Hi, Andrew,
welcome to Honest Money Show
Hi thanks for having me.
Welcome, welcome.
I wanted to start with the low
hanging fruit.
So you have over 30 years experience
in traditional finance,
and you have recently learned a lot
about Bitcoin. What?
I don't know how recently, but,
you really understand it,
so you understand
both sides really, really well.
And that's
why we wanted to
have you on as a guest.
So what can you tell us about
the the environment
in Australia at the moment?
Like how deep
is the understanding of bitcoin
in traditional finance?
Where are we at?
Well,
I know it's a hackneyed response,
but we're so early
and it's
at least in my, direct experience.
It's still sniggered and laughed at,
and it's not taken seriously at all.
In fact, it's gotten to the point
where
my business ostensibly
got nothing to do with, Bitcoin.
I, I run a,
small cap, private investment club.
So it's all about equities.
And obviously,
like anyone,
I swallow the orange peel,
I can't shut up about it,
but it does the business no favors.
You know,
I think
a lot of the time I'm
just annoying
the clients that we have,
because they,
they join to be serious investors.
They did not join
to talk about magic internet
beans and
and that's the stage that we're at.
So it's it's,
I mean, baby steps.
It is. It is getting better.
It's.
No, it feels like in the US,
it's being talked about
far more seriously
in, in those circles.
But in the Australian
financial space,
at least in my
direct experience, it's
not something to be taken seriously,
which is great,
which is great
because if they all loved it,
that the price would be much higher,
which would mean that
we don't have nearly
as much opportunity as we do.
So, you know, I'm
very fond of saying
that from an investor,
whatever you're investing in,
you want something
that is absolutely a winner,
but that very few people
recognize that fact.
Because that's where the opportunity
in the alpha lies.
You want something
that is is really,
you know,
absolutely here to stay and likely
to be a very big part of the future,
but for which
no one recognizes that.
Yeah.
If everyone loved Bitcoin,
you know, we'd be at $10 million
a coin and it'd be great.
The world would be a
much better place,
but you wouldn't
have that asymmetric,
upside opportunity
in terms of your purchasing power.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
I really thought this,
cycle was going
to invite more retail.
Instead, we've seen a lot
of institutional investment
and retail sector
hasn't followed,
at least not in Australia.
But the people who do understand it,
like I've recently met
some boomers in Palm
Cove during Bush bash, and,
they are really starting
to understand it.
So they've spent majority
of their life
investing in property
because that was the
Australian store of value.
And now they're starting
to really understand Bitcoin.
So they're like, okay,
let me just sell one property
and move some of that into Bitcoin.
We've got 12 grand children or sorry
ten grandchildren.
And they want to
leave some bitcoin
for each one of them.
So the people who do get it.
Well I mean that's that's the reward
for doing the work
and being you know,
again, it's
the same in stocks as well. Right.
Like if,
if you can get to understand
a business
better than everyone else,
it's such an incredible edge
and it takes work.
And most people aren't
prepared to do work.
But those that,
you know,
there are great rewards for, for,
for being able to think
and act independently
and in a non consensus way.
It's always been true.
It just happens to be amazingly true
with Bitcoin
because the asymmetry is is so wild.
But yeah I mean I definitely agree
with you in terms of retail.
So where at near enough
all time record
highs with more than double digits
in the last year alone.
And I don't know about you and you,
but I've,
I've had no phone calls
from friends and family.
A lot of them aren't even
aware of of
where the the price is at.
And I honestly think it's good old
Sam Bankman-Fried.
We can lay the blame at here
because it
just that whole debacle there
because again, for most people,
and this was true of me
early on, I'm
sure it was for a lot of people
like Bitcoin
and crypto are synonymous.
And I've often thought that any
and everyone's
instincts on crypto is right.
I like it,
it is a scam and a Ponzi
and all of those those things.
But unfortunately Bitcoin
gets wrapped up in that
and things like FTX.
And again,
if you weren't following it closely
or a distant observer,
all it did was validate
all those prejudices and biases.
And,
you know, it's
even at the point now with the media
is not like really picking up on it
much as well.
So it's just not in their face.
And it's
they're not aware
of what's happened.
And as far as they're concerned,
it's all dead and dusted.
And that's all in the past.
Yeah.
That is so true.
And it's interesting the point
that you make about media
because yeah,
I follow Bitcoin very closely.
And I look
at the performance of Bitcoin
compared to everything else
like Nvidia and S&P 500.
And all of these things
get a lot more air time
and Bitcoin gets none.
Yeah.
There is a paradigm shift
happening out the window.
And knowing no one's watching it.
Is consistently
outperforming everything.
And like how is it
how it just baffles me
that people aren't at least curious
enough to be like,
okay, what's the big deal here?
Why why is this thing
not going away?
I feel like this starting to be,
but I'm just like,
come on people, hurry up.
Just look at it.
Just read a book.
It's it's funny
because any gains
that, seen in Bitcoin
is entirely due to luck
and the market being irrational
and whatever it falls down,
that's the market
being perfectly rational
and your comeuppance
and just desserts
for gambling
on such a silly, reckless thing.
You know, it's like
even even in my little
circle in that like, you know,
I've on on straw man.
I have a position of bitcoin there.
And it's just you don't
get any credit
for that for that one.
It's sort of like,
yeah, it's up a lot.
But you got lucky
and it's temporary.
Like it's up a lot
but it won't last.
And it's
it's only a matter of time
before reality reasserts itself
and you step on the right,
you know,
and and all
will be right with the world.
So that's just the stage
that we're at.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I have started
like last year in December,
I just started talking
about bitcoin on LinkedIn.
And I do get a lot of criticism.
Unfortunately.
And it is about sort of like people
coming to tell me that
it's great a fool theory.
You're getting fooled here.
You don't know what
you're talking about. And,
I'm just quietly waiting.
Waiting for
for them to be proven wrong.
Unfortunately, you can't use reason
and logic.
I mean, you can lead a horse.
To what? But.
And you can say, as you do,
you know, like, read a book.
Take it seriously.
I actually made the point, just
just like, an hour ago.
Speaking to a friend, it's like,
I don't care if you adopt it
or don't adopt it. I'll do whatever.
You know, I up to you.
I've got, you know,
no incentive to make you buy
some or not buy some.
All I am saying is, before
you dismiss it,
look at it
objectively with an open mind.
And if you go through the process
and it doesn't resonate
or doesn't stick
or just doesn't connect with you,
then fine.
That's no problem with that.
My only problem with it
is is making a decision and
and a high can forming a
not only an opinion,
but a high conviction
opinion on something
you've not even bothered to look at.
And yet you're so sure of yourself
that you're that you're correct.
And maybe you are correct,
but but how can you possibly say
that without having done
one modicum of work?
And it's it's the,
what's the name of
the phenomenon
where, like, the less
you know about something, the
the stronger your opinion is.
The Dunning-Kruger effect,
the Dunning-Kruger effect,
you know, and it's real and,
you know, I think I'm kind of with,
Alan Harrington's
view on this,
which is you've got to stop
trying to think that reason, logic
and the rest of it
will convince people,
and all you can do
is just laugh and criticize at them.
And that's like,
probably the best way to sort of
like get people to sort of,
you know, eventually,
take a, take a serious
look at it because, you know,
you can't reason
someone out of a position
that they never reason themselves
into to begin with.
Correct?
Yeah.
That's that's so funny.
I, I have managed to orange peel
all the important people in my life,
so I feel like everything I wanted
to achieve, I've achieved.
And and the people
that mean a lot to me understand
or at least
trust me enough to, to allocate
a little bit into it.
But everyone else that
I kind of tend to inspire to learn
and read more about it,
just a huge bonus for me.
So a little bit about learning,
what was it that
that orange peels you?
I well, look, I try to be.
I don't know if this is true or not,
but I like to pretend it's true.
But I'm someone
who can be pretty flexible
in their opinions.
I'm very fond of the idea
of strong opinions, loosely
held,
and I had a very strong opinion
on Bitcoin back in 2017.
It was a very negative
kind of opinion.
And then it crashed in 2017 and, and
everything was right with the world
and my opinion was validated
and I was right.
And, you know, you forget about it.
You move on
and then wait a second, grab
another high and a higher high
and it keeps going up.
So it's sort of like at a point
you can recognize that,
well, whatever
I thought this something go
I might still be right.
But this is really weird.
Something's going on.
So that was the first time
this is sort of in the Covid.
Just post Covid sort of, era
that I better take a proper
look and,
and at least
have an informed opinion before
I try and grapple over it
and I think the,
as anyone listening to
this will know, there's so much
great content out there,
so many great podcasts
and interviews and the rest of it.
But I think it was the Lex
Fridman Michael Sallah podcast,
I think was a four hour podcast
or something,
and someone said
you should watch it.
And I thought, well,
a podcast is an easy way to sort of,
you know,
I can least
pretend to myself
that I'm I'm taking a proper
look at it.
And as we all know.
So it's pretty bloody convincing.
And so it's like,
And and that made
you think, well, that
piqued my interest.
Maybe I will
listen to a few more of these.
And so I think it was the
brave Breedlove
what is money series?
I got into that.
Then you start ordering books.
So good. Right.
And and it's sort of like the
most interesting thing about it.
Well, the least
interesting thing about
it was the number go up
and it was everything else about it
that just
really just
this is not a unique perspective.
And this is the perspective.
I think the experience of all people
who have gone down the rabbit hole
is it's
just it rewired my entire brain.
Where here I am, a guy
who's worked in finance,
whatever, for 30 light years.
I just never knew what money was.
And it's so embarrassing
to say that.
I mean,
I would have told you
I knew what money was,
and I would have thought it 12.
I would have thought
I knew what money was.
But my
my evolution
and understanding of money
never went beyond that 12 year
old level.
You know, I do work.
Someone pays me money
and I can exchange it for stuff.
And that's that's just what it is.
What do you mean it's not?
It's not more complicated than that.
But it's just it's this thread
that you start pulling on
and it kind of leads
you into political science
and then cryptography
and then game theory
and Austrian economics,
Austrian economics.
To me,
it was always this fringe,
libertarian, weird
kind of thing that
no serious economist. Yeah.
And then you sort of like,
oh, that actually makes an obscene
amount of good sense.
And again,
you just go deeper
and you go too far.
And I don't know about you own you,
but I'm not found
the bottom of that,
that rabbit hole yet.
And I've been
I started off as cynical
or skeptical, let's say.
And then I got a little bit curious.
And then I did my toe in the water,
and then I'm fully
submerged in the water,
and now I'm just continuing
to swim out to sea.
It's like,
give me this
deeper water
as as I can possibly get into
because it just keeps it.
Just new doors
just keep opening up
and just new profound realizations
that keep occurring to me,
which is so beyond,
you know, number go up
that it's, it,
it's I think most people
in my circle think
I'm in some kind of weird cult
because it's
that obsessive at this point.
Which I get, which I get, you know.
