Latest / Simply Bitcoin / John Haar | Leaving Goldman Sachs to Work in Bitcoin | Simply Bitcoin IRL

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John Haar | Leaving Goldman Sachs to Work in Bitcoin | Simply Bitcoin IRL · Simply Bitcoin

0:09
Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of
0:12
Simply Bitcoin are out. There we go.
0:14
Gotta fix my camera. Today I am with John.
0:18
Har is a member of swan. Also I also work at salon so
0:23
we're going to we're going to talk to him about his experience
0:27
Wall. Street was coming into Bitcoin,
0:31
but before I bring them on the stage, I want to give a
0:34
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0:58
John, how you doing? Welcome to the show, happy to
1:01
have you. I'm going to, I'm going to rip
1:03
off the Band-Aid right from the get-go.
1:05
You spent 13 years. At Goldman Sachs and you
1:12
transitioned into working at a Bitcoin company that's
1:17
absolutely crazy. And before I pass it on to you,
1:20
I actually one of my one of my best friends from high school.
1:25
He took down that pass actually works at Goldman here in Miami
1:31
and I bring a Bitcoin to him and like out of the five or six
1:36
friends that I grew up with all of them.
1:38
Em. You know, of have some exposure
1:40
to bitcoin at this point, but this one guy or sit Goldman.
1:44
It's like, it's like garlic and a vampire.
1:46
Like he's like, I can't touch that, you know, it's not okay.
1:49
So what woke you up and what, what made you a Believer?
1:55
Yeah, great place to start. And thanks for having me, Nico
1:59
really good to be here. It reminds me of what you just
2:02
said, reminds me of one of those memes floating out there on
2:05
Twitter that says, some of the last people to get Point what
2:08
will be the Wall Street suits? And I think there's nothing
2:12
wrong with that. I think that's probably a good
2:14
thing but I can totally relate to what you said there.
2:18
I tried to talk to my co-workers at Goldman for years.
2:24
Not even about Bitcoin just about sound money about gold
2:29
about the monetary system as it is today and most of the time
2:33
believe it or not, they actually don't want to talk about that.
2:38
At, or if they do, it's very brief, they're not really
2:41
interested in it. And we can certainly get into
2:45
more about how Wall Street perceives Bitcoin.
2:50
But I think it actually helps to talk a little bit about the
2:54
people who make up Wall Street and how they think how they act,
2:58
how they were educated. And I could totally see an
3:02
outsider thinking, oh, those people on Wall Street, you know,
3:05
they must be so fond of fiat currency.
3:08
Currency they must be sitting in rooms talking about how great
3:11
the Fiat monetary system is, but I can tell you that's actually
3:15
not the case for the vast vast majority of people who work on
3:20
Wall Street for the vast majority of them.
3:23
They're not even thinking about the design of the current
3:27
monetary system. So that's kind of usually how I
3:29
start by saying, it's not as if there's these huge proponents of
3:32
the existing system. I think most of them are not
3:35
even thinking about it. I mean, you can make the
3:38
argument that their benefactors of the their benefactors of the
3:44
existing system and I think that's perhaps why they're blind
3:49
to it, right? Like they benefit from the Fiat
3:51
system itself. I will never forget when he said
3:54
this to me. I was like look like, you know
3:56
the the monetary policy and says set in stone.
3:59
You know, is 21 million roughly every four years, right?
4:03
There's a supply shock caused by the having, you know, it brings
4:07
Really protects the little guy right from currency, debasement
4:10
from censorship. And he looked at me, straight in
4:12
the eye said, Nico, the people need monetary policy and then at
4:17
that point, I was like, holy cow.
4:20
He is such a staunch believer in the system, just as us,
4:26
bitcoiners are staunch Believers in the system, but why wouldn't
4:29
he be? You think about it, right?
4:31
You know, you get to, you get to being, you know, after
4:34
associate, get to be vice president, you're making.
4:38
A quarter million dollar plus plus the bonus a year, right?
4:41
You have absolutely no incentive to really ask questions, do you
4:47
because you're being treated, you're you know, in the
4:51
hierarchy of the system you're like a prince in the Fiat system
4:54
and it's being good to you. You're not incentivised to to
4:59
try to understand something that could potentially undermine your
5:01
business. Totally totally.
5:04
And I think this actually gets too A good example of an analogy
5:10
of what I think describes many people on Wall Street is that
5:14
they're more like mercenaries and for people who are, you
5:19
know, that's not a word that people use every day.
5:21
So anyone who's unfamiliar with it, it's a hired Soldier and
5:25
it's someone who gets paid to fight in a conflict, but they
5:28
aren't actually from either side of the conflict.
5:32
So, this would be, like, Hessian soldiers in the Revolutionary
5:35
War there from Germany. On the side of Britain, against
5:39
the Americans, but, you know, they didn't really have a dog in
5:41
the fight. Other than the fact that Britain
5:44
is paying them. And that's actually what I would
5:48
describe most people on Wall Street, as they basically just
5:51
say, hey, I'm a good soldier and if you pay me a good amount,
5:56
I'll be on your side and that describes most people on Wall
6:00
Street. And and to be very clear, I'm
6:02
not saying everyone on Wall Street is a bad person.
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I have tons of contacts for my 13 years working on Wall Street.
6:08
A lot of really, really good people work there, but it's just
6:13
that they aren't examining the fundamentals of the system.
6:17
So, you know, there could be a person who has four kids, their
6:20
life is very, very busy. They're just trying to show up
6:23
to work, earn a salary, support their family, nothing wrong with
6:27
that. You know, I totally respect that
6:29
but we can't forget the fact that somebody has to be thinking
6:34
about whether we have a logical. Ethical sustainable monetary
6:39
system. And if we don't have that, you
6:43
know, do on the other hand, do we have a system that produces
6:47
wealth confiscation unnatural wealth concentration.
6:52
And then I would argue, economic, distortions and
6:54
destruction and to State the obvious bitcoiners have a deep
6:59
interest in developing a system. That's logical Fair, ethical
7:04
sustainable and the people on Wall Street just generally opt
7:09
out of that conversation. They kind of just say, hey, I'm
7:11
here to earn a living and get paid doing this very specialized
7:15
thing on Wall Street. And I'm just going to keep doing
7:17
that and, and living my life, that that describes the vast
7:21
majority of people on Wall Street.
7:23
So let's talk. I'm really curious like what?
7:27
So, you know, I personally I'll tell you about my, my story just
7:32
a bit just to give this context, right?
7:35
I really fell. Into Bitcoin. 2016 is a terrible
7:39
moment in my life you know down in the gutter.
7:42
So to speak and I was desperate and I and and luckily for me, I
7:48
just happened to, you know, put everything I have in Bitcoin and
7:51
then it kind of worked out right.
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But someone in your position right that you know Coleman pays
8:00
very well benefits. All the perks.
