Hey there, this is from Konstein 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, my fellow millennials,
should understand and adopt. In this episode, I'm joined by
Mitchell Askew. He's the head analyst at
Blockware Solutions, an industry leader in Bitcoin mining
services, which includes a marketplace to buy or sell your
own hosted Bitcoin mining rigs. He's also the host of their
podcast called Blockware Intelligence.
Welcome man. How is it to be on the other
side? Yeah, thanks for having me.
I'm excited. You know, I'm definitely used to
preparing for the interview by like.
Gather questions and researching the guests.
So it's nice to just come on here and I can just let it rip.
Nice man. Yeah.
Well, I researched you. We just talked off Mike that I
absolutely love that you're living the like young person's
meme in real life. I saw your living room.
It's your desk your your monitor and a chair and and you said the
main reason is that you can just stack more sets.
So I think you're doing. More it's there's a high
opportunity cost for me and the way it's it's.
Funny, right? Like I have a mattress that sits
on the floor and I have a desk for doing work and that's pretty
much the only furniture because I want to stack Bitcoin.
But also part of the reason is because I'm really focused right
now. We've got the having coming up,
you know there's going to be a massive bull market.
I'm in like go mode right now. I'm trying to prepare as much
content and work as much as I can before that comes.
And so like if I. It may sound silly, but like,
I'm not going to buy ATV and a couch because I just frankly
don't have time to relax. Like, there's no time to relax
right now because this bear market's not going to last
forever. So we need to be prepared.
Yeah, I know this feeling. We'll talk about this later, but
I saw you start your Bitcoin journey in like 20, 2020.
Like I've been in Bitcoin up, up and down, I have to say for 10
for 10 years. But like this, this like time
frame before the halving and especially now when you see you
know, people are paying attention again.
I'm getting messages again from my friends like hey, where where
do I buy Bitcoin? You know, like this is that time
again. I actually, orange built my
girlfriend so she has some Bitcoin, which I'm super proud
of of course. But this is like her first real
like halving you know time frame same for you, right.
And like every, every time like or like today the price went
down a bit like like low 45. Now it's like mid 37 you know.
And she's like oh I was down this morning but now I'm up
again, you know. And then like like this whole
feeling of suspense. I almost want to say, you know,
like it's just so much fun. Like I and and you as well, you
know, you know what you have and I know what I have and I know
what this gonna be and it's just really fun.
So I love that you're like tuned in and ready for it because
yeah, it's just it's just fun. Like, it's great.
Like if you know what you have then you know you will really
enjoy this time period. Yeah.
We wouldn't have made it this far if we Yeah, we wouldn't have
made it this far if we didn't understand what it is we're
holding. I would have capitulated long
ago. But thankfully, you know, we've
put in the work, so we're still here, still here.
That's great, man. I love that.
You're so young and you see it and you're into it.
And yeah, that's great, man. Like I, one of the things I want
to ask you so. So obviously, you're not a
millennial, you're a bit younger, you're part of Gen.
Z. Like what is What's your
experience helping your generation?
Understand Bitcoin, right. So I'm I'm Gen.
ZI was born in 2023 years old. And to be honest and this may
surprise people but I've noticed like not a lot of my peers are
into it, despite the fact that we're the first real digital
generation. Social media really became
popular when I was in middle school, early high school.
We've grown up using computers our whole lives and Despite
that. This idea of like digitally
native money just hasn't seemed to click with a lot of my peers,
and I think mostly it's because everyone is very, very high time
preference. I know it's super cliche to talk
about that in Bitcoin like everyone mentions it, but it's
true. A lot of people my age, they're
not focused on saving and planning for the long term, Even
really some of them aren't even focused on having like a career.
It's a lot of just what can I do this weekend to have a good
time? There's there's a lot of that
attitude out there and that type of person doesn't see the need
for Bitcoin, right? Especially someone who's living
paycheck to paycheck. You know, inflation is high,
right? You would think that would be an
indicator. I need to find a way to to
combat that. But people are really more so
just sort of struggling financially and they don't have
any savings, right? And if you don't have any
savings to begin with, then saving it Bitcoin doesn't make a
whole lot of sense. That's that's.
There's not really a need for that, right?
I think the wealthier you are, the the more you need Bitcoin to
an extent, which may sound counterintuitive, but when you
don't have any savings, there's nothing to protect.
So I think you know in in my experience working in Bitcoin
too, a lot of the people are are your age more so Millennial and
then even a little older Gen. X so.
Have a hard time communicating it to my peers.
My close friends get it because they they're actually around me
enough to to start, to learn and to absorb.
But it takes a lot of time to understand Bitcoin, as you know,
and a lot of people my age have really short attention spans.
That's why I tick tock so popular YouTube shorts, etc.
So you're not going to learn Bitcoin from a 15 second tick
tock. And people, a lot of people my
age aren't willing to, to dedicate the time necessary to
really understand what Bitcoin is.
Yeah, So what? What?
I I I find it fascinating. Just like you say, like you
don't know anything else than the Internet, right?
Then exchanging value on the Internet, paying for stuff or
having like items in games and stuff like that.
But is that and I also want to get into that later because
you're also really like into this this kind of like
philosophy philosophy. How do you say like philosophy
approach to Bitcoin right. Why why why do Gen.
Z years have this like short time preference You think like
is that all external, right? Like you say, it's it's it's how
they consume content and stuff. Or is it?
Also I don't know like educational progress or like
how, how, how do you view that? It's an interesting question.
I think certainly the way we consume content is, is a big
part of it. We're not watching like longs,
like 3 hour movies with high like a lot of deep themes,
right? It's more like oh, the new
Marvel movie that's an hour and a half and it's just like action
and like flashes. So there's that element to it,
and then. Perhaps, like the educational
system could play a big role in that, right?
Just you're stuck in school for 8 hours a day, you have to ask
permission to use the bathroom, You're just sitting there and
you do this for basically your entire formative years.
I think that that definitely, and I mean a lot of what they do
is they put these kids on Adderall because they're not
enjoying that environment, obviously, and they think it's
something wrong with the child when really it's it's the
environment that you're putting them in.
But you know, when I think of when I say it out loud, like the
school system's been that way for decades.
So maybe that's not necessarily a unique problem with with
Generation Z. But I think, yeah, it's got to
be the the rise of the Internet, right?
Because even your your generation, you didn't have
TikTok when you're in high school, right?
You actually had time for your brain to develop without these
these. Apps and these algorithms that
are designed to capture your attention.
Attention is like oil in this economy, right?
It's it's a valuable commodity. If you can get someone using
your app and keep them on there, you can make a lot of money.
So they designed these things like a casino like TikTok if
you. I don't have TikTok, but I know
if you go on on TikTok and you start scrolling like each video
is specifically designed to try and keep you on the app.
I know personally, from going on YouTube, if I click on the home
page, there's gonna be a thumbnail on the title.
That is appealing to me. These algorithms have it down
pat to keep you there, and it takes a certain level of
discipline to break free from. I hesitate to call it like the
chains of the Internet, but there's a certain amount of
that. And obviously it has its pros,
right? Because you and I can
communicate and we can dive deep on Bitcoin.
You can go on the Internet and learn all sorts of different
topics. I've got a buddy who who
remodels houses for a living. He never went to school.
