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29 July 2025
What If the Future Is Being Built Without You? w/ Paul Rosenberg | YBS #121
In this episode, I sit down with Paul Rosenberg, OG cypherpunk, author, and freedom advocate, to explore what it means to build a new world while most people are still asleep. We dive into the mindset of sovereignty, why the future isn’t something you wait for — it’s something you build — and how Bitcoin plays a part in this civilizational shift.
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⏱️ Timestamps:
00:00 Building a New World: The Terra Nova Vision
08:50 The Cypherpunk Revolution and Bitcoin's Emergence
18:14 Nostr and the Future of Decentralized Communication
22:43 Faith and Action: Building a Better Future
Block height: 907711
#Bitcoin #Decentralization #Future #Innovation #Freedom #Sovereignty
G G (00:00.27)
We have Terra Nova. We've got a new world. This is like discovering America. We can build whatever we want. Tell people it's like Bitcoin is something from the future and dating the present. The Christians of the first, second, third, fourth century, they grew 40 % in a decade. And by the time Rome was winding down, they took over Europe and built it their way. Well, we're going at a hell of lot more than 40 % a year. Whatever it is, our job is to see what's going on in the world now.
to see where we want it to go and hack ahead and build that. We want to create a better world that way. Get a vision of how you want the world to be, how you want the world to be. This is what changes the world. It's active will that changes the world. It's not sitting around and trying to be a nice boy and having nobody criticize you. Be honest with yourself and live what you think is important. In 20 years, you will be a radically better person than you would have otherwise.
G G (01:03.17)
Welcome back guys to your Bitcoin story. I'm your host Gigi and in our continued BTC Prague short series, I'm honored and privileged to have Paul Rosenberg here in flesh with us, joining us in Prague. Last time we had an incredible time at the Cypherpunk meetup, which was the after event. And Paul shared some strong words on stage being essentially seeing this cyberpunk revolution unfold in ways that are beyond Paul's imaginations, which he'll share with us.
And it's just so fortunate to have you here and thank you for your time, Oh, my pleasure. Usually I was asked, how did you discover Bitcoin? But your story goes way before Bitcoin. So I want to keep it to you, maybe just a short kind of your Cypherpunk background. And then maybe we can touch upon how you see it in your experience, how things have evolved over the last decades. OK, I fell into the Cypherpunks in 1995 or so.
I was working in fiber optics. I had been in electrical power, electrical wiring, that sort of field. I fell into fiber optics. I was involved in some of the very beginnings of that industry. And then I stumbled in the early days. First we were on bulletin board systems, then finally the internet came. Ooh, what's this? then somehow I found out about public key encryption.
What's this? You can do what? and then you realize what this means. We have a decentralized environment of the internet, and then we have encryption. The hard part about encryption is always sharing keys. How do you share the keys securely? So they don't get compromised. Right, because if they get compromised, the whole thing's There's no point. It's worse than doing it in the clear.
And then all of a sudden, we can do what? And it's mathematically secure and yet we have Terra Nova. We've got a new world. This is like discovering America. We can build whatever we want. Wow. And then, you know, then of course you go, well, what do we want? You know, what's the right way to- What do we fix first? Right, we've got a new continent of sorts here. What do we want to build? And of course, there's a lot of arguments about that. Some guys want to do it one day, some a different way. You know, there's all those.
G G (03:29.866)
Interesting things and then there's a moment when you go. Well, we've got great communications We can we can talk to anybody privately. They can't do a damn thing. Mm-hmm Wouldn't it be cool if we had some money? And you know because we could like send money to our friends and do business in our in our realm. Yeah So That became the holy grail for us and there were a lot of different systems and there are a lot of projects
many of them excellent, some less, and then till finally Bitcoin came along. Now for me, when Bitcoin came along, it was a non-event because I was busy running a special anonymity network. Nowadays, you call it a very, very good VPN. But it was an anonymity network. We had all kinds of technical stuff. had servers in multiple jurisdictions and
padded traffic and latency added and bouncing, all that kind of wizening stuff. So I was busy. It's hard to run a company. So myself, my business partner, Jonathan and I, we were busy with that. And somebody said, oh, they got this new thing. Well, what is it? It's an electronic currency. Really? Somebody did something like that? Good for them. What's it called? Bitcoin. OK. Makes sense. But I was busy.
And so I didn't read the white paper for years. I wrote a defense of Bitcoin in 2010, having never read anything about it and never knowing anything about it. our guys had built something important, and Wikipedia was giving them hell. They wouldn't let them list. They kept taking the page down. So I wrote a defense of Bitcoin that still exists on the internet somewhere.
