#622: Bitcoin For Millennials with Bram Kanstein

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You've had a dynamic where money has become freer than free.

(00:10):
You talk about a Fed just gone nuts.
All the central banks going nuts.
So it's all acting like safe haven.
I believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency,
Bitcoin wins.
In the world of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the victor.
I mean, that's part of the bull case for Bitcoin.

(00:31):
If you're not paying attention, you probably should be.
Man, you got an editor like in-house.
That's, that's bro.
That's, uh, it's because this setup, I'm so far away from the computer.
I just need somebody to hit the button.
Okay.
The extent, the extent of Logan's job extends far beyond just hitting the button.

(00:53):
But yeah, INTJ, I think.
I think it was as we rear into what looks to be another bull market, I think getting back to first principles and discussing the challenges of studying and understanding Bitcoin.
It's important to highlight the archetype of individuals who have studied, fallen down the rabbit hole and really dedicated their lives to Bitcoin.

(01:22):
in this INTJ cohort that exists within Bitcoin seems pretty material.
Apparently, yeah.
I mean, I have many moments where I just realized that I'm lucky that my brain is wired in a
certain way.
You know, I feel like crazy blessed that I figured out this Bitcoin thing, you know,

(01:45):
and that when I ran into certain realizations along the way
in my Bitcoin journey that I was like,
hmm, you know, how does this actually work?
You know, do I actually understand the systems I'm participating in,
the things that I believe, you know,
the people that I abstracted or outsourced certain responsibilities to

(02:07):
to take care of, for example, my money in the bank, you know.
I think being wired in a certain way definitely helps.
in grasping Bitcoin to a degree where you're like,
okay, this is the only thing I need to pay attention to in my life.
And yeah, we jokingly started talking about this
because I have the hat here, but there was this,

(02:28):
I think it was like a Twitter poll actually,
or someone shared it on Twitter,
and this is already like two or three years old,
where someone investigated these Myers-Briggs personality types,
and I think there's only like 2% of people that have INTJ,
but like 20% of Bitcoiners have that personality type.
So it apparently helps.

(02:50):
So yeah, I just quickly Googled it actually.
It says the INTJ is the architect.
It's a personality type
with introverted intuitive thinking and judging traits.
These thoughtful tacticians love perfecting the details of life,
applying creativity and rationality to everything they do.
I think the rationality part here
is what I think helps you to grog Bitcoin eventually.

(03:16):
Yeah, it reminds me of, I forget what the study was,
but post-COVID, it was a similar distribution of
just like 2% of people were highly skeptical
of what was going on with the lockdowns
and the attack on bodily autonomy.

(03:37):
And there was a study that was done about,
I forget it was bees or some type of fly that they,
they have like the horde of the horde of the particular fly.
I think it was bees has like 2% act as these sort of alarm bells that are on
the outside,
the outskirts of the community and they'll start communicating like, Hey,
something's wrong here. And people,

(03:58):
the other flies or bees will be skeptical at first,
but then eventually the alarm bells we've proven to be right,
that there was some sort of danger around the choir.
That's fascinating. Yeah.
yeah that's fascinating i think we're not that special eventually you know like we think we have
all this autonomy but but um yeah we're we're just wired in a certain way and i think i don't know

(04:23):
where you want to take this conversation but i think you know part of growing up and being an
adult is figuring out you know how do i actually work and how do i work with how i work you know
yeah that is and as i get older creep into my mid-30s which is hard
hard to come to grips with it is uh really falling back on like all right i feel like i have a good

(04:45):
perspective on the world and my place in it and how do i just optimize to make sure i'm aligning my
my work my career i guess if you call it that with what i'm passionate about yeah well i also think
that is actually why our generation you know my podcast is bitcoin for millennials i think

(05:05):
the millennials are primed to understand bitcoin you know we are in this life phase where
big things happen you know starting a family or settling somewhere or making big career moves or
decide yeah like deciding what am i going to spend like the next 10 20 years on and uh

(05:28):
i think it's an interesting phase actually i don't know how that was for you but but for me
like the the 30s were really where i dove more and more into bitcoin like got got that stronger
conviction and also yeah kind of was invited to go further down that that rabbit hole you know and
like how i see it now is that that bitcoin is really the foundation for the rest of my life

(05:52):
you know like it it gives me time and space to look forward and enthusiasm you know like i sometimes
lurk on the millennial subreddit, you know, or the finance subreddit.
And many people in our generation are very nihilistic.
You know, they're very unsure about the future.
Like some people aren't even having kids because they think they cannot afford it, you know.

(06:15):
And whenever I read that, I just think like, yeah, I don't really have those things.
But I know it's because of Bitcoin.
You know, I know that Bitcoin gives me, yeah, like I said, the time and space to figure
out what's next.
Like, what should I focus on?
Like, it gives time and space to try out stuff, to build something, you know, to really attempt at doing something.

(06:37):
Where I see many people that don't see that, they are more in the consumer type.
You know, like they just spend the money that's worth the most today.
You know, like that's what they're incentivized to do.
Yeah.
And is that why you started Bitcoin for Millennials?
Is to, number one, put the message out there.
Millennials, come listen to this.
I'm one of you that is trying to educate you about this,

(06:59):
because this is something I think about a lot,
is somebody's dead smack in the middle of the millennial generation
and has observed many of the things you just described in my own life,
my own network, and it's part of the reason why this podcast exists.
What I'm trying to do at TFTC is just try to figure out a way

(07:19):
to reach into the minds of millennials,
hopefully change some minds rewire some brains to to reorient not totally around bitcoin but
understand that bitcoin is a tool that they can leverage to achieve the goals that we were sold
growing up that didn't materialize by taking the the path that was sort of scripted for us

(07:40):
by yes by the older generations yes i think that's mainly it right so yes the older generations
sold us you know air quotes sold us a certain path like this this is how you build your life
etc and um you know i think every bitcoin journey is of course first an individual journey in general

(08:02):
i think bitcoin is a one by one conversion technology right you really um yeah have to
challenge certain understanding beliefs preconceptions you know that that you have about
many things you know in bitcoin many things come together but mainly it's about money finance
economics right like the the things we thought were true or how we thought things worked

(08:26):
eventually aren't how they work or at least they aren't designed to benefit our individual life and
i think i first had to have that realization and that's kind of where it started for me
i mean i've been in bitcoin since 2014 like on and off like i usually share like i bought
between like 100 and 300 i sold everyone at everything at 4 000 you know got distracted

(08:49):
with crypto eventually just realized bitcoin is the only thing to pay attention to and it actually
was one of the moments uh it was in 2017 i worked at a big bank i was already into bitcoin i had a
mortgage you know i was participating in the financial system and then i had a colleague
tell me you know did you know that the money in the bank is not yours and i was like what like

(09:09):
what are you talking about?
I was 30 then, right?
And we had a lunch for an hour.
Well, in a financial corporate,
you could take lunch for an hour.
So we had a conversation
and he explained fractional reserve banking to me.
And I remember walking away from that conversation
just feeling like an idiot,
like I'm participating in a system

(09:30):
that I really don't understand.
And when I connected that to Bitcoin,
it felt like even though I was into it and studying it,
I wasn't really looking at it from like the finance
and economics angle or dimension.
And then I realized I'm storing my economic energy

(09:52):
in a system that I don't understand, you know.
And sometime later I realized, you know,
I do understand what Bitcoin is and what I should do is move.
You know, I'm just moving whatever I accumulated
in the fiat money system and I'm moving that to save that
in the in the bitcoin system and you know other things came along that i didn't understand about

(10:13):
finance and economics and studied and eventually you know just growing my conviction and i think it
was that that really motivated me to just do more see if i can contribute to bitcoin so why not
another podcast right but then when i was thinking about that you know what what type of podcast like
who should i talk to i had like a period of two three weeks i think where i had like two three

(10:35):
calls with other Bitcoiners or I knew from the internet because you know the real life journey
was very lonely um and with all these conversations I thought like hey it would have been fun to just
have recorded this and shared this online and just see what people think of you know the the
learnings we shared and reflections and thoughts about the future of Bitcoin and so that was kind

(10:57):
of stuck in my mind but like in the same time period I had some meetings with friends just now
millennial friends but there was in particular like one friend and uh he's one of my best friends
very smart intelligent entrepreneur and i love him to death and he uh he sold his company like a few
few years ago and so he has quite some money but that's all in the bank right he had no bitcoin at

