I don't know if Bitcoin's going up, but in actual fact, your money's just going down. No

matter what you're told, inflation's here, the debt is out of control, and

Unrealized capital gains to me is just absolute insanity. I'm not

approving of what I consider the theft of our money. Fundamentally, it's

There's, you know, trying to do control over the internet, control over your

money systems, control over everything, and now

control over your retirement. if you don't believe Bitcoin

is going to take over the financial world. The existence of Bitcoin

holds them to an account because if there's no way for you to

exit the system, you're sort of stuck in whatever is done to

That's exactly right. I always say that Bitcoin is the answer. I'm Matthew Fraser

and this is Crypto Collective. After making millions with

Amazon and e-commerce, I realized that if I was

starting again today, crypto would be my first choice.

I'm here to help you take your first steps and build real

wealth. Ready to set yourself up for life? Let's go.

Joining us today is Darren Rogan, a true pioneer smashing in

blockchain, Web3, NFTs, and AI. He's the brain

behind Rogues Lab and the driving force of the Gold Coast

blockchain meetup. Let's jump into it. All right, well, hey, Darren, thank

you so much for joining me on Crypto Collective, all the way

from the Gold Coast, which is fantastic, because we're basically neighbors. Hey,

good to see you. Pretty much, pretty much just down the road. Next time I'll try to

come down into the studio. Yeah, absolutely. That's awesome. Now,

you're big in Web3, NFTs, AI,

blockchain. I know you've been in the Bitcoin space

since basically day dot, which is going to be absolutely fascinating

to pick your brain because you've obviously seen a lot. Just for

those people who don't know, just give us the overview of, I

guess, what you're doing now in this crypto

So I'm still involved in Bitcoin, still a holder of Bitcoin, big believer,

we could talk about energy, unlocking

renewable energy, but I'm a coder by trade. I've

been doing sort of venture startups for like 15 years. My

first startup was at a university digitizing back catalogs

of video for the local TV channel before YouTube. And

then I've been doing web to tech work for

a long time. I was an entrepreneur in residence at UQ

for some of their accelerator programs. And then went full-time, full-time

into crypto, and then I built in crypto with Ethereum background, and

then Solana as well. And I'm also the CEO of

Film.fun, which is a new AI

content generation with like episodic mechanisms,

and token holders, and voting, and a whole bunch of other stuff, which is coming soon. But

yeah, I also run the Gold Coast Blockchain Meetup education group

with about 1,000 members, and I speak at conferences as

Okay, guys, so for everyone watching, Darren knows his stuff, okay?

This is going to be not your average interview, so stay tuned. Darren,

I have to ask because having been someone who's been in this space for

so long, what was the beginning like

getting into, I guess let me start with Bitcoin because

I'm guessing back then it's a new technology. I have read

the white paper, it was considered this peer-to-peer new

money. But it was obviously very, very, I'm

guessing it was risky to sort of take out your money and sort of

Well, my first Bitcoin I mined on

a piece, on a CPU. So a very long time

ago. And like don't get me wrong, I've got an ASIC sitting

over there from mining days. But

I went started just to mine some of it at the start. And

I find it because I'm more of like a very tech person. I

find it fascinating to have digital money and I'd be more on that

cyberpunk side of believing that the bank and

I have some funny bank stories, atrocious, atrocious

industry. And I wanted to see like, how can we move

value around? I think it's like a missing piece of the internet. was

the movement of capital. So I find Bitcoin to

be fascinating. And I used to use Bitcoin anywhere I

saw a Bitcoin sign. So I wish I didn't, in hindsight, to

be clear. You know, buying beef jerky, anywhere

I saw a Bitcoin logo, I was straight in buying stuff I didn't even want because

I was like, I believe in digital cash. This is before, like, large

growth. So it would have been probably around $6 at

that time. When I was started sort of like mining

playing with it Trying to code with it like Bitcoin always

has been a bit difficult. I remember color coins before aetherium So

it's been a fascinating part and I think it is, you

know the global money layer that will sort of dominate and

I think it's like You know, like the big global money, and then you've got like

other layers on top, which is like application

layers. But Bitcoin is the core. So I always talk about Bitcoin

being the son of the universe, and everything sort of

moves around it. So just give me this rock, because people are

I formatted hard drives. I've,

you know, bought beef jerky at today's

prices. Facebook reminds me because I did a picture of me with the

receipt going, look at the, I spent Bitcoin to buy beef jerky. I think it's

about a Ford Mondeo now worth of beef jerky

I bought one day. And every couple of years, Facebook just

brings it up and goes, remember on this day that, you know, you

got a lot of engagement on this post. And I'm like, I wish I'd

have kept some. I know I actually sold most

of my Bitcoin a $480 range when

I was doing a startup, like a Web2 startup, and

I liquidated all my assets, including stocks and so forth. And

then I put that all in and I funded the company creation, paid for people's staff

and built like a bit of a Web2 startup. So I'm not complaining, like it

was still a very nice run for me. But you know, in hindsight, I

Yeah, I just want to highlight it because, I mean, everyone's got their hindsight story.

