Bitcoin contre l'État de surveillance | Bitcoin Magazine Podcast, ép. 9

When you start linking identity to that blockchain, you are now starting to link your wealth essentially to your address. We've seen a rise of the crypto wrench [music] attacks in France. There were actually fatalities as well. 19 instant incidents [music] were fatal and they say that 2025 was the most violent year on record. And they [music] think that the reason why France is because it was a corrupt official that sold the data. So, you just need one week link, [music] don't you? You just need one person that's going to sell it. It's too easy because and and if you can trace everything online, like everyone's at risk. Hey everyone and welcome back to the Bitcoin Magazine podcast. I'm your host Brandon Green. Uh today's episode we have Decentra Suze on Twitter, Suzie Violet Ward from Bitcoin Policy UK. Uh we had a phenomenal conversation. Um I hadn't actually talked to her before, so it was really great getting to know her, getting to hear a little bit about her story, and most importantly understanding the state of play for Bitcoin across the pond in the UK, as well as some of the regulatory apparatus there, her thoughts on sort of the stablecoin versus Bitcoin debate that's beginning in its early stages to to come to, you know, the forefront. And you know, we talked about $5 wrench attacks, Bitcoin mining opportunities, uh and so much more. It was an absolutely wonderful conversation. Uh Suzie knows her stuff. So, uh I'm excited to share it with you guys and without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, Suzie Violet Ward. Suzie, welcome to the Bitcoin Magazine podcast. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. Thank you for having me. Absolutely and uh first of all, love the background. Uh we were talking earlier about the alien, but uh you've got a very great uh the vibe I would hope that that Susie would have in the background. I love it. >> [laughter] >> I see all of these pictures are pictures from uh some of my very early opinion pieces when I was writing a column for a city newspaper called My Two Cents. So, I would just rant about how broken the world was and how Bitcoin could fix it and I had an anonymous Bitcoin account SlackerX who would illustrate my articles and then I got them printed out. So, that's what these are. They are beautiful. I mean, I absolutely love them. So, shout out to SlackerX uh assuming you're watching. So, let's let's dive into it because how the world is broken and how Bitcoin fixes it is my cup of tea we'll say. So, I want to start with the state of sort of regulation especially happening in the UK and probably the biggest thing that's going on right now is this FCA it it the regime you know, comes in later this year to try and regulate it seems like all of crypto but also Bitcoin just sort of lumped in without any sort of uh thought about what it is they are regulating. So, for our audience members, you know, across the pond who may not be paying attention or may not understand kind of the nuance of what's going on. Can you walk people through what is what is you know, going to go into effect later this year and what does it mean for Bitcoin? So, the FCA also known as the Financial Conduct Authority will be bringing in some regulation as you rightly said they have lumped all crypto assets into the same basket. So, they haven't distinguished the difference between Bitcoin, a meme coin, a stable coin, an NFT and they've put it all under the same risk profile. And we have same with same regulation which we do agree with, but if you think that all of these different crypto assets have the same risk, then that regulation falls down. So, we've tried explaining to the FCA that Bitcoin has a 60% market cap, and it doesn't function in the same way as a meme coin that you can spin up in seconds in your bedroom. And it's very difficult to get this information and well, this understanding over to them. Do they understand that? Do they hear that, and does it register that maybe Bitcoin's not the same as a meme coin? So, it's very difficult to know where the ignorance and the incompetence cross over because it's it's been going on for such a long time now that you do think Come on. Like you you must understand. But, when you look at how our system works, and it's probably very similar in the US, it we we do have a pay-to-play system. And so, therefore, if you've got a lot of money, you're uh crypto exchange, you can chuck money at this. You can have access. You can go to the all-party parliamentary groups. You can pay to have access to a lot of these things that you can't if you just don't have money. And we know that Bitcoin doesn't have a CEO, that there isn't really funding behind Bitcoin in the same way that a lot of these altcoins that can print their own tokens do. So, it's really difficult to get the access. And so, when we set up Bitcoin Policy UK, we did it because there were only crypto organizations, and quite often they didn't split out the difference between Bitcoin and crypto. And it was it was very frustrating because even when they were talking about the environmental benefits, a lot of these organizations didn't even understand the difference between proof of work and proof of stake. Yet, they were talking about the environmental benefits. And obviously, those different uh those different types of protocols have very different outcomes. So, when you can see the information that is going to governments is lacking and incorrect and being driven forward by, you know, companies that can print their own tokens, that can pay for access, all of a sudden it starts to you do start to understand why, you know, perhaps they're not getting the full picture. Because I just don't think that they're in receipt of the right information. And don't forget, a lot of our MPs and our politicians form a lot of their opinions based on the mainstream media and we know how factually incorrect that has been. So, I think that it's a combination of, you know, it's complicated, you have to put hundreds of hours in to understand Bitcoin, you have to want to know what it is, you have to be in receipt of the right information, be educated properly, and you also have to not have been disadvantaged by the poor journalism in the UK. I think it's a combination of all those things. Yeah, well, it sounds a little bit like a unicorn way out, I would say, or a unicorn path forward. You know, one thing obviously in the US that was unique, and I'm curious if you see a similar opportunity in the UK, is you know, when we had sort of uh, it's it's funny like I don't know if it's just that people forget or if it's if it's we just block that out of our minds, but in 2022, 2023, even 2024, there was a real fear that like the entire industry, mining Bitcoin, exchanges, all of it, was about to just get regulated into oblivion in the US and and everyone was going to have to move to like Abu Dhabi or Dubai or something in order to just continue to operate. But, there was this single point of leverage in the presidential election where it's like if you could just get this one person uh and then that person won, then the entire, you know, regime sort of unravels against you. And I'm curious if you see any of those asymmetric moves within