Bankless - 40 - WTF Happened in 2020? | Meltem Demirors

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

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Welcome to Bankless. We'll be explore the frontier of internet money and internet finance. This is how to get started, how to get better, how to front run the opportunity. This is Ryan Sean Adams. I'm here with David Hoffman, and we're here to help you become more bankless. David, we're doing this video live so I can see you've got a big smile on your face, man. What are he smiling about? Yeah, it's just funny to actually see you read out the intro. I've never seen you read. Whoa, whoa, whoa, read? That was memory, dude.

I've never seen you do it from memory. But yeah, you guys, we are doing our first video podcast. And that's because we brought on Meltem DeMeres, who brought the receipts. She brought the tables. She has the data. And so we had to do this podcast in a video form so that we can see what's going on. And so if you are listening to this on the regular podcast, that's totally fine. You're not going to miss too much.

However, do know that there is stuff to look at on the YouTube as well, if you want to follow along. This was just a fun conversation. I mean, like for Americans at least, it is a holiday week when we're releasing this. It's a good one to listen to during the holidays because it's kind of fun. And we start maybe, I don't know if we start serious, but anyway, we start with this whole macro case. And Milton brought the data, as you said, brought the receipts, brought the slides to make the energy and the energy to make the case that everything is new again. And this. This is something we've talked about on bankless, and we probably like the first part of this conversation, it was probably like 100% alignment, right? But then the second part of this conversation is where things get a little fun, things get a little spicy because there were some points where we disagreed on.

And she was happy to like call us out on things or disagree with our perspectives. And then we pushed back. And I feel like we got to a really interesting conversation that the community doesn't often hear from somebody who is not, Milton is not a Bitcoin maximalist, but she's definitely a bit more team Bitcoiner. Right. You know, whereas, you know, bankless kind of bridges the gap here for sure. And we are, we like Bitcoin. We're bitcoins, but we're also very Ethereum friendly.

There are some things we didn't agree on. Yeah. Yeah. I think the way that characterize us is, we are Bitcoiners when it's Bitcoin on Ethereum, if that's a fair take, which I think it is. You're a Bitcoin on Ethereum Maximus. Yeah, Bitcoin on Ethereum Maximus. That's a good way to put it.

And we did get into that difference with Meltem, where she thinks that, you know, the bankless nature of Bitcoin is actually possible in ways that we don't necessarily have optimism for it here on the bankless pod. So there's a perspective there. In addition to that, Melton is just a bundle of energy. and she really is having just, just living her best life, helping people like us produce awesome, entertaining, and really informative content,

while doing so with a smile on her face in a very joking manner. And so in addition to seeing the receipts and watching the charts and looking at the data, she's also just a very expressive person. So maybe it's worth it to watch the YouTube for that purpose as well. Yeah, absolutely. It was a hilarious podcast. So, you know, whether you agree or disagree with all of the perspectives,

you're going to have fun, you're going to enjoy listening to this. So David, we should get right into it. Do you want to talk about our sponsors? Yeah, I think I have a video of myself recorded talking about our sponsors. So I think we will. All right. Let's get to the sponsors. All right. Hey, guys, the next sponsor is Ledger. And Ledger is running a 40% off Black Friday week sale. So if you haven't gotten your ledger yet, you are in luck. For the week of the 23rd through the 30th, you can get 40% off of all ledgers on the Ledger website. So if you are still using a hot wallet or you're just looking to get a backup, maybe for a multi-sig or just for some more redundancy, now is the time to go get that ledger. There's a link in the show notes that can get you that 40% off Black Friday deal.

If you want to live a bankless life, you need to get a hardware wallet. There is no alternative for storing your crypto in a self-sovereign fashion. That's why I have four ledgers that I use to manage my different crypto assets using the ledger Live account as well. Ledger Live is like your home base for managing your Ethereum, Defi, and crypto accounts. It does a really good job of aggregating all of your different Ethereum wallets if you are the type of person that uses more than one, but you can also add other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Cosmos or whatever your preferred blockchain is. And then it will display an aggregate portfolio of all your accounts at the main page. One thing that Ledger

is doing a really good job of is enabling all the money verbs that me and Ryan talked about with the bankless skill cube enabled in the ledger live app. So right now in the ledger live app, you can buy, sell, lend, swap, and stake your crypto assets, which is doing a really good job of fulfilling all of the money verbs in the bankless skill cube. Something that's new to ledger live is ledger swap, where you can swap assets one for another

directly inside the ledger live application, ensuring trustlessness in your financial activity on Ethereum and on Bitcoin. If you want to learn more about what you can do with a ledger, go to the blog post The Power of Ledger Live on the ledger website, where they share some of the more advanced things that you can do with your ledger that you might not have known about. There's a link in the show notes that will take you to the ledger shop

where you can get your preferred ledger hardware wallet. I personally like the Ledger NanoX, but I also have both. They're both great options. When you own a ledger, you own your own assets in the way that they have been designed to be held by the user and the user alone. So go get your ledger today to make sure that you are as self-sovereign as possible. The bankless state in the nations are brought to by WIREN. WIREN is DFI's first self-building community-run project, which I just get really, really excited about.

Wynne is a system that seeks out yield in DFI, and it does that in a number of different ways. A very aggressive way is with the vaults where you can deposit your preferred asset of choice, and different DFI experts will come in and generate a strategy for what to be. to do with your deposited token, right? And so it'll go find ways to get yield in that deposited token in Defy. For those who want to just earn yield on their stable coins, the Earn system is for you, where you can deposit your preferred stable coin and Wynne will go and figure out which money market on Defi,

and Defi is producing the best interest rate, whether it's DYDX, it's compound or AVE. It looks around DeFi to see where the yield is coming from, and it direct stable coins automatically so you don't have to. Check them out at y'earn.finance to get started. And also check out the stats page to see what other people are doing as well. Bankless Nation, we are super excited about this podcast. We want to welcome Meltem Demers to the show.

Meltem is the chief strategy officer of CoinShare. She's the former VP of the Digital Currency Group. She's done angel investing. She's even testified on behalf of crypto to Congress because Satoshi could not make it. Before she was bitten by the Bitcoin bug, she had a fantastic background in treasury management and corporate finance. So brings that side to the table as well. But this conversation is going to be a little less serious, maybe. We're going to introduce some data.

But I think we want to find out, Meltem. WTF just happened this year, right? We're in late November and a lot of things are happening. Meltem's got the data. She's got the receipts. We're going to go through that. How are you doing, Melton? Welcome to the show.

Thanks, guys. I'm excited to be here. It's an honor to be on bankless. What the fuck just happened is every conversation I've had since mid-April. I think people in March and April would say stuff like, oh, when we go back to normal. And I was like, I don't think you understand that that doesn't exist anymore. All concept of normal has sort of gone out of the window. And look, I think the more important thing, we can talk about facts and I want to get into it.

And I did bring receipts because I love charts and data. And I want to always quantify and qualify what I'm saying. I think it makes us so much better at being advocates for crypto when we bring evidence and we bring facts and data to our conversation. It makes everyone smarter and just elevates the discussion. But I think one of the really important things that happen that we don't talk about enough is a decade. and actually maybe four decades of mental models around how markets work and how economies function have been shattered to bits. And we are now trying to pick up the pieces, but all around the world, allocators of all size, of all type, governments, regulators, policymakers, central

bankers, everyone who operates in the world of markets and money is trying to figure out how to grapple with this new reality. And it's dark. But every ending is also a beginning. And so as this era of markets comes to an end, I'm so excited about this new beginning that we have in the crypto space. And so I think what we can do is maybe talk about like where we came from the past. I take a lot of inspiration from history, where we are now, like what happened, what's going on? And then we can get into all of the cool shit that people are working on, that people are building, that I think is going to completely change the way the world of money works.

And it'll be fun. What do you guys think? It's going to be a ton of fun. And my question is, Melton, is like, when you ask a question, like, what the fuck just happened? One of my questions is like, well, let's get some time parameters on that. Like in what time period are we saying what just happened? And also, why are things dark? Like, why are things so dark?

Explain where this darkness is coming from. Okay. Why don't I walk through some of my receipts real quick? All right. Let's do it. All right. And guys, guys, if you are listening on the podcast stream, this is not the only way to see the visual. So you can also hook into our YouTube channel and Melton is going to be showing us some data here too.

So here's what I want to talk about. I think there are four really important sort of macro trends. I think one of the challenges we have in crypto especially, but that a lot of people have is we view the world through these very narrow lenses. And typically the way we view the world is informed by our own experiences, our own expertise, our own background, and where we spend our time, right? If you spend all of your time talking to only defy chads and degenerate gamblers on the internet,

that's going to be your version of reality. But there are a lot of different realities out there. And I think we can talk a little bit more about how reality and mythology and stories get constructed and how that informs what becomes reality. Because I think a lot of what becomes reality is what we want it to be. Like this idea of manifesting is not new. But there are four really primary forces that I think about and that I look at when I look at what's happening in the world. And they are as follows. Number one is technology.

