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0:11

Common sense isn't all that common but

0:13

today we're gonna load up on it with our guest

0:15

Bruce Fenton the co-host of the Satoshi

0:18

roundtable and founder of multiple

0:20

financial organizations Bruce has been

0:22

in Bitcoin since 2013 he's

0:25

got interesting insight into where we've been

0:27

where we are and where we may be going

0:30

It's an optimistic look at the future with some

0:32

content that may offend. So

0:34

what else is new? That's what we do on this

0:36

show. So welcome to episode number

0:41

694 of the bad crypto podcast

0:56

Hey

1:11

gang, welcome to the bad crypto podcast

1:14

the show for the crypto curious in the crypto serious

1:16

Joel Tom here Travis right there and

1:19

We got a great interview today with

1:22

Bruce and Travis maybe we should give

1:24

some listener warnings right up front. What

1:26

do you think? Yeah. Well,

1:29

we here's the deal Bruce

1:31

ran for senator of New

1:34

Hampshire And so he's very great

1:36

political ideas And so this podcast

1:38

is a little more political than usual,

1:40

but that's okay because that's

1:41

life and you can listen to it right here So let's

1:44

yeah Well, I want to challenge you guys

1:46

as you listen to this that you know If

1:49

you don't like some of the ideas you hear push

1:51

through Listen, and if

1:53

you hear us being absolute about some

1:55

things and you think it's crazy go research

1:58

it for yourself Go actually research it

1:59

Don't just listen to what the media has

2:02

told you or what social media through

2:04

their censored lens has given you go

2:07

research it For yourself

2:09

and what you discover might be very surprising.

2:12

So here we go Bruce Fenton

2:17

So there's a lot to talk about in the world

2:19

and in the world of blockchain and crypto And

2:22

so we have invited Bruce Fenton

2:24

the founder and CEO of chain stone

2:26

labs to the show to discuss

2:28

all the things He's a cypherpunk stockbroker

2:31

managing director at watchdog capital

2:34

founder of Atlantic financial and co-host

2:37

of the Satoshi Roundtable it's

2:39

a retreat that gathers developers CEOs

2:41

founders academics investors and other

2:43

nerds and geeks He's been doing it for 10 years.

2:46

He found Bitcoin 10 years ago.

2:48

That's when he went in full-time in 2013 And

2:52

he has been the executive director and board

2:54

member for the Bitcoin Foundation

2:56

a whole lot of credentials I'm not even sharing

2:58

all of them with you Bruce. Welcome

3:01

to the Republic of bad Cryptopia

3:03

good, sir Thank you for having

3:05

me good to see you guys Yeah, there's man

3:07

There is a lot to talk

3:10

about and I could I could lead

3:12

and and ask a question But

3:14

my question is gonna be what's on your mind

3:16

right now? I want to with

3:18

all this turmoil

3:20

going on How you feeling?

3:23

Well, I'm feeling good. I think

3:25

it's an interesting time to be sure it's

3:28

a time of epic change it's a time of craziness

3:30

and chaos and In our

3:32

industry, especially there's never a dull moment But

3:35

you know if you zoom out our world is in a very

3:37

very interesting place right now and it's

3:39

changing

3:40

Probably more rapidly than anybody alive has seen,

3:42

you know

3:43

These are the kind of things that happen every century

3:45

or so, you

3:46

know There's been a lot of books and historical

3:48

theory written about this the fourth turning is one of my

3:50

favorites You know this concept of a fourth turning

3:53

every hundred years or so when the world shakes up

3:55

and changes and that's what we're going Through right

3:57

now. So it's it's a big deal

4:00

Fourth turning indeed. First of all, thank you

4:02

so much for coming on the show. Like we're really grateful.

4:05

We were chatting with you on

4:07

an event. I said, Hey, dude, I think we were on a

4:09

Twitter space and I was like, Hey, I would love for you to come

4:11

on back crypto. We've not had a

4:13

chance to chat with you yet. We've been doing this for

4:16

six years. So

4:17

thanks for coming on, buddy. Yeah,

4:19

by all means, glad to be here.

4:21

Yeah, so I want to talk way back

4:23

Bruce Fenton, right? Because we did research

4:26

on on you and Atlantic Financial, like

4:28

you were doing this stuff in the real old

4:30

world of finance from like 94

4:34

to the great crash of 2008. So maybe describe a

4:36

little bit of that way. And

4:40

then when you discovered Bitcoin,

4:42

like tell us what was that process you went through? Yeah,

4:46

I started really early. My

4:48

mom was a stockbroker

4:51

starting back in the 70s. So as a little kid,

4:53

I was raised on the floor of a brokerage firm, starting

4:55

at age five every day. Trading places style, huh? You

4:59

got it every day after school. You

5:01

know, it was even the same firm in that movie.

5:04

Pursuit of Happiness. Dean Witter was

5:06

where my mom worked. That's where I got my first job. It

5:09

later acquired Morgan Stanley and took the Morgan Stanley

5:11

name.

5:12

But I started, you

5:13

know, basically as a kid, and then I got my first

5:15

job when I was 14 stuffing

5:18

envelopes and being an assistant to brokers and then I got

5:20

licensed at age 19. That was

5:22

just over 30 years ago. So I've been registered

5:25

with the SEC or FINRA in some form

5:27

for about 30 years. So I have a lot of traditional

5:30

finance experience. You know, I've worked with a lot of companies like

5:32

Fidelity and large private equity firms and

5:34

I've served clients every everywhere from people

5:36

with $50 to, you know, 500

5:38

billion, you know, working with some

5:40

of the biggest sovereign funds and some of the wealthiest people in the

5:42

world. And then

5:44

I got into Bitcoin. I was always interested in

5:46

emerging markets and emerging technologies. So I was

5:48

interested in the Internet when it first,

5:51

you know, the information superhighway first came

5:53

about and I was investing in Internet stocks

5:55

and I was lucky enough to call the

5:57

sort of the boom and the bust.

