Latest / Simply Bitcoin / Vijay Boyapati | You Are Early to Bitcoin | Simply Bitcoin IRL

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Vijay Boyapati | You Are Early to Bitcoin | Simply Bitcoin IRL · Simply Bitcoin

0:06
Yeah, welcome to another episode of Simply Bitcoin IRL.
0:10
Today we have a well, first of all, happy to be back.
0:13
We haven't done an IRL in a couple weeks.
0:15
I think the last guest was Parker Lewis.
0:17
We have a very special guest lined up for you guys today, the
0:20
author of the Bullish Case for Bitcoin and also fellow
0:24
coworker. With me over at Swan Bitcoin we
0:27
have Vijay Boyapati. I'm super excited for this
0:30
episode, Vijay. We just we just crossed paths in
0:33
California, man. It was super awesome to see you
0:37
and now it's super awesome to work with you as well.
0:40
So how you doing, man? Yeah, I had a great time at
0:43
Pacific Bitcoin and it was great doing a panel with you.
0:46
I guess it wasn't a panel. It was kind of a fun game.
0:51
But yeah, I'm super excited to be part of Swan and honestly,
0:56
Pacific Bitcoin. I didn't say this.
1:00
But it just occurred to me the feeling I had when I was there
1:03
was the same feeling I had at the first Bitcoin conference I
1:06
went to, which was almost exactly 10 years ago.
1:09
The the first Bitcoin conference I went to was in 2013 in San
1:14
Jose. It was just the Bitcoin
1:17
conference, which is called the Bitcoin conference.
1:18
It was there wasn't really any other conferences.
1:21
There were no sheet coin conferences.
1:23
It's just the Bitcoin conference and.
1:26
I just remember the sense of excitement, just how cool this
1:31
was. Like this.
1:32
People were just discovering Bitcoin and like, this could
1:36
potentially change the world. I got that same kind of sense of
1:40
excitement at Pacific Bitcoin and just the sense of fun as
1:43
well. Which is really awesome.
1:45
Yeah, yeah, it was. I never forgot the Pacific
1:49
Bitcoin. And and I and I felt that energy
1:51
too. And I've, I've heard that for
1:53
multiple people. And I never forgot last year
1:56
where price of Bitcoin was sitting at like $16,000.
2:00
And you have Michael Saylor sitting in front row watching
2:04
every single panel. This guy's down billions of
2:07
dollars, right? And he's just coolheaded looking
2:10
at the panel, trying to have a good time talking to other
2:13
bitcoiners. So that feeling of that energy,
2:17
I don't know if it's the the airplane hangar or you know, the
2:20
way that Swan throws these events.
2:22
They're very, very special. They're homey in a way.
2:25
And I think in and I love the Bitcoin conferences, but maybe
2:29
it's the size, like the, you know, the Bitcoin conference is
2:32
thrown by Bitcoin Magazine, but maybe it's the size.
2:34
I don't know what it is. Maybe it's that California
2:36
feeling. I don't know.
2:38
But I I know exactly what you're talking about when you say that
2:40
it's it's a it's definitely a very, very special event.
2:43
So, you know, your presentation on stage was absolutely epic
2:48
because you started to undress yourself.
2:49
And what I mean by that is you, you know, you took off your
2:53
sweater and you showed something.
2:56
It was a pretty epic introduction for you joining
2:59
Swan. So my question is why did you
3:02
join Swan in the 1st place? What what made you want to work
3:04
here or work that? Oh.
3:05
That is a good question. Well.
3:08
The way it happened, I'll just tell a brief story.
3:10
I got an e-mail from Corey, obviously CEO of Swan.
3:14
I got an e-mail from him out of the blue saying I wanna chat
3:17
with you. And it was on a Friday and I
3:19
said, you know, I'm taking the kids camping, I can't do a call
3:23
right now. And he said OK Monday and I I
3:26
took the call zoom call on Monday and I thought he was
3:30
gonna ask me about. Like, Swan might be raising some
3:33
money, it's a great company. Or maybe he was going to invite
3:36
me to Pacific Bitcoin or something like that.
3:38
But when I got on the call, he was on the call with yarn as
3:40
well, which surprised me a little bit.
3:43
And I was like, what's going on here?
3:45
And he asked me about how my job was going and he asked about a
3:49
company that I didn't work for anymore.
3:50
Because I didn't keep LinkedIn updated, I didn't really use
3:53
LinkedIn, so I had like a job listed on there from like 7
3:57
years ago. And he was like, how's that
3:59
going? And I was like, oh, you know, I
4:01
don't really work there anymore. And he said, well, we want to
4:05
just take a shot and see if you want to work at Swan.
4:07
And I was so blown away. I did not expect that at all.
4:13
I I had expected an invitation to Pacific Bitcoin to speak or
4:16
something like that. And and I I thought, huh, that's
4:22
interesting. So let me find out about Swan.
4:25
I knew Swan was Bitcoin only and I knew what the business
4:28
generally was, but I didn't know that much and I didn't know
4:32
exactly who worked there. And so I spent the next week or
4:35
two just speaking with with people at Swan and I was
4:39
honestly blown away. Like the team that Corey and Jan
4:43
and Brady have put together is awesome and the philosophy of
4:47
like, this is a Bitcoin company, we're all Bitcoin is.
4:51
There's no non. Bitcoin is.
4:53
It's like Corey told a funny story actually.
4:56
He was like, we're interviewing this engineering candidate who's
5:00
like pretty good. And one of the questions he had
5:03
was, what's your favorite Stefan Lovera episode?
5:08
And the person didn't know the podcast.
5:10
And Corey's like, no, no, no, we're not, we're not hiring.
5:14
So it's like really hardcore. It's like this is a Bitcoin only
5:18
company and I thought that was so cool.
5:21
Because I've been interested in Bitcoin for a long time now,
5:24
since 2011, and I've always been supportive of the companies in
5:30
the space. But to be able to work at one
5:33
and to be surrounded by Bitcoin, as some people who love Bitcoin
5:36
and you know to be able to hang out with you and and folks like
5:40
you is just it's honestly a dream for me to be able to join
5:43
Swan. So that's that's how I ended up
5:46
at Swan. Yeah man that's.
5:48
So first of all that back story is super interesting.
5:52
Yeah it's it's a it's a company full of bitcoiners complete on
5:55
the mission. It's a Bitcoin only company
5:58
right. So yeah it's it's a you know and
6:01
and it's it's what you said there's it's incredible group of
6:04
extremely talented bitcoiners, hardcore bitcoiners that that
6:10
are totally on the mission. So it's it's super, super happy
6:13
to, I'm super happy to have you like you know, part of the fold,
6:15
part of the family and yeah, man, upwards and onwards.
6:20
Anyways, man, so you did a presentation on the bullish case
6:23
for Bitcoin. That's what that's, you know,
6:25
that's what you're known for. You know I think it was Michael
6:28
Saylor. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
6:30
VJ that wrote the preface to this incredible article that
6:34
eventually became a book, right, Which is absolutely insane when
6:39
you wrote that initially and it's been a while now since it
6:42
was first release. Did you have any inclination?
6:46
You know, because sometimes I'll make a video.
6:47
So, like, I like, I love making content.
6:49
I love making videos. And sometimes when I make a
6:51
video or when I title something properly, I have a, like,
6:54
there's a little voice in the back of my head that's like,
6:57
this is going to pop off. I'm very confident about that.
7:00
You don't know to what extent, but you're like, OK, I'm pretty
7:03
sure this one's going to do really well.
7:05
That being said, did you have any idea that that article, that
7:10
Medium article that then became a book, was just going to blow
7:14
everyone's minds away? Not at all.
7:17
Not at all. And I mentioned this at the
7:19
start of my talk at Pacific Bitcoin.
