1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:03,320 The amount of Bitcoin buying is much higher than a Bitcoin being 2 00:00:03,320 --> 00:00:07,040 mined, so it's just a question of when the sellers run out of 3 00:00:07,040 --> 00:00:09,600 Bitcoin to sell or decide they don't want to sell anymore. 4 00:00:09,680 --> 00:00:11,520 Is that your target? The half? 5 00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:14,240 Any prediction? Maybe it's more, I don't know. 6 00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:17,840 It's it's a, I mean, I think a good starting point is. 7 00:00:18,400 --> 00:00:21,200 There is very little retail involvement this cycle. 8 00:00:21,320 --> 00:00:24,720 Yeah, I mean, I guess that's from things like Google search 9 00:00:24,920 --> 00:00:26,360 trends and things like that, right? 10 00:00:26,360 --> 00:00:30,040 It's probably a last time to buy at 62 Bitcoin prices. 11 00:00:30,080 --> 00:00:32,759 It's a race. And so, you know, Sailor has 12 00:00:32,759 --> 00:00:35,280 said things like, well, he's he's just going to keep buying, 13 00:00:35,440 --> 00:00:36,920 right? And he's fearful about not 14 00:00:36,920 --> 00:00:40,320 buying enough. And so you've got new buyers 15 00:00:40,320 --> 00:00:44,760 coming in and if you don't buy them, they will basically, will 16 00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:48,560 Bitcoin reach parity with gold? Do you think it's a good thing 17 00:00:48,560 --> 00:00:51,280 that nation states start accumulating Bitcoin? 18 00:00:51,360 --> 00:00:53,560 There's a saying that everybody buys Bitcoin at the price they 19 00:00:53,560 --> 00:00:55,840 deserve, and I think the governments deserve, you know, a 20 00:00:55,840 --> 00:01:01,400 certain rate figure price, right, Yeah. 21 00:01:01,400 --> 00:01:03,760 Welcome to another episode of Simply Bitcoin IRL. 22 00:01:03,760 --> 00:01:06,880 We're here in the beautiful Lugano, and I've joined with 23 00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:08,600 someone that doesn't need an introduction. 24 00:01:08,680 --> 00:01:10,560 Adam, thank you so much for joining me today. 25 00:01:10,680 --> 00:01:12,480 Hi Niko, how you doing? Good. 26 00:01:12,600 --> 00:01:16,680 So Adam, it's been a pretty historic year for Bitcoin 27 00:01:17,280 --> 00:01:19,840 regarding the Bitcoin treasury companies as a whole, 28 00:01:19,840 --> 00:01:22,200 congratulations. With the Bitcoin Standard 29 00:01:22,200 --> 00:01:27,720 Treasury Company, you're #5 with 30,000 and 21 Bitcoin on the 30 00:01:27,720 --> 00:01:30,400 balance sheet. Well, it depends because we are 31 00:01:30,520 --> 00:01:33,320 funded on close and we'll wait for regulator approval. 32 00:01:33,440 --> 00:01:38,480 So there is 30,000 and 21 Bitcoin, but there's also $1.3 33 00:01:38,480 --> 00:01:41,680 billion and we don't yet know how many Bitcoin that will buy. 34 00:01:41,840 --> 00:01:43,680 So it depend on the Bitcoin price at the close. 35 00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:46,560 So, Adam, I think one of the things that I've noticed this 36 00:01:46,560 --> 00:01:49,680 year is just what the market is signaling, right? 37 00:01:49,720 --> 00:01:52,880 So a lot of the treasury companies have gone a little bit 38 00:01:52,880 --> 00:01:55,560 lower, you know, some have gone below M NAV. 39 00:01:55,560 --> 00:01:58,160 Where do you see Bitcoin treasury companies and the 40 00:01:58,160 --> 00:02:00,040 future of finance in general? Yeah. 41 00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:05,040 I mean, I think the treasury company phenomena is making 42 00:02:05,080 --> 00:02:08,919 genuine and sustainable advantage of the capital market 43 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:11,160 mechanisms. Obviously a raise for capital 44 00:02:11,160 --> 00:02:15,200 formation for building products, but work fine as a vehicle for 45 00:02:15,200 --> 00:02:19,680 running an operating company and reinvesting in the products, in 46 00:02:19,680 --> 00:02:23,560 the services in them to develop more revenue and in putting the 47 00:02:23,680 --> 00:02:26,160 cash reserves of the company into Bitcoin as a better 48 00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:29,520 inflation hedged approach. So I think what you're seeing is 49 00:02:29,640 --> 00:02:33,440 that active behavior like active Bitcoin management, active 50 00:02:33,440 --> 00:02:36,480 operating companies going to be favored in the future most 51 00:02:36,480 --> 00:02:40,640 likely because the markets developed a view on the Mnasses. 52 00:02:40,640 --> 00:02:42,640 There are a lot of people shorting them at the moment. 53 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:45,840 Gotcha. And another question for you, do 54 00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:49,600 you, because I think this is the main topic of this year, which 55 00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:52,360 is you believe that the four year cycle is over? 56 00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:56,720 We'll see. I'm thinking that you'll still 57 00:02:56,720 --> 00:03:02,440 have cycles, but it may not line up with previous cycles. 58 00:03:02,440 --> 00:03:07,720 And and I mean the reason you get cycles is the halving cycle. 59 00:03:07,720 --> 00:03:11,240 I think it's a real effect. People are often sceptical that 60 00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:15,040 it's a smaller percentage each time, but actually it's sort of 61 00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:17,840 followed by another effect which is the Hoddle wave. 62 00:03:17,960 --> 00:03:23,360 I people that learn the hard way the cold storing and dollar cost 63 00:03:23,360 --> 00:03:26,480 averaging Bitcoin is a safer and more conservative approach than 64 00:03:26,480 --> 00:03:30,280 market timing and so on. And so over time, the bigger 65 00:03:30,280 --> 00:03:34,160 percentage of Bitcoin are long term stored, saved, called 66 00:03:34,160 --> 00:03:38,040 stored. And so the percentage drop in 67 00:03:38,040 --> 00:03:41,760 halving it should really be considered related to, you know, 68 00:03:41,760 --> 00:03:45,200 as a proportion of the Bitcoin are on the market and these cold 69 00:03:45,200 --> 00:03:46,520 stored Bitcoin are not on the market. 70 00:03:46,520 --> 00:03:51,280 And so then effectively that ratio is not diminishing in the 71 00:03:51,280 --> 00:03:54,320 way that people think it is. And also most technology 72 00:03:54,720 --> 00:03:58,080 adoption curves goes through a kind of mass adoption surge and 73 00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:00,000 I don't think that coin has seen that yet. 74 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:02,360 So, you know, could get the opposite dimension returns. 75 00:04:02,360 --> 00:04:05,440 But this this cycle could be an interesting one for that. 76 00:04:05,480 --> 00:04:09,120 There's a lot of people taking profit and new money coming in. 77 00:04:09,240 --> 00:04:12,240 The people that are taking profit will eventually run out 78 00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:15,000 of coins that they want to sell or the allocation that they want 79 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:16,480 to sell, the allocation they want to get called on to. 80 00:04:16,800 --> 00:04:20,959 And there is a large amount of sustained buying from ETF buyers 81 00:04:20,959 --> 00:04:24,160 from institutions. About 30% of the BlackRock ETF 82 00:04:24,160 --> 00:04:25,400 has apparently the institutional. 83 00:04:25,480 --> 00:04:28,840 And you know, most of that means most of the ETF buying is 84 00:04:28,840 --> 00:04:31,720 actually just a new more accessible way to buy Bitcoin 85 00:04:31,720 --> 00:04:35,560 for probably mostly people in the bracket of the top 10% by 86 00:04:35,560 --> 00:04:38,960 wealth in the UK minus top 1%. So just people in a professional 87 00:04:38,960 --> 00:04:42,640 like business owners, doctors, dentists, lawyers, people with a 88 00:04:42,640 --> 00:04:46,560 share portfolio, small business operators, and when they decide 89 00:04:46,560 --> 00:04:48,560 to buy Bitcoin, they just call their broker or financial 90 00:04:48,560 --> 00:04:50,800 advisor and they reallocate from something else. 91 00:04:50,800 --> 00:04:53,600 So it's not necessarily new money, it's reallocated money. 92 00:04:53,640 --> 00:04:57,120 And so I think the ETFs enabled that second wave, the first wave 93 00:04:57,120 --> 00:05:00,600 being people who bought on Bitcoin exchanges or OTC cash 94 00:05:00,840 --> 00:05:02,840 transactions. And a third way of being 95 00:05:02,840 --> 00:05:05,640 institutional, I think the institutional wave is actually 96 00:05:05,640 --> 00:05:07,880 very new. Like that's, that's in effect, 97 00:05:07,880 --> 00:05:10,760 it takes a long time to ramp up, but nevertheless, the amount of 98 00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:14,440 Bitcoin buying is much higher than a Bitcoin being mined. 99 00:05:14,440 --> 00:05:17,960 So it's just a question of when the sellers run out of Bitcoin 100 00:05:17,960 --> 00:05:20,240 to sell or decide they don't want to sell anymore. 101 00:05:20,280 --> 00:05:22,560 And then presumably that will have an effect on the price. 102 00:05:22,560 --> 00:05:25,560 And then some of the people that sold my FOMO back in, because, 103 00:05:25,560 --> 00:05:28,080 you know, they may be thinking that looking at the history of 104 00:05:28,080 --> 00:05:30,480 Harvang and if they see that invalidated, that will change 105 00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:32,240 their behaviour as well. So there's a lot of market 106 00:05:32,240 --> 00:05:34,040 psychology in there. It's hard to predict. 107 00:05:34,560 --> 00:05:38,240 Bitcoin typically surprises people in some way or other. 108 00:05:38,440 --> 00:05:40,920 It definitely does. Bitcoin has a tendency of doing 109 00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:44,480 the exact opposite of what everyone anticipates. 110 00:05:44,480 --> 00:05:46,400 There's been the history of Bitcoin for sure. 111 00:05:46,520 --> 00:05:50,680 Does it surprise you that so many OGS Adam have been selling 112 00:05:50,680 --> 00:05:52,600 as much Bitcoin as they have been? 113 00:05:52,680 --> 00:05:57,120 I'm a little surprised for the reason that anybody who's been 114 00:05:57,120 --> 00:06:01,560 through prior cycles wouldn't feel that this is a particularly 115 00:06:01,560 --> 00:06:03,800 high point. Like to a lot of people that 116 00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:07,720 seems like this is relatively early in a cycle sort of price 117 00:06:07,720 --> 00:06:13,240 wise in the distance from prior all times highs and the distance 118 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:15,920 from the prior all time low. But the price like was low and 119 00:06:15,920 --> 00:06:17,880 things like that, right? Should bear in mind, people 120 00:06:17,920 --> 00:06:22,600 forget quickly that in the last cycle there was a third all time 121 00:06:22,600 --> 00:06:25,440 high shortly before the Harvin, you know which replace you if 122 00:06:25,440 --> 00:06:28,040 you if you is out still for this cycle, right? 123 00:06:28,200 --> 00:06:31,440 And I think also the cycle has seen smaller drawbacks. 124 00:06:31,560 --> 00:06:35,800 In previous cycles you'd see maybe a dozen 3035% drops. 125 00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:37,720 So they haven't really seen that this time around. 126 00:06:37,720 --> 00:06:41,840 So the the drawdowns are smaller I think because the ETF buyers, 127 00:06:41,880 --> 00:06:45,280 retail ETF buyers, institutional buyers and the treasury company 128 00:06:45,280 --> 00:06:48,160 buyers are not panic sellers, they're long term holders. 129 00:06:48,280 --> 00:06:52,040 And so they are actually buying the dips and there's less 130 00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:55,440 proportion of the new incoming Bitcoin holders in this cycle 131 00:06:55,520 --> 00:06:57,320 that are prone to be shaken out by a drop does. 132 00:06:57,320 --> 00:07:03,280 This surprise you that 2025 hasn't been as explosive as a 133 00:07:03,280 --> 00:07:06,560 lot of people anticipated. And I know having anticipations 134 00:07:06,560 --> 00:07:10,240 in Bitcoin is a terrible idea, having expectations in general. 135 00:07:10,320 --> 00:07:11,760 But I'm going to get your opinion. 136 00:07:11,960 --> 00:07:16,440 Well, I mean, it's kind of waiting game until people run 137 00:07:16,440 --> 00:07:18,040 out of Bitcoin to sell basically. 