#911 Peter McCormack On How Far Bitcoin Has Come In The Last Decade

Peter McCormack is the host of the "What Bitcoin Did" podcast and is the new owner of the Real Bedford Football Club. In this conversation, we discuss the Bitcoin Conference, Peter's thoughts on toxic Bitcoin maximalism, concerns with El Salvador, and the progress on Real Bedford F. C. since acquiring the team. ======================= LMAX Digital - the market-leading solution for institutional crypto trading & custodial services - offers clients a regulated, transparent and secure trading environment, together with the deepest pool of crypto liquidity. LMAX Digital is also a primary price discovery venue, streaming real-time market data to the industry’s leading analytics platforms. LMAX Digital - secure, liquid, trusted. Learn more at LMAXdigital.com/pomp ======================= The Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. Go to https://www.eightsleep.com/Pomp to check out the Pod Pro Cover and save $150 at checkout. Eight Sleep currently ships within the USA, Canada, and the UK. ======================= The world's 2nd largest crypto exchange, OKEx, has dropped the "E" to become OKX, reflecting its evolution from a traditional crypto exchange to a comprehensive, cross-platform crypto services provider. With OKX's decentralized platform and Web3 wallet, MetaX, you have full custody over your crypto. Explore DeFi, NFTs and play-to-earning gaming with the world's most powerful crypto exchange. Visit OKX.com to learn more. =======================

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Peter McCormick is the host of the What Bitcoin Did Podcast and also the brand new owner of Real Bedford Soccer Team in the UK, which he's putting under the Bitcoin standard. In this conversation, Peter and I talk about the Bitcoin Conference. We talk about toxicity in the Bitcoin community and also regulation, Bitcoin mining and much more. I really enjoyed this conversation with Peter and I hope you guys enjoy it as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I first want to talk about our sponsors. First up is LMAX Digital, the number one institutional crypto exchange. They offer clients the deepest pool of crypto liquidity on the planet, underscored by 100% uptime

• 0:47Anthony Pompliano?

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• 1:28Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:10Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Connect MetaX in your browser or within the OKX app to explore DeFi, NFTs, and play to earning gaming with the world's most powerful crypto exchange. Whether you're just learning about crypto, you're a seasoned DeFi Dgen, an NFT enthusiast, or a pro trader, you're all invited to a better future. Go check it out today and let me know what you think. All right, let's get into this episode. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 3:42Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, ladies and gentlemen, I have a special treat for you. I have Mr. Peter McCormack here. How are you, sir?

• 3:47Speaker 02

  I'm good, man. How are you doing?

• 3:48Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm doing fantastic.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  You're looking trim, Pomp.

• 3:50Anthony Pompliano?

  What'd you say?

• 3:51Speaker 02

  You're looking trim.

• 3:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, trim. Yeah, they say you look like a shrimp. I'm gonna show you a shrimp in a second.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  You're looking slim.

• 3:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, you know, you know what the key is?

• 4:01Speaker 02

  No alcohol?

• 4:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, I haven't drank in over a year now, almost a year and a half, but...

• 4:06Speaker 02

  Eat less?

• 4:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Eat, no, eating healthy. I eat the same amount of calories, but like, just eat much healthier.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  What about sleep?

• 4:13Anthony Pompliano?

  You work out or no? I sleep, yeah, I work out, I sleep. I mean, I do all the... Like, look, health is one of those weird things where like, this isn't rocket science. Basically, eat healthy, right? Don't go multiple days without exercising. Make sure you sleep well and like, generally try to avoid stress. If you do those four things, like, you're probably 80% of the way.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  I can't do one of those things.

• 4:35Anthony Pompliano?

  What was your takeaway from the Bitcoin conference? Any insights or things you walked away surprised by?

• 4:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, there wasn't really any huge announcements. I didn't feel like, not like, not like last year. Last year, there was a lot of kind of big announcements. But I just think the biggest takeaway for me was the amount of people there. It was incredible to have 25, 30,000 people there coming for a Bitcoin conference, coming to talk about Bitcoin. The fact that it just keeps growing every year, I think is a really good sign where we're going. No surprises, really. I thought what Jack announced is pretty cool. I think that's one of those things that doesn't feel like a big announcement, but when you really look into it, it's quite a big deal. I'd like to understand more about, more about that, so I'll talk to him at some point.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  I also think you look at the guests, you know, we had some big guests last year, but now you've got Jordan Peterson there, Eric Weinstein is there, Odell Beckham Jr. is there.

• 5:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Aaron Rodgers, Serena Williams, it's crazy.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you know, these people, I mean, especially someone like Aaron Rodgers, you know, he isn't just there for the sake of being there. He understands Bitcoin, he invested in Bitcoin companies, so.

• 5:42Anthony Pompliano?

  And is very based.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  But it's just, it's clearly breaking out now into an even bigger mainstream and.

• 5:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

• 5:52Speaker 02

  I mean, what are we trying to achieve here? Sell money for everyone, then it's a good thing because more people are aware, it's becoming more acceptable. I also think it's, we're starting to get a real kind of regulatory protection now because so many people hold Bitcoin. You're seeing that shift with politicians now whereby actually, you know, politicians really, they're just hunting for votes. They don't really stand for much. And the game theory works out that so many people have Bitcoin now that you're starting to see a lot of politicians come in who are pro Bitcoin. I mean, you probably have the same as me, everyone wants to try and come on your show. Oh, I'm pro Bitcoin, can I come on your show?

• 6:26Anthony Pompliano?

  What's your policy? Like, do you want to do politicians or no?

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Not for the politician's sake. If they're interesting and they've got something cool, I'd have Senator Lummis on because I know she's a Bitcoiner.

• 6:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  I know it's.

• 6:38Anthony Pompliano?

  So you you try to put some sort of test on like, do they actually understand it? Or are they just kind of grandstanding?

• 6:44Speaker 02

  Case by case.

• 6:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  I would have Ted Cruz on because I think he's kind of put himself out there and.

• 6:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. I do case by case as well.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's case by case. Mostly the others, we've done one and we do a second one. It's exactly the same interview. And actually, when you dig in, most of them don't really understand Bitcoin. I think Eric Adams is a great example in New York of how you can get rug pulled on Bitcoin. I mean, he came out as a pro Bitcoin guy and then start chat. Once he gets in power, he starts chatting bullshit. So.

• 7:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Is Eric Adams the biggest disappointment in the intersection of politics in Bitcoin so far?

• 7:15Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I mean, he rug pulled everyone. I think he's a disgrace.

• 7:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  I think he's, I don't, I can't see any change in New York since he's come in.

• 7:23Anthony Pompliano?

  What do you mean that he rug pulled everyone?

• 7:26Speaker 02

  Well, he said he was pro Bitcoin. He had, I think he even had Bitcoin in his profile.

• 7:30Anthony Pompliano?

  He's gonna take a salary.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  He's gonna accept a salary.

• 7:32Anthony Pompliano?

  He's gonna take three paychecks in Bitcoin.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  And then he just starts to attack Bitcoin mining straight away. And so I just think he's a disappointment. He didn't understand Bitcoin. He's full of shit. So, yeah, he's a disappointment. But I think there'll be plenty more like this. But I think that will work against them as well. You know, if you're gonna use Bitcoin as a way to get votes and you're gonna rug pull the Bitcoiners, that's not gonna end well for you.

• 7:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you think we'll get to a point where being pro Bitcoin is a requirement for these politicians running for office?

• 7:58Speaker 02

  I mean, are we? I think in red states already is. I think you're already there in red states. What'll be interesting to see what happens in the blue states. I know you had Ro Khanna run, right?

• 8:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think one of the most important things for me right now in Bitcoin is that that Bitcoin doesn't become some kind of partisan issue. And that's really important now. And you can certainly see it going that direction. You know, Elizabeth Warren is not particularly helping the cause at the moment with her fud that she's spreading about Bitcoin. So I, I think it's very easy to engage with Republicans who are pro Bitcoin. I think actually what's more important now is where you actually talk to Democrat politicians and trying to convince them and convert them. So actually, that's a good, that's a good point, Pom. If a Democrat wanted to come on, I'm more likely to take them than a Republican now because I really want to, I really want to see if they do understand this. And we're about to go through the same in the UK.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  You know, we've had a very, Europe itself has been very anti, let's say crypto broadly. I know you cover shitcoins here.

