WBD692 Audio Transcription
Bitcoin vs CBDCs with Marty Bent
Release date: Friday 4th August
Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Marty Bent. 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.
Marty Bent is a Venture Partner at Ten31, founder of the Bitcoin-focused media company TFTC.io, and Director of Cathedra Bitcoin. In this interview, we discuss the potential implementation of a global financial system based on CBDCs and the role of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). We also talk about the potential role of Bitcoin in fighting against state actors.
“Bitcoin as a tool, in terms of the leverage it gives you against violence, is probably the most high-leverage tool that we’ve had against a massive state actor in history.”
— Marty Bent
Interview Transcription
Peter McCormack: We've got this weird thing. Sometimes when we go to places, there's something that picks up like a feedback on the headphones. You can hear it.
Marty Bent: It's the 5G towers here.
Danny Knowles: I know we're getting like AM radio!
Peter McCormack: It's my vaccine! My vaccine's recording us. How are you doing, man?
Marty Bent: Well.
Peter McCormack: Good to see you.
Marty Bent: Good to see you, sorry about yesterday.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, well I said that's your blue check privilege.
Marty Bent: I know.
Peter McCormack: Hold on, I'll show you something.
Marty Bent: It's really beginning to seep in, the privilege you get with the blue check. I saw you posting on Nostr.
Peter McCormack: We were with Odell, he shamed me out of it. Fucking shamed my blue check away.
Marty Bent: He does it to me week in and week out.
Peter McCormack: I know.
Marty Bent: I haven't relented yet.
Peter McCormack: I felt bad afterwards and then I was like, "Danny, what would you do?" He's like, "I wouldn't have one".
Danny Knowles: I don't have one. I mean, you'll go back on it.
Marty Bent: I mean, we have this conversation every week where it's like, I'm down to straddle both. Why not leverage the blue check to meme the WEF out of existence.
Danny Knowles: You're on the inside.
Marty Bent: Weaponise it against them.
Peter McCormack: Fuck, I want mine back now! I'm going to tell Odell. He shamed me hard. I couldn't work out -- but then, it's his brand, I get it. Well anyway, don't worry about yesterday. We had all these notes and then you didn't arrive and then you've dropped a new article, the BIS one, we want to talk about that.
Marty Bent: I'm down.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, so thank you for reading the 25-page report so we didn't have to!
Marty Bent: It was a long one. It was very verbose. They're using a lot of vague language, but that's what I try to do. I saw somebody tweeting about it, and I was like, "All right, I'll dive into this. They're saying it's scary", and then I dove in, and it's scarier with their intent, but their implementation I don't think will be successful.
Peter McCormack: Well, yeah, that's one of the things, I've always thought technically how will they actually do this? I quite I kind of like the fragmentation of the financial system in that I've got Visa, I've got MasterCard, I've got Amex, I've got Bitcoin, I've got cash. If one part goes down, I just use the other part. This idea that you would have one entire system for all our money, we know how unreliable Ethereum is; if there's a problem, if it breaks down, what happens? The world stops?
Marty Bent: Yeah, and they touch on it towards the end of the blueprint. It's the blueprint for the new monetary system run on CBDCs. They have a very small section at the end called Cyber Resilience, where they just sort of handwave and say, "Yeah, we're going to invest in cyber resilience to make sure that this system can't be hacked". But I don't have faith that they'll be able to do that.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but hacking is one thing. It's just if something breaks on the blockchain, the blockchain they're using, maybe Ethereum, if there's some kind of issue because Ethereum has that.
Marty Bent: Oh, yeah.
Peter McCormack: What happens? Does the world just stop? The world doesn't stop if Visa goes down, because you find an alternative.
Marty Bent: No, they'll just do rollbacks. So, I mean it was funny because today, I don't know when this was announced, but it seems like Brazil is using ERC-20 tokens to issue their CBDC and I think they're saying, "Yeah, we're going to be able to print as many tokens as we want, we could do rollbacks whenever".
Peter McCormack: Yeah, we were reading this earlier, "Brazil's CBDC pilot contains code that can freeze or reduce funds, dev claims".
Marty Bent: Yeah, so that's what they'll do. It's all window-dressing, they're going to have the same control, just putting a new spin on it.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I'm kind of in this mixed place, Marty. Part of me is like, they're going to try it but ultimately it won't work and they'll have to give up on it. And in my head, I still can't understand exactly what's the role of Visa in this, MasterCard, what's the role of the current financial system, do they take over all of it?
Marty Bent: I don't even think they know; I think that's the funny thing about this, is that reading through the blueprint last night, I spent about two hours going through it and then another three hours writing. And as I was writing, I was rereading and it's not very coherent, there's a lot of contradictions in it. For example, they say that there's going to be a lot of data sharing. They're going to leverage the compliance that already exists in the incumbent system and sort of port that into the CBDC system. And so, with these tokens, personally identifiable information will be associated to the tokens, and somehow they're going to leverage the information that these banks and financial companies already have to sort of import that into the CBDC.
Then later in the blueprint, they're like, "Well, actually, we're going to ensure that user privacy is protected, and we're going to set up the contracts in a way where you can delete the data within the smart contract", which completely contradicts what they said earlier in the blueprint, which is, "If you want to be a part of this system as a private entity for plugging into our CBDC platform, you have to send and receive information on your users between each other, if you're sending between participants".
Peter McCormack: The privacy thing is probably just a flag wave, because that would be the immediate concern from civil rights groups.
Marty Bent: Oh, yes, and just individuals, I think.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I don't trust it. Okay, so let's walk it bank. Explain who the Bank of International Settlements are.
Marty Bent: The Bank of International Settlements, I don't know their exact function within the overarching --
Peter McCormack: World of bullshit.
Marty Bent: -- world of banking, central banking, but they're marketed as the big boss of all the banks in the world. And so they do a lot of coordination, and that's what it seems like is going on with the CBDC blueprint. They're sort of the coordinator of getting central banks onboarded and experimenting with the stuff they have, the BIS Innovation Hub. And apparently in the blueprint, they mention that there's a number of central banks that have already run CBDC projects within this innovation hub, a number of different projects running in parallel. And it's the smallest of central banks; I believe it's France, yeah, there we go, France, Malaysia, Thailand, UAE, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, South Africa, and the Swiss National Bank.
So, I thought this was interesting because of the banks that aren't on this. You don't have the ECB, but you do have the Bank of France. Obviously, you don't have the Fed. PBOC isn't on there yet. But then you have something like the headline out of Brazil come out. It makes you question, like, are there --
Danny Knowles: Yeah, presumably they could be doing this behind the scenes.
Marty Bent: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: So, is it moving towards one global financial system?
