The Breakdown - The Thanksgiving Family Crypto Conversation

Episode Date: November 24, 2024

A reading and discussion inspired by https://www.coindesk.com/opinion/2024/11/22/how-to-talk-about-crypto-with-your-family-this-thanksgiving/ Enjoying this content? SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast: https://pod.link/1438693620 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nathanielwhittemorecrypto Subscribe to the newsletter: https://breakdown.beehiiv.com/ Join the discussion: https://discord.gg/VrKRrfKCz8 Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownNLW

Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Sunday, November 24th, and that means it's time for Long Read Sunday. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link at the show notes or go to bit.ly slash breakdown pod. All right, friends. Well, this is going to do. to be a fun one. One of the things that always marks crypto is what you want to say to your family

about it at Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was famously part of the big run-up in 2017. People talking about Bitcoin led to their friends and family going out and buying Bitcoin, which led to the 20K top, which was for so long, the marker that we used to signify what a return to success for Bitcoin would be. This year, we have Bitcoin at, at the time of recording, very nearly $100,000. And so we turn to coin market caps Jonathan Isaac for his take on how to talk about crypto with your family this Thanksgiving. I'm going to turn it over to an AI version of me to read his essay, and then I will come back and discuss. How to Talk About Crypto with your family this Thanksgiving. With Bitcoin eyeing $100,000 and peanut the squirrel grabbing headlines with 3,000% gains,

crypto is firmly back on the menu this holiday season. Family debates about Bitcoin, meme coins, and The Dog Thing Elon tweets about will no doubt live in up the dinner table, and you, as the designated crypto expert, will need some talking points to win over the normies. Crypto is libertarian lunacy. Trump's candidacy and victory sparked the latest crypto bull run, and many now associate it with the worst excesses of MAGA and Elon's dogg's trolling. For your left-leaning relatives, seeing crypto champion so hard by the new Republican administration will do little to help your case. If your true blue cousin won't buy Bitcoin because of its red and orange connections, switch to the facts instead. Point out that Bitcoin is a currency

that can be used by people of all creeds, making it inherently non-political and a movement that can unite us all. Reference Jason Mayer's book, a progressives case for Bitcoin, which unpacks many misconceptions about Bitcoin and underscores its origins as a protest against too big to fail banks, its ability to help poor and marginalized communities, and its potential to create a sustainable environment. While policies may drive price action, crypto itself should never be a partisan issue. Crypto is a meme coin casino. Somewhere between the deviled eggs and the turkey, the next battle. you'll face will be meme coins. With top-performing coins like Peepi, Doge, and Shib, and newcomers

like peanut delivering explosive returns, Auntie Cynthia's heard about the meme coin craze and she's got some opinions to share. While Popcat, Bonk, and Mudang capture culture and community in ways that make insiders smile, the flip side is making our industry look a little delulu. When trying to get pension funds and family offices to allocate to crypto, it's hard to argue the virtues of fart coin, no matter how many Brussels you've eaten. The meme coin craze is fun, but shouldn't overshadow the real power of crypto to bring better, more efficient, more effective financial services to the world. It's simple. For the 1.4 billion people shut out of the traditional financial system, crypto is a better way to store value, access lending, and build wealth, empowering them to

take control of their financial futures. Also, when it comes down to it, meme coins are an incredibly innovative new form of expression and financial participation that can provide a sense of community and belonging missing from much of the polarizing social discourse on centralized platforms. Today's episode is brought to you by Bitkey, the hardware wallet built for Bitcoin. Made by the team behind Square and Cash App, BitKee makes securely managing your Bitcoin absurdly simple. BitKee is integrated with partners like Cash App, Coinbase, Robinhood, and Blockchain.com

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and relax while the sats stack. For a limited time, you can get Bitkey for $99. That's $51 off the normal price. Get yours today online at Amazon, Best Buy, or Bitkey.world. That's b-it-k-e-y-world. Cryptos are no different from stocks. The launch of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs this year has some saying that crypto is just another payday for Wall Street suits. While folks like Black Rock's Larry Fink may help onboard more boomers to crypto, they're missing the point. Cryptocurrencies are the antithesis of stocks and other tradfai assets administered and held

by centralized custodians. Digital assets are yours to own. They are decentralized, unseasable, peer-to-peer, require no centralized authority, and often have additional utility beyond a means of exchange and store of value. The decentralized finance defy sector has opened up myriad opportunities and leveled the playing field for everyday individuals to access sophisticated financial instruments, secure a decent APY, or take out a permissionless loan. No one can take your crypto from you if it's stored correctly under your control or halt

trading to prevent you from claiming your funds. It's entirely different from traditional finance. Crypto is a risky investment. Many people who got curious about crypto during the last bull cycle immediately crashed into one of the biggest financial frauds in U.S. history, and those who got tired of waiting for prices to rise sold their assets at a less than ideal time. Everyone knows someone's cousin, niece, or nephew who lost everything in crypto, especially NFTs. But for those who bought and held Bitcoin, at least, their patience was duly rewarded. BTC has yielded an average of