8:06
What what made you leave? Like what made you want to walk
8:10
away from that right? And and if you know if you if
8:15
you go down and use the Bitcoin jargon and all that stuff,
8:19
right? You were a main benefactor of
8:23
the Fiat system. What, what incentive did you
8:26
have to leave? And I really do find that
8:28
fascinating because, you know, speaking to my high school
8:33
friend, he is so entrenched T' you know and why wouldn't he be
8:37
you know getting paid tons of money so what made you leave?
8:40
What was it? An Integrity thing where you're
8:42
looking at it you're like no like this is broken.
8:45
This is messed up that it interest you Yeah, man, I will
8:51
give the semi short version of my Bitcoin story to answer that
8:56
and my Bitcoin story, arguably starts in 2008, and people are
9:03
probably saying, what the hell is this guy talking about?
9:05
Bitcoin wasn't even released at that point.
9:09
But for me, the Bitcoin story actually starts with the
9:12
financial crisis and I was a senior in college as the Crisis
9:18
was happening so that was the fall of 2008, spring of 2009.
9:22
That was my senior year of college and I was a finance
9:27
major. So I was taking finance and
9:29
economics classes as the financial crisis is unfolding
9:32
before our eyes. And I'm looking around saying,
9:36
okay, my teachers can't really explain what's going on Ben
9:40
Bernanke. Can't explain what's going on
9:42
the treasury, secretary can explain what's going on.
9:45
No one on CNBC or Bloomberg can explain it either.
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So I'm just looking around saying, you know, these are the
9:51
experts that we're supposed to have trust in to figure these
9:56
things out before they happen. So, I'm seeing the entire system
10:00
just unravel, you know, we could have a whole show about things
10:05
Bernanke said, but you know, he was literally saying things on
10:08
TV and then being proven wrong, like, seven days later, you
10:11
know, the housing crisis is contained to subprime Fannie
10:15
Mae, and Freddie Mac are not at risk of financial losses.
10:18
We won't experience a decline in housing prices on a nationwide
10:22
level. I'm watching him.
10:23
Say those things. And then, you know, week or two
10:25
later, he's just proven completely wrong.
10:28
So for me, I had to look somewhere else and that
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somewhere else for me, ended up being Austrian economics and the
10:37
mises institute at mises.org so that for me was a path of
10:42
learning about economics that I was not getting at the
10:45
University level. I certainly didn't get it at the
10:48
High School level and that led me to all the things that the
10:52
austrians believe in. Whether you want to probably
10:55
call it free markets private property and obviously sound
11:00
money. So I became a proponent of sound
11:04
money which at the time meant the gold standard that there was
11:08
no other option for sound funny. I didn't even hear of Bitcoin
11:13
personally until 2013 so but starting around 2009.
11:18
I'm doing my own research in economics, reading tons of
11:21
things on The mises Institute and I become this proponent of
11:25
sound money, the gold standard. And what was really interesting
11:29
about that is I brought this up to lots of people at Goldman
11:34
Sachs and wanted to get their reaction to it.
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Just like something along the lines of, you know, do you guys
11:42
know that gold used to be money for hundreds, if not thousands
11:45
of years and, you know, now, it's not Not money anymore.
11:50
They kind of remove that anchor from the paper, but just like,
11:53
falling on deaf ears. No one wants to have that
11:55
conversation. So that was pretty interesting
11:59
to me. I was just like, wow, people are
12:01
not interested in this fast forward to 2013 when I
12:06
mentioned. I first thought, I first heard
12:09
of Bitcoin and the part that I guess might sound like I'm
12:14
patting myself on the back a little bit.
12:16
Is I immediately thought it was Credible because I was like,
12:19
wow, they're trying to do sound money in digital form, but
12:24
unfortunately, the next thought I had was that will never ever
12:28
catch on and I thought that because they're I was from 2009
12:35
to 2013 having conversations with coworkers at Goldman and
12:40
people who work at other successful companies.
12:43
And if I brought up the gold standard or the history of
12:46
money, I mean and if I suggested that the gold standard is
12:50
actually better for certain reasons.
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They looked at me like I had ten heads.
12:55
So my thought was if these people don't want to hear about
13:00
the gold standard, they don't want to hear about the history
13:02
of money. The nature of money then they're
13:05
just never going to go for this thing called Bitcoin.
13:07
That's like the magic internet money you know, in my opinion is
13:11
like doesn't even matter if Bitcoin works the way they say,
13:14
it does, it's just not going to catch on.
13:16
So that was that was unfortunately, First view of
13:19
Bitcoin in 2013 and then I did not come around to it again
13:24
until 2017. And it was that mainstream bull
13:29
market that the price ran up, people are talking about it on
13:32
CNBC on Bloomberg. We're even talking about it on
13:35
our floor at Goldman Sachs at that point.
13:38
And that's when I said, okay hey you know what, maybe this thing
13:42
is real and maybe it has legs and people are talking about it
13:46
and maybe it's going to become a real.
13:48
Thing and stick around. So that was kind of the point
13:52
where I said. Okay, this thing seems real, but
13:55
at that point, there wasn't a ton of content to consume.
14:00
It wasn't like it is today, where you can listen to so many
14:03
different podcasts just by walking out your front door with
14:05
your phone, or so many different people on bitcoin Twitter.
14:09
There just wasn't that much information.
14:12
So, it was kind of slow learning process about Bitcoin for me.
14:17
And then the Other thing was there wasn't really a place that
14:21
it made sense to work for someone like myself back in
14:25
2017. So you fast forward a little bit
14:29
and you know 2020 2021 companies like Swan or being built better
14:35
vocally Bitcoin only in my opinion they clearly get the
14:39
thesis of what Bitcoin is meant to be a superior form of
14:43
non-state immutable, digital scarce peer-to-peer censorship,
14:47
resistant money To be contrasted with, you know, pick your own
14:51
crypto Casino, I never had an interest in working at one of
14:54
those. So basically, to sum everything,
14:58
I just said up, I had this passion for sound money that
15:01
started in 2008. Once I started learning about
15:05
sound money, in the gold standard and then finally 2021
15:08
2022, I was seeing companies that were built within with a
15:14
thesis to promote Bitcoin and make it easier for people to
15:18
Learn about it accumulated, custody it and then self custody
15:22
it. And I saw company like Swan and
15:25
I just said, wow, I'm totally aligned with what this company
15:29
is looking to build and met a bunch of the people at Swan and
15:32
it just reinforced my belief that I think the companies
15:36
looking to build something very strong with staying power and
15:39
that's kind of the summary of how I ended up getting to the
15:43
point saying, you know what? I think it makes sense to take
15:45
the leap from Goldman into a Bitcoin.
15:48
Company like Swan. Yeah.
15:50
And it's, you know, it's fascinating because the I felt
15:56
the same way, right. But I came from it.
