Bitcoin Fixes Broken Money with Lyn Alden - FFS #107

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Lyn, welcome to the Freedom Footprint Show, thank you for joining us.

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Thanks for having me.

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Yeah.

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Good to see you, Lyn.

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Uh, first, first question.

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How did you like Madeira?

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it's beautiful.

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I definitely recommend people go if they can.

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Uh, beautiful place.

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And it's like, uh, not really like anything else I've been to.

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and I, I tend, I mean, obviously the, the ocean view, basically the,

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the combination of mountains and the ocean, of course, is, is gorgeous.

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Um, the, you know, kind of walking around, it's just like the, it's gorgeous.

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But I, I tend to really appreciate trees wherever I go.

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and I'm not in any way an expert on trees, um, but I do notice them a lot,

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so I like different types of trees.

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I don't really like the trees where I'm from, but whenever I go places, I

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often just, I, I spend a lot of time focusing on the trees, and the trees

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in Madeira look like Jurassic Park.

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It's amazing.

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huge fan.

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So, yeah, basically, uh, definitely one of my favorite trips.

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Yeah.

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Did you manage to, to travel around the island?

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Anything, anything or like, uh, didn't you, I guess you

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didn't have time for that.

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Not as much as I would have liked to.

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There were some hikes I wanted to go on, but I ended up having to do

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a client report before I flew out.

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So I had to miss that.

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But I did, when I was going between different places, I did do a good amount

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of walking around the main city there.

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So I definitely, there's enough space that I could go back and see new things.

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Let's put it like that.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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The, the, the reason I ask is because there's so many different

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types of trees around the island.

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Like if you go to the, to the Westmost part, there's like this, uh, middle earth

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looking or very old foresty setting, uh, which is very different from.

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From the, the stuff around Funchal, which is more jungly, I guess.

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Very cool.

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All right.

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So, um, yeah, for, for our listeners who don't know you, I, I don't know who

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those listeners would be, but, uh, for them, could you give us the TLDR on, on L

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Uh, sure.

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So, um, my initial background is electrical engineering, uh, and then

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I shifted more toward engineering management systems engineering, uh,

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which is basically the, um, the approach of, uh, if you're trying to build a

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complex system that involves, say, electrical, mechanical, software, and

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aerospace engineers, how do you bring them together to actually build a system?

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make something.

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Um, so that was, that was my initial background.

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in parallel to that, I've always been interested in, in finance and investing.

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it was something I studied in, in, in high school, kind of, you know, classic

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value style investing, for example.

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and in my career, uh, I eventually shifted more and more from tech to finance,

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even within the, um, Engineering field.

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Um, and eventually I left it all together just to focus on, macro

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research, investment research in general.

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I take a systems engineering approach to how the, the global money system works

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because it's, it's ultimately a system at the end of the day, there's inputs,

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there's outputs, there's governing logic.

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It's, it's quite centralized the way it works.

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and so this is the system that I analyze like any other system.

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and, uh, over the past four years or so I've been working Pretty

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active in the Bitcoin space.

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one of the kind of the earlier kind of traditional finance analysts to

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start covering it, um, on a regular basis with a pretty large audience.

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Um, and then also I'm involved in Bitcoin ventures.

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So I'm a, I'm a general partner at Egodeath Capital.

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and so, uh, I've kind of in numerous areas kind of watched the venture

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side, uh, which has been very instructive, uh, for the space.

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Yeah, I know you've also written a book called Broken Money, uh, which

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I'm halfway through at the moment.

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Uh, and, uh, yeah, could we, could we talk about the book a bit?

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Uh, I mean, it's a book about money and, uh, why it doesn't work, right?

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Yeah, it's called Broken Money.

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Uh, and so what I did basically is I, the last five years of my research or

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so, is kind of condensed into that book.

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Uh, it came out last year.

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Uh, definitely one of the most rewarding projects that I've done.

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and basically, Kind of the history of my financial research was I used, I

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was initially interested in equities.

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So actually when I was a kid, I mean, the first investment I

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made was gold and silver coins.

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then I gravitated toward equities.

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but in 2017 or so, I started to get more into the macro because

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I noticed something that had not happened in decades, which was the U.

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S.

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deficit as a percentage of GDP began rising even when, uh,

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unemployment was still shrinking and we were not in a recession.

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Uh, normally for decades, the deficit rises during recessions, but it was very

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usual to see it start to rise and kind of pivot in the middle of the 2010s there,

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even when we weren't in a recession.

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So I started to look up all these reasons, how does this, how is

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this debt thing going to play out?

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I came across, uh, kind of the long term debt cycle.

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I kind of realized that going forward, this is going to be

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a very macro heavy decade.

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So that's what made me shift, uh, Let like less from equities.

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I still research equities a lot because they can be very

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informative on what's happening.

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But I shifted from equities toward macro.

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and I generally found for a while that mostly when I, when I'm writing

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things, I'm describing all the things that are broken, why this is broken,

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why it's going to lead to this, why This problem is going to emerge.

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And what I like about Bitcoin is it's, it's, it's a solution for

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a lot of those things, basically how things ideally should be.

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and with broken money, what I do is I analyze the, the money system

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through the lens of technology.

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So the past, present, and future of money through the lens of technology,

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because a lot of monetary history books, they'll focus on human decisions.

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What did the central banker do?

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What did this other banker do?

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What did this government do?

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What did this, you know, all these things that happen and those are all relevant.

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But the way that I like to phrase it is things like politics affect

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things temporarily and locally, whereas technology moves things

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forward permanently and globally.

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and so I, I focus on how emerging technologies shape kind of the incentive

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structure around money and give us a certain era of this thing's dominant

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and another era of this thing's dominant and, and how those switchovers happen.

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So, yeah, broken money is basically, It's if you're interested in macro or Bitcoin,

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it kind of blends a lot of that together.

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And I think it's, you know, it's definitely the thing that I got the

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most reward from, like the kind of the personal reward, the intellectual, um,

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stimulation from, from writing that book compared to articles and reports.

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Yeah.

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And, uh, would you call yourself an Austrian economist or, uh,

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would you say that you subscribe to any other school or like?

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Uh,

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So I, so I analyze, I try to view things through the lens of multiple schools.

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But yeah, at the end of the day, um, uh, you know, I, I agree

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most with the Austrian school.

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Um, I don't start from the preference of, you know, here's what the Austrian

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school says, therefore it's right.

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It just tends to be the way I analyze things.

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I end up coming to this, you know, kind of the same conclusions

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as the Austrian school.

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For example, when people ask, what is your, what, what, um, economics

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textbook would you recommend?

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I would recommend Principles of Economics by Safety, and I think that's, it's

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a good textbook for the modern era.

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and so, yeah, Austrian, I think, is, is my core baseline.

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I think other schools can inform us because in, in the, in the fiat era,

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other schools are good at analyzing what's happening in this era.

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Right?

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So if you look things through the lens of monetarism or MMT, you get some plumbing

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details of what's happening in the way that the system is currently constructed.

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but yeah, at the end of the day, I think the core principles I agree

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with are on the Austrian side.

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yeah, yeah, that's one of the reasons I ask because like, um, when you say

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that you, you, you view this as a, uh, systems engineering thing and, and, uh,

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as a system and from a macro perspective, that, that doesn't really square with

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Austrian first principles thinking.

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But as you say, I guess these tools are developed for this MMT era and, uh, and,

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uh, yeah, as you say, the plumbing there.

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And the way I phrase it is that I would not use that approach if I was

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analyzing the economy of 200 years ago.

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because it wasn't a system back then.

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It was more, it was more, you know, there were other things happening.

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There was little systems, but there was not one big overarching system.

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Whereas in the, in the past, 150 years ago, and in Broken Money,

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I kind of really focused on the post telegraph world because that

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technology impacted this a lot.

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But even stretching before that, to some extent, in, in this kind

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of past century and a half, yeah.

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Uh, we have a very centralized, structured global financial system, uh, right?

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So we can, we can debate whether that should be the case.

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but the fact is, it is the case that at least this era, right?

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So system engineering is useful for analyzing the system that as exists

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right now, which is not to say that that's ideally how it should exist.

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but so that's why I like to have a foot in both camps in the sense that

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I'm, for example, I would like to see a, for example, a Bitcoin world.

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Um, and at that point, you wouldn't really need system engineering to analyze

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the global flows of, of money and why things are working, but in the current

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system as structured, it's a human, it's pretty much a human designed, fairly

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centralized system with, uh, inputs, outputs, and governing logic in between.

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So, you know, in my earlier electrical engineering days, I did control system

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analysis, and that's basically the same thing I'm applying to the system.

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And it's, it's about analyzing the centralized system

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as it exists in this era.

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So funny that you started in electrical engineering, because so did I, uh,

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back in 1996, I studied for electrical engineering for a year before I dropped

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out, so that's a funny parallel.

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Yeah, uh, so what would you say is the biggest flaw with the current system?

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Uh, that is centralized.

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Um, basically the, the way that I describe it, and I, I showed

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this chart in Broken Money.

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There's this, there was this book written in 1875, called Money and the

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Mechanism of Exchange by William Stanley Jevons, uh, of the Jevons Paradox fame.

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Uh, and he, It was kind of like broken money back 150 years ago,

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because he's analyzing the past of money kind of through the lens of

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like technology and like the details of coinage and things like that.

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And then he's getting into the modern era, modern being,

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of course, 1870s at the time.

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And he's analyzing all this new technology that's happening.

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And he made the observation that basically, financial system with

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the combination of the various paper instruments and then the telegraph, uh,

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because his book came out, you know, about a decade after, uh, the cross Atlantic

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telegraph cable, the first successful one.

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Um, and he's kind of analyzing the system.

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He's saying this has become so hyper efficient that all these claims for

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gold can just move around super quickly.

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You almost never actually have to move gold.

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And on one hand, this is great, it's hyper efficient.

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On the other hand, he's like, this is, this has enabled 20

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to 1 leverage in the system.

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That there's like 20 gold claims for every, gold ounce

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that exists in the system.

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And if 5 percent of people ask for their gold back on any given day,

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the system is, doesn't have it.

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And so it's like, on one hand, this has become super efficient, and then

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the other hand, Uh, it's, you know, there's, there's like a problem ahead

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and, uh, of course it all broke around World War I, uh, some decades later.

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and so the way I would describe it is that, uh, for about, you know, really

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for centuries, but really accelerated in the post telegraph era, for

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centuries, almost every friction in finance was solved by centralization.

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You add another layer of centralization below it, then you add another

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layer of centralization below it.

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Like if I want to send money to you, well, we can go to a third party, set

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up accounts there and we can just say, okay, move, move my credits to you.

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And if, if, if, if money goes the other way, tell, you know,

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tell him, just update his ledger.

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It goes back to me.

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If we use different banks, then our banks will probably

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consolidate towards some super bank.

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Uh, just, you know, they have their accounts at the bank.

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They just shuffle that around.

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Sometimes they're mandated or obviously over time, they pretty much all

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became mandated to use a central bank.

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00:11:49,953 --> 00:11:53,233
and then even central banks, if we're in different countries and we have different

234
00:11:53,243 --> 00:11:57,523
banks that attach different central banks, if they want to send value to each other

235
00:11:57,523 --> 00:12:01,043
quickly, they, they plug into the biggest central bank, which back in Jevin's

236
00:12:01,053 --> 00:12:03,253
day was the UK and now it's the US.

237
00:12:03,633 --> 00:12:08,453
So you have like four plus layers of centralization and all of that makes,

238
00:12:08,453 --> 00:12:13,731
um, Things move around very efficiently, but it's, it's extremely centralized and

239
00:12:13,731 --> 00:12:15,531
then it, it, it contributes to inflation.

240
00:12:15,531 --> 00:12:17,636
It contributes to, freedom issues.

241
00:12:17,636 --> 00:12:20,396
Like, you know, if everyone's plugged into the same financial system and

242
00:12:20,396 --> 00:12:23,546
then that system has rules about who can use it, it's permissioned.

243
00:12:23,825 --> 00:12:24,870
that's all sorts of issues.

244
00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:29,575
And so basically this, this system is enabled debt accumulation, because

245
00:12:29,585 --> 00:12:34,815
there's been no way for gold to kind of hold down money and debt creation

246
00:12:34,905 --> 00:12:37,095
in a telecommunication speed world.

247
00:12:37,503 --> 00:12:42,903
and so the way I put it is that pre telegraph, um, information and matter

248
00:12:42,983 --> 00:12:45,223
moved at around the same speed, right?

249
00:12:45,223 --> 00:12:47,693
So if you, even if you wanted to update someone's ledger, you had to

250
00:12:47,793 --> 00:12:50,083
physically go there, um, somehow.

251
00:12:50,343 --> 00:12:53,103
Um, and so that was, that was the pre telegraph world.

252
00:12:53,333 --> 00:12:56,083
Then the post telegraph world, kind of the pre telegraph You know, between

253
00:12:56,083 --> 00:13:00,300
Telegraph and Bitcoin, you have a world where, information now moves at the

254
00:13:00,310 --> 00:13:05,380
speed of light, but matter doesn't, uh, and so that, that basically enhanced

255
00:13:05,380 --> 00:13:09,540
the power of middlemen that are doing all the services to bridge that gap,

256
00:13:09,610 --> 00:13:13,750
mostly with credit, and of course, games get played, things get centralized,

257
00:13:14,030 --> 00:13:15,850
things break, defaults happen.

258
00:13:15,850 --> 00:13:18,150
It's just, it's just been this kind of 150 year cycle.

259
00:13:18,464 --> 00:13:22,644
and then now what Bitcoin is, is basically, finally, Settlements caught up.

260
00:13:22,934 --> 00:13:27,504
So now there's a way to do final settlement with someone, not in

261
00:13:27,504 --> 00:13:31,694
anyone's centralized ledger, you know, basically the speed of light.

262
00:13:31,694 --> 00:13:35,624
So in Bitcoin, obviously the, the base layer minutes, and then

263
00:13:36,034 --> 00:13:37,504
layers on top of it in seconds.

264
00:13:37,844 --> 00:13:42,704
and this is now a, this basically closes a 150 year speed gap that existed

265
00:13:42,704 --> 00:13:44,444
ever since the telegraph was created.

266
00:13:44,694 --> 00:13:48,964
And so I think a lot of financial problems come back to that speed gap.

267
00:13:48,974 --> 00:13:51,054
There's obviously before then there were problems.

268
00:13:51,489 --> 00:13:54,729
Um, there's always going to be problems, but that particular,

269
00:13:55,376 --> 00:13:59,036
period where transactions are fast, but settlements aren't has

270
00:13:59,046 --> 00:14:03,550
been an issue that has basically, empowered middlemen to the extreme.

271
00:14:04,215 --> 00:14:09,755
And I think now what Bitcoin represents is the first kind of shift in here

272
00:14:09,755 --> 00:14:12,665
where you can have more efficiency without more centralization.

273
00:14:12,765 --> 00:14:17,100
You can actually start decentralizing it and get more, efficiency out of it.

