All right. Hey there.
This is from Constant 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
Jeff Booth. He's an entrepreneur and thought
leader who's lived at the forefront of technology change
for 20 years. Currently a general partner at
Eco Death Capital, Bitcoin only venture fund, he's known for his
insights on technology, economics and the future of
deflation. In his book The Price of
Tomorrow, he argues that advancing technologies will
inherently lead to deflation and that society should embrace
rather than resist this trend. When I started this podcast,
Jeff, I had a list of 50 people that I was dying to talk to and
you were in my top five. So I'm super excited that in
episode 10 you're already here, man.
So welcome. Thanks.
Well, thanks for having me, Bram.
Pleasure. Thanks.
Yeah, I am. I wanted to start with a
question. I actually had a had a
conversation again today where this term theft came up.
And in previous episodes, you know, when this conversation was
about Bitcoin and economics, etcetera.
And in previous episodes I've talked about how difficult it is
when like you talk to a newcomer to Bitcoin and you talk about
the inflation and debasement and that they are in essence theft.
And in my experience, like, people find that they're really
like hard, hard words, and sometimes they chew out, maybe
because it's so confrontational or something.
But I also have heard you use the word theft a lot.
Can you explain, like, why inflation and debasement are
actually theft? I think you're the person that
can explain this most rationally, probably.
Yeah, I think it and and by the way I understand why people
would not want to see it that way and or if it it challenges
some of their beliefs and then they want to push back.
So I totally understand and have empathy for people sitting
inside a system. But, but when you realize that
the free market is deflationary, right?
And that's not a guess, like prices fall to the marginal cost
of production. We have exponentially rising
productivity because of technology.
And by the way, a couple of insights to that.
If you measured that productivity through the entire
manipulated system, you wouldn't see as much productivity.
But if you've measured productivity, it where what's
happening? You have exponential technology.
Yeah this driving product is that.
Also, sorry to drop, but they said also I saw a great chart on
Twitter of someone who had the price of the NASDAQ in dollars
that goes up obviously, but against M2 like in real value,
it actually goes down and it's under the value of the tech in
2000, which arguably we now have better technology, right, but
it's worth less. This This is why it's so hard to
see, because people are measuring through a system with
the error code in it. So, So what what you have to do
is you have to use first principles to understand what
would happen if there was no error code, if there was no
theft or debasement or anything else.
So so why I find it easier just to talk about technology in that
way is is you can have some first principle discussions.
You can say do prices fall to the marginal cost of production
over time? And answer is yes, like no
matter what over a long enough time horizon.
Prices fall to the marginal cost of production.
Then you can ask what is the marginal cost of production of a
line of code? And then you can ask what is the
marginal cost of production of for lines of code written by
other lines of code. And you can see where we're
going and why technology drives and.
And if if number one is true and #2 is true, then that means if
you had a. An honest Ledger or an honest
monetary sources system that didn't debase currencies that
didn't change the rules didn't print more currency units.
Then prices would fall every year as the AS and society would
live on top of that, prices falling every year.
Some, some places prices would fall faster some places and it
would run at the rate of technology in the free market
and so every year based on just that being true.
You would probably gain people would have to work 5% less get
in or get get 5% more each year just by staying centered so
they're they're about everyone on the planet would would
benefit you'd get be getting richer but that's not the system
we live in right so so so that's that's that's a system that
would be true in a system that couldn't be manipulated.
And the system, but this is important because you have to
stop this. So that's true.
And what I'm about to say is true if you allowed a credit
based system to collapse. So if you let a credit based
system prices fall, then the debt become in real terms, you
can't pay back immediately and the whole thing keeps falling.
So it keeps falling. So we have to explore that
system too. And that system that we live in,
or where we price most things from today has about $400
trillion of insolvent debt. So the debts already insolvent,
right? If you tried to pay back the
$400 trillion at $1.00 a second, it would take 12,683,000 years
to pay back. But it's worse than that
because. Because that's assuming you
could pay it back. And you have to ask yourself,
where are the taxes to pay back the debt from your calculator
app that you use every day now, right?
It's free. The point is the technology is
driving these things to free and that you create the abundance
based on that technology. So what's happening is the
Ledger is being manipulated at a greater and greater rate.
Theft and it's transferring that wealth from from people who
because inflation is wage deflation and and it's
transferring that wealth from people who have assets to people
or from people who don't have assets.
So their wages are going down in real terms because to try to pay
back the debts that's already insolvent and it's transferring
it to people who will hold assets or or government.
To be able to do that process and it is theft because you
don't have a vote in it, you don't.
So both these things are true, right?
So we say we live in A and so one system.
What it would look like under an honest system and what it does
look like under the system that we wait, do we drive all of our
decisions by. The problem is inside that
system that we live in and we price everything by, we don't
see. How great an impact that is on
our lives. We don't.
