Is Bitcoin Still a Sovereign Tool? | Bitcoin 2026

It's good to see that the sovereign Bitcoiners stuck around. >> Packed house. >> Yeah. Yeah. This is not a panel on stretch. I'm sorry. Um Yeah. So, Bruce, Luke, Matt, pleasure to share the stage with you. Uh my name is Ben and uh yeah, we're tackling the question, is Bitcoin still a sovereign tool? Uh yes. So, I think that about sums it up. We can leave now. No, we need to address the elephant in the room. Um, Matt, the irony of having a panel labeled something along the lines of uh what Bitcoin is free speech uh with the people that are actively prosecuting uh developers. How do you feel about that? >> Um well, I mean, first of all, what is the rule of thumb? The rule of thumb is if a title is a question, the answer is no. So, uh that's unfortunate. But look, I think um I I I think it's important to realize two things, right? I think the first thing to realize is that we've never had more people that care about Bitcoin as freedom money, that are working on it, that are using the tools. The absolute number of people that are using these things has never been higher. It's up and to the right. Now, it's easy to lose focus on that because percentage-wise, it's definitely declining. It's probably the lowest percentage- wise it's ever been. I mean, we see absolute packed houses for Sailor, for example, right? And then you see much less attendance for using Bitcoin as freedom money. Um, so, so that that's the on the positive side, we have the absolute numbers. Uh, that is that is very encouraging. Now, on the negative side, I mean, we have open source developers that are actively getting criminally charged and put in jail. Um, we have the Samurai devs are currently in jail. Uh, Roman and his his partner are being, I guess, tried, Tornado Cash, or they're being tried in two different jurisdictions right now. Um, and there's a lot of promises have been made, but then you look at what is actually happening under the surface, and it seems like in a lot of ways the walls are closing in. And it seems like in a lot of ways the community isn't stepping up in the way you would hope when you see open source developers building self-custody software getting jailed. Um so what I would implore people that are listening is first of all every person matters. Um, and you can just do things like go talk to your representative, go build grassroots supports, um, build businesses, build tools that empower individuals, and hopefully we can we can push the ball forward. But there's a lot to be optimistic about. There's a lot to be negative about. And I would just really quickly say if you're interested in supporting open source developers, please go to freesamurai.com and and try to help where you can. >> Amen. Bruce, I want to jump over to you. Um, spent a lot of time in libertarian circles, uh, active advocate and and I'm curious, why are libertarians and mass not using Bitcoin? What have you come across? What are the hurdles? What are the things? Why aren't people, if this is a sovereign tool still, why aren't people using it? >> Yeah. You know, I ask myself that a lot because it's sad to see, you know, as Matt mentioned, there's a lot of good metrics that we have. There are many things that have progressed further. There's a lot of things looking around this you say, "Wow, this is a big success." If we, you know, 10 years ago, we, you know, many aspects of this, you'd be like, "Wow, what a victory." But then there are other things that you're like, "Gee, it's kind of surprising." Like 10 years ago, there was a lot more people paying for things with Bitcoin. you know, the uh the the the usage among, you know, even libertarian circles, you know, the people who went to these early events, everything was paid for in Bitcoin and people would go out and they'd have dinner and you'd split the bill up in Bitcoin and um so that makes me sad and and you know, the reasons, you know, sadly it sounds like such a statist, but the combination of the regulation, the taxes, you know, has really hammered people. There's been a lot of people that have been hurt. A lot of people don't want to risk going to jail. Particularly this space is getting older now. You know, people who were 20 when they started are now 36. People who were 35 are now 50 one. You know, it people change over time and typically you end up with less appetite to want to go to jail uh or risk, you know, fighting the bear. And um you know, so so people get, you know, beat on. Almost everybody in the space has been beat on by the state in some way. Um, everybody has some fear. If you're reasonable, you have some fear of the state. And so something as simple as, you know, paying a small bill for your stake, a lot of people are like, you know, I don't really want the hassle. And that's that's sort of tragic. And it's tragic that our industry, and I don't I'm not pointing fingers at anybody because it's all of our fault. And it's just kind of inevitable in some ways, but it's it's sort of tragic that we at least so far haven't been able to push back on that successfully enough to be like, "No, that's not the way it's supposed to be." And I do worry that