Welcome to the Last American Vagabond. Joining me
today is Corey Hughes, researcher, author, and now
crypto entrepreneur. I'll let him describe what he
wants to call his his new venture. I'm
very excited about where this is going. I'm
involved with it myself. Here to discuss this,
a new idea around the crypto token that's
meant to provide grants for independent media. Corey,
how are you today? Good to have you
on the show, brother. Hey. Thank you for
having me.
What would you call that? What would you
call the new, you know, venture? You know,
how would you frame the the name for
what this is from your perspective?
Sure. So
I kinda feel like we're taking
things back to the old school, and what
we've done fundamentally is we have launched,
what people called back in the day a
utility token.
Meaning,
for a while, a lot of tokens were
coming out. They really didn't have much of
a purpose. They didn't do anything. But per
but tokens that did something and had an
actual functionality were called utility tokens, but you
haven't heard much about that in many, many
years.
And I think that's kinda what we did.
So, fundamentally, we launched what's called independent media
token.
And I have to I gotta admit, part
of the inspiration
for this was you because I remember,
a year and a half, maybe two years
ago, you were having at the same time,
you were getting sued. The IRS was coming
after you. Happening. Still happening. Still happening. Oh
my god. So,
I mean, I just remember being, like, in
awe that they were going after you
at all. And that kinda got the ball
rolling with ideas, and it really took us
over a year of brainstorming,
to finalize what we've done. Outstanding. Well, let
let me before we get into this, that
that that's a I'm really that makes me
that's that's awesome, man. I'm glad I didn't
know that. That that's really, really cool to
hear. But so before I I really before
we get into the the project, I wanna
make sure you have a chance to those
that may not have seen you, our our
our previous interview, by the way, which I'll
include, which I think is important because he
is prolific. It's, you know, not one of
the leading, you know, you can describe it,
researchers in regard to JFK and a lot
of different conversations. Go ahead and introduce yourself
and, you know, what what your background and
what you're doing and Sure. You know, before
we get to the crypto stuff, I one
of the reason I said at the start
was, like, I called you a crypto entrepreneur.
I didn't know what if that is that
the right way to frame that. I don't
like that word. I've never liked that word.
It's probably one of the most pretentious words
I've ever heard in my life. I'm just
the guy trying to get by in this
world. You know? Right. Right.
But my name is Corey Hughes. I'm a
historian
that focuses on the Kennedy assassination. I've been
on Kennedy over seven years full time. I
got two books out, and
that's my whole life.
Independent me I've been in independent media since
2014.
I actually launched a podcast
for anonymous in 2014
that, I did for about two years. Nice.
And that kinda got me into my main
work of Kennedy, and I studied the holocaust
in World War two and all that stuff.
But I've been doing this a long time.
And guess what? Everybody I know in independent
media is broke.
I hate to say it, but it's true.
And so I wanted to come up with
an idea that could help foster growth in
independent media. Mhmm. And
then that's how we came up with independent
media token because we saw a real need.
You know, I wanted to reach out and
help you at the time when you were
having your problems, and I saw and I
but who has money? You know what I
mean? It's it's hard. And so
the the the concept was basically to find
a way to raise money for
new shows, growing shows, individual projects, grants, and
we're even talking about a potential legal fund.
So, yeah, there's a lot of, potentiality in
what we're doing,
and I'm pretty excited about it because no
one's ever done anything like it before. We
kind of like to think that we're something
brand new that we're calling a philanthropic
coin because nobody else is doing anything like
that where we're taking a percentage of transactions
that go directly to our philanthropic
endeavor. You know? Right. Right. I like that.
I mean, see, this is this is what's
so interesting. And I wanna get into the
the rightful concerns people may have around crypto
in a minute, but it's like the there
it's interesting that there are
directions that are being taken through this that
are at least and, again, I don't actually
know of any of the projects like what
you're doing. But maybe it'll
maybe you'll set this kind of pattern for
other people to follow or the the, you
know, got the the path. But I think
it's really important to look at this in
a way that can be done that's not
necessarily like it it's done in a way
that's that is philanthropic. You're doing this to
support other people. And if that ends up
benefiting those that started, then all the better.
You know? But let let's start from the
beginning of this. So so explain
what the token is in in maybe the
the compare.
Many people are still still learning the difference
between tokens themselves, you know, that not all
Bitcoin or not all cryptocurrency is Bitcoin by
its first statement. There's a lot to it.
I recommend James Corbett work on that that
really he does he has some old shows
where he really breaks down those differences. But
take in in in a comparison to something
like a, you know, in one case, like
a Bitcoin or something else, like, maybe like
a Chainlink, you know, to explain what what
is this token first, and, like, how does
that fit into this ecosystem? Alright. So initially,
you had Bitcoin. It was the only crypto.
Right? It was created by Satoshi Nakamoto. We
could talk about him later on. But,
fundamentally,
Bitcoin was the product of a decade's worth
of work, realistically speaking. And it incorporated things
like the proof of work algorithm from Adam
back, and it took all the concepts that
people have been discussing
and made it real. And it was absolutely
incredible. So for the first couple years after
Bitcoin came out,
every single coin that was released,
Dogecoin
and, you know, there was a whole bunch
of other ones,
pre Ethereum
that all had their own blockchain.
And very soon, they came to realize that
maintaining individual blockchains in a decentralized manner is
virtually impossible because you gotta get people on
board, then you gotta have people on running
nodes. And it's it's such a massive undertaking,
that they Vitality came up with Ethereum, which
was basically a decentralized
functioning platform that allowed you to create a
token on the back end using their decentralized
network and not have to create your own
network. Right? And it Mhmm.
It it it's a double edged sword, Ethereum
and these platforms.
