WBD635 Audio Transcription
Why Progressives Need Bitcoin with Trey Walsh
Release date: Wednesday 22nd March
Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Trey Walsh. 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.
Trey Walsh is a nonprofit director and progressive Bitcoiner. In this interview, we discuss the problems facing Gen Z: climate change, high education and housing costs, wider economic problems constraining opportunities, the erosion of democracy, and social media-induced mental health challenges. We talk about why Bitcoin could provide hope to this hopeless generation.
“We’ve politicised everything. Problems aren’t problems anymore. For the left: what is their approach? For the right: what is their approach? And it’s because the political system is broken. And obviously, most of the listeners and we know it’s also the financial system is completely broken.”
— Trey Walsh
Interview Transcription
Peter McCormack: One of the good things about Nostr is you're not going to be able to censor, or the content's more pure, but that might be a problem for its scaling, because I think some people are like, "I just don't want to deal with this shit".
Trey Walsh: Yeah, it's going to have a problem at some point, for sure.
Peter McCormack: And it's whether it appeals to people. I can see why it appeals to bitcoiners.
Trey Walsh: Yeah, it's a Bitcoin chatroom, that's why I like it right now. But if it gets too toxic or too crazy, that'll turn me off from it too.
Peter McCormack: I just think, can it scale outside of a Bitcoin chatroom? I can see why a bunch of bitcoiners have naturally come to it, I mean it suits them, they're in that kind of world of Bitcoin, decentralisation. I don't think my brother, sister, friends give a shit about a decentralised Twitter.
Trey Walsh: No, not at all.
Peter McCormack: Sell it to them!
Trey Walsh: Yeah, exactly.
Peter McCormack: Did you enjoy last night?
Trey Walsh: I did, it was a lot of fun. As I was saying to Danny, it was just cool seeing some people in New York, a city that I love, but I haven't associated with Bitcoin before. And I know a lot of people flew in, but there were still a lot of local people here and I met a bunch of different people last night. Some people there were like, "Oh, I'm really into Ethereum", so you get not only Bitcoin, but especially in any city, you get crypto-curious people. So, that was interesting, and just super-nice people. I don't know what I was expecting, but everyone was super-nice, super-friendly. It was great.
Peter McCormack: Well, you find that in person. It's funny, you can kind of hold a mirror up to the toxic online crowd and say, "This is what happens in person", and you never get that. Everyone's just super-nice, want to have a good conversation.
Trey Walsh: I had a 20-minute conversation with someone about their kids and just them raising kids; it was just amazing, connecting with people, and I think that's what we miss and I'm like, "I need to get out to more of these things and not just be on Bitcoin Twitter with all of this". It's nice.
Peter McCormack: So, what's it like being a lefty bitcoiner?
Trey Walsh: It's funny. HODL last night was, "Hey, Junseth, I've found you a progressor from Massachusetts!" last night, although I think it's getting easier. I've connected a lot with Jason Maier for sure.
Peter McCormack: Jason's great.
Trey Walsh: Yeah, I looked back at his show and I'm like, I don't want a repeat of that show, but there's so many things where I'm just like, "Hey, just go check out that show that he did", because that's a lot of the ways I feel about this divide. And I think the past year on your show, but in Bitcoin in general, has shown people Bitcoin is for everyone, but in -- there's so many things I could say about it, because America too, when I tell people, and you've said this a lot, everything in America is left/right. I'll give you a good example. That train wreck that happened recently in Ohio with the chemicals? That's left/right in the United States.
Peter McCormack: So, what's the left argument and what's the right argument?
Trey Walsh: Well, no, the left argument is basically saying the right is -- there's a lot of conspiracy theory on the right about this; and the right is saying, the left doesn't care this happened. The reality is that's a crazy thing that happened, can we just report on it?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, it doesn't help then there's another derailment a few days later in Detroit.
Trey Walsh: Exactly. So again, it's one of those things where if the right's saying it, the left's like, "What's going to be our opposing point to it?" But then again, you have mass shootings in this country and the right is mum about it, and the left is talking. So every issue, there's going to be something.
Peter McCormack: But you need guns to protect yourself from an authoritarian government!
Trey Walsh: Right, I've heard that. Someone else talked about that last night too, that was interesting.
Peter McCormack: Junseth brought it up.
Trey Walsh: Yeah
Peter McCormack: Look, if you want your guns, have your guns.
Trey Walsh: That's how I feel.
Peter McCormack: What's his name, the fucking comedian got it best. Google him, "Australian comedian, guns". You've never seen this guy?
Trey Walsh: No, I almost thought you said -- I feel like Jim Gaffigan had --
Peter McCormack: Jim Jeffries, have you seen this?
Trey Walsh: Okay, he sounds familiar.
Peter McCormack: You've never seen this?
Danny Knowles: I don't think so.
Peter McCormack: Oh my God, you have to see this! So, this guy talks about guns and he's like, "Look, I accept your Second Amendment rights to protect yourself, I accept that" and he says, "but what I don't accept is lies and bullshit. There's one reason and one reason only to own gun", and he says, "because you fucking love guns!"
Trey Walsh: Yeah, I would agree with that.
Peter McCormack: "That's what it is. And all this bullshit they use to mask or justify little kids getting shot in schools, I just find it repugnant. Just stop lying, this is bullshit".
Trey Walsh: So, someone on Twitter, people can look up the tweet, posted yesterday, I felt reassured about this, they posted a picture of a hardware wallet and they said, "I never understand bitcoiners who don't like guns", that was the post. Then Anita, I'm blanking on her last name.
Trey Walsh: Yes, Anita Posch --
Danny Knowles: Dan Held tweeted it, I think.
Trey Walsh: Yes, Dan Held tweeted it.
Peter McCormack: Was it a Dan Held tweet? Well, Dan likes guns.
Trey Walsh: Which I'm fine with. I'm more of like, when I think about myself and progressivism, I'm still definitely libertarian-leaning progressive, where I'm just like, "You guys can do whatever you want, but when you start conflating guns with Bitcoin, you're going to turn people off", and that's what I've talked to a few people on the right about.
Peter McCormack: Absolutely.
Trey Walsh: I'm like, "Listen, I have a lot of respect for you and because I'm into Bitcoin, I can look past your bullshit. But some people who aren't into it, associate it", and my wife and I talk about this all the time and a lot of my friends, I know they would associate it with Ted Cruz, with guns, and that's the problem. So, it's just that difference where it's like, I don't personally care what you do with that, but conflating that, and Anita pointed it out, she's like, "Luckily you don't have to like guns to be into Bitcoin" and I commented on it and I was just like, "Thank you for saying that".