we're like a frog in boiling water where we move more towards centralization, more towards stable coins and and you know, captive uh third parties running the money and that kind of thing where it's it's used less and less of a tool. And you have, you know, you now have millions and millions of users who've been onboarded through ETFs and they have no concept. You can't use an ATF to buy a stake. They have no concept of that. They've never used it as money. And it's it's it's sad like you know those old days when Roger Ver used to go around and give everybody a dollar and it was exciting because they had never seen that. They're like, "Oh, cool." Now they don't even see it. And if they did see it, they'd say, "Yeah, yeah, I've seen that. I have Venmo." And they're not they're not getting it. So part of it is kind of a missing education part of people not seeing what this technology is really all about. >> Luke, I want to jump down to you and I'm curious like do you see this as mutually exclusive? Like we're saying, oh what if we shift towards more and more towards these being captured here? But do we just end up with the people who want to be sovereign being sovereign or is there a point where it goes too far and you almost can't even really have that? Like are we are we in danger of that? Do you see that? >> You could never be too free. I love my freedom. I love my sovereignty. I love my liberty. And I think right now we have to really realize it's not just Bitcoin but the environment around Bitcoin that is affecting this movement where we're going and the future of this. I think in unison there are multiple fronts of this fight. I think the biggest is digital ID internet ID central bank digital currencies biometric facial scanning. I think if we take on those issues and prioritize projects that allow people to be sovereign, free, those projects and issues, I think, are still out there. They don't have mainstream support, but they have little pockets and networks of support that are going to be absolutely crucial when, pardon my French, shit hits the fan. I think shit is going to hit the fan very severely. I think we're moving towards a future where it's going to be a mix between living in the Matrix, Terminator, and idiocracy, right? When that happens, there still will be underground networks of individuals being there for each other as communities. So, when you're at these type of conferences, get to know people, talk to people. Last year, I I ended my talk here at this Bitcoin conference telling people, be prepared. Go say hi to your neighbor. Start growing a garden. If you listened, you're probably a lot more calm than a lot of other people are dealing with the big problems that we're facing right now. So, I'm going to reiterate, be prepared cuz things are going to go crazy when they do. It's not even about Bitcoin. It's about where we are going as humanity. There's a full-on war against humanity. Humanity, I think, will prevail. We have to believe in optimism and we have to fight for those little key battles. And I think this is where the fight should be. >> Matt, I'm going to toss it back to you here again. We're seeing these types of overreach. We're seeing all of these tools that are helping, but where are we falling short given that you're, you know, you're helping with open sats and helping get these projects funded? What have you seen that has really encouraged you and what is missing? I mean, as as far as the open- source ecosystem is going, it's never been more robust and stronger in Bitcoin. Like, that is one of the single most bullish fundamentals of this space right now. Um, I mean, just to rattle off some stats for you, Open Stats has 501c3. We take zero cut of donations. Um, we run on a full Bitcoin standard. We're sending out about a million dollars worth of Bitcoin payments every month to open source developers in 40 plus countries. about a 400 grant recipients at this point. Thank you. A total of about $30 million has been sent. This is like that it's a fouryear fiveyear project. Um and we're ramping it up. You know, we're we're putting we're putting the foot on the gas pedal. I think one of the cool parts about open source is it's it's viral in nature, right? So it it's it's not owned or controlled by a single individual. It outlives all of us, right? if if if the creator of an open source project dies or gets bored or walks away, someone else can take the lead and take charge of it. So, as a result, open-source software is this nice foundational element that that really empowers humans. Now, on its own, it it goes and moves and evolves and improves, but to Luke's point, I think it's incredibly important that we accelerate everything. You know, we have to be proactive. We need to accelerate. Time is of the essence. And the the easiest way to do that that I see, the most actionable way to do that is by providing open source developers the support they need. And that's not just financial support, that's emotional support, that's additional training, right? You did a bunch of education work earlier with uh different workshops. Um there's all different aspects there, but we we need to accelerate it. And