The Canadian Investor - Talking Bitcoin Adoption with Peter McCormack

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

In this special Wednesday release, Simon interviews Peter McCormack from the What Bitcoin Did podcast. We talk about inflation, rising government debt, potential for a BlackRock Bitcoin ETF and why there are more people adopting Bitcoin. Check out our portfolio by going to Jointci.com Our Website Canadian Investor Podcast Network Twitter: @cdn_investing Simon’s twitter: @Fiat_Iceberg Braden’s twitter: @BradoCapital Peter’s twitter: @PeterMcCormack What Bitcoin Did Podcast Want to learn more about Real Estate Investing? Check out the Canadian Real Estate Investor Podcast! Apple Podcast - The Canadian Real Estate Investor  Spotify - The Canadian Real Estate Investor  Sign up to Stratosphere for free 🚀 our platform for self-directed stock investing research. Register for EQ Bank, the seamless digital banking experience with better rates and no nonsense.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome back into the show. This is the Canadian Investor Podcast, made possible by our friends and show sponsor, EQ Bank, which helps Canadians make bank with high interest and no fees on everyday banking. We also love their savings and investment products like GICs, which offer some of the best rates on the market. I personally, and I know Simone as well, is using the GICs, which offer some of the best rates on the market. I personally, and I know Simone as well, is using the GICs on a regular basis to set money aside for personal income taxes in April of every year. Their GICs are perfect because the interest rate is guaranteed, and I know I won't be able to touch that money until I need it for tax time. Whether you're looking to set some money aside for a rainy day or a big purchase is

coming through the pipeline or simply want to lower the risk of your overall investment portfolio, EQ Bank's GICs are a great option. The best thing about EQ Bank is that it is so easy to use. You can open an account and buy a GIC online in minutes. Take advantage of some of the best rates on the market today at eqbank.ca forward slash GIC. Again, eqbank.ca forward slash GIC. Hey, everyone, you're about to listen to an interview that I did with Peter McCormack a couple weeks ago. Some of you may be familiar with Peter. He's the host of the What Bitcoin Did podcast, and I'm sure some of you have already listened to some of his episodes. During this interview, we talked about a bunch of different topics, including Bitcoin adoption, some macro, and inflation, but especially how

people deal with inflation in Argentina, because Peter recorded a documentary earlier this year about how inflation impacts people in their day-to-day lives and how they are able to deal with that. And it's really interesting because it's much different to what we see here in Canada, in the US, in England, where Peter is from. So I really encourage you to listen to this episode, even if you're not into Bitcoin. Listen to it with an open mind because there were some really good topics that we discussed, some good discussion that Peter and I had. Now, before we go on to the interview, please keep in mind there is a little bit of swearing in this episode, but we did not want to edit that out. We wanted to keep it as it is to make sure that the true discussion is actually reflected. And now I hope you enjoy the discussion that I had with Peter McCormack. This is the Canadian Investor, where you take control of your own portfolio

and gain the confidence you need to succeed in the markets. Hosted by Brayden Dennis and Simon Bélanger. Well, Peter, welcome to the Canadian Investor Podcast. Peter McCormick, for those of you who are not aware, Peter, do you want to give them a little introduction? We have people that are very well versed in Bitcoin and some people that don't know much or sometimes aren't the most interested in it. So do you want to give them a little bit of a background what you do? Yeah, sure. Good to see you, Simon. Thank you for inviting me on your show. Yeah, my name is Peter McCormick. I host a podcast about Bitcoin. It's called What Bitcoin Did. I also make, I've started making documentaries. I've been doing that for a couple of

years, made four of those, actually seven of those now. And I also own a football club, which is called Rail Bedford Football Club. And we're essentially the Bitcoin team. Yeah, and they're doing quite well. I was doing a little bit of homework before the interview. And you guys, I think you're second in the league, but on the points percentage, it looks like you'd be first, right? Yeah, so there's one team above us. And they have five points above us, I believe. And they play four more games.

So based on our points per game so far, with those four games played, we would be top. But there is another team called MK Irish irish just below us and we're tight we've played the same amount of games on the same amount of points we've got the same goal difference we've scored one more goal than them and they've let in one less than us and and the way it goes it goes points first and then if you level on points it's your goal difference the difference between the goals you scored and led in would be the same. So we're above them because we've scored one more goal than them. We're actually going to be playing them tomorrow in the FA Vars,

but the weather is a bit crap, so it might get cooled off. Well, yeah, I feel like that's my idea of England. I've never been, but I feel like it's always raining. But hopefully you get some good weather. Yeah, fingers crossed. And just a quick question. So you're from Bedford. I mean, you talk And just a quick question. So you're from Bedford. I mean, you talk about it a lot.

I know you're very invested in the town. I think you have a bar there as well, right? Yeah, I do. I have a bar. Yeah, and I think you invest a lot in the community, which I think is great. And where is it located? It's a couple hundred kilometers, I think, from London.

