All right. Hey there.
This is Bram Constand 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 our fellow millennials should
understand and adopt. In this episode, I'm joined by
Leon Van Cum. He's a professional in the real
estate development sector and a prolific writer and thinker on
Bitcoin real estate philosophy and ethics.
He even wrote his master thesis of financial economics on
Bitcoin and it was titled A Qualitative Study of a Monetary
Alternative, Its Value and Applications.
He currently shares its thoughts through his sub stack and
articles on Bitcoin Magazine and I'm super excited to have him
come on the show. Welcome man.
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Well, thanks for coming on. I love your writings and your
thoughts. And I saw some other podcasts,
appearances of you. And I think like, I personally
really like this kind of, like philosophy angle, thinking about
Bitcoin. Like it's just so much more than
a technology. And I think you have a lot of,
like, good thoughts on that. So yeah, I'm excited to chat
with you, man. I just wanted to do a quick
check. Are you a Millennial too?
Oh yeah, I am, yeah. I'm born in 91, so oh, wow.
OK, cool. Well, do you also see that it's,
like, hard to help millennials understand Bitcoin?
Like, that's the reason why I started this podcast, of course.
I had a conversation yesterday with a good friend of mine and
we said, you know, for there's this almost like lost
generation, like the millennials that people that have born, that
are born, let's say, I don't know, people under 30, they
naturally sort of grow up with Bitcoin.
So it's almost part of their. It's not part of their identity,
but they don't necessarily question Bitcoin because it's a
technology that's already there like the Internet was for us,
that we grew up with the Internet, which question it
naturally grew on us and the millennials and also people that
are a little bit older. They are in between the Internet
and Bitcoin and some of them have a difficult time
understanding Bitcoin. It's interesting.
Do you think they like, do understand the Internet, like
now that it's actually like here and everywhere, but but
especially for like millennials, I really feel like we never got
any education on however, you know, this stuff works, right?
Like we, I mean, you're also from a Western European country,
right? I also said this before, like we
just grew up in the best time ever of everyone, whoever lived,
right? And there were no problems,
There was just money and it worked, right?
So there's also not really an urgency to to understand, I
think. Yeah, there's a lack of
necessity. I had a conversation with
someone and very smart guy and he said to me, Leon, I I've been
following what you've been saying about Bitcoin for a long
time, but to be honest with you, I don't see the necessity.
Like you said Bitcoin, I have a credit card.
I can go to the ATM. I can get cash.
I can make a transaction to another European bank account
within an hour and don't pay any fees.
But the world has changed Europe, neither Europe or North
America in the center of the global economic or hub.
So the necessity for Bitcoin comes from Western.
Western Asia, South Asia, Africa, Latin America, all these
parts in the world that were excluded from the global
financial system so far and there was no ability for them to
either store value or transact value.
So I think adoption of Bitcoin, of course also will be driven by
these large financial players that are now entering the market
and they will make Bitcoin part of their products.
But it will be also largely driven by the global S It will
completely change the power dynamic.
And I believe it's interesting because you see like 100 or 150
years ago in the Industrial Revolution, a lot of the
rustocracy that were wealthy because they owned land, they
missed the leap into the industrialized future.
So to see a lot of the people that have made money in the
industrialized world, in Europe. They already missed a leap into
the Internet. In Germany, there's only one
company that's listed on the NASDAQ, that it's a technology
company that's SAP. Other than that, there's no
German company that I know of that has any significance in the
digital world. So they already missed the
Internet and now they're missing Bitcoin as well.
And the problem with that is that Bitcoin, the way that I see
Bitcoin, I mean it's a very versatile asset, but essentially
it's money and it's a battery which we can use to store
productivity as a company or as an individual.
And as more individuals and as more companies start to adopt
Bitcoin to store their productivity, whoever does not
own Bitcoin does not participate in the increase of productivity
of all these global players. Yeah, I love that.
Like it's such a like turn around thinking in a sense.
And I love the aristocracy example and I feel it's
currently the same, right? Like, OK, I have something, I
don't really have a problem because other people don't have
what I have whatever is happening like over there to,
you know, make their life better.
I don't really have to be a part of it because my life is already
fine. Right.
But it's kind of like this, this ignorance towards thinking.
It's actually very kind of like how do you say that, Like a
conservative thinking, right. Like as if the world stays like
it is and you don't have to continue to, to change, right.
And and I also think it's it's interesting that like global S
will probably prosper more from this than than the countries
that currently well let's say rule the world right.
Like the the Western countries like in in in several ways.
Yeah. I I actually, well we are part
of this western world so maybe we'll have like the the short
end of the stick of that. But I I love that irony in a
sense. Right.
Like it feels like really natural and logical that yeah
that's gonna happen. Like, what do you think about
that? I totally agree with you.
It's almost like Bitcoin is this equalizer.
The monetary system has been also used to suppress certain
regions of the world and extract productivity from these regions.
I mean the Fiat system. By the production of money, the
state absorbs productivity of the market.
And it doesn't just happen within the market also happens
on a global scale. The French, for example, they
use the monetary system and the old colonies.
To to to decide over the economic potential of these
countries. So Bitcoin is this equalizer
that comes and it levels out the playing field.
There's these amazing people from all over the world suddenly
that can use Bitcoin to get paid, that can use the Internet
to find a job and it just creates a fair economy where if
you, it's really proof of work. If you put in the work, Bitcoin
allows you to flourish. No matter where you live, as
long as you have an Internet connection, it's amazing.
And to to keep the the fruits of that labor actually protected in
time, right? Like that is I think the essence
what it's about. If we unwrap this like monetary
influence of a government on a country, whether it's like our
own country or as you said like a colony, like you see that in
Niger, right, where they want the French out.
It's actually interesting that in Niger they still have the the
French Francs where France has the Euro, right.
So, so in this year they have the old currency of France that
France doesn't even use anymore. But I think your point there is
right And and you can extrapolate that to to any
country, you know with a Fiat money system that the government
decides what what the papers and the coins are worth, right?
