Bitcoin 2021: Fireside: Michael Saylor And Max Keiser

which is

[Music]

amazing

[Applause]

yeah

we're not selling we're not sorry

but Elon you're fucking alive

dude

all right

Matt Max and I we uh

we talked this morning to coordinate our

outfit

and I wanted Max to wear black

and Max wanted me to wear white

yeah have a seat

alrighty

Michael Saylor

[Applause]

Giga Chad

Max Kaiser high priest of Bitcoin

father I have sinned

my first question is what does this feel

like to be a newbie

you know um

I actually I I was going to tell you I I

realized that I first bought Bitcoin

one year ago yesterday and so this is

the end of my rookie year

right up

all right I wanted to get into that so

going back to around 2014 your friend

Eric Weiss he was talking to you about

Bitcoin you kind of uh ignored it uh

then in 2020 he mentioned it again and

within a few weeks you were buying tens

of thousands of Bitcoin for you and your

company

what the fuck happened

[Applause]

what

I guess I lost faith in all of my

traditional investment strategies

you know I

I uh I didn't really think much about uh

the dollar and about inflation I thought

there was no inflation and I thought I

could just sit and own big tech

companies and the world would work

itself out and I guess around March

everything changed and the monetary

inflation rate tripled

and it became pretty clear that uh

the big Tech trade was a crowded trade

you know at the point that my niece

in her early 20s was telling me about

Apple stock you know I figured that

maybe it wasn't uh it wasn't Cutting

Edge

so I looked around and I discovered

Bitcoin and when I discovered Bitcoin I

thought well this is digital gold on a

big Tech monetary Network and it's going

to go by a factor of a hundred

and then I thought well I should buy as

much as I can and and what I tell people

even this day is is why I was buying it

and I was thinking I have to buy as fast

as I can as much as I can because

someone else might figure this out

before and then I won't be able to

and uh okay that's really interesting

for the shareholders but I mean

I my understanding is that you were

visited by the ghost of Satoshi in at

night and came to you in a dream and

converted you is it that's not the story

yeah Satoshi speaking through all of her

or his disciples on YouTube your laser

eyes are pointed right at my brain right

now

are you stealing my private keys

no you should keep your private keys

this should save me

[Applause]

