Saving Bedford with Bitcoin | Peter McCormack

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27:57Well, we should talk about Calvin Air. I don't know what you can say and what you can't say. I used to text him. We should talk about that. But I remember when we were in Austin, when this was really bleak, and you were like fucking depressed. Yep. And I remember even you saying then, while I think at that point you regretted it, I'm sure you don't regret the lawsuit now. But you said then I want to speak to him. Yeah, I would have just said to Calvin Eyre, look, you're a very, very wealthy man. You're never going to have to worry about money again. You are actively destroying my life on a lie.

28:32I want to know, because I want to know at what point did Calvin realize the game's up? Because I believe Calvin believed that Craig Wright was Satoshi. Initially. Initially. Because Roger Ver did. Roger Ver told me in Japan he did. Told me he had the keys. And I think a number of people at certain times believed he was. And I think other people might have been, well, maybe he isn't. And so I believe Calvin did believe it. And I believe he got sold on this idea, look, we should get my coins back. But I think there probably came a time when Calvin was like, Firstly, things didn't add up. And then eventually it's like, yeah, fuck, he's not.

29:10And I just want to say to him, look, you're destroying my life. You're going to destroy my kid's life all on a lie. Why are you doing this? I tried to. Somebody gave me his phone number. I used to text him. I tried to call him first. So weirdly, I got given the... Oh, I used to text him and go, I forgive you. Like every single day. No, every few days. I don't know. I'll see if I've got it here. Yeah. Because what happened, I was with a guy, coincidentally, he came to Bedford, he was making one of those endless Satoshi films that we see. Yeah, I still got it here. Fuck, there's loads.

29:46And somebody gave me his number, and so we've called him, and we've got it on film, but he didn't pick up. And so then I texted him, I said, hi Calvin, it's Peter. So listen, I don't hold any grudges, it is what it is. I also believe that you may have been wronged. Either way, I think it's time for you and I to talk. I'd like to explain you how tough the last five years have been for me, the impact on my health and my family. I believe all of this can be put behind us and we can make it good. So shall we speak? No reply. Hi Calvin, disappointed that you didn't reply to me. Either way, it's pretty clear how the next few months are going to play out.

30:17I remain open and willing to discuss this all with you. Just let me know. So go on and on. And then, um, then it would be like, hi Calvin, just so you know, I forgive you and Craig. Life happens, but I don't hold grudges. I'm not a religious person but I thought I'd share this with you and then I sent him John 8 32 then you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free and then it was like your boy is getting a kick into the court this week I hope it isn't costing you too much money and you're coping okay with it all should be all be over soon ready to have a chat when you want Calvin just read the settlement offer oh yeah here we go just read the settlement offer understand the strategy but obviously won't work.

30:52Hard pass. It's over, Calvin. You can save your soul. You can go public. Say sorry to everyone you attacked. Compensate them and promise to be better. You can afford this and it will make the world a better place. Remember, I forgive you. But I meant it all. Because it's like, look, if Calvin would come out and said, oh, I got this totally fucking wrong. I believed him. I fucked up. I'm part of the problem. Pete, here's the money you lost. I'll make you whole. Hodler Knot, here's of money, it'll also make you whole. I mean, I would just go fair play. Like, why not go and be the good person and make whole for the problems you've caused?

31:30And eventually, what happened was the messages stopped going blue, and they went to green. And that means, you know, he's an Android guy now. He changed phone and disappeared. And that is what it is. I'm intrigued by it all. I'm intrigued by them as people. And yeah, I wonder what will be now for them. But it was a brutal, savage process. I felt at times a little bit left hung out to dry. There were a couple of times people offered to help when I couldn't afford it. Do you know one of the things that's cool about that? And I know you don't want to say, and you can't say who helped you with the lawsuit.

32:05There are a couple of people that did. Some of them were not people you would expect. No. And the people that did reach out, it's a bit hard because I can't say who, but the people that did reach out and help you are people that maybe I wouldn't have had a huge amount of respect for before. Roger Ver did. I'll put that out there. I don't know, because I think I've mentioned that publicly. And there's no, look, the US government are trying to fuck him at the moment. And we all have an opinion, Roger, for certain things. I spoke to Roger Ver, I called him and said, look, I am fucked here. And he said, I'll give you the money.

32:35He offered to write me a six-figure check straight away. And then I didn't need it. And that was fine. And I didn't want to crowdfund because I wasn't broke. I had money coming in. I wasn't going to crowdfund people. I was trying to push you to do that. You were nervous about doing that because you didn't want people who maybe had less Bitcoin than you giving you money that you didn't necessarily want to take from them. But my perspective on it was people wanted to contribute. Sure. But look, I had a house and I had money and had an income coming in. and what I didn't want to do is crowdfund the money, pay for the lawsuit, and then be okay and those people were down.

33:17They might have less Bitcoin, less money than me. What would happen is I had this debt with the lawyers and they would come to me and say, look, you've got to pay something soon. And we'd have a good month on the podcast, so I'd write them a check for 50 grand and that would buy me another month or so. And as it looked like we might get the money back, They got a bit of patience from them. And, yeah, I didn't pay my tax bill, for example. That was like, I don't know, 150 grand tax bill. I didn't pay that. And I delayed the tax man so I could pay them. So I just moved money from Peter to Paul to get through it and made it work.

33:50It just worked. Somehow we got there in the end. My lawyers didn't raise their fees, which was good. But I couldn't justify taking money off Peter. But there were people who could have literally just written a check and covered the lawsuit who didn't, who made shitty offers. but like, what was his name? Was it CZ? No, CZ. Was it CZ who did it? Somebody, I think it was CZ, said, I will do it for... Oh, I think you're right. And then he disappeared. And it's like, okay, fine, whatever. Look, it is what it is. I got so much support. A couple of people wrote me big checks and they got their money back.

34:22Another person wrote me a check. A really, really tough time and was really good about it and patient and blah, blah, blah. and I've helped other people as well at times. But what really annoyed me were the lawyers for the COPA. They phoned me up and they said, can we do a podcast about the COPA trial? We want to raise awareness. And I was like, that's where you're funding the developers' legal fees. They said, yeah. I said, well, you're not funding mine. And I know the developers are important, the most important people in Bitcoin. But I think I've done a lot to bring people into Bitcoin. Whether you agree with me or disagree, whether you think I fucking hate all Pete's opinions and what Bitcoin did brought a shit ton of people into Bitcoin and educated them on a journey.

35:09I think I did an important job. And I would like to think if someone got in a similar situation, I'll help. But look, it is what it is. Everyone has to make decisions at the right time. The truth is we got through it. We got our money back and everyone's okay. And it's funny how in the past it is now. Like, we're talking about it, but really, do we really talk about Craig Wright anymore? No. It's gone. But, I mean, that's thanks to these lawsuits. Yeah. And if there's eventually an anthology covering the history of Bitcoin, hopefully there's a little bit where Pete helped with lawsuits, and I'll be proud of that.

35:42I think there will be. We should talk about Bedford, but just quickly on this, last thing on the lawsuit. Yeah. When this all wrapped up, you potentially could have gone after Calvin Air. Yes. I know you said you'd forgive him, but maybe you should explain how you could have gone after him and why he didn't. Well, I don't know the... So there would have been certain, I don't know, malicious prosecution. I could have probably done him for libel at some point. But malicious prosecution, there's a few different things. Torts. Is it torts we could have used? And I wanted to. I said to my lawyers, I think we should because I think he should make us whole.

36:17And I think damages should be paid. And the reason I think damages should be paid is I don't know the compounded effect that's had on my health. but it was bad. Stress is bad for the body. And I went through a bad time. Connor went through a bad time. My dad also. My dad didn't take this well. My dad was probably the person who worried the most. It was a rough time. Like when you are facing bankruptcy and being kicked out of your house and losing all your businesses and you don't know what you do, it's rough. I don't know what loss of earnings I had but I think there's a counter argument maybe because of the exposure.

36:48I got more earnings. So that one's a bit weak. But I just think if you are actively destroying someone's life through the courts, using your money based on a lie, you should face a penalty. I think it should be criminal, and I think you should go to jail, and if not, you should pay a large compensation to the person that you've ruined, you've fucked five years of their life, and you've made them, it made me physically unwell. I mean, Connor's here, he'll know. I think there's at least three occasions you drove me to hospital during that. Yep. You remember him? I took you twice. Once in Miami? And once in Bedford, I think.

