All I wanted to do was do Anthony Bourdain's job.
Let me travel and eat food everywhere.
Like, that's how I viewed the world.
I was like, anything's possible.
And then that event shaped my family,
and then it totally changed my worldview.
I watched my parents have to lose that house that I loved.
It was a tiny little townhouse, but I loved it.
And I thought, gosh, like, this system is so unfair.
The American dream is a lie.
You see these bankers getting bailed out.
These people continue to fail up.
Even if they have destroyed the city that they beside,
they end up getting an even bigger political role.
Like if you have a system with a central bank that controls the money and can expand the supply
and issues the reserve currency, how can you have a truly free market?
Journalists should be watchdogs.
They shouldn't be lapdogs for the people in power.
They should be watchdogs.
I had stories that were silenced or censored.
That's unbelievable.
And you can't do much about it.
Like you feel very powerless and you end up finding other people in the newsroom that
you kind of chat about it with and you're sort of, you know, in a corner kind of being
like, this is not okay.
But that's why I really love being independent because now I get to decide what is a meaningful
story.
So I want to level the playing field.
I want to give people hope.
Down the rabbit hole.
Down.
Cypherpunk.
Rabbit hole.
Welcome back to another episode of Cypherpump, where we explore money's history, crypto's
future, and Web3's role in advancing human rights, freedom, and digital liberty.
Today's guest is Natalie Brunel, an Emmy-winning investigative journalist, first-generation
American, and one of the most trusted educators in the Bitcoin space.
She's the host of the podcast Coin Stories, author of Bitcoin is for Everyone, and a board
member of Semler Scientific.
Her family's immigrant journey from communist Poland and their experience losing everything in the 2008 financial crisis shaped her conviction that our money is broken and that Bitcoin offers a path forward.
Welcome to the show.
Thanks so much for having me.
I'm glad to have you here.
So I'm actually Polish as well.
No way.
I thought that was a really interesting story when I was reading your book and you were talking about being in like that line and getting up in like the communist line.
And like right before you went, like the last, I think you wanted a cookie or something.
A paruski.
A paroovki.
They're little hot dogs.
Yeah.
The lady in front of you got the last one or something.
That is wild to even think about.
Yeah.
I actually talked about it on Robert Kiyosaki's show because if you knew someone that grew
up under communism or you did yourself, those were the stories of your life.
I mean, constant shortages, no sense of economic hope or social mobility.
And so my parents just dreamt of coming to the United States and it took them a long,
long time to get there. So I really admire them because, you know, by the time someone's in their
late thirties or forties or fifties, a lot of people would say, you know what, it's too late.
I'm too old. I'm not going to make this transition. But they didn't. They were like,
we will learn the new language. We're going to start over. We don't know anyone, but we're going
to figure it out. And, um, and they did. And it was really like a sacrifice for their children to
have a better life. So a lot of people don't know this. I was born in 1991, 1991. So that was like
right around when the Soviet Union fell and all this kind of stuff played out. That's the year I
came. So you came the year I was born. How old were you? I was five. Five. Okay. Do you actually
have any memories of when you were five and less or these are just stories that your parents told
you? Like a little bit. It's really hard. I mean, I definitely have vague memories of my life in
Poland when I was very young in the neighborhood we lived in. But the actual flight over here,
I, I like remember just kind of snapshots of it, but I don't, I remember the first place we lived
here, but my first memories I feel like are when I was, um, when we were here and I just, I watched
my parents working so hard and they would get up in, you know, in, in Chicago where we were,
the winters are brutal. And so, and I think we moved around like January and I just remember
they would have to get up and scrape the snow off the car and the ice and they would just go off to
work. And, um, I feel like they just, they sacrifice so much. I mean, my parents were both
working six days a week just for us to live in this tiny little apartment and they slept on the
sofa bed. And my brother and I had a room cause my brother and I have a 12 year age difference.
So there were two bedrooms in the apartment and, and I feel like we were fortunate to have that.
And so my parents gave my brother a room and me a room and then they slept on the sofa.
What a sacrifice.
I mean, did you guys realize that at the time what a big deal that was or you just didn't
even think about it because you were kids?
It's a little bit of both.
I mean, I feel like at first I didn't realize it, but then when I went to school and I started
visiting my friends' family homes, I realized, oh, wow, like we're poor because my friends
were growing up in homes that were really beautiful.
like, you know, the middle class vision of the American dream with the white picket fence. And
a lot of my friends' moms did not have to work. So it was a single income household and both my
parents worked. So that's when I started to realize, oh, you know, it's, it's different.
And of course, when you're little, like, I feel like you can't help but feel shame, right? Like
you don't want to be different. You don't want to be considered different. And because I was an
immigrant, people said I was an alien. I was a foreign alien or whatever. And so, yeah, that,
That stuff is tough, but over time, it definitely helps you build a thicker skin.
But I always just wanted to fit in.
I feel like when you're little, you just want to fit in and be liked.
And I struggled with just how different my family was.
