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There will be an event. There will be a moment when confidence is lost in the currency. Stop

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using each other's currencies and adopt a neutral currency. And then the currency isn't a weapon,

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there's a much better chance of order that isn't dictated by one single power broker

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you know, being the winner of a world war.

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Bitcoin is volatile because it's difficult to understand.

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Bitcoin goes up over time because more people do.

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Parker Lewis, welcome back, man.

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Yeah.

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I think, so I read Ray Dalio's piece on Twitter the other day,

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and it feels like the most important sort of macro geopolitical story right now.

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And as I was reading it, there's no mention of Bitcoin.

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there's little mention of like what's got us to this point although it's obviously a chapter from

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his book so i think he probably lays that out earlier in the book but in the article at least

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there was no mention of how we got here and as i was reading that i was like i want to get parker's

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take on this because he's basically setting this up as the sort of breakdown of the world order

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complete loss of faith in institutions potentially heading to war um i don't know i i know you were

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going to read it. Do you agree with his take or do you think this is sort of peak doomerism?

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So, um, I want to pull something up from, I have a quote of his in my book,

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but I think that it's, it's peak doomerism. Um, it's not that it's not directionally

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on point.

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And I did go and read the whole thing.

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And it's like I'm not the closest follower of Ray Dalio,

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but I do follow him, not just on Twitter,

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but just as an investor.

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And so I'm familiar with Bridgewater and his background.

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And I'm also familiar with people

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that used to be executives at Bridgewater.

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It feels like very, to me at least, non-deep surface level thinking.

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Okay.

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Observing maybe symptoms, observing things that are happening,

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and trying to explain them at a very surface level

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without getting into cause and effect, I'd say.

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One of my takeaways from reading the piece, and I can't remember exactly how it was titled, it was like, the old world order is dead, or something like that.

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Yeah, essentially, it was like, the world order is broken down.

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Yeah, the world order is broken down, the world order is over.

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And I was like, well, what was the, in his piece, as an example, he didn't even define what the world order was.

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and so you know research that i you know did of like any i mean he talked around it but like

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didn't you know it's whenever you're talking that way of he basically said the existing world world

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order is broken down without explaining what that exactly is and just saying that we're going from a

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place of more order to disorder and and talked about big cycles but also like didn't actually

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talk about the cause and effect of why things are breaking down. And, um, and so that was just a

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high level takeaway that I had from it. Um, and, you know, we can get into specifics about the

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piece. Um, but it talked about, you know, there's various different kinds of war and, you know,

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economic or kind of leading up to physical war

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and really intimating presumably that it's like US first China,

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but didn't expressly say that.

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And he also didn't really have, did mention gold at some part

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and that bonds would deflate, again,

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without just getting into the root of what's causing it all.

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So, I mean, obviously this was one chapter of his book

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and I've not read his book.

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I've got it, but I've not read it yet.

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I wonder if there's also,

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he does some of that sort of preliminary stuff

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earlier in the book.

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But let's try and like lay out

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what the world order was or is at this point.

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Because like when I read it,

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what I took from it is it's almost like

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the post-World War Order of, you know,

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the IMF, the World Bank, NATO, the UN,

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all these institutions that have been like

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the rules-based system for such a long time.

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we're potentially transitioning away from that being as effective.

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But I guess the question that I would have is,

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when people say that things like the UN, NATO, IMF, World Bank

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are no longer working in the system that we're in today,

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what has changed since the 1940s when these institutions first came onto the scene?

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Yeah, so, I mean, one, again, my observation is just that

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What it generally means is that the US has been the dominant world power and there were alliances that existed post-World War II.

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America was, the United States was in control of everything and nobody would step out of line.

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And now we're going to a place where that power structure, and I think he might have even mentioned this in the book, or maybe I'm referencing other things where it talks about these big global shifts, is that once there's an up-and-coming power that is in conflict with an existing power, that power struggle exists.

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And once the rising power gets large enough, it doesn't, you know, the order that previously existed that came from the existing, essentially, superpower being able to threaten and win is fractured.

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again he talks about symptoms on like you know not really like expressly how to position but

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like one of the things that he didn't address at least i don't think is the currency as a causal

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piece of the order breaking down i think he like intimates that in other places

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but like one of the examples i just pulled this up from my book to like

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not set the stage, but like an example of why, like, I just generally don't think of

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Ray Dalio as a super deep thinker. Again, like not in an insulting way. It's like, there's a

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broad class of investors. Cause I would, I would say like Ray Dalio is someone who has said that

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he's, you know, allocating to Bitcoin, but nothing that he's ever said indicates that he really

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understands what's happening or how to evaluate it. He's around the hoop. He's not far off in

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terms of what I would call pattern matching of connecting things together, but also at the same

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time, not really understanding the core principle. Let me just find this. I have a few quotes in the

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book. So this goes back to 2017. This was right after for me. I'd gone down the Bitcoin rabbit

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hole in 2016. And I'm watching CNBC one morning, and I figured out both why Bitcoin is emerging as

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money. I've also figured out why they're always going to have to print money and why they have

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to print money and the problems with printing money and the problems with the fiat system

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that is inherently trust-based, two people to a trade. And if you're trading with someone that

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you're potentially a foe of, you're having to use one of, in the fiat world, you're having to use

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one currency or the other, right? So for the last 50 years, the dollar has dominated global trade.

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But if you are China or Russia, or if you're looking at what the United States did to Russia,

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kicking it off of SWIFT and functionally seizing all of their treasuries, that puts the currency

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in the center of a political fight, an economic fight,

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and potentially what he would call a military fight or a kinetic fight.

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But a root problem of the impairment of effectively trade

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as the other side of war is the money and the problem of money printing.

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If you knew that the person that you were trading with

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and whose currency you were taking was constantly printing it,

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and you owned a bunch of their treasuries because you were offsetting the debasement in the currency by the yield of the treasuries,

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but they kept printing it and they kept threatening you, well, you don't really want to continue to trade with your currency.

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And one of the things that China has been doing, and Russia really more so out of force,

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and again, getting into the details of these geopolitics is like, I am certainly not the experts of experts,

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but I can diagnose the problems of the currency is that they're all looking at the same problem,

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which is if you cut Russia off of SWIFT and now they're having to resolve that,

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then no one wants to trust the other's currency.

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Russia wouldn't want to trust China's currency.

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China wouldn't want to trust Russia's currency.

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Neither of them want to trust the United States' currency,

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even though there's talks about Russia getting back onto the dollar system.

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It's like that bell has been rung.

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And so just noting that Dalio didn't really go into the root of that problem.

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And then this was a quote from 2017.

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When I heard him say this on CNBC, I was like, I literally had to record it, rewind it, record it on my phone.

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And he said, and he's talking about the financial crisis.

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He says, there's money and there's credit.

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The only thing that matters is spending. And you can spend money and you can spend credit. And when credit goes down, you better put money into the system so you can have the same level of spending. That's what they did through the financial system, and that thing worked.

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and ever since i heard him say that then anything else that i heard him say since then

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as it relates to bitcoin or in this case of the world order breaking down which i i think that it

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is as well but if you're not able to see you know the the currency system as in and it being

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weaponized as a chief problem, then how do you, and we've come from a gold standard,

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we've come from Bretton Woods, how do you navigate through to the other side of like,

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where are we actually going and how does this play out?

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If you're making comments like there's money and there's credit, and if credit goes down,

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you better put more money in.

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And by the way, quantitative easing worked, right?

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Because everything else he said is like, he says other things that are kind of on point,

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which is like, oh, we have this wealth gap and the wealth gap's a problem.

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It's like, how are you not expressly connecting these two?

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How are you not connecting the symptomatic problems you're seeing,

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just like, say, within the United States and the problem of expanding wealth caps to the currency?

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And then similarly, how are you not seeing this geopolitical breakdown of whatever

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or however they define the existing world order to the currency system, right?

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If you don't do that, you're inevitably not really maybe understanding.

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Again, I know it goes beyond currency.

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I'm not saying that everything in the world between geopolitical rivals

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or potentially rivals in war comes down to money.

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It comes down to more things than that, national resources and power.

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but money's a big power and security um but money money is the basis of trade

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so either you're going to trade with somebody for resources or trade with somebody for security

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or if if if that doesn't work then you might go to war right like in russia's case like and i'm

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not saying this is the basis of the war, but they could trade for natural gas or they could

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plunder for natural gas. If they also feel threatened at the same time for their own security,

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then when they're thinking about the calculus of war versus trade, war versus negotiation,

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it's like, well, if you were trading and you had a good, reliable trade partner,

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wars destroy capital 100 right like the the broken window theory and that that war creates

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economic activity 100 objectively false war could be profitable in the sense of like you have some

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loss but you get a gain that's larger than the loss but it 100 destroys capital if you if you

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you know drop a bomb on somebody else on a bridge say well bridge has to be rebuilt that that was

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capital. And so just noting or flagging that the money and trade, if you have a deep trading

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relationship with a partner, they're giving you something of value, you're giving them something

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else of value, there's more order in that world, and you're less likely to go to war because

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you're relying on them for something valuable. And the basis of trade is mutual. Now, all of that

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gets broken up at a foundational level if on one hand you're using one country's currency

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and on the other hand that country is both debasing it actively creating this natural

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impetus to shift away from it at the same time as being weaponized and i think that those those

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were the pieces that both are not directly in Dalio's piece of keying in on cause and effect.

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He's basically saying things are breaking down, which they are. It's just not that valuable

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because without getting to the cause and effect, you can't then really decide, well, what is the

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path? What's the path out? Whether you're thinking from a financial perspective or from a, how does

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In the piece, he puts five different types of war in there.

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So there's trade war, technological war, geopolitical, capital war, and military.

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And if you look through them, I think you could probably argue that we're in at least four of them already.

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I think in terms of trade war, tariffs are probably a part of that.

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Technology wars, the race for AI seems to fit that bill.

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Geopolitical, I think the stuff that Trump's done in Venezuela

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and is potentially wanting to do in Greenland, they fit there.

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And capital wars, the freezing of the Russian treasuries,

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in hindsight, and maybe even at the time,

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seems like the biggest own goal for the US

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and destroys the faith in the dollar system in a lot of ways.

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Do you think we kind of fit those four criteria and then the only one left is actual all-out

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wolves?

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Yeah I mean I think in certain cases if you look at you know the U vis Russia or China that all of those are checked

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I think that, like, you know, even on, like, the military side, it's like with Russia, you say, hey, the United States is not directly at war with Russia, and Europe is not directly at war with Russia.

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But if you're providing weapons and money, like, are you not?

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you know um and so i'd say that's another degree where um and i i read this great book i don't even

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think it's still in publication but i recommend it to people it's called a world in debt by

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i think the guy's name is tilden freeman um but he goes through all of the the different

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relationships of debt of like you know individuals debtor nation is debtor um but one of the sections

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is on debt and war and in that he provides a um like an actual logical explanation for

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what drives war and he distinguishes like he doesn't say like there's different kinds of war

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He's talking about specifically war.

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We're going to war.

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What are the motivations of it?

