All right, welcome back. You are listening to the Mark Mo Show. We're talking about bitcoin, We're talking about this decentralized revolution, We're talking about all the craziness that is going on in the world today. Um, there's no shortage of news headlines to talk about, and so today I want to bring you I want to get you caught up on the latest breaking news of what's happening. I'm joined in the studio today by Justine. You can find her on Twitter at Misshotel h O d L. That's
right at Misshotel Justine Harper. Um, Justine, thanks for joining me today. Thanks so much for having me. Glad to be here. Yeah, I love I love talking to you. I love your takes on all these things and so UM anyway, I'm always happy when you can take a chance to join me. Um. And uh, yeah, there's just no shortage. I'm sure you've been probably your head spending trying to keep up with all the news that's going around lately. Yes, Um, it has been an insane week
for news. Um, to the point where I've had to I don't know if you have this this issue where you have to like put all devices down, you get so sucked in where you have to actually actively tell yourself to walk away from it all. Very crazy week and in news for sure. Yeah, well, unfortunately I don't have the I don't have the ability to do that because I have to report on the news all the time.
But to your voine and I I definitely understand. I was saying that earlier that I'm reminded of this quote by Vladimir Lenin where he said that there's decades where nothing seems to happen, and then there's days where decades seems to happen. And over the last probably two or three weeks, I mean really the last two years, but certainly the last two or three weeks, I mean, it's just really been escalating. And in regards to bitcoin, I
mean it's just been thrust right onto the world stage. Yes, um, the bitcoin section has been on fire lately. I feel like every day we're talking about something new, and we almost sort of forget about whatever it was we were talking just a few days ago. In fact, when you invited me to come on, I was like, well, heck, like,
what stories are we going to talk about? There's just so much, like there's so much happening that it's hard to Uh yeah, I keep my head on straight, and I'm sure yes, for you, it's even worse because this is what you're doing day and day out. I can, I can try to force myself to walk away from it occasionally, but I can't imagine how you're trying to
keep up. So yeah, crazy times. Indeed, I'm wondering. You know, you work for a bitcoin company, Unchained Capital, which is a sponsor of the show, by the way, which is not why I have you on. I have you on because I like talking to you, But you do happen to work for Unchained Capital, which is a sponsor of the show. But you know, being a bitcoin company, obviously as a company, you guys have marketing, um, but bitcoin
itself isn't isn't a company. I mean, it's just a it's a piece of code, right, it's a it's a code, and there is no marketing. But it seems like all this craziness is really doing some of the marketing for us. Have you noticed any kind of uptick from that, you think, Yeah, I mean we've seen a huge increase um one on self custody, which I think is I mean, I'm extremely
passionate about self custody. I believe you are as well, and so any time they're sort of examples in the news of why individuals really, really truly need to hold the keys to their wealth. UM. I find that refreshing in a way that people are lead like understanding why it's important, and we do see an uptick from that. UM also moving funds off exchanges. Many times our clients are very new, so they need may need hands on support. Uh, they've never done a bitcoin transaction? How do they move
these funds? Often exchange so they don't find themselves in a situation where they're cut off from their wealth. So we've definitely had an uptick in UM what we would call, I guess support questions and support help where we then walk a client through that UM. So yes, definitely. Uh. The News has been doing some marketing for us UM, but in that realm, it's like our focus is helping people plan their wealth for sure. Can you see or or can you even say, has there been an uptick
from Canada? You know, one thing that we've had is a lot of people have questions, UM, you know, hey is unchanged going to work with the government to take away my bitcoin? Well? We don't hold your bitcoin, right. That's what makes us vastly different from like a centralized exchange is we have no custody of your bitcoin. What we're doing is helping to empower you to hold your bitcoin. So definitely have been a lot of questions that have come up regarding this that we've sort of had to
reflect on. UM. I believe we had an article come out today. If it hasn't come out yet, it will be soon about sort of our stance on that UM. But also yeah, I mean, we are very different than say in exchange, but we've gotten lots of questions about that, and lots of people wanted to move to self custody because of perhaps what they're seeing in Canada UM, and you know, they need some help with it. So that's
where unchained comes in. I even had I made a tweet about this, but I had a wedding vendor actually reach out to me after realizing what I did for a living and essentially was like, hey, UM, I hold crypto. I I don't hold it on a key, I control UM and I really feel like with the current environment in Canada, like this is something I really need to do. Can you show me how and an exchange, I'll give you like a discount on your vendor services for your wedding.
