All right. Hey there.
This is from Constant. You're listening to Bitcoin for
Millennials. In this episode, I'm joined by
Joe Burnett. He's a researcher at Unchained,
a leading Bitcoin financial services company.
Joe's renowned for his insights into Bitcoin, superior monetary
properties and its role as a immutable, scarce asset that can
preserve wealth over the long term.
He's emerged as one of the most influential voices explaining
why Bitcoin represents 3rd I'm shift in money and savings.
So I'm super excited to talk with him today.
Welcome, Joe. Awesome.
Yeah. Glad to be here.
Thanks for having me. Yeah.
Thanks so much for coming on. I just told you like I love the
backdrop. That's something I'm, I'm going
to going to work on. Love the Hall of waste so and
love seeing you in person, man. As I said off mic, I I really
love the content that you're creating.
I think really nice breakdown. So for anyone who's listening
that doesn't follow you yet. I think I think they should.
Awesome. Appreciate it.
Yeah, I I also wanted to dive into your latest report, which
is called Your Wealth Is Melting.
Why Bitcoin is the Deep Freeze Your Portfolio Desperately
needs. But first I wanted to ask you
about your Bitcoin journey. How?
How did that go? Yeah, definitely.
I love hearing these stories, so it's always fun to talk about
your own as well. I discovered, or I remembered
initially discovering Bitcoin back when I was in college.
I was 2017 and I had grown up like interested in computers,
like I'd built apps and stuff. And then I'd also been
interested in finance, whether that was like basic investing in
like Coca-Cola and IBM. And I remember, you know,
learning the concept of investing and like kind of value
investing and investing in like blue chip US public equities and
knowing that OK, you save by buying Coca-Cola, it goes up,
you know, 2% a year and you earn a 3% dividend every year and
that's kind of how you save for the future.
And then I remember being in College in 2017, price of
Bitcoin was going from 1000 to 3000 to 6000 to 18,000.
And during that time I was like, what is this like digital money
currency that like is quadrupling and value super
fast? So.
I was like, yeah, exactly. No dividends.
So yeah, I initially like, completely was very skeptical of
Bitcoin at which I think many people are and for good reasons
and and yeah, so I the price just kept going up.
Eventually I was like, you know what?
I'll buy a little just to like try to learn what this new
technology is and, you know, get some skin in the game.
And then all throughout 2018, the bear market, I just dove
deep into Bitcoin trying to figure out what it is.
Eventually I became like pretty much a Bitcoin maximalist.
And I was like, OK, all of these other coins don't really make
sense. Bitcoin is the world's best
money. And then I started, started to
really try to figure out like why I could be wrong.
And the price kept going down and I couldn't find a good
reason as to why I was wrong. So I like ironically got
increasingly bullish as the price kept going down in 2018
and then 20/19/2018 I was like this makes perfect sense like
it's eventually going to go to you know a lot higher than where
it is today, whether that was 6003 thousand back then.
And yeah, and Bull Market came eventually, you know, after
2020, after 2020 basically. And that's been a pretty, pretty
wild journey. Nice.
What? What made it click for you then?
Like you said, you were studying, you know and of course
there's lots of dimensions to Bitcoin like and and when you
came from value investing and the dividends, etcetera.
What? What was it that that made it
click for you? Yeah.
So like you said, like the the no cash flow and the no
dividends part really held me back for a significant amount of
time because I was like this thing is just worthless.
It's it's a digital rock that's just worth what someone else
will pay for it. And then the the the light bulb
moment for for me was like, wait, that's that's just what
money is, right? Like everyone converges on one
best monetary tool with certain monetary properties.
And Bitcoin just now, after the discovery of Bitcoin, happens to
have the best properties for for being a good money.
It's immutably, perfectly scarce.
It's portable, it's terrible. It's divisible.
It's fungible. And once I figured out that, I
was like, wait a second. If this is just money, and this
is the best money and like, no one has quite grasped what it is
quite yet, which because because we've never seen the
monetization of a new form of money, then this is probably
right. And then like I said, like I
tried to figure out and and listen to the people that were
against Bitcoin or like, you know, were were quote, UN quote,
bearish on Bitcoin. And their arguments to me at the
time just seemed like they hadn't really done their
research. Like they had looked into
Bitcoin for, you know, a couple hours at most and came to the
conclusion that it was, you know, a pet rock that didn't
make any sense. So once I found out that, like,
OK, this is actually probably the best money, the smartest
people in the world really don't even think about what money is.
They haven't thought about it for years, if they've ever
really thought about it. And so it makes sense that there
might be a chance that Bitcoin is actually the best money, and
a lot of people are overlooking it.
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Yeah. It's funny that once you do dive
into it and and you understand you know, the essential
elements, if you then again talk with people and ask their
opinion, you can quickly dissect if what they say is actually
based on on the work they they put in.
Right. Like, I don't know how you see
that now but I think a lot of people that go against Bitcoin,
I, you know, Saylor says there are no informed critiques but it
really seems like that you know and of course it sounds you know
how do you say kind of like looking down when you say that,
right. Like there are no informed
critiques but I'm still looking for it.
If even the Zero Hedge debate, you know, with Schiff and and
Roubini, I just hear emotional stuttering basically, right?
Like I'd love to hear rational arguments against my own
rational arguments, but they're they're not really there.
But but I think, and you touched upon one thing, I think like you
were looking at it from an investment perspective, right.
While it's a savings vehicle, I think you would agree.
And a lot of people also look at it as like a technological
innovation while and and therefore they also look at
crypto, right, some faster transactions etcetera.
But as you said it's it's a new asset and it's digital scarcity
that you can only invent once, right.
So, so both of these kind of like angles as to how people
look at it, it's just not the correct angle, but it takes time
studying right to figure that out.
Would you agree? Yeah, 100%.
And I think one another thing that was really telling to me
over the years was like seeing the cycles, like looking at
Bitcoin on a log chart versus like a linear chart and seeing
like, wait, this thing keeps making, like, higher highs,
higher lows. It's not dying.
Like, people look at the linear chart and see, oh, it's a
bubble. Oh, it's a bubble.
And then they like can't zoom
out and look at, oh wait, it's, you know, this thing is actually
growing, you know, rapidly, really rapidly and and in spirit
and in different periods of of adoption, bursts of adoption.
So it's it's quite interesting. Yeah, what I to to to add to
that, I heard Jack Baller say we've been in a 15 year bull
market. I thought if I I like that that
point because we are discovering what this is, right.
And actually and he said the same thing like there's higher
higher highs, higher lows, right.
It's not that we go massively, massively under the lowest
basically it's it's literally monetization.
But again as you said also like we haven't lived through
something like that. So I think that's also why it's
hard for people to kind of zoom out even more like outside also
the area of expertise, right, to actually figure out what is what
is going on here. Yeah, totally.
And so how do you experience talking to your peers?
You're obviously a bit younger. I think you're part of Gen.
Z, right? How do they think about money?
Are they researching money? Like what?
What? What is your experience?
Yeah, it's such a funny, interesting question.
Thinking about talking about Bitcoin.