5:59

that it was getting too overhyped. And

6:02

then I followed emerging markets. So I looked

6:04

at areas like the Middle East

6:06

and Dubai before it was built up. And

6:08

then emerging technologies, which

6:11

brought me to Bitcoin. And I was always also very libertarian

6:14

oriented and free market oriented. So

6:16

Bitcoin was a natural fit. That's how I originally

6:18

found out about it. Like many people through kind of, you

6:21

know, Liberty circles and and caps were some

6:23

of the only people interested in it a decade

6:25

ago. And then I've been sort

6:27

of full time in the in the Bitcoin crypto

6:30

space ever since. I'm particularly interested in Bitcoin

6:32

and particularly interested in securities because securities

6:35

is my background. So anything that combines those

6:37

things is something that that I'm

6:39

interested in.

6:41

So 10 years ago, I'm sure

6:43

like all of us when we discover Bitcoin,

6:45

you considered it revolutionary. And

6:47

you saw, wow, this is this is a way

6:50

forward for for payments

6:52

and sovereignty and

6:55

decentralization in the future.

6:57

Ten years on, are you

6:59

where

7:01

are we where you thought

7:03

we would be? And

7:07

is your

7:08

your vision for

7:10

where Bitcoin is going to take us? Has it increased

7:12

or is there doubt because of all

7:14

of, you know, what's happening, especially with

7:17

the U.S. government?

7:19

You know, in some ways we're ahead. In some ways, I

7:21

wish we were further. I you

7:23

know, I wish that the I would have thought that

7:25

by now that everything would

7:27

be tokenized in the world. I thought that that securities

7:30

and all the global stocks, including

7:33

things that are traded and not traded,

7:35

would have been tokenized. I think that's a natural

7:37

fit.

7:38

I think Bitcoin has done quite well. I think,

7:40

you know, imagining it twenty six thousand is is

7:43

kind of amazing, you know, when in those

7:45

early days we were lucky if it was above one

7:47

hundred. So price wise,

7:49

I think that's exciting to have these big institutions

7:51

like the Fidelity's and the Black Rocks and the sailors

7:53

of the world. I think and

7:56

you know, big sovereign funds and governments talking about

7:58

it, I think is a is a big achievement.

7:59

And I've always thought that Bitcoin

8:02

was,

8:03

in the early days, I used to say it's a binary play. I'm

8:05

like, this is either going to work or it's not going to work.

8:08

If it works, it's not going to be $1,000. It's

8:11

going to be significantly above that. And

8:13

I said that for many years, and every

8:17

day that goes by that Bitcoin doesn't

8:19

fail, that binary becomes

8:21

more likely on the positive side. So

8:24

the idea that, you know, this is either going to fail or succeed, it

8:27

seems a lot more likely to succeed every day

8:29

in those last 10 years. You know, if you go back to 2014 or

8:32

something like

8:33

that, you could have made a much stronger

8:35

argument that, hey, maybe this is just

8:37

a nonsensical thing and it's going to fail. You know, remember

8:39

the tulip bubble. People used to

8:41

compare it to the tulip bubble. That only lasted a few

8:44

years,

8:45

and Bitcoin's been around for 11, 12 years now. So,

8:49

you know, and it's kind of the format it is

8:51

now. So, you

8:54

know, I think that's a big deal. And I think that this binary

8:56

play is coming out on our side. So I think Bitcoin

8:58

is here to stay. I think it's a real asset

9:01

that will be, you know, in the world, just

9:03

like, you know, other currencies

9:06

and metals and things like that. It's here to stay. And

9:08

that's a big deal because the more people that understand that

9:10

narrative, the more we'll adopt

9:12

it and then hopefully it'll earn its place alongside

9:15

others as a major global

9:17

money. Yeah,

9:19

I love that. I love that. You know, there's

9:21

so much other

9:22

stuff that's going on, right, in the crypto space.

9:25

And I think it's like it seems the

9:27

more that we go down this trail, it's like, oh,

9:29

here's the story of Bitcoin. And then here's the

9:31

story of all these other cryptocurrencies,

9:34

right? And some of them

9:36

are just going, man, these are just going to fail, fall flat on their

9:38

face. Some of these, they're under

9:40

scrutiny from the SEC. They're

9:43

not securities, but maybe they are securities.

9:46

Now the SEC is going after people

9:48

who have launched NFT series, like Tom

9:50

Bill, you and that, you know, impact

9:52

theory,

9:52

making him, he's refunding all this money.

9:55

You know, they're going after, they're trying to go after DeFi

9:58

now.

9:59

You know, it seems like America has some things

10:02

backwards with, you know, how

10:04

they're looking at cryptocurrency. And I

10:06

want to, first of all, commend you for running

10:09

for, you know, the Republican Senator

10:11

candidate in New Hampshire

10:13

in 2022. And,

10:16

you know, we need more people who,

10:18

you know, kind of see the vision of future,

10:21

right? And technology

10:23

and how these things are emerging because it

10:26

seems like a lot of, you know, the US

10:28

government, they don't understand it. Congress

10:30

doesn't understand it. They don't understand what the

10:33

internet Facebook is yet. Are we on the

10:35

internet? Are we really on the internet if we're

10:37

on Facebooks? And you're like, wow, how

10:40

are these going to be the ones that are teaching us

10:42

and making regulation about crypto? You

10:44

know?

10:44

So it's just, this is so wild. What seems to be

10:46

going on in this stage right now? Yeah.

10:49

The lunatics have taken over the asylum. You

10:51

know, the America was never meant to have this huge

10:54

administrative state with a whole bunch

10:56

of technocrat bureaucrats. And

10:59

you know, they're all just lording over everybody and deciding

11:01

what you

11:01

can

11:03

do and who you can enter. You know, by this or that, I

11:05

mean, it's kind of gotten crazy and

11:08

you have these piles and piles of regulations created

11:11

by these bureaucrats that don't help the economy. And

11:14

they

11:15

cause quite a bit,

11:20

quite unfortunate that we have, you know, first of all,

11:23

it's unfortunate that the SEC is trying to declare

11:25

so

11:26

many things as security, and I think that's important

11:28

than that. You know, I love securities.

11:30

I told you my background, you know,

11:31

I've been in security.

11:33

Beautiful and wonderful.

11:36

It's one of the greatest inventions in human economic history.

11:39

The idea of, especially stocks, you know, stocks are securities

11:41

and stocks are a very, very,

11:44

stocks, you know, let me

11:46

know, because you're going to change the world

11:48

just like the India

11:49

company.

11:52

Stocks are a big

11:54

deal. We need to make them work better.

