Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: It's the first asset in the world where the pleb front ran the bank, and it's going to continue. Every bank that comes in makes you richer. Banks are your exit liquidity. That has never happened before. We are usually the exit liquidity of the banks. So we have this commonality of freedom. And whether that's through monetary means or the ability to transact peer to peer, or the ability to just hold money that no one can take from you, the core benefit of Bitcoin is freedom. And it aligns with every single feature facet of a good society. Fairness, soundness, even privacy is the issue. I will say that, that we have a big privacy issue. We have, we have centralization concerns to focus on which amen for, for those who are building new pools and things like that. But at the end of the day, we're all searching freedom. And the problem with bitcoin is the, the, the, the evangelists, like the evangelists are the ringleaders of, of, of the actual echo chamber. And they actually have a very difficult time in regular world as well, which is why they have such big echo chamber audiences. We have to get better at explaining to people the problem and not the solution. No human being buys things because of a solution. They just don't.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Hello. Welcome to the Money Adjustment. I'm your host, Dr. Mark Kramer, D.C. i am a chiropractor who loves investing and trading. Are you interested in what's moving markets and your money?
Great.
Let's get started.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Building decentralized networks or freedom networks requires sacrifice. There's an old saying that the, the tree of freedom from time to time has to be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants, right? And we don't understand that sacrifice for freedom anymore. And that's kind of the war that we're in right now. So, you know, we condemn people for spending their bitcoin. We condemn people for not buying their bitcoin. We condemn people for buying altcoins. Like, listen, some people have made money in this stuff. I don't, I don't care what other people do. I care if they're happy and I care if they're free. And bitcoin happens to be the number one pathway that I've noticed in my life to freedom and happiness because I don't really care much about politics. If anything, I'm more like the two grumpy old guys in the Muppet show, you know, screaming down, screaming down from the, from the balcony of saying, you guys are watching an absolute theater and taking it seriously. The, the outcomes were determined 20 years ago. It's just playing out in political theater now.
Do you think this show is educational?
[00:02:16] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: It'll drive people to read books.
More.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: More.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: No, not so loud. Let me hear you.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: It's funny. I said I was going to wait, but now I'm just going to introduce you cuz I already feel comfortable with you. But today I have with me a special guest. I think all my guests are special because I do invitation only on my podcast. So I only reach out to people that I think are smart, intelligent, have something worthwhile to say. And I reached out to my guest, Eric Rice for that very reason before I. Before Eric and I really talk to each other because this is going to be another guest. It's going to be the first time that we've actually spoken together, which is fun. I think it's fun for everybody. It's like, hey, this is what it looks like when two people meet and have a conversation. But I'm doing something new with you, Eric, today and this is what I'm going to do. And, and I'll ask you at first, please say hello to the audience because I should give you that opportunity at the very least.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. How. How's everybody doing out there? Thank you so much for having me, Mark. I appreciate, appreciate the invite. Excited?
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I appreciate you coming on and accepting and I prepped Eric for this by saying we chat a little bit and then I'd introduce him and then I wound up just introducing him right off the bat. So. But I want to try something a little bit new today. And Eric, you're gon be the first person that I'm trying this with. So I hope you enjoy it. We'll see how it goes if I do it again for.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: Happy to be your guinea pig, Mark.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I appreciate that. So have you, Let me ask you this. Have you ever groked yourself?
[00:03:47] Speaker A: No, I haven't.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Okay. So Grok on X is Grok for people who are not aware. Grok is X's AI agent. And so they just came out with Grok 4. It's supposed to be super Grok. I can never keep up with the which one's the best because every day it's like someone else takes the lead. So we're still very in the early races of that. But if you go on X and there's the little button that, that's like the little Grok icon and you click on that for a person and they will tell you, they will give you kind of an introduction of that person. So I clicked on you, Eric, and this is what Grok thinks about you.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: Geez.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: You ready for it?
[00:04:24] Speaker A: No. No, I'm not ready, Mark.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: I think. I think you'll like it. I think it's good. So Eric Rice is a passionate advocate for decentralization in Bitcoin. Believes in prioritizing faith, family and sovereignty while exposing political distractions and trusting in God. Eric sparks faith driven chats, critiques the government, and prays for Alaska while diving into cultural shifts. So the X community, including Darkside2030/ underscore and Christian615, praise Eric Rice for his insightful Bitcoin discussions and scripture posts. So, yeah, then that's bad, right?
[00:05:06] Speaker A: That's a lot better than what YouTube would give me if you did that.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: Okay. Man, I wonder. Like, I'm thinking, what's YouTube's AI agent? Well, that would be Google, so it'd be Gemini.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I would be the. I would be the Devil on YouTube.
They suspend me all the time or give me warnings all the time. So that's actually. That's actually really cool. I don't Google myself or grok myself at all. So that was pretty cool.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Yeah, it was nice, right? I thought so. I was like, I think people would like to know this. And the one other thing it does is it puts up a recent tweet.
It puts up a recent tweet and it says, bitcoin is a weapon. Decentralization is the revolution, AI is up for grabs, Sovereignty is the goal, politics is the distraction, and God at the center of it all. Why don't we.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: True words. I'm glad I typed it.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: True words. Yeah. What's that?
[00:05:59] Speaker A: I'm glad I typed that. Yeah, that's True words. If that's the one tweet they've pulled from me to represent me, I'm actually very happy. Thanks, Elon Musk. That's awesome. I believe every word of that.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: I would imagine you would. Because one of the things that I like about you and I and I. I try to prepare for these podcasts by listening to former podcasts and you and I entered. Interviewed a mutual acquaintance, friend.
