All right, hey there, this is Pram Konstan and you're
listening to Bitcoin for Millennials.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider giving a thumbs
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This will help me reach a wider audience and educate more people
on Bitcoin together with my guests.
And in this episode, I'm joined by Sam Lyman.
He's a public policy director at Ride Platforms, a leading
Bitcoin mining company, and a contributor to Forbes.
He previously served as the policy director of ADC based
Think tank and as a speechwriter to the the President of the US
Chamber of Commerce and AUS Senator.
His graduate research at Princeton focused on the impact
of emerging technologies on international relations.
And Sam believes a decentralized future is essential to freedom
and the human flourishing. So I'm excited to talk with him
today. Welcome man.
Yeah, Ron, great to be here. Thanks for having me on.
Yeah, I think it's great timing with the announcements we saw at
the at the Bitcoin conference in in Nashville.
I think fun topic to talk about global game theory and Bitcoin
as a reserve asset. But before we dive into that big
topic, I'd love to hear your Bitcoin story.
How did you get into Bitcoin? Yeah, I first heard of Bitcoin,
I think it was 2013. I was watching an episode of
Conan O'Brien's Late Night show where they were making Bitcoin
jokes and it piqued my curiosity and I started doing some
research and looked into what Bitcoin was.
Didn't really grasp it at the time and I honestly didn't think
much of it. It wasn't until later on, a few
years later, I was working in the US Senate.
I was working for Senator Hatch and this was the bull run of
2017 when Bitcoin was touching $20,000, around that range.
And I had a Co worker who came down sweating and nervous
because he was thinking I bought Bitcoin, should I sell?
And I said what's it at? He said $20,000.
And I was shocked because, you know, last time I checked a year
prior, Bitcoin was, you know, much lower than that.
And so that piqued my curiosity even more.
And when I started working at the US Chamber of Commerce, it
was very, some of the policies we worked on there were
cryptocurrency adjacent. And I started to get more and
more interested in it. It wasn't really though, until
2020-2021. I went down the Bitcoin rabbit
hole during that bull run. And just once you go down that
rabbit hole, you don't really emerge.
And especially in the wake of COVID, there was such severe
inflation that it really opened my eyes up to the need for some
kind of currency or some kind of hedge against Fiat currency.
Fiat currency, as history shows, is unsustainable over time.
And I could foresee a future where we once again peg our
currency to something of lasting value, whether it be gold or
Bitcoin or basket of commodities.
So I started to do a lot of research into Bitcoin and
cryptocurrency, coincidentally, when I was at grad school at
Princeton. And a lot of my research there
focused on cryptocurrency policy.
It's sort of a niche in the policy market that was just
waiting to be filled. And so a lot of my papers at
grad school focused on how can we leverage digital assets like
Bitcoin, stable coins and other digital assets as instruments of
economic statecraft. And a lot of the research I did
I then repurposed into op eds and in leading publications like
Fortune and Forbes later got the invite from Forbes to be a
digital assets contributor. And that's when I got on riots
radar and began working full time in the industry a while
ago. And it's been a blast.
I mean, it's amazing to turn a hobby into a full time job and
to educate and evangelize lawmakers on Bitcoin is honestly
a dream come true in many ways. I mean, this is such a truly
world changing technology and I think it shifts people's
paradigm on what money is and what it should be and what it
can be. And yeah, that's more or less my
journey into Bitcoin. Here I am today.
Love that man. I love in, in general, I've,
I've spoken to a lot of people now and a lot, a lot of people
had the same experience as you. Whereas they, they had a touch
point with Bitcoin at, you know, price XYZ, and then they didn't
really think much of it. And then later they had another
touch point and then they realized that A, it was still
there and B, it was up tenfold or twentyfold, you know, and
that piqued a lot of curiosity in people.
And I, I think it's so interesting to hear you have a,
a similar, similar story there. Can you remember when you found
it and you kind of dismissed it? Was there any belief that made
you like not get into it or was it just like some short touch
point or like how did how did that go?
Yeah, when I first discovered it was during an episode of Conan
O'Brien's late night show, where it was the butt of the joke, it
was the punchline, right? And so at that time I figured,
oh, well, if they're joking about this on a late night TV
show, then this must not be real.
But interestingly, it was after the late night TV show where it
was the punchline that I started to look into it and realize, no,
there's some real technology here.
And I didn't have the wherewithal, the time to go
deeper. You know, I was a poor college
student and I figured, oh, well, I probably don't have enough
money to buy anyways, as everybody does.
I, I deeply regret that. But I think I could sense even
from an early stage that this was technology that was real.
And even though I couldn't grasp it at the time, I noticed that
there was a lot of, as Donald Trump would say, high IQ people
who are into Bitcoin. And so I deferred to them and I,
I think it wasn't really accessible to the casual retail
investor until the coin bases of the world came along.
And I think that made it a lot easier to of course, acquire
Bitcoin, but also mainstreamed it in a way that you have a lot
of Bitcoin educators who are starting to rise to the surface.
People like Safety and Amis Pierre Rashard, a lot of people
in the Bitcoin space were just really good at explaining what
Bitcoin is. That's when I first started to
really understand what is the technology behind this.
Bitcoin itself is an education in so many different fields,
politics, economics, social psychology, international
relations, that once you get a small taste of Bitcoin, it's an
incredible education across so many different fields of
knowledge that it's hard. It's hard to look away after
that. So I'd say yeah, 2013 during
that episode of Conan O'Brien show, that's when I first heard
of it and dismissed it. 2017 is when I really started to take it
more seriously, when I had a Co worker who bought some and you
know, I was at the peak of the bull market.
And I'd say I didn't really start to take it seriously and
recognize its utility as an instrument of economic
statecraft until probably 2020 or 2021.
Yeah, so how deep does the rabbit hole go in your case?
Yeah. I mean, in my case, I don't know
if there's any bottom to the rabbit hole.
I think it just keeps going further and further.
And the longer you spend in the field there, you the more you
realize that The Who knows where the rabbit hole ends.
I mean, even the greatest experts in Bitcoin seem to
discover more and more about it. And yeah, yeah, it just keeps
going in my opinion. Yeah, I have a similar
experience. I think more maybe my question
was what what's the biggest insights that you discovered in
in that rabbit hole that that that like shook your world a
bit? Yeah, I think someone once told
me that if you don't understand Bitcoin, you don't understand
money, and I think that's fundamentally true.
I think a lot of people dismiss it because Fiat currency is the
water that they've been swimming in their whole lives.
There's this story that I really like.
It's sort of a parable where there's two fish that are
swimming in the ocean and they pass a much older fish.
And the older fish says to the two fish, how's the water boys?
And the two younger fish swim away and they say it's good, but
then they swim away and they ask what the heck is water?
So the whole metaphor being that the fish, even though water is
what they've been swimming and living in their whole lives,
they still don't really know what water is.
They can't grasp it. They're too close to it.
I think there's a good metaphor there for Fiat currency and the
US dollar system, because people take for granted that, you know,
we have the US dollar or whatever Fiat currency you use
depending on what country you live in.
And people just accept that that is money and they don't consider
that there are superior forms of money out there, Bitcoin, in my
opinion, being foremost among them.
Obviously Bitcoin needs to scale and there's still some obstacles
before it can become a medium of exchange unit of account and
store value and all those properties that make money what
it is today. But I, I think that's the
biggest revelation to me is that once you understand what Bitcoin
is, you can't look at money itself in the same way ever
again. And money underpins everything
we do in our society, from politics to economics to
business. And once you realize that the
money we're using is potentially flawed, it kind of shifts your
whole view of society. And that's why I think
Bitcoiners might have a tinfoil hat reputation sometimes, but it
really is because they've gone to the other side and they can
now see on the horizon a better world that can potentially be
made by embracing a currency that is scarce, that is finite,
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Brom. Yeah, yeah, I think I agree.
I think it was the same for me. And also even on my podcast, I I
talk to people that are like master, they have masters in
economics, right? And and they told me I never
learned what money is. And I think once you realize
that even those people don't learn and you are participating
in a system, right? You're swimming in in the water,
as you said, and you have no, no clue how it works.
You know, once you realize how it works, then you have like
this pivotal kind of like decision point, right?
Like, do I go with this new information and new truth,
right, or observation, or do I stay in, you know, this old
paradigm that I don't understand, but it's, it's
easier, right? I think for many people that has
been like the kick down the rabbit hole because as you said,
like everything eventually, you know, is downstream from, from
the money. I, I say that all the time.
