Monarchy, Patrimony, & Bitcoin | Prince Filip of Serbia Karađorđević

Andy Flattery & Prince Filip Karađorđević discuss the history of his storied family dynasty, dating back over two centuries, life as a royal in exile, and the promise that he sees in the Serbian people today. Filip explains why he supports bitcoin and the hope he has in leaving a family legacy for his son.

Guest: HRH Prince Filip, Hereditary Prince of Serbia and Yugoslavia, also known as Prince Filip Karađorđević, is the Chief Strategy Officer at JAN3, a technology company that helps nation-states, enterprises and individuals achieve sovereignty and prosperity through Bitcoin. As CSO, Prince Filip engages with high-level actors and oversees strategic initiatives to accelerate Bitcoin adoption worldwide. He previously worked as an analyst at a prestigious London-based global asset management firm, helping clients make vital capital allocation decisions. Prince Filip has over 15 years of experience in traditional finance.

Episode page: https://simplewealthkc.com/monarchy-patrimony-bitcoin-prince-filip-of-serbia-karadordevic-podcast/

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Andy Flattery is the Owner of Simple Wealth Planning, a Registered Investment Advisor. All opinions expressed by Andy and guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Simple Wealth Planning. This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be relied upon as investment, tax, or legal advice. Clients of Simple Wealth Planning may maintain positions in bitcoin and the securities discussed in this podcast.

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This is the Reform Financial Advisor podcast. My name is Andy Flattery. I am a certified financial planner and owner of Simple Wealth Planning, a registered investment advisor. All opinions expressed by me and all of my guests are solely our own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Simple Wealth Planning. This podcast is for informational and hopefully entertainment purposes only and should not be relied upon as investment, tax, or legal advice. Clients of Simple Wealth Planning may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. In 1901, Winston Churchill said prophetically, quote, democracy is more vindictive than cabinets. The wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings, end quote. About 44 years later, Churchill would be involved in the ousting of the king of Yugoslavia, Peter II, helping to install the communist Tito in Yugoslavia, deposing a proud family dynasty, the Kara Georgievich dynasty that would go into exile. Well, today on this podcast, I have the grandson of Peter II. This is Prince Philip Kara Georgievich, the hereditary prince of Yugoslavia. And guys, this is so fascinating. Prince Philip has a family history that is embedded in the lore of Serbia. And he's a really good guy. And guess what? He is a bitcoiner and a young father and someone that I very much enjoyed speaking with. You might not be ready for this yet, but stick with me because I think you're going to find this very fascinating. A tragic dynasty meets a new disaster. King Peter of Yugoslavia, seen here at his wedding in 1944, has been deprived of his throne by a proclamation of Marshal Tito. Last month, the 22-year-old king attended the christening of his heir, Prince Alexander, born to be a king and now one more of Europe's ex-princes. But tragedy has followed the Kara Georgievich dynasty since Peter's father was murdered in 1934 at Marseilles. Peter, then a boy king of 11, returned home from his school in England to take a troubled throne. Refusing to surrender his claims, he goes into exile. I'm here with Prince Philip, hereditary prince of Serbia and Yugoslavia, also known as Prince Philip Kara Georgievich. He's the chief strategy officer at Jan 3, a technology company that helps nation states, enterprises and individuals achieve sovereignty and prosperity through Bitcoin. Prince Philip, thank you for joining the Reform Financial Advisor podcast. Hi, Andy. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me on. And please call me Philip. Thank you. And it's a great pleasure to have you on here as we were sort of chatting before the podcast. I first heard of you on the Safeteam podcast and you and I see eye to eye on a lot of things. I think we see the world in the same way in many ways. And when I heard you on Safeteam, I thought, okay, I got to follow this guy because this is super fascinating. So I'm excited to get into the case for monarchy. I'm excited to get into Bitcoin and maybe about legacy as well too, because here in Kansas City, Missouri, I have very little chance of retaking any sort of crown in my neck of the woods. But maybe legacy is some of the ways that I can learn lessons from the royals. First off, maybe I can do this. Usually I would ask you to give me a little bit about your background. But I think what I want to do, Philip, is not only give me a little bit about your background, but maybe just give us a little brief history of the Kara Georgievich dynasty and then how that leads into your background. Certainly. So Kara Georgievich dynasty was born from the first Serbian uprising in 1804. It was Kara Georgievich Petrovic, who was the first Kara Georgievich. He was a member of the free Serbian militia. And he was also from a very humble background, an affluent livestock farmer. And as well as being part of this free Serbian Corp that had ties with the Austrian Hungarians at the time, he spent some time in Austria and Hungary. Serbia at the time was occupied by the Ottoman Empire. As you're probably most most listeners here probably aware, the Ottoman Empire was a was