(11:18):
that point and we were going on a golf trip and we would be sitting in the car for two hours and i
we i jumped in the car and i said we're gonna talk about bitcoin right like i'm just gonna corner you
here you're driving you know i'm gonna i'm gonna talk about bitcoin here because you know i i that's
how i started like i love you but you know um you know we should talk about this like you spend years

(11:40):
building a company spending all this time and energy someone was crazy enough to give you
you know a really big reward and then you gave it all away like it's all in the bank you know and i
just started with the question what do you think happens if you call the bank and say like hey can
I get 100 or 200k in cash you know and we kind of talked about that and he was like yeah I don't

(12:01):
know maybe they don't have all the bills and it takes a few days and blah blah like he just
looked at it as like a nuisance like a practical little hump that they had to get over and then I
said okay but if you call and you get a random person on the phone right and you say well can I
get 100k or 200k they're gonna look in their little decision tree and be like oh 100k that's

(12:22):
over my threshold right now i have to ask these questions like what are you going to use it for
sir you know and like all these things and i tried to like paint that picture and mind you like i
think he's very intelligent right so this is it's not about intelligence i was like explaining and i
said like but this is not yours you know if you need someone between you and the reward you got

(12:42):
for selling your company then just by definition in my mind at least it's just it's not yours and
he didn't see that at all and so then i said well if you don't think that's a problem then you know
the rest of the conversation is going to be a bit difficult you know i first need you to see the
problem well then of course we had we just had like a fun weekend i just let it go but then i

(13:03):
realized and also after talking to several other millennial friends like no one knows about money
no one knows about money they don't know how how how debt works how finance works they don't know
where money for from mortgages comes from like they have no clue and then i just realized yeah
that I also didn't have a clue,
but that's kind of how it's designed, right?
Like that's what eventually keeps the Ponzi alive.

(13:26):
You're just doing what other people are doing
and what other people did before you.
And that's basically it.
And to a degree, of course it works,
especially if you live in a Western country,
you know, the money still works for us.
But I think slowly but surely that will become less.
And especially when I started thinking about retirement, right?

(13:47):
So let's say you're a millennial and mid-30s
and you want to retire in 30 years.
If you calculate the amount of dollar, pound, euro, yen, units,
whatever your currency is,
and it's being debased at a rate that's in real terms
probably close to like 7%, 8%
or what was it like the last 10 years?

(14:09):
It's close to nine.
You need way more units of that money
than you think right now
or that your pension fund tells you and whatever.
And so I think that especially the millennials,
because the retirement part is so far away,
they are funding pension funds,
but the pension funds are using that money

(14:31):
for the people that are actually retiring.
And even for my mother, who's a mid-60s,
I don't know if the money is there.
And so when I started realizing
that the retirement for millennials
will probably either be gone or be debased
to such a degree that you cannot have the life
that you're envisioning right now,

(14:52):
like when you retire,
that's kind of when I thought,
okay, if I had to pick a niche for my podcast,
then why not millennials?
And so we have the problem,
but I think it's also a big enough niche.
And next to that, actually,
I think we are primed to understand Bitcoin.
We are the generation that really saw
analog technology turning into digital technology,

(15:13):
really seeing technology new technology take off seeing how that replaced other technology
other behavior etc and so yeah i think that's a long-winded answer but i uh that yeah there's
multiple things that came together there for me listen freaks i know you tired of me talking about fold but i gonna beat beat the drum I going to beat the dead horse If you a Bitcoiner living in the United States and you not using Fold

(15:38):
I'm just going to ask one question.
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(15:59):
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No, it's not only the ability of the millennials

(17:06):
to straddle the analog world with the digital world,
having grown up and seen it up close and personal,
the advent of, I've said it multiple times on this show,
went from star 69 to caller ID
to loading up AOL onto your computer
with a with a cd to more robust browsers to the open internet the apps and now transitioning into

(17:30):
this getting closer to the singularity with ai advancing yeah at the pace it is but not only that
the other side of this we've seen all the corruption like that's what always boggles my mind about our
generation others in our generation not really grasping the profundity of bitcoin specifically
is having lived through the dot-com bubble 2008 um covid crash 2023 banking crisis mix in a

(17:56):
european credit crisis in the middle of all that and the endless wars the corruption that
wiki leaks and edward snowden have surfaced over the years and it seems like we went through all
that in our formative years from early adolescence to teenage to adulthood just constantly being

(18:19):
berated with corruption and a dysfunctional monetary system over and over again and it's
like come on guys like this is what we were we've been sort of bred in our lifetime to to understand
that there needs to be a solution to these problems but to your point earlier of people

(18:40):
never questioning it i think there's also just like a massive sunk cost fallacy where people
oh 100 have come up and built their lives around assumptions that we know to be completely corrupt
and at their core from first principles perspective but people sort of read the script
tried to live their lives by the script and they're so far down the road where it's like

(19:05):
you're telling me I have to throw the script out and it was completely bunk.
And I think, I think that's a big thing.
So this whole concept of being able to really check your ego and show some
humility and acknowledge that there's a potential that you were misled and
duped to a certain extent that many people can't get over.

(19:28):
Or don't even want to confront in the first place, really.
no i think you know i sometimes jokingly but i think it's also partially true like you got a red
bill before you orange bill you know like you you you have to get to that point where you
you know when i go on the subreddits for example right like people see that there are problems but

(19:50):
they don't understand where it's coming from you know and you mentioned all these things that that
we experienced. I also had to think of Occupy Wall Street, right? I think that was like
2011, 12-ish, something like, where did that go?
I think those are, by the way, like the progressive people now that are
not progressive, but that's another discussion maybe.

(20:13):
But it feels like, so I agree,
I think many people feel it, but there aren't
any tools besides bitcoin i would say that can help you mitigate these problems right so if
if bitcoin doesn't cross your path or you're not curious enough or you don't have the you know the

(20:35):
problem isn't big enough i think especially you know with ftx and like that whole debacle like
people hate crypto and bitcoin is crypto of course right like i think a lot of people either are and
broke or they gave up right like just the money is running out but i think they also gave up like on
just now crypto is nonsense etc so i don't know i feel like it's a it's a mix of things yeah

(21:01):
definitely like in the western world you know money just works when you were younger you got
some bills and some coins you went to a store you got you you gave that you got something in return
and you were like well apparently this is money you know like this is just what this is just what
we do and um yeah because we live in in ultimate luxury and in general i think the millennial

(21:21):
generation is probably um has grown up in the best time to ever grow up from any person that
probably ever lived you know like growing up in the 90s i think was the best uh and early 2000 you
know um so there there isn't that much of a need that that is clear enough you know i think for

(21:45):
many people it feels a bit further away and that's also why you know if you just get a glimpse of
some sort of red pill type moment you're like no no no i don't need that you know like i'm i'm still
good let's just let's just push that away a little bit but i think on the other side of that there's
a huge reward there's a huge reward because once you are aware you will also become aware that many

(22:07):
people aren't aware you know and that's the big opportunity i i think of uh of bitcoin again like
i really don't feel the same problems as i'm reading about of you know our uh generational
peers and and and i can only attribute that to bitcoin like if bitcoin didn't exist but i knew

(22:28):
all these things, I think I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.
You know, like the, I understand the nihilistic outlook
towards the future if you don't take Bitcoin into account.
Yeah, I mean, that was certainly me
before I found Bitcoin in college.
That's crazy.
Like in college, if that is your outlook towards the future,

(22:51):
right, like just think about that.
And I think I have the same, I even have that worse
with people in our generation that decide
not to have children because they think they cannot afford it like the idea that a man-made
mechanism tool system you know the fiat money system is blocking you from following your
biological urges you know like that that's that's that's a that's a huge spiritual crime even

(23:16):
you know like you're you're you're taking that progression of life away
because of some system made by other people
that in general are not better than you,
smarter than you, deserve more in their life
or whatever, right?
And I think once I realized that,
like this is just made by other people

(23:37):
that are not better than me,
that definitely don't care more about my personal life
than I care about my personal life.
That's also when it kind of clicked that,
you know, in Bitcoin, it's rules, not rulers,
you know, the whole decentralized structure.
like I don't have to trust anyone.
Basically, everyone is trusting other people
because everyone is trusting other people

(23:58):
or like because they are following the rules.
That's basically it, right?
Like everyone is following the rules
because they know that all the other people
are following the rules.
So there's like a really nice positive incentive loop there.
Even though that they have this gnawing feeling
in the pit of their stomach
that the rules are skewed in the favor of a select few
that have an extreme amount of influence over the system.