Like if you identify as a progressive person and you want
to fix everything in the world, then you have to realize that
everything that you would ever want to fix is broken because
the money is broken. Because it it, it breaks
incentives and makes people do things that are perhaps not in
their own best interest or in the interest of the people that
they want to serve. And I think at least for me,
that was one of the biggest, like hard hitting things to
realize right? Like that?
No, not everyone has the right incentives to do the right
things, although we all talk about it.
Yeah, Ron, that that's so well put in.
Everything you just described reminded me of the scene from
The Matrix when Neo is offered the the red pill or the blue
pill, right? And the blue pill is Fiat
currency, Fiat world. You know, take the blue pill and
you can stay in sort of this fantasy land that you've been
living in where slowly over time, your savings erode,
everything gets more expensive, but you just accept reality as
it is. But then, of course, there's
also the red pillars. Look, we like to say in the
Bitcoin community, the orange pill.
And once you take that, you really do see how deep the
rabbit hole goes. Yeah, I also always, I, I love
the matrix in this example, right?
I also think about the guy who double crosses them, right, who
was like, I like the steak, I want to keep eating the steak,
he says. Right.
And I think that's the person who realizes there's another
paradigm, but they are, I don't want to say strong enough, but
they, they are too comfortable in the old paradigm basically.
And they, they want to eat the steak, although they, although
they know that the steak is not real and their mind is playing
tricks on them, right? I think this is kind of like the
biggest mental hurdle that people need to get over.
Is that actually like yesterday or day before yesterday?
I saw a tweet where it said the dollar lost.
I think it was 20% or even 25% of its purchasing power in the
last four years. Wild, you know, but not that
many people wake up to that, you know, like I find it crazy.
I think in, in euro in the euro area or in my country it it's
also about like 18% or something.
Yeah, it it's just crazy. But there's there's no one
industry protesting against the money, right?
Like it's sometimes, at least for me, it feels like, are we
the only people trying to do something about this?
Or like how how do you see that? You know, like, so not talking
like actually moving, moving to a new new system.
Yeah, I think now is prime time to orange peel people because of
those conditions that you described.
People are feeling the pinch every time Do they go to the
grocery store, every time they pay their rent, every time they
fill up their car with gas? People are definitely
recognizing that inflation is much worse than it's ever been
in their lifetimes. And I think more people are
asking questions as to why they're waking up to the effects
of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy and Congress's
reckless spending, recognizing that this is having a really
tangible effect on their lives. That effectively the government
is exacting a stealth tax in the form of inflation that they
didn't sign off on. And that I believe, gives them
an opportunity to consider alternatives, Bitcoin being the
foremost among them. Just to pull out a different
statistic, you know, over the last 10 years, the US dollar has
depreciated in terms of purchasing value by about 30%,
whereas Bitcoin has appreciated in value by 5000%.
And so when you put things in context for people who are
worried about their savings, they start to catch on to this
narrative that Bitcoin isn't some wild eyed financial
experiment, but potentially the most effective savings
instrument that we have on the market today.
And so it seems like there is a correlation between inflation
and people becoming more and more open to Bitcoin.
And that gives me hope, honestly.
And I think it also keeps the US government in check or will over
time. Effectively, Bitcoin can serve
as a check on reckless money printing from central banks
because people can opt into Bitcoin if they feel like their
savings aren't secure in their own currency in their own
savings accounts. Yeah, yeah, 100% agree.
I, I always thought maybe we'll get there eventually, but I, I,
I was a pretty fierce proponent of, you know, the legal tender
it has has to become the money hyperbid canonization, all all
these things, right? I I think eventually we will get
there, but the face in between is more like this is a
competitor to the Fiat money. And exactly as you said, because
that exists and because people can move, it will keep or at
least attempt to keep, you know, the Fiat money in check because
there is a competitor that's completely, you know, 180°
different than, you know, the Fiat the Fiat money.
And so I think it kind of serves as like checks and balances type
type thing. You know, it could be the, I
don't know, kind of like there's a new measuring stick in town,
you know, and if you measure in that measuring stick, then you
can buy way more with the units of Bitcoin that you have versus
the units of dollars or, you know, any other Fiat money that
you have. So I went from that part of
maximalism more towards what you just mentioned and I think that
will be great. But I've but also, and that's
one of the things I want to talk with you about as well, like the
that, that, that freedom of choosing the money or increasing
the competition of money. That is of course not a smart
decision by the people in charge of the old money, right?
So do you think they would ever allow that?
Or is manifesting Bitcoin a more rebellious thing?
It depends on the country I think.
I would also say it might not be a question of whether countries
allow it, it might be a question of whether they recognize that
it could be the only thing that can save them from
hyperinflation. So over the weekend, we had a
history making speech from President Donald Trump where he
announced Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset.
And he very wisely pointed out that Bitcoin itself is not a
threat to the dollar. the US government's feckless and
reckless money spending. That's the true threat to the
value of the US dollar over time.
And so by announcing a strategic reserve asset, I think that
indirectly strengthens the dollar actually in a number of
ways. Number one, it gives people
confidence. Let's project this experiment
out 10 years from now. And let's suppose that Bitcoin
over the next decade achieves parity with gold, which if that
were to happen today, I think it put each Bitcoin at around
$700,000. You know, who knows how how much
that would be a decade from now? Let's just say $1,000,000.
I feel like that's a pretty conservative estimate of where
Bitcoin could be a decade from now if the thesis plays out.
Well, if the United States acquired 5% of the world's
Bitcoin supply, as Senator Cynthia Lummis aims to do with
her new bill, that would essentially build a Fort
Nakamoto, a Bitcoin reserve for the United States.
Well, that definitely strengthens the dollar because
it gives people the confidence that in the event of
hyperinflation, there is a hard asset that the United States
government has to fall back on if it ever needs to, to peg its
currency to a tangible asset in the future.
And I also think that Bitcoin plays this really interesting
role where if the dollar were ever to be pegged to something
real in the future, as it was under the gold standard, Bitcoin
could potentially save the US dollar.
And maybe this is a pie in the sky scenario, but with the rate
of inflation as it is today, I don't think it is.
You have a number of really prominent policy makers from RFK
Junior to Vivek Ramaswamy, who's actually advising Trump on
Bitcoin and digital assets. Both of those policy makers have
come out and proposed this idea of backing the dollar with a
basket of commodities that could include Bitcoin.
So it reminds me of those stages of a revolution.
You know, first they laugh at you, then they fight you, and
then you win. I think we actually might be
moving from the fight stage to the winning stage.
I don't want to count my eggs before they hatch.
But I think more and more government is waking up to the
fact that their own spending is unsustainable.
Their Fiat currency has a shelf life.
And if it's not backed by something scarce and finite like
Bitcoin in the future or a basket of commodities to go
along with it, their Fiat currency will go the way of the
dinosaurs. So I actually think that that
question itself is evolving from, you know, will governments
try to ban it to will governments recognize the way
that this could actually benefit them and help save their own
currencies? Yeah, Well, this of this is of
course part of the the intricacies of the game theory,
right? Like the game theory has
multiple dimensions. I think this is one of them, you
know, right. Like if you if you go through it
in a in a sequential way, it's kind of like, OK, this thing
exists, it's decentralized, so it's not going anywhere.
Do we want to shut off the Internet?
No, probably not. Do we want to do a 51% attack
that costs us? I don't know.
I once saw this calculation, right. 10 billion for 10 minutes
or something like that. You know, probably not.
OK. So in what way is it a threat to
us? Well, you know, I think we just
mentioned it before because it's so ultimately transparent and
Fiat money is not it's, it's a great competitor.
So do you ignore it? Do you accept it, allow it?
Whatever I'd like. I I think it's these little,
little steps. What I like is the thought that,
you know, it's, it's better adopting it than fighting it.
And that's kind of the main thing I'm I'm, I'm looking at,
you know, in terms of are we winning or, you know, what is
the, what is the shift that is taking place?
I think we went from Elizabeth Warren is building an anti
crypto army, you know, and what did she tweet last week?
Like Chinese or foreign miners are interfering with something.
So I don't know, just some, you know, it's such a big tell when
they talk in terms of fear, right?
Because the other side of it, the positivity side of it is way
more way, way, way more interesting as you mentioned,
right? Like it could help solve an
unpayable amount of debt. It could resolve that spiral of
all these things. And so I'm kind of looking at
how is the I don't want to say that what's the five shift right
from anti to to pro and and then in in whatever way, right?
