 Hello, and welcome to the Bitcoin Show. Hello. We have a great show today. I'm Bruce Wagner, as you know. And I'm Ed Gal. And today we have a most amazing personality on the radio. His name is Patrick Tempone. He's a co-host of The Real World of Money, which is an amazing, awesome, unbelievable radio show. He co-hosts with Andy Gauss, and they're actually bringing that show to only one TV. They do a national radio show twice a week, and they're going to bring the Wednesday morning show here starting soon. Maybe next Wednesday. It depends. We're going to work it out. Either next Wednesday or the Wednesday after that. They're bringing it here to only one TV Wednesday mornings, 10 a.m. Eastern. And I want to first thank our sponsors, because if it weren't for our sponsors, we wouldn't be able to be here. And they support the Bitcoin community, and you guys support them. Contact them. Thank them for supporting the Bitcoin Show and only one TV. Today's episode is brought to you by CarpeVM, c-a-r-p-e-v-m dot com. Video marketing. Seize your market. Say it with video. They will help you sell whatever it is you're selling with the most professionalism ever. A video for your website, CarpeVM dot com, and Mezzy Grill, m-e-z-e grill dot com. Mezzy Grill. We're authentic Mediterranean food, meets modern flavor. One of the nice favorite restaurants. That's how we discovered it, and that's how they discovered Bitcoin. And they're the world's first restaurant that accepts Bitcoin with a QR code right there on the window. Big emblem in the front. And tradehill.com, of course, tradehill.com, the automated online exchange, the new kids on the block, but they're awesome. So many dozens of currencies that they will allow you to trade into Bitcoin and out of Bitcoin in so many ways. And they're ramping up. They've been overwhelmed with the volume because of the Mt. Gox problem that they are, they've had to take all the manual ways off temporarily, but they're bringing them back one by one as they're able to keep up with the unbelievable demand. But you'll get 10% off of all your trades for life if you use the referral code for the Bitcoin show, TH-R141. It's on the bottom of your screen right now, TH as in tradehill, dash R for referral, 141. Thank you, tradehill. And USGoldCoins.com. Andy Gauss, the one I was telling you about who co-hosts the real world of money with Patrick Tempone, owns USGoldCoins.com. And they are our most trusted, our really only trusted advisor for excellent investments in rare USGold and SilverCoins. Call up Andy Gauss and he will take your call. He is amazing and he is just an absolute brilliant mind as you'll, I'm sure Patrick will agree. USGoldCoins.com. Thank all of our sponsors for, for us supporting the Bitcoin community and the Bitcoin show. Yes, thank you. So welcome, Patrick. Are you there? Hi. Hi. Good afternoon or morning, whatever time it is. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. So we are, we're here, actually NPR is actually visiting our studio at the moment. We usually get three or four major media contacts before lunch and this is just like any other day. But tell us, Patrick, what, tell us about the story about how you discovered Bitcoin first of all. Started with Bitcoins. As of you, you started donating and giving me a few Bitcoins, you sent me 10 Bitcoins and then 20 Bitcoins. I think when they were about 25 cents, you were just donating to our one radio network. And then I just kept talking to you and kept talking to you and fascinating with money. I've been doing a show with Andrew Gauss for 15 years, the real world of money. And I understand the fiat currency and the Fed and how money is created and how it all interplays with Andrew's coaching over the years. And so this idea of having a fixed supply of something was particularly interesting to me where the Bitcoin geeks of the world say only 21 million Bitcoins ever will be produced. So then I have a few Bitcoins. Yeah. I almost forgot about that, but that's true. The way you first got into it was I would say you got to put a Bitcoin address. All you have to do if you have a website is like putting an email address on your website. You have a Bitcoin address on your website and you can start getting donations today. And people will donate. These people are very, very devoted to promoting the use of Bitcoin. So many times people will actually just donate simply because you accept Bitcoin. Yeah, very well. So I remember that now that you mentioned it, I remember that we set you up with a Bitcoin donation address. And of course, Bitcoin totally fits in with the philosophy of investing in gold and silver, a limited supply of something. And obviously it pans out and the value continues to go up overall. It goes up and down. It has vibrations on the way up. But overall it's pretty much been up, up, up. Bruce, could I ask you a question? Sure. I'm looking at Mt. Gox right now and they say the volume is this big, long number. That's not right. I don't know. Let's bring it up. Mt. Gox is... It's like a 28-digit note or something. They used to be... I wonder if you know about how many Bitcoins are being traded each day? Well, yeah, exactly. Well, tradehill.com also is the new exchange site similar to Mt. Gox. So now there's two big players on the block. But I don't... Oh. I see what you're saying. Now I just went there and I see what you're saying. You notice the decimal point. That's key. What they did is they added it out to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 decimals after... I mean, 7 digits after the decimal place because the Bitcoin is now worth about $17 today. So they need to... Probably in anticipation of Bitcoin value continuing to rise, they wanted to give you the whole decimal place all the way up. So $18,900 or so have been traded today. Yeah. I think normally, I think, isn't it? I don't know where it has been. When it was at a tide, it was at $60,000, $70,000, $80,000, someone else? Yeah. But obviously, you know, Mt. Gox has had this disaster and I'm sure that volume is definitely been affected because it just came back up. But if you look at tradehill.com, you'll see the value there too. Yes, but you can't see the volume there for some reason. Yeah. Probably they don't display the volume, but you can just go to tradehill.com and click on market data and you'll see the... At least you'll see the last price, the value, the lowest ask and the highest bid and so on. So that's $16.95 on tradehill and $16.8 on Mt. Gox, which is actually good to know. It's very much... Very close. They're like par, you know, kind of the values going hand in hand. But the volume is probably down on Mt. Gox, which is not surprising. Not surprising under the circumstances. But the interesting thing to me is that as I recall, if I'm not mistaken, the value on Mt. Gox was like $17.48 or something, $17.48, at the time it was hacked and now it's about $17.00 again. It really shows that Bitcoin is resilient and even if the exchange site with 90% of the market share at the time is hacked and completely shut down temporarily, that it really didn't affect the true value of Bitcoin at all. No, not at all. It would be like a big gold dealer shutting down, but it didn't affect the value of gold. Right. And like I had... I'm sure a lot of people have