Joseph Weinberg, Co-Founder of Shyft Network: The Earliest Days of Bitcoin Mining

Joseph Weinberg is Co-Founder of Shyft Network and CEO of PayCase Financial. In this conversation, Joseph and Anthony Pompliano discuss mining Bitcoin in 2010, moving to live with a tribe in the Amazon forest, plant based medicine, and the idea of building an interoperable, permissioned blockchain. ----- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

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

• 0:01Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to Off the Chain, simply the best podcast in crypto. Let's kick this thing off.

• 0:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Joseph Weinberg is co-founder of Shyft Network and CEO of Paycase Financial. In this conversation, we discuss mining Bitcoin in 2010, moving to live with a tribe in the Amazon forest, plant-based medicine, and the idea of building an interoperable permissioned blockchain. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you do as well. Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow

• 0:55Anthony Pompliano?

  a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. Alright guys, bang bang, I'm here with Joseph. He has been in the game just as long as anybody, so thank you so much for taking the time to come on and talk with us.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright, you were mining Bitcoin in what, 2010, 2011?

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Late 2010, yeah, December.

• 1:18Anthony Pompliano?

  You're a psychopath for this.

• 1:21Anthony Pompliano?

  How did you hear about this and why mine Bitcoin that early?

• 1:25Speaker 01

  Fully in psychopathic mode. I was finishing my first semester in third-year Comp Sci, and me and my two buddies were actually in a distributed systems class. So we're sitting there, I was like, we just finished last exam actually, so it was the 13th of December. I'm like going home, getting out, gonna hit the snow, you know, just Hanukkah, whatever it is. And my friends are just-

• 1:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Did you just hit me with, "I'm gonna hit the snow in Hanukkah, whatever"?

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course, yeah. I'm from Vancouver in Whistler, you know, we had to go hit the slopes, that's what we do.

• 1:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then so, so they were sitting there after like our exam was done, and they were mining. And I'm sitting there like, "What are you guys doing?"

• 2:04Anthony Pompliano?

  On their laptops.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, on their, oh yeah, this is like easy days, like no difficulty. And I'm like, "What are you guys doing?" They're like, "Oh, we're mining." mining this thing called the Bitcoins like what is the hell is the Bitcoins like what is this? Um, sat down with them and then the next six months plugged in more computers. We were running them, you know, effectively free for the most part. Um, yes, we ran for about six to eight months. Um, kind of shut it down, moved over to the Peruvian Amazon after and.

• 2:29Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, hold on, a bunch of questions. One, how much Bitcoin could you mine in let's say a day back then?

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Uh, probably like for it depends on really the size like we were I was just running a MacBook. We were probably running like two to six thousand, depending on what the days were.

• 2:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Two to six thousand Bitcoins.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say on five laptops. Yeah, probably.

• 2:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, oh, cross. Okay. So on you have five laptops running in a 24 hour period. You could mine between two to six thousand.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Around there. It kind of depends, but yeah.

• 2:57Anthony Pompliano?

  And then I'm not a math guy. So if we do, let's say 2000 Bitcoin times a $6,000 price, 12 million bucks today. That's kind of a lot of money.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  The good old days, but we never would have thought it would get there like the day that it hit $30. We were like, oh my God, Bitcoin's at $30. Sell everything.

• 3:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  But you couldn't sell it all, right? So like you wish, you know, you crash the market as much as you can, keep on going. So.

• 3:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so, uh, why'd you stop?

• 3:26Speaker 01

  So there was a few different reasons. Like I think at that time Bitcoin was very much a really cool, you know, science project for a lot of different people. I was still young, like, you know, I was 20, 20 years old. And so, you know, I had a lot of like, you know, figuring out what I'm going to do with my life. Um, as most people have.

• 3:43Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm still figuring that out.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Me too. It's true, you know, and just trying to figure it out day by day. But like, I think that was kind of when like the moment was I'm like, all right, I gotta figure out what I'm going to do, you know, it wasn't as all encompassing. The community didn't really exist outside of your IRC channels.

• 3:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  You know, and so it was just, you know, time to take a departure and start figuring out what to do with my life. Haven't figured it out since and stuck right back with good old Bitcoin, but nonetheless.

• 4:06Anthony Pompliano?

  You, you, uh, it's not like you went and like got like a corporate job. You, where did you move?

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Uh, to the Peruvian Amazon.

• 4:13Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, hold on. The, the Peruvian Amazon is like, you're talking like rainforest.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:19Anthony Pompliano?

  What is there? Why are you doing that?

• 4:21Speaker 01

  I

• 4:21Anthony Pompliano?

  What's going through your head at the point, at that moment?

• 4:24Speaker 01

  First of all, it was like, Western world's cool. I figured it out, you know, understand everything there is.

• 4:29Anthony Pompliano?

  I found Bitcoin, it's over.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I found Bitcoin. I'm like, this thing's crazy. This is cool. But I was like, I need to see a different side of the world. You know, like, we, there must be different ways of living, you know, and that's kind of just the way I always like view the world. It's like, you have to take a different approach when everyone's looking left, you go right.

• 4:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Um, so started backpacking in Peru. One thing led to another, ended up like six hours down the Uchi Ali River, which is the Amazon River, right in the heart of the Amazon with this tribe.

• 4:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright, so how do you go down the river? Like, you get like in like a kayak?

• 4:59Speaker 01

  In a boat.

• 5:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Or like a canoe?

• 5:01Speaker 01

  In like a little dingy boat with a guy that, you know, takes you up and they're saying, oh, there's a

• 5:05Anthony Pompliano?

  And he paddles?

• 5:06Speaker 01

  No, it's like a little like, like a motor. Yeah.

• 5:10Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm trying to figure out how, how like Amazon for us are at this point.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Definitely not. Yeah, but we're deep. Like, there's piranhas everywhere. Like, I would not go in.

• 5:18Anthony Pompliano?

  You can't get in the water?

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Uh, you can, just don't cut anything or you won't be there much longer. Um, yeah. And so, yeah, so like, long story short, I was there, was stayed for, I was supposed to stay for a week. Um, and it was interesting, like, I ended up staying for about six months.

• 5:31Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the tribe?

• 5:33Speaker 01

  It was a, yeah, it was a tribe that I was living with.

• 5:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. Like, this isn't the tribes where, uh, like, they've never seen humans before, obviously.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Those are not that, those are much further.

• 5:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  I actually have been to those before.

• 5:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, let's start with the tribe you were with.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, yeah, so they're the largest tribe, um, in the Peruvian Amazon and, and, uh, it was an interesting experience. Like, I went there to kind of try to learn and try to see what a different world looked like. Um, and I definitely got that, you know, they at the time had, you know, most of them weren't wearing clothes. They had no roofs over their head.

