Why Trump is Pro-Crypto | David Bailey

How in the world did Trump pivot to Pro-Crypto? David Bailey is the CEO and Cofounder of Bitcoin Media, which you might also know as Bitcoin Magazine He has just finished throwing the Bitcoin 2024 Conference, he’s been in Bitcoin since it’s inception and he’s now at the forefront of the world of politics where Bitcoin has been meaningfully intersecting with the Trump Administration. We talk mostly about Trump and his crypto policies. We then contrast it with Kamala Harris and the Democrats. And we finish with why David is so bullish on Bitcoin and why he has fallen in love with the idea of Bitcoin. ------ 🐡 PUFFER | CHECK OUT PUFFER UNIFI https://bankless.cc/PufferUnifi ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://k.xyz/bankless-pod-q2 ⁠ 🦄UNISWAP | BROWSER EXTENSION https://bankless.cc/uniswap ⚖️ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM ⁠https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 🌐 OBOL | STAKE ON DVs, SCALE ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/obol 🗣️TOKU | CRYPTO EMPLOYMENT https://bankless.cc/toku ------ ✨ Mint the episode on Zora ✨ https://zora.co/collect/zora:0x0c294913a7596b427add7dcbd6d7bbfc7338d53f/51?referrer=0x077Fe9e96Aa9b20Bd36F1C6290f54F8717C5674E ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 6:51 Bitcoin 2024 10:43 Donald Trump 31:42 Trump’s Crypto Policies 47:44 Kamala Harris 54:26 Trump vs Kamala 1:01:15 The Bitcoin Idea 1:06:14 Closing & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES David Bailey https://x.com/DavidFBailey Bitcoin Media https://b.tc/ ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures ⁠

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I thought politics is where you show up and you figure out what the voters want, and then you make promises to the voters that if you elect me, I'm going to achieve these things for you. And if you talk to the right part of the population and they make up a large enough percentage of the voter base, then you get elected. I thought that was like the whole point of an election. I don't know what else it's supposed to be.

• 0:22David Hoffman?

  Welcome to Bankless, where we explore the frontier of internet money and internet finance. Today on the show, we are hosting David Bailey of Bitcoin Media, Bitcoin Magazine fame. This is the organization that just finished throwing the Bitcoin 2024 conference. David has been with Bitcoin Media since its inception, so he knows a thing or two about everything in the world of Bitcoin. And he's also been at the forefront of the world of politics, where Bitcoin has been meaningfully intersecting with the Trump administration. I think David Bailey is one of the closest individuals to the Trump administration and watched that relationship blossom into Donald Trump speaking at the Bitcoin Conference 2024 for a solid 45 minutes. Ryan, what did you think of this episode?

• 1:05David Hoffman?

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• 1:50David Hoffman?

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• 2:11Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, I thought it was interesting. I think my main objective for this episode is trying to figure out like, why in the world, like, how in the world Trump pivoted to pro crypto, pro crypto position very publicly? And how he found himself at a Bitcoin conference, spending 45 minutes really saying all of the things that the crypto community, particularly the Bitcoin community, but just in general, the crypto community wanted to hear. Like, how did that happen? Because that's a massive transformation. That's like, nothing that has ever happened in crypto before. And then, like, I wanted to hear if David thought he was genuine in that. Like, he would keep these campaign promises if elected. And then also, just like, any takes on, okay, are you a single-issue voter? Like, what's the case for that?

• 2:55Ryan Sean Adams?

  Do you think Kamala and the Democrats will pivot at some point? Or is that ship already sailed? Is it over? Like, how do you think about the game theory of all of this? So I feel like I got all of those questions answered in the body of this podcast.

• 3:07David Hoffman?

  Yeah, interesting. No surprise to the listener, but David Bailey is a very big Trump supporter. If you are watching this on YouTube, you'll notice his very big red hat that says, "Make Bitcoin Great Again," which I think is just the perfect intersection between somebody who is very bullish on Bitcoin and also very bullish on Donald Trump. So this is also a peek into the brain of somebody who's bullish in both camps. So let's go ahead and get right into the episode with David Bailey from Bitcoin Media. But first, a moment to talk about some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible, like Kraken. Where, if at the end of this episode, you are as equally bullish on Bitcoin as David is, you should buy it on Kraken. There's a link in the show notes to get started with Kraken today. If you want a crypto trading experience backed by world-class security and award-winning support teams, then head over to Kraken, one of the longest-standing and most-secure crypto

• 3:51David Hoffman?

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• 4:37David Hoffman?

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• 5:22David Hoffman?

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• 6:06David Hoffman?

  All of these technologies leverage the security and decentralization of Ethereum. Experience Web3 development the way it was always meant to be: secure, fast, cheap, and friction-free. Visit arbitrum.io and get your journey started in one of the largest Ethereum communities. Bankless Nation, I'm super stoked to introduce you to David Bailey, the CEO and co-founder of Bitcoin Media, which you might also know as Bitcoin Magazine. Bitcoin Media hosts the annual Bitcoin Conference every year, starting in 2019 in San Francisco, moving to Miami in the post-COVID era, and now this last year's Bitcoin Conference just concluded in Nashville, after being perhaps one of the most significant in-real-life crypto events to have ever been held, especially with Donald Trump's 45-minute speech about all the ways that he wants to promote the Bitcoin industry. David, welcome to Bankless.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  Hey, thank you for having me on the show.

• 6:51David Hoffman?

  Really excited to have this conversation, and I think we're just two weeks after Bitcoin 2024, maybe three. I know that that's gotta be probably the most busiest time in your life, every single year, whenever that comes around. But now that that's well in the rearview mirror, just thoughts, reflections? Now that you've processed everything, give us your reflections upon the events that were.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I think, generally speaking, it's the most successful show we've done. It reminds me of Bitcoin 2021, which was where Bukhale announced Bitcoin legal tender. And so, the energy coming off of that event was just through the roof, and the ticket sales for the 2022 were huge. And it's pretty similar for this event. So, the energy levels have been high, the momentum coming out of the conference has been all-time highs. I mean, we've heard from all sorts of interesting people and different nations and all sorts of stuff. I think the Trump momentum is just like, love him or hate him, it's really hard to

• 7:55Speaker 00

  quantify how much attention he generates. And then, yeah, the ticket sales for 2025 are the highest we've ever had a year out from an event. So, the feedback, survey feedback from attendees was that this is the best conference we've ever done. So, I don't know, it feels new, but like, when we did 2021, it was like our second conference we'd ever done. So, it was like, kind of a little bit of a shit show at the same time. This one, it had the scale, and it had the excitement, but also, our team knows what we're doing now. So, anyway, we're very pleased with the conference overall. Trying to kind of scope what the future of that event looks like. I think we can grow

• 8:39Speaker 00

  that conference into one of the biggest conferences in the world. And so that's really, that's, that's the vision of where we want to take it, like the CES of, of money, you know, of Bitcoin. I mean, Bitcoin, it deserves to have the biggest conference in the world, you know? I mean, it's the biggest idea in the world. So, um, like, you know, the next year in Vegas, I hope we can get to like 40,000, 50,000 people. And then, you know, we'll see where we can go from there. But yeah, we, we want to just keep going bigger every year.

