Welcome to Honest Money.
I'm your host, Anya, and today's episode is brought to you by hard block.
Anja: Hello.
Joining me today is Seb Bunny.
Probably a man who doesn't need an introduction, and I have a
little surprise for you, Seb.
You're my 21st guest.
Seb: No way.
Yes.
That's awesome.
That's really, really cool.
Oh man.
23. That's amazing.
Or 21, sorry.
Anja: Yeah, 2021.
Is it, is it nighttime where you're currently at?
Seb: No, it looks dark and it's simply just because we
are in the depths of winter.
Anja: Oh.
Seb: Although, if I turn my laptop, you can see out the window.
It's raining outside right now, and it's about two or three degrees.
It's at the moment, it's, I would say we've got the middle of winter vibes
where you're kind of like settling down.
You're spending time by the fire, and you're doing a lot of self-reflection
on 2025, and I'm sure once spring has sprung, I'll be up and about looking
at the world from a different light.
But at the moment, I've definitely been in the depths of just like looking in woods.
Anja: It looks very cozy.
I'm also based in the woods right now, but I'm in a tropical woods
with like almost a jungle vibe.
Um, yeah, so kind of almost the polar opposite of you.
Seb: You know what, like, I think that depending on wherever you
are in the world, I find it so fascinating that we're all going
through like different experiences.
I'm from New Zealand and uh, when Christmas comes around it's like, well,
let's have a barbecue on the beach.
And here it's like when Christmas comes around, it's like, nope, you're in the
depths of like 10 feet of snow and it's very much like the middle of winter.
And so it's interesting just to notice how we're showing up differently
depending on where you're in the world.
Anja: Yeah, absolutely.
So talking about 2025, what have been some of your reflections about that?
Seb: Mm. I would say, you know what, like there, there's a book that I'm
reading right now by a guy called Jay Krishnamurti and, uh, he's just a really
profound, profound individual and just shares just such a wealth of wisdom.
One of the things he talks about is just the importance of being
present, the importance of, um, being able to notice that everything
we experience is just information.
And we are the ones that attach the labels of positive and
negative to any such situation.
And usually if we're feeling frustrated or we're feeling angry,
we're feeling a lot of, what are these deemed like, heavier emotions.
It tends to be because we're comparing what is happening right now to a
state that we want to be in, or we're comparing what's happening
right now to the past or the future.
And that means that we're actually not being present.
And so any situation being able to recognize, hey, be grounded, it's
just information and just accept the situation for what it is.
And what comes up is as you, uh, in the question you asked is
there's an old, I think it's like a Buddhist fable, and it talks about.
How there's this farmer and this farmer wakes up one morning and he
goes outside and his horse has run away, and his next door neighbor is
like, man, you have the worst luck.
And he is like, oh, well, you know, goes about his day.
He goes back to bed the next day he wakes up and uh, goes outside and his
horse is returned with four wild horses.
And the farmer is just like the next, uh, the next neighbor, sorry, is like,
oh my God, you have the best luck.
He was like, oh, well, you know, goes about his day, goes back to bed,
wakes up the next morning and his son has gone outside to try and ride
one of these wild horses and, uh, falls off and breaks his arm and the
next door neighbor is just like, man.
You have the worst luck.
And he was just like, well, you know, goes about his day, goes back
to bed, wakes up the next morning and his nation has gone to war.
And uh, all like everyone has to enlist unless they're injured.
And so his son didn't have to go to war.
And so I think what it's really trying to highlight is how we go through life
and we have all of these experiences and sometimes we can get caught up labeling
them as like, oh man, that's a negative experiences, that's a bad experience.
But in reality they're just situations and they're situations that lead to the
next situation and the next situation.
And so I think our perspective is what's really important and being able to look
at everything from a positive perspective.
What kind of learn from this I think is so important.
There's my rant.
Anja: Yeah, absolutely.
Love, love the rant.
Uh, yeah, I, I love fables.
I think there's just, again, it goes back to storytelling.
Um, it's just such a great way to kind of relay information onto other humans.
And, and I remember growing up, my grandparents would tell me a lot of
stories like this, um, as I was a kid, and it's had a big influence in my life.
So, um, yeah, I do like it.
Seb: Well, and, and to be honest as well, like what I find really
interesting, my own journey has been kind of diving into, obviously Bitcoin,
but also just like trauma and, and childhood experience and culture.
And what's really interesting when you start digging into childhood experiences,
how do we pass down knowledge?
How do we pass down culture?
And there's certain kind of, uh, movements.
Let's take like the hippie movement that has been around since the
sixties, the seventies, and is only two generations old and.
Almost dead.
And then you see other cultures like the Australian Aborigines
that have been around for a hundred thousand years and in many ways are
continuing to pass down that culture.
And so you ask why.
What is the difference between them and the hippie movement?
And the difference is that the hippie movement is a peer driven culture.
The hippie movement is peers sharing information, which means the next
generation isn't privy to that information tends to die very quickly.
Whereas I think that it's become sad that we've got this society that's
so independent, we kind of live our own lives, that we don't hear these
fables passed down by our grandparents.
We don't hear these fables passed down by our ancestors that are able to share so
much wisdom about how to show up in life.
And I think when you look at a lot of these more indigenous populations, they
live in multi-generational households.
Uh, as a kid, you're experiencing multiple generations with very different
insights and wisdom to pass down.
And so I think that.
As I'm getting older, I'm recognizing the importance of just really expanding that
friend network to people of all ages, being able to really spend time with,
uh, grandparents, great-grandparents, because everyone has such a different
perspective and can pass down wisdom.
And I think it's how we build closeness and knowledge about the world as
opposed to just being with our peers.
Anja: Yeah.
I love what you said, and I kind of wanna dive a little bit further into,
into something I, uh, I think, um, you mentioned, and that is the, the
theme around trauma and independence.
You strike me as a very independent person.
Um, do you think that has anything to do with your, like, upbringing?
Seb: Absolutely.
Like one, 100%.
And, and I think that trauma can go both ways.
Um, it, it can make you very anxious and say your attachments,
it can make you hyper independent.
Um, I would say that, and I don't talk maybe too much about
this on kind like podcasts, but.
Like my mom, uh, was a single mom and my dad didn't really want much
to do with me when I was a kid.
And, uh, what that meant is that I spent a lot of time with my mom.
And my mom had a really traumatic upbringing in New Zealand.
My grandparents were Australian, my, well, my granddad's
Australian grandma's a a Kiwi.
And my mom was kind of kicked out of the house at like 13 years old and
I kind of had to fend for herself.
And so when she had me who was an accident, all of a sudden
she was like, oh my god.
I've gotta take accountability in this life.
And she just kind of fueled all of her energy into me and I kind of ended
up becoming her emotional support.
