0:06

You've had a dynamic where money

0:08

has become freer than free. Can you

0:11

talk about a Fed just

0:13

gone nuts? All the central banks

0:15

going nuts. So it's all actively

0:17

safe haven. I believe that in

0:19

a world where central bankers are

0:21

tripping over themselves to devalue their

0:23

currency, Bitcoin wins. In the world

0:26

of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the

0:28

victor. I mean, that's part of

0:30

the bull case for Bitcoin. If you're

0:32

not paying attention, you probably should be. Doing

0:36

very well. A little tired, a South by

0:38

Southwest here in Austin. So

0:41

the city's bumbling, as I was

0:43

mentioning in DMs, that the

0:45

traffic is is heavy, but all things considered

0:47

doing well. It seems like the world is

0:49

a bit chaotic right now, but trying to

0:51

find Zen. I love that. That

0:53

could be the theme of this podcast is

0:55

chaos, because that's what we've got here. It's

0:57

incredible. It really

0:59

is. It's astonishing how

1:01

quickly things are

1:04

accelerating. And before we hop into

1:06

the meat of the conversation, know you were. Talking

1:09

about the

1:11

the sort of intersection of

1:13

the power law, viruses

1:16

and Bitcoin and DMs a

1:18

few weeks ago and in

1:20

your thoughts on the

1:22

similarities between those three themes

1:24

and those topics. But before

1:26

we jump into that one, we get a

1:28

little background on yourself, George, how you

1:30

came to Bitcoin. It seems

1:32

like you got almost. It

1:36

became like a monk to study

1:38

Bitcoin and really understand it and

1:40

jumped full bore into to work. It

1:42

is a funny story, isn't it?

1:44

I mean, I don't quite understand why

1:46

that happened. I just, you know, it's

1:48

funny because my background is just all

1:50

over the damn place. And I don't

1:52

have a degree in marketing. I mean,

1:54

I didn't even get through high school

1:56

and I'm

1:58

lucky. I took. two times to

2:01

go back to college just

2:03

to graduate and but you know

2:05

I follow really smart people and I

2:07

read like a son of a bitch

2:10

I mean I just am I'm plugged

2:12

into a study I mean I

2:14

don't know how many hours I

2:16

must be north of I bet

2:18

I'm approaching 3,000 hours right now

2:20

and study of Bitcoin and I

2:22

found out when I got down

2:24

here, the rabbit hole, it really

2:26

doesn't end. It just keeps going.

2:28

In fact, you never get out of

2:31

the rabbit hole. You really don't. As

2:33

somebody's been in it for almost

2:35

12 years now, there's so many

2:37

different rabbit holes to fall

2:40

down. It's not even one

2:42

rabbit hole. It's multiple rabbit

2:45

holes. Monetary economics, geopolitical incentives,

2:47

energy, distributed systems.

2:50

software, layered solutions.

2:52

It's a deep rapidly

2:54

of many rapidals. I

2:57

agree. And so what was the

2:59

first impetus that pushed

3:01

you to really explore Bitcoin

3:04

and take the time to spend

3:06

thousands of hours studying?

3:08

You know, I've always

3:10

been, I've been that guy that's

3:12

been in charge of my finances for

3:15

years. I went through a... you

3:17

know I got hired by Delta. When

3:19

I got out of the Navy I

3:21

was flying as a top gun

3:23

adversary pilot at the time and I

3:26

got out there and I got into

3:28

Delta and flew all over

3:30

the world including as a

3:33

captain international flying everything. But

3:35

you know they went through a

3:38

bankruptcy and 2005 I think it

3:40

was and you know I suddenly

3:42

realized that I was in charge

3:44

of my finances. And so I

3:47

just started studying everything about finance

3:49

and how to invest, how to

3:51

store my wealth. You know, it's funny,

3:54

but you know, as you do that

3:56

and you become more aware of

3:58

the system, you kind of... get

4:00

disenfranchised or you don't feel like you're

4:02

really part of the financial system. You

4:04

know, you realize that you're an outsider

4:06

and you're never going to be close

4:08

to the money source and it's very

4:10

frustrating. I mean, you're on a constant

4:12

hamster wheel. You know, everybody and their

4:14

mother's working. I mean, you'd put your

4:16

kids out to work as some people

4:18

would if they could because we're all

4:20

just trying to stay with our head

4:22

above water. And my goal was to

4:24

increase my wealth, but at some time,

4:26

you know, you look at the screen,

4:28

you can tell I'm a boomer. At

4:30

some point, you want to store wealth.

4:32

You want to keep that wealth across

4:34

time and space. That's really tough to

4:37

do. And, you know, I heard about

4:39

Bitcoin in 2012, I think it was,

4:41

and I remember. And you know, the

4:43

thing is, I don't know why it

4:45

was like this. I mean, I just

4:47

dismissed it. I thought it was just

4:49

so stupid. I thought it was just

4:51

so stupid. It was just so stupid.

4:53

I thought it was just so stupid.

4:55

It was just so stupid. It was

4:57

just so stupid. It was just so

4:59

stupid. It was just so stupid. It

5:01

was just so stupid. It was just

5:03

so stupid. It was just so stupid.

5:05

I was building computers. I mean, really

5:07

building them. Like for all the hardware,

5:09

you know, you have to flash the

5:11

biosboard and, you know, put the little

5:13

pins in the right direction to get

5:15

electricity to flow through the circuits. And,

5:17

you know, I was just having a

5:19

blast doing that. I mean, I was

5:21

very, I mean, it was into technology

5:24

and stuff, but man, I just did

5:26

not get it. And I didn't get

5:28

it even in 2017. I was re-exosed

5:30

to it. Maybe it was my age

5:32

or maybe it was just my background.

5:34

But finally, in early 2020, it was

5:36

another article by Lynn Alden that kind

5:38

of piqued my curiosity. And once I

5:40

started going down there, I bought Bitcoin.

5:42

And you know what's funny is I

5:44

bought Bitcoin and I held it for

5:46

a little while, it went way up.

5:48

And I sold it. I mean, I

5:50

did. And then, you know, I've mentioned

5:52

this before, I was sitting like this,

5:54

I was just staring at the screen,

5:56

like two days later, and I remember

5:58

thinking, you know, why the fuck did

6:00

I sell that Bitcoin? I don't understand.

6:02

And once I real... that I didn't

6:04

know what I held. I mean, I

6:06

just started. And it's never stopped. I

6:08

mean, I'm reading this morning, I was

6:11

reading about, you know, Tether Circle, the

6:13

battle that's going on in Washington right

6:15

now, behind the scenes, that a lot

6:17

of Bitcoiners don't really know about. Just

6:19

things like this, it never stops. And

6:21

I'm having the best time in my

6:23

life. And you know, look at me

6:25

now. I've got all my wealth and

6:27

Bitcoin. I mean, I mean, everything. I

6:29

don't really give a shit what goes

6:31

on. You know, the Fed can meet

6:33

all they want. I really don't

6:35

care what they do anymore. I

6:38

mean, I'm, I'm just, once you

6:40

understand Bitcoin, it's like the royal

6:42

flush, you just push your chips

6:45

in, I've got mine in there,

6:47

I'm very relaxed, I'm having

6:49

a great time, I'm in the

6:51

studio today, as you can see,

6:54

in that painting back there.

6:56

The... What was Norrion

6:58

Nakamoto, Dorian Nakamoto? Exactly,

7:00

the CEO of Bitcoin.

7:03

What was the, do

7:05

you remember you have a

7:07

moment? We're getting, we're getting back

7:09

to old school TFTC or

7:11

Tales from the Crips, the

7:14

first 200 episodes were people's

7:16

Bitcoin stories, but for the

7:18

first time in a while, genuinely

7:21

curious, what was, was

7:23

there... One piece of content

7:25

or one concept relating to

7:27

Bitcoin that once you discovered

7:29

it or read it Was the aha moment

7:31

like oh, this is this is

7:34

completely different. This is something I

7:36

feel confident pushing all of my

7:38

chips into Well, yeah, that's a

7:40

good question because that kind of

7:42

touches on the heart of some of

7:44

what what we should discuss in life

7:47

because You know what this cycle is

7:49

to me. You know how every

7:51

cycle seems like it has a

7:53

theme For me, this cycle seems

7:55

like I'm late. I'm late

7:58

to Bitcoin. The

8:00

meme coins, the gambling, there's

8:02

a psyche to this cycle. That's

8:04

really weird. But it kind of

8:06

almost brought me back to what it

8:09

was like. You know, I didn't go

8:11

all in at first. You know, I'm

8:13

just like the typical Bitcoin. You buy

8:15

some, then you buy some more, you

8:17

buy. And then next thing you know,

8:20

you're buying on the way up. You're

8:22

buying on the way down. But my

8:24

problem was that. You know I put

8:26

a lot of my wealth into

8:29

Bitcoin by the time we went

8:31

through the last cycle in 22

8:33

and I'm sure you are familiar

8:35

with the that year in the

8:38

crypto winter it was a

8:40

very really difficult time and

8:42

I lost confidence I mean

8:44

at one point you know I mean

8:47

I was down on paper like 50

8:49

60% and you know I I come from

8:51

kind of a I don't know, maybe

8:53

old school mentality, but you know,

8:55

my wife just, I mean, she just treats

8:57

me like a king. I mean,

9:00

like I'm unbelievable. I mean, I am

9:02

the master of our house and the master

9:04

of many things. And I remember thinking, boy,

9:06

you know, she's put a lot of faith

9:09

in me and a lot of trust. And

9:11

you know, I had her account into Bitcoin

9:13

too, you know, I was managing that. I

9:16

just, I kept finding myself, I was laying

9:18

awake, I'm sure you've done this too, you

9:20

know, I was three o'clock in the morning,

9:22

I'm staring at the ceiling and in bed,

9:24

going, man, this, I don't know about this.

9:26

And it seemed like that week was the

9:29

pivot for me. And the reason I

9:31

say that is, I started, you know,

9:33

we talked about this already, I just

9:35

started studying more. I went back to

9:37

all the old podcast, I reread books

9:39

like safes books, broken money again, I

9:41

mean, I just read everything that I

9:43

just read everything that I could. And I got

9:45

deeper into it. And you know, the funny

9:47

thing is, while I was in this crisis

9:50

mode and I was struggling, is when Bitcoin

9:52

crashed. You remember it went down, it

9:54

was bouncing around down there in 1920,000

9:56

for a long time, and then it crashed.

9:58

Went down to like... 16 something. And

10:00

you know what I did, Marty? I

10:03

bought like a drunken sailor. And

10:05

at that point, I just, I kept

10:07

by it and I was all in

10:09

after a while. I mean, I have

10:11

no, you know, no dry powder. I

10:14

mean, I've got all the Bitcoin in

10:16

the world that I need, but sometimes,

10:18

you know, it's hard to spend money

10:20

on a sandwich, but I'm really happy

10:22

right now. Yeah. It's, I mean,

10:24

it's funny. You mentioned going through

10:27

the typical cycles. of

10:29

a Bitcoiner's hero's journey.

10:31

If you will, and one

10:34

of them, you mentioned, and

10:36

maybe it wasn't back in

10:38

the 2020 to 2022 area,

10:40

but you feel it now,

10:42

is the feeling of, oh, I'm

10:44

late, because even in

10:46

2013, 2017, 2021, like that

10:49

feeling of, oh my gosh,

10:51

maybe I'm not late, but

10:53

I'm missing out in stack

10:55

enough, always creeps

10:57

in. Exactly. I think the difference

10:59

though on this, the reason I

11:01

mentioned on this cycle, I think

11:04

the difference, Marty, is that it's

11:06

the unit by, it's the price

11:08

point. People, you know, I actually

11:10

had this happen on the deck of

11:12

my porch not long ago with one

11:14

of the kids, you know, and I

11:16

remember talking to her and she said,

11:19

well, she asked me the price and

11:21

I said, well, it's up to 100,000

11:23

now, and she said, I'm late, I'm too

11:25

late now. You know, I

11:27

haven't done these podcasts and

11:29

one of the reasons I'm

11:32

doing them now is because

11:34

I Just think we have a

11:36

very narrow window here for people to

11:38

get this right and to understand where

11:40

Bitcoin's going because this is this is

11:42

just the beginning, you know I don't

11:44

know if you've looked at the 2016

11:46

and 17 cycle and compared it to

11:49

this one. If you go from the

11:51

trough to the peak on those cycles,

11:53

you lay them over the top of

11:55

each other, they're very close. I mean,

11:57

I won't say they're a mirror, but

11:59

they're... pretty damn close. And I

12:01

think you probably remember, you know,

12:04

the end of 16, it was

12:06

like 900 and something, a coin.

