June 30, 2025 • 67 mins
Bram Kanstein, host of the excellent "Bitcoin For Millennials" podcast joins me today to discuss how different generations alive today fit into the Bitcoin story, the rise of technology, and the societal zeitgeist at large.
Enjoy the rip, and go check out his show if you're on the hunt for more awesome Bitcoin podcasts!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And what we're seeing right now is that many people, especially in the millennial generation, are not having children because they're so anxious towards the future, you know, about the future.
(00:09):
They're so nihilistic.
You know, I cannot change anything about the world, et cetera, et cetera.
People are deciding not to have kids, people in our generation who are in the prime years of their lives to have children and build a family.
They are not doing that because they are so worried about affordability towards the future.
(00:30):
That is, I think, what fiat money is creating is that people are actually, you know, forced to not follow their biological urges because they are also forced to use money that is being debased all the time.
In order to get to the solution, you first really have to accept that you don't know what money is.
(00:50):
You don't know what saving is.
You don't know what investing is.
Right.
Like all these things of which you thought how they worked are totally different.
And so that I think is not an IQ test, more like an ego test, like being willing to accept that, yeah, you're a grown person and you have no clue about what money is.
(01:11):
For me, that was quite a big thing.
And I've seen with the people I talked with that that was one of the biggest things to realize.
Because, yeah, if my understanding of the money isn't true or truthful like how it's been told to me, yeah, what else is it true, right?
(01:32):
All right, friends.
We are back for another episode of the Ben Worman Podcast.
I appreciate you very much for being here.
and today we have a strong contender for the second best podcaster in the Bitcoin world today.
His name is Bram Canstein from the Netherlands.
I very much enjoy your show, sir.
(01:52):
My typical routine for finding people that I want to bring on to rant about Bitcoin with me is
I go find all the other good podcasts out there and I just grind through your episodes
and I just poach my favorite ones.
So thank you for giving me lots of great people.
that I found. Thanks for coming, man.
Wow, thanks. Yeah, that's a very nice introduction, man.
(02:16):
I think I'm literally doing the same as you.
I love Bitcoin and I can't stop thinking or talking about it.
And I also think we shouldn't stop talking about Bitcoin.
So I appreciate you and I'm happy to be here and happy to chat, man.
Amazing, dude. So I told you this before we hit record,
but I'll give a little quick intro to the friends listening.
(02:37):
I usually do quite a good job at doing some basic research on the folks I'm bringing on,
just background and whatnot.
But my morning was spent running around my little beach town in Costa Rica
trying to find a place that had a generator because our power went out.
So I will let you take me through the story of Bram.
How did you come from a Dutch gentleman falling into the Bitcoin rabbit hole, sir?
(03:01):
um yeah i always think where to start but i think the best start is
um you know i i think i'm a i'm a real just like internet geek you know uh millennial
youngster that grew up uh with like i think one of the first uh internet connections in the town
(03:24):
that i grew up in and my mother was always very forward thinking so she she had one of like the
earliest mobile phones, you know, like the brick Motorola. And I remember we had internet very
early on and I was just fascinated by the fact that you could basically discover anything in the
world. Like all information seemed to be tied together. I just love it. Just like literally
(03:46):
the surfing on the internet. I call that computering. Like I always love doing that.
And my mother would always yell upstairs saying like, you need to get off the internet. You know,
I need to use the phone. And so like that, like that. So I spent a lot of my youth on the internet
and what I later realized, what I really enjoy doing is just seeing like, what are people working
on? What are they building? You know, why are they spending their time on a certain idea?
(04:10):
You know, it's, it's really easy, I think, to judge ideas or dismiss something and think something
won't work. But, you know, if someone is spending their precious time and energy on it,
then perhaps you're missing something.
And I always, I learned this way later
that that is how I think.
But when I think back about my youth,
like I just love trying out new stuff.
(04:32):
And for example, I was on Napster very early on.
Later, I found out that at the top of Napster,
they only had like 15 million users in the entire world.
And like 15 year old me was one of them,
you know, downloading songs.
And I had like these towers with CD burners
and I used to make my own mixtapes and stuff
(04:52):
and sell that in school.
I was a LimeWire maximalist.
Host parties from the revenue.
Well, after that, you know,
Kazaa, like all that stuff.
Like I did that.
And it's just fun tinkering around with computers, right?
Like, I mean, I had a sick library of songs,
like 10,000 plus songs.
And my computer was fried twice
(05:13):
and I lost like the whole library that I had twice, actually.
So anyway, yeah, so I think I'm a real like internet geek.
I'm very curious.
I just love to learn like what are people spending their time on?
What are they building?
And yeah, I mean, to that degree, like at one point it was inevitable that I came across Bitcoin.
(05:35):
I actually had a friend of mine that sent me a message.
I think, yeah, it was like 2014, early 2014 saying like, you know, this is something for you.
And there was a video on Vimeo, which was called How Bitcoin Works or something like that.
Unfortunately, this is now a private video.
So I always share this story, but I cannot link to it.
(05:57):
But it was just like a very straightforward animation that just explained like how Bitcoin worked.
And at that time, I felt like, yeah, this makes sense.
You know, like a currency, a money for the Internet.
I always saw the internet like the little icon that it is right like this network this mesh
net around the world and so I thought yeah this should have a have a currency and that's
(06:21):
uh like one dimension how I looked at it the other dimension was just like yeah I was a student I
felt like hey this is something to make money with so I think I day traded for like three months
eventually one night I remember like I fell asleep and it was just hallucinating like seeing the
charts everywhere and stuff and just realizing I was way too emotional to trade. So I stopped,
(06:42):
I stopped doing that. But of course, you know, I found, I found Bitcoin, then I found the better
Bitcoin, which was Litecoin. At that time, I even did a presentation at a big bank after a guy who
did a Bitcoin presentation talking about Litecoin, you know, messing around with that early Doge,
you know, whatever, just trading, just just fucking around, basically. And so in the end,
(07:06):
Like I always share, like I bought between 100 and 300.
I sold everything at 4,000 and I felt really great.
When I look back at my tweets from 2013, I have tweets that say like Bitcoin is a synthesized digital commodity that you can trade 24-7, 365 with anyone in the world.
And when I read that and think about that, I'm like, damn, like I got it, but I didn't get it.
(07:30):
you know so um that is interesting to look back at because i think that's the journey of many
people right like you you find it its number go up that's why you get in you look at it from one
or two certain dimensions that you know are your interest and it took me a lot of coining well not
a lot but like mainly eth and like some some coins on eth and nfts and stuff like that uh where you
(07:54):
know i i like tinkering with technology i like being creative so i was kind of distracted by
that i always held on to to some bitcoin um but then like in 2017 i uh i worked at a big bank
in like the innovation department and i always walked in you know business district amsterdam
with my backpack and and my bitcoin pin on my backpack and i always walked in feeling like an
(08:17):
intruder you know and um one day so i was into bitcoin and a little bit still in the crypto stuff
And I had a lot of colleagues that were into crypto. And then like one day I had a talk with a colleague of mine who mentioned, you know, did you know that the money in a bank is not yours? And I was like, what are you talking about? And then we had lunch for an hour and he explained to me, you know, fractional reserve banking. When you put your money in the bank, you basically lend it out to the bank. And they tried to make money with it. You know, if that works out, they keep all the profit. If it doesn't, you know, the losses get socialized on you.
(08:54):
and so after that conversation I remember walking away just feeling like an idiot like
I was 30 I was into Bitcoin so I should have like known known better I had a mortgage
working at a bank right and I walked away from a conversation thinking like I'm a damn idiot like
I'm participating in a financial system that I just don't know anything about like what are you
(09:15):
doing and I think that kind of lit a fire in a sense that you know like like I said like I'm a
curious person but this just uh yeah touched me somewhere where i was like yeah it's just
fucking it's just fucking stupid like what are you doing like i never i just realized that with
some decisions on things that you do in your life you just make the decision because you think that
(09:37):
is the decision but you never really reflect on why you made the decision and if you're actually
okay with the decision and that was really like one of those moments in my life and that really
pushed me further down, you know, the Bitcoin rabbit hole, really looking at,
you know, finance, economics, and like way more into what I call like the reason of existence,
(10:00):
like why should Bitcoin exist, right? Like, does it have a right to exist? And so I mentioned I
worked in the innovation department. And so my background is in like startups, digital products,
mainly like early phases, like zero to one. And what I always hammered on is like, yeah,
you can build anything, but should you, right?
Like figuring out if you should do something and pursue that idea with your
(10:24):
time, energy and resources. That's the most important question.
And so I realized at that point in 2017, like,
that's how I should look at it. Like, why does, should this exist?
And what are these other crypto things doing here? And yeah,
then I just figured out over time, it took me some time. Yeah.
that the money that we're forced to use is very, very broken and that it will debase until, you know, into perpetuity and that I don't want to store my economic energy in a melting ice cube.
(10:56):
And when I realized that, that I can just move from like one money system that I don't understand to actually a money system that I can understand and actually verify for myself how that works.
You know, that was a pretty profound moment.
And that's basically when I went all in.
So I don't know if that was a nice summary, but that's kind of amazing.
(11:16):
So many similarities.
And so you are the host of the Bitcoin for Millennials podcast and we are both millennials who went into this Bitcoin thing And one of the things I like about how you have that theme is that we millennials all have somewhat similar paths into finding this thing those who have found Bitcoin
because we grew up during a certain time,
(11:38):
we were a certain age when certain things happened,
and it morphs all of our brains in a similar track
in a lot of ways.
And one of the things that we have,
which can be viewed as both a blessing and a curse,
is our ability to look back at our old stupid tweets
and want to punch our past selves in the face
for getting into crypto, which I also did.
I love that.
(11:58):
I had a whole crypto blog that I spent so much time and energy
just talking about these different shitcoins.
Illusion.
Yeah, I was.
But we all figured it out eventually.
And, well, I shouldn't say all of us.
Hopefully the people listening to this have made it.
And if they're not, then hurry up.
Definitely not all of us.
Yeah, but it's funny to see the similar paths.
(12:22):
And I'm getting from your story.
I think you're a little bit further on the elder millennial side than me.
I just turned 30, so I'm on a very early side.
Are you like mid-30s, late-30s?
I'm 37.
37, yeah.
So you had seven years ahead of me on that.
So I feel like we really are in such a great demographic for people to find this thing.
(12:44):
And I'd be curious of your thoughts on how you view the millennial generation
as a piece of this big awakening puzzle we can all see happening.
For me personally, I feel like it's our purpose on this planet
to be the generation that puts our foot down and says enough is enough.
(13:04):
We need to turn this ship around.
And that ship being fiat money, as Bitcoiners have figured out,
like the fiat system is what's caused so many of the problems.
So would you agree with that summarization from your research
you've done talking to all these other millennials?
Yes, I love this question.
Oh man, there's so much in here.
(13:26):
I'll start with the awakening part.
I think that we are like the boomers are bamboozled by fiat money,
but we are the most bamboozled by fiat money.
Because I think we've grown up,
and then especially talking about the Western world,
we've grown up in the best time to ever grow up,
(13:48):
you know, for any person that ever lived in the entirety of humanity,
as far as we know how long that is, right. But, you know,
to a considerable degree, we, we've probably had like the, the,
the best time growing up ever, ever to exist. Right. And so again,
especially in the West,
I think you've never had to question what money is, right?