15:58
Not from you know, traditional Finance background.
16:01
I came from it from a Content creation background, right?
16:06
And really the really what I see happening right?
16:12
John is there is again, this is all content, you know, type of
16:18
out. Outlook, the way that I'm that
16:19
I'm approaching it is, we're in a war, but it's not a kinetic
16:25
War. It's a, it's a war over hearts
16:28
and minds and really winning over people, and really, kind of
16:33
opening up their eyes to, hey, there's there's a better
16:37
alternative. It's a non-state alternative and
16:40
it doesn't steal from you. But the state benefits
16:44
tremendously from having this privilege of being able to
16:48
Basically create money for free. And, you know, it really Falls
16:54
to content creators to really, you know, be on the on the front
16:58
lines of that. You know what, I call the
17:01
narrative trench warfare and same thing.
17:05
One of the things that that attracted me to Swan as well,
17:09
was there on the mission. They were they, you know, they
17:12
completely understood that. So it's just, it's just so
17:16
fascinating to me. How How people from different
17:20
walks of life, where normally you would have never liked,
17:25
would have conceived it. Bitcoin kind of provides this
17:29
like single Pillar of Truth and everyone's like trying to
17:33
basically go towards it and really push.
17:39
Push what, you know and the beauty, the beauty of Bitcoin is
17:42
the incentives are aligned, right?
17:44
That's one of the, that's one of the most beautiful things about
17:47
Bitcoin is that you acting out of your own self-interest.
17:51
Not only are you making the network stronger but you're also
17:55
helping people in the process and it kind of creates this
17:59
Dynamic where everybody can win. And that's something extremely
18:02
unique to bitcoin that I really haven't seen anywhere else.
18:06
Now you mentioned 2017. What made you so sure?
18:10
Like do and again like most people most bitcoiners that I've
18:16
spoken to they all go through a shit.
18:18
Coin phase in my case individually I was able to I did
18:25
dabble, of course but I always knew that Bitcoin was different
18:29
because I got into Bitcoin through the mining front.
18:31
So I always knew the infrastructure behind it and
18:34
that if to me it was just like you just things very unique,
18:38
right? So, how did you know Bitcoin not
18:41
shit coins or did you kind of have to pay your price of
18:45
tuition? Did you learn the hard way?
18:49
What made you? Sure.
18:51
I think I might be one of the very few people who didn't have
18:56
a chick coin phase. But I really credit that to The
19:02
mises Institute and Austrian economics because I think a lot
19:06
of people get into Bitcoin for different Ins.
19:10
I think people who might get into it for the tech side of
19:13
things, that is kind of an easier path towards getting
19:17
into, you know, XYZ shit coin because some other coin comes
19:22
out and says, hey, look, we're better Tech.
19:24
We've got these bells and whistles on it and then someone
19:27
gets excited about what the price chart looks like.
19:29
And then they get into that, you know, for those reasons, even if
19:33
they don't think it has long-term staying power, maybe
19:35
they just think, you know, they can get in and out and benefit
19:38
from it. It.
19:39
But because I was in this for the same reason I was into gold
19:44
and sound money in general, to me, it didn't make sense for
19:48
there to be multiple of them. That was like at an initial
19:52
thing in my own thesis. But I will say, I guess the one
19:58
thing to add to all that is it wasn't as if 2017 came and I was
20:02
like, okay Bitcoins. The only one, this is obvious.
20:05
Now, it wasn't quite that simple.
20:08
I I still remember seeing CNBC, it was Roger ver on CNBC talking
20:15
about Bitcoin cash and that part confused the heck out of me I
20:20
was not following Bitcoin enough to know what was going on in
20:24
real time in the block size Wars.
20:26
Obviously everyone can read Incredible Book by Jonathan, the
20:31
air about the block size Wars, I kind of learned all that.
20:35
After the fact, what I was seeing at the time was there
20:39
There's this guy who apparently has a big voice within Bitcoin
20:42
is now going on TV saying that the real Bitcoin is Bitcoin
20:46
cash. And to me, I was incredibly
20:49
confused by it. Because I'm just sitting there
20:51
thinking, you know, if this is sound money, there's not really
20:54
supposed to be, you know, a hundred of them or even two of
20:59
them, quite frankly, gold was money.
21:02
I guess you could argue silver became a form of money.
21:04
But there's really not supposed to be a lot of forms of money.
21:07
That's one of the things about money.
21:09
As people have said, it's the world's largest social network,
21:12
but Roger ver shows up on TV and he says, Bitcoin cash is the
21:16
real thing. And I remember feeling genuinely
21:18
confused. I was like, I don't know what to
21:20
make of this, which one's the real Bitcoin.
21:23
And it wasn't until I didn't, I didn't step back and say, okay,
21:28
I'm done with Bitcoin because this is too confusing now, but I
21:31
do remember just saying, okay the price just crashed from, you
21:35
know, whatever it did almost 20K down to like three.
21:39
Became a b or you know, whatever it did and then I just said to
21:42
myself. Okay, I'm going to watch this
21:44
because if Bitcoin can be sound money, then I'm incredibly
21:48
interested. And if it can't, for some
21:51
reason, then I will become less interested.
21:54
But 2017 was the time where I said this has gotten big enough
21:58
that it's worth me following. And then, that's what I did for
22:01
the next several years. And thankfully, the content
22:04
creation just got so, so much Or it's just amazing.
22:11
If you think about how much content you can see consume
22:14
about Bitcoin today versus what you could have done in 2018.
22:18
I mean, it's just light years ahead and I think that's one of
22:22
the reasons why Bitcoin is spreading so quickly.
22:25
But yeah, that's kind of my story and how things played out
22:28
around the 2017 time frame. It's interesting because 2017
22:34
was very scary enduring, the block size for us because There
22:39
was at one point and again I came to it and I was looking at
22:43
it not so much getting distracted by the bells and
22:46
whistles with a lot of the shit coins did this there was I was
22:50
looking at the hash rate, right? The hash rate you know
22:52
represents the you know computational power,
22:55
theoretically mining Bitcoin to the time and there was a point
22:58
wait right where the Bitcoin cash hash rate overtook Bitcoins
23:05
twice we now know looking back they did that.
23:09
Surely then do that. Just because of Market forces
23:12
they did that because they were lighting money on fire to try to
23:16
psyop people into thinking Bitcoin cash has a real deal,
23:20
right? You know, higher hash rate, you
23:22
could have made the argument that those for that very brief.
23:25
Second theoretically Bitcoin cash was more computationally
23:29
secure than Bitcoin and I was looking at it from that
23:32
perspective and I was like, holy cow.
23:34
This is insane. But of course, you know, the
23:39
The. You can only light money on fire
23:43
for so long before you run out of money and that's the beauty
23:47
of Bitcoin. You can't just print more of it.