12:08

That next year, it ended, it

12:10

went up almost to 20 grand. Now,

12:12

I'm not saying we're going to have a

12:14

20x or a 10x in this cycle,

12:17

but what's weird is that on

12:19

this cycle, everything is so volatile,

12:21

everything so uncertain right now. I

12:23

really don't know where we're going

12:25

in this next cycle. My base.

12:27

case. I don't know about you,

12:29

but my base case was around

12:31

225 to 285. Just using past

12:33

models, I follow a lot of

12:35

models. I do a lot of

12:37

on chain and I really thought that would

12:40

be the case, but I don't know

12:42

where it's going right now. Do you

12:44

have any idea yourself? I mean, you

12:46

have a feel for it? No. I don't,

12:48

you were mentioning the staring at

12:51

the ceiling nights that many bikwiners.

12:53

I had, I had a few

12:55

of those. In the last couple of

12:57

weeks is just looking, just looking

13:00

back to the 12 years I've

13:02

been in the space and

13:04

trying to compare what's happening

13:07

outside of Bitcoin to any

13:09

other period of time throughout

13:11

my holding experience.

13:13

It is very unique. Obviously,

13:15

we had COVID, COVID was

13:18

the big driver, 2017, that

13:20

whole, that whole room was pure

13:22

retail speculative fervor. 2020, COVID,

13:24

big print, or the first

13:27

big print. And this time

13:29

around, particularly in the last

13:31

24 hours, looking at what's

13:33

happened in European markets

13:35

with the saber rattling over

13:37

there and their bond yields

13:40

screaming. And it looks like they're

13:42

going to be in a

13:44

pretty precarious situation of the Japanese

13:46

yen having a situation right now.

13:49

And then here in the

13:51

US, we're going through this extremely...

13:54

Volatile period of tectonic

13:56

shifts in policy and how

13:58

we're posturing internally. and externally

14:00

to the world. And Bitcoin has

14:02

been marketed as this long-term sort

14:04

of uncorrelated asset when juxtaposed to

14:06

traditional markets. And that was another

14:08

big meme, particularly around 2020. Bitcoin's

14:10

never gone through a true recession

14:13

or even a depression. Many people

14:15

throughout the last century haven't gone

14:17

through depression. One can make the

14:19

case that things are not all

14:21

and well in the global economy

14:23

and that to your point like

14:25

I don't know what's going to

14:27

happen is is Bitcoin perceived as

14:29

this risk off flight to safety

14:31

asset this cycle I could certainly

14:33

see it materializing but I could

14:35

also see general turmoil in global

14:37

markets sort of suppress the price

14:39

for a little bit. You know

14:41

that's the thing anybody that's trying

14:43

to time the market or trade

14:45

right now I don't know what

14:47

to tell you except pull your

14:50

head out of your ass. You

14:52

know a funny story is about

14:54

that is when I was in

14:56

the Navy flying I was flying

14:58

F-18s on the carrier deck and

15:00

you know on the carrier there's

15:02

no you're not there's no fooling

15:04

around here I mean you got

15:06

to be really alert to what

15:08

you're doing. I mean, and I'm

15:10

an officer in my little, my

15:12

jet, you know, I'm on the

15:14

deck there and I might think

15:16

I'm really something. But you know,

15:18

those enlisted troops down there, if

15:20

you stop, you stop paying attention

15:22

for a minute, if you start

15:24

like gazing off or you let

15:27

your attention drift or you don't

15:29

follow one of their signals when

15:31

they're telling you to move your

15:33

nose wheel or something, they're going

15:35

to come up to you and

15:37

they're going to go like this.

15:39

And anybody that's not watching, what

15:41

I did is I just put

15:43

my fist up against my palm

15:45

and pulled it out quick. And

15:47

what they're telling you, these enlisted

15:49

troops down there, is pull your

15:51

head out of your ass, Lieutenant,

15:53

and start looking around. These people

15:55

that are, that are even in

15:57

the meme coins right now. that

15:59

are trying to score so that

16:01

they can have enough money for

16:04

a big Bitcoin stock. You know,

16:06

that's not how this works. I mean,

16:08

it's just not. You've got to put

16:10

the work in. You've got to hunker

16:12

down, understand what you own, grab it,

16:14

you've got to hold on to it

16:16

like a son of a bitch, and

16:18

you can't lose it. There's only three

16:20

things. It's those three things. That's all

16:23

you have to do. I was talking

16:25

to some... I was at an art

16:27

gallery, I just had a show not

16:29

long ago, down in Sarasota, an art

16:31

show, and I haven't had one of

16:33

those a long time, but it's a

16:35

great show. But these three young guys

16:38

show up, three of them all together,

16:40

and the owner knew, knew, knew these

16:42

guys, and what of them said, well,

16:44

you know, they're also into, like, crypto

16:46

or some other crap, he said, and

16:49

so right there in the gallery, and

16:51

it was full of customers, and it

16:53

was full of customers, So I got

16:55

talking to him and you know what

16:57

that was their profile they you know

17:00

they had some Bitcoin that they had

17:02

like almost like a savings if you

17:04

will and one of them said I'm

17:06

not touching that but their whole

17:08

mindset their whole thought process was

17:11

all about this score that and they

17:13

were doing you know shit coin trading

17:15

and stuff to score and it was

17:17

so that and what I'm told me

17:20

this specifically I want to score big

17:22

now so that I can get a big

17:24

Bitcoin stack. I want to, you

17:26

know, well, you don't teleport yourself to

17:29

an OG. I mean, you have to

17:31

work at it. It takes work and,

17:33

uh, that's turning into a rant, so

17:35

I'll stop for a minute. Stuff freaks.

17:37

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17:40

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19:28

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19:30

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19:33

Republic. hyperinflation and everybody was trading stocks

19:35

and everybody thought they were rich but

19:37

they all ended up broke. Boy that

19:40

is that is just a yeah that's

19:42

a great way to look at it

19:44

exactly we're in that hysteria stage and

19:47

you know when you look at the

19:49

Weimer Republic you know there it was

19:51

four marks to the dollar four marks

19:54

to the dollar in 2013. Ten years

19:56

later it was like 600 billion or

19:58

something and this Then it went two

20:01

trillions before it totally collapsed. And you

20:03

know, we talk about Gresham's law all

20:05

the time, but most people don't know.

20:08

There's another law, a counterpart to that,

20:10

it's called Theres Law, Albert There. I

20:12

think he wrote this in the, maybe

20:15

the early 1800s. And basically what it

20:17

says is that when money really dies,

20:19

just like you mentioned in the book,

20:22

when money really dies, guess what? It's

20:24

good money that drives out bad money,

20:26

because nobody is going to take it

20:29

anymore. You know, you look at Argentina,

20:31

they had like, I think it was

20:33

125% inflation last year. You can't live

20:35

in a world like that. You know,

20:38

again, you can see that I'm older.

20:40

Well, I lived through inflation this time.

20:42

I was there in the late 70s,

20:44

early 80s. I mean, I got to

20:47

see it up close and personal, and

20:49

it's an ugly event. And that was

20:51

not that bad. I mean, interest rates

20:53

got really high, but it wasn't

20:56

insurmountable. But it changed people.

20:58

The mindsets were very different

21:01

then. Could you dive into that

21:03

a little bit? From what

21:05

you recall, you mentioned it

21:07

got really bad. Some concrete

21:10

examples. So here's the thing, okay.

21:12

You know, gas, the lowest I

21:14

ever paid for gas was like

21:16

maybe 19 cents a gallon. And

21:19

we talk about the oil crisis,

21:21

but and what happened was oil

21:23

just shot up. And I mean...

21:25

You know, think about paying 19

21:27

cents and then a year later

21:29

paying like $2 a gallon and

21:31

rationing and people in line

21:33

and hoarding, you know, people with

21:36

gas tanks. Now, part of that

21:38

whole transition was because of our

21:40

move to the petrodoller in the

21:42

background. You know, by that time,

21:45

73, Kissinger, he was on the

21:47

road, he was gathering the nations

21:49

together and we had to re-value.

21:51

If we were going to make oil, the

21:54

new... backing of the dollar we had

21:56

to revalue it and we had to

21:58

inflate it and they did but It

22:00

was also, it's everything from, like

22:02

you'd get a paycheck. You know,

22:04

as a young man, I'd get

22:07

a paycheck. First thing I'd do

22:09

is I'd get gas, because I

22:11

never knew when the hell was

22:14

gonna be gone, or, you know,

22:16

if it was gonna be like

22:18

a lot more expensive. And, you

22:21

know, as a young kid, I

22:23

was flipping burgers. So I'd get

22:25

a paycheck, I'd get gas right

22:28

away, and if you wanted to

22:30

buy something, you just bought it.

22:32

and it paid off for them.

22:35

But for all the rest of

22:37

us out there and housing and

22:39

transportation, as everything began to inflate

22:42

around this, it changed your attitude

22:44

about money. And you know, there's

22:46

a lot of difference between money

22:49

and currency. But it just, it

22:51

made it like a really difficult

22:53

time. And I hope that we

22:56

don't ever see, you know, those

22:58

levels of inflation again, but I

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23:26

going back to staring at the

23:28

ceiling moments in the last couple

23:30

weeks, that's the big question. My

23:33

mind, does inflation reappear? And I

23:35

think in the last 24 hours,

23:37

I think there was a period

23:40

of time post-inauguration, Trump's making all

23:42

these moves. Obviously, tariffs could be

23:44

inflationary, but their dose is trying

23:47

to cut spending and that could...

23:49

That could cut into the economy

23:51

lead to a deflationary crisis, but

23:54

then you look at what's coming

23:56

over in Europe and there you

23:58

were starkly remind that there are

24:01

so many variables at play in

24:03

the global economy, if you find

24:05

yourself focusing on one aspect or

24:07

one variable or a couple variables

24:10

in trying to draw a

24:12

conclusion of forward-looking

24:14

guidance, if you will, from those

24:16

variables. Inevitably, some other variable in

24:18

some other part of the world

24:20

pops up and says, hey, leave

24:22

Roy Jenkins, like I know you're

24:25

thinking about this, but now the... Japanese

24:27

yield curves blowing out the European

24:29

yield curves are blowing out and

24:31

you have to deal with this Yeah, it's a

24:33

You know if we just stay focused

24:35

if we just zoom out here and

24:37

look at you know look at what

24:39

Dahlia said here You know less than

24:41

two weeks ago. I mean all roads

24:43

lead to inflation everything you know and

24:45

this is you know I get pushback

24:47

from some Bitcoin, but I follow this

24:49

guy. I mean he's smart and you

24:51

know I've read some of his books

24:53

I mean he again I'm an 80

24:55

IQ pleb I am just basically a

24:57

working stiff I've worked all my life

24:59

you know I've driven cabs at night

25:01

in Denver I've worked underground deep underground

25:03

oil fields I was an oilfield worker

25:05

and a cop and you know all these

25:08

are just jobs you know you go out

25:10

there you collect a paycheck you know I'm

25:12

not a builder like like yourself I mean

25:14

you know there are a lot of people

25:17

in here that are very smart and they

25:19

do things and so I just follow them

25:21

and I read what they say and I

25:24

listen and I may not agree with some

25:26

of the things but you know what just

25:28

listen to what they're saying and I mean

25:30

he's painting a pretty clear picture what's he

25:33

holding look at look at Ricardo Salinas this

25:35

week he just told us that

25:37

guy this is a multi-billionaire where's

25:39

he got 70% of his wealth

25:41

in Bitcoin imagine that you

25:43

know here's another smart okay Howard

25:46

Lutnik Cantor Fitzgerald. Where do

25:48

they have 40% of all

25:50

their holdings right now? One

25:52

company, Microstrade, now strategy. So these

25:54

are smart people and what they're

25:57

telling me is that We

26:00

may be in a period of

26:02

Very very volatile with sticky inflation.

