Bitcoin, Gold & The Death Of The Dollar with Michael Saylor
RiskReversal Media · 2024-05-10 · 43m · View on YouTube →
on the tape is presented by CME Group
where risk meets opportunity and eye
connections reimagining how the
investment industry
connects well it's an honor to be with
Michael sailor the executive chairman of
micro strategy he does not need an
introduction I think unless you've been
living in a cave for the last five or
six years people pretty much know
exactly who you are thanks for joining
us Michael yeah thanks for having me you
know it's interesting and we've talked a
number of times and you know I'm not
going to play the Bitcoin where's the
price goinging game cuz I don't think
it's all that interesting cuz I I know
your thoughts on that but what I find
fascinating about you it's you're
somebody that I don't want to say you
were a non-believer but you're naturally
curious and that Curiosity probably took
over sometimes in 2019 2020 or so when
you sort of immersed yourself in Bitcoin
and probably the white paper and some of
the information that was out there and
you know you say all the time if you
spend 10 hours you know you could say I
understand why this probably not going
to work it's gambling casino you spend a
100 hours it starts to make sense 100
hours studying it and then when you get
to a thousand it starts to become
exponential in terms of your learning
and you recently said that you've never
met or heard of anybody that has not
spent a 100 hours that can have an
intelligent conversation with you about
you know them taking the conside and you
taking the proide so speak to the rigor
that's required to understand what you
obviously understand better than almost
anybody on the planet um well first of
all um you can characterize Bitcoin as a
digital currency you can call it digital
gold you can call it digital cash you
can think of it as digital money you can
think of as digital property you can
think of as digital Capital you can
think of it as digital energy you can
think of it as a digital asset um and it
spawned out of the quote un quote
cryptocurrency industry so uh so a
person on inspection if you've heard
about it for a few minutes or an hour
your immediate reaction is
cryptocurrency crypto is some kind of
digital something and currency ah it
must be a currency and uh people go back
and they say Well it must be a currency
uh because the front page of the white
paper set a peer-to-peer you know
electronic cash system and Mo and so
most of the debates and the criticism in
this entire industry are just about uh
semantics and words and interpretation
of words and oftentimes people will just
hear one of those words and based upon
their life experience and what they
learned in school or what they've
learned in business they will
immediately come to a conclusion which
is either an economic opinion or a
political opinion or an academic opinion
without first stopping to discuss uh
what the words mean and and even if the
word words are relevant uh for
example uh you know peer-to-peer
well what's a peer well a bank of Japan
is a peer of Bank of England right so
maybe Satoshi meant it was a
peer-to-peer system to move a monetary
asset between the central banks or
between commercial Banks or between
Apple and Google and corporations and if
you interpreted the peers as Mega Corps
Mega commercial Banks or countries you
would have a different view than oh Pier
that just means a consumer like me and I
want to send $5 to my friend and that
means I that means Satoshi meant Bitcoin
was to send five dollar between eight
billion people peer-to-peer right and of
course if you think the latter you have
a totally different opinion of whether
it works or doesn't work versus if you
think the former so what's the
definition of Pier now let's what's the
definition of cash well you know a lot
of people think cash is uh the dollars
in their pocket ET or the the fiat
currency $5 bills or $20 bills and so
they think peer-to-peer digital cash
okay well I want to send $20 bills from
person to person uh to buy coffee
because that's what I do with $20 bills
and so then it becomes a big debate well
obviously it's not very good for buying
coffee billion people can't buy coffee
with it it keeps changing in price so it
must not be a
success but of course that that hinges
upon you redefining cash or defining
cash as Fe currency in small
denominations but of course uh you know
when the king of Spain wanted to finance
the war in the Netherlands he sent a
fleet of ships with a bunch of gold in
their holes to pay for the entire war
effort that was cash that Fleet washed
up on the shores of Queen Elizabeth she
stole the gold it bankrupted the Spanish
Netherlands war effort and the result is
uh is a you know a
Protestant uh Netherlands but you know
is a billion dollars of gold cash and so
when Satoshi said well peer-to-peer
electronic cash maybe what Satoshi meant
