BTC Sessions - WHY ARE WE BULLISH? El Sultan Bitcoin, UK Bitcoin Master, Graham Krizek, Knut Svanholm ep198

Episode Date: September 5, 2021

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Wasabi wallet and fairly private. What's going on everybody? Welcome, welcome to another edition of Why Are We Bullish? We've got a killer panel this week. I hope you're having a good week, by the way. I am, I am currently in Athens. The last stop of my trip through Greece, I get to do a little meetup at a venue here in the city on Monday night.

very excited to meet some Greek bitcoinsers and yeah and then it's home for me so anyways enough of my rambling we've got a killer show of course if you haven't already please do hit like subscribe share all of those things really really do help and they get this content in front of more people without further ado let's get things rolling here I am Ben with the BTC sessions this is your daily session Of course, shout out to sponsors of the show, ledden.io, where you can use your Bitcoin for a variety of different services. Of course, they have their Bitcoin back loans. So if you're in a pinch and you need to get your hands on dollars, but you don't want to sell your Bitcoin because that is a taxable event.

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Give yourself that peace of mind. Get it in steel with the bill foddle. And with that, let's bring in our panel. Gentlemen, welcome to the show. We've got a killer panel here. and I'm going to get some intros first. So let's start with Alessandro. Dude, can you let people know who you are and what you do?

Yeah, of course, man. Alessandro Sassir here, also known as AKA Al-Sultan on Twitter and on social media, Al-Sulte, Bitcoin. I coined the term after I connected to Blockstream's South American satellite from Caracas, Venezuela, when I was living there at the time. I know in the industry for being one of those Venezuelan Bitcoiner outliers. And so been more than nine years into Bitcoin already. Right now, what I'm currently doing is just shilling at LATANS community manager.

So thank you so much, man. Awesome. And that's an epic story. I've heard you did a few podcasts on that. Awesome, man. So I'm glad to have you. Let's go down the line. Brian, welcome to the show.

We've known each other for, for a while now, but some people on the show may be unfamiliar. So let people know who you are and what you do. Yeah, great to be on with you, Ben. Really is. I'm Brian, the UK Bitcoin Master. I jumped down the rabbit hole about four and a half years ago. I was living down in the Canary Islands, pretty well retired, actually. And I got the call from a friend of mine who promptly asked me if I'd heard of Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, of which the answer was, what the hell is that on both counts? Jumped into the rabbit hole. four and a half years later, I can't get down the rabbit hole any further.

Absolutely love it. I've got my own YouTube channel. I go live every Monday and every Thursday at 6pm London. I just rant Bitcoin. I will tell you right now, I cannot get into the depths of some of some of these guys will, but I'm just passionate about Bitcoin and want to inspire others to get in the rabbit hole themselves. So you'll find me at UK Bitcoinmaster.com. and that UK Bitcoin Master on Twitter.

Awesome. Well, I'm glad to finally have you here. It's been a long time coming. Let's keep going down the line. Graham, can you let people know who you are and what you do? Yeah, hey, thanks for having me on. My name's Graham. I'm a founder and CEO of Voltage.

Well, Voltage is a Bitcoin infrastructure provider. So we do Bitcoin nodes, Lightning Nodes, BTC pay servers, so trying to solve a lot of the infrastructure woes that exists in our current deployments of Bitcoin today. I've been in a big point since about 2012. So I've been around it for a long time and it's always been a hobby. And then just here in the last year or so, decided to jump into a full time by starting my own company. So seeing a lot of the ups and downs and excited to hash out,

you know, what's been going on here lately with these guys. Awesome, man. Well, again, glad to have you. And let's have our last guest, no stranger to the show. You've been on a good handful of times for various. you know either one-on-one interviews and you've been on why are we bullish before but canute for those unfamiliar let people know who you are and what you do hi ben thanks for having me on again I'm Knut Swanom I'm an author of several Bitcoin books

most notably Bitcoin sovereignty through mathematics and Bitcoin independence reimagined and I also make other content in the form of articles which sometimes get turned into little video including one about everything divided by 21 million, which I think is the one I'm most known for these days. Awesome. I love that video. It's great. People need to see more of it. Where can people search that one, by the way? Just search for everything divided by 21 million and you'll get a lot of hits. It took a life of it. It has a life of its own by now. That's awesome. Well, guys, I'm. I'm very excited to have you all.

Anybody that's watching that's unfamiliar, of course, this is why are we bullish. And it's a very simple premise to the show. Everybody has a reason why they're bullish. We're going to go by the three R's here. Somebody's going to give a reason why they're bullish. We're all going to riff on that reason together. And then we're going to rotate to the next person. So as is tradition, I'll start us off to get the ball rolling and then we'll keep going.

So I'm going to touch on my reason for being bullish. week and it's it consistently is becoming more of my reason for being bullish. But I'm going to kind of focus in on a specific part of it. But but lightning network in general has been getting me very excited as of recent. And one of the aspects right now that has me excited is lightning addresses, which I didn't even know was a thing up until a few weeks ago. and I'm already starting to see it implemented in a lot of different wallets. And those that are unfamiliar with the concept,

it's effectively the same kind of look as an email address, except for it's just a universal address that can be used to accept lightning payments. You don't have to create, you don't have to create an actual invoice. It's just simply an address. So an example, there's the Zebedee wallet, and that wallet you can have basically a handle at ZBD.G. And so I've got BTC sessions at ZBD.g. And you can now plug that into a number of different lightning wallets like Blue Wallet.

You can now pay to lightning addresses. You can't create one yet in Blue Wallet, but it's starting to roll out so quickly. And there's another one called Blixed, B-L-I-T wallet, which also, allows you to send to lightning addresses. And so a concept that I didn't know even existed two weeks ago is now starting to pop up in all of these different wallets. And I guess right now I'm excited about this particular feature, but on a whole, it's kind of reiterating my excitement about lightning and how much can be built atop it. I've covered this in a number of different shows, whether it be discussions or explanations of how to use these things. But

how much can be built just on top of Bitcoin using lightning and layers on top of lightning and how much that does away with the narrative that altcoins are necessary and you must use an alternative blockchain and token in particular and token to achieve all of these other things that we're now seeing just built on top of Bitcoin. So I'm very excited about that. If anybody watching hasn't tried yet, I recommend playing around like maybe grab the Zebidi wallet, download it, and basically you'll have like a Zebbity page and it ends up just being your your handle at zbd.g is your lightning address. And then you can practice sending to it from like Blue Wallet or Blixd Wallet or a few others. But it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's

cool to see new things happening. So I guess I'm going to open it up to the panel right now in regards to, you know, have what have you been doing with lightning? Have you tried lightning addresses or there aspects of lightning? Obviously, I see Graham smirking right now because this is his, this is his world. But, you know, are you guys equally excited about lightning? Like, how are you feeling right now? So feel free to jump in anybody. Yeah, I can't a little bit. You froze for a second. That's partially while I was smirking.

But the other second half of the smirk was that, yeah, I mean, I think that that's to take your point a step further. It's like when people in the community of the Lightning Network see a good idea, everyone's so quick to jump on it and start, you know, supporting it, implementing it, whatever it is. That's what gets me so excited about the community. You know, we see Lightning addresses. And Andre, I think he was, I think he was the creator of it. basically put it, put it out there. Here's how to do it. And like people just kind of jump on it.

And so I think that that's what's great about the communities. When they see a good idea, they're very quick to support it. And it's not like, you know, all this bike shedding of like, you know, we need to do this and that. It's just really like, hey, it's a good idea. Let's support it and give, you know, the users the optionality to either use it or not or you go to invoices, whatever they need to. Yeah. That's what I love about it too is, you know, Bitcoin, obviously you want to preserve kind of the

sanctity of that base layer. And so everything there gets and deserves every bit of scrutiny that it gets. But with lightning, things can move a lot quicker. And this is kind of the layer scaling approach of Bitcoin is kind of showing its true colors here. So I don't know. How about, you know, Knew, Brian Alessandro, what are your experiences outside of the Bitcoin base layer thus far? Yeah, I'll tell. Go on. Let's do Alessandro and then Brian first. Cool. Thank you so much, man.