I heard one the other day of a guy, probably a bit later

down the track than you, and he was talking to Gary

Cardone. And he said, Gary, I

wanted to pay off my mortgage, so I sold 780 Bitcoin

to pay off my roughly $300,000, $400,000 mortgage. And he said,

that was the biggest mistake I could ever have made. Like 780 Bitcoin,

are you crazy? But I guess, Dan, what I

want to get into, though, is this was the mindset that you

didn't envisage it becoming what it is today. Was

It was super speculative back then. And I made a very, very nice

return. Let's not say that I didn't. It wasn't in the thousands of

X's. At that point, what

it did is it gave me an economic freedom to go start something. And

I think Bitcoin is all about economic freedom. I think most

people come for the gains, learn

about the technology and learn about economic freedom. I think Bitcoin

is also a path for me to learn more about the financial system, how

it worked and how it worked against us. So, I

really do think that, like, in hindsight, I wish it didn't sell. Let's be

clear. But I still, you know,

have bought and have sold, you know, over time, and

have went into some other coins as well, Ethereum and Solana. And

they all work really well in different ways I do think that

the markets have changed a lot over time and I think they're evolving again

And I believe that you know fiat money is

fundamentally broken with the constant money

printing like in Australia, for example which

we currently are, people don't really understand the debt creation of money. So

this property boom that we've had over the last 10 years

actually impoverishes the nation because most of the money that is

created is debt based money. So it just inflates that money

supply. So I sometimes joke that I don't know if Bitcoin is

going down, but in actual fact, or sorry, Bitcoin is going up,

but in actual fact, your money's just going down. And the value of

that unit of work, that electro dollar, is

the thing which is actually holding its value. And as people see

the breakages in the financial system and

the endless inflation, because the money printer is never going to stop, folks. No

matter what you're told, inflation's here. The

debt is out of control. And I think the lifeboat is

Bitcoin. I'm not so

certain on Lightning or

some of the other Bitcoin Layer 2s at this stage. So

I sort of like moved over to Ethereum because I wanted to

code with it. I wanted to use it and I wanted to do

more interesting stuff where Bitcoin was very expensive

to use and very hard to use in those microtransactions. And

don't get me wrong, I think Lightning is a great step forward. I

think you're going to find a lot of Changes will occur in

every network over time because they always will But

yeah, like I'm a I'm a big believer in the in Bitcoin a bit a

big believer in Decentralization, I think there's too many monopolies

too many rent seekers Extracting your wealth. So

for me to be able to give you in that digital cash, you

know bearer asset person to person I think that is a major

Yeah, I totally agree, Darren. I'm all on board and

I've gone down my own rabbit hole. I think it was, you know, really

coming out of COVID and I

guess it started with the distrust of those in

power, which then made me question a lot of other things. And

it was probably around that time I discovered also Michael Saylor and

started listening to what he was talking about. Robert

Breedlove is another example. So I started reading up books

about what is money and everything you just

said. I've been seeing your ex

account, which I think is extraordinary. I don't know if it gets

enough credit, but it is a really good ex account. One of

the quotes you said there was, stories are a fundamental part

of communicating with others. The best persuasion is

a good story. So what's the best story that you've told

I tell them the money of fiat, the story of fiat, because most

people misunderstand fiat, right? And so

that they're coming from a position where they think they're

on a steady base. And I remind them

that you're actually in quicksand and you are going

to sink into that quicksand and you're looking for hard money,

right? And then I explained to them that gold is

great, but it's really difficult to transact

in gold. And then I go down the Bitcoin digital gold,

as in it is an asset that holds its inflationary value,

that has got a capped hard supply, and then

is non-controlled by someone who's going to get bailed

out or print more of it to devalue your

assets. Because let's imagine that you all have

been saving your money to buy property in Australia, which

I believe we're in a giant bubble, and you have had

40, 50 grand in savings before COVID. You have now basically

sunk into the quicksand with all the printing of money and

then the easy credit and then the push up of additional property

prices that the average worker in

Sydney, for example, will never be able to buy property because they

can never save enough fiat to outcompete the

deflation of the money and the inflation of the

asset. So I say that the money is broken. And

what other money do you go to? And you look at the

dollar from the US, which is, you know, basically a money

printer out the wazoo. You look at other assets, which

are controlled by other states. And you think, well, you've only really got

two options here. You've got gold, which I call Bimmer Bitcoin,

and then you've got Bitcoin. And they're the two

major options for wealth. And then you can go down that speculative

bubble if you want to look at some other coins being like your Ethereum, which

I think more like Visa and MasterCard, the future of Visa and MasterCard. Or

then you've got your more highly speculative stuff. But I look at them

more like stock. rather than money, if that makes sense.

