The Trillionaire Mindset - 47: Is Bitcoin Really the Future? ft. Natalie Brunell

Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm just a happy, you know, I'm on Joe Biden mode. If we don't soda! Sorry about him. Yeah. Dude. By this is not a beer, it's a water. It's not a beer, you guys. I think some beer got into bins.

Starting point is 00:00:12 Wow, I can't believe you're drinking beer at 9 in the morning. It's just scary water, can't I? Scary water. Yeah, you've never had a liquid death. No. Wow. Thank you, though. You're so consumed by Bitcoin that you,

Starting point is 00:00:25 you haven't noticed that this is a powerhouse of that. I drink liquid energy, which is Bitcoin. Digital liquid. Wait, what the fuck? Wait, what? Is there a Bitcoin energy drink? No, but there should be. You should create it. All right, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, it was our idea. Any of us as we come up with on the show are as we own it and you'll

Starting point is 00:00:46 hear from our lawyers if we see a bit of Coinergy drink. this morning. I also apologize if I burp in your ear at all. I know I'm trying, I'm gonna try not to. That's my big thing that I got. There's no carbonation in here, but it doesn't matter. I still get burpy even when I just drink regular old water. Because I inhale air. All right. It'll be fun. Wait, are we started?

Starting point is 00:01:40 Yeah. Why don't we introduce our guest today? We got Natalie Brunel, the host of coin stories, a Bitcoin educator. She's here to educate us on Bitcoin. Yeah, because we are a couple certified, uneducated dipshits. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:02:00 A lot of our audience and commenters like to call me a no coin pussy, which is... Oh, you're a no-coiner. Yeah, let's get you just a little closer to the mic. I'm sorry. Okay, so I thought you were going to say, you're not a no-coin pussy, but you just confirmed that I am a no-coiner. Yeah, well, she didn't call you the word, but you are certainly. Not me, though. I have a whole bit coin. I have a few.

Starting point is 00:02:24 You do, you're a whole coiner Actually, I just sold point seven of it over 24,000 because I had a nice little profit and I wanted to buy this other token that I heard See this is what happens to me. I get fucking sucked in and then I'm already down like 15% on it It's this energy something token. Have you heard of this thing? No, I'm really I'm already down like 15% on it. It's this energy, something token, have you heard of this thing? No, I'm really, I'm not into the other tokens. Okay, that's good. We will get into that.

Starting point is 00:02:51 She thinks you're an idiot. Make minor. That's true. You're even dumber than me. I used to like a lot of Bitcoiners started down that journey where they bought Bitcoin, but they also bought the other cryptocurrencies. Yeah. And they're like, oh, one of these, you know, might take off.

Starting point is 00:03:04 And then slowly, but surely, you go down the rabbit hole and you realize that you really only need Bitcoin. And. Yeah, wait, so that's a great, can we hear how you got, can we talk about your Bitcoin journey? How did you get? Wait, we have to do some janitorial stuff first. What?

Starting point is 00:03:21 High-glenn. And I'm a trader, a licensed trader. So we have a compliance department at the firm that I trade at. Please check the disclaimer. It's in the description box. You can click the little see more thing. Also, you know, like, comment, subscribe, all that shit.

Starting point is 00:03:33 It seemed like something we could have added in post, but because we were coming. Okay, sorry. Go ahead. Could you please tell us about your Bitcoin journey, how you got started with it? Yeah, yeah, sure. So I first heard about Bitcoin in 2017. I was working as a local news reporter in Sacramento, California, covering the state capital and breaking news and investigative stories.

Starting point is 00:03:58 But I had friends who lived in San Francisco. Because if you know anything about Sacramento, it's kind of a quieter city. And so a lot of people go to San Francisco for the weekends, which is what I did. I had a group of friends out there, and they were talking about crypto. They had accounts on coin base. One of them, I don't know if you heard of Mt. Gox,

Starting point is 00:04:17 but it was this exchange that people lost all of their Bitcoin. So one of the guys actually lost his Bitcoin on Mt. Gox. And how much? A 10 Bitcoin. Whoa one of the guys actually lost his Bitcoin on Mount Gox and 10 Bitcoin. Yeah. That was over half a million dollars at one point. Yeah. So I just, I became curious and I felt like, you know, all them worked in tech and so I thought, oh, this, this is like the new thing, you know, and Silicon Valley seems to always be on the cutting edge of what's next.

Starting point is 00:04:45 And so I thought I was essentially investing in like early Facebook or early Uber or whatnot. I didn't understand. I thought it was a stock. I wish that I had taken the time to stop and really educate myself then because it was like $3,000, $4,000 when I first heard about it. And I, and I had a good, I was always a saver. So I had a good chunk I kind of put in there at the time, but that being said, I did buy some. I was curious enough that I bought. I was like, I'll just see what happens with this. It'll probably go to zero.

Starting point is 00:05:13 It could probably be hacked because it's digital. And then it wasn't until two years later that I had a mentor that was constantly pushing me to read this book called the Bitcoin Standard. It's by Safedina Moose, who is brilliant. He's an economist and has an engineering background. And he's just, he basically goes over the history of money. It's kind of a misnomer title.

Starting point is 00:05:33 I thought it was a computer programming or computer science book. It's actually a book about the history of money, the history of our financial system, and how Bitcoin kind of fixes some of the problems that have been created by our Fiat system. So I read it, I was like, oh my gosh, this changed my whole perspective on the stories that I had been reporting on, on my own family's background

Starting point is 00:05:56 because my family was kind of a victim of the great financial crisis of 0809, lost our house, everything. And I finally was like, oh my gosh, why didn't I learn about this in school? Why didn't I learn about what money printing is and the history of the Federal Reserve? And so I just dug deeper, deeper, deeper started a podcast and now my whole life is Bitcoin. Wow.

Starting point is 00:06:17 I find that stuff interesting, the history of fiat kind of stuff. But those money guys, you know what type I'm talking about, the fiat, the history of fiat kind of stuff, but those money guys, you know what type I'm talking about. The like fiat currency guys are such an interesting flavor of guy because I was in New York a couple of years ago. It's the Russian bathhouse story? Yes, I was in a Russian bathhouse with my roommate, and we're in this sauna, and I'm talking to him about, I think we were talking about crypto,

Starting point is 00:06:44 and this guy from like in the shadows just goes, do you even know the history of fiat currency and just proceeds to tell the entire sauna, unprovoked, just un, nobody asked him, he spent like 20 minutes talking about how by design the dollar was meant to just go down and value over the years. And it's funny because those guys, like you hear it and it makes sense, but at the same time, he's a cook and you're like, I don't know if I believe what you're saying,

Starting point is 00:07:14 but it is true. I mean, the printing of, man, it makes me want to get into like the whole Bitcoin as an inflation hedge, but we'll put a pin in that. So you were real fast, I'm curious. What was the new station you were? I was at the NBC affiliate up there. Ah, cool. What were the call letters? KCRA.

Starting point is 00:07:37 KCRA. Yeah. Can you do, did you have like a, I'm Natalie Brunel. This is KCRA. Yeah, it was your thing. It was like channel three. So KCRA and What was your thing? It was like channel three. So KZRA and you channel three. I think it was channel three.

Starting point is 00:07:48 New channel three. Do you miss it at all? Being a reporter? Yeah. Well, I feel like I'm doing the best part of the job. I get to interview people and learn, but I don't get to cover all the tragedy. I feel like my job is way more positive.

Starting point is 00:08:00 Now I feel like I have more hope for the future and I'm talking about something that can make hopefully things better and level the playing field economically for people. So I'm a lot more fulfilled now than when I was covering, you know, mass shootings and fires and natural disasters and all of it. Yeah. You're also on the news all the time anyway. Yes. You're on Fox Business all the time. How's that? Is that cool? Yeah, I mean, I, I'm so grateful that they would call me and ask for my perspective on Bitcoin and what's happening with our economy. We got to get on there, man. We got to get on a fox business. We're waiting for our call. Let them know we're available.