So if the work stays static, like people do the same work,
like they are a farmer or whatever, right?
Like that energy that they put in and produce, like that's a
constant, right? But the worth of the money is,
you know, let's say it goes up and down over time it all goes
down. Is that like the unfair thing
that you talk about? Yes, 100%.
I think very few millennials because of what you said, I
mean. The last 40-50 years because of
the credit expansion on the 15th of August 1971, we Bitcoin us
notice Richard Nixon, the US President decoupled the gold
from the dollar and since then we have living under field stand
up with no monetary base and credit expansion has caused a
boom based on credit and the western world.
So people believe that the economy is doing well.
But actually, if you think about how bad we are able to store
value, we are actually living under financial oppression.
Because what money essentially is, it's a way to save our time.
We use our time to work and we use money to store the
productivity we've created. And if through inflation, money
loses value, we lose the time we used to make that money.
So the problem is, I think, that we are not aware.
Of the disastrous monetary system we live under.
And Bitcoin also shows how the political and the financial
system works and the harm it inflicts.
So because when I got into Bitcoin, I'll be very honest
with you, and also for the first four to five years of my Bitcoin
journey, I personally was not aware of the state of our
financial system. I didn't even know what Fiat
money was, and I studied economics.
You know, I studied, I did my master's, and I had no idea what
money is until I wrote my master's thesis about Bitcoin,
because nobody in school really taught me what money is.
I was told money is a product of the state of the government,
which it is not. Money, naturally, is a product
of the market that we use as a medium of exchange.
And then there's certain monetary properties, most
importantly to store value function of money, which leads
to people accepting money because nobody would accept
money today. That loses value in the future
other than being programmed, which we are in school and
universities under the Fiat system.
And Bitcoin allows us to deprogram ourselves and it's
money. It's funny, right?
Because I think, like your story is is even a bit worse, I think,
than me as being like unknowing. I said this in other episodes,
like I was 30, I was working at a bank, I had a mortgage.
Then someone explained to me that the money in the bank
wasn't mine and I was like, what?
And then I understood and I thought like, I'm such an idiot,
like I'm participating in the system, but I just have no clue,
right. So I think we are, we are
similar there. But also when when people say
money, you know, people think about the the paper and the
coins, but that is the currency, right?
And the money is actually kind of like what?
What should be the underlaying? Well, I hear people say
technology or let's let's call it a vehicle through which we
exchange value, right. You do something for me, I
necessarily I don't have to do something for you.
Now we are not bartering, right. So I have to give you something
that represents the value that you delivered to me, right.
And so when I think you talk about money, you mean that,
right, that technology to exchange that information.
And I think that's kind of like the first thing that people need
to understand that you were not talking about the coins or the
numbers on the bank account, right?
Exactly. I'm not talking about a currency
system, a national currency or anything like that.
I'm talking about literally the base layer, which used to be
gold. In the past, gold used to work
as a base layer, but through the centralization of gold, it has
become very easy to manipulate the currency in the money
market. Because gold is so heavy,
central banks came into existence to halt the gold which
was used by the government to finance wars a lot.
One of the first central banks that was founded, I think in 19
in 1694 was the Bank of England. King William was waging a war
against France at the time. He was running out of funds.
Then he offered his population to bring in their gold.
Central Bank of England was formed, their heart to gold and
they gave the English people permissionary notes.
So the 1st paper currency there was linked to gold in a European
country. We had a paper money in China
before there was the sphere Get Riks bank, which was the Central
Bank of Sweden that was founded I think in 1668, but I'm not
sure if the year is correct. So anyway, in the 1700s these
central banks came into existence really because
aristocrats wanted to exercise complete control over money.
And they hijacked basically gold and paper money, made the whole
thing worse. So Bitcoin is a base layer on
which different currencies then can be issued.
I mean, we already have different protocols like Cashew
or fediment that allow people to issue E cash based on Bitcoin.
But Bitcoin as a base layer allows a new monetary system to
come into existence. And so if people don't
understand what money is, but at the same time the money is being
debased, right, the value of the money goes down over time.
I think Safety in a Moose talks about a lot about like the time
value of money. But if we don't understand, if,
if most people don't understand these things, what does it say
about like the perception of of time right?
Like this, Like short, short time preference and long time
preference. If you're if you're unaware of,
well that you're probably subconsciously have a short time
preference, right? That's why people buy stupid
stuff all the time. How can we change that?
Or what would be your way of letting people understand that
they are actually subject of that?
Yeah, that is a very good question.
I personally work with a very specific analogy that has
allowed me to grasp the potential of Bitcoin.
I believe it's also something that a lot of millennials can
relate to, because essentially what is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is mathematics. It's binary code, zero and one.
It's information that represents money because money is
information. Who owns what, right?
That's what one hears. It's a database, which Bitcoin
is. Bitcoin is a database.
Bitcoin also interestingly. Is a revolution in accounting
because in Mesopotamia and Barbilon, the first sort of
records that we had for numbers were inventories of temples, you
know, where people said this temple has that much cattle, for
example, and that turned into numbers and also turned into
language. So money and language is closely
interrelated. And then in the Middle Ages in
Italy, we had the double entry bookkeeping.
So we didn't just have the inventory, we also had the cost
on the other side. Now Bitcoin comes along and
Bitcoin has double entry bookkeeping plus the state of
the blockchain is communicated through the whole network.
So now we have we have three, it's not single or double, we
have three type of accounting system.
That's really interesting. I think about Bitcoin.
But because money has been broken for so long, certain
assets have taken on the role that money used to have in the
past and the store of value function of money and the
collateral function of money. Because money is something that
could use as a medium of exchange.
You could use it to store value. Use it, you can utilize a unit
of accounting and you can use it as collateral to lend against to
then invest but the function of a store value.