Number two is economic forces. Three is cultural and social forces and four is political forces. And when you take all of these trends and you put them together, you can start to mash sort of these different reality layers on top of one another and start to at least get a sense of, you know, what's happening, what might happen next, and how these different forces that are acting on our world might sort of collide to make certain things happen,

makes certain potential future realities more probable or less probable, right? And really what this is, like right now, if we look at the future, anything is possible. But certain things, probabilistically speaking, are more likely to happen. And so really what I'm trying to understand as an investor is based on what we're seeing, based on the information, based on the trends out there, what will be likely to happen in the future, and then placing chips on the table around those potential outcomes and doing my best to try to make those outcomes happen, right? That change, Melton, that change we were talking about earlier, right?

Like the WTF just happened, everything's different the last 40 years. All four of, like, there have been changes in all four of these factors that sort of shape that entire paradigm shift, right? Yeah. And it's not just the last, I think people really like to focus on the last three months or the last 10 years since the great financial crisis. But actually, this trend's been going on since about the end of World War II. And I think it's interesting to think about these longer secular trends and the short

or cycles that sort of happen within these larger multi-generational trends, right? But if you think about the length of a human lifetime, I'm a big fan of a horizontal history where you look at lifespans and the lifespans of influential schools of thoughts or influential thinkers and where they overlap and intersect, we are so influenced by what we experienced during our own sort of horizontal histories that it's very helpful to sort of think about this in the context of a human lifespan, which has gone from 60 to 80 years. and hopefully the three of us will live forever. Yeah.

Okay, so let's talk about it. Economically speaking, wealth in our world has become much more concentrated over the last few decades. And we see this trend. This data is from this time last year. I'm working on updating this for my big trends report this year. But one interesting fact, there are three men in the United States of America who have more wealth between the three of them than the bottom 50% of all Americans.

Americans. And the crisis we've gone through over the last two months has only accelerated this trend. And in fact, we now need to add Elon Musk to this list. He's actually wealthier than Warren Buffett right now. He's about to become the second wealthiest man in the world surpassing Bill Gates, I believe. But if we look at what's happened with equities as well, right, the rotation of wealth and the rotation of inflation into equities and home prices means that this wealth gap between those who are affluent and own capital and those who have labor and work for capital, that wealth gap has only continued to grow. And while we're not seeing inflation as a result of money printing showing up in CPI or the Consumer Price Index, where it is going up is

in these areas where people invest their wealth for growth, right? And if we look at growth areas, housing prices are rising at the fastest rate in 40 years. And it's not people buying primary homes is people buying second homes, people buying investment homes. The other trend that's really interesting is what's happened to equities. Equity's ownership is highly concentrated in the hands of the top 20% of Americans who own 80% of the stock market. And I think this is another interesting trend. You know, we look at the pandemic. Tech stocks are trading at 500x, 800x forward PE multiples. Where inflation is getting priced in is in growth expectations around tech. The other force I want to quickly talk about is. Melton, I have a quick question on that. So is your take that this

wealth gap, this wealth disparity gap that's been increasing is largely the result of monetary policy intervention, sort of like cantilian cantalon effects, if you will? No, I think there are multiple forces at play here. One is a generational force. If we look at wealth disparity, a lot of it is tied to economic opportunity and the fact that real wages have been stagnant since the 1970s. The boomers, right, have captured the majority of wealth creation in this country. And if you look at where wealth is stored, again, most people store their wealth in, A, their homes, which is the largest asset they own typically. And B, in their 401Ks, their retirement accounts.

If you look at all of the stimulus that's gone on in the United States, politicians realize the most important population to appease is the boomers. They have the most wealth, the most influence, and they run this country. They also turn out in large numbers to vote. And so it's been very important to, number one, buoy stock markets and keep 401Ks inflated. And two, to buoy home prices, right? At this point, the mortgage industry has largely been nationalized. So I think there are these really important trends and policy, again, all of these things fit

together. Policy props up this wealth disparity and further exacerbates it. Shifts in the labor force are propping up this disparity and exacerbating it. And then forces in technology, the fact that the opportunity for new jobs, right, there are a lot of 1099 miscar workers or gig workers, particularly in younger, millennial Gen Z populations. And most of the salaried, like white collar jobs are held by boomers. They're not going, they're not transitioning their roles to younger generations, right? The average CEO has gotten older over the last 20 years because all of the boomers have been playing a game of

musical chairs rather than bringing in younger people to run these companies. And so what we're seeing is this incredible, incredible concentration of wealth. And even on top of that, what we're seeing is there's a massive, massive liability that the government has. If we look at the U.S. deficit today, it's roughly, let's say, $22 trillion. But in fact, there's one important aspect that we don't account for when we report that number, which is unfunded retirement and entitlement benefits, which are unfunded and unreported liabilities on the Fed's balance sheet. There are about $122 trillion of unreported liabilities in the form of social security, pardon, Medicare and Medicaid. And on top of that, there's also a massive shortfall in private pensions, which are underfunded by a factor of 30 to

50%. So you take all of this together and you have just this massive, massive behemoth problem, which is we have this population of people who have accumulated most of the benefits of technology growth and of economic growth over the last 40 years. They now are consuming money at an insane pace and require an incredible amount of federal support. But we're operating in an environment where our economy has been decimated. And more importantly, we have no ability to generate enough revenue to make up that shortfall. So what we have is this massive smooth. no ball as a result of a shifting labor force, massive wealth concentration, and a massive funding gap in these entitlements that we supposedly have in this country. So these forces

coming together, in my view, create a perfect breeding ground for a new asset class, cryptocurrency. So Meltem, like, just to go back there, right? So like, this can't last forever, right? Obviously, that's got to be obvious because of the demographics of the boomer generation, right? So like, how old is the youngest boomer at this point? It's like mid now 60s, early 60s? I think mid 50s to early 50s. Okay. So like there's this feeling that as a result of all of this, I think among younger generations like millennials, for instance, that we're getting screwed. Like the millennials are getting totally screwed out of this market, right? Because the boomers kind of, God bless the boomers. My parents are blue boomers. Love them.

But they are kind of like taking the ladder on their way out. They're sort of like optimizing everything for them and then where they're gone, like when they're gone, like what happens? Do things totally fall apart? Well, Ryan, what you're articulating, if you read between the lines there, you're being very political about it. I'm not going to be so nice about it. What we're setting up for is a generational war, right?

And this is a cultural war. It's an economic war. It's a political war. It's a social war. What this is about is we have a generation of people who will do anything and everything to keep the status quo intact. They're trying to stop technological progress in order to keep the status quo intact. Because change is scary. People don't like change.

But what this is going to result in is a massive amount of social unrest. And it's already happening in many countries around the world. We've watched this happen time and time again throughout history. There is now more wealth concentration in this country than there was in France before the revolution. So I think people forget. Humans are not stupid. Everyone sees what's happening. And it's only a matter of time until someone, a leader, is effectively able to catalyze this discontent into some form of action in a shift in power.

And if we look at what's happening, I actually think cryptocurrency is a huge part of that story. Because look at the three of us. Like, I'm in my 30s. How old are you guys? 27. Yeah. 30s. Yeah.

Right. So. Yeah. And look at us, right? Like we are building a new monetary system for our generation. The boomers are trying to cash in on crypto. But look, this is a movement by young people for young people who see the world and say, I do not, I do not subscribe to this.

I believe in a different reality. And we are going to use technology, economics, a social movement, right? Bitcoin is first and foremost a social movement and political influence to make this happen. Right. So I feel like, Melton, that the boomers, you know, I tweeted this out recently, but like that's what it almost feels like to buy stocks these days. It's like you're buying boomer bags, basically, because they have totally pumped the market. Wait, I need a shirt that says, I love boomer bag.

I mean, that's like that's what it feels like from a millennial perspective. And I think that message is going out. And like it's like when you choose where to store your assets or park your wealth as someone in the younger generation, do you want boomer bags? Or do you want like this whole new crypto thing? That's probably the asset class, like the transformation. Well, let's flip that. I would love to sell boomers some of my crypto bags. True. They have way more money.

Yeah. So if they want to, you know, bag, hold some like XRP or whatever it is, they're buying, like you have at it. Sorry, notice to XRP, but like I see people online, like, they're like, XRP's going to $100. I'm like, okay. Like, maybe it's a little quieter lately. Let's use math. Well, at that, at that price, right, the market cap of that asset would be over a trillion dollars like i think again people forget math is hard math is hard for exponential math is hard yeah it's very hard exactly um and again i just think when people say these things they're not really thinking about what they're actually saying that's why again um you know i want to use math and objective reality or as close to it as we can get because objective reality doesn't actually exist but let's get as

close to the truth as we can and actually try to use data and facts to inform our perspectives. Okay. So then I want to touch on another really interesting trend. So I think we've talked a little bit about economic force and what's happening. Let's talk a little bit about where growth is, right? You look at this world and you're like, wait a minute, scary, what do I do? How do I invest in progress? Okay. Let's talk about the things and let's talk about what's happening with tech generally, right? So 10 years ago, I left college. No, more than 10 years ago, oh my God, I'm old, But 10 years ago, the world I lived in, I worked in the energy industry. And at the time, you know, I was working with some of the largest companies in the world.

Ten years ago, the largest companies in the world were energy producers and manufacturers, makers of physical things and banks that finance that physical activity. Today, the largest companies in the world, right? Microsoft, $2 trillion market cap. Microsoft has a market cap that is larger than the economies of most nation states. Right. Google, Facebook, Amazon, right? I'm of the mindset that we are moving away from the relevance of the physical world and the physical state, right?