My friends, I feel like generally speaking, Most of my
friends, most of my close friends like know I'm in Bitcoin
and I I tried not to talk about it 24/7, 365.
This just because if they want to talk about it, they'll ask me
a question and if they don't want to talk about it, I'm just
going to talk about something else with them.
How they think of money in Bitcoin, I think it depends.
Like I have friends that I went to college with, studied
finance, like worked on Wall Street or still working on Wall
Street. Most of them or pretty much all
of them own a little bit of Bitcoin.
They're not like full-fledged Bitcoin Maxis and have you know
a a massive portion of their personal wealth in Bitcoin.
But like some of them have like set up hardware wallets.
Like they have a seed phrase like they'd know how to you
know, buy and and store Bitcoin in self custody which is pretty
cool. But they're still like, at the
end of the day, a little bit skeptical and and still fall to
the, you know, they think they should have the, you know,
beautiful, diversified portfolio that a lot of people in
traditional finance think is rational.
So yeah, a lot of people I think like, own a little bit of
Bitcoin. A lot of my friends that I
talked to, I think some also kind of are susceptible to like,
the degeneracy of, like gambling.
They they see that housing prices are so expensive relative
to, you know, their income, like someone that graduated college,
you know, 2-3, four years ago. And they're like, wow, like me
working a normal job, I'll never be able to afford a house.
So I'm going to speculate on Dogecoin and just average into
my 401K and then rent forever. And hopefully one day I'll be
able to buy like a tiny little house and have maybe have a
family if I could potentially afford that.
So I think there's a lot of that as well where it's like people
see the price of Bitcoin is very high and they're like, there's
no point in saving for the future because I don't make
enough money to really save much.
So they're like, I'm just going to gamble and speculate, which
is unfortunate, but I I've seen that you know with a few people
and and yeah, so it's it's kind of a a mixed bag I would say
some are embracing Bitcoin at least a little bit and then some
are falling into like the degeneracy of of speculation.
Yeah, I asked a similar question to Ella Huff.
But like you know as as a mid, I'm a mid millennial I think.
But when I look at the AT at Gen.
ZI kind of see like like this barbell, there's not a lot in
the middle, but it's like it's either a nihilistic world view
gambling, you know, there's no future environment is going
down, etcetera. And there's like very
optimistic, active people that you know, take use the power of
the Internet to educate themselves just be like I'm just
going to do this myself, I can do this myself, right.
We're also actively sharing their knowledge, right.
I think you and Ella are are great examples of that.
Do you think that reflects also your generation like what you
just mentioned? If, if kind of saddens me, if I
think like if you're like young, your early 20s and you think
about there's no future for me. Yeah, it does sadden me that
some people do fall for like the speculation and degeneracy and
and some people have a pretty negative outlook on their you
know personal future just with the way like you know housing
prices are so expensive and and etcetera, etcetera.
I think personally, like, I don't necessarily feel that way
because I think Bitcoin is kind of like an individual choice
rather than a collective choice to where like you can adopt
Bitcoin today and you as an individual can adopt A Bitcoin
standard and begin using Bitcoin as your unit of account and your
opportunity cost. And recognizing that if you
personally hold Bitcoin then you'll probably end up doing
pretty well. And I think it's important that
people recognize that they don't have to convince the world
necessarily to buy Bitcoin or they just have to start buying
Bitcoin themselves and that's how they can slowly start
changing the world. But yeah, I think like overall
like the the TikTok brain or Goldfish brain of, you know,
everyone today, especially Gen. Z is kind of a problem as well.
I feel like a lot of people aren't capable of focusing on
anything really for a long period of time, which is kind of
concerning. But I do.
I I'm definitely generally an optimistic person, like when it
comes to the future of humanity. And I think, you know, if there
are hard times, we'll figure it out and we'll figure out how to
get through it. And on the other side will will
be better. Like I think technology is
getting exponentially better and better.
I think the world is getting exponentially more and more
productive and more wealthy. And I think over time, over the
long run, that's going to continue to be the case.
Yeah, yeah. I would agree.
I think Bitcoin also helps with that, right, to kind of
substantiate that that positive outlook like you have a tool to
to also get there in the future and and and to create the time
to to build those things. So yeah your report was called
your wealth is melting. What is the core?
What is the core premise of it? Yeah, so I think a lot of people
think about Bitcoin, especially the people outside of Bitcoin.
They think about Bitcoin as this lottery ticket that may be worth
millions of dollars one day or it's going to 0.
Like they see it as as this crazy speculative bet that may
pay off, but probably it's not worth taking the risk.
Or if they take the risk, they, you know, put a small amount of
their wealth into Bitcoin and they don't even really think
about it as their wealth. They think about it as a as a
lottery ticket to gamble. I think they're true about the
idea of a Bitcoin being worth millions of dollars one day.
I think they like vastly, you know, overestimate that the the
the long term downside risk and holding spot Bitcoin for sure.
And I don't think this lottery ticket type view of Bitcoin is
like the best way to analyze and think about Bitcoin from your
your personal perspective, and the way I think is that you
should think about Bitcoin is that it's just money.
Like I said, it's the best form of money.
It's immediately scarce, It's portable, it's durable,
divisible, fungible, It has all these unique properties.
And with money, what do you do with it?
Well, you save it and you trade it.
That's the pretty much all you do it and you use it as a unit
of account. So you use, you use money to
measure if you know you're making profits, if your
investments are going up or they're going down, or if you
should be doing something else with your money, or if you
should actually just be holding the money.
And so the the whole idea behind the report your wealth is
melting is to actually be using Bitcoin as money.
So it's measuring various different traditional asset
classes that people use today to store their wealth, visualizing
that hey, these asset classes are actually crashing in Bitcoin
terms, one, due to the active monetization of Bitcoin going
from zero to trillion dollar asset today.
But two, just because I think Bitcoin is actually the best way
to save for the future if you have a very long time horizon.
Because all of these other traditional asset classes that
we have today, you can create more of the asset, whether
that's like gold or real estate, or you can devalue the asset,
whether that's like NVIDIA stock or Apple or bonds or or or
dollars as well. So it's really pitching Bitcoin
as like the best money, and then comparing Bitcoin to how people
traditionally save for the future today.
Yeah, and you touched upon the properties of money, right?
Saving, exchanging and using it as a unit of account.
People who are learning about Bitcoin could say, like, OK,
well, I can measure my wealth in dollars, I can buy a bread with
dollars, I can save in it, You know, I can earn more numbers in
my checking or my, you know, my balance.
Would you say that that savings part is probably where the main
argument lies as to, you know, why Bitcoin is all right?
Well, why the the monetary properties of Bitcoin are
superior, right? Can you elaborate a bit on that?
Yeah, for sure. I think saving Bitcoin today is
very clearly like the core value proposition of Bitcoin.
It's money that literally cannot be debased.
People, you know, look at dollars and they see, you know,
they, they know dollars are designed to debase.
Like you ask any wealthy person today how they think about
wealth, They say, Oh well, you should buy real estate.
You should buy the S&P 500. You should even consider
borrowing money and buying real estate and buying the S&P 500,
like that's how you store your wealth.