So I definitely watched that one, but I watched some of the other ones and you're. You're in all fairness, more you're political.
But. But I don't think unfairly. So I've listened to you. I feel like you're measured in your responses and very.
And I don't feel like it's too.
For me personally, I don't feel like it's too.
I Feel like you have a level head about you. Let's. That's what I'm saying about that. But do you want to. What of all of these?
Let's see. I read there's kind of like five statements in here, right?
Five or six. We'll skip. We'll skip the God one, because God's at the center, center of it all. And that could be a discussion for another time. But of those of that statement you made, what do you feel most passionate about?
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Decentralization.
I think that's. And kind of going back to the political piece, I am political by default.
So I am an independent. I am not a Republican or a Democrat. And I probably, to be honest with you, I don't know if I'll vote again.
And I think that the nature of my political stances on things are based on decentralization.
We have an absolutely corrupted system that has been corrupted since before you or I were born. It's just gotten progressively more noticeable over time and people are noticing. And that's one of the problems that I talk about there. But I'm very steadfast on decentralization.
And what I mean by that is not just bitcoin. So bitcoiners get caught in this world of thinking bitcoin, this asset and this network is the solution.
It's not. It's Paul Revere. The thing about bitcoin and this decentralized network is it's really bringing about the idea that at one point in time, America was free because Americans cooperated and didn't need government oversight on everything that they're doing.
PAUL revere Bitcoin Kind of the same thing to me.
And I love the asset. Obviously the bulk of my wealth is in it, and it's literally the most incredible financial bearer asset in the history of the world.
However, what it is, what it began as is a revolution.
And it began as this revolution against centralized control and forces. And around 2008, when the white paper came out in 2009, when the network launched, that's when the first exposure began. That's the great financial crisis. That's when people started to realize. That's when Obama came into office. And then everything got racial in the country and we saw this other. I hate politics, Mark. I absolutely think politics should be thrown in the garbage.
I think that we should be using decentralized networks to be able to vote on policies.
If a grand majority of Americans can't agree on a policy, why should a politician be able to take a $2 million kickback to sign off on it. That's the big problem.
Bitcoin by itself taught the world, and I think Trump said it best in Nashville in 2024. Bitcoin is a modern marvel of human cooperation and achievement, and that's exactly what it is. But if we stop at bitcoin and think bitcoin's going to fix the world, we're foolish. AI right now, really think about what's happening, Mark. We have since 2009, we had about two to three years of prosperity under Trump, and that's really only because of tremendous tax breaks that are just legitimately logical tax breaks to keep your people afloat. Other than that, we've seen a steady decline in quality or standard of living, a decline and debasement of the dollar. We've seen all these financial things that have happened. And then this revolution began. And for the first, you know, I wasn't involved. I wish I was, but I was. I was just too arrogant, I guess, at the time and too tradified at the time to really get into bitcoin. I heard about it in 2009. I had people pushing it to me right before New year's Eve on 2009, that I should be buying this thing for two pennies, right? Or 10 cents, whatever it was. And then I passed it up again at 400 and 1000, and, like, I finally went all in at 16,000. So you do get it for the price that you deserve. But, you know, from my perspective, the way I look at it is I said, okay, the asset itself, that's up for grabs. We don't know. You don't know what's going to happen. The dollar's not going anywhere tomorrow morning, that's for sure.
So it's a parallel economy. But what are we learning? What are the lessons? My mom, when I gave my mom's eulogy when she died, all I could do was what she did. And when I was a kid, I was a baseball player, and if I went 4 for 4, I'd come home and say, Mom, I went 4 for 4. And she'd say, What'd you learn? Or I'd go 0 for 4 if she'd say, what'd you learn? I get in a fight on the. Everything she asked me is, what did you learn? What have we learned from bitcoin? That decentralization is the power structure. That is how you take power away from central control.
So we can do that monetarily with bitcoin. But now we have this collapsing of the dollar. People are poorer, they're still paying the same amount of taxes, actually just as high taxes as we were in 2008. Comparatively, depending on your bracket, they have less disposable income to buy Bitcoin. They have less disposable income to invest in decentralized AI project.
And now we're seeing the central AI roll out with no friction, no friction at all. Political endorsement. Let's make central AI. Let's recreate Google's monopolistic oligarchical powers all over again, but in AI.
And it's coming at a time where I believe that this is all structured and planned. Right now we need to be focusing in on off grid energy generation, which is the key to AI survival. And then using the same type of proof of work network for AI, using open sourced decentralized AI systems to combat in the future the central control that's already there. You know, Elon just got a 200 mil. Everyone cheers on Elon. He just got a $200 million contract for the DOD. What do you think that's for? That's for Centralized AI. Palantir is being financed left and right. Sam Altman just got to hand over all of our data in the big beautiful bill. We are literally handing our data and AI infrastructure to Larry Ellison, Sam Altman, Elon Musk and all the other oligarchical powers of today. They're recreating themselves. We're going from the old establishment industries into the new technocratic industries. And these technocrats are sophisticated. They are absolutely smarter than most of everyone watching this, including me. And the one thing that I can do politically on the, on the sidelines is to not pick a party and to choose freedom and sovereignty. And I will point out that from freedom and sovereignty standpoint, we are making a major mistake by focusing so much on the here and now and not the future. You know, I see all these people who have high standards and high morals and you know, I invested in Palantir and all these. You're, you're funding the enemy. You are funding the enemy for short term gains. With the anticipation of buying more Bitcoin in the future. You're funding altcoins, you're funding all these other things to try to make a buck, to buy more Bitcoin. Just start buying bitcoin. If you have excess capital, start investing in decentralized projects that provide AI stability and freedom for the rest of the world. I hear very few people talking about this because it's a topic that's not sexy or attractive. But decentralized AI is the ultimate Political revolt. It is the absolute best way to recreate a parallel system and to be able to live in harmony with the old one instead of being a slave to it. Does that make sense to you, Mark?
