LBRY + Odysee CEO Jeremy Kauffman | Saving Crypto, Fighting Big Tech, and Free Speech Online

By Kirk Enbysk

Tell the SEC that cryptocurrency must remain legal and free by signing this petition: www.change.org/p/u-s-securities-and-exchange-commission-cryptocurrency-is-not-a-crime

Jeremy Kauffman, founder and CEO of the decentralized content sharing and publishing protocol LBRY, joins the show to discuss the ongoing SEC complaint against LBRY that threatens to stifle the entire cryptocurrency and blockchain industry in the U.S.. As Kauffman and Moazed touch on various details of the SEC complaint, they also discuss censorship on content platforms, launching and running a disruptive startup business, and the ongoing battle against the overreaching policies of big tech.

Jeremy created LBRY because he fell in love with the idea of shared, global content registry that is owned and controlled by no one. Unsurprisingly, he is a longtime supporter of decentralized technology and freedom of information. Prior to LBRY, Jeremy founded TopScore, a startup that processes millions of dollars monthly in event and activity registrations. He attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he received degrees in physics and computer science.

Originally Aired: 04/13/21

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Full Transcript:

Alex Moazed (00:08):
I’m Alex Moazed and welcome to Winner Take All, where we talk about the constant battle between large tech monopolies and traditional incumbents. Today I’m really excited to have Jeremy Kauffman, the co-founder and CEO of LBRY, as well as Odysee. Jeremy, great to have you.

Jeremy Kauffman (00:28):
It is great to be here and I’m not sure there’s a more fitting show for me to be on.

Alex Moazed (00:34):
You know, I would agree with that. We’ve really been looking forward to getting you on, I mean, under better circumstances, obviously. Odysee is a top website in the United States. You have raised single digit millions of dollars in VC investment, but you have a top website kind of YouTube alternative content platform promoting free speech, not falling into the content moderation trap, even if you had the money to blow on something called content moderation, really just kind of content censorship, really. Applico and Winner Take All has been putting our videos on the site for a long time now to try and support and promote alternative free speech platforms away from the tech monopolies.

Alex Moazed (01:26):
Anyway, I’ve really looked forward to having you on the show. I’ve loved the business that you built. As a user of Odysee I mean, it was so easy to do the integration and just like suck down all of our stuff from YouTube and bring it on over to Odysee. I mean, we’re going to get into some of the meat here at the SEC in a second, but just love what you guys have built. How would you describe what you’re building, what you have built, from the horse’s mouth?

Jeremy Kauffman (01:55):
Well first thank you for saying that you found it easy to use, as a product oriented CEO there may be no larger compliment, so I really liked that. And it is very easy both to sign up as well as if you are a creator to bring all of your content over, it’s super easy. And so for anyone listening, I would encourage you to go ahead and do that right now, if you haven’t done that already. And I would say I’m not sure we’re fighting the giants in a traditional way, but we absolutely are fighting the big tech monopolies and the big tech companies. And we’re doing it in what I think is a pretty novel way. We’re kind of doing it by tying our own hands. What we’ve built is a completely open decentralized network based off of a blockchain based protocol called LBRY, L-B-R-Y, and LBRY does to publishing what Bitcoin does to money.

Jeremy Kauffman (02:57):
It creates a system that does not have the same central points of control that their traditional financial system did, but it does it for publishing, so we can now have YouTube like experiences without needing to cede all of our power and all of our desire to make personal choices to a big tech company. And we can get into how our technology does all that. It can get kind of complicated. What I said already may have sounded complicated. And so something I really want to emphasize is that odysee.com is a really easy way to use it, so as we talk about what LBRY is and everything that we’re doing, you don’t have to understand all of that. If you just want a website, and this will be one of my quibbles, it’s a successor not an alternative. If you want the successor to YouTube, you can go on to odysee.com.

Jeremy Kauffman (03:52):
You know, the other ones that are very free speech oriented or whatever, I support them, but they’re not doing anything that’s sort of genuinely different underneath. And I do think that makes them more as like just alternatives or clones. Whereas we’re trying to do something that fundamentally changes the way the entire system works in a way that I think is beneficial for users and creators.

Alex Moazed (04:19):
Yeah. I stand corrected, the successor not the alternative.