138 00:07:18,160 --> 00:07:20,320 I think because if you look at the imbalance, it's huge. 139 00:07:20,320 --> 00:07:23,960 It's like 4 or five times, maybe 6 times the amount of Bitcoin 140 00:07:23,960 --> 00:07:26,400 being mined are being bought on a regular basis. 141 00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:29,200 You know, micro strategy is buying a couple of times the 142 00:07:29,200 --> 00:07:31,560 amount mined. You know, since the halving 143 00:07:31,920 --> 00:07:35,640 BlackRock ATF about the same. There are traders who are buying 144 00:07:35,640 --> 00:07:39,320 4, 150 a day just tactically buying up cheap Bitcoin at any 145 00:07:39,480 --> 00:07:42,240 time it pulls back reactively and you know, then you've got 146 00:07:42,240 --> 00:07:44,480 the ETF buyers, there's really a lot of buying. 147 00:07:44,480 --> 00:07:46,840 You know, I think the treasury companies are a factor as well 148 00:07:47,040 --> 00:07:49,760 in total, in addition to, you know, micro strategy and the 149 00:07:49,760 --> 00:07:52,800 rest because they are not sellers. 150 00:07:53,040 --> 00:07:55,880 They've been buying and holding. So you know, if there's a 151 00:07:55,880 --> 00:07:58,640 pullback that affects their share price, but it doesn't flow 152 00:07:58,640 --> 00:08:00,840 through to the Bitcoin price, which is interesting. 153 00:08:00,840 --> 00:08:04,280 So Pierre Rashad had described that, that the treasury 154 00:08:04,280 --> 00:08:07,600 companies are bitcoins, shock absorber might price shock 155 00:08:07,600 --> 00:08:09,680 absorber because price pulls back. 156 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:13,520 They don't sell right and say, you know, if you get a lot of 157 00:08:13,720 --> 00:08:16,960 good investors, investors who buy and hold for the long term, 158 00:08:17,080 --> 00:08:18,920 that changes the price structure for the bear. 159 00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:21,760 So I think the price structure is surprisingly good. 160 00:08:21,760 --> 00:08:24,480 You know, the big liquidation cascade we had in the last few 161 00:08:24,480 --> 00:08:27,160 weeks didn't pull the price back that much, and there's a lot of 162 00:08:27,160 --> 00:08:30,440 heavy buying as it pulled back. So I think that shows that it's 163 00:08:30,440 --> 00:08:32,880 quite robust when people's confidence is quite high. 164 00:08:33,919 --> 00:08:36,799 It's, it's different the way that it's behaved this cycle and 165 00:08:36,799 --> 00:08:39,440 it, it seems like it's more institutionally driven. 166 00:08:39,440 --> 00:08:42,919 It's this, you know, small tick up very methodically. 167 00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:46,880 And one of the things I've noticed, Adam, is that there is 168 00:08:46,880 --> 00:08:49,320 very little retail involvement this cycle. 169 00:08:49,400 --> 00:08:51,520 Yeah. I mean, I guess that's from 170 00:08:51,520 --> 00:08:54,560 things like Google search trends and things like that, right? 171 00:08:54,840 --> 00:08:58,120 Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, it's 172 00:08:58,880 --> 00:09:02,400 probably a last time to buy at the six digit Bitcoin prices, 173 00:09:02,400 --> 00:09:06,040 right? So, you know, for people who 174 00:09:06,040 --> 00:09:09,160 are, you know, skeptical because I think it's still early, 175 00:09:09,200 --> 00:09:11,000 Obviously, you know, the percentage of people that own 176 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:13,360 Bitcoin is quite low. It's a race. 177 00:09:13,440 --> 00:09:16,960 And so, you know, Sailor has said things like, well, he's, 178 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:18,520 he's just going to keep buying, right? 179 00:09:18,520 --> 00:09:20,400 And he's fearful about not buying enough. 180 00:09:20,400 --> 00:09:25,440 And so you've got new buyers coming in and if you don't buy 181 00:09:25,440 --> 00:09:27,680 them, they will basically, right. 182 00:09:27,680 --> 00:09:32,480 So I think, you know, if there's no, you know, the average person 183 00:09:32,480 --> 00:09:34,960 doesn't really have an excuse. They've had a really long time 184 00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:37,880 to buy. It's still early and, you know, 185 00:09:37,880 --> 00:09:40,440 but sometimes people prefer to buy a higher price. 186 00:09:40,440 --> 00:09:42,040 They feel more confidence at a higher price. 187 00:09:42,040 --> 00:09:43,800 And that's been the case historically as well, right? 188 00:09:43,800 --> 00:09:47,760 The and the price rise has generally been kind of bouncing 189 00:09:47,760 --> 00:09:50,680 around the confidence and conviction that people have and 190 00:09:50,680 --> 00:09:52,840 new people come, a number of new people coming in. 191 00:09:52,920 --> 00:09:55,640 And so I think that continues to be the case. 192 00:09:55,680 --> 00:09:58,160 It's human psychology right when the price is pumping. 193 00:09:58,160 --> 00:09:59,960 Everyone just smashed by his. Yeah. 194 00:09:59,960 --> 00:10:02,720 And that's that's also how you get the blow off top, which I 195 00:10:02,720 --> 00:10:04,520 don't think we've seen yet in this cycle. 196 00:10:04,640 --> 00:10:06,320 Do you think that's going to happen? 197 00:10:06,320 --> 00:10:07,840 Do you think we'll see a parabola? 198 00:10:08,040 --> 00:10:10,240 And I know we're getting into speculation territory. 199 00:10:10,240 --> 00:10:15,360 But it, you know, it's sort of somewhat inherent in markets, 200 00:10:15,360 --> 00:10:18,840 but maybe it'll be more muted and we don't know actually. 201 00:10:18,840 --> 00:10:21,480 Of course, you know, what will happen if it will just keep 202 00:10:21,640 --> 00:10:25,040 grinding higher for go through through to the next cycle or if 203 00:10:25,040 --> 00:10:26,640 we'll have like moderate pullbacks. 204 00:10:26,640 --> 00:10:28,400 Of course, you always have volatility. 205 00:10:28,480 --> 00:10:31,480 But yeah, I think it's a slightly different price regime 206 00:10:31,480 --> 00:10:34,960 and the and the retail may come back in, you know, some higher 207 00:10:34,960 --> 00:10:38,200 price later in this cycle. So, Adam, I remember a long time 208 00:10:38,200 --> 00:10:42,800 ago, I was watching one of your interviews and you had a market 209 00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:45,200 order to buy all the Bitcoin. Yeah. 210 00:10:45,200 --> 00:10:48,320 Do you still have that market order open and at what price? 211 00:10:48,760 --> 00:10:52,200 So it was a 2 cent. So it was Alistair Milne, who's 212 00:10:53,240 --> 00:10:56,560 kind of a very early Bitcoiner. He has a tweet from 2011 saying 213 00:10:56,560 --> 00:11:00,200 something about Bitcoin and started a Bitcoin alpha fund in 214 00:11:00,200 --> 00:11:02,960 Monaco. So he had placed an order for 215 00:11:03,080 --> 00:11:06,600 18.7 million Bitcoin, I think it was, which was all the Bitcoin 216 00:11:06,600 --> 00:11:08,720 that had been mined at that time at 1 cent. 217 00:11:09,200 --> 00:11:11,160 And so I thought let's outbid him. 218 00:11:11,280 --> 00:11:14,720 I put an order for 21 million just to be sure at 1 cent, at 2 219 00:11:14,720 --> 00:11:19,800 cents rather which is $120,000. So it was actually a live order, 220 00:11:19,880 --> 00:11:23,640 but I think if in practice it couldn't get filled because you 221 00:11:23,640 --> 00:11:25,920 know, it was on the bid for next exchange and there only so many 222 00:11:25,920 --> 00:11:29,200 Bitcoin on that exchange. So even if the Bitcoin price 223 00:11:29,280 --> 00:11:32,120 fell through the order, you could only possibly buy what's 224 00:11:32,120 --> 00:11:34,000 on the exchange. And of course anything like 225 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:36,080 that, everybody else comes out of the woodwork and places 226 00:11:36,080 --> 00:11:37,680 orders. So it never gets there really. 227 00:11:37,880 --> 00:11:42,480 So you'd probably be more to place a bid for a much smaller 228 00:11:42,480 --> 00:11:44,600 amount of Bitcoin or a much higher price than you might 229 00:11:44,600 --> 00:11:47,000 actually catch something in a flash crash. 230 00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:48,480 I thought it was that was always. 231 00:11:48,480 --> 00:11:50,960 Funny when I heard that story for the first. 232 00:11:50,960 --> 00:11:52,840 Well, I mean, people like to say, oh, Bitcoin could fall to 233 00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:54,200 0. And I think Bruce Fenton said 234 00:11:54,200 --> 00:11:56,080 the same thing. It's like, no, because, you 235 00:11:56,080 --> 00:11:59,360 know, even if something absolutely calamitous happens, 236 00:11:59,440 --> 00:12:01,760 people try to buy them for collector's sake, right? 237 00:12:01,800 --> 00:12:04,920 And that would reboot the market very rapidly. 238 00:12:04,960 --> 00:12:07,360 So, Adam. You've been involved in Bitcoin 239 00:12:07,360 --> 00:12:10,000 since the early days you mentioned and literally in the 240 00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:12,400 white paper. How has that been? 241 00:12:12,400 --> 00:12:16,920 Can you ever have imagined where Bitcoin is today? 242 00:12:16,920 --> 00:12:20,880 You're the CEO of two major companies, the Bitcoin Standard 243 00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:25,120 Treasury Company and of course Block Stream, which is fantastic 244 00:12:25,120 --> 00:12:27,240 work. The Jade, I love the wallet and 245 00:12:27,240 --> 00:12:29,800 all the other incredible stuff, the satellite and space. 246 00:12:30,560 --> 00:12:34,960 So could you ever have imagined this from the early days of just 247 00:12:35,520 --> 00:12:37,360 working on Bitcoin? Yeah. 248 00:12:37,400 --> 00:12:44,240 I mean, I think the sort of probability or the risk 249 00:12:44,240 --> 00:12:49,400 perception about Bitcoin reaching mass adoption was much 250 00:12:49,600 --> 00:12:51,680 as much more uncertainty early on. 251 00:12:51,880 --> 00:12:55,560 So, you know, people were hopeful and excited about the 252 00:12:55,560 --> 00:12:59,240 prospect of finally a deployed bare electronic cash that was 253 00:12:59,240 --> 00:13:01,800 decentralized, that the previous ones were centralized and that 254 00:13:01,800 --> 00:13:03,520 was ultimately the cause of their failure. 255 00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:09,000 And so that started the kind of hunt or the applied research for 256 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:12,720 a way to make decentralized bare electronic cash that ultimately 257 00:13:12,720 --> 00:13:15,400 Satoshi found the missing ingredient and made it happen. 258 00:13:15,480 --> 00:13:20,240 But I think, you know, at least for myself in August 2008 when I 259 00:13:20,240 --> 00:13:22,800 first heard about Bitcoin and then when it was released in 260 00:13:22,800 --> 00:13:28,440 January 2009 source code, my thought was, so she has solved 261 00:13:28,440 --> 00:13:31,680 the technical challenge, but now comes the market test. 262 00:13:31,680 --> 00:13:34,200 Will it bootstrap? Will it get enough interest that 263 00:13:34,200 --> 00:13:39,320 it doesn't kind of remain a kind of techie computer geek 264 00:13:40,200 --> 00:13:44,440 experiment that fizzles or never takes off as opposed to gets a 265 00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:47,800 sustainable market, you know, maybe volatile, but that that 266 00:13:47,800 --> 00:13:50,040 will last Test of time. So I think that took some years, 267 00:13:50,040 --> 00:13:52,800 obviously. So, you know, hope hoped it 268 00:13:52,800 --> 00:13:55,280 would happen because, you know, people might might myself have 269 00:13:55,280 --> 00:13:58,240 been working on trying to make something like that happen for a 270 00:13:58,240 --> 00:14:00,040 long time. And we're very, there's a lot of 271 00:14:00,040 --> 00:14:03,800 excitement in a sort of Bitcoin like vibe in the mid 90s with 272 00:14:03,800 --> 00:14:06,320 Digicash, for example. But it failed. 273 00:14:06,320 --> 00:14:09,200 And the lesson people took from it failing was not, oh, it's 274 00:14:09,200 --> 00:14:11,960 over this give up. But what went wrong? 275 00:14:11,960 --> 00:14:13,840 How can we engineer a solution to fix it? 276 00:14:14,160 --> 00:14:16,720 And now some of the ingredients that went into that were 277 00:14:16,720 --> 00:14:20,040 discussed and later used or rediscovered by Bitcoin. 