#577 Scott Harrison on the Bitcoin Water Trust

Scott Harrison is the founder and current CEO of the non-profit charity: water. Harrison is the author of Thirst: A Story of Redemption, Compassion, and a Mission to Bring Clean Water to the World. In this conversation, we discuss charity water, non-profits, the bitcoin water trust, and doing good in the world after achieving enough. ======================= Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments, commerce and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USD Coin (USDC), the fastest growing, fully reserved and regulated dollar stablecoin in the world. The free Circle Account and suite of platform API services bridge the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading, DeFi, and NFT marketplaces. Create seamless, user-friendly, mainstream customer experiences with crypto-native infrastructure under the hood with Circle. Learn more at circle.com ======================= Exodus is an absolute game changer in the crypto wallet space, and we’ve teamed up to offer an exclusive discount for you, as listeners of the podcast. Sign up for Exodus today using my promo code Exodus.com/pomp. This is a no brainer for both newcomers and crypto heavyweights - go sign up today. =======================

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

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Scott Harrison is the founder and current CEO of the nonprofit Charity Water. Harrison is also the author of Thirst: A Story of Redemption, Compassion, and a Mission to Bring Clean Water to the World. In this episode, we discuss charity water, nonprofits, the Bitcoin Water Trust, and doing good in the world after achieving enough. I really enjoyed this conversation with Scott, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is Circle. Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness

• 0:47Anthony Pompliano?

  the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments, commerce, and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USD Coin, USDC, which is the fastest-growing, regulated, fully-reserved dollar stablecoin in the world, now standing at more than $15 billion market cap, and adding nearly $300 million of net new digital dollars in circulation every week. The free Circle account and suite of platform API services bridge the gap between traditional payments and crypto trading for DeFi, NFTs, and crypto trading. Learn more at circle.com. Again, go to circle.com and check it out today. I've had Jeremy, their CEO, on the podcast before. I'm a really big fan, and I think that you'll really appreciate

• 1:30Anthony Pompliano?

  the awesome growth from the products that they've built over at Circle, circle.com. Next up is Exodus. Exodus is leading the world out of the traditional financial system by building beautiful and user-friendly blockchain products. With its focus on design and user experience, Exodus has become one of the most popular and loved cryptocurrency apps. It's supported on both desktop and mobile, allowing you to sync your wallet across multiple devices, so you can have access to your funds anywhere. You can instantly exchange around 100 different cryptocurrencies, straight from.

• 2:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Your wallets, duh. Interactive Charts lets you view an asset's price history and your portfolio's performance over time. And maybe the best part, Exodus is integrated with the Treasure Hardware Wallet, making advanced security easy for everyone. Visit exodus.com/pomp for your free download, or search Exodus on the App Store or the Play Store. Again, exodus.com/pomp for your free download, or search Exodus on the App Store or the Play Store. All right, let's get into this episode with Scott. I hope you enjoy this one.

• 2:30Speaker 01

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

• 2:59Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. Got Scott here. Thank you so much for doing this.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  What's up, man? Miami. Good to be here.

• 3:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Although we both have all black on.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  I was just joking. You know the New Yorkers.

• 3:09Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. You've done some incredible work with Charity Water, but you had a whole life before Charity Water. Let's just start there.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:17Anthony Pompliano?

  What did you do for the 10 years before Charity Water?

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Well, I was born in Philadelphia. I was raised in a very conservative Christian home. My mom was an invalid. From the time that I was four, there was this weird carbon oxide gas leak, which is a much longer story. But I really moved to New York City to rebel against all of that, you know, give the middle finger to the church and the rules. And I found out there was this remarkable job called a nightclub promoter where you could rebel in style. And if you were good at this job, you would get paid to drink alcohol in public. You'd drink for free. All your friends would drink for free. So, you know, to the horror of my parents and, you know, the church community, here I am in New York City, at the beginning of the bottle service era, models and bottles, as it later became called.

• 4:07Anthony Pompliano?

  And so what you basically are like walking around New York City, trying to meet Like rich people who like to party or beautiful girls and then get them to come to

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, basically.

• 4:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, basically.

• 4:16Speaker 02

  Okay. And and if and if you can put those two things together, you know, you also need the right DJ. The theme, you need to make it interesting. You need to be at the right club. But the promoters uh create the party, the environment, and then they just move. So we were venue agnostic. So over the 10 years, I worked at 40 different clubs. So we would come to your club, we'd bring all the people, you know, we'd try to ring 50 Gs in booths. Uh, and then the minute our group got tired of that club, we'd look for the next club.

• 4:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  And and then you would be able, you know, the the scarcity, right, of of not letting people in and the velvet rope would then allow you to make a bunch of money to just charge everybody afterwards. So that was 10 years and look, I I was chasing all the markers of success, the car, the watch, the model girlfriends, the you know, flying on somebody's private plane to Paris and Milan and buzios Brazil. I mean, just it was the whole lifestyle and

• 5:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Was it fun?