a quite rather big empire during during the 17th, sorry, during the 18th, 19th and going into even to the 20th century. And they occupied huge parts of the Balkans, including Serbia. And in 1804, he to make this story very simple, to make it very simple is that he moved back to Serbia where he was an affluent pig farmer, but coming from humble backgrounds and obviously distressed and fed up with the Ottoman rule at the time, which had basically enslaved Serbs. You know, they had to pay that they had to pay their tax to the to the over to the overlord Ottoman of Ottoman rulers. He gathered. Well, I would say he himself, but there was a big meeting that happened in 15th of 14th of February, 1804, which led led to the first Serbian uprising where the where about 200 militiamen, including Kara Georgievich, got together in in in Odessat in Schumadje, where where he's where he's from, where he's from a town nearby, but very close to where he's from. And they elected him as as the leader to to to lead this army, this militia of about two, 300 men against the Ottomans in the area. And they chose him because of his I guess because he was he was he told people how it is. He was he was one of these people that that was very black and white. And he was a good leader and he was strong. He was known to be very tall and strong. And he he was quite disciplined in that way. And he led that first uprising. And so that was where the Kara Georgievich dynasty was born. His son, Alexander Kara Georgievich, later became so then afterwards, there was a second Serbian uprising as there was some infighting happening between them between his his men, the Kara Georgievich men and and the the Austrian Hungarians. He he was sort of put to the side and there was many attempts on his life. And finally, they say they killed him with an axe, I think, on the eighth attempt. He had took quite a lot to beat him. So then that was that that was the Kara Georgievich was put to the side. Meanwhile, the Obrainovich dynasty created the second uprising. Okay, so it's going back to the first uprising. That's when Serbia managed to get itself on the map and out of out of the sea of if you look at the Ottoman Empire of the map at the time, all of a sudden out of nowhere, you'll see like a blip, which is Serbia pop out of nowhere. So he managed to get Serbia liberated. And the second uprising just sort of fortified that by the Obrainovich dynasty. The Obrainovich dynasty ruled for a few decades and they didn't get on very well with the Austrian Hungarians. So because Alexander Kara Georgievich was supported by the Russians and the Austrians, who had also still control of the area that he was then they were put to the side. Alexander Kara Georgievich was the the regent, not regent, sorry, I guess he was like the it was a principality then under the Austrian Empire. And he was the so-called Prince Knaes Alexander for for a few decades. And then there was some in-house fighting that happened. And then that led to his abdication. And the Obrainovich then came back into power. The Obrainovich dynasty were not very popular with the people. And again, they were very close to the Austen Hungarians. Austen Hungarians wanted too much from Serbia. And this and they weren't very good with their people, the Obrainovich. I shouldn't be saying this too much, but because people then claiming that the Kara Georgievich was the one who killed the Obrainovich dynasty. But that's not the case. They were actually murdered, all murdered. And Peter I was put in power in 1903. Peter I was a very charismatic leader and he really he really was probably one of the most one of Serbia's most loved leaders after Kara Georgievich and King Peter was really a loved leader. He managed to move the influence from Austen Hungary up from Austen Hungary and work more with the West and Russia and really turn Serbia into a very prosperous region, rich in assets. There was a growing bourgeoisie and he led the country to start becoming he really united the country and also led towards to the formation of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia, which happened under his son, Alexander the first, King Alexander the first. The formation Yugoslavia was was was done to retaliate was basically to create strength against the growing Austro-Hungarian Empire. And sadly, Alexander the first was assassinated, the first assassination ever caught on camera in 1934. And that's really when well, his cousin, Prince Paul became the regent king because my grandfather, King Peter, later will be King Peter was too young. Was not of age. And then by the time my grandfather became of age is that point. It was the Second World War and my then he was exiled with the rest of the Kara Georgievich. My father was born in London and that my family will live in exile. And I was born my older brother was born in Washington and not sorry in Chicago in 1980. And then my twin and I were born in Washington in Fairfax, Virginia, in 1982. And that's sort of the brief history of the Kara Georgievich for now. When you're relating this story to me so eloquently, is this like did you grow up with this sort of patrimony that had been passed down to you through your family? You know, like the stories about the patriarch that got put to death by axe and it took eight swings or something like that. Have these sort of stories been passed down to you or is this stuff that you've had to sort of find on your own? Well, kind of Georgia, that's what I should say that kind of Georgia was the was was the first was the thought of the the dynasty. And so we are kind of Georgia, which son of kind of Georgia. He is known as the father of modern Serbia and his