Then there was a lot of shitposting after that. A lot of people were like, "Yeah, that's great, Bitcoin's for everyone", and most people, even those that are on the right, are getting around to understanding. People who used to shitpost like that a lot are getting around to understanding Bitcoin is for everyone. And I've seen that message shifting, but real quick before we lose the thought, back to what it's like being a progressive in Bitcoin, so I got into Bitcoin in 2021, early 2021, and listening to honestly Willy, Alex Gladstein, your first shows with them, had me see that Bitcoin is, okay, this global thing. So that allowed me to get into Bitcoin.
Then I researched it on my own, kind of ignoring Twitter for a bit, just reading books, then I got back on Twitter and one of my first encounters with someone big, I was probably four or five months into Bitcoin, was Saifedean. And if this had happened my first day into Bitcoin, I mean I still would have been into Bitcoin, but for some people that could be a real turnoff. He was posting about classic steaks, meats, carnivore diet, whatever, and I was like, "I'm a vegan, how do you feel about that?" whatever, and I wasn't even shitposting, I forget what it was. But he was like, "Oh, I'm sorry you're malnourished", and really dug in deep. I was like, "Holy shit, that was pretty dark, that was pretty aggressive, this dude doesn't know my diet, I don't know his".
I'm not saying that -- you can be a healthy carnivore, whatever, and then he immediately blocked me and I was like, "Dude, I have like 300 followers on Twitter; that is pathetic!" It was so funny, I'm still blocked to this day by him, but I love The Bitcoin Standard. I still would recommend that book to people. It's just so funny, but that was a couple of years ago. I do think the tide's turning, I really do.
Peter McCormack: Well, the vegan thing makes me laugh. The healthiest I've ever been was when I was a vegan.
Trey Walsh: Yeah, I've heard you say that a lot, yeah.
Peter McCormack: Honestly, I was in great shape, I felt good, slept well, my skin was good, I was running fast. I got my 10k down to 47 minutes and I used to be a 1-hour 10k guy. And then I got my 5k down to 22 minutes I think. I was fast, I was light, I felt great. My only problem with it was, I feel like the only way to be a healthy vegan is you have to prep your meals, you have to be very good at that. If you're eating out and --
Trey Walsh: Yeah, it's tough. I mean, in New York, it's a bit easier, but even where I'm at in Boston, it can be tough.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, and that's what happened that first year when I made all my meals, I was super-healthy, great. And then when I went back to work, I just struggled with it. I often think of going back though, I felt so fucking good. I mean, Rich Roll was there last night. Do you know Rich?
Trey Walsh: So, I know of Rich and that was really cool when you said that, because I knew of Rich before. I know of him, I didn't dive in deep or anything, but that was way before Bitcoin. And so seeing him there, it was like, "This is crazy"; it was quite crazy for you too.
Peter McCormack: Well, I mean he's the guy who got me into podcasting and has been a bit of a mentor and good friend, and it was just this lucky coincidence he was in town, so he came out. And it's quite funny because those two worlds converging, Bitcoin and Rich Roll, really freaked some people out. They're like, "How did that happen?" But the vegan thing, look, Saifedean's going to block and shout at everyone for all kinds of reasons for people who disagree with him. That's fine, that's his shtick.
But the progressive thing is important and there's an alignment with that, why it is, is that Bitcoin adoption and understanding, awareness, is going to grow and scale quicker than a core ideology of no seed oils, carnivore, guns, and so we recognise that. Me and Danny talked about it a lot last year, we were like, "This is growing quick". And the most important thing for conservative bitcoiners is that they embrace progressive bitcoiners, or they embrace progressives and teach them about Bitcoin and you have a united front on this one issue; because if you don't, all you're going to do is bring regulation and threats to Bitcoin.
So, the most important thing, I say it, Jason Maier's book is the most important book written for conservatives. And so, we embrace it, I think it's been great. I think sadly, because there's been a lot of weird shit, especially you see a lot of it on that Libs of TikTok, but there's a lot of weird stuff that happens on the left, people assume everyone who's a progressive is on that super-weird end, which is not -- I find that's like conflating the White Nationalists with everyone on the right. You can forget these fucking crazy people and just listen to the real conversations that people are having about these policies and ideas.
Trey Walsh: I'm equally -- well, it depends on the issue, equally critical of the left for sure, because I'm like, especially during COVID, I was like, "You're being fucking annoying, you're being really annoying and you're actually drawing people to those fringe groups because of how annoying you're being on policies that shouldn't have been enacted", or like more totalitarian leaning, "We want the government to be in every aspect of your lives". I'm progressive, not in that way, but a lot of people just don't think about it. So, I'm definitely equally critical of that and it is annoying.
But I'd say on the right, and a lot of bitcoiners, the Bitcoin OGs and the people I really respect in the Bitcoin community who are on the right, when I've talked to them, when I've interacted with them or messaged them or spoke to some of them last night, they're great people and they're like, "Dude, Bitcoin's for everyone, that's our core belief". The others are just clickbait-y and loud and they actually don't matter to Bitcoin. Some of them I think, I try to remind people, "Hey, when I show something like this to my normal friends, they're like, 'You guys are fucking crazy'". I'm like, "You've got to remember in your echo chamber, it sounds like we all get it, but to a normal person they're like, 'What does that even mean? What are you talking about?'"
Peter McCormack: Yeah, "Guys, you need to check out this new decentralised form of money that's out of state control. It's going to be really good, because that means the government can't touch money and you don't want the government in your money, because the government, they're really fucking bad at managing money. So basically, we're going to run all these machines all around the world and they're going to do this thing called mining and build this block chain so we can spend this money". It's like, "What? What the fuck did you just say?"
Trey Walsh: Yeah, they're like, "Back up". Think about it, how long did it take you, or how long did it take me or others, and who said it recently? Maybe it was Troy who said something about, "You don't have to understand -- you're always going to be learning something new about Bitcoin". Me, even just being in it two years, I just started to grasp some of the concepts maybe a year in after reading a lot, and I think that's how you have to approach people.
But also, last night I was talking to someone who also said, "Everyone has their role in Bitcoin. You're going to have the people that need to talk to government officials, you're going to need the people that are like, 'No, screw this, we hate the government, we're anarchists', you're going to need the liberals, you're going to need the people on the right, you need every type of person using their specific gifts and focus". You don't need everyone to think that we need to ally with the government for Bitcoin; that would probably be bad. But also, you can't have everyone being, "Screw the state, we need to end the government. Anarchy now and Bitcoin only". You need that depth and that's what we're seeing more, and I think getting those voices out there is really important.
Peter McCormack: Well, that's the rich tapestry of life, which Bitcoin will become part of, or is part of, and will spread throughout. But what won't happen is we won't have this Bitcoin monoculture that scales to 8 billion people; it's just not going to happen. And I think as soon as some people accept that some people see the world differently from them, expect different laws or different ways to organise a society, the better, because I think they're going to get very disappointed and their ideas will become more fringe and more niche, and they'll probably just become more angry. They're not going to change anything doing that.
