Hey there, this is Brum Constein and you're listening to Bitcoin
for Millennials. Together with my guests on this
podcast, I go on a journey to discover how our current
financial system works, why it's flawed, and why Bitcoin is the
most relevant technology that you should understand and adopt.
In this episode I'm joined by Terence Michael.
He's an Emmy nominated TV and film producer and has produced
over 20 movies and 30 TV shows. I saw you did the Spencer movie.
I love that. I think that's really, I think
that's really old. But I like that, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it is. Well, you also operate several
businesses. You invest in real estate and
consult with entrepreneurs on how to cultivate their skills.
But also, over the last six years, you've morphed into a
hardcore bitcoiner and most recently wrote your third book
called Proof of Money, The Big Idea Behind Bitcoin and What You
Don't Know About Why You Need It.
I love that title. Welcome man.
Welcome. Thank you.
Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks.
Thanks for being on. Like I loved your tweet.
So I thought I need to reach out to this guy and and then I saw
your book. So that's that's even a better,
a better reason. And even your Twitter name is
not Terence Michael. It's proof of money.
Where did that come from? Well, I've just figured, you
know what? If I just market it the same as
the book, it's gonna be so much easier, right?
It's like just they say to have the same handle across
everything. And I don't.
But it doesn't need to match my Instagram and all those other
things. Is that also when you started
like Twitter? When the when the book came out.
Yeah, I mean, well, I signed up way before like we all did, but
it just sat dormant with six followers.
And then when the book came out, you know, and I was lurking like
all of us just listening and you know, reading tweets from from
Sailor and you know all of the big accounts.
And when the book came out, I said now it's time for me to
engage. Now it's time for me to share
and jump on the other side of this and start educating because
I saw sort of where. The holes were where, you know,
sort of the the technical analysts, you know, people like
Greg Foss, the the economists like Safe, a Dean.
All these people were coming from their approaches, which
sort of were in the bucket of professional legacy or
traditional finance. But a lot of people aren't.
A lot of people have been dabbling with.
Meme stocks and you know, at the water cooler and hey, I've got
Tesla, I've got Apple, What, You know, what do you have?
Or they want to try to get into real estate.
And you know, so many people are chasing money without knowing
why they're chasing money and getting into things, trying to
have a second or a third job in areas that they're not experts
in. And I thought, well, wait a
minute. There's a way that I could write
to this and connect why it is they want more money?
Where did it? What it is that their skills are
and how they can stick with their skills, their bucket and
and their circle of competence without taking on so much risk.
You know, like why become a, you know, landlord if you don't
really know how to work on homes and you don't want to deal with
tenants and the toilets and the trash, right.
And and why? Why?
You know. Well, first of all, you know
why? Get into I mean, it's like, so
your podcast is for millennials, right?
It's like everyone compares, you know, Bitcoin to gold, but I
don't know any millennials that own gold.
You know, maybe me neither. No, that's a good point.
Yeah. Maybe there's some in jewelry or
maybe they got some inherited from a gram or a grandpa, But
it's like, I get it and it makes sense when you know, the boomers
are like, hey, look, you guys all like gold because we've gone
through. Economic times in the past where
we need to have a hard money, the governments are inflating.
So great, let's come. It's digital gold.
I get it. That makes sense.
But it's just the easiest analogy to make, right?
It's the easiest analogy, but another easy analogy that
millennials get is the Internet. You know, I mean, it really is
because Bitcoin is really just code and where the Internet,
sort of. Decent, decentralized
information. You know, Bitcoin is just
decentralizing value. It's providing it to everybody.
And that's what the Internet does.
I mean, people forget that the Internet hasn't changed since
the 1960s. When it started, it was just an
academic and military communication system, right?
It. And that's all it still is.
It's very slow. It's very clunky.
It has not been updated. But because the foundation is so
solid, because it's it's, you know, granite and and and not
quicksand, everybody can build on top of it.
We can build skyscrapers. We can build businesses.
We can build apps. And it's like, you know, when
the Internet came out, we never thought we'd be streaming
movies, right? It was more like, oh, let me
read a movie review, oh, look, here's a picture of a cat.
But it takes forever to download.
Click, click, click, click. Yeah.
You know, so I like to compare more of that because so many
millennials. Want to invest in stocks, but
they don't. They aren't reading the PE
ratios. They aren't looking at the
earnings. They aren't looking at the
balance sheets. They're just like, oh, Tesla,
sounds cool, let me invest in Tesla.
It's like, now you can invest in the entire Internet, what the
Internet was, but the Internet was never investable.
You had to take risk on all kinds of companies that just
like the Ico's of crypto, you know?
Back then, they were the Ipo's on the stock side, you know.
So many of those one are like 95% of those just tanked and
unless you could hold on to Amazon for the seven or eight
years it was under, you were never going to come back up.
Yeah, so I. No.
Even though we know Bitcoin is so much more than than money, it
it it represents property and ownership and human rights and
the separation from state. And it's it's a it's a peaceful
protest. It stands for so many things and
only, you know, solves the energy problems and helps the
environment, the climate. We know that.
But. You're talking to millennials
and you know you the first place you have to go is NGU.
If you can't start with number, go up technology, you're never
going to get anybody. And you know, it's like if a
window, is that about building wealth then would you say like,
yes, exactly. Is that what you think
millennials care about in that sense?
Yes, Well, I think you know. So look, we know that the the
issue with orange peeling people with Bitcoin is that you can't
just describe this superior technology and solution for a
problem that they don't think exists, right.
You can't knock on someone's door and say, hey, I want to
wash your windows and you brand you're looking through your
windows and say, well, I can see through my windows fine.
I'm like, no, it's coming through in.
This. But like inflation, there's
little bits of dirt every day, and just enough that your eyes
adjust. You get used to it, but
suddenly, because it's broken money, it's distorting your time
and your energy. Now you're going to have to
paint the walls lighter, because you Why is it darker in this
room? Now you're adding new lights.
Like what you know I need. But because you just don't know.
Because it's it's slow enough, right?
It's a slowly and this that also you think I talked about this
yesterday and I found it an interesting fault.
Like, is that also? Then, you know, when you say,
oh, are my eyes getting worse, should I paint my walls?
