#821 Russia Is Playing Geopolitical Chess

This episode is a little different than the usual podcast format. There is no guest. Instead, I will share a couple of thoughts I have around a specific topic. Today I discuss the recent regulation news out of Russia and how they will now be treating Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies as currencies. What will this mean for Russia's status on the global stage, and what should the U. S. do in response? ======================= Mode, UK Fintech app, allows you to buy, earn and grow Bitcoin, all in one app. Not only is it a secure app to buy & hold Bitcoin, Mode allows you to pay & receive up to 10% Bitcoin Cashback from its growing list of online partner brands. Available on the App Store and Google Play. Download Mode at modeapp.com and set up your account to be in with the chance of winning ONE WHOLE Bitcoin. Offer ends Jan 31, 2022. Only available in the UK. ======================= Bullish is a powerful new digital asset exchange built for institutions that delivers the innovations of DeFi in a regulated environment. The Bullish Hybrid Order Book pairs the high-performance of a traditional Central Limit Order Book with automated market making. Powered by deep Bullish Liquidity Pools, backed by the multi-billion dollar Bullish Treasury. So, you can trade with certainty and at scale across variable market conditions. Learn more at Bullish.com or follow @Bullish on Twitter. Because the future belongs to the bullish. *Not investment advice. Digital assets and cryptocurrencies are high risk products. Consult your professional advisor before dealing in them. Bullish’s services are available in select locations only and not to U. S persons. Visit https://bullish.com/legal for important information and risk warnings- ======================= Fundrise is largest direct-to-investor real estate investment platform out there, giving you the opportunity to achieve upside of an asset class previously reserved for institutions and high net worth individuals. That’s right, Fundrise is making high-end private market real estate investing accessible to everyone via an easy-to-use, automated platform. See for yourself how over 190,000 investors have built a better portfolio with private real estate. It takes just a few minutes to get started with as little as $10. Go to Fundrise.com/Pomp today and, for a limited time, get $10 when you place your first investment. That’s Fundrise.com/Pomp =======================

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. Today's episode is a breakdown of the recent news out of Russia. They will now be treating Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as currency. I'm not necessarily a geopolitical expert, but I've done my best to break down a number of different aspects of this story that I find important. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Mode. Mode is a trusted UK app that allows you to buy, earn, and grow Bitcoin all in one app. You can pay with Mode and receive up to 10% Bitcoin cash back from its growing list of online partner brands straight into your Mode wallet. I have to say personally, I think the company behind

• 0:47Anthony Pompliano?

  this app is pretty damn impressive. They're FCA registered, they're listed on the LSE in the UK, and they're also listed on the OTCQB in the United States. They choose to hold Bitcoin on their balance sheet as a publicly traded company, and they are piloting a Bitcoin payroll product to pay their UK employees in Bitcoin. To all my fellow UK friends, I recommend you go check out Mode right now. The app is available in the App Store and Google Play. You can download the app now to get started, and make sure to check out the Rewards tab on the app for the 30-plus brands you can earn Bitcoin cash back from. Go check them out at modeapp.com, or go into the Google Play Store or the App Store and download the Mode app today. This episode is brought to you by Bullish. Bullish is a powerful new digital asset exchange

• 1:31Anthony Pompliano?

  built for institutions that delivers the innovations of DeFi in a regulated environment. The Bullish Hybrid Order Book pairs the high performance of a traditional central limit order book with automated market making. Powered by deep Bullish liquidity pools backed by a multi-billion dollar Bullish treasury, so you can trade with certainty and at scale across variable market conditions. Learn more at bullish.com or follow @bullish on Twitter, because the future belongs to the Bullish. See the podcast description for legal information, or go to bullish.com to find out more. Today's episode is brought to you by Fundrise. You all know I believe that the best investors both understand And seek out extreme asymmetry. Fundrise is here to help you do just that.

• 2:14Anthony Pompliano?

  It's the largest direct to investor real estate investment platform out there, giving you the opportunity to achieve upside of an asset class previously reserved for institutions and high net worth individuals. That's right. Fundrise is making high end, private market real estate investing accessible to everyone via an easy to use automated platform. Its 1 million users already know that the investment with Fundrise is capable of producing strong appreciation returns and income generation while helping to stabilize a diversified portfolio. That's more important now than ever in our inflationary environment. See for yourself how over 190,000 other investors have built a better portfolio with private real estate. It takes just a few minutes to get started with as little as $10. Go to fundrise.com/pomp today and for a limited time, you'll get $10 when you place your first investment.

• 3:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Again, that's fundrise.com/pomp. Go check it out and when you make your first investment, they'll give you $10 on top of it. Fundrise.com/pomp. All right, let's get in this episode. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 3:12Speaker 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.

