Hey, hey, welcome to the Bitcoin Matrix.
I'm your host, Cedric Youngelman.
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In this episode, I chat with Bram Canstein, host of the Bitcoin for Millennials podcast
and a longtime internet tinkerer turned bitcoiner.
We get into why millennials feel boxed in by fiat nihilism
and how Bitcoin reframes retirement, time preference, and personal agency.
We also explore cypherpunk roots versus Wall Street adoption,
the upcoming digital euro, and why AI's energy future actually pairs with Bitcoin.
mining. If you want a grounded generational lens on why one Bitcoin is one Bitcoin matters
and what that means for your next decade, this episode is for you. If you want to get in touch
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this would really help us get the word out. And now, let's enter the Bitcoin Matrix.
with Bram Canstein.
What is real?
How do you define real?
You can't jump into cash.
Cash is trash.
What do you do?
You get out.
Bram Canstein is the host of the Bitcoin for Millennials podcast
and an advisor to early writers.
Bram, welcome to the Bitcoin Matrix podcast.
How are you, sir?
I'm really good, man.
Like I just said, this was a long time coming, so I'm happy to be on.
So I appreciate it.
And I think first off, I just wanted to give you a shout out and also an instruction to people watching.
Like, I think you deserve more subscribers.
You have been a big inspiration on my journey and conversations that you've had.
And it was actually Bob Burnett on one of your episodes that said something that actually triggered me into starting my own podcast.
So I just wanted to share that with you before we start.
And also share that with people listening that I think if you're into Bitcoin and you think it should exist in the world, you should do something about it.
And I always say that the action is the inspiration.
And you have been a part of my inspiration.
So I just want to share that with you.
I really appreciate that.
I remember you reached out to me on August 28, 2023.
Here.
So that's how long we're waiting.
So this is awesome.
We got to actually meet in person for a few minutes in, I think it was Vegas.
Yeah.
Super fun.
What did you think about that?
That was my first time going to that conference,
which was mind-boggling to see that many people.
I've been to the Amsterdam conference.
That is like 3,000, 4,000 people.
I've been to Madeira.
It's 2,000 people.
That's already a lot of people, right?
That's really when I saw, hey, there's people in real life
that are also interested in this, right?
It's not just people on the internet.
But Vegas is insane just to see that amount of people
that are all into Bitcoin and wanting to learn.
And yeah, it was fun meeting.
Oh my gosh, that was a, I mean, what is that?
25,000 people inside of Vegas.
So it's, you know, a huge,
the biggest Bitcoin conference in the world on steroids
because you're in the biggest fiat city in the world.
Yeah, I could, this was really the meme,
you know, the European mind cannot comprehend.
That was literally me.
I think on day three, I had to, at like 1 p.m., I had to go to my hotel room, just lay in my bed for two hours.
Like my mind couldn't process all the insanity anymore.
But yeah, no, I think it's just cool to see where Bitcoin came from, right?
Like it was first very obscure.
Now it's this, I don't even know how to call it in Vegas.
I think it's a strange place to do this, but it's actually also very funny that it's like in a peak fiat place, right?
So there's some humor in that as well.
But again, like I said, it's just very cool to see a lot of people that are into Bitcoin.
And I think that's also something that I talk about a lot.
Like, this is such a big idea, man.
Like, this is actually what Bob Burnett said in that conversation with you that inspired me so much.
like yeah this is this is the biggest thing that you can spend your time on and when he said that
i just realized yeah i'm gonna think about this for the rest of my life it's not that like in five
years i'm gonna be like well that that was it like i'm not gonna pay attention anymore because i think
this is something that will uh deserve my attention for the rest of my life right so why why not try
to to contribute to that and i think uh that is also what you know i i really think people before
me that also had a podcast like you and before like that is what we're doing like every year or
every few so months there's someone that is like okay i'm gonna i'm gonna do something creatively
i'm gonna try to reach people with my own voice and my own thoughts around bitcoin and i think
that it's just so incredibly cool to see that that is growing and it's also very rewarding to be
a little part of that right like walking around on the conference i had so many people that were
like hey listen to your stuff and i'm like yeah i'm just a dude talking about bitcoin right like
it's just it's just very rewarding and fun that it helps people along the way and that's also why
i think it's just so important to to for me to give that back to you uh because i know uh
what an inspiration that could be to and motivation to just continue to do that right so um
yeah super cool to see where where we're at now yeah for sure uh i mean i think we just need more
and more voices especially as uh the asset class gets bigger and bigger and people like hearing
from voices they relate to so uh i want to talk about you know maybe where you came from
what was your background before bitcoin and what was your rabbit hole story yeah so i've always been
i just think like an internet geek like i think we got internet when i was like 12 13
and uh yeah just started computering i always called it computering and like being on the
internet trying to figure out what was uh yeah go going on like how how can i use this i don't know
i just always had a natural interest in that just just curious about that and i think only later i
learned what i really enjoyed is basically finding new ideas like what are people spending their time
on right like uh what are they inspired to do and and and and then especially in like the digital
realm right so yeah what kind of product services startups you know uh apps what are people building
and so i remember when being like 15 16 um i was very deep into napster right like just uh
downloading songs i had like these towers with with cd burners and uh you know these empty cases
and like stickers for on the CDs.
And I like made my own mixtapes
and I sold them in school.
And then from the money I earned,
we troupe parties and just like,
just trying to be a little entrepreneurial
with some sort of internet knowledge, right?
I felt like I had an edge
because no one else was creating the mixtapes.
I had a friend who did like illegal games
and selling that like the first GTA
and stuff like that.
And we were just always like messing around
on the internet and I think that never really went away I think I'm still doing that um and and
it's just really fun to see not only how the internet grew but how I have a similar feeling
with bitcoin like how big it became like it felt fun in the beginning like it's fun it's nice it's
something quirky new whatever and I'm just fucking around and then in some way shape or form it became
super big right and i think i see a lot of similarities with that because also yeah when
you were online in in the beginning there there wasn't really that much also like information
right and that just grew and grew and grew and what we just mentioned like with the podcast i
think and that's then maybe the jump to my bitcoin story like i found bitcoin in 2014 i had a friend
send me a video uh where just like an animation video that that explained bitcoin just factually
like technically and uh was sent to me by a friend who said like hey i think this is this
is something for you and i instantly saw it in a sense that i i thought okay this is a money for
for the internet that makes a lot of sense you know i always saw the internet as kind of like
the the democratization of information like i i could read you know stuff that someone on the
other side of the world was writing like i could i could get their thoughts and that was
really, of course, like a profound shift from just reading a book, right, where you can obviously also
read the thoughts of someone else. But this was kind of instant. So I remember like back in that
time, so let's say 2006, 2005, whatever, like I was already following people that were kind of like
blogging or writing on a website before I think it was called a blog even. And yeah, I always
thought there was something magical, like it felt like you could learn more than whatever was
provided to you in school right uh that that that was very confining you just had a certain amount
of books etc like i i sound like an old person but this is not that long ago right and so he sent me
that video i was like okay this is a money for the internet and back then uh yeah you know like i was
a student i thought okay i saw these charts number go up obviously i thought okay this is going to
make me super rich so i i day traded for like three months with two friends and i think that
After three months, I remember laying in bed one day and just hallucinating, like seeing the charts in the room.
And I was like, well, okay.
Trading is not for me.
I'm too emotional to be a trader.
So I just held on to it and also looked at a lot of other things, right?
Like I think in 2014, I even did a presentation on Litecoin at a big bank, for example.
And I thought Litecoin was the better Bitcoin, right?
And just, you know, from there on, just starting to follow it.
And I think at the same time, so 2014, 14, I got out of college and I started working
in, yeah, like the internet startup space, basically.
So my background for the last 10, 12 years has been in working with and also building
like digital products, startups.
And so I've seen a lot of ideas and I tried out a lot of digital products.
So eventually, I think I kind of created this taste for, yeah, understanding how a digital product, you know, should work, how to make it a business, go to market, like all these things.
And that's been kind of the central thing that central topic that I followed.
And so I started at like an investment type of company.
I worked at a big media firm.
Like I said, I worked at a bank, two banks.
Actually, I did a lot of my own ideas, failed at a lot, sold a few along the way.
Just, yeah, again, messing around on the internet.
And along the way, there was always this Bitcoin thing.
And at one point, and this is always what I share, like, you know, I bought between 100 and 300, but I sold everything at 4,000.