23:49
So Roger, ver and Jihan. Dude, they have significantly
23:55
less Bitcoin today. Thank God.
23:58
Then they would have had if they you know to use Odell's famous
24:02
line, just stayed stunt stay humble Stacks hats and it's
24:07
absolutely beautiful. But yeah, it was a very scary
24:10
moment. What you're saying about content
24:14
man? The we're very fortunate of
24:18
Simply to kind of be in the very, very Inception of when you
24:24
started seeing daily Bitcoin shows like we were one of the
24:28
first before it was non-existent.
24:31
You had podcast podcast for very popular but they didn't exist.
24:35
And now all of a sudden not only do you have Bitcoin shows but
24:39
you have these high quality Production, like type of, you
24:43
know, full bells and whistles, and I think that's what's
24:48
necessary because without that what you're really competing
24:52
against this well-entrenched machine, right?
24:56
That's getting this type of information out there.
24:58
If our side doesn't fight back, of course I'm not talking about
25:03
peacefully, I'm not sorry, I'm not talking about violently or
25:06
kinetically but at least provide a counter narrative to a lot of
25:10
the You see media hit pieces, like if you've seen the hit
25:15
Pieces by Reuters against nine buchelli, like it's been,
25:18
absolutely disgusting, but that tells me that they're terrified
25:23
of this thing. They're very, very scared.
25:25
And I'm okay, Lee wrote this amazing article for Bitcoin
25:28
magazine called. Don't drinks the elites
25:30
Kool-Aid, right? Makes the case that they, you
25:34
know, they own the military's, they own the companies, but they
25:37
also control the truth. And that's one of the most
25:40
important things that they have. And the internet has given
25:44
individuals bitcoiners this ability to completely circumvent
25:50
those Gatekeepers of information like you just go all around them
25:53
and you go directly to other individuals and they kind of
25:58
freaked out. They don't know what to do but
26:00
it's crazy and the case that I've been making John and I'm
26:04
curious to hear your thoughts on this is not only a re like
26:08
living through the disintermediation of money.
26:12
But before that, right before that, I think what really
26:15
started was also the disintermediation of
26:18
information, right? And it's just causing this
26:21
complete chaos. You don't know what to think.
26:24
The Legacy sources that Americans have trusted for
26:27
decades and decades have started to lie to, then they've they've
26:30
been the ones that are, you know, telling.
26:33
I don't want to say, lies are very strong word, but you could
26:36
say that their interests have been co-opted by very powerful.
26:41
Oceans, I'll put it gently and it's just what a crazy time to
26:46
be alive. And I think most people are
26:50
asleep to it still and it's a shame.
26:53
So I don't know. What do you think?
26:57
You remind me of the thesis in the incredible book, The
27:02
sovereign individual, which most bitcoiners know very well and
27:08
they liken what is going on in the current ERA to what happened
27:16
around the year, 1500 in the Protestant Reformation, with the
27:21
era of the printing press. And basically, you know, the way
27:26
it goes, Is there is a technological innovation that
27:31
allows for yeah. In this case both information to
27:35
be spread drastically differently than it was
27:38
previously. And you know the tldr is that
27:42
the Stranglehold that the Catholic church had on over
27:45
Europe. Dramatically dramatically fell
27:48
apart and you could trace a lot of it back to the printing press
27:54
and the spreading of that information.
27:57
And this book sovereign individual, when they forecast
28:01
things going forward, one of the things that they highlighted was
28:05
the existence of won't get this. Exactly.
28:08
Right. But they said something like an
28:10
anonymous digital cyber cash and this book is written in, I think
28:15
1997 or give or take a year and they also forecasted something
28:21
that they called narrowcasting. Yes, which essentially is social
28:26
media. So I think your point is a good
28:30
one that obviously, you know, we're all here because of
28:33
Bitcoin and how important we think it is, but it arguably
28:37
goes beyond that. It's disintermediating, the
28:40
people who control the monetary system, whether that's inflating
28:44
the money or whether that is providing access to it.
28:48
Right. Inflation and censorship are
28:50
both the huge things that come with a centralized centrally
28:55
controlled monetary system. Um, whether it's the monetary
28:58
system or whether it is the central control of information
29:01
and narratives if that comes out through just a handful of media
29:07
Outlets that that's arguably pretty centrally controlled and
29:12
nowadays. I think we have a lot more
29:14
voices out there. That doesn't mean every single
29:16
voice is accurate about what they say, but it means that
29:19
centralized parties cannot control the narrative as easily.
29:24
So yeah, I think I think that point is a good one.
29:27
One that it's about the monetary system but it's just about
29:30
decentralization in general. I kind of hate the fact that you
29:34
know so many chick coins out there have abused the word
29:38
decentralize but I'm using the word in the true sense of it
29:42
truly decentralized, social media, truly decentralized
29:45
money. I think it's ultimately a good
29:47
thing and I think it's one of the biggest trends that we're
29:50
going to see play out over the next five, ten, twenty years.
29:53
So another conversation that I had with dr.
29:57
Jeff. Ross is one of the what I call
29:59
the macro heavyweights on Twitter, right?
30:01
Love the guy. You have Greg Foss, you have
30:03
James lavish, you have Lepard, right?
30:06
And you know, dr. Jeff, Ross is, one of the big
30:09
guys, forgive me if I'm missing one but the case that he was
30:15
making says Nico. If we're successful in a way,
30:18
you know, and he's talking about the position of his fund, right?
30:23
It kind of takes away my job and Parker Lewis.
30:27
Who wrote this amazing piece called the gray defying.
30:31
The finance. That's a really difficult word,
30:33
but you know what I'm talking about the D financialization, ha
30:37
I got it, not bad. English is my second language.
30:40
Okay, so so he wrote that piece, and he's basically making the
30:44
case that because money steals from you, right?
30:49
It's not that big of a deal, if you have a hundred dollars,
30:51
right? And the inflation rate is 2.2
30:53
percent, you know, ideally in an Ideal World and next year, Have
30:57
$98, but if you're holding hundreds of millions of dollars,
31:01
that 2% is a giant gaping hole and then you're forced to write
31:06
and not even talking about people that have hundreds of
31:08
millions of dollars to say the dentist or the plumber.
31:10
That makes a good amount of money every year, right?
31:13
He is forced to either become a part-time, investor Outsource
31:18
that responsibility to wealth management, you know, like well
31:24
Goldman being one of them, but there's Wells Fargo, right?
31:27
There's all of them and this kind of creates this bloated
31:31
financial industry. But now the the dynamic
31:35
completely changed, right. Because now all of a sudden the
31:39
plumber doesn't need to invest just to maintain his wealth.
31:44
He could just store his wealth in Bitcoin and in the process,
31:49
right? You have these giant, you know,
31:51
wealth management Banks, whatever they shrink, the lot of
31:54
their business dries up, it goes away.
