NO MORE ELIZABETH WARRENS - EDUCATING WASHINGTON DC ABOUT BITCOIN | STEPHEN POLLOCK

Summary

Detailed Summary of "NO MORE ELIZABETH WARRENS - EDUCATING WASHINGTON DC ABOUT BITCOIN | STEPHEN POLLOCK"

Podcast Information:

• Title: THE Bitcoin Podcast
• Host/Author: Walker America
• Episode: NO MORE ELIZABETH WARRENS - EDUCATING WASHINGTON DC ABOUT BITCOIN | STEPHEN POLLOCK
• Release Date: June 18, 2025

---

1. Mission to Educate Washington D.C. on Bitcoin

Key Discussion: The episode kicks off with Walker America emphasizing the critical mission of educating Washington D.C. about Bitcoin. He underscores the importance of proactive engagement with policymakers to ensure Bitcoin's successful integration into the financial system.

Notable Quote:

Walker [00:00]: "Our mission is really simple. Like we want to educate Washington D.C. on Bitcoin because if bitcoin's going to be successful, then eventually the largest nation in the world is going to say, what's that all about?"

Insights:

• Preventing Unprepared Government Response: Walker warns against a scenario where Bitcoin's rapid rise leads to a confused and possibly hostile government reaction due to a lack of understanding.
• Building Alliances: The aim is to have informed allies within the government who appreciate Bitcoin's value and can advocate for its benefits.

2. Importance of Political Engagement

Key Discussion: Walker and Stephen Pollock delve into the necessity of having pro-Bitcoin politicians. They contrast the effectiveness of supportive figures like Senator Cynthia Lummis with those who are skeptical or antagonistic towards Bitcoin, such as Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Notable Quote:

Unknown Speaker [08:09]: "But it's like, would you rather have a bunch of Senator Elizabeth Warrens or Senator Cynthia Lummis? Which one would you rather have? I'll take Senator Lummis 100 times out of a hundred, without question."

Insights:

• Role Models: Senator Cynthia Lummis is highlighted as an exemplary pro-Bitcoin politician who genuinely understands and supports the cryptocurrency, unlike her counterparts.
• Nonpartisan Advocacy: Emphasizes the importance of BPI being a nonpartisan organization that engages with all sides to promote Bitcoin's integration.

3. Background of Walker America and Transition to BPI

Key Discussion: Walker shares his professional journey from a decade-long career in political lobbying to founding the Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI). His experience in politics provided him with valuable insights into how policy is shaped and the importance of expertise in advocacy.

Notable Quote:

Walker [18:18]: "Before I even had heard of bitcoin, I spent about a decade in the political world in my career."

Insights:

• Political Expertise: Walker's background in campaigning and lobbying equips him with the skills necessary to navigate Washington D.C.'s complex political landscape.
• Transition Motivation: Witnessing the potential of Bitcoin and the need for knowledgeable advocacy led him to establish BPI.

4. BPI's Mission and Activities

Key Discussion: Walker provides an in-depth look into BPI's role as a non-profit think tank dedicated to Bitcoin. The organization focuses on research, policy development, and advocacy to educate policymakers about Bitcoin's significance.

Notable Quote:

Walker [29:50]: "BPI Bitcoin Policy Institute, we're a 501c3 charity, first of all. So we're a nonprofit and think tank and advocacy organization."

Insights:

• Independent Research: BPI employs fellows who conduct independent research on various aspects of Bitcoin, from mining and energy to national security.
• Policy Frameworks: Development of comprehensive policy documents to guide lawmakers in creating informed legislation.
• Strategic Advising: Serving as a trusted resource for elected officials seeking to understand and legislate around Bitcoin.

5. Successes and Highlights

Key Discussion: A significant highlight of the episode is the mention of Vice President Vance’s speech at a Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas, where he publicly acknowledged and supported BPI's efforts.

Notable Quote:

Walker [40:39]: "The fact that Vice President Vance gave a direct shout out to you guys at the bitcoin conference in Vegas, like that, that was pretty huge."

Insights:

• High-Level Recognition: Vice President Vance’s acknowledgment serves as a testament to BPI’s influence and the growing acceptance of Bitcoin at higher government levels.
• Policy Impact: Such endorsements help legitimize Bitcoin in the eyes of other policymakers and the public, paving the way for favorable legislation.

6. Challenges and Future Initiatives

Key Discussion: Walker discusses the ongoing challenges BPI faces, including limited bandwidth for expanding state-level advocacy and the need to continuously adapt to the evolving political and technological landscape.

Notable Quote:

Walker [54:42]: "We have beefed up enough, we've grown enough that we can, you know, kinda handle a number of things simultaneously."

Insights:

• State-Level Work: While BPI primarily focuses on federal policy, there is an ambition to extend their advocacy to state governments, recognizing the diverse legislative environments across states.
• Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR): BPI is actively involved in shaping the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve policies, advocating for the U.S. to hold and possibly expand its Bitcoin reserves akin to its gold reserves.

7. Comprehensive Policy Framework and Educational Initiatives

Key Discussion: BPI has developed a comprehensive policy framework available on their website, outlining strategic areas such as economics, geopolitics, technology, innovation, and energy related to Bitcoin.

Notable Quote:

Walker [91:53]: "That's why we have the Bitcoin Policy Summit. We have to connect it... What's happening right now in the real world. Why does it matter to me now?"

Insights:

• Educational Resources: BPI provides extensive materials to educate policymakers, including white papers and policy frameworks that address common misconceptions and highlight Bitcoin’s strategic advantages.
• Summit Events: The annual Bitcoin Policy Summit serves as a platform for intensive education and networking between Bitcoin experts and government officials.

8. Concluding Remarks and Future Outlook

Key Discussion: In wrapping up, Walker emphasizes the importance of continuous advocacy and education to maintain and expand Bitcoin’s acceptance in policy circles. He reflects on the growing support and the critical window of opportunity to shape Bitcoin-friendly legislation.

Notable Quote:

Walker [73:34]: "But you have to keep going. You have to keep advocating. There's more work to do."

Insights:

• Ongoing Effort: The fight for Bitcoin’s acceptance is far from over, requiring sustained effort from organizations like BPI to influence policy effectively.
• Positive Momentum: Despite challenges, the increasing recognition of Bitcoin's importance in national and global contexts provides a promising outlook for future advocacy efforts.

---

Conclusion: This episode of THE Bitcoin Podcast provides a comprehensive overview of the Bitcoin Policy Institute’s mission to educate and influence Washington D.C. policy regarding Bitcoin. Through strategic research, policy development, and high-level advocacy, BPI aims to secure a favorable legislative environment for Bitcoin, ensuring its sustainable integration into the global financial system. Notable successes, such as endorsements from high-ranking officials, highlight the organization's growing influence, while ongoing challenges emphasize the need for continued effort and expansion into state-level advocacy.

Relevant Links:

• Bitcoin Policy Institute: btcpolicy.org
• Bitcoin Policy Summit: btcpolicysummit.org

Transcript

[Walker]

Our mission is really simple. Like we want to educate Washington D.C. on Bitcoin because if bitcoin's going to be successful, then eventually the largest nation in the world is going to say, what's that all about? What's going on with that? Anyone who thinks that bitcoin could become successful and the United States government was just going to be like fifth largest asset in the world cow figure it out later. You're out of your mind. This is not how it works. And maybe you wish it worked that way and that's fine, but it doesn't. With regards to bitcoin and the government, the worst case scenario would be bitcoin just boom, out of Nowhere, you know, 10 trillion market cap or whatever, you know, blows past gold and a bunch of people get in the room and watching scene. They're like, what's up with this bitcoin thing? And nobody knows. And they're like, yeah, I heard it's like a scam. Or I heard, you know, I remember the FTX thing. Like that was a total rug pull. I don't know. But like this is endangering the entire financial system. Like we got to kill it. Like we got to figure it out. We need to ban mining, whatever they would want to do. And you say, well, they couldn't kill bitcoin. Probably not, but they sure as hell could try. Sure wouldn't be fun in the meantime, right? And so that's what we want to avoid. We want people to, you know, have them like, oh yeah, I've actually met with many bitcoiners over the last, you know, five, 10 years. And I think this is actually really important and I'm glad it's successful. And I actually think the United States, I think we benefit from this. I think the world benefits from this and here's why. And if we want to talk more in depth, like let me bring some people in who know a lot about it. That's where we want to be at.

[Unknown Speaker]

Foreign plebs.

My name is Walker and this is the bitcoin podcast. Bitcoin continues to create new blocks every 10 minutes and the value of one bitcoin is still one bitcoin. If you are listening to this right now, remember you are still early. Find me on [e-mail] walker and this [e-mail] on X, YouTube and Rumble. Just search Walker America and find this podcast on X and Instagram at coin Podcast. Head to the show notes for sponsor links head to substack.com walkeramerica to get episodes emailed to you and head to bitcoin podcast.net for everything else. Without further ado, let's get into this bitcoin talk.

All right, well, welcome. It's been like, a whole, what, week? Week and a half since we've seen each other?

[Walker]

Yeah, 10 days, feels like. Yeah. The last 10 days have been about, what, two months?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah. It's. It's always interesting coming off the. The conference, let's say, like, the conference high. Because especially something. Something about Vegas is, like. It is like, a. Sucks a lot of extra energy out of you. Like, the conferences are always tiring, but Vegas just, like, really seems to, like, strip you down to bare bones. But, yeah, I'm mostly recovered.

[Walker]

I think it's a mystery why. I don't know why Vegas just sucks it out of you. Maybe it's the 3:00am Nights. Listen, I think Vegas is a lot like Washington, D.C. you know, I'm there for a few days and, like, I got to get out or it starts to kind of creep into my pores a little bit.

[Unknown Speaker]

You're. You're not based in. In Washington. You're in Nashville area?

[Walker]

Yeah. Yeah. Middle Tennessee area. Yep.

[Unknown Speaker]

Okay. Nice. Nice. I like Nashville a lot. I'll be honest. It's a. I like Vegas a lot, too. Not to always be on the Strip, but, like, lived there for, like, five months or so, and there's honestly a ton of natural beauty around there. I love that, like, you can go 20 minutes outside the city and be in the middle of a what looks like a Martian landscape. My biggest critique is that there's just no trees, man. Like, there's just. There's just no trees.

[Walker]

And I like no trees, no shade, man. It's brutal. And. But, yeah, it's awesome. It's an awesome place to kind of do outdoorsy stuff if you catch it the right way and you're cool with the weather.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's.