37:29Yeah, where my SVT thing would just go haywire. But it seemed worse at the bad time. That could have just been, maybe the SVT on its own. But look, if you're going to be a cunt using the courts, you've got to fucking pay your way. I just think, I think Craig Wright should have gone to prison for this. And that is what it is. But in the end, my lawyers are like, look, you were a hair's breadth away from losing everything. Take a win. Yeah, why start again? And I was like, because it's the right thing to do. Pay your dues, pay your penalty. But look, we didn't do it. If for some random weird reason Calvin is listening to this, I do forgive you.

38:09And if you'd like to have a chat, I'm happy to have a chat. I'd come out to Antigua and see you. But I think you're worth bazillions or whatever you're worth. Pay your dues. Just pay people the compensate. It won't touch the sides for you. You're never going to spend all your money. But especially like Hodl or not, pay back what people have lost and pay for damages. It's the right thing to do. They won't, whatever. But I think they should. It is the right thing to do. Hey, Con, would you mind getting me a beer? Sorry, mate. No, we're not cutting that out. That's fine. Can you check the audio's recording?

38:34You want one? Yeah, please, will you check the audio's recording? I'll have another beer. Yeah, look, it's done. It's good. You were a huge supporter in that period. I think you knew I was in a bad way. Oh, you definitely were. Yeah, I don't want to say that, actually. No, you were definitely in a bad way. You can say that. It's the truth. No, no. I was going to say something else. I was going to say this two times. Were you worried about me at any point? Yes. But the time that I was most worried about you, this is like a relationship. Was it when I was being reckless that I'm going to burn everything down?

39:03No, it was before that. I think it was before we'd even met. I remember you being in... You won't want to talk about this, Pete. It was when you were in Central South America somewhere. I think it was the first time you went to El Salvador. and like the toxicity on Twitter was really getting to you. And that was the time, and like the entire time we worked together where I was most worried about you. Oh, like when you were being my therapist. Yeah. Isn't it funny? I've got to be a little bit of a therapist to you sometimes. And what the fuck is it? That's not - Oh, Johnny, sorry. Yeah, yeah. No, that's got nothing to do with the Craig Wright thing.

39:38Oh, no, I know. You just said, when was I worried about you? Yeah, look, sometimes, you know, when the internet comes after you, it can be a bit brutal. I mean, I ain't gonna fuck anymore. Yeah. I'm thick skinned now. I've been through it enough. It's like, I've watched my mum die. I've been through a five-year lawsuit. If you call me fat or thick or rubbish at podcasts or whatever. Okay. But there are times the internet comes after you. And I think I just don't know if I can deal with this anymore. It's rough. It's rough. But no, I mean, I think I've been your therapist a little bit sometimes.

40:07Yeah, I've not had the internet come after me in the same way yet, but we'll work on it. You've got to work on it. We'll get there. You've got to do more. You've got to say something controversial. Do you know what an ex-pub is? I do. What's an XPUB? An extended public key. What does it mean? It's where you derive all your other public keys from. You're such a nerd. You know it now, though. You fucking know that and you can't press record. Yeah, but this was always a psyop. You always knew what it was. I didn't the first time. And I still stand by it. I actually don't care. And I don't think, come on, what's an XPUB?

40:37There you go. Most people don't know what an XPUB is. No, that's for sure. I was right on that. I was right on nodes. I was right on... What was the other thing I was right on? You're right on everything, Pete. No, just on those things. My favorite thing about this kind of, well, Batman of Bedford, your villain arc that you're on at the moment, is that it took you leaving Bitcoin to become libertarian. Yep, true. Yeah, fact. Why? Tell us why. Oh, God. I'll give you the long answer because we've got time.

41:08I didn't know what libertarianism was when I started the podcast. Me neither, to be fair, until I heard you talk about it on the podcast. Right, okay. So it was new to me. It's not a thing in the UK. Not the same as it is in America, at least. It's a little thing here. But yeah, so I started the podcast. I could have picked any subject. I was just buying Bitcoin at the time and shit coins. Excuse me. You're going to cut my burps? Nope. It's the beer. So I started the podcast about Bitcoin. When I started it, I'm not doing it because I think this is the best money in the world ever. And, you know, this is going to...

41:47The number go up. It was number go up. And this was like the new internet revolution charts to make some money. Start making the show and then libertarian stuff comes up. And for me, government was always that thing that was always there. You picked a side and they voted every four years. You had a democracy and you needed government. And government did a lot of good. And then obviously over the arc of the podcast, I started to realize it was a government wasn't great. But I always had people going, you're a statist cuck, this. And I said, obviously, some ludicrous things sometimes, because I believed them at the time, right?

42:18You were learning in public. Learning in public. Learning in public. And I refused to hold a position because people tell me I should. And yeah. So I think when I, by the time I finished the podcast, I definitely had libertarian tendencies. Like, I agree, yes, we should have small governments, central banks are pernicious, and we should have a free market for money, those kind of things. But like, full libertarianism and fully understanding why government is a terrible idea comes from having a deep connection with government at a local level. In that, I'm trying to do cool things in my town, I'm running up against the institutions, the police, and the local council, and then also just seeing the general collapse of the UK as well.

43:12I mean, and then all the, it just, it was like seeing into the matrix. It's like, oh, I get it now. I get, it's not that necessarily government itself is intrinsically evil. It's that it just doesn't work. Like the majority of government will not work as the incentives at play. And somebody said to me this week, they said, because I'm arguing against ideology, because I'm getting attacked in Bedford by a bunch of leftists at the moment. And I just said, step back from your ideology. And they say, well, isn't libertarianism an ideology? And I thought about it. And I was like, no, because libertarianism is essentially the natural state of man, right?

43:55It is life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. It's those natural rights we're born with. The blueprint for how to organize society is an idea that collectivists have come up with, whether they're left or right wing. They've said, this is how we should organize society, which is a blueprint. But if that doesn't happen, we are in the natural state of man, which is libertarian. So I said to them, no, it's not. Libertarianism is a set of principles regarding the natural state of man. And it basically, to me. It means leave me the fuck alone. I don't care for your invented blueprint that tells me this is what I can and can't do.

44:29It's not an ideology. It's a set of principles. And so, but I'm not like, I don't go for anarcho-capitalist. And the reason every time I go to that and come back is because I don't think you can get rid of government. If you, me, Connor, and 50 of our friends move to an island, we essentially start day one libertarian. Or free. Maybe not even libertarian, because maybe libertarian is an idea that you only exist after the establishment of the state. You don't need to establish libertarian until the state exists, because you want to dismantle it. But anyway. I disagree with what? You disagree with what?

45:08I'm a dictator. In my house, I'm a dictator. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

45:17Until he got thrown in the sea. No, no, come on. Oh, you weren't at the second civic meeting. I even let the leftist weirdo speak. But I think the point you're making is that some kind of hierarchy in the tribe would exist. Yeah, so it would be like at some point, someone or some group of people will want to do something on that island. And they might disagree. And just say we split into two groups. One goes to one side of the island, one goes to this side of the island, and we start to build stuff on one side, maybe encroach, and they think, well, that's our land. It's like, well, we need to protect ourselves here.

45:53Well, I think we should... You might be like, Pete, I think we should do A. I might be like, well, I think we should do B. It's like, well, we need a council to make decisions. Well, who's going to lead the council and decide this? I just think you rebuild structure. Yes, in my house, I'm a dictator. It's like, I will listen to the opinions of... The serfs. The serfs, because they might cut my head off. But in the end, I'm going to do what I think is right. But on that island, we will rebuild government. And I think you always do. And I think you actually, if you can get to a minicus government, you actually have a government which will defend your freedoms and your rights, which I think is a good thing.

46:29Especially like in the US, where they literally have it enshrined in a document they refer to. We don't really refer to the Magna Carta here as much, because I don't think, I'm not sure how much of it's still enforceable. I also think if you went on the street and asked people if they knew what the Magna Carta was, very few people would even know it. I can probably recite more of the US Constitution than I can the Magna Carta.

46:52And also, I also think, do you remember that old Eric Voorhees interview where he said to me, it's like, there's no point arguing about the utopian anarcho-capitalist society, because we're so far from that. Let's just make government 1 % smaller or 5 % smaller. And so where I've come to is, we have government, okay? we cannot switch it off tomorrow. Even if you elected a libertarian... Malay style. And who is probably the best, has he dismantled the entirety of the apparatus of the state in Argentina? No. He's doing it bit by bit. And he's doing it mainly through economic policies and changes to the law.