Or like, you know, like you're starting to doubt yourself,
basically. Exactly where the actual
representation of the situation is that there's something out of
your control that's influencing the things that is, that are in
your control, right? And then, but if you don't
realize that that is actually happening, you know you you
start thinking about OK, am I doing something wrong or am I
crazy or? That's right, just because you
simply don't understand, basically.
And that's what inflation is doing, which the millennial
generation is feeling more than any generation right now because
it's like the leak has been so slow that we've just accepted
it. We've just growing up that like,
oh, you know, when I was a little kid, my grandma would
say, oh, I'd get a loaf of bread for $0.10.
And it's like, OK, well, you know, now that loaf of bread is.
I don't know. 2-3 dollars or whatever it is, Yeah, and you
just accept that money goes up. But it's like, wait a minute,
technology is improving or being more productive or being more
efficient. That loaf of bread should cost
less. Yes, not at least the same.
It should not be going up, right.
We learned this from Jeff Booth and the price of tomorrow.
And you know, Bitcoin makes our world inflationary.
Deflationary. There's no reason for money to
go up, but because the government's keep of course
putting more money about the system under under that, right.
Like I also like one of my goals with this podcast is to find
like what are simpler analogies or what are like principles we
can discover to kind of like trigger people.
And I think what you said about technology is interesting
because you would expect that any progress in technology would
make, well, even if you say just adjacent products or services,
you know, whatever that technology touches, it should
become more commoditized or cheaper, You know, the prices
should go down, etc. Well and if you think about the
2000 tech bubble, basically right or and now everything
should be better. But yesterday I saw a chart of
British huddle who was showing the charge charts of the SP500,
NASDAQ, gold and all these things in dollar amounts and
they all went up and then he showed them in money supply.
So M2 money supply, everything is down.
And the most shocking one I saw was actually the one of the
NASDAQ, right? Those are the tech stocks.
I think from basic principle you could argue currently we have
better tech than in 2000, right? Like more valuable tech.
I think no one would disagree with that.
But if you look at the NASDAQ versus the money supply, the
tech currently is worth less, which for me was just a crazy
realization because arguably it is better like we see it is
better, it is more valuable, right than 2000, but just
because the money is so broken, it's not valued as it as it
should be and well. Yeah, in an analogy that I like
to use to say exactly what you just said in different terms is
that. You look at a $500,000 house and
look at it four years later, it's $1,000,000 house.
Well, unless that house has the utility of it's changed.
Unless it's growing a bedroom, unless it has just growing more
square footage, the utility value is is the same.
So has. So how has it gone up?
How's it gone up to $1,000,000? It just requires more dollars
for the same value because that many more dollars are now in the
system. And so of course, and it's also
not the case that houses are now more important than before.
It's the same, right? That's that's what.
You mean is the same, right. We're putting a a monetary
premium and millennials are are some of them are doing this,
it's but it's very hard for many.
It's it's a lot easier for more Gen.
Xers to do this and of course boomers before the Gen.
Xers that they're putting monetary premiums on this.
So they're driving up the prices without even realizing it
because they don't know any better.
They they earn the money at their job.
But they're like, how do I preserve this?
I can't hurt all the inflation weight.
I'm going to have to chase it with stocks.
I can no longer chase it with bonds.
Bonds are a losing proposition from day one.
So I'm going to have to go into real estate or stocks and that's
where they go. But what they don't realize,
like you just talked about with the M2 money supply, yes, in
dollar terms, these have gone straight up.
But look at the money. But the money supply has gone
up, in fact even higher. So it's actually a losing
proposition, but it means. You have to either be an
accredited investor, a qualified investor, you have to be a high
net worth interval. You have to have access to all
of these vehicles that you can invest in real estate, in
artwork, in bridge loans. You know, I mean a lot of
things. My second book I wrote about
this stuff, right, but it was more for accredited investors.
Unless you were at a certain level, you didn't have access to
to the things that. You know, the Cantillionaires
have access to, but you know, now for the first time we have
this egalitarian money that everybody on the planet has
access to and at the cost of no one else.
So that's why it's like speaking to millennials, I like to
approach it from if you're looking for your own house,
that's different. I get that, you know, you want
your own house, you want to do what you want to it.
You want to have, you know, ownership, if you want to call
it ownership. I put that in quotes because
it's really just rent rebranded. But but I get that you want your
own place. But if you're going out because
you want to get Airbnb's and you want to have, you know, second
or third houses, and you know you think you want to have
tenants and you think the rent's going to cover everything, then
no. You can save yourself a lot of
time and energy. Focus on what you do and buy
Bitcoin because it's the most scarce and it's increasingly
scarce. Unlike real estate where more
can be made of, more stocks can be issued, more bonds are
definitely going to be issued. And people say, well, they're
not making any more land. Yeah, but they kind of are,
because you can build up and things can burn down and build
back up. If we lose access to our
Bitcoin, you never get it back. You've just made a great
donation to the network, right? So we always say 21 million
Bitcoin, but realistically there's probably 16,500 and
going lower, right? You know, not counting the
boating accidents. And so when you say, you know,
buying quote, UN quote or owning a house, it's just rent
reinvented. You know, like I understand, I
understand what you're saying, but I also at the same time
think you should have a certain amount of understanding of money
and finance until you understand what you just said.
Sure. Like what is the, what is the
biggest thing you think people need to learn or or unlearn in
order to. Yeah, kind of, I always say like
open the doors in their mind to explore further, right.
Like, I understand that. At least that's how I see it.
You know, like millennials grew up in the best time anyone has
ever had, especially in the Western world, right.
Like, I understand my own privilege there.
But yeah, like there was money, there was food, there was
running water. Like, not like, you know, there
was nothing going on, basically. But but now you are confronted
with a world or a financial system that's just works in a
certain way. But you have no clue about it,
so you have to learn about it. That's what I think.
But like, what do you think is the most most important thing
people should yeah, learn, unlearn, or see.
I think in the simplest of terms, it comes down to
inflation. But people don't really
understand inflation. They think they understand
inflation. And so I try to describe it.
I like to describe it. I have this model that I use
with a pizza, OK? And I say look are.
