We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC074: Bitcoin is Property w/ Eric Weiss (Bitcoin Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. Hey everyone, welcome to this Wednesday's release of the podcast where we're talking about Bitcoin. On today's show, I have finance and Bitcoin veteran Eric Weiss. Eric has been in the world of finance for numerous decades, got his start in the bond market, later became a VC, and he found Bitcoin back in 2013. Eric is also the individual that introduced Bitcoin to Michael Saylor, and he shares a little bit of that experience during the show. But throughout our conversation, Eric hits on an important idea.

Starting point is 00:00:30 idea, and that idea is that Bitcoin is property. We explore what that means and why it's important among many other topics. And without further delay, here's my chat with the thoughtful Eric Weiss. You're listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Investors Podcast Network. Now for your host, Preston Pish. Hey everyone, welcome to the show. Like I said in the introduction, I'm here with Eric. Eric, we needed to do this a long time ago, but when we were in Miami, we finally met face to face. And boy, I'm excited to have you here and to get into this. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It was great to finally meet you in person. I've been watching your pods for a long time and we've communicated a bunch of times, but, you know, nothing,

Starting point is 00:01:26 nothing's quite as having a meal together, right? That's right. That's right. I'm kind of curious to kind of start off. What did you think of the conference? I thought it was great. You know, I mean, we had 25,000 people in one place, and, you know, Bitcoiners get labeled for all this toxicity and stuff like that. And yet, there wasn't a single news story of any kind about anything negative happening. Everybody, you know, was like, we were all really well behaved, right? And there were, I thought that aspect was great. Having been to my first Bitcoin conference, totally coincidentally at that exact same convention center in 2013, the difference is, just mind-blowing. The kind of the maturity, the different types of people, there were people

Starting point is 00:02:12 wearing sport jackets there. I don't know if you saw that. There were some people wearing suits. There were adults walking around. The exhibit boots like cost money. And it wasn't just a bunch of people going around with T-shirts saying, like, you know, I can help you set up your wallet, which is all there was at the first one that I went to. So, yeah, it's just remarkable to me how much we've matured. The stages were massive. I couldn't get over. the size of some of the stages and just the number of people. And I was told... And the quality of people. In the quality of people, I know. Heads of state, billionaires, asset manager, I mean, like, professional athletes, entertain. It was just extraordinary. Yeah. It's truly turning into a

Starting point is 00:02:54 cultural movement that it's really kind of hard at the fine. I mean, when you got Aaron Rogers and Serena Williams on stage and it's just like, what in the world is going on? This is blowing up. Yeah, we talked about that at dinner the other night. I think that irrespective of where you are in life, whether you're super successful financially, professional athlete, all of these things, people are very concerned about the general direction that the world is going. And Bitcoin, both the asset and the ethos, represents maybe not a full counterculture, but a way to say something to get behind. that says, hey, the government's not taking this in the right direction. I'd like to take a step away from the government. If you were going to describe kind of like Eric's site picture of the macro environment or kind of like where we're at, and I mean, feel free to back it up decades, if you want. Give us kind of a starting point of like how you've seen the markets kind of evolve to where we're literally sitting right now in 2022 as we're recording this.

Starting point is 00:04:04 I think the easiest way, obviously there are a lot of factors, right? Countless factors. However, I think it can all be boiled down to oversimplify it to one material change. And that is, a couple years ago, our government went crazy and started printing more money than they'd ever printed. So in the last 24 months, money supply in the United States is up 41%. We have printed 41% more dollars in the last 24 months. And that to me is kind of what just broke things open. That's why we're dealing with this ridiculous inflation, can't put the genie back in the bottle.

Starting point is 00:04:48 And there were a whole bunch of issues prior to that, which didn't get exposed because if you're printing six, seven percent more a year, it's not that big a deal. It's an abuse, but it's not an egregious abuse, especially when the U.S. dollar is still the best house in a bad neighborhood, right? So we feel it less. You only feel it with the dollar against other truly scarce assets. So we were able to get away with it, kind of this cheating for a long time. And this massive money printing that we did is like starting to catch up with us very quickly took, you know, a couple years. But I think it can really all be brought back to that. Yeah. It's crazy when you look at the charts and you look at the central bank balance,

Starting point is 00:05:33 and how they're blowing out, especially on the M1. I know Lynn and some other macro people who are really astute in some of these areas like to refer to the M2 chart, which isn't as drastic, but it's blowing out as well. Yeah, I tweeted M3 the other day, you know, just to show it. Whether you look at M2 or M3, it's the same thing. It's 41%. You know, not everybody's an economist, not everybody's in the weeds with this stuff. And we talk about M1, M2, and you show charts.

Starting point is 00:06:02 and I think we lose a lot of people. But an example, I think, that really kind of drives at home. I mean, my mom's in her 70s. This example was effective for my mom, right? And so I'm here in Miami and I said, you know, if you went to sleep, if you put a dome over the city of Miami, okay, nothing in, nothing out. And then while everybody was asleep, you doubled the money. So everybody that had a dollar, it was $2 the next day.

Starting point is 00:06:30 There was a thousand bucks in your bank account. It was 2000. When you went to your favorite store or favorite restaurant or whatever place it was the next day, right, the price of that thing that you bought for a dollar yesterday before they doubled the money supply would be somewhere between $1 and $2, right? And that kind of clicks for people, I think, when you think about an isolated, you know, format like that. You just can't keep pounding dollars into the system and not expect there to be inflation and blaming it on Putin or supply chains or built up demand or this other stuff, or governor of Texas slowing trucks at the border. It's just silliness. We did it to ourselves. Well, so let's back up. Let's talk about your career. So, I mean, get clear back to you graduate

Starting point is 00:07:17 from wherever and then talk to us about like how you started off your career in finance. Okay. I went to undergrad at the University of Maryland College Park. And my first job out of school was in the two world trade center on the 60th floor, Dean Witter. And I would have been there 9-11 had I not gone back to Columbia Business School. So fortuitous. Wow. Yeah, yeah, I lost a lot of friends that day. I probably knew about 30 people that were there. Yeah, it sucked. But I was a bond trader. I traded two years and in of U.S. treasuries and agency bonds. And I loved it. It was kind of a great macroeconomic kind of thing. And it had like, I wasn't able to be a professional athlete. You know, I didn't have the skills for that, but it had like the same adrenaline

Starting point is 00:08:07 rush and the instant feedback of winning and losing and monetary, you know, rewards for winning and losing. So that was cool. I loved it, but I looked around the trading floor and there was like nobody in their 40s there. So I was like, okay, I better find a new career that And trading doesn't really give you that many transferable skills. So I figured I needed a pivot point. So I went to a business school at Columbia. And then after that, got into venture capital and private equity. And I was investing, I went to GE Capital first.

Starting point is 00:08:38 And at the time, B.C. wasn't like it is now. There were only 4,500 people in the United States and venture capital. It was kind of a small cottage industry. And GE Capital at the time was the largest VC investor putting out about a billion dollars a year. And so I joined them. They had a training program, learned a lot. And then I moved on to a couple other VC firms, but I was always investing in companies that were using the internet.