We're sponsored by Bet big Bitcoin.
Yes. Yes.
One of us.
Yeah.
I this is one of the things
that I personally love
about Bitcoin the most
because initially I just treated it
as like an investment class.
I was like sure
I get a little bit
of exposure into it
and I was never like an investor.
I was just a normal person
who did their best
to manage the money.
I didn't bank with the bank
for the big four.
Sorry, I, didn't accumulate debt.
I didn't like credit cards.
I was just very, very, like, safe.
And my idea of investing
was just investing in S&P 500,
not trading, not speculating.
And then I learned about Bitcoin.
And now I viewed,
you know,
like kind of like
a bit of a safer haven
than the S&P 500.
That's just my personal.
View the ultimate risk free asset.
I that's that
is the greatest irony
in all of this,
is that the thing that people think
is that the risk,
if you drew all the asset classes,
fixed interest,
you know,
cash, property, equities, crypto,
you know,
it's way up there
and and and ironically,
the safest investment is fixed
interest and sovereign debt.
And then again you go down
deep enough the rabbit hole.
It's like
not the riskiest
thing you can possibly hold
is government debt.
And the safest thing is Bitcoin.
And that's a hard
that's a hard hill to climb.
And if you're listening to this
and you're coming in called,
that's going to sound,
sacrilegious almost.
But I fundamentally believe it.
Mean to maintain it takes a
lot of reading to get there.
It's not like you
come to this decision overnight
and you shouldn't you shouldn't.
The conviction really grows from
that depth of understanding.
And I like that you said that,
you know,
you worked in finance
in traditional markets
for over 30 years,
not really understanding money.
And that was, to me, one of the big,
eye opening moments
was when I learned
learning about money,
learning about the history of money,
how money naturally selected, why?
Those are the sort of questions
that help me understand
why Bitcoin is important
and why it's worth looking at.
How 100%.
Yeah, and it is.
It's one of those things that goes
beyond just,
economics.
I always thought, you know,
if you're someone who cares
about societal issues
and fairness and all of that,
you should care about economics,
because that's how
we kind of organize our society.
And if you care about economics,
you should probably care
about the correct economics.
And if you care about
the correct economics,
it leads you to a series
of conclusions
that are rather inescapable.
And, and,
and what's remarkable
about it is also really
shows the existing lens
through which we view the economy
and talk about the economy,
a measure the economy
and transacting
the economy is just so backwards,
like,
and you
you really do see it
as a complete clown.
Well, and it's very hard to say.
People have often given the analogy
of trying to convince a fish
that water is real
because it's hard.
It's just
everywhere and it's
and yet
it's nowhere
and it's
it's, it's
that kind of thing
that I think
makes all of this
very difficult, but at the same time
very valuable
in that it offers us a tool
for financial
self-actualization and,
and just maximizing
of human prosperity
and societal harmony
and I,
I get how hyperbolic
all of this sounds, by the way.
But again,
I think that's all I think
all of those things are true.
I love the, you said hyperbolic.
One of the reasons
that I decided to start
a podcast
was because I thought
some of the American voices
were very, like, bombastic
in the way
that they explain Bitcoin
and turns out that I'm the same
just with an Australian accent.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know, I know what you mean.
And it's so great
to see the Aussie bitcoin scene
really starting to flourish
too, by the way.
So it's it is when you go on
I mean this is true of the internet
and content in general.
This 300
whatever
many million people in America.
You know it is the
it is the Bitcoin
capital of the world
in terms of adoption.
So you're going to get
a lot of content
there and a lot of
brilliant content.
But yeah, we need
we need some voices
from outside of the US.
And so what are you doing.
You're doing good work.
Yeah.
And the other thing as well, people
who are in Australia
interested in crypto in Australia,
they don't have the right guidance.
And the influencers in this space
are usually selling them courses and
and things to benefit themselves,
rather
than really teaching them about
what is the difference
between Bitcoin and altcoins,
why one is safe,
the other one is not.
You kind of need to be an insider
in order to make any money.
You risk losing a lot of money,
and a lot of people
have lost a lot of money
trying to time the market.
And there have been instances
where people told me like, oh,
I invested in this coin
and the next.
And then
I thought
it was going to keep going up
and I didn't sell.
And now it plummeted.
And these stories are
very, very frequent. Yeah.
And I'm all for people making money.
Do what you need to do.
I'm never going to tell someone else
how to,
you know, invest their money.
I will try to caution
people that, you know,
investing in altcoins
for most people
usually ends spectacularly badly.
I kind of had the same opinion.
You know, for most people, like,
something like S&P
500 is a lot
safer than trading
individual stocks.
So that's kind of the analogy
that I use, to try to,
I guess, illustrate this point.
But I even think old coins
that are a lot more sinister
than individual stocks.
So. There are cancer.
I mean,
as I say to my friends
who are cynical on this stuff, it's
just like
your instincts are 100% correct,
and it's just that you, you,
you lump Bitcoin in with it.
It's just different,
you know, and it's crazy.
Like, what do you mean?
It's it's obviously the same right.
Like how can you separate this.
And then it's,
it is hard to see
because if you talk to the,
you know, the Ethereum people,
the zombie,
they'll say the same thing.
Right.
So it's just like that
cult likes that coin,
that cult likes that coin.
And they're all the same.
And it is so easy to
reach that conclusion.
So unfortunately there's
no shortcut to it.
You've just got to
you've got to
you've got to do the work
and reach your own conclusions.
But isn't it funny
that anyone who has done
the time
and they've put the effort into it
all reach the same conclusion?
That's interesting.
The other one is that once
they've reached that conclusion,
they never go back.
Like you never made a bitcoiners.
Like,
I was interesting for a while,
but now I've decided to pull back
my exposure. Like, it just.
It doesn't happen.
And again, if you're on the outside
and you're still trying to weigh
all this kind of stuff
up, that's
just two data points
that I think are
quite interesting, right?
If you think about just that alone,
if nothing else,
it should encourage
you just to scratch
scratch at the surface
and dig a little bit deeper.
Yeah.
Do you have a favorite book
in Bitcoin
that you recommend
to your friends and family?
Well that's. This you.
I do.
So my
my favorite is
Bitcoin is Venus
I really really love that.
Which one is right.
Bitcoin is Venus.
It's Elon Farrington
started as humans.
And Sasha I'm so sorry I've gone
blank on the name,
but it started
as a series of articles
and it's really more talking about,
in a lot of ways
just it's more about sound money
than it is about Bitcoin.
And it's more about capitalism,
true capitalism,
as opposed to anything else.
But yeah, it's it
I don't actually recommend
that to most people
because it's a little bit
it's intellectually heavy.
It's maybe a bit more it,
it's a bit harder
to wrap your head around.
I actually
I actually recommend Broken Money.
I think that's a really good book
because it's not.
And Joe Bryan's.
I know you had him on
as a guest recently.
And I recommend his video.
What's the problem as well?
Because both of those resources
don't really touch on Bitcoin.
Not, you know,
in, in lens case
at the very end of the book.
And in Joe's case,
I don't actually think
he overtly mentions it at all.
And so it's a nice little slide
way of slipping it into someone's
consciousness.
It's just like, hey,
just think about this as a problem.
And then Bitcoin
just presents itself
as a very obvious solution to it.
Rather than coming in hot
and start talking about Sha256 and
private keys and
public private pay,
you know, all of all of that,
that is, that is,
that is throwing people
into the deep end and you just
you just going to confuse them.
But if you can just
sort of step back and say,
just think a bit about money
and what matters about money.
People, people
most people will will arrive
at the same conclusion.
Yeah, for sure.
I loved, loved, loved Lynn's book.
If someone's not a reader,
I won't recommend that one
because it's like 528 pages long.
There is a half hour
YouTube video of the book on that.
She. Yeah. Yep.
She's done it herself and,
or produced it
and and the writes
it and it's great
if you don't want to read the book,
watch if I can't.
It's amazing
how many times have recommended
that Joe's video as well as I'm not.
I can't be bothered.
It's like you spend
however many hours a week working,
you know, to try and save money
that you won't,
you know,
and you watch hours
upon hours of your reality trash TV,
but you won't spend half an hour
just to learn about one
of the most fundamental
coordination mechanisms
in our modern economy
and the very sort of underpinning
of our society that, okay,
it's just what people are like,
I suppose.
Yeah.
One of my,
big concerns
and things that keeps me up
at night is,
I very much feel like we're
reaching a late stage
for our society where,
we don't have the economic energy
to that
we had 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago.
And cost of living in Australia
is really big and bad problem.
And when people are so drained,
they don't exactly
have the motivation to go,
let me go
and learn about this thing.
You know, that's Michigan.
Smells like it's crazy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I keep finding
like I keep thinking,
how can I reach these people enough.
Just enough to peak their interest
and be like,
okay, let me look into this thing.
It's annoying. It's persistent.
It won't go away.
Yeah.
What what
what is it about this
that that I need to know?
And I think, like you said,
the Joe, podcast is a really good
starting point.
It's very palatable.
It's easy for anyone to understand.
They don't know about
quantitative easing
or fractional reserve banking,
but they do.
Just not using those words. Yes.
So it's easy
enough for anyone to understand.
And I have heard of Lynn's,
YouTube video.
I haven't watched it
because I've read the book.
So I was like,
that's kind of my excuse.
But I love the book.
I actually listened to the audio.
And I'll need to order the book
because there are
some charts in there
that I didn't get to see
that she referred to in the book.
I was like, oh,
I better come back to that.
But I love luck because I've read
now a number of books
that kind of follow
a similar path to Lynn's.
And that is, you know, the problem
and then the solution.
But I find that each time I read
a book, it's
never a repetition of topics.
I always learn something new,
and there's always a different lens.
And I love her.
Her take on,
bitcoin or sorry, money actually
being at its core ledger.
And I remember we had an Australia
wide debate that went on for a month
for that this was true or not.
Yeah. Yeah.
This is kind of who we are.
It says Bitcoin is
this is what we talk about.
We talk about money for fun.
And money
I don't know
what's the other problem with it is,
is that it feels like
because you it's
because it has
had the appreciation it has
and because it is
very specifically about money.
It feels like it's almost a craven
and a crass topic.
It's like, yeah,
you guys are interested in it
because you just
you just want to get rich
when Lambo like that's and it's not,
it's it's quite
hard for people
to believe
that there is a more noble
and maybe I'm kidding myself.
I don't think so.
There is a more noble,
calling that's here.
You know,
it's like you come,
you come for the money
and you stay for the revolution.
And, that's definitely true.
In my case,
it was like, yeah,
this looks interesting.
I might buy a little bit.
I'll invest in it.
I'll take a position in Bitcoin,
which I can't
even say with
a straight face these days.
But yeah,
it is,
it is so much more
beyond all of that.
And look,
I mean,
if you have to figure out some way
to quickly
and easily orange peel people
let me know
because I certainly haven't
found it.