No, not even that far. Not even that far? It's like 40 minutes on a train. Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't know what it is in kilometers maybe 80 yeah yeah it's 40 minutes on the train into king's cross from bedford direct in and if you're driving and there was no traffic you can get there in i don't just over an hour so it's not far at all we go to london all the time okay and kind of starting to transition to talk a bit more about bitcoin but how how's like, how are people feeling in England in general? Like, how's the economy going? Like, I know a little bit about it. But obviously, I'm well versed in Canada and the US specifically, because I'm from here. But I know from, you know, Ottawa is more of a government town. And typically, people see it as kind of immune to recessions. But with inflation and everything we've seen, you know, I've been talking to people and people are even struggling here, even though they're not losing their jobs because mortgage

payments are going up, cost of living is going up. And even food banks, there's a food bank near me where I see constant lineups. Are you seeing kind of the same thing back home? Yeah, I would say generally what we're going through in the UK is probably very similar to Canada, very similar to the US, very similar to a lot of Western liberal democracies. I mean, some of the fine details will be different, but I know food banks, there's a massive increase in demand on food banks. I think there is certainly a real issue with the cost of food, the cost of power, electricity and gas, cost of petrol to fill up your car, and rising interest rates have had an impact on people's mortgages when they flip from fixed rate to variables. And also, therefore, a massive increase in mortgage costs. Now, who's being affected and how they're being affected isn't totally obvious at the moment, but there's definitely this kind of eroding middle class, which, by the way, when I was growing up and people used to say, you know, they were concerned about the middle class. I'd be like, why are you concerned about the middle class? What about the poor? What about the working class? And then, you know, through education, I came to realize that an important part of an economy is a thriving middle class. They create the businesses and the jobs that are important as well.

But yeah, I would expect we're almost certainly going through a very similar situation with Canada. Some people are protected a bit more than others. Maybe some have saved more, got better mortgage rates. But it's not pretty out there. And things feel very expensive. I mean, I feel like my food costs are up about 25% year on year. I went the other morning to buy some stuff for the house.

I'd been away, and this is bacon, eggs, cheese, milk, the bread, the basic things to fill up the house. And it was about £45. I was in my head, I was thinking, what the hell if I just spent 45 pounds on it? I remember a few years back, you get a week shopping for 45 pounds. So yeah, probably a very, very similar experience. Yeah, I know. Even for me, it's hard to quantify, right? But I'm like you, oftentimes I look at the bill in Canadian dollars. Obviously, it's worth less than the pound or US dollars. And I'm kind of surprised of the lack of food that I'm actually getting. And you mentioned a recent podcast, you put the audio on, I don't have it, but I think

it was great. So I think it was with Preston Pish, James Lavish and Preston. And you were talking about, you put the audio of Rishi Sunak talking about inflation and being a tax on the poor an interview with the BBC and BBC was kind of pushing back because they wanted like you know traditional tax cuts and then to commit to that but he's saying well actually I think inflation is a tax that affects the poorest population you want to elaborate a bit more on that because I think a lot of people don't discuss that enough, in my opinion. So that was really interesting, because the previous time I tweeted about Rishi Sunakar, Prime Minister was when he said something that I thought

was wrong. And I thought he I thought he was either he was lying knowingly, or he was incompetent. Maybe both. I don't know. Yeah, maybe both. Yeah. But previously, he'd said that he wanted to reduce inflation to put more money in people's pockets. I was like, hold on a second. If you reduce inflation, yes, the rise in prices is you're slowing the rise in prices, but you're not putting more money in people's pockets. You're just taking less out of their pockets, but you've still got an increase in rate. Inflation, as you know, and your listeners know, it's an increasing chipping away at your purchasing power. So what he should have said is that, if he was totally honest, I want to reduce

inflation because inflation chips away at your purchasing power. And if I reduce it, we're going to be chipping away at it less. That would be the honest thing. But of course, he's not going to say that. And it's kind of gaslighting because I think most people who aren't in the world are thinking about money. They're like, oh, yeah, he's reducing inflation. I'm going to have more money.

No, it's just absolute bullshit. But anyway, so that was kind of interesting. But then to see him in an interview with the bbc and he was saying uh inflation is a hidden tax i was like yes it is a hidden tax i'd like him to have gone one step further and said it's a hidden tax because we the government benefit from it and we're the ones who caused it and we need to undo this like that would have been totally honest but he didn't but yeah i was just surprised him say then really was i surprised here the bbc pushback

perhaps the journalist interviewing doesn't fully understand inflation i mean i don't know about you when i was a kid growing up used to have the news on the background my dad would watch the news and they'll talk about inflations at two% or 3%. I used to think that number was like a sign of a growing economy. It was important to have a small amount of inflation because in my dumb kid brain, I was like, we're inflating the size of the economy. This is great. Now I understand, no, it's a little bit more insidious than that. Yeah. And I was reading an article and something that people don't mention regarding inflation a bit of as a tax is, you know, in an inflationary environment, people will oftentimes