I wanted to hide it at the time, right?
Do you speak Polish?
So I speak very broken Polish.
And that's because I ended up learning two languages after Polish.
And so now when I go to speak Polish, I think of, I'm fluent in Italian.
So I think of an Italian word when I go to speak Polish, but I think if I was there for a week, it would all come back to me.
But my parents still speak Polish to each other and my brother speaks Polish to them.
So I understand it completely.
It's just when I go to speak it, I kind of speak.
Yeah.
So interesting.
Yeah.
What city were you guys from?
Like what area?
It's called Wooch.
Wooch?
Yeah.
It's in the very center.
It was kind of known for manufacturing and Poland has changed a lot.
Oh, yeah.
I think Poland's got the right idea right now, apparently.
I think it's happening in Europe.
A lot of good things are coming out of Poland, and a lot of bad things are coming out of everywhere else, what it seems.
Well, they learned their lesson, right?
So emerging out of communism, they took the country in a very different direction, and they wanted to open up a more free market and go the more capitalistic route.
And so you see it now, and the GDP has grown a lot, and people have a lot more freedom than they ever did.
And so my parents actually, they keep in touch with all of their friends from when they were younger.
And their friends have a very high quality of life.
And seeing what they went through here, it's just kind of, it's crazy when you think about it.
I'm very sad that two people who gave up so much and came here and then really struggled after the great financial crisis, like their friends are doing better.
In Poland now.
Yes.
It's wild.
Right.
But I mean, they still gave you and your brother an incredible life, it sounds like.
And, you know, you've been wildly successful.
So kudos to them for all the sacrifices they made.
Well, thank you.
I mean, I think that that's what's always driven me is to justify those sacrifices because I felt like I was my mom kind of felt like she was already too late.
Like, you know, she she had to start over in her 40s and in a new country.
And then she had to start over again in her late 50s after the great financial crisis.
And so I feel like she always saw me as kind of living out her American dream.
I take that very seriously.
That's what you want for your kids, though. I mean, that's, you know, part of the American dream is that your kids are better off than you were, right?
Yeah.
I have kids now and I want that. I want them to do even better than I've done.
Exactly. And I take great pride in that and I take that very seriously. So I want to make her proud and I want to take care of my parents. And that's always, that's been something that's motivated me my whole life.
Interesting. I'm a third generation Polak. My family was from a town called Valdaviche.
Okay.
Do you know where that's at?
I don't know where it is, but I've heard of it.
So my great grandfather was best friends with Pope John Paul II.
They were neighbors.
Oh, wow.
So that's all I really know about.
Paddle.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's cool.
Kind of wild, right?
Yeah, I mean, he was just revered.
And to this day, I mean, my grandma had photos of Pope John Paul.
Really?
Yeah.
And my mom went to the Vatican while she was pregnant with me and got blessed by Pope John Paul II.
Yeah.
So my family's a big fan of that Pope.
Wow.
So yeah, I guess he was from Valdivite.
Yeah.
And they were, I guess, right, they live next door neighbors.
So they would just play all the time.
That's amazing.
So that was kind of a cool story.
I didn't really think about it much when I was a little kid because I didn't really understand.
But my parents would tell me that.
So it's kind of a cool story.
Yeah, that's really cool.
So what happened in 2008?
Because I know you kind of wrote about it a little bit with your parents and family.
And how did that how did that what happened affect your family?
And did your parents got divorced because of it and I mean, pack some of that?
Yeah, I mean, it really took a toll.
So my parents, they did everything that the American dream tells you to do.
Right. Work hard and save money.
But they came from a place where you don't you don't invest in stocks.
Yeah. And during the early 2000s, as the housing bubble was forming,
everyone was encouraged to kind of like take out a second loan or take out debt. Right. So
leverage yourself to the extreme. Yeah. So my parents, my, it was my mom who wanted to start
her own business and she wanted to start a little Polish eatery and deli. And she took out a home
equity loan against the home. Um, and that's when, you know, when the, when the crisis actually
happened and when the bubble popped, the loan that she took out was now higher than the home
was actually worth. Oh my goodness. And then, and my dad lost his job. And so they, they couldn't
make the payments. So, so your dad was, he wasn't working at the bakery at the time. She was trying
to start that up as a startup. No, my dad was an electrician. Yeah. My mom was going to try to
start a business. Um, and so they went, they went under, they filed for bankruptcy and the bank got
the home. Um, and so they lost everything. And it's just so interesting to think back on that
time because I was in college and I went out of state and my parents, I think they just, they tried
to hide how bad it was.
Yeah.
And I think that that was out of protection.
Of course, they didn't want to put that on you and stress you out.
Exactly.
But also like there, you know, some shame comes with that.
Like, especially for, I think that when you're a man, right?
And taking care of a family.
For sure.
And providing.
And all of a sudden this, the rug gets pulled out from under you.
I feel like that takes a toll also in a very deep way of just, you've almost failed your
family.
That's what you end up feeling.