So we just trust all of these institutions.
It's like it always used to be. And so these things are true.
At the same time, what's happening with Bitcoin is if
you're if you're measuring, if you're measuring Bitcoin in
price from the manipulated system, then you're actually
thinking about trading Bitcoin. What's actually happening is we
have two different worlds emerging.
One that's pricing what I just explained that can't be fucked
with. And so if you're measuring in
Bitcoin, prices will fall for fall into for you forever.
And if you're pricing in the existing system, prices will
rise forever. Is it then also that because we
changed the technology of money with with Bitcoin to a protocol
to two lines of code, don't want to say it's free, but you know
it also goes down to marginal? Cost of product, marginal cost
of production. But actually that's true right
now. You can see hash rate going up.
Yeah, right. That's.
Yeah. So instead of also the value of
the of the old money becoming less and less and less, it's the
new money that's just going up forever then.
So I'd like to look at the other way.
Because because if you think it's going up forever, you're
measuring it from the value in the old system, right.
And that's what most people do. And and so if you do that in
Argentina today, bitcoins hitting all time records now are
the people in Argentina necessarily richer because their
money's losing value at that rate and and in it.
So if you measure in the debasing currency.
You're automatically defaulting to measure your world in the
broken in on the broken Ledger. And if you're measuring in the
in in, in this thing that can't be manipulated, you're
automatically measuring your world and in economic law that
prices fall to the marginal cost of production over time.
And how do we then take a step to an abundant future?
Like, if this is the cause, what will it result in?
Like what is Why will the future then be abundant?
So be because because the incentives are exactly opposite
from the existing system and most people carry their baggage
from just like you're doing right now and pricing right.
The most people carry their baggage from the old system on
how it looks under misaligned incentives to the new system on
how it doesn't, how it doesn't. And they're totally different
systems that work almost 180 from each other.
One concentrates wealth and very few hands in power and
eventually eventually destroys destroys what you believe your
democracy is because money is super ordinate to laws.
If it wasn't then, then the places with the most broken
money in the world would have the best laws protecting their
citizens citizens. Why doesn't it look like that?
So you can see what I'm saying is true, right?
And now you just have to ask how how fast are we destroying our
money here? And you can see how fast laws
will breakdown and division of society will breakdown as a
result. And all of these things are
consequences of broken money that get worse and worse.
So you can ask yourself, where are you on that lever?
You don't vote in your in your country.
For how much money is manipulated?
Yeah, correct. And as that becomes a greater
and greater stealth tax or repressive tax that hurts some
people in favor of others, then then it becomes more and more of
the the amount of revenue they cover in immense making that's
based on theft and as it becomes more and more based on.
So you don't have a vote in in one of the most important
drivers of wealth in your life. So how could you say that you
actually live in a democracy if you don't have a vote in one of
the most important drivers? And you can see by that
construct why all over the world individual rights and freedoms
are going down because they have to go down overtime to support
theft. That has to grow exponentially.
To be able to to pay debt that is already insolvent.
So and that leads to a control function out of governments and
so all of these things that we see all over the world and why
it's really why people get trapped in them from the
existing system is is they make them stronger through their
actions. They think that there's a solve
by dividing society, right. So how would you get elected and
how would you get elected in in a system that look like that?
You would prey on a whole bunch of people that that said, I can
solve your problem. It's those bad people that do
that, that you divide society and it's and and you would sit
on top of that by by dividing and then when it couldn't fix it
because it's based on broken money in that and you've already
divided your society, you would have to create a bigger enemy
elsewhere. Right.
And you'd have to convince your society to go to war, to fight
for the thing that they believe in, to be able to create a war
some somewhere else. That's it's why these things are
pretty natural and what we're having today and why the world
gets pretty frightening from the system that's decaying.
And so how do you solve that? You just impose.
Bitcoin imposes A discipline. It's a it's becoming a
peer-to-peer Internet backed by energy.
Yeah. That and you impose that
discipline and the incentives that that creates that that that
have more and more people walking across the bridge to
create the new, the the new system.
We're still really early. This system has more power in
our lives, and we feed it the one we're at the decaying
system, and we feed it by yelling at it, by marching
against it, by voting for it and everything else.
And people don't realize that they could stop paying for $400
trillion of debt tomorrow, today, walk across to the new
system and start building onto that system and their energy.
Every single one of us. What you're doing with this
podcast might touch a bunch of people that then go out and
touch a bunch of other people and and what it means is the
future doesn't just happen to us.
We create it. And So what what you're doing
right now, what I'm doing right now is creating a brighter
future by moving to Bitcoin and and building on to on top of an
honest Ledger. And and as more and more people
do, the world just changes. Yeah.
