WBD204 Audio Transcription

Bitcoin World #7: Syria - How Bitcoin Can Help Refugees

Interview date: Tuesday 17th March 2020

Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Moe Ghashim from Myjam. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.

In this interview, I talk to Moe Ghashim, a Syrian Bitcoiner now living in the UK. We discuss the ongoing civil war in Syria, the devastating physical and economic damage to the country, and how Bitcoin is a perfect tool to help refugees.

“You always have leverage over me because I might log into something and get kicked out because the IP is in Syria. When I had access to Bitcoin, it was a level playing field.”

— Moe Ghashim

Interview Transcription

Peter McCormack: Hello, Moe.

Moe Ghashim: Hello!

Peter McCormack: How are you?

Moe Ghashim: I'm good thank you. How are you?

Peter McCormack: I'm good, thank you. So this is a funny one because... Was it about six months ago?

Moe Ghashim: When we first met? Maybe three or four months.

Peter McCormack: So I'm in Bedford, I'm at The Embankment, where I like to go and get a coffee very occasionally and you came up to me, didn't you?

Moe Ghashim: Yes, I did. I was like, "Isn't that him?"

Peter McCormack: But you knew I was from Bedford already?

Moe Ghashim: Yes, from the podcast.

Peter McCormack: Yeah and so you were like, "Are you Pete?" And I was like, "Yeah" and then, what was it? About a month ago, my friend, Alex Gladstein, from the Human Rights Foundation, he speaks to me and he said, "oh, you really need to meet my friend Moe, he's from Syria and he's a Bitcoiner." I was like, "I've met a Moe from Syria who's a Bitcoiner, I wonder if it's the same one." It turns out, it's the same guy! So I've been doing this series where I'm trying to learn a bit more about different places in the world and if there's correlation with Bitcoin and the experience and I like going to the countries. Going to Syria right now, might be hard.

Moe Ghashim: It might be quite difficult!

Peter McCormack: Yeah, so I went to Turkey and we went to the border and I'd feel entirely confident and safe crossing into the Turkish control part of Syria, but I don't think I'd be... Well, I don't know, Damascus, would I be okay?

Moe Ghashim: Damascus would be fine. The problem would be at the Turkish border because it keeps changing who is controlling the same part of it.

Peter McCormack: Right okay. So I want to learn a lot more about Syria today. I found out today we're entering the 10th year of war. So if we go back 10 years, where were you?

Moe Ghashim: I was in Syria.

Peter McCormack: Which part?

Moe Ghashim: Aleppo, in the North, very close to the Turkish borders.

Peter McCormack: Okay, so prior to war breaking out, give me an understanding of the structure of Syria in terms of the different demographics of people in different regions. Was it one united nation at that point? Was everybody just a Syrian or was the north separate from the south? Help me understand.

Moe Ghashim: It was one country. You call it Syria, we know that we're part of this country. There's no separation, even in the back of our minds, between different governments or between different cities. We're quite proud, as people from Aleppo, so we think we're better than the rest of the country, but we're still part of Syria. In terms of demographics, Aleppo is quite diverse. So you can find in terms of religion, Muslims, Christians, we used to have Jews in Aleppo.

There is a whole neighbourhood for Jews there, but they left. I'm not sure, but maybe Charlie is originally from Aleppo, I'm not sure. In terms of other ethnic groups, we have Arabs, Kurds and there are other small and minor groups. We live all together. You could identify some neighbourhoods as, let's say, Christian neighbourhoods, but you could... For example, there is an area in Aleppo where it's normal to find, in one building, 13 or 15 different groups, either religious or different ethnic groups. We used to live all together.

Peter McCormack: In harmony? Everyone getting on okay?

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, it was fine. For example, I used to work with other groups, either in business or work together as colleagues. In my old company, we had Armenians, Christians, I had a couple of people atheists, it was quite a diverse country back then. You could say that, for example, Aleppo is more religious than Damascus or the coast is less religious, but overall, it's one country where there's a harmony.

Peter McCormack: Okay and Assad, as a leader, I was aware that... I have limited knowledge of the history of Syria, but I was aware he took over, what was it, from his father?

Moe Ghashim: Yes.

Peter McCormack: And to begin with, he was quite popular?

Moe Ghashim: The son, the current president, he wasn't to begin with. Supposedly, his older brother was supposed to be the next president, then he died and because he died, Bashar, the current president, was in the UK studying and then he moved back to Syria and started emerging and getting involved with the society and everything around it. It was like rushing into getting him ready to become a president, but he wasn't that involved. It was quite a few years. I think his brother died in 1998 or 1997 and then his dad died in 2000.

Peter McCormack: Oh I must've read something wrong because when I was travelling to Turkey, I was trying to read and understand the history and what happened with the breakdown in Syria and I read that when we first came in, he came in with a lot of trust and he made promises for what he would do for the people and what he would deliver. Then there was a lot of youth unemployment and youth unrest.

Moe Ghashim: Okay, I wouldn't say he made promises, but there was a good propaganda or maybe a good PR push that he will change things because he never addressed us, as the public. I don't remember listening to him, but there's always... At the end of the day, you're living in a country where it's quite controlled by the government. They can push messages and people can take that. We got the message that he's young, he's open, things will become more open as he becomes involved, but nothing direct from him.

Peter McCormack: But he did not deliver, as a president?

Moe Ghashim: It's very difficult to measure. For me personally, no, he did not. For other people, for example, some people will say, "well now, we have internet." I remember sitting in a café to use the internet and I would pay, in Syria where for example, one person's average salary would be $300 and to use the internet for two hours, I would pay $15. That's not cheap!

Peter McCormack: Wow! No, that's not cheap at all.

Moe Ghashim: I was in 10th grade and I had to pay $500 to use the internet in 1996. My family freaked out, "what are you doing?!"

Peter McCormack: Right, okay. Well take me back to 2010, 2011, did the country feel tense? Did it feel like it was on the verge of ...