And that was amazing, obviously.
Felt amazing because I was still a student.
Looking back, I just didn't get it, you know.
So I was happy at the time, but obviously there was a bad decision because I now have way, way less than before.
But I also think that eventually it's part of it, right?
Like when you fumble, you get humble, basically.
So when like Ethereum came out, I found that at like, I don't know, $7, like dove into that, the whole ICO stuff, tried out NFTs, all these things.
But along the way, this Bitcoin thing still never really left, right?
And so I do think I got distracted with all the tech stuff and, like I said, the NFT, crypto, whatever stuff.
And then, yeah, just slowly realizing that after I paid attention to crypto for two, two and a half years,
that I didn't really see anything being built.
So, yeah, there was a lot of stuff going on, you know, this NFT stuff, whatever.
You could say there is some sort of value, like entertainment, whatnot, trade.
but I didn't see any products being built.
And that was always the premise of crypto, right?
Like this is DeFi, new world, blah, blah, blah.
And then I don't really know what triggered me,
but I just slowly got back into Bitcoin.
Well, one trigger was when I worked at this bank,
this was 2017, 18, I was into Bitcoin.
I had a mortgage.
I was 30 and I thought like okay I know what I'm doing and then I had a colleague tell me did you
know that the money in the bank is not yours and I was like what are you talking about and and then
we had lunch this was during a lunch and we talked for an hour and he explained like fractional
reserve banking and all that stuff and I just remember walking away from that conversation
feeling like an idiot like okay I'm I think I'm doing all these things but basically I have no clue
And I think that was a big trigger for me to slowly but surely and definitely over the last five years, like going super deep on like the economical and financial like dimensions of Bitcoin, which only then showed me, you know, the reason of existence for Bitcoin, which when you like the internet or when you like technology, and this is also what I think is so funny, like from people in Silicon Valley, for example, that still don't understand Bitcoin.
Like that is just one angle or one dimension of probably 10 to 12, 15 dimensions, perhaps that you can look at Bitcoin, basically, right?
And I think that is also what I saw in my career.
Like you can build whatever you want with the current technology, but it's about what you build.
And in order to figure out what you should build you should understand the problem or the need that you fulfilling for the people that you building your product or service for right and so it was actually quite funny that I knew how that mechanism worked but only until I kind of like dove into the economic and financial dimensions of Bitcoin
It was when I really saw that this is a very special thing, right?
Like the birth of a new money, the monetization of a new money,
The attempt to change the technology we use for money on a global scale is probably the biggest endeavor for any technology, right?
And that's also why you should have this long time frame because it's going to take a long time before more people see it, right?
Especially because the whole enchantment of fiat money is also extremely strong and people don't want to see that they have a problem, let alone see a possible solution.
And so that was one of my tricks to just go down deeper.
And then, yeah, slowly but surely traded all of the crypto nonsense stuff I had just basically back into Bitcoin.
And, you know, started watching podcasts, reading books.
And at one moment when I realized, okay, I can basically just move everything I own from a system that is not designed for me that I could never truly understand.
where I'm never really even the true owner
of what I think I own, what is my wealth.
Yeah, I can just move that to a system
that is objectively better,
that I can actually verify for myself
of which all the information is publicly available.
And yeah, have a seat in the stadium
to watch this monetization of this new money
basically unfold.
And when I saw someone tweeting that,
like if you think Bitcoin is going to be something
you should have a seat in the stadium
I was like yeah
that's what I actually should do
and that's basically when I moved
and I think from there on
I just got obsessed with it
basically
I wake up and I think about Bitcoin
and I talk about Bitcoin every day
and then
two years ago
watching your podcast with Bob
Bob saying that
I was like yeah I want to contribute to this thing
But what should I do?
And I think in the same time period, I had different calls with people I knew from the internet that were into Bitcoin.
And I had some moments where I was like, oh, yeah, it would have been fun to just record this and share this with other people.
And in that same period, I had conversations with generational peers, you know, about money, Bitcoin and stuff like that.
And they weren't seeing it.
Like smart people that I admired weren't seeing it.
And I was like, yeah, well, that is so crazy, right?
Because it's bringing me so much.
And I've also been a lurker quite some time on like the millennials subreddit.
And like all the things that those people described,
they're all the nihilism, like not having children,
all the struggles and all these things.
I always felt like I don't have that.
And I think a big attribute to that is,
or a big part of that can be attributed to adopting Bitcoin
and having a certain positivity towards the future.
And so that's kind of like the moment where I decided,
okay, I'm not going to be a lurker or a consumer anymore.
I really want to try to contribute to this thing.
And then, yeah, that's kind of how the podcast started.
And that kind of amplified my obsession
because now I cannot really stop thinking and talking about it.
Yeah, so let's get into it.
I want to talk about millennials
or just generational kind of perspective on Bitcoin.
let's maybe talk about why are the millennials so nihilistic right now and obviously we're
painting in broad strokes but i think from what i now see it's that you know our our parents
told us a certain story because that was their story right like how they came of age and went
through life and um you know got a job and a house and a mortgage and and a relationship and a family
etc and then you know like that that path that has been sold to us i just say sold with with with
air quotes yeah that doesn't really exist anymore right and so people are running into that and not
really understanding why that isn't possible anymore and i think that is probably one of the
biggest crimes in a sense that yeah people are now very confused actually right like you see a lot
of people are pointing to a lot of other things outside of themselves from the greedy billionaires
and the corporations or the systemic something something you know but they they don't understand
that it's the money and i don't blame them right like i like i just shared like it took me a lot of
time to figure out what the actual problem was and also realizing and accepting that i never really
had a clue about money which i think especially in a western country if you grow up in a western
country especially if you grew up as a millennial in a western country you probably grew up in the
best time to ever grow up of any person that ever lived right and and there was always security and
food and a roof over your head and entertainment and and and whatnot and it was probably yeah like
I said, the best time to ever grow up. And so having that in your youth, not never even having
to think about money, thinking that you have a certain path that you can follow in your life and
then end up happy to then realize probably in your late twenties, early thirties, mid thirties, that
that isn't really possible anymore. I think is why I would like to focus on millennials,
because especially in this age range, like let's say late twenties to late, late thirties, for
example this is where yeah people make the big life decisions right like where to settle down
or to even settle down or to have kids or do a certain thing in their career like these are
i think quite some uh yeah pivotal years or at least years for for pivotal decisions for people
and uh that is something that i think is exciting but also brings a certain amount of
self-awareness responsibility perhaps a bit anxiety about like am i making the right decision
right and when i read safe deans the bitcoin standard right or when he talks about
low and high time preference and talking about having uh you know everyone has a certain natural
natural anxiety in their lives because you never really know when you're going to die right so the
future is uncertain anyway. But the fact that we have a higher uncertainty than what we basically
naturally need, I would say, comes from the fact that the money is losing its value continuously.
So it becomes harder and harder to actually plan for the future, to actually make those
you know pivotal decisions in your life and i think when i saw that for my for myself at least
i just realized yeah you cannot really blame people that they are angry or confused or
disappointed with not being able to follow a certain path that they that they thought they
um would follow but it's it's it's way deeper and way more yeah fundamental than than
everyone basically realizes and uh i think that's kind of why i want to focus on my
generational peers especially because you know like in the previous generations you know the
boomers had real estate and and gen x had uh the the index funds the smp and stuff like that
i think every generation has a certain opportunity to um get ahead or or secure their future in a
certain way and i think i think bitcoin is that for our generation especially also because we live
through yeah this uh this analog to digital age right like we are of course gen x had had that too
partially uh but yeah we are kind of like the last ones that that actually went fully through that and
and so i think we're actually primed to understand bitcoin right like the connection of bitcoins being
something being digital um but having a connection to the physical world through proof of work and
stuff um yeah just i just think this is the the asset that that we can use to secure uh our future
or at least prepare for the future have a certain lifeboat or something that that can help us lower
our uncertainty towards the future that uh is being um yeah heightened by uh by the fact that
that fiat money loses its value all the time.
And so that's why, yeah, I just hope to reach more millennials
and tell them about the problem they have
that they don't really realize.
And I think maybe to add to that,
my mother is almost retiring within like a year.
And she told me that she's kind of unsure
if the money is going to be there of her retirement.
And that, I think, is just very saddening
that that is where she's at with her hat, right?
Like the fact that she worked for like 40, 45 years.
