Write Code or Suit Up: Should Bitcoiners Run for Office or Focus on Building? | Bitcoin 2026

[music] [applause] [applause] >> Welcome everybody. Well, I'm honored to be here with these gentlemen. Legends that they are. And I'm grateful to the conference for inviting us. But I have to take issue with this prompt. Um seems like it has some number of logical fallacies. Uh you don't have to suit up to run for office. You don't have to choose between running for office, building. You don't have to do either of them. And there are more ways than running for office to be involved in politics. But I do think we're in a moment right now. Um in Bitcoin's history, Bitcoin is a an asset, a network, a protocol. But it's also a social movement. And that social movement is morphing in ways that I want to try to understand today on this panel. Everybody here is a mythmaker, a storyteller, a culture maker. I'm going to use the word influencer even though that has a derogatory um sense, but I mean it seriously. This is a cultural movement. These are some of the cultural creators of of of that culture. And so I think the question before us today is really like the deep question which we'll get to. It's like what does it mean to be a Bitcoiner right now when institutions have taken the lead and when we've won a lot of our political battles, not all of them, but we've done so much winning that I don't know if we're sick of winning. We're still playing with our Bitcoins and our crypto. Um we're supposed to be sick of winning at this point. Anyway, I want to start with Frank. And I want to ask you Frank, what why right now Bitcoiners should care about politics and should be involved in it. Yeah, uh I think you were just alluding to to a phrase from Trump who spoke here at this conference 2 years ago. Uh and there was a lot of promises made um and there was actually someone from the DOJ or the head of the DOJ on this stage earlier today talking about code being free speech and not going after developers, but there are developers that are still in jail. And I spent time in the courtroom with the Samurai developers last year. I spent in time uh with Roman Storm in the Tornado Cash trial this year covering that in the Southern District of New York. And while we have won on some levels, uh so long as we have open-source developers still in prison, we still have to be at the table to make sure that that cannot be the case. And we have to work to get them out. So we need people who really care about this. And massive shout-out to the Bitcoin Policy Institute team, yourself included, uh for continuing to remain at the table despite maybe how frustrating it's been to see certain developments. At the same time, credit where it's due, things are better in a lot of ways uh for Bitcoin in the United States uh under Trump. Um but there's still a tremendous amount of work to be done. And if we're not at the table, that work is not going to get done. What What else needs to be done besides, you know, uh protecting code? I I think we a lot of the space things evolve. And so new issues come up. We didn't know that we needed to protect open-source developers. We don't know what that next issue is going to be. But if you're not there to actually have that discussion to protect P2P rights, the same way that we saw we had predecessors that did this that protected the open internet in the 1990s over privacy, cryptography not being sort of banned as an ammunition or put into the category of being an ammunition. We don't know necessarily what's coming next, but if we're not there to have that discussion and to fight for what we think is necessary, and I think right now that that is the fight for privacy and P2P rights, then it's just not going to get had and we're going to cede these things to the powers that be. >> [snorts] >> Peter, I think we've all watched your journey. We don't know what it's like from the inside. You went from being just the voice of Bitcoin uh for many people um to like becoming a politician for lack of a better word. Yeah, you're not in holding elective office, but what you're doing is political. Um building uh an actual community and throwing your energy into the welfare of your country seems like a good thing to me. It seems as political as it can get. I don't know if you're suited up or not, but uh can you tell us what more We want to hear more about this journey, actually. What's it been like for you? And where you at now? Well, so making the show for 8 years, you live in a bubble whereby uh you get on a plane, you come out to the US, you stay in a couple of cities, you make some interviews, um hang out with my boy Danny, some of my friends, and then you go home, and then you get to work on preparing the next trip. So it was it was living in a bubble. We're not really experiencing real life. The minute I stopped making the show and went back to the UK and focused on real life, it became very obvious how pernicious the state is. And how uh how much it was destructive to the the freedom and liberty and prosperity of human beings. And so I've really just been AB testing for the last 2 years uh how uh local community support works, how politics works, and wondering if there is something I can do to make a difference. So I started locally to begin with. Uh that is