So now, now I'm, I'm thinking to go back to the question about
the theft. I think it's interesting, right?
Because when you say theft or when I say theft, sometimes in
my conversation, oh, it sounds like my opinion, right?
Like a radical opinion. But I think how you explain it
is just an objective realization and description of how it
currently works. And also it's so far away from
most people because it's been abstracted so much, right?
And when you put that next to the system of Bitcoin, where,
yeah, I really love the term, you know, in Bitcoin you follow
the rules and in the other system you follow the rulers,
right. And I think that perfectly
illustrates it. And it's a true 180 of ultimate,
almost engineered truth. I always say about Bitcoin,
right. Or it's very transparent versus
layer on layer of of abstraction.
And and therefore, also, yeah, just a hard understanding of
what am I actually participating in.
So, and then when someone says it's theft, you know, that's
obviously an instant confrontation with, you know,
whatever the unknowing belief is probably of the current system.
Is it. Why I'd like to walk through
this from a first principles discussion on both, On both is
because both these things are true.
Like in which, So yeah. Your life, because of your
beliefs and how you see the world, will be true for you,
even if my life and my beliefs in the world are, are and would
depict a different truth for me, right?
But if I tried to impose my belief on you by yelling at you,
you probably wouldn't. The last thing you would do is
change and and and worse if you were, if you were.
That if you were taken from the most right and you were at the
bottom of the social economic ladder and and you you couldn't
pay your bills, you couldn't pay food and everything else.
You would be more susceptible to somebody who said I'm going to
solve your problem and should give you money, even work also.
But again, but but you'd be more susceptible because you can't
think through first principles. When you're in or it's really
hard to think about thinking in first principles and and what
I'm able to think and what we're talking about right now.
When you're when you're scared for your life or your family's
life or you have emotion driving you.
So the thing that creates the fear that keeps people stuck is
the same thing that gives the power to the system to keep them
stuck and if somebody outside that system.
Yells at them or says it's theft from that.
You're not meeting them where? Where they are.
They're in a different spot. You might for you.
You might have already done the work.
You understand what this looks like, and it's easy to think
that everybody in the world has done that work because you have.
And it doesn't look like that. Most people in the world are
stuck in the system, feeding it, making it stronger because of
their fear. Yeah, this is nice.
Leeway into another question I had.
So your your firm is called Ego Death Capital.
I love, I love that name. I chose it for a reason.
Of course, you know, like you actually just said that, you
know, people, a lot of people say that to understand Bitcoin
you need to do the work. Part of doing this work, in my
opinion, is like lots of discovery and self reflection
and reprogramming. You know, around personal
beliefs that you used to operate from, but also like unconscious
beliefs that you know or just that that you just gathered
along the way. How do you define this work, and
what does it have to do with ego death?
Yeah, so you're you're right, a bunch of these for me too in
Bitcoin, understanding that a lot of just because of I was
born in a certain place. Gave me a massive advantage and
the reason I was born in a certain place that essentially
where it was at the top of the at the top of the theft of a
monetary system gave me the same advantage as somebody in Africa
that was at the bottom of the theft of the monetary system
gave a disadvantage to. So I I had a hard time because
because through previously, I believe just and it's not.
It's not This is true too. It's not that I didn't work
extraordinarily hard learned a bunch made a ton of mistakes
created and everything else. But I but I realized that I had
an easier time on that on that ladder than somebody who was
born somewhere else. So it was just on the inverse of
my privilege. And so those were those were
lessons that that as I went down the Bitcoin rabbit hole that I
just, I had to come to terms with and I really what would it
look like on a new system and on a new system it would talent is
globally distributed, opportunities are not now on
Bitcoin, talent opportunities are globally distributed.
And so if somebody wants to fight that.
They're going to be fighting talent all over the world that
has just as much opportunity as as they do.
But the opportunity in that sat on on top of it, on on top of
Bitcoin, heals the world, makes the world better.
And so the output of that opportunity means prices fall
for even people that aren't on Bitcoin.
Yeah, right. So, so it's a, it's just an
honest Ledger that that moves to more and more of the productive
capacity of the world to us. Now there's absolutely
incredible businesses that can be built on that as they deliver
value to other people. Just like there were incredible
businesses that were built on top of the technology stack.
That was TCIPHTTP, this Riverside we're on right now is
one of them that takes advantage of that technology stack that
wasn't available until entrepreneurs went and created a
value business on on top of it. The iPhone is one we take for
granted that it wasn't always there, but it uses the same
technology stack. All of these opportunities on
top of this technology stack now that you have a decentralized
secure base layer in Bitcoin kind of the asset but but with
lightning fediments a whole bunch of other things that are
developing on on on on layer two, layer three, you're having
an explosion of opportunity that's building on top of that
pace secure layer that is going to change the world and it's
going to bring people in. It's going to get easier and
easier to use and and more and more people are going to race to
it because of it provides value in in their lives.
Yeah. I find it so fascinating that
also when you share this, you know, like talent is evenly
distributed and opportunities not like it for a lot of people,
including people who call themselves progressives, quote,
UN quote, this is what they would want, right?
Like like have equal opportunity for anyone.
Perhaps get to a real meritocracy where people who do
the best at their job, whatever it is, they get rewarded the
most. And while you and also in the
book, you have a strong case for deflation.
And you know, lowering the cost through technology, it's
generally viewed though like a bit negatively right in economic
circles. But like why do you think people
are so against this? Because they haven't done it at
the first principles, nor give nor nor understood.
I I would say in in what I watch, very few people think in
first principles, very few people think in second and third
or third or 4th order effects of changes.
In other words, they're predicting the present forward.
They're not predicting the future because because of that
to predict the future you have to really think in first
principles. You have to understand human
action on when when something changes benefits so greatly,
what do people do as a result and then what are the what's the
corresponding action of the existing system, what does it
do? So if you just think 2, if this
is imposing prices fall the marginal cost of production and
we have exponentially increasing productivity, that it's imposing
that reality on the world protected by energy.
As long as it stays decentralized and secure,
everything I just said is inevitable.
It's repricing the world versus the other way around.
But people won't believe that. And they'll price it from their
existing system and they'll give more power to it.
And So what would the existing system do?
As more and more people leave to build on the system of truth,
hope, freedom and the existing system, what would it do?
So remember the existing system, government gets bigger and
bigger and people say those people, it's only us.
There are no those people. There is no they.
It's us. It's also, I don't know what the
code is, but it's also like that we don't realize how much power
we actually have, or how few people are actually currently in
power. How few?
Of us it needs, it's only us. And so as more and more people
move to the honest system and transact and more move more
benefit there and it gets stronger and stronger and
stronger through the network effect on the base layer people
holding and self gussy and the network effect on layer two or
three more and more value accruing there and it's and it's
the incentives are better there, more and more people move and
then what would the existing system do print money faster.
And so as it prints money faster and destroys people within the
existing system more people move.
Yeah and what would it do then print money faster and less and
less base. So this will take a long time to
play out, but if but but people don't realize how much power
they have into just tuning out of the existing system that is
based on a lie. And to to illustrate that like
what is your what is your timeline there then how how how
far do we have to zoom out. So when people ask me this, I I
I'm actually honestly confused by the question and I'll I'll.
Tell you I don't want to. No, no, no, no, but.
But but I'm actually honestly confused by the question
because, and I'll tell you why my my lake house cost $1.4
million three and a half years ago and it cost 300 Bitcoin.
My lake house cost $2 million this year.
Right now. And it costs 50 Bitcoin.
Yeah, so people are waiting while it's happening.
It's just so so in other words, I'm already living in the future
and other people and so a lot of people, just a lot of people
thought. They can go to the future now.
Everybody has a choice right now to go to the future.
So my so there's a whole bunch of people around my lake house
and all those people think their house just went up six, $600,000
and what really happened, it fell by 250 Bitcoin.
And so and that's going to continue and it's going to
continue forever. So, so it depends what world you
want to measure in. And and again, all of the war
and divide and everything else that we see out of the world
today is a result of the system that we live in, that people are
giving more power, more power to.
So when right now? Yeah, that's.
Great. Because I wrote down another
question because you you also talk about, you know, what the
generational impact of adopting something like Bitcoin could be.
And you know, we hear Greg Foss say we do this for the kids a
lot. And I wanted to ask you like how
can we influence the future by acting now?
But the answer is act now, back now.
Just start to like spend more time here spend more and and
you're I, I keep saying this your impact, every one of our
impact. We matter.
We touch people with your your voice you matter.
So if you want to spend more time in the existing system
yelling at that system, you're impacting it, you're making it
stronger. If you want to spend more time
in in this system with people that are building this new
system, you're impacting it, making it stronger and so spend
more time in the new system, you'll be happier.
Yeah, I totally agree with that obviously.
But I do also understand that it's hard for people who are in
the current system and and maybe are are doing the work or are
total oblivious, right? Like how?
How does one start right Like is that?
Just saying enough is enough when you, you know, buy a banana
for $5 or how? How do you see that?
Oh, I just lost you for a SEC, Bram.
No, I I said, you know, like I I totally agree with you
obviously, right. But but there's a lot of people
who are in the current system and they are oblivious.
Or maybe they start doing the work.
You know what? What in your view is like?
A trigger for someone to actually start or like what
should they ask themselves first?