And then when you're finishing up that career
or your working years
that you're not really sure if you have your retirement.
But the fact that she's feeling that actually assured me
that there's definitely not going to be a retirement for me, right?
And I think that's also an extra motivation
to tell other people about that.
I mean, last week I sat down with a friend who got a letter from like his pension fund that his employer, you know, puts money in or that he contributes to.
So he works in tech, makes like 120,000 euros a year or something.
And then he got this letter with this overview.
And then it said, so it's 33.
it said if you work for this company until your retirement age which is which is like 65 66 so
32 33 years you're going to get like 37 000 euros per year or something that's your retirement and
then we looked at each other like 37 000 euros a year like who can live on 37 000 euros a year in
my country that's going to be very difficult let alone in 32 or 33 years right and so um
seeing that I thought it was interesting that this is actually staring people in the face
like this future uncertainty is actually communicated to you but no one really understands
what that uh what that means so I think not only mitigating the debasement of money
today right or every month or every year currently uh is is a problem but thinking about how you're
going to survive basically in 30 years is also a problem.
Like your parents never thought about that.
Like the millennial parents never thought about that because they had that kind of like
expectation of having a pension.
It was also, of course, kind of very early in that entire system.
So they had some sort of security towards the future.
But I think for millennials, that is really gone.
But people are super unaware of it.
Yeah.
I mean, it's really, you know, it's interesting when you use Bitcoin as a unit of account.
I've had peers who made decisions where, you know, their pension or, you know, their 401k
sort of representative has offered to buy them out.
You know, instead of let's paying you $36,000 a year in 15 years, we'll give you $150,000
now.
And if you think in Bitcoin math, you say, wow, I can get that money now.
and you think about the properties of taking ownership of your money
and being able to use it if there's an emergency,
the present value is $150K.
But you say, you know, someone maybe who's doing different calculus
says, well, I don't know how long I'm going to live.
And if I take the money now, I might spend it.
I might not have it.
I might not invest it well.
I might speculate.
It might be gone.
But, you know, 15, 20 years from now, they'll give me, you know, $3,000 a month.
and we start thinking about in terms of uh you know when you think about bitcoin math is also
saying about inflation and what is that going to be worth in the future and and what are you gonna
be able to buy with that and how long are you gonna have to like live beyond the you know if
it starts kicking off 3 000 a month in 15 years well you're gonna have to live 30 years to break
even yeah and you don't have any liquidity and then you you know you go through sort of like the
last three years and you're like wow like you could have done a two three four five x
with bitcoin you can even start thinking about that math and give yourself three thousand dollars
a month now you know or you know whatever it might be but i wonder which generations you know are
most poised to kind of be receptive to bitcoin and not receptive like and i'm you know generalizing
here but like boomers you you think okay well they probably have the most wealth so they feel
the problem least.
They feel most prepared for
or defensive to defend against
these problems.
And then I think of the Dave Colum sort of paradox
where he's thinking, well,
you know, to kind of
get enough in to make a difference in my
life would amount too much.
Like, you know, the more you're worth,
the more 1% to 10% actually
is in dollars.
Right? And like, wow, I would never put that much
into something I don't understand.
You can kind of see
You see sort of the dilemma there.
But they have the most opportunity to flick off some wealth and reallocate and not have it maybe be a big deal and take advantage of it.
You think of young people, I would think the advantages they have, so they don't have maybe the wealth that the boomers could reallocate.
But the advantages are, I think, too, is they tend to be more tech-friendly and early adopters.
and I think Bitcoin is not
a lot of the ways we look at what Bitcoin could do
is a blend of tech and
sort of
cryptographic properties
but you're not
I don't think of it as tech
but you can see how people might be really interested
especially maybe even the broader thing
crypto, move fast, break things, I can build things here
it's new, it's interesting
and then I think the other one they would think
is sort of like young people
and I would even include myself in this,
but it's like a little bit of like,
fuck you money.
Not in the sense of like having a lot of money
to say fuck you,
but like,
hey, I'm not going to be a part of your system.
I don't like the way you do things.
I hate banks.
I don't want my money at the bank.
You know,
you would think a lot of people would think that's cool.
So again,
now you don't have to like put a lot of money.
I don't have a lot of money.
I have $500,
but I don't want it at the fucking bank.
And you know,
it's really,
it's just,
it's interesting.
uh what has been your impression to me you know are millennials really interested are they not
interested it funny because i i i think eventually just when i look at my you know irl my real my real life i i do now have like some Bitcoiner friends but it not like the people that I knew before
that I would consider friends or just close acquaintances
that now see how my life is now that I've adopted Bitcoin.
The fact that I'm spending already two years
making a podcast twice a week on it
and now for a year almost only doing that.
it's not like they're calling and saying like hey can we just chat for 30 minutes like can you
explain to me why you're spending so much time on this you know what i mean but they do share
stuff online about everything they think is fucked up in the world and like all the problems and all
like you know what i mean like pointing at all the shit that is stupid and should be fixed and
uh whatever and uh at the same time not really looking for a solution while there is someone
in their vicinity that isn't really bothered with all that stuff on a daily basis, right?
So I find that interesting in a sense that even though the problems have become more
apparent, I mean, if I just run to the supermarket to get some dinner in the evening and maybe
some breakfast or whatever, because I didn't do like big groceries, yeah, that's easily
like 50 euros which in in my mind should be like 20 or 19 right or whenever i go to a restaurant and
i don't know a cheeseburger with fries or whatever like in my mind something like that or like a
steak and fries whatever it's like 18 money units in my mind but i have to pay like 28 or 32 now
right and so i cannot imagine that other people don't see that maybe i see that because i'm
thinking about or like studying this stuff it could as well be some sort of bias there but i
just cannot imagine that people don't feel at least that everything is getting more expensive
everything is getting weirder um you know quality of products stuff is going down a lot of stuff is
happening in society people aren't having children like stuff like that i i cannot imagine that people
don't see that so but my conclusion is that just a lot of people don't so although i'm trying to
reach more millennials and of course like i have people that that react or send me a message or
whatever like i see i reach millennials in the analytics but just in my vicinity for example i
don't really see it but at the other end i do think every generation has a problem i i i thought
it was nice you you started there like i think the boomers um i've seen a few videos for example
um now in california i also saw a video of someone in my country like uh but i think in in the u.s
it's a bit different like but this guy bought a house paid it off like 40 years ago and he's 73
and he still has to work like 30 hours a week
to pay for the property tax, right?
And so even those people that had a certain picture
of retirement are not living that picture, right?
And so I think if you are Gen X, so a little below that,
you actually are on your way to retirement.
And when you see all these things getting more expensive
and yeah, maybe sometimes seeing an overview
of what you're going to get, right?
or supposedly going to get.
I think actually Gen X would probably be faster aware of the problem
because they're going to do that math that you mentioned
to then realize, okay, I'm not really sure if I can make it.
And I think they have the biggest predicament
in a sense that they have the shortest time
to actually try to fix it or prepare themselves for what's coming.
And then for the millennials, like I said, I don't think there's any retirement for us. We are in the prime age in terms of career and earning money, although that is also increasingly becoming more difficult, right? Like just economy wise, but also, you know, with AI coming and stuff like that.
So I do think that as a millennial, you conceptually have a lot of time, but you need to pay attention today.
Like I think you have 10 years max to fix this for yourself.
And then Gen Z, I'd say they have more time in life, but I think they unfortunately also have those 10 years, right?
So imagine you are 16, 17, 18.
Let's say 18, you're out of high school or like, you know, or let's say you're almost done with college, right?
You're graduating.
Let's say you're early 20s.
Then most people graduated for the idea of having a certain job that is not going to exist in two or three years.
That combined with, you know, just the whole economic outlook.
and I think we talk a lot
I mean I'm in Europe but we talk a lot about the US
obviously because it's world reserve currency
like I think if
the US goes downhill
the rest also goes downhill or at least there's
a lot of chaos right but I think
a lot of same stuff is happening
in
Europe in the sense that
yeah the economic outlook is pretty
grim and
well or bad
and I'm also very interested
in seeing what AI is going to do with productivity, right?
And just like the replacement of people, et cetera.
And so when you are 18, 19, 20, early 20s, right?
I think you have a very tough future ahead,
but you have the same time window as the millennials
who are perhaps a bit more experienced also
within their career, work, life in general.
Yeah, you have that similar timeframe, I think,
like 20, 33, something like that.