And so what it's meant is that I think from my mom, having to figure out life at
such an early age, and then also putting on a lot of pressure on me to also meet
her emotional needs, I've walked through this world with a need to support others.
And I, I, I think an independence, but that's very much from my own
upbringing, from my childhood.
And then I see it the inverse with my brother.
I've got two, two younger brothers, the youngest brother, I think by the time my
mom had my youngest brother who had this five years difference, my youngest brother
kind of, uh, Muhammad was so tired.
She had kind of spent most of her life raising the three of us.
And she didn't have as much energy to give to him.
And 'cause he didn't necessarily have his emotional needs met to
the same extent, I think he's constantly looking for attachment.
He's looking for attachment.
And so what you see is, uh.
Me being the oldest, hyper independent, looking out for others, him being
the youngest needs connection, needs attachment, and is reliant
on, um, validation from others.
And so you see the dynamic shift, even just being the youngest to the oldest.
Our relationship with others, our relationship with our parents
growing up at different times.
Anja: Yep.
You do give me the oldest child vibes as well.
Seb: I, there's definitely, sibling placement is so fascinating.
Like I, I can, usually, when I meet someone, I've, I've probably
got an 80% win rate at guessing if they're the oldest child or not.
Like I, you can usually tell either an oldest child or even
an only child, only children give off very unique vibes I find.
Anja: Okay.
Do you wanna guess me?
Seb: No, we're, we're apart.
We're alive right now.
I do you have siblings though, don't you?
Anja: Um, well, I, I, I did have a brother.
He passed away nearly like eight years ago now.
So, um, yeah, kind of unexpected.
Very unexpected actually.
So yeah, that was, that was very traumatic for my family.
Yeah.
I,
Seb: oh, sorry.
You go.
Anja: Yeah.
I wanted to ask you, um, what is your first money memory?
Like, do you remember, do you have like the earliest memory about
money as like a toddler or a child?
That's a really good question.
I don't think I've ever been asked this question before.
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Seb: Hmm.
You know, I remember, I remember growing up like this is when, so I
was born in the UK and raised in New Zealand, and we moved from New Zealand
when I was about five years old.
And I remember receiving pocket money and wanting to really count the coins.
There was something, so I I, I visceral about having tangible money and I
always used to also want to find money.
So I used to then go and hide my pocket money around the house and in various ball
games and in various pockets to try and forget about it, to then go find it later.
But I was, uh, I would always remember where I hid it, so I, I was never able
to trick myself into try to find money.
But I would say that like, that was my first memory of money as
I remember feeling like there was an importance to money.
I remember feeling as if this thing that I'm holding right now, there's an
importance, there's a weight to it, not meaning physically and more meaning like
emotionally and, and, and, uh, yeah.
And I would say that what comes to mind again as you ask that
question is there's a Ted talk.
I listened to around eight, nine years ago, and the Ted Talk was discussing
this idea about how kids these days have lost touch with the importance of money.
And one of the reasons is because money is no longer tangible,
money is largely digital.
It becomes so much easier to spend.
We are not as attached to money as we have been in many ways.
And I'm not necessarily talking in a negative way that we care about money, but
more because of the tangible nature of it.
You can feel it in your pocket.
I think, uh, we, money to us carries more weight.
And so what this guy ended up doing, this Ted Talk was about
was he took a game of Monopoly.
He swapped out all of the money for real money, and then he noticed how
the kids changed their tactics and changed how they played the game.
And the moment he put real money in the game and he put a bit of a
monetary reward for the winner of the game, all of a sudden the kids
were a lot more fiscally responsible.
They started to show up more.
They started to take accountability more.
And so you see it in kids today where, because they just get given their
parents credit card or in many times they don't even get given the credit card.
They can just tap their phone.
What they.
What they're being taught is that money is just, just ethereal thing
and you can walk through life and you can get what you want.
And so I think that it's no wonder that, uh, a lot of these banks, uh, they
go and sell credit cards, these debt instruments to these young kids, these
teenagers, these high school students, these, these, um, university students.
And then they define themselves an immense amount of debt because it's
so easy to spend money these days without an understanding of the
importance or how hard it is to earn.
So it's interesting, there was a bit of a random thread there, but I, I'm, I'm
noticing that, uh, as we moved away from tangible money into the digital world, it
also changed how we interact with money.
And so I very much remember as a kid the, the, the importance of physical
money and liking to count my money.
Anja: Yeah, I can certainly relate to that.
I, I remember that as well.
And I, very early on, remember.
Feeling like I knew that money had value.
Mm-hmm.
Um, it was like property that was different to other kinds of property.
Um, but how do you think, you know, Bitcoin being digital, how do you
think that's going to impact future generations and, and people being raised?
Are kids being raised and taught about, um, Bitcoin very early on?
Do you think they're gonna not feel like it's, it's real?
Seb: So it's a really interesting point because I think that this whole topic that
we've just been discussing is as money's gone digital, we have almost become
more and more disconnected from money.
But I think that that's multifactorial.
There's another factor in that.
And that is that as money has lost value.
We have our time preference.
So for those that aren't familiar, you've got the spectrum of, of, of preference.
You've got a high time preference on one side, which is you want
to meet your immediate needs, you want to kind of be impulsive.
And then on the other end of the spectrum, you've got low time preference.
And that is you're thinking about the future, you're thinking about prosperity.
How do I show up and be the best version of myself?
And so I think that as money has broken down, as we've faced inflation, as
our purchasing power doesn't go as far, it's shifted us from this lower
time preference, thinking about the future to this higher time preference.
Oh my God, I don't know what my money's gonna be worth tomorrow.
This is all unconscious, so I'm gonna spend it now.
And so I think that, um, we have become hyper fixated on money,
earning money because we don't know where it's gonna come from.
We don't know how we're gonna put food on the table.
We don't know how we're gonna support our families.
And what I've found really interesting about Bitcoin is, even
though it is digital, because when you look at your wallet, you're
starting to see your purchasing power increase over the long term.
You start to think very differently, it starts impacting
you on a psychological level.
If all of a sudden you think, okay, you know what?
Based on my income, I think it's gonna take me 10, 15 years to save
for a down payment for a house.
And then with Bitcoin, five years in, you're like.
Oh my God, I may be able to save for a house within the next couple years.
All of a sudden, it's made the future.
You've brought it forward, and you are able to start dreaming again.
You're able to start having hope for the future.
And so I think Bitcoin is shifting our behavior, even though it is
digital, it's shifting it towards saving less consumption and thinking
about prosperity and how do I show up and be the best version of myself?
And so I kind of tend to say like the irony of Bitcoin being money.
It actually gets us to stop thinking about money and starts getting us to think about
what is actually most important to me?
How do I actually wanna show up?
What is it that I really value?