274
00:14:17,240 --> 00:14:20,110
And so I think that, that's kind of, that's why the system's

275
00:14:20,110 --> 00:14:21,520
been an issue for a while.

276
00:14:22,262 --> 00:14:28,692
Okay, so if gold is bitcoin and the telegraph is the internet, does

277
00:14:28,892 --> 00:14:34,527
custodial lightning, Post the same kind of problem as, uh, telegraphed,

278
00:14:34,577 --> 00:14:37,800
um, paper gold did back in the day.

279
00:14:37,970 --> 00:14:43,299
I mean, fractional reserve banking is sort of possible on custodial lightning.

280
00:14:43,299 --> 00:14:47,389
Is that the same risk picture?

281
00:14:47,946 --> 00:14:51,496
I view it as smaller because it's harder to fractionally reserve it.

282
00:14:51,506 --> 00:14:56,626
So in gold, you can fractionally reserve it up to 10 to 1 or 20 to

283
00:14:56,626 --> 00:15:01,166
1 because it takes a very long time for that system to get called out.

284
00:15:01,686 --> 00:15:01,936
Right.

285
00:15:01,946 --> 00:15:04,476
For example, even in Jevons day, even in the late 1800s, he's

286
00:15:04,486 --> 00:15:05,416
sitting there looking at this thing.

287
00:15:05,416 --> 00:15:08,096
It's 20 to one and it's literally in the book.

288
00:15:08,116 --> 00:15:10,956
He's explaining why he's like, cause nobody wants to withdraw the gold.

289
00:15:10,956 --> 00:15:12,066
It's too slow.

290
00:15:12,376 --> 00:15:14,266
Um, they've all, you know, everyone just like, look, I

291
00:15:14,266 --> 00:15:15,436
just want the bank to hold it.

292
00:15:15,736 --> 00:15:20,171
Um, and then because no one really, no one really, Stop the music on

293
00:15:20,171 --> 00:15:21,531
that system, at least for decades.

294
00:15:22,001 --> 00:15:24,481
Um, it's it that the system's able to build up for decades.

295
00:15:24,851 --> 00:15:27,041
And then when it finally breaks, it's catastrophic.

296
00:15:27,071 --> 00:15:31,801
But it's a very long cycle of building up imbalances and then breakage.

297
00:15:31,831 --> 00:15:37,881
That's because the efficiency of the base layer gold is so much slower

298
00:15:37,881 --> 00:15:41,071
than the efficiency of all the banking apparatus built on top of it.

299
00:15:41,846 --> 00:15:43,976
And so it's able to last for a long time.

300
00:15:44,366 --> 00:15:48,615
On the other hand, in the pure fiat system, they closed the speed gap

301
00:15:48,625 --> 00:15:51,715
between transactions and settlements, but then the base layer is so flexible

302
00:15:51,715 --> 00:15:54,375
that whenever there's a problem, they just print a little bit more base money.

303
00:15:54,655 --> 00:15:57,845
Um, and so again, that system is able to go on for very long periods of

304
00:15:57,845 --> 00:16:01,475
time without some sort of, you know, Catastrophic breakdown because it just,

305
00:16:01,505 --> 00:16:03,245
it just keeps erring to the upside.

306
00:16:03,560 --> 00:16:09,007
and so those two systems last a really long time in a state of imbalance.

307
00:16:09,518 --> 00:16:13,238
either because the transaction layer is so much faster than the settlement

308
00:16:13,238 --> 00:16:16,248
layer, uh, and therefore the settlement layer doesn't have as much power as

309
00:16:16,248 --> 00:16:17,948
it should over the transaction layer.

310
00:16:17,958 --> 00:16:21,668
It doesn't, it doesn't call the transaction layers bluff enough or because

311
00:16:21,678 --> 00:16:24,603
the settlement layer is flexible and therefore just keeps, you know, You know,

312
00:16:24,613 --> 00:16:28,783
basically most issues just get solved through moderate inflation, and then you

313
00:16:28,783 --> 00:16:31,923
just kind of go back for another decade and then do it again and again and again.

314
00:16:32,173 --> 00:16:34,323
And so those systems are able to last for a while.

315
00:16:34,553 --> 00:16:41,238
In Bitcoin, the settlement layer is fast, and it's It's inflexible.

316
00:16:41,278 --> 00:16:42,038
It can't be debased.

317
00:16:42,438 --> 00:16:47,468
And so it has a lot of power to call bluff on any sort of meaningful fractional

318
00:16:47,468 --> 00:16:49,968
reserve that exists built on top of it.

319
00:16:50,628 --> 00:16:52,208
I use the phrase wreck cycle.

320
00:16:52,238 --> 00:16:56,738
So in gold, something, a problem can build up for decades before it gets wrecked.

321
00:16:56,738 --> 00:17:01,201
And in fiat, things can build up for decades before it gets wrecked.

322
00:17:01,201 --> 00:17:04,238
Whereas in Bitcoin, I think the wreck cycle is measured in years.

323
00:17:04,298 --> 00:17:06,873
If you try to, you know, Do meaningful fractional reserve,

324
00:17:06,883 --> 00:17:08,713
like multiples of the base layer.

325
00:17:09,293 --> 00:17:12,223
That's going to get called out and it's going to break in a matter of

326
00:17:12,253 --> 00:17:15,753
years, most likely, because it's so much easier to say, well, this,

327
00:17:15,773 --> 00:17:17,103
this thing is fractional reserve.

328
00:17:17,103 --> 00:17:17,753
It's unstable.

329
00:17:17,753 --> 00:17:19,153
I'm going to pull my Bitcoin out.

330
00:17:19,353 --> 00:17:20,773
You'll see a lot of players do that.

331
00:17:20,773 --> 00:17:21,903
And then, and then it breaks.

332
00:17:22,361 --> 00:17:24,971
so I don't really view that as, as the same risk.

333
00:17:24,971 --> 00:17:29,201
I mean, obviously it's a risk for people that put too much of their money into it.

334
00:17:29,491 --> 00:17:32,271
You know, Bitcoin net worth in, in custodians.

335
00:17:32,631 --> 00:17:35,361
Um, you should be very careful with the custodians that you use.

336
00:17:35,691 --> 00:17:39,161
Um, the more you have, the more you should consider self custody as a

337
00:17:39,161 --> 00:17:41,295
meaningful part of your, reserves.

338
00:17:41,505 --> 00:17:43,275
But in a more systemic way, I don't really you.

339
00:17:43,985 --> 00:17:45,755
I don't really view it as the same risk that we've had.

340
00:17:45,755 --> 00:17:49,455
I think that's one of the fundamental fixes that Bitcoin gives us, is that

341
00:17:49,455 --> 00:17:53,385
there's, it narrows that speed gap again between transactions and settlements.

342
00:17:54,041 --> 00:17:59,031
Yeah, that's about the same way I view it, like lightning may be flawed still,

343
00:17:59,031 --> 00:18:05,791
but it's still vastly superior to banking and SWIFT and all this legacy

344
00:18:05,791 --> 00:18:10,361
stuff.¤ Back to Jevin and his paradox.

345
00:18:10,651 --> 00:18:14,591
If I remember correctly, that's something to do with the efficiency

346
00:18:14,941 --> 00:18:16,551
as the cost of stuff drops.

347
00:18:16,581 --> 00:18:22,073
Like you, you think that less energy will be used, but, but the opposite is true

348
00:18:22,073 --> 00:18:24,542
because people start, buying more of that.

349
00:18:24,817 --> 00:18:26,487
thing, and therefore the industry.

350
00:18:26,717 --> 00:18:28,577
Is that a correct framing of it?

351
00:18:28,988 --> 00:18:32,758
Yeah, basically, yeah, basically that our demand grows as

352
00:18:32,778 --> 00:18:34,058
prices go down for something.

353
00:18:34,058 --> 00:18:39,068
Instead of, if we get 10x more efficient and cheaper at making something, instead

354
00:18:39,068 --> 00:18:43,638
of spending 10x less of our income on that thing, more often than not, We

355
00:18:43,638 --> 00:18:45,238
instead consume more of that thing.

356
00:18:45,238 --> 00:18:48,988
So, for example, when the cost of storage went down, you know, data storage

357
00:18:48,988 --> 00:18:55,278
went down 10x or 100x or 1000x, we end up using 1000x more of it, instead

358
00:18:55,278 --> 00:18:58,158
of spending 1000x less on storage.

359
00:18:58,658 --> 00:19:00,148
Now, obviously, that doesn't apply to everything.

360
00:19:00,148 --> 00:19:02,138
Like, that doesn't apply to food, because obviously there's

361
00:19:02,138 --> 00:19:03,458
limits on how much we can eat.

362
00:19:03,458 --> 00:19:07,048
So, if you make food, you know, 10x cheaper, we do, we do actually spend.

363
00:19:07,393 --> 00:19:11,364
TedX, less of our income on food, but for the majority of things for which

364
00:19:11,364 --> 00:19:15,754
there's no kind of firm limit to what we can consume, we, our consumption

365
00:19:15,754 --> 00:19:18,544
tends to, um, offset price declines.

366
00:19:19,223 --> 00:19:22,943
Okay, because I find that so interesting how that will play

367
00:19:22,943 --> 00:19:24,203
out on a Bitcoin standard.

368
00:19:24,243 --> 00:19:28,623
Like, I love this abstract thought experiments of how things would work

369
00:19:28,623 --> 00:19:31,963
with a perfectly finite money supply.

370
00:19:32,523 --> 00:19:36,128
Because if you have the incentive to save rather than spend, Uh, in

371
00:19:36,168 --> 00:19:41,108
every transaction you make, will Jevons paradox still be a thing?

372
00:19:41,408 --> 00:19:45,988
Because like, sure, stuff are dropping to their marginal cost of production

373
00:19:46,348 --> 00:19:51,048
and everything gets cheaper, but still your cravings sort of go away

374
00:19:51,048 --> 00:19:54,717
when you, when you know that your money will be worth more, the longer

375
00:19:54,717 --> 00:19:56,127
you save it, but what's your take?

376
00:19:56,562 --> 00:19:57,742
I don't think it's just about cravings.

377
00:19:57,742 --> 00:19:59,812
Jevons even applies in the longer term.

378
00:19:59,812 --> 00:20:02,862
I mean, basically, if you, if you lower the cost of energy, for example, you

379
00:20:02,862 --> 00:20:04,802
find more things to do with energy.

380
00:20:05,092 --> 00:20:08,632
Um, and so, for example, some of the hard money environments like the, um,

381
00:20:08,642 --> 00:20:14,397
the Renaissance or the late 1800s United States, um, these, these, these Periods

382
00:20:14,417 --> 00:20:19,944
of rapid real growth, technological innovation, cultural improvements,

383
00:20:20,224 --> 00:20:22,464
um, on, on a fairly hard money.

384
00:20:22,871 --> 00:20:26,351
you know, those were periods where Jevin's Paradox was still happening.

385
00:20:26,361 --> 00:20:29,331
It just, you know, Jevin's Paradox doesn't just, it doesn't just mean

386
00:20:29,341 --> 00:20:32,337
like, for example, you know, you got a little spare money, so you go

387
00:20:32,337 --> 00:20:35,932
out and buy a, Sports car with, uh, you know, payments attached to it.

388
00:20:35,932 --> 00:20:38,802
It's not just about that kind of like blind consumption.

389
00:20:39,172 --> 00:20:42,822
It's basically even for that longer term, it's saying, well, you

390
00:20:42,822 --> 00:20:45,562
know, energy used to be expensive and now it's less expensive.

391
00:20:45,562 --> 00:20:48,372
So let's, let's figure out what we can do with energy to improve

392
00:20:48,652 --> 00:20:50,322
human flourishing, for example.

393
00:20:50,572 --> 00:20:54,012
Um, so it just, it, it's, it takes different roles over time,

394
00:20:54,022 --> 00:20:55,322
but it's still ultimately, yeah.

395
00:20:57,257 --> 00:20:57,607
Okay.

396
00:20:57,607 --> 00:21:04,347
So, so in your mind, the, the crypto Lambo craving bros won't turn into

397
00:21:04,347 --> 00:21:07,277
monks overnight just because they adopt a Bitcoin standard then.

398
00:21:07,713 --> 00:21:11,373
Well, even that, well, I was going to say that's not really what I'm referring to.

399
00:21:11,373 --> 00:21:14,663
I'm basically saying that eat, like Jevin's paradox applies both

400
00:21:14,673 --> 00:21:19,593
for those like Lambo people and it applies to thoughtful savers, right?

401
00:21:19,593 --> 00:21:22,123
It's not, it's not saying that your consumption fills

402
00:21:22,123 --> 00:21:23,113
your income, for example.

403
00:21:23,113 --> 00:21:24,603
It's not necessarily saying that.

404
00:21:24,893 --> 00:21:28,183
It's basically saying that if we get much better at something, if we, if we make

405
00:21:28,183 --> 00:21:30,638
something way cheaper, We use more of it.

406
00:21:30,648 --> 00:21:34,108
So, for example, the fact that we make storage, data storage, way cheaper,

407
00:21:34,438 --> 00:21:37,838
and we use more of it now, it's not because we're rabid consumers.

408
00:21:37,838 --> 00:21:42,178
It's because we've found a productive use case of storage.

409
00:21:42,468 --> 00:21:46,188
Um, and so, for example, I think going forward, for example, um, you

410
00:21:46,188 --> 00:21:50,588
know, we, we, we found a new use for energy in the form of AI, right?

411
00:21:50,588 --> 00:21:53,908
So we can, we can, you know, kind of like how we outsource some of our

412
00:21:53,938 --> 00:21:56,038
physical manufacturing to machines.

413
00:21:56,368 --> 00:21:59,878
Uh, we can outsource some of our, like, data crunching and things

414
00:21:59,878 --> 00:22:01,298
like that to machines as well.

415
00:22:01,298 --> 00:22:03,318
You can have your own kind of, like, AI assistant.

416
00:22:03,518 --> 00:22:04,688
Makes you more productive.

417
00:22:05,018 --> 00:22:09,808
Um, basically, as we, as, as the power of processing goes down, uh, we

418
00:22:09,808 --> 00:22:12,048
find more use cases for processing.

419
00:22:12,224 --> 00:22:17,104
and so this, this applies even in a non consumptive, productive sense as well.

420
00:22:17,720 --> 00:22:18,820
Yeah, that's great to hear.

421
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:23,010
I mean, um, in, in the Austrian economics, I think you would refer to the

422
00:22:23,010 --> 00:22:27,790
higher, higher order goods always like aiming for higher order goods, right?

423
00:23:39,442 --> 00:23:39,702
Yeah.

424
00:23:39,702 --> 00:23:45,262
So the, the big picture, the big macro picture that, that this comes into, that's

425
00:23:45,262 --> 00:23:47,572
where, that's where my mind goes here.

426
00:23:47,572 --> 00:23:51,312
So the, the thing that's broken is the, the centralization, right?

427
00:23:51,742 --> 00:23:56,982
And now I think jumping to the end of sort of how Bitcoin fixes it, that,

428
00:23:56,982 --> 00:24:02,063
that's, that's kind of the, the thesis, I guess, but I'm, I'm curious, how did

429
00:24:02,073 --> 00:24:08,438
you figure it out that, that Bitcoin was going All that, all that it is, right?