• 3:35Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up, guys? Bang, bang. There've been a plethora of rumors about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in Russia over the last few months. The country sits in a unique geopolitical position. They are frenemies of the United States and have a deepening relationship with China, another frenemy of the Western superpower. As a refresher, the mainstream media has been pushing the narrative of a pending Russian invasion of Ukraine. The response by the United States in an attempt to deter the invasion is financial sanctions, including potentially the exclusion of Russia from the SWIFT payment system. It is important to caveat that no one actually knows what is going on between Russia and Ukraine. Americans have nearly zero appetite for another invasion or a war. The average citizen couldn't even point out Ukraine on a map while they have little concern

• 4:19Anthony Pompliano?

  about their safety due to actions that Russia may or may not take halfway around the world. That doesn't mean the United States shouldn't be paying attention, but there are major questions about the narrative being pushed by the mainstream media. Additionally, the threats of financial sanctions on a large country like Russia are noteworthy. More than a decade ago, these sanctions carried significant weight. The United States could cut you off from the global financial system and essentially sentence you to financial system purgatory. These sanctions are likely to be less effective in the current time period, though. Let me give you two examples: China and Bitcoin. Chinese President Xi Jinping hadn't met with a foreign leader in a person, in person, since the start of the global pandemic in 2020, until he recently sat down face-to-face

• 5:02Anthony Pompliano?

  with Russian President Vladimir Putin a few days ago. The two countries issued a 5,000-plus-word joint statement following that meeting. Here is the opening paragraph: "Today, the world is going through a momentous change, and humanity is entering a new era of rapid development and profound transformation. It sees the development of such processes and phenomena as multipolarity, economic globalization, the advent of information society, cultural diversity, transformation of the global governance architecture and world order. There is increasing interrelation and interdependence between the states. A trend has emerged towards redistribution of power in the world, and the international

• 5:44Anthony Pompliano?

  community is showing a growing demand for the leadership aiming at peaceful and gradual development. At the same time as the pandemic of the new coronavirus infection continues, the international and regional security situation is complicating, and the number of global challenges and threats is growing from day to day. Some actors representing but the minority on the international scale continue to advocate unilateral approaches to addressing international issues and resorting to force. They interfere in the internal affairs of other states, infringing their legitimate rights and interests, and incite contradictions, differences, and confrontation, thus hampering the development and progress of mankind against the opposition from the international community."

• 6:32Anthony Pompliano?

  This new interest in collaboration between Russia and China creates the potential for bilateral trade to be settled outside the US dollar regime. Obviously, if these countries begin to conduct trade without using the global reserve currency, the sanctions from the issuer of that global reserve currency will be significantly less effective. It is unclear how much of this is tough talk compared to committed action, but it is an important development. Second, the rise of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies provides an open decentralized payment system that is not controlled by anyone. This may seem like a wild idea theoretically, but we are watching Bitcoin gain adoption globally at an insane pace. It is important to highlight that sanctions is just another name for censorship. The creator and distributor of the global reserve currency is attempting to censor who

• 7:16Anthony Pompliano?

  uses their currency and payment system. There may be good reason for the censorship, there may not be. Either way, sanctions are just a different terminology for censorship. Bitcoin is censorship-resistant money. No one can shut down the system. No one controls it. Anyone in the world can send monetary value to anyone else in the world. There are no middlemen. There are no rent seekers. The peer-to-peer system is unique in design and powerful in application. So it is weird that the Central Bank of Russia started to question Bitcoin's relevance in the country at the same time that it may become incredibly important to the nation-state. To explain further, the Bank of Russia recently floated the idea of banning Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies within the country. This led to a heated debate internally and externally of the country.

• 8:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Last night, it appears that the Russian government and the Central Bank reached an agreement on digital assets. It will not be banning them, but rather treating them like foreign currencies. There are other aspects to the agreement, such as the regulatory frameworks, proper licensing for crypto exchanges, increased taxation, submission of various information to a state-run surveillance tool, and more. Ultimately, the important takeaway is that Russia is not going to ban Bitcoin or crypto assets, but rather they are going to increase the usage and adoption within the country by creating frameworks and rules that everyone understands. Many people may not know this, but Russia is already one of the largest crypto countries. They are the third largest country in terms of Bitcoin's hash rate.

• 8:42Anthony Pompliano?

  There are more than 12 million crypto accounts held by Russian citizens, and it is estimated that those people hold more than $26 billion worth of cryptocurrencies. Not exactly something that is easy to ignore for the government or central bank. So let's take this one step further. If Russia becomes sympathetic to the Bitcoin and crypto industry, including putting the digital currency on their balance sheet or mining with state resources, it will force the hand of the United States. There's a global competition underway that has a decentralized, open system at the heart of it. Anyone can plug into the system. The game theory is that no one wants to start the cascade, but once your adversary does it, you are forced to adopt the technology or risk being left behind. El Salvador was a great first step. The smaller country doesn't have any enemies, though.

• 9:27Anthony Pompliano?

  The largest superpowers could simply ignore the strategic move and carry on with normal operations. If Russia was to make a move on the chessboard, it would be impossible for global superpowers to look the other way. Eventually, every country is going to adopt Bitcoin in the open payment system. The question is not whether it will happen, but rather the sequence of events that will play out. As with most innovative technology, those who have courage and conviction to invest earliest are rewarded with the largest benefit. This situation is no different. Russia's decision to treat Bitcoin and crypto as currencies is a step down this path. It'll be interesting to see how far and how quickly they go. The United States can't afford to fall behind. We must be the leader on the global stage. We must act.

• 10:11Anthony Pompliano?

  The stakes are too high. Hope everyone has a great day. I'll talk to you tomorrow. 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 pompscryptocourse.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 pompscryptocourse.com to learn more, and I'll meet you guys for the next episode.