Starting point is 00:08:35 Oh, they're available. Yeah, please. Exactly. They're available. Wait, so, but can I ask what your kind of, you know, what your belief in Bitcoin is exactly. I think one of the most confusing things is that Bitcoin seems to be different things to different people. So some people are like, oh, it's a new currency. Some people are like, oh no, it's just an underlying technology or it's an inflation hedge.

Starting point is 00:08:56 It's an inflation hedge. It's digital gold. Yeah, and, you know, or it's just a speculative asset that I wanted to make some money off of. Like, you know, seems like that's how you were treating it. Like me, yeah. Or is it something else entirely to you? Yeah, I don't treat it like a trader. You know, or it's just a speculative asset that I wanted to make some money off of like, you know, seems like that's how you were treating me Yeah, or is it something else entirely to you? Yeah, I don't treat it like a trader I see this as literally the future of money. I see it primarily for myself right now is a store of value

Starting point is 00:09:14 But I think as far as a medium of exchange where it's a it's a subtle global settlement network where you can send value from one part of the world to another I don't most no cost, lightning speed, especially with the secondary layer. I think that's incredible. I think it's going to be transformative for billions of people around the world who don't have access to things like that, some P500, but they do have access to maybe a phone and an internet connection.

Starting point is 00:09:38 So I just think that Bitcoin could really solve a lot of the problems that have been created by a broken money system. And so for me, I think I was predisposed to appreciating Bitcoin because my family came to the US to pursue the American dream. They never wanted anything crazy. They just wanted to be part of the middle class. They wanted to be able to afford, you know, a house for their kids, education, and a retirement, maybe one vacation a year. Where from? Poland.

Starting point is 00:10:06 Yeah, Eastern Europe. And no. No. OK, nobody's perfect. We normally don't just say, do two people? So that's just for the future. I am. So I can ask that.

Starting point is 00:10:18 No, I was raised Catholic. Yeah. Oh, cool. That's how Ben talks to women at policy walks to the ages. Jew? Cool. That's how that's how Ben talks to women at policy watch to just do You got me there pal. Sorry, continue. Yeah, but so you know, and it's it's interesting because a lot of people from Eastern Europe can really appreciate something like Bitcoin because many of them grew up under communism like my parents and so the idea that you can have something that can't be confiscated by the government and something where you have total sovereignty and freedom over it, that's

Starting point is 00:10:49 really powerful. So yeah, my family came here and worked really, really hard. And I think that there's this pattern, especially with immigrants, where you save in cash or you save in gold, you say, you try to save in something like hard money, but you don't, my family never invested in stocks. And growing up in school, they don't teach you how to invest in a stock market and to try to get a property as soon as you can so you can become a real estate investor. I just feel like financial literacy is really lacking. And just as they had finally kind of achieved

Starting point is 00:11:22 the American dream when I was in high school, we were able to purchase a house, of course, get a mortgage. And then I went off to college and the financial crisis hit and my parents lost everything overnight. So everything that they had just worked for was like gone poof. And so I think for me that time in my life was just this just giant question mark the seed planted in the back of my head of like, how could this happen? Like, my parents played by all the rules.

Starting point is 00:11:47 They paid their taxes. They worked sometimes two jobs just to afford, you know, to achieve like a modest version of the American dream and they could just lose it overnight. But like all these guys in Wall Street get bailed out and nobody loses their job in Washington or at these big banks. And so I just kind of felt like, wow, this system's kind of rigged and this is supposed to be the country of opportunity, the country of freedom, the country where you can, you know,

Starting point is 00:12:13 the American Dream espouses the idea that you can come from any background. And if you work hard and you're innovative and you persevere and you're a good person, you can achieve whatever you want. And I just felt like that idea was sort of starting to lose hope. And then, I set off on 10 years as a reporter where I'm covering poverty increasing, homelessness, public corruption, all these things kind of manifesting within society on a micro level.

Starting point is 00:12:41 And again, a lot of it related to money in the cost of living and people in my generation millennials feeling like they can't get by because they graduated into a recession and then can't catch up financially, can't afford a house, can't afford to pay off their loans. And so when I discovered Bitcoin it was really this like a ha moment when I finally learned about it of like oh the reason why I've been reporting on all these problems, the reason that my family went through what they went through is because our financial system is so rigged against the average working person here in this country after decades. It's just, it's for, it's a country where money kind of pulls at the top and doesn't trickle

Starting point is 00:13:19 down. And I think that a lot of people end up getting frustrated. And it eventually, as you debase the currency, more leads to these populist movements, which I see now politically. And I've covered politically as well. So can we talk about the, because I feel like crypto people are very good at pointing out all the problems with our current system. And they're not wrong, right? It's full of, Oh, it's weed. Love to hate it. Right. Well, no, we don't. It's horrible. We hate to hate it. Sure, yeah.

Starting point is 00:13:50 And it sounds like everything that you're talking... Sorry, it sounds like everything that you're talking just real fast. Everything you're talking about is in the spirit of the creation of Bitcoin itself. Yes. Yes. Yes. Like the white paper. Go ahead. Kirk, Kirk. Right. So, I'm with you on all that. But then can we talk practically about how Bitcoin

Starting point is 00:14:07 starts to fix those things like when you talk about your family specifically like how how can Bitcoin help them actually achieve the American dream in a way that works for them? Well, I just think it's about acquiring an asset that has a fixed supply that no one can ever manipulate or expand. And so for me, the two most important aspects about Bitcoin are its scarcity, the fact that you can't just print more of it when you want to or when you come into power. And the second is this idea of decentralization, which provides really the security for the network, and makes it essentially a protocol akin to the internet, where it empowers any,

Starting point is 00:14:43 you could be anyone in any part of the world and have access to it, which I think is really really incredible. So just okay, so with those two things, just because I'm trying to get it, I want to become. You want to be attacking. I'm tired of being a no-coming person. I'm sick of it. People spit on me on the street.

Starting point is 00:15:00 They call me names. So you're talking about buying into this asset, because I don't see that. I want to believe, but I don't see that. Especially with the latest crash, we're seeing that people of color, people of lower income were more exposed to the losses and everything. They got in later, I think people of color owned disproportionately more Bitcoin than, you know, say white people. So it seems like, you know, because it sounds like a lot of them, you know, have been left behind by the traditional financial system that we've built already, right? And no one can argue against that. And so, you know, they don't want it to happen again, right? And now people

Starting point is 00:15:45 are, they're being invited in by the crypto community, like we need more and more people to buy into this. And now the crash hits and they're left out in the dust. So, you know, how does that fix the, you know, the problems you're talking about? Sure. So I have two things to say on that because I'm really, I'm really passionate about the fact that Bitcoin does provide this sense of financial inclusion. And personally, I want to see more average people getting in as opposed to the big institutions. Once they come in, they can buy up a ton, right? And I think that that will happen down the road.

Starting point is 00:16:14 So I think it's more important to educate the average working person who really needs to start accumulating a hard asset that again can't be inflated and expanded. So what I'll say is two things. First of all, you have to look at a long time horizon with Bitcoin. It's not something that you buy, in my opinion, to trade unless there are traders out there that can profit, you know, they work the volatility. But for the average person, it's really about getting into a pattern of saving again. Like our country is so far in debt as a government, but also consumers are so far in debt with

Starting point is 00:16:50 credit cards, mortgages, school loans. This is really about putting your money in a place where hopefully 10 years from now, it will have gone up in value due to its fixed supply and the fact that more and more people are adopting it as a technology network. So you can't judge Bitcoin by short-term volatility. And I personally have said I would rather have an asset that is in the short-term very volatile as opposed to, but going up over the long haul as opposed to the dollar which is really stable, but crashing in terms of purchasing power, especially as they dilute the supply

Starting point is 00:17:23 with more money printing. So first of all, there's that. You have to kind of zoom out and make sure that you're thinking about this as a long-term investment. And going along with that, you know. Wait, but just to be clear, it's not necessarily this new system, it's a speculative asset that you want to buy into and hold on to long-term and hope it goes up. I mean, I don't believe that it's a speculative asset. I believe it's a store of value. But

Starting point is 00:17:48 if I'm there are people that speculate on that. But so part of the, you know, part of the way for, you know, lower income people to get into the middle class through Bitcoin is to get in and hold and hope that it is worth a lot more. Yeah, because here's the thing too, we are in a bear market, but everything tanked. I mean, if you own stocks, some of them did far worse than Bitcoin. But it wasn't part of the value of it that you're like, you know, we're not picked to that. We're our own thing. Yeah, I think that Bitcoin will eventually, on couple, but it has been really correlated. So as money printing expands, as equities go up, it has been really correlated. So as money printing expands, as

Starting point is 00:18:25 equities go up, Bitcoin has been very correlated. And we have to be honest with that because Bitcoin has really only existed in a QE, a quantitative easing environment since it was born in the last financial crisis. So it's benefited from liquidity in the markets overall. But I do think that in the future, it's going to decouple. And when you zoom out and you see the the performance of the asset over the long term, you see that it has outperformed every stock index, a lot of the big tech, you know, stocks that people invest in like the Tesla's the Facebook's the the Amazon's it's outperformed the precious metals, it's outperformed many of the commodities over the long time horizon. And so again, it's like, it's not something that you invest in and then a year from now you want to pull it out to buy a house. This is like your four, five, 10 year savings technology. That's really how I see it. Pulled out in 10 years.