Because I think we, there's so many things that we'll talk
about that, but there's so many things we would love to see that
obviously we're not announced by by Trump or RFK or even Cynthia
Lamas, US Senator who announced a bill to make it all happen or
already right. It's more a signal.
It's more a signal of going from, you know, anti to to pro,
whatever the appliances are right now.
I don't know if that really matters, but yeah.
What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think you hit the nail
on the head when you described a vibe shift.
Having been in the world of crypto policy over the last
year, I've definitely noticed a shift of tone, both from
Republicans and Democrats alike. So we talk often of Bitcoin game
theory and how that will play out among nation states.
Well, it's also playing out in really intriguing ways among
politicians. I think we're seeing that in the
presidential race right now. We all know that Donald Trump
was very much against Bitcoin before he was for it, and he did
a simple political calculation. He recognized that the political
upside of embracing Bitcoin is enormous and the political
downside of rejecting Bitcoin is also something to consider.
So he recognized that this was an investment he could make as a
political entrepreneur that had almost infinite upside and very
little downside. Whereas if someone is against
Bitcoin, there's there's no hardly any upside to that
whatsoever. If anything, there's more
downside because as we know today, crypto super PAC's or
political action committees are actually fair.
Shake is foremost among them, and it's the largest super PAC
in the country right now. So I don't know what Democratic
strategist thought it was a good idea for Elizabeth Warren to
make an enemy of a new financial system without considering that
there's a lot of money behind that.
But that person should not be able to keep their job because
they've really put the Democrats in a tough bind.
And you're seeing that game theory among political
individuals play out in real time where Donald Trump has
embraced Bitcoin and now Kamala Harris is trying to pivot.
Obviously, we know that the Biden administration has been
the most hostile administration towards Bitcoin and digital
asset companies in American history.
And so to pivot now is a little rich and I think comes off as
inauthentic and disingenuous in my opinion.
But Even so, there has been outreach from the Kamala Harris
campaign as a way to tamp down on some of the efforts by crypto
political organizations to fight against them politically.
And so politicians themselves are recognizing that there's no
benefit to being against Bitcoin and digital assets.
And so I, for that reason alone, I think the future of Bitcoin
actually is bipartisan because it's something that is of
benefit to people on both sides of the aisle.
Not to mention from philosophical terms, I, I have,
you know, many progressive friends and I tell them often,
you know, as a progressive, you have every reason to be for
Bitcoin. It is the democratic money that
is available to all people, regardless of color, class or
creed. You know, if I were a
progressive myself, I couldn't dream up a better currency in a
lab. It's perfect, and it has appeals
to people on both sides of the aisle.
And I think it's just a matter of time before politicians wake
up to that. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
I think in general it's really interesting.
Maybe it's also a bit different, I think in Europe, right, But
you use the word progressives for more like the leftist side,
right, in America. And when I hear the word
progressives, I think like those are forward thinking people,
right? You should embrace new
technology or at least look into it or, you know, familiarize
yourself with it to know what it could be, right?
But we see the same agony. I don't know if that's the word,
but with any new technology, right?
Like, you know, people who like the swords and bows and arrows,
they didn't like gunpowder, right?
Then people who like horses didn't like trains like, but I
think in this case, as you alluded to before, like the
money. Money is just the biggest topic
that we can tackle or solve because everything that
eventually happens or is created or built or whatever is
downstream from, you know, the incentives of the money we use.
And I think that's why some people are just in, in over
their head in the beginning. I mean, I, I was the same.
I don't have an economic or financial background or
whatsoever, right? But, and we talked about this
before, like once you understand what money is and that it's
broken and that we need to fix it, you know, it doesn't really
matter if you're red or blue or white, black, you know,
whatever. And I, I personally really love
that about Bitcoin, that it's not about all these, I don't
want to say superficial, but lesser important things than,
you know, what is the technology we use to communicate with each
other. Yeah, Yeah.
I think that's a really good way of describing it.
I mean, Bitcoin transcends political categories.
Yeah. I think the one political
faction that is inherently against Bitcoin are those who
want to expand the power of government and believe in
technocracy over democracy. And I think that actually
explains Elizabeth Warren's support for Bitcoin.
Even though she identifies as a progressive, she's made very
clear from the work that she's done in the Senate in her own
political statements that she's pro central bank digital
currencies, and she intuits correctly that Bitcoin is an
anti CBDC. So she has every incentive to
try to outlaw or to try to drive Bitcoin innovation offshore
because she recognizes that that essentially clears the way for
CBDC. And so where we do see some
political Division, I think it is between those who believe
that the government should oversee money and have greater
power than it does now, and those who believe that there's a
technology that exists to disintermediate the state and to
separate the state from money to a certain degree, then Bitcoin
is a really good solution for that.
Yeah. So do you think it's strategic
to announce, you know, a Bitcoin reserve asset strategy right now
without having actual power to to also do anything right now?
I mean, you know, if if there's people in China or any other
adversary type countries of America and I think, you know,
Trump has the biggest chance to win, he says he's going to do
this. You know, we should look into
this thing and maybe buy some. What are your thoughts on that?
That's a fair question. Is it strategic if you're
announcing what your next play is to the opposing team?
Right. Yeah.
No, it's it's a worthy question. My response is yes, it is just
because of the way policy works in the United States.
So there's really no feasible way that the US Treasury could
secretly accumulate Bitcoin when it's matters dealing with US
finances. There does have to be some kind
of democratic process where the people get a say in how their
government accumulates reserves. And so there's two vehicles for
that, executive orders from the White House or legislation from
Congress. And we saw both of those at play
with Trump's announcement over the weekend and then Senator
Lummus's announcement as well. What's really interesting about
both policy proposals is that they dramatically opened the
Overton window in a way that it hasn't before to even consider
Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset.
Just a year ago, I think to anyone outside of the Bitcoin
world sounded like a kooky idea that would never come to
fruition. But as the idea kind of got
socialized with time and as more people got educated on what
Bitcoin is, what potential benefits it could bring to the
United States, they were more warm and welcoming to the idea
itself. And now that both a bill has
been introduced in Congress and President Trump has made it a a
platform priority for him, we now know that this is a feasible
policy idea. And I think you'll see more
conversations from both Democrats and Republicans alike
about the issue. And we needed to open the
Overton window before we could enact this kind of policy.
These things can't really be done in secret.
And in essence, it still is strategic, definitely.
And I think we mentioned earlier, just before we started
recording, talked about there was a legislator in Hong Kong
who mentioned that he would potentially propose something
similar to what Lummus proposed over the weekend about a
strategic reserve asset. And that's all very small scale,
of course, but it's drop by drop that these things happen.
And, you know, if President Trump is elected, that really
builds a lot of momentum behind Senator Lummus's bill where this
could become an actual policy of the United States government.
And at that point, I think it has the same practical effect as
the Black Rock ETF, where all of a sudden Bitcoin is mainstreamed
for Wall Street investors. Once you have a nation state
like the United States, the home of global capital, accumulating
Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset, that essentially makes
Bitcoin mainstream among nation states themselves, where they
have a natural incentive knowing that the United States is
accumulating it, to accumulate it themselves, and it really
gets the game theory going into hyperdrive.
Yeah, I love, I love this nuanced answer because it's
also, you know, we are really in a bubble, right?
We, we, I think a lot of people in Bitcoin have already thought
about, OK, what is the best strategic move for, you know, a,
a country and you know, it's so obvious that you need to do it.
But I think as you just mentioned, you know, it's a,
it's the policy making has a different pace, I would, I would
say. But maybe the biggest signal is
broadening the open window having even, you know, a Hong
Kong type reply within two days over the weekends.
Actually maybe that's already what we should look out for,
right? And maybe that's already enough.
Yeah, I hope so. And it draws an interesting
contrast with Germany. We know that Germany sold all of
their Bitcoin just a couple of weeks ago.
It really dipped the Bitcoin price down pretty hard to the
low 50 thousands and then rebounded very quickly after
that. So part of me wonders if Germany
marked the bottom among nation states by selling all of its
Bitcoin stash. And it's like, yeah, right.
And the United States announcing a strategic reserve is what
really catalyzes the next bull run, at least among nation
states. So it'll be fascinating to see
how it all plays out. Yeah.
Another thing I find really interesting from that proposal
of Cynthia Lomas is that she kind of has set the bar for, you
know, a sovereign strategic reserve, which is 5% of total
supply as she mentioned, right? So she says, OK, we need to get
to 1,000,000 Bitcoin. RFK had another approach.
