Saving Bedford with Bitcoin | Peter McCormack

Everything I owned would have been sold off. It was horrific. The bigger government is, the more people are there, it will grift it, and the more it will destroy society. I just think I'm doing what we said we were going to do. Like, we were meant to go out and fix the

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He says, I've had enough. I'm fixing this. I'm not taking this shit anymore.

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Is the audio recording? I hope so. Is the audio recording? Did Danny do it? So it's not muted? Are we going to tell the story? I mean, together we did, what, 700 podcasts, 800 podcasts? I mean, I hosted, I didn't produce 700 podcasts. I wasn't the sound engineer for 700 podcasts. Correct. and I don't... Actually, I was. You were at first. Yeah. And I don't remember ever recording a show and muting... That is absolute bullshit. Muting the whole conversation. I never lost a whole

conversation. I think that's bullshit. No, I once lost my audio. Oh, and you had to re-record. Yeah, I had to like sit there and literally... That was before the video days, though. Before the video days. But yeah, I've never lost a whole audio of a podcast.

Well, I've done it twice already. All right, Jeremy. I never did it once. Go on, Jeremy. I never did it once on What Bitcoin Did, old version, but I've done it twice already here. So tell the story. We took a photo in Manchester in a studio saying, we've just recorded it. Dropping next week. Dropping next week. What happened? I did press record. I technically did press record, but I had the channels muted and we got no audio. But I just wanted to spend more time with you, Pete. We're back.

We're back. We're so back. What are we talking about today? You being the Bedford Batman. You being the host of What Bitcoin Did. Yeah. Is it weird? Is it weird? How much do you miss this? I've just been in Riga for three days. I had a ball. I saw all our friends. God, there's a lot to answer with that one question alone. I miss the ritual.

like I've swapped out meeting you every six weeks picking a city picking Austin Vegas wherever meeting you and we'd always go straight down the pub we'd get some I don't know dirty fries drink beer all night and we'd spend two weeks good times man we'd spend two weeks with our friends I miss Matt Odell I miss Harry I miss the fact that I would see each of these people three to four times a year genuine friends HODL I miss the fuck out of HODL Harry I've messaged but in the new drift

It's a bit like when you're just from school friends, like life moves on. People live in other countries. I miss that. I mainly miss you. I miss hanging out with you. You're like one of my best friends in the world. I love you dearly. And I miss that. I miss... We just got to do really interesting things. Like that time we went to Vegas and we got to ball it in that ridiculous pad. That was one of the coolest things I've ever done. One of the coolest things. And we went to an amazing restaurant.

Darren Feinstein looked after us. And I don't get to do that stuff anymore. and... You're in the slums of Bedford instead. It was a good life. It was a really, really good life. I don't miss doing the show.

I was cooked on the show, as you know. I think we... The original plan was to stop it in... January. January. And then I think I'm probably... When did we stop? I think it was the very end of August was the last trip. Is whenever the... Was it around the Nashville conference? Maybe, but we... And then I said, yeah, I can't do January. I think I said there was like a trip in November and then that last trip I got on the plane and I think I, as

soon as I landed I said yeah I'm done. Yeah. Last trip. It was the first thing you said to me when I walked through the door, I still remember it. Yeah look, so many reasons man. Craig Wright lawsuit took a lot out of me. That was brutal. That was five years of fucking hell and you went through

all that with me, you know the depths that we can get into the depths of that crap. But mainly I mean When after my divorce, I went on holiday to see my mate Justin in LA, and I was feeling low, and I was great there, and I really enjoyed going out there, and when I was flying back, I felt like crap. And so I booked another trip, and I started to realize, like, actually, if I had a trip booked, it'd be great.

And I just think life led me to needing to do a podcast, to travel, and the whole thing flipped. By the end of it, I started to, like, not look forward to the trips. It's like, gotta get on the plane. By the way, this is everyone you talk to about who travels for work, external people think it's brilliant. They're like, oh my god, this is amazing. Because it is at first. You sound so spoiled saying it's tough.

Yeah. And it is at first because you go down to the airport and you sit there and you do a bit of work. You get on the plane, watch a film, and then you land in a city and it's amazing. But then it just becomes the job and you'll get this at some point and it becomes a drag. You're away from your family, away from your kids, you're tired. And I guess I just, I'd done enough on Bitcoin. I'd made 860, you know, I mean, I just, I was cooked on Bitcoin. I was cooked on the show.

So I don't miss making that show. I still get to make a podcast, which I'm happy with. I miss our friends. I miss you. I miss that ritual. There was no part of being in a Airbnb with you for two weeks and making podcasts I didn't enjoy. It was so much fun. It was cool. So that's what I miss.

I miss that. Like now I'm doing the traveling. I'm doing it solo. I mean, hotel rooms or Airbnb's on my own. I've actually been roping Eric Yakes in to stay with me just so I have someone to talk to. You need a Danny. I need a Danny. You need a Danny. Eric was kind of my Danny on the Riga trip. Are you enjoying it? I mean, I'm loving it. But it's funny, like when you talk about the travel, I know I've not been doing this long ago. I think I first did the trip with you in 2020 or 21.

It was after COVID. New York. Yeah, New York. We were like two little kids who hadn't seen each other ages. But we'd never seen each other. Because we'd been working. Like I started with the Pakistan. I can never actually remember what it was. I think it was early 2019 is when I properly started. But we went through a phase there where, like, it starts off like anything, where you talk every now and again, and you just, I was just doing the work.

But then after a while, we were talking every day, and then every day for like two hours every day. I'd go for a walk around the park, and I'd call you. Yeah, that's right. That was the COVID walk. It's good to talk a lot. Yeah, but not like we used to. No, I'd say, I would say we speak every two, three, four days. Occasionally, it's an hour.

occasionally it's you know and it's like how's your show going or i've i've done this what do you think occasionally it's like five i can't talk now chat you later five minutes and it is different but that travel is it like it i think i've got a really nice balance where the travel's rough being away from the family sucks but when i'm there it's amazing six foot three and economy's rough yeah exactly six four come on um but the trade-off's great because when i'm home i can

actually be home um it's not like i'm going and doing a nine-to-five in an office and not ever see my daughter. Like I'm away for a while, but when I'm back, I can actually be dad, which is the cool thing. It's so funny you should say that, right? So one of the things for stopping it was traveling, making 20 shows and coming back. I was like, get a studio in London. It'll be a lot

easier. This has actually been harder because rather than just locking ourselves away for two weeks and making 15 shows, 20 shows, because then I would get back, you would just edit them, get

them ready. Ben would, we'd talk about the title and off it would go. I think that was literally the call would be what's the title um and then but with this we're coming in sometimes three days a week sometimes two days a week and we're just all over the place in some ways i'll say in a com maybe we should come down for three days stack them yeah stack six shows and then

then i can go off and do work for two weeks because you've got a lot of stuff to do in bedford loads man which before we talk about that though it's funny when i was in riga someone was asking me like how did the conversation go when you and pete decided to essentially break up um and i was like It was like a breakup. Like, do you remember in Sydney?

When you came into Sydney for Cheat Code, and I'd been thinking about it, and I was like, I basically couldn't move back to the UK to do this podcast. It was clear that that wasn't going to work, and something else was going to have to happen. And you came into the hotel we were staying at in Sydney. It was like 11 a.m. You were straight off a 24-hour flight, and you were like, old-fashioned? And we spoke in that bar for like seven hours. It was emotional.

And we felt like breaking up with a girl. Well, do you know what we did? We kind of did that thing where you go on a break and still shagged. That's what we did. That's essentially what we did because it was like, let's do this new show. And how many did we make with you on the Mr. It would have been less than 10, I think. Less than 10. It wasn't the same. It didn't work. Actually, I remember we were doing one interview and I knew myself.

And I think I said to you after the interview, I was like, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't work because Bitcoin was my thing that became our thing, and we were on the same page. What I'm making now is definitely it's my thing. It's a different page. And it didn't work, and I knew it didn't work. I would have made it work. I would have carried on with you forever. Was it you who said to me first, I want to bring what Bitcoin did back? Yeah, that was in Sydney.

I was in some ways relieved, like when you told me. I was like, because I knew it wasn't working. I knew you had to do your own thing. Look, in hindsight, I think as a breakup, it was a good one. That's true. We gave friends or whatever. But I mean, what's it like being a host? Are you enjoying it? What's the challenge? What's the difference being foil to the host?

I mean, I think the main difference is like finding out what my show is. Okay. And I feel like I've found my feet with it now. But at first it was like, I don't just want to be Pete McCormack too. Do you know what I mean? I'm taking the brand, but I want it to be different in some way. Yeah. And I think that was probably the biggest challenge at first. And like the first few interviews, I was super nervous, like felt a little bit awkward doing it, but I'm feeling pretty comfortable now.

You're nervous now? Do you know what? I'm not at all. Because you've already done it once. Yeah, exactly. Honestly, that's what I was going to say. When we did it in Manchester, I said to Lynn actually after an interview I did with her, not the most recent one, but before that, I was like, Lynn, you're the only person I get nervous talking to because I think Lynn's so amazing and she's so smart. I want to make sure I can give her questions that she actually finds interesting.

But then before Manchester, I was a little bit nervous because this feels like a special show. Look, it won't be because it won't be one of your highest numbers. People want to hear from Jeff Booth and Lynn and stuff. And maybe people want to hear from me. But look, it's a weird one because some people are like, do you regret giving up what Bitcoin did? I'm like, I absolutely don't. There couldn't have been a better scenario than you taking it on and carrying it on and having you.

Look, being the fool's great. We had a lot of fun, but obviously being the own host, it's like so much better. Yeah. It's your gig. You get some control of it. You are a massive part of what it was and like all power to you, man. You could crush it. It's been pretty fun. But you're different to me though. Like you, you were, you were, it was a bit like, do you remember Sock AM when, what's his name? He's come on with his one question. What's his name? Tim Lovejoy. No, it was the side gig person.

Oh, like the guy who was an alcoholic.

Yeah. Yeah. He would come and do what, like, you would always do, like, the best question of the episode, like the intelligent one. And now you've just made that a show. Yours is more to the point, more accurate, more intelligent. I have to now occasionally read people say, this is a much better show without Pete. Well, I see the other ones too. Don't worry. And I mean, I don't talk about Bedford as much. No, you don't. But I do talk about it a little bit. It has come up.

But before we do the Bedford thing, do you want to talk about Craig Wright? Because I think the story, everyone knows the story now. Well, they don't know everything. But that's the point. I think the more interesting stuff is basically that month we spent in Austin. Well, that was horrific. I mean, look, we all know who Craig Wright is. We all know who he said he was. None of us believed him. Strategically, him and Calvin made the decision to start suing people.