If not, you know when they buy a banana for $5 they think you
know. This is ridiculous.
What is going on? Yeah.
So I can't tell you for so that's why I wrote the book
because I knew people couldn't see this and I I figured by
tying it to technology to to they could understand how fast
technology was moving in their lives, how much abundance it was
trying to give them. They would start to question
some of the other things. Why does the world look like
this? So to to me, asking questions,
asking questions or starting where somebody, somebody is
trying to solve their own problem, meeting them where they
are, is the place to is is the place to ask the question
instead of telling somebody. So when somebody can, when
somebody can explore what for for them, why?
When they can come to the conclusion themselves, then then
it sticks. People don't want to be told.
They typically fight back against being told something.
Yeah, I fully agree. I I I think like.
Six months ago, I really understood that I should switch
from telling to asking. Yeah, right, Yeah.
What and what's the most compelling like counter argument
if that you've heard against these views and how do you
respond to them? I haven't heard one yet.
I honestly, honestly, I I haven't heard.
I did a debate with George Gammon George Gammon the other
day on on Peter McCormack and and and by the way I actually I
like George a lot but but he's looking through the system of
the past or I suspect he's looking through the system of
the past and he he's and he says human nature will will keep it
there. Well, my my question is how?
How would human nature keep it there?
Because by voting. So if human nature says I'm
going to vote for more manipulation of money, Bitcoin
doesn't care, right? Yes, that system will fail
faster, but Bitcoin keeps on imposing A discipline until
people realize they can't fight with it.
It's an honest Ledger that that that it, it keeps on posing that
discipline so well. There's some interesting kind of
inside those arguments why people have their own beliefs.
I haven't seen one yet that that that that counteracts what I
just said about if it stays decentralized and secure it
ultimately it's repricing everything else.
Now I'm open to the fact if somebody wants to why I keep
saying if is for two real reasons.
I'm it's not that I'm worried about it one iota.
I want for the first reason is I want people to try to attack it
in that vector to be able to say so they can understand how
decentralized and secure it is. And the second reason I say it
is, is that by running a node you probably run a node.
I run a node and everything else that that I would have to act in
my best against my best interest to to to change it.
And so the hunt call it the hundreds of thousands of other
node runners that are all private behind Tor networks and
everything else all over the world would have to do the same
thing. And so I try to say why I say if
too is is to to push on there, to say why would we, what would
we, how would we have to be tricked to be able to go against
our self-interest and to keep to to to to understand that that's
probably the the only attack factor.
Yeah, yeah, I I would recommend everyone to actually listen to
that episode. I really enjoyed it and I I also
thought it was interesting that. A lot of your rebuttals were the
same all over again, right? Like as you said if it stays
decentralized and secure, then it will just stay as is.
And and I agree that the answers of George or perhaps anyone
looking at it from the other system now that I think of it is
interesting. It's like it's it's an, it's an
abstract answer abstracted on on another abstraction, right And
and basically, George says. We cannot trust ourselves and
that's why we will follow these people who will, you know, point
to a bad guy or give us free money or whatever.
But it's so interesting because that's the entire point of
Bitcoin. The protocol, in my opinion, is
the realization that we cannot trust ourselves, which is fine.
That's why we have a protocol that just is and you have the
choice to. Adopted and follow the rules or
not and you and you stay in a system where you follow the
rulers, right? So actually when you look at it
from George's point of view, we cannot trust ourselves.
That's I would say cementing the the Bitcoin thesis in a sense.
So that that's actually what I that's actually what I see like
even the his arguments were in. In other words, you're going to
have less and less people that are going to to be able to trick
in the existing system. And over and over time it's
going to transition and more people are going to.
More people are going to see that the system based on rules
that can't be fucked with, imposes that imposes that.
Now I this why this? Why?
You cannot trick because you have to prove like in Bitcoin.
You have to prove like there's no no he's he he's right.
If if you if you could make it non decentralized and secure or
you could create paper Bitcoin everywhere else, he's right.
The humans will do that and they'll do everything they can
to try to take power. In fact that's what Ethereum is,
right. Vitalik was on Bitcoin before
but that's what Ethereum is. That's that's what that's what
all of these other coins are tried to do.
That's what Bitcoin Cash is. A whole bunch of people that
were the the had more power in the old system decided to do it
to to do a change so that you could aggregate more control.
It's the ego. I am better, yeah.
So the beautiful thing about that is we have a pretty good
long history and more and more and more if you, if you mess
with it, you're the one that gets, you're the one that gets
killed, right. This, the protocol keeps on,
keeps on moving. It is and and and it.
Also allows you to mess with it, right?