• 8:57Anthony Pompliano?

  We'll get into it.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  Europe has been very anti crypto, not pro crypto at all. And I think the the UK has finally realized now with now that we're out of the EU, this is an opportunity for the UK. And Rishi Sunak has said, we need to understand and accept crypto. We want to be the center of the world for crypto. I think they're a bit late for that. And they're behind El Salvador already, let alone the US.

• 9:21Anthony Pompliano?

  But is that the thing that they should try to do? Right? Like, if I was a politician, do I want to be the center? Or should I actually just optimize for let's get in the game?

• 9:29Speaker 02

  Right? Exactly.

• 9:30Anthony Pompliano?

  And to me, it's like, like, when you say, we want to be the capital of the Bitcoin industry, that feels maybe there's two to three places in the world right now that have a shot at that. I would say Texas has a shot at that, right? I would say El Salvador has a shot at that. And maybe we could debate, you know, two or three other cities, right? Miami, maybe, but it feels like without the mining, or without kind of going all in, it's hard to do.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  But the UK could be the center of Europe.

• 9:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Exactly. Like, that's a more obtainable goal than we somehow are going to convince everyone to give up where they are and move to Europe.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  Look where the Bitcoin companies are. The majority are in the US. You've got a few scattered around. You've got like Ledger in France, etc. And, you know, Huddle, Huddle, I can't remember exactly where they are in Europe. But the majority is here in the US, a lot of the biggest exchanges, and some out in Asia, and then some on some weird tax beneficial islands. But I think what the UK needs to do is just be pro Bitcoin, even pro crypto. I think it's hard to be pro crypto and pro Bitcoin and anti crypto. But I just think they need to create an environment where people can buy, trade, and build businesses with cryptocurrencies. And that's all they need to do to begin with. So I think we're starting to see that Matt Hancock has been pro crypto. And there's like three or four

• 10:47Speaker 02

  others who have been. And Rishi Sunak said he is. So we've got to see whether they are real about this, or whether it's just going to be another rug pull. But hopefully. Hopefully UK will.

• 10:57Anthony Pompliano?

  What's your, what's your take on the toxic crew in terms of Bitcoin? One of the things we were talking with Udi earlier was 87% of Bitcoiners, according to Grayscale's Bitcoin investor study, report that they own Bitcoin plus some other asset. Could be stable coins, could be whatever. 13% report that they just own Bitcoin, that's the only thing they own. When you look at that, it used to be 100% of people owned just Bitcoin, right? There was no other asset that they could own. So just by default, it was you're 100% Bitcoin if you're in quote, quote, quote crypto. It is likely, we were saying, that the percentage of people who just own Bitcoin and nothing else will continue to dwindle down over time because you now get more of the mainstream adoption and the people who are participating

• 11:42Anthony Pompliano?

  are different and they just, maybe they don't understand some aspects of finance or the economies. Maybe it's they want diversification for whatever reason. Is that good or bad? And like, how do you think about, you know, the right way to kind of approach these people? Is it to take more of like this like hard line in the sand? And I think people would use from an endearing standpoint, the toxic, you know, approach versus maybe having to change the way we communicate?

• 12:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I think about this a lot, Pom, a lot actually with regards to the show because I actually think there's two areas of toxicity, which I kind of, kind of bounce against. There's the Bitcoin versus crypto toxicity, but I also think there is this libertarian toxic community, which I'm starting to bump against as well.

• 12:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Interesting. Okay, explain.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  And I think that they're two different, different things. So firstly, on the Bitcoin versus crypto, I think the number of Bitcoin maxis is a growing number, but as a percentage of crypto people, it's a decreasing number.

• 12:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, interesting. So the aggregate number of Bitcoin maximalists, we're adding more Bitcoin maximalist every single year, which I would agree with.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:46Anthony Pompliano?

  But it's not keeping pace with the number of people who are coming into quote, quote crypto.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, and like, do you know what? Four years ago, this, four or five years ago, this served a really important purpose. We had massive attacks on Bitcoin with Bitcoin Cash.

• 12:56Anthony Pompliano?

  The node operators saved Bitcoin.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. It was super important. I think those, those type of attacks are dead now because every, every single one has lost. And so, and I still think that group of people exists to defend it, but I also think they've got better defenders as well in that they've got serious influential players such as Michael Saylor.

• 13:17Speaker 02

  And you've got massive companies that, like Nideg as well, that if there was ever an attack like that now, you could really rally the troops to protect it. So that doesn't worry me anymore. I also think shouting at people just doesn't work.

• 13:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  I think sometimes it's counterproductive. I think yelling and telling people what they can and can't do, shouldn't do, just doesn't help. I think it's a bit like if you, I mean.

• 13:39Anthony Pompliano?

  That makes you a snowflake though, like you and I are snowflakes because we don't want to yell at people.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  No, it, look, there's a, there's a reality, right? Like Bitcoin has, might not have mass adoption, has mass awareness. You, you don't go anywhere now and mention Bitcoin and people go, well, what the hell is that? They're like, oh, I've heard about that, or tell me about that, or I should have bought some of that.

• 13:56Anthony Pompliano?

  They, they've heard of the brand. They may not understand how it works or why it's important, but they've at least heard of this trillion dollar asset that's somewhere out there.

• 14:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, so like, it's, people are aware of it everywhere now. And a bit like parenting, you never get anywhere by shouting at a child. You think you do, but you never do. Actually, you, you get somewhere by showing and educating. Like, I mean, I don't own any crypto outside of Bitcoin. I've got no intention to buy any, because I don't have a use for it, have a use for Bitcoin. So I've avoided, avoided that. But at the same time, I'm, I'm like, I might talk about, I might call them shitcoins, but I don't really talk about it anymore. I'm just, I find it boring. Honestly, I just, it's just relentless. And I also think sometimes it gets a bit embarrassing. I, you know, as a, when you see someone from the mainstream mention Bitcoin and come out with a really bad take, and I've been guilty of this myself, Pomp, but you click on it and, and the way the Twitter algorithm works, you see all the people you follow

• 14:47Speaker 02

  first. There's this massive dog pile of have fun, stay in poor, you're an idiot, you don't know shit. And then occasionally you get a really good nuanced reply and someone like Saylor is great at this, he'll go in and give a really good nuanced reply of why someone should care about this. And I, I think for Bitcoin to be taken seriously, sometimes you have to, have to have that more nuanced or adult conversation. And then you have to look at all the people who get invited on CNBC, Fox, whatever. There's people who can have a serious adult conversation about these things. It's not people yelling at people. I mean, I think safety is a great example. He wrote a super important book, but but the way he acts, his toxic approach to people online, that everyone I disagree with, I'm going to block, call a moron, or even blocking people who like posts that criticize him. I mean, he's the, that to me is the example

• 15:31Speaker 02

  of a real snowflake who can't handle any kind of criticism. But he wrote the biggest book in Bitcoin. Like, he could be somebody on all the main TV stations, educating people about this. He could be one of the biggest names. But when you went to the conference, right, he's like number three on the board, the like, or number two on the board of the poster. And you go to his talk, and he's still giving the same boring PowerPoint presentation from three years ago, and the room's half empty. So people like that, being all toxic and unable to handle criticism and explain these in a nuanced way, they're going to get marginalized and just become irrelevant. And what's going to happen is someone like yourself, who can have a mature conversation about this, is going to continue to grow. So I think the maximus is super important, but I think the toxic thing just starts to

• 16:15Speaker 02

  look more like a, excuse me for saying this, because I've got you in trouble before, but kind of tends to look a little bit like an extreme group now, like a fringe extreme group.

• 16:24Anthony Pompliano?