7:21
I said I and honestly thought that it would be read by a few
7:25
friends and family members, people who knew me and knew that
7:28
I was really into Bitcoin, and probably getting annoyed at me
7:32
talking about Bitcoin all the time.
7:35
I think I did have a little bit of hope that it would be.
7:39
May be read by a few people outside of my friends and family
7:42
circle. And I was hoping like my big
7:44
hope was maybe a few people on Wall Street will read this and
7:48
it'll click for them and they'll be like, oh, oh, I get it.
7:52
This isn't some like this isn't Beanie Babies or something like
7:56
that. This is there's something
7:57
fundamental here that's really important and and it would click
8:01
for a few people. I had no idea what happened
8:04
would happen. None at all.
8:07
And it got it's been read over a million times.
8:09
It's been translated and and not by me but by volunteers in the
8:14
20 different languages. I think it hit on a nerve
8:19
because people at the time were trying to understand like this
8:23
was the I started writing it in the beginning of 2017, and I'm a
8:27
really slow writer, and I only published at the end of, sorry,
8:31
the beginning of 2018. But I think at the time it hit a
8:35
no, because people really wanted to understand Bitcoin.
8:37
That was the first wave of like regular people coming to
8:41
Bitcoin. Before that, it was kind of like
8:43
a libertarian cypherpunk thing. It wasn't like regular, not that
8:48
many regular people cared about Bitcoin.
8:50
I think 2017 was the first wave of regular people and that was
8:56
just a lot of interest. Like, what is this thing?
8:58
Why is it becoming so valuable and and so I think.
9:03
I I've been thinking about it since 2011.
9:06
I have background in Austrian economics and I put a lot of
9:09
thought into like why does this have value?
9:12
To me that's the most important question.
9:13
Why does it have any value? Why is it why is it more than 0.
9:17
And and I think there's like a good economic argument for why
9:21
it does and and that's what I put into my article.
9:25
I think it can know because people were trying to answer
9:27
that exact same question like why does this thing have value?
9:30
And then it just got, you know, momentum of its own and.
9:33
It got shared around a lot and you know, was mentioned on in
9:38
some media and podcasts and stuff like that, and it kind of
9:41
blew up and then people started translating it and that's in 20
9:44
different languages. So yeah, it got a momentum of
9:48
its own. And then the doing the book was
9:51
an interesting thing because I was like, people kept asking me
9:55
to turn it into a book because they were literally physically
9:59
printing it out and giving it to people.
10:01
Like, hey. You know, Bitcoin is like to
10:03
evangelize a little bit because they've discovered something
10:06
important. They want other people to know
10:07
about it. And so they're printing out my
10:10
article and they're like, can you just turn it into a book so
10:12
I can give them a book. It looks better if it's a book.
10:15
I was like, I don't, I don't really want to do that because
10:17
like, I don't know what I'd want to add to the article.
10:20
I don't want to just like type the article into a book and
10:23
publish it. But a few years later, I, I a
10:27
bunch of stuff had happened. The pandemic had happened and
10:29
the Federal Reserve had gone completely crazy and.
10:32
Created trillions of dollars in new money.
10:35
And I thought, OK, there's some new stuff that I want to revisit
10:39
and I could add to the article. And so the book is quite a bit
10:42
expanded. It's like it, it has like a
10:46
bunch of stuff that's not in the article.
10:49
And I revisited that in 2021. And The funny thing is, like
10:55
when I started, when I launched it and I started selling it, I
10:58
remember going to the Swan Dome. At the Miami Bitcoin conference
11:02
and I I've had this relationship with Swan for a while actually,
11:06
where like, I really like this one.
11:08
People like hanging out with them.
11:10
And I remember basically launching my book in the Swan
11:13
Dome when it's like 100 degrees out.
11:16
And inside the Dome it was like probably 120 degrees.
11:19
And it was a madhouse in there. It was like hundreds of people.
11:24
There's a line outside the Swan Dome.
11:27
It it blows my mind because this is not my.
11:31
This is not my background. I'm not an author.
11:33
I don't consider myself an author.
11:35
I'm not an economist by training.
11:37
I'm an engineer by training and you know, pretty introverted
11:41
engineer. So the attention that's got has
11:44
been way beyond what I thought would would happen.
11:48
Yeah. No and and and well deserved I
11:50
might add. You know, that's an incredible
11:53
piece. It, you know, I remember when I
11:55
read it for the first time, it really, really resonated with
11:57
me. And I remember that Swan Dome,
11:59
that was Bitcoin 2021. They set up the Swan Dome
12:03
outside. That's when they threw the
12:04
conference, not on Miami Beach, but in Wynwood.
12:07
Yeah. And then, you know, Fast forward
12:08
a couple years later, you could never have imagined, you know,
12:10
myself included, very similar story, I might add.
12:13
Right. Kind of back and forth with
12:15
Corey for a while and then one thing led to another.
12:19
Now my question to you is, Vijay, so you wrote this piece.
12:23
Things obviously, things have obviously changed, right.
12:25
I think things have changed for the better, whether you know the
12:28
change of the FASB accounting rules, whether it's the black,
12:31
you know, the BlackRock ETF, whether it's these large banks
12:35
that are filing or applying for licenses to custody Bitcoin for
12:39
their clients, right. You have this, you know, you
12:42
kind of one of the narratives in 2017, one of the coping
12:45
narratives, right when the 2018 bear market hit was the
12:49
institutions are coming, the institutions are coming, you
12:51
know, and that was a bullshit back then.
12:54
You can't say that that isn't true anymore.
12:57
There's clearly institutional interest.
13:01
Gary Genzler was absolutely grilled in Congress, you know,
13:06
it's by Tom Emmer and a bunch of other representatives.
13:11
And they absolutely massacred. I felt bad for the guy.
13:13
I almost felt bad for the guy, Better said.
13:17
And yeah, so it's definitely been a long time.
13:21
A lot of things have happened since you've written the piece.
13:24
What has changed in your perspective?
13:26
What are the did you think that this was all of this would have
13:31
happened as soon as it happened? That's a good question.
13:36
I think the market in general is just so much more mature than it
13:40
was. And I think you're right, the
13:41
institutional interest has definitely appeared in like in
13:46
real life. And I think that's basically
13:51
organic. I think it's not because the
13:54
institutions recognize, hey, we should be doing something with
13:57
Bitcoin just on their own. It's because their clients were
14:00
asking them that. It was because they were getting
14:03
so much. Interest from their regular
14:06
customers saying can can you provide me with a Bitcoin
14:09
product here because I want to invest in how do I invest in
14:12
Bitcoin. They didn't have anything, they
14:14
didn't have any offerings. So a lot of these banks and now
14:18
BlackRock are looking at that and saying that our clients want
14:22
this, we need to do something here.
14:24
So I think that came organically, didn't come because
14:26
they had had like this moment of insight or reflection.
14:31
So I I also don't want to give those.
14:33
Institutions too much credit. I think also the big difference
14:39
that I feel from between now and 2017 is I don't have any real
14:44
worry about Bitcoin surviving. 2017 was actually really
14:48
worrying year for me. You probably remember the block
14:51
size was it was the one time I was like Bitcoin survival is at
14:57
stake right now. Because the biggest, most
15:00
powerful companies in the space are trying to change Bitcoin in
15:04
a way that it would basically become what Ethereum is.
15:07
It's just a piece of software that you can change and twiddle
15:11
with and like it. It doesn't have that core
15:15
property of immutability like this can't be tampered with.
15:18
The fact that it can't be tampered with is really what
15:21
gives bitcoins so much power. Because it can't be bent, it
15:25
can't be manipulated, The supply can't be changed.