Well, in my experience, you know, I started operating with the second layer of Bitcoin from an emerging country that has a deprecated internet infrastructure, right? Venezuela. So that was pretty interesting because at the time, you know, 2017, the starts of lightning when it was starting to get more broad-based. It was mainly based on running your own Bitcoin full node and then getting it connected to lightning as opposed to just using a lightning wallet

to create invoices and et cetera. At the time, what I was doing, to be honest, was playing on the lightning spin, and I want a couple of stats there, but just sending some stats to the invasice that the spin generated, et cetera. But I guess that what gets me excited to your point, Graham, is the increasing,

number of guise and friendly user interfaces that we're seeing right now in lightning. That would be one of the things. But I would say that also I am kind of seeing the explosion in, you know, lining full nodes over the next over the past couple of months as increasingly important, but increasingly important in this, in this, you know, cycle of the industry where we are seeing increasing regulators pressures against other protocols like Ethereum, stable coins, etc. Whereas that is not happening with lightning because lightning in the end just uses the same token, right? The same coin as the first layer, which is Bitcoin. So Bitcoin is already like it already has clearance for the

first layer in many jurisdictions. And so the second layer is like bypassing regulators for now. So that gets pretty exciting because it allows the lining community to efficiently continue developing as how it's been developing over the past couple of years. So super excited about lightning. Awesome. I love that. Brian, how about yourself? You were, you kind of jumped in at the same time as Alessandro. I'm super excited too, Ben, to be honest with you. I don't understand a lot of the technicals of it, but I've got an umbrella full node.

obviously I haven't set up any lightning channels yet, but, you know, as a boomer, I am doing my bit to get in the rabbit hole. To be honest, struggling to get my head around a lot of it. But, you know, I'm moving sats around through, you know, Wallet of Satoshi, Moon Wallet, is another one, just playing around and getting familiar with it. And to be honest with you, I'm at a point, that was going to be one of my bullishest. Good job, like Graham, I wrote three or four down. For me, I feel that, you know,

know, Bitcoin's a done deal in as much as it's there, it's out there. It is. Bitcoin is. Nothing's going to take it down. I can't say nothing's going to take it down. Of course, something, you know, catastrophic could, Black Swan event. But what I mean by that is I found myself now moving away from talking so much around Bitcoin to talking more around the, you know, SAT standard and lightning wallets and getting all my family up on moon wallet or wallet of Satoshi and sending them, you know, some money on. We have a monthly offline 21 million club meetup with some of the regulars that come on my shows and, excuse me, and somebody from California actually helped somebody 150 miles off the north of Scotland set up a wallet and in a heartbeat sent him a couple

of thousand sats. And it's like, try doing that through the traditional, you know, banking system. just ain't happening people. So for me, I just feel that, you know, the innovation, what's coming on, you know, on the second layer is just absolutely mind-blowing. And it's going at such a breakneck speed that we've got to all be embracing it. And I think like Bitcoin, you know, the people that sort of get their head around lightning now and start understanding it, you know, the basics of it. Yes, okay, it is going to be in a lot more simpler format if the masses are going to use it, you know, like we swipe a debit card or something, you know, the time will come where it will be a very simplistic thing to do. But I think, you know, as Bitcoiners, we should be in that lightning

rabbit hole getting our head around it, learning it, and then being able to pass that learning out to the people that we talk to. And the other thing, I think, is really important is if you start talking to people about Bitcoin, we've got this unit bias, and we've got people saying, Bitcoin's too expensive. I can't get that. But when you talk of them buying a couple hundred thousand sats for maybe a 10, $20 or whatever that the figure is, it's like, I can do that. And I think as Canute said, and I come back to his point earlier, you know, divide everything into 21 million. We're going to live in a world. Hopefully I'm going to live in that world as well where we are going to see people's wages paid in Satosh's.

And you buy a car in Satoshes. So whether it's that or bits or whatever it's going to be, I think we as Bitcoiners need to embrace it, get our heads around it so that when somebody asks us a question, we've at least got some kind of sensible answer to help them to try and understand it. That's my take. I like it.

Yeah, as a standard, I'm big on that. I'm glad that. And I'm a boomer. Yeah. You know what? I think you're right in regards to the unit bias. And it's I like that lightning by default is, again, defaulting to SATs as a base unit because it makes more sense. And that's going to be a lot of people's first touch point with Bitcoin is through a lightning wallet in the future and likely directly with SATs instead of seeing decimal. So yeah, excellent point there.

Canute, sorry it took so long to get to you, but do you have anything to add here? I have a lot to add. I mean, listening to these other guys, it's just giving me more meat. So first point is that Blixd is the Swedish word for lightning, if you didn't know that. I did not. No, and secondly, speaking about the Lightning Network, two things. back in Riga when we first met Ben in 2019, I brought 50 books and I sold half of them and gave half of them away. I think you got one for free.

I'm not sure. Maybe you bought one. But anyway, out of all the payment methods I used then back in 2019, because the only lightning was by far the easiest one on Blue Wallet, even in 2019. So this technology is the most underrated. technology on planet earth period. It's the ultimate tool for everything.

And we've got Venezuela coming up in four days, or three days, three and a half days. We have Venezuela. El Salvador, no. El Salvador. Sorry, Alessandro, you fucked my brain up. Yeah, El Salvador, of course. Three and a half days. We're doing a Twitter space.

It's all day like 24-7. by the way, celebrating this event. I know I should be opposed to legal tender laws being a libertarian and an Austrian economics guy, but still I think this is too fascinating not to just enjoy watching play out and see what happens with it. Yeah, Lightning Network, it's just mind-blowingly superb. Yeah. And to Brian's point, first point, that you found the bottom of the bottom of the rabbit hole. I don't believe you.

No, I haven't. I haven't found it. No way. Yeah, because I'll give you, there are so many parts of the rabbit hole that are yet unexplored. It's like a cavern of different branches of the cavern that you can dive into. And there are, it's an endless amount of subcaverns in this honeybadger's den of a rabbit hole we're in. And one of them is. Yeah, I think it's a black hole. Yeah, exactly. an orange hole maybe, but there's one part I really like, and that's Bitcoin is already the best

store of value that a monetary system ever had. Like it's the best store of value ever invented by man. Secondly, because of the Lightning Network, it's quickly becoming the best medium of exchange ever invented. However, I'm not sure that it will ever be a useful, unit of account because I believe it will go up even faster after post hyper Bitcoinization because post hyper Bitcoinization we will live in a sound money free market economy global sound money free market economy without any form of interventionism which is a much much much much more effective machine for you know optimizing human action and human effort which means that the purchasing power

of Bitcoin will only go up faster. Everyone's too bearish. It will be fast. It will go faster and faster, like exponentially faster as time goes by. And if this is true, then a Satoshi will have exactly the same problem as a Bitcoin has right now with the unit bias, because a Satoshi will be, one single Satoshi will be worth so much that is pointless to price anything in it. And This is so mind-blowing, so it's hard to even talk about. But I believe that some other unit, maybe kilowatt hours, will be a better unit of account than a Satoshi ever will because of the magic of Bitcoin,

because its purchasing power never ceases to go up. I don't think most people grasp the concept of exponential growth. I use your model on one of my shows the other day. And, you know, people never get this. And I say to people, you drop a penny into a piggy bank on day one of the month and agree to double it every day. And people don't understand that by day 30, they'll have over $5 million or pounds in that piggy bank. They don't understand the power of exponential growth. And if they did, it would absolutely screw with their heads, Ganoot.

It really would. It really would. And this is a quote from Albert Allen. Albert Alan Bartlett, I believe his name is. The greatest shortcoming of mankind is her inability to understand the exponential function. And I believe this to be true, because everyone thinks of this in linear terms. And they think that once hyper-Bitronization happens, there's some sort of leveling out and the prices will be stable. No way.

It will be even weirder after hyper-Bitronization. That's not end point to hyper-Bitronization. Everyone's too varied. You know, Kanut, when you mentioned this, and I can give this the Venezuelan background here, right? I remember when hyperinflation kicked in Venezuela finally in 2017. It goes like it depreciates so much. The currency starts depreciating so fast that people lose faith in the currency and in the system so quickly that eventually just another medium of exchange

or another store of value or another stand or whatever becomes the means to everything. And so in Venezuela's case, it was and it's still the dollar. But man, I see the same shit happening with Bitcoin. Like eventually when people see this thing globally at a million dollars, a coin or even more or even less, whatever it is, we don't know the exact point. It'll happen quicker than we can all expect. So I side on you with that.