For some, somehow they concocted an idea in their head. If they could win legitimacy through the courts that you can't call him Craig Wright, you could then sue the developers to get them to fork the code to give him the Satoshi coins. Like it was so far-fetched. Even if they, by the way, it would have been fascinating to watch. Even if they'd got to that point, there would have been another fork and everyone would have made that. It still would have worked.

But it was just the fact that what went through their heads, I have no idea. But they went after our brother Hodlernort, and Hodlernort messaged me and said, I'm being sued, they're trying to dox me, what should I do? and he showed me the legal documents. I was like, well, fuck it. I host a podcast and it's quite big. And I think if I get them to come after me, everyone will back me and we'll sort this out. So I was like, out there, you're a fraud and you're a moron. Fuck you, bum beard.

And so then I got served papers and I was very naive to what this all meant. And then that put me into this five and a half year vortex. And actually the two people who lived it the most with me are in this room, it's you and Connor.

and the culmination was that was I didn't realize what a libel lawsuit in the UK meant it meant you can weaponize the courts if you've got money you could basically you could strategically try and bankrupt somebody because if they pull out they admit defeat and you lose I got to the point where I ran out money I had some people thankfully backed me one person specifically you know you are if you're listening thank you very much but I also spent hundreds of thousands

of pounds of my own money. I got to a point where I had no money and represented myself for one hearing, which I fucked up. Why did you fuck it up? Because I don't understand how the courts work and I'm not a QC. Well, QC at the time, now Casey. Like we went through it. But what mistakes did you make? I just didn't know what the fuck I was doing. Like I didn't understand the court procedure. I couldn't prepare. I couldn't make arguments. You cannot represent yourself in these situations.

It's very hard. Then my, at the time, QC, Casey Now, said, look, we'll go. We've got an idea. We'll represent you at the next hearing. No win, no fee. Just on this. We'll try and get you to this point. Anyway, we got, it went on and on and on. And about, I don't know, say six months before trial. I'll probably have the timeline wrong. You and I are in Austin. I think it was a an offer to Craig Wright to settle. I looked at everything I could scrap together and it was about

£230,000 and I just went to them and said, I can't carry this on. I'll offer to settle. Here's £230,000. We'll walk away. They turned it down. Can we actually take a step back first? Yeah. Because I think earlier in the lawsuit, maybe very, very early in the first months of it, they offered to settle with you, didn't they? Oh yeah, but I mean, they said, we'll drop the case, all the fees. I think they even said they'll pay my fees, but I could be wrong about that.

All we need you to do is sign a statement of truth saying that you believe Craig Wright is a toe shit. I was obviously like, you can fucking suck my dick. I'm not fucking doing that. Probably should have in the end because it was very painful, that whole process. But yeah, no, fuck off. It's not happening. But so then you offered, you went back to them and said, we'll settle for this. Yeah, they said no. And that's not long after that, I took that phone call in Austin with my lawyers preparing

me for bankruptcy, which I, again, naive, I wasn't prepared for. But in the UK, maybe the same elsewhere, if you lose, you have to pay whatever the judgment is from the lawyer. And you also have to pay your own legal fees, and then you have to pay their legal fees. His legal fees were millions, three and a half million, mine were one and a half million. I'd paid some through it, but I still owed them 750 grand. I didn't have a net wealth of £6 million to cover all that.

So they walked me through the process, and the process was this. Immediate sale of all your assets. You know, cars. Well, not house. Businesses. Podcasts would have been sold to the highest bidder, which I guess would have been them. Buy shares in the football club, everything. Everything I owned would have been sold off. You keep your house for a year because you've got kids. They give you a year to find new accommodation, then your house gets sold and they get that.

And then you're bankrupted, which means seven years you can't be a company director. So basically I would be fucked. My kids come out of school, cannot afford to pay for anything, no job, no money. I mean, I'm sure I could have got a job. And I don't know if that meant during the job I would constantly have a debt to them or whatever. But essentially they would have destroyed my ability to earn a living and all my wealth. It was horrific. And I went through it. You were there, I did the call.

and then we were trying to think of, well, is there ways can I sell? And any way we tried to think of hiding the asset and moving the asset, there could have been a clawback. So, no, I was fucked. And my lawyer said, look, you're going to lose the libel. And then that's that. I talked about it on Nat Brunel's show, that whole weird thing where that Twitter account, TrackBender, which is a real doll, fake doll with massive tits, who always posts Bitcoin stuff, anti-Craig Wright stuff.

although I've seen some weird messages about that account recently, but anyway, and occasionally it's like the cleavage with a Bitcoin bee in it or something. It's just the weirdest account. He's been messaging me about Craig Wright for a while, though, whatever. Came to me and said, look through the evidence, go and double check the conferences. It's false. And what happens is, in a libel lawsuit in the UK, you have to prove something called serious harm.

It's like, I can say, Danny's a shit podcaster. You can sue me for libel, but if there's no harm to you, there's no compensation. There's no point. So you would have to say, after Pete said that, people were tweeting that I'm a shit podcaster and people stopped listening and blah, blah, blah. It's a crap example, but that's why. So on his serious harm, he put three things. He said he was too scared to drop his kids off at school because of reputational damage.

Like any of those parents have seen my tweets, but whatever. He said he couldn't be a pastor anymore and that he was disinvited from 10 conferences. So I was like, well, what have I got to lose? So I got the list of conferences because they're in his evidence and I phoned up the first one, no answer, second one, no answer, third one, a guy picks up. And I just said, look, I need to talk to you about something. I'm in a lawsuit in the UK. A man called Craig writes through me for libel.

In his claim is that because of my tweets, you disinvited him from the conference. What I didn't know is a lot of these conferences keep all these records of who was invited, how they're invited, how they're applied, and what the decisions were, because there's a board sometimes who makes decisions.

I can't remember the exact same example, but it was something along the lines of, because he went away and called me back and he said, no, he wasn't disavited because your tweets, I haven't even seen your tweets. He wasn't invited because he applied, he sent his paper, and it was rejected for being such low quality. And I managed to speak to three or four of them. And one was like, because his paper was fraudulent, it was like a plagiarization. But not a single one was.

And the way the court process works in the UK is, they're trying to stop the final court hearing to make a decision. They want you to get to a point where you agree. And so you have to submit, the minute we know, we have to send to them and say, we know, factually, you've lied here. And then they have to come back and say whether they did lie or not. because he's been caught, he has to come back and say, yes, I lied. On my witness of truth, I put that it's not true.

But there was... And then he put this other one. But there was this other conference. So we found the person, we were going to fly them over for the hearing. And then he came back and said that was another lie. So he's been caught twice signing the witness of truth. And this is one thing that's really good about the UK courts. The judges hate lying. The minute you've been caught lying, you lose all credibility. And what was brilliant is that we still went to trial.

And my Casey, Katrin Evans from Matrix, big love to you Katrin, made him go through every one. She went, this conference X, you said X, is that true? And he had to go, no, it isn't true. And she said, so you signed a witness of truth against serious harm that all these conferences, you were disinvited because of Pete's tweet, not true. And he had to admit that wasn't true.

And strategically what we went for in the end was was I libelled him that I said he not Satoshi and he a liar I cannot prove he isn So under UK law, I've libelled him. As ridiculous as that is. Because the burden of truth is on you to find who Satoshi actually is. Yeah. It's hard to prove a negative. So I have libelled him. It's dumb, but I've libelled him. And they said, what we will do, we will go for a £1 judgment.

say, yes, Peter's libeled him, but his conduct is so bad, wasted time and money in the courts, he only deserves a £1 judgment. And that's what we got. Which is essentially a win for you, even though technically it's not. I mean, I remember we were in Hawaii on holiday, like at the end of all this, relieved, but like it's over, but not knowing what the judgment was being. I remember I got a call from Rupert, my lawyer. Do you know the funny thing about that? Just quickly.

There's certain things that happen where you remember where you are. I remember where I was when you called me. Yeah. It was outside a bar in Manchester that was called Pedro's.

Yeah. I remember where I was when you found out you'd won and 9-11. But yeah, so at this point, he called me and I went outside, left the kids, got in the elevator, and he told me that we'd been successful. It was a £1 judgment. I actually cried. I did. Do you remember it at all, on. Yeah, I was surprised. It was total relief because the one pound judgment isn't in itself like vindication. It's the fact that I didn't have to pay his legal fees and he had to pay

mine back. And I got 85% of my legal fees back. So I still lost a bit, but I got 85% back. But from going from thinking you may be bankrupt to getting 85% of your legal fees.

Game changer. And look, now we know everything that's happened since, you know there is a probability that I would have got everything back somehow in a different way but what damage would have been done in the would I have lost my house in that process and how would I get another house like it would have been would have been savage um so yeah uh I'm I'm so intrigued by him as a human though the question that always sits with me is did he convince himself he was him?

Or, like, would he go back at the end of the day of saying he's Satoshi and go, fucking hell, I'm not getting away with this, or today went well? Or did he just assume the character and become that person? Now I don't know. I'd love to ask him that. I would happily do this. Sit down with him and say, bygones be bygones, we've been through it. I'm just fascinated. I've got so many questions.

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I'd love to talk to Calvin Air. Well, we should talk about Calvin Air. I don't know what you can say and what you can't say, but... I used to text him. We should talk about that. But I remember when we were in Austin, when this was really bleak, and you were, like, fucking depressed. Yep. And I remember even you saying then, while I think at that point you regretted it, I'm sure you don't regret the lawsuit now, but you said then I want to speak to him.

Yeah, just... I would have just said to Calvin Air, Look, you're a very, very wealthy man. You're never going to have to worry about money again. You are actively destroying my life on a lie. I want to know, because I want to know, at what point did Calvin realize the game's up? Because I believe, Calvin believed that Craig Wright was Satoshi. Initially. Initially, because Roger Ver did. Roger Ver told me in Japan he did, told me he had the keys.

And I think a number of people at certain times believed he was. And I think other people might have been, well, maybe Izzy isn't. And so I believe Calvin did believe it. And I believe he got sold on this idea, look, we should get my coins back. But I think there probably came a time when Calvin was like, firstly, things didn't add up. And then eventually it's like, yeah, fuck, he's not. And I just want to say to him, look, you're destroying my life.

You're going to destroy my kid's life all on a lie. Why are you doing this? I tried to.

Somebody gave me his phone number. I used to text him. What did you use to text him, Pete? So weirdly, I got given the... I used to text him and go, I forgive you. Like every single day. No, every few days. I don't know. I'll see if I've got it here. Because what happened, I was with a guy, coincidentally, he came to Bedford, he was making one of those endless Satoshi films that we see. Yeah, I still got it here. There's loads.

