Jack Dorsey: What is the Price of Freedom? | Bitcoin 2026 Fireside Chat

Hey, hey, we must understand the gravity of the situation. We are entering into a state of permanent war, approaching a global surveillance society. It is not a choice. We must link together. We must invent new technological means to fight fire with our own form of fire. Hello everybody and hello Jack. Good to see you. >> Hello. >> So I am very happy to be here today. I am probably, I must confess, the least knowledgeable person about Bitcoin that has probably ever been on this stage because I am not a Bitcoin person to begin with. I'm a filmmaker and I made a film about Julian Assange. More importantly, I made a film about what the US government did to destroy Julian Assange. It's called the $6 billion man, Julian Assange and the price of truth. And though I don't know anything about Bitcoin, Mr. Dorsey does. And it also turned out that what I learned about Jack was that he had a shared passion for Julian Assange and the cause of freedom of information that Assange stands for. And what I didn't know at the time was that there was an amazing possible harmony between the cause we were fighting for, freedom of information, and the sovereignty of finance that everybody here believes so strongly in. And so what I did was make the movie as best I could. And we did really well. We won the Khan Film Festival with it. We even won a Golden Globe. We were the first documentary ever to get a Golden Globe. And I thought, well, this is great. Now the whole world will see it. Thank you. It was very, we were very proud. But what we didn't expect was that, and maybe we should have was that it didn't matter what we won. If our narrative didn't fit what the media gatekeepers believe is their narrative, we were going to face a media blackout. No streamer will touch the film and no mainstream media outlet will go near it. And so I was suddenly faced with a huge problem. And because I had heard that Jack was very sympathetic to the the cause of Wikileaks and Julian Assange, I turned to him as now and I said, "Jack, what do we do? How do we get it out to people?" What did you say? Well, first I was super surprised that um maybe I shouldn't have been surprised that no one wanted to carry the film and no one wanted to broadcast it any further than where you put it. And Eugene, how many people do you think have seen it in total thus far? >> Literally just a couple of festival audiences. The audiences at the Khan Film Festival, a handful. And then uh at the Golden Globes, that's a private jury. Um and so people in this room, people watching at home, much of what you're going to see today has never been seen by anybody, honestly. >> Yeah. So, so many people in the room and many many people watching the live stream um were here because Bitcoin represents a open protocol for money transmission. It represents uh routing around the gatekeepers uh specifically Visa, Mastercard, the banks, the global banks, the various reserves around the world. Um and it's a community that I think like myself sees Julian and Wikileaks as heroes. Um it goes back to the original internet principles of information wants to be free and open and he stood directly for that and he sacrificed so much for it. So I saw the film. I thought it was critical that more people saw the film and I thought there was natural resonance with the Bitcoin community. Um not in a way just to view it but also in a way to help distribute it as far and as wide as possible. So when Jack told that to me, it was a huge light bulb that went off because I didn't know what to do with the film and he gave me this idea. Well, bring it to the Bitcoin community because the Bitcoin community once upon a time came to the rescue of Wikileaks. Wikileaks accepted Bitcoin in 2011 when the US government blocked payments to Wikileaks through Mastercard, Visa, the banks, etc. and it saved Wikileaks, but as Jack taught me, it was also a kind of proof of concept of how Bitcoin could promote freedom, which it did in 2011 and allowed people around the world to receive the information that Wikileaks was sharing. But there I was with a movie. We can see Julian Assange in absentia. He cannot be in this country. He cannot be in this room right now. And because the movie was not going to get shown, Jack had suddenly given me a chance to bring everybody into a kind of a a movement, a movement to get this information to the public by getting a group of friends together to kind of help us. So that is what we're going to talk about today is this global watch party, which you'll hear a few times today. But um I really want to start by sharing a clip that I put together that was my best way of reflecting what I was learning from you, Jack, about the merging of Wikileaks and Bitcoin. So could we play that clip for a moment? Wikileaks ought to be charged with treason. That's what they've done. If wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by truth. >> This was a big problem. These are anarchists that have the keys to your castle and you can't call a fucking locksmith. >> Shut it down. Shut it down. This terrorist website, Wikileak, a financial blockade by Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal has destroyed our revenue. PayPal suspended Wikileaks account after the State Department sent a letter declaring the website illegal. >> The banking blockade to stop donations, forced Wikileaks