Going on Nostr or Twitter and yelling at somebody has zero effect. It doesn't make you look good, it doesn't change anyone's mind. What does work is conversations where people are trying to come to the table and share ideas and work around things. And I think that's the same with Bitcoin. With someone like Elizabeth Warren, I mean look, I'm a hypocrite here because I've been very critical of her on Twitter, but at the same time --
Trey Walsh: She's going to be one of your secret guest stars every episode!
Peter McCormack: I hope so, man. But I'd love to sit down with her, just sit round a table with someone like her and someone like Alex Gladstein, maybe a Troy Cross and just educate them and say, "We understand your fears, we understand what your concerns are with this, but look at what -- if you try and stop Bitcoin working, which by the way you will never stop it, but your attempts, what you're trying to stop is, look at this project in Africa, look at this project in Texas, look at this project in El Salvador, look at this project in the UK, look at this project in Indonesia. This is everywhere and it's improving people's lives. Why are you trying to stop that; what is it you're trying to fucking achieve here?"
But you need to be able to have those conversations and you need to meet them where they are, not have two people yelling at each other, not Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren yelling at each other; it just doesn't work.
Trey Walsh: And it's funny, because being on this show and in general, I do want to bring a message of hope for Bitcoin on Bitcoin, but I've heard you say this a lot about Elizabeth Warren recently and she's one of my senators in Massachusetts. She was in there before I was, gosh, probably able to vote, she's been in there a while now. But one of the things that I will say that I wanted to bring up to you is that, to presuppose, okay, get them at the table and talk, and again, I'm a registered Democrat, vote the Democratic Party, I don't think I've ever voted for a Republican -- no, you know what? No, I didn't.
Peter McCormack: But you're not saying you wouldn't.
Trey Walsh: No, I'm not saying I wouldn't. And also at this point, it's hard for me to figure out who I would vote for, if I would, going forward; that's where I'm at.
Peter McCormack: Well, the DNC is so broken.
Trey Walsh: Yeah, so I don't like anyone from there. And anyone that could aspire to be a rising star in politics, they're two or three months into the campaign and you see them starting to change already, because the message has been written. So, that would be my point on Elizabeth Warren. You mentioned, "We should educate their staffers". That's presupposing that they are open to begin with. They already have their message delivered to them.
I've reached out to a few congressmen and senators in Massachusetts, and they have all -- it's almost copy/paste, the response I get. And it will be. I've actually had back and forth with their staffers through email, with my congressman a few different times on a few different things, and their staffers have written to me and their staffers are really great, you really feel like you're connecting with a person, the Director of Research, whoever, and it's usually the same.
It starts off positive, because they want to make you feel you're heard, so what they say is, "Crypto is this revolutionising technology, it's clearly here", okay, so they're at least acknowledging that crypto is something that's legit, they're not like, "Ban crypto", now. But then they get into, "Bitcoin uses more energy than half of the world", you know, whatever, like Norway, Sweden, whatever, they copy/paste the same thing. And so it's energy use and money laundering, and they say "crypto". I specifically wrote about Bitcoin, and I sent these folks a couple of articles, connected them to Satoshi Action Fund, Bitcoin Policy Institute, others, legit people who I'm like, "They're doing legit research, it's not just 'Bitcoin to the Moon', or whatever. These are legit research folks, you should check them out".
Peter McCormack: Yeah, "Stop listening to de Vries".
Trey Walsh: Yeah, right. So, they've already decided what they're going to think on it and I don't think there's any way of having that conversation. I say that as a progressive who voted for a lot of these people, so I don't know what the answer is there and I think the free market will, over the next couple of years, you'll probably see them shift, that will be my expectation. You'll see them shift once enough people or constituents start to see what this is and when it gets here. I don't know what the timeline is for that, but after now.
Peter McCormack: Well, that's why someone like Jason Maiers is so important and what he's doing is so important.
Trey Walsh: I agree, yeah.
Peter McCormack: It's, get that education out there. We've done a lot of work out there appealing to people who are conservatives or libertarians; they get it, they generally get it, not everyone, but there's a broad understanding of what this means, and it aligns nicely, certainly with American conservatives. It's less so in the UK, because there's a different mindset. The UK conservatives are more just fiscally conservative, they're not so much freedom conservatives, but at the same time what we need is conservative senators across the aisle, conservative people, to put their hand out to their progressive friends and say, "Look, let's just talk about this one", and I think it's just one thing we can all align on and say, "The incentives of this benefit everybody". This is a win/win/win for everybody.
Trey Walsh: Yeah, and it affects and wins for everyone in different ways, that's the cool part. So, as a progressive, a United States progressive, it can appeal to you in "blank" way; as an African non-profit worker, it will appeal to you in this way; in China it will appeal to you. So each way, there's a different story. I remember I was talking to my wife about it early on, and she's like, "If it's just money, that's a neutral thing. It's money, right, so why is it --" and I'm like, "Well, there's a lot of reasons. It's politicised for good and bad reasons", but yeah, at the end of the day, I think Junseth alluded to this last night, I'd love to see it as boring old money. That would be really cool if in my lifetime, we could see that. That's my hope and that this politics stuff in the past will be like, "That was crazy!"
Peter McCormack: Well, ordinals are making it less boring, but we don't need to really get into that!
Trey Walsh: Yeah, I don't have a say on that, I don't know.
Peter McCormack: So, I haven't really done an intro for you, because not everyone listening will know who you are. Do you want to just give a bit of your background, talk about the work you do?
Trey Walsh: Yeah, for sure. So, my name is Trey, I am currently a Director of a non-profit focused on youth workforce development. So, my undergrad about ten years ago, I was a sociology undergrad and still really passionate about sociology, social theory. Not to go too much into it, but I was really trained up and studied Marxism and was really, really -- I considered going to the New School here in New York City. I was very, like if you say, "Who's going to end up in Bitcoin?" that concept of definitely into Marxism, social theory, just --
Peter McCormack: Are you a commie?
Trey Walsh: No, not any more. Even then, it was more like social theory, like I really enjoyed reading radical ideas, a lot of new-age philosophers, leftist philosophers, things like that. So, that was sociology, social theory. Then I got into non-profits in 2015 actually, working with young people with disabilities. So, that was my first and I think my driving thing in life has been -- and I went to a Christian college as well, no longer a Christian, but I think the one thing that kept with me is, in Christianity, Jesus fighting social justice, and that's the one thing that definitely stuck with me always, is fighting for those that have less, just social justice and everything. So, working with people with disabilities, that got me into non-profits, and that's one of the largest minority groups, if you will, in this country that doesn't have a lot of rights, and I started working with them, which was really, really cool.
