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Discovering Bitcoin with Chris Alaimo · Discovering Bitcoin

• 0:00
  At some point, Bitcoin stops being a chart and starts to
• 0:03
  become a question. What is money?
• 0:07
  Who do I trust? What do I trust?
• 0:10
  Hard block doesn't answer those questions for you.
• 0:12
  They just give you a clean, transparent way to explore them.
• 0:18
  Yeah, I see the world through an entirely different lens.
• 0:22
  It doesn't just give you confidence, but it gives you
• 0:25
  hope. I think like we're squandering
• 0:28
  our energy, our life force. So Bitcoin is changing that.
• 0:32
  For me, this coin is like it's healing energy.
• 0:36
  It gives you a kind of. Of a stand.
• 0:40
  Feeling right? Where rabbit hole grows deep and
• 0:45
  deep and deep. And the immortal words of the
• 0:47
  doors, the time. To hesitate us through.
• 0:53
  Discovering. Chris, what's going on, man?
• 1:19
  Nothing much. How about you?
• 1:21
  Very little. It's awesome to have you on,
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  man. I think I'm collecting the whole
• 1:24
  set of the simply Bitcoin crew and just off the bat I got to
• 1:29
  say it was I think I think it was a lot 1 of the last times I
• 1:33
  saw you on there. I don't know if you've been on
• 1:35
  since I've sort of stopped watching over the Christmas
• 1:39
  break, but every time you're on, you just bring a real sense of
• 1:46
  calm and a clear headedness. And I'm not saying that Nico and
• 1:52
  and Opti are calm and clear headed, but you know, they're a
• 1:54
  little bit more bombastic. And I just like that that
• 1:58
  balance that you bring to that particular episode of the show.
• 2:03
  And you always got awesome takes.
• 2:05
  Obviously you're a super, super into this Bitcoin thing.
• 2:09
  So, you know, let's let's stop with the platitudes and get on
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  with it. How did you discover Bitcoin?
• 2:18
  No, no, yeah, I really appreciate it.
• 2:20
  And yeah, I guess how I discovered Bitcoin.
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  So you got to go back a ways, so back in 2010.
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  So I guess discovering Bitcoin is different than when you get
• 2:30
  into Bitcoin, but I guess that's part of the story here.
• 2:32
  So back in 2010, my dad is a very eeky techie guy.
• 2:36
  It'll be a way that he describes himself.
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  He was a computer scientist or, you know, computer engineer for
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  his whole career working at one of the big telecommunication
• 2:46
  companies in the world. And back in 2010, he'd always
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  get like the magazines for, you know, tech magazines, Wired, all
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  those things. He's like, yeah, there's this
• 2:55
  thing called like magic Internet money called Bitcoin.
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  Should I get some? And mind, I guess, painting the
• 3:01
  picture of my dad. He's like a very conservative
• 3:03
  investor in the sense that like he kind of buys like the S&P 500
• 3:06
  / 3040 years. That was kind of his plan.
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  And you know, in the in the markets that like worked out
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  very well over, you know, from the 80s when he was working
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  until he went retired more recently in the last few years.
• 3:20
  And I was a very good strategy. You know, didn't really believe
• 3:23
  in bonds, kind of always thought they were like being devalued
• 3:26
  and not a good investment trade. But basically back in 2010, he's
• 3:29
  like, hey, should I buy some? As many people know, back then
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  it was very difficult to buy some.
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  I think it was even like right around Mount Mount Cox days.
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  But you know, before it even got bigger and obviously before they
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  imploded, but basically 2010, he heard about it, thought he
• 3:44
  should buy some. He's like, should I buy 1000
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  bucks? I was like, ah, it'll never
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  catch on, Dad, don't do it. And we talked about this like
• 3:50
  within the last six months. So this is even more recent that
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  he's like, Oh yeah, like I thought nothing of it.
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  I said like, Dad, don't buy it, Whatever.
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  He's like, yeah, I actually did try to buy it and it was just
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  too complicated and very sketchy with like wiring money places.
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  So he actually did not buy it, but he actually tried it.
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  I was kind of shocked. I didn't know.
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  That's pretty cool. In the last six months to a
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  year, and he's like, yeah, imagine we did.
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  We'd be in a very different fortunate situation as our
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  family, especially if you bought it and forgot about it or
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  whatever. But yeah, it was just something
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  we had a good laugh on. You know, we're all good.
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  Then years later back in like oh good.
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  I was just going to say people have, I remember.
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  I mean, unless you're like Guy Swan, I had on episode 21 and he
• 4:31
  and his brother actually went through all of that rigamaroo
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  of, you know, doing the sending the money to some dodgy address
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  and all that sort of stuff. And you know, even if you go
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  through all of that, then you've got to secure the the the coins
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  with with keys and all of this stuff.
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  Particularly back then, it wasn't like it was even more
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  clunky than it is now. I mean, it's slightly easier, I
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  suppose, But you know, there's always that what if like, Oh
• 5:00
  man, you know, for the would have done this and all that, but
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  chances are you probably would have lost the keys or something
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  anyway. So, you know, I like the fact
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  that your dad didn't listen to you, though.
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  He was just like, noted son. But I'm still going to get try
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  and get some. Yeah, no, it was pretty funny.
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  And that's normally not like him.
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  Not not that, you know, even if I were to pitch an idea of his
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  investment, he's like, yeah, yeah, I'll consider it.
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  And then nothing would come from it.
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  But he actually did attempt it. But yeah, it's your point.
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  Like maybe it even would a 10X then, you know, 1000 bucks to a
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  10,000 bucks is a great return. But he probably would have
• 5:32
  cashed out or lost fees or whatever.
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  So he doesn't lose sleep over it either, do I?
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  But it is, you know, fun to pontificate some what if.
• 5:39
  But yeah, so back in 2010, that was how it my first touch with
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  it. Now Fast forward to like
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  20/17/2018, I guess when was the blow off top 2017 or 2018?
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  I always forget the December of that year.
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  And you know, the, there's like the famous story from like JP
• 5:54
  Morgan Chase or JP Morgan back in like, you know, right before
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  the Great Depression where like a lot of speculation was going
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  on in the markets in 1920s, you know, the roaring 20s, all this.
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  And I think it was either JP Morgan or some other famous
• 6:10
  broker dealer back in the day. And basically he was getting his
• 6:13
  shoes shined and the shoeshiner was like, you should buy this
• 6:15
  stock, you should buy that stock, you should buy this
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  stock. And basically he was like the,
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  the moth. The market's completely like
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  overblown over froth. Like I, I should sell like he
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  basically sold out of all of his positions.
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  And six weeks later, like this great stock market crash that
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  happened in 1929. So, you know, it's kind of one
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  of those ones that back in 2017 I had a friend and still a good
• 6:35
  friend of them. I won't dock them, but they were
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  like not someone that you'd go to and for investment advice or
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  that you'd like, no offense to them, but just like they were
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  just kind of putting out the idea that's like we should all
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  buy Bitcoin and we'll get super rich.
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  And then literally like a few weeks later Bitcoin topped at 19
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  K and crashed down to what like 3K or whatever it is over the
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  couple next couple months. So it was kind of one of those
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  things that I was like, oh, like we should not buy Bitcoin.
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  This is a Ponzi scheme. You know, this is me speaking,
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  you know, 2017 mentally. I'm just thinking like, this is
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  a Ponzi scheme. It's a Tulip mania.
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  It's insane. No, like there's no point to
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  this now. And I felt very vindicated for a
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  few years and then Fast forward, so that's 20/17/2018 time frame.
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  And then COVID happens. And I think COVID was a real
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  wake up for many people, myself included of like, oh shit, like
• 7:21
  all of this is a fucking Ponzi scheme and maybe Bitcoin is the
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  only thing that's real. In March of 2020, I was
• 7:28
  listening to Preston Pish for at this point, like four or five
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  years. I've listened to a lot of his
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  episodes. He used to do the quarterly
• 7:33
  masterminds with him, his Co host Stig and two other guys.
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  And basically in March of 2020, this is like right when we're
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  all getting locked in our houses, you know, the pandemics,
• 7:43
  you know, raging on the world. And basically he's like, hey,
• 7:46
  like they all went through their investment pitches and Preston
• 7:48
  recommended Bitcoin. And I'm like, I really respect
• 7:50
  Preston, but you know, I kind of downplayed Bitcoin in
• 7:53
  20/18/2017. I, I like, I, I respect your
• 7:56
  opinion, but I, I don't think it's right.
• 7:57
  Fast forward to June of 2020 and Preston brought up Bitcoin
• 8:01
  again. And if I wasn't listening to
• 8:03
  that episode or if I, you know, wasn't aware of it, then I'm
• 8:05
  like, all right, I really respect Preston in this show.
• 8:08
  I've been listening to it for five years.
• 8:09
  They've never recommended the same stock or same investment
• 8:12
  thesis in back-to-back quarters. And basically he recommended it.
• 8:16
  And then that really kind of drove me down the rabbit hole.
• 8:18
  I've had the very fortunate pleasure of interviewing Preston
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  a few times when I was working at Big One magazine and even
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  meeting him in person at the Big One conference and like
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  basically thanking him, saying like he's the reason I went down
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  the rabbit hole. And yeah, it was kind of like my
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  third touch point if anything. You know, my dad in 2010, you
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  know, hearing about the investment opportunity in
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  20/17/2018 and then ultimately Preston Fish talking about in
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  2020. And then since June of 2020,
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  I've basically gone down the rabbit hole.
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  So I've been in in it I guess over five years at this point,
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  which is crazy to think about sharp and long winded story, but
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  I hope that. No, that's why we're here, man.
• 8:51
  The more long winded the better. That was actually pretty concise
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  compared to a lot of other opening gambits.
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  But no man, thank you. I mean, shout out to Mr. Pish.
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  I got to I got to say he was formative in in in my conviction
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  over this thing with the interviews that he would have on
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  around that time was one in particular stands out with Jeff
• 9:16
  Booth after his book came out. And you know, obviously the
• 9:21
  press tomorrow only mentions Bitcoin like once in the back
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  end. There's like a passing comment
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  or something. But yeah, there was a, there was
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  a particular episode with with Jeff Booth where like the penny
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  dropped. And because Preston has such a
• 9:37
  lovely way of interviewing people, his interview style is,
• 9:41
  is, I don't know, it's, it's not relaxed and casual or yet, but
• 9:47
  yet it is like it's, it's attentive.
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  Anyway, let's not analyse that. The point is that it makes it
• 9:53
  for an easy listen and so that the authenticity shines through.
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  And then you're more, I guess, likely to pick up on what he's
• 10:00
  saying. And then obviously, you have
• 10:02
  someone like Jeff Booth flipping your world upside down and
• 10:06
  you're just like, holy shit. Yeah, OK, I'm on the right path
• 10:09
  here. But yeah, shout out, Mr. Pish.
• 10:12
  But you needed, you know, three touch points.
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  And that's not unheard of for most people, particularly, you
• 10:18
  know what? That's like a decade worth of
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  time, really, if you think about it.
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  You mentioned like 2010 year old man's like, hey, what do you
• 10:26
  think of this thing? And then obviously, yeah, 17 I
• 10:29
  can recall, gosh, Facebook posts and there's this one dude I used
• 10:36
  to go out with DJ ING etcetera and and he was just screaming
• 10:43
  about it, but he was always a bit of a kook.
• 10:44
  So, you know, you just kind of ignore those people.
• 10:48
  Yeah. I mean, three touch points, man.
• 10:50
  That's three points of contact. That's the safest way to do it
• 10:53
  really, climbing the ladder. Definitely.
• 10:58
  So you dove down the rabbit hole pretty hardcore like June 2020.
• 11:03
  And I think, you know, I first came across you when you were
• 11:08
  working for Bitcoin Magazine. So you must have, you must have
• 11:11
  dove pretty hard, like pretty fast because that's a strong
• 11:15
  turn around, I think. What?