Like Bitcoin Cash. Like you know do your thing try
it out. Yeah go go go crazy And those
people that end up doing that they get liquidated and and and
and the coins and the coin and Bitcoin get redistributed to a
whole bunch of honest brokers that are they're holding so.
So in that discussion too I I would say it it was interesting
to me too and I have again I like George.
I think over time he's come a long way in Bitcoin already and
I think just like everybody see it's easy to think even for
myself it's easy to think I always knew all these answers
and I didn't right. You have to go through the work
to be able to understand and once you do, you think everybody
else should know and they're going through their own work.
Which is, again, ego right if you.
Yeah, it's funny. It's funny, like once.
Yeah. Once you see Bitcoin, I'd say
and all these things that are attached to this, it's like it's
like the same things coming back all the time actually.
Interesting yesterday, you know, I will publish this in like 2 to
3 weeks, but yesterday was the fake BlackRock ETF pump, you
know, and you saw people talk about, yeah, all these people
got liquidated because they were lever a leverage of blah blah.
And then again, I think, but then you don't, you know.
You don't deserve to own Bitcoin.
That's this is the whole thing is this is the essence, right?
If you try to fuck around, you will get burnt because this
thing doesn't doesn't care. And this was a prime, prime
example of that. Matt Odell's Stay Humble and and
Stacks hats is just perfect. That's it, Yeah.
All right. So how do you think?
You know the like. More moral fabric of society
could change if. You know the principles behind
Bitcoin or the deflationary economics would would actually
be adopted like does it address any like existential issues that
humans have you think Yeah all all of them.
It literally it's it's it's that it's that big a change and and
and I said this probably thousands of times but if you
just ask we're living in two systems right now and where you
spend time will matter for your life.
But but think about what the world would look like on a
dishonest Ledger that had to become more dishonest over time
and you and you were living in that dishonest Ledger and the
incentives accrued against that dishonest Ledger.
Who would win or who would lose? So who would?
Who would win? Who would lose?
What do the world look like? It would just maybe be a mere
reflection of all the actions of the world on top of a dishonest
Ledger. It's like, it's really simple.
And then ask yourself, so that's the world you live in today, or
most people live in today. And when they're looking at the
news or the governments or looking at all of the OR or or
giant companies or that they're operating on top of that
dishonest Ledger, that's what you're seeing.
And ask yourself, what would the world look like on an honest
Ledger? What would it look like on
something that that drove the incentives to the to the
productive capacity to productive people in the world
instead of the rents, rent seekers?
What would that world look like? What would you see different?
And so which world do you want to see?
Depends on what Ledger, because that's really is.
If you wanted to simplify Bitcoin, that's what it is.
You have a dishonest Ledger or an honest Ledger, what would you
expect to see inside both of them?
It literally changes everything. It changes when it's it.
When people say Bitcoin fixes the world, it's it's not
hyperbole. It changes everything.
Yeah, and it's actually the. I would say like the counter
arguments quote UN quote of people who say you know when you
say something like this fix the money fix the world that it's
such a such a big thing and like you're you're just trying to
have the price go up etcetera but it's it's just bigger than
that. Like I I I'm also really working
and and and trying to figure out like how how can I start these?
I almost want to say like bigger conversations that are.
Are not even about Bitcoin, right?
Like Bitcoin is a solution, but first people have to understand
what they are actually, you know, operating in and what the
system is and that they don't know a lot of things, right?
Yeah, I haven't seen as as people kind of talk about the
problems in the existing world that they're worried about most
of the if you just went number down one to 10, I haven't seen
one of those things that Bitcoin doesn't solve.
Yeah, I. Agree every one of them and then
if you want 10 to 20 it would solve those too.
And it solves them because the incentives, incentives run our
lives and and incentives around the world like.
But think about in this existing system people are working harder
and harder and harder every year for less and less and less.
Well, when the world should look the opposite, they should be
getting more and more naturally. As a result, not just in their
technology, things in houses and everything, all prices.
So, so people, even some people that have read my book, think
I'm just talking about technology, but technology isn't
everything. Technology is.
We don't build houses like we did 50 years ago.
We don't have supply chains like we did 50 years.
We had technologies and energy technologies everywhere.
So all of these things would be falling to the marginal cost of
production? Yeah.
So do you think there are any, like spiritual or philosophical
teachings that resonate with the core principles of Bitcoin?
I think that this is, I think all of these things, whether
it's philosophy, I think if you kind of or religions, I think
they're ultimately a level of consciousness and science and
and, and. Or different ways up the
mountain, different insights. And at the top of the and at the
top of the mountain, it all looks the same.
But if you're if you're midway up the mountain and looking
across, you can't see kind of the other person's viewpoint,
you can't see that you can't see lower across.
I think these things merge and I think they emerge because
everything's energy. Every.
