The Pomp Podcast - #1350 Renato Moicano | UFC Fighter Is ALL-IN on Bitcoin

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

Renato Moicano is a UFC Fighter who went viral after his most recent fight, talking about defending liberty, importance of private property rights, and suggest everyone read the 6 lessons of Ludwig Von Mises. In this conversation, we talk about the lessons he has learned from Brazilian constitution vs American constitution, private property rights, why he suggested Ludwig Van Mises, principles of America, why he views bitcoin as a lifeboat, capitalism, national debt, taxation, upcoming elections, inflation, the responses he has received, and crypto in Brazil. ======================= In this podcast, we dive into the revolutionary concept of PropyKeys, an application that allows anyone to mint home addresses all over the world on blockchain. PropyKeys.com is a part of the Propy ecosystem, that has a grand mission to make homeownership more affordable and user friendly. We will explore the journey of Propy’s founder and how this innovative technology provides benefits for homeowners, and for the real estate industry. Join us as we discuss the Propy’s latest collaborations, including Coinbase, and its new fun project PropyKeys. X (Twitter): @PropyKeys Website: Mint an address at propykeys.com. dApp: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://dapp.propy.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ======================= Get the freshest price feeds free for 12 months. Join Supra’s early integration program for zero-cost access to the fastest oracles and dVRF across 50+ blockchains: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://supra.com/pomp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Earn $1,500 by referring Web3 projects to use Supra services. The projects get the fastest services for free, and you earn $1,500 for every referral. Learn more at the link above. ======================= Pomp writes a daily letter to over 265,000+ investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://pomp.substack.com/ ======================= View 10k+ open startup jobs: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://dreamstartupjob.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Enroll in my Crypto Academy: https://www.thecryptoacademy.io/

What's up everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Many of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, which is my effort to find the most interesting people in the world and sit with them for hours while I ask questions in an effort to learn. So it would mean the world to me if you would subscribe to the show on your favorite audio platform, watch episodes on YouTube, and tell your friends and family about the podcast. My goal is to help millions learn from the world's most interesting people. So let's get into today's episode. Today's episode is with Renato Moicano. He's a UFC fighter who recently went viral after his most recent fight. He was talking about defending liberty, the importance of private

property rights, and he suggested everyone read The Six Lessons. It's a book by Ludwig von Mises. In this conversation, we talk about the lessons he learned from Brazilian constitution versus the American constitution, why he thinks private property rights are so important, why he suggested that specific book, how he learned about the principles of America, why he views Bitcoin as a lifeboat, his thoughts on capitalism, the national debt, taxation, upcoming elections, inflation, and the response he has received after that viral speech after his fight. This conversation is fascinating. Renato is an absolute beast. He's in the cage, but he also has got great understanding of American history and economics. Excited for you guys to

listen. Here's my conversation with Renato Moicano. Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. Today's episode is brought to you by Propy. Imagine a world where you could buy and sell your home wallet to wallet.

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If you're just listening and know any builders, you can earn $1,500 by letting them know about this deal. They can get the fastest oracles for free for 12 months and you get $1,500 for every referral. Visit supra.com slash pomp to learn more. That's S-U-P-R-A dot com slash pomp. All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got Renato here. You went viral on the internet for this amazing speech after your most recent UFC fight. And you were talking about defending liberty, the importance of private property rights. You suggested people go read Ludwig von Mises' Six Lessons. And I think everyone said, wait a second, how is it that a UFC fighter may understand economics and the importance of these ideals more than our government or the people who

are running our economy? And so I thought a great place to start is just like you grew up in Brazil. Now you live in the United States. What are the lessons that you learned growing up in that environment and now coming to the U.S. where maybe it's supposed to be a little bit different? Yes, I think it's a lot of difference. If you understand like the difference between the Brazilian constitution and the American constitution, it's a huge difference, you know, because especially the way the founding fathers, they made the constitution, what they were trying to protect, right? Individual freedoms. So you can speech, you can defend yourself, You have the right to keep the stuff that you work for.

