# FVD | The democratic case for a crypto revolution - Thierry Baudet | ETHDam III - 2025 - Channel: [CryptoCanal](https://streameth.org/cryptocanal) - Date: 2025-10-07 - Duration: 28:11 - Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-j5FbdTjjZYo - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5FbdTjjZYo ## Description Welcome to the 3rd Edition of ETHDam, hosted May 9–11, 2025 in Amsterdam. This year, we brought together the brightest minds in privacy, security, and AI for a unique 48-hour hackathon + conference combo. 🌷 https://www.ethdam.com// 🌷 ------------------ FVD | The democratic case for a crypto revolution - Thierry Baudet | ETHDam III - 2025 𝕏 Follow: https://x.com/thierrybaudet http://fvd.nl/ https://x.com/fvdemocratie ------------------ About ETHDam & CryptoCanal ETHDam is powered by CryptoCanal, an education and events platform rooted in Amsterdam, expanding into Rotterdam and ZΓΌrich. Keep up with us to see updates on future events: https://www.cryptocanal.org/ Follow CryptoCanal on X: https://twitter.com/CryptoCanal Join CryptoCanal TG Community: https://t.me/CryptoCanalCommunity Join CryptoCanal Discord: https://discord.com/invite/XJVjpCqQBz CryptoCanal unites crypto enthusiasts committed to making a positive impact. Unapologetically political, we prioritize education, events, and services while championing cypherpunk values like privacy, sovereignty, and censorship resistance. ------------------ πŸŽ₯ Credits: Intro / outro by babyPRO - https://babypro.art/ ETHDam Photography by Paulus – https://concretestate.eu/ MC of ETHDam - Eleonore Blanc - Founder of CryptoCanal and the evangelist behind ETHDam. https://x.com/blockblanc ------------------ Special thanks to our partners who made ETHDam possible: 🌹 Hackathon – Bouquet: Oasis Network https://oasisprotocol.org/ 🌷 Hackathon – Petal: Circles https://aboutcircles.com πŸ’› Conference – Gold: Zano https://zano.org/ Dash https://www.dash.org/ Bitvavo https://bitvavo.com/en 🩢 Conference – Silver: Igra Labs https://igralabs.com/hero πŸ’› Conference – Copper: Lido https://lido.fi/ DeTrip https://detrip.travel/ Cake Wallet https://cakewallet.com/ The Grid https://thegrid.id/ Calimero Network https://calimero.network/ 0xbow https://0xbow.io/ Mina https://minaprotocol.com/ JobStash https://jobstash.xyz/ Cyber Capital https://www.cyber.capital/ POAP https://poap.xyz/ Acronym Foundation (Supported our Top 10 Hackers) https://acronymfoundation.org/ 🌱 Sponsor: EF Ecosystem Support Program https://esp.ethereum.foundation ------------------ 0:00 Intro 1:15 Ross Ulbricht’s Release as Movement Victory 2:20 Call to Support Roger Ver 3:15 Bureaucratic Control & Democratic Despotism 6:00 COVID, 9/11 & the Rise of State Power 8:30 Crypto as a Tool for Freedom 10:30 The Problem with Speculation & Meme Coins 13:00 Mass Adoption Is the Real Revolution 16:00 Introducing Monflow as a Use Case 21:00 Urgency, Adoption & Final Thoughts ## Transcript Welcome to East to Ethan to Ethan to East to East. All right, moving on for the program of this afternoon. It is my honor to welcome a Meetup user. He's been uh coming to our meetups. He's been coming to Crypto Drinks. And I wanted to include more people who are making a difference here in the Netherlands, people who are making a difference in the US. We had SA, we have Arend. And today gracing the stage of uh of Etham will be Terry Bod, leader of the forum for democracy here party here in the Netherlands. And it's my honor to welcome him to discuss how he's going to make a difference. How are we going to make a difference? How are we going to have the making the the case the democratic case for the crypto revolution? Thank you, Terry. Join us. Thank you. Break a leg. So, it's it's wonderful to be here. I uh wait maybe I think this Oh, you're over my This is fine, right? Yes. So guys, I just wanted to congratulate all of you first of all with the immense success of getting Ross Albert out of prison. Uh this is a major major victory of the movement that you all are part of and it shows the impact that we can have. This was an unwininnable case, right? Double life plus 40 years without parole. The entire system up against him. FBI even tweeting on their official tweets the reason the alleged reasons for giving Ross these these uh cruel and unusual punishments uh days before the uh the Trump administration was inaugurated. And it's amazing that it it went through. It was pushed through. And that I think that this should give us enough self-confidence for the following two things that I want to share with you. The first is if we could get Ross out, we must certainly be able to get Roger Ver out of the situation that he's currently in under the incredibly unjust persecution and the and the the prison sentence that is above his head at the moment. I don't feel that there's enough awareness of his situation amongst the crypto community in the world. I do think we should all speak out more. He has