not been able to reclaim their accounts because I wasn't able to and... Yeah, you will. You have to fill out the forms and go through the extra steps and eventually you'll be able to do it. Right. So that means that a lot of people are not... Oh, at the moment. Oh, that's right. I see what you're saying. Yeah, the volume is probably down because their people are still in the process of re-identifying themselves. They have to go through all these steps and especially if you didn't use an email address or if you may have to go through extra levels of security to identify who you really are because they got to sort out who you really are because all the accounts were exposed on the internet. Did you know that, Patrick? Yes. Yes, I do. I'm well aware. The volume is down. I agree. I agree. I think it certainly has shown the real resiliency and the passion for this around the world that being able to be at 17 bucks after virtually a meltdown of the system almost. Yeah. It wasn't a melt. It was a crash, a fat finger crash or whatever it was. It shows that there's some real deep strength for a digital currency out there. Yeah. Well, and people have to understand the difference between Mt. Gox and Bitcoin because it was not really a crash because it was a hack. The hacker broke into one account and sold all the Bitcoins for a penny. So that's not a crash. It's not a real market. That's just a theft. It's a hack and a theft. It's almost like the gold vaults that Fort Knox were broken into and some of the gold was stolen. That didn't really affect anybody's value of their actual gold that they have elsewhere. So it really didn't affect Bitcoin at all. It's people need to understand the separation between an online exchange site and the actual item. The item is a Bitcoin. It wasn't affected at all. If Ron Paul gets his way, we'll see if those gold bars are really gold. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. I would love to know Ron Paul's, if Bitcoin is even on his radar and if it is, I would love to hear his thoughts on that. We need to hear from some lawmakers who are in favor of freedom and liberation basically from the central banks because we're hearing all of a sudden from all these fanatical lawmakers who are trying to attach drug sales to currency, which is ludicrous. The drug sales have nothing to do with currency. We need to hear from some lawmakers who are in favor of freedom and freedom from the Fed. Well, Ron Paul would probably like the concept because Bitcoin has a limited supply even though it's not credited to any asset. He is an Austrian school economics guy and he likes the idea that there would be a limited number of dollars that was paid to the gold standard. I personally think it would work in this culture. I don't think it's ever going to happen, but that's just me. Yeah. I don't think so either. The dollar has gone too far. They would have to actually create a whole new currency or something. It's too late. Is there enough gold to even pay a dollar? It would have to be a tiny little minuscule amount of gold or something. I'm not sure that gold really is the superior technology here. Gold is a rare metal. Why would it not be? It's been around for 5,000 years. Bitcoin has a value unless we all agree that it does. Gold has just been agreed upon for 5,000 years as the best source of value, but it's no more valuable than any other metal except that we agree that it is. Exactly. Not that there's anything wrong or flawed with it, but Bitcoin actually has all the same properties and it actually has some additional properties that gold doesn't have. You can't take a millionth of an ounce of gold and conveniently send it across the planet in three seconds. You can't take gold with you without any physical object attached to you. There's a lot of advantages that Bitcoin has to the fact that it's electronic. The form factor is an improvement over the technology of actually carrying a around physical possession of a metal. Because of that, I think Bitcoin is on an equal footing with gold if not better in the future. I think that the key with Bitcoin is going to be if you can buy things with it and how long that is going to take will be interesting to watch. Right. A lot of people say that and it is true. Definitely there's truth to that. If I have gold, I can't really go shopping in Manhattan. I don't know any retail stores or restaurants who do accept gold per se as currency. However, there are a growing number of restaurants and stores and cell phone dealers and so on and so on online and physical brick and mortar stores that accept Bitcoin. We have a, if you go to bitcoinme.com and click on the shopping tab, there's a shop tab and now there's this scrolling marquee of items that just scrolls by of all the things. You can buy everything from clothing to peanut butter to web hosting to on and on and on. All these items just scroll by and if you just study it, you'll be amazed and that list is growing every day. The actual real things you can buy with Bitcoin. For me, this is Ed speaking, I was helping a friend out because he wanted to sell some of his gold coins, silver coins actually. He has bit coins as well and I was like, well, sell the silver or the gold that you have before you sell the Bitcoin because that's going up faster. And so I helped him put an ad in on eBay and Craigslist and it was a lot easier for him to sell bitcoins, believe it or not, and get cash like today as opposed to trying to sell silver and gold. Of course, there's dealers out there buying silver and gold, but he's not willing to sell for 10, 20, 30% less than the market value. He's just not wanting to do that. That's an interesting point that I don't think I've ever heard anybody say it like that, but that's true. If you have some silver coins or something, some people refer to it as junk silver or whatever, whatever. When you're talking about numismatic coins, there's so many other things that go into the value. There's, well, I have to actually see it and I have to look at it with a special glass and I've got to analyze it for its color and it's this and it's that. And I don't know anything about that stuff, but you guys do. And, you know, it's not like a coin is a coin. It's it's not like that unless it's just raw silver. So with a Bitcoin, it's actually it really is just digits. Every Bitcoin is the same as every other Bitcoin. It's just a Bitcoin. So and it's infinitely divisible effectively so you can you can send someone a billionth of a Bitcoin and it's just as good as any other billionth of a Bitcoin. So it's super, super easy to sell because of its convenience factor. And there's not a two price points because then with silver and gold, there's really two price points. The, you know, what the dealer is willing to buy it from you for and what you're willing to pay for it as a customer. Oh, right. There's like wholesale and retail value where Bitcoin is people. I mean, people do that too with Bitcoin because they're either charging more for extra transaction fee or but they're not trying to undercut you on the price because they know that the price is based on the milk ox or trade hill. Well, there is a little bit of a there's always in any market, there's a highest offer and a highest bid and a lowest ask. And there's always