31:57
And I remember when it was, it was dr.
32:00
Jeff rossen told me for this the first time and I was
32:02
fascinating. I was like, this is crazy.
32:04
So you are a fan of something that can potentially affect, one
32:10
of your businesses. And I thought that was really
32:12
interesting, and I could make the case goes obviously not
32:16
anymore because you're at Swan, right?
32:19
But you could have made the case that that could potentially
32:22
affect some of Goldman's, some of Goldman's Revit of Business.
32:27
And that might be the reason as to why they're not incentivized
32:31
to understand the thing in the first place.
32:36
Totally and you're reminding me of something I've said in the
32:41
past, which is these companies, you know, of course, they prefer
32:47
the world's Capital to be forced into Investments keyword forced
32:53
and their companies just so happen to provide access to
32:57
those Investments and earn pretty juicy fees on, you know
33:00
what a coincidence. So I think, you know, you're
33:03
absolutely right. Companies are incentivized to
33:06
keep the current system going and that Parker Lewis article.
33:11
Bitcoin is the gradient. I have that is one of my top
33:14
five favorite all-time articles content pieces about Bitcoin.
33:20
And I think it hits on what I personally think are the four
33:24
biggest flaws or misunderstandings of our current
33:28
system. So I could I could list those
33:30
quickly but I think we need these to be recognized and
33:33
corrected. It If we're ever going to have a
33:36
healthy stable Financial system and the first one is we fail to
33:41
see a difference between money and debt.
33:44
The second one is we fail to see a difference between saving and
33:47
investing. That's the Parker Lewis thesis
33:50
of that piece. The third one is this belief
33:53
that 2% annual CPI is somehow this magical number.
33:57
That's good for economic growth. And the fourth one is that we
34:01
believe a centralized group of people can control the And
34:05
supply of money and credit without causing with the
34:09
austrians would say malinvestment is just means bad
34:12
business decisions, which actually exacerbates economic
34:16
booms and busts. So I think those are the four
34:19
key economic Dogma ideas of our time that are just outright
34:23
flawed and they're going to need to be recognized and corrected.
34:27
But the one that I'm probably most passionate about is the one
34:31
you brought up which is this idea of saving versus in.
34:35
Investing and what the current system forces people to do, as
34:40
you alluded to not only does a person have to find themselves
34:47
in a position where they could accumulate money and then save
34:50
that money. Now let's think through, how
34:52
does a person find themselves in that position?
34:54
They don't just magically get there.
34:56
So someone would have to listen to their parents.
35:00
Do a good job in school. Take your education.
35:03
Seriously. The skill Market yourself to a
35:07
productive company, or start your own company.
35:09
But let's say, you're, you're getting a job somewhere, you
35:12
compete for that job, then you excel at the job, then the
35:16
company pays you for the work you do.
35:18
And not only that, but what you get paid, you have to defer some
35:23
of your consumption in order to find yourself in a position
35:26
where you're saving money. You can't just consumed every
35:29
dollar that you earned. So I look at all of that and I
35:33
say that's an incredible achievement.
35:35
Ant. That's what people should be
35:36
looking to do. That is enough, if they find
35:39
themselves in a position where they are saving money after they
35:43
produce something of real value and we're voluntarily paid that
35:47
money. They've already contributed to
35:50
society's wealth. They've already produced a
35:53
surplus and they are saving it in the form of money.
35:57
What these people who believe in a ever inflating money supply,
36:02
they believe that person not just has to do that.
36:05
Think that series of steps that I just listed out.
36:08
But they say, you know what, you're going to have to do one
36:11
more, you're going to have to become an amateur investor on
36:15
the nights and the weekends because all that money that you
36:18
just saved up. You're going to have to figure
36:20
out where to put it in your Fidelity account, which ETFs to
36:24
buy which stocks to buy. Oh should I I'll keep the gold
36:28
is energy. Going to do well all these days
36:30
tech stocks going to do all these nonsense questions that
36:33
the average person working at A job in America or any country,
36:37
should not be concerned with these people are forced to do
36:41
this and just to hit on one. Common claim that I've heard is
36:46
some people say, well, no, they don't have to pick the
36:49
Investments themselves. They can just give their money
36:53
to a professional to invest for them.
36:55
That is just simply flawed logic and the reason is because if I
37:01
could pick the professional investor who Is going to
37:05
outperform the market and generate returns.
37:08
How would I go about picking that person?
37:10
If I'm a complete amateur, I can't tell the difference
37:13
between investment, professional a and investment, professional
37:16
be. It's just as hard to pick a
37:19
successful investment manager as it is to pick the investment
37:22
yourself and if you have a job as in the service industry, as a
37:27
truck driver as an Uber driver, as a cashier, you think any, and
37:32
and across any industry, if you work if you're a Chemist, you're
37:35
not going to have the ability to pick a successful investment
37:38
manager. So this whole idea of people
37:42
must become investors, I think is intellectually flawed and
37:46
it's morally flawed. These people should not be
37:48
forced to become investors. And the last thing that I'll say
37:53
on this topic is that there's nothing wrong with investing, it
37:58
should exist. It should just exist in a
38:01
voluntary and transparent way. Meaning if if someone wants to
38:06
take their savings and put it towards an investment pool,
38:10
let's just call it for, you know, generic terminology, they
38:13
can do that and that's great and they might earn a good return by
38:17
doing that but they shouldn't be forced to do it.
38:22
And the reason they're forced to do it is because saving money in
38:26
our current system comes with a negative return.
38:29
And that does not need to be the case.
38:32
So I feel very passionately about this one and I agree with
38:37
your point about if Bitcoin succeeds the financial services
38:41
industry is really really bloated.
38:44
It will exist. There will always be investing
38:47
but it will be significantly smaller than this today.
38:50
And I think that is a massive net benefit for society as a
38:54
whole So it sounds like you're not going back to Goldman then
39:02
you know I don't know if I've completely burned the bridge
39:05
just yet but yeah I don't I don't think it's happening
39:08
anytime soon so yeah and then not to mention also the
39:14
unintended consequences, right? We saw, you know, after 2008
39:17
2009, the rise of hey perhaps you know I don't want to make
39:24
any of these quote-unquote risky.
39:26
Investments. Let me put all my money in an
39:28
index fund and then you create these giant monstrosity Vanguard
39:33
BlackRock that basically own the world and it's not their stuff
39:39
but they sure do inherit all that voting power from, you
39:42
know, holding those assets and then that creates just more
39:47
misaligned incentives caused by the system.
39:52
And another thing that you said that I found fascinating, right?
39:56
Is the, in a way that benefits, the, that benefit.
40:06
That benefits, the average man that benefits.
40:08
The average, the the just the, you know, the average Joe, man.
40:12
They're just trying to save their just trying to, you know,
40:17
earn a living put food on the table for their family.