to find an alternate source of funding. So the site became one of the first major organizations to accept Bitcoin to keep fighting. >> Now the most interesting thing happening is Bitcoin. The ability to defend against the full might of a superpower. This is a David vers Goliath battle. So, you're going to see that QR code a few times in the things. Thank you a lot. Thank you guys. Thank you so very much. Um, you're going to see that QR code a few times today and it's really the way that you come join us for the idea that Jack gave me, which was a global watch party. It just sounded like the coolest thing that we could do a kind of private pay-per-view just to people in the Bitcoin community. And Jackie, you also shared with me some stuff that really moved me because I saw how much it moved you about Satoshi and Julian. You talked about the privacy of Satoshi and what that meant to you in the the action he had taken in the world he or she or the phantom of Satoshi. Um can you talk about that the meaning of the two of them to you and why this captivates you in the way it does? Well, I think the, you know, the Wikileaks using Bitcoin out of necessity was incredible because it found an immediate use case at a global scale for something that a lot in the community um cared deeply about. But it also marked a transition point for Bitcoin and that Satoshi left the project. Um, one of his final messages on Bitcoin Talk was around um, the advancements of Wikileak and Wikileaks using uh, using Bitcoin. And I guess it was just a little a little too close, a little too hot. Um, and I think what's important about Bitcoin and what I admire about the project so much is that the founder and the creator walked away. And I think it's an extremely selfless act, but also one that speaks to the power of this project and the future of it. And the fact that if this person were to come back today, it'd be incredible, but the project lives on uh without whoever whoever it is. uh and they built something that was um truly resilient and part of that resilience comes from being able to be selfless about it and walk away from it entirely. So as we think about open protocols and we think about something as important as money and a protocol from money for the internet and that one that parallels and just you know hits on so many principles behind what why we believe the internet is so important and why we believe Wikileaks and and Julian's work has been so critical. Um, you know, that that one moment is is a is a pretty interesting transition point >> when we were together the first time, Jack, and I I talked to you about my predicament with the film, and it it was like, we have a problem. If a film that the public needs to see and wants to see is blocked in this way, you know, what do we do? And the truth is, I think you know this, Jack, I was coming to you for money. I mean, I was just a filmmaker who was like desperate to get my film out. So, I put my my cause before Jack and I said, "They don't want the public to see this film. If you like it, Jack, I want you to say, I want the public to see this film. So, I'm going to swagger in and make that happen." And Jack said to me something very important. He said, "But then that's just about this film. There is a much bigger community action that can happen here where the film becomes a gathering point for the Bitcoin community on behalf of the nexus between financial sovereignty and freedom of information. This can become far more than just you Eugene and your one-off film or even the specific of Julian Assange's plight and his saga. It can be much much bigger. And that's what led to where we are now, which is inviting everybody to join us on this wild ride, which is to join us at the66 billiondollman.com, where you can sign up for the global watch party. You can learn what we're doing and how you can become a part of it. And one of the things you'll see, for example, is that if you do buy a ticket to the screening with this private event, you actually end up in the in the with an official credit on the film. And that's not just some token thing so you can impress your date. It's much more than that. It's a real invitation by us to what we believe is an opportunity for all of us to become a part of something that is more than just a movie. It's a movement to get around the gatekeepers and defy media censorship. So we'll come back to that in a bit. But I feel if I'm going to interest you in the movie, I should show you some stuff. So, instead of showing you perfected things that the world could see, I've brought a couple of things just for this Bitcoin audience, the same audience that we're trying to bring into our mission here. And we made a very special um kind of behind-the-scenes glimpse of what we're doing in our editing room. Um, so I'm going to play a next clip that actually has never been seen uh anywhere else in the world and uh becomes part of what you get to see when you sort of join this movement. We make we have several of these, but this is one of my favorites um that I'd like to share with everybody today. Uh my name is Edward Joseph Snowden. I am no longer 29 years old, but I guess I'm gosh, I don't know, 30 38 years old. It's been a long time. >> I'm not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29year-old hacker. The man who leaked secret internet surveillance has disappeared in Hong Kong. >> The question is who is helping