WEBVTT 00:00:00.017 --> 00:00:05.677 So now we know that it's there in writing that Epstein was funding this, 00:00:06.037 --> 00:00:12.757 while the Bitcoin Foundation, which imploded, was run by Brock Pierce, 00:00:12.997 --> 00:00:16.877 who was Jeffrey Epstein's advisor on crypto since 2011. 00:00:16.877 --> 00:00:22.377 So this gets more intertwined than I could have ever imagined. 00:00:22.477 --> 00:00:25.917 And as we'll continue to discuss, it even gets worse from there. 00:00:28.377 --> 00:00:30.897 You're listening to the Corbett report. 00:00:33.581 --> 00:00:38.541 Welcome back, friends. Welcome back to The Corbett Report. It is February of 2026, 00:00:38.541 --> 00:00:43.381 and today I have a very important report for those who might be thinking that 00:00:43.381 --> 00:00:48.301 they are suspicious of all of the attention and coverage that the Epstein files 00:00:48.301 --> 00:00:50.041 are gaining in the establishment media. 00:00:50.041 --> 00:00:55.101 If the establishment media is talking about it, it must be a psyop and distraction, right? 00:00:55.441 --> 00:01:00.121 Well, it might be a distraction of sorts. That is a distraction from some of 00:01:00.121 --> 00:01:07.501 the really scandalous, truly amazing information that we have uncovered in these Epstein files. 00:01:07.801 --> 00:01:11.901 And specifically, I'm not talking about the more prurient and more sensational 00:01:11.901 --> 00:01:16.361 headline grabbing types of scandals. I'm talking about a scandal that you may 00:01:16.361 --> 00:01:20.061 not have heard about, but is probably one of the more important revelations 00:01:20.061 --> 00:01:21.381 from the Epstein files so far. 00:01:21.681 --> 00:01:26.661 It is contained in a very extensive, very well-documented article that is now 00:01:26.661 --> 00:01:30.421 up on brownstone.org. It is called The Hijacking of Bitcoin, 00:01:30.421 --> 00:01:33.221 and it is by today's guest, Aaron Day. 00:01:33.441 --> 00:01:36.141 So, Aaron, thank you very much for joining us today on The Corbett Report. 00:01:37.281 --> 00:01:40.401 Thank you for having me on. All right, let's get into this article, 00:01:40.441 --> 00:01:43.901 which starts by saying the original vision for Bitcoin was simple. 00:01:43.901 --> 00:01:47.281 Peer-to-peer digital cash, free from banks and government. 00:01:47.561 --> 00:01:52.621 However, this article argues that this vision was deliberately hijacked as Bitcoin 00:01:52.621 --> 00:01:57.541 is now pushed as digital gold, a scarce asset for Wall Street with slow and 00:01:57.541 --> 00:01:59.561 expensive transactions for everyday use. 00:01:59.781 --> 00:02:04.341 All right. Well, Aaron, my audience may or may not be familiar with the ins 00:02:04.341 --> 00:02:08.921 and outs of the development of Bitcoin in the crypto space. So just to get everybody 00:02:08.921 --> 00:02:12.101 on board, perhaps we can start with just some basic information. 00:02:12.441 --> 00:02:17.521 You start by talking about the 2015 to 2017 block size fight. 00:02:17.861 --> 00:02:22.101 So can you tell us what was the original Satoshi Nakamoto white paper vision 00:02:22.101 --> 00:02:25.381 for Bitcoin? What were the block size wars about? 00:02:25.561 --> 00:02:28.141 And how did that subvert that original vision? 00:02:28.891 --> 00:02:33.271 Sure. Well, I'd like to start by taking a step back even before that, 00:02:33.511 --> 00:02:37.771 which is to go back to 2008 when we had the financial collapse, 00:02:38.291 --> 00:02:43.171 well, the global financial collapse, but certainly a lot of it was centered in the United States. 00:02:43.691 --> 00:02:47.951 And, you know, at this point in time, the banks were bailed out to the tune 00:02:47.951 --> 00:02:52.811 of billions of dollars, 10 million plus people lost their homes. 00:02:52.951 --> 00:02:57.571 And so there was actually a bit of unity coming out of the financial collapse 00:02:57.571 --> 00:03:03.671 and the bailout where you had the Tea Party on the right and you had the Occupy 00:03:03.671 --> 00:03:06.091 Wall Street movement, which was manufactured. 00:03:06.091 --> 00:03:13.211 But nevertheless, you had the right and the left unified in their lack of support 00:03:13.211 --> 00:03:18.531 and lack of confidence in the traditional banking system for that at that moment in time. 00:03:18.871 --> 00:03:22.331 Bitcoin was essentially launched a year later. 00:03:22.551 --> 00:03:26.851 And the idea and the promise behind Bitcoin and what was written about in what's 00:03:26.851 --> 00:03:31.051 called the Bitcoin white paper was that, you know, the first time for the first 00:03:31.051 --> 00:03:34.871 time we had this idea of having peer to peer digital cash. 00:03:34.871 --> 00:03:40.991 You had a cryptocurrency that could be used as an alternative to central banks, 00:03:41.211 --> 00:03:43.211 as an alternative to commercial banks. 00:03:43.231 --> 00:03:47.731 This was a form of money that was not created by these third parties. 00:03:48.444 --> 00:03:53.484 That had a fixed supply that was intended to be used as an alternative currency. 00:03:53.624 --> 00:03:56.784 It was intended to be used as something that you would use to buy groceries 00:03:56.784 --> 00:04:00.464 or to buy coffee or to do day-to-day transactions. 00:04:00.904 --> 00:04:05.724 And it's a global currency, which is really important when you consider that 00:04:05.724 --> 00:04:10.644 71% of the planet makes less than $10 per day. 00:04:10.824 --> 00:04:14.044 So the idea behind this is that you would now have a currency that you could 00:04:14.044 --> 00:04:18.584 use for day-to-day transactions that would have low transaction fees. 00:04:18.744 --> 00:04:23.084 And it's something anyone anywhere in the world could use for day-to-day purchases. 00:04:23.384 --> 00:04:27.224 So that was essentially the starting point. That was what the white paper was about. 00:04:28.404 --> 00:04:33.044 And that's how people were using Bitcoin in the early days. 00:04:33.224 --> 00:04:38.084 I was introduced to Bitcoin in 2012 by a guy named Roger Beer, 00:04:38.144 --> 00:04:43.144 who was speaking at a conference in my home state of New Hampshire called Liberty Forum. 00:04:43.944 --> 00:04:48.924 And he talked about what I just talked about, which is that finally we had an 00:04:48.924 --> 00:04:55.904 opportunity to go around these central banks that foment wars on both sides and so on and so forth. 00:04:56.084 --> 00:05:01.004 And that got me excited. And so I actually started using it myself in New Hampshire. 00:05:01.224 --> 00:05:06.804 In fact, at that point in time, 2012, 2013, there were numerous restaurants 00:05:06.804 --> 00:05:13.224 and stores in New Hampshire that we're accepting Bitcoin as a payment method. 00:05:13.464 --> 00:05:18.744 And a lot of people don't understand this at all about the initial use of Bitcoin. 00:05:18.964 --> 00:05:24.024 Most people, because I've gone, my wife and I have been to 27 US states, 00:05:24.264 --> 00:05:30.364 four countries talking about technocracy and central banks and what you can do as an alternative. 00:05:30.624 --> 00:05:35.904 In fact, you had me on the solutions report to talk about that a year or two 00:05:35.904 --> 00:05:40.704 ago at this point. And so we were using Bitcoin for that purpose. 00:05:40.904 --> 00:05:49.584 And by 2017, there were major retailers and organizations accepting Bitcoin directly. 00:05:49.944 --> 00:05:52.284 You had Overstock.com. 00:05:52.927 --> 00:05:55.927 Where you can buy everything from furniture to a whole variety of different 00:05:55.927 --> 00:05:59.207 products. Microsoft accepted Bitcoin directly. 00:06:00.107 --> 00:06:05.267 Expedia accepted Bitcoin directly. You could actually book your travel and flights. 00:06:05.927 --> 00:06:09.487 There were Subway sandwich franchises that were taking Bitcoin. 00:06:09.487 --> 00:06:12.927 It was really hitting mainstream adoption. 00:06:13.347 --> 00:06:15.647 And then all of a sudden in 2017. 00:06:17.585 --> 00:06:23.585 Bitcoin went from being fast and inexpensive to use, in fact, 00:06:23.785 --> 00:06:26.205 cheaper than using the traditional financial system. 00:06:26.505 --> 00:06:30.545 If you're using a credit card, for instance, the credit card processing, 00:06:30.785 --> 00:06:35.065 credit card processor typically charges, you know, 29 cents per transaction 00:06:35.065 --> 00:06:37.865 plus 3.29% of the transaction. 00:06:38.165 --> 00:06:41.945 And at that point in time, Bitcoin was better, faster, cheaper money. 00:06:41.945 --> 00:06:51.065 But then all of a sudden, as the usage surged, by Q4 2017, you were seeing average 00:06:51.065 --> 00:06:54.325 transaction fees of $50, $50. 00:06:55.365 --> 00:07:01.125 And it would take anywhere from 7 to 10 days to actually finalize a transaction. 