So when people say private property, what is private property? It's just you using, enjoying the fruits of your labor. It's not nothing different than that. So if you have a house, if you have money, if you have ways to produce, you have to keep them. And I think in Brazil, people don't think like that. we have like a strong socialist and uh and communist mindset so they think we need to share everything we need to uh in brazil they want always more government they want all more control and when i got here in america i saw not everybody not everybody but some people right they they like

the constitution they praise the constitution they praise liberty the individualism you know uh the classic liberalism the things that made america great and and then i start to realize man in brazil is so different let me see why and then i start to to to to dive in american history american revolution and and and all that aspects of why america was founded and and compared to brazil and completely different brazil always is trying to copy america but in a bad way you know So we had a monarchy in Brazil and we had like a military coupé and they put like oligarchs, you know, what was not like in America. We have the founding fathers and then you have Benjamin Franklin and you have George Washington. And he didn't even want to be people want him to be the king. Right.

And he said, no, let's do like a republic. Let's keep the Constitution. Let's keep like people that produce voting. it's not like a democracy it's not like everybody's voting because not everybody is producing in brazil is different they they took the power for the monarchy and they give to to reach families into oligarchies that was switching between power so brazil is corrupt because of that i think because his its foundation so i think when i start to look into this and that's why that's the difference. But right now, nowadays, I think people not realize that the republic is degenerate into a democracy. And they think everybody, even people that don't produce, they have the right to

enjoy the fruits of the labor of somebody else. And that's why I was so invested in Ludwig von Mises and the right of the private property. So when you started to go down this kind of rabbit hole and you wanted to learn more about it. I would say that just talking to you for a few minutes, you are better educated on American history and some of the ideals and foundations of the country than people who grew up here their entire life, right? And so, why did Ludwig von Mises and the six lessons, like, why did that speak so much to you? And why did you feel compelled after the fight to, on a national stage, tell everyone, hey, go read this book? There's a lot of things you could have said, but you told people to go read a very specific book. Actually, I know you

guys are a huge crypto community and i'm i'm really into the bitcoin again not because so people think i love america and i like america and i love brazil i love america but most for most and most i like the principles you know the principles because i don't think you are special because you're born in america i don't think i am special because i'm born in brazil i don't have pride and and and think and things that i am natural i'm pride on what i do you know my principles and America thinks the same. I think Americans, American people, citizens, they should be proud of the Constitution because the laws, it's just about institution, right? If you have incentives to be bad, you're going to be bad. If you have incentives to be good

and Bitcoin is like that, all the right incentives to keep like scarcity, right? Decentralization. uh so the principles of bitcoin that got me into the this habit role and after the fight i am so uh invested in bitcoin meaning that i like the protocol i like the technology i look i like the revolution to take the money out the government you know so they cannot print they cannot control they cannot tax of course they can tax capital gains you know but at the same time um let's say if the if the shits go south right you have your and you have your your bitcoin on your custody right you could move country so it's like a it's like a boat it's like a lifeboat bitcoin i see like a lifeboat so uh i wanted to talk about bitcoin i want to talk about uh but i thought

man if i go over there and talk about bitcoin people will just uh miss the point you know because I knew like people involved with crypto and Bitcoin, they would say, oh, look at this guy. He's talking about Bitcoin. But the general public, they don't understand. They think it's a scam. So I thought, okay, I'm going to talk about the same principles, but I will try to bring to a broad audience.

And I will talk about like classic liberalism and Ludwig von Mises and people from Bitcoin will understand. And people that are not from Bitcoin, they will try to look into, they will try to read the books and maybe they get what I'm saying. And I think a lot of people did. Yeah, that's very smart is to basically talk about it without mentioning the word, I think, is a clever way to try to almost red pill, right? A large portion of people.

What has the response been after you, you know, again, talking about private property rights, defending liberty, the U.S. Constitution, some of these different ideas? Like, it seemed like on the Internet, people were really receptive. Was there any negative feedback? Some people in Brazil, they say like I am praising too much America, praising too much the USA, that I'm like licking boots and stuff. But at the same time, I don't care. You know why? Because I'm not defending America.

I'm defending the principles. It's like the blockchain. You know, it's something deeper than Bitcoin. It's something deeper than make money. You know, I started in Bitcoin as a, how they say, like a speculative, right? I want to make money. But now that I understand there is so much things involved on crypto and Bitcoin that it's not only about money. It's like principles.

And in America, it's the same. You know, it was the first, man, the Constitution of America, how many years we have the Constitution. And it keeps at, it keeps, how do I say that? If you look, it's the same thing that we're fighting for. Like freedom, rights, and it keeps like something from the present, you know? So it's old, but we still can apply today. So I don't think we need to change. I think we still have to conserve the values and the principles that make America great.

