Michael Saylor: The Ultimate Interview on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Doge and The Future of Currency

well my next guest is michael saylor the

ceo of microstrategy he's the man who

convinced elon musk to take tesla

dollars or out of u.s dollars and move

it into bitcoin we know what's happening

to the u.s dollars right now his company

holds over 2.5 billion dollars in

bitcoin and he is the champion of the

bitcoin standard michael is now the

guest on my show michael welcome to the

show a real treat to have you here

thanks for having me

real pleasure so let's talk about i want

to get your take on some news of the day

before we kind of get knee deep into

gold and where you see bitcoin going and

some of the cryptocurrency standards

moving forward but this struck my eye

this morning um you know this is to me

something i talk about on our show all

the time about uh you know poor people

just getting screwed over by central

governments and fiat currency and this

was the news of the day today as

venezuela

uh

takes

you know as venezuelans are taking

refuge in cryptocurrencies moving out of

their their

you know their fiat currency but we're

seeing more and more of this what's your

what's your thought on

people there who living in tents finding

refuge in bitcoin and crypto

well um i think that um it's a basic

human right

to property

and what property really means is the

ability to store economic energy over

time in order to sustain yourself we

know there's 1.7 people that or 1.7

billion that are unbanked

and if i really wanted to wreck your

life first i would

take away all your money

then i would take away your banking

account

and then i would

collapse the currency that you work in

so that even if you do make a hundred

dollars it's only worth 50 next year and

25 the year thereafter and

and it buys nothing

in uh in 36 to 48 months

so

if you look at the plight of venezuelans

they've got a collapsing currency

many of them are unbanked

and um and of course the property that

they could hold

in the country

isn't uh isn't holding value

so

what i think is that bitcoin represents

hope uh

to billions and billions of people

around the world

and uh the right to property is a is a

basic human right

and if we take away

a bank of economic energy

from humanity

it's the same as sentencing them to slow

starvation

so

obviously i'm i'm a big believer that

bitcoin you know is a is critical to

spreading human rights around the world

and what you see right now is that

is that uh in countries where the

currency is collapsing the banking

system doesn't work

then people are turning uh to bitcoin

and and they're using their mobile

phones

to hold a crypto asset

in order to protect themselves

yeah in order to take care of their

family moving away from their country's

currency as their country continues to

print more money devalue debase the

currency

uh do you think that that's why some of

these uh central banks are pushing back

on on on bitcoin on cryptocurrency are

they

scared i really think that most central

banks view it as an asset a crypto asset

and so

i think there's a narrative in the

community that central banks are pushing

back on i really don't think they are

um

if i look at all the utterances i think

mark carney has said on the record it's

a crypto asset

jerome powell has said on the record

it's like digital gold it's like an

asset yeah he sees it as a store of

value a store of value the deputy

governor of the chinese central bank has

said it's it's an asset christina

lagarde of the eu central bank has said

yeah it's a it's an asset i mean they

might say it's a speculative asset

but um currency

is a medium of exchange and it's the

province of governments

and in order to be a currency you have

to be deemed non-taxable upon transfer

and bitcoin is not bitcoin is uh deemed

property by the irs and and most

countries deem it as property which

makes it an asset not a currency

so

i think that the way the world is

evolving we're going to see five billion

or more people with mobile phones and

mobile wallets and in that wallet is

going to be

a selection of currencies and a

selection of assets

and the strongest currency is the dollar

and the strongest asset is bitcoin

and in countries like

venezuela they're going to lose their

currency privileges

and their citizens are going to default

to the dollar as a medium of exchange

but the only way that you can deploy uh

dollars as a medium of exchange to

billions of people across hundreds of

countries and tens of thousands of

banking systems or application networks

is if you have a global

settlement network which is a shared

monetary protocol

and that is bitcoin

so bitcoin is the global monetary

network that allows

everybody on earth to store their

economic energy over long periods of

time

and it also allows everyone to

synchronize those mobile wallets in

zimbabwe and venezuela and nigeria and

india and argentina and the us and china

and the like and so i see an emerging

economy with a digital asset

called bitcoin and a digital currency

likely the dollar but if not the dollar