Since then, I've been really passionate about working with young adults and leading programmes that help young adults get ahead, find economic self-sufficiency, especially low-income young adults, and just navigate this world. And I myself am 30, I'm a millennial, but this younger generation faces even different and new challenges, so that's where I find myself now, is just really passionate about workforce development, young adults, helping them to get into career pathways and get into things, and I think Bitcoin can be a part of that. Navigating that in my current role and in Massachusetts in general, we're still really early.
Peter McCormack: Well, you wrote this article, Bitcoin Creates Hope for a Generation Found Hopeless, and we'll share that in the show notes so people can go and read it.
Trey Walsh: That would be great.
Peter McCormack: What is it you're noticing then amongst young people; what is this hopelessness you're seeing? I see it, and I have two kids as well.
Trey Walsh: I think in general, definitely COVID was a big thing. So, I've been in my current role for four, four-and-a-half years now, and a lot of my staff go into schools and work with students. So, during COVID, we were all virtual, and I think it's one of those things that's not a cognisant, "Youth are outright coming and speaking up about what's troubling them"; they're young people, they're teenagers. But what we're seeing is COVID had such a big effect on school-age kids all over the world, but in the United States as well. And I think what you're seeing is just the biggest -- and what society is doing, I think they're holding up incredibly well, given what they've been through.
Especially some of these young adults we work with, they are 15, 16, and they're working jobs until 9.00pm at night, also providing for their families because they're immigrant families, or their parents might be undocumented, whatever. So, there's these kids that are carrying their communities and really doing cool stuff, and society is like, what was that recent Wall Street Journal article that was saying, "Okay, it's millennials and the younger generation buying too much, that's why inflation keeps going up"?
Peter McCormack: Oh, yeah, what the fuck was that all about?
Trey Walsh: Yeah, it's petty stuff like that, but it's also like Greta Thunberg saying, "The world is burning, we have to do something today". So, I think that overwhelming, unconscious pressure, they did it to millennials with my time, and they're doing it to Gen Z now, just saying, "You guys are going to pay social security and probably not get any back. You guys need to fix the planet because the older people don't care about it", and that's also presupposing that if you're older, you can't change your ways, or whatever the case may be. So, it's basically like, "What are you guys going to do about it?" And a lot of times it's spun in this message of hope, but really it's overwhelmingly just suffocating I think to young people. So, for them to actually thrive in this world, it's really challenging, and obviously from this article, I think one of the ways is Bitcoin, and the whole ethos of it, not just the technology.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, and I think there's other pressures on kids these days. The two pressures that really stand out to me: parents aren't about as much. I'm conscious myself as a parent the amount I work, the amount of focus on this career ahead of spending time with my children. I'm away for a week, two weeks at a time, I'm conscious of that. And, I'm fortunate to have the job I have, but some people, they've got no choice, they have to work one, two jobs, both parents have to work; they just don't have the time to parent. And parenting has kind of been pushed to media.
We've got these addictive social media platforms that God knows what they're doing to their brains, but I think there's these unrealistic career life goals that it's putting in front of them, because when I grew up, I was about 14 when the internet came around, so you went to school and you knew you were going to pick a particular vocation and you would go to university and you'd work hard and you'd get a job. Now, with the internet, you have young people seeing other young people become fabulously rich by doing things on the internet, and all they're seeing is success stories. It might be a 16-year-old playing for Manchester United; it might be some young girl who dances on TikTok, has 100 million followers; and you see articles, they live in these big mansions, or youngsters driving cars.
That's what they see and that's what they aspire to, and I think a lot of them are missing the reality that actually, life's just really hard. None of you are going to do that; a tiny fraction. Most of you are going to have to work hard at school and then get a job. And then you can throw in another layer of pressure in this. A lot of the jobs that they're perhaps preparing for are not even going to fucking exist!
Trey Walsh: Yeah, that's a whole scary part too. And working in workforce development, that's one of your jobs, trying to figure out what that's going to look like in five or ten years, because a lot of the young people we work with are passionate about working with or running -- in my Director role, a lot of this is my staff doing these things and I try to just support funding and have conversations about why they should care about this, or why they should invest in these young people, so we're projecting out five, ten years. So, what are those jobs we can help them get into now that can be that trajectory? That's the challenging part.
Not only that. I think really I get passionate and upset about, we can make things a hell of a lot easier on young people, and I'll say just to the US context, but it applies worldwide; we can make things a lot easier for young people, whether you talk about outrageous costs of higher education, and no, I don't think the only answer is debt cancellation, because then what does that do to continuing payments? That's a whole other topic, but college is too expensive, training programmes might be too expensive. Employers, they might get a job, but then we've seen layoffs this year, so we could be heading for a recession, it could be more serious or not, we don't know. So, they're going into these companies and these organisations, if they are lucky to get a job, and we're just not making things easy for them.
Things shouldn't be easy, let me put it that way, and these young people, I think the biggest misconception is, "They're lazy and they just don't want to work". No, the young people we work with, they're super-excited to get out there. They're young, they're excited about life, they're really just viewing the world that way, even though some of us that are a bit older, and maybe it's my millennial angst too, it's like, "Man, this world's kind of hard sometimes". And us bitcoiners, there's hope, but there's also a message of, "Oh, man, all of these guys, they're the bad guys and no one knows it but us" type thing. That's a little bit extreme, but it's partly real, and I think a lot of these things, especially politicians, in action I don't think they care at all about a lot of people, but about this younger generation coming up.
Peter McCormack: They only care about themselves.
Trey Walsh: They only care about themselves but I think also, sometimes it's not even awareness. I think, yeah, it's tough when you don't have term limits. You come in and that becomes your career, and so you're focused on getting book deals and speaking, not necessarily on, "All right, I've got five years".
Peter McCormack: "What can I do for my constituents?"
Trey Walsh: Yes, that is few and far between. And I will say there are probably many out there, but I think you've mentioned this before too, some people get co-opted, or you get into it and then you get comfortable and all of sudden you're like, "Where was the fighting spirit; where did that go?"
Peter McCormack: AOC.
Trey Walsh: Correct.
Peter McCormack: I know she's popular with a lot of people. A lot of people listening will be like, "What the fuck are you on about?" When AOC first came through, she was a ray of hope. I mean, she might have been completely wrong on some issues, but she had a fight in her. And now, she's just been co-opted into the same bullshit.
Trey Walsh: Yeah, I think it's tough. I think some of it is, you want to try and inspire hope and change in people so you have to be a bit bombastic at times. What I do like about her is there aren't many people in Congress, even if you just follow her on Instagram, regardless of what you think of her politics, she shows you what a day in the life of a Congresswoman looks like, which is kind of cool. People aren't transparent about what it actually is. But then, yeah, I'll see some talks or some interviews, or the panel, the House panel, whatever, where they're just like, "This is my moment, this is my 30 seconds to blast this guy or this tech CEO", and I'm like, "What did that do for your constituents; what did that do for this country; what did that do for young people? Nothing".
