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you start to realize that these things are draining your energy, right?

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We spend so much time, an unfortunate amount of time in our lives here on Earth,

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trying to acquire this money by expending our time, our energy, our resources,

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giving up valuable time with our family, giving up pursuing dreams or passions,

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things that might improve us as a human being, right? But we're instead out here trying to gather

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this money because we're trying to store that effort and energy into something, into some,

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like a battery so that we can get to this point where then we can pursue our passions,

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our dreams, spend time with our family, retire, enjoy life here in this incredible experience,

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But if while you're doing that, other entities are sucking the energy out of that battery without your permission, without your knowledge, that begins to show you how valuable I think Bitcoin is compared to storing that energy in something like fiat currency.

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hello everybody thank you so much for coming by for another episode of the podcast we are on

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a great streak of bitcoin or guests recently we're back to the roots of the show which is great it's

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i've been all over the place over the last hundred episodes but we're getting back to

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bitcoin baby this is the most important thing out there and today we have paul tarantino who is the

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ceo at byte federal which is the seventh largest bitcoin atm operator and manufacturer in the world

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He's also a Bitcoin speaker, educator, and investor.

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Paul, thank you for being here, sir.

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Appreciate you.

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My pleasure, Ben.

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Thanks for having me.

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So as I was mentioning before we started recording, I found you by listening to your episode with Cedric Youngelman, who runs the Bitcoin Matrix podcast, another Floridian Bitcoiner you guys know.

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And it was a great episode you guys did.

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And I really thought you had a great grasp on how to explain big Bitcoin concepts in terms that newer folks will understand.

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I never get tired of doing the beginner level episodes here because I really think that zero to one for people is the most important place we can be spending our time creating the most value for people.

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So why don't we just start by getting a bit of your background?

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I know it started with 25 years in finance.

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So could you give us a walkthrough on where you came from and how you found Bitcoin?

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Yeah, sure.

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I started doing a bunch of little small businesses and then decided during the dot-com boom that I was going to become a financial advisor.

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And so I went down that career path and it was a lot of fun.

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Started with Payne Weber, which then we were bought by UBS.

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And I had a nice little stint there with some older guys that have been doing portfolio management for individual clients.

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So that was cool because we were fee-only and fiduciary-based, which back then was like cutting edge.

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So I got into that very early on, and I liked that a lot more than just selling products.

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Then I left after 9-11 and went back into private business and had my own companies, restaurants, and other things that I got into.

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and then got back into the business again and did stent at Northwestern Mutual investment management

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for a couple insurance partners. And then from there, Wells Fargo, and then landed at

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Canandaigua National Trust Company and managed the trust company there. Oh, gosh, I think it was like

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13 years I spent there. That's where I found Bitcoin. And I quickly became the Bitcoin water

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cooler guy and drove everybody nuts in the company. He tried to take this 140-year-old

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trust company into the future. And it was a lot of headbutting. It just didn't work.

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And at the time, I was developing sort of like this, speaking at local events and local meetups

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and teaching people about Bitcoin because I was just passionate about it. I just absolutely knew

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this was the future of finance. And in doing so and becoming more and more public, it became

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evident that my tenure at Canandaigua was coming to an end. So I went to work with Byte Federal

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and another investment management firm in town that was more open-minded. And so this is where

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I'm at today. Fantastic. So I think you've seen better than just about anybody that that old

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system and the old fiat system is still going out there and we see these people coming on twitter

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and firing hot takes about how bitcoin is a ponzi scheme and how it's not going to wear

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what was your general pitch to these people when you were by the water cooler trying to explain to

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them that bitcoin is going to be the future like how do you summarize that to these people who

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spent so much time in the old paradigm that's a great question so if if you approach it

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it with the Jeff Booth perspectives or a James Lavish perspective. I used a lot of data from

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Lynn Alden and Luke Groman, where you start talking about macroeconomics. And the typical

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investment management firm doesn't really function on macro. And so to them, it's like they've been

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hearing about the debt bubble for 30, 40 years, and it's never come to fruition. And so it's just

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beyond their scope of factoring into portfolio management. So if you start trying to frame it

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as digital gold, when they already hate gold, it didn't really work. So it's funny. And so you

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almost have to frame it. I even hate to admit this, but you have to frame it in the term,

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of all the crypto stuff. And then they start to grok it. You start to explain it from settlement,

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T plus three goes to T plus one. And then you start to explain it from, you used to have a

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stock certificate. Now you're going to have a digital stock certificate that you can own in

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your own wallet that you can have custody of. So we don't need third-party custodians. We don't

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need transfer agents. When you start to explain it from that perspective, their minds kind of get

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blown and then they open up to it and then they go down the crypto rabbit hole. And this is what

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every Wall Street firm is doing right now is going down the crypto rabbit hole.

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And they think that that innovation is amazing.

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I think they're all going to discover what we all have discovered, that that is a dead

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end.

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That's just like a level one to level two innovation where Bitcoin is a zero to one

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innovation.

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It's a massive shift in the way we will all save our money and the way money will function.

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But these guys have spent a lifetime making great salaries, doing work that they are very proud of, where they didn't really have to understand money.

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And so when you try to tell them that everything is changing, money is changing, and that the way that all financial systems work will be judged by how it performs against Bitcoin, their entire framework is shattered and they just shut down.

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So unfortunately, I think a lot of the Trojan horse for Wall Street is crypto.

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But I believe as the system begins to break, as the debt bubble becomes the elephant in the room that they can no longer avoid,

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that they will then quickly grok Bitcoin and move there because it's the only digital asset that is real money,

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The only digital asset that can preserve their wealth, the only digital asset without counterparty risk. And then all those things will start to add value to them.

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But, you know, for my initial pitch to them to try and get them to understand it, they all gravitated towards these sort of crypto metrics and efficiency metrics that we know in the long run are kind of irrelevant to our, say, immediate to midterm outlook for how we preserve our wealth going forward.

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yeah 100 and just for those watching i just pulled up a meme over here that i think really

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shows this well which is a perception versus the reality when it comes to these three different

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financial ideas the fiat crypto and bitcoin and for those listening basically it's just a venn

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diagram it shows most people when they hear like crypto and bitcoin they think that they are part

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of the same category and that fiat is a different category but in reality bitcoin is the thing that

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it's it's its own category and crypto and fiat are really similar because like there's a bazillion

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coins everyone can print them for themselves and it's just you got money printers everywhere you

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basically just replace the central banking board with a board of nerds and they're it's still

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controlled so crypto is not the way so for anyone wondering right now if they should go down this

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crypto rabbit hole like paul said not recommended i spent like three years doing that and we all

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waste a lot of time and what's so fascinating about it is that it's the crypto pull is just

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immune to age experience or how rich you are like everyone goes chasing that shiny object

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object that's right i think they're going to find the next bitcoin that's funny that's what i call it

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too the shiny object yeah the shiny thing and it's um i mean don't i don't want to tell people

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like i don't like telling people you know they're stupid or you're not doing the right thing or don't

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make these mistakes because i for what i learned from mistakes that's that's the way i learned so

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if i screw something up if i especially if i lose money then i try to like oh i probably don't want

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to do that again. And I lost a lot of money in crypto early on. And you have to go through these

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sort of learning phases. How have you learned people that can learn from other people's

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experiences? Good for you. You guys are probably doing a lot better than I'm doing. But it's just

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the way that some people learn and experience leaves a mark. The scars add up.

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yeah absolutely and some people lose money doing it but myself i didn't really even lose any money

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i just lost a lot of time and energy that we can have back that i could have been reading the

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bitcoin standard instead of a bunch of crypto youtube channels but hey everyone goes through

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the learning journey that's that's why i created this podcast i hopefully expedite it for some

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people why you do what you do as well awesome so everyone has their own journey and uh cool now

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Now that we have the hook out on a few different types of audiences here, I'm sure we've got

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some super rich successful people listening as well as people who are just trying to learn about Bitcoin So let start from the beginning here with the foundational principles people need to start looking at this money thing

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and actually grokking money itself.

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And you mentioned how it's so interesting

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how people who work in finance even don't understand money,

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which is the thing that they're literally working with.

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But people just don't think about what is this thing actually?

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What part does it play in society?

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Why do we need to think about it?

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So how would you describe, I guess, the question I know Robert Breedlove loves to start with?

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Sure. So, you know, I won't take the Robert Breedlove like technical aspects and get into unit of account and store of value and, you know, all these other things.

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I'll just start with what I think money is how we save our time and our energy.

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And when you frame it in that perspective, then when you apply that to inflation, interest rates, taxation, you start to realize that these things are draining your energy.

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right you spend we spend so much time an unfortunate amount of time in our lives here

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on earth trying to acquire this money by expending our time our energy our resources

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giving up valuable time with our family giving up pursuing dreams or passions

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things that might improve us as a human being right but we're instead out here trying to gather

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this money because we're trying to store that effort and energy into something, into a battery

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so that we can get to this point where then we can pursue our passions, our dreams, spend time

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with our family, retire, enjoy life here in this incredible experience. But if while you're doing

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that, other entities are sucking the energy out of that battery without your permission,

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without your knowledge, that begins to show you how valuable I think Bitcoin is compared to storing

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that energy in something like fiat currency. So I like to think of it in those terms, right?

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And to me, it's sort of like unfortunate that we have to play this game. But if we have to play

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this game, if that's where, at least where we are right now, um, as, as a, as a race, as a species,

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then we have to do everything we can to store that in a battery that's going to get bigger over time.

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Because if that battery is growing and every charge you put into it, then you get a 10 X charge

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out of it. That's going to build, uh, the, the sort of the foundation for you to build that

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valuable life and those valuable experiences, pass that on to your family members, pass it on

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to your children, create this whole new way to be human. And so I guess, you know, without getting

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into the technical terms of what is money, that is, I think, something everybody could relate to,

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whether you're in finance or not. Yeah, absolutely. And this is why

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the book I mentioned earlier, The Bitcoin Standard by Safedina Moose is so loved by the

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Bitcoin community is because it does such a good job walking through the history of these different

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sorts of money that people have had and how just the quality of the money in the sense that it fits

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these certain characteristics, which we can dive into, changes the prosperity of the society.