He never had anybody show him how to do it.
He's learned everything from YouTube.
So there's an infinite amount of pros.
But it comes with these cons of. An infinite amount of dopamine
readily available at your fingertips.
And it takes a certain type of person to be able to resist just
falling into like, the web of of nothing content.
Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to say.
Like, you can obviously also use it for your education, right?
Because I think compared to my youth where first there wasn't
Internet and then there was right like when I was I'd say
like 11-12 ish we had like the dial up Internet at home and I
was always like trying to find like new things to learn about
like in in general I like to do that but that took that took a
long time before it developed obviously right.
But for your generation like you can learn anything.
Like I, I I think, I think I'm one of the people that thinks
like college or university is only there's only the social
part there almost right. And what you can learn is
already free on the Internet and and in some ways way better than
a politically colored university.
You know, whatever, whatever side.
So it has to be more than where people consume content, right.
Like what you say, it's it's it's kind of your personality.
Like are you curious or are you just OK with how life is or
something or maybe you lack like the perspective to think bigger
or outside of, I don't know, the the construct or something like
what do you think about that? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely, I
think the way the education system designed in AS it is,
it's like. To breed employee type of people
versus more like entrepreneurial outside of the box thinking.
And you talked, you mentioned universities and I agree a lot
of it is the social aspect and it used to be like the
credentials of it, right? If you have a college degree
that actually meant something. You went there, you learned how
to critically think, you're qualified to do some sort of job
and you have some skill set. But it's not like that I
graduated. In 2022, and I can, I've
witnessed first hand a lot of these kids, they a lot of the
classes to begin with are pointless.
And then nobody's paying attention.
Everybody's just partying. And there's not really all
critical. Exactly.
Yeah, kids are just showing up, you know, to their 9:00 AM
lecture, hungover with the jewel pod and like just in sweatpants.
Like not. They don't.
Care at all. A lot of the professors don't
really care. And then the material that's
being taught is from a textbook that's like 2 decades old,
irrelevant to the modern world. And so you get, you know, the
last decade every basically like half the population has gone to
college. So now the degree is just so
watered down, even when you graduate, it doesn't really
guarantee you anything. Not that it should either,
right? Because you're not.
Most of these people aren't doing anything productive.
Definitely not critically thinking, right.
So I think I don't know how we make the world more curious.
I I think maybe it's just something you're born with.
Like certain types of people are curious and and willing to think
outside the box and others aren't.
I'm trying to think if there's like any way that we could
change that from a macro level, right.
I guess it really comes down to the individual.
Yeah, I think it comes down to the individual, but only after
you get taught something or shown something, right?
Like, I have a young, young child myself.
Like, I am his truth, right? Like, he asks me questions like,
how does this work or how does that work?
Or when they explain something in school and he thinks it's
different than he asks me and we have a discussion about it,
Right. So I think in general, most kids
are at least like that, right? And of course, like he's also on
an iPad sometimes, which, well, I'm still the big thing.
But eventually it's also about what is shown to you, I would
say as like this is the world or something, or these are all the
things that you can learn. Or there's all these different
types of people that think, all these different types of things,
you know, and, you know, this person could say this thing and
that person could say that thing.
And that can both be interesting, right?
It's not a battle and stuff like that.
So I think, yes, it's personal, but also at a younger age,
probably what has just been shown to you, but perhaps that
goes back and and then, you know, we are obviously also
talking about America in a certain type of education or how
that's how that's created. Yeah.
I think this is also like a rabbit hole, right?
Like, yeah, really, really, really deep down in this.
But I, I, I, I'd like to understand like, so where where
does your interest come from? Like you, your journey started
around 2020. Yes Sir.
What was like your turning point or or aha moment in in that
journey that influenced your perspective on this?
Yeah, definitely. I'll say that was a good point
because young children are very curious.
So it has to be something about the environment because every
child I've ever met is just like always asking questions about
everything, you know, wanting to know how it works.
So I guess at some point in adolescence, a lot of that goes
away from many people my Bitcoin journey.
Yeah. Like you mentioned, it began in
2020 and I spent a lot of the summer of 2020 after I they sent
us home from university for the lockdowns and everything.
I spent a lot of that summer listening to Thomas Sowell and
like other classical economics guys, I didn't discover the
Austrian economics yet. But after months, what did you
study? So it was Thomas Sowell.
He's this. African American conservative
economist. And I listened to like hours of
his podcasts basically talking about free markets and why
they're superior to central planning and a lot of the
problems with like racial tension in America and how it
sort of dissolved and how the family structure is actually
really one of the most important foundational pieces to to an
economy. And after months of listening to
him, I had this sort of foundational, you know, I
understood free markets are the way to go.
And then I realized what they did in March 2020.
At the time, I wasn't paying attention, right?
But slowly the Bitcoin price started to trickle up.
It caught my attention. And then I did a little bit of
research and I saw exactly what they did.
I'm like, OK, so they just printed a bunch of money.
This thing that is scarce and cannot be printed is probably
going to appreciate in price. And we're probably going to get
price inflation on goods and services, which is exactly what
happened in in 2021 and 2022. So it was really that you know
the massive money printing that caught my eye coupled with
bitcoins number going up and then sort of the icing on the
cake for me and this may sound like crazy or radical.
Whatever was the 2020 election, I was completely convinced that
it was rigged and. I just lost all trust in
institutions at that point. Maybe it was rigged, maybe it
wasn't. I don't know.
And at this point I don't really care.
Since going down to pick one rabbit hole, I've really
separated, like from politics. I just don't pay attention nor
nor do I like give one out. Who's in the in the Oval Office.
I don't think it matters. I think the central bankers are
the real problem. But that that sort of concoction
of money printing, studying free market economics and then losing
trust in institutions. It's a perfect storm for wanting
to to figure out what Bitcoin is and then kind of falling in love
with it and falling down the rabbit hole.
Nice, man. Well, when I was your age, I
wasn't thinking about that. So I I do think, well from my
perspective right then, like, I'm not an old man yet, but I
think I'm older and I do. I do see that like in the
younger generation, like sometimes like I've been on
TikTok or like first time I opened Snapchat, I didn't even
understand like the UI, right. It's purposefully made for
younger people, right to understand.
But what I like is that, well, what I like, I don't know if
it's good, but I think like we just talked about like the Gen.
C that are kind of like chewed out.
They don't know what to do. You know, they're on their jewel
and all day and looking at TikTok.
But then the other side is, it's kind of like people like you,
right, who do follow this kind of like philosophical path.
They study different stuff. They have an open like growth
mindset and just trying to figure out like what is going on
here and what do I think of it. And so I see this kind of like
dichotomy, but there there seems to be not a lot in the middle.
I don't want to go back to the part where we talked about Gen.
Z, but I find it like it triggers me when I hear like you
and I think about me at my age or a bit younger.
But like, I do see that different difference in your
generation, where there are also quite a few like young Gen.
Z Ers who are pretty grown up in a sense already.
I appreciate it. Yeah.
I see that dichotomy, too. When I look at health in
America, you've got the most obese people in the world on one
side, and then you have other people who are, like, die hard
into fitness like that is their life.