• 6:04Anthony Pompliano?

  We're going no clothes, no homes.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, they had, they had, they had roofs, some had roofs over their head, like, but very, very minimal. Like, this is effectively dirt roads and dirt buildings. Um, but the coolest thing was, is everyone had satellite dishes. Okay, kerosene canisters to like get electricity.

• 6:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  And um and mobile phones. That was what everyone had.

• 6:27Anthony Pompliano?

  No clothes.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  But most of them, yeah, women, no shirts, like, yeah, it was like this weird, interesting, like, like weird, like inception point of like their civilization where they've gone. It's actually the funniest part. The funniest thing is that the majority of of elders don't even know how old they are. So when you say how old are you, they say, oh, I was born on the year with three monsoons. Right? Like, they look at time differently. And so you have this like interesting inflection point where technology and society from our spaces and from our world is starting to proliferate.

• 6:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  Um, but they had nothing.

• 7:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Except for these few little components. And then, of course, they had a Western Union, which was also a mud hut on the side of the road as well. Uh, which is a sign.

• 7:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, and that was like, kind of like the first most interesting thing about Bitcoin as well is like, and probably about a month and a half in. Like, I was just, you know, I was, I was doing work, helping them out. They were running this healing center in in in the Amazon. And um.

• 7:22Anthony Pompliano?

  What is that?

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the, the idea is that you can look at different medicines and different plants within the the the world and within the Amazon to, you know, heal you in different ways, right?

• 7:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  And a lot of people from the Western world, you know, uh, kind of partake in that type of medicine experience. Um, and they were running this with shamans and everything there at the time.

• 7:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Is this like the ayahuasca stuff?

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's it's like that. There's.

• 7:46Anthony Pompliano?

  I recently learned about this and I'm fascinated. I feel like there's a whole world that I never knew about until these people started telling me about this.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like very fascinating. Um, and it's, you know.

• 7:55Anthony Pompliano?

  The whole idea is it's like a hallucogenic slash like a mind altering.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's different things to different people, and I think it's it's really depends on the experience.

• 8:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that's a really deep answer.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, there we go. Time to get deep. I mean, like, I think that like the, I think it's, you know, to them, it's a medicine, you know? Um, and I think.

• 8:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, but but the whole point is that basically you can use the plant as a medicine or a way to, uh, I don't want, maybe prescribe the wrong way, but like.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:21Anthony Pompliano?

  It is a solution to problems in their mind.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, the idea is that it like blends your conscious with your subconscious and allows you to work through the things that you have. The hardest time, you know, understanding.

• 8:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, and so.

• 8:32Anthony Pompliano?

  And then is there other things other than like the ayahuasca?

• 8:34Speaker 01

  That's like the smallest one, like tribes within that part of the world don't really use ayahuasca very much.

• 8:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 8:40Speaker 01

  It's like, yeah, they actually, they use other plants. It's, yeah, well, it's like for a certain, very certain subset.

• 8:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so like, that's kind of what the, it really depends on what you're, you know, you go to a doctor, they prescribe you something, it's no different than there, they just.

• 8:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  Don't have, you know, pharmaceuticals the same way.

• 8:55Anthony Pompliano?

  What's some of the other types of stuff that?

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Um, they use like a lot of tobacco based like products, they'll, they'll, they'll do different types of like long periods of, of fermenting and different types of plants and, you know.

• 9:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Interesting.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really interesting and, and it's kind of this concept that like, you know, as humans, we have everything in the world that we need to cure ourselves. You know, and so that there's two ways of dealing with a lot of like sickness, one can be through pain and, and the relief of it or the numbing of it, which western medicine does. Or the other one is really like, you will feel more pain in some contexts, but it's about, you know, using natural plants as a way to heal yourself.

• 9:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I, I always think of a western world, we give people sugar and opioids and alcohol and like all this other crazy stuff.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 9:38Anthony Pompliano?

  And, uh, in other parts of the world, they just don't believe in that.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  That's it, and, and it's interesting, in their, in their culture, they don't even have a word for cancer.

• 9:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Yes, and that's, and it's an interesting thing.

• 9:48Anthony Pompliano?

  What's like their life expectancy?

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Well, that's the irony is that it's a lot of them, they don't know how old they are, but they live, like a lot of them live well over a hundred, like.

• 9:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they have extremely long life, I mean, they don't actually know how long it is, that's the irony of it, but, uh, it's fascinating, it's a totally different world. And so, I mean, it's not probably for everyone and it's really, um, you know, you have to be cut out to kind of really go through and experience it is very different than here, but.

• 10:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  I think it gives you a perspective on the world that, that is really important, especially to our ecosystem and, you know, what we're all trying to achieve today.

• 10:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Is it dangerous?

• 10:21Speaker 01

  There? No, I wouldn't say so. No, they're very welcoming. Um, it's really that you just have to have.

• 10:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Like you look like me, you're like a white dude.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 10:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, like you're rolling up like a Jewish white dude, right?

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Jewish guy, yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah, I'm rolling up like this. Like, it's nothing like too crazy.

• 10:38Anthony Pompliano?

  And so like.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  But they're welcoming, they're accepting. Like, to them, it's, you know, as long as you treat others with respect, you get treated back. You know, and it's interesting, like, the, the number one thing in their culture is never steal. Like, they don't actually have police in that part of the world, right? And so they're very much governed by their community. Which comes down to this interesting thing of like how our ecosystem starts to work in that same context.

• 11:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, they like agree to a set of rules, it sounds like.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  They agree to a set of rules. Um, usually doctors or shamans are, are among the highest people and the most important people in that system. So it's not that they have, you know, a mayor per se, it's very different, but it's very much community based. Um, and the one thing you do is you never steal. Um, and that's the only thing that.

• 11:20Anthony Pompliano?

  It's not violent or?

• 11:21Speaker 01

  No, I mean, there's violence everywhere, right? And it really depends on, you know, situations. Um, but it's, yeah, I mean, you just have to know where you're going and make sure you're, you know, you understand the places.

• 11:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And then do you like hit them up and be like, hey, I'm on the way, like I'm, I'm shut up?

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Every, so every December I actually do.

• 11:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, really? Oh, you go every December?

• 11:40Speaker 01

  I go every December, so.

• 11:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Dude.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  I finish, yeah, I finish Hanukkah, and then when everyone's having Christmas and New Years, I'll just go there. I've taken some people from your show as well before, actually.

• 11:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so I, me and Melton Demir's went once. It was more for just vacation and just to explore the Amazon. Um, yeah, but yeah, every year I bring new friends and, and old friends.