Alejandro, if I may answer that before you do, Brian. Because one of the first really, like emotionally touching things I ever experienced with Bitcoin was when I helped a guy from Venezuela get out of the country. and I wrote an article called We're All Venezuelans because the U.S. dollar is on the exact same path as the Venezuelan Bolivar. All fiat currencies hyperinflate at some points. That is how they die because there's no other route they can take. So it's just a matter of time and it's just a difference in speeds of this process. And Alessandro, can you even imagine what the opposite of high?

hyperinflation looks like and there's no end point to that you have a hyperinflationary currency in your former country and like it's worth it's worth less than toilet paper at this point and getting even worse even worse every day so one sheet of toilet paper will get you two bolivars tomorrow instead of one so so it's it's so shit you can't even imagine how how bad it is but bitcoin is the opposite of this and it's way weirder than people think. And the sat squeeze is real. There are 8 billion people in the world almost.

And there are 21 million Bitcoin. Almost 19 million of those are mined already. And almost five of them, five million of them are off the market forever. People cannot grasp what this means at all. Everyone can experience 100 X. it won't stop the same thing

will happen but probably faster as it happened to those of us that bought Bitcoin like in 2015 we have 100xed our wealth

if you just huddled your 100x your wealth and you can still do that faster than we did people don't get that and that's like I think even wrapping up two of your points

is that like we've never experienced this before because there's been nothing like this before. And so that's why I think people really struggle to wrap their heads around this because like there's nothing to compare this to. Like there is nothing that has existed that is even closely similar. So I think that that's again like why it's such a foreign idea for a lot of these people is that it almost feels like too good to be true. And I think that they just

grind it off like there's no way. Like right like this doesn't like you know who's lying in this situation. So I think that that's that's like a hurdle. I hear a lot is that. Is it they don't understand it because there's nothing that has existed like this. Wait till you hear my why am I bullish reason. All right. I'm with Graham. I'm with Graham. You know, even though I'm deep in the Bitcoin rabbit hole, you know,

and I've got this absolute belief and faith here that Bitcoin's going to do what we all talk about on a daily basis is going to change the world. There's always that element of my brain that says, but is it going to do this? You know, are we going to see this? To your point, Graham, it all seems like so too good to be true that, you know, this could really happen. But to Knute's point, when you just look at the logic behind it, when you look at, let's call it, 8 billion people on the planet, 21 million coins totally over the next 100 years,

two or three million are lost, they're not even off the market. they're lost or the keys are lost or whatever. If you try and divide 21 million by $8 billion, I'd never tried to do it on a calculator, but you start to think, if this becomes the money of the world, oh my goodness, my descendants, my kids, my grandkids, their kids, their grandkids are going to talk about this thing and their great granddad, whoever he was, this Bitcoin a guy, you know, who was nuts and everybody laughed at him. And I think could it be, but There's 99% saying this thing's going and nothing's stopping it. This is a locomotive that you can't stop. This is an avalanche that is already belting down the mountain and nothing or no one is going to stop it.

I don't care what governments do. I don't care what laws they bring in. I think Bitcoiners or Bitcoin will find a way around it. It's like a brick wall. You know, somebody that wants something bad enough. They go round it through it or over it, but they don't let it stop. And I think Bitcoin is on this trajectory that nothing's going to stop it. That's how I really feel. And my family, when I'm talking about this or my friends, I actually find myself when I'm talking about it, looking at their facial features, looking at their eyes, and you see the roll of the eyes.

Or you see the, or you see them catch a glimpse of another member and they go, and I think he who laughs, laughs, will laugh longest. people. That's just my take. It is going to happen. But there's that element that thinks, are we being duped here? Is this really going to happen? Sorry, Ben, gone. Oh, no, no, it's good. I, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think there's always that element of, you know, you believe it. But then seeing it happen in real time is something totally different. And everybody has those moments of too good to be true happening. And then you're at that point and then too good to be true becomes some other distant target that eventually will happen.

And then that too good to be true is now normalized. And it's just staging post, isn't it? Yeah. Staging post. Milestones. Yeah. And it's just, I mean, had, you know, back when I first started, you know, the 2017 rally was in my head the too good to be true. And then it happened. And then, you know, you're sitting there and the bear market happens. And then the too good to be true is is unfolding before our eyes this year. And it'll continue to be the too good to be true becoming true consistently for different people at different times repeatedly over and over. Yeah. Sorry, I'll close it out or whatever.

But I remember telling your friend when Bitcoin was at $20 that they were getting expensive. And if someone would have told me that it would be at $49,993 right now, that was too good to be true for me. That what I would have said, there's no way that's too good to be true. And, you know, here we are, you know, $50,000. And so I think it's like, we all have those moments. And then like you said, we kind of, you know, history proves itself. And, you know, we come to the realization that, okay, this is like, this is real. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Sorry, Alessandro, go ahead. Yeah, getting back to your last point, Ben, I mean, when we look back on the market and the industry in 2017-ish, late 2017 during the bull market, I'm almost pretty sure that we actually didn't even have all of all. of this on-chain analysis tools, you know, like the chain analysis, the glass notes, the crypto-quants. And so this is also testament to how beautifully, honestly, the industry has evolved over the past four years because now we also have different sources of information that allow us to like reinforce that and validate all of those like expectations, right, or hypothesis that we previously had, even if it's only for the asset, for Bitcoin, the

asset, right? And others for Bitcoin and Monetary Network, but definitely, man. And that's part of why I'm bullish. I'm bullish because of current on-chain analytics and currently the supply shock narrative that we're seeing when you value and you really take the time to see what is happening with all of those on-chain metrics. So I think that that's another interesting development that we have during this bull cycle as opposed to the last bowl cycle during the 2017 bull.

Well, let's just keep rolling with that. Let's roll right into your reason for being bullish. So, you know, like you, is that what you're, you want to expand on and kind of have as our little next topic of conversation? Do you want to segue into that then? Yeah, totally. that's segue into Bitcoin the asset in that sense then. That's like over the last 30 days, guys, more than 125K Bitcoin's has left exchanges.

Over the last week, more than 17,000 Bitcoins have left exchanges. Hottlers are just hodeling. They're not selling. Miners are hodling once again after we effectively vaccinated the China FUD. after 12, 13 years that we're in this. And we're seeing this increasing number of shrimps, crabs, and whales just get into Bitcoin. So adoption is increasing. Hodelers are not selling as opposed to the balance cap that we had after the 2017 Bull.

So I think those are testaments. And current onching metrics point to price levels of Bitcoin at around $58, 60K,000. that we had during, you know, March, May. And so that's why I'm bullish on Bitcoin the acid over the short term for the end of the year. Above 100K finally is going to happen. Again, too good to be true. And now it's happening and validating itself. So cheers to all of you guys and your fucking and the fucking knowledge that you guys carry with each other

because you can only hodel through knowledge, right? I think that's a major aspect of why we're seeing, you know, now that we have these tools of on-chain metrics, why we see the things that we do of coins that haven't moved for so long, it's the Bitcoin narrative and the reasoning behind it and the content being created out of Bitcoiners is so consistent and has upped its game so much in, even just in the past four years, that the phenomenon, that I hadn't previously seen has begun to regularly happen where somebody comes into the crypto space and goes directly into Bitcoin and nothing but. And that was not something that really happened in 2017. Now I hear it a lot more. And I think it's because of the maturation and the quality of content that's going out there. And again, the consistent narrative versus the the garbled spotty waffling narratives that we get out of all of these other projects.

So you're right that obviously the metrics are showing it, but I think that could be some of the why to go along with the how and what is happening. But I'll open it up to anybody else that wants to speak to these topics. Yeah, I've got a point. You can huddle without knowing anything. And many people do. They just forget, they buy Bitcoin and forget about it. And it's true.