  It absolutely is. Like, I think that's part of it. So, couple of things. One, on safety, and I'm reading the Fiat Standard, fantastic book. So he's two for two, I think, on the book writing. And I may actually disagree with you on this. I don't know. I'd have to think more about it. And maybe it's just because I don't spend as much time talking to him as other people do. But I haven't seen a lot of that. So like, if it's happening, then, you know, it's going to have whatever impact it has. But I've always thought of him more from like, a, an economist standpoint. And in some weird way, I think actually in the book, he may say he's, or like, the title is like, he's an economist, or whatever.

• 17:08Anthony Pompliano?

  But I think that there's also a difference of like, economists, like, they debate each other all the time. And like, that's part of this conversation is like, what's debate versus what's like, you know, the equivalent of me and my brothers when we're growing up, like beating each other up, right? Like, just because we're like, we get angry. And so I think like, some of that nuances in there. And we got to figure out, like, Where is the line? Because there's not like a clear, hey, do this, don't do this in terms of discourse. But the part that I do agree with you on is when you think about 13% of Bitcoiners own just Bitcoin, I think that is a signal towards how the percentages are working, right? That's, that's going to get smaller and smaller over time. Whether that means that the 87% are

• 17:53Anthony Pompliano?

  right or not, like they could all just be dumping their money, losing money and like the free market will clean them out and eventually they'll all, you know, come home to Bitcoin, right? Like that, that's for sure a possibility. But I think that there's this difference between

• 18:09Anthony Pompliano?

  what is, in my opinion, intellectual laziness, right? The reason why Sailor is so good is because he has thought long and hard about these topics. He understands the nuance. He is diplomatic. You could literally bring him on live television and you could say the most horrid shit to him. And he still will say, well, I don't know anything really about that. You know, my focus is on Bitcoin. But like, but he is the utmost professional. And I would argue that he's now

• 18:39Anthony Pompliano?

  top five, top 10 most influential people in Bitcoin, right? In terms of, uh, people want to know his opinion on certain aspects.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  We have to be careful with that, though.

• 18:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Agreed that would be careful, but I'm just saying like, if you evaluate and you were to say, hey, who are the 10 most influential people, right? I think he would be in that top 10. Whether that's good or bad, that we have influential people is a separate issue, but he'd be in the top 10.

• 19:01Anthony Pompliano?

  And so over time, that top 10, how many of them are going to be more, or what would be labeled as like the toxic component versus not? I actually don't think, and what we were saying earlier is we're going to rebrand toxic, that terminology to now is just asshole. Right? And like being an asshole usually doesn't, isn't a successful strategy in any aspect of life.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  But I also think that's super important. Like, so Marty Bent, mutual friend, we both, uh, we both know Marty well. Me and him. Essentially do the same job, but come in completely different directions. And we completely disagree on a lot, number of things, but I think that's also super useful because we learn from each other. Well, I definitely learn from him. I don't know if he does from me, you know, but you get that different appreciation.

• 19:42Anthony Pompliano?

  But do you think he's, he falls in the toxic group? See, I would say, I wouldn't think he does.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  I think a little bit, but he's not an abusive toxic. So there's.

• 19:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, now we're getting to the nym.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the thing. Cause you get the toxic people who like, who are, have their principles and their firm about them. I absolutely respect that about Marty.

• 19:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. See, I think that's a principle. That's their terminology I would use. I think he's very principled and he's unwilling to waver from those principles. He's very direct, but I don't think that he goes after people in the, in the crypto community and shames people and like, and maybe abusive is a good.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  Well, those people are just morons. I mean, they're, I mean, they're people who've just, you know, probably had a rough upbringing, got terrible parents and have no idea to deal with civility. And the only thing they get out of life is going online to abuse people and get likes. I mean, they're kind of hard to take seriously and I don't think they're actually that influential. I think it's a very niche group of just absolute morons. And so I don't care about those. Forget those super toxic people. They probably own, the kind of people probably don't own very much Bitcoin, haven't been around very long. And you can't see who they are. And it's very hard to take someone serious when they're, when they're a nim. So I don't worry about them. I'm, I'm, I'm thinking more of the, the, the toxic maximalists who kind of bridge, like the halfway between them and

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Marty. Like what's the deal with those guys? Where are they going? It's funny because I don't, do you ever read your YouTube comments?

• 21:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, I stopped reading YouTube. I read Twitter though.

• 21:05Speaker 02

  Ah, so I've stopped reading Twitter.

• 21:06Anthony Pompliano?

  And I may stop. Are you completely off Twitter now?

• 21:08Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I, I'll, I'll go in, I'll have a look and I'll, anything I think's important, I'll retweet. But I've spent, I've probably cut my time down to like half an hour to an hour a day when it used to be like hours.

• 21:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. I, I am definitely spending lesser and lesser time reading the comments, uh, which is unfortunate because I used to learn quite a bit from there. Uh, but it's just overrun with nonsense.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  Yes. Nonsense and morons. YouTube's the same.

• 21:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Spam too, right? So that's another.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  So, yeah, YouTube, we, we, we don't allow any comment. All comments approved because of the spam. So we, so yeah, they have to get approved. And there's, there's a lot I learn from it and there's a lot I don't take from it. And what I've noticed there are, so when I talk to you about the toxic, I think you've got the toxic libertarians now. So I've met some really smart libertarians who happy to debate anything. And then you've got the libertarians who are. Western liberal democracy libertarians living in their comfortable life, calling everyone a statist cuck, who thinks that maybe, you know, ideas of no state or a small state comes with risk and burning all downs comes with risk. I think that's a different toxic community now, which I understand why it comes to exist, but at the same time, I think it it really lacks, like, they all call me a dummy and a statist cuck, but actually, I've thought through this a lot, I've read a lot, I'm

• 22:18Speaker 02

  trying to understand the ideas of everything from an anarchic anarchist to a minimalist minikist. And I think that's important to understand, because a lot of this has been attached to Bitcoin. And I don't see this world that they see, is that when we move to a Bitcoin standard, there'll be no government, we're all gonna have private independent courts to arbitrate between and protect our property rights, everything will be based on-

• 22:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Sounds cool.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  Guns and Yelp reviews. I think it sounds terrible. I think we fought for hundreds of years to have freedoms in the countries like the US and the UK, and we have some of the best property rights in the world. And you can see what happened when you don't have freedom in other places in the world. I'm yet to meet a, like, a Chinese libertarian. I think most of these people just want democracy. And the funniest one I find is like the Scandinavian libertarians. I'm like, you live in the best place in the world, what, you wanna burn this state down? What, because you have to pay us some tax towards universal healthcare and education? You fucking stupid. Like, hundreds of years, people fought, like, fought wars for hundreds of years to have this. Like, do you really understand the consequences of what you're saying? Have you really thought this through? And I think that's the toxic side that I'm bumping up against now, is that people coming

• 23:26Speaker 02

  into Bitcoin starting to think, well, hold on, to be a Bitcoin, I have to only eat meat, I wanna burn down the state, and I've gotta get, I've gotta get a gun, and, you know, and there's gonna be no social safety net for the poorest and weakest in society, and we're gonna get rid of all civil liberties and everything we've done to improve equality in the world. We're gonna get rid of all of that and survive on Yelp reviews and have guns to defend it. I think it's fucking moronic. And that's the bit of Bitcoin I really hate.

• 23:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Yelp reviews?

• 23:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's the future, Yelp reviews and guns.

• 23:55Anthony Pompliano?

  What questions do you guys have? That's amazing. I love that. What, uh, what do you think is the biggest takeaway from the conference? I guess going back towards that, like looking into the future? What do you think is going to be the headline if we're, if we come back here in a year of what the past year? What happened, right? Obviously we, we saw a lot over the last year. I think some people are, are expecting, uh, with what happened in Canada and what's happened in Russia and Ukraine. Some of that to take hold, but is there anything in particular that you're thinking like a year from now? We're going to look back on it and think is really important.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  I mean, selfishly, I just hope the UK, uh, has a much more open policy for Bitcoin. That for me is really important. I, I come here every six weeks to work because Bitcoin happens here. There's nothing, there's nothing happening in the UK. I'm, I've done like five interviews, six interviews in the UK and 450 odd here. I, I would love to have, uh, what you've got here in the UK. I'd love people to come there, but it's, there's very little.