Ultimately, it took many, many years for, I
think, for them to kinda solidify and they
are today and
to be able to utilize the functionality that
we're particularly
using. But initially, it was it opened the
floodgates to scams, and that's why a lot
of people have a bad taste in their
mouth with crypto because to blockchain, expensive, virtually
impossible to do unless you have massive backing
ton of people involved, but you can launch
a token on Ethereum's network, you know, to
do what you want to do without having
to have all that massive infrastructure
cost.
Mhmm. So the evolution from there, you have
a a layer one like Bitcoin, then you
have a layer one like Ethereum. And then
on top of Ethereum, you build all these
other layers, right, through the different tokens. So
all the problems in Ethereum and Solana came
about, and the
technicals behind Solana are absolutely unbelievable.
Fundamentally, it can process
multiple blocks at a time compared to any
other blockchain. It's it's really kind of an
amazing system designed
by,
ex Oracle people, but
it's a centralized system. I'm not gonna lie.
The more further away we get from Bitcoin
with all these prod with all these tokens
and coins and projects, the further away from
decentralization
that we get. That's just the reality. And
so that kind of works that works for
me because I don't really think that there's
competition for Bitcoin in as far
as using it as a currency.
Right. Long I mean, the whole package is
Bitcoin. It kinda solved the money problem. So
in my opinion, I believe that these tokens
should have utility. They should function more like
a stock with some sort of extra feature,
and that's exactly what we did. The
so the value of a stock is based
on anticipation
of what the company is gonna do in
the future if they're gonna make a ton
of money for their shareholders and whatnot.
So speculative trading on stocks
is what drives the price up, right, because
of what the company is doing. Mhmm. But
none of these tokens really do anything. Like,
when you buy, you know, Shiba Inu, it
doesn't do anything. It just is what it
is, and you buy it based a 100%
purely on speculation, not because of potential future
endeavors that they're gonna be doing or growth
in the company. Right? We are completely different
because
when people buy into independent media token,
basically,
that kind of serves as
the
base layer of our
ability
to fund these projects. Right? And so it
gives us a great amount of utility
that we can then refocus into the independent
media space, which is phenomenal.
It actually does something, and it benefits a
lot of people. And not only that, the
people who buy it will benefit also because
and they don't have to stop what they're
doing to make donations to individual shows they
like. They don't have to do any of
that stuff. The one we have a 1%
tax on tax on all the transactions, which
means that 1% comes back to us, and
that creates a fund that we're then gonna
use
to further,
finance these projects.
And and we're talking we'll get to it
more in in grants. Right? So the idea
being the money then gets, you know, used
to give grants that that you know, for
those who don't know, I mean, they don't
have to pay anything back. It's just free
money given to people in the independent media
that will be decided by a a board,
which which I'll be a part of. Right.
Right? So and so it's a it's a
really interesting idea. So we'll go more into
that that for those that may still be
kind of not sure about the the point
of, you know, the differences. You know, one
an easy way to look at it is
so Bitcoin, Ethereum are are arguably considered currency.
Like, so you could use this as exchange
currency. Now what's interesting is even the ones
you pointed to, you can still arguably use
them as some form of currency because they
have value. Right? But there's not something or
as the difference is a Bitcoin is is
not a product, it is the currency, but
something like a stream link, same idea. It
can still be exchanged a currency, but there's
a product behind it. Right. There's something that's
being used that can be sold and grown
and and developed and that would cause it
to go up, not just the the use
of of it. And so that's so this
would be a different thing entirely, right, where
it's about something that is creating a store
of value that then gets used to help
independent media grow. But at the same time,
you could still gain by simply owning it
and having that go up in value. Right?
Correct. And so,
it is a challenge
because of what's happened over the last couple
years.
So the reason that all the meme coins
popped up on the we use Solana because
we looked at our at architecture and the
ability to scale long term, and we felt
that Solana is in the best position to
do that.
The problem, though, it's double you know, it's
always a double edged sword. The
amount of money it costs to actually launch
a token on Solana
is so
low. The pro the the blockchain is so
efficient
that literally you could launch a coin for,
like, a $100.
Okay? And so what did that do? That
opened the floodgates to people coming up with
Joe Schmo coin and all these things. And
it's kinda crazy because the meme coin
world
has done a couple things inadvertently.
It brought a bunch of people into crypto
who never would have been in crypto because
they think they can make some quick money,
and, unfortunately, the system is showing that that's
possible. Right?
But all these people who are buying into
this Solana ecosystem,
I don't really know that they're seeing the
long term value in things. And that's another
issue with independent media token. We're not a
quick flip at all. Right. So we studied
the market, the Solana market, and how to
get into the Solana market and how to
get things moving in the Solana market, and
we became somewhat experts on the process of
how to launch a token on Solana. But
then we very quickly realized over the last
couple weeks
that that ecosystem
and what we're doing
are very different.
We're using an incredible ecosystem,
but the nobody has ever seen a valid
project on Solana with the exception of the
exchange tokens.
Mhmm.
Because the exchange tokens need them to facilitate
their exchanges. But there are no other legitimate
projects even attempting to launch on Solana, which
I think is gonna really set us apart
once people realize what we're doing. Right. But,
another thing is that the we're looking at
crypto style marketing for this ecosystem.
We realized really quickly that
it's mostly fake.
Most of this
most of the volume that you see on
Solana and a lot of these meme coins,
like on base or some of these other
new chains are popping up,
this is smoke and mirrors.
This is all bot volume. It is all,
you know, bot followers on Twitter. It's they
give this fake appearance that they have a
big project, and then that tricks people into
buying in, and then it becomes a kind
of self fulfilling prophecy. Right? So you got
people out there launching coins that do nothing,
spending $20.30, $4,050,000
dollars to get off the ground and roping
people in, and they're all using volume bots.
They're using, you know, Twitter bots, everything. We're
not doing that. We made the decision. Once
we came to understand that was what was
going on and how the vast majority of
volume that we're seeing is fake, We're like,
oh, we're not gonna do that. And if
it takes us five if it takes us
five years to get organic volume, that's what
we're gonna do. We're not gonna waste our
time with this BS. Right. And this is
a good example of in any field, whether
independent media or, you know, whatever we're talking
about, that in this moment, he could have
chosen to do the wrong thing even for
the right reasons. You know, been like, well,
that's the way this system works even though
it's dishonest. Maybe we can get there and
then use it for good. Right? The same
logic people convince themselves of going into politics.