[Walker]

It's a really fun area outside the Strip, but, man. Yeah, we camp out of the Strip for a week, and it's going to be a month before you're. You're back to baseline.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah. Seriously. Well, and I assume that you guys have kind of hit the ground running coming back into this, because you do have the summit coming up. I want to give a shout out to that, too. So for anyone that doesn't know you are with the Bitcoin Policy Institute, and you guys do have a Summit coming up, June 25th, 26th, Washington, D.C. i will be there, which I'm very stoked about my lovely wife will be there as well. BTCPoliceSummit.org and you can use the promo code Walker for 25% off. And I am not getting paid to say that. And I'm getting no kickbacks from you using that promo code. You just get 21% off for using it, for being a fan of this show. So I'm just excited to come and.

Do some orange pilling in the swamp, to be honest.

[Walker]

Yeah, we're excited to have you, man. Glad you're gonna be able to make it up and the whole family can be able to join. Appreciate the shout out. It's gonna be a great couple days. I think that anyone who joins will be very pleasantly surprised at the experience and come away with an appreciation not just for our work or whatever, but probably that. Hopefully that. But hopefully what we're up against and what we're trying to achieve in Washington, D.C. as an industry and as a network.

[Unknown Speaker]

I think it's. Honestly, I love what you guys are doing and I think a lot of bitcoiners, and I've myself had this thought before, thinking about it more deeply, that, like, we shouldn't even engage with the political apparatus at all. Bitcoin doesn't care. Bitcoin doesn't need politicians. Politicians need bitcoin. And yes, that is something I agree with and say all the time myself. However, it's one of those situations where it's like, you may not care about politics, but politics cares about you. America, I think, is a place where the American idea is very closely aligned with the bitcoin ethos. It's a good place for bitcoiners. We want to keep it that way, ideally. And that does necessarily involve some engagement at the political level. So it's like, again, you don't have to. You don't like, you don't have to love it. You don't even have to partake in it. But I think it's good that there are people that are doing it like yourselves at bpi. I think it is a necessary thing and I'd rather have politicians that are pro bitcoin than anti bitcoin. Like it's as simple as that, right?

[Walker]

I think you nailed it. Maybe probably not too much left to say. There's a couple different ways of looking at it. More kind of the more cynical side of if you're the old saying, if you're. If you're not at the table, you're on the menu. And so that's one way. And then I think the more generous or more hopeful way of viewing things. I think both are appropriate. For the record, the other way of looking at it is like, somebody told you about bitcoin and if somebody didn't talk to you about it, I mean, some people, I guess, organically discovered it, like they're developers and they're on. You know, like, somebody told me about bitcoin and explained it to me, and first I didn't really get it, and then I thought it was, like, kind of cool. And then I was like, wait, I figured this thing out. This isn't real. And then you have this whole journey of understanding what bitcoin is, why it's useful, and then thinking you've figured it out and why it's not useful and why some other thing's going to beat it. And then you're like, oh, actually, I'm wrong again. And you talk to some other people and you're educated, you become kind of a kindergartener in bitcoin terms of your bitcoin education. And then you begin to understand more and more and you're curious about more things. And some people kind of stop there. They don't have time for it. It's not really their thing, but they appreciate it. And that's what we're trying to achieve in D.C. is trying to make every elected official a bitcoiner who's like, running home mining rigs. If they want to, great. But we want to get them to the point where they at least appreciate the technology, appreciate the use case, and have a baseline understanding so they're not completely wrong about everything. With regards to bitcoin, that's actually far more dangerous than any other outcome. It's someone thinking they understand something when they actually do not.

[Unknown Speaker]

But it's like, would you rather have a bunch of Senator Elizabeth Warrens or Senator Cynthia Lummis? Which one would you rather have? I'll take Senator Lummis 100 times out of a hundred, without question. Although Elizabeth Warren does at least make for some good memes. And it's nice to have something to push back against.

[Walker]

Yeah, we need a good villain. We're not much without a good villain. But in all seriousness, yeah, we're. We're spoiled rotten with Senator Lummis. I think I've said this a few times here lately. Most industry groups would, you know, saw off their arm to have a. A Senator Lummus on their. On their sideline, on their team in Washington. It's a rare feat to have someone who not only is like that, that public and that Strong of a champion for your cause. But to do so in a way that is just like so cool. And to you can just tell she actually really cares and really gets it and really appreciates not just bitcoin, but, you know, bitcoiners. And I mean she's one of us, right? And that's, that's incredibly rare. It's a rare gift and I, I hope we never take her for granted. And so, yeah, I mean, while I'd love to have, you know, a dozen lummises up there on the Hill, I think, you know, I'll take, you know, we, have you mentioned the summit? We have around 10, you know, congressmen confirmed, a few senators and some congressmen. I'll take that every day of the week of those who are publicly saying, hey, you don't have to love this but like here's how we treat certain industries and we should treat them fairly. Great. You know, I think it makes sense for you know, self custody and you know, non custodial tools to exist and they shouldn't be like prosecuted for that. Fantastic. They don't, you don't have to love bitcoin to think it's important that we're able to maintain certain freedoms. And so I'll take that every day over someone who's, you know. Yeah, like a lot, a lot of politicians get a bad rap for representing or like you know, come up publicly saying they support something when it's maybe a cynical means. I just appreciate people who look at it, say this is what it is. The same rule should apply to everyone. This is about freedom and will back us for that reason. I'll take that every day of the week. That's what we're trying to do. And the more elected officials interact with bitcoiners with, you know, kind of interact with bitcoin, just like use it, understand it, hear from human rights activists. They, they get it pretty quickly. You know, they're pretty, most of them are pretty smart people. And they, they, they're like, oh yeah, you know, that, that makes, it just makes sense. You know, I think we have a little, we've had a little bit of a marketing. I personally think bitcoin has a kind of a funny marketing problem or has had that in the past. Again, like you said, doesn't need our help. I don't think it needs anyone's help. You know, it's done pretty well on its own. But the people, the way we all talk about it is sometimes kind of funny. And I see where people get confused, you know, like if you ever met with a mechanical engineer, you know you've got to get some minor problem with your car and they talk you through, like how someone built your car and how they would have built it differently. And also, you know, it's a the bitcoin community is a family primarily of engineers, and we're trying to explain bitcoin to someone who does not think like an engineer in politicians and most of the public, in fact. And so sometimes I think we're actually too smart and we can over explain things and overcomplicate things unnecessarily when we just need to kind of put it on the table. Here's what it is, here's why it matters, here's how it's helpful, and here's why it's important in the United States to seize an advantage that's right there on the table for the taking. And so you can kind of play that patriotic angle too, if you want, but on its own merits. I think freedom technology is important, and I think you explained that with some bullet points. Most people in Washington are like, oh yeah, that makes sense. I never really thought about it that way.

[Unknown Speaker]

If you're stuck spending dollars, at least stop earning dirty Fiat Rewards Use Fold to earn Bitcoin on everyday purchases and regular expenses. Groceries, bills, travel, home improvement. I liter. Just earned 2203sats buying a $100Amazon gift card on Fold. You don't even need to use the Fold card itself if you don't want to. You can connect your favorite credit card and double dip with Bitcoin Rewards on merchant offers or go all in. Make Fold the center of your personal finances. Buy, earn, save and even get paid in Bitcoin with Fold. Head to the link in the show notes to get started with the ultimate savings toolkit. Or go directly to YouTube.foldapp.com r Walker and get yourself $10 in Bitcoin when you sign up. If you've accepted that we're living through the fourth turning, then it's time to get yourself some Bitcoin and then go to Bitbox Swiss Walker and use the promo code walker for 5% off the easy to use fully open Source Bitcoin only Bitbox 02 hardware wallet. Then get your Bitcoin off the exchange into your own self custody and prepare yourself for the chaos that is to come. The world is going pretty wild right now, but Bitcoin is ripping and your stack will soon be worth a heck of a lot more in Fiat value than it is today. As every currency around the world hyperinflates. So now is the perfect time to get your security locked down tight with Bitbox. I really want to emphasize that the Bitbox 02 is easy as hell to use. Whether you're brand new to Bitcoin, it's your first time setting up a hardware wallet, or you are a well seasoned psychopath. It is Bitcoin only and fully open source. No need to trust me. You can head to their GitHub and verify that for yourself. When you go to bitbox and use the promo code walker, not only do you get 5% off, but you also help support this podcast. So thank you let's talk about using Bitcoin the way it's meant to be used. Self custodial, lightning fast and ready for the real world. That's exactly what BitKit wallet is all about. BitKit wallet is a clean, powerful Bitcoin and lightning mobile wallet that gives you full control on chain and on lightning. You hold the keys always. Whether you're brand new or are A seasoned Bitcoiner, BitKit's intuitive wallet design makes it simple to send, receive and manage your SATs. QuickPay lets you fire off lightning payments faster than ever, and seamless integration between on chain and Lightning means your funds are always where you need them. It's your daily driver Bitcoin and Lightning Wallet and it actually feels good to use it. And with modular widgets you can personalize your experience to match your style. There's even a Lightning node running right on your phone. No custodians, no compromises. Go to BitKit to or search BitKit wallet in your app store and start using Bitcoin like it's meant to be used. That's Bit Kit to.

Well, I think it's interesting too because Bitcoin is such an. It's such a litmus test, right? It's basically a test to say, do you actually care about individuals having freedom? Do you care like if you are, in my opinion, if you are anti Bitcoin, excuse me, if you are anti Bitcoin, that is anti American. To be anti Bitcoin is to be anti American. It is to be against freedom. It is to be against the freedom to transaction, to hold your own money, to not be debased. It is frankly unpatriotic to be anti Bitcoin. Elizabeth Warren and I think that that's such an interesting test. If you can have Bitcoin explained to you in a very simple and coherent way and to say, look, this is about individual liberty, this is about the freedom to actually own property, the freedom to transact with anyone you choose to. It's about the freedom to save the value of your time and energy. If you can have that explained to you and then somehow still come away saying, I don't like this bitcoin thing. I'd say you don't really have the interests of the American people or people in general at heart. I think that's a pretty fair statement to make. And I think that's why, again, the work that you guys are doing is so important, because it has to start with education. We were talking before this. It's easy to forget that all of us started from a place of zero knowledge. Like you said earlier, somebody explained it to us or we went down the rabbit hole, whatever, but we started from a place of zero knowledge. 99 point something percent of the world is currently at that place of basically zero knowledge, or only what they've seen on the news about it, which is not great. Right? We have to start somewhere and it has to start with education. And I think that's why having these conversations. Again, you'd rather have people that are at least mildly educated about bitcoin and can say, yeah, this is something I'm for versus I don't really know what this is. Knee jerk. I'm against it because I heard that it's money for criminals and drug dealers, money launderers, et cetera, et cetera, or, you know, whatever trope it may be. And so I'm curious too. Maybe we can, before we dive too deep, can you just give a little background of yourself? Who are you? How did you get here today to be working with BPI as like the kind of, I think, employee number. Like number one, you said. Right. Which is pretty awesome. What was that journey? Because I think your background here is really important in terms of setting the tone for what you're doing now and how you're able to be successful at it.