Yeah.
And so I think that those pressures really took a toll on their marriage and things were not the same since then.
And watching that really, it was painful.
It was hard because I grew up with two very loving parents and a very solid marriage that I got to watch and admire.
But money is like the number one thing that people fight about, right?
It's the thing that drives couples apart sometimes.
And I saw that firsthand.
And so I think for me it was just at the time I felt so frustrated like so many people do today And I graduated into that recession after the crisis And I watched my parents have to lose that house that I loved
I loved the little, it was a tiny little townhouse, but I loved it. And I thought, gosh,
like this system is so unfair. The American dream is a lie. And you graduate, you're racked with
student debt. You can't get a job that pays you enough to actually pay the bills. And you see
these bankers getting bailed out. So of course I wrote in the book, like I really resonated with
Occupy Wall Street. I was like, yeah, we should tax the rich. This is so unfair. This system is
taking advantage of the little guy and the little guy's basically my parents and me. Um, and so I
started my career in journalism with that as sort of the fuel and the fire to be an investigator.
And so I wanted to root out public corruption. So it's funny watching like now all the fraud
investigations that are happening because that was my beat.
It is.
Are you like seeing the level of like, I mean, I've always known it's been going on and I
feel like probably if you're a Bitcoiner, you've kind of known it's going on.
But like I was talking to Michelle Weekly the other day here on a podcast that we haven't
released it yet, but I coined this term fiat fraud.
So that's what we were calling it.
And it's like it's unbelievable the levels of fiat fraud that can exist.
Yes.
I mean, like I guess they caught some dude trying to flee back to Somalia with a million
dollars in the suitcase just like yesterday trying to go through dsa or whatever right i mean and then
they wouldn't found like lockers in the airport and there was million i mean this is absurd well
and i just want to say that following that story there were local outlets similar to the ones i
used to work at that covered this and it just didn't hit the national airwaves until that nick
um youtuber that was that brilliantly exposed it and it reached um kind of like international
headlines. But this, I mean, this is what local journalists are supposed to uncover.
They're supposed to be doing, but it just feels like they don't do any of it.
And I loved that aspect of journalism. I loved kind of following the money and kind of peering
behind what was actually happening behind those closed doors of city council. And so I was part
of multiple investigations that won awards because I was very determined to hold people accountable.
because again, like I saw it as just as, as honoring my parents' sacrifice too. I was like,
there are bad people that are taking advantage of the average worker and they should be held to
account. And, and journalists should be watchdogs. They shouldn't be lapdogs for the people in power.
They should be watchdogs. So I helped uncover some very big public corruption cases in California
that I'm very proud of. Um, but like everything's just scratching the surface. Cause like this
happening all over the country and basically the taxpayer dollars are just getting wasted or
siphoned off. It's mind blowing how much of it is happening. I mean, it's, did you have,
so when you worked at CNN, did you actually have freedom to kind of like do what you wanted to do?
What was the politics behind the scene? Were they pushing back on you on some things? Did
you get called off certain cases or did you have, did they just let you go?
So CNN was my first gig outside of, um, after grad school. And that was more of almost like
a training ground. Yeah. Like I, I worked all behind the scenes, not on camera. And I was
putting together sort of my portfolio to eventually be able to go on camera. Um, so I saw, I saw a lot
behind the scenes and I helped construct stories and do research and field production. And I wrote
some stories that went online, but I was not on camera as the actual reporter anchor. Um, and then
I went off to a series of networks and throughout my career, I mean, I've had people that I've worked
with that have been fantastic and who really represent the integrity that I think the journalism
industry should stand for. And I had others that I felt were very biased and, you know,
just kind of fell in line with what the powers or the agencies du jour would want them to say.
And that was very, very frustrating for me because I had stories that were silenced or censored.
That's unbelievable. The opposite of journalism. Literally, that's activism. That's not journalism.
And you can't do much about it. Like you feel very powerless and you end up finding other people in the newsroom that you kind of chat about it with. And you're sort of, you know, in a corner kind of being like, this is this is not okay. But that's why I really love being independent, because now I get to decide what is a meaningful story and I get to decide who to interview. And and I get to push back on some of the narratives that are kind of top down told to us. Right. Because at the end of the day, when I was a journalist,
we would look for the like facts and the evidence um from state agencies it's like what what the fda
says is fact what the cdc says it's like this appeal to authority that i think has an official
statement right and and i didn't know early on that you can't necessarily trust those yeah it's
like big brother you know you're kind of like what big brother says it's it's yeah it's it's an
interesting people's it melts people's brains to even think about that they're like well this
well the CDC said or this person said it's like you know why do you just believe in what they said
you know what is the motivations here to be are there potential blind spots or biases are there
potential conflicts of interest of course there is you know you have to really dig deeper to
understand things yeah well and I remember being young and like Wikipedia first came out and you
would research I think people can relate to this you you would research your your essays for school
right you had to do your bibliography with your sources and if it would be an official source if
it was a government agency.
