160 - Is the CIA Spying on Crypto? with Annie Jacobsen

With almost certainty, I would say

that the world of cryptocurrency is looked at

by the intelligence community

as a non-state actor.

Okay? Which is a little bit dangerous,

or rather, a little bit adversarial for those of you in that community.

Welcome to Bankless, where we explore the frontier of internet money and internet finance. This is how to get started, how to get better, how to front run the opportunity. This is Ryan Sean Adams. I'm here with David Hoffman, and we're here to help you become more bankless. Is the CIA spying on crypto?

That is the question today. And our guest, Annie Jacobson, has spent her entire career interviewing and studying intelligence agency. She gives us her thoughts on that question. We cover a few things, things to look out for in this episode. Number one, why intelligence agencies see crypto as a non state actor? And what is this term, non state actor? Why is it a default threat? Number two, we talk about intelligence agencies, the CIA, the Pentagon, NSA. Are they in our Discords? Are they in our telegrams? Do they walk among us? Is anyone spying on my co host David? Like he thinks?

And finally, we talk about a win-win scenario. Can crypto exist alongside the national security forces in our world and can both parties benefit? David, this was a really interesting episode. Um, kind of uh on a side quest from typical bankless content, but really important. This national security structure, intelligence agencies are very much a force of power in our world. How do they view crypto? That was the question of today's episode. What were some thoughts as we get into this?

Yeah, I really wanted to do this episode after just learning about Annie Jacobson and who she is, because she is a unique person in that she is illuminating this part of the world which is supposed to be secret. And I think that everyone's perception of s of intelligence agencies, the CIA, like DARPA, the Pentagon, it's like, you know, mysterious and secret and espionage and very Hollywoody, right? And so how do we even think about these entities and their motivations?

Without having the influence of Hollywood and drama determine what we think about these things. Like, are they really a threat? Is the word infiltration even correct? So Annie gives us the best firsthand account of how these agencies think and what they want out of crypto. I think by the time we have arrived in the world of 2023 crypto, crypto as a movement is on the radar of every single intelligence agency that exists, both inside the United States and out. What do they want from us? Do they want anything at all from us? And so talking about how the crypto industry, how the crypto movement is intersecting with these intelligence agencies, I think is worth exploring. And so that's why we brought Any Jacobson onto the podcast today.

Look, guys, the real reason we did this episode is David really wants to know if he's being spied on right now.

Yeah.

And if if they are walking among us and who they might be, how do I identify them? In fact, David, I want to talk to you more about that, what your kind of conclusion is about that in the debrief. Of course, our debrief episode is the episode after the episode, the one that you and I are about to record, David. We record these right after the show. If you are a citizen of the Bankless Nation, you can get that episode right now. It's available to you right now. There's a link in the show notes if you want to upgrade and hear David's thoughts on whether he's being spied on, which of you might be a citizen.

One of my friends I explicitly name, I declare as part of the CIA that has been trying to infiltrate the bankless podcast.

Spicy. Spicy. Guys, we are going to get right to this episode with Annie Jacobson. Bankless Nation, I'm super excited to introduce you to our next guest. Annie Jacobson. She's an investigative journalist and the author of many books about war, weapons, government secrecy, and national security. She's written books on the secrets of Area 51, the Pentagon's military science, RD efforts over the decades, many other things. And of course, Bankless Nation, you know, the movement that we find ourselves in, crypto in 2023, is sufficiently large that for certain it's attracted the attention of some major intelligence agencies out there. We want to understand a bit more about the scope of this interest and learn what the world's intelligence agencies might be interested in looking at with respect to crypto. Annie Jacobson is the perfect guest to tell us a bit more about that. Annie, welcome to Bankless. How are you doing?

I'm great. Thanks for having me, guys.

Okay, first question for you. What are the chances that some three letter agency out there is gonna listen to this episode, do you think?

Oh goodness. Well, you know, everything is sort of digitally stored and captured and can be called up on command.

We should definitely talk about

biometric surveillance if we're going to be talking about crypto.

Anything in the world of computers and technology, the Defense Department is super interested in, as is the intelligence community.

So they can listen to this episode, of course. Like, do you think they will? I mean, are there people like scouring in the intelligence agencies scouring all sorts of internet communication forms, whether it's podcasts or, you know, websites, written form, or videos on YouTube for this sort of information and like, you know, tapping into communities at this level, or is this way too granular for an intelligence agency to keep track of?

Well, for starters, you probably have some fans in the Intel community and the military community, people who are interested in learning about what you guys are subject matter experts in.

When you say fans, Annie, like do you mean fans in a good way? I'm a little bit worried when you say we have fans in an intelligence agency. I don't know what to think.

You know, one of the things that, you know, I I appreciate in terms of process in my own work is that a lot of people in this world have been,

you know, like they have become human to me, meaning there's not

a big

paranoia,

you know, there's not a sense anymore for the kind of reporting I've done for the number of decades that I've done it,

about,

you know, sort of the the twirling mustache bad guy.

Being ubiquitous. Yeah, in government agencies, yes, there are individuals who

are nefarious.

I often think that lack of knowledge is the most nefarious of all things, right? Or ignorance or fear. But

for the most part, most of the people I interview, and I've interviewed at this point six books,

250 sources a book,

on average. Think of how many people I've spoken to have worked for the CIA, DARPA, DIA, you know, any of the military organizations. And mostly they're people, just like any other people.

That we come across in our different

ways in which we move through this universe. So, full circle, I think many people probably listen to you because they're probably closer

to a mindset than you would imagine.

So these are the atomic units of intelligence agency. Maybe this is the first lesson before we get in. And I know we want to hear more about your background, but you know, I'm kind of front-running this, but the atomic units of an intelligence agency goes back to individual people, individual civilians, you people with hopes and dreams, and maybe who are interested in speculating in crypto markets or interested in the technology, interested in the freedom that it provides. It's not sort of uh, I guess, a shadowy group of individual members of our society that live in a completely separate universe. You're saying your experience in all of these interviews and talking to people at these intelligence agencies, they're a lot more similar to everyone else than we might think.

Absolutely. I mean, there are people on the edges that are extraordinary, you know, that are like I have interviewed, people who I call the supermen of science, you know, presidential science advisors, people who invent things like the laser, right? Charles Townes. Now, Townes is gonna live way over he passed recently, but

The universe that he occupies is very different than my universe because he's so damn smart.

But that doesn't mean he doesn't have interests in, say, comic books, right? So these things always overlap. And the other thing that I always keep in mind, and this probably has to do with my age, the older I get,

I realize.

Because when I started out, I was very young, and I would be interviewing, you know, 90-year-old or 80-year-old men who fought in World War II, right? And that, as time passes,

I have

learned this commonality, or rather, kind of witnessed and observed it among people is that everybody has a set of parents.

Everybody has a set of parents. And those parents did things that

said individuals want to know about.

And that's why I think a lot of people become interested in history, right? And many of us choose to have children. And then we want to know about modernity, we want to know about the future. We want to know about what lies ahead

because of our children.

For example, I'm a subject matter expert in a number of areas,

one of which is not cryptocurrency,

right? But I can speak about it and look forward to talking to you guys about it because I understand.

The way in which military technology

is the very foundation upon which everything you guys are invested in.

And I want to know more about cryptocurrency because my kids think it's, you know, the greatest thing in the world. And they might be right.

David, I was just thinking, I wonder how many people in the CIA own an NFT. Yeah. It's probably a non zero amount, isn't it?