[Walker]

Yeah, sure. Great question. Yeah. Before I even had heard of bitcoin, I spent about a decade in the political world in my career. So I, you know, I mean, bio, we can just do it. Like I got out of school and was, you know, bouncing around like, like one does. I was actually working at a factory after college because I, you know, I was like a lot of people who study philosophy in school, you get out and you're like, oh, you know, what do you. And so anyways, we're doing factory work right after college, and it's pretty good for me, really. I think everyone should do that right after college it's a good contrast with the university experience. I ended up saying, oh yeah, you know, this, you know, politics thing is kind of interesting. Sort of running state and local, working on state and local campaigns and you know, you, it's a lot like door to door sales. Right when you start, I mean you're knocking thousands of doors in the summer heat. You meet tons of interesting people. You have conversations with people across the political spectrum. I think that's another thing I recommend to like young people who are just kind of getting in their careers, like do some door to door work. So I think in the first year or so I knocked 10,000 doors, you know, roughly. It's what you want to do is, you know, rule of 10,004 candidates. And that was my whole job. So we're like, you know, state representative races and that sort of thing. This like basic work and we won a few races and kind of got into the more the campaign side and planning side and, and then from there it was just about eight years in that world working on more of the issue side. So you can run political campaigns for candidates. You can run issue campaigns. And so people go vote when they think of a campaign. I'm voting for this person. Normally they think of presidential candidates, the big ones. There are down ballot issues that you can vote on like should our state do xyz, should our state cut taxes or whatever that are not lobbying, that are still campaign focused. That's kind of where I camped out. And we worked in 30, 40 different states depending on the year and the project. We had a lobbying team, we had a full scale production team, video and everything. So it was just one house, one big shop and I got to be a part of all that over the time I was involved in that industry and it was really, you know, it was great. I ended up spending some time, some hard time as a lobbyist and that was interesting. Kind of learned the ropes there and got exposure across, across that ecosystem.

[Unknown Speaker]

So can I, can I ask you if you don't mind, what, what industry or industries were you lobbying for?

[Walker]

Primary client was a large chain of diagnostic imaging centers. You know, at one point in time. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's kind of like you're, you're a hire, you know, you take on clients like you're a consultant. Think of it like that. And. But you also want to. I've kind of got a whole bit on lobbyists. I think that's interesting to me. Just I've, you know, you look at like pop Culture, you look at media and the way lobbyists are perceived and obviously the smoke filled rooms and all that kind of thing. You see, I'm sure, yes, that's true, especially at the federal level. But I mean, you know, the, the further you, you know, the more local you get, the more like good old boy, like I know the person I'm shaking hands with thing it is. But also it's like way more room for corruption. And so, you know, it's like more personal, it's better, but also worse. And so, you know, it's interesting, but I think lobbyists get a bad rap. I mean most of the lobbyists I worked with and that I know and I'm still friends with are, you know, they built their career off being trustworthy resources for elected officials. If you think of like state houses especially, you have. My dad was a state representative actually for eight years and my home state had term limits, which I think are fantastic, a fantastic idea that we should examine more closely. We term limit presidents. So anyway, he did that when I was like in know when I was growing up and I kind of. So I think that helped like kind of see some things. But he was a butcher. He owned a little grocery store. He's a butcher and cattle farmer. And one day somebody's like, you should run for office. And I guess he took him seriously and did it, Lost, lost the race, was embarrassed, you know, and picked himself up and a few years later ran again and won and had a whole second career doing that. And it was really cool, you know, for me to see. You know, I was, I was the first one for my family to go to college. And so, you know, everybody else is kind of like more blue collar, like doing this and going. And he really went for it. And so he's in, you know, the state house, very little experience, business owner, like pretty sharp guy. But so there are some things that, you know, you, you're, you're elected, you're really good at some things. Maybe you're a doctor, maybe you're an attorney, maybe you're a butcher. And your community says we want you to represent us because there's things that are really important to us and you know, let's call out the bullshit on whatever, you know, and so you're really good at this. But there's this whole other thing like diagnostic imaging centers, for instance, that you're like, first of all, I don't know what that is, you know, and, and so, oh, X ray machines, you know, and so you, you need someone who understands that and understands the second and third, third order impacts of decisions you make as an elected official and the laws you pass. If you lie, if you're a jerk, you get one shot. And then most people never trust you. You're going to never work with you again. If you are good at your job, if you educate people, if you help teach them and you make them look good, not yourself look good, if you make the elected officials look good, then you're going to have massive success. And so the best lobbyists I know are actually just really smart people who are really, who really know their industry have worked in it forever. Most of them have, you know, are in an industry and retired out and they're not, you know, this. So that's the most common misconception. That's why I kind of like took that, you know, side road here with you. But I think it's, it's most people when I say that they're like, oh, I never thought about it like that before.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. By the way, this is a safe space for tangents and side roads always. So feel free.

[Walker]

Good.

[Unknown Speaker]

So I mean, I think that's kind of fascinating and I mean, I guess maybe this is what we did not get to yet. But how did you go from that then to bitcoin? What was that stepping stone for you where now you are like this is what you're doing? Well, you're not a lobbyist now. You guys are a non profit and a think tank. And maybe we can talk about kind of the distinctions there later because I think that is important. But how did you make that jump?

[Walker]

Yeah, yeah. Thanks for, thanks for getting me back on. So I was, it was like, you know, Covid times, all sort of thing. And I had got into. I kind of got really interested in bitcoin for many years. Wish I had, you know, then I wish my purchasing had tracked with my level of interest like most people. But I was like really? I just thought it was really interesting from a distance and kept an eye on it and asked, asked somebody I like like some random people who to follow on Twitter. And I like got Twitter, you know, Twitter account at the time just to learn about bitcoin. And one of the, you know, one of, one of the must follows was, was actually Odell. And so I followed him religiously for many years and, and some others and ran into people at meetups. I kind of went to start going to meetups and it's funny story with, I think it was, it was Odell actually. I was talking with him and you know, we're kind of have this similar conversation, like, oh, how'd you get into bitcoin? Like, what do you do? And I was like, I'm not telling anyone here. Of course I show up, like, in a blazer. You know, I'm like, oh, we're going to a. It's like a conference, you know, I'm like, everybody looks at me at the meetup like, I'm a fed, you know, and I'm just like, oh, I thought it was. Assumed it was a business professional type of situation. And, you know, bitcoiners all look like they just came out of the coal mines. And so, like, I stand out like a sore thumb. And so anyway, I started realizing, like, I'm not going to tell anybody about the whole I'm a lobbyist right now thing. You know, I don't really know if I'm. That's welcome here. Like, I just couldn't really dial in the vibe. And after a while I realized, like, these are just like, chill people, cool people that are themselves. And. And I kind of mentioned to a few people what I did, and they're like, oh, have you met the BPI team? And I was like, I don't even know what that is. So I get to know David and Grant, the co founders of Bitcoin Policy Institute, and within a couple months, I had actually quit my job and I was no longer in politics. I got burned out. I was kind of out of the loop for a couple years on the heels of just some major projects and overhaul in our political system. And so I kind of took a. It was a good time. I took a sabbatical before I got back in. And I was assured, hey, you're a bitcoiner who works in politics. You're not working in politics, you're working on bitcoin. But we're going to go do this work. And that's held true as the ethos of BPI since inception. And since the early days, we're focused on bitcoin. We're honored. You know, we try to represent the industry and, you know, the. The network the best we can. We don't represent everyone. We just do our work and. And try to, you know, try to educate everyone we can about bitcoin. But we. We try to be stewards of the name at least. And, and so if you're going to put bitcoin anything on your. In your organization or your company, I think you've got our. Or your damn podcast walker. You know, you got a responsibility there, and people are going to hold you to it, like it or not, want it, don't want it, whatever they're going to. And I think that's a really good thing about our community.

[Unknown Speaker]

No, I agree. It's like, if you're taking the bitcoin name, it should not be in vain. You better mean it. And I appreciate the background because I always think it's fascinating how people got into bitcoin then found themselves working in this wild emergent industry. And so maybe let's get into BPI specifically a little bit. Maybe just. So what are you doing for bpi? Can we maybe just even take a step back further? So BPI is not a lobbyist group, it's a think tank. I think think tank also kind of has this mystique about it, right? For us, like non DC people where it's like think tank. So they're just taking a bunch of, you know, taking a bunch of money to come up with policies that, you know, benefit, you know, who, God only knows who. And like, I feel like it's another thing where there's kind of this, this like stink to it for a lot of people. But can you, can you talk a little about that? How is that different? And just like, what is, like, what is the mission of bpi?

