Timothy Maxwell Keiser, or better known simply as Max Keiser, is a Bitcoin (BTC) supporter and host of the financial program titled ‘Keiser Report’ broadcasted on the media channel ‘RT’ that discusses heterodox economics theories. The 30-minute program is co-hosted by his wife Stacy Herbert and produced three times a week. In the first half of the show, Keiser and Herbert would discuss alternately a present financial topic and comment on financial media reports as well as actions taken by bankers. The second half of the show is a segment where Keiser would host a guest interview face-to-face or through video conferencing.

In the recent episode, the guest interviewed in the second half was a Bitcoin Core developer named Jimmy Song. When asked by Keiser what does it really mean to be a Bitcoin Core developer, he explained that a developer essentially contributes to the operation of the Bitcoin Core which is the software wrote originally by Bitcoin creator Satoshi. A Bitcoin Core developer makes sure that the software runs smoothly, is resource efficient and does not have bugs.

Later, they touched on the topic where ‘charlatans’, or parties that utilises some form of pretence or deception to obtain profits, attempted to gain control over the decentralized currency. Players claimed that they “are the businesses” and contributed to “80% of the transactions” and even “90% of the mining hash power on the network”, thus having the right to control Bitcoin. However, users stood up against these self-proclaimed business parties and prevented the attack. Song described that the following resistance was not achievable in any other governance models, where businesses usually get what they wanted if they applied enough pressure.

Both Keiser and Song described the network of having its own immune system against these attacks that would most probably occur again in the future. Song said that there were users in the system who acted as “white blood cells” such as people who utilise user activated soft forks and try to exert the power that they rightfully have.

Keiser later brought up the ‘yellow vests movement’, which is a populist, grassroots political movement for economical justice that originated from France in the year 2018. He stated that the yellow vests movement alongside other similar global movements should utilise BTC as the “currency of resistance” and unify. He agreed with Song that the governance model BTC had was superior to other governance models currently available, which was why the digital currency should be used as a tool to unify global economic movements aimed to reject centralized financial structures.

Song replied saying that BTC’s greatest feature was the capability to decentralize monetary and financial power. He stated that most people do not realize that monetary power is the attribute that dictates the people who “run the world”. He did not agree with the purpose of current protest movements, which was to change “who’s in charge”. He further elaborated that movements should instead focus on decentralizing financial power by taking back the power for themselves. He stated that protestors should be utilising BTC’s decentralizing ability to fight instead of risking their lives to protest through violent acts.

When talking about the price of BTC, Keiser asked Song whether developers would continue their efforts if prices dropped extremely low. Song answered that if BTC having a low value could actually benefit developers as they are less distracted by thoughts like ‘what they could buy’ and ‘how much BTC did they hold’ if there was a bull market. Developers would be able to focus on any issues that arise and build useful goods and services for the users.