him. >> The other side of my story that is underrecognized is that Wikileaks helped me >> a criminal investigation suggest that he is in Hong Kong. I was in Australia at the time and Julian called and he started talking about Snowden and about how we understood that the whole forces of the US government would now be after him and knowing what that felt like we obviously wanted to help him. >> So he needed to communicate with him urgently. >> So I got on the first plane that I could to Hong Kong where he was >> go to the help desk and ask them to put out an announcement that Sarah Harrison come to see you. I want to get him caught and brought back for trial. >> Flight one. The >> United States revoked his passport. >> Edward Snowden is believed to have just landed in Moscow. >> They're approaching now the authorities. >> Of course, they're trying to convince him to say >> stuck for 6 weeks in the transit zone of Moscow airport. >> And the question is, why didn't I simply go to Wikileaks to publish my information? The truth is I wanted to work with trusted newspapers but when the government came after me all of them started running away. >> The prime minister instructed the Guardian newspapers to destroy files from the whistleblower Edward Snowden. >> But at the same time I see that Wikileaks is running towards danger. The safe decision for Assange would have just been to not get involved. >> With the help that we gave Edward Snowden, Julian definitely hurt himself. The UK stopped negotiations for Julian to get out of the embassy. So I have a I have an interesting anecdote about my time with Edward Snowden and something it taught me about this process. But Jack, you also have deep admiration for Edward Snowden. Do you want to reflect on on that in this context? Yeah, I mean we we all do. These are these are two heroes. Um and you know they believe fundamentally in these technologies and are willing to um test them and play with them and teach us all about them. Um and I think it's it's always important to remember why we're here in the first place and why this technology was even created. It's to help folks like this who are doing things that um they have to sacrifice everything. They put everything on the line. uh just to carry a message, a secret, something important that everyone in the world needs to hear uh because it is life or death and it is about holding our government to account and holding our systems and our corporations to account and without their voices and without the technologies that are behind it and I believe that the you know the reason this conference exists in the first place um he's he is a constant reminder as is Julian and just the fact that they came together um to work together on on something like this and it's it's captured in the film is is pretty incredible to me. >> And it was interesting for me because we flew to Moscow to interview Edward Snowden. And it was actually weirdly the very week that Putin was preparing to invade Ukraine. So all of Moscow was insane. And we finally got a place where we could film in that they didn't shut down. We were being followed at every move we made. and he sat down and as I started to talk to him about Julian Assange, there was a funny thing and then a very poignant thing. The funny thing was that it suddenly dawned on me that it was like interviewing Batman about Superman because here you have like two superheroes in the eyes of many of us and I didn't know what Edward Snowden would think of Julian Assange. And that's where it got so very poignant because here I was seeing Edward Snowden who is exiled from his native land for telling the truth. At that time Julian Assange was in prison for telling the truth. And I watched the exiled man talk actually with great love and admiration about Julian Assange. not only telling the true story, as we glimpse in this clip, that Wikileaks helped Snowden get to Moscow when he was in Hong Kong and used their knowledge of how they had been persecuted to help Edward Snowden make that and run uh into his safety. But it was also so poignant because Edward reflected on why so many people, for example, have been so successfully uh manipulated by the smear campaign that has happened about Julian Assange. And he said, "Julian Assange may not be the nicest person in the world." He said, "But it would be hard to imagine someone who's done more for the world." And then he said, "But it's so strange how people have so much trouble getting past the sharp corners of a person." And then I watched Edward Snowden walk off into the Moscow night, a stateless man at that time, an exile from his own land once again for telling the truth. And uh it was an incredibly poignant part of our filmmaking process, which is why I wanted to share it with you today. Um if it's okay, I'll show another clip, Jack. Is that cool? >> Show another clip. You can see I do a lot of talking and Jack is like is this like a this is like a uh you know it's like um Obi-Wan Kenobi on this screen. I say like 800 words, Jack says two and somehow his really resonate beautifully. Um but what I'm going to set up now is a clip and we'll talk at the end about really what the action is that we want everybody to do. But I want to give a little more. And so I'm going to show you a clip which I don't really want to introduce because it's quite ironic given where we are today. So uh I'll just show it and then we'll we'll