26:04

That's coming to come back and

26:06

forth and that at some point

26:08

point We are going to see

26:10

a capitulation by the Fed and

26:12

they in my mind and I

26:14

could be wrong again I'm a

26:16

village idiot sometimes but in my

26:18

mind. They're going to print and

26:20

when I say print money I

26:23

don't mean they're going to roll

26:25

any shit off of those presses

26:27

what I'm talking about. There are

26:29

so many different ways that they

26:31

can inject liquidity into our system,

26:33

whether it's the BTFP program after

26:35

the Silicon Valley bank crisis, followed

26:37

by Silvergate and signature, although I

26:39

think those were force closures. But

26:41

what I'm trying to say is

26:43

people are telling you that this

26:45

is a time maybe not to

26:47

be fearful, but to protect yourself.

26:50

And again, I'll just go back

26:52

to what I said. Pull your

26:54

head out of your ass. Look

26:56

around. Do the reading. Do the

26:58

research and you only have three

27:00

things to do. Get Bitcoin stacked

27:02

like a smart psychopath. Hold on

27:04

to the Bitcoin, whatever it takes,

27:06

and then you can't lose the

27:08

damn thing. And it's easy to

27:10

lose Bitcoin if you screw up.

27:12

I think that's another rant, so

27:15

I better stop. You don't worry

27:17

about renting. We love France. On

27:19

the show, but to your point

27:21

in going back to something you

27:23

said earlier in terms of being

27:25

working in your word stiff. and

27:27

watching the financial system do its

27:29

thing and feeling like you can't

27:31

participate this time around is that

27:33

something that really appeals to you

27:35

with Bitcoin is you feel like

27:37

there is something that can allow

27:39

the working stiff to participate in.

27:42

Man, I love that. I just,

27:44

yeah, let's, I just love that.

27:46

Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, guess what?

27:48

Guess what? I am front running

27:50

these bastards. You know, if you

27:52

looked at the 13F filings over

27:54

the last two weeks from all

27:56

the major corporations with over 100

27:58

million U.M., guess what they showed

28:00

us? These people... are here. We

28:02

set up the tripwires, the flares

28:04

are in the air, they're inside

28:06

our perimeter now, they're with us.

28:09

But you know what, these these

28:11

little chicken shits, they're putting in

28:13

the tiniest percent, even, you know,

28:15

you saw I'm sure the UAE

28:17

put in $4.36 million in Bitcoin

28:19

in their sovereign wealth fund. Do

28:21

you know what that represents out

28:23

of their holdings? It's like, I

28:25

think it's four-one-hundredths of one percent.

28:27

It's some infiteesimal small amount. Even

28:29

the pension funds up there in

28:31

Michigan, I mean, these are small

28:34

numbers. So they're with us, they're

28:36

starting to accumulate, but it's so

28:38

small that we still have an

28:40

opportunity to front run these people.

28:42

And you know what? It's a

28:44

powerful feeling. I know that I

28:46

can't be rug pulled. I own

28:48

Bitcoin. I'm not worried about... Hell,

28:51

I'm not worried about a damn thing

28:53

if you want the truth. I don't

28:55

I'd never think about Bitcoin failing anymore

28:57

and and I can explain about that

28:59

later, but I'm not concerned about that

29:01

I Know what I hold and I

29:04

hold it like a son of a

29:06

bitch I mean I've got I've said

29:08

this before I've got that Bitcoin in

29:10

that fist and it's not coming out

29:12

I mean you're gonna have to pry

29:14

that you I don't know what it's

29:16

gonna take a million a coin I

29:18

might I don't know what it's going

29:20

to take because it is my most

29:22

precious asset. And someday, going forward, I'm

29:25

not going to ever have to sell

29:27

a sat. You know, I may not

29:29

be here. It may be, you know,

29:31

I don't have a real distant horizon

29:33

out there, like people, a lot of

29:35

the people listening to this, if you're

29:37

younger than 45, and you're stacking Bitcoin,

29:39

you've got it made, man. If you

29:41

ever looked at compound interest, the eighth

29:44

wonder of the world, and really did

29:46

some research into it would just water

29:48

your eyes. Getting back to your question,

29:50

I know what I hold, I'm not

29:52

concerned about anything, I feel like I'm

29:54

in front of these people, I'm still

29:56

in front of them, I'm not saying

29:58

that's going to last much longer, I

30:00

mean, the... is leaving the station kids

30:02

but right now you still have an

30:05

opportunity to front run these people. Let's

30:07

dive into that eighth wonder of

30:09

the world because there are a

30:11

lot of I'm a millennial in my

30:13

early 30s and I put the show

30:15

out there a lot of people comment

30:18

you read the YouTube comments and

30:20

there's a lot of people that

30:22

are skeptical and Bitcoin is too

30:25

good to be true and

30:27

so volatile. Is it really

30:29

worth that I'm just

30:31

going to get my

30:33

pants ripped off from

30:35

accumulating to this asset?

30:37

I think giving people

30:39

the long-term perspective

30:42

and really bringing in

30:44

compound interests into the

30:47

discussion. When we say

30:49

compound interests are

30:51

really sort of trying to

30:54

draw. analogies to Bitcoin's

30:56

compound annual growth rate

30:59

and purchasing power. Exactly.

31:01

And so how do you think people

31:04

in their mid-20s, early 30s,

31:06

up to mid-40s should be

31:08

approaching this? Oh my God, you guys,

31:11

you're going to have the

31:13

greatest life. I mean, you

31:15

just can't imagine what's coming.

31:17

I mean, I'm envious. You know,

31:20

I work out every day. And

31:22

although I'm older, you know, I

31:24

intend to be around here for

31:26

a long time, kicking ass, taking

31:28

names, and watching this unfold, and

31:30

I'm going to have the best

31:32

time watching everything from millennials and

31:34

younger, just kick an ass, and

31:36

basically the greatest transfer of

31:38

wealth, and we may ever see. I

31:40

got a lot of pushback on this,

31:43

and I'll give you a quote so that

31:45

maybe you can use it for clickbade if

31:47

you want, but I said... Not long ago,

31:49

you know, Bitcoin's about a hundred, let's just

31:51

say a hundred grand. You get $10,000. Now,

31:54

Bitcoin has got, and you've been in the

31:56

space a long time, you know the return,

31:58

it's been like 225 percent. over its

32:00

lifetime. In the last five years, it's

32:03

been about 50, a little bit less

32:05

than 55 now. And you know, you

32:07

can cherry-pick and do whatever you want,

32:09

but I'm just talking five full years.

32:12

And so, you know, if you look

32:14

at, here's what's so important about compound

32:16

interest. Kager. And if, by the way,

32:19

if anybody's listening, just go to Google

32:21

or go to Grock. and type in

32:23

reverse CAGR, C-A-G-R calculator, and start having

32:26

some fun. You got three things to

32:28

fill in. Put in the 10,000, like

32:30

I said, and if you're really, if

32:33

you think that you're going to be

32:35

able to get up to half of

32:37

that coin or a Bitcoin, stick the

32:40

damn thing in there, okay? Then put

32:42

in the years. Now, the minimum year

32:44

that you should use is 20 years,

32:47

and I can tell you why. That's

32:50

I think it's a quadratic function,

32:52

but it it doesn't matter. What's important

32:55

here is that as time goes by

32:57

it just starts to grow not quite

32:59

exponentially, but really powerfully you can put

33:02

in hold on just a minute here

33:04

I think I got it up

33:06

when you were talking so You can

33:08

put in that 40,000 or 55 kager

33:11

and you know if you go to

33:13

20 years. It's 64 million dollars now

33:15

the pushback that I got it You

33:18

know, when I first said that,

33:20

what I was trying to explain to

33:22

people was two things. One, Bitcoin's got

33:24

the greatest compound interest or return of

33:27

any asset out there. Nothing compares to

33:29

it. Okay, so you've made it. You've

33:31

got it. You've got it. You've got

33:34

the asset. Secondly, it's time. And what

33:36

I was trying to explain to

33:38

people is the time aspect. So let's

33:40

just say that you think, well, well,

33:43

that's stupid because if you file the

33:45

power law, it's true. I mean, if

33:47

we have an explosive move in Bitcoin

33:50

and it gets up to where

33:52

I was talking about earlier, you know,

33:54

you're going to have a massive cager

33:56

over the next six, if you go

33:59

back six years, seven years, whatever. But

34:01

as it decreases put in a different

34:03

number go 10 years at you

34:05

know 45% and the next 10 at

34:08

30% Wherever you think it's going to

34:10

go sailors model. He's got it down

34:12

at about 20% flatlining after 18 years

34:15

You know, I think that's too damn

34:17

low. He's using about twice the

34:19

cost of capital now is about 10.8.

34:21

So anyway, let's look at a number

34:24

here put in Just put in 40%

34:26

cager and go 20 years as

34:29

an average, just an average, comes

34:31

out to about eight and a

34:33

half million dollars. That's pretty amazing,

34:35

isn't it? I mean, you think

34:37

about that, wow, that's pretty incredible.

34:39

And then if you continue, you

34:41

go out to 30 years, it's

34:43

like, oh, I don't even want

34:45

to say this number almost, it's

34:47

like 240 million dollars, and it's

34:50

only 10 years difference. So if

34:52

you want, go down to 30

34:54

percent Kager, at the end of

34:56

30 years, you're going to have

34:58

more wealth than a human being

35:00

possibly accumulate in any way shape

35:02

or form. Why is that, you

35:04

know, why is that important? You

35:06

know, when you start getting up

35:08

into those numbers, what the hell

35:10

are you gonna do with all

35:13

that money? You're gonna sit around

35:15

and eat a bunch of donuts,

35:17

you're gonna buy a bunch of

35:19

donuts, you're gonna, you know, buy

35:21

eight lambos, you know, I have

35:23

a really nice sports car, and

35:25

it's not a lambo. It's, I

35:27

mean, a real muscle car. But

35:29

how many of those muscle cars

35:31

do I need? In my mind,

35:33

you should create generational wealth. And

35:36

when I say that, that term

35:38

is used a lot, but most

35:40

people don't understand that you're talking

35:42

about wealth that will go on

35:44

for decades, even hundreds of years.

35:46

Look at the Rothschild, that's probably

35:48

the best example, Meyer Rothschild, and

35:50

1700 started his first bank. Then

35:52

he sent all of his kids

35:54

out there, his sons, all to

35:56

the major capitals of the world

35:59

at the time, and they started

36:01

their own bank. He taught them.

36:03

about assets and also how to

36:05

try to get a rate of

36:07

return that was beyond normal rate

36:09

of return and beyond inflation. And

36:11

there are many ways to do

36:13

that, but as a Bitcoiner, you

36:15

have the asset to do it.

36:17

You've got it. It's yours. All

36:19

you have to do is hold

36:21

on to the damn thing. And

36:24

eventually you will get to a

36:26

point with products that are coming

36:28

that you will never have to

36:30

sell a sat. You'll be able

36:32

to just... by, borrow, die, dynasty

36:34

as a technique. Yeah. Rothschild's, sorry,

36:36

obviously, a lot of people. There's

36:38

a lot of conspiracies around Rothschilds

36:40

and all that, but if you

36:42

go read, like, House of Rothschild

36:44

and then that was, that was

36:47

the interesting thing pretty about the

36:49

early generations of the family is

36:51

not only to go all around

36:53

the world, but they had to

36:55

work their way. into the business

36:57

as well. They had to prove

36:59

that they could actually competently understand

37:01

the the concepts that you're just

37:03

describing about outperforming the inflation rate

37:05

and a market benchmark and then

37:07

they were allowed in the family

37:10

and like okay you you've proven

37:12

yourself competent you can you can

37:14

be trusted with this bank and

37:16

I love the way you said

37:18

that prove yourself competent because it's

37:20

not just them I just picked

37:22

them but there are all kinds

37:24

of these families. They are not

37:26

family, you know, Louis Vuitton and

37:28

Hennessy. And so, or the Rockefeller's,

37:30

Vanderbilt's, it's just endless that families

37:33

that have possessed wealth over long

37:35

periods of time have also done

37:37

something that Bitcoiners are going to

37:39

be good at. I mean, what

37:41

are Bitcoiners? You know, you go

37:43

to these conferences, you talk to

37:45

Bitcoiners, they're the smartest, brightest, brightest,

37:47

usually the most ethical, moral people

37:49

you're going to meet, and they're

37:51

going to be raising kids. You

37:53

know, young Bitcoiners, you know, get

37:55

off your ass and start pro-creating

37:58

because it's up to you. You're

38:00

going to change the world. and

38:02

you're going to have enough wealth

38:04

if you do what we were

38:06

talking about here, that you're going

38:08

to raise those kids. And it's

38:10

up to you. You know, those

38:12

families, I'm talking about, they did

38:14

educate their kids in money, and

38:16

not currency, but money, and how

38:18

to create generational wealth and hang

38:21

on to it through trust, charitable

38:23

trust, capital gains, maneuvers, and you

38:25

can do the same thing. Yeah. That's

38:27

what somebody, my older son

38:29

is. Five years now. The youngest is two

38:31

and a half. Oh, that's awesome. There will be

38:33

more. It's something I think about a lot.