And so that I find is so fascinating, like even on my own personal journey,
I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
Bitcoin has made me reflect so much more on what is actually important to me
and recognizing that what is important to me is not these external things.
Having the nice watch, having the nice car, having a nice this or that.
It's actually, hey, I really want to contribute and create value for
society, and I really want to be able to support those that I care about.
And I really want to be able to build a family because I want
to see the human race thrive.
And I think we need to have kids.
And so anyway, I I, I think that, um, Bitcoin is changing how we're showing
up and it's allowing us to think bigger and it's allowing us to think about
the future and it's actually getting us to stop thinking about money.
Whereas where money is broken, it's getting us to constantly hyper fixate on
money and where is money gonna come from and how do I make more money and such?
Anja: Absolutely.
I really re relate to that.
And um, going back to my brother, like I noticed, there's two
things in my whole life that kind of made me think about legacy.
Like what is the legacy that I want to impart on this world?
And one is losing my brother and thinking about his life and, and how much of an
impact he had on the people around him in the short time that he was with us.
And the second is Bitcoin.
So, you know, it's really, really made me think about, again, that longer
term time horizon and really helping Australian families, um, understand it.
Helping de weird Bitcoin in Australia because it still carries a certain stigma.
Um, and.
I like to get into this as well.
Sometimes I just ask chat GPT conversations, like, why does
Bitcoin break people's brains?
And one of the things that came up from like a psychological perspective that
I thought was really interesting, um, it said something along the lines of,
people feel that it's unfair because it breaks down the hierarchy that everybody's
used to having an understanding.
So in a system where you need to work hard in order to make a living, and you
need to, um, translate, you know, your capital, your, your, I guess your income
into some other forms of capital by creating something or by investing that
framework makes sense to people, but then having something just go up in value
because of its scarcity and because of its attributes, it almost feels like unfair.
So what do, what do you think of that?
Seb: I, I think it's absolutely spot on.
I would word it slightly differently.
The way that I interpret it is that like we all hold beliefs about the
world, how we think the world works, and these beliefs, the way that I kind
of tend to think about them is maps.
They're basically certain maps that allow us to navigate this
experience that we call life.
And we have maps about relationships.
We have maps about food and what we should be eating, what we shouldn't be eating.
We have maps about money, we have maps about the sciences, biology,
uh, psychology and and such.
And what I find really fascinating is that these maps, um, aren't the territory.
They are a representation of the territory.
So we're constantly updating these maps.
And I think that people why Bitcoin is so threatening in many ways is
because it breaks down some of our maps about how we think the world works.
And one of those is obviously the map of money.
I think we move through this world for most people when we think, well,
uh, prices naturally go up over time.
And in order to be able to have a stable currency, we need to have a central
bank, a central issuer, and deflation.
So prices falling is destabilizing.
And so that is the map, that is money.
With Bitcoin to be able to understand Bitcoin, what you actually have to do
is to tear up that map and recognize.
Actually, if you wanna have a stable currency, you need to
remove a centralized issuer.
And actually, because technology is driving down prices, we should
see prices falling over the long term, not prices rising.
And so all of a sudden that like breaks people's minds.
And so rather than redrawing that map, which would obviously trigger
redrawing many other maps about how do governments work, maybe how does, how
does money impact us as individuals?
And um, people would rather just stick with the map that they know.
'cause it's very energy consumption.
Having to re-figure out how the world works.
And I think that as, as human beings, since the dawn of time,
we're always trying to be efficient.
We're trying to minimize energy expenditure.
And so if, if, if all of a sudden we're having to redraw these maps and
try and re-figure out how the world works, especially if we're boomers
and we've spent 65, 70 years on this planet, that is very destabilizing.
And so I think that that is, in my mind, that's why Bitcoin is so
threatening, is because it's getting us to constantly redraw these maps.
But what I've also found really fascinating on the flip side is
that when you go and interact with Bitcoiners, because they've already
redrawn this map, that is money, they usually have also been curious about.
What other maps am I using to navigate this world that may not be accurate?
And so all of a sudden they're redrawing the maps that is healthcare,
they're redrawing the maps, that is pharmaceuticals, they're redrawing
the maps, which is education.
They're redrawing the maps, which is global politics.
And so I just, I find it so fascinating that once you actually go on this,
this journey of kind of being a cartographer, going redrawing all
of these maps, suddenly you start realizing, huh, I've been using
all these maps that are not really representing reality that accurately.
And that's, that's what I find so fascinating about Bitcoin.
Anja: Yeah, I love that.
And it reminds me of one of my favorite sayings, um, which is,
let me just try and remember it.
And there's a few different ones, but like the root of our suffering.
Have you heard of those sayings?
No.
There's a few different variations, but the one that kind of seems to land the
most with me is like the root of our suffering is the lies we tell ourselves.
Seb: Totally.
That's so
Anja: that's the one that lands.
Seb: Yeah.
I think that it's, it's almost like there's a quote at the start.
I think it's from Mark Twain.
Don't quote me on this.
It's at the start of the big short, and so if anyone of most people have
watched the big short about the housing cla the collapse in 2008, and it says.
It's not what we don't know that gets us in trouble.
It's what we know that just ain't so.
And so, it's just like, to me, I find this so important.
It's just like we tend to be looking out there for all of these
things that we don't know about, which is what gets us in trouble.
But actually instead, it's what we think about the world.
It's how we think the world works.
Only to realize that's not how the world works.
It actually gets us in trouble.
And so it's the same idea we're moving through this world using
certain maps such as, Hey, you know what, uh, animal fats are bad.
I shouldn't be eating animal fats.
You know what?
I should just be eating grain and that, and soy products and seed oils.
And then all of a sudden it's like, huh, these things aren't actually,
they're not making me feel good.
And, uh, maybe the research around these things, there's certain
incentives to push a certain agenda that isn't necessarily good for health.
So you go and redraw the map and you're like,
Anja: whoa,
Seb: it's not what you don't know that gets you in trouble.
It's what you know.
Or, sorry, it's what you know that just ain't so, you redraw the map
and suddenly life is very different.
You feel so much better.
And so I think that.
What I always just am constantly trying to do as an individual is
to constantly redraw the maps.
What maps am I using that aren't servicing me?
Anja: Yeah.
And I love that analogy.
It really, really lands I wanted to talk to you about, like, we talk a
lot as Bitcoin is about like all the downstream effects of money, and we kind
of tend to cover some of the more common ones, like cost of living and um, the
wealth disparity and things like that.
But I wanted to know, and not many people have spoken about
this, but I think it's important.
Do you think money has an impact on dating culture?
Seb: Oh yeah.
100%.
Anja: Yeah.
Let's go.
Seb: Hmm.
Where do I start?
So I would say that, okay.
Actually a perfect example.
So where, where I live, I, I live in a small town called Squamish.