Yeah.
Like if this came from the CIA, the NSA, the CDC, any three-letter word that came from
the government, it was like, this is fact.
And that's how you were taught in school.
And then it translated into the news career.
You're not wrong at all.
I think the trust in media right now is like at 12% or 20%.
It just keeps going.
It's like this downward.
If you look at it for the past 30 years, it's just like this downward trajectory.
Yeah. So like all of that social capital that or social trust that built up has just been totally erased. So nobody really now it's like when things are true, it's like, do we really even know they're true? You know what I mean? So it's hard to because I talk to a lot of people all the time and it's like, we don't believe anything. Well, like some stuff's got to be true, right? Like they tell you the weather, they tell you this, this story that happened is a fact. And then boom, they throw in a little propaganda. I think that's kind of how they've gotten away with it for so long.
Well, and it was funny because I worked in an industry that my parents were naturally very skeptical of because they came from, again, a communist country where the media was controlled by the state. And so they looked at anything on TV as potential propaganda, whereas I really had to learn that on my own.
You know, the crazy thing is, though, that's how it should be. You shouldn't just trust. I mean, that's what the media is for. You shouldn't just trust the corporation or trust the government like the media is there. They should be there to hold these big powers to account, whether it's a government, whether it's a corporation, whatever it is. Right. And I think that if we look at the way that a lot of the media organizations operate now, it's like we're following some of the money trail. It's like, wait, 95 percent of their budget comes from the government.
I mean, is that a real business? Is that a, you know what I mean? Like that to me is insane. They got these NGOs that are non-governmental organizations, yet all of the funding comes from the government. So are they NGOs or are they just an extension of the government?
Right. And you really don't see as much diversity of thought. And if you peel back these institutions, they all vote the same way. They support the same political candidates. And so how do you trust them when there isn't? Like if people think that diversity is important, then they should agree that diversity of opinion is a key component to that, a diverse way of people looking at things.
So a newsroom should have like a balance of different political views as opposed to being 98 percent one way or another.
Of course. Yeah. Have you ever seen that clip where like all of the news stations are saying the exact same thing at the exact same time, just all repeating the exact word for word thing?
What is that and why is it like that?
So this is actually interesting.
So news gathering and news organizations, when you talk about TV, I was always focused
in the TV world.
So newspapers were like this too, but I'm specifically going to focus on TV.
It was much more decentralized in the past.
So you would have stations that are actually family owned.
Like a family could own a broadcast station and then they purchased the ability to run
ABC or NBC or whatever the call tags are on it.
That started to consolidate more and more.
And you can blame fiat for that, right?
We've seen it in the food system.
We've seen it in pretty much everything across the board when it comes to our economy.
So the news organizations start to consolidate as well.
They get bought up.
We're seeing this in private equity now, right?
Like all the dentist offices are being bought up by one private equity firm or all the vets
are.
Well, in news, they began to consolidate.
So that example is one where I think that was Sinclair Broadcasting.
So you have an owner of many stations across the country, many affiliates that range from the north, south, west, all over, but they're getting the same messaging from the top of all of our anchors are going to read this script.
So it all funnels into the top.
And that's a problem.
Again, when you centralize anything, you introduce a lot of incentives for potentially corruption, right?
Potential for manipulation.
It's much easier to manipulate.
Especially when you have one governing body.
It's just game theory.
It's basic game theory.
Yeah.
As opposed to having many different stations competing in this robust kind of ecosystem that has diversity among the different markets and represents each individual little area.
So that's what happened.
I mean, you consolidated.
All these stations are owned by one company, and the people that run the company decide
what gets on the airwaves.
So if you're an anchor, you have no control over what you're going to say?
Like you just have to read the script that they give you?
Yes and no.
So most anchors do not write their scripts.
At the big level, at the network level, when you see the major news broadcasts, a lot of
the anchors are also managing editors, which means they do work with the writers and producers and
at least edit the scripts, if not. That's what I would think. But like when you watch this video,
it's like they literally verbatim repeated the same lines. Like, I mean, that's crazy.
So I've worked at various different news networks and I've had, you know, I also did internships.
It really honestly ranged. There were some anchors who walked in and literally just read whatever.
It was like Anchorman, right? Like whatever came up on the screen.
Burgundy up there. Yes. And sometimes they would kind of read it through at least beforehand,
but some would literally just read it off the prompter. Others really took the time to help
write it, to help craft it, to mentor the staff that was actually producing and writing. Because
usually like if you're starting out in the news business and TV, it's a lot of very young people
behind the scenes, like literally emerging from college and journalism school, and they're writing
the stories. And then you have anchors that have been there for decades. And so the anchors actually,
I mean, their role is to kind of mentor and help the producers sort of understand what works and what storytelling really is and how to construct a great story.
So they should work in tandem and one should teach the other.
But sometimes you don't see that.
Sometimes they walk in and they just read whatever's written for them.
That's wild.
I mean, even when I have my team help me make questions and script and stuff, I edit, I put notes, I won't read some of the questions.