00:07:01.405 --> 00:07:07.145 Well, obviously, no business can afford to pay $50 for transaction fees, 00:07:07.145 --> 00:07:10.405 and no one's going to be willing to wait 7 to 10 days. 00:07:10.405 --> 00:07:16.105 And so all of a sudden, people stopped using Bitcoin for day-to-day transactions, 00:07:16.105 --> 00:07:20.305 which we'll get into. The narrative started to shift. 00:07:20.725 --> 00:07:24.285 People stopped talking about Bitcoin as peer-to-peer digital cash. 00:07:24.365 --> 00:07:29.265 And then out of nowhere, people started talking about Bitcoin as being digital 00:07:29.265 --> 00:07:32.545 gold. They started talking about it as being a store of value, 00:07:32.865 --> 00:07:36.525 something that you don't spend, something that you just hold on to. 00:07:36.945 --> 00:07:42.045 And because there are only 21 million Bitcoin, allegedly, that will ever be 00:07:42.045 --> 00:07:45.325 created, it's even more scarce than gold. 00:07:45.805 --> 00:07:49.645 And, you know, therefore, you know, you should hold it and never spend it. 00:07:49.805 --> 00:07:52.225 And so this this shift happened. 00:07:53.565 --> 00:07:56.865 And, you know, I kind of the end point of the shift was 2017, 00:07:56.865 --> 00:08:01.305 but it turns out there was a process building up to that. 00:08:02.875 --> 00:08:06.015 Um it from you know kind of 2015 to 00:08:06.015 --> 00:08:08.935 2017 and we now know 00:08:08.935 --> 00:08:11.675 more specifically who the players were and 00:08:11.675 --> 00:08:14.675 it does involve jeffrey epstein it involves 00:08:14.675 --> 00:08:20.855 people from traditional finance that were involved in funding and the not only 00:08:20.855 --> 00:08:26.115 the changes to the system itself but were heavily involved in what i'll call 00:08:26.115 --> 00:08:32.915 the propaganda to change the public narrative from a digital currency to this store value. 00:08:34.275 --> 00:08:39.915 And for people who need more detail and information on that process of the hijacking 00:08:39.915 --> 00:08:42.935 of Bitcoin and what the block size fight was about, 00:08:43.115 --> 00:08:47.815 I would highly recommend that they read the book by Roger Veer with Steve Patterson, 00:08:47.895 --> 00:08:50.315 Hijacking Bitcoin, The Hidden History of BTC. 00:08:50.475 --> 00:08:54.475 It's at hijackingbitcoin.com. It goes through that history and talks about some 00:08:54.475 --> 00:08:57.735 of the, well, more of the detail of what you've just mentioned there. 00:08:57.735 --> 00:09:02.075 But let's start bringing in the Epstein side of this. And in order to do that, 00:09:02.155 --> 00:09:05.895 I think we have to start at least setting the pieces on the table here. 00:09:06.055 --> 00:09:10.995 So perhaps we can start by talking about the early Bitcoin foundation that was 00:09:10.995 --> 00:09:15.475 running in the early 2010s that funded the core Bitcoin developers, 00:09:15.475 --> 00:09:18.275 how that collapsed and what that collapse. 00:09:18.615 --> 00:09:21.415 Well, what came in to fill the vacuum of that collapse? 00:09:22.311 --> 00:09:26.271 Yeah. And the way that I actually found out about all of this is I wrote a book 00:09:26.271 --> 00:09:28.411 a few years back called The Final Countdown. 00:09:28.551 --> 00:09:31.431 And my interest in this has been several fold. 00:09:31.571 --> 00:09:38.091 One, you know, as a user of Bitcoin who found Bitcoin to be become unusable 00:09:38.091 --> 00:09:42.271 by 2017, you know, I've been I've been interested in studying the history of this. 00:09:42.511 --> 00:09:46.171 But I've also been studying central bank digital currencies. 00:09:46.871 --> 00:09:52.911 And so three, three and a half years ago, I was studying what was going on primarily 00:09:52.911 --> 00:09:56.571 because I was noticing that friends of mine that are at the intersection of 00:09:56.571 --> 00:09:59.371 crypto and liberty were being targeted by the federal government. 00:09:59.851 --> 00:10:04.371 And I looked into, well, why is this happening? Why specifically are people 00:10:04.371 --> 00:10:09.471 that are promoting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as an alternative to central banks? 00:10:09.591 --> 00:10:12.751 Why are these people being targeted by the federal government? 00:10:12.931 --> 00:10:20.611 And then I discovered that there's a global movement to roll out central bank digital currencies. 00:10:20.831 --> 00:10:25.331 And the central bank digital currency is a digital form of fiat that can be 00:10:25.331 --> 00:10:29.831 tracked, programmed, and censored by the government and other third parties. 00:10:29.991 --> 00:10:34.551 So this is a, if you're interested in freedom and privacy, the last thing you 00:10:34.551 --> 00:10:38.851 want to see is central bank digital currency rollouts. 00:10:39.051 --> 00:10:44.691 And so as I started researching this, I found that there are 134 countries around 00:10:44.691 --> 00:10:50.211 the world at various stages of developing and rolling out CBDCs. 00:10:50.311 --> 00:10:52.691 11 countries have already rolled out CBDCs. 00:10:53.271 --> 00:10:57.751 And these countries represent 98% of global GDP. 00:10:58.231 --> 00:11:05.111 So, I mean, this is essentially everyone effectively is actively engaged in working on these CBDCs. 00:11:05.731 --> 00:11:08.931 Well, then, you know, I started being based in the United States, 00:11:08.931 --> 00:11:11.271 I started looking at, well, what's going on in the United States? 00:11:11.391 --> 00:11:13.231 Where does the United States stand on this? 00:11:13.451 --> 00:11:18.031 And that's where I found, and most people still to this day don't know this. 00:11:19.080 --> 00:11:26.520 The Federal Reserve Bank has conducted three successful pilots of central bank digital currencies. 00:11:26.780 --> 00:11:32.920 There's a project called Project Hamilton, which is a project to replace essentially the dollar. 00:11:33.140 --> 00:11:35.500 It's a digital version of the dollar. 00:11:35.800 --> 00:11:40.820 And this project has been going on since I want to say 2018. 00:11:41.760 --> 00:11:47.460 They've developed a digital currency that can handle 1.7 million transactions 00:11:47.460 --> 00:11:51.940 per second, far more than the current capacity of the U.S. 00:11:52.060 --> 00:11:54.180 Financial system. This has actually been built. 00:11:54.720 --> 00:11:59.720 This has been tested. There's another called Project CEDAR and a third called 00:11:59.720 --> 00:12:01.080 Regulated Liability Network. 00:12:01.200 --> 00:12:10.520 Well, when I was investigating these, what I found was all three of these CBDC pilots came out of MIT. 00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:15.640 So it was MIT working with either the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston with this 00:12:15.640 --> 00:12:20.480 Project Hamilton or working with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with the other two. 00:12:20.840 --> 00:12:26.420 And at the time, I discovered that Jeffrey Epstein had funded. 00:12:27.515 --> 00:12:30.795 This group out of MIT that was working on these CBDCs. 00:12:30.895 --> 00:12:34.255 So in my book and in subsequent articles, I made the point that, 00:12:34.375 --> 00:12:38.015 well, hey, it looks like Jeffrey Epstein is funding these CBDC pilots. 00:12:38.695 --> 00:12:43.515 What I also found is, to your point about the Bitcoin Foundation, 00:12:43.795 --> 00:12:47.955 so to take a step back, Bitcoin is an open source project. 00:12:48.075 --> 00:12:49.735 So it's open source code. 00:12:49.915 --> 00:12:54.295 Anybody can go online and go to the GitHub and you can actually download and 00:12:54.295 --> 00:12:56.555 review and audit the code. 00:12:56.755 --> 00:13:00.935 There's no central organization behind Bitcoin. 00:13:01.715 --> 00:13:05.295 So you have open source developers and people that contribute to the project, 00:13:05.295 --> 00:13:08.535 but there's no corporate entity funding it. 00:13:08.995 --> 00:13:11.935 Well, a lot of people might say, well, hey, this sounds great, 00:13:12.035 --> 00:13:16.595 but it turns out that open source developers don't develop code for free. 00:13:17.235 --> 00:13:21.555 There aren't also other white hat actors that are going out there auditing code 00:13:21.555 --> 00:13:25.135 for free. People work for compensation. 00:13:25.775 --> 00:13:28.555 This shouldn't be news to anyone. This shouldn't be a surprise. 00:13:29.015 --> 00:13:33.555 But if you have an open source project, then the project itself is subject to 00:13:33.555 --> 00:13:39.275 whoever's funding the developers, and the project could go in a direction you don't want it to go. 00:13:39.475 --> 00:13:43.835 So what happened is an organization was formed, a nonprofit, that was a nonprofit. 