All right, hey there. This is from constant and you're
listening to Bitcoin for millennials.
In this episode, I'm joined by Niko Yuk.
He's a renowned finance journalist, podcaster and fierce
advocate for Bitcoin and sound money principles.
With his popular Fix the Money newsletter and podcast and
German focused YouTube channel was VAS Bitcoin Brink.
He provides insightful analysis on the flaws of the current
money system and the revolutionary potential of
Bitcoin. His experiences with economic
crisis and understanding of economics have made him a
leading voice in the Bitcoin community, and I'm excited to
talk with him today. So welcome, Nico.
Brown, thank you for the kind introductions.
Good to see you. Yeah man, really really good to
see you. I'm excited to chat today.
We tried for a really long time, I think like like 2-3 ish
months. So now, now we're here.
So. It's my, you know, it's my
strategy. I waited until your channel has
grown a little. Well, there we go.
It's it's going great. Yeah.
I wanted to dive into, you know, obviously you are super into
Bitcoin now, but I just wanted to start with, you know, what
initially sparked your interest and how has your perspective
changed on Bitcoin over time? Sure.
So first of all, thank you for having me.
I've been like you said, I've been doing my German Bitcoin
podcast and YouTube channel now for 2 1/2 years.
It's going great. My main channel, I do have an
English Channel as well in order to stay connected to, you know,
the broader audience outside of the extremely strong German
audience. So Bitcoin in Germany and
Austria, I'm from Austria is, is a huge topic, Switzerland as
well. And and it has always been a
topic even before it existed, meaning that inflation on the
one hand and hard money on the other hand, has always been,
have always been a thing that especially Germans and Austrians
feared after their experiences between the wars.
So we had hyperinflation, you know, almost everybody in
Bitcoin knows about the Weimar hyperinflation.
Austria had had a similar horrible inflationary period.
And today you can still, you know, talk to people who will,
who remember, at least have, have, you know, relatives that
told them about the story of, you know, people from Vienna
going out to the countryside buying, but, you know, taking
their, their, their, their jewelry, their gold coins,
whatever they had in order to get some potatoes, right.
So that's like the it's really ingrained in US.
And the second, the second thing after the war is the opposite.
The, the Deutsche Mark and the shilling were super hard
currencies and we had the, the, the, the witch of Spunda, as we
call it. So it's the economic miracle of
the 50s and 60s and 70s where Germany just rose from the ashes
basically economically. Also because they needed to show
the eastern part of their own country how awesome capitalism
can be. You know, they forgot about that
after the reunification. Since then it's we going
sideways or down, but it's a whole different story.
And I personally, I, I've been working as a journalist.
I, I lived in Argentina in 2008 and this is where I got in touch
with, you know, the destructive forces of inflation.
It wasn't that bad back then. It wasn't, you know, Argentina,
I think it got like 1/4 pesos for €1.00.
So that's compared to today's was it was totally stable.
But you know, when you order, if when you order food, you would
get a menu every two weeks with, you know, raise prices.
And that was interesting. And I thought if that ever
happened in Europe, you know, people would, would lose their
shit. Well, now it is happening.
People are not losing their shit, you know, as quickly as I
would expected it to be. But after the 2008 financial
crisis and then that the euro crisis, you know, things really
came undone in the, in the, in the Fiat money financial system.
And, and I think Bitcoin was a reaction to that.
You know, I, I consider it, I consider Bitcoin an invention,
but absolute scarcity. I consider a discovery, you
know, that was necessary in order for Bitcoin to work.
I don't know, I, I, I, I would expect at some point, like with
the, the, you know, the technical possibilities and the
necessities for something like that.
I would expect, you know, the market to, to come up with
something like that, you know, even regardless of, of what
Satoshi did, but he did it or they or whoever he was or they
were. And back then when, when it
started, I, I didn't know about it.
I knew about it relatively recently, but because of my
experiences in Argentina, because of the experience of the
of the financial crisis and then the euro crisis in 2010, I was
already deep into the gold Austrian economics gold standard
at first. And then, you know, the
so-called free gold rabbit hole when with regards to the, the
idea of using gold to recapitalize the financial
system, starting with Europe in order to, you know, take over
from the Americans. Long, long story.
So I didn't see Bitcoin. I did buy some Bitcoin in 13,
but sold it again. You know, I had my three, my, my
three touch points. And I am, I'm, I'm, I'm not
ashamed to admit that I only got it like really got it in 2020 as
a journalist, I did work before off and on Bitcoin and then of
course, the whole crypto stuff. I was with a, with a big
Austrian newspaper. I was like the finance guy
there. So I, I would always cover
monetary policies. I would always cover gold and
then Bitcoin, but I didn't really get it.
I only got it when I, when I would least have expected it.
So when I already like basically forgotten about it.
And when in, in 2020, when it went down to I think €3000, I
thought it was dead. You know, my head was complete
in a completely different place with my family and my job back
then. I wasn't a journalist or I
wasn't working for the newspaper at that point.
I was working for a think tank for two years between 19 and
2022. And I didn't.
And then of course, afterwards, when it came back, I realized,
OK, shit, you know, you had your chance to get in, you had your
chance to get this earlier, but you didn't.
So there's two options. Either you, you, you, you, you
forget your, your stupid little ego and you get in now and you,
you, you learn about it now or you, you'll be forced to do it
later. So that's what happened.
And then it, it was all very quick for me because I already
had all the, the, the puzzle pieces with me, right?
Like the Austrian economics, the Fiat money system, the central
banking. I just didn't believe that
Bitcoin could be a thing. But once you understand some
things about the monetary system and then you believe Bitcoin
could be a thing, that, that there's a consequence.
And the consequence for me As for many in the Bitcoin space,
is that I really wanted to, to, to work in that field.