Moe Ghashim: No, no, nothing at all. I'll tell you from my perspective, I'm someone who loves to change and try to push for things to become better and my personality, when I move around, I'd like to hopefully make a change. In 2010, there was no tension. Even in 2011, things were fine. Things started when the revolution in Egypt started.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, the Arab Spring.

Moe Ghashim: Yes and it spoke emotionally to me. I felt I wanted to support these people, I want to be part of it. It looked like it spoke to things that I never thought of in my entire life, but I felt the pain of people and I supported it. Then things started to develop in Syria, in Daraa and then Horns. To be honest, in the beginning, I had no doubt that the president would fix it. I was 100% sure! I was like, "no way, we're not going to get into a bad situation." Then what changed things for me, a day before Ramadan, people in Hama... Have you heard anything about Hama?

Peter McCormack: I've heard the name. Wasn't one of the films that recently came out, that won an Oscar nomination, about the girl?

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, but there is a story about Hama. So Hama, in 1980 or 1981, they tried to do a revolution against the regime and the regime back then, bombarded the city and part from Aleppo. Back then, it was the Muslim Brotherhood who tried to do that and from that moment, the history of Syria changed and people became extremely scared. No one talks about politics, you just shut your mouth and live. So Hama had a history and Hama started to do protests quite a few weeks before Ramadan. Then the day before Ramadan, the army went into the street and killed people. That's when I felt that things are changing.

Peter McCormack: This was during the Arab Spring. What were they protesting for? They wanted change? They wanted the removal of the regime?

Moe Ghashim: At the beginning, it was just we were supporting what was happening in Egypt. Again, we didn't think about it, at least me or what I heard from people. So going to that story, a day before Ramadan, they went into the street. I was praying the first night of Ramadan and then I heard the protest. I was at the mosque and then I was like, "what do I do now?" I joined the protest. I didn't know what I'm doing. I joined. I walked and then I noticed a friend that I know.

Peter McCormack: How old were you?

Moe Ghashim: I was 31 and then I joined it and I felt great that I'm supporting something because we cried. People were killed in the street and back then, there was no arms involved in our protest. Then I sent a message to my friend on Facebook saying, "do you know that thing we did today? I want to do it again." I didn't know what I was getting myself involved in. So I started joining protests and it's scary as hell. The level of fear is something I never imagined because...

Peter McCormack: Because the suppression is violent. They will turn the guns on you.

Moe Ghashim: No, no, there was no guns back then, but we were scared because I can't tell my family. I lied to my family that I'm going to pray and in the time of prayer, I go and join the protests. But the problem is, when you pray, you face the wall and the entrance of the mosque behind you, it's the worst thing ever because you don't know what's behind you. You might turn around and then there are police next to you. I remember, for example, in the protests, Christians might come.

There was an atheist who joined the protest, it was quite a very mixed group and it was scary. It was very scary! I used to sweat. I had to go back home and pray again because I don't remember what I was saying at the prayer, but that was really scary. We did it for the whole month of Ramadan. At one point, I had no doubt that the city will all come together and join the revolution. We wanted to shut all the shops in order to support the revolution. People were afraid of doing that because the government basically sent threats, "If anyone closes down their business, we're going to take them to prison."

Peter McCormack: Didn't they ban public gatherings of more than three people? That's what I read, partway through the protest.

Moe Ghashim: People couldn't gather. Now around that time when I leave the mosque, I would say 150 armed people around the mosque, there were armed people inside the mosque. So I don't know if you know, but we weren't allowed to gather without any permission. To start with, the only place we can gather is the mosque or the church. So by default, we can't gather beside these areas because once you gather somewhere, it will be very easy to be noticed.

Peter McCormack: How were these protests? What kind of numbers of people were out protesting?

Moe Ghashim: The ones I joined in the early days, it was 100, 200 people. Then there was a big one that I joined, which was about 400, 500 people. All of them, we were unarmed, but there was a dress code. You have to come wearing one colour, no cell phone, no money and only take $20 or so because, if you get caught, you can bribe the policeman who caught you. And make sure that you can run! There was one time we heard a whistle and when you hear the whistle, that means policeman is nearby. I ran for 25 minutes, I don't remember the streets I ran into.

Peter McCormack: Right, okay. Before we get into the next bit, can you explain for me, and definitely for people who are listening, because part of the divide here was the Shia versus Sunni side, so Assad supporters tend to be Shia and his opponents tend to Sunnis?

Moe Ghashim: This is all new. That's something we didn't experience in Syria, that all started just after the revolution.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, so it was only kind of 10 years ago that I was aware there were Sunnis and Shias, when the Iraq War broke out.

Moe Ghashim: There are these two different groups, but we didn't have this problem, this segregation, not at all.

Peter McCormack: But what is the difference here? Because this is quite a conflict across the Muslim world.

Moe Ghashim: It's very difficult, yeah. So the Sunnis are the ones who support all caliphates after the prophet and the Shia, who think that Ali, the fourth caliphate after the prophet, who was supposed to be the right one and everyone else is basically either polluted against him or for him. There was a war afterwards between Ali and one of the prophet's wife. It was difficult. For me, when I look at it, I try to distance myself because right now, the way I look at it, I don't know what happened in Syria. How do I know what happened 1,400 years ago?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, so it is quite a dividing point of large parts of the Muslim world. But I guess, of all people, are there others who respect different beliefs or is it a case that, because you believe one thing and another group believe another thing, that you almost have to disregard everything they say because it's fundamentally false? Help me understand how fundamental these beliefs are.

Moe Ghashim: It seems we reached a point of polarization where, just like what you said, if I'm against you, I will disregard anything you say and anything you believe in. It seems we're at this point now. Before the war it wasn't like that. I would mingle and see someone who's Shia. I don't believe in that area that they believe in, besides that, that's why, for me, they're Muslims. Now there are people who might consider, if they're Shia, they might consider Sunni non-Muslim or the other way around.

Peter McCormack: And all of the alliances across the Middle East are based on Sunnis and Shias?

Moe Ghashim: That's how it developed, essentially. It wasn't like that 15 years ago.

Peter McCormack: Iraq is Sunni?

Moe Ghashim: It's a mix now.