47:29But he's gradually dismantling the power and the size of the state. And so I think of libertarianism as pointless, debating perfect society. I think the most important thing libertarians can do is drive forward a trajectory of being more libertarian than less. So what Millet is doing, which is dismantling the state, dismantling the size, the power, the kind of pernicious rules. Is pernicious a word? It's a word, isn't it? pernicious rules on society. And that to me is how to be an effective libertarian, not having a libertarian conference and all arguing about why you shouldn't have a libertarian party because that's counterintuitive to be a libertarian.

48:12I think it's just a waste of fucking time. And so I guess I think it's practical libertarianism, rational libertarianism. Let's actually get something done. And what happens is that I've gradually seen how much the state fails itself, but it then fails society. It was the... Have you ever read George Washington's farewell address? No. It's fucking brilliant, okay? Obviously, an important great man in American history. Could have become king. They offered him king and he turned it down. But he wrote this farewell address and he warned of the idea of factionalism in that you become more loyal to the party than the common good.

48:53And we see that now. Which has definitely happened. Totally. It's like, Labour could come up with a good idea, and the Conservatives will attack it. And the Conservatives can come up with a bad idea, and they'll support it. This loyalty to the party over the common good is a terrible thing. He warned about this. And I see it now. I see it in media. I see it in individuals. Like, there are a bunch of people in Bedford who fucking hate my guts now. I've put in this private security, and they hate me because it's ideologically wrong for them. and now as a group they're attacking me, and it doesn't matter what I say.

49:27I genuinely think if I cured cancer, they would come back and say, well, what about the people who want to have cancer? I genuinely believe that. I've argued with them, and there are people who would say they would rather have a crackhead on the street than a security guard. They think we should prioritize the addicts and the criminals on the street over the businesses. They're so ideologically lost. and so therefore the factionism thing isn't just a problem within the party it's a problem within the voters and so I've just realized is that the bigger government is the more people are that will grift it the more the politicians themselves will use it for their end goals and the more it will destroy society and it's really you really start to see it when you just try and run a company I told you this, NVK said if you want to make somebody libertarian and get them to run a business.

50:23Because all we do is we get up every day and we try and make money. Whether it's, well, a football club, you never make money, but whether it's the coffee shop, the bar, whatever. And all we're fighting is everything the government puts in front of us, in our way. Whether it's employment laws, minimum wage requirements, licenses we need, tax we have to pay. It's so hard to make money. Right now, this might be the first month our coffee shop makes a profit. Might make a profit. It still doesn't pay the 120 grand we spent to open it and the 20 grand of losses in the first six months. But it might turn a monthly profit for the first time, right?

51:03And it's been so hard. But if you strip back, I mean, let's talk about VAT. If I sell you a coffee at£4, I pay ATP VAT to the VAT band. But I can't reclaim the VAT on the coffee I've bought because it's a raw food ingredient. They don't charge me VAT. There's a real problem for the hospitality sector. Every time you make something, the food doesn't have VAT on it, but once you assemble it into a product, it is. So with a phone, all the ingredient products of a phone, you can reclaim the VAT. And so your VAT burden's lower. Which is just sales tax for any Americans. Yeah. And so that's a problem.

51:45We have to pay a minimum wage, okay? Now, the minimum wage is costing jobs because I have to pay, I don't know, say it's£11.23, whatever it is, minimum wage now. That alone is stupid because there are people who are willing to take that job at£9. I mean, this is something that Ben Prentice, who's been working on the show forever, he goes on about this all the time, the fact that the minimum wage is actually a massive net negative. Well, it costs jobs, and every time you raise it, you just raise the prices of the product. So you've got a price distortion in the market there. Fucking hell, listen to me.

52:18But you've got a price distortion in the market there. But not only that, I have to offer a pension. I have to pay national insurance. I have to pay holiday. So even if it's an 18-year-old and it's their weekend job, I have to pay holiday. And what we do, because I think it's something like 12.09 % of your working time is holiday. We just up their wages by 12.09%. And so, like, so much of my cost is in wages or wage legislation or wage taxation. We would have made a profit every month without government. So what I'm doing is I'm working my balls off, taking all this fucking risk to try and turn a profit.

53:01But while I'm doing that, I'm financing government who's making this harder. This is why I fundamentally hate these people in government. I fundamentally hate them all because either they know how difficult they're making it, which means they're evil, or they don't know, which means they're too stupid to be in the role. Now, I'm not asking for us to eradicate everything immediately. What I'm trying to say is let's be sensible about this. Business rates in a town centre make no sense because town centres are dying. Let's give an opportunity for business to open. VAT and hospitality makes no sense because input products don't have it.

53:35Having to pay holiday to an 18-year-old already on a high minimum wage does not make sense. I mean, I'd go further. I don't think we should pay maternity pay. I think that should be optional. I should want to provide, but why should I? Why should you? Why should Connor be paying tax for other people who choose to have children? That's their lifestyle choice. You work hard and you pay for it yourself. So I hate all this collectivist bollocks because it just makes it so hard. And it gets worse than that, Danny. I've got money on the side now. Thanks, Craig Wright, get my money back. Ready to open more businesses in the town.

54:08I think we've probably, what, discussed two or three con regularly? And I'm sat there going, I don't know if I can turn a profit here because of government. Now, the stupid thing is, is I could take people out of the welfare system and give them jobs. but I can't because it's too hard to make the company work, and therefore those jobs don't exist. Therefore those people are relying upon the state. And so someone like Rachel Reeves, who's already fucked it up over and over again in this country, over and over again, is talking about raising taxes even more, which is going to destroy even more jobs.

54:46I'm on one here. I'm loving this. Keep going. Let me tell you where it gets, like, other examples where it's worse. So I spend 100 grand a year with my accountants across the business because of all the accountancy work we have to do to comply with government tax. Without that, all I need is a monthly P &L and then say this is how the business is doing. I'd probably spend 10 grand a year. I'm probably spending 90 grand a year on compliance with taxation. HR, this is basically a new industry that comes off the back of employment legislation. I 100 % stand by the majority, not all. there are dicks out there, but the majority of people, when they want to get rid of somebody from their company, it's two reasons.

55:27You're shit at your job or I can't afford you. And both are valid. Okay. It is so hard to get rid of somebody who's shit at their job because of employment legislation. But this becomes a bad thing. I know you're about to ask something, but the reason it's a bad thing is that there's a misallocation of capital now because you can get rid of them, but you have to bring in a HR consultant who basically they help you architect a safe way of getting rid of somebody so you hopefully don't go to tribunal, which you will always lose, by the way. And so I'm misallocating capital to a HR advisor so I can try and architect get rid of somebody who's shit at their job.

56:01And when you do get rid of somebody who's shit at their job, you're also like, have I done, right, did I give them a job discretion? Did I do all their reviews? Did I give them a warning? All those things. You know when someone's shit. Of course. You just know and you want to get rid of them. But you're also conning the person. I've had to get, there's two people I've had to get rid of in the last two years who have both been terrible at the jobs. The best thing for them would be to sit down and go, sorry, I'm getting rid of you. You're fucking shit at your job. You're whatever. I'll make up some reasons.

56:31You don't turn up on time. When you're here, you're disorganized. You're a bit rude. And it's a customer-facing job. You're no good. I'm getting rid of you. Sort that shit out with your next job. That person has the opportunity then to go, oh, fuck. Maybe I should get my shit together. but when they think oh um i i think uh i think this is unfair dismissal because they didn't give me a review and they didn't give me and i like give all these kind of like soppy reasons all the good staff do good staff do not need reviews they just get on with it jason who works for me fucking brilliant doesn't need it and if i had a problem jason would be like cool i hear you i'll sort that out the shitty people always default to hiding behind legislation and never learn themselves.

57:17And they're just going to be losers their whole life because of that. And so, again, it's just a whole other misallocation of capital within a company. That was a sailor-style rant where I asked you a question. You talked for about 30 minutes there. Okay, when we make a podcast, we're in a bubble, right? We get on the plane, we meet each other, we make a podcast, some Bitcoin company sponsors us, and we go for a steak. And life's easy because the business model worked. So you can get annoyed because you get a tax bill. I was like, fucking hell, that tax bill's annoying, but you get on with it.

