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Society is built on hard sound money.

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And in order to cooperate and collaborate,

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you need to have a measuring stick

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that you know you can trust.

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That's always gonna be the same length, 21 million Bitcoin.

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You can measure everything in the world against that.

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And that is not going to change.

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And so that's like a huge advantage for Bitcoiners

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that the rest of the world just has not caught up to.

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And the biggest mistake you can possibly make today

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is not changing your denominator to Bitcoin.

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If you're measuring everything in the US dollar,

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the Euro, any other cryptocurrency,

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you're doing it wrong because Bitcoin is the signal.

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Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs.

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My name is Walker and this is the Bitcoin Podcast.

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Bitcoin block height is 828-627.

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And the value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.

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Today's episode is Bitcoin Talk,

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where I talk with my guest about Bitcoin

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and whatever else comes up.

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Today, that guest is Phil Geiger,

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the VP of product marketing at Unchained.

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Phil and I went into this conversation

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with a pretty open format.

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And we decided to go deep into a bunch of topics

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that came up from shitcoining to Bitcoin ETFs,

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Austrian economics, the upcoming halving,

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energy and mining, Texas, the next Bitcoin fud cycle,

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and a whole lot more.

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As always, you can watch the video version

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of this episode on Rumble, YouTube, or X

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by searching at Walker America or listen on fountain.fm

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or wherever you get your podcast

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by searching for the Bitcoin Podcast.

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If you do listen to the Bitcoin Podcast on fountain,

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consider giving the show a boost

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or creating a clip of something you found interesting.

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And if you have not checked out fountain yet,

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I highly recommend it.

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You can send Bitcoin your favorite podcasters

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and earn Bitcoin just for listening to this show.

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And if you are a Bitcoin only company interested

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in sponsoring another fucking Bitcoin podcast,

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hit me up on social media or through the website,

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BitcoinPodcast.net.

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Without further ado, let's get into this Bitcoin Talk

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with Phil Geiger.

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How's it going, man?

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It's going really well.

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How are you doing, Walker?

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I'm doing very well.

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This is actually, this is my first interview,

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a Bitcoin Talk episode, as I'm calling them,

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of the new year, I believe.

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I don't think I, I think this is the first one.

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So you are my entrance back to the interview scene.

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So welcome.

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Thank you.

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I mean, that's quite a bit of pressure.

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I'm hoping that we have a great combination.

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And it kicks off your 2024 on a positive note.

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You know, I'm sure that we will.

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And the beauty of, you know, I started this show

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as actually a joke, like was, I think it was at a BitBlock

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boom a couple of years ago.

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And a couple of us were like throwing around the idea

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that, you know, there just aren't enough Bitcoin podcasts.

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And this was, I think, 2022.

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So while we've really grown the Bitcoin podcast games

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since then, but I was like, I'm going to start another fucking

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Bitcoin podcast.

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And that's literally going to be the title.

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And then like a year after that, I was like, you know,

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maybe I should actually do it, but take it somewhat seriously.

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So I still got the domain another fucking bitcoinpodcast.com.

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And like, titcoin.org and things like that.

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But then I was like, OK, I'll just have them redirect

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to Bitcoinpodcast.net.

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And it'll be very official and super serious.

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But my point being that this is a low pressure environment.

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So all bets are off here.

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Yeah, I mean, I was a little intimidated also

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by just the opportunity to join the Bitcoin podcast.

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I mean, there are a lot of Bitcoin podcasts out there,

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but there's only one the Bitcoin podcast.

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I know, and as soon as you put the in front of something,

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it makes it official.

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And so I figured, wow, nobody else has taken, you know,

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just got to capitalize the word, and it becomes the.

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And so, hey, why not just fill that gap?

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But yeah, podcasts, not products.

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That's what I always say.

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Why build products when you can build podcasts?

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You know, the real value add in the Bitcoin community.

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Bitcoiners talking to each other.

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Love it.

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But that's how this whole thing started, though.

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Bitcoin talk.org, you know,

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without Bitcoin talk.org, we wouldn't have any products

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or podcasts and Bitcoin would just be a, you know,

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a little niche cipherpunk mailing list experiment.

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And now, you know, we've got Larry Fink shilling Bitcoin

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on on on all the major news.

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It is kind of a trip.

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I mean, you've been in the space a lot longer than I have,

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I think, very obviously.

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I'm only my first.

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My first like Bitcoin cycle was basically this cycle.

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Like I had bought bought Litecoin at, I think,

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the 2017 top because I was one of those people who thought,

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well, I can't afford a whole Bitcoin.

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You know, just I'll just get one of these Litecoins.

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And maybe someday it'll be worth what Bitcoin's worth.

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Obviously very stupid in retrospect.

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But then saw things crash and came back a couple of years later

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at like the end of 2019.

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And I was like, what's this Bitcoin thing again?

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And to be fair, the first time I heard about it was I think

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2014 or 2015, it was the Silk Road days

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because I had a friend who was doing,

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procuring some things that he wanted from an open website,

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which should not be a crime either for the person procuring

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them or for the person who built that website.

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But it's one of those things where it took me a few touchpoints

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to get to it.

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And then finally it was like 2020.

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They shut us all down.

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They started printing money.

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And I was like, I need to understand what the fuck I'm doing.

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And what the fuck money is a little bit better.

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And then through that, just started viewing it through the lens

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of Bitcoin.

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And then you know how it is.

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It's like the rabbit hole is a one way street.

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And so once you go down it, you're like, well, I'm hooked

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and there is literally no going back for me anymore.

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That's right.

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And I think what you just mentioned really highlights the effectiveness

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of a lot of the altcoin marketing strategy where it just is out there.

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And they're all out there trying to get people's attention away from

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Bitcoin, which is the innovation.

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And I myself fell for it when I first got into Bitcoin.

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I was doing my research and I decided, hey, I want to get some of this

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Bitcoin stuff.

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Sounds interesting.

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Now I'm a smart guy.

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So I'm going to get Bitcoin.

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And then what's the other crypto that is a little bit more buttoned up,

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a little bit more professional?

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Oh.

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It's the bankers crypto ripple.

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So I ended up buying some Bitcoin.

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I bought some ripple ripple essentially went to zero for a few years

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and then magically kind of unfortunately revived in 2017.

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And that was the end of my shit coin journey.

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And I converted all that to Bitcoin.

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Yeah, I bought, I don't even know how many different types of shit coins

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before then realizing, hold on, this is a, this is a fool's errand.

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And I am not a super genius trader.

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And even if I was, I don't think that it's worth my time to be

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investing my money, but also my time in trying to watch these things, looking

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for the next, you know, 100 X gem that you're going to find.

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It's like, because realistically, unless you're an insider, you're going to get

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burned.

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And if you are an insider, I don't know how you really sleep at night very well,

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knowing that you're just making these gains on the backs of other people

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getting rugged.

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It just doesn't quite sit right.

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And I think a lot of Bitcoiners have gone through that journey where it's like,

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you know, I'm not trying to play the moral high ground, but I just think what

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you're doing is, is garbage and how garbage people act.

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And I would rather try to build something of value, you know, for myself, for my

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family, for society that other people find valuable and will pay me for, rather

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than, you know, print up a token, run a slick marketing campaign, pump it to all

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high heavens and then rug it out to make a nice profit and rinse and repeat.

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I could just, I mean, I guess if it, if you sleep well at night, then good for

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you.

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But I think for most of us who are far down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, that's,

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that's not even something that we can comprehend anymore.

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It's so funny when I tell people that I work in Bitcoin, they think that I'm

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some sort of crypto trader and I am the worst trader ever.

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I tried trading for, you know, a grand total of like a week and I ended up

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losing a bunch of money.

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I just said, never again.

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And since that time, all I've done is essentially just save in Bitcoin and

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that's outperformed really anything else.

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And so I would still be able to, they're like, Oh my gosh, you're even in Bitcoin

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for a long time.

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You must, you know, be great at trading and all this stuff.

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I was like, no, I just, just like earn money.

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And then I park some of that money in Bitcoin for the long term.

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It's like this insane concept that you can just work and earn money and then have

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a savings vehicle that is reliable over the long term.

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And you know, you're not going to touch it.

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So you don't care about the day to day fluctuations, but over the long span of years,

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Oh, wow, your purchasing power increased dramatically.

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But it's like, it's all it is is just back to basics.

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Like that's what Bitcoin is, right?

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It's just, it's just being able to save.

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And I was somebody who was not great at saving prior to Bitcoin.

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You know, I was making a good amount of money.

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I was working like a, I was working in Accenture for a number of years.

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So I made, you know, very good money, but just somehow just always spent so very much

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of that money.

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And it wasn't until Bitcoin that I realized, Oh, this is just, I use this as my savings

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technology.

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And it's really simple.

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Once you change your outlook to view like Bitcoin is how I save and I want to save as

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much as I can.

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While still like, I'm not living in a box.

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I'm sitting in a chair.

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So like, you know, sure, I've got some, some fiat things like this chair that I'm sitting

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on, I could be standing right now, sure.

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But you know, it's, it's this mindset shift.

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And it's like, that's a really nice thing because when you have that simplicity of how

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you're actually going to store the value of your time and your energy, then it becomes

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much easier to focus on things that do actually create value versus just figuring out how you're

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trying to scrape by or looking for the next, you know, 100 X crypto gem that you're going

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to make it all back in one trade with, which is never going to happen.

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But yeah, it's a, I'm curious what you think, you know, being in this, in this space for

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longer than I've been seeing a few cycles, you know, do you think that there's a point

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that we reach where, you know, every Bitcoin bull market, it seems there's a new shitcoin

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du jour or a new bunch of shitcoins, you know, that are the hot flavor of the day.

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This time it was a lot of dogs, maybe this time it's like lizards and cats.

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I don't know.

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Do you think there's a point that we reach, you know, either sooner or later where that

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stops being the case, like where the val value prop of shitcoins just becomes so untenable

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and more people become aware of it and stop conflating it with Bitcoin that we stop to

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see the like stop seeing those same, you know, follow on hype cycles with crypto, or is it

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just something that's going to always be a tag along to Bitcoin?

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What do you think on that?

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Well, I've been extremely surprised at how long the general crypto garbage has persisted.

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I originally thought, you know, it was very clear early to me at least that Bitcoin was

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the real innovation, Bitcoin was the one that discovered or solved the problem of digital

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scarcity.

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And all of these cryptos are just examples of the fact that it is super easy to make

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digital copies of things.

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You can make infinite digital copies of anything except for Bitcoin.

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That's kind of the innovation in my mind of Bitcoin is it's the thing that solved that

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problem.

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So I thought that people were going to catch on to that a lot quicker, but that I was totally

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wrong.

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And what I think is really fascinating, and I think I've been through maybe two or three

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bull markets, like this is probably my, this will be my third, I think, full cycle, is

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the, not that the Chicoins have gone away, but their narrative just keeps changing.

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It's all the same garbage, but under a different marketing umbrella.

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So now it's, you know, the, well, I think right now it's kind of embarrassing to talk

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about NFTs in the broader market.

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Like there's still some diehard NFTs out there, but most people have recognized that that

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was a total fad, but there are still some persistent altcoins out there that have just

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scraped by on these different narratives.

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And I think maybe primarily just lots of funding in, in the fact that they have a lot of wealth.

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The other thing that's kind of unfortunate about the whole crypto scene that outside

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of Bitcoin is that all coins have been one of the most lucrative ways to earn Bitcoin

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over the last six years.

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So things like the Tron foundation and block one.

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So Tron, you know, is a shitcoin block one launched EOS.

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They are massive, massive holders of Bitcoin and they probably will be for not forever,

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but for the foreseeable future.

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So there's a world where, you know, the Tron foundation is helping to establish schools

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in, you know, rural Africa or something.

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And it's just like, oh, all they did was capture people's value instead of creating something

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that was useful for the world.

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But I'm hoping to see, you know, in the future that they at least put that Bitcoin to good

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use or alternatively maybe just spend it.

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What was nice about the last cycle is we saw a lot of large kind of not great Bitcoin holders

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lose or spend all of their Bitcoin.

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I'm thinking about like the Terra Luna foundation FTX, although in FTX's case that was their

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clients Bitcoin that they've taken.

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But like it's heartening to see that a lot of these kind of iffy companies and holders

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are spending their Bitcoin.

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That's just the process of Bitcoin decentralizing and it's a little bit painful, but overall

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it's healthy.

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Yeah, I always think it's such a clear signal that, you know, you mentioned Tron or EOS.

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These whatever you want to call them companies, foundations, whatever label you want to give

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them because they're not a decentralized cryptocurrency, certainly there are platforms.

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The fact that they are taking their native token and using the proceeds from the sale

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of that token to then buy Bitcoin should tell you all you need to know about where the true

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value is.

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They're not keep trying to buy back as much of their own token as they can.

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No, they're selling a token to be able to accumulate Bitcoin, which is the hard money,

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which again should be clear as day to most folks.

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But you know, I guess I think for a lot of people, I mean, myself included, like it takes

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a little bit of pain to realize why Bitcoin is special and why it is different.

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But that journey takes different amounts of time for different people, I think, and incentives

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matter.

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And so if you're on the inside of one of these crypto companies, you know, you may think,

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well, maybe you convince yourself like, yeah, we really are the future of finance.

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And yeah, we're using the sales of this to buy Bitcoin.

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But you know, we're accompanying Bitcoin along on this journey.

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But we are where the real innovation is the real use case utility, whatever, you know,

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blockchain technology buzzwords you want to throw out there.

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00:17:10,600 --> 00:17:15,000
But I want to, I want to back up a little bit before we get too deep down the shitcoin

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rabbit hole.

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Oh, it's deep.

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Yeah, it is deep, deep and dark.

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It's not go there.

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But I want to start out with just doing a little introduction to you.

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And I found that the best way to do this is just to ask a question.

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And that question is, can you just tell everyone in your own words, who are you and how did

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00:17:35,040 --> 00:17:39,840
you get here today to where you are doing what you do?

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00:17:39,840 --> 00:17:41,240
My name is Phil Geiger.

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I work at Unchained leading our product marketing initiatives.

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And I've been a bit pointer since kind of the end of 2014.

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00:17:52,400 --> 00:17:57,320
And my journey to discovering Bitcoin was it was a little bit luck.

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00:17:57,320 --> 00:17:59,080
It was, I mean, it was a lot of luck.

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To be honest, I was in the right place at the right time.

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I had the right background.

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But I also think it was partially how I was raised and the things that influenced me through

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my life.

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So I studied economics in undergrad.

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And even before that, I was introduced to what I didn't realize it, but the Austrian

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00:18:24,400 --> 00:18:31,720
School of Economics through books written by Ein Rand before college.

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And after going to school for a Keynesian economics degree, I was feeling very burnt

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out.

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I was really interested in economic psychology, trying to understand how people interact with

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the world.

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And the economics that I learned at the university just really didn't teach me that.

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00:18:47,920 --> 00:18:54,360
So I left university and started working in health care for a health tech company implementing

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00:18:54,360 --> 00:18:59,600
software at major hospitals around the country and around the world.