done more for crypto than I think anyone on the planet and he deserves our loyalty and our support. So, I just I really wanted to say that we know now what impact crypto people can have in the world. We got Ross out. Now, let's make a stand in favor of Roger Ver. a massive stunt. Secondly, and the and this is the other thing that I wanted to share with you today and that's the point uh that the the speech is named after. We live in an age of very rapidly accelerating bureaucratic control over our lives. And it's very important to see the major trend here. This is this is a form of despatism that the French philosopher Toqueville already foresaw about 200 years ago that was intrinsic in democratic governments. Democratic governments in opposition to dictatorial governments for example have a very typical benign kind of desperatism that is constantly endangering their freedom loving aspirations. So in name democratic governments are about freedom are about individual rights and so on but they have an inherent tendency to become totalitarian and to suffocate society in a web of rules and regulations and control and KYC and what have you and to always increase that control. when as a politician or should I say a cockroach I uh or less than a cockroach actually I um I have witnessed that from up close I've seen this happening in parliament and the dynamic is the following something happens in society something happens somebody has a let's say a car accident it's all over in the news people are upset about it. And the question comes to the politicians, what are you going to do about this? And in most cases, when something happens in society, the answer should be nothing. And in some cases, the the answer should be we're going to do even less because politics usually destroys the organic solutions that prop up in society. And in exceptional circumstances, the answer from politics should be, okay, we have to do something. where to make a law. This sometimes I don't think that politics is entirely superfluous and unnecessary, but it is in most cases and in in in the vast majority of the case, but it never happens in democratic societies. It's always this politician combating that politician with better solutions. We need to install a commission. We need to have regulations for traffic control. We need to have, you know, more traffic lights. We need to have speed limitations. We're going to do something about safety regulations for car producers. It always extends and always increases the amount of regulations and control. This is innate. This is this is central to democratic politics. It happens all over the place. It happens in Europe. It happens in the United States. It happens everywhere where parliaments and parliamentarians who basically are busy bodies, you know, meddling with other people's lives all the time get to decide what kind of rules there are, what kind of regulations there are. And the media of course amplify that. And I believe and I became I I come from a libertarian background. Then I became ideologically, intellectually, then I became so enamored and so taken by culture and art and the great traditions of Europe that I felt that we needed to preserve traditions and culture through some form of statehood, some form of organized hierarchical um societal structure. And then I so I became sort of conservative libertarian politician. But the developments during COVID shifted my feelings more back towards my original libertarian starting points because I realized first of all that the state and especially the democratic states is absolutely useless in defending high culture and art. Uh and second of all, the dangers of increased control are vastly ac more more intense and more direct than the upside of having a state that that would in theory be able to produce uh support for the arts and for culture and for intelligencia and books and academia and those kinds of things. So um I think the lockdowns and the and the restrictions during co where for for all of us could have should have been a wakeup call. That's when the state showed its its obsessive nature with whether it's health or whether it's security and safety. Co made me rethink 911 completely and re understand completely what the kind of uh madness the world has been going through ever since and and the United States government producing the Patriot Act five days after the event. This is just, you know, it's ludicrous. It's it's really absurd what happened to us. And of course, all these increased powers, they are presented to us in name of some grave apparent grave danger like the Russians or the al-Qaeda, some dude in a cave somewhere, you know, or COVID or something like we need to protect you. And then it's but it's actually it's it's it's never exclusively used for those purposes. These these extra powers are always used for far far wider applications. And that is the that's the great dynamic we're in. I'm sure you guys