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Because if you're not talking about what are the motivations for an economic war, a trade war, a technological war,

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then, again, if you're looking to see, hey, are we progressing to this kinetic military war,

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you're not trying to explain things at the cause and effect level.

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Because if you're not at the cause and effect level,

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then how do you advise somebody?

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I don't know if Ray Dalio's got the ear of the Trump administration,

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but he's just saying this out into the ether.

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But he is a very powerful, extremely wealthy person.

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it's like hey if you have some insight like what what do you recommend is the path out of

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de-escalating all of these things but if you're not trying to get to the root of well what's

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motivating all the different actors and um in this book tilden freeman basically laid out like

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and this was written around the great depression um between world war one and world war two

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that the two generally accepted rational reasons for war,

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the ones that are typically said,

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hey, this is a good reason to go to war,

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is, if I remember, security.

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In securing trade lines

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and anything that your country would need to sustain itself,

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Or, and this was the one that I felt was more strange, expansionism, empire desires, or you have a growing population you need to expand.

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And so the security side would be either the security of someone else that's threatening you, or you need resources to protect your sovereignty, and maybe someone just on the other side of a border has those resources.

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Again, trade is one route. It's a more capital efficient route. But if someone is not thinking about those levels of like, well, why would China and the United States be on this collision course?

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and thinking about not just the geopolitics that come through our wavelengths

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that are propaganda on either side, but really saying,

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okay, what's driving us off this cliff?

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I don't think that it's kind of like, yeah, we all get that the shit is breaking down

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and feels crazy.

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What is the world to do about it to prevent a worse outcome?

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My explanation for that would be, hey, stop using each other's currencies and adopt a neutral currency.

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And then the currency isn't a weapon.

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The currency system isn't a weapon.

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One doesn't, you know, because I view it in two ways.

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The currency as a weapon being like, okay, we can print it and you can't.

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and we're basically exporting to you,

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taking your goods and services for money that we create out of thin air

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versus the currency system being the rails of looking and saying,

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oh, not only are we using our currency system,

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but hey, we're going to cut you off from it

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and weaponize your ability to leverage it to send money to other people.

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That would be the single greatest thing the world could do

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to put trade back in the front

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to satisfy potentially some of those needs, wants

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that various different countries feel threatened by.

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Yeah, I mean, I've got a ton of questions in that.

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But if we just start with,

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does the world need a new order?

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Because if you look at the things

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that are creating the order in the world right now,

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most of those were created post-war.

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The world is a very different place.

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Does the fiat debt-based system

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mean that at this point it's gone too far and we need a shuffle,

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we need to change things around?

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Because I guess, like, historically, if you look back over, like,

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recent history, the two changes in world order, like, the Bretton Woods

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and then potentially, like, 1971 petrodollar system.

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Yeah, but I would say more, and this is, I feel like, you know,

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what Ray Dalio was outlining was that the order shifted

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when like essentially

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there was a great war

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and a

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one power went out over the other

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and then the winning power

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essentially

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sets the rules and dictates

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it right and

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I think that

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you know it's still unclear

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whether we're

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heading down that same path because

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you could say well China's

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a rising power and the US is a declining

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power or at least

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That might be a headline. I don't necessarily ascribe to it.

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But if you looked at something through that lens, you'd say, well, if China won a war, then they set the world order.

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I think another way to look at it, and that would be how you would define it if you were looking maybe at the pattern matching

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or looking at the patterns that Ray Dalio had put forward.

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But in that world, it was always like one country

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or one set of allies that won a war

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then dictating the rules to everybody else.

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If all fiat systems die, then there's a neutral currency.

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Well, the way that trade occurs in the world is functionally different than it ever occurred before.

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Because ever before, practically speaking, and I'm talking about in the last 300 years, say, gold as an underlying commodity metal or silver, but leveraging various different types of currencies that were being coined by crowns or governments.

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and again even in those processes there was it wasn't a truly neutral trading balance and so

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my view of it is that there's a lot of order that will come via trade without you know again

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it's not naive it's like hey there are always you know like i don't know who said it what the

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quotes were, but like man in his natural state is, is warring and, or something along those

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lines of like, Hey, this isn't just, if we have a neutral currency, everything will be

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honky dory.

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And one man is not going to want to steal another man's oil or, um, whatever other resource

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land, you know, with, you know, rare earth metals or what, whatever is desired for whatever

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whatever the goal might be of a rising, growing nation.

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But even in that world, someone could recognize, well, if there was a greater basis for trade,

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then not just on the margin, but categorically versus how the world exists today from a trading

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perspective, there's a much better chance of order that isn't dictated by one single

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power broker being the winner of a world war.

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There could be a lot of order and a lot of bilateral relationships that are far more fruitful,

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far less antagonistic than necessarily having one side be in a controller power position.

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One of the things that this piece made me think is, if we're moving towards...

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The world is getting more chaotic, that's for sure.

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Would a move to a new world order be a preferable outcome?

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If you look at the two possibilities, I guess it's either we kind of wind this back, move

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away from all-out war, and the fiat system continues, and the institutions that we have

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today continue even though they're sort of eroded from where they used to be.

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Is that a preferred outcome or is going through the pain now to come out to something better

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on the other side a preferred outcome?

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And it is something that's quite hard to kind of balance.

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A way that I describe it would be, it's like, regardless of whether or not he's keying on

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on the right cause and effects, it's like the world for a period of time had order,

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order on a relative basis and there there is less order and that and you know again that's one of the

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reasons where i was like hey if that's what you're saying okay we all we all can generally see and

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feel that you know at different levels whether it's geopolitical nonsense whether it's within

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countries right because it's not just you know the dynamics between europe and russia and u.s europe

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and Russia or the US and China, it's in the UK, in the United States.

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And anyone, I can only speak to living in the United States because you can feel it viscerally,

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is that we're going from a period of order to disorder.

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You know, not to say they're not related, but entirely independent from a plain perspective than some geopolitical foe or threat.

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And so that's just true.

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It's like things have been ordered and they're becoming disordered.

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Now, I think it's, you know, you can say, well, the order, what was creating the order?

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Well, it was post-World War II and the United States was the superpower.

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And there was no Navy that could rival it.

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It protected the waterways.

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It protected the trade lines.

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And therefore, it called the shots.

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And a derivative of that was order.

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And another way to say it was like maybe the underlying volatility was suppressed,

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but it was always going to be there.

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And then I would look at it from the perspective of it's not like this is,

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it's something else that's absent wanting and absent in ray dalio's piece which is he doesn't

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say what the likely next order is he might not want to say it because like in his mind if he's

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just matching history it would be well there's likely going to be a world war and whoever wins

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that war is going to set the order um it's going to create the order

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In my mind, looking at it and saying more order generally is better than great disorder.

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And looking at a country like Venezuela, setting aside the United States and having Nicolas Maduro, but just from an economic perspective, it's like, man, when their currency collapsed, the country went into great disorder.

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What happens with great disorder? Wealth is destroyed and people die without a kinetic war. That's what disorder is. That's what order going to disorder from.

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and it would certainly be better even if you were heading to a path of disorder

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if the bottom of that disorder of when things start to become more ordered rather than less

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would certainly be better than an alternative where it just keeps spiraling down and down and down and down.

387
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um and again in my mind it's not like hey what is the order who's the ruling power

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like does the does the united states need to go to war with china and one has to win and then the

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other it's like well like you know two two people who live in a vacuum who are sycophants might

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think oh that might need to happen when anybody else sitting outside would be like certainly that

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would be worse off everybody would be worse off if that happened um but someone in the cia or you

392
00:35:00,970 --> 00:35:05,810
know some deep state thing might be like yeah this is this is we got a war game this in this way it's

393
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going to go and like you know iran nuts off um but it's like it's still more it's more disorder

394
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and it is disorder maybe in their minds with a hope of then creating order from it.

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But it's like, again, if you don't solve the, like, trade is the basis of cooperation.

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It does not sit above, you know, somebody wanting to build an empire and have, you know, need to acquire oil.

397
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Again, like, I'm not naive in that respect.

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but if you have the basis to trade somebody for oil

399
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rather than take their country over,

400
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that's going to leave everybody in a better place.

401
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If you don't really have a basis to effectively coordinate trade,

402
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you're more likely to have an order that's dictated by a large war being won

403
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and then whoever is controlling the military

404
00:36:06,790 --> 00:36:09,110
that won dictating order to everybody else.

405
00:36:09,350 --> 00:36:11,250
That might be what happens.

406
00:36:11,410 --> 00:36:14,190
That's unlikely to be good for everybody

407
00:36:14,190 --> 00:36:17,110
living on the earth at this moment in time.

408
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443
00:38:15,710 --> 00:38:18,410
Ray Dalio is obviously insanely influential.

444
00:38:18,410 --> 00:38:20,670
It's not like this is completely a novel take.

445
00:38:20,670 --> 00:38:22,010
People have been saying this for a long time.

446
00:38:22,010 --> 00:38:24,710
It's just he's someone that a lot of people listen to.

447
00:38:24,710 --> 00:38:28,710
Do you think gold absolutely ripping over the last 18 months

448
00:38:28,710 --> 00:38:34,210
has been the market saying that a reordering is on the horizon?

449
00:38:34,210 --> 00:38:36,710
I personally don't think so.

450
00:38:36,710 --> 00:38:40,210
Again, it would be easy to say yes.

451
00:38:40,210 --> 00:38:47,830
because all of these things are happening at the same time

452
00:38:47,830 --> 00:38:50,670
while the price of gold is rising.

453
00:38:52,110 --> 00:38:57,850
But for the last five years or three to five years,

454
00:38:58,790 --> 00:39:00,310
Russia's been accumulating gold.

455
00:39:00,930 --> 00:39:02,470
China's been accumulating gold.

456
00:39:02,470 --> 00:39:09,270
in 2022

457
00:39:09,270 --> 00:39:12,370
no I guess four years ago

458
00:39:12,370 --> 00:39:14,630
I don't know exactly when Russia was cut off

459
00:39:14,630 --> 00:39:17,910
but that war started around this time in 2022

460
00:39:17,910 --> 00:39:23,030
and Russia didn't spontaneously collapse

461
00:39:23,030 --> 00:39:27,190
they figured out a way to trade around it

462
00:39:27,190 --> 00:39:30,310
the dollar also didn't spontaneously collapse

463
00:39:30,310 --> 00:39:32,250
when Russia was able to

464
00:39:32,470 --> 00:39:33,610
to navigate off of it.

465
00:39:35,530 --> 00:39:41,110
And so I think that it's more of a symptom of the currency

466
00:39:43,030 --> 00:39:46,750
being on the brink of, like when I say being on the brink of failure,

467
00:39:46,930 --> 00:39:50,110
it's like, I'm not saying it's going to collapse next month.

468
00:39:50,530 --> 00:39:52,870
I'm saying it's heading down that path.

469
00:39:53,350 --> 00:39:59,230
And when buying gold and silver has reached

470
00:39:59,230 --> 00:40:02,330
the retail fervor that it has.