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And if the money is really hard, like gold, where it's, you know, it's difficult to produce more,

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it has a very stable supply it's you know fungible divisible it fits all these criteria

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then it creates a more prosperous society more happy people more productive people

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it creates flourishing civilizations whereas when you have a money that is easily debased

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or can be you know manipulated and you know we he goes through different examples of like you know

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when it was seashells and stones and glass beads all of these were taken advantage of by other

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civilizations that came in and just flooded the market with a bunch of beads that they could make

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more cheaply elsewhere and basically just took all their real stuff and then they were just you know

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left with nothing and there's all this there's a whole spectrum of ways that the money can be used

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for good or for evil and it really comes down to how hard that money is how sound the money is

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and gold is sort of our uh our benchmark for one that worked really well for thousands of years and

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we we still see remnants to this day of this beautiful civilization that once existed like

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we still look at the pyramids like how did they make that and all this architecture all over the

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world like european architecture like it's so beautiful like how are how are these people like

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able to do this and i i believe it's a big part of it because they had sound money that really

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inspired them and gave them a more you know long-term outlook on the world because they

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weren't you know stressed out about having to do a you know a payment plan for domino's pizza and

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Like all these crazy things that we see now in the world because everyone's broke.

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You know, I do love the way Saifedean describes also this sort of privilege of investing or you shouldn't have to invest.

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You know, he talks about that is that you should just be able to earn the money and save it in a vehicle that grows and outpaces inflation on your behalf.

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So many people are taught and trained and indoctrinated into making their money and investing it in the market through their retirement accounts, etc.

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That they miss this simple fact that if we look at the S&P 500 over, say, the last 70, 80, 90, 100 years, you're going to get something like an average return of, we'll just round it, 9%.

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9%, right? But if you look at the inflation of money supply, and I think Safedine in his book

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did this calculation. I'm sure it's been updated to a higher number. If you look at the inflation

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of the money supply running somewhere around, say, 7%, then the S&P 500 is netting you to 2% gain

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growth over that time period. But then you're paying an investment manager 1%, best case scenario,

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You take fees out of the funds and ETFs and whatever else you have in that portfolio is managing.

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Maybe there's another half of a percent in there.

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And then you throw taxes on top of that.

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At best, when you look at real purchasing power by just passively investing in the S&P 500, you may do better or worse in any given year.

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But over your lifetime, you're probably just breaking even in purchasing power.

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So to be able to have a resource like Bitcoin where you can take those savings, invest it in something that is far superior, far outpacing inflation, where you're not worried about what is the price this week or this month or this day.

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You're worried about is this outpacing inflation and growing my purchasing power over time.

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I can't think of a better way to make money passively than to just save in Bitcoin.

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And that is, I think so many people just don't look at that simple fact.

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And instead, they're focused on, oh, my God, it was up 20%, down 20%.

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Yeah, you made 100% this year, but last year was down 80%.

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they're missing the point of just smoothing out that volatility and looking at the long-term

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growth trajectory of this asset and what that means for their life, right? So, and so many people

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today that know my background, friends, family, you know, will ask me financial advice and I'll say,

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and they'll be, do you think I should do an IRA, my 401k? Should I do this? Should I do that? I

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said, I think you should just save in Bitcoin and never sell it. And just that simple,

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advice is so hard for them to grok because they're just so sure it has to be more complicated than

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that. And it's so difficult sometimes for people to do the simple thing. And giving them a simple

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thing to do, to execute on, it just seems like an impossible task because it makes no sense when

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they're told that the world is complex. So you have to be super smart to do this, that to get

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ahead, you have to have all these angles. You have to have tax strategies. You have to have all this

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stuff going on. The best tax strategy is never sell. The best saving strategy is dollar cost

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average. And the best asset to do that with is Bitcoin. So those three simple steps get you

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to a whole different future than if you're trying to play all these other games.

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And you get to live your life along the way, which is a huge. Yeah, that's nice.

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yeah that's nice right and you get to live your life and not have to be a financial advisor for

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yourself and like an investor a part-time investor because this is what we see now is that you know

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people are being instructed like oh you can't just be a doctor or an engineer or an artist you you

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have to also learn how to play the stock market and you know like you said all these different

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strategies for different things it's just so complicated and the majority of people do not

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want to waste their energy learning all that stuff it's intentionally made complicated this

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fiat system oh absolutely what people are figuring out in every single tax season that goes by is

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another slap in the face for people like realizing this whole thing kind of just seems like it's

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screwing me absolutely it's not fun to do it's stealing my wealth and you know they're starting

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to just find more people online talking about this crazy bitcoin thing that just seemed to be making

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more sense. Yeah. Once you, once you under, uh, once you understand Bitcoin, um, you start to

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question a lot of things. You start to question the structures. Well, why have I been told to

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stuff money into 401k for so long, which is going to have taxation on the way out, which is going to

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restrict my cash flow on the way up or the way through life? Why am I told to do all this stuff?

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Who's it really benefiting if I'm investing it in the S&P 500 and the fund managers and the

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Wall Street banks and the portfolio managers that I used to be? And everybody along the way

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is getting a piece. What is this system really set up and who's it set up to benefit, right?

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As opposed to if I take self-custody of Bitcoin that I'm buying for myself, the fees are very low.

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The results are very, very good.

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And if I never sell it, I don't have taxation.

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That's a whole other conversation about how to extract a lifestyle out of not selling your Bitcoin.

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But let build the Bitcoin balance sheet first before you worry about that right And I kind of an example of that myself I living in Costa rica right now and a lot of places here except bitcoin like a lot of shops the raw milk at the market the

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the beef down the hill from me cool i go in there and i pay it with bitcoin with zaps i earned on

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nostr which is like this whole other you know side of this thing that more and more bitcoins are

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coming on and like this is basically a social media where you can earn bitcoin for posting so

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I use that wallet to go buy my beef every week or two.

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So, you know, this, this future is being built and there are places in the world where you

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can still do it right now.

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And it's the amount of places where it's happening is going to continue growing.

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So the earlier you can be, the better.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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And one last thing I wanted to touch on that you mentioned is how saving in Bitcoin is

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the ultimate passive income.

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And I think this is a really good thing to think about because I, for one, when I was

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going through, you know, when was this?

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I was probably like 23 or something,

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like right after college,

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starting to think about, you know,

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how am I going to hustle?

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How am I going to,

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I don't want to work this stupid job.

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Like I quickly figured out

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that working in an office just sucked

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and I want to figure out,

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like, how do I build a business?

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How do I make passive income?

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This is a very alluring phrase

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for people who just want to be freed from the system.

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And I do wish I would have just known

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about Bitcoin back then,

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because I agree with you.

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This is the ultimate passive income,

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but it's just,

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it comes in the form of

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you're purchasing power increasing passively not so much like you're just gaining extra ones and

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zeros on a bank account but like you're you're building your ability to purchase real things in

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the real world that's right and that's what bitcoin does when you look at the graph and how

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it just gains value over time compared to the fiat system has been since day one and people

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need to stop looking at the volatility of it getting scared off from the day-to-day changes

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because I would say that volatility is, you know, you have to look at the denominator of the volatility when it's priced in dollars.

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Like you're looking at the Bitcoin chart and it says, you know, $84,000 or whatever.

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That fiat that is measured in is also extremely volatile, but it's volatile to the downside.

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So it's making the whole thing crazy.

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You don't have a stable measuring stick.

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And I would say that Bitcoin is actually much more stable than fiat.

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That's right.

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Yeah, it's simply just people are so used to pricing things in dollars.

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And you could price the dollar in Bitcoin, and it's a horrific chart.

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I mean, you just reverse the code going into your charting software.

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It tells you everything you need to know.

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Like you hear the meme, a Bitcoin is still worth a Bitcoin.

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And it always will be because there's only 21 million of them.

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And whether you want to price that in Turkish lira or US dollars or rubles, it doesn't matter.

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Because if that's the unit of account, then everything else is volatile against it.

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So this whole idea that Bitcoin is volatile, it's volatile relative to whatever you're pricing it in.

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And Bitcoin is make, let's put it this way, everything is going down in value against Bitcoin.

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Right. So as a top performing asset in the world, that that's the asset that you want to save it.

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Yep. Simple as that. 100 percent agree.

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We provide a lot of context for this next question, but I'd like to just put it out plainly here to see how you answer this here is us Bitcoiners.

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And we already have in this conversation, we like to use this word fiat and just throw it everywhere.

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fiat, fiat, fiat. And what is your explanation for what this word actually means in the financial

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sense? What is the landscape of the current fiat system we are in?

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What does fiat mean in the financial sense? This is basically government mandated money,

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which means it only has value because the government states it has value.

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You only use it essentially because you're forced to use it at the point of a gun,

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at the point of a government mandate.

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So fiat in those terms,

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if you took all of the force,

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military and otherwise that is behind it away

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would have no value

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because it would be just worth the money,

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the paper it's printed on.

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And so I think that's what you're getting at,

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but I'm happy to go any direction you want to on that.

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Yeah, for sure. And I guess maybe we could start coloring in what it looks like and how it's built, because you talked about how people are starting to realize that this system just doesn't seem like it's made to benefit the people.

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Sure.

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So what are the different players in the fiat system? Like we could talk about the banks and the Wall Street and how it all sort of functions to create this inflation and where we can talk about inflation after that.

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Okay. So in the simple terms, we used to have, in our country, in the United States of America, there's a whole other question about the United States.

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But in the United States of America, the Republic, the original Republic, we had mechanisms by which we created our own money.

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It wasn't until a later date, and there were many fits and starts to this, but it wasn't until 1913 until we got the central bank that we have today, which is the Federal Reserve.

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But it's not our bank.

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The government doesn't control it.

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The government doesn't own it.

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It's a private bank, right?

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And they own banks all over the world.

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There's central banks all over the world.

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So our money is not issued by our government. It's issued by a private entity that's outside of our government. So that should raise sort of a red flag and a big question mark initially.

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They have no reserves.

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That's right.

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So when we get the Federal Reserve note, which is what's written on top of that paper, that Federal Reserve note is debt issued to – like our government will issue debt.

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And the Federal Reserve will give us those Federal Reserve notes, which are claims.

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And then we're using those to trade.

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so all of our money is a debt to that central bank

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now when

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let's just use 1929 as an example

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right because we first got the central bank in 1913

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and from 1913 to 1929 we had

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an incredible bull market

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We all know from being Bitcoiners that liquidity drives asset prices up.

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So a bunch of new money came into the system under the central bank.

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Asset prices went up.

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And then once that liquidity was pulled or prevented from adding more liquidity,

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meaning when we got less debt coming to us out of the Federal Reserve,

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the market collapsed.

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Today, when that happens, we go back to the Federal Reserve and we say, can we have more money, please?

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And so far, they've said, sure.

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And they give us more money and they drive the asset prices back up.

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In 1929, for whatever reason, I wasn't there.

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But for whatever reason, liquidity was not provided.

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And we all know that we went into a Great Depression.