• 24:43Anthony Pompliano?

  And why do you think that is?

• 24:45Speaker 02

  Um, I, I think because we aren't a, as a country, we don't have the same kind of approach to freedom and property rights that you'd hear, you do have in the U.S. And like, freedom is like that, uh, uh, constitutional framework that you have, that we don't have. You know, it just doesn't exist and, uh, we don't have that political competition that you have by, you have, uh, by the ability to move states. We don't have that. If you, whether you live in Manchester or London or Bedford, you have the same stupid rules. Um, we haven't, we have no, uh, protection of speech. We just, it's just the way we are. Um, I also just, well, I don't, I mean, I don't know why it is, but whatever it is, we don't have it.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Now we've broken away from the EU, we have this opportunity. So me selfishly, that, that's what I hope. That's one of the biggest things I would like to see next year. Apart from that, I don't know. I, I want Bitcoin to get really boring. Like I want it to be super boring, just.

• 25:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Announcements don't mean as much.

• 25:44Speaker 02

  Don't mean as much, yeah, like.

• 25:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Because that would signal that there's more mainstream adoption, more decentralized control, less influential folks.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  How many gold announcements do you hear? None. It's just a thing. You want Bitcoin to just be a thing. Like, just accept it. Let's forget about it. It's just part of society. It is.

• 26:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, I follow Peter Schiff, and sometimes he tweets, like, you know, gold went up half a percent.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and nobody cares. And, and I think, I mean, that's, that's the point we want to get to, because that's the point we've won. Once Bitcoin is, once nobody cares about it, nobody wants to talk about it, announcements don't matter, then we've won. Now, we're, we're a long way from that, but that's what I hope to do. I hope, I hope to get to the point where my show isn't a Bitcoin show, it's just a show. Because that means there's nothing that interesting to talk about.

• 26:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  And we won.

• 26:26Anthony Pompliano?

  What's your opinion on Doquan Terra backing the stablecoin with Bitcoin?

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Do you know, it's one of the things I haven't looked too much into.

• 26:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  Um, and I, I know there's been some criticism of it. Your good buddy Corey was criticizing it. And, um, I just, I honestly, I know little about it. All I, all I've seen is, because I'm not on Twitter that much anymore. I don't sense to see this stuff. But I've just seen people saying some shit, shitcoin is buying a load of Bitcoin. And I, for me, it's just more people buying Bitcoin. Cool. Great. Let's move on. Who else is buying Bitcoin? Cool. Let's move on. But educate me. Tell me about it. What's the deal?

• 27:01Anthony Pompliano?

  I, I think that it's a, a situation where, um, they're going to back the stablecoin with Bitcoin, right? Or put Bitcoin in their reserves, whether the terminology backed or not you should use, uh, is one of the debate points. Um, but they've got $3 billion in their reserves of a stablecoin, and they're going to buy Bitcoin with it.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  Where, where did they get their $3 billion from?

• 27:23Anthony Pompliano?

  People come in and they want the, uh, stablecoin. So they have 100, 200 million dollars a day of demand. So people will say, hey, give me UST, which is a stablecoin, uh, similar to how people go to, you know, USDC or GUSD or whatever. Uh, and that money sits in a reserve or treasury. And so he's saying, hey, rather than keep this in, uh, cash or their altcoin or any of that other stuff, he says, we're going to operate on a Bitcoin standard. Like, we, we think Bitcoin is the most pristine collateral in the world, direct quote from him, right? And so what we're going to do is we're going to convert all of our reserves to Bitcoin.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  So they're basically printing their own Bitcoin treasury?

• 28:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, what they're doing, well, there's two ways to think about it, right? Is if you think of USDC, right? What do people do? They come in and they say, hey, will you issue me your USDC? And they say, yes, you have to buy it from us essentially. And $1 buys $1 of the stablecoin. And then they sit with the US dollars in their reserves and they leave it in cash. Right? And then you take the stablecoin and you go do whatever you're going to do with it. At some point, you can come back and redeem back your dollars. But you purchased, and I'll put that kind of in air quotes, you purchased the stablecoin because you gave them a dollar, they gave you $1 worth of stablecoins. What these guys are doing is very similar, except you're not purchasing it with US dollars. You're purchasing it with their altcoin and then they issue it to you.

• 28:42Anthony Pompliano?

  So you still purchase it, but the reserves that sit there, some of it was in stablecoins, some of it was in their altcoin. And then now they're just saying, listen, people who wanted our stablecoin that they purchased from us, those reserves, we're going to move on to a Bitcoin standard.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  Is there altcoin acclaim on the Bitcoin?

• 29:00Anthony Pompliano?

  This is where more debate, right? Is technically the altcoin is not what people are end up holding. They're holding the stablecoin. And so the question would be, can you take that stablecoin and come back to them and say, give me the value for the stablecoin? Can you basically redeem?

• 29:17Speaker 02

  Where's the value in the altcoin? What's, why? I don't understand where the value is coming from that.

• 29:22Anthony Pompliano?

  There is a big debate there. And I wouldn't, and here's the thing is, I wouldn't say, I don't own that coin, right? I don't own UST, etc. I'm a pure spectator in watching this occur. I don't own the coin because one, I don't know enough about it. And two, I don't necessarily think that it has some immense value that would make me go and choose it over Bitcoin. But I do find it fascinating that you now have what many people historically in the Bitcoin community would have said, that's no good. We don't like that, you know, whatever, adopting the Bitcoin standard. And so my thought process, the reason why I'm intellectually interested in this is

• 30:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Michael Saylor created the playbook for public companies to adopt the Bitcoin standard. If these guys are successful. Big if, still risk involved, the whole nine yards. If they are successful, they will create the playbook, but not just for stable coins to adopt a Bitcoin standard. I think that they will showcase a playbook for central banks and fiat currencies to adopt a Bitcoin standard as well. Because the US dollar, as they issue it, they have reserves. Those reserves right now, right, are no different. Frankly, many people in Bitcoin, like, those are shitcoins, right, sitting in the Federal Reserve.

• 30:37Speaker 02

  It makes me think of two things. Okay, firstly.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Firstly, it makes me think of Block One, who had a very inventive way of claiming, was it 120,000 Bitcoin? Their $4 billion ICO, which they converted to Bitcoin, suddenly they have a fund with 120,000 Bitcoin in it. That was, to me, just a complete and absolute scam. So it makes me think of that. So therefore, they've just found a new inventive way to claim a load of Bitcoin.

• 31:06Anthony Pompliano?

  But hold on a second. So I think this is another key piece to it. There's a lot of companies in Bitcoin and not in Bitcoin, who sell all sorts of products and services, right? And I would argue that there's a number of companies who claim to be Bitcoin companies. They sell equity to investors, and then they turn around, they buy Bitcoin.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, but equity is different from a shitcoin.

• 31:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, here's where it gets into it, right, is when you start to look at it, there's a legal element to it. But you could also argue that they're bullshitcoins. Like, if you sell me your shit equity, right? And you got a shitty company, and you sell me equity as an investor, and you essentially duped me into giving you money for your equity that ends up being worthless. And then you take my money and you buy Bitcoin. There's difference in legal, what is the claim, right? But I think those things are more similar than not.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  I don't buy it. But I tell you why I don't buy it, because you should do your research and see what my company's doing, what my cash flow is, what my balance sheet is. Therefore, you understand what the value of my company is and potential dividends and future exit. You can't tell me the value of this altcoin.

• 32:16Anthony Pompliano?

  What do you mean?

• 32:16Speaker 02

  Well, so the altcoin, what is the value? I can tell you the value of my company. I can say, here's my podcast, here you go, pump. Here's my podcast, here's my growth trajectory. Here's my revenue model for my sponsors. My plan is to exit in four years for this price. And while I'm doing that, you get an X percent return as a dividend each year. You can audit that and you can speak to my accountant. So you know what the equity is worth. You can do your own research into that. If I do, so be it. But generally speaking, you can, you can do your own research. What is the value in the altcoin?