11:56

The tragedy is not just that they call everything

11:58

a security, it's... I'd like to see a

12:00

world where it doesn't matter if something's a security.

12:03

You say, okay, yeah, maybe it's a security, maybe not. Who

12:05

cares? Go ahead and trade it. Let people trade, let

12:07

the market decide, let

12:10

people have freedom. People want to, I thought a lot of, I

12:12

love the idea of NFTs, but I thought that many

12:14

of them were extremely stupid and absolutely

12:16

insane prices. I

12:19

was showing my art collection right

12:21

before, I have a Jack Kirby original on the

12:23

wall. If you're a comic book fan, you'll know

12:25

Jack Kirby is, you know,

12:27

the king of comics. And I

12:29

bought that for a fraction of what some of

12:31

these NFTs were going for. So as somebody who loves

12:33

art, I thought that the prices were crazy. But

12:35

as a Liberty person and a free market person, I

12:38

say, that's not my business. And it's certainly

12:40

not mother government's business. And I don't need

12:42

a bunch of tyrants stealing my wages so

12:45

that they can have a bunch of bureaucrats go chase

12:47

somebody for selling NFTs or buying NFTs. That's

12:50

not my problem. We just want to applaud

12:51

you on that one. That was nice because I think

12:53

that's a good idea. I applaud

12:55

you on that one. That was nice because- Thank you.

12:58

Mother government, they got their tentacles

13:00

in everything now. And it's like,

13:02

you know, I saw this really great image of the Capitol

13:05

building and underneath it were all these sort of tentacles

13:07

and roots that are just like connecting

13:10

to all these other sub organizations.

13:12

And it's almost to the point now, Bruce, in my opinion,

13:15

that America needs a capital, maybe

13:17

like in Topeka, Kansas or something. Get it out

13:19

of Washington, DC, because that whole area

13:21

is just like, that place needs an enema.

13:25

Oh yeah. You know, it's interesting. I

13:27

remember back in the eighties, my dad lived

13:29

down in DC and the

13:31

economy was doing quite well.

13:33

And DC was a mess.

13:36

It was terrible. It was all run down and

13:38

there was a lot of crime and it was kind of

13:40

falling apart. And, you know,

13:42

it was big news if they put in an Applebee's or

13:44

something like that. They had like fancy restaurants

13:47

that the lobbyists went to and then they'd

13:49

put in an Applebee's and it was big news. Well, now

13:51

you fast forward 30 years- When your mayor

13:53

was like doing crack, wasn't he? Like Marion Barry a lot

13:55

of the news. When

13:58

your mayor smoking crack, Bruce.

14:00

The city's not doing so good. But

14:03

you know, ironically, the

14:05

worst DC does, it seems like the better America

14:07

is. So now we have the opposite. Now DC is

14:09

this luxury palace filled with

14:12

fancy, there's fancy restaurants everywhere.

14:14

All the cars are $100,000 plus cars. Everybody's

14:18

making a fortune. There's a

14:20

bunch of very, very overpaid government

14:22

bureaucrats, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them.

14:25

And then there's extremely overpaid government

14:27

contractors making deck of millions and sometimes

14:30

billions of the backs of the working

14:32

Americans whose wages they steal. And

14:34

so, you know, the better

14:36

DC does, the worst America does, and

14:40

the better America does, the worst DC does. So I'd

14:42

like to suck all that money out of DC's

14:44

pockets

14:44

and back into the earners pockets,

14:47

the people who actually made that money, give it

14:49

back to the workers and let them run their

14:51

own lives.

14:52

But you know, all you gotta do is look at the trend lines,

14:55

you know, to see where we are

14:58

as a country and they're

15:00

not good. And, you know,

15:02

typically trend reversals

15:04

take some sort of major

15:07

event in order for them to happen.

15:10

Right? There's no sign of the

15:12

money printers slowing. There's no

15:14

sign of the regulators

15:17

giving power back to

15:19

the people that that is ours

15:21

to have and not theirs

15:22

to take.

15:24

So in Bitcoin, you know, stands

15:27

on the side here is this

15:30

threat to them, but now even the

15:32

large institutions are throwing

15:34

their head in the ring. What's it gonna take? And

15:36

is it even possible at this point to

15:39

turn things around or are we

15:41

facing the dystopian

15:44

social credit score hellscape

15:47

that the films that Hollywood

15:49

has predicted for these past decades?

15:53

We've gotta be optimistic because

15:55

we are headed down a path where we're gonna

15:57

go one way or another. It is a time of epic change.

15:59

just like I said, Bitcoin's binary, kind of the world

16:02

is binary now. We are not going,

16:04

it is not the status quo. As of 2020, the

16:06

world is changing and it's gonna keep changing.

16:08

It's not just gonna go back to quote unquote normal.

16:11

2019 is gone. Our

16:13

world is never going to look like that again. And

16:16

every year that goes by, if you look at things that,

16:18

you know, from the past, they're

16:20

gonna look more and more weird because that world

16:22

is

16:24

friendly now, their styles are differently, they communicate

16:27

differently, everything's different. And

16:29

so it's very, very important for us to get this right

16:31

in this epic time of change. I'm optimistic.

16:33

I think the United States has gone through tough

16:36

times before in the thirties. We almost

16:38

elected Nazis and socialists to

16:41

government. In 1968, we had the

16:43

assassination of two major leaders and, you

16:45

know, civil rights turmoil and war

16:48

and all kinds of things, but we've come

16:50

out of it. So, you know, I look at it from an American

16:52

centric approach because I'm American.

16:54

I really hope that we come

16:56

out of this. I support Vivek Ramaswamy.

16:59

I think that somebody like that could, you

17:01

know, that's all it takes. You elect him as

17:03

president. Boom, it's all fixed. He doesn't have a chance.

17:06

So he doesn't have a chance. I mean, I like

17:08

the guy a lot, too. But right now, let's

17:10

face it, Trump is going to be the candidate.

17:13

The only way he's not is that they actually

17:15

are able to, you know, convict him as

17:17

a felon and he can't run.

17:20

But otherwise, he's going to be the guy he's

17:23

pulling away. So

17:25

with that said, would he fix it

17:27

if he went back a second time? Is it is like

17:30

are the gloves off like, all right, I

17:32

did this once. You guys screwed me. Now

17:34

I'm taking you all down.

