1 00:00:01,800 --> 00:00:04,760 All right, hey there, it's Bob Konstein and this is Bitcoin for 2 00:00:04,760 --> 00:00:06,560 Millennials. If you enjoy this podcast, 3 00:00:06,560 --> 00:00:09,680 please consider giving a thumbs up and subscribing on YouTube or 4 00:00:09,680 --> 00:00:12,480 your favorite podcasting app. This will help me reach a wider 5 00:00:12,480 --> 00:00:15,480 audience and educate more people on Bitcoin together with my 6 00:00:15,480 --> 00:00:17,560 guests. And in this episode, I'm joined 7 00:00:17,560 --> 00:00:20,000 by Brad Rattler. He's director of the Bitcoin 8 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:22,560 Research Institute and associate professor of philosophy at the 9 00:00:22,560 --> 00:00:25,240 University of Wyoming. He's also a co-author of the 10 00:00:25,240 --> 00:00:27,960 book Resistance Money, a philosophical Case for Bitcoin 11 00:00:28,160 --> 00:00:31,080 and a senior fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute. 12 00:00:31,440 --> 00:00:34,080 We discussed Bitcoins multifaceted nature, it's role 13 00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:37,280 as resistance money, the stability of its monetary policy 14 00:00:37,560 --> 00:00:40,000 rules versus rulers, the philosophical approach to 15 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:42,960 understanding Bitcoin, and the importance of academic research 16 00:00:42,960 --> 00:00:45,560 in understanding the implications of Bitcoin. 17 00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:49,880 I hope you enjoyed this episode. All right, Brad Rattler, welcome 18 00:00:49,880 --> 00:00:51,880 to Bitcoin for Millennials. Thank you. 19 00:00:51,960 --> 00:00:55,440 Good to be here. Yeah, man, I love that you that 20 00:00:55,440 --> 00:00:58,320 you're coming on. I, as I just mentioned off Mike, 21 00:00:58,320 --> 00:01:02,280 I did not go through the book fully yet, but I really love the 22 00:01:02,280 --> 00:01:06,320 philosophical angle of Bitcoin. So I'm very happy to to chat 23 00:01:06,320 --> 00:01:09,600 with you today. And I just wanted to start with 24 00:01:09,600 --> 00:01:12,680 a question about your background. 25 00:01:12,680 --> 00:01:16,040 So how did your background in philosophy influence your 26 00:01:16,040 --> 00:01:20,880 approach to studying Bitcoin and eventually creating a book? 27 00:01:22,600 --> 00:01:27,040 The original interest in Bitcoin that I had was not at all 28 00:01:27,040 --> 00:01:29,160 philosophical. It was, it was purely sort of 29 00:01:29,160 --> 00:01:33,000 humanitarian. And so I found out about it 30 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:37,120 years ago, but but it took maybe five years before I started 31 00:01:37,120 --> 00:01:38,560 thinking about it philosophically. 32 00:01:38,880 --> 00:01:43,080 And the lens that that that came through was metaphysics, which 33 00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:45,600 is like the the study of the nature of reality. 34 00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:49,160 And my co-author, one of my co-authors on the book, Craig 35 00:01:49,160 --> 00:01:51,560 Wormke was giving a paper called what is Bitcoin? 36 00:01:51,960 --> 00:01:54,480 Which has since been published. And I highly recommend that 37 00:01:54,480 --> 00:01:55,840 everyone read it. It's fascinating. 38 00:01:55,840 --> 00:01:58,000 It gives you a good idea of how to do philosophy, but about 39 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:00,320 something that you're interested in, in this case, Bitcoin. 40 00:02:01,520 --> 00:02:04,360 And so that was kind of the angle into it. 41 00:02:04,360 --> 00:02:08,479 And then as I started thinking more about it, I realized just 42 00:02:08,479 --> 00:02:12,040 how multifaceted Bitcoin was, that there's all this 43 00:02:12,280 --> 00:02:14,040 metaphysics stuff. There's also, of course, all 44 00:02:14,040 --> 00:02:17,840 this ethical moral stuff. Of course there's economics, 45 00:02:17,920 --> 00:02:21,200 computer science, law, political science. 46 00:02:21,360 --> 00:02:26,160 Now as as mining has has morphed into the the current state of 47 00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:30,720 what mining is, you have engineering and we have a 48 00:02:30,720 --> 00:02:34,440 department of petroleum engineering. 49 00:02:34,440 --> 00:02:37,440 So there's there's like natural gas stuff and of course 50 00:02:37,440 --> 00:02:40,520 environmental science. So all these like things are are 51 00:02:41,120 --> 00:02:43,160 meeting in this one thing, which is Bitcoin. 52 00:02:43,600 --> 00:02:45,760 And I find that absolutely fascinating. 53 00:02:45,760 --> 00:02:48,080 And philosophy is kind of a discipline that that does this. 54 00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:50,360 So the one of the very first things that Andrew and Craig and 55 00:02:50,360 --> 00:02:52,600 I wrote together is why Bitcoin needs philosophy. 56 00:02:52,600 --> 00:02:55,480 And one of the arguments that we made is that philosophy is a 57 00:02:55,480 --> 00:02:59,720 bundling discipline, that our method is to take evidence and 58 00:02:59,720 --> 00:03:03,120 data from everywhere, from all the different disciplines and 59 00:03:03,120 --> 00:03:07,080 sort of pit it against each other and try to come out with 60 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:09,600 one verdict. So we can take data from 61 00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:12,360 environmental science, we can take data from economics, we can 62 00:03:12,360 --> 00:03:16,760 take data from ethics and, and end up with the conclusion of 63 00:03:16,760 --> 00:03:18,960 our book, which is just, you know, bitcoins good for the 64 00:03:18,960 --> 00:03:22,280 world. So it takes us, you know, 300 65 00:03:22,280 --> 00:03:26,400 pages to get there, but it's by being sensitive to all these 66 00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:29,000 different areas. Yeah, yeah, I love that. 67 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:32,000 I think if your conclusion is Bitcoin is good for the world, I 68 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:34,360 think that's quite a statement, right? 69 00:03:35,240 --> 00:03:38,280 You probably experienced that also when you talk with other 70 00:03:38,280 --> 00:03:42,360 people about Bitcoin, Like if I think about my own journey, that 71 00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:45,440 if you sometimes have these big thoughts, right, and one of the 72 00:03:45,440 --> 00:03:47,600 end thoughts is Bitcoin is good for the world. 73 00:03:48,320 --> 00:03:51,800 That is such a big thing that it kind of like sounds too good to 74 00:03:51,800 --> 00:03:55,440 be true. Like how do you approach that 75 00:03:55,440 --> 00:03:59,600 thought when you like realize, OK, this is a really, really big 76 00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:01,520 idea. This is a really, really big 77 00:04:01,960 --> 00:04:04,480 discovery. How can we make that manageable 78 00:04:05,200 --> 00:04:07,440 to understand for other other people? 79 00:04:08,160 --> 00:04:12,720 Yeah, we did it in two ways. One way is recognizing that in 80 00:04:12,720 --> 00:04:17,560 order to do that, you have to be sensitive to not just the people 81 00:04:17,560 --> 00:04:21,079 that Bitcoin is helping, but really look hard to try to find 82 00:04:21,079 --> 00:04:25,640 people that Bitcoin is harming and then weighing the the goods 83 00:04:25,640 --> 00:04:30,120 and the harms. And like I said, taking data 84 00:04:30,120 --> 00:04:31,400 from all these different disciplines. 85 00:04:31,400 --> 00:04:34,240 And then the other way is to try to get more precise about how to 86 00:04:34,240 --> 00:04:37,000 answer the question. I think that most people who 87 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:40,760 think about Bitcoin, they think about whether it's good for them 88 00:04:41,560 --> 00:04:44,400 and specifically whether they should buy some, whether they 89 00:04:44,400 --> 00:04:47,480 should hold on to what they have, how they should use it, 90 00:04:47,880 --> 00:04:50,440 should, should they self custody, should they buy an ETF, 91 00:04:50,440 --> 00:04:52,400 etcetera. And we don't care so much about 92 00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:54,200 that because that is an individual question. 93 00:04:54,200 --> 00:04:59,240 We don't, we don't know everyone's circumstances and in 94 00:04:59,280 --> 00:05:03,760 in particular we also think that people for whom Bitcoin isn't 95 00:05:03,760 --> 00:05:08,720 necessarily good, they should still be in favor of Bitcoin's 96 00:05:08,720 --> 00:05:11,800 existence because of how many people it is good for you. 97 00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:15,080 So it doesn't, we don't, we don't try to convince anyone to 98 00:05:15,080 --> 00:05:17,600 buy it in the book, but we do say that you should support the 99 00:05:17,600 --> 00:05:20,600 Bitcoin network by like not fighting against it, not trying 100 00:05:20,600 --> 00:05:25,760 to regulate it into making everyone who uses it a criminal 101 00:05:25,760 --> 00:05:28,640 and things like that. And the way that we enter into 102 00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:32,200 this is we offer a thought experiment. 103 00:05:32,440 --> 00:05:35,920 If you were to wake up tomorrow and you could be anyone in the 104 00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:40,440 world, you don't, you don't know today who you'd be tomorrow, any 105 00:05:40,440 --> 00:05:43,160 of the 8 billion or so people you could wake up as. 106 00:05:43,640 --> 00:05:47,240 Would you want to wake up in a Bitcoin world or a non Bitcoin 107 00:05:47,240 --> 00:05:48,840 world? A world that's just like this, 108 00:05:48,840 --> 00:05:51,800 except Bitcoin has gone out of existence. 109 00:05:51,800 --> 00:05:53,880 It came into existence, it existed for a little while. 110 00:05:53,880 --> 00:05:55,800 Everyone stopped mining and running nodes and it 111 00:05:55,800 --> 00:05:58,920 disappeared. And we think that because of how 112 00:05:58,920 --> 00:06:02,080 many people Bitcoin helps that the answer is you'd want to wake 113 00:06:02,080 --> 00:06:04,880 up in a Bitcoin world. You want to hedge your bets, you 114 00:06:04,880 --> 00:06:08,840 want to be risk averse, and if that's the case, then in the 115 00:06:08,840 --> 00:06:11,560 actual world, given that those people still exist, they're just 116 00:06:11,560 --> 00:06:16,280 not you, you should work towards bitcoins acceptance. 117 00:06:17,120 --> 00:06:22,920 Yeah, before we dive into the the elements as to why you would 118 00:06:22,920 --> 00:06:25,720 want to wake up in a Bitcoin world, I I also wanted to ask 119 00:06:25,720 --> 00:06:28,440 about, you know, you mentioned in your personal journey you 120 00:06:28,440 --> 00:06:31,760 first saw it like from a humanitarian angle. 121 00:06:32,480 --> 00:06:37,120 Did you like get it at the beginning or were there like 122 00:06:37,120 --> 00:06:39,760 beliefs that made you not get it when you when you first 123 00:06:39,760 --> 00:06:43,480 encountered it? Yeah, I don't think anyone 124 00:06:43,480 --> 00:06:48,240 really gets it early on. You get like some part of it and 125 00:06:48,240 --> 00:06:50,160 I different people get different parts of it. 126 00:06:50,160 --> 00:06:52,720 And one of the things I think is so interesting about Bitcoin is 127 00:06:53,120 --> 00:06:55,280 is there are so many different parts to get. 128 00:06:56,080 --> 00:06:58,200 So there's this, you know, there's the public distributed 129 00:06:58,200 --> 00:07:01,320 Ledger part, there's the supply cap part, there's the 130 00:07:01,400 --> 00:07:07,480 pseudonymous address part. So for me, it was the the ease 131 00:07:07,520 --> 00:07:09,600 of sending value internationally. 132 00:07:09,800 --> 00:07:11,960 That's the part part I got immediately. 133 00:07:11,960 --> 00:07:14,080 So I didn't know anything about the supply. 134 00:07:14,120 --> 00:07:16,960 I think I even thought it was backed by U.S. dollars that 135 00:07:16,960 --> 00:07:19,440 there was, you know, it was that, that Bitcoin was more like 136 00:07:19,440 --> 00:07:23,680 Tether that there's this like stock, stock of things that back 137 00:07:23,680 --> 00:07:25,880 it. And then you trade around on the 138 00:07:25,880 --> 00:07:31,680 blockchain these amounts of it. And, and so I thought, oh, this 139 00:07:31,680 --> 00:07:33,600 is going to be great for international remittances. 140 00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:36,160 This is going to revolutionize. This is going to save people so 141 00:07:36,160 --> 00:07:37,880 much money who desperately need the money. 142 00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:40,880 People who've moved away from their families to, to try to 143 00:07:40,880 --> 00:07:42,560 make a better life for themselves and for their 144 00:07:42,560 --> 00:07:45,280 families. They're paying 20% of their 145 00:07:45,280 --> 00:07:48,280 wages at the time, I think to Western Union, Oregon companies 146 00:07:48,280 --> 00:07:51,360 like that MoneyGram. And now they're going to be able 147 00:07:51,360 --> 00:07:54,760 to save that value for themselves, pay a few cents to 148 00:07:54,760 --> 00:07:56,720 send as much value. Their family members aren't 149 00:07:56,720 --> 00:08:00,960 going to have to go to some office front somewhere and then 150 00:08:00,960 --> 00:08:05,200 carry cash back home with them. And so that was the part I got 151 00:08:05,440 --> 00:08:09,120 and then, you know, I just, that was good enough for a few years 152 00:08:09,520 --> 00:08:12,480 and then I started thinking more about the other aspects and how 153 00:08:12,480 --> 00:08:15,880 they they interacted. And I'm not sure that I fully 154 00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:18,400 get it right now. And at least the following 155 00:08:18,400 --> 00:08:20,800 sense. If you put the Bitcoin code in 156 00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:23,160 front of me, I can't tell you what different parts of the code 157 00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:29,520 do, absent the the little hash # signs that that explain it to 158 00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:32,600 you. So there's still, there's always 159 00:08:32,600 --> 00:08:34,720 more to learn. And then because it's so 160 00:08:34,720 --> 00:08:36,679 multifaceted, there's there's more to learn about the 161 00:08:36,679 --> 00:08:39,679 interplay between the various aspects of it. 162 00:08:40,520 --> 00:08:43,600 Yeah, it's funny, while you're answering the question, I'm 163 00:08:43,600 --> 00:08:46,640 thinking about what do I actually mean with get it right? 164 00:08:46,640 --> 00:08:51,200 I, I agree the, I'm, I'm not a coder either, so I would not 165 00:08:51,200 --> 00:08:56,680 necessarily get the entire code. I think when I, when I asked 166 00:08:56,680 --> 00:08:59,760 something like that, it's more about, you know, the, the 167 00:08:59,760 --> 00:09:02,480 eventual implications. Like what does it mean when 168 00:09:02,880 --> 00:09:05,920 people, you know, as, as to the dimension that you came into, 169 00:09:05,960 --> 00:09:09,400 you know, what does it mean when people can freely transact? 170 00:09:09,400 --> 00:09:11,720 What is free? What do they actually transact? 171 00:09:11,720 --> 00:09:15,120 What does that represent, right? Like that, That is like one part 172 00:09:15,120 --> 00:09:19,000 of this giant, the rabbit hole and, and the subjects that that 173 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:23,520 you mentioned, for me, that's in part also why it's such a big 174 00:09:23,520 --> 00:09:25,120 thing. You know, there's probably like 175 00:09:25,240 --> 00:09:30,960 8 to 1012 dimensions that you could like start from, right? 