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Man, I loved all of that. I was really going with you. And like, you're the. This is why I had you on. Because I. It creates a vision for me and then questions start to formulate. And so while you were talking, I was thinking about. I recently had Jesse Tevlaw on and he made a case or was starting to make a case, and we didn't really get into this part of it, but how he sees a convergence of AI and Bitcoin and what I'm hearing you talk now and saying, bringing AI as a decentralized AI versus what we're moving to, which is kind of the science fiction person in me thinks the singularity, you know, but it's like this. But it's not the. The holistic version of the singularity in the sense that we are all one. But it is like we are controlled, centralized singularity by the hyperscalers that basically are vying for our identities, our thoughts. I mean, at this level, when we're asking artificial intelligence, like I did earlier on today, you know, help me out here. When we're trusting that we're going to get some information, you know, the good thing about the. This exercise, and wasn't my intention, was I used AI, the center, it's centralized in the sense that it's getting all of the organized information it's funneling up. But I felt like I had to verify through you, through another person, decentralized in the sense that I wasn't just taking the information I was giving and assuming that it was summing things up in the correct way.
But you validated that information.
So maybe that's a kind of a. Interesting way to think about it. But what I was thinking too is because I love this concept of decentralization and centralization, because Bitcoin, like you said, its promise initially was this concept of the decentralized finance. And I like how you said it too. You differentiated. It's not that Bitcoin itself is the decentralization. Bitcoin is a tool within the process of decentralizing because AI would be another tool. So I have these questions for you. And these questions are, where do you see this evolution?
Like, what would be an optimal, ideal end result? And let's say it wouldn't happen for 10, 20 years from now. But what would you see as a.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: Better system ultimately, completely Theoretical without being grounded in reality. Is that what you're asking? Or grounded in reality?
[00:15:57] Speaker B: I'm very theoretical. So this is your chance to really go for it.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that can, if I could be completely theoretical and build a utopian future using AI and decentralized money. The way that I can see it rolling out is like, think of. I'm going to give you a few examples of central versus decentralization.
Very simple. One beef. I just, I was just on bitcoin today. We were talking about. I buy, I buy beef from a cattle rancher, right? So he actually takes gold. So I give him gold for beef and people. That's barbaric. And you're doing trade. Well, I know for a fact that that guy is a private rancher who doesn't have to follow the FDA reg of using pesticides on his grass and all these other. So it's the purest beef I can get. I'm happy to trade sound money for it. And at the end of the day, what really happens is I'm decentralizing my own, my own food supply. I'm going directly to the rancher. Getting, getting something that was slaughtered two or three days ago, it's not 18 months old, in a freezer, doesn't have all the pesticides, hormones, antibiotics. But right now, that's not the way the system works. The system works is the larger the ranch, the larger the farm, the bigger the tax, the more regulation and the regulations will embed all types of things that aren't good for us. And then they slaughter the cow, sell it to a distributor, the distributor goes to the grocery lines, then it goes on the shelf and you buy it. That is completely centralized.
So I decentralized meat by buying it directly from a rancher. Politics. If I could give this utopian future, I would see consensus being the main concern. And that is the concern. Like, look at how many bills are passed or laws that go through the system that, you know, constituents of a politician don't agree with. It happens literally every day of the week, and it's happened for 100 years. So we have centralized control. We vote for someone who speaks on our behalf. They go to an area where they vote with each other to speak on our behalf. And at the end of the day, our voice is never heard. So a utopian future, to me would be a scenario where we have, we have a government. I'm not an anarchist. I think every nation needs some small form of government to provide guidance, not overbearing big, big brother regulation.
But we would Be able to say, okay, we all have phones. I hate phones, by the way. I think that cell phones are the play of the devil to distract people from their lives. But we have them. They're not going anywhere. I would see a society where we have phones and the American people would say, hey, like right now, should we charge tariffs?
Well, let's have an educational portal designed. Let people debate like the way the politicians are supposed to. Except all of them go into office worth a couple hundred thousand and leave worth, you know, eight figures, nine figures. So obviously they're being paid for their opinion. But we have this consensus vote. Should America have tariffs? And we all have a phone and we have a blockchain and we have an id, and we can either go into a center or we can vote on our phone. But at least the American voices are heard. And when consensus is reached, then a new law is implemented. It shouldn't be that difficult. We shouldn't need PACs and dark money, government interference, corporate interference, oligarchical interference.
We don't need all these people in government. That's obvious, especially with technology. What's happening right now is a downsize of government being replaced by centralized AI. Some people are excited for the efficiency. I'm concerned for the sovereignty. And if you're not concerned for the sovereignty, you need to be, because that's just the reality of central control. It never releases its grip. That is proven throughout all of history. So, Mark, a future society for me would be that for a time being, we'd have to build a parallel system. Voting in this system we're in is irrelevant. Right? We've already seen election fraud proven. Nothing happened. No one went to jail, just business as usual. But I think that if we're looking at, from a governmental standpoint, outside of voting policies, maybe we have some people who are, like, listening to Americans. Maybe they're using online or something in the future, and they're looking at sentiment and going, hey, this is a real problem in America. Like, one of them right now is the fact that our GDP is growing, but most of our people under the age of 35 cannot, cannot, and will not ever be able to afford a home. That's a problem.