And it was just like wow, like this is really where we are at this point. Normal what we call Normy's right are actually like heck, I I really need to be off costading this stuff, even if they're just experimenting, experimenting quote unquote with with corypt. So definitely seen that in my personal life as well. Yeah. The one thing I say is that you know, um, there's like urgency, right, So like, um, I believe in chiropractic. Right, I've been
going to chiropractic for you know, most of my life. Um, I believe in the benefits of it. Not everyone does. I do. Um. But even though I believe in it, and even though I like it, I don't go all the time. I typically only go when I'm in pain. And so there's like this something that has to like trigger this urgency, Like I don't have time to go to chiropractory, but if I'm in pain and everything gets dropped and I'm gonna go, right, And so we kind
of have the same thing. And in the rest of our lives and so um where we've seen in the United States and Canada, in places like Western Europe that people like I don't really understand why bitcoin is important, but if you're in Venezuela or in Africa or something like that, you see it. Um. But now all of a sudden, like, what's not going on in Canada? Um, they've brought this urgency. And so when they're telling everybody
they're going to freeze their bank account. Um. There's a video clip of going around of Jordan Peterson, who has become a biitcoin advocate, it seems like and um, there was a video clip of him and he said, Hey, I was getting some calls from some of my friends high up in the in the government, in the military, and they told me to get my money out of the bank. And so now that's all of a sudden, there's like this, uh, this urgency right now everybody has
a big reason. Um. So it's it's been pretty good marketing, yeah, and I think that, I mean, it's as sad as it is to say, like, there are terrible things happening in this world, and I definitely would never cheer it on, right, So it's like this weird balance of I don't want there to be these things that make people scared that they need to do this thing. But I also don't want them to be in a situation where they can't
access their wealth when they need to. And yeah, the stuff that happened in Canada was sort of a we know that these things have sort of been happening in countries perhaps that aren't right in front of us. Um, you know this is happening all over the world, but to see it in such a vast scale in Canada where we don't agree with what you're saying, we don't agree with your political stance. Um, I think even one and forget exactly who it was mentioned, like if you
support Trump, you may likely have your accounts frozen. Like this is insane. This is an insane aspect, no matter which side of the parties you find yourself on, Like, this is a line that has it in my opinion, been crossed in a country like Canada or the US on such a wide scale. So I think for a lot of people that definitely open their eyes of like, oh man, this could really happen. If this could happen to these individuals, it could happen to anyone. So yeah,
I think it has definitely become a discussion. Um. And I mean I hate to say it's good marketing, but if my goal is to help as many people as possible hold their own keys so they can't be cut off from their wealth, then yes, this is helping to get people to wake up to the need to do so as well. I think your analogy is great. When it hurts, we we make a move, right um, and right now it's hurting. Yeah, when the when the urgency
is high enough, right and so, um. You know when when you're in Venezuela and they inflate your currency by pent in a year, that's a pretty higher to see to get out of that currency into something else. Now, in the United States, the FED inflated our currency by about thirty Um. I don't like that. That's pretty high for me. Radalio says cash is trated pretty high for him. Not everybody's really feeling the pain. If you're in Lebanon and it's then you're pretty motivated, and so at some
point everybody will be motivated. And of course, like I said, um, when the government tells you that you don't have the right to store your money in a way that we can't steal from you kind of makes me want to get my money banks. Kind of like in the United States, anytime they start talking about gun control, the sales of guns go through the roof, and it's kind of like this marketing UM. And so I think that's kind of what we're seeing. UM. A lot of stories I want
to dig into US. I want to start transitioning, dig dig into a couple of these stories. One of them, specifically I want to talk to you about because it's specifically about self custodial wallets UM, which is which is a pretty big topic listening to the Mark mass Show. I'll be right back with more. All right, welcome back. You are listening to the markma Show and we're talking
about bitcoin. We're talking about the decentralized revolution. We are talking about the craziness that is going around in the world, and not only how to make sense of it, well, I guess how to make sense of it so that we can navigate it properly to build, grow, protect our wealth, UM, and maintain our freedom. Right. All freedom starts with the ability to transact UM. Now before the break, well, I'm talking with Justine Harper. That's a mishotal that's M. S. H O D l Um and she's with me in