• 32:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, see, here's the thing is they, they provide all that same information.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  I think. So, so tell me now, what is the value? What's the value for the altcoin? What do I get for it?

• 32:50Anthony Pompliano?

  So each one of them is different, right? Which also equity is different. The, the point being that when you look at it is somebody's creating an asset and they're using that asset to acquire more Bitcoin. Sellers doing it with equity and debt, right? Private companies do it with equity. Also, they do it from their cash flows. These altcoins do the same thing. I'm not arguing that any of them are worth buying, et cetera. What I'm saying is structurally, they're all doing the same. It's a game, right? And what is the game? Acquire as much Bitcoin as possible.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course. But, but I think unless you're Theranos, it's very hard to suddenly create something that brings in billions to go and buy Bitcoin. But something, somehow people have managed to do it with shitcoins. And it just, it just sounds a bit shady. But the other thing, the other question I would ask.

• 33:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Do we think that altcoins or companies own more Bitcoin in the private market? Like Bitcoin companies?

• 33:39Speaker 02

  You know, that's a good question. I don't know.

• 33:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Probably, there's only two, there's only two that I know that own billions, which would be Block One and Terra. They now own over a billion. But I think those are the only two. Tron? Did he buy a shitton?

• 33:53Speaker 02

  Apparently he's got a shitton.

• 33:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, so there's, there's basically three that you could say, hey, they, they bought a bunch.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Well, what also happens, like if Bitcoin, like Arthur Hayes is thinking there's a lot of risk in the market with Bitcoin now. If Bitcoin suddenly sunk to 20K. Does that mean that their, their stablecoin is no longer fully backed?

• 34:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, so this is the whole thing is they, they, them specifically, but then we can talk about all stablecoins. They're not claiming that it's fully backed. They're not saying, hey, we're going to back one to one. What they're actually doing is they're only backing about 30, 40% of it. And over time, as Bitcoin over a long period of time, it ends up being over collateralized.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  See, this is, I mean, this where it sounds super sketchy. They're basically saying, give us some money and we'll give you a printed coin in return. And we'll kind of gamble away that money how we want.

• 34:36Anthony Pompliano?

  So this is, this is part of the risk, right? This is, this is where people end up saying it. Now, at the same time, to throw another wrench into it is previously, it was an algorithmic stablecoin.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? So basically their argument is like, hey, algorithmic stablecoin, we don't think that's the best path forward. We don't think it's super sustainable. There's risk. There's, there's all these issues. And so instead we think a bit, a one backed by Bitcoin is better. So you end up getting in this very nuanced situation.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  Can I tell you something funny?

• 35:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  I've never used a stablecoin.

• 35:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Never? You never used USDC? Nothing?

• 35:05Speaker 02

  Never used any of them. Just never had a need. All I've ever done is buy Bitcoin and sell Bitcoin. I've hardly sold any.

• 35:12Anthony Pompliano?

  But in the UK, uh, they have the tax ramifications just like in the US, right? You get capital gains tax if you spend Bitcoin?

• 35:19Speaker 02

  You do if you spend or sell it, but I've only ever sold a very small amount. And the only time I ever really did that was to buy my son a car.

• 35:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  That was it. You know, I just stack and hold and I transfer money and I buy. Actually, I don't even, I don't even need to transfer money and buy anymore.

• 35:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you pay employees in Bitcoin?

• 35:34Speaker 02

  I do bonuses in Bitcoin.

• 35:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Bonuses. Okay. So, so basically you pay the bonuses and you just take the tax. Do, uh, like people you work with on your show pay in Bitcoin or US dollar or something?

• 35:44Speaker 02

  See, that's, that's, that's how I stack now. So my sponsors, I would say I get about 20, 25% in Bitcoin. And that's pure margin. So I just keep the Bitcoin.

• 35:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 35:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, that's, that's the way I stack now. And I think I've got a, um, well, I know I've got a, um, uh, a fortnightly buy in Gemini as well, just on their, um, DCA, just, just for the sake, I think I said it at the start.

• 36:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Just keep buying.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  Just keep ticking over, just keep ticking over. Yeah.

• 36:09Anthony Pompliano?

  What, what's your take on, uh, El Salvador? You've been a couple of times now?

• 36:16Speaker 02

  Five or six times now.

• 36:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:18Anthony Pompliano?

  What's your general read?

• 36:20Speaker 02

  Um, hmm.

• 36:21Anthony Pompliano?

  You don't sound super positive.

• 36:23Speaker 02

  Uh, I think there's like that careful, but like I've interviewed the president twice now. But I'd like to interview him a third time, but I'd never want to compromise what I would like to say to get that third interview. Uh, I also was super careful if things go bad there, that we, like I as an individual, we as a group, didn't give him too easy a time. I think he's in a really tricky position in some ways. Um, the accusations came out recently that there were secret meetings within the prisons within, with the gangs to try and reduce violence. Now, so like that, this was made out to be some kind of like huge scandal. Uh, yet the murder rate throws a significant drop.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  And so in my mind, I was like, well, is this, is this really that bad a thing to sit down with? I mean, what happened to New York?

• 37:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Like basically.

• 37:13Speaker 02

  What happened to New York in the eighties?

• 37:14Anthony Pompliano?

  With like criminals. I'll, I'll put that as whatever.

• 37:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, and did a deal and there, there was a compromise. And, and I know I've seen some of the things they were asking for. They wanted better access in the prisons. They wanted better treatment in the prisons, but also some people wanted jobs. They were actually, they're actually saying, can you get gang members jobs? I mean, you know, this does come down to economic opportunity in the end. What happened in New York in the eighties? You might know better than me when, was it Giuliani reduced the crime? Or was it Bloomberg?

• 37:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, Giuliani was, uh, was a unique situation. He's the guy who, uh, if I remember correctly, started stop and frisk, which was, uh, basically cops could walk down the street and just discriminate and say like, you look like a criminal today, get your hands against the wall and like, we get to pat you down. As you can imagine, that does stop crime, right? Uh, it also infringes on, uh, the individual liberties.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Wasn't there like a deal done with the mafia to help clean up New York?

• 38:04Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that was pre Giuliani.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  Was that pre Giuliani?

• 38:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, well, I, I think the big thing basically was, uh, they, they being the mafia, I think looked at themselves as a business that ends up engaging in violence to carry out a lot of the business and, uh, Also, which is very interesting. They wore suits and ties. They had a lot of money. Like, like, there's this whole element of, yes, they were definitely breaking the laws, very well documented.

• 38:33Speaker 02

  They sounded like you as well.

• 38:34Anthony Pompliano?

  But, well, they are Italian.

• 38:39Anthony Pompliano?

  They drove nice cars, had their private clubs, the whole thing. But I do find it interesting, like.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  So should I finish my point? So what the point I was trying to make is that this, these articles came out and they were showing secret videos of meetings between the gangs and potentially the administration to do a deal with the gangs to reduce the murder rate. If you go and check the charts, there's been a massive drop in the murder rate in El Salvador. There was a recent bump, I think it was 86 murders in one day, which was highly unusual recently for El Salvador. And so he's now started to clamp down on the gangs and now he's being accused of infringing on civil rights. And it feels like people want an absolutely clean administration, which won't deal with the gangs, but does everything in the most perfect way, protects the complete human rights, the civil rights of everyone who's possibly been arrested. Now, I think that's a super complex job to do in a country like El Salvador.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  And what I think really is going on here is that El Salvador has become an outlier. They are somebody who's trying to protect themselves from the US dollar debasement. And they're doing this project with Bitcoin, which does come with risks. And I think there are people who are unhappy about this and they're doing anything to attack his administration. At the same time, if this does turn into a car crash, if they become protests and he becomes a little bit more dictatorial, this isn't going to be great for Bitcoin either. So I think it's a tricky situation. There's a lot of complex problems that I certainly don't understand enough about. I think, I think as Bitcoiners, we need to support the people of Bitcoin who want Bitcoin, help them understand it, help them use it, but we should hold a critical eye to the administration.