The point is you're still doing something wrong.
Right? And so I Right. Give you a
lot of credit for choosing the difficult path
because it's the right thing to do. And
I think that's important to point out. Yeah.
A lot of things that we anticipated when
we started, we realized after we did them,
oh, we probably shouldn't have done that. Like,
the manner in which we launched the LP
is totally fine. Everything's
working great.
But we don't make any money on fees
like everyone else does because we did it
a legitimate way as opposed to a,
a nonlegitimate way. So let me explain this
really quickly. So when people launch, like, these
meme tokens, they will immediately take their,
LP token. So if you launch an LP,
a liquidity pool, that means you put up,
say, a bunch of Solana on one side
and then a bunch of your token on
the other side. You create the trading pool
that people will then buy your token out
of. Right? Once you create that, you are
given what's called LP tokens, which are generated
on the spot, which is your claim to
the liquidity pool. So you can own that
liquidity pool. Right?
So the vast majority of people who put
out these means, they take this liquidity pool
tokens, and then they burn them,
through Raydium, and that allows them to collect
fees. But they burnt the liquidity pool tokens,
which means nobody can ever access that LP
ever.
Right? So if that LP grows to $5,000,000,
doesn't matter. Nobody can ever access that LP
for future growth. This is what all of
the meme coin tokens do. They burn their
LPs. And this to me is the sign
of a short sighted project that's not planning
on being around long term. Because we we
decided not to burn our LP tokens,
and, therefore,
we have the ability
to move tokens around to other exchanges in
the future as we grow as opposed to
shoehorning ourselves into burning our tokens, and, therefore,
the project would have been fundamentally locked forever.
So what what's the oh, sorry. Which what?
We would have been locked forever. Like so
if you create an LP and you burn
your tokens, it's inaccessible.
So you could end up having an LP
with $5,000,000
in it that's no one's ever gonna be
able to access. Right. Well, what it's gonna
ask is the so what's the benefit of
these groups doing that? Okay. So when you
burn your tokens through Radium Mhmm. That allows
you to collect
a point two $5.02,
fee in Solana for every transaction. Right? So
you deal So they're they're they're screwing their
long term
potential growth and change for immediate benefits. Yes.
Yeah. I get it. You nailed it. You
nailed it. They're they're screwing themselves long term
for short term gain, which we didn't do
that. Plan long term because we're back. Pump
and dumb style. Yeah. Correct. And so we
didn't do that. We made the decision not
to do that and to forego any fee
money that we would make on the trading
because we we believe in the token itself.
We believe in the project itself, and we
have no doubts whatsoever.
In the next two years, we're pretty much
convinced we're gonna hit around a $10,000,000 market
cap.
And today today, we're sitting at about a
$55,000
market cap. So we anticipate a 100 x
in value in the next two years.
Nice. Yeah. And that's based on just simply
looking at market trends, looking at our ability
to do marketing,
and, you know, a whole number of other
factors.
But
Go ahead.
We think that's a very reasonable number. 10,000,000
really keeps still keeps us off the radar,
and it gives us a 10,000,000 market cap
would give us around a million dollars a
year to distribute for independent media projects. That's
outstanding. And, see, my mindset is always I'm
sure you know within this or anything, any
project. You know? And and I know it's
in a weird in in a way, it's
counterintuitive.
Marketing and all that is a in an
is an unfortunate necessary part of everything we
seem to be involved. I know. I hate
it, though. And my my my audience knows.
I'm I'm like, it seems like a, you
know, it's just like a dirty word to
me. I hate I hate the idea of
selling yourself, but it is necessary. My point,
though, is that,
you know, in this
what else I gonna say? I just lost
my train of thought. But the the you
were saying something about the marketing.
I just lost it. Yeah. The marketing is,
the marketing in crypto is is I can't
believe how fake it is. Oh, here's one
thing that we really realized is that so
there's certain channels that you go through that
people who trade these kind of Solana, you
know, mean coin kind of things look for.
Right? They look for if you have burnt
your LP. They look for if you do
this. There's a whole checklist of things that
they look for. So we look into that
checklist and doing that checklist,
and we realize that that in and of
itself
keeps the market small. And and if you're
only doing specific marketing through these very specific
channels that very specific people look for, you're
shutting yourself off to the much wider world.
And so we decided we're not gonna do
this typical crypto marketing path. We're gonna focus
on the larger scale platforms that everyone's on,
like x and like Facebook and the traditional
stuff because then we have access to marketing
in front of a a much larger audience
than if we limit ourselves just to the
small number of crypto marketing places where everyone
expects you to market. You know? Right. That
makes sense. We're taking we're taking a much
more traditional approach to everything,
as opposed to a crypto approach, really, which
sounds kind of counterintuitive, but it's it's necessary.
Yeah. This is what I mean is and
I remember what I was gonna say is
that, like, the I come I tend to
come in everything I do for much more
of this, you know, if you build it,
they will come kind of a mindset. Right?
Do the right thing for the right reasons.
And and, you know, I I love the
mind that most people are not just wanting
that but thirsty for it with the way
the world is today. But so that's the
idea is that it's like, you know, you're
building something that is going to show value
because, you know, like so ultimately, at its
end result,
I I argue without marketing at all, like,
once it becomes
a a a a discussion point in independent
media that this new token just literally handed
a $10,000
free grant to a media person, that's gonna
that is in and of itself going to
build like, that's my point. Right. You'll that
you're gonna go, wow. That's something that I
wanna support. The end product is the best
marketing we could ever do,
and that we that, I think, is what's
really going to set us apart. And here's
another thing. Now here's the thing that sets
us apart.