471
00:40:02,790 --> 00:40:07,150
That's like, it has Weimar Germany vibes

472
00:40:07,150 --> 00:40:09,570
because everyone is speculators

473
00:40:09,570 --> 00:40:13,170
in financial assets and derivatives.

474
00:40:14,190 --> 00:40:15,830
The distinguishment, because you say,

475
00:40:15,930 --> 00:40:17,270
well, hey, that's the same thing as Bitcoin.

476
00:40:17,530 --> 00:40:20,230
It's like, the way that I look at it is

477
00:40:20,230 --> 00:40:22,290
there's a difference between speculating

478
00:40:22,290 --> 00:40:25,970
in gold or dollars, or sorry, in gold and silver

479
00:40:25,970 --> 00:40:28,630
to get more dollars, to get more ruble,

480
00:40:28,630 --> 00:40:30,490
or to get more yen as an inflation hedge

481
00:40:30,490 --> 00:40:32,590
versus actually identifying the one thing

482
00:40:32,590 --> 00:40:34,130
that can practically be a solution.

483
00:40:34,910 --> 00:40:37,070
And I'm not closing out that there are certain people,

484
00:40:37,430 --> 00:40:50,780
I believe that Peter Schiff is somebody who looks at gold and says we going back to a gold standard But there also and he won admit this that the vast majority of people that are trading gold

485
00:40:50,780 --> 00:40:54,200
are trading to get more dollars.

486
00:40:54,740 --> 00:40:59,260
Now, an example that's not a geopolitical foe of anyone,

487
00:40:59,380 --> 00:41:00,600
or at least not today really,

488
00:41:01,060 --> 00:41:02,800
is, or I wouldn't describe it this way at all,

489
00:41:03,140 --> 00:41:04,160
but Tether was somebody.

490
00:41:04,260 --> 00:41:05,180
They bought physical gold.

491
00:41:05,180 --> 00:41:10,960
So they apparently weren't just trading in it to get more dollars.

492
00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:13,680
They actually wanted to hold the reserves.

493
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:25,520
I would just say that gold rising or people turning to Bitcoin gold commodity monies with the thought process that currencies are being debased is about the currency.

494
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:30,420
And it's less about the collapse of the world order.

495
00:41:30,420 --> 00:41:40,080
Because the world order, and I kind of hate the term, but it's just like the financial system is dollarized.

496
00:41:41,640 --> 00:41:50,320
And the dollar and the US economy, but the dollar economy globally, the cross-border trade, dwarfs any other system.

497
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:56,620
in the event of an actual dollar collapse

498
00:41:56,620 --> 00:42:06,280
things like gold and bitcoin for a period of time will be sold every credit asset will be sold

499
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:11,400
every equity will be sold because there will actually be a run on dollars because there's

500
00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:15,100
so much dollar debt that exists and eventually the dollar will hyper inflate and everyone will

501
00:42:15,100 --> 00:42:17,360
migrate over to Bitcoin and sell their gold.

502
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:20,160
But I would explain it less.

503
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:24,840
Basically, maybe Ray Dalio making this comment

504
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:28,440
at the same time that there's fear of going to war with Iran

505
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:32,500
and heightened tension between Europe and Russia

506
00:42:32,500 --> 00:42:34,840
and the US and China and then gold going up.

507
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:38,000
To me, it feels like a fooled by randomness thing

508
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:41,480
where you could pick any one of those things out

509
00:42:41,480 --> 00:42:43,720
and say, this is going up because of that.

510
00:42:43,720 --> 00:42:52,720
And at the underlying side, it's like, well, the dollar is devaluing because there's more dollar deposits.

511
00:42:52,720 --> 00:42:59,720
Even though the Fed isn't creating more base money at the moment, there's more and more dollar deposits, more and more Euro deposits, more and more Yen deposits.

512
00:42:59,720 --> 00:43:01,720
And it's the currency stupid.

513
00:43:01,720 --> 00:43:16,520
And then maybe the fracturing of the global order and the global trade systems and partnerships that existed breaking down might be underlying about the currency losing its value.

514
00:43:16,720 --> 00:43:18,860
So I'm not saying it's not related to that.

515
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:24,120
It's just that it's coinciding at a time that's easy to stick it to.

516
00:43:24,220 --> 00:43:29,100
And it's like, but you could have said that two years ago.

517
00:43:29,100 --> 00:43:29,340
Right.

518
00:43:29,380 --> 00:43:30,300
Imagine the same thing.

519
00:43:30,300 --> 00:43:35,340
Like China's actively buying gold and Russia's actively buying gold.

520
00:43:35,340 --> 00:43:37,780
Well, why wasn't the price going up?

521
00:43:37,780 --> 00:43:38,940
Right.

522
00:43:38,940 --> 00:43:42,380
What was the was the world order not fracturing then?

523
00:43:42,980 --> 00:43:47,260
You know, so it's like, yes, gold's going up in value.

524
00:43:47,260 --> 00:43:49,620
Yes, the

525
00:43:49,620 --> 00:43:52,820
the world, the order in the world is fracturing.

526
00:43:54,180 --> 00:43:55,300
But.

527
00:43:56,300 --> 00:43:59,220
It's also just the currency is losing its value.

528
00:43:59,220 --> 00:44:00,980
It's like, is gold going?

529
00:44:00,980 --> 00:44:02,260
Yeah.

530
00:44:02,260 --> 00:44:03,640
Like you could basically,

531
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:04,420
you could have said the same

532
00:44:04,420 --> 00:44:06,060
when the stock market went up

533
00:44:06,060 --> 00:44:07,560
because they printed, you know,

534
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:09,600
is this a sign of

535
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:11,480
the world order

536
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:12,260
falling apart?

537
00:44:12,260 --> 00:44:13,220
No one wants to be in cash.

538
00:44:13,220 --> 00:44:15,900
They want equities.

539
00:44:15,900 --> 00:44:17,180
And so I just

540
00:44:17,180 --> 00:44:19,520
I think it's easy to point it to that.

541
00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:21,640
And the more logical thing is just

542
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:23,220
people are trying to get out of the dollar,

543
00:44:23,220 --> 00:44:25,840
you know, and.

544
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:27,420
A lot of them are doing it

545
00:44:27,420 --> 00:44:29,060
for reasons that they're struggling

546
00:44:29,060 --> 00:44:31,600
to get by and they need to speculate in something to try to stay ahead.

547
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:38,100
And then in others, yeah, China and Russia are diversifying away from the dollar because

548
00:44:38,100 --> 00:44:43,660
they don't want to be tied to the dollar hegemony.

549
00:44:44,780 --> 00:44:46,820
And that also is rational.

550
00:44:48,720 --> 00:44:54,420
But there's something at a higher order that's dictating the fracture.

551
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:56,480
Yeah, that makes sense.

552
00:44:56,480 --> 00:45:00,200
I've got a question for you that is pretty much impossible to answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway.

553
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:07,960
You say that the dollar fiat is failing, which I totally agree with, but it's a process, not an event, I think.

554
00:45:08,100 --> 00:45:09,560
It's not going to fail tomorrow.

555
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:13,340
Well, it will be an event, but it's not going to fail tomorrow.

556
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:15,500
Okay.

557
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:21,980
But the reason I say it's a process is because you could probably say the dollar started failing in 2008.

558
00:45:22,060 --> 00:45:25,060
You could probably pick a load of different dates, but that might be one that you could pick.

559
00:45:25,060 --> 00:45:27,540
how long do you think it can last?

560
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:29,160
I don't know.

561
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:31,200
Markets stay

562
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:33,380
markets can remain

563
00:45:33,380 --> 00:45:35,380
irrational for longer than you can stay solvent.

564
00:45:36,900 --> 00:45:37,400
Personally

565
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:38,320
it's hard for me to

566
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:41,440
believe that it goes on for another

567
00:45:41,440 --> 00:45:42,020
10 years.

568
00:45:44,820 --> 00:45:45,560
Part of the way

569
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:47,400
that I get there is thinking about Bitcoin

570
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:48,240
and Bitcoin adoption.

571
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:52,860
But also

572
00:45:52,860 --> 00:45:54,480
you know

573
00:45:55,060 --> 00:46:01,820
Maybe one thing that I look at is Venezuela, like an example that I use.

574
00:46:01,860 --> 00:46:04,860
That a lot of times people want to talk about, you know,

575
00:46:04,900 --> 00:46:07,220
Venezuela hyperinflated because of sanctions.

576
00:46:07,260 --> 00:46:11,220
And that's just like totally farcical.

577
00:46:11,260 --> 00:46:16,220
Then Venezuela hyperinflated because of money printing.

578
00:46:16,260 --> 00:46:21,980
The sanctions that actually started

579
00:46:21,980 --> 00:46:27,980
cutting off Venezuela abilities to sell oil was in, I believe, 2019 or 2020.

580
00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:34,280
GM, as a company, GM, the auto manufacturer that's based in the United States,

581
00:46:34,700 --> 00:46:36,360
they had operations in Venezuela.

582
00:46:37,440 --> 00:46:45,420
And in 2013, I believe they wrote down their Venezuelan boulevards.

583
00:46:45,500 --> 00:46:47,240
Because if you think about GM's operations,

584
00:46:48,020 --> 00:46:51,400
GM had auto manufacturing in the country of Venezuela.

585
00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:55,400
They weren't just exporting cars from the United States to Venezuela.

586
00:46:55,400 --> 00:47:02,680
They were importing parts and building GM vehicles in Venezuela.

587
00:47:03,260 --> 00:47:07,720
And they were holding boulevards to be able to,

588
00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:11,780
they were accepting boulevards as cash for cars.

589
00:47:11,860 --> 00:47:12,920
They were paying out boulevards.

590
00:47:13,180 --> 00:47:16,540
And then they had FX reserves because they were having to convert boulevards

591
00:47:16,540 --> 00:47:22,300
of dollars to buy parts from largely US-based manufacturers.

592
00:47:26,620 --> 00:47:31,980
I think they first marked down their Venezuelan boulevards in 2013 by 10% or 20%.

593
00:47:32,700 --> 00:47:36,220
And then the next year, and I might have it off by one year, it might be like

594
00:47:37,020 --> 00:47:40,940
14 was the first year and 15 was the next year or 13 was the first year and 14 was next.

595
00:47:41,580 --> 00:47:44,700
In the second year, they wrote it down 100%, 99%.

596
00:47:44,700 --> 00:47:55,120
And then if you Google, when did hyperinflation start in Venezuela, it'll say 2016 or 2017.

597
00:47:55,960 --> 00:48:09,440
So multiple years before, GM wrote down all of their boulevards and literally had to leave the country because they couldn't continue to manufacture cars.

598
00:48:09,820 --> 00:48:10,920
They shut down their operations.

599
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:28,860
And over that period of time, before Venezuela actually entered hyperinflation, their currency had devalued by 50% against the dollar over three or four years.

600
00:48:28,860 --> 00:48:33,700
and a lot of things that you need to, at least in the United States,

601
00:48:33,700 --> 00:48:35,380
that you need to purchase, particularly food,

602
00:48:37,120 --> 00:48:40,620
have over the last four to five years,

603
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:46,480
things are more than 50% more expensive.