278 00:14:20,120 --> 00:14:26,680 So I think the motivation was there, the desire to see it, but 279 00:14:26,800 --> 00:14:28,640 you know, the confidence about whether it's actually going to 280 00:14:28,640 --> 00:14:30,320 happen grew organically over time. 281 00:14:30,360 --> 00:14:34,520 And you know, when block stream started in 2014, even then there 282 00:14:34,520 --> 00:14:38,400 was still a lot of uncertainty about the regulatory reception, 283 00:14:38,400 --> 00:14:41,080 you know, where the major companies, countries would ban 284 00:14:41,080 --> 00:14:42,760 Bitcoin and things like that, right? 285 00:14:42,760 --> 00:14:46,600 So actually Bitcoin has had a relatively smooth and dramatic 286 00:14:46,960 --> 00:14:50,600 growth and acceptance among users and even amongst 287 00:14:50,600 --> 00:14:54,520 establishment tax authorities, regulators and so on, which has 288 00:14:54,520 --> 00:14:57,080 been interesting to see. So do you think it's a good 289 00:14:57,080 --> 00:15:00,280 thing that nation states start accumulating Bitcoin? 290 00:15:00,920 --> 00:15:04,640 Well, I think there's two parts to answer. 1 is I think it's a 291 00:15:04,640 --> 00:15:07,720 good thing that they're open for business because there was some 292 00:15:07,720 --> 00:15:11,640 behind the scenes friction trying to slow down Bitcoin and 293 00:15:11,640 --> 00:15:14,880 doing undisposed things like trying to debank Bitcoin 294 00:15:14,880 --> 00:15:17,360 companies, trying to make it hard for them to get banks, hard 295 00:15:17,360 --> 00:15:19,240 to have exchange on ramps and things like that. 296 00:15:19,240 --> 00:15:21,760 So it's good that, you know, now we have a more level playing 297 00:15:21,760 --> 00:15:25,560 field like, you know, maybe the there was a phenomena in the 298 00:15:25,560 --> 00:15:29,280 Internet where they had a kind of let's just let it run and see 299 00:15:29,280 --> 00:15:31,400 a developed value, right, rather than try to fight it. 300 00:15:31,400 --> 00:15:32,800 So you see that more of that kind of vibe. 301 00:15:32,800 --> 00:15:35,960 And then the other side of it is should we actually 1 government 302 00:15:35,960 --> 00:15:39,320 super and up all the Bitcoin? And you know, I think there's a 303 00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:41,280 saying that everybody buys Bitcoin at the price they 304 00:15:41,280 --> 00:15:42,600 deserve. And I think the government's 305 00:15:42,760 --> 00:15:44,880 deserve A7 or 8 figure price, right. 306 00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:48,760 And so now, of course, selfishly for a small country, you kind of 307 00:15:48,760 --> 00:15:51,560 want your governments by Bitcoin because then they'll have more 308 00:15:51,560 --> 00:15:53,680 sovereign welfare, they'll be able to reduce taxes, improve 309 00:15:53,680 --> 00:15:57,600 services and make a nicer, more economic country. 310 00:15:57,600 --> 00:16:00,760 But on the other hand, it's actually better for the 311 00:16:00,760 --> 00:16:03,920 individual if governments continue to be slow to adopt, 312 00:16:03,920 --> 00:16:05,960 give individuals more time to buy Bitcoin. 313 00:16:06,040 --> 00:16:10,120 And Bitcoin is really the one of the very few technology waves 314 00:16:10,120 --> 00:16:13,800 where the individual front run the professional investors by a 315 00:16:13,800 --> 00:16:16,040 decade or more. So I want to tell you about the 316 00:16:16,040 --> 00:16:19,040 best place to build your automatic self custody Bitcoin 317 00:16:19,040 --> 00:16:23,200 stack bitcoinwell.com. What makes Bitcoin well 318 00:16:23,200 --> 00:16:24,480 different? What makes it unique? 319 00:16:24,520 --> 00:16:27,440 It's an automatic self custody Bitcoin on ramp. 320 00:16:27,440 --> 00:16:29,360 What does that mean? That means that when you buy 321 00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:33,360 Bitcoin on Bitcoin well, as soon as the funds clear, it goes 322 00:16:33,360 --> 00:16:36,520 straight to yourself custody Bitcoin wallet address which 323 00:16:36,520 --> 00:16:40,120 perfectly aligns with the simply Bitcoin ethos because after all, 324 00:16:40,160 --> 00:16:44,880 self custody is the revolution. By the way, if you go to Bitcoin 325 00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:48,960 dot com slash simply as soon as you make your first purchase you 326 00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:53,760 get 3 opportunities to win up to 1,000,000 Satoshi's just for 327 00:16:53,760 --> 00:16:56,280 signing up and buying a little bit of Bitcoin. 328 00:16:56,360 --> 00:16:58,760 Seems like a win win. What are you waiting for? 329 00:16:58,800 --> 00:17:01,680 Go to bitcoinwell.com/simply today. 330 00:17:01,840 --> 00:17:06,560 What will be the role of Bitcoin treasury companies in the 331 00:17:06,560 --> 00:17:08,200 traditional financial system in the future? 332 00:17:08,280 --> 00:17:11,000 Well, I think, I mean, I've, I've said that Bitcoin is the 333 00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:15,200 huddle rate, by which I mean, in their hedge funds, they have a 334 00:17:15,200 --> 00:17:18,359 concept of a hurdle rate, which is, you know, if they have a 335 00:17:18,359 --> 00:17:22,440 fund which is trying to get a 20% return, they might charge 336 00:17:22,440 --> 00:17:25,040 typically a 2% management fee because off the top. 337 00:17:25,599 --> 00:17:28,319 And then they would say, and then you as the investor would 338 00:17:28,319 --> 00:17:31,000 say, well, wait a minute, I don't want to, you know, pay you 339 00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:35,080 20% on the return for the 1st 5% because I can get that in 340 00:17:35,080 --> 00:17:36,240 something at low risk like Treasury. 341 00:17:36,240 --> 00:17:37,600 So you haven't achieved anything by doing that. 342 00:17:37,600 --> 00:17:39,440 So they OK, OK, we'll take off that. 343 00:17:39,440 --> 00:17:42,040 So they didn't charge you the success rate above 5%. 344 00:17:42,040 --> 00:17:43,800 And that's that 5% is the hurdle rate. 345 00:17:43,920 --> 00:17:47,040 Another kind of hurdle rate or benchmark is, you know, what the 346 00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:49,640 S&P 500 rate or what big stock index does, because you know, 347 00:17:49,640 --> 00:17:52,400 that generally represents economic progress. 348 00:17:52,400 --> 00:17:54,560 Now I think Bitcoin is the hurdle rate because it's 349 00:17:54,560 --> 00:17:56,480 basically it's out of performed everything else. 350 00:17:56,480 --> 00:18:00,240 And so in any kind of long time framework where you make an 351 00:18:00,240 --> 00:18:02,160 investment and you leave it there for a long duration, 352 00:18:02,160 --> 00:18:03,880 Bitcoin has outperformed anything else. 353 00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:06,520 And so I think, you know, it's a neat thing to say to fund 354 00:18:06,520 --> 00:18:08,840 managers that bitcoins are over Rakes, which says, well, you 355 00:18:08,840 --> 00:18:11,320 know, if you're funded, there's no chance of keeping up with 356 00:18:11,320 --> 00:18:13,920 Bitcoin, you should close it down and like start a Bitcoin 357 00:18:13,920 --> 00:18:16,640 fund or tell your investors to buy Bitcoin. 358 00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:19,240 And I think that translates for companies because a lot of 359 00:18:19,240 --> 00:18:22,840 people have invested in startups that have obviously understood 360 00:18:22,840 --> 00:18:25,120 underperformed Bitcoin even in the Bitcoin space, right? 361 00:18:25,120 --> 00:18:28,440 And so the obvious thing for a company to combat that effect is 362 00:18:28,440 --> 00:18:32,480 to buy Bitcoin with your own treasury, your own cash reserves 363 00:18:32,480 --> 00:18:34,280 because they have to deal with volatility. 364 00:18:34,280 --> 00:18:37,880 So maybe they keep a certain amount in Fiat and arrest in 365 00:18:37,880 --> 00:18:40,920 Bitcoin for the long term. And so I think ultimately every 366 00:18:40,920 --> 00:18:44,040 company becomes a Bitcoin company now, you know, for the 367 00:18:44,040 --> 00:18:47,200 individual, you know, who feels like Bitcoin was for the little 368 00:18:47,200 --> 00:18:49,360 guy, for the average person, I think that's true. 369 00:18:49,360 --> 00:18:53,320 But you got to expect that anything which is a successful 370 00:18:53,360 --> 00:18:58,120 new money is going to be adopted by all segments of the ecos of, 371 00:18:58,120 --> 00:19:00,520 you know, the financial ecosystem of the modern economy. 372 00:19:00,520 --> 00:19:02,880 So you see it in pension funds, you see it in sovereign wealth 373 00:19:02,880 --> 00:19:06,960 funds, see it in governments, in states, in individuals, in 374 00:19:06,960 --> 00:19:09,920 retirement plans, in companies. Why not, right? 375 00:19:09,920 --> 00:19:14,640 I mean, companies are ultimately just a collection of humans. 376 00:19:14,760 --> 00:19:19,240 And a lot of modern societies economic progress is actually 377 00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:23,360 derived from the invention of, you know, limited companies and 378 00:19:23,400 --> 00:19:26,320 organized by shares and a capital formation to build new 379 00:19:26,320 --> 00:19:28,920 products. So, you know, some people are 380 00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:33,360 kind of upset about companies or think that companies are the big 381 00:19:33,360 --> 00:19:36,600 evil in the picture. But really companies are just 382 00:19:36,600 --> 00:19:38,400 groups of people organizing to do something. 383 00:19:38,520 --> 00:19:40,560 And if they're successful, they can grow. 384 00:19:40,560 --> 00:19:44,120 They can become public initially in a small cap stock market and 385 00:19:44,120 --> 00:19:47,120 then they can use the capital markets to raise money to grow 386 00:19:47,120 --> 00:19:50,480 what they do. Do you think eventually I'll use 387 00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:53,520 your company as an example? Do you, do you think eventually 388 00:19:53,520 --> 00:19:57,360 the Bitcoin standard treasury company will become some type of 389 00:19:57,600 --> 00:20:01,280 new type of bank? And I'm referencing how Finney's 390 00:20:01,280 --> 00:20:05,240 original, you know, post from a long time ago or he's talking 391 00:20:05,240 --> 00:20:07,440 about in the future there will be Bitcoin banks. 392 00:20:07,680 --> 00:20:09,400 Do you see? Do you foresee that happening? 393 00:20:09,400 --> 00:20:11,880 And the reason I'm asking you this, Adam, is the Bitcoin 394 00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:13,920 treasury companies are going to be the ones that have all the 395 00:20:13,920 --> 00:20:16,400 Bitcoin or a big portion of the Bitcoin. 396 00:20:16,640 --> 00:20:19,520 Right. So I think the, you know, 397 00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:22,680 bookstreams, sorry, the B star as we call it. 398 00:20:22,800 --> 00:20:24,280 I got to. I got to call it that B. 399 00:20:24,280 --> 00:20:27,160 Star Bitcoin center treasury, it just rolls off it's under there 400 00:20:27,160 --> 00:20:30,480 as B star. So B star is trying to do some 401 00:20:30,480 --> 00:20:32,720 things differently. Firstly, it's mostly Bitcoin 402 00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:34,640 capital. About 2/3 of the money in came, 403 00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:38,320 you know, is, is Bitcoin came from bitcoiners and reinvest, 404 00:20:38,320 --> 00:20:40,760 you know, investing Bitcoin into a company that's going to 405 00:20:40,760 --> 00:20:43,840 actively manage a Bitcoin, try to achieve a return on Bitcoin. 406 00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:48,120 And we talked about that being a Berkshire Hathaway type of 407 00:20:48,360 --> 00:20:52,640 endeavour, which is a long term capital where you try to achieve 408 00:20:52,640 --> 00:20:56,360 a long term return and then you acquire companies, operating 409 00:20:56,360 --> 00:20:58,800 companies that you put under the umbrella that generate 410 00:20:58,800 --> 00:21:01,720 additional revenue to reinvest, create the capital and do it 411 00:21:01,720 --> 00:21:04,200 again basically. So it's a kind of long term 412 00:21:04,200 --> 00:21:08,000 capital growth activity. And you know, I think that 413 00:21:08,520 --> 00:21:10,920 that's that's one approach. Another approach is just a, you 414 00:21:11,200 --> 00:21:13,600 know, existing operating company plus of course all the pure 415 00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:15,880 plays at the moment, as we discussed, the pure plays are 416 00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:18,120 not doing as well. So one of your quotes that I 417 00:21:18,120 --> 00:21:21,360 absolutely love is Bitcoin is not just a currency, it's a 418 00:21:21,360 --> 00:21:24,960 revolution and how we preserve and grow value in the digital 419 00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:26,480 age. You want to elaborate on that? 420 00:21:26,800 --> 00:21:31,560 Yeah, I mean, it's, I think the younger generation has more 421 00:21:31,560 --> 00:21:35,360 confidence in Bitcoin than they would in investing in shares and 422 00:21:35,360 --> 00:21:38,800 stocks and bonds and even government bonds, let's say. 423 00:21:38,880 --> 00:21:40,400 Right. And I think that's it's 424 00:21:40,440 --> 00:21:43,680 basically because the Fiat money is being debased. 