00:13:44.421 --> 00:13:49.721 Called the bitcoin foundation and it had you know five original people involved 00:13:49.721 --> 00:13:53.961 with funding it roger veer and some of the uh earlier developers and a lot of 00:13:53.961 --> 00:13:58.561 people contributed and the idea was that this bitcoin foundation would preserve 00:13:58.561 --> 00:14:01.601 the integrity of the project and preserve the integrity. 00:14:02.501 --> 00:14:07.861 Of the white paper um there's a whole sort of history which by the way should 00:14:07.861 --> 00:14:10.761 be written and researched on its own separately. 00:14:11.101 --> 00:14:19.661 I guarantee you there's a multi-part series on the internal dynamics of what 00:14:19.661 --> 00:14:21.801 happened with the Bitcoin Foundation. 00:14:22.541 --> 00:14:28.001 But before I get into kind of where the Bitcoin Foundation broke down and how 00:14:28.001 --> 00:14:32.941 this ties into Jeffrey Epstein, I want to talk about a character named Brock Pierce. 00:14:33.621 --> 00:14:40.461 Now, Brock Pierce is somebody that I've encountered. I encountered him first about 26, 27 years ago. 00:14:40.601 --> 00:14:42.741 And I didn't even know who he was at the time. 00:14:42.901 --> 00:14:45.961 I didn't even connect the dots until 2015. 00:14:46.641 --> 00:14:51.381 And without going into my own story and background, I'll give you the quick version of it. 00:14:51.461 --> 00:14:55.101 I started a technology company in 1995. 00:14:56.081 --> 00:15:01.681 And I was in the process of taking this company public. And we hired an investment 00:15:01.681 --> 00:15:04.101 bank, this firm called Lazard Frere, 00:15:04.281 --> 00:15:09.281 which is a really niche boutique investment bank out of New York City, 00:15:09.381 --> 00:15:12.341 but they usually only work on really high end deals. 00:15:12.541 --> 00:15:15.661 And so it was a big deal that they were working on, you know, 00:15:15.801 --> 00:15:19.941 our IPO as a kind of early technology company. 00:15:20.041 --> 00:15:24.321 But they had another company ahead of us that they were in the process of taking 00:15:24.321 --> 00:15:28.261 public called Digital Entertainment Network, den. 00:15:28.561 --> 00:15:33.541 And I encourage you to research on your own everything involved in this company. 00:15:33.661 --> 00:15:38.541 But the punchline is the company never went public and ended up filing for bankruptcy 00:15:38.541 --> 00:15:43.901 because all of the founders, including Brock Pierce, had to flee the United States to. 00:15:44.772 --> 00:15:50.092 Because they were being charged with, you know, sex trafficking, 00:15:50.152 --> 00:15:53.052 or I don't know if it was sex trafficking, but there were underage boys, 00:15:53.072 --> 00:15:54.552 and it was a whole big scandal. 00:15:54.792 --> 00:15:56.932 And so basically, all of the founders left. 00:15:57.452 --> 00:16:02.192 Brock Pierce had previously been a child star, he was in the movie Mighty Ducks. 00:16:02.292 --> 00:16:07.692 And so he was actually brought in as a really young CEO to be the face of the project. 00:16:07.892 --> 00:16:11.372 And I, you know, I don't want to say anything defamatory about him that he was 00:16:11.372 --> 00:16:16.752 necessarily leading the charge on, you know, the other illegal activities. 00:16:16.752 --> 00:16:21.072 But the other two founders, I believe, were found guilty and were in hiding. 00:16:21.272 --> 00:16:22.372 Everybody went to Spain. 00:16:22.812 --> 00:16:26.912 Needless to say that their IPO didn't happen. And this actually impacted me 00:16:26.912 --> 00:16:33.512 directly because it actually shut the IPO window because the taint surrounding this project. 00:16:33.632 --> 00:16:35.752 And so I didn't know anything about it. I didn't pay attention. 00:16:35.992 --> 00:16:38.052 I couldn't have told you it was Brock Pierce then. 00:16:38.352 --> 00:16:43.232 But it resurfaced that then all of a sudden, the same guy, the same Brock Pierce, 00:16:43.432 --> 00:16:46.412 ended up becoming the chair of the Bitcoin Foundation. 00:16:47.752 --> 00:16:50.732 And I thought that was weird, just based on his background. I'm like, 00:16:50.832 --> 00:16:53.452 why is this guy the chair of the Bitcoin Foundation? 00:16:53.852 --> 00:17:00.392 But we later find in the Epstein files that Brock Pierce went to Little St. 00:17:00.532 --> 00:17:05.432 James Island to an event hosted by Jeffrey Epstein in 2011. 00:17:05.852 --> 00:17:10.752 I believe it was called a MindShift conference. A whole bunch of people from 00:17:10.752 --> 00:17:15.852 diverse technical areas were kind of sharing ideas and brainstorming and networking. 00:17:16.372 --> 00:17:23.632 And coming out of that 2011 event, essentially, Brock Pierce began advising 00:17:23.632 --> 00:17:27.652 Jeffrey Epstein on all matters related to cryptocurrency. 00:17:28.152 --> 00:17:32.372 And I will tell you, no one knew this. I mean, I've been involved in crypto since 2010. 00:17:32.512 --> 00:17:35.172 I know people that have been involved in crypto since 20, excuse me, 00:17:35.232 --> 00:17:37.972 I was involved in 2012. I know people that have been involved since 2010. 00:17:38.552 --> 00:17:43.632 No one knew that Jeffrey Epstein had any involvement at all. 00:17:43.632 --> 00:17:47.612 Even the article that I wrote suggesting that he was involved in CBDCs, 00:17:47.692 --> 00:17:52.772 I only found one article where Jeffrey Epstein was ever interviewed talking 00:17:52.772 --> 00:17:58.012 about Bitcoin, and it was in a publication called NexaWeb from 2017. 00:17:58.712 --> 00:18:01.412 So the only article we ever have from 00:18:01.412 --> 00:18:04.732 Jeffrey Epstein is in 2017 where he discusses 00:18:04.732 --> 00:18:10.232 the fact that he believes that Bitcoin is not a currency the peer-to-peer digital 00:18:10.232 --> 00:18:14.652 cash is outlined in the white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto but rather he thinks 00:18:14.652 --> 00:18:18.332 it's a store of value and I thought it was very bizarre like why is the only 00:18:18.332 --> 00:18:23.952 article this guy ever has on this topic him talking about this narrative shift. 00:18:24.112 --> 00:18:27.892 It didn't make any sense to me, but I suggested in an article that, 00:18:27.932 --> 00:18:32.512 hey, maybe he was involved in not only funding MIT and these CBDCs, 00:18:32.652 --> 00:18:34.872 but then this other part where. 00:18:36.050 --> 00:18:39.350 The Bitcoin Foundation, as I mentioned, is this nonprofit that's funding these 00:18:39.350 --> 00:18:41.890 developers where Brock Pierce is the chair. 00:18:42.070 --> 00:18:45.370 In 2015, that organization implodes. 00:18:45.930 --> 00:18:50.190 They have a whole series of internal issues, financial issues. 00:18:50.770 --> 00:18:55.570 Some of the people on the board had issues with the government involving cryptocurrency 00:18:55.570 --> 00:18:58.690 exchanges and money laundering and so on and so forth. 00:18:58.690 --> 00:19:06.150 And so it just so happens, as Bitcoin is making this shift from digital cash to digital gold, 00:19:06.510 --> 00:19:11.650 the funding of the developers went from the Bitcoin Foundation, 00:19:11.650 --> 00:19:14.230 headed by Brock Pierce, to MIT. 00:19:14.770 --> 00:19:18.850 MIT started to take over the funding of these developers. 00:19:19.530 --> 00:19:22.530 And i suggested that Epstein might be involved 00:19:22.530 --> 00:19:25.670 and we now know from the Epstein files that not only was he involved 00:19:25.670 --> 00:19:28.630 but in an email from Joi Ito who 00:19:28.630 --> 00:19:32.030 is the head of MIT to Jeffrey Epstein 00:19:32.030 --> 00:19:38.690 uh you know exchange uh Epstein's money was explicitly earmarked to fund these 00:19:38.690 --> 00:19:44.870 developers and they even name the developers there's uh Gavin Andresen there's 00:19:44.870 --> 00:19:49.170 uh Wladimir van der Laan or something like that, and a guy by the name of Cory Fields. 00:19:49.770 --> 00:19:55.290 So now we know that it's there in writing that Epstein was funding this, 00:19:55.330 --> 00:19:59.830 while the Bitcoin Foundation, which imploded, 00:20:00.110 --> 00:20:06.490 was run by Brock Pierce, who was Jeffrey Epstein's advisor on crypto since 2011. 00:20:06.490 --> 00:20:12.010 So this gets more intertwined than I could have ever imagined. 00:20:12.090 --> 00:20:15.510 And as we'll continue to discuss, it even gets worse from there. 00:20:17.784 --> 00:20:21.564 It does. And you've already painted a quite an incredible picture there. 00:20:21.744 --> 00:20:24.704 And for people who need to see the evidence, obviously, Broc, 00:20:24.864 --> 00:20:29.864 my video editor, will be showing this on the screen, the specific email exchanges 00:20:29.864 --> 00:20:30.744 that you're talking about. 00:20:30.884 --> 00:20:36.004 But of course, they're all contained in this voluminous article that we're discussing here. 00:20:36.204 --> 00:20:40.764 So we've set the table and now we have a sense of some of the players that are on this table. 