podcasts
Firefighter Dom Bei says Bitcoin is more than an asset, it's a warning sign for pensions and a path to financial freedom.
In this episode of the TFTC podcast, Dom Bei—a firefighter, union leader, and CalPERS Board of Trustees candidate—makes a powerful case for why the largest pension fund in the U.S. must seriously consider Bitcoin as both an investment opportunity and an educational tool. Highlighting CalPERS’ missed decade in private equity and its troubling 75% funded status, Bei critiques the system’s misaligned incentives and high leadership turnover. He argues that Bitcoin offers more than just potential gains—it forces participants to confront foundational issues like inflation, wealth extraction, and financial literacy. Through his nonprofit Proof of Workforce, Bei has already helped unions adopt Bitcoin in self-custody and believes that small, incremental steps can drive reform. His campaign is about re-engaging the 2 million CalPERS members, challenging political inertia, and avoiding another decade of lost opportunity.
"Bitcoin’s brand is resilience, and that cannot be undone."
"I don’t need to convince pensions to buy Bitcoin. I just need them to look into it."
"The first pension was funded with confiscated warships. The original incentive structure was theft."
"CalPERS is the second-largest purchaser of medical insurance in the U.S., behind the federal government."
"Only 10% of CalPERS members voted in the last board election. That’s insane."
"Bitcoin’s simplest features remain its most impressive: you hold something that’s yours, and no one can take it."
"We don’t need pensions to go all in. Just get off zero."
"Mainstream media has run an 80% negative campaign on Bitcoin for a decade. That’s not a conspiracy—it’s just math."
Dom Bei’s conversation with Marty Bent frames Bitcoin not as a cure-all, but as a critical tool worth exploring—one that promotes financial literacy, institutional accountability, and personal sovereignty. His call for education, transparency, and incremental reform challenges broken pension governance and urges workers to reclaim control over both their retirements and their understanding of money. In a landscape of growing liabilities and political interference, Bei’s campaign sparks a vital conversation at the intersection of sound money and public service—one that aligns closely with Bitcoin’s foundational ethos.
0:00 - Intro
0:32 - Opportunity Cost app
3:34 - Dom's background
10:36 - Fold & Bitkey
12:13 - How pensions got to this point
19:29 - Impact of failure
28:10 - Unchained
28:38 - CalPERS politicized
33:49 - How pensions should approach bitcoin
42:49 - How to educate
49:37 - Energy/mining
55:55 - Running for the board
1:08:52 - Roswell NM
1:12:33 - C2A
(00:00) pension funds are chasing liabilities and having to basically be these vehicles that play in the big kids sandbox. It's cutthroat and there's no mercy there. I can't imagine a world where the pension goes bust, that's going to send shock waves through so many different sectors of the economy. I mean, you're talking global impact.
(00:17) If you have a CIO that's incentivized for the fund to do well, they're going to find Bitcoin. The numbers don't lie. Bitcoin's brand is resilience, and that cannot be undone. What's up, freaks? Sitting down with Dom Bay, running for the board of trustees of Kalpers. Dom, welcome to the show. Thanks, Marty.
(00:44) And uh uh what else? What is up, freaks? How's everyone doing today? I hope everybody's doing well. Vibes are high here. Uh been vibe coding. The vibes are high because the vibe coding has been up. I vibe coded something last night. Feeling pretty excited. Nice. What were you working on? Is it a top secret or uh No, I think by the time this episode airs, I'll have released it, but it's a simple, very simple product.
(01:07) Uh, a browser extension that allows you to put the price of goods that you may or may not be buying in SATS alongside dollars so that you recognize the opportunity cost of purchasing things. Uh, I like that. That's that's you know I was working once with a hotel that was looking at doing Bitcoin like you know different Bitcoin stuff whether it's like putting on the treasury and one of the things I told him I was like you guys should just do a coffee shop where you just have dollar price and sats price just next to each
(01:38) other. It' be a cool thing you know something that we don't see a lot as Bitcoiners but just to you know we all do it. you get that familiarity where you go like, well, what would this be in SATS? And it's easy to look up big things but not little things. Um, so that's really cool, man. That's a that's a that'll be that'll be good. Yeah.
(01:56) The whole idea is to just have the concept of opportunity costs while you're spending front of mind, while you're shopping on the internet, which I think actually ties in perfectly with what we're here to talk about today with you specifically, is the opportunity costs that exist within pensions um that are deploying capital in ways that they have for many decades and many are missing.
(02:23) uh the Bitcoin boat. Many who haven't spoken to you are missing the Bitcoin boat and you are taking it upon yourself to try to tackle one of the biggest behemoths in the world of pensions and Kalpers to really drive home this opportunity cost at at the pension level. Yeah, for sure. you know, the outgoing chief investment officer of Kalpers, uh, Nicole Muso, uh, described the 10-year era of private equity that KPERS missed as the lost decade.
(02:56) Uh, it was the pinnacle of private equity, and Kalpers really felt like they didn't have enough capital uh, deployed. And you know, in past conversations, I've I've talked about, you know, knowing what we know about Bitcoin and where it's at and where it's going. Are you going to have similar commentary from pensions around the country in 2035 saying, "Hey, we're going to get into Bitcoin now.
(03:21) We we had a lost decade where it was just staring us right in the face and oh, we didn't really need to do much but learn about it and uh we missed the boat. So now, you know, let's let's learn about it. It'll be time will tell. Yeah. Let's jump into how you got to the point where you decided to run for the board of trustees at Kalpers.
(03:46) Let's get into your history uh as a firefighter working with the union and then your advocacy in recent years going out to public pensions, particularly those of emergency responders to to get Bitcoin within their their pension systems. and yeah, why you think Kalpers is the next big step for you? For sure. So, um I got hired as a firefighter uh just around I'm coming up on my 16-year anniversary.
(04:11) Uh I got hired as a firefighter in Santa Monica and early in my career as a firefighter. Uh someone reached out and said, "Hey, you know, you're you're you're kind of a goofball. You like talking to people and and um there's this person on the board who does a lot of our political stuff. he's leaving. You should get with him and kind of learn about what he does and go find out. And so, uh, I went with him.
(04:36) First thing he did was bring me to this breakfast with a city council member and we were talking history in the city and and I just like, you know, I love that kind of stuff and learning about, you know, the backstories behind whatever's going on and all the moving pieces. And so, uh, I ended up getting on our board, um, for the Santa Monica firefighters and pretty pretty young, doing a lot of the political stuff, ended up becoming the vice president and then became the president of the firefighters and what was over a 10-year period of serving as
(05:07) an elected board member for the firefighters. Um, you know, kind of parallel to that and unrelated, I found Bitcoin in 2017 uh randomly working at a conference, which um I forget which conference it was, but I kind of looked back and I think it might have been consensus. I'm not sure. Um, but this was 2017 and I remember my one takeaway from this conference which may or may not have been consensus and it was this.
(05:39) The people I spoke to there were equally or greater as uh convicted as any group or constituency I'd ever met in my entire life. That's including firefighters. Um you know like like any group the conviction was was was unmissable. Uh and you could tell the people I talked to there they would not be uh convinced otherwise.
(06:08) And uh at that time, you know, there wasn't as much of a division between the different coins, you know, like like there was Ethereum people there and there was Bitcoiners there, but there was a definite like someone got a hold of me and was like, "Hey, uh Bitcoin is something that like forget all this other stuff.