Starting point is 00:19:16 Yes, that's how I see it. Like what I put into Bitcoin and I dollar cost average, I see that as what I'm accumulating for my future, for my family, for my future kids. It's not something that I plan to sell in the next one to four years. Okay, so this system seems very simple. Put in money now. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:19:34 Set it and forget it. And then get out in the years. Yeah, time in the market, not timing the market. I thought there was more of this global financial system we're changing. It's May may I? Two things. What was attractive to me when I, what really finally changed it for me was actually an interview with Michael Saylor.

Starting point is 00:19:52 Yes. It wasn't with you. I don't remember where it was, but it really fucks me up that I didn't consider this sooner, but the limited supply. There's 21 million 21 million Bitcoin. And all there will ever be. And there's like a million that have been lost or whatever. But that's what got me.

Starting point is 00:20:15 Sorry, I need to put on the... I need to protect my man here. Lucy, all right, shut up for a minute. The fact that there are only, yeah, like let's just call it 20 million Bitcoin. Sure. And the fact that it is exposed or the whole world has a chance to buy into this shit, that's what got me is just the scarcity alone and it's kind of fucked up because it's like the scarcity alone is kind it's kind of fucked up because it's like the scarcity alone

Starting point is 00:20:45 is kind of what gives it value. But then also, I think what, if correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems like what you're saying is not necessarily to cash out at a later date, but just that that will be its own purchasing thing. Like you will use 0.0001 bit going to buy a car.

Starting point is 00:21:06 And it's not necessarily like, I'm gonna hold it now to convert it back to dollars. Sure, you might be able to or you might need to or whatever. But it sounds like the hope is that eventually the technology will continue to advance the acceptance in society and culture will advance in such a way that it'll be as ubiquitous as using a credit card.

Starting point is 00:21:27 Correct. Yeah, and I really do believe that. What about all the people who don't get in now and they get in 10 years from now and all their money is kind of worth way less than everybody's got? That's the, that's what sucks. Well, see, I view it very differently and I think that having a money that has a finite fixed supply is actually one of the things that could create a more egalitarian society because again, if you have a fixed

Starting point is 00:21:50 supply and the people at the top of the, you know, we, I mean, we live in a society where there's people at the top right making financial decisions and many of them are not elected like the federal reserve, we're not electing these guys. But yet they sit and they decide what the interest rates are gonna be and how much bonds are gonna be purchased. And so it really manipulates and distorts everything because the people who have the first access to the capital are the people at the top, the big corporations, the people who are already wealthy,

Starting point is 00:22:17 the people closest to the money printer, that's the cantalon effect. But if you have a fixed supply where just at the drop of a hat, you wouldn't be able to expand it, Bitcoin has to be sold because people have to be productive and function within society and goods and services have to be exchanged. So the Bitcoin will eventually spread out to more and more people.

Starting point is 00:22:40 Because Bitcoin is infinitively divisible, infinitely divisible, you can have 100 million Satoshi's in a Bitcoin. That means that I think that there could be a future where people are just transacting in Satoshi's and Bitcoin, like as one coin is rarely transacted. And I mean, infinity divided by 21 million is something that we say in the Bitcoin community because if a Bitcoin is worth a ton

Starting point is 00:23:07 You know, let's say it's worth like a million. Well, let's say it's worth even more than that Let's say I the whole world goes on the Bitcoin standard You know, what if it's worth a billion dollars? No one's gonna be transacting a billion dollars in Bitcoin They'll be transacting in Satoshi's maybe isn't so one of my I had to take it off because now I'm the skeptic Lays that was a laser eyes by the way that he was in the explain. I was fully, yeah, I had to protect myself. That's a laser eyes dot, okay. That's kind of an interesting point about it too.

Starting point is 00:23:33 It's this, you know, thing that is kind of marketed as this inclusive thing, but there's also this kind of exclusive culture to it where there's inside jokes online. There are a lot of memes. Yeah, and you know, the whole goal is to get more and more people in, but you know, I have no idea what the hell they're talking about sometimes, and I paint it like, sometimes they're just like all in on no seed oils, and I'm like, what is going on in Bitcoin land? There are a lot of sub cultures within Bitcoin, and one of them is carnivore, no seed oils and I'm like what is going on in Bitcoin land? There are a lot of sub cultures within Bitcoin and one of them is carnivore, no seed oils. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:24:10 So it's a very weird culture. I think it's actually really incredible and it sparks a lot of curiosity and knowledge gathering because one of the reasons why there's a movement in that is When you study fiat in the history of money you see how much it's corrupted our food industry and our nutrition especially in the US where we have such high rates of obesity and heart disease and Diabetes and all of it and then you link it back to how our food has been transformed by where money has pulled within corporations and what incentives have been created by Washington and some of these government agencies.

Starting point is 00:24:50 And then you're like, oh my God, we've been eating so unhealthy. Look at a picture of a beach in the 1970s. Everybody's skinny and people were still eating like at McDonald's and stuff, but the fries were made in Tallow instead of seed oils. And like there's all these little things you learn about, which I think are good.

Starting point is 00:25:03 Sometimes hearing you guys talk I think I'm like, oh you guys just don't like capitalism. No, we love that's what we want is capitalism, but like we don't have capitalism in our country anymore. That's like what this whole movement is actually about. What do we have in this country? Chrony capitalism or creditism. I actually said this on my Fox hit yesterday. I was talking about the fact that there was an article that the anchor mentioned that was linking the Nixon decision to close the gold window

Starting point is 00:25:30 and decouple us from the gold standard in 1971. The anniversary just passed on August 15th to the rise of cryptocurrencies decades later. And I agreed with him and we talked about that moment a lot because it was when that that tie was severed where our money was actually backed by something where you could at one point we had bank notes that said this is you could exchange this for a certain amount of gold. All of a sudden it turned into this money printing bananza and what I refer to and what some books refer to as creditism where basically you're just constantly expanding the money supply going further and further into debt and that leads to a lot of immediate growth and prosperity right because if you print a lot of immediate growth and prosperity, right?

Starting point is 00:26:05 Because if you print a bunch of money to create whatever it is, pay for programs, finance, different projects, you appear there's this illusion of wealth and it's kind of like a drug addict getting high. But once it starts to wear off, you need to print more in order to service that debt. And then it turns into the spiral. And we're in a debt spiral right now, where we're creating ever more debt, just to sustain, and we're not really producing any more in this country. We've shipped off all of our manufacturing, we've exported a lot of our dollars. And so like we have a huge issue right now,

Starting point is 00:26:36 where we don't have a money that is backed by anything, but debt. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I wanna ask about that, because I've heard you say that before. And I'm with you say that before and you say, I'm with you, you know, we don't make anything, we ship off everything. How does Bitcoin, can we talk about that practically? Like, how does Bitcoin get us back to producing

Starting point is 00:26:58 in America? If at all. Well, so I believe that if people have, so capitalism is about accumulating capital and savings. It's not about going into debt. Right now, we have a system where we just go into debt. We're all consumers and we're all basically in, a lot of the richest people probably have negative bounces, because they take out so much debt and then they purchase things, but they're, yeah. So it's just revolving credit. It's this credit spiral.