So yeah, there's like a lot of different dichotomies in the
West. It's almost like, I don't know,
what's the wedge? Maybe we could say it's Fiat
money, but something is driving society in two different
directions, even if you look at at it on a geographical basis.
You've got your big cities and a certain type of people live
there. And then you go an hour outside
of these big cities into rural America, and that's just a
completely different world. And so same with these, the
curiosity of of Gen. Z.
Like, you've got guys like me, and then you have like, other
people that just don't pay attention to anything bigger
than themselves. Yeah, And so when you found
Bitcoin, you're still down the rabbit hole.
You got a job at a Bitcoin company.
Like how? How has it changed your approach
to building wealth or investing the money that you earn with
your job? Like, how did you have ideas
about that before? Or did you really create those
ideas starting with Bitcoin? Yeah, I definitely created them,
starting with Bitcoin. I had like a Roth IRA and I had
like tinkered around buying some stocks, but I had no idea what I
was doing. And I was just like, it wasn't
like a lot of money in there at all to begin with.
And I really didn't start saving anything or planning for the
future financially at all until I discovered Bitcoin.
I would just spend the money that I made and I wasn't
worried. I also had this like.
False delusion I think a lot of people have when they're in
college is like, oh, I'm guaranteed like a high paying
job right out of college, so I'll worry about money then.
Not exactly the case, and so I spent basically my last.
We see the videos. Yeah, right.
Exactly. Like, I got $180,000 marketing
degree and I'm rolling sushi because I cannot.
Yeah, you know I can only find like a social media intern job
or something like that. Yeah, I know exactly which video
you're talking about. There's a lot of people like
that. I've.
I was actually talking about this buddy of mine yesterday,
like all these people from my high school that, you know, they
went to these nice universities and they were, you know,
valedictorian in high school and now they're just like 3-4 years
out of college. Still haven't found a job
surprising how many people are like that.
But anyway, so I spent my entire last year of college like trying
to develop a skill set that I could market to Bitcoin
companies and low key like Ship posting on Twitter is pretty
much how I got my start. But slowly I've been able to
develop more more marketable skill sets Just working at Block
where it's uh we're so we're Bitcoin mining startup and
anybody who's worked at a startup knows you have to wear a
bunch of different hats. So I feel like I've been able to
learn on hyper speed. I've been working with Block
where for almost 2 years now. But it feels like I have 6-7
years of experience and I've been able to learn from a lot of
really smart guys like Will Clemente used to work at our
company and Joe Burnett who's now at Unchained.
Getting to work closely with those guys taught me a lot about
Bitcoin and like on chain analytics, Bitcoin mining and
just how the entire industry works.
Coupled that with getting to listen to all these Bitcoin
podcasts like the guys like Preston Pish, and just learning
how the macro works. I've learned so much since I
graduated college just working at Bitcoin and consuming Bitcoin
content. Like I probably learned more in
the last year and a half than I did in like the four years
prior. Very cool, yeah.
And so you are someone who started saving with Bitcoin.
This is how you learned about it or created like your own
approach if. Well, there's a lot of
millennials listening. I can actually now see all the
stats and stuff. And so I see I'm actually
reaching millennials, so that. So that's great.
But like the millennials that are listening and also also
younger and perhaps also older, like how how do you view Bitcoin
as a long term like investment or saving vehicle and how do you
tie that to like it's finite nature?
Like what is your view on that? Like, how do you see that?
Yeah, to me, Bitcoin is the only safe long term investment
because you can buy a stock and there's an infinite number of
things that can go wrong with that company between now and
when we're ready to retire. In a few decades, you could buy
real estate and that jurisdiction can just go
completely crazy, pass insane taxes, pass insane laws, not be
tough on crime, and just turn into an absolute hellhole.
Case in point, it's like San Francisco or Los Angeles or
Brooklyn, all these places that are just rampant with crime.
Gold has been manipulated for centuries, Millennia, with just
paper gold. All this crap out there in the
gold market, you don't want government bonds or any sort of
Fiat derivative because that's not going to keep up with the
debasement of the currency. So literally the only thing
you're left with is Bitcoin, because we know with Bitcoin
there's no counterparty risk. There's nobody who can come in
and screw things up. It's going to be a block every
10 minutes and it's going to be, you know, 6.25 Bitcoin per
block. Now that's going to drop in five
months, four years after that, that's going to drop again,
right? There's only a few like handful
of things in life that we know for certainty will happen.
We know every day the sun's going to come up and then the
sun's going to set. We know that humans are probably
going to corrupt institutions, right?
Anytime a group of humans get together, something inevitably
gets corrupted there. We know that the sky is blue and
we know that Bitcoin will never have more than 21 million.
So. And we also know that in Fiat
currency, the supply of that has to mathematically increase in
order to service the debt. So every other asset just has
these clouds of uncertainty around it that aren't there with
Bitcoin. And if you're planning for the
long term, you need something like Bitcoin that is just immune
to all this. The just constant changes in the
world. Something that's rock solid that
can't be messed with. Yeah, I.
I see it exactly the same that that's not a surprise, I think.
But what I find so interesting is that in your short answer, I
think you explained it perfectly actually, and that it's not even
about, you know, I think you don't even have to mention
Bitcoin, right? Like if you say this is how it
is right now, these are all like the options that you could use
to save your money. You know your your energy, your
value into the future through space and time.
This is how they are corrupted or could be changed or like
these are all the external factors that can influence your
personal risk decision after you actually took the decision,
right? It's all outside of yours, you
know circle of influence. What if there's a thing that
just is that will always be there that just works.
Even if there's two, well, satellites, we now have
satellites running the the network, right?
So it will always be there unless someone.
Sends a rocket and shoots it out of space.
So it's just the protocol, it's just the thing.
It's just there. We know how it works, everyone
can use it. If you want to use it, you just
follow the rules. If you don't follow the rules,
you cannot use it. It's way more transparent.
It's auditable 24/7, 365 like. Does that sound better than your
current? Options, you know?
If yes, then the answer you know.
And then you say that's that's Bitcoin, right?
And I find it so fascinating that when you put these two
things together like in in just, I think, I also think Bitcoin is
not about intelligence and stuff like that, but it's like a
rationale thing, right? Like, is it, do you want this or
do you want the other thing? And if you say, I want, I want
the current thing, then you know, fine.
I don't think you can like pull those people into Bitcoin,
right? Like they have to.
Think it's not OK. And then they they look at like
other options, you know, or something else they could do.
But if there's people who think like OK, you know that that new
thing, that other thing, that alternative thing that is way
more transparent and open and etcetera, etcetera, that sounds
more interesting than in my mind that should be like a huge
trigger for people to start studying, right.
But also in my experience, there's a lot of people who say
like. Well, yeah, OK.
You know, the current thing is a nuisance or you know, whatever.
Like, I don't, I don't really feel the problem.
And when you were answering the question, I was thinking about
this, that this is my experience.
But I've, I have the exact same experiences with you described
with your generation in the sweatpants and the jewel like
it's just like it's like oblivious or something, right
They are or is it oblivious or ignorance?
I don't know. What's the right word like?
It's like it feels not real to them like like life does not
feel real to them or something right.
Like as if it's not happening to them.