Starting point is 00:09:01 So it was kind of internet-based VC. This was 98-99 kind of timeframe. And so then I joined a, we invested in a company called the Internet Capital Group, ICG. I joined them. And then I helped start a firm in New York called Stripes Group after that. And then I went to a Bitcoin conference in Miami in 2013. just to see what it was about, and I was really blown away. I don't know that I would have articulated it this way at the time,

Starting point is 00:09:28 but being an internet VC, you kind of got good at seeing what was the good application of the internet and what wasn't. And what the internet was really good for was sharing information quickly, all over the world, not particularly secure. And when I went to this Bitcoin conference, it was the first time that I saw the internet being used to transmit value, safely and securely. And more amazing, party A didn't have to know or trust party B,

Starting point is 00:09:54 and you didn't need a third party intermediary. And so light bulb went off. I was like, this is it. This is the thing. And I racked my, I was like, I got to do something in this space. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I got to do something.

Starting point is 00:10:06 And I was like, what kind of business can I start here? That was my first thing. And the only business idea that I could come up with was, I guess I could start a directory of companies that take Bitcoin. That still wouldn't be a good business, right? You know, I was like, you know, and then I thought about it. And I said, well, if this is going to work out due to the limited supply, the price of

Starting point is 00:10:25 Bitcoin is going to have to go up. So I said, well, I'll just buy some Bitcoin and move on to the next thing, right? So I bought some Bitcoin in 2013. And then it was super volatile. It was kind of a passion buy. There was no reason to believe that Bitcoin would be where it is today. I was up a lot. I was down a lot.

Starting point is 00:10:44 And then finally, I just sold it a profit thinking, I don't know what I'm doing. I mean, back then, a $1,000 price point or $5,000 price point sounds like a million today, right? Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, I think my first trade was in like $700 or something. And I think I sold it like probably double that. But on a risk-adjusted basis, I actually think Bitcoin is a much better investment today than it was then. For sure. Like really it is.

Starting point is 00:11:10 Talk about that idea for people. You know, in 2013, Bitcoin was a hope and a dream. You know, who knows if this is going to get any traction? Who knows if it's going to be regulated away? There are real risks. I mean, it's just now that we're finding out that the government's not so opposed to it, right? Here in the U.S., and we've had other governments outlaw, all of that was like massive risks. So back then, it was kind of like there was not any real network effect.

Starting point is 00:11:39 There wasn't any traction. There were all these geopolitical risks. It was just... No immediates. There was no lightning network. not even close. There wasn't even a catalyst to envision of how this would catch fire. Yeah. So otherwise, people wouldn't have those stories about buying pizzas or using a thousand Bitcoin to buy an iPhone, you know, like really, it was just impossible to understand that it, that it

Starting point is 00:12:05 could really, not impossible, obviously, way paper everything, people envisioned it. But the pragmatic actual acceptance of it would have been hard to envision. At least I wasn't capable of envisioning it at that time. But now, I think we're in a really unique situation where on a risk-adjusted basis, like literally right now, as we sit here today, I think this is by far the most attractive Bitcoin has ever been. The people like to say for a long time that it doesn't matter what the governments do or say they can't hurt it, blah, blah, blah. You know, the truth of the matter is if the United States had not taken such an incredibly pragmatic approach to regulating Bitcoin, it would be a very different landscape.

Starting point is 00:12:46 And so we're very fortunate to get the Biden administration. We're fortunate that Gensler, who's one of the more knowledgeable people on the planet about digital assets, cryptocurrencies, et cetera, is the chairman of the SEC. We're fortunate that Gensler helped put other people in the Biden administration in place. And if you've watched the class that Gensler taught for MIT on Bitcoin and crypto, it's you can't help but come away with the impression that the guy, I don't know if he's of Bitcoin Maxdi, but he certainly likes Bitcoin. He admires Satoshi a number of times he said, you know, that the contribution of Bitcoin is real. And he's very positive on Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:13:29 Yeah. Yeah. The only spot that he's not, or at least appears that he's not, is on the spot ETF approval. And it seems like that's more of a CFTC versus SEC battleground. And I just can't wrap my head around because I agree with everything you said. Like anything I've ever watched, I watched his course at MIT. It was fascinating. The guy is an expert on it. We're more of an expert than a lot of influencers in the space. Oh my God, way more. Way more. Yeah. So I think, I think my take on that is his job is very challenging, right? Bitcoin is not a pain point for him. It's the 15,000 other digital assets that I think he perceives and maybe rightly so as securities. And he's got this very unwieldy task of how does he regulate,

Starting point is 00:14:22 how does he bring these other things that are securities like, you know, into compliance? And it's virtually impossible. They can't even, you know, they're having trouble winning their case against Ripple, which it seems like they've got a pretty good case. Is this a slam dunk? Yeah. So if you can't slam that one, right, then how are you going to do all the others? So I think the rationale, if you read the language when they rejected the other Bitcoin ETS, I think the language suggests that he wants to use this Bitcoin ETF as leverage to go after the exchanges. And the exchanges are

Starting point is 00:15:02 kind of a one throat to choke kind of thing for all those other thousands of digital assets. So if he can reinforce the exchanges to be regulated and compliant, then the exchanges, they're the ones that will have the burden of, you know, making the individual assets be compliant before they can trade them. So I think that's his tact. And he kind of, the SEC kind of gave excuse when they rejected the ETS. Like, well, we can't be sure that the exchanges, you know, the exchanges that the Bitcoin trades on are not compliant. And therefore, we can't be sure that the price isn't manipulated, so we can approve the spot ETF. But we can approve the other ATM, which makes no sense. But anyway, so that's what I think is behind that, although the

Starting point is 00:15:48 gray scale thing will be interesting because there are other forces at play there, right? And if Gensler really is pro-Bitcoin and a Bitcoin maxi, which he may well be, then he might be looking for an opportunity to approve an ETF. And in grayscale's case, with GBT, you've got lots of investors who are suffering because the value is not anywhere near NAV, right? So he could use that, you know, protecting those investors as kind of a rationale for granting them a special situation, you know, conversion into an ETF. And they also, the SEC solicited comments from, you know, shareholders of GBTC and there's

Starting point is 00:16:37 overwhelming response. So it could be that those responses are just kind of like, you know, fodder and support for him saying, okay, you get your conversion. The thing that's even crazier about it, so Hester Pierce is his deputy, and she is openly public about how she disagrees and thinks that the spot ETF should be approved. It's the strangest thing that I think I've ever seen in government officials having such a 180 view of each other and they literally sit right next to each other working this stuff. It's fascinating. I was in a clubhouse chat one time and Hester was in the room and we brought it up. We're like, hey, aren't you introducing more risk by not approving this and allowing there to be more than one

Starting point is 00:17:24 vehicle in which people could invest in? It's all the funds are flowing in the GBT. How can't you see that wrist, that wrist sitting there. And you know what her response was? She says, yeah, I agree with that. I think that it's something that way. And I'm just like, you're the deputy of SEC. It's surreal. Yeah. It's kind of crazy to me. I don't understand it. It's very strange. Well, I mean, we have to remember that the SEC is a government agency. And there are no shortage of counterintuitive and counterproductive measures that governments take. So I think it's nice that we have you know, someone in the top spot who admires Bitcoin and respects its contribution. And I think that we're in really good position to be viewed as property, which is the most important thing, in my opinion.

