The Wolf Of All Streets - The End of Gold? Lawrence Lepard on Why Bitcoin Will Take Over

Episode Date: August 25, 2024

In this episode, Lawrence Lepard, a veteran investor and sound money advocate, shares his insights on the critical role of Bitcoin in the global financial system, comparing its future potential to traditional assets like gold and silver. We delve into the challenges of the U.S. financial system, the impact of zero interest rates, and the importance of adopting sound money principles to ensure a stable economic future. Lawrence Lepard: https://x.com/LawrenceLepard ►► Sponsored by iTrust Capital Invest in Bitcoin, Crypto Assets & Gold with Your IRA Using iTrust Capital. 👉 https://bit.ly/itrust-scott ►► JOIN THE FREE WOLF DEN NEWSLETTER, DELIVERED EVERY WEEKDAY! 👉https://thewolfden.substack.com/ ►► The Arch Public Unleash algorithmic trading. Discover how algorithms used by hedge-funds are now accessible to traders looking for unparalleled insights and opportunities! 👉https://thearchpublic.com/ ►►OKX SIGN UP FOR AN OKX TRADING ACCOUNT THEN DEPOSIT & TRADE TO UNLOCK MYSTERY BOX REWARDS OF UP TO $60,000! 👉https://www.okx.com/join/SCOTTMELKER ►►TRADING ALPHA READY TO TRADE LIKE THE PROS? THE BEST TRADERS IN CRYPTO ARE RELYING ON THESE INDICATORS TO MAKE TRADES. Use code '10OFF' for a 10% discount. 👉https://tradingalpha.io/?via=scottmelker ►►NGRAVE This is the coldest hardware wallet in the world and the only one that I personally use. 👉https://www.ngrave.io/?sca_ref=4531319.pgXuTYJlYd Follow Scott Melker: Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottmelker Web: https://www.thewolfofallstreets.io Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30N5FDe Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3FASB2c #Bitcoin #Crypto #investments Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 0:31 The Need for Bitcoin 2:23 Lawrence Lepard's Bitcoin Story 6:16 Bitcoin vs. Gold and Silver 8:45 The Future of Gold and Silver's Monetary Premium 9:41 Bitcoin as Digital Gold 12:02 Volatility and Adoption of Bitcoin 14:19 The U.S. Financial System and Potential Collapse 20:03 The Role of the Federal Reserve 21:32 The Decreasing Importance of the Fed 22:32 Monitoring Key Economic Indicators 26:15 Approaching Recession and Market Responses 28:02 Sound Money Principles and Government Spending 30:10 Potential Solutions and the Role of Bitcoin 31:29 The Global Impact of the U.S. Dollar 34:37 The Role of the Internet in Financial Freedom 36:07 The Political Landscape and Fiscal Responsibility 40:19 Derivatives Market and Bitcoin Spot ETFs 44:51 The Impact of Zero Interest Rates 46:08 The Future of U.S. Monetary Policy 47:54 Observations on the Global Economy 50:40 How Bitcoin Helps the General Population 52:05 Bitcoin's Asymmetric Investment Opportunity 54:31 Potential Future Value of Bitcoin 56:44 Lawrence Lepard's Background and Website The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own and should in no way be interpreted as financial advice. This video was created for entertainment. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision. I am not a financial advisor. Nothing contained in this video constitutes or shall be construed as an offering of financial instruments or as investment advice or recommendations of an investment strategy or whether or not to "Buy," "Sell," or "Hold" an investment.

I feel sorry for a lot of young people who've never really seen a bear market. I mean, if you got into this business after 2008, you know, all you know is buy the dip. But you said, get my investors out with a decent profit, which implies that you would dare, you know, commit the cardinal Bitcoin sin, that sarcasm of one day selling. If you did that same math today, gold would have to be at $90,000 an ounce. Bitcoiners love to point out that Bitcoin is for everyone. It can save the global financial system, that it's superior savings technology, and that everyone should own it. But few people do a better

job of laying out all of the problems that exist and the reasons that we actually need Bitcoin than Lawrence Lippard. Larry is a huge, huge part of the Bitcoin community, a sound money advocate, and has been investing for over 40 years. When he speaks, you should listen. Now's your chance to do that. Let's go. Larry, I think my most memorable moment from Bitcoin Nashville was the awkward time right

after Trump's speech. I was in a suit. I went outside. There was a guy out there with some salon aside. And I jokingly opened my shirt to take a picture with him because he was topless. And there you were. I looked up. He's a very serious person, Larry. And the one moment I let go. I'm not that. Well, you are serious. And I just thought it was fabulous because because you're ripped and you got a six pack. And that in and of itself is always impressive in this country, given that so much of the country is out of shape and sadly overweight, right? You're a CrossFitter. I did it for years. Now I just kind of do a old man hybrid.

But I always see your videos up there. Yeah, well, I just show up. You know, I'm not ripped but i but i'm consistent so showing up and being consistent is the best i think you could pretty much ask for in this world yeah it's like uh yeah bitcoiners and dollar cost averaging right you just show up and it's the same idea it's compound or compounding you know it's it's time in the market not timing the market right you know you just you want to be there all the time when it's compounding. You know, it's time in the market, not timing the market, right? You know, you just you want to be there all the time when it's going the right direction. So I don't know that I've ever heard your full Bitcoin story.

If you can give us the TLDR. Oh, yeah. Well, everyone else has heard it a lot, but I'll repeat it quickly. You know, so I'm sound money guy forever. You know, back, I'm still, you know, a lot of people take shots. I'm still a dinosaur with gold and silver, kind of where I came from. But you've got to remember, before 2008, that was your only choice, right? And so I was an Austrian economist, and nobody even knew what that was.

Thanks to SAFE, now a lot of you guys all do. And Bitcoin got introduced. I was introduced to it by the Ron Paul Forum guys. And I should have been buying it at $1 or $2, but I wasn't really paying attention. I'll tell you why. I was looking at all the, you know, I should have been buying it at a dollar or two, but I wasn't really paying attention. I'll tell you why. I was looking at all the, you know, I remember all the other ones. I mean, the eCash and HashCash. And there are several other iterations of the Liberty Dollar and, you know, of state-free money that have been tried. And of course, none of them had

worked. They didn't have all the technical pieces. And so they had a double spend program problem in many cases. And so I just kind of ignored it until it got to be about $100. And I was like, whoa, hang on a second. Maybe there's something here. And so I started filling out the forms for Mt. Gox and wasn't really paying attention. Eventually, and this was well above $100. I think it shot up to close to $1,000. And then Mt. Gox failed, fortunately, before I sent them money. And at the time, Coinbase had just come public or opened up their business.