But some people don't like, right? Some people like, that's why I tell people, read the book. he will explain about capitalism socialism interventionism like inflation uh investments and politics and ideas and i think the the book is so good because it's easy to read i'm not a scholar i'm not a smart guy and the way he talks you can really understand so see what he's talking about and then you're going to understand is we have the same problems over taxation uh the government printing money the debit is is like how how much is the debt 37 37 billions or something like that we are spending more money than are we making but the government he has this this free

card of printing money and they can get its way out of debit to printing money and to taxation you by inflation it's all about that you know yeah what's uh for those that don't uh know the book or haven't read it before it's basically transcriptions of speeches that he gave in Argentina a couple of decades ago. And he goes through both kind of history, but also these mental frameworks. And one of them is capitalism versus socialism. And what's interesting is you're basically saying, again, overgeneralization, but Brazil is more kind of socialist and America tends to be more capitalist. What about the people in Brazil? Are they interested in Bitcoin? Are they more so trying to use stable coins? Like what do you see with either your friends, your family,

people you know in Brazil and kind of how they're interacting with these technologies? Most of people that I talk to in Brazil, they don't know about crypto. They don't know about the principles of the blockchain. So it would be hard for me to say because every time that I go to Brazil, I usually don't talk about this. I don't talk about economics. But I know a lot of people are starting to realize that, but not on my personal circle, you know. So I cannot give you an accurate answer on that. But definitely, it's less people than Americans.

Yeah. You think in America, people are more aware of this stuff than maybe in Brazil, just with the people you interact with? I think so. But it's hard to say because most of people that I interact with, they have the same principles as me. So it's like a bubble, right? So everything that I talk to, they think that what I'm doing is amazing.

But I'm pretty sure there is a lot of people that don't like me. But again, I think that's important. That's freedom of speech. That's I want people to to to talk shit about me. I don't care. You know, you have to be strong. You have to do what you what you believe. So. Right. So I usually I don't think too much about that. But most of people that I live with and talk to, they are on the same boat. So talk about America and kind of your analysis. It felt like when you brought this up, you knew it was on the national stage.

If you obviously thought about it in advance and kind of what the right positioning was, were you issuing a little bit of a warning? Were you saying, hey, America may be moving away from these ideals and these principles and actually you as the people should go and educate yourselves on it to make sure that that doesn't happen? You tell me, right? We've seen like the welfare and the social programs. Like I know a lot of – I know people love free stuff. And I saw that in Brazil and in Argentina. And if you keep doing that, how are you going to pay? because there is one point and the book explained that to like big time uh when you start this

interventionism it's it's very hard to stop because we live in a democracy the the representatives they have to be voted on so imagine saying hey we're gonna we're gonna stop the programs we're not gonna give you money who is going to vote for the guy so the populism and the interventionism They are so tight. That's almost impossible. When you like, let's say Medicaid, right? How much money the government is spending on Medicaid and in social programs? Imagine if they say, no, we have to be responsible. The debit's too high. We're going to stop the programs. Who are we going to vote for? And this administration, they keep doing the populism, right? They keep saying they keep bringing more people. They keep they want to tax more.

Did you see Joe Biden wants to tax on a 42% the capital gains? And that's never work. We saw it on Brazil. We saw in many other places, like if you tax the rich, they're going to leave because they don't want to get hurt by that. We saw that in France, right? A lot of billionaires and millionaires, they move out because looking for like tax-free paradise because that's it, the money and the capitalism system.

What is capitalism? you want to to to keep as much as money as possible it's it's create wealth and i don't and back in the day i didn't realize that but the government they don't they it doesn't create healthy wealthy for the other they take wealthy of the rich people to give to to to poor people but the problem is not only that's immoral and that they are very bad at doing that so when you You know, that's the problem. They take your money and they are very bad to, because if you see politician,

most of them, they are not very good businessmen. Even though like some of them like to trade stocks and stuff and they're doing pretty well. And it's very hard to know why. In the personal life, they are not creating business. They are not creating jobs. They are not creating wealth. So how they can manage your money

in the best possible way? They don't, because in the end of the day, They want to be on the power one more time so they will do everything. They will screw the country to have their own agenda. So that's my whole problem with that. Yeah, it's this weird thing where the people who have generated enormous wealth obviously are good at capitalism, right? Like they've created the jobs, they've built the businesses,

they've driven the returns in investing. And taxation, especially egregious high taxation, takes money from the best capital allocators And it gives it to the government who historically have been the worst capital allocators. And so the definition of destruction of wealth is to take from good capital allocators and give it to bad ones. Now, there are many programs that the government puts together or spends money. How do you think about maybe things that the government does do well? Are there is there anything that they are good at doing or is it something where you think, hey, maybe we actually should operate in a system where allow the free markets to try to solve these problems?