I just moved here about a year ago.
30 minutes south of a ski town called Whistler Whistler's, one of the biggest
ski resorts in the world, people from all over the world come to Whistler.
What I've noticed in Whistler very early on is that because there's so much demand
to be in this place, so many people, uh, are fighting for rental properties.
As a result, rental prices skyrocket.
What that means is that as a single individual, it is so
costly to live in Whistler.
And so I've seen it time and time and time again where people are
pushed into relationships because they're just like, you know what?
If we actually go and rent a place together right now, then we're gonna
basically half our, uh, our expenditure.
Uh, so life becomes a lot easier as a couple.
As a result of broken money, people are being pushed into relationships,
rushing into relationships where their needs aren't necessarily being met.
And this is, obviously we're seeing this in small towns like Whistler,
where you're seeing really high demand, but it's not unique to Whistler.
We're now seeing it, the world over.
I think that when we're facing massive inflation globally, when the cost of
living is rising, when house prices are skyrocketing, where rent is
skyrocketing, food prices skyrocketing, it's a lot cheaper to be a couple
than it is to be a single individual.
And I think that people are, again, they're rushing into relationships
without that self-reflection.
And what are we seeing right now?
Um, we are seeing the highest rates of divorce.
People are no longer getting married at the same rate.
Maybe that's because we're also seeing a degradation of people
kind of leaning into religion.
Um, but I think there's a lot of negative effects of rushing into relationships
before people really know themselves, before they really know each other.
Um, and I've just seen on a deeper level, just the rising rates of
depression, the rising rates of anxiety, the rising rates of substance abuse.
And I think that, uh, money has such a huge role to play in this.
And people, if they're not having their needs met in their relationship,
but they can't afford to be single, then people stand things that
aren't necessarily servicing them.
And so I've just seen this time and time again, and I'm sure, um, of course I
think there's many other aspects that we can talk about, but I think that's a big
one that kind of comes to mind initially.
Anja: Yeah.
Absolutely.
And it goes to, yeah, it reminds me of that typical high time preference dating.
When you watch some old movies like black and white movies, you think
about there's like a process of courting and that just doesn't happen.
Seb: Totally.
I think that, and this isn't even necessarily a monetary thing, but I
think that what technology is also doing, and I've noticed this, I've
spent time on dating apps, is that.
When you're on a dating app, you're picking someone really superficially,
you don't know this person, you're seeing some pictures of them.
You're seeing maybe a tiny bit of information, and you're choosing
whether or not to swipe left or swipe right, and by the time you go and meet
up with someone who you have matched with, you know what their agenda is.
They know what your agenda is.
It's that, hey, we want to potentially make a relationship with this if
we enjoy each other's company.
And so what that has meant is that after, say the first date of meeting
someone, you've gotta choose.
Hey, am I really interested in this person?
Am I not interested in this person?
And so you almost go through this rejection point where you
have to reject someone, but you don't even know the person.
And so I think people are finding themselves in relationships that they're
really not listening to their intuition.
Their intuition is maybe telling them no, but they feel guilty about
rejecting someone and saying, Hey, I don't feel it in this relationship.
So people are finding themselves in relationships that they would
never have got into if they'd just met this person on the street.
And the differences from even 10, 15 years ago is that everybody met.
Either a, uh, in a, in a bar, uh, through friend networks
in the natural environment.
And it meant that when you interact with someone, they don't have to
know that you're thinking about, Hmm, am I interested in this person?
And then after you've spent a little bit of time with someone, then you can say,
Hey, do you wanna go and grab a drink?
Well, hey, do you wanna go on a date?
And so you're able to determine where you sit and listen to your body without having
to go through that projection phase.
So I find it really interesting how technology is changing, how we're showing
up from a relationship standpoint.
Anja: Yeah, absolutely.
And the other thing as well, like, you know, going back to the sixties
and the seventies, you could easily afford one, you know, family home
on a single, on a single salary.
And that meant that, you know, women could focus on staying at home and being
stay at home, mic moms and home makers.
And that's just no longer a reality.
And I think a lot of women feel really guilty about that because you're
kind of having to choose between your natural desires and what's kind of being
forced upon you top down in a sense.
So yeah, it's weird.
Seb: Totally.
And I think on like building on that idea, most people, uh, have, obviously they're
familiar with like the feminist movement.
And I hope this isn't too controversial here.
Um,
Anja: no,
Seb: this is a, but I think that
Anja: Deep point podcast,
Seb: I think that.
What?
What I've noticed when you really dig into the history of the feminist
movement is that the feminist movement emerged out of the fact that the US
government realized that only 50% of the population were paying taxes.
It was predominantly the males.
So how do we increase tax revenue?
Well, let's just push it that, no, we need equality.
We need like more women in the workforce now I'm all for women being able to drop
in, uh, to their masculine and be like, Hey, I wanna be a manager of this company.
I wanna start my own startup.
I wanna do all of this.
I'm all for that.
I think it's absolutely amazing, but women shouldn't necessarily
have pressure to go and do that.
And I think that what it's done, the feminist movement in many ways is there's
a lot of women that are getting these motherly instincts coming in and they're
feeling like, Hey, I want to have a kid.
Hey, I want to, uh, show up in different ways.
And they've had suppress that because they felt judged from society.
And so where I live in the cedar sky, I've had many friends that are women
that when they've reached their thirties, their late thirties, and they start
to reflect about who they are and what they want, what they've realize is.
Actually, I do want kids, and I do wanna start a family, but it's now almost too
late because I thought I had to go out and do all of these masculine academic
things and go and get the big job, the high paying job be in the corporate world.
And I'm actually recognizing that that's what society's pushing me to
do, but that's not what I want to do.
And so I find it really interesting.
The pendulum, I feel like is starting to swing back a little bit where
we're finding this balance where women are able to lean into what they feel
they need and what is important to them, while also still being able to
branch out and be more professional.
If they want to do that, go seek the startup, the, the management job.
But if they're not feeling that, they shouldn't feel shame in that and
they shouldn't feel shame in wanting to have kids or listen to, uh, that
that motherly instinct and such.
Anja: Yeah.
And the other thing as well is what I love about Bitcoin is that, you know,
there's many fathers that I know here in, in Australia that absolutely do
get more time with their kids as well.
And that's the profound shift that it's made for them as well.
Like, it's so nice to have not one but two parents at home mm-hmm.
Spending more time in being present.
So, yeah.
Seb: Oh, couldn't agree more.
And, and I, I feel really lucky that I've spent a lot of time around kids.
I've worked, I've done a lot of coaching around kids.
Um, I've ran kids programs and I just think there's something so rewarding
about passing knowledge onto the next generation, being around young ones.
And so it's just like I cannot wait to have kids and to be able to
like, share that knowledge and to interact with them in that level.