• 5:14Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, it was, but it, you know, it was almost it was almost like the frog in in water getting boiled. So it started with smoking and then it was two packs a day and then it was drinking. And then it was gambling and then it was coke and then it was X and then it was MDMA. And then the next thing you know, you know, you zoom out on your life and I was this despicable, selfish, hedonistic, sycophantic scumbag. And my tombstone was gonna read, here lies a man who has gotten a million people drunk. That was the only positive. I mean, there was no positive impact. There was no legacy. And I'd actually, it was so far of a departure from the morality and the spirituality I've been brought up with. So I had this moment at 28. I was in Punta de Lesta, partying in South America.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  We'd rented this compound. My girlfriend was in the cover of a fashion magazine. We had a yacht that came with a compound, people serving us. And I'm like, this is, this is not how I want my life to, to be. It was like the, a game of musical chairs and the music stopped and for the first time, there was nowhere to sit. And I came back to New York City. I said, I'm the worst person I know. I'm spiritually bankrupt. I'm morally bankrupt. I need to start over. And I, I sold everything I owned and tried to start over. And the only idea I had at the time was to try to find the exact 180 opposite of my life. So not a, not a pivot, not a, a small course correction. Just freaking do everything exactly opposite.

• 6:43Speaker 02

  And my idea was to go volunteer on a humanitarian something, right? To, to go serve people in need and see if I could be useful.

• 6:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Not serve them alcohol.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Not serve them alcohol. Exactly, exactly. So, you know, you can imagine, you know, I'm, I'm 28. I'm applying to Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, Save the Children. You know, these, these organizations I've tangentially heard of and no one will take me. Of course, I'm denied by 10 groups. And then finally, one organization says, if I'm willing to pay them $500 a month and go live in post-war Liberia, then I can join them. So I'm like, this is it. It's opposite. I'm gonna pay to volunteer and I'm going to the poorest country in the world at that time that had just come out of a 14-year civil war. So that was basically what started this new chapter. Uh, you probably would not have wanted to, to, to talk to me during the, the 10-decennant years. But I, I went to West Africa.

• 7:39Speaker 02

  I was immediately in a country with no electricity, no running water, no sewage. I'd never seen poverty before. And, uh, and I learned half the country was drinking from swamps and ponds and rivers. And I'd never seen humans drink dirty water before. Um, we were joking earlier, you know, I used to sell vase for $10 a bottle in clubs and people wouldn't even open the water. They would just order 10 bottles, let it sit there and drink champagne instead. So I, I learned that, you know, half the, 50% of the people living in the country were drinking disgusting, dirty, contaminated water. And 50% of the disease in the country was because of bad water. So I wound up finishing a year, turning it into two years. And at the end of two years, I was like, I have to do something about it.

• 8:23Speaker 02

  There's a responsibility to do something about what I'd seen, specifically this issue. And I came back at 30 and said, I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try to bring clean water to everybody on the planet. I'm broke. I'm living on a closet floor in New York City in Spring and Mercer at the time. Because I'd given all my money to the organization and the people I'd met. But I had this very clear vision that everybody in the world needed clean water to drink.

• 8:53Anthony Pompliano?

  And so what's the first thing you do when you come back? And you're like, I'm gonna go try to solve this. Because that's a really, really big goal.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I had, so there was something about having the pictures. I'd taken 50,000 photos. So my, my role on that, it was actually a hospital ship. My role was as a photojournalist. So I was paying $500 a month to take pictures and write stories of the impactful work these humanitarians were doing. So I came back and I would go out to the clubs at first and I would open up a laptop and I would make like six or seven presentations a night. And people were kicking me out of DJ booths. They're like, bro, you're killing my buzz. You know, just, can you just have fun? Like, I'll give some money to your charity, but like, get out of here. So I just did that again and again. And enough people would give or would make an introduction. And I, I had the advantage of talking to everyday people who worked at Chase Bank

• 9:44Speaker 02

  or MTV or VH1 at the time, or, you know, the Sephora. And, or in fashion or music. And I realized almost all of my friends, almost everybody I talked to, didn't trust charities. They were cynical, they were skeptical, they believed charities were opaque and not transparent. They said, well, where's my money actually going? How much would even get to the people that are, that are suffering? And I thought, wow, this is a huge opportunity for a paradigm shift for a new business model. What if a charity could reach out to all these skeptics and cynics? And say, we're going to do things completely different and encourage them to give. So really, the the the big idea when I started Charity Water, and this is 14 years ago,