[Walker]

Yeah. Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, the think tank thing is funny. Like, you know, you got thinkers and doers and so if you're a think tank, like, you don't. I guess that means you don't do anything. And so. Yeah, I think that's a great question. So BPI Bitcoin Policy Institute, we're a 501c3 charity, first of all. So we're a nonprofit and think tank and advocacy organization. So as a nonprofit, just, I'm like the legal high level. We're different than trade associations, we're different than lobbying firms which are just like, you know, are similar to like a law firm. You hire them to provide certain services. So the difference there is we don't have members, people don't pay dues, people don't contract us out to achieve certain things. And not those things are right or wrong or whatever. That's just not what we do. So as a charity, we are supported completely off donations. And I told you this earlier before we started, like my whole job, I'm the, I'm the head of development for bpi and my whole focus is just making sure we can grow and scale and continue operations and take care of certain projects that we're working on. But back over to our mission and why we exist. On the research side, we have around two dozen fellows and many of those, you know, I know you're friends with like the Troy Crosses of the world. Matt Pines was a fellow for a long time. Now he's our executive director at bpi, which is awesome, man. We're thrilled to have him on board full time. It's a, it was a coup for us as an org and. But, you know, Margot Paez and I could list them all. I'm sorry if I didn't say your name. I'm not gonna list all 24 fellows. But they are not employees of BPI. They are out, you know, in the world. They're professors, PhDs, some of the, I think smartest, brightest minds focusing and thinking about bitcoin in the world. And that's why we've brought them on. We're lucky to have them and we give them per diems or things, or we may in some cases buy out some of their course load. So instead of teaching five classes, they'll teach four classes and then one class instead of teaching it, they're able to just really focus in and do some deep dive research on renewables and bitcoin mining or whatever, or bitcoin and national security or something that I probably don't completely understand because it's an 80 page white paper, but really important. So that's what we empower them to do. Now, there's a number of different models, and it really depends on the industry and what you're trying to achieve. I think if you were focused on volcanoes at the deepest part of the ocean that no one's explored before and how 1 degree of temperature could change the entire ecosystem of some special type of whale type of think tank, then you're probably more on the think tank side and less on the advocacy side. For us, we see this as all fairly strategic. We think, we let these fellows, we empower them to do independent research. You know, mining companies, for instance, like, if you're a mining company, like, great job, we love you. But like, if you're like, here's the research on bitcoin mining that our mining company did, and you put that before Congress, you know, that may or may not hold as much weight as a third party, disinterested, nonpartisan, nonprofit group that focuses solely on doing research, saying, hey, here's our paper on this. And I think like mining companies understand that many of them, they, they support our work and we really appreciate that. If you come to our, when you come to our Summit. You'll see many of them sponsored our summit. And they're, they're like, hey, go do your thing, keep doing it. And we don't, you know, you know, it's not like a trade group. It's like, they're like, wow, you guys are just doing it. Like, go do your thing. I don't know. Who are you finding? These people are doing the research. Fantastic work. Like, love it, keep going. And we really appreciate that. So that's kind of the vibe on the think tank side. And then what we do, it's a little unique. We have the whole advocacy side. We have a government affairs team, we have a public policy team. We engage with Capitol Hill in a number of different ways. Elected officials and staffers. And we were saying, hey, let's do this. Baseline education. What do you need to know about bitcoin? What are you working on? Oh, you're working on this? And does bitcoin fit into this? Or what do your constituents think? What are they saying about bitcoin? Oh, have you thought about this? And so we help them sort of form and shape their understanding. And then we'll bring in these white papers, this research, and it helps us have something to stand on. We're not just saying things. We have thousands of hours of very smart, talented, like check all the boxes of everything you need to in Washington in order for someone to take you seriously as a research program caliber white papers. And we're like, and this is where we're getting all this. We're not just saying that, you know, bitcoin is really important for the United States, especially from like a national security, nation state power network type of thing. We have been writing about this for four years. Matt Pines wrote a white paper on this, like literally like four years ago. It was the first white paper we published. And now, boom, reality is kind of caught up. Us, China, lots of things go tectonic, plates shifting and we're seeing, yeah, well this is, this is pretty important. So that's kind of how it works, like behind the scenes. Our mission is really simple. Like we want to educate Washington D.C. on Bitcoin. We've always said our kind of point of departure. When Grant and David first started BPI, it was like, hey, we think one day Washington D.C. is going to take bitcoin seriously. There's going to come a day and I think if you didn't think that, then you don't believe in bitcoin. You don't think, believe bitcoin was going to be successful. Because if bitcoin's going to be successful, then eventually the largest nation in the world is going to say what's that all about? What's going on with that? Anyone who thinks that bitcoin could become successful and the United States government was just gonna be like, ah, you know, fifth largest asset in the world, cow. Figure it out later. You're outta your mind. This is not how it works. And maybe you wish it worked that way and that's fine, but it doesn't. And so at some point that gnat flying around the head of nation states, they're gonna say I'm tired of this stupid fly like and or they're going to think oh, what an interesting fly. I wonder what it. And so we figured if they're going to take it seriously one way or the other, let's start working now before bitcoin's the number one asset. Number one market cap, largest asset in the planet surpasses gold. Let's go ahead and start educating a little now so that we have allies, we have people that understand it. The worst case scenario to me, Walker, I'm curious what you think is one of the worst case scenarios. There are many worst case scenarios in the world. But with regards to bitcoin and the government, the worst case scenario would be bitcoin. Just boom, out of nowhere, 10 trillion market cap or whatever blows past gold. And a bunch of people get in the room in Washington D.C. and they're like what's up with this bitcoin thing? And nobody knows. And they're like yeah, I heard it's like a scam. Or I heard, you know, I remember the FTX thing. Like that was a total rug pull. I don't know. But like this is endangering the entire financial system. Like we got to kill it. Like we got to figure it out. We need to ban mining, whatever they would want to do. And you say well they couldn't kill bitcoin. Probably not, but they sure as hell could try. It sure wouldn't be fun in the meantime, right? And so that's what we want to avoid. We want people to have them like oh yeah, I've actually met with many bitcoiners over the last five, 10 years. And I think this is actually really important and I'm glad it's successful. And I actually think the United States, I think we benefit from this. I think the world benefits from this and here's why. And if we want to talk more in depth, like let me bring some people in who know a lot about it that's where we want to be at.

[Unknown Speaker]

I would. I would agree that that would be a massive risk because you're right. I mean, can a single government instituting prohibitive bitcoin policies kill Bitcoin? No, of course not. Like, and we've got a great example of this in the China mining ban, right? Oh, no. Hash rate goes off a cliff overnight after, like, wasn't that like their 10th ban? But this time they were super serious, I guess, and hash rate went off a cliff. But you know what? That hash rate came right back, and a lot of it found its way to America, to Texas, to other states. Great. Thanks, China. Like, bad move for you. Great news for us. So they wouldn't be able to kill it, but they can certainly make it a pain in the ass to hold and use Bitcoin in a way that respects the law. And you might say, well, I don't need to respect the law, and that's fine. You can do whatever you want. The point is that the government can either make it very difficult for you to do things that are, of course, within your just, let's say, natural rights, like to have private property, to trans, you know, to have privacy, to transact anonymously or pseudonymously. But they can also make that. They can make that really difficult, or they can put laws in place which actually protect your rights to do that. Like, people forget that the point of laws is to protect you from the government, not for the government. The government doesn't give you rights, but they can try to prohibit your rights by making terrible laws. So again, it's like, which would you rather have? Would you rather have good laws that protect your rights, or would you rather have bad laws that infringe upon your rights? Because those are basically your two options, or just somewhere in the middle, I guess, which is just really garbage, over the top, you know, bureaucratic laws that just make it a pain in the butt to do absolutely anything. So, yeah, you know, and I'm. I think that you guys have obviously shifted the needle or you've moved the needle to a huge extent. The fact that Vice President Vance gave a direct shout out to you guys at the bitcoin conference in Vegas, like that, that was pretty huge. Can you. Can you talk about that a little bit? Because that might. Must have been quite a moment for you guys.

[Walker]

Yeah, it was. I mean, it was a. It was a really cool moment. We were all on the live desk, actually, me, Matt Pines, and Zach Shapiro, before the Vice President spoke. And kind of, you know, what are we expecting to Hear, you know, kind of the whole news desk thing. And. And we were sitting there listening. We're like, this good speech, you know, and he kind of went here and they started hit some things. We're like, man, he's really throwing some haymakers. And then he was like, yeah, you know, and thanks to the work of people like the Bitcoin Policy Institute. And we were just like. We all looked at each other like, did one of you meet with this team or something? It was like, no, we have no idea. And so it was really cool. And I think, yeah, I mean, it was like. It was a cool moment. It was an awesome moment. But I think what's really neat about it to me is that within the context of his whole speech, so he was just driving nails, especially the second half, talking about bitcoin being a hedge against inflation. Actually, I have a couple of notes.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah. Can you like. Yeah, walk through kind of like what. What jumped out at you and at the BPI team from that speech that you were like, okay, this is. Yeah, like, great. This is what you should be saying.

[Walker]

Yeah, he. So he kind of went kind of getting his, you know, getting his mojo, you know, kind of like fired Gary Gensler like, three or four times in a row. And, like, because Trump had the big laugh about it when he spoke in Nashville and kind of benefits of bitcoin kind of just like top level, vague and, like, what you would expect. And then about halfway through, it kind of seemed like he maybe. He kind of just got into it, maybe went off script a little bit. And so especially the shout out to us. I don't think his speechwriter put that in there, but I don't know. It's just a guess. But, yeah, he was like, here's bitcoin, super important, gives people expanded access to banking. Bitcoin's a hedge against central government control, a hedge against inflation, private sector censorship, debanking. Like, those are like, okay, this guy gets it a little bit. He started calling bitcoiners digital pioneers, which was like, you know, I don't think he's the first one to say that, but it was like, pretty cool. Really cool way to describe it. He's talked about the desire of his team and, like, DC should be listening to our industry and learning from us. And I think that's probably where he mentioned BPI was like, people like BPI are helping us with that, just being a constant resource and staying very focused on bitcoin and bitcoin only, which we're one of the only Groups that can say that we're proud of that. We wear that like a medal around our necks. Yeah, and it's always going to be that way. We are about bitcoin. We're bitcoin focused. We don't really stray outside that. We may talk about CBDCs, we may talk about stables, but you know, because of legislation and different things going on, I think those are on the table and, but really, like, bitcoin's the only thing that matters, and here's why.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's not the Crypto Policy Institute.