was sending a billion dollars of gold
between the bank of England and the bank
of Japan or the or the Swiss bank or
city group or JP Morgan okay well if you
interpreted the words that way right
cash is money money cash JP Morgan says
gold is money everything else is credit
right if you interpreted cash as money
and not credit and peer-to-peer as any
two
counterparties okay well then maybe
Bitcoin isn't digital currency at all
right digital currency you know I'm
probably the best example of a true
digital currency or close to it right
now would be um a tether a stable coin
and if I could move a stable coin $87
worth of it at the speed of light on a
crypto rail no
kyc no regulatory controls you know with
complete
privacy that feels like digital currency
completely private digital currency okay
so now if someone says if I say to you
well do you like Bitcoin and you think
oh Bitcoin the digital
currency well then you might very well
answer like uh say uh a certain
politician answered a few years ago like
no I like the dollar better okay because
you thought the Bitcoin was competing
with the dollar and you thought someone
was asking you whether we're going to
replace the dollar with Bitcoin so if
you think it's digital currency and you
think and you think the Euro the Yen the
dollar
currency then the implication is well
we're just going to uh replace the
currency of your nation whether it's the
dollar the Euro or the Yen or the CNY
we're going to replace it with Bitcoin
now you end up with the entire
establishment uh every establishment
politician most Bankers most traditional
Economist pushing back and resisting it
and the politicians will resist it
because nobody wants to collapse the
dollar it's a source of American
strength that's probably worth trillions
of dollars a year to the US so obviously
we know why we like that if you're an
American politician on the other hand if
you're a classically trained Economist
you say oh well the dollar it needs to
be stable and we need to be able to
inflate the the currency Supply and
everything's priced in dollars and so
that's a reason for uh classical
economists to dislike it and criticize
it um and if you an accountant you would
say well it turns out that every major
corporation in the world has accounting
systems sap Oracle they've spent more
money in those accounting systems than
almost anything else I mean a lot of big
companies have spent billions and
billions of dollars on accounting
systems they're all wired in euros and
dollars and Yen and CNY and to and if
you a CEO came along and said hey we're
we're just going to replace our us
dollar-based accounting systems with
another system the board of directors
would fire you the entire finance
department would quit all your
shareholders would uh walk away from the
stock probably your accountants would uh
withdraw noisily and your company would
collapse so so that that doesn't work so
you can see how simply by choosing the
word digital currency I will get a
negative uh push back reaction now if I
roll the word to digital gold well a lot
of times you go to a th000 Rich families
and you say hey uh do you like Bitcoin
it's digital gold and they say oh well
that's interesting I don't own any gold
okay name me one billionaire that ever
made a billion dollars investing in gold
there isn't any I can't name a single
billionaire that will attest to actually
owning a billion dollars of gold I can't
name a single family out of 10,000
wealthy families that would ever say
well we made billions of dollars and we
went we bought a billion dollars of gold
okay so well Gold's defective I could
tell you why in two hours but what does
it matter the point is we fixed it with
Bitcoin everybody can say okay well so I
suppose you fixed something I didn't
like it's a it's a crappy commodity and
so good for you but I don't own any okay
so that takes you a different path now
let's say we we change it to digital
property okay well you want to buy a
billion dollars of Bitcoin oh it's
digital gold uh no I'm not going they're
going to 6102 me I heard the government
seizes gold when it gets to be too much
you think it's gold and you're afraid
that uh the government will seize it
because it backs currency because that's
your that's your historic mindset if I
say to a wealthy person you want to buy
a billion dollars of uh property uh
where Miami Beach yes sure how about New
York yeah sure how about London I guess
so how about a billion dollars of
digital property in the greatest City in
cyber space seems okay if you went to
Donald Trump and you said hey I'm gonna
invest a billion dollars in digital
property instead of uh fysical property
in La he'd probably say yeah that's fine
you know so if you actually call it
and how many people say oh I'm a rich
person I bought a billion dollar
building in Miami beach but I'm worried
the government's going to 6102 it no