that little tiny gap, but yeah, I mean, usually it's very, very narrow. And people usually just for convenience, if it's a, you know, it's not an extraordinary amount of money that they're talking about, like the NPR guys who came here, they, they wanted to buy $40 worth of Bitcoin because I don't sell Bitcoin. Don't contact me to buy Bitcoin. If you want to buy Bitcoin, just go to Bitcoinme.com and click on the buy, sell tab and you'll see all the ways that you can buy Bitcoin from somebody in your own neighborhood. You can just go and buy them from them. That's not my business. I'm not saying I haven't sold Bitcoin. I did. I said, for $40, of course, I'll sell them $40 worth of Bitcoin. So they came and did that. And where was I going with this? The point was that it's, oh, for convenience, if it's a small amount, we just go by the trade hill last price and you're done. I mean, it's just super simple. It was $17 at that point. I think they probably got a good deal. But I think one, one thing that may be more, you know, as interesting to compare is not necessarily gold and silver, but it coins to dollars. Right. Well, what do you mean? Oh, instead of gold. Yes. More like a dollar than it is like gold. Dollars are just digital currencies. That's right. 90 percent of dollars are just computer blips. So they're just digital. There's nothing backing them. The only reason that they have any value that you can go into Starbucks and trade them $5 for a cup of coffee, probably 10 in New York, is that there is 18 trillion of them around the world. And people believe that the full faith and credit of the United States, which means that they'll always create more to pay the debts. So it's a, it's an expanding monetary system. They're not worth anything except what, what people are, will believe that they'll trade for gas or whatever. The full faith and debt of the United States, the debt of the United States to who, and everybody talks about the debt of the United States and who is that owed to, well, a huge amount of it is owed to the Federal Reserve, the private corporation that has nothing to do with the federal government per se. It's not part of the government and so on. But yeah, you're right. And I wish you had been listening to the NPR. I hope they use the part, this part. I mean, I'm sure it'll be edited, but that's exactly what they asked me. How does, how does Bitcoin relate to the US dollar and what, what's the advantage and all that? And, you know, and I said, well, if you really want to talk about a fictitious fantasy digital currency, it's the US dollar because, you know, US dollars for the most part are just digits in a computer. And they're actually the way US, you know, the way Bitcoin is created is an interesting story about how that happens through transactional, I mean, computer processing and so on, that anyone can create them if they have enough processing power and electricity and so on up to that 21 million limit that they estimate will happen in tell me chat room, something like 2035 or something like that. They'll finally reach it. Well, anyway, that's always, that's interesting and fascinating and all that. But how are US dollars created basically by someone with a keyboard typing 0000, just adding zeros and creating it out of literally out of thin air into their own account, basically. And they get the first use of the money. That's something that I learned from Andy, Andy Gauss and you from the real world of money that basically the first use of that money that they just created is the most valuable that money will ever be because it hasn't hit in the market yet. It's, it's almost like it's real money. The market thinks it's real money. It's not just made out of thin air, but then eventually like, like dropping a rock into a lake, eventually it reaches equilibrium and now the water level is higher. Now there's more money and all of it's worth less. So if you want to talk about a fantasy, fictitious digital currency made out of nothing, it's called the US dollar and pretty much all the fiat currencies. Right. Nothing's, nothing's really to add to that, Bruce, not only is it just a digit, but it's also a debt instrument. Yeah. So it's, it's owed to somebody. It's, it's a Federal Reserve note. A note just is like a car note. It's an instrument. You know, and that's exactly right. And that, you know, I'm so glad you mentioned that because that's exactly the next thing I said in the interview. I said, it's, they wanted to know what's the biggest advantage and why Bitcoin? Why is it so popular? Why would people be into it? It's like, isn't this just another PayPal? Or what's the advantage over this versus MasterCard Visa? And I said, no, no, no, no. The biggest advantage is freedom. It's the people's money. It's about freedom from the tyranny of the world bankers. And they looked at me like, what? They had no, I mean, I mean, they just thought Bitcoin was another PayPal or another Duala, you know, another payment transaction, a fad or something. And I mean, no, no, no, you don't understand. This is new. They said, why are people saying that it, why are technologists getting so excited about it? I said, it's because it's the people's money. It's about freedom and they're like, freedom from what? I said, freedom from the tyranny of the world bankers who control the governments, who control everything. And that money is used as debt. And debt is the modern version of slavery. Money is, you know, money is used as debt. Debt is used to enslave people, individuals and entire nations. And the other reporter is looking at me like, oh, no, no, no. He actually interrupted the interview. He says, wait a minute, wait a minute, stop, stop, stop. This is a total tangent. This is not true. That's not how French fractional reserve banking works. I said, yes, actually it is. You really should research this that when you deposit a thousand dollars into a bank account, the bank creates $9,000 out of thin air, nothingness and loans, $10,000 to the next guy walking in for a car loan. And that's how it works. And people don't know that. It's just shocking. Google.com. There's a tip. Google.com. Type it in and learn what fractional reserve banking really is. Put it into Google video and look at some of these documentaries like money has debt. And so you will you will get the education of a lifetime, but people don't know that. So many people in the public don't know that the younger people who are in tune with Google video and Yahoo and all that. I mean, YouTube are getting an education. But the older generations are still relying on the evening news. And they just are absolutely ignorant about the facts. So I told him, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Excuse me. Yeah, let me add to that on the idea of being a slave. It is the ultimate form of slavery when you do not know, right? In my opinion, you're a slave because if there's 18 trillion dollars out there, 96 percent of them in digits. And my mentor, Andrew Goss says, they'll probably be half again as much in the next five years. People using dollars will have a 50 percent decrease in their buying power, and I'll guarantee you that their salaries are not going to go up 50 percent. You got that right. That is the ultimate form of slavery. And it's one of the reasons