430
00:24:08,438 --> 00:24:13,289
Because, I mean, you've been, you've been in the space for, yeah, a long

431
00:24:13,289 --> 00:24:18,419
time, uh, and, and, uh, yeah, I remember hearing kind of your, your

432
00:24:18,419 --> 00:24:20,149
takes on the topic for, for a while.

433
00:24:20,169 --> 00:24:23,539
So how did you, how did you get there originally that Bitcoin was it?

434
00:24:24,062 --> 00:24:25,922
Mostly by seeing it not fail.

435
00:24:25,962 --> 00:24:29,992
Um, I mean, I, I first heard about Bitcoin back in like 2010 or so.

436
00:24:30,072 --> 00:24:33,112
And, uh, I was never one of those people that was like adversarial toward it.

437
00:24:33,122 --> 00:24:34,642
I was never like, Oh, that's stupid.

438
00:24:34,642 --> 00:24:37,572
Or, but I was kind of like, what's the chance that works?

439
00:24:37,982 --> 00:24:39,612
Or, uh, that sounds neat.

440
00:24:39,612 --> 00:24:42,182
I should probably put more time into it and then never get around to it.

441
00:24:42,182 --> 00:24:42,442
Right.

442
00:24:42,452 --> 00:24:46,142
So it's kind of like, Neutral toward it, or like, I'm rooting for those

443
00:24:46,142 --> 00:24:49,172
guys, but what are the chances that this is the money that finally,

444
00:24:49,202 --> 00:24:51,102
you know, is this Hayekian money?

445
00:24:51,454 --> 00:24:56,014
and, uh, but when you watch it go through, like, three cycles of, you

446
00:24:56,014 --> 00:25:00,004
know, it has a big adoption cycle, it goes down, 75 percent or more.

447
00:25:00,314 --> 00:25:04,144
Uh, it recovers, goes up to another big cycle, goes down over, you

448
00:25:04,144 --> 00:25:07,474
know, kind of every cycle I would go and like look at the ecosystem

449
00:25:07,474 --> 00:25:09,104
and see the UX was getting better.

450
00:25:09,580 --> 00:25:12,070
and so I finally like was like, okay, I have to put the

451
00:25:12,070 --> 00:25:13,680
time in to understand this.

452
00:25:13,976 --> 00:25:16,096
and sorry, I did that back in 2017.

453
00:25:16,821 --> 00:25:19,981
And then I watched the block size war play out, uh, and all

454
00:25:19,981 --> 00:25:21,601
of that was very informative.

455
00:25:21,671 --> 00:25:24,691
Basically, it, it, it kind of showed things in practice.

456
00:25:24,691 --> 00:25:26,181
Who, you know, who controls the network?

457
00:25:26,181 --> 00:25:28,631
How immutable are the rules of the network?

458
00:25:28,791 --> 00:25:32,371
How do network effects work in this, in this, um, industry?

459
00:25:32,611 --> 00:25:37,171
Is, is the, You know, ultimately, I mean, Bitcoin is control logic.

460
00:25:37,171 --> 00:25:38,271
It's a system.

461
00:25:38,461 --> 00:25:39,711
Is the system stable?

462
00:25:40,521 --> 00:25:44,471
And when you see it operate through multiple environments, the answer is yes.

463
00:25:44,810 --> 00:25:49,770
And so, basically, once I saw Bitcoin reach a degree of critical mass and

464
00:25:49,770 --> 00:25:55,815
prove itself as fairly anti fragile, I said, well, if no one can kill this

465
00:25:55,815 --> 00:26:01,855
thing, and if it is, um, now kind of, uh, critical mass of network effects,

466
00:26:02,155 --> 00:26:03,685
then that has macro implications.

467
00:26:03,855 --> 00:26:08,201
Now, now there's a money that moves, faster than fiat while

468
00:26:08,201 --> 00:26:12,026
being scarcer than gold, And that, that has macro implications.

469
00:26:12,106 --> 00:26:16,146
So for example, there's 160 different fiat currencies in the world.

470
00:26:16,486 --> 00:26:20,636
All of them are local monopolies of their own jurisdiction, and they control

471
00:26:20,636 --> 00:26:22,076
that monopoly in a handful of ways.

472
00:26:22,076 --> 00:26:24,526
One is they obviously, they tax everything other than their own

473
00:26:24,526 --> 00:26:26,126
currency in their jurisdiction.

474
00:26:26,416 --> 00:26:31,436
Um, but then two, they control the The inflows in and out of that country, right?

475
00:26:31,436 --> 00:26:33,776
So if you want to bring value into a country, there's really two main

476
00:26:33,776 --> 00:26:36,176
ways to do it in the pre Bitcoin era.

477
00:26:36,176 --> 00:26:40,799
One is, ports of entry, which are obviously pretty easy to surveil.

478
00:26:41,009 --> 00:26:44,729
Um, you know, some gets through, but it's, you know, it's pretty limited.

479
00:26:44,989 --> 00:26:48,649
Um, and then two is, is wire transfers in and out, but they're

480
00:26:48,649 --> 00:26:50,249
also surveilled and controlled.

481
00:26:50,552 --> 00:26:55,125
whereas when you have internet money, you know, you can, you can, you

482
00:26:55,125 --> 00:26:57,755
know, any, anyone in that country can just hold up a QR code on a

483
00:26:57,765 --> 00:26:59,315
video call and I can send it to them.

484
00:26:59,575 --> 00:27:01,205
Uh, they can send me a payment string.

485
00:27:01,205 --> 00:27:04,025
They can, you know, so every person in that country that's internet

486
00:27:04,025 --> 00:27:06,585
connected can get money from outside.

487
00:27:06,595 --> 00:27:10,345
There's, the borders of that money are now way more porous.

488
00:27:10,845 --> 00:27:13,295
Um, so they're less locked into their local monopoly.

489
00:27:13,305 --> 00:27:15,855
More can go out and, and participate in the free market

490
00:27:15,855 --> 00:27:16,845
of monies around the world.

491
00:27:17,305 --> 00:27:20,645
So if they want, and the same thing applies to some extent with stablecoin,

492
00:27:20,655 --> 00:27:24,785
which is that they can say, well, I will, instead of Egyptian pounds, I want U.

493
00:27:24,785 --> 00:27:24,965
S.

494
00:27:24,975 --> 00:27:27,475
stablecoins to hold for the next three months.

495
00:27:27,835 --> 00:27:31,145
And they're centralized, but it's a, it's a market of money now.

496
00:27:31,145 --> 00:27:33,335
So they're saying, well, instead of my local currency, I want

497
00:27:33,335 --> 00:27:34,705
something that's reasonably stable.

498
00:27:35,220 --> 00:27:36,440
That, that I want to hold.

499
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:38,850
And so, you know, they'll get stable coins.

500
00:27:38,850 --> 00:27:40,830
If they want something longer term, they'll get Bitcoin.

501
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:43,120
And that, that has macro implications.

502
00:27:43,140 --> 00:27:45,020
That breaks apart all those borders.

503
00:27:45,342 --> 00:27:49,262
and then when you look at macro, like size matters, liquidity matters.

504
00:27:49,262 --> 00:27:55,202
Just, just because something exists, if it's not being managed Um, and

505
00:27:55,202 --> 00:27:59,002
so in the first 10 years of, of, of Bitcoin's history, it wasn't really

506
00:27:59,002 --> 00:28:03,637
at a size that really impacted macro, whereas in the past five years

507
00:28:03,637 --> 00:28:05,097
or so, it finally got big enough.

508
00:28:05,107 --> 00:28:08,030
We're starting to have an impact, similar for stable coins.

509
00:28:08,420 --> 00:28:12,060
These things matter on some sort of macro flow scale now.

510
00:28:12,383 --> 00:28:17,473
And so they can, they can now change, you How currencies operate because now,

511
00:28:17,473 --> 00:28:22,173
for example, um, various currencies are under more pressure, which I think is good

512
00:28:22,183 --> 00:28:26,993
because their people have more options to escape those currencies, uh, and they

513
00:28:26,993 --> 00:28:28,663
can hold whatever currency they want.

514
00:28:29,403 --> 00:28:30,813
I think Bitcoin's the best one.

515
00:28:31,120 --> 00:28:33,949
but, you know, if they want to hold dollar stable coins or gold back

516
00:28:33,949 --> 00:28:37,709
stable coins or whatever, they, they, they have various kind of choice now.

517
00:28:38,089 --> 00:28:41,884
And though the fact that Bitcoin, All those financial borders are super porous,

518
00:28:42,404 --> 00:28:49,254
um, allows market forces to exist on money in a way that it's been stopped from doing

519
00:28:49,254 --> 00:28:54,944
for the past many decades because of these kind of enforceable local monopolies.

520
00:28:55,649 --> 00:29:00,749
So this is a, a real change now as, as you see it when, when you say impacting

521
00:29:00,749 --> 00:29:05,399
macro to maybe to the lay person, that that means it's, it's impacting

522
00:29:05,819 --> 00:29:08,429
outside of itself, something like that.

523
00:29:08,429 --> 00:29:09,839
Like the, the larger economy.

524
00:29:09,839 --> 00:29:11,079
Is that correct?

525
00:29:11,079 --> 00:29:11,229
Enough?

526
00:29:11,464 --> 00:29:11,824
Yeah.

527
00:29:11,944 --> 00:29:12,154
Yeah.

528
00:29:12,154 --> 00:29:16,076
Like if, if Bitcoin, if the market cap is 1 billion, it's impacting the

529
00:29:16,076 --> 00:29:17,706
small number of people that use it.

530
00:29:18,023 --> 00:29:21,813
you know, I mean, Bitcoin had impact as early as, you know, when WikiLeaks

531
00:29:21,853 --> 00:29:23,733
turned to, to Bitcoin to get donations.

532
00:29:23,743 --> 00:29:27,773
So around the margins, it began impacting people right away, but

533
00:29:27,813 --> 00:29:32,283
in the, in the larger scale of actually being able to affect the

534
00:29:32,283 --> 00:29:33,403
value of a currency, a fiat currency.

535
00:29:34,678 --> 00:29:36,698
because people in that country now have more options.

536
00:29:37,046 --> 00:29:38,706
that's, that's macro scale.

537
00:29:38,886 --> 00:29:43,956
When, when, when, you know, when value moves around at size and at

538
00:29:44,016 --> 00:29:48,036
speed at a scale that it can do now, that starts to be relevant.

539
00:29:48,176 --> 00:29:50,356
Um, and that's why you see governments paying attention to it.

540
00:29:50,356 --> 00:29:54,390
That's why you see institutions paying attention to it, because it has, you know,

541
00:29:54,501 --> 00:29:56,411
It's shown one, it's shown staying power.

542
00:29:56,411 --> 00:29:57,461
So it's not just a fad.

543
00:29:57,461 --> 00:30:00,011
It's not just some technology that seems like it works for

544
00:30:00,011 --> 00:30:01,241
five years and then breaks.

545
00:30:01,551 --> 00:30:03,071
Um, it's shown resilience.

546
00:30:03,391 --> 00:30:09,201
And then two, it's reached a scale that this actually matters for non techies,

547
00:30:09,541 --> 00:30:14,306
non, you know, like it actually, like people that are just Looking for

548
00:30:14,326 --> 00:30:18,108
pure utilitarian use case, there's a lot of people in that situation

549
00:30:18,108 --> 00:30:19,368
that, that find value out of it.

550
00:30:19,706 --> 00:30:23,413
like, this sounds like a death blow to the smaller currencies.

551
00:30:23,453 --> 00:30:26,543
So do you think, like, we'll see smaller currencies at all,

552
00:30:26,663 --> 00:30:28,613
um, like, a decade from now?

553
00:30:28,713 --> 00:30:30,013
Are they all doomed?

554
00:30:30,153 --> 00:30:31,193
The smaller currencies?

555
00:30:31,588 --> 00:30:33,358
I think they're going to be increasingly pressured.

556
00:30:33,358 --> 00:30:36,668
I don't know if they're all doomed, uh, in that, in that 10 year time

557
00:30:36,668 --> 00:30:40,018
frame, but I think they're all severely impaired in that 10 year time frame.

558
00:30:40,018 --> 00:30:42,418
I think, and it's not everywhere all at once.

559
00:30:42,428 --> 00:30:47,008
So, for example, people in Nigeria, the adoption is very high there.

560
00:30:47,503 --> 00:30:50,123
Whether it's Bitcoin, stablecoins, whatever their case may be,

561
00:30:50,123 --> 00:30:51,193
it depends on the person.

562
00:30:51,553 --> 00:30:56,303
They, their combination of tech savvy and their currency's broken means a

563
00:30:56,303 --> 00:30:58,603
lot of them have got into the space.

564
00:30:59,073 --> 00:31:02,353
Whereas in Egypt, for example, um, they're still very low adoption.

565
00:31:02,743 --> 00:31:04,553
Uh, it's not widely understood yet.

566
00:31:04,825 --> 00:31:07,805
and so it's not, it's not happening at the same pace.

567
00:31:08,255 --> 00:31:13,188
but I think that over the next three, five, ten years, The knowledge that this

568
00:31:13,193 --> 00:31:17,088
is now possible, and what this means is gonna become more and more ubiquitous.

569
00:31:18,078 --> 00:31:22,728
And so every single person can, now they, they can, they can, they can go

570
00:31:22,728 --> 00:31:26,908
outside the border, they can receive money, they can move infinite amount of

571
00:31:26,908 --> 00:31:30,598
money around infinite value, density, even going through ports of entry.

572
00:31:30,598 --> 00:31:33,288
You can memorize 12 words and bring capital with.

573
00:31:33,763 --> 00:31:35,663
Uh, in a way that you couldn't really do before.

574
00:31:35,933 --> 00:31:40,443
And so, as that kind of becomes more and more ubiquitous, yeah, I think the long

575
00:31:40,473 --> 00:31:43,183
tail of currency start to run into issues.

576
00:31:43,513 --> 00:31:46,943
So, this, you know, this is not going to Kill the dollar in 10

577
00:31:46,943 --> 00:31:49,553
years, uh, in my opinion, it's not going to kill the dollar.

578
00:31:49,553 --> 00:31:52,673
It's not going to kill the, the one in that, in that timeframe.

579
00:31:53,034 --> 00:31:57,574
but the long tail of weaker currencies are under a lot more pressure because

580
00:31:57,584 --> 00:32:01,754
the people in those countries either want Bitcoin or they want one of the stronger

581
00:32:01,754 --> 00:32:03,584
currencies, they want dollars, right?

582
00:32:03,594 --> 00:32:05,024
So the, the, the, the.

583
00:32:05,674 --> 00:32:09,924
Starting from the back of the pact, it starts to condense toward

584
00:32:09,924 --> 00:32:13,044
the biggest, and then even those bigger, biggest ones, ultimately,

585
00:32:13,044 --> 00:32:14,364
I think, are going to be pressured.