Peter McCormack: It's a mix now, but historically.

Moe Ghashim: Yes. It's very difficult. Historically, the whole Sunni/Shia started in Iraq, so there is a mix since ever. Syria is mainly Sunni, but the government and the support of Hezbollah is Shia.

Peter McCormack: Right okay, I'm getting an understanding. So as I'm aware, there was protests across Syria, there were calls for a regime change and they wanted Assad out and then the suppression became violent from the regime. Did you witness the violence?

Moe Ghashim: I did not. I witnessed people getting beaten in the street, but that's not violence.

Peter McCormack: Well, it is.

Moe Ghashim: Not to our measures.

Peter McCormack: You're talking about real violence?

Moe Ghashim: Yes, exactly. I didn't witness that, but I noticed that things aren't developing well and I heard some people saying, "either watch out, or you'll be sent to prison because we know that you started to join this," and I decided just to leave. There's another thing that became difficult to live with, which is electricity became extremely unstable, internet became extremely unstable. Things became unmanageable in terms of day-to-day life.

Peter McCormack: During the war?

Moe Ghashim: There was no war.

Peter McCormack: Oh, prior to the war.

Moe Ghashim: I left in December 2011. Back then, because the government tried to make internet available only two or three hours a day. Electricity would be available four or five hours a day because they knew that we would use the internet to communicate and to arrange for the gathering. That's where I thought, "I need to leave," with the threats that I received. So I left in 2011.

Peter McCormack: Right, so they were controlling access to the internet to control the communication? Interesting. So you made the decision, at that point to leave. Where did you head to first?

Moe Ghashim: Jordan.

Peter McCormack: You headed to Jordan, okay. But the war essentially started in 2011, 2012?

Moe Ghashim: Mid 2012, where the revolution got arms involved and then the regime increased the level of attack on people because in my time it was like, if you were caught, you'll be sent to prison for two months and you will leave. There was nothing beyond that. You know that it's only going to be two months. Then six months later, it would be six months and then people started to come back dead to their family. Someone would call you, "your sibling or someone you know is dead. Come and collect them."

Peter McCormack: On the revolution side, who was arming the revolution?

Moe Ghashim: It's very difficult to tell, but I was in one meeting where we were preparing for a protest. I'm not part of any political groups, I was part of people who were trying to express their opinion. So I heard people suggesting that we can get armed people to be in the front where they protect us against the militias who might attack. Part of us said, "we can't do that.

Once we do that, we'll lose," but I think such recommendation, either we get armed or we get help, then maybe people from outside let's say, there might be other friends or groups who wanted to support the revolution and offer the weapons, but I think it started like that and then it became more organized into armed move.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, so there's four main groups that I noticed when I was doing my research. There's obviously Assad and Syrian forces backed by Russia. There was the interim government, Syrian opposition or the Syrian Army, which includes Turkey, also support from the USA. What I didn't realize, there was a separate group, the SDF rojava, YPJ...

Moe Ghashim: That's Kurdish.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, that's the Kurdish, but the Kurdish groups also were part of the conflict backed also by the United States. I always thought originally, there was two main groups, but actually there was four main groups operating. What is the relationship between the revolution and the Kurds? Also, explain the Kurds because the Kurdish region essentially borders three countries, right?

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, so the Kurdish situation is unique and I have to be fair, they have been treated badly for 30 years by the government and by people. That's very bad to say and it's unfortunate, but the government treated them as second-class citizens or maybe third-class citizens and there were 500,000 without an ID. Then people treated them as, "they're not part of us, they're not really part of us," although they might not say it clearly, but it was clear because, in my city, there were a lot of Kurds. I worked with a lot of Kurds and when we speak, they say, "you don't treat us fairly. We're not treated fairly by the government and we're not treated fairly by people."

I think, when the revolution started, the main groups who were very scared, were the Christians and the Kurds. The Christians were like, "okay, what happens if the regime fails? Because we don't know who's going to come next," and the regime keeps that balance between all these different groups. They got scared and they were right to get scared because they didn't know who's the other side. There were so many leaders and so many sides. The Kurds, it now seems that the government wanted the Kurds to be on their side and the revolution wanted people to be on their side and that's where it became so difficult and I think that's why they decided to go and get support by the USA because for them, there's another problem, which is Turkey.

Peter McCormack: Turkey hates them.

Moe Ghashim: What we know that Turkey will not allow a Kurdish country. That's what we know.

Peter McCormack: They hate the Kurds!

Moe Ghashim: Probably, yes. I don't know because I'm not aware of it, but I know that there's a problem between... In 1990, Turkey was about to start a war with Syria because one leader that we were keeping and training in Syria until we had to give it to them. So the Kurds had a problem there because for them, it's a different fight that they need to manage. Again, I'm not part of any leadership or group, but I thought we need to approach Kurds and let them know how we're going to deal with them, but we weren't that organized to try to figure things out for the years to come.

Peter McCormack: And you're from Aleppo.

Moe Ghashim: Yeah

Peter McCormack: A lot of people have heard about and seen on the news, one of those cities that has just been bombarded and every shot I see is just vast complexes of bombed buildings. Now does the footage tend to only focus on those areas or is it the entire city that has been destroyed?

Moe Ghashim: It's not the entire city, but the main areas of the city. So Aleppo is known to be a manufacturing city. So we have 70,000 workshops in Aleppo and we're four million people. The areas where the factories are were all destroyed. We had two factories, both of them were destroyed. We know other people that... Even the taps were removed, all the tapes, everything was removed. So from that part...

Peter McCormack: They destroyed because they were bombed?

Moe Ghashim: It was bombed and people came and stole the machinery and everything else. It was turns, sometimes the government militias would do that and then the opposition would do that, but that area was all basically flattened, almost. The city center, which is where all the historical areas are, that was a main war scene. People couldn't go there for months and that was almost destroyed, which is the main area of Aleppo where all the heritage is.

The other sites are less, I would say important, maybe newer. It wasn't as destroyed, but I could say 40% of the city is basically severely destroyed, maybe 20% to 30% destroyed. At one point, when I called someone from Aleppo, they said, "we're living in 15% of the city, the rest is a war scene."