And, uh, although I still want to have things on the side, I want to
have little businesses and startups.
I want to be able to like, introduce kids to that at such a young age.
And, and I think that that's just what's missing in society is that
most parents, both parents are going out, they're having to work, the
kids are just going into daycare.
The kids are not getting their attachment needs met.
The parents are going out and they're forced to work.
They're not able to interact with the kids to the same level.
They're not feeling fulfilled from a workplace standpoint.
Um, and so I feel like it broken money is really sapping, uh, our
ability to show up authentically.
Anja: This is where Bitcoin is.
Great.
Totally.
Mm. But I saw you recently tweeted about an elaborate scam.
And I, this is something as well that I'm really passionate about,
especially because Australia in particular is really vulnerable to
being, um, it's like a target country for a lot of scammers overseas.
We've got money.
Um, we're also very, um, trusting as a nation.
We're used to having, you know, third parties, uh, babysit our money for us.
Um, yeah, so it's just, it's, it's, I wanna talk about this, what happened,
Seb: so.
Oh man, it's the complexity.
These scams these days, I'm, I'm blown away with.
And essentially this guy reached out and he was just like, EB, I work
for Deutsche Bank and Des Bank.
We want to kind of really direct energy towards the Web3 crypto Bitcoin space.
And I'm wondering if you wanted to come on and do a podcast, Bitcoin versus crypto.
And so I was just like, I'm all for defending Bitcoin in the whole
Bitcoin versus crypto conversation.
So I was just like, I'll absolutely jump on.
And so he ended up adding me to a telegram group.
Now this Telegram group, uh, it turns out was, uh.
More of a discussion around how Deutsche Bank want to
create a whole Bitcoin academy.
And they ended up having, supposedly the CISO, which if I remember correctly,
was saying like the Chief Innovative Solutions Officer or something of, um,
if I remember correctly, it was PayPal.
And then they also had the Chief Product Strategy officer
of um, uh, Coinbase and Visa.
And so I was like, whoa, these are such like heavy hitting individuals.
I feel really honored to be in this room.
But I was like, why am I in this room with these like really,
really heavy hitting individuals?
And I'm just like, said Bunny, who wrote a book?
And so I'm looking at this and that was the first red flag.
The first red flag was why have I always of a sudden been put
in this, in this telegram group?
So in hindsight.
What that was was kinda like social proof.
It's trying to make it look like, because there are some really
heavy hitting individuals in here, there's authenticity to this.
So I just assumed they were the legitimate people.
Obviously it turns out later that they were not the legitimate people.
Um, so we started having this kind of conversation back and forth and then
all of a sudden the poll shifted.
It shifted from Bitcoin versus crypto to Seb, can you talk about
your experience in startups?
And I was like, that's not really my area of expertise, but for sure I can, I can
talk about my experience in startups.
I've been involved in a few different startups and they sent over kind of 21
questions around Bitcoin startups and what's it like in Bitcoin startup culture.
So I spent a few days, like three or four days really thinking about
these questions, really jotting down my thoughts, putting together so
that I could at least try and give the best answers to these questions.
And then on the day of the podcast, I jump on the call with this guy
and this guy, he doesn't have his camera on, he's got a picture up.
Immediately.
He's like, so if this podcast goes well said, we'd love to
offer you a job at Deutsche Bank.
And I'm standing there, I'm like, what?
I'm so confused.
Like we're, we're doing a podcast and I'm sure Deutsche Bank, they're
one of the, I don't know, the top five banks, I assume globally.
Like they have no way, they're just gonna be like hiring people willy-nilly just
because you're on a podcast with them.
So I felt, uh, my, I would say my Spidey senses were really starting to tingle
at this point because I was just like, I've noticed I'm in a telegram group with
all of these high flying individuals.
Um, I'm now on a podcast with this guy, but he's not even
talking about the podcast.
He's trying to potentially offer me a job from Deutsche Bank.
And then he says, okay, um, I'd like to move over to the
podcast recording software.
Can you go to this website?
And it was called, I think it was called Jandi, J-A-N-D-I.
And he was like, oh, it's a Chinese, um.
Podcast recording software like Riverside, uh, and you just need to sign up.
And so I was like, okay, I, I'll jump onto there.
And he was like, yeah, I'm in Hong Kong, so this is the one that we use.
I'm in Deutschebank, Hong Kong.
So I was like, okay, this kind of semi makes sense.
And so I go to sign up and it says it, it says like technical error.
And so I let him know.
I'm just like, Hey, this is kind of technical error going on right now.
And he was like, oh, I'll just speak to the technical team.
And he spends a few minutes away and then he comes back and he was just like, oh,
I, we dunno what the technical error is.
You can just use the last person who we recorded a podcast with.
I'll just give you his credentials.
So they gave me just a random person's email and password and immediately I was
like, I'm 99% sure this is a, a scam now.
And there was a part of me that was like, I'm just gonna continue on
a little bit further to understand like what it is that they're doing.
And so I logged in and then it says, okay, you need to download this software and.
When you go and check the software, it's just like, oh, it
needs access to all your files.
It needs access to all of your calendar.
It needs access to all your notes.
And I just said to him, I was just like, Hey buddy, I, I think
this software seems very, I'm not going to install this software.
And he was like, um, let me see if there's another option and I'll
go speak to the technical team.
And I was like, okay.
And he went away to the technical team and I looked on his Twitter account
from the guy that had messaged me and it said, Hey, I've been work.
Well it said, I've been working in, uh, for Des Bank for four years, but
when I'd asked him at the very start of the, the recording, so how long
have you been working at Des Bank?
He was like, I've been working there for like three or four months.
And so I'm like, things are really starting to not add up.
And all of a sudden I rec, I, I, I reckon he knew that I was on term, I
wasn't going to install the software.
I started to ask kind of more questions and then the Zoom call just dropped.
It dropped and then I went onto, uh, the chat on Twitter
and his chat had been deleted.
I go onto his page and I start scrolling down the page, and after about 20, 30
posts, it's a completely different person.
It's in Mandarin or some other Asian language, and so you can
see that what happens is they buy some random Twitter account.
They give a persona, Hey, I work for DEU Bank.
I do this, this, and this.
They post a few posts because most people are not gonna scroll down
their page, so it gives credibility.
And I think the thing that kind of sw uh, kind of like confused me is that he was
followed by 10 to 20 other Bitcoiners that I know that work in the Bitcoin space.
So I was like, well, there must be validity here.
But now what I'm recognizing is that he usually probably goes
and follows these individuals.
He's doing the same thing to them.
And so, uh, ultimately this was just some elaborate way to get access to
your laptop, to be able to then probably go scan your laptop, see if they can
find 12, 24 word, seed phrase, and then just go and drain your Bitcoin wallet.
