I'm Brady Swinson aka Citizen Bitcoin, and I'm Gary Leland, and you're listening
to episode one thirty five or the Crypto Cousins podcast. Beat your interest in
bitcoin and cryptocurrencies by joining Hall of Fame podcaster Gary Leland on the Crypto Cousins
Podcast. And remember we are all cousins in the world of crypto. This
week's price of bitcoin eight thousand, seven hundred and fourteen dollars. That's up
eight hundred and forty dollars or twelve point two percent over the past seven days.
Howdy, Howdy, Howdy, Howdy, Brady, Welcome to the show.
Howdy Gary, happy to be here, excited to talk today. Yeah,
I think I gave you a fourth howdy there. You know, usually
only Texans get fourth howdy. So either I love you or I'm out of
it. I'm glad to be an honor a Texan. Yeah. Yeah,
So what's going on, Brady? You do citizen Bitcoin, You're a Swan
Bitcoin, you do a lot of that. When we're going to get into
all that, but first of all, I want to find out a little
bit about you. How'd you get into bitcoin? Tell me all about it
real quick? Yeah, man, well, I became aware of bitcoin in
twenty seventeen. The big price pump caught my attention. That's when I really
became aware of and started studying it. I had a coin Base account back
in twenty fourteen, but I had trouble connecting my little regional bank up to
coin Base. Back then, they were really only working with the bigger banks,
and so I just kind of gave up because there was some friction there
and I didn't really know what it was anyway. Of course, when I
found out in twenty seventeen what was really going on and started studying it,
I was like, oh, I think I remember this, And I went
back in my email and I found that coin Base email in twenty fourteen,
And of course you have that moment that a lot of bitcoiners have, like,
damn it, I wish I would have taken it seriously then, you
know, so I have that moment, Yeah, I think so, I
think so. Sometimes it takes people three or four, you know times to
come across it, and before they actually dived down the rabbit hole. So
you know, it was a crazy time that year, big run up.
I was trying to figure out what was going on, was listening and reading
to all sorts of people. I was not yet, you know, convicted
about bitcoin being really the one cryptocurrency that has a chance at becoming the global
money. So you know, in short, I was not a bitcoin maximist
yet. I was trying to figure out what's going on with the having or
with the fork. I remember the big FOURK wars going on with bitcoin cash,
and that's about when I got into it. Right before the bitcoin cash
fork. Yeah, like August twenty seventeen was when the fork actually happened.
The debates were going on for months even years before that. Yeah, because
I didn't get any bitcoin from the fork, So I think I was like
right after the date they did the snapshot maybe yeah, yeah, that's all
I can think of. Yep, Yeah, so I got I did get
the bitcoin cash from the fork, and I remember going there was a big
run up on bitcoin cash. It was like night the day or two before
November, before Thanksgiving in November, and coin base launched bitcoin cash as as
a cryptocurrency to trade, and there were there was a bitcoin bitcoin cash pair,
but they did not announce this they remember, Yeah, they just they
just launched it, and bitcoin cash started going nuts versus the bitcoin price and
in USD of course, and I had this bitcoin cash from the fork,
so I was like fifty fifty basically at that point, I hadn't sold it
yet, and I that night was watching this thing go up, and I
happened to be in a group I was, you know, trying to trade
at that point, which is silly, and like anybody who was trading at
that point made money because everything was going up. So it's not like,
you know, everyone thought they were awesome, an awesome trader because we were
all making money. But then I found the found rude awakening when I got
my tax bill the next year, right, yeah, yeah. Anyway,
I was happening to me in this trading room on like discord or telegram or
something, and they were talking about they were saying like, oh man,
this red candle that's coming up is going to be epic. It's gonna be
the biggest, you know, red candle we've seen ever in the history of
crypto. And so, you know, I was like actually thinking in my
head, like is this, like for real, is bitcoin cash actually going
to overtake bitcoin? Like is this actually happening? In the narrative the bitcoin
cash was throwing out there, and I think a lot of new bitcoiners were
thinking that too, just kind of scared, you know, the fund they've
been throwing out for for months. Yeah, yeah, I was concerned.
I was actually call up messaging people I knew that had been in a long
time. They're going, now you're just going through your first one. Calm
down, it's gonna be okay, that's what everybody kept telling me. I
was like, okay, yeah, I take you guys words on it.
Yeah, I was really concerned. Oh I just gotten into it and I
put what I felt like, there's a good amount of money into it,
and totally yeah, yeah, yeah, So I was freaking out. Fortunately,
I was in this room with some bitcoiners and they're like, oh man,
it's gonna crash. It's gonna be crazy. Just watch what happens.