Starting point is 00:18:19 And so I think this confluence of people and events and, you know, regulatory evolution is better than I would have expected. I could have imagined. That said, it is surprising to me that the price of Bitcoin and U.S. dollars is still as low as it is. If you would have told me these events would have happened, I would have thought the price would be significantly more than it is now. I'm with you on that. And maybe it's just that macro backdrop of the cap rates and all the compression that maybe the fixed income market is putting on cap rates because we got the yields kind of blowing out. I don't know, but I'm with you. And maybe we're going to see a lot of price action here in the coming year. I don't know. Hey, you made a comment about you thought it was very important that it's viewed as property. Talk to us about that idea on that designation. Sure. So there are a lot of aspects of property that are beneficial to us as Bitcoiners, right? For one thing, a politician can't advocate for a security. So you couldn't have a Cynthia Lummis, you know, in the Senate saying buy Apple stock. Apple stock is good, right? But she can advocate for property. That's important, right? That from a advocacy, political point of view that Bitcoin be viewed as property. And then the other thing that's

Starting point is 00:19:47 really important about property is property rights globally are pretty well established. You know, nation states can violate them and they have eminent domain, kind of other stuff. But generally speaking, property rights are about the most well established rights out there. So getting a designation of property is quite a comfort. And then there's also close ties to property rights and taxation. You know, there's a lot of history and it's tough to, for example, you know, we're not taxing New York City real estate on an unrealized capital gain basis, right? It's property. So a designation of property might be very useful if the government starts to get scared that Bitcoin's growing too big and they wanted to institute an unrealized capital gain tax. I was like, wait a minute, we're property here. Very interesting.

Starting point is 00:20:39 Very interesting. Yeah, we've got to keep that one. Let's not talk about that one anymore. Yeah. Property is the big. Exactly. Property and taxation. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.

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Starting point is 00:24:57 All right, back to the show. So you work with high net worth individuals, and I'm kind of curious, how do most of them view Bitcoin when you initiate a conversation with maybe a new client? How does that go? Generally speaking, a new client starts the conversation with some version of my daughter, my son, my granddaughter, you know, someone has been telling them about Bitcoin for some time. They've dismissed it for a period of time because it wasn't in their purview, right? It wasn't in their world. It wasn't on their TV shows, their newspapers, and now it is. Now they turn on CNBC and they're talking about this

Starting point is 00:25:42 Bitcoin stuff. They open the Wall Street Journal. They're talking about Bitcoin. They look at the cover of Forbes, you know, like all of this. So now they're saying, my kid was right and I got to learn about this. I don't want to be an idiot. I know a little bit, help me learn a little more. And then the coiners hate this, but the truth of the matter is, they're not interested right now in the not your keys, not your coin thing. They wanted to feel like other investments they've done in their life. When they come to the conclusion that, hey, I like some exposure to this. I want to own some of this. They don't want to go to a firm they've never heard of, even if it's a coin base, right? They don't want a new password. They don't

Starting point is 00:26:25 want a wallet. They sure don't want a hardware wallet. They don't want, you know, passphrase, right? This is just 65-year-old guy worth $50 million, doesn't want this. He just wants to buy a million dollars worth of Bitcoin. And so we set up a fund to try to accommodate those folks and then give them some of the benefits that they may not even know that they want. So I have a fund called Bitcoin Investment Group. It's more of a labor of love for. the community than a profit center. I don't make any money on it. We charge 1% a year. We custody the Bitcoin at Fidelity Digital Assets, which I think is probably the safest custodian in the world. And basically, it's just a buy and hold. There's no trading. There's nothing like that.

Starting point is 00:27:10 We maintain kind of separate tax slots so that nobody in the fund is impacted by anybody else's buying or selling a very Bitcoin. And then the really cool part is if someone wants to redeem and leave the fund. They have the choice to go back into U.S. dollars and we'll sell Bitcoin and give them if they feel like making that mistake. Or we will wire them, send them, wire them. That's so funny. You know, we'll get a wallet. We'll get a wallet address and we'll send them the amount of Bitcoin that they're entitled to. So they can actually take possession of their Bitcoin, which was the single most important factor in starting the fund for me. I think that even if you don't hold your own Bitcoin, you need to be able to. And it won't take three days to clear.

Starting point is 00:27:52 It'll clear in 10 minutes. It won't. Yeah. Yeah. We offer weekly liquidity because Fidelity's closed on weekends and certain hours, but really, it's pretty much daily. If you say you want out today, we'll get you out today. That's awesome.

Starting point is 00:28:07 So I opened up some questions on Twitter for folks that I wanted to ask you questions. And one of the most common questions that people want to hear is they want to hear. I bet I guess. The story. The story. Yeah, I could have guessed that one. So for people that maybe aren't familiar, so you're famous for orange pilling, Michael Saylor, into Bitcoin. And so you've known Michael, I think, what, two decades, nearly?

Starting point is 00:28:37 Yeah, more than 20 years. So you've known him for quite a while. So you know his personality. You know what makes them tick for the most part. And when did you... Yeah. So does the whole world now, though, right? I mean...

Starting point is 00:28:51 True. As you now know, what you see on the podcast is truly what you get. There's no act. There's no different version of, you know, in person when the two of us are hanging out, you know, alone talking. It's the same as what the whole world gets to see. I will disagree with you there. And here's why. Okay.

Starting point is 00:29:09 When you're with him in person, the breadth of what he knows is astounding. Is that the right word to use? It is astounding. I mean, it's unreal. There's a good. it really is. You get a little bit of an example of that. He just did this podcast with Lex Freedman. So that's where it's like four hours long and he goes into some other very interesting areas where you just kind of like, how do you know that stuff? How do you know? That's what I walked

Starting point is 00:29:35 away from, you know, the time that I spent with him and you, I was, I even said to you as Michael walked away for a second. I said, how in the world does he know all of this? Like it is out of control. But tell us your story. How did you? Sure. How did it happen, right? Yeah. So we, like you said, we've been friends for a long time. And we've always discussed kind of technology and different investments in the space.

Starting point is 00:30:02 It's just kind of what we're interested in. And we were spending a lot of time hanging out at his place in Miami during the pandemic. And, you know, we were kind of trying to make sense of things that frankly just didn't make sense to us. So this case-shaped recovery and government printing money and why were stock prices going up when the entire world is shut down, you know, like just trying to make sense of everything. And a little bit frustrated, frankly, that, you know, things weren't going in the logical direction a lot of times. And I said, he remembers that I said something along the lines of, anytime there's big change like this, there's opportunity and, you know, we just need to find that opportunity. And then

Starting point is 00:30:46 I went back to talking about Bitcoin because that's kind of what I do. And in the past, he'd been very dismissive as he's kind of talked about. And when I would bring up Bitcoin, he would change the subject politely or tell me, you know, all right, enough, Eric, you know, like I don't want to hear about it. But this time, you know, as he said, because of what was happening in the world, he was more receptive to it. And when I brought it up, he said, okay, tell me more about Bitcoin. And I was like, whoa, okay, here we go. And then over the course of a few days, I downloaded everything that I could, which wasn't

Starting point is 00:31:24 enough to satisfy him. So he said, okay, if I want to learn more, you know, where do I go? And I directed him to some books and some pods and some people, some folks to follow on Twitter, et cetera. And we kept talking about it, kept asking more questions. I kept answering what I could and pointing him in directions where I couldn't. And then it got to the point where I was like, okay, well, if I wanted to buy some of this, how would I do it?