And they realized very quickly that, uh, after I'd been on the call, I wasn't
really complying, I wasn't downloading the software, I wasn't allowing them access to
my files, but to me it just blows me away.
Like these people spent two weeks building this, uh, building this relationship
with me and kinda leading me on.
And I would say I'm relatively.
Tech savvy and I'm able to recognize when I'm being played.
And although there was a lot of red flags, I, it wasn't until the actual dare the
call that I realized that this was a scam.
And so I think about the boomer generation, I think about individuals
that aren't as tech savvy, and I can see they would so easily just install
software and just click yes, yes, approve like all permissions so it
can go and access all your files.
And then if they had any sensitive information, that sensitive
information is gone immediately.
They've lost their Bitcoin immediately.
They've had lost access to their email accounts and and whatnot.
So it makes me feel very sad that the world we live in is such a,
uh, it's lost that trustworthiness.
We can't just trust people.
And, um, I'm glad I managed to capture it.
I'm glad nothing happened, but I'm, I'm finishing up just a little
article explaining what happened in a little more detail and the
steps so that people can hopefully catch on if it's happening to them.
Anja: Yeah.
And where's that article going to be available on X or Substack?
Seb: Yeah, I'll, I'll post it on X. Um,
Anja: okay.
Seb: I'll almost like post it on X and I'll, I'll probably post it
on my own website, said bunny.com.
Speaker 4: Need a way to sign, verify and secure your Bitcoin Australia's
one-stop shop for Bitcoiners.
Has you covered from signing devices, nodes, and backup solutions?
To bid access day decor and apparel, visit shop bitcoin.com au.
Anja: Nice.
Nice.
Okay.
Yeah, that is just really scary.
But then I thought, you know, as a kid who used to squirrel money away,
I'm pretty sure you wouldn't leave any seed phrases on your laptop.
Seb: Uh, I only use hot wallets on my laptop and, uh, yeah, I keep all
my seed phrases and just a note, a sticky note on my laptop screen.
Anja: Love it.
Um, I wanted to talk a little bit more about your book as well.
I haven't read it yet.
It's on my list.
Um, but what has, how has it been received so far?
Seb: Honestly, I, I, I'm just blown away with one this community and
two, how, how should I say this?
I, the, I, I never, and this may sound a lot, I never expected
that I'd ever write a book.
Like I, I dropped outta school when I was like.
13, 14 years old, and I dropped out of English when I was 12 years old.
And English was never my thing.
And I, I think it wasn't my thing because I never really found my
way of expressing myself through language, through the written language.
I found myself expressing myself in the form of sports.
And so I spent my life in the mountains, mountain biking.
So when the pandemic hit, I'd had all of these years of accumulation
of being curious about the financial markets and macroeconomics.
But I'd never really shared any of this information.
And so I started writing at the side of the pandemic, and people just seemed
to resonate with these ideas about how does money impact us as individuals?
How does it impact the family unit?
And really speaking to the lay person.
And so I kind of fell into this world of writing.
It didn't come from a place of practice, it came from a place of simply wanting to
get out what I'm noticing and what I'm, uh, feeling and what I am, uh, kind of.
Connecting the dots between these various disparate ideas,
whether it's macroeconomics or psychology, trauma, money and such.
And I never in a million years expected it to do what it did.
I never expected it to be like a number one bestseller globally on
kind of, uh, across all of its topic platforms on a, on Amazon and such.
And so it's just been such an incredible journey.
Um, and yeah, overall I just feel really, really grateful.
I feel really grateful to have this opportunity to be able to jump on these
podcasts, share my perspective, meet really fascinating individuals and
have conversations about these topics.
Anja: Yeah.
I love your writing style.
I, I like, this is the beautiful thing about books.
Every book that I've read, I feel like I get to really know the
soul of the person writing it.
Um, and yeah, it's very, it's very kind.
There's a lot of kindness in the way that you relay this information and
you don't make the reader feel stupid for not know, knowing something.
Um, I feel like that really stands out in your writing style.
Um, but what would you say, like, which part of the book , creates,
like the most impact do you think?
Seb: Hmm.
That's a really good question.
And again, I haven't been, you're asking questions that I haven't heard before.
And so it's interesting.
It makes my mind go into different places.
I would say that there's like a core thread throughout the book, and the
core thread throughout the book is that everything is downstream of money.
And I think that a lot of individuals, when we speak to them, uh, when you speak
to your parents, when you speak to your friends, when you speak to your work
colleagues, people never really stop and ask, what is this thing called money?
And how is money actually impacting me as an individual and how I show up?
And so what I really wanted to try and articulate in the book is just how
impactful money is, whether that is.
On a psychological level and us showing up, whether it's on a familial level
and how we kind of raise kids and our relationship with our partner,
whether it's on a consumerist level, on a political level, an environmental
level, I think that money really is at the root of a lot of the
challenges at which we're facing.
And I think a lot of us ju don't necessarily quite grok or grasp
just how important money is.
So I'm sure like even on your own experience, um, your perception of money
has probably shifted from getting into Bitcoin from what it was when you were a
kid, even through most of your adult life.
Anja: It absolutely has.
And my first memory of money was money being used as a store of value.
Um, so that's kind of what I thought as, as a child.
I used to think, you know, when I first came across physical money,
I, I thought this is something precious that needs to be saved,
that needs to be kept for future use.
It's not a property that you just kind of dispose of.
Um, and then growing up and going through my entire work life and as
an adult realizing that you kind of have to invest to hold onto
your money because of inflation.
And then Bitcoin comes in and kind of restores what I feel like my
first impression of money was that it should be a store of value.
Seb: Oh, that is so cool.
And it's.
I, I just find this, it's so fascinating because I think at its
core we have this desire from such a young age to think about the future,
think about what is possible, and hopefully save to build that future.
And it's, and it makes me feel sad when I think about what's been stripped
from society, which is where when money no longer holds value, people stop
thinking about those things and they start to just exist in the moment.
And although I obviously very much support the spiritual side of things when it comes
to like being present, when I say exist in the moment, what I'm more meaning is that.
People are struggling so much that all they're doing is thinking about, oh my
God, I need to meet these needs now.
And they're not thinking about the future.
There's a book that I recently read called The History of the American
People, and it discusses, um, the Mayflower, the first people that
came from the UK landed in America.
And then each chapter is basically, if I remember correctly, it's about
a 20, 30 year period and then it goes all the way to present day.
So what is it from around the 16th century, all the way up to present day.
And one of the things it talks about is how during like the frontier, uh,
period, when the obviously the, the Brits came over to the US and then
you kind of had these generations that were kind of at the front, uh,
uh, mind block on the, the term, uh.
You had these kind of like these individuals that really were there
exploring this newfound land.
They were showing up, exploring this newfound land and figuring
out, okay, how do we thrive?