(14:11):
Like you just got some coins and a bill and you were sent to a store and you
gave that and you got a bread or a lollipop or whatever in return. And, you know, that was the
moment when you realized, well, okay, apparently this is money, what people call money. And that's
what we're just using, you know, and everything is just working. I mean, you know, comparable to
(14:34):
probably, you know, 80% of the world, I have an incredible luxurious life in one of the richest
countries in the world never worried about clean water or a roof over my head or food or whatever
you know so i'm i'm incredibly privileged privileged and and just plain lucky to that degree so
(14:56):
you know if you grow up in uh in a time like that why would you ever question if the system that
you're in you know society that you're in if if if that is working for you or not you know and
And I think where the big awakening part is that it's not, you know, that you have to understand that that is not that is not the case.
(15:20):
that basically everything that you've been taught,
all your preconceptions about building wealth,
building your life, the steps to follow,
everything that your parents and your grandparents,
I think especially your parents were able to do,
less so the grandparents, of course,
at World War II era.
(15:40):
So our parents had the perfect path.
And that's because they profited
from the introduction of fiat money significantly
in their coming of age and becoming an adult.
So that is what they taught us.
By the way, pretty interesting that in two generations,
(16:00):
you see that the system will break.
So it's a very bad, flawed system.
That was a sidestep.
But everything that's been sold to us just is not working.
So if people, I love these images where it shows like in the 1965,
65, like an average teacher in the US could have, you know, a wife at home, three kids, a Cadillac and a home, you know, on an average teacher salary.
(16:30):
Now, now the teachers cannot even live in the area where they teach in many, many parts of of the Western world specifically.
So I think where the awakening is, is that you have to realize that, you know, and that was that moment for me at the bank when I partially realized this.
You know, you are not an actor in this financial system.
(16:53):
You are a subject.
You are being used to perform certain activities to keep the scam that is fiat money basically alive.
You know, it's a debt-based system.
So, of course, you are incentivized to get a job so you can pay for a mortgage.
(17:13):
So you can buy a home that has now become a tradable good instead of a utility good, for example.
And so, yeah, again, I think the awakening part is in realizing that we are incredibly lucky and privileged to have grown up in a time like we've grown up.
(17:33):
But that if you think about it towards the future, you know, we have 40, 50, 60 plus years ahead of us, generally speaking, like 30, 35 years of working.
And if you see the rate of debasement of the fiat money, right, so the reward that we are getting for our productivity, our work is depreciating effectively, probably between 8 and 10 percent every year.
(18:01):
try to make the calculation about how many money units whatever the money is in your country how
many unit or currency how many currency units you need in order to live a certain lifestyle in 30 35
years i mean i could recommend that to everyone but that's going to be kind of kind of a shocker
and that's i think when i did that i realized that there is no pension you know there there
(18:28):
there's just not going to be a pension as our parents have a pension, which in my mother's
case, for example, I also find questionable. I tell her like, I really hope that the money is
there, but I don't really think it's going to be there. So I'm going to think about you and
hopefully I can help you. And she's, she is saying like, yeah, I can only trust that it's there.
(18:52):
And she says, yeah, it's out of my control and this and that. And I think that that is such a
pity you know like if you work in her case almost 50 years in in her life and then be uncertain about
how you can afford living quite modestly to be honest for the the remainder of your life however
long that is yeah just seeing that up close i think that's that's just a pretty bad outlook and
(19:18):
so i know this is a very a long answer but why millennials are so primed to see this is because
a they have a what we call hair on fire problem so if you do the calculation about your retirement
you're going to realize that however many units you think you need to live a certain lifestyle
that you want you're gonna need like three times more probably than um than you initially think
(19:45):
and then if you think about okay how am i going to to do that and that is i think where a lot a lot
of people fall into the trap of like thinking they should become money managers or investors
or have someone help invest for them right like no you just you should be able to just save
you know to live frugal to be um no frugal is i think a preference but like to really be the owner
(20:11):
of the monetary energy like the monetary reward that you got for your work and oh yeah that's
what I meant to say with being a subject, not an actor, is the fact that you can think you trade
in a free way with someone else, your time and energy for a certain reward. But there's a third
party that influences the value of that reward that you're getting. And that is being programmatically
(20:36):
debased every year. So once you go out there in the world and you take risk having a job or doing
a venture when you come home you have to mitigate effectively like i said between eight and ten
percent debasement each year and that's why you are forced to become a consumer and you know so
(20:58):
either you're going to spend it or you're going to think you should be playing the stocks game
and trying to build wealth in that way and that's actually what is help is helping keeping the
the system alive is you just running that rat race or of trying to mitigate that purposeful
debasement that is taking place where, you know, on the other side, you could think like, okay,
(21:21):
I'm taking a certain risk. I'm trying to add value to the world and, you know, whatever way,
whatever your job or venture is. And when I come home, I just want to hang out with myself or my
wife or find a wife or a spouse and build a family and figure out where to live and what to do and
what to what more to learn and whatever but instead you are either forced to spend your money
(21:46):
because all the money you have today is worth the most today or you're forced to become an investor
and if you just want to be diligent and safe that is just not uh not possible anymore so
i think that is the problem that people need to understand that that they have and then of course
yeah you can ask yourself what is the what is the solution and in order to get to the solution you
(22:12):
first really have to accept that you don't know what money is you don't know what saving is you
don't know what investing is right like all the all these things that that you thought of which
you thought how they worked are totally different and so that I think is not an IQ test more like an
(22:33):
ego ego test like being willing to accept that yeah you're a grown person and you have no clue
about what money is you know like for me that was quite a big thing and i've seen with the people i
talked with that that was you know one of the biggest things to realize because yeah if my
understanding of the money isn true or truthful like how it been told told to me uh yeah what What else it true right That perhaps a different conversation but just realizing that you have to take ownership
(23:06):
of the decisions that you make,
and that when you realize that you never thought about
what to do in taking that decision,
that you have to reflect on it.
And when you then realize that you totally disagree
with what you decided to do, just be okay with it, right?
And just be like, okay, I'm going to study or find information, dissect information to actually figure out what the hell I should do here.
(23:32):
And so if you want to figure out what money is, if you want to figure out how to just do your best in your job or venture, save towards the future in a stable way.
And I think as an output of that, lower your uncertainty towards the future, then Bitcoin is what you should look into.
(23:54):
and why I think the millennials are primed to understand it
is because Bitcoin uniquely combines the physical world
with the energy that is expended to create this digital commodity.
And the digital world, you know, sending, trading in real time.
(24:15):
Yeah, it's like the perfect merger or like the last product
of physical and digital combined into one.
So yeah, I know that was a very long answer,
but I hope that was helpful.
We love those.
We love them.
And since you have a generation name in your podcast,
(24:37):
I'm just going to throw you all my generational questions here.
It's perfect for it.
I think this is such an interesting part of this story.
I had Brandon Quittemann recently for a second time
talking about the fourth turning,
You know how these generations tend to follow these cycles.
I think it's really fascinating to look at this and it helps us get a much clearer picture of what's happening.
(24:57):
Also predict how things will happen in the future.
And one of the things I feel like most people would agree with is that there's this weird clashing rivalry between boomers and millennials.
It's like the Gen X was completely forgotten about for some reason.
And there's now this millennials and boomers disagreement about things.
(25:18):
And what is your view on that interesting clash?
Why does it exist?
Why was Gen X skipped?
And what's causing this rivalry between these two generations?
Yeah, it's funny.
The Gen Xers reply on my video saying, like, we also exist.
(25:41):
I don't know.
Maybe they even had it easier than the millennials.
I don't know.
Maybe that's the thing you're trying to do here.
But yeah, so I think that millennials are seeing that what has been sold to them, it just isn't working.
(26:04):
And what they don't like, I think, I'm not necessarily like that, but, you know, boomers say like, well, yeah, but, you know,
you think you you've you're having it you know it's rough for you like think about think about
us right and then they you know share all all their things i think every generation has certain
(26:27):
struggles so yeah i i don't even i don't really know how to answer the question but i'll i'll
i'll tie it back to the previous one because what i forgot to say because you said like
you know why why are the millennials so why do they have the opportunity to awaken the world
I think it's because we really understand how the internet works.
(26:53):
And because we understand that in a fundamental way, we also have all the tools needed to kick the boomer ruling class's ass, basically.
Those are the people that are still governing over us.
I literally just watched the video, an interview with a guy from the ECB, and they asked him, like, why are you making a central bank digital currency?
(27:16):
Yeah, because we have to, you know, adjust to the digital times or whatever.
Like, that's the main argument, right?
Like that just shows a lack of understanding of the digital world, you know, global access to information now with AI, global access to productivity, global access to communication with anyone in the world, right?
(27:40):
Like the centralized points of origination of information and policy and stuff like that, like that is just really over.
On the internet, that's already over, right?
And I think we're going into this transition where, you know, in the physical world, in the leadership roles, et cetera, you know, roles of power.
(28:04):
Yeah, the millennials are slowly taking over.
Combined with that, we are going to inherit, you know, like the most wealth to ever be inherited ever.
So we are going to become the leading class.
class. And I think that many millennials, you know, I think the definition or like the
(28:26):
characteristic of millennials, one of those things is also like, like justice, right. And honesty
and community and stuff like that. And I think that is really what we find important. I mean,
we are talking here, we found each other through a certain subject and you're on the other side of
the world and we're connected here and just, you know, sharing our thoughts like that is something
(28:47):
that the boomers have never been able to do, right?
You know, not to criticize,
but that was like the technology wasn't there, right?
So their worldview is per definition,
just more narrow and also I think more controlled
by whoever taught them.
Whereas with us, like we can just access
(29:09):
any information in the world
and we're also able to dissect it.
Like some people now hate on Twitter.
i've been on twitter for like 12 13 15 years even i i i would pay 500 euros a month for twitter
like that's my access door to the world to people to real-time things happening you know um
(29:31):
and so i think what the boomers and to a degree also gen x have to realize that that information
wise we've already won like community wise connection wise like um i've had so many times
that i learned something on the internet from someone that that you know knows what they're
(29:51):
talking about and then like two months later i see it in the mainstream media and i think like
yeah you're like you're behind you know and speed is becoming more and more and more um important
i think especially you know with ai like if you can build anything yeah i think i think you know
coming 10 years are going to be crazy. But, you know, if,
if you don't learn about this, you will fall behind. And then
(30:15):
that, that is just basically it. So again,
this is a broad answer,
but I think millennials have all the tools in their toolkit plus the money
later,
plus the age that actually puts them in a certain place where they can help
elevate the,
the rest of the world with, you know,
(30:36):
kind of these principles of freedom of information and collaboration and all these things.
Yeah, and I would say the more I dig into Bitcoin and how each generation is taking in this new crazy thing that's coming in about to blow everything up,
it's made me understand that millennials are pretty awesome.
(30:59):
And I think it's worth saying that I have come to appreciate my generation more and more.
I think that a lot of people got sucked up into the fiatness of it all because we were in a lot of ways raised in that world where things are a certain way.
I mean, there's so many examples.
School is an example.
It's just completely indoctrinated in the world that you all have to go to this government school that teaches you these certain things.
(31:25):
It gives you all this information that's not really helpful for your life.
And then you go to college, get in debt, then go to the job market, and there's no jobs available.
So there's a lot of these pieces that are downstream effects of fiat that we have experienced.
But I'm still seeing people in millennials specifically that are extremely selfless in a lot of ways and really want to make the world a better place.
(31:50):
And I don't get as much of that vibe from the past generations.
I think that do you think that would be fair to say that you think that the generation before us were a little bit more selfish?
I'm not saying that in a bad way.
I'm selfish in a lot of ways too.
But do you think that the previous generations versus the millennials,
I feel like millennials are really the save the world types.
(32:11):
Would you agree with that?
Yeah, I think so.
I think that's – I'm looking something up.
I think that's what I meant with the justice part, right?
Like just because we have more information, we also see more stuff that we don't like that we think should be fixed.
(32:34):
Right. So I think it's kind of attached to that and just realizing that.
Yeah, because you can reach anyone in the world, like you can also coordinate action anywhere in the world.
And so I do think we are less selfish.
(32:56):
I don't know.
Maybe it's that.
I think just our focus on community, just being, you know, really being into that, I think is eventually also what just enables people to create communities around whatever they find important or want to talk about or discover or improve or whatever.
(33:17):
so I think it's kind of that but when you say selfishness
selfishness I I'm looking up
Ayn Rand who says a lot about selfishness
actually and she says
I'm just quoting here one thing according to Ayn Rand's philosophy
a selfish person is a person who pursues his goals and is guided by reason not by
(33:41):
instantaneous whims or emotions and it's actually interesting
such selfishness is also called rational.
And it's funny because I'm bringing this up
because I found this like five weeks ago.
Someone shared a quote.
It was a different quote about selfishness from Ayn Rand.
(34:02):
And when I read it, you know,
it was similar to what I just said.
I felt like, hey, I don't really understand
what selfishness is.
So selfishness is not that you,
don't care about others.
It's just like you focus on yourself.
And I do think that before you can become a bit more altruistic
(34:24):
or in service of others I think it is actually really important to know yourself because I think when you better know yourself
it's also helpful in figuring out,
okay, what is it then that I can do to add value to the world,
(34:44):
to be of service to other people?
And I think that eventually the thing that you then do
will become more valuable to others if you first focused on yourself
to just do stuff and figure stuff out and fail and learn
and all these things.
And so, yeah, those are my thoughts around selfishness.
(35:07):
I think it's interesting you pointed.
I think it's different from individualism, right?
Also, something I learned, that's what I thought meant,
just focusing on yourself or not caring about others.
But that's actually not what individualism is.
Individualism is actually that you respect each individual
(35:29):
as being an individual like you.
It's actually something that would breed more respect
between people in society.
But I think that is also one of the terms or things
that just has kind of been twisted along the way
that I think kind of like distort the opportunity that we have
(35:54):
to actually bring more people together and align people way more,
you know, by using the internet and like modern technology
like we're using now.
Yeah, that's such a good point.
And I agree that selfishness does not mean you don't care about other people.
And I think that the perfect example is, let me think, veganism.
(36:15):
There's one. Millennials, super vegan generation. These are people that care so much about like
looking outside of themselves and other things. And they care about the animals. They care about
the environment. They care about all this other stuff that they will literally like wither away
in malnourishment themselves because they think that the other things are more important than them.
(36:36):
So it's like, it can be used in such a way that it becomes a weapon used by the bad guys outside
I can realize these people don't have selfishness, so we can take advantage of it.
So we need to have a balance of selfishness, taking care of ourselves, protecting ourselves and our loved ones,
while also having that broader view of the world and wanting to make the world a better place.
(36:59):
And I think a big part of it is just understanding it starts from that first level of your family and yourself,
but also spreading love and light and knowledge for other people to find that same path.
And I think that's good. Is there anything you would add to that?
I feel like this is something that I do sense that millennials are starting to figure out too.
(37:19):
We're seeing trends on social media.
There's more trad wifey content and people promoting families being super cool.
Where when we were younger, it wasn't that way.
I think when Instagram was young, it was purely just a highlight reel.
It was the peak of feminism, I feel like, where it was saying, don't have kids, go work a job and pay taxes.
(37:41):
And I'm seeing that shift.
It seems like people are starting to kind of collect themselves and millennials are sort of leading that shift in what the zeitgeist is showing us.
What do you think about that?
I kind of threw a lot of things out there.
I think that that aligns with what I said about, you know, understanding that the way that information permeates into the real world or true and to the real world is the virtual world, is the Internet, you know.
(38:14):
And the internet, if you think about it in a way that it's pure democratization of information, the world is a battlefield of ideas and eventually ideologies, right?
but but of of ideas and so if if you have a free marketplace of ideas where um and this is
(38:38):
eventually i think also a nice tie to bitcoin where you know we can look up the numbers maybe
maybe quickly i'll try to be quickly like how how much uh data is shared on the internet daily you
know something like that so you know if you if you if you think about the world as a battlefield
of ideas and then just think about like okay on the internet like how much data is there shared
(39:04):
every day right or you know i'm thinking about how many hours of youtube videos or like podcasts or
or whatever right so i just quickly googled says like 402.7 million terabytes of data created each
day each day okay I'm scrolling down just to see if there's like YouTube or
(39:28):
yeah this is this is just data but like how many hours of our proportion of
internet data traffic daily 53% video 12% social okay so feed video is over
half of all the internet and I mean video like I don't know how much is
probably a lot but the the point is you can discover that too you know so you know i think
(39:55):
the the the i'm losing track you know
can you remind me of the question again
i don't even remember anymore either um how millennials are we're shifting the way that
we're like consuming and producing content to be in like a more positive direction oh yeah yeah yeah
(40:20):
so if yeah i got it so if if the world is an is a battlefield of ideas right and there are many
ideas released on the internet every day and it's a brutal free market of ideas right good ideas
will still come to the surface.
(40:42):
Things that people really want
are not ephemeral on the internet.
They keep coming back.
So Sidestep Bitcoin is a random idea
released on a random internet forum 16 years ago.
And now it represents over $2 trillion in value.
So is that a good idea or not?
(41:04):
If you think about the insane amount of ideas
released every day on the internet you know so 16 years after this was released you know
it's still alive and i think it's similar with you know what you're mentioning about the content
that people are making they call it like trad or you know or traditional whatever no like it's
just a good idea it's something that enough people want so that it just you know stays in this in
(41:32):
the zeitgeist you know it goes goes up and down with attention but and again i think that's an
interesting tie to like money and bitcoin i i mentioned when i talked about money
you know the uncertainty towards the future and this is really i think my core understanding of
bitcoin and i got this partially from from safety namus who talks about like time preference right
(41:54):
so if we we all don't know how much time we have in our lives right like it's absolutely finite like
Like we could be dead tomorrow.
And that's the same for everyone.
So we have a certain uncertainty towards the future.
And so that's the same for everyone.
(42:14):
But with the reward that you get for doing, you know, or applying your productivity to the world, you get a reward.
And you can use that reward to save that in order to spend it in the future.
on something that is created by someone else's productivity.
(42:36):
But if that thing that you're saving towards the future
is losing its value all the time,
then you actually increase your uncertainty towards the future,
which makes you more focused on the now,
but not in the good way, in the bad way.
As in, if I cannot save towards the future,
(42:57):
if my uncertainty towards the future grows,
you know and below that is the fact that and i said that before but all the money that you have
today is worth the most today then you're also incentivized to just spend it today on on stupid
stuff and and like i said before becoming a consumer instead of a builder because if you
want to be a builder you have to have capital to lower your uncertainty towards the future
(43:22):
so next so you can actually use time and space and and take some risk in order to build something
And then if you think about like, what would you want to build? Like that could be anything that could be building out your career, like learning something new, then switching in your career or building a home or building a family, for example.
eventually
(43:43):
that is what
is encoded
in us biologically
so the procreation
and what we're seeing right now
is that many people especially in the millennial
generation are not having children
because they're so anxious towards the
future, about the future, they're so
nihilistic, I cannot change
(44:04):
anything about the world etc etc
wouldn't surprise you that
I don't believe in that
because we have all this technology
and we could just do things.
People are deciding not to have kids,
people in our generation
who are in the prime years of their lives
to have children and build a family.
(44:24):
They are not doing that
because they are so worried
about affordability towards the future.
You know, that is, I think,
what fiat money is creating
is that people are actually, you know,
forced to not follow their biological urges because they are also forced to use money that
(44:45):
is being debased all the time, a money that is not organically chosen. It's purposefully,
it was created like this to, you know, fuel a certain debt-based system. But, you know,
now that we're seeing that people are not having children because they are so uncertain
about the future you also see that you know the ideas that that you talked about the whole
(45:08):
the the the traditional ideas about families and stuff like they are coming back because people um
people want that like people are yearning to have something like that but the current situation with
the money that's broken and being debased all the time is showing them that you know that is not
possible anymore and I think you know again a long a long answer but like long answers
(45:35):
this is the problem that everyone has so the problem is not only that you know your money
is being debased effectively eight to ten percent there is no pension you you won't have enough
currency units to pay for whatever the life is that you want to have right now and the things
that you want right now in this phase of your life
(45:56):
are not attainable to a vast
majority of our generation. And these are, I think, the three elements of the big problem that
millennials have and why they should study Bitcoin. We can get into why that's a solution. But
I think it's because of that, because of the realization that
(46:18):
we aren't really able to build a quote unquote traditional life like that is, I think, one of
the main reasons that people are creating and consuming also this type of content.
I completely agree with all that, 100%.
(46:39):
I think that we're in a very similar mindset on how this is all falling together.
And the direction I'd love to take it now is looking forward at Gen Z.
And my view of Gen Z has been all over the place over the last several years.
I feel like the starting place for most people when you're sort of in that nihilistic mindset is like, oh, man, they're just going to be even worse.
(47:04):
Like they're on their phones all the time.
They don't know how to socialize.
Things are just getting worse and worse, and we feel bad for them because it seems that way.
But I've been getting more optimistic recently from my own experience also just traveling and just meeting people from millennials and Gen Z are starting to be at the age of traveling now.
And I'm getting more bullish on them, to be honest.
(47:24):
And I did a Noster post the other day.
Let me see if I can pull up my window.
I can just read this off.
I feel like I kind of just put my thoughts on paper here.
So I said this.
I'm so bullish on Gen Z, meeting more and more of them that are eons more based than I was at their age.
They really have been born into a super divergent landscape where you either become a totally antisocial, screen-addicted soy slob, or you become a gigabase in record time.
(47:52):
highly dependent on the parenting of course so it's largely a second order effect of millennials
gen x getting their shit together very cool to see it enforces my view that the millennials
primary purpose in the awakening process is the generation to put their foot down and stop the
damage it's sad to see lots of folks in my generation who were consumed by the volatility
and may never recover but spiritual casualties during such a dramatic shift are inevitable
(48:16):
never been more optimistic the future is bright what do you think about that would you agree with
me on this do you think that things are looking good dude yes cool yes yeah what are your thoughts
on it because to me i think the big the big piece that i am confident about is the the divergent
part of the fact that you know they really have two very crazy different different paths you can
(48:40):
either go down the horrible path of just you know scrolling on tiktok all day just eating the seed
oils and you just never get anywhere or you you get into a good track which is being led mostly by
the the millennials and the gen x people who are trying to you know show them the way from their
own mistakes tell me your thoughts about this whole situation i've sort of laid out there
(49:02):
i fully agree fully agree um i i think you're spot on saying it's like 50 50 i think it's funny
because it's kind of natural, right?
Like kind of like yin and yang in that sense.
I fully agree.
I think that they are actually either more equipped
(49:24):
to use the internet to their advantage, right?
Like so IE become just super based, decentralized,
like autonomous acting people,
or they have been defeated by, you know,
all the fucking algorithms and optimization and, you know, yeah, like you said, like all the slob, all the brain rot that is created by the same type of people as them, I would say.
(49:55):
Because I think once you become super based and super autonomous and super decentralized, those are the people that I think are actually the most altruistic.
those are very open in helping other people. I think those are the people that are creating
communities and just now messing around with AI, building companies, just really being at
(50:18):
the forefront of trying out all of this stuff. And I wonder actually if that is also the case
in our generation. Is there also like a 50-50 type split? I don't know. I wonder what you
think but yeah i i agree i think that i what i think is that like the base gen z years can actually
(50:43):
are are are serious rivals to like my age millennials i'd say you know in terms of
the whole digital savviness and knowledge and and uh the connectedness and stuff like that and i
think that's very cool i mean they have a 15 to 20 year head start on on me so imagine when they
(51:07):
are like late late 30s they gonna be like they are going to be the ruling class in that in that sense and i think maybe that sounds weird but then they kind of will enforce those principles on the rest And I think that actually makes me
pretty enthusiastic about the future
in which my son has to grow up
(51:28):
and my daughter.
So I am actually very optimistic
about the future
because I think that the people
that are now in charge
to create the policies
and the guidelines
and shit like that
for like new technology,
many have no clue.
They have no clue.
Like I said,
(51:49):
like the whole example of CBDCs.
They just have no fucking clue how it works.
Like really.
You should go on WhatsApp
and open like the communities tab
and then look up European Central Bank or EU
and then look at the content.
That's going to be fun.
Like I'd love to see the comments.
What even is that?
(52:09):
Is that like people posting from the EU?
Exactly.
Or people posting about it.
Okay.
No, it's the EU's community communication channel on WhatsApp.
And each message has like 50 likes.
No one cares.
No one cares.
And if you think about, you know, I'll tie it to Bitcoin.
(52:32):
Bitcoin is the network state already.
I can come to fucking Costa Rica and I can stay with you.
and then I have a friend who lives in New York
that you then go to and stay with him.
If I have some fucking stage four crazy cancer tomorrow,
I'm with a doctor in wherever
who's a Bitcoiner in five days.
(52:55):
That already exists and we can do that.
So the boomers in charge
and the Gen Xers in charge do not have that.
And so I think that's our edge.
and I think the Gen Zers have that even way more
right like they have friends
from fucking Fortnite or whatever
so they are even more
connected
(53:17):
in that way
I literally made friends playing Call of Duty
but yeah
it's so funny how the video game
angle especially for guys
because guys play video games more
sort of pulls our brains in more
I literally have
friends to this day that I played Call of Duty with
like over a decade ago
And I met them through that. It's crazy how there's different ways that people can sort of find each other.
(53:44):
And you're right, the networking is such a big part of it.
And the fact that we connected through the Bitcoin network and there's so many other people out there who are finding their people.
And Bitcoin is starting to become this big blob in the middle that's bringing people from all different edges together through that similar understanding of the money being the problem here.
(54:09):
And it's so fascinating to me how all these different things all are connected to that.
But it makes sense.
I talked to Joe Bryan earlier today who did that awesome What's the Problem video, and he brings up during that video just how the money system is the glue that holds everything together.
So when you find people that are in Bitcoin, you're going to inevitably find other people in these different areas that, like you said, can help you in different ways because they're able to specialize in the things that they're actually good at, and they don't have to focus on being a stock trader or splitting their energy up in all these different places.
(54:45):
Because you notice this really clearly when you go to Bitcoin, you have to meet Bitcoin folks, is that they are able to completely focus on what they're really good at and not have to split themselves up all over the place.
Have you seen that too?
I mean, you're incentivized to do that.
But if you measure Bitcoin only in Bitcoin and you realize that there's only 21 million Bitcoin and it's the hardest money to ever exist, you also realize that you have to add real value in the world to be able to earn that Bitcoin.
(55:24):
Like right now, you can still exchange it for fiat money.
You know, that's how I see it as an exchange rate, like not a price.
and the people that understand that
are positively incentivized
to figure out what am I here to do?
How do I add value to the world?
(55:46):
And I think also that will continuously accelerate.
And I think the word acceleration,
like accelerate in my ideas around all this stuff
is the fact that it's only going to accelerate.
Like every technological process was an acceleration
or like condensation of energy in like a smaller unit
(56:09):
which accelerated like the development
of the next technological advancement after that.
And it's also, I think,
that many technological advancements
couldn't exist without the one before that.
You can apply that in many ways, right?
Like even a printing press,
creating boots, books, spreading knowledge, you know, people becoming more creative, et
(56:31):
cetera than you know going on to um to to invent invent other stuff like AI can exist without the internet Bitcoin couldn exist without the internet
And that time between the next thing
is just being compressed all the time.
And so you have to adjust.
(56:51):
And I think that will eventually become more and more clear.
Perhaps that's also part of what you can call the awakening.
You're going to be forced to really think about how I am living my life.
What am I doing here? What is going on? What do I want to do here?
What am I good at? What do I enjoy? How can I bring value?
(57:14):
All these introspective questions that I think in a time up until now,
now especially like 90s and and 2000s uh and and 2010 so let's say 30 years
i think it was way everything was way more outward you know from consuming to um you know
(57:41):
the whole social media stuff and um you know how people portray themselves there and i i think
there's kind of like a shift so like in the 30 years before the 1990s right so 60s 70s 80s
those were very introspective um and very spiritual years and experimental years and stuff like that
(58:01):
so i know fourth turning is a bit longer but you know i i i actually think that there's like four
of these it's like seasons or something you know in in like uh uh the the the the turning again so
yeah kind of see it like that so we are in that shift i'd say of people becoming more aware of
(58:23):
themselves their lives their surrounding what what they are actually um operating in how that's
it's constructed by other people no better than them.
You know, it's all artificial.
And that knowledge is out there and uncontainable, right?
(58:44):
Like that's uncensorable.
And that is just really out there.
And how people communicate with each other,
I think is the main way of other people figuring that out
and then realizing, yeah, there's like 65-year-old boomers
that are ruling over us.
They don't even know how to turn the computer on.
So what the fuck?
I need to do something about it
(59:05):
and I can actually do something about it.
Although I think that still many people,
because they don't understand
that the money is the problem.
Again, I didn't understand that before.
But if money is the reward
for any work that anyone does,
you can also argue that
(59:26):
the quality of the money
creates the incentive
that motivates to do the work.
And that incentive can be bad or can be good, right?
So everything that you think is a problem in the world
is a problem because the money is broken.
And that is really, I think, the core thing
that people need to understand.
(59:46):
As long as you don't understand that,
you will keep pointing fingers to, you know,
whoever is the villain of this year
and you're going to protest and, you know,
set up tens or you know occupy wall street and shit like that or against the one percent or
all all that stuff extinction rebellion all that all that stuff um as long as you're
(01:00:09):
pointing fingers you don't you don't understand the problem because the problem is the money
and the easiest thing that you can do is just move to another money you just sell the bad money
with the bad incentives,
the soft money with the bad incentives
for the hard money with the positive incentives.
And that's literally the only thing you have to do.
(01:00:30):
And then you just chill and wait, basically.
And so, yeah, I really wanted to share that
because I think that many people in our generation
and also in Gen Z are very finger pointy.
But there's actually a thing that you could use
to really crumble the ruling boomer class
(01:00:54):
that has their power over you.
And they have no clue.
They don't even know Bitcoin exists.
You can just do that.
And they will fuck it up anyway.
I think what I saw today,
30-year treasuries in the US are well above 5%.
(01:01:14):
This is a flaw.
The fiat money system is a flawed system, fundamentally flawed system that can only exist if we allow it to perpetuate.
And if we just abandon it and just move to another money, it's just going to implode.
And then we win.
(01:01:34):
Beautifully said.
I think that it's so interesting looking at each generation, how they view it so differently.
Because, of course, there are boomers out there we love.
I had Loris Lepard on recently.
You had him on, too.
I think I actually listened to your podcast with him when I was getting ready for mine And we love Larry We love all these Bitcoin dads out there that shower that shower us with knowledge Shout out to Bob Burnett I don even know him Who that
(01:02:00):
Is that another good one I need to check out?
That's Boomer BTC on Twitter.
Awesome. Yeah. They're, they're hiding out there.
They're, they're coming through the woodwork and it's, it's rare,
but they are extremely passionate and they know that their generation,
played a big part in the problem, whether it be the minority of them who were part of actually
(01:02:26):
perpetuating it or the majority, which just didn't understand what was happening. And they sort of
went along with the propaganda that was fed to them and just they trust the institutions too much
because life was pretty good for them. And like you said, early in our lives, millennials are
figuring out that things are not working for us and sort of forcing us to look for alternatives.
(01:02:47):
But boomers didn't really have that because life was awesome for them.
They had really cheap.
I mean, what's the example?
Cheap houses.
You know, I mean, there's so many things were much easier, more accessible to them than it is now.
So you can't blame them for just existing in that system.
They weren't pushed into needing to learn something different.
So I think that's what it really comes down to is every generation is full of great people.
(01:03:11):
They're all operating with a certain incentive structure that all humans are.
And we should all just be friends.
and buy Bitcoin together.
I agree.
And we cannot blame them
that when they became an adult, right,
and started working and earning money,
(01:03:34):
those were the beginning years of the fiat money, right?
So they got to front run everyone that came after them,
which they logically did, right?
So there's no blame,
But I think, and maybe that's kind of then the tension to millennials and boomers.
And there's a few that actually realize and are humble enough, like Larry and Bob, George Bodine, for example.
(01:04:01):
They're like, yeah, I totally profited from this.
But I also agree that it's fucked up.
We need to do something about it.
And I think that's the tension that the boomers see the millennials complaining.
and they're like, yeah, what are you complaining about?
You get like
a supercomputer in your pocket.
(01:04:22):
What are you talking about?
And then we're probably
like, yeah, but I don't have a home.
And no pension. And then
they will be like, yeah, but this was post
World War, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
So it's just
I think that is kind of core
of the discussion. But I think the boomers
should realize that they profited heavily
(01:04:42):
before anyone else profited.
And that's okay. But
but we have the results right now,
and that's not a pretty picture.
Yeah, we all have different situations.
We're giving different hands,
and we just got to do the best of what we got,
and I think that there's a different path
for every one of these groups
to find out that buying Bitcoin is a good idea.
(01:05:05):
It will help make things better for the future,
and I hope we can all agree
that the most important thing
is to create a better future for future generations,
And this is something that even the most brainwashed boomers I know would agree on.
They just have a different idea for how to do that, which we would believe is wrong most of the time.
But we all want to make a better future.
(01:05:27):
So I think that that's why Bitcoin education and just beating people over the head with the Bitcoin standard maybe or introducing podcasts like mine and yours that help bring people maybe a little more softly through the steps.
So speaking of that, you used a really good term I liked earlier, which is uncontainable knowledge.
So podcasts are a great way to do this.
(01:05:49):
And your podcast is a fantastic resource for people.
So where can people go to find your podcast and continue learning more of your work for Bitcoin for Millennials?
Yeah, so the easiest way to find it is on YouTube.
you can search for Bitcoin for Millennials
or my channel is called Bitcoin Bram.
(01:06:10):
And so I publish on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, Fountain.
So you can find it anywhere you listen to a podcast.
And then, yeah, I'm mainly mostly active on X
and my handle there is Bram K.
So B-R-A-M-K.
And yeah, that's the best way to keep up
with what I'm currently thinking about Bitcoin.
(01:06:31):
and yeah check out the podcast I hope people can find some value in it yeah beautiful man I know I
will be I'll continue going through your episodes listen to those and finding more new guests because
you have so many great people on there which is what this is all about just getting all the
best voices together to share their knowledge so appreciate all the work you're doing man
(01:06:53):
appreciate you joining me today I think we can finally limp to the finish line with my internet
cutting out every 20 seconds somehow that we made this work.
