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Glenn's Show Prep

5 key takeaways from Glenn's special show on Bitcoin

May 13, 2014
Wilson

Writer

If you've been listening to the show for the past week, one thing is abundantly clear: Glenn knows almost nothing about how Bitcoin works. And to be honest, neither do the rest of us on the team. So Glenn and his EP Tiffany put together a special show where experts explained exactly what Bitcoin was and how it works. Elizabeth Ploshay, a Bitcoin Foundation board member, Jeffrey Tucker of Liberty.me, and Kristov Atlas, the author of Anonymous Bitcoin, all joined Glenn for this special Bitcoin episode.

Before you get started, here is a quick Bitcoin tutorial:

So what were some of the key points from tonight's show?

1) Acceptance of Bitcoin is rapidly expanding

Bitcoin is now an acceptable form of payment at 60,000 merchants worldwide, 50,000 of those added in one year. Glenn said: "I will tell you I love the innovation of it. People are trying to find a way out of the mess politicians and the central banks have created. The free market always wins. Big government can rack their brains all day long, and they will never, ever, ever, be able to duplicate the innovative spirit of the collective American public. One guy has an idea, and it starts like a grass fire."

2) It’s both a currency and a payment system.

Jeffrey Tucker:  If you took away the payment system associated with Bitcoin, Bitcoin would be worth zero right now.  It’s the payment network that gives it value.  It’s both a currency and a payment system.  That’s a little strange.  We’re used to thinking of those things as separate.  You know, we think of like dollars, and then we think of like PayPal or something or Visa, MasterCard.  With Bitcoin, they’re both united.  Payment system and the currency are one single thing, and it’s the sheer efficacy and brilliance of the payment system that led Bitcoin to have value.

Bitcoin lived on the Internet for ten months at a zero price, and it was only once the payment system was tested and tested and tested again, the market said this is extremely cool, this is amazing.  You can transfer stuff from here to there, anywhere in the world, direct peer to peer.  That’s a valuable thing to have, and then it obtained value. 

3) You can actually use it to buy stuff in the real world

Elizabeth Ploshay: You can use Bitcoin for so many things.  You can use it to buy plane tickets.  You can buy food with it.  You can use it for charitable donations.  The best thing about it is you can reach people around the world.  There are 2.5 billion people around the world who don’t have bank accounts.  You can send money to those individuals without a bank account, so practical things but also helping people in need.

4) There are no central banks like The Federal Reserve

Elizabeth Ploshay: Trustless peer-to-peer system, direct transfer of funds, no trust in one central point of failure.

Kristov Atlas: When it’s centralized, when we have the government or some company doing it, then things are easy.  They can mint the units of currency.  They can validate the transactions are not fraudulent.  When you have a peer-to-peer basis, then you have to make sure that enough honest people are able to do all the stuff that the system is going to work, and that’s the genius of Bitcoin is they figured out ways for people to validate these transactions and to mint the new coins in a fair way that everyone is going to agree on and that’s going to be predictable in the future.

5) It has a limited supply

Kristov:  There’s social and economic forces at play basically.  So if you wanted to change this limit, there’s about 21 million Bitcoins that are supposed to ever be in existence, and we’ll get to that point, we’ll be mined out of Bitcoins somewhere around the year 2140.  If you wanted to change that, you would have to convince all these people running Bitcoin software that they need to agree to this change, they need to run a new version of Bitcoin based on changing this $21 million limit. 

But we know that investors all value Bitcoins based on everyone agreeing that there is this $21 million limit.  If you try to extend that, it’s going to debase their investment.  Investors are going to dump their Bitcoins right away.  They want to get out of it.  Everyone knows this, and so there’s no way you’re going to convince people to switch over to this new version.

More in the interview below:

The West is dying—Will we let enemies write our ending?

Harvey Meston / Staff | Getty Images

The blood of martyrs, prophets, poets, and soldiers built our civilization. Their sacrifice demands courage in the present to preserve it.

Lamentations asks, “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?”

That question has been weighing on me heavily. Not just as a broadcaster, but as a citizen, a father, a husband, a believer. It is a question that every person who cares about this nation, this culture, and this civilization must confront: Is all of this worth saving?

We have squandered this inheritance. We forgot who we were — and our enemies are eager to write our ending.

Western civilization — a project born in Judea, refined in Athens, tested in Rome, reawakened in Wittenberg, and baptized again on the shores of Plymouth Rock — is a gift. We didn’t earn it. We didn’t purchase it. We were handed it. And now, we must ask ourselves: Do we even want it?

Across Europe, streets are restless. Not merely with protests, but with ancient, festering hatred — the kind that once marched under swastikas and fueled ovens. Today, it marches under banners of peace while chanting calls for genocide. Violence and division crack societies open. Here in America, it’s left against right, flesh against spirit, neighbor against neighbor.

Truth struggles to find a home. Even the church is slumbering — or worse, collaborating.

Our society tells us that everything must be reset: tradition, marriage, gender, faith, even love. The only sin left is believing in absolute truth. Screens replace Scripture. Entertainment replaces education. Pleasure replaces purpose. Our children are confused, medicated, addicted, fatherless, suicidal. Universities mock virtue. Congress is indifferent. Media programs rather than informs. Schools recondition rather than educate.

Is this worth saving? If not, we should stop fighting and throw up our hands. But if it is, then we must act — and we must act now.

The West: An idea worth saving

What is the West? It’s not a location, race, flag, or a particular constitution. The West is an idea — an idea that man is made in the image of God, that liberty comes from responsibility, not government; that truth exists; that evil exists; and that courage is required every day. The West teaches that education, reason, and revelation walk hand in hand. Beauty matters. Kindness matters. Empathy matters. Sacrifice is holy. Justice is blind. Mercy is near.