I'll highlight one that I really like
and change the way it's written.
I mean I just it doesn seem from what I saw it was like you don see any of that It just like this line from hundreds of stations I mean it a good question It gave me goosebumps watching that thing And it was like these guys are just reading you know it was like literally a hundred Ron Burgundy just like
yes, and accept this propaganda.
A lot of affiliates are owned by like a small, a small group or one organization or one network that controls a lot of different stations across the country.
But yeah, I mean, I have stories for days because the TV industry is a fascinating one.
And it's interesting, too, because I learned that the best anchors were the people who were actually out in the field at one point, the people who did serve as reporters and they knew how to, like, dig up a story and report on it and do the interviews.
Because sometimes when you go in, like, there will be situations where you just you land in the anchor desk very quickly and then you move up only as an anchor.
So you haven't been a reporter. You don't know what it takes to get out there and really dig up a story or report on one in the field.
And I feel like those people struggle because they only know how to be in a studio and read off a teleprompter.
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In secret group chats and back channels, it's a total wild west.
Yeah, it really is.
John, when did you get here?
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Not all million dollars are equal, right?
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now back to the show going back to natalie in 2008 ish time um you know obviously when you were
thinking about the whole occupy wall street thing it was like it kind of i i was like i didn't i was
in high school it's like i wasn't paying attention i was playing football like i wasn't paying attention
to anything that happened in the economy market i knew nothing about nothing like literally nothing
i knew football and sports and that was it um but when occupy wall street started happening it seemed
like the way i think about it is like everybody's everybody's like kind of saying okay something's
wrong here. It's like the right diagnosis. But then there's like two prescriptions. One, it seems
to be like, you know, Bitcoin and, you know, libertarianism and freedom and capitalism and
not crony capitalism, but real capitalism. And then the other one over here is kind of like
socialist and communism. Those are like the two roads. What got you? You started heading down this
road because you were really empathizing with that. But what got you back to like what got you
to come back and kind of think, OK, maybe this isn't the solution? When did you hear about Bitcoin?
like walk me through that whole process. Well, it took me a while. It really did,
because you have to understand, I went off to college wide eyed, you know, believing in the
American dream. And if I just work hard, I'll make everything happen. I was very determined
and I was going to get the good grades and I was going to do the internships.
And I spent two of the years of my undergrad studying in Italy and traveling a lot. And so I,
at the time, it's so funny because I ended up becoming an investigative reporter after the
great financial crisis before I graduated, before my parents went through that, all I wanted to do
was do Anthony Bourdain's job. Like I just wanted to be a travel. I wanted to be Samantha Brown
meets Anthony Bourdain. Like just let me travel and eat food everywhere. Like that's how I viewed
the world. I was like, anything's possible. And then that event shaped my family. And then it
totally changed my worldview. I went from feeling hope and positivity about the future.
You talk about that in your book a lot, that idea of hope.
Yeah, to feeling like, oh my gosh, like we're-
Maybe this is all a lie.
Yeah, like this system's rigged.
The system is so unfair and they will steal from us when they need to.
And so we need to create guardrails to prevent that.
So I thought like so many people do today that the solution is more government.
Like for a government to come in and prevent these greedy institutions from taking from us.
Yeah.
I didn't realize that these institutions, the banks are married to the government.
Yeah.
And that they're literally-
It's like this cronyism.
That's what it is. It's crony capitalism. That's happening.
And I didn't, like, I never was taught, oh, you know, this is the history of money and here's why the money supply matters and this is what inflation actually is and this is why prices go up.
I never, I was a good student, but I never learned any of that.
And so here I am.
Well, they don't teach you that for a reason because, you know, the whole scheme depends on you staying within the lines of the system.
You know, you're kind of, it's like the line in your book.
I loved this line.
And it was like the two fish are going and the older fish comes by and he goes, how's
the water, boys?
And the fish go on and say, what the fuck is water?
Well, it's what the hell is water?
Yeah.
So like that's what most people you deal with are like in this fishbowl and you don't realize,
oh my God.
It's like that matrix where it's like, here's the red pill, here's the blue pill, right?
It's kind of like.
Well, so that, I mean, that was essentially, I felt like I wanted to hold the powerful accountable,
but I came at it from an angle of there's corruption and we need to regulate it.
or we need a good actor to come in and redistribute the wealth and make it more fair so that the
working class has a shot. So I was reporting a lot during that time. And I felt like I was meeting a
lot of people that were very similar to my family, just like struggling. And they were noticing that
the cost of living was going up. And the people that were in power in whatever city I was reporting
in, they seemed to always, you know, curry favors with the right people and they weren't able to
enrich themselves, but really at the expense of the working person that was doing everything right.
And so I thought, this is so unfair. And I started to become not a negative person,
because I feel like I've always been a very hopeful, positive person, but I felt scared
about the future. I felt like maybe I won't achieve my dream of having a home and being
able to take care of my family. Maybe I'm going to be working until I'm dead, basically. And when
do I stop to be able to have a family? Because I just, I felt like it was constantly a grind.