You guys are looking at my face right
now, and you guys all know my name
and how to get ahold of me. Right.
There ain't no there there's no shadiness going
on here, and that's what everyone's afraid of.
You know what I mean? Yeah. So the
go ahead. Go ahead. The the fact that
so many people are putting huge amounts of
money into projects
that they have no idea who's behind the
project
is insane.
I sat up the other night, and so
I talked about that checklist of things you're
supposed to do to get people wanting to
get into your token. And right and so
I go to deck screener all the time,
and I'm constantly looking at tokens to see
which ones are doing the checklist, how successful
are they, and this and that.
And people have learned how to do the
checklist to make it look legit and then
still rug you. I watched one the other
day. I watched one for a couple hours
go up, like, four or five times in
value. Everything looked legit on the up and
up
as per those mean coin standards. Right? And
then boom. Whole project, $2,000,000 rugged in a
in an instant. It was wild. And that's
the second rug that I've seen in two
weeks. Like, in real time, I just click
it and I watch, and then, boom. There
it goes. Right? So these things are happening
all the time, and there's no recourse.
Now that Trump say, Trump is a double
edged sword again like everything else. He he
does good stuff, and he does stuff that
totally makes me wanna just pull the hairs
out of my head. And so,
oh, shit, man. I just totally lost my
train of thought too.
It's about contagious. But trumps trumps this whole
let me kinda add something different. This this
whole recent push, right, I think is is
more smoke and mirrors. This whole government's getting
involved, hedge funds are getting involved, all this
stuff. Bitcoin's going to 10,000,000.
Right? I 100% believe Bitcoin's going to $10,000,000.
It's inevitable because of the core functionality of
what Bitcoin is and what it does. Bitcoin,
I can send you a transaction without government
permission.
That's it. That's the whole purpose of Bitcoin.
For now, anyway, it seems. Well, they have
to change the underlying code. And in order
to do that, you gotta compromise
the nodes. Yeah. And if nodes are being
run by die hard die hard Bitcoiners, I
don't think they're gonna be able to be
successful in that in that arena.
But I don't think we're going to this
million dollar Bitcoin anytime soon. Mhmm.
What I've seen is BlackRock and all these
other companies have been buying
Bitcoin,
like, billions upon billions upon billions.
And what is it under the market cap?
Nothing.
Mhmm. Nothing. They've been buying over the counter
at set prices that don't affect market value.
Okay? And how many has BlackRock got? They
got, like, 700,000
Bitcoin. Okay? There ain't much room for them
to get much more. There is not much
the people who are looking to buy Bitcoin
that we've been hearing about, yeah, they got
their Bitcoin. We heard about it after the
fact. Yeah. And the price didn't go anywhere.
Right? How do you look when you look
Can you explain that? Yeah. So when you
buy over the counter,
you have your standard, you know, you have
your standard liquidity pools people can buy from.
You have your centralized exchanges where people can
sell. But,
I'm sorry. Can you repeat the question again?
I lost my train of thought. Well, no.
Just the idea of the the the the
mechanism you just highlighted there. You're explaining the
the I I I mean, I I can't
that's why I was asking for explanation
on it. Like, the the,
I've seen that. I can't I can't hack
you. I'm sorry. But it's like the the
mechanism you just described there about the the
money and the overlapping point of how it's
made.
Right. So the over the counter, when you
buy over the counter, it doesn't affect the
market. So you have markets The changing of
the yeah. Right. And so but there are
people who call up Coinbase, and they're like,
look. I got,
I wanna buy, 500,000,000
in Bitcoin.
Right? And they got other people on the
other end who are like, I got that
to sell.
Those are not going through the exchanges that
change the price. Mhmm. Right? They go over
the counter at the current price in bulk.
So you're gonna buy half a billion dollars
in Bitcoin at a fixed price.
Not like if you were to buy it
on an exchange that would drive the price
up. So all these institutions are buying over
the counter. So much Not that they're Why
are they doing that? And what's the like,
so there are they what's the what's their
interest in not affecting the price? Okay. Well,
why they want to not affect the price,
obviously, is so they can buy at the
low price. But when they buy over the
counter,
the sheer volume of
Bitcoin that they would buy at one time
necessitates
it can't go through the market because it's
it's too much. They would they would radically
change the market. Radically. Yeah. Radically. So what
do they do? They just find buyers and
sellers that they coordinate
off the market to sell at fixed prices.
And that's kinda how you have to operate
if you're buying mass sums like that. But
it's it's screwed everybody else who's holding.
Right. If those guys have would have bought
all those Bitcoin on the open market, we'd
be looking at the million plus Bitcoin right
now. Yeah. See, that's very deceptive. Right? Because,
obviously, they want that to happen when they're
in their position to gain from. You're right.
Right. And this right now, over the past
day or two, we're seeing a $300,000,000
ETF liquidation.
So it's another thing. The ETFs,
had a a a fair,
role in driving the price to a 100,000,
you know, from $50.60, whatever. But,
ultimately,
they don't see Bitcoin
as I do. Okay? They don't see Bitcoin
as being a
ramp off of the Fiat system. They don't
they don't see it like that. To them,
it's just another asset that they're gonna buy
and sell to make money on. That's what
the government frames it today. That's that's kind
of the deviation from the Trump administration is
to almost coop that as opposed to allow
it to to change the system. They wanna
bolster the system with it. Well, here's the
thing. Satoshi anticipated all of this. Like, there's
nothing that's happening with governments or with
ETFs or any of this that he didn't
anticipate.
And he kind of anticipated that in order
for it to even get to the value
of a million dollars plus or whatever, that
would it would need to be able to
pull, like, half the world out of poverty
or whatever. You kinda needed that kind of
institutional money to drive it there in the
first place. Like, Satoshi was not an idiot.
Wait. But we we we would argue
what the debate becomes whether or not whether
he was aware of that almost inevitability that
that would what he would want it to
become based on the original ideas. Right? Like,
it's almost that, you know, it it was
not meant to be a a holding store
value, but rather a a a currency that
could circumvent the system. But these we we
could go in this is a whole conversation.
You know? Right. People say that, but,
people say that, but here's the thing.
That doesn't
I'm not I'm not saying that's what the
case is, but that's one of the per
perceptions on you know? So it's debated, obviously.
But it's it's interesting to think about because,
ultimately,
what it the original idea does seem to
be set up in a way that is
more about, you know, undermining the current financial
system as opposed to making it stronger. I
think that's clearly
going away from that. And, you know, but
but like I said, the last time we
talked about this thing, it was aim wake
up. You know, maybe that's what Satoshi, if
he was here in the conversation, would argue
is what should be happening now. I I
don't know. But it's just I just as
you know where I come from, I'm very
always scared of the government and what they're
doing. I'm worried about that direction. You know?
Right. Well, so Satoshi envisioned Bitcoin as being
a self imagine it as a financial ecosystem
that you didn't need off ramps because Yeah.
Right. Everyone was just using Bitcoin. Right? Right.
That was how he envisioned.
That's not gonna ever happen. I'm sorry. Like,
what percentage of people own gold? Like, five
Yeah. Right.
The point is we that may that we
should still whether or not it seems inevitable
or not, is this something that people wanted
to fight for? And the argument is that's
what is not happening now. And that's where
that kind of feeling comes from, which I'm
sure you understand. So there's a major contradiction
in
this might just be my opinion, but this
is what I've seen over and over and
over again. If I have something that's gonna
be worth more money tomorrow, I'm not gonna
wanna spend it today. Mhmm. I would never
in 1985,
I wouldn't go buy a cup of coffee
with Microsoft stock. You know, it'd be ridiculous.
That same sentiment will hold true for Bitcoin
forever.
Okay? It will always be worth more tomorrow,
you know, euphemistically speaking. Therefore,
why would anyone ever wanna spend it? Mhmm.
If you're gonna spend if you want to
spend crypto in an anonymous fashion,
and you wanna be able to do it
without having to worry about your,
asset going up or down in value, then
we're back to talking about stablecoins.
And that's a whole other conversation.
Who does why would you use a stablecoin
if you can use cash?
Right? Well, there there's that we that's I
I wanna I wanna stick to your project,
but there's a whole because I'll we can
go into this as far as you know?
There's so many interesting overlaps to it. But,
I mean, it always comes back to personal
freedom, liberty, you know, personal privacy, you know.
And and there there's very clear
differentiations
between all of these things from a Monero
to a Bitcoin to a stablecoin. You know.
And so there's there's the way it's all
going
feels, you know, in a to a lot
of people's perspective to be a deviation from
what the idea of this Right. Was. So
that's what kinda drives this. Right? So it's
but but you let you have a comment
on that, and let's go back to, Yeah.
My my comment is no matter I don't
care what what anyone does with Bitcoin.
The fundamentals have never changed, and the fundamentals
are better than ever. We've got now we've
got segregated witness. We have Taproot, which is
gonna be the gateway to more privacy and
transactions. Like, the core developers are no slouches,
and they're well aware of government co opting.
And
I am not I'm not worried about it
at all. Satoshi laid the foundation that would
not allow it to be ultimately changed by
anyone but the users, AKA the node runners.
And I don't co opting the tens of
thousands of node runners out there.
We had two former attempts to hijack the
Bitcoin blockchain
from Roger Veer with Bitcoin Cash and then
with the guys at BitPay with Segwit two
x. Those were outright hijacked attempts. Again, though,
we talked about this last time. And, you
know, I I it can be framed different
ways. Right? So I brought I brought up
the different the the perspective that that's the
work was you know, that the original white
paper aligns with today BSV more than anything.
But, again, you know, these are weirdly contentious
conversation. Right. It's it's but it's important to
look at. I've done many interviews with, you
know, one with Mark Goodwin, one, you know,
about this very topic. But, you know, and
and they're they're worth your investigation. Right? But
the the the direction going forward, though. So
now you're you're using this ecosystem in a
way to create something that is a a
a different you know, you're not trying to
enrich yourself. You're not trying to, you know,
do a pump and dump. You know, it's
about doing it the hard way, the right
way to build something that can stay there
and last and benefit people who are involved
in a way well beyond just making profit.
So how how does that ecosystem work? So
somebody wants to go buy
some of this token, which you you said
is now available. People can't buy it. Right?
So they they wanna they wanna buy some
of this token. They can hold it. You
know? So how how is the the the
rest of it gonna work? Like, do they
are they involved with this process? Like, how
does this ultimately break down the the way
that it's gonna go? Sure. So this is
one problem that we have with
all crypto, even Bitcoin in general, is that
for the average Joe Schmo,
the
barriers to entry
are daunting. They're they're somewhat complicated. Right? If
you wanna buy you wanna buy Bitcoin, you
gotta go you have to go to a
website and buy it, whether it's Coinbase or
some of the no KYC
places that you can get Bitcoin. But that's
step number one. Right? You have to go
and you have to get Bitcoin,
and then that Bitcoin has to turn into
Solana.
Right? And then that Solana, you can use
to purchase IMT. Right? So this is one
thing that is, I think, one of the
weakest points of crypto that really
if the Vitalik well, it wasn't really Vitalik.
Vitalik transformed,
fees on a network into something called gas
and required a separate token. That's why we
have Ethereum. Ethereum is basically just gas. It's
gas for your car, and the tokens on
the back need Ethereum to send. Right? So
when you start getting into these other
other tokens,
it gets kinda complicated to where it's gonna
wash out, like, 70% of the the mass
population. I mean, that's just a reality we
have to to deal with. They haven't found
a way to simplify it. One good point.
