Interview with Brock Pierce, Chairman of Bitcoin Foundation and candidate for President of the USA

Now not only the United States, but the whole world is frozen in anticipation of the presidential elections in America. Analysts predict how the market will react to the victory of each of the candidates, politicians are preparing for a change in the political agenda, and economists are calculating the behavior of the global economy. We managed to talk to one of the most famous people in the world of cryptocurrency and blockchain, as well as candidate for President of the USA 2020.

Anna: Hello, everybody! Today on our channel we are pleased to have a special guest Brock Pierce who is serial entrepreneur as well he’s a chairman of Bitcoin Foundation, co-founder of EOS Alliance, Tether, Block one, Blockchain Capital, and currently as well candidate for President of the USA in 2020. We are glad to have you, Brock.

Brock: Well, thank you for having me.

Anna: How are you? Where are you now, in which city?

Brock: I’m in New York city. We had our our grand opening and our press conference yesterday announcing that we are now headquartered here in New York city. I’ve been endorsed by the Independence party of New York. We are on the ballot here in New York. Frank McKay, the founder of the Independence party in New York has publicly stated – which is what the media has picked up – that he is certain that I am a future president of the United States of America.

Anna: Great, so can you tell us how did you decide to get involved into politics and when did you decide to run for the president of the USA?

Brock: Well, it’s something I’ve been preparing for a while,I didn’t know it was going to happen this early but it started in October of last year. And then we started ramping up aggressively in the spring, and then we announced (or I announced) my candidacy for President on July 4th or the U.S. Independence day.

Anna: Yeah, and as well we understand that you are a new person on the political scene and as you mentioned in your previous statements in the media that your purpose is not winning the elections but is your eventual goal to end up in the White House and continue your development in public policy.

Brock: Yeah, so I’m 39 years old, I turned 40 in November, so time is on my side. So this election 2020 serves two purposes. One is to lay the groundwork and to build the infrastructure, define the ideology, develop the platform for now and in the future to enable other candidates to run – not just myself.

I intend to support a hundred candidates up and down the ticket- local, state, and federal in the 2022 – midterm 2022, midterm elections. As well as there is a strategy for this election. I don’t have to win the election to become President of the United States. This is something… even most political experts don’t understand. So the way that the american election works: in the general election  you need to win a majority, a majority of the electoral college vote to win.

The key word being “majority” meaning if the two major parties were to tie, no one wins. This is what happened in the year 1800 – Thomas Jefferson versus Aaron Burr. Or if a third party candidate, such as myself, were to win one state (no independent candidate has ever done this), if I win one state we will make history. And if it’s a close race, depending upon the state, no one wins. If we win three states, it’s likely that no one wins the election. And so what happens if no one wins? The top three candidates based upon having at least one electoral college vote, the top three, are given to the House of Representatives, this is the 12th Amendment. And then the House of Representatives – not the Democratic House – chooses the president. There’s 51 votes, each state gets one vote based upon the delegates as well as the district of Columbia. Whoever gets 26 states to vote for them becomes the next president. 

Every time (the House has done this in the past), every time, 100 % of the time, they always chose the third place candidate to be President. And so, this has only happened once, it happened in the year 1824 but we do have 100% precedent on our side. And so there is, actually, a strategy to end up in the White House in January. Now it might be a long shot, it might not be likely but it is possible. You know, when I talk to the top political experts they’re like “Who are you? How do you come up with this stuff? I’m like “Well, you know, I’m a systems designer, I actually study systems and and I’ll show you what’s possible. The things that you may not even know yourself.”

Anna: Thank you for explanation of your long-term plans and your strategy. And can you tell us more about your program? How do you plan to transition the US to digital economy and what measures should be taken in terms of regulation including adoption of crypto friendly legislation?