Jeremy Kauffman (04:24):
[crosstalk 00:04:24] It’s a tweak, it’s a tweak.

Alex Moazed (04:24):
No, no, no. I mean, I’m with you because it is true. It is a very important detail, but very big deal detail in the sense that you have enabled any other, whoever it is, companies, organizations that say, Hey, we want to go and do our own version of Odysee, but we can build it on top of your protocol, and the infrastructure that you’ve exposed. Odysee is like the killer app, the killer app example to say, Hey, look, we did this on top of LBRY. Oh, by the way, if you want to you can also. Or you can just really enjoy a great content platform, video experience on odysee.com. And while you were giving that explanation, I was showing the Alexa web rankings, you are a top 5,000 website globally. I mean, that is not easy to do. I mean, those are real serious numbers.

Jeremy Kauffman (05:22):
Yeah. And it launched in October of last year, so yeah, it’s been blowing up. We’ve been busy around here.

Alex Moazed (05:28):
Yeah. And I’ve been talking about it. You know, I think there is a rift. There is a kind of like splinter down society platforms where you have the tech monopolies and we’ve been talking about it for years on the show. The tech monopolies have gone against the very ethos of the platform business model to facilitate exchange of ideas, of information, of content. And they have now used content moderation as a bludgeon, as a moat, as a competitive advantage that smaller competitors like LBRY and Odysee, you just don’t have the money. Even if you wanted to do it, not saying you do, you just don’t have the money to do that. And we even had Zuckerberg saying, well, if competitors don’t do appropriate content moderation, maybe they shouldn’t get Section 230 protection and all this stuff. Anyway, that’s my little tangent there.

Alex Moazed (06:22):
But the point is we have seen big tech, I think big tech recognizes the threat of free speech, either its content platforms, social media networks, whatever it is, the kind of free speech successors to themselves. And they have not just subtly, but explicitly kind of pinpointed a campaign to go after these smaller up and coming competitors. Who in your case, top 5,000 website on a shoestring budget, right? I mean, that’s a real threat to them and I think they recognize that, would you agree?

Jeremy Kauffman (07:07):
I think they absolutely do recognize that. I have some emails from them that would probably be evidence of the fact that they recognize that. And we’ve seen some shady behavior on their part around the app store and other things that I think demonstrate that they recognize that. And now I think one of the surprising things is they don’t… I’m curious to get your opinion on this, not to flip the interview, but I don’t really get it. Because I honestly regularly feel like these guys are my best friends. Like they’re doing everything they can to help my business succeed. But I don’t think that they’re stupid people. I think that these companies are run by people who are very intelligent and they’re profit seeking people, but it feels like they’re just like regularly shooting themselves in the foot. And I have my own, like I can come up with potential theories that explain that I don’t have none of them, but I’m not confident as to what the actual answer is as to why that’s going on. I’m very appreciative that it’s happening, but I’m not even exactly sure why.

Alex Moazed (08:10):
These are like many countries actually like big countries at this point, I’ve talked multiple times in the show that these CEOs, the Zuckerbergs of the world, Sundars of the world, they don’t even have control anymore. There are thousands of mid-level managers that might not even be full-time, might just be contractors that, they are now implementing policy and it’s kind of just gotten like too big to fail. How do you pull this back? You’ve literally created a multi-billion dollar industry. You’ve got all these contracting firms that are in the business of doing content moderation. You’ve gotten the government all hopped up on content moderation. You know, it’s kind of like that thing, you kind of let go a little bit, cause you were like, yeah, we should do this. And then it just grew like a weed and now it’s grown out of control. And what do you do? You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, even if they wanted to, they’ve kind of lost control of their own operation. I don’t know, what do you think?

Jeremy Kauffman (09:15):
That is actually the most plausible explanation to me because I don’t think that it’s pure profit seeking. That explains a lot of the decisions. The fact that the people inside the company are doing it for their own local incentives, or because they’ve become politically biased or just biased in certain ways that the people… Maybe even there’s just a selection effect in terms of the types of people who want to do the jobs. But there’s something going on, yes. Among the sort of broad masses of people who work there, rather than it being driven by the executives themselves. Yeah, I think that’s very plausible.

