Bankless - POV Crypto Reunites with Christian Keroles | Layer Zero

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

David brings on his old co-host, Christian Keroles of POV Crypto. Long-time Bankless listeners know of POV Crypto, but if you’re unaware, it’s the podcast that David started with Christian before Bankless! Christian is currently the General Manager of BTC Inc (Bitcoin Magazine & The Bitcoin Conference). On this episode, David and Christian go back to their POV Crypto roots and debate many different sub-topics of the overall Ethereum vs. Bitcoin debate. ------ 📣 Earnifi | Check For Your Unclaimed Airdrops, POAPs, & NFTs https://bankless.cc/earnifi  ------ 🚀 SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/?utm_source=banklessshowsyt  🎙️ SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST: http://podcast.banklesshq.com/  ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: ⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum  ❎ ACROSS | BRIDGE TO LAYER 2 https://bankless.cc/Across  🦁 BRAVE | THE BROWSER NATIVE WALLET https://bankless.cc/Brave  💠 NEXO | CRYPTO FINANCIAL HUB https://bankless.cc/Nexo  🔐 LEDGER | NANO HARDWARE WALLETS https://bankless.cc/Ledger  ⚡️FUEL | THE MODULAR EXECUTION LAYER https://bankless.cc/Fuelpod  ----- Topics Covered 0:00 Intro 5:03 Who is Christian Keroles? 5:58 POV Crypto Pod 9:52 The BTC vs. ETH Community 11:07 Metrics of the Winner 14:20 Ideological Backgrounds 18:00 The 2020-2021 Bull Market 20:44 Cantillon Effect 22:55 ETH to $0 24:40 Ethereum Won the 2020-2021 Bull Market? 30:34 Is Bitcoin the Underdog? 32:00 Tornado Cash 33:47 Ethereum is Inside the Bitcoin Ecosystem 36:46 How Bitcoin is Changing the World? 39:15 Bitcoin & Energy 46:19 Distribution & Decentralization 48:44 Energy System Integration 54:47 Does Bitcoin Work If It Isn’t #1 55:39 HyperBitcoinization 56:25 Paradigm Shifts 1:02:20 Recreating the Financial System 1:04:57 Core Philosophical Differences 1:07:17 Disrupting Incumbents 1:08:26 Acceleration ------ Resources: POV Crypto Pod https://twitter.com/povcryptopod  Christian Keroles https://twitter.com/ck_SNARKs  ----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research. Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 

Welcome to Layer Zero. Layer Zero is a podcast of unscripted conversations with the people that make up the Bitcoin community. Crypto is built by code, but is composed by people. And each individual member of the crypto community has their own story to tell. The Cypherpunks understood that the code they write impacts the people that use it. And Layer Zero focuses on the people behind the code because Bitcoin is people all the way down and always has been, which might be an offensive statement to many of the Bitcoiners. And the reason why we're talking about Bitcoin today is because I have on my old co-host, CK. Snarks of P.O.V. Crypto. So long-time bankless listeners will probably have known about P-O-V-Cripto, but it was actually the podcast that I started with C-K, with the guest here, before starting the bankless podcast. It was the precursor podcast. And P-O-V-C-Propto, point-of-view crypto, was me, the Ethereum, and C-K, the Bitcoins. And we also happened to be college friends. So we were friends

before we discovered Bitcoin and Ethereum, respectively. And that allowed P-O-V-Cripto. to be a different kind of podcast. It got started in 2018, 2019, and it was like a bare market darling of a podcast. People loved it at the time. And it was really because it was something different where two differing perspectives were able to come to the same place

and sometimes, like, aggressively yell at each other, yet still hug it out at the end of the show every single time. And so it was a nice relief where it was a very important conversations about like the philosophical differences between Bitcoin and Ethereum from two people that very much believed in each other's respective camps.

And so the fact that CK and I were college friends, I went to his wedding, we're friends. And so we can yell at each other and then still be respectful. And you can actually move the needle with conversations. And so it hosted a lot of very important conversations, I say, in 2018 to 2020. Since once the bull market started, CK, who is operations at BTC Media, Bitcoin Magazine, the Bitcoin Conference, all that stuff. And so once the bull market started, I doubled down on bankless. He doubled out on BTC Media. But we've always kept in touch, of course, as our respective of ecosystems has built out. It's been a year since we have recorded. And so this is the reunion of POV crypto. So for the long time, POV crypto fans, sorry for going over a year without recording an

episode. I hope you enjoy this one, though, because we have a lot to catch up on. So without further ado, we'll get into the conversation with these CK Snarks right after we can talk to some of these fantastic sponsors that make the show possible. Nexto is your financial hub for all your crypto needs. Nexto lets you buy crypto instantly with your credit or debit card or via bank transfer. And they also have an awesome advanced trading platform, Nexo Pro, where you can get the best possible prices and trade with 50% discount on fees. And Nexo also lets you earn interest on your crypto in Bitcoin, Eth, or other assets. And they also give you an instant crypto line of credit with as low as 0% APR. And they also give you access to a crypto-backed MasterCard, of course earning you more crypto when you use

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seamlessly without all the clutter. You can download the browser at brave.com slash banklist and click the wall icon to get started. Let's help, CK. How's it going? Doing good, man. Enjoying your apartment. I will. It's great to have you here. It's been a while. It's been a long time. Since we recorded, at least. For bankless listeners that don't know, who are you?

I'm the general manager of Bitcoin Magazine, but David and I are old friends from college days. And we kind of were partners in crime for a while. We started both of our careers in the Bitcoin and Crypto space doing a podcast together called P.O.V. crypto. Yeah, the PV Crypto pod was like, I think it was the, there were definitely other podcasts that were a big deal. Like Lorishin's podcast was a big deal. But I think we kind of like dominated the 2018 to 2020 bear market in terms of just like, we had good listenership, but also just like who listened to POV crypto as I think it was an interesting set of people. Again, for the listeners who don't know, you want to describe POV crypto and how it came to be and what it was. So pretty much David and I kind of started our careers with similar-ish.

perspectives on the market. David was a lot more into the blockchain ecosystem, really into Ethereum, you're mining Ethereum. I was already pretty captivated by Bitcoin, and I've since become more captivated by Bitcoin. And I don't know, we tried and failed to do a podcast one time. And then we kind of just started, it was like November 2018, late 2018. I think we tried to do the first episode, like two times. Yeah, two or three times. Two or three times. Two or three. times. And then we did it like the fourth time and we were like, this still wasn't what we wanted. But at some point we were like, we just have to ship a goddamn episode. So we just yeated the episode and like got like 15 lessons or something. Yeah, I think it was just her

friends. But pretty much, pretty much the whole point was like I was the bickoiner. David was the Ethereum. And like we were going to talk about the market. What we saw, you know, we felt like these communities were already very siloed. And they were really talking at each other on Twitter a lot. So we were kind of the only forum that I feel like had honest conversation with both perspectives respectfully over an extended period of time. Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. The way I described POV crypto is like during the 2018 to 2020 bear market, there wasn't the communities that you see today. Like there was just Bitcoin and Ethereum. Like there were like other like bull market like ecosystems that all went away during the bear market.