So how do we remedy that problem? You lower taxation, you create new monetary systems, new monetary value.
And I think in the future, that should be done on a consensus mechanism. I don't believe in digital id. You can bring your driver's license to a voter's booth once a week on the way home from work or something and vote on policy instead of people. Because we vote on people who determine policy and we have no say.
So if the people, by consensus, like a proof of work network, could actually determine the policies of their nation, you would find a happier, more successful and more prosperous country by all extensions.
So that's my utopian scenario. Do I think that's a reality? No, I don't think that's a reality at all, unfortunately. Because the powers of the world are so embedded that in order for this to happen, you're going to have to have some somewhat of a digital breakaway society for that to become a reality, it'll have to be forced upon. I just talked about this today and I'll preface this by saying this next statement is for entertainment purposes only. For our friends at the NSA and all over the place, this whole system is pretty easy. You put all your money in Bitcoin, you stop paying taxes, then they have to listen.
Like that's the reality that we live in. But the whole world is terrified of not paying taxes, Even though there's 330 million people you'd have to put in jail. It's a negotiation tactic. And I think eventually we get to that position, which is entirely for entertainment purposes and theoretical in nature.
You know, we, you know, the Americans have this deep embedded DNA of revolution in our blood, but it's become something we want to watch on tv, not something we want to do in our real life. You know, we'll all sit there and watch Katniss Everdeen in Hunger Games and cheer her on coming out of poverty and fighting the system. But will anyone do it on their own? Be a few, right? It's a 3 1/2% threshold. Any change that's ever happened in any country throughout the world required only 3.5% of the population to take action.
We're nowhere near that, Mark. So, you know, the people we have, we're not, we're not going to pull out, you know, guns and tanks. We need to pull out servers and decentralized networks and off grid energy. And this stuff is happening. I'm working on it every day. So I see it every single day. And it's a small slow grind and eventually it becomes just a warranted solution. I can tell you people that the media convinces you to hate are doing this stuff right now. You know, most AI engines are dangerous because you're getting feedback from a central control that controls all the weight. Look at Google in 2020, right? The 2016 election, 2020 election, it was completely weighted towards the Democrats because they had control on the weighting system of the algorithm. If we continue to give away that power and sovereignty, we're going to find ourselves in a situation where we have no clue what the truth is and no way to verify it when we finally get it. So my utopian society would be that politics would be, government would be downsized to consensus that we would all be voting on individual policies and not again. The system now is we vote for people who we don't know, who we shouldn't trust those people then go to a central location and meet with central planners, financiers, lobbyists, and people who shove tons of money in their pocket for their own need and greed. And then we rely on these people who we don't know and shouldn't trust to do the right thing on our behalf because they, at the end of the day are the ones who make the rules.
That's not how a democratic republic should run. Our constitution mapped it out pretty well, but now we have 1200 page bills that come out. Nobody knows what's in it. Nobody cares either. Right, because you're too busy trying to pay your bills. You can't afford groceries. So how are you going to read a 1200 page bill? They're just pulling the wool over our eyes 24 7. And the way you get rid of that is blockchain voting, timestamped votes themselves through id.
And you're voting on policy, not people. I don't care who's in Washington D.C. i do care about what they do because it impacts my life three to four years down the road.
So, you know, that would be, that would be a good start to it. You know, I won't even get into the utopian society of pure food and organic things and, and lack of pharmaceuticals, which by the way, people should know this. The word pharmaceutical comes from the ancient Greek pharmakia. And in Greek pharmacia means witchcraft. So we literally have companies practicing witchcraft that are running lobbyists in Washington D.C. and that's, that's just historical. So also I'll throw another thing out for your listeners. Break down. The word govern meant govern means to control.
Ment is of the mind. Government is literally by definition in word mind control.
So we have these things in society that are just bypassed by folks and, and now you see so many people bowing down. So people are scared to speak out against their favorite politician who's clearly making bad decisions. We've got to have some courage embedded for any of this to be even a moniker of reality. But if I could have reality consensus Voting on politics, no taxation, only tariffs. Can't have the two together. That's an economic disaster. And I think that we would be on shoring all of our own manufacturing. I'm very much a nationalist of the world should be able to take care of themselves. We certainly should help people in need. I'm a Christian, I believe in that. But I don't believe in being beholden. So I believe in a very much a multipolar world. And will we get there? Yeah. I mean BlackRock is already establishing that Russia is establishing that the rest of the world is breaking into multipolar facets which means that we need to hunker down on domestic issues and domestic infrastructure, especially digitally, more than we ever have before. And it is. It is like the eighth inning in this ball game before it's over, you know, central AI will roll out. Everyone will use it, get comfortable with it and have no idea what decentralized AI with an actual truth engine. It looks like it's a complete capture of the mind in the end.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a little more dystopian than utopian where we landed. But I honestly, I really enjoy everything.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: We live in it. We live in that though Mark. I can't deny where we're at.