Alex Moazed (09:56):
I mean, that’s my kind of optimistic view of it all, right? Because, Zuckerberg like you would… Of the other executives I mean, although recently he’s had a lot of transgressions, but I just feel like maybe Zuckerberg, like 1.0 was very much so around trying to promote free speech, I don’t know, people change. I don’t know, but let’s get to, it’s not just the tech monopolies that you’re fighting, it is now the U.S. government.

Jeremy Kauffman (10:25):
Yeah.

Alex Moazed (10:26):
There are no coincidences in this life, Jeremy. You’ve got some good videos or I don’t know if you did this video, but if you go to helplbry…. I’ve got the site helplbrysavecrypto.com, there’s a good little explainer video for all of you that want some background here. We’re going to jump in more to the meat. The SEC has filed a civil action against LBRY, Inc. And there’s a 16 page complaint. I’ve read through it. But basically this is not the first domino to fall, right? XRP Ripple’s situation they’ve come under fire recently. But you know, I think what your explainer video says, the LBRY is maybe like the fourth or fifth case where the SEC has now ratcheted up going after companies that have cryptocurrencies. How would you describe kind of the case against LBRY versus what we’re seeing elsewhere? What’s your overview on what the SEC is doing here?

Jeremy Kauffman (11:38):
I wanted to say at the outset that this case is, well, it’s ridiculous first, but it does not threaten the LBRY network, the LBRY technology, the user’s, anyone’s cryptocurrency that they hold, or anything like that. It’s much more a threat to my company and its assets. And it’s a threat to the ability to develop and work on cryptocurrency in the United States generally. I think that the SEC is basically performing a cryptocurrency suppression program. And I think that they’re trying to sort of ship of Theseus their way into every cryptocurrency, including potentially Bitcoin and Ethereum as being securities. And by that, I mean that they’re making one tiny leap from one thing, one thing, one thing until they’ve covered all of them. I think they’ve made a pretty big leap in this case. This is the first case they’ve tried where there’s no ICO, there were no token sales intel, there was a functional network, all of the token sales were following carefully constructed guidance, and were only sold to people for purposes of using them on the platform, which is being used by tens of millions of people.

Jeremy Kauffman (12:58):
Or I should really say that LBRY is a protocol, it’s not a platform, there’s not only one way of interacting with it, so I think it’s very aggressive. I tend to not be too conspiratorial, but it does make me wonder why they’re bringing this case now, when there are way worse companies out there that are doing more egregious things. And this case has been open for three years, we haven’t attempted to hide anything. All of the evidence in the case is things that are publicly available on our website, it does feel a little bit like we’re maybe being punished for being transparent if we’re being honest. But I think that if LBRY loses this case, any cryptocurrency or any blockchain technology that’s still under development, which is basically all of them, is at risk. And so I think it’s a very, very serious case and I would appreciate it if people can sign the petition on the website at helplbrysavecrypto.com.

Alex Moazed (13:56):
Yes. Okay. A few big points there. I even missed the petition, so let’s just jump to that. Okay. The petition helplbrysavecrypto.com. There it is. Sign the petition. Everyone go sign that petition right now, really important for all the reasons that you described and others that we’re going to get into. I’m going to sign it right after the show here. Oh you’ve got 19,000 signed. And when did this go up? This petition?

Jeremy Kauffman (14:21):
A little over a week ago.

Alex Moazed (14:22):
Okay. Yeah, we can easily get to the 25K and beyond. By the way, before we kind of get into the nuts and bolts, the LBC altcoin is popping off. It’s actually gone up because of this case, I guess you were saying it’s been going on for three years, but this thing I’m reading was filed end of March. And like April 3rd, it doubled, but it hasn’t gone down from where it was right before this petition or whatever it is being filed by the SEC, so all things in perspective the coin’s doing just fine.

Jeremy Kauffman (15:03):
Yeah. Well, I try not to talk about the price too much and that’s not new, that’s not in reaction to the case. That’s something we’ve sort of always been the policy because legally it’s such a unclear area. And so we’ve tried to be very conservative. We think the reason you should buy LBRY credits is to use it on the network. We think that’s why people have been buying them the whole time. I think I will say from a sort of like efficient market hypothesis type argument, if all of these people were purportedly buying the token to make money off of it, you’d think that the SEC action would cause them to sell it. That didn’t appear to be the case, so I think there’s some decent evidence that people are buying the token because they want to use it, not because they think that they are getting an investment contract with LBRY, Inc.