(06:25) You need to just learn this." And and I remember taking that away and kind of got passively involved. Wasn't super active in the space. um just kind of like you know learned about it and grabbed a little bit and and you know just kind of did that thing. the board took up a lot of my time. And so, um, another thing that happened while I was on the board was I was appointed to a pension advisory committee for the city of Santa Monica where we had a full presentation from the board uh, and um, they came and presented to us and and different um,
(06:58) not the board, it was like different team members. And so I learned a ton about the pension and and I've always been a I was a history major in college, so I love learning about history. and I started really getting into the history of pensions which is fascinating. We'll save that for another episode for the sake of your viewers.
(07:18) Um but but um started doing that and when I got off the board um you know in addition to this random incident where I kind of rescued one of the analysts from Swan and like a a crazy twist of fate like coincidence. Um, you know, I ended up getting more into Bitcoin and started writing a lot about where's the intersection between workers and wage earners and Bitcoin.
(07:44) And as I dug in, as you know, and and your listeners know, the, you know, the the parallels and intersections jump out at you tremendously. Um, and even though I have some financial background from my work, uh, I I Bitcoin made me dig into the legacy financial structure more than any other medium that I've encountered in my life, including digging even deeper into pensions and like writing.
(08:09) One of the first articles I wrote about was about the pension systems and very exploratory, not trying to sell anything, but like together like what what do we have in front of us? What's here? And so, um, got much more involved, ended up helping the Santa Monica firefighters become the first union to hold Bitcoin on the balance sheet in self-custody in the nation.
(08:32) Um, and for the listeners, that's not, again, unions have their own funds. That's not pension money. That's just money that they get from dues that they hold collectively, you know, within their own organization. Um, following that and what I've witnessed and the power of that experience, I started a nonprofit called Proof of Workforce.
(08:53) And since we have helped uh 10 different unions across the public and private sectors learn about Bitcoin um and and uh also, you know, learn how to hold Bitcoin on the balance sheet. Um, you know, I I I spoke with a few of the board of trustees from the Wisconsin pension fund and had them on a show where we explored Bitcoin and and kind of just had a very open candid conversation about it.
(09:18) Uh, I like to think that we played a very small but kind of cool pivotal role in Wisconsin being the first pens in the US to buy the ETF in size. Um, not the first pension to add Bitcoin to its balance sheet. you know, that will that that I'm pretty sure um ends up uh with with Houston, even though there was other pension funds in the Bay Area and I know Pomp had a fund or something in the East Coast where they ended up investing in a in a fund by proxy holding Bitcoin.
(09:48) Um but yeah, started doing that and uh you know, I I've never been someone to say that Bitcoin will save pension funds. Um, but I but I think that Bitcoin poses a lot of questions and and forces us to look at the structure of pensions that could save pension funds and it's going to take a lot.
(10:11) But, you know, I'm I'm a doer and I saw the opportunity to run for a pension that I'm a part of and I'm like, hey, I'm not just going to be someone that writes about pensions. like I'm going to put my neck on the line and go out there and try to run for the pension board to um use whatever, you know, little talent I have, but a lot of hard work to try to make a change and make a positive impact to the pension fund. So, that's kind of my path.
(10:36) Um, in short, listen freaks, I know you're tired of me talking about Fold, but I'm going to beat the drum. I'm going to beat the dead horse. If you're a Bitcoiner living in the United States and you're not using Fold, I'm just going to ask one question. What are you doing? You're leaving SATs on the table. They've got gift cards.
(10:52) They've got their debit card. You can use your credit card. Just connect your credit card to the Fold app. Use the Fold out to pay off your credit card and you're going to stack your credit card points and Bitcoin as well. They even teamed up with Crowd Health to give their members Fold Plus membership at no cost.
(11:08) Don't leave SATS on the table. Go sign up for Fold today. Go to tftc.io/ io/fold. There's nothing to lose except sats that you could have stacked. Sup freaks, this rip of TFTC was brought to you by our good friends at BitKey. Bit Key makes Bitcoin easy to use and hard to lose. It is a hardware wallet that natively embeds into a two or three multic.
(11:31) You have one key on the hardware wallet, one key on your mobile device, and block stores a key in the cloud for you. This is an incredible hardware device for your friends and family or maybe yourself who have Bitcoin on exchanges and have for a long time but haven't taken the step to self- custody because they're worried about the complications of setting up a private public key pair, securing that seed phrase, setting up a PIN, setting up a passphrase.
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(12:16) I know you said that we could do a whole episode on it, but I think we should touch on it. Your dive into the history of pensions and how they've evolved over the years and how they're structured. But I think this is a base setting for for the listeners based off of your understanding like Yeah. What does the evolution of pensions broadly look like and and what problems have amassed over time? Yeah.
(12:43) So, just you know, random trivia stuff, but do you know the first funding mechanism for the first pension off the top of your head? No. Okay. I didn't either, but but basically the first pension was a naval pension. It was a military pension. The first funding mechanism was confiscated boats and ships and property throughout warfare. Pretty crazy.
(13:08) So, so the first, you know, the first pension funding mechanism was based on theft. Hard stop. Like that's just a science. That's not an opinion or anything like that. Um, but there was incentive, which, you know, Bitcoin's taught us a lot about incentives, and I'm huge on incentives, and that's something that Bitcoin has taught me uh better than anything else is like incentives are everything.
(13:34) And so, you know, naval officers and and, uh, folks at sea in war had an incentive to, you know, be better at warfare because they were funding their their future disability pension. Started very small. moved to the first municipal pension over years in New York which was the police pension in New York was the first municipal pension of its kind and that was funded with some interesting things but you know the basic funding structure of like bonds um they they had funding in the beginning of like confiscated property they had this thing called Sunday fines
(14:08) I haven't looked too much into this but there used to be a list of stuff you couldn't do on Sunday like probably you know I don't know gambling selling stuff. I I I don't know what the list was, but the the police would find you for doing stuff on Sunday that was on the list. Um, and those would go towards the towards the pension fund.
(14:27) Um, and I'm laughing cuz I'm just imagining being like a cop the morning of work and you're like, "Hey, how's the pension looking?" Like, "Dude, we're going to we're going to hit some folks up today uh and and and drop some fines." But, you know, they became more stable and and very simplistic in structure.
(14:45) at the beginning which was just have a funding mechanism that was something like treasury bonds, municipal bonds to fund, you know, a modest amount of money for a worker when they retired. Um, fast forward, right? Let's let's I'll spare the listener the whole progression of all the things that happened. But there was many pension funds that went bankrupt and then you have oversight and then you have different funds used to be overseen by folks that didn't have the best interest right many cycles these things have played out and then you have regulatory
(15:18) stuff and but if you fast forward we now have Kalpers the largest pension in the United States with a 17% allocation to private equity some would say very far from where pensions started in their structure right where now pension funds are chasing liabilities and having to basically be these vehicles that play, you know, in the in the in the big kids sandbox as far as finance.
(15:45) I mean, private equity, you you know, it's it's it's cutthroat and there's no there's no mercy there. It's it's it's it's it's profits and um you know pensions have transformed into something uh you know that that's that's definitely quite a ways off from what they started as. No, and you were mentioning it before we hit record to the uh the lost decade that Kalper had Kalpers had by not allocating to private equity and the outgoing CIO mentioned that this was a problem that and an opportunity that they didn't take advantage of and I
(16:24) think today as it stands look at the landscape of private equity they may have gotten into it a little late too because of the post the dynamics that exist postco COVID monetary base expansion. It's I think private equity venture as somebody who runs a venture fund. Um the the whole sector is being looked at with a side eye right now because there's been a ton of capital allocated into early stage companies and later stage companies but that capital hasn't been returned to LPs in many cases which is a big problem um for for
(16:57) that sector. And so you have pensions making these illlquid investments that right now at least who knows that seems to be changing with the new administration, companies going public, mergers and acquisitions back on the table. But you have this sort of liability mismatch and these illlquid investments that puts these pensions in a in a tough spot. Yeah.