But I get it and a lot of us who would be in the same position, would we do any different? I'm not sure, because that machine is terribly grinding, the political machine that these people fall into.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I think there's a few pillars of this that are causing problems for kids. I think politicians, I absolutely do; the financial system in a number of ways has damaged kids, in that there's no money for kids any more. When I grew up, we used to have these things called "youth clubs". Did you have youth clubs, or were they gone by then?
Danny Knowles: Yeah, I never really went to a youth club.
Peter McCormack: So, they were a thing and it would just be Friday night, Thursday night, whatever, you go along, you play pool, play football, a group of people hang out. They all eventually got closed and then football playing fields went. There's just never any money for kids. There's a crash in the economy and the government suddenly needs $40 billion, that money appears. Can you imagine they suddenly found $40 billion for kids? How many playing fields, parks, how many things could you fund? They never find that money; they always find it for the things they need. So, I think the financial system hasn't helped. I think the social media companies are drug dealers.
Trey Walsh: Yeah, I agree with that.
Peter McCormack: As somebody who is a previous addict and has definitely been addicted to Twitter, it is fentanyl to kids. I also think the education system hasn't evolved for life. I mean, there's a really great TED Talk, I think the guy sadly died, he was a teacher and he talked about this kid who liked to dance and everyone missed it. And he said, "These kids now, we have the internet now". These kids now, the things he's teaching them now, they won't even need to learn in the future.
Rich Roll, I always steal this line he said to me. He said, "The problem with schooling is we give these kids a super-computer in their pocket and then we teach them to go and memorise facts". It's fucking pointless. I mean, I think the whole education system needs a complete rethink. We need to create people, not merely computers who can remember things.
Trey Walsh: Yeah, and I think too you talk about this a lot on your show, and your show obviously talks about Bitcoin, and I think the directions you want to head is to expand that too, but you talk about too, and for your European listeners and others, even in the US, how different the US is in that we have states and we have a federal government. So, we talk education, I mean the federal government, yes, but that's dictated at the state level. So, Massachusetts is going to look very different than Virginia, than Texas, than California, whatever, and each city as well and each town, they have their school board, they have a lot of control.
So, as with anything in politics, what remnant of hope you do believe, the local level impacts a lot. So, whatever ways bitcoiners can get involved in a local level are people that care about this stuff, not in a way of going to Town Hall and being like, "Bitcoin…" just for a joke, a funny moment, that's really where it's happening and especially school boards. So, we've seen some schools do some cool and exciting things, like for instance instead of just having a rigid school schedule where you have six or seven periods in a day, where they go to the same classes, it's freeing up a couple of those so they can go and do an internship outside of the school.
Our big thing is, we try to get students out into the community as much as possible so they can interact with real companies, so they can figure out, "Let me try this out. I thought I liked that, I don't like that. Let me try this out", and just give them something that's outside. And also, teachers, their job is to teach and follow the curriculum, and a lot them unfortunately, I think they act as social workers sometimes, but their job also isn't to prepare them for the world of work or the economy in five years, right. It's not because they don't care, because teachers really do care; it's that that's not their focus. So, there's not a real focus on bridging that divide between school and what comes after that.
Some people are better at figuring it out than others and I think I definitely am a firm believer in, "Let them experiment and fail", and some students are going to thrive in that and some aren't, so there's always going to be risk associated, because we don't want to create an environment where we lay out the path of every person through age 30 and say, "That's your trajectory now, you'll be set"; there's got to be some try and fail.
Peter McCormack: And what about some problem-solving; what about teaching problem-solving; what about teaching philosophy? My daughter's at a stage now with her maths, and every parent will know this, she's doing stuff I do not use in life any more. And there are some kids who are great at maths and they're going to do maths all the way through to 18, they might do further maths, they might study maths at university. Great, that is a maths kid who's going to take that into a job, where they may be an economist or an engineer, where that's super-useful. My daughter, I know her; she isn't going to do shit with this maths, right. She's learnt everything she needs to know.
Trey Walsh: Sorry if she's listening!
Peter McCormack: English, I get it; English all the way through. Great English skills, great writing skills, great comprehension skills, that's going to be useful. Science? I mean, you get past a certain point again with science, what does she need that for? She's a creative person. She should be spending a lot more of her time doing creative subjects. But all of this is a rigid structure, like you said.
I wish they would free them up, I wish they would do problem-solving, I wish they would do finance, I wish they would do economics, I wish they would do more life skills because those are the skills that will transcend any technical evolutionary changes that kill off large parts of the job system. They will be useful, life skills, but we don't do it. We just create robots who compete on memorising facts and it's fucking dumb.
Trey Walsh: Yeah, I mean I do think it's getting better in that regard, but I do think also we need to be real about what is school. School, for a lot of people, let's say a lot of students that come from maybe hard households, or just in general is a place of hopefully stability that they can go during the day that the government in the US pays for, their parents can go to work. And a lot of times, I don't remember anything from my high school days, barely college. But what I do remember from college, I remember those professors that had a profound impact on me and introduced me to topics and subjects that I researched, similar to, "Okay, this person had a profound impact on me with Bitcoin", same thing with high school or elementary school; you remember people and how they made you feel.
So, I think if we're real about education, a 16-year-old, an 18-year-old, a 22-year-old isn't going to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. I am a firm believer that you can always evolve, I mean as you did with this podcast, starting it a few years ago. You were doing one thing, okay, pivoted, something happens, I think that's real. So, I think we just again, like you said, teach students critical thinking, adaptability; it doesn't really matter the other subjects. You need to make sure they can read, write, do those kinds of things but I think if we're real, that's what education should be about.
Unfortunately, I think sometimes it comes down to individual teachers and people, like is that the type of person they are, or not what the structure isn't set up for that now.
Peter McCormack: But you need then better teachers, you need to get better, brighter, more interesting teachers in there.
Trey Walsh: So, a teacher shortage in staffing.
Peter McCormack: Because they don't pay them shit.
Trey Walsh: Yeah, correct. In the US, there's always -- it's a whole other show we could have about the impacts of COVID and just the societal angst everyone feels, but there's always, especially you guys in the UK and Europe even more so, but there's a lot more teacher strikes happening in the US, which again --
Peter McCormack: We've got that in the UK right now.
Trey Walsh: For sure, and I mean healthcare is a whole other thing too, it's kind of similar in a way, and I am definitely a registered Democrat, proud of those that are striking, unionising when need be, and those kinds of things. First of all, I could never understand because I am not in that position, but that's a reality and there's not enough teachers in the system anyway. So, a lot of them feel like they're used and abused. How well of a teacher do you think they're going to be if they feel like that?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, and Louis CK does a brilliant piece on teachers and he talks about -- it's Louis CK so he's making a joke. He's like, "These are the shittiest people, because these people, they get paid shit and it doesn't matter how good a job they do, there's no career progression and nobody says thanks". And the point I think he's trying to make is -- I'll tell you what, let me explain it differently. Something that came up recently just stuck with me, I've talked about it on the show a bit, this interview I did with Dan Tubb, and we just looked at the government's budget from the Office of Budget Responsibility.