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when that liquidity, when more money is not given, when the balance on your credit card is not

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extended and the interest rate on your credit card is not reduced, eventually what happens is

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you have to pay the debt. And in that case, in 1920, the creditor said,

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you can't pay the debt? Okay, well, we want some things in exchange.

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coming out of that we got a massive war we got the irs we got social security we get all this

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buildup of wall street and all these structures that feed money into the banking system

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and i don't think it's any coincidence that that crash happened to get more leverage and control

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over the United States.

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So this, when you start to see the central bank as a control structure,

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a way for a private banking entity to get control of a country

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and to basically become like the mafia, right?

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To get in between, to become, just be the middleman that just takes a fee,

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gets a percentage of everything you make

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in exchange for not punishing you,

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which they call protection,

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but not punishing you,

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now you start to look at the Federal Reserve differently.

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So ignore what Jerome Powell says

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and ignore the interest rates,

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ignore all that.

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It's all rhetoric and it's all theater.

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At the end of the day,

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They control our money.

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And through that mechanism, they can control us.

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And through that mechanism, now we pay taxes to pay the debt, to pay off the central bank.

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And that entire structure was delivered or put upon us because we gave up control of our own sovereign money and we handed it over to the central bank.

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The reason why we handed it over is because they had influence and bribery and ability to convince politicians to put the structure in place back then.

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They still work to keep that in place today, right?

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I mean, Ron Paul has been ranting against eliminating the Fed for years.

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Many Bitcoiners see that.

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And once you understand that this is like the bully in the room that's taking your lunch money, you should be asking, like, why do we even need them?

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Right?

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Then Bitcoin comes along as a way to replace the central bank.

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Right?

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This is what Bitcoin was created to do, to eliminate the central bank.

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indoctrinated people will think well if we get rid of the central bank then we'll just

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we won't even be able to bail ourselves out of financial crisis we won't be able to bail

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ourselves out of the business cycle we also would not have introduced the tremendous amount

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of leverage to drive asset prices to unsustainable levels that drive business growth in an

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unsustainable fashion that incentivize malinvestment right So by eliminating the central bank we get rid of all these factors that are allowing players big players mostly the central bank the entities that own the central bank to manipulate our markets

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And by manipulating our markets, they can convince us to do things that are not in our interest.

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They might be in our immediate, like solve this immediate pain point, but they're not in our best interest long term.

364
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And they've used that against us now for over 100 years.

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And we're back to this sort of peak decision point again.

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And it's many Bitcoiners' great hope that when we get to that decision point, we don't have to go back to the central bank well, that we can migrate to a Bitcoin system.

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And migrating to that Bitcoin system eliminates the need for the central bank.

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So this is a big point of contention for a lot of people, especially in Wall Street, because they're sort of aligned with the central bank to a certain extent because it keeps their mousetrap operating.

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But we're hopeful that we can get Bitcoin to a size, scope and scale globally.

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That's really the end goal is to eliminate the central bank.

371
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Beautiful. Yeah. And I completely agree. And I would even add to that when we're just looking at the current state of things and the power that these bankers have to control everyone. So we pay taxes, which is a lot already. It's like a huge amount. When you look at the amount of taxes we used to just revolt and go to war for way back in the day, it's like a minuscule amount of what it is now. People are so pacified to it. They don't even know what these numbers mean anymore. So they just deal with it.

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So not only are we paying huge taxes, we're also having the money that we hold that isn't taxed inflated away because they are just printing money and diluting our purchasing power.

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And so it's all disintegrating in front of our eyes.

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And you mentioned how when you look at the actual chart of the value of the dollar, it's just tanking like a rock.

375
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It's been doing this ever since they started printing money.

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And this is why when people go to the store or McDonald's is a classic example.

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They used to have the dollar menu where things cost a dollar.

378
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And now, what is it like the $8 menu or something?

379
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It's just going up and up.

380
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And I just tell people this isn't because a McDonald's burger got eight times more valuable.

381
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Definitely not.

382
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If anything, it's gotten worse because of the inflation is affected by chains.

383
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But it's more expensive because your actual dollars are now worth eight times less.

384
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They've lost that much value.

385
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And this is why we're living in what we're told is supposed to be the richest country

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in the history of the world and things should be great, but everyone's broke. Everyone's struggling

387
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to pay rent and feed themselves. And all the quality of all of our goods and services is all

388
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going down and people can't figure out why. And folks are finally starting to put the piece

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together that really comes down to the money itself having these problems. And those in control

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that have control of this, it's a pretty deep problem because not only do the bankers,

391
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Are they doing these things, but they also have unlimited money to influence the media and the educational system and the entertainment industry and the centralized big tech social media algorithms.

392
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All of these things are very well designed to keep people from figuring out that this is the truth and this is what's actually causing all their problems because they are incentivized to keep the game going.

393
00:38:20,639 --> 00:38:38,139
That's right. And so it becomes really difficult for people going through this, this normal track that most people do of going to school, you know, watching Netflix, watching TV shows, because all these things are controlled by the same entities that want us to be confused about this.

394
00:38:38,139 --> 00:38:43,699
And I still remember my college economics classes is completely Keynesian speak.

395
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Everything is like, oh, we need the central banks because it smooths out the booms and bust cycles.

396
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We need to have some control when really just eliminating the central planning completely would fix so many of the problems.

397
00:38:57,059 --> 00:39:03,979
And how would you explain that, how just central planning in itself is not a good idea for any financial system?

398
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And what happens when we eliminate that?

399
00:39:06,599 --> 00:39:08,739
because I know a lot of people will be scared of this idea.

400
00:39:08,859 --> 00:39:12,379
It seems, you know, they've been convinced that this is like providing some safety

401
00:39:12,379 --> 00:39:15,459
and some, you know, some guardrails that are good for us.

402
00:39:15,459 --> 00:39:16,579
Like, what would you say to that?

403
00:39:17,559 --> 00:39:18,359
Well, okay.

404
00:39:18,479 --> 00:39:19,499
There's a few things there.

405
00:39:19,599 --> 00:39:26,599
One thing that came to mind is a simple analogy that I used to use for my clients

406
00:39:26,599 --> 00:39:29,699
that were when I was trying to explain inflation

407
00:39:29,699 --> 00:39:33,039
and I was trying to explain why things were getting more expensive.

408
00:39:33,039 --> 00:39:38,119
and what I would do is I'd talk about a weights and measure scale.

409
00:39:39,699 --> 00:39:44,619
And on one side of the scale is all the goods and services, resources,

410
00:39:45,119 --> 00:39:47,519
you name it, that we want or need.

411
00:39:48,599 --> 00:39:52,599
And the other side of the scale is all the fiat money in the world

412
00:39:52,599 --> 00:39:55,039
because it's not just the U.S. central bank, right?

413
00:39:56,039 --> 00:39:59,819
China, Japan, European Union, you name it, right?

414
00:39:59,999 --> 00:40:02,339
There's dozens of central banks.

415
00:40:02,339 --> 00:40:07,239
but all the money that they're creating sits on this side of the scale and all the goods and

416
00:40:07,239 --> 00:40:13,499
services we need to survive sit on this side of the scale. We're not a part of this. We're just

417
00:40:13,499 --> 00:40:19,199
down here on the ground. We have to keep coming up here and trying to buy our little bits of goods

418
00:40:19,199 --> 00:40:26,899
and services. So if central banks create more money, this side of the scale gets heavier and

419
00:40:26,899 --> 00:40:35,019
all these goods and services get more expensive for us, right? And that is out of reach for the

420
00:40:35,019 --> 00:40:39,819
everyday person because this much money gets printed and created doesn't mean you got it,

421
00:40:40,859 --> 00:40:48,799
right? This stuff just got more expensive because it's all priced in this pile over here,

422
00:40:48,799 --> 00:41:05,299
Right. So when this happens that fast, like we saw during COVID, this is just the complete expansion of the of the base money, the amount of money in the system that the fiat, the fiat that's being created and driving that out of reach.

423
00:41:05,479 --> 00:41:12,619
So that's that's number one, a real simple way to kind of visualize why we're not able to participate in this.

424
00:41:12,619 --> 00:41:14,959
And it's it had nothing to do with us at all.

425
00:41:14,959 --> 00:41:22,179
that's also a way to impoverish people, right?

426
00:41:22,699 --> 00:41:25,899
Like, do you not think that central banks know that?

427
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:29,979
If I can explain that on a weight to measure analogy,

428
00:41:30,219 --> 00:41:34,119
like they'll use a lot of acronyms and big words and all this stuff.

429
00:41:34,119 --> 00:41:36,659
We have mandates and we're trying to stabilize prices.

430
00:41:36,819 --> 00:41:38,219
It's all garbage.

431
00:41:38,999 --> 00:41:39,879
It's all garbage.

432
00:41:40,579 --> 00:41:43,699
They know exactly what the outcome is going to be.

433
00:41:43,699 --> 00:41:57,739
They know poor people will get poorer. Rich people will get richer. People that own assets, right? Their assets will go up in price. People that own the commodities, their commodities will go up in price. People that produce, their goods will go up in price, right?

434
00:41:57,739 --> 00:42:12,459
So for the everyday person, this becomes a major pain point that they have very few tools up until Bitcoin to combat or fight against it.

435
00:42:13,599 --> 00:42:15,199
And now I forgot the other half of your question.

436
00:42:16,099 --> 00:42:17,619
So bring me back on target.

437
00:42:19,019 --> 00:42:20,379
Oh, I love the direction you're going.

438
00:42:20,459 --> 00:42:21,459
You can just freestyle this.

439
00:42:22,039 --> 00:42:22,919
What was it?

440
00:42:24,399 --> 00:42:25,699
I can't even remember now.

441
00:42:25,699 --> 00:42:26,479
All right.

442
00:42:26,479 --> 00:42:27,659
I got more new questions.

443
00:42:27,659 --> 00:42:28,739
There's too many questions.

444
00:42:29,079 --> 00:42:29,599
No, I know.

445
00:42:31,159 --> 00:42:33,059
Yeah, so, all right.

446
00:42:33,099 --> 00:42:36,659
So that's how, you know, that's sort of a basic way of how I explain inflation.

447
00:42:36,659 --> 00:42:42,539
And then, you know, when you're trying to combat inflation as an individual, prior to Bitcoin, you had gold.

448
00:42:44,359 --> 00:42:49,659
I don't probably, there's probably 10 million Bitcoin podcasts telling you that why Bitcoin is better than gold.

449
00:42:49,739 --> 00:42:50,579
So I won't go into that.

450
00:42:50,579 --> 00:42:57,739
But, you know, Bitcoin is really the tool now to save yourself from that dilemma.

451
00:42:58,339 --> 00:42:58,539
Right.