the the UK political establishment or or does it just not operate like that? So, I think I think maybe you would assume that the US does something and the UK would follow. It's game theory. So, is that is that what what you what you what you're asking? Did Did we look at what the US was doing and maybe think actually we should pay attention to this? Well, I I guess that's one that's one question in and of itself, right? >> Yeah, it was no. >> [laughter] >> No. And I I can I can tell you why because in May 2025, we had a lady called Emma Reynolds who was the And I always get this title wrong because they're so ridiculously long and ridiculous. The Economic Secretary to the Treasury. And she was in charge of digital assets at the time. And at the Financial Times Digital Assets Summit, she was asked very specifically, "US are putting in a or or looking at a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve. Is this something that the UK would look at as well?" And they just shrugged her shoulders and just went, "Volatile. Don't think so. Not for us." And that was it. And And it was just so shocking that they were so dismissive and they were just going over the same rhetoric that that the lazy you know, it's a Ponzi scheme. She didn't say all this, but I Every time I speak to a an MP, these are the the the talking points that they have in their head. It's a Ponzi scheme. It's going to boil the ocean. And it's used for criminals. You know, they they showed in that moment they had no interest in even doing a feasibility study on it. Because if if the US are looking at this as a strategic reserve, and don't forget we have really ridiculous reserves that we have. I think like like wine reserves and cheese reserves. It's like, you know, you could do a feasibility study on a Bitcoin reserve considering it's the best performing asset of a decade. But they just don't seem to be open to it. And I I honestly can't work out if it's just well, going back to our original point, if it is just too much for them to understand, they're being given the wrong information, and they they read the Financial Times. Yeah. No, I mean that again, it's a it's a firestorm of sort of issues preventing the the clarity from coming through. But are there individuals that you see within the political arena um who are getting this right? And and are, you know, like you would sort of put hope in their kind of ascendance? You know, it's it's almost like the fix the money, fix the world. You know, like this person gets Bitcoin, and because they get Bitcoin, it is going to help propel them sort of to a leadership role within the the political gambit. Uh is that happening? I I would like to think that there's someone who really gets Bitcoin. Um I think that there are people that say the right things. And for example, Nigel Farage has put out a crypto policy. He actually announced it at um at your conference last year in Vegas. That announcement I think was made on on that day. And that was one of the best um that's one of the best policies we've seen. It's it's definitely a start. Does he get Bitcoin? Probably not. I mean, like he's a gold bug, and he knows the right things to say, but he probably follows the money as well. I think that if he can find a way of, you know, capitalizing on something, then of course he's going to look into it. But does he understand it from a philosophical point of view and all the nuance? Highly unlikely. When we were sending open letters or when we sent open letters to the government on various different issues that we want them to discuss. For example, Bitcoin strategic reserve was one. Also, the UK is the third largest holder of Bitcoin. You know, sovereign holders. We've got 61,250. So, all of these are questions that we've put towards our government, you know, through open letters. When we were writing to them and the Conservative Party were definitely the most receptive and I feel like if they had stayed in power, we would have made more progress. But then Labour came in and it felt like we rolled backwards a little bit. So, um is there one person? No, I don't think so. Are there a few people saying the right things? Yes. Do I have hope in the that they understand it? No, not really. Yeah. Well, and and again to translate to sort of a US all audience across the pond. Would you say that you're seeing a similar dynamic? You mentioned conservative were more receptive, labor, you know, were less receptive. Does that equal, I know it's it's obviously it doesn't map one to one, but does that equal Republicans and Democrats and their receptivity or are there differences? Like how how do you kind of view that that parallelism? Yeah, I think I think that's that's a good um like for like there or thereabouts, yes. What is your takeaway when you see that sort of phenomenon happen in two different places in the US and now in the UK? You know, would you say that um there's something inherent in the ideology of the political system or would you say that there's something inherent in the ideology of Bitcoin where you know, there seems to be a quicker pick up on the you know, the right side versus the left side. Um what like what do what do you think is driving that? So yes, I've thought about that a lot, obviously. And I I do think that there is the because I don't really like the terms left and right now. I think that they are becoming more meaningless. I prefer libert- libertarian authoritarianism. And so I feel like the concept >> Up and down, right? That's like the grid way, yeah. Yeah, but it's true. No, because I I just don't I don't I don't really understand the terms left and right, but I understand what authoritarianism is and I understand what libertarianism is and it makes more sense to me in those terms. And so I think conservatives are more about free markets and business and driving growth. Whereas I think that the Labour Party are inherently more centralized. And when you think about Bitcoin's ethos as a decentralized network, you know, giving power back to people and and and breaking it down so that individuals can make more choices for themselves. The Labour government are the complete opposite of that from an ideological point of view because they're they're very centralized. They want to take all of your money and then redistribute it. I'm still trying to work out when communism actually becomes a thing. Because I how much of your money do you have >> walk to it, right? It feels like we're slowly sleepwalking into that being an acceptable thing to do. Well, when you look at how much tax they take, it's been worked out that you have to work until October. When you think about VAT, capital gains, income tax, car tax, uh council tax, there's it's endless the the amount of taxes that you actually have to pay. So if you have to work until October, that's it what is that? Kind of what I mean it's >> 70% [laughter] tax or something. You you get 2 months after that, yeah. So so what what of what point does it does it become communism where where they are taking everything from you and then deciding how it gets redistributed? I mean, obviously that's an extreme example and and then there are lots of other factors, but it does make you wonder, you know, how much how much are they going to continue to take? So I think I think that the