And indeed it started. This big red candle started forming and I just sell
sale cell Cell and I caught it like at a pretty high price, and
I was really happy with how much bitcoin I had then. Fortunately, about
that point, I really he started understanding because you know, when bitcoin kind
of won in the FOURK wars, I was like, okay, all right,
so this is probably the one and really started sitting it hard. It
only took a couple of months after that point. By January of twenty eighteen,
I was all in on bitcoin and actually started the Citizen Bitcoin podcast that
year. Early that year, it was just me and my friend Tommy talking
bitcoin, so it didn't have a lot of traction until I started interviewing bitcoiners
next year. But that was a great way for us to learn, you
know. Yeah, And that's almost my same story exactly. And according to
American Hoddle, you know, he was on a month or two ago,
and he told me that almost every bitcoiner has three times that they like venture
into or our look at bitcoin, and usually it's the third one that most
of the time people get into it and finally get into it. It's the
third time that sounds about right. Yeah, that was right for me,
and I got into it, I guess a little bit after you, because
you were in the snapshot from bitcoin cash and I wasn't snapshot m so we
I must have barely missed that. And that's when I started my podcast too,
was on that run up, and it was a learning thing and we
were, you know, doing a podcast to learn about bitcoin. Because you
could ask people you wanted to know exactly exactly listening to someone, you can
go ahead and ask the questions. Yeah, and you know, now I
think we've become hard and bitcoiners because we've gone all the way up to nineteen
and all the way down to thirty two. You know we're still in it.
Yep, yeah, exactly, and we've gone through the Now we can
claim we're we've gone through the rings. Have you have You got in at
fifty cents and went up to nineteen, Well, it's not quite as hard
coming down to thirty two exactly, but they went If you got in a
fifty cents and held there, you went through several at least two. Yeah,
major bear markets still the third one, so you went through your own
version, you're correct, Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Where'd
you come up with a name citizen Bitcoin? Citizen Bitcoin? Well, my
dad actually is well, he retired recently, so he was a our professional
communications professional and he was really on the forefront of they call I can't think
of the name of it right now, but it's basically where he pairs up
corporations with nonprofits and you know, helps to basically both sides, like the
corporation helps the nonprofit. The nonprofit sort of lends some of its reputation to
the corporation and you can do you do well on both sides. And he
had a blog called Citizen Brand and he wrote a lot about branding and communications
and this particular kind of pr that he was sort of helping develop and it's
now, of course, uh you know, kind of a regular part of
a communications plan. So when I was trying to come up with the name
for the podcast, we were you know, just brainstorming and thought of Dad's
blog and I was like, yeah, this, you know, citizen bitcoine.
I kind of like this, and then you know, we decided on
it because it was just the idea of being a good citizen of bitcoin and
learning, you know, really dedicating yourself to learning about what's going on and
teaching others. I'd not put it in that way, being good citizen and
bitcoin. I always thought about it just being a citizen and bitcoin. So
maybe I don't think any proper manner or something, but that's a good name.
I always wondering. We met when in San Francisco last not this last
spring, but the spring before. I guess we're still in the spring kind
of of this year at a rooftop carnivore dinner, and I had a lot
of people in the show since then from that dinner meant you know, I
made a lot of friends at night that some I knew already from online,
but some I had not even met before. And you were one of the
people I had not even met. Yeah, and the same. Yeah,
So that was a really great event, and I was really you know,
I felt like that trip to San Francisco exposed to me just so many new
people. Yeah that because when I went, I didn't feel like I knew
that many and so I was really looking forward to this year's event, to
being exposed to a bigger group of people because I felt like I had a
strong court Cordina, you know what I mean. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah,
it's supposed to be twice as big as last year. It was going
to be about four thousand bitcoiners and the year before their first it was the
first bigcoin conference, uh in like of that the BTC media had held I
think in four years or something, and so I think of it as the
first. They had two thousand or so and that Yeah, that rooftop beef
steak dinner was amazing. It was really helped kind of launch Citizen Bitcoin as
well, because I met a lot of the other podcasters who had been listening
to and learning from and met a lot of future guests of the show up
there. Shout out to ck Christian Careless of BTC Media. He wrote to
me and said, hey, man, you gotta buy a ticket to this.
You gotta be there. You know, I had just contacted Pierre because
when I guess six months before we had the first bit block boom and Pierre
had and Michael had a dinner Carnivoard dinner, and I knew I was going
to this, and I knew Pierre was. I said, hey, Pierre,
we should do at Carnivoard dinner out there because that was so good.
Yeah, and he goes, oh, there's already one happening, and as
oh, send me to scoop. Yeah, and he sent me the link.
Luckily I got it in time to get on there, or I wouldn't
have known about it at all if I hadn't been interested in putting one together
because I thought we needed Well, you were in that photo. They took
a photo of all the podcasters who were there. Yeah, that was a
great line up there. I mean that was a great picture to be in.
That was a great lineup of podcasters. Absolutely, Yeah, Marty,
Marty and Matt and Peter and Stephen. I was there and you and me.
I think that was the group. I was definitely honored to be in
that group. I was just a little, a tiny little podcaster at that
point. Yeah. Yeah, And then you told me about Guy and he's
become a good friend of mine one and I haven't met him yet, but
he's coming to Oh I met him I share a bit black boom out And
I had said, yeah, I met him yet, and yeah, speaking
to share a bit black mood. So yeah, and you're the one who
told me about Guy. I didn't know his show. Yeah, so you
said, I said, what podcast do you listened to? And you told
me. I said, okay, well subscribe right now. And I've been
listening to it ever since. Crypt Economy podcast A guy is a good friend
of uh. And I say this a lot, but he he was my
first bitcoin friend, the first bitcoiner that I really got to know kind of
on a personal level chatting online. And then he stayed at an airbnb with
me in at Bitcoin twenty nineteen at that conference we're talking about. So,
yeah, he stayed with me and got to know each other well. And
his podcast is just a fantastic service to the to bitcoin. He reads.
If you're not listening to it, you got to check it out. He
reads the best bitcoin articles. It's kind of like an audible for bitcoin.
Yeah, he does a much better job of reading than I do, and
I read. I love his voice. He's a great reader. And then
he has he goes on rants afterwards, and those are always epic. He's
he just knows what he's talking about. He's been in bitcoin for a long
time. You know. I think it was three weeks ago. Maybe I
realized it was Friday afternoon and two and I realized I hadn't done a show
yet for Monday. For the editors messages that can you come on the show
right now? He's like, okay, so I don't have anything prepared.
We're just going to sit here and talk. So he was he was a
good sport about that. So now you're also working with U coreyip sin At
Yep, how's that going? And tell us a little bit about Swan and
what we're doing there. I'm a I guess an advisor for that I help
that one I can yep, yep. Yeah, Corey Clipston. He is
an incredible networker. Uh. He's put together an incredible network of bitcoiners he
runs up so that I'm happy to be on with with. Oh yeah,
yeah, wow, I'm on that list. It's an amazing roster bitcoiners that
are advisors, and you know, we really um do take a lot of
input from those advisors. We're writing a book for give Bitcoin, which is
our sister product for swan Bitcoin Give bitcoin dot io, Give bitcoin dot io
yep. It makes it easy to h to give bitcoin to friends and family
and then we sort of part basically partner become your partner in educating them so
um, you know, you don't have to take on all that burden and
we'll kind of bring them along from you know, what is what really is
money? Why bitcoin's better? You know how bitcoin works? Uh, and
then prepare them after a year, hold the bitcoin for a year with the
idea of when the year's over, you're you are prepared. The recipient is
prepared sorry to take the bitcoin and hold their own keys. So um,
and then you know, the companion. The next step is to start,
you know, auto stacking recurring buys a bitcoin with Swan, which we think
is the best way to buy buy bitcoin. You have to time the market
or anything like that. Now, I had someone in contact me today,
someone unknown for years, and they were using Swan And by the way,
if you're not from Swan, check it out and you can use my affiliate
link, uh Jerry Leland dot com slash swan swa in. But they were
using it and they said, and I didn't know what they meant, so
I was going to ask you this, and they said that they were not
thinking that it try that it made the purchase fast enough for something. Does
that make sense? Yeah? Yeah. So you know, we're a small
startup and there is fraud risk with using the ACH system, the legacy banking
system, and so we have to put a basically we hold the money for
ten to fifteen days until that ACH hold clears. Other you know, other
exchanges are on ramps for bitcoin who can offer it much quicker, like coin
Base is a four day withdraw window. They take on more risk, They
have a lot more money to take on that risk, and we have much
kind of self ensure it because they got more money behind them, so they
aren't going to risk the loss as much as yeah, small startups going on
exactly. And the other big part of it is we have much lower fees
than coin base. So part of the deal for us to have much lower
fees is that we have to sort of mitigate that risk a little bit more.
But we think the trade off is worth it because once you start stacking,
once you get past that initial ten to fifteen days, you're buying your
bitcoin every week, every month, whatever, and you don't really even notice
it happening. We're just you know, taking the withdrawal ten days ahead of
the purchase, and so you're you're still stacking on a regular basis once you
get past that first one. I see what you're saying, yea, yeah,
because he was. He was telling me that, and I told him,
I said, I haven't heard that from anyone. I haven't heard anyone
complining and are saying that. So I said, I'll ask, because I'm
talking to someone today, so I figured that was the easiest way to find
out. I'll tell him to listen to the show and he can put a
concept. The concept on swan is that you could say, you know,
if you said to yourself. I want to buy some bitcoin every payday and
I get paid every other week. Let's say, and you know, I
make a certain dollar amount and I want to put five percent of that in
the bitcoin. You could say I want to buy this much bitcoin every other
week, and then that process is done for you automatically, and you don't
have to mess with it. You don't have to do anything. You don't
have to sit here and remember or forget. You're just gonna stack SATs automatically.
I think it's pretty much everyone accepts it that if you just dollar cost
average buy on a regular basis, you're gonna do pretty good long term.
I mean, instead of like trying to pick the bottom. I mean it's
just hard to do. Yeah, it's very very hard to do, basically
impossible in the long run to do that. You might be successful a few
times, but yeah, in the long run, like you know, you
just can't predict what's going on. In general, during a bull run,
the price is going to be up. So the best thing to do is
just buy a little bit every week, and your average cost basis is going
to be roughly in the middle of you know, the low and the high.
So it's a. It's a good place to be, you know.
I found though that people I tell that they should buy a little every week
or something start out buying a little every week that they not that a lot
of them have taken my work for but the ones that have start buying on
a regular basis, every week, every month, whatever. But then when
bitcoin starts dipping, like recently it dipped down to thirty eight, yeah,
and I was dollar cost averaging every day I was buying and I was like
going, oh my gosh, this is great, this is great, and
I was buying more. But I found many of them quit buying yeah,
instead, and they're going, oh my gosh, I'm losing money. I'm
losing money. I'm losing money instead of going oh, so they're thinking being
a newbie instead of someone who's gone through this. And nothing phases me anymore.
I mean, you know, and my wife's getting that way now.
But nothing. It doesn't phase me at all. If it drops at twenty
two, I probably am not phase but instead of when and actually, on
some days I was buying twice as much, going well, oh I'm not
buying that that amount. I'm buying twice as much now. Yeah. But
they quit. So I think that these concept weren't trying to get in a
concept between swan doing it for you and you're not looking at it all the
time. If you're a newbie, you get to take advantage of instead of
getting scared, and you stop, and then it goes back up like it
has now to seventy five, and you're going, man, I can't believe
I wouldn't buying that. I put buying that from the time it was six
to thirty eight, right exactly, Yeah, And I take advantage of the
low instead and forget it, and then you don't have to go through that
psychological cycle, right, And we've seen those graphs of the cycle that you
go through in a you know, in a bear a bowl and then a
bear market, and then eventually you get into this despair mode where that's where
most people sell. They sell out. They're selling all the way down,
and when you're you've given up completely, you just like, oh you can
pitch late and I'm out. I've lost all this money. And that's where
the you know people, the hoddlers with conviction will scoop up those sets at
a low price, and then it's starts going back up. Again. And
then of course the having that decreases uh the supply uh you know, has
an effect on that as well. If the by pressure stays the same,
SPLAG goes cuts in half. U you know, basic economics there. And
I wanted to go back to the idea about saving right on a regular basis.
And Americans like aren't really used to saving anymore. There's like two ways
that we're sort of used to saving now in this fiat age. And one
is your four oh one K and you automatically contribute to that with every paycheck,
sometimes your employer and matches some of that or whatever. And then you're
you're a mortgage, you're home, so you're you know, regularly adding to
the equity investment of your home. And so we'd like to think of SWAN
as another kind of similar regular savings products set didn't forget it, let it
go, you know, think about it in a long long term. You
know, mortgage is fifteen thirty years. You know four oh one k's are
you know similar. You know, you're contributing to it ideally your whole career.
So just start thinking about it that way, uh, and long term,
and we think you'll you'll do well, you know, yeah, I
obviously agree with you, or I wouldn't be buying as I see it d
being every time. And my wife's hoard going, man, this is crazy.
We'll go at this thing going down. I'm going, I know,
I'm gonna buy some more. Oh yeah, yeah. She just doesn't have
as much, she believes because she thinks, I'm I know what I'm talking
about. But that's the only wayson is after thirty eight years she thinks hopefully
I'm I know what I'm talking about. I love it because my wife's in
the same the same position now. And I told her, I was like,
look it sounds to thirty eight hundred fourth, you know, in the
four thousand dollars range. And I was expecting her to, you know,
raise an eyebrow and and be a little afraid. But she just you know,
looked at me, stee alive and was like, are we buying more?
You know? He He's like, cheers, here, here you go.
Here's something I always laugh. Happened now. My wife, you know,
as just dropping the thirty eight is not that excited, but she's not
saying anything. She well, she doesn't. I just do it and she
goes you buy more bitcoin today, and I go, yeah, she goes
okay, and she goes okay, okay. But you know, in San
Francisco during bitcoin twenty nineteen, you know, it went up to like fourteen
thousand dollars that weekend. Okay. Yeah, So we're in our hotel hell
and uh gosh. It might have been the night of the beefsteak dinner.
I'm not sure, but I was kind of buzzed. I don't know,
I was kind of buzzed. And I've fallen asleep in bed. My wife
stays up really late, you know. So I'm asleep and she's watching TV.
And like three in the morning, my wife wakes me up and she's
like, she goes, bitcoin's going crazy. It's like fourteen thousand. I'm
like, oh good good. She goes, I think we should buy some
more. What I think we should buy some more? I said, there's
no way I'm getting up at three in the morning to buy bitcoin out of
a deep night's sleep. It just ain't happening, Kathy. I'm fourteen thousand
dollars too, yeah, yeah, and she goes, well, I don't
know, it's just going up like this. I think that we should buy
some more. It's not happening. We're not buying any more time. We'll
look at it in the morning when we got first your minds. But it's
kind of funny fourteen thousand, and that's where a lot of people are,
Yeah, fourteen thousand, I want to buy eight hundred. I don't want
any of that. You know. That's psychology. Yeah, that's the psychology
of the market cycles. You know. That's why if you can stay calm
on both ends of that psychological cycle, then you can make a lot of
games if you can. If you can, that's and that's one of the
things dollar cost averaging does for you, if you can stick with it,
and that's what's the want of thing helps you do. It helps you stick
with it because you're not looking at it to see if you just know what's
happening in the background. Hey, before we go any further, I do
want to make sure everybody listening knows about bit block Boom. If you listen
to this show at all, you definitely know about bit block boom. But
it's a bitcoin conference I put on in Dallas, Texas every August. This
year we're having the third one, and this is a bitcoin conference, not
an alltcoin conference or a crypto conference, or a blockchain conference. This is
a bitcoin maximalist conference. If you get caught talking about all cooins, you'll
be asked the laite. You'll be asked to stop the first time. The
second time, you'll be taken out in the hallway. Third time, you'll
be asked to leave the building. So this is a bitcoin a strict bitcoin
conference. It's in August, I said, in Texas. So go to
bitblock boom dot com and check it out. And if you use the code
word cousins c o USI n S when you purchase your ticket, you'll save
thirty percent off the price of your tickets. So I hope we get to
see you there. And Brady, I'm feeling pretty comfortable now. I was
kind of like for about a three week period there, you know, I
was never canceling, but I started to get kind of concerns, you know
a little bit. But now I'm starting feeling pretty confidence. They started the
releasing step today, lifting bands the day in Texas. By the time August
comes, it's gonna be one hundred and ten. Yeah, so in Texas.
So if the heat affects it at all, that's gonna help kill it
off. And I think, you know, we're gonna be like really the
first real the first well, there aren't that many real bitcoin conferences. There's
a lot of crypto conferences, but I mean that made bitcoin conferences. But
we're going to actually be one of the first conferences of the year. You
know, Tone got his end in Vegas right before. That was as late
as you could probably do it. You know, if you'd have been two
weeks later, it probably wouldn't have happen. And now it's going to come
to ours. So I think we're gonna have a heck of a conference coming
up. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, so I'm really excited about
having it. Um, we're ordering we're kind of like getting prepared for Corona.
We're ordering hand sanitizer stations, you know, put everywhere and trying to
find a sponsor to pay for those. And we're thinking about giving out new
Goodea bags, even masks, you know, bitcoin masks that people can wear
if they're worried about it, you know, they can be at the very
least, that'll be an awesome momentum half from this year. Those last night
and I figured, you know, there's some people well like um Rock Star
Developer and NBK who are speaking who don't like aborone knowing who they are in
Bitcoin, Tina, so they could always wear their masks because I was trying
to figure out how to handle them for the live stream, right, yeah,
because we're doing a free to live streaming, so I was trying to
figure out how to handle them so that would be a way. So we
got a lot of new things we're trying to work on. It'll be different
than before to handle the Corona virus situation. Well, I'm glad it's still
on and I am absolutely you know, absolutely hope that things will be calmed
down by then and that we can have the conference. And it's been a
it's been a crazy time. It's been a strange time. Man. Well
I think, I said, I think down here, I know things are
different like in New York and some cities in California, so I've been deaths
for us, but here, I mean, you know, I know,
like one of the bigger hospitals in Dallas, it has nine people in there
with quartaires. I mean that's not really no, I mean that that big
a deal. And they've had this lock down for a month. Like my
wife didn't leave the house for three weeks, and yesterday she came up here
at the office and went to costco. I was like, what, Yeah,
yeah, I feel like, okay, I'm getting out. I don't
know anyone dying down here. I mean, I know they're people dying.
We just don't know anyone that's died or even had it, you know.
Yeah. And the strange thing is, you know, like if you know,
if the numbers aren't as bad as you know we're projected or whatever,
we'll never know if the quarantine was needed, because you know, if we
hadn't done it, who knows what it would have happened. And we're in
this timeline now, and so we have to deal with it. I am
a little concerned about the economic fallout, probably will longer lasting and you know,
could be more devastating. Well, we got our PPP money yesterday,
our day before yesterday. Yeah, so off the first we made it into
that first batch before we get cut off. We got our PPP yesterday,
which was really nice. I mean that's fantastic. I mean, you know,
we got free money. Yeah, I mean, we're definitely you have
to spend that on but you know that's the thing. You have to spend
that on employee seventy five percent on employees and twenty five percent on rent and
electric utilities. So that has a good of certain things, but that does
free up other money. Yeah, and in our situation, some businesses aren't
in this situation. Some businesses are doing fine and they have it like if
you have a carrier service, Oh, your business is probably up and you're
still getting paid that money. In our case, our stores have physically been
closed, you know. I mean we've been working the employees doing piddaly tasks,
online tasks and things like that, but no one's coming in sort of
buying anything, right, you know, trying to keep people employed because they
got to feed. Yeah, So I mean it's just been dwindling down the
money. So the money is very much appreciated. Now we can keep doing
that without it coming out of our personal pocket. So when and when are
your stores back open or aren't they already? Well, the wallpaper stores open
yesterday. It opened yesterday because we knew about today, and it's it can
be open technically because it could have probably been opened before, but we didn't
feel comfortable doing it. But now we do, and it falls under like
home depot. We sell construction, commercial wallpaper and stuff like that. Okay,
the sporting goods store is still closed and it can't be open according to
the rules. And you know, I mean, who's buying softball equipment and
baseball equipment? No one, No one's playing. Yeah, and we missed
the college season, we missed the high school season, we missed the spring
select season for travelball teams. So you know that business is going to suffer
greatly. The wallpair of business has still done a good online business because people
are stuck in our house, so they're decorating, right right, Yeah,
it's something you can do. Yeah. I think that's actually our online business
is the best online business has been in years for the wallpaper store. Make
people are doing that. Yeah, been on your list for a long time.
Might as well check it off when you're in quarantine. He can't do
anything else, right, Hey, I want to talk to you. Last
Saturday, I think I saw someone posting people were talking about, you know,
uh, kind of like a declaration against Fiat in favor of bitcoin,
And I saw someone post is there really such a thing? And then the
next day really was Yeah. The next day, yours came out and I
didn't know if you saw that guy asking is it really such a thing,
and you said, well, I'm gonna make one. That's crazy. No,
I hadn't seen that. Yeah, that was the thing that nice people
were talking about it, and someone posted there is this a real thing?
And then the next morning I woke up and I was tagged in something and
you had tagged me, and yeah, you had written a bitcoin declaration.
I wanted to talk about that a little bit. Yeah, this was a
couple of fridays ago, I think a couple of weeks ago. Maybe it
was last Friday. I don't know. I think it was Las Friady.
Actually that's last weekend. Yeah, it was last weekend, right. I
had been playing a poker game on Zoom with some of my buddies, and
you know, we wrapped it up around midnight. You know, I still
I was just like not ready to go to bed. Um poured myself a
little whiskey and just you know, go hop on Twitter and I don't know
that post and you're just so drunk you can't remember. Maybe I don't know,
but I'm pretty sure I didn't. I hadn't I hadn't really been drinking
much since then or before then. But yeah, I don't know where where
the inspiration came from. I think i'd been posting a lot of historical stuff
for Swan and on my own account, and last week I posted this quote
from George Washington about paper money ruining the commerce in your state. It was
he was writing a letter to I think that you know, one of the
officials, like maybe the governor of Rhode Island, and they started had started
printing paper money, and uh, I started doing a little research on kind
of the positions of the Founding Fathers on central banking and gold standards if you
have money, and I just happened upon the idea right of this declaration of
monetary independence. And since I wrote it, I mean, it's really it's
it's amazing the parallels between the Declaration of Independence and really what bitcoin stands for
in a sort of moral way, and the political consequences implications of bitcoin,
between you know, between that and the deculation of independence. I've since found
out that there were a couple other attempts. I found somebody something a Reddit
post, somebody sent something another like a blog post that did something similar.
So the ideas out there, which is not surprising to me because it's just
kind of obvious once you once it occurs to you. Well, I thought
it was very well done and there were a lot of similarities between the Declaration
of Independence and actually you falkeding about George Washington. What was George Washington who
when he was talking about the continental money that the space we're using, said
if you have a wagon full of money, it may be worth what the
wagon it's worth. Yeah. Yeah, So I wonder if we're going to
see that again, you know, I mean, if that's if that's our
first sight of what's going to happen, you know, a wagon full of
dollars or a truck full of dollars are going to be worth what the trucks
were. Yeah, that's uh. You know, history says that that's the
inevitable end of a fiat money. It's happened, you know, many many
times throughout history. Once a gold standard is abandoned, the cycle that you
get into and the idea that you should bail out businesses during a down cycle
to try to limit the natural consequences of the you know, capitalist boom,
you know, market boom bust cycle. There's moral hazard at that point.
You can't not do that again. Uh, and then you have all these
kind of zombie companies that are not profitable and shouldn't be around you. Also,
you know, stop the sort of the clearing out of the businesses that
creates a lot of entrepreneur entrepreneurial activity, and you destroy the signal that the
pricing signal that you know, really should be sending information out to entrepreneurs and
producers about, you know, what's what's in demand. But when you start
printing money and bailing out companies in times of economic downturns, then those price
signals can't function properly and you get all kinds of messy consequences because of it.
It's like trying to save the buggy whip company. Yeah, hey,
we need that buggy whip company. They employ a lot of people. We
can't let them go under. Yeah, but everybody's driving cars. Yeah,
but they make a great damn buggy whip tatatos around. You never know,
you just need faster horses. So now I've also seen someone I'm not sure
what's going on. Someone is making images because I've got I've seen an image
on a Twitter hatter of someone's signature. I received one the other day.
It looks like it's on a scrolled that piece of paper. Yeah, an
image, you know, with my signature on it. So someone's doing something
there with these images. So what's going on there? Yeah, Sweet Toshi
still who it was? Yeah Toshi. Sweet Toshi um is a friend of
mine on Twitter. He's a cool dude and loves to do these, you
know, make things into gifts and images, and so he kind of jumps
in when there's sort of this kind of I guess inspiring thread and uh,
this kind of fit perfectly with things that he likes, something he likes to
do. So he had this like scroll image and just started putting people's signatures
on there and in kind of this you know, old fashioned script that sort
of looked like the signatures on the you know, the John John Hancock signature
on the Declaration of Independence. He I think does does a lot of fun
things like that. So it definitely follows Sweet Doshi if you if you're not
yet, So if he makes if he makes something like an actual declaration of
independence, we need to get an image of that and we'll have it blown
up and yeah, make it into a thing to put it on the wall.
There a mit block so I mean, yeah, actually and I miss
it. Somebody asked Luco Palletti in that thread, who is my favorite bitcoin
artist? At Luco Poletti I think is his Twitter handle or just search Luca
Poletti po l E t t I. And he said that he would make
a digital version of it. You know, that's not like a just a
medium post or a Twitter thread. So I'm sure he'll do an amazing job
if he does get around to it. And that's at Lucho plenty hell u
c h O p O l E t TI. Yep. Yeah, and
he's an amazing artist. They're a lot of They're a lot of great bitcoin
artists out there, yeah, in the sphere. Another favorite of mine is
a Bricky Bricky on bitcoin at BVBTC I think on Twitter. He does a
lot of great stuff and very creative dude. He was at bit block Moon
last year. A matter of fact, he brought me a bitcoin b yeah
foot tall that he had played out of ceramics or something. I mean,
it's it's gold in color, but of course it's not man at of gold.
And he carried it on his flight and he goes he kept getting like
checked at the X ray machines for having his big old thing in there.
Yeah, so he gave it to me and I was like caught off by
by surprise. I was not prepared at Matt fright. I have it on
one of my sets in the studio here, backdrop of it. That's awesome.
Yeah, that was really that was really cool. I like him a
lot. He's a really nice guy, great gay. Yeah. So okay,
So is there any chance we could get you to read that for people?
All right? Because that's a lot to read. So if you don't
want to, I understand because that's a lot. So Ia that up to
you. It's four minute about a four minute read. Um, I'd be
happy to read it, though I know I know Guy Swan, the voice
of Bitcoin, will be reading it so at some point in the nearest future.
So maybe we just let him do it. And I don't know.
I ass up to you, asce p to you. It's just a trait
here for the cousin. Yeah, you want to read it now, if
you just do it, let's do it cool, let's do it all right.
A Declaration of Monetary Independence in unanimous declaration of the decentralized nodes of Bitcoin.
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people to dissolve
the monetary bands which have connected them with another, and to assume the separate
and equal station to which the laws of natural money and of human nature entitle
them. A decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare
the causes which impel them to separation. We hoddle these truths to be self
evident, that all humans deserve certain unalienable rights, that among these are life,
liberty, and property, and that to secure these rights, Bitcoin is
instituted among humans, deriving powers from the consent of the node operators. That
whenever any form of the monetary policy becomes destructive to these ends, it is
the right of the node operators to alter or abolish it, and to institute
a new monetary policy, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers
in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and
property. Prudence indeed will dictate that monetary policy long established should not be changed
for light and transient causes, and accordingly, all experience hath shown that people
are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of
abuse and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce
them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty,
to throw off such monetary policy, and to provide new guards for their future
security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these humans, and such is
now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of monetary policy.
The history of the present monetary policy of the United States is a history of
repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute
tyranny over the money and of these humans. To prove this, let facts
be submitted to a candid world. They have refused a sent to monetary self
sovereignty, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. They have forbidden
people to pass a monetary policy for the accommodation of the world of free people,
unless those people would relinquish the right of the use of natural money,
a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. They have enabled
private banking institutions at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of
their private ledger, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with their
measures. They have debased bearer assets repeatedly for opposing with firmness their invasions on
the rights of the people to natural money. They have refused for a long
time after such debasements, whereby the monetary policy incapable of annihilation, to return
to the people at large their exercise. The people of the world remaining in
the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.
They have obstructed access to natural money by refusing the abdication of control of the
money they have kept among us through tyranny of the monetary policy, even in
times of peace, excessive standing armies without the consent of the people. They
have combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to the to our
constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving assent to their acts of pretended legislation,
for imposing surveillance among us through among other methods, the use of their
money for imposing inflation on us without consent, for abolishing the free system of
money, establishing therein an arbitrary monetary policy, and enlarging its jurisdiction, so
as to render it at once an example and fit instrument, for introducing the
same absolute rule into the rest of the world. For altering fundamentally the form
of our money. They have abdicated monetary governance here by declaring the money to
be in their sole protection, and waging monetary war against us. They are
at this time printing large amounts of this fiat money to complete the works of
death, desolation, and tyranny already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy
scarcely paralleled even in the most barbarous ages. And in every stage we have
petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered
only by repeated injury. A chairman and government, whose character is thus marked
by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler
of a free money, nor should money be controlled by a central authority.
We, therefore, the representatives of the nodes of Bitcoin in Nakamotove Consensus,
assembled together, appealing to the people of the world for the rectitude of our
intentions, do, in the name and by authority of the Node operators,
solemnly published and declare that we and of right ought to be bearers of a
self sovereign money, that we are absolved from the all allegiance to the monetary
policy of the United States, and that all monetary connection between US and the
Federal Reserve Bank and the global banking Cartel is and ought to be totally dissolved.
And that as hoddlers of self sovereign money, we have full power to
establish commerce and do all other acts and things which self sovereign economic actors may
of right to do. And for support of this declaration, with firm reliance
on the protection of mathematics and cryptography, we mutually pledge to each other our
lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Well, I think that's
pretty good for a one time straight read. You know, guy wouldn't even
do a straight read like that. He would let's turn it down and benet
in parts. Yeah, inestimable. That's a hard one. Yeah, thanks,
Because I was reading it to my wife the other day when I said,
oh, I listen to this thing this guy wrote, and I was
reading, I was like, wow, that's a whole lot to read there.
So that's why I was like saying, if you don't want to,
I'm not like trying to shrink. No. Something you read there I thought
was pretty interesting though, as you said, life liberty and property, and
now we know that term is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
But I think it was originally written life Liberty and property when it was originally
written, and they changed it up to life liberty, and I think Thomas
Jefferson wanted it to be property exactly. Yeah, Thomas Jefferson originally wrote it
with life, Liberty and Property and it was changed to the pursuit of happiness.
And I liked the original a little bit better. I think it's,
you know, a little bit more clear. It's an you know, more
objective term than the idea of the pursuit of happiness, which is very subjective.
So I yeah, I like that a little better. And I think
life and liberty sort of covers the idea of the pursuit of happiness so too.
I think they just wanted to get the property out of there. Yeah,
probably that was about. So I think that was really good. I
appreciate your reading that, and I'm sure guys will be better. But then
again, though he's gonna like, he's not gonna get at all one read
like that. I guarantee you that's true. I mean it is. It
is pretty dramatic, right, I mean, but the Declaration of Independence was
dramatic, and it was a dramatic time. And I can see somebody listening
to me read that just be like, oh man, that's ridiculous. That's
over the top. And this is you know, comparing the monetary policy that
we have today or the money that we have today to the King of England
and its policies against the United States. It's ridiculous. But I disagree.
I think that the harms that Fiat money have you inflicted upon us as people
are you know, subtle but profound and pervasive, and I think that it
needs to be declared. Yeah, I agree with But yeah, I thought
it was very exciting when I first saw it. Actually, you know,
like I said, I was like, wow, this guy answered the guy's
question last night. It's just weird having synchronicity. Man, it happens all
the time in big Quinn. I see it all the time. It happens
all the time. One thing that I've been about a lot lately is the
consequences of printing all this money right now. You know, I think that
this would this would have happened eventually, right Maybe I was thinking that,
you know, we'd go through at least one more cycle where the Federal Reserve
would be able to kind of paper over another you know, inevitable downturn in
the economy. But I think that this black swan, to refer back to
to lev that were talking about before we started recording, this seems to leave
this idea of a black swan, which is an unpredictable but extremely impactful event.
And in hindsight, it should have been saying It's right, it's obvious
in hindsight, but it's unpredictable before. Really it seems obvious in hindsight,
but that's that's a narrative fallacy that that humans often often do anyway, So,
yeah, black swan can be positive or negative. I think this is
a negative black swan. I think Bitcoin is a very positive black swan,
and that is actually one of the inspirations for the name of our company,
Swan bitcoin. But I think that this I was wondering because because I really
never thought of bitcoin as a black swan event. Yeah, but yeah,
you're right, And so now it all comes together to me. Yeah I'm
involved with and I didn't even know that, but yeah, yeah, sense
now yeah, yeah, So I think that we've really pulled the future forward
with this, you know, black swan events, coronavirus. It's requiring us
while requiring the printing of all this money based on the like I said,
the moral hazard of this Fiat Kansian monetary policy. You can't once you do
it once, you can't not do it again. That's why fiat money is
ending inevitably in hyper inflation. So we might be at this very moment living
through the beginning of hyper big colinization, being perfectly scarce asset and monetary good
that's available in you know, as an alternative to dollars. Right now.
You know I've seen before and I think and then home in this exactly,
But the average lifespan of a fiat money is like forty five years or something.
It's really short, something that came out of the odd in like seventy
three yep. So actually we're kind of overdue. We've gone past the average
here, so it really wouldn't be that unheard of for it to be yep.
And that's because the dollars the world reserve currency, so it's got a
much larger network effect than you know, like a smaller countries fiat currency.
And we see we see fio currencies in Venezuela and Argentina, Rwanda. I
think it was Zimbabwe that Zimbabwe, Yeah, right, that's right. I
think that's the country I was thinking of. Um that have you know,
gone through cycles ten, fifteen, twenty year cycles. Argentina is just you
know famous for it, and so Argentinians just instinctively now understand the value of
bitcoin, whereas you know, Americans who have had the privilege of the being
you know, using as our native currency, the world reserve currency. It
seems you know, pretty stable, um, and it has been for several
generations. Uh, you know it became the world reserve currency with Breton Woods
in nineteen forty four. Seen seventy one was when we went off the gold
standards. So you know, I knew it was when I was in high
school, that's all I knew. Yep, seventy one and seventy one.
Nixon took us up there. I was thinking seventy three, I should have
known that c R I graduated, so I knew it when Yeah, yeah,
yeah, so yeah, it's been many generations. That's why it's hard
for us to really understand the need for something like bitcoin. Speaking of Argentina,
I'm looking right now at coin Telegraph and they have an article today demand
for bitcoin surges and Argentina. Yeah, there you go, boom in the
article from twelve hours ago. Yep, there you go. So yeah,
so that's a great point and a great way to end. When where can
people find you at? Follow you or whatever? What? How should people
they want to keep up with what you're doing to keep up with you?
Yeah, so here's the list. I'm at citizen Bitcoin on Twitter. Swan
is at swan bitcoin on Twitter. We also have at give Bitcoin. I
have been doing the Citizen Bitcoin podcast at citizen bitcoin dot world for two years
now. For a little over a year, been interviewing bitcoiners. There's sixty
your seventy interviews in there now, lots of great stuff to go through.
If you haven't yet an archive, scroll through it and find some names that
you'd like to hear more from and I think we've done some really good stuff
there. We're also doing a podcast for SWAN. It's a live broadcast on
Twitter every Wednesday in the middle of the day and then we do an audio
archive at swan signal podcast dot com. So there excellent, And I just
want to let you know it's official. You are a crypto cousin. Thanks
man, that'd be part of the family, part of the family here,
And I appreciate you coming on the show and I appreciate you taking time to
read that because that was a long read. It was, but that was
fun. I think you did a great job and thanks for writing that.
And I look forward to see ook forward to see how that evolves over the
net and what happens with that. Yeah, how that goes for it?
And I guess if I don't see, which I doubt I will see anywhere.
Sin it's nothing schedule everywhere, you know. I told my wife this
spring, I'm gonna do more traveling than I've ever done. I was going
to be at like between tones event and a consensus. I was going to
be at like six or seven events or spring and one. And this is
probably the least I've ever traveled, and we didn't even go on a vacation.
This is definitely at least there her travel. So I'll probably see you
then at bitflock boom be the first place I see you at again. And
thanks for coming on the show absolutely, Gay really appreciate having me on.
I hope you've enjoyed today's show, and I want to give a big thank
you to all my cousins out there for listening and subscribe. If you haven't
subscribed yet, just go to cryptocusins dot com and you'll see the links for
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