[Walker]

Let's just say it sure as hell isn't. And then he said that bitcoin and bitcoiners deserve the respect and support from the government, which I agree with, since we elected them and put them there and pay for them to be there. But, you know, but yeah, for a politician to say it, that I think is, is great versus, he said, being torn bo down by bureaucracy. And, and he mentioned the whole like, you know, operation choke point 2, 2.0 being taken down, promises made, promises kept. And, and then he encouraged everybody to be involved in the 2026 campaigns and engage there. And you know, to your point, he didn't say this in his speech, but he alluded to it. And I think what you just said, like, policy being focused on, you know, like protecting your rights. And to some listeners, they may say, well, like, I don't, like, I don't need the government to tell me I can do xyz. I can. I don't, I don't want their. I don't want them to give me permission to do it. I'm a free person and I'm like, I get it, man. Hey, I'm right there with you. But like, if you look at what just happened to like non custodial services, they're getting like thrown in prison. So you don't need them to tell you. But like, I also don't want to move to China, you know, and I don't want to get thrown in prison for like coding and making like building a website and so that they're wrong about that. But like, let's go ahead and fix the law and like spell it out a little bit, right? If you have ever been in a lawsuit, thank God I haven't been. You know, it can be not fair, it cannot be right. But like, you better defend yourself or you're gonna lose the lawsuit. And that's how it is with the government. So anyway, little tangent, but the other thing about JD's speech, man, and this may Be obvious to some people, but some people kind of talking about this and I thought it was interesting. The thing that struck me the most was like, this is the vice president. And they're like, ah, you know, President Trump spoke last summer. Now we got the number two guy. President Trump didn't speak last summer. That was a guy running for president. That was a campaign stop, like Nashville. He was running for president and he was campaigning all over the place, barnstorming across the country. And I'll blame him. Hey, 30,000 people in Nashville, let's pop in, rally the base a little bit. And I think what he encountered was like, oh, these people are a little different. Like the whole Gary Gensler thing, he didn't expect anybody to applaud. That's why he repeated it three times. He's like, this is awesome. Like, yeah, let's go. I'm going to fire him right now. And so it doesn't mean it wasn't important in a watershed moment. It absolutely was. But he was a guy running for office and props. He kept campaign promises and did all the kind of things he said he was going to do. But at Vegas, this was a sitting vice president. This guy's not running for office, he's not campaigning right now. So why is he there? Well, I think it kind of speaks for itself. I think he, I think he meant what he said. I think he was there for a purpose. And so I think that's the most, like, incredible thing about it. The other side is he is sitting, last I checked, plus 1000 odds or plus 300 odds on being the next. Or maybe it was 250. Plus 250, plus 330% odds against the field of being the next president. United States next closest is plus 1,000. Gavin Newsom, AOC, Don Jr. Are the next closest. They're all plus one. So he's like 30%. Everybody else is like 5%. So you have likely. I mean, you have the current vice president and the probable future president. So you've got two, then four. Potentially a ten year Runway here where you have someone in the White House who gets it and appreciates bitcoin. I think that's a huge win. We can't obviously BPI take credit for that. And I'm not trying to. I'm just saying I think it's awesome for us. We take meetings with anyone who'll meet with us. We don't just work with Republicans. We're a nonpartisan think tank. But we can't make people who won't meet with Us, meet with us. Like, we can't. We can't educate Elizabeth Warren. You know, I'd love to meet with Elizabeth Warren. I would love it. I sit down with her tomorrow and explain why I think, you know what I think. And she, you know, I'd love to meet with her team and hopefully show them the light a little bit. That'd be a funny meeting, but it'd be a blast. You know, why not? And that's the posture we take that goes a long way in D.C. because most people aren't like that.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I mean, I think that people, people need to remember that, like, bitcoin is inherently political because money is inherently political. But being political does not make it partisan. You can try to make it partisan. You can try to put your whatever partisan bent on it you want. This is a, you know, a red team thing, not a blue team thing. But the reality is bitcoin doesn't care. Money will always be political, necessarily so. But that does not make it partisan. And honestly, I mean, you are only hurting yourself as either a candidate or a political party by being either ignorant or anti Bitcoin. And I think that that is shown to be very true and will continue to. That's only going to ramp up because bitcoiners are becoming an increasingly dominant economic and political force. You don't want to have that against you. You'd rather have that for you. And I think politicians are starting to wake up to that. Have you seen any sort of positive developments on the Democratic side of the aisle versus we know that there's a good number of very vocal Republicans who are pro bitcoin. What about on the Democratic side? Are you seeing more movement there?

[Walker]

Yeah, I think so. We have Congressman Torres speaking at the summit here in a couple weeks. Congressman or Ro Khanna spoke at our March event. And I think, you know, I think a lot increasing number of Democrat congressmen get it, staffs get it. There's some, you know, some really brilliant people on that side of the aisle. They get a bad rap for some of the Elizabeth Warrens of the world that just, you know, almost like, you know, it's almost like a bad joke, refuse to understand some things. But yeah, I don't think. I don't see bitcoin as a political football to be kicked back and forth depending on who's in charge. I think it's ridiculous. It's like, like I, you know, you know, money is political, but not partisan. It's like saying you're. It's like, which party likes music you know, I don't know, like, what do you, how does that even work? I'm sure at one point there was a political party who was like, we don't need any more. You know, neither is music running around or, you know, the Internet. Like who, if you, if you tie your whole existence or your whole like platform to like this Internet, it's ridiculous. It's going to be the end of us. You know, it might be, they may have been right, but the Internet, you know, it's, it's, it's bad for our country to be, to lead. When it comes to the Internet in the early 90s, there's actually a, I was doing a research project on like, you know, some messaging and like, I was trying to look at other think tanks and advocacy groups that were like similar to ours and like, you know, how they were successful and sorts of things. Last year and I came across the Internet Policy Institute of the early 90s. Their mission and vision statements were like eerily similar to ours. And I'm sure some of the guys have heard of them and stuff, but it wasn't like we were trying to cut. It was like, no, it's very similar. And they were like, yeah, they feel like they're taking crazy pills. And I'm sure we felt like this. You have and I have as bitcoiners. You're like, this Internet thing, this is a huge deal, man. It's going to take over the world. You guys aren't listening to me. The Internet is coming. The Internet age is here and politicians are like, is it those stupid Internet guys again? They're always trying to get me to speak at their thing. And I'm sure it was similar reading their stuff. It was just like I felt like I was reading my own diary. And I know everybody talks about the bitcoin's like the early days of the Internet, but it really was like when you read these think tanks, they're just trying to convince like these elected leaders of something that they can't comprehend yet. And they're like, I just need you to trust me, man. Like the United States needs to take this seriously. And thankfully we did. Look at us now, you know, we led the free world. You can imagine if we didn't. There's some alternative versions of history that would have, you know, potentially been really troubling.

[Unknown Speaker]

And I think, I mean that, that is such a great analogy for or you know, comparison for bitcoin. Because it's like, again, as an American, obviously, like, I love my country. I don't love my government. I don't think you should, like, love your government. You should be cautious of your government. You should generally treat it with some scorn, derision, and a healthy dose of skepticism, because ultimately, an overblown and bloated state apparatus is only going to lead to totalitarianism. But that being said, I love America and I love the American people, and I love the American idea, and I love the American Constitution. And I think that that is a really powerful force for good in the world. What the American government has often done around the world is often not a force for good. But that does not mean America as a nation is in any way irredeemable. And we also, I mean, there's a lot of places around the world that are. That respect your property rights and your personal autonomy a hell of a lot less. And so I think if there's a place that is most, let's say, ideologically and culturally aligned with bitcoin, right now, it is the United States of America. And I think it's good for people to remember that. And again, we want it to stay that way. And so that's why I think, I'm curious of the initiatives that you guys are working on now. What are kind of your key focus areas at the moment? How do you even decide what parts of this to tackle? Because obviously there's a lot that goes into bitcoin. Where do you guys apply the majority of your focus at the moment?

[Walker]

Yeah, that's a big question and something we consistently evaluate and iterate on. You know, I'll just say to what you're. You kind of talking about our country. I think we as. It's funny, like, I don't know if you're experiencing this with kids and having a family and everything. You know, you always talk about, like, this generation or my generation, we have an opportunity. You know, I see it as like, we have an opportunity to improve or degrade our. Our freedoms and improve or degrade our. Our country and leave it better or worse for, like, our kids and our grandkids and whatever. And I think just like that doesn't mean that everything's perfect, everything is obviously not perfect in the United States, especially with our government. And we could have a whole. You and I could just sit and have a whole three hour podcast about that. But I think the fact that we can either improve or degrade it is very, very valuable. And that's why I love my country, is because I do have the opportunity to, you know, it's easy. No, Impossible.

[Unknown Speaker]

No.

[Walker]

To improve Things and change things and, and you got to work your ass off sometimes and you still lose, but you can do it, and it's very possible. And so that's, that's why I, like, that's why I'm going to be, you know, blasting fireworks, bottle rockets on the 4th of July with the tank top on, brother. So, you know, I, I, I'm, that's, that's where I land with bpi. We, I think we have an advantage. Like, we are, we're in a really, like, sweet spot as an organization. We have beefed up enough, we've grown enough that we can, you know, kind of handle a number of things simultaneously. Whereas there were years, there were times, not, I mean, recently like last year, where we had to really pick and choose. We had to make hard decisions on what we were going to focus on because we had such limited bandwidth. We were small, and we're still small, but we have increased our bandwidth. We're up to a dozen employees. And so I'm really proud of that growth and I'm, you know, eternally grateful for the people who helped us get there. But we can take on a few things and do them the right way. I think that's the most important thing to us is whatever we do, we want to blow it out of the water. And that's how you earn a good reputation in the capital of our country. You want to stand out. And so one big thing we're doing, we've mentioned, is the Bitcoin Policy Summit. We've done this three years in a row. It was a crazy idea the first time. You know, we did it really quickly and it came together and. Okay, Policy Summit events. Great. What is it, like a bitcoin conference in D.C. no, it's completely different. This is suits and ties. It looks like you're like, it looks boring to most people. You're like, oh, policy. Oh, my gosh. But I think it is fascinating. We have bitcoiners on stage and some elected officials, but the goal of this is to educate the masses that bring in hundreds of staffers to, from a kindergarten to a, you know, junior 3000 level graduate level understanding of Bitcoin up and down that spectrum. There's something for you there. I think for most people who kind of have, they're like, I don't really know. I'm like, supposed to talk about digital assets with my job. But, you know, I'm getting, you know, misinformation or, like, mixed signals or I'm hearing from this group and this group And I don't know what to think. Well, why don't you come learn about just bitcoin for a day? Let's just isolate one type of asset and let's just talk about. It's the biggest one by a long shot. And you've heard what about it? Nothing. It's what, 60% of the market cap of all digital assets, of all crypto. And you've heard, you know what 3% of everything you've heard in D.C. was about Bitcoin? That sounds weird. I wonder why. Wonder. Almost seems like others are spending a lot of money on marketing. So, anyway, I love this, man. I love talking with you about this. This is. This is fun. But I. And I get to do all this.

[Unknown Speaker]

Stuff right back at you. Tangents. Safe space for tangents always. I can. I can always. I can keep that promise.