00:20:40.764 --> 00:20:46.724 How do things develop from the point that we have MIT starting to fund, 00:20:46.964 --> 00:20:50.544 literally fund, the core developers of Bitcoin? How does the change take place 00:20:50.544 --> 00:20:53.604 and what other organizations and people are involved in it? 00:20:54.724 --> 00:21:01.224 Well, there's another step that actually happened before MIT took over the funding of the developers. 00:21:01.224 --> 00:21:04.224 And this involves the company Blockstream that you'd mentioned. 00:21:04.224 --> 00:21:08.544 And Roger Ver's book and Steve Patterson's book, Hijacking Bitcoin, 00:21:09.024 --> 00:21:14.024 goes into this in some detail. But I do want to explain a little bit about what 00:21:14.024 --> 00:21:16.324 Blockstream is and how all this fits in. 00:21:16.724 --> 00:21:23.384 So Blockstream is a company that was started by a few early Bitcoin core developers. 00:21:23.784 --> 00:21:26.944 And the basic idea behind Blockstream is this. 00:21:28.929 --> 00:21:31.829 What they did was, and we haven't really talked about the block size, 00:21:31.989 --> 00:21:35.889 but the original idea behind Bitcoin was for it to be peer-to-peer digital cash. 00:21:36.029 --> 00:21:41.429 And Satoshi Nakamoto discussed in these online discussion forums the idea that 00:21:41.429 --> 00:21:47.489 from the very beginning of Bitcoin, it was intended to compete with Visa and MasterCard. 00:21:47.489 --> 00:21:52.289 Satoshi talked about the idea that Bitcoin should, in the fairly early days, 00:21:52.529 --> 00:21:58.369 be able to handle 25,000 transactions per second and that it should be able 00:21:58.369 --> 00:22:05.589 to get even faster over time as computers get faster, as bandwidth increases, so on and so forth. 00:22:05.589 --> 00:22:09.589 He was looking at Metcalfe's law and some of these other things that apply to 00:22:09.589 --> 00:22:12.629 technology, which is that, you know, this still holds to this day, 00:22:12.769 --> 00:22:15.269 technology tends to get cheaper and faster. 00:22:15.389 --> 00:22:18.329 And so he was saying, well, hey, 25,000 transactions per second now, 00:22:18.429 --> 00:22:22.329 but this thing should scale to do millions of transactions per second. 00:22:23.060 --> 00:22:28.320 And so the way bitcoin works is you have what are called miners but i'll try 00:22:28.320 --> 00:22:33.660 to simplify how this works you have math you have computers all around the world 00:22:33.660 --> 00:22:35.980 that are trying to solve very complex, 00:22:36.660 --> 00:22:43.000 math problems that are very expensive in terms of computational power to solve these math problems, 00:22:43.620 --> 00:22:50.740 and the computer that solves the math problem first gets to add the the transactions 00:22:50.740 --> 00:22:55.840 from In this 10 minute interval, so there are every 10 minutes, 00:22:56.100 --> 00:23:02.380 a new math puzzle is solved and new transactions are added to the blockchain. 00:23:02.700 --> 00:23:07.160 So it's an immutable ledger. And every 10 minutes, there are new blocks of transactions 00:23:07.160 --> 00:23:08.720 being added to the blockchain. 00:23:09.640 --> 00:23:13.420 And the way that it was structured was at the very beginning, 00:23:13.640 --> 00:23:20.340 every 10 minutes, if you solve this math problem, you would get initially 50 Bitcoin. 00:23:21.140 --> 00:23:27.580 For solving the math puzzle, plus whatever transaction fees happen to occur 00:23:27.580 --> 00:23:29.680 in that block of transactions. 00:23:30.100 --> 00:23:35.380 And then every four years, this reward that started out as 50 would be a reward. 00:23:36.284 --> 00:23:44.144 So after four years, the miners would receive 25 Bitcoin for each block that was solved. 00:23:44.304 --> 00:23:46.644 And then four years after that, 12 and a half, et cetera. 00:23:46.904 --> 00:23:51.084 And you keep on doing this halving until at some point at the end, 00:23:51.884 --> 00:23:56.004 21 million Bitcoin had been created. And that was the fixed cap. 00:23:56.504 --> 00:24:01.304 Well, why was this structure put in place? The structure was put in place as 00:24:01.304 --> 00:24:06.324 an incentive early on, while there weren't a lot of transactions and transaction fees, 00:24:06.464 --> 00:24:10.684 it was an incentive for miners to secure the network and to have a lot of different 00:24:10.684 --> 00:24:15.444 computers competing to solve these math problems so that you didn't have the 00:24:15.444 --> 00:24:19.704 concentration of the network in the hands of a small group of people. 00:24:19.824 --> 00:24:22.964 This was the economic system of Bitcoin. 00:24:24.356 --> 00:24:32.296 And so there was a one mega, the original design had no limit to the size of the blocks. 00:24:32.556 --> 00:24:36.956 So in other words, the original idea was, well, yeah, we should be able to process 00:24:36.956 --> 00:24:38.856 25,000 transactions per second. 00:24:39.036 --> 00:24:44.796 These blocks were expected to become large and the miners were expected to be 00:24:44.796 --> 00:24:47.236 computers that were in big data centers. 00:24:47.456 --> 00:24:50.136 This was, you know, again, Satoshi talked about this at length, 00:24:50.136 --> 00:24:53.156 but early on as they were testing the network, 00:24:53.656 --> 00:24:57.436 you know, as you're testing these kinds of systems and you're trying to work 00:24:57.436 --> 00:25:03.656 out the kinks, they put in a one megabyte limit just for testing purposes. 00:25:03.896 --> 00:25:10.096 Well, that one megabyte limit, you can only put about the equivalent of seven 00:25:10.096 --> 00:25:13.896 transactions per second worth of data into a block. 00:25:14.516 --> 00:25:19.876 So this was initially done as a test. And then this is why we discuss in the 00:25:19.876 --> 00:25:22.356 hijacking part of this, a whole bunch of people then decided, 00:25:22.556 --> 00:25:26.256 well, we're going to make that one megabyte cap permanent. 00:25:27.556 --> 00:25:30.936 And they put a whole bunch of argumentation around it. The network needs to 00:25:30.936 --> 00:25:32.776 be decentralized, so on and so forth. 00:25:33.916 --> 00:25:38.596 And so we're going to cap, we're going to throttle Bitcoin so that it can only 00:25:38.596 --> 00:25:42.456 do seven transactions per second. But we're going to build what are called second 00:25:42.456 --> 00:25:45.416 layer solutions on top of Bitcoin. 00:25:46.718 --> 00:25:52.218 To be able to handle more transactions and to make it feel actual peer to peer digital cash. 00:25:52.398 --> 00:25:57.558 And so this company Blockstream was formed to be a second layer solution, 00:25:58.138 --> 00:26:03.898 a for profit company that would benefit and in fact would only be viable if 00:26:03.898 --> 00:26:07.518 Bitcoin was throttled at seven transactions per second. 00:26:07.978 --> 00:26:11.738 So does this make sense so far? Hopefully I'm I know a lot of it makes sense 00:26:11.738 --> 00:26:15.218 to me, but I've been following this for a long time for people who who need 00:26:15.218 --> 00:26:16.358 more information on this. 00:26:16.458 --> 00:26:20.518 Of course, they can see the Hijacking Bitcoin article and the Hijacking Bitcoin 00:26:20.518 --> 00:26:21.858 book that we talked about before. 00:26:21.998 --> 00:26:27.278 But yes, long story short, there are people who want to keep the blocks small. 00:26:27.458 --> 00:26:31.238 And those are the people working for companies like Blockstream that, 00:26:31.418 --> 00:26:34.138 oh, by the way, happen to have Tyse Epstein. So let's get into that. 00:26:34.718 --> 00:26:38.778 So there's that. So there's the company Blockstream that personally benefits 00:26:38.778 --> 00:26:41.518 from the blocks being small. 00:26:42.538 --> 00:26:47.238 And Blockstream as a corporation, and we knew this from hijacking Bitcoin and 00:26:47.238 --> 00:26:51.358 from publicly available information, had, let's just say, the kind of investors 00:26:51.358 --> 00:26:55.598 that the port of Bitcoin was to actually get rid of these kinds of companies 00:26:55.598 --> 00:26:56.498 in traditional finance. 00:26:56.658 --> 00:27:04.298 One of the big investors was a guy named DeCastries, who was the CEO of AXA, a big European company. 00:27:04.418 --> 00:27:09.018 He also happened to be the chair of the Bilderberg Group. 00:27:09.418 --> 00:27:16.058 So you had all of these companies investing in Blockstream that were part of 00:27:16.058 --> 00:27:20.618 traditional finance, the thing that Bitcoin was there to disintermediate, 00:27:20.698 --> 00:27:22.898 to get out of financial transactions. 00:27:23.218 --> 00:27:30.058 Well, what we found in these Epstein files is that Epstein actually invested in Blockstream. 