the studio today. We were talking about, Um, you know the importance of being able to control our own money. Like I said, all freedom starts with the ability to transact. And um, the money in the bank legally isn't my money. And that's why sometimes many times for me, unfortunately the bank has blocked a wire transfer. Nope. For example, my banks in Puerto Rico, they've given me too many warnings and they said that I can't because I keep trying to send it to different places. I can't send it
to any crypto businesses anymore. Um. I sent a wire just even here at my local bank in the US, at Wells Fargo to my sister and they said, do you know who this is? I said, yeah, it's my sister. No, but do you really know. I'm like, she's my blood. Yeah, but are you sure right? Um? And so they want to control that. So because they have my money, I don't control it. So we're talking about self custody. With bitcoin.
It solves the oldest problem in the world, the oldest problem that mankind has had is how do I secure my property? So it's not stolen and uh, bitcoin fixes that and so we can custody ourselves very easily. Now what's interesting, Justine is I was seeing, you know, like I said, trying to keep up with all this news. There's an article that came out where it says regulators
in Canada Warren crypto exchanges not to promote self custody wallets. Wow, So the Ontario Securities Commission sent tweets from coin Based CEO Brian I'm Strong and Cracking CEO Jesse Powell to the Canadian police because, supposedly, it says here in the article, tweets from the CEOs of coin Based and Cracking advocated self custody of digital assets and they're being looked at by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for violating sanctions put
in place to curb the trucker protests in the country. So, um, let's see. So they're helping people violate sanctions, or it says here offering advice on how to evade sanctions on funds because they're saying, if you don't want to have your bank accounts frozen, you should get your money out of the bank, and apparently telling people to get their money on the bank is evading sanctions on funds and
what do you think about that? Well, it may not be a surprise to you or anyone else that I think this is um insanity, right, UM, And I think it shows very clearly that they understand that an individual who cannot be censored financially is a is something they should be concerned concerned about. They control us throughout money, right, this is how they can do everything. This is how they can invade, invade countries right through our assets, through
our wealth. UM. And having the ability to opt out of that and not allow them to control as by their wealth, by our wealth, should scare them. Right. The idea that the Canadian government feels like they can tell a US company that they can't tell people this self custody is insane to me. I I actually laughed when I read that headline, and I was really proud of
the of UM. You know, I don't say I'm proud of coin based often, UM, but I was proud of Brian and Jesse kind of surprises me often, but I was proud of them for essentially being like, no, you should move your funds, like this is definitely something you
should do. The CEO of an exchange saying to move your funds off their exchange, I think is pretty phenomenal in my opinion, and does very much highlight really what we're up against when it comes to government entities having full control or banks, let's just say banks having full control of your assets. It's it's really not yours. As you mentioned, they get to decide how you use it, and if use it a way they don't agree with, they can cut you off from it very quickly with
a with a stroke of a pen. Right. Um, but this isn't the first time they've done this, Right, this isn't the first time they said you can't hold your assets. We've saw that happen with gold. They tried to say, no, you can't. You can't custody your gold. You can't own that. You you have to have that in a bank. So
it is interesting to be seeing this again. Um, but I think it just highlights the importance of it, right, Like, we really need to get people to where they can self custody because there may be a time where these centralized exchanges are told no, nobody can move it off to a wallet they control. Um, So we got to
get ahead of that for sure. Yeah, I mean to to what Justine's saying there, If you guys aren't caught up on your monetary history, then uh, for thousands of years, for basically all of all alternity humanity, gold has been money for about five thousand years. Gold is money. I mean we had rocks and seashells and feathers and things like that, um, but gold was money. And of course gold is big and heavy, so it doesn't real it's
not easy to transact with. And so what happened is we put it in the banks, and then the banks gave us these paper gold receipts that were redeemable for that gold. And in Nree Act six two, UM, the government, the United States government went on what they called a bank holiday. I mean they went on holiday and you couldn't get your money out. And when they open back up, they seized all your gold. You were not allowed to get that gold out. And what's even worse than that
