SaylorCorpus

The Appeal Of Bitcoin

Bloomberg HT · 2023-06-18 · 9m · View on X →

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special guest today on Bloomberg HD. Michael's sailor is the micro strategy founder and chairman.

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Michael, welcome. Yeah, thanks for having me. Bitcoin destined for an extended period of market

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dominance, potentially doubling its current level. How do you see the future of Bitcoin under global

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economical challenges, especially now fed signals that it might restart rate hikes? Well,

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Bitcoin represents the only universally acknowledged form of digital property or in the world. So if

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you're looking to own a piece of property that you can move to a hundred different countries where

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everybody in every country is going to want it. And if you want a piece of property that people will

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want in a hundred years, Bitcoin represents that universal global asset. There's no building,

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there's no stock, there's no company, there's no commodity that will last a hundred years that you

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can move from country to country. So so for global citizens that are looking for wealth preservation

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over the next hundred years and they're not quite sure about the economic policy of any country

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or about where they'll be and they want something scarce desirable that some affluent person is

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going to want to buy from them no matter where they end up. Bitcoin represents that asset.

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And as you know, there are some discussion on the crypto regulations, especially security and

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exchange commission is taking some actions on some cryptocurrency exchanges. What's your opinion

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on the digital assets regulations? Well, I think that there's universal acknowledgement that Bitcoin

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is the king digital commodity is an asset without an issuer. And so for that reason, the regulators

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in the US aren't bothering it. There are two other classes of assets, digital currencies like

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stablecoins and there are also digital securities that are issued by entrepreneurs and companies.

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The regulators are going to shut down the digital securities. There's not really any support for

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them and there's not any support for digital currencies either. They don't want large amounts of

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dollars to circulate outside the control of the US banking system. So of the three asset classes,

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the one safe haven for institutional investors that has the most regulatory support

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is Bitcoin as that king digital commodity. I expect that the rest of the crypto industry will

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continue to rationalize and these other assets will gradually be decaptalized over time.

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And you have expressed that point represents the best solution for those struggling

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in an economy with the collapsing, including the Turkish lira. How the Bitcoin can help

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some currencies internationally? Well, I think the key to keep in mind is over the past two, four,

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six, eight years. Bitcoin is outperforming gold, silver, bonds, all currencies as a monetary

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inflation hedge. So if you live in a United States, the US dollar has been losing 7% of its value

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every year for 100 years. And over 100 years, you lose 99.8% of your value if you don't switch to

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a scarce, desirable asset. But if you live in another country, Turkey, Argentina, etc.

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in many cases, I think the Turkish lira's lost 96% of its value against the US dollar in just 20 years.

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So the real key is to switch out of the weak currencies, whether it's the lira, the Lebanese,

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pound, the Argentine peso. But switching to the dollar is only a short term solution because holding

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the dollar more than a few years will cause you to suffer monetary debasement at the hands of that

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currency. So Bitcoin represents a way to buy a property that's going to go up in value. It's going

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to appreciate faster than the monetary inflation rate of either the dollar or local currency. And the

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other thing that's really appealing about it is you can take custody of it or place it with any

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number of international custodians. And of course, you can't really easily take custody of any other

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asset. So if you want to, if you want to eliminate counterparty risk that comes from having all of your

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assets with a bank or having all your assets in a single country or all your assets denominated in

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a single currency, Bitcoin is a way for you to, for you to exit economically from that system and from

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those counterparty risks. So that wouldn't be any fundamental structural problems.

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Yeah, the thing that backs Bitcoin is 400 exa hash of digital power. To put that in perspective,

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that's as much power energy as the entire US Navy uses and it's fleet, about 12 and a half gigawatts.

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And also, it's a fleet of 5 million Bitcoin ASIC miners spread everywhere in the world.

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They generate so much hash rate that if an AI took over every computer on earth, all the smart

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phones, all the computers that Amazon, Google and Microsoft, all of those computers couldn't

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dent the Bitcoin network. It's an extremely powerful digital energy network. And because of that,

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you don't have to put a billion dollars in a bank that's run in Lebanon or Argentina or the US

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or Turkey, you can put the billion dollars onto the Bitcoin network. And the Bitcoin network is

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nation state resistant. If all of China turned every computer against the Bitcoin network,

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they couldn't stop it. And so Bitcoin represents a new way to store your assets. And in fact,

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the most secure computer network in the world.

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And Bitcoin has to prove itself as a stable means of payment. So the price is very volatile.

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So moreover, how can a commodity price in US sellers solve the current problems?

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I think the key to keep in mind is that every citizen of the world needs three types of money.

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They need local currency, like you need the Turkish lira in order to pay your taxes and buy

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things locally. They want the world currency, the US dollar to buy things internationally.

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And then they want a property that they can give to their children and their children's

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children that will last 30 years or 60 years or 100 years. Bitcoin represents the property.

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The US dollar represents the world reserve currency. And then your local currency is determined by

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the jurisdiction you live in and what your local taxes and your local expenses are denominated in.

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You don't need to replace the local currency nor will you. And it's not going to replace the

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dollar either. What it's replacing is that building or that farm you're going to buy or that

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company you're going to invest in or a bar of gold. And compared to the bar of gold, which

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is not going up in value in dollar terms, Bitcoin is actually outperforming by a factor of

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of a hundred or more. So Bitcoin represents that long term asset, not your checking account

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or your near term local payments.

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I see. And my last question, Michael, Bitcoin's potential,

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boost cyber security, how is it possible?

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We live in a world today where AI could spend up a hundred million fake Michael

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sale accounts. And there's no cost to create a Twitter account or create another fake account

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or create an email account. So it's important that we actually have some way to

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to anchor your account into cyber space such that you have some substance. And the approach with

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Bitcoin is to take your credential, say your identity, your public and private key,

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burn the public key onto the Bitcoin blockchain, which is the most immutable, incorruptible,

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indestructible, immortal database in the world. And then use your private key in order to

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sign your transaction. So if I wanted to digitally sign this video interview to prove that it was me,

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or if I wanted to digitally sign my Twitter account or my WhatsApp account or an iMessage account

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or my email to prove it's me, I could use a private key that's linked to the public key on

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the Bitcoin base layer. And as I said before, if you wanted to corrupt that database,

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you would need an entire nation and you would still fail. And so whatever's on the Bitcoin

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base layer will be there in hundreds of years, even long after nations and companies fail. That's

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that's why Bitcoin represents this immutable form of truth. And it's more important than ever to

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have that veracity because an AI could actually be a better version of me. It'll work a million

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times harder and there'll be a million versions of them. And you're not going to be able to tell

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the difference unless you've somehow registered your cyber credentials on an indestructible

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immortal, incorruptible database. Michael, thank you so much for your time.

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