And like basically all that was left was Bitcoin and Ethereum. Ethereum. Like all the people that like were bullish on public private key cryptography and some sort of crypto system, the only people that were left were like Bitcoin and Ethereum. And these communities couldn't talk to each other because none of them were friends. They were just like two ideologically like separated. And so like that's where we had the privilege of like being college friends. Yet one of us was the Ethereum. One of us was the bit cocker. We made POV crypto because we were the only two people that could come together and like argue with honest arguments. And so we had like these hour long, called them like fight nights, also did interviews. But basically we were the place where like the

Bitcoin perspective and the Ethereum perspective met. Yeah, no, totally. And we had awesome guests on and it was a very unique setting because like David would bring in the cream of the Ethereum space and I would just drill them with all the questions that like Bitcoiners would want to ask them. And then vice versa, I would bring on like a someone who's pushing forward Bitcoin in a big way, a developer, you know, an entrepreneur in the space. And you know, David like, well, why not this? this won't work, that kind of stuff. And I thought, you know, one, it was fun, but, you know, we really added something unique to the ecosystem. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so there was like the Bitcoin episodes, the Bitcoin podcast, and then there was the Ethereum podcasts. Maybe there was actually

only two of them. There was ours and then also into the ether. But like, the difference was that when we would do an Ethereum interview, we would bring on an Ethereum guest, we would also have a bitcoiner and like vice versa. Yes. And because we did so many episodes, we were into like almost like 200 episodes. So our listeners got to like kind of know us and know our perspectives and saw kind of like the character development of the actual episode of the conversation. And you would see where like the Ethereum influence would influence would influence you. And you would see the Bitcoin influence influenced me in our thinking.

But we also like never wavered from our positions. Still to this day. To this day. Yeah. And so it's been like a year or so since we've recorded a podcast. Yeah. A little bit less than a year. A little bit less than a year.

It really kind of things started to slow down when. the bull market started, like the Bitcoin communities and the Ethereum communities. We were in the same spot during the 2018 to 2020 bear market. Like the Bitcoin communities and the Ethereum communities, very different communities, but they were still together, right? It was like we were still on crypto Twitter interacting with each other, even though we were different communities. And then as soon as like the bull market happened, like the Bitcoiners did their own thing. Like we diverged as communities, I'd say. Would you agree with that take? I mean, I always like a little bit more yes and no. I definitely knew that that was very much your perspective.

you know, this time last year. But at the same time, I think it's fair to say that, like, these communities are still definitely, you know, rubbing up against each other in a big way. Although, like, let's just call it, like, the Ethereum-only ecosystem and then the Bitcoin-only ecosystem have definitely both developed a lot. You know, back in the day, there was just crypto and blockchain conferences. Now there's, you know, very specific gatherings, very specific meetups, you know, and, you know, all of these things definitely have defined themselves and become more independent for sure.

So I want to definitely get into, like, since it's been a year and a little bit more since, like, the POV crypto was really at its height, we wanted to kind of reflect on like, all right, who was right? Because that was the whole point of the podcast was like, one of us was right and one of us was wrong. And it could only be one, right? That was kind of the air of the podcast. That was the vibe. I don't know how true that is, though. Well, so, yeah, let's ask that question. Because I think you and I do agree on, like, Like, there's going to be one blockchain that's going to be the winner, like, that sits in a throne. And there was an argument that I remember having on Twitter where I think it was West Coast Waka.

Shout out West Coast Waka, who's always been with us ever since the beginning. They were like, how do you know who's right in the end? And we both agreed, like, market cap. Market cap is the determining factor. Do you still align with that? Well, I definitely think that the journey, every metric and every sacred cow is going to, get challenged, you know, across the spectrums as more intense and malicious actors, you know, with lots of capital come in, you know, I don't know if market cap or any specific

metric is like the key metric. I think that what matters at the end is where is economic activity happening. And I think why it makes sense that there's going to be one settlement layer for global economic activity and we're going to consolidate around whatever works the best for a number of reasons, many of which a lot of people know about, many of which are unknowable to this point. But because of efficiency. So right now there is massive inefficiencies in the wild and massive not connectiveness. Like the financial system is very, very fragmented.

And I think what is going to happen is, I think, government. is going to become way less unified. I definitely believe in the sovereign individual thesis, but that's going to be enabled by using a lot of shared common tech, similar to, I think it's going to be the Bitcoin blockchain, but let's just call it one global settlement layer for the world. You know, almost like that, you don't have to trust that person in order to settle value with them.

Like, that's what having one global blockchain does. Right. Okay, so you do believe in, like, the dominance of one ecosystem. in the long term. Yeah, I mean, humanity requires it. Yes. Like, we need this to move forward. Like, right now, it's difficult to make economic calculation, right? So I think that this is an economic advancement on the levels of the world converging on gold or, I mean, much, much, but greater than that, but it's going to bring about an enormous amount of efficiency gain, productivity gains and capital allocation improvements if we can, you know, gather around one. And I think that we

will because we need it. Right. And so like I 100% agree if there's one single standard, if there's one global coordination focal point where we all like, hey, this is what we use to coordinate. That is the point of crypto. And I think one of the reasons why people resonated with POV crypto is because like we agreed on a lot of stuff. Like we have very similar principles. And I think where we disagree is like the execution of that, like how that actually manifests. That's kind of like why we could come together on POV crypto is because like, so much of our foundation about why this stuff is important is the same thing. But you think it's expressed in Bitcoin and I just think it's expressed in Ethereum. Yeah, I mean, I don't know

if we necessarily have the same vision for the future. But I think part of the show too is you can also look into our base assumptions on life, our political perspectives and that kind of thing and then see how that's reflected in, you know, how we look at the crypto ecosystem. So, I mean, I don't want to get into like too much of like generalizing, but I would definitely say, like, even when I was in high school and I didn't even understand politics, like, you know, I would take like a stupid test and be like, yeah, you're a libertarian. You know, like that. That was like kind of always part of my character. And then, you know, obviously, you know, you can describe your own political leanings.

But I do think that it was interesting to kind of just see how, yes, Bitcoin crypto that changes your worldview a lot. But it's also really colored by what you already believe is like how the world works. And I think that was definitely something that we explored at POP crypto, where we talked about, like, people's ideological backgrounds and, like, how they kind of would naturally find themselves in one ecosystem or the other. I started off very, very liberal. And then since getting into crypto, I found myself going just more moderate, definitely more conservative, but not conservative holistically. But yeah, I would say, like, coming into the crypto world, it was an interesting exploration of just like, all right, who are you as a person and what values do you have and how does crypto express those values? The other thing that was interesting on POV was like, we had a mix of listeners, right? We had the Bitcoin listeners and we had the Ethereum listeners.