• 11:17
  When were you working for Bitcoin Magazine?
• 11:21
  Yeah, so I started, so it seems like it was quick, but I guess I
• 11:26
  was, I was trying to consume as much information as possible.
• 11:28
  And COVID, you know, definitely gave more time and more
• 11:32
  flexibility with our schedules, especially being cooped up at
• 11:34
  home. But I joined Bitcoin Magazine in
• 11:36
  November of 2021. So yeah, that's when I joined.
• 11:41
  Yeah. So a year and a half later,
• 11:43
  basically I joined Bitcoin Magazine and it was kind of a
• 11:46
  wild ride for sure. So some people get bitten by the
• 11:49
  Bitcoin bug and they can kind of acknowledge it as like a thing
• 11:54
  and cool, I'll, I'll DCA, you know, I'll stack the stats and
• 12:00
  I'll go about my, my life. It seems to me like if you're
• 12:03
  going to within, you know, roughly the space of 12 months,
• 12:08
  commit to trying to work within the space.
• 12:11
  You must have, I don't know, got bitten pretty hardcore or you
• 12:17
  may have some sort of undiagnosed addictive
• 12:19
  personality or like what? What was the journey there?
• 12:23
  Because you must have just like parachuted down.
• 12:27
  Not even you probably just ripped the parachute off and
• 12:30
  just head first. Pulled, pulled the cord and just
• 12:33
  went with it. Now.
• 12:34
  I mean, I guess it was kind of a combination of things.
• 12:36
  So I'm an engineer by degree. Chemical engineering was what I
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  went to college for and university for, so kind of used
• 12:45
  to taking difficult tests and studying for things and
• 12:48
  different ways of synthesizing information to make it easier to
• 12:51
  solve problems basically. And so it was a combination of
• 12:54
  things. So I was working at this company
• 12:56
  at that point for about 3 years. I was working on a waste energy
• 13:00
  company, so literally burning trash, creating electricity,
• 13:03
  recovering metals, my past life, but it was very cool.
• 13:06
  But my company was going through changes.
• 13:09
  So we're a public company that was transitioning to a private
• 13:12
  company. A lot of senior leadership there
• 13:14
  was shake up there. And right as this was happening,
• 13:17
  there was also obviously the global pandemic was going on.
• 13:21
  And in order to keep things and keep your show from getting
• 13:25
  censored or whatever, I guess this is on Noster.
• 13:27
  So it's not as big of a deal. But basically they were trying
• 13:30
  to force, let's just say, the vaccine narrative more than I
• 13:35
  wanted. And they were kind of
• 13:37
  threatening to fire people and, you know, reprimand people, fire
• 13:43
  people, all these different things.
• 13:45
  So I was kind of in this crossroads of like, I was like,
• 13:48
  I really liked my job and I like the people I work with.
• 13:50
  But it was basically like this Orwellian approach of like, hey,
• 13:53
  they're going to force you to get the, the COVID shot.
• 13:57
  And I did not want to go with that.
• 13:59
  So it was kind of by necessity and kind of by like love and
• 14:02
  passion. Like I was like, I really like
• 14:03
  this Bitcoin thing. I'm no longer enjoying the work
• 14:06
  that I used to do at this job, especially because they're like
• 14:08
  forcing things on us. So ultimately, kind of things
• 14:11
  lined up perfectly where I jumped ship from my old career
• 14:15
  and into the Bitcoin industry. And yeah, it was a great year
• 14:18
  working at Bitcoin Magazine for sure.
• 14:21
  It's such a a hectic time and I guess there's a heck of a lot of
• 14:24
  uncertainty there too. I mean, the decide besides the
• 14:31
  emotional and psychological impact of your work colleagues
• 14:37
  literally forcing, you know, this untrialed, untested poison,
• 14:46
  let's say it, you know, and I've got I've got friends in a
• 14:51
  similar boat and I've heard many stories on this pod about
• 14:55
  similar situations where it's tipped them over the edge.
• 14:58
  But in in a way, it's kind of like being forged in the fire
• 15:01
  or, or going through that, that that dark night of the soul.
• 15:05
  You know, you come out the other end and it's it's almost like a
• 15:08
  blessing in disguise. But I mean, how do you go from
• 15:12
  like working in a joint as a chemical engineer?
• 15:15
  And I kind of want to touch on go back to this burning trash
• 15:19
  creating electricity company a little bit, But how do you go
• 15:24
  from that to writing really good articles about Bitcoin?
• 15:29
  Like like without any kind of journalistic or I mean, were you
• 15:35
  a technical writer or what's going on there?
• 15:38
  You're just a big. Yeah, so I, I'm actually, I
• 15:42
  think I'm one of the world's worst writers and I say that
• 15:45
  wholeheartedly. Like I, I don't think I'm a
• 15:47
  great writer. I guess my journey was I had a
• 15:50
  podcast in investing called the Amateur Investors that I started
• 15:54
  basically even before the pandemic probably in 2018-2019
• 15:59
  ish with one of my Co hosts. We ultimately split ways but
• 16:02
  right around like when the pandemic went, I was still kept
• 16:06
  going and turned it more of like an amateur investing podcast
• 16:09
  doing like, you know, discounted cash flows.
• 16:12
  The more like once I started going down the Bitcoin rap ball,
• 16:14
  it became basically a point show, you know, interviewing
• 16:19
  Jeff Ross, Greg Boss, Jeff Booth, like and the ill, you
• 16:24
  know, a lot of the names that are people are familiar with in
• 16:26
  the space and just kind of interviewing Adam O or Denver
• 16:29
  Bitcoin, just a lot of just Bitcoiners.
• 16:31
  So I was interviewing a lot of people and that was kind of my
• 16:34
  proof of work in 2020 while also being an engineer during the day
• 16:38
  and Bitcoin magazine really liked that and they actually
• 16:42
  ultimately hired me as a twitch project manager.
• 16:44
  So, you know, the video game platform or where a lot of
• 16:47
  people stream video games, I was that role for as all of like 2
• 16:50
  weeks and then I basically became the multimedia producer
• 16:53
  for ultimately what became Bitcoin Magazine, Live with Q&P
• 16:57
  and myself from that show ran for a better part of a year as
• 17:00
  well. And then, you know, as a
• 17:02
  transition helping for more conference stuff, they're
• 17:05
  hosting Bitcoin 2022, Bitcoin Amsterdam, Bitcoin 2023 and just
• 17:12
  kind of helping with that and then just seeing wherever I
• 17:15
  could fit into the company. So like I said, it's very
• 17:18
  different from what I had done in the engineering world.
• 17:20
  But I guess in my career, I've, I've had many different jobs at
• 17:24
  many different companies. And I guess part of what I like
• 17:28
  to do is kind of be the glue of the theme for kind of assist
• 17:31
  where people need help. But then also like I've worn
• 17:34
  many hats. I was a safety engineer at one
• 17:35
  point. I was a combustion engineer at
• 17:37
  this company, I was a mechanical engineer working, you know,
• 17:40
  trains. So all these different things,
• 17:43
  you know, I've worn many different hats and done many
• 17:45
  different technical things. But at the end of the day, like
• 17:47
  I think any job, there is a learning curve.
• 17:50
  Like no matter what your education or background is, like
• 17:53
  there's an on the job learning curve and it's just kind of
• 17:56
  matter of diving into it and just trying to get the work done
• 17:59
  and trying to things that you don't know, asking for help.
• 18:02
  Or if you don't know, you could always Google it or YouTube or
• 18:05
  there's many great resources with the Internet.
• 18:08
  So yeah, kind of full fronted going from engineering into the
• 18:12
  media world, especially a niche one that is Bitcoin.
• 18:15
  But I loved every second of it. It was.
• 18:17
  It was the great best. Yeah, you, you got to have
• 18:20
  nowadays the capacity to learn and unlearn and then relearn
• 18:25
  again. Like that's that's the move.
• 18:27
  If you can't do that, you're going to have a bad time.
• 18:30
  And that that skill is something that I imbue like and commend to
• 18:34
  to anyone in that, that ability to learn how to learn rather
• 18:41
  than just learn a thing and be so stuck in your ways that you
• 18:45
  can't pivot like you, like you've just articulated.
• 18:49
  If, if we go back just briefly and touch on this, this burning
• 18:54
  trash creating electricity company.
• 18:56
  I mean, I know these things exist.
• 18:58
  They aren't as popular for some reason as I understand them to
• 19:02
  be. And I don't understand that.
• 19:04
  Obviously you might know where I'm going with this with respect
• 19:07
  to hooking up some ASICS, but like, what?
• 19:11
  What is this process of burning trash, creating electricity?
• 19:14
  Why aren't more people doing it? And can we plug in some ASICS
• 19:18
  and my Bitcoin off the back of trash?
• 19:22
  Bitcoin doesn't announce itself. It reveals itself.
• 19:25
  Not in the moment you buy, but in the moment you stop thinking
• 19:28
  of it as a trade, start sensing it as a discovery.
• 19:33
  This episode is supported by Hard Block, an Australian
• 19:35
  Bitcoin exchange built for people finding Bitcoin in their
• 19:39
  own time, without pressure, without performance, without
• 19:42
  noise. Hard Block keeps the mechanics
• 19:44
  simple. Flat fees, no spreads, and a
• 19:47
  calm way to stack sats over time with DCA.
• 19:51
  And if you're still listening more than buying, there's a
• 19:54
  quiet place to learn over at learn.hardblock.com dot AU.
• 19:59
  If you've been listening to this part for a while, you already
• 20:00
  know Bitcoin is something you discover.
• 20:03
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  Bitcoin when signing up for a new fully verified account at
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  hardblock.com dot AU. So part of the reason, another
• 20:18
  part of the reason why I left this company.
• 20:20
  So like I said, I was going down the Bitcoin rabbit hole.
• 20:22
  I was still working at this company and they're very popular
• 20:26
  in Europe actually. Like in the United States,
• 20:29
  there's probably 80 to 100 of these wasted energy
• 20:32
  incinerators, as they're called, you know, waste energy plant in
• 20:37
  Europe. There's probably 600 to 800 in
• 20:40
  Europe. And so like I said, the the
• 20:43
  whole thing is there's basically three revenue streams for this.
• 20:46
  And this is just a generic breakdown, but there's the trash
• 20:49
  that you take in. So literally a municipality, you
• 20:51
  work with a trash company that they deliver waste and they put
• 20:54
  it in this gigantic kit. And then you use these cranes to
• 20:57
  pick up the trash, put it into a boiler, earn it so you create
• 21:00
  electricity. So the trash you take in it is
• 21:03
  called tipping fee. That that's revenue.
• 21:05
  You get the electricity you generate and you sell back to
• 21:08
  the grid or to the municipality, wherever the town.
• 21:10
  That's the second energy and then the third revenue stream
• 21:13
  that was more recent in the last 2015 to 20 years.
• 21:16
  Instead of selling the metals that come out in ash through the
• 21:19
  trash as just like a, a scrap e-file like for many, many
• 21:23
  years, these plants were built in the Seventies, 80s and 90s.
• 21:26
  A lot of times they would just sell it as like aluminum scrap
• 21:29
  and basically they'd sell it to a metal smelter and basically
• 21:32
  they'd buy it at pennies on the dollar.
• 21:34
  And then they'd separate out the metals and sell, you know, the
• 21:37
  aluminum, the brass, the gold, if there is any silver, nickel,
• 21:41
  like they basically separate out.
• 21:43
  But a lot of the plants figured that with metal prices going up,
• 21:46
  especially in the last year or so, gold and silver, you can see
• 21:49
  the chart just from the metals analyst.
• 21:52
  But even prior to this, like you can separate out the metals and
• 21:55
  get them a more pure source and you can sell them as individual
• 21:58
  scrap, you can get much, much, much higher value.
