Today is Independence Day in the United States. Over 200 years ago a document was signed declaring that the colonists where declaring their freedom from the British Empire. Maybe it's time we declare our own independence day from fiat and the Federal Reserve.

News and Links

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/voyager-digital-provides-market-184400883.html

https://cryptopotato.com/3ac-files-for-bankruptcy-as-voyager-digital-suspends-withdrawals/

https://finbold.com/samsung-to-produce-bitcoin-mining-chips-secures-chinese-asic-firm-as-1st-customer/

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I can be reached by email at mcintosh@genwealthcrypto.com and on twitter at @McIntoshFinTech. My mastodon handle is @mcintosh@podcastindex.social. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Website

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Hey, everybody. It's the 4th of July. Welcome to the Generational Wealth Cryptocurrency

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podcast. I'm your host, MacIntosh, and today we're going to talk about declaring your

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independence. All right. So today, I don't have a whole lot to talk about in terms of

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the news. I'll probably cover that briefly right now, and then we will jump in today's

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topic, which is given inspiration by the fact that as I record this shortly after midnight,

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it is July the 4th here in the United States, a day that we declared independence from the

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British back in 1776. And we'll see how that relates to current events.

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And let's go through the news real quick. There were a few items after I recorded on

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Thursday night, on Friday, the Voyager firm, hedge fund, whatever you want to call them.

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They announced that they were suspending trading deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards

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effective two o'clock Eastern time on July the 1st. So this is what Celsius did a few

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weeks ago. And again, as with Celsius, this goes back to Three Arrows Capital, who is now

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actually declaring bankruptcy. There's a show note. There's an article that I will be including

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in the show notes about that as well. But basically, they had loaned money to Three

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Arrows Capital, who was doing whatever bad decisions they were making with it. Basically,

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they loaned out 15,000 Bitcoin, $350 million of USDC, which is a stablecoin. And of course,

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Three Arrows can't pay that. And now Voyager has serious issues. They have issued what

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they call a notice of default, but with Three Arrows declaring bankruptcy, chances are they

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will certainly not get all of that money back. Who knows how much they will end up getting

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back? Probably not very much of it. So it looks like Voyager, Celsius, and 3AC are kind

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of this trifecta of this mess at this point. And this all actually does go back to the

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Luna Terra Luna ecosystem collapse, because in large part, that's how Three Arrows Capital

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lost a lot of their money. So there you go. All three of these companies, Voyager, Celsius,

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Three Arrows Capital, they were all centralized. Arguably, Terra Luna was not, although it

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certainly seems to me that Doe Kwan had a lot of influence in what was going on. So

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a lot of people would not actually consider them to be decentralized. I think at this

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point I would have to agree with that assessment. All right. What else? Oh, I did want to mention

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this. This isn't, well, I do think this is interesting. We don't talk about mining a

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whole lot on here, but one of the advances that's coming in mining with Bitcoin, you

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mine using what are called ASICs. They are specialized chip sets that are used basically

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for the hashing algorithm to decode, to mine Bitcoin. Samsung is working on what they call

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a three nanometer chip. So nanometer is a measurement. It's a very tiny measurement.

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So basically chip sizes are measured in these nanometers, and over the years they've gotten

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smaller and smaller. Three nanometers is actually extremely small. I've never heard of anything

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less than that. They are working on some chips that can be utilized for Bitcoin. This came

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out during a 2022 Q1 financial call, so that call would have happened probably March, April.

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They do think that trials of those chips are actually already underway. So what's going

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to happen here, they're saying that it's going to increase mining speed about 15% and it's

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actually going to reduce power by about 30%. So of course the mining speed improvement

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is going to benefit profitability as well as reducing power. Understand a high-end ASIC

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mining rig for Bitcoin right now is consuming about 3,000 watts of power. Some of them are

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actually a little more than that, but 3,100 is kind of the area where they've been lately.

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And that's continuous. You run this miner all the time. So a 30% drop would be 310%

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times 3, so 900 watts in power, which would be a huge win. So you would go from 3,100

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down to about 2,100 or 2,200, somewhere around there. And apparently they already have their

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first customer, which is a Chinese ASIC firm. So we will see how quickly this moves into

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the market. I personally would love to see both the speed increase and the power decrease.

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I think that would help things quite a bit. All right. So I will have a link to that in

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show notes as well. If you're interested in Bitcoin mining, that might be something you

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want to look at. By the way, I think I've mentioned this a couple of times. I am looking

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at getting into mining. I've been watching the mining prices very closely, and the cost

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of the miners is definitely going down. It remains to see where they're going to go.

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It depends on how long the bear market is. The longer it is, the more you're going to

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have people who really aren't making money mining. They're going to sell to de-risk,

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to de-leverage themselves, so to speak. And the more inventory that's on the market, whether

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it's new or used, is going to continue to drive that price down. So a high-end miner

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right now is about $4,900. It's less than $5,000. And just a few months ago, well, basically,

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I guess at the end of last year, when I started looking at miners, so six months ago, seven

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months ago, they were double that price. So they're not going to go down in half again,

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I don't think. I don't think we're going to get down to $2,500. But I do think they may

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go down below $4,000 or around $4,000 or so. And these are really more high-end miners,

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so they would be able to mine more Bitcoin in the long run.

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All right. Moving on, let's talk about our topic very briefly tonight. I was thinking

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about this in regards to here in the United States, we celebrate the Fourth of July. It's

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a federal holiday, so anybody who works for the government gets it off. A lot of other

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people business-wise, whatever, it's a standard holiday. So a lot of people take it off. You

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have a barbecue, you have a hamburger or hot dog grill. We shoot off fireworks and kind

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of have a good time. And I think a lot of people almost even forget what it's for, even

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though it's, of course, right there in the title, Fourth of July, it's Independence Day.

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And that's fine. But I was thinking about this. I've made it pretty clear, I think,

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my views on our Federal Reserve. And that is headed up by a gentleman named Jerome Powell.

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And I believe, frankly, he's done a terrible job. Now, you could make the argument that

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he kind of operates under the direction of the president, and I think to an extent that

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is true. But this gentleman, Jerome Powell, has actually been, he was under Trump as well

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as now Biden. So I guess maybe you could blame both of them. And in fact, I in large part

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do blame both presidents for our current financial situation, because both of them printed large

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amounts of money through the Federal Reserve. And I placed that directly back to the presidents

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in both of those cases. So it's very easy for me to say that. And I'm going to let y'all

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in on a little secret. I'm not a Republican or Democrat. I'm actually a registered independent

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because I don't really care about a political affiliation in that regards. I do vote. But

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I'm not somebody who goes in there and says, Oh, I'm going to vote Republican or Democrat

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or whatever. I'm going to vote for the person that I think will do the best job getting

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off track there. But going back to Jerome Powell, I watched a video clip from clearly

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from a show, you know, this isn't just some fly by night show or whatever. And I don't

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know what show it was, but this was legitimate. And this was in June. So just a month or so

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ago. And look, I'm going to read you what he said. It's very short. But either this

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guy's lying. He's an idiot. Or, well, that's really actually the only two options. Okay.

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This guy is in charge of the economic policy of the United States. Keep that in mind, please.

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Jerome Powell, quote, I think we now understand better how little we understand about inflation,

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close quote. Now just let that sink in. Now, clearly Mr. Powell is a Keynesian in his economic

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views. And if you don't know what that is, you can look it up. But basically, this gentleman

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Keynes, he felt that if you kind of manage your money or whatever, debt really wasn't

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an issue. And that's baloney. And printing money creates debt, by the way. Host, that's

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not very reassuring. Jerome, this was unpredicted. Really, Mr. Powell? Respectfully, I disagree

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because I've been saying this was going to happen for a long time and I'm not the only

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person, certainly. So that was the only part. That was a few seconds out of the interview.

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I get it. But that is a direct quote. That's what he meant. It wasn't misstated. It wasn't

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taken out of context. That's exactly what he said. So I go back to what I said. Either

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he's a liar or he's an idiot. And if he's an idiot, he needs to resign. And if he's

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a liar, he needs to resign. So in either case, he needs to resign. He needs to go to the

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president and say, I'm sorry, I can't do this job. You got to get somebody who can. If he

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doesn't understand what is causing inflation, then he does not need to be in charge of the

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money of the United States of America. So this 4th of July, whether you live in the

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United States or whether you live in the EU, regardless, really, of where you live, you

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can declare independence from your nation's fiat, from their no-backing currency that

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most likely they're printing money, so to speak. And when I say that, I'm simplifying

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what actually happens, but they're just creating more debt. The United States is now at roughly

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$30 trillion of debt. That is insane. The problem is most people can't even wrap their

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heads around what $30 trillion is. It's just a number they hear on the news every once

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in a while, and they don't realize how much that is. I'll tell you how much it is. I've

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mentioned this statistic before. There's an economic term called the gross domestic product,

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GDP. It means the value of everything that was created or serviced or whatever in the

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United States, in this case, in whatever country. The United States has the highest GDP in the

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world. And I'm going to read you, I'm going to tell you what the GDP was for 2020, which

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is the latest stats I have here. Since COVID, I'm sure this number has gone down. So again,

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if we took all the value of everything that was happening in the United States, this would

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be it. $20.94 trillion. So 21, let's just round that up. $21 trillion. That's the value

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of all the economic activity. And that is actually what? About 66% of the total debt

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that we owe. It's crazy. You know what our debt should be? Zero. Just conservative old

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me speaking here. That being said, what can we do? Can we really declare economic independence

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from the United States? Not really, but there are steps that we can do to move ourselves

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that way. Now, at my job, at least, I can't get paid in Bitcoin. I still have to deal

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with the IRS. I still have to deal with getting paid in fiat, dealing with all the complications

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of that. But what I can do is I can do things like invest in Bitcoin and other assets. I

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can invest in mining of Bitcoin, which will create revenue streams long-term. I was thinking

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about this today, not to get off topic, but Bitcoin mining could be viewed as a revenue

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stream. If I could set up three, four, five Bitcoin miners, they're going to provide a

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steady stream of Bitcoin. It's kind of like rent on a house, right? I buy a house. Actually,

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it's really close to that. Link about this for just a second. If I buy a house, let's

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say, it would be very extremely difficult to do this, but let's say I spent $100,000.

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I got a loan and I bought a house that I rented to somebody. Maybe they give me $2,000 a month.

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Some of that goes towards the payment of the loan. Some of that needs to go towards repairs.

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Some of that will go into my profit pocket, hopefully as profit. I also might have a property

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manager and I would pay them a certain amount every month to manage that property. How does

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this compare to Bitcoin? Basically, right now, I spend $5,000 on a Bitcoin miner and

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then I have two choices. I can mine it at home or I can send it somewhere to be mined,

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to a mining facility. That facility takes care of it. They plug it in. They power it

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up. They're going to maintain the power to that. They're probably going to monitor it,

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make sure that it's online. If you look at it in that case, then the mining facility

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is like that property manager. It's almost hands-free. It's not completely, but it's

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pretty close. One person literally could manage hundreds of miners if you had them hosted

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like that. Of course, you can do this at home yourself.

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You can deal with paying your power, that kind of thing. Basically, you don't have your

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property manager. I think it's actually a very good analogy. In both cases, hopefully,

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we're creating revenue streams that we're making money every month off of that. Maybe

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we'll explore that in a future episode.

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Anyways, moving on. That's one thing I can do to help declare my independence. I can

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vote for politicians that support Bitcoin for proper crypto regulation. People like

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Senator Loomis and I can't remember the name of the other senator that co-sponsored the

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bill that's working its way, hopefully, through the Senate that will provide reasonable, responsible

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regulation for Bitcoin. Those are some of the things I can do to declare my independence.

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I do not know when. Now, I would say when, not if, but I do not know when the United

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States will come off of the US dollar. Eventually, I think it's bound to happen because unless

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the government changes its policy very soon, we will not have a way out to pay the debt.

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The way that it will be paid is by inflating the money even more, by creating more debt,

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by printing money that we then use to pay the debt. I mean, it will eventually reach

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this hyperinflation. At some point, we will have to stop and say, we've got to move to

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something else. And I hope, I pray that it's something like Bitcoin because it just makes

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too much sense. We've tried this fiat-based system, these Keynesian economics, and they

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are failing us. And it is time that we wake up and stop acting like idiots going, I don't

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know what's going on. I don't understand it. That's it. That's the leader of the Federal

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Reserve, ladies and gentlemen. I don't understand inflation. Well, okay. I learned about it

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in high school, but maybe I'm older than he is. I don't think so. I don't know. That's

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just me, just my crazy ramblings that sadly proved to be true, at least in broad part.

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So there you go. It's your 4th of July. You have your chance. You can declare your independence.

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You maybe can't do it all at once, but you can start moving towards it. All right. I'm

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going to wrap this up, guys. It's going to be short this week. It is the 4th of July,

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and I do have things to do later today, and I need to go to bed after I edit this. Like

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I mentioned an episode or two ago, actually one week from today we will be doing two episodes,

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one on the French African nation states. I think a lot of people don't understand what's

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going on there, the history, and hopefully where they're going.

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We're starting to see this with, of course, the Central African Republic. Hopefully they

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will lead the way to a number of these colonies truly declaring their independence from France

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because in a lot of ways these countries are, and I'm going to say this, and I mean what

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I'm saying, they are an economic slavery still to France, and I will explain that in another

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week.

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The Generational Wealth Cryptocurrency podcast supports podcasting 2.0. It is a value for

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time, talent, and treasure. If you want to support the podcast and have some time or

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and probably a few other things. Treasure is just what it sounds like. If you find the

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content valuable, you can support the podcast by streaming stats from podcasting 2.0 app

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or sending support via PayPal to macintosh@genwealthcrypto.com. You can get a podcast

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Hey, as always, thanks for being here. I hope this has been helpful, and I would love to

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hear from you. I'm on Twitter at MacintoshFintech, and you can reach me by email at

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macintosh@genwealthcrypto.com.

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Real quickly before I say bye, I would recommend, if you've not already done that, go to that

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newpodcastapps.com, try out the Fountain app. They are giving us an opportunity to test

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out streaming stats for nothing. You can go create your account, set up your account,

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and then they have programs that are promoted that the podcast person or whoever, they are

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paying for that, but you get streamed stats just for listening to it.

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Then you can turn around and use those to support podcasts that you like, hopefully

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like Generational Wealth Cryptocurrency. Earlier this week, for example, I was listening to

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the podcast in 2.0 app podcast, and I boosted the Roa Ducks, which is 2222 from the silly

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Duck Hunt video game. I don't know why it's twos, but that's what they've always called

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it. So, 2222 stats, and every one of those stats I had actually gained by listening to

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new content from podcasts that I had never even heard of that were under that Discover

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tab that were being promoted. I will continue to listen to some of those podcasts, and I

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will support some of those podcasts if I'm listening to them, of course. So, it is a

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chance for you to test this out. There is no obligation. They're not asking for your

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credit card or anything like that, so do yourself a favor and go out there and try it out. Now