586
00:32:14,554 --> 00:32:14,867
Potentially,

587
00:32:14,970 --> 00:32:19,090
Yeah, uh, I wonder what that will do to the movement of people around the

588
00:32:19,090 --> 00:32:26,490
world, because if people Can, you know, uh, save and prosper where they are.

589
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:32,990
I guess they're less likely to move in such like volumes as the last

590
00:32:32,990 --> 00:32:36,815
couple of years when You had all these immigrants come to, to, uh,

591
00:32:37,025 --> 00:32:39,205
uh, Western Europe and, and the U.

592
00:32:39,205 --> 00:32:39,365
S.

593
00:32:40,295 --> 00:32:40,965
I mean, it's interesting.

594
00:32:40,985 --> 00:32:45,595
One, it makes moving easier because you can bring your capital with you easier.

595
00:32:45,905 --> 00:32:49,805
So maybe it, maybe it increases the mobility of wealthy people, for example.

596
00:32:50,105 --> 00:32:54,715
Uh, but maybe, maybe for others, it'll also, at the same time, it's funny, it

597
00:32:54,725 --> 00:32:58,375
increases your portability, but then it also gives you more options where you are.

598
00:32:58,870 --> 00:33:02,240
So, I, I honestly, yeah, I don't really know how that shakes out in

599
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:06,250
terms of, of movement, but option, I, I view optionality is always better.

600
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:09,890
So, the fact that people have those options allows them to make choices

601
00:33:09,890 --> 00:33:11,050
that, that make sense for them.

602
00:33:11,655 --> 00:33:11,895
Yeah.

603
00:33:11,905 --> 00:33:15,815
Because like, uh, de rooting yourself and moving somewhere

604
00:33:15,815 --> 00:33:17,845
else is always costly somehow.

605
00:33:17,855 --> 00:33:21,245
Like, uh, leaving your friends and family behind, it's, it's not, it's not

606
00:33:21,245 --> 00:33:26,145
something that is, uh, most people don't prefer to do that if they don't have to.

607
00:33:26,145 --> 00:33:30,455
So like, but, uh, yeah, as you say that, that's a very

608
00:33:30,545 --> 00:33:32,005
interesting thing to think about.

609
00:33:32,035 --> 00:33:39,968
Like this increased, ability to move both the contents of your brain and

610
00:33:39,968 --> 00:33:43,108
your actual brain to other positions.

611
00:33:43,838 --> 00:33:47,608
It's a very, yeah, there's something to think about there.

612
00:33:48,053 --> 00:33:51,423
Yeah, I, I think, yeah, you can argue that especially for people

613
00:33:51,423 --> 00:33:55,023
who don't want to move, it increases the options they have locally.

614
00:33:55,033 --> 00:33:58,678
And so, Really, you kind of be tempted to move more of like,

615
00:33:59,028 --> 00:34:02,418
there's no business opportunities there that you can't do remotely.

616
00:34:02,478 --> 00:34:06,438
Um, that's where you, you might consider moving or if, or if the law there is so

617
00:34:06,438 --> 00:34:10,728
oppressive in some way that it, it stops you from engaging in economic activities

618
00:34:10,728 --> 00:34:12,288
or social activities that you want to.

619
00:34:12,738 --> 00:34:17,378
But if you're, if you're, if you're relatively free to operate and the,

620
00:34:17,438 --> 00:34:20,438
even if the local area is having issues, if you can work online, if

621
00:34:20,438 --> 00:34:23,168
you know there, there's, there's so many options now for you to earn

622
00:34:23,168 --> 00:34:24,863
a living no matter where you are.

623
00:34:25,653 --> 00:34:27,203
Yeah, absolutely.

624
00:34:27,463 --> 00:34:32,683
And this, like these video calls and social media and stuff

625
00:34:32,723 --> 00:34:34,703
make it so much more easier.

626
00:34:35,243 --> 00:34:39,493
So yeah, it's going to be interesting to see it play out for sure.

627
00:34:41,539 --> 00:34:46,809
So what do you think, like what are these, um Um, what's going on right now

628
00:34:47,059 --> 00:34:50,879
in terms of, of, of Bitcoin adoption with the ETFs and stuff like what's,

629
00:34:50,909 --> 00:34:55,489
uh, what's the, what's the bigger picture there is, are things going

630
00:34:55,509 --> 00:34:59,999
according to plan or, or what are the things we're not seeing or thinking

631
00:34:59,999 --> 00:35:01,379
about that we should be thinking about?

632
00:35:01,874 --> 00:35:06,054
Well, so one, I view that this period is fairly inevitable, and any asset

633
00:35:06,054 --> 00:35:10,174
that becomes a trillion dollar liquid asset is going to get ETFs built on it

634
00:35:10,224 --> 00:35:14,881
in some jurisdictions, and in the United States case, um, you know, we have some

635
00:35:14,881 --> 00:35:18,441
degree of separation of powers, and so even though the SEC didn't particularly

636
00:35:18,441 --> 00:35:23,036
want this, they lost in court, um, and so it becomes People want this.

637
00:35:23,196 --> 00:35:25,496
Um, and so now more people can access it.

638
00:35:25,766 --> 00:35:28,716
There are pools of capital that, you know, there's retirement accounts,

639
00:35:28,826 --> 00:35:33,626
there's managed assets, um, and a lot of them have not been able to access it.

640
00:35:33,746 --> 00:35:34,856
Um, and now they can't.

641
00:35:34,946 --> 00:35:37,566
So, and there's, there's like imbalances build up.

642
00:35:37,566 --> 00:35:39,696
So the fact that they could only access it with, with like

643
00:35:39,696 --> 00:35:42,126
grayscale, uh, has been an issue.

644
00:35:42,146 --> 00:35:45,206
And now there's kind of like this big release valve where a lot of capital can

645
00:35:45,206 --> 00:35:49,836
finally get out of that big entrapment and move to other places that are, that are.

646
00:35:49,891 --> 00:35:56,611
I think that's a process that's inevitable.

647
00:35:57,361 --> 00:36:01,141
I think concerns around centralization are somewhat overblown.

648
00:36:01,578 --> 00:36:05,328
not to say that they shouldn't be brought up, but basically I think

649
00:36:05,328 --> 00:36:09,588
that there already was a pretty big chunk of Bitcoin sitting in grayscale.

650
00:36:09,888 --> 00:36:11,178
Now it's rotating in the right direction.

651
00:36:11,368 --> 00:36:13,528
Blackrock and Fidelity and a few others.

652
00:36:13,798 --> 00:36:18,468
Um, the overall pie is growing moderately that's in those environments.

653
00:36:18,860 --> 00:36:21,620
a lot of people in those environments, they prefer that.

654
00:36:21,691 --> 00:36:27,171
whereas I think it's important to say make self custody reasonably easy for people.

655
00:36:27,471 --> 00:36:29,451
to, to make sure people understand the risks.

656
00:36:29,721 --> 00:36:32,851
Um, but I think, again, it's just people have more optionality now.

657
00:36:32,911 --> 00:36:35,391
There, there are a lot of people that wanted to have Bitcoin

658
00:36:35,401 --> 00:36:36,631
in their 401k and couldn't.

659
00:36:37,371 --> 00:36:40,701
Now they have more options or, you know, they're, they're, they're, you

660
00:36:40,701 --> 00:36:45,591
know, they have assets with an RIA and he or she is just unable or unwilling

661
00:36:45,591 --> 00:36:47,791
to put some of that money into Bitcoin.

662
00:36:47,841 --> 00:36:48,621
Now they can.

663
00:36:49,021 --> 00:36:51,656
Um, and so I think that's overall, that's, yeah.

664
00:36:52,096 --> 00:36:55,706
Inevitable, even if it's not good or bad, it's just inevitable, right?

665
00:36:55,716 --> 00:36:59,576
So it's not like I see people saying, Oh, Bitcoin deviated from its mission

666
00:36:59,576 --> 00:37:01,496
because ETFs exist for it now.

667
00:37:01,506 --> 00:37:03,256
Well, it's like, well, Bitcoin didn't make the ETFs.

668
00:37:03,936 --> 00:37:06,586
The fiat system made ETFs for Bitcoin.

669
00:37:07,086 --> 00:37:10,546
and that's, that's basically the fiat system upgraded its APIs.

670
00:37:10,991 --> 00:37:15,131
To plug Bitcoin in, in this method, ETFs are basically an

671
00:37:15,131 --> 00:37:17,651
API into different asset classes.

672
00:37:17,701 --> 00:37:19,501
They decided to plug into Bitcoin now.

673
00:37:19,772 --> 00:37:23,892
and, you know, you watch out for, for big, big centralized honeypots,

674
00:37:23,912 --> 00:37:27,372
whether it's ETFs, whether it's Binance, you know, whenever a lot of

675
00:37:27,382 --> 00:37:29,897
Bitcoin are in one, Big custodian.

676
00:37:29,917 --> 00:37:30,737
That is a risk.

677
00:37:31,097 --> 00:37:32,777
So right now, a lot of them are in Coinbase.

678
00:37:32,777 --> 00:37:34,457
I consider that not ideal.

679
00:37:34,807 --> 00:37:38,647
Um, and but so I think people should be cautious about that.

680
00:37:38,647 --> 00:37:42,877
If you're going to hold ETFs, you probably should diversify across custodians.

681
00:37:43,183 --> 00:37:46,109
but I also think that, you know, it's good to take self custody.

682
00:37:46,299 --> 00:37:49,319
Um, and so we'll, you know, we'll see what that shakeouts over time.

683
00:37:49,689 --> 00:37:52,549
But I think that that's just an inevitable stage that Bitcoin was

684
00:37:52,649 --> 00:37:56,319
always going to go through if it was ever going to get as big as it has now.

685
00:37:57,027 --> 00:38:01,657
Yeah, uh, there's a, there's an interesting dichotomy or whatever, uh,

686
00:38:01,677 --> 00:38:09,247
here, uh, with between Bitcoin becoming more recognized and more, more in the,

687
00:38:09,423 --> 00:38:15,963
furnished rooms or whatever expression you use for that, um, and, and, uh, on

688
00:38:15,963 --> 00:38:21,668
the other hand, purists wanting Bitcoin to be, what it was originally intended to be.

689
00:38:21,678 --> 00:38:26,978
And I think like, uh, Bitcoin couldn't exist if it, if it, I

690
00:38:26,978 --> 00:38:30,028
mean, it needs to be permissionless still at the end of the day, like

691
00:38:30,038 --> 00:38:33,028
that's, that's the most important censorship resistant and all of that.

692
00:38:33,588 --> 00:38:38,298
So, so, so we need like both, like sure, we don't really need the ETFs.

693
00:38:38,318 --> 00:38:43,358
Of course, it makes number go up faster and that's everyone gets happy and Bitcoin

694
00:38:43,368 --> 00:38:44,978
development gets more funding and stuff.

695
00:38:45,713 --> 00:38:50,656
So I guess that's a positive side of it, uh, but is there a risk that, like more

696
00:38:50,656 --> 00:38:57,526
mainstream and more, you know, stupid money being thrown at it, uh, like starts

697
00:38:57,546 --> 00:38:59,916
chipping away from its core principles?

698
00:39:00,286 --> 00:39:03,896
I mean, uh, not, not only the, I'm thinking not only of the ETFs,

699
00:39:03,926 --> 00:39:09,306
but also, you know, stupid JPEGs and stuff on, on, uh, on Pokemon

700
00:39:10,126 --> 00:39:11,956
games built on top of Bitcoin.

701
00:39:12,411 --> 00:39:15,891
At the expense of, of, uh, node runner capacity, like,

702
00:39:15,891 --> 00:39:17,301
well, what's your stance there?

703
00:39:17,736 --> 00:39:20,936
I mean, I think there's a risk, but I view it as overblown because I

704
00:39:20,936 --> 00:39:23,266
view Bitcoin as well designed as is.

705
00:39:23,686 --> 00:39:26,376
Um, you know, it has a block size limit for a reason.

706
00:39:26,558 --> 00:39:31,548
and, you know, I think that basically the market forces will play out.

707
00:39:31,638 --> 00:39:34,778
I think, you know, basically, if you view what Bitcoin is,

708
00:39:35,148 --> 00:39:38,818
Bitcoin is the most immutable and decentralized database we've ever made.

709
00:39:39,188 --> 00:39:43,968
Uh, as humanity, I think the biggest killer use case for that is money.

710
00:39:44,158 --> 00:39:48,608
If you have a really good decentralized open ledger, money is like by far the

711
00:39:48,608 --> 00:39:50,188
biggest adjustment market for that.

712
00:39:50,188 --> 00:39:53,058
That's like a hundred trillion dollar market in today's dollar terms.

713
00:39:53,068 --> 00:39:54,798
That's like a, it's a massive market.

714
00:39:54,968 --> 00:39:56,758
The total adjustment market for that is.

715
00:39:56,908 --> 00:39:58,458
Uh, in theory is huge.

716
00:39:58,678 --> 00:40:02,008
and the, you know, you can use that, you can like, you can, you

717
00:40:02,008 --> 00:40:05,408
can timestamp other things to prove that they were not changed.

718
00:40:05,688 --> 00:40:08,248
You can use it for speculative meme tokens.

719
00:40:08,618 --> 00:40:11,548
I think most of, most of those fat, I mean, that's like, you know, at

720
00:40:11,558 --> 00:40:13,378
most a few trillion dollar market.

721
00:40:13,678 --> 00:40:17,018
Non monetary use cases for, for the most immutable database.

722
00:40:17,118 --> 00:40:20,818
I think that over the long arc of time, uh, the monetary

723
00:40:20,818 --> 00:40:22,388
use case is way more denser.

724
00:40:22,398 --> 00:40:25,718
It's a way bigger market and it pushes that aside.

725
00:40:25,718 --> 00:40:29,638
I think that while, while Bitcoin gets adopted, as it goes through, as more

726
00:40:29,638 --> 00:40:33,168
people look at it and figure out things they can do with it, it goes through

727
00:40:33,168 --> 00:40:34,858
these manias, it goes through fads.

728
00:40:35,328 --> 00:40:38,068
Um, I think they burn themselves out over time.

729
00:40:38,798 --> 00:40:41,888
We see when you look at the altcoin space, you go through this, this, this

730
00:40:41,898 --> 00:40:44,428
boom for a period, and then we forget that narrative, you go through the next

731
00:40:44,428 --> 00:40:47,188
big boom, and then we forget about that narrative, you go to the next big boom.

732
00:40:47,588 --> 00:40:51,388
Now, kind of the current cycle is nothing particularly new, but taking some of that

733
00:40:51,388 --> 00:40:52,808
other stuff and putting it on Bitcoin.

734
00:40:53,108 --> 00:40:54,718
I think this is going to go through a big boom.

735
00:40:55,113 --> 00:40:55,463
Boom.

736
00:40:55,463 --> 00:40:58,003
And then, uh, you know, that, that kind of washes itself out.

737
00:40:58,003 --> 00:41:00,723
And I'm sure someone will think of the next thing and it will

738
00:41:00,743 --> 00:41:02,253
go through that, that fad.