Don't realize anything. People die and hoddle through the rest of eternity. So hoddling is happening all over the place. Regardless of if you want to or not, it's easier to hoddle than to spend your Bitcoin. Because hodling requires no action whatsoever. I thought you were going to say people die and hoddle through it, which is true. Exactly. I just, I just, I mean, again, as a.

boomer. I've learned one hell of a lot in the four and a bit years I've been in Bitcoin. But, you know, I go and listen to people like Willie Wu and Willi-Won-Clemente, etc. Because I don't understand it all. When will, I get Will's email. And when the charts will come out, glass-node, et cetera, a lot of that I just don't get. But here's what I do get. And I think back to Alessandro's point again, you know, when somebody that is sort of pretty not, in the space is saying that the Bitcoin's coming off exchanges again. It's going into the hands of hoddlers. When you start to hear that and see that, I think I've got a mega, mega strong Bitcoin

hand, like try getting my Bitcoin out of me. But sometimes we all need that little bit extra from those people around us, reinforcing what we're believing that we are doing. the right thing if that makes make some kind of sense. So, and I've said this on my shows and I make no apology for it, but being a boomer as I am and an ex-truck driver as a living, nothing to do with finance, you know, I've got Bitcoin, lightning, etc. I know where it's going. I understand scarcity and mutability and all that stuff, but I don't understand charts, TA, Glass node, technical analysis, on-chain analysis. So I need to listen to these types of people to,

help me with my own belief system, but my biggest problem I've got, and I'm sure I'm not alone, is how do I get it from here, fluently and eloquently out of here, and I can't? So back to Canute, I've recently changed the way that I do my live shows in as much as I've got passion for Bitcoin, and I want to get my message out that people should not buy it, but get in the rabbit hole, do their research, and then buy it, if they're not, feel it's right for them, but I'm now starting to use third-party clips of videos and then talking about those clips, interjecting in the middle of the clip. And, like, Kanoo, I've just used one of yours where you were talking about the hockey stick.

And my viewers found it really, really powerful. So for me, back to Alessandro's point, I need things like the, you know, the Willy Woo's and the Will Clementes of the world to help me learn that little bit, more and a little bit more, if that makes sense. I'm sure some of you, you youngsters, you pick up a lot quicker than I do, but, you know, we've all got our place in Bitcoin, haven't we, I think? Thank you, Brian. I'd love to come on your show one day.

Please do. I'll send you a DM, yes. And send me to the link to that clip because I'd really like to see it. We'll do. Sorry for taking the floor, Kramer, someone else. Sorry. No, that's great. I think, I think, yeah, you guys are exactly right that we have, we have much more visibility, you know, now than we did previously. And then to Ben's point, I think that a lot of people, there's absolutely an increase in the content that's being created around education and just, you know, just getting, helping people understand the difference between Bitcoin and everything else and, you know, how, like, how it plays into the investment of cryptocurrency. currencies. And then I think that going into like, I think another reason why more people are going

straight into Bitcoin now than previously in 2017 was before 2017, people never really had the quite the opportunity to invest in all of the alt coins that they had then. They did and it went horribly wrong. And I think that people saw, I think, I think they take 2017 as a lesson of, okay, we know like, okay, it's shooting up right now, but like we know where this story ends. And I think people are at least learning from the 2017 cycle that there wasn't really anything like that previously. And I think that that has benefited us a lot. Basically, the all coins just shot themselves in the foot of like, they had their exposure of what they're all about in 2017. And people are, some people are seeing that and, you know, just opting out of getting involved

with all those other ones. I was going to say, if I can, sorry people. Does anybody got a view on how we're looking through 2021 compared to? to the ICO mania of 2017. You know, we've obviously got, you know, DFI now. And, you know, I just feel that there, maybe I'm wrong, but there'll be some projects that will do well, but will many people get wrecked? Anybody got a viewpoint on that?

Yeah, and I think it's the same. Yeah, I think that NFDs are the new ICOs now. Yeah. I think, honestly, I think we're going to see more or less a repeat. And I was having conversation with somebody on Twitter today. I, because I snarkily crack and tweeted out like a list. They said, like, list your favorite cryptocurrency projects. And it said like one, two, three.

And they were blank. And I retweeted it. And I said, I wouldn't change a thing. But then from that, somebody didn't like that tweet. And they started it back and forth. And the conversation came up of like, well, you know, like, this is why I think that that nothing else stands up. Like there's a litmus test of different things that I'm looking for.

And if it, if, you know, if it doesn't tick any of those boxes, then to me it doesn't make sense. And then furthermore to like the, you know, I use 2017 as an example. I said, I think that, you know, that this is all just a repeat with slightly different coins. There's nothing, nothing, no substantial improvements have been made to any of the base layer infrastructure of any of those other projects or any of the new ones. It's basically decentralization theater for every like even up to number two, even up to Ethereum, the number two coin. It's all decentralization theater. And when you're built on that basis, then regardless of the merit of the idea built on top of it, your foundations are shaky. And so the whole point is moot. So why use it? And the topic of 2017 came up and I said, well, look what happened

then within, I did a post-mortem on Brian Kelly on CNBC, his well-diversified crypto portfolio. And the too long didn't watch is after two years, you effectively lost half of your Bitcoin. Basically, the only reason by like mid-2019, the only reason you were up is because of the 30% Bitcoin allocation he gave you. the only reason you were up in dollars, I mean, and everything else lost you money. I redid it again in 2020. And Ethereum basically had you break even at that point. And I think Minero was like had broken even. And then everything else was like a catastrophic loss.

And Bitcoin was like way, way up. And so all of your gains were coming from one place. And this is like if you held through and didn't panic and you weren't trading near the top and incurring capital gains taxes and all of those other hurdles that you had to get around to somehow magically make it through unscathed. And he, the conversation basically was, well, things are totally different right now. And I don't believe that for a fucking second. I think it's exactly the same.

It rhymes so much. It could be the exact same song. It's insane. How similar it is. You know, they swapped in a few things. you got defy and NFTs instead of ICOs. But it's all the same crap. Like even, you know, they thought ICOs couldn't be cracked down upon because they were,

because there's cryptocurrency and it was decentralized and it was a token and it didn't count. And we found that that wasn't the case. Well, what's happening right now? They're looking at uniswap. The SEC is doing a probe into uniswap. How do you have somebody to probe if it's decentralized? Right. Like you can if you have somebody to crack down upon, you're going to have a bad time if you assume that these things are decentralized. So I basically said to him, I think that you're going to see about the same two years from now.

And I made that, Brian Kelly made his his portfolio about midpoint in the 2017 bull run. and by two years from that point, you had lost the opportunity cost of buying all that other crap, you had lost half of the possible Bitcoin you could have had. And I think it's going to be about the same. I think at this point, it's like mid-year in a bull run. And I think if you're going out and diversifying and if you were to just hold whatever the hell you bought all the way through, I think in a couple of years, you'll look at that and say, I could have had this many stats.

Now I've got half as many in a bunch of bags that are not worth nearly as much as I would have hoped or nearly as many sets. But I mean, that's kind of my take on it. Yeah. To that point, if I may, there's a video coming up on the subject of shit coins. I wrote a little piece and Nione is animating it right now. And we're categorizing shit coins into two main subcategories, which are, crypto currencies or the old coins and the klepto currencies which are all the fiat coins and they're all equally crap and they're all there to they're all designed the way they are for one purpose to steal your time fiat steals your time by being inflationary and crypto currencies steal your time by stealing your

bitcoin and what most people don't realize about these old coins as you say even Ethereum is It's a decentralization theater, but not only from a computer science perspective, but what most people don't realize is that money is a winner takes all game. It is the most saleable good in society by definition. So you can't replicate the network effect of Bitcoin and like the monetary reason why Bitcoin can't lose this race. the first decentralized currency is the winner. So even if these shit coins were decentralized, which they're not by any stretch of the imagination,

Bitcoin will win anyway, because you can't beat, you can only discover absolute mathematical scarcity once. Copying that, there's no point to trying to replicate, resistance to replicability, because resistance to replicability, was the discovery that was made. And trying to replicate that is completely pointless.

It takes the whole point out of the invention. So it's counterproductive at best, but very obviously only done to deprive you of the original and the real thing. It's like posters of the Mona Lisa. It's not the Mona Lisa, it's a poster of it. It's worth nothing in the long run. Well, when you look at Bitcoin,

you know, if anything was to try, and replace it, they can't get the network effects that Bitcoin's got. They never get the network effects. You know, it's the network effects that are more important than anything for any coin that's trying to be the next Bitcoin, and there isn't

going to be the next Bitcoin. Well, arguably, decentralization is more important, but I get to your point. Even without that, Bitcoin will win. Yeah. Well, let's round out this topic and yeah, again, like we, I like that we're going down such tangents based on the original thoughts. That's the way it should be.

But yeah, like, again, based on Alessandro's original premise, we're getting real data on what's actually happening on chain in real time. we can see the desired effect playing out in real time over time. So, yeah, it's exciting to see. And I don't think we're seeing it elsewhere to the extent that we're seeing in Bitcoin. So we'll round it out there. And I guess we'll move on to our next reason for being bullish. And I'm going to toss it here to Brian. So Brian, I will let you start a new here and enlighten the panel as to what has you bullish this week.