So I'd say eight years to try to fix that.
So again, yeah, I just think that the problem is very urgent, but it's very hard to tell that to people, right? Like it's very hard to like saying, oh, you're not paying attention or you're doing something wrong, like is a bad pitch, right? Like that is not an inviting thing to say.
And so I think explaining what is money, basically.
So shout out to Breedlove also.
I think also a big inspiration along the way.
And someone who's educated me a lot with his conversations.
Like, yeah, if you don't understand the money is broken,
you never get to Bitcoin being a solution, if that makes sense.
Like you do not pitch a solution, a somewhat technological solution, right?
or a fairly technological solution to someone who doesn't even understand
what the problem is in a more, I would say, philosophical way
than just everything gets more expensive.
Yeah, everything is more expensive.
I'm getting fucked because my government or this person
or the greedy government or whatever.
Like then it's easy to point a finger,
whereas I think if you understand it a little bit more philosophically,
You can also, I think, grasp the concept of taking energy away from the current fiat system and moving to Bitcoin.
Just you move to another money like millions of people have done before you, not only with Bitcoin, but also in history.
Right. Like people moving from a bad to a better money is not something new.
That is actually something that people are searching for constantly.
Right. So I don't think that is hard to understand, but there needs to be some sort of trigger for people to actually be open to receiving the message that, yeah, in a nice way that they don't understand what money is like I didn't understand what money was.
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yeah i think on the what is money part like that's a way to appeal to anybody on the philosophical
bent but i think you know the broader i remember you know when i graduated college and uh you know
i was on a pretty corporate america kind of funnel where you know we you know and uh i i moved from
new york city where uh i was a big four financial statement auditor with wall street sort of clients
and I moved to San Francisco and outside and where I had much more like technology kind of
clients. But all my friends, just coincidentally, they had also moved to San Francisco. And that,
and you know, you'd think, okay, wow, like this is getting, you know, I go out to dinner and it's
X amount of political units and that's expensive. And, or I like that. I got to eliminate this.
Maybe I won't get the coffee in the morning so I can afford that. And you're playing these games
to get what you want in life.
You pay rent.
You lease or buy a car or whatever.
But then you're like, you see a friend maybe who their boyfriend
or girlfriend is an administrative assistant at Amazon.
And they were early as an admin, and they retire.
And you see sort of these things.
And if you see something like that, they could say,
hey, don't you want to live like me?
I've been on this early startup program
where I joined a startup and I made a lot of money.
Don't you want to be like me?
And you could say, well, I'm an accountant.
I can't just, maybe I could be an accountant at a startup.
And you start thinking, well, I have to work.
You figure, well, they drew an ace, right?
Lucky them.
And I think a lot of people look at Bitcoiners that way.
And they say, okay, well, they got lucky.
They either got in early and they were able to speculate and capitalize.
And that's good for them.
I'm not in tech.
I'm not going to move to San Francisco and try to be in a startup.
I'm a plumber in Boston, and I'll just continue to build my business.
Or I'm an accountant, and I have to work really hard to get a great raise.
And maybe I will change companies so that I can get an even bigger raise.
and I'll give up my seniority here in the cushy corner office,
but I'll make more money.
Or some people are like, I'll stay here so I can keep the corner office
and the cushy schedule and work from home three days a week
and I won't take the different job.
And they're playing the game that way and they're saying,
you got lucky, that worked out for you.
And so maybe as a millennial, how do you think, I mean, here, Bitcoin,
if you look at the price per unit that Bitcoin is generally quoted at,
it's $120,000. Yeah. That's a lot. You know, young person's like, yeah, I've missed, you know,
it sounds like a lot and in different currencies, it might even sound like more, uh, you know, so
I would think that that's probably just a hard, even just entree to people.
Yeah. No, I, I, I fully agree. I, um, I think the unit bias is something that is very strong
and very difficult.
But I like the example, right?
Like people think,
and I also thought Bitcoin is an investment,
but it's not, right?
Like it is not an investment.
It's a way to store your wealth,
just like gold is a way to store your wealth.
You don't need one big gold bar.
You can have gold coins, right?
There's different quantities of gold
and Bitcoin is nothing different in that sense.
but I think that
the fact that you cannot touch it
right so I can buy and touch a gold
coin I think for a lot of people that is something
that they deem valuable
right I think you can also
argue that that is part of the
fiat enchantment that only something
you can touch has value right
that is something that is
used a lot
so you cannot touch it
it is digital it is somewhat
technical to understand if you truly want
to own it yourself right so there are some barriers but also that idea of it being an investment being
too late like that is what i mean also with this nihilistic kind of like zero-sum game thinking
that is also a symptom of fiat right like that is the whole way the fiat money system is set up
there are opportunities for certain people along the way in whatever system that they operate to
take advantage of their position,
corrupt themselves to a degree,
and then have an advantage over others in a system.
And I think that is shown in different layers of society in general.
Just this whole idea of I win, you lose,
there is no cooperation, etc.
Which, of course, we both know that in Bitcoin that has kind of flipped.
Jeff Booth once said to me that Bitcoin is about
cooperative competitiveness and i really like that you know like you you everyone consents to
the rules of this protocol for money but they're still free market to create value and earn that
money basically so together we make sure the the value of the money stays as promised as in one
bitcoin is one bitcoin but then still yeah there's a free market where you basically battle
over who can earn more than others.
That is always something.
But I think because the quality of fiat money is so bad,
it actually incentivizes people to take advantage of other people.
And so I think that's where that zero-sum thinking comes from.
And I agree that that is something that makes people dismiss Bitcoin
and yeah, get into stonks or shit coins
or thinking it could be faster to get rich, right?
Or solve their problems by actually taking more risk.
And I think that's just an interesting thing
to think about in general.
Like, okay, I think I need to be quicker
and take more risk.
So I'm going to do something
that I also don't know a lot about, right?
Like a lot of people in crypto
when I sometimes I click on these spaces on X, right?
And just the level is very low, I have to say, you know, or people are super uncertain about what they're getting into and all these things, right?
And I talked to American Hoddle yesterday.
He said, like, if you come across a person in crypto who is very sure of himself, do not believe them.
They are using the, you know, the people that are insecure for their own grift.
And I agree, you know, like, it's a wild west.
But it's attractive to people because they do feel somewhere that they need it, right?
They need to have this one big shot to get out of debt or become rich or whatever they think they gonna end up And the paradox with Bitcoin I think is that you need to do the work upfront
So there's some uncomfortable work, right?
Like, for example, realizing that you have no clue about money
and that you were just, you know, running around in this system
and doing things for money and looking at your banking app,
seeing a number and thinking that's actually a real thing
and stuff like that, right?
Just realizing you have no clue.
okay uh why don't i have a clue well it's because other people lie to me or they never told to me
what money is they never explained to me um what money is how it works that that money isn't equal
for everyone and all these things but then after you get through that when you do the work so
literally spend time to understand then do more like the internal internal work of being okay that
that you were lied to, then you are rewarded because then you see something that a lot of
other people don't. And I think that actually is what frees your mind, or at least in my journey,
I'm not bothered with all the fiat money shit anymore because I chose another money, right?
And so I think it is very interesting to experience that after doing that work,
that mental freedom comes,
which eventually that is what life is about,
I think, right?
So I always say this too,
like it doesn't really matter
how much Bitcoin you have,
the more, the better perhaps,
but I don't really think so actually.
It's just about I adopted this better money.
I cannot be taken advantage of anymore.
I'm actually in control of my wealth,
however much that is.
And I decided to do that in my own conscious way.
I decided to adopt a money that no one can fuck with, basically,
that no one can take advantage of to my detriment, right?
And just getting to that point, really understanding that you're thinking for yourself,
that you're choosing for yourself, and perhaps, you know,
for a lot of people also their children's future and et cetera.
I think that is actually what Bitcoin, how Bitcoin basically empowers you,
that you made that decision and that you can actually do that right and whatever question
you have whatever thing you want to learn about bitcoin now as compared to 12 years ago there is
an infinite amount of places that that you can learn about this right and i love these examples
of bitcoin gets audited every 10 minutes and the fed has never been audited right and we know how
many bitcoin are aware and all these things and at the bank of england they have a conference
saying like, oh no, you should trust us.
We still have the gold and stuff like that.
When you start seeing that,
I think that strengthens your conviction
in the fact that the idea of Bitcoin,
a trustless, global, decentralized,
finite supply money,
is just a great idea
because you start seeing the nonsense
of everything that fiat money creates
or all this stuff that emanates
from the quality of fiat money.
it's only bad.
