to criminals
and then the state took it over.
I'm like, well, you
can't, you need, like, the legitimate andthe legitimate use of Bitcoin is like,
it's a store of value that is much better.

(01:10:20):
It's a much better money, right?
In different ways, uh, ina way that Monero is not.
Um, and so I think with that,um, you know, that's what I've
been trying to tell people.
Like when I went to Hong Kong.
I had this super simplistic narrativein my head that I was gonna find people
who were like, I'm using Bitcoin becauseyou know, fuck the Chinese state.

(01:10:42):
I'm like, blah, blah, blah.
But, um, they were using theUS dollar for that actually.
So there was a lot oflike Cantonese forums.
They were like, we want to divest fromHong Kong, we're gonna buy US dollars.
So again, just talking back, I thinkthere's a mental block where it's like
you, it's like the allegory of the caveand you're at the bottom level of the cave
where you're like, digital again is good.

(01:11:02):
And then you go up one level andyou're like, US dollar is good, and
then you go up like another level.
But a lot of very few people havemade that leap to the next level.
Uh, although one thing I will say isin China, it's hard to tell because
there are people who are kind of likethe si like you do have a silent,
because people will not talk about this.
Right?
Like, they're like, even buyingBitcoin is technically kind of illegal.

(01:11:24):
So like they're not gonnatalk about it openly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is, this is my experiencewith dictatorships in general.
Uh, like when I was onCuba, it was the same thing.
Like everyone, no one saidanything bad about the government.
Like they didn't dare to.
No one will say anything toit, especially to an outsider.
They're bad about the government.
'cause they're like, well, we don'tknow what you're gonna do with that.
So, um, you know, but you,you see it in the action.

(01:11:45):
So I actually, uh, I have an articlethat's going up in a, in a bit that
talks about it, but I interviewed thechain analysis team because they have
relationships with previous OTC desks.
not a huge fan of what they dootherwise, but they, uh, they, you
know, trace like the amount of OTCflows that come in through China.
And that's just been increasingand increasing as we've discussed.
And so, uh, even though, youknow, obviously there's not like

(01:12:08):
conferences in China and there'snot, like, there is a two Mandarin
Chinese Bitcoin podcasts though.
Tom and Jerry discover Bitcoin andthere's another one that's more technical.
I forget the name.
Um, but there are a few developers.
Like China, they don't actuallybother developers or they haven't
bothered developers so far.
So there are some developers who livein China who, uh, work on parts of

(01:12:29):
Bitcoin just randomly saying that.
But
Tom and Jerry.
yeah, so there's like Tom andJerry Fa B2B, which means, um,
Tom and Jerry discover Bitcoin.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, so there's two kind of Mandarinlanguage podcasts of Bitcoin, but
the Tom and Jerry one is based inMalaysia, or at least a host are, but
they mostly interview mainland Chinesepeople 'cause they do it in Mandarin.

(01:12:50):
and, uh, the other one I think isactually based in mainland China.
I forget what it's called, butthere, there are, there are some
podcasts in materials on there.
But, um, I think the thing withthat though is like, you need there
to be a broad enough ecosystem.
So, uh, with Hong Kong, I camein, I was like, okay, where's
the, you know, it's like, are theyrevolting with Bitcoin, et cetera.
And it's not quite as simple as that.

(01:13:11):
But what I've been telling people is like,you know, Chinese people choosing to put
their money outside the Chinese system.
Is revolution.
It actually is the most, it, it'snot even like, you don't wake up and
just be like, I'm a revolutionary.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, there's very fewpeople who are like that.
There's maybe like, I don't know, 5%of the population that's just like,

(01:13:33):
I actively am trying to be a rebel.
You know?
I, I think like 95 or 90, I don't knowhow many percent, this is just my, maybe
I'm a pessimist about this, but likemany people are just trying to be like,
I just wanna live my life day to day.
Like, if the government doesn'tget in my way, I won't get
in the way of the government.
that's a normie like in, in anycountry, that's what most people do.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.

