[
  {
    "start": 0.0,
    "end": 20.064,
    "text": " Here is Maggie Dawn. Welcome everybody. I hope you are all doing very well because we have a very, very special episode for you today. We are talking about cryptocurrencies for the entire show. Now don't turn the channel. Don't don't move the dial. Stay with us."
  },
  {
    "start": 20.064,
    "end": 49.568,
    "text": " I have to say I used to have an audible groaning sound in response to people that would try to talk to me about crypto. Hey Maggie, what do you think about this Bitcoin? I just bought a bunch of Bitcoin and I would audibly groan, roll my eyes and start mumbling about central banks like some old fuddy duddy who happens to be an economist. We're going to dispel some myths about crypto. We're going to explain what it is, how it works. We're going to get into some to some moral questions about is it really a force for good?"
  },
  {
    "start": 49.568,
    "end": 71.312,
    "text": " What are the potentials for abuses? What are the corruption potentials? How does Bitcoin, a specific type of cryptocurrency, or at least the network on which you buy the token known as a Bitcoin? More on that in a second. How does it differ from other cryptocurrencies? What the hell is the difference between a meme coin and a stable coin?"
  },
  {
    "start": 71.312,
    "end": 99.28,
    "text": " Do they all pose the same sorts of moral questions? We have amazing guests. These are going to be longer interviews so that we can really get into it. I know you all have been just as annoyed as I have from time to time when I have to hurry my guests along because we've got somebody else coming in not to worry today. It's complicated and we've got plenty of time to get into it all. In the second hour of this program, I'm going to be joined by the former White House Council"
  },
  {
    "start": 99.28,
    "end": 118.4,
    "text": " ethics lawyer. Yeah, this was the top dog in the White House responsible for advising the president as well as his staff about various ethical matters. He did this for a number of years under George W. Bush. G.W. His name is Richard Painter."
  },
  {
    "start": 118.4,
    "end": 139.984,
    "text": " He's going to be joining me at five o'clock. We're going to talk about the evolution of opportunities for corruption, the current legal landscape. What does all this mean in terms of these technological advances and specifically crypto? So Richard's going to be here to help us all understand that. But we got to start to begin the beginning with the basics."
  },
  {
    "start": 139.984,
    "end": 154.96,
    "text": " And folks, I ain't no expert about this, so I'm gonna need some help and your patience for those of you who may know a good little bit more about this than I do. Forgive me for any dumb questions I may ask, but I figure if I don't know, maybe one of you out there also doesn't know."
  },
  {
    "start": 154.96,
    "end": 181.136,
    "text": " With all of that, it is really my pleasure to introduce associate professor of philosophy. Yes, philosophy at the University of Wyoming and a fellow with the Bitcoin Policy Institute. Welcome, Bradley Rettler to the Maggie Doncho. Thanks so much for being here, Brad. Thank you for having me. Also, Homestead High School graduate class of 2000."
  },
  {
    "start": 181.136,
    "end": 210.48,
    "text": " back up in the Badger state. Yes, homegrown native son joining us here, which is makes it all the more special. You teach on all kinds of including intro philosophy classes, which I think you should get a gold star for because I know I struggled in my intro fill classes, but about metaphysics and religion and culture, critical thinking, implicit biases, but you also have"
  },
  {
    "start": 210.48,
    "end": 240.384,
    "text": " this growing body of work that specifically focuses on Bitcoin. So let's start here, Bradley. How the hell does a philosopher get interested in Bitcoin? They seem like two things that most people would not expect two areas of study to intersect. For me, it goes back to the time I spent between living in Brookfield and living in Mequon, where I lived in Singapore. And in on the weekends, I would"
  },
  {
    "start": 240.384,
    "end": 257.52,
    "text": " Go out shopping with the family and there were these lines of people stretched out the door waiting to send money back home international remittances to their families and they were paying 15 20 25 percent to the companies that would facilitate these and people would have to walk"
  },
  {
    "start": 257.52,
    "end": 278.896,
    "text": " get the money, carry it home in cash, hoping that nobody else knew that they were carrying all this cash. And so when I heard about Bitcoin, I thought this is a way of simplifying international transactions. People can receive it without anyone knowing they don't have to travel to get it. This is going to revolutionize cross border payments. And it just kind of went from there."