452
00:42:58,859 --> 00:43:17,039
I would add to that, that you should be thinking, at least in my opinion, about assets or resources that you can secure for you and your family that are outside of money.

453
00:43:17,039 --> 00:43:22,899
like how could I feed myself if food got too expensive?

454
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:28,819
That also starts to align you with higher quality food, right?

455
00:43:28,859 --> 00:43:30,979
Like you're going and buying local beef.

456
00:43:33,039 --> 00:43:35,059
But how can I do that?

457
00:43:35,099 --> 00:43:37,679
When you start to really go down that rabbit hole

458
00:43:37,679 --> 00:43:45,439
about how humans have fed themselves efficiently for years, right?

459
00:43:45,439 --> 00:43:51,479
It becomes a carnivore diet because you can't extract enough energy from a plant-based diet.

460
00:43:51,919 --> 00:43:52,439
I tried.

461
00:43:53,219 --> 00:43:54,439
It wasn't real good.

462
00:43:55,139 --> 00:44:01,839
And you don't have the time and energy to produce enough on a small farm to just live off that.

463
00:44:01,939 --> 00:44:04,539
You'll burn more energy growing the food than you'll actually consume.

464
00:44:05,799 --> 00:44:13,439
So letting the animals convert solar energy into energy that you can absorb becomes the primary solution.

465
00:44:13,439 --> 00:44:19,019
So that means having land, having fertile land or land that you can improve.

466
00:44:19,639 --> 00:44:20,679
Land becomes valuable.

467
00:44:21,579 --> 00:44:26,399
Everything sort of Bitcoin just realigns you back to like scarce resources.

468
00:44:27,079 --> 00:44:32,239
And what's most important for your health and your abundance, your success.

469
00:44:33,459 --> 00:44:40,519
And I don't know, for whatever reason, right, Bitcoin fixes money, but it realigns you to all these other values that.

470
00:44:40,519 --> 00:44:47,339
I think you start to realize that are just as important.

471
00:44:50,619 --> 00:44:55,039
So I know I didn't probably answer the question, but we'll eventually get back to it.

472
00:44:55,039 --> 00:44:55,579
That was great.

473
00:44:55,799 --> 00:44:56,399
No, I love it.

474
00:44:56,459 --> 00:44:58,139
This is a free-flowing conversation.

475
00:44:58,339 --> 00:45:01,799
Sometimes my questions just go all over the place too, because there's so many places

476
00:45:01,799 --> 00:45:02,459
I want to go.

477
00:45:03,219 --> 00:45:04,319
We just flow it.

478
00:45:04,379 --> 00:45:04,839
I love it.

479
00:45:05,039 --> 00:45:05,139
Cool.

480
00:45:05,979 --> 00:45:06,379
Yeah.

481
00:45:06,379 --> 00:45:19,439
And one of the things that you mentioned there was how when you are on a fiat money standard where, you know, certain tiny elite can print it and everyone else just has to deal with it, how their money is being debased constantly.

482
00:45:20,099 --> 00:45:28,619
This causes a reality where the poor people get poor and the rich people get richer, but only like a minuscule percentage of even the rich people.

483
00:45:28,619 --> 00:45:36,519
There are millionaires and billionaires who are suffering right now because it really is just like the central bankers at the absolute hippy top who are benefiting massively.

484
00:45:36,859 --> 00:45:43,599
And so I was just talking with another guy, Eric V. Stacks, who I know that you know as well.

485
00:45:44,659 --> 00:45:52,659
And I brought up this idea of late-stage capitalism, which is this term that people use right now where they look at everything as falling apart.

486
00:45:52,659 --> 00:45:56,739
Things are going crazy, homeless people all over the streets.

487
00:45:56,739 --> 00:45:58,699
It's like things just seem to be falling apart.

488
00:45:58,699 --> 00:46:03,479
And this is the most, I think it's the most common blame

489
00:46:03,479 --> 00:46:06,239
that is pointed is, oh, it's capitalism in late stages.

490
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:08,879
But what Eric and I talked about, and I recommend people

491
00:46:08,879 --> 00:46:11,479
go listen to that episode first, I think I'll order these

492
00:46:11,479 --> 00:46:17,599
in that way, is he quoted Robert Breedlove, another Florent

493
00:46:17,652 --> 00:46:25,392
who basically talks about how if you have a central bank, you are already 50% communist

494
00:46:25,392 --> 00:46:30,472
because the central bank is controlling the money, which is half of every single financial

495
00:46:30,472 --> 00:46:36,952
transaction. So you're starting at 50% and almost everywhere is more than 50%. So just the idea that

496
00:46:36,952 --> 00:46:42,172
we're even in a capitalistic system right now, I believe is incorrect because I totally agree with

497
00:46:42,172 --> 00:46:49,252
that. Would you agree as well? Yeah. Yeah. And I think a way to think about this is that as we get

498
00:46:49,252 --> 00:46:54,432
this massive wealth divide where you've got, say, the top 1% owning 90% of the wealth,

499
00:46:56,272 --> 00:47:03,972
everybody underneath that is slowly moving more and more. A larger and larger percent of the

500
00:47:03,972 --> 00:47:09,992
population is moving to where they can't make ends meet. And this is when you start to hear

501
00:47:09,992 --> 00:47:18,392
billionaires and trillionaires talk about UBI, which is in and of itself a communist ideology.

502
00:47:19,812 --> 00:47:26,552
So why did these extreme capitalists that rose to the top of industry all of a sudden become

503
00:47:26,552 --> 00:47:33,152
communist? Their mentality shifted because they're trying to save their own hide.

504
00:47:33,852 --> 00:47:39,852
Because in late stage capitalism, inevitably you get to the point where the people revolt.

505
00:47:39,992 --> 00:47:50,952
A revolt is violent, and usually the majority wins and redistributes the wealth.

506
00:47:51,892 --> 00:47:59,092
If you want to avoid having your wealth redistributed, you either go away and hide,

507
00:47:59,872 --> 00:48:04,032
or you try and come up with social programs to appease the masses.

508
00:48:04,032 --> 00:48:24,432
So I think it's inevitable that late stage capitalism leads to communism ideologies or communist ideologies. And that sort of is just sort of the natural historical cycle that we've seen take place over and over and over again in societies.

509
00:48:24,432 --> 00:48:32,312
which is why I think it's so important that the everyday person stacks Bitcoin.

510
00:48:32,312 --> 00:48:35,272
Right. Yeah. It's like, it's great.

511
00:48:35,392 --> 00:48:37,872
We're all getting rich because we have a Bitcoin ETF and,

512
00:48:38,392 --> 00:48:41,532
and the government's going to build an SBR, yada, yada, yada.

513
00:48:41,992 --> 00:48:43,772
Wall Street's getting it now.

514
00:48:45,532 --> 00:48:50,052
Number go up is not necessarily the solution.

515
00:48:50,052 --> 00:48:59,712
That could lead to a massive divide between haves and have-nots and not solve this problem.

516
00:49:00,152 --> 00:49:10,052
The more that Bitcoin can stay decentralized and distributed and the more we can get everyday people acquiring their own stack, however small or big that might be,

517
00:49:10,052 --> 00:49:15,212
the more we move towards replacing that central bank,

518
00:49:15,652 --> 00:49:21,612
the more we move away from the need for a universal basic income

519
00:49:21,612 --> 00:49:22,952
because we can trade with each other.

520
00:49:24,052 --> 00:49:25,932
We can do peer-to-peer transactions.

521
00:49:27,132 --> 00:49:31,152
This is what, if they could get this ideology,

522
00:49:31,572 --> 00:49:35,332
maybe some of them are, I know some of them get it, right?

523
00:49:35,392 --> 00:49:37,852
Because you can hear some of the language.

524
00:49:37,992 --> 00:49:39,812
Some of these very, very wealthy people get it.

525
00:49:40,052 --> 00:49:47,492
Um, but, but many others are just trying to save their own skin and it's completely a selfish game.

526
00:49:47,992 --> 00:49:57,632
Um, and so I think that, that, you know, historically you would say late stage capitalism ends in a communist revolt, redistribution of assets and capital.

527
00:49:58,272 --> 00:50:01,192
And, um, hopefully we can avoid that.

528
00:50:02,592 --> 00:50:03,112
Interesting.

529
00:50:03,112 --> 00:50:11,112
I agree with a lot of that, but I disagree a little bit with this idea that late-stage capitalism leads to communism.

530
00:50:11,412 --> 00:50:13,712
I don't think we've ever even had capitalism before.

531
00:50:14,272 --> 00:50:20,052
I would call it more late-stage central banking because we've always had these banks around.

532
00:50:20,352 --> 00:50:22,632
And maybe you could look back at when we had gold.

533
00:50:22,752 --> 00:50:27,012
It's like it was pretty capitalist, but that lasted for 5,000 years and we didn't have any collapsing.

534
00:50:27,192 --> 00:50:28,192
It worked really well.

535
00:50:28,732 --> 00:50:30,532
So what would you think about that?

536
00:50:30,532 --> 00:50:40,872
I mean, we did have an era in the United States before the central bank that we have now where we had free banking, right?

537
00:50:40,872 --> 00:50:51,952
Where every individual bank was creating its own currency and it was backed by gold, but they were trading notes that were the bank's currency.

538
00:50:52,792 --> 00:50:53,972
And then you would judge, right?

539
00:50:53,972 --> 00:50:59,972
Like, just like today, like, do we think Tether's reserves are better than USDC's reserves or Dye's?

540
00:51:00,032 --> 00:51:01,892
We're like, what's the better stable coin, right?

541
00:51:01,892 --> 00:51:13,132
So it was kind of like that type of functionality and that you would judge and vet each individual bank and you would decide which bank you trusted and which bank you wanted to work with.

542
00:51:13,352 --> 00:51:17,552
And you would use their money, which is backed by gold.

543
00:51:17,552 --> 00:51:38,492
And in these free banking eras, everybody took the risk that they were comfortable taking. It was a much freer, more of a libertarian approach to conducting transactions. And we were very prosperous during that era.

544
00:51:38,492 --> 00:51:52,112
Um, so I think we've had little stints of, you know, like good money where society has prospered and done well.

545
00:51:52,672 --> 00:52:01,992
Um, but it always runs up against this sort of limitation of the speed of business outpaces the, the, the, the pace of money.

546
00:52:02,472 --> 00:52:07,992
And then we come up with these solutions and centralization always tends to be the solution.

547
00:52:08,492 --> 00:52:15,532
And the centralization leads to points where people can inject themselves and take advantage of other people.

548
00:52:16,872 --> 00:52:23,572
So I think when you look at Bitcoin, a lot of people look at it and say, well, this is a way we can eliminate centralization.

