You're The Voice | by Efrat Fenigson - Ep. 50: Eric Stacks - Future of Monetary Systems (CBDC, Bitcoin, Spirituality)

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

I caught Eric Stacks for a mini-chat about the changes & future of monetary systems, CBDC, Bitcoin & spirituality. -- SPONSORS -- ►► Get your TREZOR wallet & accessories, with a 5% discount, using my code at checkout (get my discount code from the latest "you're the voice" episode - yep, you’ll have to watch it): https://affil.trezor.io/SHUn ►► Join me in any of these upcoming events:https://www.efrat.blog/p/upcoming-events -- LINKS -- Eric's Twitter: https://x.com/EricVStacks Efrat's Twitter: https://twitter.com/efenigsonEfrat's Telegram: https://t.me/efenigsonWatch/listen on all platforms: https://linktr.ee/yourethevoiceSupport Efrat's work: ⁠https://www.buymeacoffee.com/efenigson⁠Support Efrat with Bitcoin: https://geyser.fund/project/efenigson

look who i found mr eric stacks the one and only what do you know well good to be here with you yes it is it's a pleasure to meet you i've been following you on twitter and paying attention to your work. Same here, exactly the same. And I dragged Eric in here because I told him we've got to talk about some really interesting, clever insights that he's got about CBDCs and about the future of the monetary system that we're going towards. Yeah. So let's start with what you were saying before about why are you not worried about CBDCs long term? Well, first off, I will say I don't really know anything but i have thoughts about things right i'm just like any other individual who's trying to work it all out and i don't want to be poisoned stolen from lied to

etc right and so it's our it's your views and yeah i love bringing different views yeah so the more and more i think about bitcoin and the long-term implications of bitcoin the less concerned i am about a lot of the things that people seem to be very wrapped up in um and pertains to tyrannical and government overreach cbdc specifically i think that cbdc's the desire to launch a cbdc upon the government's desire to launch a cbdc i think is predicated upon the need to continue to extract energy out of the marketplace you're the voice is brought to you by trezor the original bitcoin hardware wallet company pioneering the development of self-custody for crypto assets since 2013 empowering individuals with an open source device

enabling beginners and experts to easily and securely hold their coins i find my treasure super easy to use and recommend it to my friends and family enjoy my five percent discount on treasure product by clicking the link in the show notes and using the code flat i think if you boil it down to the most fundamental basics and you think in terms of first principles that's the reason that they need to know what everybody or they desire to know what everybody is doing and i think we're watching the game theory play out in real time and i think what will happen is is that bitcoin will hit the balance sheet the financial institutions corporations individuals uh and nation states as it hits the balance sheet of the nation states the network effects and the

thermodynamic soundness of the network will equate to appreciation on the balance sheet that's so tremendous over time it'll hedge the government that's responsible for the debasement of the currency against their own self-induced raising of operating costs on average on an annual basis so as the government debases the currency what they're doing is they're essentially increasing their annual average cost of operating denominated in that currency requiring them to play this back and forth game of taxation and versus debasement they tax too much people start losing their minds they debase too much people start losing their minds and so i think the economic incentive is so high for governments basically individuals and governments and

central banking bloodlines and everybody in between to save in bitcoin that what will take place over a long enough time horizon is is that eventually the need to confiscate people's wealth will decrease and although i do believe there is a large movement globally sorry to cut you but that's because you're you're assuming that at some point the banks the governments the states will hold bitcoin as a reserve and then yeah i think it's unavoidable okay i think it's it's it's if you can't beat them join them but another thing that i think a lot about that's so fascinating and that we have with bitcoin that's a first for our civilization is in order to serve the self-interest of the individual in the highest way you're also now serving the self-interest or

the interest of the collective at the same time and so the individuals that comprise these nation states financial institutions etc need to serve their self-interest they need to figure out how to hold a monetary instrument that is sound enough that it doesn't bleed out energy so it's in some sense it's a trojan horse of freedom right that solves a problem for the individuals and the compilation of the individual which is these corporations financial institutions and nation states so i've the more i think about it i start to believe that bitcoin is not a threat to anybody it's a solution for everybody including the governments that are responsible for the debasement of the currency and the violation of property rights hence the incentive to know every

dollar that you spend and i would say from one perspective i'm grading on a curve because we're coming out of an era with a high level of property rights violation in the form of currency debasement and high taxation. But I would say that capital gains taxes, because I live in the States, so I live in a jurisdiction that treats Bitcoin as property. So if I sell Bitcoin, I have to pay capital gains tax. I would prefer to have Bitcoin and pay capital gains taxes

if I sell the Bitcoin and not have Bitcoin. And I think over time, what will take place is that... As more of the financial institutions in the nation states do put Bitcoin on the balance sheets, they will need to tax less and need to try to figure out how to violate property rights less and less over time. And another kind of far out idea that I do think about, and I feel like a lot of people are probably talking about, but I haven't heard much rhetoric around it, is we live in a fundamentally deflationary world. As we associate demand with supply and become more efficient as a civilization, we're pushing prices down on everything. Jeff Booth's work has been fundamental in my ability to articulate these forces that I've been contending with my whole life. I've interviewed him and he spoke about that.

