The Pomp Podcast - #910 Natalie Brunell On Why Bitcoin Is The American Dream

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

Natalie Brunell is the host of "Coin Stories" one of the most popular podcasts in the Bitcoin. She was also recently an MC on the main stage at the Bitcoin Conference. In this conversation we discuss her thoughts on the Bitcoin Conference and the announcements made, Bitcoin education, the macro environment, and why she see's Bitcoin as a renaissance of the American Dream. ======================= This episode is brought to you by SoFi, a financial super app that helps to bridge traditional finance and Crypto. You can buy Stocks, ETFs, IPOs, Bitcoin & Crypto all one app. You can even redeem credit card points into Crypto. SoFi makes accessing Crypto super simple. They recently launched checking and savings accounts that offers one of the highest interests rates with no account fees. If you set up direct deposit through your account, you can redeem part of your paycheck in Crypto. Go to http://Sofi.com/Pomp and download the SoFi app today. Thanks To SoFi for bringing Natalie and I together for this special episode!

What's up, everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Natalie Brunel is one of the most popular podcast hosts in the Bitcoin community. In this conversation, we talk about the Bitcoin Conference, ESG, the macro environment, and where she sees Bitcoin fitting into the pursuit of the American dream. I really enjoyed this conversation. And I hope that you guys enjoy it as well. This was a special episode brought to you by SoFi. SoFi is a finance super app. They're one of the big sponsors of the Bitcoin conference as well. They help to bridge traditional finance and crypto all in one app. That is they allow you

to buy stocks, ETFs, IPOs, and of course, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies all in one place. They even allow you to redeem credit card rewards points into crypto. SoFi makes accessing crypto super simple. They just launched a checking and saving account that offers one of the highest interest rates with no account fees. And when you set up direct deposit, you can redeem part of your paycheck in Bitcoin as well. Check out the link in the description and go download the SoFi app and start trading Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. And SoFi will hook you up with $100 in Bitcoin. Thanks to SoFi for bringing Natalie and I together for this special episode. All right, let's get in this episode. I hope you guys enjoyed this one.

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. All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got Natalie here. Thanks so much for doing this. Thanks so much for having me, Pomp. All right. Let's start with Bitcoin conference. What do you like? What do you not like? How's it going so far? I mean, the conference feels so much bigger than last year. They changed venues.

And for me, it feels, I don't know, more organized, more pizzazz. There's so many more companies here. I heard the IRS came, which is kind of funny, but it's been great listening to the speakers. I was on the live desk yesterday, so I got to hear literally every single panel and do commentary in between. So it was cool. You know, I heard the announcement from Samson about autonomous regions in different countries. That was exciting, but also a little bit of a letdown. I'm not going to lie. I thought that like actually another country was going to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Great hearing from Michael Saylor, as always. I love listening to him and safety to move. So I thought all around the first general admission day was really cool. I'm looking forward

to today. One of the things that I think people were shocked by was the Bitcoin bull statue that was unveiled. Uh, how do you think about that, uh, as part of, uh, like driving the conversation in a city like Miami? Like, do you think that, uh, we should roll these out across the country and put statues in all these different cities or is it something that's okay? It's cool. Cause it's here for Miami, but, uh, but that's probably one's good enough. You know, I thought it was really cool. I, I don't know if I've seen the one in New York city, but you know, it looks really modern and, and kind of technology driven. So I thought it was cool. It makes me feel bullish on Bitcoin. But at the same time, I mean, I don't know, all of us work remotely at home. We don't

really go to even offices anymore that might have a statue in front of it. So I thought it was cool. I love that Miami's on the map for being so forward thinking in terms of Bitcoin adoption and having a mayor that's very pro this industry, pro innovation. But, you know, I guess the bull wasn't the coolest thing I saw at the conference. What was the coolest thing? You know, I just think the scale of it for me. I can't believe how many companies are there, how many speakers, how many sessions. The venue itself just felt so massive. And I think back on last year when I came because last year was my first one. So I basically have only one to compare it to. And it was just easier to navigate. It was easier for me to sneak around and like try to get backstage to try to ask