• 9:08David Hoffman?

  Anyone who pays attention to the conference industry knows that the, the time to start planning the next conference is right after the previous conference ends. Uh, so yeah, already alluding to like 2025 being planned. For 2024, when was it obvious that like, politics was going to become such a, such a big part, a big pillar of the actual content? Like, how, how quickly? When, when did that happen? Do you remember?

• 9:31Speaker 00

  You know, I'd probably say the start of the year. So, um, you know, and, and we jokingly have called the conference like the Bitcoin National Convention. Um, and then the timing of it, we got the timing just right. So where the, the conference landed in between the RNC, uh, and we have the DNC coming up in August. So like, we had like fit right in between the two. And I think, you know, the, the orange party, as we're like, you know, colloquially calling it, like, really is, um, the embodiment of what I would say is like, the, the ideas of Libertarian Party, um, except with money and a focus on, on

• 10:13Speaker 00

  winning and achieving like the goals that the libertarians had. So I, I kind of feel like, in some ways Bitcoin killed the Libertarian Party, um, because it just sucked all of the energy and enthusiasm out of it and kind of channeled it into this new community that got formed and created. And so, um, yeah, I know the, the Bitcoin conference is like the home of the orange party. And, you know, it, it's very symbolic that we had the orange man himself, uh, kind of, you know, uh, crown it. So.

• 10:43Ryan Sean Adams?

  Can, can we talk about that? So how did that come about, by the way? Like, so how did you get Trump to speak at Bitcoin 2024? And it's like, by the way, it's just some context here, too. What's crazy about this is how many weeks after the assassination attempt was this? This is like-

• 10:59Speaker 00

  Weeks.

• 11:00Ryan Sean Adams?

  Two weeks after. So I just can't imagine the logistics behind just like security of pulling this off. Anyway, just like, tell us about this. What, how did you get Donald Trump there? And like, what, we like, what, yeah, what was the, how did all this happen?

• 11:19Speaker 00

  So um, I have a friend who has a mutual relationship with someone who's in the Trump orbit. I won't, I won't dox them here, but um, she was able to kind of open up the initial conversation. And then it became, you know, it was really a six month process, or maybe a four month process of back and forth. Where like, basically, it started with us trying to get them for the conference. And then it was like, very clear, they didn't really know a lot about the topic, or the, the industry, or, you know, it was just a very rudimentary understanding. And so we then had to

• 11:59Ryan Sean Adams?

  When you say they, you talk to like, campaign people, just the people behind Trump, sort of thing?

• 12:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. I like the, the, he has a core team, and his core team is a very small team. And it's like, they, they run that campaign like a startup. So like, where, like, there might be, you know, hundreds of decision makers at like, the Harris campaign. And there, there might be thousands of people that work there. At like, you know, the Trump campaign, it is like, 10 people that are like, the core team. And then like, the, the total apparatus might be like, it's less than 100 people. You know, maybe that's wrong, but it feels like it's less than 100 people at the, at the Trump campaign. So, so yeah, so he runs a pretty lean operation. But yeah, we got, we got

• 12:44Speaker 00

  connected into the campaign managers for Trump and kind of policy advisors. And, you know, there's a variety of people around the Trump orbit that are pro Bitcoin. The Trump family owns Bitcoin. So it wasn't like, singularly our effort. You know, there's, there was a lot of kind of people in the mix. But, you know, we kind of had to take charge of educating the campaign on the topic. Campaign on the political opportunity that existed, both in like votes and and dollars that could be raised. And then, you know, working with the campaign to highlight like, what is the policy platform that they could they could take on that would excite the the base and like turn out votes?

• 13:28Speaker 00

  But also was consistent and aligned with the president's political platform, which is really, you know, an American first conservative platform. And so, you know, the cool thing about Bitcoin is that, you know, it's a technology and you can explain it in a lot of different ways. And, you know, if if somebody wanted to take, what's the conservative case for the internet? And what's like, you know, the progressive case for the internet, you could make both cases. And so Bitcoin is kind of the same way, and and we were able to kind of put together a a variety of of policy items that we pitched them on, and some of them they liked, some of them they didn't like, but they kind of picked what worked for them.

• 14:12Speaker 00

  And then, like, so as we're kind of like making this incremental progress, it resulted in a meeting with Trump at Trump Tower. And then from there, we put together a mining roundtable with all the Bitcoin miners in Mar-a-Lago that went really well. And the president got pretty hyped about Bitcoin mining and how it fits into his energy platform, which he's going, he's like an energy diehard. He's an energy maxi, you could say. And so then from there, we were able to go through a very intense process of of getting him signed on to the conference, which like was a roller coaster in and of itself.

• 14:54Speaker 00

  And then, right when we got him signed on to the conference, there was the assassination attempt. So, you know, we were like, oh, shit, he's out, like, this is over. And I I was watching the the the video stream like live while it happened. And so like when he like drops, I'm like, oh, shit, like, there's like, you know, I mean, it's it's a horrific situation, but I'm also thinking from the business perspective of like, you know, oh, fuck.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. So and then the guy's just a badass. He's an absolute badass. Um, you know, when you, when you spend time with them, he's extremely charismatic. Um, it makes sense why he is like the presidential contender. Um, he is very funny. And he is completely unrelenting. So it's like, I mean, uh, he would have it no other way than to have like, then to be able to tell a would be assassin, fuck you. I'm gonna, you're not gonna affect me at all. Um, and so, uh, and there's a lot of people in his orbit that after that happened, they're like, you need to go into a basement. Like there's gonna be people coming to assassinate you from like there. They are trying to take you out and like, you know, in the polls at that moment, I mean, he was dominating.

• 16:08Speaker 00

  So it was like, okay, we just need to go into mode of like, keep you alive all the way through the, the campaign. And, um, he was like, no. So, you know, he's, he's the ultimate decision maker for his campaign. And, you know, he wanted to go on the path, not change a single, um, thing about the schedule and just like fight. So a lot of respect for, for him on that.

• 16:33David Hoffman?

  So as you and the, the Trump campaign were kind of like warming up to each other, you alluded to that, that meeting with the North American Bitcoin miners. Maybe that was the moment where the campaign really got comfortable with, uh, speaking at, at the Bitcoin conference, just becoming, becoming Bitcoiner. Was that really the moment or were there, were there other moments as well, where there's a big inflection point where?

• 16:53Speaker 00

  I would say it was like a, a domino effect of like little wins that kept like, kind of like leveling up to bigger wins. The Mar-a-Lago moment was a big moment of credibility, just because it was like, okay, are these guys real? Is this industry real? And then they're sitting down, like the Bitcoin miners, like say what you want about mining. They're probably the most legit part of our industry. I mean, they're like running real facilities. They employ like lots of people doing like blue collar infrastructure jobs. Like it's like super impressive when you just hear the, like the bare bone facts of how big these operations have gotten. And how it's like truly affecting like American infrastructure, energy infrastructure. Um, and the amount of dollars that we're talking about, I mean, they're doing billion dollar plus.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  Investments into American infrastructure. So it was probably the best part of the industry that could represent us just because it was it's a very real tangible part of the industry. And I mean, we're able to show them chips and like bring some like show and tell type elements where we're like showing them how it works. And it was just very aligned with this platform. But we're doing more roundtables. I think right now we're working on putting together a roundtable with the president on the SEC. And, you know, we're not just it's not a Bitcoin only campaign here is Bitcoin and crypto. So we're working with our crypto counterparts like we're aligned on 90% of the issues. And so like, it's one team that's

• 18:17Speaker 00

  trying to like, drive Trump to a successful presidency. And yeah, we're working with everyone that we can who's who's aligned with us on that.