And the function of collateral has been taken over by real
estate. Millennials, when I still talk
to millennials when they want to build wealth, they always talk
about real estate being like this, the space layer of them
building wealth, because that's what people have done for the
past 40-50 years. But the problem is, as
millennials, we have been priced out of real estate because real
estate has become so expensive. So the analogy of Bitcoin being
digital real estate, meaning Bitcoin is a pristine store
value and Bitcoin is pristine collateral that you could
potentially lend against. Even though lending becomes less
important under Bitcoin standard because we can just save Bitcoin
which serves as a store value by default, everything else goes
down in value, then obviously Bitcoin then goes up.
Right, exactly, exactly. But it's still important to be
able to lend against your Bitcoin, especially as the field
system is slowly collapsing as inflation picks up.
We need to be able to lend against our Bitcoin.
So I use the analogy of Bitcoin being digital real estate to
show to people the potential of Bitcoin, because right now in
real estate we have about 330 trillion.
U.S. dollars stored in real estate has become the number one
store value of humanity, but it's actually very bad store
value. It's expensive to maintain, It's
easy to tax, it's easy to destroy, and it's not portable.
Yeah, there's not no risk, right?
There is risk. There's costs.
Anything like if you need to liquidate, you have to.
Like it's hard to instantly liquidate a house, right?
Absolutely, absolutely. In Bitcoin, you can liquidate
easily. You can take you with you if you
want to. If you live under totalitarian,
sorry, under totalitarian system, you can take Bitcoin
with you. It's mobile, it's portable.
So for us millennials who have been priced out of real estate?
You know, we shouldn't be sad about the fact we've been priced
out of real estate. We should be happy about the
fact that we can buy Bitcoin at a price that's very cheap and
given its long term price projectory.
Yeah. So I like to work with that and
energy because it helped me to understand the potential of
Bitcoin. And when you then talk about
wealth, do you mean accumulating?
Well, basically you do work right with a job or a venture,
you accumulate value, which we call money and is wealth then
the storage in time of that accumulation or how do you
define wealth in that sense? Yeah, good question.
Bitcoin gives us the opportunity to store our productivity.
As you mentioned, it's near perfect.
Money and wealth in that sense are called freedom.
I wouldn't call wealth being rich or anything like that.
This whole getting rich, like that's all feel, you know.
For me personally, wealth means having the time to do what I
want and deciding how I want to live throughout my day.
And in the Fiat system, you need to work long hours.
Your money is worth less, and everything becomes more
expensive. If you own Bitcoin, you can
store your productivity. Bitcoin is disinflationary.
There's less Bitcoin. Over time, because of the
pristine monetary properties of Bitcoin, demand grows, so the
price of Bitcoin grows. Bitcoin is deflationary.
Which allows you to increase your purchasing power over time.
So I would define wealth as freedom.
Yeah, I love that. I also once tweeted that I'm
actually in Bitcoin because I am Risk 1st and that's freedom,
right? I'm not sure who said this.
I think it was British huddle as well like.
So as you said, you go to your work or you have to your job,
you take risk in a sense, right, because you work for a company
that well as a certain risk profile.
Well, if you work for the government, there's not that
much risk or maybe now, maybe now there is, but you take risk
with your job or your venture and then you earn that money.
But because the money is debasing in its value, you have
to take on more risk to mitigate that debasement, right?
And that's why people invest or trade whatever, you know, from
whiskey to stocks to watches, NFTS, whatever they try.
And I really align with what you said, that freedom.
Like, I don't do that because I have Bitcoin.
Like I don't have to do that. I don't have to take on that
extra risk, that extra anxiety, that extra job.
Basically. I also my, my second episode of
the podcast was with Peter Dunworth and he said like, this
is my job, this is my full time job, mitigating the risk and and
seeing how we can earn more. It's my full time job and I have
other people who work for me, right?
Like who can do that as an individual?
Like it's very hard, but you're basically forced to do it
because if you don't do it then you know every five years you
lose. Like I don't know what is it 30%
of your of that what you own? Yeah, it's totally crazy.
If you think about it, Bitcoin acts as an ETF on global
ingenuity. If you own Bitcoin, you
participate. And everybody who uses Bitcoin
to store their productivity. And it's the smartest and
brightest and most innovative people in the whole world that
are starting to use Bitcoin. So if you own Bitcoin, you
participate in everybody in the world that uses Bitcoin to store
value or to use it to transact value.
So I personally went through the stage where I was saving in
Bitcoin, I was saving in ETFs, I was saving in gold, and I was
saving in stocks. And over time, Bitcoin obviously
outperformed all these other investments.
And then I understood. You know, Leon.
Sell all these investments and just save in Bitcoin, because
Bitcoin is also not an investment.
It's just a type of money that we can hold.
And because it's such a good store value, it sort of allows
us to keep our productivity plus participate in everybody else's
productivity. That I choose to save in Bitcoin
and it has made my life a lot easier and I have become like
you probably as well, way more optimistic about the future if I
talk with my friends that do not own Bitcoin.
They are, generally speaking, very pessimistic.
Their outlook on the future is very pessimistic because they
know they can hardly outperform inflation and their family and
friends or their parents, they were able to sort of keep pace
with inflation through real estate.
But real estate has become so expensive that they can't afford
real estate. So they are mentally sort of
kept in this cage of not knowing their way out.
And obviously, Bitcoin would be the solution.
But for some people, it's very difficult to grasp the potential
of Bitcoin without going through this bull market.
So maybe we need another bull market for the millennials to
really understand the potential of Bitcoin.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, I have the same.
I live way more frugal. Also like I I spent way less
money. Like I I don't know, I I, I find
a lot of stuff like, I don't know, like I already have 20
pairs of shoes or something. Like I did that before, but you
know, now I don't anymore. Like, sometimes I kind of lurk
on the Nike sneakers app and I think like, OK, those are dope
shoes, but I'm not going to buy them, you know, like it's just
it's just a different way of thinking And and yeah, I think
it it makes me less, like you said, also anxious, more
optimistic. And also it feels like I see
more things. Like I see more, I almost want
to say like I see more nice things or something.
Like in general, just you, you see technology going.
You see, I don't know, like I'm really into also art right now.
Like, I don't know, like it's just it opens your mind in a
certain way because you close like another door, like a door
of a room full of anxiety, I'd say.