So to me, Bitcoin is money. And then these things are like

buying a piece of Apple or Facebook or some

sort of network business that may become beneficial, but

is highly dependent on the success of others within it, because

it is a platform business, just like Facebook is a network platform

business. I think it's a great example in that sort of mental model

that I use. But when we bring back to like, where

is the safest form of digital cash, you know, censorship resistant,

non-payment, has not changed its issuance. The

only big risk we have is like quantum, which you hear people talk

about, you know, quantum's gonna break Bitcoin. And I laugh because

most people are like fiat people who say that quantum's gonna

break Bitcoin. And I say, okay, well, imagine Bitcoin is

a locked box, right? It's not easy to get into and you're gonna

create this, The machine is going to be able to break open this box. Well,

think about Visa and Mastercard and the banking systems. They

just have a piece of string protecting them. So

why are you not going to destroy the fiat system and take

everyone's money before you can actually get into the safety deposit box?

So while in theory you're right, I'll be the last

man standing and you'll be already completely emptied. And

then they're like, I didn't think of that. I'm like, yeah. And we

can develop quantum resistant algorithms, and we can update them

if there's an existential threat to the network. We do upgrades. We

do forks. We do change stuff. It would be an enormous

big change to change that core algorithm, and it would take a

long time. But I'm not suggesting that will change overnight. But

I also don't think that it's going to happen overnight. I

don't believe that that risk is as big as people think

it is. I'm in startups. I'm in starting

new businesses, that sort of stuff. And the perception out to

market is always future facing. It's not the reality today.

And it takes a time to get there. And there's a lot of wealth, a

lot of money, and a lot of brains in Bitcoin. And

if you think that that becomes an existential threat, that the Bitcoin network

won't react, figure out the best option and figure out

the way to mitigate that. And I think you're just delusional. You're living

in a distortion reality bubble where you want

to be seen to be right rather than searching for

Yes, it's interesting. I had someone yesterday who reached out to me who

said, look, Matthew, because I'm always preaching about,

I've got a couple of books right in front of me here about the Bitcoin standard here. Have

I've sent that to a couple of people from the same author. And

he explains fiat in terms of Bitcoin, because in that

one, he explains Bitcoin in terms of fiat. And

I've sent that to some people, and they're like, because that shakes their

underlying world. Because as I was saying, they think they're coming from that steady

state, and they're actually on quicksand. And that helped

red pill, orange pill, I'm sorry, much better than the Bitcoin standard

did, because it actually shook their comprehension. You saw the

problem first. As opposed to the solution. Yeah, because they're not ready for

the solution. So I think that it's a sophisticated conversation where

we can only take people to the side of

their risk because there's a thing called change resistance. So there's a certain pace

you can go through water, right? If you're trying to go too fast, you

burn all this energy and you tie yourself and you can't. But

there's an optimum pace that you can get through to make

progress against that resistance. And I think people need to

go to the resistance point and then get

comfortable and then continue down the journey. And I

think if we try to pull people over too quickly, which I see some people when

they're orange pill them, just dumping so

much knowledge onto them. And it's all accurate, don't get me wrong, but

it's too far for them to go. So they get this cognitive dissidence

and rejection of like, no, no, no, I can't take that all

in. So how do we create these chicken nuggets of

value that you eat and you think, oh, that's interesting. Oh,

I like that. Can I have another one? Rather than come into

the banquet of explaining money, fiat,

because most people don't understand anything about money. That's how the fiat system works.

That's why the banking is in the schools and

McDonald's is teaching, giving kids stuff. We

are not trained in Keynesian economics,

for example. We don't understand there are different options to

Interesting. You've completely flipped my mind on that, Darren. So

that in itself was excellent, because you're right, I've been pushing, you

know, those who want to know, I guess, you know, and recommending the Bitcoin standard

thinking this will, this will orange peel them. But I think you

might be right, it's actually identifying the problem first with

If I'm trying to bring someone in who's like, very traditional, I

literally just tell them about like, risk

decisions. So let's say you've got $100. And

I say, what would happen if you lose $1? And they

say, well, not very much. And I say, well, if you can afford to

lose $1, then why wouldn't you put it in Bitcoin?

Because it's a bet. against a

hedged bet against the rest of the system. So if the rest

of the system works fine and that goes to zero, then

you have no real difference. But if

it is accurate, which is like counter to normal

narrative, then that 1% will become more

over time than your others. And I change it to sort

of like strip away, you know, the emotional

context, the changing of the world, you know, the changing of

the money system, because it gets very charged. And I think that charging

and that, you know, because people believe they're on a steady state, which is fair and good.

And you're coming in with like almost too much to get them to move to their

next change stage. So just bringing them over to

it being like economically valuable as an

investment is my first path, right? And once

I have them over there that they start to realize that most of the stuff they've

been told by Bitcoin is just inaccurate, factually wrong.

And then at that point, then I shake their world with the Fiat book

of like how the Fiat system is broken. And

I think some people feel it more than others. The Fiat system and

the property bubble has worked well for a lot of people. So

you've almost got an incentive not to understand that

it could be coming to an end. I also use the example that

every market normally has a correction. I'm

from Northern Ireland, and I remember the

GFC, which was very large in the UK and

in the Republic of Ireland. And it was a major collapse

of the property bubble. And certain markets don't believe that can happen

to them. Just like Bitcoin may come down, right? Any asset

may come down. But when you zoom out, which assets are better over

time? The other point that I've

been starting to make to people a lot is the denominator matters.