Like, we belong to a digital nation state. I identify more as a crypto person than I do as, or as a Bitcoin or I should really say, I identify more as that than I do as like an American or where I happen to be born. And I think if you talk to people in our generation, the way we define ourselves is not by our physical jurisdiction. The way we define ourselves is by what we believe in and what communities we're a part of. And we spend all of our time in this really amazing, really fun bubble that is its own alternate reality, which is crypto Twitter, right? It has its own personality, its own characteristics, its own internal memes, its own communication style. It's own beliefs,

right? We have our own language, our own lingo, right? Like ape together, ape strong, rugpole, Blue Chip defy coins. Like, I love it. It's great. It's the best call I've ever been in. It's awesome. But at the same time, I think people looking at this from the outside in sometimes forget, like, how powerful that is. And the shift from the world of physical things to world of digital things, this is really about the battle we're facing now. It's a battle for control.

And I want to quickly talk about the politics. Okay, cool. So here we are, right? Cyberspace is the next frontier. And this is really what I was talking about with the evolution and the shift from the world of the physical to the world of the digital. And so as we think about this new frontier and like quick sidebar, I love reading sci-fi. If you go to my website, Meltem de Mirrors.com, I have my favorite sci-fi books on a sci-fi reading list there. But sci-fi is actually humans creating mythology to try to predict the future based on history, right?

And so sci-fi is such an amazing genre to read because you get to time travel and experience all of these different potential versions of the future, which I think is actually really important as a technologist and an investor and someone who's trying to predict what's going to happen in the future and make bets based on that. Sci-fi is predictive in a way because it's based on our understanding of the past. So big plug for sci-fi books. If you ever want to read, like hit me up on Twitter. I'm all about it. All right, we talked a little bit about our digital overlords, the digital economy is growing. What's crazy? So this chart about the percent of the S&P 500 by market cap, last year, the five largest tech stocks made up 17 percent of the S&P 500. As of today, a year later, those five stocks make up 27 percent of the value of the U.S. stock market.

27 percent. Over 20 percent of all stock market gains over the last 20 years can be attributed. to a single company. Do you know what that company is? Is it Apple? It's Apple. And here's why I think this is interesting. They're in the world of investing, right?

People are always like, oh, cryptocurrency is a bad investment. ICOs are bad investment because they're scammy. Guess what? A lot of public companies are scammy as shit. And they are terrible investments and do not make money. And I think in the crypto world and even in the investing world, we have this idea that like institutional investors are super professional and they don't fomo into things. They 100% fomo into things, number one.

And number two, there is a lot of shady stuff that happens in the world of regulated finance. Just because you can afford a lawyer that is good and just because you can afford to file some paperwork with the SEC does not make your project, your company, your idea worthy of investing in. It tires me to no end when people confuse the status of being regulated. with the quality of the investment. Those are two very different things. So I just quick gripe on that.

But let's talk about what's happening on the political front, because this is so important for what's happening in crypto, and I think is going to inform us about the future. What is happening right now in the U.S. is our government is spending an absolutely insane amount of money, pivoting America's defense system from being physically driven, buying fighter jets, buying tanks, buying weapons, to being digitally and technologically driven.

We are no longer going to fight wars with guns and steel. We are going to fight wars with information, with memes, and in the digital realm. The narrative war. The narrative war, but also the cyber war. So right now, there's been a big battle going on to win some really important Department of Defense contracts. They are procuring technology services on an unprecedented scale. And in the next few years, the federal government expects to spend over $100 billion on cloud compute and services. And by the way, they're also spending money on cryptocurrency companies and

cryptocurrency services, right? They're trying to understand what's happening in blockchain networks. If you pay attention, DARPA, the DOE, the DOD, they've all done massive, massive RFQs. They've given out a couple of grants for different projects to try to better understand the use of Bitcoin as a private telecommunication network, the use of blockchain technology, national security instances. Like, there is a lot of money that is going to get spent here. And this is actually going to shape the political landscape. But digital space is now becoming our new political frontier. And this is also playing out with international politics and the politics of nation states.

And the reason I want to talk about nation states is Bitcoin at its core is an attempt to separate money in state. This hasn't been attempted since Julius Caesar first stamped his face on a gold coin about three millennia ago. So it's very important in my view to understand what is going on with the evolution of the nation state because I'm not 100% certain that the construct of the nation state survives the separation of state and money. You know what? That's a huge theme. We've actually, we brought it on Balaji. Recently we talked about that very thing. Also, a political philosopher to talk about that too. I'd be interested in your thought on this because when we were talking to Bruno, who is a political philosopher just yesterday when we recorded, he pushed back on that a little bit. So his pushback, and he knows crypto, he studied kind of game theory of politics and nation states for a long time.

It's got a great perspective on America, China, all of these things. And his pushback was like, yeah, but if crypto is successful, then governments are just going to ban it, essentially. Right? Like, you can't separate money from the nation state. Bullshit. Okay. Okay, so tell us why.

Okay, here's why. Okay, hold on. Let's get into this. Okay. So right now, there is a bill on the floor of Congress. It's sponsored by Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham, who are absolute ghouls. My favorites. Okay.

Not so much. I'm pretty sure their inspiration on how to govern is 1984. Yeah. There's a lot of that going around. Yeah, I do not prescribe to that philosophy. But let's talk about this bill. It's called the Earnit Bill. If you go to EFF.org, that Electronic Freedom Frontier has a bunch of great information about the bill

and how you can contact your local representative and encourage them to vote no on Earnet. I already sent my letter, by the way, to Senator's Congressman. You've got to do it. Melton's absolutely right. This bill kills encryption, basically, in the U.S. Encryption is under attack. And not only is this bill on the floor of Congress right now, the Earnet bill, basically what it seeks to do is similar to what the government tried to do with the clipper chip in the 1990s. So if we go back in history, right, in the 90s when

RSA or, you know, save of the art encryption was first introduced, this is really what made payments on the internet possible, by the way. Before we had RSA and secure encryption on the internet, it was very difficult to remit payments on the internet because communication was not so secure. And so the government actually ruled for a brief period of time that encryption was considered a weapon or a munition and cannot be imported or exported. So people would actually print out T-shirts with RSA code on the front and wear them around. Like they would make themselves a weapon. And then when the government realized that you couldn't ban math or code,

what they tried to do was they worked with telecommunications companies and mandated that all physical equipment have something in it called the clipper chip, which effectively gave the NSA and intelligence agencies a backdoor that they could use to spy on communications. Now here's the problem with this approach to governance. and this approach to trying to pass policy. Let's say, for example, that we look at a house, right? And bad things happen inside of houses sometimes. And people can lock their doors.

Basically, the approach they're taking is nobody can have door locks anymore, because once in a while, bad thing happens in a locked house, and therefore we decree that nobody can lock their door. But guess what also happens in that situation? When nobody has locked doors, bad things that happen outside the house start happening inside the house, and anyone can come and go as they please, not just the government and whoever wants to get into houses to see what's happening. So this is why this policy is so absolutely stupid.

Backdoors are typically used not only by intelligence agencies and quote unquote the good guys. And we can talk a little bit about how messed up the whole idea of like applying a policy in this sort of way is. It can be used by anyone. And in fact, we already see so much software, so much hardware that we consume, particularly that from China. already has back doors in it that's used by nefarious actors. We see this time and time again. And so I really just think that people making policy do not understand how technology works. They do not understand how the internet works. And so what we end up seeing is this really ridiculous approach where right now they're trying to a ban encryption, which is math.

And B, they're sponsoring, by the way, these competitions for mathematicians and cryptographers to try to break encryption, which is so mind-bogglingly stupid that I can't deal with it. And Melton, you're saying it's mind-boggling because it puts the U.S. or any country that adopts this sort of anti-encryption philosophy and approach. It puts them at risk. It decreases their defense capability worldwide. Not only does it destroy. freedom of speech, but it's actually a negative from a security perspective for the country that adopts this. That's what you're saying? It's also futile. Well, the other piece that I think is so important, so let's talk for a minute about why people use encryption, right? The reason we use encryption is because

there is a belief in many countries, many Western democracies in particular that people are imbued with rights, right? The right to freedom of speech, the right to freedom of assembly, the right to freedom of religion. There are these rules that have been put in place to preserve the ability for people to have these freedoms. Now, what starts to happen that's really interesting is today our communication mostly happens over our phones, our computers, et cetera, and our communications already surveilled and monitored. That ship has sailed, and that ship sailed in the early 2000s after 9-11 with a bunch of the actions that were taken then that allowed our own government to spy on us without needing a warrant. There's this whole philosophy of something

called lawful intercept where typically you would need a warrant to listen to someone's private communication. That went out the window. And obviously, Edward Snowden, other whistleblowers, had done this country a huge service and, you know, people in our industry, great service by sort of exposing what was going on there. The next layer of privacy is privacy in local location, right? So I am a physical human being. And as I move around this world, both in physical space and in digital space, I typically have privacy and pseudonymity, not full anonymity, but I have pseudonymity, right? I could be a Twitter egg. I could be an anonymous person. I could be a no name posting something on a website, right? And the ability for people to have pseudonymity

allows people to engage in activities that could potentially be risky, right? to expose things like the NSA wiretaps that were going on. So privacy and location, both in physical space and digital space, is really important. And then lastly, the place where we have privacy today is privacy and transactions. So the best way for me to engage in a private transaction today is to give you a dollar. Right? Physical money and physical exchanges of value are a great way to retain privacy. But now we have new ways of maintaining certain degrees of privacy and transactions through cryptocurrencies, right? And what I think is so scary about all of this, imagine a world where we

have a digital dollar that's tied to your identity. You have no privacy of location in either your digital realm or in your physical realm. Everywhere you go, every service you use, you're required to identify yourself, right? It's like some minority report style shit. You're required to identify yourself. And you have no privacy in your communication. Everything you communicate everything you do is monitored and surveilled by a ministry of information. Let's say, for example, that I'm having a private conversation with someone and I say something that could be deemed unpatriotic. All of a sudden, the government has the ability to freeze my assets to prevent me from transacting, to prevent me from moving around in physical space and in digital space,

and to prevent me from being able to communicate. So what you're describing sounds like China. And I think that's what Bruno's point is. He's like, That's the future. And that's what, like, add on to everything you just said in that dystopia, government bans crypto. If you're found citizen with crypto, you will be thrown into jail. That's what Bruno is effectively saying. So why is that bullshit?