Our entire economy is this pizza and pretend, Graham, you have
one slice of this 10 slice pizza and I have one slice of this 10
slice pizza, right? So you own 10% of the network,
everything that you've worked for, all your education, the
sacrifices that you've made, learning, schooling, everything
that you've done. You now have 10% of this entire
network because you have one slice and I have one slice.
Well. The society that we live in, the
government, of course, because they want to pay for their debt,
they want to pay for their wars, whatever taxes are unpopular,
they need to inflate. Well, when they inflate, they're
not bringing in another pizza. This is the part where people
don't get to like, oh, we just have more pizza.
It's not more pizza. Yeah, that's.
They're reslicing our current pizza because those are all the
product that pizza represents all the products and the
services in the economy, right? That's the GDP.
So unless the government's which has which has a a border
somewhere like. Right.
There's a finite amount of goods and services, right.
We, we obviously have to work proof of work, but the
government is proof of steak. So they, they come in and they
reslice this pizza and now we have 20 slices, right.
So now since they've resliced it, Bran, you only have remember
10% of this network, but so now that you have one slice of 20,
you've just been reduced to 5% of the network.
You have half the amount of calories.
Half the amount of goods of this pizza.
Even though you technically have one slice right, it's still
called $1.00 one slice and I now have one.
I love this. This is great.
Yeah. Because now my own understanding
was also more pizza. So this is this is really good,
yeah. So now let's say that I make
swimming pools and you and I had a deal where I want want you to
pay me one slice of pizza for the swimming pool.
And so you come to me now with your half.
It's half. It's smaller.
It's 5%, but it's one slice. Yeah.
And I say, well, wait a minute. Me building the swimming pool, I
know what I needed to feed my family and I needed the amount
of calories. That was the old one slice.
So you know what, bran, I want 2 slices from you.
So that's why your swimming pool now is going to cost 2 instead
of 1. Because when the government
inflates, that's the part people don't get.
They're not really pouring more dollars in.
They're slicing up the dollars. And so you think there's more
dollars? Because the value the the goods
and services have remained the same.
Now if the government was actually so that is the
dilution, that's the debasement, the slicing, right?
Basement the slicing asking for more slices is the inflation.
That's right, because they're just coming in and slicing what
we currently have. So when they come in to inflate
and you know let's say they put all that, I mean when the when
the pool guy says now I want 2 slices, that's the inflation,
right? Because that is.
The two inflation that is that is true instead of 1, yes.
Which is really the amount of your old one, right?
The government sliced your 10 sliced pizza into 20, Yeah.
So I feel like things like that. You know, there's another, this
is a more obvious analogy that I use.
And that's that, you know, all of us that work, we're all paid
in ice cubes and ice cubes melt, right.
So because we're all paid in ice cubes, we have to quickly get it
in the fridge. But our fridge.
The problem with our refrigerator is that the
government turns the temperature up so it melts.
It it it. We don't melt as much by putting
our ice cube in there, but they increase it so it's still
melting with bits. You want to give it to someone
else then, right? So that's what we have to do
with. So we're constantly having to
earn more ice cubes. How can how can I break up this
ice cube, do something with it, Grow the ice cube, get an ice
cube machine rather. Then just get a Bitcoin freezer,
right? Because if all we're paid in is
ice cubes and we can't change that, I put it in the Bitcoin
freezer as fast as possible in my own self custody.
I own the key to this fridge. Click.
It's not gonna melt and you who don't put it in a Bitcoin
freezer and yours starts melting.
Mine just becomes more valuable as the world moves to ice cubes.
Yeah. And so if we continue with this
analogy, I like it, right. Why?
Why does the Bitcoin freezer stay at the one at the one
temperature? Right.
Is that. Yeah.
It's because of its fixed supply, because it we no more
ice cubes can ever be made, and because it's an audible,
transparent Ledger. And we see, in fact, if we take
that analogy, if we extrapolate it further, on the outside of
this fridge is a Ledger that is showing exactly every 10
minutes. How it's securing the ice cubes
and how many ice cubes there are like right now today in 2024, we
know there's in 2023, excuse me, we know there's 900 ice cubes
being made a day. And we know that after April
2024, after the Havaning, there's going to be 450 ice
cubes a day. And so we know it continues to
shrink. And people that lose ice cubes,
people that are irresponsible with ice cubes, they're never
going to get those ice cubes back.
The ice cubes don't go away. You know it's the.
This is maybe splitting hairs, but you know, the way I look at
it is all 21 million Bitcoin are there.
They were all put there on day one.
Yeah, we just continue to get access to 900 every day, then
four. 150 yeah, etc. And also I like the freezer
analogy, like the Bitcoin freezer has a glass in it so you
can see what is actually happening.
So it's not only the Ledger, but you can actually see what is
happening all day, every day, 24/7, 365.
The government, the government freezer is closed.
You cannot. That's right.
Right. It's never been opened in 100
years or something. Right.
And there's effectively 7 to 9 people that guard the freezer
and they can open it up and take ice cubes out for themselves
whenever they want and just pour water in and make more.
Whereas we we have minors all over the world, in every
country, on every continent, every sex, race status, securing
this fridge because they're all motivated to keep everyone out
of it. So that's.
Yeah. So that's the network of people
who decided to play by the rules that everyone can see and then
decide if they want to play according to the rules versus a
few people who control the government temperature, like the
temperature of the government freezer with rules that could
change whenever, right? Or at least today.
What is it? September 20th today people were
waiting what the Jerome Powell, one of the people of the right
of the temperature was right say about, you know, what was what
was going to happen. And any bad, any bad actor who
won't wanted to have a malicious attack.
Anyone wanted to run into that freezer and try to steal all
those ice cubes. It would cost them more in the
amount of water and buckets and glasses and guns and strength.
Than to simply just participate and freeze their ice cubes with
us. Yeah, and that's the beauty of
the Byzantine Generals problem that, you know, Satoshi solved.
Great. Well, maybe this is a nice nice
analogy. Well, I saw you had one post
about this, so I'll link to that.
Link to that description. I like that.
Yeah, I feel like it's, it's helpful.
Yeah. It's like you have to simplify
before before people can dive in further, right?
Like, I I find it also interesting.