ask for raises because they want to keep their purchasing power and so on. But I don't know if you thought about this, but one thing that doesn't change or very little is those tax brackets. So as people get higher salaries, exactly. So as people get higher salaries, because they're asking for it, because they need more money to keep their lifestyle, while they're actually getting taxed at a higher percentage as well. So I think a lot of people kind of forget about that part too. Yeah, the more you look into this, the more you learn, the more you educate yourself, the more you realize how insidious this system is and we just go through this very very slow multi-year multi-decade process of being kind of cheated out of our money lots and there's lots of little sneaky ways they do it like the other day

my son went to my son had tonsillitis so he took him to the doctors. What's that exactly? Like I'm French. Show you sometimes the terms. Tonsillitis. Let me get that in French for you. I'll tell you what it is. Tonsillitis in Canadian French. I know most terms, but some terms, like I grew up in French and did all my schooling in French.

What is this? A midget delete? Okay. Yeah, I know. It's like a throat infection what okay yeah okay so anyway we get his prescription now he's 19 so you have to you have to pay and he went in there and there was something along the lines of the certain tax breaks on medicines are being removed and it's something like nine pound when it would go to the basic with 13 pound i was like huh well the thing is is income tax rises income tax are never popular so what are the hundreds of other ways we you know give money away or we tax people what are the hundreds of other

ways that we can just try and make up the short form you know one thing i've come to understand and realize is it's something a guy called Eric Voorhees told me once when I was very, like within the first 50 episodes of making my podcast, he said that government always grows. It just always grows, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And as it does that, because the government doesn't produce anything, it's not a productive part of society, it just has to continually leech and and take from us the productive parts and so you know i've become kind of it's weird it's weird i've got many arguments about against libertarians but at the same time i feel myself becoming more

libertarian and thinking this is just crazy you know i'm working so hard you know i'm working so hard and so many people are working so hard. The amount of people, yeah, I see it in Canada. Sorry, I'm going on one here. No, no, that's okay. The amount of videos I've seen, the videos I keep seeing are in Canada. I keep seeing videos on social media of people saying, did you see the one recently of the lady outside the house? She was like, my parents were teachers and this is the house they lived in, two of them. I can't afford this house anymore. It was nice uh lakeside house she said

her and her husband are both teachers they now live in a one-bed flat apartment and it's leaking oh yeah i mean i haven't seen that video but we're in a full-on housing crisis i mean on for like we i do the canadian investor podcast but our network has a real estate podcast and you know i know the host really well i talk regularly. And yeah, our rents are going up because a lot of people can't afford homes. People with good salaries cannot afford homes because they can't qualify for these mortgages. Prices have come down a little bit, but because interest rate have gone up so much, we have something here called the stress test. So essentially, whatever interest rate you're approved on, you have to qualify for an extra 2%. So that was put in place like a decade ago around the great financial crisis in the US. I think they wanted to avoid similar kind of thing in Canada,

but I think we're probably starting to living it right now. So you have these people with large, you know, down payments saved up, they can't buy a home. So they go to the rental market, and then bids up the price. And we also had a massive increase in population, like massive increase, where the government didn't really, which, you know, I'm fine with immigration, but I think it's important to do it in a smart way. So you have the infrastructure to support people. And now we're seeing kind of the perverse effects of that. But yeah, I mean, I'm not surprised these videos are all over. I hear all the time. It's I mean, it's hard to say it's anecdotal at this point when you you constantly hear it and there's reports coming out from reputable organizations saying exactly the same thing.

But why don't you build more houses? You've got a lot of land in Canada and you're a small population. We do. I mean, there's a lot of red tape the federal government was reluctant like they've been kind of sitting we try not to get political but that's the reality they've been sitting on their laurels not doing too much there they remove recently uh a tax so our it's kind of a federal tax on goods so they remove that for builders that are actually building rental units.

So that will probably help. But again, these projects take oftentimes years to get started. So we're not gonna see the effects recently. They're starting to do small things here and there, but the cost of building materials is so high. And with interest rates, it really makes it difficult for a lot of builders to go ahead.

I mean, they're not in the business of charity. I get it. They have to have some kind of profit expectation. So I mean, that's in a nutshell what's happening. Obviously, I think I could talk about it for a while. As do-it-yourself investors, we want to keep our fees low. That's why Simone and I have been using Questrade as our online broker for so many years now. Questrade is Canada's number one rated online broker by MoneySense. And with them, you can buy all North American ETFs,

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On the topic of inflation, you referenced some videos you did, which I need to watch the other one. I recently watched Argentina one, which was fantastic, by the way, really good. And you know, what are some of your main takeaways? I mean, I really liked it. I, you know, what really stood out for me is there tends to be the richer population that are able to live quite well because they can have access to, you know, investments that are able to live quite well because they can have access to investments that are outside of the country. But the poor people are really affected with inflation. And you want to give people an idea how people are coping with this. And also, why aren't more people turning to Bitcoin? They're really turning from what I understand the US dollar.

