The History, Reality and Future of Off-Shore Finance w/ Alex Golubitsky

**Speaker A:** Foreign. **Speaker B:** Hello, and welcome back to the Strange Water podcast. Thank you for tuning in. Today's episode is a little bit different. It's already a little on the lengthy side, so I'll keep this intro short. Alex Golobinski is a veteran attorney who these days has shifted most of his time and energy to crypto. Before he found himself sucked into the Ethereum black hole, he earned his stripes as an attorney focused in offshore finance. Before Vitalik had captured our hearts, Alex was living in the U.S. virgin Islands, building expertise in the more mysterious side of global finance. During this conversation, you'll learn what offshore finance is. You'll learn the history of how we got here, and we'll leave you some starting points on where to learn more. One more thing before we begin. Please do not take financial advice from this or any other podcast. Ethereum will change the world one day, but you can easily lose all of your money between now and then. Long ago, I told Alex that my experiences at a multinational conglomerate gave me absolute certainty Defi will replace traditional finance. His response? Maybe. I'm not sure. But I don't think that defi is coming for traditional finance, as I think that defi is a real threat to offshore finance. Time to find out why. Alex, thank you so much for joining us on the Strange Water podcast. **Speaker A:** Yeah, thanks for having me, Rex. It's really exciting to be here. I love the podcast and I'm just stoked to be here as a guest. **Speaker B:** Thank you. And I'm really excited to have the conversation. So before we get into anything at all, I really believe that the important part of every conversation is the people in it. And so I would love to just begin this call with who are you? And more specifically, how did you find yourself in this incredibly niche corner of not only a highly specialized profession, but just a very specialized part of a very specialized profession. **Speaker A:** Sure. Yeah. So. So I'm an attorney. I've been practicing law for 16 years, 17 years since. Since 2006. And I, I basically, I found my way into offshore finance first and then into DeFi, kind of ancillary for my experiences in offshore finance. But the, but the two expertise is somewhat merged. So I started working in offshore finance in 2013 when I started working with a law firm in the US Virgin Islands that specializes in US Territorial tax incentives. So that's in the US Virgin Islands and in Puerto Rico. And through that I got a lot of exposure to other varieties of offshore finance, other jurisdictions in the Caribbean, kind of how the. Those, you know, you have the territorial jurisdictions which are kind of like quasi foreign. And then you have truly foreign jurisdictions from the US and then you get into, from the perspective of the rest of the world, the US is offshore. And so how kind of the US plays into offshore finance from the perspective of like Europe and Russia and China and the Middle East. And then, you know, through, through that experience I started working with a couple different investment banks in Europe that do what's called citizenship planning. So I started to learn about how different countries have what's called citizenship by investment programs. So you can basically, I think the crass way to put it is you can buy a passport. It's crass, but it's not too far off the mark. And so, you know, I kind of view my experience in offshore finance as sort of twofold. One is, you know, how to leverage offshore or foreign juridical entities, I.e. non human being entities to get sort of financial and tax benefits and then how to leverage passports in order to get benefits for natural persons. And you know, I will take a very, a very non sentimental view of citizenship, but I don't want anybody to feel like that's my professional view. That's not how I feel about any particular country emotionally that is. And then you know, sort of through that, through my experience of just representing different types of companies in different tax incentive programs, I got exposed to a lot of what I'll say are like early adopters of crypto and kind of got exposed mostly to Ethereum, less, less, less sort of Bitcoin. But you know, I really like saw the power of Ethereum kind of from the outset didn't believe in it enough that I'm retired right now. But you know, I was there on the sidelines. And then I started working actually for a hedge fund and a family office for, for about three years which is based in, in the Virgin Islands, a company called Skyler Capital, which is a natural gas derivatives hedge fund. And you know, it was, it was also another interesting insight into, into offshore finance and how offshore entities kind of provide a certain level of lubrication for the entire global financial system. So you know, in order to transact in something as like important as like natural gas derivatives, which is like a, you know, a sort of necessary insurance market to make sure that that natural gas is actually delivered around the world to people who need it, you sort of have to use these series of offshore entities. And so you end up with a global financial system that's kind of dependent on the existence of what we think of as offshore entities. But at the Same time antagonistic towards those entities to it to a certain level. And so, you know, once I rolled out of that position, I was kind of looking for stuff to do. I'd moved back to the States, moved out of St. Thomas and decided I would jump in. **Speaker B:** We'll get to that mistake that you made, whether that's leaving the Virgin Islands or Defi. But I like, before we like kind of move on to the meat and potatoes of this conversation, like, I really want to drill into like what, what happened in 2013 that got you interested in this whole world. Right? Like, because especially for us non lawyers and like the people that are still like romantic about everything from like citizenship to money to like a lot of things like just the words offshore offshore finance, like start with like kind of a seedy connotation. And I think that both you and I like understand that it has a role and that's the wrong way to look at it. But what brings like a young lawyer who's like looking for his like role in the world to I guess the Caribbean? **Speaker A:** Yeah. So it's, it was, it was kind of asked backwards to be. To be totally honest, like I. So in my heart of hearts, I'm a trial attorney, although I don't do much trial work anymore. And always in the early part of my career, I did a lot of work in US Tax court, which is sort of an odd court. And there is this tax incentive program in the Virgin Islands. Not very many people know about it. Probably more people know about the program in Puerto Rico, especially people who are in crypto or adjacent to crypto, as Puerto Rico has done a very good job of courting that industry and the US Versions has it. But in the early part of this century, so circa like 2000 to 2004, the IRS did a really aggressive investigation of the Virgin Islands tax program to where they brought some criminal charges against some people, some accountants, and no attorneys got. They tried to do criminal charges against some attorneys. Didn't get shut up. But a lot of investors, and then followed by this massive civil audit program that a lot of those cases worked their way up into tax court. And I actually got interested in this program not because it had anything to do with offshore finance, but because I really love the idea of, of these complicated tax court trials. Right. Because normally tax courts very like accounting kind of oriented. So you sort of stipulate with the IRS like this, these numbers mean this and you know, it's, it's very like there's not a lot of like cross examination and all the fawn courtroom stuff and I saw these cases is like, oh, wow. These people are like in tax court trying to prove that they lived in a place which is this like, highly fact intensive set, you know, you know, set of proofs to do in a trial. And I never really had seen anything like it in, in, in Tax Corp Before. So I started, I was living in LA at the time. I started working with a firm in the Virgin Islands just remotely. And then that started to be like, I was doing more and more of it. And they were finally like, well, hey, why don't you move to St. Thomas? And I was like, okay, very different place in Los Angeles, but no regrets. And then, so then once I got into the firm, started doing more of the trial work. You know, one of the things about doing what they call controversy work in tax is that you really