Oh, you went. I think you made to self, but I get the point. Okay, so you stole my thunder at the start of the show, and I actually thought you would. And it was interesting because we were sort of messaging in DMs earlier. And I know Graham said, I've got two or three lined up because somebody's bound to steal mine. And I thought, well, I'm second on after Alexandro, so I might have a chance. So what has Ben go and do? He just goes and tears mine to bits.

But I think if I'm thinking about what has me bullish for nearly four and a half years down the rabbit hole, and that is how far we've come since I first got into Bitcoin. And I'm drawing a comparison here, I guess, with the internet, you know, has taken 25 years, give or take to get where we are at this point in time. And I was reflecting leading up to the show on just how far we've actually come. I remember when I got the call, I jumped on YouTube. I couldn't find anyone but Andreas Antonopoulos. And I think I managed to find a Bitcoin Meister. He did a live interview with Crush the Street. And I just stumbled across it. And when I saw that, I thought, either this guy's on something or he's onto something and I didn't know which.

But today there's just a plethora of information, you know, podcasts out there. You know, if you want to get deep, there's deep podcasts. You know, I never thought I'd get into listening to people like Preston Pish and his podcast, but I do swam Bitcoin. Ben, I've got to take my hat off to what you've done with the WIWy Bullish show. I just think it's absolutely the best that is out there. which is why I'm really privileged to be on. Thank you.

And I really mean that. I'm not blowing smoke up behind. I really mean. I think this panel, these panels that you do, are probably one of the best panels, I think, I've ever seen in terms of coming from my own personal point of view.

So there is so much out there, so much discussion. I mean, you know, we've now got things like Clubhouse and Twitter spaces. And, you know, I've got a life.

I've got another business. And I just dare, daren't go down those rabbit holes because when do you switch off and when do you then, and bed, you've got, you know, a young family. And so you have to, you have to blend your time, don't you? So I'm finding myself now going to bed and watching two or three videos, waking up, watching two or three videos. You know, so I'm using my time, but we didn't have this four years ago. And with everything coming on and then the innovation, we're back to lightning again. it's like this is just four and a half years since I got involved. What the hell is another four and a half years going to look like? Not 25. What is another four and a half years going to look like? What is this going to look like 24, 25 bull market after the next halving when all of a sudden our inflation rate goes below gold? You know, we can go on. You can go into one rabbit hole after another with this topic. But I'm so bullish on where this space has come in just four and a half years since I've gone.

it's gotten so much more user-friendly for people to onboard to learn to to get started the wallets are so different the hardware is so different lightning didn't exist it's crazy it's wild i'll let other people i actually put my bitcoin on paper wallets when i joined yeah i was told to spin up some paper wallets on that something dot org where you move your mouse around and it it creates a wallet and I had several Bitcoin on these paper wallets and all of a sudden, you know, treasles came out, et cetera, and I'm freaking out about how the hell do I get these off these? Do you know what I mean? That's how early it was. Sorry to hold, go on, carry on guys. But do you know what I mean? It's changed so much. Those paper wallets are probably more more secure than all the hardware

wallace you got. If you still got them. If you did them early enough, that is. Yeah. It's funny. I feel, I feel you on the paper wallet thing because I definitely had a few paper wallets kicking around early on. And I remember looking at them as I was sorting through some old stuff. And I was like, I want to scan the address and see how much I had on this. And I'm looking. I'm like, oh, my God, I had that much Bitcoin sitting on a paper wallet. Just like my house could have burned down. That's my first experience with the magic of this thing was when I been.

Bitcoin from a paper wallet into another paper wallet that was already in an envelope. And you could like teleport money into that. So all of a sudden one piece of paper is worth like the equivalent of 10,000 euros. And the other is worth nothing while the opposite was true just a millisecond ago. And it's it's yeah, that blew my mind. One of the first things that blew my mind was the magic of paper wallets. It is incredible. although now it would be more advisable to do that with an open dime instead of a paper wallet.

So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think to your point about like the stuff that you can, you know, watch and whatnot, I mean, I think back four and a half years ago, all we could really watch was the price. And that was like all we had to participate with. And now we have all this content. We have all these things that going on that you can really, like you said, we can go down any sort of rabbit hole.

And what I really, what I like a lot about where the community is heading is, we have a lot more participation in lower level protocol discussion, so things like tap root and whatnot. I think that previously it was those were always like kind of the core devs problems that no one really knew about or no one really got involved in. They just trusted the core devs to figure it out. And now I think that, you know, maybe it's not everyone understands tap root and everything that's going on. but there's a much more intentional effort to get people involved in those lower-ed-level discussions. Because, I mean, it does matter, like, you know, to how the network operates and how you can use your Bitcoin. So, yeah, I mean, just to your point, I think that there's so much more content out there. And I think that the content is very well driven and that there's all these different subsections you get into,

whether it's, you know, the protocol or usability like wallets and whatnot or the things like non-custodial. lending with like atomic finance and all of these things. So there's just so much, so much going on, you know, that it's, there's so much more to participate in than just buying, holding and looking at the price and just hoping that it's just going to go up over time. Yeah, and the thing is that I've noticed, and I'm sure you guys have observed this, more and more channels now, they're barely talking about price. It was all price when I got in. Now I watch shows and through a whole hour and an hour and a half show, nobody's talking about price. It's not relevant. And, you know, the one thing I have learned that I think is crucial is there's the Bitcoin price,

but there's the Bitcoin innovation and development. And it's that that is fueling all this now and not so much to price. And I always say tongue in cheek, price is a liar. Because the price of Bitcoin today is not where it's true value should be. I don't think. Anyway, I let's, somebody else speak. I'll just keep talking. Sorry. I wanted. And in terms of the,

the amount of content out there, I remember, you know, at times during 2017 and before being like, I need, like you needed your fix. And you're like, oh,

I got to listen to something. I hope there's a new episode. I hope there's something. I hope somebody dropped a new episode of something that I can watch. Now I like go on my phone for a podcast. I'm like, There's about 17 new episodes that I would really like to listen to, but I got to be picky choosy with my time.

I've got like a half hour walk where I can listen to something. So maybe I'll just pick the thing that sounds most appeal. You could spend 24-7 and not consume nearly. You could barely scratch the surface nowadays. I was just being quiet to let somebody else speak and no one did it. Yeah. Yeah, I think that if I want to add into that, idea of the amount of knowledge, what I called this collective cloud of wisdom that Bitcoin now has.

We've, we ourselves have made of Bitcoin a media production machine as well and a very efficient one, right? So it's like whenever a topic or new feature comes out to Graham's point, it doesn't take that much amount of time anymore to see Bitcoin podcasters, Bitcoin media production people, personal people that have their personal brand, which is what excites me the most about this thing. It's it's the amount of people that have been able to like open their lives, their personal brands, thanks to being part of the community and getting knowledgeable enough about Bitcoin to hop into a discussion like the one that we're having right now. So I think it's it's lovely and because in the end it's it's the voice section of Bitcoin, right? We are trying to extend the voice here. And and and and that's when you have voice,

you have freedom, right? And and I think that that's what to Brian's point about being passionate about Bitcoin. That's what makes me more passionate about Bitcoin out of anything else. of the asset and the network is the amount of people that are hustling around every single day just to get the word out as much as possible. And that they make a living out of that. So I think that's amazing to remark. It's funny because everybody just wants to talk like everybody's just excited to talk about Bitcoin. And that's why people eat it up so much because if they can't get that from their circle of friends, then they want to listen to it because then you feel like you're at least part of the Bitcoin conversation.

But, you know, it is what it is. It was interesting, Ben. We went out last weekend to the beach. We decided to take a day out and take a picnic and just sit and chill because I needed to get away from my computer. I really did. And I tweeted something out. It was interesting.

There was just absolutely thousands and thousands of people on that beach. And what I marveled at is probably 99.9% of them have either heard of Bitcoin and dismissed it, haven't heard about it, or, you know, I just felt totally blessed that I was open-minded when I got the call to not dismiss it out of hand and roll my eyes. And I'll be forever grateful to whatever it is that said, get down that rabbit hole and have a look at this thing. Because it's so easy to walk by it, isn't it? So easy to laugh something out of sight and then live with regret. And I'm just feel blessed that I'm in the rabbit hole. you have a front row seat to the future.

Oh, what a lovely phrase. What a lovely phrase that is. Yeah, it is exciting to know that. And I mean, there have, you know, a lot of people have now heard of it. So they've had that first touchpoint and they'll have more touch points in the future, probably a good number of them this year. And even the people that had more than a touch point and actually got some Bitcoin, it, you know, probably very minimal exposure.