57:46When you're trying to build a proper tough business, you know, a hospitality business where the margins are fine, you've got lots of, there's hard businesses, you just realise how much government gets in the way for, and for what? What, because they think they can steal your money and give to other people? And I'm going to go on another rant now, sorry. So this is another point, right? What I really hate is like recently, some of the leftist weirdos in my town have gone, oh, it's just a rich guy coming in doing this, thinking he can throw his money around. When they say it like that, they're using the word rich as a pejorative.

58:21Well, rich is becoming a pejorative. Oh, yeah. But they equally think, oh, but yeah, he should pay a wealth tax, and he should pay higher income tax, because that person over there needs it. I fucking work my balls off. I've gone from broke, like, I'm about to lose my house poor, and I've worked 60 to 80 hours a week. I've gotten planes. I've missed my kids, stayed in shitty hotels. Yeah. And I've worked my absolute ass off. If I've made good money, it's because I've worked hard. Now, look, in a fair society where I agree to a certain amount of taxation, cool. But don't, don't demonize what I've done.

58:59Don't say with one hand, we want your tax money. And with the other hand, say you're evil. You're an evil capitalist. Like you're not allowed both. you're not allowed to have both of those because i've worked my fucking ass off and i think the point is like where is that tax money going because i mean i've been to bedford the town center is not thriving nope not at all and and so this is why you've now brought in this private security force well first which has made national news like it's been a really big deal here in the uk like why do you think there's been such a backlash this well so let's not uh let's not there has been a backlash but let's not give it the credence yeah too much because Because...

59:41I don't think there's been a bigger champion of Bedford than me in recent years. And if there has, great. I don't have to be first, second, third, whatever. I'm up there. I've built businesses. I've brought people to the town. I've put it on the map with certain people. I clearly care about Bedford, right? But I host the right-wing podcast, which is a problem. The Reform podcast. Well, I think it's more of a libertarian podcast. But anyway, I host a podcast when people think of certain political views. When we set up the coffee shop in the town, the first few weeks I based myself in the shop window, keeping an eye on the place but doing my work.

1:00:20And I knew Bedford had problems, I just didn't realise the scale of them. When you sit there all day and you just see people streaming out in the early morning, tweaking, shouting, and generally also, just by the way, looking in a terrible state. And some of these terrible states are really bad. There's one guy, I mean, I feel for him. His legs are, he doesn't wear any shoes anymore. His legs, top to bottom, are full of sores. They're all bloated. He clearly, he probably has grand green. He will probably get sepsis and die. Let's, Faircon? You know, who knows what I'm talking about, right? We saw him the other day, bowling down the high street with a woman who had a bottle of alcohol in her hand and a massive black eye.

1:01:02Give them all the empathy in the world you want. I'm cool with that. But don't tell me that is something that is good for somebody bringing their kids into town with. If you are a family, you're coming to town, that's a problem for you with your kids, especially maybe kids are about seven, eight years old. It's like, what's going on there? Add to that there's an area where all the alcoholics are fighting, puking. They saw a couple with their baby in a buggy, pissed out at their face. You can have all the empathy in the world. That is not a good sign, and you might not want to bring your kids into the town because of that.

1:01:34so there is the social burden because it's not nice to see then there's the economic burden because less people are coming in the town center um and so just the back the back story is is like we went to see the pcc john tizard piss weak bloke absolutely should resign um told him about the problems he had no decent answers crime is going up now perception of crime and data of are two different things. All can be massaged. And even if you can statistically prove to me, crime isn't going up, I'm going to tell you the perception is. And even if you say, well, I don't think everyone's perception is, I'm going to say, well, it's still too much.

1:02:12So I was like, fuck this. I've had enough of this. I'm going to do a pilot. All of August, every Saturday, I'm going to put 10 private security guards in the town from 18am till 6pm. there has been a backlash from the left. Progressives, Labour voters. I've seen him call you vigilante. Yeah. And to me, it is part ideological. And when I say ideological, it is a group who's now demonized me. They think I want to be mayor, and they think this is a ploy to be mayor. I've been very clear I don't want to be mayor, the job's too hard. They probably think I will support reform. They basically see me as a different person from them.

1:02:57There's a group that see me as a different person from them, so it doesn't matter what I do, they're going to attack me. There's also a group who just have suicidal empathy, and they have backlash. There's others who just don't like words being, they don't want crackhead use, it's, I don't know, drug-afflicted person or something. And so there is a backlash, but the backlash is a small group of loud people, and I'll just have it with them. I'll just tell them. So when they're like, oh, you're vigilantes, I say, they're not vigilantes, they're private security guards, they're licensed, they're trained, and they're the same people who provided private security to the town's part of the bid.

1:03:37I didn't hear you complain about that. So I answer quite factual on some of them when they get it wrong, and then I will just go toe to toe if they're an idiot. See, what I can't understand about the people that are giving you shit about this is how they see you as the problem in this situation. Like the problem is underlying fact that Bedford High Street is dying and it's full of drug afflicted people. And you're the person who's offering a solution and they can not like the solution, but they can't ignore the fact that the problem is not you. The problem is before you. Yeah, but they don't, it's what the, it's how they see the, see the problem.

1:04:08I will see the problem as there's a drug addict there who's shoplifting, they will say society has failed them. Okay? The society... You've got to remember that the left lives on ideas of collectivism. Like, we are a collective unit. We think and operate the same. If you don't think and operate the same, you're the outsider, you're the enemy. And everyone's a victim. So, and look, don't get me wrong, there are victims out there. There are young women who were abused probably by their dad, sexually abused, ran away from home, ended up homeless, met the wrong people, and fell into drugs, and are now in prostitution, maybe being raped.

1:04:48Like, terrible, terrible stories. I totally get it. But not everybody was that. Some people just made shitty bad decisions. Some people were like, I don't want to work. I'm going to live on the street, or whatever. And they one day decided to put a needle in their arm and take heroin. We all know heroin's bad, but they made a decision. There are bad decisions in there as well. their view is society must fix that and government must fix that and there is a lack of tolerance for people who who come at this differently and I see how difficult the left are to deal with and this is again my point where I go back to becoming more libertarian because if we're libertarian and we operate on just founding principles life liberty property rights and Voluntarism.

1:05:37If we think like that, then we can coexist happily. I can identify a problem of security in the town, and I can put in a private security team. They are protecting the lives of people there. They are protecting the freedoms of people there, and they're protecting property rights. And it's voluntary, because I've paid for it with my own money, and they're operating within a public space as a voluntary service. They are not infringing on anybody's rights. and if you as a leftist go well where are you moving these people to society has failed them great you can set up your own private initiative and you can fund addiction rehab center addiction support you can do exactly what i'm doing and society wins because i protect the businesses in the town you protect the individuals and neither of us are infringing upon live liberty and the pieces of happiness.

1:06:28Neither of us are infringing on other people's rights. But it's a lot easier to go on Facebook and go, Pete McCormack's a meanie. He's a fascist. And then do fuck all and complain. It's really easy to do that. Like, and this is, by the way, this is one of my complaints about Bitcoiners, if we really want to go for it, is that all these motherfuckers who shouted at me on the podcast, I just think I'm doing what we said we were going to do. Like, we were meant to go out and fix the world. We all got a bit lucky. Whatever you think, we definitely got lucky. There is a luck. I don't care if people say, well, no, it's not.

1:07:05It's strong diamond hands. We went through the up and down roller coaster. Yeah, we all came out the other end richer. So we were meant to go do this. We were meant to go and fix our societies. Michael Peterson did it out in El Zonte. I'm doing it in Bedford. Other people did it. This is what we were meant to do.

1:07:25and yeah calling out the bitcoiners i love well no it's just it's just i'm going on different tangents here just because i'm ranting and we've already recorded it honestly i'm so fucking proud of you this is the coolest thing to see no but it's it's like we recorded the other day and i want to make sure i didn't miss anything we talked about we talked about some good things in there but like the summary of it is is that's why again going back to the libertarian ideas If your foundation is life, liberty, property rights, left and right opinions can coexist because the basic foundational framework we're working under is not infringing on each other's rights.