the the ideology of Bitcoin is the complete opposite of the ideology of the Labour Party, but I'm not sure that they dislike it for that reason because that would suggest that they understand it enough >> [laughter] >> then dislike it for that reason and I'm not sure that they do. Yeah, no, that makes sense. So I'm curious as maybe like sort of a final question on this state and I do want to kind of dig in a little bit on like what is actually going into effect with this new regulatory regime, but but my question is if you could wave the proverbial magic wand and and fix the situation for Bitcoin in the UK in one move, what do you think that move would be? Separate Bitcoin and crypto 100%. Got it. >> You you've got to because you can't you can't have everything as a restricted mass market investment, everything under the same same regulation and not understand that a decentralized protocol it does not have the same risk profile as these VC companies. I mean, that's not to say that they don't have any value, but it it it just means that they're completely different. You know, almost like you can think of it as crypto is the good ones although millions have been added to the list every probably minute now, but there probably are a handful of companies in technologies there that that that do have some kind of meaning and use. But they're VC companies. They're they're they're not Bitcoin. And until they understand that difference, I just don't think we can move forward with any sensible um regulation. Yeah, it all makes sense. And you know, that to your point, uh they're VC-led, they have a CEO, they have a founding team, they have a team working on it. Uh they they have a mission, you know, there's there's so much definition. It's not a tool that's been launched into the world for anyone to use. So, it is it continues to baffle that that they just get kind of lumped together. And you know, I will also uh just to sort of wax poetic for a second, you see an interesting phenomenon occurring in the US right now where I think the um separation of Bitcoin and crypto from an ideological standpoint was like there was a very good job sort of done within the uh the Republican Party leading up to the 2024 election where you had some folks on that side who fundamentally understood Bitcoin, they understood Bitcoin mining, they understood why Bitcoin's different from crypto. Uh you know, it they were saying all the right things, they were having real conversations, it the messaging was seeping in. And then with the new administration, uh it kind of got really lumped together. You know, it's it's a strange phenomenon that I like obviously there are things that are happening specifically for Bitcoin that are separate from crypto. Um but you've also seen a very interesting um prioritization. I was talking about this with Frank Corva on the last show. There was this prioritization of stablecoins and a prioritization of the Clarity Act. Um and neither of those things really talk about Bitcoin at all, even though the understanding of the administration and everyone was like, oh, Bitcoin won us the election. You know, and it's like, how do we deliver for them? Well, let's get stablecoin regulation and, you know, crypto market structure done. And it's like, okay, you actually you have now relumped this all together and assumed that you're delivering for Bitcoin in a positive regulatory way. Not that Bitcoin needs to be regulated, but like there are things you can do as a as a government adopter of Bitcoin. Um and and it just seems like some of that progress has maybe been muddied a little bit. Um so, you you know, that's my own take on on what we're seeing in the US. Uh it seems like we may be right back, you know, soon to the Bitcoin is different from crypto grind again. Uh I'll be curious to see how that happens. No, don't don't say that. I mean, look, it it's No, that sounds too depressing. We were looking at you. You were like our beacon of hope. >> [laughter] >> If you start rolling back this, I don't think we We got a lot done. You know, that's the thing. And again, it's um it's like it's because it's because we're in the room now, you know, as an industry. We're we're able to make these decisions. And the question became, well, who gets to go in the room? And the answer was, if there's only one room that's being created to talk about this stuff, you know, David Sacks being the crypto AI czar, you know, when he has his crypto conversations, right? Who's in the room? And it's Coinbase, it's, you know, some of the Bitcoin miners, uh but it's also it's also Ripple, you know, it's it's also like these other So, it's like that's the the plus side is the room is there. We're having the conversations. The downside is there's a lot of people in the room. And they they actually have competing priorities in all of this. So, it's a new challenge, I guess, in in the US. Yes. And I think that the focus on stablecoins as well, um I don't know. I'm a little bit cynical about that. I think stable coins are just CBDCs via the back door. So, when you say that CBDCs are a violation on your constitution, I love the fact that you have a constitution, by the way. It does allow you to point to something and say, "Look, you know." But, I think it's a little bit sneaky because to say that you're not going to allow CBDCs and then have that as a big tick, yes, we're all for freedom, but then allow stable coins in the way that they're in bed with the US government and how that's all a swirling mess of, you know, when you think about that that's they're they're essentially censorable transactions. They've they've they've got they're just fiat on crypto rails. And that has been prioritized above everything else. And I think that's because they were following the money. And I think that that's probably always going to happen. And it does come back to, I think, that, you know, >> [clears throat] >> Bitcoin has no CEO. It's a it's a decentralized protocol. It is going to be really difficult to roll something like that out because most people when they do work for this they they they do it because they love Bitcoin. They don't It's not a job. No, it's it's very true. It's very true. Yeah, and and I I will say let we we should dive all the way into the the CBDC stable coin conversation because that's its own kettle of fish. But, before we go uh before we go into that, I want to um I want to dig back in. So, what can, you know, listeners what can viewers of the show sort of expect in terms of these regulatory changes that are coming to the UK later this year? Like, what's what's actually going to be happening here? Well, you know, the net effect is the UK's going to have the same rules as traditional finance, essentially. Um uh rather than their own set of bespoke rules, you know, like the the MiCA framework cuz MiCA is uh European. Um so, I don't I I think that there's going to be a whole host of pain there as well because, you know, it's it's the assets are not once again they're not the same and the way that you say use Bitcoin as collateral for a loan is completely different to how you would if you were having a house, for example. Like, you know, when you when you buy a house, you go through all of these different checks. It's completely painful. But, with Bitcoin, you