a waste of time because at a local level uh you are downstream from central government. So whatever you do, they can just turn a knob and uh destroy it. So I tried opening businesses and they increased the taxes or they increased the bureaucracy. And so those jobs I created, I can no longer guarantee. And so then I realized localism is good for certain people, but really if you want to stop the decline of the UK, you have to find a way to attack the root of the cancer essentially, which is central government. Uh and that's particularly challenging, but that's where I am at the moment. I'm I'm not going to run for office, uh but I'm certainly will happily influence decision-making. Um Arnold, do you think Peter should run for office? Absolutely. I said this to Peter on stage um and I think Troy echoed it here that what Peter's built in Bedford is a political machine. If you go after, you know, the the town football club, if you're acting as a private Batman, uh cleaning up the streets, if you have the number one podcast or, you know, one of the biggest podcasts in the UK talking about political issues, it's hard to call that anything other than a political machine. But I understand, you know, because I'm friends with Peter, I understand his reluctance to want to get into politics because in some sense it's like this infinite trolley problem where, you know, you're being asked to pull the lever and millions die. But if you don't pull the lever, millions die. And if you won't pull the lever, somebody will shoot you in the head and replace you with somebody who will pull the lever. And there's an infinite line of people waiting to join you at the lever, right? Um and so it's like I think why we coalesce around Bitcoin is because men are, you know, fallible. We're fragile. If you want to be a politician, you have to basically sign your own death warrant, kiss your wife and kids goodbye, and say I'm willing to take a bullet to the head, neck, chest for this XYZ political cause or ideology. And that's a very tough thing to do. And even if you are the type of man with like great internal fortitude, um you know, you're like a John F. Kennedy type, I I I still think like you end up accomplishing very little because as a man, you are easy to take off the board. Whereas an idea like Bitcoin is essentially bulletproof. And so that is why we, you know, sort of coalesce around Bitcoin. Yeah, I'll add something here. You said what does it mean to be a Bitcoiner? Yeah. Uh and I think it means uh to be free. Uh to be sovereign, to have choice and optionality. And if you're becoming a uh politician because you believe you can create a better country, you're trying to free as many people as possible. Um but if you you have to kind of do the math and think can we win this? Can you make the change? And I think the cancer of socialism is so deeply rooted in what so many people think the future of the country should be, I think that's very difficult to undo right now. It's almost like you've got to let these people experience what they think is utopia, let it fail, and then come back and provide some option to rescue. It's a bit like where if you um I don't know. What's a good example? Alcatraz. If you wanted to escape from Alcatraz, yeah, you could get every, you know, you get everyone together and try and get them on side, but in doing so, you kind of fail because the guards are aware. Or there's two or three of you who try and escape and spread the idea of escaping. And I I've come kind of come back full circle. It's like would I free more people by individually targeting and explaining Bitcoin? Or or would I free more by trying to become a politician? I think I failed at becoming a politician, but I think being a Bitcoiner and explaining freedom, you can actually help some people. And so I think as a Bitcoiner, your job is to spread freedom in the most effective way possible. Can I Can I ask you a question if you don't mind, Peter? So in in trying to sort of teach people about Bitcoin and and and hopefully in uh inspire people to become Bitcoiners, true Bitcoiners, I think that that becomes the counter to what we're experiencing in New York right now with Mondani thinking that that's the answer. And I hesitate a little bit. I I get where you're coming from sentiment-wise to say like, "Look, just have full-blown socialism. See how that goes." I lived in Venezuela under Chavez. I've seen how that looks. It's not good and it takes a really long time to recover from that. But in your opinion, especially given the role that you've played hosting what Bitcoin did all the way up until now, do you feel like do you feel like we are producing good Bitcoiners, people who are going to fight for this and talk about it as a counter to some of these other political ideologies that are now becoming more prevalent? Uh not enough of them. Okay. So, my experience in Bitcoin my understanding was we were meant to uh create our own freedom and then go back and uh spread that freedom to where we're from. And I I don't know how many people have actually gone and got dirty in the weeds to do it. Certainly some have. But not everyone has. Yeah. And the like Bitcoin has a couple of tests in it and there's the test of holding your Bitcoin. But there is a test if you get financial freedom