1:08:02I'm not infringing on anyone's rights with a private security team. You're just going out and doing things. But if you're a collectivist, you want to say, well, who is that private security force accountable to? you know, what rights do they have? And I will explain to them. Same as you. They have the same rights as you. They have the power of arrest and indictable offence. They have the power to protect property. Okay? Have they arrested anyone yet? No. And... How's the first two weeks gone? Really well. Like, almost universally well. And look, people say, we'll expect you to say that. No, no, look, this is free market.

1:08:40If it hasn't gone well, I'm not going to carry on spending 10 grand a month on this because it's a waste of fucking money. Have they moved people on? Like, what's happened? So they don't... Again, there's a myth. You just want to move on homeless people. No, we don't. We want to enforce the law and the PSPO order. The law is, you know, you can't go up and punch someone in the head. Okay? So for example, if we saw, I don't know, down one of the alleys, two guys beating up a woman, our security guys are going to go in there, sit on them, call the police and say, come and get them. And our police are going to be grateful because we spoke to them.

1:09:09They said, do that. If they see somebody, maybe, I don't know, just annoying somebody, they're not going to do anything. They'll just go and say, leave them alone. They're scarecrows. They wear Hiver's jackets and they've got body cams. If they see a homeless person, they're not going to go and say, you're homeless, you have to move on. If they see them breaking the PSPO order, which is aggressive begging, or taking drugs, or drinking, they will go up to them and say, look, there's a PSPO order, you're not allowed to drink here, do you mind moving on? Almost all scenarios, these people have said, yeah, fine, we'll move on and they do the green where all the piss heads are it's been empty each saturday you see families there now and so it's gone really well that i've had endless emails and private messages people saying thank you this has been great um i mean listen to put this on by the mic you can just this is a great example so a lady she's got a shop on the high street in bedford she's always having to deal with problems right and where is she

1:10:09Hold on. Have you spoken to the woman who owns the vegan cafe? No, I haven't actually. I'd be curious to know what she thinks of this. Yeah, that might be an interesting one. So here's a good example. Instant relief seeing your guys out today. I've just seen a group of them at the car park, which is reassuring. Coming in, I saw people as well. So I know it's going to be a good day, or at least a safe day, which makes all the difference. Do you know what? That's amazing. but it's also depressing that she has to rely on you to have a safe day in Bedford in the UK. Well, it's that weird kind of paradox in that it's good that we've got security guards in the town, and it's bad that we've got security guards in the town.

1:10:49How much of it is a Bedford issue rather than a UK issue? It's a UK issue. So I obviously don't live here now. I probably spend three weeks a year in the UK, something like that. And when I'm like away and I'll see things on Twitter, it looks like the UK is on a serious decline. Yeah, we're fucked. But when I walk around, I don't feel that. And maybe there's an interesting thing in here, because last week you came up to my hometown where I grew up. And I always considered Macclesfield and Bedford as being relatively similar. They're probably a similar-ish size, relatively similar demographic. And you were really impressed with how nice Macclesfield was comparatively to Bedford.

1:11:27Well, it's clean. Yeah. And we didn't see any homeless or drug addicts. But there could be a day I take you to Bedford and you don't see them. So that happens. Somebody did message me and say, what do you mean you didn't see any homeless or drug addicts? So maybe it does exist. And Macclesfield is half the size of Bedford. It's 50 ,000. But I definitely saw a more bustling economy in Macclesfield. It seemed cleaner and better. But it is a nation. Look, this is a nationwide issue. This is reflective of the state getting too big. It's got all this bullshit it's got to pay for. Taxes are up because of that.

1:12:02Crime is up. They're not punishing crime. police forces have got smaller. Every single direction, the bloat of the state has eroded the services that the state would normally provide and has led to this kind of decline. And if I post something about this on Twitter and it gets a bit viral, you'll see all these comments coming in saying, I'm going to pick towns. If I've got a town that's wrong, apologies. But it might be like, oh, it's the same here in Bournemouth, or it's the same here in Scunthorpe, same here in Hull. By the way, there's now a, Connor can probably find this, a more of a vigilante, uh, private 200 people in Bournemouth who've come together to protect the town.

1:12:41Do you think there's a vigilante there? They, well, I say vigilante there because they, it's not private train security or security farm. This is a local group of people. The thing about, we can argue, well, is my group vigilante or not? What I will say is we're going, we, we probably already have them and we're going to get vigilante groups. If you feel that your town is unsafe and you feel that there are threats to your children or threats to women in the town and you push us enough to the edge, groups of people are going to come together and say, fuck this. I'm not having this. And they will become vigilantes.

1:13:15And they are the risk. We're low risk because we are using a trained licensed security firm. If it's a group of lads coming together and say, fuck this, they might just clout someone. Yeah. And that's the scary thing about this because like, I don't even - Yeah, here we go. More than 200 residents including ex-military personnel, security professionals, and first aiders have signed up to patrol the streets of Bournemouth. I mean, it just depresses me that it got to this. But it also excites me. Not that it exists. I think it's terrible. But there's a movement trying to change it. Yes. It shows how far gone we are.

1:13:49How fucked we are. I mean, look, you've seen the Coinbase ad, right? Mm-hmm. everything's fine it is it's so this thing from fine well it's so ironically beautiful we but we've been trolled by america about the state of our country to sell products to us but it's so right we're like all this yeah everything's fine i mean it's not the uk is we've got a communist government at a time when there's no money where they're increasing regulation increasing taxes uh jobs uh joblessness is going up uh the inflation is up uh growth is stagnant i think gdp per capita is down uh investment is down voter investor confidence is down like every single economic measure is shit then you get into other things like health outcomes shit everything is going to shit in this country and there's a large part of the population that sees it and there was nobody with a backbone within, nobody's unfair.

1:14:47There's hardly anyone with a backbone in Whitehall who's saying, let's fix this. Someone with a pair of bollocks like Millay or a Bukalian says, I've had enough. I'm fixing this. I'm not taking this shit anymore. And the risk with the growing vigilante groups is that something happens and they're directed in the wrong way. I'm not even giving an opinion on the immigration. I mean, the immigration thing is getting out of control in the UK. and I'm not saying we should have no immigration but it's at a crazy fucking point but when you see these group of people grouping up outside the migrant hotels all that's going to take is one tiny thing and then something bad happens and do you know what the truth of it is?

1:15:24it's not really the migrant's fault no it's not the West bombs their countries constantly for the last 30 years if I was from Eritrea I mean look let's put it a different way look at all the people leaving the UK to go to other countries Why are they leaving? Because they think they can get a better life elsewhere. And yes, they'll say it's legal migration. Well, lots of the migration to the country is legal. But if I was from Eritrea and I thought, if I can get into the UK and create a good life for my family... I'm doing it. I'm on that boat. Our problem is we are a welfare state who offers so much.

1:15:57If you look across Europe where to go, well, the UK, I get a hotel room for the night. I get three meals. I get private health care. I get massages. I get mobile phone. That's fucking great. Put me on that boat. I'll go there. It's not their fault. If we didn't incentivize coming here, less people come here. The economic migrants would come and create jobs. And I've got no issue with economic migration if it's net beneficial to the country and them. I've got no issue with that at all. But it's not that. And people are getting so pissed off. And to the point, it's so mad. People are talking about civil war.

1:16:30Well, that's what I was going to say, because you were telling me this last week, and I'd never heard anyone talk about this in the UK. And you were saying that you think it's closer than we may like to admit. Yes, or we might have be on the tip and point and be there. But that's the things that a little, like, I'm not saying these vigilante groups or these group of people collecting to try and make their town better are a bad thing. But the risk there is that something happens. It's kind of like an inocular small thing. And then it escalates and escalates and escalates. And what happens next?

1:16:54Well, it becomes counterproductive and allows the state to grow. Like, you have to be smart. The pen is mightier than the sword is so true in this situation. So when I first started seeing these talks about civil war. It's a bit like when Iran was bombed, they say World War Three is coming. I think, oh, it's a podcaster, it's an inflammatory title, YouTube incentivized. Yeah, well, they incentivize inflammatory titles, right? Because you get, and that's what I thought it was. But the trigonometry guys, Connell gets his name up, they got this guy, this expert, he works at King's College London, and he said there are seven conditions for civil war of which the UK meets six of them.