is those those fake paper goldstificates, those redeemable certificates. They were no longer redeemable, but before they were worth of those redeemable certificates, twenty dollars were worth an ounce of gold. After they seized all your gold. It was thirty five of those paper goalsertificates for an ounce of gold, which means not only they seize it, not only they steal your gold, um and made you use these fake paper certificates. Um,
they also devalue them at the same time. And so when you think this can't happen the United States, it already did. And the problem is is that once you give that money to somebody, whether it's the cash in your Canadian bank today or the gold that you put in the bank before, um, they seize your money. And so um, yeah, it's pretty it's pretty evident that we need to be able to do that. And I guess good on. Like you said, not a lot of things to praise a coin baseed for, but this is one
of them. For sure. It actually pained me to say that, but hey, you gotta call it like we see it, right, Yeah, yeah, for sure. Have have you guys got any notices about a promoting self custody? We haven't. Actually, no, we have not had any notices of that. I think there will be sort of an educational lesson. I think it was was it numb nunchuck? I'm trying to think of the where sort of like we don't hold funds, like we can't. So it's sort of similar with us, like we don't
hold funds. UM. So you can tell us we can't do so, but we don't. We're not holding funds. UM. I will say, I'm very proud to be a part of a company who believes in individual freedom and is willing to fight for them. UM. So I do think that if we came to that, UM, I would be proud of what our our company UM says or does. I guess it's a good way to put it. Yeah, what she was saying about Nunchuck, I don't know. I
didn't do any research. I mean, do you know if that's legit or was that just kind of a meme going around. I'm not sure it wasn't. Actually it was like yeah, just go ahead. Yeah. It was like it looked like it was a response that like maybe the Canadian government had contacted Nunchuck and said, um, hey, you know, we need to access your customers funds or whatever, and it was like their response and it said, um, hey, you don't understand how bitcoin works, like, uh, not only
won't we help you, we can't help you. Um And they said, but they said, but we could help you. Um, whenever I think you know your currency failed and you may want to move into bitcoin, I think we can help you. And it was like there's real snarky, kind of tongue in cheek response. But but but it was two things. One, it highlighted that the governments don't know anything about what they're talking about, because if they did, they would they would never have asked that in the
first place. But then it also just highlighted the fact that these companies, if if done right, like what end chain does, it's not that they won't decide to censor you. I said they can't. And that's a big difference because um Jess Powell Jesse Powell from from Crack and I saw publicly on Twitter. UM he was asked like, hey, will crack and protect me from the government. He said, no, we can't. Don't expect us to. As a matter of fact,
I'm telling you that we won't. The only way you can protect yourself is to get it off the exchange. And so that's kind of what Nunchuck was saying, is like, hey, we can't help you. We don't have access to that UM. And so anyway that was That was a great response. By the way, you're listening to the Mark Moa Show. We're talking about bitcoin, the decentralized Revolution. We're talking about the craziness going on in the world today. I'm in the studio with Justine Harper. You can find her on
Twitter at miss Hotel. That's M. S h O d L. Talking about the latest breaking news headlines of the week and discussing them. Hopefully it's joable for you. I got a lot more news to get through. Don't go away, I'll be right back. Hey everyone, welcome back. You're listening to the Mark Moa Show. We're talking about bitcoin, We're talking about the decentralized revolution. We are talking about this rapidly changing world that we are living in them and
it's literally changing right before our very eyes. Before the break up, I'm in the studio with Justine Harper. You can find her on Twitter at miss Hotel. That's M. S h O d L. We've been discussing some of these crazy news headlines. Were previously just talking about what's going on in Canada and how crazy that is up there, how they're literally telling people they're freezing, They're gonna freeze
their accounts, seize their money, prevent them from transacting. And then you know, bitcoin is a center stage and everybody's looking at it. And then and then Canada comes goes after some of these uh uh exchanges like coin based and cracking and tells the CEO is like, hey, you can't be promoting for people to hold their money outside the bank. How dare you tell people they could actually get money out of the bank. I mean, that's just
absolutely ridiculous. Um. But anyway, we discussed that and uh. But at the same time, what's interesting is, at the same time that's happening, it seems like there's uh, you know, this attack happening. And I think probably the attack vector, one of the EASi attack vectors, is going to be on that custody piece. Um. So one of the ways they want to attack bitcoin and cryptocurrency is tell you