Alex Moazed (15:54):
Okay. Yeah, let’s get into the meat here, so you are correct to say, yes, nothing happens as a coincidence in this world. And yeah. I mean, they went after Ripple, but Ripple has like a hundred banking partners, like they’re way more embedded into the financial system than LBRY is, right? But why aren’t they going after BAT or something, right? Like, isn’t that the same, like I would imagine BAT corporate was holding BAT coins and has sold some of those along the way. I mean, that to me is basically what they’re saying is, Hey, you had LBC coins and you sold some of those and that’s bad.

Jeremy Kauffman (16:48):
That is essentially the gist of the complaint. It’s a wild standard that they’re advancing here. And I mean, my opinion is that all of this should be legal, that people should be free to exchange what they want to exchange. If the SEC is going to be bringing these enforcements, they need to provide at a minimum… I mean, I think they should just let it all be legal, but just provide clear rules of the road or something. I mean, you’re correct. The case only became public a couple of weeks ago, we’ve been facing it for three years. We’ve been begging them to give us any kind of guidance. We’re making up our own rules, like guessing, and being like, well, can you do this? And they won’t even answer. They won’t answer you.

Jeremy Kauffman (17:33):
And it’s not like we haven’t been getting legal consultation, so we have some of the best lawyers in the space, we’re following the rules that they said we’re supposed to follow. And then this action comes down against us out of no where. Well, not out of nowhere in the sense that the case was open, but like it seemed like it might be away that they might have realized that it was a mistake. And then they choose to sort of bring this action and it is surprising to me that they’re going after us. I think if you go down the list of sort of top cryptocurrencies by market cap, you’re going to say that under the standard here, you’re just going to be like well, that one’s a security, that one’s a security, that one’s a security. The standard being advanced here is really aggressive.

Alex Moazed (18:15):
Now let’s dig into that. What is that standard? And so I just did two Googles, right? One Google says, what is the definition of a security? What I’ve got up here is, a security is a financial instrument. Typically, any financial asset that can be traded. Okay, interesting. Tell me more Google. In the United States, the term broadly covers all traded financial assets, and breaks such assets down to three primary categories, equity securities, debt securities, and derivatives. Which includes options and futures, so if you own a credit of LBC, if you own an LBC coin, is that coin linked in any way to ownership into LBRY, Inc, your actual business entity?

Jeremy Kauffman (19:04):
In absolutely no way. What that token lets you do is it lets you interact on a decentralized network that’s not owned or controlled by my company.

Alex Moazed (19:14):
Then I Googled what is the definition of a currency? And currency is a medium of exchange for goods and services. In short, its money, in the form of paper, or coins, or digital. Virtual currencies, such as Bitcoins. It’s actually in the thing, investopedia.com, have no physical existence or government backing and are traded and stored in electronic form, so isn’t this just a currency that you happen to own some of that currency and the currency will naturally appreciate just like if the U.S. economy does well, then the U.S. currency also should appreciate in value, right? Like if LBRY and Odysee and like more of the Bitcoins are being used in the function of your business, then naturally shouldn’t that kind of appreciate the value of the coin. And isn’t that a currency?

Jeremy Kauffman (20:15):
What you’re saying is possibly true. I think there’s an additional element in this case, which is that Bitcoin was designed to be money. LBRY is a token that is designed to let you perform actions on this network. And by the nature of being a freely traded good, has a price. I think, and I want to be careful not to make… Nothing that I’m saying is like my company’s specific legal position or even my specific position, I’m just kind of entertaining ideas here. I think you one, could possibly argue that it’s also a commodity because it’s something that’s useful to do something, that’s freely traded and has a price. I think what we’re dealing with from a sort of philosophical perspective is the fact that when something new is invented. Frequently, our existing laws and even our existing terms, don’t map clearly onto the new reality.

Jeremy Kauffman (21:17):
And so we have this new thing that maybe does have a little bit of the properties of this previous existing thing, and then another bit, and then some properties of this other thing, and some properties of this other thing, and some new properties that never existed before. And then we’re taking a 100 year old law that was in no way written to cover this kind of scenario and attempting to basically create legislation through enforcement actions rather than Congress or the government getting their act together, and actually creating a clear law.