So we'll call it there, man.
It's been a pleasure talking to you, sir.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Awesome, man.
Likewise.
Thank you.
And what we're seeing right now is that many people, especially in the millennial generation, are not having children because they're so anxious towards the future, you know, about the future.
(00:09):
They're so nihilistic.
You know, I cannot change anything about the world, et cetera, et cetera.
People are deciding not to have kids, people in our generation who are in the prime years of their lives to have children and build a family.
They are not doing that because they are so worried about affordability towards the future.
(00:30):
That is, I think, what fiat money is creating is that people are actually, you know, forced to not follow their biological urges because they are also forced to use money that is being debased all the time.
In order to get to the solution, you first really have to accept that you don't know what money is.
(00:50):
You don't know what saving is.
You don't know what investing is.
Right.
Like all these things of which you thought how they worked are totally different.
And so that I think is not an IQ test, more like an ego test, like being willing to accept that, yeah, you're a grown person and you have no clue about what money is.
(01:11):
For me, that was quite a big thing.
And I've seen with the people I talked with that that was one of the biggest things to realize.
Because, yeah, if my understanding of the money isn't true or truthful like how it's been told to me, yeah, what else is it true, right?
(01:32):
All right, friends.
We are back for another episode of the Ben Worman Podcast.
I appreciate you very much for being here.
and today we have a strong contender for the second best podcaster in the Bitcoin world today.
His name is Bram Canstein from the Netherlands.
I very much enjoy your show, sir.
(01:52):
My typical routine for finding people that I want to bring on to rant about Bitcoin with me is
I go find all the other good podcasts out there and I just grind through your episodes
and I just poach my favorite ones.
So thank you for giving me lots of great people.
that I found. Thanks for coming, man.
Wow, thanks. Yeah, that's a very nice introduction, man.
(02:16):
I think I'm literally doing the same as you.
I love Bitcoin and I can't stop thinking or talking about it.
And I also think we shouldn't stop talking about Bitcoin.
So I appreciate you and I'm happy to be here and happy to chat, man.
Amazing, dude. So I told you this before we hit record,
but I'll give a little quick intro to the friends listening.
(02:37):
I usually do quite a good job at doing some basic research on the folks I'm bringing on,
just background and whatnot.
But my morning was spent running around my little beach town in Costa Rica
trying to find a place that had a generator because our power went out.
So I will let you take me through the story of Bram.
How did you come from a Dutch gentleman falling into the Bitcoin rabbit hole, sir?
(03:01):
um yeah i always think where to start but i think the best start is
um you know i i think i'm a i'm a real just like internet geek you know uh millennial
youngster that grew up uh with like i think one of the first uh internet connections in the town
(03:24):
that i grew up in and my mother was always very forward thinking so she she had one of like the
earliest mobile phones, you know, like the brick Motorola. And I remember we had internet very
early on and I was just fascinated by the fact that you could basically discover anything in the
world. Like all information seemed to be tied together. I just love it. Just like literally
(03:46):
the surfing on the internet. I call that computering. Like I always love doing that.
And my mother would always yell upstairs saying like, you need to get off the internet. You know,
I need to use the phone. And so like that, like that. So I spent a lot of my youth on the internet
and what I later realized, what I really enjoy doing is just seeing like, what are people working
on? What are they building? You know, why are they spending their time on a certain idea?
(04:10):
You know, it's, it's really easy, I think, to judge ideas or dismiss something and think something
won't work. But, you know, if someone is spending their precious time and energy on it,
then perhaps you're missing something.
And I always, I learned this way later
that that is how I think.
But when I think back about my youth,
like I just love trying out new stuff.
(04:32):
And for example, I was on Napster very early on.
Later, I found out that at the top of Napster,
they only had like 15 million users in the entire world.
And like 15 year old me was one of them,
you know, downloading songs.
And I had like these towers with CD burners
and I used to make my own mixtapes and stuff
(04:52):
and sell that in school.
I was a LimeWire maximalist.
Host parties from the revenue.
Well, after that, you know,
Kazaa, like all that stuff.
Like I did that.
And it's just fun tinkering around with computers, right?
Like, I mean, I had a sick library of songs,
like 10,000 plus songs.
And my computer was fried twice
(05:13):
and I lost like the whole library that I had twice, actually.
So anyway, yeah, so I think I'm a real like internet geek.
I'm very curious.
I just love to learn like what are people spending their time on?
What are they building?
And yeah, I mean, to that degree, like at one point it was inevitable that I came across Bitcoin.
(05:35):
I actually had a friend of mine that sent me a message.
I think, yeah, it was like 2014, early 2014 saying like, you know, this is something for you.
And there was a video on Vimeo, which was called How Bitcoin Works or something like that.
Unfortunately, this is now a private video.
So I always share this story, but I cannot link to it.
(05:57):
But it was just like a very straightforward animation that just explained like how Bitcoin worked.
And at that time, I felt like, yeah, this makes sense.
You know, like a currency, a money for the Internet.
I always saw the internet like the little icon that it is right like this network this mesh
net around the world and so I thought yeah this should have a have a currency and that's
(06:21):
uh like one dimension how I looked at it the other dimension was just like yeah I was a student I
felt like hey this is something to make money with so I think I day traded for like three months
eventually one night I remember like I fell asleep and it was just hallucinating like seeing the
charts everywhere and stuff and just realizing I was way too emotional to trade. So I stopped,
(06:42):
I stopped doing that. But of course, you know, I found, I found Bitcoin, then I found the better
Bitcoin, which was Litecoin. At that time, I even did a presentation at a big bank after a guy who
did a Bitcoin presentation talking about Litecoin, you know, messing around with that early Doge,
you know, whatever, just trading, just just fucking around, basically. And so in the end,
(07:06):
Like I always share, like I bought between 100 and 300.
I sold everything at 4,000 and I felt really great.
When I look back at my tweets from 2013, I have tweets that say like Bitcoin is a synthesized digital commodity that you can trade 24-7, 365 with anyone in the world.
And when I read that and think about that, I'm like, damn, like I got it, but I didn't get it.
(07:30):
you know so um that is interesting to look back at because i think that's the journey of many
people right like you you find it its number go up that's why you get in you look at it from one
or two certain dimensions that you know are your interest and it took me a lot of coining well not
a lot but like mainly eth and like some some coins on eth and nfts and stuff like that uh where you
(07:54):
know i i like tinkering with technology i like being creative so i was kind of distracted by
that i always held on to to some bitcoin um but then like in 2017 i uh i worked at a big bank
in like the innovation department and i always walked in you know business district amsterdam
with my backpack and and my bitcoin pin on my backpack and i always walked in feeling like an
(08:17):
intruder you know and um one day so i was into bitcoin and a little bit still in the crypto stuff
And I had a lot of colleagues that were into crypto. And then like one day I had a talk with a colleague of mine who mentioned, you know, did you know that the money in a bank is not yours? And I was like, what are you talking about? And then we had lunch for an hour and he explained to me, you know, fractional reserve banking. When you put your money in the bank, you basically lend it out to the bank. And they tried to make money with it. You know, if that works out, they keep all the profit. If it doesn't, you know, the losses get socialized on you.
(08:54):
and so after that conversation I remember walking away just feeling like an idiot like
I was 30 I was into Bitcoin so I should have like known known better I had a mortgage
working at a bank right and I walked away from a conversation thinking like I'm a damn idiot like
I'm participating in a financial system that I just don't know anything about like what are you
(09:15):
doing and I think that kind of lit a fire in a sense that you know like like I said like I'm a
curious person but this just uh yeah touched me somewhere where i was like yeah it's just
fucking it's just fucking stupid like what are you doing like i never i just realized that with
some decisions on things that you do in your life you just make the decision because you think that
(09:37):
is the decision but you never really reflect on why you made the decision and if you're actually
okay with the decision and that was really like one of those moments in my life and that really
pushed me further down, you know, the Bitcoin rabbit hole, really looking at,
you know, finance, economics, and like way more into what I call like the reason of existence,
(10:00):
like why should Bitcoin exist, right? Like, does it have a right to exist? And so I mentioned I
worked in the innovation department. And so my background is in like startups, digital products,
mainly like early phases, like zero to one. And what I always hammered on is like, yeah,
you can build anything, but should you, right?
Like figuring out if you should do something and pursue that idea with your
(10:24):
time, energy and resources. That's the most important question.
And so I realized at that point in 2017, like,
that's how I should look at it. Like, why does, should this exist?
And what are these other crypto things doing here? And yeah,
then I just figured out over time, it took me some time. Yeah.
that the money that we're forced to use is very, very broken and that it will debase until, you know, into perpetuity and that I don't want to store my economic energy in a melting ice cube.
(10:56):
And when I realized that, that I can just move from like one money system that I don't understand to actually a money system that I can understand and actually verify for myself how that works.
You know, that was a pretty profound moment.
And that's basically when I went all in.
So I don't know if that was a nice summary, but that's kind of amazing.
(11:16):
So many similarities.
And so you are the host of the Bitcoin for Millennials podcast and we are both millennials who went into this Bitcoin thing And one of the things I like about how you have that theme is that we millennials all have somewhat similar paths into finding this thing those who have found Bitcoin
because we grew up during a certain time,
(11:38):
we were a certain age when certain things happened,
and it morphs all of our brains in a similar track
in a lot of ways.
And one of the things that we have,
which can be viewed as both a blessing and a curse,
is our ability to look back at our old stupid tweets
and want to punch our past selves in the face
for getting into crypto, which I also did.
I love that.
(11:58):
I had a whole crypto blog that I spent so much time and energy
just talking about these different shitcoins.
Illusion.
Yeah, I was.
But we all figured it out eventually.
And, well, I shouldn't say all of us.
Hopefully the people listening to this have made it.
And if they're not, then hurry up.
Definitely not all of us.
Yeah, but it's funny to see the similar paths.
(12:22):
And I'm getting from your story.
I think you're a little bit further on the elder millennial side than me.
I just turned 30, so I'm on a very early side.
Are you like mid-30s, late-30s?
I'm 37.
37, yeah.
So you had seven years ahead of me on that.
So I feel like we really are in such a great demographic for people to find this thing.
(12:44):
And I'd be curious of your thoughts on how you view the millennial generation
as a piece of this big awakening puzzle we can all see happening.
For me personally, I feel like it's our purpose on this planet
to be the generation that puts our foot down and says enough is enough.
(13:04):
We need to turn this ship around.
And that ship being fiat money, as Bitcoiners have figured out,
like the fiat system is what's caused so many of the problems.
So would you agree with that summarization from your research
you've done talking to all these other millennials?
Yes, I love this question.
Oh man, there's so much in here.
(13:26):
I'll start with the awakening part.
I think that we are like the boomers are bamboozled by fiat money,
but we are the most bamboozled by fiat money.
Because I think we've grown up,
and then especially talking about the Western world,
we've grown up in the best time to ever grow up,
(13:48):
you know, for any person that ever lived in the entirety of humanity,
as far as we know how long that is, right. But, you know,
to a considerable degree, we, we've probably had like the, the,
the best time growing up ever, ever to exist. Right. And so again,
especially in the West,
I think you've never had to question what money is, right?
(14:11):
Like you just got some coins and a bill and you were sent to a store and you
gave that and you got a bread or a lollipop or whatever in return. And, you know, that was the
moment when you realized, well, okay, apparently this is money, what people call money. And that's
what we're just using, you know, and everything is just working. I mean, you know, comparable to
(14:34):
probably, you know, 80% of the world, I have an incredible luxurious life in one of the richest
countries in the world never worried about clean water or a roof over my head or food or whatever
you know so i'm i'm incredibly privileged privileged and and just plain lucky to that degree so
(14:56):
you know if you grow up in uh in a time like that why would you ever question if the system that
you're in you know society that you're in if if if that is working for you or not you know and
And I think where the big awakening part is that it's not, you know, that you have to understand that that is not that is not the case.
(15:20):
that basically everything that you've been taught,
all your preconceptions about building wealth,
building your life, the steps to follow,
everything that your parents and your grandparents,
I think especially your parents were able to do,
less so the grandparents, of course,
at World War II era.
(15:40):
So our parents had the perfect path.
And that's because they profited
from the introduction of fiat money significantly
in their coming of age and becoming an adult.
So that is what they taught us.
By the way, pretty interesting that in two generations,
(16:00):
you see that the system will break.
So it's a very bad, flawed system.
That was a sidestep.
But everything that's been sold to us just is not working.
So if people, I love these images where it shows like in the 1965,
65, like an average teacher in the US could have, you know, a wife at home, three kids, a Cadillac and a home, you know, on an average teacher salary.
(16:30):
Now, now the teachers cannot even live in the area where they teach in many, many parts of of the Western world specifically.
So I think where the awakening is, is that you have to realize that, you know, and that was that moment for me at the bank when I partially realized this.
You know, you are not an actor in this financial system.
(16:53):
You are a subject.
You are being used to perform certain activities to keep the scam that is fiat money basically alive.
You know, it's a debt-based system.
So, of course, you are incentivized to get a job so you can pay for a mortgage.
(17:13):
So you can buy a home that has now become a tradable good instead of a utility good, for example.
And so, yeah, again, I think the awakening part is in realizing that we are incredibly lucky and privileged to have grown up in a time like we've grown up.
(17:33):
But that if you think about it towards the future, you know, we have 40, 50, 60 plus years ahead of us, generally speaking, like 30, 35 years of working.
And if you see the rate of debasement of the fiat money, right, so the reward that we are getting for our productivity, our work is depreciating effectively, probably between 8 and 10 percent every year.
(18:01):
try to make the calculation about how many money units whatever the money is in your country how
many unit or currency how many currency units you need in order to live a certain lifestyle in 30 35
years i mean i could recommend that to everyone but that's going to be kind of kind of a shocker
and that's i think when i did that i realized that there is no pension you know there there
(18:28):
there's just not going to be a pension as our parents have a pension, which in my mother's
case, for example, I also find questionable. I tell her like, I really hope that the money is
there, but I don't really think it's going to be there. So I'm going to think about you and
hopefully I can help you. And she's, she is saying like, yeah, I can only trust that it's there.
(18:52):
And she says, yeah, it's out of my control and this and that. And I think that that is such a
pity you know like if you work in her case almost 50 years in in her life and then be uncertain about
how you can afford living quite modestly to be honest for the the remainder of your life however
long that is yeah just seeing that up close i think that's that's just a pretty bad outlook and
(19:18):
so i know this is a very a long answer but why millennials are so primed to see this is because
a they have a what we call hair on fire problem so if you do the calculation about your retirement
you're going to realize that however many units you think you need to live a certain lifestyle
that you want you're gonna need like three times more probably than um than you initially think
(19:45):
and then if you think about okay how am i going to to do that and that is i think where a lot a lot
of people fall into the trap of like thinking they should become money managers or investors
or have someone help invest for them right like no you just you should be able to just save
you know to live frugal to be um no frugal is i think a preference but like to really be the owner
(20:11):
of the monetary energy like the monetary reward that you got for your work and oh yeah that's
what I meant to say with being a subject, not an actor, is the fact that you can think you trade
in a free way with someone else, your time and energy for a certain reward. But there's a third
party that influences the value of that reward that you're getting. And that is being programmatically
(20:36):
debased every year. So once you go out there in the world and you take risk having a job or doing
a venture when you come home you have to mitigate effectively like i said between eight and ten
percent debasement each year and that's why you are forced to become a consumer and you know so
(20:58):
either you're going to spend it or you're going to think you should be playing the stocks game
and trying to build wealth in that way and that's actually what is help is helping keeping the
the system alive is you just running that rat race or of trying to mitigate that purposeful
debasement that is taking place where, you know, on the other side, you could think like, okay,
(21:21):
I'm taking a certain risk. I'm trying to add value to the world and, you know, whatever way,
whatever your job or venture is. And when I come home, I just want to hang out with myself or my
wife or find a wife or a spouse and build a family and figure out where to live and what to do and
what to what more to learn and whatever but instead you are either forced to spend your money
(21:46):
because all the money you have today is worth the most today or you're forced to become an investor
and if you just want to be diligent and safe that is just not uh not possible anymore so
i think that is the problem that people need to understand that that they have and then of course
yeah you can ask yourself what is the what is the solution and in order to get to the solution you
(22:12):
first really have to accept that you don't know what money is you don't know what saving is you
don't know what investing is right like all the all these things that that you thought of which
you thought how they worked are totally different and so that I think is not an IQ test more like an
(22:33):
ego ego test like being willing to accept that yeah you're a grown person and you have no clue
about what money is you know like for me that was quite a big thing and i've seen with the people i
talked with that that was you know one of the biggest things to realize because yeah if my
understanding of the money isn true or truthful like how it been told told to me uh yeah what What else it true right That perhaps a different conversation but just realizing that you have to take ownership
(23:06):
of the decisions that you make,
and that when you realize that you never thought about
what to do in taking that decision,
that you have to reflect on it.
And when you then realize that you totally disagree
with what you decided to do, just be okay with it, right?
And just be like, okay, I'm going to study or find information, dissect information to actually figure out what the hell I should do here.
(23:32):
And so if you want to figure out what money is, if you want to figure out how to just do your best in your job or venture, save towards the future in a stable way.
And I think as an output of that, lower your uncertainty towards the future, then Bitcoin is what you should look into.
(23:54):
and why I think the millennials are primed to understand it
is because Bitcoin uniquely combines the physical world
with the energy that is expended to create this digital commodity.
And the digital world, you know, sending, trading in real time.
(24:15):
Yeah, it's like the perfect merger or like the last product
of physical and digital combined into one.
So yeah, I know that was a very long answer,
but I hope that was helpful.
We love those.
We love them.
And since you have a generation name in your podcast,
(24:37):
I'm just going to throw you all my generational questions here.
It's perfect for it.
I think this is such an interesting part of this story.
I had Brandon Quittemann recently for a second time
talking about the fourth turning,
You know how these generations tend to follow these cycles.
I think it's really fascinating to look at this and it helps us get a much clearer picture of what's happening.
(24:57):
Also predict how things will happen in the future.
And one of the things I feel like most people would agree with is that there's this weird clashing rivalry between boomers and millennials.
It's like the Gen X was completely forgotten about for some reason.
And there's now this millennials and boomers disagreement about things.
(25:18):
And what is your view on that interesting clash?
Why does it exist?
Why was Gen X skipped?
And what's causing this rivalry between these two generations?
Yeah, it's funny.
The Gen Xers reply on my video saying, like, we also exist.
(25:41):
I don't know.
Maybe they even had it easier than the millennials.
I don't know.
Maybe that's the thing you're trying to do here.
But yeah, so I think that millennials are seeing that what has been sold to them, it just isn't working.
(26:04):
And what they don't like, I think, I'm not necessarily like that, but, you know, boomers say like, well, yeah, but, you know,
you think you you've you're having it you know it's rough for you like think about think about
us right and then they you know share all all their things i think every generation has certain
(26:27):
struggles so yeah i i don't even i don't really know how to answer the question but i'll i'll
i'll tie it back to the previous one because what i forgot to say because you said like
you know why why are the millennials so why do they have the opportunity to awaken the world
I think it's because we really understand how the internet works.
(26:53):
And because we understand that in a fundamental way, we also have all the tools needed to kick the boomer ruling class's ass, basically.
Those are the people that are still governing over us.
I literally just watched the video, an interview with a guy from the ECB, and they asked him, like, why are you making a central bank digital currency?
(27:16):
Yeah, because we have to, you know, adjust to the digital times or whatever.
Like, that's the main argument, right?
Like that just shows a lack of understanding of the digital world, you know, global access to information now with AI, global access to productivity, global access to communication with anyone in the world, right?
(27:40):
Like the centralized points of origination of information and policy and stuff like that, like that is just really over.
On the internet, that's already over, right?
And I think we're going into this transition where, you know, in the physical world, in the leadership roles, et cetera, you know, roles of power.
(28:04):
Yeah, the millennials are slowly taking over.
Combined with that, we are going to inherit, you know, like the most wealth to ever be inherited ever.
So we are going to become the leading class.
class. And I think that many millennials, you know, I think the definition or like the
(28:26):
characteristic of millennials, one of those things is also like, like justice, right. And honesty
and community and stuff like that. And I think that is really what we find important. I mean,
we are talking here, we found each other through a certain subject and you're on the other side of
the world and we're connected here and just, you know, sharing our thoughts like that is something
(28:47):
that the boomers have never been able to do, right?
You know, not to criticize,
but that was like the technology wasn't there, right?
So their worldview is per definition,
just more narrow and also I think more controlled
by whoever taught them.
Whereas with us, like we can just access
(29:09):
any information in the world
and we're also able to dissect it.
Like some people now hate on Twitter.
i've been on twitter for like 12 13 15 years even i i i would pay 500 euros a month for twitter
like that's my access door to the world to people to real-time things happening you know um
(29:31):
and so i think what the boomers and to a degree also gen x have to realize that that information
wise we've already won like community wise connection wise like um i've had so many times
that i learned something on the internet from someone that that you know knows what they're
(29:51):
talking about and then like two months later i see it in the mainstream media and i think like
yeah you're like you're behind you know and speed is becoming more and more and more um important
i think especially you know with ai like if you can build anything yeah i think i think you know
coming 10 years are going to be crazy. But, you know, if,
if you don't learn about this, you will fall behind. And then
(30:15):
that, that is just basically it. So again,
this is a broad answer,
but I think millennials have all the tools in their toolkit plus the money
later,
plus the age that actually puts them in a certain place where they can help
elevate the,
the rest of the world with, you know,
(30:36):
kind of these principles of freedom of information and collaboration and all these things.
Yeah, and I would say the more I dig into Bitcoin and how each generation is taking in this new crazy thing that's coming in about to blow everything up,
it's made me understand that millennials are pretty awesome.
(30:59):
And I think it's worth saying that I have come to appreciate my generation more and more.
I think that a lot of people got sucked up into the fiatness of it all because we were in a lot of ways raised in that world where things are a certain way.
I mean, there's so many examples.
School is an example.
It's just completely indoctrinated in the world that you all have to go to this government school that teaches you these certain things.
(31:25):
It gives you all this information that's not really helpful for your life.
And then you go to college, get in debt, then go to the job market, and there's no jobs available.
So there's a lot of these pieces that are downstream effects of fiat that we have experienced.
But I'm still seeing people in millennials specifically that are extremely selfless in a lot of ways and really want to make the world a better place.
(31:50):
And I don't get as much of that vibe from the past generations.
I think that do you think that would be fair to say that you think that the generation before us were a little bit more selfish?
I'm not saying that in a bad way.
I'm selfish in a lot of ways too.
But do you think that the previous generations versus the millennials,
I feel like millennials are really the save the world types.
(32:11):
Would you agree with that?
Yeah, I think so.
I think that's – I'm looking something up.
I think that's what I meant with the justice part, right?