Peter McCormack: How does it function, as a city, if you say the majority of the manufacturing base has been destroyed? I'm aware that there has been a tactic by Assad to bomb hospitals and bomb schools. I think I read today only 3 out of every 10 schools remain because they've all been bombed. So how does it function as a city, from day to day in terms of the economics of the city? What work are people doing? How are people coping? How are they sourcing food, buying food? Because you're still talking about... How many people still live there?

Moe Ghashim: I think now 2.5 million maybe?

Peter McCormack: So it's 2.5 million people, how does it function, as a city?

Moe Ghashim: So all factories left are destroyed. So people either can't do the work anymore or they already moved to new countries. There is Jordan, Turkey, Egypt are the main parts. Some people went to UAE, but not that much.

Peter McCormack: And you came to Bedford!

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, so in terms of what I've noticed, there's no public information that you can gather about that, but what I noticed is that people who left, started to send money and then people would try to manage between savings, between... So we were known to be people who save a lot and I would say, people spent most of their savings. It's normal. For example, a normal household, if they earn $20,000, they might have $200,000 worth of savings, that was all consumed. I know it from my relatives and people I speak to and there's the support that they get from outside. I was speaking once to people and they said, "our ambition in life became so different.

So what you think is necessary for us, it became unnecessary. What we need is basically to get one shower a week, to be able to wash our clothes once a week, and then just to be able to see one another." Everything became so basic that they can live with one tenth of what they used to live before. My aunt lost about 40 kilos out of... That's good on one side, but I'm trying to... When I saw her, I was like, "wow, she changed quite a lot!" There are the people who don't care about things anymore to the point that people outside Syria lost contact with the ones inside. What do I say when I talk to you next?

Peter McCormack: Is there infrastructure? Was there still phone lines, internet?

Moe Ghashim: There is phone line, but the electricity infrastructure was all destroyed. Now we became just like Beirut, living on the generators, because the main lines all were destroyed. Water was destroyed, we used to have water being delivered to every house.

Peter McCormack: So how do people get water now?

Moe Ghashim: Now, they get big containers come to the neighbourhood and they fill up whatever they can save inside the house. It became very difficult.

Peter McCormack: Is that commercial services being brought in? You have to buy the water?

Moe Ghashim: Of course, everything! You have to buy the water, you have to buy the electricity, or a neighbourhood all come together and bring a generator to the neighbourhood. It became a different city.

Peter McCormack: And it's like that right now?

Moe Ghashim: Yeah.

Peter McCormack: But how are people functioning? Is there any industry at all? What kind of work do people do?

Moe Ghashim: Basics, all basics. Factories are still unfunctional. Food and maybe entertainment, anything that people have to deal with on day to day, anything sustainable, long-term is all destroyed.

Peter McCormack: So it's almost like when I went to the Venezuela border, Cucuta, it's mainly retail and service. "What can I do for you? What can you do for me?"

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, exactly!

Peter McCormack: Okay, in terms of governance of Aleppo now, and that's now back under Assad?

Moe Ghashim: It's been always under Assad.

Peter McCormack: I thought that at one point, it was held by the rebels.

Moe Ghashim: Not the main infrastructure buildings or services. There was part of the city, big part of the city, but they never lost control of the government of the city.

Peter McCormack: But it has full control of the city again now. Idlib, I believe, is the only city they don't have control of. So try and explain to me life prior to the war. Talk to me about the currency, what is the currency of Syria? And talk to me about inflation and the kind of experiences that people might've gone with money, which might turn them off it.

Moe Ghashim: In 2011, and 10 years prior to that, the $1 would be around 45 lira to 50 lira. So lira is the currency. In 2012 or 2013, it became 100 lira, so it was doubled. Then it went up until 2019, when it reached 500 lira and then in the last few weeks of 2019, it reached 1000 lira. So that's 20x in eight years.

Peter McCormack: And do you talk to people about this, what this means for them? Do they understand why this is happening?

Moe Ghashim: Who? The ones inside? They just see prices change on a daily basis and they have to cope with that. It seems that there's now a war trade that is happening inside where people are trying to benefit from what's happening. So new wealth is being created out of what's happening, but people don't know it. They know that it's a war and we're just losing on a daily basis. That's where the support from outside is helping, but not as much.

Peter McCormack: And talk to me about your own feelings for Syria right now. Do you still feel like you're a Syrian?

Moe Ghashim: I don't know who I am. It's very difficult. I don't know who I am.

Peter McCormack: But if I asked you, you would tell me you're Syrian.

Moe Ghashim: Yes.

Peter McCormack: But if you were to travel, say to Damascus, would you feel like an outsider?

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, of course.

Peter McCormack: And would you have felt like an outsider 10 years ago, anyway?

Moe Ghashim: 10 years ago, so that's interesting and that relates maybe somehow to what's happening in currencies, in digital currencies and Bitcoin. So in 10 years, I felt that I'm starting to relate to the world more than I relate to Syrians and that was because of the internet. I felt I'm closer to someone who's maybe somewhere in Europe than the person who's sitting next to me in a café or my friend. I started to develop this feeling and I felt frustrated that... I love the internet. I love what's happening there, but I can't do something around it.

I was in the United States between 2001 and 2003 and then I thought, "okay, I can do things in Syria with the whole internet." That was my main reason why I went back, but things weren't as smooth as I thought or I imagined. So I developed that feeling then and I wanted to change. Part of the reason why I left, because I wanted to be part of what's happening. So I don't know if you know, for example, in Syria, before I leave, you can't have a phone with a number and data at the same time. You either have data or a number.

Peter McCormack: Hold on, what?

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, we didn't have a SIM card that can have both. So everything you experienced between 2007 and 2010, we didn't experience because...

Peter McCormack: So you had two phones or two SIM cards?