I don't want your private keys really

okay well we just met so I guess that

would be a bit forward

Let's uh let's move on to some recent

comments you've made

um you were on the bill talking about

Bill Maher recently and you said the

following there's something cruel and

tasteless about

a rich white male who wants to deprive

billions of poor men women and children

in Africa Asia South America basic human

right of economic self-preservation so

they can generate a few laughs that's a

very kind of profound thing to say and

can you just talk a little bit about

this idea of property rights for

billions around the world and what

Bitcoin offers and how you see that

yeah well I think after you study

Bitcoin the light ball goes off and what

I realized is anybody on Earth that

wanted to own anything that wanted to

own some property has a choice you can

buy land somewhere but someone can tax

it and take it away from you you can buy

gold but someone can take it away from

you you can buy stocks but you can never

take possession of it you can buy debt

you can never take possession of it you

can buy jewelry people will take it away

from you and Bitcoin is the Apex

property of the human race it's the

first time we figured out how to create

true property that you can take

possession of with with full custodial

rights that's least likely to be

impaired that's most mobile

and so yeah it doesn't matter if you

have a billion dollars if you have a

billion dollars you can buy a building

in Manhattan or Bitcoin you'd rather

have the Bitcoin and it doesn't matter

if you have 387 dollars if you have 387

dollars you can still buy the Bitcoin

take it anywhere and if you compare that

to buying silver or gold or land or

stock your custodial on your property

rights are impaired by everything else

and so I think Bitcoin is is truly a

seminal invention of the human race

because

for the first time in human history we

can grant property rights to 8 billion

people and I you know that's what I

think is cool

right

is Bitcoin designed to attract attacks

it seems that it is and the level of

attacks are rising to the state level

Etc and is it a bug or a feature

I think that which does not kill Bitcoin

makes it stronger

right

all right let's talk about energy for a

second so

um total energy Global energy production

is about a 160 000 terawatt hours per

year I'm going to ask the audience right

now how much of that goes into Bitcoin

the choices are ten percent five percent

one percent or one tenth of one percent

of that how many people think it's ten

percent raise your hand

five percent

one percent

why this Paul sucks

one tenth of one percent

right and as you point out a third of

that 50 000 terawatts per hour is wasted

uh you point out that literally Bitcoin

is running on a quarter of the wasted

energy it's so little of that energy it

goes into Bitcoin and yet we have this

fud this ESG thing going on what's your

current thinking on this

I think that um Bitcoin is an

extraordinarily disruptive beneficial

technology to the entire energy industry

and as I studied it it became clear to

me that it's the highest value use of

intermittent energy it's the highest

value use of of renewable energy it's

the highest value use of wasted or

stranded energy

and it's just the highest value use of

energy period and it's the solution to

developing uh power plants in remote

locations it's a solution to driving up

uh efficiency of plants and driving down

cost and it's a solution uh it's a

solution to solving any kind of

challenging energy problem and I think

as the world understands it they're

going to embrace it

the recent news out of China is that

there are a lot of mining is leaving

China now it's coming to the U.S there's

uh they're they're shutting down their

coal uh production Etc is this

um how do you see this developing in

terms of how mining is going to be

distributed around the world

um it's it let me ask you this it seems

that if we went on the global Bitcoin

standard total Global energy use would

be cut by an enormous amount because

you're defunding central banks you're

defunding Fiat money you're potentially

defunding uh huge military operations

just by going on a Bitcoin standard

isn't that the greenest thing anyone

could possibly do all right

yes okay

look I I think Bitcoin is the is the

most efficient use of energy that the

human race has yet come up with I

um I I looked at the annual report of

Google

and Google puts about a hundred and 170

or 180 billion dollars of energy into

their business to create 1.8 trillion

dollars of an asset Bitcoin puts four

billion dollars of energy and capital

investment to create an 800 billion

dollar asset so Bitcoin you put in a

dollar you get out 200 Google you put in

a dollar you get out ten dollars I

studied the entire s p index and all the

annual reports you put in a dollar you

get out four dollars if you look at a

bank JP Morgan

they spend a dollar to generate 3.8

dollars of value and if you study an

airline they put in a dollar to get out

40 cents

so Bitcoin is