over it, what are you going to do with that? Are you going to disappear and go and live in you know, solitude and uh have a wealthy, prosperous, comfortable life and hope nobody finds you or you're going to go back and try and spread the freedom that you earned by being in a Bitcoin community because we collectively build that freedom together. And so I feel like personally, I have a duty to go and spread that freedom. Yeah. Um and by not not doing the work um I've not been a what is I think a good Bitcoiner. Now, that's not to say everyone should do it, but I just felt that pressure like I was fortunate enough to discover this insane asset. It gave me freedom. Well, how do I free more people? I think it's inspiring Peter, whether you want it to be or not. Um Hodel, are you going to run for office? Well, suit up and run for office. Yeah, I think if I do, I have to be willing to die. And then I wonder to myself if uh my death would accomplish anything. And the answer is usually no when I game this out of my head. And so I think the answer of if I'm going to run for office is decidedly no because I I do not believe that I am capable of making change on that scale, unfortunately. It This is the problem, isn't it? Like realists like you and Peter is why the wrong people run for office. Right. >> a vicious circle here, right? We need people like everything you're saying makes me want to vote for you. You know, it's like I'm like that's what I want. I want somebody who sees it completely clear-eyed and honest about the futility of it. And in some ways I want to, you know, give you some stoic wisdom from the ancients. You don't have to listen to me because I'm not running for office. But, you know, like you you do your duty not because of the outcome that's coming your way, but because it's in alignment with the universe, because it's in it's because it's your destiny, because it's right? If you find that that it's right. I don't know. I hope that some Bitcoiners both see the futility and do it. You all would be top contenders for me. But uh we have a we have a political movement. Like we've got we've got one. Look, uh Donald Trump is probably the president because this you you can you can that's good and bad in various ways. Yeah. But like we're powerful. Uh we're not we're not maybe powerful enough to get you elected right now, but uh how should we proceed? Frank, you've you've been a correspondent at the White House. I saw your press card. Um short of running for office, short of running for a podcast uh that engages the leading politicians, what are other ways that Bitcoiners throughout all walks of life uh can engage the political system uh in a way not not just not just fighting for, you know, Bitcoin policy, but the broader philosophical ethos of Bitcoin, which as Peter said is the freedom, sovereignty, empowerment, fairness, inclusivity that underlies the protocol itself. Yeah, I think it's a really important question. I think right now the it's it's a huge struggle because people are struggling to make ends meet. So, to say like, "Hey, move your time and energy over to this thing." when they're like, "I don't have any time and energy left. I just need somebody to take me out of the pain that I'm in right now." Um I think that makes the the situation a bit more difficult for those who might have a little bit more open-mindedness, a little maybe disposable income or some sort of uh desire to maybe look for a third way, if you will, not just a left or right way, but this Bitcoin way. Um I think that those people are uh you can you can get through to them on a political level. I don't necessarily know how to do that. I think a lot of it comes from conversations, actually sitting down and having a conversation, explaining certain things. Luckily, we have things like HRF to point to to say, "Look, here's how Bitcoin is being used as a tool for human rights." As someone who lives in New York who speaks with mostly people who are left-leaning, I can at least point to that and say, "Well, how how could you not be a proponent of this technology? Look what it's doing for these people over there." But I think often times, I think it's similar with what Peter deals with in the UK, we're living in sort of it's a bubble of privilege, but it's also a bubble where like we haven't been we haven't experienced the pain of these financial crashes that we've gone through. They've been papered over to a point where people don't feel the repercussions of this sort of stuff. So, they just sort of think, "Well, the government handled whatever happened in 2008, they handled whatever happened in COVID. We're we're good enough. Things are good enough. So, they'll handle the next thing as well." So, there's a lot of sort of outsourcing of responsibility, of uh of personal agency because they just feel that things are good enough. I think that's starting to change right now and people are starting feeling more pain than they've ever felt financially, but they're still defaulting most people I think are still defaulting to the government has to come up with some sort of solution to that. The idea of Bitcoin being a third way, leaning into Bitcoin itself as an asset, as a money, and also the network around it, it's still like it's still a radically new concept to people. Peter