And I saw a possibility to combine my, my love for media
with, with Bitcoin because I saw, you know, the success of
Bitcoin media, especially podcasting, Peter McCormick
being one who I always listened to in the in the English
speaking world. And I saw how quickly Bitcoin
was growing in the German speaking world.
And I saw the opportunity and I have to say I did seize it.
And now my, my podcast, I'm the only one who does like in studio
podcasts, right? Because that's what I learned
from Peter. And also, you know, you probably
know this because you do this mostly on, on, on Zoom, right?
It gets a little bit tiring. It's, it's, it's much nicer to
just sit down together. And yeah, we have something like
300,000 downloads in a good month right now on the podcast
on the YouTube channel. So I'm very, very happy and
we're getting started because the great thing is that I
started in the bear market, so I haven't had a bull market yet.
Hey there, I want to ask you for a quick favor.
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Subscribing helps me grow this channel, ensuring more great
content each week. I love that that you mentioned
that ego part, right? And and that you had multiple
touch points. I think that is a common theme
amongst people who who are into Bitcoin now.
Not that many people get it the first time they see it when, but
especially with your background, you would assume, and this is
also one of the questions I'll have after this, that that you
would get it right because you've been studying the problem
and the reason of existence of Bitcoin longer than you, you
know about Bitcoin. But what if you, if you would
drill down on that ego part? What was the biggest thing that
made you not see it or be like this can't be it, or it's too
good to be true or however you you classified it.
So I had a chance to do the fireside chat with Michael
Saylor and Prague a couple of days ago.
And we did tape it and it's on my newsletter.
And I just actually watched it to do to do a German video on it
for my German channel. And, and I think that he thought
long and hard about this. And he came to the the
conclusion that, you know, many people are supposed to get it,
like bankers and politicians and, you know, economists, of
course they're supposed to get it.
But if you are not in the need for something like this, if you
don't really see a problem, then you don't need a solution.
And I didn't see, I, I, I didn't see that from my, from my
personal life. And I think it is, it has to be
personal first. Yes, maybe on an academic level,
but you know, I mean, just like active economists, politicians
and bankers are going to be the last ones to see.
That's just what I'm trying to say here.
And then there is many groups who had some needs to get into
Bitcoin. You know, maybe they are
cypherpunks. Maybe they wanted to buy drugs
on or, or, or non drugs, you know, on, on the Silk Road.
But to buy something, you know, then there's of course those who
got into it for speculative reasons and those who stayed for
the store of value, which I think is the most, you know,
it's the biggest group and it's the group that is now the most
important group and will be for the next, for the foreseeable
future, maybe even 10 years or so.
I don't know. I, I think, I think I was like,
I was married to the gold story. I was already a contrarian, so I
was already a dissident. I was already against the
system. I already had a solution, but
for me it was gold. So I didn't really like, I
didn't want to give up my story and get into another story.
And especially within the the the framework of what we would
call mainstream media. Back then, it was way too early
to to start covering Bitcoin in the real sets.
Today would be possible, but today still there's very few
journalists in the mainstream media who get Bitcoin and they
don't get to do what I do now on YouTube and on my podcast
covering the whole world from a big time perspective, right?
Because big time changes everything.
It changes your complete your total, your view on the world.
So that's also one of the reasons why I think Bitcoin
media is so important and Bitcoin media is so successful
is because the that that people, you know, you can't, you can't
listen to the others that like the old stuff anymore because
they have a Fiat perspective. They see everything through the
prism of central banking or the euro or the dollar and the gold
stuff. Well, I mean, I still hold gold,
but as a, as a systematic answer to the problems, I don't really
see gold working anymore, or at least for now.
It could still be if you know, the the central banks decide to
bring it back into the system somehow, at least raise the
price. But but that's, I mean, I
thought about this a lot. I just, I just didn't get it.
I didn't see the I, I was in the whole and also as a, as a, like
a financial journalist at a daily newspaper in 2016, 1718,
you know, you had to cover all the crypto shit all the time and
there was a blockchain. Every day there was a new
blockchain. And then every day there's a new
story. And, and you know, many people
are still in that mindset. So you don't have, only have to
get out of the Fiat mindset. First you get out, you get out
of the Fiat mindset, then you go, then you, you go into the
gold meds. Then you have to get out of the
gold mindset again. And then it goes into the crypto
mindset. Then you have to get out of the
crypto mindset again. And then finally you arrive at
the Bitcoin mindset. And then, and then basically you
have to go back to the, the, the, the, the gold, the Fiat and
the crypto mindset and find like little pieces that in, in this
world are actually still true. So it's an ongoing process.
I didn't get it because I didn't really need it at that point.
And in 2020, I think I saw, I saw the the world break
basically and I needed to react. Yeah, yeah.
Fascinating perspective. I am in a Telegram group with
Dutch financial journalists, bank directors, people from the
Dutch National Bank, politicians.
And it's, it's about Bitcoin. But most are lurking.
They read right. But there's financial
journalists in there from like the, the Dutch Financial Times.
And they do not understand that. They still write about it as
like Tulip mania, Ponzi, blah, blah, blah.
And then I say in this group, right, like, if my perspective
on journalism, on being a journalist is, is to be like
intellectually curious into Infinity, basically, right?
You are reporting on what is happening or developing in the
world, you know, and I see how they write about Bitcoin.
It's so emotional and so opinionated and it just it, it
triggers me in a sense that my entire perception of being a
journalist is not, it's not that.
So it's, it's really interesting to talk to you.
