The Bitcoin 2021 Conference in Miami.
Wasn't just a celebration of the end of the pandemic
and an opportunity to gather up close and maskless
with more than 10,000 ideological fellow travelers,
it was also a watershed moment for a technological
and cultural movement
whose goal is nothing short
of the separation of money and state.
Bitcoin emerged just a dozen years ago,
when a pseudonymous genius shared a nine page paper
on an obscure email list.
And now it's the third largest currency on the planet.
In another dozen years, we may look back on Bitcoin 2021
as the Woodstock of the crypto generation.
The headline acts included former Congressman Ron Paul.
I admit there's a lot of the things about Bitcoin
and other things that I don't fully understand,
but I understand liberty
Twitter and Square CEO, Jack Dorsey.
We need to be able to transact with this every single day
and everyone around the world
needs to transact with it everyday.
Skateboard legend, Tony Hawk,
boxer, Floyd Mayweather,
sex tape, entrepreneur, Paris Hilton,
DJ and record producer Diplo
and Ross Ulbricht who beamed in from federal prison,
where he is serving an effective life sentence
for creating the pioneering dark website
"Silk Road" which helped bootstrap Bitcoin it's early years.
The conference ended with an announcement
that El Salvador will become the first country on earth
to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender.
I will send to Congress a bill that will make
Bitcoin a legal tender in El Salvador.
One of the breakout stars of the conference
was Cynthia Lummis a 66-year old freshmen Republican Senator
from Wyoming.
From the stage and in an interview with Reason,
Lummis forcefully made the case that Bitcoin
not only provides a fully legitimate alternative
store of value and medium of exchange,
but would act as a check on the devaluation
of the U.S. dollar and other currencies
through the runaway creation of fiat money.
She also believes that the growth of Bitcoin,
assailed for its heavy use of electricity,
is acting as a spur to create renewable energy
in Wyoming and around the globe.
And she extolled its privacy features
in a world of increasing surveillance
by governments and corporations alike.
Senator, thanks for talking to Reason.
It's my pleasure, Nick.
What's your main interest in crypto?
I mean you're in the Senate and in Congress more broadly.
You're like a leading light on this type of stuff.
What do you see as the value of this new technology?
Especially as it intersects
with a kind of fiat currency system
that has really gone off the rails.
I had been my state's treasurer, in Wyoming.
I think that suffices,
I understand why you're interest in crypto.
Yeah, I was always looking for a store of value
and I see Bitcoin, specifically, as a great store of value.
Only 21 million will ever be developed.
And so we know that scarcity will protect its value
going into the future, unlike the U.S. dollar
that we're printing more of every single day.
Oh yeah.
I mean, by the end of this interview
there'll be millions more in circulation, right?
But I would think, you're in the U.S. Senate,
is Bitcoin or is crypto more broadly,
is that a competitor to the U.S. dollar?
It's not a competitor
but it is an alternative saving instrument
for people like me,
who are concerned that the U.S. dollar saved,
will be worth far less than when it's deposited in savings.
So to me, I see it as an opportunity to save for my future
in something that will grow in value, not fall in value.
Do you own Bitcoin or other crypto?
I do. I do.
Okay. Are you cashing out?
Oh no. You're long on Bitcoin.
I'm what they call a Hodler. I'm long.
I'm in it for the distance.
You are a Hodler.
You are working both to bring kind of an understanding
and a legislative agenda around crypto into fruition.
What's the regulatory framework that you want to see crypto
being used that apart from,
currently it basically is treated as a private
commodity. Commodity. Mm-hm.
So it's subject to things like capital gains tax.
Where do you see things going?
What your dream vision?
It is to create a regulatory and statutory framework.
A sandbox if you will, that innovators know the parameters
but the parameters don't constrain them in their innovation
as they develop new uses, new tools, new opportunities.
So the blockchain will provide, for example,
the opportunity to put both contracts
and the money or value associated with that contract
on the blockchain.