Like how many people that that own Bitcoin actually own a meaningful amount? Yeah, I watched a podcast and they were saying that I can't think who it was now, but they were saying that anything about $5,000 is a meaningful amount. You know, you're really a bit serious now. You know, you're not just throwing that at it and then just going to, you know, like Knoot said, you know, die with and forget where your keys are or something above 5K, you're probably a meaningful amount and you're probably going to get in the rabbit hole

to some degree. Yeah, yeah. It's, well, I think we're about to mint a lot more new hodlers in the coming years. But yeah, I'm an excellent topic, Brian. Very happy that you brought that one up. I'm conscious of time, so I'm going to keep us rolling here, and I'm going to pass it down the line to Graham.

Dude, I will toss the mic to you and let you introduce your reason for being bullish this week. Yeah, no, for sure. So what I've really been thinking about a lot lately, and I can hone it into a more recent example, is just the normalization of Bitcoin and it being more normal and everyday lives.

So, you know, it used to be CNBC or whatever, mainstream media was like, hey, it's this magic internet money that, you know, these crazy people are buying. Now there's like, there's people damn near every day talking on it, of like seriously evaluating what it's doing and like what is going on. on in the space. And I think that that's something I've just seen more and more of these people that

used to have nothing to do with it or even dismissal dismiss it entirely are now coming online and having legitimate conversations or, you know, legitimate views on it. And so, and then we then do a specific example of Twitter, you know, leaking out that they're going to start accepting, you know, like integrating lightning payments and doing on-chain addresses. I think the way they're rolling that out has some improvements to be done. But it's a huge like social media platform that is looking into, you know, implementing Bitcoin. And it's like, again, going back to, okay, four years ago, that would have been crazy talk. Like that would have been ridiculous. But now we're seeing where the all of these, you know, quote, quote,

like normal like non-Bitcoin focus companies are integrating Bitcoin. And it's just becoming a normal part of our lives, you know, slowly, but surely it's like, you know, slowly than all at once. And that's what I'm bullish on is just, it's creeping into our everyday lives, like outside of just our little, our little space. I think it's interesting you say that, Graham, because I remember a couple of years ago when I was watching my regular Saturday night, you know, football matches and might catch up,

you know, if I saw, you know, one of the sponsorship boards with the word Bitcoin on, anything related, you jump up and down, get to the telly, take a photograph and get it up on Twitter and say, oh, I saw this on the celly. Now, I don't think twice about it in terms of you saying, you know, it's becoming more normal, more mainstream.

All of a sudden, oh, there's Bitcoin, again. So I take your point there. It is. You know, it is everywhere now. The Overton window has shifted and it's shifting faster and faster, right? Like the acceptable type of conversation that you have around this thing is just, it's everywhere. And so you see it like it used to be like you said, you know, if people knew I was into Bitcoin a few years ago, any time it was mentioned in a show, I would get phone calls. I would get family member. Did you see this episode of whatever random NBC pilot just aired?

And they said the word Bitcoin in it. And then it would be like all over Reddit. You'd be like screenshots or like grabs of the show. Like, oh, they said they said Bitcoin. Literally today I was passing by a shop on the street. And there was a, I'm pretty sure it was a Jason Derulo song where he, he drops the word Bitcoin in the middle of it. Just and I was like, oh, huh.

Kept walking. Yeah. So to your point, Graham, like the slowly then all at once, what people focus on in that phrase is the wrong thing, because most people focus on the at once part, but they don't realize what all means because it's really all, all at once, everything at once, everything that you can sell.

Everything. Everything is going into Bitcoin because it's the most saleable good. It's the best form of money ever discovered. It's a new element, better than every precious metal because it is finite. Nothing else is.

So all at once. Yeah, and I think we're in that phrase, aren't we? I can't think you said it, Gandhi, I think. But he said, you know, first they laugh at you, then they ignore you, then they fight you, then you win. I think we're in that, you know, they fight you stage. And I think winning is coming and it's coming quicker than anybody thinks. Yeah.

There's not a lot of laughing going on anymore, hey? Like there's no longer the dismissal and laughing. You don't see that. And to the fighting part, this is this is a part, another rabbit hole that is completely bottomless. And that is how Bitcoin mitigates violence. Because when you, when you can't know how much someone owns and you can't. because they might have several more Bitcoin addresses than those you know of,

even if you have done the analysis and everything. So you can't know how much a person has, which means that it's probably, or even probably more likely that probably more profitable for you to provide that person with something of value in order to get something of value from them than to use violence to curse them into some behavior or another, which if you think that through and follow the thought vector that means no more taxes no more coercion whatsoever just voluntary interaction with each other on a global scale that's what it leads to and it's unstoppable how can you not be bullish it's impossible i never stop thinking about it

so my point my point is the the pen might be mightier than the sword it might have been mightier than the sword, metaphorically speaking before. But with Bitcoin, it's literally mightier than the sword. It is true on that. It renders the swords obsolete, right? It's great. Very profound. Very profound.

I love it. Yeah, I was going to say, if anybody has further thoughts on the topic in general, again, like that shifting of the over 10 window, the acceptability, the mainstreaming, feel free to chime in before we round of the topic. Sure. I have a funny Venezuelan story about that. Before I left the country, I was at a friend's party at his house. And there was, you know, he requested services of one of this party hookers that they just dance, et cetera. And so this friend of mine, we used to mine Bitcoin together back in

2015 in Venezuela, he still has a couple of machines. Like he runs some minor mined. mining operations today. And so as the hookers were working out of the house, they heard this, you know, the noise of the end miners just playing around like, and they were like, wait a second, is that those special computers that they give you Bitcoin and etc? You guys are rich. And I was like, oh my God, dude, now even fucking hookers know about Bitcoin. And I'm like, dude, if there's someone that knows about the best form of money ever it's hooker's met and so that's you know what that's a fair assessment because one of my

early jobs in bitcoin was working at an over-the-counter spot in in my city where you could and and they ran bitcoin ATMs and everything and around that time uh mastercard and visa basically uh for what was it for um was it craigslist whatever it was whatever the website was They basically shut down the ability to pay for certain ads on a website. And I can't remember what the website was. It might have been Craigslist or something similar where everybody was posting these personal ads. And so they were basically cut off from like upping their ads to get gentlemen to give

them a call and request their services. And so they were like shit out of luck. But then it was implemented that you could pay. in Bitcoin. And so then all of a sudden, my job became helping women learn how to learn how to use Bitcoin on their phones, learn how to use a Bitcoin ATM, learn how to send and receive transactions, and how to convert it into dollars. And yes, I, I, there was a lot of education that was happening there around that subject. So, but yeah, no, it's, I mean, it's, it's always the case that that those that are most kind of sidelined in society because certain people disapprove of

certain aspects of their lives or what they're doing with their money, they're the ones that are going to see the value first. And so, you know, in this case, it was a necessity in order to continue with their livelihoods to learn how to use this technology. And so, you know, it's interesting. Anyways, I think I'll wrap that topic there. But yeah, the Overton window has definitely shifted. And with that, we'll shift to Canute. And I'll pass it to you, man.

Let's hear it. Let's hear it. I think it'll be a good one. What has you feeling bullish this week? Well, I could just regurgitate my old arguments with a J-shaped adoption curve and with everything divided by 21 million. But I won't bore you with that. You've all heard it before. And I could also tie into Alessandro's point about the on-chain analytics.

And there's another fun metric there. And that's how the owners of one Bitcoin or less or 10 Bitcoin or less are growing. in numbers and the owners that have like the the whales that have 10,000 or more or a hundred thousand Bitcoin or more those groups are those numbers are decreasing. Yeah. So Bitcoin is actually redistributing wealth and no political system has ever been distributed, redistributed wealth successfully. It always leads to disaster, not sure of disaster of socialism, which destroys the economy completely. So Bitcoin is actually doing what the socialists and the central banks claim to be doing by doing the exact opposite of what they're doing, what they're doing in reality.

And I find this very, very fascinating. And I'm very proud to have been right about these things for a long time in my head, at least. Even before Bitcoin was invented, I didn't really understand how socialism could ever work. So, but that, but my reason for being bullish is, it's, it's the answer I give to people when they ask me nowadays, what, what, what is Bitcoin? The simple question, what is Bitcoin? And my current answer is that Bitcoin is just an agreement. It's an agreement between people about a fair set of rules. And that's all it is, a fair set of fixed rules. And in order to change the rules, we will all have to. agree on that changing the rules is a good idea. Otherwise, they won't be changed. So it's just a bunch of people agreeing on a fixed set of rules. And you can choose to deny the rules. You can choose to use other rules, but then you can't have any of the benefits of this specific rule set.