So when I go against that right, I say like, why do you write
this? Like it's either you get it and
in a malicious way you're now arguing against it, which is
wrong anyway, or you know this is the biggest discovery in your
professional field in your lifetime and you are not
spending time on it, which is also dishonest in a sense,
right? So in the same, the same is true
for economists. And you know, Michael, in his
talk at Prague, he talked about his he was visiting Harvard
Business School, the one of the most prestigious business
schools in the world. And he said, and this was after
the playbook already worked, after they already made billions
for, for, for micro strategy and the shareholders, you know, and
all the students afterwards said, well, no, that's not the
conventional way. No, I wouldn't be doing it.
It's too risky, you know, I mean, do you know what what I
mean? It's like, even if you, even if
confronted with it, working, people will still dismiss it
because they do not like. And, and, and so the, the
strategy of showing them, basically showing them you're
wrong. You know, conventional wisdom is
wrong. It's not going to work.
It's only, it's, it's, it's, it's only like the only thing is
the pressure from the market and from reality and, and media,
especially, especially what we call mainstream media.
What, what your, what, what our, let's not call it, let's call it
parents media, right? It's what our parents would
consider media. Media, right?
Good term. It's not mainstream main.
I think mainstream is wrong. The mainstream today has already
shifted. But it's it's it's parents, old
media, legacy media, parents, media.
They are collapsing, they are collapsing and they and they see
and and they say no way out and they are not interested in, in
fixes. Basically, it's not they're not
about like certain people are. Yes, certain people are, but
not, not the, the and and then you have the, the situation that
you talked about journalists. Well, I think that many, you
know, people on YouTube, many people on, on, on sub stack
today are more closer to that role of journalism that you
described then in the, in the legacy media.
And, and, and this will only continue.
This will only continue. And, and the good people will
leave and will do their own thing.
Of course there will be media, you know, brands and the
newspapers of today might survive as brands in some kind
of form. But it's, it's if you look at
your own consumption, if you look at, at, at, at the numbers
from young people, what they consume when it comes to media,
we are in a, we're going into a totally different world.
We're going into a world where people do not get fed
information. They actually have to look for
information, vet the information they have to, you know, build up
trust with the people that they trust.
It's a completely different ballpark than to what, you know,
my older colleagues are used to. And I am 40.
So I am in the lucky position of I'm actually 41.
I'm in the lucky position of your millennial.
I am officially like, I think I have the first millennial
generation. Yes, correct.
But but, and maybe that's why I still have some insight into
into the the new world and some insults side into the old world.
So I really feel like somebody in between sometimes.
I know how to speak to people who are in the 60s and I also
know how to speak to people in the 20s.
The difference is, of course, or any, everybody who thinks that
they're still young at 41 think that to know how to speak to see
people in their 20s. But I do have some idea of, of
like, like the, the media consumption there, especially
because I, I know I, I'm in contact with Bitcoiners, right?
So the the oldest Bitcoin I ever interviewed on my channel is 84
years old, right? The youngest is probably 20.
So so you know, people get Bitcoin at the price that they
deserve and at the moment that they need it basically.
And and what I like the conviction, as long as you are
like a people in your Telegram group, right?
As long as you are convicted of like convinced of your own
worldview, somebody who has such conviction as some Bitcoiners
have is actually count counterproductive because then
you come over as a cult, right? But bitcoins of course, have
huge conviction. And we are only here today with
all the Bitcoin meetups, the Bitcoin conferences, the Bitcoin
media, the Bitcoin this and the Bitcoin that because the
mainstream never really, you know, adopted us.
And I think it's great because we don't really need the
mainstream or the legacy media for it to do anything.
You know, we build our own stuff and we even have with Noster and
and Lightning Network, we even have infrastructure to monetize
that which is not, you know, baseball fans have their forums,
but they don't have an infrastructure to to run it on.
We we even do that. So I think we're in a pretty
good position, yeah. Yeah, what you mentioned about
the cult I think is interesting. Yesterday I talked to a guy who
who was 71. We we had a call to meet, but he
sent me an e-mail because he listened to an episode and he
said I was in a cult for five years in the 80s.
And I want to tell you that Bitcoin is the anti thesis of a
cult because and I think you just used the word conviction.
What I find interesting is the conviction in the Bitcoin money
system comes from the understanding of what it is
right the self study, the self challenge and not the the the
self verification, and not by believing the words of a third
party or a third person, which is totally.
Opposed to the Fiat money world where the people who think they
have a valid opinion didn't come up with that opinion themselves.
They're parroting someone else or some institution, right.
And and I think that's also why they will get it last, which is
poetic in my in my view, right. Like it's the prime example of
hubris and, you know, close closed eyes, closed mind,
etcetera. And the people who actually
challenged themselves and try to change their minds in the
paradigm they, you know, grew up in or what was taught to them.
Like those are the people that will get rewarded in a sense,
you know, and. You know, even even when the
when the Berlin Wall came down, there were people in in the in
the political in, in Moscow and even in eastern Germany who
said, great, this is just a one step to the victory of worldwide
communism. Yeah, no, it's true.
It's I mean. 1st. First of all, first of all,
we're not sure if they weren't right, maybe because because the
communism is still, you know, a factor today.
But but like I did a talk in Prague about the lessons from
1989, because I see parallels between the people who were
fighting for freedom within the Soviet Union, especially in
Eastern Europe with, you know, regards to, to Moscow and, and
the people who, you know, fight for financial freedom in, in
today. And, and one of the lessons
would be that that, you know, a dysfunctional system, especially
political, a dysfunctional political or dysfunctional
economic system will always, you know, after a while, the people
at the top will not be the smartest people.
And I think it's very important to be not like not cynical about
it, you know, and also I, and this is something I have to
learn as well. Jeff Booth talks about this a
lot. Michael Saylor talks about this
a lot. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's
better to build new stuff than to criticize old stuff.
It's better to use your energy for something productive than
to, to fight something, right? And we are always like, Bitcoin
is often in fighting mode and we have to bring down Fiat money
and we have to do we stop that CBDC this and that, you know,
hundreds of topics, which I, I agree with most of them.