He was like, OK, we own 20% of all the dollar or of all the
gold in the world, so we should also own 20% of all the Bitcoin
in the world. So he proposed 4 million
Bitcoin, which I think is I, I appreciate the idea, but I, I
don't know if that's still still doable.
But even the million, you know, in five years.
She also said, I think that bar, I, I think it's interesting is
that she said a bar, but also that it's that million in that
time frame. What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, I thought that RF KS proposal, obviously I liked it
as a Bitcoiner, but my first reaction is I worried that it
would actually centralized Bitcoin in a way that is
dangerous to the Bitcoin network.
If the United States owns 4 million of the world's 21
million Bitcoin, that's great for the United States, but I
worried about how centralized Bitcoin might become in that
situation for the United States. So I also, and I think RFK is,
is a great man. I admire him as a politician in
many ways, but I, I think he knew that his role in the
conference was to anchor in negotiation terms, to set a
heavy anchor for the other policy makers to try to match,
knowing that they probably wouldn't be able to.
And he also put that forward knowing that it's not super
likely that he'll be president. But I admire the the ambition
behind this proposal. I do think that Senator Lummus's
proposal of 1,000,000 is much more feasible and really would
be give the United States a competitive edge.
I like to think of Bitcoin and gold in terms of Netflix and
Blockbuster. I actually think that gold has
the potential to be blockbustered, so to speak, by
Bitcoin itself because Bitcoin is in a way start up gold.
It's got all the properties of gold, but then it has a lot of
characteristics that make it a superior form of gold in terms
of being more portable, more scarce, much harder to mine,
much easier to verify. So it offers a lot of the
benefits of analog gold, but brings with it certain benefits
that make it arguably a much better store value.
Of course, that thesis is yet to play out, but I think the United
States are really any nation state should have an interest in
accumulating its own strategic reserve.
More or less is a call option on the thesis that Bitcoin does one
day either achieve parity with gold or even surpass it.
Just from that perspective alone, I think it makes sense
for countries to own at least a little bit of Bitcoin in the
same way that makes sense for individual investors, some might
say, to own a little bit of Bitcoin.
Of course, I'm not a financial advisor and that's not financial
advice, but I think that's the thesis behind a lot of
accumulation on an individual level.
And I think pretty soon we'll see that same accumulation among
pension funds and companies and eventually nation states.
Yeah, I don't think that's a farce, farce stretch.
I mean having gold is is a hedge against their own field system,
right. I think at least the central
Bank of my country has has said that literally, you know, we
have gold in case our money system doesn't survive.
But what I find interesting, and I think once that clicks, that's
probably far away, but then we will see more of the shift
towards Bitcoin, is that, you know, why do you have gold?
Yeah, I have gold because everyone else has gold.
So why does everyone else have gold?
Yeah, because, you know, it was used by the Egyptians for for
these amounts of years and blah, blah.
Like it's all talk, right. Like it's kind of like someone
said it and then they'll they'll follow each other, right?
Like it, it feels like, and, and it's funny, I don't know, I
forgot to ask what which generation you belong to.
But like, for me, just thinking about owning gold myself feels
so old. I'd like it feels prehistoric.
Like, what are you, what are you talking about?
You know, like, why should you own a shiny rock?
Not to diss the gold box, but like, do whatever you want.
But at least for me, as someone who grew up in, you know, first
analog, then a digital age, like just holding a shiny rock
doesn't make sense for me. And holding it because other
people say it has value, right? Like it's, it's a story, you
know, and I think Bitcoin. Is is the and and you have to
trust in the story of gold, right?
And and that the don't trust verify, you know, tagline of
Bitcoin. For me, it just makes much more
sense. Like should I believe in
something because other people say it?
Or should I believe in something or have conviction on something
that it could help me because I can verify it for myself, right?
Like just just that is for me, it's just way more rational to
have Bitcoin. Like you don't have to believe
it, like you can verify it, right?
And gold is more of a of a belief type asset.
Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.
Like you said, you can verify everything on the blockchain.
It's the most transparent form of money that exists.
And yeah, for the record, I too am a millennial.
So all right, when I saw OK, the Bitcoin from Millennials
podcast, like that's record my alley.
Yeah. And I think gold is great.
And I think one advantage of gold over the other I'm.
Not saying it doesn't work right, but this is better.
Yeah, that is more of a conclusion.
Exactly, Exactly. Yeah.
I was going to say gold has the advantage of being Lindy, so to
speak. You know, it's been proven over
time to be pretty amazing store value.
But I think a lot of gold bugs kind of rest on their laurels.
Sometimes I think, oh, Bitcoin is Lindy like gold as well.
It isn't yet because it's very young still, but it seems like
Bitcoin is in its teenage years as a digital or as a financial
asset. And we're seeing it, you know,
what happens to your teenage years?
A growth spurt, right? We could see like a real price
accumulation over the next decade that could put it on even
terms with gold. And I just love because I feel
the same way as a millennial. I mean, so much of our lives
have lived online that I don't enjoy particularly owning
physical things. Of course, you know, a car like
basic necessities, TV, computer, those are all things you need,
but there's certain conveniences with owning things digitally.
And I think that's the beauty of Bitcoin.
You know, you can carry Bitcoin with you wherever you go as long
as you remember the C phrase. And that in and of itself is a
revolutionary technology. I, I just think of some of the,
you know, Bitcoin millionaires out there, the fact that they
can transport their wealth with them wherever they go across
borders, across customs, just by knowing their seed phrase in
their head is truly incredible. Whereas with gold, to transport
gold anywhere is a huge financial cost and there's
security risks that go with it. And so again, it's just one area
where I think Bitcoin is in many ways a superior form of gold.
Yeah, I think two things, like the the argument of people who
like gold where they say like Bitcoin is young, I think that's
the weakest argument. It's not an irrelevant argument,
but I think it's the weakest. So we we already ended up at the
weakest argument, right. Just because something is new
doesn't mean it cannot be better, right.
Like I think I you know, it's, it's yeah, it's just a weak
argument. Yes, it's true.
But, you know, look at all the other stuff as you just alluded
to, you know, more transportable, all these things.
So I think it's interesting that we're already there.
And I agree with you like a lot, at least from my perspective.
A lot of gold people are just like, yeah, I have gold.
I'm just, yeah, I'm good, you know.
But they forget that there's also competition in assets,
competition in, in money, you know, and because Bitcoin is a
digital money, it's more fierce competition and adoption will go
faster than, you know, any other physical alternative, right?
If there would be any alternative, basically.
And, and what you said, I think, you know, for millennials, and I
think this is one of the points that I'd love to reiterate on we
grew up with, you know, Limewire because you know, like Napster,
all these things, like everything on the Internet,
anything that's digital can be created and copied infinitely,
OK. And so if there's a technology
that makes something that's digital finitely scarce, you
have to pay attention because that is the that is the
invention, right? That is the discovery that that
is not possible with any other digital thing.
So the fact that it is possible here and that even, you know,
and I find it still hard to explain, but this is a digital
thing, but it's almost tangible, right?
Like you can write down letters and numbers with a pen on the
paper and that can represent that information can represent a
billion dollar asset, you know, so it makes it makes it
tangible. I love what Jack Mueller says
about, you know, the information is the asset and that that is
really what Bitcoin is. And I think, I don't know how
you look at that. I'd love to hear.
But that is one of the most important things I think to make
to just show like that is the innovation, the fact that you
cannot just copy this endlessly. That's the entire point.
Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, Bitcoin was really the
first invention to even introduce the whole idea of
digital scarcity. And that in and of itself, in my
opinion is a multi trillion dollar idea.
And I think we'll see Bitcoin achieve a multi trillion dollar
market cap over time because that's how much value is behind
such a revolutionary concept. The idea too of digital versus
analog makes me think again of the Netflix versus Blockbuster
analogy. So comparing gold to
blockbuster, blockbuster, I, I figure most of your audience is
millennials, maybe some Gen. Z.
And so maybe even some Gen. Z.
Remember what Blockbuster was too?
Yeah, lots of. OK, lots of.
Food. They know.
They know Blockbuster. Right, right.
So, so of course with Blockbuster, people would go to
a physical video store, they would rent a physical video
cassette or DVD and they would take it home with them and they
would, you know, put it into their VCR and, and things would
play and it was all physical. It was all analog.
The Netflix came along and introduce a new concept of
mailing DVDs and video cassettes to people and eventually Netflix
went straight to digital and it became a streaming service.