549
00:52:24,172 --> 00:52:29,432
This is a way that we can re-decentralize money and again, make it peer-to-peer.

550
00:52:29,432 --> 00:52:39,912
And if you wanted to convert that to a stablecoin, just like in the free banking era, decide which centralized entity you trust most.

551
00:52:41,392 --> 00:52:45,532
And there you're taking your own risk and you're in charge of your own life.

552
00:52:46,292 --> 00:52:51,672
With great freedom comes great responsibility is the way I've always looked at it.

553
00:52:52,312 --> 00:52:56,312
And you're not going to be 100% perfect.

554
00:52:57,112 --> 00:52:58,612
Risk is just a part of life.

555
00:52:58,612 --> 00:53:07,892
and uh but i do think that leads to a more prosperous uh society awesome cool so so we

556
00:53:07,892 --> 00:53:12,132
definitely do have like a lot of overlap there and just an agreement on that but it basically

557
00:53:12,132 --> 00:53:19,772
just comes down to you know if you don't have like a really good sound form of money it will

558
00:53:19,772 --> 00:53:24,632
eventually be sort of deteriorated taken advantage of to where you then go back toward like the

559
00:53:24,632 --> 00:53:32,072
communism side. Sure. Well, we're getting early warning signs of that right now in Bitcoin.

560
00:53:32,492 --> 00:53:38,972
When we start to think about a strategic Bitcoin reserve, we start to think about an ETF and other

561
00:53:38,972 --> 00:53:46,372
Wall Street firms holding mass amounts of Bitcoin. You could make the case that we're in the earliest

562
00:53:46,372 --> 00:53:53,712
innings of centralizing Bitcoin, right? But simultaneously, we're working on Lightning

563
00:53:53,712 --> 00:54:01,252
network and Fedimance and the Cashew protocol and others that if they could be properly decentralized,

564
00:54:03,392 --> 00:54:09,112
we could skirt or counteract that centralizing force.

565
00:54:11,452 --> 00:54:17,232
I think this is the one good thing that you do see people go through with this whole crypto

566
00:54:17,232 --> 00:54:19,712
ideology is that they think they can decentralize everything.

567
00:54:19,712 --> 00:54:27,172
um i you know i don't think everything could be decentralized but it's not a good it's it's not a

568
00:54:27,172 --> 00:54:31,932
bad practice you know as long as you're not scamming people and trying to take advantage of

569
00:54:31,932 --> 00:54:38,332
people by by uh using decentralization is is your marketing pitch as opposed to a real product

570
00:54:38,332 --> 00:54:45,052
um so you know i think i think if we can decentralize identity verification if we can

571
00:54:45,052 --> 00:54:51,572
to decentralize money, obviously. We can decentralize ownership of a lot more assets.

572
00:54:52,372 --> 00:54:53,812
Social media on Nostra is another offer.

573
00:54:53,812 --> 00:55:00,692
Social media, exactly. A great example. So there is these two forces are running simultaneously,

574
00:55:01,632 --> 00:55:10,152
but Bitcoin is the center of that spoke. It's the center of that wheel that has driven all of this.

575
00:55:10,152 --> 00:55:40,132
And yes, a lot of this stuff on the periphery, especially in crypto land, is a bunch of garbage. It's all marketing and no product. But at the end of the day, if we keep on this course and we keep innovating, if we can use AI in a decentralized manner, if we can use manufacturing in a decentralized manner, and if we can use money in a decentralized manner, we could build a society that at least runs in parallel to the world.

576
00:55:40,152 --> 00:55:42,692
the centralized system that you could opt into.

577
00:55:43,812 --> 00:55:48,132
So this is sort of like how, I guess,

578
00:55:48,152 --> 00:55:51,772
a better explanation of how I foresee Bitcoin

579
00:55:51,772 --> 00:55:58,432
solving this inevitable cycle back towards redistribution of wealth.

580
00:55:59,152 --> 00:56:15,652
When we were talking about late capitalism leading to communism late capitalism leading to redistribution of wealth through violence and authoritative leaders

581
00:56:17,532 --> 00:56:27,972
Bitcoin is building an alternative path that if you can opt into that and help build it and help support it, could be a way to escape all of that.

582
00:56:29,232 --> 00:56:35,472
And so that, I think, is what I'm really hopeful for when we talk about Bitcoin.

583
00:56:35,472 --> 00:56:49,052
And honestly, that's been kind of like a disappointing thing for me in this cycle is so much hurrah around number go up and government adoption, which is great.

584
00:56:49,092 --> 00:56:57,192
It's great to be regulatory compliant and not have the fear of your business being shut down or being debanked and all these things as we transition.

585
00:56:57,192 --> 00:57:22,112
But at the same time, we can't lose focus. We can't be so excited that the government's talking about putting Bitcoin on their balance sheet that we lose sight of the real goal of Bitcoin, which is to decentralize finance, to decentralize our identity, to make us more sovereign and protect us from the state.

586
00:57:22,832 --> 00:57:28,052
So I'm hopeful that we get back on that track in the next cycle.

587
00:57:29,232 --> 00:57:39,392
Yeah, I mean, I'm very hopeful because I think that it's just the ultimate Trojan horse and the governments that do show support for it in certain ways, like the U.S. sure seems like it is right now.

588
00:57:40,512 --> 00:57:45,972
I don't view it as like, oh, they're falling in love with Bitcoin, but they're bending the knee to Bitcoin.

589
00:57:45,972 --> 00:57:53,172
They know that Bitcoin is going to win. And, you know, these different states are realizing, like, we can't really fight this thing anymore.

590
00:57:53,312 --> 00:57:59,212
And China has tried to notoriously a bazillion times, like in the teens, they've tried to ban Bitcoin mining.

591
00:57:59,312 --> 00:58:05,672
It just keeps blowing up in their face. So I view it as nothing but positive that governments are being forced to come in.

592
00:58:05,752 --> 00:58:10,232
And it's just motivating. You're still young. You're still young. You're so true. You're so hopeful.

593
00:58:10,232 --> 00:58:11,432
No, I'm just kidding.

594
00:58:11,432 --> 00:58:13,632
Yeah, motivating more, like even younger people.

595
00:58:13,752 --> 00:58:19,972
Like I'm trying to bring more Gen Z folks on to talk about, you know, this is why, you know, your generation can benefit so much from this.

596
00:58:20,012 --> 00:58:24,012
This is how you get the revenge on the boomers who have like 50 different houses.

597
00:58:24,412 --> 00:58:25,412
Yeah, exactly.

598
00:58:25,852 --> 00:58:26,532
Yeah, exactly.

599
00:58:27,392 --> 00:58:29,852
It's just providing a lot of hope for people.

600
00:58:30,012 --> 00:58:38,792
And I would actually like to go back to something that you said, like, and you're correct, 10 million people have talked about Bitcoin versus gold and how these are different.

601
00:58:38,792 --> 00:58:45,972
But I would like to touch on this because we sort of discussed how gold eventually did loops.

602
00:58:46,252 --> 00:58:50,052
It did a really good job for 5,000 years or so, however many years it is.

603
00:58:50,252 --> 00:58:57,692
And it eventually was subverted because it just became too difficult to transact freely among people.

604
00:58:57,872 --> 00:59:00,772
People were diluting the metals with other cheaper metals.

605
00:59:01,072 --> 00:59:02,992
It just became too clunky.

606
00:59:03,232 --> 00:59:08,752
And that opened the door to claim checks and using paper to trade that was backed by gold.

607
00:59:08,792 --> 00:59:13,112
And then the government said, oh, let's just use the paper and forget about the gold.

608
00:59:13,552 --> 00:59:19,612
And so things just started to slowly deteriorate from its soundness that it originally had that made it last for so long.

609
00:59:19,852 --> 00:59:21,132
And here comes Bitcoin.

610
00:59:21,412 --> 00:59:29,852
So could Bitcoin be the thing that takes all the good aspects of gold and improves upon it and actually becomes even better than gold?

611
00:59:29,972 --> 00:59:31,092
What would you say to that?

612
00:59:31,292 --> 00:59:34,892
Oh, I think it already is way better than gold.

613
00:59:34,892 --> 00:59:37,172
I mean, it is the best money, period.

614
00:59:38,792 --> 00:59:50,472
The thing that I think you need to realize about everything you described with gold is that the central banks never stopped owning gold.

615
00:59:52,932 --> 00:59:55,272
They always know it's real money.

616
00:59:56,132 --> 00:59:58,112
They don't want you owning gold.

617
00:59:59,532 --> 01:00:02,052
They don't want you having real money, right?

618
01:00:02,052 --> 01:00:22,912
And so to the extent that they were able to brainwash a whole multiple generations of money managers against this barbarous relic that had no value, while simultaneously they stacked their vaults with gold.

619
01:00:22,912 --> 01:00:31,872
it's only become uh even a part of the investment management conversation

620
01:00:31,872 --> 01:00:40,012
recently because people are awakening to the fact that we are in a problem with the debt

621
01:00:40,012 --> 01:00:46,652
um and and they're awakening the fact that like wow we're running out of

622
01:00:46,652 --> 01:00:52,352
gold physical gold on exchanges like where where's it going right so this this waking up this

623
01:00:52,352 --> 01:00:56,272
realization that, wait, I don't have this thing that's all of a sudden in demand,

624
01:00:56,272 --> 01:01:01,252
is bringing gold back into clear focus for a lot of people.

625
01:01:03,012 --> 01:01:05,972
The people that I've talked to that have asked me this question,

626
01:01:06,892 --> 01:01:10,212
they sort of distrust Bitcoin because of the technical aspects.

627
01:01:11,612 --> 01:01:18,172
Once I explain to them that they have self-custody, that they don't have to leave it on an exchange,

628
01:01:18,172 --> 01:01:23,252
that is divisible into 100 millions,

629
01:01:24,112 --> 01:01:27,512
that they can store it in their brain,

630
01:01:27,592 --> 01:01:28,912
they don't have to bury it in the backyard,

631
01:01:29,852 --> 01:01:32,452
that is verifiable,

632
01:01:34,172 --> 01:01:36,792
that it's beyond any jurisdiction.

633
01:01:38,172 --> 01:01:41,512
Once they understand all these factors about Bitcoin

634
01:01:41,512 --> 01:01:42,832
that make it so much better than gold,

635
01:01:43,672 --> 01:01:45,612
then they go, how do I get it?

636
01:01:45,612 --> 01:02:00,712
So this reemergence of gold because of chaos, because of war, and because of the debt bubble is making people think about Bitcoin.

637
01:02:01,352 --> 01:02:03,232
So all in all, I think that's a win.