And this is very true for, let's just

say it's stock. And I use this as well, because I try to remove the emotional

connotation to Bitcoin. And like, what's your stock denominated

in? Is it a US equity denominated in the US? Or

is it an Australian equity denominated in the Pacific

peso, right? The Aussie dollar. Well, the Aussie dollar

has fallen from like 80 cents

to 60 cents against the US dollar. So

the denominator of this asset has dropped. So

if I try to reconcile them back into, say, the US dollar, which is

still the global currency, this investment

in Australia doesn't matter on its return profile if

it doesn't beat the inflation of the money. And

the inflated comparable value. So it would have

been better for me to just potentially put the money in a U.S.

stablecoin on blockchain, like in a Tether, which is backed by Treasury.

So you're just buying a Treasury, just buying U.S. In

that instance just hold US dollars than it was to potentially buy

a prop a stock in Australia Due

to that coming down and once I get them to understand like the value

change of the assets Then I talk about 4x would

you prefer to hold you know the euro would you prefer to

hold the dollar? I would you prefer to hold the Bitcoin And

I think those sorts of reframing is how to try to

change people's aspects because I don't think most people are dying the path

Enough to sort of see the world as we probably see it as

you know the hyper Bitcoin ization That I

believe that you'll start to see like it's now on you know come on

the balance sheet of countries. Do you know what I mean? We

are seeing a strain in the American system, the

global financial system. You've got the rise of the BRICS. And the

game theory is that you can't trust either. Who can

you trust? You can trust the one which is not controlled. And

Bitcoin rises through. And that game theory has been spoken about over

10 years ago. And I discounted that 10 years ago. But

As we go through some of these people that seemed like, let's

just say a little light there with some of their theories, they're

starting to come more and more realistic. And

the other part is it doesn't even matter if the final state doesn't occur. That

competition has got potential benefits. So

I also say, I think Uber improved

the taxi system. Because that competition of

Uber made the taxis have to lift their game. But

the taxi still keeps some competition to Uber, because

it's a big monopoly and it was better than

it is today. Even

if you don't believe Bitcoin is going to take over the financial world,

the existence of Bitcoin, the existence of a non-state inflationary

asset holds them to an account. Because

if there's no way for you to exit the system, you're sort of stuck in

whatever is done to you versus you taking control of

your own economic future. And I believe that those types

of narrative conversations are the

things that I try to open people's perspectives about and

let them sort of ruminate on those before we

have deeper conversations around economics and

money printing and closeness to the money printer

and unfairness in the system, which I just feel is just a step

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join us today. Now back to the episode. Someone just asked me

today, where do I see Bitcoin? As

in, will it be literally the monetary system that

we barter in? And I said, I

don't see it. And I'm going to get your take on it. I think at this point, it

looks like the US dollar, for example, will be pegged

against Bitcoin. And we've just had the

US, well I don't know if they announced it, but there was certainly some

leaked information about it through Coinbase about selling off some of their gold

to allocate to Bitcoin. What do you

think is going to happen in the future there, Darren? Will we have literally bartering

with Bitcoin or will we still be using fiat currency

I would say even if we went to a final Bitcoin stage, that

secondary stage, of a backed or pegged

would probably be a stepping stone. So I don't believe we get there without

a pathway that none of us really wants to go down. Right.

Which is like the collapse of the traditional financial system and

all of the pain that goes with that. And the

collapse of you know civil war society stuff. So I just

I just hope that that does not I don't see a path forward without

Bitcoin Becoming sort of like a base asset. I

think like if you just look at like stable coins, right?

Which is on chain money, which is on a whole bunch of chains, right? tether

is one of the largest purchasers like as a like

as a country state of of

US Treasuries which is u.s. Debt Right. So

the use of crypto is already sort of propping up

the US dollar because the value on that bond treasury

market is actually underpinned by crypto dollars

on chain. And let me ask you, though, Darren, is Tether backed

by Bitcoin? Tether is not. But as I say, there's a

journey through. So Tether is just a a

claim asset, right? So it's just a claim.

And so while it's a step forward, it

is not a bearer asset. And even these subdivision that we

described of fiat backed by something, most of

those will not have a direct ability to recoup the

funds, right? So there'll still be some sort of claim on

a BS asset. So think of it if there was like a gold coin that

you still wouldn't have the gold. It's not subdivided into

that fashion. I think Bitcoin A

layer two could take over with sort of, you know, encapsulated,

fractionalized Bitcoin. But I'm not too certain that the

network in its current state will be able to deal with the level

of transaction volume. And I'm not certain that it needs

to. I think a layered scaling makes sense. And

I think most people are OK with, like, even the Lightning's a little bit of

a bartering transfer of funds through and locked in and locked out.