perhaps uh the raymond b

right and if not if not the chinese

currency then perhaps the euro

at the end of the day the winner is

going to be the strongest currency which

will come from the strongest country and

the strongest economic network which

will be the u.s

and the winning asset will be the

strongest crypto asset with the greatest

security and the greatest acceptance and

the most stability and that will be

bitcoin

so is it wrong then to be calling them

crypto currencies

yes

it is wrong um most sophisticated people

that have studied it realize they're

crypto assets

bitcoin is a crypto asset

uh it's not a cryptocurrency it's a it's

a tragic misnomer

and uh and because people call it a

cryptocurrency

then it lends itself to a shallow

criticism that it's not good as a

currency because the central banks will

ban it and because the tax treatment is

poor and because the transaction rate is

low

but again those are all red herrings

it's not a currency nor does it need to

be a currency

right any anybody

thinking about it for even a few seconds

realizes that

if there's a taxable event every time i

transfer it to you

it can't be a currency so it's

so no it's not a currency it's an asset

and if you think of it as an asset

it's very helpful because then you

realize it's not competing with the

dollar and the euro it's competing with

gold and silver

it's competing with bearer instruments

uh

and and to a certain degree

it's competing with bonds as a store of

value

and it's competing with

etfs like the s p 500 index as a store

of value

and once you understand it that way

then you're not so afraid anymore

because you understand the regulatory

framework that comes to bitcoin is the

same regulatory framework that comes to

gold silver and s p 500 indexes

it's just know your customer anti-money

laundering regulations

and if you're if you're afraid to buy

bitcoin because you're afraid of

regulation

you shouldn't be

because if it is regulated parapursu or

at parity with these other assets it

will create um

it'll create a avalanche of

institutional money flow into the asset

class because it'll simply normalize the

treatment in the western world the irs

in 2014

deemed it to be property right and it's

property it means that it means that

when you transfer it you owe a capital

gains tax so there is like zero chance

the irs is going to reverse that it is

property it's not a currency and if you

don't report it it's a felony i mean

it's i mean this is the problem i think

i wanted to touch on a little bit is

that i think you see a lot of these

crypto billionaires on you know so

millionaires on on youtube and other

places where

buying flashy cars and so forth if

they're using

if they're using their crypto in order

to buy those things and they're not

reporting it to the irs that's a huge

mistake

yeah it's not very wise

to transfer

bitcoin to pay for anything i mean the

only if you were to say to me i can pay

you in bitcoin

it doesn't make a lot of sense because

it's the transactions are slow but if i

had highly appreciated bitcoin

i would be accelerating a shorter

long-term capital gains bill in order to

pay you and so the only way that i would

pay you in bitcoin would be i would take

a hundred dollars i would buy bitcoin

and then one minute later i would

transfer the bitcoin to you so that uh

the basis and the bitcoin is equal

at the time i acquired it and the time

that i uh transferred it

so i i think that this is a vestige from

the first decade when there are a lot of

retail

uh retail users of uh of bitcoin and

before they understood the law but the

law has been very clear in the us since

2014

and any institution

right any high net worth any individual

any corporation any institutional

investor

understands that you acquire this stuff

you're going to hold it now i'll make

one more point it's it's doesn't make

any sense to pay for anything in bitcoin

for two reasons

the first reason is because it's a

taxable event

and you're a fool to accelerate taxes on

your own person by a decade the second

reason it doesn't make sense

is because it's a long duration asset

that's deflationary which means

it's likely to go up in value it's been

going up 150 to 200 a year every year

for a decade so why would you

why would you pay a million dollars in

bitcoin to buy something which is gonna

which is going to um depreciate in value

when the million dollars in bitcoin may

very well double one two three four five

more times

right so it's an it's a long-term

investment asset

a much wiser course of action

would be

to borrow money against bitcoin

if you have an appreciating asset

never sell it

finance it and um and the assets

appreciating at twenty percent a year

and if the interest rate is five percent

then it's pretty

pretty obvious what you ought to do is

keep the asset pay five percent interest

because um

the tax bill on um money that's borrowed

is zero

so you could live

off of

off of your borrowings against your

appreciating asset for the rest of your

life

with ever paying the asset back without

without ever paying

the the loan back

and without ever paying