[00:25:44] Speaker B: I appreciate it. You know, I hear the term doomers and I think to myself, no realist people are just trying to give you the full picture. That's one of the things I love about you and I'm so glad I had you on this is the reason I had you on is your ability articulate. I would take your stance. One of the first things I wanted to ask you was would you consider running for the America Party? Because you seem to have like a. No. I know I don't want to get too but. But I say that tongue in cheek to the sense that you said. You initially said I'm not. I don't want to vote again and I don't want. I don't feel like a Republican or Democrat. So you have somewhat of a moderate stance overall, even though even moderation can swing far in one direction or the other. You know, without getting too much into the political ideology of it.
But getting back to decentralization because when you were talking I was thinking to myself, you gave very good examples. Even the bartering for gold with your. When you're getting beef from the farmer. So it is a parallel system. There are parallel decentralized systems that are currently happening. You illustrated one through your own experience. So then I started thinking it's happening. But then it seems to be what our future looks like is going to be a matter of scale, as it always is. So what you're describing is on a very small scale. Literally. I mean, it is, it just is. Because I don't know any. You're the first person I even have talked to that says they, they've done any kind of bartering with gold.
Yeah, maybe I'm just isolated or something, maybe I live in a bubble.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: But I was a gold bug before bitcoin. So like gold bugs, we, we have pretty good networks. You know, gold bug, gold bugs are, are, are certainly in the doomer category because I think they, you know, as a gold person in the past, you realize, like, okay, I need to own 1 gram bars, quarter of an ounce, half an hour, like to be able to make change for things. And it's just not, it's just not a sustainable system. That's why bitcoin is a better fit. And I'm trying to get the ranchers to go to bitcoin. It's just taking a little time. But there's a lot of people like me, there's a lot of people who buy beef direct from ranchers. They actually offer it as a service. Now that's at one example, right? Even, even our curriculums for kids in schools that's run by the Department of Education, they determine what our kids learn. School, they take money from, from lobbyists, they get money from the government. They have a complete doctrine that comes from the top down. And our children end up learning nonsense and never to think for themselves. If we had a consensus voting mechanism locally, you would be able to vote on the curriculum you wanted your kids to learn in school and the teachers would teach the things you wanted. So it's just removing that, that total, that total control. Everything that we have, our food is the best example of centralization. It really is. I mean, people don't realize that we grow food here, ship the food to China to be canned, and then they send it back to us.
So your, your green beans in a can are traveling what, you know, 7,000 miles when they could have just gone 30 miles to your home and been fresher. And more nutrients nutritious.
So, you know, central control is over everything, right? We talk about the dollar all the time. Fiat money structures, things like that. Those are important because that's the baseline of all these other systems. Your medicine completely controlled. Look at the COVID 19 vaccine rollout. There were four people who want it. I submitted a trial for a therapeutic. I didn't even want it, it. So they already knew what they were going to do ahead of time. And then you have these four central powers which, you know, I won't leave God out of things. There were four horsemen who brought in who, who were brought in to eliminate one third of the population. We had four vaccines and people are dying from them now. So there are biblical ties to this, especially to bitcoin, by the way. Such an interesting biblical tie, but central control over everything. Education, our money, our taxes, our road systems which that like for roads, like centralize that all day long. Right? Like no problem. We need a road, put in a road. But then you look at, I live in north, North Dallas and we have so much construction going on here, it's incredible. We're growing leaps and bounds, but our roads never get done because we have general laborers who are primarily illegals. And as soon as a new corporation moves in, they pay the contractor a little bit more than the city is. And then they, these laborers go to build the building. They don't finish the job. So it takes forever to get a road done because we have interference of private capital.
So if the government ran on its own and had its own laborers, that'd be fine with that. They can get it done. But Mark, I don't think we realize how much central control is actually a part of our daily life.
And you could even go to the church, right? You want to be a pastor in a church, You've got to go to seminary and learn their doctrine instead of interpreting scripture on your own and teaching from your own world in order to maintain tax exempt status. It is everywhere, Mark.
And I'm not the illusionist who believes that tomorrow morning we'll wake up in a decentralized world. We're looking at a 20 to 30 year time horizon using sophisticated technology.
And the real loophole is the best developers and the smartest minds for this stuff. Centralized systems like bitcoin. Bitcoin's an anomaly. I don't know if you've read through the emails that were released during the Craig Wright case, but if you look at it, and I read all, I think I read all the emails. I read as many as I could.
Bitcoin was basically built for like $6,800 in donations. Nobody made a penny.
Not a single person writing code made a penny. Yeah, they got to mine bitcoin at less than a penny, so they made nothing. Right now the same people who have that revolutionary spirit are paying too much in taxes, they're eating bad food, they don't have money. So they can't really afford to work on decentralized AI systems for free, which is the way it normally is done. If it's actually decentralized, they're taking, you know, three, four, $500,000 jobs at Google and Microsoft and recreating the same system, except more devious in nature, potentially, to. To human sovereignty. So it's, It's a big. It's a big push. You know, we need. We need investment capital into these things. And most investors aren't going to put money into something that doesn't have a revenue stream immediately. So markets. It's an intertangled web that is difficult to figure out a pathway out of. I'm trying to do whatever I can, but I'm a nobody out of nowhere. I'm surprised you even have me on here, Mark. I'm an absolute no. 1. So, you know, so we have to. We have to figure out a way to incentivize people. And that incentivize, that incentive is sovereignty. But we don't even know what that is. Mark, you've never actually been a free person. You've been a cattle on a tax farm since the moment you were born. We don't even know what we're missing out on. That's the hard part to swallow.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. I see why you might have had trouble with YouTube every now and then, but honestly, I think. I don't think a. Thinking, a reasonable person, even if they may not share, none of us share exactly the same background, but I don't think a thinking, rational person would listen to what you're saying. In my mind, it doesn't feel radical. It feels radical to the extent that it doesn't exist. The majority of people aren't thinking that way. The majority of people are aloof.