176 00:09:30,960 --> 00:09:34,440 Like whatever your point of view or interests is. 177 00:09:34,440 --> 00:09:37,680 You know, you mentioned utility. I think that's very interesting. 178 00:09:37,720 --> 00:09:42,680 I would put that at one of the most obvious ones, right? 179 00:09:42,680 --> 00:09:46,840 And like, what is behind that is just, it's like a tsunami of, 180 00:09:47,040 --> 00:09:50,080 of, of stuff, right? And that's also what, what, you 181 00:09:50,080 --> 00:09:52,320 know, this podcast is geared towards like, I just want to 182 00:09:52,320 --> 00:09:55,480 create like all these different hooks or angles where people are 183 00:09:55,480 --> 00:09:58,640 like, Oh, that's interesting. And then, you know, after you, 184 00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:02,640 you find that spiky thing that interests you, then after that, 185 00:10:02,640 --> 00:10:06,600 you know, the rest, the rest will will follow when, when you 186 00:10:06,600 --> 00:10:09,040 talk about the book, right, the book is called or what you talk 187 00:10:09,040 --> 00:10:10,520 about in the book. The book is called Resistance 188 00:10:10,520 --> 00:10:13,600 Money. How do you define resistance 189 00:10:13,680 --> 00:10:17,080 money and why is Bitcoin resistance money? 190 00:10:18,800 --> 00:10:22,920 Great question. The way that we think about 191 00:10:23,800 --> 00:10:31,120 money is as a system involving makers, mediators and managers. 192 00:10:31,120 --> 00:10:34,600 So these are three different roles that are played in the 193 00:10:34,600 --> 00:10:37,120 monetary system. You have people that create the 194 00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:41,120 money, you have people that mediate transactions, and you 195 00:10:41,120 --> 00:10:44,880 have people that manage balances or manage stockpiles of the 196 00:10:44,880 --> 00:10:48,720 money. And those have gotten 197 00:10:48,720 --> 00:10:52,400 increasingly more centralized. So you have central banks that 198 00:10:52,400 --> 00:10:54,840 are the makers, you have commercial banks that are the 199 00:10:54,840 --> 00:10:58,040 managers, you have Visa, MasterCard, a few others that 200 00:10:58,040 --> 00:11:02,880 are the mediators, PayPal, Venmo, and that's kind of it. 201 00:11:03,640 --> 00:11:09,720 And so if you either don't like some of those people or you just 202 00:11:09,920 --> 00:11:12,480 don't like the idea that they play the role that they do, 203 00:11:13,560 --> 00:11:15,880 regardless of whether you think they're doing a good job, 204 00:11:16,640 --> 00:11:20,200 Bitcoin is a way to resist all of these kinds of authorities. 205 00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:24,080 It resists makers because it's it's creation is governed by 206 00:11:24,080 --> 00:11:28,680 this algorithm that is immutable, can only be changed 207 00:11:28,680 --> 00:11:33,640 by popular vote. Basically it eliminates managers 208 00:11:33,640 --> 00:11:37,440 because you custody your own, or at least you can, you have the 209 00:11:37,440 --> 00:11:40,080 option to do that. And it eliminates mediators 210 00:11:40,080 --> 00:11:42,800 because it's peer-to-peer. You don't need someone in 211 00:11:42,800 --> 00:11:46,040 between to do the mediating. And when you do have someone in 212 00:11:46,040 --> 00:11:48,920 between doing the mediating, say like in the Lightning Network, 213 00:11:50,240 --> 00:11:52,320 they don't have any kind of active role. 214 00:11:52,320 --> 00:11:54,520 They can't stop certain kinds of transactions. 215 00:11:54,520 --> 00:11:57,720 They can't block certain people. There are always ways around 216 00:11:57,720 --> 00:11:59,800 them. Whereas for a lot of people in 217 00:11:59,800 --> 00:12:04,440 the current monetary system, there aren't ways around the 218 00:12:05,160 --> 00:12:09,840 mediators you have to use and a lot of go go to tons of places 219 00:12:09,840 --> 00:12:12,080 now that don't accept cash anymore. 220 00:12:12,160 --> 00:12:17,200 You have to use a credit card. And so if you're if you're D 221 00:12:17,840 --> 00:12:21,960 credited by Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, then 222 00:12:21,960 --> 00:12:24,200 you're just out of luck. You can't buy certain things. 223 00:12:24,800 --> 00:12:29,720 And so we think about them as authorities and and resistance. 224 00:12:29,720 --> 00:12:32,400 Money is a way of resisting authorities. 225 00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:35,760 Does your Bitcoin custody setup keep you up at night? 226 00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:39,120 Gain Peace of Mind with On Ramp and their multi institution 227 00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:42,480 custody solution. 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I love what Zack and the team at 254 00:14:04,280 --> 00:14:06,840 Foundation are building, and to learn more about their mission, 255 00:14:06,840 --> 00:14:09,920 please check out episode 27 of this podcast. 256 00:14:10,040 --> 00:14:12,680 If you consider buying a Foundation Passport, you can use 257 00:14:12,680 --> 00:14:19,000 Code Brum that's Bram to get $10 off at Foundation dot XYZ slash 258 00:14:19,160 --> 00:14:19,480 Brom. Yeah. 259 00:14:20,360 --> 00:14:24,160 Yeah. I love that this is, I think one 260 00:14:24,160 --> 00:14:27,160 of my main things that the thing that you shared, right? 261 00:14:27,160 --> 00:14:32,400 Like do I want other people, you know, whatever job they do, you 262 00:14:32,400 --> 00:14:36,240 know, do I want other people that don't care about my 263 00:14:36,240 --> 00:14:41,000 individual needs and wants? Do I want them to control the 264 00:14:41,080 --> 00:14:43,760 reward I use in my value exchanges, right? 265 00:14:43,760 --> 00:14:47,880 Or the way that I store the economic value that I get are 266 00:14:47,880 --> 00:14:50,920 true a job or entrepreneurship, right. 267 00:14:51,240 --> 00:14:54,600 And when I say like, don't care about my needs, I don't mean it 268 00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:59,880 in a malicious way, but it's more like this is a policy made 269 00:14:59,880 --> 00:15:04,200 for. Yeah, I want to say like try to 270 00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:07,320 be for everyone, but it's it's not because if some people are 271 00:15:07,320 --> 00:15:11,200 closer to the policy or to the output of the policy, they 272 00:15:11,200 --> 00:15:15,880 obviously. How do you say like benefit more 273 00:15:15,880 --> 00:15:20,080 from from that policy or the output of the policy then then I 274 00:15:20,080 --> 00:15:26,480 do so in in essence, it's not yeah, it's not a not a clean or 275 00:15:26,480 --> 00:15:29,440 righteous system in that way. It's not transparent, right. 276 00:15:29,840 --> 00:15:32,960 And I think that's one of the main things for me where I was 277 00:15:32,960 --> 00:15:37,600 like, OK, I that came way later, by the way, when I already was 278 00:15:37,600 --> 00:15:40,040 longer in Bitcoin. But then I realized, yeah, I 279 00:15:40,040 --> 00:15:42,960 don't want that. And also you said, I don't know 280 00:15:42,960 --> 00:15:46,880 if you said risk, but it's like it's like low risk in a sense, 281 00:15:46,880 --> 00:15:49,120 right? Like trusting other people that 282 00:15:49,120 --> 00:15:52,600 don't care about you individually is way more risk 283 00:15:52,600 --> 00:15:57,560 than following a public set of rules that's checked every 10 284 00:15:57,560 --> 00:16:00,160 minutes. This also took me a while to to 285 00:16:00,160 --> 00:16:02,200 figure out, right? But I think it's an interesting 286 00:16:02,200 --> 00:16:07,800 point where only if you just think that that that could 287 00:16:07,800 --> 00:16:11,400 already be a trigger for you to to dive deeper into into 288 00:16:11,400 --> 00:16:14,800 Bitcoin, right, to actually figure out, OK, is this Bitcoin 289 00:16:14,800 --> 00:16:19,320 thing then the solution to the situation that that I don't 290 00:16:19,320 --> 00:16:20,600 really want? Yeah. 291 00:16:20,600 --> 00:16:23,280 I think it's fascinating. I love that you know, you, you 292 00:16:23,280 --> 00:16:25,680 already show like all these different angles that that 293 00:16:25,680 --> 00:16:29,440 people come at it from what to dive into that deeper. 294 00:16:31,120 --> 00:16:35,720 How how did you evaluate like bitcoins fixed monetary policy 295 00:16:35,720 --> 00:16:38,280 compared to traditional Fiat currencies? 296 00:16:38,280 --> 00:16:40,920 You know that this is one of the central things, right? 297 00:16:41,200 --> 00:16:43,840 As I said, the rules of Bitcoin are checked every 10 minutes. 298 00:16:44,160 --> 00:16:48,080 The rules or the policy of a central bank, the Federal 299 00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:51,320 Reserve in America, for example, has never been checked or 300 00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:54,400 audited. How did you investigate those? 301 00:16:57,880 --> 00:17:02,800 Bitcoins monetary policy has some very like distinct and 302 00:17:03,120 --> 00:17:06,000 seemingly arbitrary and kind of odd choices. 303 00:17:06,480 --> 00:17:10,240 So one of them is that the halving schedule every four 304 00:17:10,240 --> 00:17:12,920 years, the Bitcoin block reward gets cut in half. 305 00:17:13,480 --> 00:17:18,160 Why? Why not cut it by 1/4 every two 306 00:17:18,160 --> 00:17:21,560 years? Or why not decrease it by 1 307 00:17:21,560 --> 00:17:25,400 Bitcoin every 10 years? Or there's all sorts of 308 00:17:25,400 --> 00:17:29,200 different ways of of lowering supply. 309 00:17:29,200 --> 00:17:30,880 It could have just been steady the whole time. 310 00:17:32,160 --> 00:17:37,000 The 21 million supply cap it it probably doesn't matter what the 311 00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:42,400 number is 21,000,042 million, 84,000,000, it would all it 312 00:17:42,400 --> 00:17:45,760 would all be about the same have have the same results. 313 00:17:47,080 --> 00:17:50,560 But the fact that there is a supply cap and the way that the 314 00:17:50,560 --> 00:17:55,400 halving schedule ends up, you know, terminating with the very 315 00:17:55,400 --> 00:18:01,560 last 38 Satoshi's as the block reward for the last epoch is 316 00:18:01,560 --> 00:18:03,720 kind of is kind of odd and kind of arbitrary. 317 00:18:04,160 --> 00:18:08,160 And you might think that Satoshi could have encoded it so that 318 00:18:08,280 --> 00:18:13,280 there's a block reward of 100 Satoshi's in perpetuity. 319 00:18:13,680 --> 00:18:18,320 So there's no supply cap, but the supply is is still it's, 320 00:18:18,320 --> 00:18:20,720 it's not fixed, but it's unalterable. 321 00:18:21,200 --> 00:18:26,880 And so I actually think that the unalterability of the supply 322 00:18:26,880 --> 00:18:31,560 schedule is more important than the particular choices that were 323 00:18:31,560 --> 00:18:35,240 made. It's the fact that you can count 324 00:18:35,240 --> 00:18:37,400 on it unfolding exactly this way. 325 00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:40,880 That's really the the interesting and innovative and 326 00:18:40,880 --> 00:18:44,240 groundbreaking thing, not the particular rules that were 327 00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:48,320 chosen. So maybe that maybe they've 328 00:18:48,320 --> 00:18:50,520 turned out to be great and Bitcoin wouldn't have been able 329 00:18:50,520 --> 00:18:52,800 to do what it was without a four year having schedule. 330 00:18:52,800 --> 00:18:54,200 I'd be kind of surprised if that were true. 331 00:18:54,880 --> 00:18:58,000 Maybe Bitcoin couldn't have done what it did without a a supply 332 00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:00,360 cap. That seems more possible. 333 00:19:00,640 --> 00:19:04,120 But I still think if if you had sort of tail emissions of a 334 00:19:04,120 --> 00:19:08,600 block reward forever, that would probably still look very much 335 00:19:08,600 --> 00:19:12,240 like it does today. So when I evaluated, I think 336 00:19:12,640 --> 00:19:16,160 less about the particular policies and more at this this 337 00:19:16,280 --> 00:19:20,560 one level up of abstraction, which is these are the rules. 338 00:19:21,240 --> 00:19:24,640 And if you want different rules, you can make a competitor to 339 00:19:24,640 --> 00:19:26,720 Bitcoin. You can copy the Bitcoin code 340 00:19:27,080 --> 00:19:30,800 and then where it has the having stuff, change it and then try to 341 00:19:30,800 --> 00:19:33,640 convince people that your monetary policy is better than 342 00:19:33,640 --> 00:19:37,480 Bitcoin's monetary policy if you don't like the supply cap. 343 00:19:37,720 --> 00:19:39,320 Wouldn't you be missing the point? 344 00:19:39,560 --> 00:19:42,360 I I think the point you're making is that if you make 345 00:19:42,360 --> 00:19:45,200 another system that anyone could do, by the way, I think that's 346 00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:46,960 interesting for, for critics, right? 347 00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:51,240 Like anyone can copy Bitcoin, but it's like you said that one 348 00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:56,600 layer up, it's the thing you promise is done. 349 00:19:56,960 --> 00:19:59,880 That's basically it, right? Like the, the, the rules that 350 00:19:59,880 --> 00:20:04,720 are promised, they are actually upheld and that's it. 351 00:20:04,840 --> 00:20:08,360 That is also, in my opinion, what Bitcoin produces, right? 352 00:20:08,360 --> 00:20:10,920 If if people say, you know, Bitcoin doesn't produce 353 00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:14,920 anything, no. It produces a verifiable, open, 354 00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:18,120 transparent and predictable monetary policy. 355 00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:25,200 IE it follows its own set of rules in perpetuity, checked by, 356 00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:29,160 I don't know, 19 thousandth nodes every every 10 minutes, 357 00:20:29,160 --> 00:20:31,480 right? So, so that is the promise 358 00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:33,920 rather than the rules. That's what you argue, right? 359 00:20:34,160 --> 00:20:36,520 Yeah, yeah. The the promise is that the 360 00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:38,760 rules will be followed. And if you want to make a 361 00:20:38,760 --> 00:20:41,160 different set of rules, you first have to convince people 362 00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:42,880 that your rules are better than bitcoins rules. 363 00:20:42,880 --> 00:20:46,320 Then you have to convince them that your protocol is going to 364 00:20:46,320 --> 00:20:50,640 follow the rules forever. And we know based on bitcoins, 365 00:20:50,720 --> 00:20:54,760 you know, node system and and things like that, that it will. 366 00:20:55,480 --> 00:21:00,240 And if it doesn't, it's going to be because the vast majority of 367 00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:04,720 Bitcoin users have decided that they want to change the rules 368 00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:08,440 and there's going to be a fork of some sort. 369 00:21:08,440 --> 00:21:11,600 And people will be able to to keep using the old rules if they 370 00:21:11,600 --> 00:21:13,160 want to. It'll be a choice that every 371 00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:15,120 person makes. Do I want the new rules? 