• 22:01
  So a lot of our plants even right as I was leaving, we were
• 22:04
  kind of retrofitting a lot of our plants with ways of
• 22:06
  separating out the metal. My, I guess tying this into with
• 22:10
  all the Bitcoin things. So I was going down the Bitcoin
• 22:13
  rabbit hole. Obviously learning about Bitcoin
• 22:14
  mining is a big part of that. I will definitely say that's
• 22:16
  kind of like one of the weakest areas of my knowledge of
• 22:19
  Bitcoin. But I started asking questions.
• 22:21
  I'm like, hey, like I'm looking at a lot of our energy purchase
• 22:24
  agreement because we're literally the energy producer
• 22:27
  and we're selling them for fractions like of a penny or
• 22:30
  like pennies on the dollar. And mind you, back in 2020-2021,
• 22:34
  like break even energy prices were anywhere from 6 to 9 cents.
• 22:38
  We were getting it like 7/10 of a penny, like, you know, like
• 22:43
  it's like, you know, basically fractions of a penny is what
• 22:46
  we're selling this energy for. So I asked like, why are we
• 22:48
  selling this back to the grid? Yeah, it's a great deal for
• 22:50
  them. It's kind of a shit deal for us.
• 22:52
  Like why don't we plug in ASIC minor and you find out with
• 22:56
  large corporations. And this is not disparaging the
• 22:59
  company that was at or anything, but normally our deals are with
• 23:03
  government contract. And so now you're starting to
• 23:06
  see where I'm going. You're marrying a company with a
• 23:08
  government entity. And yeah, maybe they're
• 23:10
  municipalities, maybe they're state, maybe they're federal,
• 23:14
  all this. But you start digging in
• 23:15
  questions and it's like it's kind of finding where the bodies
• 23:18
  are buried. They're like, oh, this is public
• 23:20
  private partnership. Come on, This is this is a.
• 23:23
  Good thing you start to ask questions of like, hey, like why
• 23:25
  don't we sell it or you know, we can make way more money doing
• 23:29
  Bitcoin. It's like.
• 23:30
  But if you start touching the holding goose in the sense of
• 23:33
  like messing with this government contract.
• 23:35
  That's cash. That's that flywheel.
• 23:37
  Don't touch that. So it's then you start to see
• 23:41
  like, oh, this whole COVID thing is tying in because the
• 23:44
  municipality is forcing them. And if you start messing and
• 23:47
  saying, Hey, we're not going to do the COVID vaccine thing, it's
• 23:49
  like, oh, well, maybe your power purchase agreement is not going
• 23:51
  to be as good when it's due for renewal.
• 23:53
  Hey, you're trying to use your energy for other ways that we
• 23:56
  don't mean fit. Oh, you know, maybe you're
• 23:58
  something will happen with your with your permit for your
• 24:01
  building. Oh, like you're trying to do
• 24:03
  this. Oh, you know, all of a sudden
• 24:04
  there's an issue with your well water.
• 24:06
  That's weird. So it's it almost felt like a
• 24:09
  glorified, like you're dealing with the mop, you're dealing
• 24:11
  with the the entity that has a monopoly on on violence.
• 24:16
  You know what I mean? And what I'm saying by that is
• 24:17
  the government and you kind of see those creeping tendrils of,
• 24:21
  yeah, you're a private company, you're a private entity.
• 24:24
  Yeah, you have shareholders and all this.
• 24:25
  But like, at the end of the day, what comes below working for,
• 24:29
  you know, the, your shareholders with the best interests of your
• 24:32
  employees and, and, you know, your workers is the the, the
• 24:36
  law. And basically guns and violence
• 24:38
  are kind of what keeps everything in check.
• 24:41
  So you kind of see where I'm going there that like, you know,
• 24:43
  oh, you want to do something novel, but like the government's
• 24:45
  like, yeah, we prefer if you didn't do that, you're like,
• 24:47
  what do you mean you prefer if I didn't?
• 24:49
  It's like, well, we'll, we'll have something to say about it
• 24:50
  if you do something. So it's kind of like this fine
• 24:52
  line of like dealing with municipalities, dealing with
• 24:55
  government, dealing with contracts.
• 24:56
  But that's where a lot of our money was based, like our
• 24:58
  tipping fees. Yeah, we were working with
• 25:00
  companies like Waste Management, stuff like that.
• 25:02
  But it's basically all a governmental contract within a
• 25:05
  municipality. Yeah, your energy prices are
• 25:07
  based on government contract. And like, yeah, we're basically
• 25:10
  subsidizing power to the municipalities.
• 25:13
  But like, hey, we're getting kickbacks on forms of taxes or
• 25:17
  all these different things. So you start to see like for
• 25:19
  what it really is. I hope that's a long winded,
• 25:22
  long winded response that you kind of understand where I'm
• 25:24
  going here. Oh man, it gets muddy real
• 25:27
  quick. Like, yeah, definitely.
• 25:29
  That's a follow the follow the money, follow the incentives,
• 25:33
  show me the outcomes, all of that stuff.
• 25:37
  That's yeah, I'm, I'm sort of glad you, you touched on that
• 25:41
  because I mean, that's the thing you you do wonder like certainly
• 25:45
  back in those days as well. I say like those days like 5
• 25:49
  years, six years ago now. Gosh, that is a long time ago.
• 25:52
  Anyway, it was very confusing that all of these, all of these
• 25:57
  entities, these large corporations and stuff weren't
• 26:00
  thinking independently and giving at least the option.
• 26:04
  And and yet, yeah, as you've just kind of laid out very
• 26:09
  succinctly, it's all because it's tied back to subsidies and
• 26:15
  public private partnerships at whatever scale, as you said,
• 26:18
  municipality, federal, state, whatever it's it's all the same.
• 26:23
  And they do they, they behave like mafioso.
• 26:27
  And, and if you're relying on licenses and permits and other
• 26:32
  sorts of things to operate your business, it can make your life
• 26:37
  incredibly difficult. That is interesting.
• 26:40
  So they. Obviously could obviously see
• 26:41
  where like obviously many, a lot of people are always talking
• 26:44
  about like free markets and free market capitalism and all this,
• 26:47
  but like it's there was a great quote that I saw recently.
• 26:50
  I forget who said it. It was basically like the US is
• 26:53
  like a capitalist or a socialist country larping as a capitalist
• 26:57
  country, and China is a capitalist country larping as a
• 27:00
  socialist country. And I think it's so true.
• 27:02
  Like a lot of the innovation aside from just like the Bitcoin
• 27:05
  of it all or the hard money standard of it all.
• 27:07
  But like the biggest thing is like innovations being Hanford,
• 27:10
  not only because we're not on a hard money standard, but also
• 27:12
  there's all this like government bureaucracy and red tape and
• 27:16
  like, you know, oh, don't bite the hand of feeds because you're
• 27:19
  kind of in on the scheme of getting all these tax breaks or
• 27:22
  permits or all this. And like, yeah, like we could
• 27:24
  have made way more money. Like I was pushing for having
• 27:27
  installing Bitcoin miners and like, yeah, even I was like,
• 27:30
  even if our price double S for triple, we're still like in a
• 27:32
  great position. We're creating the energy and
• 27:34
  all this. It's like, no, no, no, like
• 27:36
  right now bitcoins on the out with the government.
• 27:38
  Like if we do that, like they might pull our permit, they
• 27:41
  might pull our tax exemption status, they might not give us
• 27:45
  the contract and give it to one of our competitors.
• 27:46
  So it's like, you know, it really hampers innovation.
• 27:49
  It hampers, you know, business is growing.
• 27:52
  It hampers, you know, like you don't want to step out of line
• 27:55
  and you know, you don't even know where the line is.
• 27:57
  It's just kind of like this wishy washy thing, you know what
• 28:00
  I mean? I don't know.
• 28:01
  I totally know what you mean and, and it just, it just it,
• 28:04
  it's why we can't have nice things.
• 28:06
  It's why we don't have jet packs yet, you know, it's why we've
• 28:10
  gone backwards in air travel and the comfort that once existed,
• 28:16
  you know, at some point in the 70s, I've seen pictures.
• 28:19
  I mean, the fact that the Concorde doesn't exist anymore
• 28:22
  is completely like backwards. It's retarded.
• 28:26
  You know, it's like, why? Like that was clearly at the
• 28:29
  cutting edge of aviation. And, you know, if anything, we
• 28:33
  should have improvements on that.
• 28:34
  And yet how come this is that? And it's because of everything
• 28:38
  that you've just outlined and the shitty incentives that these
• 28:44
  middle managers and bureaucrats are contending with, perhaps not
• 28:50
  even agreeing with, you know, and aligning with that just put
• 28:55
  such a such a noose around the neck of innovation and, and, and
• 29:02
  creating cool things. Yeah.
• 29:05
  Yeah, yeah, Even like commercial airlines, like I think the last
• 29:08
  time a commercial airline was setting like feed records or,
• 29:12
  you know, jets were improving basically was either in the 70s
• 29:14
  or maybe even the 80s. Like I know, you know, 1971 is
• 29:17
  when everything changed. But I think like they still had
• 29:19
  another 5 to 10 years of squeeze.
• 29:21
  But like, we haven't set commercial airline feed record
• 29:24
  since like the 70s or 8, like right when we converted over
• 29:27
  everything coming off the, you know, going on to the Petro
• 29:30
  dollar coming off the front woods.
• 29:32
  So, you know, like you said, innovation has gone up.
• 29:34
  Install, awarded. Yeah, like all these airlines
• 29:36
  get government bailouts and contracts.
• 29:38
  But like, there's no innovation to improve or change or do
• 29:41
  anything. It's like stick with the status
• 29:42
  quo, you know, force take the force feed the government
• 29:46
  propaganda sloth. And yeah, I don't think that
• 29:49
  consumers or us as Americans or just people in general have
• 29:52
  benefited from it. No, I mean, you know, it blows
• 29:55
  my mind, right? You look at jets and you look at
• 29:59
  something like the F18 or the F16 and you compare that to the
• 30:04
  F35. And just from a design
• 30:05
  standpoint, the F18 smokes all of them.
• 30:10
  The F16 is pretty sexy. The F35 looks just, it just
• 30:15
  looks shit in my opinion. Apparently it is a shit aircraft
• 30:19
  as well, relative. And we're talking about, you
• 30:22
  know, aircraft design engineering that occurred
• 30:26
  probably began in the 50s, developed in the 60s F 18, I
• 30:30
  think was launched maybe in the 70s.
• 30:33
  You know, so it's 3 decades there of, of legwork.
• 30:36
  But the fact that you can still fly around in the skies and look
• 30:41
  super cool and we have nothing really that's kind of competing
• 30:46
  with it on a aesthetic level, engineering level.
• 30:49
  Maybe, maybe I'm talking out of turn with the engineering stuff.
• 30:52
  I probably am, to be honest, but just from a pure like looking at
• 30:56
  the aircraft in the in the in the sky, you know, you can't
• 31:00
  beat it. Look the A10 like I mean, we're
• 31:03
  talking aircraft here for a minute, but like my point is
• 31:06
  that like the the F18 is over 50 years old and it still looks
• 31:10
  sexy as hell. You know, bombing people, which
• 31:13
  is awful, but like it's a cool aircraft, right?
• 31:16
  You look at it and it's like what what's happened here?
• 31:21
  Like, why is this? It's all of a sudden ground to a
• 31:24
  halt and the most the closest we've got is this F35.
• 31:29
  What? Yeah, I don't know.
• 31:33
  I don't know if you have any opinions on aircraft or
• 31:35
  anything, but I just, it just, it just blows my mind that we've
• 31:39
  stalled so hard. Yeah, no, I mean, I don't know
• 31:43
  aviation as well as probably as I should, but yeah, I will
• 31:47
  agree. Like it's just like we've kind
• 31:48
  of stalled in commercial airlines.
• 31:50
  We definitely stalled from military perspective.