Very eloquently. Yeah. And he does a phenomenal job saying things in such a condensed way where I find that I end up spending many months unpacking a single phrase, right? So the way I think about it is, is we live in a fundamentally deflationary world where human ingenuity and technological advancement is pushing prices down on everything. However, we have a debt-based fiat monetary system where the monetary units are being lent into existence as debt against assets. And that creates a dynamic in which the value of the assets collateralizing the debt have to go up in nominal terms.

But we're fundamentally pushing down in real terms the value of those assets. So it's two opposing forces. And in order to keep the system solvent, we need to figure out how to keep injecting liquidity into the marketplace to allow the assets or to keep the assets collateralizing the debt at a higher value than the debt. But all of the assets, everything on planet Earth, other than Bitcoin, is bleeding energy. So it's a fundamentally broken system. When Jerome Powell wakes up in the morning and he thinks to himself, how am I going to solve this problem? He's trying to solve the problem within a system that fundamentally doesn't work, which was predicated on the lack of a technological solution that allowed us to project our economic energy into the future with no energy loss. and so in order to get from one broken system into a new system i believe that it's highly

probable that over time the financial institutions will start to lend money into existence as debt against bitcoin and for a multitude of reasons one it's supreme collateral if i take out a mortgage on a house most of if not all of that money depending on the interest rate environment will be new monetary units led into the marketplace right but if i default on that loan i can the bank that owns the loan the debt can only sell that house to an individual who wants to buy a house in that area and i may have for example hypothetically started to remodel my kitchen got rear-ended had some sort of a back surgery got hooked on opiates and then lost my job and now i default on the mortgage i go into foreclosure the financial institution takes back

the house but it's halfway ripped apart and how are they going to sell that house into the marketplace for the money that's owed on it so it's a fundamental flawed system in that sense that the asset can be you could damage the asset and be ruined yeah now with bitcoin you can sell 24 7 365 and at 21 million units 100 years or so from now it's thermodynamically sound there's zero energy loss it's currently got the highest stock to flow ratio on any asset in the world um after this most recent having so in order to keep the system solvent they need to quote unquote keep injecting liquidity in the marketplace and if they start lending money against bitcoin a few things happen. Financial institutions will now be able to put Bitcoin on the balance sheet to collateralize

the debt. The nominal term, or actually in this sense, the real value of the Bitcoin that's collateralizing the debt will not be bleeding out like all of the other assets that collateralize the debt. So over time, I would imagine if the forces involved in that situation are going to create an element of price appreciation that's so great on the bitcoin that it becomes a larger percentage of the balance sheet in these financial institutions yep if that's the case the amount of liquidity required to inject in the marketplace to keep the value of the assets collateralizing the debt will decrease and so i think and i could be wrong about all of this like i said what do i know i'm just a dude i'm a career cannabis farmer who's fascinated with bitcoin but i believe that

bitcoin on the balance sheets of the financial institutions as an asset to lend liquidity in the marketplace against will in turn decrease inflation and in some sense what i see happening is like that that the visualization that i have is is at one point we went from a one-to-one peg of a layer two technology on top of gold where some bankers or custodians of the golds issued more certificates than they had gold on reserve creating a game theoretic conundrum within the banking institutions where if you're a banker who doesn't issue more certificates than you have gold on reserve then you're at a market disadvantage against the bankers who are essentially aligned It's like a hard fork of reality.

And because of that, I feel like our civilization has taken a wrong turn, you could say. And what happened is the peg from gold continued to decrease, or the amount of units that they could lend and inject into the marketplace relative to the gold on a reserve kept changing over time until we're completely detached. And so to keep the system solvent, the injection of liquidity needs to increase. And the incentive to lend that money against Bitcoin is increasing. And if Bitcoin becomes the prominent, dominant, and at some point, the main asset on the balance sheet of these financial institutions, then it will bring us back in time.