people to be on my show. This year, it felt like 10 times more professional and almost corporate. like it was just like a real industry conference with massive money behind it with real legitimate companies and brands yeah when we think about the bitcoin industry i want to throw out some topics and just you give me your thoughts uh maybe we can first start with uh politics and bitcoin and one of the things that we've seen is that politicians uh historically it was very cool to pile on and hate bitcoin and and uh think about all the illegal transactions that must be transpiring in the digital world and the shadowy super coders and all language that we all laugh about. But now it seems like that has changed and we're getting both the candidates for

political positions this midterm election. They're very pro Bitcoin and pro kind of cryptocurrency industry. We're also seeing many politicians that are already in office also start to become pretty bullish. What do you attribute kind of that change in mentality to and how do you think about Bitcoin and politics moving forward? Yeah, I definitely think that 2020 was a huge turn turning point for the industry because you had people like the Michael Saylors come in, massive CEOs, massive companies start to take Bitcoin seriously. And so I think that meant that politicians started to need to take it seriously. And we already have a massive movement in terms of retail investors and adoption. We've said it in the space many times that it's adopting faster than the internet was

in the 1990s. So I think it's something they have to pay attention to. One thing that I'm you know, worried about is that Bitcoin will be politicized or that it's going to be hijacked by one party. And we have this tendency in this country because we're so polarized to basically say, OK, well, if that team likes it, we don't just, you know, because we have to always fight each other. And that worries me because I think Bitcoin's for everyone. I think it's apolitical. I think it will transform our economy and allow for the for the resurgence of potentially a middle class or a renaissance of the American dream, which is something I'm really passionate about. So I hope politics, you know, stays out of it in the sense that we, you know, divide Bitcoin

or allow us ourselves to be divided in the backdrop of Bitcoin. But at the same time, I hope policymakers take advantage of this technology so that the U.S. can potentially, I don't know, save the dollar. Right now, I don't see the U.S. dollar remaining as global reserve currency for too much longer if we keep going down this debt rabbit hole. So I hope Bitcoin remains apolitical and I hope politicians are smart. I think Kathy Wood said it best yesterday. She said, if the U.S. doesn't want to lose, then it will be pro-Bitcoin. Yeah. When you think of the mainstream media coverage, again, I think it was very, very negative. It seems like we have a couple of shining lights now that work at many of these

outlets where they're saying, hey, you know, actually, this is probably something that is going to be around for a long time. I should do the work. I should get educated. I should meet participants in the market. How do you see mainstream coverage evolving and what do you think they're doing well and not doing well? Yeah, I mean, that's a great question because I come from the mainstream news world. So I was a journalist for more than 10 years on a local and national level. And I definitely became a little bit disillusioned by the industry because I felt like we were reinforcing a narrative from central authorities, from the government. it. And it was confusing for me because I was raised and I was kind of ingrained with the

mentality that the journalist is supposed to be the watchdog. We're supposed to be like that fourth branch that makes sure that the government remains in check. And instead I kept watching, you know, media outlets around me basically just regurgitate whatever the White House was saying as if it's just fact. And there wasn't a sense of questioning or skepticism or holding their feet to the fire. And I don't respect that. I don't. I mean, one of the reasons why I felt so passionate about my industry is because my parents are the little guy, you know, like we, I come from a humble background, immigrant parents, they lost everything in the financial crisis. And there's a reason that that happened. And it's because the system's broken and big business is in bed with

politics. And, you know, our country's going down this path of more and more wealth concentration and more and more frustration and people feeling left behind because of the concentration of political power and economic power. And so I hope that there are more journalists who wake up and start questioning things and start educating themselves about Bitcoin. Because when you see some of these headlines or articles, it's like you clearly did not do your homework. You clearly are not looking at the other side. And I'm not sure why. Right. Because you if you want to educate the public and shed light on, you know, what will make the world a better place, that's what that's What you should do is do the work.

So I hope to lead by example. I still consider myself a journalist because I don't just say that every company in the space is going to be angelic and perfect and do right by everyone. You have to question. You have to do the work. Be skeptical.

And I hope more journalists take the time to do that because this space needs people who understand Bitcoin so that the world understands Bitcoin. When you start to think about the non-mainstream media, there's obviously tons of podcasts, tons of Twitter, Reddit, newsletters, all this type of stuff. How do you see that evolving?