1:17:31If you read them, he's absolutely true. And also you think, well, what does civil war mean? Well, the only civil war I know really was the main one, is the one in the US, whereas... It's guns. It's guns, and it was the North via the South, and it was open warfare. But he talks about it more like insurgency. And I haven't finished that interview, but what I suspect he's saying is... What's that? David Betts. Yeah, David Betts. See if you can find those seven conditions. it may be a group of lads who are so fucked off with the UK. You know, inflation, can't afford a house, can't afford to fill their car, working their bollocks off, got no money left, and said, I've had enough of this.

1:18:13All these migrants are coming over, getting the hotel rooms, and I'm working my ass off, I've got no money left, I'm paying tax. You know, who are just angry. And what if they say we need to fight back? Now, my way of fighting back is action. parallel institution in Bedford civic duty civic duty proven we don't need them and to do with action but I totally can see a world where somebody goes we might need to burn down a police station or we might need to I don't know some crazy shit the problem is the minute they do that they will be classed as domestic terrorists yeah arrested rightly so because you should not be violent and uh and then we'll see a further clamp down on our freedoms on our civil rights, and it will be squashed.

1:18:56There is no path, there's no sensible path to a violent civil war in this country. The only sensible path is peaceful revolution, which is dependence mighty in the sword, which is parallel institutions, privately funded, doing the job of the state within the law and proving we don't need you, and then on the back of that, political action to remove parts of the state which aren't performing. And starve the beast with Bitcoin. Yes. But you can't because you have to pay your taxation. So look, I'm of this belief. We will always have government, but we will get the government we deserve. This country voted for a Labour government, and so we've got the country we deserve.

1:19:39I can't see us returning to a monarchy here. Yes, there are monarchies around the world. You can go and live with them. I don't see that. I don't see democracy going anywhere in this country. So what we need to do as an electorate is ensure that we let the politicians know our demands. These are our demands. This is what we want from government. I mean, I want a Malay-style character. I want somebody who's going to dismantle the state, the apparatus of the state, the power of the state, and put it into the hands of the people. I want a massive reduction in all the fucking stupid laws we have. I want all the freedoms and liberty restored.

1:20:10I want taxation reduced. And I'm not talking for anarcho-capitalists. Just make the country work. And I would vote for that person. Does that person exist? I don't think it's Nigel Farage. I can't think of a... I don't know of a real libertarian within Whitehall. Like a real libertarian who is Millais style. What about Rupert Lohm? I don't think he's a full libertarian. I think he's a strong conservative. I think he's a small government conservative. And there's some of those Thatcherites types. Andrew Griffith is one. But I don't think there is a full Malay libertarian, you know, who will absolutely tear the left apart and destroy all of their arguments.

1:21:00And this is one of the difficult parts. As a libertarian, if I was a libertarian, some people say I'm not, fair point. But the left are the easiest ones to argue against because they're the most communist, they are the most collectivist of the lot. Their ideas are the worst. There is an uncomfortable alliance between conservatives and libertarians because conservatives should be taking you to a smaller government. but they're still not the end goal. And so the people who are ideologically against me in Bedford see me as the enemy because I speak some of the similar languages, say, the conservative or the reform people, but I'm not...

1:21:41A conservator or a reformer. I guess I'm a small C Thatcherite conservative over a Blairite. But even under a small state, even under a small, like a Thatcherite government, I'd be like, make the state smaller. and so it's this that's yeah that's the difficult part of this so at like a national level there's little hope maybe some small glimpses but at a local level do you think you can actually make a difference in Bedford? I can try long term because how long can you realistically fund these programs that you're doing where it's just cash out of your pocket into the town if it's not really making any change when do you just go you know what fuck it I'm gonna go well look if the podcast stayed as it is now and it made the same money as it does now, I can do the£10 ,000 a month in perpetuity.

1:22:27And I would. It's more important to have money. Even if no other change was happening in the town, if everything was staying the same apart from on a Saturday every month you had... If it made no difference, then there's no point doing it. But I think it is making a difference. And it's not just me. I'm not going to stand here and say, I'm going to take all the credit. There's loads of fucking great people in Bedford that put on markets, who put in artwork in empty buildings, who do pop-up shops, try and do things in the town. So for me to say I'm just a loudmouth who can get some things done by being a loudmouth, there are loads of good people.

1:23:02But I think things are improving. I went into town on the Sunday and it was different. This is the day after one of my security days. It was bustling. There were people everywhere. And I've got this kind of concept that I talk about called consciously local, whereby... I love this, by the way. You make an effort to go into town and spend money once a week. If everyone in the town spent£10 a week, that's£50 million a year into the local economy, our high street will become a market town.

1:23:28But Consciously Local goes further than that. We, as a business, are we buying all our services locally? Are we using a local accountant rather than a London accountant? And again, that's important, because if we fund the local accountant, they've got more money, they can create more jobs, and they spend money in the coffee shops and the restaurants. Is the council, whenever the council buys anything, and their budget's 170 million, how much of that is being spent in other towns, other counties, when it could be spent in Bedford? Are there services that are outsourced into other towns that could be put into Bedford?

1:23:58And when you're on Deliveroo, are you buying from Domino's or are you buying from Aetna? Are you buying from Wagamamas or Rice Thai? Are you buying your coffee from Coffee with Art or Rail Coffee or are you buying from Starbucks? Are you leaking money into shareholders' pockets, or you're sending it to a mum who wants to buy ballet lessons. And if everybody is consciously local, and the reason I say consciously local, it gives me reasons to say to people over and over again, have you been into the town? Stop. Don't sit there and go, I want the town to be better. The town's not working, and not contribute, because you're part of the problem.

1:24:33Stop waiting for other people to fix it. Go and fucking fix it yourself. If you go mooch around the shops today, and you spend£50 in the shops, and then put yourself into the restaurant, you've put£100 into the local economy, which will circulate four times. But it's got to, I always say consciously local, because you've got to wake up on a Saturday morning and go, I'm going into town, and I wasn't going to. And I'm going to phone three friends, and we're going to meet for lunch, and then we're going to wander the shops. And if they do that, I'll open the second business and the third business and so on.

1:24:59And we're also, I mean, we're probably going to take a new lease tomorrow on a place that we're going to put in a pizza place. And we're going to look into how we make it more like John Lewis. So if you're local and you work in the business, you get shares, share of the profit. Because what I think will happen with that is if you've got an 18 year old in there, got a share of the profit, their parents are going to come there. And when they're going to work harder, they're incentivized to work harder. And they're going to work harder. And when you order online, you maybe will order from there. And it's like, how many of these businesses can we build in the town?

1:25:31My view is that if enough people say, I agree, we can make Bedford better, and I'm going to put more money in, and I'm going to support local programs, we will turn the town around, and I won't have to provide the private security, because I have the argument to go to the police and council and say, I've proved it works, you fucking do it, you pay for it, and there'll be enough revenue coming in to support that. But it's almost like, it's like the town's on life support, and you know, you've got the, what's it called? The defibrillator. The defibrillator, and we're getting it going again. And once it's going again, hopefully I won't have to do it more.

1:26:08But look, I could be wrong. It could all go to shit and we could be fine. Like I could do a great job and central government's so bad that the statutory demands on the local council is so hard that we can't do anything about this. But I've got a feeling, my gut instinct is that I am one of many in the UK who are sick of this, who have different levels of resources to go and try things. And if we can do make Bedford work, that can become a blueprint for other places or other places will do something and they'll become a blueprint for us. And we will collectively and civically restore our towns and our country.

1:26:40And that's it. That's my plan. And if it doesn't work, you've tried. Like you've done more than everyone who's just complaining online about the state of the UK. You're making meaningful difference. And again, I go back, this is what we were meant to do as Bitcoiners. We were meant to fucking do this. And I'm, look, free choice. If you bought a bunch of Bitcoin, made a bunch of money, and you want to go and become mountain man or go to the Cayman Islands and Barbados and sip and drink cocktails, I get it. It's tempting for me, right? What we're doing now is not as fun as what you and I used to do.

1:27:12This is hard work. We wake up every day, me and Connor work our balls off to just try and make it better. But if not us, who? If not us, who? This is what I thought we would see loads of Bitcoiners doing, getting up and going, fuck me, I've made, I mean, there's people who've probably made tens of millions. And I thought we were meant to go out there and do this. We've seen the problems. We got lucky. We made a bunch of money. Let's go and invest that and make it work. I would love, I would love one of the super rich Bitcoiners go, Pete, what do you need to fix your town? I'll be like, give me 50 million.