• 31:54
  Yeah. And just like even when you look
• 31:55
  at all the issues that Boeing's had in the last 10 to 15 years
• 31:58
  of like planes falling out of sky was the Boeing Max or the
• 32:02
  737 Boeing Max. And, you know, basically just
• 32:05
  like all these oversights and like, yeah, they have all these
• 32:07
  regulations to try and protect people, but yet today just we're
• 32:12
  not seeing, you know, material improvements in terms of feed or
• 32:16
  efficiency or anything like that.
• 32:18
  Like, yeah, like bureaucratic standpoint, it looks great.
• 32:21
  But you know, we still have all these issues.
• 32:23
  We're not the way that you think.
• 32:25
  It's kind of like Core 30. All right, let's pivot.
• 32:33
  Greg, just to say, if you're enjoying the show and digging
• 32:36
  what you hear, please consider supporting discovering Bitcoin
• 32:39
  by shooting boost and sending or zapping the show some stats.
• 32:43
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• 32:46
  as Fountain, Pod Verse or Breeze, it's easier done than
• 32:50
  said. All you got to do is tap the
• 32:52
  boost button or set an amount of stats to stream per minute while
• 32:56
  you're listening. Alternatively, if you want to
• 32:59
  ZAP me direct via lightning address, please send zaps and
• 33:03
  sats or zaps of sats in support of the show to Discovering
• 33:08
  Bitcoin at primal.net. Thank you for listening and
• 33:12
  thank you for your support. How has discovering Bitcoin
• 33:17
  changed you? Oh, how is it Discovering
• 33:22
  Bitcoin changed me. I definitely think, you know,
• 33:25
  time preference plays a bit into it.
• 33:28
  You know, I've always been kind of a diligent investor in terms
• 33:31
  of my money. That's, you know, why I love
• 33:34
  doing the investing podcast and stuff like that.
• 33:36
  But you realize that a lot of the evaluations, you know, I I
• 33:40
  come from the press and fish world.
• 33:41
  So like the ballasting, you know, Warren Buffett discounted
• 33:44
  cash flow mentality and a lot of times, you know, yeah, the the
• 33:49
  devalue of the way of doing it. But when you start reading a lot
• 33:53
  of, you know, Warren Buffett's books or Benjamin Graham, like
• 33:58
  obviously a lot of these books were written in the 40s,
• 34:00
  fifties, 60s and they their principles.
• 34:05
  It's just very funny seeing when they're referring to those
• 34:08
  books, like, you know, you can get the 10 year Treasury is
• 34:11
  giving you 7% yield. It's like, all right, well, in
• 34:13
  2020 when I was reading them or even prior to that, like those
• 34:17
  were not the yields that I was looking at.
• 34:19
  Like it's very different the bond yields you're looking at
• 34:22
  versus what nowadays or even back then when I was reading
• 34:25
  them. But I guess the principles kind
• 34:27
  of remain the same that like everything in the market was
• 34:30
  looking over value. And it's like, well, how, how
• 34:33
  does this happen? And then that's kind of goes
• 34:35
  down the rabbit hole of like monetary policy in the Federal
• 34:38
  Reserve. And it's like, yeah, well, like
• 34:40
  Amazon or Apple or like any of the mag seven companies list any
• 34:43
  of them. And you're like, OK, so it's a
• 34:46
  great company, but it's trading at 40 times TE And like even
• 34:50
  Warren Buffett or Billy Benjamin Graham, apologies that they're
• 34:54
  always like you're looking for something like 5 to 10 PE ratio.
• 34:57
  It's like, well, these are the best companies in the world and
• 34:59
  they're at 40 or 100 or like Tesla at the time was at like
• 35:04
  1400 price to earnings ratio. So you're obviously seeing like
• 35:08
  the disparity between like, all right, these are the best
• 35:10
  companies, quote UN quote in the world.
• 35:12
  And yet they're trading at multiples that are like way
• 35:15
  higher than what they should be traditionally valued at.
• 35:18
  And then it's like, well, and then you can take that out of
• 35:21
  context and you can look like, oh, well, that just means that
• 35:24
  the market's overvalued and needs to wait amount of time.
• 35:26
  And then over time, like they'll be a crash or correction.
• 35:29
  And then that's when you can buy in.
• 35:30
  Like, that's, you know, kind of the Buffet thesis.
• 35:32
  Like he was stacking a bunch of cash.
• 35:34
  I think last I checked, Berkshire Hathaway still packing
• 35:38
  cash, they have like $300 billion on their books of cash
• 35:41
  that they're like waiting to deploy.
• 35:43
  But you start to realize that like the, the time to get in
• 35:47
  gets narrower and narrower when you look at 2020 in the crash or
• 35:50
  you look at 20/20/23 when like everything broke with FDX crypto
• 35:55
  at broadly. But you know, obviously we're
• 35:57
  only carrying about Bitcoin here, but you start to realize
• 35:59
  that, like the breaking of these companies is not the issue of
• 36:05
  the companies per SE themselves. It's the evaluations are so
• 36:08
  janked up and messed up because of the monetary system that we
• 36:12
  and like that's kind of the crux of the whole argument.
• 36:15
  Like that's what that's why we Bitcoin.
• 36:17
  That's like what it helps you realize, like you're trying to
• 36:20
  put your money in something that's fixed and not changing,
• 36:24
  you know, the sparring, all the disputes of Corin and knots and
• 36:27
  stuff like that. But over the, the, the, the
• 36:30
  guard, the guard rails or kind of what the thesis of it is, is
• 36:34
  it's not changing. There's only ever 21 million.
• 36:36
  You're you're a way to evaluate businesses on something that's
• 36:41
  not getting devalued against the cash.
• 36:42
  Like that was the biggest conundrum in the investing world
• 36:45
  for, you know, since the 70s, but we really didn't realize it
• 36:48
  until like basically the great financial crisis in 2008.
• 36:50
  And then beyond of like these things are getting way, like the
• 36:54
  multiples of what you're buying are so ridiculous.
• 36:57
  But the reason that that's happening is because people are
• 36:59
  just parking their money in quote UN quote, the best assets.
• 37:02
  But just because they're the best assets doesn't mean that
• 37:05
  it's a great a good thing to invest in.
• 37:08
  Yeah, ultimately, if you invest in the mag 7 or you know, the
• 37:10
  big companies, like you've done very well, but like you've done
• 37:13
  better investing in Bitcoin where you're getting true value,
• 37:17
  where you're getting a bunch of properties of, you know, the
• 37:20
  like you can prevent censorship. You can have be sovereign over
• 37:24
  your money. Look at like you start to
• 37:26
  unravel or peel back the layers, the onion of like, yeah, Well,
• 37:29
  if you're a Russian oligarch or even if you're just a Russian
• 37:31
  citizen and you're getting cut off from the Swiss system.
• 37:33
  Or if you're in Ukraine and you're trying to flee the war as
• 37:36
  a woman or children or, you know, a man that, you know,
• 37:39
  under 18 or you know, above 65 that trying to leave this
• 37:42
  conflict zone. And they're basically saying
• 37:43
  like, even if you're, if you're, you're a good citizen, you fail
• 37:47
  your taxes, you do everything that's right.
• 37:48
  But if you say something that's wrong, a war breaks out, that
• 37:51
  your unintended consequences for, you know, you go up against
• 37:54
  the wrong person, Like your wealth can be confiscated in a
• 37:57
  minute. And you know, so this great
• 37:59
  investment is all of a sudden gone.
• 38:01
  These stocks that you bought, these bonds that you bought,
• 38:03
  this real estate that you that you thought was in a great area
• 38:05
  in Kiev might not be a great area because of war breaks out.
• 38:08
  So all these things go into factor what kind of investment
• 38:11
  you should evaluate and what you should look at.
• 38:13
  Ultimately. That's kind of why I concluded
• 38:15
  on Bitcoin, tying it back all in, it kind of gives you a
• 38:18
  better understanding of time preference.
• 38:20
  And like, you know, for the longest time it kind of felt
• 38:22
  like I was investing just to try and get ahead and, and try and
• 38:25
  put money away for retirement. But it's now with Bitcoin, it's
• 38:28
  like I'm doing something that's more, you know, in line with my
• 38:32
  values. It's a way to to hedge, not
• 38:35
  hedge, but basically to protect me and my family.
• 38:38
  And ultimately, at the end of the day, it's even been the best
• 38:40
  investment. I know that that, you know, this
• 38:42
  last year, year and a half, people have said it's not yield
• 38:44
  to the returns we want, But I ultimately think that like in
• 38:48
  the long run, you're just buying it at a discount compared to
• 38:51
  every. So that was a long winded
• 38:53
  response once again, but I hope I.
• 38:55
  Had answered the question. We are all here for the long
• 38:58
  winded response. It's, it's cool.
• 39:01
  We we've been known to spin off into some pretty esoteric
• 39:05
  realms. This is this is, this is clean.
• 39:08
  This is good. I can remember reading the
• 39:11
  Intelligent Investor, picking that book up, beginning to read
• 39:15
  it. I think I got maybe halfway
• 39:17
  through. I was listening to some
• 39:19
  podcasts, I think American Huddle.
• 39:22
  I don't know if it was on Twitter or or if it was on a pod
• 39:25
  or whatever, but I remember him saying, what is the point?
• 39:29
  I'm buying literally anything. When you look at what it's
• 39:31
  denominated in and you know, essentially, you know, making
• 39:37
  the point that why would you, why would you buy, invest in
• 39:43
  things that are denominated in the dollar, which is devaluing
• 39:46
  all the while, irrespective of whether or not, you know, your,
• 39:51
  your return is, is outpacing that devaluation.
• 39:55
  Yeah. And I remembered literally
• 39:56
  putting the the the book down and not returning to it.
• 40:01
  And, and I was also, I mean, it's not like I was reading it,
• 40:03
  understanding it and nodding along going yeah, yeah, that
• 40:06
  makes sense. I was like, what the fuck?
• 40:08
  Because I was at the beginning of that kind of journey.
• 40:12
  But it seems to me like Bitcoin, apart from lowering your time
• 40:17
  preference and clarifying as you said, all of these investments.
• 40:24
  All of these stocks that are trading, you know, way higher
• 40:29
  above price to earnings than even the the smartest dudes in
• 40:33
  the room, so-called quote UN quote smartest dudes in the room
• 40:35
  like manga and and what's what's the guy's name?
• 40:40
  You just mentioned him, the guy that drinks Coke all the time,
• 40:43
  the Omaha Charlie. Warren Buffett.
• 40:45
  Yeah, that's it. Buffett and Manga, they're
• 40:48
  Gates's best mate, right? You know, it seems to.
• 40:51
  Me like. You you've kind of lowered your
• 40:54
  time preference and slid over to the right of the mid curve of
• 41:00
  that bell curve from the mid and and that's kind of where it's
• 41:03
  at. I feel like a lot of Bitcoiners,
• 41:06
  they can slide left, slide right and they just stop mid curving
• 41:10
  this thing and just like, look, it's simple.
• 41:12
  Just buy a Bitcoin and focus on what you do.
• 41:19
  Definitely. So does that mean that you, I
• 41:25
  mean, I'm, I'm not prying into your portfolio or anything like
• 41:28
  that, but when it comes to things like MicroStrategy, MSTR
• 41:34
  or any kind of investments outside of Bitcoin, are you
• 41:37
  taking them seriously now? Are you starting to take them
• 41:41
  seriously now? Maybe you build a position and
• 41:43
  you're like, OK, let's see if there's anything else that I can
• 41:47
  and I quote UN quote play around with a or whatever.
• 41:50
  Is any of those things attractive to you or you still
• 41:53
  like there? It's all shit.
• 41:55
  I'll just buy Bitcoin and focus on my craft and you know, wait
• 42:01
  it out sort of thing. Yeah.
• 42:03
  So I guess I'll say what I recommend versus what I actually
• 42:08
  did. So I do have small positions in
• 42:11
  a couple of the and like I said, like if they went to zero, I I'd
• 42:16
  be completely. Fine.
• 42:18
  I'd be fine. No, I didn't.
• 42:21
  No. But like I have small positions
• 42:25
  in a couple of the treasury company, but ultimately I don't
• 42:30
  think they're better investment than Bitcoin.