Or whatever goes on the internet stays there forever, right? It's still there somewhere, I still I didn't you know, any Bitcoin I had was just because somebody said hey Paul, can you pick up my bar tab for me? I owe them 50 pounds. I send you some Bitcoin? Yeah, sure. Because I wanted to support the callers. Of course. So it was like that and then some years later till I actually read the white paper and went, what did that say?
G G (05:58.21)
How, you know, one of those moments. the light bulbs are like coming, coming alive. Right. And it took it even with for a lot of people like me who had been involved in cryptography earlier. The first time you read about Bitcoin, takes a while to sink in because it it's not that it's so complicated because it's really not. But it's fundamentally different to everything else. It was so different. It's radically different. is. It's it's it's.
I tell people it's like Bitcoin is something from the future invading the present. Because we had other different kinds of electronic cash. And we had a great system that was trading gold electronically. the e-cash. How many cash? E-gold. Not e-cash, e-gold. Which was wonderful. It had its problem. But it had the central point of failure. It had a central point of failure. But until the failure, it was fine. It was great. And it worked. it was run honestly.
And there were many different kinds of eagles, similar ones, and there were other projects in between. We had them, we were doing good stuff, but they all had the central point of failure. And then finally this thing came along, and when I finally understood it, go, this is a big deal. This is it? Yeah, this is it. And so there have been all sorts of the Bitcoin inside.
Inside fights and all kind that's fine. That's part of life humans, right? We can't just all get along magically There needs to be some back and forth humans do that and that and that's okay, but you know, walk around a show like this. How did this happen? You know Yeah, I did my part. Yeah other people did their part but there weren't very many of us and I Look around and I go how did how did I mean walking down?
There's 10,000 people below us, two floors below us, which is insane. It's insane! They came from all over the world. And there are some people my age, but there's mostly younger ones, and they get it. They really know what they're dealing with and talking about. I talked last night, you know, I read a lot of history, and I talked last night about the Christians of the first, second, third, fourth century. With a 40 % in a decade scaling.
G G (08:21.742)
They grew 40 % in a decade and by the time Rome was was winding down. They took over Europe and built it their way Well, we're growing at a hell of a lot more than 40 % a year and we're is one historian puts it he says the important thing of this change over whatever period he was talking about is the new Philosophers are now setting the terms of the debate. Oh And I going oh, oh write that down
Save that quote right right that down put it in the quotes file We're setting the terms of the debate in the US presidential election the United States presidential election, you know just some months ago They had to deal with Bitcoin and the guy who won is the one who endorsed Bitcoin and it who preached it the most Who preached it the most and it was not an insignificant addition to his cause? Yeah, you know and I don't I don't
Authorized politics in any way at all. I think it's Bronze Age stuff, correct But but just the fact that it's like such a vital part. It was huge volumes. It's it's insane. Yeah, you know and and Trump said I will free Ross Ulbricht. Hmm and did yeah and did Which is very surprising for a politician because usually they do the good talk and then they get into office and they do totally different But right he stuck to the word. He did he stuck to his word and let him out and
Wow, can you believe this is happening? I'm sometimes like, you know, I want to just, you know, do this and go, well, it's real, let's use this. I want to ask you follow up kind of transition. So we certainly are winning. But I think one thing that I don't know was a you Paul or someone at the on stage last night said we shouldn't get too comfortable. We shouldn't get too complacent with all we've already won. What's your kind of response or your
advice I would say to the listeners that are already kind of vested on the sovereign journey, but sometimes they look at the numbers and they're like, oh, we're going up to X amounts. Everything's good. Like the fight is still yet to be fought. It's we were 16 in 16 years into protocol being out. I tell people really lower your time preference in 16 years. Bitcoin became the fifth largest asset class in the world in 16 years, not 16, not 600, 16. So like just don't expect everything overnight, but the way things are going.
G G (10:46.424)
but we still need to keep on meeting, building, developing, breaking things, collaborating. What's your take on that, Ultimately, our job is to build a better future. That's really what we're doing. And for those people who have skills, whether it's coding or designing systems or connecting people who will work in systems or using the systems, whatever it is, our job is to see what's going on in the world now.
to see where we want it to go and hack ahead and build that. We want to create a better world that way. Cypherpunks was all about not using politics, not using these things, but just building the tech that allows people, because look, people want to be unlimited. They want to be free. They want to be able to think and do. Some people are stuck in the system and they're damaged in some way and they're stuck there.
But their kids want to move forward. people want to do this. Humans are very creative and clever beings. if you give them the opportunity and if they can see that it's an actual opportunity to move forward, that's what makes the world livable. That's what makes the world better. And we have this amazing opportunity right now. So what we have to do is forget about the daily fights.