(01:13:54):
But I, I mean in, in China what's reallyinteresting is that normies are confronted
with like really draconian restrictionsthat actually affect their lives.
Like we talked about the VPN example,but the Bitcoin example is a really
good example because if you're in China,you're not allowed to invest really any
significant amount money outside of China.
So that means you only really haveaccess to Chinese shares, which have
been tanking Chinese real estate, whichhas been tanking Chinese government

(01:14:17):
bonds, which are kind of in a bubble andlike a gold ETF comes and gets lifted.
And like they had to de-list it 'causethere was so much demand for it.
Right?
So, you know, that almost islike the, the revolution per se.
It's like the backdoor revolution.
But that is actually like,it's just the incentives.
You're not like encouragingpeople to revolt or rebel.

(01:14:39):
You're just pointing out that like thisis a tool for you to get out of the
system and it, it is the thing, and Ipoint out in my book that is the thing
that Chinese Communist party fears most.
'cause their whole system is based onthe state controlling market, right?
If the Chinese people are able toactually flow their capital outside
the system, that's actually the mostthreatening thing there that can happen.

(01:14:59):
And you know, in Hong Kong, theinteresting thing, because people
ask me all the time, they're like,why is Hong Kong trying to be a
Web3 hub and all this other stuff?
And I'm like, well, it's because, yeah, I,I mean, I have my own opinions about it.
But, um, the reason why they're doing thatis because they're losing capital inflow.
Like the Chinese state is losingaccess to foreign capital.
And that's become like anexistential problem for them.

(01:15:22):
And the Chinese model.
that's a lot to take in here.
I mean, Roger, this hasbeen super fascinating.
Uh, yeah, I, I, I'd loveto learn more about China.
Uh, um, so, and, uh, we, we are going tosee each other in Prague where, uh, you,
your book will be, probably be availablefrom our booth actually, uh, be be.

(01:15:44):
Before we wrap this thing up, is there,is there anything we haven't, any subject
we haven't touched you wanna mention?
Like, uh, did we miss anything?
Uh, yeah, I just wanted to mentionbriefly that I'm working on a second
book, which has nothing to do with China
Oh, fantastic.
Do you have a working title?
it's not a good one though.
I'm, I'm like really bad at that.

(01:16:04):
So maybe, maybe you all can help me withthis, but, uh, this, the working subtitle
is like, uh, how not to get Fucked by AIto own the Future, or How Not to Get Owned
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I mean, generally the idea is to tryto, what I, what I noticed is there's a
lot of anxiety about like AI or whatever,like just, is AI coming to eat us, take

(01:16:25):
our jobs, et cetera, take our woman.
Yeah.
I dunno.
Um, but um, yeah, trying to use thatas an anchoring point for people to
understand more deeply why their choicesof technologies and use so important.
You know, so Bitcoin nostri, uh,freedom Tech in general, encryption,

(01:16:45):
why these things really matter.
Yeah.
Super cool.
I, I mean, a lot of, like we mentionedbefore, uh, doom porn and black pill,
uh, FUD salesmen, uh, that they are loud.
so, uh, don't be afraid of ai.
Uh, real stupidity beatsartificial intelligence every time.
And, uh, anywhere you want tosend our listeners, uh, on the

(01:17:08):
internet, anything you want them todo, a call to action of some kind.
I mean, um, if they want likemore, uh, I know we've had like a
really in, in-depth conversation.
I really appreciate it.
Um, if they want more the same, there's,uh, I have a website, China bitcoin
book.com, which just has more of likemy reporting and stuff like that.
Um, yeah, uh, I've been trying to sendpeople to my noster, but like that

(01:17:29):
has, people have been telling me myNippo five hasn't been working as well.
So, I mean, I'm [e-mail],but if you can't find me, just like look
up my name, NOST should be to find me.
I do have at Roger H 1991 on X, if youwanna follow me on there, but recently
I've just decided to, I'm only gonnapost memes there and like, not like

(01:17:50):
I'm only gonna repost and post memes.
So less, yeah, I don't know.
It depends on what flavorof me that you want.
Uh, access.
All right.
Well, uh, thank you very much.
great conversation.
Great to have you, uh,wish you all the best.
And, uh, this has been the BitcoinInfinity Show and nothing else.
Thanks for listening.

(01:18:11):
I appreciate it.