Like I'm pretty active on Twitter and sometimes I say
stuff, which also sometimes it's just partially like my
assumption and how I think it works.
And then some people with an economics degree or whatever.
Today I was talking to a monetary economist he called
himself, and he was, like, angry at me on Twitter.
And I was like, dude, like, you know, it's just so it's my
observation, so not chill, right, right, right.
You can have a, like, I can be wrong.
You can be wrong. Like, let's just have a
conversation, right? But people are like, viciously
defending also. Like, that's what they've
learned. And it's just really, that's
also what I love about Bitcoin when I talk to bitcoiners.
Like, everyone has unlearned and learned stuff, right?
You do not understand this when you start.
I'm 10 years in, I'm still learning, right?
Like that is just the thing, right?
But yes, it's now just also so easy to recognize people who are
very close minded and they're just like, no, this is how it
works and you don't fucking understand and then yeah.
Well, and that's what's great about Bitcoin, cuz Bitcoin
doesn't care about all these people.
I mean it's. It's a calculator glued to a
clock and that's really all it is.
It's just it's just an agnostic never stopping.
Yeah, it never stops. And so that's the beauty of it.
It doesn't care what any of these people think.
They, you know, everyone can have their own opinion and
approach it from their own ways. And you know, I I might use a
hammer only to build houses, but you know, someone else might
want to throw hammers and use it as a game for darts.
Like, you know, throw it at the wall.
That's Okay, That's not how the hammer was invented.
But again, it's a tool. And if that's how they want to
use it, then fine. Yeah.
So who or what has been your most influential?
Like, what has been most influential in shaping your
views on all of this? Like money, risk, wealth.
Like what was your thing? So a few things and to try to
distill it into a short of response as possible.
So being in Hollywood and seeing the amount of money that people
make in Hollywood and that we can't make in Hollywood, but
seen how they still have just as many problems as anybody with
trying to buy homes or provide for their family.
And seen how that translates into real estate because
everyone thinks they need to chase real estate even though
they don't know a thing about real estate to earn money and
how they can't even qualify for a lot of these homes and things.
Like, I started my mortgage business for all my friends in
Hollywood and it just grew into this thing.
And now that's what it. What it mostly specializes in,
it's just helping producers and directors and actors and
everybody get into homes. So it's like I see the broken
money at the first level in Hollywood and I see it again in
them trying to get homes. And it's like, how can these
well to do privileged Western society people feel the broken
money, yet, you know, the inflation here in America is
nothing compared to the rest of the world.
It's nothing. It's it.
It, you know, even though our true inflation is probably 15 to
20%, right, not the distorted CPI.
It's it's just enough that people feel it and everyone in
Hollywood feels good where it's like, oh, they've worked on this
movie and they've made, you know, whatever X amount a week
and then the next movie, you know, six months later, they're
making X + 1 and X + 2 and everyone wants to raise their
quotes, right. And you see what the the fees
are and and yeah. They're not increasing that what
the the the goods that they have, the services they have are
the same. So it's like, where's all that
going? And yeah.
I so I saw this early on without knowing, I saw it.
I saw it at the real estate level where it's like why can
these people that are making 700,000 a year not afford a
home, like what's what's broken there, what you know, what's
going on. And so that led me into starting
a a finance strategy business where I consult these people so.
Because as a mortgage broker, you look at all their finances,
you see all their statements. And so I could see where all the
money's buried. And so I would help coach them.
But a lot of it was also them coming up with side hustles and
here's other ways to make money, now do this, now do that.
It's like they're not specialized in all these other
things. And now they're having to grind
harder and longer hours just to maintain the wealth that they
would have two or three years ago.
So that's when I noticed it was broken.
When I came to Bitcoin, I didn't see that as a replacement, as
money. I didn't see it as this
egalitarian code. I didn't see it as a separation
of state. I just saw it as a tech stock,
like we all did, right? And like everybody else, I got
into crypto and I was like, oh, look at all these other things
and look how cheap these are. And this thing's gonna go up.
And, you know, you start throwing the and you start
hearing things on CNBC. Oh, you need to diversify,
right? Just pick 20.
Cryptos and throw money at it, and one of them's gonna go up.
And you know, that was the narrative back then, but this
was before people realized what it is.
And you know, we've all come to learn how important Bitcoin is
so, but when you got in like I always.
But I didn't know I saw it. So what was your aha moment
like? When did you really see it?
I started understand. Yeah, so once I learned that all
of the Ico's and quote UN quote crypto were scams, because it's
just the Fiat world coming to an easier casino, right?
Anyone can open the casino, anyone can print as many tokens
as they want. They could rug pull ever they
want. And when I started to see that,
it's like, you know, Aetherium had a whatever 30% pre mine and
Seoul had like a 70% pre. Like all these people just took
all the tokens and made all they want.
I thought, OK. This clear, they clearly are not
here for any more altruistic reasons, which is what Bitcoin
was saying. And Bitcoin was saying this
without, of course, any executives or marketing
department or CEO or terms of service or lawyers or anything.
Just a thing. Just a tool.
And so once I saw that it clicked, it clicked for me that
Bitcoin wasn't just some token to make money on, it was.
It was money itself. And that, that's why I titled my
book Proof of Money. I feel like Bram, our world has
never, ever had money until Bitcoin.
We've all had surrogates. We've all had a coupon for
money. We've all had an attempt at
money. We've all had something because
we don't have money. We have to use gold or seashells
or salt or this piece of paper. But now we finitely have it,
because what is money supposed to be?
It's like, well, one it has to be a store of value.
We know that. So if it has to be a store of
value, well, that throws almost everything else out the window,
except maybe gold. But then how do I retain gold
safely without people seeing it? How do I cut it up?
How do I take it? It's like it's tethered to to
the ground. Like Bitcoin is the first money
ever that isn't tethered to any flag or to any state or to any
government. We know this.
But until you start to look at the properties and realize,
well, it's just, it's just code. It's like, that's all money
should be. If money is just to secure your
wealth and take it forward in time and space for as long as
you want through generations. It's like we used to think, oh,
this is amazing. I could take $3000 and I could
send it from here to Japan. We thought, wow, that's amazing.