Like wealthy people actually have negative dollars because
they know the dollar is not good savings technology and it's
literally designed to be debased.
So yeah, I think Bitcoin is the best money because it's simply
unprintable money, whereas all these other forms of monies are
printable or mineable to Infinity.
And I think that's a complete game changer.
And I think over time, more people will simply recognize
that fact that more people will want to hold unprintable money
over principal money. Just when you were talking, I
was thinking about now I actually that now that you said
you know rich people actually don't have a lot of dollars,
right. They have a lot of assets.
Like, I know, I know people buy assets, right, To store wealth.
Like I know this concept. But now that you said it, it's
funny. I visualized like, let's say you
have a stack of dollars and you know that that that thing is
programmatically melting away, right?
The value of that. So it's basically the same as to
why we buy Bitcoin, right? We transform the dollars into
Bitcoin. But it's also what they're doing
with real estate. It's funny, I just realized that
they're just turning it into bricks and a roof and and some
lands, right? Just because the other thing
that that should be their savings vehicle, it's just not
suited for savings, right? But I think that's a nice
explainer. Eventually like OK, people are
saving in real estate. That is why real estate goes up.
It's not that the people buying real estate are buying it for
the purpose of real estate which is living in it.
Yep, 100%. And that's a that's a good one.
So I I read in your report, I love the, you know, in general I
think the explanation of money, how did money start, right, with
partnering just in general, like also in in in field standard,
Bitcoin standard, etcetera. But you touch upon why Bitcoin
solves what is called the coincidence of one's problem,
right? Like I have a bread and you have
a cow, but you don't want bread if when I want the cow or the
other way around, or we want to trade something different, that
is not bread or cows, right? That's that's what money
eventually solved because it became an abstract right for for
value that we could exchange. But you argue that Bitcoin
solves it better than traditional Fiat money, and I
wanted to ask you why. Yeah, 100%.
I mean it. I think it comes back to
Bitcoin's superior monetary properties.
And I think one thing when it comes to the the problem of the
double coincidence of once is a lot of people don't necessarily
or intuitively know that this whole problem is solved by us
converging on one best money. And so if you're out there
holding the second best money or the third best money, like
Michael Saylor says, there is no second best.
He's very accurate when it comes to money, right?
If you're holding the second best money and everyone and a
bunch of other people are happened to be holding the
second best money as well. And money is only useful for
savings and trade like there's no other.
It's not like oxygen or food where like you can use it.
Then you want to make sure that you quote, UN quote, cash out of
the second best money or the third best money before other
people holding, still, holding the second best money, or still
even buying, you know, the second best money.
Realize that, wait, they should cash out and buy the first best
money as well. And it kind of goes back to what
you talked about. The double coincidence of once
is we're all trying to converge on one best tool for savings and
trade. And so it's like if you pick the
worst one or the second best one, then other people are going
to sell the second best one and go back and buy the first one.
Because we all want to use one common tool for for savings and
trade. And so, yeah, I think that
Bitcoin is the best tool because it has the best monetary
properties. And you can look at the the
monetary properties of Bitcoin, compare it to dollars, gold ray
stones, salt, glass, beads, T-bills, whatever you want to
compare it to. And you can recognize that
Bitcoin literally is objectively the best money at if you're
looking at those characteristics.
And it's kind of hard to to debate that.
I think this is a really good point.
If you say like there is a second best money, well maybe
you can only realize that after you answer the question or
understand the answer to the question What is money?
Or at least have some picture, because there's lots of
different answers, right. But the fact that there are
people that are already selling the second best money for a
better money, that should be the main signal, the fact that it's
happening, that people are moving, right.
So when I still find it ridiculous, right, like few
weeks ago we went from 74 to 58 and people are like oh it's all
over, etcetera, but it's a magic Internet coin worth $58,000,
right. And we're at 66 again today.
Just you cannot deny the fact that there are some people who
think more of this than a get rich quick thing or you know,
however a nihilistic mind would view or characterize Bitcoin.
And so I think that's a great that that would be a great
argument, right. If you for explaining Bitcoin,
just say like people buying Bitcoin or selling the the
second best money, your money, the money that you have in your
wallet, right. They're selling it for the
better money and the price is not the price of an asset.
It's an exchange rate. So you need 66,000 units of the
money you have in your wallet for one of these, right?
Yeah I love that. I'm I'm also through the podcast
like I'm looking for simpler ways to make points you know
because obviously this is very complex and and if you just
start talking about you know this is what money is and people
are printing it and your time, energy, space-time love you know
like you can lose people pretty quickly I think.
But there's these little examples Like I also used the
one about, you know, would you agree that progressing
technology lowers prices of things, right.
Like when I was in high school, I bought this crazy graphic,
like scientific calculator, right, for €200 dollars.
Now it's in my phone for free, You know, does that make sense
to you? And then people say, yes.
And then I say, OK, well, and then I start talking about, you
know, do you think the bread is different than than the bread in
the 1950s? No, no, not really, I said.
But the bread in the 1950s was 1/4 and you pay €4.00.
Now, like, what do you. Does that make sense to you?
Right. Shouldn't we be able to make
better bread or shouldn't you have like, I don't know, free
bread or like a pill you put in water and then a bread pops out
or something like that, right. And so I try to make like these
kinds of more simpler arguments to just get get people thinking,
but I love what what you're saying, right.
Like and then translating that into, for example, it's not a
price, it's an exchange rate, right.
And then, you know, you could get people to, oh, it's a
competing currency and it's not a currency in one other country.
No, it's a worldwide currency that anyone could use and even
you, right. So yeah, I love figuring out
like these little little pointers that that are like
easily, easily shareable. There's another thing you talk
about, which you call the innovation trap.
Can you share a bit about that and how it affects the ability
of traditional assets? Right.
So let's say real estate for example, to preserve wealth over
time, so people try to save in it, right?
That's why the price is going up.
But why aren't they actually set assets A?
100%, So, yeah, the general idea is that anything that you're
saving in today outside of Bitcoin can be debased by
additional production of the asset or devalued by competition
coming in creating better technology.
So NVIDIA is a kind of a good example of like the Innovation
trap in particular where it's like a lot of people are
investing in, you know, quote UN quote the Magnificent 7 or
Magnificent A whatever the number is of big tech and the
United States. And they think that they're
investing in this cutting edge innovation and that's the
perfect way to grow wealth forever.
And you should always be holding, you know, Apple,
Amazon, Google, Facebook or Meta now and and and you know
whatever whoever else in NVIDIA and that's how you should save
permanently for the future. But the idea is like there's
more innovation coming down the line and it's not necessarily
coming from, you know, those companies per SE.
It could be coming from entrepreneurs tinkering and and
building new things or other big, big and small companies as
well. So like right now NVIDIA for
example, it's like they're manufacturing GPUs at say $500
and then selling those GPUs for $30,000.