you know it's it's

you know some 20 times more efficient

than Google and is 50 times more

efficient than a normal company and it's

500 times more efficient than real

energy producers and I think Bitcoin

miners are under appreciated I mean

they're they're the path of of uh you

know what they're the they're the the

first line of defense against the entire

network they're securing the network and

that and the way the Bitcoin mining

works is they're finding the

jurisdiction that has the most political

support So Bitcoin miners are finding

political capital

they're finding energy Capital they're

finding the cheapest energy they're

they're finding engineering Capital

they're engineering these beautiful

Bitcoin mining centers that that are

heat engineered they're very complicated

they're finding technical capital in

terms of semiconductors and Asics

they're putting all that together with

with the raw energy in order to provide

the security to the network and they're

migrating continually to the cheapest

power the most supportive political

jurisdiction and they're instigating

upgrades in the technology and they're

doing that dynamically without being

told to do it to the benefit of everyone

in the entire ecosystem I think that's

really a beautiful a beautiful thing

yeah

yeah right now

so when Christine Lagarde who's running

the European Central Bank right now

refers to bitcoin as an escape hatch

what does she mean is that she's she's

seeing it as a negative but I would

posit that maybe you would see that in a

different light

well I think I mean when you say Bitcoin

is savings technology

you know in a world where everyone's

dissipating their energy the most

rational thing is to conserve yours

and so Bitcoin is conservation of energy

you can store your life force and Fiat

and you know you're going to lose one to

two percent a month you might lose four

percent a month in a collapsing currency

or faster

you can store all of your economic

energy and and credit and that's not

much better you can store it in equity

but then you take the risk of a company

and you never know when

like look what just happened to AMC

yesterday right right if you're going to

store your money in AMC or Viacom or

Bitcoin at least Bitcoin has no CEO to

print 10 million more Bitcoin overnight

whereas that might happen with an equity

so when we talk about an escape hatch if

you're looking for a safe haven I see

Bitcoin is the most it's the most secure

most uh reliable most certain

thing in the entire economic universe

and if you're looking for some place

where you can store your life force or

your economic energy you know there's no

real question right Bitcoin you can

store it and take it with you wherever

you want or you can put it in land and a

State subject to a governor a mayor a

country or you can put it on the stock

exchange and you can worry about what

the CEO or the board of directors will

do the next day Michael let me ask you

this um some CEOs some academics some

economists they look at Bitcoin and they

are emboldened by it they see the future

in it they they're see the possibilities

in it other academics or CEOs or

academics they look at it and they

become frightened by it they develop

Bitcoin derangement syndrome and they

seem genuinely threatened by it what

what goes on what happens is something

in the mind or they're not prepared for

it you're now on the front line of this

thing you're very visible you're the CEO

you're the guy you're talking to them

what what explains this phenomenon the

Bitcoin derangement syndrome phenomenon

I

I think that if you're comfortable in

your environment if you if you have

plenty of wealth and you're in a

comfortable situation then uh it's in

your best interest just to assume that

things will go on the way are and you

can't imagine a change in you can't

imagine a change in the underlying

physical circumstances of your

environment you know like if the ship is

sinking and you know the ship is sinking

then you become enamored with the

Lifeboat but if you don't know the ship

is sinking and you've got the luxury

cabin on the ship and someone comes and

knocks on your door and says you got to

run out and jump in the water right now

you think that it's a nagging problem so

to appreciate Bitcoin you got to put in

the work but you have to have the

motivation and I think that some people

some people put in a lot of work learned

it and understood it and then of course

they're very passionate about it others

they have the motivation but they

haven't put in the work and then a lot

of people don't have the motivation

right it's not going to change their

life and so they they can't conceive of

their world view changing or Sinking

because they're just think like whenever

I see anybody criticizing I say well

what's your solution to people in

Argentina

right like when you're in New York in

Manhattan and you're in a cocktail party

and then you're criticizing this like

what are you saying to everybody else in

Africa or South America or Asia

or Venezuela what is your solution to

them

[Applause]