671% annually since 2013, making it the best-performing asset of our time. Just look at El Salvador's success. President Nayib Bukala's bet on Bitcoin in 20, 2021 drew its fair share of criticism, but the small Central American country's Bitcoin holdings have now soared to over $500 million, yielding more than 100% ROI. Not only that, but his approval ratings are hovering around 90%, and the homicide rate is now lower than in the U.S. Another small country to make it big on Bitcoin is the Kingdom of Bhutan whose Bitcoin holdings now equate to over $1 billion.

Does that seem risky to you? Crypto isn't real. Of course, no Thanksgiving dinner would be complete without the old adage that that crypto isn't real. Some folks just can't get around not being able to put Bitcoin in their pocket, arguing that it isn't backed by anything, unlike the dollar which comes with the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. Cold hard facts are your friend for this one. Point to the powerful network of miners behind Bitcoin, the $3 trillion crypto market cap, the ETF providers, the institutions, politicians, and nation states. Talk about Bitcoin's

cap supply of $21 million and reinforce that. Unlike the dollar which has lost 92% of its purchasing power since 1933, no more. will ever be mined and can never dilute the value of your holdings. Bitcoin's limited supply makes it much more akin to gold as a scarce asset and optimal store of value, compared to the out-of-control money printing machine behind the greenback diluting the value of your savings. Wonder why the cost of everything from ham and eggs to house prices and the turkey on the table have gone up? Inflation is an ongoing tax on the people and Bitcoin provides a compelling solution. Or, to put it in words that Uncle Dave would agree with, Bitcoin offers a hedge against many of the risks

inherent to the traditional fiat financial system. If after all that, your family remains in a movable object, take heart. It's better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. And grandma, asking about crypto again, is the clearest top signal you can get. All right. Back to Real NLW here. I just want to take a moment to talk about each of these different categories in terms of my perspective on them. I think Jonathan did a great job, but I have takes too. First of all, in this idea of it being libertarian lunacy, there is almost no way to avoid that this is going to be part of the conversation. Given that this 100K is so associated with the Trump win,

given that Elon named his agency Doge, it could be a tenuous and testy time for the progressives and Dems in your family. And I think Jonathan is exactly right that the best solve for this is to come back to the fundamentals of what a decentralized, non-controllable asset really means for people who historically have not had power, financial, or otherwise.

Crypto might have gotten nominally political during this election cycle and during Operation Choke Point 2.0 before it, but there is much for progressives to champion in terms of what it might mean for underserved audiences. Point being, I wouldn't see the point. I make sure that that group knows they have a place in this crazy tent as well. Next up, Crypto is a meme coin casino. I don't really have much on this one. Maybe like Jonathan suggests, you double down here on the message of what Bitcoin can do for the world. Maybe you claim your Bitcoin maxi status. Or maybe you put it. point out that in truly free markets, there's going to be some chaotic, weird things, and ultimately,

as long as investors have good information, there are adults who get to make their own financial decisions. You could also point out that there's so much that's serious in the world, that letting people have some ridiculous fun isn't necessarily the worst thing. On the idea of crypto being no different from stocks, Jonathan's argument is basically to remind people that the distribution of power in crypto is very different, even if Wall Street is now involved. The place that I would take that is even farther. Just as much as crypto has had to adapt to Wall Street, Wall Street has had to adapt to crypto as well. Yes, you can get exposure to crypto in products that are familiar and comfortable for you, but nothing about the fundamental underlying nature of the assets and the

technology that powers them has been changed or conceded to make that happen. Crypto as a risky investment, first of all, you can point out that it depends on what time scale you're talking, but second, you can also acknowledge that it is a risky investment and that lots of things in the crypto space are not going to yield rewards. Net-net, I think that fewer people coming in because they think they're going to get rich is probably a good thing for the industry. Lastly, when it comes to this idea that crypto isn't real, on this one, I'm not really sure you have to say much at all. The market cap is $3 trillion. The price of Bitcoin and asset, which has been predicted to die thousands of times, is at nearly $100,000. And after a full frontal assault from the U.S.

government, the industry is stronger than ever. If that's not real, I don't know what reality is. That is going to do it for this pre-Thanksgiving episode of LRS. We will have shows this week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, so don't you worry about that. But until next time, be safe and take care of each other. Peace.