know, it's like a pristine collateral. You can hand it over. You don't need to have any of those checks. And and so, I think that if you're going to treat those assets the same and the same as as TradFi, I think that they're they're they're going to be heading for some issues. Um The crypto firms are going to be treated like banks and brokers and I just I just don't think it's really going to work unless they really do understand the nuance. So, obviously, the the AML um is is tightening up the anti-money laundering. We've Now, we've already got in place the um FATF travel rule, which is terrifying because that means that a transaction your your data will travel with the transaction. Um so, they're collecting all of this KYC for no good reason and it doesn't really stop crime, either, because I think it's round about 3 to 5% of global GDP is in the traditional system is illicit activity, so they say. But, that's a big wide thing to me. I think that suggests that they don't know. And that figure hasn't really changed for two decades, which also suggests that either they're not fixing it or or they don't know. So, when you look at crypto, less than 1%, they say, um is illicit activity and of that 0.14% is Bitcoin. So, why on earth would you layer all of this TradFi all these TradFi rules, all of this KYC and AML over the top of a synonymous network? Because, you know, it's you know, Bitcoin transactions are transparent by design and they operate under a a pseudonymous um blockchain where activity is obviously physical, but but identity isn't. When you start linking identity to that blockchain, you are now starting to link your your wealth essentially to your address in a lot of ways. And that I don't think they quite understand the direction of travel and the FATF travel rule was actually implemented um by the G7. So, un- unelected, they just decided that they were going to do it. It was implemented in TradFi. Again, we're seeing the same things and it didn't work in TradFi. So, why on earth they would want to bring that same rule over into crypto when, you know, most of the money laundering happens with, you know, JP Morgan and HSBC. I mean, you wouldn't you wouldn't use Bitcoin which you you wanted to You you just wouldn't. >> those reasons. Yeah, and and not only that, but it not only is all the activity done on these big banks, but for the big banks it's just a cost of business, you know, they know they're going to get their fine, they factor that into the amount of money they're going to make, you know, and like it's they just move on with their lives. So, yeah, I I totally agree. And you said something earlier that I just want to double click on which is all of this AML KYC action that's being put on Bitcoin transaction. It's not reducing you know, the the crime you know, done and in fact I would say it's increasing the opportunity for crime to be done. And you know, do we want to talk about that for a little bit because there is this when you get docked with all of your financial information, there becomes sort of a new risk that they get exposed. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we we've seen a rise of the crypto bunch attacks in France. I'll see if I can pull up some stats for this because it is truly terrifying. So, um a recent analysis in February examined 309 publicly documented crypto attacks um between 2014 and 2026. And there has been a sharp increase. In 2025 alone, 76 attacks were recorded globally and that's a 77% increase from 2024. So, it's going up. 47.2% of the cases involved confirmed torture or physical violence and 51.5% included weapons and making coercion more the norm than not in these cases. And then accounting there were actually fatalities as well. 19 incident incidents were fatal. Um and they say that 2025 was the most violent year on record. So, there is there is a trend here um and and they think that the reason why France is because it was a corrupt official that sold the data. So, you just need one weak link, don't you? You just need one person that's going to sell it and then that gets combined with maybe a data leak because France also had a um a tax wallet that that also had a data leak. So, you combine that with social engineering and all of a sudden you can find anybody. Like you can buy any any information and it was the co-founder of Ledger that him his he got his finger cut off. His his wife was kidnapped, I believe. And a lot of these um criminals now are using um like Telegram and Snapchat to recruit young kids and they're paying them as as little as say a thousand euros to go off and and action these attacks. So, the organized crime is outside of the country and they're just recruiting young kids to do these awful things. You know, inside and it's just too easy. It's too easy. Because and and if you can trace everything online, like everyone's at risk. Welcome to Predict. The world [music] is a market. Everything is a market. Get a 100% [music] cash back up to $100 on your first Predict bet if it loses. [music] Predict, where everything [music] is a market. Bitcoin Magazine is more than ink on paper. It's printed proof of work. A tangible artifact of the revolution we're living through. Own a piece of Bitcoin's story. Subscribe to Bitcoin Magazine print today and keep history in your hands. Absolutely. Absolutely. No, I I think that's really well said. And you know, if if I could just add to that, I would say first of all, um there's been this just erosion of the belief that privacy is something that we should be afforded as human beings. And um you know, I think that that's like there even in the US Constitution, outside of you know, maybe the fourth amendment, illegal search and seizure, there's not a lot to be said about privacy. Like privacy in and of itself isn't something that's necessarily enshrined. And um it's probably you know, I I think it's been one of those issues that slowly over time technology has brought to the forefront. And you know, if if you were going to design the America of today with that constitutional, you know, backing, you know, enshrining rights, privacy would be one of those rights that gets enshrined. But it just it wasn't necessarily the same situation as, you know, in in the 1700s of like what what was top of mind for, you know, the idealists of the day. And um yeah, you know, like I I have to think that nobody wants a situation where everyone's financial information is doxxed and tied to their address and, you know, is is tracked in real time with anyone who has access to internet. Um and so there's got to be a a reckoning with that and almost like an accountability with that. You know, like how do we tie accountability to these AML KYC uh regulations? And you know, to these 5 dollar wrench attacks, right? Uh because there's a direct line to them. I've thought about that a lot. I I feel like this is this regulation is is is verging on on criminal when when you think of what the outcomes are. And whenever I bring it up, I get told, "Oh, they don't care. Matter You know, like I I I went to um I went to the Houses of Parliament to a dinner for something or other. I can't remember what it was. And there was this guy there from HM Revenues and he's working on a make tax digital system, which is for accountants to so that you can basically