  },
  {
    "start": 279.088,
    "end": 307.216,
    "text": " so fascinating so much great learning or at least the impetus to learning happens when you travel if you are blessed enough fortunate enough to be able to do that you get to see something that's totally different you're like hmm wonder what that's all about right a great great origin story about this so let's what is a cryptocurrency how does it relate to blockchain is blockchain separate from crypto and how do they work together"
  },
  {
    "start": 307.536,
    "end": 329.968,
    "text": " Great questions. So Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency launched in 2009 and the goal of the inventor of Bitcoin was to try to figure out how to do digital cash without intermediaries. So normally when we handle digital money, we have some sort of app and we're trusting"
  },
  {
    "start": 329.968,
    "end": 357.984,
    "text": " the people who run the app, what usually a bank, but maybe PayPal or something like that. We're trusting them to know how much we have and to be able to facilitate transactions. And the goal of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, was to be able to send money electronically without needing a centralized intermediary. And people have had been trying to do that for a decade or so, but it never quite caught on."
  },
  {
    "start": 357.984,
    "end": 387.52,
    "text": " And Satoshi's idea was to use a blockchain where you would build block by block and in that way be able to prevent the biggest problem for sending money electronically without a centralized intermediary was double spending. So I send you money and then I also send the exact same money to someone else. And if you never talk to that person, neither of you know that I that I sent the exact same money to both of you. And so the goal was to try to figure out how to do this."
  },
  {
    "start": 387.52,
    "end": 412.656,
    "text": " without requiring someone to keep track of everyone's balances. And so the goal was, the solution was to have this chain that grows as each transaction comes in and is such that you can't go back and redo any of the transactions that have already happened. It needs to keep growing, but you need to only be able to add, never change things in the past."
  },
  {
    "start": 412.656,
    "end": 441.28,
    "text": " So, Satoshi uses the blockchain to do that, and cryptography is the way that users' passwords, you can think of the things as passwords, are protected so that people can't steal your money. So basically, how does one convert a central bank-issued bit of currency into crypto? You're buying units."
  },
  {
    "start": 441.28,
    "end": 467.92,
    "text": " of or you're buying tokens, right? I mean, this and the token is the Bitcoin or the Dogecoin or whatever it is, right? Yeah, the individual cryptocurrency systems work by and large independently from any central bank issued currency like the US dollar or the euro or the pound or something. And so you have to get on to the network either by trading some"
  },
  {
    "start": 467.92,
    "end": 490.16,
    "text": " something for it. You could trade dollars or euros. You could also trade labor. Someone could pay you in Bitcoin for some work that you do. Or you could also engage in the process of mining where by verifying transactions and contributing computing power to the network, you are paid in the native asset of the network."
  },
  {
    "start": 491.056,
    "end": 516.72,
    "text": " It's fascinating. I my interest in this really piqued. I was speaking to a room that was ahead about 400 certified or chartered financial analysts in it and We were talking about a whole gamut of things and somebody just from the back was like 40 I was on a panel. What do you all think about Bitcoin and crypto? And again, I responded like the funny duddy economist inside"
  },
  {
    "start": 516.72,
    "end": 539.104,
    "text": " Well, that's all fine and good until there's a run on the currency or someone tries to effectively corner the currency, which are things that you can think about in your mind that relate to an old central bank type run system. And there's no"
  },
  {
    "start": 539.104,
    "end": 563.44,
    "text": " entity standing up and saying, like, I'll, I'll, I'll make good on your currency. Right. In other words, the very, the verifying central bank that says, yeah, that's what the dot that money is a symbol, right? Like, I don't actually have that we used to be tied to a gold currency aren't anymore. So money is just a symbol and we all just agree about what it means. So at least"
  },
  {
    "start": 563.44,
    "end": 589.28,
    "text": " pardon the use of the word here, philosophically, I could understand what crypto was, but I went, but, but, but the central banks, but, but, but the central banks and effectively central banks as tamping down massive swings in currency valuation. Now that has not always been successful. Even in the United States, you can certainly harken back to the late seventies."
