The Mark Moss Show Oct 08, 2021

It is that big. Now I am joined with my good friend Alex Gladstein with the Human Rights Foundation and the reason why I wanted to have him in today because to establish the foundation of what I think really the importance of bitcoin is. And I know that a lot of people are chasing cryptocurrencies and bitcoin to try to get rich, and they're trying to increase their U S dollars supply the value of those U S dollars

or whatever they're trying to do there. And of course we all want to make money, and that's great, we want that opportunity, but really it's so much more. Bitcoin is fixing the world. We say, fixed the money, fix the world, and Alex is really at the forefront of that. And so Alex, thanks so much for taking the time to sit down with me today. Um, good to have you.

Thanks for having me on Mark. Yeah, so, um, you wrote a paper recently, um, talking about how you know, the Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency revolution, And there was a piece in there specifically that I looked at, and um, you quoted a piece from Greg Barker that he had written, Um, And it was a criticism of bitcoin, saying, rather than producing a more open, more liberating, more financially free society, the crypto movement has empowered not just another cabal of

crypt financiers, but a hidden cartel of criminals Wall Street rejects, and what Senator Senator Elizabeth Warren has described as shadowy supercoders. And so I guess that's the criticism about bitcoin. And I think maybe that quote there kind of summarizes what your response was in that paper. UM, So give us your response to that. I mean, that's a kind of

a damning criticism bitcoin, right. Look, I used Greg's piece and I quoted from it in my writing because I thought out it was a good summary of existing criticism of of bitcoin and and the end of cryptocurrencies or let's let's call it crypto as as the cool kids say. UM. And my point is that his criticism is accurate of

crypto or of cryptocurrencies It's true. They all are insider projects where people decided to make money, you know, with the click of a button, and they got their friends rich, and they still control everything, and the state has influence and can shut people down. And it's really just like, you know, an unregulated extension of Wall Street or Las Vegas um and it's it's not revolutionary in my view.

What's revolutionaries bitcoin? And I think that's what I want to get across in this interview to folks is from a human rights perspective, not not from a financial perspective where obviously you made a lot more money in dogecoin in the last twelve months than a bitcoin um, but over time, and the fact that bitcoin is changing the world, whereas crypto is like an extension of the existing system.

And the difference is that in bitcoin it is powered by users and there is no central point of failure, and there was no one who can control the monetary policy, who can decide to print more bitcoin, who can arbitrarily change the bitcoin software without your consent, or who can

even process transactions without your consent. Um. In bitcoin, if you run a personal server and you're you're running a note and you're part of the network as as a full bitcoin citizen, let's say, as many many thousands of people across the world are you decide what transactions are valid. Uh, you know, you have control over the miners, and you decide what software updates to accept, so you have control over the developers. And in this way, bitcoin is truly

like money of the people. And I view, like the other cryptocurrency projects regard this of their utility as more like fintech or you know, perhaps more unregulated stocks or tech startups, like they may deliver enormous value, but that they don't kind of reshape the paradigm. And I think that's that's quite important for people to understand because because bitcoin is unregulatable and decentralized, it can help people in

the toughest of environments. It can help people inside China and inside dictatorships, whereas crypto can get censored and blacklisted and pressured. And in the end, at the in the end, over the coming century, as we battle like digital authoritarianism and as we battle big brother um, bitcoin is a tool to fight back where I just don't think crypto is. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. You're they're listening to the Mark Maas show on the Heart Radio Network. I'm with Alex