(24:20):
at large i mean occupy wall street being a perfect manifestation of that yes but to to tie it back to
what you said you know about how we grew up what i i do think and i think that's not talked about
enough or just undervalued in general is what i really see in like the bitcoin culture the bitcoin
movement is like like raw internet culture you know what i mean like it's just it's you know the

(24:46):
the whole thing like you can just do the thing you know you can just talk shit on the internet like
we can do that right because what you said many people know this but they're like yeah i cannot
really do anything about it but that is nonsense right like the people that are doing that to you
are a crazy crazy minority insane minority right and i think you see this too with your podcast

(25:09):
like I'm doing a podcast too like you can just talk about this and reach thousands of people
millions of millions of people with your thoughts your reflections you know your criticism of
certain you know development systems whatever and it reaches real people you know like people
commenting on this video are real people you know and I and and that is so mind-blowing like the

(25:34):
internet is such an insane tool to combat you know centralized decision making that is usually
fundamentally flawed because the incentives that these people have for decision making are
focused on keeping this centralized decision making party alive you know where the internet

(25:56):
has democratized the access to all information and you can learn from anyone you know so in
in my mind conceptually like all these old systems are already disrupted but not
not everyone is seeing that yet does that make sense like there's that just this raw internet
culture of bitcoin like sometimes i see bitcoin memes or like these videos where i just think like

(26:19):
yeah this is this is it like we can just do this right like you can just build a culture that is on
the internet and when you reach people in real life you already are connected like you you have
a certain connection and a certain bond like we we can actually create that yeah and it becomes this
very positive feedback loop where and i've seen this just throughout the years of

(26:42):
going to bitcoin events in person and i mean i think the first in-person bitcoin event i went
to is the beginning of 2015 in new york city and comparing what that room was like compared to the
rooms that you go to these days at bitcoin meetups it's just way bigger scale way more diverse group

(27:05):
of people and you can see sort of this culture has kick-started this feedback loop that probably
mirrors the adoption sort of phases of bitcoin but you can see it's happening that's the other thing
like you mentioned youtube comments and i think this will be an interesting thought experiment
an exercise to partake in is there's always very positive comments but always the negative like ah

(27:30):
either i'm too late to bitcoin bitcoin will never work um good luck trying to
combat the government and the comments that i see and observe that come from a place of defeatism
always astonish me because it's like yeah okay like your assumptions are bitcoin can't work the
government will stop it and it's too late for me and it's like okay what is what is the alternative

(27:55):
of not even trying like one to make something happen and i had a conversation with brian
harrington a couple weeks ago and to your point about like framing bitcoin maybe they need the
red pill before the orange pill something i've been thinking about for the last few weeks after
that conversation is he he thinks we should be out there framing bitcoin is the path to financial

(28:16):
freedom like you can not only get rich but have the life that you want with bitcoin and just sort
of co-op the tiktok sort of uh finance bro influencer of like here's how you get the
financial freedom but do it in a right way um which is fascinating to me and i think for
millennials specifically in their mid-30s late 40s looking at their ria or excuse me the iras

(28:44):
or their 401ks being like is that really going to get me to retirement and just pitching the
message like bitcoin probably not maybe we'll get you to retirement but the purchasing power will be
significantly diminished here's bitcoin your actual path to financial freedom and retirement
if you so wish i mean i have a header on my youtube channel which says discover how bitcoin

(29:07):
can help you secure your financial future like this is what i believe because secure is not about
like i'm going to become a multi-millionaire it's more about like you're not going to be poor
if if you try to use the system that that you're currently in and i agree i do also think so he

(29:28):
like what he says you mean is like we should go harder we should go like finance finance bro hard
you mean or because i do think we're trying right but it's it's sometimes it's not humble but i think
many times it is humble it's like study bitcoin right like i i always say like the message is
study bitcoin it's not buy bitcoin where maybe the message should be by bitcoin i mean you have

(29:53):
jim kramer on msnbc yelling that you should buy something so maybe that's it but um i think
especially after ftx and stuff people have um have apprehension to towards that messaging although i
agree with brian that perhaps that could work um the the the fiat money mindset is a very very

(30:19):
zero-sum game mindset right like i win you lose i mean you see that with this gary's economics uh
guy yes yes you know horrible takes but he learned you know if i'm a trader and i make millions
there's many people that lose and that's bad and he's totally right so i'll give him that right but
what he doesn't see what he what he does is also what you just said like it's just pointing like oh

(30:45):
it's these people they are bad people etc but and it was the same by the way with occupy wall street
like bad bad bad but the the crazy thing and that's why i say like progress people that call
themselves progressive are not progressive you know it it larping it walking or sorry it talking right like it like the fiat fiat money world is like all talk you can talk right and you don have to prove shit but in bitcoin you have to walk the walk like you have

(31:12):
to do it right the whole proof of work ethos is like we are walking the walk we are literally
dumping fiat money and we're we're exchanging it for bitcoin we are leaving this predatory system
that is the source of everything that anyone that's now listening like anything that you would
want to fix in the world is broken because the money is broken right like the money creates the

(31:33):
incentives for people to do stuff and eventually there are certain outcomes that you don't like or
would want to see changed right but as long as you don't understand that it's the money
you will keep propping up the money that you hate without knowing and the only thing you need to do
and it's so fucking simple right you just ditch the money you just move to the other money that

(31:58):
they cannot mess with and i feel like and i also don't know how i ended up here maybe that's how
my brain is wired and i'm lucky but like i feel like all the social justice people you know or
or all the stuff with with occupy wall street like it's it's all based on emotion that's why
I just call it LARPing.
Like it's just, it's like top, top layer of annoyance

(32:22):
or emotion that they acted upon.
But it feels like they didn't do research as to,
yeah, what am I actually protesting?
Like, why does this system exist?
Like how it exists?
Where does that come from?
You know, the whole, you know, Robert Breedlove,
what is money as the defining question of our time.
You know, like they didn't go further than person bad,

(32:44):
pointing or, you know, putting up a tent, whatever.
And I feel like that with Bitcoin,
you can actually make that action, right?
Like I actually think we should talk more about that.
Like, so maybe we can follow Brian's strategy,
but I think just talking about like,
you can do something which is very simple.
You just exchange one money for another money

(33:04):
and then you just wait and see what happens.
Because what will happen is that they will restrict you
from using this bad money to buy this new money.
They will close the doors.
they will ask you what you're going to use it for they will restrict the cash money and all these
things and then is the moment that you have to wake up and understand that you are right about

(33:27):
this predatory fiat money and that you should get more people in moving to this other thing because
that's really what what brings change right but while i'm talking i think like yeah that sounds
too good to be true and i know it sounds too good to be true but i do believe that it's true it's
just that it's just that simple yeah and i think we were saying there's people need to recognize

(33:51):
that they have agency with bitcoin yes and i think whether it's social justice warriors or
people who are on the other side of the political spectrum when a particular party is in power
around the world like the the solution to the problem is we've seen it here in the united
states over the last 10 years with the flip-flop from trump to biden back to trump which is if only

(34:16):
we're in we're in power like we'll we'll make the right decisions we'll make everybody's life better
and we again another thing that we've seen time and time again throughout our lives is that it
doesn't matter who gets in the office the system is architected in a way that it cannot be fixed
and the marginal changes that are made are simply retaliatory to the yeah the party that you're

(34:39):
replacing and you just have this flip-flopping of different rulers with different rules that
really do not solve the core of the problem which is that we've messed up the money whereas bitcoin
you just opt into and you don't have to worry about a different party coming in and changing
the rules and you you opt into something that cannot be controlled and that actually has a

(35:05):
benefit for everybody no matter what side of the political spectrum you fall on or what your
sort of economic status is even if you are poor if you're adopting bitcoin it is working in your
favor over time i love that you say opting in right um because i say people are forced to use

(35:27):
a currency in a country you're literally forced just because there's no other option but they're
So what I've come to believe now is that what I find so strange is that there aren't receipts, right?
There aren't receipts from the government that's forcing you to use a certain currency, that that is actually the best thing to do.