any income tax

and without ever paying any capital

gains tax

in the in the us other tax regimes may

be different but in the us right now

that would be the treatment

and i hope my audience is paying

attention because that's exactly i mean

the brilliance of you and what we try to

teach here on the channel about means

why i'm a long-term buy-and-hold real

estate investor because

you're not paying the taxes on the debt

and that's how you build you can build

wealth appropriately and using it that

way so don't be just selling your

bitcoin and buying ferraris with it um

you know don't be a knucklehead with it

um what if you don't really have native

ferrari you're better off to borrow the

money

against the bitcoin

like you can be rich with a ferrari a

yacht and a jet you need to have

borrowed the money against a tangible

asset which is going up in value as the

money supply expands in order to keep

and pay for

the ferrari the yacht and the jet

exactly exactly are there any

alternative coins any altcoins that you

invest in or you're bullish on when you

look at i mean i don't

look at any of these that are out there

right now you're looking at cardano or

ethereum are you just strictly they're

all they're all ventures right i mean

bitcoin's the dominant crypto asset

ethereum is the dominant crypto

application you can divide the entire

universe

into some segments

you know and ethereum is competing with

binance smart chain and solana

that's very competitive they're very

complicated

they're very centralized much more

centralized than bitcoin

they have to be centralized because they

need to run on proof-of-stake networks

because they need the speed

so proof of stake itself is orders of

magnitude more centralized than proof of

work

because you don't have these sprawling

networks of miners with their asics

everywhere on earth sucking up energy to

keep any one person from getting control

the network

so

bitcoin is is like the dominant the

dominant winner of sound money

these other things they're just very

risky

they could crash one could win one could

lose

ethereum doesn't even run on proof of

stake yet

so

you know basically you don't know when

they turn on proof of stake the entire

thing's not going to go in some bizarre

way right what will happen you don't

know

interesting

so uh so let me say it a different way

if you have if you're a crypto investor

and you run a venture capital fund and

you want to make

investments with high risk high reward

and you want to study it

and you want to take the risk

then you can trade in those things but

in my opinion they're a hundred times

less lucrative over time and they're 100

times more risky so it seems like it's a

you know ten thousand to one difference

i wouldn't do it but other people do it

and

it's probably good for the industry

because it markets the industry right

right

and and you know they're venture

capitalists they have to do it

like i'm not gonna you know i'm not

gonna tell them not to do it it's like

this is this is one risk tranche this is

a different wrist tranche if you're

super smart and if you get you know if

you guess will it be buying a smart cone

or ethereum or maybe it's both maybe you

trade but you know when you get into

that you get this question of well when

are you going to take money off the top

and when are you you know when are you

going to diversify and are you going to

be in it

forever

i

right you know i tend to think i would

prefer to invest in things like a hole

for a decade if not 100 years

but but there are plenty of people whose

job is their venture capitalist

and the venture capitalists are betting

on things where they think there's a 90

probability it'll fail

but they think that they'll get 100x

return if it hits

you know so that's it's a different

thing right so i would say it depends on

your portfolio of money

like what are you investing someone

else's money your own money or your vc

are you a private equity investor are

you

a saver converts their money into a

strong currency

an investor manages a portfolio of risk

i buy some apples from facebook some

google they've all got risk a trader

manages a portfolio of risk derivatives

i'm guessing you know i've got options

in apple and i think that apple's going

to beat on the next quarterly release

right right i'm not even it's not even a

portfolio of risk over a decade it's a

portfolio of risk over 90 days

or it's the second derivative of risk

i'm like shorting apple options against

google options because i think the

spread is coming in and

it's something you can do

right it's just a different thing right

i'm arbitraging people's risk

derivatives and

fine knock yourself out if you're bored

if it's your profession but and another

analogy is like a decade ago if you

bought if you bought apple on amazon and

just held them

you probably would have made a lot of

money you would have made 10 to 20 extra

money

now

if i could go back 20 years or 10 years

would i give people advice about when to

buy and sell apple in the year 2012

or what you know how to trade apple

options against amazon