372 00:21:15,120 --> 00:21:17,000 Do I want the old rules? And of course, we saw this 373 00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:21,800 happen in 2017 when some people wanted to make the block size 374 00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:25,520 bigger. And so some people didn't want 375 00:21:25,520 --> 00:21:27,920 to make the block size bigger. Some people wanted to cap it. 376 00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:30,360 There were various options for caps. 377 00:21:30,360 --> 00:21:33,160 And so we had we had the split and people got to choose. 378 00:21:34,080 --> 00:21:37,440 And I think that's a really cool thing is Bitcoin doesn't force 379 00:21:37,440 --> 00:21:42,080 you to follow the rules. You can at any time change the 380 00:21:42,080 --> 00:21:43,560 code that's running on your note. 381 00:21:44,400 --> 00:21:47,120 You won't be running the same software as most people, but if 382 00:21:47,120 --> 00:21:49,880 you can convince them that they should, then you will be running 383 00:21:49,880 --> 00:21:52,680 the software that most people are running. 384 00:21:53,080 --> 00:21:56,120 So Bitcoin is in one sense completely immutable and 385 00:21:56,120 --> 00:21:59,520 inflexible and in another sense changeable at any time. 386 00:21:59,840 --> 00:22:02,800 All that it takes is making a good argument and convincing 387 00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:04,240 everyone. Yeah. 388 00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:08,480 I love, I love talking about this because I'm thinking this 389 00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:10,720 is like the ultimate proof of work, right? 390 00:22:10,720 --> 00:22:12,840 It's, it's just like this is my protocol. 391 00:22:12,840 --> 00:22:17,120 These are the rules. This is how you can, well, it's 392 00:22:17,120 --> 00:22:20,000 not even enforce them, right? It's, it's validate them, right? 393 00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:23,400 You can validate with, with the network that it's still 394 00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:28,000 operating as was set out in the protocol. 395 00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:30,840 And that's just it. If enough people don't like the 396 00:22:30,840 --> 00:22:35,560 protocol, as you said, they will move and then it might be that 397 00:22:35,560 --> 00:22:39,240 the protocol will die, right? And that's when Bitcoin dies in 398 00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:41,880 that sense. And I've always seen it like 399 00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:43,480 that. It's one big experiment, right? 400 00:22:43,480 --> 00:22:48,360 It's either zero, it dies or it's it's everything that we 401 00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:51,720 think it could be. There's not really an in 402 00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:53,840 between. Like this is not a the the 403 00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:57,400 incentives are not aligned that this could be like a zombie type 404 00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:00,560 of a product or a network, right? 405 00:23:00,560 --> 00:23:05,880 It's either you add to it with a node or a minor, you know, or as 406 00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:10,640 a user and you benefit from it or, or you don't really. 407 00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:12,960 So you, you add to the work or you don't. 408 00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:18,080 And and that's just it. Don't you think that, or what do 409 00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:22,280 you think about in essence? It's pretty simple for me. 410 00:23:22,280 --> 00:23:24,600 It also feels like the bar is very low, right? 411 00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:26,120 It's like, here's a set of rules. 412 00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:29,040 We're going to stick to it. That is the value. 413 00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:32,840 That's that sounds like a ridiculously low bar. 414 00:23:35,120 --> 00:23:35,600 Yeah. How do? 415 00:23:35,600 --> 00:23:38,600 How do you view that? Yeah, I, I mean, I, I think it's 416 00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:41,720 you. You don't necessarily understand 417 00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:43,800 how all the rules interact with each other. 418 00:23:44,040 --> 00:23:46,640 But yeah, you're presented with here's the money, here's the 419 00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:49,160 rules, how the money works, here's how the rules can change. 420 00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:53,480 You can change the rules on your node at any time, but you'll be 421 00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:55,120 out of compliance with the rest of the network. 422 00:23:55,120 --> 00:23:57,480 So you won't be able to to do things that you want to. 423 00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:02,120 So first of all, do you like that there are rules or do you 424 00:24:02,120 --> 00:24:04,760 like a small group of people being in charge? 425 00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:07,240 If you like a small group of people being in charge, then 426 00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:09,480 stick with your local currency or pick one of the crypto 427 00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:13,840 currencies that has a foundation and a board and sort of pushes 428 00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:18,000 down the the updates that need to happen from on high. 429 00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:25,320 And if you if you like that there are no rulers, then you 430 00:24:25,320 --> 00:24:27,640 have this next choice. Do you like the rules? 431 00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:31,880 And if you don't like the rules, then you kind of have to pick. 432 00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:35,440 OK, I wish the rules were different, but but I like that 433 00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:38,560 there's rules. And I wonder sometimes how many 434 00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:43,040 people who are pro Bitcoin are pro Bitcoin because of the 435 00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:48,160 particular rules that there are. I think a lot of people who 436 00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:50,520 really like the supply cap maybe are in that camp. 437 00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:54,920 And then how many people like Bitcoin primarily because there 438 00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:59,640 are rules that can't be changed except by, you know, widespread 439 00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:01,640 agreement among people running notes. 440 00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:06,400 And I think a lot of people who dislike money printing, central 441 00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:09,840 bank authority, things like that are pro Bitcoin because of that 442 00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:12,000 reason. And of course there's lots of, 443 00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,240 there's lots of people who are both, but I would suspect for 444 00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:16,960 each person, one of those is more important than the other 445 00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:21,240 people who came over from gold probably like, well, I'm not 446 00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:23,480 sure they could let I could see them liking either. 447 00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:26,360 So, so anyway, I think those are two distinct things that you 448 00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:28,680 that you could like about Bitcoin and that could drive you 449 00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:30,800 to Bitcoin. And then of course, there's the 450 00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:33,160 whole, there's the whole, this isn't even about the human 451 00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:37,440 rights side, which doesn't involve personal data, doesn't 452 00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,640 involve revealing yourself and your preferences to the people 453 00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,960 that you're transacting with. And so a lot of people, I think 454 00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:47,280 like Bitcoin from that aspect. And I'm not sure if you talk to 455 00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:52,640 people in Vietnam or Afghanistan or Hong Kong or Bangladesh who 456 00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,040 are using Bitcoin. I'm not sure they care much 457 00:25:55,040 --> 00:26:00,000 about the supply cap or the fact that there's no rulers. 458 00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:03,600 I think what they like is they can get Bitcoin without anyone 459 00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:05,760 knowing about it, and they can send Bitcoin without anyone 460 00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:08,040 knowing about it from anywhere in the world. 461 00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,080 And they don't have to be next to the person. 462 00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:13,080 They can't get spied on, things like that. 463 00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:15,640 Yeah. So how do you think those 464 00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:22,160 privacy implications align with like philosophical ideas around 465 00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:25,800 autonomy that is that something that that you looked at too? 466 00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:30,280 Yeah, we, we think it's in general good for people to have 467 00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:34,280 freedoms and that there there should be really good reason for 468 00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:38,480 restricting freedoms for people. And sometimes there are, 469 00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:43,600 sometimes there aren't. In this case, we think it, we 470 00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:48,400 think what you spend money on shows a lot about you, a lot 471 00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:52,640 about what you care about, and that is something that you 472 00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:55,440 should be able to selectively reveal to the world. 473 00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:58,040 So we distinguish privacy from secrecy. 474 00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:01,360 Secrecy is not telling anyone. Privacy is being able to tell 475 00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:03,840 all and only the people that you want to tell. 476 00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:11,640 And when you are transacting with banks, Oregon credit card 477 00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:15,880 companies or mobile payment apps or whatever, you don't have a 478 00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:20,120 choice about that they may sell your data or that your data may 479 00:27:20,120 --> 00:27:24,240 get stolen. And so we, we think it's good 480 00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:30,200 that there is a way to transact without your sort of deepest, 481 00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:34,560 the deepest part of your identity being revealed, which 482 00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:36,840 is what you value. I mean, you when you buy 483 00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:40,440 something, you are saying I value this more than I valued 484 00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:43,640 the money that I had before. And when you're spending a 485 00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:47,600 Bitcoin, you're, you know, if you're, if you're spending in 486 00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:49,200 Bitcoin, you highly value Bitcoin. 487 00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:52,200 And so it really says something when you're willing to exchange 488 00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:55,960 your Bitcoin for something else. And we think that it should be 489 00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:59,960 up to you to tell people whether whether you want to or not to 490 00:27:59,960 --> 00:28:02,720 tell people what you exchange your Bitcoin for. 491 00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:06,520 So what? What is your definition of 492 00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:11,960 autonomy then in that in that context, is that then I can 493 00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:17,600 actually do what I want to do without any third party having 494 00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:25,120 either control or a look a look at what I'm doing or how would 495 00:28:25,120 --> 00:28:27,960 you define that? Yeah, we don't define autonomy 496 00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,520 and I'm not sure I'd want to hazard a definition. 497 00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:33,120 Sorry. No, that's OK. 498 00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:38,200 I, I resist defining things when I can and just try to go based 499 00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:40,400 on like how we how we normally use the term. 500 00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:44,040 And so Bitcoin allows you to transact. 501 00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:47,240 So it's censorship resistant. There's no mediators that can 502 00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:51,840 block transactions based on the identity of the person sending, 503 00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:54,360 the identity of the person receiving, or the kind of thing 504 00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:57,680 that's involved. And so in that way, it preserves 505 00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:02,280 spending autonomy, I guess. And then it also preserves 506 00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:08,120 privacy in that you can do that without people knowing who's 507 00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:09,520 doing it. So you can imagine Bitcoin 508 00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:11,400 having one of these features and not the other. 509 00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:15,440 It's private, nobody knows what you're trying to spend, who 510 00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:20,360 you're trying to send it to, but it can still be blocked or you 511 00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:22,440 can imagine it being censorship resistant. 512 00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:26,680 All transactions go through, but everyone knows all the details 513 00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:29,600 about the transactions, who is sending it, who's receiving it 514 00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:34,800 and what what they're buying. And Bitcoin has both of these so 515 00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:38,880 that you can sort of send to whoever you want, buy whatever 516 00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:43,760 you want, and selectively disclose who you're transacting 517 00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:45,160 with and what you're transacting about. 