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00:18:59,600 --> 00:19:06,920
So I was really primed to understand Bitcoin when I first heard about it in like a presentation

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00:19:06,920 --> 00:19:07,920
format.

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00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:14,120
I'd heard about it from the news or from articles that I'd read that telling me that

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it was evil.

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00:19:15,560 --> 00:19:21,240
But I was just in the right place at the right time in 2014, listened to a presentation given

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by a woman in Madison, Wisconsin.

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And it walked through the history of money.

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00:19:27,920 --> 00:19:32,720
And it talked about the tech technical side of it as well as the economic side of it.

330
00:19:32,720 --> 00:19:34,200
And it just resonated with me.

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00:19:34,200 --> 00:19:38,280
So immediately after that, I just decided that I had to get some.

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00:19:38,280 --> 00:19:41,640
Were you working at Epic by chance in Madison?

333
00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:42,640
I was.

334
00:19:42,640 --> 00:19:49,400
I was working at Epic for seven years working at Epic and lived in Wisconsin for five years.

335
00:19:49,400 --> 00:19:50,400
Nice.

336
00:19:50,400 --> 00:19:55,160
I just know that Epic is like one of the largest employers in the Madison area.

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So I figured that was a pretty good shot.

338
00:19:57,480 --> 00:19:58,480
Yeah.

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00:19:58,480 --> 00:20:03,120
You throw a rock in Madison and you'll hit somebody who works at Epic if they're in their

340
00:20:03,120 --> 00:20:04,120
20s.

341
00:20:04,120 --> 00:20:05,120
Yeah, absolutely.

342
00:20:05,120 --> 00:20:07,480
Well, I appreciate the background.

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00:20:07,480 --> 00:20:15,800
And it's interesting, honestly, that you were down, well, the Keynesian path.

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00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:19,880
Was there a point where or when you were in college, as you were studying that you realized,

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00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:24,400
like, given that you had a little bit of the Austrian background pre-college, that you

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00:20:24,400 --> 00:20:29,400
realized, you know what, some of this stuff just doesn't check out.

347
00:20:29,400 --> 00:20:33,600
Like some of this, you know, I can't square this circle of these concepts they're trying

348
00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:35,320
to teach me.

349
00:20:35,320 --> 00:20:36,320
The entire time.

350
00:20:36,320 --> 00:20:43,680
I remember doing homework and it was essentially just running some calculations and drawing

351
00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:45,320
graphs based off the calculations.

352
00:20:45,320 --> 00:20:49,800
And I was just thinking like, what am I doing here?

353
00:20:49,800 --> 00:20:52,960
Why am I drawing these graphs?

354
00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:55,960
What do these, you know, variables represent?

355
00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:59,000
Why am I ignoring like other variables?

356
00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:03,960
I actually found myself a lot more drawn towards psychology as a result because that's what

357
00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:07,800
I was really trying to get at is like how people, trying to understand how people interact

358
00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:14,080
with each other and society and how civilization kind of grows.

359
00:21:14,080 --> 00:21:18,600
And so, yeah, the economics that I learned in school, I just thought was complete waste

360
00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:19,600
of time.

361
00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:20,600
I couldn't focus on it at all.

362
00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:22,720
It just didn't make any sense to me.

363
00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:26,120
But I felt as though I needed to complete the degree because I already had like half

364
00:21:26,120 --> 00:21:27,120
the classes done.

365
00:21:27,120 --> 00:21:28,120
So I did that.

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But that's why I left.

367
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I was like, I don't want to be involved with this.

368
00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:37,040
And then, you know, a few years into my career in health tech, I discovered Bitcoin and the

369
00:21:37,040 --> 00:21:38,040
Austrian school.

370
00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:41,120
And I was like, oh, this is what I've been looking for.

371
00:21:41,120 --> 00:21:45,720
And what's nice about the Austrian school is it really does a good job of talking about

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00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:52,120
individuals and how they act and how they collaborate and cooperate and how from the

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00:21:52,120 --> 00:21:56,720
individual and entire society functions.

374
00:21:56,720 --> 00:22:03,600
And this is something that in the mainstream media and just all the education that you

375
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:07,920
get in a normal public school today is completely hidden.

376
00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:15,800
It really tries to hide individual actions and educate people about just like how the

377
00:22:15,800 --> 00:22:16,800
state controls the money.

378
00:22:16,800 --> 00:22:17,800
And this is how it works.

379
00:22:17,800 --> 00:22:19,720
And then everything is good.

380
00:22:19,720 --> 00:22:23,560
And if we don't have that happening, then society is going to collapse.

381
00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:29,000
And as Bitcoiners have come to understand, no way, actually the opposite is totally true.

382
00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:33,440
Like society is built on hard sound money.

383
00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:38,520
And in order to cooperate and collaborate, you need to have a measuring stick that you

384
00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:42,640
know you can trust that's always going to be the same length, 21 million Bitcoin.

385
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:45,720
You can measure everything in the world against that.

386
00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:47,600
And that is not going to change.

387
00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:52,360
And so that's like a huge advantage for Bitcoiners that the rest of the world just has not caught

388
00:22:52,360 --> 00:22:54,440
up to.

389
00:22:54,440 --> 00:23:02,480
And it's something that you can, we were talking a little bit about the shitcoin rabbit hole.

390
00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:08,200
Like the biggest mistake you can possibly make today is not changing your denominator

391
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:09,400
to Bitcoin.

392
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:15,240
If you're measuring everything in the US dollar, the Euro, any other cryptocurrency,

393
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:19,160
you're doing it wrong because Bitcoin is the signal.

394
00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:23,040
And outperforming Bitcoin is nearly impossible at this point.

395
00:23:23,040 --> 00:23:28,040
I mean, there's a few cases where you can over a short period of time outperform Bitcoin,

396
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:32,680
but over the long run, it's extremely challenging.

397
00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:37,440
And so one of the biggest competitive advantages you can have is just start measuring your net

398
00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:43,480
worth in Bitcoin and see if that additional rental property is actually worth purchasing

399
00:23:43,480 --> 00:23:49,600
or your fourth jet ski is really going to make you that much happier.

400
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:53,360
Holding Bitcoin for a little bit longer will allow you to get a fleet of jet skis.

401
00:23:53,360 --> 00:23:54,360
Right.

402
00:23:54,360 --> 00:23:58,520
And you can buy the jet ski factory in a few having cycles.

403
00:23:58,520 --> 00:23:59,920
Manually after jet skis.

404
00:23:59,920 --> 00:24:06,440
Yeah, it is funny because it's such a mentality shift and it's one that I'm so grateful to

405
00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:11,240
have made where you start having that as, again, your measuring stick.

406
00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:15,840
And it is the only measuring stick you can use Bitcoin because the only measuring stick

407
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:21,760
that's not constantly changing at the whims of some group of old farts behind closed doors.

408
00:24:21,760 --> 00:24:28,720
And so you actually have a measuring stick that is going to give you accurate measurements

409
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:36,120
over the long period of time without needing to worry that, well, OK, yeah, I got a whatever

410
00:24:36,120 --> 00:24:41,960
percent raise this year, but oh, well, inflation was, you know, 5% this year, but it was, you

411
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:49,680
know, 3% last like you can't possibly like it is so hard to to run a business in this

412
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:55,240
fiat inflationary environment where, you know, honestly, workers are the most disadvantaged

413
00:24:55,240 --> 00:25:01,760
because I think Lynn Alden makes this argument quite often that, you know, OK, inflation's

414
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:06,600
10% and you go to your boss and you say, I need a 10% raise and they say, well, did

415
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:08,240
you get 10% more productive?

416
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:12,520
And no, I got 1% more productive, but you know, an extra 9% for inflation.

417
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:18,560
So it's so difficult, but it's difficult on the on the business side, on the producer's

418
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:24,200
side as well, because you're having to deal with constantly changing input costs, constantly

419
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:26,040
changing employment costs.

420
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:31,560
And it's so hard when you have to spend so much of your time worrying about just the

421
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:36,160
fluctuating value of your purchasing power as a business and what that's going to get

422
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:37,160
you.

423
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:42,800
And then on an individual level, once you make that mentality shift to say, Bitcoin is my

424
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:47,720
measuring stick, you know, I may have other assets, but I need to measure them in Bitcoin.

425
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:51,480
Otherwise, I won't know if they're actually good investments or not.

426
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:56,000
It kind of opens your eyes and you're like, oh, oh, OK, these things that I thought

427
00:25:56,000 --> 00:26:00,760
maybe, you know, this particular stock in my portfolio that is doing whatever return

428
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:03,080
a year, but it's paying me a little bit of a dividend.

429
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:04,080
But you know what?

430
00:26:04,080 --> 00:26:07,480
It's still just just treading water with inflation when it comes down to it.

431
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:13,400
And in Bitcoin terms, it's dropping maybe not over one year if it happens to be a bearish

432
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:14,400
year.

433
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:19,480
But again, as you said, over the long run, and I think just at a larger sense, you know,

434
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:25,960
you touched on with, let's say, traditional economics, Keynesian economics, what's taught

435
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:27,600
in school.

436
00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:34,960
This idea that so much of it is this backwards looking analysis, trying to be able to plot

437
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:41,160
out and create equations for the results and to fit those equations to the results that

438
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:44,600
they tell the story that you want them to tell.

439
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:50,440
It's not at all versus the Austrian perspective, which is OK based on human action, that we

440
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:55,760
all make decisions that are in our best interest in order to try and accumulate capital and

441
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:57,600
create value.

442
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:04,640
And it just couldn't be a more diametrically opposed set of ideas.

443
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:08,720
And it just makes me think of Paul Krugman.

444
00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:11,560
The guy has been running these victory.

445
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:16,440
I don't know if he's one of those people I have on notifications on Twitter, on X,

446
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:20,200
excuse me, because I just love to see it.

447
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:24,280
And I mean, especially these past few weeks, he's just repeatedly been like the war against

448
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:25,760
inflation is over.

449
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:26,760
We won.

450
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:30,320
You know, this we're back to practically 2 percent levels.

451
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:34,680
If we measure using, you know, cough cough, this basket of CPI goods, and we're going

452
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:38,040
to use Supercore for this month, we're not going to use core.

453
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:40,320
Next month, we'll use core inflation.

454
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:44,040
We'll just take out the food and the energy and the housing and the used cars and things

455
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:45,040
like that.

456
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:46,040
And now look at this.

457
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:47,200
The Fed did it.

458
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:50,920
We are the smartest guys in the room and we figured it all out.

459
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,040
We figured out how to make the market perfect.

460
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:59,200
And all you have to do is just change the amount of money you print from year to year.

461
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:07,280
And this backwards looking justification for policies dutifully puppeted by mouthpieces

462
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:08,360
like Paul Krugman.

463
00:28:08,360 --> 00:28:11,160
I want to know what he gets out of this.

464
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:14,480
Like, who is paying a guy like that at this point?

465
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:19,960
Because it's just so obvious that he's a blatant regime shill.

466
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:26,520
And he just, it will say whatever he needs to to make it seem like everything is great.

467
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:31,760
And you know, when the chosen, the anointed are in power, Paul Krugman says, well, look,

468
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:33,680
everything we figured it out, guys, there's no reason.

469
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:35,880
Why are you complaining about the economy?

470
00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:37,280
The economy is great.

471
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:41,040
Everything is back to our target of 2% theft per year.

472
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:42,040
It's just astounding.

473
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:45,880
Like, I don't know, he blows my mind on a daily basis.

474
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:52,920
I started thinking about Krugman and MMTers less as economists because they're not economists

475
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:55,640
and more as fantasy romance authors.

476
00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:59,120
And it actually makes a lot more sense.

477
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:05,640
Like in Krugman's fantasy romance novel, the guys in the suits change their numbers.

478
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:10,280
They update their CPIs and it creates this utopia.

479
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:14,720
And that is a fantasy.

480
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:16,120
And it's not, it's not reality.

481
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:22,160
And I mean, I think like, yeah, it's one of the funniest books that I've read over the

482
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:27,280
last four years was The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton.

483
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:28,280
She's an engineer.

484
00:29:28,280 --> 00:29:29,280
I haven't read it yet.

485
00:29:29,280 --> 00:29:30,760
I've been trying to bring myself to read it.

486
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:34,960
So what's what's your analysis of for those that don't know, Stephanie Kelton is one

487
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:39,480
of the premier MMT thinkers out there.

488
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:40,480
So how does that?

489
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:44,080
Yeah, thinkers is a little bit of a loaded term there.

490
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:46,640
I would say like anti-thinker.

491
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:52,560
Like she, yeah, she takes a look at, she tries to describe how the economy functions starting

492
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:59,360
from the foundation where money is only valuable because the government makes it valuable.

493
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:07,880
And if you believe that fantasy, then her arguments might be compelling, but it's just

494
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:09,240
factually incorrect.

495
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:14,600
It's not, it's not how, you know, starting from this idea where money is only valuable

496
00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:23,880
because the government taxes you in that form of money is like such a provably false assumption

497
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:25,440
that I don't even know what to say.

498
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:35,560
Like if you believe that then the MMT, you know, econ astrology might make sense, but

499
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:38,800
it's just not how the real world works.

500
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:43,880
And they get really upset when you point out that that's not how the real world works.

501
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:50,560
Because you know, gold still has value and the government doesn't collect taxes in gold.

502
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:53,000
It's just like, yeah.

503
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:55,280
To be a group of literally all of history.

504
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:58,360
Like it's literally to say like history doesn't matter at all.

505
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:03,520
The fact that emergent monies have existed and still exist like gold doesn't matter at

506
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:04,520
all.

507
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:09,920
We're now saying that the only way money can have value is if it is backed by the threat

508
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:14,400
of violence and force, because that's implicitly or sometimes explicitly what they're saying.

509
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:15,400
Right.

510
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:18,440
If you're saying that the only reason that money has values because government says so

511
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:23,960
and they collect taxes, that is implicitly saying that the only reason money has value

512
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:27,620
is because if you don't use it, we will put you in jail because that means you're not

513
00:31:27,620 --> 00:31:30,920
paying your taxes and you will go to jail.

514
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:34,200
And if you don't believe that the government will put you in jail for not paying taxes,

515
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:35,200
I don't know what to tell you.

516
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:36,400
They will.

517
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:40,680
They will confiscate everything you have and they will put you in jail.

518
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:43,920
But I know there are some other MMT years who are a little bit more explicit with that

519
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:47,840
almost gleefully saying like, well, yeah, that's how it works.

520
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:50,880
You know, the government will use force if they need to.

521
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:56,000
And that's why this has value because there's force behind it.

522
00:31:56,000 --> 00:32:02,600
The problem with all of it is that Bitcoin can't exist for any of those things to be

523
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:03,600
true.

524
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:07,480
And the fact that Bitcoin exists just falsifies all of it.

525
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:13,160
And they have no response to that other than to say that it's, you know, Bitcoin is just

526
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:19,640
for speculating or it's just for criminals or it's not backed by anything.

527
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:21,280
It has no intrinsic value.

528
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:24,640
You might have heard all of these terms like those aren't real arguments.