So right now their margins are, you know, massive and they're
highly innovative, like they're building cutting edge computer
chips. Yet, you know, if markets are
efficient and you know Adam Smith's invisible hand of other
people going out there acting in their own self-interest to build
a better, faster, cheaper GPU. If that's the case, which is
like the case if you, you know, buy into the idea of free
markets and capitalism, then there's going to be other
competitors and other entrepreneurs that come in,
innovate and take wealth away or take market share away from
NVIDIA and Apple and Google and all these other companies.
And so it's like by investing in innovation, you're you're not
necessarily doing what you're trying to do.
You're not, you're not saving wealth in the best way possible
because you're effectively, you know, pouring a bunch of wealth
into NVIDIA, which creates like a bounty.
Say, if there's $2 trillion worth of wealth in NVIDIA, it
creates A bounty for entrepreneurs and tinkerers and
other businesses to try to attack NVIDIA, build a better
GPU, and take some of their market share.
So that's the the key idea around the innovation trap is
just if you're investing in innovation and there's a lot of
wealth in innovative companies, then people are going to be
attacking those innovative companies and trying to take
some of their their future cash flows.
Yeah, I absolutely love that, right.
Like basically you're validating the technology that they're
spearheading, thus opening up a new market, right.
I I feel it's a bit similar as to, you know, if we start
digging for more gold and and we fund gold expeditions and we
find more gold, you know, it's it's it kind of devalues what
was already there because other people can get to it as well,
right. I think it's a, it's a, it's a
it's a similar thing there. But also as you said like why
are all these prices going up? It's, it's it's the same as with
real estate, right. There are already people
knowingly and unknowingly, right, like people who just
invest in no S&P 500 ETF that is held up by these seven or eight
companies, right. I think it's seven.
Yeah. People are actually already
searching for that better way to store their wealth, right.
I think real estate you know that starts from a certain
bracket of course you know for for dollars that you already
have. But stock market is probably you
know usable by anyone whatever your level of of wealth is that
you that you start with. Again I think this is a a simple
way of thinking about it but also to explain it like why are
you in the stock market? Yeah.
OK. I want to make a return.
Yeah. But why do you want to make a
return? Yeah, because I want more money.
Well, why do you need more money?
Well, I don't know. Other people are doing it, you
know, why do you think other people are doing it?
Right. So I think like that's how you
can kind of like peel the layers of of of the onion back a little
because I think the step to Bitcoin we should, we should
make that like as little as possible just to study, right.
Again, I think you said that also before we cannot really,
you know tell people to buy Bitcoin or you know orange spill
other people like you orange spill yourself.
But you need to study and and especially if you think you're
going to be in the stock market and do what everyone is doing,
then yeah, then then you're not even thinking about what you're
kind of like consciously making a decision but but you're not
really studying, you know? And you're also by the way
playing a game against professional people that have
like high speed satellites to be quicker and trade with all these
things. And then you're on your little
MacBook, you know trying to play the same game.
But yeah, I I I think that's a great explanation And again
something that like makes it makes it the bit simpler to to
approach or maybe meet people more where where they are at
right instead of starting about Bitcoin immediate immediately.
Yeah. Yeah.
You also talk about creative destruction.
I love. I love that too.
Can you can you share a bit about that?
Yeah, absolutely. Very similar to kind of what I
said with NVIDIA, it's like creative destruction is a very
natural process that occurs when markets are free, open, global
and permissionless, right? There's always going to be
entrepreneurs out there tinkering, building new stuff
and they're competing and building better products than
the existing incumbents. And if you're out there holding
the S&P 500, which is all of the incumbent companies, then you're
effectively betting against creative destruction from
occurring. Like you're hoping that those
companies have their walled gardens and their perfect
products and services that won't be disrupted.
There won't be competition that comes in and tries to take their
future cash flows. And there's not going to be a
better product or service that someone else creates that goes
out and and take some of their share.
Now, you know, you would hope that you would be doing like BC
Investments. Like if you're going full into
the Fiat game, you would think like, OK then I want to buy the
S&P 500, but then I also want to now buy like all of the VC
funds. But then it's like at the end of
the day, you're spreading your money everywhere, and what
you're really trying to do is to just actually have a good money
Like you're not trying to, you know, you don't actually want to
invest in every. Single thing you.
Just want you just want good money.
It's it's it's interesting just how people view this because
like I I think I was kind of lucky because I never got the
stock market. Like I just never got it.
I I I don't know, I was never attracted to it.
Like now I own two Bitcoin miner stocks, but that's basically it.
And I think a few years ago I I did have like some more stocks.
I actually inherited stocks from like a distant on and I was like
19 and I sold them all which was dumb eventually, but that's not
really the point it's more like eventually in a figure figure
was thinking about it after I started working etcetera like OK
how do you do this just the stock market it just it it felt
so far away from me, right? Like as you said, like you you
put this in an index and then you, I think you said it well,
like you actually would assume that everyone has, you know,
their shit figured out. It's working properly.
There's no competition. It's always going up, right.
It's it's a false premise, so to say.
But it felt like, I don't know, it felt far away from me.
So I never really got into that. I I mean luckily I found Bitcoin
at, I don't know, four years after I started working.
So that that was nice. But I I think that's also why I
didn't really dive into it and I think if I did like lots of
people do you know in in both our generations I think or at
least, you know there's lots of content about it and people want
to do it and you know or or the foreign exchange forex trading
and all that stuff like that. Right.
I lost the thread in my head. But I I, I think for me I was
lucky that I just wasn't in that because I think Oh yeah that
that was my point. Like if you do go in that it, I
think it's really distracting of all the other stuff you could do
including building a business for example instead of trying to
play the stock market. Right.
Like actually just taking more control yourself building value
etcetera. But of course then like now we
now we have Bitcoin. But yeah I think I was I was
lucky with that with that but but I think it's also just part
currently of people's distraction from the more
substantial questions that are more about like what is money,
what is wealth, what is ownership sovereignty all all
these things. Right.
Because again stocks are also just an IOU on on shares that
you will never own right. So it's it's a similar it's a
similar thing but yeah so creative destruction really is
right the the necessary destruction of current company
services products, industries, right To eventually in a broader
sense, you know help us forward and it's basically an invitation
right, like OK, come come do it better.
And I think a nice nice example of it is for example BlackBerry,
you know that was all over the place with with you know the the
business services and everyone had you know their e-mail
etcetera. And now it's just totally,
totally gone because something better came along and they
didn't pay attention to to the thing that came along, right.
And and so eventually they die, which is a good thing for me.
As to my understanding of capitalism, I would say that is
pure capitalism, right? You do something, you win for a
while. If you don't adapt and then you
die like that is that is the free market.
Yeah. So that's that's I love that you
that you touched on that. You also talk about the impact
of these technological advancements and you have
examples of farming data storage.
I saw strawberries somewhere somewhere.
I think you you made a video about strawberries I think.
Could you share one of these examples and to use it as as
like an illustration for that? Yeah, absolutely.
So, yeah, there's a section in the report called the
acceleration of production where I'm going through things like
farming, data storage, oil, lumber and telecommunications as
well and showing that we're actually becoming incredibly
productive at producing all of these basic consumer goods.
Farming for example, like in 1931 American farmer could feed
four people. By the 20 tens, one farmer was
feeding 155 people. And it comes back to kind of
what you were mentioning before with like the price of bread.