15:28
And we've never really had in the history of humanity
15:31
institution A monetary institution that can't be
15:35
tampered with. So I was worried in 2017 and
15:40
that that concern after the block size wars and the fact
15:43
that the the biggest companies in the space and the biggest
15:47
miner and some of the biggest holders in the space couldn't
15:51
change Bitcoin, that gave me so much confidence and Peace of
15:56
Mind that this is going to. This isn't gonna die for me.
15:59
I already believe that Bitcoin is a permanent institution in
16:03
the world in the same way that most people believe the
16:05
Internet's a permanent institution.
16:07
I just can't imagine a world where we don't have the Internet
16:10
unless it's like, you know, a game over a comet has hit the
16:13
Earth and we've knocked back to like.
16:16
Precivilization. I think the Internet's opponent
16:19
institution in the world, and I think Bitcoin is too.
16:21
I think the rest of the world probably has another decade or
16:24
so to catch up to that belief where people like, yeah,
16:27
bitcoin's not going anywhere. It's sticking around.
16:30
And I'm talking about the, you know, the vast majority of
16:32
people that there is a pretty significant number of people out
16:37
there who already believe this, but there's still like you know,
16:41
the late, late majority in terms of the adoption curve.
16:45
They still need to figure this out.
16:46
This is like the Internet's not going away because the world
16:49
needs it and it's gonna be so entrenched that everyone's gonna
16:52
have some Bitcoin and keep keep savings in Bitcoin.
16:55
So it's really interesting what you said about the adoption on
16:59
the adoption curve. You think we're already at the
17:01
early majority stage? Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
17:05
I I should know we're before that we what's the one before
17:09
the early majority innovators, innovators, innovators, yeah, I
17:12
think we're somewhere in that innovators stage.
17:15
The early majority and the late majority, those there's still
17:19
like, I don't know what it is in the world.
17:21
Probably 9095% of the world still needs to figure this out
17:25
because your mindset changes right when you when you think,
17:27
OK, bitcoin's never going away, it's never going to be tampered
17:31
with. So what's its value then?
17:35
If if you combine those two things that it's never going
17:38
away and people can't tamper with it, it's hugely valuable,
17:43
there you go. Perfect.
17:46
Yeah, I would. I would say we're still
17:49
somewhere in the early adopters phase, maybe like 1/4 of the way
17:52
through early adopters. There's still a lot of people
17:55
who who haven't figured Bitcoin out, but literally billions of
17:59
people haven't figured it out. So what you're saying is that
18:02
we're not late to Bitcoin. What would you say to cuz this
18:05
is one of the also the another narrative Vijay and I think a
18:08
lot of people don't understand. And my piece of advice is, look
18:11
guys, back in 10 years ago and the price of Bitcoin was like
18:14
$100, if I would have told you the price of Bitcoin would have
18:16
been $26,000, you would have laughed me out of the room,
18:19
right. I think a lot of people feel
18:22
like they've missed the boat. A lot of people feel like
18:24
they've missed the party. And you know, for the last five
18:27
years, a lot of people also believe that the, the
18:30
exponential gains are behind us and you know, the opportunity is
18:34
gone. What would your response be to
18:36
them? You know, because we have in a,
18:38
in a way, you know, this is the first cycle where the price of
18:42
Bitcoin went below the previous all time highs.
18:45
And I think that unsettled a lot of people when we broke below 20
18:48
K well are you know, are we still early is is, is there
18:52
still opportunity in Bitcoin if people are looking to invest or
18:55
keep their savings in there? What would your response to them
18:58
be? I think one thing I like to
19:01
point out to people is that no matter when you buy Bitcoin, and
19:05
this is true for absolutely everyone, you feel like you're
19:08
late. And and that was true for me,
19:10
you know, when I I got my first Bitcoin, when they were like $10
19:14
or something like that. And it's like because everyone
19:16
just looks at the past. And there's a term for this,
19:19
It's called path dependents. Your view about the the value of
19:23
something that's path dependent is based on what the price was
19:27
before. And you look at it and you're
19:29
like, oh man, I bought Bitcoin for $10.00, but it was like just
19:32
six months ago, It was like $0.50.
19:35
So I'm buying the top. People who bought it 100 felt
19:38
the same way. People who bought it 1000 felt
19:40
the same way. People who bought it 10,000 felt
19:42
the same way. Just in terms of the adoption
19:46
code, we're clearly very, very early.
19:50
One other observation I'll have is like you can look at say tech
19:54
companies and one a feeling that even I had in 2000, was it 2009,
20:02
2008, sometime around there, the tech companies were big
20:05
companies. They were worth hundreds of
20:07
billions of dollars. And I was like, man, how are how
20:11
are these companies gonna get any bigger than this?
20:13
They're like massive companies and over the next decade they
20:18
10X that. Like Google went from being like
20:22
a $200 billion company to a $2 trillion company or ballpark $2
20:26
trillion. And there was still so much
20:30
growth ahead and they they were much more late later stage than
20:34
Bitcoin is. I I think Bitcoin still has 100X
20:38
in it. So I I still think we're
20:42
incredibly early and if something has 100 X, you're
20:45
still at the starting line essentially, you're still at
20:49
that first one percent first step of the total value that's
20:52
going to be captured. It's just that's the the reason
20:56
people feel like they're late is because of path dependence.
20:59
They see the prior history of the price and that's what helps.
21:02
That's what determines for them, like whether they're getting in
21:05
early or late. It's only in hindsight that
21:08
they're like, oh, I get it, you know, I got in early.
21:12
The one piece of advice I give people is that if you can
21:15
accumulate Bitcoin during a bear market, you will do well because
21:20
it's and and for two reasons. One is that the the price is
21:24
just like it's the optimal time to accumulate because the prices
21:28
collapse from an all time high. But also the mentality, the
21:32
mentality of people who come in at a bear market is I believe in
21:37
this. I'm investing slowly in
21:38
accumulating because I have conviction in it.
21:40
And I realize that there's something fundamentally better
21:43
about Bitcoin than its competitors.
21:46
And those people, in my experience, stay.
21:49
They realize Bitcoin's important and they stay for the long term.
21:52
They stay through the price swings.
21:54
It's the people who come in at the end of the bull market that
21:58
like they they turn out to be paper hands and they have the
22:00
worst experience because they buy near the top.
22:03
The price crashes. They feel awful.
22:06
They abandoned Bitcoin. They sell it.
22:07
A lot of people sell it all. Like I I still remember stories
22:11
of people selling all of their Bitcoin at $2.00.
22:14
Actually, I heard one from someone, an old time bitcoiner
22:18
at Swan who who had accumulated a bunch of Bitcoin and sold
22:24
their Bitcoin at $2.00 because they thought, oh man, this thing
22:26
is doomed, it's never coming back.
22:29
And it dropped from $30.00 to $2.00 in the Mount Gox crash and
22:35
whenever. And this was true for this
22:36
person too. Whenever a person goes through
22:38
that experience, what I find is they don't come back to Bitcoin
22:41
for at least another one or two cycles.
22:43
And it's so painful for them because they look back and
22:45
they're like, I had this opportunity to to be part of
22:50
this thing and to accumulate it when it was at such a great
22:53
price. But because they came in at the
22:56
end of the bull market, they were so affected by the the
22:58
market psychology and the pain of losing money that they didn't
23:02
want to think about Bitcoin for like a few cycles after that.
23:05
And then because it survived for a few more cycles, they're like,
23:08
oh, maybe I should revisit Bitcoin and consider investing
23:11
in it again when the price is like 100 days higher than it
23:14
was. So yeah, I think my advice is
23:18
for your listeners is now is a perfect time to accumulate
23:21
Bitcoin. There's been so much negativity.
