Oh, I can't hear you. Hold on.
I've got to fix my settings over here.
- You hear me now? - I can hear you now.
First of all, how are you?
Yeah, doing great.
Word is, you got a Charles Hoskinson interview.
- That's going to be amazing! - Yeah, that'd be awesome, man.
I'm still waiting for him to get back at me.
I've emailed him. I tried to DM him.
I tagged him.
Consensus is Thursday through Sunday.
I'm just going to go out there to do the interview really.
Okay.
A little time pressure on this one and a sweet spot,
so I'm going to walk you through it real quick.
To be clear, you wrote this.
You just don't even realize you wrote it.
Okay.
I've written a lot of things in my life.
You've been banging the drum on the accredited investor thing for a while.
Absolutely.
And a while ago, you mentioned something on one of the specials,
or one of the nightly wrap-ups,
about the means testing being stupid and having an actual test.
Yeah.
We're calling it the Financial Education and Inclusion Act of 2022.
Essentially, what we're doing is we're going to get California to pass a resolution
calling upon the federal government to remove the education--
the accredited education school requirements the SEC is getting ready to lock into place
by moving the accredited investor out of the ivory towers of elite colleges
and away from the means testing to an actual online free-to-take tests
that you have to take every few years to stay accredited.
We will actually be doing more to fight the scammers than anybody else.
Because accredited investors will now have to be continually educated
and as scams evolve and change,
things that weren't covered 20 years ago in your school
are covered in your every 4-year text.
Yeah! I feel good about this.
I mean, I think this is--
this, like, lines up perfect with, you know, the message of the channel
and coming out against the accredited investor laws.
You know, anytime you're talking about financial inclusion,
that's the very heart of crypto.
And the thing is, is it removes where basically you're blaming everybody else.
No, you understood, when you took this investment test,
you're responsible for your own funds.
And I think that's also a very powerful piece of this.
And that's another time when crypto is just taking financial responsibility for yourself.
Well, cool. Well, Ryan, I've got to go.
I will talk to TJ about all this.
We're good to go.
As soon as you greenlight me, we go to the language people.
We start moving because we've got to move quick on this
to get through our chance to get to the Rules Committee
or we have to push till next year.
Okay. Awesome, Ryan! I'm excited, man.
- This is great, man. Great work! - Alright.
- Alright. Sounds good. Thank you! - Okay! Alright. Bye.
That was Ryan, who we went out to Sacramento with.
And, you know, basically, we're working on trying to get, like, some laws passed.
And this one is financial inclusion.
So what this would be doing is we would be picking states,
and we would--
the three states we'd be looking at first would be California,
Florida,
maybe Texas,
most likely Colorado,
and what we will be doing is we will be getting rid of the accredited investor laws.
So what would happen is instead of someone needing a certain amount of money,
or certain number of years of schooling,
all they'd have to do is basically pass an accredited investor literacy test.
Show they know the risks,
show they know basics about investments,
and they can be an accredited investor.
You know, this is a changing world,
and you've got to think about the people, you know?
And the people, you know, they want the bare naked truth.
They want to know that they're going to be able to invest and change their lives financially.
And, you know, I think that this is going to be an opportunity for more people
to feel included in the overall financial system,
especially when it comes to investing, that weren't before.
Like, the laws are stacked against minorities.
They're stacked against people that work full time jobs.
They're stacked against, you know, homeschooled kids
because they don't have the same, like, you know, the same steps of education
that, you know, public school has.
So there's all kinds of barriers.
We're tired of people on Wall Street and Washington being the gatekeepers.
We're about to go down there and bust the gates open for the people.
This man just changed on camera.
Did you like-- I thought that'd be a nice little thing.
What's a good idea for this Charles interview?
I'm thinking like--
so people are going to have to go out there.
And I'm waiting to hear from him on whether he wants to do it Thursday evening
or Friday in the daytime.
If it's Thursday evening,
we need to have, like, a couple of people go out there early.
- To set it up. - To set it up.
So I asked him what hotel he is staying in.
A little awkward, I guess.
Charles in real life.
Maybe get a conference room at that hotel.
Like, just like a meeting room.
I'm almost thinking kind of like
- almost like 60 Minutes style? - Yes!
- Right. - Okay.
- This needs to be, like, S-tier. - Yeah.
- Quality interview, in my opinion. - Yes. Yeah.
- He's like S-tier in crypto. - Yeah.
What about doing a video on coins?
Like, coins from the previous bull market that didn't make it to, you know, like,
basically saying like, "Don't hold on to Shiba Inu,"
- or, you know. - Yeah. I think, like, that is a good video.
I do like that idea because the other video idea I actually had was,
- like, really, how do you survive a bear market? - Right.
Like, I've been through it.
I went through it.
This is how I survived it.
Let's see. I had a lot of stuff.
Ugh!
Somebody hit my mailbox last night apparently.
I wonder who.
I came out. The mailbox was turned around backwards.
Might be the troublesome neighbors we probably think.
Their side mirror was in my yard,
so it's going to be pretty easy.
- Just find a car with missing side mirror. - Car with a missing side mirror.
My Ring doorbell has not been working.
And just last night I ordered new batteries.
Too late.
Okay.
Something I've never actually done on this channel
is really, like, go to detail with my story.
And, like, how I almost died.
Because I had a guy that messaged me last night and said that, you know,
"I heard you mentioned recovery. My son just died of overdose."
And, like, "We're starting this foundation. We're doing all this."
He's like, "It meant so much hearing you talk about that."
And I think that's something a lot of people relate to.
And if we remember, our mission here is, like, bigger than just, like, clicks and content.
So thinking about a way to do that.
To do that well.
- You know? I don't know. - Or be part of the--
Maybe do a part of the--
on the vlogs, maybe just be more intentional about working in Blake House stuff.
Maybe it is an entire vlog.
- Like, I want one video that tells the whole story. - There you go.
Eight studios we're going to build up there.
- And then-- yeah. - Eight studios?
Yeah. Just an hour.
We already have a bunch of studios built in the back, so.
How many studios do we have total?
Do you know?
There's nine with yours upstairs.
- And then there's-- - 11, with the option of 14.
Do you guys all work different places? Or do you actually work in this building?
- We're-- so our headquarter is in Las Vegas. - Right.
So three of us come out of--
- Four of us come out of Vegas. - Yeah.
Jason, he works here and in our College Park facility.
He bounces back and forth between the two, so.
When did that one open?
College Park has been there doing crypto mining for the last,
- I don't know, five, six years? - Yeah.
We bought it in 2020. December 2020.
And what about this building?
- We bought this building in August of '21. Yeah. - '21.
And we've been building that out ever since.
I'm decently sure somebody tried to sell me this building.
You know, I bought my first Bitcoin in 2012.
I really got, you know, neck deep in 2017.
But people hear 2020, and you're like, "Oh, that seems so late."
It's just 2022.
- And look at what you've been able to do so far. - Yeah.
So I think that's a testament, you know.
I thought I was too late when I tried to start this channel in December of 2017.
So I think that's just really proof that, you know, when you see something's good opportunity,
when you have that epiphany about the future of money,
and with energy and renewable energy sources and solar, I think, like,
kind of the future of where the oil industry moves,
- is there's such a big opportunity. - Yeah.
There's plenty of room still left.
Alright, Ben. How do we think that went?
Really well. I had no idea what to expect.
Really, I've never been to a mining facility.
And, you know,
you kind of like just think of a mining facility as like a faceless number of people,
but they're real people here that work, you know, from the Georgia area,
the north Atlanta area.
They are really passionate about the environment,
and everything they're doing is impacting the world in a positive way.
It's not just about necessarily making money,
but creating those renewable energy sources is a big part of this as well.
I really love listening to all their thoughts
and getting straight from the Bitcoin mining perspective
of why proof-of-work is important
and what makes it better than everything else.
I think it's good to hear.
I think a lot of people, you know, would do good to, you know, watch this video
and hear about what they had to say.
This man is teaching us how to fish.
I call him the crypto Jesus!
Ben "BitBoy" Armstrong is live on the show!
Amen.
- Man, let's go ahead and get right into it. - Yeah.
I had this epiphany
that we're not going to be trading pieces of paper, pieces of metal a hundred years from now.
- It's all going to be digital. - Right.
I think everybody would see that's obvious.
And so behind that belief, I was like,
"I'm going to start a crypto YouTube channel."
"I'm going to use that to learn more about crypto myself,
to find ways to get paid in crypto."
Because I didn't have a lot of money to invest.
Yeah, in 2017, you know, I saw a lot of people doing it the wrong way.
And what they were doing is they were favoring kind of like short-term money over long-term money.
And so we really started building the channel out.
Well, it was me by myself at first.
Of course, I got 60 employees now, but--
That's what we call a hype bell moment.
- Boom! Boom! Boom! - That's why we call you the crypto Jesus.
- You teach people to fish. - That's it. Yeah.
Let's end it on that note. We appreciate you, man.
Thanks for coming by.
Before we go, let me give you a little bit of Pops Knows Best, man.
Using your mishap to help others thrive is the ultimate form of a blessing.
This man has been doing that. He kind of just explained that.
So I want you guys to take heed and do that too.
We're about to get back into this mix right here right now.
If you're on the radio side, tomorrow, you guys tune in.
And, BitBoy, I appreciate you, man.
- It's a pleasure. - Absolutely. There it is.
We appreciate you.
- Appreciate it, man. - Yeah, absolutely.
- Appreciate it. - That's good.
So, how are you feeling, Ben?
Oh, that was fun, man.
You know, I love people from Atlanta.
I love supporting the Atlanta community
and, you know, hearing all the stuff they're doing with philanthropy
and, like, giving away bikes to kids and turkeys at Thanksgiving.
Like, that's the stuff we love.
And so, you know, when you meet some people and you just connect with them,
and especially when you connect with them and you have kind of the same goals.
And so, you know,
like I always say, what good is money if you can't do positive stuff with it?
So, I came right here, do the interview.
Interview was awesome. I had a good time.
You know, it's good exposure to maybe a different audience than I might normally get.
But ultimately, it's kind of the relationships behind the scenes as the more important stuff.