nobody ever said the government is going
to 6102 my billion dollar building right
I mean so the you know you have the
skeptic saying oh it's too good to be
true the government will ban it but no
one ever said the government will ban a
building and so if you think it's
property it just becomes a very
straightforward proposition if you think
it's gold I call Call It The Good the
Bad and the Ugly narrative guy the good
narrative or model is Bitcoin is digital
property the bad model is Bitcoin is
digital gold the ugly model is Bitcoin
is digital currency and it all comes
down to the word and you won't get past
the word before someone comes right back
over the top and tells you what they
think and let me one last point and and
you go to the next question my last
point is I can sit in the room a
billionaire
and I can say if I said bitcoin's
digital currency every one of them
flinches and says you know I know that's
not going to fly here and I I can't come
out against the real the peso the dollar
the Euro the CNY the whatever okay so
all you got to do is say that and you
get immediate no or I can
say they they go well what's Bitcoin why
should I buy said I bought it because
it's digital property it's it's the
greatest City in cyers space and it's
limited to 21 million blocks and I think
one day every rich person will want to
live there and every every other person
everybody with money and you know what
they say they go oh no one ever
explained it that way that makes total
sense yeah I I get it yeah I'll buy some
with paying omage to Clint Eastwood Eli
wall and L van Clee I will ask the next
question and indulge me for a second and
believe me I'm not suggesting any of
what I'm about to say is correct but it
is my belief that Bitcoin was created
out of a fear of global central banks
run a muck and the timeline sort of
suggests that you go back to sort of
0809 when you see and and you were just
talking about physical gold in
2022 Global central banks purchased
approximately 771 billion worth of gold
which was a record at the time I think
it was 1131 tons or thereabouts they did
effectively the same thing in
2023 and they're on course to do similar
this year when you hear that and or have
read about that you must be saying to
yourself they're just not getting it
they're they're missing maybe there's a
place for that in a very infantes way
but you know my sense is if you had the
opportunity to speak to any and all of
these Central Bankers as you had a
number of times you going to Prague in a
couple weeks I think they'd be having a
it'd be a much different conversation
speak to
that yeah I think goal's a waste of time
it's uh it's dead money
you know maybe it's virtue signaling if
you're buying it uh gold broke down you
know as a reserve asset before World War
I you know on on the eve of World War I
when all these nations declared war
every single one of them went off the
gold standard you know and so the myth
there's a myth of a goal standard that
that people like to cling to but I've
read like 3,000 years of economic
history and as far as I can see it was
never as good as anybody ever thought it
was it's always been defective the I
mean the real elephant in the room here
is two things uh gold doesn't work in
time and go gold doesn't work in space
um if you look at if you look at using
gold as a as a property asset a reserve
asset a treasury asset in space there's
no way for a thousand different
organizations to custody their gold and
swap it every week and settle it you
can't settle every day you can't settle
every week you can't even custody it
right so gold centralizes I how is it
possible that you know the United States
could seize the Russians gold right like
because you know the you know the goal
standard you know collap or the faux
goal standard after Breton Woods
collapsed I guess when the French wanted
their goal back but you know if you
wanted it to be an effective treasury
asset in space you would need to allow
uh peer-to-peer
settlement and that means how do you
have and when I talk about peers I'm
just going to talk about Apple Google JP
Morgan C group Bank of Japan Bank of
Switzerland you know how about the
10,000 biggest economic entities in the
world they all need to be able to
custody and swap it every month for it
to for it to be stable as a settlement
Network and of course gold isn't that
you can't you can't sell it every day it
doesn't move fast enough and uh and so
that's why it fails versus Bitcoin with
Bitcoin you could have 10,000 different
custodians and they could be settling a
hundred million dollars between each one
or billion dollars between each one
every day and the network will hold that
kind of load so um so gold doesn't work
in space but it also doesn't work in
time uh gold has a you know under best
of circumstances a 2% inflation rate
that's steady state and a 2% inflation
rate of gold means a halflife of 30