529
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:30,800
They're just kind of like name calling because their entire worldview has been shattered by

530
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:34,880
the introduction of neutral money that can't be debased.

531
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:41,120
I mean, it's really quite a like a neo-communist mentality when it comes down to it.

532
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:46,080
It's basically saying that the only way something can have value is if it is centrally controlled,

533
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:52,480
if it is issued by the all-knowing and ever-present omniscient state.

534
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:56,880
And if you don't use it, well, you'll find out what happens and you won't like it.

535
00:32:56,880 --> 00:33:03,560
And I find that to also just be such an inherently like anti-freedom mentality.

536
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:08,880
And I think that that's also part of the problem is that, you know, oftentimes like, especially,

537
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:15,240
you know, you're scrolling through X and the algorithm shows you just some absolutely fucking

538
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:17,360
stupid take from someone.

539
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:19,040
And you're like, I know this is stupid.

540
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:20,520
I really shouldn't even engage with it.

541
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:25,280
Like I shouldn't even waste my time with it, but you're like, I need to.

542
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:31,800
And then if you start getting into conversations with these people through the limited information

543
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:38,400
exchange medium of social media, you realize that like, oh, it's not even just that we

544
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:47,440
disagree about what is money and what properties money has and how money should work.

545
00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:54,800
But we disagree just so fundamentally on like, what are people's, what are their base rights,

546
00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:58,680
what are their base needs, what drives people.

547
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:07,920
And this idea that you can justify the institutionalized theft of purchasing power from people by

548
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:10,600
saying that, well, this is just how it works.

549
00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:12,960
And it's the only way that money can work.

550
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:17,360
And you know what, buddy, you better just like it and go back to being a cog in the

551
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:21,080
wheel and then stop complaining and just invest more wisely.

552
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:25,040
You know, then you'll keep your purchasing power, just invest better.

553
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:32,920
And to claim that that's in any way a capitalistic mentality is just backwards.

554
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:39,760
And I don't know, I'm curious to see because we've seen a lot of the starts of some narrative

555
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:41,240
shifts around Bitcoin, right?

556
00:34:41,240 --> 00:34:44,920
Like I think we've seen a little bit of the narrative start to shift actually quite a

557
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:51,000
lot regarding different piece of Bitcoin foot like the Bitcoin burns the planet.

558
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:56,320
That is starting to become an untenable argument to make because you just look stupid when

559
00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:59,360
you make it because now there is so much data coming out.

560
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:04,440
Like before it was basically just everybody republishing did you economist pieces and

561
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:09,840
from that Dutch central banker Alex DeVries or DeVries or whatever it is and everybody,

562
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:14,760
you know, putting that as their trusted source in all of their hit pieces.

563
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:19,520
But now it's like you have more peer reviewed academic studies coming out because that's

564
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:25,000
the only thing the legacy mind listens to saying that like, no, actually look, Bitcoin

565
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:32,280
is is helping people in Africa to pay for their renewable energy mini grids and electrify

566
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:33,920
these villages.

567
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:40,840
And you have like, oh, look, you can use Bitcoin miners on top of a flared flared gas.

568
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:44,480
Well, like, wow, that would otherwise just be burned into the atmosphere.

569
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:45,720
This is actually kind of nice.

570
00:35:45,720 --> 00:35:51,640
It's becoming harder to to have that argument that Bitcoin burns the planet because now

571
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:54,680
it's just becoming clearer to even more people that you're just lying.

572
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:55,680
Like you're just making that up.

573
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:59,480
So I'm curious to where you see the attack vectors coming.

574
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:02,040
Last year we learned that Bitcoin isn't burning the planet.

575
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:05,080
It's just using all the water.

576
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:06,080
That's right.

577
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:07,080
The swimming pools.

578
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:08,080
Yes.

579
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:09,080
Right.

580
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:13,200
He uses in the course of one month, it will use up enough water to fill all of the swimming

581
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:14,840
pools in the US.

582
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:18,880
And you can just tell whenever someone sends a Bitcoin transaction, because all of the

583
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:22,640
lakes and rivers nearby just go dry.

584
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:25,720
It is truly astounding what they come up with for this.

585
00:36:25,720 --> 00:36:26,720
Wow.

586
00:36:26,720 --> 00:36:29,960
Every time you send a Bitcoin transaction, you just drain a swimming pool.

587
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:31,720
Like that's just how it works.

588
00:36:31,720 --> 00:36:36,920
Well, they're not sending their best, which is why Bitcoin has absolutely wiped the floor

589
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:40,400
with every single global currency since its existence.

590
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:46,520
If you again reframe your mind, if you start measuring everything with Bitcoin as the denominator,

591
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:52,840
what you realize is that they have been absolutely demolished over the last 15 years.

592
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:56,480
And the people who don't have Bitcoin, who haven't been saving in it and preserving their

593
00:36:56,480 --> 00:37:02,960
purchasing power and really increasing their purchasing power, their voices are getting

594
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:08,280
drowned out and less and less effective because the Bitcoiners are comparatively getting so

595
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:10,280
much wealthier.

596
00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:18,520
Even, I noticed the other day, I think it was some news article about either Malay or

597
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:23,720
one of the other central banks around the world devaluing their currency to match the

598
00:37:23,720 --> 00:37:25,920
black market rate.

599
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:27,480
Even that is propaganda.

600
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:33,680
The black market has figured out what the actual exchange rate of a given currency is.

601
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:39,200
And the governments have been totally lying about the exchange rates, probably to fleece

602
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:44,400
tourists and their own population, their own employees.

603
00:37:44,400 --> 00:37:48,760
And now they're just matching the exchange rate with what it actually is.

604
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:50,080
They're not lying anymore.

605
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:56,520
But the articles are like, Malay devalues the Argentinian peso.

606
00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:57,520
It's like, what?

607
00:37:57,520 --> 00:37:59,280
No, no, no.

608
00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:05,080
The peso has been screwed by the central banks and the corrupt politicians in Argentina

609
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:06,080
for a long time.

610
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:09,680
Malay just reflected what the free market is actually telling you the exchange rate

611
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:13,480
of that peso is, which is honestly a brilliant move on his part.

612
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:19,080
Okay, I'll devalue it too to what the real rate is because that's going to cast even

613
00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:22,520
more light on it because you can't just hide behind the government numbers when the government

614
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:24,520
numbers actually tell the truth for once.

615
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:27,640
What a shocking concept.

616
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:28,640
It's interesting.

617
00:38:28,640 --> 00:38:29,640
I'm curious.

618
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:33,720
We talk about the energy flood narrative and I do think that that one is going to die

619
00:38:33,720 --> 00:38:34,720
down.

620
00:38:34,720 --> 00:38:40,200
I'm sure old Alex DeVries will still be around for a while, still kicking up the same old

621
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:41,800
tired arguments.

622
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:46,880
But I have to imagine that the attack vectors are going to shift this cycle.

623
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:52,120
And it seems that they're shifting towards the, honestly, like the oldest trope of all,

624
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:55,560
which is Bitcoin is used by criminals.

625
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:58,440
That's the one that they're really, you know, Elizabeth Warren is really pounding her chest

626
00:38:58,440 --> 00:38:59,440
on.

627
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:04,440
And I'm curious what you see as like, is that the big attack vector of this cycle?

628
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:05,840
Is that the big FUD vector?

629
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:07,080
Is it something else?

630
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:11,240
Do we reach a point where the attack vector is like, you know what, these Bitcoiners have

631
00:39:11,240 --> 00:39:17,360
too much wealth and we need to special a windfall tax just for Bitcoiners because, you know,

632
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:21,640
it's unfair and we should redistribute some of that wealth because they were just speculating

633
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:23,920
and they got lucky and whatever else.

634
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:24,920
What do you think?

635
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:32,360
I actually think that this is where the ETFs are going to provide a lot of cover for us

636
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:38,880
because Elizabeth Warren can write however many angry emails and letters she wants.

637
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:47,720
But when BlackRock, which has enough, I think BlackRock's AUM is something like 8.3 trillion

638
00:39:47,720 --> 00:39:53,400
dollars, which is something around three times the annual GDP of Germany.

639
00:39:53,400 --> 00:40:00,760
Like BlackRock has so much wealth that they get to make the rules in the fiat system.

640
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:04,680
Those with the gold make the rules.

641
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:08,480
That's what's very different about Bitcoin is it doesn't matter how much Bitcoin you

642
00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:11,280
have, you're still not going to change the supply.

643
00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:16,640
You're not going to increase the block size without all of the Bitcoin participants going

644
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:18,880
along with that.

645
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:26,440
So having these ETFs is just kind of shoved down Wall Street's throats is actually a really

646
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:29,040
important development.

647
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:35,840
And I do think I'm having a hard time putting my finger on what the exact fud of this cycle

648
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:37,120
is going to be.

649
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:49,560
Even the Elizabeth Warren terrorist claims were easily debunked publicly multiple times

650
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:51,160
by different people.

651
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:56,520
And it's starting to just make those politicians that are making those claims look very ignorant

652
00:40:56,520 --> 00:41:00,200
or just straight up purchased, which is probably both.

653
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:03,240
They're probably both true.

654
00:41:03,240 --> 00:41:06,920
But yeah, I think I'd be interested.

655
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:13,960
I'm interested in seeing how 2024 goes in terms of like the US presidential elections,

656
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:19,720
because I'm almost certain that Bitcoin is going to come up as a primary topic of debate.

657
00:41:19,720 --> 00:41:25,240
And we will get to see which, you know, what both sides are saying.

658
00:41:25,240 --> 00:41:31,640
I would be shocked if they both kind of just agree about it, because I think that there's

659
00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:36,120
going to be deep pockets that are trying to purchase a specific narrative from each

660
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:37,880
of them.

661
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:42,960
But that's where I think, you know, we'll really see the the fud come out is is this

662
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:46,560
year on the political stage in the US.

663
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:51,600
I want to remind you that the Bitcoin having is just a few months away.

664
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:57,760
So now is a very good time to get your Bitcoin off the exchange and into your own custody.

665
00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:05,560
Go to bitbox.swiss slash Walker and use the promo code Walker for 5% off the Bitcoin only

666
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:07,520
Bitbox 02 hardware wallet.

667
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:09,160
It is fully open source.

668
00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:11,760
You can go to their GitHub and verify for yourself.

669
00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:12,960
No need to trust me.

670
00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:15,400
It's also super easy to set up.

671
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:20,040
And that makes it a great tool for seasoned psychopaths and new Bitcoiners alike.

672
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:24,640
And you go to bitbox.swiss slash Walker and use that promo code Walker.

673
00:42:24,640 --> 00:42:29,280
Not only do you get 5% off, but you also help support the show.

674
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:31,120
Another fucking Bitcoin podcast.

675
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:32,120
So thank you.

676
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:33,720
It's going to be a wild year in general.

677
00:42:33,720 --> 00:42:40,360
Because I think this 2024 is the year of I think 49% of the world that is of voting

678
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:44,960
age will be voting in a national election in 2024.

679
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:50,000
It's like the most elections happening at the same time at any point in history.

680
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:54,000
So which is just kind of wild when you think about it like basically half the world is

681
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:58,480
going to be voting for a change in power at the highest levels of whatever their government

682
00:42:58,480 --> 00:42:59,840
is.

683
00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:05,280
And obviously the US is you know the biggest bully at the playground.

684
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:14,120
But even in I mean you look at Malay in Argentina, that's a seismic shift and a really positive

685
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:17,000
one for the people of Argentina, I think.

686
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:18,320
And you know, time will tell.

687
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:20,080
But so far it seems so.

688
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:23,680
Judging by the speech, I don't know how they let him give this speech at Davos, but I don't

689
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:26,680
know if you watched that speech he gave there.

690
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:27,680
Incredible.

691
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:30,960
I mean probably the best Davos speech that's ever happened, but the bar is pretty low there

692
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:34,440
because it's usually just John Kerry telling you, you know, before he gets back in his

693
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:36,840
private jet that you know you need to stop eating meat.

694
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:41,600
Or the author of Sapiens talking about the collective hallucination of society and how

695
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:43,920
it's all just a dream and everything is fake.

696
00:43:43,920 --> 00:43:44,920
Oh my.

697
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,480
Yovale Harari or something like that.

698
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:51,040
That was another fantasy romance novel by the way.

699
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:52,280
I don't know if you read that one.

700
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:53,280
I did.

701
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:58,520
I read that back before I was orange-pilled and at the time I was like, wow this guy has

702
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:00,320
some interesting points.

703
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:01,320
And you know, wow.

704
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:07,640
And you know he writes in that way that appeals to somebody like myself at the time who had

705
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:12,000
kind of a Dunning Kruger effect where I thought I knew more than I did.

706
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:14,400
And he sounds smart.

707
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:18,320
You know, he sounds like he's saying things that are really intelligent.

708
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:19,960
But it's really just a lot of bullshit.

709
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:27,400
He weaves in a lot of truths with some very, very sneaky lies.

710
00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:31,920
And that's why it's such a dangerous book I think because it's like, yeah it's really

711
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:32,920
readable.

712
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:33,920
It's great.

713
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:34,920
It's very fascinating.

714
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:38,120
And then you'll like say something and you're like, wait, wait what?

715
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:42,640
He had that speech recently where he was like, you know, nobody has any rights at all.

716
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:44,120
Like not even to your own.

717
00:44:44,120 --> 00:44:46,480
And it's like rights are a fiction.

718
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:53,000
Yeah, like I'm pretty sure you could at least say that I have the right to my own body.

719
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:56,320
And if you don't believe that, like that's pretty much just the justification that's

720
00:44:56,320 --> 00:45:00,560
been used for slavery and genocide by every person throughout history.

721
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:03,120
So like is that really the side you want to be arguing on?

722
00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:04,680
But I don't know.

723
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:11,000
It's going to be an interesting year and I hope that we see Bitcoin discussed on the

724
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:16,800
ballot across a ton of countries and I think we will because it was really cool to see

725
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:20,600
both RFK and Vivek.

726
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:25,480
You know, they both announced that they were accepting Bitcoin donations via lightning

727
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:28,920
at a Bitcoin conference this last year.

728
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:35,480
Like that was awesome to see and to have them bringing that into the presidential race conversation,

729
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:37,800
shifting that over to Nwendo.

730
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:41,080
You know, I don't know what RFK's reasonable chances are.

731
00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:44,240
I think an RFK Vivek ticket just really mix things up.

732
00:45:44,240 --> 00:45:49,520
Like that would be that would be a game changer, but probably Vivek's gunning for that VP

733
00:45:49,520 --> 00:45:52,160
spot for Trump, but we'll see.

734
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:59,240
But the conversation is shifting and it's shifting very, very palpably.

735
00:45:59,240 --> 00:46:02,720
And sadly, I think with it's probably going to come down to Trump and Biden again and

736
00:46:02,720 --> 00:46:11,000
RFK running as an independent and likely they're just going to have diametrically opposed positions

737
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:13,080
to each other regarding Bitcoin.

738
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:17,760
If they talk about Bitcoin at all, they've both Biden hasn't really spoken about it that

739
00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:22,000
much, but I don't think he like his handlers just haven't told him to say anything.