And it's also, and I and I wanted to see if you see that as
the same like when you got rid of all the stocks and stuff,
like do you see it as like moving that value and saving it
into Bitcoin and not buying Bitcoin?
Is that how you see it as well? 100% I see it as Bitcoin.
As for me, Bitcoin as a storage for my productivity.
And through Bitcoin I've also learned to focus Bitcoin for me
and bodies focus and through being able to focus on myself to
harness my energy, I have more energy I can store in Bitcoin.
So to focus on oneself and flourishing a Bitcoin, I think,
are closely interrelated. Well, I think, yeah, well,
that's almost, I would also argue like a philosophical
thing, right? Like if you believe that we all
have infinite energy inside us because there's infinite energy
outside of us, right? If you can find a way to put
that to work in the right way, you know what works for you,
because you also can use a technology that actually enables
you to do that. Yeah, I don't know.
Like, I feel that the world would be a better place, you
know, Like, if we all have that. 100%, I mean, first of all, my
Bitcoin story is a story of failures.
Seriously, I've made so many misses, so much mistakes.
Multiple times I've thought about quitting.
I always continued same it's really a story of failure.
But when I learned about Bitcoin, or when I when I when I
saw somebody transacting a Bitcoin for the first time, that
was almost like. There was a feeling inside of
me. Intuitively I was like, wow,
this is actually how money should work.
But because I was so deep into the field system, because I was
a student of Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, Stanley
Drunkmiller, Ray Dio, Bill Miller, like all these great
investors, but Bill Miller has become a bit connective right
now. But drunk Miller too.
Drunk Miller too. And right now he holds Bitcoin.
But I think he's made me halfway there.
He's. Halfway there, exactly.
I was a student of all these and I was studying financial
economics and that sort of always took me away from
trusting my intuition. So intuitively, I knew Bitcoin
was correct as I was absorbing the news and I had all these
different opinion coming after me.
I was doubting myself so three years ago.
You know, I ditched to my TV. I don't consume the news when I
wake up in the morning. I meditate every time.
Seriously, every time I meditate, I become more
comfortable in being a bitcoiner.
So I think that we should trust our intuition a little bit more
and give less a damn about other people's opinions and about the
news, because it can hold us back from understanding Bitcoin
and trusting our intuition. Man, I like I fully agree.
For me, it's also, yes, failures on learning, new learning like
challenging yourself and also we talked about this before we
recorded. But it's kind of like when you
do the work and I think everyone who's in the Bitcoin says this,
like you have to do the work. But like what is the work?
The work is just studying. Like really for me it's, I don't
know if I reflect now it's kind of like, you know, this, this
this stage and like high school where you, like really have to
study a lot, right, To do a test.
And then I don't know, like it feels kind of like that, right?
Like you're constantly studying and like every day you're trying
you're trying to understand OK, what don't I understand what
what are new things that I need to know And then also being
confronted with. And I think you had the same
like these old beliefs or whatever you thought you knew.
You know like, however you want to define it like just how
you're programs like. And not even in a bad way.
But just like this is the information that you got as a
child when you grew up and this is how you think it works.
Then you at different points understand that it doesn't work
how you think it works. You know.
And that's that's also like this very personal kind of like ego
journey as well, right? Like you run into your own
incompetence, in a sense. Absolutely.
I had a I wrote down a tweet that you tweeted out because I
really liked it. You said the more and more I
dive into the global financial rabbit hole, the more I realized
that everything besides Bitcoin is actually a Ponzi.
Yeah. Because what happens is you have
to swallow these bitter pills you like.
Well, actually, this is what I've learned.
That's not really true. And this is not really true.
But then also we have to be very
careful as Bitcoin not to become arrogant because to be honest,
that's what happened to me. I thought, you know, I
understood the whole word once I figured out Bitcoin, but then I
got completely wrecked in the bear market and I just
completely got like ego destroyed, you know, so an eagle
gets you destroyed in Bitcoin and we need to leave our Fiat
mindset behind. So first we have to swallow
these splitter pills to learn that the Fiat system is
actually. Bad and things are not the way
that we think they are. Then we have to accept just
because we know that we are not better human beings than other
humans. We have to let our ego really
leave that we even have a bigger problem because now we, well, we
are on a podcast to talk about it.
We need to tell more people, right?
So that's the new problem then. Yeah, they will come.
Yeah, now. But I mean, we have a new
problem. So we have to ditch our ego.
But we also have a new problem. Because you know you you can be
right. Like, we can be right, but that
that doesn't mean anything if other people don't agree.
That is very true, right. So, So that's also what I think.
And we talked about that off Mike like for me and you have
the same like $100,000 Bitcoin for me it's like a I'm right
moment and I'm just gonna celebrate with myself.
But that's like, for me, that's like the moment where I just
know that I really did enough work and that I actually
understand what this is and then we go on to educate more people.
But that's like, I do think we need that, right.
Like this I'm right moment because you're constantly, yeah.
Being pulled in different ways to, I don't know, like drop your
belief or drop all the things that you now understand after
you actually did the work, right?
Like it's it's a it's a spiritual battle, kind of.
Yeah, 100% agree with you. Once the 100K comes, we'll be
right. And it's good to be right.
When you're right. And we again, we have to stay
humble, not become arrogant. And Bitcoin is.
I mean, every day for me is a journey, literally.
Like the things are never as I expect him to be.
But the Bitcoin price as we know is very volatile and that's a
beautiful thing. And the Fiat system is all based
around control. So within the Fiat system,
central banks, central institutions, they believe they
can control the market, they can foresee the future and things
like that. And that in itself is very
arrogant because if you believe, if you look at the market, the
market is made out of millions of people.
And if a single individual like Jerome Paul or Christine Lagarde
believes that they, plus maybe a Commission, have more knowledge
than millions of people, I mean, that is just completely crazy.
Yeah, it doesn't make sense at all.
It's also totally against how we know it works, right?
Like, even why does the Internet work?
Because it's a collective of people sharing information and
therefore the most valuable information and initiatives and
companies and whatever like they they come up right.