with OpenST specifically, what we're doing is we're giving them a salary that they can count on basically to pay their rent, support their families, and work on this stuff full-time so that we can really accelerate the movement. >> Um, so I want to kind of pingpong here. Luke, first I I want you to maybe address what you think are some of the biggest attack vectors in trying to build these freedom tools and empower people. Where do you think we have the biggest blind spots? And then maybe Bruce, you can then tag in afterwards with how how do we encourage people to both use them and use them in a way where they don't become targets themselves. So I'll go to L. >> I'm going to give a non-conventional kind of answer. I think it's uh blackpilling. I think it's people losing hope, losing the fight, losing the kind of love inside of their hearts. I think a lot of people now when they go on the internet a lot of people describe it like micro doing hell to to get a perception of our reality and I I I think that's done by design because if you're able to kind of break people down not give them any hope tell them there's no solutions tell them to just accept the totalitarian world dollar whatever it may be people will listen to that but I think we need to fight back in a way by showing that resistance isn't futile They want you to believe it's futile. They want to demoralize you. They want you to understand that you're not in control. But in reality, we are. And we could steer this ship in a way where we could come out way better, especially during a time of crisis. I mean, the dollar lost, what what was it? 97% of its value since 1913. We're printing more dollars. The fiat system, the war machine system, the money printing system. These are systems that are outdated. when they collapse, we have to understand that's when the action's going to be taken and it needs to be taken proactively where we're not defeated already. And we have to keep that spirit of optimism alive. And I see it in my friend, my friend Joby Weekes. He's on house arrest for 6 years for having a Bitcoin mining company. He's the most positive, happiest person ever. And he believes he's going to be free. And it's because you do, you eventually do become free. But in the meantime, when he's still on house arrest, he's one of the freest people I have ever seen in my life. And I think that temperament, that attitude is going to be the thing that is going to make the difference between surviving and just being obliterated. >> Bruce, I'll let you follow up on that. >> No, that's great. I I like both these points. I think we've got to accelerate. And I think that exactly what you said, and this is why education is so important because there's a whole new generation. You know, at the early days it was 99% libertarians and ancaps and and anti-establishment people. Now it's like, you know, 60% compliance officers talking about, you know, AML or whatever and how to kiss up to the banks and the politicians. In the earlier days, nobody viewed politicians as a solution. And in case this is news to anyone, politicians are not the solution. They are the enemy. uh they are not going to solve things for us. Kissing up to them is not going to help us win. Um neither is kissing up to the banks and being co-opted and and selling ourselves out to the establishment. And part of that goes with education because of the demographics that I mentioned. You know, there's less people and a lot of the people are older and just not as much grinding and going out there. There's less people who are delivering this kind of message. So I think it's more important than ever to onboard the next generation of people, younger people, people who are active, people who are new in the space. There's people came into the space a couple years ago who have never really heard of these concept of of sovereignty. They think that it's all about ETFs and they're excited about Black Rockck and somebody's deputy, under secretary, chief of staff to some statist bureaucracy. And we need to address that by educating people and accelerating just like you said and giving them hope and showing them that there is there is a way that we do have power and we have created an incredible technology that actually does stuff that can can solve many of these problems in the world that people are not aware of that how this can do that. >> I want to kind of examine the the current environment we're in. A lot of people got super excited about the current administration as it was being voted in. Okay. Like we're, you know, we had chokepoint 2.0 and we're going to get a little room to breathe and this friendly administration everything and there's going to be a, you know, there's going to be a treasury. There's going to be all these things. Now, I will say Ross Alberg free, amazing. That was an incredible moment. But we also have the Samurai devs. We have Roman storm. We have all of these instances of things that really need to be fixed. And that there's two aspects to this. One is if this is what a friendly administration looks like, what happens with the whiplash of the next election if it goes the other way? one, do you think is it palatable to be truly anti- Bitcoin or will there be a little letting up on that? And two is with the existing administration, with recent geopolitical moves, you see Iran saying, "Hey, we're going to uh charge a toll for the straight up moves. We're going to accept Bitcoin, not stable coins, Bitcoin. Why? Because unlike the what was it 300 something million 400 million that got frozen on Tether Bitcoin lot not not really possible. So is there a possibility where even the existing administration does an about face realizing that people they don't like can also use Bitcoin? So anybody who wants to tee that up feel free. I mean, look, I think uh first and foremost, I mean, everyone can have their opinion about Trump. I think what the president did give us is he gave us some much needed time, specifically from the Bitcoin perspective. And I I think it's easy to forget where we were two years ago. Um, I mean, we were at a point where it looked like anyone who was building in the Bitcoin space could have, you know, you know, not to be dramatic, to have like the FBI roll up in a no knock raid and throw you in jail, right? And as someone who has a growing family, that is something that kept me up at night all the time. And so, um, we have gotten a gift of time in terms of having an administration that was very against Bitcoin and very against anyone building businesses in this country. Um, we need to we need to cement any kind of gains we we can and we have to keep our foot on the pedal. We have to be very proactive. I think it's important for people to realize that most of what we have had during the Trump administration in terms of Bitcoin, at least tangible things, they're they're executive orders. They're true social post. They're not things that are ironclad, right? And so, if we can get little wins that are that cement legal protections, will they be perfect? No. Will they help? Yes. And we need to keep our heads on a swivel because who the hell knows where we're going to be in two years? Yeah, I'm certainly glad Ross is free and there was a lot of good things about Trump, but like I said, politicians are not the answer. And he is a bit of a rugpull artist. You know, he we got to be honest. I mean, let's face it, Trumpcoin is a grift. We would never tolerate that from anyone else in our space. Melaniacoin is a grift. He didn't do the strategic Bitcoin reserve. I do worry about a rugpull. It's interesting you mentioned Iran because that's exactly the kind of rugpull we could expect if they have a bunch of Bitcoin and then they say, "Uhoh, it's terrorist coin." And you know, he has gone back on his word many times and a lot of people have a problem with that. They say, "Hey, he didn't deliver on his promises. He did some and it might have been better with the alternative." Some people say, you know, the the worst thing about him is that he was unpredictable and he didn't deliver on these promises and he didn't and you know, you have Roman in jail and there was no Bitcoin reserve. I don't think that's the worst thing about him. I would say probably the support of a genocidal mass murderous ethnostate pedophile operating America second policy is probably worse. But, you know, he's a grifter and we've got to be honest. Politicians aren't the answer. And, you know, it wouldn't really matter who the grifter chief was. The system itself is broken. And it's a deeply broken system. And we all knew this many, many years ago. It's broken because the money is broken. And we've got to go to back to those first principles and fix the money. If we can fix the money, we can fix the world. And uh we do have to constantly guard against exactly what you mentioned, rug poles. And in a day I predicted many many times over the years that at some point there's going to be an attack, a false flag or a real attack or something that's blamed on Bitcoin. And the Elizabeth Warren type of crowd is going to use that as a rally and cry to say, "See, it's terrorist coin." and they're going to go and Black Rockck's uh ETF says that they have the right to pick what the chain is. And I know that there's going to be another fork war and it's going to be a fork war of terrorist coin versus if you have nothing to hide, we need the adults in the room coin. And we've got to prepare for that fight because I predict that that's going to be maybe one of the final bosses in this. And hopefully it'll be like other struggles that we've had in this and we'll come out on top and the code will prevail. But we should prepare for that fight because I think it will come. Welcome to predict. The world is a market. Everything is a market. Every headline moves the line. Every moment is your market. Call the moves. Bet on your instinct. Your prediction, your edge. Dual bits. Predict where everything is a market. I I just want to follow up really quick. Given how global Bitcoin has become, do you think that you know Black Rockckcoin compliance coin whatever it ends up being does that have an ice cubes chance in hell of taking hold when you have massive opposition in the form of you know US, China, Russia, different different parts of the globe. Is that is Bitcoin too global now to