see how things go wrong. And so I think that gave me a pretty good perspective into how do you set things up correctly. And I started working more and more on the planning side to make sure that people taking advantage of these incentives don't have these problems that, you know, force their principals to spend, you know, millions of dollars defending themselves from the irs. Although sometimes unavoidable. **Speaker B:** So is it fair to say that you kind of like stumbled into this world just based on like this, this coincidence of the US case, but you found yourself staying because, like, it hit all the right buttons in terms of like, complexity and like intricacy and like craziness, but, you know, still is like, squarely on the line of like, solving legal problems as opposed to, like, solving human problems, like, under the cloak of the legal system. **Speaker A:** Yeah, so definitely that, but also the, you know, when I was an undergrad, I studied political science, I think, as a lot of people who go to law school do. But I was always very interested in issues of like, power and sovereignty and sort of like what that means in the global political system. And you know, one of the things I found fascinating about working in a U.S. territory and dealing with territorial law is I was actually, I felt like I was right up on the front lines of like, actual, like, theoretical political science issues as they're implemented in the law. So, like, you have like, what makes it, I think, what makes a territory different from a state. Right. You can answer that question strictly legally, but there's also like a highly theoretical answer to that question that has to do with sovereignty in the federal system and how power sort of emanates and ultimately, I think ties into the colonial system that the US was Created out of. Right. And then sort of took up the mantle of. In the. In the 20th century. And. And then I started to see. As I started to work more. One of the very interesting things about living in the Caribbean is that you have a lot of different cultures that are actually quite proximate to each cultures and political systems that are very proximate to each other geographically. So the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico separated by about 40 miles, as the crow flies, completely different cultures, somewhat similar political systems. But then you go to the British Virgin Islands, which is maybe 10 miles from the US Virgin Islands. Very similar cultures, but very different political systems. And then look, if you look at, like, the French departments that are in the Caribbean compared to, like, Saint Barts, compared to the. How the. The former Dutch colonies are treated, like St. Martin, which is only about 100 miles from. From the U.S. virgin Islands, you have this real sort of mashup of all of these different political systems. And it really, you know, I think it's romanticized, overly romanticized a lot of times, but there's a long period of sort of world history where the Caribbean was really the crossroads of global civilization. And it's not really the case anymore, but the vestiges of that, I think. I think, are really interesting. And so, you know, when I started to, like, compare, okay, I had a good opportunity, I guess, to compare. Like, this is how laws and colonialism are manifest in the US Virgin Islands compared to how they're manifested in the British Virgin islands compared to St Martin or whatever. And it, to me, it was endlessly fascinating to just sort of pick apart these different systems and how they fit together. **Speaker B:** Yeah, well, I must be paying you to segue us perfectly into our discussion, because that was beautiful. And I think, like, what we're here to really, like, pick apart and understand is, like, the meat behind what you just said. And, like, I think for me, like, the biggest shame of youth and, like, is that we're forced to teach history in these moments where, like, they actually are irrelevant to kids. And, like, you do experience it as just, like, facts you have to memorize so you can move on. And I think, like, one of the. At least for me, like, one of the best parts about, like, becoming adult and, like, gaining interest is like, realizing that, like, everything exists, especially in 2023, like, everything exists because somebody did something to make it that way. And, like, the more you learn, the more you realize, like, everything is complex and nuanced. And, like, especially in something like the Caribbean where, you know, like, for example, like, something that almost no one knows is like, what is the most profitable colony that ever existed. It's Haiti, what is currently known as Haiti. And like, a reflection of why Haiti is so screwed up is because of that history. And so I think when we say offshore finance, what we think of today is like the Panama Papers and Jeffrey Epstein and like Saudi people, like Saudi oligarchs and Russian oligarchs and yachts and all this stuff. But, like, the right way to understand what this is is like just the current result of like, hundreds and hundreds of years of history. And so I think, like, why I. Why we're here is to like, really understand, like, what is offshore finance? And so, like, I know it's a huge topic with a lot to say about it, but I guess, like, my ask to you would be like, where do we start? **Speaker A:** Yeah, sure. So I think that, like, I think that actually trying to define what we're talking about when we're talking about offshore finance is a great starting point. And it's difficult, right? Oftentimes, Oftentimes the hardest questions I find are like, defining kind of basic concepts. But so I think that, you know, when people refer to offshore finance in the U.S. right, actually, I think this is true in Europe as well. In other parts of the world, you know, what they're talking about is the use of juridical entities. And when I say juridical entities, I mean a person, right? There's two types of persons, natural persons and juridical persons. Natural persons like you and me, somebody with flesh and bones. A juridical person is a legal fiction. It's a company, right? Something that a person that exists only in the law, but does not have a corporal body. And so when we talk about offshore finance, I think what we're talking about is the use of juridical entities to escape the reach either from a taxation or regulatory standpoint of a government, right? So if you talk about offshore finance, you're the implication is an existence of onshore, right? And so what is offshore is a question of perspective, right. Where you stand. And so especially it's very interesting from the perspective of the US Right, because we have a. As Americans, we sort of think, okay, offshore finance. That means, you know, especially in crypto, like Cayman island foundations, Bamanian foundations, BVI corporations. You know, I think in the hedge fund world, it's more Cayman island limited partnerships that, you know, some European entities, but that's very American, right? Because from the perspective of a European, the US Is offshore Viking, right? So, like, if you can you. The way that we think of, you know, a BVI corporation as, you know, being beneficial, and I'll take a sort of step back from that. The reason a BVI corporation or any of these entities would be beneficial is because they are not by default taxed in the US In a foreign corporation is only taxed in certain circumstances in the United States. And they do not by default give the entities, give the identities of their beneficial owners to the US Government. So there's sort of a twofold benefit to using something like a BVI corporation. But those same benefits exist, let's say, for a British person using a Delaware llc. Right. And so you have the idea of what is offshore finance is fully dependent on what is onshore finance, which is dependent on where you are and where you're from. **Speaker B:** So to really, like, drill in on that point that you're making, I think what you're saying is that it is not fair to think that there is this separate, distinct financial system that is called offshore finance. That the same way that an American would be like, I want to do something that, like, my government doesn't like, for whatever reason, like, I would access this system, like, there's like a British person or a Chinese person would not have the same thought and go into the same system. I think what you're saying is that, like, offshore is always a perspective shift and is always about, like, how, like, we live in a globalized world and how can we basically use like, the, you know, permeable, like, globalized world to achieve a goal