739
00:41:02,443 --> 00:41:04,883
And that can be disruptive while it happens.

740
00:41:05,332 --> 00:41:08,632
but I think that ultimately that it's, it's not particularly economic.

741
00:41:08,632 --> 00:41:13,592
If people want to, you know, if there's demand for meme coins, there's an endless

742
00:41:13,592 --> 00:41:17,182
supply of meme coins that come to the market until they saturate that demand.

743
00:41:17,182 --> 00:41:19,202
And then all those people that bought meme coins.

744
00:41:19,727 --> 00:41:23,333
Basically, they get poor, and then the money flows to the miners,

745
00:41:23,704 --> 00:41:26,077
and it's annoying for people that are trying to use Bitcoin

746
00:41:26,097 --> 00:41:28,097
monetarily for that period of time.

747
00:41:29,117 --> 00:41:30,797
At the end of the day, they still have their money.

748
00:41:30,807 --> 00:41:34,951
All the people that bet on JPEGs and, you know, Mean Coins are

749
00:41:35,051 --> 00:41:37,731
poorer now, unless they were the handful of sharks at the top.

750
00:41:37,731 --> 00:41:41,821
They were basically chilling it and cashing out at the top and, you know,

751
00:41:41,871 --> 00:41:45,911
those, those kind of sharks make money, but, um, Most people lose money, and

752
00:41:46,071 --> 00:41:48,121
then it kind of goes back to stability.

753
00:41:48,241 --> 00:41:51,299
So, I think that's kind of part of something that it has to go through.

754
00:41:51,616 --> 00:41:56,046
Yeah, for the most part, I totally agree with you in that, uh, I do believe in,

755
00:41:56,076 --> 00:42:01,166
in, uh, Bitcoin's incentives, incentive structure being set up in such a way that

756
00:42:01,166 --> 00:42:03,046
these problems go away by themselves.

757
00:42:03,486 --> 00:42:05,496
But I'm thinking of like second order effects.

758
00:42:05,546 --> 00:42:08,866
So, like, if people believe that there's such a thing as a rare set.

759
00:42:09,731 --> 00:42:13,571
Which is like in my mind as, as, uh, strange as believing there's

760
00:42:13,571 --> 00:42:14,981
a rare centimeter somewhere.

761
00:42:15,451 --> 00:42:21,091
Uh, the, the, uh, the, those coins, like the, the only, the only way you

762
00:42:21,091 --> 00:42:24,571
can move them and still claim that they're part of a JPEG or something

763
00:42:24,571 --> 00:42:26,521
is if you do the chain analysis thing.

764
00:42:26,961 --> 00:42:32,511
So, so you, you give these, uh, analytics tools, companies, uh, a

765
00:42:32,511 --> 00:42:35,421
further incentive to, to do more stuff and to make more money.

766
00:42:36,096 --> 00:42:40,186
And, and in my mind, those companies are a real risk because they're, they're

767
00:42:40,186 --> 00:42:45,756
trying to set the precedent, uh, in certain jurisdictions that, that, or

768
00:42:45,756 --> 00:42:48,866
in all jurisdictions, really, they're, they're trying to set a precedent that

769
00:42:48,926 --> 00:42:53,966
you can prove ownership of a Bitcoin, which in my mind is totally absurd because

770
00:42:53,976 --> 00:42:57,712
like saying that, You can own 12 words.

771
00:42:57,722 --> 00:43:01,642
It's, it's, it's sort of weird to begin with, like ownership is,

772
00:43:01,712 --> 00:43:03,512
is a different thing on Bitcoin.

773
00:43:03,512 --> 00:43:07,942
You can't really define ownership the way you can with tangible assets.

774
00:43:07,952 --> 00:43:09,742
So, yeah, what are your thoughts on that?

775
00:43:10,157 --> 00:43:11,537
So, yeah, I agree.

776
00:43:11,587 --> 00:43:14,367
The way I would phrase it is that Bitcoin is really good money,

777
00:43:14,387 --> 00:43:15,527
but it's not perfect money.

778
00:43:15,527 --> 00:43:18,967
It has, there's certain limitations with, say, scaling, certain limitations

779
00:43:18,967 --> 00:43:22,127
with fungibility, which impacts privacy, uh, to varying degrees.

780
00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:26,290
and, you know, there's, there's tools that can overcome that on higher layers.

781
00:43:26,675 --> 00:43:31,305
if, you know, If a lot of people buy into, say, ordinal theory and they say, okay,

782
00:43:31,305 --> 00:43:35,835
this is the, this is the quote, unquote, ordering of sats that we agree with, um,

783
00:43:35,875 --> 00:43:39,896
yeah, that, that does give chain analysis, companies a lot of tools and incentives.

784
00:43:40,256 --> 00:43:43,582
I think, unfortunately, over the next decade, they're already going

785
00:43:43,582 --> 00:43:46,342
to have a lot of tools and incentives because governments have a lot

786
00:43:46,342 --> 00:43:51,982
of tools and incentives to, um, surveil all this as best they can.

787
00:43:52,334 --> 00:43:55,734
and, you know, I, for people that follow my macro work, I, I'm focused a

788
00:43:55,734 --> 00:43:59,684
lot on the topic of fiscal dominance, which is that a lot of debt is now

789
00:43:59,684 --> 00:44:01,764
on the public ledger for governments.

790
00:44:01,834 --> 00:44:02,994
Sovereign, sovereign debts.

791
00:44:03,435 --> 00:44:06,785
and they get in a situation where, uh, you know, if they rate, if they keep interest

792
00:44:06,785 --> 00:44:08,655
rates low, they, they risk inflation.

793
00:44:08,965 --> 00:44:12,118
Um, and if they raise interest rates, they, they actually blow out

794
00:44:12,118 --> 00:44:15,688
their deficits even more and, and fuel inflation in a different way.

795
00:44:15,971 --> 00:44:19,651
and so historically what countries do, When they get to that situation

796
00:44:19,651 --> 00:44:20,911
is they turn to capital controls.

797
00:44:21,381 --> 00:44:24,941
They try to say, well, you know, banks are controlled now

798
00:44:24,941 --> 00:44:26,201
and brokers are controlled now.

799
00:44:26,201 --> 00:44:28,811
And you can't, you can't buy this type of security.

800
00:44:28,811 --> 00:44:32,491
You can't buy this type of asset or gold's illegal to own or, you know,

801
00:44:32,541 --> 00:44:34,151
foreign currency is legal to own.

802
00:44:34,151 --> 00:44:36,001
And they turn to all those things.

803
00:44:36,371 --> 00:44:36,821
And you can't.

804
00:44:38,376 --> 00:44:41,946
Bitcoin is a, is a, you know, it's a release valve for that, right?

805
00:44:41,946 --> 00:44:43,906
It's a, it's a, it's portable capital.

806
00:44:44,150 --> 00:44:47,720
and they, you know, if you're trying to do capital controls, you don't

807
00:44:47,720 --> 00:44:50,770
particularly like the fact that that exists, or if it does exist, you want

808
00:44:50,770 --> 00:44:55,400
to surveil it as much as possible so that if, if some Billionaire or some

809
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:58,930
company starts, you know, putting a lot of capital there and then trying to

810
00:44:58,930 --> 00:45:02,740
evade the fact that all the inflation is happening, they can go to that entity

811
00:45:02,740 --> 00:45:06,210
and be like, well, we're going to tax you by 20 percent to recoup some of the

812
00:45:06,210 --> 00:45:09,560
value that you escaped from the inflation with, or we're just going to confiscate

813
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:11,250
your coins, whatever the case may be.

814
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:14,820
Uh, and so governments have a lot of incentive to try to do that.

815
00:45:15,233 --> 00:45:20,663
and so I think ordinal theory or not, just chain analysis is going to be a

816
00:45:20,863 --> 00:45:22,703
thing, a problem for the next 5 10 years.

817
00:45:22,703 --> 00:45:25,783
I've been saying that I think, I think privacy is the biggest

818
00:45:25,783 --> 00:45:29,273
kind of battleground, uh, in this space going forward.

819
00:45:29,573 --> 00:45:31,243
And I think that's, it's not something that's going to be

820
00:45:31,253 --> 00:45:32,783
won a year or two from now.

821
00:45:32,793 --> 00:45:34,633
I think that's going to be a long term issue.

822
00:45:34,963 --> 00:45:37,273
That's also why I think public education is important.

823
00:45:37,283 --> 00:45:39,843
Like propaganda works, right?

824
00:45:39,943 --> 00:45:43,793
If you tell people, look, you know, like our currency is broken because

825
00:45:44,073 --> 00:45:47,193
There's outside entities attacking it that a lot of emerging markets

826
00:45:47,193 --> 00:45:51,103
will use that line or, Hey, like, you know, our currency is working,

827
00:45:51,103 --> 00:45:52,893
but all these Bitcoiners are greedy.

828
00:45:52,893 --> 00:45:55,693
And they're, you know, the fact that they're, you know, not buying into

829
00:45:55,693 --> 00:45:57,363
our money is breaking our money now.

830
00:45:57,363 --> 00:45:59,493
And like, we got to go and tax those, right?

831
00:45:59,743 --> 00:46:02,933
Those, those narratives can work, uh, unfortunately.

832
00:46:03,153 --> 00:46:06,113
And so that's actually why I think Bitcoin education is so important.

833
00:46:06,583 --> 00:46:11,853
That you need, um, enough knowledge out there that as, as the government

834
00:46:11,863 --> 00:46:15,343
tries to apply these different types of tools, that there's sufficient pushback

835
00:46:15,423 --> 00:46:17,683
among the populace, uh, for them.

836
00:46:17,890 --> 00:46:21,520
and, but I, I do think that, Tech aside, that, that's just an era that we're

837
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:26,020
going to go through now, and so I kind of take that for, that, that's an axiom

838
00:46:26,020 --> 00:46:30,790
that I start with, that we are going through an era where Bitcoin does have

839
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:33,770
fungibility limitations, governments are going to try to exploit those in

840
00:46:33,780 --> 00:46:38,230
any way they can, um, and therefore I, I think it's good to build privacy tech

841
00:46:38,230 --> 00:46:42,100
on top of Bitcoin, uh, and also I think it's good to educate the public around

842
00:46:42,100 --> 00:46:47,060
why privacy is good, why being able to own non debasable money is good, Why the

843
00:46:47,060 --> 00:46:50,545
government should not have a right to do X, Y, and Z, because it helps, it helps,

844
00:46:50,805 --> 00:46:57,255
there's a social defense then against, you know, large overreach in that area.

845
00:46:57,766 --> 00:46:58,776
Yeah, I totally agree.

846
00:46:58,816 --> 00:47:03,631
I mean, If there's one tip I want to give to other Bitcoiners, it's like keep your

847
00:47:03,691 --> 00:47:10,770
non KYC stack and your KYC stack separate, or, and your non coin joint stack, because

848
00:47:10,780 --> 00:47:14,700
there's, um, uh, I mean, right now, I think you're pretty safe as long as you

849
00:47:14,700 --> 00:47:19,490
don't get a big lump sum of money into a bank account, then, then you're at risk.

850
00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:23,510
But as long as you're just operating on Bitcoin and just sending Bitcoin

851
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:25,030
back and forth to other Bitcoiners.

852
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:31,730
No one's going to give a shit for the most part, unless it's humongous sums.

853
00:47:32,870 --> 00:47:38,727
But still, as long as they trust what these chain analysis companies are saying,

854
00:47:38,727 --> 00:47:48,300
they could pull a 6102 and just confiscate your stuff via threats of violence.

855
00:47:48,300 --> 00:47:50,530
That is on the table.

856
00:47:50,570 --> 00:47:56,600
So, uh, it's crucial to KYC stack somewhere, uh, if you, if you want to

857
00:47:56,600 --> 00:48:03,948
really Utilize the power of Bitcoin as a freedom tool, which is first and

858
00:48:03,948 --> 00:48:05,788
foremost, that's, that's what it's for.

859
00:48:06,268 --> 00:48:08,918
Uh, so, so yeah, the education is crucial.

860
00:48:08,918 --> 00:48:14,088
And as you say, I think there's a, there's a critical mass that we need

861
00:48:14,098 --> 00:48:19,403
like of, um, People just thinking that these laws are ridiculous because they

862
00:48:19,403 --> 00:48:23,923
really are if, if, uh, non KYC'd, uh, or, well, no, what, what's it called?

863
00:48:24,373 --> 00:48:26,113
Uh, what, what are they calling it?

864
00:48:26,213 --> 00:48:29,563
Um, uh, non custodial wallets.

865
00:48:30,173 --> 00:48:34,273
That, that term in itself is, is just bizarre because not your keys,

866
00:48:34,283 --> 00:48:39,293
not your coins, which means a non custodial wallet, a ban on those is

867
00:48:39,383 --> 00:48:41,403
basically a ban on using your brain.

868
00:48:42,173 --> 00:48:46,283
Because, uh, uh, the number zero and the number one in a certain

869
00:48:46,293 --> 00:48:48,853
order is a non custodial wallet.

870
00:48:48,883 --> 00:48:55,313
You can throw a dice 99 times or, or throw a coin, flip a coin 256

871
00:48:55,323 --> 00:49:00,463
times, and you can, you can receive Bitcoin to that, to those coin flips.

872
00:49:01,053 --> 00:49:05,723
So, so I think in my mind, what Bitcoin so blatantly, obviously like

873
00:49:06,093 --> 00:49:10,843
pointed out to everyone was the money never was anything but information.

874
00:49:10,843 --> 00:49:11,088
for your attention.

875
00:49:11,408 --> 00:49:16,988
It doesn't need to be anything but information, and this should, like,

876
00:49:16,998 --> 00:49:24,268
intelligent people are excited, of course, but it takes a while to

877
00:49:24,618 --> 00:49:26,398
educate the masses on this, I guess.

878
00:49:26,675 --> 00:49:27,155
Yeah, I agree.

879
00:49:27,265 --> 00:49:31,040
And, and Corey, Corey Clipson from Swan, has a big theme about this.

880
00:49:31,060 --> 00:49:32,450
It's the race to avoid the war.

881
00:49:32,460 --> 00:49:36,630
It's basically, and, and it touches on the topic of, um, you know, the

882
00:49:36,660 --> 00:49:39,960
intransient minority, which is that if you can get 3 percent of the population

883
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:43,530
to really, really care about something and like be single issue voters and.

884
00:49:43,730 --> 00:49:47,350
Even if necessary protest is about that thing, then you can get

885
00:49:47,350 --> 00:49:50,920
disproportionate impact because in any, on any given topic, half the people

886
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:52,360
don't even know what's going on, right?

887
00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:54,470
So, or they don't care, right?

888
00:49:54,470 --> 00:49:58,636
So, if some small percentage adamantly care, they can have

889
00:49:58,636 --> 00:50:01,326
disproportionate impact because they're, they're very focused.

890
00:50:01,366 --> 00:50:05,076
Um, in the United States, I mean, the NRA is an example, right?