(17:19) is it's you know a lot of people that are um there's a ton of people out there Marty we know that their their foundation for their understanding of Bitcoin is mainstream media. We also know that mainstream media embarked on without a doubt a heavily slanted negative campaign on Bitcoin for over a decade. That's that's just once again it's math.
(17:41) Anyone can say Dom you you just like Bitcoin. I go then then run a story number count on negative headlines versus positive for Bitcoin over the past 10 years and you sort the math for yourself and when it comes back 75 to 80% plus negative then just tell me you know I don't I don't know whatever but that's a that's a fact and so you know they of course they're conditioned to view Bitcoin as this very risky thing you know for those of us that understand markets um which I'm not claiming to be one of those people but you know I'm getting better every Okay.
(18:13) Uh, private equity is is a very very, you know, cutthroat field. Um, and and you can win and do very well and you can also get wrecked. And one of the issues that has come up as I've spoken to different retirees and different folks is the ambiguity of of private equity. You know, I I think about the transparency of Bitcoin and the fact that, you know, you can it's audited uh 24/7.
(18:42) you can see where Bitcoin is and you know what it is and and you can see what's happening with the network. Private equity is a fund where they're making a lot of moves and they're balancing the ledger and and you know they have winners and losers and they're making it all work out, but there is um not just a delayed reporting time um to to public equities, but you know there's a lot of ambiguity.
(19:04) And so when you think about the history of a pension to just hold some simple municipal bonds to to pay some some you know money out to workers when they retire to now being in this kind of ambiguous investment realm um with what I would describe as severely lacking incentives for an investment team and CIO. You have an interesting dynamic that leads to continued uh underperformance.
(19:30) Yeah, it's uh it's a shame the and I think you can tie this all back to the nature of the high velocity trash economy that's been incentivized by the fiat monetary system. Like these pensions are forced to go out further on the risk curve to produce the returns necessary to pay out the pensioners at the end of the day when they retire.
(19:55) And I think as it stands, you mentioned Kalpers is the biggest pension in the United States. Public pension in the United States. I think Kalpers and the Illinois pension are the two that many point to and say these are massive entities number one. And they could become massive problems. If you just look at how big they are, what they're promising in terms of payouts to pensioners and how much money they actually have.
(20:22) there's some shortfalls that exist. So I think as it relates to Kalpers specifically, let's just give your high level state of the union of of the state of the pension. Yeah. So you know like you mentioned and it made me think of the the pension issues a lot stemmed from 0708. the average funding status for a local and state pension um throughout the country, the average funded status was in the low 90s prior to the financial crisis uh in '08.
(20:58) Afterwards, the the average funded status was below 80%. We talk about the origins of a pension. They were not created to play catchup. That's not what the fund was created for. They were created to be these slowmoving large funds that earn steady returns, don't take much risk and are able to keep up and pay the retirements which is a very you know sacred thing.
(21:22) People trade 30 you know as as we learn more about money. Um you know you some you know wealth managers would tell you trading your time for money is the worst deal in the world. you know, find things that earn you money while you sleep. And like, okay, well, most of the people in the world trade their time for money. Um, and a lot of them pay into these systems with the hope that after trading a whole lifetime where they could have done anything and and that's on us as workers, we could do anything in this world, but we choose to work and go to
(21:53) work and check in, check out, and hopefully at the end, we could spend those years, whether it's like 55 to 60 without having to work. Our backs are a little jammed up and we got ailments and we're injured, but we could spend that time with family, grandkids maybe. Um and so right it's a sacred thing shouldn't be risky.
(22:15) Um the state of things right now is how does the fund catch up. Um and and the biggest thing that I've seen as to why I'm running for the fund is the incentive structure is not made to do that. Um CalPER has had four chief investment officers over the last just over 5 years. That's an insane turnaround.
(22:38) Uh and when you look at the incentives, I think I think the CIO is paid um 700K a year, which for the public sector, wow, that's a nice salary, you know, for managing, you know, a $500 billion plus portfolio and having to catch up with massive returns steadily on a year-by-year basis. That's that's not that's not feasible. um those incentives have to be aligned incredibly well to the long-term performance of the fund.
(23:08) That's something that I really want to focus on uh if I get on the Kalpers board is to look at the incentives. How do we attract top level CIOS that I get it there's going to be something if if you know if Marty Bent is a top recruit out of his, you know, school and went to one of the best schools and learned about money, there's a good chance you're going to go to BlackRock Fidelity, one of these big hedge funds or or some other fund.
(23:33) But maybe maybe your your dad or or your uncle was a firefighter and you go, you know what, like I just feel called maybe to to do a little something different and I want to go to Kalpers. You're taking a sacrifice. We're not going to ever pay you as much as you can make at Fidelity or Black Rockck.
(23:51) But if it's if it's my decision, we're going to pay you pretty solid to where you can at least like get a house, you know, anywhere in the country if you lead CalPERS to a 10-year plus uh run of positive returns. I want you to, you know, walk into any private members club and and hold your head high if that's your thing.
(24:11) And um as you should, right, for for for doing something that's incredibly difficult and challenging. So, the state of the pension fund right now, I think there's some incentives that are broken. Um, the fund is at 75% funded right now. I don't know if you've saw the headlines, but throughout this tariff mania, they say that the fund had a $26 billion markdown, which if my math is correct, would bring the fund closer towards the 70% funded number.
(24:40) I'm sure they're going to claw some of that back and and they have to before the reporting period on June 30th, 2025. But if not, you're going to have the similar thing that happens always when a pension comes back underfunded. Your cities and your taxpayers are going to have to pay more and fit the bill for that. And that's going to be funds taken away from things like parks, schools, transportation, public safety, stuff like that.
(25:06) And eventually then that triggers folks to get upset and they go, "These damn workers, they're making so much. We need them to retire later and we need them to pay into the system more than they are right now." Cuz that's the problem. When in reality, um, the performance of a fund is like 60 to 70% correlated to its ability to pay off its liabilities.
(25:29) And proof of the pudding, proof in the pudding for that is Kalpers did a pension reform in 2013 where they pushed back the retirement ages and made people pay more. And guess what? They haven't caughten up. So if the problem is that workers are making too much money, which I'm not saying that that doesn't play into the fund, it 100% does.
(25:50) Why didn't the pension reform work in 2013? And in 2025, we sit at a similar place to where we were 12 years prior to the reform. And I'll tell you why. It's because um no one's getting to the real uh you know heart of the issue, which is like why our our fund is not performing enough or what it's going to do to play catchup after what happened in the financial crisis.
(26:14) Yeah, that CIO stat is pretty insane. that turnover insane a turnover rate makes one wonder like is is that turnover that high because those individuals don't want to be the one quoteunquote holding the bag when things go bust and yeah I mean that that's even like that is a suitcase CIO to the next level right like how do you you don't even start to get into understanding the organization and and all of its different you know nuts and bolts and pieces until what like 6 months in and and and as you're kind of
(26:45) developing strategies. This isn't like you're going to run the the um you know the third grade tea ball snack bar. Like you're running a major massive organization that gets pulled into all kinds of political issues and and it's complex and maybe maybe Marty they leave because you know they have to deal with people trying to get them to divest from oil and gas which happens to be one of the top performers of the fund and they're going man I can't win.
