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@ TFTC
2025-05-06 18:54:44Key Takeaways
In this episode of the TFTC podcast, Dom Bei—a firefighter, union leader, and CalPERS Board of Trustees candidate—makes a powerful case for why the largest pension fund in the U.S. must seriously consider Bitcoin as both an investment opportunity and an educational tool. Highlighting CalPERS’ missed decade in private equity and its troubling 75% funded status, Bei critiques the system’s misaligned incentives and high leadership turnover. He argues that Bitcoin offers more than just potential gains—it forces participants to confront foundational issues like inflation, wealth extraction, and financial literacy. Through his nonprofit Proof of Workforce, Bei has already helped unions adopt Bitcoin in self-custody and believes that small, incremental steps can drive reform. His campaign is about re-engaging the 2 million CalPERS members, challenging political inertia, and avoiding another decade of lost opportunity.
Best Quotes
"Bitcoin’s brand is resilience, and that cannot be undone."
"I don’t need to convince pensions to buy Bitcoin. I just need them to look into it."
"The first pension was funded with confiscated warships. The original incentive structure was theft."
"CalPERS is the second-largest purchaser of medical insurance in the U.S., behind the federal government."
"Only 10% of CalPERS members voted in the last board election. That’s insane."
"Bitcoin’s simplest features remain its most impressive: you hold something that’s yours, and no one can take it."
"We don’t need pensions to go all in. Just get off zero."
"Mainstream media has run an 80% negative campaign on Bitcoin for a decade. That’s not a conspiracy—it’s just math."
Conclusion
Dom Bei’s conversation with Marty Bent frames Bitcoin not as a cure-all, but as a critical tool worth exploring—one that promotes financial literacy, institutional accountability, and personal sovereignty. His call for education, transparency, and incremental reform challenges broken pension governance and urges workers to reclaim control over both their retirements and their understanding of money. In a landscape of growing liabilities and political interference, Bei’s campaign sparks a vital conversation at the intersection of sound money and public service—one that aligns closely with Bitcoin’s foundational ethos.
Timestamps
0:00 - Intro
0:32 - Opportunity Cost app
3:34 - Dom's background
10:36 - Fold & Bitkey
12:13 - How pensions got to this point
19:29 - Impact of failure
28:10 - Unchained
28:38 - CalPERS politicized
33:49 - How pensions should approach bitcoin
42:49 - How to educate
49:37 - Energy/mining
55:55 - Running for the board
1:08:52 - Roswell NM
1:12:33 - C2ATranscript
(00:00) pension funds are chasing liabilities and having to basically be these vehicles that play in the big kids sandbox. It's cutthroat and there's no mercy there. I can't imagine a world where the pension goes bust, that's going to send shock waves through so many different sectors of the economy. I mean, you're talking global impact.
(00:17) If you have a CIO that's incentivized for the fund to do well, they're going to find Bitcoin. The numbers don't lie. Bitcoin's brand is resilience, and that cannot be undone. What's up, freaks? Sitting down with Dom Bay, running for the board of trustees of Kalpers. Dom, welcome to the show. Thanks, Marty.
(00:44) And uh uh what else? What is up, freaks? How's everyone doing today? I hope everybody's doing well. Vibes are high here. Uh been vibe coding. The vibes are high because the vibe coding has been up. I vibe coded something last night. Feeling pretty excited. Nice. What were you working on? Is it a top secret or uh No, I think by the time this episode airs, I'll have released it, but it's a simple, very simple product.
(01:07) Uh, a browser extension that allows you to put the price of goods that you may or may not be buying in SATS alongside dollars so that you recognize the opportunity cost of purchasing things. Uh, I like that. That's that's you know I was working once with a hotel that was looking at doing Bitcoin like you know different Bitcoin stuff whether it's like putting on the treasury and one of the things I told him I was like you guys should just do a coffee shop where you just have dollar price and sats price just next to each
(01:38) other. It' be a cool thing you know something that we don't see a lot as Bitcoiners but just to you know we all do it. you get that familiarity where you go like, well, what would this be in SATS? And it's easy to look up big things but not little things. Um, so that's really cool, man. That's a that's a that'll be that'll be good. Yeah.