I don't know what the timeframe is, 50 years, 500 years, whatever. I visualize it and conceptualize it as bringing us back to a dollar, euro, pound, whatever the fiat currency may be one-to-one relationship with bitcoin as the backing as the money so instead of an inflationary mad max hyperinflation situation in the future for us i believe that bitcoin is stabilizing the system collateralizing the debt because it's the only asset that could collateralize the debt that's not fundamentally bleeding energy i think it's a solution it's not a threat yeah i love it so when i think about the violation of property rights and privacy and all of these things although i am fundamentally against them in every way i have started to

transmute the angst anger and fear i had associated with those things as a result of what is seemingly a very logical and probable outcome because of this new technological discovery which is amazing thank god that you don't hold that and you're in fear that's really that's another step in the development of internal development that's really great it is and and i do believe that we live or at least people much more intelligent than me seem to believe that we live in a quantum-based the universe and tesla famously said if you want to understand the secrets of the universe you need to think in terms of energy vibration and frequency correct and i believe in the law of attraction and i believe that the law of attraction is essentially your vibrational frequency being

mirrored to you in the world around you so i believe that it is prudent for us if we can to figure out how to remove the fear that has been plaguing us which is logical and rational too um but basically to get rid of the fear and bitcoin has allowed me through logic reason and my belief in mathematics and individuals desire to serve their self-interest it is it has allowed me to transmute that fear into a very genuine deep feeling of gratitude love and knowing that there is abundance and there's a way for us to live here in this realm with our civilization and trade fairly and compete over resources fairly you know and this ladies and gentlemen what you see here is the manifestation of ascension in human consciousness yes thank you so

much for saying that yes beautiful i do believe are you gonna write a book i've had a few people suggest that i do yeah maybe that's i could work on yeah audio book because you know really well and thank you do an audiobook straight away yeah really cool yeah that's a very good suggestion i appreciate that definitely and where can people follow you so i'm on twitter my twitter handle is eric v stacks e-r-i-c-v-s-t-a-c-k-s good yeah uh i am on nostre um and i actually just had my account verified so i could post my rants onto nostre um i was limited to my ability to post on noster because the video files were too large that's right i have the same problem we'll talk about yes so they solved that problem yeah yeah and anything else you want to say we'll do a

proper episode one time but this was just a teaser for no i appreciate it i enjoy talking about these things because i genuinely think this stuff um i do believe that bitcoin is helping to elevate humanity's consciousness for a multitude of reasons the two main reasons are is for the first time in human history we're all agreeing with no distortion on the same thing and that is this public inviolable incorruptible decentralized ledger so we can agree that the state and chain of custody of property rights is what it is and there's no distortion and there's no disputing that i think that that level of agreeance is aligning us in a way that we've never been aligned before and additionally i think that and globally globally

yeah and at a hyper rate yes and additionally i think that since the beginning of time because of the physicality of everything the incentive was to violence because if i'm a sociopath and i don't care and i want what you have the incentive is just to kill you and take it if you won't willingly give it to me but now with bitcoin And you have this inviolable, unconfiscatable property. And if I want it, now I need to negotiate a deal with you that you're into. And so that is essentially a catalyst for us to transmit what I believe, transmute what I believe is like inherited ancestral trauma predicated upon the fact that for all of known history, people have been getting killed and had their stuff taken from them. Because the incentive, if you don't, if you're sociopathic, is to kill and take.

And that's why I always say that we will see less violence with Bitcoin. Absolutely. It's an energy in, energy out world. And you have to bring more energy in than you put out. Otherwise, you will bleed out or cease to exist. And so the people who have developed constructs, you could say, that are violence-based or theft based now if they can't steal your energy will have to essentially become have a symbiotic relationship with the world that they interface with as opposed to a parasitic one because you

will basically go out of business if you can't get paid for the plunder so bitcoin defunds plunder in actually the most effective way and the alignment of the end of the alignment of the how bitcoin aligns one's ability to serve their self-interest and at the same time the interest of the collective is also one of the things that's so special you don't have to make some selfless sacrifice to affect the change that you want to see in the world you have to do the selfish thing which is stack sats and get paid the most to do it at the same time you're helping to fund the peace and abundance that you want to see in the world that's amazing the fact that you can help yourself and by that help others yeah it's pretty cool and one of the things booth says

that i love so much is where you have abundance and money you create scarcity and everything else where you have scarcity and money you create abundance and everything else if the money is the hardest asset in the marketplace then the incentive is to hold only the money and not hoard a bunch of other things or resources that other people need to sustain their existence and so yeah i think it's a very beautiful thing i would say that seems like once uh every couple of weeks the emotions that i have around the understanding of the long-term implications of bitcoin are so powerful shed tears you know so yeah i'm very grateful of excitement and i feel a bit stupid sometimes like being on my own either laughing or crying well that's where these conferences are so

special yeah and so yeah i'm very grateful to be a part of it honestly i pre-bitcoin was a little bit frustrated with the world for all the obvious reasons same and the discovery of bitcoin has allowed me to adopt the belief that this is the best time to be alive ever i know me too yeah you get the contrast you can see the bb world yes before bitcoin world in the ab world and so i think that that's an irreplaceable special experience to be eternally grateful for i think we live in really magical times i totally agree privilege to be here right yes when see this transition period i think it's really powerful it is very very special thing thank you wow that was awesome so awesome to meet you do it again we'll do it deeper and better next time perfect well

This is a very good setup in prompt, too. Yeah. Very competitive. Thank you. Out.