agree with that already. So I'm not going to bore you too much with the things you already know. But I think the for me during the lockdown period that's when I became aware of what crypto can do for us. That's when I became a crypto enthusiast. Unfortunately, I missed the whole thing before that. So, I'm not ridiculously rich. I could have been if I would have bought the right stuff earlier on. I didn't. But I became and and I became and that's also I think it's also a danger because this speculative speculative aspect of crypto which is especially uh prevalent today among meme coins on the Solana blockchain is endangering the fundamental philosophical argument that I think we are here uh together about. This is what we need to talk about. We need to talk about the the philosophical it's not a casino. We are not in we are not uh propagandist I don't think I'm not in any case of of casino crypto stuff but we are here because we fundamentally support and and and blockchain technology has the capacity and it's I I think it's the only the only development in our modern time that has the capacity to counter this this vicious dynamic that exists in developed democracies of increased control over our lives. So ever since if you the world history according to me you have the introduction of democracies around the French revolution and so on 200 roughly 200 years ago then there's 200 years of ever increasing government control in the name of individual freedom that's the great paradox we have to understand and then the blockchain revolution occurs and it gives us an opportunity to fight back to roll back this tendency of modern state to enslave us essentially to enslave us in a matrix kind of situation of total control. Now the great tragic thing about democracies is that you have to convince people that are fundamentally uninterested in being convinced. The vast majority of the people who decide the outcome of elections are completely and utterly uninterested in thinking about society. They're not interested in their own lives. They're not interested in in abstract discussions about things. So this is a this is a real challenge for um for for democratic politics and and it's u it's it's it's something that I think we as freedomloving crypto enthusiasts should think about very seriously because we all live in a bias. We live in a bubble. We have we are deeply interested in these issues. We are willing to make the extra mile to go the extra mile to make sure that we adopt certain applications that we use these very complicated blockchain addresses to send complicated coins to each other and this is our bias. This is our handicap in a way because fundamentally we're on the right side. This is what it needs to happen. This is this is crucial for the future of humanity, for the future of freedom in the modern age that the blockchain revolution continues. And after the hijacking of after Bitcoin was hijacked and miraculously increased so much in value that everybody started thinking about block crypto as a casino and as a nonusable thing. We we we we are we're in a difficult in a dire situation because we have to explain on the one hand that that we're not maximalists which nobody understands. It's very technical and on the other hand that crypto is not about casino capitalism and and and but it's about something else. So what I think the conversation should be about and that's the crypto revolution I'm talking about is adoption, mass adoption. As a politician, I just mentioned it. We we're dealing every day with the fact that the people that we need for our to support us are not interested at all in society. They have the right to vote, but they're not interested. They they couldn't care less. For 50 I will give you a couple of examples. For 50 years, we've had mass immigration destroying our nations and our and our identity in Europe. And nobody in Europe wants that. Nobody wants it. But they vote for the parties that do it every single election because they don't they they don't give a about it. They don't understand the the there's a connection between voting and policy. This is too complicated a thought for 85% of the people in the world and this is a this is a serious problem. Espiranto you you guys know what Espiranto is? It's the best language in the world but it was a academic language and nobody uses it. So we use inferior languages. It would be much better if there would be mass adoption of espiranto in the world. That would be great. And I'm sure people like us in this room we would make this decision based on abstract qualifications and we would start learning it and then we start using it and we're like hey we're the future of humanity. We use Espiranto. we're right, they're wrong. But in the end, it's still a small room with lots of empty chairs. It is a very very tiny minority that's together here. It's a tiny minority that understands things in the abstract. Therefore, I think it