And this specific rule set is giving everyone immense wealth over time. So why would you be against it? There's no reason to be against it. It's against your own interest to be against it. So it's just an agreement, just an idea shared between people. And how do you stop that? There's no way of stopping people from agreeing with each other. It's completely pointless to try.

So that's the main reason that I'm bullish. You can't stop an idea whose time has come. You just stole that. I was just going to say that from Victor Hugo. Yeah. I absolutely love that quote. Nothing, not all the armies in the world can stop an idea whose time has come. And Bitcoin's time has come. Yeah. And how do you stop people from agreeing with each other? It can't be done, especially not in this time and age when we're so divided by all the things we disagree on. And here comes a thing that is good for everyone. How can people disagree that it's a good idea? I just don't see that. There's a new article from Nick Carter that just dropped on Bitcoin magazine, I believe.

And he was comparing the, kind of the recent fud around Bitcoin energy consumption with the same arguments that were used with gold. And using it as an actual full reserve. currency and and the arguments around what, you know, the narratives at the time of, hey, well, we could do this, you know, there's so much intense kind of physical and energy usage in basically digging up this stuff out of the ground and using it. And we could just, you know, create the money ourselves. And that solves a problem. And it's, and it's, free. It's easy to do. And then we won't be wasteful. But in doing so, because it talks about,

again, the decentralized nature at the time of how gold worked. And it was basically just people around the world agreeing that, hey, this is kind of, they've coalesced on the soundest money. And they said, okay, this is kind of the best we got. This is where we're going to park our value. And you can't stop people from agreeing on that. And even in going off of the gold standard and these legal tender laws forcing people to use alternatives, what do they do? They actually expedited and pushed up the value of gold because there's more demand for it. And depending on how extreme the actions of printing money were, how quickly they debase their currencies,

they push up the value of that sound money even more, having an even bigger effect and actually causing people to mine it more than they were originally. And the same would be true of, you know, if you forced people to not use Bitcoin, first of all, you couldn't do that on a global scale, right? Because wherever you drop those regulations, it's it's it's global so there'll be jurisdictions that will eat that up and i mean we saw the the

china shut down basically um it basically subsidized the rest of the mining around the world but you you impose restrictions there and you have people use something else and then you take advantage of that and you print more it causes the alternative to have more value and have more people want to get a piece of that, it expedites how many people want to mine it. And so, yeah, how do you stop people from agreeing and realizing that what they're holding is worthless and they want something better and they see the best thing that humanity's ever created to solve that problem?

You can't. You don't. It's an inevitability. And so, yeah, I love that reason. Okay. Yeah, did you see our video on orange is the new green about the environmental issues? Anyway, the argument I make there is like banning nation states. When they compare like Bitcoin's energy usage to Switzerland or Ireland or whatever, I make the argument that banning that country is a much better idea than banning Bitcoin. Because a nation state is a much more wasteful thing than the soundest money ever in.

invented. Of course it is because Bitcoin deserves its energy usage. Nation states don't. They don't deserve shit. Like Bitcoin does. Yeah. And yeah. And I was I was thinking about like how we were talking about, you know, then first they laugh at you, then they fight you and then you win or whatever. I like I'm honestly a little excited for then they fight you even if we're at that stage or whatever that looks like. Because I think when they like we see that with China when they okay, they. They. tried to fight us and they shut down all miners or whatever. And it's like, well, look what you did. You just like distributed it even more. Like you, like it is a wackable game ultimately. And so the fighting only strengthens the network and, you know, the whole entire system. I think Bitcoin's got to have everything thrown at it to succeed. I think you've got to throw everything at it and it's got to fight it to win. Sorry, Canute. Yeah, it just creates awareness. That's, that's my point. Yeah. Yeah. No, totally. It does. And I think that like all of these, you know, attacks, and even like mainstream media attacks or whatever, I think that

there's enough of, like, you know, the younger generations, I think they are waking up to realizing that, okay, if they're, the more that these, these boomers are, sorry, right, are attacking it. Well, okay, then maybe we should I actually start looking at this because they've been wrong about so many other things. Maybe we need to, like, it gives a valid, like, validation of, like, maybe we need to look into this. And it's, it's like arguing, it's like arguing that the sun won't go up in the morning. Yeah. People can still notice the sun going up every morning. So it's like, it's like arguing for flat earth or arguing for some other. And the more they argue against something that is happening, the more, the less people

will believe those journalists or, yeah, bloggers and Euberus, as I prefer to all of them. Yeah, it's beautiful because there's so many great quotes that you can go back to. And every time somebody, you know, one of my favorites right now, given that, you know, and here comes the first kind of specific price talk of the show, but one of my favorite ones is Peter Schiff, I got a tweet of his framed on my shelf. And it was from the beginning, it was January 4th of 2020, and Bitcoin had started going up a little bit. And he did some tweet where he's like, oh, all those bitcoins that are so excited about Bitcoin's recent 4% price gain, when in reality, gold has recently gone up a similar amount.

If it's only going to go up this amount in these conditions, then how will the quote was, how will Bitcoin ever, ever hope to hit $50,000, let alone $1 million? And, well, that first one has been knocked over, and I look forward to the day, I will leave that frame tweet on my shelf until that $1 million price point hits, and I will be very, very excited to see that happen.

What is it about certain individuals that just bury their head in the sand and completely dismiss something out of hand? And, I mean, history's going to show what a foolish individual he's been. I think maybe, you know, hey, this is going to go in archives, so maybe we'll be proved wrong. But I actually think it's going to be the other way around. And I love the saying, you know, how far do you keep going down the wrong road,

knowing you're on the wrong road, before you say, I need to get back on the right road. And Bitcoin is the right road. I'm convinced of it. And Peter Schiff, don't get me wrong, he's a very, very clever guy. You know, a lot of what he talks about governments and, you know, general finance is dead right, but for some reason, he's entrenched in this let's trash Bitcoin narrative. Even his own son, Spencer, is batting against dad. And I just don't get it. I, I can't fathom out where his head's at. I really can't. I don't think he can never. I think he's making money out of it. You know, he's monetizing his stupidity somehow. It has to be, yeah, he has to look at his other business.

and not trounce that because that's his livelihood. That's his family's future, I guess. So he's got to keep pumping the gold narrative. But surely he must know that he's barking at the wrong tree. Sorry, British phrase. He must know that, surely. He's barking at the wrong miracle tree. Love it.

Love it. There, that clip needs somebody watch and make a clip of that and then stick it on Twitter. This is like the most dad joke moment in a Bitcoin podcast. I outdadded the boomer. That was great. Yeah. No, it's it's very interesting to see that opposition, that that, that staunch opposition to it from somebody who's, who's thought patterns are so close.

and yet so far. But I think it's, it's difficult to be in a position where, where you literally understand the, the ins and outs of what's going on in the background. And you know that a solution is needed. And the solution that you've locked on to for your entire career, it was just one-uped by, by something brand new. And you refused to jump on it early enough. And, and, and, And again, he keeps on recently he's saying that he, he's upset that he missed out on it, but it's way too late now. And he's going to be, he's going to be saying that for years and years. And you see it in the tweets like, oh, now that it's at $100, now that it's at $1,000,

now it's at $10,000, it'll never do this, that, and the other thing. And it keeps doing all the things. And he's becoming, I think, just, I don't know, I don't know what it is. He'll never, he'll never publicly say at this point. He's, he's doubled down too many times. He will never publicly say, even if he admits it behind the scenes. Hasn't he just done a podcast with Peter McCormack and Greg Foss? That'll be an interesting one to listen to.

I saw Peter McCormack tweet something saying that we're doing this now and it had Peter Schiff and Greg Foss on there. That'll be a really interesting one. If Greg Foss doesn't say that he failed 11th grade math, at least once, I will be. severely disappointed. Yeah, yeah. You can fail math, but still be, still pass praxeology.