Trey Walsh: Oh, this was the UK show you did, right? Yeah.
Peter McCormack: Yeah. $71 billion is spent on education; $120 billion is spent servicing the interest of debt, not paying anything off, just serving the interest of debt.
Trey Walsh: The debt still exists, that's just the interest, yeah.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, the fuckers can build up this debt that has no consequence to them, but it has a consequence to everybody else. Imagine that $120 billion went into education. Imagine if the education budget suddenly went from $70 billion to $190 billion; you could double the salaries of teachers. You will not have a teacher shortage, you would be able to invest in getting good people into teaching, people who are smart, experienced, who can give these kids a really fucking solid education. But you're not going to find these people while you pay them shit.
Trey Walsh: Yeah, and also the way we think, and I say this as a progressive, I'm not necessarily a big government person, but I will say one of the things I've seen time and time again, it's complicated -- it's funny, I was driving around with my wife last week and I was talking about this city where I'm at, I live in Salem, Massachusetts. People know Salem from the witch trials, that kind of thing.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, of course.
Trey Walsh: Great city, love the community, but there's a couple of things. They'll put up some mural or sculpture, just to use as an example, but then there's potholes all over the road. It's like, "Why don't you do what a city should do and fix the roads and leave the other stuff to the entrepreneurs? So, that's how I feel about US Government as well. There's too many things the government is paying high taxes for, and that's also something I like to tell my progressive, more socialist friends, is they say, "Tax the rich".
Peter McCormack: You already are!
Trey Walsh: Yes, you already are, but even if you guys do that, you guys also don't trust the government. You realise if we tax the rich, sure it's less for them, but then they give it to the government that you guys say you hate anyway. So, even if you think that there should be more spread of the wealth and things like that through taxation, I don't trust that the hands they're going into -- or what if Donald Trump's President, let's say their worst fear? Okay, the money's going to him. You guys do realise if we tax the rich, they're going to your enemy, or whoever is in the White House, or whatever, and obviously that's not how it works, there's a lot of different factions. But the government gets a lot of money.
I've seen this in my career, also just in this country in general, what happened during COVID stimulus, obviously. So, the government got a flush of money, they threw that money out into communities. So like you said, there was actually more money and it is for a lot of these projects. Have we seen things change on the ground? Not necessarily, because they're like, "Here's all this money, you have two years to spend it, you can't spend it on X, Y and Z, or you can't staff up to actually address those things, or you can't hire more teachers, but here's a stimulus for X, Y, Z". So, it's just the complete mismanagement, even if, especially bitcoiners say, "The government shouldn't have more money". I agree with that but even when they do, they still mess it up, so that's the biggest thing.
Peter McCormack: Wasn't it 70% of the taxation comes from the top 10%?
Danny Knowles: I can have a look.
Trey Walsh: Top 10%? That sounds about right. If it was 1%, I'd be like, "No", but 10%, that makes sense.
Peter McCormack: It might even be the 1%. I know it's a vast majority.
Trey Walsh: Even if it was 5%, I would understand that, yeah.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, so you can tax these people more but the truth is that --
Trey Walsh: Do you want to hear a cool stat? So, Massachusetts, I forget that we had tax excess. It's the first time that I actually got a reimbursement on tax.
Peter McCormack: What?!
Trey Walsh: We had a tax excess of about $3 billion at the state level, as in they collected $3 billion more than they had budgeted. So, they issue out a budget. That came in -- we actually have a law. So, Massachusetts is definitely liberal and progressive, but the one cool thing where I'm like, "Oh, this was the law". It was a law from the 1980s that says if it's X percentage over what we actually budgeted for, we give it back.
Peter McCormack: So, you got a cheque?
Trey Walsh: Yeah, a pretty sizeable cheque, and I work in non-profits, it's not a crazy income, and we got a decent-sized cheque for just a tax refund, which I thought was cool, but also showed, "Why the hell are you taxing that much?" If you get it and the government at least has a law where luckily, I think if this were other states, we'd probably be in a trickier situation where they're like, "Cool, let's just use this for whatever", but Massachusetts has actually a law that says we have to give it back if it's over a certain amount, which I think is a cool -- at least the switch was flipped and we have to give it back. So I'm like, "At least that was cool".
So, Massachusetts has some old-school practical -- we had a Republican Governor the past two years, Charlie Baker. He was the most popular governor in the country, but he was a little more practical, wasn't very fringe, and was very weird in a place like Massachusetts. So, we do have a weird mix of people in Massachusetts. It's not as Elizabeth Warren as one might think!
Peter McCormack: Well, you can tax people only so much. There becomes a breaking point where people will just leave a country. Did you find it?
Danny Knowles: I can't find it.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I'm sure it was 10%.
Danny Knowles: It was around there.
Peter McCormack: But I always think it's the wrong answer. I think the answer is, the government has to spend less and how do we do that; how do we get the government to spend less? You mentioned term limits. I think there should be term limits linked to budget responsibility. I personally think any government which hits a point where they spend more than they're bringing in, that should trigger an election, and the electorate get to decide. They get to sell why they're going to run a deficit and the electorate get to decide, because that will flip the incentives. Rather than every government saying, "We're going to give you this"; no, "We're going to give you this and spend more and more", you have another party coming back and saying, "No, we're going to cut spend here and this is why you should vote for us because we're going to work for you". The incentives are all fucking screwed.
Trey Walsh: Yeah, and I think bitcoiners, we talk a lot about slippery-slope stuff and I think that's one of the things that's, whether it's CBDCs, whether it's deficits, when you talk to more normal people, you see a gradual -- Junseth was talking about gradual growth of things last night, right? You also see a gradual downfall. So, it's never overnight you get this; sometimes, a society will collapse overnight, but at least in the United States it's this gradual chipping away.
Part of me is, we're really, really far down this whole incentive model, where the new thing is as much debt as possible, CBDCs, the political structure as it is. It's crazy to think, I think it was, what, the early 1990s was Bill Clinton and we didn't have a deficit. I'm trying to think the last time the US did not actually have a deficit where now, the deficit is the highest it's ever been.
Peter McCormack: And it's never going away.
Trey Walsh: That's the thing. I don't think it's ever going away and most people don't care about it. But in thinking about young people, I don't know what that's going to look like in 50 years, when you think about the ramifications of what this is. And all the people that have been deciding that, they'll be dead and gone.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, home ownership will be an issue --
Trey Walsh: It already is.
