Lyn Alden / Preston Pysh / Lawrence Lepard / Michael Saylor at Bitcoin Atlantis 2024

if every company pulls a sailor and goes

balls deep in Bitcoin what does that

look like for Equity markets so I got to

thinking who's the best person to host

this panel and there's still swapping

microphones out the back there no

Preston's ready that's great so Preston

pish who's done incredible work with his

own podcast educating as many people as

he possibly can he's going to host this

panel and who better to have on the

panel Lynn Alden who has just launched

her book broken money Lynn give it up

thank

you

yes well done Lynn Europe loves you

Lynn and we wanted to get we wanted to

get he won't mind me saying this will

you Larry we wanted to get an Oldtimer

in here talking about gold maybe in his

old days and where he sees the future of

this because watching Larry's work over

the last few years has been incredibly

inspiring he's been doing great work for

the older generation and the younger

generation Larry leard

[Music]

please and of course I've already

introduced him once on the stage today

and I know a lot of you apparently have

been sharing the video of the chant of

Sor sailor so that's great that's great

engagement for the Bitcoin Atlantis crew

and uh my please come out again for the

last

[Applause]

panel Preston these guys are in your

hands let's do it all right so I have a

personal question I've got to ask to

Michael and uh I think everybody up here

wants to hear this question so when you

first came into Bitcoin in in 2020 and

we are going to get to the future of

Bitcoin but this very first question

question I have to ask when you came to

Bitcoin in

2020 uh I'm sure you had some Fiat

whales that you talked with and you had

conversations about why you were buying

Bitcoin I'm curious what the difference

or the Delta is to those same

conversations with some of the people

are and obviously you don't have to name

names but like what has that been like

in the in the past four years and what

it what does what are this conversations

sounding like right now

um I had a lot of conversations um in uh

the fourth quarter of 2020 where people

would ask me uh what we did and why we

did it and some of them went on to buy

Bitcoin many of them bought Bitcoin and

then they sold it when the market

crashed and they

disappeared and uh and then I would see

them again and they say yeah I guess I

shouldn't have done that and and and uh

then I had um then I think probably you

know the number of uh people interested

has been building steadily since the

beginning of

2023 right 2022 is a difficult year

where you just had to explain the crypto

crash but I think uh I think every

single quarter since 2023 the number of

inquiries and conversations have been

have built and they've become more

constructive and I think the difference

today is is uh now you start to see a

lot of big na big names

like uh Citadel and black rock and

Fidelity and the like that own stock in

my company or or they're into Bitcoin

and so I think my uh actually my status

as an Institutional spokes person of

Bitcoin is is uh dwindling and now that

torch is being carried by the Analyst at

Fidelity or black rock or or bitwise or

or or Arc or many of the other

uh ETFs and I'm happy to see that yeah

Lyn and uh Larry any further com I mean

you guys talk to some Heavy Hitters

what's what are you guys seeing I

definitely think we've seen a shift in

the Overton window of you know back then

Bitcoin was still viewed as very Niche

very weird um a lot of Assets soared in

the second half of 2020 and a lot of

people just when they looked at Bitcoin

they were like oh that's just a

liquidity thing it's just you know it's

it's just flash on the pan whereas I

think and and this is something I stress

a lot you know most people here have

probably seen the logarithmic price

chart of Bitcoin it's a very common

thing you'll see on bitcoin Twitter

you'll see everywhere else you see the

you see all the highs and the lows most

people in the world have not seen that

chart right so that's that's in our Echo

chamber that's a very common chart to

see the long-term price of Bitcoin

especially in log terms you can see all

the higher highs higher lows most people

have not seen that and instead they only

see the cycles that they personally

witnessed they usually look at the

linear chart and it either at any given

time either looks like an insane bubble

or it looks like a broken bubble and

that's how most the people see it and so

they don't really see those older Cycles

generally so at this point they might

have seen the 2017 cycle they might have

seen the 2020 uh bull market cycle um

and for them there's really only been

those two cycles they know bitcoin's

older than that but they don't really

see the price chart in their mind and I

think what catches people is when

there's another high and another higher

low and another higher high and another

higher low every single one of those is

like another uh point to them that

Bitcoin didn't die and so they don't see

like the four plus Cycles they see you

know two or three and the third one I

think is pretty important when you see

something not die three times um that's

hard to really ignore and so I think

that at the institutional level we're

have we're having some discussions with

institutions and those go I think a lot

smoother than they did a handful of

years ago Larry first of all let me just

say somebody pinched me I mean it's like

I'm a club payer for Bedford and they

say let's go scrimmage with Messi and

Ronaldo I'm like what the [ __ ] am I

doing

[Laughter]