Gladstein from the Human Rights Foundation. You can find them on Twitter at at Gladstein, so send him a tweet follow them. But we're talking about using it as a as a human rights tool. I know, you know, pretty much everyone listening probably right now, is in the United States, and they don't feel that right, they don't feel that authorityis um you just mentioned China, right, and so oh, it's it's over there in China, um, or it's it's happening in in the Lebanon or whatever. But maybe it's

not in the United States. But but one, if it's happening, then there could potentially come here. But two, we saw and you probably know better than me, a month or a month ago, two months ago. We're even PayPal teamed up with UM the Anti Defamation League to like make a list of people that should be blacklisted from being able to send payments to each other, right, literally censoring the ability to send money to who I want, and then and then and then sharing that list with even

more financial institutions. Yeah, so let's take a philosophical view and then a global view. So philosophically, when we talk about money, what is money? Um, we're in an in a transition where the money that you use on a daily basis is going from a bearer asset that protects your privacy to want of surveillance and control. So like the money that you used maybe ten twenty years ago, it was paper money cash. When you make a cash transaction,

the merchant doesn't know anything about you. They just know that you've paid. When you pay with your credit card or your swipe or your phone or your mobile money or whatever. You know, the merchant and an enormous number of third parties, and ultimately the government knows a ton about you. They know exactly what you bought, They know what you bought last time. They can build algorithms to

figure out what you're gonna buy next. And this can be used for censorship and surveillance and social engineering, and it is it is being used for that, not just in China but all over the world, including right here

in the United States. I mean when you go into markets, I mean they're like bluetooth like surveillance mechanisms that pick up on your shopping habits, and you know, they can read this off your phone and your transaction history, and this is a direction we're heading in and we need a different way, um to preserve our digital freedoms in the future because the government is not going to give

them to us. Um if you think that the government is going to phase out paper cash, which Hill Dren today won't use regardless, like we know that children today when they're twenty years old, won't use paper money. Everything's gonna be digital. So the question is how are we going to keep the freedoms and privacy that cash afforded us in the digital space. There's two camps. One says

the government's going to give it to us. Okay, I mean, did you see the Snowden revelations, Like I don't know, like what planet you're living on, but there's a lot of people who believe that, like we can like petition in the US government and we can get them to give us digital cash and we'll give you free I'm just jaded on that one as a human rights activists,

like I just don't think that's gonna happen. And maybe maybe in the tiniest of scenarios in the U s Or Switzerland or Japan, but definitely not in China or saut of your a BI or Cuba, like you know, a four point three billion people live under dictatorships in the throwd chain regimes. They're never gonna get you know, fiat government money that protects freedoms in the future. And

this is why bitcoin is so important. Is it gives us this like Plan B that anybody can access without any particular nationality or wealth level, or gender or belief system.

Like anyone can access this open, nondiscriminatory network and both use it as digital cash and make payments seamlessly instantly around the world to the Lightning network, which is remarkable, but also invest their time and energy and digital gold in a in an asset that cannot be debased by government and and bitcoin is the only digital asset that

cannot be arbitrarely debased. Every single other cryptocurrency and every single other central bank digital currency or just a general digital currency like your deposit at the bank can be confiscated, can be debased by monetary policy. And that what that's what makes bitcoin so special. Yeah, and you mentioned, um, you know how cash we have. Cash gives us that that that privacy that not a minute amity there um.

And in nineteen seventy when they put the Bank Secrecy Act in they said all transactions under over ten thousand dollars had to be reported. But at the time ten thousand dollars in nineteen seventy is worth about seventy thousand

dollars today, but they've kept that number ten thousand. But now today they are saying now for this new infrastructure bill, they want to monitor every single bank account with more than six dollars, every single transaction, including including Venmo, Crypto, PayPal, etcetera. I want to talk more about human rights stuff around the world and even real world use cases of how um that's being fixed when we get back in a second.