is absolutely crucial that we find means to promote mass adoption of what we understand to be a blockchain revolution, but which has to be something that is instantly understandable and usable and and and beneficial for normal people. Why would a normal person be interested in using cryptography, be using blockchain technology? Why would a normal person like to pay with a a crypto account other than being a casino capitalist and enjoying the ride of memecoins and so on and rock pools and everything like that? Other than that, what what means can we develop to translate what we understand to be the crucial and only opportunity we have to resist becoming slaves in a totalitarian bureaucratic regime which is on its way like an avalanche. No pun intended, by the way. And and it's on its way. And here's the technology, but we need to find a way. And this is also why Ross Elrich was imprisoned so severely, by the way, because Silk Road was the first example of how crypto can be used in a real life for a real life purpose, for something that people actually want. The war on drugs is ridiculous. The governments use it to fund their wars everywhere. It's a corrupt scheme. We're going to set up this marketplace where we're going to buy and sell drugs directly with no government interference and we use crypto for it. Hey, and that's it. That that was the actual danger of Silk Road. That was the actual revolutionary idea and that is why Ross Obrich became the political prisoner that he was for the past 11 years. But we have to think along those lines. And that is also why I'd like to use the the last couple minutes to introduce to you this project that a friend of mine has been starting and we're going to be in this panel discussion with one of the collaborators of this project. It's called Monflow. And Monflow is set up by a great friend of mine. He's currently abroad. He's not in the country. That's why he's not here. But he has has gone through the same argumentation as I have. and and we agree about these fundamental points. We need blockchain technology to protect ourselves against the avalanche of unfreedom that is approaching us through modern democracy. This is the this is the problem of of the modern world. This is what we stand for. This is the thing we have to solve. This is the question. How do we do that? We need blockchain technology. We need mass adoption of blockchain technology. And so he set up this company, Monflow, which for the first time, as I'm aware, couples a crypto exchange to an IBAN account, making it ridiculously easy for people to set up a bank account, normal bank account. It functions like a bank account. It it gives you an IBAN number. You can get your salary uh deposited on it. You can pay wherever you want. It's it it the currency is denominated in crypto euros which is a stable currency with a blockchain technology underneath it with a 100% minting 103 even so extra for extra security. So, it's it's a it's a completely structured way of promoting general adoption of blockchain technology through means that normal people actually understand. And then it offers you the possibility to buy through these exchanges directly uh either uh government bonds. So you get a you can get a higher yield on your savings than you would get through a normal banking savings account. You can also directly buy physical gold, transfer your crypto euros to physical gold, so you have a storage of value there if that's what you're what what you'd like to do with your savings. but also it enables cheap and very fast financial transactions across the globe through the blockchain that the IBAN account is immediately connected to. So I think this is one of the most revolutionary ideas and and practice it's a business one in the Netherlands you can already open a bank account at Monflow and in this way and also for example KYC these guys are different in the way they think about KYC in the Netherlands it takes you about five months to open a bank account for a company Monflow can do it in two days boom this is the kind of thing we need this is the kind of thinking we need this is the challenge I I think and I'm not not going I'm I'm not trying to be condescending about all the important technical discussions that are are taking place here and I think they're great and I think you guys should absolutely continue having those technical discussions and you should and I'm I'm not a not an ICT programmer obviously. So, I'm I'm a massive admirer of people that can code and that can understand all these complex hash um hashes and and how how these how these blocks are built and so on. But I do think that some part of our energies and thinking power should be directed to adoption to creating something that bridges the island that we're on with the mainland where the ordinary people are. Somebody before Aaron Day mentioned boomers. It's it's not just the boomers that are the problem. is also Gen X and