It's very hard to do
the best advice I've had.
It might have been Daniel Button
or someone
I think I heard sort of say is like.
Every everyone's got their own
sort of topics
and their own interests
and the things that they sort of
believe in.
It's about
there is no universal orange peel.
There's an orange peel
for each person
that's going to
strike the right chord with them
in a way that that matters to them.
So for example, I've got a friend,
a really dear old friend
from school, 90 for 100 years.
He's a hardcore lefty, works
for the union movement. Right.
So he's never going to do Bitcoin
because that's all for,
like, hardcore capitalists.
And it's bad for the environment
and rah rah rah rah. And so.
So how do I
how do I orange peel him.
By the way
just the other day
he took out all of his super
and put it all into Bitcoin
100% allocation.
Yeah.
And what it was a good on him.
Like he's going to do so well good.
What it was was I, I
presented to him
a bunch of
information from Daniel's website.
Actually it's a great resource
just to sort of say no, it's
good for the environment
because that was
what was going to work for him.
Now I've got other friends
who couldn't give stuff about that,
and that's that's
never going
to get them over the line.
The probably, probably ironically,
the best marketing for
it is number go up.
And we all know it's sort of like,
yes, that is nice.
Let's not deny the obvious here.
None of us is upset when
that when that happens.
But it's the one thing that
no matter who you are
or what stage of life you're at or
where abouts
you are around the world,
it's hard
not to notice that at a point
if the people have done pretty well
to avoid it through to now,
but it does become pretty hard
not to notice.
And even if you are
drawn to it, form
reasonably superficial reasons i.e.
when Lambo.
We do know that when you when you
if that's what it is
that piques your interests
and that causes you to
to start pulling at that thread,
you'll come out the other set
other and completely rewired
and and again
on, on Bitcoin for the,
for the grander,
more noble vision that it
that it represents.
Yeah.
What you said really
resonates with me as well.
I, I've had, you know,
countless conversations
with my family
who are very much on the left
and they think of me
as this like right wing nut.
But I'm not a right wing mother.
I'm, you know, like I'm
an extreme centrist.
Is one of my great friends.
Calls me,
just right of center
economically, but, you know,
left of center
when it comes to, like, values.
I want everyone to be looked after.
And I want us to say.
The same about myself. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So I understand why
it can be a bit alienating
for those on, on, on the left.
And this is another reason
why I've started my podcast.
I was like,
welcome, this is great for everyone.
But it's interesting
because my auntie said to me,
she's like, you talk
about Bitcoin a lot.
And, you know,
she said something along
the lines of like, it's
kind of like tasteless,
quote unquote
tasteless to speak about money
in that way
because it is very much like
it is crass.
It is not a nice thing to like,
talk about money.
But to me, I'm not talking
when I talk about Bitcoin.
I'm not here about Bitcoin.
The asset,
I'm talking about bitcoin,
the protocol.
That's what gets me excited.
Obviously bitcoin the asset has done
very well for me.
And I want other people
to learn about Bitcoin, the protocol
so they can potentially benefit
from Bitcoin the asset.
And
yeah but I do question as well
like how do you appeal to people.
You appeal to their greed.
Do you appeal to the self-interest
in order
to get them to
allocate a little bit?
And then once,
even if you have a small allocation,
you kind of start obsessing about it
and following the price and
like, okay,
and then you
want to know more about it.
So I'm like,
is that a roundabout way
to get them to understand
the revolution, the philosophy,
the morality behind this magic
internet money.
Yeah.
You got
we've got almost
got to be like a drug dealer. Right.
Whereas yeah,
the first taste is free.
Have a little bit,
just have a little bit of bitcoin
you know, and because,
because you know
because you know that once
you have a taste of it
you want more of it. Right.
And and I know that sounds aroma.
You know
I'm not being entirely serious
but it's not a terrible it's
not a terrible analogy because,
you just it's just human nature.
You're going to pay more attention
to something
where you've got
a bit of a exposure to.
Right?
Like it's
it's just it's
for the same reason
of playing online poker with fake
money is never, ever the real thing
because, you know,
you were going to.
I'm a brilliant poker player
when it comes to play money.
I'm an awful poker player
with real money
because it's different, right?
And it's the same with Bitcoin.
It's like you can watch it
and observe it from the outside
all you like,
but once you
have direct exposure to it,
you you're just going to pay
a little bit more attention.
And I actually think that's the
the other point
that I try to hit on again
just this morning,
speaking to someone,
making the case for it as I do,
they weren't they weren't
they didn't want to talk about it,
but they were going to
talk about it with me and and
they, they, they
almost approached as well.
If I like this thing
or if I do this thing,
I have to go all in
and I think, no, you don't like,
you can take a 1% position,
a half a percent,
half a percent position,
just something, just dip
the toe in the water.
And frankly,
the asymmetry on this is so insane.
I mean, I,
I, I'd be very sympathetic
an understanding
of someone
who decides that they don't
want to put 80% of their net wealth
into Bitcoin, particularly
if they're new on the journey.
Right, I get it.
It's it feels crazy and reckless.
But 1% is kind of
at that point where,
okay, maybe
this is a pile of hot
air and okay, it's 1%.
It's like a daily fluctuation
on anyone's portfolio.
But if it's right,
I mean, the upside is it
the total addressable
market is probably $500
trillion in value.
And where it right.
So there's a 250 potential upside.
You know whatever you pick
whatever target that you want.
But it's a it's a big tug.
Even if you say just
all it does is replace gold.
There's there's a10x there.
And what's the downside?
I mean, I guess, well,
the downside is
100% at the most extreme.
So I could,
you know, heads,
I lose my 1% position.
I really don't notice it.
Or tails.
And I make a material difference
to me
and my progeny for now,
until the end of time.
It's like,
how do you not do that, right?
I mean, I have had a friend
push back
on that argument before and say,
well, by that rationale,
I should by every biotech
hopeful, because maybe they
they do invent the cure for cancer.
And that's it's a good it's
it's a good pushback
except and I think it was a
it was an exceptionally good
push back.
If this was 2014,
back when
Bitcoin was young and fragile
and a million things
could have gone wrong with it,
and thank goodness it did, it
in 2025.
It's it's a spurious argument.
You know, when it's this
weird thing on Silk Road,
you know, like maybe when it's,
$2.5 trillion asset
held by hundreds of companies,
fortune 500 companies,
listed companies.
When the president
of the United States
just bought $3 billion worth,
and sovereign nations
are acquiring it.
And Larry Fink at Blackrock
is there on CNBC
telling you how great this is.
Like,
at this point,
this is no longer
the moonshot
speccy penny stock that might do it.
This is this is more akin to
an apple
that has now
on the second iteration
of the iPhone.
Yes, it's
still relatively early
in its overall journey,
but where will be on the point of,
of, of it
just being a crappy crap shot that,
you know, may or may not pay off.
So, you know,
that's that's the part
that I wrestle with.
I completely,
particularly in my world
and with the,
the investors
that the traditional investors
that I know, I get it, you know,
you guys are never going
to go all in. That's fine.
But how do you not take 1%,
half a half a percent,
point one of a percent,
for God sake,
you have $10 million,
like by ten grand with like and not.
And not because, you know, it's a
a bit of play money
that you might go up and out
just because it will
force you to take a bit more,
pay a bit more attention to it.
And I'm just confident that that
for most people, once again,
once you get that first taste,
you'll be
you'll be calling the dealer out
for some more pretty soon. Right?
Yeah.
And speaking
of traditional investors,
I don't know if you saw this
quite recent news,
but Ray Dalio
now is recommending a 15 around 15%
to gold all bitcoin. So big dollar.
Either all or combination of both
which is quite significant.
He I follow him on Instagram
and on Twitter and on LinkedIn.
And I love the work that he's done,
you know, in
how nation states
lose money or go broke.
I can't remember the exact
title of it now.
But he very much understands
the problem that America
is facing with the debt
that's completely
gone out of control.
It's not sustainable.
It's it's
not headed in a good direction.
I don't think it can be managed.
So they're they're facing
some serious risks.
So for them it makes sense.
What's interesting to me,
though, is
how many of the gold bugs
who sort of understand
hard money and sound
money principles
aren't necessarily
yet orange pilled.
I was like,
I would have thought
that they would be
the easy ones to just like,
I get it.
But no,
it's really like the tangible stuff.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, and it is, it is hard.
But yeah, it's really hard. Right?
You would expect
them to be the ones who,
who would Crocket
sooner than everyone else.
But look Dalio big fan of Dalio.
He's I mean he started
the biggest hedge fund in the world.
He's been phenomenally successful
as an investor.
And I was always a fan of his
because he,
he had this wonderful
philosophy with investing,
which was basically
I might be wrong.
And my job is to in your job,
if you work for me,
is to convince me that I am wrong
because he's
we all see confirmation
bias and it's just how we're wired.
And he recognized that
and and structured everything
his firm around
trying to disprove an idea.
I've built an entire business
on that very principle,
which is, you know,
if you can't destroy
an investment thesis, it's
probably a good investment thesis.
You know,
I always start
with the proposition of,
here's something I like now,
please kill it for me.
And if you can't kill it,
then I'm going to buy it
because it's probably a good idea.
So I love I love his thinking.
And that's
how he's come at a Bitcoin.
I've heard him speak previously
about that.
But the other thing
that's really fascinating
about Dalio and he's
unusual in this regard,
is that
his lens for looking at world
events is much broader
than most people on Wall Street.
In fact, most economists, you know.
So if you talk about 1943,
as far as any economist
who's come out
of additional institution
these days, that
that was
it might as well be done at
the Stone age
is like
completely irrelevant to what
we sophisticated modern people,
doing and what is relevant to us
that he's, he's
going back
thousands of years
and just,
you know, studied history and,
and it's my general
it's a general truism
for economists in general.
The best economists,
the best macro thinkers are informed
heavily by history
because history is a great teacher.
I'll shout out to, Russell Napier,
who I really like as well.
He's from the Library of Mistakes.
He runs a consulting firm.
He's not a Bitcoin.
Not yet, I don't
I feel like
he's got a
he's got to be getting close.
But I love what he says
and his framework
for looking at the world
because it's, it's that we can
we can sort of,
you know,
shout at each other all day long
as to what
we think's going to happen
and just be informed by our ideology
and just the way we think
the world should work.
But the people who approach it with,
armed with the lessons of history,
just standard,
so much more solid ground,
because there is something
to be said of like
and this is what Dalio does.
Look, every single time
this set of circumstances
has happened in history,
this has been the result.
Now it's not physics, it's it's it's
not a quark or a gluon.
Like that
doesn't necessarily guarantee that
that that must forever
and always be true.
But for the love of God,
it should suggest that maybe,
you know,
Jesus happened
every every time A is happened.
B is followed.
It might at the very least
pay to take that idea seriously.
And that's why he's so passionate
about where he feels
is how it's going
is because he's informed from that,
from that experience, from history.