Brock: Yeah, so I’d say first and foremost at the highest level, as a systems designer, I take a look at this country and the rest of the world. And I say how is it that we’ve measured our success, right? How do we measure our success as governments as nations, as citizens? Historically we’ve measured success of growth or gross domestic product, GDP, things of that nature. The problem with growth is it assumed that we had infinite resource, which we’ve known for some time that we do not. The other problem with growth is it doesn’t differentiate between positive and negative growth. Meaning cancer creates growth, forest fires create growth, hurricanes create growth, polluting the air earth and water creates growth. But is this the type of growth that we want to incentivize? So, as a systems designer I say what is it that we’re trying to incentivize, what sort of behavior, what sort of goal, what are we aiming for. What the United States was founded with a really beautiful intention that being life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And so the United States was founded with the intention of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So, I propose that we as the american people (and this could be everywhere, it’s not limited to the United States). But we as the american people hold our government to account.

And our government should measure its success based upon life expectancy. Life expectancy in the United States is in decline, despite all the advancements in medicine, science, and technology. What if we measured our government’s performance and success by our life expectancy? Also, liberty were supposed to be the land of the free. What if we measured our government’s success by our freedom instead of being a country that has more people locked up per capita than anywhere in the world? We might end up being the freest society in the world. And this would also create all sorts of reform in police and prison, and civil justice. And we probably wouldn’t have for-profit prisons anymore we, probably wouldn’t be locking people up with victimless crimes, it would probably bring about the end of the war on drugs, our police departments would be focused on, you know, arresting as few people as possible rather than as many as people as possible. 

So, I say “Let’s measure our success by our freedom and then lastly the pursuit of happiness, right?” Our quality of life, our happiness like the Kingdom of Bhutan measures its success by gross national happiness or the happiness of its people. And so as a systems designer I’m questioning how we measure our success, what are we aiming for, what is our goal. And so that’s just one game-changing idea that I would propose as we think about how we upgrade the operating system of the United States of America, how do we create America 2.0, how do we create an America that everyone would want to live in. From a policy perspective in terms of technology, I think that technology is the number one issue in the country right now. Technology has changed our lives, it’s changed our business, it’s changing everything. Just look at how social media is impacting U.S. democracy. So, this decade we’ve got artificial intelligence coming online, we already have automation robotics – all of these things, you know. The world is going to change a lot over the course of this next decade. And technology is a moral, it’s not good or bad, it is a tool. The outcome of how it impacts our lives will be determined by the ways in which we use it.

Which is why we need visionary leadership that understands technology and understands how to navigate the road ahead. The United States historically has been the capital of innovation. A lot of the best and brightest entrepreneurs are leaving the country because they don’t feel this is a safe place to innovate, because regulators are overstepping. What really should be their role in responsibility, regulators have a very important job to do – to protect the American people. But to some extent they are creating regulatory policy that is stifling innovation at a time where as we live through the fourth industrial revolution. There will be winners and losers. And our regulators need to understand that if we push all of the innovation out of this country, we will not be a beneficiary of the change. And so we need sensible smart regulation that enables innovation, you know, and fosters, and allows innovation to flourish in this country. 

Anna: And can you tell us how did you gather your team for elections and how your team will help you to achieve your goals, and achieve the goals and transformation of the united states, and achiev this state of happiness.

Brock: So, I’m an entrepreneur, I’ve built many many companies. I’ve also been a venture capitalist and funded many many more. And so as someone that creates things out of nothing, building a presidential campaign is not much different -It’s the startup. And so, assembling teams, scaling teams, doing it quickly is something that, you know, I’ve done many times. I’ve just never done it in this context. So, no different, you know, it’s buying the right people – the difference in cases. We’re very short fuse and I’ve never seen an organization scale faster than what I’ve seen here.

Anna: That’s interesting approach to president’s election, Tte president campaign like to start up. And can you tell us more about implementation of different technologies? And for example your opinion on do we need to implement blockchain-based voting?