all right

and I I think that Bitcoin critics as a

general rule they all fall in this

category they all just criticize

something that they don't understand

that's new

and and I've never seen a Critic say I

hate Bitcoin I think that people in the

rest of the world should buy no one says

they should buy Apple stock to save

their life savings in Africa to avoid

having it be stolen by the local

government nobody says that so if you

don't give a constructive solution to

the problem then you're just reflexively

rejecting a new thing

are you essentially a corporate heretic

and what I mean by that is in corporate

CEO Suites they borrow money and they

buy back their own stock and their

executive options go up a lot in value

and they cash out you looked at this

situation you said oh the Ice Cube on my

balance sheets melting I'm going to buy

Bitcoin I'm even going to borrow money

to buy Bitcoin it seems almost like a

speculative attack on the Central Bank

itself is that a fair characterization

uh what are your comments

okay

I think for a decade conventional

treasury strategy was I buy short dated

treasuries and in order to get my stock

up I buy back my equity and leverage up

my cash flows

I I watched 99

out of a hundred of my competitors all

go out of business pursuing that

strategy what they do is they either buy

they do a dilutive acquisition where

they buy another company and they keep

bolting on Acquisitions until they've

got 37 companies and all falls apart and

then they sell themselves or take

themselves private or they keep buying

their stock back and leveraging up and

and one way is decapitalizing the

company the other way is diluting the

company uh

when what I was doing with Bitcoin was I

was saying I don't want to decapolis the

company I want to keep the capital or

grow the capital but but I want to put

an asset on the balance sheet and I

think a big breakthrough is I can

convert my cash from a liability to an

asset and then we realize that if that

asset is going to go up by more than 10

percent a year and you can borrow money

at five percent or four or three or two

then you should pretty much borrow as

much money as you can and flip it into

the asset and why wouldn't you

right but it it does kind of call time

on this ultra low interest rate policies

by the central banks that seem to be

there only to benefit a few select at

the top while disenfranchising the many

and if all corporations did what you

guys are doing it would seem to disrupt

the central banks which in fact would

then help Bitcoin is there a virtuous

cycle here should central banks take a

more politicized stance and do this for

that reason as a way to get rid of

possibly the greatest threat we have and

that is the central banks and I'm

tacitly having you agree with this

thought quite unfairly with this

question uh however I think you see it

I'm driving at is there a political

angle to this at all

are you allowed to say that

I think we can all go forward

constructively together

and look Ray dalio says he'd rather own

Bitcoin than a bond there's a hundred

trillion in bonds that was a big

statement that he made just a week ago

right corporate treasuries are holding

bonds as people rotate bonds and cash

into bitcoin price Discovery will return

to bonds and that means that you can buy

an annuity for a fair price and that's

good for the world it would be good to

be able to buy a bond that had a good

annuity stream I think that price

Discovery will return to stocks and

you'll be able to buy a stock that pays

a decent dividend that's less risky and

that will be good for the world I think

that you'll be able to buy if we if

we're able if we demonetize

residential real estate you'll be able

to buy a house at half the price that's

twice as good that'll be good to the

world and so I think that The Virtuous

cycle is Bitcoin is demonetizing gold

your jewelry will be twice as good half

as expensive is demonetizing Real Estate

your house will be twice as big half as

expensive is demonetizing debt you will

be able to buy an annuity that yields

eight percent interest with no risk is

demonetizing equity and ETFs you'll be

able to invest in a company and not pay

50 times revenue and take a risk you'll

be able to invest reasonably and so

Bitcoin fixes everything and and it

fixes

[Applause]

and and if you wish me to make a

political statement the political

statement would be it fixes governments

because as it fixes everything else

governments act rationally

and right now you can see governments

acting rationally right in Weak

countries their currency collapses to

zero and they have to adopt a new

currency right now they're adopting the

dollar I see a world where eight billion

people have a mobile device and they

have a digital wallet and they have a

current a digital currency like a dollar

or a Euro and then they have a digital

asset Bitcoin and Bitcoin links together

eight billion people links together 100

million companies it synchronizes the

world across political jurisdiction and

it returns rationality to the entire

Financial system and it returns freedom

and property rights to the human race

[Applause]

all right now you've said

um on occasions it's very interesting

um you you seem to allude to or refer to

bitcoin as something of a new life form

and sometimes you refer to it as

evolving uh you say nothing can compete

with Bitcoin as money unless it's a

unique beautiful creature that does

something unique uh it's like a plankton

or a lobster uh you refer to one of the

shit coins out there ethereum as a shark

duck that lives in trees

right so you you use these life

affirming metaphors quite often and but

the idea is it a

the reason I bring this up is because

the difficulty adjustment the way it

acts

seems like it's alive in a lot of ways

so what what are your thoughts on this I

think that uh a crypto is a living

creature we've we've released life in

cyberspace

and and Bitcoin you could think of as a

plant life or a plankton it's a base

level life it's it's not the most

complicated creature it's not you could

think of it some of the other d5s they

want to be animals and run around and

Bitcoin wants to be green Greenery and

and cover the entire earth once you've

released the DNA of the of the Bitcoin

you just have to let it Fester

everywhere in the world and let it be it

I think the beautiful thing about

Bitcoin is it's done there's no reason

why it can't become a hundred trillion

200 300 trillion dollar creature

and uh I the fundamental difference I

think with the crypto asset like Bitcoin

versus what other people are trending in

their spaces is the whole idea of a

crypto asset is I put my my monetary

energy my life force into it

and then I let it I let it live for the

next thousand years and it's okay just

to be alive for a thousand years it's

okay to be you know what's wrong with

being rich forever

right I mean

and that and that's what Bitcoin is and

then all of the Innovation will take

place of the layer too I think it's I

think when uh Square builds Bitcoin when

PayPal builds Bitcoin into its Layer Two

which people build lightning

applications into their applications on

the layer too I think they're doing all

the beautiful intricate functional high

performance things and they take the

risk they have the upside but we don't

impair the underlying base layer the

life force of the world is Bitcoin we

just got to let it be and respect it for

what it is and not mess with it

now

so let me ask you this so you are I

believe the longest sitting CEO of a

tech company in America

uh active CEO continuous going 20 years

and you've been around the block a few

times you know the industry

and

this is like a second life for you I

would say this is was this was it a

shock to suddenly come upon this

technology and really there's been a

rebirth for a microstrategy and for for

this industry how do you on a personal

level was that a surprise to you and how

did you react to that you know I mean

they say Bitcoin we say Bitcoin is Hope

and Bitcoin fixes everything I I think

it definitely I definitely was the case

with our company I mean our stock was at

ninety dollars a share we were one we

were 120 a share when we actually

decided to embark on this strategy

and it imbued life into the into the

company

life into the employee morale was

dramatically boosted you know we just

had our best quarter best first quarter

we've had in a decade

I I was ready to quietly retire I had

not posted on Facebook not posted on

Instagram not posted on Twitter for four

years

uh just about

and then Bitcoin happened to me and I

got dragged into the into the Limelight

again

and here I am right

[Applause]