00:27:31.144 --> 00:27:36.864 Before the collapse of the Bitcoin Foundation and before he funded the developers 00:27:36.864 --> 00:27:40.804 who cemented the changes that Blockstream benefited from. 00:27:41.184 --> 00:27:47.424 This was absolutely bombshell information for everyone. No one knew this. 00:27:47.604 --> 00:27:51.064 This was not something that was widely known at all. 00:27:51.184 --> 00:27:58.884 And in fact, the CEO of Blockstream from the emails apparently visited Epstein's 00:27:58.884 --> 00:28:03.084 island, as did others involved with Blockstream. 00:28:03.204 --> 00:28:06.684 And nobody had any idea that this was going on. 00:28:06.824 --> 00:28:11.684 So in other words, to simplify this, Epstein invests in Blockstream, 00:28:11.944 --> 00:28:16.184 a company that benefits from Bitcoin being throttled. 00:28:16.184 --> 00:28:22.364 And then seven or eight months later, fortuitously, the company that had been 00:28:22.364 --> 00:28:26.724 funding the Bitcoin core developers, which was chaired by Epstein's advisor, 00:28:26.904 --> 00:28:28.344 Brock Pierce, collapses. 00:28:29.004 --> 00:28:35.064 And then he ends up funding the MIT developers that cement the seven transactions 00:28:35.064 --> 00:28:37.844 per second and one megabyte block size. 00:28:38.044 --> 00:28:41.504 Just absolutely fascinating information. 00:28:41.884 --> 00:28:46.064 But it gets even more bizarre as we go through this. 00:28:46.184 --> 00:28:49.384 Because remember, my first foray into this was, hey, it looks like, 00:28:49.464 --> 00:28:52.704 why is Epstein funding these CBDC pilots? 00:28:53.964 --> 00:28:57.544 So there are a lot of people claiming that the second layer solutions for Bitcoin 00:28:57.544 --> 00:29:03.244 would enable it to be peer to peer digital cash as opposed to just, 00:29:03.404 --> 00:29:05.064 you know, following the original design. 00:29:05.784 --> 00:29:11.144 But what you find is if you're going to now change the narrative for Bitcoin 00:29:11.144 --> 00:29:14.344 and you're going to call it digital gold, you're going to call it a store of 00:29:14.344 --> 00:29:16.164 value. Well, in order to be a store of value. 00:29:17.452 --> 00:29:20.772 It needs to either maintain its price or go up in price. Otherwise, 00:29:21.032 --> 00:29:23.452 people will not view it as a store of value. 00:29:23.692 --> 00:29:26.352 Well, we're going to go back now to the same guy, Brock Pierce. 00:29:27.132 --> 00:29:32.752 Brock Pierce was a co-founder of a company called Tether, which you may have 00:29:32.752 --> 00:29:36.872 heard of, which is a very popular company even today and a very large company 00:29:36.872 --> 00:29:39.192 now. Tether is a stablecoin. 00:29:39.992 --> 00:29:45.372 A stablecoin is a digital token that essentially represents fiat, 00:29:45.612 --> 00:29:49.792 where one token, one USDT token equals $1. 00:29:50.552 --> 00:29:55.932 And in theory, how this is supposed to work is in order for this token, 00:29:56.292 --> 00:30:01.492 this tether, to maintain its peg, there need to be assets backing it that are 00:30:01.492 --> 00:30:05.472 equal to or greater than $1 worth of value. 00:30:06.332 --> 00:30:13.572 Well, it turns out that during this time period in 2017, when the narrative shift happens, 00:30:14.252 --> 00:30:21.852 a University of Texas study found that over 50% of the price appreciation from 00:30:21.852 --> 00:30:28.392 Bitcoin in 2017 was due to Tether being printed and used to buy Bitcoin. 00:30:28.392 --> 00:30:32.112 But it was separately found from two different actions, 00:30:32.432 --> 00:30:36.992 one from the CFTC and one from the state of New York, that Tether was, 00:30:37.112 --> 00:30:42.372 in fact, not fully backed and that the CFTC found, I believe, 00:30:42.552 --> 00:30:44.592 that there were really only 26, 00:30:45.012 --> 00:30:49.392 27 cents worth of assets backing one dollar's worth of Tether. 00:30:49.632 --> 00:30:53.292 In other words, they were printing Tether out of thin air. 00:30:54.632 --> 00:30:56.632 And claiming it was backed by 00:30:56.632 --> 00:31:00.412 fiat, which is also money that's printed out of thin air, but it wasn't. 00:31:00.552 --> 00:31:04.992 And then they were using that to pump the price of Bitcoin, which is what created 00:31:04.992 --> 00:31:07.992 the whole store of value narrative to begin with. 00:31:07.992 --> 00:31:13.012 So in other words, what I'm suggesting is the whole idea that Bitcoin is a good 00:31:13.012 --> 00:31:19.952 store of value is a fabrication based on this fake tether printing that, you know, 00:31:20.692 --> 00:31:25.812 Brock Pierce was the co-founder of that company, while also the guy responsible 00:31:25.812 --> 00:31:32.752 for handing over the development of the funding of the development of Bitcoin 00:31:32.752 --> 00:31:36.312 and hobbling it to MIT through Jeffrey Epstein. 00:31:36.992 --> 00:31:41.592 So it's just remarkable how all of these pieces are fitting together. 00:31:41.892 --> 00:31:46.112 More and more remarkable because it isn't just Brock Pierce connection. 00:31:46.212 --> 00:31:52.452 There's other connections to this stable coin space that present themselves in the Epstein files. 00:31:52.672 --> 00:31:55.772 Like, oh, who's been in the news recently for his Epstein connections? 00:31:55.952 --> 00:32:00.352 Oh, Howard Lutnick, who denied having extensive Epstein ties. 00:32:00.512 --> 00:32:03.912 Turns out he does have some Epstein ties. Let's talk about Howard Lutnick. 00:32:05.147 --> 00:32:09.847 Yeah, Howard Lutnick is a very fascinating character in all of this. 00:32:09.927 --> 00:32:12.767 And I've actually been writing about Lutnick for a while. 00:32:13.207 --> 00:32:21.947 And this story is also, to me, when I look at this, this is a level of corruption 00:32:21.947 --> 00:32:24.187 that's far beyond, say, for instance, 00:32:24.447 --> 00:32:28.567 Nancy Pelosi engaging in insider trading. 00:32:29.107 --> 00:32:33.807 Howard Lutnick is, and where people may have just become familiar with Howard 00:32:33.807 --> 00:32:40.947 Lutnick is, you know, he had to testify recently on his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. 00:32:41.687 --> 00:32:45.987 Howard Lutnick is Jeffrey Epstein's next door neighbor in New York. 00:32:46.167 --> 00:32:50.647 And, and it turns out, it looks like he might've purchased his house from a 00:32:50.647 --> 00:32:56.747 trust created by Epstein, which is bizarre in and of itself. 00:32:56.947 --> 00:32:59.747 And I'm not going to, you know, the fact that, you know, Epstein and, 00:32:59.747 --> 00:33:05.267 and Lutnick have, you know, nine and 11 are the addresses on the street that 00:33:05.267 --> 00:33:08.427 they share together in New York City that, you know, I'm not going to go, 00:33:08.587 --> 00:33:11.647 I don't know anything about where to draw conclusions with that. 00:33:11.747 --> 00:33:16.787 But when Lutnick was testifying for his position as U.S. 00:33:16.887 --> 00:33:22.047 Commerce Secretary, he claimed that, you know, he'd only met Epstein once in 00:33:22.047 --> 00:33:27.547 2006 in New York and was absolutely disgusted by him and had nothing to do with him. 00:33:27.807 --> 00:33:32.647 This was what he was saying as he was going through his confirmation process. 00:33:32.767 --> 00:33:36.867 And we now know from the Epstein files that that's not exactly true. 00:33:37.047 --> 00:33:45.007 We know that, in fact, Epstein donated, I think it was $50,000 to a fundraiser in Lutnick's name. 00:33:45.307 --> 00:33:48.587 Lutnick visited Epstein's island with his family. 00:33:48.987 --> 00:33:55.427 They were business partners together. So Lutnick completely lied about his relationship 00:33:55.427 --> 00:33:58.987 and then even when he was grilled on it he's like well you know. 00:33:59.826 --> 00:34:02.846 The extent of my relationship is whatever it is that's in these documents. 00:34:03.126 --> 00:34:07.926 We already know that he lied before, and so I'm sure there's even more to it than that. 00:34:08.006 --> 00:34:11.906 But I had separately written, before even knowing the Epstein connection, 00:34:12.726 --> 00:34:17.786 about Lutnick's involvement with Tether. Now, this is a fascinating story. 00:34:18.106 --> 00:34:22.926 I mean, I've been around politics for a long time, and no one heard about Howard Lutnick. 00:34:23.066 --> 00:34:27.386 Howard Lutnick was not a major player in Republican politics. 00:34:27.386 --> 00:34:32.986 In fact, he was a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in 2016. 00:34:33.426 --> 00:34:40.366 So this is not a guy that is known for his role in Republican politics. 00:34:41.086 --> 00:34:44.846 So I'm going to walk through the timeline here. So before the election, 00:34:45.106 --> 00:34:50.366 a few years before the election, Howard Lutnick, his firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, 00:34:50.586 --> 00:34:55.446 invested $600 million in Tether. 