Yeah. So there's a lot to unpack here. So I've traveled to a few countries now that have been through or experienced some very high inflation. I went to Venezuela a few years ago, I've just been out to both Lebanon and Argentina each time to make a documentary, and to learn about how people live with inflation. And lots of things stand out. What was really interesting about Argentina is, I went for dinner with a bunch of, say, middle class Argentinians, and they were talking to me about all the different tools they have access to, because as soon as they have pesos, they want to get rid of them. They want to get dollars.

And so they can get physical dollars, but they don't want to keep those in the bank because they don't trust the banks, or they want to get digital dollars or they'll buy investments in the US. There's a number of different ways they can mitigate inflation. But it takes a lot of time. They spend a lot of time moving money around. I was like, how much time do you spend on this? One guy was like, about 30% of my time. So about 30% of his time, it's like a second job.

Yeah. And another chap said to me, he said, yes, we all have to be CFOs. We all have to be the chief financial officers of our life because we have to manage the money because we have to think about it so much. And so that was super interesting, the amount of time people have to just think about the money itself. I had to think about it a little bit over this last couple of years because we've had high inflation, but minimally. This is not 30% of my time. And then the poorest people in society don't have access to the technology or the infrastructure to do such things so they're trapped in a system of an inflating

currency so that that was the first thing that really stood out to me is like how much people have to think about this secondly what stood out is how resilient people are they find a way and that is whether it's argentina lebanon venezuela anywhere i've been they find a way. And that is, whether it's Argentina, Lebanon, Venezuela, anywhere I've been, they find a way to cope and survive. But what you're really doing in very high inflation countries is you are choking a country. You're starving it. And I think it's, to me, I think it should be criminal to do this to a country because you're affecting millions, tens of millions of people. You're destroying their lives. You get a brain drain in each of these countries. What happens is the young people go, well, what's the point in staying here? I can't get a job,

but if I can, the money's not worth much. And even if I get a good job, I can't afford to buy a house. So the young people leave and they're the future of the country. In Argentina, it's very much a family-orientated country lebanon but they move they move to canada the us the uk the australia they just gtfo you know yeah because there's no future for them so you're destroying hope and as well you're destroying people's future so those things really you know as a filmmaker because i'm not really an expert on macro or finance or investing. So any of your listeners, I apologize. Most of the things I say, I'll be repeating what people I've interviewed have said to me. I'm just a normal bloke who goes around and meets people and lets them tell their stories.

But those two things really stood out to me. But then it forces you into a place where you have to think, well, why does this happen? And what is the solution? I mean, it happens because of very poor decisions by politicians and people who work in central banks. And I can't tell you whose decision or which decision is the worst, yada, yada. But it's the decisions that people make that lead a government or a central bank to massively increase the money supply. And that is usually from growing the size of government too big. And we know that's happened in Canada. Trudeau has massively increased

the size of government. We know that's happened in Australia. It's happened here. When you get a massive government, which isn't productive, it has to take from the productive parts. That's the natural thing. And when there isn't enough money to take from the productive parts, because you've taxed as much as you can, you print money. And when you print money, you increase the supplier money, which leads to inflation. I mean, it's a very simple, the math itself is very simple. And so I, you know, my very simple brain, I'm like, well, how do you fix this? Well, Simon, what happens at the end of the, do you rent or do you own your house? I own my house. Yeah. You own your house. What will happen at the end of the month if you don't pay your mortgage?

I'm going to start getting letters from the bank. Exactly. And what if you keep not paying it? Eventually, I think it's power of sell, so they'll force me to sell it. That's simple. Yeah, because they want their money back. Yeah, exactly. So you've got a lot of things to pay for.

You've got food, car, house. So do you have a budget? Yeah, yeah, I don't have a choice, yeah. Yeah, I have a one-year-old, so I've got to have a budget, yeah. But usually, if you needed a bit of money for something you couldn't get, you get a loan, right? The house is a loan, so you pay that back. What if I said to you, do you know what, Simon?

I can get you a loan machine, a special loan machine that sits upstairs in your bedroom, and you can take out any loan you want. And if you can't pay back that loan, you can just start another loan. And you can do that forever. What are you going to do? I mean, I would definitely consider it. I would strongly consider it. Probably do it. Yeah. And next to that little loan machine, I'm going to give you a money printer as well. And you can print money. I mean, this is basically the government has different rules from us. But look, we all know I have a budget.

If I don't pay my mortgage, I'm going to lose my house. Yeah. If I don't make a car payment, I'm going to lose my car. And if I do want to borrow money, I have to think about it carefully because there's consequences. But there's no consequences for government in this. And I think that's the biggest problem. The consequences, oh, four years down the line, you might get voted out. You'll probably still be an MP.