years which means that 87 or 88% of your
economic wealth is dissipated over a
hundred years right and and you know if
you look at Spain in the 16th century
you know in the hundred years after they
discovered America and you know they
looted the Aztecs and the Incas and
everybody else of their gold they also
created 500% inflation right and and so
they actually hyperinflated their
currency in gold coin collapsed their
own Empire and so and and the stories
are the same about Julius Caesar when he
went off into Gaul and he conquered Gaul
he brought back so much gold he created
hyperinflation in Rome and that was part
of the reason for the Civil Wars that
followed and you know what they did to
julus Caesar when he came back so so
gold is uh
inflationary the difference between 2%
and 0% is the difference between a half
life of 30 years and a half life of a
million billion years right and so so
there you go Bitcoin is is the fix on
gold gold itself is just a defective
treasury asset because it's too slow and
it's too inflationary well I'm glad you
mentioned you know debt levels and what
have you and again you know I'm I am not
the student of history that you are I'm
not pretending to be but what I have
read is no developed economy in the
history of mankind going back to the
Roman Empire has been able to recover
from debt to GDP levels of north of
130% United States by the way is right
on the precipice of that number one and
and you know I'm not calling for the
fall of capitalism but what I will tell
you is global debt as reported earlier
this week is now north of $15 trillion
which sits on top of global GDP of
approximately $110 trillion so when
somebody like you sees that and you talk
about this all the time sort of you know
the fallacy of currency and just the
evaporation of wealth right before your
eyes whether people realize it or not I
mean those types of numbers I would
think suggests that that's the
environment that Bitcoin is going to do
extraordinarily well in so as as you
know you know as as central banks
continue to run a muck and as basically
governments do the same and I want to
talk about Japan in a second but this is
the environment that my sense is it was
this Bitcoin was created for 16 or so
years ago
thoughts um back to words um everybody
wants to fight over a word but let's
call let's let's parse the word money
what is money a classic Economist says
money is a medium exchange a unit of
account a store of value and then they
stop thinking
well okay so what does that mean well it
turns out that in Argentina the medium
exchange is the peso the unit of
accounts the dollar the store of the
value is neither no intelligent person
in America thinks that that the US
dollar is a store of value if it was you
would find a billionaire that would say
that 95% of their assets are in in cash
accounts in the dollar and no one is
right everybody knows the store of value
is something else maybe it's the S&P
index maybe it's building on Park Avenue
maybe it's a a sports team so in uh 1914
we had a war the War uh was financed
with debt uh you know if you dig a bit
you find out that the bank of England
bought a lot of the war
bonds and you'll find out that the US uh
you know the US government bought a lot
of the US bonds so we issued a lot of
debt the governments bought the debt um
after the war they had
inflation right there's a phrase in New
York right pre-war I think they're
referring to World War I but generally
pre-war means before the war we had good
stuff and we built really good high
quality uh buildings and then after the
war for whatever reason we lowered our
standards in Miami Beach an acre of land
before the war was
$10,000 today it's $10
million okay so will the government
collapse no will the currency collapse
well it'll just keep sliding so what do
you call it if the dollar is worth
.1% of what it was 100 years ago it's
like but that's where we are right so
the currency will weaken but intelligent
people will uh they will adopt a
different asset as a store of value and
the best asset for a store of value in
the 20th century if you were wealthy was
property like a building or land and
maybe if you were a middle class it was
uh a diversified stock portfolio you
know clearly the Vanguard 500 or the S&P
500 became the uh the primary Capital
asset and and it defined the cost of
capital for most you know corporations
and most institutional Pursuits so I
think uh Bitcoin if you look at it it's
money but it's the store of value
element of money I think that uh strong
governments will continue uh to issue
currency they will designate it legal
tender uh when the when the country
collapses like Al salvad or after the
Civil War or a Nigeria or parts of
Africa when your country or nation
states no longer functional you won't
have a currency you will adopt somebody
else's currency whether it's the CFA or
the Euro or the CNY or the