It's just a question of is this a good use of your energy,
right? Or is it a good use to just
build something, you know, in a slight round about the way that
they cannot stop? And, and when you look at the
people who are in power today and have to like, like the older
you get, and this is scary, the older you get.
And then you see like your, your friends from school are
suddenly, you know, in the government, you know, but you
know that they're idiots. You know them, right?
You've, you've, you've seen them eat, like eat sand at the beach
because so it's, it's, it's, and I think that this is something
that we do have to realize is that the people in power, the
people in, in, in, in this is not the, the people in, in, in,
in French roles, especially economists.
They're just not very bright. I have to say this really
because it's shocking. But we have to realize that if
we realize that, then it gets way easier to understand what's
going on around us because because the system does not
select for, for. Yeah, exactly.
The system it's today. You know, it's there's, let's
just say there's many ways to get to the top, but it's
certainly not if you're the most competent or the smartest
person. That's not how to do it.
I, I approach it like this when, when I talk to people about
this, because if we say, you know, these people are not smart
or stupid or intelligent, whatever, I try to keep away
from it a bit. I turn it around and say, like,
do you want to outsource your responsibilities over your life?
You know, about what is the value of the economic reward you
get for your work? You know, do you want that to be
defined by a third party? And when you understand that a
third party is also just individuals, it's also just
other people who are trying to figure out their life and the
battle, their own ego and their own, you know, imperfections and
all these things. Like, is that, is that what you
want to do? Or do you want to empower
yourself and think for yourself, right?
Because you cannot, you cannot keep believing that these other
people, you know, they are more competent than you know.
They are also figuring it out as they live their life right.
But that's that's that's why the scam works.
That's why the scam works. That's why this, this this
appeal to authority works is because most people actually
don't want to take charge of their own life.
Most people do not want to be self governed and don't want to
take the responsibility. That's when you see, when you
see go on YouTube, right? You go on YouTube and you look
for, you know, panic. This that bad?
You know the world's coming to an end 600,000 views.
You know, here is what you can do right now to to to to to to
change your life for the better. Brackets work involved 600
views. And I have to say it's not
entirely true. I do see some like positive,
like positive movement within the the media world where people
who actually do want to help you live a better life and take more
charge to get more exposure today.
That is actually true. But in the end, still like this,
this is how it works. You know, it's like there's
there's there's two people in the world, kinds of people in
the world. The one complaints and and
analyzes everything and complaints about how the world
is. And he ends with, after an hour
of discussion, he ends with, and This is why I decided to move
here and do this and do that and me personally and then the like.
But 99 other people will say, and This is why we need a new
political system and we need to bring the old one down and we
need to, you know, fight. And, and I think it's more, it's
more healthy to think about the things that you can actually
change. And I think that Bitcoin, that
the Internet and information technology in general and
Bitcoin specifically give us an extremely powerful tool that
nobody has ever had before, right?
I mean, this is also when Bitcoin puts the individual on
the level that it has never been on.
It's you are now your own, your own bank.
You are now your own hedge fund. You are now your own sovereign
state. You know your own.
Whatever you want it to be, really.
That's why it's so hard to understand.
Also for people, I'd say like, it's that what you say sounds
too good to be true. You know, sometimes I hear
myself also talk and I think like, oh, sounds like sounds
like something a snake oil salesman would say, right?
Because it sounds too good to be true.
But that is because, you know, we talked about the paradigm
shift like that. That is because it's so
contradictory to the entire frame of life that that that
people know. Of course, it sounds too, too
good to be true. You know that you can be that
sovereign and be your own bank and not dependent on any other
third party and all these things.
It's also, but for many people, like I said, it sounds scary as
well, Yes. So there's a, there's a
difference because if you, if you were brought up in a world
where this is impossible, then there's only very few people who
would embrace it, those who actually need to and those who
want to for their own reasons. And most in the western world
are those who want to, right? So, so, so if you, if you live
in Nigeria or Turkey or South America, more those who need to
are a lot, a lot bigger populace.
And, and does it sound too good to be true?
Yes. That's why I took me 7 years.
That's why I didn't buy 200 or 2000, right?
It is it also sounds too good to be true from my perspective.
But when you look around, I mean, we, we are living in a
digital world with the ruins of the analogue world all around
us, right? We're not talking on Riverside.
Two years ago we wouldn't have been doing this.
Today you run your whole, your whole YouTube channel on that.
And YouTube channel is basically like a like a like ATV station.
20 years ago, ATV station would have cost you €2 billion and you
would have, you know, have to bribe a couple of politicians to
get it. And, and, and today, I mean, if
you, if you talk to somebody from even the year 2000, right,
I'm talking about this, talking about describe the iPhone to
him, right? He would have said it's too good
to be true, right? And this is only 2024 years ago.
So, so I think that the lessons from the digital project and the
digital revolution that we've seen in the last couple of years
is that, you know, many things that are that sound too good to
be true come true. And it makes total sense for me
that in in when you think about it, of course there needs to be
a monetary system in the digital world.
And, and only Bitcoin gives you the perspective only that only
those who understand proof of work understand that Bitcoin is
the only option for this really, because, you know, what are we
going to use? Are we going to, are we going to
use the 600 different Fiat currencies or 20,000 different
cryptocurrencies? And yes, of course in the real
world, the dollar, be it as a digital dollar or be it on
stable coin crypto rails, the dollar will play an important
role going forward. It's not like Bitcoin is going
to just, you know, disappear all that, even the euro or whatever.
But but, but it, you know, you're, you're from the
Netherlands, I'm from Austria. We use, you use English because
English is decentralized. Nobody owns it, nobody controls
it. I can talk, I can use my accent.