(27:14) like I have you want me to pull out of the the one thing that's keeping us funded. Um maybe uh you know there's there's a a uh some kind of dysfunction in the in the mechanism of the pension as far as how the board interacts with the investment team, how the CEO interacts with the board and the constituents and the elected officials.
(27:36) But that that is a staggering number that cannot be ignored. And you know, for anyone that says like that alone, forget about the funding status that there isn't an issue there, that's just crazy. I mean, there's no situation in the world where I can tell you the primary leadership, you know, rotates almost every year and there's not a problem there.
(27:58) No, nothing. Not a not a um not a union, not a church, not a school that is going to make problems. So, that is something that has to be addressed. Um, without a doubt, our good friends Parker Lewis and Drew Bonsol are two of the deepest thinkers in Bitcoin. And while they come from very different backgrounds, they've landed on the exact same conclusion.
(28:19) It's Bitcoin that matters, not crypto. This master class lays out why 21 million is the key breakthrough, how Bitcoin, not blockchain, creates decentralization, and why everything else will be built on Bitcoin. Understand why Bitcoin works and why nothing else does. Watch the premiere at unchained.com/tc.
(28:38) That's unchained.comTTFTC. So, has Kalpers been highly politicized, which is clouding their investment judgment in your opinion? I I think I think for sure and I I think you know if you to to answer that just just Google Calpers and look at the top stories. You know, you'll see stories about pressure to divest from oil and gas into energy transition.
(29:01) You'll see that Kalpers has committed a hundred billion dollars by 2030 to invest in energy transition um and sustainable climate investments. Um you'll see things like Kalpers getting into like Elon Musk's uh you know pay bonuses and and um um different things like that. Uh people upset that you know maybe the pension may or may not hold something that has to do with Mus, right? These are political things for sure.
(29:34) Um and uh there yeah there there's a decent amount you know California is a very political place. So it doesn't surprise me that there's you know that it's a politicized pension fund but that's where the incentives come up right and that's where if you have a CIO that's strongly incentivized by fund performance. You should have a board that's strongly incentivized by fund performance.
(29:54) You should have elected officials that are strongly incentivized by fund performance. City leaders. everyone. You have to ask the question in everything. Is this going to fulfill our ultimate goal, which is to pay the retirees, keep a healthy workforce, and not hold cities hostage to these unfunded liability payments that they have to make if our fund drops below.
(30:18) You can invest in anything in the world, but if it doesn't pass that litmus test, you do not pass go, you do not collect 200. It could be the most sincere thing in the world and a great cause. Um, and and that's all great, but like someone once told me, if it doesn't make money today, it may never make money.
(30:39) And um, you have to really, you know, you can't invest in things because you think we're going to change the world and shape things and then our investment will make money. That's a very dangerous place to be with, you know, the pension money of the largest uh, you know, workforce in the nation. Yeah. As I was I'm looking at the stats here, my research, Kalpers has 2 million members that are depending on these pensions.
(31:02) And so when you think about politicizing a fund with the responsibility of making sure that 2 million people can sustain their lifestyles and just simply assist in their retirement years, it's pretty pretty insane the the scale of that. It's more than half a percentage point of the American population. It's wild. Here's another stat.
(31:25) Did you know that Kalpers is the largest purchaser of medical insurance behind the United States government? No, it did not. Yeah. Fact. So, they also have they provide a lot of medical benefits and a lot of people use that system as a mechanism for medical benefits um and kind of interfacing with Medicare and all that. So yeah, it's a it's a huge huge system and like you said, you know, it's not just it's you know, we hear the term too big to fail.
(31:56) I mean, I can't imagine a world where, you know, the pension goes bust because that's going to send shock waves through so many different sectors of the economy. I mean, you're you're talking global impact of the fund. Um, but we say never and you know, that could never happen. Never say never. I'm not a fear-monger.
(32:14) I'm not telling people, you know, the the the fund's going to collapse and all this stuff. Um, you know, it's more the subtle things like we talked about like the rotation of the CIOS, um, the the remain being at that underfunded status at like 75% and not seeing that progress. Those are things that are issues. And could, you know, could the fund have a bigger problem? Sure.
(32:39) I mean, we think about pension bailouts. I don't know if you've noticed this, but like pension bailouts ever since COVID and since the Biden administration bailed out a ton of private pensions with billions that by the way are continuing to be paid off today, they don't make the news anymore even. You can look this up. Just look up like um look up the fund uh uh the pension guaranteed uh the guaranteer corporation and the funds that they're paying out.
(33:06) um you know they don't make the news and Kalpers in a way is almost like it's front bailed out if that makes sense and so you can look up Newsome took a lot of money that they got during everything that happened with COVID and they used it to pay down the liabilities and infuse money into Kalpers and still we sit at 75% today and if we have bad numbers this June we'll be below and so in a way it is getting bailed out on a regular basis.
(33:38) We talk about the the financial system and debt and at some point does it break? Does it crack? I don't know. Um but you know there's vulnerabilities there for sure. Yeah. Let's not focus on the negatives. Let's turn to positives. How do you think Bitcoin could should or let's reframe this. How should Kalpers think about approaching Bitcoin first from like exploratory like what is it? Yeah.
(34:07) And then like how they can begin to implement it into what they're doing. Yeah. So, you know, in everything I've done, um I'm huge on education and Bitcoin is an educational tool. number one, first and foremost, I think the power of of Bitcoin in that capacity is unbelievable to serve as an interesting new amazing technology where a worker and wage earner can learn about trading their time for money, how it works, etc.
(34:35) So, from a standpoint, let's start not with the board and the people that oversee the pension. Let's start with the participants. I'm a huge I'm a huge advocate of learning about Bitcoin because they will inevitably learn about their pension. They will learn about how money works. They will learn about trading time for wages. They'll learn about inflation.
(34:54) They'll learn about um you know cola uh cost of living adjustments and whether it's enough or not and medical premiums. So I think Kalpers could be a huge leader in the space in just providing educational materials to their members. Right. I think for sure they should have um solid research on the books in Bitcoin and um I think when they're looking at it and if they find that it could fit somewhere.
(35:23) I'm also a huge huge believer in small incremental steps. You know, it's funny. I talk to these organizations and if you look me up, you know, what do you think I get when I go talk to like a retirey organization? They'll say, "Dom, you're we saw online you're the crypto guy." And I go, well, first, Bitcoin is very different from crypto, so we have to start there.
(35:46) Um, you know, it is it is its own thing. And, you know, th those are very different things. Second, um, look up anything I've ever talked about and the work I've done with unions, I've always been a firm believer in you have to educate folks and take very small steps because, as we know, Bitcoin can be volatile over the years, especially in short periods of time.
(36:09) So, I would never Some people would say, "Well, you're running for Kalpers to just add Bitcoin to the balance sheet." No, not quite that simple. I wouldn't, you know, I also am fully aware that if I run for this fund, I represent, like you said, Marty, 2 million plus people, you know, they need to be comfortable with it as well because I can, we know that if a CIO decided to invest in Bitcoin and it had a 30 to 40% draw down, that CIO is going to get cooked.
(36:38) They're going to the pitchforks are going to come out. Look what you did. You gambled with these people's money. Even if the CIO says, "Hey, everyone, wait, wait, wait. this thing long term is undefeated. Just give it time and you're going to be good. Doesn't matter. So, you know, because it's new and because it has a lot of misinformation, the education has to, you know, it has to proceed or frontr run any kind of step and that's education of the participants, education of the staff, um, you know, the board, investment
(37:09) team, etc. Uh, I think I think that's very important. Um, and so, and again, another thing folks don't realize is as a board member, we don't make actual investments. So, when we talk about incentives, if you have a CIO that's incentivized for the fund to do well, they're going to find Bitcoin on their own.
(37:30) They don't need me. They don't need you. They're going to find Bitcoin because the numbers don't lie. And the performance of Bitcoin since its inception doesn't lie. It's a true story. I mean we see today right GDP dropped.3% or or came back lower than expected and what's Bitcoin at like 93 or something and people probably look at it from the highs but I mean I know I was at um I was at a conference a while ago and Bitcoin was like 85 88 and if someone mentioned that it kind of feels like a bare market and you know you tell us that years ago that
(38:06) Bitcoin is going to kind of feel like boring and a little solemn at 88 and we'd be like what like, you know, like um and so uh you know, ultimately I think Bitcoin has huge potential as an educational tool for for participants of a pension. It's a way to engage people. Uh here's a stat for you.
(38:29) Not to get off topic, but of those 2 million people, do you know how many voted in the 2021 Kalpers board election? I do not. 10%. So 196,000 voters out of 2 million voted for their own pension. Now I bet you last year um and coming up this year, those same 2 million are probably very high propensity voters in the general election and voted in the presidential election thinking my life is on the line.
(39:00) I got to figure out, you know, they they were stressed at home like if I don't get this one right with the president, you know, like like I I just, you know, I'm everyone's torn. I got to nail this. Didn't vote for their own pension fund where decisions will be made that will 1,000% determine their future very intimately. You know, regarding the lifeblood of their existence when they retire didn't vote.
(39:24) So, Bitcoin can be, you know, if my campaign does anything, it will be to engage those folks in their pension and and learn about it. And I think Bitcoin is an interesting tool whether people hate it or like it. if they um whatever their opinion, it's a it's a good engagement mechanism and it gets people excited um and it has a good brand of resilience and it's just a interesting thing.
(39:49) So that's kind of that's my my take as far as you know Bitcoin and pensions. It's not as simple as like Kalpers is not going to add Bitcoin and then its problems are over. It saves the world. Um but it can surely look at it as a tool. And another thing I told the retirees, um, another fact, look up the top 10 most valuable assets on the planet Earth and you'll see Bitcoin in the top 10. Hard stop.
(40:17) End of story. You tell me that you're going to be the largest pension and you're not going to have a proforma report or research done on one of the top 10 assets on planet earth and you're sitting underfunded at 75% with turnover of like a CIO a year. I can't even have the conversation.
(40:39) If if you know what I mean like I can't have the conversation. Um surely they're going to do research on the other top 10. Why exclude Bitcoin? And and we know the answer. It's because mainstream media has driven they did a hell of a job. Marty, I got to give it to you. Whoever runs mainstream media, if I can hire them to do, if I could hire them for my campaign, whoever did, you know, whoever did the negative media on Bitcoin, I need to hire them because they did an amazing job.
(41:12) Uh, and but that's starting to change now. now that you have the ETF was a huge thing and um people, you know, they're starting to come around being like, you know, they this the news has told me Bitcoin is dead 10 times and I just keep looking and I don't know what's up. Every two years I I look at the chart and it's it's higher than it was when they told me it died.
(41:33) It's insane. Exactly. It's it's um Bitcoin's brand uh of resilience is cemented now in history. that is undebatable. Um it Bitcoin has embraced multiple attacks, uh calamities, bad actors that have given, you know, Bitcoin a bad name that haven't even touched Bitcoin. Mainstream media allout assault and Bitcoin's brand is resilience and that cannot be undone.
(42:04) that is fixed in history because it has a track record and um you know that that doesn't change and so uh what's what's that what's the stat um no no asset that's ever crossed a trillion in market cap has ever like went to zero I've never I haven't heard that one but that wouldn't shock me at all I don't know if it's true so don't don't quote me on it but I heard someone mention it but it seems to make sense like sure it may fall out of grace with the top 10 or top 20, but once it's kind of crossed that threshold, there's always going to be
(42:40) someone that sees Bitcoin as an opportunity and a value play because of of its uh, you know, brand ID and and resilience. Yeah. No, I completely agree. I think Bitcoin's resilience is stamped in terms of there's no denying it's died a thousand deaths and come back stronger every time. And like on that note, like I think more and more people are beginning to recognize this and get over the cognitive dissonance that has been embedded in their their minds via the malware of mainstream media and begin to say, "Hey, these guys
(43:18) have been telling me the wrong thing for for many years now." And I guess to that point, in your experience talking to unions and pensions throughout the years and your focus on education, what has been the most effective type of educational engagement? Is it literal information about Bitcoin on a pamphlet? Is it going and talking to people? Is it pointing at charts and showing results, different flavors for different people? I I think the some of the most useful and effective mechanisms.
(43:55) I always tell folks this when I talk to different unions that are looking to get their unions to start, they they always call and they go, I want to I'm going to get my union to make a big allocation to Bitcoin. I go, hold on. It's funny cuz some people uh who did a hit piece on me the other day? Um Joel Silverman, the the co-author of Easy Money with Ben McKenzie, remember that book? The the guy from the OC? Mhm.
(44:21) He did a hit piece where he painted my incredibly poor and humble nonprofit that has not much money to its name as like this like, you know, we're going around talking to unions and selling them on this like religious Bitcoin and you need to do all and and it's I'll send it to you. You'll get a good laugh out of it.
(44:43) Um uh it was in the nation. So I was very proud moment. Logan, find it and put the uh put it on the screen while we're talking about it here. Yeah. But but in reality, it's ironic because I talk a lot of unions out of making big buys of Bitcoin, right? I I they come to me and they say, "We want to do this big thing.
(45:01) " And I go, "Hey, hey, hold on a second. Like you're going to get yourself into a bad situation. You need to really um if you're going to do this, learn about it. be smart. Don't don't take unnecessary risk. And so when dealing with a board, which is you think it's hard enough to convince one person of of like doing anything.
(45:25) When you convince a group body that has a large collective of different thoughts and opinions and that that body is a democratic body that can move and sway and have extremists kind of take over the mood or or maybe people on one side or the other. You really have to thread the needle perfectly and make sure that you involve everyone.
(45:46) And so one of the most effective tools that I've used is helping people convince, you know, whoever is in position of authority in their organization. You don't need to figure out if Bitcoin is good for you or not. You just need to figure out if it's worth finding out whether it is or not. And I tell groups this all the time.
(46:10) They go, "Yeah, you know, this the president of the union is I think he's kind of anti-UN and so I don't think he's going to go for this." And I go, "You don't need to sell him on Bitcoin. You just need to sell him on the fact that Bitcoin is worth looking into." And from there, the fear melts away because it's scary and I get it.
(46:31) Folks are they just want to cruise along and they don't want to they don't want to get attacked. They worked hard to get in their spots. And so I would say the same thing is true for a pension. I don't need to convince a pension that Bitcoin is worth adding to the balance sheet. I would only ever convince a pension that it's worth looking into.
(46:47) And what's the harm in that? I mean I mean if Kalpers did some proforma thing, are they going to get you know can at that point if someone gets attacked for simply learning or looking into something the problem is on the attacker for sure. I mean, unless that thing is so atrocious that you're you know, you're like um you know, this is like uh you know, it's it's it's it's it's the the thing itself is is extremely harmful to people around them, right? Which which Bitcoin is not.