425 00:21:43,920 --> 00:21:49,080 So, you know, when I was sitting in my mid 20s, I was just trying 426 00:21:49,080 --> 00:21:52,720 to invest my own savings and, you know, looking at whatever 427 00:21:52,720 --> 00:21:56,080 the highest rate accounts were, deposit accounts of those 428 00:21:56,080 --> 00:21:59,120 accounts, shares, IPOs, things like that. 429 00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:01,400 And one of the things you realize you start to look, well, 430 00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:02,960 what's the benchmark? What's the total rate? 431 00:22:02,960 --> 00:22:07,000 You look for the government inflation figures and as the 432 00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:09,240 consumer price index and the retail price index. 433 00:22:09,400 --> 00:22:11,040 And that's, you know, you've got to outperform that. 434 00:22:11,040 --> 00:22:13,480 You're actually going backwards. Your savings are losing spending 435 00:22:13,480 --> 00:22:15,200 power. And then you, you know, you do a 436 00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:18,360 bit more research and you realize that, well, these 437 00:22:18,400 --> 00:22:24,480 government inflation metrics are manipulated politically and they 438 00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:27,120 don't represent the actual inflation that the average 439 00:22:27,120 --> 00:22:29,320 person experiences. And you know, they're 440 00:22:29,320 --> 00:22:33,680 continuingly to sort of erode and redefine them in creative 441 00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:38,240 ways. So then it becomes uncertain if 442 00:22:38,240 --> 00:22:41,440 you, you know, if you're achieving A4 or 5% return 443 00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:44,200 actually becomes uncertain if you're actually losing money 444 00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:45,880 because maybe the inflation rate is 7. 445 00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:48,160 And of course, now probably inflation rates even higher, 446 00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:50,480 right? So I think at this point people 447 00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:54,600 need to primary concern is protect themselves from the 448 00:22:54,600 --> 00:22:57,560 value erosion inflation and Bitcoin is a good way to do that 449 00:22:57,560 --> 00:23:01,360 because it's much more scarce than any other asset and get 450 00:23:01,360 --> 00:23:02,800 increasing this case at the time. 451 00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:05,800 So it's kind of ultimately a fixed supply and a growing 452 00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:08,400 population. And there's also a growth curve 453 00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:09,880 because it's still early in the adoption. 454 00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:13,200 So I think it's a good bet for both of those reasons as as an 455 00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:15,320 inflation hedge. And you know, if not for 456 00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:19,360 Bitcoin, I think you know what, what I would be inclined to do 457 00:23:19,360 --> 00:23:23,600 is buy real estate like a rental apartment or something with a 458 00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:27,480 mortgage, because in that way the inflation is working for 459 00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:30,640 you, right? You, you benefit from the 460 00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:33,960 inflation if you are buying hard assets with all people's money. 461 00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:37,080 And if you like, that's kind of what treasury companies are 462 00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:40,320 doing with convertible notes and the bonds and preferred shares 463 00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:42,480 and things like that. They're buying a higher asset 464 00:23:42,560 --> 00:23:45,960 with money from people who just want a fixed income or risk 465 00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:48,320 return profile. That's something more 466 00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:50,960 conservative. Do you think that the movement 467 00:23:50,960 --> 00:23:55,160 has changed a little bit since, you know, Bitcoin has entered 468 00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:59,000 Triadfy? I hope not, but I recently 469 00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:06,160 posted a paragraph from the Eric Hughes 1993 Cyprus Manifesto to 470 00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:10,200 ask the provocative question Are people prone to reinneur 471 00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:12,320 themselves? Inuring was this kind of matrix 472 00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:14,480 quote about the system that people in the system being 473 00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:18,160 hopelessly inured with it, and so are we are people in a 474 00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:23,360 Bitcoin space Bitcoiners looking to renew themselves as Bitcoin 475 00:24:23,360 --> 00:24:25,880 gets, you know, more mass adoption? 476 00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:30,360 And so my hope is that Bitcoin remains the slife plug money 477 00:24:30,360 --> 00:24:32,600 because, you know, part of the story for me. 478 00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:36,480 So you mentioned a revolutionary idea is that Bitcoin changes the 479 00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:39,600 world, not that Bitcoin gets some success and then we mute it 480 00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:42,520 and put it in a box and, you know, lose all of the bearer 481 00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:44,040 properties or something, they say. 482 00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:49,640 And I think some people are kind of more concerned about muting 483 00:24:49,640 --> 00:24:54,760 Bitcoin or changing it to kind of conform to what they think 484 00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:57,240 establishment might want, which is not really the point. 485 00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:00,800 I mean, the Internet didn't contort itself to, you know, 486 00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:03,680 comply with the establishment control of media and stuff. 487 00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:06,920 The Internet was just though, you know, the freewheeling soft 488 00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:10,440 suffered individual space and largely kept that. 489 00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:15,360 So I think it's important that Bitcoin keep that phenomena. 490 00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:17,920 I think self custody, I want to get your opinion on this. 491 00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:20,720 I think self custody plays a crucial role in that. 492 00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:24,000 So I want to get your opinion on that the the role of self 493 00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:26,080 custody specifically with individuals. 494 00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:29,880 Yeah. I mean, I think that Bitcoin 495 00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:34,440 held in self self custody is a a more bearer asset. 496 00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:39,360 It's it's a better insurance policy and actually Bitcoin that 497 00:25:39,360 --> 00:25:44,400 you somehow acquire without there being a record in a 498 00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:47,760 traditional finance collective memory that gets reported on tax 499 00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:50,160 returns and things. The better because money that 500 00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:53,600 you know hard money and better form that nobody knows you have 501 00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:56,480 is even a better insurance policy because the establishment 502 00:25:56,480 --> 00:25:59,520 can't come in some kind of adverse situation where you need 503 00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:01,560 the insurance policy. They don't even know you have 504 00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:02,960 it. That's even better, right? 505 00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:08,120 So I think Barack Obama, he gave one of the best inadvertent 506 00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:12,040 advertisements for Bitcoin when he said, you know, well, if we 507 00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:14,800 can't crack it, you know, he's talking about his security of 508 00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,080 wallets on phones. Then everybody's walking around 509 00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:19,520 the Swiss bank account in their pocket. 510 00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:21,840 And I'm like, yes, that's that's correct. 511 00:26:22,120 --> 00:26:24,040 I mean, he was thinking this is a very bad thing. 512 00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:25,680 But I'm like, no, that's a very good thing. 513 00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:28,120 And so here we are sitting in Switzerland and, you know, the 514 00:26:28,120 --> 00:26:30,680 third Swiss private banking city actually. 515 00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:32,240 So this is this is the competition, right? 516 00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:35,920 The Bitcoin is lowering the barrier to entry to which is 517 00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:41,880 asset protection, financial privacy and making it hard for 518 00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:45,240 the establishment to seize your assets in your home country. 519 00:26:45,360 --> 00:26:48,760 And in bitcoins case that's achieved through key storage. 520 00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:53,240 So you know, it's it's a bonus setting if you get into some 521 00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:57,600 unexpected situation where you need the insurance policy that 522 00:26:57,760 --> 00:26:59,960 the establishment has to come through you to get to your 523 00:26:59,960 --> 00:27:02,280 assets. Whereas if they just place a 524 00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:05,280 phone call or write a letter to your broker or your bank and 525 00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:07,680 then all your assets are frozen. Now you have a problem, which is 526 00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:11,280 you can't even afford a lawyer to and defend your innocence in 527 00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:13,960 whatever, you know, whatever they're thrown at you. 528 00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:19,800 So the establishment, the governments are civil servants, 529 00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:22,000 they work for society, they work for us, right? 530 00:27:22,120 --> 00:27:26,600 And so, you know, some of the changes that they've bought in 531 00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:32,160 in the name of law enforcement and criminal justice have swung 532 00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:35,200 too far. And I think the South Park 533 00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:39,680 technology is the way to re establish your, yeah, actually 534 00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:43,240 legally protected rights that they've overridden or just to 535 00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:45,760 reassert, you know, just to assert them individually. 