So I think that that's possible. I think the only path

for the US out of its debt crisis is one,

either a war and resetting the debt system or

two, looking at using Bitcoin as one of the

major assets backing it. I

can't remember who it was, but I listened to a fascinating podcast where

somebody said if they wanted to play like big geopolitical games, they

should sell all their gold and buy Bitcoin because other countries

are stacking gold. China. China

and Russia, for example, have large amounts of gold. Now, Russia

had its assets seized, its dollars seized, which

is sort of hastening the change of

the fiat system because it's no longer a neutral platform. So

people can't trust the dollar system and

then get like the potential rise of the BRICS. But if you really wanted to

play that, you could sort of like undermine their gold.

by going hard into Bitcoin. And I still think that that is a

potential. And I think that like don't get me

wrong. I think that would be amazing I don't think it's a high probability event,

but it is sort of in that gamesmanship realms

of you know Dominance and control and being able to

continue dominance over the financial system Has

you know great things for any Empire at the end of the day? so

That is fascinating Will it happen? I

don't know if it'll happen in any short time frame. So

I wouldn't be making a recommendation that he makes any

assignment on there. But yeah, I think there's a

lot more that Bitcoin can do in its current sort of country

balance sheet movement and being used as a base asset

for supplements and claims upon it with a Bitcoin backed

asset, which will continue over the next decade

Yeah. Well, Darren, moving still

within the crypto space, but maybe off Bitcoin, you're doing a lot of

work in the AI space. You're also working

with other altcoin related companies.

Can you talk about that? So what do you do in that space and also leading

into AI? Yeah. Yeah. So I've been doing

So I've been doing AI for a very long time, even like I helped

launch an insurance company. We did like image generation for

hard hats. Funny story, watermelons look a

lot like safety helmets. In the US, people

were carrying watermelons onto site, and my AI model

thought they were bald people, like headless bald people. So

I had a funny story where I had to pull a bunch of AI, probably like

eight years ago, nine years ago, of an insurance system that

I'd built because of that. So like, I

think AI is another sort of foundational technology

leap, right? I think that we have these technology driven

innovation cycles and they generally make

things that were harder easier to do. And they

could have been like, some of them are like foundational and some of them are stepped.

So like a mobile is like stepped, the internet's like foundational. I

think digital money being like crypto is foundational and

I think that AI is foundational. I

run an advisory firm, so I do advisory work in

web 2 startups and web 3 mostly.

I'm an advisor on Vanna which does It does

cryptographically securing data sets and issues tokens, so

it's like a user-owned data, so it tries to break the

sort of monopolistic behavior of Facebook and

these other platforms that sort of extract all your information and

they profit off it, and they never return that money to

you. So this is like you own your own data, so

you can bring that data together in like a data collective, and

then that can be monetized and you can actually make money off the information that

you collect. That's VANA. I'm an advisor on there. I do

some of the grants and ecosystems and mature the advisory. I helped

launch the token. We ended up launching on Binance last year.

We peaked out at 3.5 billion valuation. So

it went relatively well. And then there's some other platforms. a

decentralized GPU access called Lilypad I'm an

advisor on, some other AI agents I'm advisors on. And

then I also have my own project, which is content generation,

video generation. Like I was an interim CTO at

a media company that 7West Media invested in as well. So

on my very first startup when I was at university, I had a

VCR and I was digitizing videotapes. I

remember videotapes, Darren. I'm not that young. Yeah,

so VCR tips. I might be daring myself a little bit.

Some people won't even know what that is. We

do, yes. So I think that there's a

massive opportunity there. I do think that the fiat system is

too slow and the credit based credit

card system is not the system that will support

that. So this is where like more like the alts, but I see these highly speculative,

but similar to like Web 2, where when a startup comes,

it's super speculative, right? You've got no idea if it's going

to work. High failure rate, 9 out of 10 startups fail. They do

not go through. Maybe more than that. And

the ones that win, win really well. Okay. So I

think Bitcoin is like a proven asset. It

was super speculative when I got involved, but it's a proven asset. You know,

I'm happy to get my mom and dad to put money into there. But when

you go down into these altcoin ones, then I think you're really

going down that risk profile. And if you want to go to the casino, like

I like the casino. I'm not going to say not to go to the casino, but you should

Yeah, and that's like going down the altcoin. Yeah, down into the

I like something that's actually got some utility. But

then don't get me wrong, I still like meme coins. I think they're funny. But I look at them

like slot machines, not like long term holdings. But

if I think about an AI agent that can move at the speed of

compute, It needs a money system that can move at the speed of compute

as well, right? So it needs like on-chain and

we can create like a decentralized compute layer where anything

can talk to anything and basically prepay without setting

up an account and getting Visa and MasterCard to be the arbiters of

who's allowed to do anything because they cut your payment reels, you're

off the network. And I don't believe in that. I believe more in

my cyberpunk roots. that people

should be allowed to do whatever they want to do, and there should not be

some third party basically saying, you can't do that, or I

want my slice before you're allowed to do business. So I

think that that is a big movement, but

don't be surprised that there's still a lot of

speculative nonsense in the altcoins, in the AI space.