One of the reasons that maybe people like you and I are not very popular yet is because some of the things that we want to talk about, I think is a very niche audience.
And that's kind of why I said to you, are you thinking about going into politics? Because there is where I feel like you have that voice. You already said you have that feeling inside, even though you would never necessarily want to run. But you have that, you know, whatever that animal spirit is behind that. And you articulate your viewpoints very well. And I'm. I always wonder, I'm like, why am I doing this podcast? Like, I joked with Gary, this is. This is episode 30. I joked with Gary on the last one. I'm like, I could have done a podcast on yoga. Like, I I love yoga, I'm a yogi. Like that's kind of my discipline and I get my spirituality from that. I could discuss spirituality with you, but I have a different upbringing. My mom was from Iran, she was Muslim. My dad was like third generation American, Russian Jew. And they married each other. So within my household I had the Middle east conflict. Even though like people who meet like that are seeing past the stereotype and the, you know, like when you talk about, actually this is kind of like an epiphany moment. And I mean I felt this before, but where people who aren't indoctrinated, like my parents really had a free spirited mindset because there's no reason they should have been together. There were so many variables that they should have, shouldn't have been together. And as a kid, like when my friends would introduce me that knew my story, they're like telling their parents, like, tell them, tell them where your dad's from, tell them where your mom is from. And I'm like, yeah, you know, my mom's from, from Iran and my dad is from, you know, he's American, he's a Russian Jew. And the parents would laugh and I'm a kid, I didn't really have any idea what, why they were laughing at. I'm like, I don't get it, you know. Yeah, but then you get older and you, you have understandings and awakenings about how things are operating in the world for better or worse. That's one of the things that I hear in your tone too and what you're saying. I don't feel like you're condemning either side or making it like somebody's wrong. And that's one of the things I really appreciate about you. And I think I noticed this. I don't feel like anybod wrong. I feel like it's a systemic problem and we, we are, we are of the system. As much as we are holy in spirit, we are of a system.
Yeah. So you evoked a lot of those feelings inside of me.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Well, it's kind of interesting because, you know, I have strong faith in Christ and I don't hide that from anyone. I absolutely, I have a great church that's about a mile from my house. Got very lucky. It's a biblical only church, no religion. So I tell people all the time, I don't care if you go to church, we are the church. I am not a church person. I was not raised Christian either. I was raised fairly pagan, to be honest with you. I went on a spiritual journey for years And I looked into yogis and I talked to Daoists and I talked to Buddhist. And at the end of the day, what I found out was fascinating when I would interview these people and talk to them is I said, what's the ultimate goal of your religion? And they all said to obtain Christ consciousness.
Every one of them, ask a yogi, your deepest master, grab somebody from the homeland and talk to them. They all want Christ consciousness.
So I started looking into that and started, you know, I'm biblical only. I don't have any misconceptions of the fact that I am never going to be adhered or loved by the church at all. In fact, I think our church right now should be condemned for false teachings and for greed in many, many cases. So the teachings of Christ are universal. They're a universal way to live your life. The interesting thing that you mentioned, there is condemnation.
I think that's the biggest fault of mankind at this time.
That's something that's. I even hate the word Christian. We were called to be disciples, which is a disciplined follower of a master, just like with every other spiritual following. And in that practice, I don't judge people.
I don't care if you buy Solana. It doesn't matter to me. I want you to be successful and I want you to be happy. And I think you may have a different opinion than I do, and that's fantastic. And I may, I may absolutely hate what you're investing in, but I'm still going to love you. And the biggest missing word of our society today is one that is very prevalent in the teachings of Christ and the biblical church. The word grace, Mark, is missing from our society more than anything.
Give people grace. Don't condemn them because they think differently. What I've noticed over like 10 years of speaking the truth and let's call it eight years, and I've lost friends, families, businesses, job opportunities, everything. And I don't regret any moment of it, not a single moment. But what I have learned over this time is if you continually stay faithful in a quest towards the truth in life, there are going to be people who hate you because they're believing a lot lie. And if you don't condemn them for. If you condemn them for believing that lie, they're never going to listen to the truth. They're going to dig in the. Dig in even deeper. The line in the sand will get a shovel instead of a finger. If you give them grace and a little bit of time and some love along the way, eventually they will start to See, like I won't. What I just told you about politics is absolutely true. There's not a single person in the world that can poke a hole in the facts that I gave you. There's just not. There's just not. It can't happen.
So I'll stick with that stuff. I'll get esoteric into my own philosophy with the right people 100% of the time, like in a comfortable setting. But I think we need to give people grace and that's what's missing. That's why at the end of the day, people don't realize it's not Republican versus Democrat, it's not Muslim versus you know, Christian, which is what they want, by the way. That would create the great world Third World War.
It's not those things. It's sovereignty versus tyrants.
That's it. It's sovereignty. It's those who desire to be free versus those who desire your freedom.
And we are all politically aligned. Unless you're in Washington D.C. or in one of the oligarchy's pockets, we are all aligned. We all want to live a simple life. We want to be able to worship our God. We want to be able to love and raise our family friction free with the normal problems of life, not these extended issues of life.