And one of the things it mentions in a chapter is that a week's worth
of work would buy you an acre.
And so in a whole year you could have 50 to 80 acres of the best land that
you're then able to build a house on.
You're able to grow your own food and now to be able to own a house is a privilege.
Most of my friends don't own houses, and if they do own something, they own an
apartment and they feel like, oh my God, I'm so privileged to own this apartment.
When in reality, up until about 150 years ago, everybody owned a house.
Everyone had a house, everyone was able to
Anja: show up.
And Big house too.
Seb: And a big house a hundred percent.
And so it's just, I find it really interesting that today people can't
really think about the future because it's just completely outta touch.
Anja: Yeah, I noticed that a lot.
I noticed that our standards as a society, society have just dropped so low that you
kind of have to feel like you're lucky if you own a tiny little house, and you're
lucky if you get, you know, $600,000 worth of savings for your inner superannuation.
We have that system in Australia, which, you know, the, the industry
says it's kind of the amount that you need to retire on, but in real reality,
you can't retire on that much unless you're planning to die very soon.
And, and it's just, yeah, I, I, it's interesting the way that things
are being pushed down upon us to kind of make us satisfied with less
and feel grateful for having less.
And I wanted to also touch on something.
I wanna know what you think about.
Sometimes like when it comes to saving money, um, some economists will use
terms like hoarding and it's a very inflammatory term for something
that I feel like is human nature.
It's very natural to save money for the future.
Um, and yeah, I feel like that term hoarding also kind of comes
up in Bitcoin a bit as well.
So what do you think is the psychology of that?
Seb: I'm gonna like try and connect two dots that I may do poorly, but
we'll see if we can connect them.
I read a tweet the other day and I'll type back hoarding in a second that
looked at how innovation tends to, or it is a, a innovation in the higher
latitudes and the lower latitudes.
So not around the equatorial nations, but more in kind of the north or the
south in the colder climates tends to be far greater than innovation
around the equatorial nations.
And I thought this was really interesting because what it
discussed is that in colder climates you have to plan for the future.
You have to think about, okay, we're about to go into six months of winter here.
If I don't have food reserves, I'm gonna die.
In the equatorial nations, that's not true.
There's growing year round, you tend to have access to fruit and
vegetables, and so there's no n need to think about the future.
And so I think that when we think about hoarding, um, we, there's this kind
of, this negative association as you're mentioning, where a lot of economists
say no, if we have a deflationary uh, currency, what that means is prices
will be falling, which means our save, uh, our, our purchasing power increases
over time, which is going to incentivize us to hoard as opposed to spend.
And that could be hugely destabilizing.
Now, I agree that it is destabilizing.
But it is only destabilizing when we're in a heavily indebt nation because if
all of a sudden these big corporations who they're reliant on income, this,
all of a sudden people stop spending to the same extent that they were and
income less income is coming in for these various corporations, then there's
those corporations are gonna go under.
And so yes, it's hugely destabilizing because we could see a massive
swath of defaults, this wave of defaults washing through society.
But the positive side effect of that is that it would wipe clean a lot of the
fiscal irresponsibility and a lot of the corporations that have borrowed beyond
their means and are no longer able to service their debt service payments.
So I think that in a world, um, that we're to actually align with reality,
as Jeff Booth talks about, prices should be falling because naturally
as individuals we want to innovate.
We want to be able to increase efficiency and productivity.
We want to be able to get more for less through technology
and our various services.
And so the analogy I always like to give is like Netflix versus Blockbuster.
Like you used to have to go drive down to Blockbuster, spend 30
minutes in Blockbuster figuring out what you wanna watch.
You just have to drive home.
You'd watch the movie, you'd drive back to Blockbuster, drop the movie off.
Oh, it's scratched.
So you had to go and pay a fine because you scratched the CD and then you had
to drive all the way back home again.
And you think about all of the time, the energy, the gas expense, the cost
of the DVD to go and rent that thing.
And now for the, pretty much the same price, you can get millions of movies
at your fingertips through Netflix.
And so technology should be driving down prices and life should be getting easier.
But we are just not benefiting from that experience.
And so ultimately, I think the natural state of things is deflation.
Prices is falling.
That is not bad.
The problem is, it is bad in an indebted nation.
That's, that's I think, the differentiation.
Anja: I also wanna ask you about, like during the pandemic, a lot of things
shifted culturally, especially like in the corporate world, and you can really see
themes coming up about like quite quitting and the productivity slowing down.
And I think a lot of that is tied to potentially people seeing that, you
know, hard work no longer pays off.
Um, I don't know what it is like in Canada, but in Australia even, you
know, if you're a high income earner, you you're having some mortgage stress,
you're having some financial stress, you pretty much can't live with any
of the major cities around Australia unless you're earning over a hundred
thousand dollars as a single income.
And it's, it's, yeah.
I wonder if, if, do you think that's also tied to the money printer where people
are just kind of like giving up, like they know something is inherently wrong?
They can't necessarily put their finger on it.
Seb: I absolutely, and and I think that it also goes back to the maps we were
discussing earlier, whereas I think the millennial generation has been
kind of sold this map, which is if you go to higher education and you go and
get qualified, then you're gonna be able to leave higher education, you're
gonna be able to get a well-paying job.
And through that well-paying job, you're gonna be able to buy a house.
And when you buy a house, you can kind of raise a family.
And what instead people have been so, uh, kind of receiving is they're going
through higher education and it's something like one third of the population
is going through higher education.
They're coming out that qualification.
There's almost no jobs.
It's like a desolate landscape.
And then even if they are getting a job, there's so much competition for
these jobs that most people are going through 10, 15, 20 different applications
getting rejected on most of them.
I think a lot of people have been sold, especially the millennials and the
younger generations, they've been sold this idea that, hey, if I, if I go to
higher education, I get a degree, I'm gonna be able to come out, I'm gonna
be able to earn a decent income and be able to buy a house and raise a family.
And they're realizing that that's not the case.
It's not even, it's anywhere close to what their parents were able to do.
And so I think that money is at the root of that because the cost of living crisis
that we're facing, the average house in North America in the seventies was
three times the average person's wage.
And now the average house is nine times the average person's wage.
And in areas of high demand, I dunno what it is in Byron, but
I'm sure I can guess it's probably pretty similar to where I live.
And in Squamish here where I live, the average income
is I believe $45,000 a year.
And the average house is 1.6 to $2 million.
And so when you start looking at this, you're just like, how that's, that's 15
to 20 times the average person's wage.
You're just like, how is anyone gonna be able to afford these houses?
And what it means is that we have the society that is disconnecting, you're
having this generation that's just like, I'm not able to afford a house.
I'm not able to get ahead.
And so what, why am I doing this job?