One quick point on that. It's interesting to
me. It the the
I don't see how this is any more
complicated
than
the numbers on your checkbook. You know what
I mean? Like, it's it's like yeah. It
and, yeah, we're at a point now where
that's you don't memorize those things. It's pretty
automated, but we'll move you to maybe know
them in case there's you know? So it's
the same kind of idea. There even, like
and I'm not promoting Coinbase, but there are
we're like that
that are that make it, you know, click
and push and super simple. You know? So
it's this weird, like,
a version a version to
what is actually no less complicated than anything
else we use. Like, just having that that
string of the the, you know, the the
hash and Right. Memorizing it or copying it
or saving it somewhere and posting it. You
know? So I think it's more of a
mental block. You are correct. A 100% is
that the the complicated part about it is
changing the way we think. And
anytime we're exposed to something new. You know
what I mean? It's it's kind of
it it's it's it's it's always an obstacle
for people to get into anything new. I
remember when I got into crypto, I was
so scared of sending transactions. Me too. Like,
I would, like, do I would do, like,
three tests, and then I would send it.
And now I'd be like, is it gonna
go there? And then I'd be like, I'd
be waiting and waiting and waiting for the
confirmation, but, like, okay. It worked. And now
it is. Now I know it works. Ten
years later, I'm like, oh, it works. Great.
I don't have to worry about it anymore.
You know? But even someone who is enthusiastic
about the space and my I got my
my experience in this space goes back a
long time. I bought my first Bitcoins at
$575
in in 2016,
I believe. And I by the 2016,
I launched what at the time had become
the world's largest Bitcoin podcast network, and I
had over 30 Bitcoin podcasts
by the 2016.
There, I went to go work for Safedine
Ammus who wrote the Bitcoin standard.
I was his basically personal assistant and webmaster
for about two and a half years,
before he hit it big. Nice. And so,
yeah, my background in crypto is pretty extensive,
and I know a ton of people in
the in the Bitcoin space.
And so one thing that I really have
to harp on is the anonymity
of these tokens. Right? This is our In
regard to the the independent media token? Well,
in regards to that compared to the other
tokens out there in the space. Right? You
can't be buying into anything that you don't
know who's running it. Right. You can't.
I'm sorry. You just can't. I mean, you
might get lucky. If you buy a token
and it goes to a million bucks and
you make a ton of money and you
don't know who ran the project, you got
lucky. That's all there is to it. There's
you're not a master trader. Right? I think
the most important thing moving forward, and I
think
that we're gonna see a lot more of
this in the next couple years, we're gonna
see more not anonymous projects. We're gonna see
legitimate projects rise out of this space that
is, for the most part, been nothing but
memes.
One other thing that's been great about the
meme space on Solana is that it has
shown
Solana can handle
absolutely immense volumes
and, you know, transactional throughput that's through the
roof. It's the most active chain of any
chain.
Even if the projects on it are junk,
it doesn't matter because it's showing that the
infrastructure
itself can handle anything you throw at it,
which it can.
So
Well, so back back to the the process.
So so, you know, in in regard to
like, walk me through how this becomes, you
know, from somebody buying
the token to then ending up to a
grant to a new independent media person. Sure.
To simplify the whole process, let's say you
just you go right and buy Solana. You
can buy Solana directly. You don't have to
buy Bitcoin first. Go to Coinbase or wherever
you buy your,
coins at.
There's a couple different Solana wallets that you
can do, swaps in and stuff. I've been
recommending for everyone Phantom wallet because it's a
pretty it's been around a long time, and
it's solid, and it works. Mhmm. So once
you have Solana in your Phantom wallet,
you can just hit swap. And if you
go into search, you put IMT,
it'll bring up our token. You can see
it. We have,
our logo is the red circle with the
white I in it. Mhmm. And that's it.
Hit swap, and it's that simple. So people
who are in familiar with the ecosystem,
know how this process works. And if you're
not,
the basic
first steps to take, set up an account
somewhere where you can buy cryptocurrency,
like,
you know, a centralized exchange or Coinbase or
something like that.
And though and then, from there, Solana can
easily be swapped into IMT.
Okay. And so then so then from there,
now now that's created
more,
you know, funds. So then what how does
that then end up in the hands of
an independent media personality that Alright. So let's
say you buy a $100 worth of Solana,
and then you swap that
for independent media token. Mhmm. Okay.
You will only receive $99
of IMT,
and we will receive $1 of IMT.
So every time a transaction happens,
1% comes back to us. Mhmm. That goes
into the fund,
and that
perpetuates the growth of the fund.
Now one thing we're having a hard time
gauging, which we figure we'll have this worked
out in the next couple months, we're having
a hard time gauging
how many tokens will be returned to us
on a regular basis because we don't have
we don't have any volume. I'll be straight
up. Because we're not playing the bot game.
People don't know about us. We're brand new.
Our volume is terrible. Okay? Mhmm. It needs
to improve.
So,
that being said,
Well, I I what what I the direction
I was kind of going in is is
the, you know, the money the the the
so that that that was clear. So the
$1 of all of it goes into the
fund. Right? So then walk me through how
that process like, so the board involved, like,
how how does that end up going through
the process and end up in, you know,
some new independent media group that, you know,
that that that ends up being deserving of
it. So our goal is and we have
set we've already released into we already have
set aside in our distribution schedule because we're
not releasing all the tokens at once. We're
have we're spreading out, like, a 100,000,000 a
month, give or take, until around February or
March next year. Right? So they're not being
all dumped on the market.
But we are we have we're planning on
having 25,000,000
tokens per quarter or a 100,000,000
per year to distribute.
That's our goal. We're not sure exactly what
the volume is gonna allow for, but that's
kind of anticipated. And we currently have two
years worth of distribution schedule
already set aside
regardless of anything else that happens. Mhmm.
So the idea is that let's say we
have 25,000,000 tokens. Well, for the first two
distributions we're doing, September 1 is the gonna
be the first set of distributions. And, actually,
we're stretching it out over ninety days. We're
not doing all the tokens on day one.