here I'm just an old fart gold guy um

and I view my role in this whole thing

as converting gold guys into Bitcoin

because they get half the problem they

understand the monetary debasement issue

they just got the wrong tool as Michael

says and thank God bitc came along and

gave us a much stronger and better

weapon which uh I've increasingly

embraced and of course now I'm a

full-fledged Maxi and and out of gold or

getting out of gold but uh you know I've

seen in my base probably 50/50

conversion some people are just too dyed

in the wool can't get over the

physicality issue don't understand the

future don't want to take the time don't

want to do the work but I've seen others

who've completely flipped uh notable one

recently was Chris irons Who quote The

Raven was a very smart guy and

understood the debasement issue but was

anti- Bitcoin because he hadn't done the

work and I just kept working on him and

working on and working on him to do the

work and now he's a raving maximalist

it's really fabulous so it goes both

ways some guys get converted and some

and um you know but we just got to keep

chipping away I think Michael's point

from His Brilliant speech earlier of

it's incumbent upon all of us to spread

the word because this is the solution to

all our

problems so if we're looking at Bitcoin

time now and a little bit of the past

there and we've defined kind of where

we're at and we look to the next six

months to a year

um I think everybody in this audience is

looking at the number of coins that are

getting gobbled up on a daily basis and

they're they're then looking at the

supply Suffocation that they know has

happened over the last year and a half

everybody on CNBC wants to talk about

all the coins that are being bought but

what they're rarely talking about is the

amount of coins that the crazy Bitcoin

people soaked out of the market for the

last year and a half and how scarce is

with 70% of the coins not moving in more

than a year and so when we look at that

and we're looking at and we understand

what that means 10,000 Bitcoin are

getting soaked up just on ETFs alone and

there's 900 soon to be 450 being issued

per day I'm looking at that and I'm

saying this price is going to move out

so

aggressively what has not been built

that

that I don't know worries you is the

right word but but what is the thing

that you think needs to be built or

engineered or infrastructure that needs

to be in place in this coming year that

maybe isn't

built and that's to

anybody I think that basically pain

points reveal themselves in each cycle

and and things get built kind of in

response to problems so it's one thing

to kind of look forward and see what

problems are going to exist and there's

always people trying to do that but it's

not really until they need the solution

do they turn to it so for example when

there's High when there's low fees in

the main chain people don't really look

at other layers that much but then when

there's High fees on the main chain

suddenly those layers matter to them and

suddenly there's more people willing to

build layers because there's kind of a

more clear um like demand for it so I I

think that we're going to see a number

of pain points along the way probably

fees being one of the the notable ones

during during Manas or during people

putting other things on the Chain all

sorts of reasons I think that's kind of

one of the things that there's going to

be that shortage and there's going to be

a response to it um and I I to your

point I think that the hotle wave like

the the 70% of coins you said haven't

moved in a year that's I mean that's

arguably as big of an effect as the

having uh that that has in every cycle

so for people that aren't familiar with

it during a Raging Bull Market in

Bitcoin generally you see some of those

older coins that haven't moved in a

while start to come to Market you know

people are up 5x or 10x or more on their

investment some people trim their

position or they want to they want to

buy a house and they need a down payment

you know there's there's money that

starts getting sold as the price goes up

um and eventually that you know exhausts

the new demand that's coming in for the

cycle in addition to all the other meme

coins and everything else it's kind of

soaking up excess demand but then during

the bare Market um you know a lot of the

fast money gets out and over the year or

two or three years more and more of

those coins gravitate into hands that

are really not going to sell anytime

soon they're either in micro strategy

where they're never going to be sold or

they're like in in various people that

are holding for five years or 10 years