740
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:26,360
Trump has spoken negatively in the past, maybe his opinions changed.

741
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:29,160
And then he's also launched multiple NFT collections.

742
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:33,200
So like take that as you will, I don't know.

743
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:34,440
I hope they talk about it.

744
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:43,400
Yeah, I think it would be a massive competitive advantage to pose the question politically.

745
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:51,040
Like I think whoever poses the question politically is going to do well because it's funny.

746
00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:54,400
Money is supposed to be apolitical.

747
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:59,120
It's not supposed to be a political issue, but having an apolitical money might be one

748
00:46:59,120 --> 00:47:03,280
of the most political things that we could possibly have right now.

749
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:10,480
That's just the kind of clown politics world we live in where something that is definitionally

750
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:18,000
apolitical Bitcoin, nobody can really change it on their own, is turned into like a political

751
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:19,200
weapon.

752
00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:25,920
But I do think it would be a very powerful one and definitely controversial and attention

753
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:30,520
grabbing, which for a lot of these politicians is really important.

754
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:33,920
You want to say things that are going to capture attention.

755
00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:38,920
Yeah, I mean, I have to wonder if half the reason that somebody like Elizabeth Warren

756
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:43,840
even tweets about Bitcoin or her staff tweets on her behalf about Bitcoin is just because

757
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:46,400
it's the highest engagement that she gets on any post.

758
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:48,080
You know, any publicity is good publicity, right?

759
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:52,960
Like she knows that they get more website hits and more attention and it gets her name

760
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:54,360
is published in more places.

761
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:58,680
They're like, well, even if people are saying bad stuff, at least they're talking about

762
00:47:58,680 --> 00:47:59,680
us.

763
00:47:59,680 --> 00:48:00,680
I don't know.

764
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:01,680
Yeah.

765
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:07,840
And I'm totally guilty of being completely baited by the nonsense.

766
00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:09,320
But yes, that's 100%.

767
00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:11,720
I mean, it's the the Peter Schiff playbook.

768
00:48:11,720 --> 00:48:19,160
Like he's been dunking on Bitcoin for years, what, seven years or something?

769
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:26,240
And Bitcoin has gone from hundreds of dollars to $70,000 and now it's, you know, $40 something

770
00:48:26,240 --> 00:48:29,200
dollar thousand dollars after the ETFs.

771
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:30,200
There are ETFs.

772
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:33,760
Like the guy is so obviously he's been wrong for so long.

773
00:48:33,760 --> 00:48:36,640
He's essentially built a career off of it.

774
00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:44,920
But he triggers the Bitcoiners so effectively that his social media scores are, you know,

775
00:48:44,920 --> 00:48:45,920
astronomical.

776
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:51,680
He gets an unbelievable amount of engagement, which is kind of one of the broken incentives

777
00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:53,280
of social media today.

778
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:58,240
No, say things that are controversial.

779
00:48:58,240 --> 00:48:59,240
It's so true.

780
00:48:59,240 --> 00:49:00,760
And I mean, it's a Peter Schiff.

781
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:06,400
I have to wonder, maybe he's just playing a long game trying to suppress that press,

782
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:09,400
suppress that price, excuse me, as much as he can, because really he's trying to fill

783
00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:10,400
his own bags with Bitcoin.

784
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:14,800
Cause he's like, shit, guys, I get it now, but I can't let anyone know I've get it.

785
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:17,160
You know, that's going to get all my gold bugs to start buying.

786
00:49:17,160 --> 00:49:23,240
But he's even admitted to losing his Bitcoin key, you know, so you know the guy has Bitcoin.

787
00:49:23,240 --> 00:49:24,240
They all do.

788
00:49:24,240 --> 00:49:26,040
All the shit coiners have Bitcoin.

789
00:49:26,040 --> 00:49:28,640
It's like the number one rule.

790
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:31,920
And to clarify, we're also calling gold a shit coin here.

791
00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:32,920
Yeah.

792
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:40,920
Gold has served its purpose throughout the last 5000 years as the best form of money

793
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:46,880
available until a perfect form of money was created in the form of Bitcoin.

794
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:52,840
Bitcoin solves all the problems of gold, its physicality, divisibility, and it also solves

795
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:59,920
all the problems of the digital dollar, which is that, you know, it can, it can't be inflated.

796
00:49:59,920 --> 00:50:03,480
So you can send Bitcoin around the world just like you can send a digital dollar around

797
00:50:03,480 --> 00:50:08,160
the world and you can't send gold around the world.

798
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:10,560
And it's not going to be debased.

799
00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:13,200
And also doesn't centralize because it's not physical.

800
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:16,960
So it really is the best of both worlds.

801
00:50:16,960 --> 00:50:21,880
On that topic, you gave a talk or a short presentation at Bitcoin Commons.

802
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:29,920
I was just watching the video talking about basically why Bitcoin has that cap of 21 million

803
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:36,200
and and or more so why that cap will remain and how it remains.

804
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:37,520
Can you touch on that a little bit?

805
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:42,400
Because I think that that's I really enjoyed that that talk watching it.

806
00:50:42,400 --> 00:50:44,640
You explained it really well and really simply.

807
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:48,000
And I think that's something that always especially for people who are just learning

808
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:49,360
about Bitcoin.

809
00:50:49,360 --> 00:50:54,600
They often say, well, sure, the supply is fixed now, but they don't understand the game theory

810
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:57,760
of why it will remain so.

811
00:50:57,760 --> 00:51:00,360
And it's a tough kind of a tough nut to crack for a lot of people.

812
00:51:00,360 --> 00:51:03,560
Can you can you dig into that a little bit based on that talk you gave?

813
00:51:03,560 --> 00:51:09,120
I'll do my best and just for background for your audience at the Bitcoin Commons here

814
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:10,120
in Austin, Texas.

815
00:51:10,120 --> 00:51:16,400
We earlier this month or I guess last month now in January of 2024, we hosted an event

816
00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:22,040
called Bitcoin for Local Businesses where we invited local entrepreneurs into the Commons

817
00:51:22,040 --> 00:51:31,600
and just gave them a few kind of Bitcoin 101 presentations and then followed up with how

818
00:51:31,600 --> 00:51:39,160
businesses are helping other businesses purchase, secure and manage and grow their Bitcoin.

819
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:46,080
And I was tasked with giving the presentation how Bitcoin enforces its fixed supply in about

820
00:51:46,080 --> 00:51:53,720
15 minutes to a group of people who I was I was assuming just knew absolutely nothing

821
00:51:53,720 --> 00:51:56,760
about Bitcoin or just very surface level.

822
00:51:56,760 --> 00:52:02,680
And so as I even mentioned in the talk, like the subject of how Bitcoin enforces its fixed

823
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:06,600
supply is extremely difficult to pin down.

824
00:52:06,600 --> 00:52:13,720
And so I was just trying to like get people thinking about it in the right way.

825
00:52:13,720 --> 00:52:21,240
So much of the time is spent on miners or nodes, the technology, the real world energy

826
00:52:21,240 --> 00:52:29,040
expenditure, but my presentation was really about how the individual is what enforces the

827
00:52:29,040 --> 00:52:31,480
fixed supply of 21 million.

828
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:39,920
So you, Walker, me, I enforce the fixed supply of 21 million of my Bitcoin, right?

829
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:46,320
And if someone else tries to change that and I don't like it, I can take that copy that

830
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:49,880
is created and convert it into Bitcoin.

831
00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:55,040
Now I'm not always going to be right, but what I will never personally vote for is for

832
00:52:55,040 --> 00:52:57,760
my Bitcoin to be debased.

833
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:05,040
And there's ways that I can help to support the network beyond just selling a copy.

834
00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:09,640
You can run a full node, which is running the Bitcoin software, which is very easy to

835
00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:10,680
download.

836
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:16,840
You can run it on any sort of computer essentially today.

837
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:19,680
You can also mine Bitcoin, right?

838
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:26,640
That helps to process transactions and ties Bitcoin to the real world via energy expenditure.

839
00:53:26,640 --> 00:53:32,400
But neither of those things alone are what secure the supply of 21 million.

840
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:39,120
It's really the Bitcoin participants, people who save in Bitcoin and who don't allow for

841
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:44,360
a copy of Bitcoin to just exist.

842
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:51,880
So the example I gave was the 2017 Bitcoin Cash Hardfork, which was a really interesting

843
00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:55,040
example because it really had nothing to do with the supply.

844
00:53:55,040 --> 00:54:00,120
It was about a totally different piece of functionality, the block size.

845
00:54:00,120 --> 00:54:03,600
The Bitcoin cashers wanted a larger block size.

846
00:54:03,600 --> 00:54:07,920
The Bitcoin participants very clearly were not interested in that.

847
00:54:07,920 --> 00:54:16,840
But through the process of creating an entirely new cryptocurrency and giving that copy to

848
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:24,560
the holders of Bitcoin, what they did in actuality was attempt to create inflation.

849
00:54:24,560 --> 00:54:30,200
So the market deemed their attempt as inflation, which is why it was sold to essentially zero.

850
00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:33,760
I think it crashed like 98%.

851
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:38,360
And again, their intention was not to try to print money.

852
00:54:38,360 --> 00:54:42,360
It was to change something else that they were really passionate about.

853
00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:48,560
But the market viewed their actions as attempting to print money.

854
00:54:48,560 --> 00:54:54,240
And what I wanted to leave people with with the presentation is that's probably not the

855
00:54:54,240 --> 00:54:57,240
only time that that will ever happen.

856
00:54:57,240 --> 00:55:03,600
In fact, we can just assume that something like that can and will happen in the future

857
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:12,280
maybe via a bug we didn't expect or another civil war where people want to change another

858
00:55:12,280 --> 00:55:14,720
aspect of Bitcoin.

859
00:55:14,720 --> 00:55:19,200
And people have even proposed just adding some tail inflation to Bitcoin.

860
00:55:19,200 --> 00:55:20,480
Sure, go for it.

861
00:55:20,480 --> 00:55:26,600
That's my perspective because as soon as they attempt to do that, what I will do is sell

862
00:55:26,600 --> 00:55:28,800
that copy.

863
00:55:28,800 --> 00:55:36,360
And I can't predict what everyone else will do, but I feel very confident that the market

864
00:55:36,360 --> 00:55:44,360
will find their solution to be significantly inferior and will send it to close to zero.

865
00:55:44,360 --> 00:55:47,520
Now Bitcoin cash is still alive, so I have to give them some credit.

866
00:55:47,520 --> 00:55:48,520
Barely.

867
00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:49,720
It's hanging in there.

868
00:55:49,720 --> 00:55:55,600
Again, if you're measuring the value of something with Bitcoin as a denominator, it looks like

869
00:55:55,600 --> 00:55:57,360
it's been absolutely slaughtered.

870
00:55:57,360 --> 00:56:02,720
But if you're measuring it in the US dollar, it's still hanging in there.

871
00:56:02,720 --> 00:56:05,920
But it's essentially irrelevant.

872
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:10,480
Nobody's making Bitcoin cash ETFs.

873
00:56:10,480 --> 00:56:14,320
Nobody's really saving in Bitcoin cash.

874
00:56:14,320 --> 00:56:19,920
It's got some kind of small community, but it's not really making much of an impact on

875
00:56:19,920 --> 00:56:20,920
the world.

876
00:56:20,920 --> 00:56:29,080
Bitcoin continues to grow, and you can just tell by the values of these two networks.

877
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:32,960
So anyway, it's just to recap, the presentation was essentially trying to get people thinking

878
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:40,560
about how they themselves in Bitcoin are really governing the monetary policy, and their actions

879
00:56:40,560 --> 00:56:44,680
and decisions are what enforce that supply of $21 million.

880
00:56:44,680 --> 00:56:50,880
And even if you don't even think about opting into Bitcoin because of its fixed supply, maybe

881
00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:53,760
you're just getting some Bitcoin because you think the price is going to rise, which is

882
00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:57,080
how most of us start.

883
00:56:57,080 --> 00:57:01,640
Unknowingly what you're doing is opting into that fixed supply of $21 million and helping

884
00:57:01,640 --> 00:57:04,400
to enforce it.

885
00:57:04,400 --> 00:57:05,720
I think the things that I...

886
00:57:05,720 --> 00:57:06,720
Oh, go ahead.

887
00:57:06,720 --> 00:57:07,720
No, no, no, please.

888
00:57:07,720 --> 00:57:11,280
Yeah, the things that I could have done better with the presentation is talk a little bit

889
00:57:11,280 --> 00:57:14,480
more about miners.

890
00:57:14,480 --> 00:57:20,720
Miners perform an extremely critical function in Bitcoin, but I think of it more as infrastructure

891
00:57:20,720 --> 00:57:23,240
or plumbing.

892
00:57:23,240 --> 00:57:31,400
The world civilization is one plumbing accident away from The Road or some post-apocalyptic

893
00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:32,400
movie.

894
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:39,160
It is absolutely critical, but plumbing is not what is not alone what is valuable about

895
00:57:39,160 --> 00:57:41,360
civilization.

896
00:57:41,360 --> 00:57:42,840
And the same thing is true with mining.

897
00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:48,040
It is in a critical, critical function that Bitcoin could not exist without, but they're

898
00:57:48,040 --> 00:57:49,720
not in charge of the network.

899
00:57:49,720 --> 00:57:52,720
It's not the miners that are delivering the value.

900
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:57,400
That's almost like saying, Fiat money is valuable because the government taxes it.

901
00:57:57,400 --> 00:57:59,720
It's like, no, you're performing an extremely valuable function.

902
00:57:59,720 --> 00:58:05,760
You're converting electricity into hashes in order to propose blocks of transactions.

903
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:09,760
You're processing transactions and Bitcoin doesn't run without that.

904
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:15,440
But if you don't process transactions according to the rules that I'm following or that you're

905
00:58:15,440 --> 00:58:19,320
following or that consensus is following, you're just booted out of the network.

906
00:58:19,320 --> 00:58:25,200
That was the other really interesting thing about the Bitcoin Cash case study was that

907
00:58:25,200 --> 00:58:29,560
they had a majority of the hash rate.

908
00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:34,360
Maybe not a majority, but a significant portion of the hash rate and a lot of large businesses

909
00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:35,800
that were agreeing with that.

910
00:58:35,800 --> 00:58:38,760
And it just proved that, hey, it's not the hash rate.

911
00:58:38,760 --> 00:58:41,560
It's not the businesses.

912
00:58:41,560 --> 00:58:42,840
It's the users.

913
00:58:42,840 --> 00:58:47,360
The other thing that I'll say, and this is, I think, a little bit of an underexplored aspect

914
00:58:47,360 --> 00:58:56,200
of the Bitcoin Cash fork is that there was a lot of debate about Segwit and how to activate

915
00:58:56,200 --> 00:58:57,760
it at the time.

916
00:58:57,760 --> 00:59:05,320
And an engineer, they went by the name Shaolin Fry, just took a copy of the software, Bitcoin

917
00:59:05,320 --> 00:59:11,400
Core, and released their own version, which had its own activation policy.