And what do you think is going well there? And maybe things that those folks could improve on as well? Yeah, well, certainly you talk about it on your channels, this idea that you don't need to go down the traditional path. You don't need to do it in business. You don't need to do it in journalism.

And I think it's amazing the democratization of basically media. I mean, I'm basically my own news channel now, you are as well. And I think that's really empowering. But at the same time, there's a great duty and obligation for us to make sure that we're putting out information that is factual. And, you know, it's sad that there, there's a lot of stuff out there now, right? It's very saturated, because anyone can start a YouTube page or a podcast. And sometimes they're going to put out misinformation, and maybe you don't know who they're sponsored by, or who's paying them. And so people have to be really careful. But I think

that there's so much great information out there. You don't even have to look very hard. There's podcasts that I learned about Bitcoin from, including yours. There's YouTube pages. People start their sub stacks and they write articles. And I just think it's incredible. Pretty much all the information's out there for you to start to go through. And it's incredible, especially if you have a desire to learn and understand. So I think it's opened up a lot of opportunity and it's great for this digital economy, but at the same time, because there's so much out there, you really have to be careful what sources you trust. Absolutely. Peter Thiel gave us a talk at the Bitcoin conference. He basically said, when you think ESG, think CCP. I think that is probably one of the

most powerful things that anyone has said around this whole issue and in the framing of it and trying to get across this point of don't allow people to use the virtue signaling of ESG to create enemies or to cancel people, et cetera. How do you think about the ESG issue and how do you think that the Bitcoin community should kind of handle that? Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that people should follow the money. And again, kind of going back to what we mentioned earlier, to question the messaging that's out there based on who's putting it out. I mean, we as a country have really pushed nuclear power aside. And I think that was because of some of the narratives that were out there and it's really sad because we could harness that kind of power. We need

energy. Energy is not bad. I think we've demonized some words in, in our, in our culture and in our society today that don't need to be demonized. And it's, you know, I think that it has had an impact on what's happening in the Russia-Ukraine crisis as we see how badly we need this type of infrastructure. And I just, I hope that people look into these ESG narratives. It's the one thing that I'm most probably concerned about when it comes to the CBDCs, when they program central bank digital currencies and decide, hey, we maybe will give you an incentive

to spend money with companies that are ESG or pet projects that the government really likes. It's like, well, people should have freedom to choose and there shouldn't be these kind of skewed, manipulated incentive structures based on these government narratives that may or may not be true. I question the science that the government believes in

And I'm sure many of us do who are in Bitcoin. So I thought his speech was really interesting. There were some good parts and bad parts, too, with regards to him talking about Ethereum, I think, being currency and Bitcoin being gold. But I'm really bullish on this whole industry. And I hope that Bitcoin helps educate people on energy in general and this economy that we're creating and incentivizing in terms of green energy through Bitcoin mining. When you start to think about the Bitcoin community, obviously, you have Peter, who's

kind of attacking that ESG and also kind of the older crowd and the Warren Buffetts, the Jamie Diamonds, et cetera. But we have seen many institutions come into the space and start to participate in various ways. Some of them are buying Bitcoin. Some of them are getting indirect exposure by investing in funds. Some of them are building products or services where they drive revenue. How do you think about the institutional adoption today? Yeah, so it's interesting because I know that so many of them are looking for regulatory clarity, right? Those are the key words that we hear a lot. And I think that it's coming. I really agree with what Michael Saylor says in terms of Bitcoin has already been deemed and accepted as digital property, whereas there's

so many questions surrounding the altcoins and other currencies that will be deemed securities and what happens with these exchanges. I get that there are a lot of questions and that a lot of companies, they have legal departments that need to have an answer one way or another in terms of accounting and how they can invest. But at the same time, look at what we've seen over the last two years. We see companies putting it on their balance sheets. We see a massive insurance company, which I think is like a story that hasn't been covered enough. An insurance company purchased $100 million worth of Bitcoin back in 2020 that's now worth, I think, over $300 million or even more. Insurance companies, that's huge. They're some of the most conservative companies in the world.