Should it be number go up? Should it be this? Should it be whatever? Look where we are. Get a vision of how you want the world to be, how you want the world to be. And think about it. Read good books, read things, pay attention to good podcasts, read things, find out, where you... Be curious. Yes. And see where you think the world should go. Build that. Encourage that. Use that. Whatever you can do in your life for that, do that.
Because someday you're going to be old. And someday you're going to want to look back and you say, know what? When it mattered, I did that. I was, yeah. And it doesn't matter which part you think is the most important one. Do that. And you won't be sorry. Amazingly said, Paul. know, I'm also this belief, you know, if you don't like how the world is, don't go out and protest and get thrown into a cell. You're not going to achieve nothing with that.
G G (13:12.078)
If you don't like the system, unplug and build in the parallel system that we're building here. That's why earlier I listened to one of the debates on stage about corporate adoption of Bitcoin. But Francis from Bull Bitcoin said that essentially it's a regulatory body. We want to be totally separate. It's not like help them move it. No, they can do their own thing, but we're building something here that's untouchable. And that's what I tell people also with what you fantastically said. Dip into where you want to be, not just
What's the next step? Because the bigger guys, the system's always looking on the next step, but they're not looking leap years, 10 years ahead. None of the big shadow government could have imagined 10 years ago what we're doing now with Bitcoin and building this new decentralized world. And fantastic advice from you as well, Paul, was that, you know, go out and build those things that you want to see. I tell people the concept of time, personally, to me is an absolute illusion. The only time is the now.
the past it's done and the future depends on what we do right now. So if you want the future and tomorrow to change act on it today and act on it as you said what you would like to have instead of just what's a little bit better than someone else is building around you think outside the box and this is what Bitcoin gives you it like a psychedelic pulls you pulls you out of the body gives you an overview of possibilities and then it's down to you to nip down and focus on the things that you do best. Ultimately what changes the world is faith.
And I don't necessarily mean religious faith, although that certainly qualifies. But it is, you see something that doesn't yet exist, and you really understand it, and you look at it and you say, I believe in that, that's right, I want to build that. And that faith in what doesn't yet exist, that's what changes the world. Just go along and get along, you're just bobbing up and down in the waves, it doesn't do anything.
belief in something and you say, want that. And if you want to call me bad names for doing that, fine. So it is. So it is, yeah. I'm gonna build that because I believe that's right. This is what changes the world. It's active will that changes the world. It's not sitting around and trying to be a nice boy and having nobody criticize you. That's a road to nowhere. But when you have faith in something, you create what doesn't yet exist. And that's what moves the world forward.
G G (15:38.06)
It's interesting, in my native country of Serbia, we have this saying, faith dies last. Until the last moment, you have that faith that the world will get better. I've never heard that one. I like it. Yeah, yeah. So I guess with another aspect with Noster, The decentralized soul with money kind of making decentralized the hardest money that we actually sovereignly own. And then data was the next part where, especially the young generations, they're so like...
zoomed into this vortex of endless scroll, maybe TikTok, Twitter, Instagrams of the world. It's just not healthy. they don't, that's first, but the second, you don't own anything there. When you sign up, the terms and conditions that you guys all scroll through and don't read, tell you you own nothing, you are the product, hence why you don't have to pay a membership. Even in some cases, you have to pay a membership, but still even for the free one, you are the product. Yeah, that advertising business, my past was in advertising business, so know how it goes. it's a very...
nasty world and not healthy in any way. It's just once again the fiat standard of printing money, paying out for some dubious clicks and ruining people's lives. And then Noster comes in where the whole different, once you join Noster, it's like going to a Zen garden. like you go from a psychedelic acid infused festival to like, would you like some green tea? No, I'm good, thank you.
It's so fascinating the difference and the more important fact that you actually own the data that you put out there. And once again, going back to the key cryptography, as you told us in the beginning, the fact that you own that and that's it. Nobody can take it down. Well, a client can take you down, but then you just with your different clients, you have everything. All your followers, all the people you're following, all your messages. It's fantastic. And it's what three and a half years since since Nostra protocol came out and it's already how many apps
Even here, some of the booths are Nostra apps. yeah. What's your reflection on that? I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful, you know. The world, social media, regular advertising, everything, it's just so out of bounds and so crazy. I have a saying that I like nowadays. I want the luxury of thinking my own thoughts.