story is told all over Serbia. He's he is I mean, he's a hero. I mean, modern Serbia owes its thanks to the upright in the first uprising in 1804. So it's not only taught. I mean, it's not only something that I will teach my son and as he understands where he comes from, but it's something that's that's taught that's taught in Serbia as well. Of course, there was a lot of injury in the communist years. There was a lot of changing history and that wasn't really taught so much. But it's it's it's you know, it is something that that is that is that is known and it's taught and we have a lot of statues and and an actual national day of Serbia on the 15th of February is that day that great, great, great, great ground for the kind of Georgia started the first uprising against the Ottomans. So here in Kansas City, Missouri, our our connection with royal families is we are fascinated with the British royal family. That is that is only that's been the case my entire life, more or less since Princess Diana. And we also like if you're Catholic, you know about the Habsburgs, but that that's about it. Yes. So I guess from from your perspective, what is that? What is that like growing up in a royal family from your perspective as someone who is the hereditary prince of Serbia and Yugoslavia? Well, firstly, I became hereditary prince because my older brother decided to abdicate in my favor last year in April last year. And so he wants to live more of a private life and I and I want to respect that. So it was it was a decision that was always going to happen. It just so happened last year. So that's why I'm here. I've got an older brother, yet I'm the hereditary. So if there was a monarchy in Serbia, I would be I would I would be the crown prince. My father would be would be king as probably viewers are probably probably aware by now. There's no function monarchy in Serbia. It was abolished in in the 1940s. But there is recognition for the royal family here. A lot of people here don't recognize it. I still don't recognize the fact that Serbia as Monarch Yugoslavia's monarchy because it was Yugoslavia time was abolished and that communism took over. So I was born in exile and I was born in the States, but living in London most of my life and going back to Sevilla to visit my mother. Even though I lived a relatively privileged life, it wasn't that of of of of living one under a monarchy, you know, living with as as a function monarchy. It's it's quite it was quite a it's quite a strange and unique upbringing. And I have ties to both the sort of I've seen I've seen both sides of life. I've seen the the high level, you know, sort of elite monarchy sort of world. But also I've I've I've lived up I've lived in London, you know, skateboarding in the streets and hanging out with, you know, questionable characters and stuff and doing, you know, questionable things. So I've I've so I've I think I've got a taste of a lot of a lot of a lot of sides of life, even though I'm related as most European monarchies are interrelated. My my mother, as I briefly mentioned, is the is a monarch, which is not European actually, but it comes of European descendants is is the Brazilian royal family. Brazil was a monarchy for for maybe 80 some years, maybe less during the 1800s. And the last monarch was the last emperor was Pedro Segundo, Pedro the second. He was the one who actually led the way to to liberate slaves from from Brazil. He was fiercely against slavery in his own country. But that was also his support against the abolishment of slavery is what led to his to the abolition of monarchy in in in Brazil, because the ruling class over there did not like the fact that if you know if you if you abolish slavery, then it's going to you're going to have to be the only one left. You're going to take away your your free manpower. But finally, his daughter Isabella, the Princess Isabella, signed the Golden Law, which was a 17 word law that liberated all slaves in the in the region, which was quite proud to be part of that history to be a descendant of that history. And then within Europe, you know, we have ties with the Spanish royalty. There's ties with I mean, the British royalty. My my my father's godmother was the late Queen Elizabeth. There's I mean, there's there's ties to all the sort of monarchies apart from the Swedish royal family. There were all sort of in. That's so fascinating. So when you say that you were in exile, do you mean that your your political enemies had kicked you out of your homeland? Is that what you're alluding to there? Yes, political enemies, not just within the country, but also abroad. And I was going to be honest with you. It was also supported by the British. So this is something that's not really taught in history. But the British Empire, which was sort of in its demise at the time, still wanting to hold on to as much power as possible, control as possible. They had influence over the they wanted influence over the region. And given that the Second World War was going on and they wanted to have control over certain regions, because as you know, the Second World War was basically an inter-exchange of powers and people wanting to to yeah, to have their influence over certain regions. They thought it would be better to support a socialist, a six part, I should say eight part socialist country that would be Yugoslavia, as opposed to a very, no, so a failing it was easier to support, I mean, to support a failing six part socialist state than a very wealthy, acid growing, influential and dependent monarchy, which was Yugoslavia under my under my forefathers. So actually, the Brits actually supported the the socialist. And as you can see that