518 00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:50,680 Yeah, we, we just mentioned these rules, right, of the 519 00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:52,840 protocol. I think in in Bitcoin we often 520 00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:56,680 say it's it's rules versus rulers, right? 521 00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:59,720 The Bitcoin system is, is, is a system of rules. 522 00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:02,120 Fiat money system is a system of rulers. 523 00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:07,520 What are the implications of a money system that has no central 524 00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:10,840 authority? You know, this is, and we also 525 00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:14,160 just talked about that, you know, one Bitcoin is one 526 00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:17,920 Bitcoin. I think not, not enough people 527 00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:21,280 understand what this is, right? It's if you say 1 Bitcoin is one 528 00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,360 Bitcoin, that means it works as promised. 529 00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,240 Basically what we just said, you know that it, it, it, it's 530 00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:30,520 always the same because it follows the rules that are set 531 00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:31,920 and the rules that you can verify. 532 00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:37,320 What are the differences with the Fiat money system that has a 533 00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:42,320 central authority that can actually change what a dollar is 534 00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:44,920 worth? So you know $1.00 does not equal 535 00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:47,360 $1.00 over a long enough time frame. 536 00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:49,680 Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure one dollar 537 00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:55,600 $1.00 does equal $1.00, but then you think, well, one $1.50 years 538 00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:58,840 ago doesn't equal $1.00 today. Exactly, that's what I mean. 539 00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:00,560 But but that's also true of Bitcoin. 540 00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:05,000 I mean, we're we're in the middle of this this, you know, 541 00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:07,680 change in in purchasing power of Bitcoin at least. 542 00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:12,080 So I'd. Say if I can reply to that, I 543 00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:19,640 think go for it. It is if there are more dollars 544 00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:23,880 being created or any Fiat currencies being created, then 545 00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:30,920 the currencies or the the units that were there before change in 546 00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:35,600 value just because there are more new units introduced and 547 00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:41,000 when and how many and how long new units are introduced is 548 00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:44,280 unpredictable, right? It depends on the rulers that 549 00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:47,800 decide to to do that. And because we have a 550 00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:50,920 transparent issuance schedule and all these things with 551 00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:53,920 Bitcoin, the transparent rules that we talked about, we can 552 00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:58,120 actually predict how many Bitcoin there will be in, you 553 00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:01,360 know, 2090. And I think that's what I mean, 554 00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:03,920 or that's my perception of one Bitcoin is one Bitcoin I can 555 00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:08,520 actually say and see, you know, how many there are. 556 00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:12,360 That's that's the entire point is that what is promised will 557 00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:15,360 always be there. And in a Fiat money world, what 558 00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:18,120 they'll promise, Well, what is promised? 559 00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:21,200 Well, you have to see if that's actually going to be there, 560 00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:22,680 right? I think, well, for me, that's 561 00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:24,520 kind of like where that that difference lies. 562 00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:32,000 SO11 Bitcoin will always be 121 millionth of the eventual 563 00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:34,800 supply, whereas $1.00, who knows. 564 00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:38,920 Yeah, yes, I think that's a so if that's what people mean, 565 00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:41,320 that's pretty good. I never, I think people just use 566 00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:41,680 that. That's. 567 00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:44,880 What I mean with it? Yeah, I hope that everyone means 568 00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:48,320 what you mean, but I think people use it in ways that are, 569 00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:53,960 yeah, just kind of different. So yeah, I mean. 570 00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:57,880 Yeah, the question was the difference between Bitcoin and 571 00:32:58,040 --> 00:32:59,120 Fiat money system. Yeah. 572 00:32:59,880 --> 00:33:08,960 So one difference is there's no way to react to things. 573 00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:13,160 So the Fiat money system, if there's more demand for dollars, 574 00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:15,520 they can print more dollars. If there's less demand for 575 00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:17,840 dollars, they can take dollars out of circulation. 576 00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:24,760 And so they can, they can manage the purchasing power volatility 577 00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:29,880 of the dollar in this way. And that's not the case with 578 00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:33,560 Bitcoin there. There's really good reasons for 579 00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:37,080 that, obviously, But the Bitcoin network doesn't look at anything 580 00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:40,320 outside of itself to determine how much Bitcoin to print. 581 00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:45,280 It looks only at what's happening on chain, 582 00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:48,640 specifically, how long has it been since the last block? 583 00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:53,120 If it's been too long, make it easier so that blocks come every 584 00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:55,680 10 minutes. If it's been not long enough, 585 00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:58,080 make it harder so blocks come every 10 minutes. 586 00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:01,440 And then there's no change at all to the block rewards. 587 00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:05,440 So that makes for, you know, wild volatility. 588 00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:09,480 The halving historically has also made for wild volatility. 589 00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:12,960 Jeff Booth when he was talking at the Bitcoin Policy Summit in 590 00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:18,440 April was like five years ago my house was worth 1000 Bitcoin. 591 00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:21,600 Maybe not five years. 10 years ago, my house was worth 1000 592 00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:23,480 Bitcoin. Five years ago my house was 593 00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:27,080 worth 178 Bitcoin. This year it's worth 7 Bitcoin. 594 00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:29,400 Next year it's going to be worth 1 1/2. 595 00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:33,679 So but, and you know, there's ups and downs obviously in the 596 00:34:33,679 --> 00:34:36,280 middle there too. And so that's that's one thing 597 00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:40,719 that you don't get as much of when you have monetary 598 00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:43,320 authorities that can manipulate the creation. 599 00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:49,320 On the other hand, for Bitcoin, you can know exactly how often 600 00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:51,320 blocks are going to come, how much Bitcoin there's going to be 601 00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:54,320 at any particular time within a certain margin of error. 602 00:34:54,679 --> 00:34:58,640 And you don't have to trust anyone, whether it's a president 603 00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:03,640 or a Senate or a Congress or the Federal Reserve, the chairman, 604 00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:08,480 whatever, to make the best decisions and to not be selfish. 605 00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:12,960 You don't have to trust them to be smart or to be good people. 606 00:35:13,720 --> 00:35:20,840 And so it removes disability to correct problems, but it also 607 00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:24,120 removes a potential for creating problems. 608 00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:27,280 Yeah. And it's the the cool, the cool 609 00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:29,600 thing about Bitcoin is it's up to you whether you want to, you 610 00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:31,360 want to take on that risk yourself, right? 611 00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:34,760 I have no choice about what I pay my taxes and I've got to 612 00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:36,480 have dollars. I've got to be involved in the 613 00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:40,920 dollar system. And if because I I make money 614 00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:42,560 and I have to pay taxes on that money. 615 00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:45,960 And so if I don't own dollars, at some point I'm going to jail. 616 00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:49,840 But it's up to me whether I want to be involved in the Bitcoin 617 00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:53,400 system and when and how much. Yeah. 618 00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:59,120 When you mention volatility, I think the same thought of one 619 00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:02,280 Bitcoin is one Bitcoin I always think about in, in terms of 620 00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:06,080 volatility, right? Like people say Bitcoin is too 621 00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:11,360 volatile, right, because the price goes up and down, but it 622 00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:15,480 is actually the most stable thing to ever exist. 623 00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,720 I think if you agree that one Bitcoin is always one Bitcoin, 624 00:36:18,720 --> 00:36:22,640 if you see that the rules will always be followed, that is 625 00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:26,400 actually what creates the stability towards the future. 626 00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:29,840 And thus also, I think the implications for the people who 627 00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:32,280 adopt it, right, then you can actually plan towards your 628 00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:38,160 future versus the, the Fiat money that could almost change 629 00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:41,640 at, you know, any minute, but let's say every, every quarter, 630 00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:45,880 right? Like how, how do you reply to to 631 00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:48,480 to people that mention volatility much? 632 00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:56,200 Yeah, it's hard. So I I mean, at one point 10,000 633 00:36:56,200 --> 00:37:01,720 bitcoins was two pizzas and now, yeah, one Bitcoin is like a 634 00:37:01,720 --> 00:37:05,480 Corvette. So in that sense there there is 635 00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:07,960 volatility in terms of purchasing power. 636 00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,640 So I think it's it's worth distinguishing two kinds of 637 00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:14,040 volatility. One is like volatility of supply 638 00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:16,760 and the other is volatility of purchasing power. 639 00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:24,720 And anything that is new that you can buy goes through this 640 00:37:24,720 --> 00:37:30,480 price discovery period. And a lot of times you can 641 00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:34,720 manipulate the supply of the thing to make that volatility go 642 00:37:34,720 --> 00:37:37,520 down. So if I, if I make a brand new 643 00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:43,440 kind of car and I make a hundred of them and I have 10,000 people 644 00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:49,920 who want them, then really quickly I can make another 9900 645 00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:52,800 Bitcoin. You can't do that. 646 00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:57,560 So when demand lessens, price goes down in terms of of 647 00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:01,680 purchasing power and when demand goes up, price increases in 648 00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:06,200 terms of purchasing power. So because of the stability of 649 00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:09,200 the supply, you have instability of the value. 