You'll probably still retain your job. You'll still get your after-dinner speaker gig when you leave government and earn fabulous amounts of money. And it's bullshit. We should have rules within there whereby the government should run a budget. I personally think the government should have a budget it should be a percentage of gdp and if the government wants to go over budget then there should be a referendum yeah and that referendum is do because at the moment we've got the incentives skewed right every time there's an election governments are we're going to reduce tax

but we're going to give you more money here and the only way they can do that is by usually printing money it's very rare we have governments with the surplus what if we twisted it all and said no if you overspend then it's going to trigger a referendum and you'll you'll go into there's going to be a new general election say well in that scenario then every government has an incentive to run a surplus and they they need to come and make offers for how they're going to run government so they don't lose money. Now, this might sound very naive and stupid, but I don't see why we shouldn't have rules like this. I don't see why we shouldn't have rules where politicians run us up into huge amounts of debt, which has consequences for generations down the

line why they can still be an mp why can they still have a job it just makes no sense to me because we're rewarding incompetence and lying yeah and i think governments too got addicted to rates that steadily fell since the early 1990s right so i mean i think you know being in a deficit was not that bad because you could just refinance the debt at a lower and lower cost constantly. So there was always this perception, oh, well, you know, our interest payments are not that high when you compare it to GDP. That is not too bad when you compare it to GDP. But now we're seeing the opposite effect. Obviously, governments, I'm assuming probably the same in England.

They, you know, borrowed tons of money during the pandemic. I know it's the case in Canada. And I was looking some data. So right now, the federal government in Canada pays about 2% of GDP and interest payments. So 2% of GDP, which is massive, people might not think it's big, but it's actually these are just interest payments. And obviously, they're climbing because they're spending even more overall. And obviously, the interest when they're refinancing is higher than it was just a few months or years ago. And then if we include our provinces, it's 4% of GDP on interest payments alone in Canada. So I don't know what the figures look like in England, but that's not sustainable, right? I think it's higher than that because our GDP is about 1.1 trillion

and we pay about 84 billion on interest payments. So we're near like, that must be what? Seven? Seven percent, yeah, seven percent. I know we spend more on interest payments, paying off the interest, not the loan, paying off interest than we spend on education, which to me is scandalous. How can you get in a place where you're spending more on interest than you are on education, which to me is scandalous. How can you get in a

place where you're spending more on interest than you are on education? That's ridiculous. There's one of your questions I didn't answer, though. You said, why are people not really adopting Bitcoin? Because it's a very important question. And I think, really, the connection between, hey, there's high inflation. Firstly think, firstly, they have to really, truly understand inflation. A lot of people don't. But when they do understand inflation, then you've got to say to them, well, we've got an alternative for you. It's called Bitcoin.

The thing about Bitcoin is the price is super volatile. It's a decentralized form of money. It's kind of loosely regulated. You have to store it in a hardware box. I mean, it's just too big a leap for people dollars are so much easier to understand i think i think you have to understand bitcoin itself at its core before you start to apply the reasons you should own it you know you can learn about this but i think i think you need to learn about it in a non-stress situation.

Oh, yeah. That's not to say that everyone won't, but the connection between Bitcoin and inflation, there's a huge lag. I mean, with Bitcoin, you get to front-run inflation, but usually by a couple of years. I was buying Bitcoin through the pandemic. Yeah, same for me. I started in 2018. That's when I really started buying. Yeah, same for me. I started in 2018. That's when I really started buying.

Yeah. Yeah, but there is a lag. So it's a very difficult connection for people to make. It's too much to learn. It's too difficult. So I think that's probably one of the main reasons why. Dollars just make a lot more sense. It kind of, you know, if you're in Argentina, well, the dollar, it looks like a peso.

I use it like a peso, but it holds my value. And I think that's a much easier step. When the dollar starts to massively inflate, when we talk about hyperinflate, well, where else will you go? The Bitcoin will be all that's left. But I think it's just a very big lump, a very big jump to make. Even now, right, I own Bitcoin, and I still buy Bitcoin. But I'm not buying Bitcoin today because of inflation in the future, in the next few weeks, years. I'm buying Bitcoin now because 1% a week, every week consistently, of course, you would never hold anything else.