Here's why it's bullshit because you're giving governments way too much credit. Look at the staggering incompetence of the U.S. government. It is staggering how incompetent governments are. And what I described to you with corporations becoming wealthier than nation states, what I described to you with the separation of money in state, I don't think governments are future rulers. Corporations are. Well, do you think that's also true for China, right? Because the Chinese government doesn't appear, I mean, I don't know, but I would guess that the Chinese central government appears to be more effective than the American central government because we have some like values that we tried to uphold that get in the way of a central government. government, you know, enacting rules and results. And the Chinese don't, the Chinese government and

Chinese leadership doesn't really have those constraints. Is that, is that true for China? Well, I think that the difference there is, right? The style of government's very different. In China, there is one source of power, one source of control and everything flows from the top down. But recently, I wrote a long, medium post. If you're interested in it, you can find out a medium about the politics of the internet and the role of crypto in that future. And what I think, I think's really interesting is what China has, the U.S. doesn't have and that Europe certainly doesn't have, is an unlimited amount of political will and an unlimited amount of capital that they are willing to spend for absolute dominance. Right. And that's not what we don't have that in America. We don't have that. We barely have the capability to do semiconductor R&D and chip fab here in the United States. And in fact, our governments now trying to invest in bringing those capabilities back onshore. because we have recognized that after two decades of exporting our technology

and exporting the production of technology that's been built with IP originating here in America, we are at a major disadvantage. Europe doesn't have a leg to stand on. That's why they're having to use Huawei, right, to develop their 5G infrastructure. The U.S., I think in one smart move hit Huawei with RICO charges, we kind of has stopped that 5G effort. But the U.S. is in the progress of implementing an explicit American firewall.

wall. And that, by the way, like, when you're on the internet, right, we don't actually think about where internet comes from, just like we don't think about where power comes from, but like internet isn't this magic ethereal substance. It's not in the air. It's not in the air. No. It comes from physical things, right? There's physical infrastructure that supports the backbone of the internet and supports it, you know, getting to your router and then being available in your house. But also, there's routing logic. There are protocols that dictate how traffic gets routed on the internet. And as traffic is being routed through this network topology that makes up the modern worldwide web, right, which is in fact many different webs that are highly localized that have

been stitched together through shared protocols and through this routing logic, there are a lot of different interaction points where people can sniff that traffic, can interrupt that traffic, can do things like man in the middle attacks and replace information in that traffic. with other information. And so I think the area that crypto needs to go next and what I'm really excited about is we need to come a bit out of this esoteric, highly intellectualized digital realm and start thinking about the physical infrastructure that supports the backbone of the cryptocurrency industry. This is why I think Bitcoin mining is really interesting. We do a lot of research on this. We spend a lot of time on it. But also the physical infrastructure supporting Ethereum,

the physical infrastructure supporting these new protocols. All of this is really, really important because if we don't own this physical infrastructure and find ways to secure it, then attacks on Bitcoin become possible. But so long as we can find ways to secure this physical infrastructure and minimize the ability of all world governments to collectively take down these networks by taking all of the nodes offline, right, there is not going to be a feasible way for governments to shut this down. Okay, so we've kind of answered like that, that I guess, objection. And you've laid out this backdrop, Melton, of like the WTF just happened.

We've got this technology change. We've got this economic change with wealth disparity. We've got baby boomers getting older. Their stocks have inflated. We've got these political changes. And then we've got this cultural change, which is kind of like the millennials, you know, almost, almost rising up and shifting the asset class somewhere else. Bitcoin just hit all-time highs as far as market cap. Ether's price is doing well too.

Did we break 19K? Not price, but we did with market cap, by market cap. Okay, wait, hold on. Let's make a bold unsubstantiated prediction because I want to manifest some shit here too. Let's do that. Let's tap 20K by before Thanksgiving. This is like my goal. Tap 20K before Thanksgiving.

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Let's make that shit. Do you know what this means? David, we're going to have to ship this podcast on Monday. Yeah, before Thanksgiving. Because if we don't, then if you ship it after, we can just go in and edit. And we've got to verify this on the blockchain, obviously, or else, you know, who knows. But we are the propaganda. We are the Politburo for Bitcoin and Ether and for this industry.

Like, let's get better at creating narratives and creating mythology. I think sometimes we get way too internally focused, like, I don't need to proselytize and preach to people who are already in my version of reality because we're all already here. I need to get everyone outside of this industry to believe that what we're doing is reality. Because in that process, it becomes reality. I think that's something that, by the way, because, you know, David and I dabble a lot in the Ethereum community, right? That's something that the Ethereum community, that's something that the Ethereum community needs to learn from Bitcoiners because I think Bitcoiners are just absolutely

at this, at meme propagation and at the social layer of the stack. And money itself and finance itself is so much as we talked about like a social movement here. Right. Right. Like we all need to raise the flag and get better at this. If this is the future we want, meming it into existence is part of getting to that future. But I don't want to actually, I want to be careful here. here, there has to be substance backing it up, right? Which I think is there. Means are based on reality. Exactly, right?

And I think what's interesting, you know, there are a lot of different types of ways you can make different realities sort of appear and come into fruition. And I do think the Ethereum community needs to get better at creating a larger vision that's more inclusive. But I also think like this weird feuding between Bitcoin and Ethereum, like, it has to stop. Why do people care so much about what other people are doing? Like, I love that.

I love the Bitcoin community. And in my heart, like in my heart, I am a Bitcoiner. I wouldn't say I'm a Bitcoin maximalist, right? I used to call myself a shit coin minimalist. Now I don't know if I can say that any longer. Because I do think that there are real things happening on other protocols. And we're kind of reaching this point where like some of these things we've been talking about are starting to become more real.

But at the end of the day, like, we need to stop fighting each other. This is exactly what's happening with politics in this country, right? Like the Democrats and Republicans are so busy fighting each other that we forgot to fight all of the corporations who are trying to control our minds. And I sound like a crazy person that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but they're so busy hitting us against each other that we forget the bigger battle that we're fighting. Same thing in the crypto industry. Like Ryan, David, I don't agree with you probably on 50%.

of the stuff you say. But instead of arguing over the 50% of stuff we disagree on, like there are a lot of things we do agree on. And we both agree on a future where cryptocurrencies have a way more prominent role to play in our society and our culture and technology and infrastructure. And while we may disagree on the details of that, if we agree on the same direction, then we should focus on finding ways to move the world in that direction because it's too early to be fighting about details right well and i don't mean

to point fingers or to place blame um and because that's antithetical to the exact type of like culture that we want this is a good opener yeah it's it's like you're making an excuse for something you're about to say the the the most extreme of so like i view bitcoin as a the bitcoin culture as a bunch of concentric circles, right? And like the innermost are like the extremists, right? The most extreme bitcoins, like the Dan Helds, the Pierre Richard's, the people that think anything that isn't Bitcoin is a scam, right? They kind of force the conversation into being an adversarial conversation because if you believe in anything other than Bitcoin, you are by definition like a shit coiner or a scammer or... Wait, hold on. Why do you care what these people say or think?

Because they, well, because they dominate the Bitcoin conversation. They, what they don't. I think What version of reality are you living in? Well, Pierre Richard, who is fantastically smart and has some of the best ideas, who is also an extreme hardliner about Bitcoin, is one of the most listened to individuals in the Bitcoin community. I'm in the Bitcoin community, and I don't feel that way at all. Yes, and I agree with your distinction between Bitcoiner and Bitcoin maximalists, right? And so, like, if you move out from the concentric circle of extremity, I find people like you and Nick Carter. And people that use data and math and are a little bit more moderate in their extremity about Bitcoin. And the move, the more you move.

Wait, am I still an extremist, though? I can't figure out where I'm, am I getting categorized in like which? You should. Okay, Melton, you should categorize yourself. Yeah. So you're not a maximalist. So if Pierre and Dan are like in the ninth circle of Bitcoin maximalism, like, what circle? Like, to use a Dante allegory.

Right. Right. We read books. What circle am I in would you say? Well, I think maybe that answer, the question, the answer to that question comes from like, what do you think the second largest market cap cryptocurrency can be in relation to Bitcoin? Like, do you think Bitcoin is going to be 80% of the world, of the market cap of all crypto assets combined, or is it going to be something more moderate?