536 00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:50,280 Do you think central banks and Bitcoin can coexist? 537 00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:52,840 Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a very interesting question because a 538 00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:58,080 few years ago my worry would have been that the incentive 539 00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:00,360 sort of the market incentives around Bitcoin that make it 540 00:28:00,360 --> 00:28:02,200 work. You know, the miners, the users, 541 00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:05,320 the the, the market people buying something Bitcoin, the 542 00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:07,560 miners mining new Bitcoin. And they're incentive to do so 543 00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:12,280 honestly, that there's a bit of a question if those incentives 544 00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:16,040 would continue to function smoothly and effectively as the 545 00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:20,400 ownership spread into public companies, sovereign wealth 546 00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:23,000 funds, individual states, governments. 547 00:28:23,120 --> 00:28:26,360 And, you know, when you would have politicians talking about 548 00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,720 Bitcoin, I think, you know, with the benefit of seeing what's 549 00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:32,440 happened in the last few years that actually it works better 550 00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:33,680 than might be expected, which it was. 551 00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:36,920 It turned out to be more of, you know, you don't change Bitcoin. 552 00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:39,720 Bitcoin is you. And it seemed to change, you 553 00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:42,800 know, the sitting president of the US and his kind of business 554 00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:45,800 empire, his sons who work in it, that they got debanked 555 00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:49,200 politically and they learned first hand why having very hard 556 00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:51,920 money matters. And, you know, you have 557 00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,720 politicians in the US who are, you know, seem to be 558 00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:57,240 philosophically motivated, like they personally hold Bitcoin. 559 00:28:57,280 --> 00:29:00,880 They seem to understand it. And so Bitcoin does change the 560 00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:03,160 incentives of all kinds of people. 561 00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:06,520 So it turns out the, you know, effectively incentives matter 562 00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:09,520 and wholesome incentives are a very powerful force in the 563 00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:11,560 world. So and actually quite hopeful at 564 00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:14,040 this point that it will scale all the way. 565 00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:16,360 And of course, there's still a lot of distance to go, right, 566 00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:19,040 with bigger countries buying meaningful amounts of Bitcoin, 567 00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:21,040 doing larger amounts of sovereign buying. 568 00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:24,160 And what happens to the geopolitics in this new era? 569 00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:27,360 And it's, you know, it's not without precedent in a sense of 570 00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:31,920 a shift in the asset that people cover in a kind of global 571 00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:34,440 geopolitics. And it used to be gold, and then 572 00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,920 it became black gold like oil. And now it's Bitcoin. 573 00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:42,000 And the resource is cheap, abundant power, access to 574 00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:44,800 silicon fabs to manufacturer miners. 575 00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:50,080 And that seems to be sort of mapped out to be the, the 576 00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:52,880 geopolitical underpinnings of, you know, the next 50 years or 577 00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:55,280 something saying, I think we haven't, you know, I think 578 00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:57,240 there's a lot more interesting things to come. 579 00:29:57,560 --> 00:30:00,640 Do you need liquidity without having to sell your Bitcoin? 580 00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:03,240 For more than six. Years now, Leaden has been the 581 00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:07,560 trusted source for Bitcoin back lending with transparency, 582 00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:12,920 security and trust at their core, backed by $9 billion of 583 00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:17,600 Bitcoin loans funded and over 1005 star reviews. 584 00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:21,520 I absolutely love these guys because of their flexibility. 585 00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:26,040 You can pay back your loan whenever you want and there are 586 00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:29,680 no monthly payments so you pay at the end of the term. 587 00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:34,160 You get lightning fast access to capital as soon as you send your 588 00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:37,280 Bitcoin as collateral. You get the cash into your 589 00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:41,440 account within 18 hours. Unlock the liquidity of your 590 00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:44,640 Bitcoin without having to sell your Bitcoin. 591 00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:49,840 Simply Bitcoin viewers get .25. Percent off their first loan by 592 00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:53,200 using the link in the video slash podcast description. 593 00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:58,120 What are you waiting for check out leaden today so Adam block 594 00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:02,040 streams play a key role in trying to crack the crack the 595 00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:04,200 crack the nut. I don't know if that's the right 596 00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:07,000 expression, but trying to figure out the scaling. 597 00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:11,280 So I think there's been a tremendous amount of progress 598 00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:16,680 with Liquid, with Lightning, but nothing's, you know quite there 599 00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:19,360 yet, right? I love Samsung's recent 600 00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:21,760 implementation with the Aqua Wallet. 601 00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:25,120 You got Liquid involved. So I want to get your take on 602 00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:28,840 the current state of Layer 2 scaling solutions. 603 00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:31,240 What's on your radar? What has you the most excited? 604 00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:34,000 Yeah. So I mean, actually block stream 605 00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:37,440 is kind of, you know, Bitcoin layer two company, but also 606 00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:40,120 there's a lot of kind of core R&D. 607 00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:44,480 So the Schnorr signatures, the music that was a group effort 608 00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:47,840 with independent researchers, people from other companies, 609 00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:50,280 academics. But you know, a lot of the heavy 610 00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,160 lift was actually done by Blockstream researchers, 611 00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:57,880 Blockstream art labs and we have been active in a lot of layer 612 00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:02,400 twos because we got into lightning early and then liquid. 613 00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:04,360 So with Core Lightning, that was the first Lightning 614 00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:07,720 implementation that we had live value, which is where the 615 00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:10,760 reckless tag came from, because we're the first to put like an 616 00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:14,000 experiment of implementation with live value. 617 00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:19,080 And then with Liquid itself, partly A scaling solution, but 618 00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:23,200 mostly about the ability to innovate permissionlessly on a 619 00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:25,880 second layer, which is technically a side chain and not 620 00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:29,600 unilateral withdraw layer 2 like Lightning. 621 00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:34,280 But we also implemented, you know, did the R&D on what became 622 00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:37,080 Fediment. So that was the block stream R&D 623 00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:39,160 project as well. And you know, they're doing very 624 00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:40,720 interesting things with that. Of course, you didn't have 625 00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:44,920 cashew as well. And the other new phenomena are, 626 00:32:45,120 --> 00:32:51,680 you know, arcade and spark productizing staging or mercury 627 00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:53,400 layer. So they kind of, you know, made 628 00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:54,840 A twist on somebody else's project. 629 00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:58,760 And of course, they're also the kind of colour coin, Lightning 630 00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:02,480 enabled colour coins like RGB and separate assets. 631 00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:07,240 But one of the surprise scaling things, I always like it when 632 00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:10,520 you know, because I think that technology evolution is not 633 00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:13,280 something you can fully plan. You would just try to 634 00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:15,960 organically build what you think is the best thing you can build 635 00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:17,360 with the current state of the R&D. 636 00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:20,000 But sometimes the market surprises you, finds a novel use 637 00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:21,840 for something. And that's what happened with 638 00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:26,560 this kind of hybrid Lightning liquid wallet, which is now 639 00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:29,000 growing faster than Lightning wallets. 640 00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:33,120 You know, so a pre event then yesterday Francis Pouillet 641 00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:35,920 bought Bitcoin was talking about, you know, the new build 642 00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:38,000 Bitcoin wallet, which is using the same model. 643 00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:41,320 And there are Breeze was also there. 