1:27:45And I can literally change Bedford to the extent where it becomes a blueprint for the country. I know all the anchor businesses to create. I know how to set them up. I know how to sort out the security. I know how to sort out the investment. And for 50 million, I can make Bedford the blueprint for the entirety of the UK. If I could, say Reform would win the next election, I'll sit Nigel Farage down and say, give Bedford autonomy, give the mayor autonomy on tax and spend, and I will prove to you how we create a blueprint for the rest of the country. Because I don't think it's hard, right? It's really fucking easy, Danny.

1:28:23It's tax people less, put more money in their pocket, make it easier to invest and create businesses. You will have more people working, less people reliant upon the state, and you will be able to use those increasing tax revenues to fix the social issues that exist. And those social issues that exist, which are a cost to the society at the moment, which means when you go into a Tesco, you're paying high prices to cover the theft. that doesn't exist anymore. That market distortion is gone and that money is going into creating wealth and opportunity. To me, it's so obvious and easy. It's, and I think I'm right.

1:28:59I think you're right. I mean, it almost feels like the perfect place to end, but when Mayor Peter McCormack... No, never. I don't want to do it. We should talk about football as well. We should talk about football. I'm going to pay my debts to you and this can be my donation to Bedford. I haven't written down the news. It's not donation to me. I'm going to spend this on crack. Where will we at? I think it's 400k sats. Yeah, 400k sats. Okay, let me do this one sec. It's very fucking cool what you're doing. Let me ask you something. So based on your knowledge of the UK and your friendship circle here and the people you know, what are people telling you?

1:29:40Like, is it hard out there for people? For sure. I think people are feeling the pinch in a massive way cost of living but a lot of the people I speak to are kind of like NPCs in this I think there's a lot of just this is the way it is now get on with life everything's fine I do think that's true so I don't know if they're the best example I don't know very many people that think the way that Bitcoiners do in the UK yeah and look there is a potential I mean Connor talked about this to me in that because we're in this, we maybe see it worse than it is. I think that's true as well. I'm not sure it is.

1:30:18I think it's the opposite. I think it's because we're in this, we see how bad it is. I think a lot of people don't realize how bad it is. But that's what I meant when I said, like, when I walked down the street here today in London, like, I mean, it's a nice day, and a nice day in London is nice, because everyone's outside enjoying themselves. But things don't seem as bad as they do on Twitter. But if you were walking down here, and you're on your phone, and someone went past on an e-bike and snatched it, your entire view would change in that moment. Oh, of course. One incident. And the other thing is, I'm not wearing my watch because I'm in London.

1:30:49Well, it's the survey of one problem. I've got this in Bedford, people going, well, I work into town and I don't feel unsafe when somebody begs for me. I'm like, you're a survey of one. That's true. For everybody who says that, I can find you an example of somebody who says, I've got this woman, she messaged me the other day. She said, we're a cash business. Locking up is a scary time for us. We feel good that you're security in town. That's a different survey of one. But the survey of one who has a lived experience, which is negative and scary, is more important than the survey of one who's had no experience.

1:31:20That's definitely true. And then at the same time, I don't have a very good perspective on it, because compared to, like, this isn't me being big and myself up, but I have quite a privileged life where my family live here, and I don't go to the places that are really struggling. Well, Connor, if you said to me, Dad, I'm going to town, what do I say? If Scarlet says she's going to town, what do we say? We're not happy about it. Connor's six foot three. You take two or three people to take him down. The daughter's a different scenario, and they face different risks, and that's a problem. But yeah, by the way, back to mayor, no.

1:31:53Absolutely not doing it. You can't do a good job. I can be more effective as an unelected pseudo mayor just getting shit done. I can say what I want. I don't have to worry about party politics. I haven't got to manage an unmanageable budget with endless statutory demands from central government on all kinds of shit that we can't afford. It's an impossible job to do. I don't want the job. Everyone who says I'm trying to become mayor, I do not want the job. Well, I think everyone thinks you're going to be mayor because you said you were going to be mayor. Yeah. You've been blackpilled on the mayor idea.

1:32:23I went down the rabbit hole of the budget, the statutory demands, and then spent time with the mayor. I mean, look, if I thought I could go in and be an effective mayor, it's like, can I be more effective as mayor or just as Pete as a resident doing what I'm doing now? I can be way more effective doing what I'm doing now with no pressures of being a mayor. So why become a mayor? I don't need to be mayor. My ego doesn't say, oh, I need to wear the robe and the chains. I don't give a fuck about that. You look good in the robe and the chains. Yeah, I look good. But we should talk about football. Yeah, well, just let me finish on that mayor.

1:32:54Oh, yeah, go on. Is that I actually think the end goal is what's the important thing. The end goal is making bed for better. I can do that more effectively, not as mayor. Fair. And I don't want to be an MP. So there's no office for me to take. I'm not interested in office. You're just going to be the change you want to see in the world. Love it, man. Real Bedford played their first game on Saturday. Yes. Against a good side. Yes. Yeah, this is an interesting season for us. It feels different. It's the first division we've gone into where it feels like there's actually big clubs. It's the first where we definitely don't have the biggest budget.

1:33:29I don't think we had the biggest budget last year, but we definitely don't. There's a couple of teams, Harbour and Sporting, are definitely spending more than us. Teams are experienced at this level. It's semi-pro to the level where some of the players will have played pro and will be getting paid very well. What is very well? I mean, if you're getting over£1 ,000 a week in step three, you're a very, very well-paid player. That exists in this division. First game of the season, Spalding, who were originally second favorites. I think we're second favorites now. I mean, it was just different. It was a different level of football.

1:34:05good good players tough players they knew what they were doing we won back against the wall most of the first half managed to equalize just before half time and then Joey stepped up got his brace second half we won but it reminded us a lot of the first season of step five we played this team MK Irish who were the better sign and we won we grew into the league and then dominated the league I don't know if the same will be this season we will give a good count of ourselves and playoffs would be a hell of an achievement. Winning it would be very tough. But if you do win it, you'll be the first team to ever do four back-to-back.

1:34:42Yeah. It's only three teams have ever done three championships in a row. No one's done four. I'd love to do it. And look, I mean, you were there when I came up with this idea. And I thought you were batshit crazy then. Well, no one got it. I didn't get it. No one understood it. I thought this was Pete blowing money. Yeah. But I kind of like, it's like that first mover advantage. I don't know if you listened to my Balaji interview. He talks about when you leave a broken country, you've got the first mover advantage. I think that resonated with Connor a lot. It's like you get to move first, you get the lower house prices where you're going, you get away from the shit.

1:35:23Whoever did the first Bitcoin team created the Bitcoin team. There are other Bitcoin teams who've tried it and no one talks about them. Rail Bedford is the Bitcoin team, which means we have the Bitcoin as the fans and the companies are sponsors and the Winklevoss' co-owners. And we use the power of Bitcoin and the community of Bitcoin and the principles of Bitcoin to power a sports team, hopefully to go from the bottom of the English pyramid to the top, which is nine promotions. Three years in, we've done three. We're a third of the way there, which when you think about it, it's quite mad. It's insane.

1:35:55If we did the same again in three years, we'd be two-thirds of the way there. I don't think we will. I think these are going to be very hard. but it's all doable and it's been fucking hell of a journey I mean I'm actually in my fifth season because you took over halfway through the first season yeah then we did the three promotions and now we start this one so actually my fifth season so it's gone super quick the funniest thing to me is and there's some kind of like imagery in this but the first time I came to a game so I watched some of the streams at first but I don't think I came to a game until your second season okay and it was like a rainy day vibes were like pretty good but there was maybe if there were 50 people there that would have been a push.

1:36:33No, that would have been the first half of the season we had them. Oh, really? Yeah, because we we used to get 40, 50 around that time. Maybe it was the first season. The first full season we used to you must have been because you must have been to England. Yeah. The first full season we used to get 180 unless it was a Tuesday night we had the occasional Tuesday night we would have like 80. But it's like it was so funny seeing it go from that to then what it was at Chico which was the last time I saw a game here. 1 ,400. 1 ,400 people sun was shining vibes were high Bedford won the league. And it felt different.