[Walker]

I'm your guy for tangents. So we did the summit and we had a bunch, and they're like, man, this was so great. I just get to sit and hear about bitcoin for a day. We explained mining, we brought in professors, we brought in mining companies and we put them on stage. We're like, explain to these. Explain to Washington D.C. what mining is, why it's important. Oh, all the BS stuff you hear about mining, like, talk about that too. Oh, money laundering. Because somebody wanted. Yeah, okay, let's get the experts. Just talk about money laundering. Hey, most people say bitcoin's used for money laundering. That's not true. Here's why. All right, we do this all day. Human rights. We holler our friends at the hrf, Alex Gladstein and all that. We're like, bring a bunch of human rights activists and talk about how they use bitcoin. And we're just blowing minds. We're just blowing people's minds. They're like, I had no idea. So we're like, all right, let's run it back the next year or the first year. It was like FTX had just collapsed. So the funny thing, I should have said this earlier. It was just not warmed up yet. I joined bti and it was like, married. Like, hey, I'm doing the bitcoin think tank, so I'm going to work. What's that? You. You still have to ask me that, right? And you're like, imagine my spouse who, like, you know, she doesn't know what any of those words are. She. She, you know, she's brilliant, but, like, she's like, what are you doing? I was like, I don't know. This sounds awesome. She's like, do it. It sounds cool, you're excited about it, go for it. So I'm fortunate there, but. But yeah, it was like, I did this, got this job, like, I'm going all in. A month later, like, FTX collapses. And I remember because I was at Pacific Bitcoin and it was just like, well, here we go. And it was also. It's a perfect time to come over in hindsight because we got to build during a bear, which is. I know a lot of people, but we did and we did build and you had to kind of soul search like, what's really important, what are we really trying to do? And so we did. The summit. FTX collapsed. Everybody thinks bitcoin's a scam. This was what our website said on the summit. Everybody thinks bitcoin's a scam. Everybody lost millions of dollars. Who's to blame? Is it bitcoin? Come to the summit and find out. And everybody did. It's like, we have nothing to hide. That's the cool part. That's what makes it simple. Not easy, but really simple to advocate and to meet with people. It's because we're right, you know, like, we're not lying about anything. We're not full of it. Like, we are telling the truth. And we're like, yeah, I mean, like, look, like, you know, inflation's through the roof and has been and always will be. Your money's becoming worthless. Everybody's aware of this. Like, something is. Lots of things are broken beyond repair. And hey, check this out. Like, this is a really cool way of. Of doing money. And this is, like, really interesting. And they're. We're just beginning to tap into, you know, kind of the possibilities of, like, how, you know, mining is going to tie into our grid and all these sorts of things. But, like, there's all kinds of cool stuff happening here, boys, like, come on over. Like, what about. And we're right. Like, we're honest. And so it makes it a lot easier in a number of ways because people can pick up on that. Politicians especially, they're the best at, you know, they're gonna. They know if you're full of it, man. They're around people like that all day long their entire lives. And some of them might be that way themselves. Right? So. So yeah, we. That's what we do, man. And that's one big thing. The summit. We have like 600 people, 700 people come in. We have 10 elected officials. We have. The deputy director of the CIA has come to speak at our summit, which is going to be sick. And who knows what that guy's going to say, right? Maybe they announced they invented it. Right? That's the announcement.

[Unknown Speaker]

Oh, that would, that would be, that'd be something. So I better bring a burner phone also. Just, I'm just going to assume the, you know. Yeah, that's a good burner.

[Walker]

That's a good idea. That's a good idea. Yeah. So we're, we're, we, you know, we're going to blow this out of the water and we live stream and we get millions of people watch it. So it's a great, like we see it as like we're building our, like a megaphone and you can shout through that for like a couple days. And then out of that we have, you know, there's a lot of publicity, there's a lot of press, there's a lot of doors that open to, to new conversations with. They're like, oh yeah, so and so was talking about this. I haven't met with you guys yet, but I really need to, you know, government agencies come and they're like, it's not just bitcoin or not just us and not just. Or maybe it's nothing to do with us. Maybe it's one of our speakers that they're like, oh, I really engage. I'm working on something I need to talk to you about. And now they're working with the bitcoin industry. And so it's just a way to open so many doors in like a couple days. It's a lot of work. I know you've been involved with events and it's a lot of work. It's a heavy lift, but it's worth every ounce of it. And that's why we're running it back. I think on the other the policy priority side to hit that, like our focus is the strategic bitcoin reserve. Of course I mentioned like non custodial tools, self custody. Like just there's a lot of legislation floating around. Bitcoin Act. We're keeping an eye on genius and market structure stuff as well and, and monitoring that like making sure that there's the p. There's like the passive legislative monitoring. Like you know, you're, you're scanning the, you know, scanning the road for like landmines. Like there's nothing here. That's like super dangerous. Right? Like that's more defensive and passive on the policy side. And Zach Shapiro is like fantastic at that. Like he's like a bird dog, man. He's like Wait, they're trying to do this thing, man. And so, so that's the, the passive side and there's the active side. Like maybe, maybe a senator or congressman comes and says, I want to, you know, I'll just make something up. I want to like, you know, kind of do a bill of rights for non custodial tools or whatever. Like, what would that look like? We're like, well, here's how I'd write it. You know, here's how I would phrase that. And so, you know, we're kind of the experts in the room that kind of help advise and give feedback and have those off the record conversations. And again, that's not a real story. It's just an example of something that could happen and be cool if it was some of that work. Yeah, it would be cool. Hey, anybody wants to build a like, you know, bill writes like that, it'd be great. I'm sure somebody probably is working on it. Whether it's, you know, policy priorities for offices where they kind of know what they want to do and we kind of help them, you know, that's all we think about. They're working on policy for everything all at once. And so in that sense, you know, like I mentioned lobbyists earlier, they're the educated experts on something. Now they're going out, like pushing on specific bills and like taking people out to dinner and doing all that kind of thing. We don't do that. But in that way we are similar as advocates and as reliable resources that they're like, oh, bitcoin. That came up. Let's go talk to bpi. Those guys will let us know if this is legit or not. They can kind of let me know, kind of help me out. I can bounce ideas with them. I know they're not going to go like, tell the press about it. So that's kind of the role we like to fill on that side and just being a reliable, trusted third party that has your best interest in mind. But we are die hard for our industry and we're going to fight tooth and nail to improve outcomes for bitcoiners and bitcoin companies and mining companies in America. Because we think it's important that we can, like we talked about, continue to exercise our freedoms. We think those freedoms should be expanded. And then we make the case on the other way, like, hey, this is good for the United States Strategic bitcoin reserve. I'm sure you know the answer to this, but I'm just going to ask you anyways, like, you know what Percent of, you know, of all gold is held in the United States. Have you heard this stats?

[Unknown Speaker]

No, no. Educate.

[Walker]

Yeah, 10%. 10% of all gold is held in the United States. You know what percent of these are estimates, but, like, roughly, I think it seems to be, you know, percent of bitcoin is held in. By the United. In the United States.

[Unknown Speaker]

What percent?

[Walker]

So I'm talking industry, individuals, government, whatever, all put together, own 10% of the gold supply. Bitcoin is 40%.

[Unknown Speaker]

Wow.

[Walker]

Yeah. So if one was going to become more valuable, like, become very valuable, which one would be a bigger benefit to the United States? Well, bitcoin, of course, we got 4x the benefit. So that's pretty compelling argument. If you want to back something with gold or bitcoin, I think you should back it. Just look at them the same, right? I think bitcoin's superior in many ways, and we will make the case all day for that. But just like, look at the. Just the. Just look at the X's, zeros and ones, man. We have four times more of the bitcoin than we do the gold. And so for American citizens, for, you know, American companies and the United States government, it's like, that's easy. That's easy to pick for me.

[Unknown Speaker]

That's. That's massive. Well, can we talk about the SBR a little bit and kind of like, where. You see, where. Where are we at with that? Because obviously, like, I. I know a lot of the language in that executive order was pulled from some of the work that you guys do at bpi. I did think that that order was nice in that it separated bitcoin and, quote, you know, digital assets very distinctly. Like it was, you know, we're going to save all the bitcoin we have. We're going to acquire more bitcoin. We won't dispose of any bitcoin. However, on the digital asset side, we're not going to acquire any. We will dispose of some, probably, or we'll leave the door open to that. And so it was nice to see that demarcation there, which, you know, obviously bitcoin is not, quote, crypto. But where. Where are we at? As far as I know, they had, like, initially had like, 30 days to. To. For all these agencies to report back and do that. I mean, that 30 days has obviously come and gone. I didn't see anything about that. What updates can you give on that? As far as what, you know, I.

[Walker]

Don'T have a ton of updates, unfortunately, Walker. You know, I wish. I wish I did it's still very much in flux. Yeah, man. Always, like, anytime we can help out or chip in for the administration or anyone on language or whatever, it's a privilege to get to do it. And I think with the sbr, I think it's a massive win. First of all, I think it's a massive win. We got the demarcation language in there, like you said, between bitcoin and other types of digital assets. And I know some people wanted the buying program. I still think that's on the table. I think, you know, Senator Lummis's Bitcoin act is, is active and moving. And that's. There's a lot in there that I think people are going to be people that are really excited about. And so I think we can, I think we need to expand the sbr. I think that, you know, the buying program, where the money would come from. I mean, there's a thousand different arguments for that and, and then, you know, disclosure by agencies that's being held up. A lot of people don't completely know why. There's a lot of bureaucratic, you know, like, you would expect swampy type things going on. And I think, you know, we have a rare opportunity. And I'm not trying to like, wiggle out of your question, but I think the way I see it is we don't know exactly what's happening and why. I think, you know, Heinz can probably dig into that a little bit more with you or Shapiro, but I think that we are still in this window of opportunity where we have to keep working and fighting. And you know, I don't, what I don't want, and I don't think many people thought this just because how bitcoiners are, but like, you know, you got the executive order and you're like, all set, game, set, match. We did it, boys. And it doesn't work like that. That's a very important step. But you have to keep going. You have to keep advocating. There's more work to do. And yeah, I, I personally think the SBR is, would be, you know, the buying program would be a phenomenal, like, giga brain move the United States. It's like, like we talk about the Internet. Like, we have this advantage. We have 40% of the Bitcoin we created reserve. We're not going to sell our bitcoin. It's like, dude, buy it, man. Like, get a bunch. Like you're going, you know, whatever. Some people don't, you know, I get it. Some people are like, I don't want the United States to have all that bitcoin. Just think like you're the United States, you know, like you're like, they really should do it. They would see, you know, secure this massive advantage for the foreseeable future. And I, I do, I, I would love it. I think that'd be awesome. And I think it would be good. I think it would be really good for the bitcoin network, the bitcoin community. I think it'd be good for US citizens and I think it would be good for everyone internationally who uses bitcoin. I think it's a win, win, win. So that's why I'm like, really passionate about it. I think it's a fantastic idea.