Marty Bent: Well, it seems like that's what they're -- so, they're marketing it as a platform that will enable siloed networks to plug into. And that was the weird -- so this is how I think they're going to pitch it, and there's a couple of things: (1) they're obsessed with tokenisation, this whole idea of tokenising every asset, making it fungible, using the platform as sort of the settlement network between the siloed networks that will plug into it; and then (2) unit of account. I don't know how many times exactly the phrase was used throughout the blueprint, but they used it quite a bit, and it seems like they're trying to project authority on what can be deemed as a unit of account. And their whole pitch is that, in the crypto industry, it's obviously not tenable, and the reason it's not tenable is because crypto networks are fractured, and they have different liquidity profiles, though they do have good ideas. And the only way that idea can be implemented successfully is if we, the BIS, and member central banks and private institutions build the same thing, but use this unit of account. And they're trying to project authority on what can be defined as a unit of account.
Peter McCormack: So these things, Helvetia, Jura, Genesis, Dunbar, mBridge, and Dynamo, they're different projects?
Marty Bent: Different projects, yes.
Peter McCormack: Okay, so they're testing different things. "Tokenised assets settlement and wholesale CBDC", is that just essentially money?
Danny Knowles: Well, I think even tokenisation is such a vague term.
Marty Bent: Yeah.
Danny Knowles: I don't know precisely what they actually mean by that.
Marty Bent: I mean, that's the other thing too, they're like six years behind in everything we've gone through in this market. And I get that they're fumbling through the concept of tokenisation themselves right now, and there's another section, I actually didn't mention it in the newsletter, but they focused on tokenising supply chains and it didn't make any sense.
Peter McCormack: Well, we've been through that, when we put tomatoes on the blockchain.
Marty Bent: Yes, exactly. So they went through, "Hey, we'll be able to basically track supplies on-chain and create smart contracts that release capital when certain metrics are made". That's the thing these people don't realise. The only connection between the physical and the digital world in the cryptocurrency space is via proof of work, turning electricity into hashes that produces the only token worthwhile, which is Bitcoin. And they haven't grokked it, like with the supply chain stuff. On the blockchain, it could say that your tomatoes have been delivered from New Jersey to Florida on the blockchain, but in reality, they're not in Florida. It's like no matter what the blockchain says, there's no connection to the physical realm really.
Danny Knowles: No real-world connection.
Peter McCormack: It's the shit in, shit out. Jura, "Cross-border settlement with wholesale CBDC". That sounds like something to prevent cross-border money laundering.
Marty Bent: Well, and that's a very interesting thing about this blueprint too is that they're very particular about their language. But that's what I try to do with this newsletter, I believe, if you scroll down.
Peter McCormack: We'll make sure we put it out there.
Marty Bent: The language, the way they write it is all rosy like, "Hey, this is going to be great innovation. It's going to be great for consumers, it's going to be great for banks".
Peter McCormack: There you go.
Marty Bent: However, if you dig in -- yeah, so here it is, "It would hence require significant harmonisation effects across jurisdictions". So, they particularly mention cross-border payments, "For example, a unified ledger for cross-border payments would require seamless interoperability across private payment service providers (PSPs) and central banks located in various jurisdictions with different regulatory and supervisory frameworks. There is going to need to be significant harmonisation efforts across jurisdictions", and that is consultant speak for, "Hey, we are going to have these rules and if you don't comply with these rules, you're not going to have access to the system, so you're not going to be able to send cross-border payments within the system, and we're going to try to make the system the global monetary system. So, if you don't play by the rules and you want to purchase goods from another country, too bad, you're not going to be able to do it".
Peter McCormack: Which means everyone will have to agree to the worst set of rules for the worst-case scenarios. Can you scroll back up to that table, Danny? That's kind of interesting. So, "Tokenised green bonds and delivery of carbon credits".
Marty Bent: Oh, this is my favourite.
Peter McCormack: Hey, listen, I'm fully Marty Bent on this one!
Marty Bent: No, I'd say again --
Peter McCormack: It's compliance and coercion.
Marty Bent: Compliance and coercion, but it's also hilarious how out of touch these people are. And again, they're like years behind LARP. So, that was the joke I wrote in the newsletter, "The next time your government decides to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the next Solyndra…", which I'm not sure if you're familiar with Solyndra.
Peter McCormack: No, what's Solyndra?
Marty Bent: The Obama administration put something like $535 million into this solar lens company, really trying to stoke investment in solar, and it was an epic failure, collapsed. Taxpayers did not make any money on those bonds. So, that's the joke, they're basically saying, "Hey, you can invest directly in bonds that will then get invested in green energy initiatives". It's like, "Yeah, you can now invest directly via CBDC in a bond in the next Solyndra". So, the value add is that you can watch your investment evaporate in real time in your CBDC investment.
Peter McCormack: Okay, we've got Dunbar, "International Settlements using multiple CBDCs". Okay, I kind of understand what this is; mBridge, "Multilateral Payments using multiple CBDCs"; and then, Dynamo, "Smart Contract programmability in trade finance", DeFi!
Marty Bent: DeFi.
Peter McCormack: Fucking DeFi, global regulated DeFi. It feels very much like a Vitalik project.
Marty Bent: I mean, and that's what I said. It seems like if I were to deduce what they're trying to do in one sentence, it's that they want to fork Ethereum, add the ability to print and censor at will and leverage their smart contract tracking platform.
Peter McCormack: If it wasn't sinister, you'd look at it and go, "Well, that kind of makes sense". Like, if you wanted to create the most sinister global financial network, they've thought of everything!
Marty Bent: Yeah, and that's the thing with the insidiousness, well, I don't know if it's insidiousness or incompetence, I do think these people are hubristic enough to believe that they are the only group of individuals capable of facilitating a functioning global monetary system. I think they truly believe that they have the degrees and the experience and the prowess to do it, and nobody or nothing else does. And so, I do think part of it's earnest, but then the other side of me is like, if you read it, it's very obvious consultant speak where it's like veiled threats throughout and very light nudging.
Again, going back to the unit of account, they're projecting authority over the definition of what can be a unit of account throughout the blueprint, and essentially just trying to bamboozle everybody into thinking that only the BIS and member banks can decide what a unit of account is, which is completely antithetical to what many bitcoiners believe is that Bitcoin, or money more broadly, is a tool, a good that the market emerges on. And naturally, via the properties of that money, Bitcoin, scarce, transferable, divisible, all that good stuff, can't be controlled most importantly.
Peter McCormack: Well, that's what I took from your notes, trusting the stewardship of money.
Marty Bent: Yeah, that's the other thing.
Peter McCormack: Like we should trust these motherfuckers.
Marty Bent: Yeah, well you get to page two and you can sort of disregard everything they write after page two because they say, "Crypto can't be trusted. The only institutions that can be trusted to steward money and monetary systems are central banks".
Peter McCormack: Well, if you take Bitcoin out of that, they're kind of right. Crypto can't really be trusted.