17:36

I think he might try. I wish he would have

17:38

been more effective at doing it before. You know, he

17:40

didn't really drain the swamp. He didn't even fire Fousie.

17:42

You know, I'm not I support Trump if he gets

17:44

the nomination. But, you

17:47

know, I wish he would have done a better job of not firing

17:49

Fousie. In my opinion, he's inexcusable. Operation

17:52

War Speed was a failure. You

17:54

know, he just didn't he just didn't didn't quite do it.

17:56

And I wouldn't care.

17:58

But when he was at point oh. two percent

18:01

and now he's ahead of DeSantis out of nowhere

18:03

and you know

18:05

it is early yet. The history is littered

18:07

you know here up here in New Hampshire we have the first in the

18:09

nation primary and if you look at this

18:11

time of year in previous primaries the

18:14

front runner is not a good place to be. You

18:16

know we have we have dozens of front runners you

18:18

know John Edwards and Bob Dole and you

18:21

know Mario Cuomo and all these people who were

18:23

absolutely thought for sure to

18:26

be the nominee. Bill Clinton was in ninth

18:28

place when he was in his primary and

18:30

he ended up winning his primary so

18:32

I wouldn't count out anything. The world is a crazy

18:35

place you know Trump is older there's any

18:37

number of different things that could happen. I

18:39

think it would be extremely unfortunate

18:41

if they do stop him from

18:43

running. They're already trying in a couple states

18:46

some of the AGs are saying that they might take him off the

18:48

ballot. If that happens then then all

18:50

the more if they make it so he can't run

18:52

I think his supporters would go to the

18:54

vague and then I think we really really really

18:57

would need him to win just to unite the country

18:59

and avoid you

19:00

know the unthinkable kind of kind

19:03

of you know total chaos. Yeah

19:05

so well I

19:07

want to tell you this Bruce I think that

19:09

you know I love

19:11

the idea I love the sentiment behind it but

19:14

it always comes back to this people going yeah

19:16

vote harder you can vote

19:18

more and it'll be great and I'm like

19:21

and that works out nicely until

19:24

it seems to only happen in the key

19:26

swing states where this stuff is so noticeable

19:28

and these issues are popping up you know if you've watched 200

19:31

mules you know that elections

19:33

aren't ran fairly right now so

19:36

it's like how do we combat that how do

19:38

we realize that hey the money

19:41

system in politics is

19:43

are broken there's so much corruption

19:46

how do we disrupt this?

19:49

Well it's good that you're talking about it for one thing

19:51

a lot of people are afraid to say and

19:53

it's it's unfortunate it shouldn't even

19:55

be a partisan issue everything's so partisan now

19:58

but you know the the Democrats had valid

20:01

concerns about voting machines and

20:03

a whole bunch of other stuff six, seven years ago.

20:05

And, you know, then they switched their

20:08

tune when it when it was to their advantage. And

20:10

that's unfortunate, because there is problems. You

20:12

know, I don't trust this, this idea that you

20:14

send out hundreds and hundreds of thousands of ballots

20:16

by mail is just absurd. You know, you can't track

20:19

the chain of command. You

20:21

know, chain of custody on those. So

20:23

It's like some sort of numbering system that we're

20:25

tied to it and easily trackable

20:28

and blockchain

20:30

can literally edit where it's anonymous,

20:32

but open source, there's got to be a way.

20:35

Yeah, well, even paper ballots going back

20:37

to regular paper ballots, having a national

20:39

voting day and paper ballots would would

20:42

would do immense

20:43

work to make these elections more clear.

20:46

But you know, I am concerned

20:48

about it. You know, I think there's and I wonder

20:50

how much corruption there is down ballot,

20:53

you know, in the Senate and the Congress races,

20:55

and even some of the local races and other things

20:57

like that, you know, I don't trust the whole system,

21:00

you know, and I don't know how anybody does, frankly, you

21:02

know, this this wrote line that the media

21:04

says, like, our elections are fair and secure.

21:07

It's like, it's this point of pride. But I

21:09

mean, you go into the election thing. I mean, it's

21:11

run by a bunch of 90 year old volunteers.

21:13

It's, you

21:16

know, there's there's not much technology, it

21:18

looks very, you know,

21:21

rough around the edges, you know, I just

21:23

don't trust it at all for some. Well, it's also

21:26

Bruce, it's also run by 22 year old activists,

21:29

right? This is there's it's

21:31

not good either way. And of course, voter

21:33

ID is not, you know, a

21:36

law, because apparently, requiring

21:39

people to have voter ID is racist,

21:42

which I think is so insulting to people,

21:45

you know, that would solve it. And you know, we always

21:47

talked about, hey, if you have voting on

21:49

blockchain, now you got your one person

21:51

one vote, and, and it can

21:53

secure our elections so much better.

21:55

Yeah, my grandma just passed

21:58

away. And now apparently she's going to be voting Democrat.

21:59

Right now. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Maybe she's going

22:02

to vote two or three times. Yeah. Yes. And

22:06

this is the problem. And believe it or not,

22:08

there are people out there that call

22:10

this a conspiracy theory. The most

22:12

obvious thing in the world that there is

22:14

voter fraud, that you've got these machines,

22:17

that you've got these mail in ballots, that you've

22:19

got people running things.

22:21

If you don't understand now that human nature

22:24

is corrupt, then, you

22:26

know, you're not living on planet Earth. And

22:28

I just don't understand.

22:29

Well, it's like this. Yeah,

22:31

it's like this. Once they tell you what

22:33

you can't think about or talk about, then

22:35

that's when you should be thinking about that,

22:38

because there's clearly something there they don't want you

22:40

to think about.

22:41

Yeah. Yeah. If the election was clean,

22:43

why are they acting exactly the way

22:45

you would act if it was a fraud? I mean, what kind of

22:48

what kind of country

22:49

ends discussion of the election? I

22:51

mean, they were they were banning people off

22:53

of social media at the direction of the

22:56

FBI and the DOJ for

22:58

talking about the election. That's not

23:00

what an honest election does. I mean, if

23:02

you if you're honest, what you would have done and

23:04

say, hold on there. Hold on

23:06

there, Donald. Come on in right

23:08

now. We're going to sit this down. Bring your lawyers.

23:10

We're going to have a six hour meeting and we're going to

23:12

hash this out right now. A long,

23:15

long, long form discussion.