You can use your accent. Bitcoin is the English of the
financial markets. The dollar is, you know, I don't
know, a slightly more successful version of Esperanto, I guess.
Some dialect, yeah. Some dialect I mean, I'm, I'm
not hating on the dollar is what I'm saying.
You know, if if you need the if you need tether in in in
Argentina and Turkey right now. I'm happy that you that you have
access to it. Yeah, so in.
In your view is is money, is money a social construct?
And if so, what are the implications of that?
Because like, my thought behind that is eventually, you know,
Fiat money does not work for everyone because it's not an
organically adopted money, right?
Even even my country said no to the euro in a sense.
So how, what do you think about when, when, when people look at
history, they talk a lot about organic money, you know, with
the beads and the sand, you know, and it has all their
flaws. But a lot of other money is not,
it's not organic, not like the example of, you know, imprisoned
cigarettes or money because it's, you know, where I'm
getting it. Yeah, So have you heard about
Mises regression theorem? So Ludwig von Mises is one of
the so he's one of the big guys in Austrian economics, right.
You can reading him today is amazing.
He is a bit dogmatic about the gold standard, but you know, he
he was a real brilliant writer and you know, it's easy to read
him. It's like he wrote it yesterday.
And also the topics that he talks about, it's like he wrote
yesterday. And one of his contributions to
economics is the regression theory.
And it basically states that in order to be something for to be
used as money today, it needed some sort of value yesterday.
So we need some reference that we can use.
So basically, even if you, if you use seashells, you know,
somebody needs to toward those seashells and give them some
sort of value before and then you start exchanging them maybe
as As for trade and then, you know, the practice kicks off.
So what I'm saying is that even our money today that we use it
can all be explained by regression theorem.
With the euro you go back to to shilling, you go back to
Deutschmark, you go back to what did you have in, in, in.
Gilder's Florin. Right you Yeah, the florin,
right. The florin was the florin even
as a word, it goes back to the, the, the gold coin in for the
1516 hundreds, which actually is one of the best examples for
Bitcoin in the, in, in past. And that's why it's the first
chapter of Nick Bhatia's great book layer Money.
So, so I, I actually, So what I'm saying is that I, I do
disagree that, that the money we use today or the currency we use
today is not organic. The market in the end is
stronger than than any any law. But the laws, of course help,
right. So there is some organic Ness in
our money today. It goes back to the gold
standard. The names go back to, to, to
times when, you know, it was tied to gold.
The pound sterling was a pound of silver at some point it was
tied to silver. So this, this stuff, you know,
the fluorine is in, in, in, in, in Hungary still.
The name still goes back to, to that, but I, I do also get what
you're saying is that, that, you know, we haven't seen the market
forcing the market monetizing these, these monies.
And this is true. So I think it's important to, to
differentiate between it took me a while to understand this, but
it's also something, you know, I, I talk to, I talk about with
my guests now and something that I talk to to Michael about.
It's like there's, there's money, there's currency and
there's capital. So currency and so money is the
the the name that's above them all.
So money can be either currency or capital.
Money can be used for as a unit of account, unit of transaction
or store value. Yes, but but unit of account is
not doing anything. Unit of account is something
that's only happening in your head or an extra sheet.
If using it as a store value is doing something, basically you
pull it somewhere, you put it on a on a balance sheet or you put
it in the saving save deposit box, whatever.
And using it as a currency is also also doing something.
You're using it at a high frequency, you're exchanging it.
The Fiat currencies of today are mostly designed to be payment
rails, right? So they're mostly designed to be
for, for unit of transactions. They're very, very bad store
values. So the capital that we use today
for, for, for our form of capitalism.
And I'm, I'm not trying to, you know, make too much
advertisement for my talk with Michael, but I also don't want
to use his argument. So I'm going to say this is from
him. But the capital that we use for
our form of capitalism today is just not very good.
It's defective because it's not a good store value.
Government bonds are not a great store value.
Neither is real estate or or stocks.
They are a better store value than, than other stuff, right?
So American government bonds and American currency is a better
store value than Turkish currency or, or, or Argentinian
currency. And real estate is a better
store value than than any currency and, and and so on and
so forth. But they all have their their
problems. So Bitcoin is the first store
value that is designed to be a store value.
And I think this is extremely, extremely important because
that's the basis for everything else.
That's the basis of capitalism. And that's why that's also what
Nick argues in his brilliant book Layered Money, because he
said first you fix the base layer, right?
And then everything else gets built on top of it.
Yeah. So it's store of value before
medium of exchange. I have to be able to store it
into the future before I can use it for whatever I want to spend
it on. But I, I I think this is a
really good point, right? This is, I think this ties in to
how I see Bitcoin as in I see Bitcoin not as an investment
asset, but as a savings asset. And I think, you know, that is
in line with with store value in a sense.
If I get EUR or dollars for the, for the value that I give.
And you know, whatever exchange I am involved in, I can use part
of that rewards dollars or euros to, you know, pay for my food.
But anything I want to store into the future, I use another
asset for that we can call money, right?
It falls under money as you say, but it's it's the store value
aspect that that I use Bitcoin for because the euro and dollar
have lost that ability to be the savings vehicle.
And that's also, that's also what what we learn from the
regressive theory, right? It needs, it needs to have a
store value function first, because before you can use it,
if you want to use it as a currency or a unit of
transaction. And this is this is if you look
closely, this is also one of the big fights within the Bitcoin
because technically Bitcoin sector, the Bitcoin well,
because technically, yes, technically I can send you sats
right now. I am totally fascinated.
So one of the the things I think Bitcoin will be adopted as a
store as as a as a currency and and unit of exchange is anything
that cannot be done on Fiat rails on the Internet.