We're stretching out that distribution over the ninety
day period.
After that, we're kind of looking to move
away from general distributions in a large scale.
Meaning,
if we pick up a new media partner,
they're gonna get a million tokens. That's kind
of the incentive at the moment,
to come on board. But we are really
looking
to fund individual specific projects. Right. And this
is where the board comes in. We're gonna
need people to help decide. We'll have we're
looking to have applications come in. Hey. I'm
trying to make a documentary. I need $25,000.
Right. Okay. We get the application.
You know, we review it. And then as
the board and there's gonna be an aspect
of the community input also.
We're trying to get we're trying to figure
out how to get community input,
but
all the,
channels of community input that,
I've already talked about, like, through Telegram and
x and all this stuff are very they
kinda suck, and it's a lot of bots.
And so we're not sure exactly how we're
gonna go about
receiving community input other than maybe getting email.
We're gonna have to figure out a system.
But we want to get community input and
board input, and then we'll decide on how
the money gets distributed.
So Right. And so and so, essentially, it'll
be that, you know, we the it'll be
a a board decision based on who we
think is most, deserving
of the grant, and then that money gets
decided to give to them. Not and then
from there, they do what they want with
it. Right. Exactly.
So And and so so, basically, the more
that people buy into the project. Right? So
just average buying it Solara on so on
platform
builds that fund, which then will, as that
grows, gets distributed as the board decides. Exactly.
Interesting. Yeah. So and so is it beyond
that mechanism, do you have any envision for
this growing beyond that and other aspects of
you know, any other applications you see beyond
that? You know, we're not sure yet. We're
really interested in having,
part of this go to a legal fund,
maybe separate off a separate legal fund That's
awesome. That just just sits there until it's
needed. Mhmm. But,
none of this can happen
Right. If we don't have volume. We just
need people out there buying the token who
believe in what we're doing, and we're not
a quick flip. We're not gonna make you
money in two weeks or two months. Right.
We'll make you money in two years,
but that's the kinda the people who a
lot of people getting into this crypto space
today see the quick money that people are
making, and that's their anticipation.
And that shouldn't be the anticipation.
That should not be the anticipation.
Everything everything legitimate takes time. Yeah. Well, especially
to the point we're saying before. If you're
one of those people out there nodding along
going, yeah. You know, this I don't agree
with the direction it's going. You know, that's
the point. That's what this is an effort
to not do that. Right? Let's bring it
back to where it's not some, you know,
pump and dump immediate exchange, but rather an
an effort to put your money into something
that will eventually grow into something that benefits
others. You know? So if you're out there
wanting to donate, take a moment, send a
dollar, know, go or whatever. You know? Take
some small I mean, right now, what's what's
the price at right now? I imagine
okay.
So you can pick up a it's it's
about let me see. Point zero zero zero
zero five four and has a billion tokens.
Market cap is about 55,000. Right? So for
a billion tokens, the total value is about
$55,000.
So it's a perfect time to go out
there and take a couple dollars and you
get a million tokens or whatever that amounts
to. You know, you get a ton of
tokens, and then you can hold on to
that, and that money then helps this project.
And, you know, and right there, the point
is about not doing that to try to
exchange that out the next week for money,
but to just let that build and grow
over time and hopefully become something we all
benefit from. You know? That that's the idea.
Yeah. And, so it's, like, it comes back
to the marketing. And well, not even I
don't wanna use the word marketing. I wanna
say making people aware because I have a
feeling there's better ways to this right here
is a better way of making people aware
than going to spend a thousand dollars on
some Twitter ads, Like, a 100%.
So moving forward into the future, this is
how we plan on doing things, connecting to,
people who have the ability to get it
in front of their audience. That, I think,
is the number one way to grow this
thing because all of these,
marketing
mechanisms
in crypto are
they're just not effective.
They're not effective for what we're doing. Yeah.
And as you mentioned, in more than one
area, very dishonest, manipulated. Yeah. The whole space
is so so manipulated. Yeah. I mean, you
know, even now we just talked about the
over the counter stuff and the market, and
that that's manipulation right there. You know? All
these guys buying all those Bitcoins, we should
have a million dollar Bitcoin today, but we
don't. Right. Right. Yeah. And that's that's how
they're gonna manipulate the market to when they
to where the price that they want it
at. Right? Right. Exactly.
Well, so for so for all the people
out there that are, you know, rightly
skeptical of anything I mean, at this point,
anything technological, it seems like anything I know.
Any which, I mean, trust me. I I
get it. Like, I'm it it is in
some cases, it can be a little bit,
you know, overreaction, but it I completely understand
the the concern. But so for those out
there that are, you know, of the mind
that everything crypto is bad or, you know,
whatever else or, you know, more in the
middle ground that are just very skeptical of
anything in this field. I And we've already
pretty much gone through most of it, but
any other you know, any any thoughts or
or perspectives to give around, you know, why
to assuage you know, to
remove those concerns?
Yeah. Well,
first off,
just the fact that I'm sitting here talking
about it is should tell you that I
have personal confidence in it. I've been in
independent media for over ten years. I have
two books out, documentaries.
I'm not willing to take my reputation and
throw it away over some stupid crypto, period.
This to me is the culmination of everything
I've done in my life, the combination of
my work in crypto and independent media and
everything.
And,
there's none of there there are no other
projects out there that you can talk to
anybody who's gonna give you a speech like
that. I agree.
Period. So Yeah. I agree. Well, you know,
I I definitely think that there's a a
major place for this. I think there's an
obvious need for people in this field to
have, you know, just in any leg up
in this situation, you know, whether it's because
being sued or suppressed or censored or financially,
you know, debanked. You know? It's just it's
just everywhere you look right now. As you
said, people in this field, you know, like,
look. I feel I feel blessed and lucky
to have a level of success in this
field that few have. And even then,
I'm one bad month away from this basically
going away. You know? That's that's who we
are. You know? It's like and it's just
insane that that's that's that's with be like,
I make this comparison, like, during COVID nineteen,
for example. You know? We're bringing people on,
doing interviews
that are, you know, the three weeks later
on Tucker Carlson. You know? It's like we're
at the same level of this conversation yet
dramatically
less in regard to what we you know,
the revenue that comes in. Right? Basic return
from doing what we believe in, not because
of the return, but because we believe in
it in hopes that doing the right thing
for the right reasons will have that return.