And I think it was a company that was 169 years old. They're not investing in gold. They're investing in Bitcoin. And obviously we had MicroStrategy, we had Block. So I think it's happening. I just hope that with more, I guess, legislative clarity and with more politicians becoming bullish on the space, that companies will see this as a way to not allow their money to melt away in their reserves and to protect their investors, the people holding pension funds. And I do think that that's around the corner, but we're in such a crazy macro environment right now that at the same time, I understand that everyone's kind of got maybe one foot in, one foot out in general. Yeah. When you think about the macro economy, it seems like maybe

it's not so good right now. What are your general thoughts in terms of like where we are and where we could be going? Yeah. I mean, this is probably my biggest question. I've had a couple of people on my podcast who are just macroeconomic strategists and some understand Bitcoin and are into it. Some haven't looked into it at all, but a few of them, including I think Peter Schiff, they're all saying there's this massive crash coming because we're at this record level debt to GDP and you can't keep the debt spiral going this long without, or the bubble going this long without it popping. And I agree with that. I do think that at some point we've had these booms and busts. We saw one in March, 2020. We obviously had the massive financial crisis that millennials

lived through. When's the next one? Well, there's going to be a next one. I keep saying that the Fed is between a rock and a hard place. We're not in a situation like the 1980s where we can have a Volcker just raise interest rates to combat inflation easily because of all the debt. At the same time, if we keep money printing, well, inflation is going to get into the double digits and that's crushing the people who are middle class, the savers, the low income people. And that's terribly sad for our country. And that could lead to some sort of uprising, right? Politicians don't want that, especially in an election year. So what is the Fed going to do? I definitely would not want to be the the federal reserve chair. I just think that right now things

are so choppy and so volatile and so you know people are just so uneasy because I think everyone's sort of expecting it to come crashing down and that's what's great about bitcoin is like you can opt out it doesn't matter what's happening sure if a big crash happens I believe bitcoin will take a tumble and it'll be a great buying opportunity but it's not going to go to zero you know I maybe it'll crash a couple, maybe it'll go down to 10,000. I don't know. That'd be great for me. Honestly, I'd love it. But I think at that point, when the system starts to unwind, because we've really just, we've done so much damage to the US dollar and to our economy from a debt standpoint, I think after that, when people get it, they will jump onto Bitcoin and that will be hyper

Bitcoinization. And then we'll see that hockey stick that I think a lot of us were expecting even in the last year. Yeah. The last thing I want to talk about is this idea of the American dream. I know that your family immigrated to the United States and it's something you're really passionate about. How do you think Bitcoin fits into the whole idea of the pursuit of the American dream, financial security, and the ability to have a kind of individual liberty? Yeah. So I think there's something amazing about the United States and, you know, it was founded on these principles that are, I think, central to Bitcoin, self-determination, freedom, the idea of creating a better life for your family than the one that you had. And those are so central to me because

my parents grew up in a communist country that they wanted to flee. And they came to the U.S. with no hope other than to just have an average American life, to be able to afford a house, maybe a nice vacation in Florida every year, and to be able to provide education for their kids. They didn't want a yacht and, you know, Jeff Bezos type lifestyle. They just wanted a nice American middle class life. And before, you know, in the 70s and 80s, the middle class made up the majority of this country, you know, and everyone could pretty much afford to have a house. And you didn't necessarily have to have two parents working. And everything just felt like it was not to say life was super easy.

You had to work, but like it was easier to achieve what's known as the American dream. And I think since then, and especially for my generation, we have just debased the currency so much and made the rich so much richer and created this divide in this wealth concentration that the average person in my age group feels like the idea of even having a house is intimidating. I can't think or plan, you know, having kids because I'm worried that the climate is going to, you know, destroy the planet and I can't afford a house. And that's so sad to me because those are very big. I mean, have planning for your future and having a family. There's like the basic things that any human could want a roof over their head

and the ability to provide for their kids. Like that's so basic to me. And I think that if Bitcoin is able to become this sort of like sound foundation for our economy, where things are based on what you contribute, you know, the goods and services you provide, not, not based on manipulated currency or fake interest rates or anything manipulated I think that we have a chance to like rebuild something that is naturally more egalitarian I'm not saying it's going to be perfectly equal but I think there will just be more opportunity for the average person and I think that people who are good people who work hard should have the chance to achieve the American dream without it feeling like it's absolutely impossible and like the goal post