why the founding fathers had the revolution because the King George wanted to be in on all the money transactions, and they didn't like the fact that the colonists were doing their own money. That's right. Paper money. Absolutely. You know, and the, yeah, if you want to be a slave owner, what better system could you have than if you have everyone as your slave and they don't even know it? It's like you just slipped the whole entire country, a roofie, and you're just taking full advantage of them. They're going to work every day for you to make you richer and more prosperous and more powerful and everything else. And they don't even know it. They think they're just working to pay off that flat screen TV, but they're actually in debt and they're slaves. They have to go to work to pay their bills, their credit card, their interest, interest, you know, people now kids with the student loans. It's just absolutely, it's absolutely tyranny. It's tyranny and it's slavery through economics. And the good thing is the internet is about free speech. The internet routes around censorship and young people. Thank you, God, are using the internet. The internet is a savior for the planet. It really is in so many ways. It's allowing people to educate themselves. It's allowing people to educate each other and communicate, learn, teach, transact, communicate ideas. And the ideas are what's powerful. We don't, you know, who needs old media? Who needs the old mainstream? The five guys in the suits, you know, the media is a whole another story, but, you know, pretty much all the media from the local teeny tiny, I'm from Zanesville, Ohio, the teeny tiny Zanesville Times recorder, I think I read it's owned by, you know, one of these big companies, Viacom. There's something like four or five conglomerates, media conglomerates that own all the media from the tiniest little newspaper, all the radio stations, all the national meet, you know, all the networks, they're pretty much all owned by five older guys in suits. And imagine, I always imagine a little conference room. It could be as small as your dining room table with five dudes, white dudes, old white dudes in suits that control what you think. And, you know, when you talk to somebody at the office and they talk about, you know, whatever it is, they all say, yeah, I heard this and yeah, I heard this and they all heard the same thing because it's the five dudes in the suits who decided what you will learn today and what you don't learn today. You know, it's it's all over the internet that some of these guys actually send a memo out this in the morning every single morning to all the stations. This is what you will cover. This is what you will not cover. This is what you will emphasize. This is what you will downplay. I mean, it's just propaganda. And you can say the same thing is true for, well, not true exactly directly, but for Bitcoin people, they're it's such a tight knit community and there's legion. It's creating legions of entrepreneurs and pioneers. That's right. And they're just sitting around, like you said, five people at a time sitting around brainstorming of great ideas on how to manifest this whole currency idea. I thank God for the internet every single day. I say, thank you God for the internet because, you know, it's it's freeing nation. Look at Egypt. I mean, it's freeing people everywhere. There's old media. There's new media. Who has any use for old media really? Except to get the word out about the new media. You know, that's it. That's it. They think they're using me. I'm actually using them. We got to get the word out about the new media. People who watch only one TV are saying, I can't remember the last time I actually turned on a television set and watched old media. So there's old media. There's new media. There's the old economy and there's the new economy. And that's what you're talking about. It is the new economy. There's an entire new economy that's growing up out of this and I don't even know if you realize this, Patrick, but I'm in that we're in the middle of it. You know, we're in like Bitcoin whirlwind right here. I mean, everything comes like to me. People tell me stuff that I'm not a lot of people tell me stuff I'm not allowed to even talk about yet because it's in the works. There's so much in the works. We're in a hotbed of activity of entrepreneurial startups, software, application development. This entire new economy is exploding and it's not in New York. It's not in the United States. It's absolutely global. I mean, they're talking about it in Japan. They're talking about it in China inside China. They're talking about it in Cuba. They're talking about it in North Korea. They're talking about it in Germany and Sweden and Switzerland. We're having, you know, as people may know, I should remind everybody that we're having the world's first Bitcoin conference and World Expo NYC 2011, August 18th to 21st. August 18th to 21st, right here in New York City. We're hosting it right here at the only one TV studios. And I know I've heard from so many people that are coming. They're flying in from these places. They're flying in from, you know, Switzerland and China and all over the whole planet. It's going to be amazing. Some people charter private jets to fly here. It's going to be an amazing event. But it's it's a whole new economy that's exploding around Bitcoin. Let me ask you, Bruce, what do you think the the challenges of the Achilles heel of Bitcoin? Everything has a challenge. Nothing goes, you know, just straight through the stratosphere. What do you think the challenges are in the future and the possible opposition? Well, obviously the I mean there. Yeah, a lot of people ask me that the in my opinion is only my opinion. You know, I'm really no expert. I just just I'm only an expert in one thing and that's my opinion. And that's it. But in my opinion, I mean, the one of the biggest immediate challenges are two really big immediate challenges. One is security, but everybody knows that, you know, there's there's headlines, you know, I mean, Mountain Gox was hacked. There has there have been a couple notorious huge heists of people stealing someone's electronic file containing a called a wallet that contains all of their money. So, you know, when Bitcoin was just half a cent, nobody it even occurred to anybody that that could be stolen. You know, here. Yeah, I mean, who cares? You know, if you lost, oh, I lost a dollar. You know, it was no big deal. But now it's suddenly worth like serious money for some people. And so when when they have that, you know, you put serious money there and it's cash. There's just it's just way too tempting. There are actually reports of viruses on the loose that actually will steal your wallet and things like that. So security is a top top issue. The application developers around the whole planet are responding. Now, I can tell you they're responding in mass. The new versions of the software that are coming are going to be so, so secure. You know, people think, oh, this is a disaster. Bitcoin is a terrible problem for Bitcoin with Mountain Gox and these thefts. I say, no, that is what do you call it when you're hardening the metal so that the sword becomes unbreakable? Because what's happening is the applications are going to be so much