23:25
The price went below 20,000 and you know, today we're learning
23:28
why it went below 20,000 with the FTX court case and how FTX
23:35
was stealing, literally stealing bitcoins of their customers and
23:40
selling those bitcoins to keep their hedge fund, Alameda
23:44
afloat. So there's this huge crime that
23:47
happened and one of the side effects of the crime is Bitcoin
23:50
dipped below 20,000, which most people including me did not
23:53
expect. Like this is the first, just
23:56
like you said Nico, the this is the first cycle where Bitcoin
23:59
has dropped below its previous all time high and that was
24:02
really surprising. Most Most of us thought that's
24:04
probably not going to happen. That would be in a really
24:07
extreme event. And now we know why that extreme
24:10
event happened. It happened because of a massive
24:12
criminal enterprise which stole billions of dollars and force
24:15
sold people's Bitcoin onto the market.
24:18
If it if it wasn't for that criminal enterprise, then
24:21
Bitcoin probably wouldn't have gone below its previous all time
24:24
high. Yeah, yeah.
24:26
And I agree. And then also not to mention the
24:28
fact that the, the China ban happened and I mean the and a
24:32
lot of people don't realize this because I'm sure they weren't
24:34
paying attention. But essentially the pride that
24:38
when the CCP banned Bitcoin mining again, I think it was
24:41
like the 18th time. They did it right in the middle
24:46
of the last bull run and you see the hash rate drop and you see
24:51
the path, the price drop with it.
24:53
And that's essentially all that cell pressure from those miners
24:56
that are selling their equipment, selling their
24:58
infrastructure, selling Bitcoin to relocate to a friendlier
25:01
jurisdiction. And then you lump in the FTX
25:04
stuff, right? You know, selling that paper
25:06
Bitcoin, selling the the investors Bitcoin.
25:08
It was like this, like perfect storm.
25:11
That all kind of happened at once, and I truly believe we
25:14
were meant to hit 100K. Like I really do believe we were
25:17
meant to. We were meant to hit 100K last
25:18
cycle. And I think it was just all
25:21
these the perfect storm of things that needed to happen in
25:25
order for Bitcoin not to hit 100K.
25:27
Now maybe this is like a bit of opium, maybe I'm like, you know,
25:31
too optimistic and whatnot. But what I'm seeing this cycle
25:35
is. A lot of pessimism about the
25:37
next cycle, actually. People are like, like, they're
25:40
like, oh, it's maybe it's going to hit 80 K, maybe it's going to
25:43
hit 75 K We'll be lucky if it hits that.
25:45
So it's kind of the exact opposite of the language and the
25:49
excitement that I heard the last cycle.
25:52
And I think this cycle is going to be really interesting because
25:56
you have the BlackRock spot ETF, right?
25:59
The halving is ensuring you know that the cell pressure from the
26:03
miners is going to get cut in half no matter what.
26:06
And at the end of the day, there's only 21 million Bitcoin.
26:09
So if another billionaire or if another public company, see,
26:13
sees what Michael Saylor is doing, it's clearly working the
26:16
strategy that he's that he's adopted and they wanted to do
26:20
the same thing. There's literally not enough
26:23
Bitcoin to go around and I think people have a hard time really
26:27
wrapping their heads around. This absolute scarcity that
26:31
Bitcoin has, like if every company wanted to adopt the
26:35
micro strategy, the micro strategy, I love how they have
26:38
strategy in the name, the micro strategy strategy, they
26:42
literally could not. It would make the price go
26:46
parabolic. There would be not enough
26:48
Bitcoin to go around, right? So what are your thoughts on
26:51
that? Yeah, the price has to expand to
26:54
make room for new entrants. That's that's the way you can
26:57
get more people into bitcoins. The the price and the liquidity
27:00
has to expand. But you're right, there's only
27:03
like a very small fraction of Bitcoin is actively traded and I
27:07
think it was. I saw this on, I think it was on
27:11
Twitter. Unchained published a note about
27:16
how we're at the all time high for long term held Bitcoin.
27:23
The fraction of the total supply that's been held by people for
27:26
more than two years is the highest it's ever been in the
27:29
history of Bitcoin. The the previous all time was
27:32
2016, which is the beginning of that bull market into the end of
27:37
2017 as a really good sign that all of the Bitcoin that was held
27:44
by paper hands in this last cycle has been accumulated.
27:47
It's all been, you know, pulled off the market and now we have a
27:51
bunch of diamond hands holding Bitcoin.
27:55
It's like it's almost like a dry forest and all you need is that
27:59
match and things are going to go crazy very, very quickly.
28:04
And I the other comment you made, I I think it's really
28:07
important about how sentiment is really negative and how people
28:12
like all this cycle's not going to go very far and we'd be lucky
28:15
if we just get above the all time high.
28:18
I think that's fantastic. I love seeing sentiment like
28:22
that coming into a new bull market, especially when the
28:27
price is plateaued and you know, continued negative news and
28:32
sentiment can't push Bitcoin down.
28:33
That to me is a sign of a very, very strong base and a very
28:39
strong set of hands holding Bitcoin.
28:41
I think it certainly sets us up well for the next bull market.
28:46
One extra thing I wanted to say though, one of the, you know,
28:49
factors in the perfect storm you mentioned that I think it's
28:52
incredibly important and probably I think the most
28:54
important was the Federal Reserve.
28:57
The Federal Reserve increased interest rates at the fastest
29:01
pace in probably 40 years. After a period of 15 years,
29:07
about 15 years of 0 interest rates, they switch directions.
29:12
So you know this period of like free money for 15 years and then
29:15
they flip the switch and they go basically parabolic on short
29:19
term interest rates. I think that's probably the
29:22
number one factor that shut the Bitcoin bull market down in in
29:27
2021. And if the halving corresponds
29:31
or you know, roughly corresponds to the Fed pivoting, at some
29:35
point I think the Fed has to pivot because it they're going
29:37
to break the economy. If the halving and the Fed pivot
29:42
happen around the same time, then I think this bull market
29:45
could be much bigger than people think.
29:48
Yeah. And and I I agree with that.
29:51
I agree with that statement completely.
29:53
You know any what blows my mind, Vijay, is, you know, like.
30:00
They they, you know they talked about how the US is this
30:03
capitalistic society. You know and it is like the the
30:06
Shining, you know economy on the hill.
30:08
And you could say that right. It's the most powerful economy
30:11
by far in the USI mean the world.
30:14
But it's that you could make the case that it is essentially
30:16
planned to in a way. I know, I know I'm going to get
30:19
ripped for that. But in a way, you know, you
30:21
have, you have this guy in a suit that basically gets to
30:26
dictate. The direction of the US economy,
30:29
it's it's a form of central planning.
30:31
I mean they don't even hide it in a way they do call.
30:33
He does call himself chairman. So it's it's Chairman Powell,
30:37
you know dictating and you know if you know a little bit about
30:42
history and whatnot, right. Central planning doesn't doesn't
30:45
have a good track record, especially when it comes to when
30:48
it comes to everything really. But but you know what what what
30:52
are your thoughts about that? Because it's it's absolutely
30:55
insane. And and Vijay, just to kind of
30:56
add to that give a little bit of context to our viewers.
30:59
And I'm sure you guys know by now I my career I went straight
31:04
into Bitcoin. So I had to learn the
31:07
traditional financial system rather than what most people go
31:10
through is they go from the traditional financial system and
31:12
then they reach Bitcoin and then they have to go through this
31:14
unlearning process. I had to go through like I
31:18
understood Bitcoin and then to like, you know, not sound like
31:21
an idiot. When I bring Greg Foss on the
31:22
show. I had to like go back in time or
31:26
like look back and like try to understand the traditional
31:29
financial system and it just blows my mind.
31:31
I'm like, this is so archaic. What is?
31:34
This is absolutely insane. This is absolutely bonkers.