Starting point is 00:27:18 Well, how do you pay off that debt? We can't get it from tax dollars because we don't have enough of a tax base. So we have to get it from somewhere so we just create more debt. So the idea of Bitcoin is a system based on savings and accumulation of a hard asset as opposed to debt. Like Bitcoin's not a debt system, it's not a credit system. How does that fix those things of you know, shipping off all our jobs and producing here? I would argue that if people were able to work jobs where they could afford to live, then you would have more economic productivity, more opportunity.

Starting point is 00:27:51 And I think this is going to happen globally. I don't know if there's a way to save necessarily the, unless the U.S., I think adopts the Bitcoin standard before everywhere else and accumulates a bunch of Bitcoin. I don't know if we can maintain the superiority of being the global superpower that we have enjoyed the prerogative of for so long. But I think for that average person, being able to accumulate something that will go up and value will be beneficial to be able to plan for your future and afford the things that you want to. So we're not necessarily talking about like bringing jobs back to the country we're talking

Starting point is 00:28:21 about just again investing in something that will be worth more later. Exactly. So if you invest in something that will be worth more later. Exactly. So if you invest in something that's going to be worth later. So we still want to have jobs here. No, I think that it's going to be based. We're going to have an economy that is going to be based on something that can't be manipulated, can't be expanded. So you are judged by essentially the innovation, the goods and services that you provide, your

Starting point is 00:28:42 actual labor, and then what you make will go up in value as opposed to decreasing and purchasing power. I mean, at the end of the day, right now, people are working harder and harder for less and less. It's like the road to surfdom. People are going to their jobs, and everything's getting more and more expensive around them because of our system of money printing,

Starting point is 00:28:58 which makes asset bubbles, right? Within real estate, within equities, people can't afford it, young people are growing up. They can't afford to get into the system, they feel left behind, I think a lot of them are looking at crypto as an equalizer. So now we have this fixed supply, a hard asset in digital format where you can transmit one Bitcoin to from the US to Singapore within a couple of seconds at no money. That's, I mean, how is that not incredibly empowering for being able to achieve wealth

Starting point is 00:29:27 and achieve kind of a sense of opportunity? One thing that I am concerned about, excuse me, is I know when you say manipulation, you mean like the digital asset itself, but my concern has been the Elon Musk's, the people, the whales who can just dump a ton of their supply on the market and then cause flash crashes. That's the shit that's still,

Starting point is 00:29:59 because I was a victim of that. I had a fuck ton of light coin years ago and Charlie, what's his name Charlie Lee? Tweeted, just at like 9 a.m. I sold all my light coin. I think that it's overvalued and that's it. And it caused it to drop like 60% in an hour. And I was taking a shower, jerking off or something.

Starting point is 00:30:22 And I come back and where'd all my fuckin' money go? Cause he, yeah, and I tweeted him and I was like, cool man, thanks so much for, you know, sayin' what you thought. But I feel like that's at once, it's a pro anacon where because it's so decentralized and because there's no governing body and because there's no SEC to keep that kind of shit in check. It's like you live by the sword, you die by the sword kind of thing, is that what I'm looking for?

Starting point is 00:30:51 I don't know. It's great, but then also there is that other side to it that can be really fucking tragic. So I'm wondering what you think are some of the pitfalls of Bitcoin? Well, just to respond to that, though, you're right. A big whale right now can move the market, but that's because Bitcoin is so tiny when it comes to the overall supply of assets in this world, which, you know, there's equities,

Starting point is 00:31:18 there's real estate, there's gold has a $10 trillion market cap. And so if we just even take a chunk of gold, that would mean Bitcoin rises significantly in value. But because it's so young, it's going through that monetization process and it's going to be very volatile because big whales can move the market. Again, if you look at it as a long-term investment, where you put it in and you're not worried

Starting point is 00:31:38 about what it is in the short term, you're worried about what it's gonna be in four, five, 10 years, then those short-term drops like right now, we're having, should actually excite you in the sense that you can accumulate more than you could have a couple of weeks or a couple months ago. So I would say the drawbacks are just, we are very, very early and there's going to be a lot of volatility. There's going to be more bear markets.

Starting point is 00:32:00 I see a future where we eventually ascend to six figures, maybe we get to 200,000 and we crash down to 100,000. I mean, how like, intense will that be, right? It'd be pretty intense for most of you to be big. But people who bought it at 200, yeah, that's the thing. It's like, God. It's volatile. Yeah, it's early. It's early. So I think that people, again, I'm not someone who can make a judgment call on what a family, an average family in the US or anywhere in the world, what their risk tolerance is. For me, it's like if you think that there's a 1% chance that Bitcoin could survive, that it could be this savings technology because of its decentralization, its scarcity, then

Starting point is 00:32:41 put 1% of your portfolio in it. If you think there's a 5% chance, but five percent in it, like I went from almost nothing to five percent, to 10 percent, to 50 percent, to over, like I am all in on this thing because I believe in it so much. So do you buy Bitcoin like daily? Every day?

Starting point is 00:32:59 Yeah, I have a everyday dollar cost average. Jesus Christ, why not do like weekly or something? Because actually I've read that when you average it out over the year, people who dollar cost average every day, a smaller amount that they would have maybe added together and done on a Saturday or Sunday or whatever, you actually end up getting a lower price at the end of the year, a lower dollar cost average price.

Starting point is 00:33:20 Interesting. What brokerage do you use? Swan Bitcoin. Swan Bitcoin? Yeah. Never heard of it. You wouldn't. You wouldn't know it. Well, shut up, dude. I use Coinbase Pro and then I transferred, I transferred it all offline. There you go. Swan. Yeah. Oh, Swan. Yeah. You can head to swan.com slash Natalie Brunel and get $10. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. No, but I actually banked there.

Starting point is 00:33:48 I do. Oh, you do? I actually banked there. Yeah, I really do. I like it because it's Bitcoin only, so you can't get any other coin on there. Ah. And they can store it for you or you can withdraw it to Cold Storage, which I do. Okay.

Starting point is 00:34:01 So I wanted to talk a little bit about Mr. Elon Musk because you've tweeted about him before like what so Because to me he's a shithead to try to make himself the main character of yet another thing like Bitcoin And now he's like mr. Bitcoin and now he can move markets with a single tweet Maybe not so much anymore because yeah the days of Doge and whatnot has kind of faded, but yeah, what are your thoughts? I guess it kind of dovetails into what we were just talking about with the whales, which is a drawback, but I get what you're saying that over time,

Starting point is 00:34:37 the hope is that it'll be dispersed amongst more people, but like, I'm just... Ben, did you have a question? I don't know. I'm just kind of talking to that. I'm trying to figure it out. Okay. So, I mean, can we go ahead?

Starting point is 00:34:53 Go ahead. The way I was a little bit, because the whole decentralization thing is one of its biggest draws, right? But isn't Bitcoin even more controlled by big investors than, you know, traditional financial systems? So, again, I would argue that it's moving us more toward a egalitarian society, even though we're right. Currently it is.

Starting point is 00:35:17 Well, right now, big whales can move the market, right? So there are a few people that have a ton of Bitcoin. But here's the thing, when you look at the fiat, how much, where money is dispersed within our current system, you can create more, right? And the people at the top are the ones creating it. So at one point, if they wanna, if they wanna finance a project, they just create more money, it doesn't trickle down to everybody else.

Starting point is 00:35:42 But if you have a fixed supply, no one at the top, the billionaire can't just like make more Bitcoin, right? You're trying to create, right? Pickle down economics, where did he did that? Well, but here's the thing, think about this. So let's say, let's say you have a fixed supply of 21 million Bitcoin. Then you have the dollar system, which is an infinite supply. In Bitcoin, let's say the billionaires have whatever, a million, one guy has a million

Starting point is 00:36:02 Bitcoin in order to finance something, in order to buy something he wants, in order to start a project, start a company, he's going to have to sell his bitcoin because he can't just create it out of nowhere. Whereas in our current system, governments can literally just print money and give it, they can choose pick winners and losers and choose the things that they want to finance. And so that trickles to the people that are closest to them, which is the cantalant effect. And it creates more and more wealth concentration, whereas Bitcoin arguably over time, and we actually see the data, is becoming more and more decentralized

Starting point is 00:36:33 in terms of ownership as well. So in my opinion, down the road, it will be more and more decentralized in terms of ownership egalitarian in terms of like opportunity because everyone is going to be transacting hopefully in one asset that's backed by computer science. I'm mad. So I just have to hope it trickles down from the whales a little bit. Yeah, you gotta hope that the whales eventually sell some.