There's a bunch of projects that I think are just vaporware, but

we had that in web too. So I'm not going to say, To me, it's just like

the same stuff happens in traditional business, you just don't see

it. Now, I'm not a fan of that either. There's a thing called like

sophisticated investor rules. So like in Australia, I think it's

now you need $3 million in assets before you're

allowed to see pitches from private companies doing startups. Now,

it is high risk, but that is like the highest value curve, which

is that highly speculative and you're locked out of those, right? And

I think that is unfair. Like all you're allowed to do is buy

into well-established companies and into property, which

I think are like bubble issues. But you're not allowed to

invest in something that can actually generate outsized returns and

I think that that is treating people like children and

I think like the Crypto and Bitcoin is like no.

No, I'm gonna treat you like an adult you are responsible for for

your own financial system. I don't believe people

are gonna come see of you. I think it's up to you to look after yourself, more

in the libertarian side. And I think that we need to

stop pretending that someone's gonna

look after them. I also believe the Zipper system's gonna get raided.

I think it's not gonna do anything that it wants. I also believe it

inflates assets and is not necessarily, has the

let me pull you up there because you've just unlocked

something there, which is something that's very dear to me, which is happening

right now, right before our very eyes, and that is Labor's proposal of

unrealized capital gains tax above $3 million. Now, this works in

a couple of different ways. One is that, I mean, obviously, I'm not

approving of what I consider the theft of our money. Unrealized capital

gains to me is just absolute insanity. But

also, there was reports about that

people who have those funds, self-managed super,

let's say, they invest a lot of money in startups. And

potentially, if this capital gains tax, this unrealized capital gains

tax comes in, the funding into these

startups is basically going to dry up. I would agree that that's going

I think taxing unrealized gains is just crazy, right?

I think fundamentally, it's flawed. My

biggest problem with the Australian governments, the Uniparty of

Labour and Liberal, which has been in power for a very long

time, is that they exclude themselves from nearly all

of these. It's rules for thee, not for me, right? And

that has been one of my major frustrations. There's,

you know, trying to do control over the internet, control over your

money systems, control over everything, and now

control over your retirement. I

don't believe it was indexed either. It's not indexed. Which means

that while I inflate the money supply, there's

a line and I'm gonna push you all over it, okay? So

I just think that we are moving into more of

like a bastardized socialism mechanism

and the perception that government is free money. It's not free money,

it's your money. It's my money, I pay tax. You pay tax,

everyone pays tax. And that sort

of basic economic understanding of government spending requires

higher taxes, and those higher taxes are going to impact you

and impact your cost of living while potentially driving up assets. I

think that they're the fundamental sort of building blocks

that people need to comprehend, because when they set

that bar so far in the future, They're like, do

you have 3 million in Zipper? Then you don't need to worry about this, right? And

then it drops and the prices go up and

your stock portfolio increases because we've halved the value of

money. So now everything's worth twice as much. And

now your asset base goes up. Now you have to pay money. Never

mind who decides on those values. You think about a startup, right?

Let's say that you did invest through your super and I know people who have invested

through their self-managed super into startups and you're completely right. They

will have to sell down assets and they will not have that capital available to

them. In that instance, I have a paper value, which

is the money that I raise in order to do what I want. Now, most

startups are early-stage companies, and this is the same way people launch tokens

as well. A lot of times it's to bring capital in to build out. So

I can generate revenue at this level, but I've

got a cost base potentially higher than that, especially if you start talking about AI

engineers. They're expensive as. Compute power

is really expensive. But if I hit a scale that

the cost goes above, sorry, the profit goes above that

cost line, and now I've got a business that can

actually generate money, and that's normally in the future, not today.

Now, the banking system does not give loans to businesses. It just doesn't,

right? It only loans against existing assets. So that

sort of technology-driven sector is starved of

capital. and will impact it

if people with capital, which they can't afford to lose, are

not putting those in. We're just

bricks and holes in Australia. Our economy is

just increased population, buy

houses, or dig shit out of the ground, right? And none of

those are generating the economic

wealth or the fact that I employ someone locally, they

put money in their local restaurant, right? And that money circles

around, sort of the philosophy of money stuff, versus

if I just pay my mortgage, That or that rent, which

goes to the mortgage, that money just disappears off into the international markets,

right? It does not add the same amount of value or

we have gas, for example, which there's no resource taxes

and goes to Japan and they sell it on and the profits are made

by the multinational in Japan with no taxes. So I

worry that our structured system is set

up for value exploitation at the current generation, and

it's really sort of a credit card bill that my kids

and your kids will have to pay. And I don't know

how to fix that without something like Bitcoin, without

having the ability to step out and have another

asset. But don't be surprised. They'll try to tax

Because it's much easier to spend other people's money. Of

course, of course. I've been doing a lot of social media, Darren,

about this issue because what I advocate for

is actually, and I've done this myself, so I'm not just talking about it. I've

moved all of my money out of my industry super fund into

a self-managed super fund, and I've allocated every single cent into Bitcoin.