• 42:32
  Like even like strategy, like I had a position in it.
• 42:35
  I've had it for a few years and it's done pretty well, even
• 42:39
  despite the pullback is because you're there's so many layers of
• 42:43
  attraction when you're buying one of these things.
• 42:45
  And what I mean by that is like, OK, let's just say you really
• 42:47
  like Michael Saylor. That's kind of one of the main
• 42:49
  reasons why you buy micro strategy or strategy as it's
• 42:52
  called. So you buy strategy.
• 42:54
  So you're trusting in Michael Saylor.
• 42:56
  But it's like, but then you're also, he's the chairman of the
• 42:58
  board and yeah, he like has the majority ownership of the
• 43:00
  company, but ultimately he has the CEO.
• 43:03
  I always forget the guy's name, that Asian guy, Hong Hong Lee, I
• 43:06
  think his name. And then basically he has this
• 43:08
  operating business. You know, he has.
• 43:11
  You're trusting in Michael Saylor.
• 43:12
  You're trusting in the executive leadership team.
• 43:14
  You're trusting in Coinbase because they're the ones that
• 43:16
  custody their coins. You're trusting in the audit,
• 43:19
  that audit to make sure that Coinbase is right.
• 43:22
  You're trusting to make sure that there's no hack on the
• 43:24
  exchange. You're trusting on all.
• 43:26
  You're trusting in all these different things like, yeah,
• 43:28
  like even if micro strategy is outperforming Bitcoin by what,
• 43:31
  10%, Fifteen percent, 20%, OK, maybe he's 100% outperformed
• 43:37
  Bitcoin, but Bitcoin went up 1000% and micro strategy went up
• 43:40
  1100. So that's great.
• 43:42
  But you're still having all these abstractions that are that
• 43:46
  you, that are risks that you have to account for.
• 43:48
  And even I actually, I will have it.
• 43:52
  I do have like one share of Nakamoto just because I was
• 43:54
  wanting to monitor it. And if I don't, if I don't have
• 43:57
  a little skin in the game, even one share or whatever, I won't
• 44:00
  pay attention to it. So even if it's a dollar or $10
• 44:03
  or up, like I'll buy a share of something if I want to monitor
• 44:06
  it. And I'll just like, that's my
• 44:08
  way of monitoring things like that.
• 44:10
  But to your point, like, so while I do have these things,
• 44:12
  and I was in a conundrum when I first got into Bitcoin because I
• 44:16
  had been investing since I got out of college and I was like,
• 44:20
  you know, traditional, like I was maxing out my 401K IRA and
• 44:24
  stuff like that. And it actually over the years
• 44:26
  when I got to the point of getting into Bitcoin, it had
• 44:29
  grown to enough of a position that if I were to cash out, I,
• 44:32
  the tax liabilities and like all the penalties I would pay was so
• 44:36
  much of a headache. So I literally like wrote off My
• 44:38
  Portfolio to 0, which it sounds absurd, like I was buying
• 44:41
  basically just the S&P 500. But I like came to this like
• 44:44
  crossroads of being a Bitcoiner. I'm like, well, if I sell all
• 44:46
  this and then I deal with all the tax and penalties and like I
• 44:50
  like I would lose a ton of money on it.
• 44:53
  So I said I'd rather write this to 0.
• 44:55
  Like mentally like this could go to zero and I will be OK as my
• 44:58
  family because I'm just going to lump the rest of the money.
• 45:01
  Instead of investing in this graph anymore, I'm just going to
• 45:03
  invest in debate. I'm like, I, you know, it's kind
• 45:06
  of funny because in the sense that like, I guess I'm not a
• 45:09
  full Bitcoiner, that I'm only in Bitcoin 100%, not in anything
• 45:12
  else. But then the traditional people
• 45:14
  look at me like I'm insane because all I've been investing
• 45:16
  in Bitcoin is basically for the last five, you know, however
• 45:19
  many since 2020. So the last five, almost six
• 45:22
  years, they're like, they're like, I don't get it.
• 45:24
  Like traditional finance, the S&P 500 has done so well.
• 45:27
  Bitcoin is so volatile where the Bitcoiners are like, you should
• 45:29
  have, you should have sold all of your like IRA or like, yeah,
• 45:34
  like I kind of bought the ETF and just kind of tracking
• 45:36
  Bitcoin in that. But I guess I'm in these two
• 45:38
  camps that if my, if I say something that's against the
• 45:41
  government or they, they do something that they don't like
• 45:43
  or do something they don't like and they take all of my IRA or
• 45:47
  my 401K, I'm all right because I have my Bitcoin.
• 45:49
  And then the Bitcoiners think I'm crazy because like you still
• 45:52
  have like 1 foot in the traditional finance and it's
• 45:54
  like, yeah, well, but I hate the government so much that I don't
• 45:57
  want to give them another dollar of accident that like, you know,
• 46:00
  like they're like, well, if they take all of your IRA AT4O1K, I'm
• 46:04
  like, they're just proving my thesis on the Bitcoin and
• 46:05
  Bitcoin's going to RIP anyway. So then I'm OK.
• 46:07
  Like, you know, does that make sense or do I sound insane?
• 46:10
  Like, you know what I mean? Like if I basically, if they
• 46:12
  confiscate MY4O1K, my IRA, all the, you know, the government
• 46:15
  Fiat BS accounts, they prove my point why Bitcoin's so important
• 46:19
  and I haven't self custody. And then if I have it of like, I
• 46:22
  hate them so much that, yeah, Bitcoin's a great investment.
• 46:24
  But if I sell it and I have to pay them taxes that they use to
• 46:27
  keep depressing me and like the Bitcoin community and my values,
• 46:31
  I'm like, it's a, it's a lose lose.
• 46:33
  Like I, I feel like I'm a lose lose myself.
• 46:35
  So I'm like, I might as well ride out both outcomes and
• 46:37
  whatever happens, happens. Does that make sense or do I?
• 46:40
  Sound insane? It, it makes total, total sense,
• 46:43
  man. It reminds me of our case and
• 46:44
  epic rant few years ago. It was on what Bitcoin did with
• 46:49
  huddle. And you know, we, they have
• 46:52
  screwed everything up so much that there are a bunch of us
• 46:57
  that decided to yeah, go all in on some unknown anonymous magic
• 47:04
  Internet money dude and just be like, Yep, sounds that sounds
• 47:07
  way better than literally any other thing that you've got to
• 47:10
  offer it. It makes total sense, man.
• 47:13
  Is, is there no opportunity to roll over your?
• 47:16
  I don't know how the the retirement system works over
• 47:21
  there, but can you just, could you not just not liquidate it,
• 47:26
  but roll it into like a self managed sort of a setup?
• 47:30
  So I looked at this and there is the McNulty case is kind of the
• 47:36
  big case that occurred. I want to stay in the early
• 47:39
  2000s where it was a husband and wife and basically they rolled
• 47:43
  their IRA or 4-O1K into gold. And basically they had this gold
• 47:48
  quote UN quote in a safe. And then they got audited and
• 47:52
  the IRS came and apparently when they opened up the safe that
• 47:54
  this magical safe that had their gold, you know, there was this
• 47:58
  case of like there was basically just a post a note in there that
• 48:01
  like, Yep, we have the gold hidden somewhere.
• 48:03
  So no one steals it from us, which kind of makes sense when
• 48:05
  you're thinking about it. If you have this ton of gold,
• 48:06
  hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gold.
• 48:08
  But basically the IRS said, like, you basically are lying.
• 48:11
  You sold your gold and like there's no way for you to prove
• 48:13
  to have it. And they're like, well, we don't
• 48:15
  want you to know where the gold is because that's from the risk
• 48:17
  anyway. I know Unchained does something
• 48:19
  like that. Swan does something like it
• 48:21
  where it's basically, it's called the checkbook IRA.
• 48:24
  And my biggest thing is I just I don't want to take the risk.
• 48:28
  And I know bitcoins very different that like if you self
• 48:31
  custody with an entity like Unchained, like Casa, like Swan,
• 48:34
  like, yeah, you can show the bitcoins there they have it.
• 48:37
  You have two fees and like as long as it doesn't move, you're
• 48:40
  not like breaking any tax laws. But my biggest thing is I was
• 48:43
  like, I'd rather just leave it in one of the ETFs or, you know,
• 48:48
  just kind of tracking the S&P 500 personally.
• 48:51
  Then like deal with the headache of one there.
• 48:54
  There's occurring fees that go on that are higher than the ETF.
• 48:57
  And then two, yeah, like you may have self custody or Bitcoin,
• 49:00
  which is better, but I just don't want to deal with the the
• 49:04
  potentially going to court or fighting it or all this until
• 49:07
  there's like more clarity. And I know the Unchained guys
• 49:09
  and Swan and flames like, oh, it's good.
• 49:11
  It's good. It's like, yeah, you say it's
• 49:13
  good, but like, you know, when it actually gets challenged and
• 49:16
  like, it just goes to show like the Samurai guys, I always
• 49:19
  wanted to bring up Keon and Bill, like what they went
• 49:22
  through. I don't know if you've been
• 49:22
  following the Samurai developers case, but unfortunately they're
• 49:25
  both had to report to jail. But basically, like Vincent told
• 49:28
  the DOJ, they're like, Yep, they're not taking custody of
• 49:31
  funds. You know, you're doing
• 49:32
  everything by the book. They're not a money transmitter
• 49:35
  because they don't take custody of funds.
• 49:36
  Custody of funds is the main thing to become a money
• 49:38
  transmitter business or be a financially regulated
• 49:41
  institution. And basically the the DOJ said,
• 49:44
  Yep, we hear you Fin saying, but we're still going to charge them
• 49:46
  with this. We're going to throw the book at
• 49:48
  them and we're going to convict them.
• 49:49
  And it's like, it just shows that like, like it kind of ties
• 49:52
  back to Eric Hayson or even to like American Huddle, some of
• 49:55
  their great rants, like the government fucking hates you.
• 49:57
  And like, you need to realize that like they will change the
• 49:59
  rules, they will change the laws, they will do whatever.
• 50:02
  What do they want? Like, what is it even Joe Biden
• 50:04
  said, I think during his presidency.
• 50:06
  It's like, you know, the deep state or the Intel agencies have
• 50:09
  10 ways to Sunday to indict a ham family.
• 50:12
  Like if they want to go after you, they will go after you.
• 50:14
  And like, I just want to give him one less reason for them to
• 50:16
  go after me. And maybe that's like a bad way
• 50:20
  to say it because at least I don't have the custody of the
• 50:22
  Bitcoin. And I get that.
• 50:23
  But I'm comfortable just like lumping my salary.
• 50:25
  Then I get it, you know, into Bitcoin as it is.
• 50:28
  And I keep self busting. Everything I'm doing in the
• 50:30
  future is like self us being more Bitcoin.
• 50:33
  I don't know. Yeah, no, look, that's some
• 50:35
  sound reasoning there, particularly in light of what's
• 50:38
  going on with Samurai. It's just insane.
• 50:41
  They basically were checking all the boxes and, you know, had the
• 50:45
  the various licenses that they required.
• 50:48
  And and as I said, as you said, like they weren't, they weren't
• 50:52
  a money transmitter, right. And anyway, it's, it's just
• 50:55
  disgusting. There was a video posted I think
• 50:58
  just before Christmas of Kieran's wife, I think.
• 51:02
  And it's like a long shot of a person on a gloomy day and
• 51:08
  student tracks. I'm pretty sure it's Kieran
• 51:10
  walking into prison. It's, it's horrifying.
• 51:14
  They, they will just change the fucking rules, man.
• 51:16
  And, and, and like and fuck you basically.
• 51:22
  I remember we, we had like this thing's called Bush bashes over
• 51:26
  here and we had like attacks lawyer, I think it was.
• 51:31
  He used to work for the Ato and there's all these Bitcoiners
• 51:35
  like he, he's a Bitcoiner himself.