It's very hard to me because, like, again, I'm not a special specialist, but as I read and try to understand, I don't think the government does anything right. the only thing that the government should keep doing right is protecting the country right police enforcement like army everything to keep the the the country safe i think that's the the main reason because if you but if and the interventionism what they say on the book is like every time they they make a decision it it might seems good but in the end of the day will affect the the market in the industry right because he talks about the milk nobody will be opposed to lower the the price of the milk so more kids could uh have milk and like with that be smarter but if you if you if you put the prices down you're going to affect the way uh the they produce the milk

like the cow's food and the whole industry we're going to suffer from that so this intervention insistence is like a domino effect so it's going like cascade we're going to affect the whole market and then they will try to fix the prices and then it's like a cascade so i think government should stay away from from from the market and just care about the justice system right police law enforcement and army that's my opinion but again i don't like to talk too much about about parties and policies. I like to talk about principles, you know? And again, I'm just new to that stuff.

I'm just seeing what, and I'm trying to talk my mind. I'm not a specialist. So that is just my opinion. Yeah, listen, but you're doing something that seems like it is important, but many people don't do, which is you're trying to go find information.

You're trying to learn. You're putting in the hours and the time to read books, to talk to people, to elicit feedback, all those things that help somebody get educated about it. Right. I always whenever I see people talking about this, they everyone starts out at the same level. We don't know anything. And you have to go and you have to get started. And so reading or listening to interviews, talking to other people, that's

how you learn, which I think is pretty important. How do you feel along kind of these principles? It feels like, you know, in the United States, we're coming up on an election year. You've got Joe Biden and Donald Trump are going to kind of go head to head. One of the things that I see lots of people talking about online is there's one camp of people who say, you know, Donald Trump broke a bunch of laws. The courts are going after him. They're going to punish him for whatever he ended up doing or not doing. And kind of the court of law will be the judge there. Other people are saying, wait a second, this is like other countries in South America or in Africa, et cetera, where actually it's one political party trying to prosecute their political rival. And so, you know,

you grew up in Brazil, but also there's many countries that are, you know, in and around brazil that some of the times this does happen and so like how do you kind of look at that as somebody who's come to america and spending time now trying to understand the principles of the country first of all what about you say about learning is like it's like on the bitcoin space right don't trust verify i think everything that you that you want to learn don't take it for granted like don't just listen to people say what they have to to talk with them say what they have to say and then you verify and then you buy books and then you go to the internet and see different opinions again I think it's all about populism so I think Biden will spend a lot of money especially

in 2024 to get re-elected his popularity is very bad they are trying to crucify Donald Trump they are trying to take him out of the the election through through maneuvers into schemes right with the the justice system again but i don't think anybody's a saint i'm not saying uh donald donald trump is a saint but at the same time i i would say of course he would be much better for america than joe biden especially because he is being an entrepreneur he he is having success on his personal life with business and stuff of course he will do good for for the businessman and for the entrepreneurs. So I really don't know what's going to happen,

but I don't see Joe Biden winning this election. But again, it could be just my perception because the people that I convict, the people that I leave, right? The people that I talk, the people on the gym, they all have the same political spectrum of myself. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What are the things that have surprised you the most

about America as you've been living here And given this kind of lens that you have with these kind of core principles, do you feel like America is continuing to kind of live up to these? Or is that why you're so interested in it is because you had an expectation of America and then the reality is something different? No, I got here 2017, 2018. It was very, very different. You know, I think this COVID years changed America for good, like very, very deep. because when i got here i i remember asking myself oh especially in florida right everybody had a job everybody had houses uh the the market was going very good you know the people buying