Tito, who is the dictator who took over as who was essentially supported by the Brits and American and Americans, a lot of money went into a lot of Western money went into Yugoslavia to keep this project alive from America, mainly from America, but also from the from other parts of Europe, Europe, including United Kingdom. Not many people talk about this. So people in Yugoslavia at the time were did experience a good life. But this is also tied in with the fact that post Second World War, there was also increasing technology. So there's this feeling that things were good at the time because technology was getting better. But it was fake. It was it was Yugoslavia had 60 percent of its of its commerce was done with the West. And this is something unique with that with a communist with a communist country. You know, a communist country would have done very little trade with the West. But Yugoslavia and the Tito Tito basically acted like more than a monarch. He acted like he acted something was very special. He was really trying trying to play all the parts with with the as he was also the leader of the non-aligned movement, which was, I guess, putting together all the second world, the second world, which was, I guess, all the communist states, you know, Africa and places like that at the time. But this would would all come to failure and the money would dry up when the West didn't see as Yugoslavia so important to their way of getting to Russia as the Warsaw Pact, which was the the opposing organization to NATO, failed. And when that failed, then there was they knew that that communism was going to fail. And so the money dried up and then Yugoslavia Tito died. There was no succession planning in place. He died in 1980. And then subsequently, Yugoslavia started disintegrating. And as you know, it led into bloody wars going into the 90s and into 1990 from from 1980 from the early 90s in Bosnia area and in 1999 in Belgrade. So what we have today, which is a republic. Well, I think I think that sort of revisionism, if you want to call it, that is totally appropriate for people that are my age that have seen like, you know, Iraq be used as a sort of puppet state for democratic socialism or Ukraine. Correct. You know, in some respects to use as sort of a puppet state for democratic socialism here in America. It sounds like maybe something similar was happening during the communist regime. Well, of course. Yeah. The area, Serbia and Yugoslavia, the area is quite resource rich and it has good labor. It has good good labor market. They are they're intelligent people, educated. And you could, you know, if you knew how to how to how to make the most of that, then, you know, these these these superpowers did. Well, OK. So so you have you have come out and said that, you know, you said that part of what you're doing here is you want to promote just just the idea of of monarchy right now. I heard you on the safety podcast. I think the very first episode that he did of the podcast was a was was a defensive of monarchy. You know, here from my vantage point, I don't want to see a King Joe Biden or a King Donald Trump. However, I am I am sort of a traditionally minded person, which so there's that appeal. And I am open to sort of the, you know, the the thing that you hear like Mises people or Hoppe people talk about where it's like, you know, monarchs before like the massive Democratic nation states were more like private landowners. And so you're getting back to sort of more of a private property society. So so I'm very much open to that that argument. But from from your vantage point where you stand, what do you see as the case for monarchy? I mean, I first see monarchies as sort of outdated and almost oppressive regimes. But I mean, that couldn't be further from the truth. You have to approach it monarchy and the case of monarchy versus democracy from like an Austrian perspective. It's a touchy subject. I mean, people will probably say that, you know, you're arguing against democracy because democracy is apparently the gold standard. Everyone wants democracy. I mean, it's been so closely sold the word democracy and it's been associated with freedom, with freedom and liberty too many times. But actually just isn't it's just a form of electing people. You know, you it's just people electing a leader over and over again, every every every four or five years. This over time leads to authoritarianism and totalitarianism, as we're seeing today. I mean, this this this the mainstream has shoved the idea down people's throat that democracy is the most freeing and prosperous form of government ever ever to exist. And democracy is plodded and praised in every school throughout all all the all the so-called democratic countries. I would say that the wealthiest and safest, the most prosperous nations are all monarchies. And I mean, they're rare. Some of these guys. And we were talking about Lichtenstein, Monaco, the UAE. And these guys are constantly in the top five top five GDP per capita. You know, most people don't even know where they are on the map. You know, it's but these country these countries are very safe, prosperous and and and people are free there. And it's and that's because of the structure that they have. That then that is basically to understand the human that human incentives. If you can understand human incentives, you understand that monarchies align with the incentives of the ruling class with the ruled while democracies pit the ruling class against the rules. The goal of a monarch is to increase the value of their property and pass a healthy king, king down, kingdom down to their to their sons, to their sons, sons, you know, and so