it's all it frankly it's the vast majority of Gen Z. It's it's simply 85 plus% of the population that don't care and we need to find a way to bring them on board. We need to open up the advantages of the technology that we're so sympathetic about to real life concrete everyday benefits that normal people can enjoy. And once that happens and and and and once again I think we should move away from the casino thing. We should move away from oh you know crypto is fun. You can invest in this memecoin and you can you can go times 15 uh tomorrow. Okay. Good. well done and then somebody else loses and it becomes shabby. That's we should stay away from that. I think we should we should we should think of examples like Monflow which you just mentioned things like that where people have real life direct and this is this casino thing also happened by by the way to the NFT market. As much as I like the board ape stuff, I think the board ape destroyed OpenC. It destroyed the NFT market because it turned it into a casino. It's ridiculous to pay so much money for this. Was it Born Ape? Was the name, right? Yeah. Stupid. Very stupid. But the technology, the idea behind NFTTS is is is is great. It's serious. It's is it's something we should support. So these were just this is this is the the I think the most important thing for us to think about. Of course, I am in the dungeon. I am in a in a a very dark place in politics where it's impossible to have an intellectual conversation with people. It's absolutely impossible. So I come to places like this to tell you guys what's happening. This is the news from underground. This is it's happening. It's coming for you. Totalitarian control is right around the corner. So there's no time to waste. Build the stuff that people can actually use in real life. bring an end to all the feuds and the technical discussions. Save them for the weekend, but work during the day to build something that people can actually use before it's too late and we can we can we can defend ourselves against this what's coming for us. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ti. We have a few questions from the Slido. Um, we have a cure code here where people could ask questions to you. How can you advocate for freedom yet be against migration aka in real life enforce KYC? Either we are all free or no one is free. That's actually a very intelligent question and it's not uh it's not easy to answer that question to from a libertarian philosophical uh starting point. Um I would say though that I think we are free in the to express ourselves. I'll answer with an analogy. We are free to express ourselves in the language that we speak only to the extent that we uh accept the rules of the grammar beforehand. And in the same way I I think I think of freedom as something that can can only exist in a community in a within a group of people that share certain intrinsic values. And I believe that these values are uh the cause of nature as much as nurture. That is why I do not believe in um the multithnic multicultural experiment that has been imposed on us. Thank you. Um another one gave an eye ban and security to Europeans before Monflow. Both can help with tax evasion. If caught, what would be an appropriate ruling? Tax evaders against tax evaders. So, uh I understand this question to contain two elements. The extent to which Gnosis uh did or did not comply, you know, offer the same thing as Monflow, I find a little bit too technical for me to answer. I'm sure St will be able to respond to that later. Uh with regards to tax evasion, uh unfortunately I I believe that the law even if it's an unjust law, it's it is the law and we need to change our tax legislation. I think it's unjust. I think it's ridiculous. I think government takes way too much from people. And I think there's a complete misunderstanding within politics of what an economy actually is. And the the the the central idea, the implicit idea amongst virtually all politicians is that they are the source of wealth. They the government creates wealth. The government makes things possible instead of the other way around. So unfortunately our tax laws are incredibly strict and and and annoying and uh we're trying every day to change that for you guys, but as you probably some people in the Netherlands know, we don't have a great amount of support among the general population with our party. So it's it's it's uphill battle. One last one before we jump into the panel. What about direct liquid democracy? Any thoughts on that model? Yeah. Uh uh direct democracy AI uh i.e. referendums I think are the only way in which democracy as an idea makes sense because in that way people can express direct preferences and you have an actual debate about subjects rather than this popularity contest that democratic elections are usually degenerating into. So I like that. By the way, I didn't get the vax and I hope none of you did. Thank you, Terry.