604
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:50,920
And so it's like there are parallels.

605
00:48:51,260 --> 00:48:55,040
Now, I don't necessarily think that three years from there

606
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:56,420
there's going to be hyperinflation,

607
00:48:56,520 --> 00:48:58,300
but if you're looking at data points of like,

608
00:48:58,300 --> 00:49:03,440
what types of things happen, like looking at the stock market, like an index like the Dow,

609
00:49:03,820 --> 00:49:08,660
and seeing it have this hockey stick, these incredibly mature companies, right? These aren't

610
00:49:09,660 --> 00:49:18,200
startup tech companies that have huge ramps in cash flow, but seeing their valuations start to

611
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:24,260
mimic what might have been happening in Weimar Germany, as an example. It's like the writings on

612
00:49:24,260 --> 00:49:30,260
that wall. And then when I think forward to like, because it will be an event, like there will be a

613
00:49:30,260 --> 00:49:39,460
moment when confidence is lost in the currency. And that is likely at a point where the currency

614
00:49:39,460 --> 00:49:45,120
starts to get sufficiently volatile that it causes a bunch of businesses to go out of business,

615
00:49:45,160 --> 00:49:49,280
which then disrupts supply chains, which then causes things like food on the grocery shelves

616
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:50,920
to start to become sparse.

617
00:49:52,380 --> 00:49:55,460
And so if you think about that as one side

618
00:49:55,460 --> 00:49:58,640
of the currency problems independent,

619
00:49:58,780 --> 00:50:00,880
and then you say, here Bitcoin is,

620
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:02,180
yeah, it's traded down,

621
00:50:02,420 --> 00:50:09,820
but between 1.34 trillion to 2 trillion in value,

622
00:50:10,480 --> 00:50:16,340
and we go out 10 years of a world becoming more disordered

623
00:50:16,340 --> 00:50:18,160
and people trying to figure out,

624
00:50:18,160 --> 00:50:25,580
well, what's the end game here? What's the answer? Then I don't see how with two more full

625
00:50:25,580 --> 00:50:30,900
halvings in Bitcoin and just this natural survival instinct of people. Because at the end of Dalio's

626
00:50:30,900 --> 00:50:35,640
piece, he was basically like, hey, the world's going to shit. You might want to think about not

627
00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:43,600
being in bonds. It's like, maybe think about gold. But as people follow the rabbit hole of

628
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:47,300
the cause and effect, they'll realize that gold has the same problem.

629
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:51,240
All of this started with gold and Bretton Woods.

630
00:50:52,420 --> 00:50:58,480
And even if you went back to gold coins, one, it's incredibly inefficient, but two,

631
00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:07,520
it's coined in some country's currency that people are having to trade back and forth.

632
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:10,160
And so they all will figure out Bitcoin.

633
00:51:10,160 --> 00:51:12,920
And again, not a doomerism.

634
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:13,820
I don't want it to happen.

635
00:51:13,940 --> 00:51:27,200
I'm just looking out and saying, hey, if Bitcoin adoption increased by 10 times over the next 10 years, which I view to be conservative, then it becomes clearly the second largest currency system in the world.

636
00:51:28,080 --> 00:51:35,140
And once it becomes clearly the second largest currency system in the world, it's like you don't even need to become the biggest.

637
00:51:35,140 --> 00:51:39,080
people will like the writing will be on the wall enough of a consensus will happen that

638
00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:45,660
somewhere in that point of that session from like being larger than the euro and clearly being

639
00:51:45,660 --> 00:51:52,260
larger than gold which i don't really think about gold's currency system um that everyone there'll

640
00:51:52,260 --> 00:51:59,200
be a there'll be a a rapid monetization of bitcoin that happens at that time i don't try to

641
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:06,400
exactly when it happens you know like to me it doesn't happen in 20 in 20 years great that would

642
00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:11,360
be that would be phenomenal you know i'm just explaining the cause and effect of of where

643
00:52:11,360 --> 00:52:17,680
and why it's going that way so that you know the way i think about it is survive

644
00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:23,800
surviving all seasons all weathers if you know yeah where it's going and why and why it might

645
00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:29,660
not go back to something like gold and why all of these problems that exist today started with gold.

646
00:52:30,840 --> 00:52:36,160
You really think that all these problems, if you can't think about,

647
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:40,940
well, why did we get to the dollar as it is when it started with gold,

648
00:52:41,820 --> 00:52:44,960
then how are you not connecting?

649
00:52:45,300 --> 00:52:49,060
Well, if you just tried to go back to ground zero and start it over,

650
00:52:49,140 --> 00:52:50,420
it's like, what would you do differently?

651
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:52,680
And isn't this the logical place that it ends?

652
00:52:53,800 --> 00:52:55,000
Anyways, right?

653
00:52:55,040 --> 00:52:58,140
And if that's the case, then you can't go back to gold.

654
00:52:58,140 --> 00:53:17,060
You have to go to something that actually solves the problem that caused the fiat system to emerge, to solve gaps in settlement, security of gold, the difficulty of transporting gold, which is part of the difficulty of settling gold.

655
00:53:17,060 --> 00:53:20,060
if you're thinking about

656
00:53:20,060 --> 00:53:22,860
the US trading with China

657
00:53:22,860 --> 00:53:24,700
and imagine you had to

658
00:53:24,700 --> 00:53:26,440
actually settle physical gold

659
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:29,200
every time a ship

660
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:30,460
moved across

661
00:53:30,460 --> 00:53:31,340
you could do that

662
00:53:31,340 --> 00:53:33,320
but the gold is sitting in one place

663
00:53:33,320 --> 00:53:35,680
it's sitting on one shore

664
00:53:35,680 --> 00:53:36,720
and you might say

665
00:53:36,720 --> 00:53:37,920
well we'll put it in Europe

666
00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:40,660
because we don't trust each other

667
00:53:40,660 --> 00:53:42,240
but then it's sitting in Europe

668
00:53:42,240 --> 00:53:45,980
it's sitting on someone's shores

669
00:53:45,980 --> 00:53:56,600
and moving in a vault because moving it physically between countries is too costly.

670
00:53:57,160 --> 00:53:58,060
And then what is that?

671
00:53:58,220 --> 00:54:04,140
If it's sitting in a vault, you might not need to have a fiat denomination on top of it,

672
00:54:04,140 --> 00:54:10,320
but you essentially have a fiat system, financial system built on top to do all the zeros and ones.

673
00:54:11,420 --> 00:54:14,220
And you're like, nope, we're not going back to that.

674
00:54:14,220 --> 00:54:20,600
We're going to the thing where, hey, if the U.S. is trading with China, you can send Bitcoin.

675
00:54:20,780 --> 00:54:22,560
Anybody who's trading can send Bitcoin.

676
00:54:22,700 --> 00:54:23,520
They can secure it.

677
00:54:23,700 --> 00:54:28,560
And their country, when they're ready to buy something from us or somebody else, they send it there.

678
00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:29,840
They're securing.

679
00:54:30,580 --> 00:54:32,740
You solve the problem of how gold is secured.

680
00:54:34,160 --> 00:54:37,220
Not only how gold is secured, how trade is settled.

681
00:54:37,940 --> 00:54:39,560
You have a greater basis of trade.

682
00:54:40,600 --> 00:54:42,660
Not to say it's all kumbaya.

683
00:54:42,660 --> 00:54:44,920
we're not living in utopia

684
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:46,820
but there you have

685
00:54:46,820 --> 00:54:48,780
a better shot

686
00:54:48,780 --> 00:54:50,160
better basis of trade

687
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:52,660
you're not likely to bomb your trade park

688
00:54:52,660 --> 00:54:53,960
or you're less likely to

689
00:54:53,960 --> 00:54:56,940
yeah so the actionable advice

690
00:54:56,940 --> 00:54:58,540
that Ray Dalio gives in the piece is

691
00:54:58,540 --> 00:55:00,560
sell debt buy gold and clearly

692
00:55:00,560 --> 00:55:02,900
gold is not the only option we think bitcoin is a better

693
00:55:02,900 --> 00:55:04,740
option but for the gold bugs

694
00:55:04,740 --> 00:55:06,260
like the Peter Schiff of the world

695
00:55:06,260 --> 00:55:08,540
he's obviously clueless on bitcoin

696
00:55:08,540 --> 00:55:10,140
but he's a smart guy

697
00:55:10,140 --> 00:55:12,100
I quite like a lot of his other takes

698
00:55:12,920 --> 00:55:15,260
Why don't you think they put enough weight

699
00:55:15,260 --> 00:55:16,740
on the sort of currency side of things

700
00:55:16,740 --> 00:55:18,820
and they don't see that if you go back to a gold standard,

701
00:55:18,980 --> 00:55:21,520
you kind of just de facto create fiat again?

702
00:55:22,040 --> 00:55:22,820
I don't know.

703
00:55:23,540 --> 00:55:24,040
I don't know.

704
00:55:24,040 --> 00:55:29,740
I mean, in Peter Schiff's case,

705
00:55:30,880 --> 00:55:33,140
I think that it's because,

706
00:55:35,060 --> 00:55:37,480
like, I don't know the guy.

707
00:55:37,580 --> 00:55:39,360
He seems like a decently fine human being.

708
00:55:39,360 --> 00:55:51,180
but when you've been so right about the problems and you've misdiagnosed the solution

709
00:55:51,180 --> 00:55:58,780
that your bias and just like overcoming the negative psychology of of it like

710
00:55:58,780 --> 00:56:08,040
the rational person would say it's a sunk cost fallacy right but um in his case which i don't

711
00:56:08,040 --> 00:56:14,700
think that is the case of the majority of people, which is why Bitcoin wins, is because he has a

712
00:56:14,700 --> 00:56:21,120
bias that's built around his own personality. He's got businesses built around it. It is not easy to

713
00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:31,340
exit a position and accumulate Bitcoin or let me just finish that thought, accumulate Bitcoin and

714
00:56:31,340 --> 00:56:36,800
then tell the entire world, hey, I was wrong about gold. Now, Larry Lepard is someone who's

715
00:56:36,800 --> 00:56:40,260
like going from the gold world and basically like, I still think you should own gold, but I think that

716
00:56:40,260 --> 00:56:44,720
Bitcoin is going to win. And, you know, in his mind, he doesn't necessarily say Bitcoin is going

717
00:56:44,720 --> 00:56:49,600
to win and gold is going to be a loser. I think that that, you know, the logical conclusion,

718
00:56:49,840 --> 00:56:56,120
not saying that, you know, Larry agrees or disagrees. But there's a difference between that,

719
00:56:56,180 --> 00:57:02,920
which I think is, is, is the rational world versus someone like Peter Schiff, who's, you know,

720
00:57:02,920 --> 00:57:08,320
not just been somebody who's advocated for gold, but has banks and businesses

721
00:57:08,320 --> 00:57:14,080
and everything tied to that end game happening.

722
00:57:15,120 --> 00:57:18,320
And there are going to be fewer of those people, right?