891
00:50:05,076 --> 00:50:08,501
There are a lot of people that are really focused on making sure that, that, You

892
00:50:08,501 --> 00:50:11,977
know, kind of the second amendment's not infringed, and so, and they've

893
00:50:11,977 --> 00:50:16,157
been very effective at pushing back on politicians, pushing back on this, and,

894
00:50:16,497 --> 00:50:20,617
uh, even people that disagree with them are like, they're super effective, you

895
00:50:20,617 --> 00:50:24,387
know, and, and so, um, there's kind of a similar approach with Bitcoin, which is

896
00:50:24,407 --> 00:50:29,657
that, um, you want to have enough people that understand it and push, push back

897
00:50:29,657 --> 00:50:33,877
on things because that makes it harder for the more draconian things to happen.

898
00:50:34,227 --> 00:50:36,157
and so I think that's like, that's a key thing.

899
00:50:36,157 --> 00:50:38,787
And another thing that's worth pointing out is that so in the fiat

900
00:50:38,787 --> 00:50:44,734
currency system, things like, Monetary censorship and, and anti privacy things.

901
00:50:45,044 --> 00:50:49,164
They're pretty easy to enforce because it all happens on the institutional level.

902
00:50:49,204 --> 00:50:52,274
They just tell the banks, you can't send money to this, or this is what

903
00:50:52,274 --> 00:50:53,664
you have to check your customers for.

904
00:50:53,874 --> 00:50:55,964
And it just instantly complied with.

905
00:50:56,214 --> 00:50:58,904
And it's because there's only a small number of enforcement points.

906
00:50:58,934 --> 00:51:00,634
They all just immediately have to comply.

907
00:51:00,634 --> 00:51:04,654
Whereas, um, whenever you're trying to enforce something on the banks, On

908
00:51:04,654 --> 00:51:09,094
the, on the public level, the number of enforcement points is now a thousand

909
00:51:09,104 --> 00:51:11,164
times higher or ten thousand times higher.

910
00:51:11,374 --> 00:51:13,524
And so the cost of enforcement is so much higher.

911
00:51:13,524 --> 00:51:17,474
So for example, even in the United States, when they did the gold ban, hardly

912
00:51:17,474 --> 00:51:19,904
anybody was actually prosecuted for it.

913
00:51:20,156 --> 00:51:22,986
it was very hard to enforce in practice because it was kind

914
00:51:22,986 --> 00:51:24,146
of like the mask is off now.

915
00:51:24,156 --> 00:51:27,836
They're just in your face on the individual level, um, doing it.

916
00:51:27,836 --> 00:51:29,226
And it's, it's costly.

917
00:51:29,483 --> 00:51:30,943
in Bitcoin, I think it'd be similar.

918
00:51:30,943 --> 00:51:32,363
I think compared to gold.

919
00:51:32,668 --> 00:51:35,828
The fact that Bitcoin on the base layer is more available is a little bit of an

920
00:51:35,828 --> 00:51:40,565
issue, but at the same time, that's offset by how fast and portable Bitcoin is, and,

921
00:51:40,565 --> 00:51:44,565
and, and, and how you can literally do multisig across jurisdictions and you

922
00:51:44,565 --> 00:51:48,955
can, you know, there's, there's, it's much easier to move around and protect,

923
00:51:49,205 --> 00:51:52,655
um, and so I, I think it's gonna be a similar thing that when you try to apply

924
00:51:52,655 --> 00:51:56,940
these types of things on the individual level, It's way, way, way harder,

925
00:51:57,180 --> 00:52:00,130
especially if there's some significant percent of the population that is

926
00:52:00,130 --> 00:52:01,920
like, wait a second, that's, that's BS.

927
00:52:01,950 --> 00:52:02,710
You can't do that.

928
00:52:03,070 --> 00:52:07,950
Uh, it worked to some extent back in the, in the gold ban era, because so

929
00:52:07,950 --> 00:52:12,190
many people were kind of like, they had subscribed to kind of a collectivist view.

930
00:52:12,190 --> 00:52:17,110
In the United States, for example, you know, FDR had like 70%, like he

931
00:52:17,110 --> 00:52:18,650
had a super majority in Congress.

932
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:22,945
He could, he could, That's where the pendulum swung at that time, socially,

933
00:52:23,187 --> 00:52:26,221
but in a lot of places now, the pendulum swung in the other direction, so it's

934
00:52:26,221 --> 00:52:30,031
harder to do those types of things, um, but that, again, that's where education

935
00:52:30,031 --> 00:52:33,731
is important, so that there's a lot of people that, you know, are willing to

936
00:52:33,731 --> 00:52:35,151
push back on things when they happen.

937
00:52:35,865 --> 00:52:37,945
Yeah, and as you say, there's critical mass.

938
00:52:37,945 --> 00:52:44,045
I think it's like, it's just a small, small percentage, because if

939
00:52:44,065 --> 00:52:47,955
you take Madeira as an example, in Funchal now, as compared to when we

940
00:52:47,955 --> 00:52:51,825
started the Freemadeira organization, there's like 40 places or something

941
00:52:52,105 --> 00:52:53,575
that accept Bitcoin now, right?

942
00:52:53,925 --> 00:52:58,535
And maybe there's a community of around 100 Bitcoiners on the island, But

943
00:52:58,535 --> 00:53:03,265
that's it, there's no one else, and it's just us doing stuff among ourselves,

944
00:53:03,265 --> 00:53:06,355
and of course there's a peak when the conference, when there's a conference.

945
00:53:06,755 --> 00:53:10,995
But I know people who are living their lives on a Bitcoin standard on Madeira,

946
00:53:11,495 --> 00:53:17,095
with that small, like, just a hundred people, because one of those hundred,

947
00:53:17,515 --> 00:53:23,575
uh, Has fiat and like all the monetary problems go away when you have a Bitcoin

948
00:53:23,575 --> 00:53:28,075
standard because you can just, you know, zap one another when you need to.

949
00:53:28,075 --> 00:53:33,885
And, and, uh, so I think since Bitcoin is so powerful in itself, the, um,

950
00:53:34,135 --> 00:53:37,955
the rest of the population, sooner or later, they'll see how much greener

951
00:53:37,985 --> 00:53:39,355
the grass is on the other side.

952
00:53:39,365 --> 00:53:44,895
Where, when we live among, among the normies, like, uh, they will see us.

953
00:53:45,689 --> 00:53:49,309
live different lives and, and just be happier.

954
00:53:49,359 --> 00:53:50,909
We'll owe nothing and be happier.

955
00:53:51,936 --> 00:53:52,556
I agree.

956
00:53:52,586 --> 00:53:57,436
I think there's always a balance between if, let's say the Bitcoiners do

957
00:53:57,446 --> 00:54:00,776
very well, um, other people naturally want to know what they're doing

958
00:54:00,916 --> 00:54:02,606
so they can start doing well also.

959
00:54:02,736 --> 00:54:04,116
So that's how it catches on.

960
00:54:04,286 --> 00:54:08,256
On the other hand, uh, you know, people can get envious and say, well, you

961
00:54:08,256 --> 00:54:11,096
know, we're, we're all struggling, but why is this group not struggling?

962
00:54:11,326 --> 00:54:12,506
Why are they flourishing?

963
00:54:12,936 --> 00:54:16,606
Uh, and then it's like, well, let's blame them or let's take their stuff.

964
00:54:16,876 --> 00:54:17,166
Right?

965
00:54:17,176 --> 00:54:21,421
So that, that, that, and that's where, um, That's where education is super important.

966
00:54:21,431 --> 00:54:22,731
You want to have it be the former.

967
00:54:22,751 --> 00:54:25,301
You want to have people saying, what are you doing that's working

968
00:54:25,521 --> 00:54:27,091
so that we can start doing it too?

969
00:54:27,301 --> 00:54:30,091
Versus, why are you not suffering the way I am?

970
00:54:30,121 --> 00:54:34,481
I want to, I want to take your stuff or I want to blame you for,

971
00:54:34,501 --> 00:54:36,331
for why I'm suffering, right?

972
00:54:36,331 --> 00:54:39,691
That's, that's, you know, that's the, that's the issue to navigate.

973
00:54:40,181 --> 00:54:41,051
of course, of course.

974
00:54:41,051 --> 00:54:45,841
And, and envy is the, the, the driving force of all collectivist ideologies that

975
00:54:45,861 --> 00:54:50,451
like, they're all based on envy at some level, but I think there's something to

976
00:54:50,551 --> 00:54:56,911
Bitcoiners like, When Bitcoiners, what we measure as success is not necessarily

977
00:54:56,911 --> 00:55:00,371
what, what other people measure as success, because we don't go out and

978
00:55:00,371 --> 00:55:02,601
buy a hundred golden Lambos instantly.

979
00:55:02,601 --> 00:55:05,641
When we get wealthy, we, we want to live.

980
00:55:06,311 --> 00:55:12,081
Uh, we, many of us at least crave more freedom above everything else.

981
00:55:12,451 --> 00:55:17,526
So we're like more of the If we turn into billionaires, we'll be more of

982
00:55:17,526 --> 00:55:22,506
the Dorsey or the Telegram guy, uh, type that doesn't own anything and,

983
00:55:22,526 --> 00:55:24,746
and, and just values our freedom.

984
00:55:25,266 --> 00:55:30,656
Uh, so, and I think that's, that's more resistant to envy than, than, uh,

985
00:55:30,716 --> 00:55:34,016
building huge mansions and, and stuff.

986
00:55:34,331 --> 00:55:34,781
I agree.

987
00:55:34,981 --> 00:55:35,261
Yeah.

988
00:56:52,348 --> 00:56:52,348
h

989
00:56:52,398 --> 00:56:57,618
another, another aspect that, uh, I know you've been active in over the

990
00:56:57,618 --> 00:57:03,178
last months or even longer is, is Nostr, uh, that I think you've been one

991
00:57:03,178 --> 00:57:07,718
of the most actually effective users of Nostr in terms of having different

992
00:57:07,728 --> 00:57:12,418
types of content on Nostr versus, versus Twitter, and so, um, What would

993
00:57:12,418 --> 00:57:14,818
you say is the role of Nostr in this?

994
00:57:14,818 --> 00:57:18,758
Because it's not Bitcoin exactly, but what's the role of Nostr in,

995
00:57:19,388 --> 00:57:24,678
I guess, advocating for this more decentralization of communication?

996
00:57:25,184 --> 00:57:28,394
Well, yeah, but the role of Nostr is decentralized communication.

997
00:57:28,444 --> 00:57:32,954
And if you look at what commerce is, it's information and value.

998
00:57:33,174 --> 00:57:35,294
You have to be able to transfer information and value.

999
00:57:35,674 --> 00:57:40,054
Bitcoin is the value side, but you still need information.

1000
00:57:40,274 --> 00:57:44,134
If, you know, a lot, especially online, if a lot of commerce happens online, but

1001
00:57:44,134 --> 00:57:49,564
it all goes through centralized portals, it's very hard for ideas to spread.

1002
00:57:49,564 --> 00:57:54,204
It's very hard for You know, come to market products or services if they're

1003
00:57:54,254 --> 00:57:58,584
blocked out somehow from the centralized, you know, kind of information portals.

1004
00:57:58,904 --> 00:58:01,694
So the fact that people can communicate with each other, even when

1005
00:58:01,704 --> 00:58:05,184
centralized portals are permission censored is super important.

1006
00:58:05,214 --> 00:58:06,494
It gives that optionality.

1007
00:58:06,804 --> 00:58:09,274
I think optionality is a huge advantage.

1008
00:58:09,509 --> 00:58:13,449
Term that's important because people, you know, centralization can work.

1009
00:58:13,489 --> 00:58:17,819
It makes things efficient in many areas, uh, economies of scale

1010
00:58:17,819 --> 00:58:19,539
matter, network effects matter.

1011
00:58:19,788 --> 00:58:23,488
but, um, you always want to be able to turn away from that if

1012
00:58:23,488 --> 00:58:25,248
they, if they start to be an issue.

1013
00:58:25,288 --> 00:58:28,348
You want to have an option, especially because that, that, that other option

1014
00:58:28,398 --> 00:58:30,208
keeps that centralized thing more honest.

1015
00:58:30,860 --> 00:58:33,828
the fact that they always know that you can, you know, you can start

1016
00:58:33,838 --> 00:58:37,808
leaking out users and they go elsewhere makes, if you're a big centralized

1017
00:58:37,808 --> 00:58:41,088
operator, you're, you're kind of have an incentive to not mess up too bad.

1018
00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:43,100
and so I think that that's super important.

1019
00:58:43,270 --> 00:58:47,500
Um, you know, if you look at the Communist Manifesto, there's like, they

1020
00:58:47,510 --> 00:58:52,730
list 10 things on how to bring about communism, and one of them is centralized

1021
00:58:52,810 --> 00:58:56,230
banking and credit, and another one is centralized all the communication

1022
00:58:56,260 --> 00:58:57,610
channels in the hands of the state.

1023
00:58:57,720 --> 00:58:58,590
Uh, and so.

1024
00:58:58,755 --> 00:59:03,335
That's Bitcoin and Nostr are two of the, you know, the clear pushbacks

1025
00:59:03,335 --> 00:59:04,605
against that kind of thing.

1026
00:59:04,615 --> 00:59:09,655
It enables people to coordinate, um, through frictions, which

1027
00:59:09,655 --> 00:59:10,715
I think is super important.

1028
00:59:11,055 --> 00:59:14,145
And, you know, it's one of those things where not many people

1029
00:59:14,145 --> 00:59:15,325
realize they have that issue.

1030
00:59:16,009 --> 00:59:20,099
but as, you know, as you get blocked from a centralized thing, you

1031
00:59:20,099 --> 00:59:23,439
kind of go over to Nostr and you kind of, you know, you go there.

1032
00:59:23,686 --> 00:59:26,175
and I, I purposely seed it with content.

1033
00:59:26,780 --> 00:59:29,950
To have a reason for people to be there, even when they

1034
00:59:29,950 --> 00:59:31,240
could be on a centralized one.

1035
00:59:31,340 --> 00:59:34,580
Like, for example, I'm on Twitter too, that's centralized.

1036
00:59:34,630 --> 00:59:35,600
I'm not blocked.

1037
00:59:35,600 --> 00:59:37,700
I've not been blocked from saying things I want to say.

1038
00:59:37,930 --> 00:59:39,920
There's more readers there.

1039
00:59:40,110 --> 00:59:42,150
So I can ask myself, why would I go anywhere else?

1040
00:59:42,440 --> 00:59:43,930
It's like, well, because I don't know what's going to

1041
00:59:43,930 --> 00:59:45,460
happen in the future, right?

1042
00:59:45,480 --> 00:59:48,250
And so in the meantime, I want to have this alternative be as

1043
00:59:48,250 --> 00:59:50,380
strong and populated as possible.

1044
00:59:50,782 --> 00:59:52,922
And so that's why I think Nostr is super important.

1045
00:59:52,922 --> 00:59:56,212
Also, it kind of found the sweet, the sweet spot because, you

1046
00:59:56,212 --> 00:59:59,412
know, not most people are not going to run their own servers.