  },
  {
    "start": 589.28,
    "end": 619.28,
    "text": " But that the point of central banks is usually write the two tradeoffs of inflation and unemployment and trying to again create stability. Nobody's doing that in a crypto environment. So if people want to engage with crypto, whether by mining, trading goods or services to be paid in crypto or by buying units with central bank issued currency,"
  },
  {
    "start": 619.28,
    "end": 640.896,
    "text": " Aren't they, should the baseline expectation be you will see a lot of volatility potentially in the value of the crypto? That very much depends on the cryptocurrency. So some cryptocurrencies do have foundations and boards and they have a discretionary monetary policy."
  },
  {
    "start": 640.896,
    "end": 670.048,
    "text": " where they can burn tokens and add tokens to the supply. Then there are other cryptocurrencies. So Bitcoin is one of these that does not have a discretionary monetary policy. Bitcoin blocks come roughly every 10 minutes. And with each block, there's a reward that's paid out that increases the supply of Bitcoin. And that supply schedule has held since 2009 and foreseeably into the future. So you have a supply guarantee."
  },
  {
    "start": 670.048,
    "end": 686.48,
    "text": " at any time you can figure out exactly how much Bitcoin there will be in the world at that time. But at the cost of no price guarantee at all. So. So it's interesting. You could see you can see the thinking here like on one angle. I'll attack."
  },
  {
    "start": 686.48,
    "end": 713.968,
    "text": " the run on the bank problem by having guaranteed supply, but that also can then make the currency fluctuate because you constantly have new issuances of the Bitcoin. On the other hand, people are saying I may not guarantee you supply because the guarantee of supply is what makes the discretionary monetary policy impossible to implement. Okay, I think we're getting there, Bradley. This is really helpful."
  },
  {
    "start": 713.968,
    "end": 722.704,
    "text": " We're gonna have to take care of a little business here, but folks, when we come back, I'm gonna talk with our guests this entire hour. We're gonna get into..."
  },
  {
    "start": 722.704,
    "end": 752.192,
    "text": " all of the nitty gritty. We're talking with Bradley Rutler. He's an associate professor of yes philosophy with a particular interest and publication focus on Bitcoin in particular, but crypto is large. He's with us from the University of Wyoming. We're exploring what crypto is, what it isn't, what positive impacts it could have in society, could wealth inequality actually be addressed in part?"
  },
  {
    "start": 752.192,
    "end": 773.04,
    "text": " through bitcoin but also what dangers may lie ahead and how do you get as informed as you want to be about this so you can help us select elected representatives that themselves will hopefully mine pun intended all the positive attributes of crypto and block"
  },
  {
    "start": 773.328,
    "end": 801.632,
    "text": " Unintended the negative downside risks for society writ large We're gonna be back with Bradley in just a few minutes everybody keep it locked right here. I'm Maggie Don. This is the civic media radio network. Welcome back everybody It is the Maggie Don show crypto special today. You're not gonna go want to go anywhere Stay with us the entire show. We have two amazing experts Helping all of us together get a little smarter about this me included"
  },
  {
    "start": 801.632,
    "end": 827.344,
    "text": " Boy, this was one of those. I get nervous like I'm taking an exam and I haven't prepared enough what I'm talking to people that know a whole bunch more about all stuff that I just don't know. That's my guess to start the show today. His name is Bradley Rutler. He's an associate professor of philosophy with a focus on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies with the University of Wyoming. Welcome back to the program. Bradley, really glad to have you here. You in the last segment, you."
  },
  {
    "start": 827.344,
    "end": 847.344,
    "text": " basically gave us the building blocks of what crypto is. And there are some key distinctions between Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which we started to get into. Bitcoin, of course, the most widely heard of, I think the Bitcoin most widely used, better around forever."
  },
  {
    "start": 847.344,
    "end": 875.024,
    "text": " It's seen incredible value increases and some volatility but value increases since what was it 2009 tell us again, you know like when we start to look at different crypto currencies Why is Bitcoin always the the sort of well if we're talking about crypto you're talking about Bitcoin not just because it was first but why is there such a focus on Bitcoin and how does it How is it different from other cryptos?"
  },
  {
    "start": 875.376,
    "end": 893.696,
    "text": " Bitcoin, as you said, was the first one and other cryptocurrencies came along to do things differently than Bitcoin, either to have higher supply or more discretion or things like that. And also to try to make money. People invented these things."