• 11:58Anthony Pompliano?

  I got some people I know that'll go with you.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Hundred percent, man, there you go. Yeah, come for a week or two, but, uh, it's a really cool experience.

• 12:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And, and so then, uh, you said that you even went deeper into the Amazon forest and?

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, just on, yeah, on a five day trip. And, and these ones aren't, don't happen often.

• 12:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Um, but it's effectively what we did was we went, um, uh, like deep into the heart of the Amazon. No one usually goes to those.

• 12:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Um, they barely even speak Spanish in most cases. They don't, they speak like their own native tongue. And these are non-contact tribes.

• 12:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  So these are the ones that like you don't wanna run into.

• 12:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, the non-contact tribes mean they don't usually interface with like the humans how we think of them.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  Yes, like any Western civilization, they don't touch.

• 12:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  And it's this misconception that they've never, you know, been in contact, but they actually choose not to be in contact.

• 12:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  It's an important thing.

• 12:45Anthony Pompliano?

  And are they're violent when they come in contact?

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, like, so the way that we had to...

• 12:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Like on purpose?

• 12:50Speaker 01

  They are, oh, yeah, because they don't know any better. They're like, you're in our territory, we're, you know, gonna kill you.

• 12:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, we're talking about, like, straight...

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Oh, like...

• 12:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, human nature, no rules.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:59Anthony Pompliano?

  You kill me, I kill you.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, and like, their perception is just like, it's like, you'll, they'll walk down a river and be able to shoot a monkey 300 feet away without even looking at it, like...

• 13:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  They just have that, like, perceptive ability that, like, no one here has today.

• 13:11Anthony Pompliano?

  The Western world isn't ready for that.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. No, no, no, definitely.

• 13:13Anthony Pompliano?

  We're like, wait a minute, you...

• 13:15Speaker 01

  It's fit for like a movie of some sort, I'm sure, but, um, but, yeah, it was like, it was one of the most interesting experiences, and I, I'd like to go back to, like, remind myself that things are different.

• 13:24Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm thinking, like, the Western world's, like, most badass people are like, literally, they can't even, they're, they're not even allowed to show up, right? Because they're just so soft compared to these people who literally are just like, listen, we...

• 13:35Speaker 01

  It's not, it's not Wall Street or Bay Street, let's put it that way. It's a very different world.

• 13:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, all right, so, uh, you, you go through this awesome experience.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:44Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm super intrigued because, um, I love seeing how other people live, right? Uh, I, especially when, uh, they do things that they believe are normal or, uh, traditional.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 13:56Anthony Pompliano?

  And they're so counterintuitive or, or just in contradiction with the way that, like, maybe you or I grew up.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 14:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Um, and I think it takes a lot of, uh, cultural, um, understanding and, and immersion, uh, in multiple cultures to realize that, like, just because you grew up in a culture doesn't mean that you're right.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Absolutely. It is like the most important...

• 14:17Anthony Pompliano?

  And by the way, it does also mean you're wrong either.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  No.

• 14:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, it's just, that is how your culture exists. Another one can actually exist in a completely different way that is contradicts yours, and you both can be right.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Completely. A hundred percent, but you need to understand where they're coming from. Like, it's all about understanding perspectives, right? Like, it's...

• 14:31Anthony Pompliano?

  What, uh, last question about the Amazon, then we'll talk about, like, actual things we're supposed to be talking about. Um, what, what do they do for money?

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Um, anything that they can to be honest. And I mean, like,

• 14:40Anthony Pompliano?

  It's like a lot of bartering.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  It is. It's a total barter economy, like in every sense of the word. I mean, a lot of it is working for NGOs or other companies, or else it's, you know, doing small labor tasks.

• 14:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  The actual, the intent of the, the center that they built there that we funded since then, actually, like on a, on a yearly basis, it's to kind of build the community's ability to use this kind of healing center as a way to actually survive and live.

• 15:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Um, and so it's a lot of like living off the land and working off it. And, you know, it's a, it's a commerce driven society and it, but it's very small. So.

• 15:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. Uh, why'd you come back?

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Because I needed, I would realize one day, I'm like, man, I need like a real job. I need to like figure out what I'm doing.

• 15:17Anthony Pompliano?

  These Bitcoin aren't even worth thirty dollars anymore.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  No, this was like, like end of like twenty, this was like end of like twenty twelve. I'm like, yeah, this is still like, this isn't working here. So we gotta change it up. So here we go. Let's change it up, basically.

• 15:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And you came back and what'd you do?

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Uh, I moved to Toronto. So I'm from Vancouver originally. Um, on the west coast in Canada, your friendly neighbors up north. Um, and I moved to a company called Extreme Labs first, actually. So we're the largest mobile app developers in the world. So we worked on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Uh, I was there for only about six months. We got acquired. Um, and then Bitcoin started to kind of, you know, like show life again in, in a few ways. And so I said, you know what? I'm out of here. I'm going to start working directly on the space. And I've kind of been here ever since. Um, so started working, um, uh, with a friend of mine named Jaren, who at the time was running a, a, a small exchange here in New York called Coinsetter. Um, and then within probably three to six months period, you know, Bitcoin started to boom. Everyone first saw Bitcoin and be like, what is this crazy thing?

• 16:12Anthony Pompliano?

  The internet magic money has value.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  And I was like, and I'll never forget, like mid to end of twenty thirteen, like I remember I like looked around like in our office and I was like, oh my God, I have tons of these Bitcoins. Like I'm flying, got on the next flight back to Vancouver, grabbed hard drives for dear life. And like,

• 16:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, cause you had basically, you had mined so many of them or, or had mined. And then you didn't think they were worth anything. So you kind of

• 16:37Speaker 01

  They weren't worth anything.

• 16:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Forgot about them.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, like I was, you know.

• 16:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was like a totally different like thing. I was like, oh my God, I'm out of here. Back. Get them.

• 16:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  Hold on for dear life.

• 16:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, it's be, it's better than all the stories you heard in two thousand seventeen. Somebody's like, oh shit, you know, I got eight hundred Bitcoin on this hard drive that I threw out two years ago. I think in the landfill. It's in this area.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was trying to avoid those at all costs, right? Like that was the number one mandate. Um, and then at the time, like, it was interesting, like, and the space then was like so much different than it is today, too, right? Like, it was playful. It was like fun and games and, and it was, I think, this magical time and like so, it was like pre nascenty. But like, everyone was just so interested in ideas. It wasn't about regulation and like really this like hard, high finance thing in any sense of the word. Yep. You know, and it was really kind of, quote unquote, kids trying to figure out what, you know, this meant to the future, right? And, and I think it was, it was a, it was a cool time. It was also kind of a very scary time.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Um, and, and yeah, so when you're building a startup, right? You go through the usual hoops and bounds. You know, you maybe raise some seed, friends and family, you know, you go to build a mobile app or something like that. You know, it's, it's, there's this usual, I, I hate to say the word usual path, but it's kind of this like, you know, there's a certain route. This space, we quickly found out was a very amalgamated and weird version of that. Cause oh, the moment that we start trying to build that app or whatever the application is that you're building, you're getting attacked by regulators. Like you're getting bank accounts shut down. No one can get banking. Like, we can't have the most basic services. And then on top of that, we're getting like, you know, calls from the FBI.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  You're getting calls from, you know, like money laundering divisions and governments and you're 21 years old and you're sitting there being like, what is going on here? Like this is, it just, it's like, you know, it's, you're coming after the largest institutions in the, in, in such a different part of, you know, of the world than what you would probably have thought at the time. And you, and we didn't realize the impact that it would have. But it was also that everything was 10 times harder to do. Like, we could not do the simplest things. And I mean, VCs would kick you out of the rooms and, and everything else, right? Um, but it was extremely hard to run businesses then, like, and even today it's hard. Like, it's hard to get bank accounts even today. Um, and so, and on top of that, you're dealing with new ways of forming exchanges. What are exchanges? How do they operate?

• 19:04Speaker 01

  You know, the, what actually happened in, in why Coinsetter came into Canada was CA Vertex, which is the largest exchange at the time, was hacked, lost 20 million bucks. Um, and so Jaren called me up. He's like, man, we have to move into Canada. So we came in, we acquired, um, uh, the asset. Um, and then. The biggest problem that we had at Coinsetter, and this was, you know, late 2014, was our bank accounts cost about $28,000 a month just to have bank accounts. And when you're a small company, you know, this is after Mt. Gox, like, no one's touching Bitcoin. You know, you have regulators in FinTrack and the equivalent of FinSend here saying, like, calling us every day, suspicious transaction reporting, like, you have Silk Road things that are like,

• 19:49Speaker 01

  you know, bubbling up. You're sitting there being like, what am I doing? Like, this is crazy, right? And, and yet, like, we just, everyone then just believed so wholeheartedly in like, what we could achieve in the space that it, you know, was one of those things where it's like, it didn't really matter that, you know, you weren't able to really build a business and, and powers that be were not letting you by any capacity.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  And so what ended up happening is what we recognized was that the big, some of the bigger exchanges at the time, you know, like Kraken included, were really making good headways in the non-North American-only market. And so we ended up being acquired by Kraken. They kind of took a lot of the user base and the assets. And kind of at the same time, I was working on another company in Canada to focus on different use cases on top of Bitcoin as well, so.

• 20:31Anthony Pompliano?

  What was the other company?

• 20:32Speaker 01

  It's called PayCase Financial. We're one of the oldest, definitely oldest, still-standing Bitcoin companies in Canada today. It's been a lot of morphing as the space is, you know, kind of provided and required. So we have about seven different focuses underneath the kind of umbrella, I guess, if you will. Really focusing, what we started to focus on in late 20, mid 2015, was looking at if Bitcoin were to be successful, what would be the core use case that would actually drive, you know, help? And, and actual fundamental change to people that, you know, that lived in the Caribbean, Amazon, or that live in Canada or in the United States and abroad.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  And what we recognized was if you could solve how remittances worked, what it would do is unlock these, you know, think local, act global, no matter where you are, you have high entrenched, you know, systems that are, and companies that really, you know, take the largest amounts, you know, from the side of, you know, the lowest income generating populations on the planet. And it was really this one thing where Bitcoin could start to solve, you know, problems today, if, if you could get the infrastructure to work, right? And if you had basic things like banking and regulation, and, and these changes in cost models would still start to function. I still think that's largely the case today. But then what we recognized was, you know, we couldn't get a bank. And that became extremely difficult.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  And this was, you know, 2015. We're one of the only bank companies in the country today. But that took us many years and a lot of different movements. And so like a lot of the businesses that we started building underneath PayCase were really set around focusing on solving core problems that we had in remittances. So Bitcoin throughput, for example, we needed a way to drastically scale how Bitcoin was working. And that's even still the case today, you know. And we can talk about Bitcoin in a minute and scaling and architecture and everything. But Bitcoin doesn't have a scaling problem, but you need ways to allow transaction throughput to happen, you know, in certain environments, like payments and settlement. And so what we looked at was, okay, how do we start working with certain companies in the space that were working directly on layer two scaling solutions?

• 22:40Speaker 01

  And this was kind of at the early formulation of Blockstream. And it was a really amazing time to watch that company just start to kind of foundationalize itself. And then what we then looked at was, you know, what's the next thing? Identity, KYC, compliance. These things are such overhead, urgent costs that if you don't reduce the cost of them, you'll never make things like remittances free. And then the problem then became, and this biggest thing that we probably focused on over the last two years, was how do we work with regulators, heads of state, central bank heads, and world leaders through the OECD to start writing regulation for the ecosystem? Because if we do not have places where the ecosystem can go, in really places that we can call home,

• 23:21Speaker 01

  that is attributable to how this space is built today, then, you know, we're in a big problem. And I think that regulation is very complex in this space. And you need, you know, you need the old guys who, you know, the old guys who kind of know what they're doing to go and work with regulators to actually explain things. Because if you don't, you know, where are we left off?

• 23:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  So that's been kind of the encompassing part of a lot of different areas since.

• 23:47Anthony Pompliano?

  When you were building PayCase, what is like the one or two things that you took away as to this was the most important work we did?

• 23:54Speaker 01

  It's a really good question, and I think it's still like, we're still building it every day, right? And I think it comes down to, you know, a few different things. Like, I think the biggest, the most important two things that we have today are how do we make sure that Bitcoin survives? And what will it take for the ecosystem to continue to have the right support it once had? Even when everyone's watching it? And that comes down again to the, you know, we need places to call home. I mean, like, quite frankly, Bitcoin doesn't care about regula- like Bitcoin itself doesn't care about regulations, doesn't care about anyone, right?

• 24:26Anthony Pompliano?

  It's like the, what the economist Joseph Stegler, I'm gonna mispronounce the name, but I recently said that we should shut down cryptocurrencies.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:33Anthony Pompliano?

  And, you know, the, well, it just, it cracks me up that you get the Twitter Peanut Gallery, just literal, I mean, it's like, literally on cue, as soon as he said it, everyone just goes, "That's the point, you can't shut it down."

• 24:45Speaker 01

  That's the point, like, yeah.

• 24:46Anthony Pompliano?