1:37:00Once you get a thousand people, once there's people on every side and it's full up, it feels like you're at a football club, a real active football club. You are. And there's music. There's music. But when you can hear a crowd, it feels different. I love the little ultras you've got that stand behind the goal banging the drum. They're brilliant. We wanted to put masks on them. The powers that be said no. Who said no? Neil. Rightly so. look, it's an intimidating atmosphere. We still want to do it. But yeah, look, we're building a thing and I think it's a real Bitcoin project. There are, like PubKey, I think the best Bitcoin businesses are the ones that work without Bitcoin and Bitcoin becomes an accelerant.

1:37:45In that if Bitcoin fails or has a bear market, whatever, the business still operates and does its thing. But for us, it's an accelerant. If you don't like Bitcoin, you come to Rail Bedford, you can pay to get in, You can have a burger, a pint, watch a game of football and leave. But if you're a Bitcoiner, you get to talk to Bitcoiners. I talk to you and you get to pay for everything with your Bitcoin. And you accelerate what we're doing because we have Bitcoin. And all the Bitcoin we have, we've always sold. When we sold Bitcoin, it's always into profit. When we raised the money from the Winklevoss, I think Bitcoin is about 70k.

1:38:18It's like 110k now. I mean, that investment is what? Is that 40 %? 50 %? 60? I'm not doing maths live. I mean, it's going up faster than we can spend it. Which is the model for how we got through the leagues quicker with a lower investment. And so, yeah, look, it's worked. It's been... God, I love it. I love it so much. Tomorrow night, we are off to Needham Market, away game. Is there the thing you're most excited for now in your life? Game day? Oh, that's a good question. I mean, yeah, kind of. Yes, I love match day. I love getting in the car with Connor, unless I'm talking on the way, on the way back.

1:39:01But is it the most exciting thing? No, it's not. I am excited about retirement. Don't go yet. No, I just... You need a few more years of Pete. I'm really starting to enjoy the occasional time I have off. Like, we're going on holiday on Wednesday, and we've rented a villa, and just going to be there with the family and relax, and I'm really looking forward to that. Although, Connor, I have been looking how we can fly to the Hell's Own game. can we get a flight on uh saturday morning and a flight back saturday night private jet cameron tyler yeah no i mean i just love it it's uh it's because it's a results-based business not a profit-based business you're trying to be successful and not lose money and that's a challenge but you are it's like so real building a podcast is interesting but they're just numbers on a screen, building a business where people turn up.

1:39:55It feels tangible. It feels real and it feels like something the community can get behind. No, I love it. I really wanted us to make a bet on the podcast for all time's sake, but we did them all on the show that we never recorded. What did we bet? I can't remember. You write them down. I never have a copy. I just trust you. I don't think I wrote them down this time. We can do them again. We're settled. The current position is even. Even. Back to even. Right. New bets. This is deposit only for me when we bet. I've made so much money bet on Bitcoin. Yeah, you really have. I've made a Bitcoin off American HODL and we've got a live Bitcoin bet.

1:40:32700K by... End of 27? Yeah, I think we're going to win that. I don't know. Right. United. How many points? What was last season? 17. No, no, no. What was the actual difference last season? 38. No, 38. No, because we double quit to 34 and it was 38. Okay. Are you sure it was that close? I don't think 38 points is that close. I want... No, I mean, yeah, true. I want United top half of the season. Okay, United top half. I'll take that 100K sets. Yeah. United not to get relegated. I'm taking that one just for the beams. And then you come up with a points one. it was 42 last season 42 point difference i don't i don't think you're gonna have a good season but i don't think it's going to be as big a disaster no it's not but i want it to be one that's close i think 20 points is a good one i mean because you gave me the relegate i'll give you but i think i'm gonna lose that one 20 points can we um talk about my favorite bet with you which was that when united played liverpool we had 100k sats and you went to la no no it's the one where you went to bed and you woke up it was seven seven one and the ref ended the game early because he felt sorry for you yeah that was one of my least favorite mornings i woke up to thousands of notifications on twitter i was dying we absolutely battered you all right before we finish oh sorry it's your show no go on you take over tell me what's going on what's going on in the world of Bitcoin that I should be aware of.

1:42:06I know treasury companies. It's paper Bitcoin summer, bro. Is that what it's called?

1:42:12There's a lot of stuff happening that's not what I thought winning would look like. I think like there's a and I've been skeptical of a lot of treasury companies. I'd say over and over again I think Saylor's different. I think Met Planet are different. I think probably 21 and Anand Bax one will be different just out of sheer size. But I am nervous about these companies just scooping up coins to eventually spit them out again. but at the same time as all this happening samurai devs, you've seen what's happened here it's fucking disgrace so I've spoken to a few people who are actual lawyers and it sounds like, so they've pled guilty sounds like they're going to get the higher end of the sentence so probably both going to have five years in prison the libertarian party needs to do another deal with Trump I think honestly, I think the best chance they have is now a pardon and there's people working on that there's someone from the libertarian party working on that and Roman Storm also convicted He actually went through trial and got convicted of conspiracy to run a money laundering business.

1:43:09I think it was the charge. So he's going to get five years or up to five years. So lots of good things. That sounds like a black pill. There's lots of good things, but there's definitely stuff that's not what Bitcoin should, that's not Bitcoin winning. Yeah. I mean, it feels like it's got, I think it's got a bit boring for me as an external person. I think you've got bored of it. I find, I'm not finding it boring. Well, weirdly though, I had a long chat in Lofoten, Norway, with somebody. And they talked about how we've kind of gone so far away from peer-to-peer money. And I'm kind of with them.

1:43:55Because if it's only digital gold... Oh, I totally agree. We'll be rich and depressed, like Thomas says. My favorite quote in Bitcoin. There's stuff that's happening, though, that is genuinely cool. Like, I think that everything Callie's building is insane. Yeah, Callie's amazing. I love him. Have you used BitChat yet? No, but I've seen stuff. Have you got it? No. Oh, I was going to send you a first message on BitChat. It's really cool. Yeah. Don't get me wrong. It's, like, obviously limited in scope because not many people have it yet. So, like, finding people on there is impossible. The first time I found anyone was in Riga, and we were on a boat.

1:44:30so Mills organized this boat trip for us on the last day. She came to Bedford. She's the best. And we were all just like sat there talking and BitChat came up. And so we get our phone out and honestly, 10 minutes later, no one had talked for 10 minutes. We're all just talking on BitChat. So from what I see in BitChat, very cool. I think pretty much everything Jack Dorsey does is cool. I love everything Callie's doing. But it all feels really niche. Yeah. And it doesn't feel like there are enough people working on peer-to-peer money at a narrative level. Like out there talking about it, making it happen.

1:45:06I think that's fair, but I do think that's changing too. So have you heard that ARK Labs have now launched? Nope. So I think Riga was the first time it had ever been actually used. So all the merchants that were set up in Riga weren't using Lightning, they were using ARK. Okay. And I know that someone at the conference, I forget who, sorry, did a transaction from Cashew to ARK using the Lightning Network as like the interoperable middleman. and this stuff's happening and from what I've heard, ARK is going to be pretty fucking powerful because it's basically lightning without ever having to worry about liquidity and things like that I think it needs to get a bit more punk rock yeah, I agree I think the punk rock, fuck you that was the different vibe in Riga compared to being in somewhere like Vegas because Riga has all, I think the German group are fucking cool the German Bitcoiners are like the I think the European Bitcoiners are like the cypherpunks now whereas in America it's all like the Well, it's like all the financialization side of things.

1:46:00And maybe they're the cypherpunkts because they need to be, because of stuff like the Online Safety Act and all this stuff that's going through Europe. America don't have those problems, but there is a lot of cool products being built. But I agree that the narrative probably needs to shift a little bit. And look, I'm away from it, so I'm not really seeing it. But I don't know. It's just like that punk rock edge. I just think, you know, like Lop said, what's the point of having fuck you money if you don't say fuck you? And I just think it's... Look, if we're moving into a world where the institutions and the governments are going to start accumulating Bitcoin, then we need Bitcoiners to take over the institutions and the governments and do it in the right way.

1:46:32So there's this massive growth in socialism in the UK. 53 % of young people think it's the right model. So look, I think we need to go and dismantle the socialist states of Europe and the world and the socialist growth, and we need to get back to being like punks and a bit more fuck you attitude. I could have ran it for hours, man. Let's fucking go. Danny, love you, man. Thank you for having me. This has been great. Thank you, Pete. Thank you.