1047
00:59:59,823 --> 01:00:01,743
that's just something we found out with the internet over

1048
01:00:01,743 --> 01:00:03,303
time and email and everything.

1049
01:00:03,783 --> 01:00:07,073
If it's too hard for the user, they're just not, it's just not going

1050
01:00:07,073 --> 01:00:08,233
to, they're not going to happen.

1051
01:00:08,603 --> 01:00:15,503
Um, and So, Nostr is kind of that sweet spot where anyone can run a relay, but

1052
01:00:15,503 --> 01:00:19,693
running a relay is a non trivial thing to do, but the point is there's more

1053
01:00:19,693 --> 01:00:25,983
than one, and they're permissionless to do, um, and then, um, you know, people

1054
01:00:25,983 --> 01:00:29,933
can tie into what relays they want, the client side is pretty efficient to use,

1055
01:00:29,943 --> 01:00:33,693
so people don't have to run their own server, and I think that's the model

1056
01:00:34,013 --> 01:00:38,373
It has some degree of chance of really hitting critical mass because it makes

1057
01:00:38,373 --> 01:00:42,272
it easy enough for the user, but it's decentralized enough for the network.

1058
01:00:42,302 --> 01:00:43,672
And I think that's, that's important.

1059
01:00:44,065 --> 01:00:48,535
I think, like, view your Nostr post these days as, as, like, that's,

1060
01:00:48,715 --> 01:00:52,245
it's sort of like the, they're behind the secret paywall, which isn't the

1061
01:00:52,255 --> 01:00:54,155
paywall, but that's the juicy content.

1062
01:00:54,265 --> 01:00:58,385
You'll find the slightly juicier content on, on Nostr, and it's great.

1063
01:00:58,565 --> 01:01:00,825
That's how I try to, that's what I try to do on purpose.

1064
01:01:01,140 --> 01:01:01,640
Yeah.

1065
01:01:01,880 --> 01:01:08,900
So, so, uh, so how, how, how will Nostr not become centralized at some point?

1066
01:01:08,910 --> 01:01:13,860
Like what, will it not suffer the same fate as, as, uh, you know, email did

1067
01:01:14,000 --> 01:01:18,420
that all of, like give it 10 years and then everyone's on the same relay

1068
01:01:18,420 --> 01:01:20,680
and on the same client and whatnot.

1069
01:01:20,870 --> 01:01:22,260
So I think it partially will.

1070
01:01:22,280 --> 01:01:25,240
I think that's a risk, but I think that's where the, the term

1071
01:01:25,260 --> 01:01:27,220
optionality becomes important, right?

1072
01:01:27,220 --> 01:01:32,721
So, for example, in a world where, say, only Twitter exists or, it's, if you get

1073
01:01:32,721 --> 01:01:34,631
blocked, there's no alternative, really.

1074
01:01:34,871 --> 01:01:35,251
Right?

1075
01:01:35,461 --> 01:01:38,961
Um, whereas the cool thing about Nostr is if things centralize

1076
01:01:38,971 --> 01:01:43,691
toward a handful of relays, if those relays are working pretty well, it

1077
01:01:43,691 --> 01:01:45,011
doesn't, it's not really an issue.

1078
01:01:45,021 --> 01:01:48,501
If they're not actively censoring, if they're not, you know, uh, uh,

1079
01:01:48,871 --> 01:01:51,291
doing algorithms that are a problem, that's, that's, you know, people

1080
01:01:51,291 --> 01:01:52,351
are going to gravitate toward it.

1081
01:01:52,661 --> 01:01:56,891
But the point is, if, if things centralize toward those relays and then those relays

1082
01:01:56,891 --> 01:02:01,101
start acting problematically, there, it's pretty easy for a groundswell to

1083
01:02:01,101 --> 01:02:05,406
happen and go and like open another relay and start competing with that.

1084
01:02:05,586 --> 01:02:10,926
Basically, um, the Nostr users can route around problems while

1085
01:02:10,936 --> 01:02:15,196
still attaching to the network effect that is Nostr, um, which is

1086
01:02:15,196 --> 01:02:16,276
something you can't do in Twitter.

1087
01:02:16,296 --> 01:02:21,426
Like you can start your own social media company, um, or go use some other one,

1088
01:02:21,626 --> 01:02:24,646
but you're not plugged into Twitter at all, and therefore you're, you're

1089
01:02:24,646 --> 01:02:26,246
starting a network effect from scratch.

1090
01:02:26,286 --> 01:02:29,526
Whereas if there's an underlying protocol that you can kind of start

1091
01:02:29,536 --> 01:02:34,091
like a sub ecosystem around while still Plugging into those, um, you get a much

1092
01:02:34,091 --> 01:02:38,151
better shot of, of kind of rebuilding and routing around that problem.

1093
01:02:38,151 --> 01:02:40,411
It's the same thing, actually, for the Lightning Network, that

1094
01:02:40,721 --> 01:02:41,991
the way things tend to work.

1095
01:02:42,901 --> 01:02:44,711
You tend to gravitate toward hubs.

1096
01:02:45,021 --> 01:02:47,941
That's kind of just a model that that is economically efficient.

1097
01:02:48,231 --> 01:02:53,131
Um, but the point is that optionality, that if it's fine to have hubs, as long

1098
01:02:53,141 --> 01:02:57,251
as when those hubs act problematically, you can route around those hubs,

1099
01:02:57,261 --> 01:03:00,611
you can create new hubs while still being part of the network effect.

1100
01:03:00,611 --> 01:03:03,981
I think that's for both Lightning and Nostr, it's that optionality important.

1101
01:03:04,041 --> 01:03:04,771
That's, that's,

1102
01:03:05,860 --> 01:03:06,960
Yeah, great point.

1103
01:03:07,890 --> 01:03:08,280
okay.

1104
01:03:08,280 --> 01:03:11,170
So, uh, what's next for you, uh, Lyn?

1105
01:03:11,220 --> 01:03:12,850
Like what, what projects do you have?

1106
01:03:12,860 --> 01:03:16,620
Like, well, what's, what's going on in your life at the moment?

1107
01:03:17,510 --> 01:03:21,000
so I'm, you know, I, I had a big, um, when I wrote the book,

1108
01:03:21,010 --> 01:03:22,935
that was a, Very crowded year.

1109
01:03:23,055 --> 01:03:26,372
and so what I'm trying to do now is actually kind of this year.

1110
01:03:26,372 --> 01:03:28,272
My key focus is on work life balance.

1111
01:03:28,382 --> 01:03:31,042
Um, I already traveled a lot this this early this year.

1112
01:03:31,352 --> 01:03:32,622
I'm still gonna travel more.

1113
01:03:32,909 --> 01:03:35,909
and so I've actually I'm trying to do the work life balance this year.

1114
01:03:36,169 --> 01:03:40,476
but you know, going forward, what I'm focusing on one is, um, Bitcoin venture.

1115
01:03:40,656 --> 01:03:44,866
So Kind of providing capital to any anything that's trying to scale

1116
01:03:44,896 --> 01:03:49,006
Bitcoin or make Bitcoin more private or improve the UX of Bitcoin.

1117
01:03:49,446 --> 01:03:51,756
anything that kind of makes the network more usable.

1118
01:03:52,025 --> 01:03:56,504
and two, um, you know, I'm kind of focused on just ongoing

1119
01:03:56,524 --> 01:03:58,274
education around the space.

1120
01:03:58,749 --> 01:04:01,689
I think because privacy is a big deal, that's something I'm

1121
01:04:01,699 --> 01:04:04,959
probably gonna be focusing a lot is kind of defending privacy.

1122
01:04:05,369 --> 01:04:08,159
Um, and defending builders around privacy.

1123
01:04:08,558 --> 01:04:11,598
And, you know, I have a second book idea, but I'm not rushing to get into

1124
01:04:11,598 --> 01:04:17,288
it because, you know, 500 page book, uh, and it was, it, you know, it was

1125
01:04:17,488 --> 01:04:20,118
super rewarding, but it, you know, I got a little burned out from it.

1126
01:04:20,572 --> 01:04:22,752
so, you know, I have an outline for a second book.

1127
01:04:22,772 --> 01:04:26,102
I can see that on the horizon, uh, but there's no guarantees

1128
01:04:26,122 --> 01:04:27,312
that I'm not rushing to get there.

1129
01:04:27,869 --> 01:04:33,579
I know the feeling that's, uh, creativity is a weird beast to tame.

1130
01:04:33,709 --> 01:04:38,149
Uh, like, uh, you never know when, when it will hit you.

1131
01:04:38,149 --> 01:04:43,844
And, and when it does, you need to be, uh, In the, in the space, but you

1132
01:04:43,844 --> 01:04:48,424
also need to be disciplined and those are hard to, to square sometimes.

1133
01:04:48,564 --> 01:04:49,314
Absolutely.

1134
01:04:50,154 --> 01:04:50,524
Yeah.

1135
01:04:51,134 --> 01:04:54,384
Uh, so, so where will we see you in person next?

1136
01:04:54,384 --> 01:04:56,864
Like, uh, is there like the big conference?

1137
01:04:56,894 --> 01:04:59,664
You're, you're, you're not coming to Prague, are you, by any chance?

1138
01:05:00,104 --> 01:05:02,674
I'm not, but I'm coming to the Oslo Freedom Forum.

1139
01:05:03,044 --> 01:05:06,874
Uh, and then, and then I'll be going to probably Pacific Bitcoin.

1140
01:05:07,054 --> 01:05:09,604
Um, you know, we'll see if, we'll see if I get anything else along the

1141
01:05:09,604 --> 01:05:12,704
way, but those are the two that are kind of most on my horizon right now.

1142
01:05:13,174 --> 01:05:13,694
Great.

1143
01:05:13,964 --> 01:05:16,224
Uh, yeah, we're planning on, on going to Pacific too.

1144
01:05:16,224 --> 01:05:18,064
We'll, we'll see if we can make that happen.

1145
01:05:18,274 --> 01:05:22,474
Uh, Riga is another one we're looking forward to, like, uh, as

1146
01:05:22,474 --> 01:05:27,094
always, uh, where there's a big Nostr thing happening this year as well.

1147
01:05:28,444 --> 01:05:34,604
Uh, yeah, so, so anywhere you want to, uh, send our, our listeners or

1148
01:05:34,944 --> 01:05:37,394
viewers, uh, anywhere in particular.

1149
01:05:37,764 --> 01:05:41,944
I would say check out Broken Money, um, it covers things that is, is maybe

1150
01:05:41,944 --> 01:05:45,494
a little different than, than the typical Bitcoin book, um, and, and

1151
01:05:45,494 --> 01:05:47,864
so check that out, um, and linalden.

1152
01:05:47,864 --> 01:05:52,129
com if they want kind of macro research or Bitcoin research, you know, in the space.

1153
01:05:53,041 --> 01:05:53,751
Fantastic.

1154
01:05:54,191 --> 01:05:56,231
Luke, do you have any other further questions?

1155
01:05:56,574 --> 01:06:02,694
Yeah, um, I, I think, I think the, the last thing from me, uh, would be, uh,

1156
01:06:02,764 --> 01:06:06,554
yeah, I know we're, we're sort of pulling this, pulling this into an end here,

1157
01:06:06,554 --> 01:06:13,234
but it just, uh, um, kind of occurred to me, uh, the, the general state of the,

1158
01:06:13,294 --> 01:06:20,299
of the, um, community right now feels a little maybe Less than optimistic at this

1159
01:06:20,309 --> 01:06:24,269
point, but, but your, your, um, energy and everything that you've, you've talked

1160
01:06:24,279 --> 01:06:26,429
about here has, has been quite optimistic.

1161
01:06:26,429 --> 01:06:31,389
So I just, I just want to confirm what in the, in even the short term, how,

1162
01:06:31,419 --> 01:06:33,129
how are you feeling about, about things?

1163
01:06:33,129 --> 01:06:38,679
And not necessarily just price, but, uh, in, in general, the, the overall,

1164
01:06:39,062 --> 01:06:40,982
situation here, what's your feeling there?

1165
01:06:41,417 --> 01:06:44,027
Well, so price, I have no view in the next six months or so.

1166
01:06:44,027 --> 01:06:47,117
I'm optimistic on price for any multi, multi year period.

1167
01:06:47,443 --> 01:06:50,933
and I, I think it's important to remember that, you know, the, the quote unquote,

1168
01:06:50,953 --> 01:06:55,063
like Bitcoin community or Bitcoin Twitter or Bitcoin, like this is, this is like

1169
01:06:55,163 --> 01:06:57,573
kind of Western world Bitcoin users.

1170
01:06:57,573 --> 01:06:59,543
This is like, this is like a piece of the iceberg.

1171
01:06:59,613 --> 01:07:01,293
This is kind of the part that's visible to us.

1172
01:07:01,323 --> 01:07:02,753
We're participating in it.

1173
01:07:03,053 --> 01:07:07,353
There is, there's more, there's, globally, it's, it's, it's bigger than we realize.

1174
01:07:07,797 --> 01:07:11,587
and also, I mean, I've, I've focused a lot on response functions.

1175
01:07:11,587 --> 01:07:14,487
That goes back to my kind of system engineering background and kind of,

1176
01:07:14,767 --> 01:07:19,272
and I've generally found When I, for example, when I analyze macro systems,

1177
01:07:19,782 --> 01:07:22,632
whenever things start to tilt a certain direction, people start freaking

1178
01:07:22,632 --> 01:07:25,842
out and they don't realize that when it hits a certain point, there's,

1179
01:07:25,872 --> 01:07:27,402
there's gonna be a pushback mechanism.

1180
01:07:27,402 --> 01:07:28,902
It's gonna push back in the other direction.

1181
01:07:28,902 --> 01:07:30,342
And then they, and then when it goes back in the other direction,

1182
01:07:30,342 --> 01:07:31,692
they freak out about that direction.

1183
01:07:31,692 --> 01:07:33,432
They think that's, that's how it always is now.

1184
01:07:33,732 --> 01:07:36,462
And then there's a response function that tends to push it back.

1185
01:07:36,807 --> 01:07:40,302
And in Bitcoin, I mean, you know when, when it was in low fees.

1186
01:07:40,777 --> 01:07:43,557
There were critics saying, look, it's got low, low fees.

1187
01:07:43,557 --> 01:07:44,857
It's got a security problem.

1188
01:07:44,887 --> 01:07:47,017
Bitcoin's broken and X, Y, Z.

1189
01:07:47,257 --> 01:07:50,267
And then, you know, it's got, it's got people kind of spamming

1190
01:07:50,267 --> 01:07:51,567
it with JPEGs and beam coins.

1191
01:07:51,567 --> 01:07:54,417
And then there's high fees and people are like, look, it's, it's high fees.

1192
01:07:54,447 --> 01:07:55,097
This is broken.

1193
01:07:55,117 --> 01:07:56,647
The, the, the sky's falling.

1194
01:07:56,967 --> 01:08:01,157
Um, I, I think Bitcoin is valuable in large part because it's hard to change.

1195
01:08:01,477 --> 01:08:01,967
It's like the U.

1196
01:08:01,967 --> 01:08:02,067
S.