But everyone, you're listening to the Mark Moss Show with Alex Gladstein talking about bitcoin and human rights and we'll be right back. All right, you are back with the Mark Moss Show talking about bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, the decentralized revolutions, and I'm with Alex Gladstein from the Human Rights Foundation. You can find them on Twitter at Gladstein is definitely

worth a follow, so go check them out there. And we were in the middle of talking about how bitcoin has a real world use case, how it's solving human rights issues. We talked about, you know, having the freedom and the privacy of using digital cash. UM. But Alex I really wanted to jump into maybe some um, maybe more practical applications. I know you've published many times on Twitter UM where people say that bitcoin has no use. Case these people that say this, I feel like, how

much privilege you have been in the United States. You must have never traveled anywhere else in the world. UM, But maybe you could give us some practical applications of things that are going on in the world where it's really making a big impact. Yeah. I wrote a piece called check your Financial Privilege for the Coin magazine about six months ago, and you know that's something up in a nutshell like Bitcoin critics today who say that it's

useless are hugely financial privileged. They were born into a system where the unit of account is the dollar, where they don't have to deal with significant inflation at least yet UM, where they can easily use stuff like Vemo and PayPal to connect with their family and friends. It's easy for them to travel abroad, like their money basically works. They can invest long term very easily in a four oh one K or maybe even into real estate. UM.

Easy for them to get stocks, etcetera, etcetera, even bonds. Um, they can build like a diversified portfolio for their future. The vast majority of humans on this planet cannot do that. UM. One point three bill million people on our planet live under double or triple or quadruple digit inflation. So that means the money that they earn every week, every two weeks, every month, UM, is literally disappearing before their eyes. Uh. Most of these people do not have access to the

SMP five hundred. They do not enough capital to buy a home like so real quick, real real quick. On that, I mean, give us some example. So like Lebanon, I think saw like almost eighty or nine percent inflation in the last year, So that means like literally like they lost the majority of the purchasing power like that quickly. Yeah. So I'll give you a couple of examples from each part of the world of that one point three billion

people who live under severe extreme inflation. And by the way, that number is more than the number of people who don't have access to a toilet or clean water. Like this is one of the biggest humanitarian issues in the world. UM. You mentioned Lebanon. Yeah, Lebanon and Syria, both home to

millions of people, are seeing a historic currency collapse. Lebanon in particular, now I believe has the highest rate of inflation in the world, surpassing Venezuela, which had its own absolutely catastrophic hyper inflation over the last decade, where you know, a cup of coffee in Caracas, you know, would cost you know, a few hundred bolivars, and then the next year would cost a few thousand, and the next year

would cost a few million. Like that actually happened. Um, you have fifty percent inflation in Argentina, you have uh, it's a country people. You have um fifteen percent inflation in Nigeria and higher food higher food inflation country of two hundred million people. You have fifteen percent inflation. In Turkey, the country another country close to a hundred million people. You have a country of a hundred twenty million people

in Ethiopia where you have inflation. So these are vast, very large, very important countries where I want to I wanted this. I want to sorry. Because in the United States, the Federal Reserve printed about twenty of the dollars supply in the last year and of course, we saw prices go up by about so in the US, the median home price went up by two percent. Use cars are up thirty percent. Uh, gasoline is up forty seven per cent um. And so it's not just those far away countries,

it's in the United States as well. So go ahead, sorry, yeah, so, but thinking about it this way, yes, you're correct, there is currency debasement and inflation the United States. It's not usually quite as noticeable for a variety of reasons that I won't get into here. But what you just need to know is that the dollar is like the foundation for the world's currencies, and any anything, any bad effects

you see in the dollar get amplified elsewhere. So you know, price inflation United States, if we're seeing it, oh my god, that means things are like catastrophic for people in the countries I just mentioned, right, so all around the world. Burma in Southeast Asia just saw a massive loss of purchasing power in in the citizens over the last few months. Um,

they lost sixty their purchasing power. Cuba, an island country just off the coast of Florida, very close to us, very close to maybe a lot of the hearts of our listeners. Um, the Cuban people have lost two thirds of their purchasing power in the last year as the government has basically failed to to run properly and is

running a scheme where they're paying the pensioners. That a communist nation, right, so most public most workers are public sector workers and pensioners they're paying out pay soose which are collapsing. And then they have all these stores where you can buy what you need, and they're forcing you to use hard foreign currency to buy stuff in those stores. So it's like they're turning this crap money into better