I can never save. And I didn't know to invest. I didn't know to be opening up a brokerage account
and like putting my money into stocks or trying to, you know, take out a mortgage. I just,
you, you aren't taught these things. And so when I, I was, I was exposed to Bitcoin in 2017 for the
first time and I dismissed it. Like so many people, I was like, you know what? I'm just going to take
a flyer on this as a lottery ticket. Like maybe these crazy folks that are telling me about it
are right. I'll put a little bit of money in, but I'm probably going to lose it. And it wasn't until
I started reading Bitcoin books and listening to Bitcoin podcasts that my life changed. And I think
that's one of the reasons why I'm doing what I'm doing and why I wrote my own book, because a
Bitcoin book changed my life. A Bitcoin show changed my life. I started to look at the world
in a different way. And it ultimately led me to realizing what the actual problem is and realizing
that there's this really hopeful path forward if we all embrace it. And so we have to tell the world
about it. And so I'm very grateful to now be working in Bitcoin. Yeah, no, I mean, I am actually
your book. I'm going to recommend to all the people. Like when I read the book, I was expecting,
I mean, I didn't know what to expect. I just open up a Bitcoin book and I start reading like,
you know what I mean? And when I open it up, I'm like, oh my God, this is like probably now my
number one book for like people that are new to Bitcoin, which I thought was awesome because
there's just so many books that are like, I usually recommend the Bitcoin standard and I
love Larry's book. I give it to, you know, all the boomers, but just for the average person,
like the ideas and concepts are so simplified and so good that it appeals to everybody,
which is amazing. Thank you. Well, that was the goal. I hope that was the goal. Yeah. I really,
I really appreciate that because I too have struggled with something. I love all the Bitcoin
books that are out there and that I've read. And with each book that I read, I felt like there was
some part of it or some theme or the way they told the story where I was like, oh my gosh,
this part is so good. You know, like I love, they explain the technical component so great.
They explain the monetary history so great. I wanted to kind of combine all of that and
simplify it as much as possible for the average person so that someone in the mainstream world
that comes from no finance background, no economics background, no computer science
background, they could just pick it up and really start from the beginning and feel like they
understand at least why Bitcoin is here and that they should take it a little bit more seriously.
I feel like mine is a very good entry point before you read all of the other really critical
Bitcoin books. It's just a really good, simple 101. Yeah, no, I think that you hit the nail on
the head with that. It's super easy to absorb. And I had a couple of people read like the first
or second chapter and they're like, oh my God, that made sense to me. Which was awesome. I have
a lot of family members that are like, oh, you know, you know about all that Bitcoin stuff,
but I don't understand any of it. Here, read this. Thank you. Well, you heard it here first.
You actually also said something really interesting earlier, which was like, you know,
you just took a flyer on Bitcoin and you're like, you probably saw the price go up. And that way,
you were like, oh, what's happening here? Is that kind of what happened?
Well, I got in when the price was like three or four thousand and I rode that thing up to 20,000
and it crashed back down to three. So that was my first experience of the 2017 bull run. And
I'm proud of myself for not selling. I mean, I was so confused though. I'm like, what is this thing?
Am I crazy? Do I buy more? But you just, you don't know. But that volatility got you kind of
like paying attention. Here's what's happening. It was kind of. Oh, for sure. For sure. And for
many years, again, like I felt like I was intrigued by it and I thought it was interesting,
but it wasn't until someone presented the history of money to me and inflation really is that I start,
it started to click. And I was like, oh, this is a really big deal. It's really interesting. Yeah.
Like this is a breakthrough. And this is exact, this represents the perfect kind of money that we
need in order to have a more productive and abundant society. And so we, like this came
at the perfect time, really. I mean, there's so many amazing things about Bitcoin where you kind
of got to wonder, I mean, how did this come at a point where I really feel like we've reached an
inflection. Like, I mean, if Bitcoin wasn't around, what would the solution be? I mean,
would we all just be gold bugs and say, oh, we have to take a step back?
I mean, yeah, gold failed for a reason, right? And Bitcoin tackled a lot of those failings,
those short termings of gold. And I like gold. I think it's a good asset. But, you know,
Bitcoin as money is superior, you know, has better characteristics and properties.
I think it's interesting that like there's a quote that's like Bitcoin is the looks like a Ponzi
scheme, but it's actually like it's like it looks like a Ponzi scheme, but it's actually the one of
the most ingenious inventions of mankind. Yeah, it solves the Ponzi scheme, actually.
I can't remember exactly what the quote is, but Bitcoin looks like a get rich quick scheme,
but it's one of the most ingenious inventions of mankind in human history or something like that.
Once you peel back the layers. What I find is interesting is that even I think Satoshi,
like initially on the Bitcoin talk forums, he would talk about like the monetary supply and how
the supply shock would affect the price. And that would bring in more people because that's like,
because like, look, we can't pay for our marketing team.