with that my specific domain wouldn't otherwise allow. Is that kind of what? **Speaker A:** Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think that the idea of permeability is critical to analysis. You can almost think about it as like a system of arbitrage, right? And not necessarily financial arbitrage, but regulatory and tax arbitrage. Right. And so any arbitrage opportunity, you have to like, gauge it from, from, from your starting point. Right. And so there are benefits in certain jurisdictions to people from other specific jurisdictions that may not be there for somebody who has a different starting point. Right. And so that has always been a facet of the global financial system. I think it is really important to not. And there is a very strong tendency to somewhat demonize offshore finance and be like, well, that's the sort of gray area, quasi legal way of going about global finance. But it's actually, it's always been like part and parcel, right? It's always been part of our global financial markets. Just like, it's almost like if you look at people want to draw a line, right, between legal markets and illegal markets. Because we have those two terms. We have sort of intrinsic understanding of what legality and illegality is. But in fact, just like there's a sort of gradation between offshore and onshore finance, there's a gradation between legal and illegal markets as well, which sort of maps on not one to one, but. But, you know, that maps on to this idea of like, what is onshore, I. E. Legitimate and what is offshore, I illegitimate. And then you find out, well, there's like shades of gray, of legitimacy kind of all the way down. **Speaker B:** Yeah. I mean, I think your point exactly is like, if, like, we have to acknowledge that whatever was going on with Jeffrey Epstein is the same offshore finance, that like, what happens when all of Apple's profits are repatriated to Ireland? I don't know if that's the right word, but like, it's the same idea and like that the very different levels of like, morality, let's say, legality aside. **Speaker A:** Yeah, well, and it's interesting too, because, like, so one of the reasons, and bringing up Apple is, I think, really, really interesting. Cogent and Amazon, all the big tech companies, you know, you know, their involvement with offshore finance. Ireland's a big locus of it. There's sort of other jurisdictions that play into these large multinationals and what their offshore plays are. But a lot of it ties into intellectual property, right? And this is like, especially in tech, intellectual property really drives profitability of companies. And the whole point of intellectual property is it doesn't exist anywhere, right? It's not tangible. So the idea that intellectual property exists in Ireland, in Seychelles, in wherever, is just as legitimate as saying that it exists in the United States because it doesn't exist. It doesn't have a corporeality. So we can kind of just decide where we want its locust to be. And again, it comes down to this kind of arbitrage, right, where you have Ireland saying, we see a role for ourselves as we can bring tax revenue into Ireland, in effect, by charging less, right? So like, it's almost like rent, right? Rent for intellectual property. Like, if we charge less than Ireland, we will get more. And then on the other, the pressure on the other side is you have, well, Ireland still has to exist in the world, right? So if they say they're gonna charge a 0% tax on royalties that get paid to tech companies that are headquartered in Ireland, they're gonna have a bunch of pushback, right, from the UK on down, right? And Being like, hey, you can't do that. And so there's pressure on both sides in that sense. And you know, I mean, I think that. And so that's like, that's one part of it, right? But like, there's, there's one thing that's not present when you talk about like Apple and Amazon, right? Is there's not a real desire, maybe on the markets a little bit, but there's not a real desire to like shield ownership of Apple or Amazon. They're publicly traded companies. I could be owner, you could be an owner, sort of move in and out of that. Right? There is a, a driving purpose of offshore finance, which is simply to conceal actual beneficial ownership. And I think that that's a obviously in crypto and defi, like in our industry, let's be candid, right? That is a like drive, that is a factor that is driving people into offshore finance. Because there's regulatory uncertainty in the US People don't want to get in trouble. So it's like, okay, if we, if we do these same activities that the sort of legality of the activities is uncertain in a way that the actual people who are profiting from these activities occluded through the use of an entity that, that's like very useful for people and sought after. But that's another form of arbitrage, right? So it's like if the BVI says, yeah, for, you know, $4,000 a year or whatever the price is, you can have a corporation organized in the British Virgin Islands and nobody's going to be able to find out. Nobody. That's always a little bit of loosey goose term is going to be able to find out who the ultimate beneficial owner is. That's great. And like in, like that's very impactful in the BVI in a way that, like, it's not in California. Right. California doesn't really care if you're willing to pay California $3,000 a year to have a corporation in California, because they don't really make their money from that. And you know, meaningful source of revenue. But compared to Delaware or Wyoming, right, where there is, that does become a meaningful source of revenue, you know, in. **Speaker B:** The U.S. man, there's so much to be said about this topic. It's crazy where I'm now scheduling you for multiple podcasts. But I think on the heels of us just muddying the waters on what even offshore finance is like, let's, let's tighten the scope a little bit because look like it's easy to say this concept of offshore finance is basically putting money in places that are outside of your sovereign country, right? And that concept goes all the way back to. I don't know, I mean, I can come up with like Roman examples, I can come up with like ancient Egyptian examples, Sumerian examples. Like, everyone has wanted to do that since taxes were invented, right? But like, there is something special here. And like, we can talk about why, like basically the genesis of like the European takeover of the world and like the European system that we all live under. Right? But like there is a system that like was forged, as you were saying, through the Caribbean and like specifically. And please push back on any of these pieces, right, but specifically through like the organic growth of what the British Empire began as, as this like territorial hungry monster. And then over time was like sophisticated into like a. Basically like an island hopping or like a. Islands around the world of like everything from military bases to like special jurisdictions. And like that. That is like the underpinning of the offshore or really the global financial system. And then it's something that we as Americans inherited in exchange for like allowing Britain to survive World War II. And so like, all to say is like, offshore finance is this like an infinitely expansive thing. But like there is a system, right? Like there is something that exists that is concrete that like we should talk about. **Speaker A:** Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that. And just to touch a little bit more on the history of it before kind of bringing us to like how the system works today, it's really the whole colonial system. One of the underpinnings of it is this concept of limited liability, right? Because these colonial undertakings, we think of the successful ones, right? We think of the ones that were like continue to sort of manifest to this day, but there was a lot of unsuccessful ones. And the whole idea behind it was, well, if we want to encourage people to take risks in the form of like these offshore conquests, then we need to limit their downside risk, right, to the. To the amount of capital they put at risk in the. **Speaker B:** And so just because like that concept is so ingrained to modern people, like, can you talk about what life was before that? **Speaker A:** Well, and there's. There's actually like a key shift in the 19th century as well, because like when you had so. So when you had something like, let's say like the British East India Company, right, Which. The famous one, right, or one of the famous ones, you know, you had the British crown, right? Said, hey, we want to give an incentive to people who are