  We've been waiting for you to help us explain to everyone, you can't shut it down.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, 100%, like, and I think that there's, like, Bitcoin can't be stopped, it can't be shut down, and I think that's like, what makes it beautiful. But Bitcoin still will adapt to its environment, right? Like, it is a species in many ways, and the importance is how it adapts.

• 25:04Anthony Pompliano?

  And, and one of the things that I always, so I spent a bunch of time talking to, like, the institutional investor, right? And these are people who, um, the idea that you went to the Amazon forest, like, makes them uncomfortable.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? And just like, that's not something that they would do. They go every single day, they put their suit and their tie on, right? They go to work, they do their job, it's all about managing risk.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Going to the Amazon forest is risky.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Right, of course, of course.

• 25:29Anthony Pompliano?

  They manage risk professionally.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:31Anthony Pompliano?

  And so, uh, many of them have great lives, they enjoy it, um, and they're very happy.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Which is ultimately the most important thing. When it comes to something like this, though, there's no pattern recognition.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? It's not like a stock, oh, I can see a stock is, uh, it's under valued because here is the cash flow analysis that we've done.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 25:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? And here's the enterprise value, and this is what I think is gonna happen in the future, right? That's, again, so that they understand. When you look at Bitcoin, it's non-correlated, the drivers of value are very different.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 26:00Anthony Pompliano?

  They, they can't wrap their head around that. The second thing is this idea that like, oh, if it can't be shut down, that must mean you're trying to do something bad.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? Like, it immediately goes to like, the absolute fringe use case.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:12Anthony Pompliano?

  And what I try to explain to them is like, Just because it can't be shut down doesn't make it bad.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  No.

• 26:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Actually, let me walk you through all the examples of why that's a good thing.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 26:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Here's all the people who are trying to shut things down that are doing bad things. Like the, like the person trying to exert control is actually the bad person in this situation. Not the person trying to withstand, you know, that, that control.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Or protect their wealth.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 26:32Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that that's the type of stuff that just people don't understand until they really sit and think about it.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think that like, that's like the, there's like a few like really core things, right? Like in order to make a system that is not controlled by and really affect like, what is, what is like government insurance? It's really, it's an insurance policy. Central banks have an insurance policy. Like, you know, like banking money is an insurance policy backed by the bank, right? And, and in, in this, in the case where you have systems that are not inherently insured, you need a way of insuring itself and the only way to do that is to make sure it can never go down. Right? And if, if there's, if it is vulnerable to fault or, or to, to sometimes stopping, then it's not a very, you know, um, safe system and, and that's like the hard thing, right? And so it's looking at what are the core factors that make these things, you know, still safe? Not in a negative context, right?

• 27:20Speaker 01

  And I think that's where, and that's what I, I think is like so important about today and institutionalization in the space is that it's starting to change the context, but it takes time to educate. And that's like a large reason why we focused on the things that we focused. And I think that's really why we've been working on, on building things like Shift is like, you need things that can allow institutionalization to happen and a better way of understanding how institutions start to play, um, whether they be investors or, or people or institutions, governments.

• 27:48Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. So I'll switch gears and go to Shift, right? So I did Paycase, uh, working a lot now on Shift.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Shift is S H Y F T.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 27:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Which I always call out because, uh, on the internet, there's a lot of things called Shift. I've actually invested in companies called Shift, spelled differently. But explain what Shift is and why you guys are working on it.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Shift is effectively a, it's a few different things. And so the, the goal of Shift is to build a permissionless way for identity credentialing, any type of asset custody ownership to exist on any type of a network. It is a POW blockchain at its base layer, but its value derives in that it, it works as a secondary application layer or a secondary network layer across pretty much every blockchain. And this is what's really interesting. And the question is kind of why are we working on it? What we found was that when working in this space so early, the biggest problem that we had was that we could not get banking. We could not get institutions, regulators and anyone

• 28:52Speaker 01

  to understand how we as the ecosystem build, why we do things a certain way as exchanges, as service providers, as anyone. And what we recognized was that if we do not start looking at, how do we build some system that solves compliance or regulation in the first degree for how the ecosystem works? Then how are we ever going to actually bridge the gap? Like if we don't understand how we do things and provide it in some sort of a standard such that the traditional world can also understand that and relatably work on it, you're never going to get to the place that we need to.

• 29:25Anthony Pompliano?

  It, it's almost like, and I'm thinking out loud here, but it's almost like you're saying, hey, I'm a cowboy. I went into the Wild West. I figured it out, but there's no way that the, you know, the rest of the town's coming out here.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:38Anthony Pompliano?

  So I might as well make it safe. I might as well put roads. I might as well build like a whole little, you know, city that they're used to. Okay, now you guys can come on, like this is something you recognize.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Exactly. And the question is, how do we not degrade the core fundamentals of what makes the space what it is? Because like what makes, you know, Bitcoin interesting is nothing else other than openness and decentralization. Like there's nothing that's interesting about a database, right? So how do you keep the core tenants of those things? But also allow people to actually start building institutional requirements, regulatory requirements, government-based, you know, upgrading services while still maintaining a certain way of doing things, but doing them just fundamentally differently? That's really the goal. And so we spent the last two years. Working on it and it came out of early work that we were doing and really more so understanding of how Blockstream was working on secondary layers. And it was an interesting time and what I think made it so interesting for Shift is

• 30:30Speaker 01

  that we literally brought people from every major protocol in the space together to actually work on it. So core developers and early developers were Bitcoin Core from Blockstream and a lot of architecture that was done from, you know, ex guys at Blockstream, core developers in Ethereum, the co-founder of Ethereum, co-founders of EOS, Cardano, and all of these guys were effectively all came in as well as in RSK to all say, how do we start to build all of these systems so they interoperate across everyone? Because again, like, people aren't going to sit there and care about protocols. They want to know, is my identity data safe? Can we start building new applications that look at trust in different ways?

• 31:06Anthony Pompliano?

  So let's talk a little bit about the actual product that Shift's building and some of the things you're trying to solve. So two of the core tenets are this idea of like permissioning, right, on permissionless blockchains?

• 31:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:17Anthony Pompliano?

  And then also the interoperability, which is a big word for those at home, and I said it correctly. But talk a little bit about the idea of, so a permissionless blockchain, what that is and then why it is, I don't want to say controversial, but just it's a unique idea to put permissioning on a permissionless blockchain.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so effectively what we wanted to do was, was to look at what systems are working today in the space, and this is from past lessons, right? Like, I think having openness at the base layer is critically important. And Bitcoin's security overwhelmingly is obviously the most secure way of ensuring infrastructure, I think, over, you know, today and in the future. But what we recognized was that you needed new foundational ways of connecting other blockchains together for the purposes of things like data routing. How do I make it so that a project that's working on Ethereum, or on EOS, or on Cardano, that's working on different types of data permissioning, has the right environment across all of those networks on an upper layer in order for us to build a global identity

• 32:20Speaker 01

  system? Like, if identity is coordinated off to certain things and in certain protocols, you're never going to have like a truly global system. And so the question is more like, how do you add a secondary layer, start to permission out infrastructure sets that allow institutions and governments to actually start to integrate?