And the whole time Blockbusters thought, oh, this is just an
upstart company, you know, we don't have to worry about this.
But the second Netflix went all digital, it was game over for
Blockbuster. And that I think is the genius
behind Bitcoin itself. It takes the business model or
essentially the economic value of gold, and it makes it digital
in a way that no other invention has before.
And it achieves what you were describing, Brahm, that digital
scarcity, which is so important in a world of digital abundance,
right? If you can make something that
is truly digitally scarce, that can't be replicated, like Kazaa
and Napster and songs that we would listen to growing up, that
in and of itself really changes the game and allows there to be
a currency of the Internet that has the potential to change not
only how we transact on the Internet, but as we transact as
human beings. I like to think of money as sort
of the layer zero of humanity. And currently that layer zero is
Fiat currency. And I think that begets a lot of
the problems that we're seeing in the world with Fiat or with
inflation, and that has trickled down effects that really affect
every corner of our society. But if you can change that layer
zero to some kind of currency that is hard, that gives people
the ability to save over time, you're essentially swapping out
the layer zero of humanity, which could change the way human
civilization itself operates. And that is the promise of
Bitcoin. And one of the reasons why I
love working in this industry, because if we can really make
true on that promise, if we can bring about a world where
currency is hard again and it is cannot be manipulated by central
bankers or politicians who are trying to sell the future of
their children to people here in the present, then that can
really change the way things work in the United States and
Europe, really all across the world.
Yeah, yeah. I couldn't agree more.
I think it is the base layer. And if we can create a
transparent on unchangeable base layer, then anything that's
built on top of that has to adhere to those principles,
right? And that's why, yeah, I'd like
to talk about the alignment of incentives where now we touched
on this in the beginning, right? Like Fiat money creates bad
incentives. So no one is really invited, you
know, to actually deliver value or to make things better and
better and better, right. It's kind of like we are going
back in time, like the bread is more expensive than 50 years
ago. And nutritionally probably also
worse, you know, where we probably should have been in a
place where the bread is free and no one is hungry, you know.
And so I think I also think we can get there if we have Bitcoin
as that as a base layer. But you know, I do you think
other people in other countries, other leaders in other countries
think about this too? Like it just makes so much sense
for me that I'm kind of like surprised that no, I always kind
of say like serious country followed El Salvador, like a big
enough, powerful enough country. What are your thoughts on that?
Like are there are there any countries that are going to
react to this, you know, reserve asset strategy before the US
election? Is anything going to pop off in
the in the global game theory perspective?
Yeah, If I were a discerning policy maker in a country
outside the United States that had the means, I would actually
try to front run this because if Donald Trump is elected, because
we're already talking about the Trump pump, you know, and a lot
of people are speculating that the reason why Bitcoin hasn't
taken off yet is because investors are still not certain
that Donald Trump will be president.
They seem to have a sense that if he is president, that
completely changes the game for Bitcoin.
All of a sudden Bitcoin policy moves from a defensive stature
to an offensive stature where we have a president in the White
House who not only supports our industry, but a vice president
who owns more than a quarter $1,000,000 worth of Bitcoin.
So that changes the game. And if I honestly, if I were,
say a central banker in Europe or Asia or just a wise policy
maker, I recognize that the next six months between now and a
potential Donald Trump presidency are a great
opportunity to start stacking stats for my country to get
ahead of the potential of a Trump pump or the potential of
the United States just running away from the field by
accumulating so much Bitcoin. I mean, United States already
has a big leg up over other countries just because it sees
so much Bitcoin from Melissa actors over the years.
But I, I would, if I had the means as a central banker in
another country, I think that this could be a prime
opportunity to start accumulating my own strategic
Bitcoin reserve. Whether or not that will happen,
I'm a little skeptical just because again, we we've been
pushing hard on the Overton window and you can feel when
you're opening the Overton window up more and more, there's
a lot of resistance there and a lot of traditional economists
just online Last week I went to toe to toe with a number of
different guys who are more from Fiat world who generally grasp
this idea. And because of that alone, I
think we might not see something in the next six months.
But over the next couple years, especially if we get a Donald
Trump presidency, I do think you'll start to see this nation
state game theory start to play out in real time.
It'll be really fascinating to watch.
Yeah, Did you get caught up in the discussion with the guy who
started talking about the divisibility of a pizza or?
No, I got caught up in a discussion with George Selgin.
He's an economist at the Cato Institute in.
He just didn't like the idea of Bitcoin as a strategic reserve
asset. And honestly, I don't know if he
was trying to engagement farm or if he genuinely held those
beliefs. I think he genuinely held those
beliefs. But I was just making the case
for Bitcoin as just as a strategic reserve.
And he was making the argument that, oh, this is just something
that Bitcoiners want to pump their own bags.
Which I mean, you're not saying anything profound if you're
pointing out the fact that, yeah, Bitcoiners will obviously
benefit from nation state adoption.
But my argument is that nation states themselves will benefit
as well because they improve their own strategic reserves and
they give themselves potentially a lifeboat if the if
hyperinflation were ever to take place.
And I just at the end of the day, Bitcoin is the scarcest
monetary asset in the world. And if you're a developing
country who believes that tech is the future, why wouldn't you
accumulate at least a little bit of the Bitcoin supply?
It just seems to make logical sense.
Yeah, that argument of you just talk about it to pump your own
bags, I think is in the same category as the other one.
Like it's it's the weakest of arguments.
You know, there's there's Sailor said this years ago, right?
There are no informed critiques, but I don't see a lot of
honestly informed critiques like with, with substance, right?
Talking about, you know, fixed monetary policy is a bad thing
or something, right? Or a fixed supply is a bad thing
or, you know, and then explain it however you want, right.
But it's always like, you know, similar to what you said, like
you're only talking about it because you want to pump your
own bags. And I always think like, you
know, what would be weird if I would advocate for this and not
own anything that will be even worse, you know, So it's just, I
don't know, it's nonsense, but I, I, it's so interesting that
these people from, from this other paradigm, you know, the,
the, the cage in economics that they are so emotional, you know,
and also clueless in sometimes. I meant, I refer to the pizza
guy. There was another discussion
where the guy was like, yeah, but if you, you can divide any
Bitcoin in 100 million sub units rights.
And so if you do that with a pizza, there's like infinite
pizza. And then everyone, like lots of
people quote posted that because they were like her.
But we heard this reply a few months ago.
I don't, I don't know the name of the woman who said it, but
it's like, OK, so we bake one pizza and then we have infinite
pizza for everyone. And what, what are you talking
about? Right?
It's also, it's just such the arguments are so weak.
I'm really, you know, I've been in Bitcoin for 10 years.
I'm looking for substantiated arguments.
There's just not that many. There are some, you know, about
potential of future security, the block subsidy, all these
things which I think are legit, but they are far away, right
that you can anticipate on on handling them.
And I think they are already clear now.
But all the short term proponents, you know, proponent
arguments are just, I don't know, weak.
Yeah, they're weak, and the arguments are old and recycled
and stale at this point. I mean, how many times are we
going to see the pizza analogy used over and over?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. People, usually from the
traditional financial world who think that they've, you know,
found some new information that Bitcoiners have never
considered. I think that in and of itself is
a tell that they don't think highly of the Bitcoin community,
that they think that after, you know, more than a decade of
existence, Bitcoiners themselves had never even considered what
they think is a novel idea that will forever put to rest the
idea of Bitcoin. It's like, no, we've that's been
considered over and over again. And yeah, sometimes I do.
I like you, Brahm. I wish that we had a stronger
critics. You know, we, we've got some
strong ones out there. But I also think that the more
you understand Bitcoin, the more you believe in it.
I've met very few people, if anyone, now that I really think
about it, who actually understands Bitcoin, who doesn't
also believe in it exactly. I think a lot of.
The belief comes from the study, right?
It's not belief from someone else telling you you should
believe it, right? Anyone listening to us, you
should not listen to to what we think or say about this.
You have to verify this and study yourself.
That's the difference, no? Right.
Yeah, yeah. Which I think speaks to the very
idea of Bitcoin as a form of self sovereignty.
You know, to understand Bitcoin, you as an individual have to
take it upon yourself to understand it, to get educated.
It's I think Bitcoin is all about responsibility at the end
of the day, whether it's owning your own asset or taking the
initiative on your own to truly understand what it's all about,
which is something that's always drawn me to the world of
Bitcoin. This idea that it's Bitcoin is
responsibility at the end of the day.
And I think responsibility is a path to freedom.
In a lot of our modern societies today, you have people who
simply don't want responsibility.