23:17

And we're going to see what the truth is. That's the way you do.

23:19

You're telling the truth. But

23:22

that's literally the opposite of what they did. They

23:24

they boot the guy off of social media. They don't

23:26

let him talk. They arrest his lawyers. You know,

23:28

that's the kind of thing a banana republic does. And

23:30

I think it's so important for us to be speaking

23:32

out. You know, one of the things I was very outspoken

23:35

during my campaign. And I said a lot of controversial

23:38

things, but I kind of wish I would have done more.

23:40

You know, there were certain things, certain issues that I was careful

23:42

about. And, you know, you do the kind of classic

23:45

I call it the 90s politician style nonsense,

23:48

which is, you know, Mike Pence is

23:49

a master of the 90s style politician.

23:51

You know, where you say things that aren't really substantive,

23:54

but you say I'm in a very slick and

23:57

important sounding way, you

23:59

know.

23:59

And that's

24:02

just nonsense and we need more substance

24:05

and we need to call out the

24:06

truth. We need to call out stuff on this

24:08

gender insanity. We need

24:10

to call out stuff on this idea,

24:13

for example, that one six is a coup.

24:15

It's not a coup. It's not a coup. It's just

24:17

not. It's a coup. It's

24:19

a stupidest coup in the history of the world. You

24:21

think somebody who's in charge of the army name. I love how they

24:24

grew down between the stanchions on

24:26

the red road carpet. It was like, oh yeah, that was

24:28

the most polite insurrection ever

24:30

when they're walking in between the velvet rope. Yeah,

24:32

but most people haven't seen that video, Trav,

24:35

because the mainstream media

24:36

doesn't show that video on social

24:38

media. Dude, that's so true, man. It's not

24:41

just walking down through the

24:43

velvet rope. It's in the

24:45

Capitol building in the Rotunde. Escored

24:47

it around. Escored around. They're being very friendly

24:50

with the police. They're shaking their hands.

24:52

But if you haven't seen that and

24:55

you see that, that's the moment that

24:57

your brain might go, just wait

24:59

a second. This does not compute. This is not

25:02

what I believed. This is not what I was told.

25:05

And there's a lot of people that are trapped in

25:07

the matrix still. And

25:09

getting them out, boy, it's

25:12

really hard to do.

25:13

Once somebody's been lied to, it's kind of twice

25:15

as hard to get them to accept

25:18

that that was a lie. And they also,

25:21

I've seen this many, many, many times where

25:23

you point out something that is a clear and

25:25

total lie. And then they still have the negative

25:28

feeling. Have you ever met somebody and you think

25:30

they're a jerk or something, and then you learn

25:32

you were mistaken and then you still kind of feel like

25:34

they're a jerk? That's the way it is with

25:37

the media only. It's 24 seven times 10,000.

25:40

So for example, you know what? I'm telling Joel feels about

25:42

me now still. Exactly.

25:46

They had this thing, perfect example. They said

25:48

that Biden repeated this

25:51

line saying that Trump said that neo-Nazis

25:53

and white nationalists are fine people. That's been

25:55

repeated hundreds of times. And that is

25:58

not true. Do you know what Bruce?

25:59

fraud. I have a somebody

26:02

very close to me that,

26:04

um, when the election happened, they

26:07

told me that I was literally supporting

26:09

Hitler and I confronted them, um, just

26:12

last month. They say, you know, during

26:15

the election in 2016, you said

26:17

this, and the fact that you think that I would, you

26:19

know, literally support somebody who

26:21

was literally Hitler, you know, hurt my feelings.

26:23

You know what they said to me? They said,

26:26

there are very fine people. And

26:29

I just wanted to scream. I'm like,

26:32

Oh

26:32

my gosh, all these years

26:35

later, your head is so far up your

26:37

ass that you are totally unaware.

26:40

And it's, it's incredibly frustrating.

26:43

Yeah. There's a good number of people that aren't aware. And

26:45

that one is such an obvious hoax and there's

26:47

so many people that still aren't aware. And

26:49

you can, I've pulled out the transcript and I say, look,

26:52

one sentence later in the next paragraph,

26:54

he said, I am not talking about neo-Nazis

26:57

and fine people who should be condemned entirely.

26:59

That that's it period. When you say

27:01

that in a statement, you are, you are clearly

27:04

and absolutely not saying they are fine people.

27:06

He even went out of his way to clarify it. Cause he knew

27:08

that the fake news would try and twist

27:10

that quote around. And I show

27:13

that to people and he's the problem. They look at it

27:15

and say, Oh yeah, or mumble, mumble.

27:17

Well, he's still bad. He's still

27:19

terrible guy.

27:20

You know, the damage has already been done because

27:22

they, if you believe somebody's a racist for

27:24

three years, because you, you saw this

27:26

fake quote and then you realize it's

27:28

fake, you still, it doesn't erase that, that

27:31

time of three years thinking they're racist. And

27:33

you multiply that by 10,000. That's

27:35

what you have with Trump. Fork in the road happened

27:37

where people started thinking that Trump was a racist.

27:40

It was when Hillary was, they were having a hard

27:42

time versus Trump. And so they

27:45

hired Robert Cialdini, the

27:47

dude who wrote the book about influence.

27:49

And basically

27:50

they consult, he consulted with

27:52

the Hillary campaign. Next thing

27:54

you know, they're coming out and hitting him with all this racist

27:56

stuff. And then I called out Robert

27:59

Cialdini on Twitter.

27:59

on it on one tweet and boom, he immediately

28:02

blocked me. And I think that that was what he

28:05

used the power of influence to create

28:07

this perception about Trump and the media

28:09

just ran with it. He's a horrible person.

28:12

He's a horrible person. The facts don't match up

28:14

to the perception that the media sells you sometimes.

28:16

It's unbelievable.

28:18

Yeah, they do the same with COVID.

28:20

They do the same with the trans issues. They do

28:22

the same with everything and

28:24

Russia, Russia, Russia. And I

28:27

should have tweeted on it because I said, boy, this is weird and

28:29

suspicious. I bet you in six months, that's all they're

28:31

going to be talking about is Russia. Sure enough, they

28:33

just kept drip, drip, dripping on this story,

28:35

Russia, Russia, Russia. And then it becomes part

28:38

of the woke consciousness and

28:40

part of the mainstream. It's a social contagion,

28:42

Bruce. It really is. It's

28:44

almost like how you're talking about the transgender thing.