And I think what emanates from Bitcoin
is almost all beautiful, right?
Like the whole idea of this cooperative competitiveness
versus zero-sum game,
like think about that for a future.
Like what does a future look like run on Bitcoin?
It's people working together,
trying to figure it out.
And I think that for me
is kind of like what humanity should be about.
Like no one really knows what's going on.
So we'd rather work together
to figure this out.
And if there's a money that can actually help us get there,
I think that is a solid choice to at least attempt
to see if that can exist in the world.
The two things I think about there is like Bitcoin Tina
was what kind of brought this to my attention.
Most people, they trade against each other
and not so much against their future selves.
In fact, they even trade against their prior selves a lot.
Oh, I should have bought earlier.
I'm not going to buy now.
I can never get those gains back.
And so you think, okay, I think the hardest thing to get to, you know, when you're trying to orange peel people is to kind of get across the spiritual qualities of Bitcoin or all these things you can get from Bitcoin that have nothing to do with sort of the gains.
And probably in my own life, I've probably only had success probably showing people the gains.
Very few people, it's one of the reasons I started the podcast, very few people wanted to talk about anything besides the gains or what, you know, even taking ownership or accountability for themselves or their money or their decisions or their wealth.
And I think that's one of the probably the hardest things to get across.
I mean, even just like you were saying, it's like you buy a small amount of sats, your first sats, you even maybe if you move those to cold storage, you feel a level of freedom, I think, that you've never felt before.
And I think it lowers your time preference because if you understand Bitcoin, then you say one day these sats are going to be invaluable and I have to wait, right?
At least, you know, if you don't have a lot, you can let time do the work for you with Bitcoin and just mathematically know that it's sort of a one-way street with inflation.
but that's really hard to get across.
I agree.
But I think that's a symptom of the times, right?
Like getting rich quick without really doing anything or something, right?
Or like, let's say Bitcoin, you know,
you get to a point where sort of you get like, you know, the,
the violent minority, not the violent minority, but you know, the,
the minority that kind of can steer the majority, right?
I forget what Talia calls that, but so you get a strong enough minority and
they kind of usher in that homogenous thing for everybody because it's just as ubiquitous now.
And do we get to a point where people can skip even learning about Bitcoin, right?
They just say everyone gets the benefits of it. Are we going to kind of cross a chasm where there
are no big, like there are no, there's no podcast for the dollar, right? There might be podcasts
about how to understand macro financial events.
There might be a conference on how to use commercial deposits or bonds.
Dollar-based instruments might have conferences and communities,
but there's no conference or community that's just like,
we love the U.S. dollar.
Maybe outside of the federal government.
Right?
And so at some point it just becomes, even now,
I don't know how strong the cypherpunk community is, right?
like the internet just is not that doesn't mean the whole world is using maybe only 70 of the
world is using it it's still getting adopted but there aren't like conferences about how great the
internet is yeah that's a good example right there there are no internet conferences anymore so i
think it's the question is kind of like when will when won't there be any bitcoin conferences uh
anymore, right?
Or does Bitcoin need
sort of because Bitcoin
is very different
in the sense of self-custody
and these new principles
and probably threatening
forces, maybe it needs constant
education to
keep the spark alive
sort of thing because it is like an idea
in that sense and humans
are the project and
need to keep it going. Maybe it's
maybe it's completely opposite and it's like the moment it stops being talked about and learned
about it it dies yeah and it's that kind of force i don't know i think that's an interesting thing
to think about i think you might be right that we need to constantly educate people on bitcoin or at
least in a philosophical way why a scarce money is the best money to adopt but then again yeah i
kind of see Bitcoin as a mirror, right? Just because it exists and in a certain way, this can
never really die anymore. You know, the entire concept or like how, I don't know who talked
about that first, but you know, like it's like chess, it's like math, it's like the rules of
English grammar, right? Like that is what the Bitcoin protocol is. So in that sense, it cannot
ever really die. I think how it's manifested now, you know, with all the miners, all the
no's, etc. Perhaps there can, something can happen where that goes down, you know, whatever. I don't
even know what kind of event would make that happen. But just conceptually, the idea of a
money that's designed like this can never really die. And I think we probably do need to explain
people for a long amount of time why these properties are important because there will
always be people that see an opportunity in yeah uh trying to have a money in in in the market or
in a country that they can control i mean that is what you see with cbdcs or that that whole
discussion for example in europe like i think the the whole cbdc project i think conceptually
already existed but bitcoin accelerated that development or research or whatever they they're
currently at i don't think it's gonna work out right but i think it's still in research phase
i think it's gonna fail but it doesn't really matter bitcoin created an incentive for them to
accelerate that and that tells me that bitcoin is a great idea right that the european central bank
has reports saying bitcoin doesn't have any value and are just you know they're writing about it that
That's fucking stupid.
But why would you write about this random idea that was just released on a random internet forum 16 years ago?
Because it doesn't mean anything, right?
Like, do you know how many things are released on the internet every day?
How many ideas are released on the internet every day?
And this one, they decide to pay attention to, right?
And so that shows me that there is something with Bitcoin that has merit, that gives it a place to exist in the world.
And I think like people like us that I think are Bitcoin maxis in a sense that we would defend this or try to sit down with anyone to have a discussion about, you know, why do you think Bitcoin sucks?
You know, tell me about your fantastic fiat money that you run.
I think it should stay like that
or people that don't have a natural curiosity
to understand why they use something
just like today with fiat money
they will forget that there is a perfect money
that's what I think
or they will be bamboozled or impressed
by someone with some sort of authority
that will tell them that they have a better thing
or whatever.
And so I'm not sure what that's going to look like,
but I do know that, like I said in the beginning,
this is the biggest technological battle
that could ever happen.
And so this is going to take a lot of time, I think.
And there's going to be a lot of literal battles.
So imagine they brute force some sort of CBDC,
whatever in Europe.
Yeah, I think people will leave, for example, right?
This will create something.
Like Bitcoin started something that cannot really be stopped.
So I'm not really sure what that future looks like, but I do know that it is a battle.
I think Thur de Maester uses the word war, actually.
I don't know if it's a war, but I do know it's a huge battle.
Because if you have control over the most important technology in the world,
and there's this thing that no one really owns, right, and cannot be destroyed,
that is actually a threat to what you control,
then obviously there's going to be some sort of friction there.
So I think that education is extremely important.
And yeah, I don't know.
I think with Bitcoin, it's perhaps different than the internet.
I think it's a fun thing to think about,
but I think it probably never ends.
You bring up like Napster.
I mean, I grew up in the 90s.
They were wild.
I mean, you can go on America Online and go into chat rooms, talk to kids from other towns.
But this is a good one.
Did you know that at the top of Napster, there was 15 million users, one five.
That is the max amount of people that use Napster.
That's not a lot.
Not a lot, but that's still probably about how many people own some Bitcoin.
I agree, but that's what I'm saying.
And that is small, but that's a good signal, right?
It shows you that.
Yeah.
I mean, you can get any song.
It's crazy.
Why can't you use the phone?
I'm downloading illegal music.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Leave me alone.
I'm halfway through 97 songs here.
Yeah.
And you'd watch the bar go across.
Yeah, yeah.
And what was cool, though, is like you could do things outside the perv.
you could use technology to make new connections and for good or for bad,
meaning like you could enter a world, your, your parents, your, your,
and I'm saying this for good or bad, it could not be,
not know what you're doing. And I think about with like,
like I set my kid up with a little Bitcoin wallet and,
you know, it blows me away. I don't think he, you know,
he has money that he can use in ways I would never be able to track now.
yeah right i mean just think about like i try to think about like what what is better for a 15
year old kid or 13 year old kid or it's like 17 year old kid wants to hide something from his
parents doesn't even mean he's doing anything wrong he just doesn't want his parents to know
maybe or something he or she but like uh cash or bitcoin and uh in a lot of ways bitcoin i could
only think would be better uh especially as you know you want to stuff a bunch of money in your
locker uh you just hide on your phone yeah but no i i think this is interesting because it's kind
of where i wanted to go because you mentioned cypherpunks so i do think on one side we probably
have to educate people for quite some amount of time just because the fiat enchantment is so
strong but also with this example of napster or just cypherpunk in general those are very small
groups and and for example napster is internet legacy right like that is a cultural legacy
uh to a degree and i also think that the cypherpunk movement which is smaller
already put their how do you say it like mark mark on the world by picking up uh by creating
and picking up Bitcoin and maintaining it and talking about it and philosophizing about
it and just bringing it further to a point where people less cypherpunk than them, less
anarchist or computer nerd crazy or however you would want to define cypherpunks, could
actually take it and run with it to the next person who is even less cypherpunk.