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, in order to do that, you need to have two phones and it was difficult to move around back then. iPhone was just released, so we lost a lot about what's happening because of this decision that people can't have data on their phone. I started to hear about things that are developing and moving forward and I don't see it. That's one of the reasons I decided to leave and try something outside Syria. But at this time, when I moved to Jordan and started a company and started to experience everything else, now I don't know if I go back. What do I feel? Do I really want to go there with these circumstances? But I'm not part of where I am right now.

Peter McCormack: How would they feel about you?

Moe Ghashim: I'm an outsider.

Peter McCormack: Because you left or because you're from the north?

Moe Ghashim: To be honest, I think because we don't feel the suffering that they feel and I totally understand it. I have nothing against that because I know friends of mine... Basically, I used to feel blessed whenever I go into hard times outside Syria because there's someone who is now living a very bad life. I could've been in their shoes right now and whatever I'm facing is fine, but for them, you don't know what you're talking about. It's always, "You don't know what you're talking about, you haven't lived..." With time, I think it could develop hate, but I think it's only because of distance.

Peter McCormack: Tell me how the fuck you ended up in Bedford because that's the funniest one for me, because I've done so much to try and put Bedford on the map because nobody's heard of it. It's just a shitty little town, right? I mean, I love it here! How long have you been here?

Moe Ghashim: Three years almost.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, see it's changed a lot over the last five years. It's a very different town from say, 10 years ago. We have that beautiful river, of course, the whole cinema complex and restaurants there, that is new, but what happened was a lot of people used to live in London and the house prices in London got so high, people realized they could sell their flat in London and get a big house here. So there was a big group of people migrating back from London to Bedford and so a lot of money came into the town, but how did you end up here?

Moe Ghashim: Okay, so when I came here, I left my start-up in Jordan and I started to come here to build a start-up to solve payments in the Middle East and North Africa because it doesn't work.

Peter McCormack: You came to England to do that?

Moe Ghashim: Yes. I thought that digital payments don't work in the Middle East and North Africa. That was late 2016 and then I started to learn about Bitcoin and blockchain. With everything that I learned and with me realizing that it's going to be very difficult to build a solution remotely for the region, I was like, "I'll stop." I spoke to my co-founders and I told them, "we have to stop and I have to learn a lot. There is something that I don't know about." I realized I need a lot of time to learn all these things. I felt at this point, that I'm behind, technically, because of maybe me being involved in my previous start-up and then I wanted to save money.

I knew that I would need a long time. It's not weeks, it's months. I looked for a place where I can access London easily. So the train from here to London is about 38 minutes, which is fine, and the rent is half the price of London. I spent a year and a half learning a few technologies that I'm interested in and digital currency. I went back to trying to learn all the fights that people had from the day of the block size when I joined, what is the block size? Why people are fighting about that? Who is BCH? Why? But I wanted to know because that's where, when you asked me earlier, I felt unconnected to people through internet, but I felt Bitcoin and digital currency speak to a pain that I lived with without knowing.

So one thing that made me change a lot of perspectives in my life, we always complained about the regime and all the corruption in Syria, but one thing that made me feel that this is nothing comparing to the inflation that we lived with because my mom always used to say, "when I was young, one dollar was three lira," in her days. Then, what we lost in terms of value because we're using the wrong money and the money that hyperinflates, because it made my hourly rate in Syria a lot less than anyone else in another country. I don't know if you know, but if you're a young man in Syria, you need about 40 years to own a house.

Peter McCormack: No, I didn't know that.

Moe Ghashim: 40 years, if you're earning good money. When I knew about that and then when I started my company, I was like, "wow, we're living in a different world." The problem is that corruption is so tiny comparing to the problem that we're living with the money. I wanted to understand. That's what I didn't know anything about; monetary policy, inflation, the game theory. I was like, "these are interesting stuff. I want to know more." To be honest, all the fights in the cryptocurrency space help me understand where greed come in, where you can be patient and try to serve for the long-term. When I looked at all this and whenever...

That's something very interesting, when I went through the Bitcoin learning phase, I hear a word that I don't know anything about. I try to look for that word and then there are 10 words behind it that I still need to forget. For example, the block size. So what's the block size? And then, okay, so how do you do the consensus? What is consensus? But it was fascinating. I felt I'm living a dream about knowing things that I never thought of and the biggest connection I felt with learning this, when I was growing up in Syria, I felt I'm not like... For example, you're in the UK.

You always have leverage over me because I might plug into something and I get kicked out because the IP is in Syria. I can't buy anything Microsoft, everything was cracked in Syria, nothing was original. When I had access to Bitcoin, I was like, |it's a level playing field!"

Peter McCormack:       Democratizes things.

Moe Ghashim: I have the same access that anyone in the world has, even people in the Silicon Valley. I was once explaining what I think about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to people. I was like, "it's like, if I give you access to Facebook in the early days and you can see what Mark Zuckerberg is doing." For example, a few weeks ago, I attended a session by Andrew Poelstra. For me, during the session, I was like, "this is not real! I'm sitting with one of the most important developers in the space and I have that access easily.

I can ask questions, I can listen to them and I can learn from them!" That's something... I feel, your show is What Bitcoin did and I think that's what Bitcoin did. It's made everyone have access to this technology, regardless of where you are, what you know, what you don't know. You just have access to just spend time there.

Peter McCormack: It's really interesting, so as I travel around to different countries and just try and understand why Bitcoin resonates with people. In some ways, the most uninteresting places are the UK and America because it really is just people just speculating, number go up, blah, blah, blah. But when I talk to somebody in say, Argentina or Chile or yourself in Syria, somebody in Venezuela, it really resonates for them because they talk about the money. They actually talk about what's happened to their money being inflated and that's not something I've really experienced. I know it happens here and in the US, but it's such a slow time period.

Plus the US doesn't have a problem because everyone compares their currency to the dollar and every currency seems to fail, over time, against the dollar. The UK actually, has lost quite a bit of value against them. When I first went to the US, it was $2.05 to the pound. It's now like $1.20. But still, you don't have that thing from week to week where you suddenly notice your money is a lot less. But as I travel around the world, it's because of people's experience with it, like you just said that about your mother or the fact that it's 40 years to buy a house. It always resonates with people.