40:19
Like like all of us really. But now we're kind of getting in
40:24
this, you know, timeline where you No, we're bitcoiners have
40:27
been coining this. I feel like they've been dying
40:30
to say this for a long time. We are definitely entering the
40:33
then they fight you stage. And what what blows my mind,
40:37
right? You know, the recent attempt by
40:40
is bipartisan, by the way Senator, Elizabeth Warren,
40:43
Senator Senator Marshall to basically Force software
40:49
developers to register with the government to write code, right?
40:54
And then, of course, we know that Elizabeth Warren has had
40:57
her crosshairs on bitcoin for a long time now, she wrote this
41:01
strong letter to the CEO Fidelity and of course it's all
41:04
an attempt to slow down adoption, right?
41:08
That's really what it is. I don't think she genuinely
41:10
believes that you can kill this thing but doesn't that blow your
41:14
mind that we live in a world where the government is supposed
41:18
to be by the people for the people.
41:20
But because of the incentives of how the current system works its
41:24
really by the government for the Mint because the politicians
41:28
aren't really interested in serving the constituents it.
41:31
Of course, it's not black and white, but they're more
41:33
interested in how do I get, how do I get closest to the money
41:37
spec it, right? Doesn't that doesn't that for me
41:43
as an immigrant it is the most disheartening unamerican thing
41:47
I've ever seen right? That you have people that are
41:50
more interested in serving themselves.
41:53
Rather than the people that they're supposed to be serving,
41:57
right? Because at the end of the day,
41:58
if you look at inflation and you see inflation for what it is, it
42:02
really does hurt the lower and middle classes, the most much
42:07
more than the upper classes and someone like, Elizabeth Warren.
42:11
The way that she campaigns is that she supposedly for the
42:15
little guy, right? How do you feel about that?
42:18
Because I think what happened last week was absolutely
42:22
historic of You know, According to some friends of mine at be Pi
42:26
has a very low percentage of actually passing, right?
42:30
It's actually seen as an extremist bill in DC, but what
42:35
they're really trying to do is move the Overton window, right?
42:38
Not only that, they are also in the process really showing their
42:43
cards and letting you know, exactly how they feel about this
42:47
thing. You remind me of one of the
42:51
things that came across from reading the sovereign
42:54
individual. And it is this idea that when a
42:58
system is failing, when a system is being threatened is often
43:03
when the leaders, I'll call them leaders of that system.
43:07
Start to act quite irrationally and defensive and start over
43:12
reaching. So the analogy would be the
43:16
things that the Catholic Church did to hold on to power in the
43:19
1500s, the 1600s. And it is some pretty Wild
43:23
things that most people just kind of looked at and said, you
43:27
know, that's crazy, that's, that's clearly overreach.
43:30
But there was nothing that they could really do at the time in
43:34
that moment. But what obviously ended up
43:37
happening was the Catholic Church lost their power over
43:40
Society whether they liked it or not.
43:43
So on the one hand, I look at these things like the the bill
43:47
that was introduced that you mentioned and obviously, I've
43:50
recoil at it because I completely agree.
43:52
It's anti I American and that hits on something that I think
43:56
is super important for bitcoiners to always remember is
44:00
if some if you propose sound money and then you know you say
44:06
I'm a fan of sound money and I think Bitcoin is what it is.
44:09
Going to get us there. The average person is probably
44:12
going to think you just said something very very radical and
44:16
I think it's important for bitcoiners to always remember
44:20
that. We are actually proposing going
44:22
back to a System that we had for hundreds, if not hundreds of
44:27
years. Let's just say, that is very
44:30
important. We need to remind people that
44:33
this system of whether it's commercial Banks, the FED
44:38
eurodollar offshore Banks, whoever's whoever's creating new
44:42
units of money and credit out of thin air.
44:45
That is actually an anomaly. That is the more recent change
44:49
in our system. So if the United States was able
44:53
to function from its founding in the late 1700s up until let's
44:58
just say 1913 when the Fed was created, we functioned in a
45:02
world of mostly sound money during that time period.
45:06
So it's not as if we are proposing some crazy things,
45:10
some radical solution we're actually proposing that we go
45:13
back to a system that is more consistent with the founding
45:17
principles of this country. For sure, one of the things that
45:21
I am a little bit. That makes makes me have a
45:26
little bit of Hope for what's going on in America.
45:28
Is if you look at some of these stats about the top 20, they
45:33
call it crypto penetration and we probably should take it with
45:36
a grain of salt, but it's usually developed markets that
45:40
have started developing markets that have had some sort of
45:44
totalitarian regime, currency crisis, capital controls, Etc.
45:50
And then the United States is in there.
45:53
And I take that as a small positive, that maybe there are
45:57
people in the US that have not lost sight of the founding
46:00
principles of this country, that the government is not supposed
46:03
to be this thing that just knows and sees everything that happens
46:07
in your life. And you ask it for your for your
46:09
freedoms. That is absolutely not how this
46:11
country was founded. This country was founded in a
46:14
way that the government has limited and defined rights.
46:18
And one of those is not to have a form of currency that they
46:22
have. Control over whether that be
46:24
creating it, censoring it Etc. So those are generally my
46:28
thoughts on that. Some of it is more pessimistic
46:32
because just the very fact that a bill, like, that is being
46:34
proposed, is obviously not a good thing.
46:38
But I think there is reason to be optimistic because I think
46:42
this might be a situation, like, the 1500s where there has
46:45
emerged a new technology, a new design that no matter how much
46:50
the powers that be want to resisted.
46:53
It might be the case that eventually they can't resist it,
46:55
they might be able to slow it, but I think there's a good case
46:58
to be made that they can't resist it.
47:00
And I am somewhat optimistic. That there are at least a chunk
47:05
of people in America who recognize the principles that
47:08
this country was founded on. So, hopefully Bitcoin is
47:12
something that that brings that more to light amongst those type
47:16
of people. Absolutely, and you said
47:18
something really interesting that, you know, being an
47:21
educator being a bit coin Edge, Cater for about six years now,
47:25
pitching Bitcoin to someone who grew up in Venezuela, pitching
47:30
Bitcoin to someone who grew up in Argentina pitching Bitcoin.
47:34
To someone you grew up in Turkey on government.
47:37
Money Cap Supply. Can't be the base camp.
47:39
Be sensor like hot. Where do I sign up?
47:41
It's great pitching Bitcoin to someone in a developed country.
47:47
The West, whoo! They don't have that incentive
47:52
because the incentive in developing world is they're
47:55
adopting it out of necessity versus People in you know Alex
48:01
gladstein wrote an amazing book reality is and developed world.
48:05
We have Financial privilege, right?
48:06
We have great rails, relatively small inflation which I love the
48:13
way that Jeff Booth frames it, right.
48:15
It's like it's not big enough for you to realize that you're
48:17
being stolen from right. So, and I completely agree with
48:22
you, you can't stop an idea whose time has come and I think
48:26
that's where we really are with bit.