(35:50):
You know, it feels like we are enchanted or, you know, I think enchanted is probably the right word.
We're enchanted by fiat money.
Everyone just says money, you know, but if you ask 10 people for what is money,
there's 10 different answers and when you just said like yeah different uh rulers and their rules
i'm thinking about there are proposals that i sometimes see in in the in the us where they say

(36:11):
we're going to combat inflation by giving everyone an extra thousand dollars you know something like
that and then i think like wow these people have no they don't even know you know like the people
that other people are looking up to like they don't even know what what um what money is and i think
that's how deep the enchantment goes you know that's also why the what is money question is such

(36:38):
an insanely big question that feels stupid or dumb like yeah why why would we ever question that but
in a funny way that's the whole point the fact that you never do is kind of like a signal for
you because people do see that the receipts are missing right like how we are old enough or well

(37:02):
i'll talk for myself that i can say something like well 20 years ago you know i saw this and
this in my country i don't i don't think my country got better in 20 years i actually think we went
back in in quality in in availability of housing for example quality of health care and stuff like

(37:23):
that where in my mind towards the future everything gets gets better but i'm old enough now to see
that you know from 17 to 37 some things actually got worse which is strange as i'm living in one
of the richest countries in the world you know and again maybe that's how the brain is wired but

(37:44):
i find that very very um strange like there that's the receipt i have and it's a negative
receipt in that sense.

(38:21):
Well, I think that's the discombobulating nature or just condition of our generation.
It's like, look at us.
You're all the way across the world.
I'm looking at you on a computer screen.
I'm getting your voice piped into my ears automatically.
It is inarguable that technology has certainly advanced to a point where it is better.

(38:44):
and you the services you can hop on your phone and have a car come pick you up in minutes
you can order food and have it delivered to your house in minutes you don't even have to interact
with with the driver you pay it shows up they leave it at the door you don't even have to
answer the door for them to to do the cash exchange like we used to do with pizza deliveries

(39:07):
growing up and you see things like this here in awesome we have waymos we have self-driving cars
all over the city.
My boys are obsessed with them.
We were counting them.
That's become the new game in our cars,
counting how many Waymos we see on the road
and on the way home from wherever we're returning from.

(39:27):
And it is inarguable.
This is an incredible advancement of technology
and human productivity.
But the other side, like the real economy
of having to actually go buy stuff
that solves the problems that exist
and Maslow's hierarchy of needs is becoming harder and harder.
So you have this like juxtaposition of this incredible advancement of technology

(39:49):
and productivity, but also rising costs that make it harder
for the things that actually contribute most to quality of life.
And I think that acts as like somewhat of a societal facade
that people can look around and be like,
wait, everything is getting better.

(40:10):
Like, look at all this technology.
I had to hit star 69 to figure out who was calling me 20 years ago or 30 years ago at this point.
But now I have a thought about this because I think it's great.
You're summing up like these things and these things are incredible, right?
Like first time that we had a camera phone and we are like a camera phone that could make videos.

(40:31):
The videos were pixelated as hell, right?
But we could see through them, you know, that's also what I meant.
like if we would see a pixelated video right now like today we would kind of be okay with that like
we would be able to see through the pixels right where maybe younger people are just
they want to have 4k all day right but but we could be we would be able to see through that but

(40:55):
you are summing up all these things and then i'm i'm thinking yes we have all these things but
imagine where we could have been right because in essence the fiat money stifles innovation like
we are measuring increased productivity of technological advancements which is deflationary

(41:17):
we have the the you know here's the book the the price of tomorrow by jeff booth it's a very logical
um definition right like technological advancements eventually are deflationary everything
you know prices go down and technology becomes more accessible we have this crazy supercomputer
here for a thousand dollars where you know the first computer that that was uh you know a thousand

(41:41):
times less or i don't i don't even know probably more you know that was a few million had to be
loaded up in an airplane like we see we do see technological advancement so don't don't get me
wrong but imagine where we could have been and i i just googled 1960 future outlook prediction i
I just Googled it.
I clicked on the first thing that's on Reddit.

(42:04):
It says major newspapers prediction in the 1960s.
Why I'm doing this is because, you know,
you know all these old pictures or even the Jetsons, right?
Like the ideas about the future in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s were wild, right?
Like when they talked about the years, 2000, 2010, you know,
like crazy flying cars, et cetera.

(42:26):
And so I just clicked on a random link, but I think it's very interesting.
This is from The Time in February 1966.
By the year 2000, the machines will be producing so much
that everyone in the US will, in effect, be independently wealthy.
With government benefits, even non-working families will have,
by one estimate, an annual income of $30,000 to $40,000 in 1966.

(42:49):
How to use leisure meaningfully will be a major problem.
Okay, this other one is from New York Times.
1967. By the year 2000, people will work no more than four days a week and less than eight hours a
day. With legal holidays and long vacations, this could result in an annual working period of 147

(43:10):
days on and 218 days off. So over 50 years ago, these people were talking about how increased
technology would bring us abundance, like this guy in this book is talking about.
but we aren't there people are working more for less and getting by less literally right because

(43:33):
in the 1960s there you know we have all these memes of one one income families with you know
just a teacher with a with a nice chevrolet in front of the door and a home and three children
and a wife at home that was the 60s and now everyone works and the kids are at kindergarten
and then people are putting ends together

(43:54):
at the end of the month.
Like we're nowhere near where these people thought
we would be.
And yeah, that I just find fascinating.
You know, like everyone should ask themselves the question,
like why is that?
Are we dumber?
Don't we have technology?
Like all these questions are no.
And the real answer is it's the money.

(44:16):
Well, and going back to the money question,
like what is money?
It is astonishing.
maybe it's the INTJ.
I don't even know if I'm INTJ.
I'm just going to assume I have some of those traits,
but literally it's all throughout pop culture,
rap songs,
all about money,
stacking racks.
Yeah.
Literally on everybody's mind.
Like,

(44:36):
how do I make more money?
How do I like that was the part of the script was like,
if you go to college,
you get the degree,
you're going to get a job with a six figure salary.
You'll have a starting salary,
but you'll move up to six figures pretty rapidly.
by the time you're in your mid twenties and then you'll be set. And I, back in high school,
I thought to make a hundred thousand dollars was like, Oh, I'm going to make a lot of money.

(44:58):
And today the thought of making it a hundred thousand dollars is like, I'm not making
enough money. Like how quick, I think people don't appreciate how quickly that like six figures,
like that was the, that was one of the tropes when I was in high school. It's like, you get a
job of six figures, you made it. Now it's like, you need mid six figures to have quote unquote
made it now as a salary and that's yeah only 12 years since i graduated college is not a long time

(45:24):
but again going back to the idea that like every sort of decision not every decision but a lot of
the decisions that people make revolve around how do i make more money to make ends meet or to
actually be able to invest to be able to build the work to me buy the house that i want to live in and
build a family and like literally many of the decisions i don't know how many a day

(45:46):
are factored around money and yet nobody questions what it actually is it's literally people still
talk about six figures right like it's that i think it's a great example like that narrative
is still strong people still talk like that because their parents talked like that you know
still if we if we stay with millennials um yeah that's that's i think what is part of the what is

(46:10):
sold to us yeah if you make 100k uh yeah that sounds like a great deal but there's many people
like you said that that that earn that or even more that are um that are not living as comfortable
as they as they thought right but i think yeah again i think that is also part of the enchantment

(46:31):
And it just that narrative and just getting out of that is probably the biggest hurdle in order to eventually end up with Bitcoin right Like you have to get to some point where you like
man, something isn't working.
I don't know what, but I'm going to do some research.
I'm going to figure it out.
And I think the what is money question,

(46:52):
I now see, we can go into that,
but I now actually have an idea about what money is.
Like before I just used the word money,
And I didn't even realize what it was.
And it was actually last October.
I was in the US.
And I remember the first evening when I was in my hotel.

(47:15):
It was actually funny.
I was in Miami.
I just went to grab a quick bite, like a burger and a virgin mojito.
And I remember paying like $45 or something like crazy.
and i was like man 45 dollar units for like a burger and and a virgin mojito and like in my

(47:35):
mind you know in my currency or just in my in my mind in general like a burger is 15 units or
of any currency you know like 15 i don't know is in my in my mind but i think this one was like 30
or something or 28 and i remember going back to my hotel room and just having like a bill
in my hand and just sitting and looking at it

(47:58):
and thinking like, yeah, this is something
that I talk about a lot, that I think about a lot.
It's connected to Bitcoin and Bitcoin is the better money, etc.
And then I was looking at the bill
and then I saw there's a disclaimer on the bill
and it says this note is legal tender
for all public and private debt
in the United States of America or something like that.