G G (17:59.598)
So you're not going to be a customer for Neuralink, I guess. No, no, thank you. God bless anyone who wants to do it. You your life, your body, go ahead. Yeah. But I like that kind of clarified me one day. got in, I was going somewhere and I got in the back of a cab and had the screen that popped up. Oh, You know, and they're trying, it was in Vegas and they're trying to sell me. And they're using some gases as well, probably to keep you awake. Keep looking at the screen. And I told the driver, I said,
Can you turn this off, please? I want to be able to think my own thoughts. I thought, I'm to write that down. But that's, you I want that. I like my own thoughts. I want to be able to do that. I don't want to be distracted. I hate being distracted. I'm a writer. you know, if you're writing something and you're into it, you need to be focused. You lose the whole flow. It takes you a long time to get back. Yeah. So I hate being interrupted. And
But Nostr is just wonderful. It came along and it does everything we've wanted it to do. And once again, the short period of time, I said, three and a half, more or less, it's thinking about it now in days. It's like just over a thousand days that it was out. The protocol came out and here we are exchanging all this stuff. And there's people all over the world contributing to it. don't know who they are.
It doesn't really matter. where do they come from? They come from all over. And like the young people here, I'm one of the older guys now, but the young people here, they get it. They understand this. And they get up every day and they're busy trying to build something wonderful with cryptography at their own expense, on their own time.
My God. That's something right. What else do you want? Yeah. Yeah. You know, so it's stunning to me. And you know, even going further down the age bracket of the young generation alphas, I'm a father of two young daughters, a five and a three year old. So their generation alpha. And to them, there's going to be no orange pilling because even at the age of five and three, they already know about Bitcoin. They come into my home studio. They're like, oh, Bitcoin is that I read in Bitcoin. They they they they're just born into this parallel.
G G (20:20.96)
world that we're building. So I have a lot of hope that, you know, as we progress and some people want crazy hyper-baconization to happen by 2030. And if it doesn't happen, it's a failure. It's like, no guys, this will take a long time, but we will get there. But the sooner you get involved in any way you can contribute, may that be, you know, as Paul said, you don't have to be just a programmer. For example, myself, like with educational content creation stuff, I'm maybe not providing code, but I'm providing stories and values for other people to, you know, just get them interested in the topic and then do your own.
research, read your own books, of course you start with a white paper, but I'm still doing my little bit of deed the way I can and with what I enjoy. And I think that Bitcoin allows you this to actually work on something that you enjoy and get paid for it. I'll give you another quote from my father, who was my biggest role model. When I was young and my dad was an entrepreneur, he did many different things in life. And I always told him, dad, you're doing so many things. How do I choose, what should I do in the future? And he told me, son, do something that you love.
because then you won't work a day in your life. He's right. And I didn't understand it at that young age. was like, well, that doesn't, it's not logical. I'm working, but I'm not working. What do you mean? But then later, and especially with Bitcoin, was like, found my, you know, the Ishigage, the Japanese term of what you were born, I think Ishigage, basically the term is finding yourself what you were put in this planet for. And everybody has that thing. And you can be an artist or...
anything, there's so many opportunities and in this new brave decentralized world that we have, you can offer that service to anyone in the world and get paid instantly. Doesn't matter if you're in a banned sanctioned country or you're anywhere in the world, it works for everyone. Bitcoin is accessible and welcoming to everyone. There's no discrimination. Right. I mean, there's morality in the system by design. In the code. In the code. You know, it's immutable money. you know, it's built on
It's built the right way for the right reasons. It's an infrastructure suited to honest living. I guess, Paul, I don't want to take too much of your time because Paul's going to be on the stage with Max Hillebrand, our good friend, shortly. So we want to be conscious of the time. Maybe some kind of to leave our audience with some words of wisdom like you finished yesterday on stage. Anything you kind of want to pass on to the current.
G G (22:46.904)
past and future generations that are listening to this and will listen in decades to come because we're going to put this on Nostr as well. So this will live forever. Even if YouTube platforms me and all these guys, we have our own protocol that doesn't deplet for right. You know, really what I say is be honest with yourself and live what you think is important. You're going to be wrong sometimes. And you know what? That's not only OK, it's necessary. when you're making your own decisions,
And when they're wrong, you learn what parts of you produced something that was incorrect and you can fix them. If you're always going by what they say and what other people do and you never improve yourself. So when you're out on your own, I don't care where it starts small, that's fine. Start talking to people at the bus stop. I don't care. Do something and begin to live your way to make your own choices, to see what you think is important and do it.
in 20 years you will be a radically better person than you would have otherwise. Thank you. Well, those were wise words. think that's a nice way to sum up this short great conversation. again, Paul, thank you so much for coming all the way here. Thank you so much for taking the time to come here, shoot it with me and the audience. Thank you for everything you've done doing and together we are winning and we will win. Thank you for listening.