918
00:59:11,400 --> 00:59:21,240
And so they even went around the Bitcoin Core engineers and just launched a separate piece

919
00:59:21,240 --> 00:59:26,920
of software that gained enough traction that it kind of pulled people towards that activation

920
00:59:26,920 --> 00:59:27,920
method.

921
00:59:27,920 --> 00:59:30,680
So it's kind of funny.

922
00:59:30,680 --> 00:59:40,360
That was a really, in my opinion, great example of just how much Bitcoin refuses to centralize.

923
00:59:40,360 --> 00:59:44,880
In any way, like miners couldn't do it, businesses couldn't do it.

924
00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:50,160
Even the engineers, the Bitcoin Core engineers, I think were, now we can look back at it and

925
00:59:50,160 --> 00:59:54,320
say, hey, they were trying to do what was right, but what they were doing was actually

926
00:59:54,320 --> 00:59:58,320
stalling and the market said, no, we want this thing activated now.

927
00:59:58,320 --> 01:00:00,320
And they kind of went around that whole process.

928
01:00:00,320 --> 01:00:03,400
It was just really interesting.

929
01:00:03,400 --> 01:00:07,240
I think if I was to do a longer presentation, I would go a little bit more into those details,

930
01:00:07,240 --> 01:00:08,240
but my presentation was really good.

931
01:00:08,240 --> 01:00:10,600
I was going to say, you only had 15 minutes, right?

932
01:00:10,600 --> 01:00:15,480
So that's a group of people who are not seasoned Bitcoin veterans.

933
01:00:15,480 --> 01:00:20,520
But I appreciate the explanation there because I think what it touches on really is that

934
01:00:20,520 --> 01:00:28,360
fundamental game theory of Bitcoin and also just the Austrian principle of human action.

935
01:00:28,360 --> 01:00:33,120
People are going to do what is in their best interest.

936
01:00:33,120 --> 01:00:39,600
And with Bitcoin, if you are a holder of Bitcoin, it is in your best interest to maintain that

937
01:00:39,600 --> 01:00:42,840
fixed supply, to not add tail emissions.

938
01:00:42,840 --> 01:00:47,640
I think a lot of the tail emissions suggestions tend to come from actually like the crypto

939
01:00:47,640 --> 01:00:54,400
side of things, these people that are suggesting, well, Bitcoin is, they're the crypto guys

940
01:00:54,400 --> 01:00:58,960
who say that Bitcoin's a pet rock and that it doesn't do anything and that it's going

941
01:00:58,960 --> 01:01:02,280
to have to have tail emissions or it's just not going to work because there's not going

942
01:01:02,280 --> 01:01:07,360
to be enough revenue generated by fees and miners will stop and hash rate will plummet

943
01:01:07,360 --> 01:01:10,280
by the year 2140.

944
01:01:10,280 --> 01:01:14,800
And Bitcoin will die yet again for the 5,000th time.

945
01:01:14,800 --> 01:01:21,840
But on the fee side, we're seeing that that's just really not going to be an issue.

946
01:01:21,840 --> 01:01:28,240
And I find it a funny discussion to even have because on the fee side, whenever people say

947
01:01:28,240 --> 01:01:34,280
that fees aren't going to be sufficient to support Bitcoin and to maintain that hash

948
01:01:34,280 --> 01:01:40,400
rate, it's kind of funny because talking about measuring sticks, they're using the measuring

949
01:01:40,400 --> 01:01:49,120
stick of the current fiat price of Bitcoin and then looking at how small the fees may

950
01:01:49,120 --> 01:01:52,320
be and saying, well, see, that won't be enough to pay for energy.

951
01:01:52,320 --> 01:01:58,920
But you're measuring again in the wrong way, like you need to think about the fact that

952
01:01:58,920 --> 01:02:04,800
the value of those sats that are going to be generated by fees in the year 2100, in

953
01:02:04,800 --> 01:02:09,640
the year 2140, that's going to be an insane amount of value.

954
01:02:09,640 --> 01:02:14,280
And that's, you know, again, going to be used to pay for electricity, which will still

955
01:02:14,280 --> 01:02:19,480
continue to seek out the cheapest possible sources and the, you know, most because they're

956
01:02:19,480 --> 01:02:22,040
the most profitable sources.

957
01:02:22,040 --> 01:02:31,320
And I think this, the overall scarcity discussion, it's a perfect segue into just the very obvious

958
01:02:31,320 --> 01:02:35,160
elephant in the room that everybody knows about and is entirely predictable, which is

959
01:02:35,160 --> 01:02:39,520
the Bitcoin having, which is coming up in a couple of months, which I feel like with

960
01:02:39,520 --> 01:02:45,360
all of the ETF hype, it's like, people have kind of put that in the back of their mind

961
01:02:45,360 --> 01:02:46,640
a little bit.

962
01:02:46,640 --> 01:02:50,840
And it's all been focused on the ETF side and saying, oh, well, you know, the ETF is

963
01:02:50,840 --> 01:02:52,640
definitely not priced in right now.

964
01:02:52,640 --> 01:02:55,960
We're going to, it's going to run like crazy after the ETFs go live.

965
01:02:55,960 --> 01:03:00,560
Well, it turns out the issuers were accumulating some Bitcoin leading up to the announcement.

966
01:03:00,560 --> 01:03:08,440
And then with, with graced scales starting to basically get up to almost even almost

967
01:03:08,440 --> 01:03:13,360
where it should be, and still having that whatever it is, 1.5 management fee, people

968
01:03:13,360 --> 01:03:15,360
said, I'm getting out of this as fast as I can.

969
01:03:15,360 --> 01:03:17,280
And so that's a ton of sell pressure, right?

970
01:03:17,280 --> 01:03:18,480
We see that evaporating now.

971
01:03:18,480 --> 01:03:20,680
We see a lot of inflows happening.

972
01:03:20,680 --> 01:03:24,200
I think the ETF stuff overall is, you know, like everything's good for Bitcoin.

973
01:03:24,200 --> 01:03:29,040
And I think it's great that people have the ability to get exposure through alternate

974
01:03:29,040 --> 01:03:31,200
ways.

975
01:03:31,200 --> 01:03:40,560
And that being said, I think that the every four year, every 210,000 blocks, I should say,

976
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:45,360
almost about every four years, the having is really going to be still the story of the

977
01:03:45,360 --> 01:03:49,120
year like it is whenever there is a having.

978
01:03:49,120 --> 01:03:56,360
And I think that it's going to be a very great case study as it usually is, but probably

979
01:03:56,360 --> 01:03:59,120
taken to a higher degree this year.

980
01:03:59,120 --> 01:04:07,240
It's the unstoppable force, which is ever increasing demand made even more intense by

981
01:04:07,240 --> 01:04:15,520
ETFs eating up more Bitcoin for their, their inflows, meeting that unstoppable force meeting

982
01:04:15,520 --> 01:04:22,560
the immovable object and that immovable object is that enforced by us, by the participants,

983
01:04:22,560 --> 01:04:25,240
hard cap of 21 million Bitcoin.

984
01:04:25,240 --> 01:04:33,300
And I don't think the as much the ETF or excuse me, the having is predictable entirely.

985
01:04:33,300 --> 01:04:39,240
But in your experience is the having ever entirely priced in because can you ever price

986
01:04:39,240 --> 01:04:42,440
in an exponential decrease in, in new supply?

987
01:04:42,440 --> 01:04:49,560
It is cutting it in half and for people that aren't or haven't been around for a while,

988
01:04:49,560 --> 01:04:53,120
maybe they saw the last having or maybe they got in when Bitcoin was already running up

989
01:04:53,120 --> 01:04:55,280
to 69 K.

990
01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:59,880
Maybe they've been buying since the top and DCA in like psychopaths and are now actually

991
01:04:59,880 --> 01:05:01,800
in the black.

992
01:05:01,800 --> 01:05:09,640
But what what are your thoughts going into this having with the additional buy pressure

993
01:05:09,640 --> 01:05:13,760
of the ETFs like there's a lot of talk about God candles.

994
01:05:13,760 --> 01:05:17,280
I don't like to talk about price too much.

995
01:05:17,280 --> 01:05:24,400
But NGU is what draws the majority of people to Bitcoin, especially in the Western world

996
01:05:24,400 --> 01:05:29,880
where we're not yet escaping a despotic regime that is shutting off our bank accounts unless

997
01:05:29,880 --> 01:05:31,640
you're in Canada.

998
01:05:31,640 --> 01:05:35,760
But so far we don't experience too much of that in the US.

999
01:05:35,760 --> 01:05:38,760
But what are your thoughts leading into the having?

1000
01:05:38,760 --> 01:05:40,520
How are you approaching it?

1001
01:05:40,520 --> 01:05:42,720
How are you preparing for it?

1002
01:05:42,720 --> 01:05:49,040
Well, I'm, I'm preparing for it the same way that I've prepared for the last few havings

1003
01:05:49,040 --> 01:05:50,200
that I've experienced.

1004
01:05:50,200 --> 01:05:54,120
And that is figuring out first of all, which party I'm going to go to.

1005
01:05:54,120 --> 01:06:01,080
So I think that the havings more than anything else Satoshi really disrupted the party planning

1006
01:06:01,080 --> 01:06:05,240
industry by baking in a party to the network.

1007
01:06:05,240 --> 01:06:12,240
No, but on a serious note, like I actually, Bitcoin's never priced in Bitcoin for the

1008
01:06:12,240 --> 01:06:13,960
last 15 years has not been priced in.

1009
01:06:13,960 --> 01:06:21,760
It's my perspective that Bitcoin is the new global reserve currency and it will over time

1010
01:06:21,760 --> 01:06:26,480
eclipse and collapse all of the other currencies because it is a single neutral global currency

1011
01:06:26,480 --> 01:06:29,080
that everyone in the world can use.

1012
01:06:29,080 --> 01:06:30,640
Now that's going to take a lot of time.

1013
01:06:30,640 --> 01:06:36,520
So Bitcoin has never been priced in the knowledge distribution of the disruption is starting

1014
01:06:36,520 --> 01:06:42,840
to like get a little bit wider in the US, for example, but there's still a very, very,

1015
01:06:42,840 --> 01:06:45,840
very long ways to go.

1016
01:06:45,840 --> 01:06:52,160
Most people who have some exposure to Bitcoin have, I don't know, it's kind of like safe

1017
01:06:52,160 --> 01:06:56,320
right now for people to say like, oh yeah, you should have one to 5% of your net worth

1018
01:06:56,320 --> 01:06:57,880
in Bitcoin.

1019
01:06:57,880 --> 01:07:03,800
Now the most diehard Bitcoiners might have 80, 90 plus percent of their wealth in Bitcoin.

1020
01:07:03,800 --> 01:07:07,960
And it's my perspective that most of the world is going to get to that point at some point.

1021
01:07:07,960 --> 01:07:10,720
So Bitcoin is never priced in.

1022
01:07:10,720 --> 01:07:18,960
The Havings are a great marketing event for Bitcoin because it is just showing the world

1023
01:07:18,960 --> 01:07:22,440
consistently every four years.

1024
01:07:22,440 --> 01:07:24,440
This thing gets cut in half.

1025
01:07:24,440 --> 01:07:32,760
Now what the price is going to do, I have no clue, but I view the Havings as just like

1026
01:07:32,760 --> 01:07:38,400
a fun kind of more marketing event than like a truly important economic event because the

1027
01:07:38,400 --> 01:07:45,800
Bitcoin nodes in the software, it has already dictated the exact monetary policy.

1028
01:07:45,800 --> 01:07:49,960
So it's my perspective that all 21 million Bitcoin already exist.

1029
01:07:49,960 --> 01:07:57,240
Like they existed as soon as 2009 and they're just being issued, released on a schedule,

1030
01:07:57,240 --> 01:08:00,920
according to the plan.

1031
01:08:00,920 --> 01:08:06,240
So yeah, I think that's, it's always a great event and I'm very excited about the Havings

1032
01:08:06,240 --> 01:08:08,360
and I celebrate it personally.

1033
01:08:08,360 --> 01:08:16,560
But I think after another Havings or two, it won't cause so much economic difference

1034
01:08:16,560 --> 01:08:22,280
because people are just going to understand that that's how Bitcoin works.

1035
01:08:22,280 --> 01:08:26,840
There's 21 million Bitcoin, they're released on a schedule every four years.

1036
01:08:26,840 --> 01:08:30,200
The number that gets issued is cut in half.

1037
01:08:30,200 --> 01:08:37,200
I think that's the other, one of the biggest problems too of people who think like, oh,

1038
01:08:37,200 --> 01:08:41,400
well, you know, what about when the last Bitcoin is issued?

1039
01:08:41,400 --> 01:08:43,680
What's going to be the incentive to mine Bitcoin?

1040
01:08:43,680 --> 01:08:46,400
We were kind of talking about that a little bit earlier.

1041
01:08:46,400 --> 01:08:50,080
They're thinking about Bitcoin mining as its own industry.

1042
01:08:50,080 --> 01:08:56,960
When it's my perspective that Bitcoin mining is actually a tool of the energy production

1043
01:08:56,960 --> 01:08:59,240
industry.

1044
01:08:59,240 --> 01:09:07,800
And humans are never going to be 100% efficient at producing the exact right amount of energy

1045
01:09:07,800 --> 01:09:11,840
at a given moment in time to be demanded by people.

1046
01:09:11,840 --> 01:09:19,560
And having this network where regardless of what time it is, where you are in the world,

1047
01:09:19,560 --> 01:09:23,800
if you've produced too much energy, you can just monetize it.

1048
01:09:23,800 --> 01:09:28,880
That is incredibly valuable because right now, if you're an energy producer, if you produce

1049
01:09:28,880 --> 01:09:32,880
too much energy and you don't have any Bitcoin miners, you have to turn off production.

1050
01:09:32,880 --> 01:09:34,720
So you're losing money.

1051
01:09:34,720 --> 01:09:39,980
And essentially any amount of value above zero or even breaking even at zero is better

1052
01:09:39,980 --> 01:09:42,120
than losing money.

1053
01:09:42,120 --> 01:09:46,040
So that Bitcoin mining in my view is just more of a tool of energy production.

1054
01:09:46,040 --> 01:09:48,800
And it's one of the most important tools of energy production.

1055
01:09:48,800 --> 01:09:54,400
I think that's another narrative shift that I've really noticed is over the last maybe

1056
01:09:54,400 --> 01:09:59,840
year and a half or two years, that conversation has really shifted.

1057
01:09:59,840 --> 01:10:06,320
Most energy companies are starting to think about what their Bitcoin strategy is or Bitcoin

1058
01:10:06,320 --> 01:10:12,560
miners are getting closer to these large energy companies and trying to work with them.

1059
01:10:12,560 --> 01:10:16,680
I think ultimately the industry just becomes vertically integrated.

1060
01:10:16,680 --> 01:10:21,520
It's just again, another tool that energy producers will start to leverage.

1061
01:10:21,520 --> 01:10:26,920
But today, the Bitcoin miners are out there doing a lot of great work educating energy

1062
01:10:26,920 --> 01:10:34,240
producers and acting as demand response here in Texas, for example, when it gets too cold

1063
01:10:34,240 --> 01:10:36,240
or too hot.