they don't plan on selling anytime soon

and then it only takes a very small

spark of new demand to come into that

like wall of just not going to sell and

that's what we're seeing now that a

fairly still modest amount of new

capitals coming into the space but so

many of those coins have already rotated

to like the the you know the diamond

hands and away from the the fast money

and so I think that that's that's still

a cycle we probably have another 12 24

months of going

through um I don't think anything has to

happen this year in particular it's

already happened but I do think if we're

looking if we're talking about the

future of Bitcoin I I think that we're

in the Bitcoin Gold Rush era and it

started on

January in January of

2024 and it will run till about November

of 2034 it's a 10 year and the reason

I how many people know what happened in

November of

2034 it's important date you know uh if

you pull Clark Moody's dashboard you'll

see that uh in in November of

2034 99% of all the Bitcoin will have

been mined and the last 1% comes out

over the next 100 years so for for all

practical purposes stock to flow becomes

irrelevant the stock to flow ratio of

Bitcoin is infinity in 2034 for within

the the it's within the tolerance of

just random hourly trading of the asset

so it becomes noise um and so you have

about 42

quarters somewhere between 40 and 42

quarters and if you look at that 40

quarter period at the beginning of the

Gold Rush no Bank could custody Bitcoin

no Institutional Investor could buy

Bitcoin no no Wall Street trading firm

no Investment Company could handle

Bitcoin and it was unclear whether that

ever would happen that was a binary and

when uh those spot ETFs were approved

that created a fire or an avalanche the

Genies out of the bottle it doesn't

matter who's elected president next it

doesn't matter who's the next head of

the SEC it doesn't matter no

politician's opinion no Banker opinion

no regulator opinion matters after that

date that was the most consequential

thing that kicked off the the gold rush

now as of the first quarter of of this

year which is we're in now right

February

29th March 1st what's the

date I get my I get my dates messed up

in leap years because everything's off

by a day but um you

know every single Institutional Investor

would have looked at this and said

Bitcoin interesting but I can't buy it

you know everybody and so you have 99%

of the money in the world that has been

unable to buy and so unwilling to

consider things institutional investors

are like this like they they could watch

your company and like have a million

opinions but don't really care and you

could go to them on a Tuesday morning

and say do you want to buy $50 million

worth of this security and they'll then

look at it and they'll give you an

answer by

4M so when they can buy via their their

uh Bank their institutional wirehouse

their Prime broker they will make a $50

million decision in one hour and they

will watch you and cheer for you or

laugh at you for 20

years when they can't buy so we flipped

a switch in

January what you've got is 40 quarters

of people getting educated and here's

what happens next all those

ETFs they're only distributed through

20% of the distribution Channel right

now they're maybe even 10% so that that

distribution is going to go from 10% to

20 to 40 to 60 to 80 and there'll be a

point at which uh all the investors can

buy and you know I had to fill out you

know you have to fill out three waivers

from three different accounts you know

as of a few weeks ago so you're going to

see resistance drop you're going to see

all the major Banks add support then the

next question is well uh is it credit

worthy can I borrow against the asset no

major Bank in the world will give you a

loan against those ETFs yet they've all

got clocks that are running after 30

days after 90 days after 6 months after

a year so first they let you buy it then

they loan you money against it none of

those instruments uh can you trade uh

options on you can't you can't buy or

sell puts and calls on a spot ETF

that'll be a year so what you're going

to see is it'll take years for the

distribution to open up for the credit

uh capillaries to work for the

volatility trading to kick in for the

hedging to kick in then you'll actually

see all the all the big banks that don't

like Bitcoin say getting pressured like

now we have to custody it because our

biggest customer wants us to so right

now you can't custody but there's a big

battle a foot on Capitol Hill that

battle will take place Bitcoin will win

that battle then you'll see Banks

custody then you'll see one then you'll

see 10 then you'll see a 100 then you'll

see a thousand and and likewise there's

famous analysts you can name the

analysts that cover Bitcoin today Len

Alden Chris Kyper right y Yen right um

there'll be a day when there'll be 200

you won't be able to name them all right

there'll be a day when Bitcoin ETFs have

already blasted past gold and then

Bitcoin ETFs trade more than the S&P

index ETFs and there'll be a day I

believe when Bitcoin ETFs will have more

Capital than spy or the S&P index and at

that on that day the people at Vanguard

will say oops I guess all the money just

shifted out of

equity but that day won't come tomorrow

it'll take many many quarters and and by

the time we get to 2034 I think you can

say the high growth institutional

adoption phase of Bitcoin has now moved

to just the growth

phase let me

um I pres I think the quick answer to

your question is better Layer Two I mean

lightning needs to get a whole lot

better A whole lot faster and I think it

will but let me give you a little bit

longer answer the question if you

indulge me um you know in the early 80s

I started my business career IBM PC was

introduced in 1980 and I um Microsoft

came public in 1986 came public at 14

times trailing and growing 40% a year

and at the time if you were in the

computer business you were at IBM or

prime or deck or Wang and uh you know

the mini computer was really the thing

and and a lot of people people regarded

these PCS as toys and I think it's an

interesting analogy that back at that

point in time um software was regarded

as risky because it was ones and zeros

and people didn't see that there could

be any value in it they were thinking

how can there be value in the software

it's just written you know it's code it

has no value the values in the disc

drives the values at IBM the values in

these Hardware computers people who are

making real stuff sounds kind of

familiar right and I recall go a little

further back wind it back I'm I'm at

business school and I'm with my business

school roommate he's with his roommate

from Harvard College guy named Steve

Balmer we're walking along the Charles

River and Balmer says we've got this

thing called Doss and the entire world

is going to need this thing the entire

world everybody is going to have it it's

going to be a part of everybody's life

this is going to be a multi-billion

dollar Corporation I looked at him I

thought he was nuts but then it kind of

hit me he wasn't nuts it was the base

layer of the technology that allowed the

PC to grow and 40 years later it is

ubiquitous and balmer's obviously a

billionaire and Micosoft is a

multi-billion dollar company I mean I

bought it at the time in in ' 86 when it

came public sold it three years later to

buy a condo it was a mistake the split

adjusted price is 6 cents and the stock

trades at you know $290 today so it was

you know 47,000 times your money or 4700

times your money the point I'm trying to

make is that Bitcoin is the same thing

and people don't understand it they

don't understand that it is the big the

base layer of money and it is going to

absorb the entire monetary system given

a long enough time time frame at least

in my opinion hey Larry I got a question

for

you Microsoft comes public ' 86 yes how

many years after Microsoft came public

did it take before investors thought

investing in Microsoft was a

conventional a conventional invest good

question I I would say my memory wasn't

really started to get going in the

mid90s maybe and late '90s and and

probably 10 years at least 10 years yeah

10 years at least 10 and and and it and

it just kind of got progressively better

as you know we could go look at the

stock chart and see the curve right for

for 10 years it was risky and oh

absolutely you know what's funny what

you just said though which is you bought

it and then you sold it after you made

some money and so many people will do

the same thing with Bitcoin exactly in

fact they have said it but you'll see a

you'll see a generation of institutional

investors they'll buy Bitcoin because

it's going up and then they'll sell it

after they've made triple profit to take

some money off the table and then 10

years right in

2035 right they'll look and they'll

understand it much better and then

they'll think like like the way people

think about Microsoft and Apple today

which is you just never sell them you

just own them forever right yeah and by

2035 they'll probably say now I think I

just own it right you know and Kramer

right if he's still working from

Seinfeld right if he's still working on

CNBC he'll be he'll be saying yeah

Bitcoin you just own it you don't trade

[Laughter]

it at which point it will be a

cell we'll win him

over and I think one thing that gets

lost in the conversation is that

institutions are made of people we often

describe you know there's there's people

and then there's institutions that are

often described as separate buckets but

institutions of course are just made of

a lot of people in an organized way and

what you generally find when you talk to

people in institutions there's a lot of

people in institutions that do get it a

lot of them own Bitcoin personally even

up to the CEO level sometimes but it's

just it's not gotten to the point where

they could bring it or integrate it into

their institution yet they couldn't put

it on their big balance sheet they

couldn't put on their corporate balance

sheet their pension balance sheet their

their you know their asset allocation

plan even though they themselves are

like oh yeah I own Bitcoin I just can't

give it to my clients yet or I can't put

it on the on the corporate Treasury and

as as the asset goes do more positive

Cycles as there's more kind of

Milestones being met um they can start

bringing that from the you know their

personal account and start actually

doing some of the same actions that

they've already done personally just in

their institution in the more

professional life because the assets

gotten large enough liquid enough um

just understood enough that they can

bring it to their peers and everybody

inside that institution knows who that

person is because they just talk about

Bitcoin all day long right um so all

right so we we covered 24 that was the

answer you got for 2024 now we're going

to go to

2025 when you were talking about uh

collateralized lending

Michael I look back Mount

gaau absolutely devastating for for

folks that had deposits on Mount goau

this last cycle we had FTX and many

others that

were uh doing lending right

if you could because there's going to be

big Bankers call it Black Rock Fidelity

whoever that maybe are listening to this

conversation if you could give them a

bit of advice about how Bitcoin works

and they're going to be doing lending

with Bitcoin what would be your bit of

advice to them right

now you know I I don't think they'll

have any problem money against Bitcoin

because they've already got the problem

with with these other examples is

they're all wildcat banks I mean people

people are going to PRI nobody in their

right mind would put money in a private

opaque un audited operation run by two

dudes out of their garage offshore

without a mailing address right like and

so the problem wasn't borrowing against

Bitcoin the problem was actually dealing

with you know people running personal

Banks out of their basement and they

didn't know how to run a bank the way

all these wirehouses work right now is

you have a portfolio of assets they mark

them to Market every day and they give

you loans margin loans with loan to

value no more than 50% or something and

actually they will adjust the advance

ratio and the way they manage risk is

they just mark them the market they

already know how to Mark the market with

Bitcoin they'll just be able to mark the

market

247365 and and normally the way they

work is they would say well we'll give

you a loan of x if if if your portfolio

is Apple stock and Microsoft and

Bitcoin they'll give you a loan of up to

20 30% of that and then if those things

trade down they'll just ask you to post

more collateral pay off the loan and

that's that's a business that works

perfectly fine for the last 40 years all

their systems are wired and and the risk

here is the the people that got screwed

in the Bitcoin loans they didn't get

screwed because the Bitcoin collateral

went bad they got screwed because the

banks stole their

money right and so here you have JP

Morgan C group Bank of America Wells

Fargo with trillion dollar balance sheet

they don't normally steal their clients

money as a as a normal thing right

they're too big to fail and so I think

that I mean anybody wanting a mortgage

or wanting a credit card or a home loan

they would normally go to a mega mega

bank anyway and the problem in the

market is those Banks haven't they

haven't uh custody Bitcoin and because

they don't custody it it's not part of

the collateral package and there are a

lot of reasons why they haven't or they

couldn't but as soon as they can I

actually think the rest of the credit

issues uh become very straightforward

and you'll find a bank will give you

either that margin Loan in lie of apple

or Microsoft stock or sometimes they'll

give you a mortgage and they'll say post

some other assets as security against

the mortgage and you end up posting some

Securities and you get you get a 30-year

mortgage with some Securities posted to

get it going and they may just take

Bitcoin as that security to top up your

mortgage or refinance it so if I if I

was going to push back on this I think

uh like if Caitlyn long was here she

would say there might be a frequency

mismatch so when we're looking at the

speed of settlement of Bitcoin and we

look at the volatility of Bitcoin and

then we look at traditional rails Equity

certificates what's the Frequency that

they're able to are they are they 247

that that we can clear those and if

we're posting collateral with with

things that can't match bitcoin's

frequency does that pose systemic risk

for some of these

custodians I don't think it's exposed

systemic risk you're talking about 0.1%

of the money it's but for example a a

big bank would give you a $100 million

loan against Apple stock over the

weekend if you had a billion dollars of

Apple stock if you had 300 million of

Apple stock they give you a $100 million

loan over the weekend maybe something

happens in China declares that Apple

can't manufacture iPhones and in the

morning Apple stock gaps down well the

bank took the risk not you and the

bank's already willing to take 48 hour

or 72-hour settlement risk on all these

other Securities they would be taking an

order of magnitude less risk with

Bitcoin so so Bitcoin drisk the bank but

the point really is the banks are

already taking more risk and they're

comfortable with it they've got set and

they've got massive balance sheets

they've got hundreds of billions of

dollars of equity Capital so so the

point really is the only thing that's

holding holding back Bitcoin credit

markets is the big bulge bracket Banks

being able to custody Bitcoin and at the

point that they begin to custody Bitcoin

they will start to extend credit as the

natural next step and there's nothing

about the asset class that makes it

harder for them it's a it's a better

asset for them to extend credit it's

better than the H hundred trillion

dollars of equity it's not worse so I

actually think they will embrace it and

and their view would be a lot less r

risk is a lot easier to manage that the

reason they're not doing it now is not

because there's an issue with Bitcoin

it's just they're not able to custody it

and if they can't custody it they can't

there's no handle on it that's why you

don't see that market taking off I I

think um there's been good success for

example companies like Unchained that

have been around for quite a while doing

um you know Bitcoin collateralized loans

and I you know you mentioned Catlin I

think a key thing she would point out is

the difference between commodity credit

and circulation credit as Mis has

described it which is basically whether

or not you can then take the the capital

the the collateral and re hypothecate it

so in in the ones that have been doing

this successfully through multiple

Cycles the key is that they the

collateral is safe they're they're

making low loan to value uh loans

against collateral and then they're

holding the collateral safe rather than

lending out the collateral and creating

this like big re hypothecated monster

that they can't deal with um and so the

the firms that have done that well

they've been you know little or no

credit losses because it's done

prudently and I think yeah we'll see

large larger institutions get into that

over time because it's a loan type that

makes sense am amid the other loans that

are out

there Larry you're good okay did you do

you have something good okay um when I

think about 2024 2025 I think

about all these people around the world

that are dealing with just horrific

currencies and unbanked and the payments

side of the house

how do you guys see that playing out in

the coming 2 to four

years uh with what's currently built

where Lightning's

at uh some of the technologies that are

on the horizon how do you see the the uh

the order of technology I guess

manifesting itself in the coming two to

four

years I think there's a thousand

different

onramps I mean it's not one lightning is

an important layer too but there's a

different Bitcoin wallet in every you

know there's there's a dozen Bitcoin

wallets in every country there's a dozen

Bitcoin exchanges there's peer-to-peer

um it's a different story in every

country in Africa a different story in

every country in Asia it's going to be

an evolving story and you're going to

see people develop a lot of competitive

layer 2s you're going to see people

develop competitive layer three apps

competitive

exchanges some people will be good some

companies will move fast some will move

slow

there'll be regulatory turmoil there'll

be a you know I I could have predicted

like in Argentina I would have said at

some point Argentina will close the door

to bitcoin before Javier was elected

yeah I I would have thought that they're

going to Institute Capital controls and

then that election turned everything 180

degrees and it went the opposite way so

politics is is chaos and then you saw

the opposite thing happening in in

Nigeria where that was 400 n to the

dollar and when it jumps to 12200 n to

the dollar they're closing the on-ramps

they're closing the on-ramps to the

custodians but non-custodial Solutions

become all the more compelling then

right so I I don't think there's one

answer it's there's not even one best

outcome or need in one country because

it's dynamically evolving based upon the

politics and the circumstances in every

single nation on the ground it even

changes by state by province right so I

just think uh this is Classic Market

situation the one thing that will happen

is all these currencies as they weaken

there'll be marketing events for Bitcoin

everyone in a collapsing currency is

going to look for a solution that more

and more are going to hear about Bitcoin

then they're going to want to be paid in

Bitcoin then they're going to want to

download a lightning wallet then

there'll be another wallet then there'll

be a debate about what to do with it and

uh and then some companies will fail

some will

succeed some governments will ignore it

some governments will embrace it some

governments will you know roll around in

the in the mud with

it Lynn so one thing I described in my

book actually there's there's 160

different currencies in the world and if

you look historically how does how does

money get in and out right because they

all have varying levels of capital

controls more or less around them and

the two ways the money gets in or out

are either through uh physical ports of

Entry which are obviously very

restricted you can only bring so much

cash or go or an airport um and then

wire transfers which again are are

tightly tightly controlled uh

environments and so when you have like a

a space with a failing currency and

millions of people um historically the

the the ways to get out were somewhat

Limited in terms of scale and what

things like Bitcoin and stable coins do

is one you can bring them through ports

of entry with infinite value density

right so it it gets past that um issue

and then two um you know I could I if I

hire a graphic designer in country XYZ

she can hold up a QR code over a video

call or she can send a payment string

over email or DM and I can pay her over

that and go around her local banking

system and so there's obviously

frictions there for for those that are

trying to maintain those kind of captive

audiences in in 100 plus different

currencies around the world but what

we've generally seen is countries try to

kind of block the exits and realize it's

not working like you mentioned Argentina

there was in 2022 they stopped a lot of

banks were going to get into Bitcoin and

the Argentina government stopped them

from doing it the big Banks then they

actually the next year they extended it

to the fintech companies not even the

banks but the next layer and they they

never got to the point where they said

bitcoin's illegal but they were trying

to make it harder and harder to do now

now some of that's being reversed we

also saw in Nigeria they went through a

phase where they blocked all the banks

um from sending to to to exchanges um

they Nigeria then developed the the

largest peer-to-peer Market volumes in

the world according to most measurements

if you look at chain analysis so

basically whenever there's a friction if

the people want it the the tools so

powerful that they can Route Around

blockages until the problem at the top

is forced to change and modify their

strategy and I so I think we're going to

see more and more ways of that we're

going to see frictions and then we're

going to see overcoming frictions and

then we're going to see new frictions

and overcoming frictions because the

markets just the the the tool itself is

so powerful that it just giv so many

ways to Route Around problems when they

emerge I agree with Willi just just

quickly a reminder that one of the

original strong Bitcoin use cases was

the Chinese wealthy Chinese who had a

lot of capital and could not get it out

and couldn't put enough gold in the

suitcase to leave would you know convert

into Bitcoin fly to Vancouver convert

back to Canadian Dollars and buy a house

on the water and so you know that the

capital controls that are likely to come

from oppressive regimes just Drive

adoption and and use

cases so uh let's let's go the next four

to 8 years uh energy take because

because of it's infrastructure and takes

a little bit more time four to eight

years from now how do you see energy

production in Bitcoin like what what is

changing from what we're seeing today is

anything changing from the the trends

that we're seeing today uh any insights

in that

area I think it's going be more and more

normal for Bitcoin to be used to soak up

stranded energy um I this basically I

think it'll become just increasingly

normalized if you have any sort of you

know for for people that follow the grid

I mean we often we turn the light on and

it just works we turn the light off it

it it it goes off but behind the scenes

it's actually very complex because you

have fluctuating demand of power and you

have fluctuating Supply in some cases or

you have a supply that's always online

it's always producing like a Hydro Dam

or something and there's fluctuating

demand around it and so how do you how

do you manage that Delta that gap

between both both sign waves are kind of

fluctuating against each other demand

and supply and so you need a really

flexible Source um either you do things

like uh natural gas plants that can turn

on in a second or um you need to just

waste the energy like if you have always

on Hydro power and people aren't using

it in the area it just gets curtailed it

just gets wasted and so Bitcoin

represents this buyer that's you know

they they low bandwidth so they can go

into remote environment ments um you

know just very very very low like um

uptime requirements they're happy to

have kind of um grids that go down a lot

as long as it's reflected in their power

costs and so they can come in and say

look we'll buy any spare energy for a

couple cents um per kilowatt hour and I

think that that it it's just be

increasingly normal to have that be part

of energy generation grid management

it's just a natural thing um and then

also at that at that 4 to eighty year

Horizon I think that the fact that

portable capital is more of a thing that

that you have this kind of portable

capital in size that can move around the

world it basically um rewards

jurisdictions that respect capital and

punishes jurisdictions that that don't

so generally you'll see Capital wants to

flow out of the Tighter jurisdictions

and more towards the jurisdictions that

where Capital wants to be and this is a

tool that just enables that and I think

that's a that's a good incentive

structure to exist in the

world uh Michael as far as AI in the

future as far as AI data centers gpus

and the energy intensity that's

associated with that and Bitcoin mining

is there some type of relationship there

in four to eight years or do you think

that the the cost of cheap energy is

really polarizing for Bitcoin and it's

not necessarily is as tethered

geographically to where maybe the large

cities are where the where the requests

are for AI and data