And all the Ethereum listeners were like, that CK, hey guy. This rubs me the wrong way, man. That can't stand that guy. And like, all the bitcoins would go to you and be like, that David guy, that guy's an idiot, man. People would be like, how can you guys be friends? Bro, you guys are so sad. Like, come on.

You can't disagree with someone. I think maybe that is a reflection of the times. but, you know, yeah, I mean, people, like, if you can't disagree and then still respect someone, like, do you even know them? Right. Well, that's why I think people, like, really listen to POV crypto and, like, really appreciated it because, like, it was, it was the conversations that a lot of people wanted to have, but no one could do it in a way that wasn't, like, disrespectful for some reason.

I mean, even at times, I would get disrespectful, like, to be honest. We both would, but we would also, like, not let it interfere with a conversation. Yeah. No, I mean, you know, it would cool, cool back at the end, all right, good show, talk to you tomorrow, that kind of thing. Who's going to edit this one? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I remember, like, my wife, you know, then-fiancee, but now wife, you know, she would always, like, clown me like, man, you must have had a really heated episode because I could hear you all the way in the kitchen. There was a lot of yelling. Yeah, the name's fight night episodes were definitely true to their name. All right, so do we want to, like, recap, reflect on the year thus far, since we haven't done a POV, crypto episode in a year. Yeah, man, what a wild bear market. Well, also, bull market, right? So, so say we stopped doing POB stuff in like 2020-ish, maybe, so we were like doing it two to three times a week up until 2020. All of 2021, it was like two episodes here, two episodes here, two episodes here, that kind of thing. And then, you know, just shy of a year ago is like our last

episode. So did the 20, because there was this air on POV crypto that like the bull market will return. We were child of the 2017 bull market. POV crypto was a bare market podcast. But it was always under the assumption like, okay, the bull market will return once again. And then it did. And then like you doubled down on Bitcoin Media. I double down on bankless. Did, if we want to put ourselves back in the shoes of like 2018 to 2020 Christian and David,

did the 2021-2020 bull market go how you expected it to go? I would say yes and no. This is something we were talking about yesterday. Like, as the Bitcoiner, the way to have made the most amount of USD or Sats or whatever would definitely have been to listen to David. Like, there's no question there. But on the flip side, like, the bull market push forward Bitcoin adoption in an insane way. Like, you know, we now have Bitcoin playing on the playing ground of nation states.

I mean, you know, that's opening the door for a lot of crypto to happen as well. and we're also, you know, we're seeing Bitcoin mining being integrated into energy infrastructure in a very quick way. Like, I think that real Bitcoin adoption definitely aligned with my perspective of the bull market. But if you're just like, you know, trying to make as much USD, trying to make, and let's just assume not even trading, just like you're participating in this market. Like, I definitely think that there's a very clear answer there. So, you know, and on my end, like, Bitcoin's supposed to give you piece of money. mind. So like if you understand the protocol, you understand the system, you understand the end

result, like, how could you not have peace of mind? So working in this space where, you know, I'm fully aligned with my ideology and my vision for the future, like, that's increased my earning power an enormous amount. Obviously, I own more Bitcoin now than I, you know, ever thought possible. But at the same time, like, it is what it is. You know, being on the alpha end of the cancelon effects, as I would describe it, it's definitely really fucking lucrative. There's no question about that. To explain that metaphor, the alpha end of the cantalon effect, you're saying that Ethereum is where issuance occurs. And so if you're on the Ethereum ecosystem, you have the net effects of the cantalon effect.

Yeah, well, so the cantalon effect is this idea that if you're closer to where the money or the assets or the whatever is being issued and you get it first, then you have a lot to gain. And people will get it less, you know, they gain less or they're even maybe they get the short end of the stick. So, yeah, I mean, you're not creating assets. it's in Bitcoin. Like, it really, it's just like, there's not that much alpha in being a part of the, it's like, in like, like, the alpha is not the same as like, hey, I can be an insider in Ethereum, and I can understand where the trends are going and I can get tokens that, you know, will appreciate or whatever, get speculated on. It's almost like people like, I want to buy Bitcoin to that way, I can get the next air drop. Like, 100,000 percent of that activity, all

went to Ethereum. I'm like, they would stop being even a thing in Bitcoin. I do, yeah, I do remember that during 2017, one of the things you were saying in our group chat was like, Bitcoin pays dividends because Bitcoin would keep on getting forked and forked and forked. Yeah, that did not. I mean, it did get forked, just the for forks stopped being valuable. Yeah. Like, no, it stopped being relevant. Yeah. Which is good for Bitcoin. And what do you mean? Oh, because the Bitcoin meme is more dominant? Yeah, I just showed like, hey, you can't just fork this thing. Sure. Yes. Yeah, not successfully. But then I would say, okay, so yes, a lot of that same energy of like the desire to fork, the desire to create new assets, then got captured by Ethereum, right? So,

like, the Bitcoin fork phenomenon, like, kind of was the same thing, a similar thing to, like, the Ethereum, DeFi, Summer, like, fork and fair launch phenomenon. Like, same kind of deal. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would just summarize it down to it became the place to issue tokens, and there's a lot of alpha that became, if you can be on the right side of that. So I can't remember, I think this was true, but during the POV, era days, I think you kind of thought that like Ethereum would just like go to zero. And if not you, then like a large percentage of the Bitcoiners that we had a guess would be like, yeah, all of you Heathheads, like, sorry your blockchain is eventually going to not work and be gone in the future.

Do you still believe that? So I would say I've always had an independent thought in terms of like the crypto ecosystem, although very heavily influenced by Bitcoin intellectuals. I never thought that like Ethereum was like heading. straight to zero, but I did think that on a long enough time horizon, it's going to continue to depreciate against Bitcoin. Still true right now, but at the same time, still way too early to see. Personally, I... So you currently, you still think that ether will trend towards zero in Bitcoin terms over the long term. Well, I think that ether is just like every other asset in the world, which all of them will trend towards zero in Bitcoin terms. So you are a hyper-bitcoiner,

hyper-bickonization er. I mean, yeah, we must move towards a world where we have, have a unified settlement layer for value that's uncorruptible. I think Bitcoin is the best technology to do that. And I think that there's many layers in which Bitcoin has enormous advantages in implementing itself as that settlement layer. So like for that to be true, therefore all other assets that store value will trend to zero in Bitcoin terms. Like I 100% still believe that. And so there's nothing about the 2021 bull market that made you question that idea. No? No. No, no at all. I'm going to claim that Ethereum won the 2021 bull market.

Do you agree with that? There was a bull market. There was an event. Ethereum dominated it. And like categorically, like Salana didn't win, Avalanche didn't win, Bitcoin didn't win, Ethereum won. So I've said this on POV crypto. I think like the whole crypto ecosystem is part of Bitcoin.