should you buy or sell amazon in your

2014 can you remember off the top of

your head

whether you should have bought or sold

amazon in 2015 so you could buy it back

cheaper in 2016 or did it

by the way if you

you know jeff bezos was at war with

donald trump before the election

and so what's the worst thing that could

happen to amazon

you would think that it would be donald

trump getting elected right

right

but you know if you had actually sold

amazon once you know that donald trump

was getting elected

it would have been the most catastrophic

decision in your life because amazon

stock doubled in the first 12 months

after donald trump was

elected understand what i'm saying right

it's like you're a trader and you know

the future you'll probably still lose

money

because the best thing that ever

happened to jeff bezos

okay jeff bezos his his greatest enemy

got elected president jeff bezos stock

went from like 800 to 3 200

okay jeff bezos got divorced is that bad

should have been bad for amazon didn't

seem to be bad it's good for them you

know like all sorts of

it's hard to predict what might be good

or what might be bad you go back a

decade and if i told you i think

facebook google apple amazon are good

companies what's your best strategy

i have no idea yeah well it's it's

simple buy and hold it oh yeah just buy

and hold it i guess yeah

yeah because you could have these ups

you know who is facebook going to be

affected by amazon's privacy and in

their new ios update 14.5 you know is

how is that going to play out you know

your best strategy would be to buy it

and then mortgage your house and buy

some more

like don't trade it on margin you know

where if you get a 20 drawdown you get

liquidated but but mortgage your house

mortgage your car mortgage your company

buy amazon apple facebook google and

wait

if you can't more if you can't raise

debt

then take all your money in your piggy

bank and buy and wait

and

all this uh you know and by the way if

you

if you basically just bought them and

turned off the television

and didn't read a newspaper for a decade

you'd be better off

yeah and don't pick up the washington

post which in that in the interim was

purchased by amazon

yeah because everything that you read is

just calculated to give you anxiety and

hysteria and and get you to trade or

hedge your position

right i want to ask you about janet

yellen yesterday made comments that sent

the markets into a nosedive and nasdaq

dropped pretty big yesterday on her

discussion of

having to possibly you know increase

interest rates here to help stabilize

things then she walked it back a short

time later

all of this of course around the idea of

inflation and jerome powell saying we're

going to let this run hot for a while so

how does bitcoin how does cryptocurrency

fit into this inflationary discussion

right now

i think bitcoin is the best monetary

inflation hedge in the world

if you know that um that the central

banks are going to expand the currency

supply

then the most important thing you can do

is construct a portfolio of high quality

assets that are scarce

that are going to appreciate in price

at a faster rate than the currency

supply expands

and so that means

uh bitcoin because it's ultimately

scarce and fungible you can transfer it

anywhere in the world and

people with money are always going to

want it

and after that

perhaps clearly the home that you want

to live in the rest of your life

trophy real estate that has tangible

value to you

perhaps uh trophy art

a mona lisa you know something which is

extremely scarce you know a van gogh

painting

if the currency supply increases by a

factor of 10 and you have a very scarce

piece of art presumably the price of the

artwork is going to go up

uh the best thing going of course would

be scarce

assets that you can finance

so if you have a home that you love

and you can get a two and a half percent

mortgage for the next 10 to 30 years

against it

then it makes sense to

maximize the mortgage

hold the

property when the money supply is

expanded by a factor of 10

if your home is in a place where no one

else wants to live it won't go up by a

factor of 10 because it won't be scarce

but if you've got three acres in the

hamptons on the beach

or in palm beach right if you if you

live in a truly desirable community the

price of the home is going to go up and

as the price goes up your loan's going

to be fixed you'll be able to refinance

the home you've got leveraged equity if

you will or leverage property

i think bitcoin fits into that is

bitcoin is appreciating at the fastest

rate faster than the nasdaq or the s p

or

or luxury real estate or

or or average real estate around the

country

because it's the most scarce

most desirable asset

so

that's how it fits in

how do you see what is the exit strategy

then for for bitcoin for you um there's

no exit strategy no and i mean do you

think that we'll see some sort of a fed

vehicle like the 1031 exchange that

would allow you a

a move out of something like this into

something else a like-and-kind asset i

mean see the point is why like why would

you exit from the best investment asset