Well, like the price of bread is getting more expensive,
especially more expensive since 1930.
Yet you know one farmer is now, you know, 50X more productive
than he was in in 1930. Like how is it possible that
bread is getting more expensive? So, like, I think so people
recognize that bread is getting more expensive, but they also
recognize that like we're getting more efficient at
producing these things like we have to be like we have the
Internet now, we have all this new machinery, new technology,
whether that's an energy farming, you know, data storage,
whatever. Yet these things are getting
more expensive, which is quite interesting.
But it's like you learn about what the dollar is, well, what
is the dollar? The dollar is a unit of account
that's tied to a basket of consumer goods.
And then not only that, it's a unit of account that's
depreciating against this basket of consumer goods.
So it's it's it's even worse than people expect.
They're like, oh, you know, the dollar is slowly being inflated
away. Well, in a way it's actually
being quickly inflated away because it's devaluing against
these basic consumer goods and these basic consumer goods are
becoming like more abundant than ever before over the last 100 to
200 years. So it's kind of a a a double,
you know, strike against the dollar and it's it also explains
like why so many people have resorted to hoarding all these
other more semi scarce assets like S and B500 equities or real
estate or or gold or or whatnot. They're not perfectly scarce,
but they're semi scarce and they bid the price up of all of these
things very far. So yeah, that's the idea behind
the, the acceleration of production just kind of showing
that we are getting more efficient, which I think most
people and more and more productive which I think most
people would agree with, yet contrasting it with the idea
that these things are becoming more expensive.
So it's like trying to rationalize like why that's the
case. And then really pitching the the
solution to Bitcoin and saying like, well, if the dollar's
losing value against these basic consumer goods, there's a reason
that Bitcoin could be, you know, increasing in value of relative
to all these consumer goods in a very significant way pretty much
forever, which is quite, quite interesting to think about.
Yeah. I think one of the things that
opened my eyes is that like price is not value, right?
And so what's the value of a bread?
You're not hungry anymore. You know, like you, you feed
your family like the value of a bread did not change in the past
100 years, but the currency you use to put a price on that
value, that is actually what's what's changing, right.
So and and then you could say the same for real estate, right?
Is the price going up because the utility value, you know,
safety being dry, you know, having your own place, privacy,
etcetera, right. The utility value of a home, did
that change, you know, in connection with the the needs
and wants of of the people that would live in it, right, or the
people that would eat the bread? And that answer is obviously no.
But then why does the price go up?
And then I think somewhat good argument for real estate is that
you know it it gets more scarce in certain places, right.
There's just not there's just less you know more people are
moving to New York City so there's less less homes.
You know that is a a valid argument.
But for bread there is not not really a valid argument.
Right. And yeah, I, I, I still think it
it actually for me it works a lot.
This example, the bread example, I use the same like I use an
apple as well, Like, did the energy necessary to grow an
apple from a tree, like, is that do you think that's the same as
100 years ago or do you think that's more now?
Should it be valued more? Should you need more units to
buy one of these apples? You know, and it sounds just
stupid when I say it, but most people just say, like, yeah, no,
that doesn't really make sense and then say, well, that's my,
that's my point. So if it's not the Apple, what
is it, right, it's a currency you use to to price it in and
that's kind of like then a leeway to of course the rest of
that conversation. But do you maybe to go back to
your generation like what? How do they look at inflation,
things are getting more pricey. Of course they look at their,
what they've been told, told you know, could be their future,
getting a house etcetera, just a classic you know expectation of
where you go in the future but they must see higher prices as
well and and they have lower incomes, they don't work yet
etcetera. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think a lot of people, you know, question inflation,
like they struggle with it. They're like, gosh, like, you
know, the grocery prices did get more expensive.
Prices of, you know, whatever you want to buy wherever you
want, pretty much got more expensive.
Like everything is getting more expensive.
Yet they don't necessarily like, dive into like the, you know,
like what could be a potential solution.
I think like a lot of people, young people and, you know,
older people, you know, put the blame on like politics per SE.
And they're like, oh, well, it's because this side printed this
much money or this side printed this much money or this side
raised taxes or this side lower taxes.
And it's like, at the end of the day, like the system is set up
to debase the money forever. Like it's literally like the
whole point of the dollar is to debase the dollar against basic
consumer goods. So it's not necessarily like one
side or the other or it's not, you know, a individual person
that's going to be elected to power that's going to be able to
fix the money. Like this is just like a
systemic problem that not one person within the system is
going to be able to fix. It's going to be we're going to
discover a new form of technology that creates a
different monetary system that enables people to see prices
differently, to save differently, to trade wealth
differently. And that's kind of what
happening, what's happening with Bitcoin.
I would, I would argue so. I think young people like, you
know, they they don't know exactly what the problem is.
And you know if they hear about Bitcoin, they don't hear that
it's necessarily a solution right away.
And if they do hear it's a solution to, you know,
inflation, I think they're skeptical unfortunately at
first, which is like, I mean I was skeptical at first.
I think most people are are intuitively skeptical about
Bitcoin at first one because like you don't have you know
world leaders saying like Bitcoin is like the future world
reserve currency like buy it or your financial advisor typically
is not saying like hey go buy a lot of Bitcoin.
Like people smart people in their lives are not telling them
that this is the correct thing to do.
And also the volatility like freaks them out and they're not
capable of thinking on like a multi year time horizon.
They're like, oh, Bitcoin, you know, $66,000 today, but it was
$59,000 like last week and then the week, couple weeks before
that it was 74,000. So like, they're very short
sighted when it comes to the volatility as well.
And unfortunately, I think that prevents them from like
initially seeing Bitcoin. But over time, I think people
fall to the the NGU technology when there's these massive bull
markets. And I think people, more and
more people over time, are figuring out that Bitcoin
actually is, you know, the solution to inflation.
Yeah, on that volatility part, of course that is is something
that that critics argue with a lot, right?
They say that makes it unsuitable as a store of value.
How do you respond to that generally?
Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's probably like one
of the biggest hurdles that people see when they first
discover Bitcoin. The way I think about Bitcoin's
volatility is the core rules of Bitcoin have been the same for
about 15 straight years. The supply schedule of Bitcoin
has not changed. The permissionless nature of a
Bitcoin has not changed. The ability to hold the coins
without a counterparty risk has not changed.
There's been no in in, you know, change in the the risk of
creating more than 21 million Bitcoin.
Bitcoin itself as a system is incredibly stable.
It's actually probably like one of the most stable systems in
the world considering like there's no centralized party
that's controlling it. So the volatility of Bitcoin is
really like the people that are around Bitcoin interacting with
Bitcoin. And you know, I think over the
last thirteen years or so, Bitcoin has had a compound
annual growth rate of like 130%. So the price of Bitcoin is
growing incredibly rapidly. And so to to expect that
something, to to expect something to grow 130% annually
for 13 straight years in like a perfect exponential line is like
complete nonsense. Like theoretically, like what
would happen if that was the case, If Bitcoin was growing at
130 something percent every year and and most people didn't
understand what it was, there would be massive bull markets
where people are buying in because the price is going up.