1064
01:10:36,240 --> 01:10:41,440
I think that it's so funny because Bitcoin is one of those things that in retrospect,

1065
01:10:41,440 --> 01:10:42,440
it's obvious.

1066
01:10:42,440 --> 01:10:44,240
Like it's so obvious.

1067
01:10:44,240 --> 01:10:48,360
You're like, OK, wait, there's 21 million coins every four years.

1068
01:10:48,360 --> 01:10:53,200
I'm of the same opinion as you that all the Bitcoins already exist.

1069
01:10:53,200 --> 01:10:55,600
They're just being issued according to the schedule.

1070
01:10:55,600 --> 01:11:02,480
And every four years, we get closer and closer, asymptotically approaching 21 million.

1071
01:11:02,480 --> 01:11:05,920
Never going to quite get there because we're still cutting in half.

1072
01:11:05,920 --> 01:11:08,760
That for our purposes is 21 million.

1073
01:11:08,760 --> 01:11:14,080
And and you're like, oh, once you get that, it's like, well, yeah, that's that's really

1074
01:11:14,080 --> 01:11:16,280
it's really obvious what's happening next.

1075
01:11:16,280 --> 01:11:20,600
And then you factor in the Bitcoin mining side of the equation, like you said, and I

1076
01:11:20,600 --> 01:11:24,920
agree we're going to see just trends towards vertical integration.

1077
01:11:24,920 --> 01:11:29,600
I mean, I think Exxon was the first major energy company to start mining Bitcoin with

1078
01:11:29,600 --> 01:11:30,600
flared gas.

1079
01:11:30,600 --> 01:11:34,360
They started a pilot program in maybe 2020, 2021.

1080
01:11:34,360 --> 01:11:38,200
I don't know the status of that pilot program right now if it's turned into more of a full

1081
01:11:38,200 --> 01:11:39,320
fledged operation.

1082
01:11:39,320 --> 01:11:46,160
But like you said, in Texas with ERCOT and the demand response, this is an incredible

1083
01:11:46,160 --> 01:11:47,800
tool.

1084
01:11:47,800 --> 01:11:54,600
And Alex Gladstein had a fantastic piece for Bitcoin magazine last week, I think called

1085
01:11:54,600 --> 01:11:55,600
Stranded.

1086
01:11:55,600 --> 01:11:58,600
And it's all about Africa and Africa's Bitcoin adoption.

1087
01:11:58,600 --> 01:12:02,640
But the first part of the piece focuses on Bitcoin mining in Malawi.

1088
01:12:02,640 --> 01:12:08,400
And one of his key points is it's just becoming so clear that if you are not mining Bitcoin

1089
01:12:08,400 --> 01:12:14,920
as part of your energy generation, you are forced to waste energy.

1090
01:12:14,920 --> 01:12:19,360
And so much of our energy is is wasted.

1091
01:12:19,360 --> 01:12:21,400
A staggering, staggering amount.

1092
01:12:21,400 --> 01:12:25,360
And it's really sad to see so much energy go to waste.

1093
01:12:25,360 --> 01:12:31,320
And now you have this tool that you can plug in these computers and be able to take that

1094
01:12:31,320 --> 01:12:38,040
wasted energy, otherwise wasted energy, and turn it into sound money with an absolutely

1095
01:12:38,040 --> 01:12:43,640
fixed supply that you can send to anyone anywhere in the world without needing to ask for permission.

1096
01:12:43,640 --> 01:12:52,080
And that is a paradigm shift that I don't even think we can fully grasp even those of

1097
01:12:52,080 --> 01:12:56,000
us in the space grasp what the implications of that are down the road.

1098
01:12:56,000 --> 01:13:01,880
I think they're they're very net positive.

1099
01:13:01,880 --> 01:13:09,560
It's going to be really interesting to see what countries start realizing this before

1100
01:13:09,560 --> 01:13:10,560
others.

1101
01:13:10,560 --> 01:13:15,960
Some El Salvador is has obviously led that charge at the nation state level.

1102
01:13:15,960 --> 01:13:19,040
Texas although not a country, perhaps soon its own country.

1103
01:13:19,040 --> 01:13:20,040
I'm not sure.

1104
01:13:20,040 --> 01:13:21,040
Don't know who you ask.

1105
01:13:21,040 --> 01:13:22,040
Yeah.

1106
01:13:22,040 --> 01:13:29,520
But I mean, Texas, I was just looking at the this EIA study that it's a partial study that

1107
01:13:29,520 --> 01:13:35,280
came out today, the Energy Information Association or agency, one of these other many government

1108
01:13:35,280 --> 01:13:41,560
agencies in the US, and they're requesting emergency data collection on the Bitcoin mining

1109
01:13:41,560 --> 01:13:45,400
industry for forward looking.

1110
01:13:45,400 --> 01:13:48,600
They have some of the backwards facing data.

1111
01:13:48,600 --> 01:13:55,360
But one of the things that they talked about in this initial kind of overview of the industry,

1112
01:13:55,360 --> 01:14:00,480
they talked about very, you know, Bitcoin or talking points, they had actually had some

1113
01:14:00,480 --> 01:14:01,480
decent research in there.

1114
01:14:01,480 --> 01:14:04,880
They talked about proof of work versus proof of stake and look how much more efficient proof

1115
01:14:04,880 --> 01:14:06,320
of stake is.

1116
01:14:06,320 --> 01:14:13,200
OK, but then they they pointed out that Bitcoin miners seek out the cheapest forms of electricity.

1117
01:14:13,200 --> 01:14:18,280
That electricity is often coming from stranded power sources that are not utilized from renewable

1118
01:14:18,280 --> 01:14:26,440
sources that are way underutilized from direct connections to power producers that are enabling

1119
01:14:26,440 --> 01:14:30,520
them to not need to go through the grid, but to just go direct from the source.

1120
01:14:30,520 --> 01:14:33,120
And they talked about load balancing.

1121
01:14:33,120 --> 01:14:35,000
They talked about ERCOT.

1122
01:14:35,000 --> 01:14:36,200
And it's pretty cool.

1123
01:14:36,200 --> 01:14:41,040
Again, it's one of those things where you see that Overton window shifting where, you

1124
01:14:41,040 --> 01:14:45,080
know, not everyone in government is is stupid, right?

1125
01:14:45,080 --> 01:14:51,880
A lot of them are parasitic bureaucrats, but there are people in there, I think many who

1126
01:14:51,880 --> 01:14:55,760
genuinely at different levels and probably especially the state and local level more

1127
01:14:55,760 --> 01:15:02,160
so want what's best for themselves and also what's best for the people they represent.

1128
01:15:02,160 --> 01:15:10,640
And it's going to be very interesting to see how these government based narrative shift

1129
01:15:10,640 --> 01:15:16,200
towards saying, you know what, look at all of this energy we're wasting as a state, as

1130
01:15:16,200 --> 01:15:19,480
a country, as a company.

1131
01:15:19,480 --> 01:15:24,520
Why are we not turning this wasted energy into money?

1132
01:15:24,520 --> 01:15:27,280
Why are we not doing that?

1133
01:15:27,280 --> 01:15:32,880
And as long as you have access to halfway decent information, those questions should come pretty

1134
01:15:32,880 --> 01:15:37,160
easily and the answer should come pretty easily as well, which is, well, there's no reason

1135
01:15:37,160 --> 01:15:38,160
not to.

1136
01:15:38,160 --> 01:15:44,240
We are literally burning money and leaving it on the table and we could be turning it

1137
01:15:44,240 --> 01:15:46,840
into absolutely scarce sound money.

1138
01:15:46,840 --> 01:15:48,320
So let's get on it.

1139
01:15:48,320 --> 01:15:52,680
And I'm hoping I'm curious a little bit of your take on, you know, Texas is basically

1140
01:15:52,680 --> 01:15:56,000
winning the hash wars in America at this point.

1141
01:15:56,000 --> 01:16:00,440
You've got massive facilities with multiple companies.

1142
01:16:00,440 --> 01:16:06,720
It's the state at seems has been extremely pro Bitcoin.

1143
01:16:06,720 --> 01:16:11,160
You've got the whole Ercott relationship, which is fantastic.

1144
01:16:11,160 --> 01:16:15,600
Do you see this start to become a battle between states to a certain extent?

1145
01:16:15,600 --> 01:16:22,240
And I'm not talking about full civil war here, you know, from a hash war perspective.

1146
01:16:22,240 --> 01:16:25,040
It seems like it's in states best interest, right?

1147
01:16:25,040 --> 01:16:26,040
I really hope so.

1148
01:16:26,040 --> 01:16:33,200
I mean, I think Ercott gets a lot of negative press for a few times a year, you know, if

1149
01:16:33,200 --> 01:16:39,600
it's like freezing or extra hot and the prices change a lot.

1150
01:16:39,600 --> 01:16:45,120
But if you look past the headlines, maybe do a little bit of research, Texas energy

1151
01:16:45,120 --> 01:16:50,840
is like 25 to 30% cheaper than any other state.

1152
01:16:50,840 --> 01:16:56,160
So yeah, there's like a couple days where maybe they don't get the demand quite right

1153
01:16:56,160 --> 01:16:58,600
and the price goes nuts.

1154
01:16:58,600 --> 01:17:04,440
But over an entire year, you're spending a lot less, a lot less and Bitcoin mining is

1155
01:17:04,440 --> 01:17:07,720
going to drive that cost even lower.

1156
01:17:07,720 --> 01:17:13,760
And when energy is abundant, that's where prosperity happens.

1157
01:17:13,760 --> 01:17:18,720
If we can harness energy at the lowest cost and just have an excess of energy and Bitcoin

1158
01:17:18,720 --> 01:17:23,200
mining helps us get there, like that drives a lot more prosperity.

1159
01:17:23,200 --> 01:17:32,120
So yes, I'm really hoping that other states look into Bitcoin mining just because they

1160
01:17:32,120 --> 01:17:33,480
have to, right?

1161
01:17:33,480 --> 01:17:40,560
I think one of the funniest things about Bitcoin mining is it's literally monetizing

1162
01:17:40,560 --> 01:17:43,480
landfills, right?

1163
01:17:43,480 --> 01:17:52,360
Landfills emit methane gas, which can be burned and turned into money.

1164
01:17:52,360 --> 01:18:05,680
And like there's no downside other than just sheer ignorance or malice not to turn vented

1165
01:18:05,680 --> 01:18:09,880
methane from a landfill into additional wealth.

1166
01:18:09,880 --> 01:18:12,680
You want that?

1167
01:18:12,680 --> 01:18:13,680
It's insane.

1168
01:18:13,680 --> 01:18:15,680
Like it sounds like magic.

1169
01:18:15,680 --> 01:18:17,680
It sounds too good to be true.

1170
01:18:17,680 --> 01:18:22,080
And the reality is that like when it comes to vented landfill methane, which I think

1171
01:18:22,080 --> 01:18:28,640
is one of the most just beautiful examples of Bitcoin miners getting creative and also

1172
01:18:28,640 --> 01:18:34,240
solving real problems, which is tons of landfills, emitting tons of methane.

1173
01:18:34,240 --> 01:18:40,920
Like, there is no one else who is going to pay to take care of that problem.

1174
01:18:40,920 --> 01:18:41,920
Nobody else.

1175
01:18:41,920 --> 01:18:47,000
The best thing that might happen is they've got to vent that methane somehow.

1176
01:18:47,000 --> 01:18:53,400
So maybe somebody pays through some sort of a grant or subsidy to vent it and burn it

1177
01:18:53,400 --> 01:18:55,720
and to just burn that methane in the atmosphere.

1178
01:18:55,720 --> 01:19:01,920
That's the best case scenario because those landfills aren't hooked up to the grid.

1179
01:19:01,920 --> 01:19:05,360
You're not going to be able to power the grid with that.

1180
01:19:05,360 --> 01:19:07,040
Nobody's going to pay for that.

1181
01:19:07,040 --> 01:19:12,280
But Bitcoin miners will because they're generating revenue from day one.

1182
01:19:12,280 --> 01:19:14,360
And it's one of these things.

1183
01:19:14,360 --> 01:19:18,280
And it's like you look at it and you're like in retrospect, you're like, well, that's a

1184
01:19:18,280 --> 01:19:20,040
that's a no brainer.

1185
01:19:20,040 --> 01:19:26,760
But for a lot of people that is still a bridge too far for them apparently.

1186
01:19:26,760 --> 01:19:28,280
Well, I don't know.

1187
01:19:28,280 --> 01:19:32,480
There's still that narrative that Bitcoin is bad for the environment because it uses

1188
01:19:32,480 --> 01:19:33,600
energy.

1189
01:19:33,600 --> 01:19:39,920
But if you look closely into really any facet of Bitcoin, I legitimately don't believe that

1190
01:19:39,920 --> 01:19:47,640
there's anything anything better for the environment than moving the entire world onto sound money

1191
01:19:47,640 --> 01:19:57,800
because it incentivizes saving and it incentivizes capturing all the wasted energy that we already

1192
01:19:57,800 --> 01:19:58,800
waste.

1193
01:19:58,800 --> 01:19:59,800
Right.

1194
01:19:59,800 --> 01:20:00,800
It's monetizing it.

1195
01:20:00,800 --> 01:20:04,800
Once you have Bitcoin, you make smarter decisions about your purchases.

1196
01:20:04,800 --> 01:20:08,960
You're not going to go out and buy frivolously spend frivolously.

1197
01:20:08,960 --> 01:20:13,920
Every purchase is painful, which is a blessing and a curse to be honest.

1198
01:20:13,920 --> 01:20:15,600
Sometimes I'm like, I got to just buy something.

1199
01:20:15,600 --> 01:20:19,800
I'm going to have to use some Bitcoin, but I have to really work myself, get myself into

1200
01:20:19,800 --> 01:20:24,320
a mindset where I can say goodbye to precious sats.

1201
01:20:24,320 --> 01:20:32,120
And that that alone is probably the most transformative environmental environmentally

1202
01:20:32,120 --> 01:20:35,480
positive thing that we could do for the world.

1203
01:20:35,480 --> 01:20:43,280
It's like just put up a little extra friction on just frivolously spending over consumption

1204
01:20:43,280 --> 01:20:46,840
and just see what will happen there.

1205
01:20:46,840 --> 01:20:52,280
For one thing, the landfills would be a lot less full of useless shit if we decrease some

1206
01:20:52,280 --> 01:20:53,280
of that consumption.

1207
01:20:53,280 --> 01:20:57,400
So I guess that would actually lead to less methane produced by the landfills.

1208
01:20:57,400 --> 01:20:59,520
But I think we can live with that.

1209
01:20:59,520 --> 01:21:04,200
The Bitcoin miners mining vented methane will still have plenty of landfills to tap.

1210
01:21:04,200 --> 01:21:05,760
And that's another thing about Bitcoin miners.

1211
01:21:05,760 --> 01:21:07,360
You could just move them.

1212
01:21:07,360 --> 01:21:10,720
Hey, this landfill has stopped venting methane.

1213
01:21:10,720 --> 01:21:14,480
Let's go bring our miners somewhere else and plug them in over there to the new wind farm

1214
01:21:14,480 --> 01:21:18,440
or the new hydro dam that we've just purchased.