1197
01:08:02,067 --> 01:08:02,727
Constitution.

1198
01:08:02,757 --> 01:08:03,007
The U.

1199
01:08:03,007 --> 01:08:03,087
S.

1200
01:08:03,117 --> 01:08:07,317
Constitution is not perfect, but the fact that it, it, you require such major

1201
01:08:07,317 --> 01:08:11,977
super majorities to, to structurally change it, is why, despite being

1202
01:08:11,997 --> 01:08:14,157
imperfect, it's immeasurably valuable.

1203
01:08:14,527 --> 01:08:16,907
and Bitcoin is kind of like that in digital form.

1204
01:08:16,917 --> 01:08:20,657
It's this protocol that, you know, it's like any engineered

1205
01:08:20,677 --> 01:08:21,727
system, there's trade offs.

1206
01:08:21,997 --> 01:08:26,017
There's certain, you know, there's fees, there's, um, you know, there's

1207
01:08:26,017 --> 01:08:30,367
UX challenges, there's, you know, all sorts of limitations on it.

1208
01:08:30,727 --> 01:08:33,397
But the fact that it's really hard, it's not impossible to change, which

1209
01:08:33,397 --> 01:08:37,923
would also be bad, but the fact that it's really hard to change, is

1210
01:08:37,923 --> 01:08:42,233
important and it, it, it protects us against our own swings in emotion.

1211
01:08:42,413 --> 01:08:44,803
We go back from, you know, this is never going to work.

1212
01:08:44,803 --> 01:08:46,513
And then, oh, like, you know, fees are low.

1213
01:08:46,553 --> 01:08:47,813
Oh, now fees are super high.

1214
01:08:47,823 --> 01:08:48,813
This is all broken.

1215
01:08:49,223 --> 01:08:52,583
You know, in order to scale, like all these scaling things on

1216
01:08:52,603 --> 01:08:57,778
Bitcoin are really only going to come because of fee dislocations.

1217
01:08:57,778 --> 01:09:02,928
If it costs 50 cents to send something on chain, there's not a lot of reason

1218
01:09:02,928 --> 01:09:06,838
to build scaling technology on top of it because, you know, you know, you

1219
01:09:06,838 --> 01:09:09,528
can speed it up, you know, you can use lightning if you want a faster thing.

1220
01:09:09,528 --> 01:09:13,598
But if, if, if, if transfers cost 50 cents, uh, there's just not a lot of,

1221
01:09:13,638 --> 01:09:17,328
it's clear that there's not a lot, a lot, a lot of economic demand for scaling.

1222
01:09:17,328 --> 01:09:18,363
On the other hand.

1223
01:09:19,053 --> 01:09:22,553
When fees spike, either because there's a bull market and a lot of people are

1224
01:09:22,553 --> 01:09:26,743
kind of pulling into self custody at the same time and congesting the market, or

1225
01:09:26,743 --> 01:09:31,213
because people are, you know, temporarily spamming it with the fad, um, that says,

1226
01:09:31,213 --> 01:09:34,003
okay, well, we don't know when these fee spikes are going to happen in the future.

1227
01:09:34,003 --> 01:09:37,393
We want to have more optionality in the future to be prepared

1228
01:09:37,393 --> 01:09:38,383
for these fee spikes.

1229
01:09:38,963 --> 01:09:41,473
So let's build this solution or hey, we found out that this

1230
01:09:41,473 --> 01:09:42,823
tech approach was not working.

1231
01:09:42,823 --> 01:09:45,953
Let's shift to this tech approach that holds up to this better.

1232
01:09:46,230 --> 01:09:49,380
and so it goes through eras where people either use it wrong.

1233
01:09:49,430 --> 01:09:53,875
Like if you, if you put a lot of tiny UTXOs on the, on of videos You know,

1234
01:09:54,015 --> 01:09:57,385
self custody, you're going to run into issue if, if fees go up meaningfully,

1235
01:09:57,395 --> 01:09:58,755
you know, and too many people did that.

1236
01:09:59,005 --> 01:10:01,745
And this is like a response mechanism to teach them not to do that.

1237
01:10:01,755 --> 01:10:05,495
You have to kind of respect the base layer, um, and the limitations and

1238
01:10:05,495 --> 01:10:09,245
the complexities of the base layer, um, and use it in a way that kind of

1239
01:10:09,275 --> 01:10:11,855
corresponds to its economic incentives.

1240
01:10:12,335 --> 01:10:14,715
Um, same thing with lightning channel management, same thing

1241
01:10:14,715 --> 01:10:16,345
for other scaling solutions.

1242
01:10:17,210 --> 01:10:21,890
And so, yeah, like, because I analyze things through response mechanisms, I

1243
01:10:21,890 --> 01:10:25,490
think that this was another inevitable thing that Bitcoin would go through.

1244
01:10:25,950 --> 01:10:29,360
Um, and it doesn't mean that it's guaranteed to win, but it means

1245
01:10:29,360 --> 01:10:31,710
it's guaranteed to have had this challenge in the first place.

1246
01:10:31,720 --> 01:10:34,170
You can't freak out because it's having this challenge.

1247
01:10:34,410 --> 01:10:36,100
This challenge was inevitable.

1248
01:10:36,400 --> 01:10:39,840
Now that it's having this challenge, the only thing you can do is be constructive

1249
01:10:40,200 --> 01:10:43,275
and say, well, what's the, what's the, Most important things we can do

1250
01:10:43,275 --> 01:10:47,685
to ensure that Bitcoin succeeds and comes through and meets the challenge.

1251
01:10:48,095 --> 01:10:51,225
And I think that because Bitcoin is well designed and I think the incentive

1252
01:10:51,225 --> 01:10:56,105
structure is good, I think that the network is very robust to these types

1253
01:10:56,105 --> 01:11:00,890
of things and that, um, Over time, better scaling and privacy solutions

1254
01:11:00,920 --> 01:11:05,050
are being built, and part of the reason they're being built is because people

1255
01:11:05,060 --> 01:11:09,420
either experience these problems or because they anticipated these problems.

1256
01:11:09,830 --> 01:11:15,720
Um, you know, for example, back in 2022, um, you know, at EgoDeath, we were

1257
01:11:15,720 --> 01:11:20,270
making some investments in scaling and privacy solutions, even though fees were

1258
01:11:20,270 --> 01:11:24,390
low, because we're like, look, if this network is going to be successful, it's

1259
01:11:24,390 --> 01:11:25,750
going to have fees in the base layer.

1260
01:11:26,385 --> 01:11:29,625
Uh, we don't know the exact timing of when they come, we don't know what fads

1261
01:11:29,625 --> 01:11:32,895
are going to bring them in one year versus another year, but if it's going

1262
01:11:32,895 --> 01:11:36,195
to be successful, they're going to come, so this is something that needs to start

1263
01:11:36,235 --> 01:11:41,285
being built, and so, you know, those fees arrive now, and they might go away

1264
01:11:41,285 --> 01:11:45,360
for periods of time, But they're going to come back, I think, uh, either way.

1265
01:11:45,430 --> 01:11:49,380
And so this is now we have an incentive to build better scaling, better

1266
01:11:49,380 --> 01:11:51,840
privacy, more distributed privacy.

1267
01:11:52,072 --> 01:11:54,302
and, and so I think we have to rise to that occasion.

1268
01:11:54,889 --> 01:11:59,269
Absolutely, I mean, Luke, you asked for a final rant, and I'm gonna add

1269
01:11:59,269 --> 01:12:03,979
another one, because I think this is fantastic, I agree with all of that,

1270
01:12:04,009 --> 01:12:09,329
and like, people have such goldfish memory, because if you rewind the clock

1271
01:12:09,329 --> 01:12:15,047
to 2017, and when the Segwit, And when the block size wars, which were never

1272
01:12:15,057 --> 01:12:19,255
about, which was never about block size, but about control, one of the arguments

1273
01:12:19,385 --> 01:12:24,575
for, for the bigger block size was the high fees, or that was the argument and

1274
01:12:24,585 --> 01:12:32,093
the fees were around 20, but if in sats per vbyte, they were, uh, oh, I mean, way

1275
01:12:32,093 --> 01:12:36,693
higher back then because Bitcoin wasn't worth as much because lower adoption.

1276
01:12:37,043 --> 01:12:41,523
So the fees have gone down since, and that's like, uh,

1277
01:12:42,333 --> 01:12:43,923
2017 is a long time ago now.

1278
01:12:43,953 --> 01:12:47,773
Let's say that's seven, seven years ago and fees are still lower than they

1279
01:12:47,773 --> 01:12:50,193
were back then, uh, way lower even.

1280
01:12:50,233 --> 01:12:56,553
So, so the problems are being solved and things are being built that offloads.

1281
01:12:56,943 --> 01:12:58,523
pressure from the base chain.

1282
01:12:59,003 --> 01:13:02,743
So I, I, I, I'm insanely optimistic as well.

1283
01:13:02,743 --> 01:13:06,362
And I, I very much agree with the sentiment that Bitcoin is going

1284
01:13:06,362 --> 01:13:12,482
to be attacked and it always teaches us us something like we, it

1285
01:13:12,482 --> 01:13:14,072
changes us more than we change it.

1286
01:13:14,622 --> 01:13:18,222
And, um, yeah, the, the final point is about the consensus rules

1287
01:13:18,222 --> 01:13:19,722
and that it's hard to change.

1288
01:13:21,287 --> 01:13:25,847
One way of framing that is that Bitcoin can only change for the better because we

1289
01:13:25,877 --> 01:13:30,637
all need to agree that the change is good, which is like, how do you define better?

1290
01:13:30,697 --> 01:13:34,447
If everyone agrees that something is good, that is better.

1291
01:13:34,567 --> 01:13:39,117
So like in the long run, it, it, it will solve itself.

1292
01:13:39,187 --> 01:13:39,707
I'm sure.

1293
01:13:40,712 --> 01:13:41,532
I'm optimistic.

1294
01:13:41,532 --> 01:13:43,752
I think you have to be vigilant, but constructive.

1295
01:13:44,075 --> 01:13:47,045
and so, you know, you can't take for granted, like, you can't take for

1296
01:13:47,045 --> 01:13:50,395
granted that it's going to fix itself because part of it fixing itself is

1297
01:13:50,395 --> 01:13:53,015
everybody's, you know, they see a problem, they want to fix the problem.

1298
01:13:53,355 --> 01:13:56,585
So, basically, I think that there's enough people that are going to

1299
01:13:57,385 --> 01:14:00,465
figure out solutions, and they have been, and I think there's a lot of

1300
01:14:00,465 --> 01:14:02,395
visibility and type solutions that work.

1301
01:14:02,715 --> 01:14:04,705
Um, and so, yeah, I'm super optimistic.

1302
01:14:04,705 --> 01:14:07,960
And I think it's also important to remember, The existing systems, like,

1303
01:14:07,970 --> 01:14:13,060
for example, if you want to send an international wire transfer, it's often

1304
01:14:13,060 --> 01:14:16,730
going to cost like 30 and it's going to take, like, there's going to be this big

1305
01:14:16,740 --> 01:14:20,230
opaque period where you don't even know if it's working or if it gets blocked.

1306
01:14:20,230 --> 01:14:21,630
You're like, well, where did it get blocked?

1307
01:14:21,630 --> 01:14:24,080
And, you know, it's a, it's a messy system.

1308
01:14:24,400 --> 01:14:27,450
Um, if you, if you buy a gold coin, you're often going to

1309
01:14:27,450 --> 01:14:29,460
pay a 3 to 5 percent markup.

1310
01:14:29,930 --> 01:14:33,340
Uh, and that's basically the, the verification premium.

1311
01:14:33,380 --> 01:14:36,790
You're paying for the, the creating it into a coin, distributing it,

1312
01:14:36,830 --> 01:14:39,510
kind of verifying it, and that, that's like a hundred, like at,

1313
01:14:39,560 --> 01:14:42,370
at current prices, that's like a hundred dollar premium per coin.

1314
01:14:42,844 --> 01:14:46,224
and so the cost of monetary transfer.

1315
01:14:46,564 --> 01:14:49,734
And, you know, verification has a cost.

1316
01:14:50,094 --> 01:14:54,184
And bitcoins is lower than its prior competitors.

1317
01:14:54,534 --> 01:14:58,864
Uh, and, uh, unlike those other ones, it can improve exponentially.

1318
01:14:58,934 --> 01:15:03,924
It, because it's the open source nature, um, there's not just one entity that

1319
01:15:03,924 --> 01:15:05,894
can, that can find solutions for it.

1320
01:15:05,894 --> 01:15:09,144
So, for example, the banking system, if fees are high, They've got to

1321
01:15:09,144 --> 01:15:12,144
wait for like central banks and other kind of things to say, okay,

1322
01:15:12,144 --> 01:15:14,464
we're going to improve this thing and we're going to make this cheaper.

1323
01:15:14,734 --> 01:15:16,734
Um, and in gold, it's, it's physical.

1324
01:15:16,764 --> 01:15:18,664
So it's really, there's a constraint to how much you can

1325
01:15:18,664 --> 01:15:20,573
improve, what's happening there.

1326
01:15:20,791 --> 01:15:22,471
whereas with Bitcoin, it's open source.

1327
01:15:22,521 --> 01:15:27,476
And so While money transfer and verification has a cost, especially if

1328
01:15:27,476 --> 01:15:31,486
you want it to be very secure, there's plenty of ways to bring that cost down.

1329
01:15:31,496 --> 01:15:33,416
There's plenty of trade offs you can make.

1330
01:15:33,546 --> 01:15:37,426
There's a much bigger design space to give people more options.

1331
01:15:38,286 --> 01:15:40,566
And so, yeah, I'm super, super bullish on this space.

1332
01:15:41,731 --> 01:15:45,947
Yeah, here's to optimism, and since you're with EgoDeath, I guess you

1333
01:15:45,947 --> 01:15:51,877
talked to Jeff and Andy and Preston and those guys about this a lot, how

1334
01:15:51,877 --> 01:15:56,657
you Uh, the, the extent to which your focus and attention creates your reality

1335
01:15:57,067 --> 01:15:58,547
and that becomes what you live in.

1336
01:15:58,687 --> 01:16:02,977
So like focus on the good stuff and, uh, that will become your life.

1337
01:16:03,147 --> 01:16:03,827
That's, um,

1338
01:16:05,867 --> 01:16:10,087
Lyn, it, uh, it has been a, an absolute pleasure to have this conversation

1339
01:16:10,087 --> 01:16:13,177
with you and I'm very much looking forward to seeing you in person again.

1340
01:16:13,227 --> 01:16:17,467
And, um, yeah, all the best, good luck with everything and see you next time.

1341
01:16:17,822 --> 01:16:18,322
You as well.

1342
01:16:18,372 --> 01:16:18,692
Thank you.

1343
01:16:19,048 --> 01:16:19,858
Thanks so much, Lyn.

1344
01:16:19,878 --> 01:16:22,058
And yeah, this has been the Freedom Footprint show.

1345
01:16:22,288 --> 01:16:23,098
Thanks for listening.