Or like, where does Bitcoin, does Bitcoin suck up all the value, a little bit of the value? How much error does Bitcoin suck up? think answers that question. But also, like this, this conversation is kind of a silly conversation to have if we don't attach timescale to it. Sure. Right. So one of the interesting questions that came up on Twitter and a few people had sort of

mentioned this when I asked people like, what do you want us to talk about? One thing that people wanted us to talk about is like, why do you guys get so triggered when people talk about Bitcoin and public treasures? You don't, though. Yeah, that came from, I can't remember his name. Wait, if you can dish it, you got to take it. So like, let's take it a little here. I love criticism.

I think it's a great way to highlight flaws in your own thinking. And by the way, like, people criticize me all the time. Being a woman on the internet is hilarious because everything you do is subject to like 10 additional layers of scrutiny. And I've gotten a lot of criticism over the years. It's actually been really informative because it has helped me realize that there are places where, like, I haven't examined my own thinking. And I've had to ask myself some hard questions.

And like, I think being open to changing your mind is one of the greatest skills you can have. And unfortunately, I think a lot of people in the crypto space, instead of being open to changing their minds, just double down. Yes, very much. You have to be open to changing your mind. So here's my view on all of this, right? Bitcoin right now is the dominant asset because, number one, Bitcoin is really unique. Like, I do believe that in a pantheon of all cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin occupied. an extremely unique place.

There are so many things about Bitcoin that are just impossible to replicate. And this is a lot of what I talked about in the testimony I gave last year when I had the opportunity to be one of the representatives of our industry and hopefully try to make us look intelligent and practical.

I don't know if I achieved it. I tried. But I think Bitcoin really is unique. And in terms of knowledge, right? And in terms of understanding, Bitcoin by far has the largest mind share of writing of data, right? Like the ability to analyze the Bitcoin network, the ability to understand the economics of Bitcoin mining, the depth of the Bitcoin market, the depth of the options market,

the derivatives market, the depth of just intellectual gravity that is going into Bitcoin is very, very deep. And Bitcoin is the topic, like I come from the commodities world. When I first started learning about Bitcoin, I got it right away, right? because Bitcoin in so many ways, everything about it resembles a commodity, right? It's a digital commodity in my view. I think other things like Ethereum, the surface area is so vast. And I think even within the Ethereum community, like there is really no consistent narrative

that's really easy to latch on to. It's going to take people much more time to understand where in their mental model, something like Ethereum or another asset fits. Bitcoin is right now much easier for people to place. And this goes back to mental models, right? When I think about the world, like, I have all these different little categories. And in each category, there's sort of a dominant category leader that comes to mind that occupies a lot of my mind share. So, like, I think about electric cars.

What comes to mind when I say the word electric cars to you? Tesla. It's always Tesla. Tesla. When I say space to you, what do you think about? SpaceX. Yeah, right. Yeah, Elon. Elon. Rockets.

The rocket soup. I love that he made the rocket look like the rocket emoji. Yeah, I know. Like the man has style and I am so into it. Style is underrated, by the way. We need a way more style. He does a great job meming his own success into existence. Speaking of meaming.

And I know David wants to answer your question, but I want to ask you a question to like figure out what circle you're in Milton. So would you say, for instance, this is my acid test. Well, David has to. has his acid test, but so my asset test is, would you say that ETH is a shit coin? Because I think ninth circle people definitely say that, right? But like, what's your answer to that? No, I mean, I don't think ETH is a shit coin. I have ether in my portfolio. And I'm perfectly happy to talk about that. Do you have shit coins in your portfolio? Yeah, they're all on my website. Okay, so what's your definition of shit coin then? Because to me, a definition of a shit coin is something

you don't have in your portfolio. Look, I think the word shit coin gets thrown around really loosely. And maybe, you know, I myself have really enjoyed using this term. I believe that about a year and a half ago, you know, I brought a toilet onto stage and through gold coins. I remember that. I have no apologies. I'm again, you know, what we started the pre-podcast with is like, I have three rules in life, right? Number one, I want to make money. Number two, I want to have fun. three, I want to learn something, but also have more fun. And all of those three things are kind of related. So look, yes, there were a lot of pointless garbage coins that have no reason for existing. But I think that money, right, makes it possible and like resources, generally speaking,

beyond just financial capital, but like social capital and intellectual capital can take things that start out as not meaningful, not interesting, and give them depth and gravity. And they evolve, right? Again, things change over time. Nothing is static and nothing exists in a vacuum. And what I think has been really interesting to watch about Ethereum, Ethereum has really found a really interesting use case with everything happening in Defi. I just spent the last three days hosting the CoinShares crypto credit summit. It was awesome. And a lot of the conversation was about what's being built, the financial applications and financial products being built on top of Ethereum. So I think again, you know, as things mature,

as people find these different narratives and draw out these different narratives and build on these different narratives, as financial capital flows into these ecosystems and allows people to build more, there's sort of this relationship, right, or like you start with an idea, and it can be a crazy idea. And then a little bit of capital flows in, and that capital allows them to produce things, and then more capital pours in, which allows you to produce even more things. And there's sort of this recursive wheel where more capital facilitates more building, which facilitates more capital flowing in. And I think that's what's going on with a lot of these newer projects that I maybe a year or two ago would have called shit coins, right? Because at that point, like, they were

ideas and they were trading at ridiculous valuations. The other thing that I think is important to keep in mind is I think we have an obsession with price in this industry. Right. And we always talk about price. Like price price, like we need to stop. It's hard to not think about price. And my rule number one is like, I want to make money. Like I'm not doing this out of charity. I love working in this industry. I can't imagine working anywhere else. But like, let's be real.

All of us are also here because we think we can make a livelihood here and like be successful here. But I think what's, what's been interesting to see is like this obsession with price leads to this environment where people are trying to justify the price for something. And here's a really interesting thing. If we look at the stock market today, like look at the stock of Zoom or even the stock of Tesla, right? Tesla produces less cars than any other car manufacturer in the world. Yet their valuation based on their stock price is higher than every single other automaker

in the world combined. Now, if I looked at Tesla's stock price as a rational human being using a price-driven sort of fundamental value-driven investor model like Benjamin Graham-style value investor, I would say Tesla stock is way too expensive. It's way too expensive. It's way too overvalued. But we don't live in that world anymore, right? This is the mental model shift that's happened. So this is where I think this obsession with trying to rationalize something, whether something is cheap or too expensive or underhyped or overhyped is so stupid because there is no way to put a price on this, right? And we don't live in that world anymore because value investing has gone out the window. It went out the window like 12 months ago. Totally great. So my second follow-up

question to that. So if eth is done a shit coin, do you think that it is possible, maybe not likely, but do you think the possibility exists that ether as an asset could accrue some sort of a monetary premium at Bitcoin, as Bitcoin so clearly has? Yeah. Look, I see a lot of discussion about this, like, is ether money? There are a few people who are like, every time I mention Ethereum, they're like, ether is money. Is that you, David? I don't think it's me. Okay. So look, I will be very candid. Right now, I don't, I don't view ether in that way. And like I said, I hold in my portfolio. I use ether to engage in different activities like in the world of defy. Right. And it's been a really useful form of collateral because it's highly useful in this defy universe, right? I think time will tell whether or not ether becomes a store of value. But I don't treat my ether in the same way that I treat my Bitcoin. Like I don't really sell my Bitcoin. I don't really trade most of my Bitcoin. I just hold it because to me, Bitcoin is savings technology.

Now, five years ago, I did spend Bitcoin, right? I had, like, the first Bitcoin credit card, the shift card, and I bought stuff with it. I was like, I tried out. I did an estimate recently of, like, how much money I spent trying out all the different apps and, like, shit getting built on Bitcoin over the last five years. It's real sad looking at those numbers. Yes, no. I mean, I ended up investing in some of those companies, which I've done.

on to do very well. So hopefully that will make up for it, but like, it's kind of scary. I don't view ether in the same way. I don't have the same like feeling of hurt when I spend ether. That doesn't mean that won't change, but right now in my mind, not yet. And I don't know if it will be. And that's okay. I think that's totally okay. Miltimer, are you think though? Wait, hold on. What circle am I in Ryan? I, so you were definitely not in ninth circle, right? That is pure maximalism that is pure everything else besides bitcoin is a shit coin i think that um vitalic is a scammer vitalic is a scammer like bankless pot like bankless podcast sucks and by the way we love bitcoin on bankless just like let that be known and we say it all the time by the way but um so you're not there you're

clearly not there um you are steam open to the possibility that's something other than bitcoin could a true a monetary premium you find it unlikely it has yet for you, you wouldn't say ETH is money. So you're, look, you're a Bitcoiner. You're like, you're not a maximalist. You're somewhere in the outer perimeter of circles, I would say. So, yeah, it's awesome. In my opinion. Yeah, me too. But look, here's the thing, right? Again, let's go back to where we started this whole podcast. Like, my view of the world is informed by the reality I consume. And this is why I actually, I want to talk about a topic that I think is really important. It's really important to have a circle of people around you that influence you

that are different from you in every sense of that word, right? Like different life experience, live in a different part of the world, speak a different language, have had different life experiences, have a different view. I love listening to people who when I listen to them, I'm like, oh, fuck that. Like, no. Because when you have such a visceral reaction to something, really what you're reacting to is what that person is making you feel. And typically when someone makes you feel something so extreme and so visceral, it's because you recognize some truth in what they're saying, and that truth is incompatible with your view of reality. And so in order, like, and again, like part of this is also understanding that in order for you to grow as a person, you have to have

the flexibility to change and evolve as the world around you changes and evolves. And I think I unfortunately, when I started working in crypto professionally, I worked in a place where there was a view that Ethereum was not worth spending time on. I did not share that view. But I sent three years in that sort of mentality, which had, I think, when I left that environment, I was like, wait a minute, like, I don't know why I believed these things. I don't agree with these things. It was part of the reason I left that environment's like, I don't share these worldviews. I don't share this philosophy. And in my view, like, my job is I'm an investor, right? And as an investor, if I don't have the ability to change my mind as the world changes

and as new information emerges, then I'm not doing my job because I'm going to miss things by being intellectually inflexible. So I'm not arguing one way or the other. What I'm arguing for is like openness, pragmatism and like take time to consume different versions of reality, take time to understand someone else's view of reality. because if you don't, you're going to miss a lot of things. Milton, has anyone, have you, has anyone pitched to you at the bankless thesis? I actually pitch that same thesis, but I don't call it that.