38:36

And we're starting the moment. There's any

38:38

bitcorder out there. Props for props are

38:40

due to the team of Tuttle Twins.

38:42

It's incredible early programming for the

38:44

children to get them to understand

38:47

concepts of Bitcoin. And finally enough with

38:49

our oldest. We found, I think we

38:51

got the Angel Studio subscription. We

38:53

got the Angel Studio subscription.

38:56

We became guild members and then just

38:58

put. title twins on season one

39:00

and let them watch some of the

39:02

cartoons like one of the shows that

39:05

we feel comfortable putting in front

39:07

of them because we watch it

39:09

with them and it gives a

39:11

good lesson and without even trying

39:13

to influence the oldest on his

39:16

favorite episode is the Bitcoin episode

39:18

in season one and so or

39:20

might have been season two but

39:22

it's funny how you'll find that

39:24

It's natural. The concept of

39:27

money even at a young

39:29

age is fascinating to kids

39:31

and they're naturally drawn

39:33

to it. That's a neat story. I,

39:35

uh, hey, you know, because of

39:38

my different jobs and life

39:40

and stuff, especially working underground

39:42

is a minor, I swear

39:44

a lot, but there's no

39:46

kids in your studio or

39:48

anything. No. Okay. That's fine.

39:51

Yeah. You can swear on the

39:53

podcast. Okay. yelled at if there

39:55

is a and agree you are

39:57

you are a Navy man so

40:00

that you were in the air

40:02

but technically a sailor I guess

40:04

to some some extent but there

40:06

are some sailor mouths on the

40:08

show that people people reach out

40:10

and say too much cursing but

40:12

it's been well this you know

40:14

the sailors on the ship they

40:16

didn't really like us I mean

40:18

that's that's real Navy there those

40:20

are blue-water Navy people and they

40:22

didn't like us in fact you

40:24

know we when we came on

40:26

board the carrier we were like

40:28

an invading species almost you know

40:30

the plane the carrier usually doesn't

40:32

have any planes on it until

40:35

it's getting ready to deploy and

40:37

then we'd go out and do

40:39

our workouts. We'd make the carrier

40:41

would have to go out into

40:43

the ocean a little ways, and

40:45

then we'd do our workups, you

40:47

know, practice to make sure we

40:49

could still land on the damn

40:51

thing. And so they didn't like

40:53

that, and then they'd come back,

40:55

and once we started steaming, you

40:57

know, the captain, I mean, he

40:59

is in charge of the ship.

41:01

It doesn't matter how many, you

41:03

know, air bosses, or... Pilots or

41:05

whoever they think they are the

41:08

captain's in charge of the ship

41:10

and he's got a he's got

41:12

a mission I mean he's got

41:14

orders and I'm not saying he

41:16

was breaking him out in an

41:18

envelope but he's got orders he

41:20

has to be somewhere so every

41:22

time we wanted to go flying

41:24

you know those sailors would get

41:26

pissy because they'd have to turn

41:28

the ship into the wind so

41:30

they couldn't go where they wanted

41:32

to go they'd put him to

41:34

say he's a He's one of

41:36

those aviator. He's not really a

41:38

sailor. I worked for a naval

41:40

captain for eight summers down the

41:43

shore and learned a lot about

41:45

the dynamics of the Navy and

41:47

warships and discipline. So it's an

41:49

interesting life and particularly now with

41:51

how... volatile the geopolitical system is

41:53

and how complacent many believe our

41:55

military has gotten in recent years.

41:57

I think the thought of going

41:59

to war and whether or not

42:01

you're confident in the ability. of

42:03

the armed forces being disciplined. If

42:05

you're in the armed forces, the

42:07

people next to you, obviously, there's

42:09

a lot of recruiting problems during

42:11

the Biden administration, and it'll be

42:13

interesting to see if the armed

42:16

forces are able to recover and

42:18

get back to that mentality of

42:20

extreme discipline. Yeah. You know, when

42:22

I went through, when I, so

42:24

I was just a college kid,

42:26

you know, I finally got back

42:28

to college, graduated and, uh, You

42:30

know, I thought I was pretty

42:32

special or whatever, and I was

42:34

in a special program, so to

42:36

become an officer, and a gentleman,

42:38

they called it. We're going to

42:40

turn you into an officer and

42:42

a gentleman. And they made a

42:44

movie about it, in fact, and

42:46

so you show up down there,

42:48

and you know, you might think

42:51

that you're something, but, you know,

42:53

it's 5 a.m. The morning, D.I.

42:55

throws this big garbage can, aluminum

42:57

garbage, down a linoleumlinolium line hallway.

42:59

And you get to hear language

43:01

that you didn't think anybody could

43:03

speak. And you get to be,

43:05

you know, physically challenged to the

43:07

point where you either throw up

43:09

or sometimes you just about pass

43:11

out. And yeah, you know, they

43:13

get up close and personal and

43:15

they make you realize that you've

43:17

got a lot to learn and

43:19

a lot to do here. And,

43:21

you know, we're, you know... Marty,

43:24

human beings, you know, Homo sapiens,

43:26

we've been on this planet. I

43:28

just posted something this morning about

43:30

this. We've been on the planet

43:32

over 200,000 years. And for two

43:34

to 300,000 years, we have had

43:36

a brutal existence. I mean, you

43:38

know, did you see the Colasso

43:40

company? They just put out some

43:42

information. They cloned the wooly mammoth.

43:44

gene into a mouse and it

43:46

got really, they grew real long

43:48

hair and their goal is to

43:50

reproduce extinct animals including the wooly

43:52

mammoth. Well you know those were

43:54

real animals, saber-toothed tigers were real.

43:56

I mean we fought them up

43:59

close and personal. And human beings

44:01

have been in close in combat

44:03

with these animals for hundreds

44:05

of thousands of years, because we like

44:07

meat. And it's interesting to see how

44:09

the narrative is changed. You know, we've

44:11

only been farmers for 10,000 years, and

44:13

that's why we're here today. In fact,

44:16

it's really why you and I are

44:18

having a conversation about money, because, you

44:20

know, that's been the, that's what we've

44:22

been looking for. For 10,000 years

44:24

after we were done chasing animals

44:26

around in plants and insects and

44:28

anything else, You know, for 10,000

44:30

years, and you can see it

44:32

in the history, you can look

44:34

in the clay tablets

44:36

in Mesopotamia, written in

44:38

Cuniform, that try to document who

44:41

owes who, like a ledger. They're

44:43

just trying to say who owes

44:45

who what. So we've been looking

44:47

for money for 10,000 years. In

44:49

my mind, we found it. It's

44:52

Bitcoin. And does that play into

44:54

your idea that power law

44:56

viruses and Bitcoin have similar?

44:58

sort of trajectories or dynamics at play.

45:00

That's it. Yeah, that's yeah, that is

45:03

that. Let's talk about that for a

45:05

minute. And this might be a little

45:07

controversial with people. I really

45:09

don't care whether you agree or not.

45:11

It doesn't matter to me. I mean,

45:13

I listened to anything. If somebody has

45:15

disagreed to me, I'll just listen to

45:17

whatever they got to say. But unlike

45:19

some of the people that I follow

45:21

and that I really like their content,

45:24

I think there are people that are

45:26

really discount counting discounting. the power law

45:28

and not giving it a strong enough

45:30

look. And the reason I say

45:32

that I think is because I

45:35

believe they're probably suffering from PTSD

45:37

from Plan B and that shit

45:39

model he had. And I think I

45:41

can, and you know, so many people

45:44

got hurt in that cycle. I'm sure

45:46

you remember it. That previous cycle, a

45:48

lot of it seemed like it was

45:50

the leverage. You know, a lot of

45:53

people on margin leverage getting wiped out

45:55

because they were sure. using that model

45:57

they knew exactly where Bitcoin was going.

45:59

to tell you right now if

46:02

you're listening, nobody knows what Bitcoin's

46:04

going. It is a beast. It's

46:06

like an apex predator. Hey, you

46:08

know, I use that term a

46:10

lot, Apex Predator, and I always

46:13

think of almost like a dinosaur,

46:15

like a T-Rex, and you know,

46:17

again, I think it falls back

46:19

to that idea that in my

46:21

ideal world, I'd be back in

46:24

Rome, it'd be Roman times, and

46:26

there'd be dinosaurs around. I'd be

46:28

chasing dinosaurs and stuff with my

46:30

buddies. But let me ask you

46:32

something before I go down that

46:35

road. Have you ever used, have

46:37

you ever said that Bitcoin is

46:39

like a beast or Bitcoin's like

46:41

a living organism, Bitcoin is? Mm-hmm.

46:43

Yeah, I think Ralph Merkel, funnily

46:46

enough, the inventor of for the

46:48

discover of Merkel trees, inventor I

46:50

guess is the better term. He

46:52

said that's a wild guy. One

46:54

of my first newsletters. I ever

46:56

wrote was on this quote from

46:59

Ralph basically identifying Bitcoin as this

47:01

living organism because it finds a

47:03

way to somewhat contract humans out

47:05

to plug machines in to expend

47:07

energy to make sure that it

47:10

has the ability to assist and

47:12

continue moving on and growing and

47:14

via the full node topography it's

47:16

found a way for people to

47:18

sort of... ensure that the ledger,

47:21

this living organism as Ralph Merkel,

47:23

explained it, survives. And so the

47:25

fact that it's copied on tens

47:27

of thousands of machines around the

47:29

world, and it is this sort

47:32

of living ledger that is adding

47:34

a block of transactions on 10

47:36

minutes, on average every 10 minutes.

47:38

Yeah, I have used that before,

47:40

and I think Ralph Merkel's description

47:43

of it, is something that really...

47:45

Open my eyes to that and

47:47

obviously you have brand and quidems,

47:49

Bitcoin is my silium, which I

47:51

really love. I love that piece

47:54

and that whole. train

47:56

of thought, that

47:58

is, this is

48:00

emergent network that's

48:02

growing pretty naturally. I

48:06

think it's a common theme. And, you

48:08

know, I listened, I don't know if

48:10

you're familiar with Jeff Parks, you know,

48:12

he's a very, this is a deep

48:14

guy. I mean, when he talks, I

48:16

usually have to have grok three there

48:18

to like translate what he's saying. But

48:20

his, his analysis is really deep. And

48:22

yet, this is a very technical guy.

48:25

And the other day, he called it

48:27

a living beast. I mean, he said

48:29

that or a living organism. And

48:32

what did sailors even sailor the

48:34

other day called it a virus? Well,

48:36

let me ask you this, if

48:38

you were to look at power laws,

48:40

and I don't want to go

48:42

down the power law, it's been beat

48:44

up enough. But again, I think

48:46

that as time goes by, you'll see

48:48

that there's validity behind the power

48:50

law theory. Because

48:54

if you look at

48:56

power laws, Bitcoin, and

48:58

viruses, three things, they

49:01

have something in common.