Because there's a base layer of, well, hopefully, you know, a
neutral base layer where everyone can participate and
just contribute in, in their own way.
So it's like it's like a level playing field in a sense, right.
And with money it's not. Yeah, I.
Feel Bitcoin, of course. I mean Bitcoin really levels out
the playing field. It puts in the verse on the
center. It's it's.
I mean it's such a beautiful thing.
It empowers everybody if they want to It's it's so amazing.
I I'm so thankful to. Seriously.
I'm so thankful to be alive and I'm very thankful to be part of.
Of of what is happening right now that we can see this, right.
Like last week I thought we we can call each other in 20 years
and still talk about this or 40 years and we can still talk
about this like that. That to me is just so fun.
Yeah, just to see where this like we are going to see where
this ends up at least partially right.
And and we were there at the beginning like I absolutely love
that. Another thought I had, which
ties back to what we just talked about about, you know, that it's
funny that kind of like the more privileged Western countries are
gonna be, well, the laggards here.
Well, that's our assumption, right?
But also that. And so it's kind of ironic that
they like, have to learn last, right?
They have the freedom to think about anything because they are
the richest, but they don't and that's why they become the
laggards. Again very ironical, but when
you just said you know the the the people who have this kind of
like hubris, right, that they think they are better than other
people. They are also the laggards in
what we talked about more like this personal spiritual
psychological journey that that we have gone through and are
still going through. I think when you when you are
you know into Bitcoin but like they have to do that.
They still have to do that work and and just because oh this is
my assumption but they are like this right now.
You know it's totally I don't know sometimes I feel like this
like a God complex right. It's so weird that you even want
to be in the situation where you decide what the value of money
is for all all these millions of people.
Like I don't know I think it's so weird.
But what I like is that they are going to be confronted with the
fact that they were wrong. Like, we are going to be
confronted with the that we are, right?
And then they'll be like, what the fuck do I have to do now?
Like they have to do the work, right?
Yeah and yeah. And that's also what I love
about Bitcoin. If they don't do the work and
wanna work with Bitcoin, Bitcoin will force them because it's
ultimate transparency, right? So anyone, your website is
called a system of rules. You know that is what Bitcoin
is, right? It's a system of rules.
And the rules are open for anyone to see and anyone can
join and anyone can follow. If you want to fuck with the
rules, you will be fucked with. And that that I love Because you
you, you will be forced to do the work once you think it's
valuable. You still, like everyone has to
go through this. And even these people who are
now in charge, who are messing up the money, they will have to
do it too. Oh yeah, 100% the volatility of
Bitcoin. It's.
I mean, I don't know if beautiful is the right word, but
in a sense it is very beautiful. It is very spiritual because it
is this ultimate ego killer, you know, I mean, we are all the
same in front of Bitcoin almost. They Mike a sailor, he recently
said in a podcast. He said, what is Bitcoin?
It's an asset, it's a network, it's a protocol and it's an
ideology. And some people have a problem
with Bitcoin being an ideology because they think it's
religious. But in a sense, it's just
spiritual. That's the fruit of an ideology,
right? Like it's a consequence of a
certain ideology. Yeah, not for sure.
And also the way that Satoshi introduced Bitcoin to the world,
it's essentially also the difference between Bitcoin and
other currencies, Cryptocurrency, if you want to
call them cryptocurrencies, I don't like the word anyway, but
we just call them icoins or whatever.
It's that Bitcoin has been this immaculation of this individual.
That has sort of has left his or her or there's ego behind to
give something through the world.
And everybody else that tries to build something that competes
with Bitcoin, of course they will lose, but it's also it is
their ego that made them build us, because if they would not
have that ego, they would have had Bitcoin.
Yeah, they would have part of the Bitcoin story, yes.
That's why I don't want to. I had look, I had my learning
phase. I also dealt with all kinds of
blockchains. At the end of the day, I
understand that Bitcoin is paramount for me And something I
also understood and it's very important, Good money always
demonetizes bad money. So we had different types of
money and history. And eventually we had rare
metals that demonetize other metals, so we had gold and
silver. Eventually Go demonetized silver
and we had a gold standard. The only reason we have multiple
currencies today is because we are forced by law to use them.
So governments and central banks can control money and absorb
productivity through inflation from the market.
But in theory, the market tends to the best money, and that
money will be Bitcoin. And if you call it a utility
token, or you call it this, or you call it that, at the end of
the day it's a medium of exchange.
And it is money, and it has to compete against Bitcoin and will
not be able to compete against Bitcoin over a period of two to
three cycles. Surely icons go up in price
against Bitcoin once they're launched, but then usually a
crash in price. Even Ethereum, which obviously
has a use case in the gaming world, because that's almost how
I see it. Like a theorem is sort of like
this gaming thing or like gamified finance or whatever.
I don't know how to be call it. I personally don't want to be
part of it. But I understand why people want
to be part of it because it's like the Fiat system basically.
But also Ethereum has lost value when it measured in Bitcoin
drastically. So people should be aware, I
mean, a lot of millennials that I talk to, they always say, Oh
yeah, I've got 3040% of My Portfolio.
And the Ripple and no, no, like in Bitcoin, exactly.
The rest and like Ethereum and Ripple and like this and that.
So they apply the Fiat mindset where you have to diversify and
look for assets because there's so much risk in each individual
asset. But in Bitcoin, you don't need
to diversify. Bitcoin is your savings account,
that's your capital base. And if you want to, you can
diversify out of Bitcoin into real estate if you want to lift
and own Bitcoin real estate for its utility value.
Or you diversify into a startup that you invest in that you
think is going to outperform Bitcoin.
Or you believe it's important to invest, for example, Lightning
companies to support the ecosystem.
But you don't need to diversify within crypto.
There's no such thing as diversification.
Encrypt that does not exist. How would you explain that the
volatility is not a risk? You actually very good question
because when people say Bitcoin is risky that they actually
refer to the volatility, yes, the question is what's your time
horizon? You know, I mean right now we
are in a phase where it's going to take maybe multiple decades
for us to get on a Bitcoin standard.