So that's what I'm holding for the long term. So I'm

all in. I'm not stuffing about.

Well, I have a family trust that holds

my assets. And I worked full-time in

crypto. So my wife said, can we not put all

of the super in crypto as well? And I'm a

bit like... You said, why? What are you talking about? I'm like, if you don't want us to,

I will not put everything in crypto. She's like, I would be happier. I said,

So, it's a compromise. It

is a compromise and I have a wife too, Darren, and we have this same

discussion. Although, you know, my wife was on board

eventually because I think it becomes you go down the rabbit hole and

then you sort of you prove it, you prove it and then it sort of wasn't something you

thought about for six months and then you ditched it, right? You know,

it was something that we invested a lot of money into. It

wasn't day one that we said, let's move our super over. Because that conversation

would have been a lot harder. It's like what you said before about maybe introducing people

to the Fiat standard book before you give them the Bitcoin standard book. Give them a

little piece at a time. And so eventually, the timing

was right. And I said, look, these are the returns that I would expect from Bitcoin.

This is what we're getting in industry super fund. And it was

basically then, it was like, okay, so that required me though to

give her the right information. She had to trust

me that we were doing the right thing for our family. I actually have three

buckets, Darren. I have a company bucket, so all my company that generates

cash, I move that. It's almost like a Michael Saylor play, really. But

I've moved all that into Bitcoin, then the Superfund, then

I have just some personal stuff as well. And I

think this is the big worry is that once if

this unrealized capital gains tax comes through and keep

in mind too the greens want to lower the threshold down to two million

not three million I fear that they'll say, that honeypot

was too easy to get. We've basically got an open

slather now for probably the next two cycles of

elections to run. And let's go

after now trusts. Let's go after company assets.

Really, the door swings wide open. And who's there

to stop them? basically nothing. And it will be said under

the guise of, well, we need to make the system fairer. We can't have

companies that are earning more money than this other company. And

this person over here is earning more money, so we have to make it fairer. They've got to bring everybody

Equitable. We need to fund more hospitals. We need to fund more roads. It'll

be all these excuses. I very

I think that we're Sound economic

management has went out the window. I

know some people in Victoria and

I think it's cooked as a state. I've seen

people's land taxes go through the roof because they

had to pay for their massive lockdowns, their excessive expenditures

on public spending projects that were atrociously badly managed

and ineffective. And we used to have the

recession we need to have. We used to have economic

management front and center. And recently, it's

been like, who's going to give me the biggest tax break? How am

I going to get more free stuff? Who's going to spend this money? And

I believe we need a smaller government, not a bigger government. I

believe some programs that are well-intentioned have

extremely negative outcomes. When you look

through, that sounds like a good idea, and then into the implementation and the

rollout of those, those benefits, that business case, does

not match what you were sold at the start. And I think that will be the same on

these taxes. But I want us to spend

less money, and I want us to pay down our debts. If

you're in debt, You

cannot think clearly because you have this thing sitting

on your shoulder that you have to feed and look after, and it

controls you to a certain degree. And the larger those debts go

from governments and states and so forth, the more

decisions they're going to make to fulfill those obligations,

less focused on the benefits of

those decisions, right? So I think that you are right

that there will be continuous attacks on

investments and on businesses. I think super is like $3 trillion

or something in Australia. Yeah, $3 or $4 trillion, it's

huge. It's too big for the government not to take it,

right? They will figure out ways to reach in and grab that

money. I don't know exactly how they're

going to do it. I think this type of tax, taxing the

withdrawal of the super money. I

also believe that the super industry is part

of the property bubble problem because we've

got banks who primarily lend to property. Like

70, 60% of their book is all lending to residential commercial property. Then

you've got the super funds who are building the properties and your money's

going in to prop those up. And then they own assets and then they

own the banks. So we have this sort of

incestuous system where rising

property prices, which is very bad for a country

that has got a population increase that's outstripping the

properties coming to market. So you've got demand, inflated demand, and

then you've got money printing, devaluation of money, because

the creation of every new mortgage creates new debt, which creates new

money, which increases the denominator, which then

devalues everything. So lots of new mortgages increases

the money supply, which then flows through to create a

devaluation of everything. And this system has been pumping hard

for over a decade now. And it's almost at a stage where it's

too big to feel, if you understand what I mean, because

of the consequential issues. I joke that if you want

to be untouchable, you need to become too big to feel. But

say I'm completely wrong. I'm completely and utterly wrong.

I you know, there's the saying where your markets can stay irrational longer

than you can stay liquid. Okay, so, you know, this could I'm

not saying things are going to end tomorrow. I think there's a so

much incentivization around the current system and the people that

it's very unlikely we're going to see any meaningful changes in the short term. There's

not a decision point. We're not in like an Argentinian level

crunch where you need to feel pain before

you're willing to change, if that makes sense. So I expect it to continue

on. But, I expect property investments to

become harder, less profitable, as more and more people

are renters, I expect controls on property to increase

from the nanny state, which is excessively nanny state, and

I don't see that letting up, you know what I mean? Censorship rules,

age restrictions, money controls, I just

see us going down this social scoring

system, and I don't see us stopping any time soon. So

I think it's orange. Well, that's exactly right.