forth. Whereas any poor ruling or it was with democracy, you have every four years, you have a new leader that's elected or a new leader that's reelected. And he's just trying to keep his job as safety eloquently put described in his book, the Bitcoin Standard about time preference. Democracies are a very, very high time preference structures, while democracies are incredibly low time preference structures. But the market with monarchies were thinking about, you know, decades, hundreds, hundreds of years, centuries, millennia in advance to keep its its just stability. Yes, I OK. So two things there. So with regards to passing on a wealthier kingdom for your descendants, you could just you could just look at the example of, you know, this close to home here, but of what has happened in the United States just with the last two presidents. So, you know, Donald Trump, there's some things I like about him. But he what he did was he in 2020, he printed a bunch of money. He took on a lot of debt for the nation to essentially appease his constituents and we know wartime spending. And that's continued with the Biden administration, where it's just been wartime spending to appease his constituents. And it's not creating any more wealth. In fact, it's just continuing to kick the can down the road where you could see how someone that wants to pass on wealth down the generations is going to think twice about taking on debt, which is, you know, we don't really talk about that as much anymore. But there are there are no consequences for Trump or Biden to do that, because the bill is going to come due to whoever the president is, you know, five, ten, twenty years down the road, whatever the case may be. The second thing I would say is there's this book that I read a while ago by Eric von Kuhnet-Ledeen, I think is his name, and it's called Liberty or Equality. And essentially, Kuhnet-Ledeen, he was like a 20th century writer and he was he was pro-liberty, but pro-monarchy. And so he makes the case that those two things, liberty and equality, are are opposed to each other. You can't have both. And so if you if you want egalitarianism or equality, you're not going to have liberty. So, you know, the case I always use is the NBA. As much as I would love to be in the NBA and I would love to be able to make millions of dollars to be like the, you know, the shooting guard in the NBA, I'm not Nikola Jokic. God blessed him with talent. He's a much harder worker and much more of a team player than I am. And so the natural order of things is that Jokic is going to get paid a lot of money to play in the NBA, whereas I'm a financial advisor in Kansas City, Missouri. And that's that that's sort of natural hierarchy is something that should exist in all realms of life. And so this idea of egalitarianism or equality, we kind of need to ditch it. And I think that's probably a little bit out there for a lot of folks. But yeah, Conell Dean makes that case that it's diametrically opposed to liberty. I think that's that's I haven't read it, but I know I that's you could put it another way. Like what you pure freedom can only come with responsibility. And I forgot who said this, that you can't have freedom without responsibility. And that responsibility is very important because that creates discipline. You know, it's like someone said, like, you know, yes, there should be that there's a statue of liberty on the East Coast. There should be a statue of responsibility on the West Coast. Yeah. And this is this is what ties you into into Bitcoin really about how being responsible with your decisions, with your wealth, with your with your actions. That is what pure freedom freedom is. And if you mess it up, you know, you you fail, you suffer. And if humans are incentivized through freedom by virus with responsibility, then the limit of wealth creation and growing and growing societies is is unlimited. Yeah. A failed monarch loses their head, whereas a failed president in the United States just retires, retires extremely wealthy. Yeah, he loses a job. Obama is probably worth hundreds of millions of dollars and he's never he's never worked a real job his entire life. But I think I think I think what this leads all leads to is is my next question was what is this? What does any of this have to do with Bitcoin, if anything? And what is your story, Philip, on how you found Bitcoin? I first found Bitcoin and what I first was told about Bitcoin back in 2011. And I didn't get in. Obviously, I just looked at it as most people do. It's a magic internet money. Nothing, nothing special. I wish I wish I did look into it more than then. Then, yeah, then 2017, my best friend, he was like, oh, check out Bitcoin. It's you know, it's great. It's got this this great thing that they'll never be able to print more than 21 million. So it's great thing against inflation and all that. Interesting. That's as far as like kind of as my education went. But I bought Bitcoin as well as other shit coins as well. Mistake, but I guess it's part of the learning process. Then in 2020, I was kind of stacking, not really DCAing that that much, but stacking and a little bit every now and then. And then in 2020, as the pandemic hits and you saw that stimulus being pumped into the market and things going crazy. I started learning more, going down deeper into the rabbit hole. And then I had that epiphany of read of describing Bitcoin for what it really is. So I instantly sold all my shit coins and I became a maxi when all in went pretty much all in on Bitcoin. And that was that was a big moment, actually. That was like I just recently read a wrote the foreword to Newt's latest latest book. Well, I say latest book. He's