638
01:02:04,192 --> 01:02:11,492
And it gives us an opportunity to highlight why Bitcoin as gold is a huge upgrade.

639
01:02:11,492 --> 01:02:17,672
and then you get into you've now you've breached the store of value but then you can get into unit

640
01:02:17,672 --> 01:02:23,912
of account and medium of exchange right and i start telling them like you and i get in a position

641
01:02:23,912 --> 01:02:30,252
where there's a lot of conflict a lot of issue here we can't get goods and services we can trade

642
01:02:30,252 --> 01:02:34,932
with each other you have a wallet i have a wallet we can do it with paper and we can trade our coins

643
01:02:34,932 --> 01:02:40,512
with each other and we can pay for things with the peer-to-peer we can't do that and i said what am

644
01:02:40,512 --> 01:02:46,652
I going to do? I'm going to chip away some rough portion of a gold coin that I have and pay you

645
01:02:46,652 --> 01:02:53,692
with that. And then you have to melt it down. This just doesn't make any sense. But with Bitcoin,

646
01:02:53,832 --> 01:02:59,332
we can do this instantaneously, automatically, verifiably with nobody getting in between.

647
01:03:00,472 --> 01:03:05,552
And all of a sudden, these are the prepper people that I've talked to that have been gold, gold,

648
01:03:05,552 --> 01:03:10,632
gold gold gold and bullets bullets bullets bullets and then i explained that to them they're

649
01:03:10,632 --> 01:03:17,272
like oh holy smokes like this is a this is a tool for me now like the prepper tool the financial

650
01:03:17,272 --> 01:03:22,632
tool for the prepper and it's um then they get it right and then they realize how much better

651
01:03:22,632 --> 01:03:27,312
bitcoin is than gold and you at least move them off center where they want to have that as well

652
01:03:27,312 --> 01:03:35,792
so yeah it's I mean there's there's no doubt about it so I wouldn't even be surprised if

653
01:03:35,792 --> 01:03:40,512
central banks own Bitcoin I mean that that I don't see why they they wouldn't

654
01:03:41,352 --> 01:03:44,092
they were never going to tell you

655
01:03:44,092 --> 01:03:51,772
they'll tell you once they've got as much as they want but they're never going to tell you ahead of

656
01:03:51,772 --> 01:03:58,952
time and that brings up another interesting question too is this is a very common thing

657
01:03:58,952 --> 01:04:04,252
i hear from people who are let's be honest like trying to find reasons to not like bitcoin

658
01:04:04,252 --> 01:04:11,332
is they hear that some you know bad entity x like a classic one's blackrock they have a bunch of

659
01:04:11,332 --> 01:04:16,472
bitcoin and they hear blackrock is oh we know blackrock is bad they do all these terrible things

660
01:04:16,472 --> 01:04:21,752
they own bitcoin so i don't want to have bitcoin because like that would help blackrock and so what

661
01:04:21,752 --> 01:04:23,192
What would your response be to that?

662
01:04:23,272 --> 01:04:29,852
The fact that some of these people that we don't like, these entities that are a big part of the problem, are stacking Bitcoin as well.

663
01:04:29,852 --> 01:04:30,072
Yeah.

664
01:04:30,472 --> 01:04:34,992
I simply say, why do you think they changed their tune?

665
01:04:35,512 --> 01:04:37,332
Because they hated Bitcoin for years.

666
01:04:38,092 --> 01:04:39,692
They had nothing good to say about it.

667
01:04:39,692 --> 01:04:41,192
But all of a sudden, they've changed their tune.

668
01:04:41,852 --> 01:04:43,112
Why do you think that is?

669
01:04:44,832 --> 01:04:47,912
And then we get into the debt discussion, right?

670
01:04:47,912 --> 01:04:59,572
And do you think that maybe BlackRock's trying to make sure they have something on their balance sheet that would bail them out should other assets collapse?

671
01:05:01,492 --> 01:05:09,992
If inflation rips and the average person is not able to afford to invest because they're too busy trying to buy cereal,

672
01:05:10,992 --> 01:05:16,912
do you think that they would like to have a portion of their customers owning something that rebuilds the future economy?

673
01:05:16,912 --> 01:05:34,612
Like, so I just, I asked those kinds of questions back to them to get them to think beyond like, like sort of like, like if you have this powerful enemy that's doing something to protect its own hide, you might want to look at what they're doing.

674
01:05:35,312 --> 01:05:35,752
Right.

675
01:05:36,052 --> 01:05:42,952
If you're playing that football team that beats you every year, your high school team, they just crush you every year.

676
01:05:42,992 --> 01:05:45,532
You might want to figure out what kind of plays they run.

677
01:05:45,792 --> 01:05:55,171
Right This is that kind of simple question Yeah and I take a little bit different angle on that where you know

678
01:05:56,311 --> 01:05:59,431
for the people who are kind of like emotionally looking at this,

679
01:05:59,451 --> 01:06:02,171
like I don't like what BlackRock does. I don't believe in what they're doing.

680
01:06:02,171 --> 01:06:04,191
So I don't want them to benefit from this.

681
01:06:04,891 --> 01:06:07,331
What I would say is we have this famous phrase in Bitcoin,

682
01:06:07,331 --> 01:06:11,411
which is Bitcoin is for enemies. You know, it's an open protocol.

683
01:06:11,671 --> 01:06:15,171
Everyone can buy it, including your worst enemy can buy this thing too.

684
01:06:15,171 --> 01:06:17,411
and there's trade-offs for that.

685
01:06:17,491 --> 01:06:20,391
But I would still say this is a huge win,

686
01:06:20,491 --> 01:06:23,431
even if they stack all the rest of the Bitcoins exists.

687
01:06:24,331 --> 01:06:27,031
And I would agree with the folks who say

688
01:06:27,031 --> 01:06:28,591
that I don't like what BlackRock does.

689
01:06:28,651 --> 01:06:30,131
They have a lot of evil things that they do.

690
01:06:30,511 --> 01:06:32,691
However, the difference with Bitcoin is

691
01:06:32,691 --> 01:06:36,311
they now have a cap to the amount of spending they can do

692
01:06:36,311 --> 01:06:37,991
and the amount of power they can exert

693
01:06:37,991 --> 01:06:41,191
because Bitcoin is finite, it's scarce.

694
01:06:42,111 --> 01:06:44,031
And the amount of Bitcoin that you have

695
01:06:44,031 --> 01:06:46,331
doesn't change your ability to change the rules.

696
01:06:46,791 --> 01:06:48,651
This is a very big point that people need to understand

697
01:06:48,651 --> 01:06:51,511
the difference between proof of stake and proof of work.

698
01:06:51,631 --> 01:06:52,911
Maybe we could touch on that as well,

699
01:06:53,011 --> 01:06:57,151
which is this fiat financial system is proof of stake,

700
01:06:57,151 --> 01:06:59,851
which means the more money you have,

701
01:06:59,911 --> 01:07:02,411
the bigger the stake you have in this financial system,

702
01:07:02,551 --> 01:07:05,651
the more power you have to change and manipulate the rules,

703
01:07:05,771 --> 01:07:08,271
to buy out the politicians, to change the regulations

704
01:07:08,271 --> 01:07:10,291
so you can stomp out the smaller competition,

705
01:07:10,891 --> 01:07:13,511
and it gives you the ability to manipulate the game.

706
01:07:14,031 --> 01:07:20,531
And Bitcoin, on the other hand, it's hard-coded to have these rules that you cannot change.

707
01:07:21,031 --> 01:07:27,511
So even when your worst enemy buys it and makes some gains on Bitcoin, they are limited.

708
01:07:27,731 --> 01:07:30,551
They have responsibility forced on them for the first time ever.

709
01:07:30,651 --> 01:07:37,411
When they spend that money, they can't just go tap their buddy's shoulder in Congress and get a bunch of money printed for them.

710
01:07:38,191 --> 01:07:41,911
And BlackRock is basically the fourth, fifth arm of government at this point.

711
01:07:41,911 --> 01:07:43,331
They have so many deep connections.

712
01:07:43,331 --> 01:07:51,311
But that entire octopus structure, we see the picture of the octopus sort of covering everything, the central banking system.

713
01:07:51,611 --> 01:07:59,931
The whole thing gets disarmed once the money can't be printed anymore by anybody and distributed around at the whim of the richest among society.

714
01:08:00,191 --> 01:08:01,971
So is there anything you would add to that?

715
01:08:02,491 --> 01:08:02,571
Yeah.

716
01:08:02,831 --> 01:08:06,551
I mean, number one, you don't have to buy the ETF, right?

717
01:08:06,551 --> 01:08:17,291
So yes, if they own Bitcoin on behalf of their shareholders, on behalf of ETF shareholders, you don't have to buy the ETF.

718
01:08:17,451 --> 01:08:18,751
So take it into self-custody.

719
01:08:18,751 --> 01:08:36,571
Number two, yeah, so Bitcoin right now is decentralized enough that BlackRock cannot change the protocol.

720
01:08:37,651 --> 01:08:46,411
That doesn't mean that down the road, and when I say down the road, I mean generations is what I'm thinking, right?

721
01:08:46,411 --> 01:08:53,871
generations down the road where our sons and daughters forget the value of decentralization

722
01:08:53,871 --> 01:09:01,631
because Bitcoin's built this incredible society, this golden era of Bitcoin.

723
01:09:03,471 --> 01:09:06,011
And they forget the value of decentralization.

724
01:09:06,171 --> 01:09:06,991
They just take it for granted.

725
01:09:08,271 --> 01:09:10,711
And it's just so much easier.

726
01:09:10,811 --> 01:09:15,071
And I don't have any risk letting a bank or BlackRock custody my coin.

727
01:09:15,191 --> 01:09:16,131
So I'll just let them do it.

728
01:09:16,131 --> 01:09:17,671
is just so much easier for me.

729
01:09:18,391 --> 01:09:21,531
That's the slippery slope where all of a sudden

730
01:09:21,531 --> 01:09:25,751
we could get to a position where it's very easy

731
01:09:25,751 --> 01:09:30,731
for a centralized entity to propose changes to the protocol.

732
01:09:32,191 --> 01:09:36,771
And if we had a narrow field of miners,

733
01:09:37,591 --> 01:09:40,691
we could get those, you know, and node runners,

734
01:09:40,691 --> 01:09:43,711
they could, you know, agree to run that protocol

735
01:09:43,711 --> 01:09:44,831
and they can make changes.

736
01:09:46,131 --> 01:09:48,051
Right now, I think that's impossible.

737
01:09:49,151 --> 01:09:53,851
But that's a risk that we have to be aware of for generations down the road.