And if anyone cares
to take a look at that stuff,
you'll be
you'll be on a, you'll be in a it's
a serious competitive edge
in investing and economics.
But so few people do it
because history's over there
and economics is over here.
But that that really,
you know, one informs the other.
Very much so.
Yeah.
I absolutely love that analogy
that you just use because,
I think that has meant
it's meant a lot in my life as well.
Understanding the history of money
is what made me value Bitcoin.
So even though Bitcoin, I mean,
you know,
got created in 2008
and launched in 2009,
you'd think we don't.
We need to dismiss the history
in order to understand.
But it's the it's the fact
that I learned
the history of money
that made me understand
why this is now money.
This is going to, you know,
so it's it's
such an important point to make.
And you see. Right, I do 100% agree.
That's what doubt dollars
shines at is understanding.
Like, you know, you always zooms out
and it's the zooming out looking at,
you know, history as well
that makes it so important.
Can I give you another understand?
Yeah. I'm I'm so sorry.
I think there's a little bit of
a bias
I, I keep I,
I'm sorry to talk over you.
I it's the delay, I think,
so I think one thing that's
surprising to people
and again, it's surprising
because we don't come at it
through this
historical lens, is the
we look at the modern fiat system.
In fact, it's
not even if most people start, I,
I don't even know
what the word fed is.
It's just the system.
But the system
that they were born into
and their parents were born into,
you know,
it was sort of like
eternal and forever.
And we've always done it this way.
Why are we going to
this Bitcoin thing
when we've always done it that way?
And I so,
so having this conversation
with a friend,
it's like what do you mean with like
it's less than 50 years old.
Not always
not less than but
like it's 20 it's 54 years old
because it was only in 1971
that we went off the gold standard.
And even if you want to be
in, say like,
we kind of really went off it
before that and arguably
we did it still, in
terms of the historical,
the great arc of history, it's such,
it's such an incredibly recent,
phenomena to have pure fiat money
and pure
fiat, really from the, from,
from the 70s onwards and, and
and that shocks a lot of people.
And I shocked me
when I learned about it.
Oh, it's like,
oh, this is what we're doing now
is younger than my grandfather.
Like that is
that is not
you know,
I was born in 1975,
so I was four years old,
you know, like four years
before I was born.
We we,
we can totally change the foundation
of the financial system.
And you feel you feel like something
that's seismic and something
so consequential
would be something
that everyone knew about,
but no one does. Right.
And it's
I guess it's just surprising.
It's surprising.
And it's informative.
And it's another way,
I think, to make even the concept of
going
to a different system feasible,
because if we've done it
before, we could do it again. Right?
Like it's not something
that is immutable
and and consistent
as the night sky
that is eternal and never changing.
Which is true
as any astrologists will tell you,
right?
Astronomer
should Tyson into an astronomer?
Yeah.
Anyway, you get you get my point.
Yeah, yeah.
And and I also wanted to tell you
about a story. My dad.
So my dad's,
you know,
he knows that I like bitcoin.
He knows that I'm invested in it.
And he he sort of understands it,
but he hasn't done as much reading
and learning as I have.
So he's he's he's very apprehensive.
He's one of those people
who they grew up
during communism in Yugoslavia
and they the,
you know, their world views.
You go to the university,
you get a good job,
you save money and you retire.
You pass it
on to the next generation
and so forth.
So he's got a very, very cautious
view of investing.
He's got a very cautious
view of Bitcoin,
especially because there's like way
where is it doesn't exist.
Yeah. Real.
So he's yeah.
The one of the questions
he repeatedly asks me is you know
are you going to invite
people on your podcast
who are going to,
you know,
criticize Bitcoin
or offer an alternative
point of view,
or are there any debates out there
where you get two sides
of this story?
And I'm like that.
It's not that simple
because so far, I'm
still waiting for the day
that someone brings
up, a good argument against Bitcoin
that hasn't been debunked.
And that's not me being blind.
That's not me being dogmatic.
That's just me being honest.
As intellectually honest
as I can be, it,
like I'm waiting for this person.
If you are out there,
please let me know.
But yes, I'm on the same page.
Yeah.
No, I mean, that is
that is exactly,
exactly where I've come from is one.
I always say it to all my friends.
It's like I didn't sign.
I didn't intentionally
go in this direction.
I just it's just the inevitable
logical end point
of of any reasonable thinking.
Now it's entirely possible, in fact,
you know,
maybe even probable
that there's in fact,
it's guaranteed
that there's a whole bunch of things
that I haven't contemplated
or thought about
or thought about properly
or thought about.
Well,
so I'm not I'm
not arrogant enough to think that,
no, I have
I have thought about this
thoroughly and fully,
and I have conceived
of every possible
scenario and outcome
and that this is, an inevitability.
Right? Like, no.
Absolutely.
There's something that I could miss.
And as I said to you
at the start, I'd like.
Maybe it's not true,
but I'd like to think that
if someone presented to me
a convincing, cogent argument
that, you know,
this, this could go,
this could go wrong,
that I would be open to that.
And not just
all of
the intellectual rigor,
but my own personal well-being,
because I'm,
I'm I'm pretty deep in the whole
this at this point. Right.
And so it's like,
if I'm, I say it all the time
with straw man in the, in the
investing stuff, if I'm wrong
with this particular
share or whatever it happens to be,
I'm wrong.
And there's two ways I can find out.
One way is
the market
will tell me I'm wrong
and will tell me I'm wrong by me
losing a bunch of money.
Oh that sucks.
Or I could have
someone tell me I'm wrong in advance
and I could sell out
and avoid the loss.
There's no scenario
where it's like, you're wrong.
But don't worry
bro, it all works out
really well in the end.
Like this scenario,
there's no there's no third
path on that.
So yeah,
I'll I'll second your, your,
your challenge to people
if you've got a good argument out
there, let's hear it
because I'm ready for it.
And it will if,
if you can convince me and I
if I can be open minded and honest
and I think that I, that I can be.
Yeah. I'll change my mind.
Strong opinions loosely held.
And then I've got
a very strong opinion on bitcoin.
But if the facts,
you know, JP Morgan, the
the man not the,
not the institution was and this
I don't know if this
ever actually happened,
but it's such a good,
story that I like to use it a lot.
Was asked by a reporter
what he thought the market
was going to do.
His 20s
or some somewhere 1920s back then.
And he said,
I think
it's going to get to whatever.
And he goes, I'll.
But you said
you said this last time we spoke to
you said this.
And he said, well,
when the facts change,
I change my mind.
What do you do, sir?
And it was just like the ultimate
like put down
because what's your retort to that?
I mean,
there's not
there's nothing wrong with having a,
an opinion that is ultimately wrong.
The world is far too complex
for your original hot
take to be immediately
and forever, right?
Like if
there is not the world
that we live in
and you are not that smart.
Not you personally,
none of us, right? We just.
We just can't be that way.
So if the facts change.
Yeah, I change my mind
like you're going to.
And it's one of these bizarre things
in the modern era
where if we catch a politician
changing their mind, it's a gotcha
or you or even just our
you said this and now you said that.
I gotcha.
And it's like,
I actually applaud
anyone who can just
dispassionately say, you know what?
I used to really have
a strong opinion on this,
but now I don't
because the facts changed
or my reasoning changed.
But I was able to come at it fresh
and I've now changed my mind.
It's like,
how can you be anything other than
how can you do anything
other than applaud that?
Because the only other approach
is to say,
yeah, I made an opinion at one point
and no matter what evidence
or reasoning
or anything that you can throw it,
I'm never going to change my mind.
That's just another way
of saying you're an idiot,
right?
Like, what other conclusion
can you draw
from someone who takes that
that stance?
And unfortunately,
there's a lot of people out there
like that.
So yeah, you know.
It's absolutely true.
I like listening
to science podcasts.
And what makes me trust
a scientist is his ability
to change his mind
in light of new information.
That's what makes me think, okay,
I can listen to this person forever.
Yep.
Because I know that they're
intellectually honest
and humble enough
to change their mind.
But going back to the point,
I don't know
if you've seen there's a guy
I think he's based in Canada,
and Neil said so
is his handle an ex,
and he's got this
great visualization,
which is like kind of,
like a tree diagram
where,
yeah, he's got like
all the rebuttals to Bitcoin
and he organizes them nicely.
And I went through each one
of those boxes and I was like,
I need to make sure I understand
and can speak to every single one.
Yep. And and I can. Yep.
So until there's
something new out there,
I am going to.
Yeah, I, I'm waiting to hear this.
I have shared
some podcasts with my dad
because I couldn't
find great rebuttals to Bitcoin,
but I can find good debates.
I found one last night with.
So for Dynamo's debate,
someone on with
Bitcoin can be
global reserve currency
replace like the dollar.
And, to me,
that's like
a more nuanced discussion to have
when you're kind of hypothesizing
how the
how the adoption might evolve from,
from here on out
and what that might look like.
But in terms of everything
that I know about Bitcoin now
that you yeah,
I can't I
can't hear
like I haven't heard a
I'm a hater in the space I'm sorry.
No it's it's it's yeah.
Like I
my favorite bear case for bitcoin
is that
governments around the world adopt
an extraordinarily
disciplined and judicious
fiscal stance.
Because if that happens,
it's kind of like Bitcoin
is something that solves
this great problem.
But if that's not a problem
then you don't need a solution.
So I don't think for a second
that that's going to happen
because the incentives
are the way that they are.
Human beings
are the way that they are.
Politicians
are the way that they are.
So it's not going to happen,
but it is a good
it is a good thought experiment.
You know, it's
sort of
like we actually
don't need this other form of,
you know,
thermodynamically,
mathematically enforced hard money
if we just have, an a,
you know, a sensible, hard money
just by virtue of, like,
prudent management of our fiscal
and monetary affairs.
But it's not it's
not going to happen.
And you can
I think there's
plenty of open debates in Bitcoin
on the fringe of returns.
A good example of that, you know,
oh, there's all kinds
of little things.
But yeah, in terms of the
I actually don't know
what there is to debate
at this stage because it's sort of
it's got
this,
Lindy effect, which is like, well,
despite all of the criticism
and all of the reasons
as to why it shouldn't work,
every ten minutes it finds a blog,
it runs flawless. Slay.
It's got the world's biggest
bug bounty program on it,
because anyone who hacks
is going to be
an instant gazillionaire, you know,
and it's done
all of that adoption has grown.
Hash rate is growing.
Any kind of metric,
quantitative metric
you want to throw at it that shows.
Is this becoming
used by more and more people?
It's only going in one direction.
You know, it's sort of like
it's happening now.
It doesn't mean that it
it must therefore
continue to happen.
You know, it
it might hit an a hit,
an abrupt end.
But at this point it's sort of like
if you want to go beyond
just trying to argue it
from an intellectual standpoint,
which is
you can cover
a lot of Einstein
field of relativity
just by imagining
being on a light beam.
So you can
you can do a lot
just with the old gray matter
before you before
stepping out into the lab.
But but we have this real world
experiment
that's been running
for 16 years now.
And for people to deny that,
it's like you,
you're looking at the sky
and you're saying
it's green
and it's like, well,
no, it's it's clearly blue
because there it is.
Yeah, but but I don't
I don't acknowledge it.
It's like,
well you might not
acknowledge calculus, but it exists.
You might not, you know,
feel as though
the French language is real,
but it exists,
you know,
and you might not like Bitcoin,
but it exists.
And whether you like it or not,
more and more people
are coming on board with it
every day.
And and that's
what's really weird about
this is the
this is the thing
that really broke my brain with it.
Was that because, again,
I come from a world of
valuing things through cash flows
and intrinsic value,
and there is absolutely
an inverse relationship
between price and value.
Apple is a great company,
is it worth 100 times
its current share price?
Probably not. Right?
You get to a point where
no matter how beautiful
the business,
you can overpay for it.
Bitcoin flips
all of that on its head
and it actually says no.
The higher the price goes up,
the more valuable it is.
And that is just sort of like
that's a really hard thing
to wrap your head around
at a at a higher price.
It can carry more economic weight.
It's more useful to more people.
It's more useful to the big
and serious pools of capital
that are out there.
It just has more utility, you know?
And with that will come ultimately
lower volatility.
It'll be accepted in more places.
And this it's very unusual
to have something like that
in the financial realm,
which the price goes up
and up and up.
But rather than the value
being inversely correlated, it's
positively correlated with it.
Like it's just it's it's so amazing.
And so for me,
watching the price
go up is nice
in terms of watching your, you know,
making your bags happier.
That's great
I love that, but it's
but it's also
evidence that this thing is
doing what you want it to do.
Not for you personally, but
what it needs to do to fulfill it,
to fulfill its promise.
And yeah,
it is going to go up forever.
It is going to go up forever.
You know, it's going up forever.
Laura, that is something
I definitely get.
Snickers at.
And and I think
I'll give you two things
that that people in my world
snicker at, which is kind of ironic.
The first is
you say it's going up forever
because I often get,
okay, it's done.
Well,
when are you going to take profits?
And like,
profits now, never taking profits.
Why would I change
a really good hard
currency into a weak, crappy?
I'm not doing that ever.
And that's why
it doesn't make sense.
How can anything go up forever?
And yet they're the same people
who turn around and go,
oh, you should buy a low index ETF.
Like when just now,
because it's going to go up forever.
And then, right,
it is going to go up forever,
like for a whole host of reasons
that we can't get into.
But the market has always on
average, over time gone up.
And I can absolutely say that.
Yep. That makes perfect sense. Yep.
Let them up
because they're
not going to do that.
There's like so that's weird.
And then they'll go, yeah,
but it's really volatile.
It's like the Nasdaq
is not volatile like that.
Like you got to think about that.
All of these criticisms
that you have,
you will
you will in, in, in good faith
and with good reason,
you will advocate
to your friends, family
and clients that you should buy.
For example, low,
low cost index fund
and say with a straight
face, it's going up forever.
And although it's volatile,
volatile volatility is at risk
and you shouldn't worry about it.
But if you say the exact same thing
about Bitcoin, it's pure madness,
right? Like it's it's crazy.
So anyway
the penny will drop
for them eventually.
Yeah. Do you think on the price.
Like one of the things that I wonder
all the time is whether
the price itself
per bitcoin
not we're not getting to SATs
for now but per a bitcoin.
Do you think that almost
is detractor.
Because I know in equities
when you have a stock
that's priced
ridiculously people think
oh this is bullshit.
This is like a premium
because of some brand or some fluffy
other metric or
yeah,
I don't know how to explain it, but
do you always think
like people think Bitcoin will?
I don't even know what it is now.
I work for an exchange
assured it's a 180
about Aussie dollars.
Yeah yeah.
Yeah. Aussie dollar 011 80.
Only 180,000 per man.
Yeah I think
and they think
they must because it's
so ridiculously high.
Like there's no other asset.
It's price that high.
They must think
oh this is just too good to be true.
It's bullshit.
And yes, I do.
Do you think that's a unique bias.
Yeah.
And again
yeah, the
the experience from
the world of equities is
very informative here.
It's interesting right.
Because one
it doesn't stand up to
any rational thinking.
And I don't mean
you have to go down,
you know,
spend 100 hours of deep thinking
and research to arrive
at this conclusion.
But you can do a pizza analogy
or any kind of simple
thought experiment
and realize that actually
the number is arbitrary.
It doesn't really matter.
And the best example of
that is the poster
child of equity capitalism
is is Berkshire Hathaway
like the class I shares?
I don't even know what they are,
but they're insanely
high, like 300,000 us.
I don't even know what it is.
It's a lot.
And so Buffett
introduced the class
B shares
and there's,
I forget
if it's 200 for 1 or 2 people
and whatever it happens to be,
but they're in a lower price now.
It's just it's completely
arbitrary, right?
But, you know,
you need it to do it for liquidity,
but more often really just so people
don't feel it's too expensive
every time.
And I think
the most expensive
stock listed on the ASX,
I think is about 300 bucks
a share or something like that.
And usually once
it starts getting to those realms,
the companies will do a,
stock split.
And so they'll just say
for every share that you've got,
you now own two.
So the share price halves
and everyone goes, oh, it's cheaper,
I can afford it now.
It's like
like magic trick, you know,
and it's like this.
You're right on the horizon Andrew.
Like.
Yeah.
It's just it's so like I do get it.
I do like that's
the natural knee jerk reaction.
It's just that
it doesn't stand up to any,
any thinking.
I was going to say
critical thinking.
I just mean any thinking whatsoever.
So to answer your question,
yes, I do.
I do think that's a problem.
I do think that's the shit coin.
Angle really.
It's like, well,
I missed bitcoin,
but maybe I'm not too late for,
you know, whatever coin.
So I definitely think that that is,
a part of it.
And yeah,
people don't know
about the divisibility and,
it's a stumbling block,
but I don't know what you do
about it, though.
I don't know what the best approach
I've had
is to rather than trying to price
Bitcoin in dollars
price dollars in Bitcoin.
So, for example,
rather than telling your friends,
oh, it's $180,000 per Bitcoin,
you could say
$1 will buy you 860 sats.
I forget what
the current conversion is.
It's like $1 and I get 860 sats.
What's the SAT
oh it's like
sort of sense to dollars
you know with with bitcoin.
But it's Bitcoin.
It's it's effectively bitcoin.
But you get 860 for just $1.
And it just
I mean you and I,
I feel almost silly saying it.
But I mean it is it reframes
it a little bit here.
It's like no
you you always price
the weaker currency
on the stronger currency.
So I think is Bitcoin is
we need to really lean into that
and stop talking
about the dollar value of Bitcoin,
because who cares
what it's worth in dollars.
Well I really care about for someone
who gets paid in dollars
because I have to at this point in
time is like, well, when I get that,
how much SATs can I buy with it?
And I want that number ideally.
Well, when I'm acquiring
and I want,
I want as many SATs
for the dollar as I can,
and then after the fact,
I want that, I want,
I want that, that to
go in the other direction.
But it's just a framing problem.
And,
I mean, it is like human nature.
It's human nature.
It'll be a hard hump to get over,
but people will get there.
Yeah.
And I think,
you know, owning a full bitcoin
now is becoming
harder and harder for most people.
So we do need to start
communicating in SATs.
And I know that I don't do it nearly
enough as a as much as I should.
Yeah.
Because a lot of people
don't even know
that they can buy
a fraction of a Bitcoin.
They, they think they need to buy.
It's all or nothing.
So yeah. Yeah.
Now you can you can buy what?
You can buy a dollar worth
if you want.
Which is why I sort of like it
this way.
Like, how could you not like,
you'll go out one night
with your friends to a restaurant.
You'll easily
drop a couple hundred bucks.
But you won't.
You won't buy some SATs.
Like. It's weird, right?
That you know.
Yeah, well, people have people.
Yeah.
And the other bias as well
that people have is like,
oh, I missed the train.
I only got into bitcoin last year
and now I'm up 75%.
Like that's crazy in, you know
one year.
And so everyone. Feels like you.
I'm really looking forward
to the bear market
that I can buy this.
Yeah.
You know
I want the price to go down. Like.
So I used to
I used to in the very early days.
You
I mean, I do it with shares to you.
It's hard to not pull out the phone.
Look at the app.
Is number going up,
number gone gone down.
You know it's it.
And I'm so zen about it
these days with bitcoin.
And I say
I want to talk to myself
if there's a very substantial
weighting into this thing.
So my personal net
wealth can fluctuate
very significantly
over the course of of a week.
And I don't feel anything about it
because any
I can't lose
because any dip is a gift
and any pump is also a gift.
Like I can see the on one hand,
I get to stack it's greater value.
That's a win.
On the other, my my value
at least is measured in
in the Pacific peso goes up.
So it's like there's no
there's no downside here.
What everything is good
goes up day goes down day.
I don't want it to
like structurally decline
into oblivion. Let me hasten to add.
But you know, even if it was a 50%
drawdown,
I honestly don't think I would care
that much.
In fact, Monga put this really well.
No, no, Charlie didn't like,
like bitcoin.
But, you know,
it was a nine year old dude,
so maybe we can cut him some slack.
But incredibly smart person and
an incredibly good investor
and he,
he was much more blunt
than his partner Warren.
And he I'm going to
I'm going to screw it up.
But he said,
if you are not the kind of person
that can deal
with a 50% drawdown
with equanimity
multiple times
throughout your investment career,
you do not deserve
to be a shareholder,
and you do deserve the mediocre,
mediocre returns that you will get
is very blunt.
He didn't sugarcoat it at all,
but he's kind of savage.
Oh, that was one year.
And that's brilliant.
And I and I know I buggered that up.
So I'd encourage people to,
to Google it to get the,
get the exact quote
because he, like Warren,
has a
wonderfully pithy way
of sort of communicating
very big ideas.
But he's really getting
to the point.
It's like,
this is
this is the ticket to the dance.
Volatility is not risk,
and it kind of cannot be avoided.
And if you're going to like go
and cry and run back to mommy
every time
something dips 10%,
you know, it's just sort of like,
well, don't buy it,
but just don't complain
when you get extraordinarily
mediocre returns.
And, and also volatility
only matters
when you don't know what you own.
If you know what you own
and you know why you own it.
And you know what?
It's really worth.
I'm not talking about
to eight decimal places
in in currency,
but it's just like I own
something that is
perfectly scarce and fast.
Becoming the reserve
currency of the world
is kind of a big deal.
And we'll we'll eventually
reprice everything.
And I
really care that it
drops 10 or 20%, like,
you know what I mean?
Like, I know,
I don't know, I don't know.
Ask me
to give you a valuation on Bitcoin,
but it's worth
at least several million dollars.