644 00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:44,600 They have, you know, their own Lightning wallet, but they also 645 00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:47,520 have SDKS to help other people integrate lighting into their 646 00:33:47,520 --> 00:33:50,720 products, about 50 different wallets or applications built 647 00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:52,880 using that. They're also seeing much faster 648 00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:56,240 adoption of liquid Lightning hybrid wallets. 649 00:33:56,360 --> 00:34:01,120 And you know, even the evolution of the trustless swap that 650 00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:05,440 enables that came about because of the NFT spam wave a couple of 651 00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:10,800 years ago where bolts exchange, which historically was operating 652 00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:15,040 a trustless swap between main chain Bitcoin Utxos and 653 00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:16,280 Lightning. So you could take money out of a 654 00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:18,440 lightning channel or you could have money back to a lightning 655 00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:19,520 channel without closing the channel. 656 00:34:19,639 --> 00:34:24,000 And the spam is so annoying, this spamming stuff, but you 657 00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:27,679 know, they, they pushed the fees up and it kind of broke their 658 00:34:27,679 --> 00:34:31,000 application like it made it so expensive, it came unreliable. 659 00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:34,840 And so they did a hackathon and hit on the idea of swapping 660 00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:38,159 liquid Bitcoin for lightning main chain lightning channel 661 00:34:38,159 --> 00:34:40,880 rebalancing. And even after the spam 662 00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:44,360 subsided, now all the NFTS got rug pulled, etcetera. 663 00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:48,480 Then that remained their highest value and highest volume use 664 00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:50,400 case. And then Aqua Bitcoin was the 665 00:34:50,400 --> 00:34:52,960 1st to get the idea of, well, let's use this liquid to 666 00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:55,760 Lightning trust the swap because it's a, you know, so submarine, 667 00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:57,680 non custodial trestle swap and it gives you a lot of 668 00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:00,040 advantages. You know, it gives you the kind 669 00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:03,680 of usability experience of a custodial wallet, but it's not 670 00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:05,120 custodial. Of course, liquid has a 671 00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:08,280 different trust model, the main chain or Lightning, but it's 672 00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:10,040 quite compatible with lightning in some ways. 673 00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:12,760 It's more secure. It's, you know, not as hot and 674 00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:15,080 all this kind of thing. So it gives you that advantage. 675 00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:18,120 Plus, you don't need the LSP setup stage where, you know, if 676 00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:21,160 you want to receive some Bitcoin on Lightning as a new user and 677 00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:23,480 you just installed a wallet while somebody has to send some 678 00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:25,000 Bitcoin towards you or that can't. 679 00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:28,680 And you know, that becomes a funding problem and it has a set 680 00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:31,080 cost. So with Bolts Exchange, it's 681 00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:33,960 actually it's using the liquidity of Bolts Exchange 682 00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:36,160 basically. So that's all very interesting. 683 00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:39,240 The one kind of area it's not able to do as well is the really 684 00:35:39,240 --> 00:35:42,720 small zapping, because the minimum fee is basically the 685 00:35:42,720 --> 00:35:44,080 minimum fee on liquid. Yeah. 686 00:35:44,240 --> 00:35:48,600 Now I think the new area which is quite interesting as an Ave. 687 00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:51,640 for improved Layer 2 security. So I think we're where the 688 00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:55,800 action is, is improving the security of Layer 2 until you 689 00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:58,600 can get more of the same security assurances to get on 690 00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:00,160 the mainstream. So I think ultimately we can 691 00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:03,480 need that for lots of people who are the soft custody or Bitcoin 692 00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:06,600 to behave like the Internet of money where other things are 693 00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:10,400 built in Layer 2, like, you know, on top of TCPIP that you 694 00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:12,880 need to improve the security of Layer 2. 695 00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:17,720 And Robin Linus Boot VM idea is, is a novel prospect that you can 696 00:36:17,720 --> 00:36:21,600 actually verify a zero knowledge proof or some kind of challenge 697 00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:26,280 response protocol in a lightning like reactive way and verify, 698 00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:30,560 you know, disproofs about, you know, a small subset of a proof 699 00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:33,680 that where the the cheat happened, where it's invalid in 700 00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:36,040 existing Bitcoin scripts, which nobody saw coming. 701 00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:38,520 It's a very interesting proposition. 702 00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:42,040 And you know, I think there's there are multiple projects that 703 00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:45,360 are improving on that rapidly. So there's bit VM 2 bit VM 3 bit 704 00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:49,040 VMX and Glock, which are all using increasingly more 705 00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:52,400 efficient anchors and proofs. But I think ultimately what 706 00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:59,560 Bitcoin can do is add the mature sort of high security assurance 707 00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:02,440 version of something like this natively or something like 708 00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:04,760 simplicity. And then, you know, that might 709 00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:07,200 require some OP codes or simplicity to have the 710 00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:09,800 extensibility. Then we get closer to being on a 711 00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:13,080 practically ossified Bitcoin, which I think is also important 712 00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:15,120 for the long term. And it's getting increasingly 713 00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:19,240 risky to have Bitcoin change and this this is so I think so also 714 00:37:19,240 --> 00:37:22,120 by Bitcoin, we really need to be able to move all the 715 00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:24,440 permissionless innovation into layer 2. 716 00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:27,280 For that we need security. So we need things like bit VM. 717 00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:29,800 So I think that's, you know where the new action is and 718 00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:32,080 block stream has been active and some of those things as well 719 00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:35,280 with Bulletproofs and Bulletproof Plus Plus and 720 00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:38,560 collaborating with some of these projects with the cryptography. 721 00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:42,120 I never forget one of the videos that you made and it always it 722 00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:44,840 always stuck with me. But basically, I'm paraphrasing 723 00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:48,080 here. So but you essentially said I 724 00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:51,960 spent 6 to 9 months trying to see how I can make Bitcoin 725 00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:54,000 better. And you obviously have the 726 00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:58,560 background to do that. And the thing, the conclusion 727 00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:01,400 that you got to was basically like, look, there's gonna come 728 00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:03,640 trade-offs and none of those trade-offs are worth it. 729 00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:05,480 Yeah, that seemed to be the case. 730 00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:06,840 Yeah. It wasn't what I'd expected. 731 00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:11,080 So you know, when people come to Bitcoin and they're sort of 732 00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:13,920 dismissive or say, well, you know, it's the Model T Ford, 733 00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:17,680 we're going to have much fancier cars with more technology in the 734 00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:19,960 future or the same for the first, you know, the Wright 735 00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:22,680 brothers kind of bicycle powered airplane, right? 736 00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:25,200 So for the technology in general, it's a reasonable 737 00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:29,920 assumption, but somehow Bitcoin exists in a narrow area of 738 00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:34,240 design space where it's much more low level, fundamental, 739 00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:38,000 connected to physical scarcity, free mining. 740 00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:40,360 It's in a way it's a more low tech thing. 741 00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:42,920 I mean, I know the programming in the game theory is not so 742 00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:47,680 simple, but ultimately it's low tech and fundamental. 743 00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:52,040 And it seems to me that anything you try to change to improve on 744 00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:55,440 that, if you know faster processing time, ability to mine 745 00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:58,680 with smaller equipment directly rather than using calls, add 746 00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:01,960 more privacy, add more scalability, you know, it just 747 00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:04,080 made it worse. It tend to break something will 748 00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:08,080 get worse and the small gain you made was not worth it. 749 00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:12,480 So it was kind of surprising thing I came to learn that now 750 00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:13,960 you got to respect the building blocks. 