money at the expense of the people. And this is a game that a lot of governments play around the world, right, So, whether it's in Cuba, whether it's in Palestine, whether it's in Nigeria, Ethiopia. Yes, I've been like studying and interviewing people in these countries and just trying to learn about like how the government exploits money, how it uses it as a weapon against the people, and how people are

turning to bitcoin to fight back. Yeah. So, um, you know the government in that scheme, I mean, that's crazy. So they're literally paying them in a currency that's losing value. But making them pay them back in a currency that's that's stronger UM and UH. And it's all over the world.

In in the previ A segment when I had Alex Fetzki and Jessica and we were talking about UM the China band bitcoin again again and I think the ninth time or whatever, and UM they said it um it uh put at risk the financial and social system and so kind of what they're saying is that um, they need to manipulate their currency UM. But by allowing people and exit UM, that disrupts the system. So it's all

over the place. That's a big problem. Yeah. I mean, there's millions of bitcoin users in China, There's more than ten million in India. There's millions in Turkey, there's millions in Nigeria, there's millions in Argentina. I mean, anyone on Wall Street or in the New York Times who says that it's some sort of costplay or some sort of you know, online libertarian nonsense is just ignorant. I mean, and I partly I almost feel bad for them and

how wrong they are. Like the literally the most prestigious newspapers and talk show hosts in our country are completely clueless about one of the most important revolution revolutions in history. I mean, we're separating money from state. I mean, this is on par with the printing press and democracy in ancient Greece. I mean, we're living through a similarly important time right now, and they're just completely out to lunch.

And the cool part is, Um, regardless of what they say, these professional bitcoin critics, regardless of how they've tried to gaslight you, the American people over the last ten years, saying Bitcoin is too dangerous, it's too risky, Um, regardless of what they say, Bitcoin is right now as we speak, empowering tens of millions of people around the world who don't have a better money and it's doing more for people for empowerment and for justice and for freedom than

any of those critics will ever do in their entire lifetime. It's doing in the next sixty minutes. So I mean Bitcoin is saying basically screw you all, um. And the crazy part is that this is a gas lighting operation. Like over the last decade, Americans and Brits and Chileans and Chinese, we've been told by our governments that bitcoin is First of all, they said it was a joke. Then they said it was risky now, and then they said it was dangerous. Okay, guess what's been dangerous not

buying bitcoin? Okay, what I mean Now, let's just look at the dollar. Okay, the dollar has had a hyper inflationary collapse against bitcoin over the last ten years. Okay, So they've forced you to stay away from that. They've convinced you that it's a bad idea, and you've ended up losing purchasing power, you know, unless unless you've been lucky enough to really like do well with you know, equities and real estate. But like most people don't write.

Most people just are just getting by and the money they're using to just get by has been depreciating and purchasing power and they have more debt than ever. So I mean, they think it just depends on your perspective. But what's been crazy to me is to watch like the academic political media elite continue to say this thing is dangerous when it is saving so many people around

the world. Yeah, I love what you said. They're they're gas lighting or really there these professional critics, as you say, they're telling you stuff that's holding you back, which is why I want to bring this information to you. You're listening to the Mark mo Show from with Alex Claudstein and will be right back. All right, Welcome back here with the Mark mos Show on the Heart Radio Network. Each week I'm bringing you the information you need to

navigate the Bitcoin, cryptocurrency decentralized revolution. And make no mistake, it is a revolution that will fix the world, fix the money, fix the world. I'm with Alex Gladstein from the Human Rights Foundation. UM. He is a big proponent of bitcoin around the world. You can follow him on Twitter at Gladstein and you definitely should give him a follow.