When when you how do you say like describe like something
negative or something that you know in your example you know
well you should put in the time to learn things and then you
find what you enjoy and you know your life gets better.
Etcetera, etcetera. Like feels like life is.
They are not part of life or something.
I don't know. I'm rambling a bit, but I just,
I I find it fascinating because it is very simple.
It's like, do you want A or do you want B?
If you don't want A, you want B, right?
And then if you want B, you have to study.
Obviously there's not really a question in there, but I think
it's just fascinating how basic you can make it.
Yeah, I definitely agree. I think the type of people
you're describing, I think that may be where the term NPC
originated because they it does feel like they're simply not
part of life. And I guess as the Fiat system
just continues to get worse and worse because it's not getting
better, you'll see people just adopt Bitcoin because they don't
have a choice right now. We do have option A and option
B, right? Option A, Fiat slowly lose your
purchasing power overtime. Option B Bitcoin have to take a
little personal responsibility, endure some volatility, but in
the long run you preserve your time and energy, You preserve
your economic energy across time.
But as you and I both know, option A is changing from lose a
little bit of wealth overtime, to lose a moderate amount of
wealth over time, to inevitably lose a lot of wealth in a very
short amount of time. That's the end state of every
Fiat currency. So as option A just gets pushed
further and further on that spectrum, people are just
they're going to get left behind and the only thing standing will
be option B, which is Bitcoin. Couldn't make more sense, right?
Yeah, exactly. And So what are like the most
common? Like counter arguments you face
when when you advocate for Bitcoin with the people who are
open to to hearing what a lot of your time on is either like
doomsday scenario like what good does Bitcoin do me if everything
goes to chaos there's nuclear war.
So with that, I mean, I don't really have a great response it
immediately you're gonna want water, you're gonna want beef
and bullets and shelter. But the point I'll add to that
is eventually economies and societies recover, right?
We can, we've had massive wars, but eventually with the
government, like if their hands off the economy will start to
recover, some money will emerge from that.
It's going to be Bitcoin because that'll be the only thing left
standing. And then the other sort of
counter argument I get from people who are open minded
enough is just lack of technical knowledge, right.
They don't understand how it works and so therefore it sort
of shies them away. They they don't understand why
Bitcoin can't be changed, why the 21 million supply cap can't
be changed. They don't really understand the
concept of decentralization and the fact that there is nobody in
charge. But to that, I always say you go
and you swipe your credit card and you have no idea how that
works on the back end. I barely have any idea.
We're using this program to record our podcast.
No idea how it works. A lack of knowledge on a
technical side doesn't stop technologies from getting
adopted. We all drive cars.
Not all of us are mechanics or engineers.
We all fly on planes. None of us are pilots, none of
us are aerospace engineers. So that's what I always say to
that. And that usually gets a head
nod. And like a Haw, I never thought
about it like that. That's funny.
I actually had a conversation today where.
We talked about like even in a very positive message, people
can find the negative. Even in a negative message, they
can find a positive and a negative thing, right?
Like so. So you can say some negative
stuff and then still you can still, you know, split that even
into positive and negative again.
So maybe this is like one of those examples right?
Where it's like, yeah, well I. I I don't fully understand it.
So I I'll, I'll, I have to comment something right.
Or I have to right. You know go go against this this
crazy positive story that Mitch is telling me.
Yeah. And that's how I started in
Bitcoin and I'm sure you're probably the same way.
It's it is a lot of like this thing seems too good to be true.
Like I have to be missing something.
This has to be a scam in some sort of way.
I gotta figure out what that is and I think that's ultimately
what the Bitcoin rabbit hole is. It's like continually trying to
prove your initial hypothesis wrong and just never finding
evidence. 100%, I actually read the tweet today that was, quote,
tweeting like Michael Saylor. Michael Saylor said there are no
informed critiques to Bitcoin. That sounds so crazy, right?
It sounds outrageous, like, duh. Of course you would say that
when you are into something. I have not seen them either.
They are not there, right. Like if you're if you're an
intellectual, curious, open minded person, you will, you
will fall into this rabbit hole because there are so many
dimensions that any of these people can like touch and and
start with learning about Bitcoin that yeah, like I agree
with that. There are no informed critiques.
It's all very superficial. It's feeling, it's ignorance or
not knowing, but then still wanting to have like a
discussion, right? But I do experience that when I
say something like this, like I had a discussion with a guy I
know in real life on on Twitter and he he's like APHD somewhere.
Like he's very smart. I know he's very, very smart and
intellectual and he likes to learn new things and stuff like
that. And I tweeted something about
Bitcoin. He quote tweeted me like, oh,
why are all the bitcoiners always saying, like, oh, it's so
amazing, he thinks it's crap. And I just replied to him and I
couldn't even believe that I was saying it.
But I was saying like, dude, I know you.
You are very smart. You are intellectually curious.
I can honestly say you don't know enough to have this opinion
like you are wrong. So I I suggest to you like study
more because I know you can understand this like and even
now when I repeat it I think like it sounds so like audacious
right. Like it's a sign.
Sounds so kind of, like superior.
Like I I'm smarter than you, but it's totally not what I mean.
I know it sounds like that, but I I I mean it like really from I
think like even a loving way like dudes.
You can understand this. Too even, like, I think he's
smarter than me, right. So that is actually what I mean.
But there's there's almost no different way to say it, right?
Like I'm trying to trigger him also in a way.
Like, yeah. Why is why is Brum saying this
to me? Like, does he really, you know,
do you know what I mean? Like, I I, I yeah, you, you
responded to that in a friendlier way than I would
have. I would usually just say like
come back, come back when you can explain the difficulty
adjustment or something like that.
You're spot on dude. There are no informed critiques.
And there I will say this, there are past like quote UN quote
former bitcoiners, but only the only former bitcoiners that
exist is because they've had their incentives warped by
greed. Basically, right.
You've got like a Brian Armstrong, for example.
Like he understood Bitcoin, he got it, but he wanted to make
money selling shit coins. So that's what he peddles for
like a Gary Gensler who used to give these lectures on Bitcoin
to commodity. And now he's like, who knows?
Right. What he believes followed it,
actually. Yeah, Yeah.
So you don't really. Have way like it's their their
personal incentives changed right.
But it's not. That is not critique against
Bitcoin. Yeah, there was nothing that
there was no new piece of information that they discovered
that made them think bitcoins, not what you and I think it is.
It's just they found a different way to make money that involves
promoting false narratives. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. That's why where I do get like
kind of triggered when I see like these Greenpeace people
have like presentations where it's just like you were spending
like donated money to spread. Misinformation or it's
disinformation actually based on studies that have been debunked
like 10 times already. You know, like that is malicious
in a sense, right? Like they they are following a
certain agenda and they know they are wrong.
Like, I don't they're they are very stupid if they think
they're right, you know. So I think they're smart enough
to do this on purpose. Like that is what triggers me.
But I do think that. You know, even Michael Saylor,
you know, one of the largest holders of Bitcoin, like, he
tweeted, like, I don't, I don't know the exact tweet, but like
Bitcoin is nothing, It's going to die or whatever and like in
in 2014, fifteen ish or something.
And now he's one of the biggest holders, right.
So I think everyone starts at. Point similar to that, right?