738
01:09:54,871 --> 01:10:00,771
And I've had some discussions with some other people in the community about that down the road,

739
01:10:01,011 --> 01:10:08,711
we could see if that risk is becoming eminent, that we actually do a sovereign fork of Bitcoin.

740
01:10:08,711 --> 01:10:17,551
uh so if blackrock wanted to make changes and got them through there's there's no reason why a group

741
01:10:17,551 --> 01:10:24,571
of to say maximalist or or freedom loving bitcoiners however you want to whatever term

742
01:10:24,571 --> 01:10:31,491
you want to use couldn't introduce a fork that a bitcoin that is more private that is more sovereign

743
01:10:31,491 --> 01:10:35,531
that's completely peer-to-peer and opt out.

744
01:10:36,331 --> 01:10:38,851
Now, you would have coins in both systems, right?

745
01:10:39,051 --> 01:10:40,831
You'd have coins in the centralized system,

746
01:10:40,891 --> 01:10:42,811
and you'd have coins in the decentralized system.

747
01:10:43,371 --> 01:10:45,431
And that battle might come someday.

748
01:10:46,031 --> 01:10:52,191
But the thing to remember is that the protocol is built

749
01:10:52,191 --> 01:10:55,151
to manage those kind of risks,

750
01:10:55,411 --> 01:10:58,031
to give us solutions to those kind of risks.

751
01:10:58,291 --> 01:10:59,811
And that's the beauty of Bitcoin,

752
01:10:59,811 --> 01:11:03,471
is that it's rigid enough that it can't be changed on a whim,

753
01:11:04,331 --> 01:11:10,891
but it's flexible enough that if things got really bad,

754
01:11:11,091 --> 01:11:15,191
there's a way to make a change if the majority of people want to do it.

755
01:11:16,851 --> 01:11:25,551
If you don't understand what I'm talking about, read about the fork wars in 2018 and 19

756
01:11:25,551 --> 01:11:28,811
and what took place with Bcash.

757
01:11:28,811 --> 01:11:40,951
Now, what forked off was not successful, but it's a model for what can happen to Bitcoin if it became completely centralized.

758
01:11:41,371 --> 01:11:42,811
I don't think we're going that way.

759
01:11:42,931 --> 01:11:46,011
I don't think we're going to have to deal with that for many, many generations.

760
01:11:46,011 --> 01:11:55,251
But it's good to know for your own sort of, you know, when you're trying to evaluate the risks of Bitcoin and get comfortable, right?

761
01:11:55,251 --> 01:11:56,831
I had to get comfortable with all those things.

762
01:11:56,831 --> 01:12:04,671
I was only in Bitcoin for about a year, a year and a half or something when the fork wars happened and I was panicked.

763
01:12:04,811 --> 01:12:09,831
I had no idea what the hell was going to happen and what this meant for Bitcoin.

764
01:12:10,151 --> 01:12:15,831
And it held me back from buying as much as I should have because I was concerned.

765
01:12:16,411 --> 01:12:25,471
So running those risk scenarios and trying to understand how that works is going to give you more confidence in Bitcoin and you're going to be able to invest more and feel good about it.

766
01:12:26,831 --> 01:12:32,851
Yeah, and a good book I'd throw out there for people to read is called The Block Size Wars, which walks through that whole saga.

767
01:12:33,031 --> 01:12:34,191
I was not around at that point.

768
01:12:34,291 --> 01:12:40,431
I was still going to my fiat finance classes in college when that was happening, not paying attention.

769
01:12:40,711 --> 01:12:42,271
Yeah, that was hairy.

770
01:12:42,271 --> 01:12:48,271
I was early enough that I didn't really know what to think of it.

771
01:12:48,271 --> 01:12:59,631
Yeah, and this is something important for people to think about too, when you inevitably are going to beat yourself up for not buying sooner, not buying more sooner, which everybody does.

772
01:12:59,691 --> 01:13:01,291
This is like a psychology test.

773
01:13:01,431 --> 01:13:05,111
Like, are you able to forgive your past self and just forget about the sunk cost?

774
01:13:05,611 --> 01:13:08,511
There were real questions back at this time.

775
01:13:08,571 --> 01:13:10,151
Like, is Bitcoin going to survive this?

776
01:13:10,391 --> 01:13:11,491
You know, people didn't know.

777
01:13:11,571 --> 01:13:14,731
Like, the smartest people even were asking questions.

778
01:13:14,731 --> 01:13:21,551
And so, you know, you can't beat yourself up for not being in earlier because it was a lot more crazy and unsure back then.

779
01:13:21,731 --> 01:13:21,831
Yeah.

780
01:13:22,011 --> 01:13:24,271
And this is the term that I like people.

781
01:13:24,731 --> 01:13:25,571
What is it even?

782
01:13:25,691 --> 01:13:28,551
It's like risk adjusted potential or something.

783
01:13:28,691 --> 01:13:29,891
Yeah, risk adjusted returns.

784
01:13:30,171 --> 01:13:30,411
Yeah.

785
01:13:30,531 --> 01:13:30,711
Yeah.

786
01:13:30,751 --> 01:13:33,751
So where right now the risk has dropped substantially.

787
01:13:33,971 --> 01:13:34,171
Yeah.

788
01:13:34,391 --> 01:13:41,991
And so it's honestly a much smarter bet to make now than it was even way back in the early days, which people are jealous of.

789
01:13:41,991 --> 01:13:42,391
Yeah.

790
01:13:42,391 --> 01:13:45,271
Yeah, and risk and return are correlated.

791
01:13:46,071 --> 01:13:51,651
So if you had the clarity of vision back in the early days

792
01:13:51,651 --> 01:13:55,511
and you took on a lot of risk because you were fully aware of the unknowns,

793
01:13:56,231 --> 01:13:58,011
you were rewarded very handsomely.

794
01:13:58,551 --> 01:14:03,531
Today, your reward won't be as big, but you have a much higher probability of success.

795
01:14:05,151 --> 01:14:05,671
Absolutely.

796
01:14:05,871 --> 01:14:08,971
That's why people should just continue getting into it,

797
01:14:08,971 --> 01:14:14,171
Getting the toes in there, getting the toes in the water, start DCAing dollar cost average with your paycheck.

798
01:14:14,531 --> 01:14:26,531
Yeah, that's a good point because we're talking about these things, but when you put it in perspective to traditional returns in the S&P 500, it's still a joke.

799
01:14:26,531 --> 01:14:37,091
Like when you look at what Bitcoin can deliver, even on a risk adjusted basis now, right, compared to if you bought in 2014.

800
01:14:38,971 --> 01:14:46,411
uh the nothing even touches it so what are you waiting for buy when you can not when you think

801
01:14:46,411 --> 01:14:53,911
you should yeah 100 and just and just make it part of your routine and this is why i really

802
01:14:53,911 --> 01:14:58,631
agree with the people like i don't even have a strong stance on whether people should be doing

803
01:14:58,631 --> 01:15:02,571
the lump sum and just you know just heave a whole bunch in there as soon as they can or

804
01:15:02,571 --> 01:15:07,351
they should do like all dollar cost averaging of just like a steady weekly amount i would just say

805
01:15:07,351 --> 01:15:15,271
get off zero yeah get off zero for sure i have a friend who uh i think back in 2017 she started

806
01:15:15,271 --> 01:15:26,291
dcaing 30 25 or 30 a day you know and um cost of a meal right and uh i think her stack is well

807
01:15:26,291 --> 01:15:42,571
over a million dollars now yeah just set it on autopilot and she went and lived her life but people don feel like you missed the boat when you hear these stories because what we doing right now and what actions you make right now will make you those stories in 10 years

808
01:15:42,571 --> 01:15:48,571
from now yeah as we as we you know continue to go through this rabbit hole learn more about how

809
01:15:48,571 --> 01:15:53,931
big of a deal this is yeah and there's no reason why why very early innings yeah there's no reason

810
01:15:53,931 --> 01:15:59,351
why you shouldn't set up a dca let it run with whatever you're comfortable at whether it's five

811
01:15:59,351 --> 01:16:06,271
a day or $100 a day, whatever it is, and let that run and then smash buy dips when you can.

812
01:16:08,251 --> 01:16:15,291
100%. I think this is a great final transition we could make into just getting stupidly bullish

813
01:16:15,291 --> 01:16:19,731
here about the future just to make sure people really know that we're still super early.

814
01:16:19,731 --> 01:16:25,571
So, Paul, why don't we talk about how early are we in Bitcoin? What is this idea of hyper

815
01:16:25,571 --> 01:16:30,671
Bitcoinization that people keep talking about? And what do you see coming in the near future,

816
01:16:30,791 --> 01:16:39,211
say five, 10 years or so? Okay. Well, I guess I'll start pessimistic and then get optimistic.

817
01:16:40,151 --> 01:16:46,071
I see a lot of people thinking like we're going to hit a million dollars this year.

818
01:16:46,071 --> 01:17:08,951
I don't think that's realistic. It takes a lot of time for all this bullish rhetoric to move through policy into policy and get things in place where things get done, where we actually get significant sovereign purchases, right, or treasury purchases or whatever.

819
01:17:08,951 --> 01:17:16,851
but that being said i i'm fairly optimistic that by the next cycle we're at a million

820
01:17:16,851 --> 01:17:22,611
so i would look at that as even more bullish because it gives you more time to acquire more

821
01:17:22,611 --> 01:17:26,571
bitcoin between now and then right the worst thing that could happen to interrupt real quick

822
01:17:26,571 --> 01:17:32,571
when you say cycle you mean having cycle like yes yeah the next four-year cycle um and and i'm not

823
01:17:32,571 --> 01:17:37,311
even necessarily sure that that we're going to have like the traditional four-year cycle anymore

824
01:17:37,311 --> 01:17:53,551
Right. I've always I always keep that in mind. But I think the cycles could get shorter and more compressed, meaning down down drafts would be smaller. Up cycles would be shorter as we get more institutional holders.

825
01:17:53,551 --> 01:18:01,811
they'll be more rebalancing. And so I don't know whether it's this cycle or next. I don't know

826
01:18:01,811 --> 01:18:08,971
when we get a big enough holding that it actually starts to act that way. But I do think that that's

827
01:18:08,971 --> 01:18:15,851
the trend it's going to follow is it's going to become less volatile moving forward. But to the

828
01:18:15,851 --> 01:18:25,431
extent that if your vision aligns with mine, that you see a million dollars coming in the next cycle,

829
01:18:26,451 --> 01:18:32,871
that's incredibly bullish for anybody starting today because you're accumulating 10x below

830
01:18:32,871 --> 01:18:37,991
where it's going. And a 10x return in absolutely anything is unbelievable.