It can be 1020, thirty years. We'll see right.
And within that time frame, the volatility of Bitcoin is only
dangerous. If you only use Bitcoin to save
the fruits of your labor. But if you for example, say you
are a starter and you save 5 to 10% of your money in Bitcoin,
that is money that you don't need for payments or anything
else or for investments. And you can keep the money that
you stored in Bitcoin for up to 10 years.
The volatility is not risky at all.
If you of course store all your productivity in Bitcoin, the
volatility is risky. But you need to learn how to
work with the volatility. And then the volatility does not
become risky because the real risk lies in default of Fiat
governments. When we talk about a risk free
rate under Fiat standard, we usually refer to a treasury.
Why the treasury? Theoretically through the.
Always paid is always paid. Yeah, it's always paid.
Theoretically, you know the yield compensates for the loss
of purchasing power that Fiat money experiences due to
monetary inflation. Plus, we believe that a
sovereign country cannot default.
But we know that is bullshit. The risk free rate in Bitcoin is
your Bitcoin and cold storage, right?
That is actually the risk free rate of Bitcoin and there's very
little risk if you hold your Bitcoin and cold storage.
And so when when you talk to your millennial friends and they
have this anxiety, they cannot get into real estate.
They hear you talk about Bitcoin, but they still don't
get into Bitcoin. Like what?
What is the biggest mental hurdle that most people need to
get over before, you know, there's there's obviously all
these different dimensions of Bitcoin with all these little
threads that you could pull, right?
Like all these little different topics and things.
But what's what? What do you think is like the
biggest mental hurdle that that people need to get over?
Yeah, I I maybe start with myself and then I myself as an
example. So the biggest hurdle for me was
my ego. I had problems understanding
that Bitcoin is a better store of weight than real estate
because I grew up around the real estate business and that
sort of also was part of my identity.
So for me it was my ego. That's number one you have to
under. You have to accept the fact that
you're not right. Like Bitcoin just humbles you
and that regard #2. We have to literally.
We have to accept the fact that we've been possibly lied to and
manipulated our whole life. The school system has told us a
lot of lies and we have come to believe that money is a product
of the state and it's not. So there's a bitter pill that we
need to swallow. We need to become self
responsible. We cannot rely on any third
party because if you think about it, that's what the state takes
advantage of. It takes advantage of the
individual being afraid of taking self responsibility.
Then when you go through kindergarten and school and
university, you're never taught to make a decision.
You are basically just taught to obey.
So you need to become self responsible and I think that
will allow you to get into Bitcoin.
And sometimes pain is a good teacher so you miss getting into
Bitcoin. Bitcoin goes through a bull
market and then maybe people get in.
Other people have the ego to then dismiss Bitcoin again once
it goes to another bear market. But to be very honest with you,
I also came to understand everybody's on their own journey
and I cannot change people's mind.
Most of my friends, most of my friends are into Bitcoin like
because for the past years if I tell you by Bitcoin, it
basically means I care for you. But I know that.
Dude, I have exactly the same. I have texts to my friends in
caps. Please buy one.
I love you.
Please buy. Buy one.
Please. At, like, 5K.
And then, like, from from sweet to angry to sending heart
emojis, like, I love you. Can you please do it?
Like, just throw. Come on.
Yeah, I have exactly the same. You feel very altruistic, right?
Like you just like. But it's also for me that really
works me up. Like, don't you see?
Like I'm giving this to you. Like that's when I also had to
understand I'm not responsible for somebody else.
So that feeling I have this urge of you need to buy Bitcoin.
Sometimes what I do now, I literally I do nothing.
I don't even send them my podcasts anymore.
I just concentrate on my own journey.
The people around me that got it, I communicate with them, we
give each other feedback. I have my group of also Bitcoin,
our friends I met through Bitcoin, that we give each other
comfort and harsh times and so forth.
But I actually stopped feeding the urge of telling everybody to
buy Bitcoin because I know it can be annoying also and I need
to also let go. I think that also in a way is
maybe ego, that we need feel responsible for other people,
but we all are responsible for ourselves.
Yeah, yeah. I don't know if I feel, I don't
feel responsibility. It's more like this enthusiasm,
kind of like I see this thing and and you know me for years,
right? Like you know that I'm a
diligent risk averse. A person who likes to dive into,
you know rabbit holes and learn about stuff.
Well, this is my conclusion, you know.
But again that's. I think it's fair.
That's also kind of ego, right? Because then maybe I'm
validating that's what I just said that that I'm actually
dead. But I already know that, right?
So I I don't, I don't need that validation.
So yeah, it's an interesting it's an interesting experience
that I I. Yeah, I'm just, yeah, I'm just
really enthusiastic about it and I just want other people to see
and as in to help them. But I agree with you.
Like everyone has their own kind of path in this, right?
Like, I'm already happy that I orange built my girlfriend and
she's like totally into it. So that's great.
That's that's great. I wanted to ask one more thing
about it. It's interesting, right?
Like the words you use, you say like we've been possibly we've
been lied to, controlled by the states.
Like I talked with other people about this as well.
Like some people say inflation is theft and all these things.
And in my experience, when I use these words or say these things
that are not even, I don't feel it's like an opinion.
Well, maybe inflation is theft is an opinion, but what you
said, right, like you are brought up in a certain way,
things are have been told to you.
Some things are just not true. Like that's not even, that's not
an opinion, it's just what it is, right.
But those words sometimes sounds really harsh for people in my
experience, right? And that's instantly gets them
kind of like on the fence or like it makes a conversation
quite hard, like, well, you recognize this, but like, how do
you, how do you walk around this, right.
Yeah, it totally does. It sets people off sometimes.
But I believe I just say what I think and then it's about how
somebody deals with what I've said, okay.
So it's not in my it's not in my responsibility to deal with
people's feelings about how they deal with what I said.
But these things can sound very harsh.
But there's one example that I'll take.