49:03

And it's a network

49:05

effect. And

49:09

especially applies to social networks. So

49:11

I don't know how you think about

49:13

Bitcoin and its adoption, but I

49:15

often think of it as almost

49:17

like a social network that's expanding. And,

49:19

you know, we are familiar with

49:21

Metcalfe's law and the value of a

49:24

network. And you can see how in

49:28

my mind, Bitcoin almost

49:30

exhibits those, it co

49:32

shares that with virus

49:34

like behavior. And

49:36

power laws are used to describe

49:38

viruses, and they can describe them accurately

49:40

too. So when I think of

49:42

Bitcoin, I actually do think of it

49:45

almost as a living organism that

49:47

was in search of a host. And

49:49

if you think about it deeper,

49:51

you'll realize that boy, what would be,

49:53

if I were a Bitcoin virus

49:55

and I wanted to spread throughout the

49:58

world, what would my host be? Well,

50:00

it would be the internet. And, you

50:02

know, we often compare, if we

50:04

look at the graph of adoption

50:06

and we compare Bitcoin to the internet,

50:08

we can see there's a pattern

50:11

there. And we're, in my mind,

50:13

we are growing on the back

50:15

of the internet. And what's great

50:17

about that is just think about

50:19

what I just said. It gives

50:21

a resilience and a power to

50:23

a Bitcoin that is like a

50:25

virus. And viruses are powerful. They're

50:27

not, they're weird, and they're not

50:29

dead. They're in between. Almost

50:32

like Bitcoin. So when you think

50:34

about it, what I'm trying to say

50:36

is that it's picked the perfect host.

50:38

Right now, internet access is

50:41

present for about four and

50:43

a half billion people on

50:45

the planet and growing. Smartphones

50:47

about three and a half billion

50:49

and growing. And it's something

50:52

that can't be stopped. That's

50:54

another thing that's so important about

50:56

this. Just think about... Think about

50:58

what I just said there. If

51:00

the internet is its host, Bitcoin

51:03

is adapting to that and growing

51:05

and expanding, and that host can't

51:07

be killed. You know, the ideal

51:09

virus is, the influenza virus, we

51:11

didn't even know it was a

51:14

virus, the flu virus, until like

51:16

33, 1933, it's been with us

51:18

for millennia now they're finding out.

51:20

And it's that perfect virus because

51:22

it makes us sick, it has

51:24

a fun time, and it propagates,

51:26

but doesn't go away. it adapts,

51:29

it mutates, it mutates. And I

51:31

know this is getting kind of long.

51:33

I'll wrap it up here in a

51:35

second. Well, so the thing is, just

51:37

take it, you know, just think about

51:40

it from that viewpoint. How do you

51:42

stop the internet? Imagine, imagine the

51:44

United States if it came out

51:46

tomorrow and says, we're going to

51:48

stop the internet for three days.

51:50

The world would explode and you

51:53

can't do it. And here's another

51:55

thing too. Because Bitcoin's using that

51:57

as a host, you can't kill

51:59

it. You could, you know, China

52:01

could say we're banning the, you

52:04

know, like we're going to ban

52:06

Bitcoin, we're going to ban the

52:08

internet. Well, no country's going to

52:11

ban the internet for any length

52:13

of time, and then when they

52:16

do ban the internet, as soon

52:18

as they come online, some nodes

52:20

are going to propagate again. The

52:23

full blockchain and everything's going to

52:25

be updated. You know, you could

52:27

kill the internet across the planet

52:30

for a day and now with

52:32

satellites. Soon as the Bitcoin system

52:35

came back online, it would update.

52:37

So Bitcoin is like a beast.

52:39

Now, it may not be that

52:42

beast that I want in Rome

52:44

where I'm out there fighting it

52:46

with a sword, but you know

52:49

what? It's like it's in between

52:51

alive and dead, and I think

52:54

it's the network. It's the network

52:56

effect that ties these ideas of

52:58

power law, Bitcoin, and viruses together.

53:01

Yeah. And going back to Ralph

53:03

Merkel's example. And Satoshi designed something

53:05

so incredibly beautiful. The incentives, particularly

53:08

about how each stakeholder interacts with

53:10

each other. And the network has

53:13

this bounty, which is the block

53:15

subsidy plus the transaction fee. So

53:17

it has this bounty, which is

53:20

the reward that a minor can

53:22

receive for propagating the network and

53:24

making sure that it grows. And

53:27

just this code that has this

53:29

bounty out there, it's like, hey,

53:31

if somebody helps me produce a

53:34

block of transactions that nodes are

53:36

trying to send between each other,

53:39

I'm going to reward you with

53:41

this monetary good, and then us

53:43

and Meets base are literally working

53:46

extremely hard to lock down massive

53:48

amounts of energy, massive amounts of

53:50

hardware, infrastructure, just to get the

53:53

bounty that this bounty that this.

53:55

Bitcoin network this digital monetary system

53:58

running on the back of the

54:00

internet has just introduced to the

54:02

world. And all it was was

54:05

Satoshi designing the incentives, writing the

54:07

code, and hitting launch. And here

54:09

we are 16 years later. And

54:12

it's almost $2 trillion market, and

54:14

people are only getting more aggressive

54:17

in terms of trying to figure

54:19

out ways to get that bounty

54:21

as efficiently as possible. And

54:24

just like a beast, Bitcoin will fight

54:26

you if you try to circumnavigate it.

54:29

Look at the difficulty adjustment. It's like

54:31

a living thing. I mean, you try

54:33

to think that you're going to overcome

54:36

the hash rate, you know, and you're

54:38

going to somehow generate a tremendous amount

54:40

of hash rate and you're going to,

54:43

you know, get ahead of the system

54:45

cheating in some way. I do claw

54:47

it right back. I mean, that difficulty

54:50

adjustment isn't a beautiful. piece of work.

54:52

It's like a part of that whole

54:54

organism. Oh yeah, it's almost like an

54:57

immune response to the amount of attention

54:59

that humans are paying to the network.

55:01

If it's too much attention, it's like,

55:04

all right, you guys are getting a

55:06

little crazy, we're going to make it

55:08

harder to find this bounty that I've

55:11

set out there. There's not enough attention.

55:13

It's like, all right, I'm going to

55:15

make it easier to draw attention back

55:17

to the network. compound interest is the

55:20

eighth wonder of the world. I think

55:22

Bitcoin's design may have to be the

55:24

ninth. Oh, I love that. I just,

55:27

I have never thought of that. I

55:29

mean, I've never even, I just love

55:31

that. I, uh, oh, yeah, that's really,

55:34

you know, just think about that for

55:36

a minute what you said there. Maybe,

55:38

yeah, maybe someday, looking back here. it

55:41

will be described that way because again

55:43

we haven't seen anything yet I figure

55:45

I was saying that we're about five

55:48

or six percent adoption rate right now

55:50

but you know what that report that

55:52

just came out from river It was

55:55

a really in-depth report, and I'm a

55:57

big fan of River, a great, great

55:59

company. But, you know, some of their

56:02

figures kind of gave me pause. I

56:04

mean, their adoption rate, they put it

56:06

at like maybe two or three percent,

56:09

as I remember. And like 1991 or

56:11

two on the internet adoption rate and

56:13

stuff. So I don't know where we

56:16

really set right now, but I do

56:18

know it's still early. And for all

56:20

of you out there, again, if you're

56:22

up there. If you're just not resting

56:25

at ease because you think you're too

56:27

late, everybody's thought that. I mean, you

56:29

know, I've thought the same thing. There

56:32

is no too late to Bitcoin. You

56:34

just need to start stacking. And, you

56:36

know, you can stack smartly. I mean,

56:39

you can do that. I do follow

56:41

James Czech, big fan of Czech-made on

56:43

X. And, you know, he's... He's got

56:46

a good enough handle on the analysis

56:48

and I feel like I do too

56:50

now that I kind of know there

56:53

are certain times when I would not

56:55

buy if I were still buying and

56:57

I don't buy anymore. I mean, I'm

57:00

just, I'm all in. And it's kind

57:02

of a peaceful feeling, you know, I

57:04

mean, you got your assets allocated to

57:07

Bitcoin. I just, very peaceful right now.

57:09

Same. Love James. His analysis is invaluable,

57:11

particularly for those who are... hyperemotional when

57:14

it comes to the intraday movements of

57:16

the price and going and reading James's

57:18

newsletter is really a good way to

57:21

find peace of mind and try to

57:23

figure out where we are in the

57:25

market. And going back to the adoption

57:27

rate, I think we just released an

57:30

episode of a Parker Lewis yesterday and

57:32

I'm beginning in a lot of the

57:34

discussion that I had with Parker this

57:37

week was around using Bitcoin as money

57:39

and We didn't directly talk about it,

57:41

but I think I'm beginning to see

57:44

it here at the business at TFTC,

57:46

granted we're early adopters of Bitcoin as

57:48

a business, both using it as a

57:51

treasury. accepting it for payments and paying

57:53

contractors in it. However, I do think

57:55

there is some signal to glean from

57:58

what's happening here and the amount of

58:00

invoices that I'm receiving to pay for

58:02

contractors or services that are vital to

58:05

our business that are coming from Zaprite,

58:07

which give us the opportunity to pay

58:09

and fee up or Bitcoin, are going

58:12

up pretty dramatically and have specifically in

58:14

the last six months when it comes

58:16

to network effects. power laws and viruses

58:19

spreading, I think, internally at this business.

58:21

It's something I'm certainly beginning to notice.

58:23

So the first time, it seems like

58:26

people are demanding Bitcoin in our world.

58:28

And again, granted, this is a Bitcoin

58:30

company. We interact with a lot of

58:32

other Bitcoin companies, but having been doing

58:35

this for eight years, it seems like

58:37

even in the Bitcoin space, people are

58:39

finally coming around to all right. You

58:42

should really be dog footing this and

58:44

making sure that we are accepting Bitcoin

58:46

as payment or using Bitcoin as a

58:49

means to pay for other goods and

58:51

services that we're interacting with. And I

58:53

think that progression is going to break

58:56

out of our bubble and you're going

58:58

to begin seeing Bitcoiners who aren't running

59:00

a Bitcoin focused business but have their

59:03

own small medium large-sized business that they

59:05

want to begin accumulating and they're going

59:07

to start doing the same thing. It's

59:10

like, hey. You want to pay for

59:12

this good and service? You can pay

59:14

me a mean fee out or a

59:17

Bitcoin. That's interesting. And you know, going

59:19

back to something I said earlier, you

59:21

know, I told you that the Bitcoin

59:24

that I have, you know, worked hard

59:26

to gather and scratched out of the

59:28

earth, so to speak. I mean, I

59:31

said it's in my fist, and I

59:33

meant that, but doesn't mean that I

59:35

don't spend Bitcoin. Like if I want

59:37

to use a circular economy with Bitcoin,

59:40

what I do is I just do

59:42

a circular economy with Bitcoin. for capital

59:44

gains purposes, IRS tax purposes, that's the

59:47

way to do it. You know, just

59:49

buy Bitcoin. that day and just buy

59:51

something. I just bought one of those

59:54

satisfaction. I should get it here pretty

59:56

soon. I don't know if you know

59:58

what that is, but I'll send you

1:00:01

a DM with it later, or if

1:00:03

not. It's really cool. So I don't

1:00:05

mind spending Bitcoin, and I think people

1:00:08

are going to have to earn Bitcoin.

1:00:10

They're going to have to come out

1:00:12

there and go, you know what? I've

1:00:15

got to put something of value out

1:00:17

there in order to get Bitcoin. There

1:00:19

will come a point where... Again, whether

1:00:22

it's unit bias or however you view

1:00:24

adoption and where we're going here or

1:00:26

this cycle, the next cycle, I don't

1:00:29

know when, but I am absolutely convinced.

1:00:31

There's no doubt in my mind that

1:00:33

Bitcoin is going to a million a

1:00:36

coin. And if you look at the

1:00:38

history of Bitcoin and where it is

1:00:40

in any analysis, it's only going to

1:00:42

continue to go up into the right.

