Right now, we're facing tyranny in a sort of softer and more subtle way. And I think that the battle to move some towards say. A Bitcoin standard is is going to be a battle. It's going to be tumultuous.
Hello and welcome back to the coin Stories podcast. I'm your host Natalie Brunell and I'm talking to Leading voices in Bitcoin and macroeconomics about their origin stories Bitcoin headlines and news topics and this movement to fix the World by fixing the money. This podcast does not provide Financial advice. Before I share this week's episode. Here are some messages from my sponsors who make this show possible. First of all, are you ready for Bitcoin? 2023? I certainly am this year's big.
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I'm excited to share my guest today is zubi. He is a rapper, a podcaster and entrepreneur. He has a huge following on social media and we talked all about his background origin story. How he built his career, how he discovered Bitcoin, and why he feels Bitcoin allows us the chance to look at the future with hope here. Zubi, zubi. Thank you so much for joining me. I've been wanting to talk to you for a while. Now. You have a lot of fans.
Thank you, Natalie. I do my best to. I've been building up my so-called Grand building up my name for
About 15 16 years at this point and things have been accelerating a lot over the last couple years and it's been beautiful to
see. Yeah, I bet I can't wait to hear this story. So let's start at the very beginning. I read that you were born in London. I think we're the same age, but you were raised in Saudi Arabia. Like, take me back. Tell me about your childhood.
Yeah, sure thing. So, I was born actually in a city called lutein, Which is less than an hour north of London. Some people from the UK would
That place when I was a baby my dad got a job opportunity to go work in Saudi Arabia. I don't remember this. This is just me recollecting the story from what I've been told, and so I'm the youngest of five kids. So our whole family of seven, went out to Saudi
Arabia family and Evan.
Wow, seven. Yeah, much bigger than that now, but immediate family of seven. So yeah, I went out to Saudi Arabia, all of
My earliest memories are from Saudi Arabia. I went to school there from preschool up until 5th grade. And then actually, when I was 11 years old, I went to boarding school in the UK. So from the age of 11, I was traveling internationally by myself. I went to two different schools in the UK, from the age of 11 up until 17, and I did really well in school. Got top grades and everything, and I got accepted.
To Oxford University, which is where I went, and I study computer science there. Now, when I was in Oxford, in my first year of University, I started rapping. I'd become a big hip-hop fan in my teenage years and I started rapping in 2005. Is when I first started just began as a hobby doing it for fun, not taking it super seriously and then I download beats off of the internet and go into my friends dorm room AKA studio and we
we would record tracks. So I recorded a couple tracks and send them out to my friends and my family and got some positive feedback. Put a little demo together and actually got demo of the month in a local music magazine, and then about 10 months into me. Starting. I released my first album, which was called commercial underground. So that was a totally independent release 8 song album. I put that out there. I mean, this is back in the, you have to remember this is 2006. So this is prior.
It's a streaming. This is back. When people were primarily buying CDs, iTunes was relatively new social media was social media and smartphones were very much in their infancy. So even though 2006 may not sound like that long ago, things have changed very, very significantly since then. Myspace, was the biggest platform. Facebook was just starting up and limited to certain universities and so on. So I put the CD together actually print made 50 copies.
To begin with. I got 50 copies made and I sold all of them in the first week. So a lot of people were excited to support me. So I was like, okay cool. I took the money I made from that 51 back and I made 200. And then in the next couple weeks. I sold those 200 and then I went back and I made 1,000 and over the course of time. I guess over about a maybe a one and a half we get this right about one-and-a-half to two year period. I mean in total I ended up selling 3,000 copies my very first
Album. This is just hand-to-hand one side exhausted. My initial pool of people. I would just start traveling out to the city and standing out there talking to people on the street, playing the, my music, and selling my CDs, 45 pounds of pop. So, I guess that's what around around seven dollars or so of the time, seven eight dollars. And then, um, yeah, I graduated before I graduated. I had a job offer from a management consulting company. So I graduated when I was 20 and then I took
took a year out and I did my music full-time for one year. I released my second album, which was called the unknown celebrity, and I was just a road warrior. I was just traveling all over the UK playing shows and doing gigs where I could get them standing out there on the street, talking to strangers, rain sleet snow, whatever. Selling, you know every day just out there selling my music and then in, I'm trying to give a proper timeline here in 2008. I moved to London started working in the corporate world as a Management Consultant while
Moonlighting as a rapper on the weekends and in the evening, I put out my third release, an EP called how I feel in 20 2010, and then I had another album called commercial underground to and 2011. And the big turning point was November 2011, which is when I left my job. So November 2011. I left my job became a full-time rapper, became self-employed registered, my company. So this is 11.
11 years ago now and I took the plunge just left. What I was doing. I was on this this corporate path. I got my final got a promotion that I wanted and then the next month I handed in my notice and went on this journey and then man from 2011 to 2018. I was just grinding, just grinding traveling all over. Yeah. Go ahead. Let me let me I'm giving a lot
of the story stuff. Okay, go ahead and color here because this is really, really fascinating. So when you were a kid
At her, when you were younger and you were influenced by hip, hop. First of all, was that in Saudi Arabia or when you were in boarding school in the UK? Like, what were your influences? Because I would imagine that a lot of that is coming in from, from the US,
right? Yeah, so where I grew up in Saudi Arabia, I was in an expat community. So I was surrounded by people from all over the world. It's why? I don't sound English. Every time people hear my voice doors. I, how come you don't have a British accent or what happened? To your British accent, and it's like, I've never had one. So, actually, if you talk to me before, I went to boarding school in the
UK. I sounded 100% American now, I probably sound more American than I do British, but it's it's, I don't know, maybe 80/20 70/30 or something like that. And so I was surrounded by people from all over the world, growing up, UK Canada, all over the Middle East, parts of Africa, parts of Asia, a lots of Americans. Most, my school teachers were American in Saudi Arabia and then you know, I shifted over to this British system. So actually as a kid fun.
Enough. I do, I wasn't a big music fan when I was a child, which is kind of weird because I play piano and I used to do piano recitals. So wow. Yeah, I did piano recitals and the remotes. Not not quite that good, not quite that. Good, but I was decent and then I stopped playing piano when I was about 13. I think I just was I I was just interested in all these other things as I went into my teens and I used to play Trombone for a little while as well.
But I wasn't a big hip-hop fan until I went to boarding school. That's when I really fell in love with it. I've got a couple older brothers and they were at fans. So I remember them playing hip-hop when I was a kid and so, I had some familiarity with it, but it's really when I was like 12 or 13 years old out in the UK that I really became a hip-hop fan and
then where the artists what songs and artists.
Hmm. Okay. So this was when who really got me into hip-hop. This is when like Eminem was just coming out.
Up to give you like a perspective of the sort of time frame. So we used to listen to my friends and I we listen to a lot of dr. Dre, Eminem Nas. Jay-Z LL Cool. J. Ice Cube
Wu-Tang, totally sweet yards.
Yeah. Yeah, that's some of the stuff that was popping at the time and then once I was in my mid-teens, that's when you had the rise of 50 Cent and G-Unit and Kanye West and
Dipset and, like all of that, that whole era. So in my mid-teens is when I was probably like the most hip-hop crazy, like we would just have to remember we're all there in boarding school. Like you've just bought these bunch of boys in their teenage years from all over the world, all living. In this strange place in the UK and we would just buy like every single album that came out. We had subscriptions to The Source magazine and double XL, we'd keep up to date with.