We hope you got some good insights, inspirations. Feel free, where can we send people and maybe I didn't even mention the introduction, but Paul is an author. Maybe you could do a shout out to your books. And I think you have a podcast as well of your own or you've been on some podcasts. Yeah, I've done a lot of anywhere you want to send people. freemansperspective.com the way it sounds. You'll find a bunch of stuff there. I've written a bunch of
novels, the one that are just coming out in print again and in Spanish is called A Lodging of Wayfaring Men. It's kind of a cypherpunk novel and there's others. You'll find all the stuff you need at freemansperspective.com. Perfect. Guys, thank you once again and do make sure to like and share it, which is super important. If we want to get the message out and get more people influenced onto thinking the right way and thinking their own thoughts, share this episode and we'll see you in another one. Thank you.
We have Terra Nova. We've got a new world. This is like discovering America. We can build whatever we want. Tell people it's like Bitcoin is something from the future and dating the present. The Christians of the first, second, third, fourth century, they grew 40 % in a decade. And by the time Rome was winding down, they took over Europe and built it their way. Well, we're going at a hell of lot more than 40 % a year. Whatever it is, our job is to see what's going on in the world now.
to see where we want it to go and hack ahead and build that. We want to create a better world that way. Get a vision of how you want the world to be, how you want the world to be. This is what changes the world. It's active will that changes the world. It's not sitting around and trying to be a nice boy and having nobody criticize you. Be honest with yourself and live what you think is important. In 20 years, you will be a radically better person than you would have otherwise.
G G (01:03.17)
Welcome back guys to your Bitcoin story. I'm your host Gigi and in our continued BTC Prague short series, I'm honored and privileged to have Paul Rosenberg here in flesh with us, joining us in Prague. Last time we had an incredible time at the Cypherpunk meetup, which was the after event. And Paul shared some strong words on stage being essentially seeing this cyberpunk revolution unfold in ways that are beyond Paul's imaginations, which he'll share with us.
And it's just so fortunate to have you here and thank you for your time, Oh, my pleasure. Usually I was asked, how did you discover Bitcoin? But your story goes way before Bitcoin. So I want to keep it to you, maybe just a short kind of your Cypherpunk background. And then maybe we can touch upon how you see it in your experience, how things have evolved over the last decades. OK, I fell into the Cypherpunks in 1995 or so.
I was working in fiber optics. I had been in electrical power, electrical wiring, that sort of field. I fell into fiber optics. I was involved in some of the very beginnings of that industry. And then I stumbled in the early days. First we were on bulletin board systems, then finally the internet came. Ooh, what's this? then somehow I found out about public key encryption.
What's this? You can do what? and then you realize what this means. We have a decentralized environment of the internet, and then we have encryption. The hard part about encryption is always sharing keys. How do you share the keys securely? So they don't get compromised. Right, because if they get compromised, the whole thing's There's no point. It's worse than doing it in the clear.
And then all of a sudden, we can do what? And it's mathematically secure and yet we have Terra Nova. We've got a new world. This is like discovering America. We can build whatever we want. Wow. And then, you know, then of course you go, well, what do we want? You know, what's the right way to- What do we fix first? Right, we've got a new continent of sorts here. What do we want to build? And of course, there's a lot of arguments about that. Some guys want to do it one day, some a different way. You know, there's all those.
G G (03:29.866)
Interesting things and then there's a moment when you go. Well, we've got great communications We can we can talk to anybody privately. They can't do a damn thing. Mm-hmm Wouldn't it be cool if we had some money? And you know because we could like send money to our friends and do business in our in our realm. Yeah So That became the holy grail for us and there were a lot of different systems and there are a lot of projects
many of them excellent, some less, and then till finally Bitcoin came along. Now for me, when Bitcoin came along, it was a non-event because I was busy running a special anonymity network. Nowadays, you call it a very, very good VPN. But it was an anonymity network. We had all kinds of technical stuff. had servers in multiple jurisdictions and
padded traffic and latency added and bouncing, all that kind of wizening stuff. So I was busy. It's hard to run a company. So myself, my business partner, Jonathan and I, we were busy with that. And somebody said, oh, they got this new thing. Well, what is it? It's an electronic currency. Really? Somebody did something like that? Good for them. What's it called? Bitcoin. OK. Makes sense. But I was busy.
And so I didn't read the white paper for years. I wrote a defense of Bitcoin in 2010, having never read anything about it and never knowing anything about it. our guys had built something important, and Wikipedia was giving them hell. They wouldn't let them list. They kept taking the page down. So I wrote a defense of Bitcoin that still exists on the internet somewhere.
Or whatever goes on the internet stays there forever, right? It's still there somewhere, I still I didn't you know, any Bitcoin I had was just because somebody said hey Paul, can you pick up my bar tab for me? I owe them 50 pounds. I send you some Bitcoin? Yeah, sure. Because I wanted to support the callers. Of course. So it was like that and then some years later till I actually read the white paper and went, what did that say?