The price would get overextended way too far and we would start
to go into a bear market because people don't understand what
they hold. Some people start panic selling,
some people are scared to buy when the price is going down.
So the price goes down even further and we have these crazy
dark bear markets. But at the end of the day and at
the bottom of the bear market, Bitcoin is still the world's
best money and we end up going into yet another bull market and
the price of Bitcoin goes crazy once again.
So I think there's a lot of like alpha per SE for people that
recognize that like Bitcoin itself as a system is incredibly
stable. In fact, it's like pretty anti
fragile. Like if things break or things
go bad, like we can fix them. Like there have been bugs in
Bitcoin and like we fix bugs in Bitcoin and if you try to attack
Bitcoin or or whatnot, it Bitcoin typically gets stronger,
whether that's something like, you know, the Silk Road, you
know, people use Bitcoin back for the Silk Road back then.
And you know, Bitcoin survived that.
You know, FTX collapsed, Bitcoin survived that mount Gox
collapse, Bitcoin survived that. Like a lot of things have
happened around Bitcoin that have, you know, added to this
volatility and confused a lot of people.
But Bitcoin itself is incredibly stable.
So, yeah, I mean, I think Bitcoin's volatility is, is
interesting and I think it enables you to like capitalize
on it and recognize that since Bitcoin's actually really
stable, the volatility is just the people around the world
adopting Bitcoin. And that's just a a volatile
process as there's ways of adoption and still 99.9% of the
world doesn't, you know, understand what Bitcoin is.
So it's reasonable to expect this volatility to continue.
Yeah, great. Great explainer I I never looked
at it like that before. I never also really had like a
good answer to this. Like I would say, Bitcoin itself
is stable. Nothing changed right?
Like if the price goes down I still feel it.
Even after like 10-11 years I still feel it right.
But then how do I check if anything changed is check my
note and see if anything changed and nothing changed right?
And so then you can only only think to argue, is that OK, this
is the understanding of people. But I think like 2-3 weeks ago
Michael Saylor had that talk. There is no second best And
there is a part about volatility in there where he says like you
know Bitcoin is the only thing that is world that's traded
worldwide 24/7 365 S The price always reflects either the
understanding or the emotional connection of the of the people
holding it to. Yeah, it's it's only that,
right. And I thought that was great.
And that is also just it, it just shows the understanding of
of the people that that hold it basically, right.
And of course with that we sometimes have this piece like
longs cascading down or shorts or you know, but then I would
argue then you also don't understand what you have because
why would you gamble with that. But that's that's another
conversation I think. So for the future, what how do
you, how do you look at hyper bitcoinization and how how do
you see that unfolding? Yeah, it's a great question and
definitely fun to think about. I think I mentioned this
earlier, but I think, you know, going on a Bitcoin standard is
not necessarily something that like the whole world does all at
once. It's something that like you as
an individual do. Like you can adopt Bitcoin
yourself. You can decide to hold it, use
it as a store value, use it as unit of account to measure.
If you are holding wealth outside of Bitcoin, like was
that a good decision? Like did you make more bitcoins
or did you lose bitcoins making that decision?
I think that that's like a gradual process that will
continue to occur over time. Over time, more people will see
that Bitcoin is unprincipled money.
The dollar is principal money. That's going to inevitably
result in number, go up over time, and it's going to
accelerate as people get out of the principal money and get into
the unprincipled money. And when that happens, like, you
know, we have this unprincipled money right now, and arguably
less than 1% of the world understands that it's
unprincipled money and understands that it's a good
money to hold. And so people are going to
figure that out and that's what's been happening for the
last 15 years and that's why it has 130% compound annual growth
rate. And when people figure it out it
it goes up even more and and it's pretty crazy.
So yeah, I mean I I think that it's hyper Bitcoin ization.
It's something that's it's pretty much already happening.
Like we're probably going to look back in the history books
and be like you literally could have bought Bitcoin for, you
know, one cent or you could have bought Bitcoin for $60,000 or
$66,000 in 2024 and now the price of Bitcoin is 1,000,000
and dollars or millions and dollars of millions of dollars
in real terms, you know, decades down the line.
And it's going to, in hindsight, it's going to be a pretty short
period. Like, you know, 20-30 years is
not really that long in the grand scheme of like the history
of money. I mean thinking about like how
long gold was money or how long even Fiat money, which is pretty
much a 50 year old experiment at this point, it's it's, you know,
50 years is a pretty, pretty significant amount of time.
Like Bitcoin became a trillion dollar asset and 15 years or or
a little bit less. And so we're going to, I think
we're going to look back and be like we actually were living
through hyper Bitcoin ization. Like it felt slow at the time,
but in in hindsight it was it was happening pretty fast.
Yeah, but I feel in general it it it, it does feel slow.
Sometimes I I think I tweeted this a few weeks but sometimes I
just realized like I we, you know you and I were talking.
We figured this out in some way shape or form.
I don't know some miracle. I I cannot even retrace my steps
as to how it got here. But you know like we we are
seeing this right and now it feels so I want, I just want
other people to see it too. You know, and so sometimes I'm
just like, can't, can't we hurry up?
Like, why is this so slow? You know?
But yeah, I think you're right. It's really, I think American
Model said it also, like Fiat is also a blip in the history of
the entire history of money. Right.
And so Bitcoin is still even a way smaller blip on its way to
hopefully become, you know, DD money.
But yeah, that is how early we are.
So the fact that we are already here, I think, I think we are
blessed that we should be grateful, but it it is really
just the start like 15 years is, is nothing.
Yep, 100%. Yeah, it's definitely still
early in, you know, hyper bitcoinization.
Like I would argue that we are probably significantly less than
1% of the world like truly understands Bitcoin and like 94%
of all Bitcoin or roughly that have already been mined.
And so you're going to have, you know, 99.9% of the world chasing
after the 4% that's remaining to be mined and then also from the
existing holders. So, like, it could be, it could
get crazy. Yeah, I asked this to Chris
Berger in a previous episode, but I think you're a good person
to ask, too. How many people in the world do
you think actually understand what this is?
Oh, that's a great question. It it depends on that what you
mean by understand. Like how you and I understand
it. OK, not many.
To be totally fair, I don't think really anyone quite
understands what this is like. Not even us.
Now that's we're figuring it out.
But you know, you know what I mean, right?
Yeah. For sure.
But to our to like you know, to using Bitcoin like as your unit
of account and like using it as like your primary tool for for
long term savings, I would probably say like there's like
less than like 100,000 people for sure.
If I had to guess, yeah. What do you think?
He said No more than one million.
Yeah, I I'm also more into 100,000 camp.
Yeah, just if I look at, I don't know, Twitter followers of
people or something like that, you know, like or I don't know.
Well on Reddit there's like 6.6 million members actually of the
subreddit, which is huge. But sometimes I see discussions
there where I think like, no you don't understand it to to that
degree, right. So it's really, yeah, I I tops
definitely 1,000,000 but yeah probably way, way lower which I
love as a thought. So let's go with 100K, right.