So this is the marketing event.
So I think it's interesting.
I know a lot of people that have just like,
I just tell people get some exposure,
like, you know, obviously don't,
you don't have to put everything into it,
but just get a little exposure.
So then you'll naturally pay attention more.
When you own something, you pay attention to it more
and you see oh wow it went up 300 over two years or whatever people start paying attention And then you start learning more That the key right Get people to sustain that learning and education and learn more and more and more
Yeah.
Right.
Nine more minutes because I know you have another podcast coming up.
Yeah.
I'm going to go to our second page.
What do you think about all the political stuff that's happening today? There's a lot of
polarization with the Trump administration. They just seized Maduro. There's 600,000 Bitcoin,
supposedly. I don't know if the U.S. sees that or not. What are your thoughts on nation states
adopting Bitcoin? I mean, there's so much happening. I feel like a year passes with
every day of the news cycle. It's a lot to keep up with. I try to digest and share as much as I
can in a neutral, constructive way on the news block. But it is a lot to process. I mean,
one thing that I wish is that people would recognize that even if you do ascribe to one
political party, it doesn't mean you have to agree with everything that they do. So I see a lot of
hypocrisy on both sides, really, right? It's like, it's okay if my leader does it, but it's not if
yours does it. And just a lot of shouting back and forth. And this is why I think something like
Bitcoin is so important because it sees through some of these more superficial symptoms and it
digs deeper to what the actual problem is, which is that our financial system is so broken and it
offers a special advantage to those that are connected to it and those close to the money
printer and the Cantillon effect. And everyone else is kind of fighting for scraps at this point.
And so I think it breeds a natural sense of frustration, especially for young people who
now demonize things like capitalism because they associate everything with corporate greed.
Phonyism, really.
Yeah.
And they don't realize that we have not had a true and free market.
Yeah.
And I really thank Jeff Booth for helping clarify so much of that for me because I still, I
mean, even in the last couple of years, I was like, well, America represents capitalism
and that's why we should embrace it.
but you can't have capitalism and a free market when you have centralization of the money supply,
right? So like if you have a system with a central bank that controls the money and can
expand the supply and issues the reserve currency, how can you have a truly free market? Because
you're essentially creating a system of socialism for the banks. Well, the crazy part is that money
is the most important good and asset in all of society.
Yeah.
And like we naturally accept that
we don't have a communist board
that sets the price of milk,
sets the price of eggs,
sets the price of anything.
Yet for the most important good
that funds everything else,
that has everything to do,
we accept a communist board
that sets the price of money.
Exactly.
That to me is just absurd.
Right.
So of course you're going to get angry at capitalism.
Of course you are
because if you see the people at the very top,
politicians becoming wealthier
than, you know, like you would think that a brain surgeon has like a mansion, right? Not
a Congress person that has like a property worth $40 million, but that's the reality. And we have
bankers and people on wall street that have just made so, so, so much money. And everyone else is
like, what about me? I can't afford my groceries. I can't afford to put my kid through school.
So of course they think, well, if that's capitalism, I don't like that. And I want
something different. And I think it's natural to just kind of say, well, socialism, socialism is
that warm, fuzzy, we're going to take care of each other, right? We're going to take from the rich and
redistribute. But the problem is that it does, it encroaches on freedoms that are very core to
society. Freedoms like the ability to protect your right to private property. And that's one thing
that I think everyone, that's why everyone should study history and study economics because we are
moving into a direction where people literally are okay with the idea of not people not owning
private property anymore. Like we'll all just have collective housing and collective work.
No, no, no. That leads to literally revolution and death. Yeah. I mean, you're, uh, you know,
your family comes from that and can expound on that, you know, and you've experienced,
your family has experienced that. I think, I think Thomas Sowell has a great quote about this. It's
like a lot of people look at policies based on their intention, not their outcome. And like,
yet, while it sounds great in execution, it fails every time because it fundamentally
misunderstands human nature. The second people are in power and have these positions,
very more, I mean, not everybody's a bad person, but there's the gray area. And when you,
when you're taking from a pot of money and you don't know who it's really affecting,
I think this is part of the big problem with everything that's happening is all this grift
that's occurring is that there's no like victim. It's, oh, it's the government you're stealing from.
So you don't really understand that the government is funded by the people and it screws everybody
equally. And there's no accountability. No accountability. Like these people continue to
fail up even if they have destroyed the city that they preside, they end up getting an even bigger
political role. And that's what's so crazy. And so again, I feel like we point the blame at the
wrong things. And if people can assign greed to something like a corporation, how do you not
convey that to, well, the government's basically a version of a public kind of corporation. It's
filled with people that are inherently corruptible and also greedy. And you think that they're going
to manage money. And they don't have a profit incentive. They have no profit incentive,
at least a shareholder, at least somebody running a company. If they lose money, they get fired,
right? The government is like, no, you get a promotion and you get more money if you fail.