650 00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:13,880 Now I think that will go down as as time goes on, as more people 651 00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:16,880 make their decision about whether they want to have 652 00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:21,000 Bitcoin or not have Bitcoin. Eventually you're going to get 653 00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:22,880 to a place where there there aren't new people who are 654 00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:25,160 discovering it. Like everyone knows about it and 655 00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:29,960 if they want it, they can, but that still doesn't guarantee 656 00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:35,520 that volatility will be will be nothing because there's 657 00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:39,200 different demand for dollars and there's different demand for 658 00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:41,240 money. Sometimes people want to be in 659 00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:44,960 cash and sometimes they want to be in stocks and real estate and 660 00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:47,680 things like that. So because the demand for money 661 00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:50,720 goes up and down, the demand for Bitcoin is always going to go up 662 00:38:50,720 --> 00:38:53,720 and down to some degree. So I think it'll be tamped down. 663 00:38:53,720 --> 00:38:58,400 Hopefully we don't see like 93% corrections like we've seen in 664 00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:02,160 the past, but I don't think it, I don't think we should think 665 00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:05,720 it'll be nothing. Now maybe there will be ways of 666 00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:09,040 of anticipating it. And so some of the like market 667 00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:12,080 moves can smooth out some of the volatility. 668 00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:15,080 But you know, I'm not, I'm not a financial and markets guy. 669 00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:17,560 I'm a philosopher. So I would love to see more 670 00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:23,080 research on whether people who know a lot about how financial 671 00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:26,640 markets work, whether they think that Bitcoins volatility will 672 00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:31,440 end up being under, say, 2% always, or whether it might 673 00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:34,720 always have at least 10% swings up and down. 674 00:39:35,160 --> 00:39:37,880 I just don't know. Yeah. 675 00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:41,280 The thing I think it depends on how far Bitcoin is going to go, 676 00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:44,520 right. The idea of it being a global 677 00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:48,920 monetary system I think is one of the and end game states, 678 00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:51,760 right? What are some criteria you think 679 00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:55,640 we can use to evaluate what that actual potential is? 680 00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:58,720 Or like how how far along we are there? 681 00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:05,080 Yeah, it's it's interesting because it's the social network 682 00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:08,840 kind of thing. Bitcoin is money for people who 683 00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:12,240 want it to be, and who and who choose to use it that way, who 684 00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:15,080 will freely exchange other things for it. 685 00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:20,520 And that's not governed by mathematical laws or laws of 686 00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:23,120 physics or the code itself. It's it's governed by 687 00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:25,920 individuals. So what does Bitcoin look like 688 00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:28,480 right now? If Michael Saylor had never 689 00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:31,200 decided to convert Microstrategy's treasury to 690 00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:34,320 Bitcoin and start trying to convince people to buy Bitcoin, 691 00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:39,400 what would adoption look like? What would adoption look like if 692 00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:43,040 the US went through on this, this bill that Senator Lummus 693 00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:45,720 proposed to own 1% of the Bitcoin supply? 694 00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:50,240 It's, it's just hard to know what kinds of implications these 695 00:40:50,240 --> 00:40:52,360 things would have. And so it's, it's hard to guess 696 00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:57,280 beyond a year what the Bitcoin network might look like. 697 00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:04,120 And so, yeah, I'm not sure how to evaluate it looking forward. 698 00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:09,600 And that's why I, I choose the the really dumb way of like, do 699 00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:11,520 you want a monetary system without rulers? 700 00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:14,400 And yeah, do you like these rules? 701 00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:18,520 And if so, do you like the privacy and censorship 702 00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:20,760 resistance stuff? And if so, then you should be 703 00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:22,480 pro Bitcoin. And if not, you shouldn't. 704 00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:24,960 Yeah. And that that's kind of where 705 00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:27,040 where I have to stop the evaluation. 706 00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:30,560 Well, mate, and maybe that's also just where we are, right? 707 00:41:30,560 --> 00:41:34,320 I think some people don't like it when others say like we are 708 00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:36,520 still early. I think we are still early in, 709 00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:40,400 in, in, in general. You know, I, I don't know if 710 00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:45,360 the, if the 100 million Bitcoin holders number is, is, is 711 00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:48,080 accurate. I would disagree. 712 00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:52,360 But I think in, in the, in the bigger scheme of things, we are 713 00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:54,800 very, very early. Like if we actually want to 714 00:41:54,800 --> 00:42:00,240 achieve that Bitcoin is the global monetary system, then we 715 00:42:00,240 --> 00:42:02,000 are very far away from that, right? 716 00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:05,880 Just in sheer numbers of people who have adopted it as money 717 00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:09,360 and, and are accepting these rules, right? 718 00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:12,760 So, yeah, I, I also don't know, maybe that's just the answer 719 00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:14,680 like that. That's just where we're at. 720 00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:18,640 And, and maybe we're thinking of it too, too far ahead in that 721 00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:22,360 sense. But if, if people are looking at 722 00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:28,560 Bitcoin, what, how, how should people like perceive the OR 723 00:42:28,560 --> 00:42:32,480 assess the perceived risk of adopting it? 724 00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:35,000 Like what's the risk versus reward? 725 00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:38,920 How do you how do you see that? I, I tend not to think about the 726 00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:43,120 financial risk or reward. I tend to think about the, the 727 00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:47,560 resistance risk or reward. So, you know, a lot of the 728 00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:51,320 conversations that I have with my students when they ask about 729 00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:54,320 Bitcoin and why they should care about it and things like that, 730 00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:59,040 depending on the student and, and what I know about them, I 731 00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:03,600 can usually identify some potential areas in their life 732 00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:06,920 where they might want to purchase something that they 733 00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:08,720 don't want the government to know about. 734 00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:12,080 And it's not, it's not too hard to get them to consider a 735 00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:13,600 government that would be hostile to them. 736 00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:21,160 Most people are interested in something that they could 737 00:43:21,160 --> 00:43:24,280 imagine a potential government not wanting them to have, 738 00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:29,760 whether it's guns or gender affirming healthcare or whatever 739 00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:32,400 from different sides of the political spectrum. 740 00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:37,840 They can easily imagine a president and a Congress hell 741 00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:40,880 bent on making sure they can't get the things that they want, 742 00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:44,000 and they can. They can imagine the president 743 00:43:44,240 --> 00:43:46,840 and the Congress who want to punish them for having those 744 00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:50,600 things. And so in that sense, it's a 745 00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:54,080 risk not having Bitcoin. It's a risk of not having 746 00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:59,200 resistance money. Now, the the risk of having 747 00:43:59,200 --> 00:44:02,560 Bitcoin is the financial risk that that you could lose it, 748 00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:05,640 that you could tie up value in it that you'd like to put 749 00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:09,520 somewhere else. But I think it's worth having at 750 00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:14,080 least enough that if the things that you care about became 751 00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:19,680 illegal, you would still be able to have a flourishing life, the 752 00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:23,440 kind of life that you want. So I think that sort of flips 753 00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:25,800 the risk reward question on it's head. 754 00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:27,480 Or. Is it from a different angle? 755 00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:30,720 But when I'm thinking about Bitcoin, I'm I'm thinking much 756 00:44:30,720 --> 00:44:34,560 less about the financial side of it and much more about the how 757 00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:37,720 it contributes to human flourishing through the 758 00:44:37,720 --> 00:44:39,680 censorship resistance and privacy aspects. 759 00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:42,880 Yeah. Well, risk is different for 760 00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:44,840 everyone, right? That's why I like, I like that 761 00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:49,040 question and I love your, your angle on it too. 762 00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:52,360 I never really thought about it in that way. 763 00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:55,920 I think it's well, maybe a little I think it's sailor who 764 00:44:55,920 --> 00:45:03,000 says like invest what you don't want to lose, you know, kind of 765 00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:07,760 similar to what you say, right? Like if you keep operating in a 766 00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:11,360 system that you don't necessarily, I don't want to 767 00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:15,440 say, agree with, but of which you don't agree with the rules, 768 00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:19,600 yeah, then you have a choice. If you want to step out in, you 769 00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:24,640 know, whatever amount or, or, or percentage of, you know, your, 770 00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:27,440 the, the, the monetary energy that you, that you've gathered 771 00:45:29,240 --> 00:45:31,600 or you stay in it. But then you have to conform to 772 00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:33,400 these rules that that you don't like. 773 00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:38,440 I think that's that's one of the big Orange Bill moments in a 774 00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:40,000 sense. Yeah, I think, I think that 775 00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:44,080 people should be scared, not necessarily of the particular 776 00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:48,400 authorities, but of how much power the authorities have and 777 00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:52,680 their tendency to advocate for and accumulate more power. 778 00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:57,560 And all it takes is one person who doesn't like you or doesn't 779 00:45:57,560 --> 00:46:00,920 like the kind of person you are to ruin your life. 780 00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:05,320 And so do you want to have a backup plan in case that that 781 00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:07,280 comes to be? Yeah. 782 00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:12,760 I think one of the characteristics of Bitcoin that 783 00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:16,560 makes it so, so special is the immutable Ledger. 784 00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:20,960 How do you think this immutable Ledger influences the perception 785 00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:25,400 of any records? Let it be historical, financial. 786 00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:30,480 I mean, Bitcoin, I see it as kind of like engineered truth, 787 00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:34,960 like it just started at .0 and it's just chugging along, right? 788 00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:39,760 And the entire Ledger that anyone can download just has the 789 00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:43,720 entire history of this system, right? 790 00:46:43,720 --> 00:46:49,000 And so in that sense, it is the truth for that system of money 791 00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:52,760 because the entire history is stored there. 