he rehashed two of his old books, Sovereignty through Mathematics. And I wrote the foreword for that. And I said that discovering Bitcoin for what it actually is, is like a life changing event. It's almost as big as having your first child or getting married. It really opens your eyes up to that. And you see the world as it should be, as it is, not as it should be as it is. Yeah, I heard you say maybe it was with that conversation that you're referring to is that I heard you say something like truth matters again. And I was like, wow, this guy, this guy gets it. Could you recall what you meant by that? I'm not trying to try to dig into what truth matters again. But I think what truth matters again, maybe because Bitcoin is truth. We live in such an ambiguous world right now. We don't know what's real and what's not. This is only being as as exacerbated by by the Internet. But within the Internet, now we do have a set of protocols, which is a set of rules, which is Bitcoin. And with its proof of work, which actually connects the Internet, that connects this electricity to say these electrons, I guess, to reality. We've discovered this element that's that's uncorruptible and it just keeps on just keeps on going every 10 minutes as a new block. And that is the rules that we that we can live by. Essentially, these that is truth. Finally, you know, you can you can wade through all the bullshit in the world, all that fake media mainstream crap that's being spewed out at you, the television news, all that sort of stuff. And you can just and just rely on the fact that there's something out there that's that's spitting out. That's spitting out. That's that's unstoppable. It's the way money should be. It's real. It's and it can't be changed. And you can't inflate it. You can't you can't change it. It's beautiful. And it doesn't care about you. All it does is just exists. And finally, it's that's going to change humanity for the better. Yeah, people say the Bitcoiners are toxic. I see it as the Bitcoiners are interested in in rediscovering truth that economics is is a real area of expertise and there are there's truth in economics. We can call them shit coins because we can recognize that it's not sound. There's not sound money involved in a lot of these shit coins. And I think that's very exciting because, yeah, I mean, I grew up I'm 38 years old with growing up as a millennial. You know, everything is everything is wishy washy. Everything is a nuanced conversation. There's never any there's never any truth. It's all you know, there's two sides to every story. And so I think it's it's exciting that that we have something that we can have some conviction about. And so I think that's maybe exactly what you're getting at. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm getting at. So this wishy washyness sorry, it's it's it's it's create really creating such a such a decadent society these days. You know, degeneracy is just gets worse and worse and worse. And people are are not focusing on themselves, essentially for that reason. And they're they're projecting their problems onto society. And we're not focusing on on on what is real. Yeah, that word decadence, I feel like is spot on. I hear that from Peter Thiel has been talking about that when he talks about like how the West is sort of like in the beginning of its decline phase. Ross Douthat has that that book about decadence, which is sort of about how we've reached the height of Western civilization. Now we're in the decline. You know, Bitcoin is exciting in that it's a it's a newer technology. But I think a lot of us sort of recognize that, you know, maybe the the the the best days of the West are behind us and Bitcoin is potentially a life raft. It is that life raft as well. And it's not just for the West, it's for everyone. Sure, sure. So I think it's I think it's the it's the less advantage people who are the sort of, you know, people in developing countries are the ones who are going to who are going to see the light are actually exchanging their lives quicker than exchanging the people who are more who are more privileged. So it's it's it might have some sort of I would call it poetic, but it will have it will be quite beautiful to see parts of these struggling parts of the world who have been well, there's a situations that their situation is the result of the of the policies from the West of, you know, of organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank, that these people, if they if they if they if they follow Bitcoin, if they if they understand what Bitcoin is, and they and they attach themselves to Bitcoin, they will be the ones overcoming the West in the future. We'll see anyway. Yeah. So what's that like in Serbia? Because, you know, here in the U.S., if you're not really paying attention, you don't notice that we have a real problem with the money here that the money is broken. If you're not paying attention to like the money printing and the debt and the fact that your savings lose five to 10 percent of their value every year, it's it sort of seems like things are working, whereas like super obvious in like third world countries that the money is broken. But what is that like from your vantage point in Serbia? What's the case for Bitcoin there? See, it's not what one would think, because Serbia actually experienced Yugoslavia, I should say, in the 90s, experienced one of the third worst episode of hyperinflation ever. It's and you would expect them to understand what that that printing money is is not the way forward. And that now there is there's something that you can't corrupt. You can't you can't you can't print more bitcoins. But people here see