like, not directly related to the crown to Go out and you know, colonize India. I don't think it was that straightforward. **Speaker B:** But that one that is actually that straightforward is like literally Christopher Columbus was like one guy who like on the day the Catholic Monarchs beat the, the Muslims and expelled them from Spain, walked up and was like, I'm an Italian, I'm a sailor, but like I'm going to do this for you. And like it's literally that clear. **Speaker A:** Yeah, yeah. And so it's a part of this sort of crown sanctioning of that is the creation of these charter companies, right? Where it's like now this is, and this is where this is a very like key development, I think in, in the, in the global capitalist system that manifests to this day, right, where you create this idea of corporate personhood. So but in the 17th century it's very tied into the monarchy, right? Like I cannot say I'm doing British East India Company 2 in the, in the 17th century. Because like that's up to the Crown whether whether or not that charter exists and all of that whole scope of limited liability derives from the sovereignty of the state. The shift that happens in the 19th century is that this idea of charter companies, which can be sort of formed on a person's own initiative, again with the permission of the state, really takes off and becomes a key factor in the development of US Industrialism, kind of for the same reason of limiting risk that the initial more narrow concept was, was developed in colonial expansion. **Speaker B:** So sorry again, I just think I missed like the like. But because again, this is just like default to the way that modern people understand like ventures, like in a world where you don't have limited liability, like let's say Christopher Columbus goes out and like, like we don't know what's about to happen. But if I don't have limited liability and I may be contributed to that, that expedition, like what am I putting at risk if I don't have limited liability? **Speaker A:** Well, everything. Right, because, because especially like. Well, especially in Europe, right, where there's this concept like everything in the sense of your liberty, right, because we, in the US One of the big differences between the US and, and the monarchy and England was that the US did away with debtors prison. Right? And so the idea that I can take some risk, I can take risks where I'm taking on more debt or potential debt than the assets that I have was critical to creating a shield around that, was critical to getting anybody to do it. Because before you had that shield, right, before you had the Crown saying yes, we will make this a company that is sort of ring fenced internally. If you were just doing it on your own, if you're just like, I'm going to hire, you know, a bunch of sailors and I'm going to buy a boat, or I'm going to take a loan for a boat and I'm going to send it around the world and it all fails and the boat sinks and I owe a bunch of money to people, then like without that limited liability, I'm going to debtors prison. You know, I'm actually like losing my liberty as a result of that. And so obviously we did away with the sort of liberty, somewhat of, with the liberty aspect, the U.S. but yeah, yeah, but the idea of limited liability, I think as we think of it today, really started in the 19th century where I can create a corporation and I can contribute $10,000 to that corporation so that it goes and does stuff and Maybe I have $100,000 that I didn't contribute to the corporation. The whole point is that if whatever I'm using this corporation for goes out and falls flat on its face and I end up owing a million dollars to a bunch of different people because it was a dumb idea and I managed it poorly. Da da da da da. All I have at risk is the $10,000 that I put into it. It creates a shield for the rest of my assets. And I think that it's really difficult to overstate how critical that is to the development of American industrialism. Because you have, there is. Without it, once you accrue a fortune, you have very little incentive to take any risk if you can't limit your liability. Right? Because it's like, well, I don't want to lose everything to gain a little bit. So you kind of have to have this. And that's really where the modern idea of the corporation comes from. So in a certain sense, as we think of offshore finance today, and this is really funny, right? The first offshore jurisdiction was New Jersey. **Speaker B:** Wait, our New Jersey or the. **Speaker A:** Oh yeah, across the Hudson River. Right. Because like there was throughout the 19th century this, it was an arbitrage opportunity, right? You had New York City developing and a robust administrative apparatus that went around doing business in New York City and then across the Hudson river in New Jersey. They said, we see an opportunity here to create, allow people to create corporations in New Jersey that can then really do business in New York and sort of sidestep the regulatory apparatus of the New York State, of New York State. And so that starts to develop in the mid 19th century with new Jersey kind of being this like, they didn't call it offshore. It's just, just a river, right. But it's over there. And, and that's really the first like, jury as we think of like the BVI or Cayman today. Like, it's really like kind of like New Jersey in the 19th century is like where that sort of started. And then, you know, in the 20th century, it. Delaware kind of inherited that mantle from New Jersey, which is why you. Everybody sort of thinks that the Delaware llc, Delaware corporation today as. As like sort of the go to place. And then, you know, Wyoming and Nevada and Montana kind of creep up for like, I think reasons similar to why you have offshore jurisdictions in places like the bvi. And so. But one of the things, one of the distinctions, right, between New Jersey and the bvi, besides the quality of beaches, is that that New Jersey is obviously a state, right? So there's an arbitrage opportunity between different states in the US that's ring fenced by the US Government. And every state has their own administrative apparatus that is they're nominally sovereign, right? So they get to. Well, you know, with like the bvi, for example, in lots of other jurisdictions is what's known as the British Overseas Territory. And so that means that like the BVI is a part of the crown, like the head of state in the BVI is King Charles iii. And then there is a sort of government apparatus that's like, administered in like various different fashions locally versus from the UK in the bvi. But one thing that happens as the BVI gains sort of this nominal independence, the same thing is true in Cayman, actually. Much older, much older process in Cayman is they get to have their own administrative apparatus that they've kind of inherited from the crown, including the ability to designate juridical entities. And so you see this with the US Territories as well, right? Mostly with tax systems, right? So the US has sort of decreed that Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands can have their own tax system, Right? It wasn't. It's not a feature of the sovereignty of the U.S. virgin Islands or Puerto Rico that they can set their own tax rates, right? That's a decision that's made by the US Government that emanates from the sovereignty of the US to its territories, which really colonies, and they're allowed to administer their own tax systems. The same thing is true in the sort of remnants of the British Empire, right, which is where a lot of offshore finance lives today, that it's just kind of inherited the mantle of of the. What is in essence the British government to create entities, have tax systems, et cetera. **Speaker B:** Yeah. So let, let's fast forward or let's finish up, but fast forward through the rest of the history. Like, so you, you brought us to understanding what was going on before we had limited liability. Like, we now understand that the first like, creation of this offshore concept happen in the American colonies. Slash, the American new world of like New Jersey, New York. Like, can you like fast forward us to like, I don't know, let's. Yeah, let's just say like World War II. Like, while things are still very colonial, things are very imperial and like, before we start talking about like really the modern financial system. **Speaker A:** Sure, yeah. I mean, I think that like you, you going. I think, I think the, the next step is like looking at Post World War II, really. I mean, you can get granular within World War II, but you have a New World Order at that point where the US is centered, the US and the USSR are