And that we want to have a peaceful existence and love our neighbor like we want to do that. Human beings inherently want to have camaraderie, brotherhood, sisterhood and love. We all desire that. But from the moment we fall out of our mother's womb, we're in enemy territory, being bombarded with darkness and sin and all these other things. And it's the challenge of life. Like that is literally the challenge that Christ laid out. I send you as innocent as a dove amongst the wolves. Like that's earth.
[00:38:53] Speaker B: Earth.
[00:38:54] Speaker A: So you want to find other doves, you want to fend off the wolves. And there are wolves and there are doves. And I think at the end of the day, Mark, like we see this a lot in bitcoin, crypto, Bitcoin versus microstrategy, spending money at, you know, State. I put something like, I went to Steak and Shake when it offered bitcoin, like six times in three days. I actually went and paid for strangers lunches just to see, just to let them see how bitcoin, how fast and efficient and cheap it is. And I put it out there and I had like five guys and God bless them, I don't condemn them. I think it's great. That's their philosophy. It's not Mine. But they were like, how could you? You just paid $10,000 for a hamburger. And I'm like. Like, I have more than, you know, I have. I have more bitcoin than. Than you. I guess, not being condescending, but, like, to me, I was actually volunteering my money to help build a network. That building decentralized networks or freedom networks requires sacrifice. There's an old saying that the. The tree of freedom, from time to time, has to be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants, right? And we don't understand that sacrifice for freedom anymore. And that's kind of the war that we're in right now. So, you know, we condemn people for spending their bitcoin. We condemn people for not buying their bitcoin. We condemn people for buying altcoins. Like, listen, some people have made money in this stuff. I don't. I don't care what other people do. I care if they're happy, and I care if they're free. And bitcoin happens to be the number one pathway that I've noticed in my life to freedom and happiness, because I don't really care much about politics. If anything, I'm more like the two grumpy old guys in the Muppet show, you know, screaming down. Screaming down from the. From the balcony of saying, you guys are watching an absolute theater and taking it seriously that the outcomes were determined 20 years ago. It's just playing out in political theater now. Well, I really like this show tonight. At these prices, who's gonna complain?
Does that make sense to you, Mark?
[00:40:42] Speaker B: Like, yes, honestly, it all makes sense to me, Eric. It really does. And when I'm listening you speak, I really genuine, genuinely feel. I'm like, oh, this is why I had him on. I could sense that he had this kind of insight. I think some of what you said is. Is gonna maybe go over people's heads. But I think, again, a thinking, rational person is going to hear what you say and will contrast or compare it to their own existence and validate it for themselves. Is like, this is what I experience. Is this how I experience my relationship with other people, with other entities and beings?
I honestly, I have to have you back on, because I had about, like, 10 different places I wanted to go with you. And I think you and I could have some very interesting conversations, because there's something I. I feel like maybe this will resonate with you. Like, I. One of the things I love about spaces is the diversity of community. In some regards, it's an echo chamber in the sense that we bitcoin spaces today, for example, it's an echo chamber of people that what the message, the decentralization, what the promise of bitcoin is, all the different facets of bitcoin. There is kind of a.
I forget sometimes now because I'm. I'm really absorbed into that ecosystem. And then I'll talk to my cousin who's like, yeah, I, I think I hear bitcoin on the news every once in a while, but I never really think about it. And so again, to your point, there's like this broad gamut of people and to fully appreciate the depth of what like you, you brought it up. In certain circles, I feel more comfortable expressing who I am at the deepest level of my being. And in some spaces I know it's more gracious to just take in the information, see what the universe is telling me and what's going on. And then there's always some coexistence between those two realities.
[00:42:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:32] Speaker B: Would you. What. Do you have a final thought for our guests?
I mean.
[00:42:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:37] Speaker B: Do you have a final thought for our audience? Yeah. For yourself too?
[00:42:40] Speaker A: Of course. Yeah. No, I mean, anyone watching this out there, just understand that the thing that makes bitcoin great is the fact that there's a commonality between it. So it is an echo chamber to an extent. These echo chambers are good. Every good thing has its echo chamber. But eventually the echo chamber has to become a branch, something that extends an olive branch into other communities, into like you're seeing it now in tradfi. It's all financial related because bitcoin is money, right. So we have that, that commonality. But the commonality between us is not money. There's a com. Two commonalities in bitcoin. One is greed and the other one is freedom. And if you think about it, one leads to the other.
So there's definitely, you know, hardcore 2010 Bitcoiner anarchist who I love. They're like my favorite people in the world by the way, that they're. They hate. The suits are involved. Like guys, they're going to make you so rich, you're going to be able to do what you want want. It's the first asset in the world where the pleb front ran the bank and it's going to continue. Every bank that comes in makes you richer. Banks are your exit liquidity. That has never happened before. We are usually the exit liquidity of the banks.
So we have this commonality of freedom. And whether that's through monetary means or the ability to transact peer to peer or the ability to just hold money that no one can take from you. The core benefit of bitcoin is freedom, and it aligns with every single facet of a good society. Fairness, soundness, even privacy is the issue. I will say that. That we have a big privacy issue. We have. We have centralization concerns to focus on, which. Amen for. For those who are building new pools and things like that. But at the end of the day, we're all searching freedom. And the problem with bitcoin is the, The. The. The evangelists, like the evangelists, are the ringleaders of. Of. Of the actual echo chamber.