This job isn't servicing, serving, uh, serving me.
And so I think a lot of people are, in many ways, we're having this
disconnect where people are hyper fixated on the present because
they're simply trying to survive.
And in other ways they're just like, what's the point?
What is the point?
And they're kind of like giving up almost.
And so I think that this quiet quitting is definitely a reflection of broken
money because people are tired of giving and giving and giving and giving
and not being able to afford, uh, a lifestyle that's anywhere close to
what their parents were able to afford.
Anja: Yeah.
I have some girlfriends as well who, um, are going through a bit
of a tough financial phase because, uh, and it's interesting because
going back a few years ago, they said they were very good with money.
They felt like they were good at saving, they were good at investing, and now
just they're just falling behind.
And as a result, their behavior has changed.
They actually tend to spend more and shop more because they're trying to
make themselves feel better about a dire situation that they're in.
So, and they're kind of aware of it as well, like, but like, I just feel like
I can't do anything about it in a sense.
Like it's very, they feel defeated and it's heartbreaking.
Seb: It's, it's devastating and, and I, I used to work for this company as a retail
company which sell outdoor clothing.
And one of my colleagues, I remember, he came in one day and
he was just like, you know what?
I'm done.
I can't be bothered to try and save for a house.
I'm never gonna be able to afford a house.
If I've gotta save two, three, $400,000 to be able to go and put a down payment,
15, 20% down on a house, how am I ever gonna be able to save that when
I'm earning 30, 40, $50,000 a year?
It's just not possible.
And what I noticed is that his mentality shifted to more of this, like superficial,
he may look happy, he was going out partying more, he was going out and maybe
spending more money on things that he wouldn't have done previously because
he was trying to think about the future.
And so on the face of it, on social media, life looks amazing.
He's doing all of these cool things, but actually when you go and speak
to him, he was like super depressed.
And I think that this is kind of the face of it with a lot of people.
And I think social media doesn't help in that.
We tend to think that everyone else has got it all figured out
because we're seeing these pictures that, oh my God, life is amazing.
You're traveling the world, you're doing this, you're doing that.
But I think a lot of people are worried that yes, they're traveling the world
right now, but they're in their twenties, their thirties, their forties, and
they have no savings or no security for what the future may look like.
Uh, and I think that scares a lot of people.
Anja: So do you think, like, you know, if you're a young person
listening, is Bitcoin really the best solution or are there other things.
Seb: I, I believe so.
And, uh, without getting like too negative there, I think that
ultimately when I found Bitcoin and most people, uh, what do they say?
They say You come for the gains and you stay for the revolution.
I came into Bitcoin because I was like, man, I need an asset that's
gonna help kind of float my portfolio, push up my portfolio a little
bit, make life a little easier.
And I, I think a lot of us, when we're honest with ourselves, Bitcoin
was a bit of like a lottery ticket.
We didn't quite understand it when we first started saving and investing in it.
And so we were just like, oh man, this thing's.
Done wild in the past, maybe it can do it again.
But then when you start getting into Bitcoin, you start recognizing just
how broken the monetary system is and how Bitcoin, I truly believe
is the best form of money we have.
And so in the end, it's not about Bitcoin, uh, constantly
pushing up your savings potential.
What I think it is about is that how do we just create a system
where it's rules instead of rulers?
How do we create a system where we're all playing on an equal playing field?
And as society thrives, as people innovate, as we increase productivity and
efficiency, prices come down over time.
And I think that's what it really, really is about.
And I think Bitcoin to me is, uh, currently the, the best chance we
have at creating a system where as a society, we can thrive more.
And it gets us to reflect a little more.
It gets us to think about the future.
It gets us to think about building a world where we are
more collaborative and connected.
Because at the moment.
When money is breaking down, we're becoming more and more disconnected
and hyper fixated on survival.
Anja: Mm. And second last question.
Do you think there are ways for Bitcoin to fail?
Seb: I think that there's no certainty in anything.
Um, and so being able to acknowledge that, asking the question
like how could Bitcoin fail?
I would think that there's a couple potential different ways.
I think one of them is as humans, we struggle to think about the second, third,
fourth order effects of our actions.
And so I think that we may have developers that go and push certain
changes to the code and we can't comprehend just how people might, um,
interpret these changes and use Bitcoin and it could lead to vulnerabilities
from a code security perspective.
Now, that is one way.
The other way that I could potentially see Bitcoin failing is, and it may
fail in the short term, but may recover in the long, long term, but
it would take a lot of years, is if.
More and more people are using traditional financial products like ETFs to go and
purchase Bitcoin, like they go and buy Bitcoin through ibit, BlackRock's, ibit.
What we'll see is a whole bunch of capital flooding towards these ETFs,
the majority of Bitcoin being held in these ETFs, and then if BlackRock
wanted to say, fork the code and create a BlackRock Bitcoin that offers some
form of benefit to these various elites.
What they can give the perception of is in the market.
If the people don't agree with a change in Bitcoin's code and we were to have a
hard fork, they can choose to sell the coin or the token that is not serving
them and hold onto the one that does.
We've seen this through various hard forks over time, whether it's Bitcoin
cash, uh, BSV and such, uh, BCH.
I think that's just Bitcoin cash.
We've seen this time and time again where people have chosen Bitcoin as opposed
to these other hard fought tokens.
But I think that if BlackRock own a large portion of Bitcoin, what they
can do is they can sell off Bitcoin, maintaining BlackRock Bitcoin, and it
gives the perception that the public has chosen, they've chosen BlackRock
Bitcoin when reality is a facade.
Anja: Yeah.
Well, Bitcoin is hope, and part of the reason I think we're both here is
because we want to kind of help spread that hope to others through education.
So, yeah, thank you so much for your insights.
I will drop your, you know, the link to your, um, book in the show
notes as well as your X account and anything else that you want.
But do you have any final thoughts that you wanna share with the listeners?
Seb: I would honestly, I, I would just say I, I really enjoyed this
conversation and, um, what the listeners probably haven't heard is that we've
actually paused a bunch of times and had amazing conversation midway through
the podcast, and, which is a start of fun as well, which I really enjoyed.
I haven't done that before on a podcast.
And, um, no, I, I, I'm all for education and I really appreciate
what you're doing and just sharing, uh, different Bitcoin's voices.
I, I think if people want to learn more about these topics, obviously
I've got beers for Bitcoin, I've got the hidden cost of money.
Both those books are available, um, on Amazon and such, but I never
want price to be a barrier to entry.
So if someone can't afford one of the books, feel free to just reach out and I'm
always just send over a copy of the ebook.
But again, I just, I really appreciate you having me on Anya.
And, um, yeah, if anyone wants to find me, they can find me@setbunny.com
or set bunny, uh, on Twitter.
Anja: Excellent.
Thanks so much again for your time.
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