31:38
So what are your thoughts on that?
31:41
Yeah, it's funny. You have to go and learn the
31:42
Fiat standard because you were born with it.
31:44
They're quite standard. I think that I feel jealous
31:47
actually, when you say that. It reminds me of when I hear
31:50
people who were homeschooled and I'm like, Ohh man, that sounds
31:53
so nice. Like to not, to not grow up in
31:57
the Fiat system, to not grow up with that mindset.
31:59
Like it's like being born outside the Matrix.
32:02
You know that that movie from 1999, which I think there's a
32:06
lot of parallels. You, you're one of those people
32:08
who are like. Doesn't have the the holes in
32:10
the back of his head. Yeah.
32:11
You don't have the hole in the back of your neck.
32:13
And you you understand like what the world is and what the truth
32:17
is. I think that's that's really
32:19
cool. Yeah.
32:21
I think we can almost feel lucky that they don't call the
32:26
chairman the czar like the the czar of money.
32:32
You're right. The the interesting thing about
32:33
the US economy is it's a mixed economy.
32:36
It is capitalistic in many ways, and the measure of whether an
32:40
economy is capitalistic that was given by von Mises was whether
32:44
there's a functioning stock market.
32:47
So I think we are a capitalist in that sense.
32:50
But money is the most important economic good in any economy
32:55
because it's half of every transaction.
32:57
And you're right, we have central planning.
32:59
We have communism for money, for the most important economic
33:04
good, and that can't help but have all sorts of unintended
33:08
consequences. And the problem is the Fed, as
33:12
much as they may have good intentions, they really veer
33:15
from one side to the other and it's just really whiplashes the
33:19
economy. Like with with the pandemic,
33:22
they just created so much helicopter money.
33:25
They were like try and protect the economy.
33:27
But what's what's the consequence of that?
33:30
Now we have inflation and it looks like that inflation is
33:34
kind of sticky. It's really hard to get rid of
33:36
it because they pumped all this money into the economy and it's
33:40
really hard to drain it out because it's painful.
33:43
It it's almost like putting a lot of heroin into a heroin
33:46
addict. The the process of withdrawal is
33:49
not pleasant and and that's what they're trying to do.
33:54
You're trying to get the patient to go through withdrawal, but
33:57
you're also trying to make sure the patient doesn't die, and
34:01
that's possible as well. If they push interest rates too
34:04
high, the patient could flatline and die.
34:07
Certainly parts of the economy have already died, like if you
34:12
look at the real estate market in the US, it's dead.
34:16
It is in a state of stasis that has never been seen in the last
34:20
century, like the number of home sales.
34:23
What, what do you mean by that though because so I live in
34:25
South Florida and it's, it's absolutely bonkers down here.
34:28
So like what do you mean by that?
34:30
By the prices are high, prices are high, that's true.
34:33
But inventories are incredibly low.
34:36
Like, it's a kind of a fake market where like the prices
34:39
that are being set don't really reflect what a real market, a
34:43
real market would have a normal number of sales.
34:46
But because interest rates are so high and because prices
34:49
haven't gone down, it's so expensive to buy a house.
34:53
Like to get a mortgage to buy a house is, you know, out of the
34:57
realm of possibility for most people now.
35:00
And but on the other hand, people who own a home don't want
35:03
to sell it because it's like, well, I didn't know if I can
35:07
sell it. Maybe in Florida, maybe there
35:09
are a few pockets in the country where you can sell a home.
35:13
But in most places, if you look at the data, the the number of
35:16
home sales, new home sales is the lowest it's been in a
35:19
century. This is essentially as close to
35:22
a dead housing market as you can get.
35:26
So there are parts of the economy that have died and
35:29
they've died because of the Fed. the Fed is intervening in in
35:32
this direction. And on the one hand, they pumped
35:34
in heroin during the pandemic and now they've pulled out the
35:37
heroin and parts of the the patient have died.
35:41
The real estate market is 1. The question is whether that,
35:44
you know, spreads to the core parts of the body like it is the
35:49
heart of the economy going to stop.
35:52
That's that's what I think would cause the the Fed to change its
35:56
course and pivot and reduce the interest rates.
35:59
Again. If we enter a recession, as I
36:01
think we will in 2024, I think the Fed will pivot and that's
36:05
perfect timing for when the harming happens as well.
36:09
And OK. So that's that's really
36:11
interesting cuz and and I've been talking really privileged
36:15
to have like Lawrence and you know the macro heavyweights like
36:18
I like to call them lavish you know Lynn And like my question
36:22
to them is like we've we've been expecting this recession and
36:26
it's just not, it hasn't, it hasn't come to fruition yet.
36:30
So you're what you're saying is you're expecting you're, you
36:33
know you're expecting it to come in in 2024?
36:37
Why do you, why do you think it's taken so long?
36:39
Why is this been a such a drawn out process?
36:43
Well, parts of the economy already in recession.
36:46
It's kind of a tale of two different sectors.
36:50
Like the real estate market is in a deep, deep recession, like
36:53
unprecedented recession. But then the services sector is
36:57
still booming. A lot of that money that was
37:01
printed and created during the pandemic went into like the IT
37:06
was like directly helicopter dropped, almost like these
37:09
stimulus checks people got. People had this extra cash, but
37:13
they were prevented from doing anything with it cuz we're all
37:15
locked up for two years. And so when that stopped, people
37:20
had this desperate desire to like get out and do stuff, to go
37:24
to restaurants, to go to Disneyland, to travel.
37:28
And all of that money is being flushed into the services sector
37:32
right now. And so that sector is being
37:34
propped up and has been propped up probably for a year or so.
37:38
But now credit credit card debt is increasing and people have
37:42
spent that money that they got and they're going into debt.
37:45
Eventually that won't be sustainable.
37:48
And then the services sector will also go into recession.
37:51
It's just this sort of slow moving train wreck where parts
37:54
of it of of the train that have been hit by the recession, but
37:59
the back end of the train is still moving forward.
38:01
And the the back end of the train is the services sector
38:04
which is you know all these restaurants keeping up with this
38:08
massively elevated demand because of 1.
38:10
The money that went directly to consumers and to the pent up
38:14
demand from people wanting to live their lives that that's not
38:17
going to last forever. Yeah, no, eventually, you know
38:22
the what? What's the expression?
38:24
The Roosters come home or something like that.
38:27
I don't know. The chicken comes home to roost.
38:30
I guess that's the expression and the chickens come.
38:34
Home to roost. Boom.
38:34
All right. Anyways, OK, I have chickens, so
38:39
I should know that. You have chickens.
38:41
I need to get on that tip. I unfortunately.
38:43
I live. I live in a I live in a I live
38:45
in a I live in a nice box. But I live.
38:49
I live in an apartment. So no, I mean I could put them
38:52
in the balcony. I don't know how my how my
38:54
fiancee would feel about that, but they're pretty, pretty
38:57
messy, you know, this is the interesting fact.
39:00
I was surprised how many Swans, you know, our fellow Co workers
39:03
have chickens. There's even like a Slack
39:06
channel just for people who are in chickens, which they very
39:09
kindly invited me to, even though I only have two chickens.
39:12
It's a it's a movement. It's a movement.
39:14
You have to own the chicken. There's something about being a
39:16
Bitcoiner that you know, that's kind of part of the proof of
39:19
work. Yeah.
39:21
So I don't know, I don't know how my building would feel or
39:24
how my feel. I'd say would feel but maybe
39:25
just one chicken to see how it how it goes.
39:28
And I just, I want one thing. I would warn you if you're gonna
39:32
get in, get go down the chicken rabbit hole, which you're right,
39:34
Bitcoin is like going down the chicken, rabbit hole.