(48:21):
And then I was like, mind you, this is in October.
Then I was like, holy shit.
Like the paper even says that the paper itself
doesn't have value, right?
So the one that has a one on it is not worth more
or less than the one with a hundred on it.
It's just an abstract representation of debt,

(48:44):
which is just astonishing.
You know, if you're talking about, you know,
stacking racks you know like how everyone talks in in the rap videos you're you're stacking nothing
like literal paper and and you're yeah enchanted to a certain degree to think that that actually
represents value like like time and energy or productivity from another person that created

(49:08):
something that you are giving these pieces of paper to and so even if you're into bitcoin for
a long time and you have a podcast you moved most of your wealth into bitcoin you can still learn
that mind-blowing fact you know i just was like it's just crazy it's staring you in the face and
people are just using it you know like that that i think is the the challenge that that we are

(49:31):
generally up against here not only using it but coveting it as you're describing that i was
thinking of you know the rapper 6969 is that his name he's got the crazy color hair yeah yeah he's
he's got like 69 tattoos all over his face yeah yeah yeah uh he's famous for making these videos
where he's got like five lambos in his in his driveway and he just like opens up one of the

(49:54):
front trunks and he's got stacks of cash there and he's like flaunting it like there's another
hundred there's another hundred and it's hilariously poetic because it's the epitome
of the high velocity trash economy with this abject idiot who looks like a fucking fool
yeah sort of flaunting that he's got these millions of followers with these debt notes

(50:15):
like yeah you you this is what you wanted you want to stack this hunted and this hunted and
as you just mentioned if you actually read the bill it's like you're just stacking
representations of debt that the government owes somebody at the end of the day that's
the other thing like we're coming to this point i'm sure you're observing from uh across the pond

(50:37):
that we're at a pretty critical point here in the united states where it's becoming abundantly clear
that the debt that is represented by these these dollars is becoming a problem that the people that
we owe the debt to want to solve or are forcing us to to confront today i talked to someone who said

(50:58):
the u.s debt is at an all-time high forever that i thought that's so good that's so good you know
and we saw last week, Scott Besant says,
like the US will never default
because we will keep on raising the debt ceiling.
Like, again, it's just staring you in the face.
It's literally staring you in the face.
Like there are no, I also say this about Bitcoin,

(51:20):
like Bitcoin is an asymmetric opportunity
based on publicly available information.
Like all the information is literally out,
it's out there, you know, about the bad money
and about the better money.
Like you can find all this information,
but whether it does something to you you know well we we discussed this but that is something
that the individual has to decide but i think all the information is is out there and like what you

(51:45):
said i think the model of america is brilliant you know you just export the inflation and you buy
also buy real energy from the ground with paper that you just create and put a number on that yeah
that's the most brilliant scheme in in the in human history probably but once people figure out

(52:09):
that if they get paid this paid back this debt in nominal terms that what that unit represents
actually buys them less which is becoming increasingly clear at an ever increasing rate
then yeah who's gonna buy that debt right and i think if you want to think about the question what

(52:33):
is what is money maybe the second question is yeah what am i counting like what what is the
what are the characteristics of the unit that i'm that i'm counting right and once you yeah kind of
pull on that thread and then realize okay i can count in the numbers but if so i can have more

(52:54):
numbers and the graph can be green or have a little positive result it doesn't mean that the
amount of units that i have actually buy me more real things and i think once
this is understood on a nation level which sounds ridiculous to say because i would expect that the

(53:18):
people running a country and buying foreign debt would actually understand what they are doing but
But I've also come to the conclusion that many don't
or else they would have stopped buying US debt a long time ago.
I think maybe that's too rational, but I think that's just it.
I think we both know Leon Wankum.

(53:48):
He talks a lot about real estate and Bitcoin, right?
But he has a master's in economics, maybe even a double.
master's in economics right and he told me i've never learned what money is like i was calculating
i was counting i was doing all these things but only later i started questioning what what is
money so if someone with a master's in economics doesn't know what money is like how does the

(54:12):
average pleb figure this out you know and maybe if we get back to like what is the core message
or the things that we should talk about,
I think is definitely this,
like that is the bamboozlement.
Like you are using something
or believing in something
or you have the aspiration of stacking something
that literally has zero value.

(54:35):
And that sounds ridiculous, I know.
Like in my mind,
like if I think about myself five years ago,
I think it's crazy I'm saying this now, you know?
But I mean, that's the conclusion we end up with, I think.
Yeah, and I love the way Matthew Mazingtius describes it.
wickenstein's ruler it's like what's met like we've gotten to the point where money's become
so debased it's like what's money is money actually measuring anything or the the increased prices

(55:02):
actually measuring how much the money is being debased like that's yeah that's the
predicament we find ourselves in i guess getting into like once you understand that that money
really isn't measuring anything prices are actually telling you how much the money is getting
the base buy and how do you get back to what money should actually be which is a measurement

(55:26):
of human productivity and yes work and and i think that's a nice way to tie it in with you know what
what is your outlook on the future how do you prepare on the future like how i look at it now is
everyone's future is uncertain like literally like you don't know how much time you have so

(55:47):
your time is absolutely finite the energy that you can expend in this time is absolutely finite
which is your productivity right like how much can you produce by expanding this energy in the time
that you have and so if everyone's future is is uncertain you know this is this is what safety
Dino Moos says, like everyone discounts the future.

(56:09):
We are all per definition uncertain about the future.
So what does everyone try to do?
You try to lower the uncertainty towards the future.
But if you use fiat money, that's being debased at a realistic rate of like 8%, 9% per year,
that actually heightens your uncertainty towards the future.

(56:33):
So you are incentivized to spend all this money now.
I had a set bunny tell me a great quote.
He said, you have to realize that all the money that you own right now is the most worth the most right now.
I thought it was mind blowing.
Like, OK, so if I wait a day, I can already buy less like a teeny tiny bit.

(56:53):
Right. But but that is how the how that how that curve goes.
And so if you translate that conceptually to, okay, so if I don't spend it now, I'll have less purchasing power in the future, which makes me more uncertain about the future because I think I need more units like stacking, like the rappers do, right?
That is actually what drives your incentives.

(57:15):
Either doing dumb shit to make money, like stuff that doesn't add value.
I mean, the whole OnlyFans thing or like whatever.
Like just, just, just that, you know, even the gig economy, like.
Yeah.
That's what I was going to say.
Like even jobs have more dignity, like go into your nine to five and then hop in.
But I mean, dude, like, so respect to all the Uber Eats people like on a, on a bike,

(57:38):
but why aren't there robots that do that?
Again, let's go back to the technology, right?
Like, why don't we have that?
Like, why, why do we force people to take on a gig that makes them like bike through
the snow to deliver some unhealthy soy slop yeah right like that yeah i don't know like so anyway

(57:59):
to go back but but that so people are are forced to spend all the money in the now to not think
about the future to not prepare for the future to not build towards the future and that is actually
why you know we say in bitcoin everything is downstream from the money if if that is the
incentive for you to do that today how are you incentivized to deliver actual value or to do

(58:24):
something that is very profound or grand or big or or try something crazy right like if you if you
really want to innovate you need time and space to figure out what to innovate if it works you
probably fail and you have to iterate right or even if you want to i don't know create a grand
statue or a cathedral or a gallery or whatever like you need time and space to to figure that out

(58:47):
you know and i think fiat money because it hides the uncertainty towards the future it takes
those opportunities or literally the time and space away and does the opportunities away
for for people to explore that so instead of being incentivized to be a builder and a risk taker and
and an innovator and trying out new things just like really put your your cognitive capacity

(59:11):
at you know max speed basically you're incentivized to do dumb shit buy dumb shit eat dumb
shit literally and that is i think what is going on and once you understand that with bitcoin
because no more than 21 million units will exist it's absolutely finite verifiably

(59:38):
scarce and finite like your like your time in this world that that that actually becomes a
better measurement for you know this productivity that i think eventually you know i know people
think otherwise but like i once listened to a podcast i'll get back to my reasoning but the
sidestep i listened to a podcast with nate hagans and aubrey marcus where they talked about energy

(01:00:00):
and nate hagan says if you look around you you have to realize that everything you see
cost energy to create or maintain.
And then, so they didn't even talk about Bitcoin,
but that's when I realized that money is an abstract
for that energy.
Like if I expend my energy in time,
which is my productivity right now for something for you

(01:00:20):
and you give me a reward,
and I want to hold on to that towards a certain moment
in future time and space to spend that on something
that I want, whatever that is,
that also represents expended energy in time, basically.
And so if you then realize that the money that you're using is leaking energy, that's the purchasing power that you're losing towards the future.