said it himself, we're in a bubble. You know, I mean [snorts] I I I wish that that wasn't the case 17 years in with Bitcoin at this point. In some ways we're still super early, but I wish that they were unfortunately, I think for most people pain is going to be the thing that brings them to Bitcoin and I don't think people are in that level of pain yet. It's not necessarily going to be intellectual curiosity. And so there's just I think it's a bit of a waiting game still. The best we can do is put the right message out there and hopefully attract the right people when they are at that moment of pain and feel that they need some sort of relief. One more for you, Frank. What what did you learn in your role as as correspondent? What misconceptions do people have about getting involved politically or Bitcoin politics? It's there's a tremendous it's a tremendous machine, the political apparatus, and it's all about the incentives. We talk about incentives a lot as Bitcoiners. It's very difficult to go against those incentives or to go against the grain in general. As he said, if you truly go against the grain, the odds of you making it through and coming through on the other side alive I think are very very uh low. And I don't say that to be like a doomer or whatever. I just think that the system is designed the way it's designed to perpetuate itself. Bureaucracies exist to perpetuate themselves on some level. So, if you're doing something to throw sand in those gears, the bureaucracy itself is going to want to get you out of it. That's my personal opinion. I don't mean to be too extreme in that. Seeing it up close, you could just sort of see what the incentives are. But even having conversations with I think really really again, BPI has done amazing work. When I talk with them about whatever's coming down the pipeline as far as policy or whatever, the first thing they they talk about is the incentives of the politicians who are involved in whatever bill they're trying to get passed or whatever it is. It's it's a really really difficult mechanism to push back against, especially just as an individual. Building coalitions is really really important, but that takes a lot of time. It's not really a sexy thing to do. The sexier thing to do is sort of like run your mouth, get media attention, and then not necessarily follow up on whatever you were promising to do while you were getting that attention. It's it's funny because like this has been um pretty I don't know, real realist, downer, whatever, doomer. But uh the thing that we thought would happen didn't happen. Like we assumed the state would be oppositional for the long term. We thought of Bitcoin as a tool to separate money from state. And we thought the state would clamp down on it, right? And we're like there was a then you then they're fighting you stage. But we thought that was going to be a very, very long time. That's not what's happened. We we literally had someone 2 years ago announce himself as the Bitcoin president at this conference in Nashville. The Secretary of Treasury having has having drinks at PubKey. Secretary of Treasury, like Janet Yellen was the number one opponent, you know, lard it into the infrastructure bill, the outlaw of self-custody. Uh so we didn't anticipate this. I mean, for all the gloom and doom that this pin up >> [laughter] >> Like this is a cra- the crazy uh tra- transformation. Politics is different on this side of the divide, right? Politicians saw they could benefit from it. That argument was out there in space, but I feel like it wasn't the dominant one. I don't know. Hodel, what what is it like now? Like what do we do now? That's actually what's kind of weird to me. Bitcoin price isn't too high, but we you know, it's we it's just surreal to see like the sec- you know, to see this stuff. I think that's why there's a bit of a a hangover is because, you know, we we sort of chewed through a lot of our narratives and we were like, you know, eventually these things are going to happen. And then they all happened at once. There was the ETF, there was the SPR, there was, you know, the Bitcoin president, Donald Trump, the shitcoin president. I mean, whatever he right? And um you know, we we basically were kind of accepted into the mainstream and we were like, "Okay, there it is, buddy. Bitcoin goes to a billion now, right?" And that didn't really happen. There was kind of a muted bull market. Um the prices I think, you know, a little disappointing based on expectations. Although it's still relatively high. And Still higher still higher than when Donald Trump gave that speech 2 years ago. >> is a realism and a pragmatism setting in to the market. And maybe maybe our ideological days are over. But like to your point, it doesn't mean we can't make real meaningful and lasting change working within the system and to some degree making your peace with the establishment. Although that's a bitter pill to swallow for the for most Bitcoiners, you know. >> what about for you? Right. Yeah, I mean for for all of us. And so I think like there's a real push pull between the Cypherpunk roots, the Cypherpunk vision, the Cypherpunk future, and the pragmatic reality of dealing with the state apparatus. And we are just now starting to grapple with um you know, the the consequences