make your tax easy as a small business. You know, everything's sold as convenience, isn't it? And so when I was talking to him and said, "Well, have you heard about CARF? Have you heard about the travel rule? Have Have you heard about how this level of data collection is manifesting itself in physical harm. He hadn't heard of any of the regulation that I had been talking about. None of it. And I sent him a few of my articles. He said he'd take a look, and you know, then it just goes quiet again. So, it's it's really difficult when you've even got people that are working in these departments, on these systems, and completely clueless to to to the regulation that that will actually affect the systems that they're building. Absolutely. Well, and um you know, sort of a a third element that you mentioned in all of this, and and that we should definitely talk about now is the media portrayal of all of this. And you know, the sort of lack of accountability there. You look at the Financial Times, you know, we had Jemima Kelly at Bitcoin Amsterdam in I guess it was '23. That was one of the best panels I've ever seen. Do you know what I mean? Like, I'll never forget that. It was Prin C, wasn't it? Joe Hall. And there was another lady on that panel. >> And then and then yeah, it was Izabella Kaminska, who was formerly of the the Financial Times. And then she had left partially becoming a Bitcoiner in the process. You know, at least like more sympathetic to Bitcoin. And then Jemima, who was at the time I guess the uh the leading anti-Bitcoin voice of the Financial Times and Alphaville and and all this. So, yeah, I I think that was a very uh uh eye-opening conversation a lot of ways. It was. And I thought the funniest line was when she said something about I've been writing about Bitcoin for years, and then Joe said, "And you still don't understand it." >> [laughter] >> Yes, I remember that panel well. It was really good. In actual fact, I saw Izabella literally uh last Friday um at Cheeky Code. Uh yes, and she is very much a Bitcoiner, and and I love her work. Yeah, brilliant. >> Yeah, I >> know. And I mean there's something to be said that once once she leaves the Financial Times, you know, it all clicks into place. And I you know, who knows the cause and effect? Did she leave because she realized, you know, maybe they were getting it wrong, or did she leave and all of a sudden that it became clear? Uh you know, I I think only she could answer that, but um there is there is something to be said about these media institutions that either for for some reason refuse to get the story right on Bitcoin. Um and and you know, I I run a media institution within the Bitcoin space. Uh you know, we we do what we can here at Bitcoin Magazine and the conference to to try and help set narratives right, but how do we how do we get the the mainstream media to uh to like uh I'm I'm trying to put it nicely, you know, uh to change their ways. Uh I I don't know. It's It's It's very tricky. And and I'm not entirely sure that it's all by design. I do think it's largely incompetence. And the reason is is because before I started writing about Bitcoin, I worked for 20 years in the city in London. I was an accountant, and then I was a systems accountant, and then I did a little bit of development on a planning system. So, I had all of these different skills spanning 20 years. And then I found Bitcoin, and then I did my 100 hours plus. Only then did I feel qualified to be able to write about it with a level of understanding that was needed to explain it to other people. But that's quite That's quite a journey. And when you think a lot of these journalists, they just leave uni with a journalism degree, and they're effectively writers. And that's fine. But can you write about something in this much detail with that much accuracy if you are a writer and you you don't have a background in this. And I think that I think it's as as simple as that. And sometimes it just keeps reinforcing itself. So, they will then not go and do their research properly. So, you mentioned just before we came on the call that when I was trying to fight the BBC about the one particular article, every Bitcoin every Bitcoin payment uses three swimming pools worth of water. As soon as I saw that, my heart sank. I was like, come on. So, I just thought, you know what? I'm going to take this one article and I'm going to see how far I can get to get either a retraction or a correction. They were my two goals. And I was going to push it and every single time they came back, I was going to fight them with facts. And I thought that that would work. I actually really did think that I might actually get somewhere. Like, I'm very naive. So, um There's something quixotic about that, you know, swinging the swords at windmills, right? >> [laughter] >> Thinking thinking like hopefully they will change. Hopefully they will see uh yeah. And I'm assuming the answer is they didn't. They didn't, no. Um and I tried. I tried really really hard. So, so the first the first thing I did was I put in a freedom of information request to ask them how they had fact-checked the source. So, the source was Alex de Vries. We know about Alex de Vries, don't we? You know, the Digiconomist. He is responsible for nearly most of the bad Bitcoin fud out there. If you can trace it largely back to him. And he's he's a Dutch central banker. And that conflict of interest was not mentioned in the article. That was obviously one of one of the issues that I wanted to raise. So, why was the conflict of interest not in there? And if you had fact-checked your source, you would have realized that everything that you'd written was provably wrong. And I did prove it was wrong because I got the Digital Asset Recent Research Institute to actually write a 16-page rebuttal backing up with science. And funny enough, that was 16 pages too much for the BBC's complaint I [snorts] had to post it. I had to I had to print this this research off and physically post it. It was utterly They didn't make it easy. But anyway, the Freedom of Information request came back and they said that they don't need to provide the information that I've asked for because they're protected under the BBC by journalism and arts. And I thought that was That was the first major red flag. And I thought Hang on a second. So, the BBC doesn't need to answer any Freedom of Information requests relating to journalism. >> [laughter] >> That All of a sudden, things started making a little bit more sense. So, then that was a dead end. There was nothing I could do about that. So, I tried to find out how to make a formal complaint. Did loads on the internet, and it was just like it just gets lost in cyberspace. I just never came back. >> [snorts] >> So, then I went to the ICO, the Independent Commissioner's Office. Spent months giving them information, talking them through it. For them because I I wanted the Freedom of Information request to be upheld. So, that's what I was trying to do. I was trying to get that decision overturned. They wouldn't. Um and I had nowhere else to go. And then eventually I found I think I'd written to the actual journalist, Chris Vance. And the press at the BBC press office quite a few times. Like periodically I would write to them again and just go, "Can