[Unknown Speaker]

I think it's also important for people to realize. This goes back to something you said earlier. Just that if bitcoin was going to become successful, of course the government's going to pay attention to it. And I've said this a ton as well. It's like this is what winning looks like. If bitcoin was a loser, if bitcoin had failed, then we wouldn't be having this conversation because the US Government wouldn't care. But if bitcoin was going to. If you believe that hyper bitcoinization is going to happen, if you believe that bitcoin is going to become the dominant money, the dominant network in the world and suck in all of the value of the world, you must necessarily believe that every government, every business and every individual is going to hold bitcoin. And if you don't believe that, then you don't actually understand what's happening, A, and you probably don't have that much conviction in a hyper bitcoinized future, B, which is fine. But if you do think those are going to happen, if you do have conviction in bitcoin, if you do think bitcoin is winning and will win, these are natural byproducts of that. Doesn't mean you have to like it. It just means that this was going to be inevitable in the case where bitcoin is winning. And I think people miss that a lot. Like, it's okay to not like it. Like, I, I have, you know, some qualms of my, my own about it, but it's also, it's going to happen either way. So it's like you, you know, and we've got to remember, like, the government isn't Trojan horsing us, we are Trojan horsing the government. We just have to, we just as, as American Hodl said, you know, we just Bitcoiners just need to know when to shut up. When you're inside the horse. Like, just be quiet. Guys.

[Walker]

They're letting us in, man.

[Unknown Speaker]

You guys, shut up. Just stop talking. No more podcasts, right?

[Walker]

Yeah, no more, please.

[Unknown Speaker]

I'm shutting it down right now. I'm pulling the plug.

[Walker]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

All right. Yep. See ya.

[Walker]

Yeah, we'll delete this.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Oh, man.

[Walker]

Like, yeah. I mean, everybody's favorite band just went mainstream, you know? Like, sucks. It sucks, but. And, like, maybe you feel like they sold out a little bit, but, like, you got the teaser. You were there for the.

[Unknown Speaker]

I knew about them before. They were cool, though. Like, I knew about. I saw their first shows.

[Walker]

That's great, man. Because you can tell those old stories, like, about the. You know, I heard them in a bar and they were. And I like, you know, smoke weed with the lead singer and they. All that kind of stuff. That's great. Those are great stories to have. But, yeah, it's inevitable. If they're as talented as you thought they were back then, it was just a matter of time before they get signed to a big label. And I know it's more than that, too, and I know there's real risk and. And people are. Who know way more and are smarter than I am are like, yeah, man. But, like, come on. Like, you're not at all concerned about xyz, of course, but it was just bound to happen. And so I think, you know, we're. I was talking to somebody the other day. It was like, we, like, BPI didn't, like, bring Bitcoin to Washington, D.C. you know, like, it's not like, we, like, carried it up. Like, they're like, what, Bitcoin? They're like, yeah, you guys want to hear about it? You know, bitcoin brought itself the Washington, D.C. we're just here to be like, you know, there's no. There's no CEO, right? We sell all the time. Like, no CEO of bitcoin. Well, there's no CEO of bitcoin, which means there's no government affairs team. There's no marketing department. There's no public affairs team. There's no on down the list. There's no nothing. And so we have to build all of these things. And so we're like, hey, well.

[Unknown Speaker]

There'S.

[Walker]

Plenty of other people that can meet with elected officials and talk about bitcoin. We're going to do that, too. And we're going to build an institute and research it, and we want to give them good, clean signal about bitcoin. To elected officials that's appropriate, that's timely to what they're talking about. We want to connect it. Not just like, here's bitcoin. Whenever you would like to read it. Here are the halls filled with novels about. Of white paper. We want to connect it to, like, what's happening right now in the real world. And so why does it matter to me now? That's what elected officials want to know. Like, how does this. How does this dovetail into the other things that are important to my constituents who also don't know anything about bitcoin? Right. Like, if you go be Senator Lummis about bitcoin, hopefully you got a bunch of people back home that care about bitcoin, or they're going to be like, she's up there talking about bitcoin. We don't have any jobs. They're going to vote you out. Talking about this damn bitcoin again, we got a mosquito problem. And so whatever it is, you got to connect it to the other things that people care about, just like normal people. So that's the other side of it.

[Unknown Speaker]

I totally agree, and I'm curious, too. Are there any, like, without revealing any sensitive information about who you've had these conversations with, were there any, like, really kind of standout conversations that you had, either with elected officials or just, you know, staffers, spouse, whatever, that really jumped out at you, where it was like, oh, this was like. Like, it's amazing how this happened. Like, where. Where it went better than you could have imagined? Maybe.

[Walker]

Sure. Yeah. A few times. One that has just stuck with me. I think it was because it was, you know, it was kind of early days, and I. I got invited to this, like, fancy, you know, dinner thing, and somebody's like a mansion, you know, in Tennessee or Kentucky, actually. I can't remember. It was. Try not to give too much away, man.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, it's okay. It's okay.

[Walker]

Doxing my own story, but, yeah, somewhere in the country. No, I. I went to this event and there were a bunch of elected officials there, and I'm meeting with different people and, you know, just kind of making the rounds, and I don't really know a lot of people just because I'm kind of new to the industry, and. And so I'm. I'm. I'm sitting and I'm chatting with. With a lady, and we're having a conversation. Somebody introduced me, and I find out her husband is elected official. And so we're having this great conversation, and she's asking me what I do. We're kind of this little group and so her and I are kind of sideboarding. I'm like, I'm with the Bitcoin Policy Institute. She's like, well you got to tell me all about that because I've got my kids and their grandkids or whatever and they're all into buying the stuff in their phones and I just don't whatever understand all that. And so we're just chatting. It was just so, it was just cool. And, and she was trying to understand and she just wasn't clicking. And I had just come back from an event where like Roya and, and Anna and a bunch of the HRF crew were talking about, you know, some of their experiences. And for every reason I was like, okay, you are upper middle class woman like yourself in Afghanistan, the US like it, love it, hate it, whatever bails on the country after build, you know, kind of turning into a, what civilized country for a decade just disappear and we let some like crazy group take over overnight. So you are, you're, you're you, but you're in Afghanistan, you're an Afghani woman and suddenly the banks are taking over, the currency's different, all hell's breaking loose and everything you've ever owned and built over the last 10, 15 years just evaporates overnight. So it was like, yeah, start selling about Afghanistan. I'm like, so anyways, imagine that, that would suck really bad. And I said, you could try to leave the country. They're going to seize your currency. They're going to, you could. What are you going to carry gold in the bag? Like you're, you're, you're screwed. I said for the bitcoin, for the first time in world history, man, you can memorize 12 words. You get out of the country, going around the world and you can take your life savings with you and start over. And that's the power it gives to women like you. That's the power it gives to people like you. They can, you can make decisions and nobody can take that from you. And this is the first time you can do it. This is the first time you can walk through friggin airport security and no one knows that you're taking your freedom with you. You're taking your, you're taking everything that is yours and it's, it's liberty for people who, everything around them is designed to deny them liberty. And you know, she acted like she was like blown away at least. And I was like okay, who knows? And later that night I, I ran into some staff for this elected official. And I was chat with them. They're like, what did you say to his wife? And I was like, I don't know. What do you mean? Like, that pissed somebody off, you know, I was kind of like, they're like, she made sort of like six books on bitcoin and all this random stuff. And like, I guess we got to read all these books now and made a huge impression. And so that was like, I'm taking other people's stories. And then I'm, you know, with. It wasn't even with the. The elected official. I'm with his spouse, which honestly I think is sometimes more powerful. And it's like, okay, Steve, I'm getting all involved in it now. And now the staff's like, what are we talking about? Why are we reading these books? And I have to explain it to them. And so that's the work. That's what we do. Boil it all down. We take stories that aren't ours. We take research that we have these fellows that build. We take all these resources, and we tried to just put them in a way at the right time to the right people to help get their attention and be like, you know what? Okay, this bitcoin thing actually is something. This is really important, isn't it? Oh, somebody's screwing with it. Somebody's trying to cut you guys legs out. We're not letting that happen. And that's it. That's the gig. And right now, I mean, no, we've been pretty effective at it. I mean, we have a lot of things that have gone in our favor. Political wins. Bitcoin's in a national conversation. It's just like, nope, nobody will listen to us. We shouting into the void, and then, boom, Everybody's talking about bitcoin. Presidents, presidential candidates are talking about bitcoin. And so we saw this enormous, enormous appetite for our work because everybody's, like, caught with their pants down. Like, I don't know shit about bitcoin. Like, what the president's talking about it. We don't know anything about it. Who do we talk to? And that's what we built BPI for, was that exact moment in time. Like, we need to know about this. Last week we knew about this. Yesterday, we are way off sides on this issue. We have no idea what we're doing. Who do we talk to, and how do we figure this out? And we're hoping when that happens that people have BPI on speed dial, and that's what's happened. And so I'm really proud of that. Like, we prepared for this month. We didn't think it was going to happen like now, you know, like maybe years and years from now. So we're like, oh, it's happening, you know, and so we're just really fortunate, like you know, at the resources, the time, at the right place. It was kind of like, you know, luck, but like prepare for the moment and then it happens and you're there. It's cool. It's been fun.

[Unknown Speaker]

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

Right?

I mean, I guess I was trying.

[Walker]

To say like 40 words.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, no, but like the, the suddenly part came at you guys kind of suddenly, I guess. I mean, because it really did.

[Walker]

It is pretty wild.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, no, it is wild. I'm curious too. Do you guys. I know obviously, you know, you're working with, you know, congressional people, senate people, folks in the White House, like a lot with, you know, stuff in D.C. but do you guys do work or provide this kind of guidance at the state level as well? Is that any of your focus or is your focus more on DC specifically, like more on the federal level, case by case?

[Walker]

We, we will when we can. It's really been more of a bandwidth issue. And there. States are like, you know, states are all like their own countries, you know, like, they're all different. The political landscapes, that's where I focused mainly when we were talking about my career earlier there. I think it's really cool. Like they're like micro countries. They all have their own, like fancy, you know, state capitol building. All the rules are different. There's similarities, you know, but like you, they're all, it's all a different game, you know, and you gotta, you gotta know, you can't just show up in some state and be like, I'm here to be the whatever. And they're gonna be like, you're gonna get cooked, dude. Like, you're just gonna get like char broiled. They're gonna take your money, man. They're gonna, you know, it's like, it's, it's so funny. And so to commit to doing state level work, it's a, it's. You don't do that lightly and you don't, you don't. It's a, it's almost like a completely different animal. Now that. And we have done a few things. We have. And we're gonna be continuing to work on like model state legislation. I don't know if you're familiar with that term, but can you, can you explain that? Yeah. So there's organizations like ALEC and things like this. I think I'll tell you about alec. It's just a prime example of this, the American Legislative Exchange Council. And so I told you about all the different states are all like their own little, like different, different countries. As a way of thinking about it, elected officials, Alex, on the Republican side, they get all the different states together, all the elected officials, and they all go to this big conference and they all figure out like, you know, like I told you earlier, like, we're not experts on all this stuff. Like, okay, but then they all get together and they meet and they're like, all right, we all want to like, you know, whatever, be a right to work state or whatever, right? Or we all want to cut taxes. And they're like, okay, our powers combined, we can come up with like the perfect way to do this and like the language and all this sort of thing. And here's our strategy for it as like a group of states. And so you kind of get together and plan as allies. And it works because you're, you're getting way more expertise, like legal guidance, like, versus, like, if you and I were the, you know, Iowa representative, we're sitting around drinking bourbon. Like, what do you think, Walker? Let's cut taxes. My buddy's an attorney. Let's have him draw up the language. You know, like, it might pass.