that you don't have the right to custody it. Um. Justine, I don't know if you saw, but there was a headline a news article that came out there's a representative Davidson from Ohio that's submitted a bill for um basically making it legal to self custody. I don't know did you see that at all. I did see it and saw his comments on it. I haven't gone in and specifically read the bill, um, but from my understanding, it was protecting the individual's right to self custody and asset
like bitcoin. So from a high level overview, it sounds great and very much in my opinion, shows that even though I don't think most politicians or government understand bitcoin, we have a few good soldiers out there, you know, trying to at least, um, sort of protect our individual freedom to hold an asset like bitcoin. Yeah, I mean we're getting more and more by any but you know by the day. Um. So this is Ohio's it's called Keep your Coins Act. Important important in protecting self custody
rights for Americans. So it's called Keep your Coins Act, um, which is pretty cool and uh to your point justin Yeah, I mean, we're getting more and more people that are jumping into this. Cynthia Loomis, who is doing a lot, She's in Wyoming, she's can speaking at the Bitcoin conference coming up here, the Bitcoin Converce two. But this Keep your Coin Act, unlike Canada, which is showing is U is a violation to these rights. And according to Ohio's
Congressman Warren Davidson. He's addressing the recent developments in Canada where authorities are freezing crypto assets and uh. Davidson says that the proposed act can help prevent such occurrences in the United States, where authorities and regulatory agencies would freely decide to violate citizens rights to transact their personal assets. Um just for dissenting. He introduced the bill last week.
If enacted, the act would prevent any federal agency from restricting citizens from spending their crypto and purchasing goods or services or on other personal use like spending it directly to other people. And it also seeks to protect transaction privacy for all peer to peer transactions. Hmm, imagine that, Um, in the Land of the Free, we actually have to pass a law that allows hoose people to have the
right to transact purchased good services or send to other people. Yeah, do we need to pass a lot like that in the Land of the Free? I mean, what the heck is going on here? Justine? You know, I find it. It's it's kind of um disheartening in a way that when we say Land of the Free, my cynical self inside goes, Really, I can't even buy raw milk, right, Like, are we really the Land of the free at this? Yes? Exactly exactly, So it is. I agree with you. It's like,
we shouldn't have to have this bill. But if I think about sort of a if I zoom out, you know, bitcoin can't be stopped. Nobody can stop you and I from transacting with bitcoin, but these on ramps can be stopped stopped. Right, So in a worst case scenario, if the US government decided to tell every exchange tomorrow, nobody can move funds off. That's bad for a lot of people, right. Um, So I do applaud this bill that it even starts a discussion. Maybe it leads to education. Um, maybe it
leads to protecting. In my opinion, are God given right right um? And the fact that we have to have a bill to protect that right is insane to me. But I applaud it because hey, the world's a crazy place and maybe yeah we need that now. Um, but yes it is. It is kind of Uh, it is a comical thing to think about. In the Land of the Free, we need to build to say hey, oh yeah, okay, you can you can own your money, like you can
hold it. That's totally fine. Yeah, And I don't know what kind of support it has, but I'm sure it'll get some pushed back, so that will be an interesting thing to watch as well. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's just it's it's just crazy. I do say a tongue in cheek the Land of three, but I mean it's not supposed to be tongue in cheek. I mean, that's really what it is, or it was. They haven't changed the national anthem yet, but you know, I supposed to be the land of free, So it's crazy we
have to pass a law that allows us to be free. Um. But to your point, Justine, I agree with you. I mean I do applaud Davidson in Ohio from putting that together,
So I like that. Um. And it's interesting to see this. Uh, it's almost what I'm calling this balconization, and so balconization is and you know, the U, S, S, RFL and all these nations kind of broke apart, and it's kind of what we're seeing in the United States where we had, like the Biden administration put in these federal mandates and then states sued and said no that adn't happening right, um,
and we're now. We saw the Biden administration said they're going to come out with executive orders to regulate cryptocurrencies. They haven't told us what those are yet. It's like an announcement of an announcement. We also saw the Treasury um um yelling said that they have now unlimited budget and power to regulate cryptocurrency, whatever that means, um, And so they're gonna regulate it. They're gonna do something like I said, probably this attack vector is gonna be this custody.