centered. And like the feature of, of the New World Order at that time is like capitalism versus Communism, right? And embedded in this concept of capitalism is, is this concept of the corporation. And so part of how the, and part of what the Cold War was in terms of the. It was a cultural battle largely between the US and the ussr, as well as a battle of economic systems. And part of that is this embracing of the corporation. And so the US for, you know, the second half of the 20th century had this like, very strong incentive to like, go to the other parts of the world and say, adopt our economic system, right. Which involves this concept of using juridical entities to limit personal liability. And so that's very much a feature of the colonial world in the second half of the 20th century, because that's a feature of American capitalism. And we wanted to see countries emulate that. And I think that like, actually fast forward into the late 80s and early 90s where the idea of an LLC comes around, right? And so, you know, I don't want to get like too technical into like legal jargon, but like, I think LLC is like the distinction between an LLC and a corporation is like historically very important to understand offshore finance. Because the idea of an LLC is we want to be able to make it super user friendly to create juridical entities to limit liability. So corporations have all these formalities. You have to board, you have to have bylaws, you have to have shares, you just have to share a certificate is like a very involved process. Right. And so where we get to how do we get to today where literally in the time that I've been rambling about this stuff, I could have formed a Delaware LLC for you. Right? Like, like literally in that period of time. And the reason for that is like we've become very dependent on these sort of like one off. I'm going to create a limited liability entity for like a very specific purpose. When we think of companies now, what we think of is a network of juridical entities. Like Pepsi. Right. Is not one entity. Right. There's hundreds of entities that make up Pepsi. Same thing with Apple. Same thing. And even much smaller companies that have a global reach especially it's a network of, of companies. And that kind of. And that's the system that we have today, really. And once you have this idea of these sort of capitalist hegemons as like this network of juridical entities, it becomes very easy to see the necessity of kind of. You can think of these quote unquote offshore jurisdictions as almost like neutral jurisdictions, right. Where there's not a baseline level of tax. And. And so what? And so a big part of our financial system now is just kind of like sovereign nations of the world collectively, like hashing out, well, to what extent are we going to allow businesses to operate in no tax jurisdictions. Right. And then the, for the. No the. It's interesting because the no tax jurisdictions themselves have a very limited seat at the table in this conversation because that's a conversation that's going on between like the US in Russia and the UK and the global superpowers. Well, the British Virgin Islands, little country of 11,000 people is not actually invited to that conversation. But their ability to generate revenue by creating corporations is like dictated by that conversation. And so they're very much still hate to say it, but they're very much still a colony in that sense. It's just not in the sense that. Not in the sort of sense it was 200 years ago. **Speaker B:** Well, okay, this might be a little even too big, too big brained, but what does it mean to be a colony today versus a colony in the past? And like do you think that our understanding of like the colonial system as this like very extractive, like take the resources, like very like mercantilist system is like fair. I guess, I guess like in my head it is really hard to understand colonialism through like the textbook way of like this is the thing that happened, probably bad, definitely a lot of suffering, but like it's something that we've moved on from and I guess there's no question here it's just. **Speaker A:** No, no, no. Actually, no. But I think that's like you're making a critical point, right? Especially the point you're making about what is inherent to colonialism is this sort of idea of extraction, right? And extraction of resources, of capital and of labor, right? That is like, classically what. What makes a colony, and we don't have that now, in the same way, right? I think that if you talk to somebody who's, like, heavily focused on, say, Africa or South Asia, you know, there. There may well be more, like, remnants of that type of colonial system in those. In those geographical parts of the world, but there it is still a system of extraction in these offshore jurisdictions, right? Because what. What you're doing is, like, in the aftermath of the sort of colonialism of the 19th and early 20th century that kind of ended with World War II, where, in a formal sense, you had colonies being, quote, unquote, granted sovereignty, right? So, you know, the bvi, I keep picking on the bvi, but it's fine. The BVI becomes a sovereign nation. And again, part of that is like this inheritance of the administrative state from the colonizer. Well, you can actually think of the use of offshore entities in the BVI or any of these small jurisdictions as a system of extraction, right? Because what is happening is that people and entities who are not from those places are extracting the benefits of having a independent administrative state to. Especially to, like, shield identities in terms of, like, ownership of entities. And one of the interesting things, right, is, is there's limits to it. And. And. And we have. And some of the limits are, like, defined clearly in the law, and some are kind of implied. So. But, like, there is a reason, right, where that it's easier to go out and. Or I shouldn't say easier. The consequences of forming an offshore entity in the BVI to hide your identity as to some economic activity are completely different from the consequences of bringing a speedboat full of cocaine from Venezuela to the bvi, right? And. And I don't say this glibly, because we have decided that we, as in, like, the sort of global financial hegemons, have decided there are certain markets and certain economic activities that are simply forbidden. Right, regardless of your corporate form. So, like, I cannot form an LLC to sell cocaine. Like, the government, the DEA is not gonna be like, oh, shit, he's got an llc. Can't get him. **Speaker B:** Limited liability. **Speaker A:** Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. It's not. And. And that's like, a very intentional decision, right? So if we decided that we wanted to enforce, like, bank secrecy laws in this, in the, in the bvi in the same way we enforce cocaine trafficking laws. The BVI would look very different. And, and it's not. It's not that we cannot make that decision. It's that we have not made that decision decision. And that, I think, has to do with the entrenchment of these offshore jurisdictions in the global financial system that we don't want to, like, knock them off that pedestal. **Speaker B:** Yeah, I mean, I guess, like, whenever you frame things in, like, the context of extraction, like, at least more my head goes is like, okay, who's the victim? Right? And I guess my. The frame here or the, the victim here would be, like, the people of BVI or let's say Ireland, right? Just to be even, like, as concrete as possible. Like, the people of Ireland, like, should be getting, like, fair modern taxes on corporations, right? Like, based on the amount of economic activity that on paper flows through Ireland. Like, they should be making, like, incredible amounts of, like, tax revenue which could create, like, a futuristic society and welfare states and, like, all of these things that would make, like, real people's lives better. And, like, maybe this, like, it is that kind of, if, if we're calling this, like, system still today, like, such a remnant of colonialism that maybe it's still colonialism. Like, that is how we would say are, like the negative externalities that are, like, being felt by the people. **Speaker A:** Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think that it's. It's a, it's a little bit of a different analysis now, right, because you have. And it gets to this, like, a question that I don't have the answer to, right? Which is like. And it sounds like a dumb question, but I think it's actually important, right? Like, what is a fair corporate tax rate? You know, I don't, I don't really know. I don't really know the answer