Right. So I think you remember that line. Yeah. So with that perspective, like Bitcoin had to gain from the world getting onboarded into the U.X of leveraging crypto into understanding that there can be value that is on a public ledger. And like the world is getting educated. No matter what anyone says, okay, we're at less than one percent adoption. Right? Just world population, people who actually are using and understand Bitcoin and crypto, less than one percent.

adoption. So that means 99.9% of the planet needs to go from not understanding this stuff at all and being on a Fiat mindset and they have to transition all the way to Bitcoin. So like that is going to be a messy process. That is a long process. People will be making mental errors and mental misassessments on the way to Bitcoin in my opinion. So like of course like they have to love NFTs and all this other stuff that's like on the way to this very kind of extreme and different future that like a hyper-Bitcoinized standard would have. So I don't like, okay, in the short run, could you have made a lot more money if you're in the crypto space versus Bitcoin only? Definitely. But in the long run, I don't know if that is actually an

indication of like who won. I would say like the things that got the most mass appeal to the most fiat-minded people are like yeah NFTs that's the big okay the biggest number one winner is NFTs because like that everyone wants to do that but like guess what what everyone wants to do right now like in a world that's not a Bitcoin crypto world is not what everyone is going to want to do

when the like the kind of like the games are changed everyone's playing on a different playing field so I think we're still living in fiat land so yeah hey you know on the S curve of adoption while we're over here at the bottom of the S, you know, there's going to be a lot of volatility. There's going to be a continued misallocation of capital. So, you know, I already gave my spiel. Like, if you wanted to make the most amount of money in this past bull market, you should have listened to David. But I don't think that that is like, I don't think,

it's way too early to say winners and losers. And I mean, Bitcoin advanced an enormous amount. So, let me check out. We've got salmon on the smoker, y'all. David has priorities. We're hosting a little fiesta here. Oh, perfect. Let's go. I know, what do you think?

I feel like you've been asking me questions, obviously, they're interviewing me, but what do you think? How do you respond to that? So I think the bull market that happened, as soon as the bull market started, like the paradigm that we were used to, we as an Ethereum's that were on crypto-Twitter, the paradigm that we were used to is like, we fight with bitcoins. We definitely think we're right. the bull market starts, people are going to resonate with Ethereum more than they will resonate

with Bitcoin. And it went from like, in Defy Summer, like, Defy Summer, like the Ethereum app layer grew significantly, even though Ether price didn't. And then the Ether price started to respond aggressively at the end of Defy Summer into 2021, like January, 2021, it went from like $700 to like $1,500 broke through all-time highs. At that moment in time, the collective Ethereum community, that had stuck around during the bear market, I think mentally claimed victory. As in like, all of the arguments came through in Ethereum's favor in a big way.

And also at the same time, like going in through 2021, like we as a community stopped caring about the Bitcoin Maxi's takes on Twitter. Like, remember the whole like supply gate, the ETH supply gate from Pierre Richard? Like stuff like that, like, oh, you don't know what the total supply of ether is. And we just like were face palming out that. Except it was such a big deal because the Bitcoiners had dominated crypto Twitter for so long and did at that point. But we were like face-pomming.

Like, this is a dumb argument that no one's going to care about in the future. And like, I do believe that that was the right take, along with other things about the takes that Bitcoiners had about Ethereum. As soon as mainstream adoption came around, like, I think the Bitcoiner like memes and narratives and like lessons just did not resonate with them as much. And so we stopped paying attention to like fighting with the Bitcoiners because we, actually became like as an ecosystem as a community concerned with Solana and Avalanche and like we actually learned that it wasn't Bitcoin that was going to be the hard fight. It would be people forking Ethereum and spinning up at this new Ethereum killers in the same way Bitcoin had Bitcoin killers in 2017. It turns out the actual, the bigger fights that we had to deal with were scale, like our own

problems. Like Ethereum turns out it was our own issues that we needed to fight with not like a public perception about Bitcoin versus Ethereum. So like the. bigger fights that we had during 2021 were like Solana, Avalanche, Terra. And so like, as a community, we kind of just like stop thinking about Bitcoin because we didn't really consider it like a threat to the ecosystem. And again, this is coming from the perspective of people who think that there's going to be one dominant blockchain that will ultimately win, which both you and I think this probably is true. And so from the Ethereum perspective, like, yeah, Bitcoin is just like significantly less relevant than it once was. I mean, Bitcoin's chronically

chronically underappreciated, chronically, I guess, like, talk down to or, you know, Bitcoin's the underdog. So that's a pretty comfortable position for me, is betting on the underdog. Bitcoin is the underdog is like a crazy thing to have said if you had said that, like, on POV crypto, like two years ago. So I don't think like Bitcoin in terms of like its place in the ecosystem is the underdog. I think it's 100% dominate across what matters. I think Bitcoin in the minds of the populace has almost always been, you know, written off and the underdog. Like, mainstream media has been very happy to be like, Bitcoin's not going to happen, but defy is interesting.

Blockchain's interesting. It's always been like, this other thing is interesting. So, you know, you can win this like little battle here, which is like convincing people that are so far away from what I think is like the future. to like like your thing. But I don't think that that actually matters for the future. So it was your take on tornado cash and the fact that the biggest government in the world made something on Ethereum illegal. And I'll echo words from Nick Carter where he said like because of this, like you know that Ethereum is like over the target as in like it's on to something when a big nation state feels threatened by something like tornado cash and actually bans it.

And so Nick Carter said, like, Ethereum is now like this spearhead of the cypherpunk movement. And I see this in stark contrast to Bitcoin where, like, I called Bitcoin like impotent. Because it's just like not a threat. It's just like Bitcoin. It's just like this thing that has $21 million. Yeah, it's written off. I love it. You say you love it, but I say like, yeah, it's because like it's just you want to be a threat.

You want to threaten the nation state. And if you are, it's because you are super high value. It is definitely in threatening the nation state. That's why it is the thing that is being a. attacked most by the narrative. I mean, I don't think that it's mutually exclusive. I think that nation states want centralized control, anything that gets made, like any sort of volume and traction that takes away from that, like they're going to attack. So like, I can view Ethereum as like an inefficient, more censorship resistant, no KYC exchange. And then if you frame it that way,

then, okay, well, there's been plenty of exchanges that have become illegal and attacked by the government. That's still part of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Like, okay, you came up with the UX that, like, got on their radar. They attacked it. Like, that's great. That's like saying like, this is now the spearhead of the cypherpunk movement. Like, it's fucking ridiculous. Can you, you're, I think you'll have to explain to the listeners like why something like Ethereum is inside of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Can you explain that perspective? Okay, well, firstly, like, Bitcoin is what started this ecosystem. Sure. Secondly, like, Ethereum and all other chains, like, relied on Bitcoin to even get boosts. strapped, the proof of work was the very first thing that can enable a decentralized currency. Everything else was either directly or indirectly built off of that existence. I don't think that that can be argued with. But beyond that, like, all of these things are interoperable with each other.

Like, I see exchanges as layers on top of Bitcoin. I see the app layers, you know, whether they're centralized, decentralized, whatever, like whatever their server architecture, they're either directly or indirectly plugging into Bitcoin and I just see Ethereum, like the best way I could describe Ethereum is like it's almost like this giant app layer for crypto that is much less efficient than a centralized one, aka you can call it a BMB or an FTX or Solana, but much more censorship-assistant and much more permissionless and it provided KYC-free activity. Like those are the things that it solved for.

There's a lot of ways where it's obviously independent. and it's done its own thing since it's bootstrap of Bitcoin, but I don't see it as being outside of like this layering of like the crypto-enabled ecosystem. And at the heart of that, the only thing that like is not fully manipulated by Fiat, even though it is still slightly manipulated by Fiat, is the energy conversion into Bitcoin ratio. To me, like that is like the root of all of this stuff.

So that's definitely still true, in my opinion. Okay. So your perspective is like you have big. Bitcoin as the base layer. You have Ethereum as a layer on top of that. You have Bitcoin proof of work as the thing that grounds Bitcoin into the real world that's outside of Fiat systems. Then you have Bitcoin. Then you have Ethereum. Then you have the Ethereum app layer. And all the other. And then all the other variations too. And then you go up the stack and you get into the shit coins as you go further up the stack. I mean, up sideways around, you know, maybe instead of like a root or layers, maybe it's like it's like a solar system, you know. with like just stuff orbiting around it. But I mean, I don't know.

It's definitely my perspective. I think it's a unique perspective. I don't think that most Bitcoiners think that way. And, you know, to the Ethereum's or Heathheads who'd be like, what a crazy fuck. Like, Heathheads have been writing off Bitcoin and have had, in my opinion, incorrect worldview and perspectives on how Bitcoin is changing the world. So, of course you're not going to get it. How is Bitcoin changing the world?

It's changing the world in terms of it's creating that settlement layer. is creating a monetary ecosystem where you can count like this divided by 21 million. Like that's the ultimate goal is being able to count and price things. This is the meme of infinity over Bitcoin, infinity over 21 million. It's just, yeah, the human world divided by, it's like a system where you can count. Everything divided by 21 million. Yeah, it is literally, it's as simple as a system that you can count. We live right now in a system where we're trying to allocate capital where no one can effing count.

And then on top of that, and this might be even bigger than the sound money revolution. a system where you can actually count is Bitcoin's place in the energy infrastructure. Like we're seeing how wrecked our energy infrastructure is in the world, how inefficient it is, how corrupt it is, how political forces are attacking it, how just narratives. The whole thing is just it doesn't work. And Bitcoin is like it grounds the world and energy, the monetary system and energy. It also does an amazing thing to the energy system, which is it becomes, the buyer of first resort and the buyer of last resort, and it is geographically independent.

You can plug it in, you know, connect to the network from anywhere. And that just never existed before. The closest thing that almost existed like that is being able to smelt aluminum, but even still, like, that's, like, you can't do that on the level of, hey, I'm just going to cap this one methane flare in this random field mine Bitcoin. Like, that requires an enormous amount of unexportable energy in a very specific place. So, like, Bitcoin, is a thousand, if you think of like Bitcoin proof of work as an improvement on being able to export energy via aluminum smelting, like it's a million X improvement. You can set it up anywhere and you can ship the, you can export the energy with Bitcoin to a liquid market anywhere

with no physical constraints. So, I mean, between like revolutionering our energy grid, which is something that we need to do, it is huge. In between creating a monetary system that's uncreptable you can count, like that's a lot. And I don't know what world you guys are living in, but that is, those are two massive problems in the world right now. The layer two era is upon us. Ethereum's layer two ecosystem is growing every day and we need layer two bridges to be fast and efficient in order to live a layer two life. A cross is the fastest, cheapest, and most secure cross chain bridge. With a cross, you don't have to worry about high fees or long wait times. Assets are bridged and available for use almost instantaneously. Across is a cross is.

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chain called Fork. With fuel, you can have the benefits of smart contract languages like solidity while adopting the improvements made by the rust tooling ecosystem, letting the fuel development environment go beyond the limitations of the EVM. If you want to learn more, there's a link in the show notes to see how you can get involved with the fuel network. Yeah, I mean, Bankless listeners will know that I kind of think almost every single Bitcoin are overindexes on like how strong the relationship between Bitcoin and energy is. I don't know if you want to go into that or not. Do you want to go into that? I mean, look around.

like energy producers big and smaller getting into it. Right. But it's like Bitcoin and proof of work is a boon to energy producers at the cost of Bitcoin. Why? Because when you produce energy, you are able to mine Bitcoin and then sell bitcoins to pay for the cost of producing that energy. So energy production gets cheaper. And then also the reason why it gets cheaper is because you can sell Bitcoins to

subsidize it. And so it pulls away the value of Bitcoin and then it adds value to the energy grid. So the energy grid is good for the world, man. It's not about the cantalone effect. Oh, sorry? It's not about insiders being able to hold onto their coins. It's not about maximizing value

for whatever. Bitcoin's about making the world a better place. But at the cost of itself. No, I disagree. A value comes out of Bitcoin to pay for energy and the energy grid. That's just not true. That's 100% true. That's what you, miners, the Bitcoin, they consume energy to do that, they receive the Bitcoins, and then they sell the

bitcoins to pay for their business. Value leaves Bitcoin, and it goes into the energy grid, the energy infrastructure. So Bitcoin is a mechanism to bootstrap out better energy infrastructure. At the cost of itself. I think that that's just a healthy ecosystem. Like, yes, there is selling that has to happen of Bitcoin. There has to be a bigger market of buyers. Like, that is part of, like, let's just zoom out really quick. Bitcoin is binary, in my opinion, which means that the incentives work or the incentives don't work. So if Bitcoin's incentives are flawed, aka miners are going to leach onto it and then bury the system, which is what you're saying. Okay, the incentives don't work.

Okay. But I don't think that that's the case. I think the incentives work. And if the incentives work, then Bitcoin will help energy infrastructure, bootstores. strap and improve across the planet. Bitcoin is going to become literally at the center of all energy infrastructure across the planet. Bitcoin buyers are going to increase as they see Bitcoin becoming a greater and greater part of the real world that is 100% needed to make any of this stuff that we're enjoying and leveraging in the modern world possible. And it's going to increase

in buyers. We're at less than 1% adoption right now. There's only 21 million. There's only 21 million in Bitcoin, like, if you actually think through what adoption looks like, I'm not concerned. The miners can sell the Bitcoin. Actually, we need that. That's called healthy distribution of coins. That's how you actually create a monetary system that's fair. There's a reason why the world converged around, you know, metals. It's because metals are everywhere on the planet.

They're distributed. They're not just in one spot. So I think that the distribution of coins is actually a healthy part of Bitcoin's incentive structure. Like, you need that. Yes, it's good for distribution. The equal and opposite net effect of that is that it actually creates centralization in security, but we'll go down that path later. Look, I just think that the way that you're analyzing these systems are just wrong. I know. I know you think that. You're like, hey, that's going to create centralization here. I don't think that you fully understand the Bitcoin system. We're watching miners right now, the Argo or whatever, like go through the beginnings of like being able to like not make.

ends meet and go through consolidation as the inefficient miners get washed out by the efficient miners and like, yay, miners are becoming more efficient through the bear market as the inefficient ones burn out. But that's just centralization of security. But that's also not the point I want to make. Oh, wait, no, hold on. So the largest miners in the world, the ones that have been centralizing A6, they're all going under and they're selling their A6 for pennies on the dollar to whoever is willing to buy them. So that's a distribution effect. That's actually, that is the destruction of centralization. Hey, you only, you either get the distribution and decentralization of BTC, the asset, or you get the decentralization of Bitcoin security. You don't get both.