28:47

I saw a graphic that they map like based

28:50

on the generations, you know, the boomers

28:52

and Generation X and millennials

28:54

and Z and what percentage

28:56

of them identify as being

28:58

LGBT or whatever. And so like people

29:01

who were born before 1946, it's like one, one,

29:05

two percent. And then like, you

29:07

know, the boomers, maybe three percent.

29:09

And then like the Gen X, like maybe three and a half

29:11

percent. But Gen Z,

29:14

it's like 20, almost 25% of

29:16

people identify as LGBT. It's

29:18

because of a social contagion that's sort of

29:20

planted, it's like the plant a little

29:22

seed, water the seed. And then you grow

29:24

this huge thing like they did with climate change

29:27

and everything else. So it's just wild

29:29

how the media manipulates us. And

29:31

now they have algorithms that can help them

29:33

to manipulate how we think.

29:35

And that's why it's so important to talk to speak out

29:38

early about craziness. And we're

29:40

surrounded by craziness so much. It's our responsibility

29:43

when people say insane things to say, no,

29:46

there are two sexes.

29:47

No, it was not a coup.

29:50

You know, it's it's important

29:52

to just flat out say what is true and

29:54

get people talking about I don't think we have enough discussion

29:57

in the world. It's great that you have. programs

30:00

like this podcasts and things are popular

30:02

now. I think we need more of that. And we need more with

30:04

adversaries because there's a lot of people who believe things that are

30:07

just fundamentally not true. And

30:09

they're easily proven not, not to

30:11

be true. But it's important that they, that

30:13

they hear. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, again,

30:16

people, everybody's just yelling at each other. I mean,

30:19

we've been beating the drum on this show

30:21

for years and people have called us conspiracy

30:23

theorists and turns out we're batting a thousand,

30:26

you know, we're not on here saying the earth is flat.

30:28

We're not on here saying

30:29

that, you know, birds aren't real. Like we're

30:32

not talking about stuff. We're talking about stuff that

30:34

is demonstrable. True. And we've lost a lot of listeners.

30:36

We've offended, you know, like we give a crap

30:39

people that turn away because

30:41

they can't stand to handle the

30:43

truth. They can't stand. And we've been grottled

30:46

and beat down Bruce. It's so unfair. I

30:49

know we're victims. We're victims. They

30:52

can't stop in, in look

30:54

and see that, you know, I'm finally at the place

30:56

with a Democrat party where I go, Oh my gosh,

30:58

this is the party that supports killing babies,

31:01

that supports mutilating children,

31:04

that supports inculcating mental

31:06

illness into the next generation. Like

31:08

this is,

31:09

these are, this is bad. And I'm not saying

31:11

Republicans are good, right? I'm

31:14

just saying there is outright evil taking

31:16

place on behalf of that party.

31:18

And for you to be able to say,

31:21

wag your finger at anything that

31:23

anybody on the other side is doing is just

31:26

pure lunacy to me.

31:28

Yeah, it really has jumped the shark.

31:30

You know, I sympathized with Democrats. I

31:32

was actually very anti-war. I was always a Republican

31:35

growing up, but I really didn't like

31:37

George W. Bush and the war.

31:40

And so I was, I was like an anti-war

31:42

activist basically. And I made a lot of Democrats

31:45

who were, you know, friends back in the,

31:47

in the day. And then once Obama

31:49

got in there, I learned that they weren't really anti-war

31:52

at all. They were just anti alphabet letter

31:54

R and they didn't care at all that Obama,

31:57

I went to all my

31:58

friends. I'm like, Hey, are we We protest

32:00

in this guy too for bombing people all over

32:02

the world. And they're like, Oh no, no, he's, he's one

32:04

of us. He's going to be by his

32:07

name. We love that.

32:08

Yeah, exactly. His one. It's

32:11

so true. Once people realize it,

32:14

I think it's like this, it's like 75, 80% of people

32:18

who are in Congress seem like they're part of

32:20

the party, you know, it's like the Democrats,

32:22

Republicans all kind of in the same gang, but

32:24

they like divide themselves up to

32:27

make it seem like they're not all on the

32:29

same team, but they all are kind of

32:31

really weird. Like, what is it like maybe 15%

32:33

of real politicians? Maybe.

32:36

Yeah, for sure. You know, it's weird for me to even

32:38

identify myself as a Republican. Cause I was always

32:40

an independent or a libertarian. I

32:42

declared Republican a year ago when I ran for

32:44

U S Senate, because you know, I wanted to be in

32:47

a, in a main party and the Republican is the obvious

32:49

fit. And I do like the Republicans that

32:51

the party has grown on me because there is a

32:54

growing Liberty wing. There's a very powerful

32:56

Liberty wing here in New Hampshire. We pretty much control

32:58

the state house. And in, uh, you

33:00

know, nationally in the federal level, there are,

33:03

you know, it used to be, just be Thomas Massey and Rand

33:05

Paul. Now you

33:06

have Jim Jordan and Emmer and, uh,

33:08

Ted Cruz and others that are either

33:10

Liberty or supporting, you know, Liberty leaning,

33:12

uh, in many ways. So, so

33:15

that's great, but

33:16

you're right. That's still maybe a minority

33:18

in the overall Republican party. There's, there's still

33:20

a big contingent of the, you know, McConnell

33:23

style Republicans that are really very

33:25

much the same as the Pelosi style

33:28

Democrats. You know, they're, they're uniparty establishment

33:30

hacks, uh, and something like McConnell,

33:32

you know, looms heavily. You know, when I ran for

33:35

office, everybody's like, Oh, don't criticize McConnell.

33:37

He'll,

33:37

he'll run his pack against you. Um,

33:39

you know, they have great control and that's, you

33:42

know, I don't have anything to do with those kinds of Republicans.

33:44

I'm a Liberty Republican. I'm much

33:46

more of a Thomas Massey type of person. It's a decentralized

33:49

Republican.

33:50

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

33:54

Change is definitely needed in the, the pendulum

33:56

needs to swing. And it needs

33:58

to swing hard and it needs.