have a single country be like no we're this is our forkcoin and have the rest of the world say well you've been censoring us on swift so >> that's the best thing is the game theory you know on the one hand you have these few handful of powerful players you know state street black rockck caner um a few exchanges and others uh who control a lot and if they said hey this is the real coin there'd be a lot of fear that, you know, the thing that we all call Bitcoin is going to drop to, you know, five grand and uh well, we've been at five grand before, you know, so but but the game theory is hopefully what saves us because it is a global world and uh other countries may not participate. So that's what keeps me from losing more sleep about that. But we should prepare either way. L if you have anything you wanted to chime in. >> You know, it's fun to believe in magic and Santa Claus and a government that represents the people, but uh a lot of people are lost on that idea. A lot of people are very disillusioned. Now, granted, Trump hasn't been always honest with what he's doing. We got the little victories. We have to celebrate them. We have to build on top of them. I do believe that what you're describing, the scenario that you're saying is going to be happening. We have to prepare for that battle. We have to understand it's coming. It's not going to be an easy battle. But I think the battle is going to be won with the ideas. And I think these ideas of of freedom, of sovereignty, of independence, of liberty. I think those are are going to be the ethos that we're going to have to stand behind because if we stand behind centralization, if we stand behind convenience, if we stand behind safety, we're going to lose all of that. And then we're going to be under a system like a digital dollar that's going to be like the social credit score system that they have in China. And that's what we're fighting up against. And people need to realize that. And I think that fight is the most important fight right now. And if you want to stop the war machine, you have to stop the money printing machine, which means we have to end the Fed. And I think this is why the ethos has always been with Bitcoin, end the Fed. >> Amazing. Okay, we got a few minutes left here. I kind of want to go down the line and for the individuals that choose to remain sovereign, what's a piece of advice of advice each one of you would give to them? So, Odell, I'm going to toss it to you first. What would you say to people that uh don't want Black Rock Coin if this comes to fruition? >> Look, I think I think personal responsibility takes responsibility and you have to learn how to use the tools. You have to learn how to use real Bitcoin, not that paper shit. Um, get comfortable with it. To Luke's point, prepare, right? You have to be if if you're not comfortable now when you need it, you're going to have a lot more difficulty using it and being and and being competent with it. And then the second piece I would just say on the Black Rockckcoin thing is one of the things that is beautiful about Bitcoin when I think about like the regulatory concerns in America, I think of that as an American citizen, as someone raising a family here, as someone building businesses here. That's why it matters to me. Like I don't want my own government throwing me in the goolog for trying to make this country better. That's insane. But on the Bitcoin side, Bitcoin is incredibly robust, right? And and the fact that no change is the default. And I would just say on the Black Rockck piece, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, that's a lot of risk if they come into a fork and try and dump hard into a fork and they're going to be a little bit riskaverse. They have career risk there. But but sovereign holders can take significant risk. they will be a lot more aggressive. Individuals that actually care about this thing will be a lot more aggressive in the market dynamics in terms of which type of coin wins there. And I'm not I don't think it's so far gone that that won't be the case. I think they'd have a hard time doing it. >> Bruce, any piece of advice? Yeah. I mean, you don't need to be an economist or a computer scientist to know that though there's something wrong in the world and it's weird and broken and it's confusing and scary and a lot of that problem is the broken money. And the amazing thing is we can't forget we have a new invention that can fix this. And it is an incredible invention. It's incredibly robust. It's been through unbelievable trials and tests over its history. and it is a solution and it can make the world a better place. So, learn about it and share what you learn with others because it's our one chance and we've got to get this right. Strange times are coming. Find your community, build a garden, get to know your neighbors. Life is going to get crazy and I'm all here for it. And at the end of the day, we decide where we go. And I want to go towards more freedom, less government. >> Amen. Take some action. Thank you guys very much. Luke, Bruce, Matt. Pleasure. >> Thank you. >> Thank you guys. >> Thank you. >> 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.