But at the same time as they're saying that, we're seeing states moving to legalize it. So Colorado is to become the first state to accept cryptocurrency as payment for taxes, It says. Colorado will become the first state to accept cryptocurrency as payment for state taxes and fees, said Governor Jared Paulus. Paula said the state will take the digital coin payments and deposit the equivalent value in dollars into
the States treasury. He said, quote in Colorado, we've been laying the groundwork to be the center of crypto innovation for for a number of years. We see it as a critical part of Colorado's overall innovation ecosystem, and then announcement comes as legislators in other states, including Arizona and California even are proposing laws which have ratified, would deem cryptocurrency and accepted form of payments statewide, not just for
tax purposes. So while the United States the Biden admin might be moving to regulated, the states seem to be trying to make it legal. I mean, what do you think about this battle? I actually love the battle. I love keeping people honest. UM. I think this is the beauty of the United States of America, right, this is how it's supposed to be. Um. Each state can choose its own, um to a point, its own laws, in its own choices as far as what they want to do. And I think that for a long time, we never
really saw state disagreeing with any sort of federal thing. Maybe, you know, maybe with marijuana, right we had some some states that have legalized it when as a federal law it was so illegal. So maybe that was the last time we saw the sort of occurring. But I like to see it. I think we do need that pushback, and I think it keeps everybody honest. And I think it sort of opens up sort of a you know, a free, free free market, right, I can choose what
state I want to live on and live in. I can't speak anymore which state I whant to live in based on sort of what they believe and what they enforce and the you know, their local laws, and that's why it's supposed to be. UM. So I do love to see this. I'm very curious how this, how this occurs. I've always sort of said that I don't think the US government will ever ban bitcoin. It doesn't it's not in their best interest. They will tax it, and they
will find a way to um benefit from it. And so I'm sort of I don't have the answers, UM, but I do like to see these sorts of things. I like to see the push. I like to see these conversations occur where it's senators and congressmen who have no idea what they're talking about, don't understand cryptocurrency whatsoever, sort of being schooled by those who do. UM. It's interesting for sure. So I'm I'm I'm excited to see it.