48:28
Coin. But I'll tell you this, and I
48:31
was coming to kind of the same conclusion, because I've been
48:36
working in media, man. You're a slave to the new cycle,
48:41
every single. It's War.
48:42
Like I'm not exaggerating when I say that.
48:45
Like, they are releasing articles, it's very tactful.
48:48
You've hit pieces. New York Times writer in.
48:51
This is dropping and you have to debunk them, you have to go
48:53
methodically and then it gives you kind of like this very
48:57
detailed. Chronological order of how
48:59
things are developing and you see the dark clouds on the
49:03
horizon coming towards you. And I'm like, war is coming like
49:07
again, like, not kinetic. But like it's coming.
49:10
And these people are coming hard and you last week, really was
49:15
from my perspective. When the hammer really fell and
49:19
it really reminds me of the article that you know, Corey
49:24
wrote right? The race to avoid the war and
49:27
then Michael sailor had This very powerful speech because I
49:30
want to be a winner, I don't want to be a martyr and I think
49:33
we all kind of feel that way. And John where do you see
49:39
yourself as an individual in this war?
49:43
We're you know, Corey says to avoid the war.
49:46
Maybe I see it differently because I'm in media where we're
49:48
already in one. Where do you see yourself in all
49:53
this? Where do you see yourself in the
49:56
Cog, right? What what, what?
49:58
What fight, what good fight are you fighting?
50:01
And how is it pushing the peaceful Bitcoin Revolution?
50:07
I think I have a pretty clear role in this war given my
50:12
background and my interest. So let me start by saying what
50:17
part of the war. I'm not going to be fighting and
50:20
that is the part of doing something, very technical and
50:25
building something on bitcoin. Whether it's a privacy tool or
50:30
any other tool that allows us to use and interact with the
50:32
Bitcoin Network and the various devices more easily.
50:37
That's just not my background. I am so thankful that we have so
50:40
many smart people working on those things, but that, that is
50:44
not me where I think I can make, the biggest impact on spreading
50:53
Bitcoin and this race to avoid the war.
50:56
Is in expressing, why sound money is not just morally or
51:04
ethically defensible, but it's also intellectually defensible.
51:08
So, I think this is absolutely critical because if you take
51:14
someone, the average person on the street and they believe like
51:19
you mentioned your buddy, who said that the people need
51:22
monetary policy, which is hilarious, but That person
51:27
believes that they don't believe that sound money, which I will
51:32
Define as non-state immutable fixed Supply.
51:35
Digital censorship resistant peer-to-peer Etc Bitcoin that
51:41
that will bring about a better economy and a better Society
51:45
than a system where a select few privileged people and entities
51:49
can create new money and credit out of thin air.
51:53
If someone doesn't believe that if they actually is that a
51:57
central bank or commercial Banks or offshore euro dollar Banks,
52:02
whatever money, Creator, pick it yourself.
52:04
If they believe that money and credit being created out of
52:07
thin, air leads to better economic growth.
52:11
Then they don't actually they don't care about Bitcoin, you'll
52:14
never get to even explaining what Bitcoin is.
52:17
You won't be able to say anything about hashes and minors
52:21
and mem pools and nonces and sha-256 and private keys because
52:26
They won't care. They will just say sound money
52:29
is actually bad. So I think that's the first
52:33
thing that we need to get across to people is why is sound money
52:38
and Bitcoin is what gives us sound money?
52:41
Why is that going to bring about a better economy and a society
52:46
then unsound money? And I think thankfully, this is
52:50
not one of those things where we belong you had your Burt, you
52:55
buried the lead there. And I would love to get your
52:58
perspective on this. Why is it going to create a
53:01
better society and a better economy?
53:03
Why sound money going to do that?
53:07
So that obviously, yeah, great question.
53:09
We could focus on that for a while but elevator pitch.
53:14
Yeah, yeah. There's there's a mortal angle
53:16
here and there's an intellectual angle here.
53:19
The moral angle, is that anytime someone creates new units Of
53:23
Money / credit, I'll say it's you.
53:26
Have to kind of say that because credit gets created in our
53:30
current system and it circulates as money.
53:32
So it whether you're creating credit, you're effectively,
53:34
create money in the current system.
53:36
So, whoever is creating new units of money or credit.
53:40
You dilute the pre-existing holders of money.
53:44
That is wealth confiscation. That is just an objective
53:47
observation. If someone tries there, plenty
53:50
of things in this world that are debatable.
53:52
That is not one of them. That is just objective
53:54
observation. So, so what happens when people
53:58
have the feeling that they're being their wealth is being
54:01
confiscated, this basically leads to what Bitcoin is called.
54:06
High time. Preference people will have a
54:09
preference for things happening in the present versus things
54:13
happening in the future. What happens to a society that
54:16
is very focused on things happening in the present rather
54:20
than building for the future. That is not a society that ends
54:23
up making it for the long term because they don't have a future
54:26
out. That could be systems of
54:30
government that could be systems of science Health, Care food,
54:34
education, architecture, Etc. When time preference shifts to
54:40
an Outlook, towards the future. All of those systems that
54:43
underpin our society become better and stronger.
54:46
And the reverse is true. When people start caring about
54:49
the present, the most, all of those systems start to break
54:52
down. So that is a nutshell of why.
54:56
By creating money and credit out of thin.
54:59
Air is just is just flat-out immoral because you're
55:01
confiscating the wealth of other people who did not have a say in
55:04
the matter. Most people don't even know that
55:05
it's happening and then more intellectually, we actually get
55:10
better systems, that underpin our society and just
55:13
economically speaking. Last thing I'll say is when you
55:17
have money and credit creation out of thin air, the short way
55:21
to say this is it creates economic distortions and it
55:24
creates outright economic destruction In basically in
55:28
layman's terms, what that means is creating money and credit out
55:32
of thin, air confuses, economic, participants.
55:36
This is what gives us the boom-bust business cycle.
55:39
It gives us recessions. We don't actually experience as
55:42
much economic growth as we could otherwise and icing on the cake.
55:48
You know, in case anyone is not sure the best way to raise
55:51
people, out of poverty is economic growth.
55:54
It is producing more goods and services.
55:56
Has if you mess with the system that produces goods and services
56:00
you've reduce economic growth, it actually leads to destruction
56:04
in the human material world. So thankfully Bitcoin and sound
56:09
money is one of these things that it's not just morally
56:12
defensible. It's also intellectually
56:14
defensible Beautifully said, so we have time for one last
56:20
question, John and this is something that I've spoken at
56:24
length with multiple people and I'll everyone just gives
56:27
different answers. Alex specifically, shout out,
56:33
bro. Cafe Bitcoins.
56:35
Awesome. What are some of the most
56:39
difficult obstacles that you have seen educating?