751 00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:17,240 The building block is like, you know, it's like the gold items 752 00:39:17,240 --> 00:39:19,160 in the gold bars. When people's much started using 753 00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:22,760 gold as money that you know, we have gold 6000 years later and 754 00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:25,520 nothing changed. I mean, yeah, maybe gold as a 755 00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:28,560 technology, X-rays and stuff like some stuff around it 756 00:39:28,720 --> 00:39:30,320 improved. But gold is gold. 757 00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:32,000 I think that's the way it is with Bitcoin. 758 00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:35,040 The, you know, you can incrementally improve the 759 00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:38,880 network protocols, add opt in, you know, smart contracting 760 00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:42,400 things to help with layer 2 or to help us cold storage. 761 00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,920 But the fundamentals now, the 21 million limit, the supply curve, 762 00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:51,040 the mining, I think none of this stuff is ultimately proven to be 763 00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:54,200 improvable. So now of course, it's not a 764 00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:56,960 message that the altcoin phenomena wants to hear because 765 00:39:56,960 --> 00:40:00,320 they're marketing improvements or branding and stuff like that, 766 00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:02,080 but I think it's fundamentally true. 767 00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:05,760 I want to give a shout out to our partnersat123.com. 768 00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:08,480 Sovereignty isn't just about your money, it's about your 769 00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:11,520 communications, too. When the grid goes down, most 770 00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:13,920 people go dark. Cell towers fail, and 771 00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:16,000 hurricanes, cyber attacks and blackouts. 772 00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:18,080 But satellite phones? They don't rely on local 773 00:40:18,080 --> 00:40:21,520 infrastructure. Iridium has 77 satellites in 774 00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:24,800 orbit, giving you a Direct Line anywhere in the US, even 775 00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:26,880 offshore. If you hold your own Bitcoin 776 00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:31,680 keys, you should hold your own. commstoosat123.com also has 777 00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:34,000 everything you need to start building your Bitcoin. 778 00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:38,160 Citadel, Starlink, battery backups, Faraday bags to protect 779 00:40:38,160 --> 00:40:40,400 your hardware wallets, and much much more. 780 00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:44,520 It's a one stop shop for anyone serious about resilience and off 781 00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:46,840 grid independence. Stay connected, stay 782 00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:51,800 independent, stay sovereign. Go to sat123.com/simply today 783 00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:56,360 and use promo code simply to get 15% off anything on the store. 784 00:40:56,360 --> 00:41:01,040 One of the things that surprised me the most is the fact that 785 00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:04,480 ultimately at the end of the day, I am not a technical guy, 786 00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:09,160 I'm a media guy, right? So I interact with layer 2 as a 787 00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:15,680 user and I tried setting up a self custodial lightning wallet 788 00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:18,440 and it was an absolute nightmare and I could not figure it out. 789 00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:22,520 But what really resonated with me was the custodial lightning 790 00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:24,880 wallets. They worked extremely well. 791 00:41:25,240 --> 00:41:28,640 And I think a lot of the success came from that wallet of Satoshi 792 00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:30,280 and you know, became extremely popular. 793 00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:32,400 The primal guys I think are doing a great job. 794 00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:34,520 Do you think? But it kind of defeats the 795 00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:37,440 purpose in a way, right, right. Do you think we'll ever get to a 796 00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:41,640 point where we'll have we'll where we will have layer 2 non 797 00:41:41,640 --> 00:41:44,320 custodial solutions? Yeah, I mean, that's the hope. 798 00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:54,400 So I think that it's not easy to transfer the kind of bearer 799 00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:59,400 unsusable security properties from the base layer to the layer 800 00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:02,760 2. So Lightning partly achieves it, 801 00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:04,560 but even that's making trade-offs, right? 802 00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:09,480 To do it, you have a hot wallet, there are watchtowers, it's not 803 00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:11,760 as cold. It's reactive security. 804 00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:15,760 Whereas Bitcoin mainchain, you know, you can make a cold 805 00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,160 storage backup, store it in a hole in the ground or a safe and 806 00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:20,640 still receive money in it, right? 807 00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:23,480 It's a much different picture, a higher assurance picture. 808 00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:25,760 But Lightning has a lot of Vantages. 809 00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:28,840 It's nearly instant payment, it's much more scalable, it's a 810 00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:32,040 little more private, it's much faster settlement, It's much 811 00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:34,280 better experience for retail trade uses. 812 00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:37,840 So I do think the, you know, the hybrid wallet, the liquid 813 00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:40,920 lightning wallet, which breeze is calling nerdless lightning to 814 00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:43,720 give it give the concept a name. And I think that's sticking 815 00:42:43,720 --> 00:42:47,040 because nobody else had thought to name the phenomena is is a 816 00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:50,080 new interesting news sweet spot. And I think people are just 817 00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:54,520 generally trying to converge and improve the usability, improve 818 00:42:54,520 --> 00:43:00,240 the backup so that it feels safer, easy to understand and 819 00:43:00,240 --> 00:43:04,160 just works, you know. And I think some of these, the 820 00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:07,320 hybrid apps are getting there. And the other interesting thing 821 00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:11,600 is that Lightning is finding a new home as well, which is a 822 00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:14,040 connector between different Bitcoin layer 2's. 823 00:43:14,240 --> 00:43:16,160 Do you think Bitcoin was discovered or invented? 824 00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:19,880 I think it's a discovery. So people like to talk about 825 00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:24,520 Drake's equation, which is the sort of probability there's 826 00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:27,680 intelligent life on another planet in a Galaxy universe, 827 00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:30,600 what have you. And so I think 1, you know, 828 00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:33,440 indicator, new indicator now is, you know, is, is the thing 829 00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:36,880 glowing hot from like all the mining around the Dyson sphere 830 00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:39,560 or something, right? It's a new sign for intelligent 831 00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:41,240 life. But they rediscovered Bitcoin 832 00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:46,840 because I think it's, you know, it is a sort of very sort of 833 00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:49,520 fundamental basic thing that would eventually be 834 00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:53,680 rediscovered. And effectively, a lot of things 835 00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:57,360 that were mechanical and analog got improved by the digital 836 00:43:57,360 --> 00:43:59,680 world. Digital ignition on a car, you 837 00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:03,200 know, once you have a digital capability, you can just make a 838 00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:07,360 lot of things like, you know, combination digital analog 839 00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:10,160 variants or pure digital variants better than the 840 00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:14,080 original and say Bitcoin is that it's it's a better monetary 841 00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:17,360 technology because it involves digital assurances, mathematical 842 00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:20,520 assurances. And yet it's still, you know, as 843 00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:23,960 physically rooted in the physical space as gold. 844 00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:27,280 But you know, because the digital phenomena, you can have 845 00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:30,680 much higher real time assay assurances and who who the heck 846 00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:32,200 knows? You know how much gold is in 847 00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:34,920 Fort Knox, right? It's hard to hard to tell and 848 00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:36,920 they're not going to tell you. But with Bitcoin, you know how 849 00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:38,920 many Bitcoin there are. You're talking about the hurdle 850 00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:42,720 rate earlier. What do you think the and again 851 00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:45,520 heading into speculation territory, but what do you think 852 00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:49,280 the the CAGR is going to be moving forward? 853 00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:51,920 I don't know. I haven't really been tracking 854 00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:59,280 it, but I guess it's been between 60% and 30% generally. 855 00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:03,240 And there is a, you know, I mean of course fear is a moving 856 00:45:03,240 --> 00:45:04,760 target, it's getting inflated heavily. 857 00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:09,760 But even if you use sort of net present value inflation adjusted 858 00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:13,560 dollars as your benchmark, I think there is an addressable 859 00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:16,600 market that will eventually get saturated. 860 00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:19,960 And we don't know if it's a full Bitcoin standard of like safer 861 00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:23,840 move safety and a moose likes to talk about or if it's, you know, 862 00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:26,600 a gold analog that gets more adoption than gold. 863 00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:29,200 And you know, the Fiat currencies continue as a 864 00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:31,480 parallel system. And this is for saving and the 865 00:45:31,480 --> 00:45:33,320 Fiat currency is for borrowing and spending. 