is going to move every single year. So for me, I just, the American dream's simple to me. And I think everyone should have the chance to achieve it. And I do think that Bitcoin provides us with this opportunity for a renaissance of the American dream. I love the idea of taking that and then exporting it globally. Like I gave a talk recently to a bunch of kids and kind of young adults in India. And at the end they were like, you know, like, what's your message? And I was like, oh shit, I better come up with something good. And what I said to him, I said, look, to be honest, if i was sitting in india um the number one thing i'd be thinking about is it used to be that i had to go to the united states i had to physically get there and there's all sorts of regulatory

or legal things in terms of visas etc cost money i don't know anybody like all these issues now i can be sitting in my bedroom if i have an internet connection i can literally change the world a couple lines of code and it's such a unique you know change in human history that now you've completely remove the geographic boundaries. And what you've done is you've now used technology to provide the idea of the American dream, but anyone in the world has access. And it's interesting that we still call it the American dream, right? Because I think America was built on that idea. People came from all over the world and created this kind of melting pot where they were pursuing, you know, life and happiness and liberty. But now that it's available

to anyone it feels like you go from 330 million americans to now seven and a half billion people you hand them things like the internet or bitcoin uh and you almost are dumbfounded by just how incredible the production uh of what humans can do as we look out over the next 20 years and it's exciting yeah well that's the promise of bitcoin like maybe it's the bitcoin dream and i completely agree with you i went to el salvador recently and i met so many people who they dreamt the American dream because they felt like they had to get out. They had to aspire to move out of the country in order to have economic opportunity or to increase their level of social access. And now they don't have to. They feel like they can live the El Salvador dream because they believe

that Bitcoin will bring them more prosperity and economic opportunity. So I really hope that Bitcoin fixes a lot of the problems. I know it's not a quick fix. It's not overnight. But I think money is at the foundation of so many of these, these issues. Money is everything. Money is like our main, um, information channel. And I think we need to fix the money and then we can fix the world. When you start to think about where Bitcoin's going, give me 12 months from now, we come back Bitcoin conference next year. What, are there any milestones that you expect to, to have kind of played out? For 2023? I am just, I'm curious how the macroeconomic picture will play out because again, you know, if we keep going down the path of money printing

and pumping liquidity into the economy when we're already so leveraged and in debt, then we're going to hit double-digit inflation. And I don't know how that's going to play out with midterm elections because they need to do something. I think the market has sort of reacted itself and sort of priced in rate hikes

and tried to correct itself. But it just feels like everything is so choppy. So I wouldn't be surprised if Bitcoin hit a new all-time high this year, maybe close to the end of the year. I also wouldn't be surprised if we're still chopping along maybe in the 40s to 50s.

I think we really need some, I think, major catalyst that's going to either spark a melt-up in the stock markets and in the traditional markets, basically a green light that people can pour in, or we're going to have some sort of, you know, exit strategy with everyone saying we're going to pull out at this point because things are coming, cascading down. I don't know because one sounds scarier than the other, and I feel like we're just on the edge of a recession with the slowing economy. But I expect Bitcoin, if it dips, to only do so temporarily. And eventually it's going to hit that six-figure mark that we've all been waiting for.

I'm actually happy it's not six figures yet so that I can accumulate more because I'm not in it as long as you guys. Where can we send people to find you on the internet? Or where do you want to send them to listen to the podcast or anything else you're doing? Yeah, so I'm super active on Twitter at Nat Brunel. And my podcast is called Coin Story. So you can find that on every podcasting platform for the audio version. and on YouTube for video. Awesome.

Thank you so much for doing this. We'll definitely have to do it again. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I really hope you guys enjoyed this one. Make sure you're subscribed on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. And if you're looking to try to transition

to get a new job in the Bitcoin or crypto industry, we've got you covered. Head over to palmscryptocourse.com. We've developed a curriculum with the top teams across the industry. It's a three-week intensive training program with over 50 events packed into that three-week time period.

Go to pompscryptocourse.com to learn more, and I'll meet you guys for the next episode.