You don't understand. You see all these people you
think like you are smarter than these people.
They are all idiots or cult believers or whatever, right?
And then something triggers you, right?
Like you hear, at least for me, like I hear people who I think I
heard, people who I think are very smart that I respect and
that at one point they talked about Bitcoin.
And that triggered me when I thought, like, OK, I respect
this person. I know they're smart.
I know they're you know, inquisitive and stuff like that.
And why why do they talk about this, right.
If if they talk about this, maybe I should look at it too,
right. And so I hope, I just hope that
I can be that for some people hopefully in a nice way.
I try like on Twitter but I think it's just a pity.
It's a it's a waste of yeah like intellect of these people that
they focus on the negative instead of spending time to.
Try to understand why other people are so adamant about
this, right? Yeah, I could not agree more.
That was certainly a tipping point for me.
I I heard people talking about Bitcoin, the people that really
seemed to get it. I admired their intelligence.
Like, wow, these these guys are really smart.
All these smart people are into this orange coin thing.
I should probably figure out what it is and try to catch up.
What's? Going on.
Yeah, so now you work at a Bitcoin company, right?
What's it like working with other bitcoiners at a Bitcoin
company? Dude, it's awesome.
I could not imagine doing anything else.
One of my favorite parts is whenever there's like a good day
for price action and the vibes and the company chats are just
Immaculate. But on like a more serious note,
I've been able to learn so much from these guys like our CEO
Mason Joppa. He founded this company in 2016
or 2017. Like he's been through the bull
and the bear cycles. He's seen it all.
Our Chief Investment Officer Sam, he used to trade on Forex
on Wall Street for like 4 years. The I'm working with a bunch of
really, really smart people and just trying to soak in as much
information as I can. And working specifically in
Bitcoin mining has really opened my eyes.
And I think mining is almost a separate you've got the orange
pill and then you have the mining pill and there's two
mining pills almost there's there's like mining is a
profitable way to earn more Bitcoin.
And then there's mining as it pertains to the energy grids.
And we can unpack each of these separately.
Let's let's start with the second one, right?
Bitcoin mining's impact on energy grids is something like
like nothing else. And I had no knowledge of
anything about energy grids before I worked in Bitcoin
mining, which is a shame because we're all I've got this light
plugged in, I've got that light on, I've got those Christmas
lights on, I've got my computer plugged in, we're all using
energy all the time, but nobody stops to think about what's
going on behind that. This energy, this that's coming
from my light, it's not being like produced on the spot
because I can call it or turn it off on demand, right?
So it has to already be. It's already being produced and
it's just being redirected, right?
So energy companies, they have this problem of they don't know
what demand is going to be. Demand's going to be the highest
in the hottest days of the year, around 5:00 or 6:00, when people
get home from work, they're running their air conditioning,
they're cooking, they're doing laundry, et cetera.
That's when demand is the highest, but throughout the rest
of the year, demand is less than that.
And if you're producing a bunch of energy and there aren't
people there to buy it immediately, you're wasting a
ton of energy. You're unprofitable.
But on the other side of that, when demand is the highest, you
want to be able to service that. You don't want to have rolling
blackouts on the hottest or coldest days of the year.
So this mismatch between supply and demand is a constant
question mark for energy companies.
But Bitcoin mining steps in and completely fixes that because it
consumes so much power that you can have a base load, but it
also has the flexibility to turn off, right.
All other large power consumers are hospitals or manufacturing
plants or like Amazon Web data centers.
These types of businesses cannot turn off, Definitely not
hospitals you don't want. Hospitals need power.
If anything in the world needs power the most, it's hospitals
like manufacturing plants. They can't halt production from
100% to 90% to 80%. It has to go to 100% to 0%.
And they're not going to want to do that.
Same with Amazon, like Web services or like a Google Cloud.
They don't want to turn off their servers and not be able to
provide a product, right? But Bitcoin miners, they can
unplug for a little while. It's it's no harm, no foul,
right? And they sign these power
purchase agreements where they're even contractually
obligated to turn off power when demand reaches a certain point.
But because ASICS all consume effectively the same amount of
power, they don't have to turn off 100% to 0%.
They can unplug exactly as much as needed to give back to Nerid
at any moment. But they also are there to buy
anything that gets over produced and isn't bought by retail
consumers. So this completely just distorts
in a good way the incentives for energy producers.
They can produce as much as they need to, and they know Bitcoin
miners will buy all of it, but also give back when the
community needs. Yeah.
Well, and you know this is a big use case I think in Texas,
right? I don't know about other states
yet, but for example here in like Western Europe like we have
this problem somewhat. There's not enough like capacity
on the on the network. So to to have like more
companies that have like roofs with solar or more like, you
know, wind parks and stuff like that.
But So what do you say I think is relevant?
How I also think about it is when you said, you know, let's
say you have like a solar park, right, You invested in or you
have like a wind turbine park, like you invested in the
hardware, right? The hardware is there.
You bought the ground or you lease it.
But like, there's all these costs and what you want is like
the full return on investment of that specific hardware, right?
Which means, for example, for a wind turbine.
Whenever the wind blows, you want the thing to turn, right?
Yeah. But sometimes you see wind
turbines that are are standing still and then people think
like, well, why? Why is it standing still?
And that's exactly also why you said, like when they turn, like,
you cannot save the energy, right.
Like I once read that if you put all the batteries in Europe
together, you can save 10 seconds of energy.
Right. So.
So we, we are not able to save the electric energy.
But when it's standing still, you're not optimizing your ROI,
right? Because.
There's no, well, maybe well cost some energy to turn it with
whatever, like there's no, there's no output for the
investment that you already made that's already done and in the
books, right. So what I don't understand
because from a business case perspective, if the thing can
turn whenever the wind blows and there is some demand like on the
grid from people, you direct all the energy to the people and if
there's no demand or low demand then you, you, you put it in the
minors, then you have a full return.
On the investment on the hardware plus the return in
Bitcoin, So it's like a above 100% ROI, right?
And for me that makes so much sense.
But I don't understand why it's not, why it's not happening.
You know, like the money is already spent, so why wouldn't
you do everything in your power to get the highest return
possible? That's just that makes no sense.
You you, you hit the nail on the head.
There's there's zero reason to not do that.
Because, I mean, if it's a really windy day, you're
probably way over producing what is needed.
So just mine Bitcoin. With the surplus like there,
there's no reason not to. I guess at this point it's a
lack of education, but that will change because the incentive is
just simply too powerful. Yeah, I I agree.
And especially with, you know all the countries that want to
be more green and and all those things, yeah, I love.
I love this environmental like mining angle maybe the most out
of all the dimensions that could help people to kind of be
triggered and investigate, right?
Like, I think that I don't have to tweet in front of me, but I
tweeted like, last week. Like, if you're a real
progressive, if you identify yourself as a progressive
person, who wants to like? Improve the climate.
You know and hates that the banks get cheap money and fun
shit that destroys the planet. If you are that type of person,
you have to study Bitcoin. Like if you are not studying
Bitcoin, you are not. You are really doing something
wrong, you know, like it's just it's it's just fake, you know
like just like this people that I saw at.
There was this video that went viral with Jerome Powell where
there were these protesters with the flags and they're screaming
like, oh, you, you do inflation or whatever.