Starting point is 00:31:47 And I kind of, you know, helped him in that department as well. And then, you know, I didn't have any insight as to what was happening at the corporate level. We don't really talk about things that, you know, like only board members would be privy to or something. So I didn't know, you know, kind of what was going in there. But, you know, sometime later I'm pulling into dinner. I had a restaurant down here in Miami. And the phone rings. And it's Michael.

Starting point is 00:32:11 Like usually it would be a text. He doesn't usually call. but he was like, oh shit, maybe something happened. So I pick it up and I'm like, what's up? And he's like, well, I bought some Bitcoin. And I was like, cool. And at the time, Bitcoin was about $10,000 of Bitcoin. And I said, all right, welcome to Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:32:27 He goes, yeah, $10,000. And I go, he bought one Bitcoin. And he goes, no, Eric, I bought $10,000 Bitcoin. So his first trade was $100 million, purchase of Bitcoin. And I went from, like instantly in that moment, I went from being super psyched that I got my buddy into Bitcoin. This is great to, yeah, because, you know, it's like if you've been in Bitcoin a while, you know, that there's some volatility. And nobody gets like, nobody gets a smooth path up.

Starting point is 00:33:02 And, you know, when your buddy invests $100 million, when it's down 15%, you really want to hear I lost $15 million because of you. So, you know, anyway, but as the world now knows, he is a person of tremendous conviction who really does his research. And when the price dips, he's just excited that he gets to buy more of it, you know, for the dollar. So, yeah, that's kind of the story. Yeah, and you're right, he just, it seems like when he gets dialed into something, he just does such a tremendous amount of research.

Starting point is 00:33:37 I noticed one of the interviews that he did that really, stands out to me was when he did the debate on gold against, I forget who he, who did that against. Frank Juster. Yes. Yes. So I just remember watching that. And I'm like, my God, he knows the 10ks and the 10 Qs better than the guy he's debating

Starting point is 00:33:57 for the gold miners. Yeah, because he read them. He read them. But his depth of- Cover to cover. His depth of research was just an ability to recall stats and figures. And I mean, I saw this firsthand. It's, it's, it's unfalatable.

Starting point is 00:34:15 Yeah, he's, so, you know, a lot of people will ask me what it's like, you know, being Michael's friend. And as you know, he's got like super comfortable house and it's fun to hang out there. And we take some vacations together and he's very generous. We'd go to great restaurants. And so there's that. But, you know, when people say like, you know, what's it like or whatever? really the best part about being his friend is access to supercomputer.

Starting point is 00:34:43 To Jarvis. It's Jarvis. Yeah, exactly. And if there's something going on in your life and you want some advice, he's a good friend and he gives you advice. I mean, I had a situation a few years ago, just kind of an anecdotal example, right? I had a situation a few years ago where I worked out a business deal with a group of people that I knew.

Starting point is 00:35:03 And then we were starting a new company, a new company. endeavor. And at the last minute, I kind of got screwed out of the deal by some unethical behavior. And I was really pissed about it. And I could have sued and I had like a lot of legal grounds to sue. But, you know, and I was talking like, I was like, what do you think I should do? And, you know, he's just so smart and so pragmatic. He's like, Eric, you're fighting over ownership and an idea. You know, he's like, of all the great ideas I've had in my life, very few have worked. out most fail. It's like, you know, basically he was like, you should just let this one go. And it was really hard for me at the time. And I was like, you know what? I'm clouded by emotion

Starting point is 00:35:48 here. Yeah. My buddy's really smart. He's good at business. I'm just going to let it go. And it turns out that that deal didn't work out. It didn't turn out to be a huge miss. They didn't make a ton of money on it. And I still have a good relationship with some of the people involved in it because I didn't sue them. And so, like, that's really the best part about being friends with Michael is kind of access to, you know, his perspective and view on things. And you're right. His brain works in a very interesting way. So, like, from my perspective, he's got, like, this chronological view of the history of the world. And for any given time, century, date, whatever, he will have some idea what was happening. That was shaping an influence. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:36:35 Yeah, and he'll know what was happening in Europe, what was happening in Asia, what was happening here. And so when he gets new information, it's against that backdrop of what was happening. So when he studies for, you know, like that gold debate against Frank, he has the benefit of having a view of history and civilizations and developments. And then when he got into Bitcoin, he started focusing on kind of a Bitcoin standard, you know, perspective of it. And like the monetary aspect as well, he had the basis of history to overlay that monetary piece. It all just kind of clicks for him really quickly. At the conference recently, Peter Thiel kind of made a splash with his speech and just kind of some of his thoughts. I'm kind of curious if you have any opinions or insights from Peter's comments.

Starting point is 00:37:22 I mean, who might have criticized Peter Thiel, right? I think that everybody who comes to Bitcoin does and should come with a healthy degree of skepticism, right? This is something new. I've heard a bunch of fud and you need to prove to me or I need to prove to myself through studying that there's something here, right? And I feel like the Warren Buffett's Charlie Munger's, Jamie Diamonds, I think those are the guys that he took a shot at right? I think those guys, A, are old, right?

Starting point is 00:37:59 And that's relevant because they've enjoyed the world the way they've seen it for a long time. They know that they're on the back nine, so to speak, right? And, you know, maybe they're not open to embracing something new, especially since they are traditional finance guys. And this kind of upsets the entire traditional finance world a little bit. You know, it's very threatened by no trusted third party. These guys made a living being trusted third parties. I mean, J.P. Morgan is nothing other than a trusted third party, right?

Starting point is 00:38:37 So I understand why they would kind of maybe choose not to see it. But I think it's more constructive, generally speaking, not to attack these folks and more to view everybody as somewhere on this progression from against it, skepticism, you know, open to it, acceptance, loves it. You know, we got to move people along this progression in a constructive way. And truth be told, I think there's a lot of evidence that Jamie Diamond has moved that direction, right? At first it was, I'll fire anybody that I find trading it at my firm. And now his firm sells it.

Starting point is 00:39:16 They sell Bitcoin funds. They'll rip you off. But they sell third party Bitcoin funds because too much money was leaving the bank. And they said, all right, give them what they want. So, you know, what's the next? step. J.B. Morgan, I think, was involved in the creation of Zcash, actually. So they're not anti-crypto. They had crypto group that had, you know, more than 100 people in it like four years ago. So they're aware of blockchain and the benefits of it and they even have their own

Starting point is 00:39:41 JP Morgan coin now and stuff. So I think there's just no need to be so toxic. Let's just bring people along and whether they buy a little or a lot, we need everybody. Yeah. Yeah, when I think of some of his comments. And I mean, he was, he was really kind of banging up individuals who are just part of this traditional system and calling Bitcoin or this whole crypto ecosystem rat poison and all that. I think he was going after them for their inability to just kind of maybe think creatively and kind of be open to this new form of doing finance, right? And I really struggled with this for quite a while, just speaking personally, right? I was angry at the traditional finance that they weren't willing to do it. And it almost seemed like people were doing things to undermine it.