33:59

needs to happen soon. I mean, I'm, I'm

34:02

of the mindset and I'd like to, I'm usually optimistic

34:04

as well, but if they're able to 81 million

34:07

votes, my ass

34:09

their way again

34:10

into the white house.

34:12

Um, I don't know. I mean,

34:15

they've moved so hard. I think it's even

34:17

more important, Joel, is all of these local,

34:19

you know, um, you know, candidates

34:21

that are winning that are all powered by

34:24

the same sort of George Soros funding

34:26

is like, Oh, I want these DAs to be so they're,

34:28

he's basically putting a hundred thousand dollars and

34:31

all of these different elections all across

34:33

at the small local levels that

34:35

are impacting these cities in horrible

34:37

ways. You know, like look at all this, a

34:39

lot of the homeless problems and all

34:42

the stuff that's happening in these major round blue

34:44

cities because they keep putting these

34:46

candidates in place. And a lot of times I don't

34:48

think they're elected, they're selected more so

34:51

and they're placed because they have all that

34:53

big money behind them because they're working on these little

34:55

local cases and set it and then work

34:58

way up to the big ones. So they ended up having this whole

35:00

freaking pyramid of insanity

35:02

going on.

35:03

Yeah. And I don't understand, I don't know if people

35:05

understand how important money is in this,

35:08

that Soros money and the Sam

35:10

money, you know, don't forget, Sam bankments stole a 30

35:13

million from customers and gave that to Democrats.

35:15

That kind of money is very, very significant

35:18

because political campaigns are

35:20

like, uh, marketing soda. You know,

35:22

it is a very, very well-proven,

35:25

uh, serious marketing business

35:27

with billions and billions and billions of dollars and

35:30

a lot of brilliant consultants who know

35:32

exactly how to maximize

35:33

that dollar. So what the bad news

35:35

is it comes down to the penny. They

35:38

can figure out to the penny exactly what it

35:40

costs for a vote. They'll say, okay, in this district,

35:42

it's going to cost you $13 and 27 cents per vote. I

35:46

mean, they have it down to a science. It's just

35:48

like, if you went to a VC and you said,

35:50

Hey, I have a new idea for a new soda.

35:53

It tastes better than Coke and Pepsi. That VC

35:55

wouldn't give you one nickel if they're smart because

35:58

they know that it doesn't matter if you taste.

35:59

better. What matters is your marketing

36:02

and you can't outmarket Coke and Pepsi just like

36:04

you can't outmarket the Democrats and the Republicans.

36:07

So they spend this money, you know, in the race

36:09

that I ran in the incumbent has a 98% similar track

36:11

record to Elizabeth

36:12

Warren

36:14

same voting record.

36:16

The guy who won the primary in my

36:18

race, Don Bullduck, he's a general,

36:21

he was one of the hardest working people in the campaign.

36:23

He's up at four in the morning, stay until

36:25

up to 11 o'clock at night. He visited every single

36:27

town. He did 350 public

36:30

appearances.

36:31

She beat him. You know how many she did? I think

36:33

she did two, two public appearances.

36:35

You don't even need to show up when you have

36:37

Soros money. Yeah. Because if you've

36:40

got Soros money, you can just flood

36:42

the airwaves. And it is a science.

36:44

One of the things I was naive about, I thought people

36:46

would care about my ideas and care, you know,

36:48

that I understand economics and stuff. Nobody cares.

36:51

And nobody will hear from you unless you

36:53

have that money. But if you can be the worst

36:56

candidate ever, like the incumbent who won

36:59

Maggie Haslam,

37:00

and just spend, have your

37:02

Soros money and your outside, you

37:05

know, money, spend, I think she raised

37:07

a tiny, tiny amount from New Hampshire,

37:09

she raised like a couple hundred grand from New Hampshire,

37:12

and got like 30 million

37:14

from all these packs. So she doesn't even need

37:16

to write. So that has to end. So

37:18

how do we fix that, Bruce? How what

37:20

is the disruption to the

37:22

political financial system?

37:24

Because what is there now is

37:27

clearly not good for

37:30

we the people. So the better solution

37:32

is to make it so government is so small,

37:35

that it doesn't have anything that lobbies lobbyists

37:38

want. So you don't have these armies

37:41

of people in DC with their hands out trying

37:43

to get a piece

37:44

of the pie. That would be a big start, you

37:46

know, make it so that the incentives are changed. And that

37:48

takes radical action. You know, we've

37:50

got to slash government by 75 90%. You

37:54

know, 90% slash in all federal government,

37:56

most Americans would barely notice.

37:59

I mean, it's And it would still be huge.

38:01

It's not like we have some- Most of them are unfireable

38:03

though. Most of them you can't even fire

38:06

them. Yeah, well,

38:08

that's what's interesting. One of the vague platforms

38:10

is you can't fire them as president, but you

38:13

can do mass layoffs and you can shut

38:15

entire departments if they're redundant. So

38:17

that's what his plan would be. And I think DeSantis

38:20

has adopted some of that in

38:22

his platform as well. And I'm sure

38:24

if Trump wins, you know, if

38:27

he's serious about dismantling this deep state,

38:29

he's gonna take a page from that playbook. Say

38:32

Trump wins. Like who

38:35

is gonna be the people who would wanna actively

38:37

work with him because they all get targeted. Like

38:39

you saw like whenever Trump would like put

38:42

a nominee up for, you know, the for

38:44

the Supreme Court or any of the people

38:46

that judge, they just fight him tooth

38:48

and nail on everything,

38:50

right? So it's like in a lot of

38:52

ways, he's having a hard time even getting attorneys to

38:54

work for him on all of his indictments because of

38:57

law warfare, this warfare

38:59

they got going on. It's wild to me.

39:01

Attorneys are afraid to work with them. I mean, look

39:03

what they do to Kavanaugh. Look what they do

39:05

to his nominee. You know, I mean, I think

39:08

anybody who was offered a position

39:10

to do anything by Trump and especially

39:12

the lawyers, that's particularly sad because every American

39:14

deserves good representation when you start going

39:16

throwing lawyers in jail. So yeah, we've

39:18

got to fix that, absolutely.