G G (05:58.21)
How, you know, one of those moments. the light bulbs are like coming, coming alive. Right. And it took it even with for a lot of people like me who had been involved in cryptography earlier. The first time you read about Bitcoin, takes a while to sink in because it it's not that it's so complicated because it's really not. But it's fundamentally different to everything else. It was so different. It's radically different. is. It's it's it's.
I tell people it's like Bitcoin is something from the future invading the present. Because we had other different kinds of electronic cash. And we had a great system that was trading gold electronically. the e-cash. How many cash? E-gold. Not e-cash, e-gold. Which was wonderful. It had its problem. But it had the central point of failure. It had a central point of failure. But until the failure, it was fine. It was great. And it worked. it was run honestly.
And there were many different kinds of eagles, similar ones, and there were other projects in between. We had them, we were doing good stuff, but they all had the central point of failure. And then finally this thing came along, and when I finally understood it, go, this is a big deal. This is it? Yeah, this is it. And so there have been all sorts of the Bitcoin inside.
Inside fights and all kind that's fine. That's part of life humans, right? We can't just all get along magically There needs to be some back and forth humans do that and that and that's okay, but you know, walk around a show like this. How did this happen? You know Yeah, I did my part. Yeah other people did their part but there weren't very many of us and I Look around and I go how did how did I mean walking down?
There's 10,000 people below us, two floors below us, which is insane. It's insane! They came from all over the world. And there are some people my age, but there's mostly younger ones, and they get it. They really know what they're dealing with and talking about. I talked last night, you know, I read a lot of history, and I talked last night about the Christians of the first, second, third, fourth century. With a 40 % in a decade scaling.
G G (08:21.742)
They grew 40 % in a decade and by the time Rome was was winding down. They took over Europe and built it their way Well, we're growing at a hell of a lot more than 40 % a year and we're is one historian puts it he says the important thing of this change over whatever period he was talking about is the new Philosophers are now setting the terms of the debate. Oh And I going oh, oh write that down
Save that quote right right that down put it in the quotes file We're setting the terms of the debate in the US presidential election the United States presidential election, you know just some months ago They had to deal with Bitcoin and the guy who won is the one who endorsed Bitcoin and it who preached it the most Who preached it the most and it was not an insignificant addition to his cause? Yeah, you know and I don't I don't
Authorized politics in any way at all. I think it's Bronze Age stuff, correct But but just the fact that it's like such a vital part. It was huge volumes. It's it's insane. Yeah, you know and and Trump said I will free Ross Ulbricht. Hmm and did yeah and did Which is very surprising for a politician because usually they do the good talk and then they get into office and they do totally different But right he stuck to the word. He did he stuck to his word and let him out and
Wow, can you believe this is happening? I'm sometimes like, you know, I want to just, you know, do this and go, well, it's real, let's use this. I want to ask you follow up kind of transition. So we certainly are winning. But I think one thing that I don't know was a you Paul or someone at the on stage last night said we shouldn't get too comfortable. We shouldn't get too complacent with all we've already won. What's your kind of response or your
advice I would say to the listeners that are already kind of vested on the sovereign journey, but sometimes they look at the numbers and they're like, oh, we're going up to X amounts. Everything's good. Like the fight is still yet to be fought. It's we were 16 in 16 years into protocol being out. I tell people really lower your time preference in 16 years. Bitcoin became the fifth largest asset class in the world in 16 years, not 16, not 600, 16. So like just don't expect everything overnight, but the way things are going.
G G (10:46.424)
but we still need to keep on meeting, building, developing, breaking things, collaborating. What's your take on that, Ultimately, our job is to build a better future. That's really what we're doing. And for those people who have skills, whether it's coding or designing systems or connecting people who will work in systems or using the systems, whatever it is, our job is to see what's going on in the world now.
to see where we want it to go and hack ahead and build that. We want to create a better world that way. Cypherpunks was all about not using politics, not using these things, but just building the tech that allows people, because look, people want to be unlimited. They want to be free. They want to be able to think and do. Some people are stuck in the system and they're damaged in some way and they're stuck there.
But their kids want to move forward. people want to do this. Humans are very creative and clever beings. if you give them the opportunity and if they can see that it's an actual opportunity to move forward, that's what makes the world livable. That's what makes the world better. And we have this amazing opportunity right now. So what we have to do is forget about the daily fights.
Should it be number go up? Should it be this? Should it be whatever? Look where we are. Get a vision of how you want the world to be, how you want the world to be. And think about it. Read good books, read things, pay attention to good podcasts, read things, find out, where you... Be curious. Yes. And see where you think the world should go. Build that. Encourage that. Use that. Whatever you can do in your life for that, do that.
Because someday you're going to be old. And someday you're going to want to look back and you say, know what? When it mattered, I did that. I was, yeah. And it doesn't matter which part you think is the most important one. Do that. And you won't be sorry. Amazingly said, Paul. know, I'm also this belief, you know, if you don't like how the world is, don't go out and protest and get thrown into a cell. You're not going to achieve nothing with that.