792 00:46:52,760 --> 00:46:57,920 But how? How can we like cross over to to 793 00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:01,440 other records and maybe help in that way too? 794 00:47:01,720 --> 00:47:06,880 Yeah, so, so another philosopher, Martin Glaser, has 795 00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:09,320 a really interesting paper he was working on. 796 00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:11,680 He published some of it in Coin Desk. 797 00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:16,800 I think the Coin Desk article is called Enterprise Blockchain 798 00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:19,360 Doesn't Work because it's about the real world. 799 00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:24,960 And his point is that block chains are great in that they're 800 00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:30,160 they're unchangeable. And so when you put truths on 801 00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:34,040 there, they can't respond to anything outside of it. 802 00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:40,400 So if I write on the blockchain like I own 4 cows, I can't 803 00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:43,440 change that fact. But The thing is I don't own any 804 00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:46,080 cows. So that's not going to work. 805 00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:49,400 But it's encoded in there forever if it's a, you know, 806 00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:52,920 immutable Ledger. So in order for immutable 807 00:47:52,920 --> 00:48:02,200 ledgers to be a good things, they have to also be inerrant or 808 00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:04,400 infallible. They have to only say things 809 00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:06,760 that are true. Well, if they're only going to 810 00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:09,680 say things that are true, then they can really only say things 811 00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:14,520 that they themselves make true. And So what you have on on the 812 00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:19,360 Bitcoin Ledger is just UTXOS at locations. 813 00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:24,200 And what it is for a UTXO to be at a location is for the 814 00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:26,560 blockchain, the Bitcoin blockchain, to say that it's at 815 00:48:26,560 --> 00:48:29,400 that location. And so you have this really 816 00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:34,400 interesting immutable and infallible system. 817 00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:38,400 Then you try to think of, well, what else could this be extended 818 00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:42,120 to? So there's people I know, I 819 00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:45,160 think it's simple proof is, is trying to do this with 820 00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:50,360 elections. And I love this idea that you 821 00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:55,480 can have a Ledger of the votes that is immutable. 822 00:48:56,160 --> 00:48:59,040 But the problem is I'm not sure it's infallible because it's 823 00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:02,520 saying something about the real world, about how someone has 824 00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:07,920 voted. And maybe it's just as likely to 825 00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:12,240 be wrong as or to to be inaccurate as, as the Bitcoin 826 00:49:12,240 --> 00:49:14,720 Ledger is. So for example, if I find your 827 00:49:14,720 --> 00:49:18,760 private key, I can publish a transaction that sends all your 828 00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:23,160 Bitcoin to me and all the the Bitcoin blockchain doesn't say 829 00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:28,160 I'm the rightful owner of the Bitcoin, it just says this UTXO 830 00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:35,400 resides at this public address. So maybe that's exactly what 831 00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:37,480 happens with voting. If I get a hold of your private 832 00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:40,560 key, I can vote instead of you, and I can vote for someone you 833 00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:41,760 wouldn't have wanted to vote for. 834 00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:48,120 But the less likely that is, the more it seems like we can use 835 00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:54,240 block chains for at least encoding choices at times of 836 00:49:54,240 --> 00:49:58,400 people. And and maybe that's for 837 00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:00,080 Bitcoin, right? A lot of people think this is 838 00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:04,520 better than the current system. The fact that you can't claw a 839 00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:08,080 transaction back, that you've made an error for some people, 840 00:50:08,080 --> 00:50:10,640 it's terrible, right? For you, just ask Visa, they'll 841 00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:12,880 give you your money back, they'll investigate it, and they 842 00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:14,440 can issue you new money, new money. 843 00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:16,960 There's no one to do that with Bitcoin if you make a mistake, 844 00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:21,880 but maybe for some of these things like like voting in 845 00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:24,720 authoritarian countries, the alternative is significantly 846 00:50:24,720 --> 00:50:28,320 worse. So I'm not sure that that block 847 00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:31,720 chains in general or even the Bitcoin block chain can solve a 848 00:50:31,720 --> 00:50:38,160 lot of non monetary problems. But it certainly has this really 849 00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:40,280 interesting feature that nothing else has had before. 850 00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:44,120 And it's worth thinking about that at at the more abstract 851 00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:48,280 level to see how you might get something closer to that in 852 00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:53,360 other areas that aren't money. Yeah, yeah, I like that idea of, 853 00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:57,000 of that it cannot be connected to something in the real world. 854 00:50:57,000 --> 00:50:59,640 It can only happen within that network. 855 00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:01,640 Yeah, I think that's an interesting point. 856 00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:04,560 Do you know true vote, true vote.org? 857 00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:06,800 I don't think so. That's cool. 858 00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:09,400 That's cool to check out. I, I just had the website open, 859 00:51:09,400 --> 00:51:13,120 but they, so they made a transparent voting platform 860 00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:16,800 based on Bitcoin. I had to think of that. 861 00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:20,640 I, I, it was open in my tabs, but I never really dove into it. 862 00:51:21,240 --> 00:51:25,960 But I don't know, maybe this is too simplistic, but let's say 863 00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:29,120 you, you log in with your Social Security number, right? 864 00:51:29,120 --> 00:51:32,360 And then a, a hash is created, which is your private key. 865 00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:36,920 Then you copy the private key, you paste it in the folding, you 866 00:51:36,920 --> 00:51:41,880 know, module or whatever, and and then you just say candidate 867 00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:45,360 A or candidate B or, you know, however many parties a country 868 00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:52,760 has and then it's just signed on on the blockchain that is just 869 00:51:52,760 --> 00:51:55,160 used. For for debt voting, for 870 00:51:55,160 --> 00:51:58,040 example. Could could work as something 871 00:51:58,040 --> 00:51:59,600 like that. I don't know if you necessarily 872 00:51:59,600 --> 00:52:01,800 would need Bitcoin for that, but. 873 00:52:02,640 --> 00:52:04,520 And the Social Security number is much too short. 874 00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:07,040 You'd have people who are immediately. 875 00:52:07,040 --> 00:52:10,280 Well, yeah, I just every single. Number and see if it works that 876 00:52:10,440 --> 00:52:12,520 is. That is very that is very true. 877 00:52:12,760 --> 00:52:14,440 Yeah. I don't know, like in my country 878 00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:17,000 you have like a government login type of thing. 879 00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:20,160 So I don't know like Social Security number is is maybe too 880 00:52:20,160 --> 00:52:22,600 simplified. But I think like if you can 881 00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:25,640 verifiably login, yeah, there's all these, all these things, all 882 00:52:25,640 --> 00:52:27,880 these points of failure in that sense, but. 883 00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:30,320 In so in theory, the idea is great. 884 00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:33,840 You get a, you get a private key and only the person who can 885 00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:36,120 prove that they have that private key at that time can 886 00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:38,280 cast the vote. And you might get some theft of 887 00:52:38,280 --> 00:52:41,640 private keys. But overall it's going to be a 888 00:52:41,640 --> 00:52:43,880 lot more accurate, especially in a lot of places. 889 00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:50,760 Like, I mean, what, what what's going on right now with Maduro 890 00:52:50,760 --> 00:52:55,360 and stuff maybe could be significantly avoided with this 891 00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:57,240 kind of system. Yeah. 892 00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:02,520 Yeah, I agree. So if Bitcoin continues, you 893 00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:03,960 love Jeff Booth too, right? You said. 894 00:53:03,960 --> 00:53:07,840 So if Bitcoin continues to be decentralized and secure and 895 00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:15,320 Bitcoin grows, what do you see as long term implications as far 896 00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:19,920 as you know, adoption, improving of freedom, human rights, 897 00:53:19,920 --> 00:53:22,680 etcetera? Yeah, the, the financial aspect 898 00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:26,840 is, is way outside of my area. But I, I think I, I think two 899 00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:29,560 things. One is the more Bitcoin becomes 900 00:53:29,560 --> 00:53:35,560 an easily accessible viable alternative, the more it 901 00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:39,720 disciplines central banks in every country to behave more 902 00:53:39,720 --> 00:53:43,400 responsibly. So I think, I think even Safety 903 00:53:43,400 --> 00:53:47,120 had said this a long time ago, a really great insight. 904 00:53:47,400 --> 00:53:49,760 Someone asked him like, what's the biggest threat to Bitcoin 905 00:53:49,760 --> 00:53:52,160 and he said responsible central banks. 906 00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:55,920 Yeah, yeah, I love that. So yeah, what a great idea that 907 00:53:55,920 --> 00:53:59,360 that Bitcoin, just the existence of Bitcoin not only makes the 908 00:53:59,360 --> 00:54:01,960 lives of people who use Bitcoin better, but also makes the lives 909 00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:05,280 of people who don't use Bitcoin better because the central bank 910 00:54:05,280 --> 00:54:07,680 in their country knows they could switch to Bitcoin and so 911 00:54:07,680 --> 00:54:11,040 they behave more responsibly. Yeah, that's a mirror in that 912 00:54:11,040 --> 00:54:13,720 sense, yeah. And it might also be the case 913 00:54:13,720 --> 00:54:18,840 with governments more generally that the more people transacted 914 00:54:18,840 --> 00:54:21,200 Bitcoin, the less they need to live in a particular place. 915 00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:25,400 And so the more governments have to behave responsibly outside of 916 00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:27,840 just the monetary system, but with laws and things like that. 917 00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:31,520 Otherwise they'll lose their people, especially their wealthy 918 00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:33,120 people, right? The more Bitcoin you have, maybe 919 00:54:33,120 --> 00:54:35,800 the more easy it will be to move to some of these countries that 920 00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:39,280 are now selling visas for Bitcoin. 921 00:54:41,360 --> 00:54:45,640 And so, yeah, I think, I think we could potentially see at 922 00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:49,760 least in the, in the shorter term, more responsibility. 923 00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:56,200 Now the more Bitcoin becomes ubiquitous, maybe that actually 924 00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:58,920 goes away. Maybe it's not as long term of a 925 00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:01,240 thing because then everyone's just using Bitcoin and, and then 926 00:55:01,400 --> 00:55:06,240 we're kind of, it's hard to imagine the scenario where 927 00:55:06,240 --> 00:55:09,720 Bitcoin becomes the only currency and what that does to 928 00:55:09,720 --> 00:55:11,800 governments in central, I mean, there's no central banks 929 00:55:11,800 --> 00:55:15,080 anymore. So, so yeah, I, I don't know 930 00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:17,920 where it goes from there. But I think in the, in the 931 00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:23,480 medium term, I think it's good. I think more more Bitcoin 932 00:55:23,480 --> 00:55:27,600 adoption is good for everyone. Yeah. 933 00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:32,200 I think once you realize that, you know, the the, the genie is 934 00:55:32,200 --> 00:55:34,880 out of the bottle or the cat's out of the back, right, that 935 00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:37,760 this is an unstoppable thing. It's not going anywhere. 936 00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:40,840 And what I meant more with the mirror is that once people have 937 00:55:40,840 --> 00:55:44,800 an option to switch to a different monetary system, 938 00:55:44,800 --> 00:55:46,320 right? And it's also what Jeff Booth 939 00:55:46,320 --> 00:55:48,280 says, by the way, right, you can switch now. 940 00:55:48,280 --> 00:55:51,320 You don't have to wait or get permission from anyone, right? 941 00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:56,000 If quote, UN quote, enough people do that, they will 942 00:55:56,000 --> 00:56:01,760 become, well, more autonomous or they will have more power 943 00:56:01,760 --> 00:56:04,600 against whatever their government wants to do, right. 