  },
  {
    "start": 893.696,
    "end": 916.288,
    "text": " and they traded them early on for Bitcoin. If you wanted to get in early on some of these offerings of other coins, they would accept your Bitcoin and then they would give you some of the coin that they were making. Bitcoin is also interesting because it's neutral. So before Satoshi even launched the network, they announced that they were going to do it."
  },
  {
    "start": 916.288,
    "end": 943.28,
    "text": " They told everyone how to mine, how to be involved, how to acquire it. And then from the very beginning, Satoshi was doing what everyone else has had to do from the very beginning of Bitcoin, which is use computing power to do the mining, which then results in the awarding of the new Bitcoin. Other cryptocurrencies have taken different approaches. Instead of mining, they'll do something like staking, where you have some of the cryptocurrency and you."
  },
  {
    "start": 943.28,
    "end": 971.632,
    "text": " sort of offer it as your proof that you're invested in the network and then you will get new issuances of the token in proportion to how much you already have. So lots of different opportunities for changing different aspects of the network, whether it's the size of the blocks or the amount of the currency or the method by which the blockchain is protected. It's fascinating and in some ways it just"
  },
  {
    "start": 971.632,
    "end": 993.328,
    "text": " you know, in my head, because I've done so much corporate law for so long, it sounds like all of the different evolutions and innovations that happen sort of in like corporate mergers and takeovers and shareholders and owners, those are all concepts that I'm hearing you describe, but in context of again,"
  },
  {
    "start": 993.328,
    "end": 1019.2,
    "text": " issuing a currency and certainly when I start thinking about well you're using one commodity to buy another my econ brain goes well that's a derivative product and now I have to be thinking out the valuations of two things and now these things are coming together very briefly and I know you've written a little bit about this I don't want to get down the the the rabbit hole too far here but"
  },
  {
    "start": 1019.2,
    "end": 1043.152,
    "text": " There is discussion within the landscape of people talking about cryptocurrencies about basically financial derivative products and how is that going to work if the underlying currency is a cryptocurrency. Can you just speak to that really briefly? That, I'm assuming, adds a whole layer of"
  },
  {
    "start": 1043.152,
    "end": 1071.984,
    "text": " regulatory questions, you know, volatility questions. As a philosopher, is it good? Is it bad? How does it work? It's going to get much more complicated, much more quickly if you're looking at more sophisticated financial products and derivatives. Yeah, when the Bitcoin network was introduced, it was explicitly in the very first Bitcoin block, Satoshi included a headline, which is times"
  },
  {
    "start": 1072.016,
    "end": 1099.136,
    "text": " the date of the block, January 2009, Chancellor on Brink of Second bailout for banks. Satoshi was very explicit that this was supposed to be an alternative to the way that the financial system works. And now we're seeing 15 years later, the very same financial instruments come into this space that was originally set up to be apart from them. And I know there's a lot of work being done, especially..."
  },
  {
    "start": 1099.136,
    "end": 1128.272,
    "text": " this week, the crypto week in Congress of passing various cryptocurrency related bills. And I have not read the hundreds of pages that are out. But yeah, I mean, one of the things that needs to be decided is are all of these securities are any of them securities? What do we look for in the various features that would make them one or the other? What financial products are permissible to do on crypto? What are"
  },
  {
    "start": 1128.272,
    "end": 1153.04,
    "text": " banks allowed to do with crypto? What products can they offer? And as a philosopher, I have no guidance on any of those things. So yeah, I have to leave it there. Well, one thing I would suggest people think about is these different governance structures for crypto is very intimidating."
  },
  {
    "start": 1153.04,
    "end": 1179.168,
    "text": " But those governance structures, one of the things that people, it may sound a little dry when I talk about it on the show, but I often talk about governance structures and that the governance structure itself will determine whether or not you see good outcomes or not. Almost universally, and I don't care if I'm talking about a board of trustees at a university, a board of directors, or the governance structure for crypto. If you want to know"
  },
  {
    "start": 1179.168,
    "end": 1204.576,
    "text": " you know if a governance structure is quote good or not look at the outcomes that are being incented incentivized within the system if those are actually the outcomes that you're seeing because of how that is regulated and governed then that's a quote good system the question is do you agree with those objectives and incentives that the system has been created to promote"
  },
  {
    "start": 1204.576,
    "end": 1232.896,
    "text": " We're going to continue this discussion. We'll get into the difference between stable coins and meme coins and all that good stuff on the other side. I've got crypto expert and philosopher King Bradley Rettler with me. Don't go anywhere. I'm Maggie Dawn. You're listening to the Civic Media Radio Network. I'm Maggie Dawn. You're listening to the Civic Media Radio Network. It's crypto day here on the Maggie Dawn show. We're talking about crypto not to bore you, not to get into all the technical detail."