• 32:40Anthony Pompliano?

  And how much of this is around data versus monetary value?

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, so at the core protocol network level, it functions very similarly to how gas on the Ethereum network works. And the reason being is that you can deploy any arbitrary smart contract on top of the network. But that's not really what it's best used for, right? So you want to work on taking Ethereum smart contracts, whatever they might be, and deploying them for cheaper. Then shift is an easy way to do that. But where it gets interesting is in where you start to look at permissioning requirements. Let's say I'm a Bitcoin exchange and I want to pass and I want to sign that in fact, you know, Anthony has on boarded with me for KYC. How do I look at and say, okay, I'm going to blindly validate that you're a participant on the exchange.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  And then another exchange, Bitfinex comes along and says, I want to actually pull your data. So instead of you having to replicate all of these data requirements constantly, you're starting to spread passport information everywhere. You should be able to sign proof and validity that in fact you're who you say you are. And in fact, Bitfinex or Bitrex or a bank or a government can actually sign on your behalf, proving validity of who you are. It's about how do you, how do you take trust of different participants in any environment and effectively sign those or give them a standard way to sign proof? And that becomes a transactional currency in of itself.

• 34:01Anthony Pompliano?

  And are you able to give somebody that trust or that validity and then take it back at a certain point?

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:07Anthony Pompliano?

  And kind of there's a more dynamic relationship between you and that other party?

• 34:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, the idea is that like, and the big thing that we were looking at was how do we ensure the GDPR compliance is still maintained? And this is, yeah, and that was like the big thing is that we needed a way that in very certain environments, so we could ensure that any regulatory requirements were still being met, whether it's a global one or it's a jurisdictional one. And so the idea is that you basically have the ability to both sign different key pairs or different, you know, information data sets across different participants, but also ensure that there's consent that's occurring across all parties involved. So if I'm sharing information from one bank to another, you have to have consent that sits across that to ensure. And a bunch of other kind of really interesting features that really allow institutions to actually play.

• 34:52Anthony Pompliano?

  And in your eyes, how much of the hardcore Bitcoiner community is like excited about this versus like the institutional world?

• 35:03Speaker 01

  It's a good question.

• 35:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Um, I would say less about, less Bitcoiners. And I don't, uh, it's a bit of a, it's a bit of a draw, right? Like, and I think that there's a, like, there's two different camps and I came out of both. And it, it's like, it's been an interesting position, to say the least. Like, you know, I, I, I'm a very much a Bitcoin maximalist, you know.

• 35:22Anthony Pompliano?

  I mean, you were there really early.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and, and the one thing I recognize, though, is that, like, um, and I think that, to be honest, the reason why I started focusing on other things was that Bitcoin is in a very good place. It has the brightest minds around it and Bitcoin will continue to do what it does best, you know? And, and I don't think that anyone, anyone who tries to compete with Bitcoin, I think, is in for a ride. Um, and, and with that being said, is that I think that there's other problems that, that our ecosystem needs to come to the table and start to solve, you know? Like, money and the idea of what value is, is, is what Bitcoin is solving. And I think that it's doing a fabulous job. But, you know, I think that we can use our, our, our capabilities and what we know into the next areas that are critically important for civilization, you know? And that goes into identity, it goes into data privacy, it goes into ensuring regulations are not, you know,

• 36:08Speaker 01

  overarching and overreaching.

• 36:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Talk about the interoperability and like, why that's so important here and, and what the advantages of that are when it comes to some of this data and trust and validity.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you have this big problem today where, and this is like the, the, the interesting thing of how we looked at shift is that we look at like, these main networks, you look at Bitcoin, you look at Ethereum, you look at EOS. Everyone is running and gunning to make sure that the future of the world exists on one network.

• 36:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Right, and we took the exact opposite approach.

• 36:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  We said, we are only as strong as the networks of networks that we connect to. So shift gains its strength in security and intro and adaptability in its ability to actually peg across all these other networks.

• 36:48Anthony Pompliano?

  So it's almost like you're only as strong as the links between the networks.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 36:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  And that's a really important argument. And, and we look at it almost as that we believe that we're a side chain of side chains. Our main chain is a side chain.

• 37:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  Effectively, you probably make like a rap song out of it.

• 37:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Um, but, uh, but, uh, but, and it's like a really important, like, you know, thing is to say, listen, we believe that if we can work with every major protocol in the space and build them to be stronger. And start bringing in much more institutional grade use cases where we built from the beginning to be an actual use case solution. Uh, our problem set solution, then we can start helping everything start to just mold and solidify. And, and you know, I don't like this idea that I think it's a waste of time to keep arguing and complaining whether Bitcoin is better than Ethereum and all these things. Is that they're good for certain things and they're bad for others. Uh, and the question in my mind is can you start to build on top of all of them and start connecting them all in and with the things that they're meant to be used for.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Right. And, and that's really where I think we, we've really focused. We know that Bitcoin's best at security. We know that proof of work works. Um, and I think we use it. We use Ethereum's like EVM for different smart contracting capabilities. Because we know that it's a lot more flexible for certain things that are required. We know that EOS is very good at dual threading, high speed, right? And so in the requirements that we need in certain conditions, we can use that. Right. This idea that you need to start playing with things that make sense for the purposes that they do. And, and taking that approach, I think also helps us because again, we're not focused on building the best protocol inherently. The protocol will speak for itself, but it's in its ability to actually solve problems. And, and if you can't solve fundamental problems that the world has, then what are we doing? That's what we're here for.

• 38:26Anthony Pompliano?

  What do you think the first couple of applications are that get built on top of this?