Starting point is 00:40:31 And maybe some were. I think the more that I've thought about it and the more that I've kind of come around to just being in this space and seeing the disparity between this older way of thinking and this new vibrant ecosystem that's just, I mean, Miami was a perfect example of that idea. I think it's about order. I think it's about these individuals, and you said that they were extremely successful in this environment that allowed them to kind of rise to the top and be prima donnas and just apex. Michael likes to use the word apex predators of that environment.

Starting point is 00:41:11 Absolutely. And as that environment looks like it's changing, whether that was an animal or a human being, as that environment appears to be changing and shape shifting around them, I think they fear that they're losing control and the order, they're seeking order in this environment that seems like tectonic shifts around them that maybe they can't control. And so what people like myself and many others, I think, are looking at them and saying, you're evil, I think it's actually more than just trying to cling to order and control of what allowed them to become the apex predator of finance or business or whatever, right?

Starting point is 00:41:53 Yeah, the analogy I've used in the past is kind of like, if you're a, they're kind of like a professional baseball player at the end of their career. And then someone comes along and says, baseball's over, man. It's all about ice hockey. And like try getting that old baseball player to learn how to skate and start playing hockey because baseball's over. They just, they have no appetite for it. They've crushed it in the, in the construct that we have. They're good. They're at the end anyway. They don't need to learn it again. They're going to be just fine. They don't need to learn something new. And they just have no appetite for it. But as Saylor said, you know, it's like, why are you asking Buffett about Bitcoin?

Starting point is 00:42:35 Would you ask your great grandfather, his thoughts on a new technology? You just wouldn't. Yeah. And Buffett for as smart as he is and he's a Columbia guy and I'm a Columbia guy and I like value investing and I'm mad love and respect for Warren Buffett. I really do. And I admire a number of things about him, including his humility and a whole bunch of other things.

Starting point is 00:42:56 Yeah. But, you know, Bill Gates was his best friend for a long time. and he never invested in Microsoft. And he was asked about that and he just said, you know, I just don't understand it. He's like, I understand Coca-Cola. I understand Gillette. You know, I understand insurance. And he'd explain in detail, you know, if I gave you $100 million and told you to get people to stop drinking Coca-Cola, you couldn't do it.

Starting point is 00:43:21 You know, there's nothing that's going to happen tomorrow that's going to stop people from shaving. So Gillette's going to be just fine. And he had this great simplistic approach that worked for him. It was kind of indicative of the time that he did it. You couldn't really do value investing like he did now. But yeah, it served him well, and I don't think he has any interest in seeing something new. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. No, it's not your imagination.

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Starting point is 00:47:29 capacitor, right? And like Michael, I'm an engineer, right? So I'm looking at this. I'm saying it's a capacitor, it's a battery that any excess energy that's being produced. And I don't care if you're if you're doing a waterfall or a solar array, right? There's going to be moments where you need so much capacity for energy during peak times that it's over. overproducing and it's not easy to turn off and there's Bitcoin ready to just soak up every ounce of it and preserve it with near perfect energy loss, right? With near perfect, no energy loss. No energy loss. Yeah. So it's just, I think for for us in the space, it's extremely frustrating to hear the fud that's out there. How would you characterize this fud? Is it malicious?

Starting point is 00:48:20 Are there people that are trying to sell their own bags? Is it just people just don't understand it because it's super complex? Is it a political play? How would you bucket this and then kind of define kind of the magnitude of those various buckets? I absolutely think it's malicious. I don't think. I think that the generation of the FUD is malicious and there are someone or some group of people behind it that are literally bribing journalists, bribing Greenpeace, bribing others with this

Starting point is 00:48:58 narrative, and they're funding research, just like any funded research is going to deliver the results you want, right? Like the tobacco industry, the Greenpeace, whatever, it's like, I'll give you $5 million because Bitcoin's bad, but we need you to really make the case that Bitcoin's bad. Okay, we want the $5 million. We're happy to do it, right? So I think that the FUD and the data is all manufactured. The problem is the folks that are doing it are very good at it. And we've got kind of this environment, especially with social media and all the ESG kind of

Starting point is 00:49:35 perspective globally, that it's catching on. The first level is malicious. The second level is ignorant people who care about the environment. who are taking this and running with it and just saying, here's my data, here's my research, and you're bad, right? And so it is a problem. It can be combated with ethical research, honest research, good reporting. And I feel like the tide is starting to turn there now. And so it went from, it looks like it's going to go from you're not green enough to, well, you're using too much energy. You shouldn't be using energy at all. You should be doing proof of

Starting point is 00:50:13 stake, you know, and it's just going to, they're going to keep coming up with something new, and we're going to keep having to shoot it down with facts. Yeah. But we have the benefit of having the truth on our side, so hopefully we will prevail. And the other thing we have on our side is even if they, let's just say a country gets it completely wrong, and they ban it, right? I obviously don't want that to happen here in United States, but let's say it happens in one of these major economies, everybody.

Starting point is 00:50:43 has to do it simultaneously across the planet at every single country for it to even remotely have an impact on how the full nodes are going to accept or decline blocks that are being found by miners, you know, like long term, it doesn't matter what anybody's opinion is. I don't have worries about that. My concern is more, I want people to appreciate Bitcoin. you know, I don't want it smeared, you know, with lies. Yeah. Yeah. And so because there's no centralization, because there's no company, because there are no

Starting point is 00:51:25 marketing team or marketing budget or ambassadors, I think all of us feel an obligation to, you know, scream the truth as loud way as we can. And that's why the more credible folks that we can recruit to the space, have a megaphone who feel the way that we feel in our objective, you know, that's what we need is credible sources. And I think we've done a great job of that. And I think that going back to kind of the government officials, I mean, Gensler's kind of right up there, I think. I think he's on our side. All right. Here's one for you. Altcoins. How do you view this? So I view all of digital assets, all crypto assets. I think of it in different segments.

Starting point is 00:52:10 So right now we all get painted with the same brush, right? Crypto. And we all love to say Bitcoin and not crypto, right? But there's a whole outside world there that's a lot bigger than just the Bitcoin world. And we need to try to help shape their perspective in a constructive way. And the way I view it is Bitcoin is seeking to be a digital property, digital store value, digital gold, right? And nothing else in the digital asset class is a viable.