I have questioned there had been some answer. They were creating their old legal tender Bitcoin, which I question if that's even legal. Um, And so it's an interesting time in the bitcoin world. But I do love to see these states sort of like entering the race, if you will. Yeah, yeah, I love the competition as well. That's the way it should be. The states should all be independent, which creates competition, and competition of course creates better product, service and prices
for us. UM, not that we're customers, but maybe that we could be like customers. And of course the competition is even speeding up, worse than that or more than that, even internationally. Now, now you listening to the markma Show. We're talking about the latest news headlines with Justine Harper, Miss Hotel. I got lots more to come, so don't go away, all right, Welcome back here, listening to the Mark Moa Show. We're talking about bitcoin. We're talking about
the decentralized revolution. We're talking about what the heck is going on in the world today. We're talking about politics, We're talking about finance, We're talking about technology. We're talking about all those things, or really I should say the intersection of those things. And I'm in the studio today with Justine Harper. You can find her on Twitter at Misshotel that's M S h O d L. And we're talking about some of these latest breaking news headlines. It's
kind of discussing it. UM. It's wacky stuff, it's interesting stuff, and all of that. Before the break, we're talking specifically about UM. We're seeing these states starting to compete. So while Canada's cracking down on on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies UM, and then the Biden admin and the Treasury says they're gonna start cracking down on it, we have states in the United States like Colorado, Arizona, and Texas moving to
legalize it or or make it even legal tender. And Justine was saying how she likes it because it kind of creates this competition which kind of keeps everybody honest, which I agree. And it's even bigger than that. So not only are states competing, but we also have countries competing. So uh, if you've been listening to me and you haven't been living under a rock, then you already know by now that UM. Last year UM, the country of El Salvado became the first country to make it bitcoin,
make make bitcoin legal tender. And now it looks like Mexico is starting to move in the same direction. Now, I believe it's Mexico's richest person in the world, Richard Ricardo Salinas. I think it is. I don't have it pulled up in front of me. Sorry if I butchered that. Um and he is a huge bitcoin proponent and he's going to start accepting bitcoin at all his stores. But it's not just rich people in Mexico using it. Now we have a Mexican senator that's introducing a bill to
make bitcoin legal tender in Mexico. Indira Kempus recently featured in an interview and she was basically discussing her intention to propose a bill that would make bitcoin legal tender in Mexico. She's a Mexican senator from the state of Nuevo Leone and um. She said that the impact bitcoin has had in El Salvador and the inevitable benefits bitcoin has to offer the people of Mexico are important. She said, quote El Salvador is undoubtedly becoming the most important hub
or laboratory in the world. About the future with bitcoin, She went on to say, it is clear to me that financial exclusion is one of the public problems that few of us have addressed with feasible alternatives, and that this type of technology allowing us to generate an alternative, a way, a solution so that millions of people can be included in the financial system. So what she's saying is that per the UN about two billion adults in the world, more than more than half the adults in
the world have no access to the financial system. So, UM, if you have a smartphone these days, um, the world's pretty equal. Um, anywhere in the world, I could have an Instagram account or a YouTube channel, and I could learn anything, I could meet anyone, I could do anything. I can make money. A thirteen year old kid could have Instagram account make a hundred thousand dollars a year. But not if they're not not if they're removed from
the banking system. And so that's really the key. And so what she's saying here is just like what El Salvador has done, it's create an alternative system to allow people to be including the financial system. What do you think about that, Justine, I think this is a positive, of course. Um. I mean, I know there were many of us last year when it was announced that al Salvador was going to begin, um create making bitcoin legal tender that we knew this was going to be the
first step of many right, many countries. We're going to watch and see how it benefited Al Savador, which I think it has greatly, um, and they were going to fallow suit. Um. So I think that this is great for Bitcoin, of course, but I think this is great for the world. This is great for the citizens of Mexico as well as you know, the citizens of El Salvador.