1:00:45

I don't know what rate and I

1:00:47

don't know when we'll see that. I

1:00:49

used to think it was like 2030,

1:00:52

maybe 32. I don't know anymore. But

1:00:54

when it gets to these points, people

1:00:56

are going to want to get Bitcoin

1:00:59

and they're going to have to offer

1:01:01

something. There's going to have to be

1:01:03

something of value in order to get

1:01:06

Bitcoin. And then we will truly start

1:01:08

to turn into this economy that all

1:01:10

of us want. I mean, you know,

1:01:13

I don't want this. I am so

1:01:15

sick of the fiat world and what

1:01:17

it has done all the way from

1:01:20

that period that I was telling you

1:01:22

in the 70 to today. and the

1:01:24

endless wars. And you know, I'm a

1:01:27

military member and I, you know, I

1:01:29

just, I'm very tired of the theot

1:01:31

world and so I'm hopeful. I really

1:01:34

am, Marty. I'm too. I think the

1:01:36

zeitgeist has certainly shifted in recent years

1:01:38

where people are recognizing that the big

1:01:41

nanny state governments in the world and

1:01:43

large corporations that feed the politicians that

1:01:45

enter that in any state do not

1:01:47

have the people's best interest at heart

1:01:50

and then even that recognition is driven.

1:01:52

by the fact that it's becoming impossible

1:01:54

to get off the hamster wheel and

1:01:57

the hamster wheels getting so fast that

1:01:59

people can't even stay on it and

1:02:01

it's a push comes to shove moment

1:02:04

for humanity right now where people are

1:02:06

throwing their hands up and saying wait

1:02:08

a second we need we need to

1:02:11

change things drastically at the core of

1:02:13

our society and most have not recognized

1:02:15

yet but I think that's why I

1:02:18

do what I do and that's why

1:02:20

I think I'm here speaking with you

1:02:22

today with you today because you Believe

1:02:25

the same things that fixing the core

1:02:27

of the problem means fixing the money

1:02:29

in Bitcoin is the only way to

1:02:32

do that in today's day and age

1:02:34

Yeah, you know 2010 when Bernanke decided

1:02:36

they were going to go all in

1:02:39

on QE It changed our world forever.

1:02:41

I mean those pricks and they knew

1:02:43

they were going to blow an asset

1:02:46

bubble, but they thought it was worth

1:02:48

it if you if you read the

1:02:50

lords of easy money It will give

1:02:52

you a really good background in that

1:02:55

particular period. They knew they were going

1:02:57

to cause an asset bubble, but they

1:02:59

thought, oh, we need a spike, you

1:03:02

know, employment up just a little bit

1:03:04

more. And I mean, look at the

1:03:06

consequences today. Yeah, we're all on a

1:03:09

hamster wheel. Those people that are in

1:03:11

the Fiat world, they're running their ass

1:03:13

off. And as I mentioned earlier, you

1:03:16

know, both people are working. I mean,

1:03:18

that sucks. They have to work. Some

1:03:20

people have, not only are both people

1:03:23

working, they're, often they've got side gigs,

1:03:25

you know, that they're just trying to

1:03:27

keep going. You can't front run these

1:03:30

people if you're in the Fiat system.

1:03:32

I mean, with this, you know, mouse

1:03:34

click money, no matter how hard you

1:03:37

save, no matter how hard you work,

1:03:39

they can cut, you know, the rug

1:03:41

or pull the rug up from under

1:03:44

you overnight. And look at the housing

1:03:46

prices, look at the housing prices, look

1:03:48

at the store value. And then you

1:03:51

have people that, you know, just want

1:03:53

to, you know, they've got kids, they're

1:03:55

a young family like Carla and Walker,

1:03:57

they just want to, they just want

1:04:00

to have a... to stay. They're not

1:04:02

looking to try and they just want

1:04:04

to live in a house which is

1:04:07

a novel concept. I don't know if

1:04:09

you're familiar with the DSCR

1:04:11

loans that have gone on.

1:04:13

in financing the RBOs across the country

1:04:16

and how that's distorted the market. You

1:04:18

know, those are loans that are made

1:04:20

just based upon the owner saying, you

1:04:23

know, projecting, well, I'm going to get

1:04:25

this much income over, you know, the

1:04:27

next 20 years, this much rental income.

1:04:29

And so they're just buying up properties

1:04:32

that often aren't making that, and they're

1:04:34

just sitting around. It's so distorted

1:04:36

right now. And it kind of goes

1:04:38

back to what you started this podcast

1:04:40

with, which things seem very... uncertain

1:04:43

and volatile. And you know, I really don't

1:04:45

know where things are going. I'm very interested

1:04:47

to see what comes out tomorrow. This

1:04:49

is Thursday, the 6th, and tomorrow on

1:04:52

the 7th, they're going to have the

1:04:54

crypto. What is it? What's it going

1:04:56

to be? The Crystal Asset Conference or

1:04:58

something? Yeah, the first crypto summit in

1:05:01

Capitol Hill. And hopefully, you know, I

1:05:03

want, you know, unlike some people. And

1:05:05

I've read, you know, some good

1:05:07

articles, counter-counter, counter-counter articles, including

1:05:10

Nick Carter and... You know,

1:05:12

I have no issue. I want

1:05:14

to see the United

1:05:16

States establish a strategic Bitcoin

1:05:19

reserve. Bitcoin reserve.

1:05:21

Bitcoin only. I

1:05:23

want that. I think it

1:05:25

could be something that really

1:05:28

helps our country as the

1:05:30

years unfold. I mean, why

1:05:32

do we have gold in

1:05:34

reserves? I mean, why are

1:05:37

other nation states collecting gold?

1:05:39

circles around gold. Gold can't

1:05:41

handle, you know, what is money?

1:05:43

You know, think about that

1:05:45

for a minute, portable, fungible,

1:05:47

durable, divisible, verifiable,

1:05:50

scarce, resistant to seizure. That's

1:05:53

money. And Bitcoin runs circles

1:05:55

around that gold. So why

1:05:57

wouldn't we have Bitcoin as

1:05:59

a... Reserve. I want to see

1:06:01

that. I really do. And you

1:06:03

know I don't know if you've

1:06:05

been following Senator Lumis. She's getting

1:06:07

a lot of flack right now

1:06:09

from Bitcoiners and I'm kind of

1:06:11

surprised at it because she's been

1:06:13

pretty clear. She just had an

1:06:15

interview about a week ago and

1:06:18

she's been very clear where things

1:06:20

are going. She's just said you

1:06:22

know she's back in Congress and

1:06:24

her Bitcoin act she was surprised

1:06:26

at how many people did not

1:06:28

understand Bitcoin but came to her

1:06:30

office. or she approached them and

1:06:32

they wanted to learn more, but

1:06:34

they just were clueless, even with

1:06:36

all the new congressional members that

1:06:38

are, and I've got air quotes

1:06:40

here, crypto-friendly. And she said their

1:06:42

first, that new subcommittee, the digital

1:06:44

assets subcommittee that she's chairman of,

1:06:46

she said, our first goal is

1:06:48

to get stable coin regulation out

1:06:50

there. And then the second goal

1:06:52

is... digital asset regulation, and then

1:06:54

the third would be to try

1:06:56

and get the Bitcoin Act passed,

1:06:58

which I would like to see

1:07:00

passed also. But I think that

1:07:02

that's a step where some of

1:07:04

the arguments, as I mentioned earlier,

1:07:06

could have validity regarding the dollar.

1:07:08

But I don't see why that

1:07:10

is with a, I mean, how

1:07:12

do you feel about the sovereign

1:07:14

or the Bitcoin funds, strategic? Like,

1:07:16

I don't think, I think a

1:07:18

lot of Bitcoiners have put a

1:07:20

lot of weight on the Bitcoin

1:07:22

reserve because they think that's going

1:07:24

to lead to the nation-state sort

1:07:27

of scramble for Bitcoin that's going

1:07:29

to drive the price up. And

1:07:31

I think a lot of, a

1:07:33

lot of Bitcoiners have been pumping

1:07:35

the strategic reserve, have made a

1:07:37

framing mistake in terms of... It

1:07:39

may not be their intention, but

1:07:41

I think it's being perceived by

1:07:43

many people in the broader public

1:07:45

who don't really understand Bitcoin, that

1:07:47

Bitcoin going up is dependent on

1:07:49

a strategic Bitcoin reserve here in

1:07:51

the United States. that sets off

1:07:53

that race by other nation states.

1:07:55

And I just think that framing

1:07:57

is a miscalculation because people think

1:07:59

that bickwinners are really pushing for

1:08:01

this to drive the price up

1:08:03

to pump their own bags. I

1:08:05

just have a disagreement with the

1:08:07

framing of how some people, not

1:08:09

all, but some have been framing

1:08:11

it. God candle, all that, because

1:08:13

the nation states are coming. And

1:08:15

not to say that if the

1:08:17

nation states did come that wouldn't

1:08:19

happen, but I think I'm a

1:08:21

semantics whore and really want it

1:08:23

to be clear to people that

1:08:25

I as an American agree with

1:08:27

you, I think it would be

1:08:29

incredibly beneficial for the American people

1:08:31

if the government were to accumulate

1:08:33

a strategic Bitcoin reserve. But I

1:08:36

think we need to be clear

1:08:38

that the government needs Bitcoin more

1:08:40

than Bitcoin needs the government and

1:08:42

frame it that way. and almost

1:08:44

be blase about it, like we

1:08:46

don't care. If you do the

1:08:48

strategic reserve, the Bitcoin is going

1:08:50

to be fine, however, we think

1:08:52

it would be massively beneficial for

1:08:54

the country if you were to

1:08:56

do that. Yeah, and you know,

1:08:58

the thing is that it doesn't

1:09:00

really matter whether they do or

1:09:02

not, because it's going to happen

1:09:04

one way or the other. In

1:09:06

fact, I mean, you know, the

1:09:08

cat's out of the bag, we

1:09:10

crossed the rubic. That's another good

1:09:12

Roman story. I love, you know.

1:09:14

You know, that's another great story

1:09:16

though. I mean, we, I mean,

1:09:18

really, we did cross the Rubicon.

1:09:20

And what I'm talking about there

1:09:22

is in Nashville. I mean, the

1:09:24

nation states are on notice. You

1:09:26

saw Belarus and what they just

1:09:28

came out with. I mean, they're

1:09:30

going to start buying Bitcoin as

1:09:32

a nation state. And their leader,

1:09:34

Lukashenko, he clearly said on air,

1:09:36

why are we doing this? Well,

1:09:38

the United States is going to

1:09:40

start doing this. So I'm paraphrasingizing

1:09:42

him. But basically, that's what he's

1:09:45

what he's what he's what he's

1:09:47

what he's saying. And I already

1:09:49

believe, there's no doubt in my

1:09:51

mind that nation states are already

1:09:53

doing this, you know, the Russian

1:09:55

finance... minister on Christmas Day last

1:09:57

year came right out. I've never

1:09:59

heard anybody say this before in

1:10:01

Russia and he just said, right

1:10:03

on there he said, we have

1:10:05

made global trade settlement now in

1:10:07

Bitcoin. I mean, why wouldn't you

1:10:09

want to accumulate as much Bitcoin

1:10:11

as you can and especially get

1:10:13

hash rate? And you know, if

1:10:15

you look at the UAE and

1:10:17

their hash rate and then Oman,

1:10:19

which just wants to double the

1:10:21

hash rate for a reason and

1:10:23

it's to control the blocks, it

1:10:25

makes a lot of sense. This

1:10:27

is going to happen. We are

1:10:29

in a race. I mean, we

1:10:31

may not acknowledge it. And when

1:10:33

I say crossing the Rubicon, I

1:10:35

mean, there's no going back. You

1:10:37

know, that's the whole key to

1:10:39

that story. You know, it's January

1:10:41

9th, the night of that evening,

1:10:43

and it's 49 BC, he's on

1:10:45

the North Shore of the Rubicon

1:10:47

River. He's got to make a

1:10:49

decision. His troops love him. They're

1:10:51

all behind him. They've come out

1:10:54

of the North, all the Gaul.

1:10:56

And if he crosses that river

1:10:58

in the morning, he has... basically

1:11:00

committed treason with a standing army

1:11:02

and he's going to march on

1:11:04

Rome and when he does, you

1:11:06

know, on the other side he

1:11:08

famously says, Yachta elanus est, the

1:11:10

die is cast, meaning this is

1:11:12

it, I'm not going back, I

1:11:14

will either be hung or the

1:11:16

Romans had many different ways to

1:11:18

kill you, but I will be

1:11:20

deceased at the end of this

1:11:22

campaign or I will end the

1:11:24

Republic and we will start an

1:11:26

empire and... I think that when,

1:11:28

actually I know in my mind

1:11:30

after, I'm not, I am convinced

1:11:32

after Nashville and those three speeches,

1:11:34

I think we're in a new

1:11:36

world now, Marty. I completely agree.