• 51:38
  But yeah, he was doing this presentation about, you know,
• 51:42
  texts and blah, blah, blah. And apart from it being just
• 51:45
  incredibly opaque and convoluted and complex or unnecessarily
• 51:51
  complicated, not complex, complexity has elegance.
• 51:54
  Anyhow, all these bitcoiners like we're throwing questions at
• 51:58
  him and his entire thesis basically boiled down to at the
• 52:04
  moment, you can do this, but at any point, if they don't want
• 52:09
  you to do this, they'll just get salty.
• 52:12
  Someone will complain, they'll write more laws on a piece of
• 52:15
  paper, change the rules, and then you have to comply with
• 52:19
  that one. So house wins, fuck you and you
• 52:24
  could go about your day. It's it's so it's so rigged,
• 52:30
  it's so rigged, but. And to your point of that, like
• 52:33
  when you think about that logically, like if something was
• 52:35
  not illegal and then all of a sudden they changed the law and
• 52:38
  what you're doing is now considered illegal, but like
• 52:41
  you're kind of grandfathered in that you weren't doing anything
• 52:43
  illegal beforehand. It's like, no, it doesn't matter
• 52:45
  to them. They will.
• 52:46
  Like they will obvious gate the law, they'll make it very
• 52:50
  opaque. And they say, oh, well, no, what
• 52:52
  you're doing now is illegal. So we're going to go out like
• 52:54
  it's just it's absurd. And even like Vincent like going
• 52:58
  after and Keon, even when Finn sent the regulatory body that
• 53:02
  said what they're doing is not illegal.
• 53:03
  They don't need a license. They they don't need to register
• 53:06
  with us. And the DOJ says, fuck you guys.
• 53:08
  You're the regulatory body. We're going to do whatever the
• 53:10
  fuck we want in the Southern District of New York.
• 53:13
  And like, we don't like we're above the law.
• 53:15
  Like, that's basically what they said.
• 53:16
  Like, you know, Trump, love him or hate him, he had the
• 53:18
  executive order saying like, hey, all Bitcoin under the
• 53:21
  purview of the federal and state government, like has to be
• 53:24
  considered for the strategic national interests of the
• 53:27
  country of like having a strategic Bitcoin reserve or,
• 53:30
  you know, basically accounting for it.
• 53:31
  And basically they went against this mandate because they're
• 53:33
  basically telling Trump we are more powerful.
• 53:35
  And like, I think, you know, I'll speak, you know, as an
• 53:38
  American, I know you're not. But like, it's very interesting
• 53:41
  in America. We're always worried about
• 53:43
  Congress and Senate, like congressmen and senators and the
• 53:47
  president being too powerful at the end of the day.
• 53:49
  Like I really think and like this is true.
• 53:52
  Like obviously they're corrupt. Like there's, there's tons of
• 53:54
  corruption. Like obviously we want to weed
• 53:56
  that out. We don't want to dictate Gator
• 53:57
  here in the United States, but at the end of the day, like the
• 54:00
  corruption has already happened. And what I mean by that is like,
• 54:03
  the judicial branch is the one that we overlook all the time.
• 54:05
  Like, yeah, like the Supreme Court is kind of the over rulers
• 54:08
  of the land. But like this case with Bill and
• 54:11
  Keon revealed so much that, like, a judge can basically fuck
• 54:16
  you. And basically if they're team
• 54:17
  prosecution, which most times they are, the judge, you know,
• 54:20
  normally doesn't work as a defense attorney.
• 54:21
  Normally they work in prosecution and they work their
• 54:23
  way of being a judge. Like at least that's the way it
• 54:26
  seems. And more often than not, like
• 54:29
  the judge can make sure like what defense you present to
• 54:31
  yourself. It's like, how is this a fair
• 54:32
  and a just trial when they say you're not allowed to present
• 54:35
  this information, You're not allowed to tell us the jury,
• 54:37
  you're not allowed to say this defense, these motions that you
• 54:39
  applied for are denied. And I'm not going to give an
• 54:42
  opinion or reasoning why they're denied.
• 54:44
  Like it just goes to show that like you could like when you're
• 54:47
  going up against the law and Keon did a huge, you know,
• 54:50
  marketing push or, you know, podcast or push right before he
• 54:54
  went into jail December 19th. And, you know, I'm really hoping
• 54:57
  Trump and see this and pardon him and Bill.
• 55:00
  And for those that are listening, you can go to
• 55:02
  billandkeon.org and look at like signing the petition or helping
• 55:06
  them out, the monetary sense, donate to their families and
• 55:08
  stuff. But it really just goes to show
• 55:10
  that like they can make up the rules, they can make up the
• 55:12
  laws, they can make what kind of defense you have.
• 55:15
  They can make up a defense that you can't defend yourself,
• 55:17
  basically. And it's just really absurd in
• 55:19
  this day and age. Like, you know, in America, we
• 55:21
  talked about being the passion of democracy and speech and hope
• 55:25
  and all this different things. And it's like at the end of the
• 55:27
  day, like if the law wants to go after you, they will go after
• 55:29
  you and like, they have no qualms about it.
• 55:31
  And to make it even worse, it's like if you're a Democrat or
• 55:35
  Republican or liberal or conservative or whatever, like
• 55:38
  these judges or this system like is going to go across, you know,
• 55:43
  that they were here with Trump in his first term.
• 55:45
  They're here in Bidens term, they're here in Trump second
• 55:47
  term, they're going to be here after Trump leaves.
• 55:49
  So it's like they don't really give a fuck to the president in
• 55:51
  you know what I mean? Like we're always so worried
• 55:53
  about dictator power of the president or the executive
• 55:55
  branch. We're so worried about the like,
• 55:58
  you know, the branch of Congress in the legislative branch, but
• 56:01
  at the end of the day, just to a branch can fuck you over.
• 56:03
  They can make up the laws, they can change the laws, They can
• 56:06
  make it so you can't defend yourself.
• 56:08
  So like at the end of the day, we're worried about, oh, the
• 56:10
  law's on the books or the executive being too powerful and
• 56:13
  doing all these things. It's courts can just do whatever
• 56:15
  the fuck they want. It seems like they are more
• 56:17
  powerful than the law because they are the law.
• 56:19
  And I don't know, it's just, it's absurd.
• 56:21
  It's it's absurd man. I mean, have you considered
• 56:24
  recently of opening a daycare? Yeah, like in yeah, Minnesota, I
• 56:30
  heard there's a great, great daycare.
• 56:32
  Huge opportunity, man. You got your boy, Walter.
• 56:35
  Yeah, and that just goes, that's another thing.
• 56:37
  It's like, why the fuck are we paying taxes when we're just
• 56:39
  going to fucking launder to all these companies?
• 56:41
  And it's like, I know, like, you know, we're ranting and you can
• 56:44
  get really black pill on all of it.
• 56:45
  It's like Julian Assange has a great quote from right before he
• 56:49
  got imprisoned as well in like 2011, 2012.
• 56:52
  And basically he's like the the point of taxes and and these
• 56:57
  wars is like is to wash the tax bases from the United States
• 57:02
  into these other countries that then wash it back into the
• 57:05
  United States government and these Ng OS and these
• 57:08
  politicians and the caught. Like it's basically he talks
• 57:10
  about taking the tax or the tax dollars from the American
• 57:13
  citizen, washing it into these other countries like money
• 57:16
  laundering. It glorified money laundering
• 57:17
  like the mob in just a more advanced global international
• 57:21
  cabal way out to these other countries and then trickling the
• 57:24
  money back into politicians coffers into these Ng OS where
• 57:28
  basically the government officials and their buddies run
• 57:31
  these Ng OS. They get a huge salary, they get
• 57:33
  to get it onto their campaigns and then they get to do all this
• 57:36
  insider trading like Nancy Pelosi and and what is it?
• 57:40
  All the different politicians that can launder the money
• 57:43
  basically through stock trading or insider trading.
• 57:45
  All this and it's like it's a whole big racket.
• 57:46
  And like, you know, to to steal a line from George Carlin, the
• 57:49
  famous comedian, one of my favorite, he was basically like,
• 57:52
  it's one big club and you ain't fucking in it, buddy.
• 57:54
  Like you know what I mean? Oh God rest you saw George
• 57:59
  Carlin, greatest stand up comedian.
• 58:02
  I mean more scathing than Bill Hicks, and that says something.
• 58:06
  Yeah. And even at, like right before
• 58:08
  he died, when I, you know, I was, I was a young lad and kind
• 58:11
  of, I loved his stuff. And towards the end of his life,
• 58:14
  I thought he was getting like, very bitter and mean and just
• 58:16
  like I was like, oh, man, I like, love George Carlin, but it
• 58:19
  just, it seems like he's like sad with life.
• 58:21
  And then I realized like he was sad with life because he was
• 58:24
  even more right than we knew he was, you know what I mean?
• 58:27
  And that makes it all that more tragic in a sense.
• 58:30
  Like he was. He's been saying this for 20-30
• 58:32
  years. And he was even more right than
• 58:34
  he thought. And he probably realized that at
• 58:36
  the end of his life being like a wise old man of being like,
• 58:38
  like, yeah, I've been criticizing and making fun of
• 58:41
  all this. But at the end of the day, like,
• 58:43
  it, it's, it's that bad. You know what I mean?
• 58:45
  Like it is the black pill. Yeah, but I mean, he's got one
• 58:49
  of the the really cool quote, scratch a cynic and see a see an
• 58:53
  idealist. And I guess that's The thing is
• 58:57
  underneath it all, certainly George Carlin was certainly a
• 59:01
  lot of Bitcoiners are, they have an idealistic bent and that can
• 59:05
  be derided sometimes by people that are, I don't know, way too
• 59:13
  black pilled, but maybe so black pilled, they didn't even
• 59:15
  realise. And they came back around to
• 59:17
  white pilled, you know, like the MPCS, they, they kind of they,
• 59:20
  they'll, well, you got to be realistic, Chris, you know, you,
• 59:24
  you like, this is just the way it is and you got to play the
• 59:27
  game. And, and there's no point being
• 59:29
  petulant. It's like the the most petulant
• 59:31
  people are literally all those people you just mentioned the
• 59:34
  judicial system, the fact that you can just change the rules if
• 59:37
  you don't get your own way. It's, it's literally like being
• 59:40
  a toddler. It's insane with like a, a, a
• 59:44
  pen. And they can just, they can just
• 59:48
  cast spells effectively. But yeah, I mean, it's easy to
• 59:52
  get black billed, but I think one of the cool things about the
• 59:55
  space and hanging out with certainly Bitcoiners and
• 59:58
  certainly having these sorts of conversations on this podcast is
• 1:00:03
  the idealism does shine through in in very practical ways.
• 1:00:09
  And you know, it's only a matter of of adoption really and time
• 1:00:14
  that that mindset will spread. And even if it doesn't spread to
• 1:00:21
  all four corners of the world, to every single person.
• 1:00:24
  Well, that doesn't matter, man, because ultimately you're you.
• 1:00:27
  You've got your own reality, You've got your own lived
• 1:00:30
  experience. And if you can just improve
• 1:00:31
  that, like Leonard D Reed says, like 1 improved unit, turn that
• 1:00:36
  little light on and eliminate the dark.
• 1:00:41
  It's all good. It's all perfect.
• 1:00:43
  It's fine. It's honestly fine, Yeah.
• 1:00:46
  Yeah, and I even think time back to George Carlin, like he died
• 1:00:50
  right before Bitcoin was even released.
• 1:00:51
  He died in like June of 2008. You know, obviously the white
• 1:00:54
  paper didn't drop till that Halloween and, you know, they
• 1:00:57
  ultimately didn't release until January 2009.