Marty Bent: No, oh exactly, that's the other thing. They're exactly right; crypto can't be trusted. It is fractured, the liquidity profiles are fractured, and it's been wrought with egregious scammers that have just burned people. We're the grownups in the room. The ideas were good, we're just going to combine all of them and give you one platform to do it all, which is smart.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, sometimes I wonder if they know what they're doing is sinister, or they believe what they're doing is right. You know, if you're in that position working for the BIS or one of the central banks and you've been charged with looking into crypto and how a CBDC could work, I can believe there are people in there who think they're doing the right thing. It's like, "Wow, what do you mean, we can end all crime? We can stop all money laundering? We can make society operate better?" I think they can give themselves a utopian narrative of why they should be doing this. There are clearly some evil fucks in there, but I think some of them think they're doing the right thing.
Marty Bent: Oh, definitely.
Peter McCormack: It's like power gone to their head.
Marty Bent: Yeah, the underlings, like middle management and analysts, probably definitely believe that, but maybe just look at history. What's gone on with the BIS? Not many people know this.
Peter McCormack: Is it the Nazis?
Marty Bent: No, I don't know about the Nazis.
Peter McCormack: I think there's a connection to the Nazis.
Marty Bent: There might be.
Peter McCormack: Could be wrong.
Marty Bent: I was going to say, there's a documentary out there, lesser-known documentary I highly recommend anybody go watch it, All the Plenary's Men. It basically dives into the HSBC crisis with the Mexican drug lords. Remember when HSBC had form-fitted teller windows for suitcases of cash that they were accepting from Mexican drug cartels and sort of brushing it under the rug, taking their business, taking the fees. That blew up and went up the courts. HSBC wound up getting a slap on the wrist and the BIS was heavily involved in coordinating between the many jurisdictions that this particular case sort of bled into and sort of said, "Hey, you're only going to give these guys a slap on the wrist. It's not going to go that far". Mark Carney, I believe is the former --
Peter McCormack: Yeah, Bank of England.
Marty Bent: -- Bank of England guy, he was involved in that as well.
Peter McCormack: What?
Marty Bent: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: I don't understand that, because that's pure criminality.
Marty Bent: Oh, yes. And so that goes back to, I agree, there are definitely people within these institutions who think they're doing the right thing, but at the top, history has proven that those with the most power within these institutions are wholly corrupt and engage in criminal activity with impunity.
Peter McCormack: Did I slander them with the Nazis?
Marty Bent: No, it does say there's been some allegations, but I didn't see anything solid. Let's just say yeah, fuck them!
Peter McCormack: Fuck them! So, they don't mention Bitcoin at all?
Marty Bent: They don't.
Peter McCormack: No.
Marty Bent: No, which is interesting. I mean, I can't tell. I'd say, yeah, it's either three things. They either think Bitcoin and crypto are the same thing, I forget exactly what I said, but basically they think Bitcoin and crypto are the same thing, or they know exactly that Bitcoin is the biggest threat to their livelihoods and existence that exists and purposely didn't mention it by name and/or tried to sort of bucket it in with the rest of crypto.
Peter McCormack: Yeah I mean there is a scenario where they perhaps think Bitcoin sits alongside the CBDCs, which it almost certainly will for a certain period of time anyway. I didn't talk about when Matt was here the other day shaming me for my blue check, he was like, "You'll buy the CBDC". One of the areas I wanted to get into with him, I didn't get around to it, I was like, "I might not have a choice, there might be a time when I might not have a choice". There's a reality of running a business and being a parent. If the UK launched a CBDC and it exists and it is the only money and I have businesses and children, well what's my revolution? How do I escape that? Can I live on Bitcoin only? Is that actually possible if there's no cash, if there's only CBDCs? Because there is a war on cash as well.
I was like, will I? I was trying to be honest and rather than just say, "No, I won't use it", and signalling that, there's a reality I might have to. I don't know if you've thought that through, but there might be a period where we have the two together.
Marty Bent: There's many different paths we can go down; that's certainly one. I mean, we saw this in 2020 with the lockdowns, right? There were people who drew up the hard lines saying, "I'm not participating in this, I'm not wearing the mask". And they did that, but their lives were significantly hindered to a degree, their quality of life. But they stood, made the principal stance like, "Hey, I'm not going to go along with this". It was a very small subset of the population. Hopefully that serves as a lesson for future infringements on civil liberties, which the CBDC would be. And I say this, and people don't like when I say this, but I do think it is going to take massive civil disobedience, people standing up and hitting the streets refusing to.
Peter McCormack: Why do people not you saying that? It seems like an obvious answer because my next question was going to be, what do you do about it? I've talked about it on the show before, you probably didn't hear it, but I had an incident where I was on Facebook and I just wrote a post about the threat of CBDCs and why they're a dystopian nightmare. It was after they announced Britcoin. Did you hear Britcoin?
Marty Bent: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: Fucking Rishi Sunak. And I was like, "Just so you're aware, this is what it is, this is what exists right now in China, and this is how they use it. They can restrict what you spend money on, they can stop your access to transportation if you don't say the right things, it's like a dystopian nightmare", and one of my friends' mums blocked me. She replied, she said, "I'm fed up of your conspiracy nonsense", and blocked me. And I was like, "Jesus, how do you present this to a large group of people and have them realise this is really bad?"
Marty Bent: Yeah, it's going to be very hard, and I mean likely impossible to wake people up. The reason people don't like civil disobedience when I say it is because it's typically followed up, like, we literally need a revolution to avoid this stuff, and the R-word really rubs people the wrong way, because it highlights that there will be direct conflict with authorities, whether that's physical or not, and that just scares the crap out of people. But I do truly believe that we need a revolution today in 2023 globally, here in the US to a certain extent, or to a great extent, and yeah, it just rubs people the wrong way because they don't want to think of conflict and having to participate in that, because it's going to take balls if you do want to stand up and actually be part of a revolution, which I think is wholly necessary right now. The people in charge, I'll go Marty Jones, they hate us, they don't like --
Peter McCormack: Marty Jones! You haven't been so Marty Jones recently.
Marty Bent: I've got two kids now.
Danny Knowles: But there's almost no way around it without civil disobedience. You two both run businesses. They're surely going to demand that tax is paid using the CBDC, so you have to break the law if you are not going to use it. And if that's a widespread thing…
Peter McCormack: It's easy to say it. It's easier to say what you would do than do it when put in the reality of the situation. I own three businesses. Do I want to lose all three and cannot pay my mortgage so my kids don't have a home? All those things, you have to think through. There may be a chance that you could operate on Bitcoin only, who knows? But it might be unlikely. It's a lot you have to think through.
Marty Bent: A lot.
Peter McCormack: You might have to like having the blue check and meme them from the inside, you might have to use the CBDC and fight from the inside. But I mean, Marty, we're already in a revolution, really, we're in Nic Carter's peaceful revolution, right? We're trying it now with Bitcoin.
Marty Bent: Well, that's the hope, is that we can avoid physical conflict by simply defunding the system that is oppressing us.
Peter McCormack: Not BlackRock hope.
Marty Bent: No, I mean...
Peter McCormack: We'll come back to that!
Marty Bent: BlackRock are like, "Pump our bags". If you're out there, do not buy the BlackRock ETF. That's not the way you should get exposure to Bitcoin.