They're screaming like stop doing that, go home study
Bitcoin and tell all your progressive friends, right?
Like go go for it. Yeah, I That's the narrative
that is for sure the most appealing to left winger
progressives, right? I don't think it takes a lot of
mental gymnastics to get conservative right wing people
to see Bitcoin right. If they're already sort of
hostile to government intervention in markets and in
and with high taxes, they could see Bitcoin a lot clearer.
But for the left wing progressive types, this is
absolutely the framework to go because it's the only thing that
makes solar and wind production profitable, right?
All of that up until this point has been reliant upon government
subsidies, which is not. That's not the way Bitcoin
mining fixes that. Bitcoin mining actually makes
these, these investments profitable and and like valid,
especially especially if they're already built and they're just
sitting there. Like you might as well use
Bitcoin mining. And that that video of Jerome
Powell was hilarious. It was it was nice to see him
actually have like a human moment for once saying close the
effing door. But this dude, this dude has
been a robot, just like toeing the line, carefully scripting
every syllable that he utters from his lips so as not to move
the markets too violently in One Direction or the other.
And to see him have a moment like that, it's like, it's
funny. Yeah, yeah, that's great.
And also to round that up, like about this you know progressives
and climate and and and a green energy tech like it's also
ironically. The fact that all these projects
start and they're already paid for and they are not turning is
the symptom of the the horrible Fiat currency, right.
Like it is the the the perfect example of all this money is
spent to appease all the voters that want to be green and
climate. But we are not fully using using
them, right, Like that's just, it's a perfect malinvestment
example. Yeah, Fiat.
Fuckery, yeah. Funny.
Yeah. Funny.
I I like by now I can just laugh about it.
Like I think it's just that's also I think what I laugh about
the Bitcoin ethos. And I thought I talked about
this before a lot. Like in Bitcoin it's you
understand you have to walk the talk.
You cannot just talk. If you just talk.
It's BS, right? Like you have to walk the talk
or just shut up. Like that sounds maybe a bit
radical for some people listening, but that is what you
see, because if you just talk. If you just put up your banner
and you scream at some stupid meeting of Jerome Powell, like
there's a trillion tik toks that people see after that video and
they already forget what you did.
So there's no, there's no impact.
The real impact is when you just understand what's really going
on and then you move out of the system.
That's. Facilitating that right?
That was really well said. Bitcoiners do walk the walk,
right? You can see it verifiably on
chain, for one. When we say huddle, we're
actually huddling a record. Percent of Bitcoin hasn't moved
in over a year. And then a lot of other people,
they complain about the world should be this way, politicians
should do, blah blah blah. They're going to protest and
nothing's getting changed. Bitcoiners are taking an
actionable step. When you store your wealth in
Bitcoin, you are voluntarily opting out of that system.
You are actually doing something, yeah, about in
creating the world that you want, yeah.
Yeah, and for the people who think, what does he mean by
that? Is that?
I talked two weeks ago, I talked to Jeff Booth and I asked about
the future and he said the future is now.
You can move now, right? You can move the wealth that you
have in a bank in an old system. You can move that to the new
system and then it's yours, verifiably yours.
There's no third party involved anymore, right?
You can do that today. And if you want to do that, and
you want to do that with a substantial amount, your bank
will call you and this should be a trigger for you.
To move on with it, right. That's the whole point.
The whole point is that they are closing the doors because they
don't want you to move that money because for each dollar or
euro you put in a bank, they can lend it out 10 times and put you
at risk, you know, like that. I don't know if I can say that
any simpler, but I think that's just how it works, right?
And if you hear this and you think that doesn't really feel
OK. Well, again, you know, study
bit. Yeah.
And then and go into it. But yeah, that's a good point
because you don't, you don't have to wait for some magical.
There won't be a magical moment where the world suddenly you
look up and it's a Bitcoin standard.
Like we're on a Bitcoin standard right now.
You and I, we both use Bitcoin as our unit of account.
That's both where we store wealth.
You don't have to wait for anyone else.
You don't have to ask permission.
You can just go and do it. Your permission?
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Another thing I wanted to talk about, like I found two articles
you wrote for Bitcoin Magazine, and one was about instilling how
Bitcoin instills like cardinal virtues.
And I really like that because I again like, I like your
philosophical approach. Like I'm really into that
dimension of Bitcoin. Like I have some guests coming
up. Like Eric Cason and Knutsfannom,
like we're really going to like dive into that corner which
which I love and I love that you wrote about it.
Then you discuss prudence or caution.
And I wanted to ask you like, how does Bitcoin encourage
prudent financial behavior? So first is you have to actually
do what we've talked about pretty much this whole episode
is do the work, right? You have to learn Bitcoin.
You have to understand and like there's a level of prudence to
that, right? You're thinking for the future.
You're thinking how can I save my wealth?
Oh, let me learn about this Bitcoin thing.
So that's prudence level one. Second and and for those who who
don't know what prudence means, it basically just means like
thinking before you act like very rational decision making,
being careful and and really not just making decisions hastily.
The 2nd way is self custody. You have to be careful.
You can't just set up a wallet on a whim not pay attention to
where you keep your seed phrase. Just like shove it under our
mattress or something. Like any all sorts of things
that go wrong, people have lost their keys all the time.
So with Bitcoin you really have to you have to be prudent, you
have to know exactly what you're doing so so as to not mess it up
and lose everything and then just sort of rage quit.
And there's other ways that Bitcoin sort of instills
prudence too, right? If you leave your Bitcoin on an
exchange, that's not, you're not carefully thinking that
decision, You're making the lazy decision, right?
You're doing what is simple and easy in that moment.
And ultimately, you will likely get punished for that, as we've
seen with with all sorts of exchanges and Bitcoin custodians
that have gone bust. Yeah.
And so it's interesting, right? Like I have some friends that I
try to orange, Bill and. One of them said, like, OK, but
if I have a million in Bitcoin, does that mean I am the only,
like, caretaker of that? Like it's my sole
responsibility? And then I said, yeah.
And then he was like, oh, damn, like, I don't, I don't know if I
can do that, right? Because.
So I I think you're right. But I also think it's really
hard for people, you know, because a lot of these things
like that we talked about in the beginning, a lot is like
extended in your circle of influence, right?
You give. Influence away your what?
How you can influence, for example, your wealth, right?
And now it's like a radical change.
It's like it's all on you. Yes, I 1000% agree with that.
It really forces you to take personal responsibility that
that's the biggest hurdle at this point for self custody.
It's not that it's hard, it's not hard to keep track of a list
of words, but it's all on your shoulders.
If you mess something up, you send Bitcoin to the wrong
address, you lose your keys, you get got by a scammer on Telegram
and send them some Bitcoin. Like there's no unwinding,
there's no handouts to make things better.
It is. It's a double edged sword,
right? You have this ultimate personal
freedom from the tyranny of the banking system.
But with that freedom comes the ultimate level of personal
responsibility that is required to make this work.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's the real application of an integration, I'd say, of the
nobody is coming to save you. Yeah, meme.
Almost right. Like it's it's it's really like
that. But I think, I think, yeah, this
is one of the hardest things for people that that you also have
to understand, like what are actually all the things where I
put the responsibility outside of myself, right where I gave a
third party the responsibility. And therefore also the influence
over, you know what, whatever was in my own.