So Noster, for example, something like or or podcasting
2 point O like streaming money, you know, stuff that really does
not work within the Fiat rails. But then we still have the
problem with regulation. So with there's some some open
questions here and the questions when it comes to using Bitcoin
as a store value as capital, these questions have mostly been
answered now. This is why Michael is talking
about the the Bitcoin gold rush starting with the ETFs.
So it's basically that's was the the start the the, the how do
you say it was the the starting point?
Right. Yeah.
Well, I, I think yesterday I also saw or maybe it was Nick
actually who tweeted it also before, but for certain final
settlements of really big numbers, right that that also
are not very well done on the on the Fiat rails.
Let's say you have to settle 1 billion plus a final settlement
through Bitcoin with, you know, within one hour across the world
at any time to anywhere from any, anywhere.
Yes, you know, that is already fast enough.
And I, I agree with you. There's a lot of of course,
because in the, in the, in the white paper, it says, you know,
it's a peer-to-peer. Money, electronic cash,
electronic cash system. But but there's well, yes, good
point. Yeah, go for it.
There's the question, there's the question, how do what, what,
what is cash, right? How do we define cash?
Because the first idea that we get is, you know, we use it for
payments, but you can also see it as a, as a bearer instrument,
as a final exactly because when. People think about cash, they,
they have the, the bills in their hand, but the bills are
also an abstraction of the actual, you know, the, the, the
bills are not the base layer of the value, something Bitcoin can
be, right? And I think that's where the big
difference is. And we talked about why doesn't,
why does nobody get it in the, in the, in the, why do so few
people get it in the so-called mainstream world?
Well, one of the reasons is that we Bitcoin us, we, we, we, we
use many, you know, narratives, you know, there's always this
different stories. This is true.
So one of the, one of the things
that you can do is you go back to the original sources, which
is Satoshi Rakamoto and what he writes about.
But that this is also interesting.
I think it's important by definition, he knew what he
wanted to do on the technical level.
He knew that he wanted to fix the money.
That's why I called my newsletter Fix the Money, by the
way, and because it was still free to fix the money.
Sub stack, sub domain. Handle.
But he wouldn't, I mean he had no like no possibility to know
where it would lead. Do you know what I mean?
Like I agree we can. It's not.
His word is interesting and important.
It's not gospel. He doesn't understand.
He couldn't understand or he couldn't see where this would
lead. And of course, you can say maybe
it goes the wrong. I mean, some people have argued
that we need to go with their fork because it was Satoshi's
vision, right? But who knows what Satoshi's
vision really was. And even if you know visions,
you know, if you have in German, we say if we have visions, go to
the doctor, you know, yes, so so we don't know that.
What we do know is that that that there is a problem in our
current system that let's just say if you had an asset that you
could store your value in that appreciated by 50-60, maybe 30
or 40 or 20% a year, who would not do that really, right.
I mean, we are like people, people buy.
This is also interesting. You know, we say number go up,
right? And and then we say, ah, you
can't say number got because people that's basically the
argument for the stock market and it's basically the argument
for real estate that of course, hundreds of billions, thousands
of billions get invested into the stock market and into real
estate because somebody says, well, it's not going to go down.
Don't worry, it's funny. Right.
It's, you know, what I think is funny when you think about
number go up, we think about the price in increasing, right?
But if this is a better store of value than, you know, Fiat
money, then the price is increasing, but also because
Fiat money is, is crashing, right?
So I think it should be more be like value go up.
So not price go up, but value go up like because whatever you
want to do with the value, economic value or energy, you
know, as Sander says, that doesn't that doesn't really
matter. And price and value is not, is
not the same thing. But I think also that that's
what's conflated in Fiats. So The thing is that The thing
is that that I have this, this, this serious on my on my German
channel with Peter Cotosec, who is the 84 year old Bitcoin.
He has been in Bitcoin since it was since 2012.
And he's 84 years old. He's an artist and an
entrepreneur, but he's an entrepreneur first.
He's, he's basically the ones called him the Austrian Bill
Gates when he was like the first guy to do computers in the 60s,
right? 60s and 70s.
He, he and his company, they built all the computers that are
still running today in the, in the basements of the ministries
and the banks and, and whatnot, right?
And he made a lot of money doing that, very successful.
And he's also an artist. So he always tries new things.
That's why he went into Second Life.
And after he had problems in Second Life, he went to Bitcoin
and, and he's a fascinating guy. And he's also a shareholder of
MicroStrategy. He watches every single Michael
Saylor interview at 84, every single Michael Saylor interview.
And he also in the, I think it was 80s, nineties, he, he did
the book, he was, he was writing in the book.
And it was, it was the opposite of the club of Rome.
The club of Rome was asking what are the, the limits to, to
growth, right? And they were asking what is
actually, what is actually the, the, the reasons for growth?
Where does growth come from? We like growth.
We want more growth, you know, screw you and your limits,
right? And, and he was writing an
article about, this was long before he was writing an article
about how do you even measure growth?
Because, because, because like you said, our Fiat money, our,
our gross domestic product, everything that we that we
measure and count in dollars or euros is, is, you know, the
measurement stick always changes.
Wrong. Yeah, exactly.
It's a number. Yes, exactly.
So it makes no sense. But of course one of the reasons
why we why we where we where we might now see things that we
haven't seen before with Bitcoin is because we didn't have
anything like Bitcoin. We could not measure.
There wasn't anything to measure with, right?
And he's comparing it to to the meter.
So he says once we, we however we got there, but once we define
that this is the meter right now, right?
The meter is this long and it's not this long and not this long,
then we could start measuring things.
So Bitcoin is the only constant in the whole economic universe.
The only thing I can count, I don't know how much gold there
is. I don't know how many dollars
there are. I don't know how many houses
there are in the world, right? There's all, it's all, you know,
approximations, but it's never definite.