And somebody gave me his number, and so we've called him, and we got it on film, but he didn't pick up. I texted him, I said, hi Calvin, it's Peter. So listen, I don't hold any grudges, it is what it is. I also believe that you may have been wronged. Either way, I think it's time for you and I to talk. I'd like to explain to you how tough the last five years have been for me, the impact on my health and my family. I believe all of this can be put behind us and we can make it good.

So shall we speak? No reply. Hi Calvin, disappointed that you didn't reply to me. Either way,

it's pretty clear how the next few months are going to play out. I remain open and willing to discuss this all with you just let me know so go on and on and then um then it would be like hi calvin just so you know i forgive you and craig life happens but i don't hold grudges i'm not a religious person but i thought i'd share this with you and then i sent him john 8 32 then you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free and then it was like your boy is getting a kick

into the court this week i hope it isn't costing you too much money and you're coping okay with it all should be all be over soon ready to have a chat when you want calvin just read the settlement offer. Oh yeah, here we go. Just read the settlement offer. Understand the strategy, but obviously it won't work. Hard pass. It's over, Calvin. You can save your soul. You can go public. Say sorry to everyone you attacked. Compensate them and promise to be better.

You can afford this and it will make the world a better place. Remember, I forgive you. Like I just, but I meant it all. Because it's like, look, if Calvin had come out and said, oh, I got this totally fucking wrong. I believed him. I fucked up. I'm part of the problem. Pete, here's the money you lost, I'll make you whole. Hodl or not, here's the money you lost, I'll make you whole. I mean, I would just go fair play.

Like, why not go and be the good person and make whole for the problems you've caused? And eventually, what happened was the messages stopped going blue, and they went to green. And that means... He's an Android guy now.

He changed phone and disappeared. And that is what it is. I'm intrigued by it all. I'm intrigued by them as people. And yeah, I wonder what will be now for them. But it was a brutal, savage process. I felt at times a little bit left hung out to dry. There were a couple of times people offered to help when I couldn't afford it. Do you know one of the things that's cool about that, and I know you don't want to say, and you can't say, who helped you with the lawsuit.

There were a couple of people that did. Some of them were not people you would expect. No. And the people that did reach out, it's a bit hard, because I can't say who, but the people that did reach out and help you are people that maybe I wouldn't have had a huge amount of respect for before. Roger Ver did. I'll put that out there. I don't know because I think I've mentioned that publicly. And there's no... Look, the US government are trying to fuck him at the moment.

And we all have an opinion, Roger, for certain things. I spoke to Roger Ver, I called him and said, look, I am fucked here. And he said, I'll give you the money. He offered to write me a six-figure cheque straight away. And then I didn't need it. And that was fine. And I didn't want to crowdfund because I wasn't broke. I had money coming in. I wasn't going to crowdfund people. I was trying to push you to do that.

Not because you were nervous about doing that because you didn't want people who maybe had less Bitcoin than you, giving you money that you didn't necessarily want to take from them. But my perspective on it was people wanted to contribute. Sure. But look, I had a house and I had money. I had an income coming in. And what I didn't want to do is crowdfund the money, pay for the lawsuit, and then be okay. And those people were down. They might have less Bitcoin,

less money than me. What would happen is, I had this debt with the lawyers, and they would come to me and say, look, you've got to pay something soon. And we'd have a good month on the podcast, so I'd write them a check for 50 grand, and that would buy me another month or so. And as it looked like we might get the money back, they got a bit of patience from them. and, you know, I didn't pay my tax bill, for example. That was like, I don't know, 150 grand tax bill.

I didn't pay that, and I delayed the tax plan so I could pay them. So I just moved money from Peter to Paul to get through it and made it work. It just worked. Somehow we got there in the end. My lawyers didn't raise their fees, which was good. But I couldn't justify taking money off Peter. But there were people who could have literally just written a check and covered the lawsuit who didn't, who made shitty offers. But, like, what was his name? Was it CZ?

No, CZ. Was it CZ who did it? Somebody, I think it was CZ, said, I will do it for... Oh, I think you're right. And then he disappeared. It's like, okay, fine, whatever. Look, it is what it... I got so much support. A couple of people wrote me big checks and they got their money back. Another person wrote me a check. A really, really tough time and was really good about it and patient and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I've helped other people as well at times. But what really annoyed me

were the lawyers for the COPA. They phoned me up and they said, can we do a podcast about the COPA trial? We want to raise awareness. And I was like, that's where you're funding the developers' legal fees. They said, yeah. I said, well, you're not funding mine. And I know the developers are the most important people in Bitcoin. But I think I've done a lot to bring people into Bitcoin.

Whether you agree with me or disagree, whether you think I fucking hate all Pete's opinions and what Bitcoin did brought a shit ton of people into Bitcoin and educated them on a journey. I think I did an important job. And I would like to think if someone got in a similar situation, I'll help. But look, it is what it is. Everyone has to make decisions at the right time. The truth is we got through it. We got our money back and everyone's okay. And it's funny how in the past it is now.

Like, we're talking about it, but really, do we really talk about Craig Wright anymore? No. It's gone. But, I mean, that's thanks to these lawsuits. Yeah. And if there's eventually an anthology covering the history of Bitcoin, hopefully there's a little bit where Pete helped with lawsuits, and I'll be proud of that. I think there will be. We should talk about Bedford, but just quickly on this, last thing on the lawsuit.

Yeah. When this all wrapped up, you potentially could have gone after Calvin Air. Yes. I know you said you'd forgive him, but maybe you should explain how you could have gone after him and why he didn't.

Well, I don't know the... So there would have been certain, I don't know, malicious prosecution. I could have probably done him for libel at some point. But malicious prosecution, there's a few different things. Torts. Is it torts we could have used? And I wanted to. I said to my lawyers, I think we should because I think he should make us whole. And I think damages should be paid. And the reason I think damages should be paid is I don't know the compounded effect that's had on my health.

but it was bad. Stress is bad for the body. And I went through a bad time. Connor went through a bad time. My dad also. My dad didn't take this well. My dad was probably the person who worried the most. It was a rough time. Like when you are facing bankruptcy and being kicked out of your house and losing all your businesses and you don't know what you do, it's rough. I don't know what loss of earnings I had but I think there's a counter argument maybe

because of the exposure. I got more earnings. So that one's a bit weak. But I just think if you are actively destroying someone's life through the courts, using your money based on a lie, you should face a penalty. I think it should be criminal, and I think you should go to jail, and if not, you should pay a large compensation to the person that you've ruined, you've fucked five years of their life, and you've made them, like, it made me physically unwell. I mean, Connor's here, he'll know.

I think there's at least three occasions you drove me to hospital during that. Yeah. You remember him? I took you twice. Once in Miami? And once in Bedford, I think. Yeah, where my SVT thing would just go haywire. But it seemed worse at the bad time. That could have just been maybe the SVT on its own. But look, if you're going to be a cunt using the courts, you've got to fucking pay your way. I think Craig Wright should have gone to prison for this. And it is what it is.

But in the end, my lawyers are like, look, you were a hair's breadth away from losing everything. Take a win.

Yeah, why start again? And I was like, because it's the right thing to do. Pay your dues, pay your penalty. But look, we didn't do it. If for some random weird reason Calvin is as in this, I do forgive you. And if you'd like to have a chat, I'm happy to have a chat. I'd come out to Antigua and see you. But I think you're worth bazillions or whatever you're worth. Pay your dues. Just pay people the compensate. it won't touch the sides for you. You're never going to spend all your money.

But especially like Hodl or not, pay back what people have lost and pay for damages. It's the right thing to do. They won't, whatever. But I think they should. It is the right thing to do. Hey, Tom, would you mind getting me a beer? Sorry, mate. No, we're not cutting that out. That's fine. Can you check the audio's recording? You want one? Yeah, please will. Check the audio's recording. I'll have another beer. Yeah, look, it's done. It's good. You were a huge supporter in that period.

I think you knew I was in a bad way. Oh, you definitely were. Yeah, I don't want to say that, actually. No, you were definitely in a bad way. You can say that. It's the truth. No, no. I was going to say something else. I was going to say this two times. Were you worried about me at any point?

Yes. But the time that I was most worried about you, this is like a relationship. Was that when I was being reckless that I'm going to burn everything down? No, it was before that. I think it was before we'd even met. I remember you being in... You won't want to talk about this, Pete. It was when you were in Central South America somewhere. I think it was the first time you went to El Salvador. And like the toxicity on Twitter was really getting to you. And that was the time.

And like the entire time we worked together, I was most worried about you. Oh, like when you were being my therapist. Yeah. Isn't it funny? I've got to be a little bit of a therapist to you sometimes. What the fuck is it? That's not... I don't want to be sorry. Yeah, yeah. No, that's got nothing to do with the Craig Wright thing. Oh, no, I know. You just said, when was I worried about you? Yeah, look, sometimes, you know, when the internet comes after you, it can be a bit brutal.

I mean, I ain't going to fuck anymore. I'm thick skinned now. I've been through it enough. It's like, I've watched my mum die. I've been through a five-year lawsuit. If you call me fat or thick or rubbish at podcasts or whatever. But there are times when the internet comes after you. And I think, as I say, I just don't know if I can deal with this anymore. It's rough. It's rough. But no, I mean, I think I've been your therapist a little bit sometimes.

Yeah, I've not had the internet come after me in the same way yet, but we'll work on it. You've got to work on it. We'll get there. You've got to do more. You've got to face people. You've got to say something controversial. Do you know what my next pub is? I do. What's an XPUB? An extended public key. What does it mean? It's where you derive all your other public keys from. You're such a nerd. You know it now, though. You fucking know that and you can't press record.

Yeah, but this was always a psyop. You always knew what it was. I didn't the first time. And I still stand by it. I actually don't care. And I don't think, come on, what's an XPUB? There you go. Most people don't know what an XPUB is. No, that's for sure. I was right on that. I was right on nodes. I was right on... on, what's the other thing I was right on? You're right on everything, Pete. No, just on those

things. My favorite thing about this kind of, well, Batman of Bedford, your villain arc that

you're on at the moment, is that it took you leaving Bitcoin to become libertarian. Yep, true. Yeah, fact. Why? Tell us why. Oh, God. I'll give you the long answer because we've got time. I didn't know what libertarianism was when I started the podcast. Me neither, to be fair, until I heard you talk about it on the podcast. Right, okay. So it was new to me. It's not a thing in the UK. Not the same as it is in America, at least. It's a little thing here. But yeah, so I started the podcast.