They want to defer to the government.
They want social programs to take care of them.
They want universal basic income check in the mail.
And at every stage, these people are refusing to take
responsibility for their own lives.
But Bitcoin offers a radical alternative where it offers
people the opportunity to take extreme responsibility by being
their own bank. And that can be intimidating to
a lot of people, which is understandable.
But at the same time, I think in a in a world that negates or
runs away from responsibility at every turn, we need something
that is a counter to that, and that's what Bitcoin represents.
Yeah, yeah, 100%. I, I have another take away of,
you know, these announcements at the conference, what I thought
was interesting because I tweeted like, OK, this was like
a three out of 10 speech. And then some people pointed me
to, OK, you know, we are, we are in a bubble.
This is actually, and you know, we just talked about it.
I think it's the vibe shift, it's the signal.
It's, it's, it's, it's making the Overton window bigger,
right? That's the entire entire point.
So I think outside of our bubble, it was a 10/10 speech,
although it was incoherent as hell, but still, you know, good
speech. But we didn't see Bitcoin as
legal tender. We didn't hear currency
inflation, you know, printing our own currency to acquire more
Bitcoin. We didn't hear about free energy
for Bitcoin miners to incentivize hash rate.
We didn't hear about Bitcoin bonds or asking to be paid, paid
in Bitcoin for commodity. So, you know, these are all the
things I think we we think would make sense eventually, but this
is just where we're at, right? Like it's we're moving forward,
the vibe is shifting, but we're still so, so, so early.
Yeah, agreed. And it was funny to see the
reaction both among people in the conference and people on
Twitter about the speech. Because I wear two hats, you
know, I wear one hat as a bitcoiner and I wear another hat
as a policy and political professional and.
My hat as a policy and political professional told me, like you
said, it was a 10 out of 10 speech.
From that perspective, he hit on everything that Bitcoiners
realistically could have asked for.
Of course there are the other things that you mentioned, your
Bitcoin bonds and those other policy initiatives, but you can
only open the Overton window so much without people wanting to
jam it shut in your face. And I think that's what we
successfully did last Saturday was we opened up the Overton
window pretty significantly. That starts to normalize the
idea of Bitcoin on the nation's balance sheet for people on the
right and the left. And it's a step by step,
iterative process that will take some time.
But you know, as we start to put Bitcoin on the balance sheet,
then that opens up the door to other discussions such as
Bitcoin bonds, Bitcoin is legal tender.
These things take time and they can't all be done at once.
And for people who were dissatisfied with the speech in
any way, I would just encourage them to look at it from that
perspective, recognize that we can't, you know, Donald Trump
can't do everything all at once. And this represents a huge
pendulum swing from where he was just a year ago, really, or
just, you know, five years ago when he said that Bitcoin is a
scam. And now he recognizes, oh,
Bitcoin is not a scam. In fact, it is potentially an
instrument of economic statecraft.
And orange peeling for everybody takes time.
And the fact that you have orange man embracing the orange
coin, I think is really promising for all of us.
Yeah. So what do you think is more
important, legal tender first or the strategic reserve assets
first? I think the strategic reserve
first legal tender, there are of course Bitcoin scaling issues,
which I think that we need to get our stuff together a little
bit more on the technical side with the Lightning Network
before a nation can feasibly adopt it as legal tender.
So I think that needs to happen 1st.
And making Bitcoin a strategic reserve asset really gives us
more time to work things out on the technical side, where making
it legal tender that's actually used frequently day in and day
out becomes more feasible a few years down the road if a country
wanted to go that route. Yeah.
And what do you think of could Bitcoin be a single issue voting
subject? I mean, it's it's on the at
least, you know, in the states, it's on the platform of the
Republicans. We see the Democrats, you know,
react or at least you know, they try.
But yeah, do you think it could be like a single issue voting
subject for for people or maybe if you look at other countries
where there are systems with, for example, more, more parties,
right. If there would be like a new
party that says, you know, my only goal is for my country to
start a strategic Bitcoin reserve, what do you think of
that? Yeah, I think Bitcoin for
potentially millions of Americans is a single issue
voting subject. I did some research earlier in
the year just about how many people own Bitcoin in digital
assets and how many people essentially turned the election
in 2020 in favor of Joe Biden. So just to get a little bit more
granular about politics here in the United States, President
Biden, he won the election in 2020 by really just 10s of
thousands of votes. It was just, you know, 10s of
thousands of votes in key swing states that handed him the
election. So there have been really
interesting polls out there that show in those exact same swing
states, there are millions of voters who say that Bitcoin and
digital assets for them is a make or break issue at the
polls. And so that's what Donald Trump
and before him, Vivek Ramaswamy and RFK intuited from the very
beginning was that this is a demographic that is just waiting
for representation that has nobody truly speaking for them
in the United States Congress or in the White House right now.
And so as a discerning political entrepreneur, he recognized
this. This voting demographic could
actually swing the election. That's why you also see the
emergence of what's called the Bitcoin Voter Project.
So the Bitcoin Voter Project is an organization here in the US
that is catalyzing that voting bloc and really helping it
receive political consciousness, achieve political consciousness
in a way where they can have an effect at the polls.
So I think definitely here in the United States, the Bitcoin
voter will be among the most powerful voting blocs in the
country going forward. And I think that trend is only
likely to extend to other countries as well.
Yeah, Yeah. I think it's a very interesting
development in the sense that as you, as you said, you know,
people want to be heard, they are into this thing, they
understand what it is or you know, to a certain degree.
And yeah, they they need representation.
I think, you know, if I don't know how many people, I think
that's an interesting question. By the way, in general, like how
many people fully understand Bitcoin?
Well, you never can fully understand it, right?
But let's say to the level at where we are talking about,
eventually that will be more people.
And because that rabbit hole is so deep and touches all these
different dimensions, they can smell out the bullshit about
these dimensions from, you know, whatever party political parties
there are in their country, right?
So I think actually it will become more difficult for people
who fully understand Bitcoin to fold, to vote for anyone and who
doesn't understand it. I agree.
And this goes back to our
discussion earlier about what is the future of Bitcoin as a
partisan issue in the United States.
I think the future is bipartisan for that exact reason.
More and more, you're going to see people incorporate Bitcoin
as a part of their financial portfolio in the same way that
Golden Bonds is a fixture of people's financial portfolios
today. And, you know, imagine if you
had a politician out there who is trying to crack down on gold
or trying to crack down on bonds or trying to make it illegal for
people to own, you know, a certain percentage of US
equities. It would be a good point.
Committing political suicide. Yeah.
And at that point that that is the future.
I think as Bitcoin becomes a fixture of financial portfolios,
it will have to be bipartisan. And any politician who wars
against it, like Elizabeth Warren, just shooting themselves
in the foot. Yeah, well, it is that right.
They have to, you know, I, I like it that also, you know,
some critics say like, oh, Bitcoin goes to the right or,
you know, whatever, because Trump endorses it.
But it's the other way around. They have to come to Bitcoin.
I think exactly. You know, it's, it's one of the
top reasons, the one you just mentioned.
It's it's it's going to be a more important part of the
portfolio of more people. So yeah, if an anti Bitcoin
politician is talking to you, then you're just going to ignore
them and not listen to anything else that they are saying,
right. So they have to come to Bitcoin
and Bitcoin is for anyone again, you know, as we as we mentioned,
so I also see it as you know, yeah, just politicians bending
the knee in a sense that this is this is definitely here to stay.
That's that's kind of like the the conclusion, I think.
I agree. I, I think Bitcoin right now is
coded right. But I think that's temporary for
all the reasons that you just just mentioned.
You know, we saw after the Bitcoin conference, some people
complain that it was majority Republicans who spoke.
And my response to that is, well, you can get Democrat
friends on board too, but they really haven't been coming
around to this idea. But pretty soon they will be
forced to because Bitcoin will be ubiquitous, so many people
will own it on right and the left.
Even now, according to Coinbase's own own data, there's
actually more people on the left who own Bitcoin than people on
the right. More Democrats own it than
Republicans. I think Elizabeth Warren and
Gary Gensler dismissed the memo on that one.
Yeah, which I think with Gensler is just interesting.
I watched his lecture, the MIT lecture, which I think was
great. So I don't know, something
something was promised to him perhaps for for him to behave
like, like he's behaving, you know, maybe a future treasury
position or something or something like that.
But yeah, I I agree. Do you do you think that because
they have to come to Bitcoin and they also think in a sense
Bitcoin is also somewhat of an equalizer, right?