USD that's okay and I think that uh the
right way to think about the world going
forward is every intelligent person
every reasonable person is going to
adopt uh the local currency as a medium
of exchange they're going to adopt the
world Reserve currency you know as their
midlevel you know unit of account that's
probably the dollar unless you're in the
Chinese sphere of influence it might be
the
CNY and then they're going to if they're
a conventional investor a traditional
investor and that's like 99% of the
money in the world they're going to use
the S&P index or store of value or
they're going to have high quality
desirable real estate in the Hamptons or
New York or Miami or they're going to
have their home or they're gonna have
you know probably it's that uh even most
wealthy people don't even think bonds
are a store of value they generally
think it's you know JP Morgan's uh
survey of family offices says 45% of
their money is in alternative assets
which has been going up every year I
think pretty consistently over the last
decade or so yeah so so traditional
investors will use alt assets Equity or
you know real estate type portfolios and
then occasionally if they're lucky they
get Collectibles picassos or the Jets
right and then uh the the new investors
a 21st century digital investor will
look and and they'll add Bitcoin into
that
mix and uh you know obviously I happen
to believe Bitcoin is by far the best
form of property and it's obviously the
best form of digital property and I
happen to believe that the best way to
think of it is a capital asset so I view
it as digital Capital it's going to
reshape the capital markets and why is
it a little bit better than property
property evokes a billion dollar1
million dollar digital Warehouse or
digital building but most people don't
think that they can decompose and
teleport their buildings but Capital
like treasury assets they need to be
liquid and so if I have a billion on my
balance sheet and I can liquidate 1% of
it a day and I can buy a if I can buy a
million more worth of property or sell
eight million worth of property as a
corporation I can use Bitcoin as a
capital asset it's very difficult for a
corporation to use four buildings as a
capital asset I mean other than I guess
you would refinance the building and you
would uh you would adjust your debt load
on the building and you would be using
uh you know the dollar right as your
liquidity there being again respectful
of language and you I I try my best but
you know there have been currency crises
throughout history I mean there was a
famous One Bank of England um George
Soros I think I happen to believe
there's one going on right before our
very eyes and it's taking place in Japan
so my question to you is you the bank of
Japan calls up Michael S and says listen
we need you to come over here and fix
our problem their problem being their
currency is weakening by the day the
other side of their problem is their
economy is a bit of a disaster uh in
their interest rate I mean they've had
historically low interest rates they're
trying to sort of I don't even want to
use the term normalized rates but you
know they are caught in the the in a
very difficult situation sort of that
Straits of mesina where if they go one
way they're screwed and if they go the
other way they're screwed how would you
try to help them through this process oh
they certainly won't take my advice but
but the the answer is the first country
that can print currency and buy Bitcoin
wins well theoretically country that
sort of I mean there've been smaller
countries obviously that have gone down
the micro strategy route right and there
at you know at current prices I mean it
speaks for itself for example and I want
you to answer the question but you know
I think micro strategy the stock since
you basically implemented a Bitcoin
strategy on August 10th
2020 at current prices is up over 900%
which is I think double the performance
of Bitcoin ironically and probably 18
times the S&P and maybe 20 times the
NASDAQ so the strategy speaks for itself
anyway please continue let's say uh
Japan issues a billion dollars of Yen
buys a billion dollars of Bitcoin
Bitcoin you if they're smart they would
issue $ 20 billion of Yen buy 20 billion
of Bitcoin when they put out the press
release Bitcoin would they would have
$60 billion of Treasury assets
appreciating at 30% a year and they
would end up with a20 billion positive
balance of payments right and and it
becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy It's
Tricky for Japan because there's such a
big economy uh it would work a lot
better for turkey like with turkey they
actually they need about a 20 billion
doll uh you know boost in order to plug
their balance of payment so a midsize
comp country could probably do it but
you'd have to be aggressive um if we
come back to a company you know a a
company stock is just like a country's