723
00:57:18,580 --> 00:57:22,860
Like one example I would give is when the whole world was going on the gold standard,

724
00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:24,040
China went on the silver standard.

725
00:57:24,840 --> 00:57:26,780
And so it's like people can choose wrong.

726
00:57:27,900 --> 00:57:30,840
And then they can have, you can look at it two ways.

727
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:41,400
They can have their wealth expropriated from them, or they can have their purchasing power declined.

728
00:57:41,760 --> 00:57:43,420
There's a quote in the Bitcoin standard.

729
00:57:44,220 --> 00:57:57,860
I think it's something along the lines of, you can't insulate or protect yourself from somebody else using a harder currency than yours.

730
00:57:57,860 --> 00:57:59,440
and that's what

731
00:57:59,440 --> 00:58:02,300
we're dealing with with Bitcoin and gold

732
00:58:02,300 --> 00:58:04,460
and I'm not just talking about

733
00:58:04,460 --> 00:58:06,380
the supply

734
00:58:06,380 --> 00:58:06,760
cap

735
00:58:06,760 --> 00:58:10,400
it's the other properties that

736
00:58:10,400 --> 00:58:12,020
make it a superior

737
00:58:12,020 --> 00:58:13,260
settlement rail

738
00:58:13,260 --> 00:58:16,320
faster settlement

739
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:18,220
like ability to

740
00:58:18,220 --> 00:58:18,940
assay

741
00:58:18,940 --> 00:58:21,240
if somebody looks

742
00:58:21,240 --> 00:58:23,760
if anybody picks up gold

743
00:58:23,760 --> 00:58:25,780
in Bitcoin and looks at them both

744
00:58:25,780 --> 00:58:27,800
and be like shit it's going to be one of these two

745
00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:30,740
and they bottom up, they end up at Bitcoin.

746
00:58:30,740 --> 00:58:32,900
That was me.

747
00:58:33,720 --> 00:58:37,280
And where I first had to understand why gold was money

748
00:58:37,280 --> 00:58:38,580
and why it had emerged.

749
00:58:39,240 --> 00:58:43,140
And then I was looking at Bitcoins through the same lens

750
00:58:43,140 --> 00:58:46,260
and you're A versus B and you stack them up

751
00:58:46,260 --> 00:58:48,360
and it becomes fairly clear fairly easily.

752
00:58:50,260 --> 00:58:54,160
And there's part of that that Safe Dean Amoose

753
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:57,720
had a debate with Peter Schiff in El Salvador recently.

754
00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:02,180
and he talks about a number of those differences

755
00:59:02,180 --> 00:59:07,040
and I just think that the rational mind ends up there

756
00:59:07,040 --> 00:59:12,940
and someone has to choose how they're going to store each unit of value

757
00:59:12,940 --> 00:59:14,340
and you can do it in both

758
00:59:14,340 --> 00:59:20,380
but everyone is incentivized to maximize their purchasing power going forward

759
00:59:20,380 --> 00:59:25,040
so I think it's like not having the ability to see it in Peter Schiff's case

760
00:59:25,040 --> 00:59:26,380
because he's so wed.

761
00:59:26,680 --> 00:59:28,260
He was so right about the problems,

762
00:59:28,540 --> 00:59:32,940
and now he's so wed to what he was forecasting to be the solution.

763
00:59:33,460 --> 00:59:34,700
You can be wrong.

764
00:59:34,800 --> 00:59:36,480
China was wrong about going on the silver standard,

765
00:59:36,760 --> 00:59:38,300
and now they're buying gold.

766
00:59:39,140 --> 00:59:40,400
That's the other side of this.

767
00:59:40,860 --> 00:59:41,920
They're wrong again.

768
00:59:43,040 --> 00:59:46,200
That might be why they,

769
00:59:47,480 --> 00:59:50,760
if you were forecasting that there's a superpower that rises

770
00:59:50,760 --> 00:59:52,520
and that the U.S. is declining

771
00:59:52,520 --> 00:59:53,940
and China is going to be the new superpower,

772
00:59:53,940 --> 00:59:57,660
It's like maybe they're making the wrong currency bet

773
00:59:57,660 --> 01:00:02,900
and maybe that is the weakness of their whole strategy.

774
01:00:03,980 --> 01:00:07,400
It's almost like if you had to compare like a Peter Schiff gold bug

775
01:00:07,400 --> 01:00:09,380
to some fiat maxi person,

776
01:00:09,380 --> 01:00:12,320
it's almost more frustrating to be Peter Schiff in that situation

777
01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:16,880
where if we're right, Schiff has been 90% right for decades

778
01:00:16,880 --> 01:00:18,680
and then just got the last hurdle,

779
01:00:18,980 --> 01:00:21,120
just tripped at the last hurdle and didn't move to Bitcoin.

780
01:00:21,340 --> 01:00:23,380
Like they might end up buying Bitcoin at the same price.

781
01:00:23,940 --> 01:00:34,660
Why do you think Bitcoin, like if everything we're saying here is true, which I believe it to be, why do you think Bitcoin is still trading like a tech stock and we're at like $67,000 now?

782
01:00:34,760 --> 01:00:37,040
Like that seems deeply, deeply undervalued.

783
01:00:37,240 --> 01:00:41,080
Is this just like an information asymmetry between us and the rest of the world?

784
01:00:41,800 --> 01:00:45,860
It's not that I would say that if you look at Bitcoin and you say, hey, all these things are true.

785
01:00:46,900 --> 01:00:51,020
Well, they were true when Bitcoin was $8,000 and crashed to $4,000.

786
01:00:51,020 --> 01:00:58,020
They were true when Bitcoin was $69,000 and crashed to $16,000.

787
01:00:58,020 --> 01:01:12,210
They were true at and they still true today at or wherever it is And so I think that the explanation for that is like price is the scoreboard right

788
01:01:12,390 --> 01:01:17,350
But Bitcoin is volatile because it's difficult to understand.

789
01:01:17,490 --> 01:01:27,190
And I would liken this very much to when I gave a talk a few years ago about why Bitcoin is not a hedge.

790
01:01:27,190 --> 01:01:33,030
like and i gave it i gave a recent talk in the same venue is that the one that went like viral

791
01:01:33,030 --> 01:01:38,270
on the untamed youtube it was the huge views yeah that was an awesome talk and i and i gave that talk

792
01:01:38,270 --> 01:01:44,370
of like explaining like hey there's inflation happening and bitcoin's coming down like isn't

793
01:01:44,370 --> 01:01:53,530
this isn't this contradictory and it's like no it's perfectly explained um and um and and the

794
01:01:53,530 --> 01:02:05,670
same thing is true now. I gave a presentation at the same venue two months ago. I wish I could have

795
01:02:05,670 --> 01:02:13,430
done it right now with Bitcoin at 66. Because it's the same thing. It's like, hey, the world is

796
01:02:13,430 --> 01:02:21,070
becoming increasingly disordered. And you're saying that Bitcoin is supposed to be the answer

797
01:02:21,070 --> 01:02:26,670
to that, but it's going down, it should be going up. It's like, well, you have to understand Bitcoin.

798
01:02:26,810 --> 01:02:32,450
You have to understand that and then have the world event happen and then buy it.

799
01:02:33,190 --> 01:02:39,810
And if you don't know, in the explanation of inflation, if you don't know that Bitcoin is

800
01:02:39,810 --> 01:02:46,730
the solution for inflation and why, the long-term one, not in the next five days or 10 days, but

801
01:02:46,730 --> 01:02:50,030
why it actually permanently solves the problem of money printing.

802
01:02:50,630 --> 01:02:55,390
And then you're going to the grocery store and shit's getting real bad for you.

803
01:02:55,670 --> 01:03:00,230
And you're living paycheck to paycheck and you're constantly stressed about it.

804
01:03:01,430 --> 01:03:04,430
You're not putting those two and two together, right?

805
01:03:04,430 --> 01:03:05,470
Same thing with this.

806
01:03:06,150 --> 01:03:07,250
World's on fire.

807
01:03:08,390 --> 01:03:11,530
One large war at risk after another.

808
01:03:11,530 --> 01:03:18,930
Well, if you don't see the connection to Bitcoin, then how do you put those things together?

809
01:03:20,050 --> 01:03:24,810
And that's what's happening at the highest level.

810
01:03:25,410 --> 01:03:29,150
But at a micro level, people are.

811
01:03:30,490 --> 01:03:37,870
People right now are buying Bitcoin and having the light bulb go off because four years ago,

812
01:03:37,870 --> 01:03:46,290
They heard somebody talking for the first time about Rush getting cut off of Swift and Bitcoin's the answer to that.

813
01:03:46,390 --> 01:03:53,430
And now they see this piece from Ray Dalio talking about a world becoming disordered.

814
01:03:54,070 --> 01:03:56,710
And they're like, yeah, he's right, but it's not gold, it's Bitcoin.

815
01:03:56,950 --> 01:03:59,850
And they're putting their chips on the table.

816
01:03:59,850 --> 01:04:08,850
And then Bitcoin will bottom at a higher place than it did before because more people will figure it out.

817
01:04:08,850 --> 01:04:15,850
And that doesn't mean for some technical reason that Bitcoin, I'm not saying that it already has bottomed.

818
01:04:15,850 --> 01:04:28,850
I'm just saying that the trend of that higher highs, higher lows, doesn't matter if in 2022 that it went through its prior high, it then went far through its higher highs.

819
01:04:28,850 --> 01:04:31,350
And that's a function of more people figuring it out.

820
01:04:31,350 --> 01:04:34,870
But two things can be true at the same time.

821
01:04:35,010 --> 01:04:36,450
More people are figuring it out.

822
01:04:36,570 --> 01:04:40,890
That's creating higher levels of equilibrium and higher highs.

823
01:04:41,630 --> 01:04:45,610
Very few people actually understand what's going on.

824
01:04:46,190 --> 01:04:47,550
You know what the evidence of it is?

825
01:04:48,110 --> 01:04:51,370
There is 700,000 Bitcoin that's sitting in strategy.

826
01:04:51,930 --> 01:04:58,010
And there's 700,000 Bitcoin that are sitting in IBIT.

827
01:04:58,010 --> 01:05:06,190
If you actually understood what was going on, and I'm not saying an investment in strategy or an investment in IBIT is a bad thing.

828
01:05:07,330 --> 01:05:09,190
The companies themselves are not bad.

829
01:05:10,210 --> 01:05:11,390
Nothing bad with them.

830
01:05:12,030 --> 01:05:20,150
But if you're not self-custaining Bitcoin or if you don't realize, say IBIT, you could just have your Bitcoin at Coinbase.

831
01:05:21,210 --> 01:05:26,030
You have less counterparty risk than you do if it's sitting in IBIT.

832
01:05:26,030 --> 01:05:30,910
You took the convenience of buying it probably because you're trading it.

833
01:05:31,050 --> 01:05:40,770
Like those two vehicles, IBIT more than strategy, are indicators of lack of knowledge.

834
01:05:41,710 --> 01:05:47,850
Not like they're good products, they're good companies, but like you could have your Bitcoin in River.

835
01:05:48,290 --> 01:05:50,110
You could have your Bitcoin in Unchained.