• 10:28Speaker 02

  was just this very simple promise to use 100% of all donations that we would ever get to directly fund projects that got people clean water. And then in a separately audited bank account, I would go raise the overhead from, you know, investors or entrepreneurs or visionary people who knew that they're actually, you know, you need to have a staff and you need to have an office. But that kind of separation of church and state was very unique at the time. That then kind of led to this realization that with non-fungible business models or two separate accounts, we could use technology to track where donations went. So we were the first charity just to geolocate all of our wells.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  So I could say to you, you know, here is exactly where your donation went. Here's a satellite image of your well in Malawi, or in Ethiopia, or in Guatemala. And, you know, we started to just prove where the money went. And we could prove where a $9 donation went. And people just loved it, you know, they loved this kind of transparency. So we put that together and, you know, we we believed that for the work to be sustainable, it had to be led by locals. So we said, you know, we're going to raise awareness, we're going to raise money as efficiently as possible, but then it's got to be Ethiopians actually drilling the wells in that country, or Cambodians in Cambodia. So I threw a party to start it off at a nightclub. That was day one. I got 700 people to come.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  I gave them open bar for an hour. And then on the way in, there was this giant Plexi cube, and you had to donate $20 to walk in the club. And we collected 15,000 in cash that night. We immediately took it to a refugee camp. We did our first wells. And then we sent the photo and video proof to the 700 people. And we said, you came to a party, you may not even remember coming to the party, but you did, and you gave $20, and your money helped these communities get clean water. And the response was...

• 12:28Speaker 02

  So kind of overwhelming. We said, let's just keep doing this over and over again. Let's show people where their money goes and we can grow the movement.

• 12:35Anthony Pompliano?

  And when you start doing this, do people understand the clean water problem? Or are they just trying to like, go to the club, go to the party? And it almost like, didn't matter if they really knew where the money was going or not. It was more so just, you knew what it would take to raise capital? And then over time, you could kind of tell the story?

• 12:51Speaker 02

  It was, exactly. I think you said it, you said it perfectly. This is not, I remember having to speak after the head of a cancer charity once. It was a big conference, 10,000 people. And he walks out on stage and he says, how many people here have had cancer? And some hands go up. And he said, okay, how about a family member? More hands up. How about a friend or a loved one? The entire audience. And then he starts his speech, right? It's not true for dirty water. I mean, how many people have had to drink dirty water? Or walk eight hours? Or, you know, experience a child dying of diarrhea? You know, because they, they drank from a swamp. You know, it's nobody that I talked to. So, yeah, that became kind of the first challenge that we would have to build awareness.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  I mean, you know, as we record this, 785 million people are drinking bad water. So, you know, as, as I'm here in Miami at a Bitcoin conference, right? With thousands of people talking about, you know, the, the state of, of finance and the future of technology. Like 10% of the world is drinking dirty water. 10% of the world doesn't have the most basic needs. It's just not something people think about. You know, we take water for granted. We take our long showers and we have water in bottles for convenience. And so that's been, that was really the second thing that we had to do, was create these campaigns, these awareness moments. We created PSAs where New Yorkers would go to Central Park Pond. Actually, Jennifer Connolly was in our first PSA.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  And I convinced Terry George from Hotel Rwanda to direct it. And we put on this like, million dollar commercial for 20 grand. Balthazar catered it for free. It was awesome. And she takes her children all the way from Tribeca to Central Park. And she waits in line and she gets nasty green water. And then she gives it to them. And you know, we ran that on American Idol to millions of people in a million dollar donated time slot, and that took over the homepage of YouTube for World Water Day. So we were doing all these kind of scrappy, edgy awareness building initiatives that then started to get people to think about water.

• 15:02Anthony Pompliano?

  A lot of the donors are in the technology community, right? So investors, entrepreneurs, people who work at tech companies, etc. How did you get that subset of people interested in this? Was it just like one or two folks and then they kind of brought their friends?

• 15:16Speaker 02

  It was a cold email. It was the first one. I had come across a guy named Michael Birch, who had just sold Bebo to AOL for $850 million. And I just wrote him. I said, hey, I'm a 31 year old kid. I've got a vision to give everybody clean drinking water. I'd love to meet you. And he actually responded and said, okay, I'll come into the office. And this is really, we may not even have time for this, but at that moment, I was about a year and a half into charity water, and I'd raised so much money for the water projects that was working. The 100% model was working, but it was really hard to raise the overhead.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  And I had this moment where I had $881,000 in the bank account that I couldn't touch, right? That was going to go out and build 80 wells and two weeks of payroll. And you know, the advice I was getting from everyone at the time was go borrow against the 880, you'll pay it back later. You got to pay your people. You have to make payroll. And I was like, no, I will shut the charity down and send the 880 grand out. Like, if we borrow one penny, we have betrayed the trust of the public like this. There'll be a crack in the foundation. We should all resign in shame. So I was actually talking to lawyers at that moment. This is after the cold email. And Michael walks in the office at that moment. I remember having what I thought was a two hour terrible meeting with him, where he

• 16:38Speaker 02

  didn't seem to really like what I was doing. And then he left and the next day he wired a million dollars in the overhead account.