Okay. Wait, so what's the bankless thesis to you? Okay, so here's my thesis. A lot of people spend a lot of time on like, oh, I want to make Bitcoin institutional. Like, I want institutions to add up Bitcoin, and I say no. Bitcoin is going to change institutions. and Bitcoin will have to evolve their models to function in a world of cryptocurrencies, right, of Bitcoin. And so my view is, like, instead of having these monolithic institutions where, you know, they own your assets and you have the privilege of interacting with your assets when they allow you to,

you will engage service providers to provide services to the assets that you own that you hold when you choose, how you choose in the way you choose. So the way I sort of verbalize that is trade where. you trade what you want with who you want where you want clear and margin where you want settle where you want okay so a world without intermediaries right a world that's in the hands of the individual yes right so is that the same thesis yeah that yeah that's it's it's different from how i would how i would pitch it but yeah that's the gist of it the what what me and ryan really focus on is like bitcoin is fantastic digital scarcity is is a wonderful new invention um however the Bitcoin blockchain, the actual technology layer, is relatively constrained. And what we are worried

about is that those constraints push people out to the margins of Bitcoin rather than being able to be inside Bitcoin, right? And so like, engage... I want to be inside of a Bitcoin. How do I get in... Let us know what that feels like. Let us know what it's like down there. When you said that, I was like, I want that. So like, if people, if Bitcoin becomes the world's currency, It's not, I don't see how people can engage at the L1 layer. Like they, I will have to send you my Bitcoins via Coinbase via PayPal. And that's not bankless. That is using an intermediary to settle transactions off chain.

And then- I don't agree with you. Okay. I don't agree with you at all. Okay. Look, we've just spent this whole time talking about like evolution, right? And evolution of ideas. Look, where Bitcoin is at now is a function of where our culture is at, where a world

that and like what our behavior is. It typically takes one to two decades for humans to change their behavior, right? This thing came out 12 years ago. Your iPhone. You're pulling out your iPhone. You should upgrade, Milton. That's a pretty old iPhone. No, I hate, I hate it. It's not 12 years old, is it? Wait, hold on. Look, I still have one of these. The ones with one camera on them. Oh, my God. Was that before you were born, David? Fuck both. But look, when the iPhone started, right, I didn't really know what to use it for because the app store didn't really exist.

The app ecosystem didn't exist. Like, iPhones weren't a thing. But now I have a supercomputer in my pocket and I do all sorts of stuff with it. I think where Bitcoin is at right now is partially a function of like our mental model and how much change we can absorb, right? And we can't absorb all of the change all at once. Like we're just now getting to the point where people are even willing to contact. plate that something other than the dollar could exist.

Like, we're just at that point. We're just like getting started, right? So I think this, this narrative that Bitcoin can't scale, Bitcoin can't do this is a little bit short-sighted. It's the same thing as someone saying like, oh, Ethereum can never be money. Right. No, if I'm willing to entertain that, I think you should be willing to entertain the possibility that Bitcoin can somebody do there.

I do think Bitcoin can scale. I do think that Bitcoin can achieve its maximum banklessness potential. and I think I see the easiest path for Bitcoin to do that, the way that the water flows downhill, is by doing it on Ethereum, because Ethereum offers all of this intermediary free financial infrastructure that Bitcoin wants. And so I think Bitcoin on Ethereum is the easiest path for Bitcoin to scale, right? Like Ethereum is pushing the envelope on scaling technologies. Ethereum is pushing technologies on disintermediated financial infrastructure. If all the cool financial innovations that's based off of cryptography is happening on Ethereum,

then there's no reason why we can't just take the Bitcoins and put it on Ethereum. Hold on. No, that statement is categorically false. Oh, boy. Let's get into it. Okay. Saying all cool cryptographic innovations happening on top of Ethereum is false. Yeah, that was a, what's the word? Unsubstantiated and bold claim, which I like.

Yeah. Hyperbolic. I like that. I like that. but I'm going to get in there. I'm going to bring some fucking receipts. I'm categorically incorrect, right? And that's fine.

We can agree to disagree. That's the thing. I'm not here to convince you that my view of the world is correct. And you're not here to convince me that your view of the world is correct. Oh, I am. I'm kidding. Good luck with that. But I think what we are here to do is find where our visions for the future are similar.

And like we have the exact same view for the future, right? We just disagree on where it's going to happen, what it might, look like in who and where and how and why and what, which is all important. But like, I totally, I totally agree with that, right? So the same vision, you know, pro, pro cryptography, pro self-sovereignty, right? Like, this is core stuff and 100% aligned. The disagreement or the question is like, how do we get there? But I want to ask another acid test question, Meltham. So is Uniswap cool or is it really stupid and does it suck? What do you think about uniswap? Wait, is that a real question?

That's a real, that's a real question. Yeah, yeah. Uniswap is so fucking cool. Why is it cool? All right, tell us why it's cool. Okay. Because we think so too. We agree.

Okay, so Uniswap actually proves out something really, really interesting that blows people's minds when I explain it to them, like traditional finance people who are accustomed to like trading on a venue, right? What's so cool about Uniswap is anyone can list anything and trade anything with anyone. That is cool. That is so cool. I don't understand people who are like, that's not cool. Like the token and all the other stuff. You can talk a damn hell about this then. We don't need to get into like, okay, you know what? Cracken should spend their time building a better trading engine. That's all I'll say. That's spicy.

Whoa. I'm sorry, but like some spicy takes. Spicy emoji. But look, it's, but why are we spending time like ripping other people apart? I know why, because it's really easy. easy to do. And I'm guilty of this myself from time to time. Like sometimes I really rip stuff apart and afterwards I kind of feel bad. But then I'm like, okay. We all do it, right? Because it's easier to tear things down than it is to build things up. All right. If it's confession time, I may have said some bad things about lightning or not lightning. Excuse me. Well, also lightning, but that came to mind, but like coin. Yeah. Confession time. I've said some bad things about. I mean, I don't think anyone's coming to you after you go on that one though.

Okay. Okay. So Melt-Milton. Why does Lightcoin exist? I'm sorry about it. Why is it pumping in this bull market still? I think- Because retail's coming and retail is here. David's excited about that. And I just, it makes me so sad to be honest to see Lightcoin pumping in this. But anyways, here's my thing. Like, can Lightcoin and like be cash or whatever other dumb assets have like somehow survived the last five years? Can they just like drop out of the top 10 or top 20? just because random OGs, lots of money still own these things. Can they just like go? It's so stupid. I'm like, we need a new. I want that for hat. Yeah, I want that. That's the role of defy tokens.

Defy tokens need to supply them. Let's talk about defy. Only blue coins. Okay, so let's talk about defy. And the pink one, the one, pink one, uni. We'll let that. Uniswap is super cool, right? How about defy at large?

Cool. scam. Super cool. I've like written a lot about DFI. I've talked about a lot. We do some cool stuff with with DFI. I've been investing in DFI projects. Like super cool. Huge fan of Zapper.

I'm an investor in that like love what Zapper has done. Crazy cool. Huge fan of Uniswab, obviously. Huge fan of like Hedgik and Yifi. I don't own either Hedgik or Yifi. but I think what they're doing is super cool. Like what I like about the DFI space, there are pros and cons, right?

Like, first of all, defy's super immature, right? It's all experiments. And like, some of them are not good. And there are rug poles, and I think there are people who are, like, poorly intentioned. There's a great meme. There's two great memes. I'll post them on Twitter.

But there's one where it's like someone whispering in someone's ear saying DFI and then a picture of like arms, hair on someone's arms standing up. It's one of my favorite means. Like, DFI is so hot. When you say that we're DFI, people are like, oh, I love DFI. I've seen that happen to David in real life, actually. I think it might be his, uh, this was a mutual.