944 00:56:04,600 --> 00:56:07,760 And because the government is funded by money that the people 945 00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:13,240 give them, they, they are, yeah, they are forced to align the 946 00:56:13,240 --> 00:56:16,040 incentives of the people with the actions that that the 947 00:56:16,040 --> 00:56:19,600 governments take, right. And so they have to become more 948 00:56:20,640 --> 00:56:24,240 responsible in that sense, or whatever the people demand, 949 00:56:24,280 --> 00:56:27,480 right. So I, I think it's kind of acts 950 00:56:27,480 --> 00:56:29,200 like that when I say it acts like a mirror. 951 00:56:29,200 --> 00:56:32,400 But eventually, if you have a country on a Bitcoin standard 952 00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:37,120 and Bitcoin is the base layer of anything that's done on top, 953 00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:40,960 right, either by the government or companies, right? 954 00:56:41,120 --> 00:56:45,240 As you mentioned, if people will only part way with their Bitcoin 955 00:56:45,240 --> 00:56:48,440 if it's a really valuable or good enough thing for them, 956 00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:51,160 right? And so the policies or the 957 00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:54,440 actions of a government have to actually be beneficial enough 958 00:56:54,840 --> 00:56:59,960 for people to pay their taxes in the Bitcoin that they own, 959 00:56:59,960 --> 00:57:02,920 right. So it it'll become way more 960 00:57:02,920 --> 00:57:08,240 equal in the in the equation of, you know, government versus or 961 00:57:08,240 --> 00:57:10,880 with with people. That's kind of how I see it. 962 00:57:10,880 --> 00:57:15,480 But that that as I'm talking, I think that's very far away. 963 00:57:17,640 --> 00:57:20,080 But yeah, it is interesting. Well, it could go quicker in the 964 00:57:20,080 --> 00:57:24,240 sense that, yeah, I don't know what enough people are, right? 965 00:57:25,520 --> 00:57:30,160 If enough people have an alternative system to exchange 966 00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:34,400 value with each other, then, yeah, there's going to be a a 967 00:57:34,480 --> 00:57:40,000 turning point where the government actually has to show 968 00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:42,080 more value or bring more value, right. 969 00:57:42,160 --> 00:57:47,160 Or mess around less or be more. How to say like be more 970 00:57:47,160 --> 00:57:49,520 productive, right. Yeah. 971 00:57:49,680 --> 00:57:56,640 But that, that takes time. Yeah, I just mentioned it 972 00:57:56,640 --> 00:57:59,680 before, but we talked about volatility with counter 973 00:57:59,680 --> 00:58:02,480 arguments, right? But what are the most compelling 974 00:58:02,640 --> 00:58:06,360 counter arguments that you've come across and how do you 975 00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:09,920 address them? And we have, we have a chapter 976 00:58:09,920 --> 00:58:11,400 on the book. It might even be the longest 977 00:58:11,400 --> 00:58:13,920 chapter that that's called against Bitcoin. 978 00:58:14,480 --> 00:58:18,680 And we sort of we consider, you know, objections to privacy and 979 00:58:18,680 --> 00:58:21,680 censorship resistance and stuff like that in in those chapters. 980 00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:24,760 But then all the other objections to Bitcoin, we we 981 00:58:24,760 --> 00:58:27,640 just kind of consider one by one in this section. 982 00:58:28,960 --> 00:58:34,400 And I guess I think that the the biggest threats to Bitcoin are 983 00:58:34,960 --> 00:58:39,880 various kinds of centralization. So I think one huge threat to 984 00:58:39,880 --> 00:58:44,000 Bitcoin was Craig Wright threatening lawsuits for 985 00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:47,920 developers. Bitcoin doesn't have a huge 986 00:58:48,280 --> 00:58:51,720 cachet of Bitcoin to give to developers. 987 00:58:52,000 --> 00:58:54,880 There's there's no Bitcoin foundation that's doing this. 988 00:58:55,320 --> 00:59:03,560 And so developers are working either for nothing or for the 989 00:59:03,560 --> 00:59:06,400 hope that people will sponsor them or donate to them. 990 00:59:06,560 --> 00:59:10,760 They're working for donations, and when they get threatened 991 00:59:10,760 --> 00:59:15,400 with lawsuits, that provides a huge disincentive for them to 992 00:59:15,400 --> 00:59:20,120 continue working on Bitcoin. And Bitcoin is not ready to 993 00:59:20,120 --> 00:59:23,560 ossify yet and may may never be right. 994 00:59:24,040 --> 00:59:26,960 Operating systems are constantly changing and so running a full 995 00:59:26,960 --> 00:59:29,320 node software on the current version of Windows is going to 996 00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:31,120 look really different than running it on the next version. 997 00:59:31,560 --> 00:59:35,280 You need developers to be trying to attack it and figuring out 998 00:59:35,280 --> 00:59:38,560 fixes and stuff. So anything that disincentivizes 999 00:59:38,560 --> 00:59:42,520 open source development is is an attack on Bitcoin and makes me 1000 00:59:42,520 --> 00:59:44,240 worried. Also anything that centralizes 1001 00:59:44,240 --> 00:59:48,000 it. So what if some entity, maybe a 1002 00:59:48,000 --> 00:59:53,520 state, starts paying a bunch of open source developer or open 1003 00:59:53,520 --> 00:59:58,120 source Bitcoin developers to implement codes that they want? 1004 00:59:59,520 --> 01:00:01,840 They're. Merch was just telling me about 1005 01:00:01,840 --> 01:00:03,640 this. I can't remember what the 1006 01:00:03,640 --> 01:00:05,000 community was. It wasn't Bitcoin, it was 1007 01:00:05,000 --> 01:00:10,160 something else, but someone had been involved in the in the open 1008 01:00:10,160 --> 01:00:14,120 source development community for years, taking over larger and 1009 01:00:14,120 --> 01:00:17,440 larger roles, talking with everyone, really good friends. 1010 01:00:17,640 --> 01:00:21,760 Turned out it was an agent of a hostile state, and they were 1011 01:00:21,760 --> 01:00:26,160 trying to insert some code so that they could take all of the 1012 01:00:26,160 --> 01:00:29,240 wealth. And it was like, barely caught. 1013 01:00:29,240 --> 01:00:32,000 I got to get the story again, and I got to get it right. 1014 01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:33,640 The way he told it was absolutely fascinating. 1015 01:00:33,680 --> 01:00:39,000 But there will be developers who are acting with dishonest 1016 01:00:39,000 --> 01:00:40,880 intentions. And so it's up to the rest of 1017 01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:43,720 the developers who know the code way better than, you know, 1018 01:00:43,720 --> 01:00:47,240 people like me to catch those before they can get implemented. 1019 01:00:47,520 --> 01:00:50,600 So that's a concern. Same thing with mining. 1020 01:00:51,520 --> 01:00:55,400 I'm, I'm less worried about a centralization of, of mining 1021 01:00:55,720 --> 01:00:58,080 than I am of developers, but it's a possibility. 1022 01:00:58,080 --> 01:01:02,040 And miners are the ones who can, you know, eventually perform 51% 1023 01:01:02,040 --> 01:01:05,200 tax. So minor collusion could be a 1024 01:01:05,200 --> 01:01:07,360 problem. Mining pool collusion could be a 1025 01:01:07,360 --> 01:01:10,000 problem. So I worry about those things. 1026 01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:18,480 And then finally, I worry about ETFs and the more Bitcoin that 1027 01:01:18,480 --> 01:01:25,200 is held by corporate entities. One, one thing is that that's no 1028 01:01:25,200 --> 01:01:29,280 longer resistance money, but the other thing is it's no longer 1029 01:01:29,280 --> 01:01:31,760 like when you own a share in an ETF, you don't own any Bitcoin, 1030 01:01:32,000 --> 01:01:35,800 you own a claim to Bitcoin. And so there's a world in which 1031 01:01:36,960 --> 01:01:40,440 so many people have these ETFs rather than than having self 1032 01:01:40,440 --> 01:01:44,280 custody of Bitcoin, that the term Bitcoin comes to mean 1033 01:01:44,680 --> 01:01:47,040 what's held by these companies in these ETFs. 1034 01:01:47,240 --> 01:01:49,280 And So what you have is no longer Bitcoin. 1035 01:01:49,280 --> 01:01:51,760 And so it's a sort of semantic takeover. 1036 01:01:51,880 --> 01:01:56,200 The term as time goes on gets redefined in a way that these 1037 01:01:56,200 --> 01:02:01,680 corporate entities want and that that makes the self custody of 1038 01:02:01,680 --> 01:02:07,440 Bitcoin not count as Bitcoin and perhaps the potential for it to 1039 01:02:07,440 --> 01:02:09,840 be used as resistance money diminishes. 1040 01:02:10,560 --> 01:02:14,880 So I think these are like really in depth and and game theoretic 1041 01:02:14,880 --> 01:02:16,600 kind. Of the last one is dark. 1042 01:02:18,080 --> 01:02:19,720 Yeah. And I mean, we spend a lot of, 1043 01:02:19,760 --> 01:02:24,080 we spend a lot of time in the book on that one because it's a. 1044 01:02:24,200 --> 01:02:25,560 But yeah, it is interesting, right? 1045 01:02:25,560 --> 01:02:29,880 Like we need to. I think it's dark, but it's a 1046 01:02:29,880 --> 01:02:34,440 good point. Like this is not, you know, I 1047 01:02:34,440 --> 01:02:36,880 said the cats out of the back, but the game has not been 1048 01:02:36,880 --> 01:02:39,320 played, you know, like it's an ongoing game. 1049 01:02:39,560 --> 01:02:42,440 I think it's a game that will never stop, actually. 1050 01:02:42,600 --> 01:02:45,760 And that's why we have to keep talking about Bitcoin, right? 1051 01:02:45,760 --> 01:02:49,280 Like I, I, I like the phrase, you know, Bitcoin is inevitable, 1052 01:02:49,280 --> 01:02:52,320 but we need to do the work and we need to educate people and we 1053 01:02:52,320 --> 01:02:56,080 need to, you know, I think semantics comment is actually 1054 01:02:56,080 --> 01:02:58,040 very interesting. Yeah. 1055 01:02:58,040 --> 01:03:00,600 What is Bitcoin? Why is self custody important, 1056 01:03:00,960 --> 01:03:02,680 right? Like all why is decentralisation 1057 01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:06,800 important? Like all these, all these basics 1058 01:03:06,800 --> 01:03:12,520 basically of Bitcoin before we talk about how Bitcoin puts all 1059 01:03:12,520 --> 01:03:15,360 these things together and and is what it is right, Like we should 1060 01:03:15,360 --> 01:03:19,040 never stop talking about that. I, I fully agree. 1061 01:03:19,040 --> 01:03:26,120 I think that's a very interesting point of critique or 1062 01:03:26,120 --> 01:03:28,720 or threat that that that I haven't heard before. 1063 01:03:28,800 --> 01:03:33,480 But yeah, that's also maybe the the low time preference that we 1064 01:03:33,480 --> 01:03:38,200 all should adopt, right? Like that it is a long game and 1065 01:03:38,200 --> 01:03:42,760 that we should not stop talking about Bitcoin in that sense. 1066 01:03:44,040 --> 01:03:45,560 Yeah. Oh, very interesting, man 1067 01:03:45,680 --> 01:03:46,720 Thanks. Thanks for sharing with. 1068 01:03:46,880 --> 01:03:49,480 I love that this is the this is the entire this is the entire 1069 01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:52,840 goal of this podcast is I just want to learn minimum like one 1070 01:03:52,840 --> 01:03:55,600 thing and I'm super happy. Something new to worry about. 1071 01:03:56,480 --> 01:03:57,720 That was the thing. That was the thing. 1072 01:03:58,200 --> 01:04:02,680 So as as an academic yourself, how how do you think academic 1073 01:04:02,680 --> 01:04:08,880 research can contribute to more understanding of Bitcoin towards 1074 01:04:08,880 --> 01:04:11,640 the future? Yeah, I think academic research 1075 01:04:11,640 --> 01:04:16,680 tends to be the thing that gets disseminated through journalists 1076 01:04:16,680 --> 01:04:18,920 and and to policy makers and things like that. 1077 01:04:18,920 --> 01:04:21,720 So I, I think it's really important that the academic 1078 01:04:21,720 --> 01:04:25,320 research on Bitcoin be good and be truthful and be done by 1079 01:04:25,320 --> 01:04:28,840 people who, who understand all these complex nuances of how the 1080 01:04:28,840 --> 01:04:32,120 system works. It was, it was just infuriating 1081 01:04:32,120 --> 01:04:35,520 reading a bunch of the papers that we were reading for the 1082 01:04:35,520 --> 01:04:39,120 research for resistance money because it was like, have these 1083 01:04:39,120 --> 01:04:41,280 people never heard of the Lightning Network? 1084 01:04:41,280 --> 01:04:45,200 Are they not aware of layer twos that have, you know, trust 1085 01:04:45,200 --> 01:04:47,720 minimized peg insurance and peg outs and things like that? 1086 01:04:48,800 --> 01:04:51,200 They, they clearly didn't talk to anyone who knows anything 1087 01:04:51,200 --> 01:04:53,800 about Bitcoin. And if they had, this paper 1088 01:04:53,800 --> 01:04:55,960 could have been either avoided or would have looked much 1089 01:04:55,960 --> 01:04:59,400 different. So I think and, and then those 1090 01:04:59,400 --> 01:05:02,040 ideas get parroted and, you know, you, you see a bad paper 1091 01:05:02,040 --> 01:05:05,360 and then a month later you see a headline in the New York Times 1092 01:05:05,360 --> 01:05:07,920 or the Washington Post that that makes the same mistake because 1093 01:05:07,920 --> 01:05:11,640 they're relying on this. So this is one of the reasons 1094 01:05:11,640 --> 01:05:14,520 that we started the the University of Wyoming Bitcoin 1095 01:05:14,520 --> 01:05:19,120 Research Institute is just to try to correct some of these 1096 01:05:19,480 --> 01:05:22,920 misunderstandings by academics about Bitcoin and, and have like 1097 01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:27,280 a vetted, respectable academic place that's interested in 1098 01:05:27,280 --> 01:05:32,600 truth, we're we're not interested in pumping Bitcoin if 1099 01:05:32,600 --> 01:05:34,680 it turns out that that Bitcoin is bad. 1100 01:05:35,040 --> 01:05:38,360 And so we could be convinced. It's just got to be by someone 1101 01:05:38,360 --> 01:05:40,360 who understands what's going on with Bitcoin. 1102 01:05:40,360 --> 01:05:43,680 So I think it's really important that the academic research be 1103 01:05:43,680 --> 01:05:44,760 right. And then I think it could tell 1104 01:05:44,760 --> 01:05:47,080 us a lot. There's obviously the 1105 01:05:47,080 --> 01:05:50,400 philosophical areas that that evaluate Bitcoin, but there's 1106 01:05:50,800 --> 01:05:56,200 the big conversations around Bitcoin that I see right now in 1107 01:05:56,200 --> 01:05:58,920 public are chiefly around mining. 1108 01:05:59,600 --> 01:06:02,840 And there are people that say that Bitcoin is going to save 1109 01:06:03,000 --> 01:06:07,840 energy, that it's going to be the way of getting to this 1110 01:06:07,840 --> 01:06:11,040 abundant energy future. And then there are other people 1111 01:06:11,040 --> 01:06:13,280 that say that Bitcoin is going to destroy the planet. 1112 01:06:14,160 --> 01:06:18,760 And neither of those people are academics. 1113 01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:22,640 Usually academics tend tend to have much more modest 1114 01:06:22,640 --> 01:06:25,520 conclusions. So we need academic research 1115 01:06:25,520 --> 01:06:29,760 about the how Bitcoin integrates with, you know, waste energy, 1116 01:06:30,560 --> 01:06:36,080 how sort of economic questions of how Bitcoin mining can bring 1117 01:06:36,080 --> 01:06:40,320 power to places that that don't have power. 1118 01:06:40,320 --> 01:06:44,680 So Gridless is doing this in, in communities, Kenya, I think, 1119 01:06:46,040 --> 01:06:50,720 setting up solar Bitcoin miners. And then you use the, the energy 1120 01:06:51,080 --> 01:06:55,600 for the village and whatever's left over is used to mine 1121 01:06:55,600 --> 01:06:57,800 Bitcoin. And that mined Bitcoin goes to 1122 01:06:57,800 --> 01:07:00,720 pay for the solar panels that are bringing electricity to the 1123 01:07:00,720 --> 01:07:02,360 village. And then when they're paid off, 1124 01:07:02,720 --> 01:07:05,360 then grid let's go somewhere else and does it again. 