requests um well I think that um you

know Bitcoin uses maybe 15 gab gws of

energy and it's it's trending up but I

think that the the Bitcoin energy um

fixation or or or narrative may have

peaked or will peak in the next few

years because Bitcoin is getting

exponentially more efficient in using

energy

whereas if you look at AI a lot of these

hyperscalers are looking to scale up 60

gaw this year and they're they're

wanting to go to 600 GW within the

decade so what's going to happen is

they're going to inherit all of the

energy fud that we used to

have but you know you think that you

think that 10 gaw is a lot of power but

when you when someone decides they want

100 gaws now is real power and they will

actually throw all their lobbyists at

that and I actually think that

it's pretty clear the civilization is is

headed toward using hundreds and then

thousands of gws of power a lot of it

for digital intelligence what AI I'll

call digital intelligence some of it to

secure digital money you know what

Bitcoin is but clearly you know the

bigger idea is it seems inevitable that

at some point big Tech and the

hyperscalers going to are going to

actually overturn the um the or or

reverse the stigma for nuclear power and

you're actually going to see that that

uh Microsoft and Amazon and apple will

do for nuclear power what nobody else

could do in 50 years because they're

going to need it to run their AI data

centers as for what I think about our

relationship I think I think the you

know if you look at Bitcoin companies

today you'd say oh here's 20 Bitcoin

miners those are the big Bitcoin

companies but I actually think they'll

be in emergent new class of Bitcoin

companies and there'll be applications

on top of Bitcoin layer two layer three

layer four layer five applications and

they'll be doing things that um that

were inconceivable last year that are

profoundly important to the society so I

think there'll be a new generation of

Bitcoin companies and they may not

actually be Energy electrical energy

intensive I think they'll be digital

energy intensive I think they'll use

Bitcoin on their balance sheets to do

those things and I think that um I think

bitcoin's role is a we're critical to

securing the internet against all of the

Bad actors with AI like if if you want

to actually uh Watermark timestamp

cryptographically sign messages and

documents and content you're going to

need Bitcoin to do that is a system of

Truth and so I think AI will drive

demand for Bitcoin in that way and then

I also think that at some point you know

the AIS are going you could release an

AI to run autonomously and you're going

to power it with digital energy which is

Bitcoin right if you want to create an

AI version of yourself and have it live

in the internet forever you better give

it some

Bitcoin and so I think there's going to

be an interesting demand function there

yeah that's amazing all right uh I want

to take this

opportunity to present you guys with a

question that I think is a really

powerful

opportunity and if you could look into

the camera and talk to the world leaders

presidents of

countries and give them a twom minute to

four minute elevator pitch of why they

need to take Bitcoin really seriously

what would that sound like I I think

there's the proactive way or the

reactive way and you want to take the

proactive way so you don't want to go

through the phase where you're fighting

it the whole time you're losing battle

against a decentralized thing that

people want and instead you want to

embrace it proactively and say look we

want we want our people to own Bitcoin

we want institutions that are making

Bitcoin companies to to come and and

make jobs here and and and you know

create kind of capital here um so I

think that there there's like a Time

preference thing so you know a lot of

governments will look and say look this

is a threat to our currency this is a

threat to XY y z and so their first

instinct is to push back on it but

that's very short-term thinking if they

said say look if we look out 5 10 15

years do we want to be a hub that

portable Capital wants to come to that

people want to live that people want to

do business in or do we not and so I

think that if if they just look out

longer just um to to not go down that

short-term approach of trying to make

those those Capital controls those

firewalls to try to make the frictions

because we've seen in in multiple

countries now it just doesn't work and

it's just better to to just get in front

of that and just embrace it

Michael he wants me to go I'm

sorry Happ me go next um yeah I think

what I would say is um guys we need to

have a serious talk here and the talk

has to center around the fact that canes

has driven us into a monetary culdesac

and there's there's no way out we're

we're in a box canyon in a plane we're

going to crash into the wall um and the

reason is that the Keynesian system is

built on fractional Reserve lending

which requires increasing debt

consistently in order to generate any

form of GDP growth and we've gotten to

the point at which the efficiency of

that debt is extremely low and so it's

growing in a way that cannot be

supported by the underlying GDP and

therefore the two possible outcomes are

are sovereign debt collapse or or very

very high rates of inflation potentially

hyperinflation and so the money is badly

broken and we need to fix it and we need

to fix it in a fair way as Fair a manner

as we can for everybody and that is to

return to some kind of a sound money

standard and um Bitcoin in my opinion is

is the correct sound money standard um

you read Jeff Boo's book you'll

understand why we need a deflationary