Like you can be like, oh, I'm pro Bitcoin, but you know, like
I see Trump saying I'm pro Bitcoin, but I don't, I don't
think he actually understands it.
You know, maybe as you know, the individual person, he does not
necessarily have to understand it as long as the people around
him, you know, who are helping create the policies actually
understand that, you know, maybe this is going to be like one,
one of the topics that is going to yeah, kind of show what the
politicians and the policymakers are, are made of.
Just because Bitcoin is so transparent and you can verify
anything, right? It's it's there.
There's nothing obscure about it in my opinion.
So it's either when you say like, I'm pro Bitcoin, you have
to do the work, walk the talk, right?
You cannot be pro Bitcoin on paper.
You have to actually do something with it or about it.
Yeah, that's true. I I am very bullish, though, on
Donald Trump embracing Bitcoin fully, not only because of his
public statements, but because of those in his inner circle.
So Vivek Ramaswamy is beloved by Donald Trump, which is
fascinating because Vivek himself is a very charismatic
personality. And you know, one might think
that a charismatic person might see another charismatic person
as someone they don't want to compete with and some of them
that they would try to shut out, but it's been quite the
opposite. And so it was actually Vivac
that heavily influenced Donald Trump to 1st oppose CBD CS.
And I think that was the gateway drug to Donald Trump accepting
Bitcoin. But even outside of Vivac, you
have Baron Trump. I don't think people talk about
Baron enough. Baron is the six foot seven
youngest son of Donald Trump and he is very pro crypto and very
much supportive of digital assets from from what it appears
from some of the activity we see on Twitter.
And then you have Donald Trump junior, who when we were at the
Bitcoin conference, he was actually there with Carl
Tuckerson doing events that were adjacent to Bitcoin.
So you have a lot of people in Trump's inner circle who really
seemed to embrace Bitcoin and digital assets and are very
supportive of the idea. And so Donald Trump himself, he
gets maligned in the media and oftentimes portrayed as someone
who's not intelligent. But I mean, for anyone who knows
that the guy is sharp, he's hilarious, and he has the shtick
of a professional wrestling promoter.
And I think people see that sometimes and dismiss the fact
that he has created a multi billion dollar business.
He is a savant level marketer and he understands business and
finance. And so, you know, does he
understand Bitcoin like Alex Gladstein does or safety and
Amis or Pierre Bouchard does? No, probably not because he's
got a lot of other pressing issues on his mind.
But I do think that Donald Trump, if he is not completely
orange peeled at this point, it's just a matter of time
before he recognizes the value of Bitcoin to investors across
the world. So I think that he will, He is
in the process of being orange peeled, not only for political
reasons, but for authentic reasons as well in the near
future. Yeah, well, I'm, I'm thinking
about hearing him say, you know, our stack is huge, yours is tiny
or something like that, something like that.
But yeah, you said Carl, Carl Tuckerson.
I thought it was funny. Tucker Carlson.
Yeah, but Tucker Carlson anyway. No, no, but I, I, I like what
you said. I think, you know, I think Trump
is a very polarizing figure. I still don't know what I think
of him. But yeah, as you said, he is
from the Ric Flair era also, right?
He looks like a WWE spokesperson.
But yeah, eventually I think if this election can open up that
Overton window enough, you have the Democrats adopting quote UN
quote adopting it, you know, eventually not not following up
with any promises or doing a complete 180.
I think at this point would be kind of like a career suicide.
So even if the Democrats would adopt Bitcoin now, perhaps if
they win the election, turning around and and not doing
anything that they are perhaps going to promise, I think is
going to be a very bad look, right.
So in that sense, we are already pretty far in the terms of,
well, let's stick with the vibe shift.
But yeah. Yeah, I agree.
One thing that stuck out in Trump's speech was when he said
that he would fire Gary Gensler on day one.
And the whole crowd got off their feet and just erupted in
in applause. And then Donald Trump said, wow,
I didn't realize he was that unpopular and said, let's do
this again. I will fire Gary Gunzer on day
one. And everyone got up again and
started clapping. You know that it's hard to under
score just how unprecedented it is in American politics to have
an SESEC chair. Who is that political who has
brought so much just agony and pain to the industry like Gary
Gensler has? And so even if there were to be
a Kamala Harris presidency, I wonder if Gary Gensler's
political days are numbered because the SEC chair of an
administration should be one of the most anodyne, inoffensive
appointments out there. But the fact that he might be a
political liability to Kamala Harris at this point is
something that Democrats are paying attention to, and he is
clearly out over his skis. He miscalculated here, as did
Elizabeth Warren, and there could be real repercussions for
that. Whether or not he would stay in
a future Democratic administration, I think he's a
question just because he's become such a political burden
to the current administration. Yeah, it also made me think of a
tweet. I think it was from Eric
Belkunis or, or James Seyfar, you know, the guys from
Bloomberg who reported on the Bitcoin ETF launches and one of
them tweeted like, I've never seen any crowd or a group of
people follow the launch of an ETF this closely.
You know, like I think they both gained hundreds of thousands of
followers right by by their reporting.
And I think, you know, this, this Gensler example is the same
there. This is a very informed crowd,
you know, way more informed than lots of other people on other
issues, you know, and so I I just find that just really
interesting. You saw Trump's face where he
was like, what? Like, is this this thing?
OK, yeah, you know, I'm going to say it again, but I think I
think that's also a really interesting signal just from
Bitcoin. You know, the Bitcoin adopters
in general, like how up to date they are with what's going on
and that they have insights on it and opinions on it and
they're not afraid to to share them.
So, you know, in the same way that perhaps Bitcoin could be an
accountability tool for Fiat money, it's kind of the same as
like Bitcoiners could be an accountability tool for for the
politicians. I think.
I think those two examples are kind of kind of kind of show
that. Yeah.
I still wanted to ask you kind of a different subject, but you
mentioned you were also a millennial.
I'd love to know how you experienced talking to our
fellow millennials about Bitcoin.
Yeah, different reactions depending on where they are
politically. When I talk to Democrats who are
our age about Bitcoin, the automatic response that has been
programmed into their brains by Elizabeth Warren is, oh, isn't
it terrible for the environment? And at that point, I mean, I
could go on and on about actually the environmental
benefits of Bitcoin mining, but whenever I'm in a social
situation, I try, I try not to talk about Bitcoin because it's
so hard for me to stop talking about it, but it gives me an
opportunity to really change their minds on the subject.
So just real quickly on that. So I work for Riot Platforms, a
Bitcoin miner, and what a lot of people don't recognize is that
Bitcoin miners actually allow clean energy projects to be
bootstrapped because renewable energy often times can't find a
buyer. Because often times the sun is
shining during hours of the day where no one needs energy, or
the wind is blowing at certain hours of the day where no one
needs energy. And often times that energy goes
to waste. But Bitcoin miners completely
change the equation where we can always use energy, and we'll
always buy energy if it's cheap and if it's abundant.
And so in that sense, Bitcoin mining actually makes a lot of
clean energy projects, not only in the US but developing regions
like Africa. It makes these projects
economically viable in a way that they wouldn't be without
Bitcoin mining. So that's an interesting way to
sort of subvert their understanding of what Bitcoin
is. You know, when I talk to people
who identify as Republican, there's a heavy libertarian
strain in the United States that even if they don't own Bitcoin,
they like the idea of it, right? It reminds me of that scene from
Zoolander when he says, I like Sting's music.
I've never really listened to it, but I like the fact that
he's making it. I think that's how a lot of
people who are libertarian in the US feel about Bitcoin.
They might not own it themselves, but they love the
idea that there's a form of money out there that puts a
check on federal money printing and allows people to be their
own bank. And so I get different reactions
depending on where people stand on the on which side of the
aisle they're on. You know, it's a lot harder
talking to boomers about Bitcoin, but it's just so hard
for them to wrap their minds around just because they've
lived in Fiat currency world for so long.
But millennials and Gen. Z, Gen.
Z seems to get it just right off the bat.
They seem to be even more digitally native than us.
And so grasping the concepts behind Bitcoin is appears to be
much less challenging for them. Yeah.
What do you, what do you think is the main thing that holds
millennials back? Like, of course, you know, this
is called Bitcoin for millennials.
I think, you know, we are going to be in power.
We are going to inherit, you know, if there is any, you know,
from our parents, this is the great wealth transfer.
We never were taught what is money.
We are participating in, you know, this investing game that
we can never win again. Everything we think about with
regards to, you know, the path of your life from, you know,
going to college, buying a house, starting a family and
like, etcetera, all these things.