1:11:38

And as it pertains to Cynthia

1:11:40

Lummis, I think I agree with

1:11:42

you, people need to show her

1:11:44

an immense amount of grace, take

1:11:46

a step back and recognize. The

1:11:48

massive wind that is squabbling over

1:11:50

the priority of a stable coin

1:11:52

bill, a market structure bill, or

1:11:54

the Bitcoin strategic reserve, and recognize

1:11:56

that the Overton window has been

1:11:58

shifted so far. in our favor that

1:12:01

that's what we're squabbling about. It's

1:12:03

not, can we get bank accounts?

1:12:05

Can you please stop arresting developers?

1:12:07

It's what's going to go first.

1:12:09

It's an incredible win and we

1:12:11

should appreciate that. And for Cynthia, I

1:12:14

think a lot of Bitcoiners have to

1:12:16

imagine she lives in the swamp of

1:12:18

DC and whether we like it

1:12:20

or not, politicking exists. And sometimes

1:12:22

you just had to play within

1:12:24

the framework of the incentives that

1:12:26

exist on Capitol Hill. And I

1:12:29

think she's. doing that and if

1:12:31

you look at the strategic

1:12:33

Bitcoin reserve bill it is

1:12:35

Bitcoin only it protects self-custity

1:12:37

it does things very it lays

1:12:40

out things very well and is

1:12:42

Bitcoin only and again the over-to-windos

1:12:44

shifted so far that we're squabbling over

1:12:47

things if you would have told

1:12:49

us we were squabbling over these

1:12:51

things only two years ago people

1:12:53

would have said you were not. Yeah

1:12:55

you know there's a big battle going

1:12:57

on right now and in Washington over

1:13:00

stable coins. And I don't

1:13:02

think a lot of big

1:13:05

corners are aware of it,

1:13:07

but really the two combatants,

1:13:10

and I'll use that word, are

1:13:12

tether and USDC. And they're,

1:13:14

I mean, they're like this

1:13:17

right now. And they're

1:13:19

USDC's CEO. I think it's

1:13:21

Jeremy O'Learing. Yeah. So. So, you

1:13:23

know, he's US-based, fully compliant, I

1:13:26

mean, basically very close to the

1:13:28

CBDC. And Tether right now is

1:13:30

kicking their ass. I mean, they

1:13:33

are. You know, Tether is an

1:13:35

incredible company. $13 billion in profit.

1:13:37

You know, Black Rock, as an

1:13:40

11.5 trillion dollar company. They've got

1:13:42

their fingers in every pie in

1:13:44

the world. They were there for

1:13:46

the rebuilding of Iraq, you know,

1:13:49

as a contractor was Black Rock

1:13:51

in there, sucking up money. What

1:13:53

I was going to say is they had

1:13:56

twice the profit of Black Rock last year

1:13:58

and at least recently... they had

1:14:00

less than 100 employees. You know,

1:14:02

they're moving down to El Salvador,

1:14:04

building a new office headquarters down

1:14:06

there. It's going to be a

1:14:08

big building, doubling their employees. They're

1:14:10

huge holders of US treasuries. And

1:14:13

who manages that for him? It's

1:14:15

Cantor, Fitzgerald. And Howard Lutnik is

1:14:17

closely aligned with them. And, you

1:14:19

know, Sailor himself said that, you

1:14:21

know, we should bring... bring these

1:14:23

people back on board. I think

1:14:25

he even mentioned tether, you know,

1:14:27

to get them back into the

1:14:29

U.S. or into the U.S.-based. But,

1:14:31

you know, this battle is being

1:14:33

fought behind the closed doors. And

1:14:35

in fact, Senator Lumis did come

1:14:38

up with some, I won't say

1:14:40

disconcerting statements, but when she was

1:14:42

talking about tether... She's really towing

1:14:44

the line to a lot of

1:14:46

spokespeople that are, you know, calling

1:14:48

it a money laundering, sponsoring terrorism

1:14:50

type thing. That's why they didn't

1:14:52

get approved in MICA, the European

1:14:54

Union's new framework, and are not

1:14:56

being, you know, are not working

1:14:58

within that EU system. So this

1:15:00

is a big battle, and there's

1:15:03

going to be a lot of

1:15:05

Bitcoiners saying, I don't give a

1:15:07

shit, it's a shit coin. Well,

1:15:09

you know, I disagree, and I'll

1:15:11

just tell you if you if

1:15:13

you look at where... Bitcoin and

1:15:15

lightning and particular lightning is going

1:15:17

I think tether is going to

1:15:19

try to be a really big

1:15:21

part of that new tap root

1:15:23

Assets protocol and It's probably going

1:15:25

to happen and we're going to

1:15:28

see a major change going forward

1:15:30

Are you referencing the Wall Street

1:15:32

Journal article that was written? Yeah,

1:15:34

that's a good article. Did you

1:15:36

read that I did and Yeah,

1:15:38

it's somebody who's been in the

1:15:40

space and tether there's a lot

1:15:42

of tether truthers out there outside

1:15:44

of Bitcoin than within Bitcoin. Many

1:15:46

believe that tether is some nefarious

1:15:48

actor, but having been around a

1:15:50

while, I mean, tether spun out

1:15:53

of bitphinics and to your point

1:15:55

about lightning. Bifinik's first exchange to

1:15:57

implement lightning, actually solved right before

1:15:59

we hit record. It looks like

1:16:01

Palau, Undroyo is on Capitol Hill

1:16:03

today, so maybe he's participating tomorrow,

1:16:05

but when it comes to circle

1:16:07

versus tether, and I will recognize

1:16:09

and acknowledge or maybe some discomfort

1:16:11

in how big tether is and

1:16:13

how much influence it has on

1:16:15

the space, but I have a

1:16:18

lot of respect for Bifinik's and

1:16:20

tether. Personally, because for the longest

1:16:22

time, they've been the pirates of

1:16:24

the industry in terms of big

1:16:26

players that have really driven a

1:16:28

lot of innovation forward and done

1:16:30

it in a way where they

1:16:32

operate in this gray market and

1:16:34

try, I believe, to stay as

1:16:36

aligned with cypherpunk, the cypherpunk ethos

1:16:38

as closely as possible. This whole,

1:16:40

I was actually in Abu Dhabi

1:16:43

and for Bitcoin Maina and then

1:16:45

stuck around for a day they

1:16:47

had Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi finance

1:16:49

week and I was there in

1:16:51

the room when Circle and Binance

1:16:53

announced their partnership and Jeremy Blair

1:16:55

and this new CEO Binance were

1:16:57

on stage talking about it and

1:16:59

the moves that Circle is moving

1:17:01

to try to force tether out

1:17:03

of the market are extremely slimy

1:17:05

and I think they're coming from

1:17:08

a place of resentment because tether

1:17:10

found product market fit and has

1:17:12

had immense amounts of success over

1:17:14

the years and circle simply has

1:17:16

not been able to keep up

1:17:18

and this whole I think those

1:17:20

two companies juxtaposed to each other

1:17:22

really paint two starkly different futures

1:17:24

one where the pirates are trying

1:17:26

to stay true to the cypherpunk

1:17:28

ethos and really enable the ability

1:17:30

for individuals around the world to

1:17:33

gain access to these financial world

1:17:35

rails and then circle is the

1:17:37

digital panopticon, sort of pencil, pusher,

1:17:39

suck up to the nanny state.

1:17:41

Jeremy Blair, like let's regulate everything

1:17:43

and I'll do whatever you want,

1:17:45

daddy government. Yeah, and that's really

1:17:47

well framed, better than I put

1:17:49

it out there because that puts

1:17:51

it, that's the real framing of

1:17:53

this battle is just what you

1:17:55

said. And you know, maybe we

1:17:58

need somebody to pose our viewpoints

1:18:00

because I'm very closely aligned with

1:18:02

what you just said. And if

1:18:04

you follow. Tether and trying to

1:18:06

remember the CFO's name, it's G

1:18:08

and Carlo. Yeah, he, yeah, I

1:18:10

love that pirate analogy because that's

1:18:12

probably very true. In fact, I

1:18:14

think that was in the article

1:18:16

too. They discussed that and I

1:18:18

thought, you know, that rings true,

1:18:20

what you know of him and

1:18:23

he's going to be the CEO

1:18:25

pretty soon. And so, yeah, this

1:18:27

is a big battle and it's

1:18:29

an important battle for Bitcoin because

1:18:31

You are going to, you know,

1:18:33

again, there's going to be Bitcoiners

1:18:35

that if you had poop-emogies on

1:18:37

this screen right now, they'd be

1:18:39

throwing them on Jethro. That was

1:18:41

my call sign in the Navy.

1:18:43

And you have call signs, because

1:18:45

when you're dog-fighting, you know, it's,

1:18:48

you just need one word that

1:18:50

kind of gets your, you know,

1:18:52

get your attention. You always fight

1:18:54

with a wingman. And so you

1:18:56

know your wingman's call sign, and

1:18:58

you kind of know your buddies

1:19:00

and stuff. You know, if somebody

1:19:02

calls out your name and you

1:19:04

know, you recognize his call sign

1:19:06

and you just, you work together

1:19:08

really well that way. You know,

1:19:10

there's a, there's a, you know

1:19:13

how in that last Top Gun

1:19:15

movie, they say you never leave

1:19:17

your wingman, right? You know, well,

1:19:19

you know, I will tell you

1:19:21

something. Sometimes when this shit hits

1:19:23

the fan and there's just two

1:19:25

of you and you're both getting

1:19:27

overwhelmed, there's a call that comes

1:19:29

out over the radio and it

1:19:31

comes out over the radio. And

1:19:33

what it means is, guess what

1:19:35

buddy, we're done. We're not friends

1:19:38

anymore. We're not really wingmen. Yo-yo

1:19:40

means you're on your own. And

1:19:42

I'll see you later. But just

1:19:44

getting back to this, what I

1:19:46

wanted to say. say is after

1:19:48

you throw the poop emogies, you

1:19:50

know, just if there's any Bitcoin

1:19:52

out there that can tell me

1:19:54

how you're going to stop tether

1:19:56

from doing what it wants to

1:19:58

do like on the lightning network

1:20:00

over the next year or two,

1:20:03

you tell me how you're going

1:20:05

to do it because I don't

1:20:07

know. And You know, they're going

1:20:09

to be able to issue and

1:20:11

manage tokens on lightning. And if

1:20:13

you just read some of the

1:20:15

recent reports that Fidelity report that

1:20:17

just came out on the lightning

1:20:19

network, what did to tell you?

1:20:21

Lightning is changing. I mean, it's

1:20:23

getting more efficient, less channels, less,

1:20:25

you know, less of it, the

1:20:28

nodes, but much more efficient. And

1:20:30

the bigger nodes are carrying most

1:20:32

of the traffic. If you can

1:20:34

hop between one node to the

1:20:36

next node, your lightning transaction is

1:20:38

almost at the speed of light.

1:20:40

likely to go through. Every time

1:20:42

you skip you go to another

1:20:44

node you decrease that chance maybe

1:20:46

four to eight percent. So you

1:20:48

know if we want lightning to

1:20:50

be what it was envisioned to

1:20:53

be and and how how Finney

1:20:55

talks about this you know if

1:20:57

we want it to be almost

1:20:59

like a tokenized financial system based

1:21:01

on Bitcoin backed by Bitcoin then

1:21:03

you know we should I won't

1:21:05

say we should encourage, you know,

1:21:07

the success other than I want

1:21:09

to see how this pans out.

1:21:11

I want lightning to succeed. I

1:21:13

want it to be that payment

1:21:15

network. I want it so that

1:21:18

every poor shit down there in

1:21:20

South America or Central America who

1:21:22

is just trying to get ahead.