• 1:00:59
  So yeah, he was kind of like the tail end of like the cynic black
• 1:01:04
  pill era. Like obviously the great
• 1:01:05
  financial crisis was kind of going on right when he passed
• 1:01:08
  away. But yeah, I mean, I think it
• 1:01:11
  just goes to show that like, you know, we can definitely be more
• 1:01:13
  hopeful and yeah, well, there's a lot of wisdom and how bad it
• 1:01:16
  was going to get and what he was saying.
• 1:01:18
  I don't want to make it all Black Bill and all bad.
• 1:01:21
  Like I am very hopeful person, you know, trying to make the
• 1:01:23
  world a better place for our future kids, all that.
• 1:01:27
  I definitely think that's important part the point.
• 1:01:30
  I would love to live in a, in a timeline where Bill Hicks was
• 1:01:34
  still alive, George Callum was still alive and Bitcoin existed
• 1:01:37
  and they grokked it. You know, the the great hope is
• 1:01:40
  it was a few years ago, Bill Burr was talking to, it was a
• 1:01:46
  pompliano about Bitcoin with Bert Crasher.
• 1:01:51
  And I mean Bill, you know, he was the last great hope of that
• 1:01:54
  kind of scathing, incisive, cynical comedian.
• 1:02:00
  And even he cooked it during COVID, which was hyper
• 1:02:05
  disappointing for me. So, you know, it's kind of like
• 1:02:09
  the F-30. He's like the F35 of of
• 1:02:11
  comedians. There is Callen and Hicks like F
• 1:02:16
  sixteens and eighteens. Yeah.
• 1:02:20
  Anyway, onwards man would like the the the the Bitcoin space is
• 1:02:24
  an incredibly talented arena and the next outstanding, incisive
• 1:02:30
  comedian will be born in the fires of that orange coin.
• 1:02:35
  No doubt, no doubt. It's just a time time thing.
• 1:02:40
  Yeah. What do you wish more people
• 1:02:42
  knew about Bitcoin? Oh, what I wish more people knew
• 1:02:47
  about Bitcoin. I guess I wish they knew what
• 1:02:54
  saving it. And this is kind of more of just
• 1:02:56
  like hard money in general. Like I do kind of wish like
• 1:03:00
  people understood Bitcoin to evaluate businesses, to evaluate
• 1:03:05
  the stock market, to evaluate bonds.
• 1:03:07
  Like there, there is a huge component like the, the
• 1:03:10
  financial component of bitcoins, a very important one.
• 1:03:13
  And I know a lot of people like Bitcoiners or the the hardcore
• 1:03:16
  cypherpunks like hated to talk about like the financial aspect
• 1:03:19
  of it all. And like, obviously there's, you
• 1:03:21
  know, the trope that like price drives adoption, which drives
• 1:03:24
  more adoption, which drives more price speculation, which drives
• 1:03:27
  a correction, which people leave and then come back.
• 1:03:30
  And it's like kind of all the touch points.
• 1:03:31
  But I do think it's important to understand like when you
• 1:03:35
  evaluate the stock market in the Warren Buffett sense or the
• 1:03:40
  value investing sense, like I feel like those things have been
• 1:03:43
  thrown out the window because of how financial is the economy has
• 1:03:45
  been with hat like the Federal Reserve with the K shaped
• 1:03:48
  recovery is 2020. Like people don't even know what
• 1:03:50
  they're investing in. It's just like set and forget.
• 1:03:53
  And like when you set and forget something, it's you become
• 1:03:56
  negligent or or neglect. You know what I mean?
• 1:03:58
  Like it's not from a mind, so you don't think about it where I
• 1:04:01
  think if you dove into Bitcoin the financial aspect, like you'd
• 1:04:04
  understand the importance of evaluating a business.
• 1:04:06
  And like if you took the S&P 500 since 1971 and or I guess you
• 1:04:11
  can't deal with Bitcoin, but you can do it with gold.
• 1:04:13
  You can put it in gold and like the stock market's basically
• 1:04:15
  down flat or down if you evaluate it in gold, especially
• 1:04:19
  now with the fries with the like the run that gold and silver
• 1:04:22
  I've had. But if you evaluate, if you
• 1:04:24
  start evaluating the stock market or businesses in other
• 1:04:27
  hard currencies, or like, it really goes to show like how
• 1:04:33
  like you know, with your wages being stagnant or growing at 3%
• 1:04:36
  a year, or even if you're taking new jobs and jumping 10/15/20
• 1:04:39
  percent increases in salary, like you're running on this
• 1:04:42
  hamster wheel because of how bad things are in the economy.
• 1:04:47
  And like, even it, it ties into like, you know, the sympathy of
• 1:04:54
  the, what was it? The, Oh my gosh, what was it?
• 1:04:58
  After the Wall Street debacle and the great financial crisis,
• 1:05:02
  the more liberal, when they were basically Occupy Wall Street,
• 1:05:05
  Occupy Wall Street like basically had these symptoms
• 1:05:08
  that were very similar to like the, the Tea Party.
• 1:05:10
  Like basically the, the Republicans or conservative
• 1:05:12
  coalition was like, you know, like the, the Ron Paul of the
• 1:05:16
  world was kind of the Occupy Wall Street's.
• 1:05:19
  And basically the, the global elites kind of saw that those
• 1:05:21
  two factions, they did not want to come together.
• 1:05:23
  The more left of the United States and the more right of the
• 1:05:26
  United States come together on the same 'cause that is like the
• 1:05:28
  issue of the Federal Reserve. Like that's a big no, no.
• 1:05:30
  Like Ron Paul, like we do not want his thing being the
• 1:05:33
  dominant thing of like us not being able to print money and
• 1:05:36
  fund the forever war. It kind of coincides with like
• 1:05:38
  the neocons and like more like the liberal elite of the world,
• 1:05:43
  Like they're kind of on this versus like the Occupy Wall
• 1:05:45
  Street and the glossing Tea Party or the Tea Party.
• 1:05:49
  So my whole point being is if you're looking at Bitcoin and
• 1:05:51
  the evaluation, like the liberals will say like, oh, we
• 1:05:54
  need to raise minimum wage. And it's like if you raise
• 1:05:56
  minimum wage like that helps the everyday worker and all this,
• 1:06:00
  but it's a never ending thing. It's like we raised the $15.
• 1:06:03
  Well, it needs to be $25 now it needs to be $50.
• 1:06:05
  And basically we'd hollow out all the small and medium
• 1:06:08
  businesses and basically just become these large corporations
• 1:06:11
  or large conglomerate. And basically at the end of the
• 1:06:13
  day, hard money, like if you basically were on the minimum
• 1:06:18
  wage back in 1971 was 5 silver coin.
• 1:06:22
  Those 5 silver coins nowadays would be like a minimum, like I
• 1:06:25
  think it'd be like $125.00 with silver prices going up.
• 1:06:29
  So basically that would be like your minimum wage.
• 1:06:31
  Like if we stayed on a hard money standard, we're improved
• 1:06:33
  our hard money from silver to gold or gold to Bitcoin.
• 1:06:36
  Like your life could be so much better and you could have so
• 1:06:39
  much more wealth and like Peace of Mind by being on a hard money
• 1:06:43
  standard. I guess that's kind of what I
• 1:06:44
  wish people knew about Bitcoin. Like they could see it's not
• 1:06:48
  just this crazy libertarian event where this shadowy
• 1:06:51
  supercoder named Satoshi created this money.
• 1:06:53
  And like we're insane talking about the Federal Reserve.
• 1:06:55
  Like I wish they could realize like the economic system that's
• 1:06:58
  being built and laid out. Like if I could tell you in the
• 1:07:00
  90s, like, hey, there's this thing called the Internet and it
• 1:07:03
  basically it's going to be big, but it's going to be like bigger
• 1:07:05
  than you can imagine. Like what do you mean it can be
• 1:07:07
  bigger than you imagine? Like there's going to be this
• 1:07:08
  company called Amazon that could buy anything.
• 1:07:10
  It'll deliver to you in a day. Or like, you know, Walmart is
• 1:07:13
  going to become this box retailer that also sells online.
• 1:07:15
  You're like, what are you talking about, dude?
• 1:07:17
  Like you can buy things on eBay or like, like basically all
• 1:07:20
  commerce in the world is going to have a website and do all
• 1:07:22
  this. You feel like, dude, what the
• 1:07:23
  fuck are you talking about? But like, that's what I see
• 1:07:25
  Bitcoin being like, the internet's big and it was like
• 1:07:28
  bigger than we can comprehend in the 90s.
• 1:07:30
  Like Bitcoin is big and it's going to be bigger than you can
• 1:07:32
  comprehend in the future. And I really think that's kind
• 1:07:35
  of like the point that I'd love for people to understand and
• 1:07:37
  hammer home, like think outside the box, think it's going to be
• 1:07:40
  bigger. Like, this is going to be
• 1:07:41
  financed. And it like pisses me off no
• 1:07:43
  end. I was listening to a podcast
• 1:07:44
  recently where it was a Tucker Carlson podcast and it was like
• 1:07:49
  this finance guy old. He's like, he kept saying like
• 1:07:53
  block, like, yeah, Bitcoins going to be heated because
• 1:07:56
  blockchain is the really important thing.
• 1:07:57
  I was like, we're still doing this fucking blockchain thing.
• 1:07:59
  Like what the fuck are we doing here?
• 1:08:01
  He's like it like, and he did the whole trope of like when I
• 1:08:04
  buy my real estate and my title of my house and if I put it on
• 1:08:07
  the blockchain, no one can ever fuck with it.
• 1:08:09
  I was like, dude, we are missing from the forest, from the trees,
• 1:08:12
  because if I come to your house with a gun and like, I hate to
• 1:08:15
  get graphic here, if I was to go over with a gun and murder him
• 1:08:17
  and his family, well, it says on the blockchain he owns it, but I
• 1:08:21
  murdered him and his family in real life.
• 1:08:22
  So it doesn't fucking matter what's on the blockchain.
• 1:08:24
  Like I think that's like this dichotomy of like, oh, it's on
• 1:08:27
  the blockchain so it's verified and it's good.
• 1:08:29
  It's like, no, like we've said this argument forever.
• 1:08:32
  Like just because something is on a blockchain does not marry
• 1:08:35
  it to the real world. You know what I mean?
• 1:08:37
  Like, I don't know. Oh totally, man, I mean this is
• 1:08:41
  the meat space rules rules the roost.
• 1:08:43
  I mean, like it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you what
• 1:08:47
  you say. I mean the minimum wage thing
• 1:08:51
  I'm pretty sure in California didn't your boy knew some
• 1:08:55
  bringing something to do with that with around sort of fast
• 1:08:59
  food workers and ultimately. Yeah.
• 1:09:04
  People are now unemployed or having reduced hours and they're
• 1:09:08
  installing a lot of those self-serve screens in the in the
• 1:09:13
  stores and this is some sort of weird loophole.
• 1:09:16
  I was reading something about it the other day.
• 1:09:19
  They're I know exactly what you're talking about.
• 1:09:21
  So in California they passed, they increased the minimum wage,
• 1:09:24
  I think it was to $15.00 an hour.
• 1:09:27
  But I was he was going to even go up to like 20 or 21 dollars
• 1:09:30
  like over the couple years. But you're like exempt if you
• 1:09:33
  sell like hash Browns or some. Shit like a budget, like a pound
• 1:09:38
  of. Yeah.
• 1:09:39
  Oh yeah. Yes, that's what it is.
• 1:09:40
  If you sell fresh bread you get exempt and like all of his
• 1:09:43
  buddies own a bunch of or like the CEO's or CFO's.
• 1:09:46
  Yeah, like. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:09:49
  So they're like a bunch of buddies, basically got
• 1:09:51
  exemptions. And to your point, like all
• 1:09:53
  these other fast food chains like in and out and all this
• 1:09:55
  like california-based chains, they basically put in the
• 1:09:58
  screens, they order yourself. Yeah, there'll be one person,
• 1:10:00
  but instead of being three or four people taking orders,
• 1:10:02
  there's one actual person. There's three screen, like 3
• 1:10:05
  digital screens that you order it.
• 1:10:07
  And to your point, instead of giving people more hours, even
• 1:10:10
  the person that's there like got their hours cut from 40 hours a
• 1:10:13
  week down to like 25 or 24 because then they don't need to
• 1:10:16
  pay a benefit as a as a full time employee or something.
• 1:10:20
  Like, yeah, like you said, there's all these loopholes and
• 1:10:22
  it's like trying to force regulation only hurts it.
• 1:10:25
  And like I said, even if, if the governments or the states were
• 1:10:29
  to rule to raise minimum wage, that is not going to necessarily
• 1:10:33
  help any small businesses. Like everyone always worries
• 1:10:36
  like we're not getting paid enough.
• 1:10:37
  It's like, but at the end of the day, like especially in the
• 1:10:39
  United States, like small businesses are like still 40 to
• 1:10:42
  50% of our economy. And like, yeah, the Amazons, the
• 1:10:45
  Googles, the Microsoft's, the Walmart, they're able to afford
• 1:10:49
  these increases. The small mom and pop businesses
• 1:10:52
  can't afford to do it. So they either have to lay off
• 1:10:55
  someone or they need to, like you said, give less hours, like
• 1:10:58
  they can't afford it. The only other thing is to raise
• 1:11:01
  prices, which prices are already high and people are like, it's
• 1:11:04
  already too astronomical. The price is a thing.
• 1:11:06
  So I don't know. I digress.
• 1:11:08
  Yeah, no regulation begins. More regulation, which doesn't
• 1:11:11
  help any. Well, it does because it helps
• 1:11:13
  the people that are writing the regulations and the bureaucrats
• 1:11:16
  and the people that push all the paper in the background.
• 1:11:19
  Another thing, just to your point about the, the minimum
• 1:11:22
  wage, there is I, I was running some calculations last year.
• 1:11:27
  I can't remember when, but if I, if I recall correctly, there was
• 1:11:32
  something like in Australia. Anyway, it was like it was
• 1:11:35
  between 90. It was about a dollar.
• 1:11:37
  It was about a dollar for the minimum wage.
• 1:11:39
  This is in 71 and that was roughly about an ounce of gold,
• 1:11:47
  maybe 1-1 and a 1 1/2 ounces of gold for 40 hour work week.
• 1:11:52
  Basically the calculation if I just look this up real quick.
• 1:11:55
  So I don't want to get this wrong.
• 1:11:58
  Yeah, so in 1971, the Australian minimum wage was $0.90 to a
• 1:12:03
  dollar per hour. That's roughly 1.15 to 1.28
• 1:12:06
  ounces of gold per week. 40 hour work week.
• 1:12:10
  This translates to at least $103.50 per hour minimum wage
• 1:12:15
  today, or earning roughly $4140 a week.
• 1:12:23
  The money's fucked, the money's broken, and we're here to try
• 1:12:27
  and fix it. If, if you please don't let the
• 1:12:30
  the, the dog hit your ass on the way out.
• 1:12:33
  We are done with you boomerisms and your abject wholesale
• 1:12:39
  destruction of like everything, because everything is basically
• 1:12:44
  downstream of economics and, and we've got it from here.
• 1:12:48
  Thanks. Yeah, fine.
• 1:12:53
  What does Bitcoin mean to you? I think I hate to ease the
• 1:12:58
  trope, but I think it means hope.
• 1:13:00
  It means like an idea for a better future.
• 1:13:03
  You kind of mentioned it earlier, like Bitcoin kind of is
• 1:13:07
  an idea that like we can use this hard money to create a
• 1:13:10
  better world, to create commercial threats that buy
• 1:13:12
  faster jetpack. Like, you know, we don't want,
• 1:13:16
  you know, more Uber eats like competitors in the Fiat world.
• 1:13:21
  Like we want things that like, make our, like we want to be
• 1:13:25
  able to build houses faster and cheaper, to cause housing prices
• 1:13:28
  to go down, to allow like the future generations to get into
• 1:13:30
  houses. Like we want to allow like
• 1:13:33
  saving time, like speeding up travel so we can spend more time
• 1:13:37
  with our loved 1. You know, we don't need another
• 1:13:40
  Tinder or Uber Eats or like some online surveillance tech
• 1:13:45
  platform. Like we need things that make
• 1:13:47
  our lives better and faster and cheaper And like, so we can
• 1:13:50
  spend more time with our family than we can slaving away at work
• 1:13:53
  just trying to get by. Because our insurance premiums
• 1:13:56
  went up because college tuition went up, because, you know, the
• 1:14:01
  cost of XY and Z thing that's subsidized by the government is
• 1:14:05
  gone up in price that we need to get a second job or a third job.
• 1:14:09
  We need to like quit or find a new job to pay for all these new
• 1:14:13
  prices that we're seeing. So yeah, I really do believe
• 1:14:17
  that Bitcoin brings a more hopeful future and it brings a
• 1:14:21
  better future. And I, I'm like, I'm even sick.
• 1:14:24
  I'm seeing this argument come back in the conservative circles
• 1:14:27
  thing like, well, deflation is, is bad.
• 1:14:29
  We want inflation. It's like, I don't think you
• 1:14:31
  guys know what you say when you say those things.
• 1:14:34
  Yeah, deflation is very bad if you're very wealthy because you
• 1:14:37
  have a ton of outstanding debt and you can't pay that debt
• 1:14:39
  back. Deflation is great if you're
• 1:14:41
  like living paycheck to paycheck and like, you know, it helps the
• 1:14:44
  everyday worker. It helps people that like, hey,
• 1:14:47
  housing came down slightly. Hey, the buying a new car came
• 1:14:50
  down. Hey, food prices came down so I
• 1:14:51
  can feed my family better for higher quality food.
• 1:14:54
  So yeah, it's like this, this catch 22 is like, well, we need
• 1:14:58
  inflation because we need the rich corporations or these rich
• 1:15:01
  elites to keep taking out more and more debt in order to be
• 1:15:05
  able to fund their lifestyles or be able to like roll over all
• 1:15:09
  the zombie debt companies that make up the S&P 500.
• 1:15:12
  So I definitely think Bitcoin's a more hopeful future.
• 1:15:15
  It's a more better, it's a better future.
• 1:15:17
  It brings more optimism. It brings more innovation.
• 1:15:22
  I'm not saying it's going to be easy and I'm going to say like
• 1:15:25
  it seems more hopeful and more effectible to ever in the world.
• 1:15:29
  I know that's kind of like a word that's been bastardized in
• 1:15:32
  the last 5-10 years, equitable, you know, or CEI or stuff like
• 1:15:36
  that. But I definitely do think
• 1:15:38
  Bitcoin brings a more even playing field, or a better world
• 1:15:42
  and more fair playing field. Amen, brother. 100% yeah, nailed
• 1:15:47
  it on the head right there. And there's like people just
• 1:15:51
  don't understand the fact that you could work a minimum wage or
• 1:15:55
  flip burgers or push trolleys or whatever it is.
• 1:15:58
  And every single year your purchasing power is increasing
• 1:16:01
  irrespective of what you're doing.
• 1:16:03
  You don't have to be compelled or forced to go get a, a higher
• 1:16:08
  wage, like a higher, a better job.
• 1:16:10
  If you want to do that internally because you want to
• 1:16:13
  improve yourself and better yourself.
• 1:16:16
  Yeah, fill your boots. But if you're chill with
• 1:16:19
  working, there's like a trope goes around in the hospital
• 1:16:22
  industry, you know, and anyone that sort of makes a career out
• 1:16:26
  of hospitality. And then they're talking to
• 1:16:29
  their friends who maybe have gone off beyond uni or whatever
• 1:16:33
  it is and getting quote UN quote, real jobs and they're
• 1:16:36
  still in hospital. Maybe they're a manager of a, of
• 1:16:38
  a restaurant or something. It's like, so when are you
• 1:16:40
  getting a real job? And it's such bullshit because,
• 1:16:45
  you know, you could do all of those sorts of things which are
• 1:16:47
  hyper important. People that are stocking the
• 1:16:50
  shelves at the supermarket, people that are cleaning out the
• 1:16:53
  garbage. These are, these are very
• 1:16:55
  crucial roles to for a fully functioning civilization.
• 1:16:59
  And if you can do that and increase your purchasing power
• 1:17:02
  just by like being on a sound money standard, like, isn't that
• 1:17:06
  a good thing? I I yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:09
  And and to your point too, like even a Bitcoin allows for people
• 1:17:13
  to become hyper specialized in their craft and like I said,
• 1:17:17
  like become the best that they are.
• 1:17:19
  Like how valuable is it if you go to insert any like box
• 1:17:24
  retailer and you're looking for a camera or, you know, whatever
• 1:17:28
  you're looking for the APC or car or whatever thing, you're
• 1:17:32
  looking for a toy for your kid. And if you go to someone that
• 1:17:35
  like knows the store inside out, like how valuable is that?
• 1:17:38
  You know what I mean? And it sounds stupid.
• 1:17:39
  It's like, I get it. That person is not going to make
• 1:17:41
  as much as the CEO of Johnson and Johnson.
• 1:17:44
  Like I understand that. But if like they don't always
• 1:17:47
  have to be looking for a new job or to jump to a different same
• 1:17:51
  store retailer to get another dollar per hour, but they can
• 1:17:53
  become the best at that occupation and still have a life
• 1:17:57
  worth living. And like not, you know, stressed
• 1:18:00
  and not being able to raise a family.
• 1:18:01
  Like they could become the best at like, oh, I know exactly what
• 1:18:04
  you're looking for. I can take you right there.
• 1:18:05
  Like that's better for society as a whole.
• 1:18:07
  And maybe that sounds esoteric or like asinine that like, how
• 1:18:11
  do I really care that a guy at Target knows the store really
• 1:18:14
  well and can help navigate? And it's like, no, but like if
• 1:18:17
  he has his purchasing powers only ever increasing and like he
• 1:18:20
  can get even better at his job and he enjoys it and he doesn't
• 1:18:23
  have to pick up a second or third job or look to keep
• 1:18:26
  jumping between stores or companies or things just to get
• 1:18:29
  ahead. I, I think that makes our world
• 1:18:32
  a better place. You know what I mean?
• 1:18:33
  Like, if you're like really good at what you do, you know what I
• 1:18:36
  mean? Like you don't have to be the
• 1:18:37
  CEO of. Yeah, I need that kid, that
• 1:18:41
  person, that guy in the in, in the store to help me get in and
• 1:18:46
  out as quickly as possible, more than I need the CEO of Johnson
• 1:18:49
  and Johnson, you know what I mean?
• 1:18:51
  Exactly. Exactly.
• 1:18:53
  That, that that role is crucial for me to make my life better.
• 1:18:56
  And this is just hierarchy and extended order.
• 1:18:58
  Like in the real world, this is just this division of Labor.
• 1:19:03
  And this is how we build civilizations.
• 1:19:06
  We build it from the ground up, from dudes that know their shit
• 1:19:10
  and know where all the products are in their store.
• 1:19:12
  Help you save time, get in and out, you know, rather than you
• 1:19:17
  know, the douche bag at Johnson and Johnson not to pick on him
• 1:19:20
  or her, whoever it is you know, because I don't use their
• 1:19:24
  products anyway because they're full of synthetic shit.
• 1:19:26
  But that's a whole nother conversation for another time.
• 1:19:31
  But 100%, man, like the, the, the liberal mind or just even
• 1:19:36
  the conservative mind that uses words like, well, equality is
• 1:19:40
  bad. And it's like, well, it's, it's
• 1:19:42
  a word and you're kind of bastardizing the meaning.
• 1:19:45
  Like we got to unpack and go back to to ground at all times.
• 1:19:50
  Chris, this has been a fantastic Rep I I appreciate it, man.
• 1:19:55
  Spending some scarce time find our energy telling us the tale
• 1:19:57
  of how you've discovered Bitcoin.
• 1:19:59
  Thanks man. No problem, thank you for having
• 1:20:02
  me.