Joe Rogan, host of The Joe Rogan Experience, compares bitcoin to the early Internet. Noting that cryptocurrency is now a “viable form of currency” with which “you can actually buy things,” he said that “the government is furious.”
Joe Rogan, bitcoin and the government
Famous podcaster Joe Rogan, host of The Joe Rogan Experience, talked about bitcoin on his show published Tuesday. The show includes an interview with UFC bantamweight fighter Khalil Rountree Jr.
The Joe Rogan Experience is one of the most popular podcasts in the world, with a catalog of more than 1,800 episodes, each regularly garnering millions of views. In February, The New York Times reported that Spotify had paid more than $200 million for Rogan’s podcast, which is now available exclusively on that platform.
“I think of bitcoin the same way I think of the early Internet,” Rogan told Rowntree. Noting that the government “didn’t see it coming,” he said:
Now it’s a viable form of currency. You can actually buy things with it. I think the government is shocked.
He went on to describe what he expects the government to do, noting that it tried to censor the Internet during the Obama administration. However, “it failed because people were furious and outraged, and they decided that the political implications of it weren’t worth it … so they backed away from it,” Rogan opined.
The popular podcaster believes that the time will come when the government introduces a centralized digital currency, similar to what China is doing. He emphasized:
They will try to introduce a digital currency, a centralized digital currency that they can control.
Rogan explained that the scary thing about a centralized digital currency is that the government can look at you and your online behavior and decide what you can spend your money on and what you can’t. For example, the government might allow someone to spend money on food, but not on travel, he warned.
In January, Rogan said he had “a lot of hope” for cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin. At the time, however, he admitted that he was not very good at them.
At the time, he said: “What we’re seeing now is either a total collapse, or we’re using this as an opportunity to fix things and figure out a better way to live.”
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