in the world if it keeps getting better

like there's nothing you can buy that's

better so you're you're selling the

winner to buy the loser

if

um let me let me make it uh simpler

if you owned um if you owned uh a

company in venezuela

and the company sold anything and you

got paid in boulevards

and you decided that and you knew that

the boulevard is going to keep falling

like 20 30 a year

and you roll the clock back 20 years

if you were

if you were unwise you just keep working

and eventually your assets go to zero

and if you were smart you would convert

your cash flows into us dollars and put

it in a bank in new york city

now

when would you exit from the from the

dollars in new york city and trade back

into the boulevards in venezuela

right unless

if that became a standard if that became

the leading currency in the world what

if the united states government said

well you know you can do it tax-free

you're still not going to do it no right

exactly right i mean and that would be

the case for any any uh weakening

currency in argentina and if you're in

zimbabwe

when are you going to exit your us if

you basically bought you know

a new york city apartment and companies

in new york city and you're a

billionaire in the united states when

are you going to sell all that and

reinvest it back in zimbabwe

you're not ever right right so

because the point is

one of the assets is stronger than the

other asset

if bitcoin is capped at 21 million for

the next thousand years

it's only going to get more valuable

right you can make more you can make

more apartments in new york city you can

print more u s dollars you can create

more houses on the beach

you can create more artwork you know

give me something which is scarcer than

pure monetary energy on the dominant

global digital monetary network

there's not ever going to be anything

like 100 years from now there won't be

anything right

right this is not it's not like buying

you know you could say it's like buying

a block of manhattan 200 years ago but

it's better than that because if you

bought if you bought land in manhattan

200 years ago when would you sell it

to buy land in kansas to buy why would

you ever right you wouldn't ever sell it

but this is better than that because

this is one city in cyberspace where

five billion people are going to live

there you don't need the second city or

the third like

like whereas you can make the argument

that well you need a tokyo and a london

and a paris

but

in cyberspace

people in tokyo london and paris and

manhattan are all putting their money in

bitcoin so

so this is uh it's a global dominant

pure monetary energy network

so there's you don't need an exit

strategy

right diversification is selling the

winner to buy the losers

you're not getting here you know like

it's like an exit strategy from

from

a country where the currency is

collapsing you're reinvesting back into

a place

that's uh that's weakening so

the right thing to do is the opposite

and what you should expect is an

inversion of the entire financial order

as uh bitcoin grows

you're going to see people sweep greater

portions of their investable assets into

bitcoin and the entire ecosystem will

reorient

where bitcoin is the center of the

universe and at some point bitcoin

becomes 100 trillion to 200 trillion

dollars

of an asset and everything else is a

derivative of

bitcoin it's basically synced to the

bitcoin standard

the bitcoin standard and holding it

forever i mean there is no exit strategy

as a store of value i mean so you truly

see it as the ultimate store of value

then

there's nothing better

you see

yeah like

bitcoin is a is a crypto asset network

engineered to be the ultimate long

duration safe haven asset uh

all the things about it for example the

21 million hard cap protocol that's

critical

the proof of work

uh mining network that's critical um the

the fact that uh it's thermodynamically

sound with an open permissionless

protocol that's

critical

is there anything better than that on

earth no

no it's a hundred times more powerful

than the next closest like kind thing

so

you're not gonna you know the world's

not going back to a gold standard

because gold isn't a network and it

doesn't have a protocol you know you

can't you can't synchronize

gold on 5 billion mobile phones every

second

right you're not going to go to a silver

standard you're not going to go to

uranium or lumber

so what are you going to do you're going

to use sovereign debt no because you

can't synchronize u.s treasury bills on

a 5 billion mobile phones in zimbabwe

it's illegal to do it in nigeria or

venezuela it's not going to happen right

what are you going to do etfs

nope

another crypto well there is no other

crypto that's got the proof of work

stability and security of the bitcoin

network so

so there isn't anything right so that's

why

you don't trade in and out of it

you buy it

and then you hold it

and you just let nature take its course

because the energy the monetary energy

in the world is is just surging into

this network as people realize

it's the strongest monetary protocol and