They weren't a public company yet, but they were trading exchange. And that was when I first got in. So I started buying coins there. Not a lot. My fear was always the technology. Being a computer and technology investor prior to that, most of my career was in the venture business, investing in, you know, starting off with, you know, disk drives and memory back in the 1980s, all the way up to, you know, the internet and through the internet. I just realized that, you know, computers are not necessarily stable. So how do you have a form of money when you got the risk of the computer going blue screen? And, you know, it was because I hadn't taken the time

to understand what a blockchain was and a having and, you know, I mean, the difficult, you know, it was because I hadn't taken the time to understand what a blockchain was and a halving. And, you know, I mean, all the stuff that we all know and take for granted today, I didn't, you know, hashing, et cetera. I didn't understand any of that, SHA-256, et cetera. So it took me a long time to get comfortable with that and going through the fork wars, you know, the forking and then the block size wars helped as well. And, of course, now here we are 840 or 50,000 blocks later. And, you know, I've now gotten very comfortable. The technical risk has been pretty well beaten out of the thing, but that was kind of what held me back. So I still, you know, while I was doing all of that and buying coins along the way, I mean, I bought a bunch of coins in the 2017 and that run up in Thanksgiving, thought it was going to 100. I was like, oh my God, this is fantastic. And then of

course it backed off big time and I bought some more on the dip. But I was still managing a gold and silver fund, a gold and silver mining company fund, because that was my traditional business. I'd been kind of a stock picker. So that's slowly but surely a treading away, but still there. I'm still doing it and focused hard on it. I want to get all my investors out with a good profit. And I think we will because I think that both of these assets are going to move. I just think Bitcoin is going to move further and faster. So they're both forms of sound money. The gold is the old world analog and the Bitcoin is the new world digital. And Bitcoin's got the digital adoption curve going for it. And as, you know, Saylor and we all point out, you know, it's a trillion dollar market cap and a 400 plus trillion dollar asset, you know, bucket of people who make investments.

And so it's just not going to take much for some of those people to start realizing that this is a better form of, you know, whether you want to call it an investment or money or whatever, it's better than the alternatives. And so, you know, we're going to much higher prices, in my view, I'm sure you agree. So yeah, is that does it kind of cover it? We're how I got it does. And the idea that you just sort of shared, I think Bitcoin versus the others, the Paul Tudor Jones fastest horse in the race, right, which was exactly what it is. I love that comment by him. I think he nailed it. Right. Yeah. Crypto investors in the United States face some major challenges. One of them is that there's almost no way to get exposure to the asset class inside of your traditional investment vehicles.

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And I think that somewhat sparked one of the previous runs. But I want to focus on something that you just said, because it's interesting. A lot of people may qualify you or say you're a Bitcoin maxi, right? The people on terms for all of this. But you said, get my investors out with a decent profit, which implies that you would dare, you know, commit the cardinal Bitcoin sin, that sarcasm of one day selling. Right. Well, when I was referring to

that, I was actually referring to the gold and silver fund that I still manage. That was not referring to the Bitcoin bucket that I have. I mean, I honestly think Bitcoin is a multi-generational asset, you know, and from time to time, I mean, obviously when I retire, you know, Bitcoin doesn't pay a yield. I may need to sell, you know 1% or 2% of my Bitcoin every year to cover my costs. But no, I'm a very long-term hodler with respect to Bitcoin. I think with respect to gold, gold and silver mining properties, I think there's several more puffs in the cigar. But over time, the monetary premium in gold and silver is going to go down,

and Bitcoin is going to continue to go up. So over time, I'm favoring, you know, one versus the other. So that's what I was talking about. Does that monetary premium in gold and silver go away over time because of Bitcoin? Oh, yeah, very much so. Yeah, very much so. I mean, and trust me, I mean, when I say over time, I mean, I may be talking 10, 20, 30, 40 years. I mean, this is not tomorrow, right?

You know, there are 8 billion people on the planet, most of whom haven't heard of Bitcoin or aren't focused on Bitcoin. And yet most of whom also understand that gold is real money. And, you know, and so if you look at Asia as an example, you know, India and China, I mean, citizens there, there are citizens there that have no clue what Bitcoin is, but they buy gold and silver all the time. And so it's going to take time for the change to take place. But it will take place, in my opinion, because the characteristics of Bitcoin are superior. And, you know, it's Saif's point that you want to hold the soundest money out there, right? Yeah. It's interesting because there's never even been mainstream adoption of gold as an investable asset, right?

Before Bitcoiners, the gold budget. Well, not in our lifetimes. I mean, there was a time when it was the case. There was a time when it was the only and the best investable asset. I mean, JP Morgan, you know, gold is money. Everything else is credit. But you're right. Since 71, gold has been, you know, hugely demonetized.

I mean, I always marvel. I'm writing a book, and the chart is in this book. It shows that in 71, we were kind of on the gold standard. It was an exchange standard. It wasn't perfect. But one could take our money supply. One could divide it by the ounces of gold we had, the 261 million ounces. And one would come up close to $35 an ounce, which was kind of the reference price from Bretton Woods.

If you did that same math today, gold would have to be at $90,000 an ounce. So what does that tell you? It tells you that we printed a whole lot of money. And I always laugh when Bitcoiners say, well, there's so much monetary premium in gold and it's going to get taken away. And I'm kind of like, well, yes and no. I mean, it's been pretty well, the monetary premium has been pretty well beat out of it because there aren't many people who really regard gold as money anymore.

I mean, it's jewelry for most people. Right. So it begs the question, we have the narrative of Bitcoin as digital gold or a store of value, which personally, actually, I don't love. But I think it is a prevailing narrative. Why don't you like it? I'm just curious. What's wrong with it? The implication that Bitcoin is digital gold, it's most people to say, why doesn't it trade like gold? And I think there's a huge differentiation between price and characteristics. I think it has the characteristics to be a superior version of gold, but I think it muddles

the waters because people look at the price and think that they should be correlated or that it should trade like gold. And I believe that it's very minimizing to Bitcoin to compare it to any other asset class as far as correlation, because I think the best pitch for Bitcoin is that Bitcoin is Bitcoin. It's not a risk asset. It's not a tech stock. It's not gold. It's uncorrelated. It offers idiosyncratic risk in your portfolio. I just love that pitch. And so every time I mentioned digital gold, people say, well, why isn't it acting as a safe haven when gold goes up? I hate that. I get it. Yeah, I hear you. Look, the reason is that we're trying to put the ocean into a swimming pool. I

mean, you know, that's why it's so volatile, right? I mean, it just, you know, it's going to take a lot of time and a lot of adoption. It's got to be much more widely spread as the underlying base layer of money. And, you know, and for that to occur, I mean, there's plenty of it available. It just is not at today's price. And so that's why we get these enormous swings. I always like the Murmican Weimar chart that shows, you know, when a monetary system is changing, just how rapid and volatile the swings can be. And that's Bitcoin to a T, no doubt. And how does that apply to the United States monetary system with that same thinking?