It's 15 years old. 100,000 people in the in the world know
what this is. You know also, you know within
the perspective of the money we have now, where that's going,
all the depth, etcetera. You know, what are the societal
implications of having a an in immutable unprintable money,
right. Like, what would that do to the
lives of people find more meaning all the all these
things, right? Save your energy over time and
space like all these things. And still Wall Street adopted
it. I find that so fascinating.
It's so tiny that there are subreddits with more than
100,000 people that understand the subject that the subreddit
is about. Right.
I don't know. Knitting or something, or, I
don't know, knitting. A stupid example.
But you know what I mean? Like there's there are bigger
niches that are totally not serviced, unserviced, totally
not getting airtime on CNBC and all these things, right?
So I find it a funny thought exercise to think about it like
that and then think about how Bitcoin is portrayed, talked
about what type of people move into it, right?
If if you really think about it like that, then for me it's kind
of like a signal, like this is a thing, It's actually a thing.
100%, I mean, you see, people are going to adopt it.
I mean, like Wall Street is going to go out there and sell,
sell Bitcoin if they can make money off of it.
And that's exactly what they're doing.
So yeah, I mean to me. There's lots of things to make
money off, right? Like why this thing?
It it says something it's it's agreed from them.
I would, I would agree, but why this thing?
Yeah. And yeah, I mean I think people
just over time are figuring out this is number go up technology,
whether they understand what that like why it doesn't really
matter, like they're just going to figure out number go up
technology. So I need to buy and hold some
of this. Yeah, I mean that that's how
almost everyone gets in, right? So that's totally fine.
Yeah. So what do you think are some
risks for people who choose to ignore bitcoins growing
influence? I think the the main risk is
you'll, you'll look back on, you know, your portfolio, like your
net worth, the savings that you have.
It could be a lot, it could be a very little.
And you'll realize like how much Bitcoin and we already filled
this today, right? Like, you realize how much
Bitcoin you could have bought, you know, five years ago, 10
years ago, 15 years ago. And it's like, wow, like that
was a lot of Bitcoin. And so if you choose to continue
to ignore it, then you're probably going to get five more
years down the line and realize like, wow, I could have bought
that much Bitcoin or that many Sats even.
And you know, now I can barely now I may not make that many
Sats for the rest of my entire earning career because the price
of Bitcoin relative to everything else has gone up so
much. So I think it's something that
like you, you can ignore and you can continue living like in Fiat
world and things will continue getting more expensive and
you'll continue to feel like you're falling behind.
But you now have a a new tool that's out there that will
enable you to not feel like you're falling behind, to
actually feel like you're maybe getting ahead and maybe at
least, you know, staying on a level playing field with the top
capital allocators in the entire world, which is pretty, pretty
cool. Yeah yeah we figured it out
before the finance rose man that's so funny.
So funny but but I like what you said also what I love is there's
like unit bias going down but there's also unit bias going up
right let's. So I I think to illustrate how
fast it could go to what to what you said is if Bitcoin is
$100,000 way more people are going to pay attention to it
right. I I I really think 100K is like
a meme number, right? Like 100K and Twitter will
explode. It will be everywhere, right?
Like that's always been a psychological barrier for me as
well. Like 100K means 1,000,000 means
10 million and so on. But 100K if you are a cash
millionaire, 1,000,000 millionaire?
Are you going to buy one? Are you going to, are you going
to, are you going to put in 10% of what you what your net worth
is? Right.
I think it's just an interesting question like would you, would
you do that and even though it would be more and more
legitimized at that price, I think for a lot of people it
would still be a very, very difficult decision, but then
like so. So my point is more like you
have to understand that you're going to get priced out maybe in
hard terms of hard dollars, but also in terms of, you know the
the unit bias that you you carry with you.
So you need to study even if you don't want to buy it yet.
Like you need to study even in case it gets to that point, so
you can make a rational decision.
Yeah, I mean, I think it works. The unit bias is so interesting.
It does kind of work multiple ways, where to some extent I do
think it does help people because they're like, oh, I need
to reach, you know, one Bitcoin per SE and you know, one bit
like $60,000 to an average person around the world, that's
a that's a lot of money. Exactly, yes.
Yeah. And so like it makes you like
maybe stretch yourself a little bit more than you intuitively
would if you know, we were initially quoting in Sats
because you're like, Oh well, I already got, you know, 10
million Sats, which is, you know, .1 Bitcoin.
Now that's plenty like 10 million Sats, whatever, you
know, that's a lot. So it it, it makes you stretch
more potentially. But then the counter side of
that is like, it makes people, you know, less inclined to
consider it like they're like, oh, I'll never be able to afford
one Bitcoin and so I'll give up and never try, which is kind of
unfortunate. So there's pros and cons to
looking at it both ways. Yeah, I just googled average
yearly salary worldwide. What do you think it is?
Probably like 25,000 U.S. dollars.
What is it 9? 9733.
That's crazy. That's crazy from April 23 but
yeah that makes sense. So but this already shows that
you know making over 100,000 a year it's it's top ten global
but most people would be priced out of one which is also I think
an argument that that lots of critics should use right.
Like yeah you should have been early then you were lucky
etcetera. But I think we should go from
the, yes, the one bit one Bitcoin, you know is it's a nice
thing to say, like it's an attainable, that's what you
should do. But we should rather go to like
a million sets or something like that.
Yeah, I mean it, I think it, it depends on like who you are,
right? Like for some people getting to
one Bitcoin is great. For some people getting to a
million sets is great. Like depends on where you are in
the world and like you know what your upbringing was and you know
a lot of different factors. But yeah, I mean like I think
both are going to be very, you know you're that's going to be a
lot of money in the future for sure.
So both work. I saw people who wanted to
change the word sets to actually Bitcoin, so that one set would
be one Bitcoin right to to to turn it around, maybe to combat
the unit bias, to also help help people.
I thought, I thought that was a was an interesting idea.
Well, so when when people buy Bitcoin, you know, of course, or
what when they own it, it's totally different than what you
would have, you know, versus a traditional bank where you
basically kind of like outsource the responsibility over the
wealth, right? If you hold your own Bitcoin,
then it's all on you. But how do, how do you look at
these kind of like security aspects when you hold Bitcoin?
Because I also want to share or ask, like how you do this at
Unchained. Because they're they offer a
different possibility too, right?
Yep, yeah. I think when people would
originally get into Bitcoin, they want the number go up
technology and they don't think about anything else which is
completely reasonable. That could be buying ETF, buying
on FTX, buying on Block Fi, flying on Coinbase, doesn't
matter. They just want the number go up.
Then over time it becomes the number goes up for you and
you're like, I need to figure out how to store this securely
because I don't want to lose it, right?
Like we've seen history shows that if you don't know what
you're doing with your Bitcoin, you're going to lose it.
And so I think people turn to something like self custody
where they're like, oh, Bitcoin is a bearer asset that I can
hold myself. I can actually hold the private
keys to Bitcoin, but that requires a lot of personal
responsibility. It can be scary.