Brock: Clearly, I’m a big believer in blockchain and its ability to secure systems, to provide resiliency to systems, to bring accountability transparency, whatever it is that we’re seeking from that system. And yes, I absolutely believe that blockchain technology is the likely solution, the most likely solution for a fair frictionless voting system – not just in the United States but wherever voting happens in the world. I believe it’s the future. And we already have five pilot projects happening here within the United States at a government level. And so I’m a big believer in that in terms of decentralized finance. I believe that the financial system of the world has not been inclusive, you know, there’s a lot of people, about a third of the population of the world is on bank, almost another third of the population is under bank without access to things like credit. I believe that this technology can drive global financial inclusion, ubiquitous financial inclusion, it can bring credit to places where people don’t have it. It’s bringing efficiency, it’s bringing investment opportunity. I’m a huge believer in decentralized finance ,and so pleased to see how rapidly that segment of the industry has developed over the last couple of years.

Anna: And in terms of De-Fi, now we have a recent real boom of different De-Fi projects. What do you think about them?

Brock: Yeah, I think it’s great! I’m very pleased to see how many new startups or new projects, and new protocols are emerging to support this booming market of De-Fi. I’m really happy to see it, you know, as someone that’s been in the space for a very long time. We’re seeing another, call it, “killer application” for blockchain and cryptocurrency which is what we need. And De-Fi has proven to be one.

Anna: And in which other industries do you see big potential for blockchain and critical use of it?

Brock: Well, I think social networking is one of them. If you haven’t checked out Voice.com, I would take a look at that. And how we decentralize systems of that nature. Messaging is another one that’s looking interesting. If you haven’t checked out “Sense.chat”, I’d check out Sense. I mean, we’re almost there. Blockchain technology is getting, I think, close to the tipping point. The technologies efficiency cost scalability. It’s not there yet, but I think we’re close, you know. I think, the year 2021 will probably be the big year. 21 being like the 21 million bitcoins, 21, you know, kind of feels like it might be the year for us.

Anna: And so what do you think about central bank digital currencies? For example, China is launching its digital yuan, the U.S. had some initiatives as for launch of digital dollar.

Brock: Well, so as the person that created the first stable coin, the first digital dollar (that’s doing roughly 10 trillion dollars a year of transactional volume), and having gone around the world, educating governments about how they could use technology to enhance their fiat currencies, I think there’s great merit and great potential. And governments around the world are running pilots. China clearly is a big believer, the U.S is finally waking up to this, and so I think it’s inevitable, technology is impacting everything. And central banks and government currencies are going to need to use these types of technologies to keep up.

Anna: And don’t you see is this central bank digital currencies as competitor to private stable coins like Tether?

Brock: Maybe. I don’t live in a world of competition, I don’t think of… I don’t operate in the scarcity mindset, and I kind of operate in the world of abundance. And so, and in the same way I don’t feel like I’m running against anyone in this election. I feel like I’m running with everyone. If anyone succeeds in making the world a better place, we all win. And so good luck! 

Anna: And as for the U.S dollar, what measures should be taken to strengthen it? And is a digital dollar… Can digital dollars threatens the currency, in your opinion?

Brock: I think that a digital dollar could assist the strengthening of the US dollar. My biggest concern is fiscal policy, you know. The U.S debt is at a 75-year high, the debt is now exceeding the size of the economy. The last time we had a debt level like this was during World War 2. And so, I think that the biggest risk to the U.S dollar is the U.S debt.

Anna: And if you are a president, how will you influence fiscal policy? How will you try to change it, in which way?

Brock: Well, I think as a presidential candidate, I have more experience with monetary policy and economic systems having been working on things like this for now over 20 years.

Anna: Okay, and can you tell us how do you see U.S foreign policy? 

Brock: Well, I believe in the balance of nationalism and globalism. Kind of like when you get on the airplane they say “Put the mask on yourself first, make sure that you can breathe before taking care of others.” I think that, you know, we need to make sure that the U.S is in good functioning order, but we also have to be mindful that we live in a global world  and how do we maintain good relations with our neighbors? We have one planet, we share together. And we are ultimately all in this together.

Anna: Great! Thank you for conversation. It was great to talk with you. And good luck in your campaign! Maybe we’ll see you the president in just a few months.

Brock: Anything’s possible, it is the year 2020. Thank you for having me. Have a great day.

Anna: Thank, you too! Goodbye.

Brock: Thank you.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *