You're The Voice | by Efrat Fenigson - Ep. 74: Peter Dunworth - Why Bitcoin Is the Only Escape from Fiat Collapse

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

My guest today is Peter Dunworth, a wealth strategist with over two decades in traditional finance, and now founder of The Bitcoin Adviser, a company helping investors buy, secure and manage their bitcoin. From a background in mortgage broking and family office advisory, Peter has become a trusted guide for those transitioning from fiat to Bitcoin. We sat down at Bitcoin Alive in Sydney to unpack the collapse of the fiat system, how Bitcoin restores financial integrity, and why recent moves like the SAB 121 repeal and strategic reserves are double-edged swords. Peter explains why banks may soon pay you to borrow, how Michael Saylor rewrote the rules of treasury management, and why Australia’s economy is quietly in freefall. This episode is an honest look at the future of money, the power of self-custody, and why Bitcoin remains the ultimate tool for financial freedom.► If you got value, please like, comment, share, follow and support my work. Thank you!-- SPONSORS --►► Get your TREZOR wallet & accessories, with a 5% discount, using my code at checkout (get my discount code from the episode - yep, you’ll have to watch it): https://affil.trezor.io/SHUn ►► Join me on June 19-21 at BTC Prague! Code EFRAT = 10% discount: https://pages.btcprague.com/ambassador-efrat-fenigson -- SPECIAL OFFERS –►► Watch “New Totalitarian Order” conference with Prof. Mattias Desmet & Efrat: https://efenigson.gumroad.com/l/desmet_efrat ►► Enjoy the Little HODLer products, learn about sound money while having fun! use code EFRAT for 10% off on non-sale items: https://thelittlehodler.com/ ►► 10% off on all books & accessories at the “Bitcoin Infinity Store” - use code EFRAT ►► Join me in any of these upcoming events: https://www.efrat.blog/p/upcoming-events -- LINKS –Peter’s Twitter: https://x.com/peterbtcadviserThe Bitcoin Advisor: www.thebitcoinadviser.com 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/efenigson   ⁠Support Efrat with Bitcoin: https://geyser.fund/project/efenigson-- CHAPTERS –[00:00] Coming Up…[01:22] Intro: Where is Bitcoin Adoption Today  [04:30] “You Don’t Change Bitcoin, Bitcoin Changes You”[03:08 The Evolution of Bitcoin and Its Community[07:54] Self Custody with Trezor[08:23] BTC Prague[08:40] The Double-Edged Sword of Government Involvement[13:47] Intro to Peter & The Bitcoin Adviser  [16:13] The Unsustainable Fiat System  [19:33] How Will Bitcoin Change The Monetary System  [22:05] Awareness Creation Via Shitcoins  [22:48] Are We Witnessing The Change of World Monetary Order?  [25:23] SAB 121: The Big News for Banking & Bitcoin  [31:38] Australia's MacroEconomics & Societal Changes  [37:43] MicroStrategy/Strategy’s Innovative Corporate Strategy  [42:03] Free Markets, Bonds & Bitcoin's Role  

We are seeing Bitcoin terraform the entire financial sector and, if so, the rest of the world and everything along with it. History has a way of showing us that when the government's here to help, maybe their outcomes aren't aligned with what our outcomes are. And so protecting the Bitcoin network at all costs, I think, is the most important thing if we want to preserve that hope for humanity into the future. For me, I want to stay close to the Bitcoin community and spend more time in that community as opposed to TradFi where you seem to me being a hit against the wall and things shouldn't be going the way they are. So I'm extremely hopeful that Bitcoin brings the ability for everyone to have a better future.

This is what to me is so incredibly powerful with Bitcoin is that all of a sudden it simplifies the financial game because the problem with trying to build wealth is that there are these layers of obfuscation and complication that are added by layers of government around the world, regulations, you name it which makes it difficult for everyone to play the game fairly. When there's no debt in the system a little bit of debt creates enormous amount of stability and benefits but it's just like a drug a little bit leads to a lot and a lot more and now we we have a full-blown problem that we can't stop using it. Hello and welcome to another episode of You Are The Voice.

I'm Efrat from Sydney, Bitcoin Alive conference. It's a one-day conference, so it's the one and only day. I'm here with no other than Mr. Peter Dunworth. Hey, Peter. Pleasure to be here with you, Efrat. That is so good. We've met a year ago or so in Nashville. That's right.

And here I am in Australia. A year later. A year later. This is so funny. Like this thing takes me everywhere. I love it. And you have been everywhere this year, right? I have been everywhere this year, more or less.

And you too. You're traveling a lot, right? A little. Not to your schedule. Not too much. Okay. Your schedule. You're hard to keep up with.

And you're based here in Sydney? Sydney. This is your home base. That's it. So. And that's where you started your business as well? Bitcoin Advisor? Yeah. Wow. So we've been, it's funny on that, it's been an evolution over nearly 10 years. It started 10 years ago, looking after some of my families and it's evolved into

something else. But I'm so happy to see like old clients here supporting this event. And it's such a treat to, you know, bump into clients who I haven't seen in years and then hear all stories that have happened in between to to get to this point and this is it must be exciting for you to see how this is shaping up in the world and here specifically like the whole community is coming together and people are joining and this is becoming more and more mainstream and more and more known it is something i always thought would happen but i can't believe we're at this point right now it happened last year then you thought it never happens as fast as you want But then when you arrive where we are now, which is, you know, strategic Bitcoin reserve endorsement by the biggest government in the world, which is both a double edged sword.

It's not necessarily a good thing. But at this point in time, we now have the left tail event of Bitcoin going to zero, I think, taken off the table because we have endorsement by the world's biggest government. It never happens as fast as you'd like. You always think it should happen tomorrow because you like, you find something, you look at it and you've spent so much time on it. you learn about it, then you want to tell people about it and share the experience that you've had because you personally, I want to help uplift people to a better life. And I think Bitcoin is the greatest tool that we've got to achieve that on any level from poverty to extreme wealth. This is the greatest tool that humans have to advance through that Maslow's needs hierarchy

as quickly as possible. And for me, I've been fortunate enough to be able to incorporate it into my work and help a whole host of clients into that journey and basically orange pill them. And see the results for them. Yeah. What has it been like for them? Like what are kind of the feedbacks that you're getting from people who like never thought that this is possible or is a something

and now they realize that it is a thing, like a very significant thing? I look at how there are so many memes in Bitcoin that are really based on truisms and like foundational concepts of human emotion. Which one? One of them is you don't change Bitcoin, Bitcoin changes you. And I heard a beautiful story from one of our clients who's here today actually and the story of working in the mines could, you know, earn great money but the fly-in, fly-out miners basically earn huge money but they typically have a very disjointed life where they're two weeks on,

two weeks off and it's a very disjointed family life. It's a very disjointed way to go through life because you're saving money extremely hard while you're working and then you come home and you're spending money. And there's this cycle of basically hand-to-mouth living that you're spending everything you earn. And I shared this story from my co-founder, Andy, today, who said one of our clients is here, shared the story for the first time in their life. They can now see a way to save and actually get ahead. So break this cycle of hand to mouth that, and this is what to me is so incredibly powerful with Bitcoin is, is that all of a sudden it simplifies the financial game because the problem with financial, well, finance full stop and trying to build wealth is that there

are these layers of obfuscation and complication that are added by layers of government around the world, regulations, you name it, which makes it difficult for everyone to play the game fairly. And then what I see with Bitcoin is the ultimate way to simplify your life and get ahead financially each year. It allows you, if you play one simple game, which is to have one more Satoshi in one year's time than you do now, then you've won. And that's as simple as it can get. So, and it's the ultimate like financial advice that you get as a child, which is just spend less than you earn. And that sounds so, I want to say condescending or simple. Oh, this you just spend less than you earn. But when you literally can save one satoshi a year,

you know that the value of your dollar is going to go up through time and you don't have to worry about investing that or thinking about it or avoiding taxes or creating all these complicated structures to get around taxes and things like that, where the government's looking to rob you of your wealth. All of a sudden, you have a very simple game to play. And if you break this down into a number of different categories, probably the most important thing for me is that it restores integrity to work. So now any job that you do, regardless of what it is, and this is where I think in the last 50 years or so, we've had this enormous degradation of integrity in the work we do that people look down on people doing certain jobs and I'm thinking I can't fathom why

you think that and sort of going back to one of the things my father said there's no job to be ashamed of than a job done poorly I'm like that doesn't matter if you're a janitor or you're running the world do your best and this is where if you do your best and you spend less than you earn regardless of what station in life you are at this point in time you have the ability to progress yourself and your family up that scale. 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 Trezor super easy to use and

recommend it to my friends and family. Enjoy my 5% discount on Trezor products by clicking the link in the show notes and using the code EFLAT. Are you coming to BTC Prague? The biggest, most influential Bitcoin-only event in Europe returns on June 19-21, with 200 plus speakers on four stages, 100 Bitcoin companies presenting at the expo, and 10,000 like-minded Bitcoiners and freedom lovers from all around the world. There's a great emphasis this year on the freedom movement. So if you're a freedom maxi like me, you don't want to miss this event. I'm excited to attend once again as a speaker

and to interview the best and brightest for my podcast. In fact, BTC Prague is where I conducted my epic interview with Michael Saylor. The event runs for three days with a developer's day, pitching contest, panels, presentations, and parties. Ticket prices increase on the first of each month. So make sure to get your ticket now. Use my code AFLAT for a 10% discount and see you in Prague. And that is a beautiful mission to take on,

to help people go through that journey and better their situation and their lives. You mentioned just before the double-edged sword of the strategic Bitcoin reserve. Can you share a bit more why you see that as a double-edged sword? well from the finance side of me personally i think that's great wow they're going to buy a lot the number's going to go up a lot everyone's life's going to improve and we don't have to worry about it it's over and sadly i think problems start building in societies and systems networks whatever when there's complacency or apathy and that thought of oh great the governments are here we can rest now that's not the time to rest that's the time to be vigilant

And if our history is anything to go by, that's when we should be at our most vigilant on protecting the network and what it stands for because history has a way of showing us that when the government's here to help, maybe, well, I guess the road to hell is paved with good intentions that we may think that, oh, this is wonderful, but there are unintended consequences. Although we look at that and think, isn't this wonderful? We're going to get all the support we need to deliver on what we want. Maybe their outcomes aren't aligned with what our outcomes are. And so protecting the Bitcoin network at all costs, I think, is the most important thing if we want to preserve that hope for humanity into the future. I'm with you 100%. I said it in my talk now, yeah, that that's the most important thing.

Yeah. Because we don't know what, I mean, even when they say stuff like, there's not going to be any CBDCs and everyone's like cheering and happy about it then behind the scenes they're developing something else to create a similar outcome so it's a different tool it's a different name it's different brand but they still want digital control over your identified permissioned money so we have to be smarter and not just be so cheery about everything that the government does So this is where I agree wholeheartedly with that. And the financial instruments that have been created to get mainstream capital into it, like the ETFs, I look at this and think if the SEC, and maybe there's a chance that this happens under the new administration, allows for in-kind redemptions, that's kind of a safety valve ensuring in some way, shape or form that that's possible. But that's different to the strategic reserve because the strategic reserve's there and all of a sudden you have a favorable government to it now.

What happens if you have an unfavorable government? Bitcoin's gone up 10, 20, 30x in value and that comes due or available for spending in a period of time which they're not, you know, say supportive or understanding of Bitcoin and they want to unwind all of that. at the moment, it sounds good because it sounds like up, but at the same time, there's going to be a huge amount of capital in the hands of a government at some point in time, which is going to be hostile. And I think, how does Bitcoin protect, well, how do we protect ourselves from a government with that power? And this is where Bitcoin, to me, is the only network on earth that has the ability for individual protections at the self-sovereign level versus anything else. So for me, I look at that and think we have a huge issue, but the functionality that

is tied into Bitcoin from, say, a threat from the strategic Bitcoin reserve and a bad actor in that capacity, there are a whole host of mitigations that I know of that I would like to see implemented that would afford protection for every other Bitcoiner on earth. And that is things like time locks or basically programmable keys, things like that, so that you can at least space out and time the distribution of those Bitcoins in that strategic reserve. So this is the only asset that you can do that with too. So if it was oil, no worries. If it was gold, you couldn't do it. But this, until SHA-256 gets broken, the code that encrypts Bitcoin, then we're kind of safe if they implement those measures to protect us so super good i actually i

normally start my each episode with like a bit of introduction but we just jumped straight to it because we're like short in time and i i get it but for my audience that don't know peter is the director of um bitcoin advisor was it called network advisors is it network advisors before Before? The business is still running. Okay. It's a family office. Yes.

On the work of what we did there for the last, say, 15 years, 10 years or so, and nine years in Bitcoin with clients, we developed the Bitcoin Advisor for everyone on Earth. And can you say a bit about it for my audience that don't know the Bitcoin Advisor? Sure thing. The Bitcoin Advisor is literally a service open to anyone on Earth who wants to self-custody their Bitcoin and wants to put that into a collaborative security protocol that has no single point of failure.

So for those of you who are worried about self-custodying a Bitcoin but don't have the skills or maybe the mental faculties or the technical knowledge, this is a service that you can use to get walkthrough to buy Bitcoin and then put that into a self-custody wallet that ensures that there's no single point of failure. And this is where the service is very unique in that regardless of what happens to the client or whatever they do, there is no chance of them losing Bitcoin. And not their families as well. Yeah. And that's a big thing because we've been through three deaths now with our clients who have sadly passed. Yes. We've dealt with the beneficiaries and been able to transfer the Bitcoins from the grave to the kids and no one's lost a single Satoshi. And that's…

That's amazing. When we're talking about a generational asset, that to me is the most important thing that we can deliver to someone is peace of mind, to know that, oh, this thing that's really valuable to me will reach the place that I intend it to. And it is a digital asset, which makes it harder to move to someone else. It's not like a piece of gold, okay, here it is, take it. No. So you have to really know what you're doing when you're moving it to someone else. So this is really amazing. Your background is in investment banking, mortgage banking?

Investment funds, mortgage broking, and financial advice. Right. How many years have you been doing all this? Too long. Over 25 years now. Wow. So a long time. Okay.

And okay, so let's dive in. So can you explain to my audience why the fiat monetary system we use today is unsustainable? that in in the most simplest terms what we have is a debt-based system not an equity-based system and just to draw a picture and explain this as simply as i can what we have at the moment is a debt-based system which means for every dollar in they create multiple dollars on top and if we were to draw this in a structure it would look like an upside down pyramid um that's what our existing system looks like. And I look at that and I think, if you were to create that into a 3D object, that would look very unstable. It wouldn't just sit there perfectly like that. That would create

a whole host of instability and eventually fall over. That's the system we're working with now. That's debt-based. And to me, this is what Bitcoin represents, the opportunity to really solve a lot of the problems that we have in front of us is Bitcoin requires you to have an over-collateralized system or an equity-based system where it looks like a pyramid that's got the heavy component at the bottom and it's got the debt being a smaller component on top of the bulk of the equity at the bottom, whereas the existing system that we've got is completely inverted. And when we talk to people about that, they're like, oh, that can't be right. It's like, no, that's literally exactly what happens right now. But we get hoodwinked and we

have this, I think, cognitive dissonance that we believe that the governments know what they're doing and that this is the best system that can be done, but they don't understand the background to why that debt-based system was created. And when there's no debt in the system, a little bit of debt creates an enormous amount of stability and benefits. But it's just like a drug. A little bit leads to a lot and a lot more. And now we have a full-blown problem that we can't stop using it. And this is where, excuse me, to me, the only solution to this is really an equity-based system where, and this is where, to me, a lot of people don't really understand the opportunity that is in front of us with Bitcoin because you've got roughly, I think, $2,000 trillion worth of assets. Some people say $1,000, but it's really $2,000 when you take the derivatives market involved. And the majority of that is debt.

Yeah. And what you've got is, with Bitcoin, is a $2 trillion asset that needs to, in that inverted pyramid, build itself up so big that it can support all that debt in there. So Bitcoin, from a market cap perspective, needs to be multiples of that $1 or $2,000 trillion market. And therein lies the opportunity that a lot of people don't really fathom. They think, oh, no, we're going to go on with debt forever. And it's like, nothing lasts forever. But this thing has a much better opportunity than people think because they don't understand we're moving to that type of system.

And even if it only gets one-tenth or a quarter of the way there, it's still a hundred to a thousand times bigger than what it is today. That's where your projections sound to some people like, you know, crazy number projections, like how can that be? But I totally understand that. And that paradigm shift is completely, correct me if I'm wrong, it's like eliminating fractional reserve. You're not going to be able to work with fractional reserve on a Bitcoin standard anymore, right? Or maybe there will be attempts, but it will fail.

So one or two things happens. I think no one's going to stop trying because that's like trying to rope in. Right, the human element. You can't read in fear. That's never going to happen. But because they can print to infinity, then the bottom is endless. So therein lies the disparity because Bitcoin is a closed system. There's only 21 million. So what's really interesting for me to think about is at the moment, the debt-based system rewards those who can print the money

and an equity-based system rewards those who hold the equity. And so when this system, And this is, to me, we are seeing Bitcoin terraform the entire financial sector and, if so, the rest of the world and everything along with it in real time because this is now the center of truth. And that is going to be the most important asset moving forward. And because that can't be moved, all asset value will be ascribed to it and revolve around it. But it will fit within the context of $21 million. So if they keep pouring dollars into the system, they're diluting everyone who holds cash and doesn't hold this hard asset.

And so to me, the choice is really simple. You can hold anything you want, but if you want the hardest asset to give you the greatest protections in a self-sovereign world, then there's only one asset that you can hold. Okay, so they will continue printing forever, Laura. I have to say, in some way, shape or form,

there's always going to be someone who's going to want to rehypothecate and game the system and it'll work for a little bit until it doesn't and then it'll collapse and those bitcoins. So maybe the only hope is that people will realize the more it happens that the more debased they are the more their fiat is worthless and there you have another stable asset here that I can hold instead of this crappy paper I should move. Maybe that's the thing that will happen. I'm hoping it's awareness. Yeah. And this is where, say, everyone got upset with Trump for creating the Trump coin, Melania coin, the rest of it. I'm thinking, I'm like, oh damn, it really looks bad. I'd love to think that it's not a good look, but it's horrible. It looks

really tacky. It looks extremely opportunistic. And I think in the most gracious of terms that I can give him in this context is that he's creating the opportunity to educate the world on what shit-coining is to get us to a Bitcoin standard quicker. And in light of the Strategic Reserve announcement overnight where it's, hey, we're only got Bitcoin in here and the best is. Yes. I'm like, maybe he knows a little more than he lets on. Right.

Oh, I'm with you. Do you think we're on the verge of changing the monetary order like I alluded to in my presentation? And, you know, speaking of Bretton Woods back in 1944, which is really the end of the previous cycle, the end of the fourth turning before the new order came in, do you think that the U.S. is really trying to lead the way for the world in a digital, monetary, blockchain-based system in the next cycle?

Or is there anything else that's happening? Color me skeptical, but incentives drive outcomes. And so for the US to be driving this, why are they doing that? I look at that and think, if they do become the global leader in stable coins and the rest of it, they get to issue their currency unlimited. Mixed feelings on this, but if they do Bitcoin-backed bonds, which I'm certain they will, wonderful for Bitcoin, trillions of dollars flowing into Bitcoin, price goes up, wonderful, aren't we all smart, but at the same time, that just further empowers that regime. Is that a good

or a bad thing? Yet to be determined, maybe. It could be good, it could be bad. I'm sure it's going to be good and bad at the same time, but it's really going to perpetuate the dollar strength. And that's probably not the outcome that they're looking for, but over the last, say, 50 years, they've exported inflation to the world. And that's been a major cost to everyone else to bear at the benefit of the US. So they've borne great benefits from that. And the rest of the world has paid hand over fist for that. And this is going to perpetuate that cycle. So the good news is, is that if you hold Bitcoin and live in a Bitcoinized standard, then you can benefit from that yes and remove yourself from the the punishment of that inflation

and the debasement that they're going to continue to do and you'll just get extremely rich by holding bitcoin as you know the faster and harder that they debase and print the higher and faster bitcoin goes so it's i say this with sort of a yeah you're like it's inevitable right so It's going to happen. Yeah, it's going to happen. So please learn as much as you can to get to that side of the fence so at least you can benefit from it rather than be punished for it. I'm with you.

Last night we talked a little bit about SAB 121. Can you share with me your view about this repeal in the US? That would be so awesome. I think this is the biggest thing in Bitcoin that hasn't really had the attention that it deserves because firstly, banking's quite complicated and difficult to understand and there's a whole host of rules regulations around it.

But for me, why SAB 121 is probably the most important thing that's happened in the last 12 or 18 months, excluding the strategic Bitcoin reserve, is this is the linchpin that's been pulled out now. And I'll just explain that. SAB 121 was the capital requirements that required by a custodian of Bitcoin, i.e. the banks, and what they had to hold in capital to custody Bitcoin.

And so at the moment it was, well, before SAB 121 was repealed, they had to hold for a billion dollars of Bitcoin. They had to hold a billion dollars of cash just sitting there to match what Bitcoin was. So the cost of that capital to hold it and not use it for lending or anything else was just exorbitant. It's really expensive capital. Like no bank on earth could afford to custody Bitcoin

because of the capital requirements to do it. And now all of a sudden you've repealed SAB 121, which means no more one for one. So now they can hold it on their balance sheet. They don't need to hold anything else with it, which means they now, if they were holding a billion, they now free up a whole billion dollars to then go and lend out 20 or 30X

and rip a 1% to 2% margin off. So I look at that and think, that's a floodgate that allows the banks to custody. And that's literally the first domino in a chain of dominoes that leads to banks adopting Bitcoin. So now they have the ability, because it's not capital prohibitive, to custody Bitcoin for them now. Now they can custody it. That now lends the ability for them to do savings and loan products, and then everything else that's built on the back of it. So to me, that's the biggest thing, because that is what brings mainstream to Bitcoin,

when you can actually walk into the branch and say, hey, let's do this. And being an Aussie, we've got this Operation Chokepoint 2.0 still going on where the banks will tell you that you're not allowed to transfer to certain Bitcoin exchanges. It's complete madness. Yeah, it's happening in Israel as well still. And you think that, yeah, the US is going to lead the way and it's going to be very different for people there

if the banking sector, not if, when the banking sector is really coming into Bitcoin. The mainstream will come with that. I'm in full agreement with you on that. I think that, I mean, the products that you mentioned, there are going to be maybe even new products that we haven't thought about that Bitcoin will enable banks to come up with. Stuff that doesn't exist today in fiat.

Because Bitcoin is giving them a different armory, right? Like something else, like a different tool set that they can use so i couldn't agree more i think that we're going to see some real innovation maybe it's not maybe innovation became such a dirty word with corporations and banking but maybe true innovation based on bitcoin could become a thing for for the tradition what we call today traditional finance or banking um i mean i'm coming from a tech perspective that would be so fascinating, interesting to see new products being built on top of that kind of asset. I think they're coming. And I look at this and I think I've had this

call to vision, call to focus that there will be a product, and I've got no doubt about this, twofold. One, where you will go to the bank, you will give them Bitcoin for a loan. They will give you a loan and they're going to pay you to borrow money from them. And I look at that and I think this is what Bitcoin does to you where it just breaks all, I guess, normality. And you hear that and you think that person's crazy. It's like, trust me, I've thought about this a lot. I'm not crazy. I'll walk you through the logic on this. And this is where sort of the two things that I think Bitcoin is going to be really valuable for. Firstly, I don't trust any of the banks and I would implore you to self-custody your Bitcoin, number one. Only borrow on your Bitcoin

what you're prepared to lose. So a small portion of your stack, so full disclaimers. But there will come a point in time where you'll go to the bank, they'll give you a loan and they'll pay you an interest rate to borrow from them. To borrow from them. To borrow from them. And because what they really want is they want access to your Bitcoin. Yes. Because with that Bitcoin, they can loan that out at 20 times. Yeah. So if you give them a million dollars of Bitcoin and you take a $100,000 loan, they're going to lend out $20 million and make a 2% return on the $20 million, which is $400,000, which means they can afford to pay you 5% or 10%. And they've paid you $5,000 or $10,000 on your $100,000 loan, and they've still made $300,000 to $400,000. Unbelievable.

And then again, we're with the same question, is it good or bad? Sadly, human greed is going to dictate that there's going to be lemmings just fly into that product. Do you think a lot of Bitcoiners will do that? Yes, because sadly, it's just human nature. There's just, I hate to say it, there's no changing. We've got millions of years of evolution. It will feed the beast.

It's literally the most, yes, it is the most primal of drivers. Greed and fear, and sadly, there's no reprogramming. Like you can't reprogram that in a generation. Fucking hell. Yeah. Sorry. So they'll be feeding the beast and the beast will grow and they will be like sacrificing their Bitcoin for more fiat. Well, they might get paid in Bitcoin.

So they might technically earn Bitcoin. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. I'm interested in your view since you're Aussie and you're here on Australia. Like your macro kind of view, the economy here today. What's the money situation, the debt situation in Australia?

What are the kind of societal changes that you're seeing here? I know that there has been a lot of commotion about health and censorship and free speech here in Australia in the last few years since COVID. But how are things shaping up now? Like me coming from the outside, I am following what's going on in Australia, more or less, but how is the economy doing? How are people doing here? It depends what you read, really.

I try not to read mainstream. Perception is reality. Of course. And this is what they tell you. That's why I'm asking you and not going to the age or... If you read the newspapers, they'll say that everything's dandy and everything's fine. And inflation is... What are you talking about?

Yeah. Sadly, I feel like the government's gaslighting us and they are preparing numbers that are politically convenient to avoid a hard conversation or make decisions that they need to make in order to make our country better. And I look at the fact that we're overspending. We now have, I can't repeat the term on camera, but we have items off balance sheet, which should be on the federal balance sheet, but are not. And there's over $120 billion of that that's going on that, you know, Australia's not a big country. It's not the US. We're a trillion dollar budget and the rest of it, we're a much smaller economy. We've had

negative GDP for the last three years, yet somehow we're not talking about the fact that we're in a recession. It's like there's a redefinition of terms and I look at this and I just, it drives me insane that not only is there a redefinition, so the definition my entire life has been if you have two negative quarters of GDP, you're in a recession. Right. Now we have had three years of that and no one's talking about we're in a recession. I'm like, I'm literally looking around thinking, I feel like Mugatu. I feel like I'm on freaking crazy pills. Like, can someone please talk to me like I am a, you know, a five-year-old and explain to me how we have three years of bad performance and everything is fine. Oh no, but unemployment's great. It's

like, okay, well let's look at the unemployment. And it's, it's literally whack-a-mole with these numbers. No, GDP's not that bad. It's really good. Okay, well, it's negative, so it should be recession. Oh, no, no, no. Look at unemployment. Unemployment's all-time low. Okay, let's look at who created all the jobs. 83% of jobs were created by the government, which is just complete fugazi. It's not a productive service for the economy. It's just government giving jobs to or who knows what. It might as well be the dole. Okay, so GDP's bad. Unemployment's bad. All right, no, no, no, don't worry about that or that. Let's look at inflation. Inflation's really like, okay, well, you've readjusted the inflation figure. So it's like literally everywhere you look

and every onion you peel back, you just realize that they are just lying to you at every step of the way. And this is where I say, I sadly have to straddle two worlds. I straddle traditional finance where I've got to make investment decisions for nearly a billion dollars of assets. And I look at this and I'm literally torn. I look at that and I think, all of these numbers are rubbish. They mean nothing. You may as well throw a dart on a board to get any sense of use out of the numbers that they're giving us. Because if you peel them back, you realize they're bullshit or they change them six months after the fact. So how on earth can I use this to make investment decisions? And this is where, sadly, I've just resigned to the fact, well, that's

traditional finance or I look at the blockchain. I can run my own node, which for self-sovereignty is the most important thing that you can do. I can check every transaction on it. I can see exactly how many bitcoins have been issued. I can see exactly what block height we are. Everything on this network, I can check myself and know exactly to within the inch of its life what's happening. And I'm like, or I have the government that just continues to lie to me and I have to work to figure out what the truth is. I'm like, I am just so sick and tired of having to do extra work when people are meant to do it and they're only doing it because they're trying to cover their ass and save their job. So what do you envision that is going to happen here in Australia

in that sense when it's on a down trajectory and they keep gaslighting the people like where does where is this going to go? Sadly not in a good place I don't think and i don't know if we're going to be able to correct the problem because australia is a fantastic place it is it's beautiful um beautiful people it's a beautiful country however we have a major problem in that out of any country on earth i haven't met a more apathetic bunch yes it's like and literally we have a say here she'll be right mate. Like, don't worry about it. She'll be right, mate. And it's like, I don't know if you've just listened to what I've just said. I don't know if it is going to be all right. We've got to fix

things. We've got to fix things. And no one really wants to address the problem. No one wants to make hard decisions. So until such time as someone actually enters the discussion to have those conversations that we need to have, then I don't think anything's going to change. And sadly, we've got um the country growing gdp per head is going down dramatically um the country's not in a great state and we really don't do anything we're not productive we do stuff out of the ground and we send it to someone else and china will probably be sending it back in bombs in the next 20 years if we don't watch ourselves yes absolutely it's like a game of monopoly yeah oh it's super super sad. Okay. Not that I thought that you'd give me another answer, but thank you for being honest

about that. MicroStrategy, can we talk about their, I mean, it's now called Strategy. Their playbook has inspired so many institutions, providing that Bitcoin isn't just an investment, it's a form of corporate treasury management. And how do you see that strategy being leveraged encouraged by using debt offering and that debt accumulation to create more and more Bitcoin on the balance sheet. How do you see that playing out for other corporations, for other, maybe even private companies? What do you make of this phenomena of MicroStrategy and Michael's strategy? Firstly, you did a wonderful interview with him. Thank you. I loved talking to him. It was yeah he is a very very impressive move would you i'm very much enjoying this too just you know

this is great he he's one of my absolute favorites and i think he's a good faith actor he works tirelessly for bitcoin oh yeah i think so too i i think he's our best representative and um huge admiration for what he's done but if you peel back the layers and look at what he's done from a business perspective. One of the most unique things, there's probably two or three that I'll look at that I think is very unique. He has effectively bypassed the P&L, the profit and loss statement, and put more assets on the balance sheet. That to me is an incredible thing to do. Now, this is another thing. If you don't understand Bitcoin, TradFi, when they hear that, they're not even going to make sense of what I've just said. But what he's doing is he's issuing

stock to go and buy Bitcoin. And he issues the stock because his stock trades at a two times premium to his underlying asset of Bitcoin. He issues a billion dollars. That costs him a billion dollars in stock issued, but he goes and buys a billion dollars in cash and is accretive to the share price. So although he's diluted shareholders, which is a major, major no-no, and this is another thing where Bitcoin just completely bamboozles you, although he's diluting shareholders from the number of units, he's actually Bitcoin accreted per share. I look at that and think that is mind-blowing. And UKPA. It is. And now he's literally bypassed the whole P&L. So there's no tax paid on that value that he's added to the balance sheet. Zero tax payable.

I look at that and I'm like, oh my goodness, that in itself is genius. The other thing, and this is where I think once the rest of the world figures out what he's done, this is going to have a downstream effect on a whole host of industries that really need to get their act together from an investment perspective. And this is, he can allocate, he can raise a billion dollars today and allocate tomorrow. And he can ad infinitum, just wash, rinse, repeat as quick as he can, do it. Now, we invest in alternative assets, we invest in venture capital, private equity, the rest of it. And these are typical lockup terms for, call it, seven to 10 years. And what that involves is, is in finance terms, you've got what's called a J curve where

you put your money in. That investment goes down for two years as they invested in all the assets that literally drive down 20 or 30% of the investment that you made. And then for the last five years of the investment, you get these outsized returns. Now I look at this and I think, I can allocate to that style of investment. It's going to take two years to allocate that capital and then work that J curve up. Or I can give it to Michael Saylor and he can get that J curve in less than 48 hours it's awake. Far out.

And this applies to not only investments, but that's investments in anything. Think about the oil rigs. Think about massive infrastructure projects that have got nine, 10 years worth of lead time that have multi-billion dollars worth of investments that take on billions at a time and then they've got to allocate that through time.

All of a sudden it's going to change everything. It'll filter through everything and I couldn't think of a better person for it to happen to. Thank you very much for that. Okay, I think one before the last question is about free markets and why it actually matters when the unaware population will be misled to think that the hardship that they experience is because of rich people or because of capitalism, you know, or they teach them as capitalism.

Well, and really, I'm reading Larry's book now, Larry Lepard's book. And he has a good quote there. If the cost of using money over time is called the interest rate, the interest rate is therefore the price of money. So why shouldn't the price of money be set by supply and demand? The proper way to do this is to let the marketplace decide. Borrowers have needs. Savers have capital. Let the marketplace determine what interest rate balances. Now, I love that because it's so simple. Like when you read this, you're like, yeah, right. Why shouldn't we let the free market do its thing? And yet we live in a world where there is everything but free markets. Like there is intervention in almost any vector of the economy and of society. So how do you see free markets and where do you think we're, how far are we from that kind of life?

of really having a free market, because Bitcoin does enable some level of freedom there in the markets. Although now with the new actors coming in, I'm not from that space, but just like looking from the outside, you are in there. It's like, is this going to be manipulated? What are they doing there? I don't understand it, but is it a free market? No, no, it's not a free market. it. And if you look at it, a lot of the problems I think occur because capitalism gets blamed for crony capitalism. And that is a key distinction that a lot of, I think, the socialists want to say, see, it doesn't work because of blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, it doesn't work because of all this other stuff around it. If you let, if you get out of the way and it will solve itself.

And to me, it's all downstream of the money. So fix the money, fix the world. I believe that. one thing that I think can have a huge part in getting us there quicker than anything else is to have Bitcoin-backed loans. So as a default, when the US issues treasuries or any government issues treasuries, they need to have a component of that invested in Bitcoin. And that will give the real yield. And so to explain this briefly, an idea of a principal protected note where you staple 80% of a note with US treasuries, 20% with Bitcoin on a five-year term. You'll sell unlimited amounts of US treasuries on that because you get principal protected note, meaning whatever money you put in, in year one, you'll get back at the end of year five, guaranteed because of the

interest accrued through time. But that real interest is what that 20% in Bitcoin does over the next five years. And if it does what it did over the last five years, then your $100 invested would end up being about $300 or a compounded annual return, sorry, about $200, which would be a compounded annual return of about 18%. And I look at that and think, that's what a real five-year rate should be. And so I look at that and the five-year is sitting at 5%, which means by my cow because it's about a 13% discount to what it should be. Yep. Meaning that they're stealing that 13% or?

Reallocating might be a nicer term, but yes. And that's where if we get this, then that is going to be the surest way to do it because the market will decide. And that gets us there faster than anything else. Well, forgive me for not being an expert on finances, but I find this topic so fascinating. So I speak in such a simple language about it. But whenever you explain those things and I listen to a lot of your work, I always find it like it just makes sense the way you explain it, the way you put things in perspective for people that don't come from that background. So I really appreciate how you articulate things.

Thank you. Yeah. What is your vision for the Bitcoin Advisor and for yourself for the coming years? And what brings you hope? Oh, the vision for the Bitcoin Advisor, this is sort of an absolute dream, but we would love to see every coin off exchange and into self-custody. I understand the monumental task that is, but I think that's a worthy goal to aspire to. And I've got an incredible team around me to help us achieve that. And yes, we do charge a fee for it, but we give all of our resources away for free if the cost of what we do is, you know, beyond someone. So use all of our resources, please, and improve your self-custody. um for me I love being in and around Bitcoin because to me it represents hope and it's such a positive way to look at life when you know you can see this you know everything progressing in the right way people's lives getting better and being a part of and on a journey with people whose lives are getting better that's a great place to be so for me I want to stay close to

the Bitcoin community and spend more time in that community as opposed to TradFi where you seem to be being hit against the wall and things shouldn't be going the way they are. So I'm extremely hopeful that Bitcoin brings the ability for everyone to have a better future. I don't think the Bitcoin community will ever let you go, Peter. They will never give you up. Even if you didn't want to be part of it.

Very funny. I'm sorry. You're part of us. One of us. One of us. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's great. Well, thank you so much for having this chat with me. I appreciate it. And I'm so happy to

be here with you. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks for being with us. Please take a minute to give this episode a like, a comment and subscribe or follow, and please share it with your friends so they can also get value and choose to take some positive action in their lives. Till next time. Thanks for watching!