Right?
I mean, we see Bitcoin on Wall Street now.
And I just think that is how...
How it goes in general.
I mean, the internet also, well, the internet started as a DOD project, right?
Perhaps Bitcoin also started like that.
But I think there's the same sequence from like ultra highly technical, you know, people with very big visions about where something could go with the use of technology to eventually, yeah, making it easier to use, more accessible, etc.
that nowadays, I don't know if you can explain TCP IP to me.
I couldn't explain it to you, but I'm still using it
and I'm still a profoundly better internet user
than probably the majority of people.
So there's always levels in this understanding, I think,
of the technology that people are using.
But yeah, maybe you're right.
Maybe it doesn't matter and this is how it goes.
So I'm thinking through it while I'm talking,
But maybe this is the same with Bitcoin.
Like you said, maybe in 20 years, like your kid or your kid's kid, yeah, for them, Bitcoin is just logical.
Yeah, of course it's Bitcoin.
I don't want anything else.
And maybe it's done then.
So the education, I mean, then it's just permanent.
Napster sort of spawned the way we listen to music now, I think, through streaming.
It's just it's all subscription or different ways.
And I think that in a lot of ways has degraded the music industry and not been great for artists.
Maybe, you know, if you follow that, so maybe the, you know, the DOD started the internet and then, you know, whether they started Napster or like it just was created and out there and they squashed it and they got what they want.
That kind of shows like, I think they want to move Bitcoin into ETFs.
They don't want us to use it as an economy.
and they'll build the greater crypto around it for the greater people.
But you would think that the young people, and not just young people,
but if you think about Napster, that was 15 million people
willing to break the rules.
Yes.
Right?
It was like, yeah, I want that music.
I don't want to pay for it.
Lawful or unlawful, I'm going to do it my way and break the rules
and get what I want.
And in a lot of ways, Bitcoin, I think there's similarities there that just aren't.
I just don't feel like people are like into like Napster was cool in a way.
Yeah.
You know, it was like, oh, you got that on Napster.
People weren't like hauled ass off to jail.
They're like, all right, cool.
That's cool.
Can you get me my favorite album?
I mean, this is what I never understood from at least the artists that went against Napster.
is like you should be extremely grateful that a random 15 year old from a small town in the
netherlands actually found your music and loved it how fucking sick is that and has no money thank
you anyway right but and no yes so but it went from there is a centralized control so i i i do
think napster or this music or like having technology to kind of like break up this
centralized control, right?
So that is Napster, spawning a certain reaction by said industry,
which is eventually adopting streaming, you know, saying like, oh,
this is better because we have the analytics and we can pay you and whatever.
And then all the artists are like, oh yeah, of course,
I want to go back to centralization.
Then now we are at a point where, you know,
the artists complain that Spotify is hijacking, you know,
their music rights and the streams and whatever.
And I saw Snoop Dogg had like a billion streams somewhere
and got like 60K or something.
That doesn't make sense for me.
It doesn't make sense.
And now you're going back to, oh, look, I can be my own label.
I can be my own artist.
I can be an independent distributor.
So it's kind of like centralized, decentralized, centralized,
decentralized, basically.
And so perhaps with Bitcoin,
and we are only at the first part of decentralized.
And the reaction it creates is, you know,
this acceleration of CBDC talk and whatnot.
I mean, you see Christine Lagarde,
the president of the ECB,
talk about China being an inspiration for their CBDC.
Like, what the, you know, where are we in which movie?
Basically, I don't know.
Like, it's just out of this world
that she talks about it like that.
But I think that spawns this centralized forced reaction.
They're going to try something in some way, shape, or form.
They're definitely going to try something.
Even forcibly, you know, politically trying to coerce countries in accepting that there's going to be...
I don't know.
Something is going to blow up or go bad.
And then people find this decentralization again, I would say.
so perhaps there has to be a centralized type of reaction that spawned and then people will
will realize that no the decentralized solution is is better again but again i i think that takes
years i think music is different than money right like money is way way way deeper ingrained
and and the whole spell again enchantment of human is way way deeper ingrained so i just think that
takes a longer time and that's also
kind of like why I see this as a
battle but yeah I think there are
previous examples
of similar ways that the technology
kind of disrupted you know the centralized
control
spawning different types of
reactions so yeah
to go back to the
original topic I do think we're
going to talk about it for a
long time and it's also something you should be able
to defend right that's something that I've seen
that
when they talk about CBDCs,
they're going to be like, yeah.
Well, they are like, yeah, it is digital.
Everything nowadays is digital.
Your life is going to be easier.
That's literally their pitch, right?
Like it's the dumbest of dumbest arguments
that they're using to market this thing, right?
And so I think we need to,
as in everyone who is into Bitcoin,
enable other people to actually understand
understand that that is a dumb argument and that is not what's going to be given to you when you
adopt the CBDC right like you I think what is so great about bitcoin is that you can
create a philosophical underpinning for a lot of argument a lot of pro-bitcoin arguments you can go
pretty deep with the philosophical arguments right and when I kind of like thought about that and then
started looking at all the arguments for CBDC or the Euro is so amazing or the European Union and
you know like this monetary union is so amazing all these arguments are flawed eventually all
these arguments are like trust me bro you know like we are the ECB I am the leader of the ECB
you should trust me I know what's best I'm an economist whatever you know I'm an expert I have
a PhD and and yeah once you see that literally proof of work in Bitcoin is not only saying you
have bitcoin like you are forced to be transparent if you say i have one bitcoin i say show me you say
no okay i don't trust you like it is as simple as that and in the fiat money world um yeah the the
the press conference that i referenced of the england central bank they had some sort of admin
snafu or something i don't know they had an emergency presser where they said like yeah there
was something with some remodeling in the vault or the labeling and something went wrong,
but we'll fix it.
And then there's like three questions from a journalist and they're like, okay, you know,
we're good again.
And so like in the fiat money world, people believe the talk because it comes from a certain
authority or something.
But Bitcoin, I think, is showing us that there is a mechanism, there is a system that actually
forces all the participants to be transparent or else those participants cannot gain any value from
using this system. And for me, that is something that I find super intriguing is that because that
exists, it is never going away because arguably we can argue that that is a better system compared
to this other system.
So I'm actually also happy that the whole CBDC trajectory
is accelerated.
And even today we saw a video of Lagarde saying
Bitcoin has no intrinsic value, blah, blah.
That's great.
That is great.
Let them dig their own hole with flawed arguments
and just let the rendos on Twitter and LinkedIn
and whatever, the Bitcoiners that figured it out,
they can defend that to the end, basically.
Because we know what we're talking about.
And there's a certain, again, philosophical underpinning that, yeah,
if you're against that, well, good luck.
Try to be anti-Bitcoin with a philosophical take.
And yeah, see what happens.
You know, like I'm sometimes on LinkedIn in the trenches,
sometimes commenting or posting, you know.
And I see all these people that I don't know that are pro-Bitcoin.
they are all in these in these comments just explaining you know pictures links fucking pdfs
all these things and so there there this whole yeah decentralized social movement also globally where yeah people are connected through bitcoin and they helping each other battling all the philosophically flawed anti crowd
which is also amazing.
And that's that cooperative behavior.
People understand that when they contribute to Bitcoin,
they don't do that for themselves.
They also do that for others.
And they know that when others do that,
it helps them as well.
And I just think that's a truly fascinating system and to see that and to experience that as well.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I find that most people are more excited about AI, investing in AI, using AI, learning AI.
They'll spend money on subscriptions to use it, download different.
It's interesting to me that that's been a more palatable form of new technology that people are really excited about.
Do you think AI is compatible with Bitcoin or a threat to Bitcoin from an energy standpoint or anything like that?
No, I think super compatible. I think AI can probably not scale without Bitcoin, not only with regard to, you know, perhaps payments and stuff like that, but especially the energy part.
Last week, I actually recorded with Daniel Batten, who I think you also know, who's like really, he was really against Bitcoin because of the energy use.
He's like a climate tech investor.