1215
01:21:18,440 --> 01:21:27,280
It's this beautiful cheat code across so many layers of society and also across one's personal

1216
01:21:27,280 --> 01:21:35,880
life, I think, where answers become much more obvious and clear and simple thanks to the

1217
01:21:35,880 --> 01:21:37,440
incentives of Bitcoin.

1218
01:21:37,440 --> 01:21:46,080
And then you start to realize that the broken money that we have to steal Lin Alden's book

1219
01:21:46,080 --> 01:21:49,160
name, which is a great, great read.

1220
01:21:49,160 --> 01:21:54,280
But this broken money has really has led to a broken incentive structure.

1221
01:21:54,280 --> 01:22:00,080
And because we have that broken incentive structure, it trickles down to every aspect

1222
01:22:00,080 --> 01:22:03,840
of our societies, of our economies, of our governments.

1223
01:22:03,840 --> 01:22:12,640
And you see all of these these problems that one faction or another likes to pick at and

1224
01:22:12,640 --> 01:22:16,520
say, this is the biggest problem that we face today.

1225
01:22:16,520 --> 01:22:20,760
And in reality, all of these problems, while they may be issues, they're actually just

1226
01:22:20,760 --> 01:22:23,320
symptoms of a deeper disease, right?

1227
01:22:23,320 --> 01:22:27,200
They're symptoms of the broken money, which has broken our incentives.

1228
01:22:27,200 --> 01:22:29,680
And you can try to fix those problems.

1229
01:22:29,680 --> 01:22:34,000
You can it's like treating the symptoms versus curing the disease.

1230
01:22:34,000 --> 01:22:39,680
Treating the symptoms usually involves government subsidies and shoveling money into one department

1231
01:22:39,680 --> 01:22:44,800
or another to try and appease a group of voters to get you reelected under the guise of, hey,

1232
01:22:44,800 --> 01:22:46,680
we're fixing this problem.

1233
01:22:46,680 --> 01:22:47,680
But you're never fixing the problem.

1234
01:22:47,680 --> 01:22:52,800
You're putting a bandaid on it and curing the disease is fixing the money.

1235
01:22:52,800 --> 01:23:00,000
And it's that, you know, the often repeated cliche of fix the money, fix the world.

1236
01:23:00,000 --> 01:23:04,240
But it's it's really not a cliche because it's fixing the money involves fixing the incentives

1237
01:23:04,240 --> 01:23:05,880
and incentives are everything.

1238
01:23:05,880 --> 01:23:09,680
Again, it's why do people do what they do?

1239
01:23:09,680 --> 01:23:10,680
Why?

1240
01:23:10,680 --> 01:23:14,720
Because the incentives are aligned in such a way that that decision makes the most personal

1241
01:23:14,720 --> 01:23:16,480
sense for them.

1242
01:23:16,480 --> 01:23:19,680
So you're not going to change their behavior unless you change the incentives.

1243
01:23:19,680 --> 01:23:24,720
And Bitcoin is the best way to change incentives in a positive way that I have personally seen

1244
01:23:24,720 --> 01:23:28,400
in my short years on this earth.

1245
01:23:28,400 --> 01:23:31,680
And I think that's true for just about every bit coiner.

1246
01:23:31,680 --> 01:23:36,320
And that's what also makes it why it's always exciting to be at Bitcoin events, to be in

1247
01:23:36,320 --> 01:23:41,600
person with Bitcoiners, because there's so much doom and gloom in so much of the world.

1248
01:23:41,600 --> 01:23:46,560
But when you're on Bitcoiners, you feel so much hope because people are actually building

1249
01:23:46,560 --> 01:23:50,320
things and trying to make the world better and yes, also trying to make a profit off

1250
01:23:50,320 --> 01:23:54,920
of that, which is great because that means they're going to deliver the best possible

1251
01:23:54,920 --> 01:24:00,960
product, service, experience, because that's what the market demands.

1252
01:24:00,960 --> 01:24:05,920
And it's cool to see that parallel society, that parallel system evolving.

1253
01:24:05,920 --> 01:24:10,080
That's a you mentioned something that was really interesting there.

1254
01:24:10,080 --> 01:24:15,960
And I think another thing that I've I've been thinking about in another way that I've seen

1255
01:24:15,960 --> 01:24:26,280
the industry moving is now Bitcoin companies are going to need to figure out ways to create

1256
01:24:26,280 --> 01:24:30,960
products that Bitcoiners will pay Bitcoin for.

1257
01:24:30,960 --> 01:24:39,160
We've gone from, you know, I think we're moving, we're starting to move beyond just the exchange,

1258
01:24:39,160 --> 01:24:45,640
the Bitcoin accumulation phase into, okay, now we have some wealthy Bitcoiners.

1259
01:24:45,640 --> 01:24:52,080
What are the products and services that they demand that they will spend Bitcoin on?

1260
01:24:52,080 --> 01:24:57,240
And if your company doesn't have a product that you personally would pay Bitcoin for

1261
01:24:57,240 --> 01:25:03,200
or that, you know, makes sense to spend Bitcoin on, I think that's a huge problem.

1262
01:25:03,200 --> 01:25:06,880
And it's something that companies are going to have to figure out.

1263
01:25:06,880 --> 01:25:11,760
It's something that we are that I personally think about a lot had unchained and tried

1264
01:25:11,760 --> 01:25:18,160
to find different ways to deliver value and think of of products that I would spend Bitcoin

1265
01:25:18,160 --> 01:25:19,640
on.

1266
01:25:19,640 --> 01:25:25,720
I do actually want to ask you about unchained now you guys are not a sponsor of another

1267
01:25:25,720 --> 01:25:27,720
fucking Bitcoin podcast.

1268
01:25:27,720 --> 01:25:34,360
But I think that the service that you offer is really fantastic.

1269
01:25:34,360 --> 01:25:38,560
And the reason that I like what you guys do is because one of the biggest hurdles that

1270
01:25:38,560 --> 01:25:44,720
I've seen people come up against when they first are getting into Bitcoin or if I'm talking

1271
01:25:44,720 --> 01:25:48,880
about Bitcoin, especially honestly, folks that maybe have a little bit more capital

1272
01:25:48,880 --> 01:25:56,600
are a little bit older are looking at putting a sizable chunk of their wealth into Bitcoin

1273
01:25:56,600 --> 01:25:59,520
is you start explaining things to them and maybe they're they're coming along.

1274
01:25:59,520 --> 01:26:01,920
They're like, okay, yeah, I'm down with this.

1275
01:26:01,920 --> 01:26:03,360
This sounds great.

1276
01:26:03,360 --> 01:26:08,120
And then you get to the point where the conversation gets to, okay, and this is your private key

1277
01:26:08,120 --> 01:26:12,320
and you've got to make sure you keep this really safe because if you lose this, you

1278
01:26:12,320 --> 01:26:14,560
know, you can't you're screwed.

1279
01:26:14,560 --> 01:26:19,280
And it's that reaction of you mean that there's no customer service I can talk to there's

1280
01:26:19,280 --> 01:26:24,760
no there's no, you know, 1 800 number that I can ring up and and be able to get my Bitcoin

1281
01:26:24,760 --> 01:26:28,720
sent back to me, you know, the bank will will reverse the transaction for me.

1282
01:26:28,720 --> 01:26:31,800
And you're like, well, that's actually kind of the point is that there's no middle and

1283
01:26:31,800 --> 01:26:32,800
then you get into all that.

1284
01:26:32,800 --> 01:26:38,000
But that that's a big roadblock for people is that fear of I'm going to screw something

1285
01:26:38,000 --> 01:26:39,160
up.

1286
01:26:39,160 --> 01:26:45,600
And so, you know, maybe you have probably personally on boarded, I'm guessing like hundreds, thousands

1287
01:26:45,600 --> 01:26:51,720
of folks onto Bitcoin like had those conversations time and time again.

1288
01:26:51,720 --> 01:26:53,600
What are your big takeaways from that?

1289
01:26:53,600 --> 01:26:57,760
And how does that kind of influence the way you guys think about your product offerings

1290
01:26:57,760 --> 01:27:04,720
that unchained and and also how you view, I guess your place in the ecosystem as driving

1291
01:27:04,720 --> 01:27:09,000
forward that Bitcoin adoption?

1292
01:27:09,000 --> 01:27:15,480
Yeah, we think we think a lot about those things so that we have an entire team at unchained

1293
01:27:15,480 --> 01:27:22,560
the concierge team, which their number one goal their their entire purpose is to get

1294
01:27:22,560 --> 01:27:27,520
people set up and comfortable controlling keys.

1295
01:27:27,520 --> 01:27:37,640
And the one of the biggest hesitations that we've seen is just that fear of making mistakes.

1296
01:27:37,640 --> 01:27:45,280
And at a deeper level, it's a problem of single signature, the coin wallets have a single

1297
01:27:45,280 --> 01:27:51,600
point of failure, which in my view is the most important thing about multi sig is that

1298
01:27:51,600 --> 01:27:56,160
there are now no longer single points of failure.

1299
01:27:56,160 --> 01:28:03,360
So we really help folks achieve that peace of mind where they're actually controlling

1300
01:28:03,360 --> 01:28:08,440
keys to Bitcoin, but they know that if they make a mistake, they're not going to lose

1301
01:28:08,440 --> 01:28:09,440
Bitcoin.

1302
01:28:09,440 --> 01:28:17,560
And that that is the kind of fear that people have about taking self custody.

1303
01:28:17,560 --> 01:28:24,480
And then from there, so we get people on boarded onto the most secure form of Bitcoin custody,

1304
01:28:24,480 --> 01:28:29,160
which is multi sig where keys are distributed, collaborative custody unchained controls one

1305
01:28:29,160 --> 01:28:33,960
key, clients control to they have a majority of the keys.

1306
01:28:33,960 --> 01:28:41,460
From that foundation, we can then offer financial products and services that make sense.

1307
01:28:41,460 --> 01:28:47,120
So retirement products, Bitcoin IRA, so you can have a tax advantage Bitcoin account where

1308
01:28:47,120 --> 01:28:49,800
you control keys inheritance.

1309
01:28:49,800 --> 01:28:58,520
So for people who are thinking about Bitcoin generationally, we help you to basically package

1310
01:28:58,520 --> 01:29:05,040
up the required information in a way that somebody who has no clue about Bitcoin can

1311
01:29:05,040 --> 01:29:13,420
follow and basically hop on the phone, give us a call and then we can walk them through.

1312
01:29:13,420 --> 01:29:19,520
And so those are the types of things that we're trying to flesh out is just the financial

1313
01:29:19,520 --> 01:29:24,840
services beyond custody, but it's built on that foundation of collaborative custody where

1314
01:29:24,840 --> 01:29:26,160
keys are distributed.

1315
01:29:26,160 --> 01:29:32,960
So there isn't a single company or individual that could possibly lose Bitcoin because keys

1316
01:29:32,960 --> 01:29:35,280
are distributed.

1317
01:29:35,280 --> 01:29:40,840
And I think it's it's just such a it's a remarkable thing that we have the ability to do multi

1318
01:29:40,840 --> 01:29:41,840
sig.

1319
01:29:41,840 --> 01:29:45,840
Like that's that is so genuinely huge.

1320
01:29:45,840 --> 01:29:50,360
And whether it's, you know, however many keys you want, you know, total with it, if

1321
01:29:50,360 --> 01:29:56,560
it's a two or three or three or five or whatever, that's, I think, a lot more peace of mind.

1322
01:29:56,560 --> 01:30:04,400
And you know, again, it's I I firmly believe that like a lot of orange pilling happens,

1323
01:30:04,400 --> 01:30:09,800
you know, person to person from a conversation from, you know, finally, you told them about

1324
01:30:09,800 --> 01:30:13,640
Bitcoin again for the 50 50th or the 69th time.

1325
01:30:13,640 --> 01:30:18,520
And they finally said, okay, yeah, I'll get a little bit of Bitcoin on Coinbase or whatever.

1326
01:30:18,520 --> 01:30:26,440
But I honestly think that what helps drive adoption, a huge part of adoption is companies

1327
01:30:26,440 --> 01:30:32,960
that offer services that address the pain points of people trying to use Bitcoin like

1328
01:30:32,960 --> 01:30:34,760
that.

1329
01:30:34,760 --> 01:30:40,840
And companies in the Bitcoin space who are created by and run by Bitcoiners know those

1330
01:30:40,840 --> 01:30:47,000
problems all too well, and they are best positioned to be able to offer solutions for that.

1331
01:30:47,000 --> 01:30:51,200
And again, to compete to provide the best product to provide the best service to provide

1332
01:30:51,200 --> 01:30:52,880
the best experience.

1333
01:30:52,880 --> 01:30:57,880
And ultimately, all that competition is for the benefit of the users.

1334
01:30:57,880 --> 01:30:59,440
Like that is that is great.

1335
01:30:59,440 --> 01:31:05,200
We we need more Bitcoin companies as many as possible coming up with problem or solutions

1336
01:31:05,200 --> 01:31:07,800
to problems that Bitcoiners face.

1337
01:31:07,800 --> 01:31:12,760
And it's it's really cool to see that Bitcoin company ecosystem evolve.

1338
01:31:12,760 --> 01:31:18,320
You know, I was talking, I was talking to Mike, Mike Yarmaz, the Muslim man back in

1339
01:31:18,320 --> 01:31:20,440
December.

1340
01:31:20,440 --> 01:31:22,880
And you know, I asked him, you know, what do you say to the people that say that there's

1341
01:31:22,880 --> 01:31:26,880
you know, there's nothing happening on Bitcoin, you know, the again, kind of a crypto side

1342
01:31:26,880 --> 01:31:32,560
of the aisle trope, you know, all all all the innovations happening in the blockchain

1343
01:31:32,560 --> 01:31:34,680
Web three space.

1344
01:31:34,680 --> 01:31:37,560
And he's like, you know, what do you mean nothing's happening on Bitcoin?

1345
01:31:37,560 --> 01:31:44,480
Like that is where you actually see real companies building real products, building real services

1346
01:31:44,480 --> 01:31:47,360
to address real needs.

1347
01:31:47,360 --> 01:31:50,600
And to see that ecosystem evolve.

1348
01:31:50,600 --> 01:31:57,200
And I think with this with the ETFs, as we see more and more institutional capital starting

1349
01:31:57,200 --> 01:32:02,440
to focus on Bitcoin, we'll also see more and more institutional capital focus on Bitcoin

1350
01:32:02,440 --> 01:32:04,120
companies.

1351
01:32:04,120 --> 01:32:08,840
And you know, because that's again, potential maybe the company isn't going to outperform

1352
01:32:08,840 --> 01:32:12,600
Bitcoin, but maybe they do over a certain timeframe, and you're willing to take that

1353
01:32:12,600 --> 01:32:13,600
bet.

1354
01:32:13,600 --> 01:32:15,200
Like that's what it's that's what it's all about, right?

1355
01:32:15,200 --> 01:32:16,200
Yeah.