Peter McCormack: -- social security will be an issue. All these things will be an issue. The boomers took it all, maybe my generation -- what am I? I'm not a boomer, I'm just below that by a couple of years.
Danny Knowles: Gen X?
Trey Walsh: X?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, something like that, I don't know.
Danny Knowles: Last time the US had a surplus was 2001.
Trey Walsh: Okay, yeah, that's wild.
Peter McCormack: Was that Clinton or was that Bush?
Danny Knowles: I don't know, was that Bush?
Trey Walsh: It was Bush because it was 9/11.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, of course, yeah. God, here in New York. The first time I came to New York was the year after 9/11.
Trey Walsh: Oh, really?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, it really stuck with me because they were still clearing the site and there was still, I don't want to say a fire, but smoky stuff coming up and you saw the big trucks coming out, bringing things out. I remember standing in a queue getting a slice of pizza and I was talking to this guy and I was like, "Were you here?" He was like, "I was in the city, I was down near where it happened", and as he started to tell the story, his arm started to shake. I was like, "Are you all right, dude?" He was like, "Yeah, it's just the fucking worst day ever".
Trey Walsh: Yeah. Have you heard Cory's story on that, from Swan?
Peter McCormack: No.
Trey Walsh: So, I listened to his interview with Natalie a couple of weeks ago and he said that he was here during 9/11. He was saying it was before he went to Chicago, and Cory can correct this or reach out, but he was here during 9/11 and he was uptown and he was going to head back down. He was planning on it, but he saw, "Okay, I'm in Tower 2, Tower 1 was hit", so he was given details and I was like, "Oh my gosh". He was here for it and gave his side of the story, which is just crazy.
Peter McCormack: Have you found, or have you noticed, because I have, and it's only anecdotal evidence, but I've been coming to the US since then. 2002 was the first time, been here like 80 times. I used to spend most of my time on the coast, LA, SF and here, and I've gradually been starting to go to places like Nashville and Texas. I've noticed the decline mainly in New York and in California. I've seen visual decline in those cities. San Francisco particularly, I still can't understand how they've let that city collapse into what it is, and I'm seeing it here now in New York.
New York when I first came, it was exciting. But over the last five years, I've felt a real decline. I feel a little bit less safe in the city, I feel a little bit less excited, I feel like, I don't know, it's just I feel like they've suffered the most. Whereas, I feel like Nashville and Austin are ascending, and I'm asking that as a progressive. It's a leading question.
Trey Walsh: Oh, for sure, I know what you meant. I'm glad you asked it too, because I hear a lot of bitcoiners constantly dump on the coast and things like that and I do get it. First of all, I've never been to San Francisco, I've been to Seattle, I've been to San Diego area. San Diego's one of my favourite cities, it's beautiful out there; and then, New York. So, the one thing, and you would have more knowledge of this just going back more, and I definitely think there's been a decline for sure, and COVID really, really escalated that. And I think any progressive who refutes that is crazy. There definitely has been.
But I think also, I would push back and say some of these other utopias that bitcoiners talk about, especially Texas, Tennessee, utopias for whom? Because, there are a lot of folks that live in those communities, if they're not as wealthy, if they're people of colour, if they're trans, if they're gay, those states have tried to do a number on some marginalised communities. And again, people can comment and stuff and I don't go on Twitter and fight with people, it's just exhausting. You can look up data on that, I'm not going to have data battles on that. But I do agree, I think it's happening on both sides. Just as New York, problems have been politicised.
If we actually got people in a room together and were like, "How are we going to figure out drug abuse and homelessness in New York City?" rather than, "What is the proper Democrat response to that? What is the proper conservative --" because Democrat response, and I've had this in my own community, we had a bit of an issue with some homeless encampments creeping up to a really old, historic, beautiful part of the city. Some people, reasonably so, were like, "There's kids", and Salem's a big tourist town as well, so there are kids and families walking around and they see an encampment in front of Old Town Hall. So, "What are we going to do about that?"
Some people were like, "It sounds like you more care about the photo op than you do about these homeless people", that's a classic left response. On the right, they'll be like, "Scum of the earth, what are they doing out here? Go get a job". Those are the two responses, rather than just -- but there are a lot of people behind the scenes that aren't on Twitter that are actually sitting in a room, non-profits, some government officials trying to figure this stuff out. But I definitely would say, just walking around here today, you see it right by Washington Square Park, you see it. Now, is it as bad as 1970s, 1980s? Probably not, I don't know, I wasn't around then, but I would say New York is still New York.
Whenever I come to New York, I'm like, "This place is great", I do love it. But you do see some of the stuff that for me, I'm more like, "This is sad, we should do something about it". That's usually one of my thoughts.
Peter McCormack: Take a trip to San Francisco, just see it with your own eyes.
Trey Walsh: I know. Upon trying to read a lot and seeing different things, I would say that's probably the worst.
Peter McCormack: You've got to see it to believe. This is a major city, and what a city. Wasn't it the first progressive, openly gay city really?
Trey Walsh: Yeah, I mean one of them, for sure, late 1960s, early 1970s.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, and a beautiful city. I mean, I absolutely love San Francisco. I remember the first time I went when I drove in, drove across the Golden Bridge.
Trey Walsh: Do you know when that was?
Peter McCormack: That was for my 30th birthday. So, for my 30th birthday, we went to LA, we drove the coast up, so that was 14 years ago, and I just thought, "This is a fucking cool place". And you go there now and you're like, I cannot believe the centre of the city has collapsed to what it has been. I mean, you cannot go down a street without seeing homeless people, but it's… I mean, it was unbelievable. You saw it for the first time.
Danny Knowles: It totally blew my mind. You hear how bad it is, but we went for a drive through the Tenderloin, and there's two kilometres, would you say, of just pure encampments?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, like Mad Max.
Danny Knowles: You can almost not walk on the pavement, or the sidewalk, because it's just full.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, it's completely fucked, and something should be able to be done. Michael Shellenberger talked about this. He's written a very good book, San Fransicko. He's talked about this, and it's mainly solving the drug problem. But we seem to live in the richest times, but for some people we're living in the absolute poorest times.
Trey Walsh: We live in the time of the most excess and capital ever, so that's the thing and there's not good enough responses. Again, there's fringe responses, a lot of people in these positions are not intelligent, actually trying to figure out these problems, and I think that's the biggest thing, because we can address it. It won't be addressed overnight, it won't be addressed through Bitcoin, by the way. Bitcoin's not going to cure cancer, it's not going to solve inequality, and I think most bitcoiners are coming out and saying that at this point, which is good, because it's going to take a lot more than just that. But again, I think it's because we've politicised everything.
Problems aren't problems any more, they're for the left, what is their approach; for the right, what is their approach, and it's because the political system is broken and obviously most of the listeners, and we know, it's also the financial system is completely broken.