And he has a big fund that funds, you know, methane mitigation, which is a very bad pollutant, for example.
And when he realized that Bitcoin mining is the only way to make renewable energy sources actually economically viable, right, because they are the only type of computers that you can actually power off within a minute to or power on within a minute to help stabilize a grid or, you know, do the load balancing for energy networks.
And yeah, you cannot really do that with AI.
You cannot just turn off chat GPT.
That would be a bad user experience.
So I see a lot of synergy actually between Bitcoin and AI on that energy and mining side.
But also in terms of, okay, what does work look like in the future
if the majority of people's jobs is going to be replaced?
well accounting for example right like what is that going to look like yeah maybe not all
accountants will go away but probably 90 percent will okay what are all these people going to do
i i think those are very uh interesting things to just think about because it's hard to
i think visualize the future but i do believe ai will usher in some sort of age of abundance
but how do you measure that prosperity right and and this is a big thing was a big thing for me in
my journey understanding and this is from jeff booth right like that if technological progression
is deflationary by nature i.e you know technology becomes more accessible eventually cheaper and
eventually eventually already you know cheap and everyone can use it um which i think we're on our
way with AI. I mean, there's open source AI models already. And I mean, every week, there's like an
immense amount of new announcements and developments and stuff like that. Okay, if there's a lot of
productivity gains coming from this technological advancement, how do you measure them? And I think
there's a great example, actually, in a video by Lynn Alden, where she shows that these deflationary
technological forces actually crash into the inflationary money,
fiat money that we prize these technological advancements in.
And when you then think about, okay, which side is winning
if these two forces are clashing, right?
I think the answer can be found in what does a bread cost today, right?
Like a bread today is four or five, you know, money units, dollar, let's say, keep with dollars.
And 50 years ago, bread was 20 cents.
And so this is, this I use sometimes with people.
I say like, do you agree that, do you think it's probable that in the past 50, 60 years, we've become better at making bread?
Everyone says yes, right?
And then say why?
And then they say, well, I think the machines become better and we have computers and stuff like that.
I said, yeah, okay, exactly.
Okay.
So you agree with that, right?
Okay.
Yeah.
so uh do you do you know the joke right that sometimes people say like oh yeah when you know
my grandfather got bread for for 20 cents do you know that that people use that as a joke and
they're like yeah and then and then i ask okay how do you put those two together how can we be
better at making bread um but why is the bread like 20 25 maybe even 30 times more expensive
in the same money units today.
And then, of course, people say,
yeah, well, I don't really know.
And that's kind of my in to talk about,
you know, the value of each money unit goes down.
So you just need more units to pay for the same thing.
And I think that is a really good example
because it's just really basic, right?
And I use the same, you know,
even dumber example is with apples.
Like, do apples need more energy from the sun
to grow in 2025 than in 1955, right?
Like there is no difference there.
But yeah, you need more money units
to buy the same amount of apples as in 1955, right?
And so that shows you which side is winning,
which is a bad conclusion, right?
The fiat money is winning.
And so when you then think about, okay,
how can we actually measure correctly
the deflationary forces of this advancing technology?
That should be done with a money that is stable in its value,
that can never be devalued, right?
It can never be debased, like no more units can be printed ever.
And then I think the step to Bitcoin is very short.
And so I do think about, yeah, Bitcoin being a measurement of value in the future.
I think that is the use case for Bitcoin, right?
Like on my X profile, I have this header image that says, you know, one liter, one meter, one kilogram, one Bitcoin.
Like you can do watts and volts and whatever.
Like there is no standard measurement for economic value.
value and i think in order to have that you need to have something that is an economic constant
like something that stays the same all the time and i think that eventually is the entire promise
of the bitcoin protocol right like of the rules of this digital money system it's i work like this
and all my incentives are um all the incentives for the people that contribute to this network
whether mining or running a node, are aligned to keep the rules like this.
Because if the rules stay like this, then this system becomes predictable.
And when it's predictable, it becomes trustworthy.
And then more people want to adopt it and then eventually secure it and contribute to it.
And that eventually is that flywheel that keeps the integrity of Bitcoin as a monetary network constant.
And that is what you need to eventually have something that can actually measure economic value in a steady way that best represents the progression.
And I think that is what you're already seeing, right?
So if you go to tradingview.com, for example, you could take any stock, you can denominated in Bitcoin.
They all go down.
So the world becomes more affordable when you adopt a Bitcoin standard.
Speaking maybe of like measurements and constants, number go up.
Is that the least important use case?
I think it's the most important marketing use case.
and I think it is
also
well one of the use cases
for why people would adopt it
so I think it is the best way to
get to know Bitcoin
but then when you actually understand
why it goes up forever
is I think when you adopt Bitcoin
so it's Max Keiser who says
fiat you know bitcoin has no top because fiat has no bottom um i think that's a a correct
assessment and a quick summary of of explaining why it will go up forever it's because yeah
bitcoin has an absolute finite supply um and all the people that have adopted bitcoin are
incentivized to keep it like that right the incentive to create more is actually um not interesting Whereas in a fiat money system it is actually mandatory right
You need to create more units into perpetuity infinitely, or else this entire thing basically breaks apart.
So again, there's this mirror, right?
Like there's this fiat money system that has to work like that.
And there's this Bitcoin system that has to work basically the total opposite.
And so why does the value of Bitcoin go up forever, basically?
Well, if the people in the world are, or if people either using AI or any other technology are going to be productive.
And I think that's the case, right?
I do believe that that's the whole point of what humans do in the world is we progress, we make things better, right?
Like the bees have a task to do the pollination and make the honey, etc.
That is what the bees do.
I think what the people do is we progress, we make things better, we innovate, we become more efficient, etc.
We're always doing that.
so if that's always happening
and by use of technology
that is accelerating
so productivity grows
then if we have Bitcoin
on one side
and we have fiat money
on the other side
as we talked about
fiat money
you can buy less
even tomorrow
you can already buy less
you know it's a tiny bit
but you can already buy less
whereas with Bitcoin
once more people
realize that
this is something that cannot be debased and it's the it's verifiably the most scarce asset
in the world that can be used as money right like people say like well one certain picasso is
the most scarce because there's only one but you cannot use that as as a global money of course
um yeah that's when you kind of start seeing that if we start valuing things in bitcoin as the only
economic constant that exists in the world that's going to be the thing that you need to own and
work for and i think we're now in a phase where people yeah sell their fiat money to buy bitcoin
to save in bitcoin right to save what they the wealth they already have in bitcoin and in the
future people are going to start asking for it as a reward in in the value exchanges that they
that they participate in and i think that is going to accelerate it even further but that is a perhaps
a few years out.
But yeah, that's when people really start to leave the fiat money for Bitcoin.
And yeah, because we cannot create more.
That's why the value of each Bitcoin goes up, obviously.
Right.
So maybe kind of a few more questions here.
Are the millennials the luckiest generation ever?
That's a fun question.
I think youth, yes.
Adulthood, less.
Yeah, I think that's what we talked about, right?
I think that's also why it's hard to comprehend for millennials that, yeah, in their adult life, they actually have a problem after growing up again, right?
Like Western world, that's my perspective, growing up so freely with a lot of exciting things happening, prosperity, etc.
Eventually, I would say yes.
so we are the luckiest because we are also
lucky to be alive in this time that we can
actually do something about it
with a certain edge I'd say
in technology and the use of technology
that perhaps older generations
don't have so
yeah that would be my answer
so yeah we
we are lucky that we can actually fix
possibly fix
the huge problem that we have
Is Bitcoin a cult?
If it was a cult, it would be the only cult where people tell each other to not listen to other people and think for themselves.
So I think by that definition, Bitcoin is not a cult.
I actually had a podcast.
I have a podcast episode with a former cult member who emailed me and said, you know, I listen to your podcast.
And sometimes people talk about Bitcoin being a cult.
Well, I was in a cult and I can tell you that Bitcoin is the antithesis of a cult.
And let's talk about it.
So I have a whole, you know, so if people go to my YouTube channel and search for the word cult, they can find that episode.
And it's really interesting what he shares.
So no, Bitcoin is not a cult.
I think also that is a fiat argument by anti-Bitcoin people that say like, oh, all these people believe in the same thing.
And they all say the same thing.
And they all tell me that I don't understand, that my arguments are stupid.
That must be a cult.
Yeah.
Sure, keep thinking it's a cult.
That's okay.