  },
  {
    "start": 1232.896,
    "end": 1249.952,
    "text": " Not to give you a quiz about can you write blockchain? We're not going to do that to you. But just so we all have a bit of a better understanding about some of the questions that our elected officials are grappling with and what their ramifications might be for."
  },
  {
    "start": 1249.952,
    "end": 1275.984,
    "text": " I don't know the health of the U.S. economy, about your job future, about whether or not you get to start a small business and who do you borrow money from, all those kinds of things, especially also wealth inequality. Right before we get there, Bradley, I did not know that there was such a thing called a meme coin, nor did I know there was a stable coin until I saw it in the news recently related to"
  },
  {
    "start": 1275.984,
    "end": 1297.872,
    "text": " one particular guy in particular, who for purposes of this segment can remain a little nameless. I'm talking about Trump, of course, issuing a stable coin to help basically be it look like some kind of bridge financing or or again, some sort of financing arrangement with a foreign sovereign."
  },
  {
    "start": 1297.872,
    "end": 1324.48,
    "text": " funded entity. He issued meme coins right before his inauguration for both he and his wife Melania. And I was like, I've never heard these words. Is it the same as a cryptocurrency? I'm assuming not because they have different names. Help me understand Bitcoin versus meme coin versus stablecoin. Sure. Surprisingly."
  },
  {
    "start": 1324.48,
    "end": 1354.192,
    "text": " These things are all cryptocurrencies in that cryptocurrencies are digital money that use cryptography to secure the network in some way and all of these two. So Bitcoin comes along as the first one. Then other coins come along. Dogecoin, for example, changes a few things about Bitcoin, moves the zeros over so you could have billions and billions of it in the supply. Litecoin makes."
  },
  {
    "start": 1354.192,
    "end": 1380.656,
    "text": " blocks faster. And every two minutes, I think instead of every 10 minutes. So altering some parameters, these are all cryptocurrencies. But of those three, Dogecoin is a meme coin, because it has this cute little dog associated with it. And people are using it to have fun. Some people then because it's so much fun, it's going up in value as more people are using it. And they begin to treat it"
  },
  {
    "start": 1380.656,
    "end": 1406.352,
    "text": " although it's a meme coin as a serious investment. They think, I think people are going to want to acquire this because it's funny. So I'm going to put a significant portion of my assets into this thing that's just supposed to be funny. So what normally distinguishes meme coins from other cryptocurrency projects is meme coins aren't trying to solve a specific problem. They're not doing anything interesting with governance. What they're doing is trying to have fun."
  },
  {
    "start": 1406.864,
    "end": 1434.816,
    "text": " Stable coins, by contrast, are supposed to have their values pegged to some currency, usually the US dollar. And they do that in a variety of ways. Often they own US treasuries and other small interest bearing, but very risk-free or very risk-minimized. Yeah, things. And then they take your dollars."
  },
  {
    "start": 1434.816,
    "end": 1460.432,
    "text": " convert it to their cryptocurrency and you have exactly as many stable tokens as you had dollars. And they make money because you gave them your money and you're going to invest it. You don't get any yield from using the stable token. They get the yield and so they can afford to give you exactly as much as you gave them. Stable coins are supposed to be ways to transact."
  },
  {
    "start": 1460.432,
    "end": 1488.736,
    "text": " using dollars. So suppose you are worried about volatility, they're not volatile, at least not any more volatile than the US dollar is. They also can bridge between cryptocurrencies. So you can trade your Bitcoin, let's say for a stablecoin and then trade that for a different cryptocurrency. So they operate as bridges between. Fascinating. So my unsophisticated tech currency brain was"
  },
  {
    "start": 1488.736,
    "end": 1518.48,
    "text": " Sounds like kind of getting it right about what the the stablecoin was going to get used for So again, the the reason that someone would go to the trouble to create a stablecoin is that the owner operators can effectively they scrape all the yield that they can accrue from whatever Central Bank issued currency the stablecoin is pegged to"
  },
  {
    "start": 1518.48,
    "end": 1544.56,
    "text": " Have I said that right from the investment of that or the reinvestment into other crypto or whatever it is? That's exactly right. And the their ability to do that is exactly as risky as what they're using the inflows to buy. So if they're buying highly risky assets, they might end up having fewer."