I could have picked any subject. I was just buying Bitcoin at the time and shit coins. Excuse me. You're going to cut my burps? Nope. It's the beer. So I started the podcast about Bitcoin. And when I started, I'm not doing it because I think this is the best money in the world ever. And, you know, this is number go up. It was number go up. And this was like the new internet revolution chance to make some money. Start making the show and then libertarian stuff comes up.

And for me, government was always that thing that was always there. You picked a side and they voted every four years. You had a democracy and you needed government and government did a lot of good. And then obviously over the arc of the podcast, I started to realize it was a government wasn't great. But I always had people going, you're a statist cuck, this. And I said, obviously, some ludicrous things sometimes because I believe them at the time, right? Learning in public.

Learning in public. Learning in public. And I refused to hold a position because people tell me I should. And yeah, so I think when I by the time I finished the podcast, I definitely had. libertarian tendencies. Like, I agree, yes, we should have small governments, central banks are pernicious, and we should have a free market for money, those kind of things. But like, full libertarianism and fully understanding why government is a terrible idea comes from having a

deep connection with government at a local level. In that, I'm trying to do cool things in my town, I'm running up against the institutions, the police, and the local council, and then also just seeing the general collapse of the UK as well. And then it was like seeing into the Matrix. It's like, oh, I get it now. It's not that necessarily government itself is intrinsically evil, it's that it just doesn't work. The majority of government will not work as the incentives at play.

and somebody said to me this week they said because I'm arguing against ideology because I'm getting attacked in Bedford by a bunch of leftists at the moment and I just said step back from your ideology and they say well isn't libertarianism an ideology and I thought about it and I was like no because libertarianism is essentially the natural state of man right It is life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. It's those natural rights we're born with.

The blueprint for how to organize society is an idea that collectivists have come up with, whether they're left or right wing. They've said, this is how we should organize society, which is a blueprint. But if that doesn't happen, we are in the natural state of man, which is libertarian. So I said to them, no, it's not. Libertarianism is a set of principles regarding the natural state of man. And it basically, to me, means leave me the fuck alone.

I don't care for your invented blueprint that tells me this is what I can and can't do. It's not an ideology. It's a set of principles. And so, but I'm not like, I don't go for anarcho-capitalists. And the reason every time I go to that and come back is because I don't think you can get rid of government.

If you, me, Connor, and 50 of our friends move to an island, we essentially start day one libertarian or free maybe not even libertarian because maybe libertarian is an idea that you only exist after the establishment of the state you don't need to establish libertarian until the state exists because you want to dismantle it but anyway you disagree with what? in my house I'm a dictator absolutely well until he got thrown in the sea

no no come on I mean, you weren't at the second civic meeting. I even let the leftist weirdo speak. But I think the point you're making is that some kind of hierarchy in the tribe would exist. Yeah, so it would be like at some point, someone or some group of people will want to do something on that island, and they might disagree. And just say we split into two groups.

One goes to one side of the island, one goes to this side of the island, and we start to build stuff on one side, maybe encroach, and they think, well, that's our land. It's like, well, we need to protect ourselves here. Well, I think we should... You might be like,

Pete, I think we should do A. I might be... Well, I think we should do B. It like well we need a council to make decisions Well who going to lead the council and decide this I just think you rebuild structure Yes in my house I a dictator It like I will listen to the opinions of The serfs. The serfs, because they might cut my head off. But in the end, I'm going to do what I think is right. But on that island, we will rebuild government. And I think you always do.

And I think you actually, if you can get to a minichist government, you actually have a government which will defend your freedoms and your rights.

which I think is a good thing especially like in the US where they literally have it enshrined in a document they refer to we don't really refer to the Magna Carta here as much because I don't think I'm not sure how much of it's still enforceable but I also think if you went on the street and asked people if they knew what the Magna Carta was very few people would even know it I can probably recite more of the US Constitution than I can the Magna Carta so and also I also think like

do you remember that old Eric Voorhees interview where he said to me It's like, there's no point arguing about the utopian anarcho-capitalist society because we're so far from that. Let's just make government 1% smaller or 5% smaller. And so where I've come to is, we have government, okay?

We cannot switch it off tomorrow. Even if you elected a libertarian... Malay style. And who is probably the best. Has he dismantled the entirety of the apparatus of the state in Argentina? No. He's doing it bit by bit. and he's doing it mainly through economic policies and changes to the law, but he's gradually dismantling the power and the size of the state. And so I think of libertarianism as pointless debating perfect society.

I think the most important thing libertarians can do is drive forward a trajectory of being more libertarian than less. So what Millet is doing, which is dismantling the state, dismantling the size, the power, the kind of pernicious rules. Is pernicious a word? It's a word, isn't it? Pernicious rules on society. And that to me is how to be an effective libertarian, not having a libertarian conference and all arguing about why you shouldn't have a libertarian

party because that's counterintuitive to be a libertarian. I think it's just a waste of fucking time. And so I guess I think it's practical libertarianism, rational libertarianism. Let's actually get something done. And what happens is that I've gradually seen how much the state fails itself, but it then fails society. It was the... Have you ever read George Washington's farewell address? It's fucking brilliant, okay? Obviously an important great man in American

history, could have become king. They offered him king and he turned it down. But he wrote this farewell address and he warned of the idea of factionalism in that you become more loyal to the party than the common good. And we see that now. Which has definitely happened. Totally. It's like Labour could come up with a good idea and the Conservatives will attack it. And the Conservatives can come up with a bad idea and they'll support it. This loyalty to the party over the common good

is a terrible thing. He warned about this. And I see it now. I see it in media. I see it in individuals. Like, there are a bunch of people in Bedford who fucking hate my guts now. I've put in this private security, and they hate me because it's ideologically wrong for them. And now as a group, they're attacking me. And it doesn't matter what I say. I genuinely think if I cured cancer, they would come back and say, well, what about the people who want to have cancer?

No, I genuinely believe that. I've argued with them, and there are people who would say they would rather have a crackhead on the street than a security guard. They think we should prioritize the addicts and the criminals on the street over the businesses. They're so ideologically lost. And so therefore, the factionism thing isn't just a problem within the party, it's a problem within the voters.

and so I've just realized is that the bigger government is, the more people are there that will grift it, the more the politicians themselves will use it for their end goals and the more it will destroy society. And it's really, you really start to see it when you just try and run a company. I told you this, NVK said, if you want to make somebody libertarian, get them to run a business. Because all we do is we get up every day and we try and make money.

whether it's well football club you never make money but whether it's the coffee shop the bar whatever and all we're fighting is everything the government puts in front of us in our way whether it's employment laws minimum wage requirements licenses we need tax we have to pay it's so hard to make money right now this might be the first month our coffee shop makes a profit might make a profit it still doesn't pay the 120 grand we spent to open it and the 20 grand of

losses in the first six months, but it might turn a monthly profit for the first time, right? And it's been so hard. But if you strip back, I mean, let's talk about VAT. If I sell you a coffee at £4, I pay ATP VAT to the VAT band, but I can't reclaim the VAT on the coffee I've bought because it's a raw food ingredient. They don't charge me VAT. There's It's a real problem for the hospitality sector.

Every time you make something, the food doesn't have VAT on it, but once you assemble it into a product, it is. So with a phone, all the ingredient products of a phone, you can reclaim the VAT. And so your VAT burden's lower. Which is just sales tax for any Americans. Yeah. And so that's a problem. We have to pay a minimum wage, okay? Now the minimum wage is costing jobs. Because I have to pay, I don't know, say it's £11.23, whatever it is, minimum wage now.

That alone is stupid because there are people who are willing to take that job at £9. This is something that Ben Prentice, who's been working on the show forever, he goes on about this all the time. The fact that the minimum wage is actually a massive net negative. Well, it costs jobs. And every time you raise it, you just raise the prices of the product. So you've got a price distortion in the market there. Fucking hell, listen to me. But you've got a price distortion in the market there.

But not only that, I have to offer a pension. I have to pay national insurance. I have to pay holiday. So even if it's an 18-year-old and it's their weekend job, I have to pay holiday. And what we do, because I think it's something like 12.09% of your working time is holiday, we just up their wages by 12.09%. And so much of my cost is in wages or wage legislation or wage taxation. we would have made a profit every month without government.

So what I'm doing is I'm working my balls off, taking all this fucking risk to try and turn a profit. But while I'm doing that, I'm financing government who's making this harder. This is why I fundamentally hate these people in government. I fundamentally hate them all because either they know how difficult they're making it, which means they're evil, or they don't know, which means they're too stupid to be in the role. Now, I'm not asking for us to eradicate everything immediately.

What I'm trying to say is let's be sensible about this. Business rates in a town centre make no sense because town centres are dying. Let's give an opportunity for business to open. VAT and hospitality makes no sense because input products don't have it. Having to pay holiday to an 18-year-old already on a high minimum wage does not make sense. I mean, I'd go further. I don't think we should pay maternity pay. I think that should be optional. I should want to provide.

But why should I, why should you, why should Connor be paying tax for other people who choose to have children? That's their lifestyle choice. You work hard and you pay for it yourself. So I hate all this collectivist bollocks because it just makes it so hard. And it gets worse than that, Danny. I've got money on the side now. Thanks, Craig. Right, get my money back. Ready to open more businesses in the town. I think we've probably, what, discussed two or three, Con regularly?

And I'm sat there going, I don't know if I can turn a profit here. because of government. Now, the stupid thing is, is I could take people out of the welfare system and give them jobs, but I can't because it's too hard to make the company work, and therefore, those jobs don't exist. Therefore, those people are relying upon the state.