(01:00:44):
But now when we have Bitcoin, we know that that's also absolutely finite.
There will never be more than 21 million.
and that that is actually a far better measurement for that productivity or for that energy however
you want to call it then then the fiat then fiat money and so that's why in bitcoin we

(01:01:07):
obviously say one bitcoin is one one bitcoin that's the whole point like if i earn one bitcoin
right now i know that it is one bitcoin in the future but it will probably buy me more
because more and more people will realize that this is not a leaky bucket or a melting ice cube
or whatever the illustration is you want to use as compared to fiat money.

(01:01:31):
And so what I really love is there's this picture of like an orange little pyramid that is Bitcoin.
And on top of that, there's an inverted green pyramid like on top of it,
which is like all the money in the world or all the money that is stored in other things than Bitcoin.
And like that green inverted pyramid can grow to infinity basically,

(01:01:52):
like we see Scott Bessent say,
but this little orange pyramid is going to stay the same.
And so all the productivity that could be rewarded eventually,
all the human productivity will be rewarded by this orange pyramid
that will never grow in size and eventually,
each unit, so each Bitcoin or fractions of Bitcoin

(01:02:16):
will represent more productivity,
i.e. buy you more in the future.
And I think for me, that is kind of like the case for Bitcoin
because if I save the economic energy
that I earned today in these Bitcoin units
and I save them towards future time and space,
I actually create more time and space for myself

(01:02:39):
to figure out what can I do here?
Like, what am I here to do?
What is the value that I can add to this world?
And I will actually have the time and space to try that out and even fail and then try
something new.
And for me, that is actually what makes me not be a nihilistic person towards the future,
but actually be very optimistic because I know that I can try stuff, which for me, for

(01:03:05):
my personality has been very freeing for my mind.
I feel like I'm mentally retired.
Like I can, I can, yeah, really look to the future with, with a lot of positivity and enthusiasm.
And I hope I make it towards the future.
Right.
Like that is still uncertain, but creating or having a bit more control about creating

(01:03:26):
this time and space to explore, like, how can I add value to this world?
How can I be productive?
I, I think is, is really great.
And I'm very grateful that I've been able to do that with Bitcoin.
Yeah.
Same.
I mean, this whole business wouldn't exist if, I love that.
Bitcoin not only allows you to store the time you've already spent in an asset that will

(01:03:49):
respect that work that you put in, but it actually buys you time in the future.
And again, I've told this story before, but it bears repeating.
Like the 18 months leading up to the beginning of the newsletter, I was unemployed.
and I married my wife in the middle of that 18 months or actually towards the tail end of it

(01:04:10):
and I was able to take the time I was I was trying to get jobs over the course of that
one and a half year period but really was being very selective and I had the ability
to be selective because I had saved Bitcoin in college and my first couple jobs out of college
and I bought myself time to sit there and think.

(01:04:33):
And that's one thing I do every once in a while is I was very detailed.
I was keeping very detailed journals just of my thoughts
and particularly around Bitcoin and what I wanted to do.
And I had the time and space.
I wasn't living extravagantly.
I was definitely living on a shoestring budget.
And thank God my wife, she had a job.

(01:04:54):
But I was able to sort of subsist and live and think.
really took a year and a half off unintended,
but was not like crazy stressed at any point in time because I had savings to
dig into.
And I think that year and a half really set me up to go down this path of

(01:05:17):
creating this media business, getting ingratiated with the industry,
eventually joining 1031 and Bitcoin bought me that time.
just by saving it when I was in college
and right out of college.
I have a similar experience.
And I mean, man, how inviting is that?

(01:05:39):
If, you know, just that story.
Who wouldn't want to do that?
How many people of our age are slaving away
in some corporate job that they absolutely hate?
You know, yeah, I don't know.
I think you made the case perfectly,
but I have a similar experience.
Like, this is what you want, right?
And I would also say, this is what you need.

(01:05:59):
Like, who has it figured out?
Like, from my high school graduation class,
there are maybe two people that were like,
oh, well, I know I want to be a veterinarian
and then the other one wanted to be a pilot or something.
Well, that's what they did.
And the rest switched studies, switched jobs, whatever.
Like, you don't have it figured out
when you're done with college

(01:06:19):
or even when you're done with,
or sorry, with high school
or even when you're done with college or university.
Like, that's the whole point.
The whole point is that growing up is figuring out who you are and what you can do.
And, you know, if you're stuck and you don't have that, you know, I think Bitcoin is the perfect way to actually create that time and space to allow yourself, to invite yourself to figure that out.

(01:06:46):
And, I mean, I think it's the same with you.
It's brought a lot of quality to my life.
Like, I feel like I live in the now, like very conscious.
Like I am not worried about the future more than just the uncertainty of, yeah, dying without knowing, you know, like that.
But I feel like it's more the natural state of uncertainty around the future rather than the manufactured state of uncertainty around the future that fiat money brings.

(01:07:14):
yeah no one one um quote that always stuck with me i had a really good english teacher uh
in high school and i'm sure i'm not the only one many people read david throw but
the mass of men need lies of quiet desperation it's always been in the back of my head like how
do i avoid being one of the mass one of the masses leading one of those lives of quiet desperation

(01:07:38):
and and bitcoin is certainly a tool that can get you out of that that rat race because that quiet
couldn't agree more a quiet desperation yeah i think particularly today stems from the
being forced on the hamster wheel i'm trying to keep up with fiat money
i think i have a tweet that says something like

(01:08:00):
fiat let's or sorry bitcoin lets you get out of the rat race and start walking your own path
right like it's becoming more sovereign autonomous conscious like you can make the decision to
have any pace you want in any direction that that you want and it's because you are protecting

(01:08:24):
yourself with bitcoin um from the from the with your rules you know from the rulers of this other
money that actually force you to stay in a race that you probably don't even understand you know
And yeah, I think that's why we both do what we do.
Don't you think?
Like this is more people should notice, don't you think?

(01:08:46):
I do.
Yeah.
What are your thoughts?
What are you saying?
Do you think more people are coming around to this?
Like how do you think things progress from this point in time specifically?
I've been thinking a lot about, I think there's a huge, and I don't think that's random, but
I think there's a huge convergence of Bitcoin and AI.
so if we talk about

(01:09:09):
productivity
I think the internet was
democratization of knowledge
and I think AI is the democratization
of
doing something with that knowledge
so of productivity basically
and so if
anyone can build anything
and
any autonomous agent

(01:09:30):
or any robot can copy any other
autonomous agent or robot
I mean, I can take a picture of this bottle now and put it in AI and it will reverse engineer a 3D render and I put it in some machine and like tomorrow I have this bottle but made by myself.
And I think that is an ever increasing development that is just not going to stop.

(01:09:56):
And so I think there's a few things that you can think about there.
Like how are you going to measure those exponential technological gains?
which are increasingly deflationary,
are you going to measure those with inflationary money?
I think you would offset a lot of wins there,

(01:10:19):
like a lot of progression there.
So I think Bitcoin is the measurement for value for increased productivity especially in an AI age But also in the AI age like I mean last week I been down a deep deep rabbit hole
you know, spending until like 4 a.m.
just fucking around with AI and cursor

(01:10:40):
and trying to build stuff.
And I'm just realizing so many jobs,
like strict knowledge and kind of like logic type jobs,
they are dead you know those functions are are are are dead those rules are dead and
i think that will be a big shock eventually for the people that that have these rules

(01:11:04):
but i think the the thing i'm trying to say more is like you need to be aware of that like this is
where it's going so how do you protect yourself in an age of ai where you are going to be forced
to take time and space to figure out
how am I going to function in an age of AI.