Bitcoin as as something that's controlled by by foreigners. It's another it's just another it's just another foreign power trying to trying to manipulate our people. They don't understand that Bitcoin is not controlled by anyone. I mean, it's not controlled by anyone. It's controlled by everyone. And they they're very skeptical. But in that in that sense, because they've been hard done by for in the last while, I say they've had a very bumpy last few decades or going back 100 years on was First World War, Second World War and communism. And then in the last 40 years since since the breakup of Yugoslavia, it's been they've had a hell of a ride. So thanks to big forces of like NATO interfering with our sovereignty, you know, breaking up the country and now with the problem with Kosovo, it's just, you know, problems from Madeline Albright and Biden at the time of Clinton. You know, some pretty horrible things have happened to Serbia and Yugoslavia, the war to the region. And and you'd expect you'd expect the Serbs to be to be kind of switched on to that. But the thing is, they are switched on to the fact of being brain of being not being brainwashed anymore. They're not as brainwashed as the West is right now. When I moved back from London to Serbia, I realized I was actually slightly more brainwashed. Coming to Serbia, I was I guess it was a different type of red pilling. And I realized how much the news in the West and just living life in the West where everything's sort of everything's more organized. Everything's more orderly. That it's easier for for these powers that are that are there, the power structures to control your wise and Serbia. Things are a little bit disorganized. And because of that, people don't have trust, much faith in the in the in the state and people don't have much faith in what is basically they're very skeptical people. But if you can tune that skepticism into understanding that Bitcoin is is that truth, that thing that that's not controlled by anyone, then then they would they will become very good Bitcoiners. Serbians are very, very spreet free spirited people. The religion over here, the predominant religion here is Serbian orthodoxy. And orthodoxy is a very it's a very patriarchal religion. And it's very much about the individual over here. It's almost naturally libertarian. The religion, the religion, it treats people as so sovereigns, individuals. And this is something that this is something that the West have always tried to destroy. I mean, I'm pretty convinced that there's you know, you'd have wars against against against Islam. But I know that there's wars and it's probably what's happening, you know, to some extent with the Russians. There's wars against orthodoxy because orthodoxy is very high, very strong on family values, very strong on individual sovereignty. And I don't I don't think that digests very well with the with the ruling elite in the West because they want to destroy that. They want to turn us all into into mindless, brainless, problematic little consumers. And that's kind of what orthodoxy teaches you not to be. Yeah, yeah, that's I mean, that's very encouraging, I would say. Yes. So going back to the situation of Bitcoin here, they passed the crypto law. Obviously, they don't recognize the difference between the crypto and Bitcoin. And they've put capital gains tax on it and they made it difficult for for companies to regain their licenses and a new company to start again. So it's it's not very good. It hasn't pushed out. There's a lot of developers here. A lot of them are working on shit coins because they pay better. There is a big, there's a big, I said there's a growing number of good Bitcoin maxis that are kept are keeping them keeping silent. And then there's some of them who are more open with more of these open bunch. I'm we've working with with with a few of them to we just open up a Bitcoin hub here in Belgrade. Very beginning stages. We've got the location, non-serb guy. He's John's who who's just moved and is actually living there because he's he's a nomad. He's traveling all around the world, but he's spending a few months. He's going to be spending a few months a year that he's paying it through his company. I will be also adding to the rent there. And we're going to open up this this hub for presentations to receive people for education, for people to work there. And that's just a pure bottom up approach that we're going to use. And we're going to gain more. We're just going to try and educate as many people as possible and spread the understanding of Bitcoin from from that perspective. So then later we can tackle it down, tackle it top down. That's where my expertise comes from. Working with Jan 3, Jan 3, you know, we understand that Bitcoin is a bottom up approach, but it also needs also hand top down as well. This is when we enter conversations with nation states, with politicians, with with individuals, elites and people like that to make them understand Bitcoin so they don't. So so so I guess they don't ban it so so they can actually speed up the process of hyper Bitcoinization. Philip, I believe you are a young father. I'm I'm the father of three little children. Wow, congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, we're very blessed. How do you think about the legacy that you want to leave? Do you think about the legacy in terms of like how you're going to raise and train and educate your children? Or is it maybe the crown you want to leave your children or or the Bitcoin stack? How do you think about that? It's a good question, actually. A bit of everything, a bit of all of that. I think the most important thing is love. And I think the most