Starting point is 00:36:55 Well, they'll have to, if they need food, if they need someone to clean their yacht, if they need to take a vacation. Yeah, those will be food. You know what I mean? Like, it's just again, like a fixed supply. I think we're scared of the word deflation, because we haven't had a system that allows for deflation

Starting point is 00:37:11 and tech. There's a great author in the space. I highly recommend everyone read the book, The Price of Tomorrow by Jeff Booth. It's not even a Bitcoin book. It's just literally about how we have two systems that are converging right now. We have technology which is just taking over

Starting point is 00:37:24 and we're going to have more technological advancements, AI, computers taking over jobs, which is inherently deflationary. Things are becoming cheaper and cheaper, cheaper over time. But because of our system of money printing and how much the government intervenes with money, we have assets that keep ballooning. We have real estate that has to keep going up and up in a stock market that keeps going up. Those worlds can't, they don't match.

Starting point is 00:37:46 Like, at some point, we are going to turn into basically a society where it's like, this money people at the top, everybody else is poor, and we have communism or Marxism. Like, it doesn't work long-term. So, can you explain, so you're talking about it being split up into satoshi and everything, right? How is that different than money printing? If we can just constantly split. you're talking about it being split up into Satoshi's and everything, right? How is that different than money printing?

Starting point is 00:38:05 If we can just constantly split, um, because it's not, it's, it's essentially like a hundred, a hundred dollar bill is worth 100 US one dollar bills. So it's like, uh, so that's, you're not, you're not creating more Bitcoin. You're just one Bitcoin equals 100 million Satoshi. Yeah, you're not, you're not expanding the supply at all. You're just dividing it infinitely divisible. It's never going to change the amount of satoshies. The amount of Bitcoin and so the amount of Satoshies.

Starting point is 00:38:31 I mean, you can just divide small. I mean, I don't know if they're going to create a less than one Satoshi way, like half a Satoshi will have a name. I don't know, but like right now, but wouldn't there be a situation where we would need it to split even further if this is our currency? Possibly, but like, but that would mean again, you're taking a dollar and that's two four quarters or two quarters. For a dollar. But if a dollar's now worth 50 cents because we need more than them, you're not creating more though.

Starting point is 00:38:55 Yeah, but you're just dividing. I think what you're trying to say is like if Bitcoin eventually gets to a billion, one Satoshi might at the lowest, lowest level, might be worth $10. Yeah. No, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. Oh, I'm saying if you have to split it even further, to accommodate it being used as a currency, it's worth less.

Starting point is 00:39:15 You're devaluing it. No, you're not devaluing, you're just dividing, you're just, you're literally just taking a division of it. It's a fraction of a coin. Okay. I know, I think, I think I know what you're saying. Like, let's say if I want to transact, if I want to buy a candy bar,

Starting point is 00:39:32 the value of Bitcoin is too high. The lowest denomination would be $10. That is an issue. But so then that begs the question, who is in charge of this shit? Like, when they talk about like the Bitcoin fork and it's all code, man. Yeah, but like, is there, who runs the Bitcoin foundation

Starting point is 00:39:53 that makes these decisions? So there is, that's what's great about it. There is no Bitcoin foundation. Your question is akin to who's in charge of the internet. Who's in charge of the internet? Who's in charge of the internet? Well, the government can completely block people from accessing things.

Starting point is 00:40:06 Right, and so in China, you can shut it down, but does that mean that the internet around the world goes down? No. And so as long as you have an internet connection, you are a satellite. Because they have satellites that are now mining Bitcoin. The network is operating in the same way

Starting point is 00:40:22 that the internet does. There's no CEO, there's no headquarters, there's no country, there's no nationality, there's no board of governors, there is no governance, it's rules without rulers. It's amazing. It might be cool if you found out we were Satoshi and we were like after this really, so cool. You did a good job, you get to go to Bitcoin heaven.

Starting point is 00:40:38 That's what we did. Well, isn't that amazing to you how like, you don't have someone that you can look to for anything I think it's I think there's so much Providence and the fact that the creator disappeared and doesn't exist I don't think it is cool. Really? I think it's tight. It's mysterious We're we're asking everyone to join into this thing where some guy was like, I don't know just trust me I don't maybe I don't even exist and it's like you don't have to trust him That's what's great. You don't trust anybody.

Starting point is 00:41:05 It's a trustless system. It's just math and code. And it's open source for everyone to see. But so who, when they talk about working on the Bitcoin fork, is it just a bunch of nerds, like on GitHub coordinating? Like who, who is implementing changes? So there are core developers. There are people who are programming,

Starting point is 00:41:24 but they have to, like, suggest changes and then there has to be a consensus. So all of the miners basically have to agree to something. So there are updates that constantly happen, but there's never been a time where Bitcoin, the network has been hacked. There's never been a time where it's been compromised. I mean, it's truly, over the 13 years

Starting point is 00:41:42 it has operated perfectly even in very hectic times like a country completely mining and shutting down half of the hash rate and block by block every 10 minutes, Bitcoin does what it does. It's just incredible. So like when, if I own a stock and there's a vote, a proxy vote for, you know, a split, say, I automatically, my broker gets the,

Starting point is 00:42:06 I get the information sent to me and I'm asked to vote. Is there any kind of governing body that does that with the miners? Like who coordinates that? When, like, if someone suggests a change, who disseminates the, hey, here's what we're voting on. Hey, all miners, like we need to get together.

Starting point is 00:42:27 Well, so it's a distributed ledger, so everything is broadcast simultaneously, and I'm not a mining expert, so I don't do computer science myself, so I'm not the best person to ask about that specific area of working on developments, like the tarot update and things like that. You guys should bring an expert on for that,

Starting point is 00:42:43 but what it is is essentially like, it's a network that broadcasts across the whole world. We have nodes, we have about 10,000 nodes, I think, around the world that are completely decentralized in all these different countries. And so the changes are happening simultaneously everywhere. Everyone can see the updated blockchain. Everyone has a copy of it that they're running on it

Starting point is 00:43:02 on if they have a node. And so those changes are proposed, and in real time decisions can be made. That's the shit that hurts me and confuses me. And it gets really complicated, yeah. And it intimidated, that's even though I have some, so I have some just speculative and just in case you guys are right, I'm like,

Starting point is 00:43:20 I might as well have some just cause you never fucking know, cause I've been wrong this whole time. I remember when it first came out and it was like 20 bucks and I thought oh this is stupid And then when it was a hundred dollars, I thought fuck well, this is still stupid and then you see some drop from high school of Bada Farrari and you're like you motherfucker. Yeah, and I mean I think that there is something to be said for the fact that it does Keep making a higher low and it's like the floor is moving ever higher. But there's one thing on here that I wanted to talk about. So like when you say that the government can't seize it, it's like true but not because

Starting point is 00:43:58 like the Canadian government didn't they seize some of the trucker convoys is Bitcoin? So here, that's an important point because Bitcoin, the network is a trustless system, right? And so if you take custody of your Bitcoin, I can have it on a cold storage wall, which is essentially like a hard drive, if you're not familiar with cold storage, and no one has access to that.