It was true for our parents, but it's not necessarily true for us
anymore, right? There's so many.
Clear things, at least to me that I think millennials should
be aware about what what's like one of these things that that
you come across a lot or or is like a big talking point for you
also with regards to to Bitcoin. And just helping people
understand Bitcoin. Yeah, or like, why should you
study this, right? Like for me, it's this is the
most important thing you should spend your time on at least
study. You should also spend time on
other things. But, you know, this is the most
important technological discovery you should study.
I think, you know, when I talk to millennials, but they don't
always get that. Yeah.
And I was just wondering what what do you think is like the
main thing holding them back or or what they should learn about?
Yeah, I think the main thing holding them back is maybe some
of the cultural stigma around Bitcoin Bros or crypto Bros that
needs to be dismantled because those Bitcoin Bros are are doing
well for themselves. You know, a lot of them are.
And so I think more people are becoming more sympathetic to the
idea of Bitcoin because millennials are recognizing
everything that you just mentioned, that it's so much
harder for us to buy a house. It seems to be so much harder
for us to save. It seems to be so much harder
for us to just achieve those life milestones that seem to
come very easily for our parents, Right.
And the wisest among our generation are looking for the
why behind that. They're trying to dig deeper.
And when they do, they recognize that the problem at least that
we're facing most acutely right now, the problem is inflation,
right? And when you recognize that the
problem is inflation, you look for root causes.
And when you find the root causes, you find two things,
Federal Reserve and the US Congress, with the common factor
being either money printing or reckless spending.
And at that point, people are more open to the idea of Bitcoin
than ever before, which makes me very bullish on our generation
when it comes to Bitcoin adoption because we're all
looking for some kind of refuge against inflation.
Historically, that refuge has been owning a home.
But home ownership is so hard for people our age that they're
turning to alternative sources. And I in my opinion, one of the
best sources could be Bitcoin, just given its price performance
since its inception and where it appears to be heading from here.
Yeah, yeah, great point. I, I, I definitely agree.
I wanted to ask you two last questions.
The first one is to circle back to how you discovered Bitcoin,
watching or first heard about it, you know, watching Conan
O'Brien. And I think you said, well, they
were making a joke about it. So the joke, you know, must have
been legit or true. You know, Bitcoin is not
something to pay attention to, but you also mentioned, you
know, Bitcoin really changed your your views in some ways or
your worldview. How do you look back at kind of
like believing what the TV said and not paying attention to kind
of like how you look at the world now?
Yeah, So I can't remember the specific joke that I heard on
Conan O'Brien, but the the theme of the joke was that they were
portraying Bitcoin as Internet funny money, just kind of this
magical invention made by computer nerds that didn't have
any underlying value, which makes sense that TV often
maligns Bitcoin when Bitcoin is down bad.
I actually see, you know, news companies and publications like
the New York Times or Wall Street Journal bagging on
Bitcoin as a good bottom signal. It's probably a sign that, you
know, the bear market is far advanced.
And if mainstream media's pick you up on the fact that, you
know, Bitcoins doing bad, it's probably a good sign that the
reversal is approaching. So if that was my first
introduction to Bitcoin and how it changed my views on society,
Bitcoin in a healthy way, I think just makes you more
skeptical of everything. People who live in Fiat world
are also very prone to Fiat news.
And by Fiat news, I mean essentially fake.
I mean corporate media that has a very clear agenda to pad their
own pockets. And so they'll push out
narratives that are good for their bottom line, but possibly
not good for society as a whole. And when you realize that Fiat
currency has much in common with Fiat news, it just makes you
more skeptical of everything. And so in a healthy way, I think
Bitcoin made me question more. It made me more skeptical, but
it also encouraged me to do my own investigations and just not
to take things at face value. But when I see a headline that
seems suspicious to me or the vibe seems OFT to do a little
bit more digging on my own. In the same way that when people
recognize that their savings are eroding with time, they try to
do a little bit more digging and they recognize that there's
actually A cause behind that. And it's our monetary policy in
the United States in large part. And so the same way that Bitcoin
encourages you to dig deeper on money, I think it helps people
who embrace the idea of Bitcoin to take that same model and dig
deeper in all areas of life. You know, whether it be news,
politics, wherever it may be, it just it encourages people to
take more responsibility for their life and not to be
programmed by institutions that are bigger than them and might
not have their best interests at heart.
Yeah, you just gave me a thought and I tweeted it.
Nice. But it's like Bitcoin enhances
your optimism and makes you skeptical of anything that
threatens that optimism. That's what that's that's what
that made me think and which is mostly coming from the Fiat
money world, right? That's just it.
Because who wouldn't want to build stuff and contribute to
stuff, right? Like just this is one of my
biggest insights. It's like, do you want to be a
consumer or a builder, like a contributor, right?
Like, do you want to Yeah, do you want to do things or yeah, I
don't know. It's just it's it's it's it's
it's maybe it's a red blue pill choice kind of matrix thing,
right? Like do do I want to?
Yeah, as you said, like take ownership, try to be more
sovereign to whatever degree is is good for you, right.
But at least stop outsourcing lots of responsibilities like
you do now. That is like peak Fiat money
worlds. So start thinking for yourself,
start doing things that you know, you find valuable and
contribute to, well, basically anything, but just stop
consuming. So yeah, something like that.
Yeah, it's fun. Oh man, I love how this is also,
you know, one of my motivations for podcast.
It's just like talking to so many different Bitcoiners also
helps me, you know, further structure my own thoughts around
this. So thanks for thanks for the
inspiration this. Is great.
It's fun. Yeah, OK, last question and I
ask everyone the same question, which is what is a core belief
you will never let go. The absolute truth exists, and I
think that's a core belief of Bitcoin as well.
Fiat world is supported by. Money printing is supported by
central bankers and politicians who are willing to mortgage the
future of generations that come after them for greedy people in
the present. And people are waking up to the
fact that there's so much of Fiat world that is fake and that
is not real. And I believe in absolute truth.
And that's what I love about Bitcoin is the absolute truth is
laid out there for everyone to see on the digital Ledger that
is Bitcoin. Just a quick anecdote with that.
I this was a real wake up moment for me when I was when I was in
Princeton, we were in a seminar and the professor asked how many
of you believe in absolute truth?
There's a class of about 15 of us.
It was only me and two other people in the room who raised
our hands that there is such thing as capital T truth.
And that was the biggest shocker to me because, you know, here
you supposedly have the future leaders of our country who think
that, you know, truth is fungible or truth can be molded
or truth is scarce or sorry that truth is manufactured by humans.
And I think, you know, there's danger to saying absolute truth
extends across our all categories.
But I firmly believe that absolute truth exists and that
we need a kind of money that is undergirded by the idea of
absolute truth. So that's one of my core beliefs
that that I can't be shaken from just my own life experience.
I've seen, OK, there's capital, capital T truth out there.
And we need to do our best to align ourselves in our lives to
that truth. I think it will not surprise you
that I fully agree. I think that is also one of my
biggest realizations that whatever you think of Bitcoin,
your opinion about its applications and stuff like
that, you cannot deny that Bitcoin is absolute engineer
truth. Because it's just the thing you
know, it's, it's just the thing that works as intended, you
know, and as intended is what the rules of the protocol are.
And enough people are still following that.
And whatever comes out of that is the truth coming from that
system. And that that is, I think one of
the also main characteristics and main points of Bitcoin is.
This is the. Truth and you cannot change it.
And therefore it has value and it's guarded by the most, you
know, the strongest computer network in the world.
So yeah, I think we could start a whole rabbit hole journey from
that. But I love.
I love that you shared that. Yeah.
Man, I really enjoyed this conversation.
I want to thank you for your time.
I will make sure to link to, you know, your Twitter X profile so
people can follow you and your thoughts and your work.
And yeah, man, thanks again for the time.
I really enjoyed this. Yeah.
Thank you, Bron. This is great.
This is one of the the funnest Bitcoin conversations I've had
in a long time. So appreciate it.
Awesome man, stay in touch. Cheers.
I hope you enjoyed this episode and if you did, check out some
of my other episodes to learn why Bitcoin is the most
important subject you must understand and adopt.
If you want, you can follow and connect with me on Twitter.
X I'm at Bramk, that's at BR AM K and if you have any feedback
or questions, just reach out. I read and reply to every single
message. I appreciate your support and
hope you'll be here for our next episode.
Thanks for listening. Bye.