836
01:05:50,190 --> 01:05:51,710
You could have your Bitcoin in a cold card.

837
01:05:51,830 --> 01:05:53,010
You could have your Bitcoin in Strike.

838
01:05:53,390 --> 01:05:54,250
You'd be better off.

839
01:05:54,810 --> 01:05:55,330
Right.

840
01:05:55,330 --> 01:06:00,790
Right. And everything's good for Bitcoin, though.

841
01:06:01,070 --> 01:06:03,790
But I'm just saying there's a lot of people that bought Bitcoin.

842
01:06:04,050 --> 01:06:08,710
And from my vantage point, hosting meetups and going to conferences

843
01:06:08,710 --> 01:06:12,130
and talking to people that are interested, people reaching out,

844
01:06:12,570 --> 01:06:14,710
we never had a wave of adoption.

845
01:06:16,210 --> 01:06:21,530
Like there was never a fervor of individuals that were rushing in

846
01:06:21,530 --> 01:06:24,810
that were like chasing price.

847
01:06:25,330 --> 01:06:26,630
Like that didn't happen.

848
01:06:27,310 --> 01:06:30,790
So to think that like, you know, cycles, like cycles are not dead.

849
01:06:30,870 --> 01:06:32,130
Human psychology is the same.

850
01:06:32,430 --> 01:06:34,170
It's just fooled by randomness.

851
01:06:35,250 --> 01:06:43,550
You know, my explanation for this, where prices are, is, you know, reportedly, according to Galaxy, they helped somebody sell 80,000 Bitcoin.

852
01:06:43,670 --> 01:06:44,490
That was the local top.

853
01:06:44,490 --> 01:06:53,690
And if you have a bunch of people that have bought the ETF that don't have a lot of knowledge,

854
01:06:53,690 --> 01:06:58,570
primary knowledge about Bitcoin, about the real reason to own it or speculate in it, they sell it.

855
01:06:58,570 --> 01:07:00,330
You know, like it starts to go down.

856
01:07:00,330 --> 01:07:05,210
It's easy to buy Bitcoin when it's going up because when it goes up, psychologically, it reinforces it.

857
01:07:05,210 --> 01:07:06,010
You made a good decision.

858
01:07:06,010 --> 01:07:12,170
But if you're still sitting there with limited knowledge and it starts to go down, your first instinct is like buy a little bit more.

859
01:07:12,170 --> 01:07:16,170
And then when it goes down further, you start to panic and then you sell.

860
01:07:17,490 --> 01:07:20,890
We saw the example of the Wisconsin state pension.

861
01:07:21,310 --> 01:07:25,870
They bought Bitcoin when it was like about 60,000 and they bought 10 basis points.

862
01:07:26,330 --> 01:07:32,370
Michael Saylor has this great quote, which is, if you understand Bitcoin, there's no chance that you only own 1%.

863
01:07:32,370 --> 01:07:37,950
Well, the Wisconsin state pension bought a tenth of that.

864
01:07:37,950 --> 01:07:44,990
okay and then when it went up to 100 they sold it they they rebalanced their portfolios like

865
01:07:44,990 --> 01:07:51,170
they and they bought ibit did they actually ever understand bitcoin you know like i myself i was

866
01:07:51,170 --> 01:07:58,150
championing hey you know wisconsin state pension buys bitcoin it's great they they didn't understand

867
01:07:58,150 --> 01:08:03,950
it you know but then you have other markers that are they're very positive ones like um

868
01:08:03,950 --> 01:08:07,110
steak and shake, right?

869
01:08:07,210 --> 01:08:12,710
Like they get it, you know, like not, I don't know where they hold their Bitcoin.

870
01:08:13,070 --> 01:08:13,870
Don't really care.

871
01:08:13,990 --> 01:08:16,490
They don't own, at least not to my knowledge.

872
01:08:17,410 --> 01:08:20,190
But I also know just the fact that they're accepting it as money.

873
01:08:20,890 --> 01:08:23,110
They're not converting what they receive.

874
01:08:23,390 --> 01:08:25,470
They're buying Bitcoin on a primary basis.

875
01:08:25,470 --> 01:08:28,990
They're working with Fold to, you know, have a bonus for employees.

876
01:08:29,150 --> 01:08:33,730
They're leaning full in to Bitcoin and they're attributing their leaning into

877
01:08:33,730 --> 01:08:39,030
Bitcoin to their same source growing far faster than any of their peers. It's not the only thing

878
01:08:39,030 --> 01:08:42,190
that's driving it, but they themselves are directing it. You can look at it and say,

879
01:08:42,310 --> 01:08:45,250
those people figured it out sometime in the last four years.

880
01:08:47,110 --> 01:08:52,910
And they probably own a lot less Bitcoin than when the Wisconsin State Pension bought it. I think

881
01:08:52,910 --> 01:08:59,670
they bought like $160 million. They had more Bitcoin than Steak and Shake. Steak and Shake

882
01:08:59,670 --> 01:09:03,030
gets it and they're just going to stay humble and stack sats.

883
01:09:03,030 --> 01:09:07,830
And more and more people that exist like Steak and Shake, I'm not talking about

884
01:09:07,830 --> 01:09:10,790
businesses adopting as payments.

885
01:09:10,790 --> 01:09:13,510
I'm talking about people really getting it.

886
01:09:13,510 --> 01:09:19,430
Those are stacking and Bitcoin will find floors

887
01:09:19,430 --> 01:09:26,550
at a ratio relative to the number of people that actually get it.

888
01:09:26,550 --> 01:09:33,710
And then it's still going to be volatile because the way I would describe it is no more than one in 100 people know what's going on.

889
01:09:33,810 --> 01:09:38,730
How could something not be crazy volatile if only one out of 100 people get it?

890
01:09:38,790 --> 01:09:40,690
And one out of 100 is high.

891
01:09:41,410 --> 01:09:42,830
It's less than one in 100.

892
01:09:44,650 --> 01:09:49,430
Fewer than one in 100 companies in S&P 500 own Bitcoin in a direct way.

893
01:09:49,430 --> 01:09:55,150
At least if they own shares in BlackRock.

894
01:09:55,510 --> 01:09:56,670
I'm not talking about the ID.

895
01:09:57,070 --> 01:10:01,350
If they own shares in some company that owns Bitcoin, that's not exposure.

896
01:10:03,290 --> 01:10:04,710
Tesla owns Bitcoin.

897
01:10:06,550 --> 01:10:07,150
Square.

898
01:10:07,530 --> 01:10:07,870
Block.

899
01:10:07,970 --> 01:10:09,210
Yeah, Block owns Bitcoin.

900
01:10:11,410 --> 01:10:14,170
I don't think there's another S&P 500 company.

901
01:10:14,170 --> 01:10:20,610
So if five companies owning Bitcoin would be 1%, right?

902
01:10:21,770 --> 01:10:22,370
Yeah.

903
01:10:23,690 --> 01:10:26,190
Then we're not there.

904
01:10:26,810 --> 01:10:30,110
But also if people just check their local,

905
01:10:31,410 --> 01:10:34,770
their company that they work for, their family members,

906
01:10:35,730 --> 01:10:38,070
people don't get it.

907
01:10:38,270 --> 01:10:39,510
So it's just fine.

908
01:10:39,830 --> 01:10:41,590
People just have to learn.

909
01:10:41,590 --> 01:10:46,350
And it's like, if it were easy to see Bitcoin, more people would see it.

910
01:10:47,430 --> 01:10:54,510
And to Safe's point of the price being the ultimate arbiter is Bitcoin goes up over time because more people do.

911
01:10:55,490 --> 01:10:56,530
More people figure it out.

912
01:10:57,270 --> 01:10:58,650
And that's all that matters.

913
01:10:58,650 --> 01:11:05,490
It's just like, as so long as more people are figuring it out, not less, then Bitcoin goes up over time.

914
01:11:05,490 --> 01:11:15,930
if it ever started going down for long periods of time and consistently hitting lower lows and not making higher highs,

915
01:11:16,150 --> 01:11:25,550
that would be a signal that people who had previously figured it out thought that there was something broken about it.

916
01:11:25,670 --> 01:11:29,710
And what we're seeing today, nothing is signaling that.

917
01:11:29,710 --> 01:11:35,530
There's a lot of negative energy in the world of Bitcoin, but it's like more people are figuring it out, not less.

918
01:11:35,950 --> 01:11:36,650
Bottom line.

919
01:11:37,670 --> 01:11:37,830
Yeah.

920
01:11:38,270 --> 01:11:54,450
One of the anecdotal pieces of evidence that people are starting to take this more seriously, not necessarily understand it, but at least take it more seriously, is like every time we've had a price crash in the past, people who know what I do, when you tell them or when they ask you about the price, there's almost like a smirk in there.

921
01:11:55,330 --> 01:11:58,290
They kind of want to say the Ponzi is going to zero.

922
01:11:58,290 --> 01:12:05,590
But this time, the interesting thing is I go to a boxing gym pretty much every day, and people ask me about Bitcoin, ask me about the price and things like that.

923
01:12:06,030 --> 01:12:09,090
And this time, the reaction has been very different.

924
01:12:09,250 --> 01:12:11,690
It's been, maybe now's a good time to look into it.

925
01:12:11,730 --> 01:12:12,790
Maybe now's a good time to buy it.

926
01:12:12,790 --> 01:12:17,630
And I think that sort of skepticism around Bitcoin generally is going away.

927
01:12:17,630 --> 01:12:27,670
Yeah, like there are still obviously people that want to dunk like, I don't know the guy, but Keith McCullough and Bloomberg Talking Heads and Peter Schiff.

928
01:12:28,290 --> 01:12:29,170
It's going to zero.

929
01:12:29,610 --> 01:12:34,970
There are fewer of them each time because most people look at it and be like,

930
01:12:35,030 --> 01:12:36,150
I'm not going to do that again.

931
01:12:36,270 --> 01:12:38,270
I got embarrassed the last time that I did that.

932
01:12:39,710 --> 01:12:45,290
The majority of even the Bitcoin haters are getting wise to Bitcoin's rise and fall.

933
01:12:46,490 --> 01:12:49,330
But to the point, I'm experiencing the same thing.

934
01:12:49,550 --> 01:12:55,910
I'm not yet experiencing just person after person being like, how do I do this?

935
01:12:55,910 --> 01:13:03,630
But when I'm talking to people, despite the fact of Bitcoin being here, it's like, how do I get set up?

936
01:13:05,030 --> 01:13:06,770
Not like ribbing.

937
01:13:07,390 --> 01:13:10,370
You know, of course, like it's not zero.

938
01:13:10,990 --> 01:13:18,570
But an example, like to give another piece of the psychology, I went and bought groceries at the local grocer that got enabled by Square here in Austin.

939
01:13:19,410 --> 01:13:21,810
And I bought, I paid with Bitcoin.

940
01:13:22,430 --> 01:13:25,630
And the person working behind the counter was like, oh, that's cool.

941
01:13:25,910 --> 01:13:29,350
That's the first time I've been here when someone's bought in Bitcoin.