Those are equal to opposites. Because your assumption is that Bitcoin mining, there's only benefits in scale. So like the benefits in having large scale, the economies of scale, that's the phrase, you only think that Bitcoin mining equals economies of scale, period. I think, like, Bitcoin mining is a very complex ecosystem that economies of scale are not the only element to that and that there's actually, in many use cases, there's a dis-economy of scale. Like if you want to use Bitcoin miners and collect their waste heat, there's a dis-economy of scale to that because you can only use so much heat in one place. And then all of a sudden heat becomes an issue.

Then you have to spend energy and resources to get rid of that heat. So if you want to use Bitcoin mining heat to power a greenhouse, well, like there's an efficient size of a greenhouse and there's a standard, you know, market delivered scale that makes sense. And then all, like, Bitcoin mining is an energy efficiency catalyst. So anywhere where you need energy efficiency, Bitcoin mining is going to help there. So there's actually a economy of scale because not everyone is located in the same place. Not everyone needs that efficiency in the same place. So I disagree completely with your assessment of how, how the mining works.

And order consequence. Like it doesn't upset the rule. Like it's perhaps it slows it down, but it still doesn't break the rule at one dollar of capital produces certain amount of hash, like X number of hashes. And then $10 of capital produces more than $10 of hashes. So the thing that breaks that rule is that energy in specific quantity is not located in the central place. People needing or could benefits from the energy efficiencies.

are not located in one place. So unless you think the whole world is converging on a geography, like that's the beautiful thing about Bitcoin mining. It's geographically independent. It just hits the geographies. Entity independent. Okay, well, you know, I've yet to see an entity take over. So there is literally zero history of the game theory not working.

Okay, I want to go back to the point that I wanted to make in the first place before we went down like the energy thing. This goes back to people who have energy, sell Bitcoin. to pay for their consumption of energy and their grid. Bitcoin miners, mine Bitcoin, cost them energy, sell the Bitcoins to pay for the cost. And I'm saying that that is a transfer of value from Bitcoin to the energy grid. I think what you're saying is that people, they'll see Bitcoin being integrated into the energy grid across the world.

Bitcoin will be, like, baked into the energy system so well that people will just notice that and it'll be beneficial to Bitcoin after the fact. it, like, it will continue to get priced in. Like, Bitcoin will be important. But, like, it's not a bullish thing to be integrated into the energy grid. That's the point I want to make. Is that like, when the energy grid gets like... I can't think of anything more bullish than that.

No, because it's this one-way transfer of value from Bitcoin into the energy system. And if Bitcoin continues to, like, go up in market cap, then the energy system can get better. But it's always a one-way street. And so the only way that value goes back into... to Bitcoin is if people like just appreciate that fact, but it's not a codified mechanism. So there's this codified mechanism of Bitcoin gets sold to pay for energy and there is no equal and opposite codified mechanism where value goes back into Bitcoin other than just like

the valence of like positive perception of it being around the energy grid. When people research it and they see that Bitcoin only gets sold to pay for energy, that's not like the perception that you want, that's bearish. And so people aren't going to appreciate Bitcoin more because they don't want to be the bagholders because all the miners are able to dump their bitcoins to pay for their energy. Like, it's not a good association. It's a negative association. I think that if you're trying to sell an investment scheme to people, then maybe that you can make that argument. If you're trying to make the world a better place, if you're trying to create an economic system that integrates into the planet and helps humans economically coordinate and manage.

it's their energy, then it's going to be okay. But Bitcoin... I don't know how else to tell you. But Bitcoin doesn't work if it doesn't go up in price. Like, it has to go up in price. Look, Bitcoin's incentive work or they don't? If the incentives work, I think it's going to be the most competitive money on the planet and it will continue to out-compete and it will reach hyper-Bitquinization.

If the incentives don't work, it's going to zero. I hope you got some guns and bullion because we got some big-ass problems in front of us. Maybe Ethereum can escape that dichotomy. I just, I don't know. Like, whenever you're like, hey, guess what, like the miners, it doesn't work. Pretty much what you're saying is, I don't think the incentives are going to work into the future. And my response to that would be, well, if you pay attention to what's going on, obviously that dynamic that you're describing is not the actual dynamic. Secondly, there is continuing to be increased people who have faith, have comfort, want to continue to hold and accumulate this asset greater than the miners being able

to sell. And then on top of that, if that stops, then Bitcoin will break. So, I mean, maybe you should diversify. Like, I've always been a proponent to like, hey, if you're actually bullish enough on Bitcoin, you never have to fully leverage yourself against Bitcoin. Like, you can be comfortable in your life. You can hold other assets because one Bitcoin is going to be worth an insane amount of money. The whole point is you need to get Bitcoin from the beginning of the S curve to the other side. Literally any amount that you can buy on this side if we reach hyper-Bitcoinization will be an insane amount of money on the other end because it's a fixed supply currency that's also technology. So if we go from less than 1% adoption to 99% adoption, and then on top of that,

Bitcoin's a better system theoretically because you can count and it helps with the energy grid. so theoretically it will help us create more value, then any amount that you own right now, getting it to the other side is going to make you insanely wealthy. So you don't have to be over-indexed against Bitcoin. You don't have to put yourself in a position where if the economic assumptions don't work, if the game theory doesn't work, that you're wrecked.

Like, that's bad personal finance, in my opinion. So, I mean, like, hey, you could argue with me that Bitcoin's incentives don't work so you're blue in the face. I will just keep telling you that the history doesn't show that. All the trends moving forward doesn't show that. And I don't think that Ethereum like onboarding people onto public key cryptography and signing with your private keys

and putting value in internet protocols, I don't actually think that that takes away from Bitcoin. Like I just think we need to onboard 99% of people. Like there's not one way to onboard them all because they all have different base assumptions on how the world works. So actually it's a benefit to Bitcoin that someone can be like, hey, I'm going to take a system similar to Bitcoin.

I'm going to change the dynamics a little bit to make it fit my worldview a little bit. And maybe that will attract more people to the space. Like most people are not aligned to the future view of where Bitcoin's taking us. Obviously, because Bitcoin is a paradigm shift. If everyone was aligned with it, then it wouldn't be that big of a deal because everyone was mentally able to deal with that. But guess what? Before we had electricity, only Nikola Tesla saw the future.