39:20

Well, a lot of politics

39:22

in this and as we warn people at the beginning

39:25

of the show that, hey, you know, you

39:27

might be offended, but if you got a strong

39:30

mind, push through and then go

39:32

do your own research and figure this stuff

39:34

out because if you're just gonna be offended

39:36

because you said something that you

39:39

don't like, Bruce said something that you don't like,

39:41

then if you're not being intellectually

39:44

honest, you're missing an opportunity to grow,

39:46

right? And this is, we all

39:48

wanna grow. We all have to be able to question

39:50

everything. I haven't got it all figured out. Travis

39:52

has never figured out. Bruce, I haven't all figured

39:55

out, but we've gone down the rabbit hole. We've asked the

39:57

questions. I think it was Reagan

39:59

that said.

39:59

if you're under 25

40:02

and not a Democrat, you don't have

40:04

a heart. And if you're over 40 or whatever

40:07

he said, and you're not a

40:09

Republican, you don't have a brain. There's

40:10

a reason for that. So let's

40:12

close with

40:15

this, Bruce. Let's get back to Bitcoin. The

40:18

four-year cycle traditionally has

40:20

shown that next year, we

40:23

should be entering into a real

40:26

bull market. Now, I know that

40:28

while you are a financial advisor,

40:32

people need to go do their own due diligence

40:35

and figure out what they think can happen. What do you

40:37

think is going to happen? Are we going to run

40:40

again? Is the whole crypto market going to follow

40:42

in its wake? Are we going to see

40:45

that six-figure Bitcoin? What

40:47

do you think?

40:48

I certainly hope so. And I think, like

40:50

I said, I'm optimistic. I've always thought

40:53

it's a

40:53

binary play. Usually

40:55

when I start getting worried and saying, oh boy,

40:58

what is this? Why is it not doing anything? Those historically

41:00

tend to be the time when it does

41:03

well. It's usually when my taxes are

41:05

due in the darkest day and I have to sell

41:07

some Bitcoin when I know it's low. That

41:10

usually marks the low

41:12

point for the year cycle every single

41:14

time like clockwork. So with

41:17

these things, like BlackRock and

41:19

other major investors coming in,

41:21

I really feel like it's a major

41:23

global asset that's here to stay. I don't

41:25

think it's going to go to zero. I don't think it's going to fall apart.

41:28

And if that doesn't happen, if it survives,

41:30

then it shows its value by surviving.

41:33

It shows that it is decentralized money. It

41:35

is working. The network is up. And

41:37

I think that the value will follow. So I would certainly

41:40

hope to see six-figure Bitcoin.

41:42

If we go through the cycle repeats

41:44

like we have before, Bitcoin is always going to go

41:46

down more than you think. And it's always going to go up

41:49

more than you think. So we could have it test

41:51

new bottoms now and lows, cyclical

41:53

lows. And then we could

41:56

see it in a course of 60 days run.

41:59

past 100. That's what we've seen

42:02

again and again throughout these cycles.

42:04

And I think it's here to stand. I think it matters. And

42:07

the world needs it because fiat money doesn't

42:09

work. And ultimately, humans gravitate

42:11

towards money that is the most scarce, that

42:13

has the best properties, and Bitcoin does meet those

42:16

properties. So I think that people will,

42:18

more and more people will see that.

42:20

There's more people kind of onboarded with the sort

42:23

of sailor, Ross Stevens kind of sophisticated

42:25

narratives. And I think that's

42:27

going to continue to show its value because there

42:29

isn't

42:29

any other alternative. Bitcoin is kind of a silly

42:32

and stupid idea, honestly, but it's way,

42:34

way, way better than

42:37

fiat. A bunch of Janet Yellens

42:39

and Jerome Powell sitting up in an office

42:42

of a building that they paid for with money that they

42:44

stole from workers deciding, lording

42:46

over the economy and deciding how much money there should be.

42:48

I mean, that's the ultimate junky

42:51

altcoin. So Bitcoin does have

42:53

much better principles and properties. And I think that

42:56

the market is going to continue to show that and

42:58

reflect that.

42:59

Bruce Fenton at Bruce Fenton.com

43:02

links to Bruce's other socials in

43:04

the show notes at badco.in forward

43:06

slash 694. Bruce, thanks for

43:09

for coming on and sharing your thoughts with us today. We appreciate

43:11

it.

43:12

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Bruce

43:16

is a smart dude, Trev. I really enjoy

43:18

talking to him.

43:20

Your time ran out a little too quick. So I think

43:22

if people have gotten to this far into

43:24

the the podcast episode, you

43:27

got yourself an interesting one. I don't know that

43:29

we've ever had one quite like this podcast

43:32

before, Joel. I don't know. But, you know,

43:34

definitely makes you think. And if

43:36

you disagree with some

43:38

or many of the things that were said that, you

43:41

know, I applaud your courage to stay with

43:43

it, because there's a lot of people when they don't like what they

43:45

hear, they just they just run on.

43:47

And it takes courage to listen

43:50

to

43:50

opinions and ideas that you may inherently

43:53

disagree with.

43:54

Yeah, it's like, I'm so tired of the divide between

43:58

and the blue, but it's all really

43:59

really a shade of purple. And the more that

44:02

people understand that and you go, Oh, okay.

44:04

So it's, it's not we,

44:06

the people, it's them versus we, the people just

44:08

understand how it all works because rich

44:11

people, they don't tend to want to give

44:13

up that and they'll do whatever

44:16

to sort of stay in the group. And so that's what ends

44:18

up happening, especially if some blackmail gets caught up

44:20

in the whole thing, you don't know what's

44:23

going on in somebody's life. But I tell you what,

44:25

pay attention, do your own research and learn

44:27

about it. Cause it's, well there's some crazy stuff going on.

44:29

We're more than six years deep into this

44:32

coming up on episode 700 and appreciate

44:34

you guys. Please do subscribe, review

44:36

with five stars, ring the bells, tell

44:39

a friend, tell your grandma, tell

44:41

your dog, the dog's really like us.

44:43

Something about the sound of our voice is very soothing.

44:46

And when you do tell your dog, make sure that

44:48

you tell him to stay bad and not

44:52

pee in the house. Roll over. Don't

44:55

be in the house. Who's

44:58

bad?

45:19

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45:23

of the show, the videos, and the website

45:25

is provided for educational, informational

45:27

and entertainment purposes only. It's not

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intended to be and does not constitute

45:32

financial investment or trading

45:34

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45:36

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45:38

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45:46

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45:48

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45:51

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45:53

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45:55

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45:58

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