  },
  {
    "start": 1544.56,
    "end": 1561.008,
    "text": " US dollars dollars they have issued stable coins and that so they have to manage in other words it would be folks a little bit a stable coin issuer an operator would be a little bit like a bank in that instance"
  },
  {
    "start": 1561.008,
    "end": 1586.992,
    "text": " where you have deposited monies, you want to get it back, you got to hope that the banks going to be good, pay out correctly on whatever you, at least in your account ledger, are said to be owed. Fascinating. The idea of using it, therefore, as a bridge to other cryptos or other transactions in different cryptos."
  },
  {
    "start": 1586.992,
    "end": 1607.392,
    "text": " makes a lot of sense or more sense. Thank you for that Bradley. Let's get into some of the um you put them as moral or philosophical question philosophical questions. I as I was reading some of your work thought of them more simply as well what what goods could come of this what better outcomes for people could come of this"
  },
  {
    "start": 1607.392,
    "end": 1635.888,
    "text": " And also what perils exist, what what potentials for abuse, either abuse of people or abuse by the very, very knowledgeable elites and those that run these kinds of platforms and currencies. So let's start on the positive end. You began by telling a story about, hey, folks that move to do work to feed their families back in another country and another currency had to pay almost"
  },
  {
    "start": 1635.888,
    "end": 1663.488,
    "text": " nearly criminal rates to try to send the money that they earn back to their family. This was a workaround. What other positive or capital markets democratizing impacts can cryptocurrencies have? When we look at the rate of adoption globally for, my expertise is mostly in Bitcoin. So when we look at the rate of adoption globally for Bitcoin,"
  },
  {
    "start": 1663.488,
    "end": 1693.312,
    "text": " The countries at which per capita it's being adopted the fastest are the ones that have the least trust in banks that have the least access to banks that have the least access to the internet and other things like that. So India, Nigeria, Indonesia, Vietnam, Ukraine, Philippines. These are all places where Bitcoin adoption is rising more quickly than in other places. So."
  },
  {
    "start": 1693.312,
    "end": 1721.776,
    "text": " Bitcoin gives you the opportunity to store value in a way that other actors can't debase. A lot of these places have monetary policies that are at the discretion of people who have very often in the past taken advantage of people that have declared the old currency null and void. You have 10 days to trade it all in. We're issuing a new currency and"
  },
  {
    "start": 1721.776,
    "end": 1750.576,
    "text": " the amount you can trade in is capped. So people in these other countries are very familiar with saving up and then losing their savings due to some action by the people in authority. So one of the great things about a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is that there's no central authority. Nobody's in charge. Nobody can print extra. Nobody can confiscate what you have. Nobody can refuse to allow you to transact with it."
  },
  {
    "start": 1750.576,
    "end": 1777.28,
    "text": " And so people in these other countries feel much safer using Bitcoin than they do using government-backed currencies or banks. Yeah, certainly it's not a hard line of logic to follow that if I or my parents or grandparents went through a point of political history in my country of origin where their bank account was seized or their currency wasn't honored,"
  },
  {
    "start": 1777.28,
    "end": 1801.264,
    "text": " or they had such rapid inflation that the currency essentially became valueless or substantially decreased in value in a period of time that Americans have not experienced that kind of inflation, that becomes a highly desirable solution to that sort of problem. On the flip side,"
  },
  {
    "start": 1801.392,
    "end": 1831.008,
    "text": " What are some of the concerns, especially when we think about like wealth and income inequality access to regulated banking systems? So this is on a much bigger system level. And then I want to specifically ask you about corruption opportunities. The biggest risk with cryptocurrencies is that they can run outside of the rails of the traditional financial system, which central banks and governments have spent."