I think when we live in the West, we get very spoiled and we don't realize the things that we take advantage for every single day are not things people have access to elsewhere. Um, and decoin really solves a problem for them. So I I love to see it. Um. It's I feel like we all sort of knew this was going to happen. We were sort of taking bets on which country was going to do it right, And I'm very glad to see that it's Mexico because you know,
many of their citizens struggle just on on daily things. Um. They don't have the access that they need to to be able to further their life in a positive way. And so I think I'm excited to see it. I hope it goes through. I hope they have success. And I think that's just the first of any I think it's only a matter of time before it goes through. I mean, I hope it goes through. I think it will, right maybe not this first go around. I was just down in Mexico last weekend. UM, down in Cancoon. I
love it Mexico. We we typically spent about two months a year down there. I'm a surfer, so I chase waves down there all the time. But what I love about Mexico is you just kind of feel free down there. And it's interesting, is I spend, like I said, a lot of time down there, and every time I come home from Mexico, back to the Land of the Free, I feel less free down there. It's like it just seems so open and free. Um. But yet here at home,
every think so restrictive. UM. But also, if you look back really over the last two years, you know, when the whole world went into the state of lockdown, if you will, Mexico remained one of the freest places in the world. They were one of the first places in the world to have no restrictions of any type of mandate anything like that. And so um, It kind of makes sense that they would do this as as somebody
who's free. Now, also, you know nations that are not on the US dollar or I should say, um, yeah, they have their own currency. They can't They can kind of create it, but um, they don't have the dollar system to protect it. Kind of makes sense that they may adopt that sooner than later. Um, we'll have to see. Now, there was a report I saw from Fidelity that said they think or they forecast that at least two more nations will will create a legal tender of bitcoin this year. Uh,
do you have any guests on that. I don't. It's one of those come on prediction. I don't. I mean, I don't know. It's one of those things where I've I've picked up I've looked at a map and been like, Okay, who's it going to be? Because I feel like there was this time where we as bit quarters for like, all right, who's it going to be next? And I don't know. I think, Um, I think South America makes a lot of sense. Um. I would love to see
somewhere like Africa do it. Honestly, Um, I I would love to see these these nations that are sort of put under the thumb of of I'm not going to call the United States a dictatorship, of course, but I feel like we sort of like push our thumb on other nations often and control them. And a lot of
it's due to money. Um. I'll try to speak carefully there, but I think that if some of these countries could have the freedom of not being held under the US dollar in one way, shape or another and sort of be empowered through bitcoin, it would it would solve so many issues. UM. So I would love to see that. I would say, I don't have any guesses though, see this is this is the thing I'm not I'm not good at that part. But it's like I'm rooting for it, and I have all these hopes, but I don't know
if I have any guesses. What are your guesses? Um? You know, I would say I could, I could see maybe even three. I think two or three is probably a pretty good number. I mean that's what Fidelity said. Um, I think somewhere in the two to three range. I think, you know, a lot of these Central American countries seem like they're pretty close. A lot of it really depends on what happens with bitcoin. This year. So obviously the prices down um quite a bit right now. Um, I
think we're actually pump pump pretty hard this morning. It really sold off yesterday because of the whole war breaking off with them with Russia and Ukraine, and it dropped all the way down to about thirty four thousand, but uh, it pumped all the way back up to over almost forty thousand again. UM. So you know, a lot of it depends on what happens with that. I think if the price starts moving again, I think there's it's maybe we'll get on the high side of more countries adopting,
and if we stayed lower, maybe maybe on the lower side. Um, you know, kind of see what happens from there. Um. But while other countries seem to be adopting it, So China got rid of bitcoin, all the coin minors, the United States become the big beneficiary, and then um, now you know we have the United States, individual states trying to bring it on. Um. Now we see some some stuff over in the EU. They're talking about banning bitcoin because of energy concerns over there. I mean, it's just insane.
So it's like, well, it's this game theory that we talked about while nations are moving into it, and then we have other nations that want to be kicking themselves out of it. Um So, I think that's gonna be super interesting. Um So, I don't know. I guess I would say, you know, I think the developed worlds of basically the US and the West and Western Europe have the most to lose, so they're gonna be the last.
Um the nations. I think, you know, probably more of the Central American ones, even maybe some South American ones. You're a gay Paraguay. Um maybe Brazil. Brazil has been talking about it. Um I don't know. We can get three or four. But anyway, you're listening to the Markmas show. We're talking about bitcoin. Of course, we're talking about the decentralized revolution. I've been in the studio with Justine Harper.
You can find her on Twitter at ms hotel that's M S h O d L. She works with unchained Capital, which helps you custody or bitcoin, which is what we've been talking about today. She's perfectly suited for that. Give her a follow, send her a message, tell you heard her on the show. Uh, if you're not following me, you should. That's at number one. Mark Moss, we just broke down the latest breaking news for you of the week. Thanks so much for listening.