So 180,000 160,090 thousand 320,000.
Like what's the difference. Right.
It's all thinking
cheap and and my average buy
price is 40 grand Australian and,
I bought some higher.
I bought some lower.
But I can tell you at the time
I was way too late, so, like,
I have to pay this much, right?
And then
and then I got more serious with it,
and then I ended up
liquidating my super.
And then I put it all into super.
I had 100 K Australian.
Oh, my God, this is so painful.
I'm, you know,
why didn't I do it earlier?
I'm, you know, all.
I mean,
I didn't think I was to, like,
I think I did enough
by that stage to realize.
But it was hard, right?
And now I look at.
It's so funny how your your
how quickly your
expectations and the price
that you anchor on changes.
So I look at it now, I'm just oh,
I should get some more of it.
Couldn't have got more.
That went all in,
but you know what I mean.
It's like, oh, it's so cheap.
And I say with my wife all the time,
it's like every now and again
Bitcoin does its thing.
And you know, every it's like, whoa,
nothing happens forever.
And then everything happens
in a short space of time.
And you go through those periods
which is pumping as like,
oh sweetheart,
did you see that move?
I want to get all I got to this.
And you always measure yourself
from the high watermark.
See, you're right.
In the last 12 months,
in Australian dollar terms, we're
pretty much we've doubled.
And yet
I think the top take in Aussie
dollar terms was,
and I say 187,000,
something like that.
Let me look it up. And right now,
right now we're at 176,000.
187. Sounds about right. Yeah.
I think the very top right.
And again,
I'm zen enough
not to care about this at all.
But the lizard brain,
the monkey brain back here
is going oh oh 176.
What's it doing like?
It's crazy. Yeah.
I also feel like
I would be
personally more nervous
if stocks went down 40% than I would
if Bitcoin went down 40%.
Because partially
because I understand bitcoin
a lot better,
but also because stocks require you
to trust someone else, whereas
I trust Bitcoin
so much to trust the fundamentals.
I understand that
I kind of expect this these
drawbacks from time to time.
And I'm ready for them.
Yeah I'm ready to buy more
when they dip.
It's a gift. It's an absolute gift.
And what let's be real.
I mean,
how do you think something
is going to monetize
from zero to the ultimate reserve
asset of the world?
And it's going to do
so in a measured,
even linear
fashion, like there's no reality
in which that's possible.
It's going to be messy.
It's going to have big surges,
followed by big crashes,
like it could never be anything.
Thus.
And again,
the equity markets
are incredibly informative
in this regard
because that's what they did
and that's what they continue to do.
And that's what they will always do.
Right?
No one looks at the stock
market and goes, oh,
that crashed in 2009.
Therefore you shouldn't
put any money in the market.
Like what are you an idiot?
No, volatility is is not risk.
So
yeah, I don't I,
I don't know how you you get past
all of these behavioral biases
other than just recognize them and
and it's
why it's why the simple things
are the easiest things
which is just DCA.
When is the best time
to buy Bitcoin.
Whenever you've got spare cash
that you don't need for a few years,
that's the best time to buy.
If you could just buy
Bitcoin at that point in time
and if you're like me,
you because
we laugh about it at home,
it's like, if I have to
sell some bike and I look, trust me,
I never sell Bitcoin,
but sometimes I need to spend
some of my money on things
like a house or whatever,
which I did recently.
It's very painful.
But you know that the
moment you bitcoin.
Oh, it's so painful. Right?
Buying a house is important to me
and I don't regret it. So.
And I've still got a decent stack
don't get me wrong.
But it was painful to sell.
But what do you think on
you happened
the day after I sold
like it pump 5%.
Oh bloody well. And then?
And then you
and then you get to save.
I've made a cash
and you go and buy it.
What happens the day
after you buy it?
It falls 5% like.
That's just the gods. Fucking sorry.
If I can swear or not,
but if the gods are
fucking with you. Right.
And that's it's
what's going to happen
and you're going to go,
even though you know that
this thing is worth
millions of dollars, right?
You're still going to go,
oh, do you know it?
Now?
I, I can, I can
I can't guarantee anything.
But I'm going to be pretty confident
in, in a few years time.
You're not even going
to remember that right.
And I don't I.
Yeah I remember as well
because my only good in last year.
So my average was just like
under 100,000 Australian.
Yeah. And I was like.
Oh that's my super.
Yeah. Yeah.
I was like
oh we should go in like around
80 at least rather than 100.
And now that we're like past 100,000
U.S, I'm like,
I got in a really good time.
I'll be able to, you know. Yeah.
And it's a great time.
Now the point,
the point is, is that
even if you're listening to it
now, it's still a great time.
It's still a great time because.
It's. Still cheap.
I'm always gone
and I'm not even gone.
I'm starting to try and change
my language around that.
I don't buy or sell bitcoin.
I, I x
I exchange for bitcoin, right?
And I never sell my bitcoin.
But very occasionally
when I absolutely have to, I do
I do spend some of my bitcoin
because newsflash
that's what money's for.
It's for saving my value
and then and exchanging it
at a later point in time
when things of value
and meaning
are offered to me
and I can spend my money on it,
I'm going to do that right,
but I'm not going to sell it.
I'm never going to cash out.
I'm never going to take profit
because it's just my
it's my unit of account.
And so liberating to cash it
just it just
my optimism towards
the future has changed.
My confidence in the futures
has changed.
My my financial grounding is like
everything has sort of changed.
And let me tell you this,
which is really cool from a,
an equity investor standpoint,
is that
I've done okay
out of this equity game. Right?
I go, you know, I've done some dumb
I've bought plenty of dumb stocks,
too many to mention here,
but I've bought
a few good ones as well.
But it's hard work.
Like, it's really hard work.
I have to know all kinds of things
about various
different business models.
I've got to know how to read
financials statements
and actually
really read them properly.
I've got to have a good sense
of what this company's strategy is,
the ethics,
and the capability and alignment
of the leaders in charge,
how that business
is operating within a broader
macroeconomic context,
what's happening
with the cost of capital
and interest rates?
And but like a million things
I need to try and do
and study and work
and for me to think
I understand this business
and then
and then independently
come up with a market valuation
so I can determine
whether the market
is offering me a good price
so I can buy it, hoping
that the other people in the market
will recognize the value
and push it up.
But when that happens,
then the value is no longer there.
And then maybe
I need to think about it all again.
And so like
if that sounds like super hard work,
it is hard work.
And I
and before Bitcoin came along,
I would still sing
the praises of that
because it can be very lucrative
if you are again, like with Bitcoin,
if you're prepared to do the work,
there's great value
and great reward in doing that.
But when it comes to Bitcoin,
it's just like
is the network operating
back to bit?
Like I don't need
to think about anything else.
Is adoption
continuing to trend upwards
and is the network operating?
I don't care about interest rates.
I don't care about
quarterly earnings.
I don't care if there is no CEO
whatever they're doing.
You know, it's this sort of like
and that's why I said at the start,
it's so low risk
because there's really only,
you know,
a tiny handful of things that matter
and that kind of more
or less eternal
and unchanging for the most part.
And as long as that remains
true, it
may it make sense to continue to
own it
and buy it and expect
that adoption will continue to grow.
And that means that I can now
spend my time
trying to deliver real value
for the world through my business,
through my labor,
through whatever one,
anything I want to do.
And then I can spend my free time
as free time,
not as as so many people
in the Bitcoin space rightly say,
I don't have to earn my money twice,
one with my job,
and then B by becoming an investment
analyst in my spare time
just so I don't lose my money.
And it's just sort of like,
gosh, that's a liberating thing.
And and yeah,
I don't know where I was going
at that point other than to sort of
say it's being a being a
that notion,
even use the term investor in
because I'm not
an investor in Bitcoin,
but being someone
who has adopted Bitcoin,
I've got very,
very few things that I need
to keep track of and,
and, and worry about
to be safe and confident
in where
my monetary value is held,
if that makes sense.
Absolutely. Yeah.
And unlike
having to learn each
individual stock
or equity
that you look into
and as you stand,
the companies
behind them in the leadership
behind them,
you kind of learn Bitcoin once
and then you just
keep topping up your knowledge
like a software upgrade
every few months.
Yeah, yeah.
And there's no no lot to keep on
top of it either. Really.
Think you know what I mean?
Like, don't get me wrong,
there's a million things
that we can always talk
about and, and,
and there are but they're not
they're not foundational
to the thesis.
They're all like interesting
aspects of how it's unfolding,
what's happening
on the regulatory front.
They're all interesting
and they're all important in a way.
But the big foundational
stuff is, is is unchanging.
I feel like this past year, for me
is like a learned about Bitcoin.
And now all the news
that I keep up with
is just good news stories.
It's like, oh, look at this.
Mainstream media
changing the in tune.
Oh look at this trad five bro.
Changing his tune.
Yeah well look at this.
Like you know all these people.
The skeptics now absolutely love it.
And people
who are, skeptical of Bitcoin.
Now now you're saying
increase your allocation in it.
And so
you just keep hearing
these good news
which just validating.
And it's interesting
because for Bitcoin is
the risk isn't the volatility.
It's not regulation.
It's not all these things
that you would typically think of.
There's risk in the traditional
finance world.
It's more like your biggest risk
in Bitcoin is yourself.
Your ability to self-custody
is your biggest risk.
Get that right and your sweet.
Oh yes, you're 100% right on.
But also added to that, you're
being sort of the master
of your emotions as well. Right.
So it's like, yes,
you definitely need
to get some of those
technical aspects. Right.
But also just
just not be the kind of person
who's going to panic.
We are fortunate
and this is the danger,
I thing I'm aware of,
I don't want to speak
for you on your.
But as I said, I kind of
I'll take my super balanced
because I it's been about a year
and it's only gone up
since I bought it.
So it's easy to be high conviction
when things are going up.
But again,
I've been in the investing game
long enough to know that
that doesn't always happen.
And at some point I don't know when.
I don't know why,
I don't know what the catalyst
is going to be,
but we're going to suffer through a
brutal, crippling bear market
and everyone
everyone's got high conviction
in a bull market.
It's easy to say
all of this stuff in a bull market.
It's very hard to say it
when your net wealth is down 50%
and everyone's saying it's dead
and it's, it's,
it's it will test
you more than anything else,
which is why
you've got to have that, that,
that high conviction
underpinning
is the only thing
that will save you from yourself
when the demons come at night
and they will come
when you're in that kind
of environment and
all you
can do is just
like, just try and think
through what
that is going to feel like
and, and be ready for it
and have a plan for it. Right.
The plan is probably
just do nothing and continue to DCA.
But,
you,
you, you need to sort of like,
what's the word
you need to be a pre cog almost,
you know,
in, in this kind of regard
because it's
as I say,
everyone's it's easy to be it's
easy to be high conviction
and bullish in a bull market.
And it just
every and
I can tell you again in my game
every single
finance pro will go
oh I would love x, y and Z.
If that drop 20%
I'm going to back up the truck right
next bear market.
You know, I'm
going to back up the truck.
No you're not bullshit.
You, no one ever does. Right?
Like very few,
very, very, very few people do.
And, because it's easy to say
at this point in time, is it
whatever we said, 180,000.
So if I said to you, hey,
if you had the chance
to buy it at 90
K, would you buy like hell yeah,
because it's 180.
So it's a discount like,
you bet
it has to drop in
half at that point.
So you're looking at a chart
that's going south.
The screen is full of red.
Every part of your social media
feed is talking about
how it's the end of the world,
and Bitcoin's
all over and everything,
and you're just going to,
like,
quietly, calmly
stroll into that and buy it?
I don't think so.
Well,
hopefully you do,
but but then, then you start.
Then then the other
behavioral tricks.
Start playing with your
mind where you go, well.
I'll buy
once it stops falling,
as if you're going to know
in advance when the bought it.
Like no one reads a bell.
At the bottom
is the old saying right.
And it's not in the stock market.
Yeah. Oh, this is the bottom okay.
So I should buy now.
Like you're
never going to know
that the bottom is
only in, in hindsight
and no one ever picks the bottom
I picking bottoms
gives you smelly fingers
rather crass way of saying it.
And and it's it's
it's going to be true for bitcoin.
So just don't play any of that game.
Just like
I'm just going to continue
to, to average into it.
Importantly,
as much as I'm a believer
and passionate
about and I'm certainly
not buying any bitcoin with money
I'm likely to need in the near term
because there are bills to pay
and the rest of it.
So I and I say
the same about the share
market, I,
I need to account
for that volatility,
because it's just a,
just a fact of life.
But other than that, like you, you
you've
you've got I, I'm probably just,
babbling at this point,
but another,
another favorite saying of mine is
you can borrow an idea,
but you can't borrow the conviction.
And in a bull market,
when there's a couple
people on a podcast
who are obviously clearly passionate
and excited about this thing, it's
very easy to go, yeah,
I want some of that too.
Oh, wow. It's going.
Yes, yes,
Andrew said it's going to be worth
tens of millions
one day or whatever, you know.
By the way,
please don't buy it
just because of anything
I have said or anyone has said,
because it will be a very different
calculus when, not if,
but when the market
has a bit of a stumble.
And that's very different
at that point in time.
And the only thing
that will save you from yourself
is if you've got your own
deep seated conviction
that you have built
through your own
research, understanding,
thinking and contemplation.
And if you've got that,
I wouldn't say you're bulletproof,
but you're going to be
far more resilient
than you would otherwise be.
Sorry for the long run.
Now, that's a very, very important
topic to make.
And I do sometimes get people
asking me for like financial advice.
And I'm like, I'm
not want to give financial advice.
All I will say is
we are potentially
nearing the top of the market
and I won't always be responsible
in, in,
you know, saying
these things to people
because I have had friends
who have bought,
you know, the,
the last cycles top
and then they sit all the way down
and just
it can be very disheartening,
especially if you're buying
like a lump sum of your,
you know, life savings
and putting into Bitcoin.
But this particular person
that I'm thinking of
did a lot of study in
and was
had very high conviction in Bitcoin.
So she she kind of laughs it off.
And and you know
obviously now she's.
She's how she feel. Inside the time.
Yeah.
Yeah she's she's held
the entire time I mean she's
you know
definitely back up
and and then some.
But it can be
a very disheartening,
way to enter for
someone who's only, like,
putting their feet in.
So that's why
I also like a huge advocate of, BCA,
but in terms of managing emotions,
a couple of
things that work
for me is zooming out,
like you said as well,
making sure you have enough
operational money space
so that you don't need to panic
sell it
in case that the the market dips.
You don't want to be selling
when it's at the bottom.
To always make sure
you have enough money
for everyday life.
What other words of wisdom?
Oh, and also speak to Bitcoin.
I like for me
it helps actually reaching out
to like a toxic org who's been,
you know,
in like 90% drawbacks and be like
what did you do?
And the like,
oh you know with 30% down
you're worried oh less.
You're cutting your books
less, you're cutting sucks.
Yeah.
So one of the,
one of the things I do is
I, I'll open up
a blockchain explorer.
So rather than looking at a chart,
I'll look at one of those,
you know, the,
you know, the Bitcoin visuals
and stuff. You just see them.
You just see the transactions
coming through
and what's in the mempool.
And it just
it divorces you from the price
and you just get the
Zen of the protocol doing its thing.
And it's like,
oh yeah, nothing's not,
nothing's changed.
So I guess I don't. Talk next block.
You know?
And now if I turned on, it's like,
oh, there's a critical error
or the blocks are
empty or something, I,
I would probably panic.
So at that point in time.
Right, if that ever happens,
but that's the.
Yeah, that it's a nice grounding.
Just to remind yourself about what,
what is the underpinning
of value here.
And it really just
is the promise of any open
permissionless blah blah blah that,
you know, all of that kind of stuff.
And as long as that is true,
the price can move around
and I can be pretty zen about it.
Yeah, yeah, I,
I'm dying to know,
is your wife a bitcoin
or is she still like.
Andrew, what are you doing?
Why are you putting your money
in this crazy old thing?
She definitely is.
Yeah.
I'm so lucky because I,
And she reminds me rightly of this.
Is this, like, you know, what am I.
I wouldn't have been this,
accepting and her.
And especially when it was early,
when I was first starting
to like the mind virus,
it just got into the head
and was doing its thing.
She was like, what are you on about?
I, you know, I'd have a podcast
playing in the car
or just on my phone and in bed and,
you know, just like, what?
What is that? That sounds crazy.
But like, to her
eternal credit, she's,
she's actually
a scientist by training.
And so she, she was sort of like,
she would throw
out all the usual challenges
because they're all
sensible challenges
the first time, you know?
And I was like, yeah,
I thought that too, but
and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Oh, I know, I tend to something.
And she just,
she, she just accepted it
and and no,
not because
I told her to accept it
and don't tell her to do anything.
Frankly.
She accepted it because she formed
that that opinion through her own
independent thinking
and just by osmosis
of it,
constantly playing
in the background of her house,
that, that she,
that,
that she could see
the rationale of it and it just.
Yeah, it did it
did help that over time we
it has been life changing
for like life changing for us
and in, in such
a, in such a million
different sort of ways
that it's hard.
It's at a point now
it's sort of like
did you buy some bitcoin yet,
you know like, oh, super cancer.
Did you buy some bitcoin.
Like she's like she's 100% on board
and I never could have.
Yeah I mean I'm
sure I could have convinced
the let's take a small quote
unquote position in it you know.
But but to be as as significantly
weighted as we are in it,
that could only ever happen
if it was.
Yeah.
One team, one dream.
And teamwork makes the dream. What?
Yeah.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
I love those stories of partners.
Like coming around off the
beat 100 K
because it was like your bitcoin.
And then it goes over 100 K.
Oh Bitcoin. I'm like okay.
I mean she's at the point
where where she was like
are you listening to
another Bitcoin podcast.
Yeah.
She's like oh my god.
Like
is there anything left to learn.
Well actually yeah.
And and it's
just really interesting.
So she's she's on board
but she's not as myopically obsessed
with it as I am.
She's interested in
far more important things
in a lot of ways.
But yeah, she's definitely on board.
Yeah.
And I love is all learning
from other
Bitcoin is like
what it is about them
that interest them the most.
And for some people it's to text.
For some people it's the economics.
For some people it's
entirely something else.
And one of the big surprises
for me was learning
about Austrian economics.
And I'm just like,
this was my first exposure
to to economics.
And I spoke to a woman
in, in Palm Cove,
like a few weeks ago now.
And she was like, you're so lucky.
You're so lucky you.
You skipped all the other BS
and then, you know, straight
from like, the Austrian school
and yeah, I just
I never thought I would find
this so interesting.
I love listening to podcasts.
I actually want to invite some,
speakers as well,
kind of bring this,
to the mainstream
because unfortunately,
there's not many universities
that teach it in.
Some do some touch or not,
because you might have
like a professor that's very,
curious and does a lot of like
side education.
But yeah, it's, it's
I tend to look at it as like,
a look.
It is very elegant, neat and clear
and logical.
Yeah, yeah.
There's not a lot of,
like, manipulation behind it,
so that's what I like about it.
Zero manipulation really
isn't the intention protocol.
So yeah, that's that's
what makes it so,
so fascinating.
So the Austrian economics is,
was an interesting
one for me too, because
it is, it was and is fringe.
And when
as a general heuristic,
if something is fringe,
it's fringe for a good reason.
Flat earthers
are a fringe group.
And you'd go, yeah,
but that's because it's bullshit,
right?
And so most,
most things that are fringe
are fringe for very good reason,
because they're crazy or something
or close to so.
So when you,
when you come across
Austrian economics
and you go, it's fringe,
it's a very reasonable assumption
just to go, well,
if it's not taught at university,
no university teaches it.
None of the major,
economists, preach it.
It's got to be crazy because,
you know, how could something
that had any modicum of rationality
and sense and reason to it
be so sidelined and it's like, yeah,
I totally get that view.
And that's why
I dismissed
Austrian economics for years
without ever looking at it,
just because it's like it's fringe.
I know what's what's it about?
Something about this and that.
It's crazy.
What are we.
If we don't have inflation,
no one would spend your investing.
I guess that makes sense.
Anyway, back to it. Right?
And you never think about it,
and then you like, as you
as you start exploring.
Are you going?
It makes so much perfect sense.
And the other day I thought,
because it's a it's
something I love to sort of
I was going to say
debate my friends with
call it what it is, argue
with my friends about.
And I thought, isn't it interesting?
Right.
Because it feels as
though is a Bitcoin.
The burden of proof is on you
to make the case
where you could
equally say,
no, the burden of proof is on you to
to say it's not true.
Like, well,
or at least we,
we each have a burden of proof
to sort of present our case.
But when it does it,
when it came to Austrian economics,
I kind of thought,
well, economics is,
you know, there's lots of journals
and scientific articles
and people research
at this university
departments full of this.
Let's have a look
for some good empirical evidence
that supports
the Keynesian worldview
and the effectiveness of it.
And you start looking through it
and you go, actually,
this is the
the the research on
it is extraordinarily thin.
And what is there is very,
very inconclusive,
which kind of surprised me.
I think it doesn't really now
that I've thought about it
for half a second,
but at the time it was sort of like
I just expected there to be
this big body of evidence
that because
usually reality is a bit more,
it's not so binary,
you know,
it's like everything
the Keynesians say is wrong
and everything
that the Austrians say is correct.
No, it's
life's more subtle and contextual
and complex than that.
So I thought that
there would be some,
yeah, some
a bit of heft behind the philosophy.
And I couldn't really find anything.
And then I even got
onto the AI engines, and I know.
Right.
They'll, they'll be able to search.