G G (13:12.078)
If you don't like the system, unplug and build in the parallel system that we're building here. That's why earlier I listened to one of the debates on stage about corporate adoption of Bitcoin. But Francis from Bull Bitcoin said that essentially it's a regulatory body. We want to be totally separate. It's not like help them move it. No, they can do their own thing, but we're building something here that's untouchable. And that's what I tell people also with what you fantastically said. Dip into where you want to be, not just
What's the next step? Because the bigger guys, the system's always looking on the next step, but they're not looking leap years, 10 years ahead. None of the big shadow government could have imagined 10 years ago what we're doing now with Bitcoin and building this new decentralized world. And fantastic advice from you as well, Paul, was that, you know, go out and build those things that you want to see. I tell people the concept of time, personally, to me is an absolute illusion. The only time is the now.
the past it's done and the future depends on what we do right now. So if you want the future and tomorrow to change act on it today and act on it as you said what you would like to have instead of just what's a little bit better than someone else is building around you think outside the box and this is what Bitcoin gives you it like a psychedelic pulls you pulls you out of the body gives you an overview of possibilities and then it's down to you to nip down and focus on the things that you do best. Ultimately what changes the world is faith.
And I don't necessarily mean religious faith, although that certainly qualifies. But it is, you see something that doesn't yet exist, and you really understand it, and you look at it and you say, I believe in that, that's right, I want to build that. And that faith in what doesn't yet exist, that's what changes the world. Just go along and get along, you're just bobbing up and down in the waves, it doesn't do anything.
belief in something and you say, want that. And if you want to call me bad names for doing that, fine. So it is. So it is, yeah. I'm gonna build that because I believe that's right. This is what changes the world. It's active will that changes the world. It's not sitting around and trying to be a nice boy and having nobody criticize you. That's a road to nowhere. But when you have faith in something, you create what doesn't yet exist. And that's what moves the world forward.
G G (15:38.06)
It's interesting, in my native country of Serbia, we have this saying, faith dies last. Until the last moment, you have that faith that the world will get better. I've never heard that one. I like it. Yeah, yeah. So I guess with another aspect with Noster, The decentralized soul with money kind of making decentralized the hardest money that we actually sovereignly own. And then data was the next part where, especially the young generations, they're so like...
zoomed into this vortex of endless scroll, maybe TikTok, Twitter, Instagrams of the world. It's just not healthy. they don't, that's first, but the second, you don't own anything there. When you sign up, the terms and conditions that you guys all scroll through and don't read, tell you you own nothing, you are the product, hence why you don't have to pay a membership. Even in some cases, you have to pay a membership, but still even for the free one, you are the product. Yeah, that advertising business, my past was in advertising business, so know how it goes. it's a very...
nasty world and not healthy in any way. It's just once again the fiat standard of printing money, paying out for some dubious clicks and ruining people's lives. And then Noster comes in where the whole different, once you join Noster, it's like going to a Zen garden. like you go from a psychedelic acid infused festival to like, would you like some green tea? No, I'm good, thank you.
It's so fascinating the difference and the more important fact that you actually own the data that you put out there. And once again, going back to the key cryptography, as you told us in the beginning, the fact that you own that and that's it. Nobody can take it down. Well, a client can take you down, but then you just with your different clients, you have everything. All your followers, all the people you're following, all your messages. It's fantastic. And it's what three and a half years since since Nostra protocol came out and it's already how many apps
Even here, some of the booths are Nostra apps. yeah. What's your reflection on that? I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful, you know. The world, social media, regular advertising, everything, it's just so out of bounds and so crazy. I have a saying that I like nowadays. I want the luxury of thinking my own thoughts.
G G (17:59.598)
So you're not going to be a customer for Neuralink, I guess. No, no, thank you. God bless anyone who wants to do it. You your life, your body, go ahead. Yeah. But I like that kind of clarified me one day. got in, I was going somewhere and I got in the back of a cab and had the screen that popped up. Oh, You know, and they're trying, it was in Vegas and they're trying to sell me. And they're using some gases as well, probably to keep you awake. Keep looking at the screen. And I told the driver, I said,
Can you turn this off, please? I want to be able to think my own thoughts. I thought, I'm to write that down. But that's, you I want that. I like my own thoughts. I want to be able to do that. I don't want to be distracted. I hate being distracted. I'm a writer. you know, if you're writing something and you're into it, you need to be focused. You lose the whole flow. It takes you a long time to get back. Yeah. So I hate being interrupted. And
But Nostr is just wonderful. It came along and it does everything we've wanted it to do. And once again, the short period of time, I said, three and a half, more or less, it's thinking about it now in days. It's like just over a thousand days that it was out. The protocol came out and here we are exchanging all this stuff. And there's people all over the world contributing to it. don't know who they are.