39:37
We bought 4 chickens when they're baby chicks and two of
39:40
them turned out to be Roosters and that's kind, that's kind of
39:45
problematic because in the city, and I'm sure this is true in
39:48
Florida as well, especially if you're in an apartment building,
39:51
they do not like Roosters because they're very loud.
39:54
And unfortunately those, those two guys, they had to.
40:00
Wait, so did you. So so did you.
40:02
Did you crack the neck yourself? I did not.
40:06
We had a friend who was happy to take them and turn them into
40:11
dinner. OK.
40:13
That's that's a very nice way of putting it.
40:16
Well, may they rest in peace the the Roosters and the Roosters.
40:22
OK. So, Vijay, back to bullish case
40:26
for Bitcoin, Cuz like that, did you?
40:28
No, I mean, I think it's reputable.
40:31
I've been doing this for so long that now I'm prepared to be
40:36
prepared for the unexpected when talking to Bitcoiners.
40:38
So. But it is a pleasant surprise.
40:41
It is the best pleasant surprise that the author of the bullish
40:43
case for Bitcoin. Is also a chicken farmer.
40:46
That's that's some good news. That's some good news.
40:48
That's my that's that's my next book, The Bullish Case for
40:51
Chicken. The bullish case for chicken The
40:55
bullish case for chickens is Bitcoin takes all over the world
40:57
takes over the world cuz then more bitcoiners.
41:00
More bitcoiners equals more chicken farmers.
41:02
So you could say that you could say they're definitely
41:05
correlated the the two anyways. So going back to the bullish
41:11
case for Bitcoin. If you were write it today,
41:16
would you? Would you do it differently?
41:20
Interesting. I no, I don't think I would.
41:27
I I think when I wrote it, I wrote it in a way that I thought
41:32
would be timeless, that the arguments I was making was not.
41:37
I was really actually pretty conscious about not saying
41:39
anything specific about the period of time that I was
41:43
writing. It was more an article about
41:45
money. Why does money have value?
41:48
And why? If money has value for certain
41:52
attributes that we use it for, then why is Bitcoin superior to
41:56
what we have already? And I think those arguments are
41:59
fairly timeless, so I don't think I would.
42:03
I maybe there's extra topics I would like to cover if I do a
42:08
new edition of the book that people might be interested in,
42:10
like how do you, how do you custody Bitcoin?
42:13
How do you obtain Bitcoin? Those are questions.
42:16
A lot of people come to my book as beginners.
42:18
It's often used by people to give to beginners who don't know
42:22
much about Bitcoin as an introduction.
42:25
And I think one thing Bitcoiners often want to know is like,
42:28
well, how do I actually get any Bitcoin?
42:31
Now I can feel really excited about saying go to Swan, which
42:36
is actually I think that's a big deal.
42:38
That's maybe one thing we can talk about for a second.
42:42
I think in the early days people sent their friends and family to
42:45
coin base because it was the only option.
42:48
And I think for a lot of bitcoins, the people who are
42:51
really passionate about Bitcoin, it's it's such an uncomfortable
42:55
feeling to send friends and family to a place, you know it's
42:58
not going to do the right thing by, you know, your friends and
43:02
family that are going to expose them to things that are going to
43:06
cause them financial harm and encourage gambling and and not
43:12
really investment vehicles. They're just complete garbage
43:16
scams. A lot of them are complete
43:18
scams. And the only reason that a
43:20
company like Coinbase offers it is because they make fees on it.
43:25
They make money. If people trade back and forth,
43:28
they're not, they're not doing it for the right reason.
43:30
So it's really exciting for me to now be in a period of time
43:33
when we have companies that are committed to not doing that and
43:38
to educating people about why Bitcoin is different, why it's
43:41
special, why it's a new thing in the world that can help the
43:45
world. And and now I can feel
43:49
comfortable about, if I write a new book like Go to Swan, you
43:52
can buy Bitcoin at Swan, they'll help you out.
43:55
They'll give you material to educate you and why Bitcoin's
43:57
important. They'll help you with custody
43:59
even, you know, Swan is working on this vault product, so that's
44:04
really exciting. I didn't feel like when I first
44:07
started writing the article or the book, I really had anything
44:11
that I could point people to and say I feel really good about you
44:14
going to this place to get Bitcoin.
44:16
Yeah, no, it's true. Like the you're seeing this
44:20
emphasis on Bitcoin only products like you, so it's like
44:25
Swan Unchained River, right? It's like these these companies
44:30
that have built themselves up. Being Bitcoin only, right.
44:35
And and that wasn't the thing that was not a thing in 2017.
44:38
It was the shit. Coin casinos is where like I
44:42
like to call them, Liz, where you would find you know where
44:45
you could buy Bitcoin. So it'd be coin base, it would
44:48
be you know finance Gemini, Kraken, right just to name a
44:54
few. You know that would offer these
44:56
all coins and what a lot of them do.
44:59
Not all of them, But what a lot of them do is that they.
45:01
They list Bitcoin like all the rest, right.
45:05
So if you're new and you're downloading one of these, you
45:09
know, one of these apps or you go to one of these websites and
45:11
you're signing up to one of these exchanges, you're looking
45:16
at it and you're like, oh, like, you know, whatever coin is, it's
45:19
it, they're just the same. And I could buy more of of this
45:23
whatever coin because you know, the if people have unit buys,
45:27
right? And you know, they kind of
45:29
equate the two. And This is why I love Swan's
45:34
approach, where it's an education focus.
45:36
Education first, right? They spend a lot of resources on
45:39
just creating content to educate the masses of why Bitcoin is
45:43
different. I completely agree.
45:46
Very, very different times. Where do you see it five years
45:49
from now? Where do you see it 5-10 years
45:51
from now? Like you know, clearly we were
45:55
very lucky to start simply Bitcoin in in the beginning of
45:58
of Bitcoin media. Really Bitcoin only media is
46:00
around that time, you know 2020. I know the OG podcasters started
46:04
in like 20/17/2018, but it was around that time where Bitcoin
46:09
only media really took off because if you look at you know,
46:13
YouTube. It's just inundated with all
46:17
coiners and okay content creators.
46:19
You wanna do what you wanna do, but Bitcoiners really never had
46:23
a voice until not that long ago. This is a new thing.
46:28
This is a new phenomenon. So where do you see it 5-10
46:31
years from now? Do you see?
46:33
The Bitcoin industry, the Bitcoin only industry continuing
46:36
to blossom, continuing to differentiate itself from the
46:39
rest of the industry or do you see the rest of it?
46:41
Do you see the altcoin industry growing with the Bitcoin
46:44
industry as well? Unfortunately I don't think
46:48
altcoins will go away because I think the human desire to gamble
46:51
is that's just part of our species and that that's not
46:56
going to go away. I do think in terms of I I
46:59
really I'm super excited about how successful swan has been in
47:04
the on the media side of things. And so one is crushing it.
47:07
It's absolutely crushing it like with the podcasts that are
47:11
associated with Swan like what you're doing Stefan Lovera is
47:14
doing. But Swan its own like work that
47:18
the the Swan specific media is doing really, really well on
47:21
YouTube. And I think that's so cool
47:24
because it's just it's double benefit of like helping the
47:28
Bitcoin community but also being good for the company and
47:31
bringing people into the company.
47:32
Recognizing that hey I've learned about Bitcoin on this
47:35
video, who's the company? Oh it's one are they also
47:37
provide a service for buying Bitcoin.
47:40
So I think I'm really excited that Swan is doing that and has
47:43
taken that approach. I think Corey has been really
47:47
mindful about doing that and building a Bitcoin brand by
47:52
having a set of very strong values that Bitcoin is hardcore,
47:57
Bitcoin is, you know they associate with that and they
48:00
believe in those values. So that that has the benefit of
48:03
attracting people to swan both in terms of like employees but
48:08
also you know bringing customers in because the people who care
48:11
about Bitcoin now have a place to recommend their friends and
48:16
family go to in in terms of the industry.