1125 01:07:06,040 --> 01:07:10,000 So there's, there's lots of promises and then there's not 1126 01:07:10,000 --> 01:07:14,360 much follow through on whether those promises can be kept or 1127 01:07:14,360 --> 01:07:15,720 not. So I'd like to see a lot more 1128 01:07:16,040 --> 01:07:18,440 academic work on that. Same with like harnessing 1129 01:07:18,880 --> 01:07:24,080 methane either from landfills or from biomass, like like pig 1130 01:07:24,080 --> 01:07:27,280 excrements and stuff like that. And from oil wells. 1131 01:07:27,520 --> 01:07:31,960 If, if Bitcoin mining can be used to turn methane into CO2, 1132 01:07:32,480 --> 01:07:37,520 that's a 4040X reduction in greenhouse gases, that'd be 1133 01:07:37,520 --> 01:07:40,280 great. So I, I'd like to see more 1134 01:07:40,280 --> 01:07:42,480 academic research on this kind of stuff because it's, it's 1135 01:07:42,480 --> 01:07:46,680 things that are talked about in, you know, on Twitter and, and in 1136 01:07:46,680 --> 01:07:50,320 Bitcoin magazine things. But I, I would like to see 1137 01:07:50,320 --> 01:07:54,440 people who have an expertise in modeling these kinds of things 1138 01:07:54,480 --> 01:07:56,880 actually do that and see what they come up with. 1139 01:07:57,160 --> 01:08:00,040 But in order to do that, they have to understand Bitcoin and 1140 01:08:00,040 --> 01:08:05,040 how mining works and the black reward and the fee subsidy and 1141 01:08:05,040 --> 01:08:07,000 the half. It's not just as simple, right? 1142 01:08:07,120 --> 01:08:11,240 Yeah, Yeah, I like, I like, I think just a very, very good 1143 01:08:11,240 --> 01:08:14,600 reply actually, because I think in Bitcoin we are in a really 1144 01:08:14,600 --> 01:08:18,120 big bubble, right? Like people who try to study and 1145 01:08:18,120 --> 01:08:23,800 understand this every day, you know, like I, I, you know, the 1146 01:08:23,800 --> 01:08:28,200 mitigation of methane is like the number one or #2 UN 1147 01:08:28,200 --> 01:08:32,040 sustainability goal, right? And I think we can logically 1148 01:08:32,040 --> 01:08:36,640 conclude in 5 minutes that Bitcoin mining is probably the 1149 01:08:36,640 --> 01:08:39,880 best solution to do that. But as you mentioned, you know, 1150 01:08:39,880 --> 01:08:45,200 the academic research is what is the source for, for other policy 1151 01:08:45,200 --> 01:08:48,439 makers, etcetera. So I think or for policymakers 1152 01:08:48,439 --> 01:08:50,760 in, in, in general. So I think it's a, it's a, it's 1153 01:08:50,760 --> 01:08:52,560 a very good point. Can you can you share a bit 1154 01:08:52,560 --> 01:08:56,680 about what you are doing at your university to to contribute to 1155 01:08:56,680 --> 01:08:59,760 that? Yeah, a little bit because we, 1156 01:08:59,800 --> 01:09:03,800 we launched the institute at the Bitcoin Nashville conference, 1157 01:09:03,800 --> 01:09:07,240 which was like 2 weeks ago. So we have, we haven't done too 1158 01:09:07,240 --> 01:09:10,399 much yet, but the, the institute has been founded, it's been 1159 01:09:10,399 --> 01:09:13,160 funded. Andrew Bailey is moving from 1160 01:09:13,160 --> 01:09:17,000 Singapore to Wyoming next fall to start working. 1161 01:09:17,359 --> 01:09:21,359 And we'll start doing at the very least summer workshops 1162 01:09:21,359 --> 01:09:25,000 every summer for academics who are either already working on 1163 01:09:25,000 --> 01:09:30,439 Bitcoin and want to run their arguments by people who who know 1164 01:09:30,439 --> 01:09:33,720 some things about Bitcoin. So, you know, come present your 1165 01:09:33,720 --> 01:09:37,319 paper, get feedback. And then also people who aren't 1166 01:09:37,319 --> 01:09:40,520 working on Bitcoin but, but kind of want to and they just they 1167 01:09:40,520 --> 01:09:43,080 don't have direction or they don't have a, a network of 1168 01:09:43,080 --> 01:09:45,399 people who can help them get a project off the ground. 1169 01:09:46,560 --> 01:09:50,319 We want to, we want to build that kind of community who are 1170 01:09:50,319 --> 01:09:52,920 working on the same thing. I think there's a lot of grad 1171 01:09:52,920 --> 01:09:57,840 students especially, but also professors who just don't have 1172 01:09:57,840 --> 01:10:00,640 anyone around them who is interested in Bitcoin. 1173 01:10:00,720 --> 01:10:04,240 And so they might work on a related topic, but they don't 1174 01:10:04,280 --> 01:10:07,760 apply their their knowledge or understanding to Bitcoin because 1175 01:10:07,840 --> 01:10:10,000 there's not really any incentive for them to do that. 1176 01:10:10,440 --> 01:10:14,480 And so if we can bring them here to Laramie, give them some food 1177 01:10:15,600 --> 01:10:18,680 and provide them with the community to talk about Bitcoin 1178 01:10:18,680 --> 01:10:22,000 with, I think a lot of them will come out of the woodwork and 1179 01:10:22,000 --> 01:10:24,680 that'll increase academic discourse around Bitcoin quite a 1180 01:10:24,680 --> 01:10:26,560 bit. Yeah. 1181 01:10:26,920 --> 01:10:30,040 Was it hard to set it up in in the in the university 1182 01:10:30,040 --> 01:10:33,680 environment? It took me a year of having 1183 01:10:33,680 --> 01:10:35,400 meeting after meeting. Sounds decent. 1184 01:10:35,480 --> 01:10:37,440 Though. Yeah, it it could have taken 1185 01:10:37,440 --> 01:10:41,240 longer the this university has been incredibly receptive of my 1186 01:10:41,240 --> 01:10:44,240 work early on and incredibly supportive, giving me a lot of 1187 01:10:44,240 --> 01:10:47,480 money to fly to work with Andrew, to bring Andrew and 1188 01:10:47,480 --> 01:10:50,920 Craig here to write the book, to fly the conferences, to present 1189 01:10:51,040 --> 01:10:54,560 Bitcoin stuff. So even in one of the most 1190 01:10:54,560 --> 01:10:58,280 supportive academic environments I could possibly imagine, it 1191 01:10:58,280 --> 01:11:01,840 still took a year to to get the institute up and running. 1192 01:11:02,080 --> 01:11:04,760 But it is at least it now exists. 1193 01:11:05,120 --> 01:11:09,240 We've got five years of existence and and funding. 1194 01:11:09,600 --> 01:11:13,600 And if it does good work, then hopefully more funding will come 1195 01:11:13,600 --> 01:11:16,720 in and we'll we can keep it going for as long as Bitcoin 1196 01:11:16,720 --> 01:11:19,360 goes. Love it. 1197 01:11:19,360 --> 01:11:22,440 Well, I hope it serves as a poster child for, for, for 1198 01:11:22,440 --> 01:11:25,640 others to, to, to set something up like this. 1199 01:11:26,000 --> 01:11:28,960 I wanted to ask you two last questions. 1200 01:11:30,280 --> 01:11:33,680 What has been most surprising? Like what has been the most 1201 01:11:33,680 --> 01:11:38,400 surprising finding or insight during your research and writing 1202 01:11:38,400 --> 01:11:43,440 the book that personally changed your your view on Bitcoin? 1203 01:11:48,840 --> 01:11:50,960 That that's a really hard question to answer. 1204 01:11:52,080 --> 01:11:55,720 The, the process of doing all the research was so slow that 1205 01:11:55,720 --> 01:11:59,280 sometimes it's hard to remember what I used to believe about 1206 01:11:59,280 --> 01:12:04,080 Bitcoin and how it's changed over time. 1207 01:12:05,320 --> 01:12:07,120 So yeah, I'm not. I'm not sure I can answer that 1208 01:12:07,120 --> 01:12:09,720 question. All right. 1209 01:12:11,560 --> 01:12:13,200 Man, I wish I could. I need to come up with a better 1210 01:12:13,200 --> 01:12:15,840 answer to that because I'm sure there's something I'd like read 1211 01:12:15,840 --> 01:12:17,640 back through the book and say, Oh yeah, I remember learning 1212 01:12:17,640 --> 01:12:18,440 that. That was wild. 1213 01:12:20,240 --> 01:12:24,080 Well, to be honest, I cannot retrace my own steps in, in the 1214 01:12:24,120 --> 01:12:27,880 in the in the past years either. But I think it's always, you 1215 01:12:27,880 --> 01:12:30,360 know, it ties a bit back to the beginning where we talked about, 1216 01:12:30,360 --> 01:12:33,320 you know, you, you, you have certain beliefs or things that 1217 01:12:33,680 --> 01:12:37,120 you were taught or, you know, how you think certain things 1218 01:12:37,120 --> 01:12:39,320 work. And I think Bitcoin, because it 1219 01:12:39,320 --> 01:12:43,960 has so many dimensions, you know, it, it just it, it does 1220 01:12:44,200 --> 01:12:47,720 flip you on certain subjects and, and dimensions, right? 1221 01:12:48,040 --> 01:12:53,720 And so everyone has, I think these these points where they're 1222 01:12:53,720 --> 01:12:56,640 like, oh, wow, OK, if it really works like this. 1223 01:12:56,640 --> 01:13:00,680 And the implication is that that is totally opposite than what I 1224 01:13:00,680 --> 01:13:04,760 believed before, you know, and I think that's, well, you started 1225 01:13:04,760 --> 01:13:09,360 a an entire institute at at a university. 1226 01:13:09,360 --> 01:13:12,480 But I think that's also what motivates people to continue 1227 01:13:13,400 --> 01:13:14,720 diving into this. Right. 1228 01:13:14,720 --> 01:13:17,240 Like, how far? How far does this go? 1229 01:13:17,520 --> 01:13:19,400 You know, I think I thought of two. 1230 01:13:19,400 --> 01:13:20,400 Yeah. Let me, let me know. 1231 01:13:20,400 --> 01:13:23,440 I thought of two OK, go when I could, when I could listen it 1232 01:13:23,440 --> 01:13:27,120 jog some some memories. So one is that that Bitcoin is 1233 01:13:27,120 --> 01:13:28,600 not nearly as private as I thought. 1234 01:13:30,120 --> 01:13:32,440 That. Doing the research into chain 1235 01:13:32,440 --> 01:13:40,360 analysis and and NSA and the kinds of analytics that are and 1236 01:13:40,360 --> 01:13:43,440 computing power that are being used to analyze the Bitcoin 1237 01:13:43,440 --> 01:13:45,840 blockchain. How easy it is to lose you can 1238 01:13:45,840 --> 01:13:49,680 be you can be careful for 12 years and then make one mistake 1239 01:13:50,000 --> 01:13:55,240 and it undoes all that 12 years of of privacy you send one KYC 1240 01:13:55,240 --> 01:13:59,840 transaction 12 years later and it uncovers all the other things 1241 01:13:59,840 --> 01:14:02,600 that you've done. So one of the challenges that we 1242 01:14:02,600 --> 01:14:06,120 lay down in the book is a challenge for Bitcoin to 1243 01:14:06,120 --> 01:14:10,720 incorporate more privacy at the the base layer and for wallets 1244 01:14:10,720 --> 01:14:15,320 to do a lot under the hood. People, people don't do things 1245 01:14:15,320 --> 01:14:18,640 like coin joining if they have to do it themselves, but wallets 1246 01:14:18,640 --> 01:14:20,640 that automatically do it are great. 1247 01:14:21,120 --> 01:14:23,640 And then I think the other was just learning more about mining 1248 01:14:23,800 --> 01:14:30,040 and how the mining ecosystem works and how it could possibly 1249 01:14:30,040 --> 01:14:34,240 be profitable for, you know, these huge mining companies to 1250 01:14:34,240 --> 01:14:36,440 establish these massive mining centers. 1251 01:14:36,920 --> 01:14:41,800 And now mining being Co located with, with AI and being done 1252 01:14:41,800 --> 01:14:46,560 solely with renewable energy like Iran is doing. 1253 01:14:47,200 --> 01:14:51,720 So I learned there's no like specific statement that I 1254 01:14:51,720 --> 01:14:55,320 learned like, you know, Bitcoin isn't as private as I thought. 1255 01:14:55,920 --> 01:15:00,280 It's just, man, I learned a whole lot about mining and and I 1256 01:15:00,680 --> 01:15:02,360 didn't know very much about it before. 1257 01:15:03,640 --> 01:15:07,080 Nice, nice. All right, let's see how long 1258 01:15:07,080 --> 01:15:09,160 you have to think about this question, because some people 1259 01:15:09,160 --> 01:15:12,080 have to think very long, But the last question is always the 1260 01:15:12,080 --> 01:15:13,360 same. I ask everyone the same 1261 01:15:13,360 --> 01:15:16,920 question, which is what is a core belief that you will never 1262 01:15:16,920 --> 01:15:19,680 let go? A core belief about Bitcoin, or 1263 01:15:19,680 --> 01:15:22,200 just a core belief in general? In general. 1264 01:15:25,080 --> 01:15:32,440 That people, I guess, I guess I believe in cooperative 1265 01:15:33,280 --> 01:15:39,800 activities. And so I, I think that Bitcoin 1266 01:15:39,800 --> 01:15:45,920 is perhaps the most democratic form of money that, that exists 1267 01:15:45,920 --> 01:15:46,960 right now. Certainly. 1268 01:15:48,200 --> 01:15:53,520 And it's weird to say because the algorithm doesn't allow any, 1269 01:15:53,560 --> 01:15:57,360 any changes, but I say that because it's completely 1270 01:15:57,360 --> 01:16:00,040 apartment in. And if people, if enough people 1271 01:16:00,040 --> 01:16:02,560 want a fork to happen, then it will happen. 1272 01:16:03,040 --> 01:16:07,440 And so I, I believe that sort of we're, we're at our best when 1273 01:16:07,440 --> 01:16:10,480 we're working together and and building something. 1274 01:16:10,920 --> 01:16:15,240 And I think Bitcoin is something that that one person created, 1275 01:16:15,240 --> 01:16:17,760 but then all of us together made. 1276 01:16:19,160 --> 01:16:23,920 And so because of that, I think it's going to work for a very 1277 01:16:23,920 --> 01:16:28,080 long time. And yeah, I guess the core 1278 01:16:28,080 --> 01:16:32,560 belief is that is the the thing about democracy, the value of 1279 01:16:32,560 --> 01:16:36,080 democracy and working together, and that that Bitcoin puts that 1280 01:16:36,080 --> 01:16:39,760 into brightness. Yeah I love that man. 1281 01:16:39,760 --> 01:16:44,960 Thanks for sharing. I, I personally see this, the 1282 01:16:44,960 --> 01:16:48,120 output of what you said, I think is the ultimate manifestation, 1283 01:16:48,360 --> 01:16:50,520 right? This is just an idea that was 1284 01:16:50,520 --> 01:16:53,120 dropped. Anyone can adopt it, Anyone can 1285 01:16:53,120 --> 01:16:58,080 improve on it. And if it's good enough, then 1286 01:16:58,080 --> 01:17:01,000 it'll be a thing. And if not, they're not, right? 1287 01:17:01,040 --> 01:17:06,720 But the more people, the more people understand how this works 1288 01:17:06,720 --> 01:17:09,720 and what the implications are, the more people will be drawn 1289 01:17:09,960 --> 01:17:13,000 just as you and just as me to contribute to this thing. 1290 01:17:13,040 --> 01:17:16,080 Right. And then we manifested together. 1291 01:17:16,960 --> 01:17:19,480 So more people can even use it. So, yeah, thanks. 1292 01:17:19,480 --> 01:17:21,400 Thanks for sharing that, man. I appreciate that. 1293 01:17:21,400 --> 01:17:23,120 Appreciate your time. Really enjoyed this 1294 01:17:23,120 --> 01:17:27,000 conversation. And I'm ever around in Wyoming. 1295 01:17:27,000 --> 01:17:29,080 I'll. I'll see what you're building 1296 01:17:29,080 --> 01:17:32,040 and I'll come by. Go ahead. 1297 01:17:32,240 --> 01:17:32,920 Cheers. Thank you. 1298 01:17:33,840 --> 01:17:36,560 I hope you enjoyed this episode and if you did, check out some 1299 01:17:36,560 --> 01:17:39,160 of my other episodes to learn why Bitcoin is the most 1300 01:17:39,160 --> 01:17:41,960 important subject you must understand and adopt. 1301 01:17:42,320 --> 01:17:44,760 If you want, you can follow and connect with me on Twitter. 1302 01:17:44,760 --> 01:17:48,360 X I'm at from K, that's at BR AM K. 1303 01:17:48,600 --> 01:17:51,800 And if you have any feedback or questions, just reach out. 1304 01:17:52,000 --> 01:17:54,720 I read and reply to every single message. 1305 01:17:54,960 --> 01:17:57,440 I appreciate your support and hope you'll be here for our next 1306 01:17:57,440 --> 01:17:59,000 episode. Thanks for listening. 1307 01:17:59,320 --> 01:17:59,520 Bye.