let the chips fall I guess after that. shopping, dining, entertaining with the Venetian. When Julian entered our embassy in London, we had to improve the inside of the embassy to change in office to a bedroom and to hire a security company to install cameras to provide security for Julian Sans >> and the very important visitors he received. >> Anytime I was in London, I would visit him. >> Is Pamela Anderson in love with the most dangerous man in the world. >> Our conversations were fairly innocent, but Julian was always uncomfortable. It seemed like he was aware of something. My biggest problem is the security staff. >> I thought sometimes he might have been a little paranoid, but he knew exactly what was going on. >> My name is Martinez. I'm a member of Julian Assange legal team. One day I received a call and a person said, "You don't know me, but I perfectly know you. I work for the security company at the embassy. The host of the security company was called David Morales. >> In 2016, Morales traveled to Las Vegas. He attended some kind of security conference and that's where he made a connection with the head of security for one of the casinos. When David Morales came back from Las Vegas, things began to change. We installed an FTP server to upload the videos and information we were gathering. That's when I saw that IP addresses based in the United States were accessing the server. >> Inside the company, naming the CIA, FBI, NSA. This was taboo. We were simply to call them our American friends. So before I have to make a very rapid exit. Um >> well you you might have to explain that one a little bit more. Just give them the give them the >> I will I will I agree. >> Yeah. Um, so one of the things we learned that was most shocking about the United States government's efforts against Julian Assange and really against all of us because stopping whistleblowers, stopping publishers, stopping those who seek the truth is stopping all of us from having access to the truth. But one of the things we learned worst was that not only was Julian Assange tortured under US guidance while in the Ecuadorian embassy, which you'll learn more about in the film, but he was also secretly spied on. And it just happens that the security company that did the spying on Julian Assange and provided that information to US authorities, listening to his lawyer meetings, for example, so he could never have attorney client privilege in America. that security company uh uh I would say was coordinated out of a casino that is very close to where I'm sitting right now. And why that happened, you'd have to ask other people. Um and I may not be alive to tell you in a couple of hours, but it was an amazing part of the story, but shows the lengths to which the United States went uh to operate outside the law in um in doing what it did. Um, so I want to steer us back for a moment. We have a few minutes left. Um, Jack, do you have any reflections you want to add? I I have a sense of what I want to encourage people to do, but I'd love to hear from you a bit. >> Well, yeah. I mean, this was a this was a path and idea so that more people could contribute in this project and help crowdfund the movie to the next level. not only see it as a a synchronous global viewing party, but a way to um fund it to the next tier of folks that could see it and that need to see it and to do so in a way that um has some has some impact on it and you're leaving leaving your mark. Uh, so I thought it was just a a very interesting and creative way to get a film out and it's a way to start with this one, but it might be something that we see more of in the future and to do it with technologies and on technologies such as Bitcoin and on Noster, you know, an open protocol for for social media and getting information out there without any gatekeepers whatsoever, I think is rather rather poetic. So, um, for it to work out, I think would be amazing. >> And from my purposes as a filmmaker and someone who believes in this movement, the idea of a shared movement between freedom of information and financial sovereignty, that those can come together and bring this kind of a movie to the public was something that was a vision Jack gave me. And I can't tell you how inspiring it is for someone like me and my colleagues in the world of trying to seek the truth. There are no avenues. And so it's left to the community to do it. We cannot trust the power structure. We cannot trust legacy media and those in government that control legacy media. We have to take matters into our own hands. And we need you. This is not just some movie screening. It's really joining us, joining a movement and joining us on a project to demonstrate that a movie can bypass media censorship and bring to the public what the public deserves and what the public wants. And I thank Jack so very much for his support in that. And I welcome all of you please come and we'll put the QR code up now if you guys can. The QR code is very helpful to just bring you right to where you can join us. And there's also the website the6b billiondollman.com. Thank you so very much. Thank you, Jack. And thank you, Bitcoin 2026. >> Thank you all. Every year this community comes together to celebrate, to debate, to build what comes next. And every year the stage gets bigger. Sound money center stage. So, where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? You come home. Nashville, July 2027.