Starting point is 00:44:19 The only person that has access to that is whoever has the keys. So hopefully that might be me, maybe a family member, but the government doesn't have access to that. What the government is trying to do, which should scare people, especially in a world where they're gonna move towards

Starting point is 00:44:32 central bank digital currencies, is the fact that they can basically tell a bank, hey, freeze this person's account. Coinbase. So an exchange is essentially an online bank. It's a third party, you are trusting them with your Bitcoin, you're introducing a third party. You are trusting them with your Bitcoin You're introducing a third party and trust into the mix and if they have a relationship with the government

Starting point is 00:44:50 There's a potential that you might not be able to access your Bitcoin and so again That's why there's this really big movement within Bitcoin and crypto at large to just take self-custody and become your own bank and become sovereign over your asset So buy it with so where those truckers fucked up is keeping their Bitcoin in a bank and not moving it to cold storage like I did. Or on an exchange, right? Yeah. And then the crypto exchanges are trying to fight that,

Starting point is 00:45:16 because they don't want the government to be involved in that way. But for sure, there's gonna be battles ahead. And I do think that more countries will do a central bank digital currency like China is. And again, it's going to make Bitcoin look really good because that's going to be money that the government can't program and just take away from you. How do you reconcile like a lot of Bitcoin bulls like there's this one guy that I might,

Starting point is 00:45:40 the guy, the acid dealer guy, who sold me acid. He could have gathered his men. He gets really excited whenever there's like institutions that are partaking and getting involved, but that seems to be at odds with the spirit of like the libertarian heart of Bitcoin. So I wonder how you reconcile that of like, having big institutions like BlackRock

Starting point is 00:46:08 or JP Morgan sort of validated and participate in it, but it's also those are the very institutions that you're sort of rebelling against. Yeah, and that's a great point. I see both sides. So on the one hand, that's why I mentioned, I wanna get the average person, the retail investor, educated about this so that they start allocating

Starting point is 00:46:26 and dollar cost averaging and getting Satoshi's. But at the same time, these big institutions, they legitimize things, they allow for on ramps, they make it so that people do take this space seriously. And we've had amazing CEOs like Michael Saylor come in and actually become fantastic spokespeople for what this is and the potential of it. So on the one hand, it's good for more adoption.

Starting point is 00:46:48 On the other hand, you're absolutely right. Bitcoin is about the average working person having a shot and debanking the bank. We have this saying, you're banking the unbanked, but also people say keeping people unbanked, get the banks out of it because they have too much power and they're just married to Washington. But are you banking the unbanked?

Starting point is 00:47:10 You said you can't really use it as your everyday currency, right? It's too volatile and everything like that. If you put your money in it, it's really just this thing you're parking for 10 years and hoping things go well. It's both. I've visited some countries and in the emerging and developing world, Bitcoin actually has been used more as a medium of exchange.

Starting point is 00:47:31 And there are some incredible stories out there. Like, I recently went to the Oslo Freedom Forum where people come in from all these different countries. Many of them are dissidents. They have faced terrible situations, even imprisonment due to oppressive government, authoritarianism, and they've used Bitcoin as a human rights tool

Starting point is 00:47:47 and the ability to escape. In Afghanistan, I interviewed a woman on my podcast, Roya Maboube, who is one of the first female tech CEOs in Afghanistan. She's been paying women in Bitcoin since about 2013. A lot of them have been able to save, accumulate real wealth for their families. Some of them have been able to escape

Starting point is 00:48:04 really horrible marriages because in Afghanistan, you can't have a bank account as a woman without a male's like permission and oversight. And so it's allowed for financial freedom for many women there that she's worked with and she helped people escape when the Taliban took over. People were transacting in Bitcoin because there was a run on the banks. People couldn't access their money, but they used Bitcoin in order to get a ride to get out of the country. The same thing has been happening in Ukraine. I met some amazing people who are working with refugees and they can't carry a bunch of gold bullion across the border, but they can take their Bitcoin because it's a seed

Starting point is 00:48:36 phrase, a password in your head or a small, cold storage wallet, and people have been able to escape Ukraine using Bitcoin or get help, get a financial aid through Bitcoin. So those kinds of stories are incredible because it's being used in real time as a medium of exchange and as something to exchange and transact value anywhere in the world, quickly and efficiently without the eyes of the government or a middleman being involved. And I think that that will increase the more that adoption increases. Yeah, I think that's a great part of it. I mean, you know, there's so much middlemaning in sending money and stuff, it's so expensive.

Starting point is 00:49:10 And so I think it's great for that. And it's like there's, there are a lot of pros and cons to this, the cons being the volatility in the short term, the cons being that it inescapably feels like a pyramid scheme kind of. And then it doesn't help that you've got all the shisters and the alt coins, the thousands. What she doesn't do really. I love the alt coins.

Starting point is 00:49:36 Right. But it's still it's part of the crypto community. And I feel like, do you like what are your thoughts on that? Do you feel like it taints? It does harm. I just see Bitcoin so different from crypto, and they're always lumped in the same umbrella, and it's one of my frustrations,

Starting point is 00:49:53 like when I go on TV, they'll have all the tickers, right? They'll have Bitcoin and a couple of the other coins, and I'm talking about things that are so different. I'm talking about solutions and problems that these other tokens can't fix and aren't trying to fix, right? They're trying to do other things in the tech space. I just don't want people to lose their money,

Starting point is 00:50:15 especially young people that are trying to get ahead and using crypto as a means to like, try to finally afford the ability to get a house or pay off their school debt or start a family. I don't want them going to the casino essentially because that's what I see a lot of these tokens as. You can look back over the years, like which coins are still in existence. Some of them go to zero.

Starting point is 00:50:36 I don't want people to lose their money. I feel like it's up to you. I believe in freedom and free markets. If you want to invest in some coin because you think it's gonna go a million percent up, I wish you luck. And I hope you take those profits at the right time, time the market and buy Bitcoin. Smash that Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:50:54 But I don't want to speculate. And this is one of the big things too, the last thing I'll say about this. I feel like we are even in this environment where people feel the need to trade or get on Robinhood and become like options traders when they have no experience in stocks. It's because we've financialized everything

Starting point is 00:51:14 to the point where you can't put your money in the bank. We don't have a safe store of value where you could just like set it and forget it, take your money that you earned in whatever job being an accountant, a doctor, a podcast host, whatever. Put it in the bank and watch it go up in value or at least maintain its value over time. You literally have to risk it. You have to become a real estate investor. You have to become a stock trader. You have to go into crypto and it's like everyone's so desperate to try to hold on to the value of their money or get rich through these schemes. And that's sad.

Starting point is 00:51:42 Like, what if we had a money that you couldn't inflate, so the value just went up over time, and you didn't have to worry so much. You could literally just like, oh, stock's cool. If I want equity in a company, I'll invest because I believe in that company, not because there's a bunch of easy money going in, and the company's buying their stock back,

Starting point is 00:51:58 and the stock's going up, even though the company's worthless, it's half our company's or a zombie company, it's like, we don't have to live in a world like that. You know, I don't know if you've ever seen those videos where guys will do man on the street things and go up to Christians and say, hey, I'd like to read you a quote from the Quran

Starting point is 00:52:14 and get your thoughts on it, but then they actually read them a Bible quote and the guy will, they'll be like, oh yeah, that's terrible. And he's like, I'm actually reading from the Bible. What reminds me of that is, I feel like you could describe the stock market and be like, hey, I'm describing Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:52:34 What if you could put your money in something that's very questionable and run by shady figures and subject to all kinds of manipulation and stuff? Because as much as I like to think that having a government oversight is great, look at what just happened with, I don't know if you saw this HKD stock that went from, it was this Hong Kong based IPO that went from like 20 bucks to fucking 2000.