Because, you know, Bitcoiners love to point to the fact that the dollar will eventually hyperinflate or collapse. I think they, again, believe that'll happen in a much shorter timeline that is likely if it does happen. But are there signs, would you say, in legacy financial systems that we really could see a collapse or crash of the actual system? You know, I believe I believe there are. I mean, I, you know, look, I thought we were going to collapse in 2008. I thought we were going to collapse in 2000. I thought we were going to collapse in 87. I mean, so, you know, these things take long periods of time. You look at, you know, reserve currencies and how they lose their position. I mean, it takes decades,

and we're only a few decades into this one. So it may be a few more decades until it occurs. But as you're well aware, as all your listeners are well aware of the fiscal dominance, the way that the government is spending, the way the debt is growing, I mean, you know, 11 trillion in debt in four years. I mean, it took 200 and some odd years to get the first 11 trillion, right? I mean, it's just these things are compounding. And, you know, anyone who plays with compound functions understands that eventually the line kind of goes straight up, you know. And we've had, you know, a couple of crises recently. We had 2008 and we had COVID. And, you know, as Lynn's charts and books point out so nicely, you know, they just have to keep creating money. I mean, this is a system based on creditism

and they have a choice that they've either got to inflate or die. And if they don't continue to inflate and debase the monetary, you know, debase the value of the money, then the system collapses on itself because all that debt that we've created, you know, can't be serviced. So and it appears to me like it's happening faster, that the cycles are getting faster, the amounts are getting bigger, etc. Now, you know, one can debate a lot whether what that means. Does that mean, you know, we go to hyper Bitcoinization in the 30s? I think that's pretty possible, actually. But, you know, I don't think it's possible next year. I mean, right. I mean, it's, you know, there are probably several more swings, you know, up and down in this inflation deflation boom bust cycle that we have. I mean,

I would fully expect the price of Bitcoin will be over 100, you know, end of this year and a couple hundred a year or two out. But then, of course, you know, they might try and do something to fix the monetary system and it might correct. You know, it's just that's the nature of the game. And by the way, the people who are running the system, they're really good. They know how to change the rules. They know how to, you know, they know how to, they know how to keep us on our toes and they will do things to keep their system alive because they obviously all benefit from it. I mean, a perfect example was 08. They started paying interest on excess reserves and that's what prevented all that money they printed from going out into the system and creating inflation. I mean, there were a lot

of us in 08 who thought, okay, this is it. We're going to have hyperinflation right here, right now. Well, no, they cooked up something to prevent that from happening. So, you know, they will continue to, you know, try to preserve their system. And they will probably be somewhat successful. But I think they're fighting a losing battle. I mean, you know, I often joke that I think Jay Powell is playing a losing hand. That's my view. I think Jay Powell doesn't care he's playing a losing hand

as long as it doesn't lose before he gets removed from office. He cannot wait until May 2026, is my sense. And he's probably, every day he's probably saying to his wife, why the hell did I take that second term? This is ridiculous.

Right, he could be done in November, depending on the results of the election. Well, that's possible. I don't think that politically, I don't think that anybody can really fire him, though. I think he's, I think, you know, unless, I mean, now he could step down at any time he wants, I suppose. But I don't think he wants to do that because it's embarrassing. So my gut is he's going to try and, you know, leg it out until May of 2026, which is when his term ends. Yeah, I think what's been most impressive to me, talk about it with my guests

all the time, is something you alluded to, which is the amount of levers and buttons that they can pull and push that we don't know about. Because when you see the top line numbers, when you see what's happening, you assume this is unsustainable. The debt spiral that you alluded to, it feels like there's no way that that could be corrected. It's sort of like the Great Recession of 2023 and 2024 that everyone was predicting or the rate cuts we were going to get for 18 months that predicted. It just never happened. They've got an exchange stabilization funds. It's multiple billions of dollars. I mean, I think it's four or five hundred billion dollars that they can use to, you know, to monkey around with markets. They've got other central banks. I mean, you know, Japan is obviously intervening in their markets because right now it's kind of the crisis

sort of situation. And I'm sure the Fed is providing with swap lines. And in turn, I'm sure that, you know, the Japanese are being asked to buy the U.S. government securities. I mean, there is a lot that they can do to manipulate these markets. I mean, I don't think any of these markets truly, quote unquote, represent free markets. They're just markets that are the best that we've got in light of the circumstances, right? I literally refer to Bitcoin as the last existing free market. I think that's probably right. I think that's exactly right. Which is interesting because people complain Bitcoin is manipulated, that whales push the price around up and down, which is, by the way, the definition of a free market.

It's still free. It may suck that somebody has a lot more money to operate in that free market than you do, but it's a free market. There's no buyer of last resort coming in to bail out creditors. Correct. The one thing that might make it a little less free than we would like and that I do worry about, and I've mentioned in the past, people have asked me the question is, can they manipulate it? And to the degree that there are futures and options around it, those things can start to kind of push it around a bit.

And the good news is, I mean, the amount of gold futures and options and the BIS and all the other countries and the Cayman Islands stuff that they used to bomb it in 2013. I mean, they've had a lot of time to figure out how to manipulate gold. They've really done it, and they've done a really good job of it. Robert Rubin was an old gold trader at J. Aaron when he was at Goldman Sachs. And so they've got gold in a box. They haven't had as much time to figure out how to manipulate Bitcoin. And by the way, if they do manipulate it, they're going to get their face ripped off. I mean, you know, gold has never gone up 5x in, you know, nine

months, right? Whereas Bitcoin has. So, but there are, you know, look, as long as there are derivatives, I mean, in my view, derivatives should be outlawed because what they do is they basically make the person with the biggest purse, you know, in charge of setting the marginal price. You know, in other words, if you're, you know, I mean, and guess what, when you own the printing press, you by definition have more money than anybody else because you can print it. And I'm pretty sure that they take losses off balance sheet and that there's, I'm pretty sure based on kind of national security that there are all kinds of things that they do to keep these markets where they want them to be. And that, you know, yes, over long periods of time, the underlying trends that you and I see do have to appear because they can't hold things, you know, against – they can't stand against the tide forever. But, boy, at critical moments, I mean, you can just see their fingers coming in to change shit, you know. I mean, can't stand against the tide forever. But boy, at critical moments,

I mean, you can just see their fingers coming in to change shit, you know. I mean, Silicon Valley Bank was the best example, right? I mean, literally, I guess it was the threat of the bazooka that really did it, not the bazooka itself. Correct. Coming in and saying, no matter what happens, we got your back was a pretty astounding moment. Right. I mean, Janet basically said, if need be, we will guarantee every single deposit in this country, which is $17 trillion, by the way. I mean, it's just, you know, and so, I mean, what, you know, the thing, I think the thing that everybody is thinking is, you know, look, this is a big, powerful government, and you're nuts to bet against it. And, you know, there's certainly that

has been true for a long period of time. But as we all have seen, you know, their power is fading. I mean, you know, just a perfect recent example is kind of the Biden case, right, where we all knew he was, you know, senile and out of it. And, you know, they've maintained he wasn't until it just then became so glaringly obvious that they had to do something. But and that's it. And, you know, they've maintained he wasn't until it just then became so glaringly obvious that they had to do something. But and that's I think, you know, I think it's similar. I mean, it's it's different, but similar in the way that, you know, I mean, look, even Jay Powell said this fiscal, you know, situation we're in is not sustainable. I mean, he cited he cited Stein's law on 60 Minutes. Yeah, right. This is the head of the Federal Reserve, right. I mean, he cited Stein's law. On 60 Minutes. Yeah, right. This

is ahead of the Federal Reserve, right? I mean, good God, man. Okay, fine. So, you know, two questions then, Jay. You know, why are you enabling it? Because your policies do enable it. And two, how the hell are we, you know, what's the future? How the hell are we going to get out of it? Because the system is built in a way that absolutely requires that. And so if he's saying it, it means everybody's aware of it. And so it just becomes a matter of time until the little boy goes, the guy's naked. And then, you know, eventually everybody exits. Right. I mean, it's, you know, that's what I think is coming. You have to wonder why he had the willingness to say that. I thought it was stunning. I was really surprised.

It wasn't on my bingo card, right? No. I mean, I spoke with Lynn, who you referred to, obviously, before on this podcast a few weeks ago, not specifically about that, but about sort of the decreasing importance of the Fed. It seems like it's more of a media narrative and a market narrative that people stare at J-PAL and see how he's going to cough or sniff or sneeze and what Tony's going to use. But it's fiscal dominance that's the story and not monetary policy. So right now, everybody has their eyes on rates up,

rates down, 25 bips, 50 bips. But none of that matters when the Treasury is effectively adding a trillion to the debt every 90 days. It's misdirection. Absolutely. I mean, it doesn't matter as long as the bond market stays quiet and as long as they've got the internal plumbing to get the swaps and the money around to keep it all quiet. I think, you know, the three, I mean, I watched three or four different things, obviously, just as highlights.

I watched the stock market, you know, which is just on a tear. I watched, you know, just as highlights. I watch the stock market, which is just on a tear. I watch the bond market. I watch the price of gold. I watch the price of Bitcoin. Because I think they're all tied together. And right now, the bond market's rallying because everyone thinks, OK, we've got a recession coming. And therefore, what do you do?

You buy long bonds. And that's what you always do in a recession. But I don't know how long that's going to last, because I think that, you know, we're running these huge deficits and this is pre-recession. If you take the, you know, Groman's done great work on this. If you take the math of how much, you know, expenses went up and revenues went down in the 2008 case or in the 2000 case, I mean, you know, you think the deficit's big now. Wait, you know, wait, if we really have an economic downturn, youurn, wow, it's going to get even bigger. And so the thing that I think most people haven't gotten their arms around is that we are behaving like a third world country.

I mean, these monetary steps and these policies that we're following, it's not as though no one has ever done this before. I mean, we've got 50 or 100 examples of this occurring over the last couple hundred years, right, with other countries that are smaller. Now, no reserve currency country has done this in the past couple hundred years. I mean, I suppose Rome did it, you know, with the denarius, but, you know, it was a couple thousand years ago. So, you know, so we don't know exactly how it's going to play out with a reserve currency behaving like a third world country. But but guess what? I think we're about to find out. Right. It's it's kind of the the end the end of Rome, many would argue, was when they started to dilute their coins.

Well, that's exactly right. It corresponded almost perfectly. Yeah. The denarius started off 100 percent silver. And by the end, it was basically tin and lead and steel. You know, there was no silver content left and Rome fell. And the soldiers said, you're going to need to pay us more of this, which meant they had to make more coins, which eventually meant there was no army to defend Rome. And that was the story that people don't seem to realize. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it really is the case that in this kind of a climate,

reading history books is actually more relevant than reading, you know, kind of investment books of the past 10, 15 years. I mean, and I feel sorry for, you know, a lot of young people who've never really seen a bear market. I mean, if you got into this business after 2008, you know, all you know is buy the dip. Up only. Yeah, it's just it's up and to the right. Everything, literally everything. And that's because we've got the pedal to the metal on the monetary side, you know, just creating more monetary units. And so, you know, yeah, the stock market can continue to rally.

But, you know, in real terms, if inflation adjusted, it's not doesn't look nearly as good. I mean, you talked about the boom and bust cycles that have existed, certainly since fiat money has existed. It means that a recession or depression, even if it's a shallow recession, is inevitable. You have to eventually have a recession if you have these ripping markets like they do.

So let's assume that we finally get this recession that everybody's been predicting for all these years, but that you're right about long bonds. This time is different. This is not the time you want to jump into long bonds because of fiscal policy. How would you generally be approaching an upcoming recession or worse? So let's say we get the recession. I mean, first off, there's a possibility that we just go right into a total crack up boom. Do you know what I mean? That they, right? I mean, David Hunter, I mean, I used to think he's nuts, but he was calling for 7,000 on the S&P. And, you know, he may be right. I mean, who knows, right? If they really, if they go back to ZERP, if they go back

to QE, you know, they're going to light the candle again and this, you know, stocks are going to go higher, right? And so, but eventually you're right. At some point things will break and we will probably have some kind of a recession. And the way I think about it is, you know, the government will be forced to accommodate and print because the alternative is the Great Depression or something truly worse. And I think that at that point in time, it will become obvious enough to people what they're doing. I mean, with each of these cycles, you know, they've printed more and they've been more aggressive. I mean, the last one, they tested the whole stimmy thing where, you know, and so, you know, in the next one, UBI could become a thing, right, where everybody below a certain income level. I

mean, and frankly, they have to do it because, you know, otherwise, you know, the torches and pitchforks are going to show up at the billionaire's houses. I mean, you've got, you know, the book I'm writing, I've got a chart in there. It's one of my favorite charts. It's off the Fred site and it shows the wealth held by the top 1%. And then as opposed to the wealth held by the bottom 50%. And, you know, it's just, it's stunning, right? That's the hockey stick.

It's the top 1% owns all the wealth. I mean, the bottom 50% owns one-tenth of the amount, less than one-tenth of the amount that the top group holds. So, you know, that's French Revolution kind of stuff. And my guess is the way they'll try and deal with it, the Democrats, if they win, would try and deal with it is, you know, one, very high taxation at the top and then two, you know, UBI and STEMIs at the bottom, right, to keep people from revolting because, you know, and of course, that'll only make the problem worse in terms of the monetary debasement side. So to me, you know, it's a very, from an investment point of view, I say to all my potential investors, look, the only thing, I mean, what you want to do is you want to own things the government can't print because the government's going to have to

print a lot. And so the two best things to own in that category are Bitcoin and then gold and silver. You know, real estate is kind of a distant second because, you know, they can tax it and you can't really move it and, you know, so on. So, and the only way I'm, I also say that the only way I'm wrong is if the government gets incredibly responsible and they laugh about that, but, you know, but, but it's possible. I mean, so if they, if they said, well, we're going to mean social security, we're going to close all these bases, we're going to stop these wars, we're going to cut back all this expense, you know, there's not going to be any, any more unemployment insurance or welfare, you know, et cetera. We're going to cut food stamps, et cetera. And by the way, all of us would be hugely

recessionary and we'd create an enormous amount of pain. But, and they said, and we are going to balance the budget. Well, in that case, you know, what you and I are discussing, which is basically investing in sound money, wouldn't be as good an idea because the dollar would actually become sound again because the people managing it would actually be responsible. But when I say that to potential investors, they all laugh, as do I, because what are the odds in the current situation that that occurs? It's going the other way. Nobody gets elected on austerity as their platform. That's exactly right. And you can just see it. I mean, I don't know how this election is going to

go, but I fear that Harris will win. And you can already see she's teeing up all these different things. And it's only going to get worse. In fact, I just tweeted this morning, I think the price of gold is actually reflecting to the odds of the election going in the wrong direction. I think people are saying, OK, she's going to win. And that's not good. And for monetary stability, I'm going to buy some gold. It's interesting you talk about a responsible government where they cut all the entitlement programs and balance the budget and spending, but in a debt spiral, that would still be a drop in the bucket. If we're already at over a trillion on debt service, and by the time those things would happen, you're talking about two, maybe three trillion on the debt service.

There is no way to grow through that, correct? You're right. Unless I'm missing something. It really, I mean, I do sadly, you know, it was the saying across the Rubicon. I mean, I think we're at the point where it's hard to go back. You just, you can't go back and it's a mess. And so my view is, you know, rather than run it to its natural end state, which is failure of the currency and hyperinflation, that what they ought to try to do at some point is have a monetary conference wherein the dollar is massively devalued against a real limited asset. And Bitcoin would be my first choice. Gold would be my second. And we try to go forward on a more responsible basis with a limit and a cap on the money

printing. And of course, that would create enormous pain, too, there's, there's really no way out of this without pain, Scott, because, you know, I mean, what we've done is we've, we've had a big party, we've had a big keg party and we're all drunk and you know, the, the, the, you know, the net effect is, you know, we got to sober up and, and, you know, we're going to have a hangover. That's just the way it works. Yeah. I think the problem is this time. Debt is pulling consumption forward. And, you know, we've got to cut back and balance things out and get things to be more stable. And it's going to be super, super painful.

But here's the positive news in my view, because I've read about all the history of all these other countries that have gone through it. You know, even countries like Ecuador, which recently had a hyperinflation. I think it was 2000. And then they switched and they went to the dollar standard. And now it's actually a stable place. I mean, not that the dollar is great, but it was a lot better. Yeah, it was better than their own currency. And so the point is, you know, if and when we do go to a sound money standard, the adjustment process is quite painful.

But at least the future is bright because then you're doing it correctly, you know? And so we got to get back to doing it correctly because that's what we'll give our kids and, you know, someday my grandkids, you know, a better world to live in. Not the way we're doing it right now because, you know, it's just things are a mess as we all can see. Yeah, I think the lessons of history are extremely important, but there's also nuance, right? It's different this time because the global economy is so intertwined. Absolutely. The dollar failing now isn't just even being the reserve currency. It's not just paying for Americans. It's paying for everyone everywhere at the same time. Absolutely. But

to the credit of the countries that aren't the United States, I mean, they're kind of saying to themselves, OK, you guys have messed this up pretty good. We're going to try and do this differently. You know, we're going to actually trade with each other in our own currencies and not settle in gold. You know, I mean, the big mistake they made at Bretton Woods was to make the dollar the reserve currency because it became, you know, Triffin's dilemma came into play. And, you know, as a result, you know, we had to hollow out our manufacturing base, all the other things that have happened. I mean, the world needs a neutral reserve currency, full stop. I mean, you just have to have one. And, you know, gold used to be it. I think Bitcoin

will be a better choice. But, you know, frankly, I mean, as I've talked about with many Bitcoiners, the odds are good that these governments are going to try. You know, if they come to the realization that this debt-based system is broken and they have to fix it, I'm guessing they're going to try and fix it with gold first, just because of the tradition and the history and so on and so on, which I think is an enormous mistake because India and China own a shitload more gold than we do. They'll do it with gold or they'll create something. That would be my bigger fear is that a knockoff Bitcoin. Well, you're right. Well, that's the CBDC. That's the trillion dollar coin.

You're right. They could try and create some other kind of money. But having said that, especially if we go all the way through the hyperinflation, it's going to be kind of like who's going to believe them? Who's going to trust them? You know, I mean, that's the one thing. That's the other thing that I think, and I read about this in my book that I'm very positive about is that, you know, their castle is leaking and crumbling and falling apart. I mean, you know, look at what, you know, things like this broadcast, things like, you know, Tucker Carlson, things like Joe Rogan. I mean, you know, I mean, everybody knows they're being lied to.

And, you know, the technology, thank God for the Internet. Right. Thank God for the ability to, you know, have those people who want to search out the truth be able to do it. And that group is growing more and more. And, you know, the New York Times doesn't control the narrative anymore. They're a joke. And MSNBC does not control the narrative anymore. And so that's a very good thing. And then so we've got this tool called the internet, which basically opens up information and allows us all to reorganize in a different fashion. And now we've got money that goes along with it. Same story. Can't be, you know, can't be messed up with by the government. So the combination of the two is incredibly

positive for humanity, in my opinion, incredibly positive. The, you know, the negative is, you know, we can't get from there here to there without, you know, going through some serious transition pain, in my opinion. You probably... Yeah, I 100% agree. You know, I'm not a huge fan of Taleb anymore with his newfound opinions on Bitcoin, but the idea that he talks about often about clearing the brush to prevent the bigger fire is one that our government clearly has not adopted.

And those levers and buttons we were talking about before are just, you know, adding seed and water to the brush. Yeah. I mean, look, these people have been in power, just been in power way too long. And it's just, you know, I've really mucked it up good. You know, I mean, how do we spend $8 trillion in the Middle East? I mean, on wars, you know, I mean, it's just think about that. Think about how that money could have been more productively used. And it started way before that. I mean, on wars, you know, I mean, it's just, think about that. Think about how that money could have been more productively used. And it started way before that.

I mean, when I was a teenager, we did it in Vietnam. You know, we murdered a bunch of, you know, Vietnamese rice farmers. I mean, it's just, you know, the, I mean, it's sad because the United States, in my opinion, while not perfect and with some real stains in its past, you know, was a generally speaking speaking, I think a pretty moral country, you know, post-World War II. And, you know, the CIA and a lot of, you know, the large and controlling organizations, you know, started to kind of shape it in a fashion that benefited them. And it didn't necessarily help the citizens, you know. No, it never does.

You talked about, obviously, the election and not to get particularly political, but you sort of laid out a vision for your biggest fear of Harris wins. Both parties, I think, have lost the ability to claim fiscal responsibility, not playing politics, just looking at it objectively. I think Trump did have covid, which is part of it, but effectively added seven something trillion to the debt in his four years. Biden will probably be seven, eight trillion to the debt in their four years. So and, you know, with the debt service that we talked about with interest rates being what they are, can can either party is either party really better at this point? I mean, I guess it's a it's a lesser of two evil

situation from a from a from a financial fiscal and, From a fiscal standpoint, probably the Dems are worse than Republicans, but they're both bad. Let me make it clear. I condemn them both as being part of the uniparty. I think Trump is better than Harris, but honestly, I think RFK is better than Trump. But I don't think RFK has a prayer of winning. So, um, so we're, we're kind of faced with the other two and, you know, my sense is RFK might end up being kind of perot to Trump where he's going to grab a fair share of the votes.

And then actually I heard something this morning that was pretty interesting, which is a statistic said that, you know, since Trump won the time when Trump won, you know, 20 million boomers have passed and between 30 and 40 million Gen Zers have gotten the vote. And so, you know, I'm guessing a fair number of those boomers who passed would have been Trump voters. And I'm guessing a fair number of those Gen Zers who got the vote are more likely to lean liberal and Harris. So, you know, sadly, from my point and I, you know, the things about both parties I don't like. So I try to avoid being political because my issue really is sound money. And neither side really understands sound money.

I mean, the only person I think begins to understand sound money. And by the way, he's not perfect either. I mean, no politician is. But, you know, if I look at kind of the three candidates that are kind of in the list, you know, I mean, RFK clearly to me with a speech in Nashville demonstrated to me that he understands us better than most people. He understands it and he has skin in the game. So I'm a huge RFK fan. I actually interviewed him two days before his speech.

Oh, did you? Really fantastic. Yeah, I flew to Nashville a day before the conference. We did an interview and I've spent quite a bit of time now in a room with him. And I haven't personally seen what I see on the media. It's a different conversation, but, you know, he seems very pragmatic, well-educated, well-thought-out, whether you agree with him or not. But interestingly, he said, you know, I have a material percentage of my net worth in Bitcoin. And we can all talk about the narratives and what politicians will or won't do for the asset. I think it's kind of nonsensical because Bitcoin was created so we didn't need to

listen to what politicians said about it. But at least the guy owns it and a lot of it. Yeah. And he's thoughtful. I mean, he's thoughtful and I think he understands the problem. And I think, look, to me, Harris represents, you know, the, you know, the deep state, the state as it exists, you know, the status quo, all of it. I mean, she's just, she's just more of the same, you know, and he's got a lot of baggage that he brings along with him. I think RFK is the closest to, you know, a good politician that we have. And therefore, you know, that's who I'll vote for. That's who I support. But, you know, it's I mean, I'd like to. Yeah.

Like you, I'd like to get to the point where this stuff doesn't really matter. And that's how it should be, actually. I mean, you know, the government has just grown so large and so out of control. And yeah, I mean, I'd like to have law and order and I'd like to have a good system of courts and justice. And that's kind of about it. And all the other stuff the government does,

well, they can stop doing that as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, I think most Bitcoiners would largely agree with that. I want to go back to something we were talking about earlier, because I think it's very interesting, which is we're talking about the derivatives market and options and sort of how that's been used to manipulate different markets. We had an amazing conversation one day on my Monday show with you where Mike McGlone said that gold was not manipulated. Yeah, you went ballistic. And maybe we can revisit that in a second. But now we have Bitcoin spot ETFs, right? We have the futures ETF. And the day the futures ETF launched was the dead top of that cycle. Literally like the $20,000 all-time high came the day that before everybody could short it. And now, likely, we're going to eventually get derivatives, options, and basically every product we have for other assets on these ETFs, at least. Likely not on spot Bitcoin.

We've cheered this institutional adoption, right? Everybody loves hearing Larry Fink on his roadshow talking about Bitcoin. But should we maybe be a little more skeptical of the intentions or even if the intentions are good, what might likely happen when we end up fully financializing Bitcoin? Yeah, I think it's a great question, Scott. And I think about it quite a bit. And, you know, as I say, I personally think we should outlaw all derivatives. I think that derivatives in themselves are a financial menace, as well as other kind of weapons of financial mass destruction. I mean, just being able to create the kind of leverage that derivatives give you gets

you into that too big to fail kind of condition, which then forces the government to print money. I mean, that's kind of been the history of the derivative market. And I think that to the degree these things grow up around Bitcoin, I think that's a problem too. And I do think that the government could get involved in the derivatives around Bitcoin, and they could try to neutralize it. I don't see any evidence of that.

I can't say that's happening. Yeah. I've been watching the amount of futures options, the volumes, the size. Compared to gold, where there's enormous volumes on it, the amount of volume compared to the underlying Bitcoin outstanding and the underlying amount of Bitcoin traded, it's trivial. So I don't think it's happening yet. And maybe it won't happen. As I said earlier, with an asset that can go up two or three X in you know 90 days or you know uh you know the

people who do it they better they surely better have that printer ready to go because if they don't they could really find themselves you know um underwater quickly so um yeah it's an issue I mean it it's something to keep an eye on. It's something, and I hope that when Bitcoiners run the world, and I believe that someday Bitcoiners will run the world, that they will, you know, that we will ban derivatives, just outright ban them. You know, they won't be allowed.

Because I think that, you know, free markets are, you know, free and fair markets are based upon, you know, people having skin in the game, and that kind of leverage just distorts these markets. Yeah. The boom and bust cycles are a lot easier with those products, as you said, because they add so much leverage and people are able to get extremely creative, I guess, to state it kindly. There was a time when you didn't have to be a financial professional just to beat inflation. And that's when the world's money actually stored value, right? If your money was based on gold and gold went up slightly, you didn't have to figure out how to survive. You have to literally have

five advanced degrees now just to keep your money at a net zero. That's exactly right. I mean, and that's the tragedy of it all. I mean, you know, Bernanke brought in Zerp in 2008. I mean, you know, people say, well, that's great. It saved the financial system and, you know, all the bankers got 20 billion in bonuses. But, you know, take an example. And I know some of these people, you know, or my family, extended family that, you know, that had, say, half a million or a million dollars of savings after an entire career of work. You know what I mean?

40 years or 50 years of hard work and they saved a million bucks. They had it in a CD. And the CD was paying them 60 grand and they got, you know, 18 grand from Social Security and their house was paid for. And hey, guess what? You know, they were fine. They could pay for the bills and they were just doing fine. 2009 rolls around, you know, 0% interest rates.

That CD income just went to zero. You know, and if they're 70, 75 years old, you know, what are they going to do? Right? I mean, it's just, right? And what are you going to do? And so, yeah, the system has just, it's been incredibly cruel and unfair to people all over the place. And, you know, that's that's just wrong. I mean, we got to fix it.

You know, zero percent interest rates were a crime. They are a crime. That's what created contillionaires. You think we end up there again? Oh, yeah. I mean, I do. I, you know, because I think, you know, look, as we've seen with, you know, with Draghi or, you know, Silicon Valley Bank. I mean, I do. Because I think, look, as we've seen with Draghi or Silicon Valley Bank, I mean, Silicon Valley was a small brush fire they put out easily.

And I don't know if it happens in a year or if it happens in four years, Scott. I just don't know the time frame on it. But I think, yes, the math is relentless. I've said this many, many times. The math is relentless. Just compound the expenses. The GDP is not growing as fast as the debt. You know, I mean, there's going to come a time where if they don't take interest rates down to zero and resume QE, that whole debt structure is going to collapse.

And, you know, I can't tell you if that time is tomorrow or if it's six months or, you know, a year and a half, two years. I don't think it's much more than that, but I think it's coming. So, yeah, we will see ZERP again, in my opinion. We will probably see a yield curve control, you know, and it will all be sold in the way it's been sold and packaged in the past, which is it's national security. You don't want the ATMs to stop working. Yeah, some people got hurt, but this is the right thing that we've got to do to keep the society going. Yeah, this inflation is tough, but, you know, it was high inflation in World War II, too. And you got to pull together for the benefit of the country. We got to suffer through

it, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, you can just see the narrative, you know, and I mean, I don't know, you know, I'm not sure what's going to trigger it. I don't know if they're going to try and use a triggering event like a war. I mean, there's certain, you know, factions that seem to want to be sure to get us into one of those. You know, there are others that are thinking maybe monkeypox is going to be, you know, threatening to us. I mean, who knows? But, you know, even without any of those things, you know, there will come a time when there will be an overwhelming amount of financial distress. And we know that the people who run the system will how they will address that. They will turn on the printer.

They always have. They have to you know the alternative as bad and that will create inflation and as bad as that will be in their mind and probably somewhat true that will be less than the whole thing yeah then watch the whole thing implode yeah you talked about yield curve controls which I agree are inevitable it's just us turning Japanese right but I mean Japan managed to do that for a very long time, but they weren't the global reserve. That's correct. And they were a nation of savers and they ran a trade surplus, right? I mean, we're running an enormous trade deficit, enormous. I mean, you know, we've lived off the entire world. I mean, the net negative

investment position in the United States is huge. I mean, we've been consuming the world's savings and the world's been willing to do it. But my sense is, you know, since we grabbed the Russian assets, that's their willingness to do it has gone down substantially. You know, and so we're starting to see a change. The clue is, you know, gold's at an all time high, twenty five hundred. Bitcoin's close to an all time high. Not that one, but it's very close within spitting range. And I've often said, you know, gold tends to move first, then Bitcoin follows and follows much harder and further. And I think that'll be the pattern this time as well. And it feels to me like something's brewing. I mean, unless they can keep the stock market going up, which creates a wealth effect and keeps the economy going, you know, something,

things are going to start to break soon. I mean, we're already seeing breakage in CRE, commercial real estate. I think that'll get worse. In fact, you know, and then we saw the duration breakage, which is what hurt Silicon Valley Bank. There'll probably be a few more of those. So, you know, it's impossible to know. I mean, you know, I didn't think Japan was going to be the linchpin, but, you know, we saw a couple of weeks ago that it is. And, you know, everyone says it's back under control. Well, I'm not so sure. I mean, obviously, you know, they probably, you know, like we said, like I said, they've done swap lines that they want us to think it's all back under control and maybe it is for a while. But, you know, something else will pop up. I think the question with the carry trade that everyone's talking about, obviously, on the yen is it takes a long time to know who imploded. Exactly. I get that most of it may have unwound, but if some major institution in some way is currently in the backlog and bankrupt, right? In my opinion, there's some really big losses that we haven't heard about yet. And those are coming.

But in turn, you know, I mean, like I say, you know, I mean, hell, you know, Ken Griffin was BK in March of 2020. You know, this is why he has Bernanke on his board of directors or advisors or whatever, so he could make the call and get a swap line. Right. And so, you know, yeah. So let's assume there's some big institution that's in trouble. I'm sure they've been on the phone with Jay Powell. I'm sure Jay Powell sent them the money they need. Keep them alive. They can't you know, they're at the stage now where anything that's anything that's large and systematic, they got to bail it and they got to do it fast. They got to do it quietly behind the scenes. And they will. You know, they definitely will. That's part of that's part of the you know,

that's part of the manipulation that we're so subject to. And, you know, what's so ironic is every one minute, you know, it's like telling a lie. You know, you tell one lie, then you got to tell another lie to cover the first lie. You know, I mean, it's just, they keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger, right? So. I think we both agree, you know, in sound money principles and that Bitcoin is probably the best thing to own moving forward. I guess the question then becomes, considering the wealth disparity in this country, considering how high credit card debt is and how much people are struggling paycheck to paycheck, how does Bitcoin help the 99% that aren't that top 1% or certainly the bottom 50%?

Are we still at a point where Bitcoin is for everyone? Absolutely. I mean, you know, haven't I mean, just anybody with any savings, obviously, you know, this is this is what you want to save in. And and but but let's say let's hypothetically say you're not even able to save, you know, if we get back to a sound money standard, I mean, forgetting just for a minute that it's a good investment and it's a number go up technology. If we can get back to a sound money standard, I mean, forgetting just for a minute that it's a good investment and it's a number go up technology. If we can get back to a sound money standard, the odds of, you know, decreasing wars and decreasing inflation and allowing people to have better real wages and get the benefits of the productivity that Jeff Booth talks about, and we've got these enormous productivity enhancements going on. And, you know, we're

not seeing any of it because they keep printing more money to dilute our, you know, our earnings. And so, you know, yes, I mean, even if somebody cannot buy Bitcoin because they can't even save $100, you know, they will benefit from Bitcoin adoption because if we can move away from a system that's, you know, based on inflation to a system that the money is sound, the society will improve in an enormous number of ways, in my opinion. I think we all know that the price of assets rising is effectively the denominator and not the fact that those things are becoming more valuable, but just throwing that out there. But that said, Bitcoin does seem to massively outpace that phenomenon. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I've said this many times. I've been doing investing for 40 plus years. This is the most asymmetric thing I've ever seen. And what I love about it, I mean, I've always been

investing in companies. I mean, they're core developers, but generally speaking, there's no management team here to F it up. You know what I mean? It's just, I mean, it's just mathematical code, unless all the core developers really go rogue on us and screw it up in some way, which I think isn't likely, and I think the nodes would never accept it. It's just, it's like a, it's a very high probability thing. And so, you know, boy, high probability and extremely asymmetric, that's a great combination. I mean, I, you know, and you don't, I mean, I not, you know, I wrote it in my book and I'm not trying to be hyperbolic, but so, so, you know, for 5,000 years of recorded plus recorded human history, there's been monetary debasement. Okay. Because even on a gold standard,

the amount of gold on the planet doubles every 50 years. I mean, we have above ground because we mine it. So here you have a form, a monetary medium, a digital asset, as Saylor calls it, that is fixed in amount. I mean, we've just never had that before. And people accepting it as money. And so the notion of true digital scarcity and an asset that, you know, goes up forever, Laura, I mean, it's just, it's unique. It's just really, really unique. And so that's why I liked your earlier comment where you said, I don't want to call this digital gold because it's just, it's, there's never been anything like that. And I think that really is true. I mean, it'd be like trying to describe, you know, fire to somebody who didn't know what

fire was or airplane flight to somebody, you know, or radio or TV or what, you know what, I mean, it's, it's, it's new. It's just a completely new technical development. And it's kind of, and that's why I think everybody's, that's why some people hate it. They're scared of it. You know, and we're all trying to kind of wrap our arms around, what does this mean? You know, the notion that you got a thing that, you know, doesn't respond to price. There's no more of it if price goes up. There's the same amount. Like, whoa, never had something like that before.

You know, what is it? Yeah. And so, but I think on balance, it's quite positive because I think the monetary debasement thing has been going on for thousands and thousands of years. And by stopping it, that to me, that's a big benefit for mankind. Well, with all of that in mind, how high do you think Bitcoin can go? And listen, it's in dollar value. So that's where I was leading with the denominator because the real world is where- Yeah. Well, eventually the dollar value won't matter. I mean,

I think my kids and certainly their kids will price things as Satoshi. So a car will be X number of Satoshi's and the gasoline will be Y Satoshi. So, you know, that's what I'm describing hyper Bitcoinization, obviously. But I mean, I you know, I actually and I know some people are going to get angry at me for this, but I actually think the power law is a pretty decent model. I mean, we could break it to the upside. But, you know, 15 years or close to 15 years of because the price data in the early years was kind of spotty, you know, roughly 97 percent correlation. I mean, that you can't ignore that. And so, you know, we go to hundreds of thousands and then we go to a million and then we go to five million and then we go to 10 million.

I mean, and I'm talking I'm talking decades here, not tomorrow, you know, but but decades as as as this better form of money becomes more widely adopted. And I think that's where, you know, I'm out there doing podcasts. You are we're all advocating for Bitcoin. But but honestly, you know, I don't think I mean, even if we didn't do all this stuff, I think it would happen anyway just because it's a better choice. I think we're all doing it because we want to see it happen faster. I know I'm doing it because I want to see it happen faster because I want my kids to benefit from it. And I think the faster it happens, the better off the world will be. But my view is it's going to happen either way,

because it's a better choice. I want it to happen faster, but I don't want it to happen too fast. Well, that's a fair point. Because a million dollar Bitcoin next year, I don't want to know what circumstances we're living under for that to happen. No, that's a fair point. I'm agreeing with you. I'm just saying, I love, you know, it's one thing to say, hey, my Bitcoin will be worth millions, but it's another thing to say that I have to live in a dystopian Mad Max future for that to happen. Nobody wants that.

And I think I think if it just kind of continues to trend up and more and more people become aware of it, you know, we can make a transition to it. And it doesn't we never have to go Mad Max. I think it's impossible. It is impossible to transition into a sound money system. Again, there will be pain, though. I mean, there'll be losers and winners and so on and so forth. But as I say, I'm writing a book.

It's going to be out by the end of the year, hopefully. And I do deal with a lot of these issues. So I hope you guys will take a look at it when I get done with it. Yeah, as we wrap here. So where can people follow you and then just give us the 30-second pitch on the book? I make a ton of racket on Twitter, just under my name, at Lawrence Lepard. And I'm not very friendly with the central bankers

who I really have a lot of disgust for. And then I have a website called Equity Management Associates EMA2 is the address, edwardmarkalpha2.com. And I have quarterly newsletters there. My partner and I write just talking about macro issues. They're all free. You can sign up for free.

We won't spam you. So I've been doing investing for my whole career pretty much. And so I look at these problems as an investor would look at the problems. But as you and I have discussed, it's just not all about money. A number goes up. I mean, you look at a guy like Alex Gladstein, what he's doing in terms of helping people in third world countries, you know what I mean? I mean, this is going to make the world a better place in every single respect. And if it was only about number going up, we'd all have a selling plan. Exactly. No, that's right. Well, that's right. And so, yeah, it's,

it's just, it's, it's, it's a lot. a lot. It's just once you get further into it, you realize it's just a lot more than that. I mean, if we can defund these governments as an example and stop these stupid wars, I mean out of time, but you just touched on my favorite topic, which is central bankers. I really want to start putting more content out there that explains to people exactly the structure of what that is, where the incentives are aligned, and just how corrupt and broken of a system that is, because I think people have no idea. Yeah, if that's the case, you're going to love my book, because I'm telling you, I'm naming names. I'm Janet Yellen's 7 million, you know, Real Housewives of Wall Street. I mean, remember John Mack's wife borrowed money under the TALF in 2008? She borrowed like $200 million non-recourse, right? I mean, you know, so some people haven't been around the space all that long. I have.

And I remember every, you know, the Keating Five. I mean, it goes back years. LTCM, you know, there's so many instances of just corruption, just blatant financial corruption. And the book lays them all out. And the idea of the book is I want the average citizen to read it and get pissed off and go, God, this is really broken. You know, I want to vote for people who are going to fix this, right? I 100% agree. So then we're going to at least commit to we'll do a book release podcast.

Yeah, great. Yeah, sounds great. It'll probably be year-end-ish timeframe. Yeah, I'd love to do that. I really enjoyed talking to you, Scott. Can't wait to do it. Can't wait to read it. Lawrence, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. I'm glad we can do this.

Look forward to doing it more in the future. Thanks. Thanks.