Yeah. But it doesn't. It goes up and down like a lunatic. Yeah, exactly. And I really like that. You had in your movie one that made me laugh, like a kind of section where you were trying to get some US dollars and doing it. Was it with USDT that you were trying? Yeah some us dollars and doing it was it with usdt

that you were trying yeah on ethereum and then on tron yeah so it's the first time interestingly in my entire life as having you know and i've got a decent sized bitcoin podcast this was the first time i'd ever used tether because i've never needed it yeah and just your reaction i think it was a great uh like it's a great moment in the movie. And I think it reflects why a lot of people may be afraid to get into Bitcoin, because you're literally saying, I'm stressed out, I'm gonna kind of mess this up. And I'm used to like, if it was Bitcoin would not be an issue. I've done it so many times that I've had the same experience. When I first got in, I had a buddy of mine who got really, really early into crypto,

like not just Bitcoin, shit coins as well. But he got in, I think, in 2012, like quite early. And at least I could rely on him to kind of walk me through and making sure I didn't mess up anything. And now I'm very comfortable with it. I've got cold storage as well. But I think that's a big, big barrier for people. And I've heard that as well.

a big, big barrier for people. And I've heard that as well. As do-it-yourself investors, we want to keep our fees low. That's why Simone and I have been using Questrade as our online broker for so many years now. Questrade is Canada's number one rated online broker by MoneySense. And with them, you can buy all North American ETFs, not just a few select ones, all commission-free so that you can choose the ETFs that you want. And they charge no annual RRSP or TFSA account fees. They have an award-winning customer service team with real people that are ready to help if you have questions along the way. As a customer myself, I've been impressed with Questrade's customer service. Whenever I call or email, every support rep is very knowledgeable and they get exactly what I need done quickly. Switch for free today and keep more of your money. Visit questrade.com for details. That is

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forward slash host. So what are your thoughts? So we've heard about, obviously, Larry Fink is now the biggest Bitcoin cheerleader on mainstream media. It sounds like it looks like there's going to be a spot Bitcoin ETF approved in the US maybe in the next six months. That's what I've been reading. Do you think it's good or bad? Like I've heard, I know, I think you had Matt O'Dell a while back on a panel and he was not very kind of lukewarm on the Bitcoin ETF idea. I have my own views, but I'm just interested in how you view that, the kind of pros and cons. Well, look, everything's good for Bitcoin in the end, but there's good and bads to this. So let's deal with the good first. If Larry Fink and BlackRock get an ETF,

lots of people get ETFs. And you will have Larry Fink and his army of advisors now selling the Bitcoin dream to people around the world. I have no idea. What have they got, 20 trillion under management? I don't know. A bit less. I think last I checked was around 10, 11 trillion, depending on how the markets are going. Yeah. That was 10 trillion between friends, right?

Exactly. That's a third of the US national debt they've got under management. It legitimizes it to everybody. Anyone who's had any reservations, here's Larry Fink say, this is a flight to quality that legitimizes it. And it also makes it easier for people who are institutional investors or wealthy investors to buy into it. So naturally, this is going to do a number of things. It's going to send a signal to the world, not just investors, but why would you regulate Bitcoin in the Europe to the point of non-usage when the US has an ETF, which is essentially legitimized in it? So it will lead to a massive interest. It will lead to lots of purchasing. It will grow the price. We'll have crazy boom time. There'll be loads of talk about Bitcoin. My podcast numbers will go up. It will be a raging bull market, which is great.

And the more people learn about it, the more Bitcoin grows, the better it is, because I believe the more money that's in Bitcoin, the better the world is, because it's a check and balance on the government money printer. It's not great for Bitcoiners, and it's not great for the Bitcoiners who hold shares in the ETF, because Bitcoin is this incredible technology. So anybody who's listening, who's got a mild interest in Bitcoin, think about Bitcoin as the digital version of the Australian dollars, the American dollars, the English pounds that are in your pocket, the actual physical dollars. Now that person listening is probably thinking, what are you on about, Pete? How can you have a digital

version of that? I've got digital money. If I go into my bank account, I've got that there. But the difference is, with your bank account, it's not a bear instrument. It's an IOU. If your bank says to you, you're going to your bank, you've got $1,000 in there, that is an IOU. That is the bank saying, we owe you $1,000. If you go to an ATM, we'll give that to you. But we know during the trucker protests, which you will probably be fully aware of being in Ottawa, they can close down access to your bank accounts or banks can fail. So any dollar or pound you hold with a bank is at risk. It's at a risk that the bank itself fails. And there's a run on the bank, some kind of economic catastrophe that leads to that.

There's a censorship risk in that you do something whereby the government says, don't let them access their money. Both have been experienced in the last 15 years, let's say. So the thing about Bitcoin is that when you hold it, you hold something called the private keys. So if you have it in a hardware wallet and you physically store it, when you see those numbers, that isn't an IOU by the Bitcoin network or a bank because you hold the private key. The private key is what allows you to send that Bitcoin. It's a bare asset. So you have that. That's yours. And so that's why it's a digital version of the dollars in your pocket. By the way, I've talked so much, I've

forgotten even the question you asked me. Oh, yeah. It's all good. No, I think it's good. Just the pros and cons of a Bitcoin ETF. Yeah. So if you hold the ETF, you don't hold the private keys. What's happening is BlackRock are buying the Bitcoin and they are giving you a share in that Bitcoin. But if BlackRock was to, I don't know, start lending out that Bitcoin or make a mistake, you're at risk. We say in Bitcoin, not your keys, not your Bitcoin. You always want to hold the private key. But what I would hope is that the people buying through BlackRock would have an interest then

in learning about Bitcoin and realize, oh, do you know what? I need to stop buying this ETF. I need to buy the physical Bitcoin. I need to own the Bitcoin. I need to hold the private keys. And then the other thing is, yeah, if BlackRock are buying a shit ton of this Bitcoin, you will have a whole load of this Bitcoin essentially custodied in a central location. But Bitcoin is about decentralization. So it's not something we ideally want. No, I think that's a good point. And to the pros,