currency right right the country can
issue currency by the way the reason El
Salvador isn't quite synonymous is El
Salvador doesn't have their own currency
so what I said the first country to
print their own currency and buy Bitcoin
wins you need to be able to issue1
billion of your currency swap it for10
billion of Bitcoin grow the Bitcoin 30 %
a year and that's the way a treasury
Reserve asset supposed to work right
because everybody then stampedes into
that with you um micro strategy had a
$600 million Enterprise Value and we had
600 million in cash and we had no growth
and we were dead money and we were
trading $2 million a day in the stock
market guy that's just like the Russell
2000 or let's say the Russell 1000 the
Autumn Russell 1,000 companies they're
all like that they're all 500 million to
multi-billion Dollar companies 100
million to billion dollar market caps
they all trade 1 million to 20 million a
day they've all got low growth because
if you're not Nvidia or apple or the
Magnificent 7 you just you know you
can't you can't grow like Microsoft so
we took that Russell 2000 small cap
company we took uh our cash we bought
some
Bitcoin we bought 250 million of Bitcoin
we put that out on the wire the the
shareholder base turned over we bought
another 175 million of Bitcoin the stock
doubled we uh all of our employees
exercised some stock options we bought
more Bitcoin stock increased again we
sold a convertible Bond we bought more
Bitcoin the stock increased again
Bitcoin increased again you fast forward
44
months and uh you know the the stock
price 10x
the market cap 20x the Enterprise Value
40x that went from 600 million to Mid 25
billion and so what were we doing what
we are doing is we're issuing our
currency our our stock that is to buy
Bitcoin or we're
borrowing we're borrowing against our
stock to buy Bitcoin um a nation state
could do it too but we're being far too
ambitious to to uh call for the nation
state to do it a much more uh prosaic a
much more more uh practical next step is
how about for the Thousand Russell 2000
companies that are all dead money and
zombie companies how about they start
doing it and Japan is saddled with a lot
of those zombie companies as well so the
issue really is thousands and thousands
of corporations that have dead
treasuries because their Capital asset
on their Tre treasury has a negative
real yield if you if you hold uh a
billion dollars and you put it in t
bills your after tax yields 3% the cost
of capital is
12% bitcoin's return has been 40 plus
percent but if Bitcoin will almost
certainly always outperform the S&P
index so Bitcoin does double the S&P
index and the t- bill does a fourth of
the S&P index the real conundrum here is
that the the capital asset of the world
of every family every institution well
actually every every corporation every
government the capital asset is delive
and not a creative a lot of in
institutional investors and families
they know this instinctively you'll
never find a Wall Street hedge fund
master of the universe that brags that
his strategy is whole cash and t- bills
right that's not that's not how they got
rich right and so and so normally the
perversity is the shareholders are
screaming at Apple and and meta and
they're saying hey you guys need to give
us back the capital via buyback because
you're going to hold T bills and the T
bills are not going to beat the cost of
capital and so and so we see that with
Berkshire hathway they got $190 billion
dollar of cash right and you see Apple
going to do hundred billion do buyback
and meta $50 billion
buyback well they're DEC capitalizing
and what are the people that receive the
capital are going to do with capital
well they're definitely not investing it
in the stuff that those corporations
would have invested in they're going to
invest it in worst at worst the S&P
Index right that's the default and if
you can't do that you're destroying
Capital so my advice my advice to a
sovereign wealth fund is you know you
basically start to buy Bitcoin as
digital Capital my advice to a an
aggressive small country if you if
you're small midsize country and you can
print your own currency you either print
the currency to buy Bitcoin or you issue
sovereign debt and swap it right into
Bitcoin immediately right you can borrow
money cheap and you loan it to bitcoin
at
24% return or better right so that's
obvious but I'm not going to hold my my
breath on countries because it's a very
political thing I think that um the
people that are the obvious
beneficiaries that hopefully are
listening this podcast would be
shareholders officers and directors of
the 10,000 small midsize companies
especially publicly traded companies
which in essence can't outperform the
Magnificent 7 if you don't think you can
outperform Google and meta and Microsoft
and Nvidia and you have some money you
either take the cash and buy Bitcoin you