Danny Knowles: In the US, obviously you've got state and federal tax, which we don't have in the UK or in Australia, but if like Florida have said they're not going to accept a CBDC, has that actually gone through? I'm not sure.
Peter McCormack: I don't know, I saw DeSantis try and put into law that -- I saw him definitely do a speech on it, that they were trying to legislate that they will never have a CBDC in Florida.
Danny Knowles: But assume they pass that, could the federal government still demand payment using CBDC?
Marty Bent: Certainly, and that is a trend in the US. A trend in the US that I've really liked over the last few years is individual states asserting their autonomy. Part of the reason why I moved to Texas and live there now, Texas sort of put their foot in the ground and said, "Hey, we're going to respect the civil liberties of our citizens. You can come here, work, move around and operate throughout the economy without worrying about lockdowns". And, yeah, I think it's going to have to go to that level, too, where if the federal government gets even more overbearing than it is right now, I think you're going to see individual states, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Wyoming, stepping up and say, "Hey, we'll protect you if the federal government tries to come after you". And Florida's made some moves like that, and Missouri as well, saying that federal agents aren't allowed to come and harass our citizens for certain things.
Peter McCormack: That's why I think the US is in a better position to reject this compared to where we are in Europe, where everything's centre ground. This polarised world that you have here in the US actually, sometimes I think it's not good, there's a certain reason I don't think it's good, because I think they fine everything, and now the reason I think it is great. When the lockdowns came in the UK, I mean it's very clear, I was like, "Yeah, well, this sounds good", because we're like that, we're all centre ground, there's very little pushback and challenge; whereas here in the US, there is a lot more challenge, and if you have five, six, seven states saying absolutely no, that might become a big issue.
Marty Bent: Yeah, and I mean we're seeing it too, there's microcosms of this in the Bitcoin world as well, I think particularly around the mining industry of certain states, standing up and saying, "Hey, we're open for business. Bitcoin miners come here, do business", Tennessee, Texas, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kentucky. And then you have others, like New York State, they're like, "No, get the hell out". And that's the hope, is at the end of the day, the free market will prove the states like New York, "You're idiotic to do that", and the states that welcome this reap the benefits from the tax revenues, the grid stability, the efficiency gains with stranded energy sources, will win out economically in the long run due to all the value that will be accrued from the economic activity provided by the Bitcoin mining industry.
Peter McCormack: Let's flip to that. Talk to me about what's happening with that in Texas specifically, but I had the questions. We hear a lot about Bitcoin mining in Texas and what's happening with ERCOT and the grid stability. We've seen it, we've spoken to people. I was more interested in, well, are any other states following Texas? You're a lot closer to it than me.
Marty Bent: Yeah, I mean here in Tennessee, there's a lot of mining. Up in the northern part of Tennessee, southern Kentucky, they're really leaning in. Parts of Pennsylvania, if you get outside of Philadelphia, it's pretty red to the west of Philly, so a lot of areas in western PA are embracing mining. But yeah, across the spectrum of on-grid, off-grid, it's happening in these states and the grid stability thesis is being proven out in Texas. Obviously earlier this summer, it got really hot, miners turned off. Riot just posted financials, they made a crap ton of money when they did that, more than they would have mined.
Peter McCormack: That pisses people off though, doesn't it, because they don't understand what's happening?
Marty Bent: Yes, it does, but another thing, that's what Pierre has been really good at, getting ahead of the curve here. One thing, when that particular demand response instance last month, the day-ahead hub pricing was predicted to be $1,000 a MWh, and it wound up being $250 a MWh.
Peter McCormack: What does that mean? Contextualise that for us.
Marty Bent: ERCOT was forecasting the demand that the grid would have to supply the day ahead, so they do day-ahead pricing or predictions. They do real-time pricing, but they'll have day-ahead estimates, what they think it will be, based on how hot it's going to be and how much electricity they think is going to need to be served to the grid. And, yeah, in this instance the day-ahead pricing was predicted to be $1,000 per MWh, but it wound up being $250 to $275.
Peter McCormack: Why such a difference?
Marty Bent: I think miners had a big part of that, where they shut off, delivered that electricity back, so they reduced that demand.
Peter McCormack: Right, okay. So, okay, it's because you're not getting the peak spikes any more.
Marty Bent: Well, you're getting the peak spikes, but you have this interrupt roll load, it's like, all right, the spike --
Peter McCormack: But you've got more capacity to play with.
Marty Bent: Yeah, there's a lot of capacity coming on, and yeah, the miners release capacity back to the grid.
Peter McCormack: Do we know how much of the hashrate is in Texas as a percent of US and then globally?
Marty Bent: I think the highest estimate I heard was 25% to 30%.
Peter McCormack: The hashrate globally in Texas?
Marty Bent: At one point.
Peter McCormack: Wow!
Marty Bent: Right after the China ban, but I think that's fallen as mining has distributed here in the US, and then it's growing massively in Latin America, South America, Argentina, Paraguay specifically. The Middle East is getting in as well, Kingdom of Bhutan is aiding in. So yeah, I think they, at one point post-China ban for a small amount of time, Texas had something like 20% to 30%.
Peter McCormack: So there isn't too much, there isn't a density that's concerning?
Marty Bent: No, it's not what China was back in its heyday.
Peter McCormack: Okay. The hashrate continues to go up and up and up.
Marty Bent: Oh yes, it does!
Peter McCormack: And I can't understand why. Talk to me what's happening, you're a lot closer to it. Are they front running us?
Marty Bent: No, I don't know exactly why it's screaming. You can't know why individual miners are making the choices they are, but I do think we have energy prices falling here in the US, we had the pre-orders from Bitmain and MicroBT coming on the market that people bought, and they finally got them delivered, plugged them in. We're getting more infrastructure buildout, so that's the thing the last couple years, rack space in the US, so actual physical space and connections to grids and substations was not there for miners. And so, a lot of infrastructure has been built out over the last two years that has increased capacity for people to plug in ASICs, so that's been happening. On top of that, the machines that are coming out are extremely efficient and high hashing, so you're just adding incremental efficiency of the individual machines; and then people are getting smarter with older machines too, figuring out how to moonlight them in places with lower electricity costs.
So yeah, and then obviously you have the mad dash for hash globally. It's not just happening here in the US, it's happening everywhere else. People are waking up to Bitcoin, Bitcoin mining, more specifically, and they're starting to build out infrastructure where they are. And it seems that MicroBT and Bitmain have been able to keep up their production on the ASIC side of things. So they're going to keep producing and selling.
Peter McCormack: It's weird, I feel like almost over the last three months, even that recent, it feels we've turned a corner in the narrative of Bitcoin. Do you know what I mean by that?
Marty Bent: Oh, yeah, BlackRock entered!
Peter McCormack: Well, yeah, I mean BlackRock helps. We were at the event last night and it was, what did Harry say specifically? He said, "Just look at the signal that this is. This is Larry Fink, this is BlackRock, telling every institutional investor, everybody who looks to BlackRock for their guidance, Bitcoin's fine, Bitcoin is okay, you can buy Bitcoin".