Everything and just buy everything that came out. So that's when I went hip-hop crazy. And then, um, it was, you know, I was when I was 18 that I actually started wrapping myself when I was, when I went to University, so, that's how I became a hip-hop fan. And then when I was a couple years older, that's when I tried my hand at making my own music,
and did I read correctly. That one of your parents was a doctor. The other was a journalist.
That is correct. Yeah. My dad is a doctor. He actually just retired this year. After 49 years in the medical field. Wow. He's a, he's finally retired as of, you know, just two months ago or so. And yeah, my mom was a journalist. She was actually a journalist in Nigeria. She used to be a news reporter. In fact, for some time. So she'd be on the TV reporting the news. I don't remember this, but I've seen videos of it and then she did some journalism when we were in Saudi Arabia.
Yeah, she wrote for a one of the local newspapers there and then she worked in the like the community center as well. So yeah, so it was my dad's medical job. That took the whole family out to Saudi Arabia, and I ended up being there for in total about 20 years. So that's really where I grew up in a
way. Okay, wait, so two questions. Number one, we're your parents encouraging that you could kind of pursue anything. I mean, I know you mentioned computer science, but, you know, wrap some parents would be like, what are
Are you doing? That's not a stable
path? Yeah, I mean God bless my parents. I'm so thankful for my parents and my family because they could have really given me a hard time with this. And I know a lot of, I know a lot of musicians and I know a lot of people who really had to fight their family and fight their parents on this particular issue. In fact, some of them ended up giving up on their potential music careers because they kind of couldn't deal with going against the grain in that way, but my parents, God bless them throughout my entire.
Our life of always been supportive and perhaps more importantly trusting, right? They they trust that. Even if I'm doing something that in the short-term, temporarily might seem a little out there or crazy. They know that they didn't raise a, they didn't raise an idiot and that if I believe in something, they also know I'm going to do it. Yeah. So let's support him, you know, instead of trying to get in his way. Let's support him. So, you know, there's a good chance as we record this, you know, my mom or my dad is
Probably wearing a team, zubi hoodie or teeth right now, as we speak. They wear my merchandise. All the time. They come to my gigs and have done since back in 2006. My parents have been very, very supportive. So I'm truly grateful for that because as a creative and as an entrepreneur, there are so many battles that you have to constantly fight and having to fight one uphill against your own family. Yeah, which is what I'm glad that I didn't have to
fight.
I'm also just curious about Saudi Arabia spending so much time there. I feel like there are just a lot of misconceptions in general about the Middle East. I think one of my favorite episodes of the Anthony, Bourdain show is actually Saudi Arabia. Can you give me kind of, what do you want everyone to know about the country based on your experience there?
Wow. Yeah. I mean, one of the, one of the greatest things that I get criticism for is so-called defending Saudi Arabia because people in the west like to think that it's this completely barbaric backwards hellhole and
and people know all the negatives but oftentimes none of the positives and people's views are primarily shape entirely by what they see in the media. So I think it's important to say that where I grew up was an expat Community where I grew up was like a little bubble. I mean in terms of what it looked like it looked like a suburb in California or Texas or something like that, you know, I wasn't living out in the desert in a tent riding camels or anything like that. So there's lots of different sides to somewhere like Saudi Arabia. I think this is the case with
If the Gulf States, so if you live in Saudi Arabia or Bahrain or UAE and so on as for an expat whether you're American or Canadian or British say versus if you are local, you're going to live in a little bit of a different world. So I think it's worth saying that up front. But with that said, I mean where I lived was a very small community of like 1,400 people. So if you wanted to do anything interesting or you want to just go out shopping or whatever, you'd go into, you'd go into the city.
You go into one of the city's and you'd go into real Saudi, shall we say? So a lot of stuff was different. There are there are things that are kind of like, I don't know. I guess you could say, sort of minor superficial differences for to give an example, the week ran from Saturday to Wednesday and then Thursday and Friday are the weekend rather than Saturday and Sunday being the weekend as it is in the Western World. So growing up for me, you know, school started on Saturday.
And you finish school on Wednesday, you know, I'd go to church on Friday when I say go to church. There are no church buildings in Saudi Arabia, but in the community, we have our church services either in the school gym or in the theater. So yeah, so so that was different. The shops would shut five times a day for the prayers. Hmm, right? You'd hear the prayer call go out and then all the shutters come down and you know, you have to pause your shopping for a while.
I'll so there are little things like that. And I think it's important for people to understand that. From a socio-political perspective. The whole foundation of the country is designed and shaped in and influenced in a very different way. So for westerners, you know, people are the last of the last two years have made this debatable, but we, we supposedly live in Liberal democracies, right? So you have political parties, you have elections, you got votes.
Concept of a country, such as the USA, in particular, is fundamentally built around the idea and principles of Liberty and freedom. It doesn't always uphold those as truly as it should, but that's the idea. That's, that's kind of the highest ideal on paper, but people have to understand that that's not a, that's not a global Universal. So a country such as Saudi Arabia, or many other Islamic countries, they, you know, firstly, Saudi Arabia is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. It's ruled by the
The there's no voting. There's no elections. There's no political parties. There's no political left and political. Right? And all of that. It is a monarchy. The rules and laws are primarily informed by the majority religion, which is Islam, and they have a different way of doing things because they're not aiming towards the same value and that influences absolutely everything. Now, there are lots of very valid.
Of that. But the, a lot of a lot of westerners have this idea that the whole country. I mean people think of this Saturday is weird because it's one of the only countries I know where people tend to judge it off of the worst and most critical aspects of it if you see what I mean. So if somebody asked me what the USA is like or what the UK is, like, I wouldn't just tell them all the bad stuff.
Stuff. Right? I wouldn't I wouldn't explain the country based on the worst actions of the government and the worst things that have happened in history and like the most terrible aspects of the society culture laws and so on. I don't think that would be very fair. I also don't think it would be fair to judge the American people based on the actions of the American government. I think in most countries, nobody is more critical of the government in many cases than the than the people themselves and that and that's
Goes across the board with lots of Nations. So as someone who's traveled a lot and grown up in that kind of environment. It gives you a more nuanced perspective on Humanity. I think and the different social cultural values, how those inform people's behavior? How they inform politics? How they inform certain standards and rules that are put into society both in the legal perspective, and in the social perspective, and
Yeah, you know, there are lots of valid criticisms of a country like Saudi Arabia, plenty, but there are also many things that are good about it. I mean, it was a great place to grow up was wonderful. Wonderful place to grow up. Why do you feel that way?
Extraordinarily safe. I had a fantastic education way better than most people would get in the UK, or in the u.s. They really look. After, if you work, if you work out there certainly is an expat. And again, you're going to have different, there's going to be different perspectives on this, you know, like there are people who work in countries in the Middle East. The same goes for, you know, places like Dubai Abu, Dhabi, where migrant workers from certain countries are are not treated. Well, right.
And are not paid properly and don't get good accommodation that totally valid criticism. If you are a Westerner. See, here's something that's very different is like the one, I think one of the start my brains kind of all over you. I think one of the one of the core, I think one of the best things that a country like the USA does, is over the course of time. There's been this strive for proper equality under the law property, equality and fairness under the law. So whether you're a man or woman black white,
From this country or that country. We apply the same rules to everybody right where I where I grew up in Saudi Arabia. I mean if you went into the main city and this has changed, this is changed now, by the way, so I was last in Saudi, in 2011, and I'm actually really interested to visit. Firstly, you can visit now. They didn't used to have tourist visas. And so that's new. I believe women being able to drive. It was legalized in 2018. When I grew up in Saudi Arabia, women can drive. They could within the compound of where I lived. Wow.
But not outside of it when I lived there. There were the Misawa, that's the way they were called, who were like religious police. So there were religious police in different cities who make sure that people are adhering to certain things. As far as I'm aware. They have far less power now or they're not or I think they've even been disbanded in some cases when I was there, there were, you know, absolutely no music concerts. How know like, you know,
Restaurants and things like that were segregated, even a McDonald's McDonald's, KFC, segregated. You have a family section and you have an all-male section. So it's very different like, it's there's a lot of stuff that's different. But some of some of this has changed, right? Some of this is changed, especially from 2018. There have been a lot of changes. I haven't been back there for over a decade at this point. Wow, but there are a lot of changes. So I think even if I went back to the country now, I would probably be quite shocked and surprised because certain
Things will be very different to how it was when I grew up. But you know, with any country.
Young people, people like different places for different reasons and there's pros and cons to everywhere. So, when it comes to me, discussing Saudi Arabia, I'm not trying to, I think, some people think one of the criticisms I get is that I'm trying to sort of painted as some like, totally idyllic and perfect Utopia. No. No, it's far from it. But there are plenty of things that are better there than they are in. The UK has plenty of things that are better than they are in the US. And people don't really like to hear that because they want to think that every wedding, you know, these countries are superior.
And every in every sort of way and I'm just like, that's not that's not true. Are there things that are better? Yes, but there's things that are better there too. It's like it's not as black and white, as people think it is and if you're going to have a strong view on something, it's good to for that to be based on. You know, it's good for that to be to be to be based on something, right. It's plenty of countries. I don't have strong opinions on. I've never been there. Alright, like I haven't I've never been to Kazakhstan. I don't have a strong view on.
What life is like in Kazakhstan and what things are good, and what things are bad. I mean, I could, I could go on Wikipedia and look some stuff up or see what makes the news. But that's not going to give me a very clear picture. And and this happens with everywhere, and I've Got Friends in the you in the UK, who are afraid to come to the u.s., Because they think they're going to get shot or they think that the racist police officers are going to, you know, shoot them if they're black or whatever. Because that's what they see in the news. That's what they see in the media. They took Texas. Oh my gosh, aren't people just having shootouts in the
the street, you know, oh my gosh, I could never send my child to school in America because it's not safe, you know, they'll get caught in a school shooting or something and it's just like, you know, and you can understand where these things come from right, shootings, do happen in America, right? Like the it is it does school shootings exist, but is that like is that a reasonable concern? Is that like the main thing? You should do something that should stop? You going to the country. Should you not go to London? Because you think you're going to get stabbed by someone? Or you think you're gonna get caught up in some grooming?
Gang Scandal. It's like look, you can recognize bad things occur, but it's not a it wouldn't be reasonable and fair to say that's what makes a city or that makes a country or anything like that. So anyone curious about anywhere, I recommend you go there and pay it a visit because you may be surprised and it'll certainly widen your perspective. Even if you don't end up liking a certain place, you'll at least then, you know, be able to judge it on more reasonable.
Grounds. Yeah, for sure. And you're right. I think we tend to make a lot of generalizations and social media makes that very easy as well to spread those those generalizations. But out of curiosity. Did you have a concept for money when you were younger? Did you feel like you weren't worried about money? You wanted to be rich someday? I don't even know what, what currency you used in Saudi Arabia, but just kind of curious, like money when you were younger. What was money to you?
Yeah, man, I feel like when I was young money went very far. That's for sure. So, growing up real.
Saudi riyals or the currency there. One real is somewhere around five dollars to give people indication. So, I mean, I remember growing up if I had 500 riyals, then I was rich. Like, there's one very, very far. Stuff is a lot cheaper in Saudi, by the way, so that money that money would go far and there's no taxes. People don't know that. Saudi has no taxes. Yeah, so my my idea about money, hmm.
I think it was probably typical of most children in that. I didn't think about it all that much. I just knew that it was this thing that your parents work for and can take out of a machine in a wall, which is where you're
comfortable, right? I mean the morning. Yeah, I imagine you were coming.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we were comfortable. I don't have some story of, you know.
I've I've lived a blessed and privileged life in that sense. So I don't have any, you know, I think my parents my parents are and were were and are good with money. And I think just like with many other things raised us just with raised us to Value things taught taught me the importance of personal responsibility and working for, you know, hard work paying off and being rewarded for
your hard work. So, you know, I'm blessed that I never had to worry about where the next meal was going to come from or, you know, being able to pay a rent or anything like that. But also, I was taught not to be entitled, right? Not to think that, oh, you know, money, money grows on trees, and that something. I remember, my parents teaching me a lot. Is that life? Is not fair. That's something. I remember them saying often, because I'd often, if I wouldn't get my way.
Something I do often say that's not fair has a lot of kids do and that I would say well zubi life is not fair. And that's true. You know, I think it's a bit of a harsh lesson to learn as a child, but it's it's very real and I think a lot of people in our modern society don't want to accept that truth. And I think that there are reasonable stripe you can strive for fairness up until a reasonable level. But human beings are different in every single
In so many different sorts of ways and it's important for a society and certainly for legal system to strive towards equality of opportunity, but there's never going to be any type of equality of outcome for a gigantic. Host of Reason, due to, you know, digest diversity within the human species, people's different experiences and backgrounds and where they're coming from, how much effort they put in motivation. Exactly. There are, there are many, many different pieces to that puzzle.
But yeah, I think I learned, yeah, sorry. I was gonna say, I think I learned more about money when I was like once I became an adult. Not because not because school, or even University really taught me much about it, but I think, once I was in my early 20s after I graduated and I started doing a lot more reading of my own volition, and, you know, put in more effort about just trying to understand various things in the world. I think that's when I started to get a better understanding about what when he actually.
Actually is beyond this superficial notion of numbers on a screen or printed paper.
Got it. Well, ultimately, I want this to lead to sort of your Bitcoin Journey. But I mean, what Drew you to computer science because it seems like, you know, the rapper, that's sort of the creative free Spirits. I'd computer science, as I feel like on the polar opposite. So, what happened there? Why computer science?
Yeah, so, I'm someone who's always been very, I've got a very scientific logical rational brain, but I also very creative brain.
In it to have both of those things. So I got into computer science. I chose that as my degree because all the various Sciences were my best subjects at school chemistry biology math physics. Like I was very very good at all of that and I am and was very interested in technology. I've always been interested in computers and I T and so it seemed like a natural.
Fit for me to go into computer science. I'll be 100% honest with you Natalie. I did not enjoy my degree. I didn't. Yeah, I love my University. My University was great, but I didn't really enjoy studying computer science. I stuck it through, I did it. I got, I got the degree. I didn't drop out or anything. But in hindsight, I possibly would have done a different subject. I'm not sure. Which one may be biology fire. No, we didn't Light My Fire, but I still enjoyed my University experience because of all the
Things that I was doing from the all my friends to sports and and like hate my degree. I just wasn't enthused by and I'll be real with you. I also wasn't that good at it. And that was something that was very humbling for me because not being cocky. But school is very easy for me. I'm like, child from like the age of 5 to 17. I smashed School completely. Like, top got yeah, I was top of like everything. And then the first, the first,
Am I ever did in Oxford? I got 14 percent 14. So I'm coming off the back of like getting like, you know, 90% Plus 90 to 100 in like everything my entire life and then I did this examine. I got 14 percent and that was very, very humbling. I was around, I was like, whoa, there's people here who are a lot smarter than me, at least, in this subject. And so that was humbling. And also, what was funny with computer science? As I've never done any programming up until the point of University, but when I got there,
I quickly learned that there were people on my course, who had been programming and coding since they were 5.
Wow, right. So while I was doing like normal five-year-old stuff and playing Sport and like doing my art drawing and all this other stuff, living my life. They were coding. So there were people there who had like a 15 16 year head start on me in that regard.
Well, do you think that at least your background and education in that space helps you to appreciate, or understand Bitcoin sooner than maybe other people?
I do think so. I think that my degree helped me in
A lot of indirect ways. I think one of the one of the biggest things about computer science is just the whole concept of problem-solving. Just dealing with hard problems and having to Rack your brain and think in think outside of the box to use that term. It was very, very mentally challenging and stimulating. And so I think that helped it also helped with just I think with a lot of stuff.
In technology and with computers, it just sort of scares people, right? Like once things get to any remote level of complexity, you know, most people are just like, oh my gosh, like I'm totally out of my depth. This is very scary. And at least with me, even though I'm not a great programmer or anything like that, if I just see some code or something is a bit intricate. It doesn't scare me away in the way that it does for many others.
So I think when I found, you know, when I came across Bitcoin or something like that, and I actually looked into it. I wouldn't be able to go into until all the code of for it and explain all that to someone, but it wasn't this sort of like terrifying foreign concept. It was like, okay, I can if I look into this, I can hem have some comfort with it.
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Oh catch. And one of my other Favorite Things is their card, the fold debit card. You can actually earn Bitcoin back on every single purchase. So make sure to download the full dap today. There's a referral Link in the description. Okay. We'll so you left sort of the corporate world, the 9 to 5 life. You became a rapper full-time. How did you get to bitcoin? What was that? What was that Journey?
Yeah, that's a great question. So I want to say, I first heard about Bitcoin probably.
In 2013 or 2014, just just heard the word, but I didn't do any, you know, people always kick themselves about this part, right? I didn't know Research into it. I thought it, I thought either it was like some kind of PayPal alternative or I thought it was like, just an in-game currency or something like that. You know, you've got all these different video games and computer games out there and they have like their money in them, and I just saw it. I just, I didn't know research.
And then the real journey started in 2017 and I can't, I don't can't remember what exactly drew me to it. I think, if I remember correctly, I think there were tiny number of people. I follow on Facebook who are just posting about Bitcoin. Honestly, they were primarily posting about like the gains they were making right? They were like about from an investment perspective and a number go up perspective. And it was like, oh my gosh. My Bitcoin is not worth this much and that much and like Bitcoin, okay.
I heard about this thing and that's, this is kind of October November 2017. If anyone was around at that time, you'll remember that. This is when this was towards the top of a long bull market where the price of Bitcoin was just going up like a couple hundred dollars a day and I was kind of watching this. I remember being on coin market cap and kind of all right. Let me keep, let me keep an eye on this thing and it was just like every day the number would go up and I was like, this is
It is interesting. And so I'll be honest, I'll be totally transparent. My initial draw was just like, oh my gosh, I can I can make some make some money off of this like potentially fast. I don't have a didn't have a ton of money to invest it at the time.
You didn't from your rap career wasn't like
sailing. No. No, I'll be. I'll be real with you Natalie. Here's the here's something interesting. This is all we'll come back to what we were talking about. But here's something interesting. So I left my job in November, 2011 and became full-time.
Full-time. As a rapper, 2019 was the first year that I made more money that I than I used to make my own job.
Wow. Yeah, and where did you feel like you were making good money at your old job?
I was making pretty good money for someone in there. Okay. Early to mid teens. Yeah. I had a good job.
Well, so how are you making it by? It was just kind of where you live is below. Your me. I would just, I was making money.
Yeah. I just I just, I just minimize my expenses. Got it. And I was making, I was making money. Just not a lot, right? Barely breaking. Even I was covering all of my costs and making small profit, but you
Because and I think that's an important part of the story. Just to give perspective on things also, because there are people who think, oh, like, you know, you're going to music to make money. It's like, dude, if I want to make money, I'd stay at being a Management Consultant for a big corporation. Like, that's the guarantee, not becoming an independent musician. So yeah, I mean, and then twenty, twenty twenty twenty twenty one, twenty twenty, two things of things have changed. Yes. I'm doing a lot better than I would have been if I'd stayed in that but
just out of curiosity before we go back to
Bitcoin, did you have in your mind? Like okay, if I don't make it by this time or this age, or the like, I'm quit. No, no, Matt. It was just like I'm doing it. No matter
what? That's awesome. No, that's one thing people did not understand what when I was leaving my corporate job. So many people were give it, you know, are you going to be like a drink? How long are you going to try for one year to? I was like, no you guys don't understand. I'm done. I'm out. I'm out. This is it? Like I'm not turning back. I know. I know look and also
I haven't had an Oxford
degree. So in my brain, there's no plan B, but it's also like, I'm never going to gonna be on the Street Homeless shaking, a cop. Like I'm a very qualified guy. Very educated, very confident. I'm okay. Also again, thank God. I have got a big family who. Yeah, if somehow, if somehow like stuck in my brain, so I guess there was that Safety. Net in a way, okay, with the
Commitment. I was just like, no, I'm going to make it. I'm going to be successful. I'm going to change the world. I'm going to inspire and motivate millions of people and I don't know exactly what that's going to look like and I don't know exactly how long it's going to take. I still don't know how big it's going to be but I'm going to succeed so know for me it was like this is it?
Okay. So you discover Bitcoin, it's in that twenty thousand range, late 2017, right? I want
to say it was in this 7000.
8000 07.
Okay. So before I hit hit, hit 20,
yeah, because it ran from 7 to 20 in like five weeks or
something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you just you finally decided to go.
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so I was I was told OK. How do I buy this thing? You know. Someone's yeah. Use this thing called coinbase. Also. Okay. Only going coinbase and I was just like, all right, cool. I was running one of my pop up shops at the time. I remember. So I was in, I was in a in a shopping mall, you know, all day long making.
Any selling my CDs selling my t-shirts, only my hoodie's and stuff and then on my phone, I had the coinbase app and I was like, buying some Bitcoin. I was buying some Bitcoin, sort of everyday, like just just just buying a bunch more buying like a hundred pounds worth of bitcoin or whatever and the number kept going up. Right? And I was like this. This is like, this is amazing. Like this is this machine and then um to my credit I did also read a couple books. I read
Antonopoulos is the internet of money. Yeah, one in part two. I read a book. I remember called crypto assets. I can't remember who wrote that one, but I was like, doing some learning and research about it at the time. And then, of course, you know, the peaked at the 20K in December 2017, and then there was a little dip in January. And I remember in January, I was like, okay, I've made like some money for my pop-up shop and whatever.
And I was all right. Cool. I'm going to take like some take most of those profits and I'm going to just like, put it into. I'm going to just put into the crypto market. Like also, I was just everything was going up as well. Right? So, yeah, well look there's Bitcoin and then there's all these other ones, you know, like some of them still exist, some of them of petered out and whatever and I didn't really have a strategy. I just kind of broke every investing rule that I already in my head knew I wasn't supposed to but it was just like, you know, the greed gets the better of you and then and then boom two-year bear marshal.
So yeah, so I so I remember at the worst point my portfolio. I remember the worst performing my portfolio, being 75 percent down. But again, to my credit, I never sold. I didn't I didn't sell any Bitcoin. I kept buying it. That's great. And actually, I'm glad that I went through this baptism by fire because I kept looking into it and researching and learning more and more both from like a market perspective, but also from an
Asset perspective. What this thing, what it really was, and that helped me to not just capitulate when I was sick, 50, 60, 70 percent down and sell it. All. In fact, I was like, aw, crud. Like I wish I wish I had more money to put into this thing, but I was quite I was quite a limited with it. So, go ahead.
What gave you the conviction. Do you remember, maybe a moment from some of the books that you read or just something where your brain shifted and you're like, oh this
Isn't just a way to make money. But this is transformative. This is not going to 0 even if it dips. And I'm going to keep buying because that it takes a while for someone to be that strongly
convicted. Yeah, it does. So the first thing that appealed to me besides the number go up Factor was The Limited Supply. The decentralization aspect and the notion of this being a form of money that is not owned or controlled by any government nor Central Bank. So for
Some people, those are things that put them off, but for me, I guess I'm someone, I'm someone you could describe as more libertarian minded for sure. And so that appealed to me, I was like, oh wow, this is, this is cool. This is interesting. I'll be I'll be real with you. Another thing that made me and still gives me conviction. It is being a guy who's now, in my mid-30s. I've seen a lot of different technological adoption Curves in my lifetime. So, I remember how people used to talk about the internet. I remember how people used to talk about mobile phones.
People used to talk about Facebook used to talk about Amazon, all of these things. So, actually the fact that there were so many people who are alike.
Skeptical. But then so many very smart people who were really interested in it. That also tilted me more towards it because I was like, oh, well you guys you guys used to say this about you said this about social media. He said this about smartphones. You said this about everything was just a fad, you know, a bubble, the Tulip bubble and so on. And I was like no because this this currency has these properties. So that's not going to change. So even if temporarily people get caught,
Emotional roller coaster of, you know, based on based on the price action. Same thing happens in every other Market. It just happens very quickly in Bitcoin. And on the, entire crypto currency Market, to be honest. So, I was like, well, the fundamentals fundamentals haven't changed. And I was reading more and more about these fundamentals and I was like, yeah, this is something that, you know, I'm here in 2018, 2019. And yeah, this thing keeps losing dollar value, but
the fundamentals haven't changed. The re the thing that Drew me to it to begin with has not changed. So yeah, I'm seeing other people freaking out. Of course. I'm having even, you know, some of my friends who got in in late 2017, you know, sell compete relating and selling everything and telling me that I'm crazy and whatever. And I'm like, man. No, I think and also I went back and looked at the history, right? I went back and looked at the price history from 2000. I was like, okay, isn't the first time this has happened. This is just what this is what this thing does, right? It's had 70 80.
Drops and dollar price before. So so that I think that was though that combination of things with what gave me the conviction to continue to research it and investigate it and keep an eye on it and to put more of my hard-earned income into it. Yeah. That's a that's that's where that conviction came from.
Well, so when you mentioned that in 2019 was the first time you made, you know, more as far as income.
Come than your previous corporate job. So how did that happen? How did your career? Sort of take off? Because now, not only do you have your, your wrap your Artistry, but you're also like a, I mean, I guess there are different words for it. I hate the word influencer. I hate that word. I think it's a horrible word. But you, you know, you have this media personality of a very big following and you comment now on political and social things that maybe you weren't as interested.
And sharing your views on before the pandemic. I think the pandemic shifted things for a lot of people because we had it in One Direction with the government and like the removal of freedoms and just some crazy decisions that they said were driven by science. But a lot of people question that, right? So, you talk to me about just like the last couple of years, because I imagine that that's also impacted and transforms your career.
Yeah, absolutely. So there was a big shift in late 2018 actually late 2018. So from especially from about 2015, I just been keeping.
An eye on what was going on in the world and listening to certain podcast. I was listening to Joe Rogan a lot. I was listening to Dave Rubin. I learned about this dude called Jordan Pederson and 2016 and was following what was happening in Canada with Bill c16. I was seeing this dude called Ben Shapiro and another guy called Milo, you novelists having students burning down their college, is because these people were so controversial or whatever. And I started following, you know, listening to what people at the time, referred to, as
Intellectual dark web, people who are just having a lot of these conversations and stuff. Just started to, I feel like the world just started, the modern West started to go, weird in around 2012. And this is something I kind of like felt this shift happen and I used to have all the conversations, all the stuff. You see me talk about on Twitter or hear me discussing podcast. I was having these conversations in my private life, with friends and family from, you know, over the over the past.
Aid. And as a musician, I used to be just cautious in the way most musicians are about sharing. My social, political cultural views, because I didn't want to polarize my audience. I didn't want to put people off me. I also, just in a way, I guess. I felt it wasn't my place and perhaps mostly, I didn't think that my views were particularly all that unique or interesting and then the world just started shifting.
Such a such a strange Direction. And in late 2018. There was a particular thing that triggered it, but something made me go. I need to speak out more. I'm not seeing a lot of people saying what I'm
thinking, what was that?
Okay. So in late 2018, there was a there was a person who was a student union president at one of the universities in the UK and this is actually very relevant.
Considering what's going on right now. He had posted something on Twitter. Sorry, he posted something on Facebook, where Facebook friends. He posted something about how he how he supports Free Speech, but people shouldn't be allowed to say, hate speech and things that are offensive. Keep in mind. This is the president of a student union. So quite a powerful person in the university and I challenged him on this and on Facebook, and was like, well, what do you mean? Who determines, who determines, what's offensive, who determines? What's hate speech. You can't say, you support Free Speech, but people shouldn't be allowed to say things that
Pensive. So I got into this whole public, Facebook debate with him. And long story short. One of the last things you wrote was quote unquote. People like zubi are dangerous and have ideas that get people killed someone like. That should not be allowed on a University campus. Wow, and I was like, whoa, okay. This has gone far. I was like this. This nonsense is going very, very far. So,
I think that was like a trigger for me and I just started tweeting a little bit more
aggressively. Did you have a pretty big following at that point? Or
this point? I had across the social media platforms, combined about 50,000 followers. Okay
about 50 Society become more vocal. You just had to
be honest. I just want her to come. Yeah, I started to become a bit more vocal. Do you remember the thing where Kanye West War? The mega
hat? Hmm? Yeah.
In the u.s. So I made a tweet about that and that one went quite viral in the
S, this is late, 2018. So that's when people in some people in the US, a very small number started, kind of paying attention to me. And then of course, in late, February 20, 1980 a posted, the nine second video of me, doing two hundred. Thirty kilo deadlift saying that I keep hearing about how biological men have no strength advantage over women. Watch me, destroy the British women's deadlift record without trying PSI dot. If identified as a woman, while looking the way, don't be a bigot.
It was February. 26, 2019. When I posted that, I had 18,000 followers on Twitter.
That exploded. The video got millions upon millions of views within a month. I was up to 40,000 followers than 50, then 60 than 80 then, you know,
contributing to like, more of your records being sold, because people are like, who is this
guy? Yeah. So what happens? A lot Natalie's? You probably see this everyday tweets go viral every day. Hmm, right, but normally the person behind the Tweet themselves does not go.
Viral. But what happened with me is there was that spark and then from all the stuff I've done in the past all the all the leg work. I put in all the music I'd created, I started my podcast as well, January 2019. So I had this whole library in body of work that people then were able to discover. So it was like, oh my gosh, that's a funny tweet. And then it was like, wait, hang on the zoo because nezumi, guys interested. Okay. Oh, he's a rapper. Oh, he's oh, you went to Oxford University, how he's got some interesting thoughts on. Yeah.
Society and politics and whatever. So I was invited to go on The Joe Rogan show. Joe Rogan discovered me off of that, right? He discovered me from that deadlift video. So huge and so, you know, he DM me and were like, dude, this is amazing. There's a larious he invited me to. Come on his show. I did the Rubin report Ben Shapiro reached out to me. Next thing. I know I'm on talking to Candace Owens and I'm on Tucker, Carlson. I'm doing all of these things. Ukusa all over and from, then on from that, that Flashpoint
In February, 20, 19. My audience is just grown and grown, you know, organically, I think now across the board. I've got about 1.3 million followers on social media up from 50,000.
It's so interesting because and I've heard this from other people and I thought this myself that like, you don't want to alienate people. So you almost feel like your audience will be bigger. If you kind of stay more more Centrist or you stay sort of neutral on certain topics, but actually I'm finding that it's actually speaking your views and whatever category they fall in.
You which today pretty much. I feel like people just identified as left or right or this or that that's when the following explodes. Did you find that?
Yeah, and here's what's really interesting is that my views have not changed that much in the last, My Views in My overall message. My poor message is not changed much since 2006, but what's happened is that the world has shifted so much that simple.
Simply Having common sense and Having the courage to speak Common Sense against nonsense and to think for yourself and to encourage other people to do the same, and to question the narrative. And so on that, now, there's such a hunger. There's such a hunger for that. There's such a thirst for it, people crave it. So it's funny. I mean, if I look at, I mean, I know my own beliefs, I know where my heart is. I know who I am. But like even if I look at some of my most viral posts
They're all things that I feel like I shouldn't have to say. Hmm. Right? Like I'm like, oh my gosh, this is common sense. So much of the stuff. Like, of course, from from February, March, 20, 20. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of people who also discovered me from my commentary throughout the pandemic or sure. Just saying what I think is going on and I'm like, you know, I'm not there trying to be super controversial or to be contrarian, just for the sake of it. I was like guys is not making
sense. We're going
on,
right? Everyone's they're freaking out about this virus and I'm like, yeah. Okay. There's the virus there. But like, what? What is this? Like, what's this lockdown thing? What's up with the mandatory face, coverings. I'm saying this as someone who grew up in Saudi Arabia, and I remember all those westerners, right, talking about how terrible it is that they make people cover their face in public, right? What is going on with, you know, these these mandates? And this and that I was like, this is this makes no sense. This is the biggest over reaction. I've seen in my life. Not only is it an overreactor?
Shin but you are giving up all of these civil liberties and freedoms and rights that fought so hard for people to get and you're doing it enthusiastically. Totally. Well, I've just been speaking. So I was just, I mean, from early on, I'll be honest. I was never, I was never scared of the virus itself. But you know, I can understand people having those concerns. But if you're going to respond to something number one, it should be proportionate. And number two. It should matter. Number two. You should consider the
The repercussions of the response, right? If you're going to lock down a society, that's going to have repercussions. If you have a print trillions and trillions of dollars and pay people to stay home and do nothing, that's going to have some repercussions. There's this thing called inflation, you know, if you take kids out of school for a year and then when you put them back you force them to stay apart from each other and muzzle their faces for no reason. All of this stuff has consequences so I could see that from very early on and people were not considering it. And then the third part is like, if you are going to put a measure on,
Is he in place?
Whether or not it works matters, right? If you're like I'm against a mask mandate period, I don't care whether it works or not. But if you're going to do it, what data are you justifying in
by? Right?
Right. If you're going to say, okay, because there's places where there are many places all over the world, where it anytime you are outside of your house. You're supposed to be having your face covered. Right? Right. Doesn't outside. Great. Like people can debate the outside. Never never remotely.
We made any sense, like nobody, not even. Yeah, exactly. So and it's like, okay. So if someone is saying this is a good idea in this, something we have to do. It's like, okay. Well, Jeff justify you, you have to justify, you have to explain. Okay. Look, these are, these are the downsides. And also look these in the encroachments on Liberty and so on, there's a fundamental change in the relationship between between the people in the government and you might not ever get this back by the way. So if you're going to do it, you need to have a darn darn incredibly good reason and right.
This day it doesn't exist. Why, because it doesn't exist. So I could just kind of see where this was all going. I was seeing this panic and I was just like, guys you people have to be cautious here because when people are afraid
They fear is real. Fears are really dangerous very, very dangerous emotion in many ways. And I was just seeing this level of fear and hysteria not just in one country across the entire world in a way. I've never seen it before. I've never seen so much bizarre human behavior ever. And yeah, and I was one of the few people with a significant following to be willing to go against the grain on this. I mean, I was called a grandma killer anti-science and
five acts are conspiracy theorist. I don't care about people. I'm selfish all everything, you know, so it's kind of funny how now it's kind of like you can you can talk about this stuff but early 2020. I was not popular to not be in favor of the lockdowns in the mandates. So, you know, and a lot of people are not willing to put their head above the parapet and I understand that. All right. I understand that but if you refuse to the
Quinces of not doing. So in the long term are usually far more severe than the potential short-term
consequences. Yeah, that's so interesting to hear because I was struggling a lot with that working in mainstream news. When all, this is happening, right? Because we would receive these like wire stories, and these studies, and this is what the White House would say. This is what the CDC would say. And like the messaging from every mainstream Outlet. It was like masks vaccine. This, this no one's questioning it, and I'm
Sitting there. I'm questioning it personally, but like you can't really speak out and then there'd be a couple of us in The Newsroom that would sort of, we'd be kind of Against the Grain, but not feel comfortable coming out. Like, I'm so grateful that now, I found a way to sort of, you know, have my own platform via Bitcoin of all things, but it's so hard because you do feel that that need to conform when you work for a corporation that basically is your dependent on it for your salary and it's like, it's like a slavery. Like, you know, it's like, you're, you can't say what you
They feel because you're so scared of the consequences which are mostly economic. Right? And I imagine, I mean, you say common sense and I agree with you, but I'm assuming you got branded as like, right wing. And did you, did you did that matter to you? Did you care to worry you? Or I don't
care. You just don't care. I don't care. If people call me right wing, that's not even a pejorative. It's like, okay. Like
it. But isn't it interesting that it's so like each one has such a negative connotation today and we basically put people into buckets like that. It's
If they try to do with Joe Rogan and like he's just right down the middle being common sense. Like, I'm sure you feel. But it's like, no, he's here and then they put other people in this bucket. And like how do you think we got here? Do you think it's because of the results of like this concentration of Economic and political power because of all the money Printing, and like, how we responded to the last financial crisis or like, how do you think we got here?
When you say here? Which aspect are you referring to
this polarization, where people are either left or right, red or blue? And there's nothing
In between you can te
provinces. Yeah, that's a that's a great question. So I think in one way, it's not you, right? I think human beings from the beginning of time, as much as we are individualistic. People are also extraordinarily tribalistic. People can be tribal across all different things. People can be tribalistic when it comes to religion, when it comes to politics, when it comes to nationality, when it comes to race, when it comes to ethnicity, when it comes to gender, when it comes to sports.
Team human beings are inherently tribalistic. And that's not something that is inherently bad. It's just something that's neutral. It's just something that exists and it can manifest in many different ways. Right? There's many positive aspects to tribalism, right? The Loyalty you feel towards your family, feel towards your friends, right? You feel like you're part of a community, you're in this whole Bitcoin world. There's a community there. There's interest thinking, you know, there's things.
Link people together and bring people together. If you're you know, if you're a part of our religion, whether you are a Christian or a Muslim, you're Jewish, whatever. There's there's a community and that level of tribalism is not a bad thing. However, tribalism can be extraordinarily dangerous when it is running across the wrong aspects. That's largely, what xenophobia or racism are. We've seen what that can lead to that can lead to the worst things in the world? The greatest.
Atrocities in the world. When that type of tribalism gets too toxic and it becomes a type of Supremacy and reason supposedly to oppress and hurt, or even maim and kill other human beings, but that tribalism is always there, and I think as human beings. Typically people, people don't really like to think that hard right? Humans, tend towards the path of least resistance.
In everything, physically mentally spiritually, everything. The world is a very, very complicated place to view. Everything in Shades of Grey interview people in Shades of Gray and to have a Nuance in your thinking is it takes some effort? It's a lot easier to just make everything black and white ones and zeros. Binary. There's good people in, there's bad people. There's my in group and there's my out group. I'm going to support everything within my in group and go against everything within my out-group. I'm just going to listen to whatever.
Ever, my team says or whatever my team goes with, I'm going to go with it. I'm going to agree with that. I'm going to accept it. That is the easiest thing to do. So, I think a lot of it is not it's not something new. I think that things that exaggerate it and have exacerbated it over the past. Couple decades, include certainly, social media. Absolutely a factor because it removes a lot of the human element when you are on Twitter, especially, but any of these platforms is easy for people to
Get that you're dealing with human beings, you're talking to human beings and not just talking to bots or avatars. Like it looks like on your computer or Mobile screen. There is a human being on the opposite end of every message. There's no tone. You can't see facial expressions. You can't hear, there's no body language. So much of the communication is removed and it makes it so much easier to throw people into these boxes. Having a binary political system in the USA. For example, where you just
Got two major parties. You just got a red and blue. You've just got a left and right Republican and Democrat. That doesn't help, because it makes people feel more that they have to fall into a team because that place in a way, if you are going to vote you sort of have to, right? You might have some major issues with both parties. You may lean this way, but like, you know, people feel. They just have to totally adopt that one thing. And I think another part is
Immaturity, I think that we live in a really immature time. I'll be honest with you. I think we live in this age of extended, adolescence where you've got a lot of adults, some of them in their 50s 60s and 70s, who honestly are kind of acting and thinking like children, if they don't get their way. They throw a tantrum. If someone disagrees with them, they throw a tantrum if you
know people would be created hard time.
Yes, we're living in that part of the cycle and you know,
It's just kind of it's confusing and then on top of it all is a level of cowardice and people don't like it when I use this word, but that's what it is. People are not as courageous. I don't think as they as they used to be people are not as intellectually courageous. People are not as socially courageous. So even if someone
Knows that something is going wrong. They're afraid to say it. Even if someone can see that. Something's not right or something's not making sense. They're afraid to ask the question. They're afraid to put the head above the parapet because there could be some backlash. Someone could call them a name. Right? No one wants to be called a name. No one wants to be called, you know, anything, any kind of pejorative and because of the immaturity, people are very quick to use those labels. So, rather than contending with what someone says, we're trying to deal with their argument, they just
Call you a racist or not see or anti-vaxxer or your, this
person's anti-science person. Just cancel you.
Yeah, yeah. Try to end and I can understand why people have that fear because it's not a totally invalid, fear is nothing to fear more. Besides death. The thing humans fear most is social judgment and social ostracize ation, but that's often being misapplied. I think and all of these things together to answer your question in a very long way. I think all those things.
Things together are what have led to this moment in time where it just feels like the world is going crazy and people have lost their Marbles and it's also kind of strange because then you can Venture into the real world and it mostly feels normal. And then you you know, you go back online and you're like, oh my gosh, people are crazy and there's this weird. It's just kind of deranging. It's very it's weird and people are kind of unmoored from
everything does.
Bitcoin fix this.
Um, it helps, it helps, you know, the money, the money and money is an important part of society in many, many ways. And most people don't really understand money on any type of deep level. And I think a lot of the stuff that funds the arrangement, and a lot of the way that a lot of bad.
Things are able to go on, especially when committed by my government, has everything from from war to all the problems that come with inflation, the promotion of even certain ideas, and things like that. A lot of that, in some way rests upon the money system, right? If you can have endless money, you can have endless Wars. If you can have endless money, you can have endless inflation in. Your currency can be devalued and then you have all the harsh consequences of that if you have infinite money.
You can move away from a meritocracy and instead of promoting people and ideas that are beneficial and which work you can, you know, float stuff that doesn't work. You can create fake jobs where people are being paid to create problems or at least not fix them and so on. So I think that I think that from a sort of socio-economic perspective, a lot of problems were caused by
The movement off the gold standard, which didn't happen just in the USA. This is something that happened happened all over the world. And I think that for many decades in different ways. We've been paying the we've been paying the price for that. I think, even in some in some deep levels, I mean,
One of the most important things in this Society is is family, right? Is that is the family structure and the family has been assaulted in the West for over the past Century, certainly over the past 50 years. There's been so much familial breakdown. First a huge host of factors, socio-cultural economic economic factor is a, it's a big piece. It's a big challenge that a lot of people face, you know, especially Millennials and upcoming gen Z the whole
Whole, whether you're looking at housing, you're looking at employment. You're looking at wages. You're looking at all of these things are our problems and they have all these Downstream repercussions. So I do not think that Bitcoin fixes. Absolutely. Every problem in the world. Alright, human beings are always going to have problems. We are not perfect beings. We are sinful creatures. We are wonderful creatures, but we're the best in the worst thing on this planet. And the way that people treat each other.
Is something that we always need to be very cautious of and which we always individually, I think you need to play our own role in doing our best to treat each other. Well, despite all of our differences and our emotions and our anger, and our fear and all of that. So I think, you know, the world is never going to be perfect. Never was never will be is no country. No City. No place. No person. That is, that is perfect. And I think that utopian thinking, and itself is actually,
Dangerous whenever we seek to create a Utopia, we always end up in a dystopia. So, I think that's something to be cautious of, but I think the, the money itself is something that we need to fix. I think that is something that does need to be addressed. We've been running this experiment now, for about a century with the initial shifts off of the gold standard and that's accelerated very much over the past 60 years or so.
So I don't think it fixes all problems. But it will. It will, it will fix many in a way that doesn't some more directly. But some like I was talking about with with, with the family and people actually being able to buy houses. I'll tell you I'll tell you another thing that's really important. Not only in a society, I think is people being able to believe that the future is going to be better than the present.
I think that's so important and I think that's really underrated. I think a society is generally in Decline when a majority of people believe the future is going to be worse than the present.
That even stops people wanting to propagate the species, right? I'm sure you've heard people or, you know, people who say, I, you know, I don't I don't want to bring a child into this world, right? I'm afraid that might, you know, my child is, he's going to have a worse life than I did. And that's that's really sad. That's actually quite dark and some of that is connected to the financial aspect. It's connected to the
Nummy. It's connected to moral Decline and so on. So I think that we need a, an injection of optimism, especially in these Western countries, especially after the past two years. I think we need a big dose of optimism and we need reason for people to believe that the future is going to be better than the present. Because if people have hope, then we can get through anything as a species, as individuals, as communities as long as there is, hope and a belief that the future is going to be.
In the present, we can get through absolutely anything and I think that, you know, I love human beings. I love the world. We live in. I think that we're so blessed. And so fortunate to be here right now in 2022 where we are and
We should want that for future generations and we have to fight for
that. I think that is so well said and I can't think of Bitcoin as you know, more than just like the perfect injection of Hope in society. I really do just to start to wrap up. You know, we're in this crazy time right now where I think a lot of us had expected or predicted that the price would go to 100,000. By now. I think, I think you and Palmer on a podcast, both of you are predicting hundreds.
20:21. We were all there, right? So, you know, we have a lot of volatility macroeconomic environment hiking rates. This that but where do you see this all going? Like, how do you see us sort of moving on to the Bitcoin standard? When we live in such a society of not just polarization but truly like economic debt, where the next thing I predict is politicians saying, hey, Ubi, we're just going to helicopter money in. We're going to create that Central Bank, digital currency. And so many people don't understand Bitcoin.
Don't appreciate it. They don't have that intellectual curiosity. That's required. And the narratives are skewed. So, how do you see this playing out over? Maybe the next 5-10 years,
man. That's a huge question.
I think I'm someone who is an eternal optimist. I think. And one reason for that, is in history. I look at all the things that human beings have been through and dealt with and managed to get through. And I think that every generation has its challenge. Every generation has its challenges, and has its battles and has to fight Freedom has to fight for Freedom against tyranny in some way shape, or form in the past.
Then, you know, we have to take all these millions of young men and put them on boats, put them on planes, and send them to literally fight to the death against direct tyranny, right now. We're facing tyranny in a sort of softer and more subtle way. And I think that the battle to move some towards say. A Bitcoin standard is is going to be a battle. It's going to be tumultuous. I'm not saying it's going to be a you know, guns and boots on the ground.
When bombs and planes dropping bombs, but it's not going to be, it's not going to be easy. It's not going to be a straight line. It's not going to just be, you know, number go up and everything. Everything is good. There is going to be governments are going to take action. There's going to be all sorts of attempts at regulation or even Banning or you know, you talk. There's this talk of see what they call them.
CB d, c--, s Central Bank, digital currencies, people are going to be, you know, pushing that floating those ideas. There's going to be all kinds of
I don't think it's going to be a smooth ride. I don't think it's going to be a smooth ride. And I think also, you know every year more and more people learn about and adopt a Bitcoin, right? It's some people went down this Rabbit Hole 10 years ago. Some people just started going right down this Rabbit Hole yesterday. Some people think the whole thing is a scam and is nonsense in his magical internet money. And again, I've seen these adoption curves. I remember when people thought the internet itself was a stupid idea, right? And I'm not
Not all that old. And I remember when people thought the internet, I remember when people thought email was pointless. I remember when people thought Facebook was pointless. All what's going to Facebook? Like, no one uses it. It's kind of slow whatever. So, unfortunately, one more observation of made about people is often times, people don't appreciate something until they kind of get slapped in the face directly.
I think it's a lot easier to if you're talking on a global scale, something like Bitcoin is a lot easier I think to explain and sell to someone on. Who's seen their currency, get devalued by 90% over a couple of years, right? Then they're looking at Bitcoin and they're not like, oh my gosh, this thing is crazy and volatile. They are like, oh, wow, this thing maintains its value and its deflationary. It's not, it's not inflationary. I think that, you know, there's so many advantages to living in a country like, the USA or in the UK, but I think that
Because the yeah, sure inflation is kicking in more noticeably now, but over the course of time, it's so slow and gradual that it's a little bit. It's a bit imperceptible. People don't really notice it and feel it. Whereas in other places. It's like, oh wow. Okay, like our currency is not my currencies, not really worth anything. We'd they've had hyperinflation. So I think it would be ideal if a major financial crisis is not needed.
For people to understand the value and purpose of Bitcoin and for them to understand that their dollars are not truly back by anything. I hope that's not the case. I don't want to see and I certainly do not wish nor hope for any type of major Financial collapse or anything like that. But I also just recognize that.
People don't feel until they feel some type of pain in some way. They often don't respond. Right? They think it's just something that happens to other people or it happens in other places. And it's not until it affects them in some way shape or form that they really pay attention. So, we'll see. I mean, if you look at the way it's trending, maybe it's not trending as quickly as we want it to in certain directions, but if you think that this is an invention
In this is a creation that's only existed for about twelve. Twelve in a bit 12, 13 years. That's not a long time. If you look at the progress that's been made. I mean going out to what a one trillion dollar market cap last year from something that used to be worth. Nothing like almost less than nothing in a 1213 year span that, that is phenomenal. So I think we need to think on a longer time perspective.
I think when you get really really caught up in the short term. It's easy to lose faith and lose hope lose money for sure, and that affects people emotionally, but I think, if you, if you zoom out a little, and you look at the bigger picture, I think things are trending. Things are trending very much actually in a positive direction. I
totally agree. What would you say drives you? I mean, you're in a position now, where you have influence, you have money, you have a successful career big following, like, what, what drives you now? What?
What do you want to do?
Mmm, it's the exact same thing that always did Natalie and this is part of why I knew I had to leave my corporate job, which is I want to help Inspire and motivate as many people as I can in this world through my words and through my actions. I thought I was going to do that, just with music and as time has gone on, I've realized that I have other things that I can offer to the world. So my goal is simply to reach and maximize I can't.
But to to maximize my own potential and to encourage and help other people to do the same thing in all sorts of different ways. So my goal is that simple and that keeps me pumped up every single day. I love people. I genuinely love people as critical as I can be a human beings and our nature. I genuinely love people and I think that there is there's so much good in this world. There's so many good people. People have so much.
Seneschal in so much ability and different talents and experiences that we can all use to help each other and I'm kind of obsessed with that idea. So I try to live that and do my best to encourage other people to do the
same. I love that. Okay, last question. If you could time travel and go talk to Young zubi, whether he's you know, young kids, living in Saudi Arabia are in boarding school in the UK. Like, what would you tell your younger self besides buying Bitcoin? Because that's, like, they go to answer, but
Something other than that, I tell myself a man. You're going to be great. You're going to be great. You're going to make a big impact in this world. So believe in yourself. Stay focused.
Be a good human treat other people. Well, and it's going to pay off.
All right, awesome anywhere. That people should come find you other than your podcast. Your, your rap. Like, where else can people find you.
Yeah, sure thing. So, my podcast and music you can find on all platforms, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, and you can find me on all social media. Same handle zubi, music, Z UB y, music can find me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. All of them at zubi music.
Oh,
thanks so much for listening to this episode of coin stories. I'd love to connect with you. If you have questions or guest requests, so feel free to get in touch on Twitter at nap, Brunel or Instagram at Natalie Brunell. Take care of till next time.