important thing is working as is the individual and not him being a strong individual with but supported with love by myself and my wife, Danny. So who's an amazing mother and an amazing person? And we are individuals with you know, but we love each other and we're giving him that that loving support, but making him experience life. And we want to make it as real as possible. I know what I've learned now through my years of being brought up in the United Kingdom, going through a divorce, my parents going through a divorce, having issues there and having issues with some in-house fighting with various members of my step family and things like that. It's not easy. And now because of that, I've become I am a truth hunter. I'm a truth seeker. I want I'm seeking truth. And I want to make sure that my son is brought up questioning society, always questioning or is like a little critical thinker. And and this is something that I think I think that's the most important thing is to be an individual, to be to question everything around you. But of course, I'm going to teach him what Bitcoin is. He doesn't understand what Bitcoin is, but he knows what Bitcoin that there is Bitcoin. He loves that. He loves it. He sees the logo and he's like, oh, Bitcoin. He's five years old, by the way. He's like, oh, Bitcoin, Bitcoin. And, you know, he's he. I yeah, that's that's one aspect that I like to teach him is just. Teach him about what life is like. And this is something that my father somewhat failed, not because not because he's a bad man, because I think he was lost. He was he came from an exile family firsthand. He and his my grandfather drank himself pretty much to death. There's there was some hard this hard times. Kara George, which is the best thing that they did was not to actually assassinate the Kara George, which let us live. But we would living in depression. We had all our assets stripped from us. We don't have anything back yet. You know, this is this is another reason why I like Bitcoin as well. It's it's in the you know, it's the strong, strong essence of individual property rights. And that's very important because if you strip your individual property rights away, you will take everything away from from from it from individuals. You turn them into you know, that's that's it. That's the end. If you take someone's property rights away, that's you know, you go back into the Stone Ages. I mean, even Stone Age. No, not even that Stone Age had had had it better than than than people in communism. Well, that's terrific. Well, Philip, I want to thank you for coming on the Reformed Financial Advisor podcast. This was so fascinating and I hope we can do it again sometime. Always bear in mind, very, very important to bear in mind that monarchy in Europe was an international institution, not a national institution. If you take the year 1910, you only find two dynasties which are truly native, the dynasties of Montenegro and the dynasty of Serbia. Prior to the French Revolution, we had mere cabinet wars. The cabinet war was king against king and he had to look into the till. Did they have enough money? And then he called in for ruffians and cutthroats who like to fight the war. And they had as officers, members of the nobility, who had to bribe a government, had to buy a commission, bribe a government to die. Not waiting for the cancer ward, but to die nobly on the battlefield. You had to pay for that. Didn't you burn your draft card as many Americans did during the Vietnam War. So that was the old system. And of course, tiny armies and now you have gigantic armies and you had democracy, you had parties in the parliament, and you had to marshal now entire nations against each other. The Austrian ultimatum against Serbia would have merely resulted as a matter of fact in a local war against Austria, against a small country. But of course, even before that, you have the onslaught of socialism. And socialism, Ludwig von Mises faced that in Austria, this rise massive of socialism. Also at the university, you see that socialism is of what the Tocqueville would have called, and he used the expression in another connection, a clear but false idea of socialism you can explain to any high school student at the age of 15 in 15 to 20 minutes. But the working of a free economy, you need a seminar for that. So naturally in that democratic framework, one man, one vote, when the masses vote, the attraction of socialism has become enormous. And he saw that with great, great fear. And of course, he realized naturally that the monarchy was a sort of bulwark against this development. He said all aristocrats are born anarchists. And never forget here, you see, never forget if I used the word anarchist, bear in mind that anarchist is a liberal in the real sense of the word, not in the American sense. And then you see the interesting phenomenon of the whole Austrian school. Now, if you take the Austrian school, that would be Menger and Wieser and Böhm Barwerk and Hayek and Mises and Haberer. And then finally, the only man who is not a nobleman is Machlub of the original. The whole Austrian school consists of noblemen. And all of them hereditary. That means they were not ennobled. They inherited. They had already the noble father houses. Ranhimide, 1215. The barons who tried to get rights and resist the monarch. The front in France is against the nobility. The nobility always against an almighty and overmighty king. So see, that is the thing which Americans do not realize apart from the fact that you see nobilitation was an instrument for social mobility. Because you get always new, now no longer possible, of course. Now the only inheritance you can have is hard cash.