The Peter McCormack Show

Location: Zoom Date: Friday 3rd July Company/Project: DarkHorse Podcast Role: Host In 2017, Bret Weinstein was thrust into the public limelight, when he objected to a change in the college's tradition of observing a "Day of Absence". Bret stating that "there is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and under-appreciated roles, and a group or coalition encouraging another group to go away." It led to widespread protests and claims that Bret was "a racist" and the college was forced to close for two days. Following the Evergreen College protests, Bret outlined the threat of behaviour like this spilling over into the outside world. His concerns were proven correct after the death of George Floyd. In the days following Floyd's death, people took to the streets across the US and then across the world. What originated as a Black Lives Matter movement, quickly became infiltrated by far-left groups. In this interview, I talk to Bret Weinstein, a biologist and evolutionary theorist, who was at the center of the Evergreen College controversy. We discuss the US protests, bipartisan politics, inequality, and where Bitcoin fits into this and #Unity2020. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Location: Zoom Date: Monday 29th June Company/Project: Real Vision, Wyoming Blockchain Coalition, Ikigai Asset Management Role: Co-Founder & CEO, Co-Founder, Chief Investment Officer In late 2019 and early 2020, the global economy was showing signs of stress. Even before coronavirus, we saw the Fed having to step in and provide liquidity for the repo market and issuing rate cuts. But the rapid spread of coronavirus around the world and the resulting lockdowns has further exposed cracks in the global economy. Stock markets experienced high volatility as the economic impact of businesses closing hit with Wall Street suffered its worst day since 'Black Monday' and oil prices going negative for the first time in history. Governments responded with unprecedented levels of quantitative easing, and some countries are now seeing their currencies collapsing. Many analysts have suggested that rather than coronavirus being the cause of this economic downturn, it was instead the black swan event that acted as the pin that popped the bubble and the enormous debts that have been amounting for decades was a disaster waiting to happen. Over the past year, I have spoken to several economists including Raoul Pal, Caitlin Long and Travis Kling, all of whom warned that a financial collapse is coming. So, what is happening at the moment, what can we expect to see next, and how can we all prepare? This interview is from a panel I recently hosted for Real Vision's The Crypto Gathering, with Raoul Pal, Caitlin Long & Travis Kling. We discuss the early warning signs of systemic issues in the global macroeconomy, what might happen next and where Bitcoin fits into this. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Location: Zoom Date: Tuesday 23rd July Company/Project: N/A & Unchained Capital Role: N/A & Director of Product Marketing Throughout 2019, President Trump's re-election campaign looked to be on steady ground, but 2020 has been a very different story. Following the outbreak of COVID-19, countries across the world have gone into lockdown. However, Trump, Fox News and a large number of key Republicans initially played down the risk of the pandemic, and Trump has faced fierce criticism for his lack of decisive action. The US has been the most severely affected country, with around one quarter of all recorded infections and deaths. During this same period, the killing of George Floyd sent shockwaves across America. Millions took to the streets to protest police brutality and to campaign for Black Lives Matter. Many of these protests quickly turned violent and, again, Trump was criticised for his lack of decisive action and leadership, epitomised when he retreated to his bunker rather than addressing the nation. The pandemic and protests have opened up the election race, and while Trump has furiously Tweeted, Joe Biden has mostly retreated from public view. Support for Trump appears to be dropping, and most recently, Trump's rally in Tulsa was only attended by 6,200 people in attendance, in a building with a 19,000 capacity. While 2020 has been mostly negative for Trump's re-election campaign, he does have fiercely loyal supporters, and while the polls indicate Biden has a clear lead, this will likely be another close election. I tweeted that I would bet anyone $5,000 in Bitcoin that Trump would lose. American Hodl (@hodl_american) took me up on the bet. Phil Geiger, from Unchained Capital, agreed to arbiter the debt, holding the 3rd key in a multisig wallet we set up using Unchained Capital's Caravan product. In this interview, Hodl, Phil and I discuss the bet, US politics, if the current economic and social situation is positive or negative for Trump, populism, voter suppression and the election race. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Location: Zoom Date: Friday, 19th June Company/Project: Kraken Role: Director of Business Development The very early believers in Bitcoin tended to fall into two camps, the Libertarians who were drawn to the censorship resistance & self-sovereignty of Bitcoin and the tech-savvy developers who saw a new experimental technology that was the first to truly offer a distributed & decentralised digital money. As Bitcoin has gained in value, it too has grown to appeal to audiences that don't necessarily fit into these two camps. Fewer tech-savvy people have come to Bitcoin for 'number go up' more than the censorship resistance and decentralisation. For these people, coming into Bitcoin can be hostile and confusing. The community is understandably frosty to those not willing to learn about the importance of holding their own keys, protecting their privacy and being self-sovereign and the software can be confusing and unintuitive. For newcomers running a node is difficult, holding your private keys daunting and interacting with the community scary. So, improving both the UX and marketing of Bitcoin is key to attracting less technical people to the space. In this interview, I talk to Dan Held the Director of Business Development at Kraken. We discuss the importance of easy user experience, how Bitcoin can be a daunting experience, if newcomers should hold their private keys and why marketing matters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Location: Zoom Date: Friday, 19th June Role: Entrepreneur & Author In an inflationary Keynesian economic system, governments target low inflation to ensure a healthy economy and steady growth; however, inflation functions as a hidden tax on savings. Inflation also leads to a drop in purchasing power which drives the incentive to spend and invest rather than save. Deflation, the opposite to inflation, is when the price of a basket of goods and services drops. Unlike inflation, deflation means the purchasing power of your savings increase over time and therefore, incentivises saving as opposed to spending. Many traditional economists see deflation as dangerous as people will reduce spend with an expectation of products becoming cheaper, but this leads to an economy based on growth at any cost. Jeff Booth, author of The Price of Tomorrow: Why deflation is the Key to an Abundant Future presents an alternative argument. In this interview, I talk to Jeff Booth, and we discuss the current economic & social situation, how an inflationary system has caused inequality & division and how Bitcoin & deflation can fix this. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Location: Zoom Date: Wednesday, 17th June Project: Basecamp Role: Founder & CTO New concerns have been raised around Apple's business model after the company rejected future updates for Basecamp's newly launched email app Hey. Apple initially approved the app, but then put it on hold — meaning Basecamp couldn't submit any updates or bug fixes until it added an option for users to subscribe to Hey's service through an in-app purchase. Basecamp has disputed this decision, saying it shouldn't be forced to allow users to sign up for Hey through in-app purchase, subjecting then to Apple's 30% tax on its subscription fee. HEY's predicament has highlighted inconsistencies in Apple's policy execution, having allowed other apps with similar business models to exist in the App Store without mandatory in-app subscriptions. They have also made exemptions for streaming applications and rivals; Amazon and Netflix. The case has raised questions about how Apple is operating and whether it's exercising an anti-competitive advantage over services from third-party developers. HEY's fight comes as the company is already facing two EU antitrust investigations after Spotify and other firms filed similar complaints to those raised by Basecamp. In this bonus episode, I talk to Basecamp Founder & CTO, David Hansson. We discuss Apple's threats to remove their email app HEY from the App Store and Apple's monopolistic business model. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Location: Zoom Date: Tuesday 16th June Project: Human Rights Foundation & Bitcoin Developer Role: Chief Strategy Officer & Independent Developer Privacy is a fundamental human right, and with society migrating away from physical to digital cash, we are losing one of the remaining ways to transact privately. Bitcoin is an entirely public ledger, in that every transaction is broadcast to everyone running the Bitcoin software. Anyone can view these transactions, but there are ways to obfuscate your spends and make it more difficult, or even close to impossible to follow the trail of transactions. Currently, the most widely used method for adding privacy to bitcoin is to use CoinJoin services like Wasabi or Samourai. These wallets allow you to add your UTXOs to a transaction along with numerous other participants. Coinjoin can significantly increase anonymity, depending on the number of other participants. Originally put forward by Greg Maxwell in 2013, Coinswap is a somewhat different method of anonymising your footprint on the Bitcoin network. Chris Belcher recently took the idea and put together a proposal and has received funding from the Human Rights Foundation to develop it. In this interview, I talk to Bitcoin developer Chris Belcher and Alex Gladstein, the Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation. We discuss financial privacy as a human right, Bitcoin privacy, financing devs and Chris' work on Coinswap. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Location: Zoom Date: Friday 12th June Project: The Investors Podcast Role: Host With the current global economic outlook and rise in social unrest, we are living in unprecedented times. The coronavirus pandemic, subsequent lockdowns and preventative measures put in place by governments around the world has led to many businesses closing or relying on bailouts, and jobless figures are amongst the highest since records began. The killing of George Floyd at the hands of the police has seen protests against racial inequality have spread across the world. In the US, especially, these protests turned have turned into riots with looting, buildings burnt down and violent clashes. During this time of uncertainty, the S&P500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average have both climbed ~40% since the drop in March, seemingly proving that the markets can behave irrationally. Some analysts are pointing to dangerous signals that we are heading towards the collapse of currencies. Are all of these combined events the perfect storm for Bitcoin? In this interview, I talk to Preston Pysh, author, engineer & the host of The Investor Podcast. We discuss the global macroeconomy, deflation vs inflation and why now Bitcoin is more important than ever. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Location: Zoom Date: Thursday 28th May Project: Microsoft Role: Head of Decentralised Identity Social media is omnipresent with most all of us have a Twitter, Facebook or Google account, using them every day for both personal and business. We build connections, relationships and trust through them. However, these companies implement strict controls over the content on their platforms with shadowbanning and deplatforming growing. The controls which they enforce on their platforms can have further-reaching consequences. As well as offering access via a standard email and password, most websites also provide the option to login via a Facebook, Twitter or Google account. If one of those services decides to deplatform you, then you could lose your account with any associated websites. To solve this issue and improve on the nature of IDs, Microsoft has launched their Decentralised Identity program in which they offer users a decentralised personal identifier, which is under your control, using the most immutable and secure solution; Bitcoin. In this interview, I talk to Daniel Buchner, Head of Decentralised Identity at Microsoft to discuss how a Bitcoin-based decentralised identity system works. We also talk about libertarianism, coronavirus and the protests over the death of George Floyd. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Location: Zoom Date: Friday 5th June Project: Coindesk Role: Journalist The role of a journalist is to question, educate and inform. A truly free press is a fundamental pillar of a free society, and unbiased and objective reporting is crucial in getting a broad understanding of any industry. News corporations are now arguably more partisan and divided than ever before, highlighted by how Fox News and CNN have become partisan propaganda outlets. Fox News is pro-Trump and will defend him and his policies almost without exception; alternatively, CNN is pro-democrat and will question almost everything Trump and his administration do. Within Bitcoin, there can be a similar lack of objectivity and willingness to challenge the status quo critically. The Bitcoin community are often referred to as its immune system, by being aggressive and vocal about anything that seemingly questions the direction or ethos of the network they protect it from coercion and negative outside influences. While this is mostly a useful stance in an industry that has more than its fair share of scammers and questionable projects, this can make the role of journalism within Bitcoin tricky to navigate. Despite long and firmly held beliefs, Bitcoin evolves, as does the size of the user base and how they use Bitcoin. Journalists must challenge commonly held beliefs, even if these means hard criticism from Bitcoiners. In this interview, I am joined by Leigh Cuen, a journalist and writer at Coindesk. We discuss the importance of journalism, Bitcoin as a peaceful revolution and the strict narratives that are held by Bitcoiners. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.