better as a result of these heists and the websites, the trade sites and the online clouds and all that are going to be so much more secure. And the end user is going to be so much more, you know, questioning and really checking out the security of these cloud based things. And, you know, it's just like anything else. People learn by mistakes that happen. And so the whole system will become stronger in the end. Now, the second big challenge that I hear about is scalability because as the transactions go from tens of transactions per minute to hundreds to thousands to thousands of millions of transactions to millions of transactions per second, you know, look at the credit card processing transactions. Can you imagine the system that must they must have in place to handle that? Bitcoin has to end up being scalable. And that means with the explosive growth of Bitcoin, it has to be able to handle these transactions. But I don't see that as a problem either because application developers, once again, the geeks are into Bitcoin and they're not only invested time wise, they're invested monetarily too. So they're putting in their time and they're creating they're really making like Gavin Andreessen, who's the tech lead. The one that said that that security and scalability are the two top things they're working on currently. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, not just him, like everybody says that. It's absolutely a priority because scalability, they're going to make it into an even more robust system that it is already secure, but they're going to make it one that can also handle the exponential growth, the explosion in the number of users and transactions. So those are the two big things that are facing us right now. The as far as opposition, well, that's pretty obvious, right? Whenever there's a big winner like the people, freedom for the people, then the opposition would be the tyrants who are who are, yeah, who are actually going to lose their control and power over those people. So that's basically going to be the world banks, which is frightening. A lot of people are very frightened. That's why some interviews, they don't want to show their face. They want to be remain anonymous. There's somebody emailed me, actually, somebody called me this morning and said, will you please I'm a huge fan of your show? Will you please do a show on how to remain anonymous? How to safely use Bitcoin and be completely anonymous? And I'm like, well, that's a good that's a good idea. We should do a show about that. I mean, most people I know are not concerned about that. It's just like, you know, using a credit card at a coffee shop. They don't really care so much about it. Because like I said, people that I know are not telling me they're doing anything illegal with it or anything. So they're not really concerned about anonymity so much. But there are people that are concerned with anonymity for whatever reason. And it doesn't have to be something illegal. It could just be something that they want to keep a secret. It's nobody's business. It's called it's a it's a unique new idea. It's called privacy, privacy. You know, they think, oh, criminal, criminal, illicit, illicit, you know, laundering, laundering BS. It's called privacy. You know, get used to it. People want privacy. They're they're they're, you know, they're overwhelmed with everything's public, everything's Facebook, Facebook, Facebook invades everything. You know, they're over that. They want a little bit of privacy if it's all right. Yeah, 1984. Yeah, I mean, it's OK. So it's a good thing. It's a very good thing. So we're going to do a show specifically about that. But that's the thing that the people who are going to lose are the world bankers who dominate the world by enslaving individuals and entire nations using debt. And there that's that's kind of a scary per entity to to have as your enemy. You know, because if if they're an enemy to Bitcoin, I mean, you know, because Bitcoin is no one person or entity or company, I mean, that's a good thing. If everybody in America and everybody in the whole world buys a Bitcoin and becomes a Bitcoin user, then basically they will have to take on everybody, everybody in the whole planet. So if you buy a Bitcoin, you're you're a member like these guys from NPR. I want to say this. The guys from NPR were saying, well, we should disclose that if you're promoting Bitcoin. And I said, well, first of all, I don't promote Bitcoin. I talk about it just like you guys are. I'm a journalist talking about Bitcoin just like you guys are. Well, yeah. But if you talk about it and people buy Bitcoin, then you're going to have a financial interest to gain by top by promoting Bitcoin. I said, yeah, and so are you because you just bought $40 worth of Bitcoin from me. So now you will have a financial gain too. If you talk about Bitcoin, you will have a personal financial gain. And they're like, oh, yes, but just let's make it clear for the story. We're going to spend it right away. And then we won't have any Bitcoins by the time this story airs. And I'm like, OK, OK. But if you didn't, if they didn't, who's going to know? I'm not going to know. Right. And then they're like, you know, are people merchants who accept Bitcoin, are they are they paying tax or the capital gains? Like when they're when their investment is going up through the roof, are they paying tax on it? I said, well, of course they are. Complicated to who isn't just like cash. You know, it's like up to the individual, of course, it has nothing to do with it. Do you pay taxes when you receive cash? Da, I mean, this is the same thing. Do you can people buy drugs with cash? I think pretty much that's how drugs are sold. But it doesn't, you know, it's not a problem with the currency. Yeah, there's a question here for Patrick. Do you think any nations might denominate their national currency in bitcoins? Good question. Well, that would be great. I think Hugo Hugo Chavez is on a deathbed. Maybe we can get to the new guy. Your good job is what about the guy in Cuba? Yeah, well, I think I don't think it's an issue. I wouldn't look upon the powers to be as enemies. I think that they're just doing their thing and they have control of the dollar. And I think it's a good thing just to stay out of their way. I don't think Bitcoin will ever challenge the dollar as the reserve currency, if it does, then you probably. But you know what I'm saying? Well, you know, actually, I've read some things in the forum about what was it, Greenland? Was it Greenland or Iceland? I think it was Greenland. Was that the one that had this huge economic meltdown because of the debt to the banks? Iceland. Iceland. OK, yeah, you're right. Iceland. So somebody was talking about how they're like Iceland is like rebuilding their whole economy from scratch and they're like they're like anti the central bank. And they're all about technology and also technology, privacy. They're setting up server farms and for private internet, private networking. And they're all about privacy, anti central bank. And and all these things. And it's like, whoa, I can see if I can, if I can, if anybody, you know, told me of a country that would be most likely to adopt Bitcoin as their national currency, I can see that one. Is it Iceland? Are we sure about that? Well, I wouldn't be surprised because they all see. Yeah. Did you see the video inside job? Yes. Yes, I want to see it again. They talk about the whole Iceland situation. It's a pretty remarkable story. It is like a country of 300,000 people and the banks really stuck it to them. But they just had a vote, I think yesterday, a national referendum. And they are telling the banks that they supposedly all this money to to pound sand to leave us home. They're not going to pay him. Good. I say good. These are very proud, hardworking people in an incredible country before five or six years ago, when they start doing the derivatives and took off the the regulations to these banks, they just starts, they stole their money. Wow. It's about time, you know, that some, some kid in the sandbox stands up to the bullies that that run this planet and say, you know what? No, we're not going to take it anymore. Screw you. We're a sovereign nation. And, you know, yeah, send the bankers packing. Same thing with Greece. I mean, they might end up being the first sovereign Eurozone nation. I mean, the first sovereign nation that will default on other debts. Well, I think they voted today. I had to to go ahead and do the austerity measures and people were in the streets. But today, yeah, they voted. It'll be interesting today to see or moving forward is how how passionate and fervent the Greeks, Greeks, people are about these these austerity measures and if they're going to continue to do them, or they they want to get out of the Eurozone. And that's very it's going to be a good story to watch. I love the language they use. What is the word austerity really mean? Austerity means that raining in, you know, that's why you don't get to spend as much because we spent all your money. Well, no, no, no, I know. But what's the word austerity itself by itself? What does that word mean? Like to rain in? Yeah, to rain into contract, to contract. OK, so, yeah, austerity measures is so interesting. The words that they use kind of like quantitative easing. It's kind of to me, I always think of, you know, like some kind of surgical jelly on a on a, you know, what do you call it when you get a colonoscopy? You know, that's what I think of quantitative easing that they're going to really, you know, stick it to you. They're just devaluing the currency and austerity measure. It's just something that's going to rain in what? Rain in the people, rain in the opposition to the banks. What exactly is it raining in? You know, the mean the words have meaning. Well, it's going to cut or are you going to increase how many hours they put in towards every work week and it's going to increase their taxes. It's going to do a lot of things. Yeah, increase the level of slavery to the bank. The rich, the rich, richer in the poor. Yeah. Yeah. And what Patrick, what do your listeners have to say about these economic, you know, defaults or bitcoins, new currencies, etc. My listeners come from the Andy Goss School of Bunny. So they understand the game. You know, Andy's a great supporter of bitcoins. He he does have one concern. Would you like to hear that? Yes. And his concern is that it has a limited supply. And I brought that up this morning and I think that's plus, right? Because the dollar is unlimited. So I said this morning, well, that's the reason I think Bitcoin. And he says, yes, and that's the reason Bitcoin will go up in value because there's only twenty one million that will ever, ever be be made, right? Right. But the other thing, all right, go ahead, hold on, hold on a second. His argument is, and this is a philosophical and monetary one, something to think about in the future. His argument is then if bitcoins has a limited supply of bitcoins, which it does, then eventually people will save them and they won't spend them because they're going up in value. And if the currency doesn't circulate, then it's it turns in more like to just a simple investment and people won't spend them and then that defeats the whole purpose. Well, the thing is, though, that that's why whenever I say I learned this kind of early on because a lot of people had that concern that whenever I describe that the limited quantity, that there's only twenty one million that immediately brings thoughts of, oh, there's not enough as soon as they sell twenty one million, there won't be any more like a like a limited print. You know, but the fact that it's infinitely divisible is the point. Right by eight points. Yeah, eight decimal points. I mean, eight decimal places right now, but that could easily be expanded based virtually infinite infinitely. So you could have a billionth or a trillionth of a bitcoin and we could in the future. It's possible that we could be trading in TBCs, trillions of a bitcoin or something. You know, we'll come up with some new denomination, but literally you just move the decimal point and keep going. So the value goes up. We don't have any limit in supply. Horting is not a problem because it's infinitely divisible. And I think I heard someone in the forum and go ahead. No, no, no, I like that. Yeah, I thought it was only eight and I brought that up this morning. And so what you're saying is, let's see if I understand what you're saying, that if it's a similar to the dollar, if you can just creating more dollars, you can still you're not really creating more bitcoins. You're just dividing the bitcoins into pennies or quarters of pennies or eighths of pennies or thousands of a penny or whatever. So so then that would. No, it doesn't because I could save it. Save a bitcoin was worth a million dollars, then a millionth of a bitcoin would be worth a dollar. So you're in effect, if you look at it in terms of your way, you think in dollars that you still have one millionth of a bitcoin is a dollar, you know, a million, millions of a bitcoin is a million dollars. So you, you know, there's no shortage of the dollars, quote unquote, because you can divide them. So it's basically just digits. If you keep dividing them, you have an infinite supply. It's just that the limit of the quantity, all the only thing the limit of the quantity does is increase the value. And that's not a bad thing. It's a good thing because, you know, who doesn't want to hold on to a currency that keeps going up in value? Who doesn't want to accept as a merchant or charity donations or purchases? Who doesn't want to accept bitcoin? Because something that is the value is just going to keep going up. OK, let me play devil's advocate here. If that's the case, then there probably would not be a case where people will have a bitcoin banks and borrow bitcoins because you wouldn't want to borrow a bitcoin if they go up in value, you be paying back more bitcoins in what you borrow, plus interest. If you borrow bitcoins and then you're paying, well, you know, you'd actually, oh, your debt wouldn't. I mean, if you borrow a hundred bitcoins in the future, you have to pay back only a hundred bitcoins. Even if a hundred bitcoins is, you say you borrow a hundred bitcoins and a bitcoins worth a dollar. And then a year later, you have to pay back a hundred bitcoins. And now bitcoins worth ten dollars. You still only have to pay back a hundred bitcoins. It depends on your loan agreement, I guess. What if you what if you spent your bitcoins and had to buy some so you'd have to buy them at ten times the amount that you borrowed? Well, yeah, that's right. That's right. Exactly. It's true because the value would go up if you that's true. I mean, who knows? You know, it's about the excuse me. If you think about philosophical, maybe spiritual, if you will aspect of bitcoins, which I like to think about, perhaps borrowing will never be in its future because that whole idea of borrowing and interest, it's kind of weird anyway. There's some will, you know, as you know, with the whole there's a will juxtaposition about lending people dollars and then paying them back more with interest. Spiritually, it's kind of a weird thing. Well, sure, it used to be banned by all the main religions. You know, historically, it was absolutely banned as a sin. And it has been a crime in the past and so on. But now it's just a way of life. Because they figured out that it could be used to really enslave people. If I can keep you owing me more and more and more, you're in debt to the company store and all that, I mean, then you're just basically just a slave. Life only has, we only have so many years on this planet. So all I have to do is lock you up for a good, you know, 60 years. And I have all of your working years that you are enslaved to me. If I can just keep you owing more and more and more. Now, the US dollar has the opposite problem. I mean, basically, it's the same thing. If you spend the dollars, you still have to pay back the dollars. But in a way, it's true that I guess that would be an advantage. If you spend all the dollars, you have to pay them back. You can the dollars worth less. So you're right. But on the other hand, it's not an incentive to borrow, is it? With Bitcoin, that's what the banks are doing now. They're they're inflating the monetary system. So they're paying back their their debt with dollars that are worth less. That's how they that's how they deal with it. That's why they're they're big on inflating. It's it's it's the part of the model. Right. So you're right. I mean, maybe with Bitcoin going, if it if it continues to like ever increase in value, it will be a real negative incentive or disincentive to borrow Bitcoin. You could borrow dollars. People, I know people who are borrowing dollars to buy Bitcoin. They're literally going, getting a cash advance and maxing out their credit cards to buy Bitcoin. You know, that does make sense. If that if it goes up. Yeah, just like you can borrow you can borrow money on a credit card at two percent interest and buy gold. And it's a pretty interesting thing to do these people would do the same thing with gold and people do the same thing with silver. But isn't it? I mean, you know, these numbers, because you watch them every and like I know in your show, he told me that they do the price of gold every day in the price of silver. And now you're doing the price of Bitcoin every day on your show, right? Right. Oh, wow, that's great. That's so cool. So is it tell me if these numbers are right? Approximately silver went up. Wait, gold went up 25 percent last year. Silver went up about 50 percent. I'd have to look at the charts in front of me. But it's it's it's pretty close. Silver was all the way up to 50 bucks about two months ago. It's back now to thirty five dollars. They really banged it down with selling the naked shorts from JP. But gold just keeps trudging forward at fifteen hundred bucks. Just keeps that there's not been a big correction with gold. So they're selling paper, basically paper silver that doesn't necessarily exist as what happens is JP Morgan and the other owners of the Federal Reserve Bank, they have a unlimited supply of dollars, Bruce, so they they can bet that silver is going to go down without owning silver called a naked short. And then that's how they drive the price down. They like to keep these prices down because if they get too high, people get scared and it's and they like to keep people thinking everything is cool. Right, because if they see silver and gold going way, way up and the dollar continues to go down, then too many people might want to flee the dollar. And that's it's like a thermostat. It's kind of like the oil prices at the gasoline prices of the gas pump. They want to raise it, raise it, raise it until right before people are so angry, they're going to start taking to the streets. Then they all of a sudden they drop it a bit. It's it's like it's almost like you're dealing with your spouse and you're turning up the temperature and she wants it lower. You want it higher. So you just crank it up just a teeny bit, teeny bit until she started screaming about it, then you just kick it back a little bit because that way they can just keep raising and raising and raising until somebody screams and then they bring it back a little bit and then they just keep raising and raising and raising. And eventually that that's how they guarantee that they are charging the absolute most they can for oil when that people are willing to pay without rioting. Right. And similarly, they want to they don't want silver and gold to go up so fast that people just flee in mass from the dollar to gold and silver. Yeah, free market is it's a is oxymoron. It doesn't happen. Yeah, because it's so manipulated. Yeah, they're just kind of manipulating the commodities. It's all it's all controlled and it's controlled by the plunge protection team which came into existence. I think what they're in Reagan and those are the boys. We call them the boys that do this. What I wonder if this could happen with Bitcoin. Do you think Bitcoin could? How could it? Let's see. What do you say? Well, I guess it could. I mean, someone, if they wanted to drive the price down, they could certainly take a hundred thousand dollars. But let's see. What would they only if there's going to be a market of derivatives market on Bitcoin where you can sell it short or bet that it's going to go up. But I would I would advise the Bitcoin community not to get involved in that kind of stuff. So those are the derivatives and I would keep it clean. Of course, people could create their own derivative paper just like to do with rich back security so you couldn't stop them. So that's right. You can't really stop them. And I think that there has been talk about people doing that. So that could be I mean, how does a derivative market affect the market? Excuse me. Let me let me let me say something. I wasn't correct there. The reason the boys can manipulate silver because it's traded on the Comix, which is a they own Comix. So if the boys, the powers that be, do not own the trading platforms, it doesn't matter if they do bets on the side. It's just like going to Vegas. It doesn't affect the price. Right. Makes sense. Yeah, that's what I didn't understand because if you're doing bets on the side, it shouldn't affect the actual item, the value of it. It will not. No. But see, they do it within Comix. Oh, because they own the market. Well, no, I mean, so they could take a million dollars and say, OK, I'm going to bet a million dollars that silver is going to go down. And that that gets integrated into the Comix that I'm reading right now in front of me the price. And that's what drives the price down. OK. Just like in just like in