the strongest monetary asset in the

world

i want to talk a little bit about gold

i know you've had great debates on gold

and why you see bitcoin as a far greater

store of value you've mentioned it just

here a few minutes ago but let's talk

about that you have a lot of gold bulls

who who see gold running up to two

thousand dollars it has becomes i don't

scarcer i mean people say it's the

scarcest resource but perhaps bitcoin as

a digital asset is scarcer where do you

come down on this great gold debate do

you see it close to gold is is gold a

close second in any way

no i think that the people that buy gold

believe in sound money

and they're idealist

but they're being tragically misled by

gold promoters most of the people that

are selling gold don't actually own the

gold that they sell the gold miners are

all short gold they dump gold on the

market as fast as they possibly can

and

no none of them hold gold as a treasury

asset none of the gold promoters hold

gold as a treasury asset i don't think

you can find a single gold promoter that

has more than 51 percent of their

balance sheet invested in gold in fact

most of them on the record either say

they don't own any gold they just own

gold miners or they own no more than 10

percent

so like you know the people that own

more than 50 of their portfolio and gold

are idealist but the problem is gold is

a defective asset on a non-existent

network

why is it defective asset well i mean it

peaked in the 19th century but it's

it's not thermodynamically sound you can

make more gold

at the you know at the nature level we

keep the miners keep dumping gold on the

marketplace to spend 100 billion dollars

a year to dump gold on the marketplace

um the difference between that and

bitcoin is is bitcoin is capped at 21

million gold is infinitely increasing in

supply

i mean the second reason is defective is

because there's like 90 000 tons of gold

sitting in jewelry

so whenever the price goes up people

melt down their jewelry and they recycle

gold to drive the price down

the third reason the assets defective

is because there's no protocol to

synchronize paper gold or the gold

applications at the banking level with

the underlying physical gold which means

that that paper gold or gold derivatives

can short the physical gold 100x or more

that means that as the price of gold

goes up gold bankers and gold sellers

keep dumping more gold paper on the

market to hold the price back

so

i would say gold is hopeless it's really

a tragic hopeless asset

and i think that the people that are

buying it are getting misled by

promoters most of the promoters get a

commission to sell it

or the gold miners are are making money

selling it but

you know think about it for a second if

i pass the law making gold mining

illegal everywhere in the world what

would happen to the price of gold

wouldn't you think yeah it would

skyrocket okay well the point is bitcoin

is

capped

and so gold is competing as a sound

money store of value against something

which is capped gold is a commodity

commodities don't hold value right you

might as well invest your money in wheat

or corn or coal

or oil at the end of the day the reason

they don't hold value is when the price

of the commodity goes up by a factor of

10

everybody on earth scrambles to invest

in more machinery more manufacturing

capacity and they recycle and they dump

and they and they short the commodity

that's that's why it's a commodity if

you want to

you don't really want to store your

money for a hundred years

in silverware or some something that's

used as an industrial metal

or something as you gold and silver uses

industrial metals if you want to store

your money for 100 years

you want to put it in a pure monetary

asset which cannot be debased or

inflated or manipulated

the thing that's special about bitcoin

is

it's an asset plus a network plus a

protocol the asset is capped at 21

million and is only going to shrink uh

it can never go up people can lose their

bitcoin but they can't create any more

the network is an open network which

means i can move a block of a billion

dollars of bitcoin from here to tokyo

in an hour

for

a few dollars

and uh you know that'll eventually be

moving 10 billion dollars and then 100

billion dollars so it's a very powerful

final settlement network if you wanted

to move a billion dollars of gold from

new york to tokyo you're talking three

months and five million dollars you

can't

so gold is tragically centralized there

is no network

uh and then there's no protocol the

protocol of bitcoin means

paypal can integrate 330 million mobile

phones into an underlying bitcoin

network and keep them synchronized with

integrity

um you can withdraw your bitcoin off the

custodial exchange and that means that

the exchange can't go a hundred x naked

short on the bitcoin

if they do there's no fractional banking

or it's fractional banking at your uh at

your own peril and bitcoin because

you know look my company doesn't have

two and a half billion worth of bitcoin

we have like five and a half billion

worth of bitcoin we can take it anywhere