Right? Like you asked the average person, hey, is electricity going to a big deal? Like, what's that? But once it became a thing, they couldn't lay down the fiber fast enough. They couldn't lay down the lines fast enough because it was a game changer. It's undeniable. So I just think that's what Bitcoin is. Hold on, man. Hey, we got to keep the salmon cooking. See, I keep dropping bombs, and then that's what reminds David. He used to check on the salmon. Does Bitcoin work if it's not the number one most valued crypto asset?

Definitely. Yeah? And if anything like that's coming, 100%. Something is going to flip Bitcoin? Well, I mean, Bitcoin's already not the biggest currency in the world. So, like, does it matter if there's a bigger currency that is... a cryptographic one. Like, I could definitely see, like, a stable coin flipping Bitcoin soon.

Like, does that mean because, like, they're partially, like, settled on Ethereum that Ethereum is flipping Bitcoin? Like, I don't necessarily know. Like, I think, like, every single sacred cow, that's why the framing of, like, market cap, it's like, like, that. Yeah, Bitcoin's have always hated the market cap. Yeah. I mean, but regardless, like, every sacred cow is going to be broken on the way to hyper-Biquinization,

in my opinion. Wait, so if we are in hyper-bitconization, is Bitcoin the largest money by market cap? Yeah, and the end result. The end result. But like... On the way there, it doesn't matter. Yeah, going from zero, you know, less than 1% adoption to 99% to 100% adoption. There's just a lot of confusion.

Like, there's going to be a lot of experimentation. Do you remember the HD DVD versus Blu-ray debacle? And then guess what actually got mainstream adoption? It's Netflix. Digital. Streaming. Uh-huh. Like, the consumer.

was wrong the whole time. They were wrong the whole time. So like, hey, you know, did video, did streaming, you know, did it matter to streaming that DVD, HD DVD and Bluery are all bigger at one point? Didn't matter at all. I think the biggest difference between you and I, Ethereum's and Bitcoiners, is like we all agree like there's a paradigm shift that's coming, but we just don't agree on what that paradigm shift actually is.

Yeah, I agree with that. And so, like, my big paradigm shift is that we can take human systems that we have already created throughout history, that we've been recreating throughout history, and make them better. And that the better form factor is like a much, much, much, much better. But it's still the same thing that we've already had. So like the Dutch East India Company in the Netherlands. And then the Delaware LLC in the United States now Dow's on Ethereum. And so like one of the reasons why I have like such conviction in Ethereum is like we see these principles and these structures that humans have been doing for generations, for centuries. And now we're seeing them again. And now we're seeing them again.

again on Ethereum, but with more and more just like codified cryptography, shared truth, like objective nature to them. And so like that gives me confidence in that like, okay, we've already been doing these things and now Ethereum allows us to do these things better. Since we were doing them once before, now we have a better way to do it. That's bullet for Ethereum once people can wrap their heads around it. And so we were taking these like systems that we've already created in the world. Stock exchanges. Like securitization, like assets, non-fungible assets like a mortgage, non-fungible tokens like a crypto punk.

We've already been doing all of these things and now Ethereum does it better and does it in a more trustless way that is more like more liquidity, more user participation, more freedom, more sovereignty, and more interoperability, yes. And so like, same, same, but better.

And that's a paradigm shift. The Bitcoiner paradigm shift, the paradigm shift I hear you make, to me it's like way bigger of a paradigm shift. It's way more massive of like a proposed what it actually means. I'm not going to do it justice if I try and do it.

But maybe you can articulate what your paradigm shift is. Yeah, I think that was great framing, actually. So, you know, the longest monologue that I agreed with that you've said so far. And if anything, like, I agree with you that, like, crypto in general is effectively codifying ancient wisdom to some degree. 100%. So what I would say is, like, sure, everything you described to me in terms of, like, how the layers of society, like we're talking about the layers of a blockchain, the layers of money, all this stuff. It's like society is built on layers, right?

So like everything you described to me is like the app layer of society. Like the revolution is going to happen at the foundation. And that's why the foundation and Bitcoin is too also codified in ancient wisdom and technology in Lindy, which is like, you know, looking at the foundation of monetary system. It's like, okay, in the past, there's a lot of arguments on like the history. history of it. Nick Zabo has a great article shelling out, which kind of talks about, you know, this evolution. But ultimately, you know, the world, we converged around, you know, gold and silver, around precious metals. Bitcoin is codified in similar mechanisms, like inherently similar

mechanisms, but code and dematerialize and 100x improvement on those same mechanism at the very base. So I guess what I'm trying to say is like, I think evading Ethereum is like more like this sandbox, but in the long enough time horizon, like the actual evolution happens off the base and it's built off of the base of Bitcoin. So I do think that we're seeing a similar trend. I'm just focusing on the foundation. And I think Bitcoin's attacking that foundation very, very effectively. Yeah. And I think my response to that would be like, well, ether as a money is also going after that same foundation. And also, if we take, like, Bitcoin is gold

and gold has been around forever, I think that's over-indexing on, like, how big of a deal gold is. Because, like, yeah, gold's been, gold transcends, like, empires. It transcends organizational structures. But, like, it doesn't actually, like, one of the reasons why empires are created

is because they were able to make gold do things like coinage, right? Like, we were able to make fiat gold, fiat issuance of gold. And, like, that created temporary boons, then it created above. But like we've been like, we've been like creating other monetary systems around gold, sometimes completely unrelated to gold,

that created their own innovations as well. It's like one of the bull cases for Ethereum is that like you can express any monetary policy on Ethereum that you want with, you know, issue a token and make that token do a thing. And if that thing is liked by the populace, then it sticks around. And so any sort of just like monetary policy that we enjoy as humans as money enjoyers, like we can have that express on Ethereum.

I don't think that money enjurers enjoy monetary policy. I think, like, do you have a specific, like, preference of kilowatts or Hertz or whatever frequency that is used in order to, like, make all this tech happen around us? No, I don't. Like, you use what works. Use what has been built into the system. Like, that perpetuates itself. Like, I don't think people are going to choose.

money. I think money is literally shoved down people's throats because you either adopt it or you get fucked. It's a massive efficiency gain or it's fucking poverty. Like it's, I'm not going to be a money enjoy. You're like, you know, I kind of enjoy this flavor of money. It's like, no, it's like you're holding pesos and getting fucked or you're getting into dollars in the most efficient way possible. Like that is the paradigm. Right. So you don't give any sort of like credit to the argument that like if Ethereum recreates the global financial system, it's more likely going to be ether the currency than Bitcoin, the currency, that flows through that financial system.

I mean, like, if you see something that's fucking crumbling and looks like shit, like, why would you want to recreate it? Like, I'm trying to like... Because the form factor that you recreated in is not crumbling. It's actually the thing that replaces it. So, like, hey, like, is your stock exchange bad because it's like, who's the person in charge that keeps on front running?

Anyways, like, we still need talk exchanges. We'll just use uniswap instead of the one that's breaking. Yeah. No, so, I mean, Pelosi was her. Yeah, no, fuck. Let's not get into politics. Do you remember that famous Henry Ford quote? Something about horses and cars.