1:21:24

I mean, some guy in Argentina,

1:21:26

120% inflation, you know, this poor

1:21:28

bastard, he just gets a couple

1:21:30

bucks or enough of his stupid

1:21:32

pesos that he can convert him

1:21:34

into. dollars and he's going to

1:21:36

want to do that and am

1:21:38

I going to be my privileged

1:21:40

self sitting here in my nice

1:21:43

beautiful studio with all my paintings

1:21:45

am I going to be the

1:21:47

guy that says no you can't

1:21:49

do that well no you know

1:21:51

what for next to nothing he

1:21:53

can convert that into either tether

1:21:55

or onto the lightning network and

1:21:57

just at least keep something that

1:21:59

that stores his value. And I

1:22:01

want to see that succeed. I

1:22:04

want to have rails for everybody

1:22:06

across the planet if they can

1:22:08

get on one of those channels. Yeah, and

1:22:10

I honestly don't get the convection

1:22:13

over tapered assets personally. I don't

1:22:15

see myself, I've never used tether.

1:22:17

And like I said, I really

1:22:19

appreciate what they've done and I'm

1:22:21

able to recognize that it has

1:22:24

been a massive success and there's

1:22:26

obviously demand for. the utility that

1:22:28

they're providing the market who am

1:22:30

I to say that it's stupid

1:22:33

like it's it's in arguable it's

1:22:35

the proof is in the putting

1:22:37

in the numbers in the volume

1:22:39

in the market cap of tether and

1:22:41

I don't get the convection I can

1:22:44

see people like oh they're gonna

1:22:46

like that's the beauty of Bitcoin

1:22:48

at every layer like lightning I

1:22:50

just said Lisa nigh get on nifty

1:22:52

runs Bitcoin plus plus and she

1:22:55

highlighted something that I really hadn't

1:22:57

internalized yet, which is this whole

1:22:59

L2 narrative that has not only

1:23:02

taken over Bitcoin, but Bitcoin season

1:23:04

two, but all coins. They're all

1:23:06

moving to layer two's as well.

1:23:09

Lightning is inargibly, objectively, the most

1:23:11

distributed layer two technology on top

1:23:13

of a blockchain in

1:23:15

the world. And the convection, I don't

1:23:18

get because you have the ability to

1:23:20

opt out. Like you can spin up

1:23:22

your own node on the lightning network.

1:23:24

inject capacity, connect with other

1:23:26

nodes, and you don't have to

1:23:29

play the tap-root asset game if

1:23:31

you don't want to. I think that it's

1:23:33

an open permissionless system.

1:23:35

And as long as you have the

1:23:38

ability to exit and do what you

1:23:40

want with your SATs and use Bitcoin

1:23:42

the way that you want to, I

1:23:44

don't get why you should get so

1:23:47

perturbed over others bringing things to market.

1:23:49

Yeah, Bitcoin is permissionless.

1:23:51

It's for our enemies. It's for

1:23:53

our enemies. Again, if you know

1:23:56

how to stop some of the

1:23:58

things, ETS options, futures, lightning

1:24:00

with tether, stable coins, if you

1:24:02

know how to fix this, you

1:24:04

know, write it, write a one-page

1:24:06

letter over to Bitcoin magazine in

1:24:08

the take section with your opinion,

1:24:10

because you know, opinions are like,

1:24:13

you know, assholes, everybody's got one,

1:24:15

and I've got mine, and you

1:24:17

know, at least I'm willing to

1:24:19

admit I'm off and wrong, and

1:24:21

I have to come back sometimes,

1:24:23

I say I'm sorry, or I've

1:24:25

learned new things, you know, that's

1:24:27

just part of, you know, Navy

1:24:29

and by the time I was

1:24:31

done flying for Delta before I

1:24:33

had an accident and a traumatic

1:24:35

brain injury and so that's another

1:24:37

reason not to listen to anything

1:24:39

I'm saying but but you know

1:24:41

and I'm kind of laughing but

1:24:43

I tell you something I really

1:24:46

got an appreciation for what it's

1:24:48

like for all the veterans over

1:24:50

in Iraq and Afghanistan and some

1:24:52

of the other outlying countries that

1:24:54

were subjected to these TBIs traumatic

1:24:56

brain injuries. changes your personality, you

1:24:58

know, your, you go through a

1:25:00

really rough time. I've had one

1:25:02

as well, so I know, I

1:25:04

know what you're talking about. Yeah,

1:25:06

exactly. You know, after mine, I

1:25:08

had to, I carried a little

1:25:10

pocket, one of those little, you

1:25:12

know, notepads, and why? Because sometimes

1:25:14

I'd be talking to somebody at

1:25:16

a coffee shop or something, and

1:25:19

when they left and they were

1:25:21

gone, I'd pull it out and

1:25:23

I'd write down who I had

1:25:25

just talked to, because I had

1:25:27

just talked to. And that's a

1:25:29

pretty difficult place to be in

1:25:31

as a man. You look in

1:25:33

the mirror and you go, gee,

1:25:35

am I? Even the person I

1:25:37

used to be, but you know

1:25:39

what? It's so good to be

1:25:41

humbled in life. You know, you

1:25:43

carry around your ego and the

1:25:45

ego is getting in front of

1:25:47

everything, man. You know, your ego

1:25:49

is probably your worst enemy. If

1:25:52

you can just humble yourself. And

1:25:54

if you can just humble, you

1:25:56

can learn all kinds of shit.

1:25:58

Yeah. I agree, that's the, uh,

1:26:00

my apologies or admitting. I'm wrong

1:26:02

here is hand up. You say

1:26:04

hand up a lot on this

1:26:06

podcast. Hand up I was wrong.

1:26:08

I said something and it didn't

1:26:10

turn out to be true. And

1:26:12

I think to your point, having

1:26:14

the humility to be able to

1:26:16

put the hand up and say

1:26:18

that is a very important trait

1:26:20

to have. Not only in Bitcoin,

1:26:22

but just in life generally. The

1:26:24

last thing I wanted to talk

1:26:27

about, you said wrap it up

1:26:29

with this. You're not sure. how

1:26:31

the cycle is going to go,

1:26:33

but in your mind, do you

1:26:35

think there's a tipping point that

1:26:37

when something happens, whether it's nation-state

1:26:39

adoption or some blow up in

1:26:41

global debt markets, that there, do

1:26:43

you believe in the concept of

1:26:45

hyper-biquinization or a tipping point where,

1:26:47

as SAMHSA would say, you have

1:26:49

this God candle where people wake

1:26:51

up in a hurried rush into

1:26:53

Bitcoin and it changes the dynamics

1:26:55

of the market drastically, maybe not

1:26:57

overnight, in a relatively short period

1:27:00

of time. Yeah, that's, well that

1:27:02

is probably one of the deeper

1:27:04

subjects we'll talk about because, you

1:27:06

know, I said earlier I'm kind

1:27:08

of clueless. You know, let's start,

1:27:10

let's start that discussion and let's

1:27:12

just look at the power law.

1:27:14

We talked about that before. If

1:27:16

you're familiar with the power law,

1:27:18

and by the way, folks, you

1:27:20

know, just as a... a general

1:27:22

overview of it. It's an attempt

1:27:24

to look at past behavior like

1:27:26

all models do and then maybe

1:27:28

be able to tell where something's

1:27:30

going in the future. But you

1:27:33

know, what is it based on?

1:27:35

It's based on Bitcoin. So how

1:27:37

many cycles does it really have

1:27:39

to look at it? Now, Giovanni

1:27:41

Santasazzi's power law goes all the

1:27:43

way back to the Genesis block.

1:27:45

Okay, so he is looking at

1:27:47

all the blocks going forward. You're

1:27:50

basing that model on probably

1:27:52

one of the most volatile

1:27:54

nascent technologies that is less

1:27:56

than 15. It's 15 years

1:27:58

old. So think about what

1:28:00

you're doing. You're attempting to

1:28:02

build on that model. Now

1:28:04

the funny thing is, if

1:28:06

you look at his model

1:28:09

and you do a regression

1:28:11

analysis on it, the damn

1:28:13

thing is uncanny, accurate. Now

1:28:15

it has a wide variation,

1:28:17

standard deviation, about two to

1:28:19

the upside, one to the

1:28:21

downside, downside is like almost

1:28:23

a floor. But even though

1:28:25

it is so accurate, and

1:28:27

he says... For

1:28:30

instance, I know how to

1:28:32

put this, okay? The ETF

1:28:34

last year in January, their

1:28:37

arrival was a major change

1:28:39

in the Bitcoin market, major.

1:28:41

We have seen an underlying

1:28:44

bid on Bitcoin that will

1:28:46

water your eyes, and it

1:28:48

has been ongoing for like

1:28:50

1.2 million coins. That's massive.

1:28:53

And yet, if you go

1:28:55

from today, back... That power

1:28:57

line, that regression line on

1:29:00

the power law analysis, still

1:29:02

is a straight line. How

1:29:04

is that possible? Why shouldn't

1:29:06

it have changed? Giovanni will

1:29:09

tell you because these things

1:29:11

in the future are already

1:29:13

built into this system, which

1:29:16

is very difficult to get

1:29:18

your head around. So every

1:29:20

time that I say... I

1:29:23

think that this cycle is going

1:29:26

to break. Like, again, let's raise

1:29:28

my hand. I was wrong on

1:29:30

the last cycle, by the way.

1:29:32

How do you back up your

1:29:34

thought process? You can look at

1:29:36

an S-curve, and you can say,

1:29:38

well, you know, it somewhere like

1:29:41

usually the chasms 14 to 16

1:29:43

percent. We get to the chasm,

1:29:45

we're going to take off with

1:29:47

adoption. We can look at mecalf's

1:29:49

law. But the thing is that

1:29:51

some of these models take into

1:29:54

something called time decadence and they

1:29:56

allow for this. This. reducing volatility

1:29:58

and returns. You know, Marty, I,

1:30:00

here's what I can say, okay,

1:30:02

because I really don't know where

1:30:04

things are going. Like if Samson

1:30:06

was back there, he was looking

1:30:09

at my little painting back there,

1:30:11

mining Bitcoin, and he said, hey,

1:30:13

you just want to block. First

1:30:15

off, I would cut this conversation

1:30:17

short right now. He and I,

1:30:19

I've got a bottle of whiskey

1:30:21

somewhere there. Doc Holliday's girlfriend. And

1:30:24

she was quite a character, I'll

1:30:26

tell you right now. That's, you

1:30:28

know, the part where he didn't

1:30:30

know if she was trying to

1:30:32

kill him or not, that was

1:30:34

probably accurate with her. But if

1:30:36

he was back there, you know,

1:30:39

we'd have a shot and if

1:30:41

he said to me, well, you

1:30:43

know, it's too bad you got

1:30:45

it now because it's going to

1:30:47

be a million a coin next

1:30:49

year, I'd just look at him

1:30:51

and say, you could be right,

1:30:54

you could be right. I can't

1:30:56

argue against that. Back

1:31:00

in 22 when I was

1:31:02

laying there in bed and

1:31:04

I was wondering what the

1:31:07

hell I had done to

1:31:09

my life and Bitcoin crashed

1:31:11

and I bought like a

1:31:13

drunken sailor I'm not ever

1:31:15

going to buy Bitcoin again

1:31:17

at that price. I don't

1:31:20

know if people today are

1:31:22

ever going to buy Bitcoin

1:31:24

at 60,000 again and I

1:31:26

can back that up with

1:31:28

on-chain analysis. So your time.

1:31:30

is limited. It's limited to

1:31:33

keep stacking. And you really

1:31:35

just have one thing to

1:31:37

do now, and that is

1:31:39

to stack Bitcoin, like a

1:31:41

smart psychopath. Hold on to

1:31:43

the Bitcoin. Don't lose a

1:31:45

Bitcoin. Think about what you

1:31:48

hold. Start looking at a

1:31:50

reverse Kager calculator. Realize that,

1:31:52

like Marty said, if you're

1:31:54

younger out there, You are

1:31:56

going to have the most

1:31:58

incredible. life in front of

1:32:01

you. All you got to do is just

1:32:03

be patient and live your life. You

1:32:05

know, let's just say that you're, let's

1:32:07

say you're 30 years old, okay? What

1:32:09

the hell are you going to do for

1:32:11

the next 20, 30 years? You should keep

1:32:13

working. Even, you know, even if you're at

1:32:15

a point where you don't have to work,

1:32:18

you still should be doing stuff. And

1:32:20

again, you're not going to sit around

1:32:22

eating donuts for the next 20, 20,

1:32:25

30 years. You're going to do something.

1:32:27

It's true that someday in the future

1:32:29

you're going to have so much generational

1:32:32

wealth. You'll be able to think

1:32:34