• 18:26Ryan Sean Adams?

  So it's a Bitcoin and crypto policy then and like, what are the wins for Trump? So you mentioned kind of energy infrastructure, that's kind of a win. Like, what else, right? Because like, this is sort of a pivot for Trump, right? From his 2020 campaign where crypto really didn't come up. You could argue that like, you know, some would make the argument that there was some hostility towards crypto in the previous administration. Certainly, Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin, on his way out, like, did some nefarious things, it seemed like. And Trump has some tweets in the past, which you could interpret as being like, not pro crypto, let's say, maybe anti crypto. So I think to a lot of

• 19:07Ryan Sean Adams?

  people, this seemed like a pivot in the direction of crypto, but also a very clear pivot. Like, Trump really is trying to be and wants to become the pro crypto president and use it as a, what do they call a wedge issue, right? In political parlance, against against now Harris, then Biden. So like, what are the wins on the Trump campaign side for being pro crypto?

• 19:32Speaker 00

  Well, first, on the pivot question, I would push back on that and just that that's kind of just the natural progression that anyone has when they get into Bitcoin or crypto. I mean, Michael Saylor's first tweet on the topic. Was shitting on Bitcoin. So, you know, the, the, the bigger the cynic, like, you know, the harder they fall in love, uh, so to speak. So, you know, we all start skeptical and then as we learn more, as we see it come back from the death time and time and time again, eventually you start to appreciate it from a different perspective. You know, Donald Trump also, he created NFTs and ordinals, you know, that have sold amazingly well. He's sold real estate for Bitcoin. So the man has like issued his own NFT collection.

• 20:18Speaker 00

  He has, you know, accepted Bitcoin for payment, owns Bitcoin, you know, he like in so many ways, he was like set up to be, uh, the Bitcoin and crypto president. To your question about the winds that are out there. So, you know, it is perfectly aligned with his energy policy, very much has an American first, uh, position. And he sees other countries like the Middle East, like China, who are, uh, approving their own ETFs, who have a large percentage of the, of mining infrastructure, who are maybe in secret accumulating the large positions of Bitcoin. And, you know, he is not a fan of, of, uh, chasing offshore American innovation, uh, into the hands of what he considers our, our adversaries.

• 21:02Speaker 00

  Um, and so, or our frenemies, maybe. I don't know what the right term, political term is. So he, he sees an opportunity here, um, to ensure that the next Silicon Valley is built in America. Um, and, you know, he looks at Bitcoin and, you know, uh, his campaign looks at Bitcoin as, you know, initially there was like, okay, is this something that could negatively affect the dollar? Now, you know, as they've come to appreciate it more, it's like, if anything, Bitcoin gives longevity, uh, to the dollar.

• 21:36Speaker 00

  It's like, you know, gold didn't disrupt the US dollar. In fact, the best thing that ever happened for the American dollar was for you, for gold, all the central banks of the world to custody their gold in the United States. So, uh, the, I think the, the, uh, imagery of, of a digital Fort Knox that That is custoding Bitcoin and digital assets in the United States. Resonated, I guess, with the president. And then, you know, I think he's also, he's an entrepreneur, and so he's very shrewd about seeing opportunity where others don't. And so I think he came to appreciate how big of a constituency Bitcoin and crypto now represent, which it's huge in the United States.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  Even if you take like, let's take the numbers that are out there and we give them a 50% haircut because they're, you know, we're giving most favorable numbers. It's still a huge number. And so, um, you know, Trump is someone who, who bases his political priorities also off of, um, the crowd, like off of like what he gets feedback on, which I think is like a very natural kind of old school political, like it's on, he doesn't go out and do polling per se. It's like, he brings up an idea, he mentions a topic, and if a lot of people respond really positively to it, then he like says it more and, and he kind of bases it off of like, okay, I have a hundred conversations in a day. You know, if 30 of them are about this, then this is something that a lot of people care about.

• 23:03Speaker 00

  And so when he started talking about Bitcoin and crypto, a lot of people started approaching him about it. And so he was like, kind of taken back by how popular this had gotten as a, as a topic. Um, it's same maybe with like, you know, uh, no tax on tips. You know, he says that, maybe he's just like throwing that out there as an idea. People respond really positively to it. It's like, okay, no tax on tips. That's the policy. So I think, you know, it's the same for, you know, crypto and Bitcoin. And, you know, in his own words, like, uh, he thinks that like our voting constituency is as big or bigger than gun owners or evangelical Christians. And he thinks we're, you know, as passionate or more passionate than those, those constituencies.

• 23:45Speaker 00

  So when you think about how big of a topic is guns in the United States, how big of a topic is, you know, abortion in the United States? Those are like two of the defining political battle lines, uh, between the parties. And so, you know, if he sees our constituency of a similar size and scale, then, then our issues should, um, consume as much oxygen as those other issues, which I think is like a pretty staggering view to take on our industry. I mean, we're so far away from what your view on Bitcoin mining is being like at the same level of like what the nation thinks about, you know, gun rights.

• 24:24David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  So, yeah, yeah.

• 24:27David Hoffman?

  One line that popped out to me during the Trump speech at Bitcoin 2024 was the high IQ crowd quip. Do you know where that, how that got into his brain?

• 24:39Ryan Sean Adams?

  What was this? For people who didn't see that part?

• 24:41David Hoffman?

  He called it, he called everyone in the audience, high IQ. It was a high IQ like audience or something like this. He just called everyone like listening, high IQ. Do you know how that, do you know where he got that idea from?

• 24:52Speaker 00

  No, I don't. I think it's just because like the people in his orbit that are talking to him about this topic, like we're so passionate and we know so much about this topic and it's such a, what's the word? Not Byzantine.

• 25:05Ryan Sean Adams?

  Esoteric. It's just.

• 25:06David Hoffman?

  Esoteric.

• 25:07Ryan Sean Adams?

  Right? Yeah.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. It's esoteric. It's like, okay, let's like, explain Bitcoin. And it's like, okay, let's start with like the, the invention of like gold, you know? Like seashells, you know? It's just like, what the fuck? So, yeah, it's an esoteric topic. And I think, and we're so passionate about it that once you engage, we like, won't let you disengage. Like we're like locked in, you know? So, yeah, I think that's right. The other thing, I haven't heard the speech. I need to go listen to the speech because like I was backstage listening to it and the tension backstage was so like.

• 25:46Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah. Like a secret, secret service, I'm sure, like looking at you.

• 25:51Speaker 00

  Oh, no. You know, there was an hour, hour long delay before it started because somebody like snuck through security and they're having, I don't know if y'all know this story. I can, I can tell this story. It's pretty funny.

• 26:00David Hoffman?

  I don't know this story.

• 26:00Speaker 00

  This guy named Jordi Montez, who's a Lightning developer, was caught on camera sneaking past Secret Service. And, you know, of course, as soon as he sneaks past, like they have like the photo of him and everything.

• 26:13Ryan Sean Adams?

  What do you mean? What does that look like? He's just like dodged the metal detector going in or something?

• 26:17Speaker 00

  Yeah. He, he was able to like whisk in through the, you know how the exit, were you at the, the conference?

• 26:24Ryan Sean Adams?

  No, I couldn't make it.

• 26:26Speaker 00

  Guys.

• 26:28David Hoffman?

  David, sorry. Right, right. Ryan never ever goes to any conference ever. So it's actually only my bad.

• 26:34Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, it's actually David Hoffman. He's got a, you know.

• 26:37Speaker 00

  No big deal, guys. You're only trying to make history there.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  So there was like an exit only area that you could come out and after we did, we did a round table downstairs with some people from the industry with the president and they got like whisked up. You know, it was like a pretty far walk. And so we like had them escorted up into the, into the facilities because basically like to get into the room. There was a max capacity. And then when they closed the doors, like they were closed. And so they're coming in through like the exit effectively. And somebody just saw the opportunity to jump in the, like the crowd. There's like 30 of them and just go in with them. So that's how it happened.

• 27:16David Hoffman?

  So this one guy delayed the speech by an hour.

• 27:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. So once he got in and they were trying to find him in the crowd and we're like Jordi Montez, like, please come to the exit. They're like pulling up like a camera footage from the facility of like what this guy's been doing. And evidently he had like a lighter with him that he didn't want confiscated from security. And so he hid it in the building. And so they see him like hiding something small in the building. Like, okay, you know, like, obviously this guy's got a bomb or something. And then they, I like identify, they detain them. They were able to get them. And then they're like, go and check his room. His hotel room and he has like a backpack full, like one change of clothes in a backpack and like, like a bunch of cash or something.

• 28:00Speaker 00

  And so it's like, okay, every like this guy's a terrorist, like red alarm, like flag is being like going off right. And backstage, the security is like so tense. That like, I'm pretty sure like if you just like jumped like to like suddenly, you'd just be fucking shot. Like it was very intense. Um, so yeah, the tension was pretty strong backstage. And so like, I only heard like part of it. And I'm like, dealing with different like, things that are unfolding. And then, um, but then every time the crowd is like roars with some like massive applause. And I'm like, okay, well, what just happened? And people are telling me the sound bites. So I haven't heard the whole speech yet, but the, um, I've heard the highlights of the speech, you could say.

• 28:43David Hoffman?

  Uh, one of the big parts of the speech was the, uh, the Gary Gensler comment. I think that was like probably the, the loudest one. Uh, and I, this, this conversation actually went around in some Ethereum circles where some, some of the most hardcore Bitcoiners, don't really care about any of the SEC shenanigans as it relates to anything below Bitcoin. Because like, what, what do they care?

• 29:04Speaker 00

  Uh, we definitely care. There's a lot of issues that, that Gary Gensler screwing the Bitcoin community over on.

• 29:08David Hoffman?

  Like what?

• 29:10Speaker 00

  Like he's blocked the IPOs of a bunch of different companies. He's, he's blocked, um, you know, if you are a public company, you want to buy Bitcoin and you need issue, um, uh, some sort of, um, uh, disclosures. They wait out the disclosure period for the maximum amount of time, 90 days. Um, like they, they slow down all sorts of public market activity for our industry. They've blocked M and A activity. They've blocked all the SPACs that were supposed to happen. Um, you know, we had to sue them over the, the ETF approval. So, you know, all sorts of stuff.

• 29:45David Hoffman?

  Hmm.

• 29:46Ryan Sean Adams?

  What, what did he say about Gensler? For, again, people who didn't?

• 29:49David Hoffman?

  He's gonna fire him.

• 29:50Ryan Sean Adams?

  He's just basically, I'm gonna fire Gensler and the crowd goes wild.

• 29:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:54David Hoffman?

  Yeah. And it was one of those things where you, you watched him have like a learning moment in real time, where he was like, was actually taken aback about like how loud the crowd got. And so he just like stopped and like said it. Exactly. He just stopped and like said it a second time.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. No, I was I was hoping he was gonna be like Gary Gensler, you're fired. But he didn't go like full apprentice on him, but uh, you know, it was like, yeah, like he, there was all sorts of things that that he walked away from the conference like really surprised by. That was definitely one of them. Um, he walked away. I think being kind of blown away by how many people were there. Um, and how much energy there was in the room. I mean, this was like. Electric. I mean, that's really the only way to describe it. And there were so many people. I mean, it was at. The overflow rooms were packed. The the, I mean, literally every stage was packed out. People listening to this, we had 22,000 people there.

• 30:50Speaker 00

  And um, and when he got there and we did the roundtable, it's not like it was just like. We're Joe Schmo. Yeah, there was like, we had lots of Joe Schmo's. But it was like lots of billionaires, lots of billionaires and billionaires that he knew. Uh, you know, we had this roundtable. I won't say any of the participants' names, but like. He was surprised by multiple people who had joined the roundtable. And he's like, oh, you're into this. And he was like, yeah, I'm I'm into this really big Mr. President. It's like, wow. And you're into this. It was like, yeah, I'm into it huge. It's like, and he was like, just kind of bewildered. So he walked away from the conference, just like, uh, I think very impressed with the industry as a whole. That this is something that that, you know, people that he trusts, really believe in.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  Uh, it's filled full of young people, very passionate people. Um, and that it's gotten quite large and successful. And he, those are, you know, he wants to be a part of it.

• 31:42Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, I got to imagine as he's like looking out at the crowd, it's like a different type of crowd than come to hit like his uh, regular political events, right? I mean, you probably don't have a lightning developer, you know, of the type that that got busted by the Secret Service. You know, come come to a typical Trump campaign rally. So you look out and it's like. Just different faces than you typically see. I imagine it skews uh, younger. Uh, I imagine it skews like, I don't know. I don't know if you can delineate who's kind of like nerdy tech person, but I'm sure it skews in that direction as well. So. I'm sure his spidey senses are just like tingling like, oh, wow, this is new. I didn't know about this cohort that I can go. Reach like one of the other things he said during his speech, David, was about building

• 32:25Ryan Sean Adams?

  out a strategic reserve of Bitcoin. Actually, and I don't know. I mean, there was a Lummis speech given Senator Lummis, who also talked about this in an actual legislative bill. And then there was RFK Junior, who talked and he had an actual amount of Bitcoin that he planned to buy. It was like escalated to as much as 5% of total supply or something. So I don't know. You know, Michael Saylor might need to beat the US government to that if that comes to fruition. But Trump, Trump had to take two. I think it was mainly around at least keeping the Bitcoin.

• 32:58Speaker 00

  It was 20%.

• 32:58Ryan Sean Adams?

  It was 20%. It was 20%. Okay, so.

• 33:01Speaker 00

  Which is how much of the gold we have, which is a good intellectual basis for how much Bitcoin we should own. But it's also kind of shocking that America has 20% of the gold like it's.

• 33:12Ryan Sean Adams?

  That is shocking. So to be clear, though, Trump in his speech, what did he say? 20% of Bitcoin?

• 33:17Speaker 00

  No, no, not Trump. Trump didn't say that. I'm saying RFK.

• 33:19Ryan Sean Adams?

  RFK did. Okay, okay. Trump said, basically, we should keep what we have in the least, right? And build out a Bitcoin strategic reserve. I don't know if he gave more.

• 33:28Speaker 00

  And I expect him to expand upon that topic at some point in time down the road.

• 33:32Ryan Sean Adams?

  Okay.

• 33:33Speaker 00

  With how much America should have and what it should look like. But he was relatively broad strokes in his in his speech in Nashville.

• 33:42Ryan Sean Adams?

  So this goes to the question, David, like, so we're crypto people, right? Bitcoin people. We don't traditionally, like, we don't trust authority. We don't traditionally trust politicians. Like, I think famously crypto has kind of stayed out of politics, maybe to our detriment for a long time. You can't trust them, right? I don't know how many crypto people have been participate in elections or vote, but like, sort of jaded about the whole topic.

• 34:03Speaker 00

  You definitely can't trust politicians. So I fully agree with that.

• 34:07Ryan Sean Adams?

  Okay, so let's talk about this. How likely is Trump to keep these campaign, you know, promises or like some portion of these campaign promises? How do you think about that?

• 34:17Speaker 00

  It's proportional to the amount of impact that we as voters, as we as a constituency make in the election. So the bigger of an impact we make, the bigger of a deciding factor we are, the greater the likelihood of the scope of promises are kept and expanded upon. So, you know, it's like, uh, some of the stuff that's easy, I think he's definitely gonna do like, uh, part, uh, commuting Ross Ulbricht sentence. I think that happens day one. I, I have no doubt. I'll be shocked if it doesn't happen like right away. Um, and, and he's got an amazing feedback from donors, from voters on that topic. That was a huge win for him and, and very surprising that

• 35:00Speaker 00

  it took him to, to, to say that. Like, I don't know where, why, who the constituency, who's on the other side being like, no, we want Ross kept in jail for the rest of his life. Like, I don't know who that voting block is. Um, you know, the bigger stuff that's more complicated, it's not that he doesn't intend to make those things happen. It's that the more complicated the thing is, the more participants that come into the equation. And then it's all about priorities, like not everything can be done. So what are you prioritizing? And so to prioritize one thing over another thing, you have to weigh the political scale of like what matters more. And so, you know, um,

• 35:40Speaker 00

  an example of this is like, uh, you know, he made a big promise to evangelical Christians that he was, um, going to put in judges that would, as Supreme Court judges, that would return abortion, uh, issues, uh, to the state level. Okay. Like that was a big promise. That's not an easy thing to do, but the evangelical Christian contingency is so large and so significant and important for any political coalition to be formed that he delivered on that, on that promise for them. So likewise, like, you know, it's not like we're asking for him to put in Supreme Court justices that are going to guarantee, you know, your right to run your own node, you know, like is, uh,

• 36:21Speaker 00

  asking for a strategic reserve is actually a much smaller ask than that. It's something more commensurate with maybe like establishing Space Force, which was a signature policy, um, item that he got done. I think at Digital Fort Knox, you know, in time, people will look back on that and be like, wow, that was an obvious thing that needed to happen. And when you look at the cost of what he was suggesting doing, even buying a million Bitcoins, if you look at the cost of buying a million Bitcoins, I think a million Bitcoins today would cost you 70 billion, no, 60, 60 billion. It'd be, uh, a steal at 60 billion. So, you know, when you look at like Space Force, I think Space Force's annual budget. Is like 40 billion a year. And that's like money spent.

• 37:05Speaker 00

  That's not like, you know, whereas when you're buying Bitcoin, you're like just putting it into a different asset. So, um, uh, you know, it's really, I, I think it's a very plausible thing to get done. But like where we rank in the priority stack totally depends on like, how many votes we turn out in November and how many dollars we raise as an industry into, um, you know, uh, political lobbying.

• 37:29Ryan Sean Adams?

  And so, okay, so that, that, that's kind of the input. How much crypto kind of shows up for this particular political candidate, which is, which is Trump. Right. It gives him political capital, uh, in the bank account to spend during his presidency. He has to pick which issues to do it. And there, there are very cost effective, uh, issues like freeing Ross would be one. I'd imagine firing Gary Gensler would be like pretty freaking easy. Would cost like nothing, right?

• 37:55Speaker 00

  Very easy. I think that was already on the agenda before he realized we liked it.

• 37:59Ryan Sean Adams?

  So, yeah, okay. So that probably gets done, right? Just calling off the dogs in the administrative state and their attack on crypto. I'm sure that gets done and maybe it's a little harder to get something like, um, you know, Bitcoin as a, a reserve, um, for, for the dollar or something like this, or for strategic reserves.

• 38:16Speaker 00

  It's, it's why we need to get Bitcoin on, uh, DJT, the Truth Social's balance sheet. That will really help, uh, align everyone. But, uh, yeah, no, I think you're describing it perfectly well. Like, that's exactly right.

• 38:28David Hoffman?

  So David, at times during the weekly roll up, which is our Friday news episode, topics like we've been talking about have come up and I've described you as like an advisor to the Trump campaigns and their crypto policy. I don't even know if that's actually accurate. Like, I think the vibe is right. Is there like, maybe you just had a relationship with the Trump campaign post Bitcoin 2024. Is there like a formal engagement? Are you like a formal advisor or is it just like a vibe? Like, what's the deal here?

• 38:57Speaker 00

  I'm like, uh, what do you call it? A, a, a token advisor where you know, you just get an allocation, but you don't actually.

• 39:09Speaker 00

  I would say advisor is the appropriate term at this, at this point. Um, I think we're figuring out where we go from here with the Trump campaign. Um, you know, the president's establishing a working group for the industry. Um, we really want to see him, uh, be elected and, and fulfill on his campaign promises. And we also think that there's a lot more to come. There's a lot more that can be achieved with, um, with Trump. And so if we can deliver for him, I think he'll deliver for us. Um, and so, uh, yeah, I think, I think informal advisor is an, uh, an appropriate, appropriate title.

• 39:45Ryan Sean Adams?

  David, what do you think of people who kind of dismiss this? So they see, you know, Trump's pro crypto reactions, like the quotes are real, him showing up at conferences, uh, crypto conferences, no, no presidential nominee has ever done that. No one of that rank in US politics has ever done that. Not only did he do that, he did that two weeks after an assassination attempt where like it took, uh, it was, it was higher stakes for him to show up in person anywhere. Uh, people see all of this. Some people see all of this and say, it's a politician. He's just pandering. What, what do you do with that take that all of this is just like pandering?

• 40:22Speaker 00

  I guess I'm confused what politics is supposed to be. I mean, I thought politics is where you show up and you figure out what the voters want. And then you make promises to the voters that if you elect me, I'm going to achieve these things for you. And if you talk to the right part of the population and they make up a large enough percentage of the voter base, then you get elected. I thought that was like the whole point of an election. I don't know what else it's supposed to be.

• 40:44Ryan Sean Adams?

  I've said there that that makes sense. Basically, the entire political project is, is pandering in order to solicit coalitions of voters and.

• 40:51Speaker 00

  Well, there's illegitimate and legitimate pandering, I guess. Yeah. According to these people. They say what you like and illegitimate pandering is when they say what you don't like, you know? I mean, I, I, I think, you know, people who would accuse him of pandering, I think are people who are probably of the, a different political. Affiliation and are probably upset to see someone that they dislike winning so much support from our industry. And they're trying to work through, you know, cognitive dissidents around that topic. And so they kind of explain away his participation in working with us as like, oh, it's all fake. When they don't sit there and put any sort of self-reflection on maybe all the things that the politician you do like tells you is also all fake. And maybe the whole political system is all fake.

• 41:34Speaker 00

  And it's just a process of, of, you know, different constituencies expressing themselves. And, and those that have the most influence and voice ultimately rise to the top. I mean, I think that's, that's the dynamics of what politics is. It's a messy thing. And, you know, I think what you want in a politician is a politician that makes promises and then delivers on the promises. And I think, you know, Donald Trump, like people say all sorts of things about Donald Trump. I actually think if you look at his track record, he has a great track record of delivering on campaign promises way better than the average politician. Um, and, you know, things where people are like, you're never going to deliver on Space Force. You're never going to deliver on, on building the wall or you're never going to deliver on rewriting NAFTA.

• 42:18Speaker 00

  You're never going to deliver on tearing up like, you know, the, I mean, he did so many things that people thought. Once he did them like were insane to do, but like he said he was going to do them and he did them. So you were asking a question earlier that I think is, is, uh, you hit on it a little bit, but we, I, we didn't talk about it, which was like. As Bitcoin people, as crypto people, like we should, you know, we don't trust the political system. Like we got into creating money, separating money in state. And is this like a sacrifice of that idea? Absolutely not. It's, it's not, it's not any compromising of that idea. In fact, like Donald Trump saying that he likes Bitcoin has zero effect on Bitcoin, the technology whatsoever.

• 43:02Speaker 00

  Like zero effect, like the only thing that it does is it changes the political environment in which a subset of users of that technology exist. And it accelerates the timeline for that technology to be adopted in that jurisdiction. That's it. And everything else is meaningless. Like, it has zero effect on the technology. So like, I actually don't understand why we would not play this game. Why we would not engage in the political process, because it's like, what do we have to lose? Oh, we like, maybe promises get made that don't get delivered to us? Boo hoo. You know, like, so what if that happens? Like, it's better for us to try through a political process to achieve our ends and fail

• 43:45Speaker 00

  than it is to not participate at all and definitely fail.

• 43:48Ryan Sean Adams?

  That that's definitely been the take that we've had in general about like, like encouragement of bankless listeners in the crypto community to get involved in in politics. And because like, if the US is anti crypto, crypto will be totally fine. Bitcoin will be fine. Ethereum will be fine. But the US might not be.

• 44:06David Hoffman?

  But we might not be.

• 44:07Ryan Sean Adams?

  So it's like, it's kind of like, if you're in a country and you live in, you actually care about that country, you're sort of voting to help the US, right? Is the technology is going to be a big deal? And do you want your country missing out on this? And also, it's not just a technology. It's about values that are written in our constitution as well. It's about like, free speech and property rights. And that's being eroded in the digital realm, too. And so basically, if you care about America, you should be pro crypto, is the take we've had.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  Even if you don't care about America, it's even bigger than America. Because whatever America does, it creates a reaction.

• 44:41Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yep.

• 44:41Speaker 00

  So, you know, if American presidential candidates are talking about endorsing Bitcoin as a strategic asset to the United States, then every country in the world hears that. You know, like, if America is making a move into a certain industry, every other country is evaluating their own domestic priorities and saying, well, what are we doing about Bitcoin? What are we doing about crypto? Because the United States is going to run away with this if we don't do something. So it actually creates, even if you don't care about American domestic, you know, reality, or, you know, what it's like for American Bitcoiners and crypto holders. What happens here reverberates throughout the entire global market.

• 45:18David Hoffman?

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• 46:02David Hoffman?

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• 46:47David Hoffman?

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• 47:31David Hoffman?

  So you pay the least possible amount of taxes while still maintaining legal compliance. With toku's guidance, you can concentrate on building your company while toku handles the logistics. Token launches don't have to be complicated. Talk to toku today to get a free initial token valuation. One last story out of Bitcoin 2024 that I want to bring up was, how close was Kamala actually coming to speaking at Bitcoin 2024? How real was that?

• 47:54Speaker 00

  Real, but I can't describe it as close because, you know, we never talked to her directly ourselves. And there was a lot of, let's say, there's a lot of different people, I think, in her orbit. And the power structure of that orbit is not clear. Like, it's not clear who's the shot caller and who's not. And so one person can say something and that doesn't mean that someone else agrees with it. And it's not clear which of those people actually is like calling the shots or whatever. So I think her, it was maybe, you know, I won't say to her credit, but like the, the, there was a lot of, let's say,

• 48:37Speaker 00

  chaos in the week of her kind of taking over from Biden. And so, you know, I, I can't say that she got on the phone with us and told her, told us no, she wasn't going to do it. But I can say that there are people in her core team who said that. And so, and, and stopped it.

• 48:58Ryan Sean Adams?

  Would she have been welcomed, David?

• 48:59Speaker 00

  You know, I haven't spent a lot of time on that question because it never came to be. The, would she have been welcomed? Like, we welcome all political groups. We had Democrats at the conference that spoke. We had independents at the conference that spoke. Like, we, we hope one day to have the leading Democratic presidential nominee speak. But at the same time, you know, what we don't want to do is have someone come and deceive our industry about their support. And, you know, be actively fucking over our industry and then pretend that that's not the case and, and mea culpa and use that as a platform to take away momentum from her

• 49:42Speaker 00

  political, um, uh, her political competitor. When, you know, what we need is like, we need this to be a decisive election, uh, for this issue to become a bipartisan. And if we allow it to get muddied with someone making kind of false claims of, of support when they're like actively running the administration. I mean, she's like in charge. Um, I don't know. I don't think that's, that's really a positive thing. Now, if she, you know, she wanted to have like a political masterclass, what she should have done is like, you know, she should have showed up to the conference with like Ross Ulbricht with her and like she should have like, you know, uh, had, um, uh, Biden call Gary Gensler to Washington

• 50:26Speaker 00

  to let him know that he's being dismissed.

• 50:28Ryan Sean Adams?

  Livestream his fire, the firing of Gary Gensler.

• 50:31Speaker 00

  And like if that, if she had shown up to Nashville like that, everybody would have been like, oh shit, like you have like our full and undivided attention. This is interesting. So it's not that, you know, like I want Bitcoin, Bitcoin will be a bipartisan issue. Crypto will be a bipartisan issue in time, but like, um, we can't let someone who's actively in charge, like just like do a Zoom call. And it's like, okay, you know, it's all Gucci now. Everything is equal between the two parties.

• 51:00Ryan Sean Adams?

  But as, as conference organizers, you, you would have had her, uh, is what you're saying, David. I mean, I can imagine unless she came to the table with like something incredibly audacious by the standards of like politicians, like I'm firing Gary Gensler or here's, you know, like we're going to free Ross under, you know, like the Biden administration or something today.

• 51:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:21Ryan Sean Adams?

  I would imagine that the reception from the crowd would have been.

• 51:24Speaker 00

  Would have been tough.

• 51:24Ryan Sean Adams?

  It would have been tough. It would have been boos. It would have been.

• 51:28Speaker 00

  Unfriendly territory.

• 51:29Ryan Sean Adams?

  Fire Gensler. Like, like I can imagine chants like this going on. All of this though culminates in a discussion, I think we've seen, uh, you play out because I think there's probably some listeners who are, you know, like maybe never Trumpers who are listening to this or ask you like Democrat or something like this, not single issue voters on, on crypto, uh, let's say, and they're really uncomfortable with this idea in crypto that we have to kind of like quote unquote, pick a side. What's your take on that, David? Do you think, do you think we have to pick a side?

• 52:01Speaker 00

  No, we're not picking a side. We're we're we're single issue voters. I mean, that's the thing. We're single issue voters. That's what we care about. And if one side wants to cater to our single issue, then they're going to win our votes. It's that simple. And it's like, if you want to win our votes, you need to also, like, if the other side wants to win our votes, it's super simple. The formula is super simple. Just cater to the thing we care about. That's it. So, you know, they can't be like, hey, well, we shouldn't have to cater to the things we care about. And we expect you to also vote for us anyway. It's like, what is that? Like, I don't even understand what, how that's a defensible argument. So, you know, it's it's, I think, like, my personal opinion is like, we, like, Trump wins this election. Like, we spank the Democrats.

• 52:46Speaker 00

  Our industry shows up with millions of votes for one party and tens and tens of millions of dollars for that party. There is fresh leadership that comes into the Democratic Party to pick up the pieces after losing this election. And that fresh leadership looks at this issue and they're saying, what are we doing on this issue? Like, this is a voter base that is actually skews liberal. It's a voter base that's young and tech savvy. And and in general is progressive on a lot of issues. Like, this should be a clean, clear win for us. Let's change the political positioning of our party, just like the Republicans changed their political positioning on the topic. And this issue no longer is a partisan issue.

• 53:27Speaker 00

  And then it'll be like, okay, well, whoever wins our single issue votes is who's the best candidate, who who who promises the most stuff. And so, you know, I I think, like, Democrats as a whole, the Democratic Party is not anti evangelical Christians. You know, the Democratic Party is not anti guns, like, you know, like, there might be parts of it that are that are anti guns. But, you know, Bernie Sanders, last I checked, will like, show you his shotgun that he uses to go and hunt with. So I think that this is, as a topic, will become bipartisan only when it's made clear that being anti Bitcoin and anti crypto is just not a viable political position. And, you know, I tweeted something the other day. It's like, Like, there's not an anti-internet like

• 54:12Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, it's

• 54:13Speaker 00

  Political party, you know, it's just not viable. Maybe there was like one election and then like, once that just became clear, like that's just not a winning solution. The internet's bipartisan. So I think Bitcoin and crypto will be the same.

• 54:26Ryan Sean Adams?

  I think that, I mean, the Democrats have certainly pivoted from the 90s where they were very pro-internet, pro-innovation. So were the Republicans. It was just bipartisan, nonpartisan issue to be like internet supportive. Of course you were like, do you not care about the US economy? Any politician who, who, who didn't care about those issues? It was suicide. What, what about for some people who hear you make that case and say, yeah, but David, what if he loses, man? You're putting all your eggs in that basket. So if Trump loses, now have we burned the bridges with the Democrat Party? With all of the rhetoric up into the election, kind of all of the political donations and investments. And now we're foobar, man, because we've got, you know, Kamala Harris as president and we've just allied with her enemy.

• 55:09Speaker 00

  First off, we need to win. Okay. It's like, we need to win. And now we like, we need to win as an industry. But, you know, my general answer to that would be, we were already foobar. We were already fucked. You know, they, they were already coming at us hard. And, you know, are they going to come at us harder now if she wins after Trump speaking at the conference? And us raising a little bit of money for them? Maybe a little bit harder, but I mean, there's not a lot more that they can do over what they were already doing. I mean, the, what? Take Operation Choke Point up another notch, you know? I mean, so, uh, you know, it's a, it's a possibility that there are things that, that maybe they wouldn't have prioritized

• 55:53Speaker 00

  coming after us and maybe they prioritize it a little bit more. But I think that we were already on a very bad path with the political establishment, specifically on the Democratic Party side. And we needed to change, change the dynamic and we've changed it. And so now like, we have like, uh, we could sue for peace, you know, now, and we could probably get some, some. Constellation prizes or something like that, like we could probably get some like, you know, pity, pity stuff from the Democratic Party. I don't think that that's the play. Um, and, uh, I think we need to go all in on, um, making the biggest possible impact in the,

• 56:35Speaker 00

  in the election dynamic. Um, and then we need to, we need to capture the data as much as possible around how big of an impact we made. And then we need to sell that impact for every future election that happens. This is how much of an impact we, we made. This is how many people we turned out. This is how many dollars that we raised. And if you want this unlocked for your political campaign, you need to align yourself with us. And it doesn't matter if you're Democrat or Republican. I do think that there's also a lot of work that needs to be done on developing the progressive talking points for Bitcoin, which there is a strong progressive case, but like, it's not told enough. And I think that those talking points need to be made because they're like, um, a Democrat is not going to support Bitcoin

• 57:19Speaker 00

  in the same way that Donald Trump supports Bitcoin. And so like, we need to give, we need to make it brand safe for them, if that makes sense.

• 57:26Ryan Sean Adams?

  It does make sense. Yeah. We're, we're, um, you know, bankless, our podcast, we're just, uh, open like to conversations with, with any pro crypto candidate. We're having Ro Khanna on the episode. We've had a number of Republicans on the podcast here lately. We're having Ro Khanna on the episode. All right. So, so here's the thing, David, I'm, I'm a little bit surprised about like, and I want to know if, if you're kind of equally surprised. Um, Biden, of course, anti crypto agenda did not really, you know, say anything meaningful, meaningfully different. He was kind of like asleep at the wheel or, or whatever. Harris had an opportunity to kind of rejuvenate the party. And there's this like free real estate here. So what Trump has demonstrated, I think, in eyes of everyone being like, kind of shifting to pro crypto, is that there's donation, there's donor money, and there's

• 58:10Ryan Sean Adams?

  also energy, voter appetite and energy on this issue of crypto. And there are, there, there's some, um, number which Trump believes is big of, uh, you know, single issue voters with respect to crypto. It's basically like David and I've called it, it's free real estate, man. If you're a politician, you're trying to build a coalition, you're trying to get Get elected, right? And the only thing that Democrats would actually have to do to nullify this web wedge issue that the Republicans have helped like create and have exposed here is just to do some positive things for crypto. And it's not that political.