Moe Ghashim: Let me tell you something else and that's something as well, that's fascinating about the whole space. So in the Arab world, you can't grow up naturally. You have to go into channels that are set, so you can go through it, through the government, everything. There's nothing you can do beyond what they know. Just like how they want to control knowledge, they want to control wealth creation and that's very difficult. What if you want to do something different? That's why research is very poor in the Arab world. No one wants you to make research.

That's why, if you want to study arts and something else, it's not worth it because you can't make money out of it. You have to study or earn what I decided for you to do. Well if you decided to do something really crazy in the UK, you might have a channel, something to support you and that's where I found Bitcoin fascinating. When I knew, for example, recently the Square team sponsored someone with a nickname, a developer on Bitcoin with a nickname, they gave him money. So they give him/her or them money to live on this money and work for the Bitcoin. That's something... It's a fairy tale for me. It's not something that I would experience anywhere in Syria.

Or for example, when the community gave money to Andreas while he was on the plane traveling from one place to another to appreciate the work. We don't know that. We only knew that, basically, you can decide something you want to work with and you can earn it. You can escape all the path that someone else drew for you and you can earn a living and you don't need to give up so much in order to do it. That's what I found.

Peter McCormack: So it speaks to you in terms of freedom, again.

Moe Ghashim: Yes!

Peter McCormack: Yeah, interesting. So what kind of adoption is there of Bitcoin in Syria that you're aware of? Are you using it to send money to people at all? Are people accepting it at all? Is it just non-existent?

Moe Ghashim: It's very limited and very poor, but I'm trying as much to...When I hire people to do me work from Syria, I try to pay in Bitcoin. I did in a few instances and it went fantastically well, but I don't think I'm doing enough or anyone who's interested in Bitcoin is doing enough. The other day, I was thinking... You know Bryan, the master of transcript?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, Bryan Bishop.

Moe Ghashim: Yeah I was like, "why don't they hire someone in Syria to do the transcript?" Because they can and it will be nothing and this person would be over the moon like, "I'm doing something really important." I think we need to, because I can't on my own, create it and I think that's were Bitcoin becomes very interesting to give an opportunity to people and Bryan can do something more important rather than doing transcript.

So there is adoption and now people know about it, but unfortunately, it's on the speculation side of things. Eight months ago, I started to do workshops. Whenever I go to an area with Syrian people, where I do workshops to explain how Bitcoin works, what is the technology behind it, how people can use it, and then I cover the technology overall. But basically, as much as I can, to tell in Arabic because there's not much content in Arabic about Bitcoin other than trading-related content.

Peter McCormack: So that's interesting to know.

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, I did it three months ago. I did two workshops, one in Istanbul and one in Gaziantep. I think you went to Gaziantep? The city near the borders.

Peter McCormack: Yes!

Moe Ghashim: I did two workshops, one in Istanbul and one there, and different age groups. The one in Istanbul was more about businessmen and the one in the Gaziantep were more students.

Peter McCormack: But these are...

Moe Ghashim: Refugees.

Peter McCormack: Okay, so you're teaching refugees about it. A bit similar to the guy I had out in Venezuela, he's in Colombia and he was teaching people about it. But what is the use case you're teaching for? Because there's plenty of use cases.

Moe Ghashim: Money, that's enough.

Peter McCormack: Just better money, because of the problems with inflation of local currency?

Moe Ghashim: No, they can't use money in Turkey. Syrians can't open a bank account easily.

Peter McCormack: Oh, so this is more like banking the unbanked, but they can carry cash.

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, they can carry cash, but if they want to buy and do things, earn money, that's something they can do. So I've been trying to find a way where people can earn money through Bitcoin job or whatever, but I think the easiest way to explain money to people from our part of the world, to explain Bitcoin, it's money.

Peter McCormack: It's just money.

Moe Ghashim: You don't need to complicate it. We will get it because we don't have that much access to it and we are living inflation anyway. If you look at Lebanon, Syria, we're living inflation, so we don't really care much about the price inflation of Bitcoin, at least for the time being. Money is the best use case. Then there was one student who was so stubborn, he wanted to find a way to mine and I was like, "mining was good, not as much now" and he kept saying, "I have a room in Syria. I can take a few miners."

You know what? I was like, "Yeah, do it." I thought about it. I shouldn't tell him what's right and wrong. He should go and do it and he kept contacting me and sending me messages for about three months. He learned a lot about private key, public key, and he didn't need much of my help other than give him direction of how this would work.

Peter McCormack: And these sessions you run, are they only for Syrians or for any nationality?

Moe Ghashim: So I'm doing it for anyone, but I'm contacting right now groups I know, which is mainly Syrians, but I'm trying to do it widely and for more Arabs. Basically, just before this meeting, I had a call with people from the Zcash Foundation to help me do it. They were fine talking about Bitcoin and Zcash, so we can talk about it. I'll try to reach out to other people.

Peter McCormack: Is that because you need funding to do this?

Moe Ghashim: No, I don't need funding, I just need support. At the end of the day, me, alone, wouldn't be much interesting, but if I can get someone from here or there, we can do a lot more if more people can support. For example, just like what I said about the transcript, if we can say, by the end of it, we can give you a job to do one, two, three. I noticed today that there's a Twitter post about translating one of the Bitcoin applications into languages. We could pay people to do it and they would spread the word.

Peter McCormack: But how many people do you tend to get in one of your sessions?

Moe Ghashim: So I think 30 will be good. What's very interesting, the one I had in Gaziantep, I had 15 first day, 25 the second day and they told their friends to come the second day because it was interesting and I had to repeat everything we talked about the first day.

Peter McCormack: How long was the session work for?

Moe Ghashim: Five hours.

Peter McCormack: Okay, so a long session. In a classroom?

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, in a classroom.

Peter McCormack: And are you doing it for free?

Moe Ghashim: Yes.

Peter McCormack: You're doing it for free. So how are you funding this?

Moe Ghashim: Whenever I'm traveling to a country, I'll do it, so I'm already covered.

Peter McCormack: Okay, and are you planning to do another one in...