(47:19) And so, um just getting them to look into that's really effective small incremental steps because they they melt away the fear. and just meeting people. You know, it's a little cliche you hear about meeting people with their where they're at, but it's so true. You know, if I'm talking to you and you tell me, "I don't like Bitcoin because people lose their seed phrase.
(47:42) " I could choose to counter that by saying, "Well, only a small amount of people lose their seed phrase." And actually, it doesn't really happen and it's very uncommon. Or I can say, "Marty, you know what? You're right. People do lose their seed phrase." But what if we started with $5 and playing with self-custody and what it felt like? Would you be worried about losing the seed phrase? No, I guess then, you know, I wouldn't really care.
(48:06) Okay, great. Now, are you good with that? Yeah, I'm good. But but what about there's all these hackers? And I go, well, listen, Bitcoin has never been hacked. Um any kind of issue has been through someone's own mistake. But what if we started with $5? Could you get over the fact that sure, Bitcoin might be able to be hacked? Could you could you engage then? Yes.
(48:29) And then when holding it, they learn, oh my gosh, um I could see I would never lose my seed phrase or if I did, I' I'd get into multi-IG or some other, you know, joint custodial thing where I had uh better insuranceances if I did more. Uh so that's been the most effective couple of tools that I've used.
(48:49) And then the last one is consensus. You can't do these things in the dark. You got to be out in the open and get people involved because because if you don't get people involved, you're running the chance of a of a Bitcoin hitting, you know, a volatile stretch and having some downtime and then you're not going to be in it for the long run because people are going to attack that.
(49:09) Um, and you also lose on what I think is one of the greatest facets of Bitcoin, which is its ability to educate workers and wage earners on how money works. Why? That's the best part. So include everyone and take advantage of what is one of the best things about Bitcoin. Um whether you end up passing some measure and getting involved or if your organization says that's not for us but we learned a lot but it's not for us. Great. Yeah.
(49:38) Then the individuals maybe the organization doesn't do it but the individuals are like you know what I'm going to do this myself and help themselves out less dependent on the pension on the back end. And you're I completely agree not only with meeting people where they are, but the first step should just be convincing them to look into Bitcoin.
(49:57) And your story there reminded me a lot of my days at Great American Mining where we would do these webinars. We sent out a message like if you're in oil and gas, we're doing a webinar on using Bitcoin mining to eliminate flare gas problems that you may have. And what we found it was a bunch of younger either analysts or middle managers that were joining the call and there were like bitcoiners in these organizations that really understood it.
(50:28) And that was a lot of the conversation we we had was with these lower level um people in the organization having conversations about how they can broach the conversation with the decision makers on the investment board or the management team. And a lot of it was just like convince them that Bitcoin is worth looking into and then like you mentioned it'll do the job after that. Exactly. Yeah.
(50:51) It's it's interesting not to not to get sidetracked because that's that's spot on. you mentioned the the mining side of stuff and I do think there's a very interesting dynamic in California right now in that right um you had a a change of the administration and you had this huge public private partnership in energy transition right um um renewable energy and like I mentioned earlier Kalpers committed $und00 billion um by 2030 now they hold some things there's also some controversies like oh you know you can't list Exxon as part of your
(51:26) climatefriendly investment, you know, and they go, well, if we're impacting change, then we view it as such. But the big thing is that with the changing administration that seems to now be incentivizing, you know, oil and gas, drill, baby drill, you have a huge amount of the private sector on that public private that is pulling away from energy transition.
(51:48) I saw an article that BP was looking to um sell or liquidate huge holdings in energy transition whether that's like investments in solar or wind that leaves I don't know if you saw this but Governor Nuomo went to Sonora Mexico and there was an article that came out our new climate partner Sonora and I was like okay um I don't know where they were in the list of like you know top top like huge making a huge splash but I'm sure there's some great stuff there.
(52:20) But what is California going to do to succeed at its goal of energy transition? And you know, there's a lot of people in the space in Bitcoin where there is heavy pursuit of renewable energy as a source. And we know Bitcoin miners will pursue whatever they work off incentives and that is incredibly cutthroat field. And so if you provide them an energy source that can give them an advantage of, you know, tiny little bit, they will jump on it and set up shop.
(52:50) And there's a lot of interesting things there with California as far as what role could Bitcoin play as a as an energy partner and whatever. I'm not an energy expert, so there's a lot of variables and question marks, but surely it maybe is worth exploring. Yeah, Bitcoin miners, the buyer of first and last resort of your energy resources looking to expand generation, whether that's wind, solar, nuclear, oil and gas, coal, even Bitcoin miners can be there as the buyer first resort as you put the generation asset down and wait for the transmission lines to be built
(53:26) out. Once the transmission lines are built out, Bitcoin miners can unplug, move somewhere else, rinse and repeat. You look up a couple decades from now and you have a pretty robust energy system with a ton of generation that's being utilized to max capacity. It's a beautiful thing. California, think about it.
(53:45) Imagine the irony if Bitcoin ended up being, you know, a key player in succeeding in energy transition and goals. I mean, the irony would just be unbelievable. Well, Ben McKenzie told me it's boiling the ocean, so I don't think we should explore it. Yeah, for sure. No, that's that's that's if that's the case.
(54:03) Um, you always know it's an issue where you're like on all the talk shows and you have a thesis and then the thesis is wildly wrong and you just disappear and you're like, "All right, I'm out." Um, but yeah. Um, no, some really interesting stuff there for California. And and I think we had a little thing, we had a little thing in Santa Monica, which was like this like peer-to-peer um little street festival that we did.
(54:30) And we had um um Margot from BPI was there um and uh she was talking to a state senator about the different energy stuff and they had a good conversation about how there's a little bit different standards or views on you know Bitcoin miners versus traditional database operators and there's just a lot there and and I hope that the state can facilitate a deeper exploration of that because if the ultimate goal is just to, you know, have energy transition and move more into renewables, then it's worth looking into whether Bitcoin can help achieve that or
(55:06) not. And if the answer is no, then fine, they looked into it. But, um, better than not succeeding at the goal. Have to get some Californian representatives in West Texas. That would be that would be very interesting to see. Look at all this wind and solar generation that Bitcoin mining has helped produce. Yeah.
(55:24) if they're allowed to step foot in Texas. You know, we got to we got to put the we got to put hopefully there's more bipart that's another thing with my race that's huge is like the pension thing is not partisan. And so, right, I'm I'm really hoping to um engage folks because there should be no partisan issues in the pension fund.
(55:45) It affects all cities equally, all workers up and down the state and it should not be a politicized um thing. So, but easier said than done. Agreed. And great segue into the topic of how does one actually run for the board of trustees of Kalpers? What are the mechanics? How does this how does this the politics of Kalpers actually work? Yeah.
(56:12) So, so to run so the board um the board of administration or I also I call it the board of trustees even though there is a slight difference between the term but it's it's just more understandable and and the constitution mentions trustees and administration but um the retirement board consists of 13 individuals some of them are exfacto so like the California treasurer right may have a spot on there um some of them are appointed by the governor or assembly uh speaker of the Assembly or Senate.
(56:40) And then there's some that are at large uh for election. So, I'm running for one of the spots that's an atlarge spot. How do I run for it? I'm eligible because I'm an active member of CalPERS myself. I'm a firefighter in the state that's in that system and so I'm an eligible voter and I'm eligible to run for the spot.