to that question. In the U.S. we have an answer to it. In the EU, they have an answer to it. And in the BVI, they've decided the answer is 0%, right? Or in Ireland it's 11%, you know, and, and, and so the, you know, in terms of, like, what's fair and what's extractive? Like, is it extractive to, like, say that I have a company that's headquartered in the BVI, but it's got nothing to do with the BVI, and there's not any real benefit besides the $3,000 a year that's paid into the government of the British Virgin Islands. Of course, it is, right? Because, like, if that company is making hundreds of millions of dollars elsewhere in escaping taxation by virtue of having been organized in the British Virgin Islands in various different jurisdictions, then, like, they're kind of getting one over on the bvi. But from the perspective of the bvi, I think they would say, well, no, like, we have this really nice hospital in Tortola that's like, basically paid for by the fact that we, we can get all of these registration fees every year from these different companies that we don't really know what they're doing and we don't really care. So I don't know that there's, from a moral standpoint, a right answer to that question, who's in the right and who's in the wrong? I think it's just there's a competing system of incentives. And this is the part I think that gets really challenging is if we decide, as the US or as Europe or whomever, really, the OECD, a fair corporate tax rate is 20%. Let's just say that, right? Then, like, what are we doing? Then we're going to go to the BVI and we're going to say you have to charge corporations 20% tax rate. That's colonialism, right? That's, that's the same, that's the same idea as being like, you're not really a sovereign. You can't really set your own taxes and create your own laws. You. This is what you have to do. And so it's not, it's not clear to me that that's better. **Speaker B:** Yeah, no, I mean, I think, I think the, the answer to me is clear, right? Like, this, we can still call this colonialism, we can still call this extractive, but, like, the frame has to turn. Or like, realistically always is the victims are the people of America where that, like, like, or, or, or the countries where this stuff is actually made or whatever. Right? Where essentially, like, the result of, like, the BVI or Ireland or whatever is that, like, the shareholders of Apple are able to retain, like, so much more value through these systems because essentially they're not paying taxes. Right? And like, and we. Yeah, from the BVI's perspective, it's like the choice is either we allow this service and get our nominal fees or we don't. And, like, it goes away. And this is not in our frame at all, including the money, like, they're gaining from this, but, like, the people that are losing are like, the taxes. Right? And I think especially too, once you, you like, really start to internalize like, why people want privacy. There's a lot of good reasons to want privacy. There's like, a lot of really, really bad reasons to want privacy. **Speaker A:** Yeah, no, it's, it's. Sure. I mean, like, it. And when you get into, like, the nitty gritty of, like, why people want to use offshore finance, it becomes really ugly, right? And like, I mean, you mentioned it at the top of the show, like the Panama Papers, which is, I think, like, how a lot of people, it kind of opened a lot of people's eyes to like, the actual, like, breadth of offshore finance, the sort of shadow of offshore finance in the global financial system. Well, what was the cause? Like, what the Panama Papers actually were, is like Malta. It actually ties into citizenship by investment, right? So Malta has, is part of the eu, Very small country in the EU for people who don't know, small island in the Mediterranean, beautiful and nice and, and so, and so the, you know, there is a citizenship by investment program in Malta that is very relatively inexpensive compared to other European countries. And when you take away the sentimentality of citizenship, right? What is citizenship actually get you. It gets you a passport, right? And what does a passport mean? Like, my US Passport does not mean very much, actually. US is a bad example because of our immigration policies. But like, the, like, let's say I want to use a different country if I have a Canadian passport. Like, that passport means like, relatively little to me in the country of Canada, right, Where I am. But it means a tremendous amount when I travel. So, like, if I am going to, if I want to go to, let's say, France, right? The. My ability to get to France is totally different if I have a U.S. passport versus a Russian passport versus, versus a French passport, right? And like, and so the value, there's a tremendous value, especially for people who are from authoritarian countries, right? So China and Russia primarily in having passports that are not issued by your country of origin, because it is in fact a critical, a critical piece of personal sovereignty, in fact, to have that passport because it puts you out of the reach of the authoritarian regime in some sense. And so what Malta was offering to people from Russia was a, Was a, was a way, a relatively inexpensive, I mean, order of a half million dollars, which is like not nothing, but, you know, there's higher numbers way to get a passport that allows you to leave Russia and enter the eu. So this is like, critically important. But there is, there was, there's a need within Malta to cover the flow of funds that is coming into Malta from these people who are Acquiring Maltese passports. Because a lot of the people who want to get a Maltese passport have been involved in things which are sort of like very frowned upon in Europe and the US right, that we have sanctions in place to sort of stop people from doing this. American people who are associated with like state run companies in Russia, et cetera. And so the Panama Papers come about because there's actually a Maltese journalist in Malta who's like, I think that there's like this source of like government corruption, right, where they're using offshore entities in Panama. That's why it's Panama Papers, specifically a law firm called Mossack Fonseca to hide the identities of. Not so much hide the identities of people who are getting passports because you can see the passport, but hide where their money came from, you know, to actually acquire, you know, that passport. And that's like, I think that people were like justifiably kind of repulsed by the. By like how much and like all these famous people who have these offshore who are like kind of doing the same thing that we associate with kind of like gangsters and drug dealers right before that period of time. And so you, you know, when you have. But you know what she uncovered, her name's Daphne Caruso. What, what she uncovered was really just like the tip of the iceberg, right? And, and so you have all these other like subsequent leaks that are kind of like organized by this group called the International Consortium, the International Consortium of International Journalists, the icij. And they keep this database of basically leaked information about, about offshore entities. And, and so, you know, it is like very easy to be like, oh man, we should really put a stop to that. That sounds terrible. Like all these guys, Russian gangsters or whatever, using these entities to get European passports. So what, we just have them like stumbling around Europe like that sounds really bad. But it's the same system, right? It's the same system that like Apple is using and you know, all these other, all these other entities that were like kind of accept. And so it's been, it's, it's like, it's very difficult to figure out like where we want to draw the line or if we want to draw the line at all. And you know, I think that we've kind of settled on. We're not really going to draw a line for the most part for using this type of offshore entity. It just, I know we're running through enough time just kind of like tie everything back into, into defi and into crypto. It's the same concept, right? I hate to Say it. I feel like I'm kind of like throwing salt here, but it's actually like we have a system in DeFi, right, where it's very unclear how it's going to be regulated. Very unclear which sovereign entity can extract taxes from these transactions and regulate how the transactions function. And don't get me wrong, all of the theories and arguments about how smart contracts represent a way to escape any type of regulation are interesting and I think that ultimately they're not going to. They're kind of non starters. But it is an interesting