Like just because we have more information, we also see more stuff that we don't like that we think should be fixed.
(32:34):
Right. So I think it's kind of attached to that and just realizing that.
Yeah, because you can reach anyone in the world, like you can also coordinate action anywhere in the world.
And so I do think we are less selfish.
(32:56):
I don't know.
Maybe it's that.
I think just our focus on community, just being, you know, really being into that, I think is eventually also what just enables people to create communities around whatever they find important or want to talk about or discover or improve or whatever.
(33:17):
so I think it's kind of that but when you say selfishness
selfishness I I'm looking up
Ayn Rand who says a lot about selfishness
actually and she says
I'm just quoting here one thing according to Ayn Rand's philosophy
a selfish person is a person who pursues his goals and is guided by reason not by
(33:41):
instantaneous whims or emotions and it's actually interesting
such selfishness is also called rational.
And it's funny because I'm bringing this up
because I found this like five weeks ago.
Someone shared a quote.
It was a different quote about selfishness from Ayn Rand.
(34:02):
And when I read it, you know,
it was similar to what I just said.
I felt like, hey, I don't really understand
what selfishness is.
So selfishness is not that you,
don't care about others.
It's just like you focus on yourself.
And I do think that before you can become a bit more altruistic
(34:24):
or in service of others I think it is actually really important to know yourself because I think when you better know yourself
it's also helpful in figuring out,
okay, what is it then that I can do to add value to the world,
(34:44):
to be of service to other people?
And I think that eventually the thing that you then do
will become more valuable to others if you first focused on yourself
to just do stuff and figure stuff out and fail and learn
and all these things.
And so, yeah, those are my thoughts around selfishness.
(35:07):
I think it's interesting you pointed.
I think it's different from individualism, right?
Also, something I learned, that's what I thought meant,
just focusing on yourself or not caring about others.
But that's actually not what individualism is.
Individualism is actually that you respect each individual
(35:29):
as being an individual like you.
It's actually something that would breed more respect
between people in society.
But I think that is also one of the terms or things
that just has kind of been twisted along the way
that I think kind of like distort the opportunity that we have
(35:54):
to actually bring more people together and align people way more,
you know, by using the internet and like modern technology
like we're using now.
Yeah, that's such a good point.
And I agree that selfishness does not mean you don't care about other people.
And I think that the perfect example is, let me think, veganism.
(36:15):
There's one. Millennials, super vegan generation. These are people that care so much about like
looking outside of themselves and other things. And they care about the animals. They care about
the environment. They care about all this other stuff that they will literally like wither away
in malnourishment themselves because they think that the other things are more important than them.
(36:36):
So it's like, it can be used in such a way that it becomes a weapon used by the bad guys outside
I can realize these people don't have selfishness, so we can take advantage of it.
So we need to have a balance of selfishness, taking care of ourselves, protecting ourselves and our loved ones,
while also having that broader view of the world and wanting to make the world a better place.
(36:59):
And I think a big part of it is just understanding it starts from that first level of your family and yourself,
but also spreading love and light and knowledge for other people to find that same path.
And I think that's good. Is there anything you would add to that?
I feel like this is something that I do sense that millennials are starting to figure out too.
(37:19):
We're seeing trends on social media.
There's more trad wifey content and people promoting families being super cool.
Where when we were younger, it wasn't that way.
I think when Instagram was young, it was purely just a highlight reel.
It was the peak of feminism, I feel like, where it was saying, don't have kids, go work a job and pay taxes.
(37:41):
And I'm seeing that shift.
It seems like people are starting to kind of collect themselves and millennials are sort of leading that shift in what the zeitgeist is showing us.
What do you think about that?
I kind of threw a lot of things out there.
I think that that aligns with what I said about, you know, understanding that the way that information permeates into the real world or true and to the real world is the virtual world, is the Internet, you know.
(38:14):
And the internet, if you think about it in a way that it's pure democratization of information, the world is a battlefield of ideas and eventually ideologies, right?
but but of of ideas and so if if you have a free marketplace of ideas where um and this is
(38:38):
eventually i think also a nice tie to bitcoin where you know we can look up the numbers maybe
maybe quickly i'll try to be quickly like how how much uh data is shared on the internet daily you
know something like that so you know if you if you if you think about the world as a battlefield
of ideas and then just think about like okay on the internet like how much data is there shared
(39:04):
every day right or you know i'm thinking about how many hours of youtube videos or like podcasts or
or whatever right so i just quickly googled says like 402.7 million terabytes of data created each
day each day okay I'm scrolling down just to see if there's like YouTube or
(39:28):
yeah this is this is just data but like how many hours of our proportion of
internet data traffic daily 53% video 12% social okay so feed video is over
half of all the internet and I mean video like I don't know how much is
probably a lot but the the point is you can discover that too you know so you know i think
(39:55):
the the the i'm losing track you know
can you remind me of the question again
i don't even remember anymore either um how millennials are we're shifting the way that
we're like consuming and producing content to be in like a more positive direction oh yeah yeah yeah
(40:20):
so if yeah i got it so if if the world is an is a battlefield of ideas right and there are many
ideas released on the internet every day and it's a brutal free market of ideas right good ideas
will still come to the surface.
(40:42):
Things that people really want
are not ephemeral on the internet.
They keep coming back.
So Sidestep Bitcoin is a random idea
released on a random internet forum 16 years ago.
And now it represents over $2 trillion in value.
So is that a good idea or not?
(41:04):
If you think about the insane amount of ideas
released every day on the internet you know so 16 years after this was released you know
it's still alive and i think it's similar with you know what you're mentioning about the content
that people are making they call it like trad or you know or traditional whatever no like it's
just a good idea it's something that enough people want so that it just you know stays in this in
(41:32):
the zeitgeist you know it goes goes up and down with attention but and again i think that's an
interesting tie to like money and bitcoin i i mentioned when i talked about money
you know the uncertainty towards the future and this is really i think my core understanding of
bitcoin and i got this partially from from safety namus who talks about like time preference right
(41:54):
so if we we all don't know how much time we have in our lives right like it's absolutely finite like
Like we could be dead tomorrow.
And that's the same for everyone.
So we have a certain uncertainty towards the future.
And so that's the same for everyone.
(42:14):
But with the reward that you get for doing, you know, or applying your productivity to the world, you get a reward.
And you can use that reward to save that in order to spend it in the future.
on something that is created by someone else's productivity.
(42:36):
But if that thing that you're saving towards the future
is losing its value all the time,
then you actually increase your uncertainty towards the future,
which makes you more focused on the now,
but not in the good way, in the bad way.
As in, if I cannot save towards the future,
(42:57):
if my uncertainty towards the future grows,
you know and below that is the fact that and i said that before but all the money that you have
today is worth the most today then you're also incentivized to just spend it today on on stupid
stuff and and like i said before becoming a consumer instead of a builder because if you
want to be a builder you have to have capital to lower your uncertainty towards the future
(43:22):
so next so you can actually use time and space and and take some risk in order to build something
And then if you think about like, what would you want to build? Like that could be anything that could be building out your career, like learning something new, then switching in your career or building a home or building a family, for example.
eventually
(43:43):
that is what
is encoded
in us biologically
so the procreation
and what we're seeing right now
is that many people especially in the millennial
generation are not having children
because they're so anxious towards the
future, about the future, they're so
nihilistic, I cannot change
(44:04):
anything about the world etc etc
wouldn't surprise you that
I don't believe in that
because we have all this technology
and we could just do things.
People are deciding not to have kids,
people in our generation
who are in the prime years of their lives
to have children and build a family.
(44:24):
They are not doing that
because they are so worried
about affordability towards the future.
You know, that is, I think,
what fiat money is creating
is that people are actually, you know,
forced to not follow their biological urges because they are also forced to use money that
(44:45):
is being debased all the time, a money that is not organically chosen. It's purposefully,
it was created like this to, you know, fuel a certain debt-based system. But, you know,
now that we're seeing that people are not having children because they are so uncertain
about the future you also see that you know the ideas that that you talked about the whole
(45:08):
the the the traditional ideas about families and stuff like they are coming back because people um
people want that like people are yearning to have something like that but the current situation with
the money that's broken and being debased all the time is showing them that you know that is not
possible anymore and I think you know again a long a long answer but like long answers
(45:35):
this is the problem that everyone has so the problem is not only that you know your money
is being debased effectively eight to ten percent there is no pension you you won't have enough
currency units to pay for whatever the life is that you want to have right now and the things
that you want right now in this phase of your life
(45:56):
are not attainable to a vast
majority of our generation. And these are, I think, the three elements of the big problem that
millennials have and why they should study Bitcoin. We can get into why that's a solution. But
I think it's because of that, because of the realization that
(46:18):
we aren't really able to build a quote unquote traditional life like that is, I think, one of
the main reasons that people are creating and consuming also this type of content.
I completely agree with all that, 100%.
(46:39):
I think that we're in a very similar mindset on how this is all falling together.
And the direction I'd love to take it now is looking forward at Gen Z.
And my view of Gen Z has been all over the place over the last several years.
I feel like the starting place for most people when you're sort of in that nihilistic mindset is like, oh, man, they're just going to be even worse.
(47:04):
Like they're on their phones all the time.
They don't know how to socialize.
Things are just getting worse and worse, and we feel bad for them because it seems that way.
But I've been getting more optimistic recently from my own experience also just traveling and just meeting people from millennials and Gen Z are starting to be at the age of traveling now.
And I'm getting more bullish on them, to be honest.
(47:24):
And I did a Noster post the other day.
Let me see if I can pull up my window.
I can just read this off.
I feel like I kind of just put my thoughts on paper here.
So I said this.
I'm so bullish on Gen Z, meeting more and more of them that are eons more based than I was at their age.
They really have been born into a super divergent landscape where you either become a totally antisocial, screen-addicted soy slob, or you become a gigabase in record time.
(47:52):
highly dependent on the parenting of course so it's largely a second order effect of millennials
gen x getting their shit together very cool to see it enforces my view that the millennials
primary purpose in the awakening process is the generation to put their foot down and stop the
damage it's sad to see lots of folks in my generation who were consumed by the volatility
and may never recover but spiritual casualties during such a dramatic shift are inevitable
(48:16):
never been more optimistic the future is bright what do you think about that would you agree with
me on this do you think that things are looking good dude yes cool yes yeah what are your thoughts
on it because to me i think the big the big piece that i am confident about is the the divergent
part of the fact that you know they really have two very crazy different different paths you can
(48:40):
either go down the horrible path of just you know scrolling on tiktok all day just eating the seed
oils and you just never get anywhere or you you get into a good track which is being led mostly by
the the millennials and the gen x people who are trying to you know show them the way from their
own mistakes tell me your thoughts about this whole situation i've sort of laid out there
(49:02):
i fully agree fully agree um i i think you're spot on saying it's like 50 50 i think it's funny
because it's kind of natural, right?
Like kind of like yin and yang in that sense.
I fully agree.
I think that they are actually either more equipped
(49:24):
to use the internet to their advantage, right?
Like so IE become just super based, decentralized,
like autonomous acting people,
or they have been defeated by, you know,
all the fucking algorithms and optimization and, you know, yeah, like you said, like all the slob, all the brain rot that is created by the same type of people as them, I would say.