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, I was planning to do one in Amsterdam because I was going to an event there, but the event is cancelled.

Peter McCormack: So you're essentially going around Europe, finding groups of refugees to teach about Bitcoin?

Moe Ghashim: Exactly, and the reason for that, that these refugees need to send money to their relatives and if their relatives can find a way to keep Bitcoin, they get it.

Peter McCormack: Hold on. So you could go to Amsterdam, there's maybe some Syrian refugees who now have the ability to live there, but they'll have relatives who are maybe in Turkey or traveling through Greece and they need some money and this is the only way you can get them money?

Moe Ghashim: Exactly and they can! I just need to convince the sender that it works. Once they do, they will tell their relatives on the other side, "we'll send you money, this is how you can get it," because there's a market in Turkey, there's a market in Beirut, there's a market in Syria. There are many Syrian Facebook groups asking about Bitcoin with a premium, but how do I just convince someone to send it?

Peter McCormack: So what are you running up against in terms of rejection when you've got a group of people?

Moe Ghashim: It's only the knowledge. The problem is basically the knowledge. Sitting with people, telling them about how it works, send the... When I did these workshops, I sent every person $5 with Bitcoin and then, when they receive it, we keep sending between one another.

Peter McCormack: And they have that moment where it's like, "Oh, wow!"

Moe Ghashim: Exactly! Then during the session, "oh, it went up two cents" or "oh, it went down."

Peter McCormack: And are you also having to explain away the volatility side of things?

Moe Ghashim: I do, but it's not a big issue.

Peter McCormack: Okay fine, people understand that.

Moe Ghashim: One thing here, people are already interested in Bitcoin. I'm not having a hard time convincing people to learn about Bitcoin, that's something I've found very interesting. They just don't know where to go because if you're a trader, I can't trust you to teach me because you're into the win, but if someone is coming and trying to teach you, they are willing to come.

The group in Istanbul, they're businessmen. Some of them flew from other cities in Turkey just to learn about Bitcoin because I asked them, "Why did you come?" They said, "We don't want to be left out. I don't want to feel like my dad or grandpa, when computer emerged and became part of everyday life and I don't know anything about it."

Peter McCormack: But I guess, what I'm really interested in here, especially having travelled to... Well a couple of things. So I travelled to the border of Turkey and Greece, two different parts of the border and a couple of things happened. One was a group of people explained to me, and this was quite regularly happening, that some of the Greek border police have been beating people up and stealing their money. So ideally, if they had some Bitcoin on a phone, that's harder to steal.

Moe Ghashim: Exactly!

Peter McCormack: But also, I guess you've got people traveling through Europe, these are refugees. I guess this is, in some ways, a slightly safer way of travelling with a lot of money. If you had a thousand dollars and you're in a refugee camp, I don't know how dangerous, how risky they are, but that's a lot of money to be carrying. But if it was in a Bitcoin wallet, it's a bit safer, right? Plus, you can carry that across Europe through all the different countries you might travel through.

Moe Ghashim: Exactly! I don't know if you heard, but in Turkey in the last couple of months, people were kicked out of the country immediately because they moved between different cities and when they caught them, they were deported on the spot. They didn't have the chance to go and get anything from their apartments.

Peter McCormack: What about infrastructure wise? Because these are people who are going to have mobile phones or mobile apps. They're not really going to be maybe travelling across Europe with a laptop all the time. They're probably not going to have something... Key management, I imagine, is going to be a very different scenario and this is something I've talked to people about.

When I went out to El Salvador, I went to Venezuela, key management for somebody living in a slum in Venezuela or a hut in El Salvador is very different for somebody living in New York who can have a safe hidden in the wall with a BillFodl or if somebody is in Venezuela and they're living on $5 a month and for some reason, they are somebody who maybe has a couple of dollars of Bitcoin for whatever reason. Again, they're not going to have some hyper-secure seed management. So how do you talk about key management?

Moe Ghashim: It's fine. These people, if you look at people who are mainly from the Middle East, we're used to having cash in big amounts. We're used to keeping it safe and hiding it. It's unlikely that there's a household in the Middle East that doesn't have a good amount of cash. I didn't have a problem. "This is your money, keep it!" They were like, "fine, I'll just write it down. I'll put it where I put everything else." When you said that Bitcoin doesn't resonate much with Americans and Brits and people in Europe, because you didn't have to go... When you were raised, your money was already in a safe place.

We never had that. It's us who need to make sure that our money is in our safe place. So for you, if I tell you it's digital, I already have digital payments, it's safe, I already have safe payments and it's fast and I already have fast payments, because you lived it. It's very difficult to convince someone who already has all these features about it, but someone who doesn't, who can't get the money from the bank, might be deported any time between different countries and can't move it easily.

I don't know if you know, in every country when a transfer comes in or out of issuing account, you have to go to the bank and explain why you're receiving this amount or why you're sending this amount. It doesn't have electronically. There's a lot of difficulties to move money around. So when you tell me that this is your money, you can save it, you just get payment and send payment, all you need to do is to say these 12 or 25 words, then yeah, I'll do it!

Peter McCormack: Right, okay. So really what you're saying to me here is that Bitcoin is a very useful tool for refugees.

Moe Ghashim: Yes and for Arabs, in general.

Peter McCormack: Oh, for Arabs, in general?

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, we have issues. If you look at the stability issue... So forget about refugees. When I left Syria, I'm not a refugee, but I couldn't get money out of Syria. What happens now? What do I do? My family, other families, when I...

Peter McCormack: You couldn't just change it to dollars and take it with you?

Moe Ghashim: No. When I left Syria, I didn't know I'm leaving for long. So I left and now I'm outside Syria and the money is inside. I can't move it. When you look at it, there's a lot of instability happening in the region. There are many people who are leaving the Gulf and going to other countries who they think it's safer. Same in Egypt and in Algeria. There is quite an unsettling situation running around in the Middle East and people need to find solutions and alternatives.

Peter McCormack: Interesting, so it didn't cross my mind that this was a problem just across all of the Middle East, but you're saying this is an Arabic cultural issue with relation to money?