I was like,
can you list for me
all the empirical evidence
that they give supporting
evidence to this worldview is
even coming back going,
well, I can't really find any.
Right.
And so it's it's sort of
I think that's something else
I would sort of say to people is, is
yeah, just because it's fringe
don't order
you to go to your mistake,
but don't automatically assume that.
Therefore it must be crazy.
And in fact, there's no
good sort of real world evidence
to suggest this kind of stuff
is actually reasonable
and that it works.
And there's so many things
like that, particularly
in the field of modern
economics
and contemporary economics, where
and I know it
because I work in this,
in this field, in this world,
and people make assertions
and they say it is in fact
and I always nodded along with it.
And then you sort of say, well,
what's the evidence for that?
And then they look at you as in,
what do you mean?
It's self-evidently true.
The classic one
being that inflation is good.
If we didn't have inflation,
the world would collapse
and the economy would be in ruins.
And you go, okay.
And it just
it clearly doesn't stand to reason.
Oh, God, it's a
thousand different things.
So you could, you could
kind of say is to is to disprove it.
And yet here we are, here we are.
And then
and then the only thing
that the only way
you sort of square that circle, it's
not many
domains of life are like that.
Generally speaking,
the truth tends to out over time
and the simple and
and maybe somewhat cynical answer to
it is that,
you know, never
you can't ever expect
someone to change their mind
when their livelihood
depends on on them
not changing their mind.
And when you feel when you see
where the sudden
at the center of power
and influence are.
And that just
my life is good
for the billionaires, right?
Life is really good.
And so that's the reason
why I ask you this fringe,
because we're on those
that are on the good wicket.
We're on a good wicket
here like late.
You know,
don't mention the war kind of thing.
Like this is really good.
And we will do everything
we can to put up,
quote unquote evidence that
we can do support that in fact,
not just try and dismiss it
with, with,
with data and evidence
because they've tried
doesn't really work.
We just sort of
try and laugh and make into.
Right,
and make fun of the Austrians and,
and paint them all as,
as crazy hardcore
survivalist libertarians
or something about that to
to taint the whole field.
And the only
and then the thing
that's most surprising about it
all is it's actually a super,
super effective tactic.
But yeah,
it's yeah,
I don't know where I'm going
with all the other than to say that.
Yeah. I was also surprised by that.
And I would encourage
others who have
who are trying to sort of
wrap their head around this stuff.
And jeez,
that Bitcoiners
are all seem to be mad
about this weird Austrian thing.
It's like,
yeah, it's pretty,
it's pretty unusual.
And different from
what is the accepted norm.
But it's also worth looking into
because you might be surprised what
you come away with.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's very logical and very clean.
I actually liked Soviet
in a moose's,
podcast on Lex Friedman
went on for four hours
and he goes, it's economics
because it's economics.
That's economics.
The Austrian school,
that's economics.
Everything else is population.
Yes, yes.
And it's it's.
Interesting.
To me because you don't need
I think
when you say stuff like that,
I'm speaking from experience again.
It smells very,
conspiratorial.
And usually conspiracy
theory is also crazy, right.
It's like the flat earthers.
Like, not everything
is a conspiracy.
There is not a cabal
of lizard people.
The center of the earth that are,
you know, the puppet masters.
And, you know, it's just not true.
So it's not that.
It's not that there
I really maybe I'm wrong. Who knows?
But I don't think
whatever the people say
is the George
Soros of the world out there,
you know, pulling the strings
behind the scenes.
You don't need overt,
collaboration and
coordination for these things.
It's really just the organic,
what's the what's the word for it?
It's sort of,
you know, it's an emergent property
of a whole bunch
of individual incentives
so that that all the various,
you know, whatever it be, bankers
or central bankers or politicians,
the way
they're going to zero in on that,
just because that's
what the game theory
suggests should happen and predicts
what should happen,
rather than we're
all coordinating in secret
to, to make this happen.
And I just make that point
because I
again, I'm, I'm just hyper sensitive
to being painted
as a crazy conspiracy theorist
because I'm very
I know how this stuff sounds, right.
And I don't think
there is a conspiracy. It's just.
Yeah, yeah,
aggregation of
of misaligned incentives.
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
I agree with you.
And I have the same view as well.
I can
you know, I've worked in corporate.
I can understand how things can just
terribly go wrong
when you have a large number
of people working on something
and it kind of like this thing
takes a life on its own
and he builds momentum
and we just kind of carry on,
even though we all know
it's kind of wrong,
but we keep doing it
because it's it's just too hard
to, like,
break it apart for what it is.
Sorry,
I don't think there's
any conspiracy behind it either.
I think, you know,
this is the system that we live in
and it makes sense.
The universities
teach this school of thought
because this is the
system that we need to. Yeah.
Abstain essentially.
So, not abstain.
What's the word I'm looking for?
Uphold.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And sorry.
No, sorry.
Sorry.
So yeah, in that sense,
it would make sense,
to, to teach that
primarily in the school
because we need to equip
the future of workforce
for central banking
as it exists today.
That doesn't mean
that it's not good
to learn other schools and question
why potentially
this might not be the best solution
that there is
and how we might potentially
benefit from a deflationary world.
Because I grew up very much thinking
inflation is great, it's necessary.
And now I'm like, interesting.
There's people out there
who think that's not the case.
I want to know why. I'm curious.
So it's not it's
not about conspiracy.
It's about curiosity for me.
Yeah.
I loved how you put that.
Just I'm going to steal
that because it it
that's that's really
the encouragement here.
It's not to say
my ideology is right.
And I need you to study it.
And if you study it,
you'll think I'm
you'll agree that I'm right
and I it's not.
The way you framed it
then was more about
there's just a different way
of viewing the world of economics.
And there's another school
of thought, at the very least,
explore it in good faith,
because you might find
a couple of good ideas.
You may end up dismissing it
after after going through that,
that journey.
And that's fine too.
No, no problem with that.
You don't have to agree
with anything
you don't want to agree with.
It's more
that point of I'm
just going to dismiss it out of hand
because he looks in it
in a certain way.
And yeah, I just
I just loved
how you sort of said that.
Just out of curiosity,
if you're interested in economics,
I, I are you curious in this,
by the way,
this very this is Chicago's
school of thought.
There's the Austrian
school of thought,
quite kind of closely related,
but not exactly the same.
This the Keynesian rules
of school of thought,
this whole actually,
there's a whole stew
of different ways of carving it up.
And then when you get
this is always
true for humans, right?
If you go to a,
an Austrian conference,
they'll be very heated arguments
between the Austrian. Right.
You know, like
so even within the group,
there is disagreements like.
But it is absolutely something
that is at the very least,
just be aware
of another way of thinking
and understanding the world,
because you might
find some value in it
or you might not,
but be aware of it. Right.
So I think
that's a really good point.
And something else you said there,
reminded me of, Oh that's right.
Is this
I think the other big challenge
you've got with Austrian
economics is it's, it's the
there's a lot to be said
for social proof in the sense
that we're just doing it.
And if we're all doing it,
then therefore must be right.
And again, remember,
there was a time
in the Incan empire
where we would cut off
the heads of our first child
and hope that it would rain right.
And
you can imagine
that there is someone
he might go up to the high
priest and say.
Wait a minute, do really?
Yeah. And that.
But the argument
would have been the same.
It's like,
well, we've always done it.
It's always seem to work out.
And you're saying
like, don't do this.
Like, yeah,
I'm kind of saying that
I don't really think
that killing my child
is going to help the village head,
but you would have.
But but the social proof
of having a society
that lived
that particular way
for God knows
how many hundreds of years,
you know,
and then to sort of question
that just by virtue
of not
being consensus
and just by virtue of the
the history of that
being that way for that long
makes it almost impossible to break.
You can say the same about slavery,
which was absolutely
the normal inhuman,
like the absolute
standard in human civilization,
going back as far as you want.
It's still modern day
slavery around today, you know.
Is this like
and then at some point,
someone said,
maybe it's not right to own people.
It's a pretty renegade idea
at the time.
And so whenever you're going
against such immense
social proof, he's
always going to be
it is always going to be super hard.
And so I guess that's a
that's another pillar.
No, it's never.
Going to be right too soon.
Oh, but I say
being right
early is is indistinguishable
from being wrong,
which actually doesn't apply in
this case. But but yes. Yeah.
And it's hard.
It is.
We again go to well evolution.
Right.
Like if you're in the village
and you disagree with everyone,
they're just going to kick you out
and you're going to be alone
in the wilderness
fighting the wolves by yourself.
So we are very much genetically,
selected to be
consensus, consensus oriented
and to go with what
the tribe is saying.
Which is why most investors
have really bad investors
because we all run with lemmings
when it's,
oh, buy and sell and, you know,
all the share market stuff
that always drives people wrong.
It's because of
of that kind of that
a desire to, to,
to to be amongst that consensus.
But again, don't
forget about Bitcoin right.
It's like we mentioned
Buffett and manga before.
Why did they do.
Well because they had
a really non consensus
way of thinking.
In fact I think
if any great investor
Stan Druckenmiller
Peter Lynch
you know there's thousands of men
like the one thing
they share in common.
Dalio is the other one.
The one thing they share in common
is they are independent thinkers.
Doesn't mean they're always right.
But they
that they're staunchly independent
in that they form their views by by
seeking out fact evidence,
applying reason.
And that's how
they form their conclusion,
which when you say it out
loud, is like, well,
how else do you do it?
Well, the reality is,
most people do it
by looking around them
and saying, well,
everyone thinks that there's a
man in the sky
with a white beard
and he makes it rain and does it.
So that's what I think, too.
And it's just, you know, it just.
And I sound like
I'm being derisive there.
I don't
I just think it's
actually
it is our nature to be like that.
And there's a very good reason
that it's like that.
It's just that
the evolutionary reasons
that made a huge
amount of sense in 10,000
BC don't make a lot of sense
when you're trying to analyze
modern monetary systems
and the evolution
of of capital structures
and the rest of it,
and just investing in general.
So I know what's my point.
My point is
be an independent thinker. I guess.
And that's an excellent
point to end with.
Thank you so much,
Andrew, for your time.
I've loved having you
on this podcast,
and it's so nice to have someone
who has a foot in both worlds, fiat
and Bitcoin,
and can hopefully inspire,
more people to pick up a book,
listen to a podcast,
and get curious about Bitcoin
because it is a gift
that keeps on giving,
not just financially,
but you know, I quite enjoyed,
all the side benefits fringe
benefits of of Bitcoin as well.
So thank you.
Well thank you
so much for having me on.
It is a great privilege.
As soon as you reached,
I said to my wife,
someone wants to talk to me about
because I'm there,
I'm there,
I, I it's all I need to know,
I think, and I know that is it.
So I like any opportunity I get.
They don't often get a chance,
in my traditional life.
So thank you so much for that,
for the privilege
of being able to rant
and spray
all these random thoughts at people
I do, I do really enjoy it.
Thank you.
Thanks, Andrew.