831
01:18:38,931 --> 01:18:40,751
So that's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

832
01:18:42,091 --> 01:18:48,851
So I think it's a good thing that you can see that all this groundwork is being laid

833
01:18:48,851 --> 01:18:56,211
for large institutional purchases, for treasury purchases, for other sovereigns to start purchasing,

834
01:18:56,411 --> 01:18:57,351
states to start purchasing.

835
01:18:57,491 --> 01:19:00,151
You see all this groundwork being laid right in front of your eyes right now.

836
01:19:01,051 --> 01:19:04,411
Don't expect that to mean that the price is going to a million tomorrow.

837
01:19:04,411 --> 01:19:12,391
but that should not like don't wait for the FOMO is what I'm saying like start stacking now

838
01:19:12,391 --> 01:19:17,771
with the longer term foam knowing that that longer term FOMO is coming and you should be looking at

839
01:19:17,771 --> 01:19:25,531
any dip any disappointment that we're not hitting a million today as an opportunity for you this is

840
01:19:25,531 --> 01:19:28,131
this is an incredibly exciting time to be buying.

841
01:19:29,071 --> 01:19:34,431
And it's like the table has been set.

842
01:19:34,731 --> 01:19:37,891
Now you're just sitting there waiting for the meal, right?

843
01:19:37,971 --> 01:19:40,751
So start accumulating as much as possible.

844
01:19:42,871 --> 01:19:44,031
Start feasting.

845
01:19:45,191 --> 01:19:46,451
It's time, man.

846
01:19:46,511 --> 01:19:49,871
It's time for people to realize they've been hearing about Bitcoin

847
01:19:49,871 --> 01:19:51,371
for years and years and years.

848
01:19:51,511 --> 01:19:52,471
It's not going away.

849
01:19:52,591 --> 01:19:54,391
It's not a bubble like they keep trying to say.

850
01:19:54,391 --> 01:20:01,271
It would not be around this long, continuing to go up if these big risks that we're told were really amazing.

851
01:20:01,271 --> 01:20:06,091
I think another important thing I want to add, people get scared of the number.

852
01:20:06,931 --> 01:20:09,391
They get scared of $80,000, $100,000 Bitcoin.

853
01:20:09,551 --> 01:20:12,451
They think it's beyond them or it's too late.

854
01:20:14,051 --> 01:20:19,871
A 10x return on whatever you can afford to invest is amazing.

855
01:20:20,451 --> 01:20:22,991
It's 10x more money than you had before.

856
01:20:22,991 --> 01:20:31,751
right so don't get hung up on the price of bitcoin um people got hung up on the price of

857
01:20:31,751 --> 01:20:37,491
berkshire hathaway like like and it kept going up like you just the price is irrelevant it's well

858
01:20:37,491 --> 01:20:46,391
how much can of it can you buy and you will reap the rewards of that in proportion so uh don't go

859
01:20:46,391 --> 01:20:52,111
out running around oh well you know ripples 50 cents or like ripples 50 cents because it's a piece

860
01:20:52,111 --> 01:21:04,971
garbage. That's why it's 50 cents. Is the Mercedes worth $150,000 a lot better than the Kia worth

861
01:21:04,971 --> 01:21:12,331
$15,000? I think so. You're buying quality and you have the luxury of being able to buy fractions

862
01:21:12,331 --> 01:21:16,651
of that quality because you're getting the same quality and that's what you need to invest in.

863
01:21:16,651 --> 01:21:27,711
And that fraction that you get, and this is a big mindset shift for people, that fraction of a Bitcoin you get, say, 0.01 Bitcoin, that's your first buy.

864
01:21:28,451 --> 01:21:32,391
That is a fixed percentage of the overall supply cap forever.

865
01:21:32,651 --> 01:21:32,891
Yeah.

866
01:21:33,071 --> 01:21:34,271
That can't be taken away from you.

867
01:21:34,331 --> 01:21:41,591
And this is something that no fiat stackers will ever understand because the supply is just going up forever for them.

868
01:21:41,591 --> 01:21:44,191
They're just getting, you know, rebased forever.

869
01:21:44,691 --> 01:21:45,971
It's a great point.

870
01:21:45,971 --> 01:21:54,871
And people don't think about this at all, but you buy shares of any stock in the S&P 500 and it goes up 30%, 40%.

871
01:21:54,871 --> 01:21:56,311
What does that company do?

872
01:21:56,531 --> 01:21:59,411
They start selling shares into the market to raise capital.

873
01:22:00,411 --> 01:22:01,691
And they dilute you.

874
01:22:04,171 --> 01:22:06,591
That cannot be done with Bitcoin, right?

875
01:22:06,731 --> 01:22:11,051
They're not going to create more shares and sell them into the market and dilute you.

876
01:22:11,051 --> 01:22:19,891
So your 1.01, whatever that percentage is that you have is yours forever, and nobody can take it away.

877
01:22:20,311 --> 01:22:21,651
Only you can get rid of it.

878
01:22:22,271 --> 01:22:25,011
And so that's incredibly valuable.

879
01:22:25,911 --> 01:22:30,831
And it's only going to be harder and harder and harder to get 0.01% Bitcoin.

880
01:22:33,031 --> 01:22:33,551
Absolutely.

881
01:22:33,551 --> 01:22:39,371
And I think that the best way to wrap this up is just don't hold dilutable assets.

882
01:22:39,651 --> 01:22:46,851
Hold the things that can be diluted that will protect your purchasing power because you deserve to have an awesome life, an awesome future,

883
01:22:47,011 --> 01:22:53,611
and not have to fiddle around with trading stocks all the time just to be able to save the money you've already earned through your craft.

884
01:22:54,251 --> 01:22:55,651
And this is what Bitcoin brings to us.

885
01:22:55,691 --> 01:22:58,991
And speaking of Bitcoin, all this bullishness is making me hungry, Paul.

886
01:22:59,011 --> 01:23:02,371
I'm going to go buy some beef down the street with Bitcoin.

887
01:23:02,371 --> 01:23:06,071
Shout out to Segura's Market, which is here in Costa Rica.

888
01:23:06,251 --> 01:23:07,931
You can buy pretty much everything with Bitcoin here,

889
01:23:08,031 --> 01:23:11,291
which is just a matter of time before we see that continuing to spread out.

890
01:23:11,871 --> 01:23:15,451
And I know that there are sources people can use to find places

891
01:23:15,451 --> 01:23:18,471
where they can actually start buying things with Bitcoin.

892
01:23:18,771 --> 01:23:21,531
And I know lots of people here where I'm currently living

893
01:23:21,531 --> 01:23:23,871
who are just fully Bitcoin standard already

894
01:23:23,871 --> 01:23:26,271
because they're in a place where people accept it.

895
01:23:26,371 --> 01:23:28,271
So they don't hold any fiat anymore.

896
01:23:28,471 --> 01:23:28,931
This is doable.

897
01:23:28,931 --> 01:23:29,711
That's awesome.

898
01:23:29,711 --> 01:23:40,431
We have a Bitcoin POS system that we implemented in, I think we have like 45 customers that are in beta with it right now.

899
01:23:40,651 --> 01:23:43,911
But we did the first gas transaction on the Lightning Network here in Florida.

900
01:23:45,191 --> 01:23:51,951
We also have some growers or beef producers here in Florida that accept Bitcoin.

901
01:23:51,951 --> 01:23:57,031
and yeah, definitely hit up BTC Maps

902
01:23:57,031 --> 01:23:59,471
and start looking at find people near you

903
01:23:59,471 --> 01:24:00,531
that will accept it.

904
01:24:01,551 --> 01:24:03,791
I always do, like we've always talked about

905
01:24:03,791 --> 01:24:05,611
where all this whole show was talking about saving

906
01:24:05,611 --> 01:24:07,871
and growing your stack.

907
01:24:07,871 --> 01:24:11,851
But I also keep a little stack outside in a hot wallet

908
01:24:11,851 --> 01:24:14,071
where it's just flowing, right?

909
01:24:14,331 --> 01:24:16,251
Bitcoin coming in, Bitcoin going out

910
01:24:16,251 --> 01:24:17,671
to support the community

911
01:24:17,671 --> 01:24:19,911
and help develop peer-to-peer.

912
01:24:20,011 --> 01:24:21,151
I think that's important to do

913
01:24:21,151 --> 01:24:22,931
to keep your wallet separate,

914
01:24:23,111 --> 01:24:25,011
have your cold stack and cold storage,

915
01:24:25,391 --> 01:24:27,471
hold your own keys and have your hot wallet

916
01:24:27,471 --> 01:24:32,691
so you can stoke your fellow Bitcoiners

917
01:24:32,691 --> 01:24:33,631
by paying them in Bitcoin.

918
01:24:33,851 --> 01:24:34,691
It's an awesome feeling.

919
01:24:36,091 --> 01:24:37,631
Beautiful. 100% agree.

920
01:24:38,451 --> 01:24:41,091
Paul Tarantino, where can people follow you

921
01:24:41,091 --> 01:24:43,691
and learn more about what you're doing at Byte Federal

922
01:24:43,691 --> 01:24:44,851
and how that can help them?

923
01:24:45,051 --> 01:24:47,331
Yeah, you can visit our website, ByteFederal.com.

924
01:24:48,331 --> 01:24:51,131
You can find me, you can find ByFederal on X.

925
01:24:51,191 --> 01:24:54,031
You can find me on X, Paul S. Tarantino.

926
01:24:54,211 --> 01:24:55,751
There might be an underscore in there somewhere.

927
01:24:56,171 --> 01:24:58,431
You'll see laser eyes and this face.

928
01:25:00,131 --> 01:25:04,191
And we'll put some stuff in the comments where you can see our wallet and other things.

929
01:25:05,411 --> 01:25:05,811
Beautiful.

930
01:25:06,011 --> 01:25:08,971
Yeah, I'll put all the links to that in the show notes so people can go find it.

931
01:25:09,311 --> 01:25:10,951
Thank you so much for coming by today.

932
01:25:10,951 --> 01:25:13,091
I really appreciate you going through all this with me.

933
01:25:13,171 --> 01:25:14,991
I think this is a great refresher episode,

934
01:25:14,991 --> 01:25:17,711
really bringing us back to the foundation of why we're doing this.

935
01:25:17,831 --> 01:25:19,191
So appreciate you so much.

936
01:25:19,231 --> 01:25:20,491
And I'm looking forward to keeping in touch.

937
01:25:20,771 --> 01:25:21,251
Thanks, Ben.

938
01:25:21,371 --> 01:25:21,651
Likewise.