48:19
I think Bitcoin Bitcoin's monetization is going to it's
48:23
going to be the tide that raises all boats.
48:27
So if you are doing something, if you're employed in the
48:30
Bitcoin space, Bitcoin 10 Xing is going to have a very big
48:33
impact on your life and career. Like your your podcast is going
48:38
to be like Joe Rogan level, you know, in 5-10 years from now
48:42
because you were so early on. And the number of people who
48:47
care about Bitcoin is going to be like also 10X bigger.
48:50
So I think that's going to be true for all the companies in
48:53
this space, especially the Bitcoin only companies.
48:55
So I'm super excited for that as well, just to be working in this
48:58
space, not just to see the price rise, but to see the industry as
49:02
well rise with it. Yeah, 100%.
49:05
And that's kind of been the theory of the case, right?
49:08
Which is the whether it's Bitcoin media or Bitcoin only
49:12
companies? You know it it's we're still in
49:15
the the very very first innings of Bitcoin adoption.
49:19
So it's like it's truly is kind of like a game and so I tell I
49:23
tell this to opt to you all the time was currently backstage
49:25
right now I'm like it is a game of survival.
49:27
It is like surviving, you know, making over making, surviving
49:32
the grind, making, making it over the finish line.
49:36
Because you know, if we're right about this thing, and I think we
49:39
all are, you know, as as people that work at Swans.
49:42
You know, as Bitcoiners, you know, we all believe that, you
49:47
know, Bitcoin is going to take over the world.
49:48
Bitcoin is the best money. Bitcoin is going to become the
49:50
next global reserve currency. I think we truly believe that in
49:53
our hearts. So you know, and if we are right
49:56
about that, there's definitely going to be a whole lot more
49:58
people that are going to want Bitcoin only financial services
50:02
or Bitcoin media. Like that's just a fact, right?
50:05
You know whether that's 10X100X, but my question to you Vijay is.
50:10
So you know the, the, the 10X, right?
50:13
A 10X Bitcoin would put it at 250,000, right?
50:16
So last cycle, I think the 2017 cycle, it went from, I think it
50:21
was like $300.00 and went all the way up to $20,000, right?
50:24
So this is like multitudes, more than that, 10X.
50:28
How long is it going to take for Bitcoin to 10X from this $26,000
50:32
level? Or is that something that's, you
50:34
know, something that's achievable next cycle?
50:36
Is that something that's achievable by 2030?
50:39
What are your expectations? What are you, what are you
50:41
looking on the Verizon that and I know that this is dubious
50:44
speculation. I know that we're speculating at
50:46
the moment and I know maybe I'm pushing you into a corner, but
50:50
just curious what your thoughts are.
50:53
Yeah, that's a good point. I I would say firstly that I do
50:56
think it's possible that Bitcoin gets the 250,000 in the next
51:00
cycle. I I'm not very good at
51:02
predicting where the cycles go. Like the 2017 cycle when Bitcoin
51:09
went from like, you know what, what did you say around $300 or
51:14
whatever? It was $200.00 all the way up to
51:18
20,000. I didn't.
51:21
I did not think that that was going to happen at the time.
51:24
That blew me away. I thought Bitcoin was going to
51:27
get to maybe 345000 and when it got past that I was really
51:31
shocked. So sometimes I'm too
51:35
conservative, but then in the last cycle, I was too
51:38
optimistic. I I did really believe that
51:41
Bitcoin would get to 100,000 or more than 100,000 and I think
51:44
because of the perfect storm that we've talked about that was
51:47
the reason it didn't get to 100,000.
51:50
So I do think 250,000 possible. I don't like making predictions,
51:53
but one thing I do say that say to people is over the time span
51:57
of about a decade, I have a a lot of confidence, very high
52:01
conviction that Bitcoin will surpass gold.
52:05
And gold is worth, I think 12 trillion right now.
52:11
And Bitcoin is worth like maybe half a trillion.
52:14
So that's like 25 X from where we are now.
52:19
When that happens, exactly. I feel very confident that
52:22
that's going to happen over the next decade.
52:24
I don't know what the exact timing will be, but it'll be one
52:27
of those, you know, like Parker Lewis says you had him on before
52:31
gradually. Then suddenly it will surprise
52:33
people when it happens because that S part of the adoption code
52:37
where it's really steep and really quick will just happen.
52:40
And people were like, whoa, where did that come from?
52:43
Does that happen two years from now, five years, seven years?
52:46
I don't know. But I, I, I believe if you have
52:48
a long enough time horizon, like 10 years, Bitcoin is still one
52:52
of the best investments you could ever make.
52:55
Especially because I think the risk profile is so much lower
52:58
today than it was, you know, 4-5, six years ago.
53:03
Bitcoin's not going to die. It's gotten to the point where
53:05
its survival is essentially guaranteed.
53:07
It's just a question of when do people realize that?
53:11
When do people realize that this this is not going away and this
53:14
is not it's like tamper resistant money.
53:17
When will that realization occur to the rest of the world's
53:21
population? It's impossible to tell, but I
53:24
think over a period of a decade is you can pretty safely say
53:27
most people will figure it out. Yeah.
53:29
And I agree. I think that the these, these
53:33
next 10 years. As Fiat currencies continue to
53:36
break, you know, and that's why I'm so bullish on the global S
53:40
like countries like Argentina, Venezuela, Turkey, Nigeria,
53:44
African countries where they don't have the privilege to have
53:47
stable Fiat currencies. So what do they do?
53:50
They start seeking alternatives, right?
53:52
And then what? What's bad news for governments
53:56
is that once they find the alternative.
53:59
Because there truly is really one.
54:02
I know that, I know a lot of them.
54:03
I know a lot of, you know, developing countries are are,
54:06
are are really big into stablecoins.
54:08
But I think stablecoins are just they provide a false sense of
54:11
financial sovereignty. They don't, they don't offer
54:13
what Bitcoin offers. So I think that's that's a
54:16
stopgap. I think that's a foot in the
54:17
door. I think eventually all roads
54:19
lead to Bitcoin. But the point that I'm trying to
54:22
make is that the I think people are slowly waking up to this, to
54:27
this reality, because. They don't have, they don't have
54:31
that. Like if you're in Argentina and
54:33
you're dealing with more than 100% inflation, it's not why you
54:38
know me or you. Like we're in the West and we're
54:40
like, you know, yeah, F the Fed, you know, like, you go down that
54:44
rabbit hole, you're like, the money's broken.
54:46
You know, you can even say it's an ideological stance, right?
54:50
But the reality is that if you truly wanted to get by, even
54:53
though it's not an ideal system. We do have very well developed
54:57
financial rails. You can get by on dollars even
55:01
though it sucks, right? But you can still live, right?
55:04
If you're in Argentina and you're dealing with a hundred
55:07
100% plus inflation, that does not work anymore like that is
55:12
you're you're not seek. You're not seeking an
55:15
alternative for ideological reasons or because you believe
55:18
the money is broken. You're seeking an alternative to
55:20
survive. And what bet, what bigger
55:23
incentive is there than survival?
55:26
Right. So and I think that's why you
55:28
see such like crazy adoption rates in those countries.
55:32
So I, I, I do agree. I think 10 years is, you know, a
55:35
lot of things could happen in 10 years that famous saying, right,
55:38
a lot of people, you know, overestimate what they can do
55:41
in, in a year and then they underestimate what they can do
55:44
in 10, right. So 10 years is a very, very long
55:47
time. My question to you, VJ, is the
55:50
hostility coming from the established players whether
55:54
that's the I, MF, United Nations.
55:57
The the current Biden administration had Caitlin Long
55:59
on the show and she told me these are her words, not mine.
56:02
I was shocked when she told me this.
56:04
She said that the reason that her bank custodia got denied a
56:09
federal banking charter was because that order came directly
56:13
from the Biden administration, came directly from the White
56:15
House. Those those are her words.
56:16
I'm like, holy cow. So what, what would your
56:20
response to that be? Right.
56:21
You have a lot of people in government that benefit from
56:23
this tremendous privilege of being able to create money for
56:26
free that everyone else has to work for.
56:28
Obviously, they're not going to be very happy if they lose that
56:30
privilege. And you know, they've been
56:33
making some moves to to kind of isolate the industry or try to
56:38
kneecap it. What would your response be to
56:41
that? Biden administration is in
56:45
particular pretty hostile to Bitcoin.
56:48
They're not going to be there forever.
56:49
And I think that that will change in time.
56:53
I I think like there are certain industries which are just
56:56
naturally hostile to Bitcoin, like the banking sector as you
57:00
mentioned. And I I don't think that's going
57:02
to change. But I think one of the biggest
57:04
narratives that's causing the wider population to be skeptical
57:09
about Bitcoin is the environmental narrative.
57:13
And I think, I honestly think that narrative is going to flip
57:16
and it's going to flip big time in the next year.
57:20
I think BlackRock coming along and promoting Bitcoin and then
57:25
being an ESG company and the recognition that Bitcoin's
57:28
actually really good for the environment, like the the effect
57:32
it has on energy grids and load balancing and carbon capture,
57:37
that's one thing people don't really understand is that there
57:40
are Bitcoin mining companies out there.
57:42
There's a there's a small startup called Giga Energy,
57:45
which I think people should look up.
57:47
They're going out and they're capturing methane that would
57:50
otherwise be flared and you know, burnt into the atmosphere.
57:54
Methane's like 80 times more damaging to the to the
57:58
atmosphere than carbon. So it's hugely impactful to
58:02
capture that and then turn it into money.
58:06
So the rate at which they're capturing is much, much more
58:09
efficient than if you flare that methane.
58:12
So I think people are going to figure this out.
58:16
And I think with like a company like BlackRock coming in and
58:19
getting an ETF approved, which I think will happen eventually, I
58:23
think that combination is going to flip the narrative on.
58:27
We're going to start seeing articles from mainstream media,
58:29
I think in the span of next year or so, whether like bitcoin's
58:33
good for the environment and people will be shocked.
58:35
They'll be like, whoa, where did that come from?
58:37
But mark my words, that's gonna change.
58:40
And I think that's gonna change the view of a lot of people in
58:43
the wider population about Bitcoin.
58:45
Yeah, 100% and and and you know you touched upon that, right,
58:50
this idea of where this otherwise.
58:54
Wasted energy, right? It's, you know, because that's
58:56
what they do. They they they they flared out
58:58
into the atmosphere. Now you could turn that into
59:01
money, right? And and that not only applies to
59:05
flaring natural gas, but that also applies to this tremendous
59:08
amount of excess electrical electrical capacity that happens
59:12
to be in stranded locations. Where that energy would go to
59:16
waste, you couldn't you? You can't transport over long
59:19
distances. You can't store it efficiency
59:21
efficiently. So what do you what are you
59:22
going to do with it? And it reminds me of this
59:25
article that came out in Forbes actually.
59:27
And the name of the article, the headline was the Kingdom of
59:30
Bhutan has been secretly mining Bitcoin for years.
59:34
And if you look at Bhutan and has this tremendous amount of
59:37
hydroelectric, hydroelectric capacity.
59:42
Right. And and they were powering their
59:44
entire nation, but they had too much of it.
59:46
So what they they realized one, you know, it led to the
59:49
inevitable conclusion, wait a second, we can make this into
59:52
Satoshi's. We actually have very cheap
59:54
electricity. We can mine Bitcoin with this.
59:57
So yeah, it's extremely exciting.
59:59
And I think it's going to present opportunities to
1:00:03
otherwise isolated communities that had no opportunities.
1:00:06
And all of a sudden because they have this stranded, stranded
1:00:10
energy sources. They could become the new mining
1:00:13
towns of the West. You know, we're like these
1:00:16
mining towns would just pop up in like Colorado and Utah.
1:00:20
Now they're ghost towns, but they would pop up because of the
1:00:22
gold mining industry. There's this giant gold rush.
1:00:24
So. So yeah, man, it's it's a very,
1:00:26
very exciting future. Corey calls it the bright orange
1:00:29
future. And yeah, I I totally agree,
1:00:32
man. It's very exciting.
1:00:34
I think it's really cool that idea that you're talking about,
1:00:37
it's going to provide the financial incentive to develop
1:00:40
these communities. In ways that you could have
1:00:43
societies just spring out of nowhere in places that otherwise
1:00:49
it would be very uneconomic to go there.
1:00:52
But because there's an energy source, then you can mine
1:00:56
Bitcoin and you can create this like new community of colonists,
1:01:01
essentially the colonize a new part of the world that otherwise
1:01:06
would be like, well, we can't go there.
1:01:08
It's too expensive to go there. We don't have.
1:01:11
Enough of a financial incentive to build up an infrastructure
1:01:14
there. But if you have like this supply
1:01:16
of energy, whether it's a volcano or it's geothermal or
1:01:21
you have a hydroelectric dam or you have some source of energy,
1:01:24
then you could have these remote places turn into really vibrant
1:01:27
societies 100%. And it really kind of, you know,
1:01:31
it brings opportunity where before there there was none.
1:01:35
Anyways, Vijay, I want to be respectful of your time.
1:01:37
We are getting to the top of the hour.
1:01:39
I absolutely love this conversation.
1:01:41
Thank you so much for coming on Simply Bitcoin Era.
1:01:43
I think you've been the 1st guest in a couple weeks, so we
1:01:46
really, really, really do appreciate it.
1:01:49
Why don't you tell everybody where they can find you online
1:01:51
and any projects that you're working on these days?
1:01:55
You can find me at Twitter. Real under score, Vijay on
1:01:59
Twitter. I guess the project I'm working
1:02:01
on is swan. I am now a Swan.
1:02:04
I'm working as an engineer. I'm working on the Vault team.
1:02:07
We launched our product at Pacific Bitcoin.
1:02:11
It's a multi sig solution that helps people custody their own
1:02:16
Bitcoin. But we don't dump you into the
1:02:19
deep end. We kind of hold your hand
1:02:20
through that whole process, make it super easy and smooth to get
1:02:25
a multi sig solution and we keep one of the keys.
1:02:29
There you go, there's the video. And I think it's a really
1:02:33
fantastic product. We're rolling it out slowly just
1:02:36
to make sure there aren't any kinks in the UI.
1:02:39
The underlying custody part is really solid, but we want to
1:02:44
make sure the UI is really easy to understand and beautiful.
1:02:47
So we're rolling it out slowly, but it should be available to.
1:02:51
All customers of Swan, hopefully fairly shortly.
1:02:54
Very, very cool. Yeah, I remember we have been
1:02:57
working on that for quite a while and it's really nice to
1:03:01
have it rolled out and you to be part of the team and it's the
1:03:03
superstar team. Holy cow.
1:03:06
Anyways, Vijay, thank you so much for joining us on Simply
1:03:08
Bitcoin IRL. Guys, thank you so much for
1:03:10
tuning in. We'll be back for the live show
1:03:12
tomorrow, 12:15 PM Eastern Standard Time.
1:03:14
If you enjoyed the content smash that like but it consider
1:03:17
subscribing if you feel like we provided you value, but we'll
1:03:20
catch you on the next one. Peace out, everybody.