But we were right in the middle of this uh of of one of his rans had to cut him off, and you want you jump back in, Yeah, no, I just look again, like professional economists and policymakers in the United States are bending over backwards to convince themselves that currency debasement and basically printing more money to solve our nations problems is going to be good. Um. And and at the same time they're attacking bitcoin, which is like

the plan being that citizens can used to defend themselves. Right. So what you gotta know is that these people are self interested in the listing system. You should protect yourself with bitcoin. You should first learn about it, arm yourself with education and knowledge and learn about bitcoin. And then over time, yeah, obviously try to start earning it, you know, converting some of your fiat money into it, etcetera, etcetera.

That fiat money is going to lose value over time, is going to lose a tremendous amount of value over the next decade. If you're listening from Ethiopia or Studan, it's gonna lose money a lot faster and value a lot faster. But still, I mean even the United States or EU, that money is going to lose a lot of value. Um, people are gonna seek to move elsewhere. And the interesting thing is we have this big debate now about minting the coin. Like the United States has

a budget issue, We're gonna run out of money. And some people say, oh that, you know, the Treasury should just meant a trillion dollar uh, you know, platinum coin and sell it to the Fed, right as like a way to fix it. Well, what's cooler? What's cooler than a trillion dollar platinum coin? Trillion dollar freedom money? Which is which is you know bitcoin is is you know around nine hundred billion dollars and or you know, had had previously topped trillion dollars earlier this year, and we'll

top it again soon. So this freedom money, this trillion dollar freedom money, is open to everybody on earth. You know. If here's the interesting part. If if the US government tries to save corporations and the and the financial sector and the stocks to all of our senators and congressman owned by minting the coin, okay, um, that doesn't help

everybody on earth, right, that only helps some people. Bitcoin is like this level open playing field, that's that's literally open for business for anyone with an Internet connection anywhere in the world. Um. And you know that's why you might say the capital of bitcoin is not New York

or Washington, but probably Lagos, Nigeria. You know, this is like a place, a country of two and a million people where you know, just a just a massive and growing number of millions of young Nigerians are turning to bitcoin, um, not just as a place to store their wealth over time, but as a place to connect with the world. And

that's what I want to talk about now. A little bit is like bitcoin as a as a sort of digital cash, as a bridge between people as something that can connect us in a world that has way too many walls. Right. So again, anyone with the Internet, whether you're in China or Iran or wherever, you can access this thing and that there's no gate or barrier to

prevent you from doing so. So I've I've interacted with all kinds of bitcoin users in the countries I just mentioned, I mean in Gaza in Cuba and in places that I'm usually not allowed to have connection with, Like I can transact bitcoin with these people. It's this really beautiful thing that brings us together, and what makes it possible is the Lightning network. Like and look, I know a lot of critics, especially in New York Times Lost Real Journal,

there are always trashing bitcoin from being slow and expensive. Okay, yes, on chain bitcoin over time is going to be slow and expensive compared to visa. Yes, it's gonna take ten twenty minutes to settle. And the fees right now they're cheap, they're like fifty cents, But like, I think fees will be considerable on chain in the futures maybe more okay, maybe a lot more. Um. However, what people did is they heared out how to scale Bitcoin using a second

layer called the Lighting network. And with Lightning Network, you can send bitcoin instantly and basically for free anywhere on Earth. And it's a little more privacy protecting even in Bitcoin because it's not happening on the chains. You can't have chain surveillance messing your stuff up, right. So the cool part about Lightning is it's really getting adopted massively around the world. So Twitter, the actual platform, Twitter has now partnered up with a company called Strike to allow creators

to accept Lightning donations. So I just turned it on. Yeah, no, it's awesome. I just turned it on a couple of days ago, connected my Strike account, and I've been receiving Lightning tips from god knows who all over the world, like they come in all the time, people who are happy about my articles or whatever. And it's just so beautiful. It's so cool to be connected to the community in that way. And it's it's nice to see Twitter connecting

itself to an open monetary network, and that's what bitcoin is. Now. There's a country that just did it too, in El Salvador, like this small um relatively impoverished Central American country decided to add bitcoin as a legal tender about a month ago. And this is revolutionary for many reasons. I mean you could you could see it in the same historical lenses, you know, the Brits events in central banking, uh five

plus years ago. Okay, well, i'll Salvador is the first country to add an open, decentralized currency for the population. Now the rollout is hotly contested. The leader doing it is is authoritarian in my view, and we need to be careful to separate and the acts of choosing bitcoin for the people as opposed to some China currency or some CBDC or some surveillance coin. Right. Um, they chose bitcoin,

which is amazing. Um, we need to separate that from like cheering for that government, which is which is a dangerous government. I would say, So these are going to be nuanced things, and you're about to live, you listening, are about to look through a decade where dozens of other governments adopt bitcoin, and they're they're not all going to be ones you like, right, So, I mean I thought it was going to be like a rogue regime

that would that would use this thing first, right. Um, It's sort of similar to the idea of the beginning of the Internet. Like when the Internet first came out, there was a lot of criticism, Oh, it's gonna like empower sketchy people. Like, yes, well, in the beginning, it was only used for it was used for porn, like that was its main use case. And actually when the well and when the VCR came out, the VCR was only used for porn before Disney used it, and then

the Internet was only used for porn. And so usually technology seems to have like some sort of nefarious use case before it gets Yeah, there's always edge users at the beginning, Like even when bitcoin was first invented, like you know, the silk Road was one of its major first use cases, right, Okay, but we're way beyond that now, Like now we're at like governments adopting bitcoin, right, so, like we're so far much further along in bitcoin's history

than at that point. And you know, governments of all shapes and sizes, corporations of all shapes and sizes are going to be forced to use it, not out of any any altruistic reason, but simply because it's the best money, okay, and it's the it's the best way for them to preserve their purchasing power over time. That is what is going to force them to use it that they don't.

They're not gonna have to think about it much more than that, right, And and the cool part is that whether or whether they like it or not, these corporations, these governments, whether it's Tesla, whether it's Square, whether it's Um Paul Tutor Jones or other billionaires, whether it's governments like El Salvador, whether they like it or not, when they adopt the coin, they helped strengthen this like global

freeding tool. And that's like this fascinating mechanism at work here. Yeah, everyone's a freedom father, fright or whether they realize it or not. Um. The one thing that I just think about, and I know both of us have been down to El Salvador, and you've been at the forefront of this, Uh, definitely more than me. But I've traveled quite a bit. I'm a surfer, so I traveled to these very remote

locations to chase remote waves. So I've witnessed this and I think more people, especially when I say, should travel

to get that perspective. But even though I knew what was going on down there, it wasn't until I actually put boots on the ground that it really was like this epiphany where you actually see it and you realize, you know specifically there it's like kind of solving this remittance problem where that of having to ride a bus for two hours to to send Salvat already get my money and then write two hours back and then potentially get robbed with cash and then losing whatever fees. Now

I can just get it instantly. And when you have something that's uh, not just a five or ten percent incremental improvement, but a hundred x or a thousand x improvement like this is, I mean, it just it just can't be stopped. So, UM, I want to talk about that. I want to talk about UM. I love the fact that you said we need to kind of separate the politics of what may be happening in El Salvador versus bitcoin the tool, and I think it's important to look

at that. So I want to talk more about that, and then UM, when I get back, I want to also talk about some questions I had post from the audience that I want to ask you as well. UM, so we'll get into more of that as well. UM. I'm with Alex Gladstein from the Human Rights Foundation. UM. Follow him on Twitter at Gladstein. Of course. On Mark Moss is the Mark Mars Show. You can follow me number one, Mark Moss. And we're talking about bitcoin UM being you used as a human rights tool, UM, which

I think is so important. And so we'll be right back. All right, you are back with the Mark Moss Show talking about bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, the decentralized revolutions, and I'm with Alex Cladstein from the Human Rights Foundation. Follow them on Twitter at Gladstein and look up the Human Rights Foundation online and find out what they're doing. But we were right in the middle of talking about, you know, how bitcoin can solve all these humans rights issues, and we

are specifically talking about El Salvador UM. One thing. You know, we've seen a lot of news about UM the politics down there and is the president of dictator is he going to try to UM change it so he can stay in power? Is he using bitcoin to steal from the people and all these things? UM. I don't know enough about the politics, UM, but I think you made a great point, which is we need to separate UM. You know, bitcoin being UM a tool that could be

used by anybody, and then what the politics are. But one other point I'd like to just get your opinion on. I know, like I said, we've both been down there and and witnessed this in real time. Is uh, and I think maybe you've you've kind of said that you weren't a big fan of it. But he basically forced in a law of making bitcoin legal tender, and so per the law, everyone uh you know, I guess as a as a merchant is required to accept it because it's legal tender, and so they have to allow someone

to pay that way. Um, it seems like from the way I understand the law, they have to allow someone to pay that way, but they don't have to receive the bitcoin or hold bitcoin. And so I know some people have kind of been outspoken where well bitcoin should be free to adopt, it shouldn't be forced onto people. Um, where do you think of how do you see that? Yeah? I mean, like personally, I hope I wish they hadn't made it, you know, enforced in that way. I think

it should be voluntary. However, as a bitcoin user and someone who thinks it will become more popular in the future, I knew this day was coming, Like I knew one day a government would do this, Like at some point I just didn't think it would happen. I think this was like way, um, but this the government of al Savador has like self interest in trying to like basically boost its nation into the future by like making them a bitcoin economy. Like it feels that it can gain fame,

which it already has. I mean, is like easily the most famous Central American leader now and no one knew he was like a year ago. Um, it feels like it can gain foreign investment, which it's gaining for sure. It feels like it can gain notorid like like basically publicity, which which I mean Al Savador had never been on the cover or is a feature in any financial magazine ever. I mean, the only thing that this country led the world in as of four or five years ago was

murder rate. Okay, And all of a sudden now like people are debating you know, it's it's it's it's like fintech innovation, which is really remarkable, and a lot of Salvadorans are happy about that. You know, some aren't, but a lot are. So I think it's interesting how um, you know, we can argue about the legal tender part um. But at the end of the day, like I mean, I think every citizen in the world should have the ability to have bitcoin is legal tender in their country. Um. Now,

is that going to happen? No, no way, There's no way that governments right now will do that. However, I think some governments will start to and it's the beginning of a trend. And you know, some governments will simply adopt bitcoin as a reserve asset um for their national savings. Others will do more like El Salvador is doing. Others

will try and incorporate it for remittances. Like there's every reason for countries like Tana which which are of the GDPs relying on remittances, or country Stickle Salvador relying on remittances, or even countries like Nigeria which are even like around five,

you know, relying on remittances. If you're a gross domestic product, if you're revenue as a nation is significantly derived from remittances, then you have every reason to want to shift to a lightning network based system where these corporations and these middlemen don't suck value out of your citizenry and therefore out of your tax base. Right, Like you're self interested

to attach yourself to this open monetary system. And when you think about what's happening now Salvadorans the United States. There's two million plus Salvadorans the United States, right, they can now go UM Like you know, there's a video of someone in Atlanta. They can just go to like the embassy UH if they wanted to and deposit cash, physical cash and to achieve a machine in Atlanta, and and and their family can like receive it immediately and then just like withdraw into bitcoin or cash in El

Salvador without dealing with remittenance companies. Like that's kind of amazing. The more amazing thing is that any Salvador in the United States or anywhere in the world can send a lightning network instant payment to anyone with a state run achiev a wallet or anyone with a non custodial open source wallet in El Salvador instantly, and the value just goes peer to peer and there's no blood sucking middleman

in the middle. Right. So this is like we are moving forward in terms of UH financial technology, like legacy stuff like Western Union. These are like blockbusters and this is like dinosaur tech and we are like obliterating it with like this open source wave of technology. That's that's really going to help connect us all again in a world with a lot of bridges and a lot of barriers. I mean, it's it's to me, it's a quite beautiful thing.