942
01:13:31,050 --> 01:13:33,050
She knew that they accepted it.

943
01:13:33,510 --> 01:13:39,990
But she made a comment along the lines of like, I just feel like I missed it.

944
01:13:40,330 --> 01:13:41,130
I'm too late.

945
01:13:41,530 --> 01:13:46,730
I'm sitting there just buying groceries and I don't want to turn into a full orange pill on the spot.

946
01:13:47,270 --> 01:13:51,190
I was like, look, we're super early.

947
01:13:52,150 --> 01:13:54,950
And I gave her my literal 30 seconds.

948
01:13:54,950 --> 01:13:57,530
I was like, the whole idea is that they keep printing more dollars.

949
01:13:57,590 --> 01:13:58,890
That's why food is getting more expensive.

950
01:13:59,290 --> 01:14:03,490
And the whole idea around Bitcoin is that it can't be printed.

951
01:14:04,310 --> 01:14:05,330
There's a lot of noise.

952
01:14:06,230 --> 01:14:09,810
I work on Bitcoin, but just Bitcoin, you know, like that level of conversation.

953
01:14:09,810 --> 01:14:13,350
I was like, you're not, you're not to, you know, you didn't miss it.

954
01:14:14,090 --> 01:14:19,950
You should, you know, go online and read something about it, you know, but she was interested, right?

955
01:14:20,030 --> 01:14:23,230
Like it wasn't the price is crashing and is it going to zero?

956
01:14:23,230 --> 01:14:30,210
It was like, here at 68,000, I feel like I missed it, which is also a natural side of the psychology.

957
01:14:30,430 --> 01:14:33,370
And then over time, people just get over that.

958
01:14:33,590 --> 01:14:45,230
But it's usually not like the people that are activating right now are the people that had the inclination the last time but didn't.

959
01:14:45,230 --> 01:14:49,570
And then were probably reinforced when it went down to 16,000.

960
01:14:49,570 --> 01:14:52,150
but then when it went up to 125, they were like,

961
01:14:52,230 --> 01:14:53,450
shit, I made a mistake.

962
01:14:53,550 --> 01:14:55,270
And now as it's coming down, they're like,

963
01:14:55,430 --> 01:14:59,230
okay, I don't need to make the same mistake.

964
01:14:59,570 --> 01:15:02,050
And that's just what happens.

965
01:15:02,750 --> 01:15:05,210
That's a combination of human psychology

966
01:15:05,210 --> 01:15:07,070
and following signal being price.

967
01:15:08,130 --> 01:15:09,170
Yeah, the thing that I always say

968
01:15:09,170 --> 01:15:10,730
when people ask me if they've missed it

969
01:15:10,730 --> 01:15:13,050
is like, I thought I'd missed it in 2016, 2017.

970
01:15:13,510 --> 01:15:15,310
And that's going to continue to happen.

971
01:15:16,050 --> 01:15:17,970
Just lastly, on this point of like,

972
01:15:17,970 --> 01:15:22,410
You brought up before that Bitcoin being used as money as being a really important part of this.

973
01:15:23,290 --> 01:15:24,350
Why do you think that is?

974
01:15:24,370 --> 01:15:27,730
Because there's a lot of people out there that think of Bitcoin as just a store of value

975
01:15:27,730 --> 01:15:29,530
and don't necessarily see it as the medium of exchange.

976
01:15:30,030 --> 01:15:33,670
And obviously, store of value is going to come first and has come first.

977
01:15:33,850 --> 01:15:36,710
But why is moving to being an actual currency so important?

978
01:15:36,710 --> 01:15:48,290
So the incentives of it will dictate that it will be used as currency.

979
01:15:50,790 --> 01:15:56,070
Imagine there's 100 people, and imagine one of them is saving in Bitcoin.

980
01:15:57,750 --> 01:16:02,750
Using my, you know, no more than one in 100 people understand Bitcoin.

981
01:16:02,750 --> 01:16:08,850
And I recognize that more than 1% have some exposure to Bitcoin at this point.

982
01:16:08,850 --> 01:16:13,930
It's not as high as people quote it when they say 40% of Americans own Bitcoin.

983
01:16:14,310 --> 01:16:21,930
It's probably something like somewhere between 3% and 5% have some material exposure to it.

984
01:16:22,010 --> 01:16:28,510
But the percentage of people that actually understand, like Harvard sold some Bitcoin and bought more Ethereum.

985
01:16:28,950 --> 01:16:30,670
They own Bitcoin. They don't get it.

986
01:16:30,670 --> 01:16:41,930
But let's just assume that one out of 100 people understands Bitcoin and the 99 others are fiat.

987
01:16:43,390 --> 01:16:49,490
How do you have a trading economy with only one out of 100 understanding Bitcoin?

988
01:16:49,490 --> 01:16:59,630
even if you put it to 8 billion people and go down to 80 million,

989
01:16:59,910 --> 01:17:02,610
which that's where I say there's not 80 million people in the world

990
01:17:02,610 --> 01:17:03,550
that really understand Bitcoin.

991
01:17:03,990 --> 01:17:06,390
But even though that's across the world,

992
01:17:07,030 --> 01:17:12,630
then what is the likelihood of a business and somebody understanding Bitcoin

993
01:17:12,630 --> 01:17:19,310
in the same place and the one that understands it is a business

994
01:17:19,310 --> 01:17:22,010
and they've invested in infrastructure

995
01:17:22,010 --> 01:17:22,950
and you come to their store.

996
01:17:23,710 --> 01:17:26,990
It's just the density is the biggest uphill battle.

997
01:17:27,570 --> 01:17:30,130
People first understanding why Bitcoin stores value,

998
01:17:30,510 --> 01:17:32,610
starting to store value, having some Bitcoin in a wallet,

999
01:17:32,710 --> 01:17:33,530
they show up to a business,

1000
01:17:33,710 --> 01:17:36,030
oh, they accept Bitcoin, let me try this.

1001
01:17:36,890 --> 01:17:39,990
But go out to a world where 100% of people

1002
01:17:39,990 --> 01:17:41,710
have figured out why Bitcoin stores value.

1003
01:17:43,050 --> 01:17:45,590
Well, who is holding the bag of the fiat currency?

1004
01:17:46,410 --> 01:17:47,850
If 100 out of 100,

1005
01:17:47,850 --> 01:17:55,010
all have figured out bitcoin let's not say 100 but say 90 percent you know or 80 percent

1006
01:17:55,010 --> 01:18:00,070
then the overlaps of like oh you're you're a person that runs a business that understands

1007
01:18:00,070 --> 01:18:03,750
bitcoin you're an individual by and large every individual that's walking through your store

1008
01:18:03,750 --> 01:18:10,650
also understands bitcoin and has bitcoin what would be the reason for if they wanted bitcoin

1009
01:18:10,650 --> 01:18:14,550
to force somebody to pay them in fiat to then convert it into bitcoin it's just

1010
01:18:14,550 --> 01:18:21,110
the incentives of like, hey, everyone's storing value in Bitcoin is that nobody else is holding

1011
01:18:21,110 --> 01:18:27,610
currencies that are shitty and lose their value. And then it's like, well, just give me, in return

1012
01:18:27,610 --> 01:18:31,390
for my goods and services, just give me that money that's easily exchangeable over the internet.

1013
01:18:31,390 --> 01:18:39,430
Thank you. Now, why it's so important that it evolves that way is because if it didn't,

1014
01:18:39,430 --> 01:18:42,810
if 100 out of 100 people were holding Bitcoin,

1015
01:18:43,210 --> 01:18:45,410
but they weren't transacting in it,

1016
01:18:45,710 --> 01:18:47,830
the only rational explanation for that

1017
01:18:47,830 --> 01:18:50,030
is because by some fiat decree,

1018
01:18:50,670 --> 01:18:51,950
someone said, you can't do it.

1019
01:18:52,150 --> 01:18:52,630
It's illegal.

1020
01:18:52,790 --> 01:18:53,930
Now, there's also a reason why

1021
01:18:53,930 --> 01:18:56,950
a banning of transactions with Bitcoin would fail

1022
01:18:56,950 --> 01:19:02,010
because of a global geopolitical prisoner's dilemma.

1023
01:19:04,870 --> 01:19:09,170
Somebody like El Salvador is a great example of it,

1024
01:19:09,170 --> 01:19:11,030
where it's like if one defects,

1025
01:19:11,210 --> 01:19:13,690
which there's a maximum incentive to defect

1026
01:19:13,690 --> 01:19:16,090
from some sort of concerted effort

1027
01:19:16,090 --> 01:19:18,310
to prevent Bitcoin from being used as payments,

1028
01:19:19,970 --> 01:19:22,430
that the only reason why it wouldn't

1029
01:19:22,430 --> 01:19:24,170
is because Bitcoin was too centralized

1030
01:19:24,170 --> 01:19:28,050
to be able to prevent some sort of legal decree

1031
01:19:28,050 --> 01:19:29,570
preventing it from being successful.

1032
01:19:30,630 --> 01:19:34,490
And if it was, it's not just that that is a problem,

1033
01:19:34,490 --> 01:19:52,390
It's that if Bitcoin was too centralized to allow for what otherwise should have happened by the natural economic incentives, then some outside force is setting the rules in some form or fashion.

1034
01:19:53,210 --> 01:20:02,310
And if that's the case, then could the United States government say, oh, we're going to, you know, you miners run this software that says they're going to be 22 million.

1035
01:20:02,410 --> 01:20:03,570
And then it becomes a fiat currency.

1036
01:20:03,570 --> 01:20:07,270
So the natural incentives will dictate it.

1037
01:20:07,270 --> 01:20:12,270
And I do agree, you first have to understand why Bitcoin will store value to own any Bitcoin at all.

1038
01:20:12,270 --> 01:20:19,270
It's by and large, in most at least developed world places, easiest just to buy a little Bitcoin with fiat.

1039
01:20:19,270 --> 01:20:26,270
Once you figure that out, you start to figure out, oh no, I need to have even more of this.

1040
01:20:26,270 --> 01:20:28,550
Beyond there, if you're a business owner, you say,

1041
01:20:28,550 --> 01:20:32,030
Yep, open me up.

1042
01:20:32,230 --> 01:20:34,530
Just start paying me in this if you have it, please.

1043
01:20:37,510 --> 01:20:38,670
That's just a process.

1044
01:20:39,330 --> 01:20:41,010
That's a process of adoption.

1045
01:20:42,190 --> 01:20:44,970
But as an end state, if it doesn't get to the point where people are

1046
01:20:44,970 --> 01:20:48,270
actively just paying businesses is because of centralization.

1047
01:20:48,450 --> 01:20:53,250
And centralization is the greatest long-term risk to Bitcoin.

1048
01:20:53,250 --> 01:20:57,070
if it weren't to continue to get more decentralized.

1049
01:20:57,070 --> 01:21:00,330
But naturally, again, as more people buy it,

1050
01:21:00,670 --> 01:21:02,130
as more large competing interests,

1051
01:21:02,270 --> 01:21:06,690
as more ends where I'm sympathetic to you.