discussion to have. But the reality is there's nothing. Probably the most popular entity right now for use in DEFI is the Cayman Islands Foundation. You know, all these protocols want to use the Cayman Islands foundation and kind of get into why that is. I don't think it's particularly interesting the details, but like that's, that's like what's desirable. The point is it's got nothing to do with Cayman Islands, right? Nobody's gonna go to Cayman to like run a server. Like your smart contract's not located in Cayman. It has everything to do with the fact that like you can use a Cayman island foundation to sort of like not have a beneficial owner, right, in the sense of a shareholder and distribute that to token holders, right? And so it's very much like, okay, we're just going to lean into this system that exists for this purpose and like when you're there you're sort of leaning a bunch of other people are going to lean into that same system for maybe purposes that are much more nefarious from our perspective than running a, you know, lending platform or whatever. **Speaker B:** Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, I think you're hitting on like a lot of good things here. And I think I've got some books to share at the end of this that for people that want to like learn more about this, like, yeah, like that's the crazy thing, like you can totally learn more about this stuff. So I encourage you to like read books and like understand how it works. But yeah, I think like with our last kind of like chunk here, our last slug, like I would love if you help us understand like kind of this is this obviously the same question, but two tracks, right? Is one, how do you understand this offshore financial system as it is today changing based on everything from like the Russian sanctions and like how that is, like we've entered a new paradigm of weaponizing the financial system to like just a more Internet connected world and like both what that allows citizens to do and also Governments to track. So one, how is offshore finance changing? But two, like, where do you see defi? And let's just be more generic, like where do you see cryptocurrency as a, as fitting into the, like the puzzle that we have today, which is essentially onshore finance, which as we've discussed is really just each individual, like countries, like you know, existing within their bubble. And then offshore finance as like the substrate which makes all the bubbles flow amongst each other. Like, how do you understand defi in the pre Ethereum world? Or sorry, I'm using defi, crypto Ethereum. **Speaker A:** But like, blah, blah, blah. I'm actually really excited to talk about that because I think that it's very easy to look at Ethereum as defi as a system of financial organizations. And also I think it's very compelling, as you've talked about with other guests, to look at Ethereum as like a world computer. Right. And these are both important facets. But I think the other way to look at Ethereum is it presents new frontiers in terms of human organization. Right, right. And abstraction of human efforts. And so one thing, I mean, daos have kind of become a meme, right? This idea of like, oh, I have a dao, it's not okay if you have it, how is it decentralized and how is it autonomous? But like, this idea that you can have systems that operate autonomously on chain, with either without or with limited human input is actually like a huge step forward that Ethereum has. And I think that set aside sort of how bastardized it's become in a lot of ways, especially in the last couple of years, that there's a lot of DAOs and nonetbdb DAOs, et cetera. But at the heart of it, you actually have a way of, if I create a smart contract that's permissionless and immutable, then that is just going to exist perpetually. Right. As long as Ethereum exists, that smart contract exists. So as long as it's validators, then it goes on in the world. And I think that what offshore finance presents is there's going to be a new frontier. I hope there's going to be a new frontier in arbitrage. Right. So we talked about there's tax arbitrage, there's arbitrage and beneficial ownership. Well, I think this is going to be. And the Cayman Islands and other foundations kind of represent this, the nascent step forward. There's going to be actually, I think there's going to be arbitrage in human control of entities Right. And so I think that what we're going to start to see is there's going to be jurisdictions that really want to embrace what crypto, and I would say more specifically what Ethereum have to offer in terms of, like I said, human organization, but it's really just, it's kind of like anti human organization, organization without humans. And so if we can create where we're not at yet, but where we need to be is we need to have the ability to create autonomous systems that have their own limited liability. Right. And that I think is like the next stage in the arbitrage of offshore finance to where certain jurisdictions are going to start to create. And you have US States trying to do it. They've all fallen on their face, but they're trying to have entities that can be fully embodied by smart contracts that are not controlled by anybody, that were created and put in the world by people, but are no longer controlled by people and have those functions actually represented by juridical entities, I think is where things are headed. And personally I welcome it. I think that that's actually going to be a critical step forward in human development. **Speaker B:** Yeah, I mean we can like clear like the idea that like nation state is like something permanent. Like it just laughs in the face of history. Right. And like the concept of what we live in is like such a new idea and like we're watching it fail in front of our eyes like on a global scale. And so like, do I think that for like pretends the end of humanity? Like of course not. Like what I think it pretends is like the, the beginning of a new era. And I think like part of that era is that like we're going to figure out like which parts of like mass governance are great, that all this stuff like in the US democracy, blah, blah, blah, is so like clearly inherited from the sovereigns of Europe and like absolute monarchs and stuff. And. Yeah, man, I guess I'll let you roll out on the answer to this question. But if you look at the world today, especially if you read the news today, it looks like a world that's becoming more isolated, whether that's the Russia sanction. And I have a thing in my heart for Russia, as you know, my fiance is Russian. And say what you will about Putin, but there, there's hundreds of millions of people there and like there's like mothers and grandmothers and kids and like, I just. So anyway, like if you read the news, we're entering a more closed off space. Whether it's like what's happening between the US and China or Russia or whatever. And like whether we're talking about offshore finance or crypto, like those are both like huge like their technologies that like tell sovereigns like, we really don't give a at all like what you want to do in your house. Like, we are going to facilitate like the transfer of money and power and people like, despite whatever you want to do in your little. Like, like, do you, do you see a world that like these two forces are like clashing and fighting and like one's gonna win out? Or do you, do you see like the, the per. Do you see that like, despite how like crazy governments are getting, like, we are still like moving towards this in a way, like together? **Speaker A:** Yeah, I mean, I think that there's like tension and it's gonna become like more and more exacerbated because between censorship resistant money and sovereignty. Right? And, and like I use the phrase censorship resistant money because I think that the people who listen to this show, like have an idea of like that those words mean something. Right. I actually think that conceptually it's, it's, it goes a step further than that. It's actually anti sovereign money and the idea of having stores of value which are, cannot be revoked. Right. By, by the government and are not controlled by a government, I should say. So, you know, and, and it gets like, I think well beyond the scope of this, of this conversation to talk about like how sovereignty and money relate. But I do think that there is like a strong desire for a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons to have money which is detached from any sovereign government. Right. And like, you know, one of the things that's quite difficult about crypto, very difficult about crypto is like when you talk about privacy and about