(01:11:26):
And yeah, well, as we just talked about,
I think Bitcoin is the perfect way to do that.
You just shared your example as well.
And so I think that is how people can protect themselves
from that incoming productivity shock, layoff shock,
uh disappearance of jobs shock i would say you know like it's it's going to be agents and ai and

(01:11:49):
robots everywhere and um maybe that's even another argument as to why you know millennials should
focus on bitcoin like if you think you're going to work for the next 30 years of your life like
think again it's think again it's astonishing what's happening i think we're falling down
similar rabbit holes. I was up till 2am last night working on it. It's, uh, Logan, don't

(01:12:15):
worry, you're keeping your job, but, um, he, uh, it's insane. What's happening.
The robot is going to be called Logan, I think.
And, and most people are completely, I mean, I think they're aware that there's something
happening, but I'm curious. I would be curious to know how many people have actually touched

(01:12:35):
this stuff and actually gotten past the surface layer of just prompting chat gbt and i'm yeah and
trying i'm still working on something but you know if you listen to the you know the guys from
silicon valley they say like we're going to see 100 years of innovation in in like 10 years that
i don't even know how to judge that but it sounds insane in general like that's just that's that's

(01:13:00):
that's a big thing but if you just think about the concept of okay so if if ai is like the
enablement or like productivity layer of all the information that ever existed and ideas in general
like new ideas are just combinations of inform it is a combination of information and assumptions

(01:13:22):
right and that is what generally makes up an entrepreneurial idea or just an idea in general
But if the AI has access to all the information, then you could say that any idea already exists, basically.
So once you have an idea and you think it's unique and no one is doing it yet, once you put it out in the world, the concept, the information that makes up the idea is also out there.

(01:13:52):
And then it'll be copied.
That's kind of how I view it.
So on one side, I do think this will increasingly lead to abundance in a sense that any technology will be available to anyone.
You know, even the LLM models that are private now, in a sense that you have to pay for them, will be public in five years and accessible to anyone.

(01:14:21):
Right. So that's kind of how I view it.
Like everyone will eventually have the opportunity
that we are lucky enough to have now
because we can pay 20 bucks a month
to have ChatGPT or whatever tool.
So like what is IP?
Like what are ideas?

(01:14:42):
You know, like just going down
that kind of like line of thinking,
I'm just thinking like you can start something,
but it's going to be dead in a year.
in a sense that everyone will be able to use the same technology
and someone open sourced it and then it's just copied everywhere.
So I think that's where it's going.

(01:15:05):
And so to either figure out how to make money
or provide for your life,
I think you have to go on a more inward journey
and you need space and time for that.
To, yeah, just figure out what am I here to do?
What do I like to do?
What am I good at?
What types of skills do I have and stuff like that?

(01:15:28):
And so I think why AI and Bitcoin are converging
is because I think AI will force more people
after an initial shock into a stage
where they have to figure out,
okay, what am I going to do
for the rest of my working life,

(01:15:49):
if that is even a thing.
So I think it's really, it's difficult to think about that, but I haven't, so I went down, you know, I went down the rabbit hole like last week, last two days.
I think I've slept like five-ish, six hours just up at night trying stuff because I had an idea for, so to illustrate like how fast things can go.

(01:16:12):
Like I am not a cybersecurity expert.
I don't have a computer programming background, like none of that.
But like I'm a digital product, like I'm a product guy.
So I can think in products and flows and use cases and stuff like that.
And so I had an idea for like a WinZip type app,
but where you secure your files with Bitcoin.

(01:16:34):
I've had that idea for longer, but I don't know why,
but I saw a video about AI and all this stuff that I just mentioned.
And I was like, yeah, how do you protect digital secrets in an age of AI?
and and you know then that idea came back and i just started messing around with um with ai and
just asking questions and challenging and just going through that anyway after like five hours

(01:16:59):
i realized that i was building a file encrypting protocol on top of bitcoin and once i got a little
bit deeper into that it started telling me like oh this is actually pretty profound like this doesn't
exists and then i went on and on and like i put it on twitter and people called me gullible because
the ai is very nice to me etc but i kept on just working and challenging and you know trying to be

(01:17:24):
rational and figuring it out like i i want to make it very functional and now i'm at a point after
12 hours with working with ai i don't even know where it says like if the protocol that you came
up with that doesn't exist in the world if that works at scale you you have um like a top 10

(01:17:48):
cyber security invention and i'm like really you know i'm looking at that and i'm like really is
this like am i doing this you know but honestly i think it's working i'm almost done but imagine
like even if i even if it works or not but just imagine that someone is going to make technological
discoveries in a time that is just so far away or how do you say is is so much less than what

(01:18:18):
people are doing now right like just cryptographic research or whatever just research that took years
is now able to be done in hours or in in weeks you know and i think we're going to see examples
of that where just people that are totally not connected to a certain field just by their way
of thinking are gonna make really big discoveries and i think that is only going to accelerate so that a that was a very long answer but I think the word is accelerate Like it just going faster and faster and faster And that why it a problem for you

(01:18:54):
especially as a millennial to figure out,
okay, what do I do in that age?
Like, how do I protect my wealth in that age?
How do I prepare for that age?
And well, I think the answer is Bitcoin in my opinion,
But it's coming at us at an increasingly faster speed.

(01:19:14):
And that combined with the fact that fiat money is being debased at an increasingly faster speed.
Like those two things are an insane signal for you to study Bitcoin, I think.
Agreed.
It's aligned with the newsletter I sent out this morning, which is like the combination of AI and Bitcoin

(01:19:35):
is going to be the strongest combined force of leverage
over the next decade.
Like if you're building these tools,
you're putting them out there
and you're able to monetize them,
you should be cycling any profits you have into Bitcoin
to compound the productivity gains
that you're providing with tools built by AI

(01:19:57):
or AI tools that are the output of what you build.
And then you're funneling that into Bitcoin
and you're riding the adoption wave as it's happening as these governments are printing
as more people are waking up yes to bitcoin like the compounding factors of combining ai to build
provide the the market with a product that you can hopefully monetize and then shoveling that

(01:20:20):
into bitcoin is probably the smartest play you can make right now but then that to your point
like does ip even exist is it going to be replicable is there a small window of time
where you can actually monetize this who well who knows yeah i i it's interesting right like on one
side that sounds like an opportunity and on the other side it sounds like a necessity like those

(01:20:44):
are the things you should actually be doing today like figuring out like how am i going to have an
edge with with ai but i do think that the window for new ideas or new companies unless they're like
extremely profound companies are not going to exist for a long time because it's just all going

(01:21:05):
to be copied and to give an example right so i'm i'm working on this protocol
and i think i think it could actually be a discovery and so i decided okay i'm going to
feed certain elements of what i'm building but not telling everything just just you know the
abstract in the beginning and just maybe 20 sentences i'm going to feed that to deep seek

(01:21:30):
that has no history of me you know working on this idea whatever and i said something like you know
someone i know is working on a paper and he sent me this preview what do you think it is and dude
it was like 85 percent right in the one shot like the first reply it just reversed engineered

(01:21:52):
almost the entire concept already and that really shocked me i was like wow that's that that is
it's insane but no context nothing right and yeah again this is the worst that ai will be
ever today you know tomorrow it's already better so if if that is the case like yeah what is an

(01:22:13):
idea like what is it what what even is that you know is it yeah just ip is gone i think
it's fun yeah yeah then you get into like the whole singularity like if you
or agi asi are we creating the optimistic yeah the optimistic part of me hopes we'll get there

(01:22:38):
because i i do think that could like bring in like a new renaissance right like so if there's
real abundance and there's like base layer comfort or you know stuff is taken care of
in our lives just the basic needs in a in a quality degree yeah like what do you do with

(01:22:59):
your time and space you know i think people are either going inward they're going to be more
spiritual and be like okay what what is this who am i what am i what is this meat suit etc like why
am i here and i think people will go outward you know that that's what i think also about like
all the ancient civilizations they always looked at the stars right and for me or just like the

(01:23:21):
grandness that that that we live in and that sounds very logical to me like if you
if you came from being a hunter-gatherer like surviving to having a little surplus time
my rational mind goes to the first question would probably be like they look up at the sky and be
like what the fuck is going on here like what what is this like you know why does the sun go up and

(01:23:45):
go down and then like the leaves grow and then they fall off and then there's snow and then there's
sun again like what what is that you know so i feel that if we really go to a place of singularity
um where the technology basically takes care of us and i know that's a very positive outlook then
that is where we can get like i i love that idea but on the other side i i listened to a podcast

(01:24:08):
it's on a diary of a ceo i think it went live yesterday or the day before it's like a like a
group conversation about ai and i don't know if it's eric weinstein who says like do you know that
i can like unleash an agent today that's going to stalk marty bent for the rest of his life

(01:24:28):
you can do that today literally and it's just going to go out there and figure out
who you are, where you are, what you like,
whatever, it's going to ruin you.
You can do that today.
I don't know why, well, they said it on that podcast,
but you can do that today, which is insane.