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so I think that we've taken a big focus on um, national identity system as one. So we did a deal with the Bermudian government uh, last year. Uh, we'll announce, I think around consensus, but that's going into phase one um, right now. And so we have about three to five other countries in probably the next 18 months that'll take that same identity system. Um, and actually start to deploy it. Uh, so Bermuda was a really great test and, and you know, we wrote a lot of the regulation there as well, but. Yeah, it's 65,000 people. Uh, and so we, we kind of are using that as a very good model and test bed. Um, to build an identity system on top of shift. That's kind of like number one.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Within the next 18 months, we have countries that span in the 50 million user populations to 100 to 400, 500 that'll start to be more announced and present over the next year. But I think that that's one big pillar. And how do you look at identity standards? The next one, I think, which is critically important to the space is how you do better at KYC or onboarding across any of the companies in the space. And this comes to say, how does exchanges better handle data security? How does ICOs better manage the fact that they shouldn't have to manage our passports in the first place? Like, I shouldn't have to give a bunch of kids who I'm investing in a project a passport. It doesn't really make sense.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  And so is there new ways that we can apply this credentialization, this ability to credential anything in the crypto space, using crypto as a way to better authenticate and validate? Those will start to, I think, really become apparent very quickly. We're working with some of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges to do that and other very large venues. And then I think looking more into the institutional, large payment space, we're working with a lot of very large institutions and more of the financial side to look at, how do you build single sign-in authorization, global identity as attributed to their brands and more of a validation and verification? And then ultimately, I think, just more developers working on cool things. I think that's going to be the big thing. And how do you basically just start bridging all of the different contracts that sit on all these protocols today?

• 40:32Speaker 01

  And that's the big thing, is everything is interoperable.

• 40:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you think we get to a world where you don't have a US passport and then a state driver's license and then some other country visa or whatever? Like, there's just one global identity system that everyone plugs into and maybe there's, like, again, I'm thinking out loud, but like, you've got badges, right? So, hey, you're allowed to go to this country because you have this badge, but you can drive a car in this country because you have this other badge or this other, like, unique identifier. How do you think this plays out?

• 41:06Speaker 01

  I think that you come to some sort of, like, we look at it as shift enables global citizenship and universal citizenship. And I think that that's kind of... The perspective we take, being mindful that you have to be very careful in how those systems are built, right? Like, this system in the space can't be rewritten, and it's very hard. And so you have to be very cautious about what you build, you know, and what you choose not to build, right? There's a lot of things that, you know, Bitcoin core developers could probably build that they probably choose not to, right? And the question becomes, exactly, right? And it's, you know, it's a question of like, what's the right thing to do and what's not? Do I think that we come to this one, you know, my fear is only in Skynet in those types of situations, right?

• 41:48Speaker 01

  And, and I also think that that's why having, you know, open systems are really important because it, it, it makes it hard to create Skynet's. Um, because the last thing you want is identity that is controlled and owned by, you know, very few. You know, and that's a hard one, right? And so I don't think that you get to that, but I think that, you know, we will have more and more clever ways of ensuring privacy to happen. And I think that this is the fundamental layer that you need to start. And again, like, when you go to the Philippines, for example, there's 80 different identities. There's not one card, right? They don't even know how many people they have, and they can't provide services. You can't properly vote. Like, these are fundamental, like, blocks and pillars of civilization. So if you don't even have the most basic thing, like, you know, like, let's just start with getting them one ID.

• 42:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Before you work on 80 different ones, you know, and then we'll figure out, like, you know, how they move around the world, right?

• 42:38Anthony Pompliano?

  It, it's so crazy to me. Um, what, what's your, like, ultimate dream for, uh, for Bitcoin and for crypto? Like, like, describe, like, the, the finish line, if you will.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a really, it's a, that's a great question. I think that, like, my, my vision in my dream is that, is that Bitcoin is, is the closest thing that we have to, I think, freedom i- in the future. And I think that what I want to see is that it is adopted positively and that, and that it is used, you know, the same way that anything else is used today, whether it's a mobile phone, whether it's like payments and anything else. And, and that, like, what I'm noticing today is that we're having a very hard stance from a regulatory perspective. And I think that the ecosystem needs to do better and be better at making sure that, you know, we have a voice. But I see a world where you have, you know, tokenization of everything. And I think that that's the logical, you know, future and a lot more freedom.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  Like, at the end of the day, this is about more control, more ownership and more freedom. And if we can provide even 15% of that, you know, to the majority of the world, which isn't here, I think that we've done our job.

• 43:43Anthony Pompliano?

  I always talk about Bitcoin specifically, but a lot of this is it's the only weapon I know of where the people get to fight back against the man, right?

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 43:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Or the government, um, to some degree. And if the weapon falls in the hands of, you know, the people or of with the man or the government, it can't be used against them.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  Exactly. And that's the beauty of it. And it's about like, yeah. And again, that's also why it's like, you need to look at upgrading governments like you need. And they're on side. It's like, you have to know to talk to them, right? And that's like the one thing at the OECD that we really focused on last year is that we've been writing policy standards to make sure the G7 and 20 understand how the space works. And these are from the earliest guys in the space. Cause if you don't do that, if you do not step over our line and say, listen, we need to help you, you're writing our future. And if we're not the ones helping you write it, then we are doing a disservice to the space.

• 44:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Not good.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  Not good at all. So.

• 44:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. Before I wrap up, uh, most important company in crypto?

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Ooh, that's a good question.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Um, most important company?

• 44:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Most important company. You can't say your own.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  I definitely will not do that. I think for Bitcoin, Blockstream.

• 44:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Um, I think for Ethereum, I have maybe consensus because I don't really have very many others. Um, and yeah, the list, I don't know. I don't look at one company. I think everyone's important to be honest. And I think everyone needs to build together.

• 45:07Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the one regulation you would change or improve if you could?

• 45:10Speaker 01

  The one that we've been really fighting to ensure is the question of what, whether or not, uh, what KYC and the Financial Action Task Force requirements are. Uh, we've been doing a lot of work in advising the FATF directly. And, and the one thing we have to make sure is that Bitcoin is not looked at as a payment method, the same way that bank transfers are done. Um, and I think that they're coming towards that, but if you do not get the FATF on side for how this happens, we're going to have a very big problem globally.

• 45:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's fair. Um, what's the most controversial thought you have in crypto? What do you believe that everyone else is gonna disagree with you on?

• 45:44Speaker 01

  That everything becomes a zero-sum game. And that there is very big opportunities investing in, in, in projects that only focus on zero-sum. So if you assume the whole world becomes zero-sum, what are the projects that become foundational to zero sums? And can they become profitable? That's kind of the way that our fund looks at it from a thesis perspective.

• 46:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Name one that you think fits that.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  So the idea that, that if, if I can put prices to zero, right? If, if, if, shift kind of does this in some ways. It makes the cost of doing business effectively over a long surface area of times zero. Um, and if you can assume that that is true, and if that all things have advantage effectively by having more surface area at zero, um, by not making anything more profitable than another. And there is tremendous value in networks that can do that. Um, if you make cost advantages that maintain cost pricing like high, then I don't think that you have advantage. But if you can keep things extremely low, making things free, if you can make business out of making things free but forcibly, then it becomes really interesting. And I think the space can do it.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  There's a lot of interesting incentives that are happening today.