Marty Bent: Yeah. I mean, that's a massive signal. I'm not a big fan of Larry Fink and the way BlackRock and the Vanguards of the world operate, but there's nothing we can do about them getting in, it's an open network, they can acquire Bitcoin and give their clients access to Bitcoin products if they want it. I think that's where the signal is. I think BlackRock's hand was forced where they had so much demand from clients saying, "Hey, we want access to Bitcoin. Could you please give us a product that allows us to get exposure to this asset?" And they finally had to relent and change tune because they saw all the fees that could come in from that.
Peter McCormack: Oh, you think it's come from there?
Marty Bent: I would imagine, yeah. I think that it's probably most likely being driven by client demand, wanting exposure to Bitcoin. And then Larry Fink being the capitalist that he is saying, "All right, I'll bend the knee on this one and get the fees". But on top of that, BlackRock obviously is the most recent, but we've had the banking crisis here in the US. I think we've had three of the top five bank failures in US history in the first half of this year, and you had a lot of really well-off people wake up and realise that they didn't have access to their money. Obviously, some of those banks got bailed out, some of them got bought up, and I think that sent a signal, a counterparty risk signal to the market like, "Hey, do we actually own our money?" which is leading people to be like, "Hey, maybe this Bitcoin thing does have some validity behind it". And then for some reason or another, whenever we get within a year of the halving, people start paying more attention, I think.
Peter McCormack: This is an insane chart, by the way.
Marty Bent: Yeah.
Danny Knowles: It's crazy, isn't it?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, because you look at that 2008, I know Washington Mutual Bank went, but you had so many banking failures, so many regional banks; and then essentially on the right we have this First Republic, Silicon Valley and Signature, these just three that went, and it's kind of crazy that there's not a grouping of smaller regionals that have gone with it. It's weird that just these three have gone.
Marty Bent: Not yet.
Peter McCormack: Not yet? Do you think more are coming?
Danny Knowles: That's because of the BTFP program. I think more would have gone if they didn't initiate that so quickly.
Marty Bent: Well, that's the other thing too, again talking about language and framing from the people in authority. These really aren't regional banks, look at that. Those aren't regional banks. They were positioning it as a regional banking crisis, while this was all going on.
Peter McCormack: Oh yeah, 2008.
Marty Bent: No, I agree with you there, but they tried to paint Signature Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, and First Republic Bank as regional banks.
Danny Knowles: Niche banks, maybe.
Marty Bent: Yeah, from a narrative perspective, but no, these banks each had individual account holders with over $1 billion in deposits, I'm pretty positive, and so they're not your regional, down-the-block, county bank, they're pretty massive banks. So, I think we're in the eye of the storm with this banking crisis. I think it could be similar to 2008, where we had the blow-ups in the beginning of the year, things cooled down for a bit over the summer, then in fall things really started to heat up.
Peter McCormack: What are you seeing that's making you think that?
Marty Bent: I mean, I just don't --
Peter McCormack: Is it a general sense of the market?
Marty Bent: Well, that and where interest rates are. These banks blew up for particular reasons: (1) they had extremely concentrated deposit risk; (2) they have duration risk with the assets they're packing, with the Treasuries and obviously with what rates have done over the last two years. I find it hard to believe that it's only three banks that have the problems that Signature, Silicon Valley and First Republic had.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, we had Jeff Ross in earlier and he was discussing it because your CPI print came out 3% today. I think it was still at 9% in the UK because we're fucked. But he thinks Powell should pivot now.
Marty Bent: I mean, he's got the excuse to.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but he doesn't think he will.
Marty Bent: No, I mean he had two Fed governors out earlier this week choreographing that they're probably going to do two more 25-bps hikes, I believe.
Peter McCormack: So, they're going to hike into massively falling inflation.
Marty Bent: Sounds like it.
Peter McCormack: Damn.
Marty Bent: Who knows?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but it does feel like that narrative change, which is good. I almost feel like any journalist now who comes out with a critical Bitcoin, you know the typical bullshit FUD ones we get, it could become an embarrassment and potentially career risk, the credibility would be shot. I'm just wondering if the whole BlackRock thing does lead to more of that, more positive articles. Will we see in The New York Times that "Bitcoin is good for the environment" article, because when that happens we're done, we've won, it's all over!
Marty Bent: It could get weird. We could find ourselves at a point where we say, "Wait a second, what are you saying about Bitcoin?"
Danny Knowles: I might have to retweet The New York Times!
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I don't like Bitcoin any more!
Marty Bent: Yeah, Marty Jones may become a gold maximalist!
Peter McCormack: Yeah, fuck this shit!
Marty Bent: No, but I mean it's going to happen inevitably and, yeah, who knows, maybe things aren't that bad behind the scenes and people at those levels of the financial banking system are like, "Yeah, maybe we need this as an escape valve to sort of back into as things hit the fan here". Because if you look at, we just expanded the national debt here in the US by $1 trillion in 34 days. That's 3.2% month-on-month growth. That's insane!
Peter McCormack: Yeah, and Luke Gromen says another $2.4 trillion by the end of the year. We tried to do the maths, we figured it out and we think over the year, it'll be about equivalent to the entire tax receipts, which is $6.3 trillion; they'll print that in one year.
Marty Bent: Yeah, we're definitely not getting $6.3 trillion in tax receipts, it's way lower than that.
Peter McCormack: Oh, is it?
Marty Bent: Yeah, this year I think it came in 30% below estimates. It had to be between $3 trillion and $4 trillion, I would imagine.
Peter McCormack: I still want to understand, where is this money going? If your tax receipts should have been $6.3 trillion, you now have to print $6.3 trillion, where the fuck is that money going? It doesn't make any sense to me, I can't even understand.
Marty Bent: No, I mean so the government, if they're expanding their debt, I guess they have to issue more Treasuries, right? And so, they're creating Treasuries.
Peter McCormack: It's just insanity to me, but yeah, look, this narrative change I think is super-good, it's cool, I know you've always been like, "We're going to win", I know you've always said that.
Marty Bent: We're winning, we're winning.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, we're winning, but I know you've always been bullish on it. I always have this thing in the back of my mind, Marty, maybe it's the Englishness in me, but I was always like, "They're not going to let us win. Once we get near, they're going to take it from us, they're going to stop us". They still might in Europe, because we're fucking idiots. But I think here in the US, you're closer anyway.
Marty Bent: No, that comes back to like, we don't need them to let us win. We are going to win, because we're going to take agency over our lives, over our futures, over our children's futures, and it's already happening. The protocol's being built out, there's a whole industry being built out around it, people know more about Bitcoin than ever before, it's been a brand name for quite some time. We don't need them to let us do anything, we can do this. We are doing it ourselves now. That's again going back to the revolution word. I do think this revolution is literally a decision individuals make.