Starting point is 00:53:00 It's like our system is also the supposedly safe one. It's also rife with Corruption and yeah, but I have to say what Not believing in Bitcoin does not mean you believe in the app so sometimes feels like you know You're sitting on a bike and it's got two flat tires and someone's like hey, why don't you check this bike out? Well, like no fucking handle bar the chains all fucked up and you're like well I mean, I feel like I could just put some air in these and they're like, no, no, no,

Starting point is 00:53:27 that thing's a piece of shit. Like, I'll fucked up at it. But I, and I think what you're saying is people have this money that they're sitting on and want to get rich. They want to put it into something and they've been told to just like put it in. And I mean, historically, if you do dollar cost average into just like ETFs and whatever

Starting point is 00:53:48 funds, over time, you're going to be okay. Unless you invest in like the stagnant from like 1968 to whenever where the market essentially did nothing or Japan from like 1980s until now you're essentially break even. Yeah, I see what you're saying. And... It's a huge issue, right? Because a lot of these companies, and a lot of them have been driven by Eno technology, they had really easy access to capital because when the government's just printing money and we have this quantitative easing environment, it's very easy for these companies to get valued at a lot of money even though they're not producing a lot or generating revenue. But you get to a certain point where that's really not sustainable and these stocks get

Starting point is 00:54:36 so overvalued and it's a bubble and the executives have cashed out on their stock buybacks. So now how does the average person get into the stock market, especially young people that are trying to accumulate assets? It's really increasingly difficult. And again, it creates this divide of the haves and the have-nots. It balloons our wealth inequality. It destroys the middle class and the average labor whose dollars are just losing purchasing power. And if you look at the S&P one of the things

Starting point is 00:55:00 I share in my education, like webinars and seminars, is that the S&P 500 used, I mean, the values of the stocks, it's like the tech stocks balloon in terms of just how much they're valued, but they take up like 2% of our GDP and employment. So it's like, it's fluff, it's excess. And we've been in this secular bull market for 40 years where we're feeling the pain now because they have to drain the liquidity.

Starting point is 00:55:28 They have to pop the bubble, but they have to be so careful because the bubble's so leveraged and there's so much debt. If they pop it too harshly, then they're gonna send everything cascading down and it's gonna be a deflationary bust and everyone's gonna lose their jobs and there's gonna be defaults left and right.

Starting point is 00:55:43 So like, what did I have to do? They have to like keep it propped up, suppress interest rates. I mean, this is where it's all going, right? Like, where is this all going? They're gonna lower interest rates eventually. We don't know when, but like they have to in order to service debt,

Starting point is 00:55:55 because otherwise our country's gonna go bankrupt and no one's gonna want our treasuries. And the equities will again go up again. We're gonna create a bigger balloon. It's gonna create more wealth concentration. Like what's the end game? Like what's the end point? That's called, that's the, okay.

Starting point is 00:56:09 So my top landing. If I put it all the Bitcoin. My top landing is Bitcoin. That's exactly what Bitcoin is, that's perfect. That's what my next tweet's gonna be. Bitcoin is your soft landing. For when this fiat system comes crashing down and the bubble finally bursts

Starting point is 00:56:22 and the music stops playing, because Russia and China are already like, yo, you guys are printing too much. We don't trust it. We're going to store a bunch of gold. We're going to create our own digital currencies and our own Swift networks. Where is this going people? Just think about like 10, 20, 100 years down the road. And I think I can count on his math and Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:56:42 Yeah, the ocean is boiling. It's a hundred years from now You're Bitcoin skyrocketed. You have beachfront property in Ohio No, wait, that's actually a great. I do I do want to make sure we don't miss this point cuz I got to know is this is this real or is this just FUD we've all seen the New Yorker story last year about how Bitcoin and crypto are destroying the environment, right? I'm gonna fucking zap you, dude. Keep them on. But then, and I can't really get a real, because crypto people are like, this is all bullshit,

Starting point is 00:57:17 they don't understand, whatever. But they have these fun graphics and facts that you see tweeted out about how crypto uses more energy than Finland or something like that. So what's the deal there? Yeah, so this is actually an area where I'm spending a lot of time studying. I'm reading a book called Fossil Future by Alex Epstein, which I recommend to people. Bitcoin actually right now is driving both investment and innovation into renewable energy and wasted stranded energy.

Starting point is 00:57:47 So I didn't know this actually, but about a third of energy around the world is stranded or wasted. It doesn't go anywhere because we don't have the infrastructure to transport it, right? So it just gets wasted. The great thing about Bitcoin is Bitcoin miners can meet energy where it's at at its source. And so they can actually capture energy that would have been stranded. And one of the things that they capture is methane, which is actually four times worse for the environment than carbon dioxide.

Starting point is 00:58:12 So it's actually creating more emission-free energy, or using emission-free energy in order to mine. You can use hydro, you can use nuclear, you can use fossil, you can use the stuff that's stranded yet methane It's four times they literally have that so oil fields like they'll release they have stranded natural gas like Methane gets gets basically wasted and flared they flare it so Bitcoin miners can go to that location hookup generators and Literally capture the stranded methane Are they actually doing that? Yes, yes. Like all over the country, especially in Texas,

Starting point is 00:58:48 there are some great people doing it. So again, it's actually driving more towards the renewable and emission-free energy, because it's also the most cost-effective Bitcoin miners are trying to find the cheapest energy, and they go wherever around the world that it's cheapest. So if you're using, like you're not gonna to hook up a minor here because it would be too expensive using our our grid.

Starting point is 00:59:08 It would probably be like you have to try to get under 14 cents a kilowatt hour and that's almost impossible in places that are urban like like LA. They try to go to places where it's cheaper. They try to find stranded energy. They use solar. They use when they use all these renewable sources. They use volcanoes and El Salvador. It's really incredible.

Starting point is 00:59:25 There is so much fun. And I think that people should be very careful with what they're hearing about these ESG narratives, because a lot of it is just... Be careful about the ESG narrative. Yeah, once again, it's like sending money to these big corporations, right now, wind turbines for wind energy and...

Starting point is 00:59:42 What is an ESG narrative just for? ESG is environmental social governance, and- What is the NISG narrative just for? The NISG is environmental social governance and it's basically the government saying, we're gonna allocate money to these projects, we're gonna pick winners and losers, it's crony capitalism in my opinion, because they've deemed it to be, global warming friendly, emission-free, what not.

Starting point is 01:00:00 But it's misleading because again, they're picking companies that don't have sustainable business models. Basically, they're going to pick someone that just says, I have an idea for an ESG project. They're going to funnel a bunch of taxpayer money to them. Then the company could go under two years later. The thing is, we don't have right now the technology to go emission-free as quickly as they're claiming to do by 2030 is what I think Kamala Harris

Starting point is 01:00:25 said last week. Literally don't have the technology infrastructure around the world. Renewable energy makes up for 3% of energy. Everything else right now is a mix of fossil and different types. We've demonetized nuclear, which is emission-free, but for whatever reason, there's been so much fun, that it's dangerous radiation. And also, there are also three billion people around the world who have no access to electricity.

Starting point is 01:00:48 So you're gonna tell, you're gonna say that those people who don't have access to cheap fossil fuels, now somehow we're gonna get wind and solar to all of them. Like, it's literally impossible. And there are so many people, politicians out there with no climate, science, or energy background that are speaking things that are impossible. So you just have to be careful,

Starting point is 01:01:08 but that being said, Bitcoin is actually helping renewable energy. It may be more energy expensive, but they're investing more into renewable. Right, and so this is the question I have to ask, is energy consumption bad if there's no emissions? Right? Like we've made a moral issue out of using energy.

Starting point is 01:01:29 Like we're here because we use energy. You have lights that use energy, you have cameras that use energy, we eat. And like the things that created our food use energy to create a wind turbine uses a ton of fossil fuels and is made in China, actually, which uses more fossil fuels than any country. Like we moralize things for political narratives that are ridiculous.

Starting point is 01:01:47 But I don't think Bitcoin is fully like using renewable energy right now. More than 50%. More than 50%. Yeah, it's more than, it's more than most industries in terms of what's renewable. I got to call it the New Yorker. Yeah. They're in trouble. Well, and it's funny because in fossil future, which I'm reading right now, just about

Starting point is 01:02:02 the fossil fuel industry, about energy in general. It talks about how these same scientists that basically are our knowledge experts go to, the media, the politicians. They have been predicting global disaster since the 1970s and 1980s saying, oh, by 94, it's gonna be over. We're all gonna be living in these green house shelters because the climate will be destroyed. It's false, it's fun, and it's extremely misleading. in these green house shelters because the climate will be destroyed.

Starting point is 01:02:25 It's false, it's fun, and it's extremely misleading. What's false? Global warming? No, global warming got false. I'm saying these really dramatized, catastrophized predictions. We've had them literally since the 19th. We're seeing, once in a century climate events happen, we're seeing like big parts of the Arctic shelf just fall off and. And I never said we're not seeing

Starting point is 01:02:48 that. What I'm saying is that these a lot of these climate scientists are predicting literally end-of-world catastrophes within five, ten years which have not come to pass including things about Bitcoin. Hmm. Okay. We uh damn. Y'all went off there. You guys just were like on it and I'm just

Starting point is 01:03:06 Really fascinating area to know you know I'm trying to become a no coin pussy and I Can't I can't get on board if it's gonna burn the planet alive our new currency I I would anyone want to get on board with something that's gonna destroy the planet to make money real quick Not us not us by coiners. I I the idea of them using what would otherwise get sent up in the atmosphere, which would hurt global warming, exacerbate it. I'm operating it like 70% today. So I really apologize.

Starting point is 01:03:38 Every episode. That's not true. And I do apologize to the listeners and the viewers because sometimes brain just not working. I was out late. I have a man. Why not lay on the morning, you got a room? I just, you know, sometimes I can, so anyway. I would love to learn more about what exactly

Starting point is 01:03:54 that technology, what it does, how the fuck do you, like why don't we do that not for just mining Bitcoin, but for like, you know, recycling that shit. Yeah. That's where I get the nerds on this. You guys, this is what a lot of big oil companies are doing right now and they're not disclosing

Starting point is 01:04:14 it, but they're doing it in oil fields. Natural gas, like they're... Mine Bitcoin. Yes. No shit. Well, oil companies are mining Bitcoin. Yes. Yes.

Starting point is 01:04:23 Oh my gosh. You can, some of them are starting to go public, but there are a lot that have not disclosed this publicly. It's happening all over the US. You're telling me big oil is gonna own a buck's Bitcoin? Like Google it right now, Exxon, whatever. They are mining Bitcoin. They, thank you.

Starting point is 01:04:37 And why it's risky business? Of all the content that I've had. Uh oh, it's risky business. I think Jesus Christ. Oh my God, there's so much word. Canoco fill up such as one of the biggest oil. I don't know if they're plans are to sell it or hold it, but that is that's another asset that they're able to accumulate. And that is like direct to you, that you're not buying it off an exchange. That is non-KYC mind Bitcoin. They're mining it. Yeah, methane isn't even a real thing.

Starting point is 01:04:55 Yeah, I mean, I don't know if they're plans are to sell it or hold it, but that is another asset that they're able to accumulate. And that is like direct to you, that you're not buying it off in exchange. That is non-KYC mind Bitcoin. Okay, yeah, they are just minding it. Yeah. Yeah, methane is anymore. Yeah. Ah, yeah, yeah, man. These fucking oil companies figured out another way.

Starting point is 01:05:16 Yeah, they figured out another way to take shit from us. Yeah, so there you go. Whenever any company drills for oil, it often pushes out methane gas out of the ground. It's more potent than greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Yeah, so you have to flare it. And that sucks that that's been going into the environment and how amazing that there's a piece of technology that basically represents a savings technology that can help our environment, that people are making into something bad.

Starting point is 01:05:44 So can you do this without making Bitcoin? Can you flare it without making Bitcoin? Can you do that in capture? No, they have no use for that energy. It just gets flared and wasted because there's no buyer for it. So essentially, Bitcoin, that's what Bitcoin miners come in as a buyer of that. They're taking that, which would have otherwise been wasted and flared and they're using it They're transforming it into digital energy as Michael says. Yeah, because I wonder how otherwise what other

Starting point is 01:06:13 Utility there would be for it like what other what is fucking Con Ed gonna go out there and capture it and put it in a battery and transport it like yeah, yeah going to go out there and capture it and put it in a battery and transport it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I mean, it really does make you think because like I said, I did not know prior to learning about Bitcoin that so much energy that's produced in the world is wasted or stranded because there's no infrastructure in place to either transport it or there is no buyer. And Bitcoin miners are buyers of cheap energy. So they can go anywhere in the world and start to use what would have been wasted energy. And that's incredible.

Starting point is 01:06:47 And hey, what, what, what, what they did off your hands? Exactly. Yeah. And the cheaper it is, the more money they'll make on the mining as Bitcoin goes up in price. So it's really actually, it's really incredible. It's gonna, it's gonna transform, I believe, our energy industries.

Starting point is 01:07:01 I apologize in advance for this, but they should just feed me a bunch of beans and plug it right into my ass. Turn me into a big one. Just encourages them. Yeah. This is what you signed up for. And on that note, we should end it there.

Starting point is 01:07:16 We're at our mark, baby. All right. I'll let you do it since my brain's not working. No, you do. I'm just a happy, you know,'m on Jill Biden mode if we don't soda This is not a beer. It's a water. It's not a beer you guys. I think some beer got into bins Wow, I can't believe you're drinking beer at 9 in the morning It's just scary water

Starting point is 01:07:42 Yeah, you've never played with death death. No, thank you, though. You're so consumed by Bitcoin that you, you haven't noticed that this is a powerhouse of it. I drink liquid energy, which is Bitcoin. Digital liquid. Wait, what the fuck? Wait, what? Is there a Bitcoin energy drink?

Starting point is 01:07:59 No, but there should be. You should create it. All right, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I it. All right. I'll work and do it. It was our idea. Any of us will come up with on the channel or ours. We own it and you'll hear from our lawyers if we see a bit coin energy drink. Are you gonna buy Bitcoin? Yeah, you should buy a little. Why don't you let me answer the question? I see it as an investment and you know, I believe it could go up and I could make some money off it. I wish we could talk more about the, you know, your belief in the system and how it could change lower income people's lives.

Starting point is 01:08:37 Maybe another time we could talk about that. I really love the stuff you're talking about with the environment. I'd love to hear more about that. But yeah, I would buy in as an investment, I don't know if I buy the whole system thing yet. But wouldn't it be wild if Bitcoin ended up actually like solving everything from poverty to, you know, fucking capitalistic?

Starting point is 01:08:57 I think I just, I can't. While I'm worrying your head would explode. I can't, I can't connect. There's a big leap between all our jobs are gone just by Bitcoin. It's not all of our jobs are gone. Here's the thing though, like Bitcoin has the best shot at doing all that.

Starting point is 01:09:14 It won't fix everything, it won't fix it overnight, but of all the things that exist right now, especially with regards to technology and where the future's going, Bitcoin has the potential to fix the most amount of things by creating a more equal playing field, creating more inclusion on a global level to anyone in the whole world.

Starting point is 01:09:33 And I wanna be on that, like I wanna fight for that team because I want the world to be a better place. I want us to be able to plan for our futures. I want it to be more of a system of meritocracy and like what goods and services do you provide? What can you innovate? What can you invest as opposed to what I believe is a really broken incentive system

Starting point is 01:09:53 where a few people or the winners, everyone else's losses or socialize, everyone's kind of struggling to get by and not knowing how to plan for the future. I will die on this hell fighting for this because I think that Bitcoin could actually make things better for all of us. I think that's the best place we could have to leave it. Yeah, where can people follow you and what? Yeah, I'm on Twitter, very active on Twitter at NaparNal.

Starting point is 01:10:16 My podcast is called Coin Stories. I also host a video show called Hard Money and you can also go to TalkingBitcoin.com. There you have it, folks. Hell yes. Get out there, buy some Bitcoin. Not financial advice, but buy some Bitcoin. Yeah, and the motto of the show, what is it, quit your job, kill your parents, shoot your pants, kill your parents, quit your job,

Starting point is 01:10:37 shoot your pants. Yeah, don't worry, don't worry about it. It's's it's All right Not even good and try anyway, you know like subscribe all that stuff. Thanks folks. Love you. Thank you. Bye This week on after hours. Hey guys, are you horny? Can you make your titties dance? Make your titties dance. What are those implants? Charlie Munger, die on the show challenge. We had $25 million.

Starting point is 01:11:09 Get $25 million! That's all! That's all! That's all! That's all! That's all! That's all! That's all!

Starting point is 01:11:17 That's all! That's all! That's all! That's all! That's all! That's all! That's all! That's all!

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The Trillionaire Mindset - 47: Is Bitcoin Really the Future? ft. Natalie Brunell

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