issue equity and buy Bitcoin or you
issue debt either either senior debt or
you even better you is convertible debt
convertible to your equity and you buy
Bitcoin because that allows you to
recapitalize with an with an
appreciating asset as opposed to
decapitalize and have nothing or to
whole capital in a depreciating asset
that that is kind of burning has got a
negative real yield and burning
shareholder value I don't know if you're
allowed to answer this question legally
so if you cannot please don't but
currently micro strategy has
24,400 Bitcoin on the balance sheet I
think the average price is a tad over
$35,000 a coin I think currently you
have either over 1% of all Bitcoins out
there where can that go to I mean I know
you have a vision for this I mean where
do you see does that number go from 1%
to 10% does that number go from you know
214,000 Bitcoin to five million like how
does your mind work or or is the answer
simply as long as the market allows you
to do what you've been doing you're just
going to continue to
implement we'll keep adding right I mean
we'll keep adding Bitcoin and you know
it's it's like asking you're if you were
asking you know a real estate developer
in the middle of New York City oh you
own like eight blocks of New York City
when you stop right what when you stop
answer said well we're going to buy the
ninth block here when we can put
together the financing and then the 10th
and well and if you said well when are
you going to divest from New York City
the answer is if you talk to New Yorkers
there's nowhere better than New York
city so they're going to keep building
and when they can't build out they're
going to build up right and uh you know
it's like well I I wanted to buy another
18 blocks but I can't so I rezoned the
blocks I own and I'm going to replace a
20 story building with a 100 story
building and there's huts and yards for
you or whatever it might be be um micro
strategy is going to keep developing its
Bitcoin position and yeah it's going to
get exponentially harder right you know
this last week you know you saw you saw
uh block announc that they're going to
start buying Bitcoin every month you saw
you've seen uh a cre of Bitcoin by a lot
of Bitcoin miners a you know a lot of
them are actually not selling as much
Bitcoin as they're mining now I think
you're going to see more Bitcoin miners
buying more I think you're going to see
more Bitcoin exchanges buying more I
think you see the existing ETFs
accumulating but now we're up to
22 spot ETFs in the world and they're
all in a marketing war with each other
and so they're going to go harder so I I
think and and at some point you're going
to see other these Russell thousand
companies right which one of them wants
to crawl out of their zombie State it's
like you're just waiting for someone to
decide they want the money
so I think that when they do that they
drive up the price of Bitcoin and I have
to chase it my first Bitcoins were below
10,000 and uh you know and I'm I'm
buying Bitcoin in the 60s now and that's
okay um I I don't know where we'll get
to I know we'll I know we'll get more we
we'll accrete from here we will acquire
more Bitcoin than we have right now and
we'll do it via you know organic cash
and Via uh debt especially convertible
debt and we'll do it via equity and
that'll be a function of capital markets
and and all sorts of other Dynamics but
um I think um you know Archimedes said
uh you give me a lever long enough and a
place to stand I can move the world well
um the the place to stand is Bitcoin
right I mean it's it's not a commodity
it's a scarcity so if it's a scarcity
it's like if I said to you there's one
city it's at the it's at the trade
Crossroads of the world it's the it's
the center of the digital economy one
day everybody on the planet's going to
be moving their Capital through that
City but there's only
276 by 276 by 276 blocks in that City
and by the way it's like 94% occupied
but you can buy another one of those
blocks if you want um do you want to buy
some
more and the answer is yeah I I want to
keep buying because just like if I could
have bought New York or Manhattan a 100
years ago or 50 or 200 or 30 or 300 you
know tell me you know at what year how
many years ago was it a bad idea right I
think it's always been a good idea if if
you can hold right as long as you can
hold the property and why is Manhattan a
good idea because it's a granite Island
at the you know the middle of Long
Island Sound and the Hudson you know and
it's got great natural Harbors it's the
gateway to North America it was always
the best place to put a port right and
if you know if you look at it and you
cruise around it and you stare at it and
you look at the fact you can build that
on top of that shist it's obvious people
are going to want to live in and do
business in that City for hundreds of
years
you know I think the term defenestration