Alex Moazed (21:52):
Yeah. I mean, government likes power. That’s clear. If we’ve learned anything these past 14, 15 months, government likes power, it doesn’t want to relinquish that power. I think the average American breaks seven laws a day. There’s a reason why lady of justice is blindfolded. It’s unfortunately that blindfold has come off and if they’re going to go after you guys, they should be going after every single altcoin that was spawned by a private business, right? By some kind of business entity. If they’re going to draw that line, they should be filing thousands of suits, right? Like how are they only at number five?

Jeremy Kauffman (22:33):
I mean like, yes, but also I want them to file zero. I don’t want to be like, please sue more people because I don’t want other people to get hurt. I want the SEC to stop doing this. I want people to be speaking up about how outrageous this is. But yes, under the standard being advanced here, I believe that anyone working on cryptocurrency in the U.S. is potentially at risk under these laws. Any cryptocurrency that’s being used in the U.S. and it doesn’t have to be by the way that it was made by a U.S. company, like the United States government believes that these laws apply to anything being used here, so this is really about the future of the United States citizens being able to freely trade, and freely work, and develop this technology which I think is very important for the future of the world.

Jeremy Kauffman (23:22):
And I think that the United States needs to be thinking about are we going to be an innovator? Are we going to be a world leader? Are we going to attempt to shut down something that can’t actually be shut down, and damage our own economy, and hurt innocent people in an attempt to do that? Because of this action, we had an exchange Bittrex de-list in the U.S. they’re still allowing trading globally. And we had three new Chinese exchanges approach us and want to add LBRY credits to their exchanges. And it’s like, this technology is not going away, it’s not going away. And so if you’re the U.S. and you have the U.S.’s interest at heart. Why cause this damage to a really important industry when there’s no one complaining, right? There’s no person who went into the SEC and complained and said, LBRY wronged me, LBRY defrauded me. There’s no allegation of any of that. There’s literally zero victim. This is just the government attempting to shut down a vital industry that’s creating a lot of jobs.

Alex Moazed (24:29):
Yeah. They want power, and it doesn’t matter what’s right or wrong anymore, we’re living in 1984, Jeremy.

Jeremy Kauffman (24:37):
Yeah, feels that way.

Alex Moazed (24:39):
One of our clients, he says, you know what motivates me, Alex? You would think, hope, optimism. He goes, fear. Fear motivates me. The guy runs a multi-billion dollar company, right? Fear motivates me, Alex. And unfortunately, I think people need to recognize what you said is true. You don’t wish it upon anyone else, but if the precedent is established, as they are attempting to do. I didn’t realize they were investigating guys for three years. And we can get to that in a second, but this precedent, there should be a thousand cases filed tomorrow, right? Like everyone in the crypto industry needs to understand they will come for everyone. It’s just a matter of time, right? And just a matter of, probably who gets whispered in their ear, who to go after next, right?

Alex Moazed (25:33):
Who is the next most threatening one to the powers that be. But anyway, that’s an unproven conspiracy theory clearly. But anyway, that linkage is extremely important. And I think it’s spot on, that if you treat these things, coins as securities, even though there’s no backing. There’s no tie to your business, which is what a security is. I’m reading the definition, I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t know, riddle me that. Then now, because you’re saying very common sense stuff. If LBRY does well, the coin should appreciate. Yeah, it should.

Jeremy Kauffman (26:12):
Well, I don’t even want to say that, we’ve tried to… I think it’s tough to dispute the logic of that, but we try to not even say things like that. We’ve tried to be very conservative and say like, look, the price is the price. You buy it because you want to use it because it’s useful to you today. And that’s the only reason that you should buy it. And so we’ve been so conservative in that regard.

Alex Moazed (26:34):
No, I know you have.

Jeremy Kauffman (26:35):
Yeah.

Alex Moazed (26:35):
But I’m reading this case. And I was like, where did they get this information? I mean, because this was going back for years. I was like, did like some disgruntled employee leave and go complain to the SEC? But then it makes sense if you’re saying that you have been in back and forth with them for three years because, I was reading this. I was like, wait, how did they get all this information?