I always say Bitcoin is the answer. It's

It's the only answer within your reach. Right?

I think it's the only answer where I can get on a plane, I

can remember my seed phrase, I can walk through customs,

and I can move capital out of the country if I needed to. Right? Worst

case scenario. Anything else can

be seized, can be taken. You can

have your assets taken. I had

an issue with an accountant who stole some money, but it was tax money. And

then the ATO said, you still owe

me the money. And I'm like, have I ever paid this? And they're like, yeah,

but you paid it to someone who ran away with the money. And I'm like, okay. I'm

like, all right. Okay. And then they said, well, you

need to prove your innocence. And I'm like, excuse me? I was like, I didn't even

know that was a thing, that the tax office could put the burden of

proof on me to prove my innocence. I did prove my innocence, but

it was an economically costly event for me to prove I

didn't do anything wrong. I think that the

government control and mechanisms need

some counters, right? I wish the Liberal

Party were actually liberals, if you know what I mean, in the more American

sense of liberty. Or an opposition. Yeah,

I think there's a there's an organization called stand with crypto which

I came out of the u.s. There's not an Australian branch I

was up some of their events know some of the people They're trying

to get people to change their minds around. What

is crypto? What is Bitcoin? It's not

a bad thing the success of pro Bitcoin

people in the US is

now starting to bring politicians back from

their existing donor class to a more single issue voter. There's not

a decision point. They primarily care about winning votes. I believe over the

next couple of cycles, Bitcoiners and the wider crypto community will become

censorship rules, age restrictions, money controls,

I just see us going down this social scoring system, and I don't see

us selling anything. So what's your life? I think it's orange. It's exactly what I always say. Bitcoin

is the answer. It's

Last year, the Liberals and Labour partnered

with the Greens to suppress smaller party funding. So

the current uni parties are trying to suppress other

parties. So they change the funding rules and set the funding caps,

and you need branches, you need all the things that they have, and are

limiting the ability for the Teals and any other minor party,

Libertarian Party, any of those others. Because

the Libertarians do have some interesting policies, I just sometimes

think we're a little too rabid in our explanations of

those. And I say that we're talking to people inside the tent, rather than

people outside the tent. We're sort of inviting Jesus, you

know what I mean, to come in, to sort of welcome you in

before you get the full sermon of all the things that are wrong. But

it will be difficult. Like, if you look at the liberal parties, the shambles at

the moment, I think taking them over might be the best option. Creating

pro-Bitcoin, under 30 individuals, so you understand the

internet. see the problems with the financial systems,

and see the opportunity that Australia has on a

global stage. We are so smart. We have such talented

individuals here, lots of people building in Bitcoin, crypto, and

our government has been very anti it. Most people just don't talk

about it. It's like Fight Club. You're like

Yeah. Darren, I've got to wrap

up the conversation because we're running out of time.

No problem. Look, it's one that we can pick

up at any other time because I love talking about politics, especially

how it relates into the crypto and Bitcoin space as well. And

I really do think that out of this, really, Bitcoin

is the answer. I just rather going deep into

what I'd love to do is actually just acknowledge the Gold Coast

blockchain meetup. So if anyone is in the Gold Coast area,

I'm going to leave a link somewhere. We'll get in contact with you. We'll look some links so

we can actually share that if that's okay. Is it a paid membership or

I'm the main sponsor. I've been sponsoring for over four years. I

have an event coming up with, there's actually a conference

that I got to come to the Gold Coast. It used to be Blockchain Australia, then I called

DECA. So industry people, even the mayor's speaking

at it, ministers. It's more

than Bitcoin, let's be clear. It's not just Bitcoin only. The

Digital Economy Council of Australia, I think is what DECA stands for.

But I'm a believer in building businesses. I'm a believer in economic

uplift through creation, not through taxation. So

that's on the 16th of June. So check out the website, dacaconference.com,

and come along and follow me on Twitter and you'll

be able to see the next upcoming event, which is at a brewery, at

the new Sarfers Microbrewery. I've got sponsors, drinks,

That's like everyone's favorite topic. That's my favorite topic. I'm

not a huge beer fan, but I will tell you, I'd love to come on just to talk more.

Just to talk Bitcoin. Yeah, they have 14 beers. 12 of

them, I thought, were very nice. Yeah, I think you

can try them all. There you go. Darren Rogan, thank

you so much for your time today. And I really look forward to speaking to

you again in the future. And everyone should check out Darren on his X and also try

and get along to his Gold Coast blockchain meetup. Thanks so much, Darren. No problem. Pleasure

to be here. Thanks for tuning in to Crypto Collective. If

you've enjoyed this episode, the best way to show your support is to

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You can also find more of me at I'm Matthew