I would say like, look, the reason we started this podcast and I work in the pension and retirement world. So I explain people their, you know, their pension, how it works. And, you know, I've noticed a lot of people like even investing in stocks, which is pretty easy or investing in index funds. People get scared, like they really get scared about learning what they don't know. And the way I view the Bitcoin ETF, I'm kind of like you, I'm kind of in between, I would say. I think there's some good, some bad, but I think it's a good way for people to at least get some exposure to it. And I've noticed when people have some exposure to it, they start learning more about whatever asset it is, in this case, Bitcoin, and then would potentially look at holding actual Bitcoin into self-custody. So that's kind of the approach I look at it because to me, and maybe it leads me to my other question, like how do you approach, you know, Bitcoin to, you know, people in your lives that may not own Bitcoin, maybe, you know, whether they're reluctant, whether they're

completely closed off, whether they're open-minded, like what's your pitch to them? Because I've been struggling with that. And I know you've talked about your part on your podcast that that can be a little bit of a struggle for you too. So yeah, you give me some tips, Peter. I know I travel the world, interview lots of people. They've seen some certain changes in my life that have benefited me from holding Bitcoin financially. Yet when we go out, we don't talk about it. They've got no interest in it. It is such a leap for people. And I think it's for a few reasons.

People want to buy and the price goes up, but they're always aware that it can drop back down. So that worries people. They don't really understand it at the level that someone deep down the rabbit hole does. They just think of it as some weird, crazy internet money, some weird investment. They don't realize that actually this is an economic tool to fight back against government, poor government, economic policy, against currency debasement, that it can be used for activists around the world to avoid

capital controls or surveillance. It's an incredible technology. Wrapping your head all around that whilst you've got to go to work and look after your kids. It's a lot. It's a lot. So it's a big leap for some people. It's not just like buying shares in Apple where you're like, well, Apple are doing well. I'll buy shares in them and that will go up in value. So it's just a big leap. It's easier to explain to people in countries that are screwed. If you're in Argentina, Bitcoin is easy to explain to people. But it's hard.

So I kind of don't worry about it much anymore now. I'm here as a resource if people want to know about it. But I've given up the battle of trying to convince people. I think people will find it at the time that's right for them and it's it's like all things you're you're not the earliest adopter of bitcoin but you're fairly early but i imagine you were probably similar with the internet similar most things you're just that kind of person yeah me too i was like eight years old in like mid 1990s early early 1990s. And we had like, you know, those Pentium, Pentium, like Intel inside, like 286 and stuff like that.

And the dial up modem and all that stuff. Yeah. Out of Vista. Out of Vista was amazing. But you're one of those people. And that's just the way it is. But I do just encourage people. I just say, listen, has inflation impacted your life?

Has it? And just say, listen, has inflation impacted your life? Has it? And if they say yes, I said, well, it's going to continue to impact your life for the next decade at least. I'm not telling you to buy Bitcoin, but I encourage you to learn about it. And there's so many resources out there. I've made some good podcasts. There's some great books. I encourage you just to go and learn about it. Dedicate a few hours of your time here or there, just listen to some podcasts. I'm not telling you to buy it. I mean, there's an article on my football team website that says why you should not buy Bitcoin. And really, it's an article which is why you should learn about Bitcoin. Yeah. No, I think that's...

You cannot force people to do it. You cannot force me to lose weight. People tell me all the time, I just don't do it. I still drink and eat eat shit it's just the way it is no and i think that's great and i found one thing that when people come to me and they're interested but the concern is more the volatility i just tell them look put whatever percentage of your portfolio you're fine that it would go to zero i'm not i don't think it will go to zero but with that mindset when you have a 50 correction or 80 we've seen like i've been long enough to zero. But with that mindset, when you have a 50% correction or 80%, we've seen like I've been long enough to in it to know that, you know, it's not fun to see in your portfolio. But if you go in with that mindset, then you don't end up panicking and selling.

I don't know if you've tried that approach with people before. No, like I say, I've tried. I mean, I've tried lots of approaches, but I just don't bother now. Yeah, I'm just I live my life. People know what I do. If they want to ask me about it, they know where I am. No, that's great. And I'll kind of finish on two things. The first thing is, I don't know if you consider yourself a Bitcoin maxi or more of a Bitcoiner,

but I've seen sometimes in the community, people can get pretty aggressive with other people. Do you know that? They do that with me too. Oh, yeah other people. Do you know that's it? Like I... They do that with me too. Oh, yeah. Okay. So you kind of know where I'm coming from. But I have a hard time with that sometimes because I'm usually...