It might be his four arms. You promise to never say that. Like if I whisper defy to your nipples get hard. You can try it. Wait a second. I need to turn off my camera. The second meme that I love is like this giant, like vat of water has a hole in it and there's a guy who just slaps a piece of tape on it and it's

so we are defy so like all these random like coins that don't do anything are now trying to become defy and they're like we're defy tron is defy we're big believers tron's what about uh wait what about c defy that's oh that's my favorite yeah yeah centralized defy that's we're relevant finance look all of these things like this again is kind of an issue of semantics, right? The way I view defy is like, I think defy has opened people's eyes to the possibilities of what can be built using blockchain networks and assets on blockchain networks, definitely. The practical realities are that defy in its current substantiation has some challenges, right? And some of those are being worked on. Some of those challenges are,

you know, going to be very difficult to resolve. And that's fine. right and we'll see what happens and what direction it evolves in. So my view is like again, as an investor, if I'm not looking at defy, I'm not doing my job. If I'm not like yield, like I love yield farming. Yield farming is super cool. We actually had to rewrite some of our internal policies to allow people at coin shares to yield farm. I think that was fun. That's got to go with like, you know, number one.

Rule number one is make money, right? Yield farming is a great opportunity to make money. But just like I was spending Bitcoin back in the day, right? And like trying out all these different Bitcoin apps. Like if I'm not using these products and services, if I'm not like engaging with them at that level, if I'm not yield farming, if I'm not trying to like do Jenna LP and like figure this stuff out,

I'm missing things. I am going to have fundamental gaps in my understanding. And you can't be dismissive of everything that doesn't conform with your own very narrow view of the world. So I tried out twitch a few months ago, like the Bitcoin cash or like, the BSV thing. It's like their social messaging app. And everyone on Twitter was like, did they pay you to tweet that? Like, you bitch, I can't believe. Yeah, that's the Bitcoin maximalism that we don't,

that we don't enjoy here. You should see my DMs. People were like, you are dirty shit coin, bitch. I'm sure they were pleasant. That's terrible. So, so Melton, how do you get to a point where you are so limited in your thinking that someone even engaging with something that like turns you off. It inspires that type of reaction. Like, it's wild to me that people are that crazy. I'm like, you need to relax. Yes, because according to the inner circle of Bitcoinerism, like Bitcoin is a jealous god, right? Like you play in a different ecosystem and then you're committing blasphemy, right? No, no, but here's the thing. We're now finally getting to the point where people recognize, like, Bitcoin is not a personality. It's just a technology. It's just a

blockchain. But you have to be a person, like just tweeting, like just tweeting. Just tweeting. I'd hate these people. I just, like, tweet random shit about Bitcoin. Like, Michael Sailor's tweets drive me nuts. I'm just like, it's so chatish. I'm like, this is so stupid. And I love what Michael Saylor's done for a Bitcoin, but I'm just like, please stop.

Like, Bitcoin's not a personality. Please be a person, first and foremost. Like, Bitcoin can be a huge part of your identity. But you can't be a Bitcoin. Your final form is not becoming a Bitcoin. Wait. David told us we could get into a Bitcoin. It's a podcast.

Right. I want to get inside of a Bitcoin. Meltta, why you then? I did joke that my final form, like when I evolved to my final, like, spiritual form, I will actually become a Bitcoin. Become a bit. Yeah. Wow.

Are you an Ethereum? An Ethereum? Yeah. I don't know. Look, I don't feel the need to identify myself as anything. I'm Meltem. Right. But you are a Bitcoin.

I'm a Bitcoiner. I'm a Crypto. Meltem, comma, Bitcoiner. Yeah. A part-time troll. I do think, but actually not troll, shit poster. I prefer that term. I'm really good at memes. I have been dropping some dank memes lately. They slap. I'm into that. Love it. Love the dank memes. That's how we propagate. All right. So our friend, our friend, our friend Pomp, come on the show, Pomp. Why isn't Pomp on the show? Anyway, he would say that, All this stuff on Ethereum is going to be basically pushed, ported to Bitcoin. And Bitcoin will basically build its own uniswap, build its own defy ecosystem. What's your take on that perspective?

Yeah, look, that could happen. I don't see that happening right now or in the near future, though, just because there's some like just really fundamental change. challenges that make that difficult. But look again, like, I have a lot of respect for Pomp. I actually think he's super consistent and he does a great job getting people amped up with like very simple messages and he's just consistent. Like Bitcoin fixes this. The virus is spreading. Like he's very good for pithy one liners and people love it. Right. So like kudos to him. Much respect. Everyone is entitled to their perspective. Everyone's entitled to

their views. I don't have to agree with everyone, but like me disagreeing with you, Ryan and David, doesn't mean that I don't respect your perspectives as a person, right? You disagreeing with me as Meltem doesn't mean that you disrespect me as a person, right? And again, I think people and people on the internet generally have a hard time finding this line, right? I can disagree with someone. Politics. I can disagree with someone's politics. I can disagree with someone's views on on crypto, I can disagree with their views on what the future will look like, but it doesn't mean that I deny that person the right to believe what they believe, right? Like, we are not judge, jury, or executioner.

The whole point of cryptocurrencies is permissionless financial innovation. And so to me, what's so ridiculous is how status people will be. They're like, oh, my God, you rug pulled, like, called the SEC. I'm like, why are you here? Why are you here trying to be judged jury and executioner? You can't say out one side of your mouth, we want to be permissionless financial innovation. And then in the very same breath, like call for financial regulation, those are two ideologically incompatible views. And I don't think people recognize their own hypocrisy. I recognize my own hypocrisy. I have a lot of incompatible worldviews,

but I recognize them and I work on them and I try to understand how I, arrive at a place where like my worldview can be more consistent. It makes sense. But I think a lot of people just never take a step back and ask themselves like, does what I am saying actually makes sense? I think we solved it. I think we solved crypto tribalism here and now. We just solved it. It's really fun. Like spectacles are fun. I believe in bread and circuses, right? So this was going on this country right now. We have a fucking circus. It's called the Trump presidency, right? And we have bread. they're just going to give money to people. Like bread and circuses are a great way to keep the population from knowing what's actually going on.

And over time, the spectacles will just get bigger. So people are here for the spectacle, like come for the Bitcoin, stay for the drama. That's all good. That's exactly what Michael Saylor did, absolutely. So Meltem, like Bitcoin is pushing up on 19,000. Like the all-time highs are in sight. Meanwhile, over the last three years, the industry has built out the infrastructure. that is going to make it really, really easy for institutions to access Bitcoin, right?

Like back in 2017, that didn't exist. It was hard for an institution to... Wait, hold on. Before we go down, why do we care about institutions? I really want to stop talking about, like, white boomer dudes buying Bitcoin. What should I use? Because they have a lot of money, though. That's why we care a little bit.

And I would love for them to buy my, well, I'm not selling them my Bitcoin. They can buy my other bet. But like, I don't understand the obsession with, institutions because what people are saying is it would be really cool if like Ray Dalio bought Bitcoin and then took Bitcoin and put it in a vault at B&Y Mellon and got a little paper receipt for it. That's what we do in banking today. Like that's not cool. That's stupid. Oh yeah. I mean, we're totally totally I would he should buy it and put it on his ledger is what he should do. I mean he shouldn't like he shouldn't put it in the banking system. That's probably a little dangerous for

for Ray, not financial advice. Nothing on this podcast is financial advice, by the way. Nobody should take it. It's not even advice. It's not even advice at all. It's banter. It is somewhat informed banter, but also David making a lot of unsubstantiated. I think where David was going with this question, it's less institutions, but like more like where we headed next.

Right. So we're hitting these all-time highs already. Yeah. It's not the end of 2020. The decade's getting crazy. You outlined all the macro stuff for us. What's next in 2021 and beyond? Okay.

So there's two ways to interpret that question. There's what I would like to be next, like my version of reality that I'm trying to manifest over here in my little corner of the world. And then there's probabilistically speaking what is more likely to happen. Right. Okay. Which one do you want to do first? Let's start with your. your version of the future. Okay. So my version of the future is a like I think cryptocurrency at this

moment in time and really Bitcoin and I apologize for like really focusing on Bitcoin. But right now Bitcoin is just at a very interesting point and the Bitcoin narrative was made for the the world we're living in right now, right in this minute. Right. I think we're at a point where people all around the world are looking at our financial system. are looking at economies, are looking at assets. And what I go back to is, like, my experience working corporate treasury, right, at ExxonMobil, which when I worked there was the largest company in the world. No longer is, like not even close, right?

As a corporate treasurer, my job was to optimize the cost of capital, A, right? Keep the cost of capital low, so make sure that we could access debt at zero cost, basically. And two was to maximize the opportunity cost of capital, meaning that, you know, if I have $100 sitting here, I can earn a return with that $100. So how do I optimize and get the best risk return adjusted sort of profile for those assets, right? I don't want to put them in something super high risk where I might lose all my money or I might 10x it. But I also don't just want to leave it there when I could be earning return with it.