1052
01:21:06,810 --> 01:21:09,390
I watched your interview with Michael Saylor.

1053
01:21:09,830 --> 01:21:13,410
By the way, there won't be a lot of Bitcoin treasury companies.

1054
01:21:13,710 --> 01:21:17,750
They'll congregate for fundamental reasons,

1055
01:21:18,250 --> 01:21:20,690
if they are free.

1056
01:21:20,810 --> 01:21:22,090
But that's a side, just saying.

1057
01:21:22,090 --> 01:21:24,010
but you know

1058
01:21:24,010 --> 01:21:24,930
in the case of like

1059
01:21:24,930 --> 01:21:25,890
you know

1060
01:21:26,230 --> 01:21:31,230
even though I say you're probably lower on the education scale if you're owning IBIT,

1061
01:21:32,410 --> 01:21:36,630
I think IBIT existing is good for Bitcoin, right?

1062
01:21:38,070 --> 01:21:41,430
You know, you could look at the People's Bank of China and be like,

1063
01:21:41,530 --> 01:21:43,210
ah, People's Bank of China, bad.

1064
01:21:43,650 --> 01:21:46,850
But like if they bought Bitcoin, good for Bitcoin, you know.

1065
01:21:47,930 --> 01:21:49,190
That's the way the world's going.

1066
01:21:49,310 --> 01:21:50,690
Every government's going to own Bitcoin.

1067
01:21:50,890 --> 01:21:55,310
The larger the players are that are involved,

1068
01:21:55,310 --> 01:22:05,590
The larger the competing interest, the greater the, you know, you could look at that and say, like, Bitcoin's becoming more centralized because 600,000 or 700,000 Bitcoin are in Ibit.

1069
01:22:06,270 --> 01:22:11,670
But, you know, if you try to get 2 million prices higher, more people are figuring it out.

1070
01:22:12,830 --> 01:22:20,670
Ibit has now opened up the ability to take Bitcoin in kind rather than just have, you know, not everyone can show up to BlackRock and do that.

1071
01:22:20,670 --> 01:22:29,510
But Morgan Stanley can or anybody that's a, whatever they call, certain kind of participants can.

1072
01:22:30,110 --> 01:22:34,570
There's a natural inclination to take direct ownership over it.

1073
01:22:35,030 --> 01:22:38,610
And the more large interests that come in, the more decentralized it gets.

1074
01:22:38,730 --> 01:22:45,990
It's like, if IBIT comes in, well, Vanguard is going to have to get involved.

1075
01:22:45,990 --> 01:22:50,530
If the United States government gets involved, then China is going to get involved.

1076
01:22:50,670 --> 01:22:56,450
Russia's going to get involved and more competing interests, harder it is to change Bitcoin.

1077
01:22:57,090 --> 01:23:03,950
And so that's why it's like, you know, the path, the risk of centralization, but everything

1078
01:23:03,950 --> 01:23:10,710
about the incentives, even with large participants involved, drives decentralization.

1079
01:23:10,710 --> 01:23:13,130
The larger the Bitcoin gets, the more decentralized it gets.

1080
01:23:13,510 --> 01:23:24,840
The more companies that emerge to build wallets the more companies emerge to build custody the more companies emerge to work on payments It all flows everything is downstream from adoption of that

1081
01:23:25,680 --> 01:23:33,040
That thing clicking that is Bitcoin is actually money, might trade like a tech stock, but

1082
01:23:33,040 --> 01:23:36,920
it's money, it's volatile because people don't really understand it yet and they're figuring

1083
01:23:36,920 --> 01:23:37,620
out their way.

1084
01:23:37,620 --> 01:23:44,960
and you know while price is the ultimate arbiter i also do think like on the payment side like

1085
01:23:44,960 --> 01:23:49,420
someone like square turning on bitcoin payments is huge for everybody working on bitcoin payments

1086
01:23:49,420 --> 01:23:54,520
because it also will be an education for a lot of people that like a lot of people that might not

1087
01:23:54,520 --> 01:23:59,260
have heard about zap right but who our product's better for it creates an opportunity for us but

1088
01:23:59,260 --> 01:24:04,440
it also reinforces the store of value because some people are sitting there saying like but you can't

1089
01:24:04,440 --> 01:24:09,200
use Bitcoin for anything. And then when they see that Square is incorporating it for payments,

1090
01:24:09,660 --> 01:24:18,480
they're like, ah, light bulb off. I'm not. I am. But explaining to somebody else's psychology,

1091
01:24:18,600 --> 01:24:25,260
I might not be going and paying for these eggs in Bitcoin, but somebody can. Somebody's paying

1092
01:24:25,260 --> 01:24:31,480
this coffee shop for Bitcoin. It's possible. And that that's the end game. And understanding that

1093
01:24:31,480 --> 01:24:32,440
That is the end game.

1094
01:24:33,180 --> 01:24:42,620
Seeing that Bitcoin is being used as money will unlock Bitcoin as money for more people, in my mind, that will go down.

1095
01:24:43,360 --> 01:24:50,340
For a period of time, they're still going to need to read a book, listen to podcasts, and then connect it to someone like Square doing this.

1096
01:24:50,800 --> 01:24:52,120
That's turning on payments.

1097
01:24:52,720 --> 01:24:59,060
But there's just only so many people that are going to be able to opt into Bitcoin without seeing that.

1098
01:24:59,060 --> 01:25:22,070
that seeing it actually used as money is the closing of the mental loop of what this thing actually is For certain people they will be able to read a book and say ah I can see the path forward of why everyone adopts this and why in the future everyone going to accept his money Others need to see it happen and then everything else they heard about Bitcoin fall into place

1099
01:25:22,930 --> 01:25:27,990
And for some people, it might be that. Other people, it might be Russia and Swift.

1100
01:25:29,570 --> 01:25:37,110
Other people, it might be Ray Dalio's rapid disorder. And then it's like, well,

1101
01:25:37,110 --> 01:25:41,910
what's the next domino to fall in the geopolitical landscape?

1102
01:25:42,390 --> 01:25:46,210
You know, maybe somebody else merges and actually buys Bitcoin, you know?

1103
01:25:46,330 --> 01:25:53,110
So I think it all, like it all compounds, but it's like, you know,

1104
01:25:53,150 --> 01:25:55,470
and it is ordered and like store value in payments.

1105
01:25:55,890 --> 01:25:59,770
The payments is the end game and payments being developed right now

1106
01:25:59,770 --> 01:26:05,530
also accelerates people's ability to look at Bitcoin and connect it to money

1107
01:26:05,530 --> 01:26:07,090
and start buying it.

1108
01:26:07,110 --> 01:26:09,250
to then later be spending.

1109
01:26:11,450 --> 01:26:12,430
I love it, man.

1110
01:26:12,930 --> 01:26:15,350
I can hear the family in the background.

1111
01:26:15,490 --> 01:26:17,390
We've got some wholesome kid noises going on.

1112
01:26:17,470 --> 01:26:18,630
I'll let you get back to them.

1113
01:26:19,050 --> 01:26:20,690
But before we close out,

1114
01:26:21,030 --> 01:26:22,670
where can you send anyone, Mike,

1115
01:26:22,690 --> 01:26:23,670
to find out more about your book

1116
01:26:23,670 --> 01:26:24,850
or is that probably anything you're doing?

1117
01:26:25,630 --> 01:26:27,710
Yeah, so if somebody's not,

1118
01:26:28,610 --> 01:26:30,790
you know, if Bitcoin is not yet clicking,

1119
01:26:30,890 --> 01:26:35,170
but maybe this opened up some avenues to understand,

1120
01:26:35,170 --> 01:26:42,650
like definitely read my book go to so it's only on the same house it's the best looking bitcoin

1121
01:26:42,650 --> 01:26:49,830
book like you killed it on the cover thanks i spent a lot of time the artist proof of paint

1122
01:26:49,830 --> 01:26:57,010
on twitter or on x if you need a piece of bitcoin art go check him out he's amazing um

1123
01:26:57,010 --> 01:27:12,600
but yeah if you don if you don you know if bitcoin just starting to click go read a book Go find a reliable place to buy Bitcoin and start Sack and Sats But if you already understand Bitcoin then I highly encourage you if you run a business

1124
01:27:12,600 --> 01:27:20,540
or are a key person in a business, to make the push to open it up as a form of payment.

1125
01:27:21,260 --> 01:27:26,080
People can look us up at zaprite.com, Z-A-P-R-I-T-E.

1126
01:27:27,980 --> 01:27:29,500
All one word, Zaprite.

1127
01:27:29,500 --> 01:27:32,400
if we're not the right solution for you

1128
01:27:32,400 --> 01:27:35,220
we'll put you in the direction of the people who are

1129
01:27:35,220 --> 01:27:38,260
we're all on the same path

1130
01:27:38,260 --> 01:27:39,200
working on the same mission

1131
01:27:39,200 --> 01:27:41,700
so check us out at zaprite.com

1132
01:27:41,700 --> 01:27:43,680
and then also news on the book

1133
01:27:43,680 --> 01:27:50,540
the audio book is in the process of being released

1134
01:27:50,540 --> 01:27:53,260
so it's been submitted to the different platforms

1135
01:27:53,260 --> 01:27:55,840
I was sitting on that for a good dip in price

1136
01:27:55,840 --> 01:28:00,240
Just really, I was dragging my ass.

1137
01:28:00,860 --> 01:28:02,200
But that's now final.

1138
01:28:02,320 --> 01:28:03,120
I read it myself.

1139
01:28:03,280 --> 01:28:04,380
Marty read the foreword.

1140
01:28:05,840 --> 01:28:07,960
Will Cole read the intro and outro.

1141
01:28:08,360 --> 01:28:10,400
And so I'm excited to finally get that out.

1142
01:28:10,480 --> 01:28:11,520
So there's a lot of people these days

1143
01:28:11,520 --> 01:28:12,680
that apparently don't read books anymore,

1144
01:28:12,760 --> 01:28:13,660
but will listen to audio.

1145
01:28:14,240 --> 01:28:16,420
And so in short order,

1146
01:28:16,560 --> 01:28:18,860
it should be both available on safe site,

1147
01:28:18,920 --> 01:28:21,180
but then across platforms as well, the audio book.

1148
01:28:22,840 --> 01:28:23,280
Awesome.

1149
01:28:23,280 --> 01:28:27,540
As someone who runs a company using ZapRite, it is the best solution.

1150
01:28:28,000 --> 01:28:31,100
Also, we've been using it for the tickets on for cheat code,

1151
01:28:31,400 --> 01:28:35,820
and it's so much easier than doing it the ad hoc way that we did it before.

1152
01:28:36,880 --> 01:28:37,840
Check out ZapRite.

1153
01:28:38,160 --> 01:28:38,440
Awesome.

1154
01:28:38,620 --> 01:28:39,200
Thank you, Parker.

1155
01:28:39,280 --> 01:28:39,920
This has been great.

1156
01:28:40,120 --> 01:28:40,760
Appreciate you, Danny.

1157
01:28:53,280 --> 01:29:23,260
Thank you.