I'm on good terms with tons of Bitcoiners. I consider myself a Bitcoiner, even though I have about 20% of my portfolio in it. But do you find that's a bit of a detriment for the adoption of Bitcoin? Do you think like in general, the community should have a more, you know, kind of, you know, empathy towards people trying to learn or get into the space? What are your thoughts on that? What? Look, I'm not an ideological maxi. I'm just a Bitcoiner.

I don't give a crap about any other cryptocurrency. I think dollars, stable coins on other protocols are useful. And I've seen them used in countries where people are really struggling. So I'm not against them, but I don't buy any other cryptocurrency. I don't care about NFTs or any of that nonsense. Yeah, I mean, yeah. But I'm not an ideological Bitcoiner where I think Bitcoin was a gift for God and we must all eat meat and yada, yada.

I don't worry about the maxis turning people off because I think about how do people find out about Bitcoin? And most of the time it's through a friend or they read something in a magazine. It's only when you actively participate in Bitcoin where you join, you listen to certain podcasts or you get on Twitter, then you start to see it's a little bit crazy. But then you've got to get pretty deep in to find the like the proper psycho maxis so that again that doesn't worry me and then by the way i think the maxis are important there's like really strong ideologically driven maxis who will defend the bitcoin protocol because we need it defended you know we need to defend it from terrible ideas you know centralizing forces so i think they're an important part, but I don't worry

because I think people are going to learn it through you or me or their other friends. And so that to me is, it might look like a big problem, but I don't see it as a problem at all. Okay, no, I can, I can understand that perspective. And I guess the last question, because I know we're running a bit long on time is just going back to the Bitcoin ETF. Do you think there's a risk of TradFi, you know, getting a hold of the kind of on and off ramps and potentially doing, you know, more control with people trying to obviously, you know, get money into Bitcoin, but also getting money out? Like, do you think that's a risk? Obviously, with Bitcoin, you can always go into a more friendly jurisdiction and access your Bitcoin that way. But do you think that's a risk? Obviously, with Bitcoin, you can always go into a more friendly jurisdiction and access your Bitcoin that way. But do you think that's a risk with

the Bitcoin ETF? I was thinking about that recently. Just your thoughts. I know, August, it's not in the questions I sent you, but I figured I asked it. By the way, I didn't read the questions. I'll tell you why not, because I don't want to prepare. I want to hear them and answer honestly, and then i'll overthink it do i think that gives some control on and off ramps no not really i mean i know what you're saying is that yeah if government regulate the way the the traditional exchanges the only way you could hold bitcoin would be to hold an iou for bitcoin like a bank i mean that's a potential that's that's like how money works now but i don't see that currently as a risk i think that i think there would be some big regulatory challenges some big legal challenges to that and we look

even with the etf we've seen recently that you can challenge the sec and the government i mean grayscale despite everything they've done on a an sec lawsuit which i think has shifted the the wins in this so no i don't i don't worry about that no not currently that doesn't mean we shouldn't be cognizant of it and but we should be cognizant of all risks but no i'm not worried about yeah by the way uh that grayscale ceo interview was pretty good it was i mean i thought you you asked some hard questions like i know he wasn't thrilled about it but i think it was it was a great interview by the the way. Thank you. It's a hard question sometimes. Yeah, exactly. Well, I think that does it, Peter, for today. Really, thank you for joining us. Can

you tell people where they can find you? Obviously, if they want to go see some football as well, just give them your pitch. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Simon. So yeah, my podcast is called What Bitcoin Did. It's a very easy podcast to get into. I ask simple questions. I'm not the smartest person in the world. So I get people to explain things so I can understand. If you want to learn about Bitcoin, go and check that out. If you want to follow me on Twitter, it's just my name at Peter McCormack. And if you like football, soccer, I own a team in the ninth tier of the English football pyramid called RAL Bedford, R-E-A-L, Bedford. We won the league last year, so we were in the 10th. We might win it this year,

so we could go to the eighth. Yeah, come and check us out and appreciate your time, Simon. No, that's great. And actually, last question. So can you explain what a reverse repo is? Maybe. I'm just, no, no, I'm just kidding. Do you know what? What is it? It was told it's a pawn shop. Is it a pawn shop for debt? Is it debt? Yeah, pretty much. Well, you use assets, typically bonds.

So to the Federal Reserve, they'll give you cash, and then you have the right to get it back for a fee. Yeah, it's a pawn shop for debt. Yeah, Nick Bats, yeah. Thanks a lot, Peter. Bye-bye. Simon, appreciate you. Thank you, mate.

The Canadian Investor Podcast should not be taken as investment or financial advice. Simon, appreciate you. Thank you, mate.