of that. And I don't think we have great answers to, you know, to give each other about what it is we're really doing. Are we Are we wanton opportunists like our critics would say about us? Are we idealists working in a pragmatic sense to better the system? Are we abandoning our idealistic goals? It's tough to know where we're at as a collective at this moment. I do think every individual Bitcoiner needs to answer that for themselves, you know. I I can give an answer. So, I think the separation of money and state was a noble idea, but possibly naive. Yeah. And naive to think you'll never have a state. There will always be rulers of some kind. And so I I think the goal of separating money and state itself is is very challenging. But I do think with Bitcoin what we are actually enabling is the separation of person and state. In that in an inflationary environment, unless you're super rich, but even if you're super rich, you kind of want to encourage the state to continue the gravy train. And if you're you know, if you're not free and you're suffering from the ills of inflation, you're trying to get the state to vote for you to do what you want. Bitcoiners are these weird people who who see the benefits from a inflationary system, but don't want it. And largely may vote, but kind of don't really want to vote. But what their advantage is that over everybody else is they have the fuck you money to say fuck you. So, the freedom that comes with Bitcoin is that you separated person and state. In that the state no longer controls you. You're not dep- you you're not desperate for it to either provide you with distribution or continue the gravy get gravy train. And if we can I think if we I think if we can encourage people that this idea is separating few from state, which gives you freedom, then I think that is a more achievable cause because you talk about wanting to change government. But the problem is is everyone gets co-opted. You know, if you run for office, you might get shot. But the best thing is a popular uprising. What a popular uprising is enough people who've separated themselves from the state that they can say fuck you. So, I I just think about it like that. If we have a wealth tax specific to Bitcoin, >> [snorts] >> crypto assets, Yeah. then we haven't maybe quite achieved the separation, right? There's still a policy side to it because they have guns uh and and law. Yeah, but jurisdictional arbitrage. It's a choice. Well, this is why they do the clawback measure. Right. Sorry, just being realistic. Come and get it, bitch. >> [laughter] >> Well, there is there is a point about if you have the keys, you know, there is a negotiation that has to happen with the key holder. So. Yeah, I I think I think we need to keep an eye on that exit door and protect it. The more KYC gated custodied Bitcoin there is, the harder it is to make use of that key because you have limited buyers who are willing to take it, right? This is kind of why the spirit of Bitcoin, despite being institutionalized, I heard somebody say, you know, Bitcoin's an institutional asset now. I don't have to worry about it anymore. And I was like, well, it it you need to think about that freedom core or it loses its value. Some of the some of the value, right, is the ability to to make the move that you're you're saying, Peter, and separate yourself from state. And if you just wholly sign it over to the institutions, potentially lose that. But I think the state is particularly happy about most people starting to think that way. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we don't have to worry about it anymore. It's this is an institutional thing. And And it's like maybe I'm saying the quiet part out loud there, but I think that that's part of the problem. As we talked about this a little bit earlier, we were on a different panel. The new Bitcoiners that are coming in, they're maybe not getting that same sort of dose of the ethos that the earlier Bitcoiners carried and had. And I think it's really important that we carry that on and and explain the freedom the freedom technology portion part of Bitcoin. The number go up part is great. I love it. I like having more purchasing power. All that stuff is great. But I think that part disappears if the freedom part also disappears. So, it's it's it's essential that those coming into the space understand this full well very very well. Yeah. Couldn't agree more. Um HODL Yassine, you said every Bitcoiner has to decide for themselves. I think of myself as pragmat- pragmatic idealist, if that makes any sense. I want to be there and I want us to be there. I hope we we keep the spirit of freedom alive within Bitcoin and do not sign it over to the institutions. That would be death. And I hope we extend that spirit of freedom beyond the spirit of Bitcoin itself into the broader world and inspired by all of you. Um thank you for thank you for being here today. Yeah. Thank you for having us. Thank you, sir. >> [music] >> Every year this community comes together to celebrate, >> [music] >> to debate, to build what comes next. [music] And every year the stage gets bigger. >> [music] >> Sound money center stage. So, where do you go [music] to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? You come home. >> [music] >> Nashville, July 2027.