Jeremy Kauffman (27:02):
We originally got subpoenaed in May of 2018, and we’ve been compliant the entire time. We haven’t tried to hide anything. The information in the case, you know they didn’t have to do digging. And so I will say, this is the sort of less conspiratorial. Although, this job is definitely turning me into a conspiracy theorist because it’s very difficult to put all these pieces together, like it doesn’t make sense. But sort of the least conspiratorial explanation I’ve been able to come up with is that they are extremely lazy. And so you have the SEC head who maybe does have this desire to damage cryptocurrencies.

Jeremy Kauffman (27:38):
And he says, go out and produce enforcements. And then you have this sort of SEC rank and file. And you know, why do hard work to catch a bad guy, or shadier guy who’s setting up the multiple companies and who doesn’t have a public spreadsheet that you can download of everything that’s being done. When you can go after LBRY and it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Because, if your standard is everything’s a cryptocurrency and your job is to bust people and you can bust any cryptocurrency, maybe you go after the one that’s the most honest and the most transparent.

Alex Moazed (28:10):
As a fellow founder to another, I feel for you. I can only imagine what it’s been like fighting something like this for three years. You guys raised VC money in 2017, and so then would you say in 2018, you get this subpoena. Well, okay. Have fun raising money with an active subpoena from the SEC.

Jeremy Kauffman (28:35):
Yeah. Yeah. That’s a great point to make. And it’s one that doesn’t come up in a lot of these shows, but it’s like yes, tell me about it. Like I have, literally I have a more than $10 million investment that I’ll get the day that this case is over, so the SEC is saying, well, you’re selling the token for money. It’s like, yeah, I can’t raise money because you have an open case against me that you won’t close, that no investor is going to put money into the company because it will wipe out every dollar the company has. And so it’s like, then they continue to put you in these catch-22 situations. Similarly, another catch-22 they put us in, is they said, this other agency like, Oh, we’ll drop the investigation. If this other part of the SEC gives you approval. You go to that agency and you say, well, can you give us approval? They say, we can’t consider you for approval until the investigation is dropped. It’s like, come on guys. The way that they’ve acted is insane.

Alex Moazed (29:34):
Right, and meanwhile you’re trying to build a business.

Jeremy Kauffman (29:37):
Yeah.

Alex Moazed (29:37):
And like that’s easy to do.

Jeremy Kauffman (29:41):
I’m glad I get to talk about it, honestly. Because, we have tried to be so transparent as a company and my council strongly argued against going public. I wanted to go public like multiple times over the last couple of years, but they said that it would guarantee that the case was brought in. That they might drop it if we kind of stay quiet. That didn’t end up happening.

Alex Moazed (30:07):
Right, but then they string you along for three years.

Jeremy Kauffman (30:09):
Yeah.

Alex Moazed (30:10):
Right?

Jeremy Kauffman (30:10):
Yes.

Alex Moazed (30:11):
It goes on for three years, you can’t raise money for three years. You’ve easily spent over a million dollars on legal fees at this point?

Jeremy Kauffman (30:18):
Yup.

Alex Moazed (30:18):
Just battling this, right?

Jeremy Kauffman (30:20):
Yup, more than a million bucks.

Alex Moazed (30:21):
And now they’re putting it into high gear after it just like simmering for three years, them starving you out. I mean, it just looks like a hit job. You don’t need to confirm or deny that. But if you want to try and kill a startup business, this is the recipe to do it. Hit him with a subpoena, drag it on for three years, starve them of any money, the moment they do anything with their coin add it onto the case, then go kick it into high gear three years later. And what about the money? Are you looking at doing like a crowdfunding? Could people donate like beyond the petition? Again, how can we rally the crypto community around this? Because, it is bigger than just LBRY.

Jeremy Kauffman (31:16):
We are looking at doing a letter for actual cryptocurrency and just like people in the industry to sign separate from the petition. I think though the biggest thing to do is like, just to use it. The SEC can wipe out all of my company’s money, they can wipe out all my companies cryptocurrency, they can’t wipe out the content, they can’t wipe out the technology, and they can’t wipe out our interest in working on it. Even in the worst case scenario, the SEC basically destroys the corporate vehicle, destroys all of our assets, destroys all of our cryptocurrency reserves, destroys all of our money. We pick up the next day with a new entity, right? LBRY’s not under risk. Everything’s going to continue. Nothing is going anywhere. What we should do is recognize the fact that part of the reason… Well, I can’t confirm this, but I certainly do think it’s suspicious that they’re going after us. And I think it shows that this is one of the technologies that the people who do have this desire to control every aspect of our lives are the most scared of.