And so, someone like Rachel Reeves, who's already fucked it up over and over again in this country, over and over again, is talking about raising taxes even more, which is going to destroy even more jobs. I'm on one here. Let me tell you where it gets, like other examples where it's worse. So I spent a hundred grand a year with my accountants across the business because of all the accountancy work we have to do to comply with government tax. Okay. Without that, all I need

is a monthly P&L and then say, this is how the business is doing. I'd probably spend 10 grand a I'm probably spending 90 grand a year on compliance with taxation. HR, this is basically a new industry that comes off the back of employment legislation. I 100% stand by the majority, not all, there are dicks out there, but the majority of people, when they want to get rid of somebody from their company,

there's two reasons. You shit at your job or I can't afford you. And both are valid, okay? It is so hard to get rid of somebody who's shit at their job because of employment legislation. But this becomes

a bad thing. I know you're about to ask something, but the reason it's a bad thing is that there's a misallocation of capital now because you can get rid of them, but you have to bring in a HR consultant who basically they help you architect a safe way of getting rid of somebody so you hopefully don't go to tribunal, which you will always lose, by the way. And so I'm misallocating capital to a HR

advisor so I can try and architect, get rid of somebody who's shit at their job. And when you do get rid of somebody who's shit at their job, you're also like, have I done, right, did I give them a discretion? Did I do all their reviews? Did I give them a warning? All those things. You know when someone's shit. Of course. You just know, and you want to get rid of them. But you're also conning the person. I've had to get... There's two people I've had to get rid of in the last two years

who have both been terrible at the jobs. The best thing for them would be to sit down and go, sorry, I'm getting rid of you. You're fucking shit at your job. You're... Whatever. I'll make up some reasons. You don't turn up on time. When you're here, you're disorganized. You're a bit rude. And it's a customer facing job. You're no good. I'm getting rid of you. Sort that shit out with your next job. That person has the opportunity then to go, oh, fuck, maybe I should get my shit

together. But when they think, oh, I think this is unfair dismissal because they didn't give me a review and they didn't give me, and I like give all these kind of like soppy reasons.

all the good staff do good staff do not need reviews they just get on with it jason who works for me fucking brilliant doesn't need it and if i had a problem jason be like cool i hear you i'll sort that out the shitty people always default to hiding behind legislation and never learn themselves and they're just going to be losers their whole life because of that and so again this is a whole other misallocation of capital within a company that was a a sailor

style rant where I asked you a question. You talked for about 30 minutes there. Okay. When we make a podcast, we're in a bubble, right? We get in the plane, we meet each other, we make a podcast, some Bitcoin company sponsors us, and we go for a steak. And life's easy because the business model worked. So you can get annoyed because you get a tax bill. It's like,

that tax bill is annoying, but you get on with it. When you're trying to build a proper tough business, a hospitality business where the margins are fine, you've got lots of hard businesses, Because you just realize how much government gets in the way for, and for what? Because they think they can steal your money and give to other people. And I'm going to go on another rant now, sorry. So this is another point, right?

What I really hate is like recently, some of the leftist weirdos in my town have gone, oh, it's just a rich guy coming in doing this, thinking he can throw his money around. When they say it like that, they're using the word rich as a pejorative. Well, rich is becoming a pejorative. But they equally think, oh, but yeah, he should pay a wealth tax and he should pay higher income tax because that person over there needs it. I fucking work my balls off. I've gone

from broke, like I'm about to lose my house poor and I've worked 60 to 80 hours a week. I've gotten planes. I've missed my kids, stayed in shitty hotels. Yeah. And I've worked my absolute ass off. If I've made good money, it's because I've worked hard. Now, look, in a fair society where I agree to a certain amount of taxation, cool. But don't demonize what I've done. Don't say with one hand, we want your tax money. And with the other hand, say you're evil. You're an evil

capitalist. But you're not allowed both. You're not allowed to have both of those because I've worked my fucking ass off. And I think the point is, like, where is that tax money going? Because, I mean, I've been to Bedford. The town center is not thriving. Nope, not at all. And so this is why you've now brought in this private security force, which has made national news. Like it's been a really big deal here in the UK. Like, why do you think there's been such a backlash this?

Well, so let's not, let's not, there has been a backlash, but let's not give it, the credence. Yeah, too much. Because I don't think there's been a bigger champion of Bedford than me in recent years. And if there has, great, I don't have to be first, second, third, whatever. I'm up there. I've built businesses, I've brought people to the town, I've put it on the map with certain people. I clearly care about Bedford, right? But I host the right-wing podcast, which is a problem.

The Reform podcast. Well, I think it's more of a libertarian podcast. But anyway, I host a podcast when people think of certain political views. When we set up the coffee shop in the town,

the first few weeks I based myself in the shop window, keeping an eye on the place, but doing my work. And I knew Bedford had problems. I just didn't realize the scale of them. When you sit there all day and you just see people streaming out in the early morning, tweaking, shouting, and generally also, just by the way, looking in a terrible state. And some of these terrible states are really bad. There's one guy, I mean, I feel for him. His legs are, he doesn't wear any

shoes anymore. His legs top to bottom are full of sores. They're all bloated. He clearly, he probably has a grand green. He will probably get sepsis and die. Fair con? Who knows what I'm talking about, right? We saw him the other day, bowling down the high street with a woman who had a bottle of alcohol in her hand and a massive black eye. Give them all the empathy in the world you want. I'm cool with

that. But don't tell me that is something that is good for somebody bringing their kids into town with. If you are a family, you're coming to town, that's a problem for you with your kids, especially maybe kids are about seven, eight years old. It's like, what's going on there? Add to that, there's an area where all the alcoholics are fighting, puking. He saw a couple with their baby in a buggy, pissed out of their face. You can have all the empathy in the world. That is

not a good sign. And you might not want to bring your kids into the town because of that. So there is the social burden, because it's not nice to see. Then there's the economic burden, because less people are coming in the town center. And so just the back story is, we went to see the PCC, John Tizard, piss weak bloke, absolutely should resign. Told him about the problems. He had no decent answers. Crime is going up now. Perception of crime and data of crime are two different things.

All can be massaged. And even if you can statistically prove to me crime isn't going up, I'm going to tell you the perception is. And even if you say, well, I don't think everyone's perception. So I'm going to say, well, it's still too much. So I was like, fuck this. I've had enough of this. I'm going to do a pilot. All of August, every Saturday, I'm going to put 10 private security guards in the town from 18 a.m. till 6 p.m. There has been a backlash from the left. Progressives, Labour voters.

I've seen people call you vigilante. Yeah. And to me, it is part ideological. and when I say ideological, it is a group who's now demonized me. They think I want to be mayor and they think this is a ploy to be mayor. I've been very clear I don't want to be mayor. The job's too hard. They probably think I will support reform.

They basically see me as a different person from them. There's a group that see me as a different person from them, so it doesn't matter what I do, they're going to attack me. There's also a group who just have suicidal empathy and they're backlash. There's others who just don't like words being... They don't want crackhead use. It's, I don't know... Drug afflicted person or something. And so there is a backlash, but the backlash is a small group of loud people.

And I'll just have it with them. I'll just tell them. So when they're like, oh, you're vigilantes. I say, they're not vigilantes, they're private security guards, they're licensed, they're trained, and they're the same people who provided private security to the town as part of the bid. I didn't hear you complain about that. So I answer quite factual on some of them when they get it wrong. And then I will just go toe to toe if they're an idiot.

See, what I can't understand about the people that are giving you shit about this is how they see you as the problem in this situation. Like, the problem is the underlying fact that Bedford High Street is dying and it's full of drug-afflicted people. And you're the person who's offering a solution. And they can not like the solution, but they can't ignore the fact that the problem is not you. The problem is before you. Yeah, but they don't, it's how they see the problem.

I will see the problem as there's a drug addict there who's shoplifting. They will say society has failed them. Okay? The society, you've got to remember that the left lives on ideas of collectivism. Like we are a collective unit. We think and operate the same. If you don't think and operate the same, you're the outsider, you're the enemy. and everyone's a victim. So, and look, don't get me wrong, there are victims out there.

There are young women who were abused probably by their dad, sexually abused, ran away from home, ended up homeless, met the wrong people, and fell into drugs, and are now in prostitution, maybe being raped. Like, terrible, terrible stories. I totally get it. But not everybody was that. Some people just made shitty bad decisions. Some people were like, I don't want to work. I'm going to live on the street, or whatever. And they one day decided, to put a needle in their arm and take heroin.

We all know heroin is bad, but they made a decision. There are bad decisions in there as well. Their view is society must fix that, and government must fix that. And there is a lack of tolerance for people who come at this differently. And I see how difficult the left are to deal with. And this is, again, my point where I go back to becoming more libertarian, because if we're libertarian and we operate on just founding principles, life, liberty, property rights, and voluntarism.

If we think like that, then we can coexist happily. I can identify a problem of security in the town and I can put in a private security team. They are protecting the lives of people there,

they are protecting the freedoms of people there, and they're protecting property rights. And it's voluntary because I've paid for it with my own money and they're operating within a public space as a voluntary service. They are not infringing on anybody's rights. And if you as a leftist go, well, where are you moving these people to? Society has failed them. Great. You can set up your own private initiative and you can fund addiction, rehab centers, addiction support.

You can do exactly what I'm doing and society wins because I protect the businesses in the town. You protect the individuals and neither of us are infringing upon life, liberty and the these happenings. Neither of us are infringing on other people's rights. But it's a lot easier to go on Facebook and go, Pete McCormack's a meanie. He's a fascist. And then do fuck all and complain.

It's really easy to do that. Like, and this is, by the way, this is one of my complaints about Bitcoiners, if we really want to go for it, is that all these motherfuckers who shouted me on the podcast, I just think I'm doing what we said we were going to do. Like, we were meant to go out

and fix the world. We all got a bit lucky. Whatever you think, we definitely got lucky. There is a luck. I don't care if people say, well, no, it's not. It's strong diamond hands. We went through the up and down roller coaster. Yeah, we all came out the other end richer. So we were meant to go do this. We were meant to go and fix up, go back and fix our societies. Michael Peterson did it out in El Zonte. I'm doing it in Bedford. Other people did it. This is what we were meant to do. And yeah.

Oh, yeah. Calling out the Bitcoiners. I love it. Well, no, it's just, it's just, I'm going on different tangents here just because I'm ranting and we've already recorded it. The rants are great. Dude, honestly, I'm so fucking proud of you. This is the coolest thing to see. No, but it's, it's like we recorded it the other day and I want to make sure I didn't miss anything we talked about. We talked about some good things in there.

But look, the summary of it is, is that's why, again, going back to the libertarian ideas, if your foundation is life, liberty, property rights, you can, left and right opinions can coexist because the basic foundational framework we're working under is not infringing on each other's rights. I'm not infringing on anyone's rights with a private security team. You're just going out and doing things. But if you're a collectivist, you want to say, well, who is that

private security force accountable to? What rights do they have? And I will explain to them. Same as you. They have the same rights as you. They have the power of arrest and indictable offence. They have the power to protect property. Okay? Have they arrested anyone yet? No. And- How's the first two weeks gone? Really well. Like, almost universally well. And look, people say, we'll expect you to say that. No, no. Look, this is free market.

If it hasn't gone well, I'm not going to carry on spending 10 grand a month on this because it's a waste of fucking money. Have they moved people on? Like, what's happened? So, they don't- Again, there's a myth. You just want to move on homeless people. No, we don't. we want to enforce the law and the PSPO order. The law is, you know, you can't go up and punch someone in the head.

Okay if we saw so for example if we saw I don know down one of the alleys two guys beating up a woman our security guys are going to go in there sit on them call the police and say come and get them And our police are going to be grateful because we spoke to them they said do that If they see somebody, maybe, I don't know, just annoying somebody, they're not going to do anything. They'll just go and say, leave them alone. They're scarecrows. They're wearing

Hiver's jackets and they've got body cams. If they see a homeless person, they're not going to move, not going to go and say, you're homeless, you have to move on. If they see them breaking the PSPO order, which is aggressive begging, or taking drugs, or drinking, they will go up to them and say, look, there's a PSPO order, you're not allowed to drink here, do you mind moving on? Almost all scenarios, these people have said, yeah, fine, we'll move on, and they do. The green, where all the

piss heads are, it's been empty each Saturday, and you see families there now. And so it's gone really well. I've had endless emails and private messages of people saying, thank you, this has been great. I mean, listen to, put this on by the mic. You can just, this is a great example. So a lady, she's got a shop on the high street in Bedford. She's always having to deal with problems, right? Where is she? Hold on. Have you spoken to the woman who owns the vegan cafe?

No, I haven't actually. I'd be curious to know what she thinks. Yeah, that might be an interesting So here's a good example. Instant relief seeing your guys out today. I've just seen a group of them at the car park, which is reassuring coming in. I saw people as well. So I know it's going to be a good day, or at least a safe day, which makes all the difference. Do you know what? That's amazing. But it's also depressing that she has to rely on you to have a safe day in Bedford, in the UK.

Well, it's that weird kind of paradox in that it's good that we've got security guards in the town, and it's bad that we've got security guards in the town. How much of it is a Bedford issue rather than a UK issue? Oh, it's a UK issue. So I obviously don't live here now. I probably spend three weeks a year in the UK, something like that. And when I'm away and I'll see things on Twitter,

it looks like the UK is on a serious decline. Yeah, we're fucked. But when I walk around, I don't feel that. And maybe there's an interesting thing in here, because last week you came up to my hometown where I grew up. And I always considered Macclesfield and Bedford as being relatively similar. They're probably a similar-ish size, relatively similar demographic. And you were really impressed with how nice Macclesfield was comparatively to Bedford. Well, it's clean.

Yeah. And we didn't see any homeless or drug addicts. But there could be a day I take you to Bedford, you don't see them. So that happens. Somebody did message me and say, what do you mean you didn't see any homeless or drug addicts? So maybe it does exist. And Macclesfield is half the size of Bedford. It's 50,000. But I definitely saw a more bustling economy in Macclesfield, and it seemed cleaner and better.

But it is a nation, look, this is a nationwide issue. This is reflective of the state getting too big. It's got all this bullshit it's got to pay for. Taxes are up because of that. Crime is up. They're not punishing crime. Police forces have got smaller. Like, every single direction, the bloat of the state has eroded the services that the state would normally provide, and has led to this kind of decline. And if I post something about this on Twitter, and it gets a bit viral,

you'll see all these comments coming in saying, I'm going to pick towns. If I've got a town that's wrong, apologies. But it might be like, oh, it's the same here in Bournemouth, or it's the same here in Scunthorpe, or it's the same here in Hull. By the way, there's now a, Connor can probably find this, more of a vigilante, private 200 people in Bournemouth who've come together to protect the town. Do you think there's a vigilante there?

Well, I say vigilante there because it's not private train security or security farm. This is a local group of people. The thing about it, we can argue, is my group vigilante or not? What I will say is we probably already have them and we're going to get vigilante groups.

Yeah. if you feel that your town is unsafe, and you feel that there are threats to your children or threats to women in the town, and you push us enough to the edge, groups of people are going to come together and say, fuck this, I'm not having this. And they will become vigilantes. And they are the risk. We're low risk because we are using a trained, licensed security firm. If it's a group of lads coming together and saying, fuck this, they might just clown someone.

Yeah. And that's the scary thing about this, because like no matter, I don't, yeah, here we go. More than 200 residents, including ex-military personnel, security professionals, and first aiders have signed up to patrol the streets of Bournemouth. I mean, it just depresses me that it got to this. But it also excites me. Not that it exists. I think it's terrible. But there's a movement trying to change it. Yes. It shows how far, how far gone we are. How, how fucked we are. I mean, look,

you've seen the Coinbase ad, right? Everything is fine. It is, it's so. furthest thing from fine. Well, it's so ironically beautiful. But we've been trolled by America about the state of our country to sell products to us. But it's so right. We're like, all this, yeah, everything's fine. I mean, it's not. The UK is, we've got a communist government at a time when there's no money, where they're increasing regulation, increasing taxes. Joblessness is

going up. The inflation is up. Growth is stagnant. I think GDP per capita is down. Investment is down. Investor confidence is down. Like every single economic measure is shit. Then you get into other things like health outcomes. Shit. Everything is going to shit in this country. And there's a large part of the population that sees it. And there is nobody with a backbone within... Nobody's unfair. There's hardly anyone with a backbone in Whitehall who's saying,

let's fix this. Someone with a pair of bollocks like Millet or a Buckelian says, I've had enough. I'm fixing this. I'm not taking this shit anymore. And the risk with the growing vigilante groups is that something happens and they're directed in the wrong way. I'm not even giving an opinion on the immigration. I mean, the immigration thing is getting out of control in the UK. And I'm not saying we should have no immigration, but it's at a crazy fucking point.

But when you see these group of people grouping up outside the migrant hotels, all that's going to take is one tiny thing and then something bad happens. And do you know what the truth of it is? it's not really the migrants fault. No, it's not. Like if I was from... The West bombs their countries constantly for the last 30 years.

If I was from Eritrea, I mean, look, okay, let's put it a different way. Look at all the people leaving the UK to go to other countries. Why are they leaving? Because they think they can get a better life elsewhere. And yes, they'll say it's legal migration. Well, lots of the migration to the country is legal. But if I was from Eritrea and I thought if I can get into the UK and create a good life for my family... I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm on that boat.

Our problem is we are a welfare state who offers so much. If you look across Europe where to go, well, the UK, I get a hotel room for the night. I get three meals. I get private health care. I get massages. I get mobile phone. That's fucking great. Put me on that boat. I'll go over there. It's not their fault. If we didn't incentivize coming here, less people come here. The economic migrants would come in and create jobs.

And I've got no issue with economic migration if it's net beneficial to the country and them.

I've got no issue with that at all. But it's not that. And people are getting so pissed off. And to the point, it's so mad. People are talking about civil war. Well, that's what I was going to say, because you were telling me this last week, and I'd never heard anyone talk about this in the UK. Yeah. And you were saying that you think it's closer than we may like to admit. Yes, or we might have been on the tip and point and be there. But that's the things that are a little...

I'm not saying these vigilante groups or this group of people collecting to try and make their town better are a bad thing. But the risk there is that something happens. It's kind of like an inocular small thing. and then it escalates and escalates and escalates. And what happens next? Well, it becomes counterproductive and allows the state to grow. You have to be smart. The pen is mightier than the sword is so true in this situation.

So when I first started seeing these talks about civil war, it's a bit like when Iran was bombed, they say World War III is coming. I think, oh, it's a podcaster. It's an inflammatory title. YouTube incentivizes. Yeah, well, it incentivizes inflammatory titles, right? Because you get... And that's what I thought it was.

but the trigonometry guys, I can't all get his name up, they've got this guy and this expert, he works at King's College London, and he said there are seven conditions for civil war, of which the UK meets six of them. If you read them, he's absolutely true. And also you think, well, what does civil war mean? Well, the only civil war I know really, like, was the main one, is the one in the US, whereas... It's guns. It's guns, and it was the North via the South, and it was open warfare,

but he talks about it more like insurgency. and I haven't finished that interview but what I suspect he's saying is what's that? Yeah, David Betts. See if you can find those seven conditions. It may be a group of lads who are so fucked off with the UK. Inflation, can't afford a house, can't afford to fill their car, working their bollocks off, got no money left and said, I've had enough of this. All these migrants are coming over, getting the hotel rooms and I'm working my ass off.

I've got no money left. I'm paying tax. You know, who are just angry. And what if they say we need to fight back? Now, my way of fighting back is action. Parallel institution in Bedford. Civic duty. Civic duty, proven we don't need them, and to do with action. But I totally can see a world where somebody goes, we might need to burn down a police station, or we might need to, I don't know, some crazy shit. The problem is, the minute they do that, they will be classed as domestic terrorists,

arrested, rightly so, because you should not be violent. And then we'll see a further clampdown on our freedoms, on our civil rights, and it will be squashed. There is no path, there's no sensible path to a violent civil war in this country. The only sensible path is peaceful revolution, which is dependence, mighty, and the sword, which is parallel institutions, privately funded, doing the job of the state within the law

and proving we don't need you, and then on the back of that, political action to remove parts of the state which aren't performing. And starve the beast with Bitcoin. Yes. But you can't because you have to pay your taxation. So, look, I'm of this belief. We will always have government, but we will get the government we deserve. This country voted for a Labour government, and so we've got the country we deserve.

I can't see us returning to a monarchy here. Yes, there are monarchies around the world, you can go and live with them. I don't see that. I don't see democracy going anywhere in this country. So what we need to do as an electorate is ensure that we let the politicians know our demands. These are our demands. This is what we want from government.

I mean, I want a Malay-style character. I want somebody who's going to dismantle the state, the apparatus of the state, the power of the state, and put it into the hands of the people. I want a massive reduction in all the fucking stupid laws we have. I want all the freedoms and liberty restored. I want taxation reduced. And I'm not talking for anarcho-capitalists. Just make the country work. And I would vote for that person. Does that person exist? I don't think it's Nigel Farage.

I can't think of a... I don't know of a real libertarian within Whitehall. Like a real libertarian who is Millet style. What about Rupert Lohm? I don't think he's a full libertarian. I think he's a strong conservative. I think he's a small government conservative. And there's some of those Thatcherites types. Andrew Griffith is one. But I don't think there is a full Malay libertarian, you know, who will absolutely tear the left apart and destroy all of their arguments.

And this is one of the difficult parts. is like, as a libertarian, if I was a libertarian, some people say I'm not, fair point. But the left are the easiest ones to argue against because they're the most communist, they are the most collectivist of the lot. Their ideas are the worst. There is an uncomfortable alliance between conservatives and libertarians because conservatives should be taking water towards smaller government. But they're still not the end goal.

and so the people who are ideologically against me in Bedford see me as the enemy because I speak some of the similar languages, say, the conservative or the reform people, but I'm not... A conservator or a reform... I guess I'm a small C Thatcherite conservative over a Blairite, but even under a small state, even under a small, like a Thatcherite government, I'd be like, make the state smaller.

and so it's this that's yeah that's the difficult part of this so at like a national level there's little hope maybe some small glimpses but at a local level do you think you can actually make a difference in Bedford?

I could try long term because how long can you realistically fund these programs that you're doing where it's just cash out of your pocket into the town if it's not really making any change when do you just go you know what fuck it I'm gonna go well look if the podcast stayed as it is now and it made the same money as it does now, I can do the £10,000 a month in perpetuity. And I would. It's more important to have money.

Even if no other change was happening in the town, if everything was staying the same, apart from on a Saturday every month you had... If it made no difference, then there's no point doing it. But I think it is making a difference. And it's not just me. I'm not going to stand here and say, I'm going to take all the credit. There's loads of fucking great people in Bedford that put on markets, who put in artwork in empty buildings, who do pop-up shops, try and do things in the town.

So for me to say I'm just a loud mouth who can get some things done by being a loud mouth, there are loads of good people. But I think things are improving. I went into town on the Sunday and it was different. This is the day after one of my security days. It was bustling. There were people everywhere. And I've got this kind of concept that I talk about called consciously local, whereby... I love this, by the way. You make an effort to go into town and spend money once a week.

If everyone in the town spent £10 a week, that's £50 million a year into the local economy. Our high street will become a market town. But consciously local goes further than that. We, as a business, are we buying all our services locally? Are we using a local accountant rather than a London accountant? And again, that's important. Because if we fund the local accountant, they've got more money, they can create more jobs, and they spend money in the coffee shops and the restaurants.

Is the council, whenever the council buys anything and their budget's £170 million, How much of that is being spent in other towns, other counties, when it could be spent in Bedford? Are there services that are outsourced into other towns that could be put into Bedford? And when you're on Deliveroo, are you buying from Domino's or are you buying from Aetna? Are you buying from Wagamamas or Rice Thai? Are you buying your coffee from Coffee with Art or Rail Coffee or are you buying from Starbucks?

Are you leaking money into shareholders' pockets or are you sending it to a mum who wants to buy ballet lessons? and if everybody is consciously local and i say the reason i say consciously local it gives me reasons to say to people over and over again have you been into the town stop don't sit there and go

i want the town to be better the town's not working and not not contribute because you're part of the problem stop waiting for other people to fix it go fucking fix it yourself if you guys if you go mooch around the shops today and you spend 50 pound in the shops and then put yourself into the restaurant you've put 100 pound in the local economy which will circulate four times, but it's got to, I always say consciously local, because you've got to wake

up on a Saturday morning and go, I'm going into town, and I wasn't going to, and I'm going to phone three friends, and we're going to meet for lunch, and then we're going to wander the shops, and if they do that, I'll open the second business, and the third business, and so on, and we're also, I mean, this, we're probably going to take a new lease tomorrow on a place that we're going to put

in a pizza place, and we're going to look into how we make it more like John Lewis, so if you're local and you work in the business, you get shares, you get a share of the profit. Because what I think will happen with that is if you've got an 18 year old in there, got a share of the profit, their parents are going to come there. And when they're going to work harder, they're incentivized to work harder. And they're going to work harder. And when you order online,

you maybe will order from there. And it's like, how many of these businesses can we build in the town? My view is that if enough people say, I agree, we can make better better. And I'm going to put more money in and I'm going to support local programs. We will turn the town around and I won't have to provide the private security because I have the argument to go to the police and council and say, I've proved it works. You fucking do it. You pay for it. And there'll be

enough revenue coming in to support that. But it's almost like, it's like the town's on life support and you, you know, you've got the, what's it called? The defibrillator. The defibrillator and we're getting it going again. And once it's going again, hopefully I won't have to do it more. But look, I could be wrong. It could all go to shit and we could be fine.

Like, I could do a great job and central government's so bad that the statutory demands on the local council is so hard that we can't do anything about this. But I've got a feeling, my gut instinct is that I am one of many in the UK who are sick of this, who have different levels of resources to go and try things. And if we can make Bedford work, that can become a blueprint for other places or other places will do something. and they'll become a blueprint for us.

And we will collectively and civically restore our towns and our country. And that's it. That's my plan. And if it doesn't work, you've tried. Like you've done more than everyone who's just complaining online about the state of the UK. You're making meaningful difference. And again, I go back, this is what we were meant to do as Bitcoiners. We were meant to fucking do this. And I'm, look, free choice.

If you've bought a bunch of Bitcoin, made a bunch of money, and you want to go and become Mountain Man or go to the Cayman Islands and Barbados and sip and drink cocktails. I get it. It's tempting for me, right? Like what we're doing now is not as fun as what you and I used to do. This is hard work. We wake up every day.

Me and Connor work our balls off to just try and make it better. But if not us, who? Like if not us, who? And this is what I thought we would see loads of Bitcoiners doing. Getting up and going, fuck me, I've made. I mean, there's people who've probably made tens of millions. And I thought we were meant to go out there and do this. We've seen the problems. We got lucky. We made a bunch of money. Let's go and invest that and make it work.

I would love one of the super rich Bitcoiners go, Pete, what do you need to fix your town? I'll be like, give me 50 million. And I can literally change Bedford to the extent where it becomes a blueprint for the country. I know all the anchor businesses to create. I know how to set them up. I know how to sort out the security. I know how to sort out the investment. and for 50 million, I can make Bedford the blueprint for the entirety of the UK.

If I could, say, reform would win the next election, I'd sit Nigel Farage down and say, give Bedford autonomy, give the mayor autonomy on tax and spend, and I will prove to you how we create a blueprint for the rest of the country. Because I don't think it's hard, right? It's really fucking easy, Danny. It's tax people less, put more money in their pocket, make it easier to invest and create businesses.

You will have more people working, less people reliant upon the state, and you will be able to use those increasing tax revenues to fix the social issues that exist. And those social issues that exist, which are a cost to the society at the moment, which means when you go into a Tesco, you're paying high prices to cover the theft. that doesn't exist anymore. That market distortion is gone and that money is going into creating wealth and opportunity. To me, it's so obvious and easy.

It's, and I think I'm right. I think you're right. I mean, it almost feels like the perfect place to end, but when Mayor Pete to McCormack? No, never. I don't want to do it.

We should talk about football as well. We should talk about football. I'm going to pay my debts to you and this can be my donation to Bedford. I haven't written down the news. It's not a donation to me. I'm going to spend this on crack. Where will we at? I think it's 400k sats. Yeah, 400k sats. Okay, let me do this one sec. It's very fucking cool what you're doing. Let me ask you something.

So based on your knowledge of the UK and your friendship circle here and the people you know, what are people telling you? Like, is it hard out there for people? For sure.

I think people are feeling the pinch in a massive way, cost of living but a lot of the people I speak to are kind of like NPCs in this like I think there's a lot of just this is the way it is now get on with life everything's fine, I do think that's true so I don't know if they're the best example I don't know very many people that think the way that Bitcoiners do in the UK yeah and look, there is a potential I mean Connor talked about this to me, and that

because we're in this, we maybe see it worse than it is. I think that's true as well. I'm not sure it is. I think it's the opposite. I think it's because we're in this, we see how bad it is. I think a lot of people don't realize how bad it is. But that's what I meant when I said, like, when I walked down the street here today in London, like, I mean, it's a nice day, and a nice day in London is nice because everyone's outside enjoying themselves.

But things don't seem as bad as they do on Twitter. But if you were walking down here, and you're on your phone, and someone went past on an e-bike and snatched it, your entire view would change in that moment. Oh, of course. One incident. And the other thing is, like, I'm not wearing my watch because I'm in London. Well, it's the survey of one problem. Like, I've got this in Bedford, people going, well, I work into town and I don't feel unsafe when somebody begs for me.

I'm like, you're a survey of one. That's true. For everybody who says that, I can find you an example of somebody who says, I've got this woman, she messaged me the other day. She said, we're a cash business. Locking up is a scary time for us. We feel good that you're security in town.

That's a different survey of one. But the survey of one who has a lived experience, which is negative and scary, is more important than the survey of one who's had no experience. That's definitely true. And then at the same time, I don't have a very good perspective on it, because compared to, this isn't me being big and myself up, but I have quite a privileged life where my family live here, and I don't go to the places that are really struggling.

Well, Connor, if you said to me, Dad, I'm going to town, what do I say? If Scarlett says she's going to town, what do we say? We're not happy about it. Conor's six foot three. You take two or three people to take him down. The daughter's a different scenario and they face different risks. And that's a problem. But yeah, by the way, back to mayor no, absolutely not doing it. He can't do a good job. I can be more effective as an unelected pseudo mayor just getting shit done. I can say what I want.

I don't have to worry about party politics. I haven't got to manage an unmanageable budget with endless statutory demands from central government on all kinds of shit that we can't afford. It's an impossible job to do. I don't want the job. Everyone who says I'm trying to become mayor, I do not want the job. Well, I think everyone thinks you're going to be mayor because you said you were going to be mayor.

Yeah. You've been blackpilled on the mayor idea. I went down the rabbit hole of the budget, the statutory demands, and then spent time with the mayor. I mean, look, if I thought I could go in and be an effective mayor, it's like, can I be more effective as mayor or just as Pete as a resident doing what I'm doing now. I can be way more effective doing what I'm doing now with no pressures of being a mayor. So why become a

mayor? I don't need to be mayor. My ego doesn't say, oh, I need to wear the robe and the chains. I don't give a fuck about that. You look good in the robe and the chains. But we should talk about football. Yeah. Well, just let me finish on that mayor. Oh, yeah. Go on. Is that I actually think the end goal is what's the important thing? The end goal is making Bedford better. I can do that more effectively, not as Mare. Fair. And I don't want

to be an MP. So there's no office for me to take. I'm not interested in office. You're just going to be the change you want to see in the world. Love it, man. Real Bedford played their first game on Saturday. Yes. Against a good side. Yes. Yeah. This is an interesting season for us. It feels different. It's the first division we've gone into where it feels like there's actually big clubs. It's the first where we definitely don't have the biggest

budget. I don't think we had the biggest budget last year, but we definitely don't. There's a couple of teams, Harbour and Sporting, are definitely spending more than us.

Teams are experienced at this level. It's semi-pro to the level where some of the players will have played pro and will be getting paid very well. What is very well? I mean, if you're getting over £1,000 a week in step three, you're a very, very well-paid player. That exists in this division. We were first game of the season, Spalding, who were originally second favorites. I think we're second favorites now. I mean, it was just different. It was a different level of football.