Moe Ghashim: With relation to government. We don't trust government and government controls the money. So I didn't see the trust issue in Europe and in the States. You might not like your government, but it's not about that they're going to steal you. We know for a fact they're going to steal us.

Peter McCormack: They're going to steal you?

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, it's not something that I need to convince someone. It's a given!

Peter McCormack: Okay, so your experience across the Middle East of adoption with Bitcoin, it's still relatively low though, right?

Moe Ghashim: It's really good in the Gulf and it's good in Egypt.

Peter McCormack: Why there, though?

Moe Ghashim: I think Gulf, because they're richer and they're inter-trading. There are proper stock markets in the Gulf and they get it. So in terms of trading, they can get in new forms of trade investment very quickly and I think only because they have a good experience trading with the Gulf. Egypt, it's very interesting what's happening there. Technically, they're getting better very quickly as a country overall.

So basically, Jordan was considered, at one point, the digital capital of the Middle East, then Dubai, but now it's pretty much Egypt and if you look, there are a few start-ups there trying to cover Bitcoin, blockchain, nothing significant yet, but there is the knowledge.

Peter McCormack: Right, so if people wanted to help out with this, Moe... I'm mostly interested in the refugee side of things because that's something I've been looking at and I'm going to be heading back out to Turkey, but it didn't cross my mind to even think about Bitcoin when I was at the border actually. If people wanted to help out and support initiatives that can help refugees, what can they do?

Moe Ghashim: I think trying to support any easy earning stuff that could get someone to work to own cryptocurrency.

Peter McCormack: This is what Andreas always says, "don't buy Bitcoin, earn it."

Moe Ghashim: Exactly, earn it! For example, Arabic culture is known for poor content. We don't produce much content in our region. One thing I thought of, and I did a few tests that worked, we can get people to record books in a form of audiobook and by the end of it, they can get money in form of Bitcoin. There are many people who are sitting in a small camp. I did it with a girl in Turkey, using her phone. I had a software that cleans the audio and then you get it. You can produce a huge amount of content and by the end of it, she can just say, "I did this by... And earned Bitcoin." I think that's one of the best ways to help people to do it and there are people sitting, doing nothing.

For example, if you look at someone, let's say, at the age of 45, it's very difficult to start a new life. They can't do it. I've seen girls in Turkey that don't know what to do. They went into doing some journalism or something, translating articles for Bitcoin and stuff. Bitcoin talk is like a gold mine. People can learn a lot about how the conversation went and all these things. So in terms of generating content, it could work I think pretty well. In terms of setting small jobs that could help Bitcoin now and give money and return for that in the form of Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: Okay, but you didn't answer my other question properly. How did you end up in Bedford?

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, because I wanted to save money on the rent because...

Peter McCormack: Yeah, but why Bedford, of all the places you could've been?

Moe Ghashim: Because I rented an apartment right on the river. So the view is fantastic and it's very easy to access London.

Peter McCormack: How did you find it, though? Were you just looking on the map?

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, I was looking on the map, searching, and then I searched the best commute to London and Bedford came.

Peter McCormack: It is a great commute to London because it's 35 minutes and it's not too expensive.

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, it's really good for me, very easy, 10 minutes to the station and then another 35 minutes in St. Pancras.

Peter McCormack: So do you prefer Aleppo or Bedford?

Moe Ghashim: Aleppo!

Peter McCormack: So when do I go to Aleppo?

Moe Ghashim: That's a good question, I don't know! Hopefully, we'll go together.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, at some point. Well listen, Moe, this has been really super interesting. It's so funny how we got connected via Alex and I think this whole area of refugees and how they can use Bitcoin to take wealth from wherever they're fleeing across Europe, to send or receive money, I think is super interesting. I haven't heard too many people talk about this.

Moe Ghashim: I consider all Arabs refugees.

Peter McCormack: Do you? Why?

Moe Ghashim: We're all refugees. We don't have decision on what we can or can't do, to be very honest.

Peter McCormack: Because it's mainly an authoritarian region and not many democracies?

Moe Ghashim: Yeah. Regardless, even if people want or don't want to admit it, we're all refugees, in a way.

Peter McCormack: I'm trying to think if there's an example of a democratic state in... What is the situation in Lebanon right now? Because they overthrew the government.

Moe Ghashim: It's a mess.

Peter McCormack: Will they bring democracy there? Can democracy even work in the Middle East?

Moe Ghashim: It can, but not now, not with the current leaders. They're in a different world. They're living in their own world that they think... If you tell them that their country is suffering, they will think that you are just lying and saying lies. They're not part of us. So one thing that is good about the whole world, that there is rotation. So you might end up with someone who lived with people in order to lead. We don't have that, our leaders never lived with us, so they don't know what they're talking about.

Peter McCormack: Okay, interesting. I need to know a lot more about the history of the Middle East, country to country, into religious wars. Somebody's recommended a book for me. I think he was a Washington Post or New York Times reporter and it's "From Beirut to Jerusalem." Is that correct?

Moe Ghashim: Yeah!

Peter McCormack: Actually, I think I've downloaded the audiobook. Somebody said ... I think it was my camera guy Adrian, he said, "you need to read this book, "From Beirut to Jerusalem", by Thomas L. Friedman." He said, "You need to listen to this and this will give you a good understanding of the complexities of the Middle East." Well listen, Moe, stay in touch! Anything you're doing with supports to refugees, I'd like to hear about. If anyone can help, you should let them know. How do people follow you or get in touch? Are you on Twitter?

Moe Ghashim: Twitter mainly, @MoeGhashim.

Peter McCormack: Okay, I'll share that on the show notes. I'm glad we've got to know each other and it's good to be your friend.

Moe Ghashim: Thank you!

Peter McCormack: I'm going to be around for a bit more now as I can't travel. So usually I'm travelling, so any morning you want a coffee, give me a shout.

Moe Ghashim: Yeah, I will!

Peter McCormack: And we'll go down to The Embankment and have one. All the best, man!

Moe Ghashim: Thank you!