56:46
Clients right? Specifically, when it comes to,
56:52
you know, Swan private right? What has been one of the most
56:59
one of the, one of the largest obstacles because my perspective
57:02
are being a Bitcoin educator. What I tend to run into
57:07
specifically with, you know, older very successful gentleman
57:11
is, you know, they are looking at this thing, purely from an
57:16
investment perspective and one of the questions I always get is
57:20
so yeah, Bitcoin is great. And the, the line I never forget
57:24
this John and never forget. This is like looks at me.
57:27
Straight in the eye, says Nico. I get it.
57:31
But for me, the revolution is cool and all, but from an
57:35
investment perspective, how do I?
57:37
How do I, how do I benefit from this?
57:39
And it does that question, or that statement led to look at
57:45
aetherium, etherium is outperforming Bitcoin?
57:48
So how do you convince clients, right?
57:51
How do you convince people that are potentially interested in
57:55
investing in Bitcoin? Even though I hate using that
57:58
terminology into Choosing Bitcoin not crypto.
58:04
So I would say we have a very wide range of people that come
58:09
to Swan and that at you nose and so on private, and many of them
58:13
are highly educated on bitcoin and they've spent a long time
58:18
and probably as long time on it and and thanks to the quarries,
58:23
you know, war path, that he's been on this year.
58:25
I think swan has just developed a reputation for being very
58:30
Outspokenly Bitcoin only so there's probably not as many
58:35
people coming and saying hey I'm interested in the theorem but
58:38
with that said some people they know Swan is Bitcoin, only know
58:42
they suck, hold on, hold on. Yes oh yes, Swan is Hardcore
58:47
Bitcoin only a fax 100% but a lot of older people right?
58:53
Might not necessarily be attracted to or might not even
58:57
care to be frank, right? Because The Fiat system has
59:01
treated them extremely well, right?
59:04
So how do you convert these people or are you looking at it
59:09
from the angle of Maybe they just don't need conversion.
59:15
Like how do you approach that John?
59:18
So those types of people, I would say, you know, I would ask
59:22
them what your, why are you allocating to bitcoin?
59:25
Why do you want to hold the coin at all?
59:27
And then I'd say, you know, why do you want to hold aetherium at
59:31
all? And I think the two tokens if
59:35
you will that the tokens networks.
59:38
They're just so so different from one another Bitcoin is a
59:41
finished product. I would call it that has a clear
59:47
intent and thesis on what it is meant to be.
59:50
I think how many times has a theory mm changed their
59:53
narrative about what they are exactly.
59:55
I couldn't even tell you what the latest one is and it's
59:58
constantly changing and it still requires lots of development to
1:00:01
get where they want it to go. It's not an immutable.
1:00:05
Scarce non-state digital peer-to-peer censorship
1:00:08
resistant money that I know for sure.
1:00:11
If someone just says, hey, In this for the monetary gains and
1:00:15
I want to get into crypto for that reason.
1:00:17
I would say, you know what, sure you can do that.
1:00:20
By the way, you can also go to a physical casino and do that and
1:00:25
you can actually have drinks served to you which, you know,
1:00:27
you can't do when you invest in etherium.
1:00:29
But what I would say to them is if you're going to invest in
1:00:34
crypto any crypto I would say what do you think you are going
1:00:38
to know that is going to allow you to get out at the right
1:00:42
time? And by the way, You need to get
1:00:43
out at the right time because swans Sam Callaghan.
1:00:47
Shout out to Sam has done the research on this to show how
1:00:51
it's like two or three coins have ever made a second all-time
1:00:56
high in Bitcoin terms. And when you go through, which
1:00:59
ones they are, it's like kind of explainable.
1:01:02
I think it's like Dogecoin had a second pump for some reason.
1:01:05
Basically these loans have. Yeah, these coins have like a
1:01:10
day in the Sun and and usually it just goes.
1:01:13
Back down, doesn't come back up and that so, basically, you need
1:01:18
to play this game, where it's a fun game while you're on it,
1:01:20
going up and you need to know exactly when to get off and if
1:01:23
you're the Silicon Valley, Solana pump-and-dump guys, who
1:01:27
got in at a discount and then they got out right before retail
1:01:30
was left holding the bag. Yeah, that's great for them if
1:01:34
and then they brag about it on their podcast, right?
1:01:36
But if you are, someone who's just Joe on the street and you
1:01:41
don't have basically inside information, Option for when
1:01:43
everyone's going to simultaneously pump, the crypto
1:01:46
token that you got in on your basically just playing at the
1:01:49
roulette table is what I would tell those people 100% and
1:01:53
that's exactly right. That's what I've said before and
1:01:55
that argument, right, because everyone's like oh the dollar
1:01:58
amount and then you're always like it's not about the dollar
1:02:01
amount. It's how does it perform against
1:02:04
Bitcoin and aetherium has still not been able to make the
1:02:08
all-time high of 2017 and I think that really is The
1:02:13
strongest argument as to why Bitcoin not crypto.
1:02:17
Of course, this is a decentralization, the
1:02:19
immutability rules without rulers.
1:02:22
All the beautiful stuff that we love about Bitcoin, but John, I
1:02:26
really enjoyed this. Rip, man, it was great.
1:02:28
Getting to know you getting to know you and talking about your
1:02:33
experiences and I'm sure as hell going to send this podcast to my
1:02:37
buddy over at Goldman and let's see if he listens to it back.
1:02:43
Steagall great to be here and we will definitely talk more about
1:02:46
this soon. Thanks for having me.
1:02:48
We're why don't you tell everybody where they can find
1:02:49
you? Sure.
1:02:50
So, on Twitter, it's John at Swan that's John underscore at
1:02:55
underscore Swan and part of the Swan private teams.
1:02:59
That's our high-net-worth concierge offering at Swan and
1:03:04
so I interact with clients and I'm also trying to put out some
1:03:07
content every now and then so I have an article called how
1:03:09
Legacy Finance perceives Bitcoin Nico Send that to your buddy.
1:03:14
Who is still at Goldman? And then I'm working on another
1:03:17
article called. Why fixed Supply money does not
1:03:21
lead to economic catastrophe. So hopefully at some point that
1:03:24
will become public soon and look forward to sharing that with
1:03:27
people. Well, I appreciate you coming on
1:03:29
John. I'm going to put you back stage
1:03:31
for about 10-15 seconds or just slight delay.
1:03:34
Wrap it up, guys. Thank you so much for joining us
1:03:37
on another episode of Simply Bitcoin.
1:03:38
I remember this show is powered by Swan Bitcoin best place to
1:03:42
Stacks at It's definitely go check out.
1:03:44
So on bitcoin.com, we will see you tomorrow at 12:15 p.m.
1:03:48
Eastern Standard Time for simply Bitcoin live love you all.
1:03:53
Catch you guys later.