It doesn't really matter. where do they come from? They come from all over. And like the young people here, I'm one of the older guys now, but the young people here, they get it. They understand this. And they get up every day and they're busy trying to build something wonderful with cryptography at their own expense, on their own time.
My God. That's something right. What else do you want? Yeah. Yeah. You know, so it's stunning to me. And you know, even going further down the age bracket of the young generation alphas, I'm a father of two young daughters, a five and a three year old. So their generation alpha. And to them, there's going to be no orange pilling because even at the age of five and three, they already know about Bitcoin. They come into my home studio. They're like, oh, Bitcoin is that I read in Bitcoin. They they they they're just born into this parallel.
G G (20:20.96)
world that we're building. So I have a lot of hope that, you know, as we progress and some people want crazy hyper-baconization to happen by 2030. And if it doesn't happen, it's a failure. It's like, no guys, this will take a long time, but we will get there. But the sooner you get involved in any way you can contribute, may that be, you know, as Paul said, you don't have to be just a programmer. For example, myself, like with educational content creation stuff, I'm maybe not providing code, but I'm providing stories and values for other people to, you know, just get them interested in the topic and then do your own.
research, read your own books, of course you start with a white paper, but I'm still doing my little bit of deed the way I can and with what I enjoy. And I think that Bitcoin allows you this to actually work on something that you enjoy and get paid for it. I'll give you another quote from my father, who was my biggest role model. When I was young and my dad was an entrepreneur, he did many different things in life. And I always told him, dad, you're doing so many things. How do I choose, what should I do in the future? And he told me, son, do something that you love.
because then you won't work a day in your life. He's right. And I didn't understand it at that young age. was like, well, that doesn't, it's not logical. I'm working, but I'm not working. What do you mean? But then later, and especially with Bitcoin, was like, found my, you know, the Ishigage, the Japanese term of what you were born, I think Ishigage, basically the term is finding yourself what you were put in this planet for. And everybody has that thing. And you can be an artist or...
anything, there's so many opportunities and in this new brave decentralized world that we have, you can offer that service to anyone in the world and get paid instantly. Doesn't matter if you're in a banned sanctioned country or you're anywhere in the world, it works for everyone. Bitcoin is accessible and welcoming to everyone. There's no discrimination. Right. I mean, there's morality in the system by design. In the code. In the code. You know, it's immutable money. you know, it's built on
It's built the right way for the right reasons. It's an infrastructure suited to honest living. I guess, Paul, I don't want to take too much of your time because Paul's going to be on the stage with Max Hillebrand, our good friend, shortly. So we want to be conscious of the time. Maybe some kind of to leave our audience with some words of wisdom like you finished yesterday on stage. Anything you kind of want to pass on to the current.
G G (22:46.904)
past and future generations that are listening to this and will listen in decades to come because we're going to put this on Nostr as well. So this will live forever. Even if YouTube platforms me and all these guys, we have our own protocol that doesn't deplet for right. You know, really what I say is be honest with yourself and live what you think is important. You're going to be wrong sometimes. And you know what? That's not only OK, it's necessary. when you're making your own decisions,
And when they're wrong, you learn what parts of you produced something that was incorrect and you can fix them. If you're always going by what they say and what other people do and you never improve yourself. So when you're out on your own, I don't care where it starts small, that's fine. Start talking to people at the bus stop. I don't care. Do something and begin to live your way to make your own choices, to see what you think is important and do it.
in 20 years you will be a radically better person than you would have otherwise. Thank you. Well, those were wise words. think that's a nice way to sum up this short great conversation. again, Paul, thank you so much for coming all the way here. Thank you so much for taking the time to come here, shoot it with me and the audience. Thank you for everything you've done doing and together we are winning and we will win. Thank you for listening.
We hope you got some good insights, inspirations. Feel free, where can we send people and maybe I didn't even mention the introduction, but Paul is an author. Maybe you could do a shout out to your books. And I think you have a podcast as well of your own or you've been on some podcasts. Yeah, I've done a lot of anywhere you want to send people. freemansperspective.com the way it sounds. You'll find a bunch of stuff there. I've written a bunch of
novels, the one that are just coming out in print again and in Spanish is called A Lodging of Wayfaring Men. It's kind of a cypherpunk novel and there's others. You'll find all the stuff you need at freemansperspective.com. Perfect. Guys, thank you once again and do make sure to like and share it, which is super important. If we want to get the message out and get more people influenced onto thinking the right way and thinking their own thoughts, share this episode and we'll see you in another one. Thank you.