Well it would be amazing if you could send 3000 dollars 300
years into the future and it be and it by the same services and
goods. And also if you sent $3000 to
Japan at 2500 arrives currently. Well, exactly, exactly.
All the fees and all the intermediaries in between, yeah,
forget about that. And in Japan, you know, I mean,
like pick, pick a third world country, right.
And that they're taking like 40% out.
It's it's gone and and so that store value, right Like I also
think because when you talk about Bitcoin being money which
obviously I agree with, but a lot of people then respond and
say like it's slow and transaction throughput da da,
da, da. Would you agree that like the
step one is people understanding its store value, IE you can
store the value that you receive for your job or your venture?
You know, whatever because you put value in your energy that
you can save that across time, which is into the future and
across space, which is take it anywhere in the world or let
your kids eventually take it anywhere in the world, right?
Like, would you agree to that? Like that is just that is step
one. Well, yes.
So 2 answers to that. So any any money and throughout
history this is true. Nothing can become money until
the people choose it. And the people won't choose it
as money until it can store their value.
If it can't store value, it's just a hot potato, right?
Like some currencies are like an Argentina or Turkey, just a hot
potato. The minute they get it, boom.
They got to get rid of it because it's it's not going to
buy the same amount tomorrow or they use it side fire.
Or they lose it to light a fire, keep warm.
I mean, you know, the V Mar and you know, it's like your whole
history, but. So yes, it has to 1 store value,
but two, it is actually the fastest money we've ever had.
You know, even if you look at our current Fiat, our Fiat is
slower than Bitcoin. What people think is fast with
credit cards and transfers is the number changing second and
third layers. Yes, our second layer of
Bitcoin, which your your listeners know.
The Lightning Network is faster than anything we've we've ever
had. It's the.
It's the fastest monetary rails. Yeah.
So to explain that, I think what you mean is like I can people
can send each other money, whether it's in Europe or
America or anywhere else. And you know, I can send you $10
from from here, from Europe to you.
And then it goes -10 on my screen and it goes plus 10 on
your screen. That's right.
There's no final settlement, yes, exactly.
But that does not mean that the actual value that 10 units of
dollars or EUR should actually represent that, that is also
transferred, right? That's right.
Conceptually, your bank actually has the 10 and my bank doesn't
anymore. That's a whole different story,
whether they even have it. But let's keep with the concept,
right? But with Bitcoin, when I send
you, let's say 10 Bitcoin, you actually have the 10 Bitcoin and
I do not have them. That's right.
Own them. You.
That's right. Have them.
Really. It's not just a number you
actually have. That's right.
It's immutable. It's uneditable.
No one can take it, but you can't call someone and say I
made a mistake, let me get it back.
I have it. It's so it's not just a credit
instrument. That's the thing.
Like, we're not used to having money, systems that aren't
credit, You know, like a dollar bill is just, it's just a
credit. That's just an IOU from the
government. You know Bitcoin is, which is
why it's classified. They said because because the
the, the let's call it the digital money, you know from
well, when I think it was also digital when it was basically on
a Ledger 100 years ago at a bank, right.
Like it's numbers although it was represented or backed by
gold in that sense. Do you think it's because it was
backed by gold, let's say it was somewhat tangible still right,
like yes, OK, you can hold the bill but the dollar bill but it
represented something, right. But when that didn't anymore,
the the bill was just a paper with a number on it.
That's when most people, especially the millennial
generation, only know that, right?
But now, when you can actually own the money in the Bitcoin
example, that's right, that is already different.
So that's weird. Yeah.
But the fact that it's not physical but it's digital, but
true to technology, it is almost as if it's tangibly in your
possession. That is even a bigger thing to,
you know, wrap your head around. If you never.
If you never, yes, thought about that, right.
And that's the distinction between digital and virtual.
Like it's digital act, you can own the ones and zeros.
Virtual is like, I don't really have it.
You owned a number, you see a number which represents
something. That's right.
And I'm glad that you brought up.
Basically, you know what happened in 1971 when the dollar
depegged from gold? Because.
Anyone born after 1971, you know, all millennials of course,
don't realize that the dollars that they're.
So here's the analogy I like to use.
It's like, you know, you you drive your nice car to the club
and you get a valet ticket. So prior to 1971, there was
number valet ticket you had. You dropped your car off and you
have your car and when you leave, you have your car.
After 1971 you drop your car off.
They give you the valet ticket. Here's a coupon for your car.
Yeah and no. Can it just drove the car away.
And they said, you know what, you don't need the car.
This valet ticket is the same as a car.
It'll take you everywhere. And so we started trading.
It's like, OK, well, I have a car here.
I want to trade it for a house and then so on and so on.
It's like, or it's like a coat check, right?
You've turned your coat in and I got this check and I go back and
now the coats gone. So now I'm just gonna walk
around with this coat check instead of a coat to keep me
warm. I actually love that like this.
The stupid, more stupid or more simplistic you make the
examples, you know, the more radical actually sounds when
when people understand that it's actually connected to a real
world thing. Right.
Like this, this actually happened.
Right. We had gold for 5000 years and
then the president, the president in America said come
turn in, turn in your gold temporarily 50 years ago until
now, which yeah, it's not, yeah. And what he also said was, you
know what he said this is how he, he pulled the wool,
everyone's eyes. He said, you know, it's not the
gold that you need to back the dollar.
All this time it's been the dollar to back the gold.
So let's just get rid of the gold.
The dollar is all you really needed.
And ever since that we've been, which is why we've lost.
Really written right on there. You know backed by gold now just
says backed by faith, yeah. So faith and hope is the
strategy. And I hope that's right.
So I think this is an interesting question because
you're also in Hollywood, at least from the outside.
You know, money is a thing. People, you know, the people in
Hollywood influence the rest of the world also, you know,
culturally wise in society. How do you think our beliefs
about money shape society? And from a Hollywood angle, I
think that's maybe even a deeper question there.
But like, what do you think? I I mean, from the Hollywood
perspective, I think, you know, it becomes a flex, it becomes a
scorecard, it becomes a game, you know, because, you know,
it's like if you, if you look through monetary history, it's
like we were never supposed to be wearing gold, for instance.
We were, you know, as like, hey, look who I am.
Look at all this wealth I have. It was because they had to carry
it through them walking on the planes.
There had to be a way for them to carry their wealth and they
actually wore their necklaces underneath their clothing.
You didn't want to show it off. That was a risk.
But you know, cut to today with broken money and it's like,
well, you. You can only store your money in
so many places. And gold has been the the
leading money for a long time. And this is a way where once
you've reached a certain level and you don't need anymore, well
you can start to show it off. It's it's excess.
And so in in movies, in Hollywood and narratives, it's
like, yeah, hey, here's the fancy car, right?
Here's the big house, right? You know, look at Iron Man.
Here's, here's all my money. Here's all the things I can do
with my money and I can throw it away it I see videos of people
in the in in clubs in America pouring the pouring their $1000
champagne bottles or something like there's.
Exactly. Yeah.
Wolf of Wall Street and, you know, all these movies.
And so, I mean, there's an excess that is portrayed.
But I also think, I mean it's portrayed partially for escapism
because most people don't have that kind of money South.
It's fun for them to imagine for a moment, wow, what would it be
like to have so much money that I can just dispose of it like
that? And on the other hand, it.
It makes them think, oh, I need to grind.
I need to work harder, I need to have more side hustles.
And you know, and I don't think that that's necessarily true for
everybody because that's where the broken money as a first
principle problem causes all these other problems.
Because OK, if you need to have a side hustle and grind harder
brand, you know, you're not going to have your kid, you're
not going to start your family like so, so now you're not going
to have a family. Now you're not going to choose
the right choices, maybe for your food.
Because you need to get food fast and quick because you're
you're working so hard, you're not sleeping as much, you're
going for comfort food, fast food.
This affects your health, this affects your future.
So it it sort of leaks into everything.
I don't know that Hollywood shows that what they what they
show is they show lots of money and then they show all this
Wellness. Well then you need all this
Wellness. You need to be doing yoga and
drinking this green shake and do it all.
So that's their solution to a problem that could be fixed at
the top end if we were teaching and demonstrating hard money and
responsible saving and sovereignty.
There isn't a lot of sovereignty that's taught in Hollywood,
although some of the principles are there in the background.
You know, every now and then there's movies like The Matrix
or you know the. Where it's like, look, you need
to wake up to what's happening to centralized corporations, to
the government, to just being aware.
Did that answer your question? I was.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. But I also think like I was
thinking when when you answer this question, I almost want to
say like but does that broken money then also kind of like?
Devaluate value, I almost want to say, right.
So when you, when you mentioned like, oh, people think I should
have a side hustle, I should make as much money as possible
and then you know I have to get more amounts of these money
units basically, right. But is that then actually what
you want to do, is that your added value in the world, right?
Or do you then miss the value of creating a family or like
whatever. That's right, that's it exactly.
But I but I think people, unless they step back and fly.
What is really valuable in life? Perhaps that's right and and and
I think many people do reach that level of wisdom but it
takes a while that we're all ingrained.
We're all taught and and because it's a game and a scorecard to
make more money, it's like, oh, you want to make more money?
I want to make more money than him.
It's like, what's he doing? How's he making so much money?
How's it that he has a house already?
So is that is that like concept of money then like inherently
linked to inequality also in a sense or maybe not just
inequality but like yeah this person has that and then I'm
better or worse or I don't I'm not sure I know how to answer
that because you know it's it's it's like on one hand everybody
it's like I always believe in in equal opportunity but not equal
outcome. Right.
So anyone that really does want to make more money quote UN
quote can make more money But yes what are you could be
sacrificing other things that are more important.
It's with Bitcoin. It's like it it becomes more
than the money because it's it's it's the money, but it's also
the ownership. It's the IT.
It compresses all of your value, monetary or not, in the past, to
take forward into the future, which can't be said about
anything else. Yeah.
So when you believe in what you said, you know, equality of
opportunity, not outcome, do you think then capitalism is the
most ethical economic system? Well, that's a very loaded
question, I mean. I know.
You know, on one hand I'm totally capitalist.
Let me look, I went to Business School.
I've thought, you know, I've, I've run businesses, I've sold
businesses, I build businesses. I love business, but I also love
to work hard and I and I know how to make money, but but for
the people that don't. But so for that, in a sense
that's my vocation. It's for the people that aren't.
It's like for the podiatrist or the painter or the Baker, you
know, or the plumber. It's like for the people that
they have their trade called a trade because you're supposed to
be able to trade your excess contribution for someone else's,
you know, that's why it's called a trade.
So it's like those people shouldn't have to become a
broker and become an accountant and become an economist to do
these other things. So in that sense, I mean, is
capitalism bad? I don't know that it's bad.
But I didn't say bad they don't like.
Is is this the most ethical? Like, yeah, because I don't.
What I think like the the equality of opportunity.
That I agree with. I do think that capitalism, in
the most simplistic way I could explain it, is even when you're
a Carpenter or a painter or whatever, right?
Like if or if we bake breads or cakes.
And my cakes are better than yours, so people like mine.
Sure, I'm better at baking cakes than.
Maybe you should not be baking cakes.
No. In that part I believe in, I
believe it. And that comes with Bitcoin too.
Like, in a sense, Bitcoin is very capitalistic in that
everyone's going to get it at the price they deserve, right?
Like, how much work are you willing to do to learn about it,
to secure as much as possible at the right time?
Or are you going to wait until the BlackRock ETF comes in and
the other 17 trillion of assets under management and now you're
going to buy it at 250,000? And by the way, that's OK.
You can buy it at 250,000 and write it up to 5 million, but
also if you do the work you might understand it and get in a
little bit earlier. Yeah.
So do you see Bitcoin as just a technology as you mentioned or
also like a philosophy in that sense also tied to what you what
you just said? I mean, I see it quite literally
as a technology, as as code. But I see it becomes
philosophical because it's code, because we have never known
anything in our life ever to have anything that wasn't
controlled by someone or by some state that there wasn't some
leader somewhere. We've never, ever had that ever.
And that we can own. Meaning, you know, you can't
ever. You can't own anything if you
can't defend it. Which is why my argument is that
we've never owned anything before Bitcoin, because you
can't defend anything else. It's like even like my house
right here, which I own, and I pay the mortgage and I pay all
this, you know? But why am I paying property
taxes? I'm not selling it, but I'm
paying all this money and property like, so they can take
it. They can put a lien on it.
I can be. If you don't pay it, yeah.
So they said this is a thing and you need to pay it.
If you don't, we can take it. That's right.
And they can take it anyways. You know, with eminent domain,
you know, if the airport decides to expand or the beach expands
and they can knock, you know where I used to live before here
I was literally on the 0 yard line of the LAX airport, like
all of the homes had been knocked down up to my street.
I walk out my front door, I look straight at the airport.
That was it. And my was the next street to
go. And I saw the writing on the
wall, so I got out of there. Now it's still there, but it's
like they can just take it and they'll take it at the price
that they set. And that's law.
They're allowed to do that. And that's right here in
America, right in Los Angeles. And so, so I see both sorry as
a. Yeah, yeah.
No, Some philosophical and so, but when does it really turn
philosophical? Because I think.
What what I like also about this example and and I hear a lot of
people say that but there's also people who have a rebuttal and
that say like yeah but a house is really an ownership and a
government couldn't really do that but it's not necessarily
about if they could or or like if they if they would.
But the fact that they could is more the argument also here.
So the fact that you think that you spend your money on a house
or you have an agreement with a bank and a mortgage et cetera,
that that, that. Because you signed the paper
somewhere that it's actually yours, because I don't know what
the English word is, but like you know at the municipality
there's a number, lots bloody blah.
Yeah, you know so and so, you know so and so is the property
of Terence Michael. But that doesn't exclude the
possibility of a local ruler or federal ruler in your in your
case. To decide whether or not that
house should still exist, right? Just because that opportunity is
there. That's where the argument comes
from, right? Of owning a house is not really
property, etc. And that's right.
And I think a lot of people don't.
Want to understand that, right. They think, oh, that would never
happen. But I think the philosophical
part here is or also the psychological part is that,
yeah, just because you wouldn't do that doesn't mean that it's
possible. And that's like the core of this
argument here, right? That well you.
Are not a sovereign person in that sense exactly.
And and. And that's why it's
philosophical. Because people get stuck in
their little communities with their their own rules and
regulations and forget how the rest of the world live, how the
global S is. And it's like so many places in
the world, you know, the majority of the world, 80% of
the world, they they aren't unbanked.
They are disenfranchised, They are censored their their money,
their activity is surveilled. They can't cross borders with
wealth. It'll be stolen from them.
Women can't, you know, be educated there.
There's so many broken things because of broken money that
Bitcoin solves. Because it's like, how else do
you have a money that is free from all these people that could
literally just be, you know, 12 words in your head?
And so the philosophy is, wow, for the first time I can store
all of my wealth, everything that I've done.
So I've, you know, I've painted a house today and I was paid
$500 to paint that house. Well, I only need $300.00, my
burn versus my. So my urn is 500 for the day.
My burn is 300. That 300 represents, you know,
proportionately the food I need to eat that day, the lights, the
electricity, my gas, whatever. But there's 200 extra, So that
200 extra I I need to store somewhere, right?
And so everyone's like I'll just throw in a savings account,
whatever. But philosophically, what if you
that? What if that just stays with you
you you know the value you provided, What if you could
just? Handle You actually keep it, you
actually keep it, and as long as you need to keep it.
And then you spend that for the 20 sandwiches that you need
later when you need it. But you always know that's worth
20 sandwiches. Without that, without the
ability to store that the next day I'm not gonna paint is
efficiently or as fast. I did for that 500 because I
don't. My burn is only 300.
So I'm gonna paint just slower. I'm gonna only paint half the
side of the barn and get my 300 bucks.
Why? Why save it?
Because that's gonna dissipate. That 200 extra contribution is
going to be, you know, 100. Yeah, it's actually a perverse
incentive, right. Like, it's exactly it's it's a
burden almost and when you can actually save it through time
and space and. I really love this fault.
Like if you know that you can actually do that, maybe you
would still get paid 500, but you would even do a way better
job because you value the job that you do whatever your job is
way more because you understand that that what you put in and
that what you get, well that what you get rewarded for, what
you put in, you can actually own.
Forever basically. That's right.
So I think that's that's a good incentive in that sense, right,
Because then everything will be better, hopefully more quality.
Well, yeah. And then you, you are
incentivized to create rather than consume and early consume
needlessly to, you know, save rather than spend, you know, to
plan rather than gamble. Like inflationary money causes
you to gamble and spend and consume because it's not going
to be worth anything. You have to get rid of it.
Yeah. And so is this also what you
think could contribute then to or what Bitcoin can contribute
to, like personal and financial freedom?
Is that this example, that that's it?
Like, in the most simplistic terms, you know, because there's
so much that can be said about Bitcoin and the most simplistic
terms, it stores wealth with finite, contained energy.
There's no leakage. There's no loss.
It's it's a battery that doesn't drain.
And even though everyone can intellectually say, Oh yeah, I
get that, that's cool. It's like, ah, but think about
what all that does. You don't realize all the
decisions that you are making every day.
Yeah, against that. Like, you know.
Yeah, the tech is only a little part actually.
I mean, how many people have said, oh, I don't want to have
kids yet cuz I don't make enough money yet or you know, let's not
get married yet. I don't have money or let's I
can't do this because that. And it's like, that's why you're
constantly chasing more money. It's like if you add up all of
the energy that you spent and all the things that you did,
think about if there was an inflation, what your net worth
would be today versus how hard you worked and all the stuff you
bought. Like if you were to write it
down on paper, it's it's pretty shocking and it's kind of scary.
How much value of that? Right.
So so you spend it on. Whatever bullshit stuff.
Or just another sneaker or whatever.
But that also took away some value of what you could have
had, right? Right.
So perhaps after 10 years, let's say take a time frame of 10
years, you could have started a family.
That's where bought a house or whatever, right?
So it also actually by like spending it now, you're also
diluting yourself in the future? That's right.
Because you don't have the vehicle to actually well until
it's quite obviously. But yeah, you didn't have the
vehicle to to actually, yeah, get there even there was number
incentive. Yeah.
No, I mean how many times have you or so many people, you know
just, you know, you jump on Amazon you buy something for
twenty, 30-40 bucks. Yeah.
This is kind of this weird cheap China.
It's not right. And you just toss it because
it's almost not even worth returning.
Or you kind of use it and you just constantly are doing that.
It's because that twenty 30-40 bucks just doesn't mean what it
used to. But now.
But also because we don't understand, right?
Like I I have 20 pairs of shoes, so I totally care what you're
saying. No, but it's also because you
just you don't. You don't understand.
Well, before I didn't understand.
Now I try to live way more frugal in that sense, but.
Yeah, because you don't. You don't.
You just don't understand. Well, that's denominating in
your Fiat, in your political currency.
If you redenominate in Bitcoin, you're gonna stop buying so many
sneakers. You know, because that pair of
sneakers that you paid 250 bucks for is suddenly going to be
worth 1000 bucks. Yes, and to my.
Story is I bought headphones, not these, because the
headphones I bought are broken before, but I bought headphones
with Bitcoin. And those turned out to be $7000
and they're already broken. I don't even ask them anymore.
Yeah. Well, I mean, there's so many
stories of those people that have bought a house that's now
worth $240 million. You know, it's just like because
they got into Bitcoin when it was, you know, 7 bucks.
Yeah. But you've been in for 10 years,
did you say? Yeah, but up and down, up and
down. So I thought, that's impressive,
I. That I'm still here, maybe?
Well, yeah, for sure. But wow, I yeah, I don't know if
I've met anyone that's been in that long yet.
Well, I bought for 300 dish, but I sold that 4000 so I felt
great. And then you sold to me, You
sold to me because that's. Probably fine, yeah.
And then later later, well I then I got back in of course and
like, but I, but I, yeah, over the past 10 years I did like
really experience all the down markets as well.
So that's also why I'm, I'm still really excited to see it
go up. Like, I think my heart is ice
cold. Because I went so much down, but
it's also pretty cold when we go up, right?
Like, I don't. For me it's now almost like a
game. And I said this in other
podcasts as well. Like, I once read a tweet of a I
don't know who, but of a guy who said like if you even remotely
think Bitcoin is going to be a thing, do you want to see it in
the stadium when it happens or not?
And then I thought, yes, that's that's what I want.
Because I I see it like I know I put in the work in 10 years.
Yeah. Thousands of hours.
I don't know. The 1520 thousand hours.
I don't know. Yeah.
I I just think, yeah, this is it, right?
Like like so many of us. And now when it happens, I want
to, I want to have that seat in the stadium, you know, that's
why I'm here. And that's also why I'm trying
to do this and starting this and and then we'll see.
And for me? After this time, like the number
for me is just 100,000. Like it when it hits 100,000, I
know it'll be a million and I know it'll be 10 million and I
know it'll be everything because the thesis is still, it's
everything or nothing. And for me the 100,000 is my
indicator of of that. It will actually, yeah, suck up
all the value that that is there because like as you said as well
like once you understand like what?
Are you going to sell your stuff for or Why would you buy
something else than Bitcoin, right.
Once you truly understand then, and that's why what they mean
with you know, it's sucking up all the value is people who have
gold or diamonds who are not, you know, that are diluting
because of the fake diamonds you know, So gold, diamonds, houses,
all these other things are eventually inferior to Bitcoin.
And once that's right enough. You know, and that's what why we
talk about adoption. Once enough people actually
understand that people will save in Bitcoin like that.
That is just and then there's the secondary effect, you know,
of helping the planet because all this extra junk that we're
buying, it's being made and you know, going into storage and
being thrown up in the landfills and deteriorating and becoming
methane and you know it's. Zero value.
It has no added value in the world.
I think so. But yeah, it also.
I love, I love that. I hope, I hope that people
understand that. Like what you said, like people
are buying stupid shit you think you need to stuff or that you
like in some way. You know subconsciously you are
driven to spend your money, which absolutely makes no sense.
You know there. Well, sometimes it makes sense
when you when you need a house or thing, but like, right?
For anyone listening, look around, look at the stupid stuff
you have and think about why you bought that, right?
Like why the government wants they don't want you to say they
don't want you to invest. They say they want you to, but
they don't. And it's partially why Cbdc's
are so scary, because when Cbdc's come out, they're gonna
make you spend those things are going to expire and that's
that's something that most people are not familiar with is
expirable. That will make you anxious even
more, right? All right, let's end on a higher
note, OK. I ask this to everyone, yes, at
the end this last question, what's a core belief you will
never let go that the the issue with all of the ills and
everything broken in society and in money and anywhere is human
action. And as sad as that is, it's like
once you remove remove humans, you can have a pure trustless
form of whatever it is, you know?
In this case, we're comparing it to Bitcoin and money, but who
would have thought that this whole time that that was the
solution to money was simply to remove people?
Yeah, Wilder, I love that. That's why, yeah, yeah.
And and we cannot trust ourselves is actually what
you're saying. That's right, which is why it
was always planned. Satoshi was always going to
vanish. He was always going to disappear
because he knew he had to. You cannot have a face.
Yeah, yeah, That's actually amazing.
It's amazing he stepped away. Like what a person I.
Yeah, I think, I think it's Hellfinny.
So I think he's, you know, he's probably dead.
But if he's still alive, I it's it must be amazing to see like
what an enlightened person that that has to be right?
Like if you want if if he would be he or she or her day would be
alive. And they watch it from a
distance and they and they see what they did.
That must feel incredible. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
But I agree. I don't think they're they're
with us anymore. Which is good.
Which is a good thing. Yeah.
Well, thanks so much for this conversation.
I really enjoyed. It Yeah.
Where can people follow you? Find your book.
I will obviously link. To it.
Proof of money on Twitter I'm I'm there every day and from
there they can find my book. It's in every format.
Hardback paper, audio ebook, and you can listen to it for free
right on the on the Kindle. Yeah, if you anyone that has an
audible account, it's, they're audible there.
Yeah, 21 chapters, 20 minutes each.
So awesome. Yeah.
Thanks again and let's stay in touch.
OK. Thanks Bram.
Come at. Cheers.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, it would be amazing
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Thanks for listening. Bye, I'm a.