We have squandered this inheritance. We forgot who we were — and our enemies are eager to write our ending.

If not now, when? If not us, who? If this is worth saving, we must know why. Western civilization is worth dying for, worth living for, worth defending. It was built on the blood of martyrs, prophets, poets, pilgrims, moms, dads, and soldiers. They did not die for markets, pronouns, surveillance, or currency. They died for something higher, something bigger.

MATTHIEU RONDEL/AFP via Getty Images | Getty Images

Yet hope remains. Resurrection is real — not only in the tomb outside Jerusalem, but in the bones of any individual or group that returns to truth, honor, and God. It is never too late to return to family, community, accountability, and responsibility.

Pick up your torch

We were chosen for this time. We were made for a moment like this. The events unfolding in Europe and South Korea, the unrest and moral collapse, will all come down to us. Somewhere inside, we know we were called to carry this fire.

We are not called to win. We are called to stand. To hold the torch. To ask ourselves, every day: Is it worth standing? Is it worth saving?

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Pick up your torch. If you choose to carry it, buckle up. The work is only beginning.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Stop coasting: How self-education can save America’s future

Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images

Coasting through life is no longer an option. Charlie Kirk’s pursuit of knowledge challenges all of us to learn, act, and grow every day.

Last year, my wife and I made a commitment: to stop coasting, to learn something new every day, and to grow — not just spiritually, but intellectually. Charlie Kirk’s tragic death crystallized that resolve. It forced a hard look in the mirror, revealing how much I had coasted in both my spiritual and educational life. Coasting implies going downhill. You can’t coast uphill.

Last night, my wife and I re-engaged. We enrolled in Hillsdale College’s free online courses, inspired by the fact that Charlie had done the same. He had quietly completed around 30 courses before I even knew, mastering the classics, civics, and the foundations of liberty. Watching his relentless pursuit of knowledge reminded me that growth never stops, no matter your age.

The path forward must be reclaiming education, agency, and the power to shape our minds and futures.

This lesson is particularly urgent for two groups: young adults stepping into the world and those who may have settled into complacency. Learning is life. Stop learning, and you start dying. To young adults, especially, the college promise has become a trap. Twelve years of K-12 education now leave graduates unprepared for life. Only 35% of seniors are proficient in reading, and just 22% in math. They are asked to bet $100,000 or more for four years of college that will often leave them underemployed and deeply indebted.

Degrees in many “new” fields now carry negative returns. Parents who have already sacrificed for public education find themselves on the hook again, paying for a system that often fails to deliver.

This is one of the reasons why Charlie often described college as a “scam.” Debt accumulates, wages are not what students were promised, doors remain closed, and many are tempted to throw more time and money after a system that won’t yield results. Graduate school, in many cases, compounds the problem. The education system has become a factory of despair, teaching cynicism rather than knowledge and virtue.

Reclaiming educational agency

Yet the solution is not radical revolt against education — it is empowerment to reclaim agency over one’s education. Independent learning, self-guided study, and disciplined curiosity are the modern “Napster moment.” Just as Napster broke the old record industry by digitizing music, the internet has placed knowledge directly in the hands of the individual. Artists like Taylor Swift now thrive outside traditional gatekeepers. Likewise, students and lifelong learners can reclaim intellectual freedom outside of the ivory towers.

Each individual possesses the ability to think, create, and act. This is the power God grants to every human being. Knowledge, faith, and personal responsibility are inseparable. Learning is not a commodity to buy with tuition; it is a birthright to claim with effort.

David Butow / Contributor | Getty Images

Charlie Kirk’s life reminds us that self-education is an act of defiance and empowerment. In his pursuit of knowledge, in his engagement with civics and philosophy, he exemplified the principle that liberty depends on informed, capable citizens. We honor him best by taking up that mantle — by learning relentlessly, thinking critically, and refusing to surrender our minds to a system that profits from ignorance.

The path forward must be reclaiming education, agency, and the power to shape our minds and futures. Every day, seek to grow, create, and act. Charlie showed the way. It is now our responsibility to follow.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins TPUSA tour to honor Charlie Kirk

Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images

If they thought the murder of Charlie Kirk would scare us into silence, they were wrong!

If anything, Turning Point will hit the road louder than ever. On Monday, September 22, less than two weeks after the assassination, Charlie's friends united under the Turning Point USA banner to carry his torch and honor his legacy by doing what he did best: bringing honest and truthful debate to Universities across the nation.

Naturally, Glenn has rallied to the cause and has accepted an invitation to join the TPUSA tour at the University of North Dakota on October 9th.

Want to join Glenn at the University of North Dakota to honor Charlie Kirk and keep his mission alive? Click HERE to sign up or find more information.

Glenn's daughter honors Charlie Kirk with emotional tribute song

MELISSA MAJCHRZAK / Contributor | Getty Images

On September 17th, Glenn commemorated his late friend Charlie Kirk by hosting The Charlie Kirk Show Podcast, where he celebrated and remembered the life of a remarkable young man.

During the broadcast, Glenn shared an emotional new song performed by his daughter, Cheyenne, who was standing only feet away from Charlie when he was assassinated. The song, titled "We Are One," has been dedicated to Charlie Kirk as a tribute and was written and co-performed by David Osmond, son of Alan Osmond, founding member of The Osmonds.

Glenn first asked David Osmond to write "We Are One" in 2018, as he predicted that dark days were on the horizon, but he never imagined that it would be sung by his daughter in honor of Charlie Kirk. The Lord works in mysterious ways; could there have been a more fitting song to honor such a brave man?

"We Are One" is available for download or listening on Spotify HERE