1356
01:32:16,200 --> 01:32:21,600
And what I've really noticed is that if you're solving problems for Bitcoiners, a single

1357
01:32:21,600 --> 01:32:27,200
Bitcoiner, what you're you're actually solving problems that massive companies that eventually

1358
01:32:27,200 --> 01:32:31,440
adopt Bitcoin are going to face.

1359
01:32:31,440 --> 01:32:39,120
So even with these ETFs, for example, something like 11 out of 13 of them are relying on Coinbase.

1360
01:32:39,120 --> 01:32:41,720
That is a massive single point of failure.

1361
01:32:41,720 --> 01:32:49,640
If one company runs into an issue, 11 ETFs are going to have problems simultaneously.

1362
01:32:49,640 --> 01:32:51,440
That's not sustainable.

1363
01:32:51,440 --> 01:32:57,520
It's the same problem as an individual who's like, I have my life savings and I'm securing

1364
01:32:57,520 --> 01:33:00,960
it with one ledger key.

1365
01:33:00,960 --> 01:33:01,960
It's just not sustainable.

1366
01:33:01,960 --> 01:33:09,640
You really need redundancy and you need to eliminate the possibility of a single mistake

1367
01:33:09,640 --> 01:33:12,040
from causing you to lose money.

1368
01:33:12,040 --> 01:33:16,040
I wanted to actually was that I wanted to ask you about the ETF specifically, because

1369
01:33:16,040 --> 01:33:17,160
I think you had a tweet.

1370
01:33:17,160 --> 01:33:23,760
Was it was it bitwise who posted they were the first ones to post their address?

1371
01:33:23,760 --> 01:33:29,040
And it's it's a, well, you can speak to this more intelligently than I can, but it's a

1372
01:33:29,040 --> 01:33:31,440
it's an old format first fall and it's single sig.

1373
01:33:31,440 --> 01:33:32,920
And can you can you talk about that a little bit?

1374
01:33:32,920 --> 01:33:36,240
I think you had multiple tweets about this because it was cool that they were like, here,

1375
01:33:36,240 --> 01:33:41,560
look, you can see our address and people are sending you 69 69 sats to it and whatnot.

1376
01:33:41,560 --> 01:33:48,840
And yay, they're, you know, they've got over capitalized now, but talk about what the potential

1377
01:33:48,840 --> 01:33:53,840
pitfalls of that are for, I think it was bitwise, right?

1378
01:33:53,840 --> 01:33:54,840
Yeah.

1379
01:33:54,840 --> 01:33:59,040
I do want to give them a ton of credit out of all of the ETFs.

1380
01:33:59,040 --> 01:34:06,160
I think they are the one that appears to me, like they are trying to be Bitcoin focused

1381
01:34:06,160 --> 01:34:12,680
and engage with the Bitcoin ethos and community.

1382
01:34:12,680 --> 01:34:14,600
So they're donating to Brink.

1383
01:34:14,600 --> 01:34:16,960
They publish their address.

1384
01:34:16,960 --> 01:34:24,200
What I think a lot of Bitcoiners were looking at is the type of address they use is a paid

1385
01:34:24,200 --> 01:34:26,480
to pub key hash address.

1386
01:34:26,480 --> 01:34:33,400
And that was a very, very early address, you know, single signature, very secure.

1387
01:34:33,400 --> 01:34:39,080
But now there's there's kind of multiple new address types that have that have been invented

1388
01:34:39,080 --> 01:34:46,320
since then, such as multi say paid to script hash or segwit or taproot.

1389
01:34:46,320 --> 01:34:51,200
Those are all different address types that have been invented since the pay to pub key

1390
01:34:51,200 --> 01:34:53,800
hash.

1391
01:34:53,800 --> 01:35:01,800
The reason that they're using that is because that's what their custodian uses coinbase.

1392
01:35:01,800 --> 01:35:09,920
And I'm sure I'm certain coinbase has extreme security around the single key that secures

1393
01:35:09,920 --> 01:35:11,400
that address.

1394
01:35:11,400 --> 01:35:17,840
They probably split up that key and some sort of MPC or Shamir sharing method.

1395
01:35:17,840 --> 01:35:19,600
So it's kind of like multi-sig.

1396
01:35:19,600 --> 01:35:24,200
But the problem with it is that at the end of the day, it's one key.

1397
01:35:24,200 --> 01:35:29,280
And when you sign transactions or when you create those little kind of shards of that

1398
01:35:29,280 --> 01:35:35,360
key, there's a moment in time where it is a single key protecting all that Bitcoin.

1399
01:35:35,360 --> 01:35:37,800
So I want to give them a lot of credit.

1400
01:35:37,800 --> 01:35:39,040
They're being very transparent.

1401
01:35:39,040 --> 01:35:41,840
They're going out there and they're publishing their address.

1402
01:35:41,840 --> 01:35:49,080
I just as a joke, I looked up the largest Bitcoin address and published that address

1403
01:35:49,080 --> 01:35:51,920
as well and said, this is my address.

1404
01:35:51,920 --> 01:35:57,240
The problem with publishing an address is all of the addresses are public and you can

1405
01:35:57,240 --> 01:36:01,000
go and look them up on the blockchain on mempool.space or blockchain.info.

1406
01:36:01,000 --> 01:36:03,080
You can look up every single address and that's what I did.

1407
01:36:03,080 --> 01:36:05,880
I went and found the biggest address.

1408
01:36:05,880 --> 01:36:11,120
In order to really prove that an address is your address, what you actually need to do

1409
01:36:11,120 --> 01:36:15,840
is use a key to sign a message from that address.

1410
01:36:15,840 --> 01:36:19,280
So it's almost exactly what's happening with Craig Wright right now.

1411
01:36:19,280 --> 01:36:21,000
Craig Wright says, I'm Satoshi.

1412
01:36:21,000 --> 01:36:22,000
Those are my addresses.

1413
01:36:22,000 --> 01:36:25,160
Look, I've shown you the addresses.

1414
01:36:25,160 --> 01:36:26,960
They're mine.

1415
01:36:26,960 --> 01:36:32,960
And an extremely simple way to just prove that you actually have those addresses to

1416
01:36:32,960 --> 01:36:35,560
use your hardware wallet to sign a message.

1417
01:36:35,560 --> 01:36:37,320
It's like trivially easy.

1418
01:36:37,320 --> 01:36:42,400
It takes 15 seconds with Trezor Suite, for example.

1419
01:36:42,400 --> 01:36:49,640
So one of the things that I said to the BitWaySpeed was, how can I verify that that's your address?

1420
01:36:49,640 --> 01:36:51,240
Can you sign a message?

1421
01:36:51,240 --> 01:36:57,760
So of course, BitQuinters are always going to try to find the most esoteric ways to prove

1422
01:36:57,760 --> 01:37:00,800
their kind of knowledge.

1423
01:37:00,800 --> 01:37:03,520
And on one hand, it's like, welcome to the show.

1424
01:37:03,520 --> 01:37:04,520
You're here.

1425
01:37:04,520 --> 01:37:05,520
We're glad.

1426
01:37:05,520 --> 01:37:08,760
I think personally, I'm glad that they're here.

1427
01:37:08,760 --> 01:37:17,840
I'm glad that they have been a prominent voice for open sats and brink.

1428
01:37:17,840 --> 01:37:20,760
And of course, we're going to do a little dunking.

1429
01:37:20,760 --> 01:37:22,000
Welcome to the show.

1430
01:37:22,000 --> 01:37:27,880
So yeah, there's essentially, with that address type, there's a ceiling that you hit, which

1431
01:37:27,880 --> 01:37:31,200
is ultimately at the end of the day, it's a single key.

1432
01:37:31,200 --> 01:37:34,800
And if you move to a different type of address, there's just another ceiling that you can

1433
01:37:34,800 --> 01:37:35,800
get to.

1434
01:37:35,800 --> 01:37:42,360
And even if you hack that one key, you still need more keys before you can spend the Bitcoin.

1435
01:37:42,360 --> 01:37:44,160
I appreciate the explanation.

1436
01:37:44,160 --> 01:37:45,160
And I definitely agree.

1437
01:37:45,160 --> 01:37:50,000
Like, I think what BitWaySpeed is doing, they're donating what, like 10% of net profits, open

1438
01:37:50,000 --> 01:37:51,640
source development.

1439
01:37:51,640 --> 01:37:52,640
That's awesome.

1440
01:37:52,640 --> 01:37:55,600
I would love to see all of the ETFs doing it.

1441
01:37:55,600 --> 01:37:58,040
And I'll happily dunk on the other ETFs as well.

1442
01:37:58,040 --> 01:37:59,040
Yes.

1443
01:37:59,040 --> 01:38:02,000
Let's see what BlackRock does.

1444
01:38:02,000 --> 01:38:03,000
The rest will follow.

1445
01:38:03,000 --> 01:38:08,520
But for now, I mean, good on BitWaySpeed for doing that, because that's an actual predictable

1446
01:38:08,520 --> 01:38:13,680
or relatively predictable revenue inflow for open source development, which could become

1447
01:38:13,680 --> 01:38:15,320
quite substantial.

1448
01:38:15,320 --> 01:38:16,480
So that's really cool.

1449
01:38:16,480 --> 01:38:17,800
I'm glad to see it.

1450
01:38:17,800 --> 01:38:24,040
And I think it's one thing to just say that you're going to donate 10%, but it's also

1451
01:38:24,040 --> 01:38:28,560
cool to see that I think they're right now the third largest ETF, maybe after GBTC.

1452
01:38:28,560 --> 01:38:32,320
So it's like BlackRock, Fidelity, and then them.

1453
01:38:32,320 --> 01:38:41,760
So if you have an active 401K or something like that, and you want exposure to Bitcoin,

1454
01:38:41,760 --> 01:38:44,480
there's a few good options out there now.

1455
01:38:44,480 --> 01:38:49,720
But if you have an IRA, that's when you should hold your keys.

1456
01:38:49,720 --> 01:38:54,640
And it's optionality is a beautiful thing, isn't it?

1457
01:38:54,640 --> 01:38:58,280
And I hope that with the ETFs in a larger sense, like, I think we're going to see a

1458
01:38:58,280 --> 01:39:03,240
lot of people who end up buying a Bitcoin ETF, maybe just for the hack of it, because

1459
01:39:03,240 --> 01:39:05,080
they heard Bitcoin is going to go up.

1460
01:39:05,080 --> 01:39:08,080
And then maybe that encourages them to go down that rabbit hole a little bit.

1461
01:39:08,080 --> 01:39:09,880
And we see a little bit more of that.

1462
01:39:09,880 --> 01:39:11,040
But time will tell.

1463
01:39:11,040 --> 01:39:16,200
But I do want to be conscious, like Bitcoin, your time is scarce.

1464
01:39:16,200 --> 01:39:17,440
So want to be conscious of that.

1465
01:39:17,440 --> 01:39:18,960
And I appreciate you coming on today.

1466
01:39:18,960 --> 01:39:22,080
The last thing I would ask you is that are you reading anything right now that you'd

1467
01:39:22,080 --> 01:39:26,760
recommend?

1468
01:39:26,760 --> 01:39:34,240
I just finished reading the three body problem trilogy, which is a sci-fi trilogy.

1469
01:39:34,240 --> 01:39:36,640
There's a Netflix show that's coming out.

1470
01:39:36,640 --> 01:39:42,760
And it really, the first two books, the three body problem and the Dark Forest were, I thought,

1471
01:39:42,760 --> 01:39:43,760
incredible.

1472
01:39:43,760 --> 01:39:45,040
They're slow burns.

1473
01:39:45,040 --> 01:39:50,520
So it takes about 150 pages for each of them to start getting really good.

1474
01:39:50,520 --> 01:39:52,840
But I thought those books were absolutely incredible.

1475
01:39:52,840 --> 01:39:56,960
It got me thinking about our place in the universe just a little bit differently.

1476
01:39:56,960 --> 01:39:57,960
Nice.

1477
01:39:57,960 --> 01:40:00,800
I did see that pop up on Netflix.

1478
01:40:00,800 --> 01:40:03,480
So I'll have to check out the book as well.

1479
01:40:03,480 --> 01:40:06,720
The third book, I would say, kind of jumps the shark a little bit.

1480
01:40:06,720 --> 01:40:08,720
But it's also pretty good.

1481
01:40:08,720 --> 01:40:10,760
The first two, though, I think are incredible.

1482
01:40:10,760 --> 01:40:11,760
OK.

1483
01:40:11,760 --> 01:40:16,080
Well, and then the last thing is I'll include your social links anywhere else you would

1484
01:40:16,080 --> 01:40:18,560
like to send people who are listening to the show.

1485
01:40:18,560 --> 01:40:23,720
Yeah, you can find me on x at Phil underscore Geiger.

1486
01:40:23,720 --> 01:40:26,240
My email is Phil at unchained.com.

1487
01:40:26,240 --> 01:40:28,600
You're welcome to shoot me an email.

1488
01:40:28,600 --> 01:40:33,640
And yeah, follow me on X or connect with me via email.

1489
01:40:33,640 --> 01:40:34,640
All right.

1490
01:40:34,640 --> 01:40:37,320
Well, man, thank you so much for coming on again.

1491
01:40:37,320 --> 01:40:41,320
You know, Bitcoin is scarce, but Bitcoin podcasts are also abundant.

1492
01:40:41,320 --> 01:40:45,520
So thank you for sharing your scarce time on another fucking Bitcoin podcast.

1493
01:40:45,520 --> 01:40:47,320
I had a great time.

1494
01:40:47,320 --> 01:40:48,560
I had a great time, too.

1495
01:40:48,560 --> 01:40:49,560
Let's do it again sometime.

1496
01:40:49,560 --> 01:40:50,560
Absolutely.

1497
01:40:50,560 --> 01:40:51,560
Thanks, Walker.

1498
01:40:51,560 --> 01:40:52,560
All right.

1499
01:40:52,560 --> 01:40:57,960
Thanks, man.

1500
01:40:57,960 --> 01:41:02,920
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin talk episode of the Bitcoin podcast.

1501
01:41:02,920 --> 01:41:08,240
If you are a Bitcoin only company interested in sponsoring another fucking Bitcoin podcast,

1502
01:41:08,240 --> 01:41:13,200
head to Bitcoin podcast.net or hit me up on social media on noster.

1503
01:41:13,200 --> 01:41:19,360
Head to primal.net slash Walker and on Twitter search for at Walker America or at Bitcoin

1504
01:41:19,360 --> 01:41:20,640
podcast.

1505
01:41:20,640 --> 01:41:26,360
You can also watch the video version of this show on X or on YouTube by going to YouTube.com

1506
01:41:26,360 --> 01:41:32,000
slash Walker America or rumble by searching for at Walker America.

1507
01:41:32,000 --> 01:41:33,000
Bitcoin is scarce.

1508
01:41:33,000 --> 01:41:38,560
There will only ever be 21 million, but Bitcoin podcasts are abundant.

1509
01:41:38,560 --> 01:41:44,720
So thank you for spending your scarce time to listen to another fucking Bitcoin podcast.

1510
01:41:44,720 --> 01:42:10,760
Until next time, stay free.