And they actually have a very difficult time in regular world as well, which is why they have such big echo chamber audiences. We have to get better at explaining to people the problem and not the solution.
No human being buys things because of a solution. They just don't like. There's a better vacuum. Well, I have a vacuum, right? I have a vacuum. It sucks all the dirt off of my carpet. It already works. I don't need a new vacuum. Until you realize there's microbes in there and bacteria and this one can do a better job. It's always the problem that creates the demand for the solution.
And we do a good job explaining things, but it's very echo chambery as well. It's, you know, hey, 1913 central banks, Federal Reserve, 71 off the gold standard, you know, Canadian truckers. Like, that's actually a really good thing to use. But more importantly, it's understanding the problems people have. I was just on a space earlier today on bitcoin. Today. Earlier today, and I think it was Road Warrior was on there, who's a really cool guy, and he was explaining his financial difficulties, raising a family, making $100,000 a year. That's the problem.
That's the problem.
Yes. The central bank is the root of that problem. But the problem he has is that he doesn't have enough disposable income and he's thinking about leaving the country, which many Americans are doing to be able to say so. The root problem here is individual, not holistic.
So people get right into. You know, I got Creature from the.
Oh, there's Terrence.
[00:45:48] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:45:49] Speaker A: I've got.
[00:45:50] Speaker B: Can you see Terrence on your end?
[00:45:52] Speaker A: I can. What's up, Terrence?
Should I jump out? Did I just jump into someone else's.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: Podcast kind of like this? Honestly, the timing is perfect.
[00:46:00] Speaker A: It's the handoff.
[00:46:01] Speaker B: Tell you why, Eric. It is a handoff, and I'll tell you why. Because just real quick to bring you up to speed, I wasn't sure, I thought I was going to have to text you. So I'm actually glad that you jumped on. But Eric and I were talking about spaces. It had come up and we were talking about spaces being an echo chamber somewhat just because by its nature it's bitcoin today people are coming into that environment because they want to hear these things. But Eric said those echo chambers become branches and Terence, the reason that I had reached out to you is because I heard you talking about how to get somebody. I think it was a multi sig with regards to self custody. But I was thinking to myself, until I started doing the bitcoin today spaces, I was just an investor in bitcoin. I like followed the story, I have it custodial through a few different accounts just because I can't tolerate the volatility. So I tolerate the volatility by just spreading it out a little bit. But. But it wasn't until I started these spaces that I realized I'm like, dude, you don't, you, you've been following Bitcoin 2008, but you don't really get it because until you do the self custody, until you actually start to use the technology, which is it is. And when I think of how in the infant stages it is in the regards of how someone like myself who considers themselves knowledgeable enough to have followed it, invested in it, took some interest in it, try to help explain it to people that are interested in learning more about it that I finally, up until this year was like, oh, I should probably do the cold storage. Like not your keys, not your bitcoin. And the whole concept of how this ties into self sovereignty and freedom, it's like more than just, you know, the number going up is what gets people excited. But it's when you start to use the technology and you start to have like an impact on your local community and you start to realize, oh, this is like, this is a decentralized network work. And Eric said something about the bank being. This is like when you said that, I was like, wow, that really, it gives, it gives me tingles to even think about it. The bank is going to help you. The bank is going to make you wealthier by trying to centralize this decentralized asset. But if you use it in a decentralized way, you can still scale it hopefully in the future because it's really the scaling of self custody.
[00:48:19] Speaker A: Right.
[00:48:20] Speaker B: Eric, would you agree with that? The scaling self custody is what's going to really create the kind of changes that the promise of bitcoin offers. All right. Hi, Terrence.
[00:48:31] Speaker A: I'll go back in the waiting room. Sorry. Nice to see you, Eric.
No, no, no, you're good. I just want to make sure that I tell everyone out there that, you know, your sovereignty is important. It's the most important thing in your life. And God bless you all.
Do what you feel is right for your family. Make sure you are not on zero of bitcoin. Bitcoin. I don't care if you're a maxi or not or you're all in or not. Have some bitcoin and. And love your families, man. There's nothing more important than that. You can talk about money and greed all day long, but your families are the things that count. Those are the things that actually matter in your life. And just God bless you all. Thank you for having me today, Mark. Appreciate it.
[00:49:04] Speaker B: Well, thank you for being on, Eric. I really appreciate you, too. And you're going to be on again. We're going to. I really feel like there's places to dive into, assuming that you'll come on again.
[00:49:13] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I. I've got a pretty broad base of stuff I can talk about, so.
[00:49:18] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I can tell. And I. And I like to hear it because, like, I like to listen to people that when I'm listening to them, I'm like, okay, okay. You're like, Clara, help helping clarify things for me. So. All right, thank you for your time. And we're going to bring in Terrence.
[00:49:32] Speaker A: It's the podcast Blockchain, right?
The next block.
[00:49:36] Speaker B: I actually like that, you know, like, something like that happening is the fun stuff, because then people watch and it's like, look, this isn't choreographed. We're not. We're not reading off scripts. We don't have, like, some agenda coming into here. It's like, I. I'm interest. Interested in the space. I started a podcast. It seemed like a good fit to have people on the space come on to the podcast. And it is cool, like, the community aspect of it, because you and Eric were both just on spaces. You did big today's spaces.
Thank you for watching this episode of the Money Adjustment. If you want more, like comment and subscribe, you can follow me on X at Mark Kramer until the next episode.
Stay healthy and wealthy.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: Pay up. They made it through another one. Double or nothing. Next week's show. You're on.