• 40:18Anthony Pompliano?

  It's a very nuanced, I think, fair approach to it because it's not all good, it's not all bad. Same could be said about every government in the world, right? Which is not a conversation most people want to have. The other thing that would be interesting as a thought exercise is would the United States be better off if we had those conversations with gangs, bad actors, etc. I could see a very strong argument for absolutely no, we should not do that, that, you know, don't negotiate with terrorists, you know, type approach that the United States has held on the international stage for a long time. But there would probably be a strong argument as well of like, listen, if you understand why somebody's doing something and you can take measures that correct it, that don't involve corruption and kind of all the bad stuff, wouldn't that be a good thing?

• 41:02Speaker 02

  The US negotiates with terrorists every day. They just negotiate with terrorist states. It's just, I mean, we have to be honest about this. You have to be completely honest.

• 41:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, that's good on this rabbit hole, go ahead.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  I mean, look, the eyes of the world are currently on Ukraine and Russia. But for the last, what, eight years? The Saudi Arabia has been involved in absolutely horrific war in Yemen, where they created a blockade, which has led to a famine and the starvation of tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people. The Saudi state murdered a journalist, Khashoggi. This is a terrorist state, there's no other way of describing it. And hopefully I'm not important enough to have my own head cut off for saying this, but that is a terrorist state and the US negotiates with that state. There's plenty of examples around the world where the US negotiates with what are really

• 41:52Speaker 02

  just terrorist states, dictatorships that finance terrorist operations, a terrorist state. So keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Sometimes you have to work with people if the net outcome is better. You have to negotiate for a better net outcome. And I don't think that is the worst scenario in the world. If Bukele wants to negotiate with the gangs and that reduces gang violence and creates new economic opportunity, so those in the gangs don't have to sell drugs and actually can go to work and earn money for their family, if the net outcome is people leaving gangs and less people dying, maybe that is a situation worth doing.

• 42:29Anthony Pompliano?

  It's like, what are you optimizing for?

• 42:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly, you know. But most of this comes down to economic opportunity. Gangs tend to exist in zones where there are...

• 42:41Speaker 02

  Where there are family breakups or a lack of fathers in the home, people tend to attach themselves to gangs or.

• 42:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, the gang is a business.

• 42:51Speaker 02

  But it's a business and a family.

• 42:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 42:53Speaker 02

  It represents both, but most people just want economic opportunity.

• 42:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, just invest in economic opportunity.

• 42:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Did you watch the 60 Minutes thing? I haven't watched the whole thing yet. I watched, it only played last night, but I did see a clip and they are talking to, obviously they've got Michael Peterson, they've got Jack Mallers, but I'm going to forget the one gentleman's name, but he was.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  Michael Peterson?

• 43:14Anthony Pompliano?

  No, he is a more of a, he's a Salvadorian adult, not.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  Schumacher?

• 43:21Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm going to forget who it was, but then he was there with a Salvadorian, looked like a teenager. And I just saw one, you know, kind of quick clip and the journalist was basically asking like, you know, why is this so important? And the kid was like, my entire life basically was focused on like, do just enough to be successful so that I can get out, right? And like go pursue jobs or economic opportunity elsewhere. And from the short clip, again, I don't have all the context on it, but it seemed like they were positioning it from like a, hey, Bitcoin provides this hope and this economic opportunity here. And so if this works, which again, there's work to be done, but if it does work, now this kid and all of his peers won't have to just try to leave, they actually may have an economic opportunity to stay.

• 44:04Anthony Pompliano?

  And like, I think that's what Bitcoin has been saying for a long time, right? And if it works and El Salvador takes their double digit GDP growth, their 30% increase in tourism, et cetera, and they begin to compound that, there's a lot of people around the world saying, hey, we need to learn about this.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  That double digit growth in GDP, was that a COVID bounce back or was that genuine growth? Because it's really, I felt like figures would be a massage there when actually every single country in the world that had a COVID dip, then had a double digit economic GDP growth.

• 44:40Anthony Pompliano?

  From just, uh, this is what was said to start, uh, El Salvador's GDP grew 10.3% in 2021. That comes, uh, Bukelli tweeted it.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. How much did it drop in 2020, though?

• 44:51Anthony Pompliano?

  So let's take that as, as a fact. Um, and he said that, and it now exports, uh, grew 13% this January compared to January of 2021. And are we looking at another double digit GDP growth this year? By the way, El Salvador never had a double digit GDP growth before 2021. So never happened before. Now they have double digit GDP. Uh, I think that we saw in the United States, President Biden is posting things like, you know, I created more jobs than any president in history in the first six months of my presidency, whatever.

• 45:23Anthony Pompliano?

  10.3% never happened before in El Salvador. So politicians are going to take credit.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 45:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Regardless of what country we're in, wherever, uh, I have no doubt that there is some base effect, uh, you know, contribution. How do we determine what that is?

• 45:37Speaker 02

  I think it's tiny right now. Honestly, I think it's like.

• 45:40Anthony Pompliano?

  You think GDP growth is tiny?

• 45:42Speaker 02

  As a result of the, of the Bitcoin project?

• 45:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Tourism's up 30%.

• 45:48Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 45:49Anthony Pompliano?

  I mean, according to them.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. Compared, compared to where? But again, is it compared to 2020 when no one could travel because we couldn't fly because of COVID? We, you know, politicians will take any number and massage it.

• 45:59Anthony Pompliano?

  Correct.

• 46:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Let's see, of El Salvador economy. So the tourism percent of El Salvador's economy, uh, in 2019, the expenditure of inbound tourism in El Salvador, uh, grew by 6%. So the year before COVID, the growth rate was 6% uh, increase and uh,

• 46:22Anthony Pompliano?

  that, that led to tourism being the nation's highest share of GDP in the last decade. So that was kind of a banner year of growth, whatever. Now 30% to your point is a massive increase. There's no way you can attribute that to one single thing.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Well, how many, how many people have gone there because of Bitcoin? Probably like a thousand people. So either their tourism was shit before or the figures have been massaged. I, I just, I would, I would just want to like check through those numbers first. Like every Bitcoiner I know has, has made that. pilgrimage pretty much. Most people have been down there, but that's not a lot of people. I mean, Elzante itself can, they haven't got a huge infrastructure for supporting a huge influx of tourists. I think there has been an increase and I recommend people go. I would just, I would want to look at those numbers critically before saying like attributing this to Bitcoin. I think the benefits of the Bitcoin project will probably be coming in four to eight years. When that treasury they've got has done a five, 10x and suddenly they've got money to invest in infrastructure.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  And I think if you can reduce crime at the same time and you can invest in infrastructure, then you will see that big boost in tourism. Like I think they're going in the right direction and I think they're going, I think it's moving fast. At the same time, I would be careful just with those numbers myself personally.

• 47:33Anthony Pompliano?

  I think it's interesting that they have the same obstacles and challenges that we have here in the US. Right? Like if from, from a economic data can be manipulated to tell whatever story you want it to tell. And Pom, if you, if you were going to a sponsor, you could say, here, here's my downloads. They're at 10% on last month, or here are my downloads, they're up 300% on last year. I mean, we all have statistics and we know how to use them for to sell a story. 67% of all numbers are made up, right?

• 48:06Speaker 02

  I mean, I think yours probably a bit higher.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  I know one stat that is true.

• 48:11Anthony Pompliano?

  What?

• 48:12Speaker 02

  I have the number one Bitcoin podcast.

• 48:14Anthony Pompliano?

  What?

• 48:16Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm not going to get into a debate on monthly downloads, but.

• 48:20Speaker 03

  Peter, I got a question.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  We were talking about tourism and all that being up big, but how much do you, and how much weight do you put on the fact that just El Salvador as a country is they're negative on their, the Bitcoin that they bought personally and they're holding? How much like do you attribute to that?