00:34:56.526 --> 00:35:01.386 They were the largest at that point ever outside investor in Tether. 00:35:01.926 --> 00:35:08.046 And part of the terms of this agreement were that in exchange for this investment, 00:35:08.346 --> 00:35:13.206 Cantor Fitzgerald would essentially get the exclusive contract to manage all 00:35:13.206 --> 00:35:16.066 of the United States treasuries backing Tether. 00:35:17.444 --> 00:35:20.904 Now, I know this gets a little bit complicated, but I want to walk back a few steps. 00:35:21.064 --> 00:35:25.704 So remember, I told you that Tether was found to not have reserves. 00:35:25.964 --> 00:35:29.884 Now, there was no requirement that Tether be backed by U.S. Treasuries. 00:35:30.124 --> 00:35:34.184 There's no regulation prior to this Genius Act, which I'm sure we'll get into. 00:35:35.124 --> 00:35:38.684 There was no requirement that you had to back your stablecoin by U.S. Treasuries. 00:35:38.824 --> 00:35:43.444 You could, for instance, back it by gold, silver, Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies, 00:35:44.184 --> 00:35:47.984 you know, whatever. Just so long as you had adequate backing, 00:35:48.684 --> 00:35:50.404 there was no rule or regulation. 00:35:50.664 --> 00:35:56.104 So Lutnick gets involved to manage treasuries. Now, did Tether even have treasuries? 00:35:56.304 --> 00:36:00.344 I want to point out at this point, which, by the way, to this day is still true. 00:36:01.104 --> 00:36:03.704 Tether has never passed an audit. 00:36:05.004 --> 00:36:08.104 They have never successfully passed an audit. And they've actually gotten to 00:36:08.104 --> 00:36:11.924 the point now where they can't even get an audit firm to work with them. 00:36:11.924 --> 00:36:15.364 So, you know, these big audit firms that work with publicly traded companies 00:36:15.364 --> 00:36:20.244 all the time apparently don't want to work with this company that has a now 00:36:20.244 --> 00:36:22.364 a multi hundred billion dollar market cap. 00:36:22.564 --> 00:36:25.844 That's kind of a red flag in and of itself. 00:36:26.284 --> 00:36:29.044 So Lutnick makes this investment. 00:36:30.173 --> 00:36:32.653 With the contingency that he gets to manage these treasuries, 00:36:33.233 --> 00:36:36.473 then all of a sudden he gets involved in Republican politics. 00:36:36.673 --> 00:36:39.853 Now, remember, he's a big fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in 2016. 00:36:39.853 --> 00:36:46.093 He goes from that to being the chair of Donald Trump's transition team. 00:36:46.633 --> 00:36:48.793 This is a massive position. 00:36:49.353 --> 00:36:54.373 The head of the transition team is responsible for vetting all of the cabinet, 00:36:54.473 --> 00:37:02.393 so is involved directly in recruiting and vetting every person at the level of the cabinet. 00:37:02.873 --> 00:37:07.233 So how you go from not being in the Republican Party politics and supporting 00:37:07.233 --> 00:37:11.353 Hillary Clinton to that role is something that needs to be investigated, 00:37:11.353 --> 00:37:13.613 because that's very, very bizarre. 00:37:14.833 --> 00:37:19.833 But what's worse than that is, originally, Lutnick was trying to engineer and 00:37:19.833 --> 00:37:22.513 put himself up for treasury secretary. 00:37:22.893 --> 00:37:28.713 He was actually trying to position himself. There was a big kind of debate about this. 00:37:28.853 --> 00:37:34.973 We now end up with this guy, Scott Bezant, who is an advisor to George Soros, 00:37:35.113 --> 00:37:37.413 which is a whole other separate bizarre situation. 00:37:37.413 --> 00:37:42.093 He ended up getting the treasury position, but there was a whole bunch of infighting 00:37:42.093 --> 00:37:44.453 and everything back and forth because Lutnick wanted the job. 00:37:44.613 --> 00:37:50.253 Well, think about this. Lutnick just cut a deal with his company to manage the treasuries for Tether. 00:37:50.473 --> 00:37:54.333 And then he wanted to become the Treasury Secretary. 00:37:55.313 --> 00:37:59.273 I think that was even found to be a little bit too blatantly corrupt. 00:37:59.613 --> 00:38:06.533 And so instead, Lutnick ended up as Commerce Secretary. But what he did was worked 00:38:06.533 --> 00:38:09.173 closely with this guy named Bo Hines. 00:38:09.433 --> 00:38:14.973 Bo Hines was brought in to be an advisor to Trump on crypto matters. 00:38:16.093 --> 00:38:22.493 And Lutnick, working with Bo Hines and others, drafted something called the Genius Act. 00:38:23.314 --> 00:38:28.494 Now, I've spoken a lot about the Genius Act, and a lot of people don't understand 00:38:28.494 --> 00:38:31.174 what the Genius Act is or what the implications are. 00:38:31.714 --> 00:38:35.934 As I mentioned, I was fighting CBDCs. I continue to fight CBDCs, 00:38:35.974 --> 00:38:39.394 and Trump came out and said, well, we're not going to have a CBDC. 00:38:39.574 --> 00:38:42.874 And he signed an executive order saying there's going to be no CBDC. 00:38:43.134 --> 00:38:45.314 So now people think that that issue is dead. 00:38:45.874 --> 00:38:49.794 But in essence, what we have instead is something much worse. 00:38:49.794 --> 00:38:54.774 We've passed something called the Genius Act, which I'm saying is a backdoor CVDC. 00:38:55.214 --> 00:39:01.234 What this legislation says is if you are a private stablecoin issuer, 00:39:01.554 --> 00:39:03.574 a regulated stablecoin issuer, 00:39:04.114 --> 00:39:10.174 one, you have to follow all of the financial surveillance that comes out of 00:39:10.174 --> 00:39:15.094 Congress currently, the Bank Secrecy Act, know your customer laws, all of that. 00:39:15.214 --> 00:39:19.594 You have to comply with all of that. So, in other words, your stable coins can 00:39:19.594 --> 00:39:24.554 be tracked and frozen and are now under the control of Congress. 00:39:24.554 --> 00:39:30.574 But on top of that, you now have to back your stable coins only with U.S. treasuries. 00:39:31.929 --> 00:39:37.889 This is a massive windfall. The biggest beneficiary of the Genius Act is Howard 00:39:37.889 --> 00:39:44.169 Lutnick, because his firm manages all of those treasuries and gets all of the 00:39:44.169 --> 00:39:46.429 fees for managing all of those treasuries. 00:39:47.029 --> 00:39:49.549 So, I mean, your audience is probably familiar with, you know, 00:39:49.629 --> 00:39:53.189 the Federal Reserve and the creature from Jekyll Island and the fact that the 00:39:53.189 --> 00:39:57.209 way our monetary system works going all the way back to 1910 is, 00:39:57.389 --> 00:39:59.629 you know, a shadowy group of bankers got together. 00:39:59.809 --> 00:40:05.329 And basically, we now have this system where, you know, we issue money based on debt. 00:40:05.449 --> 00:40:08.369 We don't even know who owns the Federal Reserve, so on and so forth. 00:40:08.509 --> 00:40:12.909 Well, Howard Lutnick one-upped this. So essentially now one of the largest players 00:40:12.909 --> 00:40:17.329 for the digital dollar, his firm is managing all of the treasuries. 00:40:17.529 --> 00:40:20.329 He's almost like leapfrogged the Federal Reserve. 00:40:20.549 --> 00:40:26.169 It's just it's breathtaking how, how bizarre this is and how corrupted it is on its face. 00:40:26.349 --> 00:40:30.409 I mean, it's just the fact that this, this is this is going on. Well, now we know. 00:40:32.449 --> 00:40:35.289 I suspect this. I haven't been able to prove this yet. 00:40:35.469 --> 00:40:40.849 But, you know, I have to think that somehow Pierce and Epstein were involved 00:40:40.849 --> 00:40:45.169 in bringing Lutnick into this because, you know, there are emails. 00:40:45.669 --> 00:40:50.649 And I actually also believe that it's likely that Epstein was involved in Tether 00:40:50.649 --> 00:40:56.209 as well, because we know that through Brock Pierce, Epstein invested in Circle, which is U.S. 00:40:57.489 --> 00:41:02.149 USDC, well, I mean, what's the likelihood that Epstein's not going to get a 00:41:02.149 --> 00:41:07.909 chance to invest in the very project that his crypto advisor has started, right? 00:41:08.109 --> 00:41:12.929 I mean, and in fact, there are emails back and forth where Brock Pierce is asking 00:41:12.929 --> 00:41:16.909 Epstein to introduce Larry Summers to Tether. 00:41:17.189 --> 00:41:21.849 So clearly there's communication back and forth where Epstein's involved with 00:41:21.849 --> 00:41:25.269 Tether. Epstein's involved at the level of, at the very beginning, 00:41:25.489 --> 00:41:27.029 trying to get Larry Summers involved. 00:41:27.569 --> 00:41:31.469 And I will point out, since this is timely today, I just saw in the news that 00:41:31.469 --> 00:41:39.489 Larry Summers has resigned from Harvard, where I believe he was the president, based on his extensive. 