yeah it's a really incredible story and

um so you mentioned something I was

curious about the culture at the company

you know the CEO kind of establishes the

the mood the culture of the company so

the Bitcoin now has has changed the

culture you've seen a change in what's

going on in microstrategy in that sense

yeah I mean the employees are really

fired up would that you would you say

that that's another selling point in

other words when you talk to other CEOs

you say oh the Stock's great this

asset's great melting Ice Cube is great

but you know what the culture at our

company is also great the the we got I

think you have 2 000 employees there's

it's it's a big company it's also a huge

benefit there it was is that another

point that needs to get across to these

CEOs that might be sitting on the fence

you know Bitcoin is a technical

imperative it's an economic imperative

and it's a moral imperative and if you

want to revitalize your company then you

need to embrace it right and and we see

that example if I have a billion dollars

on the balance sheet and it's in cash

I'm losing 200 million a year you're

draining money out the balance sheet and

if it's not on the p l you're not

bringing it in on that side so you're

you're you're sucking energy out of the

company with the conventional treasury

strategy and and when we flipped we

started injecting energy into the

company it's like jacking your company

into the electric power grid if you look

at successes like like uh square and

PayPal by them plugging into Bitcoin it

injected energy into their P LS I mean

and they're just a wonderful success

stories in the industry and when we

injected

are you doing something good for 8

billion people

like here's an interesting thing I go on

CNBC and I look on Twitter and I find

like my interviews run 750 000 times on

Twitter I said to my friend Eric I said

what's cnbc's audience and he goes oh

they only have about 180 000 people

watching and then I said how did this

play against other stories okay

the CEO of Exxon Mobil went on CNBC to

talk about the most important thing in

the business he had 4 000 views

the CEO of Apple Computer goes on CNBC

12 000 views

Barry Dillard goes on CNBC and he talks

about how he hates Apple's store and how

the entire mobile app ecosystem is

wrecked

12 000 views

and so I think the story here is Bitcoin

is hope for 8 billion people

if your company is gonna is going to be

meaningful to the world do something to

spread Bitcoin and if your company is

sitting on a balance sheet that's

investing their money into an asset

which is losing 20 percent of its value

every year

's a good idea right

stop the bleeding

right just stop the bleeding right

so finally

um let's just talk about the Cyber

Hornets

um on your Twitter the lead tweet is the

mentions of cyber horn it's the plebs

the meme artists the ground forces the

people on who are fighting every day in

the trenches who are fighting for those

10 satoshi's 20 satoshi's who are

spinning the wheel over it full for

another you know 20 satoshi's you know

how important are they to this

Renaissance 2.0

I

I think that the reason that Bitcoin is

going to win is because of the community

ethos

and when I refer to cyber Hornets

yeah I I refer to everybody on everybody

on Twitter and everybody in the

community that's that's uh educating the

world and defending Bitcoin yeah and

they're the they're the the loud in your

face cyber Hornets but I was also

thinking about every Bitcoin miner

running a Bitcoin mining rig everywhere

on Earth and they're fighting for the

network and I was thinking about

everybody running a node

and I think of a note is like an altar

to Satoshi in your house as long as

everybody is running that node they're

defending the network and they're

defending the movement and I was

thinking about every company and I was

thinking about every single technology

that integrates into Bitcoin I was

thinking about every analyst and every

politician and and every uh every uh

journalist that's defending speaking out

for educating or supporting this network

and it's happening in every country in

in Korean in Japanese in Spanish and

Russian everywhere on Earth

and you know one thing that I just love

is you know if you go on on television

you're the CEO and someone says what do

you think about Bitcoin I think okay I'm

going to talk about this and try to

explain to the world why this is good

for the Earth good for technology the

future of humanity and then when I get

done I go home and I turn on the

television there's another Bitcoin CEO

and then the next morning there's

another Bitcoin CEO and the next day

there's an analyst and the next day

there's some there's a politician and I

just think that's so great to be in a

community every one of them is a cyber

hornet they're all fighting for Bitcoin

and when someone Falls someone else will

stand up and carry the banner and and

take it forward and I don't think you

can say that about anything else on this

Earth

cometh the hour cometh the man Michael

Sellers let's give it up thank you for

the settlement

thank you

all right