You don't have to give them power, in many ways they do have power over you with what they've erected, but at the end of the day, if you get a critical mass of people, essentially making a decision and changing their minds to say, "Oh, I don't need them to let us win. All I have to do is download this software, receive Bitcoin, send Bitcoin, and we can win", that's what I think it's going to take. It's literally just a shift in people's mentalities around this, "Oh, we need them to write laws to let us win", we don't need that, we're already winning, it's already being built out. We just need to make the conscious decision like, "Oh, this is what I'm going to use, Bitcoin is what I'm going to do".
Peter McCormack: That's definitely a cultural difference between Americans and us, isn't it?
Danny Knowles: Well, now I agree with Marty there. They're definitely going to try and stop us winning.
Peter McCormack: No, what I'm saying is that kind of idea that we don't need -- I think there's a massive cultural difference between the US and Europe in those terms.
Danny Knowles: There is certainly a cultural difference, but I'm fully with Marty on that. I think the way they're most likely to try and stop us winning --
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but it's not about us. I'm saying as a nation, you have a critical mass who can do this who think this. You carry guns, freedom is embedded in your culture. We don't. I'm saying that goes back to that point of trying to explain CBDCs to people. We just don't have that in the UK, we don't have this birth based on establishing freedom from an oppressor.
Danny Knowles: But when it starts, that will change. When people do start controlling what you can spend your money on, that will 100% change.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, at a different pace.
Danny Knowles: Well, perhaps.
Peter McCormack: I'd love it to be different.
Marty Bent: Well, this problem is global.
Peter McCormack: Of course, yeah.
Marty Bent: And so, I think we can't compare it to the American Revolution, which we just celebrated last week, and really use that as you can fall back on like, "Oh, culturally, historically the Brits don't have this mentality, Americans do". But I do believe this is a global problem. It's going to be essentially global CBDC slavery, so this is a problem that's bigger than the US versus Brits and the different mentalities. It's a global problem that we all need to take care of as an American, as Brits. And I think that creates a unique sort of time in history where individuals, no matter where they are globally, no matter what flag you live under, really just have to adopt the mindset that, it's going to sound very John Lennon socialist, like there are no borders, but the individuals around the world with the same idea can make it happen.
It only took, the stats range from I think 2% to 7% of individuals in the 13 colonies, when we had the Revolutionary War, actually got up and fought and made the revolution happen. I think we could do that probably on even a smaller scale with Bitcoin due to the fact that we have the communications technology we have, we have the access to the software. And Bitcoin as a tool, in terms of the leverage it gives you against violence, is probably the most high-leverage tool that we've had against a massive state actor in human history.
Peter McCormack: Yeah I'm with you 100%. Come to the UK.
Marty Bent: I've never been.
Peter McCormack: You've never been? I'll fucking fly you over if you want to come, but I'll make you go to a football match. I think you'd like it, I think you'd enjoy London.
Marty Bent: I think I would too.
Peter McCormack: I mean, look, we come to the US every six weeks to make this show because the US is in the mindset of understanding it, of developing it, of builders. We have a very small number of people in the UK who really care about this. It's a real hard slog. And, look, don't get me wrong, I feel a responsibility to actually spend more time in the UK and talk to people about Bitcoin, but it's really working against a closed door with a lot of people.
Marty Bent: What do you think it would take?
Danny Knowles: I'm going to stand up for the UK here. I don't think that's true.
Peter McCormack: You left!
Danny Knowles: True! But of my friendship group, people are fucking sick of it, people are ready for a change. And you have a meetup before your home games that get more people than the San Francisco BitDevs. People are willing to listen.
Peter McCormack: That is true.
Marty Bent: Well, and I think that's true everywhere. It's just again going back to, it's a decision people make consciously. Most people are the silent majority who do believe this, who are, "The CBDC is pretty fucked, I don't want to live in that world", but they're afraid to speak up because there's this weird, again, catering to authority. And to think these people, yes, they may have guns, they may have systems set up, but if enough people make that conscious decision to flip their mind and say, "No, you're not doing it", it's like I am Spartacus. Like I just reported with Ed Dowd, and we were having a very similar conversation. And that's essentially the conclusion we came to, is we need enough people to stand up and say, "I am Spartacus, this is not happening any more".
Peter McCormack: I think what it is, is I don't think we have enough loud voices in the UK; it's probably a better way of putting it. If you look here, you have --
Marty Bent: The loudest voices on the planet. It's what we're known for, isn't it?!
Peter McCormack: You have a Kennedy and DeSantis, and to some extent, Vivek Ramaswamy, all saying, "I want to be President and I'm pro Bitcoin". You have Governor Abbott, you have Ted Cruz, you have Senator Lummis, you've got senators and you've got congressmen, you've got Warren Davidson, you've got loud people in politics going, "I support this". We've had like one guy talk about Ethereum in Parliament, a couple loosely mention it. But then, the anti-establishment people we have, have really weird profiles in the UK. So, who are anti-establishment people?
Peter McCormack: Nigel Farage is not liked at all. He is largely disliked, apart from a niche group of people who you would say are -- we have a different right wing in the UK. He's just not trusted. We have --
Peter McCormack: Yeah, Maajid's good. We've got Laurence Fox.
Danny Knowles: Konstantin Kisin?
Peter McCormack: Konstantin is the newest one that's come out who's become really good.
Marty Bent: He's pretty centrist too.
Danny Knowles: He's rational.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, he is a rational anti-establishment but no, actually, he's not even anti-establishment, because I've seen him get an argument over somebody saying, wanting to burn it all down. He's probably the best we've got and the loudest voice. Then you've got your Katie Hopkins. The problem is, is the loud voices we've had aren't rational and they've tended to get buy-in from Daily Mail readers and ultra-right sources, so we haven't had rational people with conservative opinions.
Danny Knowles: We've got Russell Brand.
Peter McCormack: Russell Brand's a good one and Ricky Gervais is good, but we just don't have the density.
Marty Bent: Yeah.
Danny Knowles: If our politicians relied on donations the same way American politicians do, I bet a lot more would be pro-Bitcoin.
Peter McCormack: Could you name ten well-known voices who are pro-Bitcoin in the UK? Could you name five?
Danny Knowles: No, I probably couldn't. Yeah, and that's our problem; whereas here, I can give you three presidential candidates.
Marty Bent: There's one right here!
Peter McCormack: Yeah, but I would say I'm not even that well-known, and that gets into a whole different area where I've thought the idea is, maybe I need to own that and go and try and do that.
Marty Bent: We've got to get Bedford to the Premier League.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, if we get Bedford to the Premier League, we would fucking do that. But we don't have that. You know, Gary Lineker would be great, but he isn't, you know, we don't have that. Ricky Gervais has mentioned it, no, not Ricky Gervais, Russell Brand, but we don't have a density of voices against this. And it is tricky. I'm sounding defeatist. I want to do something about it, but it's harder. And so we're almost relying on the signal from the US. If the US went pro-Bitcoin, we'd have to, we'd have to go pro-Bitcoin.
Marty Bent: That's the game theory.
Peter McCormack: Yeah.