you answer me, please?" Then eventually they came back with a link, which I then filled in. And then that logged a formal complaint. That took 6 months for me to be able to get the right link to make the right complaint. So then I would write what was wrong, send my research, back it up with facts, and then they would respond with something that really wasn't reflective of anything that I'd written to them. It was just like me saying to you like you know the sky is blue and you just going back well I like pink elephants. So you know like you there was no correlation between what I'd written and what they responded. They were just writing their own words and just get trying to get me off their plate. But every single time they made suggestion go to Ofcom, I would do it knowing it would be a dead end. Try this, try this, I'd do it every time dead end respond and then in the end they said we can't do anything. You're going to have to escalate this to stage two complaints. Okay, another thing. Oh my god. But every time it's work, it's effort. It's just it's just a lot of work. You have to compile everything that you've done. You have to chase it in the right way and stage two complaints is where you have to run through everything that you've given them and describe why they haven't answered it properly. Like it's really labor intensive. It was a it was a it was a slog to get it. And then they just wrote back and went, "No, sorry, we can't help you. That's the end of it." And I thought, "Whoa." So there there was no recourse. So So Dutch Central Banker that got discredited in 2018 provides information to the BBC that wasn't fact-checked and then that article went out and I've got screenshots of how it replicated across all the other news outlets after that. There's about 12 different news outlets that are all copying the same headline. So that's that's how it that's how it spreads and it's Branzelini's law, it's the asymmetry of bullshit that it takes 10 times the energy to refute the bullshit than to create the bullshit in the first place and that's exactly what we were seeing playing out here. And I couldn't I couldn't believe it That that it was so obviously wrong and and so obviously so so easy to prove that it was wrong and that everything about it was incorrect. And even in the article, they used the term payment and transaction. And I think that that changed the outcome of what they were saying by by a thousand X. So even within the article, it was all muddled. That's one Bitcoin article out of all of them that are written across all the different news outlets. And I know that whenever I've made some sort of error or I haven't been entirely correct and somebody's come to me, I've always made a correction because I want everything that I write to be right at the time that I write it. I would never knowingly or be able to live with myself knowing that I was putting information out there that people were reading and taking as you know, a source of truth if I knew that it was wrong. So I I was really quite shocked um by this one. >> no kidding. Well, first of all, that's just an insane story uh of of trying to just correct like one absolute falsehood in one article uh and and you know, six months of dead end after dead end after 13 months. 13 months? That's un- unbelievable. >> 13 months until the point when they said, "That's it. No more. Like stop contacting us basically. Leave Leave the BBC alone. We're not going to respond to you." But I But like I said, because every time a door shut, I tried to find another and I exhausted every single every single option that I had. And after 13 months, there was nowhere else I could go. It's just It's just crazy. And you know, I think too like Digiconomist Alex de Vries, uh he uh you know, I would put him in the category of of slot cannon, you know, and it's like a a new colloquial term for the AI-generated, you know, just fake stuff, right? And he's he's like pre-AI Slotkin. Uh he just, you know, churns out fake information that people just use and run with. Uh and then I think about, oh, well, well, now there's going to be a lot of Slotkins. You would think that the uh institutions of media would be like your one saving grace in a world of slop, in a world of, you know, uh so much noise that the signal becomes nearly impossible to find that the institutions whose job it is to understand what the signal is in that sea of noise become that much more important. And so then to see the instead they they latch onto slop. They latch onto just incorrect information and then they don't let go. It's like that institution is not built for this world. It's it's not built for the the future of human society if they can't correct their mistakes and um and move on and and kind of not play into a narrative that they want to perpetuate uh just for the sake of perpetuating that narrative. Yes, and there should be an easy way to report things that are incorrect, and there should be a process where they actually listen to you and then take an action. It shouldn't be that hard. And if you um go to the pinned tweet, I don't know if you've seen it on my Twitter profile, if you keep drilling down on that, it goes to all the steps. So, you can actually follow every single letter and process that I went through all the way through for 30 Actually, no, I don't think I recorded it. I think I started recording it after about 6 months when it started getting silly. Like really silly. I was like, right, that's it. >> know at the time that it's going to take 13 months, right? You have to you have to figure that out in real time, so that's fair. That's fair. So, so I was behind the scenes just responding to emails and doing things thinking, "Oh, da da da da, I'll just do this." And then it got to a point where I was like, "You do know, I've got to go to social media. Like, I have to. I have to start recording this." So, if if you if you keep like going down into each quote tweet, you can actually follow the ridiculousness of it. Yeah, that's incredible. Incredible. I highly recommend people check that out and follow the story cuz this is this is one of the best stories in in all of Bitcoin of someone just taking up a charge and and tracking it all the way down to to the bitter end. Um so, I'm curious, too. So, to to pivot just a little bit, um that article was about Bitcoin mining. Um you'll be at the conference this year on the mining stage talking about Bitcoin mining. Um how do you see the state of play? Like, what are you what are you tracking in the the mining world nowadays? And uh you know, any any insights on kind of what the what you're going to be speaking about at the conference? Uh so, no, not yet because I haven't actually uh met my fellow panelists. So, that is on my to-do list of things that that I need to do. So, I'm not 100% sure yet, but I know that we talked at the beginning of this conversation about how we were a little bit concerned that the US government was rolling backwards a little bit. But when you look at what you're doing at ERCOT, you know, that that's incredible. The the service that Bitcoin miners provide to the grid in Texas with demand response and flexible load is is an incredible service. And I've actually heard of miners being paid to take the electricity on top of mining the Bitcoin because it's it's such a good service. So, in the UK, the reason why I'm very interested in this is because we spend and different reports have different figures, but between a billion and a billion and a half pounds in the UK a year to not produce electricity. And we have the highest electricity costs in the world. I sit here with a heated blanket. Like I'm not I'm not moaning, but the thing is is I can't afford to put my heating on. I really really can't. Like I cannot. Most people can't. You'll put it on for a couple of hours and then you'll just wear lots and lot because it's too expensive. If you put your heating on the same way that you used to before our energy prices went through the roof, you'd be looking at 700, 800 pounds or 1,000 dollars in energy just to heat your home. Like that that that isn't that's not possible. That is one more tax. You'd be working through November now until you actually get some income. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And and it is it is mostly tax. So when you find out that the government are paying a billion to a billion and a half pounds to not produce electricity, while people are having to choose, and I'm not being hyperbolic, have to choose between heating and eating, that's insanity. Because Bitcoin mining, we know, provides such an excellent service. And it's not just the fact that you don't have to curtail or switch off. It's the fact that you can mine Bitcoin. It's also the hash rate that you're going to be adding to the network because this is another thing that concerns me. All right. The US may have its problems, but it's got what, 38% nearly 40% of the hash rate? That's in that's incredible. We've got 0.1% and even then I'm not even convinced it's that. So the from a strategic point of view, they have to start looking at this as well. So not only would it save money, but also when you ramp up and down with these curtailments, that actually creates a lot of wear and tear on the system. So there are so many reasons why we need to introduce Bitcoin mining into the UK. And so that's why I've taken such an interest on it because it's another one of those educational pieces where you just want your government to understand. Yeah, I know. I I I it's a it's a great story to highlight. And so if I can sort of round out some of the details for listeners, what what you see in especially West Texas, right? And what ERCOT is, ERCOT is the closest to sort of a a free market of electricity market. And when, you know, electricity prices are high, you you know, people respond to the prices and either electricity gets generated or demand gets, you know, decreased. And when electricity is low, uh you know, things turn on, more more demand comes onto the market. But what's interesting and like this is a key like this is a key fact of renewable energy moving forward is that unlike natural gas, unlike coal, unlike, you know, some of the old ways of producing electricity, the ability to scale up and scale down electricity production is relatively straightforward. You know, you can increase the the flow rate of the gas through the the generator, you can increase the flow rate of coal going into the incinerator, yada yada yada, right? Um whereas if you have wind or solar, you can't dim the sun, at least not right now, and you can't slow down the wind. And so this this, you know, the electricity is generated regardless. And what that means is if there's too much electricity on the system, it become, you know, you can overload the the system. You can overload the transformer, you know, like it becomes a whole issue. And so something like Bitcoin mining, uh what's beautiful about it is that it is a flexible load. It is simple to turn off and on a Bitcoin miner or scale, you know, clock up and down the the amount of electricity that it's consuming. And so it allows to it it's basically a demand-side stabilizer of electrical like electrical grid. And so and this is where, you know, my understanding sort of stops is what's going on in the UK, but usually you see, if you have the the grid paying for curtailment, paying you to not pay you know, to not generate electricity, that usually coincides with like, "Oh, there is a there is an unstable uh uh relationship between the demand of electricity and the supply of the electricity." And that can often be borne by, you know, a transition to renewables. And so, that's where Bitcoin has a massive Bitcoin mining has a massive role to play. Uh and so, you know, I I don't know what's exactly causing that in the UK. May maybe you can give more information on that, but um yeah, it's it's such a compelling narrative of of how Bitcoin mining can help the world as a consumer of electricity. Uh yes, it's it's a very obvious solution. I mean, when you think of the examples that happening around the world is it's not a hypothetical that we're talking about. We're not going to them with a theory, we can show them where it works. And another beautiful example of where Bitcoin mining is working in Europe is in Finland, where they're mining from hydro, which is constant and, you know, uh stranded. And they are mining Bitcoin and using the heat to heat 13,000 homes via district heating. So, not only is it done purely from a renewable source that is reliable, they're mining Bitcoin, which is then going into building out more infrastructure for heating 13,000 homes. I mean, it blows my mind. The And because Bitcoin miners have to look for stranded and wasted energy, I couldn't just plug in a miner um I could plug in a bit axe, but I couldn't plug in like a normal miner, like an S19 or or or or similar into my wall, it wouldn't make me any money. It'd be ridiculous. I mean, crikey, I'm worried about my heated blanket, for goodness sake. But, if you can find strands of and wasted energy at say 1 or 2 kilowatt per hour, one one or two pence, that's it it is perfect. It solves a problem for everybody. It's win-win-win. There was a beautiful example of an anaerobic digester in Yorkshire in the um in England, where they were generating electricity or methane using pig slurry and maize. The electricity was powering the farm. The remainder was being sent back to the grid, but there was still an excess, and they were able to mine Bitcoin 24 hours a day with the excess of this renewable anaerobic digester. Um unbelievable. I mean, some of the solutions are are are mind-blowing. And And And when you think about the sovereignty that a farmer could then achieve if they were able to incorporate Bitcoin mining into their farms, you know, there's there's there was a brilliant example in Ireland where they were actually using the um the uh I'm trying to think of the the shit from [laughter] from I'm trying to think of the from the livestock. I couldn't say. I couldn't I couldn't I'm so sorry. Um they they were using the shit from the farm, then putting it into uh this an anaerobic digester, mining it, and then what was coming out they were then spreading as fertilizer on the fields. So, there was nothing wasted. It was It was all just this beautiful uh sovereign cycle of independence. And if that could be introduced across the UK or or or globally, we we we'd see some incredible results from that. Um But But, it's really difficult to explain that as a solution if your MPs think