It's all going to zero against Bitcoin. It's
going to forever. You're against Bitcoin. You're
against freedom. Yo, welcome to Simply Bitcoin,
we are number one source for the peaceful Bitcoin
Revolution, breaking news culture, matter, warfare. We
will be your guide through the separation of money and
states. Welcome to Simply Bitcoin live the
number one watched daily Bitcoin only live show on
YouTube, rumble and X breaking news. Bitcoin
privacy developers specifically the developers
of the samurai wallet have been arrested and charged
with money laundering. There's
been a tremendous amount of infighting within the
Bitcoin community. We're going to be really like
like like like a year, maybe even more than that
specific Bitcoin. I'm not going to name any
names, but specific Bitcoin companies are attacked
because of certain business decisions that they make.
Or in reality, what is
happening is that this is the separation of money and
state after all, we have to understand what we're up
against the behemoth that we're up against. And
this is something that we've been covering for
over a year now. When they charged the developer
of tornado cash with a very similar crime, and
they used the strawman argument of North Korea.
And, you know, they're using
tornado cash developers were using, you know, people
were using tornado cash as a way to circumvent, you
know, the US kind of US sanctions and money
laundering laws and all that stuff. We
made the case that that set the precedent. And
that was the first time in US history that an open
source software was sanctioned. We
theorized back then that this was eventually going
to be used against Bitcoin. Bitcoin
is an open source software at the end of the day.
Well, fast forward a year later,
the same day that Biden announced this crazy capital
gains tax. And also an unrealized gains
tax. There's no conspiracies, but there's
also no coincidences the same day that the
developers of the samurai wallet were arrested in
Portugal. This is the separation of money
and state. This is no joking matter. And
the question that I have for you guys is what type
of future do you want your children to live in? Do
you want your children to live in a future of
slavery? Or do you want your children
to live in a future of freedom? Because
that is essentially what's at stake. Make
no mistake. They're not going to stop at
samurai. They're not going to stop at
privacy tools. The next step is self custody.
They're going to go after it. So
what can you do as an individual get involved,
make your voice heard? The Internet hasn't powered you.
It's given you leverage is
giving you the ability to speak up and say something,
comment when you see these types of tyrannical moves
by the state. And keep in mind the DOJ press
conference is the press release. It
says that these very, very strong words and these
convincing words, but you have to keep in mind that
the vast majority of people that were using the samurai
services for privacy, 95 % were innocent people. Very
similar to what happened with tornado cash, but it's
just interesting how they didn't go straight for the
jugular first. They kind of did this slow
creep, so to speak. They started with this tornado
cash. No one was really using it.
It was on an altcoin and then
they eventually migrated to Bitcoin, which is something
that we predicted was going to happen because it's
obvious. Once you understand the
incentives, once you understand the game theory
and once you understand what is happening, what is
what moment in history we're living through. This
is the disintermediation of information and a
disintermediation of money. And
the powers that be that benefited from controlling
information and controlling money are going to do
everything in their power. They're
going to move it up right as close to the line as
possible in order to stop those things, even though
they can't stop it, but they can definitely make
the lives of people trying to reach or trying to
attain some type of sovereignty very difficult.
And unlike the French
Revolution, unlike the separation of church and
state, I don't think this is going to be as bloody,
but at the end of the day it is a revolution. This
is the separation of money and state. And
there are going to be casualties in this fight.
And the tornado cash developers,
a lot of people have criticized them for doing
certain things and you can criticize their actions. You
can criticize their flaws as human beings, but really
kind of internalize and ask yourself, what side are you
on? And ask yourself another
question is, are the people that are charging these
developers not guilty of the same crime that they're
charging these developers with? Because
in reality, what they were doing is they were trying
to send a message and say, you are in a different
class than I am. We can do those things, but
you cannot. If you're an approved bank,
we'll slap you with the fine. If
you're an open source developer on a protocol of
which we can't control money we can't control, you
go to prison for 20 years. Remember
Ross, remember Julian Assange. This
is what's happening. So instead of infighting, get
involved, we're stronger together than we are
separate. And just because there are
months that nothing happens and things are all quiet
on the western front, so to speak, that doesn't mean
that there aren't things happening in the background.
And we try to keep you guys
informed with what's going on in the political sphere
and the regulatory sphere, but make no mistake, the
current administration is extremely hostile towards
Bitcoin. There's currently a bill in the
Senate in the United States that would be a de facto
ban, not my words, Pierre Richard's words, a de facto
ban on the Bitcoin mining industry in the United
States. And it would also be an attack
on self custody. As governments get more and
more desperate, as they get more pushed into a corner,
as more people choose to opt out and use alternative
money, what do you think is going to happen? These
types of things happen. So I hope this serves as a
wake up call to a lot of people. In
the sense of really paying attention to what's actually
important. You know, if one of your
Bitcoin companies is promoting something on
Bitcoin that you don't like or don't agree with, you
have to understand that there is like a cage tiger
that metaphorically wants to kill you. And
you're paying attention to someone on your side that
you disagree with and it's OK to disagree. It's
good to disagree. But at the same time, like,
like these purity tests, man, because that's
essentially what they are, their purity tests. I
think there are really a distraction to the task at
hand. And the task is we want to
separate money from state and we really believe that
society will be a much better place for it. And
one of the most powerful bureaucracies on the face
of the planet, they employ 11 million people vehemently
dislikes this thing. Bitcoin goes right to the source
of their power, which is the ability to create money
for free that everyone else has to work for. So
I hope this serves as a wake up call to everyone
watching and everyone that listens to this on who are
a real opponent is. And again, this is a peaceful
revolution. Make your voices heard. This
is the awesome part about living in the US in the
sense that we have the First Amendment. We
have the ability to speak up and make our voices
heard. You have the right to do so.
So make your voices heard
because what happened yesterday was an absolute
disgrace. But if you guys have been
tuning into Simply Bitcoin, it should not come as a
surprise to you whatsoever. Anyways,
it's going to be a great show. I
do want to have my legendary co -host who is
always optimistic. I don't know if he's
optimistic today. He might be Nihilist Fields
today, but I'm still optimistic, man. This
this just proves that we're winning super hard and they
got to shut us down. How could you not be more
optimistic? But on that note, you know,
free samurai. This is absolutely horrible and
straight up fucked. And you know, I know we're in
YouTube and trying to out the cuss and all that
stuff, but it's really it really does feel when we're
talking with our guests before the show. It
really feels like one of those before and after
moments. And this is huge. This
is absolutely huge for not only the samurai crew, but
also for Bitcoin in general and privacy at large. So
I don't think we should take this lightly. And
this is this is a very important fight moving
forward. And I mean, like we said, you
know, we saw this one coming for a while. So
I think this may have happened a little faster
than we thought it would. But
hey, we knew that this was eventually going to happen.
So on that note, you know,
hashtag free samurai. Let's bring in our guests. So
we got Eric and Andy from Bitcoin or talent co. So
good to have you guys. A crazy morning, you know,
crazy day. But hey, how you guys do and
what's up with you guys? Otherwise
doing well. Yeah. No, we were chatting a bit
before the show. It's you said it perfectly. I'm
very much before and after seminal type moment. Right.
We saw tornado cash. We saw other things happen,
but this one just feels I don't know why, but it
feels a little closer to home. Right.
It's, it's, yeah, it's hard not to think of anything
else at this point. Right. And for me, I'm in
Pennsylvania right now. This is my hometown. And
knowing that Keon, one of the founders of samurai
wallet is in custody in Pennsylvania. Kind
of makes me angry, to be honest. And
I'm going to do what I can with my contacts to
make sure that he gets out all right because he is a
freedom fighter, in my opinion. And
I will fight for freedom until the day I die. 100 %
100%. And I think, I think people
have to be just aware and conscious of what's going
on. It number go up, feels good.
You get wealthier, but you
know, we're here simply. Bitcoin
is here for the revolution. We
want the separation of money and state. Of
course, you know, it's an NGU technology number goes
up in the process that creates the incentive to
bring more people in to highlight the fact, the,
you know, the scam that is fiat money. But
this is what it's all about. And
remember, the way that you partake in the separation
of money and state really doesn't take a lot of
effort. All you got to do is you buy
Bitcoin, mine Bitcoin, earn Bitcoin and take that
Bitcoin into self custody. That's
all you got to do. Like if enough people, if enough
people do that, we win by default. And
there's absolutely nothing they could do about it.
This is their kind of last
throws, you know, to try to implement the existing
system on top of the Bitcoin system. Anyways,
before we jump into the show, I do want to give a
very special shout out to the Bitcoin company that
powers this show. And of course, I'm talking
about Bitcoin. Well, Bitcoin was the best place
to build your automatic self custody Bitcoin stack.
It's a publicly traded company
coming out of Canada that is self custody by default,
future proof your money. They
recently expanded to all 50 US states. Go
to Bitcoin .Well .com slash simply sign up and support
self custody Bitcoin platforms. What
does that mean? That means that when you buy
Bitcoin on Bitcoin, well, you take self custody. They
don't allow you just to leave your Bitcoin on the
platform, right? And self custody after all the
revolution. Check out their brand new site.
Go to Bitcoin .Well .com slash
simply buy real Bitcoin. All
you got to do is you put in your email address here,
you get started, you go through the process, you
sign up and it allows you to start stacking sats
incredibly quickly. Enable your independence with the
fastest and safest way to buy Bitcoin in Canada in
the US. And the reason that it's the
safest again, it's self custody by default when you
buy Bitcoin on Bitcoin. Well,
as soon as you purchase it and your your transaction
clears and your bank, you know, it withdraws directly
to your wallet. So go to Bitcoin .Well .com
slash simply today. All right, everybody, let's get
some numbers. We have a lot to talk about.
Let's check it out. The
Bitcoin numbers is your Bitcoin and cold storage
really secure. Is your seed phrase really
secure? Stamp seeds do it yourself. Kit
has everything you need to hammer your seed words into
commercial grade titanium plates instead of just
writing them on paper. Don't
store your generational wealth on paper. Paper
is prone to water damage, fire damage. You
want to put your generational wealth on one
of the strongest metals on planet Earth titanium. Your
words are actually stamped into this metal plate with
this hammer and these letter stamps. And
once your words are in, they aren't going anywhere.
No risk of the plate breaking
apart and pieces falling everywhere. Titanium
stamp seeds will survive nearly triple the heat
produced by a house fire. They're
also crush proof, waterproof, non corrosive
and time proof. All things that paper is not
allowing you to huddle your Bitcoin with peace of mind
for the long haul. Stamp your seed on stamp seed.
All right, everybody, scan the
QR code right now. It'll take you directly to the
stamp seed website where you can get yourself a
stamp seed seed phrase storage kit stamp your seed
on titanium and you can use promo code simply to
get 15 % off anything on their website. At
the time of recording the Bitcoin price is 65 ,250
sats per dollar $1 ,533 market cap 1 .28 trillion,
declined from all time high 11 .5 % block height. 840
,670 having estimate March 16, 2028 realized monetary
inflation 1 .72 % forward monetary inflation 0 .85 %
you want. You guys want to know why
governments dislike Bitcoin tremendously. There's
the reason it exposes the scam that is fiat money.
Annual mining revenue 14 .2 billion
current Bitcoin supply 19 ,689 ,377 .37 Bitcoin Bitcoin
price in gold 27 .6 ounces and the Bitcoin verse gold
market cap 7 .9 % we're just getting started.
Anyways, before we go into kind of
like that, I don't want to say gloomy, but the before
we get into the samurai news, I do want to play
this video so we can all kind of react to it. This
was American HODL at the cheat code event that Peter
McCormack held in Bedford, I believe, and he had this
epic ass speech. It's about two minutes and 39
minutes. Sorry, two minutes and 39 seconds.
We'll play it and then we'll
talk about it. Let's check it out. That's
the sort of conviction that I have about this thing is
that it really is nothing. I
am all in on Bitcoin. I don't have I'm 100 % in
net worth invested. I don't have another way out.
I don't have a backup plan,
you know, and the more conviction I find and the
more I go in, you know, seemingly the better my
life gets right. The systems that we find
ourselves ensnared in today, this invisible slave system,
whose only justification for existence is to steal our
time. I think we know that, right?
Like that all of our politicians
are basically stealing everything that isn't nailed
down. It doesn't matter if you're in
the UK or in America. It's happening everywhere. It's
a global phenomenon. It's a global phenomenon because
of fiat currency, by the way. But
it only ends when we have the ability to fight back
and Bitcoin has given us that ability. Basically,
they encroach and we relent. So
they encroach further and we relent further and we
keep giving up our freedoms for what? What
are we getting for it? And meanwhile, most of us are
hand waving in a way saying it's not happening.
And we're concerning ourselves
with what's going on in the drama at our local pub
or what's happening with the princess or the game
or whatever. It doesn't matter. You
know, the only thing that matters is that we protect
ourselves from the people that are every day all day
long trying to steal from us. The
line must be drawn here in Bedford. This
is where we draw it, right here. No,
no more encroachments, no more bullshit, no more self
-justification, no more kicking the can down the
road. Bitcoin gives us the ability to
say no to insults on our sovereignty, on our dignity.
It makes us owners in our
society again, not just renters on government land
who are doing what they're told because they're forced
to and they're scared. And if you wandered into this
room today, and this is your first encounter with
Bitcoin today during the panels and the speeches,
you're going to hear about this cheat code. You're
going to hear about the most important thing that's
happening in your world, in the world, but also in
your world and what's most important to you. So
you have two choices once you hear this. You
can either take the blue pill, you bury your head
in the sand, you wake up in your bed and you
believe whatever you want to believe, right? Or
you take the orange pill and you see how far the
rabbit hole goes. My call to you is that I
dare you to make the bold choice to seek a meaningful
and substantial life, to resist nihilism, to believe
that your life can be more, to pass something on
to the next generation, to pass something of great
importance forward in the blockchain of humanity. I
dare you to play your role in the greatest story of
our lifetimes, the monetization of Bitcoin.
Thank you. So
I think American HODL hit it perfectly, right? Are
you going to take the blue pill? You're
going to take the orange pill. Where
do you want to stand? Because
in the current world, we're living in a world of
theft. The money you use is stealing
from you. Now they're insulting us with
this capital gain stuff, unrealized gains, right? So
you're taking all the risk and the government is
saying, hey, wait a second. We
want 44 % of that. In Canada, it's 67%. And
you have to deal with inflation. Oh,
and if they decide they want to go to war with
someone, they can draft you. So
Bitcoin is a protest, but not the protest where you
go and pick at signs and then the cops go out with
batons and they beat the living shit out of you.
It's a protest where the balance
of power is in your favor. If
you take self custody and if you do geographically
separate in multi -seg and you separate those seeds
via different jurisdictions. Oh
boy. You know, this is what it's
about, right? Do you want to live a future
of optimism of freedom of prosperity or do you want?
Do you want to live a future
of nihilism, slavery, war, death? Because
that that is a future on a fiat standard, right? So
it's not only our responsibility to spread
this message to the people around us. It's
not red versus blue. It's not left versus right. It's
green versus orange. But it's our responsibility to
to really spread this this technology that has the
opportunity to free mankind from the tyranny of the
state. And before Bitcoin, I think a
lot of people were kind of bamboozled in a way in
terms of thinking that, you know, if they go to the
poll, you know, they have a say in this, you know,
in this leviathan and which direction this leviathan
goes. Well, it is an election year.
And what I got to say is that
the most important vote that you can make this
year is by voting with your wallet and opting out
of that system entirely. And
if enough of us do it, I can't emphasize that enough.
We will win. We
will win. And there is no response,
right, that they can do. They
can't do anything, right? So
American Hado put it beautifully. I'm
telling you guys, it's days like today that we get a
wake up call and we really kind of realize what's at
stake. But most importantly, what those
actions being taken by the DOJ by the state tell me
is that we're winning and they're scared. We're
winning and they're scared. Keep
going. Keep putting the pressure color
within the lines. Take self custody. Spread
the message of Bitcoin. And this is how we win. We
take over the culture. We win the game. We
win the ball game. Anyways, I'm going to pass it on
to Opti and then our guests. Yeah,
man. Well, first and foremost, I
absolutely love American Hado. He's
a good dude. I love when he does his
like, ooh, raw moment and he does these speeches. He
was, I think, pivotal for a lot of us in the 2018
bear market. He was like our big brother
telling us to keep stacking. So
I totally agree with what he was saying in this
clip. And this is something I usually
say on the show all the time. It's
like once you finally wake up to the scam that is
the fiat system and you go fully into Bitcoin, there's
no, in my opinion, no conceivable chance that
you're ever going back to the fiat system. Once
you understand that it's all designed to work
against you as the average everyday person, you
realize, oh man, like there's literally only one
option. You know, there is no
alternative. It is Bitcoin. And
this is why we do what we do. Yes,
you know, we talk about all the time and we joke
about it and we troll about it. Like,
yes, number go up is great. And
yes, number go up brings people into Bitcoin. But
with number go up also comes freedom go up. And
that's what all of us are here. And
Niko's had these conversations with people on
IRL as well where people are like, oh, you know,
you guys are just here for the money. And
you know, even that day point, knowing on the
having stream with Bitcoin Mag, he's like, I don't
really believe that. Bitcoiners
are here just for freedom and altruistic reasons.
You're all here just to get rich.
And it's like, yeah, you know,
everyone here came for the money. But
once you realize that the money is broken, you come
to fix the money, you stay to fix the money, you stay
to actually change things moving forward and
especially us, you know, we're millennials and people
under us, the zoomers. And there are some cool Gen
Xers and boomers out there that also see the problem
in the writing on the wall. But
all of us millennials and zoomers, all of us young
people out here, once you wake up to the scam that
is a field system, you realize there's literally
nothing else we can do but become Bitcoiners, but try
to change the system by creating a better system
and doing what we can to ensure that there is as
much freedom on planet Earth as possible moving
forward. So, you know, on days like
today is when you really refocus why you do this,
what you're about, you know, all the skirmishes,
all the infighting, it all feels meaningless right now
because we are really here for freedom. We're
here to not only free humanity, but free
ourselves. And that's why we do this.
That's why Bitcoin's incentives are
so pure. This is why we love Bitcoin.
This is why we basically have
committed our whole lives to spreading Bitcoin,
talking about Bitcoin, talking about the egregious
behaviors from the state, and hopefully doing that,
being able to get more people into the freedom
movement, getting more people stacking sats, taking
Bitcoin into custody and leaving a better world.
That's what, you know, I grew up
with the idea that like you want to leave a better
world than what you encountered when you became
an adult. And I think that's what most
bit corners are here for. Yes,
you know, lines get blurry here and there, but it is
about freedom guys. This is freedom money. This
is freedom tech. The powers that be want you to
be basically their debt slave and we all now
collectively, I hate using the seward, but told them
to go fuck themselves. And this is why we do what we
do. So I think today is going to
be a good day where everyone kind of refocuses
their lens and remembers why we're here. Like
remember the cypherpunk manifesto. I
highly recommend everyone go read it again today. You
know, these are the important defining moments
in this peaceful Bitcoin movement that we're a part
of. And like we're winning so hard
and it just, it really reminds me that there is
no going back. There is no way we're ever going
back to the fiat system. We
only interact with the fiat system as much as we need
to to survive. And man, this is this is why
we Bitcoin like shouts out the hodl. Can't
wait to see him in person again. He's
the go. I love hodl. Yeah,
man, that that opening monologue is absolutely he
absolutely crushed it for the cheat code. What
a what a what a speech. Anyways,
there's 870 nine of you guys watching live right
now on on YouTube and X. So
make sure to smash that like button if you guys
are enjoying the show. We just migrated the channel
on rumble from the simply Bitcoin with no space to
the simply Bitcoin. We also got our rumble
verified. So shout out to the rumble
team for doing that. So we'll be streaming from the
simply space Bitcoin rumble channel moving forward. So
guys, again, if you guys are enjoying the show
really helps with the algos. If
you guys smash that like button, help us break 100
likes within the first 30 minutes of the show on
YouTube. Anyways, I do want to pass it on
to our guest Eric. What are your thoughts on this,
my friend? Man, we're at a weird time in
history right now. Going back to the American
Revolution and being where I'm located physically
thinking about, you know, Philadelphia defending
ourselves against the Brits. This
seems kind of like American Revolution in modern day.
So for right now for me, I'm
really focused on building out the Bitcoin community.
And with that comes, you know,
getting people within Bitcoin jobs, but also, you
know, building a team. How do we band together? Let's
not in fight. Let's let's band together and
make sure that our rights are secured. And
I believe in the first matter and I believe in
hold on one second. I believe in the Constitution.
I have a pocket Constitution
in my wallet. Okay. And I believe in everything
that our ancestors really did to lead up to this
point. So to the point that I'm
going to keep fighting this fight, I'm here and I'm
going to keep fighting this. So
I guess it's not really a call to arms, but a call
to custody. Make sure you're cussing your
Bitcoin and making sure your wealth is protected
right now because if you're saving in dollars right
now, you're going to be debased 10, 20 % per year
at least. Plus these capital gains tax
that are very unreasonable. Yes,
I'll leave it at that, but I'm very pro -American pro
-freedom and we have to defend these rights right
now. Love it. Call
to custody. That's that's a great meme. I
absolutely love that. 100%. Andy,
what's your take on all this? Yeah,
I mean, good as we can talk unendingly about it,
but I do want to address like the the hodl club
makes a great point. Dude always makes a great point.
Right. Let's be honest. But
this notion of incremental relenting, right? I
think that's actually a really good way of putting
it something for all of us to recognize because this
isn't like a Bitcoin issue. This
is for everyone, right? And obviously for us in the
community, this news about Sam rides, it's like, you
know, title wave, right? But
you know, we need to recognize that there's a
pretty non -explicit percentage of the population
here in the States and globally for that matter
that truly does not care about privacy. This
is we all know it, right? It's
the well, I'm not doing anything illegal. So
I have nothing to hide crowd. But
what I think people don't understand at least that
audience doesn't understand is just that slippery slope
of incremental relenting, right? Removing
basic freedoms like, listen, we've already pretty much
given up the freedom to navigate the internet
privately to not have your credit card purchases be
tracked, right? And overall life has kind of
continued without pain, even with that relenting, right?
But very quickly that point
will be passed where you do start to feel pain,
right? And imagine, you know, losing
the freedom of being able to travel where you want
or purchase the goods you want altogether, right? And
so in this particular case, like, yeah, privacy is
absolutely under attack. Like
Bitcoin is the attack vector, you know, coin
joining within Bitcoin is the attack vector, right?
But largely it's just continuing
to remove as many freedoms as possible. And
so we, I think, obviously in the Bitcoin community
understand that more immediately. But
part of our call to arms call to action call to
custody, I think it's again shouting outside of Bitcoin,
outside of crypto altogether, right? This
is something that everyone should be upset about.
Everyone should be thinking about
the precedent, the dangerous precedent this can set for
not just our community, but for everyone, right? And
so, yeah, I mean, how do you, how do you speak to
the whole country, right? When
there's so many of the things that we disagree on?
I hope other people have
better ideas than myself, but I think it's an
important point to make that this is not just a
Bitcoin issue, right? Bitcoin
is, we're feeling it very intimately because it's
focused on Bitcoin today, but this will largely
affect everyone over time with that continued
incremental relenting of freedoms. 100%. 100%. And
that's the key word is kind of like these
incremental movements, right? It
doesn't have, and this is what a lot of people
think, right? You know, back in, back in,
they've done studies on this, right? Back
in the 30s and, you know, the 30s and 40s in
Germany, right? A lot of people are thinking
like, how did they get from point A to point Z,
right? How did they kind of go along
with that? Increments, right? Small
little things slowly but surely over time, and then
it starts to become normalized in people's head.
I always bring up the, when
they passed the original Bank Secrecy Act, that was
passed in 1970. And coincidentally, 1971, right?
Richard Nixon removed, there's no
coincidences, ladies and gentlemen, but they passed
the Bank Secrecy Act and the reporting number was
$10 ,000. In 1970, that's the equivalent
of $80 ,000 worth of purchasing power today.
Everyone said, oh, like 80, that's
not unreasonable. Fast forward with the so -called
Inflation Reduction Act, which has printed more
money. They're spinning on our faces at
this point, to be honest. They
tried to put into that bill that every $600
transaction had to be reported, right? So
how did we go from $80 ,000 to $600? Well,
Andy just mentioned it. Increments,
right? Small little moves, every, and
then people start to normalize it in their head
and they start to think this is normal. But
this is not normal, and I'm really glad that Eric
pulled out his constitution. The
Fourth Amendment says, no unreasonable searches and
seizures. Do you think that every $600
transaction being surveilled by the federal government
that can't even pass accounting in terms of
sending the billions and billions of dollars that
they send overseas, right? They
themselves can't even live up to their own rules, but
then they force the populace to live up to
those rules, right? So yes, it's getting out of
control, but the protests have been tried. The
picket signs have been tried. All
these things have been tried. But
the most powerful thing that, again, it moves the
balance of power, where the return on violence, it's
not incrementally. It's not as effective having
monopoly on violence is millions upon millions upon
individuals all over the world taking self custody
of their wealth, therefore becoming sovereign
individuals, right? That's how we really change
things. And I think people have to
wake up to that reality. Anyways,
guys, let's move on to the news. Let's
talk about Samurai, a lot to uncover. Let's
check it out. Here we go. I
want to give a shout out to our sponsor, Foundation
Devices. It's self custody done right.
They built a premium grade
hardware wallet called Passport right here in the
U .S. It's fully open source and
verifiable. It's the most intuitive Bitcoin
wallet designed with the U .S. reminiscent
of a simple feature phone. So
you will know how to navigate it and use it the
moment you pick it up. Get your Bitcoin off exchanges
and into your into your own hands in just a few
minutes. Experience a piece of mind that comes
with taking ownership of your own keys after a
massive sell out during Bitcoin Miami 2023. The
passport is back in stock at Foundation Devices .com
Bitcoin only open source verifiable completely air
gap security model, gorgeous design craft, premium grade
materials. If you're thinking about
getting your Bitcoin off exchanges, this is the one
for you. Check out the passport link in
the show notes below to learn more. All
right, everybody right here. See
this? This is this is a passport
hardware wallet Bitcoin hardware wallet completely
open source. Easy to use, especially if you
pair with the Envoy app. This
is freedom. This is sovereignty. You
put your Bitcoin into cold storage and that's how you
protest. That is the protest. Right.
So get yourself a hardware wallet, properly secure your
seed words, scan the QR code on your screen. It
will take you directly to the Foundation Devices
website. Anyways, let's start today's episode
from reading this passage once again from the
sovereign individual because once again it predicted
exactly what's happening. Why
is this happening? Well, we're transitioning from the
industrial age and then the era of the nation state
that really started in the Napoleonic era and we're
transitioning to the information age. Right.
And it's going to completely change how human
society is organized and human society is structured.
But most importantly, it's going
to change the relationship between individuals and the
state. But we don't know how long
this is going to take. And if history is a teacher,
when you have these types of transitions, right, you
know, things get shaken up literally. So
this passage in this book was written in 1997. And
you guys let me know if it sounds familiar. Lacking
their custom scope, their custom scope to tax and
inflate governments, even in traditionally civil countries
will turn nasty. Businesses that offer services that
facilitate the realization of autonomy by individuals
will be subject to infiltration, sabotage and
disruption. Arbitrary forfeiture of property
already commonplace in the United States where it
occurs 5000 times a week will become even more
pervasive. Governments will violate human rights,
censor the free float information, sabotage useful
technologies and worse sovereign individual 1997.
All right, now let's get to
today's story, but we have to go back in time. And
the reason we have to go back in time is because,
dude, did we effing call this when the tornado cash
thing happened? I had the thousand yard stare
and Opti was looking at me like an absolute crazy
person. And I was like, dude, I don't
think you understand what this means, right? So
the tornado cash set the precedent to an 80 cash
founders charged with money laundering and sanctions
violations. Right. This is the original. This
is the original allegation of the original, you know,
the original thing that was alleged by the US
government. By the way, coin center fought
this. Everyone fought this and they lost
all the cases. And what do you think happens
when that precedent is sent? Set.
Well, guess what? They're going to take another
incremental step. And that's exactly what happened
with samurai. So this is the original
allegation says as alleged in the indictment, the
defendants operated a $1 billion scheme designed to
help other criminals launder and conceal funds using
cryptocurrency, including by laundering hundreds of
millions of dollars on behalf of a state sponsored
North Korean cyber crime group sanctioned by the US
government. These charges should serve as yet
another warning to those who think they could turn
to cryptocurrency to conceal their crimes and hide their
identities, including cryptocurrency mixers. It
does not matter how sophisticated your scheme is
or how many attempts you have made to anonymize
yourself. The Justice Department will find
you and hold you accountable for your crimes.
OK, right. For
your crimes, right? So let's forget, you know, all
the billions of dollars that are being sent
overseas to fund wars. There's
no accountability. No one audits that. Forget
about that. Again, you are operating on a
different class than the political elite. You
play by a different set of rules. And
what they're trying to do is they're trying to scare
you by setting examples. Remember
Julian Assange. Remember Ross Ulbridge. Remember
the tornado cash developers. And
now let's remember samurai. And
just to kind of give you an idea of how serious
this is, if you go search samurai wallet and you
click on the website, this is what pops up. This
website has been seized. As long as I believe there is
10 ,000 Bitcoin that samurai hide and that was seized
as well. So this is real. Here's
the actual press release coming out of the DOJ
founders and CEO of cryptocurrency mixing service
arrested and charged with money laundering and
unlicensed money transmitting offenses. This
literally happened. Roughly a year after tornado cash.
Why did they start with tornado
cash and not samurai? Because
no one really knew what tornado cash was. No
one really no one was really using it wasn't
really popular, but they had to set the precedent.
Once the precedent was set, it
normalized in people's minds and they could
incrementally, you know, they could they can move
another step. And that's exactly what
happened. So anyways, but there is a
silver lining here and I'll get to it. But
here's the original indictment or the original
press release. It says, Keon Rodriguez and
William Hill are charged with operating samurai
wallet and unlicensed money transmitting business that
executed over $2 billion in unlawful transactions and
laundered over 100 million in criminal proceeds. Now,
the beautiful part about Bitcoin is that it exposes
intensives and, you know, it kind of has this like
weird for forcing function where like, like even if
you attack it, like it kind of makes you reveal a
little bit apart a little bit about yourself, right?
And what they just admitted is
that Bitcoin is money. Which
is like, there at least there's a silver lining
there. They admitted that Bitcoin is
money. They just literally said, you
know, $2 billion of unlawful transactions and
laundered over $100 million in criminal proceeds. They
didn't launder this and they didn't quote unquote
to use their words. This wasn't laundered in dollars.
This was laundered in Bitcoin.
So they just admitted the DOJ
just admitted that Bitcoin is money. But
remember, you hear you hear them on the other side.
They said, no, Bitcoin is not
money. It can't be money. It
can only be money if it's backed by the state. Well,
in this in this press release, they just admitted
that Bitcoin is money. Anyways,
so there is a silver lining. Now,
let's get to some of the details of it. Here's
the no BS Bitcoin post samurai wallet founders
arrested and charged with money laundering, unless
unlicensed money transmitting offenses. Federal
prosecutors charged both the founders of samurai wallet
with conspiracy to commit money laundering on
Wednesday. Samurai's web servers and domain has
been seized and a seizure warrant for samurai's mobile
application was served on the Google Play Store. Per
DOJ, the application will no longer be available to
be downloaded from the Google Play Store in the
United States. According to a press release, the
duo developed, marketed and operated the mixer, which
facilitated more than $100 million in money laundering
transactions from illegal dark web. Markets
quote as alleged. The two founders are responsible
for developing marketing and operating samurai, a
cryptocurrency mixing service that executed over $2
billion in unlawful transactions and served as
a haven for criminals to ensure in large scale money
laundering. Rodriguez and Hill allegedly knowingly
facilitated the laundering of over $100 million of
criminal proceeds from the Silk Road Hydra market and
a host of other computer hacking and fraud campaigns
together with with our law enforcement. Partners,
we will continue to relentlessly pursue and
dismantle criminal organizations that use
cryptocurrency to hide illicit conduct. Keep
in mind 95 % of the Bitcoin that was mixed
using samurai. It was just people trying
seeking privacy. 5 % was allegedly tied to quote
unquote criminal activity. Interesting
how that works. By the way, very similar
numbers in the tornado cash case. So
what happens? Privacy is now criminalized. Privacy
is now villainized. Even though the vast majority of
people using this were not associated with the crime.
You see how that works? It's
interesting. Anyways, prosecutors also indicted
Rodriguez and Hill, garnered about $4 .5 million in
service fees from the coin joint services they
provided. Special agent in charge Thomas
Fouturso said $2 billion in transactions with an
unlicensed money transmitter means $2 billion flowed
without any oversight from whoever to wherever. Samurai
wallet is now closed for business. The
charge include a conspiracy to commit money laundering
and conspiracy to run an unlicensed money transmitting
business. These charges could lead to a
maximum sentence of 20 years and 5 years. Here's
Francis Puglio, founder of Bull Bitcoin. Let's
hope that samurai servers are well encrypted or they
manage to wipe them remotely because otherwise
the users are doxxed. Here is NoSphere888. WorldPro
Coordinator never touched XPUBs. If
you don't run your own node, then your wallet
provider has your XPUBs transaction history. Only
10 to 15 % of users use Samurai's nodes. Here's
Seth for Privacy. He's done a great job covering
this, by the way. Highly recommend checking out his
Twitter. All Samurai websites down, Git
lab down, Coordinator down, can't even mix via Sparrow.
A sad, sad day that has me
shocked and in disbelief, but we won't stop fighting
for our privacy. If you're using a Samurai
wallet from F -Troid and sure auto updates are off,
don't get any dodgy fed updates. You
can restore your Samurai wallet and any BIP 39
compatible wallet in order to access your Bitcoin
using 12 words and a plus fast frades if you're not
running your own node. So yes, this caught a lot of
people by surprise, but at the same time, if you've
been paying attention to what the state has been
doing and the weaponization of the DOJ against privacy,
then this should not have come as a surprise to you.
They set the precedent with
tornado cash and really what they're doing is
they're following through. So,
Seth had a couple original thoughts yesterday. He
said, it won't end with Samurai. This
is the separation of money and state. Did
you think that they were going to go gently into
that good night? This is just the beginning of
the fight, Bitcoin or slavery. Then
I came to the realization that it's not about money
laundering. It's about setting an example
just like they did with Ross and Assange. If
you're not part of the political elite, you cannot
do what they do. If you do, they'll put you in
a box quite literally. Here is Jan Pritzker. Jan
Pritzker is a co -founder of Swan. You
had two things. Now again, we'd like to present
you with all the kind of takes on this. I
disagree with the second part a little bit, but I
think it's important to include all opinions from
the Bitcoin community. So there's two things can be
true at the same time. Privacy
is not a crime. There's a war on privacy and the
proposed FinCEN rule that attempts to treat mixing as
suspicious by default is creating reporting
requirements on standard privacy practice, which even
they themselves acknowledge has legitimate use. This
is bad and is government overreach and should be
fought. Samurai were doing a good job
leading the charge in this fight. Two,
is that a coincidence that they arrested the people
that were leading the fight? I
don't know. I'll leave it up to you guys
to decide. Number two, the allegations against
Samurai point to very specific things like tweets
and investor materials that showed they welcomed and
encouraged illicit actors to use their practice. If
people haven't read the DOJ materials, they should. The
PDF, not the press release. I
heard people in spaces claim the government doesn't
understand how the tech works. This
is bullshit. Read the PDF where they describe
exactly how it works, whether the centralized
coordinator is actually money transmitting is
probably a stretch. However, it doesn't seem a stretch
that based on the evidence collected, they were
encouraging users of dark net markets to use their
service and marketing as such to investors and the
public in tweets. As such, running a service
that allegedly enabled money laundering, even non
-custodally is where the DOJ is going after here. The
war on privacy must be won by making privacy the
default, but we must also approach this with maturity.
Perhaps by building privacy tech
that is decentralized rather than run by a VC funded
American company and not going out of its way to
market services to criminals. Alex
Gladstein responded and he said, honestly, the
allegations are pretty thin in the indictment. There
are tweets that may or may not have been sarcastic and
there are investors materials that referenced
restricted markets can't put someone in prison for that.
The most damning stuff related
to hacker proceeds being mixed, but judge would
likely need to see evidence samurai knew this was
happening. Now, again, I think it's it's
if the US government had the moral high ground to
say, listen, you know, they're laundering money and
no one could do this and everyone was playing by,
you know, the same set of rules. Maybe,
maybe you can make the argument that, OK, this was
justified, right? But I'll get to why I don't
believe that's the case. Here's
Whitney Webb. Whitney Webb has done an incredible
job covering a lot of government overreach and a
lot of the things that have been happening. Her
take on this is there's a war on financial privacy.
It will not magically stop
because you hold some BTC and number go up. Larry
markets like to totalitarian markets like totalitarian
governments think his cronies want to make
Bitcoin part of the programmable surveillance
digital money ecosystem. They
are winning right now. Here's
Edward Snowden's take. The Department of Justice has
once again criminalized the developers of an app that
restores financial privacy. The
way to fix this is the fix the way to fix this
is to make money private by default. Privacy
privacy must never be exceptional or they will
make it criminal. I think that's a really good
point. Here is Ryan Adams. He
said two more privacy developers in the US
arrested today. This time for building a Bitcoin
privacy service. Where does it stop? It
doesn't stop, by the way. Quote,
the samurai wallet developers should have known
you can't host a centralized operated mixer.
OK, well, the tornado cash
developers deployed privacy as immutable code. Nothing
centralized. They also got arrested. Up
to 25 years in private for writing code that helps
people keep transactions private. The
UN estimates banks facilitate nearly two
trillion in money laundering each year. Not
through a cost -illness code, but as willing
intermediaries. Dozens of major banks have been
fined billions of dollars for money laundering over
the past decade. How many bankers have you seen
go to jail? They're making an example of
Bitcoin and shitcoins because they don't want us
to have private peer -to -peer transactions. Not
by passing laws and democratically elected
chambers, not by issuing public guidelines. They
come to your house and take you away. Who's
safe from this regulatory terrorism? And
who's next? Zcash is a privacy preserving
blockchain. Aztec is a private layer too.
How about them? How
about their investors and users? And
then it goes on to talk to DeFi and all that
stuff. But this is a really good
point that Adams is making. And
let's actually kind of break down some of these
numbers. Samurai founders are nuns compared
to the bankers. Since 2000, regulators find banks
7 ,400 times totaling to fines of 380 billion for
various offenses. Why do banks keep doing it?
Because they see it as the cost
of doing business. They get a slap on the wrist,
pay the fine and continue doing what? Laundering
money. Either banking is criminal by
definition or the rules are broken. Why
aren't bank CEOs? Why did no banker go to jail
for 2008? Why are we held to different
fucking standards than they are? That's
the question that people should be asking. And
by the way, to put the cherry on top, the same
day that this is happening, and I don't think that
this is a coincidence, I think this is a message,
Biden calls for a record high 44 .6 % capital gains
tax, not to mention also a 25 % unrealized gains tax
as well. This is absolutely absurd. I
don't think that this is a country run by the people
for the people. I truly believe that this is
a country that has held its people hostage and it
perceives itself to be a quote unquote democracy. But
I think it's really the bureaucrats, the unelected
administrative state that's running the country and
holding everyone hostage and making an example of anyone
that is not playing within the system. Why
do bankers have a different set of rules? They
were mentioning numbers like 2 billion. That's
nothing compared to the money laundering that the
banks do. And they just get a slap on
the wrist for it. So why the different set of
rules? This is utter bullshit and you
have to call it out for what it is. And
our number one defense against this, and I would
say it's even it's defense and offense, is if people
just opt out and take self custody, stop partaking in
a system that treats you differently because you want
to use the money that doesn't steal from you.
Like that shouldn't be a crime,
right? And again, how long until they
say when you take self custody and you're sending
Bitcoin to whoever anywhere around the world, which I
have no idea how they're going to be able to
enforce US sanction policy on top of that, how long
until they call you a money transmitter? How
long until they tell you that you can only hold
Bitcoin on a hosted exchange? How
long until that happens? And
like clearly the writing is on the wall where this is
going. And it's absolutely absurd. And
I think it's enough time where Bitcoin or stop
infighting and stop fighting themselves and stop trying
to pass these bullshit purity tests and wake up
to the fucking reality of what is actually going on
here. This is the separation of money
and state. Wake the fuck up. Anyways,
Opti, what's your take? And then we'll pass it on to
our guest. Yeah, well, I think it's very
interesting first and foremost is that they are
using the exact same charges that they threw on
the tornado cash guys as they're using for the
samurai guys. And it really goes to what
we've been saying for a while. You
know, we knew this was coming, but also they
wouldn't be attacking samurai or rather privacy
in general. If one, they weren't afraid of
you guys transacting privately. And
again, privacy does not mean secrecy. It's
like you guys have curtains on your house. You
were closed. Like I don't know if I
necessarily believe in the idea of like privacy is a
human right, but it is a literal UN human right. I
think it's article 12 where you have the right to
privacy. And so it just goes to show
and this kind of goes back to everything we've been
saying for a while about them trying to censor
freedom of speech as well. It's
like they don't want you communicating. They
don't want you to transact privately. Like
they want to know everything about you,
especially in the digital gulags that we are heading
into the digital dystopia that we are finding
ourselves in. They want to know everything
about you because, you know, my reasons that
you're going to, we're going to stop criminal
activities and all this stuff. So
that's, I think, where we where this is happening. I
think this is a huge overreach by the government
because they're just terrified of Bitcoin winning
of you guys transacting. And,
you know, I know they didn't overtly acknowledge
Bitcoin is money, but how can you launder money
through Bitcoin if Bitcoin isn't money, which is one
of those like kind of funny gotchas through this.
And, you know, like, again, just
doubling down like they wouldn't have shut down
Samurai if it wasn't working. And
I really think that this is going to strice and
affect better privacy tools. And,
you know, I know there's been privacy war for the
last like two years on whether wasabi is better or
whether Samurai is better, or whether you guys should
learn right now to use joint market, all that
stuff. But I think this is going to
further put like a fire under the developers asses
out there to ensure that we have privacy tools that
cannot be shut down. And just to be completely
clear, I did read the whole PDF. And
it does seem like they kind of know how Samurai
works, but there is a lot of inconsistencies in the
article and I'm no privacy expert. I'm
no financial crimes expert. I'm
just a bit cornered that read the PDF. But,
you know, just again to be completely clear, like
Samurai was completely non custodial. So
at no point did Samurai actually custody user funds
or have control over user funds and especially did
not execute any transactions on behalf of the users.
It's completely self custodial
wallet. And this is why we've been
saying for a while that eventually this is going to
lead to them trying to stop you from using just
good Bitcoin practices and taking Bitcoin into custody.
Like this is where it's heading.
And this case is entirely
absurd as far as all the takes that I've been
reading and looking into. I did a lot of, you know,
back and forth people's tweets and articles and
podcasts since this news dropped. And
this should be loudly called absurd. Like
we should not be letting this go into that good
night. We should not be quieting
about this because the precedent that this can set
going forward for all self custody tools is completely
insane and not something that we can allow and just
kind of take like the implications of this
basically go down the line that Bitcoin is going to
be considered as money transmitters that lightning
nodes are going to be considered as money
transmitters that you're going to need to KYC and
AML. What's it self hosted wallets like
this is where they're leading. This
is why they're starting they started with tornado
cash. This is why they finally are
setting their sights on Samurai. And
one interesting thing about this whole debacle is that
Samurai led that one letter with like 12 other Bitcoin
companies in regards to coming to the defense of
tornado cash. And then what a year later
they come after Samurai guys in the Samurai devs
and the Samurai wallet itself. And
you know, I know my boys over at the bugle are
technically satire and they've been trolling
everyone about like comply harder. But
it just goes to show like if you try to comply, if
you try to work within their laws, they will turn
the laws against you and lock you up in a box.
Like this is this is the game.
It's rigged against you. And
until more people wake up to the fact that you have
the power out there as an individual and that these
institutions are corrupt and that they're doing whatever
they can to basically stop you from speaking freely,
from transacting freely, like nothing's ever going
to change. And this is why it's very
important for us to continue to have these
these conversations because the implications will
really, really hurt the whole Bitcoin movement in
general and shouts out to Whitney Webb. You
know, I tweeted the other day I watched the TFTC
with Whitney Webb and Mark Goodwin and I just tweeted
like dissident money over Wall Street bucks. Like
if you can't transact freely, if you comply with
Bitcoin becoming just Wall Street money, like a
Bitcoin's not what we thought it was. And
so this is a very important defining moment in
Bitcoin. This is definitely the then they
fight you stage. Like it's here. Focus
on the real enemy. Stop shooting each other in the
kneecaps while the great Leviathan is at the gate.
Like the real enemies have taken
notice of Bitcoin and whether they understand the
technicalities of Bitcoin, whether they, you know,
grok Bitcoin completely, they understand the
implications of the game being played. Again,
it's all about power. It will always be about power.
And the ultimate power comes
from controlling the money. Hence
why they're going to do whatever they can to hinder
Bitcoin. And, you know, oh, oh, yeah,
oh, one of my last notes and I'll end my rant. By
the way, guys, look into who the judges on this
samurai case and the other cases he's been a part of
a little a little fishy there. But
that's all I'll say because we're on YouTube. So
on that note, let's go to Andy. Andy,
what's your thoughts on this? Yeah,
you've both now addressed one of the biggest points
I wanted to make. I mean, $100 million of the
alleged laundered money is 5 % of the total to be
5%. So we have to understand the
tactic here, right? This is a clear ignorance of
the majority focusing on a small minority of bad
activity or bad actors to force the state into an
issue of basic privacy. Right.
And so the debate really isn't like whether or not
illicit activity could be perpetrated on a platform
like samurai. Of course, of course it could.
But therein lies the hypocrisy
of the government. I mean, but how much money
has been laundered through central banking? You
just showed the numbers in that tweet. How
many how much wire fraud has been committed by
public officials? I mean, it's just it's
infuriating right at this point. Right.
And so, you know, we just have to understand the
tactic, understand what's trying to happen here and
not ignore the downstream implications of such a
dangerous precedent being set. You
address this as well, but all financial privacy is on
the chopping block at this point. All
non KYC, all non custodial products are in the
crosshairs that has to be recognized. You
know, this is we actually talked a little bit before
going live around how maybe for some Bitcoin companies,
it's an immediate existential threat. Yeah.
Again, let's say the non custodial solutions,
certainly other folks with coin joined products. Right.
But maybe it's actually all of us. Right.
Even though we are not operating as Bitcoin, we're
not operating a coin joined service like this is
increasingly an existential crisis for us. You
know, we we are trying to build Bitcoin in our own
way. We're trying to support the space
in our own, you know, small way, right? But
when the attacks are coming from above and are so
large and are so daunting, like we need to be doing
more earlier on. Right. It's it's just we can't be
surprised at the situation now. Right.
But we need to do more than just get angry and
furious about it. 100 % mobilization has to be some
some collective work done across the ecosystem,
whether you're a product or a service or a crypto
product or service. Right. Like, let's put aside the
beef, the BS for now. Right.
Like, which chain is better? We
know what chain is better, but we know they want all
of us dead. Right. So how can we come
together to really push back on this and and fight
this battle, which ultimately is a battle for
privacy. Right. 100 % battle for privacy
and you can't have freedom without privacy. Right.
And can I can I jump in? Sorry,
Nico and Eric and Andy, like guys, remember Bitcoin
is speech, guys. Like if the politicians actually
cared about the Constitution, we all know
they don't. This is a free speech issue.
Literally, these guys wrote code. Like
that's all they did is they wrote code and now
they're in jail for this. Like
this isn't just an attack on privacy. This
is an attack on every single person's freedom. And
they want to ensure that every single one of you
are stuck in the digital dystopia. Like
this is where we are right now in the movie. Yeah.
100 % Eric, hit it. Yeah, for me, I'll take a second
for everyone in the audience and the, you know,
just everyone listening right now. Let's
take a second and chill out for a second. Take
a couple deep breaths. Everything
is going to be okay. Right.
We have people on our team that are fighting this
fight right now. And I believe in these freedom
fighters, honestly, Nico, Opti, Andy, everyone else
in my community right now that are behind Bitcoin and
behind the bigger fight, which is human freedom,
freedom of speech and all that. So
as long as I have my team on my side, man, I'm in
this fight. So that's kind of where I
want to leave it right now. Fat.
Guys, also, hold on. Sorry, Nico, I don't mean to cut
you off again, but I dropped the cypherpunk
manifesto in the chat and YouTube. Go
read it again today. This was written, what, like in
the 90s and it really is a good framing of what is
going on right now. Remember
why we do what we do. This
is what it's about. Yeah. This is the separation of
money in state ladies and gentlemen partake by taking
self custody. If enough of us do it, we
win. And, you know, these types of
events are going to continue to happen as time
progresses. So it should not come as a
surprise to you. And I think it's important to
remember even what what Andy was saying in regards
to coming together, you know, we're much stronger
this way. A lot of infighting. It's
specifically in the Bitcoin community. The
last, you know, two or three weeks and then
Pikachu face meme type of reaction like, oh my God,
it's like, yeah, dude, like you forget what's happening.
Like people forget what is
happening right now. And when you forget what's
happening, when you forget, like the circumstance, you
forget what you're up against. You're
you're you're up against a Leviathan, a machine, right?
The biggest collective of people
the world has ever seen 11 million people employed. If
you add the contractors, it goes up to 18 million,
right? We're in a country of 350
million people just to kind of give you an idea of
how big this system is, how big this machine is.
And this is a machine that
once again, exists because of the money printer and
Bitcoin is a fundamental threat to that. So
expecting that it won't react is completely naive,
right? But again, it's it's so simple
because all we got to do is just wake people up. We
show people the truth. We show people the truth about
Bitcoin. They take self custody. That's
it. You don't have to do anything
else. It's not like, you know, all
the other things like the separation of church and
church and state. Man, that was bloody like Holy
Cow. A lot of like that you read
read about the French Revolution like that was
not pretty man and the Napoleonic Wars that
followed that millions upon millions of people died
like it was not a, you know, a happy event to say
the least. This is a little bit different,
right? This is information narrative
trench warfare on the battlegrounds of the
Internet, right? All we got to do is wake up
people. That's all we got to do. We
just got to wake up people, bring them together.
It's not left first right. It's
not conservative versus liberal. It's
really the state and then you anyways everybody. Yeah,
go ahead. I'm going to interject real
quick. It's it's a call to arms, but
it's a peaceful resolution revolution right now. And
what you can do is the peaceful revolution is get
Bitcoin earn Bitcoin, whatever you can do get
Bitcoin in self custody, put it in a wallet and
you have the keys to it. And
from that, you determine your own destiny from
there. So from so as long as you
put Bitcoin in self custody, you make the
rules, you have the coin, you make the rules. And
that's kind of where I'm at in life right now. So
bring it on. 100%. 100 % owns a Bitcoin makes the
rules. Yeah, I think that's true. It's
so true. You can't you can't tell me
I've been to bank twice my life so far from major
banks. And you can't you can't tell
me what to do anymore. Absolutely.
Now you got to empower yourself and you do that
by taking self custody. Everybody
I do want to give a shout out to one of our
sponsors. Of course, I'm talking about
the orange plop stock friends who stack sats.
It's probably a pretty good idea
to build up that that Rolodex of fellow Bitcoiners
orange plop is the Bitcoin social layer. You
download it, you open up the app, and it's a very
clever filtration system. So you'll only find fellow
Bitcoiners that are on the app has this geographical
thing where if you move to a new city, you're
traveling, you don't know any Bitcoiners around the
area. It will literally tell you
what Bitcoiners are near you. So
it's a great resource. Download
the orange plop, connect with fellow Bitcoiners.
Great resource to create Bitcoin
only events as well. And also the simply Bitcoin
group chat on the orange plop is absolutely popping.
You can join it by checking
the link in the video description. It's
one of the best ways to reach Opti and myself.
Alright everybody, let's get to the
culture to talk to Andy and Eric. Let's
check it out. Here we go. The
Daily Culture I want to give a shout out to our
sponsor, KB Max. They're the most trusted place to
buy, sell, and host mining equipment. What
you can do is you can scan the QR code or check
the link in the video description. It
will take you directly to their telegram marketplace
where you can check out their inventory and connect
with a member of their sales team. They
make purchasing their products easy and
transparent. You could also sell your mining
equipment with them, access their vast network of
domestic and international customers when you sell
your mining equipment with KB Max. This
is where I personally buy my Bitcoin mining A6. I
can't recommend them enough. Check
out KB Max today. Scan the QR code or check the
link in the video description. Opti,
it's all yours, my friend. Alright,
let's go. Before we pull this up, let's
start with Andy. What is Bitcoin or Talent Co?
What are you guys working on?
Why should the people care?
What's the mission? In
short, Bitcoin Talent Co is the first Bitcoin -focused
recruiting platform providing both products and services
for companies in a Bitcoin landscape looking to hire.
Real quickly, my background is
in recruiting. This is what I've done
throughout my whole career, usually in a tech company
setting. As all the experience, all
that expertise gained in a decade and a half of
working in tech, bringing that to Bitcoin, which is
my obsession at this point. Really
seeking to provide a way for companies in Canada to
connect. Increasingly so, finding a way to bring
more people into Bitcoin. More
people being interested in Bitcoin such that they
eventually want to work in Bitcoin. That's
a big focus for the team at this point as well.
Services -wise, not reinventing the
wheel. Again, providing retained search
and embedded recruiting services for companies.
Really drawing that line in the
sand, even naming the company as such. Really
focused purely on supporting the Bitcoin landscape
broadly. No crypto, no Web3, nothing
like that. Last thing I'll add too is
pretty prescient with the news that we've been
talking about all day. Bitcoin
increasingly is being mindful of privacy tech at
large and open source landscape. We
as a business, though, obviously Bitcoin is the
focus. These areas, these efforts are
things that we want to support and help those
projects, companies, etc. to grow as well. Love
it. Love it. Okay,
I'll pull up the website, but we did get someone in
the chat that asked and I saw Eric in the private
chat say, let's acknowledge this. Someone
asked, how do I get a Bitcoin remote job? So
I'll pull up the website and you can take it if
you want, Eric. Yeah, sure. This
is something I'm very passionate about. I
was working as a civil engineer for about three
years after school and I quit to come join the
Bitcoin revolution and since then my life has paid off
10X. I'm a free man now and
starting out, I did a Bitcoin education company
called Bitcoin ADU. You can go to my sub stack
and see that. I've written a bunch of posts
about that, general Bitcoin education. But
from there, I worked for Bitcoin magazine for about
a year and a half, two years. So
I got to see the ins and outs of the Bitcoin
industry. And that's right around the
time Andy reached out to me and he said, I had
this crazy idea for a Bitcoin recruiting company.
And I was very responding to
it. I was like, this sounds like
a really, really good idea right now because the
Bitcoin industry, you have to realize in 2017, 2018,
the idea of a Bitcoin company didn't exist. It
was all crypto. And we had to kind of like
draw a line in the sand. So
Bitcoin magazine, I'll give them credit, they were one
of the first to draw that line in the sand and say
we are a Bitcoin company, we're only focusing on
Bitcoin right now. So I learned a lot through
there. You know, I worked with some
of the greats, Rizzo, Dillmuclare, Germano, and
etc. David Bailey, and think what you
want about them. But at least for me, I was
able to get an insight into what is the Bitcoin
industry like and who do you want to work with,
right? Do you want to take on
sponsors that are crypto? Do
you want to take on sponsors that are more
Bitcoin focused? And you have to kind of
balance that in a way. And if you go too far on the
crypto edge, then people turn against you. If
you go too far on the Bitcoin edge, then you
probably won't make enough money at least at the time
being. So I saw both ends of the
spectrum. And now being in Bitcoin talent
co. Our whole goal really is to
build this entire industry. And
so let's think of the idea of a tech executive or
someone below that, a software engineer within
Google, right? They're interested in Bitcoin. They
don't know how to get a job in Bitcoin. They
don't know how to contribute to the Bitcoin
space. But we're trying to provide
that platform for them so they can, they can, we can
be the conduit in a way to get them into the
industry and they can do their thing. So
whether that be join a company, start their own
business, whatever it may be, we're here to help.
And after that, give it 510
years. These people will make the
industry. So our goal, I think overall
is really to bring the best talent into the
Bitcoin industry. And that's where our minds are
set on right now. Yo, I want to hijack this for
a sec. So I see people in the chat
like our man and David Bailey and Opti was Samurai
Docs and proud of it. Little
David Bailey is great. Like,
did you just forget what we just talked about for
like 30 minutes? Like, no, no, no, no, no, I
like I'm not talking about I'm not talking to you
directly, Eric. I'm talking to the chat like,
like, like literally like the end fighting. Did
you forget what we just spoke about? Right?
Like, did did did everyone just forget? Like
everyone just forgot, right? Everyone's
like, oh, David. Like, like, no, US government
cool, like, sweet, they're, they're majestic. They're
amazing. Let's focus on Bitcoin magazine.
Hell yeah, let's fucking go.
Like, guys, like, you're not
thinking clearly. Like, you're not thinking you're
not using your head. You don't understand what's
happening. And you're rather focused on
the collective hive mind of like, oh my God, look,
first of all, love the guys of Bitcoin magazine.
Love the guys over at Swan.
Love the guys over at the
Bitcoin companies. They're going to take different
decisions as businesses, right? And
let the free market determine who's going to
win, right? But understand who the opponent
is. And if you're going to in
fight with other fellow Bitcoiners that are building
on Bitcoin, they might, they might do it
differently than you do. Then
go start your own f -ing company and go and see how
hard it is. I promise you, it's a lot
more difficult than you than you think, right?
Yeah, all that being said, it
doesn't like, I get it. Criticism
is good. Criticism is fine. You
know, like again, someone else in the thing. Like,
BTC mag is a shit -coing company and worth fighting
too. Okay, cool. You
can do that. You're going to fight a private
corporation, a private company, right? How
are you going to fight them? You
know how you fight in the free market? You
create your own company, right? And
then you become a competitor, right? That's
how you do it. And until then, I mean, you're
basically an and on a nobody. So
show up, build a company, make some presence. And
then when the time's right, maybe you'll take over
them. And I'd be happy to support
you when that time comes. 100 % not even start a
company, man. I think like, you know,
obviously we're focused on bringing more people in and
all that, but it's like, just, just make the
decisions you want to make support buy from the
exchange you want to buy from, you know, read the
media source you want to read from, right? Like,
whatever, man, like do the thing you want to do. But
that point is exactly right. This
is a very binary like, at this point, especially,
right? Are you, are you for or
against privacy? Are you for or against Bitcoin?
Right? I don't care what your
vision of Bitcoin is at this point, right? Maybe
maybe I'm guilty of it. I'm
guilty of saying like, Oh, that's, that's not real
Bitcoin or ordinals or NFT, whatever, right? Like,
I'm guilty of it. But but I think, you know,
recognizing today moving forward, like, are you for
against Bitcoin? We can once we're on the
other side of that hill, man, once we're finding the
promised land, we can decide or we can continue
the bickering, right? But like, let's, let's all come
together to fight the ultimate boss here, right?
100 % Like once we get over
the hill, right, you know, we can go back to the
purity tests, right? But if you guys are in the
chat, like just bitching about, you know, a private
company's own to sit business decisions, right?
And by the way, there's fellow
Bitcoin content creators that choose to, you know,
align with certain people, they choose to partner up
with certain companies. That's
a business decision. If you think you could do it
better, start your own company. And
I promise you, it's significantly harder than
what you think it's going to be, right? So
like, compete on the free market. If
you think that there's an opportunity because another
country, another company you think is going in the
wrong direction, compete on the free market. But
going and trying to eat your own while we're
literally getting attacked by the state and the state
is literally locking us in a box because some dudes
like decided to write code and you're like, oh my
God, they don't pass my my moral purity tests like
holy cow, my moral virtue, it's melting. How
bad is this? Like, dude, like wake the f up,
man. Like, there's a clear and present
danger and you're focused on the other side. You're
looking at the other side and being like, oh my God,
there's a giant fucking ape that wants to tear your
metaphorical head off. And you're not paying attention
to him. Like, dude, you guys are naive.
Like literally wake up, wake up
to what is happening. I'm sorry, man. I
think that transitions to what Bitcoin talent goes
all about, honestly. And we are supporting Bitcoin
companies. I mean, no matter your
background, as long as you're in this fight with
us and you see Bitcoin as kind of that North Star
that freedom technology, then we're on your side.
So I'd like to go there for
a second and say I am on everyone who supports
Bitcoin and freedom technology. I'm
on your side. 100 % wait, there's a comment. There's
a comment. Why does everyone have to start
a competing company? We can also just attack our
adversaries as well. So you're attacking a private
business, right? That sounds like some commie ass
type of shit in my opinion, bro. Like,
they probably never started a business. Attack
your adversary like, okay, if it's your adversary,
then don't buy their products. Don't
use their stuff. Like you could totally do that
as a consumer and say, I'm not I choose not to
participate in using their products and using their
stuff. Right? Like that, like that's what
you can do as a consumer in a capitalistic society.
If you really dislike them,
then start your own enterprise and then compete
on the free and open market. But
if you're just trying to compete, if you're just
trying to pull down a private corporation because
of their business decisions, like that doesn't sound
very capitalistic to me, my friend. That
sounds some some very communistic to me, in my
opinion. Anyways, I'd like to reframe the
conversation and talk about Bitcoin, Tallica. All
right. All right. So
thank you. If someone out there is
looking to get into a job at a Bitcoin company,
what's the process? How does this work? Yeah,
I mean, the simplest thing we can do is direct people
to our job board. Right. So if you put the website
again, you'll see the job board link at the, you
know, the header there, continuing to add jobs more
and more. So companies have been posting
over the past week even. So
that's as best as possible, have the most up to date
list of these are active clients, right? You
know, that are currently working with us. We
have connections with those businesses. You
can apply exactly right there. You
can also sign up for the platform so that you can
put your information in there. So
we can always understand which opportunities to match
you with. You can sign up for job
alerts, all that's right there front center. That's
just step one. That's the easiest way. Beyond
that, you have some of the things that people start to
ask is, well, what kinds of jobs are available or
how can I best position myself? And
one point that I always make, I just really, really
want to kind of drive this message home is that
increasingly the opportunities in Bitcoin are
more and more diverse, right? Maybe
a cycle, certainly two cycles ago, you had to be
a developer, you had to be an engineer, right? Whereas
now that's not the case. Even
looking at our own track record of the past, you
know, let's say 13, 14 months of operations, half
the roles that we filled on behalf of our clients
have been non technical roles, right? So
these are marketers, these are sales folks, legal
compliance, everything, right? 50
% still being technical roles, of course, it's
going to be an important part of the industry. But
there should be a home throughout this next cycle
for anyone who wants to get into this space. All
levels of experience, all disciplines, right? And
so that's the optimism I want to bring to this
conversation, right? There's been a lot of negativity,
a lot of rightful pessimism, right? But
the optimism is that if you want to get into
Bitcoin, there's never been a better time to do so
than now, right? Love it. And
speaking of a purity test, do you guys screen people
and make sure that they are Bitcoiners and Bitcoin
only? It's twofold, right? So
on the candidate side, of course, our clients are
going to be asking questions of, is this a
Bitcoin or not a Bitcoin? And
actually, I'll say that there's no one answer
there. We have a spectrum of clients
who are like, yeah, I want people who have only worked
at Bitcoin companies who run nodes, right? I
mean, that limits the talent pool quite greatly,
right? But their companies who really
take that stance and yeah, if that's what they want,
we'll help to catch them with mission -aligned folks
in that regard. But then there's, you know,
folks who are like, yeah, and I think this should be
the case, you don't have to have worked in Bitcoin,
you just need to be a Bitcoiner, right? And
there are many more people than you'd expect on these
islands, so to speak, in tech, in traditional
finance, whatever, that are just dying to get into
Bitcoin. So those are the folks who
are trying to save, so to speak, you know, pull off
those islands and bring them on the boat, right?
But then on the flip side,
it's companies and absolutely, right? Yeah,
we have to filter on that regard. So
to this day, you'd be surprised, maybe not
surprised to hear how many former friends and
colleagues of mine reach out and say, hey, I see
you're doing crypto recruiting, like, you know,
can you help me with this or that? First
of all, no, I'm not doing crypto recruiting, it's
Bitcoin only, and here's why we're focusing only on
Bitcoin. But companies even conflate the
two, which has been interesting to see. So
you come to us wanting to hire a solidity developer,
you know, no matter what you're willing to pay, as
we say, yeah, thanks, no thanks, that's just not our
area of expertise, right? It's
just not what we focus on. And
so I think it's actually maybe arguably more
important on the company side to have that filter
and make sure that the businesses we're supporting
and the people that we're trying to bring into
Bitcoin are only getting placed at Bitcoin companies,
right? Or Bitcoin focused companies,
if you will. Love it. And
one more question on that note. Is
there like, I don't know, like, is there like a
metric like, oh, you have to have been a Bitcoin for
this long? Or is it just like, is there
like a test or like, okay, do you understand Bitcoin?
If you listen to this live
stream right now, you somehow, I don't know how
you navigate it here, not being a Bitcoin or yet,
but you just get clicked on it, you heard some
people yelling, like, what's that? And
through the course of the last hour, you're like,
fuck yeah, like, that's bullshit. Like,
I just should be saved. Like,
if you became a Bitcoin or today, and with that
conviction, decide you want to work in Bitcoin, we'll
help you. There's no length of time, there's
no purity test involved in this, right? I
try to be a bit more pragmatic, right? And
again, this brings us all back to like the culture
wars, the purity test, the infighting. Like,
my stance has always been pretty pragmatic. I'm
mindful of the fact that I had my own missteps on my
journey to becoming Bitcoin only, right? I
shit -coined, I lost money, I made money, whatever. I'm
not ashamed to talk about the journey. I
went through the pain I had to feel to ultimately
come out the other side Bitcoin only. And
so when I look at folks who maybe are still shit
-coining, maybe I see them as me, but they just
haven't got there yet. So instead of like, kicking
them down and like, kind of shunning them, how do I
help them to get to the other side more quickly,
right? 100%. And I think everyone, you
know, what you just described is paying the
price of tuition. And, you know, I've been doing
this for quite a long time and 99 % of Bitcoiners that
I've ever met started shit -coining. And
then by wrecking themselves in the process is that
they eventually became Bitcoiners on the other
side. But it's really cool what you
guys do. I think it's... Hold
on, Amigo, on that point. I
think the one tried and chewed way to become a
Bitcoin maxi is by getting wrecked on shit -coins. I
think this is a tried way. You
only learned that. I'll tell you guys a quick
story. Very quick story. I
was at Penn State University. I
was about a junior in college and they had a
blockchain club. So that's kind of was my
first four day into Bitcoin. They
were showing ETH hard. There's
a couple Asian kids that had no idea what they were
saying technically wise. But I saw the number grow up
technology when it comes to shit -coins. And
I was like, oh, I'm going to go invest a bunch of
this. And I personally bought Bitcoin
off of Binance and then traded some of that for a
couple of different coins. And
I got completely wrecked. And
it really hurt me because I couldn't go buy beer to
go to the bar for the next couple, probably two
months at least. I was really wrecked. And
for me at the time, I mean, you're talking a
couple hundred bucks, but as a college student, that
means a lot of money. And that really taught me at
least. There is signal, which is
Bitcoin, and there's the shit -coins, which is it's
gambling money. So that's kind of my attitude
towards all of this. Love it. Love
it. Okay. We are kind of getting
close to the end of the show and, you know, the
hopes of making the show palatable for people. How
about the last message that you guys want to leave
with the audience? We'll start with Andy and then
we'll move to Eric. What's it could be about Bitcoin
talent code could be about everything going on. It
could be about Bitcoin, whatever the last message,
the last two sets you want to give to the audience.
Yeah. Yeah. I
think it has to be broader than just our corner of
the industry and what we're trying to do. I
mean, of course, if you're looking for a job, like
you actually want to work in Bitcoin, come to
bitquantalant .co, sign up for the platform, message
me, message Eric, Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever you want
to do, right? We're there to answer questions.
But I think a more broad
statement is, you know, if you've gotten to the point
where you've decided that, yes, this is enough is
enough, right? You know, we got to stand for
something. You got to stand for privacy.
You got to stand for our
freedoms that, you know, feel like we are losing
incrementally and increasingly so over time.
Then find your own way to
contribute. It doesn't have to be starting
a company. It doesn't have to be working
for a Bitcoin company, right? Just
find your own way to contribute, whether it's
holdling and sitting at home and enjoying that
economy, whether it's contributing to open source
projects, whether it's sending funds to guys like
Dennis Porter, you know, doing great work. I
mean, I think his world is about to get pretty busy
now too, fighting increasing battles, right? So
there's all different ways that we can all contribute.
Just do something and just get
off the sidelines, get in the arena, so to speak.
Love it. Couldn't
agree more with that last message. All
right, Eric, jump in. What's
your last message for the audience? Yeah,
I think it comes, I tie it back to Bitcoin. See,
I did a proof of work. So whatever you do in life,
make sure you're proving your work and whatever
value providing is actually providing value. And
I'll leave you with this. Bitcoiners
love and we're all in the community together, so stop
infighting and start working together. Love
it. Love it. Absolutely,
man. Whoa, what an incredible show,
guys. I know it went a little bit
long. If you guys enjoyed the show,
you know, to do smash the like button. Consider
subscribing if you feel like we provided you value.
Go check out BitcoinTalon .co
to see what Andy and Eric are working on. Again,
if you're a Bitcoin company trying to hire fellow
Bitcoiners, great resource. And
thank you guys so much for joining us on the show
today. I'm your host, Nico. It's
my legendary co -host, Nihilus Fields, and we'll
be back tomorrow for a brand new episode of Simply
Bitcoin Live. Thanks. And I'll see you guys next
time. Bye.