Marty Bent: And we can lead the way here, but stepping back from Bitcoin, we have this problem in the United States where again, it's waking people up. And this, I mean, our political system and the way elections happen and the sort of positioning by each side during election season and outside of election season frankly, it does everybody a disservice, because it's red team versus blue team. And people here in the US, particularly, it's hyper-partisan. People have been driven to both ends of the spectrum, there's very few people meeting in the middle these days. And it's because, be it the media, the political apparatus, have been put into this argumentative framework that it's, "The red team is hurting you, the blue team is hurting you", and that's the only thing they believe they have to debate about, where it's like, "No, red team, blue team is actually uniparty behind the scenes, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. They're creating this conflict and these fights that they feed to the public.
But at the end of the day, they're all military, industrial, complex goons. They all print more money, they all get us into more debt, and that's why again, I think Bitcoin is maybe not a silver bullet, but the most potent bullet we have in terms of like, "Hey, switch that framework that you've been put in, red team versus blue team to, they're both bad and really the problem is the money that enables them to be as bad as they are".
Peter McCormack: Orange team.
Marty Bent: Orange team, whatever you want to call it, just it's the money.
Peter McCormack: And it's interesting because it has become this voting bloc now.
Marty Bent: Oh, yeah.
Peter McCormack: There's a disincentive to be anti-Bitcoin now, which I think is why DeSantis and RFK and Vivek have all gone pro-Bitcoin because they know how significant that voting bloc is.
Marty Bent: Yeah, and this goes back again, tying it to the American Revolution and 2% to 3% of colonists back then standing up against the British, today's day it's the meme war. You just have literally people on Twitter, outside of Twitter, via podcasts, just giving better arguments, sometimes using memes, and due to the fact that we have all this communications technology, social media, YouTube, all that stuff, the message just gets compounded significantly. And so, I mean, the universe of hardcore bitcoiners that I would define as individuals that really understand what's going on, how the protocol works, how it fits into the political landscape of the world today, and what it can do from a monetary perspective, is very small. But that small universe of people has had a crazy effect on the discourse.
Fiat money, I think Ron Paul was the first with the baton, ran through the door, made it and the Fed very popular. And then Bitcoin came and Michael Goldsteins and the Pierres and the Saifedeans and others really create this sort of meme culture or just a very tight narrative about what Bitcoin is and how it can fix the world, and very few people have run with that and gotten Bitcoin to the point where US Presidential candidates feel forced to make it a part of their campaign.
Peter McCormack: I will be interested to hear if Trump turns pro-Bitcoin.
Marty Bent: I don't think -- so, that's the one thing. Trump with Operation Warp Speed, I think it's something, if he were smart, he would backpedal and say, "Hey, I'm sorry I did that, I'm sorry I locked you down. This happened", but his ego won't allow it to happen. That's something he's well known for, is never apologising or saying that he was wrong. It's just something with his personality that he won't do, so I don't think he'll do that with Bitcoin. I think he'll double-down now the dollar's reserve currency of the world, Bitcoin's bad, and attacks that.
Danny Knowles: The kind of game theory doesn't work, if you're the favourite candidate, to go out on a limb and back Bitcoin. It makes much more sense if you're -- it's like the asymmetric bet, isn't it? If you're the underdog, it makes more sense to put that as part of your policy.
Marty Bent: Yeah, my biggest fear is the Biden versus Trump election here again.
Peter McCormack: Well, it's just four more years of just same shit, more partisan, more fighting. I think there's a chance that it might be RFK against Trump. It's growing quick.
Marty Bent: It's reminding me a lot of Trump's lead up to the 2016 election.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, the idea that you can grow in popularity through podcasts and social media, which he's doing. He's up to 20%, did we see?
Danny Knowles: I think on one of the polls, it was close to that, yeah.
Peter McCormack: We were looking before, I had Dennis Porter in and I was chatting to Dennis about this and I was asking him the question, because he knows a lot about American politics and history. He actually emailed me about this. I said, "Has it ever been fought before where the sitting President has lost the nomination going into an election?" and the last time was something like 1856!
Marty Bent: I wonder who responds to this Quinnipiac poll, because I find it hard to believe that Biden has 70% support.
Danny Knowles: Amongst the Democrats.
Peter McCormack: Can you see if there's any other polls?
Danny Knowles: Yeah, that's just amongst the Democrats. Even still, is that surprising?
Marty Bent: Yeah, that dude can't even speak, he literally can't even speak, can't form a sentence any more! And I think, and you see, you're beginning to see it seeping in the media. The media is starting to turn against Joe Biden. I mean, obviously with the Hunter Biden stuff.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, that's crazy.
Marty Bent: Looks that's setting up to be a scapegoat to get him out.
Peter McCormack: You think that might happen?
Marty Bent: Oh, yeah, I actually would bet on that happening.
Peter McCormack: So, they will use that as the excuse? Because it's an interesting one, I don't think Biden beats Trump in the next election.
Marty Bent: God no, no way. They're going to try and replace him with Gavin Newsom or Michelle Obama; that's my bet.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, it feels a bit too late for Michelle Obama.
Marty Bent: I don't know. On the Democrat side, if an Obama comes back, I could see people rallying behind her.
Peter McCormack: I watched the Hannity interview with Gavin Newsom. Did a good job. I'm not a fan.
Marty Bent: He's a scumbag.
Peter McCormack: I know, and I know what people think of him, but he's a very smooth operator.
Marty Bent: They're all scumbags.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, true.
Marty Bent: That's the thing, particularly here in America, that makes voting harder. Yeah, I like a lot of the stuff RFK is saying; yeah, I liked a lot of the stuff Trump was saying, drain the swamp and all that, and I do think RFK is well-intentioned, but the apparatus is set in its ways. There's no changing it from within, I think Trump proved that. And again, this is why we Bitcoin.
Peter McCormack: You can just say it's none of my business, but would you not even vote now? Are you disinterested?
Marty Bent: No, it's just not worth it, it's a humiliation ritual.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I haven't voted in the last two.
Danny Knowles: You know it's illegal not to vote in Australia, you get fined.
Marty Bent: Really?
Peter McCormack: Can you spoil your vote?
Danny Knowles: Yeah, but you have to go in and actually put something in the ballot.
Peter McCormack: Interesting. I'm not sure what I think of that. I don't think you should be mandated to vote.
Danny Knowles: No, I agree I don't think you should.
Peter McCormack: But I think it's kind of interesting.
Marty Bent: Yeah, a no vote is a vote in a way. That's how I view it at least.
Peter McCormack: I drew a duck on my last one, "Vote for the duck!" There's nothing up there on RFK.
Danny Knowles: No, this is just the… You want RFK against Trump?
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I just want to see RFK against anything. I'm just interested to see. The interesting thing you can see with RFK is that he's already getting trapped by politics. So, I think he's been asked a couple of times, "Is there any area where the left goes too far?" and he's avoided answering the question, because he wants the Democrat vote.
Marty Bent: Yeah, "Mutilating children" is something that you should be able to say off the bat.