With Bitcoin, we have a definite we, we absolutely know how many
bitcoins there are in the world and how many Satoshi's and
whatnot. So we for the first time in
human history, we have the option to actually measure
stuff. This was never never like
economic, economic measurement was not possible before Bitcoin.
So I think I mean, that makes me very bullish.
And and so this is where all the idea of repricing everything in
Bitcoin comes from. And of course, and this is for
many Bitcoiners, this is also going to be hard to accept
because because he sees this, and I think that Michael Saylor
sees this too, that the state will play a role here.
The state will play a role in saying, OK, we're adopting
Bitcoin as a measurement. We are doing this now.
And we'll, we force everybody else to do it as well because
that's how it's going to, that's how it's going to work, right?
It's not going to be the market alone.
The market decided on gold, but in 600 BC, King Krusos in Lydia
was the first one to actually standardize the size of the gold
coin. Stamp it with his face.
They already started with their faces immediately, for some
reason, faces the way to go with coins, right?
Stamp it with his face. And lo and behold, today we
still talk about Krusos as the richest man in the world because
he offered a standardized currency to trade and everybody
loved it because, because it's easier to actually measure stuff
with it. Right.
And the same story goes for the Florent in, in, in, in Europe.
And I don't know, maybe 15-16 hundred, I don't want to say
something stupid, but you can read it in, in Nick's book.
It was, it was a gold coin printed by Florentina, which
was, yes, a city state, but basically like, like the private
entity within the, the, the world of, of, of governments
back then. And they knew.
As long as they provide the world with the service of of a
non, you know, diluted coin, a really, really good gold coin,
they profit as well, right. This is why it's Bitcoin is so
fascinating, because in that sense, it's not new, right?
We know that hard money standards have strong have
worked before, right. I, I didn't know what you just
said about Fiorentina, but makes total sense Like that doing
that, creating that coin is basically a public surface.
And I, I think that what is nice about Bitcoin though, is because
compared to let's stick with Fiorentina, right?
There were people there that could have corrupted it.
Or maybe they did. I don't know the entire story,
right? But I think with Bitcoin, you
cannot corrupt it. So once a government adopts it,
they have to adhere to that, that ethos that Bitcoin then
basically inflicts on them or or forces them to adhere to.
And that is what I think is, is like the ground breaking, world
changing thing that once you adopt it, you cannot unadopted
anymore because it will bring you way more value than you
know, letting it go again. And I love what you said about
the meter. I'm actually working on an essay
that is called Bitcoin is the standard measurement for human
productivity. You know, if, if we want to
value our time and finite time and energy against something
that that represents a reward, it should be something that is
also finite. And now we are being rewarded
with something that's infinite, which is not the right
measurement because as you said, it's changing all the time.
And if you look at different countries, if if three people do
the exact same thing, deliver the same value, but one lives in
the UK, the other in Congo and the third one in America, they
all get rewarded at a different. That's why, that's why in our
Fiat system, rich people, you know, don't hold currency.
Exactly. They don't, they, they don't,
they hold negative currency. They're over levered.
They go into debt in order to, to speculate against the
currency. That's what rich people do.
And, and, and poor people are the ones who are actually saving
currency. It's completely upside down.
Yeah. Well, OK, I want to be mindful
of your time. What?
When you're looking at the clock?
How? Let's do, let's do 10 more
minutes, OK? OK, cool.
Then I'll ask you this. How do you define risk in
financial terms? Do you think Bitcoin is risky?
So I am not an expert for risk because risk is a very, very
loaded, very, very interesting economic concept, right?
I don't think that it's like if I talk about if Bitcoin is
risky, I would not be talking about like it from the
perspective of maybe Greg Foss, who has spent famously spent 30
years in a in a risk chair and knows about risk and I don't,
right. But if you ask me if it's risky
to invest in Bitcoin or it's risky to to I mean, what what's
the question? Is it risky to invest in Bitcoin
or I? Don't know.
I think people, well, I do know I mean more like people.
You said investing. It's funny because I use saving
right? So I see myself as a very risk
averse person, person and somewhat of a control freak.
And for me, Bitcoin is the most logical and rational thing to
save my my monetary energy in. So for me it became less risky.
But if you hear people talk about it, you know, it's new and
whatever. Like they it's deemed risky,
same as with like it's volatile or lacks intrinsic failure or
whatever. So I just want to get your.
Perspective on how you look at it.
It needs courage and it needs some conviction in your own
opinions. And it needs, it needs like you
need to be able to like risk not only your money, but parts of
your reputation. You know, people could laugh at
you, right? But but once you've done it and
once you come out of the other side, you feel a lot better
because because you know, it's not that bad.
And people actually, like I said, most people just want to,
you know, not do anything really, you know, they just
want, you know, to be told what to do and to, to, to do what
they're told, you know, today, like, OK, let's put it this way.
Let's put it this way. This is interesting.
You got into Bitcoin very early, right?
Yes. So let's like.
Semi early 2013. Yeah, that's pretty early.
Back then, you know, I don't even know what the scene was
back then of people who would like mostly techies and
cypherpunks and, you know, people.
So then we had a face. And this is also then we had a
face, I would say between maybe 1617 and 2020 was the face of
craziness, right? That was the face where
everybody, everybody tried something and you know, many
people, you know, came up with their own block chains and, and,
and the crypto stuff and, and, and very, very, very basic work
in the Bitcoin sphere. Now I am maybe I'm already like
the first, the beginning of the, the boring, the more boring
phase, right? You know, like, like, like,
like, you know, when, when, when, when, when you and club
came in into Liverpool and he talked about, you know, some,
some people call themselves the special one and the normal one,
right? So now we have, we have people
who are already losing their hair and wear shirts and talk
about Bitcoin in a more broader sense and try to make it, you
know, So what I'm saying is that the longer time, of course it's
there, it's less risky to, to, to go into this field.