censorship, resistance and this type of thing, it's like you're walking into a room, right. Where like the point of being in the room is that it's either impossible or very difficult for the governments of the world to touch you in that room. And like the problem that we face, the like tension, like the internal tension that I think we face as an industry is like, we don't necessarily like everybody who's in that room with us. Like, there's, there's definitely, you know, like nobody who's in crypto right now support, I don't think at least supports like the government of North Korea, you know. **Speaker B:** Well, Lazarus might be the biggest user of crypto, so you're wrong on that one. **Speaker A:** Okay? Right. So, so yeah, I mean, it's like if we have censorship resistant money, private money, if I have that, if you have that, that means the government of North Korea has it and the government. **Speaker B:** Of the United States has it and. **Speaker A:** The government of the United States and. Yeah, exactly. It means, it means it's available to everybody. And, and you know, I think that it's like that's a tough pill to swallow, right? And it's very difficult. I don't like, you know, nobody who's pro privacy, I consider myself in that camp, wants to go out and like make a full throated defense of Kim, Kim Young Un. You know, it's like, it's like, no, my guy, I don't, I don't want to do that. But I'm like, the best I can do is be like, well, I don't want to the global financial rails to necessarily be the way that we attack them. And I think even that is very controversial, you know, and, and, and so, you know, it's, but like it's becoming more necessary for the reasons that you state. I feel because we do, we are sort of seeing a fraying if not a breakdown of like the nation state system where for generations we've had either a bipolar or unipolar world and we don't have that anymore. Right. We're sort of fracturing into this multiple polar world. And I think that it will ultimately, it will be painful, but it'll ultimately be beneficial to everybody in the world if part of that multipolar polar world is that nobody controls money. **Speaker B:** No, no fair. And I do, I mean, you know that my thesis of Ethereum is like, bring it on, Gary, bring it on. Any of you people. Like it's inevitable like that, that is the technology that we're creating. And I guess that was basically what I was trying to bait out of you right here, is that in a world where the old men in Washington and the old men in Beijing are deciding like we want multiple spheres and closed off and whatever. Like the point of this technology, whether it's crypto or offshore finance, is that there's so many more people than the old men sitting in those buildings. And like those people have sovereignty and agency and a lot of them are really, really, really, really rich and have create and like are not fucking around. **Speaker A:** Well, right. And I think that one mistake that we've made, especially in the crypto legal community in the US is this idea thinking about decentralization as a, as like a legal endpoint, right? Where like at some point we will be decentralized and that decentralization will be recognized in the eyes of the U.S. government. And you get something, you get a pony or whatever for being decentralized. But it's like, this is totally corny, but I think it's, it's accurate. Like there's not actually a way to decentralization, right? Like you just have to be decentralized and through being decentralized you can escape the grasp of, of governments. And I think that I don't necessarily view, as this conversation probably indicates, I don't necessarily view like offshore finance as a good thing or a bad thing, it's just a thing. But I think that one of the facets of or one way that we can become more decentralized and have systems that are more decentralized is by embracing offshore finance, right? Is by embracing nations that are sovereign, that have the ability to create entities, types of entities that have different parameters so that we can get to a point where we can actually have, create persons who are not persons and who are not controlled by persons that literally just exist on chain. And in like that is going to become a sort of, I think function of the, of the self sovereignty of money. I don't, I think that like it's the way that I see Ethereum, the idea that it's going to be a series of like Cayman foundations interacting with each other. Like no, I don't, that's not where we're going. But I think that that's an intermediate step. **Speaker B:** Yeah, man. Well, we could go on forever, so I will force us to stop. But so again I've got a couple books that I think would be helpful to understand this whole world. But do you have any like advice or thoughts on people that are just like interested in figuring out like what, what is this system? What does it mean? How did we get here? Like if someone's interested, where would you send them? **Speaker A:** So yeah, I think that it's, I think that like one, there's like a lot, as you said, there's been a lot of great writing on this. I think that there is a guy, an author, a piece of professor at Brown. He's a guy named Peter Andreas. He's written a lot of books. I'd say his general area of focus is like illegal markets. And I think his writing, he writes about, well, he's written a bunch of different books. Some are about immigration, some are about the global financial system. But he does a really good job I think of historically breaking down what, what illegality actually means when you talk about markets and control. And, and I would just Give him a, a huge plug he's got, you know, it probably. I think he started writing in the 90s and his work increasingly. Interesting. **Speaker B:** Awesome. Yeah. Cool. And I just have one recommendation that's directly relevant. It's a book called World for Sale. And it is, it's a story of like how like huge scale commodity trading actually works. And like it is so much more like wild and cowboy and like just like people like needing to get on jets to show up to Nigeria to yell at a customs agent to like get like oil through. But like what you realize is like all of our phones, everything like the entire world works through this like very weird like kind of janky feeling system that you know that I think you could argue that offshore finance was like directly created to support. And so I think it's just like really useful to understand like some of the whys that are like beyond like I don't want to pay taxes. Like I want. I'm earn my money doing shady things or I want to use my money for shady things. So World for Sale is one. And then if you enjoyed the historical part of this conversation, there's a book called the Verge and it's the thesis by Patrick Wyman. The thesis is like modern finance was invented very specifically between 1492 and like 1540. And it's basically he traces through that 1492, as I said, when the, the Spaniards kicked the Moors out of Spain. And like through that they developed this like the state realized that they could concentrate wealth. And then once you concentrate wealth you're able to take these moonshots and. Which is what created Columbus, which created like empire, which created industrialization, created the printing press. It'll teach you like that. Martin Luther was just the first troll on a new communications technology. It's like the same stuff that we're going through right now. And like it really. That is the single most book that like leads me to like scream at you like everything on this planet exists because someone set it up this way. And so it's worth understanding like who set it up and why they set it up that way. So those are my. That's not financial advice, but that's book advice. And Alex, man, just thank you so much for, for sharing your story, for sharing the real truths about the way the world works. And yeah man, I hope we can continue doing this and like figuring it out how it all works together. **Speaker A:** Yeah man, I'd love to come back and I just really want to just not just generically thank you for the opportunity, but to me. It's really, it's. I really enjoyed coming on and being able to talk about the more theoretical stuff because I feel like a lot of conversations I have, people just want to like, how can I do this? How can I do that? And that's interesting. But I think the meat of it is that we got into today is the real interesting part. So I just really appreciate the opportunity. **Speaker B:** Well, when we hang up, I need to talk to you about my new perp exchange that I need for my to hide behind a bunch of anon PFPs. So bye, like, bye, bye, audience.