I think everything's quantum that means the universe is
quantum and that means we are quantum as well and these and
and and I think these things merge overtime time and if you
think about Bitcoin as a peer-to-peer Internet backed
bounded by energy it allows us to.
Rise in consciousness as a result of moving in that world.
Now I know that would be really hard to see for people and it's
a big concept that I just talked about and I didn't.
I gave it 2 seconds. But but if you were, if you were
angry, the mirror reflection of around people in your life would
you'd see anger. You couldn't.
It's really hard for you to see love, right?
If you were, if you had apathy, you wouldn't see nothing would
trigger you and different levels of of consciousness you couldn't
you wouldn't be able to see the what the IT doesn't.
So your your level of consciousness is describing the
world you see back at you. And I think, I think over time
Bitcoin allows a rise in consciousness of the world.
Yeah, but I fully agree. I also believe everything is a
quantum and as you said a peer-to-peer network of energy
that sounds like humans also, right.
So Bitcoin is, is is a fractal of the same thing, just like
this could be a whole nother conversation by the way.
But I want to say like, yeah, just like everything is a
fractal of of the same thing you know with with the the
structures that exists in in nature and the universe and
within us etcetera. So do you also believe, I heard
someone say this last week, which is interesting, if if you
follow this right and and you are into this and you believe
this, then you would probably also think that Bitcoin was a
discovery and not an invention, then right like that, that it
was always there in a sense. Yeah.
And I and I buy that. I, I, I, I interchange those.
But I learn more to discovery, yes.
All right, so this podcast is called Bitcoin for Millennials,
right? Because I think it's important
to, you know, educate my own generation that especially in
the Western world hasn't really learned about finance,
economics, etcetera. But you are part of another
generation before us X born between 65 and 80.
Like what are the what are the things that you have run into
trying to explain Bitcoin to your generation?
I I think it's some so I wrote wrote about this in the in the
book In times of great change experts, experts aren't
typically who you go to because they can't.
They the same thing that created them being an expert.
They've seen so many things that that they discounted.
So, so when really great change comes, they discount it too.
And they don't have an open and curious mind.
And Bitcoin, because it'll rip everything your belief system
down because it operated. It's the first time in human
history that something existed that was decentralized and
secure. Like we you always threw out our
history books. Something could always be Co
opted because money was subordinate to laws and if you
could control the money you could control everybody.
You could tax the entire world through that control of money so
you could tax all you could, you could take it sliver of all
human labor on on on top of that.
So, so I just go if Bitcoin was truly decentralized and secure,
and that's what I did, where I did a lot of work, it would.
It would impose a totally different discipline to where
we're going compared to what of all the history books and
everything else that we'd ever seen, because we'd never had
something like that. And so so that's such a big,
that's such a big idea you'd it forced me down to be curious
about where I could be wrong. What could this look like?
How could you kill it? What would it take?
How much power would try to kill it?
What would that would look like over time?
And as I understood that with an open, curious mind, I understood
that, OK, assuming it does this, which I think is inevitable now,
that means the future is unwritten and it doesn't need to
rely on the prep past rules that we created.
Also, in the past, the winners write the history books, right?
So a lot of those would be filled, a lot of our past would
be filled with errors that we're making.
On top of a system that looks really different and all of the
people that were really great at understanding history and all
the reasons that exists would be not very good at understanding
the future for the same reason. So I I have again looking at it
from the old thing or what has been right, yeah.
And I have empathy for those people.
But there's many, many in in my generation and older.
Who? Who Do one of two things.
Push back against all of this and not without going deep
enough to understand it or or just consider it's too big for
them. I'm going to let somebody else
decide, the millennials. Well, is it also hard then for
people to because in Bitcoin people talk also about a lot
about like sovereignty, you know, like and and also we talk
about, you know when when you try to find things or or
triggers for people to actually go down the rabbit hole, it
actually you, you instantly take on a certain type of
responsibility, right. Because when you say like I live
in a system that I didn't chose choose to live in, I'm, I'm the
subject of it. I want to change it.
OK, now I have a problem, right? If I want to figure this out.
So do you think that's also a thing that it's hard for people
nowadays to take that agency and ownership in a sense?
I think that's just, I think as more and more incentives accrue
to the new system to be able to do that, more and more people
will take it. It'll also get easier too.
So we have to remember, we have to remember that like lower the
bar for them. Yeah, exactly.
But and we also have to remember that when you're just explaining
Bitcoin like we are explaining now, and we haven't gone deep
into the technical realm, but for people who have a lot of
society just doesn't have the time or inclination to be able
to do that. So it's just that they trust
institutions because they think there's there's safety and
trusting an institution to do them, do that for them.
And I keep asking myself. How could regulation on top of a
system that needs to steal your money work?