houses with like two percent interest in very good houses and then and then we have 2024 and i saw a lot of people like no jobs a lot of people like struggling and mentally because we saw that you know i there is one book that i like a lot is 1984 that talks about uh like a socialist government like strong government central power and i think that that was that was what happened with covid right they took advantage of that to try to control people to try to keep people uh like inside their homes like to and at the same time they use that the canadian economics right to print money and give and give uh welfare to the people and that and that excuse me my word but fuck up the world you know because the world is is like it's globalized everybody every every

other country they use dollar so america not only screw his own economy but he it the whole world because everybody use the dollar as the to trade and to me nowadays is impossible for a guy of my buy a house is impossible you know that's why that's why what i'm saying they they are trying to kill the american dream because when i moved here i was hoping to see a better country and i was seeing a better country but 2024 a lot of people on the street so i think the economics of it plays a huge play on that we never seen america printing that much money so of course that will affect the whole world and maybe we see a revolution but at the same time that's good for the the crypto and the bitcoin because more people are uh were accepting that the government is not

good on on control your money so they're trying to find another ways to keep the value to keep your money safe so you it depends how you look it to to the problems right but for the for the most part, for the most people, it's been catastrophic in 2024. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. The last thing I want to talk to you about is inflation. In Brazil, it's not like Argentina inflation. It's not over 100%. It's not kind of out of control, but it's high. It's been kind of 5% to 9%, 10%. And it's been compounding year after year after year at a higher than 2% rate. And so what are people saying at home? Is inflation just a part of life and they've just gotten used to with kind of a little bit higher inflation level always was always was now doubt

is not right now is not out of control but in the 70s on the 80s was like Argentina like people people would go to the grocery stores and they they were buying like let's say a soda or something and they would change the prices every five minutes so people would go to the grocery stores and they will spend their all money, you know? So you got your money, you go to the, what was like in every other place, on every other welfare place, like the Weimar Republic on Germany, Argentina,

all these places. And why is that? Because government doesn't have like austerity. They don't have the money, right? So they just keep printing money through populism to try to give people what they want, like to give money and welfare. But in the end of the day, Brazil is used to that and people don't realize. And especially because they put they put like rich people, they put money on bonds and stuff and they are paying well if you see the inflation. But at the same time, if you understand the concept of the negative curve of you, you're losing money anyways.

Even if they pay you 10, 20, I don't know how much money for your money on the bank, you're still losing over time. So one day that system will collapse for sure because we cannot, it's like you own your house. You cannot spend more than you make. So one day, all the social fair and these welfare states, the social state, they're going to collapse, in my opinion. Last question I think people are going to have is, how do you think about Bitcoin in terms of your life and your portfolio? When you get paid, do you put 100% in Bitcoin? Do you buy a little bit of Bitcoin? Are you trading Bitcoin?

Just talk a little bit as to, you've done all this work. You've understood the principles. right? You are confident enough to at least go out and talk to other people about this. So how do you think about Bitcoin in your own life? That's a good question. Nobody asked me that. And I start to try to learn economics to like the markets, right? To the SP500. And what I do is I don't have enough information. I don't trade. I'm not comfortable to trade, you know, and I don't think you should trade Bitcoin. So I do dollar cost average, you know, so every month I put a little bit, not much, but because we never know if the price is going down,

I tend to buy more. If the price is going up, I just going to put a little bit, but definitely I don't put everything that I own that I have on Bitcoin. But again, every time that I study more, that I learn more, I start to put more money, you know, but again, I never know. I don't have enough ability to track the market. So that's why I set up like automatic payment. So every month I buy a little bit of Bitcoin.

I love it. That makes a ton of sense. Where can people go follow you on the internet? Or if they want to learn more as you kind of go down this learning journey and keep sharing your thoughts, where can they get that information from you? I have a YouTube channel, but mostly I talk about MMA, right? But now and then I went live and talk about Bitcoin money, Moicano channel. I have a very good podcast. I just started a good podcast with another UFC fighter.

And you talk about fighting. It's Show Me The Money podcast. So you can go to my social media. And sometimes I'm doing podcasts on this Money More Econo channel too. But like about Bitcoin, about economics. And if people want to hear me about that, that would be great too. Go to Money More Econo channel. I remember after the fight, you said Joe Rogan is going to be your first guest on the Show Me The Money podcast.

That was excellent. but hopefully he'll do it. Yeah, he's not going to be the first, but one day I hope he goes to my podcast. Awesome. Well, Renato, thank you so much for doing this. And we'll definitely do it again in the future. Thank you so much, my friend.