Starting point is 00:52:40 competitor to that. The market that Bitcoin is going after is massive, right? It's we're talking gold. We're talking all of $100 trillion worth of low yielding sovereign debt, $17 trillion of negative yielding sovereign debt, savings account, checking accounts. Like our market is hundreds of trillions that we're going after, right? And then you've got actual scams. You've got actual things in there that are dishonest, pump and dump, pieces of crap that are barely analogous to a casino. Would you say that's a majority of all these other tokens? I have no idea. I don't bother to parse. I really don't. There's a lot of crap out there. And so that's another segment. And then there's this

Starting point is 00:53:28 segment in the middle. And this segment in the middle of defy and NFTs and smart chains and decential, you know, like all kinds of really cool technological things. I view that as kind of liquid venture capital. So it's kind of like an equity market. Like that's equities. That's liquid venture capital. Companies doing cool stuff, right, in this new digital asset world. Bitcoin, I think, is probably like, you know, the true base layer of value in this digital economy. But they're going to be cool bells and whistles and smart contracts and NFTs and other things. and maybe metaverse stuff or whatever. I don't hate them.

Starting point is 00:54:08 I don't think they're all evil. I think it's just liquid venture capital in a new world. And do you see most of the regulation that's going to come out to really kind of segment basically Bitcoin and then everything else is equity? Or do you think that it's going to be a grayer line there between things like Ethereum or the Binance? There's a few of them out there that seem like they could potentially. potentially get bucket into the same classification as property as Bitcoin?

Starting point is 00:54:41 That's the multi-trillion dollar question. I mean, Bitcoin benefits from having a very simple value proposition and not a lot of moving parts. Ethereum is a bit of like a Rubr-Colberg device, right? Like, there are a lot of things going on there. They're getting tremendous competition from other chains, Solana and others. I mean, you know, if you're ostensibly centralized, like I think Ethereum basically is, it's like, how else do you just say, well, we're going to push it out a little, you know. Right? And so, like, I think that Ethereum's got competition problems.

Starting point is 00:55:19 And then, by the way, if they switched to proof of stake, they might actually have security problems too, because then it starts to look a lot more centralized in my mind. But anyway, so I think that's just a very. competitive environment, people not wanting to pay, you know, $100 for a transaction and do 15 transactions a second on Ethereum when Solana can do 50,000 transactions a second for fractions of a penny in transaction fees. They've got competition and it'll be based on developer talent and where the money goes, et cetera. But I don't view that as competition to Bitcoin. I don't think they're competing to be a store of value. Yeah. Yeah, it was interesting. I was talking with

Starting point is 00:55:58 Adam back probably a year ago about some of these other tokens that were popping up. And he said to me, says, the thing that I find most ironic about it is that the competition is competition that is more and more centralized because they're able to do these more swoop-y things, faster clearing times. Absolutely. And so he's just like, it's just, it's kind of interesting to me that it's decentralized in branding and marketing, but here's Ethereum and their competitors, which are even more centralized than they are. And in order for them to compete, they're going to probably have to become more centralized. And he's like, it's just completely antithetical. But there is a, there is a spectrum, though. There's a viable, legitimate narrative that says security is important,

Starting point is 00:56:52 right? And Bitcoin, I would say, is the apex predator and the secure side, right? Yeah. Like, I don't think we have any competition from a security point of view. But there's a spectrum where people say, well, if we gave up a little bit of security and we could have a little more centralization and therefore get a little more efficiency, you know, does that have some value? And so they'll move along that curve and they'll have that discussion. And you hear the, you know, like the VCs talk about this.

Starting point is 00:57:22 And they'll try to weigh what's the right balance of security, centralization, efficiency. And that's fine. That's a legitimate discussion. But for me, the ultimate value is in that security and sending your wealth 100 years into the future. Yeah, that was something that I guess came out today with his, with Michael's interview with Lex, that he had some comments relating to being able to warp that buying power 100 years into the future, not just being able to send it from Tokyo to New York, but to do it 100 years from now is. Yeah, moving it not just through space, but through time.

Starting point is 00:58:02 Yeah. Yeah. Unbelievable. That's a hard concept for people. Yes. Yeah. Without loss, without energy loss is the way he likes to describe it, which is just. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:58:12 Yeah. It works for you because you're an engineer. Yeah. And I think that's why I enjoy listening to Michael so much because like him, you know, in my I did aerospace engineering as well. And just hearing him describe things in a very engineering kind of way for me just is, it just clicks. And I know for a lot of people, it's probably the, maybe the polar opposite, but, um, but for me,

Starting point is 00:58:36 I'm not an engineer. Yeah. I really enjoy it. Sometimes we're having conversations and he just, I'm like, dude, I don't know what you're saying. Speaking of engineering, there was a really interesting announcement at the Bitcoin conference or maybe a day or two before where I guess Lightning Labs. has figured out a way to transmit tokens, yeah, stable coins over the lightning network. And like, I, oh my God, you talk about engineering at a level that I just make sure

Starting point is 00:59:05 eyes roll back. Like, what are they even saying now? And how in the world are they doing this on the software side? But I'm really curious and can't wait to dig into some of that some more because there's a lot of people in the space saying that all these competitors in the, uh, in, that we were just talking about in the all coin space as far as like security tokens and things like that might have a real competition on their hands with this new announcement out of Lightning Lab.

Starting point is 00:59:32 So we'll see what that entails and see if we can try to understand a little bit more before we talk about it more. I think that's a huge thing. By the way, Jonceth kind of explained to me how lightning can be used for stable coins. I can't say that I fully understood his explanation. I certainly didn't understand it well enough to share with you, but you should chat with him about it because he definitely gets it. But I think that may be the killer app, right? Being able to move stable coin on lightning, I think may be the killer app because.

Starting point is 01:00:09 And it's all synthetic. It's all synthetically created with Bitcoin backing. Is that what you're, is that what you're doing? No. No. No, not not, no, not Bitcoin. It doesn't need to be Bitcoin backing at all. it could be like tether.

Starting point is 01:00:22 Oh, okay. But basically, if we can do that, which I'm told is completely possible and very doable, and I think according to Jensen, that's already been done in the past or something, so it's like really, it's not fantasy. But the beauty of that is the killer app might be having a non-custodial wallet on your phone that has the Bitcoin savings account, right? So you keep all your money in Bitcoin. And then when you need to transact, you have.

Starting point is 01:00:51 a, you know, a USD or Euro or whatever, Digital Wan, Stablecoin account in there as well, like your checking account, and you're buying something for $10, you take $10 of Bitcoin transfer it over to your stable coin side and, you know, pay in $10 a stable coin. So you kind of have that savings account checking account thing. And I think that might be, you know, one of the true killer apps. This thing's moving out so fast. Is it moving so fast? that central bank digital currencies just don't even have a prayer? Is it just like in a completely completely different time horizon than Bitcoin? What are your thoughts there?

Starting point is 01:01:31 Because when you say things like what we just said, it almost seems like they're going to arrive to the scene five years later after they do their testing and their studies and all this stuff that like, I'm hearing the timelines and I'm saying, based on where this debt market's at and where this bond market's at and like the destruction, of the inflation prints and all that I'm saying, I'm looking at that timeline. I'm saying you're in a different universe if you think you're going to compete with the pace that this thing's moving out.

Starting point is 01:02:01 Like, what are your thoughts? It appears to me that the U.S. government is saying that they don't have an interest in doing a digital dollar. It seems that what they want to do is they want to have U.S. dollar stable coin that it's issued by FDIC insured banks, right? And they've laid out the criteria of what the banks will have to do in order to issue the stable coins. Having a central bank digital currency in the United States

Starting point is 01:02:34 would be a sticky wicket, right? Look at the reaction from in Congress when the government wanted to trace every transaction is $600 or more. So with a CBDC, obviously, they couldn't help but know every single transaction that everyone does. There's a lot of control issues there. Oh, we don't like you. We don't like what you said.

Starting point is 01:02:54 We're just going to delete your wallet kind of thing or freezers or whatever. So I think that maybe the U.S. government doesn't want to touch that. But they do want to proliferate the dollar. Stable coins can do that. The current paradigm we have is the banks issue the money anyway. They need to give the banks a reason to exist. So they keep them in the framework. They keep them in their traditional role by saying, okay, you guys issue.

Starting point is 01:03:21 you know, stable coins. It's going to take them a while to get there. They're not there yet. And then it'll be really interesting to see, well, you know, is it going to be real agnostic? Will it run on Eath? Will it run on Bitcoin? You know, like, that'll be super interesting. I'm sure it'll be agnostic. But interesting questions that need to be answered, right? But in the meantime, we've got all the private company, the private sector is, you know, saying, we're not waiting for you. There's tremendous demand for, you know, U.S. dollar stable coins. So we're going to spit him out algorithmically or backed or otherwise. What point do you see Bitcoin crossing the chasm of, for capital inflows of high net worth

Starting point is 01:04:01 family offices? So there's a lot of folks that say it's actually too small for my investment to come back to me when it's when it's 10 trillion, right? Yeah. When do you see that line kind of being crossed where it's like everybody's got to have a little bit of this in their portfolio? That's a good question. I don't know that I have like a U.S. dollar figure number that's coming. I think it's more a matter of as high-profile individuals stand up and say,

Starting point is 01:04:35 I own this, I believe in this, I support this, you'll see family offices, wealthy people, when someone they respect, they start to move over. When they bank with Goldman Sachs, when Goldman Sachs, when Goldman Sachs, says, yeah, we think a 5% allocation to Bitcoin is prudent. They're not even, they're price agnostic. It's like, okay, take 5% of my portfolio and put it in Bitcoin. Not what's the price of Bitcoin. It's an allocation, right?

Starting point is 01:05:01 So I think as the individuals and institutions that these people respect start to go, they'll start to go. No one wants to be first. It still feels like first. And I think that's changing pretty drastically. You hear what Janet Yellen said the other day. I mean, that was a massive, massive thing for her to say, like, Satoshi's innovation is real. Like, yeah.

Starting point is 01:05:27 Oh, my. No. Whoa. Right? That's not working outlaw Bitcoin. And people, Janet Young's sharp lady. I mean, it's a very smart person. I don't know.

Starting point is 01:05:38 It's come a long way from the yellow notepad behind her that. Right. But back to my point before, we need to allow everybody to progress. Bashing Janet Yellen, calling her an idiot, doesn't get her from there to here. Education does, being constructive does, being cheerful and constructive. I like to say, right? And let's move people along because at the end of the day, we want this thing to be for everybody, and we don't get there by alienating people, right?

Starting point is 01:06:09 We all said no before we said yes. Yeah. I like that. I like that a lot. And that's advice that I can personally take as well. when I'm talking to folks, people who, like, you can tell they want to own some, but they're a little skeptical, they're a little scared to be quite frankly. Like, they're looking at and I'm saying, I have no idea what's holding the price where it's at. Like, I could, and I know it has like 70% annual volatility or whatever it is.

Starting point is 01:06:37 And so what I find myself often telling those people is, if you're really skeptical, just take a 1% position. If it has 70% volatility, it's 1% of your portfolio. You're not even going to notice what it's doing, right? And because it has so much asymmetry, if I'm right, it's going to be a massive performer inside your portfolio. And they say, 1%, that's it. I said, well, based on the price of where it's at today, it's 1%. I said, but if the price was $500,000, I'd tell you you probably need to have about 10% of this stuff in your portfolio. And they stop and they're like...

Starting point is 01:07:15 Well, what? That doesn't make any sense. What are you talking about? And I tell them, well, at 500,000, the likelihood of it really kind of taking over and really kind of being the foundation of global finance becomes that much more probable. And so I'm curious if you would agree with that from like a sizing and portfolio construction standpoint. And if you don't, I'm kind of curious to kind of hear what your advice would be for some of these folks. Sure. So back in the day, Pomp used to have a phrase like, I think this is probably like 2016-ish time frame. Pomp used to have a phrase where we would be at same events and stuff and he would get off zero. Just get off zero was the phrase that I wish you would bring it back because unfortunately it's still relevant.

Starting point is 01:08:02 But when someone gets off zero and they buy that 1%, they start to pay attention to it. Yeah. And that's the key. And starting to pay attention to it and not being intimidated by it and feeling comfortable with it, that's the key. So I think that's good advice that you're giving. It also helps demystify it, right? But I think it's really good constructive advice.

Starting point is 01:08:26 And the other thing that I use is it's hard for people to envision the grand vision, but it's a lot easier for them to envision maybe this is a digital gold. And if you can envision that it's a digital gold, then you can envision it going from 40,000 to 600,000, right, to get to that 12 trillion, right? So if we can get people to just adopt the digital gold, and gold is an easy comparison, right? It crushes gold in every possible way from movement, storage, you know, stronger, right, like harder, like, you know, no dilution, relatively speaking. I mean, it's easily a better digital gold. And even if that individual doesn't want to accept that a digital gold, they'll probably

Starting point is 01:09:15 accept that their children view it as a digital gold. So it doesn't matter if you don't get it as long as you can see that the younger generation gets it. And there's more of them. They keep coming. There's people who are with money now who are born with. Yeah, they're coming. They were born with an iPad in their hand.

Starting point is 01:09:37 And they don't care that you can. touch it like a gold bar. They like that they can zip it around and buy stuff in the video game with it and everything else. They like you can't touch it. They do. It's not a burden, right? Yeah. And so yeah, yeah, dinner with the guy recently who's like, you know, young programmer out of Stanford graduate degree and he's like, his question to me was, I just don't understand traditional finance. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, I just don't understand bank wires. He's like, we had to do it the other day. I don't know why anyone would use it.

Starting point is 01:10:11 There was all kinds of people involved in permissions and it still took a whole lot of time and then we didn't get in before the wire went down. He's like, why does the wire go down? Where's it going? Like, I don't get it. They just didn't, you just didn't understand why we use this stuff.

Starting point is 01:10:24 How it could be that complex. Yeah. Yeah. We have a better solution. It's not fantasy. It's here. Like, you could do it right now. Like, why don't you just do it?

Starting point is 01:10:33 It was really, so that's coming. And, you know, those are the comments. conversations that you have with the family offices. And, you know, they're not living in a bubble. They're not these, like, stuffy old people in suits. They're, you know, just normal people, like, curious about what's all this talk about. And, but I also have to say that recently, what's been most helpful is the geopolitical events. Being able to talk about what happened in Canada with the truckers.

Starting point is 01:11:01 Oh, yeah. That was huge for explaining. There were most of the. high net worth individuals that I talk to are living in first world country, primarily the US. And it's like, this doesn't have any value proposition for me, dude. Like my money's safe in the bank. I don't give a crap about this. You know, I get why maybe somebody in Venezuela or Argentina needs this, but I don't need this. Then they see what happened in Canada. Then they see what happens in Ukraine, right? And Russia. And they see that we're just like, see countries have just

Starting point is 01:11:31 decided they're going to seize oligarch stuff because their country of origin is Russia and the US isn't at war with Russia and these people didn't have any due process. But we're going to take their stuff anyway. You know, but like, okay, but these are smart people. They got rich because they're smart in most cases. And it's like, well, I'm a rich American. What happens if my yacht is in a country that isn't the U.S. and that government just decides they're going to take my yacht or my house in another country, right? And they just decide to seize that or my money in a bank in this other country. Like, how do I know that doesn't get seized or my goal? So they're starting to open their minds to, you know, the censorship resistant, you know, can't be taken away

Starting point is 01:12:15 kind of thing. Wow. All right. Final question, Eric. Yeah. Tell us something fun about yourself and then give us a book recommendation for Bitcoin. A book recommendation for Bitcoin. It doesn't have to be Bitcoin if you don't want. Book recommendations, tough. I mean, Alice shrugged, I think, is, you know, when I read it after college, it instantly became my favorite book. And then I actually read it a second time. But I read it as a fiction book that aligned with the beliefs that I had that I wasn't really able to articulate at that time. And fast forward to today, it's absolutely frightening how we see reality trending in this direction. So I think it's a book that's more relevant now than it's ever been and is certainly worth reading if people

Starting point is 01:13:12 haven't. Yeah. Something fun about myself, I don't know, what are just fun? Siler and I play a lot of chess. Oh, wow. Really? So we play a lot of chess. I don't know that either one, Neither one of us are as good as Jack Mallors, that's from sure. I know he's good. Is he? I think he was like Illinois State champ in high school or something. No way. I didn't know that.

Starting point is 01:13:37 Yeah, he's legit. He's legit. But Siler and I are about the same level, which is good because the outcome is, you know, not certain when we start. And it's just, it's a game that we like because it requires so much focus that it's tough to turn off your brain from our world because obviously Bitcoin never stops. So you can always be checking something or Twitter never stops or whatever. Like there's always stuff to pay attention to. And we like the fact that chess is kind of all consuming and you need to focus or you're going to lose.

Starting point is 01:14:12 I love it. So who plays the Gambit more? Saler does. Saler does. He likes to play white. Of course he does. Of course he does. Of course he wants to go first. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Okay, I didn't know that. And have either one of you guys played Jack? We have not.

Starting point is 01:14:34 We have not. I don't think either. I don't want to play Jack, man. That'd just be a bet. The difference between like someone his level and like, you know, some of my level is. I'll tell you this, Eric. If you guys recorded a game of the two of you playing chess, I guarantee you that thing would have a million downloads. I guarantee it.

Starting point is 01:14:53 I mean, you could probably put it. I mean, I don't think I have anything to do with that. Seller eating dinner would probably get a million downloads. No. And it would be steak, by the way. But I mean, some of the, we played some marathon games. I mean, one little anecdotal story. We flew back from New York recently, and we were playing a game on the plane.

Starting point is 01:15:16 And then we got off the plane and we continued the game in the car to the house. And then it was already like nighttime. And we kept and then we set, we were playing on an iPad. And then we set up the game from the iPad on a real board and played on the board. And it ended up being like, it started as a way to pass the flight. And it ended up being like, you know, three or four hour game. Hey, so are you familiar with Magnus's, Magnus Carlson has an app that's like a trainer app. Don't tell Michael, I told you this.

Starting point is 01:15:50 This is really? Yes. This, oh, whatever. I'm literally pulling this up on my phone as we're talking here. So it is called Magnus Trainer. Okay. And it's like you have a subscription to this thing. And it literally runs you through like all of these sessions and like trained you how to think from like a first principles way of chess.

Starting point is 01:16:16 Really? Yeah. So you obviously play as well. Well, I'm terrible. I'm absolutely terrible. I learned, I literally started learning how to play chess like four years ago. Never learned as a kid or anything. Me neither, dude.

Starting point is 01:16:30 I just took it up like four years ago. Same thing. I think it was actually three years ago just before, yeah, no, actually, it's four years ago now. And the first time Seller and I are playing, we're playing at his outside board at his house. Yeah. And his paw, like I moved my pawn. And he kicks my pawn off the board. And he looks at me and he goes, on person.

Starting point is 01:16:54 And I go. Oh, yeah. And I go. What is that? I go, what is that? And our friend Ray is standing there and he just looks at me and goes, like, it's a thing. Like, I didn't even know the rules. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:17:05 So I took it upon myself. So we're kind of all on the same. So I got this app. You know, I have this fascination with studying the brain. I talked with it. Robert Breedlove and I did a recording on some of the books that I've read about the brain and whatever. So I had a buddy. He was like, how in the world can you not play chess? I was like, I don't know. I've just never played. No one ever taught me. So he's like, I'm going to play and he's

Starting point is 01:17:30 he's just annihilating me. Right. So like my first instinct from markets is you got to study the absolute best in the world if you want to get good at it. So I pull up, I read about Magnus, right? And then I see that he has this app, like this trainer app. And so like I downloaded this thing and I'm starting to go through it. And it just, it helped me just kind of like start from like a first principles kind of way. I subscribe to it. And then, really? Here's the weird thing that I was doing. I've been totally slacken lately and I'm not that good. But whenever I was really trying to beat my buddy, I would make sure no matter what that I played a couple games before I would go to bed each night because they say that like as you go to sleep, then your brain's kind of replaying everything. And that's how you get better.

Starting point is 01:18:18 of it gets into like piano players, like they'll go and practice the night before. And then as they sleep, their brain continues to kind of work on the piece. And then the next day, they can play it flawless. Right. So I'm doing this Magnus thing each night. But you need to download this. I'm going to download that as soon as we're done. I mean, I had a lot of catching up to do with Sailor. So I actually found an international master in Siberia. And I was taking lessons on Like for like the first for like the first two years just to learn how to play the openings theory, anything. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:18:53 And so like then I got to a level where we were like competitive. And like the truth is like I'm not trying to be like the best in the world. I just want us to have a healthy distraction. And it's good when we're about the same level. Yeah. So yeah. But I'm downloading that app. And I'm going to give it a shot.

Starting point is 01:19:08 I don't want you to be at the same level. I want you to start clobbering them and I want to hear about it. The man does not like to lose. I can tell you that. And he doesn't lose off in their life. Eric, what a pleasure. And thank you. I really enjoyed myself in Miami. It was awesome hanging out with you guys. And thanks for watching. Love you loved having you there. It was great. Thank you so much for having me on your pod. It's like surreal to be like on the pod that I watch. It's just wild. I'm humbled. All right. Well, thanks for talking. Absolutely. Thanks. Chavez soon. And with that, thanks for listening, and I'll catch you again next week. Thank you for listening to TIP. To access our show notes, courses or forums, go to theinvestorspodcast.com.

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