Peter McCormack: I think that's quite an easy one. But he's, I think he's interesting.
Marty Bent: I do too.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, of anyone recently in recent history, I think he's one of the most interesting politicians. You know, he's clearly having to play the game, but it's not just the Bitcoin thing. And I think he raises interesting points with regards to vaccines, I don't think he's entirely right across the board, but you don't have to agree with one entirely to know they're a better representation of
the electorate, and I think he is.
Marty Bent: I just think we've reached a point where it's not scalable.
Peter McCormack: You need a grey team politician.
Marty Bent: Government's too big. Yeah, I mean that's bitcoiners; they're essentially grey team with a tinge of orange.
Peter McCormack: Had you heard of that grey team thing before Balaji?
Marty Bent: No.
Peter McCormack: Did you suddenly feel like, "Oh, I'm at home"?
Marty Bent: Yeah, made a lot of sense. But no, this is why again, the thing that frustrates me about the US and the circus around elections, that's the thing, it's exhausting. It's every 18 months, another election cycle starts up, and you're forced again into this argumentative framework where you're forced to focus on politicians because you have the presidential election, the midterms. It's just all a waste of time, where I have to resign myself to focusing my efforts on Bitcoin, whether it be through the podcast, the newsletter, Ten31, the mining. Build the future you want to see, you do not have to wait for these politicians, you do not have to vote for the change to happen. Bitcoin gives you the agency to make it happen today.
Peter McCormack: Isn't it funny how many things you can get involved in as well, because you started with -- did you do the newsletter first?
Marty Bent: Newsletter first.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, and then you started a podcast. And then it was the mining, was it?
Marty Bent: Then it was the mining.
Peter McCormack: Now you're part of a fund?
Marty Bent: Yes.
Peter McCormack: I started a podcast, I bought a football team, I bought a bar, I'm starting investing. That Bitcoin cheat code just opens up all these doors. I don't know how you're doing it and feeling, because I know I'm fucked! By the skin of my teeth, Marty! Some days, I mean I can't get through everything.
Marty Bent: I mean, I tell you, I don't know how you travel as much as you do.
Peter McCormack: Well, I mean I have Danny. Danny takes a massive load off me, that means we can get more done. But the travel's getting tiring, especially we've added documentaries to it. So, we're going to Argentina next week.
Marty Bent: Oh, that'll be fun.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, so that's just...
Marty Bent: Yeah, but for me, it all compounds. It started with the content. Before that, I was just being obsessed with Bitcoin. It doesn't feel like work. It's very rewarding work, if it is work at all. But the newsletter and the podcast allowed me to develop a network in the space that made me smarter on mining, made me smarter on the businesses in the space. So, it just naturally sort of rolled into getting involved with mining and then joining Ten31, and it's all symbiotic with each other. The podcast and newsletter forced me to stay on top of what's going on and to understand the landscape of the Bitcoin industry and everything being built. That's why I understand mining the way I do. That's why, for venture, it's made me really good being able to assess what's a good deal, what's not, who's building what, when, what may be needed at any given point in time, what products are needed out there.
I feel incredibly lucky to have gotten this position. It wasn't intentional at all, it was literally me just scratching my itch, my obsession with Bitcoin. Luckily in 2017, enough people bugged me to tell them what was going on that I started the newsletter. I rolled into the podcast and have just sort of been letting it take me where it takes me.
Peter McCormack: It's such a weird ride. Did you start the podcast in 2018?
Marty Bent: 2017.
Peter McCormack: Do you remember when?
Marty Bent: So, 31 August 2017.
Peter McCormack: So, that's about two months before I started mine. And I don't know about you, it was a hobby, a fucking hobby. Just, "I'll start a podcast. Why not?"
Marty Bent: I got forced into it.
Peter McCormack: Barstool.
Marty Bent: The Barstool guys. Lou, shoutout to Lou Roberts. He's like, "Yeah, the newsletter is good and all, but it's not enough. Podcasting is the thing, you've got to start a podcast". I was like, "All right, teach me". And luckily I was in New York, there's a lot of Bitcoin developers and people in the space there, so it was easy to get people to interview. And then I found out I liked it, I was somewhat okay at it at least, and yeah, it'll be six years in August, which is hard to believe.
Peter McCormack: I know, six years in November. 17 November was my first one. Recorded in LA and it's just such a weird ride. Do you look forward, do you ever think it won't be a Bitcoin podcast?
Marty Bent: Yeah.
Peter McCormack: Or do you hope it won't be a Bitcoin podcast?
Marty Bent: Yeah, at some point. It's like starting an internet podcast in the 1990s. Like, are there any more internet podcasts? Everything's going to be touching Bitcoin at some point. And that's where, yeah, I've been intentional. I sort of started branding TFTC as Bitcoin freedom and beauty in the digital age, because I think those are tangential themes that sort of align well with Bitcoin. It's always been to scratch my curiosity, to really follow my curiosity, whether it be learning about different parts of the Bitcoin stack, learning about what's going on at the protocol level, and now it's like, okay, what is happening with the World Economic Forum? What is happening with COVID and the lockdowns? What is happening with energy?
When I got into mining, I became really curious about energy, and had a stretch there where there were a lot of episodes purely focused on energy, not really Bitcoin. Yeah, it's allowing me to just be curious about things and explore them. I'm optimistic, I am. I do think we can do this, I think we're doing it. I think things do seem dire out there in many parts of the world. The economic situation does seem dire. But I do think the human spirit will prevail. I do think what we're doing here is very important, I think it's working. I think more people are beginning to wake up to that and I do feel there's been a shift, even outside of Bitcoin, where people are really beginning to wake up and say, "Hey, we're going a little bit crazy here, let's get back on the right path". It's not as pronounced as many people it to be, but I do think things are starting to trend in the right direction and more and more people are waking up and saying, "Hey, I need to take agency over my life, I need to try to make the world a better place", and I'm extremely optimistic right now.
Peter McCormack: Well, I'm with you. Like I say, the last few months, especially, I've felt it, the last three months, the last month alone, everything in the last month feels like everything's pointing in the right direction. Helps with Bitcoin not being at $15,000 as well. Where are we at? $30,000. Fuck, it does just keep bouncing around, doesn't it? Bear Whale!
Marty Bent: This is very reminiscent of 2015, where it just hovered between --
Peter McCormack: $10,000 and $12,000.
Marty Bent: No, it was --
Peter McCormack: Oh, 2015.
Marty Bent: 2015 was between like $200 and $500, which is like -- not $200 and $500, it was $200 and $300.
Peter McCormack: There was a period in, when was it, was it 2019 where it was between $10,000 and $12,000 for fucking ages, and we had the COVID dip and, boom, off we went. Everyone listening knows who you are. Check out TFTC, check out Marty's Bent, check out Ten31.
Marty Bent: Ten31.vc.
Peter McCormack: And mining, where do you want to send them?
Peter McCormack: All right, man. Keep doing your thing.
Marty Bent: You too, brother.