(01:24:50):
It's insane.
That's a very bad use case, right?
So I think there's a very thin line
between using AI and accepting it
towards a singularity type point
in a very positive way,
but also just like the total destruction like i i'm not i'm not i i don't i don't know what the
answer is but i think like those those two sides are very clear like they are both very clear

(01:25:15):
but very tangible like you can do it's wild very scary and i think it's scary because we are using
it but we really don't understand it so there's there's even far fewer people that actually
understand like how does the ai like how does that work yeah and because it's changing at such
a pace like even when you think you understand it it's like oh here's another advancement

(01:25:38):
you've got to completely reorient your your understanding of this now yeah so i think a
lot of minds will be blown i think it's a shock it's going to be a weird very weird period but i
do think that yeah again like anchor to bitcoin i think will be fine um yeah but i wonder about

(01:25:59):
the rest of the world.
So I don't know if that's a positive note
to come to a conclusion on this conversation,
but I mean, I think it's realistic.
And maybe that ties back to what we talked about,
you know, about getting into Bitcoin.
You have to be realistic about
what is happening in the world
and you have to act upon that
or else someone else will.
And that means that you are not an actor,

(01:26:19):
but you are a subject in that sense.
Yeah, this is not the time
to stick your head in the sand and say,
I'm just going to hope for the best
and not pay attention.
no no it's funny it's like somebody with young kids and it's like again like this story i was
telling earlier like we're riding in the car and they're pointing out waymos i'm like holy

(01:26:40):
shit and it's like it's crazy to me that they're just they have this like natural attraction to the
waymos specifically and they're like calling them out it's like it's like my caller id story like
Like I remember when we got color ID, I think my oldest, at least he's at the
point where we have long memories and we remember a time before Waymo and after waymo and i think lav just projecting 15 years forward into his life like he laugh about like oh i remember

(01:27:12):
when i thought waymos were cool and if yeah which is going to be the motorola razor for them or
something yeah exactly think about that wow that's good yeah but even that right like for your
children again like a like a millennial topic right if you have young children everything and
i got this from a recent uh tim ferris and chris sacca conversation they talk about also ai in the

(01:27:36):
future and you know tim ferris asks chris sacca like would you send your kids to law school or
or notary school or finance school and he's like fuck no like that's all dead and tim is like okay
you know he's like no you gotta like whatever you think education is if you have young children just

(01:27:56):
throw that out the window like education career shit like that is is done so if you have children
that that are just like early age or like in the middle of of primary school like
anything about their adult adulthood that you thought about before it's just like you can just

(01:28:18):
throw that away yeah that was funny i was having uh this exact discussion with my wife in the car
this morning we went on a walk around the lake then went to get coffee on the ride to coffee
she was like ah i wonder if we're moving back to philadelphia she's like i wonder if our oldest
will come back down to ut i'm like honey like i don't know if like college is gonna exist and

(01:28:40):
the state that it does today.
Yeah.
Like by the time he's in college,
she's like,
I don't know,
maybe it'll be like a luxury good.
I was like,
I don't even know about that.
No,
because like,
why would,
why would a human,
like a flawed human,
why would they teach you?
It's the same,
like,
why would a flawed human create your money,
dictate your money?
It's the same principle thinking in my,

(01:29:02):
in my mind,
right?
Like why,
if I know something better exists,
something way more um knowledgeable and and all these things like why why would i go for the other
option you know like it's just um eventually i think that's rational decision but like
how to handle that also for us as the parents like how do we handle that i don't know that's

(01:29:28):
maybe too much for now but i think that is that is i think that's gonna ask a lot of us but again
you need time and space to figure that out right so again like for me i don't know maybe that sounds
boring but this is a bitcoin podcast like that ties back to bitcoin right like the time and space
you need to fucking prep for the future and and secure yourself in the future is is going to be

(01:29:48):
immense and if you don't um prepare for that then i mean yeah i'm not preparing in any other way so
i don't know what would happen i cannot imagine you prepare in another way yeah i think perhaps
that's the road to serve them and then and cbdc's and stuff like that like the government will take
care of you maybe it's going to be a dichotomy like that and we'll be sitting in the citadel

(01:30:11):
and overlooking at you know i don't know i don't know and i i don't know it's it's uh i think it's
very unpredictable i like you know talking about it but i i think it's just very very unpredictable
so i what works for me is just tying it back to today like what can i do today and that's just
fucking around just trying this out learning about it like how does this work how can i you know

(01:30:34):
challenge my mind or train my mind or whatever to like work with this then obviously bitcoin and then
yeah just uh yeah focus on the kids basically i just you know figure it out for them as well help
them guide into i mean even now like i don't know how old your kids are but like what they're

(01:30:55):
learning before 10 is going to be like dead when they're 20 you know what i mean like their context
of the world is is is old yeah yeah when they're 20 right like it's non-existent it's going to be
not like it's not going to be the thing that they think the world is that's not what it's going to
be no so yeah no and i um i think about this a lot you have to lean in so you have to test the

(01:31:23):
tools you have to yes yes understand what's happening touch feel see and then the going down
like painting an optimistic maybe ending on an optimistic no like i'm i'd like to believe that
since ai can do all this incredibly productive stuff and starting in the digital world sort of

(01:31:45):
encapsulated there i do think it's coming to the physical world too but really shifting the focus
of human work and productivity from bits back to atoms,
like building beautiful things in the physical world
and focusing on, like going back to like leisure activity,
like maybe we get to a point where humans have the ability

(01:32:06):
to focus on their health, their bodies,
maybe sports are the thing of the future
that really are the sports and competition
are sort of the things that persist throughout time as AI.
evolves because it's one of the sort of thing that is truly human,

(01:32:30):
like,
right.
And like you're exerting physical energy to accomplish a goal as a team.
Like obviously there'll be drone races and all that stuff,
but I do think humans like sports.
I don't know.
I'm like rambling now,
but like this,
I've always had the intuition that maybe we can shift a focus back to the
physical world and focus on interpersonal connection yeah well it's interesting because

(01:32:55):
that was kind of the conclusion also with with tim ferris and chris sucker they were like okay
but what should you focus on or if you would start a company now like what should you focus on and
they were so i think we are in the right place but they were like yeah it's like your your personal
communication your your connections you know the human connections putting people together

(01:33:17):
or having conversations that help people think.
They were really pushing on the community part.
And I would agree with that and with what you said.
I think that would be the most positive outcome.
And I think in that sense, maybe also the needed outcome.

(01:33:40):
If we look at fiat money and the zero-sum game
that we talked about before,
I think this could potentially help us be more cooperative
and hopefully create more mutually beneficial systems
and communities and really use technology actually

(01:34:03):
to help us thrive as something that has happened to a degree,
but we could be way further along as we talked about.
so maybe maybe that is what it will bring us i i certainly hope so yeah yeah if not for me then
for the kids yeah we'll find out we'll find out is that positive enough i think so i hope so now

(01:34:27):
i'm like now i'm like envisioning like a decade from now i'm like me trying to convince my boys
to not get chipped and like like that we're don't do that we're part machine now it's like
am i gonna be the luddite millennial like don't do that it's uh oh my god we're gonna be the
boomers in something probably i mean bs gen z we already are um brand has been fascinating

(01:34:52):
that's fun there's a fun jam i think i'm uh equally scared and excited about the future
i think that's me too man well thanks for jamming along it's been fun um go check out
bitcoin for millennial streaks and i'm excited to see your protocol launch it seems like you're
pretty close. I'm going to, I'm going to tell you about it when we hang up. Okay. All right.

(01:35:17):
Let's hang up. I want to hear about it. Peace. Love freaks.

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