How do you say that, like autonomy before.
Yeah. So, yeah, I think, I think
that's the that's the hardest. Yeah.
I think it goes back to the type of people were talking about
earlier that just they don't take action, right.
And they just want to complain. Part of, you know, outsourcing
responsibility, whether it's, you know, financial management
or like custody or just any sort of scenario in which you can put
the responsibility on someone else's shoulder.
It gives people an excuse when something goes wrong.
It's like, oh, well, that guy messed it up.
It was his responsibility. Instead of like, hey, let's like
take a little bit of ownership here.
You could have done that yourself, right?
You could have, you know, instead of having a portfolio,
manage your wealth and and trade stocks and they get burned like
learn markets yourself, trade yourself.
Like buy Bitcoin, study Bitcoin. Right.
So being able to outsource responsibility and deflect blame
is something you we should all. Avoid.
Yeah, well, it's one of the other things you talk about.
You know, when you talk about these cardinal values because
you also said or you suggested that Bitcoin promotes
fortitudes. How does that tie into?
So fortitude is basically a synonym for courage.
And maybe I wrote this a year ago, I don't know if necessarily
I still agree with it because we have seen Bitcoin really become
adopted by institutions. We've seen a complete 180.
It's being embraced by BlackRock, like the biggest
financial asset manager in the world.
But at the time, you know, FTX had just collapsed.
There was a lot of uncertainty, right?
You know, Bitcoiners were not, are not, we're not being treated
in the right way. And so I think it does take a
certain level of courage to be a part of this movement,
especially publicly, right? You and I are both using our
name and where our faces are shown like people with the
Internet, people can figure out everything about us just by our
name and our faces. And so there's a level of
courage with that. And because people, $5 wrench
attacks are a legitimate thing. And so we're taking a risk
because we want to share the word about Bitcoin, want to
educate others. And then there's the level of
like nation state risk, right? We, we are vocally going against
the Fiat monetary system that has run this country for 100
years. I guess we're in different
countries. But you know, the Federal
Reserve has run run the world since 1913.
They're not going to go down without a fight.
And we're basically openly like battling against that, trying to
usurp their power. And I think that takes a little
level of courage, right? If we're wrong and Bitcoin
fails, like you know, who knows? We might be in in a bad
position, right? I think in this article I
compared Bitcoiners to the founding fathers.
If the founding fathers of America lost the war, they would
have been hung, they would have all been killed.
That took a level of fortitude and I think Bitcoin is is
similar in that regard. Maybe we won't knock on wood if
we're wrong, we're not going to be hung.
But we are exposing ourselves to to a certain level of of risk by
by being so vocal and and attaching our names and likeness
specifically to it. Yeah, and so.
How do you think that talking about this or sharing, you know
also about this virtues? How how do you think Bitcoin can
can like bridge the gap between, you know, the the whole?
How do you say like you know, left and right, thinking all the
like binary thinking the for and against, like the the difference
in political ideologies? How do you think Bitcoin can?
Help that become better and then, well, especially for for
our generations, right? Yeah, I think it does how it
does. I'm not entirely sure if I had
to summarize what I think it is. I think a lot of the problems
come from the Fiat monetary system being broken.
But the diagnosis, the right makes a certain diagnosis.
Oh no, this is the source of the problem.
And the left makes you know now this thing is the problem where
with Bitcoin then we both realized Oh no, that this is the
problem. And I'm glad you brought this up
because as a a friend of mine that I, I interact with on
Twitter and we met up at the Pacific Bitcoin Conference and
this guy he's like a he's a California Democrat liberal
basically. And I'm from the South, like
fairly conservative right wing, and because we both see Bitcoin.
We talked for like 2 hours and did not disagree on a single
thing and it's like that just blows my mind.
We come from completely different backgrounds.
We fundamentally you would think we would see the world an
entirely different way, but we were aligned on literally
everything we could not find something we disagree with.
And all of that's centered around Bitcoin, right?
Once you realize that the money is broken, you don't get these.
False diagnosis is of what's causing problems in society, and
then you can pretty much align from there.
Yeah, I love that you say that. It makes me think.
Also I I think I never met a bitcoiner that I didn't like.
Yeah, you know, like it's it's you have a certain, a certain
connection. But where I think, I think now
that I've quickly think of it, I think, I think it's a few
things. It's the do the work thing like
the walk the talk thing, right? Like.
I know that you had to do a lot of work before you understood
this, right? Yeah.
I think you and I are still trying to understand more of it
every day, right. So that shows that you have
like, an open mind. You try to see what you don't
know, right. I saw this quote last week.
I don't know. It's kind of like it was about
enlightenment, you know? Or like the path to
enlightenment is accepting or knowing that you don't know
everything. Something like that, you know?
And when you know that you don't know everything, that could be
scary in the beginning, right? Like, I don't know shit.
And there's a lot going on here, so that could be scary.
But once you just accept it, then like all these doors open.
Because you know, you know that in the and this has how I tied
back to Bitcoin. Like in the human world, like
you said, if something that humans use is potentially
corruptible, it will be corrupted by the humans, right?
Like we cannot trust, we cannot trust ourselves, even though we
try to. Enlighten ourselves more.
Learn more, whatever you adhere to, right?
But whenever a system or things that people can use is open to
be corrupted, it will be corrupted, right?
Like I, I, I just think that's true.
So that's why we need, for the most important technology that
we need, you know, the exchange of value between people and
especially now that we can do it like all around the world at any
time of the day. With whoever, we need something
that is helping us to not corrupt it, right?
It should be a protocol, just like a thing that exists that we
cannot mess with, that forces us to comply with its rules instead
of the other way around. And yeah, I started somewhere
with this thought. I'm thinking where I went, but I
think, I think, like, for me that's kind of like my quick
reflection there. Like it's.
I know that you did the work to understand that and I know that
you also accepted something that I also accepted which was hard
to accept or to acknowledge, right.
And I think it's it's as simple as that.
Maybe like we know we both are doing the work or something like
that and that that is already enough.
Like it shows the type of person that you are even though that
we. Now, first meet, right?
Yeah, it's proof of work. Just like how the nodes know the
miners did the work because they can run the knots themselves.
That I know you've done the work.
And the humility aspect is there too, right?
You have. We all took.
Well, it's the node string. You did the work.
Well, it's like you did work. I did work.
That's why I know and I agree, that we can work together, you
know, something like that. Exactly.
And you brought up a a good point there about what was it?
I I I lost my train of thought there anyways.
But yeah, it it really is proof of work.
Sorry. Yeah.
So why do you, why do you think of like a philosophical
approach? Is is important to understand
bitcoins. Yeah.
OK.
I just remember I thought by the way it was the the humans
corrupt every institution I think yeah that's spot on right.
Because fundamentally I believe we all are like we're sinful in
our nature and so humans overtime they'll they'll corrupt
an institution which is why Bitcoin is so magnificent
because it's not immune to to human corruption.
Sorry, what was your question again I I had just get that that
one out there. No, that's great.
I love. I love that you remembered that.
Yeah. But I think, like that's
already, that's not what you just repeated.