  },
  {
    "start": 1831.008,
    "end": 1860.64,
    "text": " decades to centuries, changing and modifying in order to exert, if you're in a good country, proper oversight. If you're in a bad country, the ability to exercise corruption. But if you are in a country where you are pretty happy with the way that your financial institutions are regulated, maybe they're among the best, then it gets more difficult to see the inflows"
  },
  {
    "start": 1860.64,
    "end": 1888.496,
    "text": " into cryptocurrencies and how it's moving around. The ledgers themselves of each of these cryptocurrencies just have addresses and balances. They don't have names. They don't have memo lines. You know, this, this I bought a yacht with this or something. Right, right. So it's hard to know who's paying who and how much they're paying and what they're paying for. And if you're worried about a lot of illicit activity happening."
  },
  {
    "start": 1888.496,
    "end": 1902.96,
    "text": " than this is an opportunity for that to happen. Much the same way that physical cash is. You can't see every cash transaction. In cryptocurrencies, you can see every transaction. You just can't know that much about them."
  },
  {
    "start": 1903.568,
    "end": 1932.368,
    "text": " That's fascinating to me that basically every transaction ever in the history of Bitcoin if you had infinite time you could sit down and and track it all back like that that record that is the ledger it exists But what does that mean when people can transact anonymously and my head goes to and starts thinking about especially For an adversary"
  },
  {
    "start": 1932.368,
    "end": 1961.424,
    "text": " both state and non-state actors attempting to frankly buy influence of Whether it's elected officials here or anywhere right that that becomes so Possible because it is anonymized and how would you prove straight up pay to play? If they're all transacting in Bitcoin like I don't know how I would do that because how unless I catch you withdrawing the money or catch you"
  },
  {
    "start": 1961.424,
    "end": 1988.0,
    "text": " with effectively the password for that particular Bitcoin account, I'm not proving that that's yours. I can't. That's really challenging, especially given the fact that I think we exist in a moment where there is significantly less ability under our US system of laws to regulate money in politics."
  },
  {
    "start": 1988.0,
    "end": 2017.856,
    "text": " Very briefly, Brad, you mentioned a few items we have about 30 seconds. What are a few of the regulatory items that Congress is currently struggling with? Congress is looking at stablecoin legislation. They're looking at what banks can do with cryptocurrency, what products they can offer to people who might want to have some Bitcoin but don't want to hold it themselves and maybe don't want to buy an ETF or something like that."
  },
  {
    "start": 2017.856,
    "end": 2045.584,
    "text": " looking at maybe some de minimis tax exemptions for transactions. One of the things that makes it hard to spend Bitcoin is that for even buying a cup of coffee, you have to figure out how much did I buy the Bitcoin for? How much did I sell it for the cup of coffee and pay capital gains tax? The discussion continues on the other side on the civic media radio network. Welcome back, everybody."
  },
  {
    "start": 2045.904,
    "end": 2071.088,
    "text": " It is crypto day here on the Maggie Don show and we have been joined by a very special guest the associate professor of Philosophy yes philosophy at the University of Wyoming. He has written extensively about Bitcoin in particular, but cryptocurrency More generally and he's got a book out on this you have to go check it out. It's called resistance money"
  },
  {
    "start": 2071.088,
    "end": 2099.376,
    "text": " a philosophical case for bitcoin. It was published in 2024. Also, Mr. Rutler published The Problem of Divine Personality in 2024, as well for all of you egghead philosophers out there that need a new book to read. We'll talk divine, the divine personality at another time. Brad, let's get back. I gave you a little bit of a big question with not"
  },
  {
    "start": 2099.376,
    "end": 2126.24,
    "text": " Big amount of minutes to answer it. So let me start again For people that are listening and they're starting to get their heads around like maybe there's some good that can happen with Bitcoin There are some things to be concerned about What are the questions that Congress is currently grappling with right now about Bitcoin and obviously we touched on this right as we were going out was It's really hard to tax cryptocurrency"
  },
  {
    "start": 2126.24,
    "end": 2154.016,
    "text": " And and the the specter of it the increase of its use in terms of government revenues while they were talking sales tax property taxes That should be pretty simple, but especially income tax all kinds of questions there. Tell us more about that since Very early on in the existence of Bitcoin the IRS has had rules about how to report crypto"
  },
  {
    "start": 2154.016,
    "end": 2183.584,
    "text": " purchases and especially capital gains on crypto. And it has been very different from how they treat other currencies like the pound or the euro. There, if you take a trip to England, you exchange your dollars for pounds. You don't spend some of those pounds. You come back, you exchange them back to dollars. As long as you haven't made more than like $10,000 on the transaction, you don't have to report it to the IRS."
  },
  {
    "start": 2183.584,
    "end": 2208.816,
    "text": " With crypto, even one penny difference in valuation has to be reported and and pay taxes on. So it makes very hard to use cryptocurrencies as a sort of everyday form of payment. So one of the things that Congress is considering is whether to have some sort of de minimis tax exemption for people who are using cryptocurrencies."
  },
  {
    "start": 2208.816,
    "end": 2231.008,
    "text": " as money for small transactions where they've made, let's say, less than $600 worth of profit. That's the number that's been getting quoted the most. They're also talking about a whole lot of other crypto issues, especially in terms of regulation. They're talking about regulating."
  },
  {
    "start": 2231.008,
    "end": 2258.592,
    "text": " cryptocurrencies with CFTC rather than the SEC. There there's an anti central bank digital currency bill that's moving through so it would prevent the Federal Reserve from starting its own cryptocurrency basically a digital dollar that where you'd have a direct debit from the central bank and they're they're talking about stablecoins especially so as"
  },
  {
    "start": 2258.592,
    "end": 2285.296,
    "text": " cryptocurrencies have become more popular, the rise of issuers of stablecoins has happened. And many of the early stablecoin issuers were pretty transparent about what they were doing and how they were doing it. And as those numbers have risen, we've gotten more and more stablecoins and so subject less and less transparency. Yeah, to the to the OCC."
  },
  {
    "start": 2285.296,
    "end": 2314.64,
    "text": " for exactly how they're backing their staple coins and what they're doing with the money that people give them. And that's the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. How likely, how easy, if you were an intentional bad actor, a politician, how easy would it be for you to engage in pay to play, quid pro like pick your corrupt activity, right?"
  },
  {
    "start": 2314.64,
    "end": 2343.936,
    "text": " or being entirely owned by a foreign government basically through just straight up bribery and cover it up these days by simply transacting in bitcoins or even not covering it up and saying foreign governments you can buy my new cryptocurrency and issuing your own crypto. Are those real threats? Are those real concerns? I think still by far the easiest way to cover up corruption and bribery is"
  },
  {
    "start": 2343.936,
    "end": 2370.656,
    "text": " bagfuls of cash. Yeah. But if you're not if you're not cash or there's yeah or there's so much cash that you can't do it. You know, Bitcoin has a ledger. It's public. Even though there are names associated with it, there are ways of finding out for for people who are determined enough where the money is coming from. So it's it's relatively hard to do large amounts of."
  },
  {
    "start": 2370.656,
    "end": 2399.504,
    "text": " large payments in Bitcoin without people finding out. But of course, you could launch your own cryptocurrency and make the blockchain not public, make it more difficult to identify who is putting money in and who's receiving it and how they're using it. So if you were wanting to engage in some sort of corruption or bribery using a cryptocurrency, it would be best probably to start your own rather than to use something like Bitcoin."
  },
  {
    "start": 2400.048,
    "end": 2425.36,
    "text": " Are there cryptos out there right now that are highly untransparent and much more easily used for corrupt purposes, or even black market drug trafficking, sex trafficking, God knows what? There are cryptocurrencies that are more private than Bitcoin, that use shielding or other obscurity measures to try to..."
  },
  {
    "start": 2425.36,
    "end": 2452.704,
    "text": " make transactions even more private. You know, those are good in some ways. Because we have governments that are trying to identify certain groups of people and execute them, and they're using the financial industry to do that. On the other hand, they by nature have to be neutral. They can't only allow good people to use it. They also have to allow bad people to use it."
  },
  {
    "start": 2452.704,
    "end": 2478.701,
    "text": " What's so far is happening is that it's easier to do it with small amounts than with large amounts. That's Bradley Rutler, philosophy associate professor at the University of Wyoming. As ever and always, two goods come together, security, freedom and privacy. We take up the ethics of it all with Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer, next on the Maggie Don Show."
  }
]