Peter McCormack: And media is broken; all three.
Trey Walsh: Yes, and I would say that's kind of political.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, of course.
Trey Walsh: Media, I kind of tie them to policies, but yeah, for sure.
Peter McCormack: Just circling back, so we should at least end on this, talking about the Bitcoin bringing hope to Gen Z. Can you outline what it is you think Bitcoin can do there, because I've got two kids and if I try to think about how Bitcoin can help them, well firstly, I mean look, it's given me a chance to save money for their future. My kids will probably be able to get a house because I hold Bitcoin, but that's an economic thing. The only other thing I can think is hope is that Bitcoin, it's the tangential subjects to Bitcoin that I've opened my eyes to that have made me parent them in a different way, teach them about different parts of life. That's the only way I think.
Trey Walsh: Yeah, and that's how I view it too. It's like Bitcoin is the entry point and then it creates the outline. I think a lot of this is in -- I actually reached out to Troy and I was like, "Dude, I've got to thank you for everything you've said on Bitcoin environment, progressivism", even though he focuses mostly on environment stuff, just that was a huge inspiration for even going about and pursuing getting my thoughts out there on stuff like this, and Jason the same way, and so many others, Margot.
So, I kind of outline it in three ways: environment; obviously money; and then, politics. I think starting with environment, there's so many shows people can go and listen to, from what you've done on this show, even recently, and other articles, but I'll start with mental health. So, that was definitely a thing with this younger generation. And, Danny, I think we were talking about this a couple of weeks ago, just the burden that's placed on young people, like I mentioned, to fix all of these problems. And again, my background is in sociology, I have a master's in non-profit management, so I'm definitely in a problem-solving through non-profits mindset. I'm not a social worker, any of those things, I'll definitely say that. But the mental health studies are very clear on what's happening with that, so definitely mental health with young people.
I think again, a lot of the messaging towards them, whether it's environment, whether it's politics, whether it's money and finances, it's all, "These people are not for you, they're against you, the world is burning", it's just a lot of pressure. Then, add COVID into the mix, and it's just a very overwhelming time for a young person. So really, outlining what I think Bitcoin can do for young people, for Gen Z, definitely environment. I think a lot of young people are really concerned about the environment, are constantly getting messages that climate change is here, that the ocean levels are rising, that we have too much carbon going into the atmosphere, and I align myself with a lot of environmentalists that talk about that. Definitely not one of those, "Case closed, it's going to happen in this timeframe", type way.
But one of the things I think is that there's a lot of evidence that Bitcoin miners, let's immediately start with, we can reduce methane emissions immediately, right now, with Bitcoin miners, pretty short time, six months, compared to other things. That's one of the biggest things is addressing that, less carbon in the air, so Bitcoin mining can actually remove carbon and make that less carbon emissions. And I think to what extent our high schoolers are going to go and study that right now, I'm not sure, but it's going to help their future, is what I'm saying. And some of them, if they catch on, that's great.
I think the political system, and I would encourage people to follow-up with me, and also read the article, Taking Money out of Politics, going towards that Bitcoin standard with politics; I think that's a good start for sure. Then, I'm blanking on the other one that I mentioned in the article as well. So, it's environment, politics, definitely finance, so just money in general. And talking with young people, we were talking about CBDCs, it could be stripped of savings, people could be stripped of savings. And I think it's reintroducing the concept to young people of private property, of money that they can hold.
A lot of young people, they're excited, like you said, of seeing TikTok and seeing entrepreneurs. A lot of them want to be entrepreneurs and focus on that, whether it's realistic or not. Bitcoin is a way into that, and I think we're seeing a lot, like with the fun stuff you're mentioning on Bitcoin, we can introduce some of that. So, that's a quick outline. Definitely encourage people to check out the article, and there's a lot of other folk saying similar things, and I definitely don't want it to be a progressive-only thing, but I'll keep throwing that out there.
Peter McCormack: And are you working on anything else?
Trey Walsh: Not at the moment. So basically, one of my goals for this year -- well, my goal for this year when I started off this year, I was like, "I want to start writing and just get it out there", so I did that and that was the second week of January, it went up on Bitcoin Mag, so I was like, "That was my goal for the year!" So, I've been having a lot of conversations with people, connecting a lot with people. But I think I'm kind of in this middle road of, I'm definitely a fiat day job, trying to see how Bitcoin works in that, but also getting pulled more and more into these Bitcoin conversations with folks.
Peter McCormack: It does it to you, man!
Trey Walsh: Yeah, and I've been connecting with a lot of people around that, which is really cool. So, my biggest focus right now is trying to pitch Bitcoin to progressives, fighting a bit in respectful ways against what I see as far right, alt right influence in Bitcoin and saying, "Let's separate that garbage", because a lot of it is garbage. And then also, the environment. I've been rally jazzed up about Bitcoin mining and what that's doing for the environment. So, I think for me it's about progressive values in Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining for energy and green energy.
Peter McCormack: Where do you stand on nuclear?
Trey Walsh: Love it, love it, for sure.
Peter McCormack: "I love it, man, I'm just building my own nuclear plant"!
Trey Walsh: Yeah, "I've got it out back in Massachusetts"!
Peter McCormack: "I've got some nuclear waste with me"!
Trey Walsh: Yeah, it's funny, Salem, we just started an offshore windfarm project, which who knows how that's going to go, honestly, because they're not allowed to… Now nuclear's being reintroduced, right, but I think if we want a stable grid, if we want clean energy that isn't CO2-emitting, nuclear's the only option. Solar and wind, you're not going to have enough uptime. So, I think it's a no-brainer. Anyone saying that there's any question to it is ridiculous. You can read one article on it and be like, "We've got to do this", and luckily I think people behind the scenes are knowing that, whether they're saying it outright or not, and we'll see more nuclear.
I forget who the gentleman you had on recently that was talking about the micro nuclear processors, because Bitcoin mining definitely makes sense for that excess energy, like windfarms and solar, when there's excess power on the grid and they can pay cheaply to get that. Nuclear, it would have to be constantly tapped into, so I'd be very curious to see how it actually works out financially for those. I think TeraWulf, I believe, is starting to work with some nuclear generation in Pennsylvania, which is pretty cool, really like that team out there. But nuclear's got to be the way.
Peter McCormack: It's got to be part of it, absolutely got to be a part of it. Well, listen, if people want to follow you, follow what you're doing, we'll put the link in the show notes, but how do people follow you?
Trey Walsh: On Twitter, @ktreywalsh, and then I'm on Nostr too. My Nostr pub stuff is in Twitter, so you can hit me up on Twitter. On Nostr, I usually just kind of goof around.
Peter McCormack: Wicked. Look, Trey, great to meet you, loved this conversation. We should definitely do it again some time.
Trey Walsh: Thanks Pete, yeah.
Peter McCormack: You take care.