00:41:40.529 --> 00:41:43.389 Involvement and inclusion in the Epstein files. 00:41:43.549 --> 00:41:48.069 I mean, again, there's three million pages. I there is it's going to take months, 00:41:48.069 --> 00:41:53.229 if not years, for people to crowdsource and put together all the pieces on this. 00:41:53.389 --> 00:41:59.229 I've just focused my part on cryptocurrency and CBDCs and stable coins. 00:41:59.369 --> 00:42:02.449 And it's just absolutely breathtaking. 00:42:03.129 --> 00:42:10.049 So now, you know, I'm going all over the map, but that Bohinds comes in as a 00:42:10.049 --> 00:42:15.649 crypto advisor. Bo Hines and Lutnick and others pushed this genius act, 00:42:16.571 --> 00:42:23.671 which Lutnick's firm is the biggest beneficiary of. And then 10 days after the Genius Act passes, 00:42:24.691 --> 00:42:33.431 Bohinds leaves as Trump's crypto advisor and becomes the CEO of USA Tether, 00:42:33.651 --> 00:42:36.051 the USA subsidiary of Tether. 00:42:36.351 --> 00:42:41.511 Now, look, we are all familiar with revolving doors in government. 00:42:41.511 --> 00:42:47.491 I mean, this is very common in Wall Street and certainly in pharma where you'll 00:42:47.491 --> 00:42:51.251 see somebody from the FDA who then goes on to become an advisor. 00:42:52.351 --> 00:42:55.491 But even usually there's kind of an understanding of, hey, we should at least 00:42:55.491 --> 00:42:59.991 wait six to 12 months. This guy left after 10 days. 00:43:01.051 --> 00:43:08.091 And so now Tether is one of the first official government-sanctioned stablecoins, right? 00:43:08.875 --> 00:43:13.855 In the world, and Howard Lutnick is the biggest financial beneficiary. 00:43:14.135 --> 00:43:18.915 All of this, and Tether has never passed an audit. 00:43:19.215 --> 00:43:24.015 I actually, before the election, I was trying to get to Trump through people 00:43:24.015 --> 00:43:29.515 that are his advisors telling him, I think that Tether could be the big short 2.0. 00:43:29.815 --> 00:43:34.815 And now, based on the government involvement and the overlap of people in the 00:43:34.815 --> 00:43:37.235 administration, I think this thing is going to be too big to fail, 00:43:37.255 --> 00:43:41.215 because when you study the history of Tether and the people involved, 00:43:41.355 --> 00:43:44.075 I mean, the people that are involved with founding this were involved with, you know, 00:43:44.355 --> 00:43:47.295 alleged Ponzi schemes prior to their involvement with Tether. 00:43:47.415 --> 00:43:52.635 There's nothing about this that looks legit for this to essentially become like 00:43:52.635 --> 00:43:58.855 the main shining example of crypto innovation and so forth coming out of the U.S. 00:43:58.855 --> 00:44:04.935 There's one other reason that the government was so eager to pass the Genius Act. 00:44:05.535 --> 00:44:12.315 As you probably know, the U.S. has now 38, almost $39 trillion in debt. 00:44:12.895 --> 00:44:17.135 And no one wants to buy U.S. debt anymore. Japan is not in a position to be 00:44:17.135 --> 00:44:20.595 able to buy U.S. debt. China is selling U.S. debt. 00:44:21.215 --> 00:44:24.955 And, you know, certainly Congress isn't going to do something like balance the budget. 00:44:25.135 --> 00:44:31.555 We're continuing to have $1.5 trillion deficits every year. So how are they going to fund that? 00:44:31.915 --> 00:44:35.695 Well, by requiring these stable coins, which by the way, are popular, 00:44:35.835 --> 00:44:39.135 let me tell you how popular stable coins are in the last 12 months. 00:44:39.875 --> 00:44:47.435 Globally, stable coins were used in $33 trillion worth of financial transactions, 00:44:47.435 --> 00:44:49.055 that's actually greater than Visa. 00:44:49.435 --> 00:44:55.315 And at the rate that it's growing, by 2030, it will be $120 $20 trillion, 00:44:55.895 --> 00:45:00.295 which is more than Visa, MasterCard, and direct deposit combined. 00:45:00.295 --> 00:45:05.655 So this is a really popular solution all around the world. 00:45:06.480 --> 00:45:13.140 And now, because of that popularity, by requiring these stable coins to be backed 00:45:13.140 --> 00:45:17.320 by treasuries, our Treasury Secretary Besant initially said he believes we'll 00:45:17.320 --> 00:45:20.900 be able to sell $2 trillion worth of treasuries. 00:45:21.040 --> 00:45:25.180 In other words, we'll be able to fund $2 trillion in additional government debt. 00:45:25.300 --> 00:45:28.320 And he's since expanded that to now $3 trillion. 00:45:28.320 --> 00:45:35.080 So what we get out of the Genius Act is a backdoor CBDC that funds at least 00:45:35.080 --> 00:45:42.040 $3 trillion in additional debt where our commerce secretary's firm is the biggest beneficiary. 00:45:42.040 --> 00:45:43.640 It's just mind boggling. 00:45:44.236 --> 00:45:50.256 It is overwhelming. And I hope, I truly hope people at least sense, 00:45:50.576 --> 00:45:55.836 at least have the sense to understand that this is monumental, 00:45:56.516 --> 00:46:03.116 truly world changing information about what is going on on the monetary scale right now. 00:46:03.216 --> 00:46:07.496 And most people unfortunately will not because this is highfalutin economic 00:46:07.496 --> 00:46:08.496 sort of stuff, whatever. 00:46:08.736 --> 00:46:14.436 All I know is my stable coin will help invest for my retirement or something along those lines. 00:46:14.696 --> 00:46:19.736 But again, the scale of what has just taken place, hey, crypto decentralized, 00:46:20.276 --> 00:46:22.736 fight the man. It's against the central banks. We can go around. 00:46:22.896 --> 00:46:25.096 We don't need them. Disintermediate the banks. Yay. 00:46:25.896 --> 00:46:30.796 Two stable coins backed by treasuries. That maneuver that has taken place that 00:46:30.796 --> 00:46:34.936 most people don't even understand, don't know, don't care is incredible. 00:46:35.176 --> 00:46:39.536 And the fact that Epstein's fingerprints are on every part of this is itself incredible. 00:46:39.856 --> 00:46:44.196 Just to tie the little bow on the Epstein-Lutnick 9-11 reference, 00:46:44.396 --> 00:46:47.556 whatever that might mean, it just so happens Lutnick is another one of those 00:46:47.556 --> 00:46:51.236 lucky people who happened to miss 9-11 because, of course. 00:46:51.736 --> 00:46:54.096 Cantor Fitzgerald in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, 00:46:54.276 --> 00:47:00.376 but he wasn't there on 9-11 because he was taking his son to kindergarten that day, so he missed 9-11. 00:47:00.556 --> 00:47:05.676 His brother did die along with several hundred other Cantor Fitzgerald employees 00:47:05.676 --> 00:47:09.976 that day, but Howard escaped and went on to become Howard Lutnick. 00:47:10.136 --> 00:47:14.416 Well, interesting part of that story. But again, there's so much information 00:47:14.416 --> 00:47:18.436 that we've already gone through today, so much more detail in the article itself. 00:47:18.436 --> 00:47:20.356 So I will direct people to it. 00:47:20.436 --> 00:47:22.956 But I think you sum up with a very good summary here. 00:47:23.056 --> 00:47:26.916 You say Epstein funded the MIT devs who killed Bitcoin as cash. 00:47:27.294 --> 00:47:31.774 Brock Pierce ran the Bitcoin Foundation into the ground, opened the door for Epstein's money, 00:47:32.194 --> 00:47:35.054 brokered Epstein's Coinbase stake, which we didn't even get into, 00:47:35.474 --> 00:47:39.634 sat in Epstein's mansion pitching Bitcoin to Larry Summers, co-founded Tether, 00:47:39.794 --> 00:47:42.294 and kept emailing Epstein until 2018. 00:47:42.734 --> 00:47:47.214 Tether then printed unbacked dollars to pump Bitcoin 50% in 2017. 00:47:47.634 --> 00:47:51.514 Howard Lutnick, who lied about cutting ties with Epstein, took over management 00:47:51.514 --> 00:47:56.874 of Tether's $130 billion plus treasury reserves before he even joined the Trump transition. 00:47:56.994 --> 00:48:01.314 He pushed for Treasury Secretary, missed, landed at Commerce, 00:48:01.814 --> 00:48:06.574 installed his ally Bo Hines as White House crypto advisor, had Hines run through 00:48:06.574 --> 00:48:10.394 the Genius Act, then watched Hines quit the White House and immediately become 00:48:10.394 --> 00:48:12.594 CEO of Tether's U.S. subsidiary. 00:48:12.814 --> 00:48:16.374 Just an incredible amount of information. And you sum up with every single player 00:48:16.374 --> 00:48:18.834 is connected. Every single move was coordinated. 00:48:19.354 --> 00:48:22.754 The Genius Act entrenches the exact loopholes tether 00:48:22.754 --> 00:48:25.814 has lived on this is not big short 2.0 this is 00:48:25.814 --> 00:48:31.254 big short 2.0 on steroids pre-planned and run by the same network that already 00:48:31.254 --> 00:48:35.634 owns the outcome just an incredible amount of information and detail here so 00:48:35.634 --> 00:48:40.534 once again i'll exhort people to watch uh to read this article but i guess the 00:48:40.534 --> 00:48:45.734 real question here aaron is what should we do with this information. 