So that's okay. Canoe, I left school with not a single qualification because I hated school, has not stopped me getting into the Bitcoin overlay, getting in the rabbit hole because I wanted to, okay, and learning enough to know that I'm in the right place. I don't buy the argument of not educated. I don't buy it. No, no, no. To quote, Isaac, no, I think it's, no, it's Isaac Asimov, I think,

who said, to my experience, self-education is the only form of education that exists. So, and formal education will make you a living. Self-education can make you a fortune. Yeah. And he asked him of also, he's a quote machine. He said my, like my favorite quote ever, which is people who think they know everything are of a great nuisance to those of us who do. You and I could do a whole show on quotes. But Ben's got a family. people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do i think that's the point that's great that's fantastic well um i'll get any closing thoughts for many of you guys

whether and uh it can be regarding um any of the topics today actually i'll what i'll do is i'll go down the line really quick just to kind of round it out um and get any final thoughts on anything that was discussed today, whether it be Knut's topic that we just were riffing on or anything. And then as we're doing that after your thoughts, if you want to let people know

once again who you are where they can find you, all that kind of stuff, that would be awesome. So maybe let's start with Alessandro. Any final thoughts? Anything that you want to leave us with today? Sure. At some point, you mentioned Ben,

Bitcoin being in real time indicator of economic activity. And so I think that sort of went through me because, you know, because they come from that in America and Venezuela, when you're into Bitcoin, you always try to follow, I wouldn't say always, but lots of entrepreneurs that try to improve the banking and finance sector of their own countries by going down the Bitcoin road, et cetera, right? we focus a lot on reminences, for example, right? And so when you focus on that segment of the global money industry, and as you try to find data around, you know,

the number of unbanked people, underbanked people, especially in emerging countries, what you will mostly find is that the main institution that globally sources that information is the World Bank. And last time that the World Bank updated their list of unbanked and underbanked people was in 2017 due. So we're already four years ahead of and ahead in time. We went through this post-COVID virtual reality world that we now live in. And we still don't have updated information around the number of unbanked and underbanked people in emerging countries.

I think that Bitcoin is going to kill that shit. Bitcoin is going to kill the World Bank and it's going to kill the IMF first before central banks. I would argue that because you can compete with the thing that gets updated by the minute every 10 minutes, right? With an institution that is just being lobbied around for years and years since the Second World War and updates some very important information. every five, four years, man.

You can't compete with that. It's just outdated. Yeah, it's amazing. They're all obsolete. And I think they know it. I think they see the running on the wall. Or some, some do. And they're actively trying to fight it now.

We'll see how that goes. To that point, if this was a movie, it's pretty obvious who the protagonist and who the antagonists are like, we're obviously the heroes. here. And this, like, if this is Star Wars, we're obviously the rebels and the World Bank is obviously the empire. Like, how can you not see this? We're a bunch of people fighting for individual freedoms by inventing and discovering a tool that no one has ever seen before. And we're fighting this dystopian government future thing that is turning more and more into 1984 and becoming more and more.

or yeah, awful. But we, we're, Jabba. Jabba. Sorry, Ben. I read the BIS. Yeah. I was going to say we, we get that though. We're in the rabbit hole.

We're in Bitcoin. But, you know, there's a huge divide, isn't there? Between us that are down the rabbit hole and those people that we're trying to get to at least dip their toe in and have a look. And I was wondering, another topic for another day. But how the heck do you. go through that process of, you know, onboarding people and keeping it simple enough for them to understand. I mean, there's another topic for another day. You can have a whole show on, you know,

how you onboard something, what you say to them. Do you go over the top and just frighten them to death? What do you do? But that's where I see it. We're in the rabbit hole. We know, you know, you've just said, how can you not see this? Well, a new, when you start talking like that, think you've gone to the planet Zog. No, but show them the matrix. Show them. for Vendetta, even show them Star Wars and they will figure it out, figure it out sooner or later, because it's obvious clues on what side here. And Alessandro, on your final topic here, before we head over to Brian and get his final thoughts,

let people know where they can find you, any information, anything you want to drop. Sure, best place to find me is definitely just follow me in Twitter. I'm at Elselton Bitcoin, and yeah, that's pretty much it. Awesome. Okay, Brian, on to you. Any final thoughts that you have? And then, of course, let people know where they could find it.

Thanks, Ben. I don't go into any final thoughts because we could just talk for hours. I can feel that. But firstly, thank you for inviting me on your show. It's been an absolute pleasure. We need to connect and you come back on mine at some point. We were trying to make that happen. I'd love to get you on.

And the other guys, it would be awesome to have you guys on my live show. For those that are watching this, do follow me, please, at UKBitcoinmaster.com. I can't go into depth. I am very, very bullish on Bitcoin. I talk about Bitcoin only. I go live every Monday and every Thursday at 6pm London. Come and join. We've got a great little community going over there.

Yeah, the extra subs will be good. You can follow me on Twitter at UK Bitcoin Master, although I will say, as that boomer, I'm not great on Twitter. honest, I'll retweet stuff and share the odd thing, but I pretty well use it to promote the fact that my show is coming up soon. So yeah, follow me on Twitter. Come and support the show. You know, it would be great to have some new faces in the show. But finally, Ben, thank you. I really appreciate it. You for having me on the show, man. Been brilliant. No worries. Glad to have you. And let's move down the line. Graham, any final thoughts that you may have? And of course, let people know where they can find you.

Yep. The only final thought I really have is just when we think about Bitcoin all at once time, I'm of the opinion that's really going to happen on the Lightning Network. I think that the Lightning Network is enabling us to bring Bitcoin into the world that we see and exist today, especially like on the Internet. And so that's like the ultimate bullish of bullish that we could have on the show is definitely the Lightning Network. And I think that that's the, the, the, the means in which we bring this to the billions of people on the earth. So I explore if you haven't checked out the Lightning Network yet, like any any wallet, anything at all, just check out the Lightning Network if you haven't done it already.

Just just start playing around with it now. And it's just like, it's that moment we're like, okay, you just need to start learning Bitcoin. Okay, you did that. Now learn the Lightning Network. Yeah. It will absolutely benefit you in the long term. So do that. On Twitter, I'm G-E-K-R-I-Z-E-K. Check out Voltage as well.

You can find us at voltage.com. You're building on the Lightning Network or Bitcoin, you know, hit us up. We can definitely help you with anything you need. Awesome. That's great. And passes down to Canute, any final thoughts you may have, and of course let people know where they can find you. Final thoughts?

Side notes here. A good example of really low-time preference behavior. is Abba reuniting after 40 years. Go listen to those songs. Yes. Two excellent new Abba songs are out and they're making another album. I was an Abba fan.

I hate to admit it, but I was. Love him. Yeah, yeah. I had goosebumps all morning and they almost started crying when I heard them. It's so beautiful to see them together again. So low time preference for the wind. We just killed a show canoe.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, dude, you're a fucking alien, man. well sorry about that but you can find me on twitter i'm at knut'svanov on twitter you can find my books on amazon i have an office page there amazon dot com slash author slash knuds von om find all my stuff there i'm happy to announce that we're making more videos i'm uh i quit my day job so i'm doing bitcoin full time now i'm working on my next book called called surprise surprise everything by 21 million and we're making more videos planning on recording a Bitcoin related album at some point and just doing stuff I want to do here for for at least

the year and see what happens and if I can monetize any of it and well buy and hoddle Bitcoin and kick ass and keep on doing what you're doing the thanks for having me on again Ben and lovely to talk to you all thank you yeah awesome Guys, thank you all so much for joining. Again, always the best part of my week getting to just sit, chill, and chat Bitcoin with a bunch of other awesome people. So I thank you all,

and you're all welcome back anytime that you please. So thanks again. Thanks, Ben. Thank you very much, brother. Thank you guys so much for watching and or listening if you're listening later on the pod. If you want to help out the show, of course, like,

subscribe, share, all of those things, as I mentioned at the beginning, really, really do help, and it gets this content in front of more eyeballs. So if you haven't done it, do it. What are you waiting for? Of course, you can also help out the show by hitting the previously mentioned sponsors in the show notes down below. Ledin, Bit by, bit refill, Keystone, Bill Fottle, they're all down there. And if you really liked what you saw and you've been watching for a while, maybe you want to drop me a Bitcoin tip. You can do so at my strike.me page. That is strike.m.combe. Sessions. When you get there, you can type in any dollar amount you like. You hit the tip button. You'll be greeted with a lightning invoice or if you click to the right, a regular Bitcoin QR code.

With that, I am out. I hope you had a good time tonight. Wherever you are, have a great evening, daytime, whatever the case may be. And I'll see you guys next time for your daily session.