One thing that you know, you've talked about four billion, four and a half billion people living under authoritarian regimes, and I think it's pretty easy to see that the world is trending towards authority ternism, and technology is given a more and more tools they need to even you know,

continue to build that at the authoriternism. I've often been saying that I think the only thing that breaks that trend of of us moving towards oor aternism is really competition and so um when we're able to leave, like a sovereign individual says, like a cow grows wings and flies away, if enough people leave, the nations will be forced to kind of change. And uh, like China did. They were called I mean us, they were trailing the world. They had open up to a little bit of freeports

and capitalism to compete. Um, and we're seeing this playout in real time now with El Salvador as you were making the case just by a simple act of making bitcoin legal tender, Like you said, all of a sudden there, uh, now you know who the president is. They're making news headlines, but even more important, they're attracting massive amounts of capital coming into the country just by one small thing. And I think that that competition loop that will see more

countries want to jump in. You already named a couple of countries that are thinking about it, and I think that could really start to accelerate this trend um and eventually maybe hopefully force those authority countries that will continue to have this downward decline because of that grip. Uh, get them to kind of force or change their perspective. I mean, what do you think about that? Yeah, look, it's inevitable. Look, this is a people's revolution. It's being

led by the people. I mean, they're of all bitcoin users, plus are not in El Salvador. Like, there's more Indian bitcoin users than there are Salvadoran's. Okay, so let's not lose sight of the fact that this is a global phenomena where El Salvador has played it. Yes, an important,

but relatively very small role um. This is an individual citizen led thing where people are peacefully opting out into a new system, and if the thing grows big enough, it's gonna snowball and it's gonna start, you know, bringing governments with it. One thing that I would be remiss to not mention, um, would be bitcoin mining. I just think real quick that this is going to have a

huge impact on the world. And what's interesting is you're seeing the Salvadoran government now start to use its volcanic energy to mind bitcoin. Like they're just geothermal heat, carbon neutral, kind of green volcanic energy. Um, that's just sort of stranded. They're turning that into money through through bitcoin mining, which converts electricity into money. UM. So you're seeing that happen

all over the world. So in Bruna Park and the DRC in Central Africa, they're turning flowing water into bitcoin through hydro dams. Um. You're seeing people turned sunlight and too too money through solar farms, wind farms turning air into money. Like this is going to happen all across the emerging markets and like basically countries are gonna start realizing that they can like actually raise money, raise bonds,

et cetera. Through stranded renewable energy resources. And in my view, it's going to help sort of like green the planet as like we have new incentives to use stranded renewable energy resources. And to me, this is really important because currently, like fossil fuel companies have like such a stranglehold over you know, a lot of the energy market and a

lot of our a lot of our lives. I mean, they undergird the petro dollar, which is what the U. S. Dollar really is, and you know, I think that's bad for human rights. Look at leads to our relationship with Saudi Arabia and now, like to back these thugs for decades, leads to wars, it leads to conflicts. UM and we have a new we have a new option now, like people can opt into a new currency that's not backed by violence or thugs or warships or the U. S. Military or by oil. Like we have a new current.

And see that's that can be backed entirely by clean energy and he can be run by the people themselves. And I just think that's a beautiful vision for the future. Yeah, it is, and it's going to reshape the world. You know, typically a country would be UM typically was by the natural resources where they had gold or oil, and now nations that had no natural resources but they have energy could have bitcoin. Um. This is the Mark Maas Show on the I Heart Radio Network with Alex Gladstein from

the Human Rights Foundation. Check them out at h r F dot org. Follow Alex at Gladstein on Twitter, and of course I am one Mark Moss on Twitter. With that, I gotta wrap it up. Thanks for listening to The Mark mos Show.