You know? But it's like there's a clear
space for this to fill, to help support
people that need that and are being attacked.
You know? So I I really appreciate this
direction, and I hope I hope people will
take the time to to look into it,
like you're saying, not just not dismiss it
because it's crypto or blindly accept it because
it's us. Right? Look into it. Look at
the information that we'll include and go through
it for yourself and and be be skeptical.
Right? That's what question everything. That's important. And
then realize for yourself that it's a project
that has intentions that are meant to support
this platform or rather, you know, this field.
So I'd I'd go ahead. One thing I
need one thing I don't think people really
comprehend,
is that in the independent media space, which
is where all the people who are listening
to this get all their information from
I know a ton of people in this
space, and
I'd say the vast majority of them struggle
to make ends meet. A huge chunk of
them have regular jobs. You know what I
mean? But people have this
sense that since you're doing a show like
this, you have a nice studio, that you're
making all kinds of money. Oh my god.
That is not the case. Everyone doing this
is broken, struggling, and being suppressed
in multiple ways.
And even though independent media
has a 100 times
the audience of main what we call mainstream
media today Right. The the money hasn't balanced
out. It hasn't. So for some people, it
has. There are some people who know how
to really work the system and squeeze every
dollar out of it, but that's not the
vast majority of us who really, I'm a
researcher. If I didn't have to do anything
except read my books all day, that's what
I would do, but I can't do that.
Right. The only reason I have a career
at all is because I have to. Right?
Like, I'm a nerd. I just like reading.
So
but I can't do that, and neither can
anybody else in the space. And so this
is an this is a chance to really
help us
grow independent media one show at a time.
You know? Yeah. And on top of that,
you know, there are projects that in in
in, you know, in an in an honest
world, whether you know, even in the case
of, like, music or art, you know, that
could be seen and grown and and and
and, you know, proliferate just because they're good,
because they're talented. You know, in this case,
because the project makes sense and it helps.
But the reality is that's just not the
way it works. Right? It's very Right. This
is the an effort to help grow in
that direction. You know? And I really do
think and, like, my point is projects that
may otherwise probably never would have seen the
light of day. You know? A documentary about
something that nobody wants people to know about.
You know? It's like, this is an avenue
to help those things be seen. Yeah. I
think that's super important today. I really do.
Yeah. We're really excited about it.
It's an emotional
gut wrenching
journey, though. I mean, because, honestly, we, me
and my partner on this thing, we base
put all the money we have on our
world into this. And if this fails,
there went my retirement money that I spent.
You know what I mean? So Yeah. It's
we're we're all on we're all in on
this thing. And, I'll be sitting I'll be
here in five years doing another episode with
you on how successful we've been. So I
hope I hope so, man. You know? And
that and that's the thing again. You know?
That that's an example of, you know, you're
putting your money where your mouth is literally.
You know? You're liter you're you're putting it
there because you believe in the project, and,
you know, that's you rarely find that with
the billionaire backers of whatever, you know, the
multifaceted
rug pulling things we talked about earlier. You
know, it's definitely something I hope to see
grow, hope to see, you know, help other
independent media that are in similar situations. You
know, it's just it's everywhere you look right
now, the censorship, the especially as we enter
into the kind of a out a out
AI control structures that are being built and,
you know, that that's just gonna make it
increasingly more difficult for people in this field
to get their information out, to people to
find them, to even donate in the first
place. Like, you know, it's it's gonna get
more and more intense, you know, so we
need more projects like this. So I really
do value what you're doing, man. And I
and I right. We're here with you. And
I I I hope this succeeds, and we'll
be talking about it more as we go
forward. Yeah. Anything else you wanna to to
talk about before we leave or and any
upcoming things you wanna drop? No. We pretty
much covered everything.
I just want everyone to know our first
distributions will start September 1.
Ryan's gonna get our first distribution. We're doing
a million tokens to 25 different shows.
We still have room for five or six
shows to pick up. We got we're still
looking, you know, over the next couple months
for five or six shows to be receive
tokens in the first distribution. So get ahold
of me. Get ahold of Ryan.
Just somehow get ahold of us, and we'll
talk to you, and we'll we'll see what
we can do. Yeah. So if so if
you're out there and you wanna be a
part of it, reach out and, you know,
don't probably, you know, emailing me is probably
the worst thing you can do because I'm
lost in my spam folders, but shoot give
it a shot or email both of us.
But overall, the point is that this is
something you could still be involved with if
you support it. And, again, not because you're
gonna make money. Right? At least right in
the immediate moment. It's because you believe in
this and you wanna help support that and
raise awareness around it. You know? So I
don't think we're gonna personally make any money
off this for a couple years. No. Yeah.
I mean, again, hopefully, it does happen, but
the point is maybe if ever. You know?
Like, the reality is this is a a
risky shot because we believe in what the
what the point is. You know? But I,
you know, I I believe it, man. I
believe that we are in a time right
now where I mean, maybe it's been like
this for a long time and people just
don't see it until now, but that more
people than I've ever seen doing this in
my entire life
are questioning things they never have before, are
ready to see something new, are thirsty for
good intentioned, honest projects. I I I really
think this is a prime moment for this,
and I think it's gonna succeed too. So
I'm looking. So do I.
Well, it's good talking with you, brother, and
I'm looking forward to the follow-up where where
we could talk about it again. Yes. Brian,
thank you for having me on. I appreciate
it. My pleasure, brother. And as always, everybody
out there question everything. Come to your own
conclusions. Stay vigilant.