00:48:46.523 --> 00:48:52.143 Well, I want to say this. That article I wrote pretty quickly just because of 00:48:52.143 --> 00:48:57.503 the pace of development and how relevant it is to what's going on. 00:48:57.583 --> 00:49:00.303 But there's another article that I've written for the Brownson Institute that 00:49:00.303 --> 00:49:03.383 hasn't been published yet, but it's 12,000 words. 00:49:03.383 --> 00:49:09.863 And it goes into the Genius Act, financial regulation and something called the 00:49:09.863 --> 00:49:12.603 Clarity Act, because I do want to talk about the fact that there's something 00:49:12.603 --> 00:49:17.623 even worse than the Genius Act on the horizon and people don't understand it at all. 00:49:17.783 --> 00:49:20.423 People don't even know what's going on. It's called the Clarity Act. 00:49:20.743 --> 00:49:24.623 Now, if you've heard about the Clarity Act, you will hear it as this is going 00:49:24.623 --> 00:49:28.883 to provide clear rules of the road for people to be able to buy and sell crypto, 00:49:28.883 --> 00:49:31.963 so on and so forth. This is not what it's about. 00:49:32.143 --> 00:49:36.843 And it's not a bill that's about crypto. It's about creating digital tokens 00:49:36.843 --> 00:49:41.263 that can be programmed, tracked and censored for everything that we own. 00:49:41.523 --> 00:49:47.463 So if the Genius Act covers how we pay for things, the Clarity Act adds this 00:49:47.463 --> 00:49:51.943 surveillance and tracking to everything that we own, our stocks, our 401ks. 00:49:52.623 --> 00:49:57.263 Commodities, oil, agriculture, eventually real estate. 00:49:57.263 --> 00:49:59.443 All of it is going to be tokenized. 00:49:59.623 --> 00:50:06.043 Larry Fink has talked about this at BlackRock. He said that everything is going to be tokenized. 00:50:06.323 --> 00:50:09.303 This bill is working its way. It's already passed the House, 00:50:09.463 --> 00:50:14.723 and it's going through various iterations. But this is how we end up owning nothing. 00:50:15.163 --> 00:50:19.223 And not to go into too many details about this, but if you've ever talked about the great taking, 00:50:19.423 --> 00:50:25.603 there's a whole bunch of legal framework shifts that have happened in the United 00:50:25.603 --> 00:50:31.263 States since 1994 that essentially make it so that the next time there's a financial collapse. 00:50:31.930 --> 00:50:35.470 You might think if your broker goes out of business that, well, 00:50:35.610 --> 00:50:39.090 hey, those are my investments. I'll just point those over to a new broker. 00:50:39.270 --> 00:50:42.950 Well, it turns out in all 50 states, they've changed the laws so that, 00:50:43.010 --> 00:50:47.590 in fact, your economic interest in these investments will go first to the creditors 00:50:47.590 --> 00:50:53.510 of your broker, which namely will be the four largest banks in the U.S. 00:50:53.510 --> 00:50:57.670 Once you create digital tokens that represent these contracts. 00:50:58.310 --> 00:51:01.510 Then when there's a financial collapse, they're going to be able to basically 00:51:01.510 --> 00:51:03.630 shift everybody's assets with a click of a button. 00:51:03.750 --> 00:51:09.950 So I wanted to mention that because it's relevant and it's active right now. 00:51:10.170 --> 00:51:17.530 And Howard Lutnick's firm is positioned to be a major beneficiary in this as well. 00:51:17.710 --> 00:51:25.630 So you asked what we can do. We have to absolutely make it public and accessible 00:51:25.630 --> 00:51:30.510 for everyone to understand how not only corrupt this is, 00:51:30.690 --> 00:51:37.210 but this tokenization through these two bills is accelerating technocracy. 00:51:37.410 --> 00:51:42.090 I've been saying that this last election that we had was technocracy with resistance 00:51:42.090 --> 00:51:48.530 versus technocracy without resistance and technocracy without resistance won. We got backdoor CBDCs. 00:51:48.630 --> 00:51:52.070 We have in the United States Real ID, which is a digital ID. 00:51:52.410 --> 00:51:56.250 We have Palantir connected into federal government databases. 00:51:56.450 --> 00:51:57.410 We have AI surveillance. 00:51:57.670 --> 00:52:01.830 You know, technocracy has flourished. I mean, this isn't like a 2030 thing. 00:52:01.930 --> 00:52:05.190 This is a 2027 thing. So I wanted to mention that. 00:52:05.878 --> 00:52:09.478 But I don't really believe there are a lot of political solutions for this, 00:52:09.638 --> 00:52:15.778 which is why what I've been advocating for as a real solution is to exit these systems. 00:52:15.978 --> 00:52:20.078 Stop using fiat currency. Do not use government regulated stable coins. 00:52:20.258 --> 00:52:22.938 Get out of central centralized tokenization. 00:52:23.178 --> 00:52:25.518 Start using privacy coins. Start using gold. 00:52:25.958 --> 00:52:31.038 Start using silver. Exit the health care system in the United States, 00:52:31.178 --> 00:52:34.218 which, you know, my wife and I have launched a it's a free service. 00:52:34.218 --> 00:52:35.738 We don't make any money off of it. 00:52:35.818 --> 00:52:38.238 It's a global medical tourism marketplace. 00:52:38.778 --> 00:52:44.058 But, you know, every minute in the U.S. somebody files for bankruptcy due to 00:52:44.058 --> 00:52:49.038 medical bills in the U.S., 75% of those have insurance. The system is a complete scam. 00:52:49.738 --> 00:52:55.138 Exit that, cancel your insurance, form a trust, and then investigate using medical 00:52:55.138 --> 00:52:59.758 tourism where you can actually save up to 80% and get better health care outcomes. 00:53:00.058 --> 00:53:04.718 The real solution to this is for us to take our lives back, to take back our 00:53:04.718 --> 00:53:06.818 free will, and to build parallel systems. 00:53:07.658 --> 00:53:12.878 At this point, this is the way. And we can do it, but we really don't have a lot of time. 00:53:13.118 --> 00:53:17.138 And I have been, for three and a half years, I've been saying this is it. 00:53:17.138 --> 00:53:21.098 Technocracy is it Digital currencies This is the platform But it's even happening 00:53:21.098 --> 00:53:26.298 faster Than I could have ever imagined And it is more corrupt And incestuous 00:53:26.298 --> 00:53:29.558 Than I could have ever imagined And now for the first time Because of these 00:53:29.558 --> 00:53:34.638 Epstein files We can actually follow the money And start tracking what's going on. 00:53:37.053 --> 00:53:40.013 All right. An incredible amount of information. I'm very much looking forward 00:53:40.013 --> 00:53:44.013 to that 12,000 word deep dive and hopefully more information yet to come. 00:53:44.133 --> 00:53:47.813 But for the meantime, we will direct people to brownstone.org for this article 00:53:47.813 --> 00:53:50.553 that we're talking about today. It's called The Hijacking of Bitcoin. 00:53:50.773 --> 00:53:54.313 Everything that we have talked about today will be in the show notes for today's 00:53:54.313 --> 00:54:01.473 episode at corbettreport.com/epsteinbitcoin for all of the notes and 00:54:01.473 --> 00:54:03.293 all of the links to everything that we're talking about. 00:54:03.473 --> 00:54:06.653 I think we're going to leave it there for today. Aaron Day, Thank you very much 00:54:06.653 --> 00:54:10.093 for this deep dive and for bringing it to our attention. Thank you for having me. 00:54:12.453 --> 00:54:16.333 Money. It is the economic water in which we live our lives. 00:54:16.953 --> 00:54:23.933 Will you tell the American people to whom you lent 2.2 trillion of their dollars? 00:54:24.673 --> 00:54:28.973 We spend our lives working for it, worrying about it, saving it, 00:54:29.273 --> 00:54:30.813 spending it, pinching it. 00:54:31.353 --> 00:54:35.153 So all that information is available in our commercial paper program. And who got the money? 00:54:35.913 --> 00:54:42.073 But what is it? Where does it come from? How is it created? Who controls it? 00:54:42.653 --> 00:54:45.113 Tell us who they are. No. 00:54:46.293 --> 00:54:52.233 100 years ago, in 1913, the Fed was created. The banking cartel wrote their 00:54:52.233 --> 00:54:53.713 own rules and regulations. 00:54:54.193 --> 00:54:57.053 They're not agencies, you runner. They're persons under FOIA. 00:54:57.333 --> 00:55:03.373 There is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take. 00:55:08.753 --> 00:55:11.993 Century of Enslavement, the history of the Federal Reserve. 00:55:12.453 --> 00:55:17.073 Watch the documentary for free and access the transcript at corbettreport.com/federalreserve 00:55:17.073 --> 00:55:23.113 or support the filmmaker and purchase a DVD copy at newworldnextweek.com.