Is life a game?
Yes.
A gift and a game.
Does Bitcoin fix the game?
No.
That's a great question.
No, I think Bitcoin actually enables you to play the game in a more conscious way.
because some of the rules or some of the circumstances
are not influenced by other people that are no better than you.
Is money a spiritual thing?
Yes.
Very much, I would say.
Are we in a spiritual war?
Yes.
Very much, I would say.
Yes.
yeah i think i think this is the i love this topic because i uh like what i just said
you know there are once i realized that all other organizations all leadership in a country every
government it's just other people it's just other people that have not figured what this life uh you
know they haven't figured out what this life is about right they have the same ego the same
struggles the same wishes desires wants needs challenges personal issues child traumas whatever
and so some people are smarter than other people but i think easily giving in to the fact that
other people are more superior to you and therefore they should have some sort of privilege
to rule over you, to be in charge of, you know, in the context that we talk about money, in charge
of a certain technology that they can design to benefit them and not you, right? I think is a
spiritual crime in the sense that we are at a certain point now that too many people, I would
say, because we collectively allow it. Yeah, I think that's okay. And I personally don't think
that's okay. Because yeah, these are just other people. You know, if we give these other people
a certain authority over us to do things for us,
then in my logical reasoning,
I would like to see the receipts
as to why we should give them certain privileges over us
and what the benefit is that we get in return.
And if that isn't clear,
but they still want to be in charge
and try to control us,
then yeah, I would say there is at least a war of ideas going on.
But eventually it is a spiritual war
because I personally believe that, I mean, we are all the same.
We have different incarnations in this meat suit.
But we are all the same.
And I think having a technology in the perceived reality
that can help us align incentives
and actually build and explore together
sounds way more appealing to me
than some sort of technocratic authoritarian future
where other people, no smarter, no better,
not more deserving than me, are ruling over me.
So fuck that.
I don't think that is something anyone should accept.
And I think the outsourcing of thinking
nowadays is something that uh is a huge symptom of this spiritual war the the fact that people
are too afraid to think for themselves whether they are right or wrong it doesn't really matter
right like i don't care if people think i'm wrong that's okay uh as long as we can talk about it and
and and you can debate me or have a dialogue with me and show your uh yeah again like your
philosophical underpinning of what you believe, that's fine.
I think that should be the goal. I think that's, that is funny because I do think that's what we
learned, you know, when we talk about the Greeks, you know, what we learned in high school when we
talk about the Greeks, how they discussed and, you know, and had this dialogue and all this dialectic
and that that was how the democracy worked. But yeah, that's not what we're seeing today. So we're
we pretty far away from that And um it seems like no one really cares which is a pity and i think is also a motivator for me to just not stop talking about bitcoin because i do i do think
bitcoin uh yeah like i said fixes these incentives and eventually uh fixes the world yeah yeah well
So do you think young people should be all in?
Yes.
I think it would be great and very empowering
when younger people realize that,
like I said in the beginning,
there is a certain problem that other people created for you
and it's up to you to figure that out.
And they don't really care what you do.
So you might as well go all the way
And for example, with Bitcoin experience that there is a global network of a lot of like-minded, intelligent, curious, brave people that are adopting another money, not to the benefit of themselves, but actually to the benefit of also all the other people that adopt this money.
and I think that could be a little bit scary or intimidating, right?
Because of course you should trust all the people in charge, etc.
Yeah, but again, I do think that doing that in a conscious way,
so understanding what you're doing is very important, right?
So studying Bitcoin is very important.
Understanding what you are getting into is very important.
but I think
and so that is not easy
but on the other side of that
I think is a very
freeing mindset
that actually makes you
more appreciative of
life I would say
more free, more in the now
and I think that is
eventually what
makes the quality of your life higher
and I think
that going all in
with that conviction based on study,
is probably the best risk-reward opportunity
that any young person has today.
Because your future based on fiat money
is promised, but is definitely not existing.
So you might as well just disregard it
and adopt, I think, what I believe
is the better alternative today
that will probably give you the best reward.
What do you say when people say,
you know, Bram, I've listened to you.
I love what you're saying.
I get it.
I want to live like you.
I want to be like you.
What does it take?
How much Bitcoin do you have?
What do you say to them?
Not enough.
Yeah, no.
I mean, eventually it doesn't really matter.
Again, I think how much Bitcoin you have.
You should have as much as you think you need.
I don't, it's a good question.
First answer is, by the way, be yourself.
But if I trace back how I got here,
I couldn't really identify all the steps, right?
Like it's all these little steps.
But I think my biggest advice would be just be,
just try to think for yourself.
try to really do the work so you can trust your own thinking
and trust your own judgment.
And then you will quickly see that many other people don't have that.
And the amount you have to put in is shockingly lower
than you might think up front.
Love it.
All right, two more.
How has Bitcoin changed you?
Maybe in a way you totally didn't expect
or some way you haven't covered tonight.
I think just kind of what I said now just being way more conscious living in the now I used to
have a lot of I think anxiety about the future in a sense that you know like like like I said in the
beginning I was quite entrepreneurial I'm not a hardcore entrepreneur right like I have more it's
more like I have entrepreneurial tendencies but there were also many times that I didn't try
something or I was too afraid to do it or I had like super high expectations of when I actually
attempted something and then when I failed I was super bummed about it because I always felt like
everything should uh work on the first try that I tried it I don't even know why I thought about
that like I I felt a lot of pressure like towards the future and now I actually feel way more in the
in the now like live in the now like I do think about the future but it doesn't um
it doesn't have the hold on me that it had on me before.
So I actually feel like I lowered my natural anxiety towards the future
to actually appreciate all the things that I can experience right now.
And that is something that I definitely did not expect, you know,
12 years ago when I started day trading with my student friends
trying to be richer or whatever.
so um i think that's something that that has been really surprising yeah
if you could orange pill anyone in the world who would it be and why
yeah okay this is a this is a corny answer perhaps but fucking joe rogan
he needs to understand he needs to understand what this is he's so close he's so close and
And he had Antonopoulos on, you know, who totally explained it to him.
And he is just so close.
And I really hope we can get someone who gets Bitcoin with like that amount of clout.
Because I think there are certain, there are an infinite amount of paths basically exist for Bitcoin to like be adopted in the world.
But I do think there are some shortcuts along the way.
I think Trump, whatever you think of Trump, is somewhat of a shortcut for Bitcoin.
Because I think it's now politically impopular to be against Bitcoin in the next election, right?
It would be very dumb to be anti-Bitcoin on the Democrat platform, for example,
now that Bitcoin is in all these pension funds, etc.
And so I think that was a little shortcut, but I think more someone that is part of, of shaping culture, um, with cloud like Rogan, I think, I think it, it should be Rogan.
I think that he would be someone that when he actually sees it,
this is probably the only thing he talks about.
And like all the things he finds interesting.
I've listened to a lot of Joe Rogan.
All the things he finds interesting,
all the things that he's annoyed by where he's like,
why the fuck does it work like that?
Or if it's about health or food or whatever,
you can all trace it back to the money.
It's like infinitely interesting.
And he is an infinitely curious person.
And so I think if he really gets it, I think this is the only thing that he's going to talk about because he's going to put two and two together.
I think Bitcoin is probably the biggest missing link for Joe Rogan to put all the stuff together that he finds interesting.
And so, yeah, I think Joe Rogan would be a good shortcut for Bitcoin to kind of like take a big leap forward in adoption and awareness.
We'll see.
I don't think he ever does it.
I think he stays away.
That's kind of his role.
I don't know.
But, Bram, this has been so dope.
This has been incredible.
I loved having you on.
I'll leave it to you for any parting words,
letting people know they can find you and your podcast
and all your work.
Yeah, thanks for having the conversation.
For me, it's always nice to be on the other side.
It gives me a moment to frame and think about my own thoughts,
So I hope it was somewhat coherent.
But yeah, I'm happy to be by your side again.
Thanks for the inspiration to start the podcast.
And I know I'm going to continue with this for a very long time.
And yeah, if people want to learn about what I'm talking about with regard to Bitcoin with people, yeah, they can search for Bitcoin for Millennials on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
anywhere you get your podcast or on YouTube.
My channel is called Bitcoin Bram.
And I'm also very active on X where I'm Bram K.
So B-R-A-M-K.
You're doing great work.
Keep it up.
Thank you so much.
Thanks.
You too.
Thanks, brother.
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