And we see this today. And now with the ETFs, there's
another, you know, marker that it's not so risky, right.
And, and one of the most important markets because people
were super worried about Bitcoin being being banned or whatever.
Now it's not going to get banned.
So, so it's becoming less risky to get into Bitcoin on a on a
reputation level and the money stuff.
Well, yeah, I think people are more worried about the
reputation and, and and what I just will think that about the
money anyway, because people, you know, I could buy Bitcoin
and not tell anybody about it. And then my money is in there.
And if you lose money, I don't tell anybody.
And if you win money, I don't tell anybody.
But either way, it's a hard thing to do right, doing this
this stuff and secret. So it's not like I don't think
it's risky anymore really. I think today it's it's risky
not to get into Bitcoin. I think we have cross the, the
Rubicon when it comes to that, But I like, I'm only here
because that's the reason I, I, I knew, you know, when I
started, I was 838. I already had a career
journalism. I, I have a family.
I, you know, I can't just, you know, jump into the, into the
lake and hope I don't freeze. I have to have some plan of
coming out again. And, and so far it's been
working out well. And I think it's great the
people I meet, you know, the people Bitcoin attracts some of
the smartest people that you could meet.
You know, it's also social network.
I can go to any city in the world, go to Telegram group, go
to Twitter, go to the orange pillab, find other bitcoiners,
hang out with them, and it's going to be a great evening.
You know, it's, it's, it's, it's an amazing place to be in.
And it, and one of the main reasons why it attracted me is
because people are optimistic and people want to build a
better future. And, and if that's something
that, you know, it's risky, then yes, then then that might be
risky. But that's a risk that I'm
absolutely willing to take. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
I'm I'm now that I asked you the question and I hear your answer.
I'm thinking about it as well, but I think it brings more like,
like one thing stood out and I, I've said that before as well.
Once you experience that, it gives you the confidence to
follow your own qualities and values and intuition.
That is what the real value is, at least for me, with regards to
Bitcoin, the fact that you can trust your own mind that you
know, you did to work to figure out, you know, what is this
thing? How does it contradict to what
I've learned? Is that what I really believe or
what is my new belief? You know, and that you exactly
like you say, you see all these different people from around the
world gravitate towards this thing like that is a signal by
itself, you know, and any, any bit corner you meet you you have
a certain level of understanding because people did that work,
that personal work. And and that is just that that
is really hard by itself. And that creates, I think, yeah,
you can fly anywhere and meet bits corners like that is the
network state that is the digital state of humans that
that Balaji, for example, talks about right slowly.
Developing. It's slowly developing and it's,
it's something that, you know you want to be part of once
you've seen it. And it's something that I am
very glad to be part of. And it's and it and it develops
almost a secret really. You know, we talk openly about
it, but people won't understand. People don't pay attention.
Yeah. And and and it's, it's and it,
the, The thing is also, I mean, I told you I came into Bitcoin
very late. I don't even like own a lot of
Bitcoin and I don't care. You know, one of the reasons why
I can do this is because I don't really like, I never invested a
lot because because, you know, being out in the open, you don't
want to, you know, run around and say people you I have lots
of Bitcoin. I don't because I only got into
Bitcoin when it was in the five figures, right?
So I didn't have any money. So, but I don't care because
speed card is also good for you. If you don't, if you don't own a
lot, it doesn't matter it. Does not matter.
It doesn't matter how how much you own.
It doesn't and it's, it's, it's just like I, I only look into
the future and of like the value that I can provide and then
maybe the money I can make. But with my company.
But but I like, I think the most important thing.
That's why, why, why Michael talked about, you know,
hope.com, right? It gives you a perspective into
the future and it's a Fiat system that we come out of.
It gives no perspective anymore. That's what you see in
mainstream media. You know, the young people stop
working, you know, they, they, they glue themselves to the, to
the pavement or something. And, but they don't go work
anymore that they're frustrated. They're, they're, they're
mentally ill. They're they don't have.
Children. They don't have children because
it's it's it's a complete shit show And and and Bitcoin will
fix this. I'm very, very like on on that.
But of course, if you talk like this to somebody who is not into
in deep, because we are if you start talking about like this
with your friends, when when you go out, watch the football, have
3 beers and then you know, Bitcoin will fix the family.
Yeah, well, then yes, you sound like a moron.
Yeah. We'll take it for now.
Right. We'll take it.
We'll take it for now. It's fine.
All right, Last question, and I ask everyone the same question.
What is a core belief you will never let go?
Only the individual things, only the individual acts.
That's looking for Mises. So I do believe that we are
social animals. I do believe that we live in
communities and we form communities and that that we
basically do all of this for community, but we do not think
or act as a community. Like Margaret Thatcher said,
there's no such thing as society.
You know, there is, there is, you know, constructs that we use
and it's very important that we have them.
I think it's not like saying that only the individual things
or individual access have nothing to do with egotistical
behavior. It's only like a matter of
nature basically, you know, and the the the the smallest
minority is the individual. And I think that we have
forgotten about that, especially in the in the West.
And we should, you know, rediscover that because that's
the strength that we had in the Western world and in Europe Once
Upon a time. Yeah.
Thanks so much for sharing that. I really enjoyed this
conversation. It it took us a long time, but I
think we we talked about a lot in just an hour.
So I'd love to do that again in the future.
And I will make sure to link, you know, to your social
profiles review and subscribe on the money and your YouTube
channel so people can it will help us educate more millennials
on the importance of BX. Again, thanks for following all
the best on Twitter. I'm Bram KATBR AM K and if you
are or know someone who has an interesting perspective on
Bitcoin that's worth sharing, hit me up.
I read and reply to every single message.
I appreciate your support and hope you'll be here for the next
episode. Thanks for listening.