we want to any exchange in one day

so if you were to you know if you were

to and we got it in coal storage

so if i had five and a half billion

dollars worth of apple stock

then the bank could short it and lend it

out

to drive the price down

if i had five and a half billion dollars

worth of gold

it'd be sitting in a bank and other

banks and and bullion bankers will write

uh derivative contracts against it

and short it and they're working against

me

so

the problem with gold is the gold miner

if you decide to invest money for a

hundred years in gold the gold miner is

your enemy he's going to take 90 of the

value by inflating the price of gold the

gold banker is your enemy they're going

to hypothecate it and dump derivatives

and then and then the government is your

enemy if gold gets too high they're just

gonna sell their reserves or short it

or seize it

because you can't you know try try

leaving the country with a hundred

million dollars of gold in your pockets

right right it's not gonna happen

so

ultimately this is why the gold standard

failed

in 1914

and why why gold reserves standards they

just don't work

the reason that bitcoin standard will

work

is because the custodial rights of five

billion people

are are unprecedented um there's never

been a property in the history of

humanity that gave the people more

custodial rights you know if you have a

50 android phone in zimbabwe

you can walk around with 10 000

worth of bitcoin

in your pocket and nobody knows you have

it

and even if i hold a gun to your head i

can't if i shoot you i'm still not

getting it

if i firebomb your house i'm not getting

it i can't take it away from you and if

you have one minute notice you can zap

it to the other end of the earth

so you can't do that with land

you can't do that with cattle you can't

do that with gold or silver you can't do

that with a stock or a bond or a piece

of commercial real estate

you can't do it with a pile of cash

what's better

right and the answer is nothing

and so if you want the bitcoin standard

to work where the gold standard failed

the key is the protocol and the network

because the network guarantees that

anybody that holds substantial amounts

of bitcoin have custodial privileges and

they can move it between any

jurisdiction and any custodian

in order to avoid counterparty risk and

avoid being victimized by the custodian

or the um

the province uh of custody

if new york wants to tax it i can move

it to wyoming if wyoming wants to tax it

i can move it to switzerland if i don't

trust the bank in switzerland i can move

it to singapore and if i don't trust

anybody i can move it to my own phone

and if i don't trust my phone

i can memorize the seed phrase and put

in my head

you can't do that with anything else

ever deemed property in the history of

the human race

the thing that causes the asset to hold

is value

is the fact that the counterparty can't

counterfeit it hypothecate it

or seize it

that's what caused it to have value

that's why silver and gold don't hold

their value

that's why these other fiat currencies

don't hold their value that's why

bitcoin is

going up in value faster than any other

asset that's why it's the most sound

property

in the world wealthy people and

corporations are thinking maybe this is

like the next

monetary index so once you know that

you know money's currency is coming

inflation's coming

sell everything that people can make

more of

buy everything

people can't make more of

right and what you know what can people

make the politicians can inflate the

currency so don't hold dollars and euros

and pesos

um

other another class of government

bureaucrats can inflate the debt that

new york bonds sovereign debt so don't

own that

so what can you own

right you you move on to you could own

stock

but the ceo of the company can create

more stock

so you gotta think hard about that

you could own gold but gold miners can

create more gold you can own

commodities they've actually done really

well because the demand ripped

but over the course of five years

companies can create more lumber they'll

figure it out once it's legal to show up

to work right

right so what what is it that people

can't really make any more of like mona

lisa

it's trophies

trophy asset

bitcoin

something which a dominant monopoly

you know five acres in

bridgehampton but i mean as long as

anybody wants to live in bridgehampton

your risk is the new york governor

tracks the taxes through the roof

and no one wants to live in new york

right and you can't move your house

that's why bitcoin is better than five

acres in bridgehampton

because if they jack the tax on bitcoin

in new york city i can move it out of

the city

but i can't move my building out of the

city

you can't transport it down to tennessee

or a more tax friendly environment i

totally agree with you and i think if we

can get this message out to more people

people that are scared about

you know this thing that's unfamiliar

you know you fear what you don't know

and so i think that's what a lot of

people are right now they think that

it's it's safe it's cushy to sit there

in their 401k