• 46:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Most important book you've ever read?

• 46:52Speaker 01

  Oh, good question as well. Most important book I ever read?

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Um, I would, would say John McAfee's one, but that won't be true. Um, I think, it's a good question. What would be my favorite book? Um,

• 47:17Speaker 01

  maybe the, the Starfish. There's a book that talks about decentralization. And Brock Pierce actually showed it to me. It's really interesting, but it talks about how decentralized systems and organizations start to work. Um, and I think it's incredibly important.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's really important to look at it because it's something that most people, most people say like, what is this whole decentralization thing? And there's very few books that very clearly dive into, you know, what these are, how this organizational change works. And I think it's important to not, you know, to find clarity and understanding why things work and why, why, why they're happening.

• 47:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  So.

• 47:55Anthony Pompliano?

  It's pretty interesting.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  I'll send you one.

• 47:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Before, yeah, I'd love to, to read. Before I finish, I should let you ask me one question, but we talked about aliens first.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  I'm in.

• 48:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Believer, non-believer?

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 48:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Why?

• 48:09Speaker 01

  Um, because of a few reasons. I think that, I mean, coming from the jungle, you see a lot of interesting things.

• 48:18Anthony Pompliano?

  All the aliens in the Amazon?

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, a hundred percent, right? Like, I think, and I, I would again echo what, what, what John said the other day, like, we are all aliens, we're all unique. Um, and I think that the world is just simply too big. Like, the one thing that I've like recognized in interacting with governments over the last like few years is like, there's a lot of weird stuff that happens. You know, like conspiracy theories like aren't that much conspiracies and they're not really usually theories like. A lot of things happen, the world is big, you know? And it would not surprise me that they're very good at holding some things to heart.

• 48:52Anthony Pompliano?

  You, you think that they've like visited aliens?

• 48:56Speaker 01

  I think they're probably there.

• 48:57Anthony Pompliano?

  You think so?

• 48:58Speaker 01

  I think so. I mean, I don't think it's in the way that we think, like, you know, green guys walking around.

• 49:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  But I think that they're probably genetically in all of us, I think a hundred percent, and I have a strong belief that they're, they're not far away.

• 49:09Anthony Pompliano?

  So the answer that no one's said yet, uh, and I was thinking about this yesterday, was, um,

• 49:16Anthony Pompliano?

  this whole idea of being able to like mutate cells and edit genes and DNA.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:25Anthony Pompliano?

  We're gonna have aliens pretty quick.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's like next week. I think they just did a, like a woolly mammoth last week or something like, yeah.

• 49:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, that's gonna be real, real fast.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:34Anthony Pompliano?

  And, uh.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  What makes an alien is the real question. You know, like, what do you define it to be?

• 49:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  You know?

• 49:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's the big.

• 49:42Anthony Pompliano?

  We're gonna, we're gonna head down a road that I think a lot of people aren't ready for if, uh, if we really, if like the CRISPR stuff becomes real.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. It's, it's coming.

• 49:51Anthony Pompliano?

  I don't, I don't think anyone's gonna be able to stop it.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  No, of course not. Just like Bitcoin.

• 49:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 49:57Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm all in on both those boats, so we'll see.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 50:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, what one question do you have for me?

• 50:01Speaker 01

  What is the one value of Bitcoin that you would fight for and put everything on the line for? What's the one thing that like that means to you? What's the most important thing?

• 50:11Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that, I'm gonna cheat, I'm gonna answer this in two ways. I think if you asked me, what is the most valuable thing to the greatest number of people on the planet?

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, I am on record of saying that I believe the mass adoption of Bitcoin will do more for equality in the world than all philanthropic efforts combined.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 50:35Anthony Pompliano?

  And the reason being inflation drives income inequality at a rate that we can't even really comprehend. Um, it's the largest driver of income inequality, uh, in the world. And so if you remove inflation from the world.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 50:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, there are some challenges, it's not a hundred percent perfect.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 50:55Anthony Pompliano?

  But there are a lot of benefits as well. And so, um, I think that's probably like has the largest impact, right? It basically just prevents the elites from stealing wealth from the poor.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? Which, which like, generally, I think a lot of people have a hard time arguing that would be a good thing.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  Yep, I would definitely.

• 51:12Anthony Pompliano?

  There's some psychos out there, but like, that's fine.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  There's a couple.

• 51:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Um, so, so I would say that's one. Uh, if you asked me, what is likely to have the most severe impact on a certain percentage of the population's life? Right, so like, what I just talked about was like broadest reach. Now, if I go like greatest depth.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, it would be the inability for, uh, governments or bad actors to seize the asset. Um, and, and the reason why I say that is, uh, there's a lot of, there's a lot of people, but it's still a relatively small number of people in the world, but it's still a, a, a big number, that, uh, they live every single day in fear that somebody's going to seize their wealth.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? And, um, and so that ability, I think, is like such a, um, unique.

• 51:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Component of Bitcoin that it gives people like peace of mind for something that they can't find anywhere else. Like there's like no other asset in the world that they can get that from.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:08Anthony Pompliano?

  And so, uh, I think that that's kind of how I think about it's like there's a answer that is how broad can we go?

• 52:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:14Anthony Pompliano?

  And then there's an answer of like, how deep can we go? Right? And so I think that's it.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  That's a great answer.

• 52:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 52:19Anthony Pompliano?

  I just thought of that.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Be the Switzerland in your pocket when Switzerland's no longer Switzerland.

• 52:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Yeah. I, I need to think more about it, but like there, there's a lot to kind of unpack in that, but I think that, I think that's, I think that makes sense and is something that I believe.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree.

• 52:34Anthony Pompliano?

  So we'll see. I don't know. Somebody on the internet will tell me how I'm dumb.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  That's the way it goes.

• 52:38Anthony Pompliano?

  That's bound to happen for sure.

• 52:41Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, man. Listen, I really enjoyed this. Uh, I think people are going to love, uh, hearing from you and, uh, it's not every day that I get to talk to, uh, somebody who's got so many different life experiences and, uh, uh, it's a lot of fun. So we'll have to, uh, do it again in the future.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Thank you. Have, have a good one. Thanks.

• 52:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Hey everyone, Pop here. If you liked this episode of Off the Chain and want to help us take crypto to the top of the Apple, Spotify and other podcast charts, please do us a favor and rate, review and subscribe. To review, simply go to the Off the Chain homepage, scroll down until you see the five blank stars. Taking 15 seconds to fill those stars in and leave a quick review goes a long way in helping us take the entire crypto ecosystem to the top of the charts. I appreciate you listening and see you next time on Off the Chain.