[Unknown Speaker]

But like, this sounds like a good time though.

[Walker]

It would be fun.

[Unknown Speaker]

Cutting taxes and drinking bourbon. That is my kind of planning session.

[Walker]

Sounds like a country song.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Walker]

So, yeah, man, I'm have AI write.

[Unknown Speaker]

One right after this about cutting taxes and drinking bourbon. Sorry, continue.

[Walker]

We'll perform it on the next rip. So, yeah, man, I, we, we're like, we're looking at all the SBR bills and some of the ones that are, that are, aren't out yet and some of the states that don't have it yet. And so we, we're working on model straight state legislation for some of those issues. So we're like, hey, all states who want to do a strategic bitcoin reserve, here's the way the Bitcoin Policy Institute thinks you should do it. And you don't have to do it exactly this way. But like, we, you know, we've tried to think through this soup to nuts and, and make sure that like, this doesn't accidentally get interpreted this way or that two years from now this doesn't happen. And what about this legal, you know, back door thing? And so we try to help put together a bomb proof version of it. Not that some of the other ones out there aren't. There's just a lot of states that haven't done this yet. And there's a lot of different opinions about how it should be done. And so we're throwing our hat in the ring on some of those issues and saying like, hey, here's what we kind of think it'll probably be similar to some of the things you've seen before. It may be different to some of them, a lot different than some of them. And so, so yeah, that's it. That's the state side. We do have a. If you want to go to. People want to go to our website. Like, there is a cool thing we put out that is it's our policy framework. So basically, here's a comprehensive policy framework for U.S. leadership on Bitcoin and we haven't done anything quite like this. Zach Shapiro, who is just one. An awesome guy, great person, and also like unbelievably talented and gifted individual, put this together. And he's the executive director of Peer to Peer Rights Fund, which is, which is a BPI project as well. That's one of our big ones, man. Like, Peer to Peer rights is heart and soul of bitcoin, the bitcoin network and bitcoiners. And so that's always going to be a priority for us is we got to keep our eye on that. We got to fix some things. We got some people that are in prison, probably ought not to be man, and need to get out of there. And so we got a lot of work there to do. But the bitcoiners have been massively supportive of that. So anyway, this policy manifesto is on our homepage. It's like 30 pages. And we go through like, what's bitcoin? Why is it important? Here's our mission. Here's a holistic view of our three policy domains. So like economics and geopolitics, technology and innovation, mining and energy, and what we're thinking and why it's important to U.S. policy and dollar dominance. We go through the entire kit and caboodle in there. So if you want to really roll up your sleeves and learn, like, go to that, go to our website, btcpolicy.org and it's like one of the first links is the Bitcoin Policy Institute Comprehensive Policy Framework.

[Unknown Speaker]

I'll link this in the show notes too.

[Walker]

Okay. Yeah. And if you go down scroll.

[Unknown Speaker]

If you.

[Walker]

I don't know if you can scroll down just a hair. It says view PDF on the left side and that's where you get the whole doc.

[Unknown Speaker]

Boom. I love that cover page too.

[Walker]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

That's nice. That's nice. I have not actually read this. I'm gonna have to dig through this.

[Walker]

Well, it just came out, like, during or like, right before Vegas, so.

[Unknown Speaker]

Okay.

[Walker]

People have been a little busy. Most people still haven't recovered enough to be able to read a white paper yet, so.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, my brain cell count is still a bit down, I think.

[Walker]

Right.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, unfortunately. Worth it, though.

[Walker]

Worth it was worth it. It was a great week. Yeah. What about you, man? Like, what? Anything else? Any other questions? Anything we need to talk about? How much time do we have? I have no idea.

[Unknown Speaker]

We are actually. I mean, honestly, this was. We're pretty perfectly on time. We're. We're coming right up on 90 minutes, so we. Time. Time was flying here. Well, I mean, so I want to. Want to encourage people again. If you want to come to dc, you can sign up for the Bitcoin Policy Summit again. If you go to btcpolicy.org you can click the links through or go to btcpolicysummit.org you can use the promo code Walker for 21% off. Again. I get no kickbacks or anything from that. This is just a way for you guys to get a discounted ticket, which is great. So if you want to hang out there. Orange pill, the swamp. We will be there. Should be a lot of fun. I don't know. Is there anything we didn't cover? We covered a lot today. We got a lot in. We didn't get a chance to talk about home mining and gardening. So I think we're gonna, we're gonna maybe have to do a whole separate. A whole separate rip on that.

[Walker]

Yeah, man. I, I, I just like. Right. I don't know, but yeah, I just, like, write random thoughts down.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Walker]

My phone. And so you're like, hey, like, what's top of mind? I was like, home mining and gardening is something I thought about the other.

[Unknown Speaker]

I was thinking about this literally maybe last week because I was like, I want to build out a greenhouse that I can still operate in the winter as a standalone building, but I want to heat it with bitcoin miners, because then I'm not wasting. If you're not mining bitcoin, you're wasting energy. So I don't want to be an energy waster like the United Kingdom or any of those other countries that aren't, aren't using their excess power to mine bitcoin. But yeah, so I was thinking about this as well, I'm going to have to play around with some stuff. I've got an old S9 sitting in my garage that we used for a skit once of Carl and I, but I didn't actually mine with it. But I do have my bitax that I just got in the mail, so I'm excited about that.

[Walker]

Yeah, that's cool, man. I've been eyeing the bitax. The bitaxes. The bitaxes, whichever. And. And yeah, the bit about the gardening is like, you know, if you've done a garden, which I'm sure you have, you know, the ROI is not like, if you want tomatoes, there are cheaper ways of getting tomatoes. Yes. But like, the experience, the learning and the freedom element of gardening, like, I grew my own damn food and I can do that, and I know how to do that. And I'm demonstrating to my children that that is a possibility. Not only a possibility, but a preferred way of doing it. And this is where your food comes from. It takes a lot of work. Somebody had to grow a seed and somebody had to make the seed go. And then, you know, and you see a little seed coming. This. I think it's similar. This is just the quick, you know, answer.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Walker]

It's similar to home mining. Like, you're like, why would you home mine? Like, it's. So you're paying more for the bitcoin. You know, it's like, well, yeah, I'm paying more for the tomatoes too. But that's not the damn point, man. Like, it's about freedom and about, like, exercising my liberty and my autonomy as a human. And I don't know why, but those two. The rationale and the challenges and people are like, sure are. Spend a lot of time on that stupid garden when you could go to the grocery store, it's like, dude, you just don't get it. It's the same thing with home mining. And so it was a whole bit I was working on. But I love that. That's it.

[Unknown Speaker]

No, I love that. And now we are gonna have to do another rip and get into that. Cause I think there's. That dovetails well with like, planting fruit trees. I love fruit trees. I've always loved apple trees, especially. Cause I love me some apples. And it's one of those things where an apple tree typically takes about four years to bear fruit. Like, it takes an epoch, basically. It takes a bitcoin cycle to bear fruit. And so it's just a good a. It's a. It's a great lesson in low time. Preference behavior. It's like, you're not gonna see the benefits right away. You're not gonna see the benefits in the next year or two years. It's gonna take you multiple years, four years to start to see the benefits. And, like, that's the same with holding bitcoin. It's like you're not. Yeah, you may see it may go up, may go down in the near term, but, like, you need to wait about a cycle to really start saying, oh, wow, okay, now I see why I did this, because I have. There's a lot of fruit on my tree, a lot of bitcorns that have been growing.

[Walker]

The apple tree won't give you nearly as much anxiety, though, as buying bitcoin and holding for four years.

[Unknown Speaker]

That's unless you get a lot of deer. Unless you get a lot of deer on your property, because they love nipping those little apple trees. They really do.

[Walker]

Yeah. Maybe the apple tree causes more anxiety. I think bitcoin's volatile. Just plant a few apple trees.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yes. See what happens there. Good luck dealing with the deer, man. This was a great rip. I'll link you your socials in the show notes. Bdcpolicy.org, bdcpolicysummit.org for folks that want to check that out. Anywhere else you want to send people, I'll link that report as well. But anything else that you want me to drop in the show notes or send people to.

[Walker]

No, that's it. That's it. If anybody has questions, I'm on the website and happy to chat with anybody at any time about our work. And, you know, I know there's a special in Austria. There's a lot of people that. That want to know more and. And engage with our ideas or come to our event or whatever. So we are. You know, we're ready and willing to chat. Appreciate you having me on, man. This was. This was fun. Good way to spend an afternoon and, you know, appreciate all you're doing. Dude. Thanks for coming out to D.C. i'm excited for you to be a part of it.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I'm excited, too. And, you know, maybe we. We get a little bit of bourbon, draft up some. Some tax cuts or something while we're there. I don't know. We'll just. We'll see what happens.

[Walker]

Taxes on bitcoin, they're like, oh, yeah, that's what we'll do. We'll. We'll cut all taxes on bitcoin.

[Unknown Speaker]

Please. That. That's my. That's my number one policy. Priority is no. No cap gains tax on bitcoin, right?

[Walker]

Yeah, no. Let's be a banger. We'll work on it, man. More bourbon. The higher the tax cut.

[Unknown Speaker]

I know you guys will. Hey, thanks, man. It was. It was great chatting.

[Walker]

Yeah, likewise. Thanks, Walker.

[Unknown Speaker]

And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin Talk episode of the Bitcoin Podcast. Remember to subscribe to this podcast podcast wherever you're watching or listening and share it with your friends, family and strangers on the Internet. Find me on [e-mail] walker and this [e-mail] on X, YouTube and Rumble. Just search at Walker America and find this podcast on X and Instagram at titcoin Podcast. Head to the Show Notes to grab sponsor links. Head to substack.com walker America to get episodes emailed to you. And head to bitcoin podcast.net for everything else. Bitcoin is scarce, but podcasts are abundant. So thank you for spending your scarce time listening to the Bitcoin podcast. Until next time, stay free.