Jeremy Kauffman (32:18):
And so beyond signing the petition, the number one way to fight back is to use it, and to evangelize, and to spread it because the more people that have LBRY tokens, the more people that have channels and identities, the more people that are using it, the more resilient the network is, and the more resilient the technology is. And honestly, the more likely that the politicians and the regulators change their minds. I don’t have very much respect for a lot of them, but one of the reasons I don’t respect them is actually beneficial, which is that they are kind of spineless and they’re not principled and they will follow, if the masses of people want something, if there’s political pressure to do something, then they’ll do it. And so the more people that kind of show that this is a technology that they care about. The more people show that this is a technology that’s useful to them. Then I think that, that does actually strengthen our chance of winning, even if that’s not a legal argument.

Alex Moazed (33:18):
I got to give you credit. Every founder, co-founder or what. You have those years where you slog through things just with no end in sight, I had it. It is just really inspiring to see your positivity, that mentality is so key. Like that outlook that you just gave. I mean, you hit it on the money, right? Like even in worst case scenario, they still can’t tear this thing down. This thing will still live on. And even if you go down and you go down in glory and flames and everything that comes with that, LBRY will only become more popular.

Jeremy Kauffman (34:08):
Yeah.

Alex Moazed (34:09):
And more widely used. Okay, if that’s worst case scenario and then the next day you can pick up and then either build on top of it or do whatever. Yeah. But that mentality, like to see that. I mean, I give you a lot of respect, seriously. It’s really hard to kind of have that insight. And I think it’s correctly found, and correctly placed, and correctly messaged. Everything you just said I completely agree with. And look man, I really mean it. It’s amazing what you’ve built. It’s amazing the tenacity that you’re bringing to fight this thing. All I can say is we’re here, we’re with you. There’s way more people than just me that are with you. And way more than just the 19,000 that have signed the petition, and we’re going to get that number way up. And yeah man, let’s fight this thing because it needs to be done.

Alex Moazed (35:08):
And it is unfounded, right? What they’re trying to do, it is not correctly founded. Particularly because you didn’t even do an ICO. You didn’t even do these kinds of things that other companies have done that are in regulated industries, so they’re really stretching this. And then it opens up the doors to go after everything. That’s my little tangent, any closing thoughts Jeremy?

Jeremy Kauffman (35:30):
Thank you very much. That means a lot. It’s great to see that you recognize that. I love the energy that you’re bringing. And dude, I mean, I’ll say it, this is how we win. This is going to be one of the biggest mistakes that they’ve made, because they’re going to end up just bringing more attention to what we’ve built. And I would rather be where we are today as a company than where I was three years ago, or two years ago, or even before the SEC case was brought. I’d rather have 20 million users and an SEC case, than no SEC case and no traction.

Jeremy Kauffman (36:16):
I feel like the trajectory we’re on is really, really, really positive. And as long as people keep using, keep spreading the word. I think we’re going to bring this thing to a billion people. And I think it’s going to allow us all to take control back over our lives from big tech and maybe from wall street. Although, I think that’s more other crypto companies than mine. And yeah, it was great to be on. People need to make sure that they’re following you on Odysee, And that’ll be my closing statement.

Alex Moazed (36:48):
Well, now we just know that you’re a genius. But you know, love the platform, love the protocol, love what you guys are doing. I’m going to do my best to kind of stay on top of how this plays out. Just love that energy man, and keep it up. And I’m going to follow up with you and there’s other stuff that I’m curious about, just how we can help and just other things, so great having you on. Thank you for taking the time and I’m sure you’re going to beat this. I really do believe that.

Jeremy Kauffman (37:27):
Thanks, Alex. Great show.

Alex Moazed (37:28):
That’s it for us today on Winner Take All. It was so great having Jeremy on the show, I’ll talk to you later.

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