• 16:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Really?

• 16:45Speaker 02

  He said, I love what you're doing. It was a year of capital. So we had, so that, he was kind of like, you know, tech entrepreneur number one. Then he made a couple intros. Then I remember speaking at Twitter when there were 48 employees. The very beginning of the company. We were the first charity on Instagram. Day one. I remember speaking at Facebook's old University Avenue campus. So it was, it was the early age of social media and I just believe that for us to succeed at our movement, we would have to grow it online. And, you know, we were early there. So we were the first charity to get a million Twitter followers at the time and, and built all these campaigns. So that just kind of led me from, you know, to, from, I guess, Jack to Michael Birch to Johnny Ive,

• 17:30Speaker 02

  to Reid Hoffman, to Saka, to, you know, a bunch of these people. And they loved paying for our staff. So when you got the entrepreneur, they actually didn't want their money going out and building wells. They wanted to hire a UI engineer or a UX engineer or, or a water program specialist. So they got it because they'd all built companies. So while it was really hard in the beginning, then these two different value propositions kind of began to maybe solidify. The public, which is now well over a million donors from 150 countries, loved knowing that 100% of their money would go. And then business leaders and entrepreneurs love building the thing and knowing that they were kind of the backers, the builders, they were paying the staff and the people.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  So, but you have to do these things in perfect balance and that was the challenge. Too much money in the overheads account, then you're not efficient. And too much money in the water account, if you miss payroll, then the whole thing crumbles. So it's been, it's been a 14 year dance.

• 18:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Along the way, you took how many Bitcoin in as donations?

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we were early, just, you know, as I mentioned, with a lot of the technology, we were, you know, one of the first charities to use virtual reality. For example, we showed it to thousands of people and we made millions of dollars with our VR film. Bitcoin was the same in 2014. Tony Hawk gave us 4.8 Bitcoin. That then later led to 569 Bitcoin.

• 18:51Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, so Tony Hawk was early.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  He was early.

• 18:54Anthony Pompliano?

  2014, he's handing out Bitcoins to people.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  2014. He came to a gala and I remember we raised a couple million dollars that night and he wanted to pay his gala pledge in Bitcoin. And his gala pledge was 1,500 bucks. So you do the math. I think the math was $312 a coin.

• 19:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 19:10Speaker 02

  So, all 569 Bitcoin. Well, maybe just a little bit of context. So when charities take donations of any kind, the best practice is you immediately sell whatever you were given to put it to charitable use. Right? So if you gave me $100,000 of Apple stock right now, maybe it depreciated. There's a tax benefit for you to do that. I sell it and I go build 10 wells in your name. That's what you want us to do. It's I'm giving the money to further the charitable mission. So we treated Bitcoin just like any other stock or property that we're given. You immediately sell it and then you put the money to work. But, you know, the 569 Bitcoin, we sold for about $4 million. And just over the

• 19:51Speaker 02

  last crazy 30 days, it's 26 to 35 million. Right? So we helped 100,000 people with all that Bitcoin, but we could have helped 600 to 900,000 people. So that's really, you know, that that's where this kind of idea, you know,

• 20:09Anthony Pompliano?

  So 500 Bitcoin that you sold for four to $5 million.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  Four million, 4.4 million dollars, exactly.

• 20:15Anthony Pompliano?

  4.4 million, but it could have been 25 to 35 million if you had held.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Or more in the future, potentially.

• 20:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And you think you helped 100,000 people.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  That's enough to help 110,000 people.

• 20:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  Versus 6 to 900,000.

• 20:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  So 6 to 9x.

• 20:33Anthony Pompliano?

  And all you were doing was just following best practices.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 20:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Right?

• 20:36Speaker 02

  So, you know, I met Pete Brigger was actually the first guy that kind of got charity water thinking about this. And then I met Wences and, you know, a bunch of the early people in the space. And the more I learned about, you know, both Bitcoin and then also how people think, I said, well, we're never going to take in any substantial amount of Bitcoin for philanthropic use if we follow this best practice.