It's like, if I would have asked the people, you know, what they wanted, they would have said, I want a faster horse. Right. Yeah, everyone likes to leverage that quote, but like I can say that it's like unfalsifiable. Right? It's just like, yeah, that's a fun quote. And you can kind of make that about anything. Like, pick any sort of thing that you believe in and you can apply that to like the Henry Ford quote. I mean, I guess that's fair, but I was just trying to illustrate my perspective here. It's like, okay, it's nice that you're trying to recreate the current financial app layer on Ethereum. And maybe Ethereum doesn't have some of the corruptions that the current financial app layer has. But I think that remains to be seen. We haven't seen the game get lucrative enough and the game get big enough and enough big players. fighting in that game. But I'm saying is like, wow, that is misallocation of capital on misallocation of capital, on misallocation of capital, on misallocation of capital. Like the whole thing, we need to burn the whole thing down. Bitcoin is it just a new foundation built in first principles. And I think that we're going to build a new system based on that. Because if you don't,

like, I think it's like a capitalism, communism, paradigm in the Cold War. It's like at one point, The president of Russia visited America, the average grocery store. And it was like, wow, the average American has more than the richest Russian ever could imagine. Because the system just created much, much more wealth and optionality. And I really do think, like, zoom forward six or seven years. Like, we'll be looking at the traditional system and we'll be looking at the Bitcoin ecosystem. I don't know if you want to include crypto or not in that. It depends on who your opinion is.

I think the crypto system is like a bridge almost. but like it's going to be the dichotomy is going to be the same. It's poverty. It's like poverty and destitution or Bitcoin and energy and wealth. Like that's the paradigm. No one's going to choose poverty.

Yeah. One system is like is poverty. The other system is like wealth and optionality. I think one main like core philosophical difference between Bitcoiners and Ethereum is like, Bitcoin is like, all right, no more seniorage. No more issuance. No more cantal on effect.

Just Bitcoin. it's the best, so much more simple, so much more efficient, one shelling point. You can count. Yeah, you can count to 21 million. Ethereum is like, everyone gets issuance. Everyone gets the cantalone effect. We all get to print money now. And so when everyone can print money, no one can really print money.

Because since the power to issue is now in the hands of the most marginal user, then it's actually a check on the bigger issuers of the world. It's like we all get to create token. We all get to mint NFTs. We all get to do it. No longer is the power of asset issuance constrained behind the doors of Wall Street and behind nation-state threats of violence. Now the individual can make their token and do their weird yield farming thing. And I think that is wealth and optionality for as many people as possible. I mean, the current world that Bitcoin has created for us is a world where there's Bitcoin. And it's also a world where the blueprint for

blockchain technology allowed everyone to mint stuff and guess what that actually drowns out. I think it actually drowns out Fiat more than it actually drowns out Bitcoin. So I think what we see is like there's going to be Bitcoin, maybe you're saying they'll be ether and there'll be everything else and it'll actually be individuals drowning out like governments who had a monopoly on money printing. Maybe it's government and corporations. Right. I think that's part of the revolution is those things have to be drowned out. And I've said this on POV crypto. I've said this on the internet. Like, shit coins are good for Bitcoin because there's two things happening. There's Bitcoin and then there's a hydra of shit. And both things are attacking the state together. The real

revolution is individuals and sovereignty versus centralization and stateism. So if you see that as the paradigm, all of these things are technologies to empower individual and sovereignty. That's why we're mostly on the same team, even though we disagree on. You know, how the sovereignty tech is going to play out. I think if you're saying, like, it's shit coins and issuance that drowns out the nation state. The nation state is the incumbent, right? So whoever gets to dethrone the incumbent is the new Chad. And so if, like, if Bitcoin's not doing that, and this goes back to like the Nick Carter quote

where he's like, yeah, the things that are going on on the Ethereum app layer are the new, like, spearhead of the cypherpunk movement, it's because like if we are the ones who, because we have the issuance that we are now drowning out old nation state issuance, that makes. us the chads and if bitcoin's not doing it then bitcoin's not the chad see this is like i love that framing great great rhetoric excellent rhetoric fantastic david um look that's fine personally i think that like what the shitcoins do is they d-dos regulators yeah so it's not like the shit coins are disrupting regulators i think bitcoin bitcoin is actually what's disrupting the incumbents because bitcoin's creating sound money for the people that doesn't have the cantalone effect bitcoin is helping fix the energy infrastructure

structure in a decentralized way. But what the hydro of shit does is it DDoS is the regulators and it acts as a shield for Bitcoin. So that would be my framing, but I like your rhetoric. All right. I don't have any other topics in my head. You have anything else we want to talk about? No, man. Beautiful apartment. Great studio. I need to get some sure mics on my own. I need to upgrade my studio for sure. Yeah, I see you with your, you still have that Yetty nano microphone. Yeah, we've got to get your microphone. Yeah, you know, we got like a little studio in the Bitcoin magazine office, but we like distributed the equipment to the people who are on camera all the time. So I just like don't podcast as much as you anymore. Yeah, you're a big, uh, big operator now. I miss the days of

the simple days. Yeah, I miss the simple days. Don't get, don't get too big. But uh, y'all, I mean, shit is just getting interesting. I think Twitter and regulation and Bitcoin. And, Bitcoin and crypto, all of these things are going to continue to become more important. And, like, frankly, they're already kind of part of like the political conversation. I think the next presidential election is going to be a key topic. Sure. And to everyone out there who's saying, like, oh, crypto is going to be adopted over the course of, like, 50 years, not in my lifetime. You're all fucking bears.

Right. Like, none of you are aligned with how fast this shit is going to go. So if I could give anyone on the bankless side of things a pep talk, it's like, it's like, like this technology, it either improves the world, it's either undeniable, it's going to, if that's true, then it's going to take hold incredibly fast. Like, I really don't think that this stuff is going to take our lifetimes. Right. No, not at all. I definitely agree with that. And I think like we're starting to see accelerate. Like that's the main difference between, I think, this current bear market versus the last one is like the rate of development is like

10 times faster than it was. And it's going to keep compounding. It's only, yeah. And I do feel like we are at the part of the S curve where you can actually see the slope starting to increase. I think we're done with the S curve by the end of this decade. Yeah. Yeah. That's going to be wild. I agree with that. I think 2030, like, that's going to be a key marker.

See where the hell we're at. A boy. If we're going from the flat part to the up part of the S, more volatility. Right. Yeah. That doesn't mean that's what prices do. That just means what adoption does. prices can go up and down left and right throughout that.

Oh, yeah. Well, I think prices will go up, but it's going to, like, effectively go up and down against that. But when it's going like this, that's going to be a massive volatility of the upside. Like, Ish is going to get wild, man. It's going to get wild. Yeah, 100%. Well, C.K., it's been a thrill being on the ride with you thus far, and it's going to be a thrill taking this rest of the decade by the horns.

All right. Let's eat some food. Let's do it. Sorry to all the bankless listeners that won't be able to enjoy my smoke salmon, but it's very delicious. Peace. Sex is suck. Peace. Peace. So, so sorry.