Correct. How could regulation to protect
your money from a system on that's designed to steal at
work? So, so, but it but many people
wouldn't be there. So they just trust the
institution, They trust their bank, they trust all of these
things. Yeah, that's a fantasy.
Of it's A and it and it's fallacy and so they don't go
down down this. But, but when you're talking a
protocol type of technology like Bitcoin, TCIP, base layer and
then you remember you can't see what's available on the next
layer until it's in front of you.
And then you can't see the the types of businesses or the types
of value that can be built for on top of it until lots of
entrepreneurs go and use that technology to create really
valuable things. I just understand how early we
are. In this process and how really
we are in in the world understanding this because
because it's those entrepreneur and that all of those things are
going to make make products and services and everything else
that that ease the onboarding of billions of people onto Bitcoin
in a way more simple technology, in a way more simple
understanding than they understand now.
So we don't have like if you look around, I don't remember
the last Internet conference, true, but but in in the 90s you
used to have them, but I went through the Bitcoin conference
last week. And that's why, that's why,
that's why like like now, right now we're we're we're still in
the Bitcoin conference stage stage of this as people are
trying to teach the technology and and how to how to do this.
And and as it becomes simpler and easier and as as it offers
more use cases for people, you'll have people coming on to
this and not even understanding how Bitcoin has made their life
so much better. Do you then see see these new
developments like CBD, CS as a threat and the distraction
probably. Well, it it it'll lower the bar
right. If they say you will get $100 or
€100 if you install this, you know CBDC wallet, so.
So, but again, what will happen to those €100?
They'll have to be be inflated faster.
You'll have to be so all of these things, but it does extend
the lifetime of the. I think those types of things
actually accelerate Bitcoin. I I think, I I think number we
don't have enough time to go into it right now, right now.
But there is no way in in that a free market can work.
There's no way. So we sit on top of a free
market, Yeah. So if the entire market, if the
entire global market said said it's all CBDCS and we control
the the the market globally and then each country inside those
CBDCS played to the same rules, how would that work?
There is no living standards would have to go down
precipitously. And all all over the world,
because where would the money come from to be able to do the
to do that. So the the notion of a CBDC
being able to work and globally not, I'm not saying it won't be
tried, but all of these things are just, I would say out of the
existing system. All of these things are totally
natural. So is war.
So is it expanded because you need to convince your people?
Yeah. That it's somebody else's fault
and that's how you do it. So all of these things are
natural out of the existing system.
I just kind of said, OK, why am I even talking about that?
Let's just move to to how fast we can build the parallel system
with way better benefits and so, so billions of people can move
on. Yeah, I fully agree.
I think it's also because those are the things that people see
also see perhaps right. So it's it's like you can ignore
it, but perhaps addressing it. Well, maybe if you address it,
you legitimize it. But it's a it's a thin line,
right? Was.
It was somebody came, somebody came to me to the same question
on a conference that that way is it we can same so so and
effectively as a reason not to get into Bitcoin and I and I and
I said OK, so your reason for not getting into Bitcoin is
you're fearful that governments will stop you from getting into
Bitcoin. And and and you're going to wait
for them to do that? I said, like, they are still,
like, it's so insane, right? So, so in other words, you're
making that happen through your actions and while they're
screaming at you and they're saying get out of the burning
building right now because we're going to lock up your money
forever. And and they're staying stuck
out of fear of the thing and out of fear of the thing that saves
them from it. It's so.
I do understand, though, some people will do that, but.
But it's crazy. Yeah.
All right, last question. I ask everyone the same
question. What's the core belief that you
will never let go? Oh, I got lots of those.
But but I would say integrity. And and why I say and why I say
that is I used to this was a core belief in my business and
and finance and a bunch of financiers said that can't be a
core belief because everybody has to have that in business.
And I said it if it and I believe a core belief is
something you'd stand up for no matter what, even if you lost
everything and and. And and I said back to them.
I said, I said if everyone had that in business the world would
look very different and so and so that that that would be one
of curiosity is another. Empathy is another.
But thanks. Thanks for sharing.
Yeah, I really enjoyed this conversation.
Thanks also again for coming on what's the what's the best way
that people who don't know you yet where they can follow you
and and read your thoughts? Probably just my website,
jeffbooth.ca. And the reason I say that
specifically too is too many people.
There's too many scammers out there that are using different.
I'm not on Instagram, I'm not on Facebook, Other different
things. So they're taking copies.
If my profile isn't listed on my site and my social media
profile, then it's not me, so beware.
So, so jeffbooth.ca is probably best.
Great. Yeah.
Keep in touch and perhaps we talk again.
You bet, Bram. Thanks, 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 Bronke. 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 message.
I appreciate your support and hope you'll be here for the next
episode. Thanks for listening.
Bye.