• 48:37Speaker 02

  I mean, that Bitcoin being negative doesn't matter now. You know, they've, they've done their own version of a DCA, right? A million dollar cost averaging, whatever they're doing. That, that we all know, just forget that, just wait later on. I'll tell you what I think it will be super interesting in El Salvador and I think why economic, the GDP will grow and economic opportunity will grow. I'll give you one example. When I was there last time I made the film, I went to get a tattoo. I got this tattoo here. And we went down to what is essentially a red zone where they run by the gangs. And we went down with, actually with armed guards to just for obvious protection. But when I got down there, I, you know, I spoke to the tattooist and I was interviewing him at the same time. And I was like, how have things changed? And he said,

• 49:20Speaker 02

  Before Bukely was in power, you couldn't walk out with your phone. You couldn't use your phone in public because someone would come along and snatch it. He said, now you can use it. You can take photos. So I think this whole negotiating with the gangs is a good thing because what ended up happening is people feel a bit freer. There's probably less extortion, more opportunities to create jobs, more opportunity to grow. So I actually think, I think clamping down on the gangs in the short term is going to have a way bigger impact on GDP than Bitcoin. I think that Bitcoin thing is going to take time. I think it's going to take a lot longer than people expect. I mean, whilst you can pay in Starbucks and McDonald's, that's super cool. Honestly, how many people actually do it? I bet you could go to a Starbucks and they'll say, oh, we haven't had one for

• 50:02Speaker 02

  a week or two. I could be wrong. Maybe they're having five a day, but I just don't really think it's that big a thing at the moment. But like what Jack Mal has announced, the infrastructure is there ready for when people want to use it, which is super cool. I think the things Bukely is doing outside of Bitcoin in the short term are super important. I think the Bitcoin stuff is super important long term. You know, as they took the brave step of being the first country, once we get a second, third, fifth, 10th, 20th, that's going to compound the benefits they have for buying and holding Bitcoin early. But I don't see Bitcoin driving this huge increase in GDP itself. I just don't. And I could be wrong. Someone might have some stats to prove me wrong.

• 50:44Anthony Pompliano?

  I have one last question, topic, discussion point for you, and then I'll let you out of Best Business Show Jail, which is Real Bedford. What's going on with Bitcoin Standard?

• 50:57Speaker 02

  Well, we're coming towards the end of the season. We've got three games to go. We're not going to make the playoffs sadly. Well, we took over the team too late. I mean, we've, I'd have to check. I think we've had the team for like 12 games and.

• 51:11Anthony Pompliano?

  How many games in a season?

• 51:12Speaker 02

  There's like 38.

• 51:14Anthony Pompliano?

  It's like a third of the season.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe, maybe a bit longer than that. If you, if you look at our points per game, I think if we had them from the start, we probably would have made it. But it is what it is. We always said this season would be a bonus if we can make the playoffs. Next season, the goal is one thing, one thing only, promotion. And the new managers that we would appoint, it would be very much a.

• 51:37Speaker 02

  Point to them that we have an expectation with our budgets that like nothing but top is acceptable.

• 51:42Anthony Pompliano?

  I met somebody, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this yet, there's an individual that works at Spiral, is this like a known public thing?

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Connor Rookers?

• 51:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, this, okay, all right.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  He's our Bitcoin director.

• 51:51Anthony Pompliano?

  So he, he comes up to me at the conference and he's like, you know, I work at Spiral, I'm Bitcoin director. And I was like, I told Peter McCormack, I'm not cheering for that team until I get to go on the field. And he goes, ha, that's funny. I am playing.

• 52:03Speaker 02

  He's in the team.

• 52:04Anthony Pompliano?

  And I was like, wait, what? And he was like, yeah, he was like, and we're gonna bring high quality talent to the team. And like, he was like, people will come play if like me and my friends play or whatever. And so when I looked and I was like, oh shit, like, like he's actually going to be playing in the games.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  So we've, we've got a very credible and serious plan to take this team from what is essentially the bottom of the English pyramid into the Premier League. And nobody in football believes us and they think we're morons. But our plan is

• 52:32Anthony Pompliano?

  I can get behind that.

• 52:33Speaker 02

  Is a highly credible plan because it's a plan based on raising money, holding that in Bitcoin, that we do not need to touch for eight to 10 years. Okay. While that's happening is that we can grow the team by having an international fan base, sell a merchandise, sell a sponsorships, which puts us in a financial position no team in our division can be in. We raised nearly a million in sponsorship. That's more than the entire revenue of every single team in that division put together and probably every team in the division above. So we have the economic position to get the best players.

• 53:05Anthony Pompliano?

  And now you start paying the players.

• 53:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're paying the players. So then like, you know, we've, and we've learned a lot about that. So the next, the first four or five promotions is gonna be pretty easy.

• 53:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Damn.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  While at the same time, our Bitcoin treasury just sits there and grows in value. But that's an unknown variable. You know, our expectation eight years Bitcoin probably has done another 10x could be wrong. Maybe it hasn't. But if it has, that's gonna allow us to leverage that money to invest further in the team. Outside of that, is it gonna allow us to invest in football in the town? That's like, this is a super important part for me as well as that I want to build a facility which allows people to come and train and play football. We don't have, Bedford, where I live is quite a deprived area. We are perfectly situated between the two main motorways in the country, M1 and A1. And there's a bypass between the two. So all we really have is like Amazon warehouses and logistics,

• 53:56Speaker 02

  which are god awful places to go and work. We don't have much else. Most people who are, have the ability to go and earn money, either set up their own small business or they go and work in London. So there's a lot of deprivation where, and just to be able to build a football facility in the town where any kid, girl, adult can come and play football would be really good for me. So whilst we're working on the plans to grow the team, we're also working on the plans to kind of build out this training facility in Bedford. Got some very active conversations with investors at the moment. Hopefully we'll have some big announcements soon, which I'll let you know as soon as it comes. And I think-

• 54:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Are you gonna raise money for the team?

• 54:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like, like in the scene, like, nobody in football will understand it if we pull this off. The numbers we're looking at, it's like, they won't, they won't get it. People in football are like, what do you, what do you fucking mean? You've raised that much for a team like this? But our goal here is if Bitcoin does its thing, and we do this in the right way, we will create one of the big-

• 54:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Should we invest? Should we invest in Real Bedford?

• 55:00Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, but you don't really, you should invest in me and what I'm gonna do with this.

• 55:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah, but I'm just saying, like, and then can I put on my Twitter account, Owner Real Bedford?

• 55:09Speaker 02

  No. You can be an investor. No, but what-

• 55:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Why? There's, I know a lot of people who are the owner. Yeah, they own 1% of teams and that's what they say.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  But what the story is here is like, is that you can take something very small and make it super successful by adopting Bitcoin standard. All we are doing is we're taking the El Salvador play. How does El Salvador become a major player on the international stage? Invest in Bitcoin.

• 55:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, this is gonna work.

• 55:36Speaker 02

  It's patient.

• 55:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 55:37Speaker 02

  And in eight to 10 years, they are economically way ahead of any of their neighbors.

• 55:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Can you do it- In 10 years or less to get to the Premier League.

• 55:45Speaker 02

  I mean, nine consecutive promotions. I mean, that's gonna be super hard.

• 55:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, nine in consecutive.

• 55:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's very hard. And that's gonna be hard. The first four or five might be relatively easy, but they become super hard because, you know, Man City have spent half a billion on their team, still never won the Champions League. There is that unknown variable that you don't win.

• 56:00Anthony Pompliano?

  How much revenue does the Premier League teams do?

• 56:02Speaker 02

  I mean, the base lowest teams will get 130 million TV money, I think, around that number.

• 56:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Outside of TV money?

• 56:08Speaker 02

  Depends on the team because it's such a broad range. Norwich to Man City is hugely different.

• 56:13Speaker 04

  There's six big clubs that make like the majority of the money.

• 56:15Anthony Pompliano?

  And what do they do minus TV? Because everyone gets TV, but like, what do they do outside of that? 100 million dollars?

• 56:20Speaker 02

  Commercial models, shirt sales are huge, but the six top teams, I mean, you cover all this, right?