And so in 2013, swath, I could make a pretty. good clip, 2 to 3%, trading short-term treasuries. Basically, very low risk return. That doesn't exist anymore. Rates are zero. In some places, rates are negative. Fully one quarter of the world's sovereign debt is negative yielding, and that number will only increase. We are in a zero interest rate environment. The way we allocate, capital has to change. And investment committees don't respond quickly, right? Like, if you've ever been in an investment committee meeting or in a risk review meeting with a large bank or a large investor, it takes them 18, 24, 36 months to make changes because it takes a long time. So people are like,

in March, people are like, oh my God, Bitcoin's going to boom because inflation. I'm like, things don't happen on that time scale. Like in November or in April, or in, April of next year, they'll have their annual risk review meeting, they'll have their annual allocation strategy meeting, and they'll talk about maybe allocating, right? But it doesn't happen like the very next day. I think what is happening, what's very real, is people look at the world around them. Inflation target is 2.5%, meaning every year my dollars buy me 2.5% less. My risk-free rate of return is zero and will be zero forever. For the first, foreseeable future. So what can I do with my money that will allow me to at least keep pace with

inflation and potentially earn a return because there's no way that the government's going to fund my retirement. I know that for a fact. So what do I do with my money? And I think people are looking at Bitcoin because there aren't a lot of places left to put the absolute shitload of money that is out in the world that needs to earn return. People are buying Pokemon cards, right? A few weeks ago, Logic, the rapper, like, bought the most expensive Pokemon card ever. People were buying classic cards. People are buying houses.

People are buying wine. People are buying, like, these esoteric assets. People are buying NFTs, right? People are trying to find places to stash cash that will help them at least keep pace with inflation, but also potentially earn a return. that opportunity is going away in a lot of places. And so again, I think this is where Bitcoin is such a beautiful, beautiful story because Bitcoin has the capacity to absorb significant amounts of capital.

The markets are really liquid and robust. The infrastructure available to institutions is very robust. So I'm very excited in the need. That's what I was saying. You said the institution word. Look, look, but this is the practical reality, right? This is the practical reality. like what you said, Ray Dalio is not going to sit there with a ledger and like type in his

eight digit passcode. Do you really think that's going to happen? Like he probably doesn't, he probably doesn't even write his own emails, right? Like he has people who do that for him. The man is extremely wealthy. Like he's not going to sit there with a little ledger and like unbank himself. Why would he do that? He would definitely lose his private keys at least once.

Wait, didn't Peter Schiff lose his private keys? I think that was a media stunt to get. engagement out of Bitcoinsers. I think he's been doing that for years. He's actually my favorite no-coiner. I kind of like Peter Schiff being in the space. Like now that Nureal Rubini believes in Bitcoin, we don't have anyone to like hate it on. Wait, wait. Yeah, Noreal believes in Bitcoin. Yeah, Noreal Rubini is now a bitcoiner. Did you? No, he is not. Yeah, I miss that memo. I don't know. When did that happen? We're talking about the same guy. Like,

American economist, you know, testifies in Congress, like how... I feel like you're praising. I'm kidding. No, Neri-Orero-Ribini, like, has a lot of degrees and qualification. He has a lot of pieces of paper. Yes. What made him change? He bought some Bitcoin, I guess.

He's friends with a lot of Bitcoiners. Yeah, but look, people are going to change their minds. I don't know where I was going. starting to ramble. I'm going to stop talking. Yeah. So we're headed, you know? Yeah, but look, at the same time, what is going to happen is I think there's a massive crackdown coming. Look, at the end of the day, like what governments want is control. And governments are losing control in many ways.

And we're in an interesting part of the cycle where like the mob has started to rule. Like governments no longer rule. Mobs of people rule. Right? And so governments are losing power. We're seeing the era of the nation's state, I think the experiment of democratic nation states certainly like sort of reaching a natural denouement or ending point. And something new is going to emerge. The question is what will it be? I have a lot of hope and a lot of optimism around that being, you know, more technocratic society, where cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin play a greater role. But again, there's a lot of uncertainty, and like how that might evolve. But look, there are a lot of glimmers of hope. And as I said before, right? Every ending is a beginning. And I think there are going to be a lot of endings over the next

decade. And when things end, we need to be in a place where we can build new things that are more inclusive, that are more open, that are more egalitarian. And when I say egalitarian, I mean a quality of access, right? A quality of opportunity. I can't make people who make poor choices, make better choices. I can only give them a quality of access. And then it's like leading the horse to water. I'm like, hey, Bitcoin at $200. Like you should get some Bitcoin. They're like, no, it's too expensive. And then I do it again at 2000. They're like too expensive. And now they're like, oh my God, why didn't you tell me to buy Bitcoin? I'm like, I can't help you because you refuse to help yourself. All I can do is show you the door and give you the information and encourage you to walk

through it. But I can't make you do it. And so I think that's kind of where industry needs goes. like let's build things that make it possible for this world we want to exist that's more egalitarian that provides a quality of access and let's take governments and companies and regulators and people to a place where they can walk through that door but if they choose not to right like we can't force people to right and this this entire is uh unless we can find out like enslave people and like some crypto citadel and then they have to i don't know i'm sure somebody would be interested in that. I mean, this entire industry is based off of self-empowerment and self-responsibility, right? And so

you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them buy Bitcoin, you know? I was going to say, if you have a big enough stick, maybe. We want to thank you for coming on the bankless podcast and also for being a part of our first video podcast. Everything else is usually not done on video. So again, if you guys watched or listened to the podcast, you missed out on some of Meltem's graphics and infographics that she shared in the beginning. So don't miss that. But before we go, Melton, do you have a price prediction after all of this reflexivity in Bitcoin and institutions come and buy all the Bitcoin and Ray Dalio gets his ledger? Where is Bitcoin's price going to be? Wait, David, David, David,

hold on, you're asking the easy question. We want to know where Bitcoin is, but we also want to know where Ether price is. Yeah, that was going to come next. Yeah. Okay. So I'm a big fan of Howard Marks, the investor at Oak Tree. And he has a great saying, which is you either name a price or no date or you name a date and no price. And that way you're never wrong. So I'm going to go with, I'm going to take that advice. My price target for Bitcoin is $150,000. It's not going to attach a date to it. My price target for ether is $2,500. I'm not going to attach a date to it. Okay, but is that in one cycle or is that cheating on the whole date thing? I have no comments. Okay, fair enough. I plead the fifth.

I plead the fifth. While we still have the fifth, I won't have plead it because I'm pretty sure in the future we won't have it anymore. Okay, Melton, if there was, what should the listener, so you've kind of given a few call to actions like, like write to your senator to make sure that we preserve encryption. Also elect better representatives. Stop electing boomers. What's the lowest hanging fruit that a listener can do to help this world forward? Just get involved in like whatever capacity feels comfortable to you. I think the biggest thing is like have an open mind and be open to the idea that your experience of reality is about to change in a radical way.

That has never led me wrong. Super cool. Great advice, Meltem. This has been a really fun conversation. Like really fun. Hold on. Wait, did you expect that or were you like, fuck? Well, when we were coordinating to get you on the podcast, the email that you sent in response, I message Ryan is like, oh yeah, she's coming in hot.

Yeah. So, and you did. It's been a lot of fun. And I think people don't usually get this kind of conversation between different communities in crypto talking about what they, hopefully we now at the end of this conversation, maybe we've moved from a we agree on 50% to 51%. That was like the trigle of this conversation. That's enough for consensus. That's enough. It depends on what protocol you're talking about. In some instances, you need 66% or maybe even 80.

You've studied up. You have studied up. You have prepared. That sounds like staking. Talk to me. I have interests outside of just the narrow realm of Bitcoin. Although the realm of Bitcoin is actually quite expansive and like really infinitely interesting.

There's a lot there. And I think we agree on the overall. bankless thesis, let's say. Let's get the banks and intermediaries out. So that is good. So maybe Melton's bankless. Maybe that's right. I'm working on it. It's very hard to become bankless in America, though. It's not very easy. The last thing I want to say to everyone listening, if you disagree with anything I've said and you want to argue with me, feel free to DM me on Twitter. I am at Meltz underscore Dem open invitation. I have open DMs. And if you want to alter my perception of reality, please come and be my guest. I love it. How much time do you have never had engaging with people in your DMs who want to argue with you?

That's something I try to avoid. I find it fun. And you know what? The thing is like with most people you can find something to agree on. I always like to start by finding things to agree on and then I think it makes disagreements like less scary. Well, very good guys. And Melton, would you be able to share those slides that you put at the beginning? Is there a link that we can put in the show notes somewhere? Yeah, there are a few links. I do like a lot of different presentations. So I'll share with you a few different where people can check stuff out. Yeah. All right, guys.

Here's the thing. Action items, of course, you can DM Meltem at your discretion, particularly if you disagree with her. David might be doing that after the podcast. I don't even know. We will also include a link to some of the coin share slides that she shared in the show notes. Go check those out.

We also, of course, always appreciate five-star reviews on iTunes. So make sure you do that. Get us top of the charts. Last thing, risks and disclaimers, none of this was financial advice. I hope we expressed that sufficiently. Maybe it wasn't even advice. It was neither a solicitation by or sell securities.

I just want to make that very clear. Not a solicitation, not tax advice. Please talk to a lawyer, do your own research. If you have any questions, I am bound by the coin shares, disclosures and disclaimers, which are linked in my Twitter bio. Guys, never worked for a regulated company. It's the worst. You took the words right out of my mouth.

Of course, with crypto, you could lose what you put in, but we are headed west. This is the frontier. It's not for everyone. But we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey. It is for everyone. Be inclusive. You're all welcome in my wagon. Maybe.

There you go. Maybe Ryan won't let you in. You can come hang out in my wagon. The door's open. Thanks a lot. Take care. Does the wagon have a door? We're mixing metaphors here.

We can't. You can slip in the back. I think this podcast's over, guys. I think we're done here.