came in the early 1400s in Prague when I
think seven Town officials were thrown
out of a building because you know they
probably trying to upend a status quo it
happened again I think in the 1600s
similar thing it happened in prago as
well I mentioned that because my sense
my instincts suggest you need a culture
a group of people that understand sort
of basically upturning the apple cart to
understand what you're trying to do and
you're speaking I think I as I said
earlier on June 14th in Prague to
discuss Bitcoin at a place that probably
you know in the world is one of the most
equipped cities to sort of I don't know
understand and embrace what you're
talking about speak about that real
quick there's $900 trillion dollar of
capital or wealth in the world and I
think there's 1 trillion in the Bitcoin
Network so
0.1% of the economic wealth in the world
has found its way into digital property
most the people don't have an hour to
talk like like most of the world you
know I'm sure Charlie Monger never
listened to uh you know a two-hour
podcast on bitcoin you know so most of
the wealth in the world is is in the
hands of people that don't really
understand uh what Bitcoin is and uh a
lot of The Advocates of Bitcoin you know
they they have been intentionally
confrontational or inflammatory and
they've gotten into a bunch of other
debates like does Bitcoin stand for you
know replacing Banks or replacing
currency or replacing government or
replacing whatever no what is bitcoin is
digital capital what's the you know
what's the addressable Market of digital
Capital somewhere between 100 and $400
trillion doar so what is bitcoin it's
100 to 400x from here once you
understand what it is so what's the
impediment well I mean the impediment is
just
education and so so what are we doing
we're educating you know like uh I go
and I give a speech in Vegas and you
know there could be a few hundred or a
few thousand people in the room but then
a million people will watch the speech
online I sat with Lex fredman and I talk
about Bitcoin and economics three hours
I watched it okay 9.1 million other
people have watched it but you know
every day guy another 10 or 20,000
people watch it it's a residual now
imagine I retired and went off to be a
college professor to teach students a
thousand a year it's like your entire
career you don't get to 20,000 people so
uh bitcoin's an idea whose time has come
it's and if you interpret it as digital
currency you get anxiety and you get
inflamed and it's hard to make progress
but if you interpret it digital Capital
you think wow this is good for every
country every Bank every company every
person everybody I ever met it's it's
just a universal good thing it's about
as good as as you know digital
information or digital communication you
don't find anybody that doesn't like
technology you know what why am I going
to Prague I'm going to Prague just to
explain why this is a good thing and and
yet a different way it'll be recorded
there'll be 2,000 people that'll be in
Prague and they'll be Bitcoin maximalist
and they'll and they'll be ideologically
passionate individuals but the Hope
always is to explain to everybody in
Europe or everybody in the rest of the
world why it's in their best interest to
embrace a new
technology when you when you just think
of it as technology electricity steel
there's no ideology associated with it
it's you can it's not going to solve all
the other problems in the world like
we're not going to solve the problem of
wealth inequality or you know sensorship
or lack of Freedom or the fact that you
disagree on this this fiscal policy or
that foreign policy and and those are
all just very admirable things to work
on it's just not what I do my what I I
believe you have to have laser like
focus on doing one thing and if you
laser like focusing on one thing maybe
you'll be able to make a contribution
and you you ought to be grateful for the
opportunity to make a single
contribution so my contribution right
now you know is to advocate for Bitcoin
as digital property digital Capital
digital technology to make everybody's
life better I will uh I'll be doing that
in the most cheerful constructive way I
can in Prague Michael I'm honored to
know you I you know I'm I I call you a
friend and I don't use that term lightly
and I thank you for your time it's you
know there's a saying in history that's
been bastardized by movies and different
things but you know we mock what we
don't understand because we fear what we
do not know and I think to a large
extent you know that's what's happened
in in your universe and you specifically
but you know what you're out there
advocating you're out there preaching
and quite frankly you're one of the most
Brilliant Minds that I've met and I
admire you a great deal so thank you for
spending some time Michael sailor well
thank you for the opportunity I always
appreciate our conversation it's