• 56:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, the the the top teams, they can make 100 million dollars on their shirts, like on the actual sponsorship, right? Man United.

• 56:33Speaker 02

  That's where most of the money is, the sponsorship. When they sign a player like Messi, that is paid for usually on the first day with the shirt sales.

• 56:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:41Speaker 02

  But what what all these teams do, these six top teams, they're international brands, Pomp. All the smaller teams can't, they really struggled to become an international brand because if you're a kid in, I don't know, Thailand or Malaysia and you pick a team, you want to pick one of the, you know, top teams that's gonna win, and it's usually Man U, Liverpool, Man City, Chelsea, maybe Arsenal.

• 57:03Anthony Pompliano?

  And now Real Bedford. I'm in.

• 57:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, yeah.

• 57:05Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm in.

• 57:06Speaker 02

  Tottenham have tried to do it, but completely and utterly failed because they're just.

• 57:10Anthony Pompliano?

  I heard that they're not good at soccer.

• 57:11Speaker 02

  Well, they're not, and supporting them is just abject misery. And we think we can fill that slot.

• 57:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you like, do you like how I know how to how to poke European soccer fans?

• 57:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:22Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, so I'm in.

• 57:24Speaker 04

  Let me tell you.

• 57:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Send me all the details and we'll fill them out and then we want two times the equity in advisory shares.

• 57:29Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Hey, but listen, I'm super excited.

• 57:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Isn't that what all the ICOs do, right?

• 57:36Speaker 02

  Dude, if I was a crypto guy, I could have done an ICO, raised a bunch of money. And these other people have done it. These, we are gonna make idiots about Crawley Town, which is a serious team. They're a league team.

• 57:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 57:47Speaker 02

  But they're gonna sell NFTs and bullshit.

• 57:49Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm all in on Real Bedford.

• 57:51Speaker 02

  Yeah? All right, man.

• 57:52Anthony Pompliano?

  We'll put it, we'll put like somewhere here in the studio.

• 57:54Speaker 02

  We'll get you.

• 57:55Anthony Pompliano?

  We'll put like a little.

• 57:56Speaker 02

  You guys got that Gemini's font?

• 57:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Sponsorship.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, man.

• 58:00Anthony Pompliano?

  How much that cost to put their name on there?

• 58:02Speaker 02

  Big bucks.

• 58:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, how much?

• 58:04Speaker 02

  I can't talk about it.

• 58:04Anthony Pompliano?

  You can't say. Well, it's a million dollars total.

• 58:07Speaker 03

  It's a case by case basis.

• 58:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Best business show on the pro.

• 58:12Speaker 03

  Did you sell the naming rights to the stadium yet?

• 58:14Speaker 02

  No, it's gonna be called the Citadel, right?

• 58:16Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 58:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, you're not gonna, you're not gonna sell sponsorship?

• 58:19Speaker 02

  I think you have to call the ground the Citadel.

• 58:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Well.

• 58:22Speaker 02

  Although I think Citadel.

• 58:23Anthony Pompliano?

  If I pay you enough money, we can call it Pomp's Citadel.

• 58:25Speaker 02

  I mean, maybe, maybe, maybe.

• 58:29Anthony Pompliano?

  We'll see, man. I like the Citadel.

• 58:31Speaker 02

  I appreciate you supporting it.

• 58:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course, I think it's gonna work. I genuinely believe this is gonna work.

• 58:36Speaker 02

  These guys, my friend Brian at 1031 was the first person to ask to write a check. He was like, we were, we were in a bar in New York and he was just like, just tell me when and when. I think the reason everyone's to get involved is, one, it's fun. Even if you don't make any money of it, you, you're gonna be part of something. And if I think every, I think consider this as like a bit of a Bitcoin tax in that if we get this right, this tells such a good story globally. Like, we all want El Salvador to be success, right? Cause it proves a point. Yeah, we all want MicroStrategy to be a success, cause it proves a point.

• 59:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Exactly.

• 59:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, and this just tells a story. So all we're doing is creating new stories.

• 59:11Speaker 03

  I think I was so in until you said, it's okay if we don't make money.

• 59:17Speaker 03

  I was so in.

• 59:18Speaker 02

  I mean, have you not talked to your brother about football clubs?

• 59:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, they gotta lose money to make money.

• 59:22Anthony Pompliano?

  You gotta lose, okay. I'm cool with the loser. I mean, Amazon lost money for a long time until it became the most valuable company in the world.

• 59:28Speaker 02

  Look, if we get to the Premier League, the, the club will, will have made the investors money, but that's a long way away.

• 59:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, to print cash.

• 59:35Speaker 03

  You'll get there.

• 59:36Speaker 02

  We'll get there, man.

• 59:36Speaker 03

  I would back you.

• 59:38Speaker 02

  Thank you, man.

• 59:39Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 59:40Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. I appreciate you coming on.

• 59:42Speaker 02

  I love you, man.

• 59:43Anthony Pompliano?

  I love you too. I'm sorry, by the way, I owe you an apology.

• 59:47Speaker 02

  You owe me a lot of apologies.

• 59:48Anthony Pompliano?

  No, no, I owe you an apology because I know it must be depressing to be so far down on the podcast charts looking up all the time. Your neck must hurt, but.

• 59:59Anthony Pompliano?

  Third is, I appreciate the time to come over here.

• 1:00:02Speaker 02

  Always, man. Always come and see you, dude.

• 1:00:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you two have any last genius comments?

• 1:00:06Speaker 04

  No, I'd reiterate that. Thanks for coming by.

• 1:00:09Anthony Pompliano?

  We're even promoting his stuff right now on.

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  Thank you. Do you like our new banners?

• 1:00:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I like it a lot. I like the photos, actually, the thumbnails. They're like super slick, just like.

• 1:00:18Speaker 02

  We just, after every interview, we just take a photo of them.

• 1:00:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  And so it's like fresh one. We don't wait for them to send us one.

• 1:00:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, like, and it's like what they actually look like, not like somebody using a photo of 30 pounds lighter 10 years ago with hair and now.

• 1:00:31Speaker 02

  My Tinder profile.

• 1:00:36Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, thank you very much. We appreciate it, sir. You two got anything left?

• 1:00:40Speaker 04

  Nope.

• 1:00:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, hey, I have a question for you, actually. Do you have an eight sleep yet?

• 1:00:44Speaker 02

  A what? Oh, the bed?

• 1:00:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes.

• 1:00:46Speaker 02

  No, you know, I went to get one. They don't, well, they ship them to the UK, but they don't have part of it you can't get. They're like, they're only, I think you get the mattress.

• 1:00:55Anthony Pompliano?

  But you're in, you're in.

• 1:00:56Speaker 02

  It was, who told me about it?

• 1:01:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Pom.

• 1:01:00Speaker 02

  It was Jill.

• 1:01:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, Jill, yeah.

• 1:01:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, she told me about it. She said they're amazing. And then I heard it on the Pom show and I was like, now I'm, now I'm convinced.

• 1:01:08Anthony Pompliano?

  You ever have a friend who just like?

• 1:01:10Speaker 02

  Are you asking me this because you can get me one or you just helping me promote your sponsor?

• 1:01:14Anthony Pompliano?

  We'll figure out what, what you need, what they can't ship.

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  Do you have a Bitcoin exchange?

• 1:01:20Anthony Pompliano?

  A Bitcoin exchange?

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, have you heard of Gemini?

• 1:01:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Actually, you can use Gemini to help buy eight sleep. I'm sure you could, actually, probably.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  And then you can take that out and you can spend a little bit on sportsbet.io.

• 1:01:37Anthony Pompliano?

  I appreciate all of you. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I really hope you guys enjoyed this one. Make sure you subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. And if you're looking to try to transition to get a new job in the Bitcoin or crypto industry, we've got you covered. Head over to pomscryptocourse.com. We've developed a curriculum with the top teams across the industry. It's a three-week intensive training program with over 50 events packed into that three-week time period. Go to pomscryptocourse.com to learn more and I'll meet you guys for the next episode.