So on 1516, Propanicos, who wrote a book about the quantity
theory of money and Ziggys won the first he was the king.
Back then there was a pro Prussian Kingdom in Poland, and
the king Ziggys won the first. He issued new currency all the
time and he based the currency and expected the wealth of the
nation to go up. And then he asked for panic was,
you know, why is that not happening?
And he basically told them and he came up with the quantity
theory of money. If you increase the quantity of
money, individual units lose purchasing power.
And he wasn't listened to it. That's 500 years ago.
Then on his deathbed, he published a book that basically
said that the Earth is not in the center of the known
universe, but it's actually the sun.
So he listed geocentric model and he said it's a heliocentric
model. And then I think 6070 years
later, Galileo, Galileo came around and he actually saw
because he had the first telescope, he said what what
Copernicus said is actually true.
Back then people wanted to kill, burn and in jail Galileo for
what he said, but he just observed reality but the people
were. So when I talk about with the
light to, I don't talk about the conspiracy theory.
I just say there are certain beliefs that we have that are
not true, but some people take them for true and they make you
believe these stories similar to how the church disagreed with
Copernicus and Galileo when they came up with the heliocentric
model of the world that says that the sun is in the center of
the non universe. So that's what I mean when I
when I use these words and I believe like you said, we are
just observing what is happening, I'm not making
anybody responsible. I even believe that somebody
like Christine Lagarde, she has such a big ego that she just
wants her signature on a €50 piece of paper and takes into
account that she basically destroys the lives of millions
of people through inflation. That's her God complex.
I don't even know that she ever questioned her her way of
thinking, so it is in my responsibility to make people
maybe reflect on. The way.
Exactly, exactly. Yeah.
So, So what you just said about Lagarde, right, like.
Some people might find that harsh, but it's I think it's
interesting because I agree that it's like from observation,
right? Like if you are just observing
from, well then if I speak for myself, like someone from non
economic, non finance backgrounds, nothing, right?
So I I see myself as like, yeah, like I said, an investor,
someone who researches stuff. And I I try to like, observe
from like a neutral point of view, like.
Some stuff in the money system just doesn't fucking work,
right? And then if you see someone like
Lagarde just talking in like One Direction with like one message
with the same thing all over that is totally not connected to
what I see is not working, then you end up with that conclusion,
right? Because it almost feels so.
Basic I want to say, you know like if you observe and you see
something is going wrong especially about the money
system, right. Like the technology we use to
exchange value with each other and make the world a better
place and our lives. Right.
If you go that way then if you hear her talk you think like you
are you are lying you know or or or you're blind One of the two I
don't know. And and but just like even now
when I say this I know that people will think like Oh yeah
I'll bomb things he knows it all or something.
But that is not. I don't know.
I I, I want to share it as like an observation, right.
I don't know if I'm right, but that is my observation in a
sense. Does that does that make sense?
Right. Like it's kind of.
Yeah. Like I if I, I expect for people
in that position to be smarter than me and when I hear them
talk and not address what I have found to be wrong in the system
that they guard. Then that is, yeah, that's a
problem also. Yeah, I mean the beautiful thing
is we also don't tell anyone you have to use Bitcoin.
Like by law you can use Bitcoin and Bitcoin has certain rules,
which you have, which you have to obey to if you want to use
it, otherwise you get wrecked. I don't, I don't force anybody
to do it. And I think generally speaking,
also if you look at Austrian economics, the school of thought
that emerged in Austria through Carmenga, who in 18, I think it
was in 1871, he wrote Gross sets of efforts, Witchcraft's Lever,
which was then translated into English as Principles of
Economics. And then Lute von Mises in 1940
in German and then 1949 and in English he wrote Human Action,
where he basically came up with praxeology, which is the science
of human action. He at the end of the book, he
says everything I wrote in this book might be true, it might be
wrong. It's just an observation.
It is just an observation. That's it.
And when I talk about Bitcoin, I observe the state of the world,
but I leave myself the ability to be wrong and I don't force
everybody to do what I do and agree with me.
I'm just giving a certain perspective.
And I believe that this perspective, that's the
perspectives that you also have, it's based on mathematics rather
than on Decree of Fiat. Yeah.
And. And as your website is called,
you know, like you would do you want to follow rules or do you
want to follow rulers, Right. And in one of my last
conversations on the podcast, we agreed that, yeah,
unfortunately, we can probably not trust ourselves as in
humans, right? We we have to force ourselves to
adopt A set of rules that cannot be changed.
Which will be ultimately transparent for forever and that
that will actually help us to, yeah, create a better system,
right. But but even that is is like a
very big thought, I'd say right to accept that that we cannot
trust ourselves because when we talk about someone like Lagarde
and we say like oh or God complex or this or that.
We also kind of say that, well, if I would be in this position,
that position, I would never behave like that, right?
That's also what we're saying, which feels nice, but we don't
know if it's true. Yeah, right.
That's why I don't want to become, for example, when I was
younger, I was into politics, like mainstream politics,
basically, And over time I understood I don't want to be
part of that system. It's also something Jeff Booth
very eloquently and beautifully talks about, and that also what
algorithm is and what Bitcoin essentially represents.
It's if there's a system that is based on centralized control,
you can't change the system because the system is inherently
broken. It's based on theft and
deception. I don't want to be part of that
system. So I want to dedicate all my
energy, all my focus into Bitcoin, this new system where
everybody can live a life that they believe to be a good life.
Yeah. So how do you see Bitcoin in the
next decade? Like, is this going to become a
currency or do you see the store of value, like really set in
first? Like, what's your idea?
Yeah, I mean the Vijay Abuja party wrote this great piece in
2018 on Bitcoin becoming money. I forgot the name.
I think it's called the Buddhist case for Bitcoin.
Turner two book and he says historically also observing what
how money came into existence. He said money started as a
collectible store value, medium of exchange or unit of account
or unit of account and then medium of exchange.
One or the other is 3 and four and Bitcoin started as a
collectible of some sorts in the cipher punk community.