(49:55):
Because I think once you become super based and super autonomous and super decentralized, those are the people that I think are actually the most altruistic.
those are very open in helping other people. I think those are the people that are creating
communities and just now messing around with AI, building companies, just really being at
(50:18):
the forefront of trying out all of this stuff. And I wonder actually if that is also the case
in our generation. Is there also like a 50-50 type split? I don't know. I wonder what you
think but yeah i i agree i think that i what i think is that like the base gen z years can actually
(50:43):
are are are serious rivals to like my age millennials i'd say you know in terms of
the whole digital savviness and knowledge and and uh the connectedness and stuff like that and i
think that's very cool i mean they have a 15 to 20 year head start on on me so imagine when they
(51:07):
are like late late 30s they gonna be like they are going to be the ruling class in that in that sense and i think maybe that sounds weird but then they kind of will enforce those principles on the rest And I think that actually makes me
pretty enthusiastic about the future
in which my son has to grow up
(51:28):
and my daughter.
So I am actually very optimistic
about the future
because I think that the people
that are now in charge
to create the policies
and the guidelines
and shit like that
for like new technology,
many have no clue.
They have no clue.
Like I said,
(51:49):
like the whole example of CBDCs.
They just have no fucking clue how it works.
Like really.
You should go on WhatsApp
and open like the communities tab
and then look up European Central Bank or EU
and then look at the content.
That's going to be fun.
Like I'd love to see the comments.
What even is that?
(52:09):
Is that like people posting from the EU?
Exactly.
Or people posting about it.
Okay.
No, it's the EU's community communication channel on WhatsApp.
And each message has like 50 likes.
No one cares.
No one cares.
And if you think about, you know, I'll tie it to Bitcoin.
(52:32):
Bitcoin is the network state already.
I can come to fucking Costa Rica and I can stay with you.
and then I have a friend who lives in New York
that you then go to and stay with him.
If I have some fucking stage four crazy cancer tomorrow,
I'm with a doctor in wherever
who's a Bitcoiner in five days.
(52:55):
That already exists and we can do that.
So the boomers in charge
and the Gen Xers in charge do not have that.
And so I think that's our edge.
and I think the Gen Zers have that even way more
right like they have friends
from fucking Fortnite or whatever
so they are even more
connected
(53:17):
in that way
I literally made friends playing Call of Duty
but yeah
it's so funny how the video game
angle especially for guys
because guys play video games more
sort of pulls our brains in more
I literally have
friends to this day that I played Call of Duty with
like over a decade ago
And I met them through that. It's crazy how there's different ways that people can sort of find each other.
(53:44):
And you're right, the networking is such a big part of it.
And the fact that we connected through the Bitcoin network and there's so many other people out there who are finding their people.
And Bitcoin is starting to become this big blob in the middle that's bringing people from all different edges together through that similar understanding of the money being the problem here.
(54:09):
And it's so fascinating to me how all these different things all are connected to that.
But it makes sense.
I talked to Joe Bryan earlier today who did that awesome What's the Problem video, and he brings up during that video just how the money system is the glue that holds everything together.
So when you find people that are in Bitcoin, you're going to inevitably find other people in these different areas that, like you said, can help you in different ways because they're able to specialize in the things that they're actually good at, and they don't have to focus on being a stock trader or splitting their energy up in all these different places.
(54:45):
Because you notice this really clearly when you go to Bitcoin, you have to meet Bitcoin folks, is that they are able to completely focus on what they're really good at and not have to split themselves up all over the place.
Have you seen that too?
I mean, you're incentivized to do that.
But if you measure Bitcoin only in Bitcoin and you realize that there's only 21 million Bitcoin and it's the hardest money to ever exist, you also realize that you have to add real value in the world to be able to earn that Bitcoin.
(55:24):
Like right now, you can still exchange it for fiat money.
You know, that's how I see it as an exchange rate, like not a price.
and the people that understand that
are positively incentivized
to figure out what am I here to do?
How do I add value to the world?
(55:46):
And I think also that will continuously accelerate.
And I think the word acceleration,
like accelerate in my ideas around all this stuff
is the fact that it's only going to accelerate.
Like every technological process was an acceleration
or like condensation of energy in like a smaller unit
(56:09):
which accelerated like the development
of the next technological advancement after that.
And it's also, I think,
that many technological advancements
couldn't exist without the one before that.
You can apply that in many ways, right?
Like even a printing press,
creating boots, books, spreading knowledge, you know, people becoming more creative, et
(56:31):
cetera than you know going on to um to to invent invent other stuff like AI can exist without the internet Bitcoin couldn exist without the internet
And that time between the next thing
is just being compressed all the time.
And so you have to adjust.
(56:51):
And I think that will eventually become more and more clear.
Perhaps that's also part of what you can call the awakening.
You're going to be forced to really think about how I am living my life.
What am I doing here? What is going on? What do I want to do here?
What am I good at? What do I enjoy? How can I bring value?
(57:14):
All these introspective questions that I think in a time up until now,
now especially like 90s and and 2000s uh and and 2010 so let's say 30 years
i think it was way everything was way more outward you know from consuming to um you know
(57:41):
the whole social media stuff and um you know how people portray themselves there and i i think
there's kind of like a shift so like in the 30 years before the 1990s right so 60s 70s 80s
those were very introspective um and very spiritual years and experimental years and stuff like that
(58:01):
so i know fourth turning is a bit longer but you know i i i actually think that there's like four
of these it's like seasons or something you know in in like uh uh the the the the turning again so
yeah kind of see it like that so we are in that shift i'd say of people becoming more aware of
(58:23):
themselves their lives their surrounding what what they are actually um operating in how that's
it's constructed by other people no better than them.
You know, it's all artificial.
And that knowledge is out there and uncontainable, right?
(58:44):
Like that's uncensorable.
And that is just really out there.
And how people communicate with each other,
I think is the main way of other people figuring that out
and then realizing, yeah, there's like 65-year-old boomers
that are ruling over us.
They don't even know how to turn the computer on.
So what the fuck?
I need to do something about it
(59:05):
and I can actually do something about it.
Although I think that still many people,
because they don't understand
that the money is the problem.
Again, I didn't understand that before.
But if money is the reward
for any work that anyone does,
you can also argue that
(59:26):
the quality of the money
creates the incentive
that motivates to do the work.
And that incentive can be bad or can be good, right?
So everything that you think is a problem in the world
is a problem because the money is broken.
And that is really, I think, the core thing
that people need to understand.
(59:46):
As long as you don't understand that,
you will keep pointing fingers to, you know,
whoever is the villain of this year
and you're going to protest and, you know,
set up tens or you know occupy wall street and shit like that or against the one percent or
all all that stuff extinction rebellion all that all that stuff um as long as you're
(01:00:09):
pointing fingers you don't you don't understand the problem because the problem is the money
and the easiest thing that you can do is just move to another money you just sell the bad money
with the bad incentives,
the soft money with the bad incentives
for the hard money with the positive incentives.
And that's literally the only thing you have to do.
(01:00:30):
And then you just chill and wait, basically.
And so, yeah, I really wanted to share that
because I think that many people in our generation
and also in Gen Z are very finger pointy.
But there's actually a thing that you could use
to really crumble the ruling boomer class
(01:00:54):
that has their power over you.
And they have no clue.
They don't even know Bitcoin exists.
You can just do that.
And they will fuck it up anyway.
I think what I saw today,
30-year treasuries in the US are well above 5%.
(01:01:14):
This is a flaw.
The fiat money system is a flawed system, fundamentally flawed system that can only exist if we allow it to perpetuate.
And if we just abandon it and just move to another money, it's just going to implode.
And then we win.
(01:01:34):
Beautifully said.
I think that it's so interesting looking at each generation, how they view it so differently.
Because, of course, there are boomers out there we love.
I had Loris Lepard on recently.
You had him on, too.
I think I actually listened to your podcast with him when I was getting ready for mine And we love Larry We love all these Bitcoin dads out there that shower that shower us with knowledge Shout out to Bob Burnett I don even know him Who that
(01:02:00):
Is that another good one I need to check out?
That's Boomer BTC on Twitter.
Awesome. Yeah. They're, they're hiding out there.
They're, they're coming through the woodwork and it's, it's rare,
but they are extremely passionate and they know that their generation,
played a big part in the problem, whether it be the minority of them who were part of actually
(01:02:26):
perpetuating it or the majority, which just didn't understand what was happening. And they sort of
went along with the propaganda that was fed to them and just they trust the institutions too much
because life was pretty good for them. And like you said, early in our lives, millennials are
figuring out that things are not working for us and sort of forcing us to look for alternatives.
(01:02:47):
But boomers didn't really have that because life was awesome for them.
They had really cheap.
I mean, what's the example?
Cheap houses.
You know, I mean, there's so many things were much easier, more accessible to them than it is now.
So you can't blame them for just existing in that system.
They weren't pushed into needing to learn something different.
So I think that's what it really comes down to is every generation is full of great people.
(01:03:11):
They're all operating with a certain incentive structure that all humans are.
And we should all just be friends.
and buy Bitcoin together.
I agree.
And we cannot blame them
that when they became an adult, right,
and started working and earning money,
(01:03:34):
those were the beginning years of the fiat money, right?
So they got to front run everyone that came after them,
which they logically did, right?
So there's no blame,
But I think, and maybe that's kind of then the tension to millennials and boomers.
And there's a few that actually realize and are humble enough, like Larry and Bob, George Bodine, for example.
(01:04:01):
They're like, yeah, I totally profited from this.
But I also agree that it's fucked up.
We need to do something about it.
And I think that's the tension that the boomers see the millennials complaining.
and they're like, yeah, what are you complaining about?
You get like
a supercomputer in your pocket.
(01:04:22):
What are you talking about?
And then we're probably
like, yeah, but I don't have a home.
And no pension. And then
they will be like, yeah, but this was post
World War, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
So it's just
I think that is kind of core
of the discussion. But I think the boomers
should realize that they profited heavily
(01:04:42):
before anyone else profited.
And that's okay. But
but we have the results right now,
and that's not a pretty picture.
Yeah, we all have different situations.
We're giving different hands,
and we just got to do the best of what we got,
and I think that there's a different path
for every one of these groups
to find out that buying Bitcoin is a good idea.
(01:05:05):
It will help make things better for the future,
and I hope we can all agree
that the most important thing
is to create a better future for future generations,
And this is something that even the most brainwashed boomers I know would agree on.
They just have a different idea for how to do that, which we would believe is wrong most of the time.
But we all want to make a better future.
(01:05:27):
So I think that that's why Bitcoin education and just beating people over the head with the Bitcoin standard maybe or introducing podcasts like mine and yours that help bring people maybe a little more softly through the steps.
So speaking of that, you used a really good term I liked earlier, which is uncontainable knowledge.
So podcasts are a great way to do this.
(01:05:49):
And your podcast is a fantastic resource for people.
So where can people go to find your podcast and continue learning more of your work for Bitcoin for Millennials?
Yeah, so the easiest way to find it is on YouTube.
you can search for Bitcoin for Millennials
or my channel is called Bitcoin Bram.
(01:06:10):
And so I publish on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, Fountain.
So you can find it anywhere you listen to a podcast.
And then, yeah, I'm mainly mostly active on X
and my handle there is Bram K.
So B-R-A-M-K.
And yeah, that's the best way to keep up
with what I'm currently thinking about Bitcoin.
(01:06:31):
and yeah check out the podcast I hope people can find some value in it yeah beautiful man I know I
will be I'll continue going through your episodes listen to those and finding more new guests because
you have so many great people on there which is what this is all about just getting all the
best voices together to share their knowledge so appreciate all the work you're doing man
(01:06:53):
appreciate you joining me today I think we can finally limp to the finish line with my internet
cutting out every 20 seconds somehow that we made this work.
So we'll call it there, man.
It's been a pleasure talking to you, sir.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Awesome, man.
Likewise.
Thank you.
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