• 21:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Because people don't want to give you the Bitcoin, then have you sell the Bitcoin into cash because their whole thought process is that over time.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  There's a universal, at least I believe, I've experienced, and again, this isn't my core business. I'm running a, at the moment, like a hundred million dollar a year, you know, annual charity that's, that's trying to help two million people a year. But everybody has a universal, long appreciating view of this asset. Right? So nobody thinks that this is where it peaks at 38,000 or wherever it is where we're talking today. However, what I found through a bunch of conversations is if the charity was willing to hold the asset, people would be willing to give it now and let the charity take the appreciation.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  So that's really where this kind of idea came from is could we create a fund that would hold Bitcoin for, you know, a period of time? And we basically said, okay, at least one full cycle, 2025, we're not going to touch it. We're not going to sell it until at least 2025. So give it to us now, take the tax benefit now, right? Because if you, I mean, as you know, so many people, I don't even think they think about it, but if they sell, they're going to have to pay huge capital gains on, on all of it. So we say donate it to us, we will allow it to appreciate, we're going to sit on it till at least 2025, allowing your one Bitcoin to be worth, you know, a lot more in the future philanthropically.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  And you get the tax benefit now, immediately. So that's kind of, so that then, you know, we had some conversations, you were really helpful just with, with advice and, and that's, that's kind of where we landed. So we were launching something, it's called the Bitcoin Water Trust. And then we said, all right, well, I wonder if we can get a hundred people to do one each, like, how do you launch? Right? And then we just started making calls and like, hey, will you do one? Will you do one? Will you do one? Then I said, all right, well then, I wonder if I can get a match behind it. So can we turn one Bitcoin now into two Bitcoin and then we hold both in the future? And then, so this started to work and people started saying, yes, I guess, you know, a lot of the whales, it's.

• 23:08Anthony Pompliano?

  But, but the whole idea behind this, just so people are clear, is the Bitcoin Water Trust is part of Charity Water. And. Folks are donating in Bitcoin.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 23:19Anthony Pompliano?

  They can donate in dollars or anything else and you'll turn it into Bitcoin.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  At the moment, we're working on building where other coins could go to Bitcoin. But the only thing we're holding is Bitcoin.

• 23:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Right now.

• 23:28Anthony Pompliano?

  And then you hold that Bitcoin and you're committed to not selling the Bitcoin for five years.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  Until at least 2025.

• 23:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. And the thought process is it's a full cycle.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 23:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Of the havings.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  It's going to appreciate between now and then.

• 23:43Anthony Pompliano?

  And you will benefit by holding it, just like a corporation would benefit from holding on its balance sheet, just like an individual would benefit from holding it personally. Now, that power is now kind of in your hands as well.

• 23:54Speaker 02

  Right. Now, we could look stupid. So there is a risk. This is a little bit of a swing, right? If we're wrong and all the Bitcoin we collect today that could have helped people immediately get clean water depreciates over time, then we have helped less people get clean water. And that's why charities never do this. Cause like, who are we to, you know, to take any sort of position on anything? So, you know, maybe just one, one last thing, just to jump back in the story. So I've been at this for 14 years now. From that first party at the nightclub, we've raised $550 million. Okay. So we've raised half a billion dollars in fiat.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  And we have incrementalized the organization from 2 million to 6 million to 9 to 16 to 23 to 28 to 35 to 45 to 50 to 70, 90 million last year, a hundred million dollars this year. So it's, you know, we're the largest water charity in America. But dude, we're solving, we're incrementalizing. There's nothing exponential about my experience over the last 14 years, or really the impact that we're able to make. So we have helped 12.7 million people get clean water. Okay. So listen, it's Madison Square Garden 700 times. Okay? So it is 700 back-to-back sold-out shows at the Garden. It's a lot of people. But you put it against the problem I'm trying to solve, it's 1/65.

• 25:15Speaker 02

  So I've done 165, I'm 46 years old now, bro. Like, I want to solve more than 1.6% of the global problem that I had a vision to solve. And half a billion dollars, this is not that much money. I mean, there's, you know, I probably backstage ran into, you know, 14 people that, you know, have a lot more than that. And this is what I've worked 14 years and were considered one of the fastest growing charities in the country and were considered, you know, a picture of rapid acceleration. So the idea here is that, you know, I believe Bitcoin could provide an exponential growth story where because of this strategy, people are willing to give it, both big and small.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  We had, someone's giving us 50 Bitcoin. Actually Tyler and Cameron are matching, the Winklevosses are matching the first 50 Bitcoin of this fund. So I think there's, there's an opportunity for people to, you know, to give in a significant way. And then I want people to be able to give 15 bucks worth of Bitcoin, 60 worth of Bitcoin, you know, $140. And we're, you know, one of the other things that you and I were talking about and you were helpful with is to, the idea is to keep this trust Bitcoin native as well. So we don't imagine in 2025, like just thinking about this in dollar terms, we actually want to spend the money in Bitcoin as we start unlocking the trust and as the Bitcoin starts going out to provide clean water for people, hopefully vastly appreciated in four and a half, five years.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  We don't imagine turning it back into dollars to then turn into Ethiopian birr or the Rwandan franc.

• 26:52Anthony Pompliano?

  The whole idea is take Bitcoin in, hold Bitcoin, and then five years from now or more, when you go to build that well that previously cost $10,000, now you spend a tenth of a Bitcoin, right? Or whatever it is.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  You build 10 wells.

• 27:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Yes. And when you do that, what you're actually able to do is you're able to use a global currency to accept, hold and spend and do it across all these different countries. But what you're really benefiting from is the appreciation of the purchasing. Power.

• 27:25Speaker 02

  Exactly. And you talked about this, you know, why should we suffer the same? So my core business is in US dollars. I'm going to raise a hundred million US dollars this year from a million generous individuals all around the world. But, you know, why should we suffer from the same depreciation with our purchasing power as we're trying to get human beings clean and safe drinking water across 29 countries? So I think there's a lot of things, not only can the Bitcoin appreciate in price as, as we hold it over a period of time.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  You know, like if you give me one Bitcoin today, thank you, you very generously joined the founding group. But if I took your Bitcoin today and I sold it, I can give three communities clean water. That's a lot. And that's significant. And I'm already doing that, you know, people can do that if they want to, if they say, no, actually I've got a lot of Bitcoin and I want to help people now, we'll still allow people to do that. But I really believe in the future, you know, it could be 30 communities with that same Bitcoin. And, you know, would I rather help, you know, 30 communities or 10 communities?

• 28:24Anthony Pompliano?

  So the idea is 100 people are seeding this with one Bitcoin each.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Exactly one.

• 28:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Myself, a whole bunch of other people that folks would recognize, I don't want to say names, they can go on the website, we'll talk about in a second, they can see who's there.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Cameron and Tyler are going to match the first 50, so we'll have 150.

• 28:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep. Winklevoss match 50, you're at 150 now. And then the thought process is that game on, anyone in the world who's listening to this or watching this on the internet, that feels compelled from literally, you know, point 001 Bitcoin, all the way up to 100 Bitcoin.

• 28:58Speaker 02

  And we built a leaderboard, I think we're showing it at point 0005 or something.

• 29:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, so you get on the leaderboard if you give.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  I think it's point 005, it's on the website.

• 29:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  It's about 20 bucks.

• 29:09Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. And so anyone in the world can participate here, and the idea is to get Bitcoin or dollars converted into Bitcoin, sit it in the Bitcoin Water Trust. And that Bitcoin Water Trust is going to hold this, and it's going to have strong hands for five years, and then we're going to go and we're going to start helping people build these wells. But the key being the goal, and there's work to be done, but the goal is to take that Bitcoin and pay it out to people all over the world in these developing countries.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  To buy these water project materials.

• 29:35Anthony Pompliano?

  So if you're the person doing the construction, the architecture, you know, whatever.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  You could go buy PVC or pipe or cement or the drilling rigs.

• 29:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  The, the materials needed.

• 29:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Is all paid in Bitcoin.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  That's the idea. And like you said, there's a long way between now and then, but you know, that's where I think the world is going. And I think we'll, we'll have an opportunity to help with adoption across 29 countries as well.

• 29:58Anthony Pompliano?

  I completely agree. How big do you think it's going to get? How big do you want it to get?

• 30:02Speaker 02

  Well, I'd, I'd like at least a thousand.

• 30:04Anthony Pompliano?

  A thousand Bitcoin.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  So, you know, using the, uh, you know, the, the kind of aspirational goal that a lot of people have with a million a coin, that'd be a billion dollars. And that would get 20 million people clean water. So again, you know, just think, so I've, I've been at it for 14 years. I've helped 12.7 million people. I would love this trust to help 20 million people through small and large donations. And, you know, let's say a thousand feels like a great place to get. I think we'll be at 150 when we get through this founding 100 and they give one and unlocks the match. But it'd be great to have all of these, just a huge amount of participation from around the world. A thousand feels like an awesome place to be.

• 30:45Anthony Pompliano?

  A thousand Bitcoin, a million dollar price point, a billion dollar Bitcoin water trust.

• 30:50Speaker 02

  That helped 20 million humans.

• 30:51Anthony Pompliano?

  20 million on top of the 12 and change that you've already helped, plus what you'll do in the next five years. You'll be somewhere around

• 30:58Speaker 02

  50, 50 million.

• 30:59Anthony Pompliano?

  40, 50 million people, right? Yeah. It's incredible.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  That's the goal. Well, that's a dent. That's a bigger dent. It's a bigger swing.

• 31:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Listen, there's always the pessimist who says, oh, but you're only helping 40 million, 50 million of the 700 million. And then there's the optimist like me who says, well, the person who is the pessimist, they're not doing shit.

• 31:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, we're helping about 5,000 new people every day. So I'm trying to kind of think of, okay, like today, you know, when I sat with you and I sat through, you know, some talks this morning and a bunch of meetings, like by the time, you know, from the morning a full cycle happens, 5,000 new people went from drink, drinking dirty water, putting their lives at risk, the lives of their children at risk to clean water, therefore vastly improving their lives. So that, yes, that's like the KPI. And, and I want 5,000 to go to 6,000 and 9,000 and 15,000 and 20,000.

• 31:52Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about, uh, where this puts charity water moving forward, is there a world where like, if this works, you then go to like all Bitcoin? Or you go dollars in Bitcoin? Or like, you just say, hey, we just want to do it the one time in the one Bitcoin water trust? Or like, is it too early to kind of understand what the pathways there are?

• 32:10Speaker 02

  I mean, listen, getting a bunch of people this far, uh, has not been trivial.

• 32:15Anthony Pompliano?

  I know.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  My board, my finance committee. So, you know, this, this works right now because I'm continuing to run the core business. And it's, it's interesting. The number one concern was really cannibalization. And, you know, as I look at the founding 100 so far, like, you know, you like what we're doing, but you aren't going to go write me a $40,000 check and put it in the mail, or go on charitywater.org and drop 40 Gs with your MX, right? But you're willing to contribute to this trust, you know? If I think of, and I don't want to drop names, but you know, 30 of the, you know, founding 100 are not interested in funding Charity Water Fiat, but they're really interested in this idea

• 32:59Speaker 02

  of watching their donation.

• 33:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Charity Water Fiat, such a bad name.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  But they're, they're interested in the idea of watching their Bitcoin get doubled and then appreciate over time. Also, the, the website we built is cool. It's tracking at any moment how many people will get clean water, how much we're holding in the trust, and we're pegging that against a bunch of currencies, against, you know, the, the pound and the dollar, the euro, the yen.

• 33:22Anthony Pompliano?

  It is very cool.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  See in real time. It's, you know, we're trying to build a really transparent flow. In 2025, when it starts going out, we'll be incredibly transparent. And I think we'll have a great story for people who gave one Bitcoin, or 50 Bitcoin, or 0.001 Bitcoin, of how that appreciated over time and the people that are being helped. So we're even pricing now on the website, you'll see, we're pricing the communities and the people served in Bitcoin, not in dollars.

• 33:51Anthony Pompliano?

  I think you're on to something.

• 33:54Anthony Pompliano?

  For those that are, for those that are listening, how can they go figure out if they want to donate? Where do they go?

• 34:00Speaker 02

  Sure. Well, just charitywater.org/Bitcoin. So we made that simple.

• 34:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Charitywater.org/Bitcoin. People can go, literally just connect the wallets and.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  Yep. And you can donate with a tax receipt, or anonymously, or suit anonymously. So you can use your real name. You can make up a name, or you can be completely anonymous. You know, there's a, there's a real tax benefit for giving Bitcoin. I think a lot of people don't know that. But we, you know, we've got some of that on the website as well for people that just want to understand. And I guess, you know, the last thing I'd say is the great thing about clean water is that everybody thinks this is a good idea. It's not political, it's not religious, right? It's the most basic need in life. And, you know, that strikes me every once in a while when I'm sitting in a, in a panel and like, I don't know what the heck some of these people are talking about because it's just beyond me.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  You know, and you're sitting here in all of the opulence and the, you know, the open bars and the parties and you're like, but 10% of the world is drinking dirty water. So I really hope and believe that Bitcoin can be used as a force for good in the world. That Bitcoin can directly provide human beings on this planet with the most basic, you could say useful utility of clean water. You know, a lot of people have been, there, there's an argument out there. I hear, well, people don't think it's useful at all. Oh, it's just funny money. It's just, what is the point? What is the use of Bitcoin? Right? Well, I'd like to say, I think we can use it to give 20 million human beings

• 35:38Speaker 02

  the most basic need in life, clean water.

• 35:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Seems like a no brainer.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  That's a use, right? And I, and I would hope that other, you know, nonprofits could start looking at this as a vehicle. Maybe not just to grow their incremental core business, but to take a big swing and to go out to a donor. I mean, I've heard from so many of these whales and like, yeah, I don't give to these donor advice funds. They're just going to turn it. So I'm holding it all. I'm holding it all. Well, is that donor going to give to you in five years? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they've moved on. Maybe they found another passion. Maybe they found another cause. So I think that's, that's what we're trying to do here is both honor the intent and the long-term appreciating value view while also saying, please give it to us now.

• 36:22Speaker 02

  Please make this donation now. Let us custody it and we'll, we'll create a really big impact story.

• 36:29Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm in.

• 36:30Speaker 02

  I appreciate it. I know.

• 36:31Anthony Pompliano?

  I think this is a no brainer.

• 36:34Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that you're not going to get enough credit for how hard this has been. I also don't think people understand how impactful, if it works, right? If, I think it will, but if it works.

• 36:48Anthony Pompliano?

  What is today, you know, whatever, uh, be about a hundred million? No, actually, it would be, uh, what? Less than $50 million donated in becomes a billion dollars. It's a pretty big deal.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? You know, with 40, 50 million bucks that goes in. And then in five years, you hand out a billion. Seems to me like, uh, that's a, a pretty good upside downside trade.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I think so. And, and I think, you know, charities don't take enough risks. And that's just another thing that, you know, we just want to encourage.

• 37:24Anthony Pompliano?

  People know what risks are taken here.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  We were talking right before we started about, you know, we, we know people that were billionaires and then they lost it all and then they became billionaires again and then they lost it all. Right? And, and.

• 37:34Anthony Pompliano?

  I told you, I know somebody who was, did it three times.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  And, you know, certainly like charities, like stewardship is, is so, so important to us and transparency and, and being great stewards. Um, and, and none of those values should go away, but charities need to think big. I mean, we just, we need to, uh, get tired of the incremental complacency. And these problems are so big. Like we're the largest water charity in the country and I'm going to help 1.7 million people out of 785 this year. That's not enough. It's not enough with all the abundance in the world, with all the capital that is out there. So it's, I think it's up to us to be creative, to be bold, to ask people to move it from their Coinbase

• 38:20Speaker 02

  and their Gemini, Gemini wallets or their, you know, the, all the, from, from cold storage to the, I mean, to the mouths of people with clean drinking water. Like to all, you know, you pick the cause, but there's so much suffering, suffering going on right now that does not need to be, you know? And, and it is our job, I think, as nonprofits to encourage people to be generous. You know, we talked on the phone once about kind of having enough. I mean, one of the struggles with this whole project is nobody wants to give up their Bitcoin. So we have to make the issue of human beings getting clean drinking water.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  Trump, everybody's like, you know, desires to accumulate more, a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. And I think that's, I don't even know exactly how to do that yet, except telling the story, being as passionate as I can about just helping people, helping people thrive and flourish through the most basic need, clean water, and trying to use Bitcoin as a force to enable that.

• 39:25Anthony Pompliano?

  As you've seen, Bitcoiners are relentless in their pursuit of acquiring more Bitcoin. But when they understand a cause is important, or they see some way that they can help, they're some of the most generous people in the world as well. And I think it's a really unique kind of balance between those two things. So you're doing a great job of explaining it.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  And the philanthropists of the future, I believe, will come from this community. The greatest philanthropists in the future. I think the most radical acts of generosity, maybe even impulsive, and I think that's okay, you know, right? Sometimes like people build these huge foundations and layers and layers of bureaucracy and grant writing. I think there are, you know, extraordinary people in this community that can go see a problem and say, "Not on my watch. I'm going to solve that. I'm going to make an extraordinarily radical generous gift, and I am going to just change a million lives, change 10 million lives," whether it's our issue or whether it's others that people come across. So that's what really excites

• 40:29Speaker 02

  me about all the people that I've met. And there's a little wariness, there's a little cynicism and skepticism, I think, when it comes to anything institutional. But we believe that we can bring a highly effective, highly transparent vehicle to the community. You know, we can really make an exponential dent in the global water crisis.

• 40:54Anthony Pompliano?

  I think you are on to something, my friend. Where can we send people to find you on the internet?

• 40:58Speaker 02

  I'm just Scott Harrison, @scottharrison on Twitter.

• 41:00Anthony Pompliano?

  On Twitter? Twitter's the best place?

• 41:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's bigger for you, Twitter or Instagram?

• 41:04Speaker 02

  Twitter.

• 41:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Twitter? All right. And then Charity Water?

• 41:06Speaker 02

  Instagram is family stuff.

• 41:08Anthony Pompliano?

  That's a

• 41:09Speaker 02

  Nobody, nobody cares about my kids.

• 41:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Charitywater.org slash bitcoin.

• 41:13Speaker 02

  Slash bitcoin.

• 41:14Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. If you're listening, charitywater.org slash bitcoin. Point 005 or so bitcoin gets you on the leaderboard. Bitcoin's been good to you. Go check it out. See what it's about. When you see the website, you're gonna be, oh damn, it's pretty cool.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  It's pretty cool.

• 41:30Anthony Pompliano?

  And then you will, you're gonna

• 41:32Speaker 02

  Our team put the website together in two weeks too. So it's, you know, that's another thing we believe in is just agility and we've got a great team at Charity Water. They work really hard and a hundred percent goes directly to help people. So there's no overhead. Every single bitcoin, every single fractional bitcoin will go straight to help people get access to clean water.

• 41:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, I appreciate all the effort and I think Bitcoiners will come through, so.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Thanks for joining us. You've been a big encouragement and a big help to me. That means a lot.

• 42:00Anthony Pompliano?

  You're doing a great job. All right. Thank you so much for doing this. We'll do it again in the future.

• 42:04Speaker 02

  See you, man.