Then it becomes a star of value which we are experiencing right
now and it's also starting to be accepted as a medium of
exchange. Bitcoin is different things for
different people. For me, it's both a store of
value and a medium of exchange and a unit of account.
Of course, because I use Bitcoin to store my productivity, I use
Bitcoin to make payments internationally and in
conferences in between my Bitcoin friends.
So there's the circular Bitcoin economies, and I use Bitcoin as
my unit of account. So everything I do, I measure
against Bitcoin. If an investment is not able to
outperform the deflation of Bitcoin, I only do it if I
believe it to be a charitable action, for example, For me,
investing in lightning startups is not a decision based on
financial gain because I believe it will be very difficult for a
company to outperform the deflation of Bitcoin in the next
decade. But I do it to support the
ecosystem and what I believe what Bitcoin will do, it will it
will move into becoming a medium of exchange in the Bitcoin
community and all these circular Bitcoin hubs in the world, South
Africa, South America. But by the global financial
system, it will be adopted by store value.
Companies will adopt it on their balance sheet.
ETFs will adopt it. You know, maybe there will be
products where what sailor also says bonds and Bitcoin will be
sort of merged. And then eventually Bitcoin will
absorb the monetary premium that all these assets have
accumulated under an inflationary monetary regime.
And over time, Bitcoin become this pristine store value where
most of the productivity in the world most likely will be stored
in. And it will also be the base
layer for different currencies being issued on Bitcoin.
These might be national currencies.
I can also see central banks and countries that have a free basic
order adopting Bitcoin as a reserve asset and that will also
be private E cash issued through example fediment.
So different communities in the world might issue their currency
where currency is a money monetary system and Bitcoin is
the base layer of value within the economy that everything is
based upon. Yeah.
And when you say you know it will take back all this monetary
premium of all these other assets that have.
Gone up in value, right? Like real estate I think is the
best example, as in like the utility value of a home is not
different from 50 years ago, right?
Does that also imply that these assets will return to their
actual value, right? Like a more representable value
in that way? I believe so.
It's hard to say what the time frame will be, but especially
housing. Bitcoin will make housing
affordable again because of what you mentioned.
Bitcoin will most likely absorb the monetary premium that real
estate is accumulated. Plus, owning Bitcoin makes
everything cheaper over time. Deflation, right?
Also construction. If you a real estate company and
if you use Bitcoin to store maintenance reserves, you will
be able to modernize property in the future and construction
costs might become cheaper if you own Bitcoin as well.
So I definitely believe that in the realm of housing, Bitcoin as
this ultimate store value, absorbing the monetary premium
that houses have accumulated will make housing affordable.
And that in itself is just a game changer.
And it will also defund the state because a lot of people
and a lot of corporations, they use bonds to store value.
So bonds. So real estate of course is the
number one store value for private individuals, but but
it's not a good store very for corporates because it's not easy
to liquidate. But if you own bonds for
example, or short term treasuries or money market
funds, you'll be able to store your value within the field
realm effectively And you're also to liquidate if you need to
change something on your balance sheet.
And I believe that people will start using Bitcoin to store
their productivity and that will defund the state, which is also
very good thing. Yeah.
All right. Last last two questions.
What's a common misconception about Bitcoin that you wish to
debunk? I mean, Bitcoin being bad for
the environment. I think that is something that
people already start to realize. People understand that Bitcoin
can serve as this battery that we can use to monetize energy
much better. It will give us the ability to
have a certain base load that is especially important for
renewables, so on. Bitcoin will also allow
microgrids, especially in Africa where there is no energy
network. Bitcoin can be used and is used
by specific companies to create microgrids that bring energy to
everybody in the world. Because one of the
misconceptions that the field system has installed in people's
mind is that the usage of energy is bad, but actually the usage
of energy is very good. It's just a question, how do we
use energy and what types of energy do we use?
Good con allows us to monitor, monetize energy much better and
bring it to people around the world and raise the standard of
living. I give you a very easy example.
If you look at countries where the standard of living is high,
people consume a lot of energy. Light heating your house,
hospitals and all these types of things, they consume a lot of
energy. So that's generally something
that I'd like to see the debunk. That's a myth that I'm kind of
sad about, but that is already happening.
There's already people that understand that Bitcoin can help
bring high standard of living and energy to everybody in the
world. Yeah, well, even if you Google
Now how much renewable energy is powering Bitcoin?
I think Google says 53% and the trend is going up actually, and
it seems like the Bitcoin industry will be the first
carbon negative or negative emission.
Industry in the world. So, yeah, I'm also excited about
that. Like for me that's also the
biggest one. I think obviously it's it's it's
a topic of this time, right. So it's just, yeah, one of the
default things that that people go against.
So, yeah, I love that you mentioned that.
All right. So last question, and I ask
everyone the same question, What's a core belief you will
never let go? A core belief?
Trust my intuition. Bitcoin taught me to trust my
intuition and I'm very thankful for that and I'll continue to do
so. Awesome man.
Thanks so much. I really enjoyed this
conversation. Where can people find you on the
Internet? You and your thoughts?
Yeah. So, Leon Vancom on Twitter.
You can subscribe, if you like, to my Substack, the Bitcoin
newsletter. A system of rules.com is the
name of my website that I use to sort of list all my
publications. Hopefully build a better website
soon and you can find my articles in Bitcoin Magazine.
And if you're a German speaker, you can find the translations of
my articles on europeanbitcoiners.com, which is
a free and open source education platform that translates text
from English into all European languages.
I work voluntarily as a translator as well, and you can
find some of my original articles, especially on Bitcoin
and real estate, also on europeanbitcoiners.com.
Awesome, man. Well, thanks again.
And I see you in a few weeks in Amsterdam, so that's fun.
And yeah, let's keep in touch and talk soon.
Looking forward. Thank you for inviting me.
Cheers. I hope you enjoyed this episode.
If you did, it would be amazing if you could rate, review and
subscribe on the podcast platform of your choice.
It will help us educate more millennials on the importance of
Bitcoin. You can follow and connect with
me on Twitter. I'm Bramk.
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.
I'll bet.