(57:00) um you know I have to get these signatures of to be eligible which I'm I'm I'm got those and um then I have to run and find a way to communicate and turn out 2 million plus voters that are not part of any district. They're just distributed throughout the entire state. So the answer to how do you do it? It's tough and these spots are often, you know, gatekeeped by different, you know, larger organizations um or unions that have more members.
(57:34) And so it's it's incredibly challenging without the support of the big big unions that can then turn out their their members because it's really expensive. I mean, just running 2 million plus voters is the size of like it's a congressional race easily, if not bigger. Um, but imagine there's no district, a congressional race, at least you have a district where if you hit everyone within the district lines, you hit a voter.
(58:03) I have to literally hit every person in California, um, you know, in order to reach the 2 million or I have to be really strategic in finding them. So, putting together a digital campaign, it's super expensive and it's very hard and so if I'm unable to raise the money, which I'm working on 24/7, then I cannot communicate with the voters.
(58:27) Um, I'm working I got good endorsements from firefighters across the state. So, I'll be, you know, they're really they've been incredible reaching out saying we're going to get the word out. We'll get the word out to our local city, our local organizations. So, that's a a beautiful community that I'm very blessed to be a part of.
(58:46) Um, and uh, you know, I'm just going to have to run really hard before these ballots come in. August 29th, the 2 million voters get the ballots. They have a month to vote, either sending it in online or by phone, and then they'll tally over the results, and if there's a clear winner, they'll be on the board. Otherwise, they'll move to a runoff um, a few months later.
(59:09) So, that is the incredible task at hand. While we're talking about it, let's talk about a couple things on why it matters to the to the viewer if I can. Um, you know, I think it matters because it's a big deal. Like we mentioned, there's 2 million plus um folks that rely on these these retirement funds. I think it's a huge opportunity to educate those folks and get them engaged.
(59:33) um when you do not have engagement from your everyday folks, it allows a few loud voices to kind of dominate the political discussion and that can impact you know anything in a variety of ways. So engagement is huge. Um you know for Bitcoiners I think it matters because um everyone knows how I feel about Bitcoin and I believe in it personally.
(59:59) Of course, as a board member, I serve 2 million plus workers, and that's going to be my priority, but I'm huge on education, and I think it's a huge opportunity to, you know, have a pillar of education in that area in California, in Sacramento. So, I think that will lead to tons of great discussions there. And again, as we saw in the news, California is now the fourth largest economy in the world.
(1:00:23) So when you talk about, you know, areas that maybe are a little behind in their understanding, that's a huge, huge territory. Um, so I think that matters. And then there's something that's very interesting where Marty, your listener in like Nebraska or Oklahoma or Texas or or North Dakota might be like, I don't care about Kalpers.
(1:00:45) Well, a lot of different political folks I've talked to believe that there's a decent possibility that the future of the House could be determined in California in 2026. And for anyone paying attention to the national politics, I think we've made a lot of progress in just being recognized as having the right to exist as Bitcoiners.
(1:01:12) you know, if there was something that the last administration really dropped the ball on, they could have simply just said like, "Hey, we think that folks that are into Bitcoin, you know, have a have a have a valid use case and um we're going to learn more about that." And that's all at this time. And they would have been like, "Thank you.
(1:01:30) Oh my gosh." You know, um millions of people that hold Bitcoin kind of feel like seen or recognized. That didn't happen. Um, but with what's on the what's on the table for 2026, you know, the Dems are still catching up on Bitcoin and it's still yet to be determined their kind of stance on it.
(1:01:52) And so I'm going to be engaging with 2 million plus high propensity general election voters throughout the entire state that will likely determine the future of the House of Representatives. Now, sure, they're going to get engaged on party lines, but wouldn't it be great if they also looked into things like, you know, where different elected officials stand on the future of money and how digital cash might play into our system in the future.
(1:02:22) And that was a key item and that could play a role in the election. And you know, I think every Bitcoiner wants to continue to see progress made and and have an ability to just engage in something that they feel protects them from, you know, the wealth extractors of traditional finance. And so that's a very very big deal.
(1:02:44) And so I encourage folks to really pay attention and come on board to this campaign that I'm running um because it will be a preface for the midterm elections in 2026. Without a doubt, we have a huge opportunity to educate workers and wage earners. Yeah. And we've got a great distributed network of memers in the Bitcoin space.
(1:03:05) If we got an underdog running for the board of administrators, board of trustees of Kalpers, we should help crowdsource some marketing efforts. I think we can do a better job than uh an agency that's that's taking in millions of dollars to do this. I think we can do this distributed using social media. We've seen the power of memeing Bitcoin into the conversation at the national stage.
(1:03:30) And that's one thing I've been passionate about for many years going back to my days at Great American Mining. became wholly convinced and still am to a very large extent today that states are still going to lead the way here. What's happening at the federal level in terms of Bitcoin being part of the conversation and the Trump administration seriously considering incorporating Bitcoin into what they're doing is is all fine and good, but as we know as Americans, the political gridlock that exists in DC is pretty immense.
(1:03:59) And I think 33 years into my life almost 34 years it's become clear to me don't depend on that much more effective to focus on your local area your local community your local union and build out from there and states are obviously at a lower layer than the federal government and are very high leverage um entities to to convince to consider Bitcoin just to consider Bitcoin 100%.
(1:04:29) You know, when we we have all these state bills out right now and look, um whether they pass or not, I've always said, you know, we Bitcoiners have leaprogged a ton of stuff and I give I give the community all the credit and everyone working their tail off. I mean, it's unbelievable. But like you said, for local, how does a state put Bitcoin on the balance sheet when not one municipality in that state holds it on the balance sheet? Because what is a state? It's a collective of cities that pay into a larger, right? It's a it's
(1:05:03) it's it's it's the next level up. And so, you know what I mean? How does a city look into Bitcoin or facilitate Bitcoin as a payment when not one person in their city is using as a payment? It doesn't. Because without the commitment, you know, anytime there's pro problems, people are going to go, "This is stupid.
(1:05:22) I'm done." Like, "This is dumb." Or, "You're an idiot for doing this thing. I'm done." And so, um, the grassroots education and another thing I'm very passionate about and I know you are as well, the narrative as to why Bitcoin was created. It is, in my opinion, the number one attack vector for Bitcoin is the narrative of why.
(1:05:47) You know, we all love when Larry Frink's talking about Bitcoin because the guy's like runs the all the money in the world and he's talking about it and we're like, "Yes, but but what is he saying when you break it down?" You know, he specifically says that Bitcoin is a pristine digital asset. Um, and they focus on the asset.
(1:06:05) You never hear him hear him saying that it's digital cash or a payment network that can facilitate peer-to-peer money. In reality, you know, every Bitcoiner knows the Genesis story that Bitcoin was born from the financial crisis that in the genesis block, right, Chancellor on the brink of a second bailout, there's specific symbolism in Bitcoin as being an instrument where people can just exchange value between each other and hold something that cannot be diluted or extracted as far as their what they do.
(1:06:43) There's never a promise in Bitcoin that Bitcoin was going to go up or be this, but there was a promise that Bitcoin was going to be a way for you to engage in value peer-to-peer without having to ask someone, please, mother, may I do this or here's the information of what I'm doing or I I I got a slice of pizza with this.
(1:07:06) Um, so we have to continue to share that story because Bitcoin's simplest features remain their most impressive features. And I tell people all the time, just hold 10 bucks in self-custody for like a couple months. See what it feels like. Because I remember when I did it, a little like, you know, a goofball like me, I was walking around like, "All right.
(1:07:28) " I'm like, "Okay, hey, what how you doing? What do you got like a couple million in the bank? That's cool. That's cool, man. Hope that goes well. You know, like like I have it was the first time I had something of my own of value. And sure, it could go up and go down in a night, but it's mine and and I know the the mechanisms and I can engage in the mechanisms and I can choose to run a node with a software update of my choice and I can, you know, look and and audit what's going on with Bitcoin and I can get rid of it at any time if I want. I
(1:08:03) can hold it. That's the most powerful thing and it's so simple. It's not like this like it's just really simple. you hold something that's yours. Um, and it's not cash under your bed, but like it's better. And and and you know, we have to continue to tell that story locally because otherwise that story and the flame that is that story will be extinguished by those that just want to see Bitcoin be, you know, a pristine asset where in reality they want to make money. They want dollars.
(1:08:37) Um, anything is mentioning about Bitcoin is for the endgame of making the United States dollar and getting more of that. So, we have to we have to share this. We have to educate folks. Um, and uh it's the most important thing we can do as Bitcoiners today. Yeah. And I'm happy to report to all the freaks out there, we do have our first municipality that has adopted a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
(1:09:03) I was not expecting it to be this municipality. Roswell Roswell, New Mexico. Nice. Is is on the on the board. First snowflake in the eventual avalanche that leads to all municipalities. Awesome. You did they they actually used funds to purchase it. Let me let me look this up to be sure. But cuz I know I know Fort Worth was the first city to mine it.
(1:09:29) Yeah. Roswell, New Mexico. Let's see what it says. Let's see. Bitcoin. I'm pretty sure I s I hope I didn't dream this last night. Yeah. Roswell, New Mexico now holds Bitcoin on its balance sheet. Mayor Pro Tim Giuliana Halverson signed off on the city's new Bitcoin strategic reserve.
(1:09:54) It's saying here they have three 3,200 thou 3,50, 323 sats on the balance sheet as of right now. the fair market value of $2,96. It's a step. It's a step. It's a step. And and and it's not going to bankrupt the city, right? 2,900 surely is not going to bankrupt the city. And um but they can learn and see, you know, what it's like, what's happening, and they can have growing pains and they can see what the market does and learn about the technology.
(1:10:27) And so that's the hardest step is just getting off zero. and um you know uh huge for them and in 10 years from now we'll re revisit and see what the benefit was and and to other cities I would say this Marty like even if they were to decide that they never did anything after that if Bitcoin does change the world like we think it can and already has and continues to move forward they can say we looked into this thing we didn't just like we weren't asleep we looked into this yeah and I'm just looking into the story in more depth. I saw the headline earlier today,
(1:11:02) but this is a great way like it's great example while we have everybody's attention. This is like a live on air breaking news dissection, but the way in which this Roswell strategic reserve and Bitcoin emergency fund emerged um was an anonymous donation by a citizen of Roswell, New Mexico. So this document acknowledges the city of Roswell, New Mexico's receipt of 3,50,323 Satoshi's with a fair market value of roughly 2906 at the time of receipt as the first seed donation of hopefully many more to come, establishing the city held and managed
(1:11:37) Roswell Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The donation awesome donation was sent on January 3rd of this year anonymously. And not hey, you know, people some some skeptics say Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, but I don't know a Ponzi scheme where people donate their funds to a city municipality um treasury, you know, just because they believe in the thing and hope that it can. I mean, like that would be a first.
(1:12:05) We'd have to check the history books, but um you know, that's pretty that's an amazing tool. just someone caring about something so much that they're willing to part ways with real value. That person could have just sold that Bitcoin and bought, you know, an old Honda Accord or something. Um although, you know, I don't know what the tariffs Honda Accords might be going for for higher now, you know, but but pretty cool.
(1:12:32) That's that's that's an awesome story. Yeah. Go talk to your municipality. Talk to the mayor. That's this is like, hey, look into Bitcoin. Would you be willing to accept a donation in Bitcoin? Roswell said, "Yes, you know what? We would. We're gonna hold it." Yeah. No, that it's folks have to just get outside and talk to again start on your block.
(1:12:57) Start start with you, you know, uh uh the bake sale on the block and like teach them just about Bitcoin and and like we have to start there. Um because that's how you plant the seeds. And um the good news is there's a lot of folks doing that and and um there's starting to be a lot more interest in Bitcoin for sure. Yeah.
(1:13:17) Well, you're on the tip of the spear, Dom. Thank you for doing everything that you've done up to this point and for throwing your hat in the ring for the board of trustees of of Kalpers. I think it's very important work, sometimes bankless work, and I just want to recognize that it it's incredible to see what you've done in a very short amount of time.
(1:13:38) And anybody who's listening who can put forth an effort to help Dom his efforts to get on the board of trustees at Kalpers get to work. Let's get this distributed meme warfare underway for the Kalpers board of trustees. Let's get to the voters. 100%. We need you out there. The If I can plug the website just for folks looking to find us, www.bayforcalpers. My last name is B Ei.
(1:14:06) Um, so it's bay forcalpers and uh we on Twitter you can just look up Don Bay for forcalpers or on Instagram and we got a ton of good endorsements rolling in and um get involved like like you said we need everyone. This is this is not when the board of a pension board sounds like this little office.
(1:14:28) You walk into this little place that has a little notepad and you're here on the pension board. Okay. And you know, but this is a massive thing and it's huge. and um my success in both winning the race but more importantly engaging people to understand how pensions work and what this means that depends on all you listening in getting the word out.
(1:14:51) So anything along those lines unbelievably huge for us and and all the participants and everyone in the country. We'll link to all that in the show notes. Dom, keep fighting the good fight. And I'm sure I think we should definitely make it a point to catch up between now and the end of August and everybody will get their ballots.
(1:15:12) Uh, anybody in Kalpers will get their ballots so that we make sure the message continues to get out there. 100%. Hey, thanks for having me on and thanks for all the work you've done in the space. You know, I've I've always kept up with your articles and and you've always been willing to lend, you know, insights or a helping hand.
(1:15:32) So, uh, very appreciative of that and all the work you're doing. I appreciate you. It's a group effort. We're going to win. We're going to win without a doubt. We are. I mean, we're like, we're rolling. We are with that. Peace and love, freaks. Freaks. Thank you for listening to the show. I hope you liked it.
(1:15:49) If you did like it, please make sure you subscribe, rate, review the show. It helps us out a lot. And also, if you like these conversations, I've come to realize that many people listen to the podcast. They don't know we have another sort of layer of this media company. We have the newsletter, the Bitcoin Brief. Go to TFTC.io.
(1:16:06) Make sure you subscribe there. A lot of the topics that are discussed on this podcast. I write about 5 days a week in the newsletter. We also have the TFTC elite tier. If you sign up for that, become a member. We have a private Discord server for the elite freaks out there where we're dropping ad free versions of this show and having discussions about everything we talk about a day early.
(1:16:33) Logan wanted me to make sure if you want to get the show a day early, become a TFTC elite member. You will get that. We have our Discord server right now. conversation between myself and TFTC elite tier members, but we're going to expand that. We'll probably do closed Q&As's with people in the industry.
(1:16:54) Uh I may be doing macro Mondays. So, join us. Go to tftc.io, subscribe, find the button in the top right corner of the website, become a TFTC Elite member. Thank you for joining us. Okay.