that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme and only used by criminals, I mean, how do you get past that? It's tricky. Yeah. Yeah, well, in in I think it also hits on another sort of fundamental challenge that society has, which is the sort of demonization of energy usage writ large, you know, that this belief that we should be consuming less energy, we should be, you know, this degrowth sort of mindset. Um I mean, it's it's a very dangerous one and it combines well with an anti-Bitcoin lens, right? Uh those two things go hand in hand and so um yeah, there's plenty of battles, I guess, to to be fought across the board on on just what we want to be as human beings. You raised a really important point, which is something that I'm always trying to get across is that prosperity is linked to energy usage. That prosperous countries have high energy usage. You can't get away from it. And unfortunately, in the UK, they're still in the mental mentality that we have to reduce our energy consumption. So, they're telling people to turn their heating down by a couple of degrees as if that's going to solve the problem. You know, and and at the same time, they're talking about becoming an AI superpower, but they can't people can't even heat their homes. And and everything that they say is so kind of like I don't know if you have this expression in the US, but have you ever heard the expression they don't know their ass from their elbow? >> [laughter] >> No, but I think I understand it. Yeah, that's kind of where we're at. And that that that's why it feels like walking through treacle all the time because the the educational aspect is is so difficult and probably because of Dutch central bankers like de Vries. Yeah, our our old-school slot cannons. Well, so uh but before we wrap, um you know, we didn't get a chance to kind of talk about stable coins and and CBDCs. Um you know, uh uh got a a few minutes left. Like let's let's discuss because it this cycle, I think we've seen stablecoins emerge as sort of a uh championed narrative of especially the the broader crypto industry, right? You know, it's like they found their use case. Their use case is being a rail on which the dollar moves. And um uh it has it you know, there's an ideological subversion, I think, that's going on there. There's a uh a danger that you highlighted earlier in our conversation just of, you know, are these CBDCs in and of themselves? Um and so I'm curious like how how should I as a Bitcoiner be thinking about the stablecoin sort of emergence as I continue to, you know, try and champion, you know, hyperbitcoinization or or broader Bitcoin adoption uh at large, you know, how how should I hold those two ideas in my head? >> [clears throat] >> Well, if you think of it as just fiat on crypto rails, then you know exactly where you stand with it, really. And it's it's going to just extend the dollar system, but not in a good way, I don't think. And if we do want hyperbitcoinization then this is not the way to do it. I know that some people argue that it's good for Bitcoin. I don't buy that. I don't think it's good for Bitcoin at all. Um I think it's good for the US government, and I think it's really good for um buying a lot of uh the US debt, and I think it's also really good for extending the use US hegemony. Um do I think it's good for Bitcoin? Absolutely not. I mean, it's it's censorable money that can be stopped. When they talk about stablecoins being used as a lifeline, I know that that's a trope that gets rolled out as as something that you should basically accept it because it's a good thing for people struggling. Um but you know, anything that can be stopped, censored, or or you know, controlled in that way is it it it's not what we're we're after. We're after sovereignty. We're after freedom. We're after separating money and state. We want to make sure that we have a world where 8 billion people have access to a neutral financial system. You know, I mean when you think about Tether and how much money they make and how they make I think they make more than more money than BlackRock um last year and a couple of their quarters. Um And then you think about how they're embedded in the US uh system. You know, you just got to ask yourself it is this part of the co-option? Are we being conned here? Are we being sold a story that basically says, right, you have to get on board with this because of X, Y, and Z but really it's just another control narrative by the back door. Yeah, I I think that's really well said. Uh and I think it's probably um a topic of conversation that is just uh under explored to a point of disservice to our community. Um and so I really do appreciate you kind of talking through that and um you know, maybe maybe we can let those thoughts linger a little bit for for the Bitcoin winner listening who you know, is just generally Bitcoin and stable coins, you know, that's that's the future. Make sure you're thinking about what the what the tradeoffs are there and and you know, do are these things ultimately compatible in a hyper bitcoinized world or are they direct competitors uh or or are they you know, are they on the same mission? Um and and I think it's uh it's a tough question to to answer. It really is. Um so I appreciate you sharing those thoughts and I know that we're, you know, right around that time, but before we go, do you have any last thoughts or or anything you want to leave the audience with? And Susie, also just let people know how they can follow along as you continue to uh take on the BBC, take on British politics, you know, try and separate Bitcoin from crypto, everything all the amazing work that you're working on. Uh you know, get give us your last your last thoughts. So Bitcoin is important for me because I want a freedom money. I don't like the direction of travel with governments becoming more authoritarianism, surveillance states coming in, transactions being um monitored. Every everything we do, we have no privacy. We mentioned this at the beginning. You know, privacy has become a dirty word, but it's very, very normal. I want us to go back to uh a world and and and live a life where we can have our own sovereignty. And I think that the way that we achieve that is through Bitcoin by separating money and state and by making governments smaller. And if people can keep that in mind, I understand that the financialization of Bitcoin is an inevitable part of its growth and its adoption and I completely accept that. But please don't forget that self-custody is what makes Bitcoin special and Bitcoin ultimately should be a freedom money in my opinion if it's going to succeed. Wow. Well said. Well said. Susie, thank you so much. Uh this was a wonderful conversation. Uh and, you know, excited to see um excited to see you eventually become the uh Prime Minister of the UK and to >> way. I'm building a new system. Fuck the old one. There's no way I'm going to be working for No, absolutely not. Oh, and I forgot to say you can find out about my work at Decentrices on X, but no, definitely not becoming the next UK Prime Minister. Well, well, we'll check that one off the road map, but uh regardless, Suzie, this been a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much, and excited to see you in Vegas soon. Yes, see you soon.