Good, good players, tough players. They knew what they were doing. We won. Back against the wall most of the first half. Managed to equalize just before halftime. And then Joey stepped up, got his brace second half. We won. But it reminded us a lot of the first season of step five. We played this team, MK Irish, who were the better sign, and we won.

we grew into the league and then dominated the league I don't know if the same will be this season we will give a good count of ourselves and playoffs would be a hell of an achievement winning it would be very tough but if you do win it you'll be the first team to ever do four back to back yeah it's only only three teams have ever done three championships in a row no one's done four I'd love to do it and look I mean you were there when I came up with this idea

and I thought you were batshit crazy then well no one got it I didn't get it no one understood it I thought this was Pete blowing money yeah but I kind of like it's like that first mover advantage

I don't know if you listened to my Balaji interview he talks about when you leave a broken country you've got the first mover advantage I think that resonated with Conor a lot it's like you get to move first you get the lower house prices where you're going you get away from the shit whoever did the first Bitcoin team created the Bitcoin team there are other Bitcoin teams we've tried it and no one talks about them Rail Bedford is the Bitcoin team which means we have the Bitcoiners as fans

and the companies as sponsors and the Winklevoss as co-owners and we use the power of Bitcoin and the community of Bitcoin and the principles of Bitcoin to power a sports team hopefully to go from the bottom of the English pyramid to the top which is nine promotions Three years in we done three We a third of the way there which when you think about it it quite mad It insane If we did the same again in three years we be two thirds of the way there I don't think we will.

I think these are going to be very hard. But it's all doable and it's been fucking hell of a journey. I mean, I'm actually in my fifth season. Because you took over halfway through the first season.

Then we did the three promotions and now we start this one. So actually my fifth season. So it's gone super quick. The funniest thing to me is, and there's some kind of like imagery in this, but the first time I came to a game, so I watched some of the streams at first, but I don't think I came to a game until your second season. Okay. And it was like a rainy day. Vibes were like pretty good, but there was maybe, if there were 50 people there, that would have been a push.

No, that would have been the first half of the season we had them. Oh, really? Yeah, because we used to get 40, 50 around that time. Maybe it was the first season. The first full season we used to, you must have been, because you must have been to England.

Yeah. the first full season we used to get 180 unless it was a Tuesday night we had the occasional Tuesday night we would have like 80 but it's like it was so funny seeing it go from that to then what it was at Chico which was the last time I saw a game here

1400 1400 people sun was shining vibes were high yeah Bedford won the league and it felt different once you get a thousand people once there's people on every side and it's full up it feels like you're at a football club a real active football club you are and there's music there's music but it's when you can hear a crowd, it feels different. I love the little ultras you've got that stand behind the goal banging the drum. They're brilliant. We wanted to put masks on them.

The powers that be said no. Who said no? Neil. Rightly so. Look, it's an intimidating atmosphere. We still want to do it. But yeah, look, we're building a thing and I think it's a real Bitcoin project. There are, like PubKey, I think the best Bitcoin businesses are the ones that work without Bitcoin, and Bitcoin becomes an accelerant. In that, if Bitcoin fails, or it has a bear market, whatever, the business still operates and does its thing. But for us, it's an accelerant.

If you don't like Bitcoin, you come to Rail Bedford, you can pay to get in, you can have a burger, a pint, watch a game of football, and leave. But if you're a Bitcoiner, you get to talk to Bitcoiners, I talk to you, and you get to pay for everything with your Bitcoin. And you accelerate what we're doing because we have Bitcoin. And all the Bitcoin we have, we've always sold... When we sold Bitcoin, it's always into profit.

When we raised the money from the Winklevoss, I think Bitcoin was about 70k. It's like 110k now. I mean, that investment is what? Was that 40%, 50% up? 60? I'm not doing maths live. I mean, it's going up faster than we can spend it, which is the model for how we got through the lease quicker with a lower investment. And so, yeah, look, it's worked. It's been... God, I love it. I love it so much. Tomorrow night, we are off to Needham Market, away game.

Is it the thing you're most excited for now in your life, game day? That's a good question. I mean, kind of. Yes, I love match day. I love getting in the car with Connor, unless I'm talking on the way or on the way back. But is it the most exciting thing? No, it's not. I am excited about retirement. Don't go yet. No, I just... We need a few more years of Pete. I'm really starting to enjoy the occasional time I have off.

Like, we're going on holiday on Wednesday, and we've rented a villa, and just going to be there with the family and relax, and I'm really looking forward to that. Although, Connor, I have been looking at how we can fly to the Hell's Own game. Can we get a flight on Saturday morning, a flight back Saturday night? Private Jack. Cameron, Tyler, can I know you?

Yeah no I mean I just love it it because it a results business not a profit business You trying to be successful and not lose money And that a fucking challenge But you are, it's like so real. Building a podcast is interesting, but they're just numbers on a screen. Building a business where people turn up. It feels tangible. It feels real. And it feels like something the community can get behind. No, I love it. I really wanted us to make a bet on the podcast for old time's sake.

but we did them all on the show that we never recorded. What did we bet? I can't remember. You write them down. I never have a copy. I just trust you. I don't think I wrote them down this time. Okay, so we can do them again. All right, so we're settled. So the current position is... Zero. Even. Back to even. Right, new bets. This is deposit only for me when we bet. I've made so much money bet on Bitcoin. Yeah, you really have.

I've made a Bitcoin off American HODL and we've got a live Bitcoin bet. 700K by... End of 27? Yeah, I think we're going to win that. I don't know. Right, United, how many points? What was last season? 17. No, no, no. What was the actual difference last season? 38. No, 38. No, because we double quit to 34 and it was 38. Okay. Are you sure it was that close? I don't think 38 points is that close. I want, no, I mean, yeah, true. I want United top half of the season. Okay, United top half.

I'll take that 100k sets. Yeah. United not to get relegated. I'm taking that one just for the beams. And then you come up with a points one. It was 42 last season, 42 point difference. I don't think you're going to have a good season, but I don't think it's going to be as big a disaster. No, it's not. But I want it to be one that's close. I think 20 points is a good one. I mean, because you gave me the relegated, I'll give it to you, but I think I'm going to lose that one.

20 points can we talk about my favourite bet with you which was that when United played Liverpool we had 100k sats and you went to bed no no it's the one where you went to bed and you woke up it was 7-1 7-1 and the ref ended the game early because he felt sorry for you yeah that was one of my least favourite mornings I woke up to thousands of notifications on Twitter I was dying we absolutely battered you alright before we finish sorry it's your show no go on You take over.

Tell me what's going on in the world of Bitcoin that I should be aware of. I know treasury companies. It's paper Bitcoin summer, bro. Is that what it's called? There's a lot of stuff happening that's not what I thought winning would look like. I think like there's a, and I've been skeptical of a lot of treasury companies. I'd say over and over again, I think Saylor's different. I think MetaPlanet are different. I think probably 21 and Anand Bax one will be different just out of sheer size.

But I am nervous about these companies He's just scooping up coins to eventually spit them out again. But at the same time as all this is happening, samurai devs, you've seen what's happened here. Yeah, I know. It's fucking disgrace. So I've spoken to a few people who are actual lawyers, and it sounds like, so they've pled guilty. Sounds like they're going to get the higher end of the sentence. They're probably both going to have five years in prison.

Libertarian Party needs to do another deal with Trump. I think, honestly, I think the best chance they have is now a pardon. And there's people working on that. There's someone from the Libertarian Party working on that. And Roman Storm also convicted. He actually went through trial and got convicted of conspiracy to run a money laundering business, I think was the charge. So he's gonna get five years or up to five years.

So lots of good things. That sounds like a black pill. There's lots of good things, but there's definitely stuff that's not what Bitcoin should, that's not Bitcoin winning. Yeah I mean it feels like it got I think it got a bit boring for me as an external person I think you got bored of it I not finding it boring Well, weirdly though, I had a long chat in Lofoten, Norway, with somebody, and they talked about how we've kind of gone so far away from peer-to-peer money. And I'm kind of with them.

Because if it's only digital gold, we'll be rich and depressed like Thomas says. My favorite quote in Bitcoin. There's stuff that's happening though that is genuinely cool. Like I think that everything Callie's building is insane. Yeah, Callie's amazing. I love him. Have you used BitChat yet? No, but I've seen stuff. Have you got it? No. I was going to send you a first message on BitChat. It's really cool.

Yeah. Don't get me wrong. It's like obviously limited in scope because not many people have it yet. So like finding people on there is impossible. The first time I found anyone was in Riga and we were on a boat. So Mills organized this boat trip for us on the last day. She came to Bedford.

She's the best. And we were all just like sat there talking and BitChat came up. And so we get our phone out. And honestly, 10 minutes later, no one had talked for 10 minutes. We're all just talking on BitChat. So from what I see in BitChat, very cool. I think pretty much everything Jack Dorsey does is cool. I love everything Callie's doing. But it all feels really niche. Yeah. And it doesn't feel like there are enough people working on peer-to-peer money at a narrative level.

Like out there talking about it and making it happen. I think that's fair, but I do think that's changing too. So have you heard that art clubs have now launched? Nope. So I think Riga was the first time it had ever been actually used. So all the merchants that were set up in Riga weren't using Lightning, they were using ARK. And I know that someone at the conference, I forget who, sorry, did a transaction from Cashew to ARK using the Lightning network as the interoperable middleman.

And this stuff's happening. And from what I've heard, ARK is going to be pretty fucking powerful because it's basically Lightning without ever having to worry about liquidity and things like that. Right. Well, I just think it needs to get a bit more punk rock. Yeah, I agree. Like, I think the punk rock, fuck you. That was the different vibe in Riga compared to being in somewhere like Vegas. Right. Like, because Riga has all, like, I think the German group are fucking cool.

Like the German Bitcoiners are like the, I think the European Bitcoiners are like the cypherpunks now. Whereas in America, it's all like the financial. Well, it's like all the financialization side of things. And maybe they're the cypherpunks because they need to be because of stuff like the online safety act and all this stuff that's going through Europe. Like America don't have those problems, but there is a lot of cool products being built.

But I agree that the narrative probably needs to shift a little bit. And look, I'm away from it, so I'm not really seeing it. But I don't know. It's just like that punk rock edge. I just think, you know, like Lop said, what's the point of having fuck you money if you don't say fuck you? And I just think it's...

Look, if we're moving into a world where the institutions and the governments are going to start accumulating Bitcoin, then we need Bitcoiners to take over the institutions and the governments and do it in the right way. So there's this massive growth in socialism in the UK. 53% of young people think it's the right model. so look I think we need to go and dismantle the socialist states of Europe and the world

and the socialist growth and we need to get back to being like punks and a bit more fuck you attitude. I could have ranted for hours. Danny, love you man. Thank you for having me. This has been great. Thank you Pete. Thank you.