(01:56) The whole idea is to just have the concept of opportunity costs while you're spending front of mind, while you're shopping on the internet, which I think actually ties in perfectly with what we're here to talk about today with you specifically, is the opportunity costs that exist within pensions um that are deploying capital in ways that they have for many decades and many are missing.
(02:23) uh the Bitcoin boat. Many who haven't spoken to you are missing the Bitcoin boat and you are taking it upon yourself to try to tackle one of the biggest behemoths in the world of pensions and Kalpers to really drive home this opportunity cost at at the pension level. Yeah, for sure. you know, the outgoing chief investment officer of Kalpers, uh, Nicole Muso, uh, described the 10-year era of private equity that KPERS missed as the lost decade.
(02:56) Uh, it was the pinnacle of private equity, and Kalpers really felt like they didn't have enough capital uh, deployed. And you know, in past conversations, I've I've talked about, you know, knowing what we know about Bitcoin and where it's at and where it's going. Are you going to have similar commentary from pensions around the country in 2035 saying, "Hey, we're going to get into Bitcoin now.
(03:21) We we had a lost decade where it was just staring us right in the face and oh, we didn't really need to do much but learn about it and uh we missed the boat. So now, you know, let's let's learn about it. It'll be time will tell. Yeah. Let's jump into how you got to the point where you decided to run for the board of trustees at Kalpers.
(03:46) Let's get into your history uh as a firefighter working with the union and then your advocacy in recent years going out to public pensions, particularly those of emergency responders to to get Bitcoin within their their pension systems. and yeah, why you think Kalpers is the next big step for you? For sure. So, um I got hired as a firefighter uh just around I'm coming up on my 16-year anniversary.
(04:11) Uh I got hired as a firefighter in Santa Monica and early in my career as a firefighter. Uh someone reached out and said, "Hey, you know, you're you're you're kind of a goofball. You like talking to people and and um there's this person on the board who does a lot of our political stuff. he's leaving. You should get with him and kind of learn about what he does and go find out. And so, uh, I went with him.
(04:36) First thing he did was bring me to this breakfast with a city council member and we were talking history in the city and and I just like, you know, I love that kind of stuff and learning about, you know, the backstories behind whatever's going on and all the moving pieces. And so, uh, I ended up getting on our board, um, for the Santa Monica firefighters and pretty pretty young, doing a lot of the political stuff, ended up becoming the vice president and then became the president of the firefighters and what was over a 10-year period of serving as
(05:07) an elected board member for the firefighters. Um, you know, kind of parallel to that and unrelated, I found Bitcoin in 2017 uh randomly working at a conference, which um I forget which conference it was, but I kind of looked back and I think it might have been consensus. I'm not sure. Um, but this was 2017 and I remember my one takeaway from this conference which may or may not have been consensus and it was this.
(05:39) The people I spoke to there were equally or greater as uh convicted as any group or constituency I'd ever met in my entire life. That's including firefighters. Um you know like like any group the conviction was was was unmissable. Uh and you could tell the people I talked to there they would not be uh convinced otherwise.
(06:08) And uh at that time, you know, there wasn't as much of a division between the different coins, you know, like like there was Ethereum people there and there was Bitcoiners there, but there was a definite like someone got a hold of me and was like, "Hey, uh Bitcoin is something that like forget all this other stuff.
(06:25) You need to just learn this." And and I remember taking that away and kind of got passively involved. Wasn't super active in the space. um just kind of like you know learned about it and grabbed a little bit and and you know just kind of did that thing. the board took up a lot of my time. And so, um, another thing that happened while I was on the board was I was appointed to a pension advisory committee for the city of Santa Monica where we had a full presentation from the board uh, and um, they came and presented to us and and different um,
(06:58) not the board, it was like different team members. And so I learned a ton about the pension and and I've always been a I was a history major in college, so I love learning about history. and I started really getting into the history of pensions which is fascinating. We'll save that for another episode for the sake of your viewers.
(07:18) Um but but um started doing that and when I got off the board um you know in addition to this