And if you don't know what you're doing, you you can lose
your Bitcoin. And so Unchained is a pretty
great solution where you can work with them and they'll have
a backup key for your Bitcoin and you'll set up what's called
a Multi sig vault, which is just short for multi signature or
multi key. And you as an individual can
hold two of the keys to your Bitcoin and then Unchained and
holds one backup key. And so in that case, you can
always move your Bitcoin out of your Unchained vault with both
of your keys. But if you happen to lose a key,
or one gets stolen or whatever happens, then Unchain has that
backup key that gives you that extra assurance that you know
you're not going to lose your Bitcoin.
So I think Unchain is a great way to to hold Bitcoin for the
future. Yeah, yeah, I love that.
I need to dive into that more. There's I think multi SEC is one
of the biggest things that I I have not doven into two or like
enough. I I also wanted to ask you, you
went from being interested studying you know like 6 years
years ago to now full time researcher.
How is your perspective on Bitcoin changed.
What's the biggest thing you think changed?
It's a great question. One thing that I think is
interesting is I, I you don't realize how small it still is.
Like you're outside of Bitcoin and you see people with lots of
followers on Twitter or whatnot and you're like, wow, like this
Bitcoin thing is so huge. I'm late to the party.
And then like, you start working in, in companies in the Bitcoin
space, you start talking to miners.
You do a bunch of different things in the Bitcoin space and
you're like, at the end of the day, like these are all just
people interacting with this new tool called Bitcoin.
Like we think we know what's happening.
But you know, this is just kind of like an alien technology
that's been dropped on us and it's increasing in value at like
an unprecedented rate. And we're all just trying to use
and interact with it in our own unique, you know, way in our own
and we're all acting in our own incentive to do so for for our
own personal benefit. And so, yeah, I think it's just
like it's so early. It's still very small compared
to, you know, so many other industries and and you know,
whether that's like technology in general or financial services
or or banking or or whatnot. And people are still like
figuring out like, you know, how Bitcoin works and like how the
best way to hold it is And a lot of people like, are just
learning as they go, which I think is pretty cool.
Yeah, me too. I think it's an ongoing journey,
right. I I, I think, you know, maybe to
clarify what I said before, like we have figured it out.
Well, I meant up until certain points, we have definitely not
figured out the entire thing. I think the entire thing I don't
know like it culminates in prosperity of humanity or
something so that I, I I feel that's still very far away and
also totally not understandable what what that would be right.
So there's so many aspects still to to to figure out.
I think that what what gives me my enthusiasm and interest to
just keep on learning about this is like I feel that this is a
never ending thing. Like every week I have my mind
blown about another piece of content that I read or like a
quote I hear where I think like, Oh yeah, I can look at it from
this way, right. So I think, you know, it's just
something that I think has captivated me.
But also you you went into Bitcoin as a career as well.
What what made you do that like to to go from studying to
becoming like a real advocate also?
Yeah, I mean Bitcoin, like I'm sure it is for you.
It's like, it's something that I couldn't stop thinking about
like once. I like the, the lottery ticket
ticket analogy that I used earlier.
It's like I saw Bitcoin as a lottery ticket.
Then I realized it's a lottery ticket with like pretty
incredible odds. And I'm like, if someone handed
you a lottery ticket that was like you saw the winning
numbers, you know, tomorrow or 10 years from now already and
you're like all you got to do is hold on to this lottery ticket
and it's like going to go up and value a lot.
Like it's pretty hard not to be fascinated with that.
And so like during, you know, 2021 bull market, that was when
I had the opportunity to join a a Bitcoin company full time And
I was like, you know, I'm going to do this, like, why not?
Like, I'm still young. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't
think I'm wrong and, you know, haven't haven't looked back.
It's been a wild ride, but it's been awesome.
Yeah, I love, I love to see it, man.
I think it's very inspirational to see someone really take that
jump. Of course I'm also spending lots
of time on this but I would also love to continue you know my
career or or also go full time on a podcast just to to work on
this because I have the same I think this this is almost the
only thing I think every day. I think this is so interesting
you know and yeah, fun. I I'd love to see that.
So if someone is new to Bitcoin, what advice would you give them
on learning about it or developing their mindset to
start studying it? Yeah, I mean if you're new to
Bitcoin, I would say have an extremely long time horizon.
Bitcoin is not a get rich quick scheme.
It's it's it's not a gamble per SE either.
In the short term, it's it's certainly a gamble and it's
extremely volatile. And so you have to understand
that Bitcoin can and probably will fall 80% again at some
point in the future. Maybe it'll fall from like
500,000 and and fall 80% or maybe it'll fall from you know,
100,000. Like it's hard to tell exactly,
you know what the price of Bitcoin is going to do, but it's
going to be volatile. But it's also going to most
likely, in my opinion at least have extreme, massive upside.
So yeah, I think just be aware of that.
You know you can read something like the Bitcoin standard when
Alden's broken money. I know we were talking about
when Alden's video that's kind of highlighted broken money.
It's a great 30 minute easy to watch video.
We talked about the the report that I wrote called your Your
wealth is melting. That's a that's a great report
for people to check out and and yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Those are great starting points.
I would add to that. I love the Bitcoin explainer by
Jack Mahlers at Bitcoin Atlantis.
I was there in the crowd and I thought, well OK, he's going to
tell about Bitcoin. I know this stuff, but I thought
this was the best explainer I've seen in in 10 years.
So I would also recommend people to check that out too.
I think it's like 45 minutes or something like that.
So yeah, you know what? I I I think it's fun.
Like there's so many resources out there like to learn about
Bitcoin, right. So from whatever angle you look
at it or get into it, you know or whatever peaks you're
interest at first. Like there's there's already so
much content to definitely compared to 10 years ago by the
way to just read up on right. Like you you can get a good
grasp of this. Well, just from your report I'd
say right as to why, why this is a thing and why people are
paying interest to to this and from there on you know if you're
triggered then I think Twitter and and and Google are your best
friends and there's just so much to find.
So yeah, cool. Last question and I asked
everyone the same question, which is what is a core belief
you will never let go. It's a great question.
My answer to this probably have many answers, but simple short
answer would probably be like free markets and capitalism are
the most appropriate way to price capital price goods and
services, to price businesses, to price ideas, to price you
know equities, to price real estate price Bitcoin.
And in the world of capitalism, in free markets, people all act
in their own self-interest and the consumer and the people are
the ones that ultimately benefit the most from this system of
everyone acting in their own self-interest.
And I think if we can continue to create efficient markets and
and drive down barriers between people, groups of people,
countries and whatnot and allow people to act freely and and
act, you know, in their own self-interest without harming
others, I think that the world would be a better place.
Love that man. Great Ender, thanks.
Thanks so much for coming on. I will make sure to you know
link to to your ex account so people can follow you.
I think your report is probably your pin tweet so people can
check that out too. And yeah man, thanks for your
time. I really enjoyed it.
Yeah, thanks for having me on. This was awesome.
I enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed this episode.
If you did, it would be amazing if you could rate, review and
subscribe on the podcast platform of your choice.
It will help us educate more millennials on the importance of
Bitcoin. You can follow and connect with
me on Twitter. I'm Brom K That's at BR 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
episodes. Thanks for listening.
Bye.