trade hill, if somebody would sell a million bitcoins for less than what they're worth, which would be dumb, it would drive the price down. Well, that's what happened actually at Mt. Cox when the hacker broke into the account, right? He sold all of them for a penny a piece and that made it artificially made the price go down. But that's an argument for not having one central exchange. If there's multiple, multiple exchanges, then only that one exchange will be affected and people can see through it. They'll go, well, look, all the other exchanges are fine. It's just that one exchange that's being manipulated, right? Yes, in other words, if somebody really wanted to drive the price of bitcoins down, they would have to spend real money out of their bank account like a million dollars and but see, it still doesn't make sense. They'd have to buy bitcoins and then sell them. I guess they could theoretically. But even then, it would only affect that one market. I mean, well, there would be a little bit of a ripple effect with people panic selling on other markets, but it wouldn't be a direct impact on any other market but the one. Really? Now, wait a minute, let me understand. So are you saying that if somebody goes on trade hill, buys a million bitcoins for 17 dollars and whatever that dollar amount is and then wants to drive the price down and sells them for five cents and loses their million dollars that it doesn't affect the worldwide price of bitcoins? Well, I mean, not directly because it will affect the I mean, first of all, if they buy a million dollars worth of bitcoins, that's on trade hill, then that will affect the price on trade hill because that makes it go up. Yeah, that'll make it go up. And that's first of all, it makes it go up. And then later, if they sell it, that'll make the price. If they sell it on trade hill, that'll make the price on trade hill go down. So I mean, it's that's the market. But that's just trade hill that there are other other exchange sites. There's Mt. Gox and others are they're springing up like crazy. And so as there are more and more and more exchange sites appear on the scene, then there'll be less and less influenced by one unless unless they do this on all the exchanges at once. They would I mean, but the thing is for them to have that much Bitcoin, they would have to buy it on all the markets first and bring and inflate the I mean, bring the price up just so they could bring the price down. I don't I don't know. I don't really know how that let me let me ask because I I'm beginning to get a clearer picture. I had the wrong impression. So I was lucky. I've been looking at Mt. Gox and Bitcoin amounts, values. But you're saying that these are separate trading platforms and each one is only dependent on what is being bought and sold on that platform. They're not connected. And that's the beauty. That's the beauty of not having a central bank. That's right. It's like it's almost like each one is its own little New York Stock Exchange, but there's not just one. There's many. So if there are many exchanges, then beautiful thing, what a beautiful thing. Absolutely. That's a beautiful thing. I just got a light bulb this one up. That's very cool. Well, to me, it sounds like, OK, so you're you're getting an understanding of Bitcoin and I'm trying to do the opposite. I'm trying to get an understanding of how it works with with these derivatives and all this crazy Wall Street mumbo jumbo. To me, it sounds to me like what you're saying is this Comex is like a market for derivatives and they own it. And it sounds to me like it's corrupt because if they can actually manipulate the market and there's really only one de facto standard market and they're manipulating it through their own transactions behind the scenes, that just sounds like like a corrupt exchange is what it sounds like to me. But I don't know. I mean, I don't really understand how it works. No, you're right. It's just a choice of words, Bruce. It is corrupt in its pure essence, but it is legal. And I could I can call my broker right now and say, I'd like to bet. I'd like to buy, you know, four hundred thousand barrels of oil on paper and have the ability to sell them at one hundred and twenty five dollars a barrel come next March. And that will that will drive the price up a little bit. And then I can start a war and then and then people get scared and they think they're going to run out of oil and it goes up to one hundred and twenty five bucks and they make money. So there you have it. That's like the essence of banking. It's corruption that is legal. It's like corruption and manipulation and slavery and using indebtedness. It's legal. I mean, the whole this is the whole economic crisis is basically corruption that is legal. So I want to get clear on this because this is a big point because I just rocked this and I think this is this for me. This really adds some really more value to bitcoins. OK, OK, so you you're going to have all of these different trading platforms out there, Mount Cox, Trade Hill, there might be a hundred. Right. So so there are a thousand. There won't be a central place where somebody could go in Bill Gates and buy five million dollars worth of bitcoins. I mean, he could do it on a hundred or. But I'm saying without it, without a wow, without a central authority, it really is a lot more stable. Right. And also remember, most transactions do not happen on these exchange sites. Most have most happened between Fred and Marge and Tony and Sue, ordinary people who buy and sell bitcoins among themselves. They're friends and neighbors. They meet on that BTC near me dot com. And if you go to bitcoin me dot com and click buy and sell, you'll see how to meet somebody locally. And they buy and sell, you know, in exchange currency for bitcoins. It's not on any market. So I mean, it's independent on the market values that are there. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, like I say, there are major markets now. But yeah, there could be hundreds. There could be thousands of markets in all countries all over the world. I mean, who knows? Iceland could have its own, you know, major market. I mean, there are markets all over that are springing up. That's cool. No, I like that. So in other words, if I buy bitcoins at ten dollars, a hundred of them, and you want to buy them tomorrow from Patrick at 17, because that's the price. That doesn't affect the price at all, because it's it's not on a trading platform. Right. It's just, you know, it's what we agree on. It's just like gold and silver. You know what, Patrick, we were out of time. Oh, my gosh, we got to do this again because, you know, this is great. I enjoyed it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's so much. Every time we talk, we learn, we learn and teach and learn and teach. That's what we're all about. Well, thanks for joining us today. We're out of time, but we're going to do it again and we're going to have you on every week, every Wednesday at 10 a.m. on the real world of money. So thanks for joining us today. Thank you. We really, really appreciate you taking the time. OK, see you guys all tomorrow at 2 p.m. But yes. And also stay tuned at 4 p.m. Eastern for the Spanish Language Bitcoin Show called El Show de Bitcoin. See you guys tomorrow.