Like that is not a virtue thing. It's not like you would want to
not want to improve something or make something better or do it
for the children or what. It's just a fact that even
though you think you would never do something like that, right?
There's always people that would.
And that's the. That's the point and and it's
not that they are necessarily bad people like they just, I
don't know. Like we don't you don't even
have to explain it. Just when you accept that that
will always happen, that will already give you, I think a lot
of new found freedom in your thinking to explore, well
something like bit Bitcoin or you know, other things that you
want to learn about that are perhaps different than what you,
you know learned before and even systems that are built.
My question was, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Even systems that are built to try to withstand that that
nature of humans getting corrupted like the US
Constitution and the US federal government set up with all these
checks and balances, right. The such and such branch can't
do anything without the other branch or you know these are the
rights that can't be infringed overtime.
We've seen all the rights in the Constitution pretty much get get
trampled on. So no matter how intricate the
system is, over time, you know it could be made with the best
of intentions, but over time, eventually someone is going to
get in there that that breaks that system.
Yeah, there's a good point, like, about the Constitution,
right? Like, obviously I'm not an
American, but sometimes I see things where I think like, oh,
wow, like the the, the legal system in the US works really
great. Like, I don't really have an
example, but sometimes I see something where I think like,
wow, that's actually so American.
Right. Like like how how you follow the
like the legal system. And I don't like again I don't
have an example but sometimes I see that.
Right. But what you just said like
about the corruptible thing, it's not that the constitutional
laws and and you know legal system that it's being made
corruptible on purpose that's not what that means.
It means that through other ways, people can kind of like.
How do you say that? Like make certain legal stuff
abstract. They can abstract and abstract
and then they have like a little like some lawyer has some trick
here and a trick there and that's how.
They corrupt it, right? It's not that the base rules are
changed. It's kind of like playing a a a
game with endless. Kind of ways to to to trick like
an original rule or law. I don't know if I explained it
correctly but what I like about Bitcoin as a comparison to that
this is the set of rules period. You know like there is no
there's no multiple interpretation of the rules.
We cannot we cannot play a game about the interpretation of the
rules. We it's the protocol has rules
you follow the rules or not like it's it's yes or no.
I think that's what the the first thing is what opens up the
corruptibility. If you have all these ways of
interpreting and explaining and, you know, that's I think it's
less harsh than saying it's on purpose.
Yeah, you know, I agree. Because if you think about the
Constitution as like written code and then the humans or the
computers that run that code, there's it could be exploited in
different ways. But Bitcoin is code.
But the computers that run the Bitcoin code, they do it exactly
as it says. And there's no room for humans
to sort of slip in their their interpretation code just runs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah.
So my question was why? Why do you think a philosophical
approach is important to understanding bitcoins impact?
I think it helps make it digestible.
Really big ideas, you need metaphors, you need analogies,
you need parables and stories. Humans are very story driven
people. We understand stories and
feelings and in ideas more than we understand really technical
topics. So the philosophical approach to
Bitcoin I think fills a huge niche and it can get kind of
overblown sometimes. There's like, the Think Boy meme
we definitely like. None of this exists without the
hardcore coders and the programmers and the people in
the weeds, technically. But to in order for Bitcoin to
be digested by the masses, you have to break it down into to
things that people can understand.
Even the white paper as like simple as as it is, it's still
going to be above the heads of a lot of people.
Like, that's not, if you've never consumed any Bitcoin
content and you tried to read the white paper, you're going to
have a difficult time understanding how it works.
But you know, videos and like animations and comparisons and,
you know, comparing Bitcoin to monopoly, right?
That's that's an analogy I've heard that makes people just
sort of understand how a blockchain works, how a
decentralized Ledger works. So yeah, this this philosophical
approach I think is, is huge and there's different spectrums to
it, right? You know, Robert Breedlove goes
very deep his his ideas. You know, if you ever listen to
the the Breedlove Sailor series, which I'm sure you've listened
to that, that one's like level 10, right?
And maybe I need to be more like a Level 3 or 4 Philip Bitcoin
philosopher or whatever. So it just makes everything more
understandable for people. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Yeah, I think it's definitely needed.
Like I come from a world of. Like startups and Internet
companies and I always try to adhere to, you know, like it.
You can build anything you want. But if people don't understand
why they shoot or coot or can use it, then yeah, it's futile
what you build, right? So you have to tell the story in
a way that appeals to the person you're telling the story to,
right? And you also have to figure out,
you know, what levels. There are in that story, as you
mentioned, like a Robert Breedlove and Michael Saylor.
Yeah, that's like, that's like a that's like a big brain thing,
right? Same as listening to Jason Lowry
and software or something that Adam Back talks about like
technical stuff. Like sometimes I start a Bitcoin
podcast and like halfway I just tune out because I think like
this is this is a bit above my current level, so.
You know, I I go, I dial it back a little bit.
But yeah, I think that's a great that's a great answer.
And also yeah, I think part of why I'm making a podcast.
I think also part why you're making podcast just trying to
share yeah these different stories in in in different ways
and there's no one of like Bitcoin is one of one right.
There's no apples to apples comparison to make.
So you have to draw from all sorts of different like
inspirations in order to make this seemingly understandable.
Because it's it's one of one, it's the first Bitcoin.
It's not the, you know, it's not digital gold.
It's not whatever analogy people want to use.
It's Bitcoin. It's something brand new.
So the only way to really understand it is to try to draw
from a bunch of different ideas. Yeah.
I I fully agree.
All right. Last question, and I ask
everyone the same question, What's a core belief that you
will never let go? I think Jesus Christ died on the
cross for all of us, that fun, and we're all sinners and we're
all broken people. And I think fundamentally that's
the most important thing to me and everything else comes
secondary to that. But that being said, there are
things we could do on this earth that can make us have a better
experience here, right? Even though this lifetime is
temporary, we're all going to pass away.
There's things we could do to make it better.
And I think some of those are, you know, family, right?
We all need to, to get married, have a lot of kids and spend
time with each other and build communities.
And I think another core belief is government should stay out of
our lives, right? That's just other people telling
you what to do. The state needs to stay out of
people's lives and specifically out of people's money, right.
And that's where Bitcoin comes in.
It's it's my third core belief there is Bitcoin is the most
actionable path to a better future.
Nothing else, everything else can be corrupted by humans
except for Bitcoin. It's it's magnificent.
And I guess that's that's where I'll leave it.
Awesome man, thanks for sharing. Where can people follow you
online? Yeah, so you can follow me on
Twitter. That's pretty much the only
platform. I'm on Mitchell Hoddle.
I also do my own podcast on YouTube.
You can go to Blockware on YouTube and you'll find my
podcast and some other videos that I make.
Awesome. And thanks so much for coming
on. And yeah, let's stay in touch
and wish you all the best. Yeah.
Thank you for having me, Graham. Cheers.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, it would be amazing
if you could rate, review and subscribe on the podcast
platform of your choice. It will help us educate more
millennials on the importance of Bitcoin.
You can follow and connect with me on Twitter.
I'm Brom K that's at Bramk. And if you are or know someone
who has an interesting perspective on Bitcoin that's
worth sharing, hit me up. I read and reply to every single
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hope you'll be here for the next episode.
Thanks for listening. Bye.