866 00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:36,760 So we don't know where that's going to shake out or how fast 867 00:45:36,760 --> 00:45:39,080 it's going to be to get there. But you can see that, you know, 868 00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:44,360 how Finney's crazy prediction before, like on the first day 869 00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:50,520 the network launched of 200 trillion or 10 million a coin is 870 00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:54,120 already, you know, 100 times out roughly from where we are now, 871 00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:56,600 right? And there's realistically been 872 00:45:56,600 --> 00:46:00,440 quite a bit of quantitative easing driven inflation since he 873 00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:02,840 said that, right? So, and maybe the addressable 874 00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:05,160 market is actually a bit bigger than that because, you know, 875 00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:11,240 it's the crude analysis and there's a lot of money and money 876 00:46:11,240 --> 00:46:14,600 substitutes in the world between, you know, the stock 877 00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:18,120 market, bonds, real estate, all of the things where people are 878 00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:20,240 just trying to preserve spending power. 879 00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:23,520 So it's not, it's not clear how how long it will take to get 880 00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:25,000 there. You know, where that's another 881 00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:28,000 decade or two decades or what have you, you don't know. 882 00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:32,840 So it's hard to say what the inflation rate, you know, or the 883 00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:36,400 Kaga would be. But I think even once it's 884 00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:39,600 reached saturation, the other interesting thing is, you know, 885 00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:42,000 would you diversify away from Bitcoin at that time? 886 00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:46,640 And I think the answer's no because, you know, it's a, the 887 00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:49,800 scarce hard money that preserves its value in the same way that 888 00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:53,480 gold has over remarkably long periods of time, right? 889 00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:58,840 But you know, the, the adoption curve would slow down at that 890 00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:01,200 point because it's basically reached some kind of stable 891 00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:05,760 point where everybody that wants Bitcoin exposure has got Bitcoin 892 00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:08,560 exposure at the ratio, you know, the level they want. 893 00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:12,160 So I'm I'm not sure. Where are we on the adoption 894 00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:13,400 curve? Right, because there's the 895 00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:17,040 innovators, the early adopters. I don't know what comes after 896 00:47:17,040 --> 00:47:20,920 that, but you know the, the, the bell that makes the the rounds 897 00:47:20,920 --> 00:47:23,760 on. XI mean if you look at the half 898 00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:26,120 any addressable market, we're at 1%, right. 899 00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:30,760 So that's a long way. And but I think it's also a 900 00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:33,600 little misleading because there's a capital multiplier in, 901 00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:37,800 in any investment asset where prices set at the margin. 902 00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:41,880 So, you know, for the price to go up 100 times for half, 903 00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:44,480 Philly's target doesn't require 100 times more money. 904 00:47:45,240 --> 00:47:48,400 Because, you know, if you if you try to, if a government tried to 905 00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:52,040 buy Bitcoin in volume, they'd exhaust what's on the market and 906 00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:53,840 push the price up ahead of themselves. 907 00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:57,160 So it's a plausible amount of money that would have to go in 908 00:47:57,160 --> 00:47:59,800 over the next decades to to make that happen. 909 00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:02,560 And you think is that your target, the half? 910 00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:05,200 Any prediction? Maybe it's more, I don't know. 911 00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:08,920 It's it's AI mean. I think a good starting point is 912 00:48:09,840 --> 00:48:14,520 will Bitcoin reach parity with gold And gold is on a all time 913 00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:16,560 high right now, right? But it's still. 914 00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:18,400 It's like one point, something million. 915 00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:22,080 Right, Yeah, yeah. So I think it used to be like a 916 00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:25,520 million, now maybe it's a million, two per Bitcoin for 917 00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:28,880 gold parity. But I do think there is some 918 00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:34,560 feedback loop between gold and Bitcoin if it gets closer, 919 00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:39,160 because the people investing in Bitcoin ETFs are reallocate from 920 00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:42,480 something else. And you know, an obvious answer 921 00:48:42,720 --> 00:48:45,640 if a broker asks you, well, what do you want to sell to buy the 922 00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:48,200 digital gold is who sell well, sell the physical gold, right? 923 00:48:48,760 --> 00:48:53,320 And the proportion of physical gold that is in ETFs is a much 924 00:48:53,320 --> 00:48:56,800 smaller proportion than the Bitcoin that's in Bitcoin ETS. 925 00:48:57,120 --> 00:49:00,040 So if, if the, I don't know if it's the case, but you know, for 926 00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:04,520 the price formation there's in the ETF markets, it's it's much 927 00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:07,640 closer to parity in terms of market, you know, available 928 00:49:07,640 --> 00:49:09,760 market size. So if that were the market 929 00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:13,160 that's sort of transitioning and normalizing, it could start to 930 00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:15,960 cannibalize and take the shrine off of gold along the way. 931 00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:19,080 So it's not just that it has to, you know, meet gold as a static 932 00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:21,320 target. It can see a reallocation from 933 00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:23,200 gold. I think it's also a generational 934 00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:24,680 thing. I think gold is something the 935 00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:26,240 older generation probably likes more. 936 00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:29,600 As the younger generation inherits portfolios with gold 937 00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:33,520 and stocks in it, they're more likely to reallocate to Bitcoin. 938 00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:36,160 Final question, Adam and I have a caveat. 939 00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:41,120 I have a there's one rule. If you can go back 20 years and 940 00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:43,600 tell one thing to your younger self, what would it be? 941 00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:47,360 And it couldn't be buy Bitcoin. OK, that's my good tool. 942 00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:51,520 I think it's important for technology to publish early and 943 00:49:51,520 --> 00:49:54,720 often. So sometimes I will sort of self 944 00:49:54,720 --> 00:49:57,000 criticize an idea and not publish it. 945 00:49:57,000 --> 00:49:58,200 So I'm like, oh, that's not good enough. 946 00:49:58,200 --> 00:50:01,200 It's not, you know, it's not efficient enough. 947 00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:04,080 It's not practical enough. Try harder, like try to work on 948 00:50:04,080 --> 00:50:05,840 it privately to get to be better. 949 00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:09,040 But actually that was the case with confidential transactions. 950 00:50:09,560 --> 00:50:11,560 I thought, oh, it's not efficient enough. 951 00:50:11,960 --> 00:50:14,600 So I just kept working on it. And then I made some kind of 952 00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:16,600 mistink and I thought, oh, I found a way to make it 953 00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:17,840 efficient. I published it and I realized, 954 00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:19,440 oh, that's wrong. You know, that that that 955 00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:21,240 efficiency is actually worse than I thought. 956 00:50:21,240 --> 00:50:24,240 But then it was out there. I know people tried to improve 957 00:50:24,240 --> 00:50:26,400 it, never really managed to improve it very much. 958 00:50:26,400 --> 00:50:28,800 Greg Maxwell made a like an incremental improvement and then 959 00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:31,400 we implemented it, but it got implemented at an efficiency 960 00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:33,400 level. So I was like this is this is 961 00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:35,200 not good enough. And now of course my target was 962 00:50:35,200 --> 00:50:38,120 actually Bitcoin adoption or Bitcoin later 2 adoption. 963 00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:41,240 But still, it shows you that you should publish everything often 964 00:50:41,240 --> 00:50:45,000 because it invites collaboration. 965 00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:49,520 And effectively the bulletproof direction came out of the 966 00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:53,080 confidential transactions track in a way because we and they 967 00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:56,960 reached out to some academics with block stream and to see if 968 00:50:56,960 --> 00:50:58,920 they had any ideas how to improve confidential 969 00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,360 transactions. And what they came out with was 970 00:51:01,360 --> 00:51:04,960 bulletproof, which does like to make a more compact confidential 971 00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:08,520 transaction, but it's also a whole, you know, snark like 972 00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:11,120 competitor with a more Bitcoin like security model. 973 00:51:11,200 --> 00:51:16,200 So it's basically iterate as fast as possible and then that's 974 00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:19,560 how you'll run into discoveries. Yeah, well, I mean, and, and 975 00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:23,760 also, you know, share the, you know, publish, share, discuss 976 00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:28,360 the pot finish solutions because you get more brainpower and 977 00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:30,360 feedback from interacting with other people. 978 00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:33,200 Gotcha. Adam back, thank you so much for 979 00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:33,920 joining me. Thank you.