The incentive structure is so broken. I mean, you look at Minnesota is just like a microcosm of the
whole United States, but the highlight is being shown on that now. And the level of the breadth of
the corruption and fraud and theft that's occurring there is like, it's mind boggling.
It's like, this guy's, we're living in two different realities. I mean, there's Nick Shirley's
going around and showing 50 daycares that are each getting $3 million and nobody's in sight. I mean,
that is insane. That's crazy. I know. Right? And it just blows my mind.
Well, this is why I think Bitcoin is so important because it imposes a system where the incentives
reward value and punish grift. It exposes grift and it keeps you more accountable. It introduces
consequences. Consequences, yeah. So it's like with the current system that operates on fiat
fraud. In a Bitcoin standard, a Bitcoin system, everything's on chain. You can see stuff. There
is no way to filter off and to print a bunch of money to pay $700 billion to a bunch of fraudsters.
Right. Well, and if you issue paper Bitcoin, that bubble will pop and you cannot get bailed out.
Yeah, there's no bailout. Exactly. Which I think is a more realistic, you know, physics based, mathematical based, reality based way for the world to operate on that Bitcoin standard where there is consequences, there is accountability.
Exactly.
I think it's super interesting. Let me, I know we got to wrap this up here in a second, but let me ask you one more question and then you can give some advice to our listeners. But I wanted to ask you about, because you're on the board of Seminar Scientific too. What's that like? What's your responsibility as a board member?
Well, so I won't have an active role anymore because the merger just went through.
Really?
It's really exciting.
Yeah.
So now they're going to be, I think, the 11th biggest treasury with over 12,000 Bitcoin.
So they merged with Strive.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I think people are really excited about that.
Strive is a company that seems to be going also down the path of issuing these preferreds so that you have essentially like a savings account backed by Bitcoin.
Interesting.
These dividends that you can rely on, the digital credit that Michael Saylor introduced into the market, they are really embracing that with a product called SATA.
And they have high hopes and big plans, so I'm excited for the team and very grateful that I got a chance to be a part of Semler.
Eric Semler is someone that I really, really admire.
I think that he makes his father proud who started the company.
And it was once, not a lot of people know this, but it was actually like the best performing stock for like five years from 2016 to 2020.
Yeah, it literally was like the number one stock.
No way.
It outperformed MicroStrategy and everything else.
Because of what his father built in the medical device world.
So yeah, there's a lot of hope that that will also translate.
There's a lot of plans to keep that side of the business healthy as well because Vivek has a background in biotech.
And Vivek, he was the person who started Strive.
So I'm really excited to see what they do.
Yeah, I'm excited.
They've got a big board with some great folks on it, so I'm proud of them.
I'll close you out with this question.
You talk a lot about in your book about Bitcoin and restoring your sense of hope.
When you fully started understanding Bitcoin, how did that affect your time preference, your thinking, and what advice do you have for the average person?
Well, I went from feeling like a lot of people do today, which is that I was kind of living paycheck to paycheck, surviving, not knowing how I was going to afford the future, not knowing if I would be able to stop and build something like a family.
And a lot of that started to go away when I learned about Bitcoin.
I started to, instead of stress, feel a sense of motivation and hope.
And that's, I think, a driving force that has led people to create and build amazing things.
Like if you don't have hope, then I feel like your life is one where it's hard to get out of a sort of a negative feedback loop, right?
You end up thinking, well, how am I going to survive?
What am I going to do?
And I think it brings out kind of these tense, angry qualities of any person if you don't have hope.
And Bitcoin does the opposite.
It fills you with a sense of responsibility, agency.
Like you just want to learn everything.
You want to contribute.
You want to give back.
You want to be of value.
And so I think Bitcoin is something that represents really the best in us to be able to solve a problem.
And to your point, like money is really the most important thing that we could possibly address because it's how we measure value and exchange value all over the world with one another based on our different backgrounds and what we can offer each other.
And we need to be able to price it appropriately.
We need to know what money, when you're borrowing it, should actually cost.
Like what the free market should set the interest rate.
And we should be able to compete with each other on a level playing field.
And we haven't for so long.
The United States has had a massive advantage compared to other countries being the global reserve currency.
And then here, when you zoom in, the people that are issuing the money and the people that are closest to the money printer have benefited tremendously.
So it's just a very lopsided system.
One that has, it's been to the disadvantage of so many average people that are just trying to do their best and work and provide for their families.
And so I want to level the playing field.
I want to give people hope.
Anyone can learn Bitcoin.
I wrote Bitcoin is for everyone because I do think it is for anyone and everyone to embrace.
And, you know, even if you don't understand it, just take it slow.
Buy a little bit.
Send it.
You know, play around with it and get out there and, you know, watch the podcasts that are out there.
Watch.
You love books.
Read a book.
If you like podcasts, watch a podcast.
There are so many ways to learn about Bitcoin and all of them are for free.
So, yeah.
This has been a fascinating conversation.
I wish we had more time.
Natalie Renaud.
Yeah, thank you.