• 58:46Speaker 00

  Do something.

• 58:47Ryan Sean Adams?

  Say something at least, right? And the crypto industry could be, but those are just words. They're not even speaking the words. I mean, ideally, we want Gary Gensler, you know, like out of office. We need, we need a complete 180. We need this embedded in policy. Here's what I'm doing day one. We need all of the things. And they're doing nothing. It's been radio silent so far. And if you're just like game theorizing, aren't you trying to win? Like, it feels like an easy issue to just be pro crypto. Why is this so difficult?

• 59:15Speaker 00

  You know, that's a great question. And I think the longer they go silent on the topic, the bigger the middle finger is that they're making to us. And, you know, I like, Joe Biden does not have an opinion on on crypto. Like, Joe Biden doesn't even know what this is. Yeah. But the, it is really like Elizabeth Warren has monopolized the Democratic Party's position on financial topics. And she has led them completely astray. And I think that Kamala not saying anything is a signal that the Warren, the Warren camp is still in control. And I think that that's

• 59:56Speaker 00

  a problem for us. And, and, you know, I think Warren, someone asked Warren about like a Democrat pivot. And she was like, I don't see, I don't see the Democratic Party pivoting to support.

• 1:00:08Ryan Sean Adams?

  She brought up Sam Bankman Freed or something. I saw this quote, right?

• 1:00:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, like criminals and and tax evaders and ransomware scam. You know, like, yeah, so.

• 1:00:22Ryan Sean Adams?

  This was a recent quote, by the way.

• 1:00:24Speaker 00

  Recent quote. And, and I've actually, you know, I had a conversation with a huge Democrat donor. I won't dox who they are, but had been a big donor, had had played the game, let's say, and had been completely thrown under the bus by the, by the SEC, and was supporting Kamala under Biden, and had gone to several events that that she had hosted. And someone asked her, why is your campaign not accepting, why was the Biden campaign not accepting Bitcoin or crypto for donations? She was like, we're not going to accept money from criminals. And so like, you know, she hadn't said that publicly, but she said that privately. So, you know, I think it seems like such a simple win.

• 1:01:09Speaker 00

  The fact that they won't even give like even an inch just tells you like, we really need to win in November.

• 1:01:16David Hoffman?

  Well, David, I think we all kind of share this opinion that all of this political fighting, all of this drossling for getting Bitcoin into the into the ballot box is inevitably the technology wins no matter what. And this is just bumps along the road to get there. At the very beginning of this podcast episode, you said that Bitcoin is is the biggest idea. I've heard through our mutual friend CK that you are one of the more bullish people on Bitcoin that's out there in existence.

• 1:01:45Ryan Sean Adams?

  There's a lot of bullish people too.

• 1:01:47David Hoffman?

  There's a lot of bullish people about Bitcoin. What is this big Bitcoin idea? Why so dedicated to Bitcoin? Why so convicted? For the podcast listeners out there, David here is wearing a Make Bitcoin Great Again hat. I'm getting a sense that there's a there's a very big idea about Bitcoin behind that hat. And I'm hoping to get that out of you.

• 1:02:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's the the big idea, the bank on fire. So.

• 1:02:12David Hoffman?

  Oh, is that what that is?

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  So, yeah, I mean, I think I think there's a lot of things that are going on that are bullish for Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin is in the process of becoming the most liquid asset in the world. And as it becomes the most liquid asset, it becomes the de facto reserve currency of the world. And I see the dynamic that's playing out with Trump right now. I see it actually playing out in other countries. And I think that within the next six months to 12 months, you're going to have multiple countries embracing Bitcoin as a strategic asset, announcing Bitcoin, you know, strategic reserves. And I think that once the space race kicks off for Bitcoin, the the pace of acceleration is going to be insane.

• 1:03:00Speaker 00

  And I think once you have multiple multiple central banks buying Bitcoin simultaneously, this thing is just going to to to rip and it's just a magnet. Of liquidity, of attention, of political capital. And the amount of Bitcoin on the balance sheet of Fortune 500 companies is only going to grow. I think right now it's under 0.1% of the S and P 500 is Bitcoin. I think, you know, within the next four years, five years, that number is going to be closer to 10% of the S and P 500 will be Bitcoin. And so, you know, I think that that in general is going to create a pretty unique situation. And, you know, I'm bearish on the legacy system.

• 1:03:45Speaker 00

  I'm bearish on what the global environment is going to look like by 2030. And, you know, I'm personally someone who is like, maybe you could put me in the doom camp of like, I see world war like on the horizon. You know, maybe when the history books are written, they would consider what's going on right now, the starts of it. And I think Bitcoin will shine in this environment of distrust. And I think I'm very bullish on Bitcoin's future. You know, I have this, my Twitter bio right now, this is like the short term, the short term. Like, you know, Bitcoin, the floor price of Bitcoin, the floor price is $650,000 per Bitcoin.

• 1:04:29Speaker 00

  Like, there's no justifiable reason for Bitcoin to be less than that. And that's the market capitalization of gold. You know, if you divide it by 21 million, it's $650,000. So, you know, Bitcoin at the very minimum is gold, but it's gold that can be teleported anywhere in the world. It's gold that, you know, has a definite supply rather than, you know, the gold supply increases like 2% per year, which, you know, means it's doubling every 35 years. It's gold that you can verify instantly whether it's real or not. It's gold that you can spend over the internet. So it's like better than gold, really in like every different parameter possible. It has cheaper to store than gold is.

• 1:05:14Speaker 00

  So it should be worth at least what gold is worth, at least. So that's 650,000, that's the floor price of Bitcoin. Anything below 650K is just insanity and you should just buy it, so.

• 1:05:28David Hoffman?

  I remember getting into crypto in 2017, 2018, the Bitcoiner believers back then would say that eventually, central banks, Federal Reserves would all be playing chicken with each other, which I thought back in 2018 was just nuts. I was just like, that's crazy. Bitcoin, we're so, which is such a small industry, yet here we are. How many years later is that now? Six years, seven years later? And now it does kind of feel like we're on the cusp of that actually get that game of chicken kind of unfolding.

• 1:05:56Speaker 00

  I know of a central bank right now that's accumulating Bitcoin. That's a large one. So, you know, they're

• 1:06:03David Hoffman?

  Larger than El Salvador?

• 1:06:05Speaker 00

  Larger than El Salvador, you know, larger than 50 El Salvador's. So, there are, it's happening. It's in the very early stages of unfolding.

• 1:06:14David Hoffman?

  Well, David, the bankless nation, there you have it. One of the more bullish Bitcoiners out there. David, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it.

• 1:06:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, guys. Well, thank you for having me on. And, and you know, whenever your ETH bags are get too heavy and you're all ready to trade us Bitcoin, you let me know.

• 1:06:30Ryan Sean Adams?

  We're just hoping you guys will pull our bags up. All right, David?

• 1:06:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. All right. Cool. Thank you for having me on.

• 1:06:38David Hoffman?

  Of course. Thanks, David. Bankless Nation, you guys know the deal. Crypto is risky. Bitcoin is risky. You can lose what you put in, but we're headed west. It's not for everyone, but it's frontier and we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot.